by Bobbi Smith
She glanced quickly at her father, but didn’t interrupt.
“That will be fine, Micah. You know we appreciate all you’re doing.”
“It’s for the Cause, Nathan,” he said proudly. “I’m glad you asked.”
“We appreciate your kindness, Mr. Abernathy.” Annabelle was gracious.
“You can go on aboard now, if you like. The boat will be pulling out in about twenty minutes.”
“Fine.” He shook hands with him and handed him an envelope stuffed with Yankee greenbacks.
“Good luck, Nathan.”
They drove off to the levee and tied up near the boat on which their passage had been booked. Nathan helped Anna-belle descend from the carriage, and they started toward the steamer.
“Wait. I’ve got an idea….” Nathan paused and then called to a roustabout standing nearby.
“Yes, suh?” The burly man hurried to do his bidding.
“Do you see that carriage?” He pointed out his own vehicle.
“Yes, suh.”
“I want you to drive it downtown and park it near the Westlake Law Office. All right?”
“Yes, suh. Should Ah tell anybody dat it’s dere?”
“No. Just tie it up and leave it. It will be picked up later.” Nathan handed the man a large bill. “Hurry now.”
“Yes, suh. Ah’ll hurry real good.” And the man rushed off and climbed into the carriage and drove away, while Nathan and Annabelle exchanged looks.
“They’d never think to look for it there.” She couldn’t stop the smile that threatened, despite their precarious situation.
“I know. It could be a full day before they realize it’s ours.” He escorted her up the gangplank.
After being directed to their cabin, they remained in seclusion until the boat had pulled away from the levee. Only then did they venture out on deck.
“Father! We’re heading north!”
Nathan smiled blandly at her. “Of course. The last place they’ll expect us to go is the North. They’ll have every trooper from here to Memphis on alert trying to catch us, and we’ll be heading in the opposite direction. We’re going to make connections at Rock Island and go on to Chicago. There are people there we can stay with until things settle down.”
Annabelle beamed at her father’s ingenuity. “I’m glad you had all of this figured out. I was really in a panic.”
“My only concern now is Wade. He was like a son to me, and I’m worried that he’s going to get caught in a hornet’s nest…”
“He’ll do fine, Father. Wade always does.” Annabelle gave her lover no further thought; her own survival was her only concern.
“I know…I know…I just can’t help but think that he’s involved in something far more dangerous than he ever realized….” Nathan sighed.
“Perhaps. But let’s not worry about him. He’ll catch up with us sooner or later.”
She distracted him with idle chatter as they walked along the promenade deck, but still, in the back of his mind, Nathan wondered what was to become of Wade.
Delight was sitting with Renee in the parlor. The hours had passed slowly since the men had gone, and they were growing more and more concerned. Clara had long since left to return home and they were alone, waiting anxiously for word from their men.
“What do you suppose is taking so long? All they had to do was to go and meet with Sam, right?” Delight played nervously with the bit of needlepoint she was holding.
“That’s what I thought, too.” Renee glanced out the window again in hopes that she would see them drive up, but the street in front of the house remained empty.
They looked at each other helplessly, wondering what, if anything, they could do. It was then that they heard the sound of the carriage, and they both rushed to open the door as they saw Jim and Marshall ride up with Sam.
“Where’s Mark? Did everything go all right?”
“We don’t have time to explain right now,” Jim said tersely as they came inside. “Sam will tell you everything. He’s staying here.”
“Renee, get me the key to the gun cabinet,” Marshall ordered, leading the way back to his study.
“The gun cabinet? What are you planning on doing?” Renee asked, following quickly along behind him. “What do you need a gun for?”
“Jim and I are going after two spies, and we want to be prepared, just in case.”
“In case of what?” Delight worried, and Jim stopped to calm her.
“We’ve discovered that Annabelle and Nathan are a crucial part of the spy ring. We’re going for them, while Mark rounds up the others.”
“Others? You mean there are more?”
Martha and Dorrie had heard the commotion and were hurrying down to greet them when Marshall came out into the hall with two revolvers and a rifle.
“They’re loaded,” he informed Jim as he handed him a pistol.
“Thanks. Let’s go.”
“Where are you going?” Martha asked.
“We know Annabelle and Nathan are spies, and we’re going to get them before they have a chance to get away,” Marshall explained as he headed down the hall.
“Can’t you wait?” Renee pleaded. “Surely, Mark will send some soldiers to help….”
“He might, but by that time Annabelle and Nathan could be miles away.”
“She was here when you opened the note,” Delight remarked.
“I know, and they might already be long gone.”
“Be careful!” She hugged Jim quickly and then let him go.
“We will,” he told her confidently as they disappeared outside to make the short trip to the Morgan house.
Marshall reined in the carriage a few houses away. “I’ll check around back, while you go on up to the front.”
“All right.” Jim climbed down after his brother and made his way up the front steps.
He somehow knew before he even knocked that they had gone. The house had an aura of desertion about it, and his suspicions were confirmed when he knocked on the door.
“Yes, sir?” The maid answered and looked at him questioningly.
“Is Mr. Morgan or Miss Morgan at home?”
“No, sir. They’re gone,” she told him.
“And what time do you expect them back?” Jim asked courteously, stalling for time.
“I don’t know, sir. They didn’t say. They left together some time ago.”
Jim cursed under his breath. If what this servant was saying was true, there was little chance that they could catch up with them now.
At the sound of hurried footsteps coming down the hall, the maid turned nervously. “What are you doing in here?” she demanded as she saw Marshall walking toward her from the back of the house.
“I’m looking for the Morgans. I’m going to check upstairs, Jim.” He started up the steps.
“The maid says they left a couple of hours ago.”
“Right after she left our house,” Marshall supplied in disgust.
“It looks that way.”
“I’m going to check upstairs, anyway. They might have left a clue of some kind.” He hurried on up the staircase.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m going to call for the sheriff!” the maid threatened.
“You go right ahead. I’m sure he’d be glad to know about what’s been going on here,” Jim said evenly, folding his arms across his chest as he waited for his brother to come back down.
“They’re gone, all right. And it looks like they left in a hurry. There’s clothes thrown all over Annabelle’s room,” he informed Mark as he came back downstairs after searching each bedroom.
“Where did they go?” Jim turned to the maid, his expression cold and unyielding.
“I don’t know,” the maid replied, her manner defiant. “You get out of here now. You know they’re not here, so you don’t need to be rummaging through this house.”
“We’ll go when we get some answers out of you,” Marshall threatened. “You can talk to us here.�
��or we can take you down to General Fields’s office and you can talk there.”
“General Fields?” She was suddenly frightened.
“That’s right. And if you stall too much longer you’re probably going to have a platoon of soldiers going through every inch of this house, instead of just us. Now.” He softened his tone. “Tell us where Nathan and Annabelle went.”
“He didn’t say. They left so quickly…I know they did have a few bags with them, but nothing like they would have taken if they’d planned on being gone a long time.”
“Unless they planned on travelling quickly and quietly….” Jim added.
“Did Nathan say anything about how they were going to travel?”
“No. Not a word.” She couldn’t tell them what she didn’t know.
“All right. We’ll be back,” Marshall told her as he turned to leave, well aware that Nathan had no intention of ever returning to this house.
They walked slowly down the steps together. “Where do you want to start?” Jim asked, favoring his bad leg.
“Don’t you think you ought to go back to the house and rest for a while?” Marshall suggested, seeing the lines of fatigue and pain in Jim’s face.
“No. Not when we’re this close!” Jim refused. “Let’s check the riverfront. That would be the fastest, safest way for them to slip past us.”
“Right.” They drove off toward the levee, hoping to unravel the sudden and convenient disappearance of Nathan and Annabelle.
“Captain Clayton is here to see you, General. He says it’s important.”
“Send him right in, Corporal.” General Fields ordered.
“Yes, sir.” The soldier went out of his office and motioned to Mark. “He’ll see you now.”
“Thank you, Corporal.” Mark strode into the room to face his superior officer.
“Sit down, Captain.” He waved him to a nearby chair. “I hope you have something for me.”
“Yes, sir. I do. But I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you.”
“Let me be the judge of that. What have you found out?”
“The traitor in our midst was Wade MacIntosh.”
“Major MacIntosh? Surely you’re mistaken.” The general scoffed at the idea.
“I am not mistaken. I have here a list of all the Southern spies who were involved in the plot to steal the gold. At the top of the list is Major MacIntosh.”
“Where is Wade? I want to hear his side of this.”
“He’s outside, sir,” Mark told him slowly.
“Well, get him in here. I want to talk to him.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, sir.”
“And why is that, Captain?” The general was growing angry.
“Because he’s dead, sir.”
“Dead?” He pondered that for a moment. “I think you’d better explain yourself. And start at the beginning.”
“Yes, sir.” Mark shifted in his seat as he related all that had happened since their last meeting. “We just received the note from Sam Wallace this morning, saying that he was still alive and had all the information we needed.”
“And you had hired Sam Wallace yourself? What for?”
“To follow MacIntosh, sir. There was something about him that didn’t ring true.”
“A n d? ”
“And Sam was listening in on the spies’ meeting when Wade discovered him. Wade took him down to the river, knocked him out, and threw him in.”
“You’re saying that he tried to kill Sam Wallace in cold blood?”
“Yes, sir. Not once, but twice. You see, MacIntosh intercepted a note for me from Sam, telling me where he was and that he had the information I needed.”
“And he went after him again?”
“This morning, sir. We got there—”
“We?”
“The Westlakes and I, sir,” Mark explained. “Anyway, we got there just in time to prevent him from shooting Sam.”
“And you shot him?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Was Sam injured?” The general grew concerned.
“No, not today. In fact, he’s just fine. He gave me the names of everyone in attendance that he could remember.”
General Fields held out his hand. “Let me see the list.”
“Yes, sir.” Mark handed it over.
“Wade Macintosh—Nathan Morgan—Annabelle Morgan— Gordon Tyndale…” The general paused in his reading of the names. “Captain Clayton, this reads like the St. Louis social register.”
“I’m aware of that, General, but it also explains how they came by the information they had.” Mark carefully watched his expression as he digested this new, startling information. “May I proceed with the arrests, sir?”
“Take as many men as you need. I want everyone on that list.” The general was furious.
“Jim and Marshall Westlake have already gone after the Morgans.”
“Good. Keep me informed of your progress.”
“I will, sir. And thank you.”
“You’ve done a good job so far. Now, let’s finish it.”
Mark hurried from the office to do just that. And while he was successfully rounding up the other unsuspecting members of the spy ring, Marshall and Jim were combing the riverfront in hopes of turning up a clue to Nathan’s and Annabelle’s whereabouts.
“Where to now?” Marshall asked in frustration as they left the office of the Mid-Rivers Line.
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to figure out what I would do if I were Nathan,” Jim said pensively. “And it seems to me that I would do the opposite of what everybody expected me to do.”
“You think we should have been checking northbound departures?”
“It’s a start. But let’s face it, we don’t even know for sure that they did leave by steamer.”
“Let’s go.” Marshall and Jim went back inside the Mid-Rivers office.
Micah Abernathy looked up as Jim and Marshall reentered the room and cursed silently to himself. When he had seen them on their way in the first time, he had quickly absented himself from the office. Nathan had warned him that Clayton or the Westlakes might come looking for him, and, being a nervous man by nature, Micah had not wanted to chance talking to them. But now, he was trapped. There was no way for him to avoid them.
“Micah.” Jim greeted him easily. “We didn’t know you were here.”
“I’ve been in the back. Why?” Micah took off his glasses and began cleaning them with a handkerchief.
“No reason.” Marshall spoke calmly. “We just need some additional information.”
“About what? ”
“We just talked to the clerk a minute ago. We were checking on departures of southbound packets.”
“And?” Micah sounded agitated, and Jim gave his brother a sidelong glance.
“And now we need to know about any steamers that left port northbound in the last few hours.” Jim watched his reaction to their request.
“Let me check for you…any particular destination in mind?”
“No. We’re more interested in times than places,” Marshall answered.
Micah’s hands were trembling as he put his glasses back on and opened his ledgers. “We had the Liberty Bell pull out about two hours ago and the Sugar Blossom departed a half an hour later.”
“Where are they bound?”
“The Belle is heading for Rock Island and the Blossom is going as far north as Alton and then she’s heading up the Missouri to St. Charles and then on to Kansas City.”
“Do you have your passenger lists?” Marshall inquired. “We’d like to see them.”
“What’s going on?” Micah tried to sound casual as he turned the book around so Jim and Marshall could check the lists.
“We’re trying to locate Nathan and Annabelle Morgan. Do you know them?”
“Yes. I’ve had some dealings with Nathan,” Micah hedged. “Why are you looking for them?”
“We’re not at liberty to say ri
ght now. Have you seen them today? Did they book passage on one of your steamers?” Jim pushed.
“No!” he denied, too quickly.
Marshall and Jim were instantly suspicious as they pored over the ledger. They checked the Blossom first, only to find that there were no women traveling on her this trip. Having successfully eliminated one of the two boats, they turned their scrutiny to the Belle.
“There are two couples on the Belle, Jim,” Marshall said, keeping an eye on Micah as he spoke. “But neither one is the Morgans.”
Micah tried to disguise his relief, but they both read it easily.
“Thank you for your help, Micah.” Jim turned the ledger back to him.
“You’re welcome.” He watched them leave and sighed audibly.
Once they were outside, Marshall and Jim exchanged knowing looks. “Let’s check the other three offices. I think we’ve got our man, but I don’t want to take any chances and go on a wild-goose chase.”
They retraced their steps to find that a total of four steamboats, including the Belle and the Blossom, had left town, northbound, during the last few hours. A careful check of the passenger lists narrowed it down conclusively to the Belle. The other two boats were primarily used for freight and had few if any accommodations. Those people who did choose to travel on them generally slept on the deck, and, knowing Annabelle, Jim and Marshall immediately eliminated them from consideration.
“What do you think?”
“I think we should go back and pay our jittery friend Micah one more visit.”
Micah nearly groaned aloud when he saw them returning. “You’re back.”
“Yes, and we need to speak with you for a minute, in private, if you don’t mind….” Jim’s words were cordial, but there was a certain steeliness to his tone that sent a shiver down Micah’s spine.
“We can use the back room,” he offered lamely, preceding them into the privacy of the smaller office and closing the door. “Now, what can I do for you?”
“We want to know the truth,” Marshall said threateningly.
“I—I don’t know what you mean….” Micah was appalled.
“Are the Morgans on the Belle or not?” Jim demanded.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about! If you’ll excuse me…” He started to leave the office, but Marshall’s hand on his arm stopped his progress.