Free Ghosts of Time by Steve White Page B

“Alexandre,” he began . . . and then paused, for a slim, youngish Black woman had emerged from the kitchen and was walking briskly along Clay Street in their direction carrying a shopping basket. She was dressed in the long-skirted style of the era, obviously cheap but seemingly adequately warm, especially now that the late morning sun had brought the temperature up into what felt like the high forties. That sun was behind her, which made it hard to see her face very clearly. So did the fact that her face was somewhat downcast under a broad-brimmed hat. But what he could see of that face reminded Jason of one he had seen in a photograph, and as she walked past she raised her head slightly to look at the group of soldiers beside the street.
    “Carlos,” murmured Jason after she had passed, “is it possible that—?”
    “Yes!” said Dabney eagerly. “I think that just might be Mary Elizabeth Bowser!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

    Without pausing for thought or waiting for the others, Jason turned and hurried after the slender female figure that was walking briskly west along Clay Street. “Miss?” he called out to her retreating back. She didn’t slow, and showed no indication of having heard. It belatedly occurred to him that she assumed someone else was being addressed—someone white. He put a different tone into his voice. “Girl!”
    She halted abruptly and turned slowly to see a man in a gray officer’s uniform advancing toward her. She kept her face downcast and did not meet his eyes. “Yes, Cap’n?”
    “Are you Ellen Bond?” he asked, remembering Mary Bowser’s alias in the Davis household.
    “Yes, Cap’n. Ah works back there in the Pres’dent’s house,” she added, clearly expecting Jason to be properly impressed.
    “Yes, I know you do, Ellen . . . or is it Mary?”
    For a barely perceptible instant, her head jerked up and her eyes met his, and there was something in them that transformed her face. Then, almost too quickly to register, the moment was over and the mask of dull subservience was back.
    “Ah don’t know what you mean, Cap’n.” A note of whiny pleading entered her voice. “Please, suh, Ah gotta go. Miz Davis, she sent me to market, an’ she be expectin’ me back by—”
    “I’m sure she does, Mary—”
    “Ah tell you, Cap’n, Ah ain’t no ‘Mary’!”
    “—but others are expecting you as well.” Without the aid of his computer implant Jason summoned up from his memory the words Pauline Da Cunha had been told to use if she had occasion to make contact with Mary Bowser. “Gracchus is coming from the south.”
    She stiffened, and Jason could almost fancy he heard the mask shatter as it hit the cobblestones. There was absolute silence as he held her eyes with his. The others had come up—Dabney was staring with undisguised curiosity at the renowned but shadowy spy—but she ignored them.
    “I know you’re trying to decide whether to trust me,” Jason resumed. “You may as well. As you can see, there’s no point in pretending any more. If I really am a Confederate officer, and know those words, and know that you know them, then you’re as good as dead . . . and so is Gracchus, probably. But in fact I’m not. And I need your help to contact Gracchus.”
    She glanced around anxiously. There was no one else in sight. She turned back to Jason and her dark eyes bored into his. “Who are you?” she hissed. She still spoke Southern American English, but now she spoke it with an educated accent that told of her Philadelphia schooling.
    “I can’t tell you that, and if I did you’d think I’m either a madman or a liar. Just try to accept the fact that we’re friends of yours.”
    “So you’re for the Union?”
    “We’re certainly not against the Union, but we’re not taking sides in this war—which you and I both know the Union is going to win anyway.” Without needing time travel to know it , Jason didn’t add. Instead, he took a stab in the dark. “We have