Independence Day Page 11

  “Mister, please? I’m so thirsty.”

  Frak it, Roland decided. He knew if he stood, Drawl was right. There was a slight chance he could get shot by some sharpshooter looking to etch another notch, although he now knew no Yankee with a Sharps could reach this far from the ridge. He had no doubt a couple of them had appropriated Whitworths via battlefield scavenging, as smart soldiers were wont to do. Overall, though, it was very unlikely anyone would shoot.

  Still, best to be safe.

  Roland slithered back from between the two bodies, leaving his rifle in place, double-checking the priming one more time. Another rule violated, but he didn’t want to crawl with it through the mud. He had the Colt 1851 in the holster on his belt, and that would have to suffice along with the Bowie.

  Roland made it to the boy. His wide eyes had tracked Roland’s progress. Gut-shot for sure. The kid held a rag, so he’d had the smarts to try to plug the wound. Reaching over his body, Roland found the boy’s most immediate problem: a gaping exit wound in his back. The Minie ball had gone through, avoiding any vital organ, vital meaning something that would have brought a quick death.

  “I’m gonna move you a little,” Roland said. “Might hurt.” But as he said it, he was already grabbing the boy, adjusting his position, sitting him with his back against the boulder so he was now facing up.

  The boy whimpered in pain at the movement he’d been unable to complete himself. He had his eyes closed, his mouth open to the rain, tongue extended, lapping at the water.

  As Roland turned to crawl back to his rifle, the kid opened his eyes. “Am I going to die?”

  A bullet through the stomach, and not just a bullet, but a .55 caliber Minie ball. The download confirmed it would take five days for the battlefield to be cleared of the dead and two days before the last of the wounded was brought in. This part of the battlefield, where most of the casualties were grouped, would be the last to be cleared.

  Edith’s download had a lot on the matter, but it boiled down to deadly facts: even if the kid were stretchered out of here immediately (not going to happen), the surgeons in both armies were overwhelmed. A wound to the chest or abdomen was considered a guarantee of lethal infection, and wasn’t even treated in their primitive triage system, other than to give painkiller.

  “Yes,” Roland said.

  “Was afeared of that,” the kid said with the fatalism of a soldier. “Kind of knew. This is how my brother died. Gut-shot. Slow burn from the gut spreading out; he had someone write us in a letter to me a day after he was wounded. Told me not to tell Mama that by the time I got the letter, he’d be dead. Told me not to join up. Told me to take care of the farm. To tell Mama he was so sorry, and he loved her. Loved us. Shoulda listened to him. Last letter. We didn’t get the death notice for three more weeks, and that was in the paper. Don’ even know where he’s buried.”

  Shoulda listened, Roland mentally agreed.

  “Could you get my pistol, mister?” the kid asked. “Make sure it’s got a shot ready and primed?”

  Roland nodded, impressed. He pulled the gun out, then checked it.

  “You got one bullet,” Roland said. He looked at the cap. “Wet.” Roland reached into the pouch on his side and retrieved a cap. He replaced the wet one.

  “Just put it on my lap,” the kid said.

  Roland laid it on the kid’s lap, covering it with a piece of cloth. He turned away and slithered back to his spot.

  “Thanks, mister.”

  Roland wished with all his heart that all the suffering men would die, like the one who’d just drowned. Quick and easy. The night had been too long.

  Some others had seen and called to him for help. Roland wanted to cover his ears, stuff something in them, to get pulled back to the Possibility Palace, mission be damned, because none of those animals on those nature shows had ever begged for help.

  “Where you from, mister?” the kid asked. “I’m from North Carolina.”

  Roland didn’t answer. He heard the kid licking and slurping at the rain.

  Almost completely subdued under the sound of the rain, Roland heard a hammer being pulled back on a musket.

  Drawl had his musket to his shoulder, trying to aim. Roland was pulling his pistol before he realized Drawl wasn’t aiming at him, but past him, although the muzzle wasn’t very steady.

  Roland looked over his shoulder. A man dressed in black pants and shirt under a dirty rain slicker, was kneeling next to a body, and rifling through the corpse’s uniform. He drew out a pocket watch then slipped it into a satchel. From the way the bag bulged, the scavenger had been at it for a while. He tugged at the corpse’s hand, trying to get a wedding band off. Unable to do so easily, he drew a pair of shears from his coat. He severed the finger, took the ring, then tossed the finger aside.

  Roland turned back toward Drawl, signaling for him to stand down, but the wounded man didn’t notice. The hammer clicked forward, and nothing happened. Drawl dropped the musket to his lap in despair. Either it was empty, or the rain had gotten to the powder. The wounded man didn’t have the energy to reload it; he’d lost too much blood.

  Roland didn’t make a conscious decision; his instincts as a soldier took over. He low-crawled, head up, watching the scavenger move on to the man who’d drowned.

  The man in black pulled the corpse out of Plum Run and turned the body over. The way the upper body twisted unnaturally, there was no doubt the spine wasn’t intact, not that it mattered now. The scavenger pushed the drowned man’s lips apart. He drew a dagger then slammed the hilt down, breaking teeth loose. He retrieved a single gold tooth. Then he began checking the rest of the body.

  Roland was five yards away when the kid called out.

  “Watch out, mister!”

  The scavenger turned, his dagger in one hand, and he drew another from somewhere inside his coat so fast, it just seemed to appear.

  How did he know I was coming? Roland jumped to his feet then charged, drawing the Bowie knife from his belt.

  Roland quickly became aware this wasn’t his opponent’s first knife fight. The scavenger slashed at Roland in a whirlwind of both blades, halting Roland’s advance. The man’s stance and the look in his eyes dictated there would only be one result, death, with two possible outcomes: Roland or him.

  Roland was bigger and stronger, but faster was more important in a knife fight.

  This guy was faster.

  Then it got worse, as it usually did.

  “It is an honor to meet you, Roland,” the man said. “I’m going to kill you very slowly.”

  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 July 1776 A.D.

  Doc headed the way the huntress had gone, albeit slowly. He reached the corner then peered around. The street was wider, but deserted except for the woman about fifty meters away. She was also moving carefully, her bow at the ready, scanning left and right.

  Doc halted when she stopped. He was the same distance away, pressed against the side of a two-story brick building. He re-evaluated his decision to follow her as she turned and began to come back toward him. But she was releasing her draw as she did so. She put the short arrow into a quiver over one shoulder, then slid the bow inside her cloak.

  Doc considered running, then thought how Roland said that only meant someone died tired. He knew she had something to do with his mission, besides the fact she was an anomaly in 1776 Philadelphia. Roland had encountered a woman with a bow, Diana, in Italy. Of course, she’d also shot at him. Moms had also run into a woman with a bow, who was leading the team trying to destroy the cave art in pre-history.

  What was it they said about the third time?

  Doc took the stowing of the weapon as a positive sign along with the fact she’d passed him by. He stepped away from the building, his arms away from his sides.

  “I come in peace.” Not the greatest line but the incident was so unexpected and bizarre, it was the best he could conjure.

  The woman stopped. “Is that why you came? For peace?”

>   “I meant, I have no quarrel with you,” Doc said. “Why did you fire?”

  “The usual reason. To kill someone.”

  “But not me?”

  “If my target had been you, we wouldn’t be talking to each other.”

  “Who did you shoot at?” Doc asked.

  “The man who was waiting to kill you.”

  Doc was about two steps behind on this bizarre conversation. Nothing was as he could have expected, which Nada would have told him was expected on such a mission, which made him miss all those theoretical physics lectures from graduate school.

  “Who are you?” he asked, for lack of anything else.

  The woman drew the hood back. Her features were difficult to make out in the darkness. Very pale skin, short white, hair. “A traveler. Like you.”

  “And you are here for?”

  “To kill my enemy.”

  “I didn’t see anyone,” Doc said.

  “You didn’t see me, either,” she noted.

  “I’m just a businessman from New York,” Doc said.

  Even as he said it, the cover story felt thin, especially told to a woman carrying a short bow, wearing a cloak, and obviously not from anywhere around here. Or now.

  She looked him up and down. “If that’s what you would like me to believe.”

  “Why would someone want to kill me?”

  “You know that better than me.”

  “Do you have a name?” Doc really wished they’d given him something more than the dagger, because even though she had the short bow hidden, he was pretty certain she had other weapons secreted under that cloak. Her eyes were constantly shifting, looking at him, past him, over her shoulder, and up (Nada would have approved of that last bit), on alert.

  Doc knew he should be doing so also, but he had a feeling what he should be alert for was standing right in front of him.

  “Yes,” she said. “I have a name.”

  “Care to share?”

  She smiled, which transformed her from an ice-warrior into someone almost human. “My name is Thyia.”

  The download clicked. “Daughter of Pyrrha, grand-daughter of Pandora.”

  Monticello, VA, 4 July 1826

  Moms walked as swiftly as possible; running was not conceivable in this get-up. She sometimes wondered if the corsets, hoop dresses, petticoats, etcetera of this era, and high heels in her day, were designed to slow women down and make them easier targets.

  Frasier would have viewed her concern differently, pointing out it had more to do with Moms’s self-image and upbringing than society as a whole, but Frasier wasn’t with the Time Patrol to deal with such trivial issues.

  And Moms wouldn’t have cared what he thought.

  She was fortunate in that Edgar Allan Poe was having a hard time mounting the worn-down beast that passed for his horse. As she came around the front corner of Monticello, she saw him do a once-over: he hoisted himself too fast in the stirrup, went over the horse and sprawled into the dirt road on the other side. The horse waited patiently, at the base of the stairs that came down from the East Portico.

  Fortunately, the positive side of being drunk so early in the day was that he wasn’t hurt. Moms was trying to figure out what exactly she was going to do, when the sound of a horse galloping up the hill, interrupted her concerns.

  A mud-splattered rider rode up on a worn-out horse. He had a leather pouch looped over one shoulder. He glanced at Poe, ascertained the situation there quickly, shook his head, then went up the steps to the front door of Monticello and pounded on it.

  Poe found the interruption useful too, as a break from trying to mount and headed back toward the house, perhaps to get a parting drink. Moms debated retreating to her position in the Piazza, but decided the courier wouldn’t be allowed straight into Jefferson’s bedroom. She moved along the front of the house, not exactly inconspicuous in her get-up.

  A pair of slaves working farther down the hill saw her, but went back to their task. It was an ingrained part of their life not to show curiosity. Moms thought it odd that the man who’d written that all men were created equal would own slaves. Of course, the Three-Fifths compromise that was part of the 1787 Constitutional Convention would negate even a semblance of equality in terms of a head count, although Jefferson was in Paris during that event, watching the French Revolution unfold, something he cheered at first, then recoiled from later. His influence though, went far beyond America: Lafayette, who’d fought for the Americans during the Revolution, had a picture frame in his house in Paris with a copy of the Declaration of Independence on one side and the other side empty—awaiting France’s own version.

  The fact that the slaves looked well-fed and cared for didn’t alter the fact they were owned, just like the front door or the dome over Monticello.

  Poe was standing on the East Portico, to the right of the wide-open main door, head cocked, listening. Moms smiled to herself then took a position on the other side of the door. Poe looked at her in surprise, and Moms put a finger to her lips.

  Given he was spying also, there wasn’t much he could do about her presence.

  Hemings’s voice echoed out of the large Entrance Hall.

  “Sir, Mister Jefferson isn’t able to take visitors.”

  “I come from Peacefield,” the courier said. “You are Sally Hemings, aren’t you? You were described to me.”

  Peacefield, the house in Quincy acquired by John and Abigail Adams in 1787 after its loyalist owner had fled the country.

  “I am, sir.”

  “I was told to deliver my package only to Mister Jefferson himself. Mister Adams was quite insistent.”

  “Your package, sir?” Hemings repeated.

  “Directly from Mister Adams’s very hands,” the courier said. His voice went down slightly. “Mister Adams, I am afraid, is very ill. So ill, I fear he may well have passed during my journey here. He said Mister Jefferson would understand once he had the package and the message contained with it.”

  Moms knew that Adams did die today, although technically, he would last a few hours longer than Jefferson. Moms thought it ironic that two men who’d been so competitive for so much of their lives were even battling out the hour of their death on the same day, without being aware of the other’s circumstances.

  “But if that is the rest of—” Hemings began, then gasped. “He must be stopped!”

  Sally Hemings came out of the front door of Monticello in a rush, looking toward the road down the hill.

  The object of her search was actually just to her left side, and when Hemings saw him, her shoulders slumped in relief, but then she whirled about and saw Moms. “Who are you?”

  “A friend,” Moms said. Edith had given her a ‘cover story’ about being a legal assistant from Charlottesville who was here to deal with some arcane land documents, with even a letter from the supposed legal firm, but Moms knew today wasn’t the day to be trying to play the head.

  Today was about the heart.

  “A friend from where?” Hemings asked. She looked Moms up and down in a peculiar way.

  “A friend,” Moms repeated. “Beverley and Harriet are doing well.” Moms dropped the names of two of Hemings’ six children, daughters who ‘ran away’ from Monticello but were never pursued, an indication perhaps of who their true father might be, especially since Sally never took a slave husband as was the practice of the time.

  Sally gazed at Moms for several more seconds. She turned back to the men. “Come.” She led the way into the Entrance Hall. The high walls up to the eighteen-foot ceiling were decorated with a wide range of objects, reflecting Jefferson’s eclectic interests.

  There were numerous chairs in the Hall as it was the waiting room for visitors, but they were pushed to one side, some piled on top of each other, indicative of how life had slowed down at Monticello as Jefferson’s own life did the same.

  The predominant theme was Native American, many objects the result of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which Jefferso
n had launched as President. Hemings didn’t stop, going through into the Parlor, the largest room in the house. It faced the West Portico and was where Jefferson had entertained many a famous guest over the decades.

  Hemings faced them. She held out her hand to the courier. “I will take your package to Mister Jefferson. He is ill and lies in the Bedroom.”

  The courier shook his head. “Mister Adams was adamant. Only Mister Jefferson may have it.”

  Hemings pointed at Poe who was wandering the room, probably looking for a drink. “Give me the parcel.”

  Poe didn’t hesitate, relieving himself of the obligation post-haste.

  “Stay here,” Hemings said.

  Poe nodded. “Yes, of course.”

  Moms saw that he’d spotted a decanter with some dark-colored liquid in it. She hoped it was alcohol and not something Jefferson used in his work or there would be a significant gap in American literature.

  “Come, sir,” Hemings said to the courier.

  Uninvited, Moms followed anyway.

  The three entered the Bedroom.

  Jefferson’s eyes were closed and for a moment, Moms feared he might be dead, but there was a rasp of breathing from his mouth and his chest rose and fell ever so slowly.

  Hemings leaned over him, gently laying a hand on his aged cheek. She leaned close and whispered something Moms couldn’t hear. Hemings straightened as Jefferson’s eyelids flickered. They opened, but he was disoriented for a few moments, before fixing on the courier.

  “From Adams?” Jefferson asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He has passed?”

  “He was alive when I left,” the courier said, “but in very ill health. It is doubtful he is still--” The courier left the obvious unsaid.

  Jefferson indicated Hemings with a finger. “Give her the package.”

  “Sir—” the courier hesitated, then unfastened the buckle on the leather satchel. He pulled out a leather pouch, a twin to the one Jefferson had passed to Poe, then handed it to Hemings.

  “You need to retrieve—” Jefferson began to Hemings, but she anticipated him.