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“Well, I’m always going to be on your side no matter what happens,” Peter said, and then he stepped farther into the room. “And you can repay that loyalty with a little on-the-side treatment, if y’know what I mean.” He grinned.
I raised a brow, standing near the window now with my arms crossed. “Repay you?” I said. “Are you blackmailing me, Private Whitman?”
“Hell no,” Peter said with laughter. “I’m jus’ sayin’, it would be nice to, y’know, be appreciated.”
A flurry of voices came in through the open window from the street below. I stepped up closer to get a better look, pressed my hands against the windowsill.
“A few extra cigarettes, a bottle of Scotch, maybe a red-headed wife,” Peter said, as if he were dreaming about these things as he named them off. “You know how much I looove redheads.”
“Yeah, I do,” I said absently, watching the scouting party come down West Main Street. “But I never took you for the wife type.”
Peter made a noise under his breath that sounded like a laugh. “You know me better than I know myself sometimes—well, just keep me in mind, and don’t forget the little people.”
“Like I said, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, so let’s just leave it at that for now.”
A small caravan of horses moved up the center of the street across from my building. I straightened my back, inhaled a deep breath, and prepared mentally for my first public appearance as Overseer.
“Is that who I think it is?” Peter said, peering over my shoulder.
“Yeah.” I stepped away from the window. “Marion’s party. They’ve been gone for over a week; I was starting to think Marion finally got himself killed.”
Peter laughed. “Nah, we couldn’t be that lucky.”
I grabbed my 9mm from the desk and holstered it at my chest, and we left the room together to meet the scouting party on the street.
Lexington’s residents, always anticipating the arrival of scouting parties, gathered in crowds outside the old History Museum. Hooves trotted against the asphalt, and a flurry of eager voices rose as the party got closer. I pushed my way through the crowd and went down the sidewalk that cut through the grass, and then stopped at the steps. Peter gave me the slip and disappeared into a crowd of soldiers.
Voices rose and fell, talked over one another, some shouted and argued.
“I’ve been on the list for wine for three months!” one man said to another. “One of those bottles is mine! I’ll see to it!”
“I hope there’s more food!”
“Sugar! We need sugar and cornmeal for the moonshine!”
“Where’s the Overseer?!” another shouted over the crowd.
I felt a twinge of insecurity in my stomach, but got over it quickly. I moved up to stand on the top step, just as Rafe always did, and then I turned to face the crowd, my hands folded loosely down in front of me. I wore no expression and made no sound. I just stood there, giving the crowd time to quiet down on its own so I wouldn’t be forced to shout over it.
“Where’s the Overseer?” another voice called out.
Still, I said nothing.
Dozens of heads moved in search of Rafe, until the only thing left for any of them to do was turn their attention back to the man now standing in Rafe’s usual spot. Many watched me with confused faces. Shouts eventually dwindled to whispers.
Marion, leader of the scouting party, jumped down from his horse; some of his men followed. He cut a path through the crowd and approached me.
“Marion,” I greeted with a nod.
“Atticus,” Marion greeted in return, also with a nod.
Marion looked around me with question, but it didn’t take him long to figure out what was going on.
“Rafe set out last night to take Cincinnati,” I said, and glanced into the crowd. “I’ll be Overseer until he returns.”
A wave of whispers carried over the crowd as the announcement made its way from the front to the back in under four seconds.
“All right then,” Marion said with an indifferent shrug; he looked back at his men. “Then let’s get this underway—you’ve got your work cut out for you, my friend.” He eyed me with a private look of warning, and luck-wishing.
