Swords & Steam Short Stories

by S. T. Joshi

  “God Almighty,” he whispered. The horse snorted. An owl hooted from somewhere distant. “The other men say as much, that the skin’s their lucky charm. That you’re part of that, too, seein’ as you made the Hunley succeed, and now you’ll bless the Dorchester next.”

  Bless. She looked away to hide her revulsion. The Dorchester needed to succeed and then Papa would be promoted and then the bluebellies could blow it to kingdom come. Annie’s pelt just needed to be away first, back near the rest of her flesh.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say to that, Chaplain. I’m not particularly lucky, and my sister …”

  “No one can know their own luck, I reckon. I’m just …still in awe that we see each other’s magic in such a way.”

  The house was just ahead, a lamp on in the parlor window. Surrounding trees fringed the yard like dark lace. The woman of the house was likely peering through the curtains in wait. The wagon rolled down the drive and Beulah stood to disembark.

  This man carried some kind of power and he was friendly to the point of foolishness. Maybe he could help her get Annie’s pelt away from Papa. Beulah could run south, get her sister. How they’d make it north together, God only knew, but others had done it. “Follow the north star,” folks said.

  “Everyone knows what I am,” Beulah said slowly, “but no one knows ’bout you. You’re the one with a secret.”

  His breath caught. “It’s best they not know.”

  “What, you’re not wanting to give everything for the cause? Sir?” She played a dangerous game, wielding power over a white man like this, but if it could save Annie, it was worth it.

  “There’s no givin’ in this war. Just takin’.” The door to the house opened.

  “I tell you this. I won’t tell no one, for now.” Instead of feeling mighty with the words, the power, she felt all sour inside.

  “Thank you, Miss Beulah,” he said quietly. He didn’t even sound mad. “I already been told I’m to fetch you ’bout midnight.”

  “Midnight,” she murmured, and hopped from the wagon without looking back.

  The missus greeted her with a scowl that’d scare away any soldier, blue or gray. A few minutes later, Beulah had cleaned off a whole plate of food, including the cold, cooked fish her human body craved so often now.

  “Almost forgot,” the woman said. “There’s a letter on the desk. Reckon you can read?”

  “Yes …yes, missus.”

  Beulah murmured her thanks as she retreated to her room. A rain-marbled envelope awaited her on the felt mat of the desk.

  The handwriting was Annie’s.

  It was dated a mere week before; blessed fast, compared to how things were when Charleston was under siege. Annie’s fat pencil loops quivered across the page. Beulah’s eyes scanned back and forth as she read the seven-year-old’s words, read beneath pleasantries about how Annie rode her horse with old Rickery’s help, about how the leaves had started to shift color and whirl away.

  Beulah pictured Annie sitting in her bed like a doll propped against down-filled pillows. Her little lap desk against her knees, her mousey brown hair kept up in curlers. A week ago, her pelt was brighter, too. Now she likely hadn’t the strength to write.

  That child’s gap-toothed smile lit up Beulah’s world with a glow greater than any magic. Papa and most everyone else had scolded Annie, told her to not treat Beulah like a sister. The girl wouldn’t heed. She had a stubborn streak wider than the James River, bless her.

  And Papa was killing her, slowly yet surely.

  Beulah closed her eyes and rocked. The paper crinkled in her grip. Annie’s pelt was so far away from her body. That was bad enough, but far worse, it was so often in the Dorchester. Iron gnawed on magic like hungry termites. Beulah’s own pelt had been taken aboard the Hunley. She had been left bed-bound and wretched, and for the first time, the Hunley’s mission was a success. The submersible had blown apart the U.S.S. Housatonic and gone on to sink or scare off the rest of the Union blockade.

  Now it was Annie whose pelt was to be their lucky charm. Annie, who Papa was sure had stronger and purer magic, being white and all. If the Dorchester did its duty along the North Carolina coast, Papa said he was sure to be promoted. He wouldn’t need to go out to sea no more.

  Annie had to stay stubborn and strong. She’d have her pelt back soon enough. Beulah would make sure of that, one way or another.

  * * *

  The night was strangely balmy for late October. Too hot for Beulah to belt her pelt beneath her clothes. She climbed into the wagon with her glowing skin draped over her shoulder and lap. She caught Chaplain Walsh’s double-take upon sight of it. He clicked for the horse to move forward. The wheels found the ruts of the road.

  “It’s strange, seeing the same glow twice over,” he said.

  “I suppose so, sir.”

  “You needn’t ‘sir’ me out here.”

  “It’s best to stay in the habit. Sir.” She frowned, discomfited by his friendliness even after her hint of blackmail the night before.

  All was quiet but for the grind of wheels. “I don’t hold with slavery,” he whispered, as well he should. Dangerous words. “I’m from up in Virginia, the hills. Didn’t think to join. They made me.”

  “The western side of the state, the Union part?” She heard a lot of slaves ran up through there, headed to Ohio.

  “Yes. I was riding my circuit when …”

  “You really are a preacher?”

  At that, he smiled. “I am.”

  “Hardly seems smart to tell me this, sir, when I already know you hold some power inside.”

  “If anyone asks what I think, I tell them truth.”

  She snorted. Good grief. Here she hoped for the man’s help, and he continued to prove himself a fool. “You won’t have to worry ’bout Yanks shooting you then. Boys in gray will do it first.”

  “I’m not lookin’ to die or be a martyr, but I ain’t about to lie, either. God sees all.”

  “How do you judge my soul, then, with what I do? Directing these fish boats so they kill hundreds of men in a night?”

  He looked surprised. “Why, I don’t judge your soul at all. Not my place. That’s between you’n the Almighty.”

  She stroked her pelt, an anxious habit. In the water, Beulah could taste rendered metal, munitions, the tartness of blood and flesh. She knew she didn’t have a choice in her duty, truly, but guilt weighed on her all the same. She worried for her own soul, but even more, she worried for Annie’s.

  “I wonder, d’you think –” she began.

  A tailed critter – fox, coon, something – darted across the road. The horse reared in the shafts and the wagon lurched forward. The sky rotated as Beulah flung over the low back rest. The underside of her noggin cracked against wood. New stars lit her vision as terrible heat flared in her ears. She rolled, dazed, the world blurred. Wood and metal snapped – the back hatch of the wagon, busting open. Everything turned black. Dust filled her nostrils. She blinked. Her head felt hot and wrong and her right leg hurt in an awful way.

  She had to be able to swim tonight. Had to. If she couldn’t scout, if she couldn’t keep Annie’s pelt safe …

  Beulah forced her body upright. The horizon spun around her and threatened to squeeze supper from her gut. She couldn’t see the wagon, but even more, her seal skin wasn’t right close by.

  Gritting her teeth, she leaned on her knuckles and took several slow breaths to get her bearings. Her leg – oh Lord, her leg. Summoning all her gumption, she stood. Her other toes tapped for balance. Sheer agony almost melted her into the dirt.

  Standing, she could see the wagon wasn’t far ahead. A plume of dust still hovered in the air. The wagon was stuck in high grass along the road, and it rocked back and forth as the horse squealed and kicked. The beast sounded panicked more than anything. Where was the C
haplain?

  Beulah scanned for his glow and found it out in the swamp, some twenty feet away. Dark as the night was, their ability to see each other was handy. He swam straight toward her, her pelt in hand. He staggered up the embankment and flopped to earth, gasping. He was wet as a fish, and it was impossible to tell if he was hurt.

  Dear God, he had her pelt.

  He could blackmail her now, or damage it, or do any number of things. Even if she wrestled it away, she couldn’t run, not with her crippled leg.

  Chaplain Walsh still wore a gun at his hip. If she could get that …but then what? Papa still had Annie’s skin. Beulah couldn’t escape. Couldn’t do anything.

  “Miss Beulah? How do you fare?”

  She took several long breaths to mask her pain and panic. “Alive, sir. And you –”

  “Your pelt. It is indeed blessed. It just saved my life.”

  “What?”

  “I flew off the wagon and landed out there in deep water. I swim as well as a rock. I was like to drown, but I reached out, found your skin. It pulled me to the surface. I could feel magic in it, warmth. And, and there was an alligator out there, I was not a foot away from the beast. It …it left. Ignored me. Praise Jesus.”

  Beulah’s toes tapped the ground for balance. She cried out, and Chaplain Walsh pivoted to look up at her.

  “What the …? Miss Beulah?” He stood.

  “It’s my leg. It’s not …”

  “It surely is bad, so don’t protest the contrary. Would it help you to change form?”

  He held out the pelt to her. She stared at it. God forgive her. She’d thought to shoot him, and he handed her skin over with nary a mean thought. Beulah buried her face in the familiar gray and black fur. It smelled of dank water and saltiness and the comfort of her own self.

  “No. I’d be a lame seal.” Her voice was muffled against the skin. “I can’t be lame, not tonight of all nights.”

  Chaplain Walsh looked toward the wagon. “I need to check on the horse. You – I wouldn’t reckon you’d be so keen on the Dorchester succeeding.”

  “I hate that boat like nothing else.” Agony loosened her tongue and her wits. “The iron’s making Annie awful sick. The glow of her pelt, it’s dimmer by the day. If Papa’s promoted, he won’t have to be on board, and Annie –”

  Oh, blessed Annie, who’d hide handwritten copies of Elizabeth Barrett Browning poems in her Bible to read during her daily devotionals. The girl who had to be scolded to walk all ladylike, or she’d scamper like a crazed squirrel. Beulah knew just how Annie’s little hand fit in her grip when they walked together in the far fields, their arms swinging.

  Would Beulah know that touch again? She wavered on her feet.

  Chaplain Walsh grabbed hold of her arms while keeping himself at a gentlemanly distance. “Easy, easy,” he crooned as he helped her to sit. Her hands found lush grass about wrist deep. Agony jolted down her hip. She buried her face in the pelt and sobbed.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  The wagon wheels rattled and groaned as Chaplain shushed the horse, just as he soothed Beulah. A moment later, Chaplain returned.

  “Had to make sure the horse didn’t cause further mischief. He seems well enough for now, and the wagon’s back on the road. Can I see your leg? I’m not – I don’t have improper intentions.”

  “Most men say such things. You …you really do tell truth.”

  “I’m as much a sinner as any man.”

  She doubted that. She pulled up her skirt to tuck above her knees. By starlight, she could barely see the bulge of her thigh bone through her careworn, bloodied petticoats.

  “Do you doctor, like some preachers do?” Her voice warbled.

  His hands hovered over her leg, as if to warm them over a fire. “I do …something.”

  In a span of seconds, splinters of bone dragged through her muscle, the femur’s shaft tugging into place with an audible pop. Red spots of pure pain dappled the ebony night. Next she knew, she was flat on her back, her skull tingling as if it held a hive of bees. Chaplain Walsh leaned over her, his pink face skewed in worry.

  “What’d you do?” Her voice was hoarse. “How long …?”

  “You slept a minute. It …it was for the best. How d’you feel now?”

  She raised a hand to her forehead first, then shifted both legs. “Sore, but not hurting like I was. This is what you do then, the magic in you?”

  “Yes.” He whispered. “It’s at a cost. An awful cost.”

  She spanned her fingers into the grass. The lush, deep groundcover had turned brittle. It crackled at her touch.

  “I can’t control how it takes from anything and anyone living close by. I try not to use it, but …”

  “Why on me, then?” She clutched her pelt against her chest as she sat up. “Why give my skin back?”

  Chaplain Walsh looked strangely old and tired. “You’re the first person I met who uses magic – is magic, and who can see it in me. I …I want to be friends. You bein’ a slave, it don’t matter to me. I don’t desire for you or your sister to suffer. I got little sisters, too. No magic in them, just mischief and giggles.”

  How like Annie he was, in his defiance. “You don’t know your kin …?”

  “My mother was grabbed by fae folk back in Ireland. She …she fought to escape. She thought she’d been bound all of a night, but it’d been five years. She came to America, then I was born.”

  Beulah regarded him in silence for a time. “I won’t tell no one about you, what you do. But you need to mind your own lips. You need to lie. It’ll keep you alive.”

  “As you keep yourself alive, I reckon.” It was simply stated. “You’re a weapon for a cause in which you don’t believe, you and your sister both.”

  She stood, pelt draped over her shoulders, and offered him a hand. He shakily stood and almost leaned against her.

  “Pardon. Healing takes something outta me. You said …you said before that you want the Captain promoted and off the Dorchester to keep your Annie safe. How d’you reckon?”

  “Why – Papa wants to work in Richmond, he’s said as much –”

  “That’s not what I mean. What makes you think the Dorchester would do without a pelt? Men swear by its luck. The Hunley’s in port for repairs, and it’s failed every sea worthiness test of late.” He staggered forward a few steps.

  “I – I hadn’t heard such.” Her mouth went dry. “Much as my scouting helps, they could use the surface to use the periscope instead. I …” The Confederates would rather have two submersibles run, most certainly. That meant she’d be bed-bound again, sick as a hound dog, her pelt going as pale as Annie’s.

  Dazed, she glanced behind them. A yellow scar of dead grass marked where she had sprawled, extending twenty feet wide. It encompassed both sides of the road and into the water. Reeds draped over, limp. The water looked almost lumpy, too. Maybe the fish were all dead. Maybe that gator, if it swam close. She shivered and turned.

  Chaplain Walsh was falling, his eyes rolled back to whites. She dove forward and managed to catch his shoulders before his head struck the ground.

  * * *

  By the time Lieutenant Groves and his men found them, Beulah had managed to drag Chaplain Walsh up to the wagon. They tended him from there. He was conscious now and murmured to soldiers who sat in back with him. His voice slurred. An off-kilter wheel made the carriage to lurch with each rotation. Beulah clutched the bench seat as she bounced forward against her folded pelt.

  “Are you well enough to swim?” Lieutenant Groves asked, an eye on her bloodied clothes.

  No, she wanted to say, but what did her health truly mean to these men? They would steal her pelt, store it in toxic iron, leave her bed-bound and writhing in misery. She wanted Chaplain Walsh to be wrong, but her mind traced his logic like a dog chased its tail. He wa
s right. She and Annie, they’d never be free. It wasn’t up to Papa. Their role was bigger than him.

  “I need to do my duty, sir,” she murmured. “I can clean myself up. I can swim.”

  He studied her for a moment before nodding. “Our last reports placed the Union sloop Woolton at the river’s mouth. Direct the Dorchester, as we practiced.”

  “Yes, sir. What about Chaplain Walsh, sir?”

  The lieutenant glanced over his shoulder. “Head injuries are fickle things. Seen a man strip off his clothes and dance naked in a fire once, after a blow to the skull, and he didn’t recall nary a thing after. Chaplain can do his prayer with the men aboard and we’ll drive him to town in the morn. Don’t fuss over him. You got plenty to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The tension at the dock was at an intense simmer, the kind where everyone spoke at a murmur, lights dim, birds mute. Men scurried around the Dorchester. A boat bobbed on the far side, near the twenty-foot spar with its attached torpedo. The vessel would attack by tapping the mine against an enemy hull. A battery and copper wire would enable Papa to detonate the explosive once they were a safer distance away.

  Papa was nowhere in sight at the moment, likely in the iron belly of the beast.

  Chaplain Walsh stood in the wagon bed and leaned on a soldier for balance. Beulah’s eyes met his for an instant and she turned away. He’d set the sailors’ souls right with a prayer, then maybe he could rest to recover from her healing.

  What of Beulah’s soul? Because of her, the Hunley had killed or captured over a thousand men. Now here she was, leading the Dorchester to its prey, all for the sake of Annie’s pelt. No more. After tonight, she’d find a way to save her sister’s skin. It was time for them to them to go north.

  A few minutes later, Beulah waded into the river.

  The warmth of her pelt settled on her shoulders, then settled deeper. Heat nestled in her marrows and viciously tingled down and back up the lengths of her arms and legs as they receded. Colors shifted. She wiggled her new tail, water embracing her like cool silk, then she dived.