The Clockwork Century: Fiddlehead Part 25

"We don't have to, and you know it!"

Gideon frowned. "What do you mean by that?" he whispered.

Grant whispered in return. "Confused? Good. They'll be confused too. Let 'em think we're up to something. Right now, they'll a.s.sume we mean to dig in our heels, but we could also have a plan to sneak him away, or call in reinforcements of our own. Lincoln has many friends, and someone will come calling eventually-or, for that matter, someone will notice that the president is missing."

"Good. If we can hold on until dawn, they may decide this is more dangerous than they'd prefer and try a different approach. But," Gideon warned, "they'll come again. For him. For me."

"Son," Grant said. It was precisely the sort of voice that usually felt like nails on a chalkboard to Gideon, but for some reason, he didn't mind it now. "All I can do is buy you time. But I doubt you need much more than that to think your way out of this."

"Your vote of confidence is ... meaningful to me."

"You're welcome."

Someone outside disturbed the moment with a threat: "Don't make us set fire to the house!"

Gideon and Grant paused and looked at each other across the door-each one trying to read the other, and gauge what they thought about that. Grant shook his head first. "If they could, they'd have done it already," he said. "Haymes is a gambling woman, but she wouldn't push them that far."

"How do you know she's a gambler?"

"She spends all her time with politicians. Name me a bigger risk if you can."

"Are you going to answer them?"

Both men sat on the floor, watching from behind the swaying blankets. The wind had calmed, but only a bit. The night was still full of treacherous gusts, and threatening, broiling black clouds that hid all the stars.

"Yes, I'll answer them. Like this," Grant said. Then he shouted, "Light up a flare, and we'll shoot any man who holds it!"

Silence in response.

After a few seconds of what must have been conferral: "Our offer stands!"

Quietly, Grant said, "Oh does it, now? Well, good for them."

Nelson Wellers came tiptoeing around the corner, and announced himself by saying, "They'll do it, if they're Haymes's men. She's done worse than cook a family alive."

"Sit down, doctor."

"I can't let them harm the Lincolns. I won't have that on my conscience, not when I prevent it just by being less of a coward."

"Thinking beyond the first option isn't cowardice. If we beat this, you stay alive, and Gideon stays alive, his credibility intact. His editorial finishes taking the nation by storm-we all know the story is well on its way around the globe, so maybe, if we're very lucky, it takes the South by storm as well. The war ends. The walking dead are vanquished. Stepping stones, doctor. Stepping stones."

"Send him out, or we're coming in!"

Grant said, "See? They're backtracking. They aren't threatening to burn the place down anymore. First blood was ours, and the first retreat is theirs."

"Maybe they couldn't reach Haymes?" Wellers suggested, but he put a question mark on the end.

"That would make sense," Gideon mused. "They're rather marvelously disorganized out there."

The president peered out once more. "You could be right. And if you are, that's one more advantage. We're racking them up, over here!"

"Until they actually try to come inside." Polly stood at the edge of the foyer. She spoke from the shadows behind the staircase, where no one could see her very well. "Then what do we do, Mr. Grant?"

"Then, my dear, when they try to come inside, we forcibly keep them out. Wellers, now that we've gotten the house as secure as possible, it's time to ask: Does Abe have any other guns on the premises?"

"I'm sure he must."

Polly answered. "There's a cabinet in the cellar."

"There's a cellar?" Grant hesitated. "Oh that's right. And it opens to the outside?"

"Yes, sir, it does."

Gideon threw up a hand, volunteering himself. "Polly, take me to it. I'll secure the cellar and bring up guns for everyone."

Wellers was taken aback. "Mary, too?"

"Abe said she's a better shot than he is," Grant replied.

Gideon groaned. "I've seen her. She's not terrible, but close enough. Still, he's in that chair, and his hands barely work-so technically, he's right. Doesn't matter. We need every able body, and Mary's able enough. Polly, take me to the guns, and be quick about it."

"Good plan," Grant said, endorsing it. "Now, Wellers, I want you to stay here and man the front. This is where they've been trying to communicate from, up until now, but they'll be investigating the rest of the house, testing doors and trying their luck in other places. I'm going to do some reconnaissance. And as soon as Gideon gets back from his mission, I want him to relieve you."

"All right." Gideon agreed over his shoulder, one hand on Polly's arm so she could lead him through the darkness.

The president's instructions to Nelson Wellers followed behind him. "When he returns, you take the east wing. I'll patrol the west. Do your best not to answer them, except with bullets. They may know your voice. Let's keep them guessing about who's inside."

Polly drew Gideon into the large entryway, past the parlor and its unattended fireplace, burning low. Softly, she asked him, "Are you really going to give Mary a gun?"

"If she'll take one."

"So ... that's a yes?"

"Yes," he affirmed. "She doesn't have to shoot well or wisely; we only need people who can shoot from inside, at various locations, giving the impression that the whole house is occupied ... and there's not just the six of us to hold down the fort."

"So you'll give me a gun too?"

"Yes, and I'll expect you to use it."

"I don't know if I can," she whispered. "Watch out for that-yes, there. There's a step before the door."

He caught himself before he could fall, smacking one hand against the frame in order to steady his balance. "You can, and you will if you have to. This is the cellar? I've never been down here."

"There's not much to see," she said vaguely. "Some storage, is all. Canned things, preserves. No books, though."

"No books?"

She shook her head as she unlocked the door with a key from her ap.r.o.n pocket. "No. Mr. Lincoln says it's too damp, and he loves them all too much to keep them there."

"He doesn't love any of them so much that he won't build a wall with them, in the hope that it filters out any stray bullets."

Polly shrugged a little and opened the door. "It's different for him. He says books saved his life. I guess he figures books can go on saving his life, but he won't stash them someplace damp and let them rot. They don't do anyone any good that way. And, you have to admit, he has a point."

The cellar was utterly black, without the first hint of a light. "Polly, I can't see a thing," Gideon said as he felt his way down the steps with his toes, sc.r.a.ping them across each board in search of its end, and then lowering them blindly until they stopped against the next one.

"Don't worry. There's a lantern at the bottom in case the electric lights go out."

"Does that happen very often?"

"When there's weather like this, yes. The gas lamps are more reliable, but Mr. Lincoln says electricity is the future. He's having the old system replaced, a bit at a time, but he started in the cellar. He said he didn't want to put the technology anyplace important until it was tested."

"His love of novelty has always been at war with his innate sense of caution," Gideon mumbled. "Where's this lantern? And are there any windows down here?"

"Almost got it. And no, no windows, so no one will see it when we light it up."

She pulled farther ahead of him, and soon, from the bottom of the steps, a light came up so brightly that it nearly blinded him.

He winced and looked away until she carried it off and his eyes adjusted. Then he joined her in the cellar-a finished, clean s.p.a.ce, but low of ceiling and somewhat cold compared to the rest of the house. From down there, the wind was much subdued, as there were no nooks or crannies, loose window panes, or fireplaces for it to sc.r.a.pe against. There was nothing at all to see but foundation stones and rough-hewn shelves holding canned goods, disused kitchen supplies, and seasonal items that would come upstairs when the calendar called for them.

And against the far wall, a nice pine cabinet.

Polly approached it and tugged the k.n.o.b. It wasn't locked.

Upstairs, the temporary quiet was broken by more pops of gunfire, some from within, some from without. Gideon counted six shots from the Lincoln compound, and eight from outside it. Waste of bullets, all. A game of spending time and ammunition, seeing who had the most and who could least afford to lose it.

Polly also paused to hear out the shots upstairs. Their eyes met-hers wide and worried, his calculating and angry. The yellow glare of the lantern engulfed them, but not much beyond them; everything past the gun cabinet and the nearest wall of preserves remained cast in darkness. One more m.u.f.fled bang-from inside, he thought-and then silence.

Whatever was going on, it wasn't going away. The men outside would find their way inside eventually.

He spied the cellar door, up a short set of stairs. He climbed them and made sure it was locked, then returned to the cabinet.

He nudged Polly aside and reached for the contents. Two rifles and three smaller handguns. At a glance, it looked like a lone Colt and a pair of Remingtons. No surprise there. Old military men often preferred them, and every president counts as military by default. Two boxes of ammunition of varying sizes lurked beneath the guns. He pointed them out to Polly. "Take those and follow me. We'll sort it out in the library, and get you ladies armed like men."

"I don't know if I can kill anybody," she objected, so softly that, had she been another foot away, he wouldn't have understood her.

"No one's asking you to kill anyone. I'm asking you to stand inside and shoot outside, into the darkness." He made for the stairs, and she tagged along behind him, bearing the boxes and the lantern. "Shoot into the trees, for all I care. Just shoot, and it will tell them we aren't alone, we won't let them have Nelson Wellers, and none of us are going quietly."

Upstairs in the library he divvied out the available weaponry, leaving out the rifles for the present, since the women had no experience with them, Lincoln didn't have the reach to fire them, and besides, there was less ammunition to fuel them.

Mary took the Colt. Polly took one of the Remingtons. Mary vowed to teach Polly how to shoot, a prospect that worried Gideon-hardly better than the blind leading the blind-but not so much that he tried to stop her. She understood the mechanics, even if she was a danger to herself and others when she employed them. That was fine. It'd have to be fine.

Back to the front door he went, to relieve Nelson Wellers.

"I'm running low," the doctor confessed.

"There are bullets in the library. Not a magnificent stash, but enough to keep us on the defensive for another few hours yet, at this pace."

"They won't give us another few hours."

Gideon swallowed, and tweaked the edge of the blanket to look outside. He saw nothing at first, and then motion. Two men, and then a third. Then he heard shots at the other end of the house-and more shots answering from within, from Grant. "They've found reinforcements."

"They've been free to go and get them. We haven't. If we can make it to dawn..."

"Then what?" Gideon asked. "Then they'll be able to see us if we try to sneak away. No. If we're going to make some great move, we ought to make it before the sun comes up. The president likes to go on about our copious *advantages,' and we can't afford to squander one."

"Then what do you propose?" The worry on Wellers's face was digging in hard, setting lines there and drawing bags beneath his eyes.

"I propose to sit here and think about what to do next." Another shot, back in Grant's direction in the far hall. "Go see if he needs help. I'll stay here and watch the new fellows. If you run past the office, send me Mary."

"Mary?"

"She's a wild shot with an ax to grind. I may need to guard the east wing where her husband is."

"You think she'll leave him?"

"I think she might trust my aim more than hers. Go and see," he urged again. As Wellers left, he continued to eye the shadows outside. Yes, more men had definitely been rallied. If someone was shooting at the west wing, they'd added at least two-no, three, because here came another, scuttling through the darkness. It was looking like six to six, if Gideon were feeling optimistic. Even odds, except that it was three able-bodied men, two women, and a chairbound cripple versus six mercenaries.

Mary appeared beside him, her approach announced by the swish and sway of her skirts-and only then did Gideon notice that the wind was dying down. The makes.h.i.+ft curtains were not blowing quite so hard, and the chimneys were no longer being played like a set of organ pipes.

"All right, Gideon." She was brandis.h.i.+ng her weapon in a way that made him nervous, so he gently aimed it toward the floor for now. "What do I do?"

"Mrs. Lincoln, I want you to sit here and keep an eye on the front door, right here-through the edge of this blanket, see? Stay low, and keep from moving any more than necessary. The curtain will move some, because of the wind, but that's all right; we just don't want them taking shots at your head."

She nodded grimly, her eyes narrowed. "All right. And if anyone approaches the house, I shoot!"

"No! Or, yes, you should shoot ... but like this: If anyone approaches the front door here, I want you to fire a warning shot. Aim it anywhere: the sky, the ground, what have you. If it's a friend who's accidentally slipped through, coming to see about the ruckus, he'll identify himself. If it's a foe, he'll shoot back or start making demands. Either way, we'll hear you, and one of us will come to help. Is that all clear?"

"Crystal clear, yes." The old lady squeezed her gun with both hands, and sidled up to the wall beneath the window. "Now, go look after my husband."

He left her, and proceeded down the east wing hall, where the former president remained with Polly. He leaned his head around the corner, saw that all was well, and said, "Polly, I want you to come with me."

"And leave Mr. Lincoln?"

"Mr. Lincoln," Gideon addressed the man personally. "Do you have any objections?"

"None," he said firmly, holding one of the rifles across his lap, despite the previous decision to leave them for later. Gideon wasn't sure who'd given it to him, or if this was the best choice, given the man's lack of depth perception and limited use of his hands, but it looked impressive all the same. And, ah, yes: He still had the handgun ready, half concealed by the blankets.

Polly gazed at the man as if she'd do what she was told, but she wasn't prepared to like it much. "All right, Dr. Bardsley. What do I do?"

He led her out of the room and toward the foyer, to the stairs that led to the second story. "You go upstairs, and go back and forth between the windows. Draw all the curtains if they aren't drawn already, but do it carefully. Keep from being seen. I don't want anyone spying your shadow and taking a shot at you."

"Yes, sir. I'll do that."

"And I want you to watch for men who might be sneaking up on us from different sides. If you see such a man, fire a shot through a window in his general direction. Don't worry about hitting him, just let him know that you saw him."

"All right. I can do that."

"I know you can. And don't try to open a window-just shoot right through it. Gla.s.s isn't that expensive. You're worth more than the window, you hear me?"