The Gift

Chapter Sixteen

 

The wagon rolled through the streets of Chicago.  I’d grown so fond of the city.  I’d always wanted the whole wide world, and for three years I’d had it.  We rolled past the Grand hotel that Miles and I had called home.  I stifled a sob.  Miles.  I wondered where he was now.  If he was even alive.  I couldn’t stifle the sob this time.  The commander looked back at me and I pretended to cough so I didn’t seem as weak as I felt.  “The name’s White, Captain White“ he said, and held out his hand.  I looked down at my cuffed hands then back at him and he pulled his hand away.  “Right.  Forgot about those.”  With that he turned back to the wagon driver beside him.  Good, I thought, I didn’t want to have to talk to him anyway.  No point in making friends.  I should be trying to figure out how to kill the man and get the hell out of here.

It was a nod to his chauvinism that he’d cuffed me with my hands in front and not behind me or to something heavy or bolted down.  Using a pin I kept hidden in the hem of my pants (just in case, Miles had always chided), I quickly picked the lock on the rudimentary cuffs.  I was surprised but thankful that the militia wasn’t better equipped.  Things must be getting bad for them along the borderlands, I mused.

The wagon hit a rut and tossed its contents in the air, me included.  I came back down with a crunch.  I paused to contemplate my condition.  I wasn’t hurt.  But a box had come loose and spilled some of its contents onto the wagon bed.  It seemed my luck was turning around.  Spilling out of the box was a stack of papers and a few pencils.  Carefully I slipped a few sheets and a pencil into my pocket.  Maybe I could get a letter out to Miles.  Hell, we were probably headed for the same place.  Several years after the blackout a mail system had evolved.  If you can call going back to the ways of the wild west, ‘evolved.’  A sort of Pony Express had come into place and for a fee you could get a courier to deliver mail.  Of course I had no idea where Miles currently was and only a vague guess as to where he was going, but he had friends throughout the republic that could pass on a coded message.  This meant three things.  First, I was going to need some kind of currency, second I was going to need to know where in the hell they were taking me and lastly (and most critically), I needed to escape.

I looked around the wagon with a keener eye.  Holding the cuffs around my hands, pretending they were still locked, I nudged my boot into the box in front of me.  It too had been shaken up when we were tossed then slammed into the ground.  There was something shiny in it.  I toed at the broken corner, trying to work the edge open.  It only slipped an inch but that was more than enough.  Several small gold nuggets fell out.  I guess they were out collecting taxes when they received orders to detain me, I mused.  I nudged the gold with my heel and brought my leg in close to me.  Pretending I was only stretching in case anyone was watching.  But I had the nuggets within hands reach now and I slipped those into my pocket as well.  One down, two to go.

 “Captain White?”  I asked sweetly.  He turned and I gave him the most innocent smile I could muster.  “Where are we going?”  White looked at me but I could tell he was deep in thought.  I leaned forward, giving him a nice view of my cleavage.  His eyes locked onto it and he seemed to come to some inner conclusion.  “Monroe wants to question you.  We’re going to his office.  Independence Hall”  he said to my breasts.  Honestly I don’t think they’re all that spectacular but White seemed lonely, perhaps he’d been away from home for over a year.  Miles had said that was commonplace.  Maybe he just liked redheads? 

Two down, one to go.  This was going to be the hard part.  And it would have to wait for nightfall.  I rode the rest of the day with Miles’s voice in my head singing cheesy pre-blackout songs.  No matter where I was, I always had that to keep me company.  I closed my eyes and heard him crooning, “However far away, I will always love you, however long I stay, I will always love you….”