by Abra SW
“Wait.” The friendlier policeman put his hand out, frowning. “Did you say Hardy?”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to his compatriot, muttering in an undertone, “That’s the candy shop the commissioner’s wife is all agog over. Talks about the owner like they’re friends. That’s why it’s in with the allowed shops. Hate for her to complain to the commissioner’s wife about us.”
His partner grunted a reluctant agreement.
The friendly one turned around. “All right, ma’am. Go on. Keep your head down and don’t cause trouble. Steer clear of the special patrolmen. If any of them give you trouble, you tell them I said you were okay. They’re not wearing uniforms, but,” he tapped his left bicep, “they’ll have a blue armband. Once you get to Hardy’s Candy Confections, your friend will set you straight. Just get there before curfew. That’s dusk.”
“Thank you! Thank you so much!” Tonya said, making a mental note to compliment Mrs. Nave, the candy shop owner, on her tradecraft.
Tonya hurried past the wall and onto the bridge before the policemen could change their minds. The Hardy candy store was little more than an hour’s brisk walk away. She was in no danger of missing curfew, which she became increasingly grateful for as she took in the changed tone of the town.
The streets were emptier than she remembered. The pedestrians who did venture out walked quickly, their heads down. Special patrolmen were everywhere, with their blue armbands and swagger sticks. They frequently stopped travelers, especially those that might be carrying contraband, and questioned them. Still, they were not—quite—bullies. Tonya passed unmolested, as did most of those she would categorize as hard-working civilians.
Corpses dangled from the lamp-posts about every mile or so. They bore placards around their necks that named their crime: looting, murder, rape, assault on an officer.
Other hastily painted signs reminded everyone of the curfew. Posters in store windows advertised what was on offer at “set prices,” reminded shoppers to bring their ration books, and warned that hoarding and offering a bribe for extra food were punishable offenses.
It all combined to make Tonya glad when she saw the sign for Hardy’s Candy Confections. The cheerful color of the striped awning and the gleam of warm lamplight inside seemed quite welcoming compared to the rest of the city. Before she crossed the street to the candy shop, she stopped in front of a nearby hardware store to read the list of rationed goods on offer.
As she bent forward, a flicker of movement reflected in the shop window caught her eye. A dark figure followed her. She glanced to the side. Apart from them, the street was empty. The pistol in her boot suddenly seemed inordinately out-of-reach. She leaned down as if to ease a stone from her shoe. Behind her, she heard the sound of running footsteps.
She yanked the pistol out and spun to face her attacker.
The first blow of the lead pipe knocked the pistol from her hand. The second smashed across her skull, sending her reeling into the street. The pipe rose and fell once more, and then there was only darkness.
Chapter 10
~* * *~
What the Watcher Saw
The Indian mahout paid close attention to the footprints every person left in the snow. He tensed like a dog on the scent when the fortune teller walked past him. Shortly after she walked out into the woods for her morning constitutional, so did he. I noticed when she didn’t return, even after a time period that would satisfy the demands of the most vigorous constitution. With nothing to do all day but watch, I am quite good at it.
Some hours later, the mahout returned from the woods with a dark red blot on his paper-white sleeve.
I told myself I didn’t care if he’d hurt the fortune teller, though she had been kind enough to me—in the way that she was kind enough to everyone. The mahout was more promising. He was not bound by the same conventions and fears as the rest of the circus. He had seen me and not flinched. But he would do nothing unless he benefited from it, and what could I do for him?
~ * ~
Christopher Knall, Ringmaster- and Clown-in-Training
Not Too Far From New York City
Wind whistled through the branches. If that wind hadn’t set the fortune teller’s veil to flapping, Christopher wouldn’t have seen it. It had been tied around a tree branch a good four feet above head level, and the veil blended with the dark gray of the tree bark.
His boots crunched across the snow as he searched around the base of the marked tree. A couple of feet away, he found a depression where the snow and leaves looked like they’d been recently disturbed. He knelt in the snow and dug.
He found the fortune teller’s eye-shatteringly bright kaftan, her shawls, a number of her rings and necklaces—and nothing else. Huffing with frustration, he straightened and dusted the snow from his knees. A single line of footprints led up to the clothing cache.
None led away.
That just wasn’t possible. The fortune teller might, maybe, have some special insight into the future; he would not credit that she could also fly. He glared at the smooth, unbroken snow surrounding him.
Wait. Smooth, yes. Unbroken, no. One swath lacked the crystalline sheen of the rest. He squatted beside it and squinted. Small brush marks rewarded him. She’d swept out her footprints. Grinning, he rose and trotted along beside the path-that-wasn’t.
After a few minutes of tracking, a line of small boot prints resumed, heading for New York City.
Out of sight, something clattered against the branches. Christopher jumped. A weird animal cry like the rasp of a saw mocked him.
Christopher looked around but saw nothing.
With a shiver, he retraced his steps. At the marked tree, he bundled up the fortune teller’s clothing and tucked it under his coat.
As he approached the circus camp, he heard a wavering cry of, “Doom!”
~ * ~
“You found footprints?” Ginger the clown asked, incredulous.
“She’d swept them away with a pine branch, but it left the snow looking disturbed.”
Ginger nodded. “After even a light snow, nobody could have followed her trail.” Ginger looked at Christopher appraisingly. “Most wouldn’t have found it, even now. You’ll do.”
Christopher fought to keep from grinning, until Ginger spoiled the moment by adding, “Of course, even a halfwit would know that the only place to go around here is New York City.”
“Ginger, why would she go anywhere? What’s going on? What’s Operation White Rabbit?”
“Kid, I’m not even supposed to know about White Rabbit. I’m just nosy by nature—and trade—so I took the chance to snoop through her orders when she was first sent to join the circus.”
“Sent.”
Ginger gave an exaggerated shrug and a clownish raise of his eyebrows.
Christopher refused to be distracted. “White Rabbit.”
Ginger sobered. “If the fortune teller suspected an enemy among us, she was to disappear into the night and report.” He stared in the direction of the city. “Whether there’s anyone still alive to report to is another question.”
“Can we tell everyone she’s missing now?”
Ginger visibly weighed his answer.
“No,” he said finally. “If the person she’s running from doesn’t know she’s gone, we won’t tip her hand. We’ll just make sure we’re both in the groups sent into New York.”
“Sent to New York?” Christopher echoed.
Ginger raised an eyebrow. “What, you thought we came here just to stare at the city and then go away?” He squinted at the sky. “You wait and see, it’ll be hashed out around the cook fire tonight. Tomorrow morning, some of us will go in. If we left now, there wouldn’t be much daylight left once we reached the city. Not a good idea to go into a strange city after dark without proper reconnaissance. Don’t know if it’s hostile or not, can’t see as well to escape or fight … just a bad proposition.”
~ * ~
That evening, Ginger�
�s prediction proved to be true.
At first, they all ate supper in glum silence. The stew was bland, filled with parsnips and potatoes, with only a smidge of carrot and the faint memory of bacon grease to add flavor. Nobody particularly liked it, but nobody particularly blamed Cook.
One of the hostlers took a bottle of pepper sauce out of his coat pocket and gave it a good shake over his bowl.
“Hey, pass that down!” the roustabout sitting next to him said.
The hostler cuddled the bottle closer to him. “No! Maybe you ain’t been paying attention, but grocers are getting kinda scarce on the ground.”
“Yeah, so we got to share and share alike. Give it!”
“Like your mama does? Hell, no!”
The roustabout’s hands fisted and he took a swing
The hostler, accustomed to dodging hooves, scrambled to his feet and out of the way.
The hostler tucked the hot sauce bottle back into his coat, but when his hand came back out, he held a hoof pick. Its wickedly curved blade gleamed in the firelight. “It’s mine,” he growled. “You want it, you come and take it.”
Lacey the equestrienne was on her feet. “Boys!” she said, with all the sharpness of an irate governess. “Stop that this instant!” Her refined accent cut crisply through the night air.
The hostler fell back, his hoof pick disappearing back inside his coat. The roustabout plopped back down, looking rather shamefaced.
“We are not savages,” Lacey reminded them. “And we are not starving.” She scowled at the roustabout “A man’s hot sauce is his own.” The hostler began to grin—until she turned her attention on him. “You are quite free to choose whether or not to share.” Her tone left no doubt as to what she thought the proper outcome would be.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the hostler muttered, settling awkwardly back down beside the roustabout. “And sorry about the cussin’.” Slowly, as if the movement pained him, he pulled out the hot sauce bottle. He held it in his hand for a moment, weighing it, and then tossed it to the roustabout. “Here, help yourself.”
The roustabout gingerly caught the bottle. He sprinkled just enough of the sauce on his stew to be polite before handing the bottle back. “Thanks. You didn’t got to share.”
Both the men looked up at Lacey. She smiled approvingly back.
When she turned around, she found the eyes of everyone upon her. A blush rose to her cheeks.
“Brings up a good point, though,” Cook said. “What we traded for in Seppanen Town will keep us from starving, but there’s not a whole lot of variety. I know my limitations. Soon enough I’ll be trying fir needle soup just to spice things up. If we could get a few more staples from New York …”
Lacey nodded. “We do need to go in, but—”
The Indian mahout interrupted her. “I am thinking we do not want to be going in big parade. We are not knowing what we will find.”
Lacey blinked. “Yes, we should send emissaries to speak with the mayor.” She paused, as if she expected someone else to speak. When nobody did, a slight frown pinched her brows. She looked around with, and then continued, “A lady shouldn’t put herself forward, but I suppose I would be the best choice, for the same reason that I was asked—” again that searching look, “—to speak to the mayor of Boston.”
“A lady needs an escort. I’ll accompany you,” Ginger volunteered gallantly.
“What about Mr. Doom?” blurted out Michael, the monkey handler. “He likes people. If he got lost, he’d go to the city.” He gulped. “I can look around and figure out where he might go while you’re talking to the mayor.”
“No-one should go alone,” Lacey said, her brow creased. “We should travel in groups—at least pairs. Cities aren’t safe.” Her eyes flicked to Christopher and away. “If they offer us food or drink, not all of us should take it. That way, even if they drug it, they’ll still have a fight on their hands. Worst case, there’s one person to escape and warn the rest of us.”
Christopher grimaced, not in disagreement, but because of what he could have avoided if he’d followed a similar plan when he entered Seppanen Town.
Then he jumped, because Ginger had just elbowed him in the ribs. “I’ll go too,” he volunteered.
Lacey smiled maternally at him. “Thank you.”
The rest of the meal passed in peace. After the crowd broke up, leaving Cook to do the washing-up, Lacey walked over and sat beside Ginger. “The fortune teller isn’t here,” she said quietly. “I know that you and she talked often. Do you know where she is?”
Ginger shook his head. “I wish I did. New York, maybe.”
“Well.” Lacey stood, shaking out her skirts. “We have another stray to look for, then.”
~ * ~
Lacey Miller, the Fabulous Lady Equestrienne Who Defies the Fiery Rings of Death!
Bronx County, on the outskirts of Manhattan
Lacey frowned at the river that lay between them and the city. Their little group’s progress through the Bronx countryside had left her skittish. They’d passed too many abandoned farms stripped of anything of value, including—perhaps especially—the livestock. The few farmfolk remaining had watched them pass from the farmhouse steps, unsmiling, rifles to hand. A couple of farms they’d glimpsed in the distance seemed overpopulated by farm hands, a circumstance that reminded them all too closely of Seppanen Town. They’d swung wide to avoid those.
It would have been a quick trip if the railroad through the Bronx countryside to New York City still ran, or if they’d ridden horseback. She would have felt much better if she’d been astride a fast horse, instead of stumbling along on foot, but Ginger had pointed out that horses would be seen as valuable and maybe worth ambushing a small group of travelers for.
In general, it had been an expedition unsettling to Lacey’s nerves. The uncanny wheezing and rattling animal noises that trailed them, as if they were being stalked by some predator just out of sight, hadn’t helped.
And now they faced the Harlem River and the curved wall grew in an arc around where the bridge connected the mainland to New York. The wall was only a couple of feet high, but the ant hive of activity around it would soon change that. A stream of men and women carried bricks and stones over the bridge and dumped them in a mound. Other laborers worked to mortar the wall’s building blocks into place. Even complete, the wall wouldn’t entirely block off the outside world; there was a four-foot gap where the wall marched across the road. A blue-clad policeman sat on the edge, his rifle leaning against the wall. He appeared to be eating something. Beyond the wall, a single layer of bricks marked a square that might become the foundation for a new building.
“They’re defending the bridge over the river, building—a fort, or something,” Lacey said. “That can’t be good.”
“They’re not doing a very good job of it, either,” Ginger said. “See there—they’re only building the wall to the river edge. Unless they guard the water’s edge as well, any attackers could just circle around and attack them from the river. So whoever’s doing this doesn’t have military advisers. That’s very interesting. This is a port town; there are military forts near the harbor. Why isn’t Fort Hamilton helping?”
“Maybe because it’s slave labor building this fortification,” Christopher said grimly.
Ginger cleared his throat. “Could be, but let’s not overlook the most important part.” He pointed at the bodies dangling from the lampposts on the bridge.
“Are we armed?” Lacey asked, wishing she’d asked before they left the circus camp.
“I have a pistol,” Ginger said. “And it’s hidden where nobody will find it unless they’re very fond of other men.”
“Oh!” Michael said. “I didn’t even think of—I mean, I don’t have a weapon anyway, but …”
“Should we go back?” Christopher asked.
“I think the nice policeman sitting on the edge of that wall would find that suspicious,” Ginger said. “He’s looking right at us.”
&nbs
p; “He hasn’t aimed his rifle at us,” Lacey said dubiously.
“Maybe because he doesn’t want to drop his sandwich. Let’s not give him reason to.” Ginger strode forward, hands open by his sides and a wide smile on his face.
With a dismayed, “Hmph!” Lacey hurried after him. She looked over her shoulder and saw Christopher and Michael still standing there, with identical doubtful looks on their faces. “Come on!” she said. “We’re committed.”
“Ought to be committed—to Bedlam,” Christopher muttered as he followed along after her. She pretended she hadn’t heard.
“Hello!” Ginger was saying to the policeman when she caught up to him. “You are a sight for sore eyes.”
The policeman blinked, clearly unaccustomed to being greeted with such enthusiasm. He cleared his throat. “Welcome to New York City,” he said gruffly. He straightened into something approximating attention, though one hand—the one that had been holding a sandwich—remained tucked behind his back.
Lacey’s nose twitched at the scent of boiled ham, and her mouth salivated involuntarily.
Any bits of meat the circus hunted up got tossed in the stew, making it more nourishing and adding a bit of welcome flavor. The knife thrower was getting better at pegging squirrels, and the girl sharpshooter had bagged a rabbit or two, but they agreed that there was less game in the countryside than there ought to be.
Lacey pushed away the thoughts of food and put on her brightest smile. “We are here to speak with the Mayor. Can you direct us to him?”
One of the policeman’s lips twitched up at the corners. “The Mayor? Oh, yes, I know exactly where you can find him.”
Sensing something amiss, but not sure what, Lacey changed the subject. “Did you see a woman come in yesterday?”
“What does she look like?”
“Um—ah—” Lacey’s mouth flapped like a beached fish.
“An outsider,” Ginger put in. “Not someone who’d been in the city before.”
The policeman shrugged. “Not during my shift. We rotate, you know.”