Carbines and Capacitors 6/14
Previous
Chapter 6
Tséohketoetanóto*
Four days in the Catskills were just what the doctor ordered, as far as Cheyenne was concerned. They weren’t the mountains of the West that he knew and loved so well, but they were mountains all the same, and the hotel, despite having modern conveniences like electric lights, had the kind of architecture he was used to. There were even horses available to rent. Reese and Cheyenne swapped war stories in the car, explored the trails on horseback and on foot, played poker and chess in the evenings, and let the mountain air, fragrant with pine, drive the city stench out of their lungs. Going back to New York afterward was a wrench… but they did have a job to do.
On their return, Mr. Finch directed them to “Jim Wade’s” new apartment in a building managed by a friendly fellow from Miami who went by Ernest Trask and knew Reese as John Hayes. Reese hinted to Cheyenne that Trask owed them some favors, which explained why Mr. Finch had chosen this particular apartment for him. Cheyenne’s gear had already been moved in, so all he had to do was sign the lease and pick up the keys. And after giving Cheyenne a couple of days to settle in, Mr. Finch declared him ready to take a more active role in the team’s work, which meant learning the location of the library hideout and attending briefings there on a more regular basis. He also had to wear an ear device while on duty, which wasn’t completely comfortable but did make it easier to keep in contact with the others.
The case of Genrika Zhirova, who lived in a bad part of the South Bronx, seemed to get off to a slow start. Miss Shaw was sent to interview her and discovered that she was a girl, preferred to be called Gen, and fancied herself a spy. When Gen left for school, Miss Shaw followed her on one side of the street while Reese followed her on the other side and Cheyenne scouted down the nearest alleys to make sure no one had laid an ambush. But Gen spotted Miss Shaw, much to Miss Shaw’s consternation and Reese’s amusement, so Miss Shaw doubled back to scout the building where Gen lived.
Cheyenne was nearly to the cross street onto which Gen was turning when a black car drove past and stopped just past the alley. He immediately sensed trouble, as did Reese, and the two of them rushed toward the car as the four men inside got out and tried to grab Gen. Reese and Cheyenne managed to knock out three of the hostiles, but the fourth chased Gen back toward her building, where Miss Shaw got her to cover in a sub-basement. The hostiles apparently had friends in the building, however, so Reese went in one door and sent Cheyenne to find and clear another path out.
No sooner had Cheyenne rounded the corner of the building when there was a beep from his ear device, followed by the strangest thing he’d experienced yet in this strange time and place: a patchwork of voices, like an anonymous letter pasted together from words cut out of newspapers, asked him, “CAN you hear me?”
He hesitated before quietly answering, “Yes.”
Beep. “Go BACK to the car.” Beep.
He frowned, confused. “The hostiles’ car?”
Beep. “YES.” Beep.
“Why?”
Beep. “Open the trunk.” Beep.
Even more confused but sensing that he ought to find out why the patchwork voice was asking him to do that, Cheyenne doubled back to the black car, knocked out one of the men who was starting to come around, and hurriedly located the trunk release.
Beep. “Look IN the trunk.” Beep.
Cheyenne strode around to the back of the car and lifted the trunk lid to reveal a jumble of equipment, topped by several items that he’d never seen before but that reminded him of a few pictures he’d seen of people in World War I wearing gas masks.
Beep. “Take the MASKS.” Beep.
Cheyenne frowned. “You mean get rid of ’em?”
Beep. “YES.” Beep.
He gathered up as much of the equipment as he could carry, not quite sure what to do with it until he remembered passing a dumpster in the alley that wasn’t full to overflowing. He shoved everything, including the masks, into the dumpster and then, as a precaution, lit a match and dropped it in.
Beep. “Go back to THE apartment building .” Beep.
“Bodie, what’s your 20?” Reese asked as Cheyenne dashed back down the alley toward the apartments.
“Had to prevent a Plan B,” Cheyenne replied. “On my way back to you.”
The patchwork voice directed Cheyenne to a side entrance, and he swiftly fought his way down to where four hostiles were converging on a hole in the wall covered by a grate. Beyond them, Reese caught Cheyenne’s eye and held up his gun. Cheyenne nodded and drew his own, and together they took down the hostiles by shooting out their knees. Reese gave a coded knock on the grate, and a moment later the grate swung back and Miss Shaw emerged with Gen.
“Take her,” Miss Shaw told Cheyenne, all but pushing Gen into his arms.
“Grab hold,” Cheyenne told Gen as he bent to pick her up. She obediently threw her arms around his neck, and he lifted her onto his hip with his left arm-she was surprisingly light for a ten-year-old.
Reese had been watching both directions and nodded once Cheyenne had a secure hold on Gen. “Let’s go.”
With Reese taking point and Miss Shaw covering the rear, the rescue party rushed back to ground level and out toward Reese’s car. They hadn’t quite reached it when the first batch of hostiles, one of whom stood out because of the tremor in his hand, attacked them again and more hostiles ran out of the building to join them. Reese and Miss Shaw turned to give covering fire while Cheyenne raced to get Gen into the car. He had just tucked Gen into the back seat and shut the door when a female-sounding grunt caught his ear, and he turned to see an unconscious Miss Shaw, separated from Reese, being dragged away by some of the hostiles.
“SHAW!” Cheyenne cried.
“Bodie!” Reese called before Cheyenne could go after Miss Shaw. When Cheyenne turned, Reese threw him the keys to the car. “Get her out of here!”
Cheyenne was about to protest that he couldn’t drive when there was another beep in his ear. The patchwork voice, whoever it belonged to, was still with him. He swallowed hard, jogged around to the driver’s seat, and got in.
He knew the basic steps for starting the car; he’d watched Reese do it often enough. Doing it himself was another matter-and was even more nerve-wracking than his first performance as Jim Merritt. Still, with a few hints from the patchwork voice, he had the car started and was on the road and around the corner before the hostiles could start shooting at him.
“There’s a black hood on the seat beside you, Miss Gen,” he told his passenger. “I’m gonna need for you to put it on.”
“Why?” Gen asked, which was a reasonable question.
“I’m takin’ you to a safe place, but I can’t let you see where it is.”
She gasped excitedly. “A safe house? We’re going to a real safe house?!”
He couldn’t help smiling. “We sure are.”
She popped the hood over her head without another word, which gave him the chance to focus on the patchwork voice’s directions for how to get from the South Bronx to the area of Manhattan where the safe house stood. He was acutely aware of the danger posed by the cars and trucks crowded all around him, almost as bad as being in the middle of a stampeding herd of longhorns. Even if none of the vehicles held hostiles, a crash could seriously injure or kill both Cheyenne and Gen. Having the patchwork voice in his ear did help, but he still wished he’d asked Reese for driving lessons before this happened.
He kept his head, however, and the route to the safe house was mercifully wreck-free, so it wasn’t long before they reached a part of town he recognized. From there, it was only a few minutes more until he was driving into the underground parking garage and finding a stall-er, parking space. But still in flight mode, he carried Gen from the car into the building and up to the safe house, not letting go until they were inside with the door securely bolted behind them. Then he set her gently on the sofa.
“I’m gonna take the hood off now,” he told her, “but you might wanna close your eyes so the light doesn’t dazzle you so much.”
“Okay,” she replied with a nod. “Eyes closed.”
He pulled off the hood, and sure enough, her eyes were closed. “You can open ’em.”
She did so and gasped in awe as she looked around. “Whoa!”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Some spread, ain’t it?”
“Yeah! It’s really cool!”
“Well, hold on a minute. I gotta check in with my boss.”
She nodded and swung her legs as she continued surveying the living room.
Cheyenne took his telephone out of his pocket to make sure he was still connected to the others before he called, “Mr. Finch?”
“Mr. Bodie!” Mr. Finch answered. “Where are you?”
“At the safe house with Gen.”
“Oh, thank God!” Mr. Finch’s relief was audible. “Stay there with her. We’ll join you as soon as we can.”
“All right,” Cheyenne agreed. “Any news on Miss Shaw?”
“Not yet,” said Reese. “I’m tracking the man with the tremors. Hopefully he can lead us to her. Finch is working on recovering the tapes Gen recorded.”
Cheyenne sighed. “If you need me-”
“No,” Reese interrupted. “Stay with Gen. If the kidnappers somehow manage to catch up with you, you’re the best defense she could have.”
Cheyenne looked at Gen again, noticing anew how thin and physically frail she was, for all her inner strength. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll sit tight until we hear from you. Goodbye.” He hung up and then, as the events of the morning caught up with him, sat down in an armchair and tried not to let Gen see him collapse.
“Where’s Shaw?” Gen asked.
Cheyenne shook his head. “They haven’t found her yet.”
She sighed. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Well, I won’t tell you not to worry, ’cause I’m worried for her, too. But she’s a capable lady. I’m sure she’ll be all right.”
She studied him for a moment. “What’s your name?”
He considered. “You can call me Jim.” Cheyenne was too distinctive a name to be safe.
“Nice to meet you.” She paused. “You’re really strong.”
He smiled. “Well, I work at it. Are you hungry?”
She shook her head. “I just had breakfast.”
“Well, when you want somethin’, let me know. The kitchen’s right through there.”
“Thanks.” She looked around again and shivered.
“Scared?” he asked quietly.
She nodded.
“It’s all right to be. But we’re safe here.”
She looked down at the coffee table and didn’t respond.
He watched her a moment before offering, “Would it help if I told you a story?”
She looked up at him. “What kind of story?”
“About a little boy named Grey Fox who lived a long time ago. His folks were killed when he was a baby, but the Indians rescued him and raised him like one o’ their own.”
Clearly intrigued, Gen shifted to a more comfortable position for listening.
“There was a powerful lot o’ trouble between the Indians and the white settlers in those days. Chief White Cloud, who was Grey Fox’s pa, was feudin’ with a white man named Lionel Abbot, an’ they’d both vowed to wipe each other’s people off the face o’ the earth. But things had kindly died down for a while when Grey Fox was about your age.” Cheyenne didn’t normally like referring to himself in the third person this way, but there was no way Gen would believe that these things had really happened to him.
“So what happened?” she asked.
“One day Grey Fox and one of his brothers were in town to do some tradin’, an’ a man rode in yellin’ that the Indians had attacked a homestead. Said he’d brought an arrow with ’im to prove it. Now, Grey Fox knew it wasn’t his people that done it, ’cause they never raided at that time o’ year. He thought maybe it was the Crow or the Shoshone tryin’ to cause trouble for the Cheyenne. But when the man brought the arrow out to show Mr. Abbot, Grey Fox knew right away it wasn’t made by any Indian anywhere.”
“How?”
“The fletchin’ was all wrong.” When she tilted her head in confusion, he explained, “The feathers.”
“You mean it wouldn’t fly?”
“Well, it’d fly, but….” He paused and looked around for a notepad. Spotting one on the dining table, he got up to fetch it and sat down again next to Gen. “Different tribes made their arrows different ways,” he began and sketched some to show her differences between the arrowhead shapes and flint knapping techniques used by the Cheyenne, Crow, and Shoshone. He also showed her some differences in the shafts and what the fletching would look like on those tribes’ arrows. “But one thing that was the same,” he went on, “was the fact that they used animal sinew to bind the arrowhead and fletchin’ to the shaft. All Indians did-that’s what they had on hand. This arrow the fella was wavin’ around while he was talkin’ to Mr. Abbot wasn’t bound with sinew. The feathers were the wrong shape, an’ they were tied on with wire.”
She gasped. “Was it made by a white man?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, a renegade who was hopin’ to get the feud all stirred up again so’s both sides would wipe each other out an’ he could move in an’ take the land for himself. Now, Grey Fox had a mighty hard time gettin’ Mr. Abbot an’ the sheriff to listen to ’im, partly ’cause he didn’t speak very good English in those days.”
“I didn’t speak much English when I came to live with my grandfather,” she confessed quietly. “I’ve had to learn a lot in the last four years.”
“You’ve done a good job,” he assured her. “It’s a hard language. Grey Fox didn’t learn much of it until he went to live with a white family when he was twelve. Had to learn to read and write then, too. Almost lost all of it when he went back to live with the Cheyenne three years later, but White Cloud made him keep in practice just in case. Sure enough, Grey Fox tried again when he was eighteen, an’ that time he did all right in white society. He was always a mite fiddle-footed, and I never heard that he settled down in one place for long, but he made friends and held down some good jobs-sheriff, cowhand, trail boss… all kinds o’ things.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “So what happened with the fake arrow?”
“Well, it took a lot o’ doin’, but Grey Fox finally got the sheriff to see the wire, an’ then the sheriff had a fight with Mr. Abbot, tryin’ to make him see that the Cheyenne were bein’ framed. After that, the sheriff let Grey Fox sneak into the saloon to see what he could hear, an’ sure enough, he overheard the men talkin’ about their scheme. He went an’ told the sheriff, an’ the sheriff arrested ’em, an’ they hanged for the murder o’ the homesteaders.”
“And they all lived happily ever after?”
He smiled ruefully. “Wish I could say that, but at least there was peace until Grey Fox came of age an’ left the first time.”
“Why don’t you tell her the one about the Three Bears next?” asked Miss Shaw’s flat, exhausted voice from the doorway.
Gen gasped. “Shaw!”
Cheyenne looked up to see Miss Shaw, sweaty and bloodied and pale, leaning against the brick wall beside the door and smiling wanly at Gen. “Hey, kiddo,” she said as Cheyenne stood. “Finch told me you were here.”
Cheyenne hurried up the stairs to steady her and help her down the stairs. “Why didn’t he call us?”
“Told ’im not to.” Miss Shaw leaned against him, but he could tell it wasn’t a ploy for his attention; she’d clearly lost a lot of blood. “Besides, he thinks I’m seein’ some Dr. Madani-but this place was closer.”
“What do you need?”
“Transfusion kit… top of the medicine cabinet. John put it up there.”
Cheyenne eased her into the armchair. “Gen?”
“Yes, Jim?” Gen replied, her expression equal parts eagerness and worry.
“In the icebox, there are some bottles of sports drinks. Would you go fetch one for Miss Shaw?”
Gen blinked. “In the what?”
“He means the fridge,” Miss Shaw translated.
“Oh. Got it.”
Gen dashed to the kitchen while Cheyenne went to the bathroom and retrieved the transfusion kit, as well as the first aid kit. As Miss Shaw sipped at her drink, Cheyenne shed his suit coat, rolled up his sleeves, and scrubbed his hands well in the kitchen, then carefully removed the silver-sticky-duct tape, that was the term-she’d used for temporary bandages and treated her wounds properly, with Gen at his elbow to play nurse. The sleeves of Miss Shaw’s black blouse were a lost cause and he had to cut them off to get at the wounds on her arms, but if she minded, it didn’t show.
“Is this something spies have to do a lot?” Gen asked while Cheyenne stitched up one of the deeper cuts.
Miss Shaw tilted her head and shrugged with her other shoulder. “If you’re just manning a listening station, not so much. But that’s the boring side of espionage. If you wanna be where the action is, you need to know how to patch yourself up. Or your partner, or a person you’re trying to save. I went to med school, but… turns out I was better at killing people than fixing them.”
Cheyenne chose not to comment. He needed to focus on finishing off the stitches anyway-they weren’t the neatest ever, since he hadn’t had a lot of practice, but the wound should at least heal without much scarring. When he’d trimmed the last bit of suture, Miss Shaw pulled a tube of salve out of the kit to hand to him, and he duly smeared some on the wound before putting a protective bandage over the top. By the time he’d finished working on her, she’d finished her drink, and while she still looked peaked, her eyes were less glassy. She handed the bottle to Gen and sent her to the kitchen to dispose of it.
Then she grabbed Cheyenne by the collar and pulled him down to hiss in his ear, “You drove?!”
“Miracles do happen,” he answered. “Not lookin’ to do it again any time soon, but I really didn’t have much choice.”
She let him go as abruptly as she’d grabbed him. “You’re damn lucky I actually need your blood.”
He shot her an amused smile and rolled up his left sleeve above the elbow. While he found a stool to sit on, she asked him several very indiscreet medical questions, sounding shocked that he’d never done anything shocking with even a saloon girl, and prepared the transfusion line. Fortunately, Gen was in the kitchen with the water running for most of that time, but his cheeks were still flame-hot when she came back in, just as Miss Shaw slid the needle into his arm.
“Why are you blushing?” Gen asked him.
Cheyenne cleared his throat and tried not to squirm. “Miss Shaw just asked me a… mighty personal question.”
“I didn’t think spies ever blushed.”
“He’s no James Bond,” Miss Shaw remarked flatly, took a deep breath, and slid the needle at the other end of the transfusion line into her own arm.
Gen shot a wary look at the transfusion line, now filled with Cheyenne’s blood, and sat down at the other end of the sofa before looking up at Cheyenne again. “Was Grey Fox ever a spy?”
“Not when he was your age,” Cheyenne replied, aware that Miss Shaw was watching him even though her eyes were only half open. “But when he grew up, he served as a civilian scout for the cavalry off and on for a lot o’ years. Back then a scout’s enlistment was only six months, so he could leave an’ come back as he was needed. An’ sometimes his commanders would ask ’im to do some undercover work.”
Gen inched closer. “Like what?”
“Oh, there was one time-I reckon it was in 1877, just before Crazy Horse died.** Somebody was stealin’ horses bound for a cavalry fort in the Dakotas an’ planned to sell ’em to Crazy Horse, so the fort’s commander hired Grey Fox to bring the next herd in. But Grey Fox spotted raiders on the trail an’ refused to continue, in spite of a direct order, so a couple o’ the junior officers had ’im court-martialed for cowardice and discharged.”
Gen inched closer again. “But it was a cover?”
Cheyenne smiled. “That’s right. The three of ’em were workin’ together ’cause they knew the raiders had someone on the inside. Grey Fox had to look good to the raiders so they’d recruit ’im an’ give him a chance to meet the rest o’ the group.”
“Did it work?”
“Like a charm. Only problem was, the contact inside the fort was so sharp, he passed information about the next shipment to the raiders’ leader right under Grey Fox’s nose. The officers had to kill the leader so Grey Fox could take his place.”
Gen had reached the middle of the sofa by this point. “And then he learned who the leak was?”
Cheyenne nodded. “It was the colonel. He was tryin’ to get revenge on the Army ’cause he didn’t want to be stuck at a frontier fort for the rest o’ his career. He even killed the two officers who were gettin’ too close, an’ he tried to kill Grey Fox, too.”
Gen gasped. “What happened?”
“Well, Grey Fox had to go back to the fort to get help. The captain there tried to have ’im arrested, but Grey Fox convinced ’im that the colonel was up to no good. So they rode out together an’ captured the raiders, but the colonel tried to escape, so Grey Fox chased ’im.”
“And he caught him?”
“Why, of course he did. He’s the hero, ain’t he?”
Gen giggled, and Miss Shaw snorted. Cheyenne grinned and tried to think of another safe story to tell-he’d come too close to saying I rather than Grey Fox a few times during this one.
He’d just settled on recounting some of Tom Brewster’s ill-fated encounters with his identical cousin Abram Thomas, the Canary Kid,*** when his pocket telephone rang. It was Reese.
“Shaw’s gone AWOL,” Reese reported without preamble when Cheyenne answered. “Ditched her phone.”
“She’s right here, gettin’ a transfusion from me,” Cheyenne countered, frowning at Miss Shaw in confusion.
Reese sighed. “Put me on speaker.”
“You sure? Gen’s right here, too.”
“You may as well,” Mr. Finch chimed in. “This matter concerns her, too.”
It took Cheyenne a moment to find the right place to touch the screen, but he succeeded in switching to speakerphone mode. “All right, you’re on speaker,” he announced and had Gen set his telephone on the coffee table.
“The man with the tremors is working for HR,” Reese began. “He was exposed to potassium permanganate while cooking a new designer drug called bath salts, which HR and the Russians are making here in New York as a joint operation. They’re planning to pressure all the dealers to stop selling other drugs and distribute only bath salts.”
Gen gasped. “I heard someone talking about that!”
“I’ve found that tape, Miss Zhirova,” Mr. Finch said, as if she were one of the team. “And I’ve confirmed that one of the voices on it belongs to Patrick Simmons. The other may be Peter Yogorov, but I don’t have a recording of his voice to compare with.”
Miss Shaw, whose color was already improving, shook her head. “That’s really gonna-hack off the cartels.” Cheyenne was mildly grateful that she chose to censor herself in front of Gen.
“That’s our leverage,” said Miss Carter from Reese’s end of the line.
There was a brief pause before Mr. Finch said, “You sound as if you have a plan, Detective.”
“We use Laskey for a triple play,” said Reese.
“After what happened to Merritt’s apartment,” Miss Carter continued, “Simmons is already convinced that the Russians are unreliable. So my idea is that we let Laskey overhear a conversation between John and me, sayin’ that Yogorov told Gen to record that meeting as insurance.”
“Only she gave us the tape,” added Miss Shaw, catching on at about the same time Cheyenne did.
“Exactly,” said Reese. “We set a fictional meet with the Russians for tonight to sell the recording back to them. If they don’t show, we meet with the Sinaloa cartel half an hour later to sell them the tape.”
Cheyenne nodded thoughtfully. “That’ll draw Simmons out to set an ambush, but what do we do in the meantime?”
“You and I set a counter-ambush, while Carter keeps Laskey busy and Shaw destroys the lab.”
“We don’t know where the lab is yet, John,” Miss Carter noted.
“I’ve almost got it,” Mr. Finch said. “Det. Carter took pictures of a chemical truck that appears to be headed to the lab. I’ve hacked the GPS transponder on that truck. When it stops, I’ll compare that data with the GPS history from Det. Terney’s phone-obviously he’s not there now, but I’m willing to bet he’s been there in the past week.”
“How can I help?” Gen asked. When no one answered immediately, she continued, “Jim’s still giving Shaw a transfusion, but I don’t have anything to do.”
“I’ll give it some thought, Miss Zhirova,” Mr. Finch replied. “In the meantime, perhaps you could see to lunch-sandwiches would be easy to eat with one hand.”
Gen nodded eagerly. “I can do that.”
“Thank you. I’ll call back sometime this afternoon.”
“And I’ll stop by after lunch,” Reese promised and hung up.
Gen stood with the air of an efficient waitress and turned to Cheyenne and Miss Shaw. “What can I get you?”
“Ham sandwich an’ black coffee for me, please,” said Cheyenne.
“What kind of ham?”
“I dunno, whatever kind we have.” That was one question Cheyenne still hadn’t gotten used to-there were too many new specialty ways to cure and smoke a ham for him to keep up with.
Gen nodded. “Shaw?”
“Same, with cheese and extra pepperoncini,” Miss Shaw answered, settling back in the chair and closing her eyes.
“Got it.” Gen nodded again and went back to the kitchen.
Cheyenne watched Miss Shaw for a moment before asking quietly, “D’you mind if I do somethin’ right quick?”
She cracked open one eye and raised an eyebrow in mild curiosity. “What?”
“It won’t hurt, and it won’t take long, I promise. You won’t even have to move.”
Her eyebrow rose a little further, but then she shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Gingerly, so as not to disturb the transfusion line, he took her left hand in his and recited the words of the ancient blood-sharing ritual he’d undergone the first time he’d left the People, the scar of which he still bore on the inside of his right wrist. He didn’t know if it would help her heal or improve their friendship, such as it was, but it seemed like the thing to do.
She frowned a little in confusion but waited until he’d finished and let her go to open both eyes and ask, “What was that?”
“You’re now blood of my blood,” he answered. “My blood, freely given, flows in your veins. Reckoned I oughta formalize it.”
She stared at him. “What, like blood-brothers? I thought that was a myth.”
“Nope.” He showed her his scar. “I’ll always be a blood-brother of the Cheyenne Nation, and now I claim you as a blood-sister. I hope you don’t mind,” he added with a rueful smile.
She blinked several times. “Um. I. No, that’s… that’s cool. Thanks.” She closed her eyes again, clearly thinking hard, and he couldn’t help smiling to himself over having caught her flat-footed this way.
He let her rest for the next few minutes until Gen returned with their sandwiches and fresh coffee, both of which were exactly what Cheyenne needed. Gen beamed when he told her so. Then she settled in on the sofa with her own sandwich, and he struck up The Misadventures of Sugarfoot and the Canary Kid, which frequently reduced Gen to helpless giggles and made Miss Shaw laugh out loud more than once. Cheyenne had never considered himself a great storyteller, at least not compared to the elders among the People, but he was glad to keep the mood light while they waited.
Reese arrived just as Miss Shaw declared the transfusion finished, so he was able to coach Gen on how to help Miss Shaw remove the line from her end while also removing it from Cheyenne’s end and wrapping the site with an elasticated bandage to stop the bleeding. Cheyenne was feeling a mite lightheaded by then, so Reese got him another sandwich.
“The false trail’s all set,” Reese announced, sitting down with his own coffee. “I’m supposed to give Carter until 5 to get back to her precinct before I call. Finch got the coordinates for the lab, and he’s also worked out how to start a chain reaction that’ll blow the whole building.”
Miss Shaw smiled dangerously. “Excellent.”
Reese turned to Gen next. “Finch said he needs your help sorting through the rest of the tapes. We need to make copies of all the ones related to HR.”
Gen nodded. “I can do that.”
“Good. We’ll get you set up on a video chat with him here in a bit.”
Gen nodded again.
Miss Shaw pushed herself to her feet. “I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when it’s go time.” And before anyone could agree or disagree, she stalked off to the bedroom.
Cheyenne finished his sandwich while Reese finished his coffee and got Gen set up at the dining table to chat with Finch. Since the sofa was vacated, Cheyenne lay down on it to doze.
“Will this bother you?” Reese asked from the table.
Cheyenne shook his head and closed his eyes. “No, I can sleep through a Shoshone war dance. Don’t want to sleep too deeply anyway.” He wouldn’t admit it in front of Gen, but he was a little worried about what shape his dreams might take and which would feature in them more prominently, the terror of having to drive a car for the first time-in New York traffic, no less-or the mysterious patchwork voice. Where had it come from? Who did it belong to? Why had that person helped him, and why was the voice a patchwork like that? With Gen and Miss Shaw to look after, he hadn’t had time to think about those things, but with the mission still to come that night, he wasn’t sure it was safe to think about them now, either.
He had a feeling Gen looked at him funny for the war dance comment (it was true; he could and had), but Reese immediately drew her attention back to the laptop he was setting up for her. It was only another moment before Mr. Finch’s voice came from the thing’s speakers, and Cheyenne let himself drift as he half-listened to the conversation about things he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. If he dreamed, he didn’t remember it.
The sun was setting when Reese shook him awake. “Laskey took the bait,” Reese stated. “Carter says he called Simmons the second I got off the phone with her. Now he’s invited her to have a beer with him at a bar that’s run by a former HR lieutenant. Finch is on his way over to stay with Gen while we’re gone.”
Cheyenne nodded and sat up. “How’s Miss Shaw?”
“Still waking up, but she looks better. So do you,” Reese noted.
“I feel better,” Cheyenne admitted.
“Supper should help, too. Gen’s decided she likes cooking for us-she’s making beef stroganoff.”
“Don’t think I’ve ever had that.” Cheyenne sniffed the air, finally recognizing that he did smell beef cooking with garlic and some other spices he couldn’t identify right off. “Smells mighty good.”
“It is good, assuming you like things made with sour cream.”
“Man, right now I’m hungry enough to eat raw calf liver.”
Reese smiled. “I won’t ask.”
Cheyenne smiled back and went to get himself a cup of coffee to clear the cobwebs.
“Hi, Jim!” Gen chirped from her station in front of the stove, where she was stirring a pot and a skillet at the same time.
“How’s it goin’, Miss Gen?” he asked.
“Great! It’s almost done. Could you drain the noodles for me?”
“I’d be glad to.” Cheyenne set his mug on the counter beside the coffee pot and took the steaming pot of noodles from the burner Gen switched off and poured the contents into the colander that was waiting in the sink. “Mighty kind of you to cook for us.”
She grinned and returned her attention to the skillet, which was full of beef and mushrooms in a creamy sauce. “It’s fun to have someone to cook for. My grandfather taught me how.”
“Well, it sure smells delicious.”
“Thanks.” Her smile dimmed. “Vadim doesn’t care about food. He doesn’t care about anything except drugs and video games.”
“And you don’t want to live with ’im,” he surmised.
She grimaced and turned off the burner under the skillet. “I know he’s family, but it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Maybe Mr. Finch can do somethin’ about it.”
“He is!” She brightened again. “He’s having Vadim’s guardianship revoked and getting the court to name me as his ward, and he’s found a boarding school here in New York for me to transfer to.”
He smiled. “You’re a bright young lady. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
She beamed.
Mr. Finch’s arrival was announced just then by Bear charging into the kitchen; Cheyenne barely managed to get an “Af!” out in time to stop him from bowling Gen over and licking her to death. Bear whined as he sat, but Cheyenne rewarded him with a couple of noodles. Gen rewarded him further with cooing and pets, so Cheyenne took over dishing up the food to take to the table, which Reese had already set.
The meal-which really was delicious, and not just because Cheyenne was famished-was congenial but short because of the plan’s timetable. Miss Shaw had to leave first but promised Gen she’d be back in a few hours. Then, as she passed Cheyenne, she murmured, “If we’re gonna be siblings, you may as well call me Sam.”
He smiled down at her. “It’s a deal.”
Miss-Sam nodded and left.
Cheyenne had just enough time to finish cleaning his plate before he and Reese had to leave for their own part of the operation. They spoke seldom in the car, and when they did, it was only about strategy. In the end, they arrived at the supposed meeting site and hid themselves seconds before another vehicle arrived and Simmons and his men got out. Once the guards had taken up their positions and Simmons had stationed himself in plain view to confront whoever showed up next, Reese tapped on his ear device with his fingernail to signal Cheyenne, and together they silently knocked out the guards and made their way toward Simmons before he tried to call the guards on the radio.
“Where the hell is everyone?!” Simmons demanded angrily when his calls went unanswered.
“Excuse me, Officer,” Reese interrupted, walking around the vehicle and into Simmons’ line of sight. “I’d like to report an attempted kidnapping.”
Simmons smirked. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
“No.”
“I know how much you’re askin’ Yogorov for the tapes. I’ll pay double for ’em.”
“What makes you think I didn’t make copies?”
“You haven’t had time. Besides, I know how you operate. You’re not lookin’ for a deal with the Sinaloas. You want the same deal from Yogorov that you had with Elias.”
Reese shot Simmons a look. “I didn’t have a deal with Elias.”
Simmons scoffed. “All right, c’mon, hand ’em over.”
“Let’s see the money first.”
Simmons scoffed again. “You didn’t bring the tapes, did you?”
Reese smiled coldly. “And you didn’t bring the money.”
Simmons took a swing at Reese, and the two of them fought for over a minute, which gave Cheyenne cover to sneak closer to them and be in position when Reese finally pinned Simmons against the side of the vehicle.
“There are thousands of us,” Simmons panted. “You can’t stop us.”
“Armies fall, one soldier at a time,” Reese countered. “And I’m not as alone as you think.”
That was Cheyenne’s cue. As Reese hauled Simmons back to his feet, Cheyenne came around the back of the vehicle, and Reese spun Simmons right into a knockout punch from Cheyenne. Simmons crumpled to the ground; Reese clapped Cheyenne on the arm; and the two of them sprinted back to Reese’s car and left before any uninvited guests could show up.
“You all right?” Reese asked as they sped away.
“Yeah,” said Cheyenne, flexing his hand. “Gonna be ready for another helpin’ o’ stroganoff when we get back.”
Reese chuckled.
Cheyenne waited a moment before asking, “Reese… this project Mr. Finch built for the government… does it ever… well, contact you with a… sort o’ patchwork voice?”
Sobering, Reese hesitated before pressing a button on his ear device. “Finch?”
“Yes, Mr. Reese?” Mr. Finch answered.
“We’re on our way back to the safe house, but Bodie and I need to have a talk off the record.”
Mr. Finch paused. “All right. We’ll expect you.”
“Thanks.” Reese tapped his ear again, then handed his pocket telephone to Cheyenne. “Turn off both phones and take the batteries out.”
“Why?” Cheyenne asked even as he turned Reese’s telephone off.
“It’s the only way to make sure no one can overhear what I’m about to tell you.”
“All right.” Cheyenne made short work of the telephones and made sure to put each phone with its battery in a separate compartment of the cup holder.
Reese sighed when he’d finished. “It called you this morning?”
Cheyenne nodded. “Yeah. What is it?”
“The government calls it Northern Lights. We call it the Machine….”
Next
* Another of the Cheyenne words for computer (lit. “that which keeps [things] in mind”) that seems like a good description of the Machine
** What follows is the plot of Cheyenne 2.11 “Test of Courage,” which is a remake of the movie Springfield Rifle and is retold in one of the Cheyenne comic books. (The earlier “Grey Fox, Boy Detective” is my own story that might or might not turn into a separate fic one of these days.)
*** To be found in Seasons 2 and 3 of Sugarfoot, though Tom himself appears in both Maverick “Hadley’s Hunters” and Cheyenne 5.7 “Duel at Judas Basin” along with Bronco Layne.
Chapter 6
Tséohketoetanóto*
Four days in the Catskills were just what the doctor ordered, as far as Cheyenne was concerned. They weren’t the mountains of the West that he knew and loved so well, but they were mountains all the same, and the hotel, despite having modern conveniences like electric lights, had the kind of architecture he was used to. There were even horses available to rent. Reese and Cheyenne swapped war stories in the car, explored the trails on horseback and on foot, played poker and chess in the evenings, and let the mountain air, fragrant with pine, drive the city stench out of their lungs. Going back to New York afterward was a wrench… but they did have a job to do.
On their return, Mr. Finch directed them to “Jim Wade’s” new apartment in a building managed by a friendly fellow from Miami who went by Ernest Trask and knew Reese as John Hayes. Reese hinted to Cheyenne that Trask owed them some favors, which explained why Mr. Finch had chosen this particular apartment for him. Cheyenne’s gear had already been moved in, so all he had to do was sign the lease and pick up the keys. And after giving Cheyenne a couple of days to settle in, Mr. Finch declared him ready to take a more active role in the team’s work, which meant learning the location of the library hideout and attending briefings there on a more regular basis. He also had to wear an ear device while on duty, which wasn’t completely comfortable but did make it easier to keep in contact with the others.
The case of Genrika Zhirova, who lived in a bad part of the South Bronx, seemed to get off to a slow start. Miss Shaw was sent to interview her and discovered that she was a girl, preferred to be called Gen, and fancied herself a spy. When Gen left for school, Miss Shaw followed her on one side of the street while Reese followed her on the other side and Cheyenne scouted down the nearest alleys to make sure no one had laid an ambush. But Gen spotted Miss Shaw, much to Miss Shaw’s consternation and Reese’s amusement, so Miss Shaw doubled back to scout the building where Gen lived.
Cheyenne was nearly to the cross street onto which Gen was turning when a black car drove past and stopped just past the alley. He immediately sensed trouble, as did Reese, and the two of them rushed toward the car as the four men inside got out and tried to grab Gen. Reese and Cheyenne managed to knock out three of the hostiles, but the fourth chased Gen back toward her building, where Miss Shaw got her to cover in a sub-basement. The hostiles apparently had friends in the building, however, so Reese went in one door and sent Cheyenne to find and clear another path out.
No sooner had Cheyenne rounded the corner of the building when there was a beep from his ear device, followed by the strangest thing he’d experienced yet in this strange time and place: a patchwork of voices, like an anonymous letter pasted together from words cut out of newspapers, asked him, “CAN you hear me?”
He hesitated before quietly answering, “Yes.”
Beep. “Go BACK to the car.” Beep.
He frowned, confused. “The hostiles’ car?”
Beep. “YES.” Beep.
“Why?”
Beep. “Open the trunk.” Beep.
Even more confused but sensing that he ought to find out why the patchwork voice was asking him to do that, Cheyenne doubled back to the black car, knocked out one of the men who was starting to come around, and hurriedly located the trunk release.
Beep. “Look IN the trunk.” Beep.
Cheyenne strode around to the back of the car and lifted the trunk lid to reveal a jumble of equipment, topped by several items that he’d never seen before but that reminded him of a few pictures he’d seen of people in World War I wearing gas masks.
Beep. “Take the MASKS.” Beep.
Cheyenne frowned. “You mean get rid of ’em?”
Beep. “YES.” Beep.
He gathered up as much of the equipment as he could carry, not quite sure what to do with it until he remembered passing a dumpster in the alley that wasn’t full to overflowing. He shoved everything, including the masks, into the dumpster and then, as a precaution, lit a match and dropped it in.
Beep. “Go back to THE apartment building .” Beep.
“Bodie, what’s your 20?” Reese asked as Cheyenne dashed back down the alley toward the apartments.
“Had to prevent a Plan B,” Cheyenne replied. “On my way back to you.”
The patchwork voice directed Cheyenne to a side entrance, and he swiftly fought his way down to where four hostiles were converging on a hole in the wall covered by a grate. Beyond them, Reese caught Cheyenne’s eye and held up his gun. Cheyenne nodded and drew his own, and together they took down the hostiles by shooting out their knees. Reese gave a coded knock on the grate, and a moment later the grate swung back and Miss Shaw emerged with Gen.
“Take her,” Miss Shaw told Cheyenne, all but pushing Gen into his arms.
“Grab hold,” Cheyenne told Gen as he bent to pick her up. She obediently threw her arms around his neck, and he lifted her onto his hip with his left arm-she was surprisingly light for a ten-year-old.
Reese had been watching both directions and nodded once Cheyenne had a secure hold on Gen. “Let’s go.”
With Reese taking point and Miss Shaw covering the rear, the rescue party rushed back to ground level and out toward Reese’s car. They hadn’t quite reached it when the first batch of hostiles, one of whom stood out because of the tremor in his hand, attacked them again and more hostiles ran out of the building to join them. Reese and Miss Shaw turned to give covering fire while Cheyenne raced to get Gen into the car. He had just tucked Gen into the back seat and shut the door when a female-sounding grunt caught his ear, and he turned to see an unconscious Miss Shaw, separated from Reese, being dragged away by some of the hostiles.
“SHAW!” Cheyenne cried.
“Bodie!” Reese called before Cheyenne could go after Miss Shaw. When Cheyenne turned, Reese threw him the keys to the car. “Get her out of here!”
Cheyenne was about to protest that he couldn’t drive when there was another beep in his ear. The patchwork voice, whoever it belonged to, was still with him. He swallowed hard, jogged around to the driver’s seat, and got in.
He knew the basic steps for starting the car; he’d watched Reese do it often enough. Doing it himself was another matter-and was even more nerve-wracking than his first performance as Jim Merritt. Still, with a few hints from the patchwork voice, he had the car started and was on the road and around the corner before the hostiles could start shooting at him.
“There’s a black hood on the seat beside you, Miss Gen,” he told his passenger. “I’m gonna need for you to put it on.”
“Why?” Gen asked, which was a reasonable question.
“I’m takin’ you to a safe place, but I can’t let you see where it is.”
She gasped excitedly. “A safe house? We’re going to a real safe house?!”
He couldn’t help smiling. “We sure are.”
She popped the hood over her head without another word, which gave him the chance to focus on the patchwork voice’s directions for how to get from the South Bronx to the area of Manhattan where the safe house stood. He was acutely aware of the danger posed by the cars and trucks crowded all around him, almost as bad as being in the middle of a stampeding herd of longhorns. Even if none of the vehicles held hostiles, a crash could seriously injure or kill both Cheyenne and Gen. Having the patchwork voice in his ear did help, but he still wished he’d asked Reese for driving lessons before this happened.
He kept his head, however, and the route to the safe house was mercifully wreck-free, so it wasn’t long before they reached a part of town he recognized. From there, it was only a few minutes more until he was driving into the underground parking garage and finding a stall-er, parking space. But still in flight mode, he carried Gen from the car into the building and up to the safe house, not letting go until they were inside with the door securely bolted behind them. Then he set her gently on the sofa.
“I’m gonna take the hood off now,” he told her, “but you might wanna close your eyes so the light doesn’t dazzle you so much.”
“Okay,” she replied with a nod. “Eyes closed.”
He pulled off the hood, and sure enough, her eyes were closed. “You can open ’em.”
She did so and gasped in awe as she looked around. “Whoa!”
He smiled in spite of himself. “Some spread, ain’t it?”
“Yeah! It’s really cool!”
“Well, hold on a minute. I gotta check in with my boss.”
She nodded and swung her legs as she continued surveying the living room.
Cheyenne took his telephone out of his pocket to make sure he was still connected to the others before he called, “Mr. Finch?”
“Mr. Bodie!” Mr. Finch answered. “Where are you?”
“At the safe house with Gen.”
“Oh, thank God!” Mr. Finch’s relief was audible. “Stay there with her. We’ll join you as soon as we can.”
“All right,” Cheyenne agreed. “Any news on Miss Shaw?”
“Not yet,” said Reese. “I’m tracking the man with the tremors. Hopefully he can lead us to her. Finch is working on recovering the tapes Gen recorded.”
Cheyenne sighed. “If you need me-”
“No,” Reese interrupted. “Stay with Gen. If the kidnappers somehow manage to catch up with you, you’re the best defense she could have.”
Cheyenne looked at Gen again, noticing anew how thin and physically frail she was, for all her inner strength. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll sit tight until we hear from you. Goodbye.” He hung up and then, as the events of the morning caught up with him, sat down in an armchair and tried not to let Gen see him collapse.
“Where’s Shaw?” Gen asked.
Cheyenne shook his head. “They haven’t found her yet.”
She sighed. “I hope she’s okay.”
“Well, I won’t tell you not to worry, ’cause I’m worried for her, too. But she’s a capable lady. I’m sure she’ll be all right.”
She studied him for a moment. “What’s your name?”
He considered. “You can call me Jim.” Cheyenne was too distinctive a name to be safe.
“Nice to meet you.” She paused. “You’re really strong.”
He smiled. “Well, I work at it. Are you hungry?”
She shook her head. “I just had breakfast.”
“Well, when you want somethin’, let me know. The kitchen’s right through there.”
“Thanks.” She looked around again and shivered.
“Scared?” he asked quietly.
She nodded.
“It’s all right to be. But we’re safe here.”
She looked down at the coffee table and didn’t respond.
He watched her a moment before offering, “Would it help if I told you a story?”
She looked up at him. “What kind of story?”
“About a little boy named Grey Fox who lived a long time ago. His folks were killed when he was a baby, but the Indians rescued him and raised him like one o’ their own.”
Clearly intrigued, Gen shifted to a more comfortable position for listening.
“There was a powerful lot o’ trouble between the Indians and the white settlers in those days. Chief White Cloud, who was Grey Fox’s pa, was feudin’ with a white man named Lionel Abbot, an’ they’d both vowed to wipe each other’s people off the face o’ the earth. But things had kindly died down for a while when Grey Fox was about your age.” Cheyenne didn’t normally like referring to himself in the third person this way, but there was no way Gen would believe that these things had really happened to him.
“So what happened?” she asked.
“One day Grey Fox and one of his brothers were in town to do some tradin’, an’ a man rode in yellin’ that the Indians had attacked a homestead. Said he’d brought an arrow with ’im to prove it. Now, Grey Fox knew it wasn’t his people that done it, ’cause they never raided at that time o’ year. He thought maybe it was the Crow or the Shoshone tryin’ to cause trouble for the Cheyenne. But when the man brought the arrow out to show Mr. Abbot, Grey Fox knew right away it wasn’t made by any Indian anywhere.”
“How?”
“The fletchin’ was all wrong.” When she tilted her head in confusion, he explained, “The feathers.”
“You mean it wouldn’t fly?”
“Well, it’d fly, but….” He paused and looked around for a notepad. Spotting one on the dining table, he got up to fetch it and sat down again next to Gen. “Different tribes made their arrows different ways,” he began and sketched some to show her differences between the arrowhead shapes and flint knapping techniques used by the Cheyenne, Crow, and Shoshone. He also showed her some differences in the shafts and what the fletching would look like on those tribes’ arrows. “But one thing that was the same,” he went on, “was the fact that they used animal sinew to bind the arrowhead and fletchin’ to the shaft. All Indians did-that’s what they had on hand. This arrow the fella was wavin’ around while he was talkin’ to Mr. Abbot wasn’t bound with sinew. The feathers were the wrong shape, an’ they were tied on with wire.”
She gasped. “Was it made by a white man?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma’am, a renegade who was hopin’ to get the feud all stirred up again so’s both sides would wipe each other out an’ he could move in an’ take the land for himself. Now, Grey Fox had a mighty hard time gettin’ Mr. Abbot an’ the sheriff to listen to ’im, partly ’cause he didn’t speak very good English in those days.”
“I didn’t speak much English when I came to live with my grandfather,” she confessed quietly. “I’ve had to learn a lot in the last four years.”
“You’ve done a good job,” he assured her. “It’s a hard language. Grey Fox didn’t learn much of it until he went to live with a white family when he was twelve. Had to learn to read and write then, too. Almost lost all of it when he went back to live with the Cheyenne three years later, but White Cloud made him keep in practice just in case. Sure enough, Grey Fox tried again when he was eighteen, an’ that time he did all right in white society. He was always a mite fiddle-footed, and I never heard that he settled down in one place for long, but he made friends and held down some good jobs-sheriff, cowhand, trail boss… all kinds o’ things.”
She nodded thoughtfully. “So what happened with the fake arrow?”
“Well, it took a lot o’ doin’, but Grey Fox finally got the sheriff to see the wire, an’ then the sheriff had a fight with Mr. Abbot, tryin’ to make him see that the Cheyenne were bein’ framed. After that, the sheriff let Grey Fox sneak into the saloon to see what he could hear, an’ sure enough, he overheard the men talkin’ about their scheme. He went an’ told the sheriff, an’ the sheriff arrested ’em, an’ they hanged for the murder o’ the homesteaders.”
“And they all lived happily ever after?”
He smiled ruefully. “Wish I could say that, but at least there was peace until Grey Fox came of age an’ left the first time.”
“Why don’t you tell her the one about the Three Bears next?” asked Miss Shaw’s flat, exhausted voice from the doorway.
Gen gasped. “Shaw!”
Cheyenne looked up to see Miss Shaw, sweaty and bloodied and pale, leaning against the brick wall beside the door and smiling wanly at Gen. “Hey, kiddo,” she said as Cheyenne stood. “Finch told me you were here.”
Cheyenne hurried up the stairs to steady her and help her down the stairs. “Why didn’t he call us?”
“Told ’im not to.” Miss Shaw leaned against him, but he could tell it wasn’t a ploy for his attention; she’d clearly lost a lot of blood. “Besides, he thinks I’m seein’ some Dr. Madani-but this place was closer.”
“What do you need?”
“Transfusion kit… top of the medicine cabinet. John put it up there.”
Cheyenne eased her into the armchair. “Gen?”
“Yes, Jim?” Gen replied, her expression equal parts eagerness and worry.
“In the icebox, there are some bottles of sports drinks. Would you go fetch one for Miss Shaw?”
Gen blinked. “In the what?”
“He means the fridge,” Miss Shaw translated.
“Oh. Got it.”
Gen dashed to the kitchen while Cheyenne went to the bathroom and retrieved the transfusion kit, as well as the first aid kit. As Miss Shaw sipped at her drink, Cheyenne shed his suit coat, rolled up his sleeves, and scrubbed his hands well in the kitchen, then carefully removed the silver-sticky-duct tape, that was the term-she’d used for temporary bandages and treated her wounds properly, with Gen at his elbow to play nurse. The sleeves of Miss Shaw’s black blouse were a lost cause and he had to cut them off to get at the wounds on her arms, but if she minded, it didn’t show.
“Is this something spies have to do a lot?” Gen asked while Cheyenne stitched up one of the deeper cuts.
Miss Shaw tilted her head and shrugged with her other shoulder. “If you’re just manning a listening station, not so much. But that’s the boring side of espionage. If you wanna be where the action is, you need to know how to patch yourself up. Or your partner, or a person you’re trying to save. I went to med school, but… turns out I was better at killing people than fixing them.”
Cheyenne chose not to comment. He needed to focus on finishing off the stitches anyway-they weren’t the neatest ever, since he hadn’t had a lot of practice, but the wound should at least heal without much scarring. When he’d trimmed the last bit of suture, Miss Shaw pulled a tube of salve out of the kit to hand to him, and he duly smeared some on the wound before putting a protective bandage over the top. By the time he’d finished working on her, she’d finished her drink, and while she still looked peaked, her eyes were less glassy. She handed the bottle to Gen and sent her to the kitchen to dispose of it.
Then she grabbed Cheyenne by the collar and pulled him down to hiss in his ear, “You drove?!”
“Miracles do happen,” he answered. “Not lookin’ to do it again any time soon, but I really didn’t have much choice.”
She let him go as abruptly as she’d grabbed him. “You’re damn lucky I actually need your blood.”
He shot her an amused smile and rolled up his left sleeve above the elbow. While he found a stool to sit on, she asked him several very indiscreet medical questions, sounding shocked that he’d never done anything shocking with even a saloon girl, and prepared the transfusion line. Fortunately, Gen was in the kitchen with the water running for most of that time, but his cheeks were still flame-hot when she came back in, just as Miss Shaw slid the needle into his arm.
“Why are you blushing?” Gen asked him.
Cheyenne cleared his throat and tried not to squirm. “Miss Shaw just asked me a… mighty personal question.”
“I didn’t think spies ever blushed.”
“He’s no James Bond,” Miss Shaw remarked flatly, took a deep breath, and slid the needle at the other end of the transfusion line into her own arm.
Gen shot a wary look at the transfusion line, now filled with Cheyenne’s blood, and sat down at the other end of the sofa before looking up at Cheyenne again. “Was Grey Fox ever a spy?”
“Not when he was your age,” Cheyenne replied, aware that Miss Shaw was watching him even though her eyes were only half open. “But when he grew up, he served as a civilian scout for the cavalry off and on for a lot o’ years. Back then a scout’s enlistment was only six months, so he could leave an’ come back as he was needed. An’ sometimes his commanders would ask ’im to do some undercover work.”
Gen inched closer. “Like what?”
“Oh, there was one time-I reckon it was in 1877, just before Crazy Horse died.** Somebody was stealin’ horses bound for a cavalry fort in the Dakotas an’ planned to sell ’em to Crazy Horse, so the fort’s commander hired Grey Fox to bring the next herd in. But Grey Fox spotted raiders on the trail an’ refused to continue, in spite of a direct order, so a couple o’ the junior officers had ’im court-martialed for cowardice and discharged.”
Gen inched closer again. “But it was a cover?”
Cheyenne smiled. “That’s right. The three of ’em were workin’ together ’cause they knew the raiders had someone on the inside. Grey Fox had to look good to the raiders so they’d recruit ’im an’ give him a chance to meet the rest o’ the group.”
“Did it work?”
“Like a charm. Only problem was, the contact inside the fort was so sharp, he passed information about the next shipment to the raiders’ leader right under Grey Fox’s nose. The officers had to kill the leader so Grey Fox could take his place.”
Gen had reached the middle of the sofa by this point. “And then he learned who the leak was?”
Cheyenne nodded. “It was the colonel. He was tryin’ to get revenge on the Army ’cause he didn’t want to be stuck at a frontier fort for the rest o’ his career. He even killed the two officers who were gettin’ too close, an’ he tried to kill Grey Fox, too.”
Gen gasped. “What happened?”
“Well, Grey Fox had to go back to the fort to get help. The captain there tried to have ’im arrested, but Grey Fox convinced ’im that the colonel was up to no good. So they rode out together an’ captured the raiders, but the colonel tried to escape, so Grey Fox chased ’im.”
“And he caught him?”
“Why, of course he did. He’s the hero, ain’t he?”
Gen giggled, and Miss Shaw snorted. Cheyenne grinned and tried to think of another safe story to tell-he’d come too close to saying I rather than Grey Fox a few times during this one.
He’d just settled on recounting some of Tom Brewster’s ill-fated encounters with his identical cousin Abram Thomas, the Canary Kid,*** when his pocket telephone rang. It was Reese.
“Shaw’s gone AWOL,” Reese reported without preamble when Cheyenne answered. “Ditched her phone.”
“She’s right here, gettin’ a transfusion from me,” Cheyenne countered, frowning at Miss Shaw in confusion.
Reese sighed. “Put me on speaker.”
“You sure? Gen’s right here, too.”
“You may as well,” Mr. Finch chimed in. “This matter concerns her, too.”
It took Cheyenne a moment to find the right place to touch the screen, but he succeeded in switching to speakerphone mode. “All right, you’re on speaker,” he announced and had Gen set his telephone on the coffee table.
“The man with the tremors is working for HR,” Reese began. “He was exposed to potassium permanganate while cooking a new designer drug called bath salts, which HR and the Russians are making here in New York as a joint operation. They’re planning to pressure all the dealers to stop selling other drugs and distribute only bath salts.”
Gen gasped. “I heard someone talking about that!”
“I’ve found that tape, Miss Zhirova,” Mr. Finch said, as if she were one of the team. “And I’ve confirmed that one of the voices on it belongs to Patrick Simmons. The other may be Peter Yogorov, but I don’t have a recording of his voice to compare with.”
Miss Shaw, whose color was already improving, shook her head. “That’s really gonna-hack off the cartels.” Cheyenne was mildly grateful that she chose to censor herself in front of Gen.
“That’s our leverage,” said Miss Carter from Reese’s end of the line.
There was a brief pause before Mr. Finch said, “You sound as if you have a plan, Detective.”
“We use Laskey for a triple play,” said Reese.
“After what happened to Merritt’s apartment,” Miss Carter continued, “Simmons is already convinced that the Russians are unreliable. So my idea is that we let Laskey overhear a conversation between John and me, sayin’ that Yogorov told Gen to record that meeting as insurance.”
“Only she gave us the tape,” added Miss Shaw, catching on at about the same time Cheyenne did.
“Exactly,” said Reese. “We set a fictional meet with the Russians for tonight to sell the recording back to them. If they don’t show, we meet with the Sinaloa cartel half an hour later to sell them the tape.”
Cheyenne nodded thoughtfully. “That’ll draw Simmons out to set an ambush, but what do we do in the meantime?”
“You and I set a counter-ambush, while Carter keeps Laskey busy and Shaw destroys the lab.”
“We don’t know where the lab is yet, John,” Miss Carter noted.
“I’ve almost got it,” Mr. Finch said. “Det. Carter took pictures of a chemical truck that appears to be headed to the lab. I’ve hacked the GPS transponder on that truck. When it stops, I’ll compare that data with the GPS history from Det. Terney’s phone-obviously he’s not there now, but I’m willing to bet he’s been there in the past week.”
“How can I help?” Gen asked. When no one answered immediately, she continued, “Jim’s still giving Shaw a transfusion, but I don’t have anything to do.”
“I’ll give it some thought, Miss Zhirova,” Mr. Finch replied. “In the meantime, perhaps you could see to lunch-sandwiches would be easy to eat with one hand.”
Gen nodded eagerly. “I can do that.”
“Thank you. I’ll call back sometime this afternoon.”
“And I’ll stop by after lunch,” Reese promised and hung up.
Gen stood with the air of an efficient waitress and turned to Cheyenne and Miss Shaw. “What can I get you?”
“Ham sandwich an’ black coffee for me, please,” said Cheyenne.
“What kind of ham?”
“I dunno, whatever kind we have.” That was one question Cheyenne still hadn’t gotten used to-there were too many new specialty ways to cure and smoke a ham for him to keep up with.
Gen nodded. “Shaw?”
“Same, with cheese and extra pepperoncini,” Miss Shaw answered, settling back in the chair and closing her eyes.
“Got it.” Gen nodded again and went back to the kitchen.
Cheyenne watched Miss Shaw for a moment before asking quietly, “D’you mind if I do somethin’ right quick?”
She cracked open one eye and raised an eyebrow in mild curiosity. “What?”
“It won’t hurt, and it won’t take long, I promise. You won’t even have to move.”
Her eyebrow rose a little further, but then she shrugged. “Go ahead.”
Gingerly, so as not to disturb the transfusion line, he took her left hand in his and recited the words of the ancient blood-sharing ritual he’d undergone the first time he’d left the People, the scar of which he still bore on the inside of his right wrist. He didn’t know if it would help her heal or improve their friendship, such as it was, but it seemed like the thing to do.
She frowned a little in confusion but waited until he’d finished and let her go to open both eyes and ask, “What was that?”
“You’re now blood of my blood,” he answered. “My blood, freely given, flows in your veins. Reckoned I oughta formalize it.”
She stared at him. “What, like blood-brothers? I thought that was a myth.”
“Nope.” He showed her his scar. “I’ll always be a blood-brother of the Cheyenne Nation, and now I claim you as a blood-sister. I hope you don’t mind,” he added with a rueful smile.
She blinked several times. “Um. I. No, that’s… that’s cool. Thanks.” She closed her eyes again, clearly thinking hard, and he couldn’t help smiling to himself over having caught her flat-footed this way.
He let her rest for the next few minutes until Gen returned with their sandwiches and fresh coffee, both of which were exactly what Cheyenne needed. Gen beamed when he told her so. Then she settled in on the sofa with her own sandwich, and he struck up The Misadventures of Sugarfoot and the Canary Kid, which frequently reduced Gen to helpless giggles and made Miss Shaw laugh out loud more than once. Cheyenne had never considered himself a great storyteller, at least not compared to the elders among the People, but he was glad to keep the mood light while they waited.
Reese arrived just as Miss Shaw declared the transfusion finished, so he was able to coach Gen on how to help Miss Shaw remove the line from her end while also removing it from Cheyenne’s end and wrapping the site with an elasticated bandage to stop the bleeding. Cheyenne was feeling a mite lightheaded by then, so Reese got him another sandwich.
“The false trail’s all set,” Reese announced, sitting down with his own coffee. “I’m supposed to give Carter until 5 to get back to her precinct before I call. Finch got the coordinates for the lab, and he’s also worked out how to start a chain reaction that’ll blow the whole building.”
Miss Shaw smiled dangerously. “Excellent.”
Reese turned to Gen next. “Finch said he needs your help sorting through the rest of the tapes. We need to make copies of all the ones related to HR.”
Gen nodded. “I can do that.”
“Good. We’ll get you set up on a video chat with him here in a bit.”
Gen nodded again.
Miss Shaw pushed herself to her feet. “I’m gonna take a nap. Wake me up when it’s go time.” And before anyone could agree or disagree, she stalked off to the bedroom.
Cheyenne finished his sandwich while Reese finished his coffee and got Gen set up at the dining table to chat with Finch. Since the sofa was vacated, Cheyenne lay down on it to doze.
“Will this bother you?” Reese asked from the table.
Cheyenne shook his head and closed his eyes. “No, I can sleep through a Shoshone war dance. Don’t want to sleep too deeply anyway.” He wouldn’t admit it in front of Gen, but he was a little worried about what shape his dreams might take and which would feature in them more prominently, the terror of having to drive a car for the first time-in New York traffic, no less-or the mysterious patchwork voice. Where had it come from? Who did it belong to? Why had that person helped him, and why was the voice a patchwork like that? With Gen and Miss Shaw to look after, he hadn’t had time to think about those things, but with the mission still to come that night, he wasn’t sure it was safe to think about them now, either.
He had a feeling Gen looked at him funny for the war dance comment (it was true; he could and had), but Reese immediately drew her attention back to the laptop he was setting up for her. It was only another moment before Mr. Finch’s voice came from the thing’s speakers, and Cheyenne let himself drift as he half-listened to the conversation about things he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. If he dreamed, he didn’t remember it.
The sun was setting when Reese shook him awake. “Laskey took the bait,” Reese stated. “Carter says he called Simmons the second I got off the phone with her. Now he’s invited her to have a beer with him at a bar that’s run by a former HR lieutenant. Finch is on his way over to stay with Gen while we’re gone.”
Cheyenne nodded and sat up. “How’s Miss Shaw?”
“Still waking up, but she looks better. So do you,” Reese noted.
“I feel better,” Cheyenne admitted.
“Supper should help, too. Gen’s decided she likes cooking for us-she’s making beef stroganoff.”
“Don’t think I’ve ever had that.” Cheyenne sniffed the air, finally recognizing that he did smell beef cooking with garlic and some other spices he couldn’t identify right off. “Smells mighty good.”
“It is good, assuming you like things made with sour cream.”
“Man, right now I’m hungry enough to eat raw calf liver.”
Reese smiled. “I won’t ask.”
Cheyenne smiled back and went to get himself a cup of coffee to clear the cobwebs.
“Hi, Jim!” Gen chirped from her station in front of the stove, where she was stirring a pot and a skillet at the same time.
“How’s it goin’, Miss Gen?” he asked.
“Great! It’s almost done. Could you drain the noodles for me?”
“I’d be glad to.” Cheyenne set his mug on the counter beside the coffee pot and took the steaming pot of noodles from the burner Gen switched off and poured the contents into the colander that was waiting in the sink. “Mighty kind of you to cook for us.”
She grinned and returned her attention to the skillet, which was full of beef and mushrooms in a creamy sauce. “It’s fun to have someone to cook for. My grandfather taught me how.”
“Well, it sure smells delicious.”
“Thanks.” Her smile dimmed. “Vadim doesn’t care about food. He doesn’t care about anything except drugs and video games.”
“And you don’t want to live with ’im,” he surmised.
She grimaced and turned off the burner under the skillet. “I know he’s family, but it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Maybe Mr. Finch can do somethin’ about it.”
“He is!” She brightened again. “He’s having Vadim’s guardianship revoked and getting the court to name me as his ward, and he’s found a boarding school here in New York for me to transfer to.”
He smiled. “You’re a bright young lady. I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”
She beamed.
Mr. Finch’s arrival was announced just then by Bear charging into the kitchen; Cheyenne barely managed to get an “Af!” out in time to stop him from bowling Gen over and licking her to death. Bear whined as he sat, but Cheyenne rewarded him with a couple of noodles. Gen rewarded him further with cooing and pets, so Cheyenne took over dishing up the food to take to the table, which Reese had already set.
The meal-which really was delicious, and not just because Cheyenne was famished-was congenial but short because of the plan’s timetable. Miss Shaw had to leave first but promised Gen she’d be back in a few hours. Then, as she passed Cheyenne, she murmured, “If we’re gonna be siblings, you may as well call me Sam.”
He smiled down at her. “It’s a deal.”
Miss-Sam nodded and left.
Cheyenne had just enough time to finish cleaning his plate before he and Reese had to leave for their own part of the operation. They spoke seldom in the car, and when they did, it was only about strategy. In the end, they arrived at the supposed meeting site and hid themselves seconds before another vehicle arrived and Simmons and his men got out. Once the guards had taken up their positions and Simmons had stationed himself in plain view to confront whoever showed up next, Reese tapped on his ear device with his fingernail to signal Cheyenne, and together they silently knocked out the guards and made their way toward Simmons before he tried to call the guards on the radio.
“Where the hell is everyone?!” Simmons demanded angrily when his calls went unanswered.
“Excuse me, Officer,” Reese interrupted, walking around the vehicle and into Simmons’ line of sight. “I’d like to report an attempted kidnapping.”
Simmons smirked. “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
“No.”
“I know how much you’re askin’ Yogorov for the tapes. I’ll pay double for ’em.”
“What makes you think I didn’t make copies?”
“You haven’t had time. Besides, I know how you operate. You’re not lookin’ for a deal with the Sinaloas. You want the same deal from Yogorov that you had with Elias.”
Reese shot Simmons a look. “I didn’t have a deal with Elias.”
Simmons scoffed. “All right, c’mon, hand ’em over.”
“Let’s see the money first.”
Simmons scoffed again. “You didn’t bring the tapes, did you?”
Reese smiled coldly. “And you didn’t bring the money.”
Simmons took a swing at Reese, and the two of them fought for over a minute, which gave Cheyenne cover to sneak closer to them and be in position when Reese finally pinned Simmons against the side of the vehicle.
“There are thousands of us,” Simmons panted. “You can’t stop us.”
“Armies fall, one soldier at a time,” Reese countered. “And I’m not as alone as you think.”
That was Cheyenne’s cue. As Reese hauled Simmons back to his feet, Cheyenne came around the back of the vehicle, and Reese spun Simmons right into a knockout punch from Cheyenne. Simmons crumpled to the ground; Reese clapped Cheyenne on the arm; and the two of them sprinted back to Reese’s car and left before any uninvited guests could show up.
“You all right?” Reese asked as they sped away.
“Yeah,” said Cheyenne, flexing his hand. “Gonna be ready for another helpin’ o’ stroganoff when we get back.”
Reese chuckled.
Cheyenne waited a moment before asking, “Reese… this project Mr. Finch built for the government… does it ever… well, contact you with a… sort o’ patchwork voice?”
Sobering, Reese hesitated before pressing a button on his ear device. “Finch?”
“Yes, Mr. Reese?” Mr. Finch answered.
“We’re on our way back to the safe house, but Bodie and I need to have a talk off the record.”
Mr. Finch paused. “All right. We’ll expect you.”
“Thanks.” Reese tapped his ear again, then handed his pocket telephone to Cheyenne. “Turn off both phones and take the batteries out.”
“Why?” Cheyenne asked even as he turned Reese’s telephone off.
“It’s the only way to make sure no one can overhear what I’m about to tell you.”
“All right.” Cheyenne made short work of the telephones and made sure to put each phone with its battery in a separate compartment of the cup holder.
Reese sighed when he’d finished. “It called you this morning?”
Cheyenne nodded. “Yeah. What is it?”
“The government calls it Northern Lights. We call it the Machine….”
Next
* Another of the Cheyenne words for computer (lit. “that which keeps [things] in mind”) that seems like a good description of the Machine
** What follows is the plot of Cheyenne 2.11 “Test of Courage,” which is a remake of the movie Springfield Rifle and is retold in one of the Cheyenne comic books. (The earlier “Grey Fox, Boy Detective” is my own story that might or might not turn into a separate fic one of these days.)
*** To be found in Seasons 2 and 3 of Sugarfoot, though Tom himself appears in both Maverick “Hadley’s Hunters” and Cheyenne 5.7 “Duel at Judas Basin” along with Bronco Layne.