by John Jakes
“That’s the point,” Butler exclaimed crossly. “She isn’t as disreputable as one might expect. Her family goes back generations in this town. Haven’t you ever noticed the street in the old quarter that bears her last name?” Of course he had, but he had drawn no conclusions from it. “What I’m telling you, Colonel, is that some of Madame Conti’s clients are also friends and highly placed in the municipal government. They’re men I dislike but men I was forced to depend upon to keep the city running. General Banks is in the same unfortunate position. So I have to throw her a bone, don’t you see?”
That was it, then; accommodation with traitors. In the wake of the realization came rage. Butler, meantime, sank back into his chair, a little comic-opera man. Ludicrous.
But he had dangerous power.
“I suppose I could put you in command of a black regiment”—Bent almost fainted a second time—“but I doubt Madame Conti knows I can’t find white officers for that duty. She wouldn’t see the nicety of the punishment. Regrettably, I must find a more visible alternative.”
From under the contents of the file—the record of humiliations and reversals engineered by others—Butler plucked a crisp new sheet, the ink stark black. He spun the order around and laid it on the desk for Bent to read. The junior officer was too dazed and upset.
“Effective today, your brevet is revoked. That will keep the bitch from barking till I get out of town. Someone from General Banks’s staff will speak to you about financial reparations. I am afraid you may spend the rest of your army career paying for this little escapade, Lieutenant Bent. Dismissed.”
Lieutenant Bent? After sixteen years, he was to be reduced to the rank he had when he came out of the Academy? “No, by God,” he shouted to the disordered room near the mint. He hauled his travel trunk from a cluttered alcove and kicked the lid open. He packed a few books, a miniature of Starkwether, and, last, cushioned by suits of cotton underwear, carefully rolled, wrapped in oiled paper, and tied, the painting. Into the trunk went everything he owned except one civilian suit, a broad-brimmed hat he had purchased an hour after leaving Butler, and all of his uniforms, which he left in a heap on the floor.
Sheets of rain swept the levee, lit from behind by glares of blue-white light. The storm shook the ground, shivered the slippery incline, dimmed the yellow windows of the city.
“Watch that trunk, boy,” Bent yelled to the old Negro dragging it up the rope-railed gangway ahead of him. Rain dripped from his hat brim as he staggered aboard Galena in the light-headed state which had persisted since his interview yesterday. His military dreams lay in pieces, ruined by jealous, vindictive enemies. He had chosen to desert rather than serve an army that betrayed years of loyalty and hard work with demotion. He was fearful of discovery but awash with hatreds surpassing any experienced in the past.
A terrifying figure with a blue halation blocked him at the head of the gangway. Calm down, else they’ll suspect, you’ll be caught, and Banks will hang you.
“Sir?” rumbled a voice as the halation faded and the thunder, too. Relieved, Bent saw it was merely the purser of the steamship, holding a damp list in the hand protruding from his slicker. “Your name?”
“Benton. Edward Benton.”
“Happy to see you, Mr. Benton. You’re the last passenger to come aboard. Cabin three, on the deck above.”
The wind roared. Bent stepped away from the exposed rail, but the rain found him anyway. He shouted, “How soon do we leave?”
“Within half an hour.”
Half an hour. Christ. Could he hold out?
“The storm won’t delay us?”
“We’ll be bound for Head of Passes and the gulf on schedule, sir.”
“Good. Excellent.” The wind tore the words away. He groped for the rail of the stair, lost his footing, and almost fell. He spewed obscenities into the storm. The purser rushed to him.
“You all right, Mr. Benton?”
“Fine.” The man hovered. Bent wanted no undue notice. “Fine!” The purser withdrew, quickly gone in the dark.
It required both hands on the slippery rail to drag his tired body up the stairs toward the safety of his cabin. What did he have left? Nothing but the painting, hate, and a determination that his enemies would not succeed in destroying him.
No—lightning; his eyes shone like wet rocks as he heaved and pulled himself upward in the rain—oh, no. He would survive and destroy them first. Somehow.
Still weak from his sickness, Billy went down to the river again. Under the protection of muskets and artillery, he helped dismantle the bridge he had built. He felt he was committing an act of desecration. He told himself he was taking the military defeat too personally. He couldn’t help it.
The pontoon wagons vanished into the winter dark. Encamped at Falmouth again, he wanted to write Brett but feared to do it. He wrote in the journal instead.
Bitter cold again this evening. Someone is singing “Home, Sweet Home,” a mournful and curiously ominous refrain, given our place and plight. This week alone, our support regiments have lost a score of men by desertion. It is the same through the entire army. They steal away homeward, disheartened. Even Lije F prays privately and seldom quotes Scripture any longer. He knows the exhortations and promises ring false. Burnside is done, they say. There is much speculation about his replacement. The bitterest say things like “Oh, don’t let your faith waver, boys. They have dozens of equally stupid generals waiting in Washington.” Then they reel off a list of mock courses those officers took at West Point: “Principles of Bungling,” “Fundamentals of Foolhardiness.” It is a terrible medicine to swallow without protest. We might as well be encamped at the rim of the cosmos, so dismal and remote do these huts seem as Christmas nears. Look about and the eye falls upon an unbroken landscape of confusion and cupidity. My men have not been paid for six months. Down in New Orleans, if we may believe the occasional Richmond paper which comes across the river when the pickets make their exchanges—coffee going south, tobacco coming north—General Butler and his brother are busy stealing cotton for personal gain. General Grant occupies himself with ordering all Jews out of his military department—accusing them, as a class, of speculation and lawbreaking. A cabal of Republican senators is said to be agitating for the heads of Mr. Chase and Mr. Seward. Where in God’s name is there one iota of concern for this disgraced army? Where is one man whose whole energy is given over to the task of finding generals who can lead us from this swamp of failure in which blunder after blunder has mired us, seemingly for eternity?
If you ever read these scribblings, dear wife, you will know how much I love and need you at this moment. But I dare not try to say it in a missive because other things would surely creep in, and you would be forced to assume part of a burden which is properly mine—the burden of men who feel abandoned, who dare not say aloud that they have no hope.
63
TWO NIGHTS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Charles rode to Barclay’s Farm at dusk. A bag made of coarse netting hung from his saddle. The bag held a fine Westphalia ham taken from Yankee stores captured on recent night raids north of the river.
The evening had an eerie quality. The bare limbs, bushes, and roadside fences glittered like glass. It had rained last night while the temperature dropped.
Most of the clouds had gone now; the sky in the west had a purple cast, pale near the tree line, darker above. The moon was visible, a gray sphere with a thin crescent of brilliance on the bottom. There was enough light for Charles to discern the ice-covered farmhouse and the two red oaks standing like strange crystal sculptures.
Sport proceeded at a walk; the road was treacherous. Charles’s beard reached well below his collar, and his teeth shone in the midst of it. Anticipation put the smile on his face and helped banish the memories of Sharpsburg that were with him so often. He had never received the promised commendation for helping to move the Blakely gun on the battlefield. Either the major had forgotten Charles’s name or unit or, more likely, he had been one o
f the thousands who had not survived what was the single bloodiest day of the war. This was his first opportunity to visit the farm in months, even though the cavalry had been camped not far away, over in Stevensburg, for several weeks. With his scouts and picked bands of troopers, Hampton had been in the saddle almost constantly since, raiding above the Rappahannock.
Night ghosts, they drifted behind enemy lines and took a hundred horses and nearly as many men at Hartwood Church; rode up the Telegraph Road, cut the enemy wire to Washington, and seized wagons at the supply base at Dumfries; rode again, hoping to go fifteen miles, all the way to Occoquan, only to be forced around when an entire regiment of Yankee horse materialized against them. They escaped with twenty wagons loaded with sutler’s delicacies: pickled oysters, sugar and lemons, nuts and brandy, and the hams, one of which he had commandeered as a present for Gus. It would be a hearty Christmas celebration at the encampment, though a short one. Charles had to be back by Christmas night, because Hampton proposed to return to enemy territory the following day.
During the weeks of riding and fighting in snow and thaw, pressure against the town of Fredericksburg had mounted, culminating in savage battle and Burnside’s defeat. Charles worried constantly about Gus’s safety. If Hampton’s lean scavengers crossed the Rappahannock to raid, Union detachments could do the same coming the other way. He had tried to find someone who could tell him whether the Fredericksburg fighting had reached as far as Barclay’s Farm, and finally learned it had not.
On the road, he experienced a surge of relief. She was there. Transparent smoke rose up to vanish in the starlight. Unseen lamps brightened the rear of the house and shone from the half-open door of the small barn nearest it.
“Sport,” he growled, sharply reining the gelding on a crust of ice, which crackled. Hunching forward, he inhaled the piercing air. Lamplight in the barn at this hour?
Tied to the pump, which had a gleaming stalactite at the spout, were two horses. He supposed there was an innocent explanation, yet the sight of them so close to enemy positions across the river set him on edge. He dismounted in the center of the road, led Sport to the side, and tied him to a fence rail. The gray stamped and blew warm breath that plumed in the cold.
Charles set off on foot for the farmhouse, a short walk of a hundred yards. In the silence, his spurs jingled like tiny bells stirred by a breeze. He crouched and with some difficulty removed them. All of this continued to strike him as slightly foolish; he would say nothing to Gus when her callers turned out to be neighbors.
Still—why was that barn door open? And Washington and Boz nowhere to be seen?
Where the fence ended and the dooryard began, Charles paused to study the horses. Old riding saddles, neither Grimsleys nor McClellans, told him nothing. He stole toward the house, whose ice-covered shakes flashed back the light of the moon for a moment. He was conscious of each crunch and crinkle underfoot; he couldn’t avoid a certain amount of noise, no matter how carefully he trod.
The horses grew aware of him, shifted and stamped softly. He held still near the house, listening.
He heard laughter. But not hers. It came from the owners of the horses.
One of the animals stepped to the side, whinnying. Charles held his breath. The laughter stopped. Perhaps that had no connection with the horses. He might be imagining the whole—
The horses had changed position, giving him an unobstructed view of the barn. Inside, outstretched legs projected into his line of sight. The ankles were lashed with rope. The parson and his wife didn’t tie people when they called, did they? They didn’t visit on a night so brutally cold, did they?
He leaned against the house, his heart beating at frantic speed. Gus was threatened. The woman he cared about was inside—threatened.
Backed against the building, he knew how much he loved her. So deep was the reverse of that emotion, his fear for her, he couldn’t move for half a minute. His mind was in confusion. Suppose he took rash action and got her killed?
Another minute went by. Do something, damn you. Do something.
He broke free of the numbing confusion and pictured the back porch. He didn’t dare enter that way. It would be ice-covered, noisy. He twisted his head toward the road. The red oaks. Great climbing trees. Could he reach one of the dormers and prize it open? If so, he had a chance of surprising the men holding Gus in the kitchen or one of the back rooms. That they were Yankees he now took as a certainty. Everything depended on surprise and silence.
He stole to the front of the house and over to the stoop, where he sat and jerked off his boots. Then, crossing the porch, he slowly turned and tested the doorknob.
Locked. All right, it had been a faint hope anyway.
He put his filthy right sock onto the top step, and his whole body tilted wildly. He went flying off the steps; the edge of one cracked him across his spine. He bit back a yell but made a loud bump. He rolled on his side on the hard ground, listening—
After a few seconds, he exhaled. They hadn’t heard the noise. He had to be more careful. The ice was everywhere.
Under the tree, he stretched, grabbed, threw a leg over, and pulled himself up on the lowest limb. From there on it wasn’t so easy. He wasn’t clinging to bark with his knees and elbows, his gauntlets and filthy socks; he was clinging to frozen grease. He went up with excruciating slowness and nearly fell three times. Finally he reached a large branch that hung over the roof.
Taking hold of a thinner one above it, he stood up, then began to move along the icy branch, sliding his right foot toward the house a few inches, then his left one, then his right again. Progress was slow because of the cold; he had lost nearly all feeling below his ankles.
Save for the stars and the crescent moon, the sky was black from horizon to horizon. Balanced on the branch near one of the dormers, he studied the situation. He would have to lean out, grasp the dormer peak, and hope he could hang on. Attempting to stand or kneel on the roof itself would be futile because of the slope and the ice.
He swallowed. Extended his hand. Stretched—
His fingers were three inches short of the peak.
Still holding the limb above, he stepped six inches nearer the house. The branch sagged, began to crack. “Holy hell,” he whispered, gambling, letting go and flinging both hands forward. He felt himself falling, caught hold of the peak. The sudden weight shot excruciating pain along his arms. His knees banged the shakes of the dormer. They would hear that all the way to the Floridas.
He hung from the peak by both hands, then removed his right one, reaching downward to the window.
He tugged. Nothing.
Again. Nothing.
Locked, goddamn it. He let out an enraged groan and yanked a third time, thinking he would have to smash his fist through—
The window rose an inch.
His left hand slipped on the peak, but he held on, panting. He slipped his other hand under the window and slowly, slowly pulled it up far enough to allow him to swing through into the dry, chill dark of some cobwebby place. Eyes closed, he rested on his knees. He felt tremors in his quaking left arm.
He waited until a little of that passed. His vision adjusted, and he picked out certain shapes: trunks, an old dress form. This was an attic. A pale oblong showed where the stairs descended to the house proper.
He heard laughter again, then blurred words from Gus. She sounded angry. Next came a smacking sound. She retorted, still angry. A second smack silenced her. He almost felt the blow himself.
He controlled his rage and stood up cautiously, so as not to creak the floor or thump a beam with his head. He stripped off his gloves, blew on his fingers, flexed them, blew again until he felt circulation returning. He unbuttoned his old farmer’s coat and eased the loaded Colt from the tied-down holster.
He advanced to the stairs and crept down, a silent step at a time. The anger thickened, possessing him. At the bottom, he took half a minute to twist the handle, ease the door open—no squeak, thank the Lord—and s
lide through to the warm hall.
To the right, the kitchen doorway. The voices were distinct.
“Meant to ask you, Bud. You ever been with a female?”
“No, Sarge.” That voice was light; the speaker sounded younger than the previous one, who seemed to have an accumulation of phlegm in his throat.
“Well, m’ lad, we’ll change that pretty quick.”
Charles moved, sliding toward the kitchen, his back to the wall.
“Ever spied a plumper pair of tits, Bud?”
“No, sir.”
“Want to take a look at them ’fore we start the real festivities?”
“If you do, Sarge.”
“Oh, yessiree, I do. Sit still, missy.”
“Get away from me.” Charles was a yard from the door when Gus said that.
“You be quiet, missy. I wouldn’t want to bruise up a pretty little reb like you, but I’m gonna open that dress and have a look at them plump things hangin’—”
Charles lunged to the doorway, thumb and finger of his gun hand ready as he spied the two Yanks. Neither wore a uniform—scouts, then, like himself.
The nearest, a blue-eyed youngster with a scraggly yellow mustache, saw him first. “Sarge!”
The older Yankee blocked his view of Gus, who was evidently seated in a chair. Charles stepped into the room and thoughtlessly made an error; he jumped a pace to the right to see if she was hurt.
“Gus, are you—?”
Almost too late, he saw what he had missed before—the horse pistol in the waistband of the younger Yank. Out it came, looming huge. Charles fell to his knees and fired at the same time as the younger man.
Only the drop saved him. The Yankee ball passed over his head. His ball flew into the boy’s open mouth and through the back of his head, carrying parts of it and splattering them on the wall. Gus screamed. The sergeant goggled at the boy blown backward against the stove. Then he stared at Charles on one knee, his Colt curling out smoke.
The sergeant was scared and consequently slow. Even while he groped for his side arm, he realized he had no time. Wetting himself, he staggered on a crooked path to the back door.