Clementine

2. MARIA ISABELLA BOYD

Maria Isabella Boyd had never had a job like this one, though she told herself that detective work wasn’t really so different from spying. It was all the same sort of thing, wasn’t it? Passing information from the people who concealed it to the people who desired it. This was courier work of a dangerous kind, but she was frankly desperate. She was nearly forty years old and two husbands down-one dead, one divorced-and the Confederacy had rejected her offers of further service. Twenty years of helpful secret-stealing had made her a notorious woman, entirely too well known for further espionage work; and the subsequent acting career hadn’t done anything to lower her profile. For that matter, one of her husbands had come from the Union navy-and even her old friend General Jackson confessed that her loyalties appeared questionable.

The accusation stung. The exhaustion of her widow’s inheritance and the infidelity of her second spouse stung also. The quiet withdrawal of her military pension was further indignity, and the career prospects for a woman her age were slim and mostly unsavory.

So when the Pinkerton National Detective Agency made her an offer, Maria was grateful-even if she was none too thrilled about relocating to the shores of Lake Michigan.

But money in Chicago was better than poverty in Virginia. She accepted the position, moved what few belongings she cared enough to keep into a small apartment above a laundry, and reported to Allan Pinkerton in his wood-and-glass office on the east side of the city.

The elderly Scotsman gave her a glance when she cleared her throat to announce that she stood in his doorway. Her eyes were level with the painted glass window that announced his name and position, and her hand lingered on the knob until he told her, “Come in, Mrs.…well, I’m not sure what it is, these days. How many men’s names have you worn?”

“Only three,” she said. “Including my father’s-and that’s the one I was born with. If it throws you that much, call me Miss Boyd and don’t worry with the rest. Just don’t call me ‘Belle.’”

“Only three, and no one calls you Belle. I can live with that, unless you’re here to sniff about for a new set of rings.”

“You offering?” she asked.

“Not on your life. I’d sooner sleep in a sack full of snakes.”

“Then I’ll cross you off my list.”

He set his pen aside and templed his fingers under the fluffy, angular muttonchops that framed his jawline like a slipped halo. His eyebrows were magnificent in their wildness and volume, and his cheeks were deeply cut with laugh lines, which struck Maria as strange. She honestly couldn’t imagine that the sharp, dour man behind the desk had ever cracked a smile.

“Mr. Pinkerton,” she began.

“Yes, that’s what you’ll call me. I’m glad we’ve gotten that squared away, and there are a few other things that need to be out in the open, don’t you think?”

“I do think that maybe-”

“Good. I’m glad we agree. And I think we can likewise agree that circumstances must be strange indeed to find us under the same roof, neither of us spying on anyone. This having been said, as one former secret-slinger to another, it’s a bit of a curiosity and even, I’d go so far as to admit, a little bit of an honor to find you standing here.”

“Likewise, I’m sure.” And although he hadn’t yet invited her to take a seat, Maria took one anyway and adjusted her skirts to make the sitting easier. The size of her dress made the move a noisy operation but she didn’t apologize and he didn’t stop talking.

“There are two things I want to establish before we talk about your job here, and those two things are as follows: One, I’m not spying for the boys in blue; and two, you’re not spying for the boys in gray. I’m confident of both these things, but I suspect you’re not, and I thought you might be wondering, so I figured I’d say it and have done with it. I’m out of that racket, and out of it for good. And you’re out of that racket, God knows, or you wouldn’t be here sitting in front of me. If there was any job on earth that the Rebs would throw your way, you’d have taken it sooner than coming here; I’d bet my life on it.”

She didn’t want to say it, but she did. “You’re right. One hundred percent. And since you prefer to be so frank about it, yes, I’m here because I have absolutely no place else to go. If that pleases you, then kindly keep it to yourself. If this is some ridiculous show-some theatrical bit of masculine pride that’s titillated at the thought of seeing me brought low, then you can stick it up your ass and I’ll find my way back to Virginia now, if that’s all right with you.”

His rolling brogue didn’t miss a beat. He said, “I’m not sticking anything up my ass, and you’re not going anywhere. I wouldn’t have asked you here if I didn’t think you were worth something to me, and I’m not going to show you off like you’re a doll in a case. You’re here to work, and that’s what you’ll do. I just want us both to be clear on the mechanics of this. In this office, we do a lot of work for the Union whether we like it or not-and mostly, we don’t.”

“Why’s that?” she asked, and she asked it fast, in order to fit it in.

“Well maybe you haven’t heard or maybe you didn’t know I didn’t like it, but the Union threw us off a job. We were watching Lincoln, and he was fine. Nobody killed him, even though a fellow or two did try it. But this goddamned stupid Secret Service claimed priority and there you go, now he’s injured for good and out of office. Grant wouldn’t have us back, so I don’t mind telling you that I don’t mind telling them that they can go to hell. But they can pay like hell, too, and sometimes we work for them, mostly labor disputes, draft riots, and the like. And I need to know that you can keep your own sensibilities out of it.”

“You’re questioning my ability to perform as a professional.”

“Damn right I’m questioning it. And answer me straight, will this be a problem?”

Maria glared, and crossed her legs with a loud rustle of fabric. “I’m not happy about it, I think that’s obvious enough. I don’t want to be here, not really; and I don’t want to work for the Union, not at all. But I gave the best years of my life to the Confederacy, and then I got tossed aside when they thought maybe I wasn’t true enough to keep them happy.”

He said, “You’re speaking of your Union lad. I bet old Stonewall and precious Mr. Davis sent you a damned fine set of wedding china.”

She ignored the jab and said, “My husband’s name was Samuel and he was a good man, regardless of the coat he wore. Good men on both sides have their reasons for fighting.”

“Yes, and bad men too, but I’ll take your word for his character. Look, Miss Boyd-I know how good you are. I know what you’re capable of, and I know what a pain in the neck you’ve been to the boys in blue, and it might be worth your peace of mind to know that I’ve taken a bit of guff for bringing you here.”

“Guff?” she asked with a lifted eyebrow.

He repeated, “Guff. The unfriendly kind, but this is my operation and I run it how I like, and I bring anyone I damn well please into my company. But I’m telling you about the guff so you’re ready to receive it, because I promise, you’re going to. Many of the men here, they aren’t the sort who are prone to any deep allegiance to any team, side, country, or company; they work for money, and the rest can rot.”

“They’re mercenaries.”

He agreed, “Yes. Of a kind. And most of those fellows don’t care about who you are or whatever you did before you came here. They understand I take in strays, because strays are the ones you can count on, more often than not.”

She said, “At least if you feed them.”

He pointed a finger at her and said, “Yes. I’m glad we understand one another. And you’ll understand most of my men just fine. But I’ve got a handful who think I’m a fool, though they don’t dare say it to my face. They think you’re here to stab me in the back, or sabotage the agency, or wreak some weird havoc of your own. That’s partly because they’re suspicious bastards, and partly because they don’t know how you’ve come to my employ. I haven’t told them about your circumstances, for they’re nobody’s business but your own. You can share all you like or keep it to yourself.”

“I appreciate that,” she said with honesty. “You’ve been more than fair; I’m almost tempted to say you’ve been downright kind.”

“And that’s not something I hear every day. Don’t go spreading it around, or you’ll ruin my reputation. And don’t assume I’m doing this to be nice, either. It won’t do me any good to have a team full of people who don’t respect each other, and maybe they won’t respect you if they think you’re here due to hard times. They’ll give you a wider berth if they think I campaigned to bring you here, and that might put you on something like equal footing-or at least, footing as equal as you’re likely to find in a room full of men.” He didn’t exactly make a point of dropping his eyes to her chest, but his gaze flickered in such a fashion that she gathered the point he’d avoided making.

She didn’t stiffen or bristle. She reclined a few inches, which changed the angle of her cleavage in a way she’d found to be effective without overt. Then she said, “I know what you’re getting at, and I don’t like it. For whatever it’s worth, I’ve never been the whore they called me, but the Lord gives all of us gifts, and mine has never been my face.”

He replied with a flat voice that tried to tell her she was barking up an indifferent tree. “It’s not what’s beneath your boning, either. It’s what’s between your ears.”

“You’re a gentleman to say so.”

“I’d be an idiot if I didn’t point it out,” he argued. “You’re a competent woman, Miss Boyd, and I value competence beneath few other things. I trust you to sort out any issues with your fellow agents in whatever manner you see fit, and I trust you to make a good faith effort to keep disruption to a minimum.”

“You can absolutely trust me on that point,” she confirmed.

“Excellent. Then I suppose it’s time to talk about your first assignment.”

She almost said, “Already?” but she did not. Instead she said, “So soon?” which wasn’t much different, and she wished she’d thought of something else.

“You’d prefer to take a few days, get the lay of the office, and get to know your coworkers?” he asked.

“It’d be nice.”

He snapped, “So would a two-inch steak, but the soldiers get all the beef these days and I’ll survive without it. Likewise, you’ll survive without any settling-in time. We’ve got you a desk you won’t need, and a company account with money that you will. I hope you haven’t unpacked yet, because we’re sending you on the road.”

“All right,” she said. “That’s fine. And yes, I’m still packed. I can be out the door in an hour, if it comes down to it. Just tell me what you need, and where you want me to go.”

He said, “That’s the spirit, and here’s the story: We’ve got a problem with two dirigibles coming east over the Rockies. The first one is a transport ship called the Clementine. As I understand it, or as I choose to believe it, Clementine moves food and goods back and forth along the lines; but she was getting some work done over on the west coast. Now she’s headed home, and the government doesn’t want her busted up.”

Maria asked, “And the second ship?”

“The second ship is trying to bust her up. I don’t know why, and if the Union knows, nobody there is willing to talk about it.” He picked up a scrap of paper with a telegram message pecked upon it. “I’m not going to lie to you. Something smells funny about this.”

She frowned. “So…I don’t understand. This second ship is following the first? Harassing it? Trying to shoot it down?”

“Something like that. Whatever it’s doing, the officer who’s expecting his Clementine back in service doesn’t want to see it chased, harassed, harried, or otherwise inconvenienced on its return trip. And part of the Union’s displeasure with the situation comes from a rumor. Let me ask you a question, Miss Boyd. Are you familiar with the fugitive and criminal Croggon Beauregard Hainey?”

She knew the name, but she didn’t know much about its owner and she said so. “A runaway Negro, isn’t that right? One of the Macon Madmen? Or am I thinking of the wrong fellow?”

Allan Pinkerton nodded and said, “You’re on the right track. Croggon was one of the twelve who made a big, nasty show of escaping from the prison there in ’64. He was a young man then, and wild and dumb. He’s an older man now, and still wild but not a bit stupid, I’ll warn you of that.”

“Then I’m afraid to ask what he has to do with these two ships, but I’ll do so anyway.”

“We think he’s piloting the second dirigible,” Pinkerton said with a thoughtful scowl. “We don’t know for certain, but that’s what the Union thinks, so that’s what we’re forced to work with.”

Maria made a thoughtful scowl to match the old Scotsman, and she asked, “So what if he is the pilot? Doesn’t that strike you as peculiar? Ordinarily, escaped slaves tend to work with the Union, not against it.”

“Not this one,” he corrected her. “Near as we can figure, he doesn’t work with anybody, and the Union would be just as happy to collar him as the Rebs. Hainey makes his reputation running guns, stolen war machines and parts, and God knows what else from sea to shining sea; and when he runs short on cash, he’s not above doing a little bit of bank robbery to fill his coffers.”

“Essentially, you’re telling me he’s a pirate.”

“Essentially, that is a fair assessment.” He folded the telegram slip between two fingers and tapped it against his desk. “And whatever havoc he wreaked on his way out of Georgia, he’s made a similar mess in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.”

“Places where a Negro isn’t assumed to be a slave, and where he might have the freedom to approach a bank,” she inferred. “He can move more freely up north, and so he has more latitude to make trouble.”

“Now you’re getting the feel of the situation. And now you’re likely wondering, same as me, what this fellow’s doing chasing a craft that he ought to run away from, if he had any sense-because as I’ve mentioned before, for all of Hainey’s personal faults he’s got plenty of sense. I don’t know why he’s on the prowl, but I have to guess it’s got something to do with Clementine’s cargo, or that’s the best I can come up with at the moment.”

Maria wanted to know, “What do you think she’s really carrying?”

“I asked about that,” he said. He unfolded the telegram again, scanned it, and read the important parts aloud. “Humanitarian cargo bound for Louisville, Kentucky, Sanatorium.”

“And you believe that?”

“I believe it if I’m told to,” he said gruffly, but not with any enthusiasm. “And you’re welcome to believe what you like, but this is the official story and they’re sticking to it like a fly on a shit-wagon.”

She sat in silence; and much to her surprise, Allan Pinkerton did likewise.

Finally, she said, “You’re right. This stinks.”

“I’d like to refer once again to the aforementioned shit-wagon, yes. But it’s not your job to sort out the particulars. It’s not your job to find out what the Clementine really carries, and it’s not even your job to apprehend and detain Croggon Beauregard Hainey or bring him to justice. Your job is to make sure that nothing bothers the Clementine and that she delivers her cargo to Louisville without incident.”

“How am I to do that without apprehending and detaining Croggon Hainey?”

“Ah,” he said with a wide, honest, nearly sinister smile. “That is entirely up to you. I don’t care how you do it. I don’t care who you shoot, who you seduce, or who you drive to madness-and I don’t care what you learn or how you learn it.”

He leaned forward, setting the slip of telegram paper aside and folding his hands into that roof-top point that aimed at his grizzled chin. “And here’s one more thing, Miss Boyd. Should you apprehend or detain the captain of this pestering vessel, and should he turn out to be, in fact, the notorious Croggon Beauregard Hainey, I don’t care what you do with him.”

She stammered, “I…I beg your pardon?”

“Listen, the Union wants him, but they don’t want him badly. Mostly they want him to go away. The Rebs want him, and they want him badly as a matter of principle-in order to make an example out of him, if nothing else.”

“You’re telling me I should send him back to Georgia, if I catch him.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I’m saying that if you want to, you can. Whatever’s riding aboard the Clementine is more important to the Yanks than catching and clobbering a bank robber-”

“More like a pirate, I thought we agreed.”

“So much the stranger,” Pinkerton said. “He’s a bad man, and he ought to be strung up someplace, but that’s not part of our assignment. And if you think you can score a few points with your old pals down in Danville, then if you can catch him, you’re welcome to him.”

Again she fell into quiet, uncertain of how much to take at face value, and how she ought to respond. When she spoke again she said, “I’m not often rendered speechless, sir, but you’ve nearly made it happen today.”

“Why? I’m only giving you the same permissions I give all my men. Do what’s convenient and what’s successful. And if you find yourself in a position where you can nick a little extra for yourself, I’m not looking too close and I won’t stop you. If it makes you happy and if it’s easy, score back some of the credibility you’ve lost with the Rebs. The more friendly connections you have under your belt, the more useful you’ll be to me in the future.”

“That’s very kind of you to consider,” she said carefully.

And he said in return, “It’s not remotely kind. It’s practical and selfish, and I won’t apologize for a bit of it.”

“Nor should you. And I appreciate the vote of confidence, if that’s what this is.”

He waved his hand dismissively and said, “I appreciate your appreciation, and all that back-and-forth politeness that people feel compelled to exchange. But for now, you’ll find a folder on the last desk on the left-and inside that folder, you’ll find everything you need to know about the Clementine, the ship that chases it, and everyone within them both.”

“Really?” she asked.

“No, not really. The folder will barely tell you anything more than I’ve told you in here, but it’ll tell you how the money works, and it’ll give you some footing to get started. You’ll report every development to me, and you’ll report it promptly, and you won’t go more than seventy-two hours without reporting anything or else I’ll assume you’ve gotten yourself killed. Kindly refrain from getting yourself killed, lest you cause me deep aggravation and distress. Breaking in a new operative is expensive and annoying. It’ll gripe my soul if I have to replace you before you’ve done me any good. Be ready to hit the road in forty-five minutes.”

He paused to take a breath. She took the opportunity to stand, and say, “Thank you sir, and I’ll take that under consideration. You have my word that I’ll do my very best to prevent myself from getting killed, even though my very first assignment will throw me into the path of a hardened criminal and his crew of bloodthirsty air pirates.”

Pinkerton’s face fashioned an expression halfway between a grin and a sneer. He said, “I hope you didn’t think I was asking you here to sit still and look pretty.”

She was poised to leave the office but she hesitated, one hand resting on the back of the chair. She turned to the door, then changed her mind. She said, “Mr. Pinkerton, over the last twenty-five years I’ve risked my life to pass information across battlefields. I’ve broken things, stolen things, and been to prison more times than I’ve been married. I’ve shot and killed six men, and only three of those events could lawfully be called self-defense. I’ve been asked to do a great number of unsavory, dangerous, morally indefensible things in my time, and I’ve done them all without complaint because I do what needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done. But there’s one thing I’ve never been asked to do, and it’s just as well because I’d be guaranteed to fail.”

He asked, “And what’s that?”

Without blinking she said, “I’ve never been asked to sit still and look pretty.”

And before he could form a response, she swished out of the office, turning sideways to send her skirts through the doorway.

Outside the office door, the company operated in measured chaos. A man at a typewriter glanced up and didn’t glance away until Maria stared him down on her way past him. Two other men chattered quietly over a fistful of papers, then stopped to watch the lady go by. She gave them a quick, curt smile that didn’t show any teeth, and one of them tipped his hat.

The other did not.

She made a note of it, guessed at what she might expect from all three of them in the future, and found her way to the spot Allan Pinkerton had designated as hers.

The last desk on the left was empty and naked except for the promised folder on top. The folder was reassuringly fat until Maria opened it and realized that most of the bulk came from an envelope stuffed with crisp Union bills. Accompanying the envelope was a note explaining how to record her expenses and how to report them, as well as a small sheaf of telegrams that added up to a clipped, brief synopsis of what Allan Pinkerton had told her. And then, typed neatly on a separate page, she found the rest of what was known about the details of her first assignment.

She withdrew the wooden chair and sat down to read, momentarily ignoring Pinkerton’s initial order that she be on the road within forty-five minutes. She’d rather be fully prepared and a little bit late than overeager and uninformed.

In drips and drabs, Maria extracted the remaining facts from the small sheaf of paperwork. The Clementine was coming from San Francisco, where it underwent a hull reconstruction following battle damage-for it was a retired war dirigible. On the ship’s voyage back east she was moving medicine, bedding, and canned goods to a sanatorium outside Louisville; and there, she would be assigned to a Lieutenant Colonel (presumably of the Union persuasion) by the name of Ossian Steen. Upon the Clementine’s safe and formal arrival into this man’s hands, Maria would be recalled to Chicago.

Little was known about the ship in pursuit. It was described as a smaller craft, lightly loaded and perhaps lightly armed. This unknown vessel had made at least two attempts upon the Clementine. The most recent had resulted in a crash outside of Topeka, Kansas, but wreckage of the unnamed ship had not been located. It was suspected that the ship was once again airborne, and once again hot on Clementine’s tail.

At the bottom of the folder, Maria found a ticket that guaranteed passage aboard an airship called the Luna Mae. It would take her from Chicago to Topeka, where the pirate Croggon Beauregard Hainey and his crew had been spotted by a Pinkerton informant. The fugitive had been seen bartering in a gasworks camp for parts and fuel.

Just as Maria was on the verge of closing the folder, Allan Pinkerton approached her desk with a second slip of telegram.

“Incoming,” he announced. He dropped the paper into her hand and said, “Your lift leaves in thirty minutes. There’s a coach outside to take you to the docks. You’ll have to change the ticket when you get there.”

“Yes sir,” she said. Her eyes dipped to scan the paper but then she swiftly asked, “Wait, sir? Change the ticket?” But he’d already whisked himself back to some other department, and was gone.

She looked down at the new telegram. It read:

HAINEY NEARING KANSAS CITY STOP CRAFT DAMAGED BUT STILL FLYING EAST ROUGHLY ALONG COACH ROUTES STOP INTERCEPT AT JEFFERSON CITY STOP ADVISE GREAT CAUTION BEWARE OF RATTLER STOP SEE ALGERNON RICE 7855 CHERRY ST STOP

Maria gathered up her folder, her papers, and she tucked the money into her skirt’s deepest pockets. She gathered up the large carpeted bag she almost always toted (a lady needed to be prepared, and anyway, one never knew what trouble might lurk around a bend); and she palmed a smaller handbag for essentials.

She was as ready as she was going to get.

“Beware of rattler? What on earth does that mean?” she puzzled aloud, but no one was within earshot to answer her, and outside, a coach was waiting to take her to the passenger docks.