Clementine

5. CAPTAIN CROGGON BEAUREGARD HAINEY

Halliway Barebones swore on a stack of gold-paged Bibles that his hotel was booked to the hilt, with nary a room to spare for his three visitors. He apologized to the point of groveling, and pointed them towards a ramshackle, three-story establishment a few blocks away. According to Barebones, they shouldn’t meet any trouble-for Indians, Chinamen, and free Negroes were routinely served there without incident, and the hotel owner was correct on that point.

The accommodations were not first class, but they were not last class either; and although Hainey knew good and well that Barebones had been lying when he professed no vacancy, he didn’t make half the stink about it that he might have, given different circumstances. The captain was exhausted beyond words, and more to the point, Simeon and Lamar were half dead on their feet. Hainey might push himself past the bounds of reason, health, and good sense, but he couldn’t impose any further obligation on his men.

After all, the Valkyrie wasn’t going anywhere, at least not overnight. They could afford to sleep a few hours better than they could afford to keep pushing east.

At the High Horse Boarding House and Billiards Hall, two large rooms with two large beds cost the captain six dollars out of pocket. He claimed one room for himself and left the other to his companions, who made a side trip downstairs to buy tobacco and spirits before holing up and settling in for the night.

Hainey skipped the vices and threw himself into bed without any fanfare.

When he dreamed, he dreamed of his own ship-and of the clouds, drafts, and passages over the Rockies. He dreamed briefly of Seattle, the walled city filled with gas and peril, and of the giant Andan Cly who had tried to help retrieve the Free Crow when first it was stolen. He also dreamed of the skittering of black birds, shifting their weight back and forth on a tree branch, their tiny claws gripping and scraping the wood.

But in the back of his head, even when so fogged with such badly needed rest, Croggon Hainey’s exceptional sense of alarm awakened him just enough to wonder if the sound he heard was leftover from sleep…or if it was taking place outside his door. It remained even when his eyes were open-the dragging clicks, but not of birds on branches. It was the sound of someone moving softly and examining the room’s door.

Or its lock.

Or its occupant.

A quick shift in shadow from the door implied feet moving back and forth on its other side; and Hainey, now thoroughly awake, crept from the unfluffed feather bed as quietly as his sizeable bulk would allow. He eschewed his shoes but felt about silently for his gunbelt, and upon finding it, he removed the nearest pistol-a Colt that was always loaded. Automatically, his fingers found the best hold and fitted the gun against his palm.

He slipped sideways to the wall, and slid against it until he was inches from the door’s frame. He listened hard and detected one man, seemingly alone. The stranger was trying to keep quiet and not doing the very best job; whoever he was, he reached for the knob and gave it a small twist. When the door didn’t yield, he retreated.

Croggon Hainey slipped his unarmed hand down to the knob, and with two swift motions side by side, he flipped the lock and whipped the door open-then pointed the Colt at approximate head-height, in order to properly reprimand whoever was standing there.

“What do you want?” he almost hollered, his voice rough with sleep, but his gun-hand steady as a book on a table. He dropped the weapon to the actual head-height of the prowler, who was somewhat shorter than expected.

The prowler quivered and cringed. He threw his arms up above his head and curled his body in upon itself as he tried to melt into the striped wallpaper behind him. “Sir!” he said in a whisper loud enough to be heard in Jefferson City. “Sir, I didn’t…sir…Barebones sent me, sir!”

This revelation in no way assured the captain that it was safe or appropriate to lower his weapon, so he didn’t. He eyed the intruder and saw precious little to worry him, but that didn’t set him at ease, either.

The speaker was a skinny mulatto, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. He was wearing the food-stained apron of a kitchen hand tied around his waist, and a faded blue shirt tucked into brown pants. When he put his arms down enough to see over his own elbow, the boy asked, “Sir? Are you the captain? You must be the captain, ain’t you?”

“I’m a captain, and I know Barebones, so maybe I’m the man you’re looking for.” He backed into his room without inviting the boy to follow him. Without taking his eyes or his gun off the kid in the doorway, he used one hand to light a lamp and pick it up.

“I’ve got a message for you, sir.”

“Is that why you were trying to let yourself inside my room?”

“Only because I didn’t know which one was yours, sir. The lady downstairs said you’d taken two. Sir, I have a message for you. Here.” He held out a folded piece of paper.

“Set it down.”

The boy bent his knees until he was down at a crouch. He dropped the note.

“Now get out of here before I fill you full of holes, you idiot kid!” Hainey almost roared. The messenger was down the hall, down the stairs, and probably out into the street by the time the captain picked up the note and shut the door again, locking himself inside with even greater care than he’d taken before he’d gone to bed.

The weight of his weariness settled down on his shoulders as soon as the door was closed and he felt somewhat safe again; but the lantern’s butter-yellow light made his eyes water and the note was brittle in his hand as he opened it. The message was composed in the flowery hand of a man who clearly enjoyed the look of his own penmanship.

Incoming to Jefferson City in another few hours-a Pinkerton operative sent from Chicago. Whoever stole your ship has friends in high places with very deep pockets. Borrow a new ship and get out of town by the afternoon if you know what’s good for you. If Pinkerton’s paid to be involv-ed, someone has big plans for your bird. Watch where you’re going, but watch your back, too. You’re being tracked.

Hainey crumpled the note in his fist and crushed it there, squeezing with enough rage to make a diamond. He composed himself and sat on the edge of the bed. He held the note over the lantern’s flame and let it evaporate into ash between his fingers, then he set the lantern aside and dropped himself back onto the bed. The lantern stayed lit, because if he’d blown it out, he might’ve fallen back asleep.

He needed to think.

Jefferson City wasn’t more than a hop, skip, and a jump from Kansas City, though Barebones was right-he probably had until the following afternoon before he ought to get too worried. But Pinkerton? The detective agency? The captain had heard stories, and he didn’t like any of them. The Pinks were strike-breakers, riot-saboteurs, and well organized thugs of the expensive sort. Like Barebones’ note had suggested, they had pockets deep enough to pay for loyalty or information from anybody who was selling it. Down south of the Mason-Dixon, they weren’t so well known. But in the north and west, the Pinks were their own secret society.

To the best of Hainey’s knowledge, no one had ever called the Pinks on him before-despite his less-than-legitimate business enterprises, his occasional bank robbery, or his intermittent piracy. It made things sticky, and even stranger than they already were.

Why would anyone steal the Free Crow in the first place?

Anyone with the resources to invoke the Pinks ought to be able to afford their own damn war bird.

He fumed on this matter for another five minutes before leaning over and stifling the lamp, dropping the austere room into darkness once more. In half an hour he was asleep again, and before long the light of morning was high enough to make him semi-alert and terribly grouchy.

A loud knock on the door didn’t do much to improve his state of mind; but Simeon’s pot of coffee and Lamar’s covered plate of breakfast fixings shook off the last sour feelings of insufficient sleep. He invited the men into the room, helped himself to the coffee (a quarter a cup, or a dollar for the whole carafe) and to the breakfast (a dollar a plate, and his men had already eaten theirs).

As he sat on the edge of the bed and made short work of the offerings, he told them about the note and the warning.

Lamar twisted his mouth into a frown and said, “That don’t make any sense. Who would hire the Pinks to come after us?”

“I don’t know,” Hainey said around a mouthful of eggs. “It’s bothering me too. God knows we didn’t hire ’em, and who on earth gives a good goddamn if the Free Crow gets stolen, except for us?”

Simeon shrugged and said, “Nobody, except whoever stole it.”

The captain pointed his fork at the first mate and said, “Exactly. That’s all I can figure, anyway. Except at first, I was bothered because of the money. It costs money to hire the Pinks and get them to act as your enforcers. You’d think that people with money could just buy or build their own aircraft; but then I got thinking.”

“Uh oh,” Simeon grinned.

“What I got thinking is this: The Free Crow was the strongest bird of her kind in the northwest territories-or at least, she’s the toughest engine anywhere close to Seattle. And I don’t think I flatter myself too much when I say that nobody in his right mind would swipe that ship out from under me for no good reason at all; so all I can figure is, this must’ve been a crime of opportunity. Somebody out west needed that ship to perform a specific task.”

“What kind of task?” Simeon asked, tipping half a cup of coffee into a tin and taking a sip.

Lamar answered thoughtfully, before the captain could reply. “Something heavy. Someone needed our bird to move something really, really heavy from northwest to southeast.”

Hainey set the fork down on the edge of his plate, and Simeon froze with his cup at the edge of his lips in order to ask, “How’d you come to that conclusion?”

The engineer said, “Ain’t you seen her flying? She’s weighed down with something, and weighed down bad. Otherwise, we could’ve never stayed as close behind her as we’ve been doing so far. She ought to have outpaced that nameless bird by a week, but she’s never got more than half a day on us. And when she moves, she looks like she’s carrying so much cargo that she can’t hardly lift herself up.”

Hainey took one more bite and chewed it slow, before saying, “Which means she picked up something in Seattle, because she didn’t have anything but a few crates of guns when we lost her. All right, it’s coming together now. So Felton Brink, may he rot in hell, he takes the Free Crow because he has something heavy he needs to move-and ours is the only engine tough enough to carry it.”

“And whatever it is,” Simeon concluded, “it’s important enough for somebody to put the Pinks on our tail in order to keep us from taking it back. But who? Where’s Brink taking our bird?”

Lamar’s frown deepened. “The Pinks do a lot of work for the military, don’t they? The Union uses them to shut down draft riots, and move money around. I’ve read about it, here and there.”

Simeon said, “So the Union could sure as hell afford to pay the Pinks.”

“But that doesn’t mean they’re behind this,” Hainey was quick to say. “They might be, sure. It might be worth our time to ask around, if we can. But we’ll have to balance our time real careful. If we’re going to stay on the Free Crow’s trail, we need to get ourselves together, swipe that Union bird, and get back in the air.”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” the first mate declared. He down-ed the last of his coffee and left the tin cup sitting on the basin.

Hainey stood up and pulled a shirt over his undershirt, then reached for his sharp blue coat. “Let’s see about the horses and that rotten coach, and head out to the service yards. We don’t have all day before the Pinkerton op finds his way into town, and I’d like to be gone before he gets here.”

They left the High Horse by nine o’clock and took their secondhand coach down near the service yards, where they paid a Chinaman named Ling Lu to hold it and keep the horses behind his laundry. Another hundred dollars, spread around judiciously, revealed the general location of the Valkyrie and the name of a Pinkerton informant who had been known to let information flow in more than one direction.

Hainey sent Lamar ahead to the ship, with a forged document that declared him a free citizen and a Union veteran. He also included a letter of recommendation, composed as a fictional white man who managed a shipping yard in Chattanooga, declaring that Lamar was handy with tools and rich with integrity. Lamar was, in fact, handy with tools and absolutely faithful to his captain; and Hainey trusted that the engineer would learn what needed to be learned in order to fly the craft.

Meanwhile, he took Simeon back to the red quarters at the yard’s edge-where the saloons and billiards were cheap and easy, and the dance hall girls were either far older or far younger than they really ought to be. It wasn’t a pretty place, and it smelled like a cross between a coyote den and a leaky still. But in the right corners, hiding in the right shadows, information could be bought and sold as easily as a newspaper-even by a dark-skinned man with a terrible scar, and a foreigner with an accent that no one in Kansas City could place.

Behind a grocery store that dealt contraband ammunition out the back doors, Hainey and Simeon found Crutchfield Akers-a man with a hand-rolled cigarette sticking moistly to his bottom lip, and a pair of suspenders with eagles printed from top to bottom. His pants were rolled to keep them out of the wet sawdust and tobacco juice that covered the grocery stoop, and if he’d shaved or trimmed any part of his face the last six weeks, you couldn’t have proved it to the captain.

“You Crutchfield?”

“That’s me,” he answered with a nod that dipped his hat so that a shadow covered his eyes. “Who’s asking?”

“A man with money and some questions, looking for a man with answers and an open pocket. Maybe we can share a drink next door and have a conversation.”

He shook his head. “Not next door.” The hat lifted enough to reveal a pragmatic gaze. “I don’t mind sitting down with a Negro, but there’s folks who’ll hold it against me. Nothing personal, you understand.”

“Nothing personal,” Simeon repeated with a snort.

Hainey didn’t press it. “All right. We can talk out here if it preserves your social standing. My money spends just as easy as anyone else’s.”

“Let’s see it.”

“Let’s see if you’re the man to ask.”

Crutchfield shrugged and said, “All right.”

“You used to be a Pinkerton operative?”

He said, “No. But I’ve worked for ’em on my own, every now and again. When it suited me, or when the money suited me.”

“Rumor has it you’ll share a word or two about your old employer. Or part-time employer,” Hainey corrected himself. “So if I needed to learn a thing or two about an operative who’s on his way from Chicago right now, maybe you’re the man I ought to ask?”

At this point, he produced a wad of bills from his money belt. He did it slickly and fast, like a magician producing a dove from a waistcoat.

Crutchfield nodded, and smiled with something more than greed. “I’m the man you ought to ask. And I even know which operative you’re asking after, though you’ve got a thing or two wrong. I guess that makes you Croggon Hainey, don’t it? One of the Macon Madmen, ain’t you?”

Hainey refused to look startled. Instead he said, “Good guess, I suppose-though truth is, I’m an easy man to recognize, even if you’ve only heard of me in passing. And tell me why you know it, and why you grin like that when you say it.” He peeled off a ten dollar bill and placed it on the rail beside Crutchfield’s elbow.

Crutchfield slid his hand along the rail and palmed the bill.

He said, “Did you know Pinkerton-the big man, not the agency-used to be a Union spy? He’s retired from it now, obviously. Got better things to do with his time, or maybe he’s just getting old. A lot of those old guys who worked hard at the start of the war, if they ain’t dead yet, they’re too old for the war game.”

“I did not know that,” Hainey said with impatience. “But I’m not sure what it’s got to do with me.”

“Hold your horses, man. I’m getting to it. So the big man invites a new operative, somebody from his old line of work.”

“Another spy?”

Crutchfield nodded. “That’s right. But not a Union spy-a Rebel spy. A rather famous one, if you see what I’m saying.”

“I’m afraid I don’t. I could name a whole handful of Southern spies, so you’re going to have to be more specific.” He fiddled with the roll of money for a moment before asking, “Is it someone who had a beef with me? Maybe someone from the Macon crowd?”

The informant shook his head and cocked it at the cash. Hainey unspooled another ten and set it down where he’d placed the first.

“It’s nobody you know, I don’t think. But it’s somebody with an agenda. The Rebs don’t want her no more, so she’s got something to prove by bringing you in; and that’s why she got the assignment.”

The captain didn’t hide his confusion. “What do you mean, they don’t want her no more? Pinkerton sent a woman to chase me down?”

“Not just any woman-Belle Boyd.”

“Belle…oh now Jesus Christ in a rain barrel. That’s a tall tale you’re spinning, and I don’t believe it for a second.”

Crutchfield shrugged. “Believe me or don’t believe me, that’s what I heard, my hand to God. This is her first job, so it’s a loaded one.”

“Loaded,” Hainey agreed. “But not with good sense. I’m just baffled,” he said, scratching his head. “And maybe a little insulted, that they send out a woman to bring down a man like me.”

“I wouldn’t take it like that, not yet. Pinkerton doesn’t hire folks as a joke-and he doesn’t hire fools, and he doesn’t throw his operatives away on suicide missions. He wouldn’t have sent her after you if he didn’t think she could bring you in.”

While Hainey pondered this, Simeon stepped in and took another ten.

He set it on the rail, waited for Crutchfield to collect it, and said, “All of that’s real interesting, no doubt. But why don’t you give us a hint about who hired the Pinks in the first place? They wouldn’t send anyone to nab a runaway without being told to, or paid to.”

“You have a point,” he said. “And I don’t know much about the gig, except that there’s a ship called Clementine that’s moving supplies-and it’s being hounded by a Negro captain in a bird that’s got no name.”

Hainey bobbed his head slowly up and down, sorting through the important bits and settling on his next words. He lifted the money roll, and unwrapped half its bulk while the eyes of Crutchfield Akers did their best to remain unimpressed.

“You can have this,” Hainey told him, setting the curled stack on its side. “All of it, no problem and no trouble, if you can answer me one more question and answer it true. Except,” he held up a finger. “If it turns out you’ve lied to me, I’ll be back, and I’ll take it back out of your skin. We understand each other?”

“We understand each other,” the informant swore.

“Good. Then I want to know where this Clementine is going.”

Crutchfield’s lips stretched into an expression of relief. “Oh good,” he sighed. “I actually know the answer to that one. The bird’s headed to Louisville, but I don’t know why, and I can’t tell you any more precise than that-not for the rest of your roll-because nobody’s told me.” He collected the stack of bills that must’ve counted a couple hundred dollars, and licked the tip of his finger to help him count it. “And I must say, it’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Likewise,” Hainey muttered.

He took Simeon by the arm and led him away, speaking quietly. “The bird’s headed to Kentucky, and ain’t that a stinker.”

“Not a Reb state,” Simeon said, as if it were a bright side.

“Not technically, no. But a border state that’s Reb enough to be unwelcoming. Louisville’s up on the river though, practically in Indiana. It’s not the worst news, and not the best news, but it’s news.”

“You think he’s on the level?”

The captain said, “I wouldn’t trust him to sort my laundry for free, but for a stack of green I think he’s solid enough. It’s how he makes his living, and he’s not a young man. If he were full of malarkey, someone would’ve killed him by now.”

“You’re full of sense, sir.”

“Let’s get back to the engineer and see what he’s scouted for us. It’s past midday now-”

“Not by much.”

Hainey said, “No, but I want to clear town sooner rather than later.”

The first mate made a little laugh. “You’re not worried about that Rebel woman, are you?”

The captain didn’t answer immediately, but when he did he said, “I’ve heard about her. I’ve heard a lot about her, mostly in the papers and partly through gossip. As far as I know she’s no dummy, and if half of what’s said about her is true, she’s not afraid to shoot a man if she feels the need.”

They reached the street and turned to the right, strolling towards the service docks and maintaining a casual pace. Hainey continued, “She was just a girl when the war started-maybe sixteen or seventeen, just a baby. But she didn’t have a lick of fear in her, not anywhere. She’s been in prison a few times, been married a few times, and killed a few fellows if they interfered with her. And these days,” he toyed with what he was thinking, then laid it out. “She’s only a little younger than me. Maybe in her forties. A woman who was that much trouble as a girl, well-now she’s had twenty-five years to learn new tricks.”

Simeon was silent.

Hainey said, “I’m not saying we ought to turn tail and run like dogs. I’m just saying that maybe it’s not an insult that she’s been picked to chase us down. Maybe we ought to keep our eyes open.”

“Do you know what she looks like?” Simeon wanted to know, but the captain didn’t have a photograph handy and he wasn’t sure he could pick her out of a crowd, anyway.

He said, “As I’ve heard it, she’s not much to look at-but she’s got a figure you’d notice if you were blind and ninety.”

“Not much to look at?”

“Yeah. It’s been said,” the captain mumbled, lowering his voice as they passed a pair of men cleaning a set of six-shooters in front of a saloon. “That she was young once, but never beautiful.”

“Sons of bitches, up there in Chicago,” the first mate said, pulling tobacco out of his pocket as if he’d only just remembered he had it. He flipped a paper loose with his thumb and started to roll a cigarette. “Can’t even send a pretty woman after us.”

Hainey didn’t answer because further discussion might’ve made him look paranoid, or weak. Simeon came from another place with its own set of problems, to be sure; but he wouldn’t have understood, maybe-how nothing on earth summoned a mob with a noose or a spray of bullets quite like a lady with an accent, and a problem with the way she’s been looked at.

Even a look, misinterpreted or even imagined.

And it had been decades since Croggon Beauregard Hainey had been a young man in a prison, accused of incorrect things and condemned to die; but that didn’t make the memory of it any easier to ignore or erase. So yes, all insistence to the contrary-and with the Rattler, and his men, and a full complement of guns stashed across his formidable body-he was more than a little concerned about a Southern woman with something to prove.

At that moment, a shy head ducked around the corner where Crutchfield stood on a stoop and conducted business. It was the same boy Hainey had threatened the night before, and he looked no less threatened to be standing in front of the captain once again.

“Sir?” he said, stopping both men.

Hainey snapped out of his reverie enough to ask, “What is it?”

“Sir, you have a telegram. It’s from Tacoma.”

The captain took the telegram, read it once, then read it again, and then he declared, “Well I’ll be damned.”

“What’s it say?” Simeon asked, even as he scanned it over Hainey’s shoulder. Before the captain could answer, Simeon had a new question. “What the hell does that mean? That’s about the strangest message I ever heard of. Do you know what it’s all about?”

FREE CROW CARRIES DAMNABLE MADAM CORPSE STOP WORD IN THE CLOUDS SAYS OSSIAN STEEN REQUIRES JEWELRY FOR WEAPON STOP SANATORIUM IS COVER FOR WEAPONS PLANT NO FURTHER WORD TO BE HAD STOP YOU OWE ME ONE STOP AC

Hainey’s scarred face split into a smile. “Cly, you bastard. All right, I owe you one.”

“Cly? The captain?”

“That’s his initials there at the end. He’s the one who sent it,” he confirmed.

Simeon shook his head and said, “But what’s he’s talking about?”

And the captain replied, “I don’t know who this Steen fellow is, but the rest of it’s given me something to think about, sure enough.”

“Can you think and steal a ship at the same time?” the first mate asked.

“I could knit a sweater and steal a ship at the same time, and don’t you josh me about it. Come on. Let’s grab the coach, get the Rattler ready, and see what Lamar’s been up to. We’ve got a Valkyrie to ride.”