Must the Maiden Die (24 page)

It began softly, scaling upward, not in
volume but in pitch, to a long preternatural howl. The hair at the
nape of Glynis's neck rose, until she identified it.

The call of a wolf. Jacques Sundown's clan
spirit.

For, lo, the winter is passed; the rain is
over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the
singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in
our land.

—Song of Solomon

Glynis had to struggle upright through a
tangle of sheets before leaving the bed and going to the window.
The grass below and the garden beyond merged into a wide, pale
river of moonlight flowing over and around the shapes of trees and
shrubs. For a brief moment, she thought she saw in motion a
low-slung creature of silver and black, flecked with white, with
eyes that glinted like ovals of gold. It streaked into the shadows,
and then, standing there beneath her window, was Jacques
Sundown.

She turned back to the room, searching in
the relative darkness for her silk undress. Finding it, she slipped
it on and made her way out of the bedroom, flinching at the creak
the door made as it swung open. Before she descended the stairs,
she paused outside Harriet's bedroom and listened for the steady
breathing of sleep. When she heard it, she went down the stairs and
followed the moonlight flooding through the kitchen windows. She
turned the key in the lock of the door, went down a few steps, and
walked toward the tall man who stood waiting. He never changed, she
thought. Never. The glossy black hair brushing his shoulders, the
coppery skin, the high cheekbones and strong features; the
half-Iroquois, half-French blood that made him a loner, moving to
his own rhythm with the litheness of a mountain cat, the swiftness
of a wolf. Those who threatened him learned that, like the cougar
and the wolf, he could be deadly.

Cullen had often said that Jacques was
silent and distant.

Not always, Glynis knew.

She didn't speak until she was within a yard
of him. "I heard you were in town, Jacques."

"You weren't."

"No, I was out at the Brant house. Roland
Brant has been murdered."

"I know. Word gets around."

She waited, not asking why he had come, or
for how long he would be there. Over the years, she had at last
begun to understand his ways.

He, too, seemed to be waiting; the flat,
brown eyes looking down at her as if they had just happened to
meet on Fall Street, although that would change.

When the tension between them had stretched to the
breaking point, he said, "I can't be here long."

"I thought as much. Word gets around."

She caught the trace of a rare smile before
he extended his hand and took hold of her wrist, his eyes in the
moonlight beginning to warm. "We can't stay here."

"Harriet's asleep."

He started to lead her across the grass,
saying, "You know the rules."

She pulled back, stopping them. "Since when
have rules applied to you?"

"There's always been the one, says you can't
be seen with me. Not at night. Not if you want to stay in this
town. I expect you want to do that. He paused, and then added,
"When you don't, let me know."

As they began to walk again, Glynis felt
herself slipping on the damp grass. "My feet are bare," she
said.

Jacques cast a swift glance around, then
continued to scan the yard while he reached for her, sliding one
arm around her waist, the other under her knees, lifting her as if
she weighed no more than a sack of feathers to carry her over the
grass. His long strides took them past the garden and Glynis could
see, hidden among the pines at the rear of the yard, his
black-and-white paint horse. The scent of lilacs and lavender
drifted sweetly across the quiet air, and moths fluttered over
night-blooming moonflowers.

"So much for rules," Glynis said when he
lifted her to the horse's back. In a single fluid movement, Jacques
vaulted behind her onto the paint, his eyes undergoing the strange
alchemy that turned them from brown to the gold of the wolf.

"Nobody to see us," he said, turning the
paint in the direction of Black Brook. Glynis knew where he was
headed. It was a short distance, less than a mile; from there could
be seen the reservation where he had lived.

The paint moved through the warm night, the
sky an arc of black where even the glitter of stars was dulled by
the brilliant moon. Jacques reined in the horse at the crest of a
low, rounded hill where, surrounding a small clearing, fir trees
spread their long, fringed branches like wings. He swung her down
and took a blanket roll from behind the saddle.

They shook out the blanket over thick
clover, and Glynis, after seating herself, tucked her feet under
the skirt of the undress. He stood for a time looking down at her,
then pulled a tobacco pouch from inside his leather jacket, and
began to roll a cigarette, his fingers working with deft
precision.

"How is he?" Jacques said, moving his gaze
north toward Black Brook reservation.

"Cullen's fine, Jacques. But if he hears
you're in town..."

Glynis let her voice trail off. Jacques
would know what she meant.

"He'll get over it," Jacques said. "Always
does." He was still standing, the smoke from his cigarette rising
into the windless air as a ragged white feather.

"Where have you been since Washington?" she
asked into a velvet quiet broken only by the distant chorus of
spring peepers, the occasional soft
whoo
of an owl.

"With McClellan."

"The railroad man?" Jacques had acted as
scout for the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad, of which George
McClellan was president.

"The military man. He commands Ohio volunteers.
War's going to heat up soon down there along the Ohio River."

Ohio
—why the tug at her memory?
"There's no hope left, then, for another effort at
compromise?"

"You've been south," he said. "You want to
compromise with slaveholders?"

"No."

"Then I'd say there's no hope."

"But most Southerners aren't slaveholders,
Jacques. And I don't think many of them want war. "

"They better speak up fast."

"You didn't say where you've been with
McClellan."

Jacques crumbled the remains of the
cigarette, than sat down beside her. "Cincinnati."

Glynis thought she couldn't have heard
correctly. "Did you say Cincinnati?
"
When he didn't respond
she repeated, "Cincinnati, in Ohio?"

"Think there's only one."

"In that case," Glynis said, "it must be a lively
place with so many people coming and going!"

Jacques leaned forward to look into her face. In the
moonlight, his own face was the deep, rich color of live coals,
ready to flame at a single stroke. "Who's coming and going?" he
asked.

The flash of amusement in his eyes, so
unusual that it caught her unawares, told her she was on the right
path.

"Bronwen traveled from there with a
Professor Thaddeus Lowe—in a balloon," Glynis answered. "Cincinnati
apparently being such a crossroads, though, I would guess you knew
about that?"

"I knew. Lowe's balloon was stored there.
McClellan lives there."

"But Bronwen doesn't have any connection to
Cincinnati, so what was
she
doing there?"

"Following orders."

"Whose orders?" she asked. "Rhys Bevan, her
superior at Treasury, is in Washington." Rhys was the head of its
Special Detective Service, and Glynis had met him several years
before when he investigated a counterfeit ring operating out of
Seneca Falls. She added, "Don't tell me that Rhys Bevan lives in
Cincinnati."

"O.K., he doesn't. He was there for two
days."

"I suppose Bronwen's orders are not to
discuss whatever it is she's doing?"

"Bevan made her swear to it. It was a test.
He figured if she could keep it from you, she could stand any kind
of questioning."

"She passed the test."

"Sounds like you figured it out anyway."

"No, just that Bronwen wasn't in Seneca
Falls solely for her cousin's wedding. Have you seen her?"

"Today. Not for long."

"And did Rhys Bevan make you take a secrecy
oath?"

"I don't take oaths. You should know
that."

"Will you tell me, then, what Bronwen's
involved in?"

"What do you want to know?" He had taken her
braid in his hands and begun to untwist it, his fingers separating
the strands of hair as deftly as they had rolled the cigarette.

"For a start," Glynis said, "what is Lowe's
connection with the U.S. Treasury Department?"

"Salmon Chase. He's Treasury secretary,"
Jacques said. "He's not from Cincinnati."

Glynis smiled, even though her uneasiness
about Bronwen was growing. "Then how is Secretary Chase
involved?"

"Heard about Lowe's flights from McClellan.
Had Lowe meet Lincoln. Lowe says balloons can be used for aerial
reconnaissance of Confederate troop positions. McClellan thinks
it's a good idea. So does Lincoln. He wants a trial run."

"Where?"

"Here."

"
In Seneca Falls
?"

"Why not?"

"Because the last time I looked, Jacques,
there were no Confederate troops in western New York."

"That's why the trial's here. Lowe doesn't
want to get killed. Wants to know how close he can get to a target
without catching bullets."

Glynis let out a long breath. Even if she
accepted the premise that humans were meant to be airborne—and it
seemed she had no alternative—she thought this sounded unreasonably
perilous. She was almost too afraid to ask, "And Bronwen's role in
this?"

"She's a Treasury agent. She's lightweight.
She doesn't scare easily. That's about it."

"No, I don't think so," Glynis said, wincing
as she turned her head, forgetting that Jacques was holding her
hair.

"What don't you think?"

"I think there's more to it," Glynis
persisted.

"You always do."

Again Glynis caught the trace of a smile,
while Jacques began to weave his fingers through her hair. "Well,
why are you here?" she asked.

"I know the terrain."

"But you won't be in the balloon, will you?"
Glynis countered, trying to concentrate on Bronwen's safety.
"Jacques, what is it you're not telling me?"

"You have to keep quiet about it."

"
I will."

"Bevan said you shouldn't be told—said you'd
worry. I know you better than he does. You'll worry more if you're
left guessing."

"So please tell me."

"You heard about Lincoln's blockade of
Southern ports?" When Glynis nodded, Jacques went on, "Couple of
times in the last month, British rifles—Enfields outfitted with
sword bayonets—got smuggled into Virginia. Overland. Looks like
they first came in by ship from Canada. Nobody knows where they
went after that. Treasury's got an idea, but that's all it's got.
There's no proof."

"Jacques, please don't tell me that some
unbalanced mind thought of using a balloon to track British
rifles."

"That's what Bevan thought. Lowe did
too."

Evidently, she decided, she had misjudged
the sanity of both these men, although Rhys Bevan had exhibited a
flair for the theatrical. And from the moment he had taken her
niece into Treasury's detective service, Glynis had feared the
worst if Rhys and Bronwen were paired. To be proved prophetic now
offered little consolation.

"Looks like your British friend de Warde
might have a hand in this," Jacques said.

"Oh, no, not Colonel de Warde! He's
involved?"

"Been spotted in Kingston, Ontario, and
Oswego at about the right times."

"He's a treacherous man, Jacques! You know
he's an espionage agent—and Rhys Bevan knows it, too."

"De Warde would guess he's being watched. I
don't think he's stupid enough to handle the guns himself."

"No," Glynis agreed. "He always makes
someone else do his dirty work."

"Treasury wants to find out who's doing his
dirty work this time. And how the guns are leaving the North."

"But why are you involved?"

"This was put together fast," he said.
"Maybe too fast. Bevan needs a ground man to lead his agents. They
got to Oswego yesterday, but don't know their way around. I have to
ride there tonight."

"Can any of those agents ride?" Glynis said,
her concern deepening. "The ones I met in Washington were city men.
Driving carriages was the extent of their experience with
horses."

"Then it'll be interesting." Jacques's
shoulders twitched in what, on a more demonstrative man, would have
been a shrug. "Word from an agent in Montreal is that a shipment
of Enfields got there yesterday. Looks like they're headed for
Kingston. We figure they'll come across the lake in the next couple
of days."

"Well, that explains Bronwen's fixation with
the telegraph office. She's been haunting that place ever since
she got here. She was checking with Treasury, wasn't she, about
when the guns were due to arrive in Montreal?"

"That's it."

"Then I don't understand. She left a note,
saying she and Lowe were going to Rochester, which is
west
of here, to inflate the.... Ah, yes; the balloon rides on wind
currents flowing east. And Oswego is north of here, so they have to
launch from the west. I don't much like the sound of this."

"Too late now."

"But why are you here, Jacques, and not
already in Oswego?"

"You sure you need to ask that?"

Glynis felt him gather and lift her hair,
and then his fingers moved across the back of her neck.

"I have another question," she said.

"Is Oswego going to be risky? Maybe."

"I'm certain of that, and I don't want to
think about it. No, this concerns Montezuma Marsh. You know that
area better than anyone. Where might a man live there for any
length of time? And could a young woman survive in the swamp?"