“I can’t sit down. Not until we decide what to do with her.”
Adelia sat in the high-backed chair, bound by lashings of rope. Her head lolled to one side. A significant bruise marred her head where Archie had struck her with a well-flung hammer strike as she had attempted to run away from Hero’s still body.
Hero lay on the bed, their breathing ragged, their wounds packed with the torn scraps of one of Houndstooth’s silk shirts. The wounds had not been shallow, but Hero’s sternum had stopped Adelia’s knife from hitting their heart, and the blood pouring from their belly had slowed just enough to give Houndstooth a shiver of hope.
“You’re certain she’s been spying?” Houndstooth asked Archie for the hundredth time. Archie lifted a handful of papers she’d found in Adelia’s belongings: a contract, signed in Adelia’s loopy cursive and Travers’ delicate calligraphy.
“’Oundstooth? ’Oundstooth. Winslow Remington ’oundstooth, look at me,” Archie commanded. Houndstooth stopped and obeyed, staring at her with lost eyes, his hands limp by his sides.
“We ’ave to kill her, ’oundstooth. We ’ave to kill her and then we ’ave to run. Now. Tonight.”
“Leaving, are you?” came a low drawl from the doorway. They hadn’t heard Gran Carter enter, but there he was, leaning against the doorframe: six feet three inches of coiled muscle. His hands were nowhere near the two six-shooters that dangled from his hips, but Houndstooth and Archie both froze as though he were pointing the guns directly at them.
“I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure, Mr. Houndstooth.” He extended his hand to Houndstooth, who shook it out of sheer reflex. “Gran Carter, U.S. marshal. You have something I’ve been looking for.” He tipped his black hat at Archie. “Good to see you again, Archie. How’ve you been?”
“I ’ave been well, Gran. I ’ave been . . . busy. I’m sorry I ’aven’t written.” Archie sounded like she meant it.
“Oh, that’s fine. I know how time gets away from you.” He took a small step toward her, a smile twitching at the corners of this mouth. “I’ve missed you.”
Archie looked at her hands, worrying at the contract that sat in her lap. “Now is not the time, Gran.”
Gran cleared his throat, looking to Houndstooth. “Mr. Houndstooth. I believe you’re in charge of this hippo caper?”
Houndstooth looked simultaneously pained and affronted. “It’s not a caper, Mr. Carter.” Behind him, Archie mouthed the words along with him. “It’s an operation, all aboveboard. We were hired by the federal government, I’ll have you know, and—”
“Oh, my apologies, Mr. Houndstooth. I misspoke. Of course it only makes sense that the federal government of the United States of America would hire a team of down-and-out criminals for a caper on the Harriet.”
“It’s not a caper—”
“Yes, well. At any rate.” Carter grinned at Archie. “Miss Reyes is none of your concern. She’s hardly a member of your crew at this point, is she?”
Houndstooth seemed uncertain as to how he should respond. Adelia had been a member of the crew until thirty minutes before; but now, with Hero’s blood on her hands?
“I’ll make this easy,” Carter said, with the same relaxed grin. “Miss Reyes here is a fugitive, and I’ve been chasing her down these past five years now. She killed two good men in Arizona while she was on the run from California ten months ago—where she killed three more good men—and I’m near about fed up with her giving me the slip. I arranged with my contact at the Bureau of Land Management to get her on board for this here caper, and to make sure she’d be on the Harriet.” Houndstooth opened his mouth to interrupt, but Carter didn’t give him an opening. “I’ve been tracking her ever since. I was going to wait until the caper was done to pick her up, but seeing as how you’ve got her all trussed for me, and Travers is out of the way?” He spread his hands in a gesture of acquiescence to fate. “Seems to me the time is ripe.” He gestured to Hero. “I’ll even take your friend here to a doctor on my way out of town. It looks like you’ve done well by them, but that?” He pointed at the wound in Hero’s stomach. “That’s more than you can handle.”
Archie and Houndstooth looked at each other. Archie spoke first. “Travers—do you know where ’e is? They were working together.”
“Ah,” Carter said, “last I saw, he was on a raft heading toward the dam.”
“Gran, do you mind if we confer for a moment?” Archie asked seriously.
“You go right on ahead. I’ll get this package all wrapped up and ready for transport,” Carter responded, unhooking a pair of heavy manacles from his belt and turning to Adelia.
Houndstooth and Archie stepped into the hall. Houndstooth stared over his shoulder at Carter as the door swung shut.
“Will Adelia be . . . safe, with him?” he asked Archie, rubbing at his eyes.
“’E will not be unkind to ’er, if you are worried. Not that she deserves kindness,” Archie growled. “And if she dies, and ’ero makes it to a doctor? I think it will ’ave been worth the risk, non?” Winslow cringed. “Winslow, you are exhausted. You should get some rest before we leave. If Travers went all the way to the dam, we ’ave at least an ’our before he returns. I will pack. You sleep.”
“No, no,” Houndstooth said, looking up at her with urgency. “I don’t want to sleep, Archie. And I don’t want to leave. I want to finish the job we came here to do.”
Archie looked at Houndstooth as though he’d claimed to hear a hippo singing a French lullaby. “What? ’Oundstooth, you . . . you aren’t in your right mind. I know you’re worried about ’ero, but—we can’t do it. We don’t ’ave any way to set off the bombs, and even if we did, we ’ave no way to know ’ow to do it, and even if we did know ’ow to do it, we don’t know when to detonate the charges, and—”
Houndstooth shook his head. “You’re wrong, Archie. For once in your life, you’re completely wrong. I’ve never felt so clear about what we need to do. We need to do the job. I promised Hero that they’d be a hero—that their name would be in children’s history books for decades to come, as the mastermind behind the bombs that cleared the hippos out of the Mississippi.” His eyes had taken on a wild gleam. “And we’re going to do it. We’re going to get Hero’s name in the history books, goddamn it. Whether the job is legitimate or not. When Hero wakes up, I’m going to go and tell them about how their plan worked. And as for the bombs?”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slim black device: Hero’s detonator.