Hell's Half-Acre

"You're back!" Jimmy cried out the obvious, as two very weary, muck-covered Secret Service agents stumbled back inside Wanderer II at nearly three in the morning.

Amanda would have replied if she could have gotten a breath out, but after a hard enough impact to come close to toppling her, she found herself in the grip of an anxious sixteen year old seemingly determined to crush the remaining life out of her while clinging on like a limpet. The gesture would have been touching if it didn't make her re-feel every single bruise she'd suffered as a result of falling through trap doors into a pit earlier that evening. A gasp of pain caused her remorseful younger brother to loosen his kraken's grip and pull away so she could breathe again.

"Oh, you're hurt!" He fretted as he looked her up and down for obvious signs of injury. What was more obvious to Amanda was that she was now a muddy, filthy mess and, thanks to Jimmy's hug, he was too.

"I'm all right, little brother," she told him, shaking her head, "but we're all three of us going to need a bath. I'm just a little sore is all."

"You're all right?" he asked frantically, now staring at Tem as well as Amanda and noticing the state they and their clothing were in. "You're both all right?"

"Wellll . . . ." Tem grimaced, scratching the back of his mud-splattered head, "technically we died a couple of hours ago . . . ."

"What?" Jimmy's voice turned almost to a wail and he gaped at them in horror.

Amanda rolled her eyes and gave Tem a deserved frown. Jimmy had been terrified for their well-being, clearly, and now was not the time to be teasing him. They shouldn't be making gests about death yet, anyway, with Agent Hamilton's fate still hanging in the balance. After Amanda's parasol bomb had destroyed what remained of the cage bars, they and Elser had managed to make it out through the service tunnel with Hamilton carried by Tem and Elser, and they'd gotten the wounded man to a hospital, but it was much too soon to know how serious his injuries were or what his chances of survival were.

"He means we're going to make the enemy think we died," Amanda explained. "Which we very nearly did. But we didn't die, we're all right, we all need to clean ourselves off and go to bed so we can think straight and tell you all about it tomorrow. Okay?" She did her best to give her brother an encouraging smile and her husband a more straightforward message. "Dibs on the bathtub. Oh, and Jimmy?"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to need a new black parasol."

[WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW]

God bless whoever designed the water closets on this train, Amanda thought, as she sank into a hot, soapy bath and washed what had felt like about twenty pounds of underground tunnel goop off of her. The bath room facilities weren't all she was grateful for. She knew it would be nearly dawn before she got to bed, but at least she'd live to see another day, and so would her remaining nearest and dearest. Also, regardless of their enemies' intentions, the city of Chicago had not burned to the ground for a second time. Not yet anyway. As with the fire at the wharf, the one near the railway had been confined to its immediate surroundings so far. Chicago's fire brigades would still be out at the site for hours or even days, hunting for any stray embers or flames, but the burning warehouse had taken care of much of the problem when it had collapsed in on itself, as the Secret Service agents had seen from a safer distance. Score one for the enemy, but score one for their intended victims who'd gotten away too. The Wests lived to fight on. And fight on we shall.

Of her mercy, Amanda made her hot bath much shorter than she'd have liked and drew a fresh one for Tem before collapsing to bed herself. It would be a little muckier than hers had been, since she didn't have the strength left to clean the tub first, but she knew it would be good enough as far as he was concerned.

Tem had inherited the legendary James West fortitude. Amanda had fallen asleep fast and wasn't sure what time he'd come to bed, but someone who could only have been him had thoughtfully put an extra blanket over her and picked up the filthy clothing that she'd barely had the strength to take off. When she woke the next morning – or was it afternoon? – he was asleep beside her, and their muddy laundry, minus the firearms and spy devices, was in a cardboard box next to the bed. Not the choicest of clothing hampers, but the most readily available on this train at the moment. Feeling those numerous bruises again, but also her husband's wonderful, warm presence, she regretfully pulled herself out of bed to start a new day.

Well, part of a new day, as it turned out. Judging by the sun outside the train's windows, noon had indeed already come and gone, if only just. Of more pressing concern, the train no longer seemed to be in the same location now as when she had boarded it hours ago. She hadn't felt it moving last night. Where were they? She dressed as quickly and as quietly as she could to avoid waking Tem and went in search of the engineers for an explanation.

"Your mister's orders," Cole McCreavy told her gruffly.

They were on a siding now, a half hour south of Chicago. Several trains had been moved farther out to avoid the fire that had burned down the warehouse location. Theirs was not the only 'industrial' train removed to this new rail area. Safer, perhaps, but also too far away to check on the scene of last night's action or to pay a call on the hospital where they'd taken Hamilton. It looked like they'd have to resort to the old telegraph expedient to get updates on both. It was too bad telephones were so difficult to obtain and even more difficult to secure. But unless they could get an entire network of switchboard operators who were trustworthy and didn't want to listen in on other people's telephone calls, that system would never be reliable.

Whatever time Tem had gotten to bed, he woke not long after she had. Micah thoughtfully prepared both of them a hearty, hot meal that combined elements of both breakfast and lunch, and was keeping a plate warm for Jimmy, who had not yet put in a reappearance. Feeling a trifle guilty for the worry they'd put him through the night before, Amanda went to wake her kid brother, wondering how much sleep he'd been able to get at all.

We're going to give him gray hair while he's still a teenager! she chided herself.

When she got to Jimmy's room, prepared to knock for at least a few seconds before opening the door, she saw the poor boy had been too exhausted even to shut it or put himself to bed properly. He'd washed all the mud off of himself and changed into pajamas at least, but then collapsed on top of the blankets rather than under them. Old instinct caused her to lay a hand on his forehead and feel for any sign of fever – thankfully absent – before she gently shook him awake.

"Hmm?" the muzzy teenager stirred.

"Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques, dormez vous?" she sang to him as she'd sometimes done when waking him during his childhood. "Time to get up, Jimmy. Lunchtime's a-wasting."

Ruthless deed performed, she turned to leave so he could get up the rest of the way and get dressed. To her astonishment and amusement, she saw he'd already adorned one of his new bedroom walls with pictures of his new favorite photographic subject: Daisy.

"Oh, brother," she murmured, shaking her head as she left and shut the door behind her.

"He up?" Tem asked, draining the last of a mug of coffee as she walked back toward the couches in the main car.

"He will be," she sighed. "And I'm afraid at this rate, I'm never going to be an Aunt. I keep wondering when he's going to start dating, but his current pinup girl has hooves and a mane."

Tem chuckled.

"It's just a phase," he said, stretching and putting down the coffee mug. "Remember how thrilled we were when we got our first horses? It's a pity your parents didn't get him one earlier."

"It is," Amanda agreed. It was sad that they hadn't, really. She and Tem had been given horses when they were a lot younger than Jimmy, and even a pet burro that they'd shared between them. But Artemus Gordon and Lily Fortune had both been theatre people, and like a lot of actors and actresses, superstitious. Jimmy's semi-constant stream of childhood illnesses had given them a mortal terror that any incorrect action on their parts would result in their precious, brilliant youngest being carried off by cruel fate. So for poor Jimmy's sake, they'd forborne to buy him his own horse, lest that be the very sort of extravagant, overconfident gesture that would jinx the frail child. It was silly, but that kind of fear was common among many parents, and Amanda had felt more than a touch of it herself where her little brother was concerned. Jimmy also had always been indifferent to riding and expressed no interest in horses before now. But now seeing him caught up in the reins of his new obsession, and well past his earlier, fragile stage, she felt guilty that he hadn't gotten his own steed when he was ten the way she had.

"At least she shouldn't break his heart too much," Tem added.

"True, until she notices Baccarat."

Tem snorted.

"You still don't have a high opinion of that horse, do you?" Amanda was fond of Tem's old stallion too, but she thought it was time her husband got over his petulance and made peace with the new one. "You know, for creatures of two different species, you're both being as stubborn as mules."

"We'll see," he said noncommittally. By way of a dramatic change of subject, he held up a bloodstained, folded piece of paper in his hand.

"The paper you got from Hamilton?"

Tem nodded, and frowned as he handed it to her.

"Unfortunately a lot of it's unreadable," he sighed. That was something she could see for herself. "He risked his life for it, but he bled so much . . . ."

The lettering on the sheet, where it could be seen at all, was very light – probably some sort of 'invisible' ink formula made visible. But Hamilton hadn't been wearing a bulletproof vest when he was shot and now much of the message he'd wished to give them – presumably something taken from his assailants – had been obscured by the agent's own blood. That didn't mean the case was totally hopeless. Jimmy might be able to come up with some sort of chemical that could solve the problem. But before they let him try, Amanda was determined to transcribe as much of the writing as possible and decipher what it meant. If Jimmy was the scientist among them, and Tem the fighter and marksman, her great strength lay in languages and code cracking. She was the best one for tackling a task like this, and she'd need to do it right away. Who knew when or if Hamilton would be able to tell them where he'd gotten it from, what he'd seen or what it signified?

Wordlessly, she accepted the bloodied piece of paper and got down to work at her side of the big partnership desk while Tem steered a still-somnolent Jimmy toward food. The transcription part, what could be made of it, was relatively easy. Amanda had much sharper eyes than her brother, and had her father's own affinity for sketching and drawing. She copied the text swiftly but accurately, holding the piece of paper up to the light now and again to make out the characters as best she could through the bloodstains. She felt like she was really warming up to the task just as her brother, watching from across the desk, began staring at her wide-eyed.

"Mandy, you're smoking!"

"There's no need to use slang," she murmured, pleased by the compliment nevertheless. After all, she never did the other kind of smoking, finding tobacco rather horrible.

"No!" he shouted. "I mean-"

Jimmy hadn't finished the sentence before Tem suddenly snatched the bloody sheet of paper from her fingers just as it burst into flames, forcing him to let go. The flat slip of fire flashed and burned itself up in mid-air before the cinders could even reach the train's carpeted floor.

"Whoa!" Tem said, shaking his singed fingertips as they all looked at the tiny bits of cinder that remained. "Guess we're not going to let Jimmy try his luck after all! You all right?"

"Yes," Amanda nodded, grateful for his reflexes. A few more seconds and she'd have been the one with burnt fingers, and possibly burning clothing or hair as well. She felt like uttering a curse, though. Now her partial transcription was all the clue they had left. Codes were hard enough to break when you had the whole document. She would have to make do with a third to a quarter at most. Not impossible, but frustrating. Along with her graphite etchings from H.F. Gadoue's hidden ledger, would it be enough to help them find what they were looking for?

"Some sort of booby trap?" Jimmy asked, kneeling down to poke at the ashes.

"More like a timed self-destruct," Tem frowned. "Possibly to keep it from falling into the wrong hands, or due to go off if it got exposed to light or air or something. A chemical like that was used to kill my father's friend Professor Robey. But no one could have known in advance that Hamilton would give us this, or that we'd be able to escape with it." He turned to Amanda. "I hope you got enough to work with. Obviously that writing was important as well as dangerous."

"I'll do my best," she sighed, poring over her own transcription. One hour and two cups of coffee later, her best had proved thankfully good enough. Between the use of 'invisible'-type ink and the self-destruct chemical, the authors of this sheet of code had trusted their own cleverness enough not to be as careful with the cipher they used. It wasn't anything harder than the cryptogram puzzles that were published in newspapers and magazines these days. One letter led to another to . . . .

"There," she said as she sat back with the completed incomplete message, handing her translation over to her partners. "The rats have left the burning ship, all right. Looks like our home area was getting a little too hot for them and they've packed up for Tennessee."

"Tennessee?" Jimmy didn't see the geographic indication that she did, so Amanda put her fingers next to the snatch of writing that had translated as 'freesbo' and another one, 'ell's half acr.'

"Hell's Half-Acre," Tem concurred. "I'd better go and tell Micah and Cole we need to be on our way to Nashville."

"Hell is in Tennessee?" Jimmy asked.

"Hell's Half-Acre is," Tem explained. "That's the name of a Civil War battlefield. My Dad fought there shortly after our Dads met. It isn't far from where they met either – it was part of the battle of Stones River. That's where the worst of the fighting took place."

Jimmy had heard the stories of their fathers' adventures during the war, but he didn't seem to know about this particular battle. Then again, Amanda had only learned about the gorier aspects of the war as an adult. Some of Uncle Jim's stories were not the stuff of bedtime tales for a sensitive young child. Tem must be concluding the same thing.

"It was called Hell's Half-Acre for a reason," Tem sighed. "Not that we were expecting any pleasure trips. I can't imagine how or why our conspirators would be making use of an old Civil War battlefield, but it's not too far from the main routes between Nashville and Chattanooga. If this is all the clue we've got, we need to check it out and hope Agent Hamilton lives to tell us something more."

Jimmy's confused expression became more alarmed, and Amanda remembered that none of them had had the energy to go over last night's events yet.

Oh well, no time like the present . . . .

Half an hour later, Jimmy was slightly paler, but on the whole taking it better than they had any right to expect. His attempt to appear calm and mature after being emotionally poleaxed reminded Amanda so much of the expression she'd seen on their mother's face so often that it hurt. But while she'd been bringing her kid brother up to speed, Tem had been getting some good news via the telegraph.

"Looks like Hamilton's going to pull through, provided there's no infection. Elser said not to worry – Lynn's tough as nails, as he put it. Still hasn't been awake long enough to tell anyone anything, but the Service was able to move him to his own private recovery room away from the hospital."

No need anymore to explain why such a precaution was necessary . . . .

"I've also arranged for our friend Mr. Gadoue's office and home to be searched by warrant – and by law officers who aren't on his payroll." Tem's mirthless grin warmed the cockles of Amanda's heart, as her father might have said. The searchers would know exactly where to look in Gadoue's desk to find the hidden ledger. The freight surveyor was going to have some interesting explaining to do.

"The fire's been contained," Tem added with relief. "And the authorities not in the know will have no reason to blame any of it on us. Colonel Longworth will make sure word gets out that a number of 'unidentified' human remains were found in a mysterious barred area underneath the collapsed building. That should lull the enemy a bit. He'll also make sure Aunt Kate knows the real story and understands why we had to skip town without saying goodbye."

That part also gave Amanda a pang of regret. It wasn't the leave-taking any of them had hoped for, but Kate Pike was better equipped than most to be understanding.

Out of the frying pan and into a bigger fire, Amanda thought. We hope . . . .

For the remainder of the daylight hours, while the train sped its way south through Indiana, the three agents had to pick up the pieces – literally. Aside from Amanda and Jimmy coming up with the next meal to save Micah the trouble while he and Cole ran the train, there was still the matter of mess. Amanda wouldn't have believed it possible for their family's belongings to add up to such a disorganized mountain range of material when they'd barely had time to make more than a few transfer trips with the cart before the previous night's disaster. Yet here it all was. Scattered belongings, bags, crates and boxes everywhere, piled so haphazardly that the train's movement threatened its occupants with more than one mini-avalanche of their own making. At least they'd had the sense to store the more dangerous munitions, chemicals and explosive items out of harm's way for a start, but Amanda wasn't sure she could even identify some of what was left, and Tem wasn't much more help.

"What is this?" Tem asked, picking up a black rubber object that resembled a cross between an artificial horseshoe crab and a hot water bottle.

Amanda could only shrug.

"Oh, that's something I was working on with Dad," Jimmy explained. "It's a new and improved version of his artificial lung."

"His arti-?" Tem began to ask.

"The thing that lets you breathe under water," Amanda prompted. "Wear it and you can stay under water for five minutes." She wasn't surprised by her husband's confusion. As she recalled from listening to their fathers, one of these devices had saved Uncle Jim's life once, but not by being used under water as intended. Now that she knew what it was, she could see this object's resemblance to her Dad's earlier device.

"This one'll let you stay under for nearly twice that," Jimmy said proudly. "And it's way easier to keep on than the old one was."

"Can it keep out smoke too?" Tem asked, turning the flexible rubber object over and over in his hands.

"Um, I guess it would," Jimmy answered. "I've never tested it for that, but it should."

"That would be very useful," Amanda noted, and not because she'd nearly been the one set on fire that day. "If we're going up against an enemy that likes to set buildings on fire while we're in them . . . ."

"You, uh, can keep that one," Jimmy said to Tem while fishing out and handing Amanda another. "I've got more of them."

The devices folded up small, and Amanda was glad to accept one, even if she had no idea where on her person she was going to store it. Ugly black rubber wasn't easy to accessorize. Tem took his, scrunched it up as small as it would go and tucked it into one of his many pockets. How she envied men their pockets! She'd just have to give the matter a bit more thought later. For now, they still had a jumble to start putting away.

Several hours and one meal later, with darkness falling outside, there was still so much disorganized clutter remaining, Amanda could only shake her head and concede a temporary defeat. Tem preferred to label it a 'strategic retreat with honor' with a reasonable bedtime fast approaching and Wanderer II pulled over on a siding to let the engineers get a rest too. Amanda wished that they had the help of a butler, the way their fathers had for a time, but there was no Tennyson here.

"The President of the United States wants us to save the world," she observed, "and we can't even save ourselves from our own unpacking!"

"Well, we were trained to save the world." Tem began rubbing her tired shoulders in a way that made her feel like purring. "It's a start. We don't have to organize the train in a day. We've got bigger fish to fry."

"Like finding out what's hidden at Hell's Half-Acre," she agreed, mind drawn back in spite of his caresses. And finding out how many devils it holds . . . .