by D. J. Butler
“I’m his kin,” Cal said. “And we went around.”
The lawyer laughed, his eyes narrowed, and he fell silent.
“What about you?” Cal asked. “Pennslander like you are, it’s a mite odd to see you in Free Imperial Nashville. Wasn’t they enough lawsuits for you to chase after in Philadelphia?”
“Philadelphia has plenty of lawsuits,” Logan Huber agreed. “It also has plenty of lawyers. They hover over the city like a flock of vultures, and at the appearance of the slightest scrap of carrion they all plunge together, clawing and pecking at each other for the work.”
“You make the profession sound so romantic,” Cal said. “I almost wish I’d taken up the wig and gavel myself.”
“You’re thinking of judges,” Huber said. “They’re the ones who wear the wig and bang the gavel on the table.”
“Right, judges,” Cal agreed. “Ain’t they the ones as get to hang lawyers?”
Logan Huber’s laughter was forced. “Only if the lawyers misbehave.”
“Ain’t that what we was talkin’ about? Lawyers misbehavin’?”
At the foot of Calhoun Mountain, Huber climbed out of the coach and onto the back of Cal’s second horse. The lawyer must have been three times Serafina Tate’s weight, but the sturdy mountain animal made no complaint as its bearskin-wrapped bundle made himself comfortable.
Cal whistled on the shorter ride up the ridge. What did the lawyer want? He wished he’d read the Elector’s instructions himself before delivering them, but his grandpa had handed the letter over with a seal on it, and the Lord hated a man as opened a sealed book before its time.
Next time, though, he’d ask his grandpa for more information.
To his surprise, Caleb waved both of them up the draw without any kind of challenge. Iron Andy sat in a rocking chair on the porch of his dog-trot, a long Kentucky rifle across his knees, his one hand resting, casually, on the weapon’s stock.
“Alright, grandpa,” Cal called, reining in his horse. “I brought that lawyer for target practice like you asked. Tell me how many yards you want, and I’ll tie him up.”
“More fun to shoot at a lawyer when he’s runnin’,” Iron Andy said, no hint of a smile in his face.
“You want I should give him a headstart, or should I jest shout ‘go’?”
“Elector Calhoun,” Huber nodded his salute.
Iron Andy pursed his lips. “Calvin, I didn’t ask you to bring the lawyer back up with you.”
“No.” Cal sighed. “On the other hand, you must a reckoned it was a possibility it would play out like this, ’cause you told Caleb in advance to send the lawyer on up.”
Andy cracked a smile. “True. And I b’lieve I know you well enough to say that you wouldn’t a brought the lawyer up, or done anythin’ different from what I instructed, lessen they was exigent circumstances.”
Cal hesitated. “Am I right to reckon that ‘exigent circumstances’ means I had no choice?”
Andrew Calhoun nodded.
“In that case, yes. The exigent circumstances are that the lawyer hisself insisted.”
The Elector squinted briefly at the lawyer. “You reckon he’s jest runnin’ up the bill, chargin’ me by the hour while he rides up and down the mountain on the back of one of my own horses, enjoyin’ the view?”
“I considered that,” Cal admitted. “He’s a Nashville lawyer, after all, and you know how they are: a little scrap of lawyerin’ work appears, and they all pile on it like buzzards.”
Huber chuckled. “You could at least give me credit for the image.”
Cal nodded. “That’s what Huber hisself told me, about lawyers bein’ vultures. He also told me that you jest didn’t reckon with the legal technicalities of a proxy, and he needed to come on up the mountain to git the work done here.”
“You find that credible, do you?” Andy’s jaw jutted out more than usual.
“I do not,” Cal said. “Ain’t a man on Calhoun Mountain knows the Compact better than you do. Technicalities and all.”
“I argued over that thing a summer entire,” the Elector said.
“Don’t I know it,” Cal agreed. “And I thought of that when the lawyer told me you might not a understood. And that’s when I reckoned, don’t the Compact provide legal immunity for Electors?”
“Everythin’ but treason,” Iron Andy said. “The only thing any court in the land can touch me for is treason, and the jury has to be made up of Electors. Mind you, as a practical matter, if Tommy Penn was ready to start hangin’ Electors, I don’t expect he’d necessarily hold out for the fig leaf of a magistrate’s say-so. Still, it’s some protection.”
“What I don’t know,” Cal said, “but mebbe you can tell me, is if proxyholders git the same immunity.”
Logan Huber muttered a curse under his breath.
“For the duration of the proxy, yes. They do,” the Elector said.
“I reckoned that might be the case,” Cal said. “You know, if Walter Fitzroy had only written songs about the Compact instead of listin’ out the Electors, I might a known that without askin’.”
“Tell me what you’re thinkin’, then.”
“I’m thinkin’ the reason we got a Pennslander lawyer in Nashville ain’t that they was too many buzzards in the big city so he come out to the hills to find work with less competition. I figure they’s a warrant out for his arrest in Pennsland. Likely Philadelphia itself.”
“William Penn’s bones,” the lawyer grumbled. “Did I ever underestimate you.”
Cal shrugged. “Mebbe you did. I think he wants to git back to Philadelphia without gittin’ hisself arrested, and this is his chance. So he made up his cock-and-bull tale about how he needed to come up the mountain to do what you asked. But instead, I reckon he’s goin’ to tell you he should have the proxy, and not me.”
Andy Calhoun turned to his lawyer. Maybe, just maybe, the rifle across his lap shifted position slightly. “That about the size of it?”
Logan Huber had turned red. “I should tell you that I’m not a criminal.”
“You lookin’ to carry my imprimatur to the Electoral Assembly, you gotta tell me more than that.”
“I wasn’t going to trick you,” Huber said. “I would have told you everything.”
“You ain’t tellin’ me everythin’ now,” the Elector pointed out.
“I had a partner at the bar,” Huber said. “Our firm was Becker and Rupp. Business associations, debt proceedings, admiralty, commercial law. We traveled all over Pennsland, the Haudenosaunee country, and the eastern Ohio. We made a good living.”
“Which is as much as to say, your name ain’t Logan Huber.”
“Logan Rupp,” the lawyer admitted. “Huber was my mother’s name, so it isn’t so much a disguise as a change of emphasis.”
“It’s a disguise,” the Elector said.
Logan Rupp sighed. “Becker turned out to be a bigamist. Or rather, since bigamist would imply that he had two wives simultaneously—in fact, it turns out he had five—he was a pentagamist. When he finally broke down and admitted to me what was going on, he joked that he needed Walter Fitzroy to write him a song to remember his wives’ names and the cities they lived in.”
“He spent his money on the women.”
“And the children.” Rupp nodded. “He was, in his way, a sincere family man. I believe he loved each of his families, perhaps equally. And each of them believed they were the only family, and entitled to his full share of the partnership income. He worked like a demon. For years I didn’t understand why.”
“But it wasn’t enough,” Cal guessed, “so he stole from you.”
“Oh, he stole from me,” Rupp agreed, “but that was hardly the problem. No, he stole from clients. He took client funds we had won in judgments, or were holding in escrow, and he dispatched them to his wives.”
“Intending to pay them back,” Andy Calhoun suggested, “only of course he never did.”
Rupp’s shoulders slumped. “John Hancock himself came af
ter us at law when Becker failed to pay him the proceeds of an insurance claim for a shipwreck. He had all our partnership assets, which at that point were nearly zero, and then he commenced actions against both of us personally, for fraud.”
“And did you commit fraud?” Iron Andy asked sternly.
“No!” Rupp nearly shouted. “Becker was the senior partner, and I trusted him to handle the money. I knew he was delaying payments to me, but I assumed he was merely tardy. If I had known…”
“Where’s Becker now?” Cal asked.
“Dead.” Rupp’s face was glum. “He hanged himself and burned all his papers shortly after Hancock commenced his suit. I think he saw it as the only way to protect his families from shame and impoverishment.”
“Did it work?” Cal asked.
“I doubt it. John Hancock was a ruthless man. I imagine he hunted down those women and took what he believed was his.”
“And you ran,” the Elector said. “And changed the emphasis of your name.”
“Even so.” Rupp nodded.
“All of which don’t really explain why you want to go back,” Cal said.
Rupp hesitated. “I was also married. I suppose I am married. Though for all I know, she has taken another man by now, my daughters have a new father, and I have forced her into unwitting bigamy.”
“She thinks you’re dead?”
Rupp nodded. “I still send her money but I do it through a Beguine cloister, so she can’t know where it’s really coming from.”
“But mebbe,” Cal guessed slowly, “you’re hopin’ she has figured it out. Mebbe you’re hopin’ she’s figured you’re alive and hasn’t remarried.”
Rupp hung his head.
The Elector stared at the gray horizon for long moments and then spat a stream of tobacco juice off his porch. Finally, he stood and leaned his long rifle against the wall.
“I ain’t givin’ you my proxy, Huber,” he said to the lawyer.
“I understand. I’m a fraud.”
“That ain’t it. It’s got to be Calvin as goes on this errand I need done. But iffen you want to go along with him, I’ll write you a letter of credit and protection.”
Rupp looked up and frowned. “I don’t know that legal document.”
Calhoun cracked into a smile. “It ain’t a legal document, you ninny. It’s a letter as’ll say you’re under my protection, and iffen anybody has any claims against you, I invite them to take the claims up with me so’s we can negotiate a settlement.”
Rupp gasped. “Hancock’s losses alone were enormous. With the other creditors—”
“Don’t let that horse gallop off jest yet, counselor,” the Elector said. “I ain’t a-promisin’ to pay, jest invitin’ any creditor of yours to calm down and come negotiate with me. And I’ll pay you a daily rate, though if I end up havin’ to pay John Hancock or some other disappointed shipowner, I’ll take the settlement amount out of what I owe you.”
“I accept,” Rupp said. “Gladly. Thank you, sir. That’s more than fair.”
The Elector nodded at the Thinkin’ Shed. “I expect you’ll want to git set up in there. They’s a table. I’ll have Cal here go collect Polly and Red Charlie and Ole Kuta to come witness.”
Rupp tumbled off his horse in a pile of rucked-up bearskin and climbed onto the porch. As he tossed the skin aside, Cal saw for the first time that he carried a wide, shallow wooden box with a hinged handle attached to it, as well as a small green book whose cover read ELECTORAL FORMS. “I’ll get this drafted directly. We’ll be ready to witness in ten minutes.”
The lawyer let himself into the Thinkin’ Shed.
Andy stepped to the edge of his porch and leaned out. With Cal mounted, the two men stood eye to eye. “Huber, or Rupp—or whatever his name is—will come in handy. Truth is, I expected him to come runnin’ up the hill with an offer to accompany you for a fee. This story about an ex-partner is all a surprise.”
“I don’t mind havin’ someone as knows Philadelphia at my side,” Cal said. “Not to mention the law, and the Compact.”
The Elector nodded. “Jest don’t trust him any further’n you need to. He’s a lawyer, after all.”
* * *
“That’s Fort Schuyler.” Dockery nodded at the angular walls of the castle above them. Kinta Jane knew that the triangular sections of stone wall that jutted out and gave the castle its vaguely starlike shape were intended to expose attackers to the maximum possible gunfire, while forcing them to shoot at the fortress from far away. “The Republic built it, back before the Compact.”
“Acadia starts here, then?” Kinta Jane asked.
“This is the boundary,” Dockery agreed. Mist rose from the water around them and veiled the steep, snow-covered hills frowning down at the canoe. “Lake Ticonderoga.”
“I am thinking a news-paper article might get us what we want,” Kinta Jane said tentatively.
Dockery paddled in silence.
“What do you think?”
“You mean, print something that will attract the attention of the right people. An invitation.”
“Of course, the trick will be doing that without attracting any of the wrong people,” Kinta Jane quickly acknowledged.
“Who are the wrong people, exactly?” Dockery asked.
“The right people are whoever answers to the name Brother Odishkwa.” Kinta Jane remembered her confrontation with the Emperor Thomas Penn in his library in Horse Hall. “Which might be no one at all. Maybe the rightful Odishkwa has completely forgotten.”
“Or has laid down his burden,” Dockery said bitterly, “and in preference is chasing his own personal wealth.”
“I’m sorry about Julia,” Kinta Jane said.
“I’m sorry about Wilkes,” Dockery shot back. “I’m sorry about Julia, too. I’m sorry about all of it. Except I’m not sorry I drowned Gert Visser like a rat. That’s nothing but what he deserved.”
Kinta Jane watched the mountains and the gray clouds above them through the mists. It was pure illusion, but the mist made her imagine that the waters over which she paddled, which were nearly freezing, were instead warm. The long lake valley had a mystical, ghostlike feel to it. She half-expected King Arthur and his knights to sally out of Fort Schuyler and ride down the mountain to her rescue.
If it came to it, she wouldn’t say no.
“The wrong people is anyone else,” she said.
“And especially the Heron King.”
“Do you think he sees here?” Kinta Jane had assumed they were beyond the reach of Simon Sword once they’d crossed the mountains and begun descending toward Philadelphia.
Dockery shrugged. “Beastkind ain’t common on the coast, but you do see them occasionally. I assume if there’s beastkind, there can be Simon Sword.”
“I was imagining that the old allies would be watching and waiting, and that we’d be beyond the Heron King’s reach. Think about the geography of it: William Penn, the Algonks, and the Anaks. All those lands lie on the edge of the Ohio. They border it, but they’re not in it. If you wanted allies who would act to contain Simon Sword, this is who you would choose.”
“Not Memphis, or the Appalachee? Not the Ohio Kingdoms themselves?”
Kinta Jane thought about that. “I don’t know. But the story is about three brothers I know that one of them is the Penn Landholder, and I’m pretty sure the other two are an Algonk leader and one of the giants. Maybe that’s just who was available. Or who agreed to join.”
“The Appalachee are a fractious lot,” Dockery agreed, “and Memphis is aloof.”
“Or maybe it’s who was there at the time key events happened.”
They paddled in silence for a time. Thunder rolled, and Dockery laughed.
“There’s old Hendrick,” he said.
“You mean…one of the three brothers?”
“No, I mean the thunder,” Dockery said. “When thunder rolls within earshot of the Hudson, it’s supposed to be the ghost of old Hendrick Hudson himself, play
ing at ninepins with the skulls and bones of his dead crewmen.”
“That doesn’t sound like the behavior of a good leader.”
“Who can say what makes a good leader? You lead our expedition well enough, there might come a time I’m happy enough for you to play ninepins with my skeleton.”
Kinta Jane laughed. “Well, I believe I know the place where Brother Odishkwa would expect to meet. All I need to do is send the signal.”
“I think it’s a reasonable bet,” Dockery said. “Though you don’t need my agreement.”
“Yes I do,” she said.
“This is your mission,” he said. “I’ll do what you say. I’m a faithful man, however rough I may appear.”
“I’m not Wilkes,” Kinta Jane said. “He knew everything, had spies and contacts everywhere, and kept his own counsel. I have only a vague idea of what I’m doing, the thought of which nearly makes me choke, since I fear the end of the world as I know it. You’ve traveled this part of the Empire; I never have. I value your advice, Dockery. I need it.”
“You can have it,” Dockery said. “For starters, I think a news-paper is a fine vehicle for reaching out to our allies. It allows us to speak in the kind of double-talk old Ben Franklin loved. But we’re going to need to figure out a message that’s a little more eye-catching than: Brother Odishkwa, it’s time to meet.”
* * *
Monsieur Bondí entered Etienne’s room nearly at a run. “They’ve left New Orleans!”
They were not staying at one of Onyinye’s many hotels, because Etienne didn’t want to be too much in debt to that single ally. Instead, he and Bondí and Achebe were staying at a house belonging to Don Sandoval, a Spaniard merchant they’d rescued from the hulks.
Not the Don’s actual home, which remained occupied by his family, and possibly watched by the gendarmes.
Though possibly not. With the chevalier’s increasing failure to pay, many recent gendarme recruits had deserted. Those without the wit or the means to escape into the bayous or upriver were to be seen bolted into the stocks or chained to whipping posts at busy intersections around the city.
Monsieur Bondí had reported rumors of crucifixions in the cases where fleeing recruits had also stolen the chevalier’s property (that is to say, taken their new rifle with them), but so far, they had only been rumors.