Sky Parlor: A NOVEL

by Stephen Perkins

  Before pushing the door ajar, Lincoln wheeled on his heels to find the intense force of the general’s glare bearing down on him.

  “You shall announce the immediate withdrawal of your troops from Richmond to Secretary Stanton post haste, general,” the stern president demanded. “And since, you don’t belong to the fairer sex among us, then I should expect as a gentleman, whether at war or in times of peace, you shall undoubtedly remain veracious in promising to keep your word.”

  Grant felt an idea’s smoldering flame spark amid the dark canyon of his mind. His narrowed eyes peeked from a curtained window adjacent to the cabin’s door as the president boarded his carriage to hastily depart. Like the slow crawl of a scorpion, the General’s fingers crept towards the varnished pine of the door handle.

  “Sergeant,” he growled at the sentry stationed just outside, “summon the curriers to bring General Meade at the front a message.”

  The sentry whirled on his heels and snapped a crisp salute.

  “Tell him, to make the necessary preparations and commence with the attack on Richmond – immediately.”

  Grant stepped out onto the cabin porch. Watching the cavalryman dash to mount his horse, he savored a slow pull on his cigar as he felt a blast of arctic air sting the skin beneath the strands of his dark beard. Looking skyward, the risen sun was now but a dim silhouette shrouded in gray clouds, from which the first trickles of snow began streaming toward the barren earth. Turning back toward the cabin door, Grant’s mind began to marinate with anticipation’s intoxicating elixir.

  Soon enough, victory shall be mine once again!

  A peripheral glance caught a sliver’s notice of what seemed an inexplicable vision, perhaps, even an unwelcomed specter?

  “Tell me, Artemis, do you ever weep for Abel, our son from long ago,” Grant heard the admonishment of the soft, but familiar voice. “And what of the children of Richmond? Or perhaps you have forgotten them, while amid excitement over your latest warring outrage?”

  Grant tottered on the soles of his scuffed boots and sought ballast against the cabin door. Was she there behind his desk, or had she sent forth a holographic projection broadcast from her silver light cube?

  “I knew it must have been you disguised as Abigail de Orleans, Apollonia,” Grant said, accompanied by a blast of smoke from his flaring nostrils. “But what of Brutus in the Roman senate on the Ides of March so long ago, my dear and, tell me, which of us can truly claim the moral high ground when, over the centuries, mortal blood has sullied both our respective hands?”

  “That was wrong, and I am sorry for it,” she admitted. “But during that time, you left me with little choice. Be that as it may, the better the reason that this war between us must all end, Artemis,” Apollonia pleaded. She rose from behind her adversary’s desk and in a tender gesture, attempted to grasp for his hand. “Can you and I not see our way through to cease forsaking one another to bring peace, both in heaven and, here on earth?”

  Grant felt the tender caress of her hand as she moved closer. Though his senses reeled from the honeyed softness of her alabaster skin, with deliberation, he began to draw away.

  “I beg you to take your leave, Apollonia,” he whispered, “for though I wish it were not so, it is because I wish to spare you the brunt of the brutal nature I have so long cultivated, that I must forsake you once again.”

  Grant’s dark eyes began to soften. He felt his resolve begin to waver as her sultry gaze threatened to entrance.

  “Please, I must once again beg of you to take your leave,” he whispered again, “before you can persuade me otherwise.”

  Grant’s blood raced as Apollonia drew closer still. After bussing his reluctant mouth with a brief but sultry kiss, her impassioned crimson lips poised to whisper a warning.

  “There will come a time when I shall persuade you to relent, Artemis. But I fear,” she added, drawing close enough for Grant to sense her breath’s sweet fragrance, “I shall be willing to go to any lengths, and even to lay down my mortal life to ensure that you do, one way or the other.”

  4

  Union army emplacements outside Confederate capital of Richmond, Va.

  (Sometime before April 1865)

  Cannon volley’s brimstone scourge pounded at the gunpowder smothered air. Pillars of black smoke, like sinister wraiths loomed over the tattered city’s burning husks. For surrounding miles, searing mushrooms of fire belched from the scorched bowels of tobacco fields set ablaze in the wake of the routed Confederacy’s retreat. The clarion blare of a cavalry trumpet pierced the battlefield din. A bloodcurdling cry howled from the lungs of Grant’s front line of bayonet wielding infantry. In victorious solidarity, they began their forward surge to occupy the nearly abandoned Richmond’s bomb strafed streets. While seated on a horse drawn wagon atop a tree-dotted hillock overlooking the battlefield, Grant withdrew his flask of whiskey and gulped.

  “It’s been a long siege with that scalawag Lee, Sir,” Grant heard his subordinate, General Meade shout, “but I think now, we finally have his bastard rebels on the run.”

  First unleashing a belch that resembled a cannon’s report, Grant proceeded to issue his specific orders.

  “Secure all the railroad depots. I want all remaining women and children spared and brought to safety at Camp Four under the care of the Chaplain and the Rabbi, along with any Confederate rebels now in retreat who wish to surrender in good faith,” Grant ordered, taking another gulp of the malt whiskey from his silver flask.

  Though he had fought for victory on the battlefield, he somehow could not vanquish the image of Apollonia marbled into his mind’s foundation. “After all, Meade my good fellow, we don’t want to appear as butchers now that victory is at hand.”

  Meade snapped his horse’s reins and the animal whinnied. The pinched muscles beneath the whiskered plane of the Major General’s stern face began to slacken.

  “Yes, of course, Sir. May I say, that is most merciful considering the circumstances,” Grant’s subordinate observed with surprise. With the heels of his polished boots, Meade compressed the saddle’s stirrups against the ribs of his steed, but as the animal stirred, the general amended his order.

  In haste, Grant took a final, hungering gulp before sealing his whiskey flask shut with a brown cork. With a firm hand, he stuffed it within the folds of his officer’s jacket. Clamping a fresh cigar between his powerful jaws, he swept a commanding hand towards Meade.

  “Meade, my good man,” the General barked, casting his sonorous baritone above the din of battle cannons, “take care to relate to the rabbi chaplain, I want him to pluck the freshest sheep from the captured flock for when the moon shall bloom the fullest – he’ll know what is meant, of course.”

  Meade pulled back the reins to halt the momentum of his snow-white steed before it launched into a swift gallop. Though he knew to what Grant’s cryptic order referred, and his calm expression belied the pained splinter pricking his mind, the dutiful general acknowledged his superior officer, knowing that to anyone else not sworn to utter secrecy, Grant’s irregular request would surely spawn suspicion.

  A disquieting lull settled over the corpse littered battlefield as the gray haze of the afternoon dwindled into dusk. Beneath the cover of darkness that swept in over the ruined city like a black velvet ocean, Grant’s horse galloped toward the sprawling cluster of tents set up just outside the environs of Richmond.

  “Good evening, General,” a sentry greeted.

  A throaty bray snorted from the flaring nostrils of the general’s horse. Grant jerked the reins to bring the swift animal to a complete halt. For a moment, the general peered upward. He secretly reveled in the fullness of the golden moon illuminating the starry heavens. It was the perfect time to feast, he thought.

  “You’ve made the boys proud today, Sir. After all, if you hadn’t defied that yellow-bellied Lincoln, it would be Lee’s Johnny Rebels knocking on the door of his White House instead of us occupying Richmond.”


  An amiable grin etched onto Grant’s granite profile.

  “I can assure you, soldier,” Grant replied, “your loyalty and bravery as well that of your fellow boys in blue will not go unrewarded.”

  The young sentry took the reins to steady Grant’s steed as he dismounted.

  “The rabbi is in the far tent, over there across the field, general,” the sentry informed while traces of unbridled pride scattered across his callow face. “He says everything has been especially prepared.”

  The general halted to strike a match. The flaring embers of his cigar pierced the baleful gloom. Nodding, the general’s footsteps grew strident as he approached the rabbi’s tent. His blood quickened as he listened to the swells of tearful sorrow from the scores of women, children and Confederate soldiers held captive.

  Observing Grant’s distinctive silhouette illuminated by the raging campfires of the Union army mess, a captured Confederate infantryman lashed out with a vicious harangue.

  “Damn you to hell, Grant. Lincoln should hang you from the highest tree for treason,” taunted the skeletal figure in the tattered gray uniform, “you’re a butcher and a traitor to your fellow man.”

  “Quiet you,” Grant heard the Union guard’s remonstration echo over the wide field, scattered with rows of makeshift tents and crackling fires, “or instead of beef stew from the dinner mess, you’ll taste the steel of my bayonet.”

  Grant’s defiant chin thrust forward. His gait hastened across the battle scorched and cannon cratered meadow. Arriving at the entrance to the rabbi’s tent, he hastily ripped back the burlap flaps. Like a nocturnal owl’s keen gaze, his dark eyes widened at what to him appeared to be a most wonderous sight. A small girl, half-alive and perhaps no older than the age of seven, lay naked in a wooden basin while bathed in a pool of her own blood. Amid the glow of small wooden torches scattered about the apron of the tent, a dark robed rabbi with long tresses of braided dark hair turned towards Grant.

  “Your men found her cowering in one of the shells of buildings in downtown Richmond. She was most likely abandoned,” he began to elaborate. “I found her to be ideally suited to your needs, General – for I discovered she is RH negative, the exact blood type you require, rich with adrenochrome.”

  The rabbi turned to a small table, whereupon was placed a small blue flask next to a metal goblet. Grant’s eyes began to gleam as he watched and listened to the fresh crimson bounty gurgle forth. His covetous hands reached out to grasp the rabbi’s reverent offering. While anticipation’s golden sun dawned upon his mind’s dark wilderness, in haste, he began to tilt the goblet toward his hungering lips.

  “Here’s to victory,” Grant said, halting only to propose an impromptu toast.

  The rabbi’s gray lips parted and formed into a crooked grin.

  “And to many more, surely to come, General,” the rabbi’s reply slithered out.

  He watched as the general snapped his eyes shut to relish the precious bounty’s salty tang, before, in one fell swallow, it tumbled down into his thirsting throat.

  “And many more victories there shall be,” the general quipped as he swiped the sleeve of his officer’s jacket across his tainted mouth. “In this life, and in the next to come.”

  5

  Residence of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Georgetown, Washington D.C.

  (April 9, 1865)

  With pangs of consternation gripping his senses, a weary-eyed Edwin Stanton reached for his wire-rimmed spectacles. A spear of morning sunlight peeked out from the morning’s overcast gray and shot through the green curtained window of his spacious library study. Tightly adjusting his spectacles to better examine the missive that had just been urgently delivered by official army currier, he could sense a haunting ghoul’s premonition creep into the musty corners of his mind’s remote attic. Grappling with the slim, silver letter opener, he carefully tore open the official red seal.

  His nostrils braced from the noxious odor of freshly applied ink that welled up from the paper.

  While firmly securing the letter in his left hand, with his other, he slid his silver spectacles up the sloping bridge of his carrot thin nose. Focusing his thoughtful, deep brown eyes, he observed the swirls of black ink arrange into what he immediately construed as an alarming message about the president and a recent meeting at the White House from “a young circus magician, Abigail de Orleans.”

  Stanton delicately stroked the neatly trimmed strands of his chestnut brown beard. His craggy countenance folded into a contorted mural. From outside, he heard the churning din of charging carriage wheels and thunderous hooves. Turning to the window behind his mahogany desk cluttered with official documents and piles of thick, leather bound books, he hastily pulled back the forest green curtain. As he watched the uniformed figure bolt from the carriage before it completely halted, a faint gong from the town square’s bell tower struck his ear with a gruesome chord. Scanning the letter once more, he sensed dread’s sickly potion sizzling in his blood. His feeble heart thumped in time with each brisk stomp of the scuffed boots along the black stone walkway.

  Intuition’s stubborn insistence jabbed at the Secretary’s brain.

  Had the General confirmed his worst fears about the commander in chief?

  Stanton shuffled behind his desk and shrank into his chair. Feeling engulfed by the enormity of the world, he slumped forward as if burdened with a terrible weight. The shadows of what appeared to be a forbidding specter steadily grew across the aperture of an oak door in the wake of a hinge’s horrifying creak. Cruel vibrations wriggled upon his skin from each dull thud of footstep’s deliberate advance across the crimson carpet leading to his desk. He recoiled from the deathly odor of a cindering, half-smoked cigar that grew from a black mustache and beard’s tangled thickets like a shorn tree stump.

  “Good morning, General,” Stanton greeted, motioning with a plump finger toward a vacant chair near his desk. “I’ve just had an opportunity to read your troubling missive,” the president’s secretary admitted. “It seems unfortunate this is happening to our president, just when you’ve ordered General’s Meade and Sherman to strike the decisive blow upon the Confederacy.”

  Now seated, Grant removed his wide-brimmed blue hat and with deliberation, crossed his elephantine legs.

  “I’m afraid the commander in chief is worse off than that, Edwin,” Grant replied while striking a match to the stubby end of his cigar. “You know very well; I’ve often complained about Lincoln’s idealism and his unrelenting tendency to err on the side of appeasement toward the enemy and this preoccupation of freeing the slaves. Let’s face it, for the last four years, ever since he took office, we’ve been fighting this war with one hand tied behind our backs. Now, not only has Lincoln been aggressively negotiating General Lee’s premature surrender with Jefferson Davis, he has angered our banker friends with his insistence on issuing greenback currency. But added to this, with his recent decision to entertain the impractical ideas of this magician and her silver light cube or whatever the hell Abigail de Orleans called it, well,” a gruff Grant muttered, “I think something ought to be done and, the sooner the better.”

  Again, the President’s war secretary tugged on the silvered rims of his spectacles. Stanton’s woeful gaze soberly fixed upon the general. “Some time ago,” Stanton’s soft, reflective voice began to report, “His personal physician, Doctor Amos Prescott, confidentially informed me Lincoln has been ill – a rare condition that, over time, strikes and weakens the nervous system. He says he may have no more than a few months to live.”

  Stanton folded his writhing hands upon the desk. His thoughts searched for bearing, tossing like a vessel on the storm tormented high seas, mulling over a possible solution.

  “Be that as it may, what is it exactly, you’re suggesting, general,” Stanton wondered.

  Grant pulled the cindering cigar from his thickly bearded mouth and studied it, as if he were a fortune teller attempting to glean a prophetic message magically floating wit
hin the sinuous wafts of gray smoke.

  “If history has demonstrated anything Mister Secretary, it is simply this,” the general fixed an obstinate scowl. “That in times of crisis, greatness in a man is determined by his ability and willingness to step forward and make decisions no one else would dare contemplate,” Grant uttered in a grave tone while ramming the cigar back between his grinding jaws.

  Stanton’s gnarled chestnut brown brows, frosted with hints of gray, began to quiver. Unfolding his fingers, the knuckles of the secretary’s clammy hands grew chalk white as they gripped the edge of the desk like the stern of a capsized rescue boat amid an unruly sea.

  “My God general,” Stanton began to protest, “You’re not suggesting a coup?”

  Grant leaned his broad-shouldered frame forward in the chair. He gestured with his cindering cigar as if it were a pointed javelin.

  “You and I both know the president has increasingly become a liability in our combined efforts to properly prosecute this war,” Grant emphasized. “Besides, you also know god damned well, what I’m suggesting isn’t unprecedented when considering the sweep of history. You do remember Julius Caesar, don’t you, Mister Secretary?”

  “I do indeed, General,” Stanton recalled, while shuffling his girth in his chair. “However, I take it you already have in mind a stand-in for Brutus?”

  “His name is Booth, John Wilkes Booth,” Grant replied. “As you know, he’s become known as not only a Confederate sympathizer, but his antagonistic sentiments towards the president are by now just as publicly well-known. He stands-in as the perfect patsy, or as you say, Brutus.”

  “John Wilkes Booth. You mean to say the famous actor?” The name fumbled from Stanton’s flummoxed lips.