Teancum by D. J. Butler Page A

they’ll be able to shoot me dead and it still won’t
matter.   Lee will be held
accountable, and the Kingdom will avoid entering this ridiculous war.”
    The long hall was lined with doors, all of them shut.   Sam wondered what time it was, and
guessed the hour must be nearing six in the morning.   If this were a farm, everyone would be up by now.
    One door opened in the hall, directly in front of them, and
a young woman appeared in it.   She
wore a long white nightgown that covered everything but her head and hands, but
Sam still blushed and looked away, out of habit.  
    “Father!” the young woman gasped, and threw herself on the
gruff President’s arm.
    “Get inside your room, Elizabeth,” he harrumphed at her.
    “But…”
    “I’ll explain at breakfast.”
    She looked at Sam Clemens and Welker and Rockwell and the
midget Coltrane and their bristling guns, and hesitated.   She was a
slightly-better-than-plain-looking girl, Sam thought, strong enough to be some
frontiersman’s wife, and fair enough to have her pick of such rough men.   Here she’d probably end up as one of a
trio of girls on the elbow of some toothless, doddering old fart.   She met his gaze and he blushed again
and looked away, feeling vaguely embarrassed.
    “Do you need help, father?” Elizabeth asked.
    “The day I need help from one of my daughters,” Young
snapped, “is a dark day indeed for the Kingdom of Deseret!”
    He moved on, Sam followed, and they left Elizabeth behind
them.
    They passed a window and then another, looking out onto the
orchard between Young’s houses and the Tabernacle, and then Coltrane tagged at
Sam’s sleeve.   “Something’s wrong,”
he muttered.
    Sam looked out at the orchard.   Other than the flare of gunshots off to the left, by the
Z.C.M.I., it was still, and quiet but for a faint wheezing and pumping
sound.   “Those glass bells,” he
agreed.   “The pumps, or whatever
they are.   They’re still
working.   Should they be stopped
for the night?”
    “I ain’t sure that matters, but I figure it might.”
    “I think they might be pneumatics,” Sam pondered.
    “I ain’t sure,” Coltrane scratched his head slowly, “but I
reckon you must mean either rheumatic, or pneumon… pneumonic?   Pneumoneristic?   You mean they’re sick?   There’s something wrong with them?”
    “I mean they’re pumps to create pressure.   I think it’s good they’re still going,
because the message system will work.”  
    “I don’t trust Welker.”
    “I don’t either.” Sam considered.   “Don’t take this the wrong way, Jed, but I calculate that
you might be a touch more inconspicuous than I would be, if you were to go
missing from the party here.”
    “Is there a right way
to take that?” Coltrane grinned.   “But I agree.”
    The dwarf jogged back down the hall the way they had come
and disappeared.   Sam hurried and
caught up to the others.   They were
in the Lion House end of the two buildings, now, by the crenellated entrance
through which Sam had originally come.   Shattered windows and bullets in the plaster of the walls bore witness
to the Third Virginia’s using the room in their gun battle.   Outside, gunfire still flashed and
shoes echoed.  
    Young hammered at the door of George Cannon’s communication
room with the butt of one pistol.
    “Go away!” called a voice, faint through the door.
    “Is that Lindemuth?” Young roared.   “Open up, you maggot!”
    “Is that…?   Who’s there?” Lindemuth called, the door still shut.
    “Open up!” Young bellowed.   “Or I’ll seal you for time and all eternity to every fat,
man-hating shrew in the Kingdom!”
    “President Young?”
    “I’ll seal you to a man, Lindemuth!   I’ll kill two birds with one stone and
seal you to John Lee himself!”
    Sam elbowed his way past Welker and Rockwell and raised one
of his pistols.   “With all due
respect, Mr. President, I worry we may not be able to