Love and War

by John Jakes

  “All right, Mr. Bascom.” The albino sounded disappointed.

  “By the way—is your friend still in Richmond?” Bent expected an affirmative answer. It wouldn’t alter his decision about the albino, but it might influence the length of his stay in the city.

  Unexpectedly, the albino said, “No, sir. He went home to Charlottesville for a few days to collect himself. Being sacked by Joe Anderson was a pretty hard blow. He’d worked at the Tredegar ten years. Began as an apprentice, back when the place built locomotives.”

  “Sad,” Bent declared, injecting as much false sympathy as possible. His heart beat fast now, from nerves and anticipation. The albino gave him a last pleading look.

  “Well, then—good night, Mr. Bascom.”

  “Good night.”

  While the albino sauntered to the door and reached for the latch, Bent drew the clasp knife from his coat and silently opened it. The six-inch blade flashed under the hanging lantern.

  The albino heard the swift, heavy tread of Bent’s boots and peeked over his shoulder. Before he could cry out, Bent had his left elbow around the albino’s windpipe. He pushed the knife into the albino’s back. The blade met resistance. He kept pushing until all the metal had disappeared.

  He twisted it one way, then another, to be sure the job was done. The albino pulled at Bent’s left arm but lacked strength to loosen it. His torn shoes scraped and twisted in the dirt. Finally the slight body was limp.

  Bent extricated the bloody knife and gagged only once. He was astonished and pleased about his suitability for this work. He felt sure that since he had never met the albino’s friend, the man would be unable to trace Mr. Bascom or connect him in any way with a Mr. Dayton of Raleigh, North Carolina, who was stopping temporarily at one of the city’s cheaper lodging houses.

  Taking hold of the collar, he dragged the body. It smelled now. He placed it against a wall and concealed it with straw bales pushed in front of it and stacked on top. Then he remembered something, removed two bales, and dug in the dead boy’s pockets till he found the currency. Baker would be glad to have the cash to use again.

  He replaced the bales and with his boot smoothed the dirt floor to remove the most conspicuous signs of disturbance. After a careful inspection, he blew out the lantern and went out the door into the balmy May night. The lights of Richmond twinkled on the hilltop and on either hand. Lamps gleamed on the prison island in the river, and the Tredegar spewed red smoke and light. Bent made his way back along the canal for a short distance, then turned left and climbed toward the center of the city that was mourning for a legend.

  The next day was Wednesday, May 13. In full-dress uniform, including sash and the Solingen sword, Orry walked with a great many other Confederate officers in the funeral procession.

  Behind the officers were hundreds of clerks and minor officials from the statehouse and the city corporation. Directly ahead were Orry’s chief, Seddon, his friend Benjamin, and other cabinet members. Ahead of them, hung with great swags of black crepe, was the carriage of President and Mrs. Davis. The Davises followed the most honored mourners—raggedy veterans who had served with the man the procession honored. The veterans walked or dragged themselves on crutches. A few were borne on litters by tired comrades in butternut or fading gray.

  Ahead of the veterans walked the official military escort, two companies from George Pickett’s division, one of artillery, one of cavalry. Their drummers beat the slow march for the dead.

  Ahead of them, led by a single soldier, was the general’s favorite war charger, Old Sorrel, saddle empty, stirrups tucked up. Ahead of Old Sorrel, drawn by black-plumed horses and with four generals walking at the corners as a special honor guard, was the black hearse containing the body of Thomas Jonathan Jackson.

  Jackson had died on Sunday, after his wound bred pneumonia and bodily poisons and the surgeons lopped off his left arm in a futile attempt to arrest his decline. All day yesterday he had lain in state in the governor’s mansion, his coffin draped in the national flag for which he had fought with such loyalty and ferocity. As the body was being readied for the procession to Capitol Square, Jackson’s widow had finally broken down and been led away.

  On either side of the route of march, Orry saw stricken, tear-stained faces, male and female, soldier and civilian. Even the little children wept. Nothing in recent memory, not even Pelham’s fall, had so devastated the Confederacy. Seddon had whispered to Orry as they stood beside the bier yesterday that Lee was almost beyond consolation.

  It was difficult to believe that Jackson had been slain not by some Yankee but by one of his own, a Confederate soldier who would remain eternally anonymous. Probably the man didn’t know he had fired the fatal bullet.

  Ironic, too, that it had happened immediately after Jackson and Lee had once again gambled brilliantly. Faced with Hooker’s sudden surprise sweep, they had agreed to split their army a second time and send Jackson’s foot cavalry on the swift secret march to the Union right. Jackson had smashed Howard’s corps of Dutchmen and by doing so had perhaps drained all the fight out of Fighting Joe. For whatever reason, Hooker had somehow lost his nerve, withdrawn from a strong offensive position at a key moment, and steadily given ground thereafter. Jubal Early had lost Fredericksburg, but the Yanks had lost the battle of Chancellorsville. The roles of winner and loser might be reversed, however, once the full cost of Jackson’s death was reckoned. Orry thought the victory a hollow one.

  The procession entered Capitol Square through the west gates, where Orry saw his wife in a group of women that included Mrs. Stanard, one of the grandes dames of local society. Benjamin had provided an introduction, and Mrs. Stanard had taken to Madeline instantly, favoring her with the information that she had definitely not taken to Orry’s sister, Mrs. Huntoon, whom she had invited to her salon once only.

  Seeing Madeline cheered him a little. But there wasn’t much to be happy about any more, even setting aside this dark day. In the west, Sam Grant was moving relentlessly on the works around Vicksburg. Men no longer lowered their voices when they discussed impeachment of Davis. And General Winder’s wardens continued to run the overcrowded prisons cruelly, in defiance of frequent inspections and memorandums of protest from Orry and others.

  Cooper was in Richmond, had been for almost a month. His office was in the Mechanics Institute building, so Orry seldom ran into him by accident. Cooper was tragically changed as a result of his son’s death, news of which had stunned Orry and his wife. Uncommunicative, totally uninterested in hospitable overtures and dinner invitations from Madeline, he was lost in his work for Navy Secretary Mallory, whom Orry distrusted, as he distrusted anyone and anything connected with the rival service.

  In recent days, Orry and Madeline had received a visitor from Spotsylvania County, the stylish, intelligent, occasionally sharp-tongued widow with whom Cousin Charles had formed a romantic attachment. With her two Negroes, Augusta Barclay had come flying from Fredericksburg to take up residence on the parlor sofa until Hooker’s withdrawal across the Rapidan became a certainty. She had left only yesterday, her worry about her farm taking precedence over the public rites for Jackson.

  Charles was in love. The widow Barclay didn’t say so, but it was evident to Orry from the way she discussed his cousin. Well, that was Charles’s affair, though these were hardly the best of times for planning a future.

  Nor was Orry enamored of the way Mrs. Barclay sometimes flaunted her learning. She was fond of quoting English poets of the aphoristic school and seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of couplets for all occasions.

  Still, his reaction was essentially a favorable one, as was Madeline’s. Augusta Barclay was undeniably attractive, and during her stay on Marshall Street she had taken pains to see that her freedmen had adequate food and shelter in the backyard in a tent improvised from blankets. She helped Madeline with the cooking and routine chores. And before departing, she said three times that if she could repay their generosity in any way, they must
not hesitate to call on her. Orry believed the offer was sincere.

  The hall of the House of Representatives was filled with the sweet fumes of huge floral tributes surrounding the bier and great pyramids of white lilies heaped up beside it. Reluctantly, Orry joined the line of officers shuffling toward the open coffin. When it was his turn to gaze at the bearded head on the satin pillow, he nearly couldn’t do it. He saw a callow and oddly likable West Point plebe, not the strange adult from whose convoluted, some said diseased, mind had come victory after victory. Amidst the lilies, Orry bowed his head and cried.

  Somehow Madeline worked through the crowd and took his arm and held it tightly against her side until he was himself again.

  Like an elephant rousing, Elkanah Bent got out of his disarrayed bed about one that afternoon. He had visited a whorehouse last night and put a black girl to good use. He had returned to the lodging house at dawn, when no one was awake to ask him whether he planned to watch Jackson’s funeral parade. He certainly didn’t. He had no intention of dignifying a traitor’s death with his presence, though he might go take a peek at the body to see how much Jackson had changed since the days when Bent had hazed him. Even then, Jackson had displayed peculiarities; excessive concern for the way his organs hung within his body, for example. More recently, Union officers had jeered at his reluctance to go into battle on Sunday. But the mad old Presbyterian had slaughtered his enemies without pity the other six days of the week. The Union was well shed of him.

  Bent lathered his face, opened his razor case, and set about making himself presentable. He was astonished at the ease with which he had accomplished his mission thus far. Of course he had taken precautions—ridden to Richmond with two pistols and a concealed knife—but the rest had been absurdly simple. Whenever he was stopped, he simply showed the pass forged by one of Baker’s specialists. His speech caused him no trouble because he was in a part of the South in which the mushy accents of the cotton states sounded foreign. Furthermore, Yankees—whores and speculators, mostly—could be found all over town.

  Concerning the female invaders, a barman had given him a piece of advice: “Don’t you fret one minute about the safety of Richmond till you see the Baltimore whores trying to buy train tickets. Then you should worry.”

  Too late for breakfast but in plenty of time to eat a huge midday meal, Bent spent an uncomfortable hour with the minor bureaucrats, traveling men, and low-ranking officers who packed the two communal tables in the dining room. The landlady offered him a strip of black satin, something she was providing for every guest. Inwardly contemptuous, he nevertheless thanked her effusively and tied the armband on his left sleeve.

  With the Tredegar information hidden in a special pocket in his coat lining, a pocket he had sewn shut as soon as he filled it, he trudged to Capitol Square and stood in the shuffling line of people who moaned and wept for the dead traitor in a way he found disgusting. When he reached the bier, he hardly recognized the man lying there. But he tried to affect a soulful expression and dabbed at one eye before moving on.

  He was jolted by the sight of two people farther back in line: a man with round glasses, nearly as heavy as Bent but in his opinion considerably less handsome, and a woman whose dark beauty sounded chords of familiarity. He approached an officer standing by himself.

  “Beg pardon, Major—do you happen to know that couple over there? I think the woman may be a distant relative of my wife.”

  The officer couldn’t help him, but a man with the sleek look of a high-ranking government official overheard and said, “Oh, that’s Huntoon. From South Carolina. He has a minor job at Treasury.”

  Bent almost shook with excitement. “South Carolina, you say? Would his wife’s maiden name happen to be Main?”

  He asked the question with such intensity that the civilian’s suspicions were aroused. “I certainly couldn’t tell you that.” Nor would he mention to this fat, sweaty fellow, who looked more speculator than Southerner, that he was acquainted with the woman’s brother, Colonel Main of the War Department. The civilian excused himself quickly.

  Bent hurried into the square and paused by the great statue of Washington, whose birthday those on both sides continued to celebrate. He lingered until the couple emerged and entered a barouche driven by an old Negro. The barouche rolled past Bent where he lounged in the shade of the statue’s pedestal. The woman took no notice of him or any of her surroundings; she was busy berating her husband. She struck Bent as arrogant, but she definitely resembled Orry Main. She was worth investigating.

  Now that he had accomplished his first mission without a hitch, he was full of confidence. On the spot he decided to risk one more day in the Confederate capital.

  In bed that night, he formulated his plan. Next morning he called at the post office as soon as it opened. He introduced himself as Mr. Bell, a native of Louisville, and persuaded the clerk to overlook any deficiencies in his accent by passing a folded bill over the counter. The clerk opened a thick book and found the address of James Huntoon.

  Hiring a hack, Bent drove past the Grace Street residence twice. Then, downtown again, he searched the stores till he found some over-priced linen that could be torn up to simulate bandages. He fretted through the next few hours at his lodging house. He planned to call late in the day, before the government offices closed.

  Around four, he walked out Grace Street and, when he was unobserved, paused for a swig from a metal flask kept in his side pocket. In an alley two blocks from his destination, he tied the linen into a sling and slid his left forearm through. A few minutes later, the same black man he had seen driving the barouche admitted him to the foyer.

  “Yes, Miz Huntoon’s at home, but she wasn’t expectin’ callers.”

  “I’m a visitor in the city. Tell her it’s important.”

  “Your name again, sar?”

  “Bellingham. Captain Erasmus Bellingham, on furlough from General Longstreet’s corps.” Longstreet was currently far from Richmond, which was the reason for that particular lie. “I must soon return to duty, so kindly ask your mistress to see me at once.”

  Homer led Bent to a small sitting room, then trudged off. Bent was too nervous to sit. He paced and chewed a clove to cover his whiskey breath. Underneath his white shirt and alpaca suit, sweat soaked him. Just as he had decided to flee, he heard a swish of skirts in the hall. Ashton Huntoon swept in, cross and sleepy-looking.

  “Captain Bellingham?”

  “Erasmus Bellingham, currently with General—”

  “My nigger told me that.”

  “I dislike interrupting you without prior warning, ma’am—” Her expression made clear that she disliked it as much as he did. Though her resemblance to her brother automatically generated rage, Bent kept his unctuous smile in place as he went on. “However, I haven’t much more time in Richmond. I am nearly recovered from this wound I received at the siege of Suffolk. Before I return to Longstreet’s command, I wanted to inquire about an old acquaintance.”

  “You don’t sound like a Southerner, Captain.”

  Bitch. He broadened the smile. “Oh, there are all degrees of Southern speech, I find. You don’t sound like a Virginian”—careful; mustn’t let any hostility show—“and the truth is, I was born and raised on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I left it the moment I heard the Confederacy’s call to arms.”

  “How interesting.” Ashton didn’t conceal her boredom.

  Bent explained that while on duty in the lower part of the state, he had heard that one of his West Point classmates was stationed in Richmond. “Last evening I was conversing with a gentleman at my lodging house—some chap with friends at the Treasury Department—and when I mentioned my classmate, he brought you and your husband into the conversation. He said you both hailed from South Carolina, as my classmate did, and that your maiden name was the same as his.”

  “Is your classmate Orry Main?”

  “Yes.”

  She acted as if he had dumped a spittoon on her.
“He’s my older brother.”

  “Your brother,” Bent echoed. “How extraordinary! I haven’t seen him in years. Come to think of it, though, I do recall him mentioning you in an affectionate manner.”

  Ashton dabbed her upper lip with a bit of lace. “I doubt that.”

  “Please, tell me, is Orry in Richmond?”

  “Yes, and so is his wife. I don’t see either of them. By choice.”

  “Is he perchance in the army?”

  “He’s a lieutenant colonel attached to the War Department.” Gathering her skirts, Ashton rose. “Is there anything else?” Her tone said she hoped not.

  “Only the location of his residence, if you’d be so kind—”

  “They have rooms on Marshall near the White House. I’ve never been there. Good day, Captain Bellingham.”

  Rudely dismissed, Bent nevertheless managed to reach the street without displaying his anger. He had brief, dizzy visions of tearing Ashton Huntoon’s clothing and subjecting her to punishments that would also yield certain perverse pleasures.

  The spiteful mood passed. Turning toward town, he strode along as if there were clouds under his feet. In another alley he stripped off the sling and threw it away. Orry Main was here. Bent was close to one of the objects of his hatred—closer than he had been since Charles Main eluded and disgraced him in Texas. He ought to walk into the War Department, find Main’s desk, and shoot him right between—

  No. Not only would hasty action imperil his life, it would rob the vengeance of savor. Bent also had the new job to think about. Baker would be expecting him in Washington. He should collect his horse from the stable and leave at once.

  Instead, he decided to remain an additional night. He wanted to be thoroughly familiar with the terrain when he returned to Richmond on another mission, as he undoubtedly would. He wanted to know precisely where to look for Orry Main.