The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg (16 page)

T
HE SMELL WAKES ME
. The delicious smell of sausage cooking in a fry pan, and coffee boiling on an open fire.

Mini is holding a cool, damp cloth to my forehead, and she smiles when I wake up.

“Good thing your skull is so thick,” she says. “It’s pure luck your head didn’t get cracked like an egg when it hit that tree. What were you thinking? That you could fly like a bird?”

Above us the giant balloon is tethered to the elm tree, bobbing to and fro in the breeze. The anchor has wrapped around the branches. The balloon looks so peaceful you’d never know that when it gets loose it has a mind to kill the people that are trying to help it.

“Glad to see you back in this world,” Bern says, bending down to give my nose a tweak.

Bern got stove up some, mostly scratches, but he expects breakfast will revive him. Tally is busy cooking, using every available fry pan. Preparing sausage and eggs and fried potatoes and onions and what he calls his sure-fire pan-fried biscuits.

When he notices me sitting up, holding my swollen, achy head, he apologizes for not getting any strawberries.

“I was willing to go back,” he says. “But the professor insisted we all stay with the balloon.” Whispering, he adds, “I think he means to buy it!”

Sure enough, the professor is deep in conversation with the man who was riding in the basket. He’s a young, slender, dandified fellow with a wispy black beard and a long skinny nose and the blazing eyes of a true believer.

“Aeronautics is the future!” he’s telling the professor with great enthusiasm. “Thaddeus Lowe is the living proof! Nine hundred miles in nine hours!”

The young man, Mr. Dennett Bobbins by name, explains that Thaddeus Lowe was appointed by President Lincoln to be Chief of Army Aeronautics after Mr. Lowe flew a balloon from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Unionville, South Carolina, in the aforementioned nine hours. For a time his fleet of army airships flew over the northern part of Virginia, reporting on Confederate positions.

Lately, it seems, Confederate sharpshooters and artillery men have learned how to shoot down the balloons, which do make rather large targets.

“A thousand square yards of silk!” Mr. Bobbins raves. “Twenty-eight thousand cubic feet of hydrogen, generated on the battlefield! Ten thousand feet of cable to tether us in place! From ten thousand feet you can see to the ends of the earth, Tilda and I! The movements of the enemy lose all mystery! Armies can no longer rely upon surprise attacks! I tell you, aeronautics is the future! The future, I say!”

And then suddenly he commences to sob. Tears stream down his cheeks as Mr. Bobbins tells us that on account of so many unfortunate accidents — the unpredictable wind, the hydrogen gas catching afire — the entire aeronautical division is to be shut down. Mr. Bobbins’s balloon is the last of the fleet and he has failed in his attempt to survey the Potomac valley and relay intelligence by telegraph to the ground.

“A summer storm!” he wails. “I saw a few thunderheads gathering, but gave the order to launch despite the threat of storms! It’s my fault, not Tilda’s! It was our last chance to prove the value of airships and I failed! I failed most miserably! Oh Tilda, do forgive me!”

As the young airship pilot weeps and wails, Professor Fleabottom pats him on the back and comforts him.

“It’s not your fault, my good sir, you can’t be responsible for the weather,” he assures him.

After a time Mr. Bobbins calms down, accepts a tin mug of coffee from Minerva, and only then seems to take note of his surroundings. “Where am I, precisely?” he wants to know.

“In the general vicinity of Lancaster,” the professor informs him.

“Lancaster! Indeed. Then according to my calculations, we covered less than fifty miles.” He looks up at the balloon bobbing over the elm tree. “She’s a good ship. With a will of her own, obviously.”

“Tell us, please, of your great adventure,” the professor says, sounding very kind and solicitous. “Were you able to survey the Potomac valley? Could you discern the Confederate positions? Were you able to pass useful intelligence to the Union generals?”

Young Mr. Bobbins sighs and shakes his head. “Alas, no. There were obscuring clouds and then, just as Tilda and I attained peak altitude, we broke loose from the cable. Disaster!”

“You keep referring to a woman named Tilda. Had you another companion along for the ride?”

Mr. Bobbins looks shocked at the question. “Another companion? No, no. The ‘we’ is Tilda and I. She is my only companion.”

“The balloon?”

“The airship!”

“Of course. Yes, indeed, the airship.
Tilda
being the name of the airship,” the professor concludes thoughtfully. “Mini, would you get Mr. Bobbins a plate of food? I fear his head may be somewhat light from lack of sustenance, or possibly oxygen. Ten thousand feet is very high indeed. The air must be terribly thin.”

“Not so thin as to addle my brain, if that’s what you’re implying,” Mr. Bobbins says, sounding hurt and angry.

“Nothing of the sort!” the professor assures him. “Men have always given female names to waterborne ships, why not to ships of the air? Makes perfect sense if you think about it. Tilda, yes, she’s a lovely creature.”

“She’s not a creature, she’s an airship!” Mr. Bobbins protests.

“Of course, an airship. Please take no offense at our ignorance, good sir. We are fascinated with the whole concept of airships, and how they might prove useful to our little traveling enterprise.”

“Aeronautics will change the world!” Mr. Bobbins exclaims, regaining his enthusiasm. “There will come a day when all of humanity travels by air. We must learn to control the wind! That’s the secret! That’s the answer! Once we control the wind, we control the world!”

“Windmills, I suppose?” the professor offers cautiously. “Is that how you will control the wind?”

The young pilot gives him a disappointed look. “You doubt me, but one day it will be true. Humanity will travel by air, and conduct war from the air, and seek peace in the air. The air is the future, not the land! Mankind must be made free! It must unshackle from the slavery of gravity and be free as the clouds, like Tilda and me. Air, do you hear me, air!”

Poor Mr. Bobbins is still raving when the cavalry charges over the hill to arrest us all for treason.

I
N LESS TIME THAN IT
takes to whistle “Yankee Doodle,” we’re surrounded by a squad of grim-faced soldiers on horseback, all of ’em pointing long rifles in our faces.

“Keep your hands in plain view!” one of them shouts. “Anybody moves they are done for!”

The captain dismounts from his horse. He’s a tall, fine-looking fellow, taller even than Professor Fleabottom, with piercing dark eyes and a nose like a hawk. Like the hawk, he has the look of a dangerous creature, one who may attack without warning.

He adjusts the cuffs of his white leather gloves, then strides up to the campfire and demands a cup of coffee.

“Are these true coffee beans?” he wants to know, seizing a battered tin mug. “Or have you taken up the rebel habit of adding chicory?”

Tally, who is tending the fire, looks like he don’t know what to do or say.

“Cat got your tongue?” the captain demands. “Or is it General Lee who has charge of your tongue?”

Tally glances helplessly at Professor Fleabottom, who gathers himself up and says, “We beg your kindness, captain. This man is simpleminded. Your sudden arrival has confused him.”

The captain snorts and puts his hand upon the pistol holstered at his waist. “Simpleminded, is he? I doubt that. Maybe the recruiters fall for such nonsense, but not me.”

“Please, you are welcome to coffee, or indeed to any food we may have,” the professor says, sounding rather grand. “Would your men like biscuits and jam, sir? Our cook may be simple, but he makes a very fine biscuit. Or if you prefer, we have sufficient bottles of my, ah, special elixir.”

The captain gulps down his coffee, spits some of it back, and drops the mug in the fire. Then he strides full up to the professor, so close they almost bump chests. “You’d addle the brains of my men with your moonshine whiskey?” he asks, very quiet. “Is that your plan of escape? Get us drunk and sneak away?”

“Elixir for what ails you,” responds the professor, holding his ground.

“Whiskey!” roars the captain. “Cheap whiskey!”

Mini dabs a hankie to her eyes, weeping. Bern and Tally both look like they want to bolt, but don’t dare for fear of getting a bullet in the back. Mr. Bobbins just looks confused, and me, I’m thinking when the shooting starts I’ll climb the tree and hide in the branches like a squirrel.

The captain whips a folded piece of paper out of his jacket and reads from it. “Reginald Robertson Crockett, also known as Fenton J. Fleabottom, as the duly authorized representative of the United States of America, I place you under arrest for the felony crime of treason.” Looking up from the paper, he adds, “The specific and mortal crime of passing military intelligence to the enemy. Seize him!”

Four soldiers grab the professor, one for each limb. Not that he’s fighting them. The professor looks disappointed in the poor captain but he don’t struggle as they slip irons around his wrists and ankles.

“My dear captain, there has been a mistake. I freely confess to selling elixir to the troops. You have me there, fair and square. I further admit that what I call ‘elixir’ is really whiskey with a little flavoring of red clover cough syrup. But never would I betray my country. Not for a million in gold!”

The captain narrows his hawk eyes, looking crafty. “I believe you, sir. That you would not willingly betray your country. You have that air about you. But the truth is, your country is the Confederacy, and therefore you are a spy and a traitor and will pay the price.”

“That’s a lie! Bring me a Bible and I will swear upon it!”

The captain smiles and leans in, his sharp little chin not an inch from the professor’s yellow mustache. “I am not so easily persuaded. It is well known that men who swear lying oaths upon the Bible believe that God is on their side, and will protect them despite the lie. But God Almighty will not answer in this instance. We have you dead to rights, Mr. Crockett. You are well known in Virginia as a staunch advocate of the southern rebellion, and Union spy catchers have been on your trail for months.”

The professor looks puzzled. “Crockett? Who is this Crockett you refer to? My name is Fleabottom. You have mistaken me for another man!”

“That is your defense? Mistaken identity?”

“My defense is that I am innocent,” the professor protests. “What exactly is it that you think I have done?”

The captain stands back, readjusting his white leather gloves. “Do you deny that you have been making inquiries about the movement of troops?”

“Of course I deny it! An absurd idea. I’d never — oh, wait a moment! Oh, yes. That has to be it! I know what has happened, and why you have been deceived.” The professor is smiling now, looking much relieved. “It’s the boy! Over there, the small one cowering by the elm tree. Homer Figg by name. He’s much concerned with finding his older brother, who was sworn as a replacement troop, and may be underage.”

The captain turns and fixes me with his hungry, hawkish eyes. “Come here, boy!”

I shamble forward. The way he stares at me so hard and cold turns my stomach to water and makes my knees shaky.

“Is this true?” he demands. “Have you asked this man to help you find your brother?”

“Y-y-yes, sir.”

“And this man, who calls himself Professor Fleabottom, he has on your behalf made many inquiries that touch upon Union troop movements? Interviewed and interrogated soldiers and officers after getting them drunk? All to help you find your brother?”

“Yes, sir. He’s been very kind and helpful, sir.”

“Indeed,” says the captain, stroking his chin with the fingers of his white leather gloves. “No doubt he is kind when it suits him, that much I would not dispute.”

“So you understand that this is simply an unfortunate misunderstanding,” says the professor, holding out his wrists to be freed. “Such things readily occur in a time of war, captain. I assure you, there are no hard feelings on my part.”

The captain snorts, amused by the professor. “Very good of you, sir. No doubt, being a Virginian, you are a man of courage and honor. You will have need of both when they drag you to the gallows.”

“But, captain, surely you see that I was only trying to help the boy?”

The captain shrugs. “The boy was your excuse. The game is up, Mr. Crockett.” He jabs a finger at one of his men. “Sergeant! Produce the prisoner!”

The horses make way for another horse, a pony that has been kept behind and out of sight.

A man has been tied facedown across the back of the pony. He appears alive but barely conscious, and shows the marks of a terrible beating. Both eyes blackened and his whole face swole up like an overripe melon, but still I recognize the mysterious rider who came into camp that night and took a dispatch from the professor.

The poor man must hurt in every bone of his body, but he don’t make a sound.