Clementine (The Clockwork Century 1.10)

She looked frankly puzzled, and she admitted as much. “I’m not sure I understand. It’s only a ship, and as I understand it, it’s not half as nice as this one. You’ve got this one now; why not turn around, call off the chase, and call it a day?”

He nearly bellowed. “Because I don’t want this one!” He kept the volume up when he continued, “And now, since we’re both feeling so chatty—why did Pinkerton send you after us? Who paid them to do it, and why?”

“The Union Army,” she said. “And now you likely know more about the situation than I do. I’ll admit, I got a bit sidetracked from my initial task. Look, I had no idea you had any interest in this ship whatsoever until I heard your men aboard it. As far as I knew, it was transporting some kind of supplies to a sanatorium in Louisville, though the sanatorium is actually a front for a weapons laboratory. ”

With a puzzled expression that mirrored Maria’s, Hainey said, “Then there’s been a mix-up in your telegrams. Because it’s my former ship that’s making the weapons run, not this shiny black bird. The Valkyrie was on her way to New York City—she’s going to be fitted with a new ball turret. ” He quickly clarified, “They were going to stick one on top, up front I suppose. Though now, if it ever makes it that far north and east I guess they’ll have to fix the bottom left one first. ”

Following another moment of mutual uncertainty, their faces both went crafty.

Hainey said, “You fellows keep her flying straight, and when you think she’s safely over nothing at all, pull us to a stop and hover. Me and Maria Boyd here are going to dig around in the cargo hold and see what we can find. ”

Simeon and Lamar shrugged at each other, and Simeon’s eyebrow pointed a vigorous indication of confusion.

But the runaway slave and the ex-spy retreated to the cargo hold, where the wind from the busted ball turret nearby was loud and the air was even colder than the un-warmed bridge. Hainey rummaged around in the storage locker and turned up a pair of prybars, one of which he tossed to Maria.

He said to her, “I swear on my mother’s life, I don’t know what’s in any damn one of these boxes. So be careful with the bar. God knows what we’ll turn up. ”

“The need for caution is duly noted,” she said, and then she said, “I’ll start at this end. You start at that end. We’ll work our way toward the middle. ”

He grunted a general agreement and began at the far corner. The captain brought his prybar down into the cracks of the nearest crate’s lid, and Maria did likewise on her end of the hold.

One after another, they bashed and pried their way through the stacks, and when they were finished they’d unveiled a vast assortment of wonders. Their haul included four loads of boot polish, a stash of rough-woven linens, enough lye soap to fill a wagon, some dried and smoked fish and pork, an engineer’s assortment of bolts, screws, and washers, a tobacco pouch that had probably been dropped by a laborer…and two dead mice.

They also found three crates of ammunition, some of which was strung to fuel the ball turret guns. The rest looked ordinary enough, and when Maria stood over this final crate she said, “This can’t possibly be it. This is stocked like a ship that was loaded out of convenience, because it was headed the right direction. There’s nothing special or important about any of it. ”

Hainey nodded. “We’ll keep the ammunition and the foodstuffs, and the rest can go overboard when we stop and hang. ”

“You’re not surprised?”

“Surprised about what?”

“That we didn’t find anything significant on board?”

He said, “Nope. Because I’ve already got a real good idea of what the sanatorium’s got on order—and what Pinkerton’s been paid to protect. That’s the point, isn’t it? You’re supposed to distract us long enough to let the Clementine get to Louisville to make this delivery?”

“Pretty much. But in Kansas City I met an old friend, a fellow Confederate who possessed, shall we say, somewhat incorrect information. He told me about a weapon being built, something made to fire on Danville…and…and…old loyalties took precedence,” she said defensively.

Hainey said, “Old loyalties. I know what those are like. ”

“Really? And to whom might you be loyal?”

“Nobody you’d know,” he said. “And nothing I care to elaborate upon. None of it matters, because right now we’ve got an interesting situation between the two of us, don’t you think?”

“I beg your pardon? A situation?”

“Yes, a situation,” he said grouchily, with a hint of false cheer. “You know about half of what’s going on, and I know about half of what’s going on, and there are spots where our information…” he hunted for a phrase. “Fails to overlap. ”

“That seems to be the case, yes. ” She was half a head shorter than him, and a hundred pounds smaller, but she met his gaze over the contents of the last crate, and she didn’t flinch or retreat.

He sounded almost optimistic when he said, “We could work together, you and me. I could tell you some useful things, and you have permission to go to places I’m not allowed. ”

“You can take me to Louisville. ”

“I’m headed that direction anyway. ”

“And I can tell you where your ship is. ”

He was startled, despite himself. “You can what?”