Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century) Read online

  Somewhere in the city, a ball or some other gala event had just ended, and a beautiful room filled with finely presented tables was emptying, which meant that Mrs. Lincoln might not be home yet. She often lingered at these things, partly by her own preference and partly because she served as her husband’s social eyes and ears, for the former president rarely left the house since his near-fatal injury at Ford’s Theatre. It was too trying, he said; too much trouble for other people to accommodate him. So he kept to his own home and his own grounds, which had been altered to better suit his needs.

  Gideon kept his eyes open on the off chance Mrs. Lincoln’s buggy might pass by and he could flag her down, but it was not his lucky night. He walked the full distance, and by the time he reached the Lincoln estate his legs were heavier than lead.

  So far as estates went, it was a surprisingly modest one—at least from the exterior; the inside was filled with expensive gifts collected over the years from dignitaries near and far. The house itself was a simple two-story home with two wings, and a lift inside, for the president could not ascend stairs without immense assistance. Also due to Lincoln’s mechanized chair, all the outdoor paths were paved.

  Gideon almost tripped over the first walkway he passed. He might have cursed except that he was so relieved to have arrived. Lights burned up the hill at the homestead, giving him more than the nighttime sky or traffic to navigate by. He homed in on these electric torches, drawn like the moths and mosquitoes that hovered around the devices in a buzzing cloud. Up the half-dozen stairs he climbed, bypassing the ramp because it was less direct. Even after his long, cold hike, he was more impatient than tired.

  The front door opened before he could knock, and there stood a confused-looking Nelson Wellers.

  Mr. Lincoln’s personal physician was a gaunt young man with a cadaverous complexion. He was quick and capable, but he always wore the expression of someone carrying the weight of the world. Friendly enough despite his nervous disposition, he was well liked and trusted, even by Gideon, who had worked with him before. Together they had designed and perfected the ex-president’s wheeled chair, as well as some of the other tools that made life easier for the badly crippled politician.

  “Gideon!” Nelson cried. “There you are—thank God!”

  “Not a greeting I get every day.”

  The doctor reached out and grabbed the scientist by the coat lapels, drawing him bodily inside and shutting the door behind them both. “We just heard about the explosion, and Ephraim said there was no sign of you out at the Jefferson building. I was on my way to … to … to see if I could find you, I suppose. Did you walk all the way back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Dear God, it’s freezing out there.”

  “No, not quite.”

  From the parlor doorway, a woman gasped. “Oh, Mr. Bardsley!”

  Gideon threw her a nod, but did not make eye contact. “Polly,” he greeted the household lady-in-waiting, as Mrs. Lincoln often called her. One part maid, one part nurse, Polly Lockhart was a girl of mixed and indeterminate race—more white than otherwise. She was stout and small, much like the former first lady herself. She wrung her hands together, so they’d have something to do besides flutter.

  “Dr. Wellers was just about to go looking for you.”

  “So he says.”

  The doctor went to the nearby liquor cabinet and poured himself a stiff draught of very good bourbon, then offered one to Gideon, too. He shifted his bundle of paper and accepted the glass, knowing better than to hope it’d warm his feet, but appreciating the gesture. The beverage and the crystal service set beside it were a gift from a French ambassador, and easily worth more than his niece. He knew, because ten years ago he’d bought her freedom when he couldn’t steal it. The cost of the furnishings could have brought many more families across the line. The math filled his head but did not make it spin. Very few things could accomplish such a feat, least of all numbers.

  Gideon downed the drink and watched the new electric lights sparkle through the damp crystal.

  One of Polly’s fluttering, fretful hands touched his arm. “What happened out there?” she asked. “Can I help you with your … with this … package?”

  “No, Polly. I’ve got it under control. Two men broke in,” he answered her first question, handing the glass back to Nelson and glancing at his feet. He still couldn’t feel them, but he watched as they dripped and oozed a large damp spot on a very expensive rug from somewhere in the Ottoman empire.

  “Are you sure you aren’t hurt?” the doctor tried again, scrutinizing Gideon with a professional appraisal that was already telling him that all was well. “Can Polly take your coat?” he asked, his dubious tone suggesting he already knew the answer to that, too.

  “No,” Gideon replied, a little too quickly. “No, I’ll just sit a minute by the fire, if you don’t mind. I need to see Mr. Lincoln.” He squeezed the printout. It felt strange, like it had shrunk on the way from the hospital. But it’d only become crushed as he’d kneaded it down, over and over again, making sure he didn’t drop it. “He needs to see this. This is what they came for.”

  He barely heard the faint motor hum of the president’s chair approaching, but he did hear it because he expected it, and he listened for it.

  Nelson Wellers stood aside, and Polly withdrew to the edge of the room. Gideon stayed where he was, and the sixteenth president of the United States rolled into their midst.

  His chair was a marvel of science, the only one of its kind. Propelled by an electric motor, it was manipulated with small levers and buttons, customized for the old man’s long, slender hands. Those fingers, which had once signed laws into being, were crumpled now, bending and unbending only with great effort; but they were firm on the steering paddle as he brought himself forward.

  This was the man who would’ve freed Gideon’s family, if he’d had the chance. If the bullet hadn’t blown his head almost in two, leaving him a stiff, twisted figure made of scars and odd angles. He was a hero. That made Gideon a hero by proxy, so far as his mother and brothers were concerned. His mother told everyone about it: how her boy worked hand in hand with the great leader, coming into his house through the front door like a proper gentleman. Her gushing pride embarrassed him for complicated reasons—reasons he never shared, because they would’ve only confused her.

  Abraham Lincoln gazed levelly at the scientist with his one good eye. “Gideon, you did it.”

  Not a question, but a statement of certainty. Abraham Lincoln liked to be certain, almost as much as Gideon did.

  “Yes sir, but this is all I could save. I needed more time.”

  “We always do.” The former president nodded solemnly, his thin frame bobbing softly in the narrow black suit he so often wore. “It will have to be enough.” He gestured toward the library, and turned the chair to face it. “Polly,” he called over his shoulder. “Could you bring Dr. Bardsley a pair of slippers? Something from my closet, to wear until his boots are dry.”

  “Yes, sir. I will, sir.”

  To Gideon, he said, “You can take those off, and we’ll put them by the fire. Your feet must be miserable.”

  “Yes, they are. Thank you, sir.” He followed the chair he’d helped build, and Nelson Wellers fell into step beside him.

  Speaking over his shoulder again, for he could not easily turn his head, Mr. Lincoln said, “I’m glad to see you escaped unscathed, Gideon. When we got word of the blast, I feared the worst. But Ephraim said he didn’t see any sign of you, not in the rubble—or in the basement either, when he dropped a lantern down there. You barely missed one another. He rode out on horseback and only just returned. You made awfully good time on those frozen feet of yours.”

  Gideon didn’t hear any of it after the part about the lantern. “The basement? So the floor held? Is the Fiddlehead intact?”

  “The floor held. Your printing apparatus is so much scrap metal, I’m afraid, but as for the Fiddlehead, I do not know. Ephraim couldn’t
say. There was a great deal of debris, and dust, and smoke too, I think. There was a small fire, but it was quickly brought under control.”

  “But there’s a chance…?”

  “There’s always a chance.” He reached the library and maneuvered the chair through its doorway. “But we won’t know anything until morning, so let’s not worry about what we cannot change. For now, I want you to show me what you were able to save. And then, of course, you must tell me what it means.”

  Two

  President Ulysses S. Grant shook his head and watched his watery reflection quiver in the glass of Kentucky whiskey. He had better beverages on hand—more expensive beverages, at least—but he picked one of his finer bourbons for the other man, who barely sipped it. What a waste. He should’ve kept it for himself.

  “I don’t like it when you talk in absolutes. It usually bodes ill.” He kept his eyes trained on the glass while he waited for a response, because the glass was more likely to tell the truth.

  Desmond Fowler leaned in close, trying to force the president’s eye contact and failing. He gave up and withdrew into his narrow seat. It wasn’t intended to be comfortable. Grant didn’t want him to stay.

  “Freedom and slavery are absolutes. War and peace.”

  “You’re wrong about all four.” Grant swallowed the last of his drink, but neither put the glass aside nor filled it again. He held it firmly, lest his hands shake. They often shook these days. He called it nerves or exhaustion. “But these two things are true, Fowler: They can’t hold on much longer, and neither can we.”

  “You’re wrong about both, if I may be so bold.”

  “I’ve never stopped you yet, even when I should have.”

  Grant looked up in time to see him frown. “Sir, the program is vital to—”

  “The survival of the nation, yes, as you’ve said. But we’re fooling ourselves if that’s what we’re out to save. The nation has been lost for years. Maybe even since the war began. You could make a case for that.”

  “And you’ve done so. But now we’re arguing semantics.”

  “So we’ll argue, then. We can’t save the United States; we can only reconstruct it. And we can’t do that until we wrap up this damn war.”

  “Which is why I—”

  The president slammed down his glass. “I don’t like the program,” he said bluntly.

  “And I don’t like the war,” Fowler replied. “I thought you didn’t, either.”

  It took all Grant’s strength to keep from calling him a liar. If he’d been a bit more sober, or a bit younger, or a bit less alone in a quiet room with a man he could not trust, he might’ve done so. Instead he calmed down and forced himself to breathe.

  He rubbed at his eyes until they were red, then folded his arms and matched Fowler’s stare. “I hate it. But this is what it comes down to: Do we hate the war more than we love our country?”

  Desmond Fowler did not quite squirm, but was clearly uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I understand.”

  “The war can’t go on forever, but if a Union victory costs all hope of reconciliation, then what have we truly won? Shall we govern a conquered, resentful people by force—until they rally to rebel again? Or shall we welcome our fellow citizens back into the fold?”

  “Obviously one hopes to welcome one’s fellow citizens,” Fowler tried carefully. “But Alabama and Mississippi still cannot agree with Lincoln—or yourself—regarding who is a citizen, and who constitutes property. Reconstructing the Union will be an uphill battle regardless of how the war is concluded. The question is not one of tactics, but of expediency.”

  “And there you go again—now you’ve turned the matter into a binary. Another absolute. We can end the war expediently, tactically, without … without…”

  “My program is the fastest, most efficient option.”

  “The most brutal, you mean. Killing Americans, civilian and soldier alike.”

  “Killing Confederates, and thereby ending the conflict.”

  “And killing our own men, too. God knows how many of them. You’ve said it yourself, there’s no safe means to deploy such weaponry. Not without tremendous casualties to both sides. We’d have to lie to our soldiers, assure them we aren’t leading them to their deaths.”

  “All soldiers assume, or at least suspect, that they’re being led to their deaths. And as for the deployment, we’re working on that,” Fowler assured him. “And sir, we must be pragmatic. The simple fact is that we have more men to lose than they do. If it costs us a handful to kill thousands of the enemy, then we—”

  “The enemy? Our fellow Americans, you mean.”

  “No, sir. Not anymore. By their own choice, and their own hand. Some days, I don’t understand why we fight so hard to keep them, when they fight so hard to get away.”

  It was true, and Grant knew it. True, anyway, that Desmond Fowler didn’t understand why the Union should be preserved, or that the men and women on the other side of that line were not all godless foreigners. They were not dogs to be killed or tamed, any more than the Union armies were fodder to be sacrificed in pursuit of … what, precisely?

  The Great Experiment.

  Leaving a nation in the hands of its people, to govern itself. A terrible risk barely a hundred years old, and it could not fail so soon, so completely. Grant believed that with all his heart, because if a successful democracy was not possible, then what alternative was there? Chaos or kings, he supposed. And he regarded both with equal dismay.

  “Sir, you want to end the war,” Fowler started afresh.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” The president asked it too flippantly, given the company.

  “My program is our best option. Not the prettiest, not the easiest political decision—no one’s trying to make that case. But it’s for the best, and we need your authority to proceed. We need your signature to release the funds from the War Department. Otherwise the program will languish, and we will miss our window of opportunity.”

  “I’m sure another one will open. I just … I can’t. Not yet. Come back when you have more information, better numbers, or a better idea of how, exactly, this weapon would work. At present, you can’t even guess the extent of the damage. There’s no research to say that it won’t poison the land for a thousand years.”

  “You’re asking for guarantees.”

  “I’m asking for absolutes. I thought you liked those.”

  “But that could take weeks! Months!”

  “Then you’d better get started,” Grant said, as he flicked a glance toward the door. He heard a familiar noise approaching from down the hall, and was relieved to realize that he’d discovered a way out of this interminable, wheedling conversation. “Right now, I think. I have another visitor, and I need a word with him in private.”

  Before Desmond Fowler could muster a response, the incoming hum grew louder and a mechanical chair appeared in the doorway. Fowler sprang to his feet, and made a small, formal bow. “Mr. Lincoln, sir.”

  President Grant got to his feet somewhat more slowly, but he was balancing his weight against the alcohol in his blood. He leaned on the arm of his sturdy chair and smiled a greeting. “Abe, it’s good to see you. Come on in. Pull up to the fire. Fowler was just on his way out.”

  For a moment, Grant thought Fowler might fight him on it—that he might scramble for some excuse to stay, some flattery he might apply or some social pressure he might leverage. Thankfully, he decided against the effort in time to politely bow again.

  “Yes, I was just leaving. But it’s been a pleasure as always, Mr. President. And Mr. Lincoln.” He retrieved his overcoat from a rack by the door and took his leave.

  When Grant and Lincoln were confident that Fowler was well out of hearing range, Lincoln adjusted his chair, backing up and pulling forward again so he could shut the office door. While he did this, Grant moved his normal guest chair aside to make room at the hearth.

  Abraham Lincoln said, “I was afraid you’d be in the yellow oval. It’
s a fine office, but I find it hard to reach, these days.”

  “Nah. I don’t like that office. Too big, too much to look at. I can’t get a damn thing done in there. Can I get you a drink?”

  “No, thank you. But don’t let my temperance stop you from having another.”

  “I never do.” President Grant refreshed the whiskey before dropping back into the big armchair. Its leather had become so fire-warmed that it stung, but he liked the sharp heat seeping through his clothes.

  Lincoln removed the blanket that covered his knees, folding it over the arm of his chair. His long, knobby legs leaned slightly to the right, and his shoulders stooped to the left, but the chair had been created with his height in mind and he looked more or less comfortable. Minus the eye patch, and with the addition of his infamous hat, he might have looked like he was just sitting down and not confined there.

  “What did Fowler want you to sign this time?”

  “Something for the War Department. I told him no.”

  “Then he’ll be back,” Lincoln said quietly.

  “Well, he is the Secretary of State. If he didn’t come back, I’d have a problem. Another problem, I mean. There are always plenty to go around.” He changed the subject, fishing for a more casual tone or topic. “So, why are you out and about tonight? I’m always happy to see you, but I thought Mary had some kind of party she was using to hold you hostage.”

  “That was last night, and I didn’t attend. I’m not much of a dancer anymore.” He smiled, and the top of his scarred cheek disappeared under the edge of his eye patch. “I never liked parties much, anyway.”

  “Me either. But I hope it went well.”

  “I expect that it did. Now, let me ask you something: Have you heard about what happened to the Jefferson?”