Outrun the Moon(95)

“—just around the corner. You don’t see that every day—”

“—must be searching for someone—”

“Maybe it is a sign—”

“George, leave that lamp. I’ve been itching for an excuse to get rid of it—”

“Chessie?”

Winter halts with a snort as three soldiers draw up in front of us, guns held at the ready. People scatter like chaff in the wind.

“Marcus!” gasps Francesca.

“I’ve been looking for you all morning.” He motions to one of his soldiers. It’s the man who shot the dog, Candlewax, and beside him, Private Smalls. Candlewax grabs Winter’s bridle.

Marcus narrows his eyes at me, and his sloped nose twitches. “You again. You know, Chessie, when you lie with dogs, you end up with fleas.”

Pressure builds on my insides, and it takes all my strength not to burst. “But, Chessie, don’t you know that when you are too liberal with your musk, even the fleas leave you alone?” I say.

Francesca bumps me with her elbow. “We are tired and quite thirsty. Kindly let us through so we may return to our camp.”

Private Smalls moves his horse beside us and eyes the instrument under my arm. “Lieutenant, she’s holding a bugle.”

“A bugle?” A smile makes Marcus’s oiled mustache hang like scarecrow arms. “Hand it here.”

“No.” I lift my chin, giving all a fair view of my cheeks, which despite my despair and loss propel me to defiant behavior.

Then Candlewax swipes it from behind, almost unseating me from Winter’s back. I grab onto Francesca, and the whole ship rocks.

Soon, the bugle is in Marcus’s hands, the price tag dangling from the neck. “Why, this looks brand-new. I don’t recall you having this last night, or surely you would’ve played it along with the rest of the hillbilly orchestra.”

Private Smalls scratches at his peeling neck. “Sure looks looted to me.”

“Marcus, it isn’t what it looks like.” The pleading note in Francesca’s voice makes me hate him all the more.

“I warned you against associating with the lower classes. They don’t think the rules apply to them.” He lifts the bugle like he’s making a toast, and his lip curls. “All I want to know is, why not the tuba?”

The other soldiers laugh.

My spleen has likely turned a poisonous shade of green. “I would think someone like you would appreciate the virtues of a good blowhard.”

His weedy eyes tighten. There’s a faint mole right between them, which Ma would say identifies someone whose life will be short. She says we should always have a kind word for people with marks like that, but even she would be hard-pressed to offer any kindness here.

“We have been ordered to shoot looters on sight,” he says, glancing at the others.

Candlewax’s gun moves like an adder, black and ready to strike, but Private Smalls holds his weapon more like a reluctant garden snake, uncertainly nosing one way and then another. Probably worrying over his future at Wilkes College.

Francesca clutches the reins too tightly, and Winter shakes his mane. “It’s true, she took it. But she wanted to pay for it, and I told her to keep the money for now. No sense in leaving it for someone to take. It’s right here.” Francesca waves the money. “Now leave her be. She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Well, I’d say she has you hoodwinked, Chessie. She’s one of the beetles I was talking about—a weevil, scavenging the fine grain of our society.” Marcus paces his horse beside us, his eyes never leaving me. Good ol’ Winter stands his ground, even with three horses boxing him in. “We need to pick out the weevils.”

“Go ahead. Pick me out.”

Francesca casts me a hard look, which clearly means Muzzle it, but I am beyond caring. As Ma always said, a straight foot does not fear a crooked shoe. “Killing a person takes sand. If you’re wrong, and I wasn’t looting, you will hang for murdering a United States citizen.”

He snorts. “Citizen? You are no more a citizen than that horse.”

We stare at each other like two frogs on a stick, seeing who will budge first.

Then, quick as the glint off a penny, he draws his gun, leveling it right at my head.

A strange thrill runs through me. Whether I live or die doesn’t matter anymore, only that I may win this one last battle.

“Marcus! No!” Francesca cries, nearly falling off Winter in her haste to stop him. “Don’t you touch her. I’ll . . . I’ll marry you. Just leave her alone.” She puts her hands on his gun arm and gently pulls it down.

“What are you doing?” My stomach sickens at the thought that I have led her to take extreme measures.

“Shh, Mercy.” She shakes her head at me.

A smile courts Marcus’s mouth. “Chessie, you wound me. I rather hoped you’d give me your hand in marriage because you wanted to, not because I twisted your arm. I am not a brute.”

“Of course not,” she smiles sweetly, but I feel her tremble. “I was merely hoping that my future husband might show some generosity of spirit, as I know he possesses.”

“Francesca, don’t be foolish,” I hiss at her. “I will not let you do this.”

Marcus grins wide as the hunter who has trapped both the fox and the rabbit in the same hole. “Well, my love, because I am buttered over you, I accept your acceptance of my proposal.” He pulls his mustache, and I’m struck by how clean are his fingernails. “And at your request, I shall not harm this . . . weevil. Take her off.” He waves the bugle at me.