Clockwork Souls (13 page)

Dominic ate in haste and hurried off again. Marie had no
chance to question him, but she caught a snatch of conversation between him and
Anthony: something regarding fuses.

As she moved about the kitchen, Marie watched for Mignon’s
company. She wanted to ask her friend what had gone on in the mine that day.
When she spotted that company’s captain, she hurried to him with a mug of hot
coffee.

“Bless you,” he said, sipping it as he trudged along.

“Could you ask Private Smith to come to me, after he has
been maintained?”

The captain raised an eyebrow, but nodded. It was not the
first such request Marie had made.

She returned to the kitchen. Half an hour later, Mignon
came, her uniform mucked with dirt. Philomène had gone to bed.

They sat beside the fire. Mignon was straight-backed. Only
her eyes showed an exhaustion of spirit.

“You were out very late.”

Mignon nodded. “The colonel wished us to finish the
excavation.”

“With so many working on it day and night, it must be very
large.”

“Our part of it is.”

“Do you know what it is for, this excavation?”

Mignon met her gaze, and did not answer for a long moment.
No doubt she was not supposed to talk of it. It was only her trust in Marie
that made her speak.

“The tunnels are being dug beneath the Confederate works.”

“Tunnels? You mean the mine?”

“There is the main one, that we all have been working on,
and then the 1st has made others branching out.”

Tunnels and fuses. Marie’s eyes widened.
“Mon Dieu!”

Mignon nodded in agreement.

“And it is finished?”

“Ours were finished today.”

Marie swallowed. Dominic was still gone; he must be trying
to obtain the fuses Anthony wanted. Fuses to go into the tunnels. To set off
explosives.

She trembled at the thought of the devastation. So many
would die, but this was war, after all. That was the Army’s goal, to create
enough destruction to bring the impasse at Petersburg to an end.

It would save lives, in the long run. She knew this, but it
was not a comfort.

“When?” she asked.

“I do not know, Madame.”

Marie stood. “Mignon, will you escort me tonight? I am going
to another camp.”

Mignon’s eyes showed her surprise. “Let me find some others
to join us. You should be well-guarded.”

“Very well. Bring them back in half an hour.”

Mignon left, and Marie turned to her tent. Philomène slept
gently on her own cot.

The ceremony began here, with the donning of her headdress.
Marie wished that she had brought a white dress, but acknowledged that it would
be impractical in this place. What magic she brought with her resonated in the
colorful cloth of her head scarf, and in the skin of Zombi that she carefully
draped around her hips. She tied her headdress in the elaborate knots that
would tell those who knew how to read them of her stature.

Atop a cracker box in one corner of the tent, she had made a
tiny altar. She lit the candles, chanting in a low voice so as not to wake her
daughter.

“Ogun, give your blessing to those in this camp, to all who
are part of the 1st Automated Engineers. Let the horns of war blow away all
doubt, all fear, all resistance.”

She cast a precious pinch of sage into the candle’s flame,
then straightened. Philomène stirred.

“Maman?”

“Go to sleep,
cher
.”

“You lit the candles.”

“I was saying a prayer. Can you sleep with the light?”

“Yes.” Philomène turned her back to the altar and gave a
contented sigh. Marie watched her for a few minutes, then put on her cloak and
went out.

When she emerged from her tent, she found both Mignon and
Dominic waiting by the fire.

“Have you eaten?” she asked Dominic.

He nodded.

“And did you get what you sought?”

He blinked, turned his head to look at Mignon, then slowly
nodded. Mignon, in her muddied uniform with her cap pulled down over her brow,
was silent as stone.

“Bien,” Marie said. “It is time to ask the aid of the
Orisha. Take me to the camp we saw before.”

Mignon had brought five other soldiers, who waited just
outside the Headquarters camp. Privates Thwart and Rapp were among them.

As they walked away from the 1st’s camp, she asked, “When will
this thing happen?”

Dominic glanced at her. “Tomorrow.”

Marie nodded and walked on.

A queer company they made, Marie and Dominic surrounded by
automata. Mignon walked in front, glancing back now and again. Two soldiers
marched to either side of Marie and her friend, and Thwart came behind.

Marie’s feet tingled as she walked. She was aching to dance.
At length, she heard the drums.

Without conscious thought, she matched her pace to their
rhythm. The night was warm, and she wanted to fling off her cloak, but she held
it tight until they reached the camp where the colored soldiers were gathered
around the bonfire and the drums.

Like the night before, there was frenzy. Voices rose and
fell, and the rumble of the drums was a river flowing through them all. Marie
took off her cloak and handed it to Mignon, stepped out of her shoes, and
walked toward the fire.

Heads turned. First the voices, then the clapping, then the
drumming faded as Marie walked up to the fire.

She stood there a moment in silence. All eyes were on her.
Some, she knew, were hostile. Others were afraid, but a thread of excitement
pulsed through the rest. She could feel it.

She saw Skinny Jim, grinning at her. A small smile was all
she gave him.

She stamped her right foot, smacking it against the earth.
Confederate earth, rebel earth? Earth did not care about human squabbles. In
the end, all humans returned to it.

She stamped again, then again, then added rhythm. The earth
was a drum beneath her feet. A few hands began clapping along.

The dance lifted up her spirit and she floated, feet
drumming, arms high, head proud. Under her breath she chanted prayers to Ogun,
spirit of metal, warrior, Father of Technology and therefore the protector of
automata. Prayers for the safety of her friends. Prayers for her people and
their allies. A warmth rose up around her and she realized it was the colored
soldiers, clapping now, singing her chant, some also dancing. Every soul that
joined in gave strength to the prayers.

A crash startled her; more followed and she almost lost the
rhythm, then she realized the crashing was in time with it. Thwart was drumming on
himself with both spade-tipped arms. A howl of approval rose up from the crowd.

Elation filled Marie, but she did not let it lift her too
high. This was a serious prayer, on a serious matter. Lives would end tomorrow.
She must never forget that. She dedicated those lives to Oya, who oversaw
rebirth and new life. Let the slaves be reborn into freedom, she prayed.

Others were dancing; the colored soldiers rose up and moved
to the rhythm. The dance was theirs, now. No longer Marie’s. She finished her
prayer and slipped through the crowd of moving bodies, away from the fire,
suddenly weary.

Dominic and Mignon stood waiting. Thwart was still drumming
on himself by the fire; a group of dancing men now surrounded him. Mignon
retrieved Marie’s cloak from another of the guards, and Marie let her fold it
around her. A cry of disappointment rose from the soldiers around Thwart when
he stopped drumming and lumbered away to re-join Marie’s escort as they
departed.

Back at the camp, the
candles on Marie’s little altar were nearly spent. Philomène lay in peaceful
slumber.

Marie silently removed her headdress and Zombi’s skin and
carefully put them away. As she settled wearily onto her cot, bones aching with
fatigue, she gave a sigh of satisfaction. The rhythm of the drums returned to
her thoughts, to soothe her to sleep.

Shortly before dawn, Marie woke when a demon kicked her
bed.

She sat up, startled and disoriented. No stranger was in the
tent. But she was certain the bed had moved, violently and abruptly.

Philomène was awake also. “
Maman?
What is it?”

Marie could not answer. She rose swiftly, threw on her
cloak, and went outside.

In the dim, pre-dawn light, an evil cloud of darkness hung
over the Rebel fortifications. Marie imagined she could hear voices
shouting—screaming—from the spot beneath that cloud. Surely the sound could not
reach across the distance, but though the camp was more than a mile from the
front, she saw motion. The area beneath the cloud (which had begun to
dissipate) . . . writhed.

Philomène emerged from the tent, took one look, and
exclaimed in horror, then set about building up the fire. Marie could not tear
her eyes away from the works.

A crow flew up from a nearby copse of trees. Marie flung
words toward it, catching its sight for her use. She stood rooted as the crow
flew unwilling toward the fray, spurred by her dread.

Many men—Confederates—lay dead or dying in the gaping crater
that had been a section of the Rebel works. Many more screamed in anguish. Mud
and horror sprawled everywhere.

A battalion of Union troops moved toward the newly-opened
gap in the fortifications, but they descended into the pit and did not come out
again. As the crow circled above the chaos, Marie saw the Rebels regain their
confidence, and begin shooting down into the crater.

“No,” she whispered.

What should have been an advantage was fast becoming a
disaster. Whatever plan had been made, it had gone awry. Instead of pushing
through breach in the Confederate lines, the Union troops milled in confusion
in the crater. They had no ladders with which to climb out. They were trapped,
and the Rebels knew it. The Rebels began firing down at their enemies. Then
they brought their cannon and aimed them down into the pit, wreaking horror.

More Union troops arrived—Negro troops this time. Rifle fire
from the Rebels to either side of the crater drove them into the pit, where
they were trapped among their dead and dying comrades. Marie glimpsed Skinny
Jim, his face a mask of terror just before the blast of an exploding shell tore
into him.

“Madame? Are you all right?”

Called back to her body by Anthony’s voice, Marie shuddered.
She shook herself free of the bird’s awareness, releasing it to fly where it
wished.

Anthony stood by the fire. In the darkness, others moved in
the camp, spoke in hushed, urgent voices. “Was it the mine?” Marie asked
hoarsely.

“Yes,” Anthony said, his face grim.

“It has gone terribly wrong.”

“Were any of ours there?”

“A squadron. To see to the fuses. We had to replace them;
the ones the Army gave us were terrible and failed to splice.”

“Who?” Marie asked, dreading the answer. Dominic was the
most experienced engineer in the regiment.

“A platoon under Sergeant Ives,” he answered.

“And Dominic?”

He nodded. “And Dominic. He took the fuses.”

“Dieu,”
Marie whispered.

“There you are!” said a loud voice. Colonel Malcomb strode
up to Anthony, his blue eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Send in the first
battalion.”

“No!” Marie cried involuntarily, drawing his glare.

“Back to your bed, woman, and pray you are not killed
tonight!”

“It is
they
who will be killed if you send them into
that hell!” she returned.

“Madame—”

Malcomb’s dark laughter boomed. “They cannot be killed. They
are machines.”

Marie opened her mouth to protest further, but was silenced
by Anthony’s frown. He knew all that she would say; he felt as she did. But he
must also obey orders.

A rhythmic clanking sound arose in the distance, like the
beating of some metal drum. Thwart? But no, it was not so deep.

“Are we ordered forward?” Anthony asked the colonel. “Have
you heard from the general?”

“There’s no time to wait,” Malcomb said, scowling. “We must
seize the moment! Form up the battalion.”

With a worried glance at Marie, Anthony turned to obey. The
clanking grew louder, and now a voice called out, “Madame!”

Marie turned, and saw a uniformed figure staggering toward
the camp at a run. He carried another, limp form. Both were covered in mud. The
clanking sounded with every second step. In the darkness she could not see
their faces, but she knew the voice.

“Ives!” she cried as she hurried forward.

The sergeant did not stop, but slowed to a walk as Marie
reached him. She saw who it was that he carried.

“Dominic!
Mon Dieu!”

Ives continued toward the camp. He was damaged; his chest
was torn open, exposing a mess of gears and oozing oil. His right hip was
smashed, and she now heard a terrible grinding before each clank.

“He needs attention, Madame,” Ives said, his voice as
polished as ever, his tone conversational. “I thought it best to bring him to
you.”