Thieves Of Mercy

now but to wait for the Yankees, wait to be taken up as spies and hanged. The Yankees would find Newcomb’s body, and if she and Molly were not hanged for spies then they certainly would be hanged as murderers. All their efforts had done nothing but make their situation worse.

Wendy swore, clenched her fists, let the tears come. And that was when she saw the boat.

It was not a boat like a tugboat or a gunboat, but a boat like the kind carried on board a ship, the kind of boat that plied between ship and shore, ubiquitous and unremarkable. About twenty feet long, wide and deep, painted a smudged and dirty white with dark blue trim along the gunnel, it floated against the seawall, tied fore and aft to bollards on the shore.

Wendy could see only a part of it, but, intrigued, she left her aunt and walked to the edge of the seawall and looked down. There were several inches of water in the bottom, but that did not seem very unusual-Wendy had seen supposedly seaworthy boats with more. The oars were there, and the thole pins to hold them in place, and lying across the thwarts, long canvas-wrapped poles. There did not seem to be anything particularly wrong with the boat. Inadvertently left behind, Wendy guessed, in the frantic rush to abandon the place.

“Aunt, Aunt, see here!” she called excitedly, waving Molly over. Molly turned her head and looked, but she did not stand.

“Look, Molly, a boat! We can go after Tucker and the others with the boat.” Molly’s eyes flickered down to the seawall, then back up at Wendy. She made no response.

Wendy was not deterred, because here was a tiny flash of hope in the darkness. They could do this, the two of them, they could get in the boat and row it away to where the Confederate fleet had disappeared. Hell, they could row all the way to Richmond if need be.

Wendy grabbed up their bags and dropped them down into the boat where they landed with a small splash in the bottom. She was making the decisions now for the both of them, but she told herself that was all right, she was doing the right thing.

“Come on, Aunt Molly,” Wendy said. She stepped over to the capstan and held out her hand. Molly looked at her for a second, the dull, dead look, then reached out and took the offered hand, let Wendy pull her to her feet. Together, hand in hand, they walked over to the seawall. The boat was a few feet below the edge of the stone wall.

“Here, Molly, just sit on the edge of the wall and you should be able to slide down into the boat. Here, let me help.” Wendy eased her aunt down until Molly was sitting on the edge of the wall, legs dangling down. Slowly she slid forward, her feet searching for the thwarts, until they found something solid and she slid the rest of the way. She stood on the thwart, then, wordless, turned and sat.

Wendy followed, sliding into the boat in the same manner. She cast off the lines holding the boat against the seawall and gave a strong push. The boat bobbed and moved slowly out into the stream until at last there were twenty feet of water between them and the shore.

She looked back at the shipyard, the buildings in flames, the great column of smoke. On the edge of the seawall was something bright and red and Wendy realized it was Molly’s reticule. They had left it behind.

Damn. She was sorry to lose the pepperbox, but there was nothing for it now. There was no going back.

Motionless, exhausted, Wendy watched the seawall slip by as the river slowly swept the boat along. She stared at the wall for a full minute before it occurred to her that the boat was moving upstream, heading away from, rather than toward, Hampton Roads and the Confederate fleet.

She frowned, looked around as if she might see what was causing this phenomenon. How could they drift upstream? And then she thought, The tide! The tide, she concluded, must be flooding, rushing in with enough force to make the Elizabeth River run backward.

“Aunt, we have to row now,” Wendy said. She struggled with one of the long oars lying across the thwarts. It was terribly heavy and awkward, and she was just able to wrestle it over the side of the boat and between the two thole pins, the way she had seen sailors do it. Balanced there, it was not too bad.

She turned to Molly. Her aunt had not moved. She just stared aft, and Wendy felt the tears of frustration coming. “Oh, Molly, please, please, you have to row with me!” she pleaded.

Molly turned her head slowly and looked at Wendy, and Wendy said, “Please, Molly, I know it is horrible what you have suffered, but if you don’t row now, then we’ll both die. Please, Molly…”

A tear rolled down Molly’s cheek, a single tear, glinting in the sun. Then Molly leaned forward and picked up an oar and she too wrestled it over the side of the boat and between the thwarts.

The tears were still running down Wendy’s cheeks, but she smiled. “Good, Molly, that’s good. Now, together, let’s pull.”

They leaned forward, pushing the looms of the oars forward and down, then they brought the blades down until they felt them bite water, then leaned back, fighting the resistance. The boat slewed around a bit, its drifting slowed. Forward, oars down and then back, they pulled again, and this time the boat made headway against the flooding tide. Then once more, together, they pulled.

Roger Newcomb thought he was dead. He lay there, motionless, eyes closed, but aware, conscious, alert. His head pounded as if it were being physically hammered, his body ached all over, his mind was a turmoil, a nightmare chaos of rage and fear and half-remembered violence. The only clear, rational thought that managed to work itself through that jumble was that he was dead, and suffering the torments of hell. It was the only thing that made sense.

He did not move and did not try to move. He just lay there, eyes closed, but the longer he lay, the more his thoughts began to organize themselves and the more he began to suspect that he was actually still alive. Nonetheless, it was some time before he dared open his eyes, mostly for fear of what doing so might reveal. At last he did it. Slowly, both eyes together. The pain in his head redoubled. He blinked but kept his eyes open, trying to puzzle out what he was looking at.

Not hell, he did not think. Whiteness. A white field. He looked at it for a full minute. Ceiling … I’m looking at a ceiling… He allowed his head to loll over to one side and he saw crown molding and the top of a wall. Farther, and he looked directly at a window with the sunlight streaming in, and he groaned and shut his eyes and let the pounding settle.

I am not dead… He lay there with that new understanding, and slowly it came back. Hunting down the bitch spy, holding her until the Union troops could arrive, confronting her with her mendacity. He remembered the rage. He remembered what he had done and he was glad of it. But he did not remember anything else. He did not know how he had come to be lying on the floor.

He wondered if the women were still there. For all he knew they were sitting right behind him, ready to kill him. He wondered if the Union forces had arrived yet. His pants were around his knees. God, they can’t find me like this. It was just how that bitch had threatened to leave him. He was beginning to panic.

With a deep moan he opened his eyes and sat up, pushing himself up slowly, inch by agonizing inch. When he was sitting up he stopped and waited for the pain to settle some, then slowly, torturously, he stood.

He was alone in the room. He did not know where the women were, but they were not here. There were blood splatters all over the carpet, and his.36 Colt lay at his feet. Slowly, carefully, trying not to fall or pass out, he pulled up his pants and buttoned them. He turned around. The body of the secesh officer he had shot lay by the piano. His eyes moved to the mantel over the fireplace. The clock said 11:10. He had been out for hours. His face felt sticky and encrusted.

He took a faltering step toward the door and the shattered remnants of the mirror that was mounted there. He peered into a jagged shard of glass still hanging in the frame, but he did not recognize at first the terrible image that looked back. Smeared with dried and crusted blood, hair standing up and sticking out at odd angles, eyes bloodshot red.

He reached a tentative hand up and probed at his scalp. He could feel a ridge of torn skin, hard with dried blood. An image swam in his head of that other woman aiming his gun at him. Had she shot him? The bullet must have grazed his scalp, knocked him senseless. Blood had poured from the head wound. They must have left him for dead.

But he was not dead. He was alive and he could feel his strength returning, and with it a renewed sense of purpose, and a newfound fear.

It had set in only a few moments after he let them board the Norwegian ship. What have I done? What sort of a coward am I?