The Sapphire Brooch Katherine Logan (best beach reads TXT) 📖

the stamina. You’re not Superman, and someone had to knock some sense into you.”

Braham got to his feet, growling at Jack with steely green eyes. “I’ll forgive ye this time. But don’t ever do it again. I don’t claim to be a super man. I have a job to do. Go home.”

“Not a super man, Super…oh, damn it. I told you I’m not leaving you.”

“If ye try to stop me again, Gaylord will tie ye to a tree.”

Gaylord pulled a length of rope from his pocket, strung it between his hands, wrapped the ends around his palms, and yanked.

Jack waved Gaylord off with an elaborate shoulder shrug. “Put it away.”

The wind shifted out of the south. An odor struck Braham’s nostrils and made his throat knot. “Fire. We don’t have much time. Let’s get out of here.”

When they reached the commercial center of town, they found the streets lit by bonfires and torches, and an angry mob carrying off sacks of coffee, sugar, and bacon from the commissary.

“What’s happening here?” Braham asked a man loaded down with sacks.

“The army took what they could carry off. Told us to get what we needed ’fore the Yankees took it.”

“Come on,” Braham said. “Let’s go.”

Glowing bonfires, fed by frantic people discarding papers and incriminating evidence, cast a brassy light over the roaming crowds.

“We can’t get through there. The street’s blocked,” Gaylord said.

Jack checked the time. “It’s ten forty-five. We won’t make it.”

“We have to,” Braham said.

Gaylord led them down a narrow street, through dense smoke. Braham covered his mouth and ran as fast as he could. His heart pounded so fiercely he thought it would burst from his chest. When he reached the end of the street where the air was clearer, he stopped and took deep, heaving breaths.

“I’ll go ahead and find a way to enter the armory,” Gaylord said.

“Where’s all this smoke coming from?” Braham asked.

“They’re burning the cotton and tobacco warehouses,” Jack said.

Then, like a bomb blast, an explosion rocked the city, sending brick and glass flying in all directions. Doors ripped from houses and chimneys toppled. The impact lifted Braham several feet into the air and sent him sailing into the street. When he hit the ground, his breath left in an audible oooof. Pain ripped through him. Debris rained down on him, sparks burned his trousers, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t roll over to brush away the fire. Since he was unable to breathe, a momentary panic erupted. He’d had his breath knocked out of him before. If he relaxed, in a minute or two, his breathing would return to normal.

“Braham, where are you?” Jack yelled.

Braham raised his arm, giving a slight wave, and forced out one word. “Here.”

Another explosion ripped the night, shaking the ground, and sending more flying debris into the street. Black smoke billowed up in the center of the flames.

Jack reached Braham’s side. “The arsenal’s blowing up. We’ve got to get out of here. Can you walk?”

Braham cursed the night. Without explosives, he couldn’t blow up the train or the bridge. Through the smoke, he saw Gaylord gimping toward him. Jack helped Braham to his feet and brushed shards of glass off his clothes.

“Give me a damn pistol. I’m going after the gold.”

Jack pointed toward the river. “Too late. The train’s reached the trestle and is crossing the James.”

Braham turned toward the river, kicking at a smoldering piece of wood. “Son of a bitch.”

Another explosion, this one on the water, sent shockwaves which shook the earth violently. Braham grabbed a lamppost for support. Flames shot high into the air as one explosion followed another.

“Now what’s going on out there?” he yelled.

Jack crawled to the stoop of a burned-out house. “Semmes is scuttling his ironclads in a dramatic finale.”

“Move over.” Braham dropped his sore, weary body dejectedly onto the stairs next to his buddy, and Gaylord joined them. Braham propped his chin on his hands. “They don’t want a damn thing left in Richmond the Yankees can use against them.”

The crack and crackling of splintering wood snapped all around them. Fires spat and sputtered, and falling bricks and glass peppered the area. Braham caught Jack’s eye and gave him a humorless grin. “Can’t anything be saved tonight?”

Jack snatched up the hat Braham had been wearing, slapped it against his thigh to knock off the accumulated dirt and broken glass, and tossed it to Braham. “Just you, I reckon. Let’s go back to Elizabeth’s. I know a doctor who’s standing at the door waiting to get her hands on you.”

Gaylord picked up a piece of broken stair railing and used it for a crutch.

“You better come, too, Gaylord. Let Charlotte look at your leg,” Jack said.

“It’s only my ankle. Nothing a shot of whisky won’t cure.”

The pulse was throbbing at Braham’s temples. He wanted to get his hands on her, too. He clapped the hat on his head and seized Jack’s arm for support. “First things first, buddy—whisky and a bath. Then I’ll be glad to surrender to her healing hands.”

60

Richmond, Virginia, April 1, 1865

Charlotte reached the depot, panting from her wild dash through town. She gulped in a smoke-laden breath and started coughing. Tears, from both the coughing and the smoke, tracked down her cheeks. She dropped, exhausted, on top of a crate, ready to rest, if only for a minute.

There were only a few dark and empty trains on the tracks. If one of them was earmarked for Jeff Davis and other government officials, there should be lights and people inside. Did this mean Davis and the treasury had already escaped Richmond?

If Davis had escaped, then where were Jack and Braham? If they had made an attempt on the president’s life or tried to steal the gold, there would have been a ruckus. Even now. The only commotion was from the handful of panicked citizens arguing with guards who menaced them with bayonet-tipped rifles.

One of the guards raised his voice, “You’ll only be allowed to board if you