Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century 5)

At approximately that precise moment, Frankum noticed the newcomers. At first, his eyes glanced past them, but he did flash a quick second look at Maria. It could’ve meant anything: He might have recognized her from the sky, or maybe he was only confused at seeing a woman there.

“Who are they?” the Baldwin-Felts man asked.

Captain MacGruder feigned innocence. “You don’t know?”

“No, I don’t. ”

“Then why’d you shoot them down a few hours ago?”

“Why did I…?”

“You heard me,” MacGruder said, coming in closer. He leaned forward, craning over the shorter man and casting a shadow over him. “Why did you shoot them down? What we have here, Captain”—spitting out the word like it tasted bad—“is a U. S. Marshal and another agent, sent as messengers from the White House. ”

Maria appreciated that he’d left out the “Pinkerton” part, given how little love was lost between the two firms. It meant he was thoughtful for her safety, perhaps; or it meant that he was smart, and didn’t feel like adding the extra trouble to the mix.

“A marshal? Why would the president send a marshal?” Frankum tried to redirect the inquiry, but he didn’t do it smoothly—and before the crisis could be forced any further, he gave up the pretense of innocence. “I didn’t have any way of knowing who they were. Besides, you have your orders, I have mine. Mine say to keep all crafts away from this convoy, and I was doing my job. ”

“Mr. Epperson,” Captain MacGruder said to Henry, but kept his eyes on Frankum. “Were you flying in a federal craft? Did you make any attempt to identify yourself?”

“A federal craft in Confederate airspace? No, for Christ’s sake. And we weren’t given the opportunity to identify ourselves; we were attacked without warning upon approach. ”

Frankum flashed a quick glance at the sky. Then, as if it had just occurred to him, he asked, “Wait a minute. Where’s Kramer?”

“Kramer?” Henry echoed.

“Captain Kramer,” Frankum said crossly. “He was following us out, in his little supply ship. He stayed behind us; he was supposed to…”

“To what?” Maria demanded. “Kill us? Shoot us down? I hate to disappoint you—or, rather, I don’t mind it in the slightest: We survived that encounter somewhat more cleanly than we survived our dustup with your craft. The ashes of that other ship are, at present, raining down softly over Georgia. ” She added a fluttering motion with her numb, bruised fingers for emphasis.

“You took it down? In your little two-seater?”

“She’s a mighty good shot. ” Henry was exaggerating, but Maria was pleased nonetheless.

“Look, look, look. ” Frankum held out his hands, both attempting to defend himself and shush everyone else. “What I want to know is, how do we know these two came from the District? And why are you so fast to assume they’re telling the truth? You’re just going to let them waltz out of the woods and derail this operation? This very expensive operation, months in the planning? I don’t guess they had anything with the presidential seal on them?”

Henry said, “No, but—”

“So we take their words for it? Blow the whole mission, on the word of two spies?”

“We aren’t—”

But MacGruder interrupted, “No, I’m not willing to blow the whole mission. But I am willing to delay it a bit. I don’t even have much choice, given that we still have to extract this damn thing from the road,” he said, scowling at the rolling-crawler. “Texian technology … you’d think it could handle a Southern road. Jesus. Anyway, since we’ve got a minute, I just now put Bradley on a fast horse to Atlanta, to the taps there. ”

“But the taps are down, all over the place,” the air captain argued.

“Yes, but if they’re up again anywhere, they’ll be up in the city. We’ll just take a break and ask the president ourselves what he wants us to do. ”

“But, but, that’ll take hours!” Frankum sputtered. “And you can’t just send the president a note and wait for orders—you already have orders!”

“And I’m following them, until I hear differently,” MacGruder said coolly. “But it’ll take an hour or more to get this damn cart dug out, and once we’re back on the road—well, at our pace we’re lucky if it’s another four hours to the city. Bradley ought to catch us before we reach it, and we can reevaluate the matter depending on what he says. ”

Frankum stayed calm, but his men were getting antsy. Maria watched them fidget and exchange nervous glances, though their captain’s expression was a fierce threat to maintain their composure. The man to his left lost it first. He asked, “Hours?”

The word was small, but it was almost too frightened to be heard.

“Hours,” MacGruder nodded.

“We don’t have hours. ”