To Catch a Copperhead Read online

  TO CATCH A COPPERHEAD

  By D. Alan Lewis

  Copyright © 2013 D. Alan Lewis

  Published by Pro Se Press at Smashwords

  -1-

  The Usual Night’s Work

  New York City, NY, November 25, 1864

  Three years and seven months since the outbreak of the War Between the States.

  The girl’s scream resonated with the cold November winds that tore across the bay and wove through the towers of Manhattan. Hers wasn’t any different than the scores I heard every night, but still, my ears perked up and my gaze fell to the street below. From my perch atop one of the nameless structures, I saw her running for her life from four would-be suitors. I bit my lip and pushed down the memories of my time as the girl being chased by thugs such as these, experiencing the terror of the pursuit and the horrors that came with being caught. My rifle slipped from the leather case strapped to my back and I pulled it up to my shoulder, nuzzling it in tight and resting my cheek against its cold wooden stock. They would be in range shortly at the rate they moved. Luckily, the gas lamps illuminated the streets just enough to make sure that I could get them in my sights before I let my bullets fly.

  The black and white dress looked odd in the yellow glow of the gaslight. She looked like an oddly shaped bumblebee but her attire spoke volumes about her profession. With the sun down, most women on these streets sold themselves to whoever could afford a bit of comfort. She wore the uniform of a domestic, most likely working in one of the hotels on the block. No woman deserves the unwanted attention of dogs like these, but the whores that rule the night around here tend to ask for it. Still, I don’t judge them for their choices. Like them, I had had to resort to desperate measures to keep from starving in my youth.

  I peered through the scope and caught sight of them as they turned and chased her into an alley across the street. I didn’t have a chance to react before they moved out of view. There wasn’t a way to get the angle I needed to take the shots from here. Cursing to myself, I sheathed the rifle and slipped over the edge of the roof. A drainpipe for rainwater made for an excellent ladder and I dropped to the street in no time. After years of practice, I could scale any building in New York. The rooftops had become a second home to me.

  The soft soles of my shoes made no noise as I darted across the street and into the alley. The dank passage didn’t go all the way through to another street, causing the young woman to huddle in a corner, trapped by the ruffians. The stench of sewage and rotting garbage sickened me as I crept along the right wall, carefully avoiding the rats that scurried from one busted crate to another.

  “Youse shouldn’t be stickin’ your nose in our affairs.” The man’s Irish accent was so thick that I wondered momentarily if he’d just gotten off a ship at Castle Garden.

  “I didn’t mean to hear anything,” she said. The girl’s voice shook with fear and even from the distance, I could clearly see her trembling.

  They stood with their backs to me and their senses damped by the girl’s yelps and pleas. As long as I didn’t make a stupid mistake, they wouldn’t stand a chance when my attack began. I’d taken on six men at one time, so these four middle-aged thugs shouldn’t be a challenge. They were reasonably well dressed for this part of town and something about their voices gnawed at me. The one was Irish, but the others all had a foreign twang when they spoke, a southern twang.

  “Grab her,” the Irishman said.

  One man rushed the girl, snatched her wrists and pinned them behind her. She struggled valiantly but simply wasn’t a match for his size and strength. As for her size, she stood about my height. While she had an attractive form with lovely curves, strength was something she dearly lacked. The girl wiggled helplessly in his grasp and had no chance of hurting him. For me, hurting men had become a passion and hunting dregs like these four who preyed on the weaker sex had become a mission.

  My fingers tapped the butts of both pistols but I knew better than to get into a firefight. The police usually ignored the working girls but would react to the sounds of gunfire. Last thing I needed was to draw in the coppers. My exploits, as the newspapers called them, had upset many in City Hall. The whores loved me because I kept them safe, up to a point. The police, politicians, and all the men who frequented the girls wanted me dead and I wasn’t in the mood to die tonight. Instead of guns, I pulled my trusted Bowie knife. The twelve inch blade was scratched and scuffed but the steel had been sharpened daily since I’d liberated it from a drunk who’d tried to kill me the first night I donned my outfit and my new life.

  Crouched, I started to spring on the first before they had a chance to corrupt her virtue but stopped when the Irishman spoke again.

  “Jimmy, use your knife and end her quick. Da boss doesn’t need any loose lips talking about our business.” He let out a dark sounding laugh. His cackling made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

  Her eyes opened wide and she started to scream but the brute’s free hand cupped over her face and muffled what sounds she could manifest. Jimmy stepped toward her and drew a Bowie of his own. I didn’t think I could run the distance before his knife was buried in her, so I tossed the blade from my right hand to the left and drew a pistol.

  The hammer fell, powder exploded and the ball flashed across the twenty odd feet and pushed Jimmy’s brains out the far side of his skull. Before they could react, I’d launched myself toward them. The cobblestones were still wet from the rains that’d fallen earlier in the day, so I used that to my advantage. At full speed and five feet behind the Irishman, I pulled and twisted myself and went into a slide. My thick pants protected my legs and backside as I passed between the legs of the Irishman, slashing at the back of his left thigh in the process. The point of my blade tore through cloth and flesh, leaving his hamstrings splayed apart. He jerked back in pain and fell to the side as I came to a stop in front of him. My pistol, a Colt 1862 Police revolver, was brought to bear on the man to the right. The .36 caliber ball shot upwards under the surprised man’s chin and exited through the top of his skull.

  I rolled over and came up on my feet in front of the man holding the girl. The man pushed her aside and quickly produced a weapon from his jacket. A fast kick relieved him of his Derringer and with a lunge forward I pushed my blade through his heart with little effort. His lifeless eyes never closed as he fell with a thud beside the startled girl.

  “You’re safe now, little bird,” I told her and spun to see about the Irishman.

  He lay on the cobblestones clasping both hands over the gaping wound on his leg. A dark pool of blood slowly grew underneath him. He grunted and looked up at me.

  “You bitch. I’ll kill you for this.”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle at his misfortune and choice of words. The girl stepped up beside me and looked back and forth at us. In the distance, the tooting of police whistles could just be heard. Like I’d feared, the gunshots had drawn too much attention, but it was a necessary move. Judging from the distance, the coppers shouldn’t know where the shots had been fired, so there was some time before they’d narrow it down.

  “Why are they chasing you?” I asked and repeated when she didn’t respond.

  “I… I was working and I…” she stuttered. “I heard them talking about burning New York City.”

  “Burn the city?” I asked her and then turned my attention to the man on the ground. I slipped the Bowie into its sheath but kept the pistol ready. “What’s she talking about?”

  “Go to hell, bitch,” he spat.

  I’d expected little cooperation from him, so I knelt beside the wounded man and pushed the barrel of the pistol against his right kneecap. He looked up defiantly, so I pulled the trigger. The ball shattered th
e joint and he rolled over in a fetal position, held his leg and screamed in agony. Given the severity of the gash and the gunshot, I doubted that even the best surgeons would be able to save either leg.

  “Now, worm,” I said and pulled him onto his back. I shoved the barrel between his legs and pushed hard against his manhood. “This goes next if you don’t tell me what she’s talking about.”

  I smiled inwardly as he started to talk. I always found it amusing that a man would be so willing to betray his cause in an effort to protect his nether regions.

  “We’re gonna burn da whole place down. Let da people know that da Confederates can strike in the heart of da Union,” he said.

  “We?” I asked and pushed the barrel down a little harder. “Who is we?”

  “Sons of Liberty,” he grunted.

  My gaze moved to the girl and back to him. I knew who the Sons of Liberty were. Around here, we called them Copperheads, Southern sympathizers who were working in the North to aid the Rebel cause. Like the snakes they were named after, the bastards moved silently, waited and always sank their poison filled fangs into the skin of the Union.

  “Why are the Copperheads doing this?” I asked, but he just smirked and said nothing.

  A frightened voice rang out behind me. “I overheard them. I was cleaning up late and walked by the door and they were talking….”

  I looked up at her and saw the fear in her eyes. She was as terrified of me as she was of them and understandably so. Given that my tactics for protecting the innocent usually left bodies strewn about, the newspapers had dubbed me Assassin Anne.

  “What did you overhear?” I said in a calm and reassuring voice.

  “Don’t…” he started, but my pistol found his sensitive spot and I applied the right amount of force to arrest his tongue.

  She looked at him, swallowed hard and choked down her fear. I gave her a knowing nod and asked again.

  “They… are going to burn down hotels. Set fires with the people still in them. I remember that they said something about a special type of fire,” she stammered and looked at him.

  I pushed the barrel a little harder and watched him flinch. A police whistle blew somewhere nearby and I knew my time was short. “Tell me what she’s talking about or I end you now.”

  With some reluctance, he finally relented and told me their scheme. The Copperheads planned on setting fires to a dozen hotels in New York with hopes that it’d rally the populace to demand a ceasefire with the Confederates. A new invention called Greek fire, a chemical that would burst into flames upon contact with the air, would be used. Members of the plot carried large vials in specially fashioned wooden totes. They were to go into each hotel and set fire to the lower floors, but their big target was the Royale Hotel. Mitchell Madeira, special adviser to the President, was in New York and their main goal was to trap him in the burning building and, with his death, make a personal stab at Mr. Lincoln.

  One of the wooden totes sat on the ground nearby. It’d been dropped by one of them. I stepped over, popped the latch and opened it up. The case was no bigger than a doctor’s satchel, but once opened, revealed the large glass container. The liquid inside sloshed around but a tightly packed cork made sure that it wouldn’t seep out. Thick cotton wadding lined both sides to keep the vial in place.

  I snatched the vial and walked over to a tin garbage can that sat nearby. I withdrew the cork and poured the Greek fire into the empty can. Within a minute, the concoction ignited into a very bright and intense flame, but without fuel the fire died away quickly. My test proved that they were capable of doing what they planned. In a hotel with plenty of wood and fabric to douse with the Greek fire, the effects would be catastrophic.

  “Time to go,” I said to the girl. “I need you to come with me since you heard what hotels they’re going to ignite. We’ll try and stop as many as possible.” I pointed my pistol at the Irishman’s head. “And as for you, any man who’d burn innocent folks alive doesn’t deserve to live.”

  I cocked the pistol’s hammer back but the girl spoke up. “Wait! You can’t kill him. You made a deal. Talk or else, remember. Well, he talked. So if you kill him, then you’re no better than he is.”

  I glanced at her with my head tilted to the side. My annoyance wasn’t missed by either, but she stood defiantly and repeated, “You can’t kill him.”

  With one leg cut open and one knee shattered, the man wasn’t going anywhere but to make sure, I kicked him in the other knee. He screamed in an unmanly manner as I grabbed the girl’s hand.

  “Come on, the police will show up in no time.

  -2-

  An Unwanted Conscience

  “Wait. Where are we going?” she asked as I all but dragged her down the darkened street. Frustrated, she yanked her hand from mine and stopped. “I demand to know where we are going and who you are.”

  Calls from behind me caught our attention and we turned to see what the ruckus was. A pair of policemen had found the wounded Irishman. When she looked back to me, I nodded to the sidewalk on the far side of the street. She followed me and then gasped.

  “You’re the one the papers write about,” she whispered in an urgent voice. Her eyes looked me up and down. My wardrobe choice had been well documented by the few folks who’d witnessed my exploits. The Union Cavalry jacket that I’d altered to hug my curves a little better, black trousers, and knee-high boots, not to mention my weaponry, made it all too clear as to who I was. “You’re Assassin Anne!”

  I rolled my eyes and felt the flutter in my stomach as the need to punch someone rose up. The papers had needed something to call me and some editor coined the name “Assassin Anne”. If I knew which one, I’d consider adding him to the list of people I’ve removed from this world in my efforts to make New York City a better and safer place to live.

  “For the sake of argument, yes,” I said and let out a frustrated breath. “But just call me Jessica.”

  She tilted her head and asked, “Why?”

  “Because that’s my name,” I said in an irritated manner and looked up at the night sky. The moon hung overhead and lent its light to the streetlamps to help illuminate the cobblestones. “What hotels did they mention? We’ll have to move fast if we’re to catch any of them.”

  “The St. James, Tammany, the LaFarge house and the Royale. I know there were more but those are the only ones I can remember,” she said, then added in a whisper, “Sorry.”

  I looked her over to assess whether or not to take her with me. I could remember the hotel names, but if she’d seen their faces then she could pick them out of a crowd. However, with her tagging along, I’d not be able to use my normal tactics. I didn’t think she’d be able to climb the side of a building and leap from one rooftop to another without falling to an unpleasant end.

  “What’s your name?” I asked as we started a slow run into the darkness of the street ahead.

  “Emma, Emma Cross.”

  “I take it that you work in a hotel?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, but I clean for two boarding houses. I worked late this evening to catch up on things.”

  “And you heard them through the door? Tell the truth now. Why were you listening at the door?”

  I saw the guilty look on her face and repeated the question. She looked over at me and reluctantly answered.

  “I thought I saw my father come into the boarding house,” she said. “I’ve long suspected that he has a mistress since he leaves our home a few nights each week. Mother knows but doesn’t say anything. She passes his nighttime excursions off as just his need to spend time with other men, playing cards and gambling.” Her gaze never met mine but stayed fixed on the cobblestones as we ran. “I wanted to confront him and make him see how much he’s hurting Mother.”

  “And you thought that he was in the room with the conspirators?” I asked and watched her nod.

  “I leaned against the door harder than I thought and it popped open. I fell on my face in front of
all of them. I took off and only saw a few, but didn’t see my father in the room.”

  “What are you prepared to do?” I asked as we slowed to a stop.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What are you prepared to do if your father turns out to be a conspirator? Will you take arms against him? After all, they mean to aid the enemy, the South in this plot to burn the city and murder the people within those buildings.”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t think he’s part of this. He can’t be. Not my daddy.”

  I looked around and mentally mapped out our location. The rooftops would give us a good vantage point of one of the hotels. If I could get to the top fast enough, I might be able to catch them before they could get inside.

  “Come with me. You’re going to have to learn to climb,” I said and grabbed her hand.

  I pulled her to the side of a brownstone. Its thick and uneven stonework would make for good footholds while we hung on to and used the roof’s drainpipes to scale the side of the building.

  “Just do what I do and don’t look down,” I said and slowly began my ascent. A dozen feet off the ground, I looked down at her and nodded to the building. “Well, come on.” She was scared or nervous or both. I didn’t care which but I understood what she was feeling. I also knew that there was no time to coddle her. “Breathe deep and think of the adventures you had as a child. That’s all this is, a big adventure. Just have fun and keep up.”

  Hand over hand, I pulled myself up the pipe with ease. Grunts and groans rose from below me and I couldn’t help but snicker. When I’d adopted this life, it took a while to learn the tricks. When I glanced down, I could see that all the color had drained from her face but she climbed with a better speed than I’d expected.

  Once on the roof, I ran to the far side and drew my rifle. As it came over my shoulder, the spring-loaded stock popped into position. I pulled it back against my shoulder and peered down the telescopic sights. With deliberate slowness, I moved the barrel back and forth as I scanned the streets. A block away, I spotted a man walking quickly and carrying a wooden tote.