North and South Trilogy

by John Jakes

  “You men stand aside.”

  They didn’t.

  “I gave you a direct order. Step into the street and let this lady pass.”

  They continued to block the walk. It was a kind of disobedience not unknown to him, but it angered him more than usual because of their color. They wouldn’t have dared defy him if it weren’t for Butler and Old Abe. In the wake of the President’s proclamation, the darkies thought they ruled the earth.

  The tableau held. Bent heard one of the troopers mutter something about white officers, and both eyed him in a speculative way. Foolish of him to interfere with such brutes. Suppose they attacked him?

  Then he saw his salvation: three white soldiers coming into sight down at the corner of Conti. The sergeant wore a side arm. Bent waved his sword. “Sergeant! Come here this instant.”

  The trio hurried. Bent identified himself. “Take these two insubordinate rascals to the provost, and I’ll follow to charge them.” His breathing slowed; he could ooze contempt on the niggers. “If you hope to be part of the Union Army, gentlemen, you must behave like civilized human beings, not apes. Dismissed, Sergeant.”

  The noncom drew his revolver. He and his men began to enjoy their assignment. They poked the two blacks and kicked their shins. The cavalrymen looked frightened.

  As well they might, Bent thought. They would be tied by their thumbs, with stout cord, to a suitable beam or limb and left to hang with their toes just touching the ground. An hour of it was standard punishment in cases of insubordination. For them he would order three or four hours.

  “Colonel?”

  He swept off his hat; the woman was middle-aged, attractive. “Ma’am? I do apologize for the way those—soldiers harassed you.”

  “I am most grateful for your intervention.” Her accent was that of the city, melodious and warm. “I trust you won’t take offense if I remark that you are not typical of members of the army of occupation. Indeed, I would find it more natural for a man of your sensibilities to be wearing gray. Thank you again. Good day.”

  Overwhelmed, he muttered, “Good day,” as she swept into a doorway that was her destination.

  It had been so long since anyone had complimented him about anything that he flew along toward the cathedral square in a euphoric state. Perhaps the woman was right. Changing sides was unthinkable, of course, but her insight couldn’t be faulted. Perhaps his lifelong loathing for Southerners was misguided. It might be that in certain ways he was more reb than Yank. Pity to learn it too late.

  Under the looming façade of St. Louis Cathedral, Bent halted suddenly, attention arrested by two men in the square. One was the commanding general’s brother, an army officer much in evidence in New Orleans lately. The other—

  He struggled momentarily, then got it. Stanley Hazard. Bent had seen him last at Willard’s over a year ago. What was he doing here?

  He hurried on, his craving for drink intense. The sudden sight of Stanley reminded him of George and Orry. Soon old litanies were resounding in his head. He must not forget either family or how much he wanted to repay them. Before he left New Orleans, he had to take possession of the portrait in the bordello.

  The table linen was blinding, the silver heavy. The gulf oysters were succulent, the champagne French and cold as January. Most of the liveried waiters had woolly white heads. They bent over the diners with such attention and deference that Stanley could almost imagine Abe and his freedom proclamation were fantasies.

  The polite, reserved gentleman sharing the table wore the oak leaves and cuff braids of a colonel, though the source of that rank was a mystery to Stanley and many others. He had done some investigation before leaving Washington. In one group of reports, the officer was consistently called Captain Butler, and it was the captain whose appointment as a commissary the Senate had rejected last winter.

  Other reports filed in the War Department referred to him as Colonel Butler, though most of these came from his brother. In other words, in the mysterious ways of wartime, when the gentleman got a job on his brother’s staff, he underwent a rapid rise in rank. Whether the promotions were brevets or even legal hardly mattered. Nothing mattered but the man’s influence and power. He had plenty of each, so Stanley gladly overlooked the irregularities.

  Stanley watched his champagne consumption; difficult negotiation lay ahead. While they ate they kept to safe topics: the question of the length of the war; the question of whether McClellan would be replaced and by whom. On the latter, Stanley knew the answers—yes; Burnside—but feigned ignorance.

  Butler asked about his journey. “Oh, it was fine. Sea air is salubrious.” He hadn’t smelled much of it. He had stayed in his bunk for most of the voyage, rising only to vomit into a bucket. But it was important that business adversaries think him competent in every respect—another of Isabel’s little lessons.

  “Well, sir”—Stanley’s guest leaned back—“a fine repast, and I thank you for it. Since your visit is so short, perhaps we’d better get down to it.”

  “Happily, Colonel. For background, I might tell you that I own the manufacturing firm of Lashbrook’s of Lynn, Massachusetts.”

  “Army footwear,” Colonel Andrew Butler said with a nod. A little shiver chased along beneath Stanley’s shirt. The man knew all about him.

  He raised his napkin to mop perspiration from his lip. He leaned forward into the shadow of a hanging fern basket. “This is a rather public place. Should we—?”

  “No, we’re perfectly all right here.” Butler touched a match to a large Havana. “Similar, ah, arrangements are being concluded at half the tables in this restaurant. Though none is on the scale of what you propose. Please continue.”

  Stanley got up his nerve and plunged. “I understand there is a desperate need for shoes.”

  “Desperate,” Butler murmured, blowing smoke.

  “In the North, cotton is badly needed.”

  “It’s available. One only needs to know cooperative sources and how to get it into the city and onto the docks.” Butler smiled. “You do understand that in every transaction I receive a commission from the purchaser as well as the seller?”

  “Yes, yes—it makes no difference, if you can help me ship shoes to the Con—to those who need them and, at the same time, deliver cotton in sufficient quantity to make its resale worth the not inconsiderable risk. There are laws against aiding and trading with the enemy.”

  “Are there? I’ve been too busy to notice.” He laughed heartily. Stanley joined in because he thought he should.

  They went strolling, working out the details. In the mild sunshine of early winter, Stanley suddenly felt marvelous, unable to believe that, in remote places he would never see, men were living in fear and filth, and laying down their lives for slogans.

  On his third cigar, Andrew Butler began to philosophize about his brother. “They nicknamed him Beast because he threatened to treat the townswomen as whores if they made disparaging remarks to our boys, and they nicknamed him Spoons because they say he loots private homes. He’s guilty of the former and proud of it, but believe me, Stanley, if Ben wanted to steal, he wouldn’t traffic in anything so trifling as spoons. After all, his background is Massachusetts politics—and he’s a lawyer besides.”

  Stanley could have mentioned some things he had heard about the general—that, for instance, he had grown wealthy during his short tenure in New Orleans, though no one could say how. The sources of Andrew Butler’s burgeoning fortune were, by contrast, widely known.

  Moving toward the riverfront where a paddle steamer lay moored, white as a wedding cake in the sunshine, Butler continued, “The people of this town are wrong to condemn my brother. He’s a much more fair-minded and efficient administrator than anyone will admit. He cleaned up pestilential conditions he found when he arrived, he brought in food and clothing when it was badly needed, he reopened the port for business. But all you hear is ‘Damn the Beast’ and ‘Damn Spoons.’ Fortunately, in our little commercial venture, you a
nd I will deal with gentlemen who put personal profit ahead of public slogan-mongering.”

  “You’re referring to the cotton planters?”

  “Yes. Their desire to be practical was enhanced by the experience of a few who initially refused me their cooperation—and their cotton. Those gentlemen found their slaves absent all at once. When they subsequently consented to, ah, share their crop in the general marketplace, the slaves of course reappeared to do the hard labor.”

  Working under bayonets held by United States soldiers, Stanley thought. The scandalous stories had reached Washington. But he didn’t mention it.

  “Even in wartime,” Butler concluded, “practicality is often a wiser course than patriotism.”

  “Yes, definitely,” Stanley agreed. The champagne and sunshine and success reached him all at once, generating a sense of self-worth unique in all his life. Isabel should be proud of what he had accomplished today. Damned proud. He was.

  By the close of November, most officers in the Army of the Gulf knew they would have a new commander by the end of the year. Protests against Butler’s style had grown too numerous, accusations of thievery and profiteering too ripe. The coming of a new commandant usually produced a reorganization and many transfers. Elkanah Bent realized he must retrieve the painting at once.

  He observed the entrance to Madame Conti’s on three randomly chosen evenings. The observation proved that what he had heard was true: the brothel was popular with officers and non-coms alike, though it was against regulations for them to associate, just as it was for them to visit such a place. Both rules were broken by large numbers of men, who went in quietly and came out rowdily—drunk to the eyes. Within one half-hour period he witnessed two fistfights, which further cheered him.

  In his disorderly rented room around the corner from the Cotton Exchange, Bent sat down in his undershirt and devised a plan with the aid of his most helpful companion, a fresh bottle of whiskey. He drank as much as a quart a day—and vile stuff it was, too; little better than sutler’s slop. But he needed it to clarify his mind and help him cope with his burden of failure.

  The woman who ran the bordello would never sell him the portrait. Nor was he willing to risk burglary late at night; he vividly remembered Madame Conti’s black helper. He had to steal the painting while others conducted what was known in military parlance as a diversionary demonstration. With the bordello patrons in a volatile state, it should not be hard to provoke one.

  It was the best plan he could concoct. He drained the bottle and fell into bed, Wearily reminding himself to secure a knife.

  The following Saturday night, in full-dress uniform, Bent ascended the beautiful black iron stair he had climbed once before. He found a large, noisy crowd of soldiers in the parlor and didn’t recognize one. A touch of luck there.

  He ordered bourbon from the old black man behind the small bar. He sipped and listened. When the men weren’t boasting to the whores, they maundered about home or muttered anti-Southern sentiments. Ideal.

  He ordered a second drink. His neck prickled suddenly. Someone watching—?

  He turned. Sure enough, through the press he saw a large, solid woman approaching. She was well into her sixties, and her mass of white hair was as stunningly arranged as it had been the previous time. She wore a robe of emerald silk embroidered with bridges, pagodas, and Oriental figures.

  “Good evening, Colonel. I thought I recognized an old customer.”

  He started to sweat; insincerity lurked behind his smile. “You have a good memory, Madame Conti.”

  “I just recall your face, not your name.” Shrewdly, she didn’t bring up their quarrel over the cost of certain special services obtained from the slut he had bedded.

  “Bent.” On the first visit he had actually called himself Benton, wanting to protect his real name because he believed he could still have a career in the army. At that time, he had yet to learn that the generals never recognized talent, only influence.

  And you don’t command any. You know who’s responsible: your father, who betrayed you in death. The Mains and the Hazards, the General Billy Shermans, and a host of unknown enemies who have whispered and conspired and—

  “Colonel? Are you ill?”

  A bulging vein in his forehead flattened out of sight. His breathing slowed. “Just a brief dizziness. Nothing alarming.”

  She relaxed, musing. “Colonel Bent. Certainly, that was it.” He missed the flash of doubt in her eyes. He swallowed whiskey and listened to the din in the place. Excellent.

  “I recall you had a Negro working for you—a huge, ferocious fellow.” Willing to kill on order. “I haven’t seen him tonight. Is he still here?”

  Bitterness: “No. Pomp wanted to join your army. He was a freedman, and I couldn’t dissuade him. To business, Colonel. In what may we interest you this evening? You know our range of specialties, as I recall.”

  He wanted one of her young boys, but in this military crowd dared not ask. “A white girl, I think. One with flesh on her bones.”

  “Come and meet Marthe. She’s German, though she’s learning English. One caution: Marthe’s younger brother is serving in a Louisiana regiment. I advise Marthe and all the other girls that we run a nonpartisan establishment”—damn lie, that; the madam had several times criticized Butler publicly—“but you can assure yourself of congeniality by avoiding direct reference to the war.”

  “Certainly, certainly.” Anxiety quickened the reply. Could he go through with it? He must.

  Madame Conti’s hypocrisy helped stiffen his resolve. He ordered a magnum of French champagne for some further stiffening, then waddled along to be presented to the whore.

  “Very lovely, dear,” Marthe said twenty minutes later. “Very satisfying.” She had an accent thick as a sausage and china-blue eyes, which she had kept focused on the ceiling throughout. Plump and slightly pink from her brief exertion, she lay touching and fluffing the corkscrew curls over her ears.

  Back turned, Bent struggled into his trousers. Now, he said to himself. Now. He picked up the bottle and drained the last inch of flat champagne.

  The plump whore rose and reached for her blue silk kimono. Madame Conti’s passion for things Asian was evident throughout the house. “It’s time to pay, darling. The chap at the bar downstairs will take your mon—”

  Bent pivoted. She saw his fist rising, but astonishment prevented an outcry for a moment. He hit her hard. Her head snapped back. She fell on the bed, shrieking in anger and pain.

  Turning away to conceal his next action, he raked his nails down his left cheek till he felt the blood. Then he snatched his coat and lurched for the door.

  The whore was on him then, pounding with her fists, bellowing German curses. Bent kicked back twice and hurt her enough to stop the hitting. He plunged into the dim hall. Doors opened along it, blurred faces becoming visible. What was the commotion?

  He remembered his saber, left behind. Let it go. You can buy another. There’s only one painting.

  Down the stairs he went, staggering, blood dripping from his chin. “Damn rebel slut attacked me. She attacked me!”

  He bolted through the arch to the parlor, where his outcry had already generated angry looks among the lounging soldiers. “Look what the whore did to me!” Bent pointed to his bloody cheek. “She called General Butler a pissing street dog—spat on my uniform—then she did this. I won’t pay a penny in this nest of traitors.”

  “Right with you there, Colonel,” said a dark-bearded captain. Several men stood up. Marthe bounded down the stairs, heightening the effect of Bent’s story by howling her German damnations. Through heavy smoke tinted by the red glass mantles, he saw the barman’s hand drop beneath the counter. Madame Conti rushed from a doorway behind him: the office—exactly where he remembered it.

  “All of you be quiet, please. I permit no such—”

  “Here’s what we do to people who insult the United States Army.” Bent seized the nearest chair and brought it down on th
e marble bar, splintering it.

  “Stop that, stop it,” Madame Conti cried with a note of despair. Several girls fled squealing; others crouched on the floor. The barman produced a pepper-pot pistol. Two noncoms jumped him, one throwing the gun into a spittoon while the other locked hands behind the man’s neck and dragged his face down to the marble, swiftly and hard. Bent heard a nose crack.

  He picked up another chair and flung it sideways. It struck a decorative mirror; a waterfall of fragments flowed.

  The soldiers, half of them drunk, joined the attack like gleeful boys. Tables flew. Chairs crunched. Madame Conti ineffectually pulled at the arms of those wrecking her parlor, gave up and dashed away as demolition commenced in other rooms. An officer caught her, lifted her, and carried her out of sight on his shoulder.

  Panting with excitement and fear, Bent ran to the office. There was the red-flocked wallpaper, the array of paintings, including the great Bingham—and there was the quadroon’s portrait in its remembered place, among several canvases behind the madam’s desk. Bent produced a clasp knife and began to poke and saw the canvas around the inner edge of the frame. In a minute and a half, he nearly had the portrait loose.

  “What are you doing?”

  Cut, rip—the picture was his. He began to roll it. “You’ve ruined that,” Madame Conti cried, rushing at him. Bent dropped the painting, balled his fist, and hit her on the side of the head. She would have fallen, but she caught herself on the edge of the desk.

  Her splendid hairdo undone, she stared at him through straggling gray strands. “Your name wasn’t Bent the first time; it was—”

  He struck her again. The blow drove her four feet backward and hurled her to the floor. She floundered on her spine and made whimpering noises as he picked up the rolled painting, rushed through the parlor and down the iron stairs, leaving his army comrades to finish their work. From the hurrahs and the sounds of breakage that diminished as he hurried into the dark, they were enjoying the duty.

  It had been a good night for everyone.