by John Jakes
“Dear me,” she murmured, trying for precisely the right blend of surprise and reservation. “Does he want money for another vessel?”
“God, no, nothing so mundane. I will tell you what it is, but you must prepare yourself. Open your mind. Not hesitate to think, well, daringly. Unconventionally. Sweetheart—Mr. Powell and some associates I have not met as yet intend to establish—” he gripped her arm, bent down beside her chair “—a new Confederate state.”
“What?”
“Please don’t raise your voice. You heard me correctly. A new Confederacy. Let me tell you about it.”
Giggling inside, Ashton frowned as he pulled a chair from the corner and sat beside her. He fondled her hand, explaining, revealing, persuading while she fluttered her eyelashes to simulate astonishment, pressed a hand to her breast, and at appropriate intervals gasped. Altogether, in her own estimation, she gave a splendid performance—up to and including the dramatic rush of her palm to her open mouth when he first said the word assassination.
He took half an hour to pour it all out. The fish bisque had congealed by the time he asked, “Now tell me—did I act improperly? I’ve withheld none of the facts, including my strong desire to join Powell’s group. I want to be his new secretary of the treasury, and I believe that’s possible. The Southwest is a long way from our home state, but think of the rewards when we establish a new government. We’ll command the attention—the respect—of the entire world.”
“I am thinking of that. It’s just a trifle—well—overwhelming.”
“But you aren’t furious with me?”
“James—James!” She began to press little kisses on his flabby face. “Of course not. I’m thrilled by your vision—proud of your courage—gratified to see you exhibit such intelligence and initiative. I’ve always known you had both qualities, but I also know that working in Richmond has been a miserable, frustrating experience. I’m so happy to learn it hasn’t robbed you of your ambition—”
“The principal reason for my ambition is you, Ashton. I want you to be one of the most important women in the new Confederacy.”
“Oh, darling—” Steeling herself, she squeezed his slippery face between her palms, kissed him, and pushed her tongue into his mouth. He uttered a groan as she dropped her hand to his right thigh. “I’m so proud of you.”
Someone knocked softly—the kitchen, wondering about the overly long soup course. Ashton smoothed her gown, glanced into Huntoon’s calf eyes—she knew what was inevitable tonight—and trilled, “Come in, Delia.”
Huntoon returned to his place. But they had scarcely finished their cups of tasteless fruit ice when he was at her side again, pawing her dress and begging her to go to the bedroom. She pretended to be as breathless as he was, meekly offering her hand for him to lead her.
Undressed, she cooed over his body and manipulated him to a mammoth erection—that was something new, anyway; she couldn’t wait to tell Lamar.
North of Richmond was a wayside inn whose faded paint had given the hamlet of Yellow Tavern its name. Some half a mile farther on, at the end of a deserted lane running west from Telegraph Road, rose a large grove of trees. Light from a heat-hazed moon fell all around the grove, illuminating the landscape dimly. But under the trees, where two men talked, neither could see the other.
Over soft sounds of horses moving restlessly, one said, “I must tell you for the good of all of us that you’ve spoken too freely, too often. They say even that damned Lafayette Baker’s heard about us.”
“Well, so be it. Men from my state make no secret of their convictions. Governor Brown doesn’t, and neither do I.”
“But you’ve drawn attention to yourself. Therefore maybe to the rest of us.”
“Oh, I doubt that one more tale of conspiracy will be given much credence—there are so many. Besides, I’ve no other way to recruit men with the right sort of nerve. I can only put out a baited line and wait. It worked with you.”
Grudgingly: “True.”
“Are we in any immediate danger?”
“I don’t think so. Davis heard some of the talk and sent a letter ordering the general to investigate. I volunteered for the assignment—patriotic zeal, loathing for traitors—the usual claptrap.”
“Clever of you. Now you can block the inquiry?”
“Slow it down,” the other corrected. “We don’t have as much time as we did before.”
“We’ll move faster. Within a few months, Jeff Davis will be dead and gone.”
“If he isn’t, the rest of us will be.”
“And we’ll be enjoying the sunshine and free air of the Southwest. Meanwhile—I deeply appreciate the warning.”
“I know it’s a long ride out here, but it’s the safest spot I could think of, and I thought you’d want to know.”
“Absolutely. My thanks. I’ll be in touch.”
They clasped hands, bid each other good night, and turned their horses in opposite directions. Wan moonlight brushed the face of Lamar Powell as he cantered from one side of the grove and the benign features of the agent of the provost marshal, Israel Quincy, on the other.
88
LIBBY & SON
Ship Chandlers & Grocers
PRODDED OUT OF THE covered wagon at musket point, Billy saw the sign that had identified the block-square structure when it was a warehouse instead of a prison. Some three dozen officers climbed from Billy’s wagon and the two behind. Like the others, Billy was exhausted, hungry, and, above all, nervous.
To reach Libby Prison, the wagons had passed through a neighborhood of commercial buildings and vacant lots. Approaching, Billy first noticed the uniformed guards posted at intervals around the brick building.
The prison looked harsh in the morning light. The wagons had parked on the lower side, where the building was four stories high. On the opposite side, at the top of the sloping street, it was three. The warning said to be carved above one of its doors was known throughout the Union Army: Abandon all hope who enter here.
“Form up, form up in single file,” a bored sergeant said, pushing some of the prisoners, gigging others with his musket. Most of the captives were quietly resolute about their predicament. Inevitably, one or two had insisted on cracking jokes during the ride to Richmond in a filthy freight car. But once the train arrived in the enemy capital, the jokes stopped. In the entire lot, only one prisoner, a portly captain of artillery two or three years older than Billy, seemed genuinely broken by the experience; his eyes were moist as he took his place in line.
“Look there,” an officer said, pointing to a barge pulling away from a pier not far from the prison. All the open space on deck was filled by emaciated men in dirty blue uniforms. On the roof of the deckhouse, a white cloth hung from a staff. The barge was headed downriver.
Noticing the prisoners watching, a guard said, “Flag-of-truce boat. Just took a load of you boys out of this yere building for exchange. Not many of them boats leavin’ these days. Be a long time ’fore any of you take the trip. Now march.”
As they passed through a doorway, Billy searched for the famous inscription and didn’t see it; but Libby had many entrances. They shuffled up creaking stairs. Men began to cough because of the odors: fish, tobacco, something acrid.
“What the hell’s that stink?”
The prisoner was answered by a sarcastic guard. “Burnin’ tar. You Yanks smell so putrid, we got to fumigate the place reg’lar.”
Shuffling in line, trying to remember Brett, remember all his many reasons for clinging to hope, Billy reached a large, unfurnished room with high slot windows that admitted only a little daylight. There a private interrogated each prisoner, inscribing name, rank, and unit into a copybook. Then he turned them over to a corporal who stood beneath a window, hands locked behind his back in the rest position. The sight of the stiff-backed noncom made Billy’s gut quiver.
“Line up—eight men to a rank—starting here.”
The corporal was a boy, pink-faced, wholeso
me-looking, with blond curls and eyes as brilliant as an October sky. When the prisoners had formed their ranks—Billy was in the second one—the corporal strode to a spot in front of them.
“I am Corporal Clyde Vesey, charged with welcoming you gentlemen to Libby Prison, of whose hospitality you have no doubt heard. You will now strip to the skin so Private Murch and I may conduct a search for money and any other illegal material you may be carrying.”
Shirts came off, trousers dropped; dirty hands worked the buttons on sweaty suits of underwear. There were no complaints; guards on the prison train had warned them about a search, saying that whether they were allowed to keep money or personal items frequently depended on the mood of the soldiers doing the searching. Seeing Vesey’s blue eyes and listening to his speech, Billy was not encouraged.
“Open your mouth,” Vesey snapped to a major in the front row. The major objected. Vesey backhanded his face twice, hard. Two places to the left, the fat artillery captain let out an audible cry of dismay.
“Open,” Vesey repeated. The furious major obeyed. Vesey reached in and withdrew a small paper tube, spittle-covered, from its hiding place next to the upper gum. Vesey unrolled the ten-dollar note, wiped it on his blouse, tucked it away and moved on.
When he reached the artilleryman, Vesey smiled, sensing his weakness. After a routine search of mouth and armpits, he stepped back. “Turn around and spread your backside.”
“W—what? See here. That isn’t decent or—”
Vesey smiled a sweet smile, interrupting. “You have nothing to say about what’s decent or indecent in Libby Prison. Such decisions are in the hands of the warden, Lieutenant Turner, and those of us privileged to serve him.” His hand flew up, seizing the captain’s ear and twisting. The artilleryman shrieked like a girl.
Vesey smiled. “Turn around and grab your backside and spread it.”
Enraged looks passed between some of the prisoners, Billy being one of them. Red-faced, the artilleryman turned to face the rank behind him and reached for his buttocks. Billy recalled he had heard about the warden of Libby—a martinet who had resigned from the Academy in his plebe year, just before Sumter fell.
Vesey let the artilleryman stand in that embarrassing position for fifteen seconds—twenty—thirty. The captain began to shake from strain. Vesey reached around and slapped the side of his face. The captain squealed and fell forward. Men in the next rank pushed him back. The captain started to cry. Billy took a half-step forward.
Vesey said to him: “Oh, I wouldn’t interfere. It’ll go hard with you later.”
Billy hesitated, then stepped back to his place. The search went on. Billy’s mouth grew dry as the corporal moved along the second row. He bent to rummage through the clothing piled beside Billy’s bare feet.
“What’s this?” Vesey said, pleased. From Billy’s jacket he pulled the copybook.
“That’s my journal,” Billy said. “It’s personal.”
Vesey stood and slowly waved the copybook an inch from Billy’s nose. “Nothing is personal in Libby unless we declare it so. This is a book. Regular churchgoing has taught me to distrust books, especially novels, and all those who read them. It’s my Christian duty not merely to hold you men as prisoners, but to reform your errant ways. ‘I will take you from among the heathen,’ says the prophet Ezekiel. That’s just what you Yankees are, heathen. Here’s a fine example. You will just have to get along without your godless books.”
He’s mad, Billy thought, filled with dread. “Murch?” Vesey flung the copybook to the other soldier, who caught and pocketed it. After a fleeting smile at Billy, Vesey stepped to the next man.
The search continued. Billy’s legs started to ache. Finally Vesey finished and returned to the front, hands locked at the small of his back again. At last we can get out of here and sit down, Billy thought.
“It is now my duty and privilege to give you gentlemen some moral instruction.” Vesey spread his feet, planting them solidly. One officer swore. Vesey glared. The artilleryman was still weeping softly. “The instruction concerns your status in this prison. As I said to the man with the concealed copybook, we don’t consider you merely enemies; we consider you heathen. You—” he lunged forward suddenly, grabbing the fat artilleryman by the hair “—pay attention when I speak.” He twisted the hair. The captain’s flabby white breasts shook as he struggled to control his sobbing. Breathing loudly through his open mouth, Vesey stepped back, his clean pink face stiff with anger.
“Each of you mark this well. You are no longer officers. You are no longer gentlemen. Your status here is that of a nigger. No, I’m too generous. You are lower than niggers, and you will learn to feel that—sleep and eat that—breathe that every minute you are in my care. Now—”
A long inhalation. Then he smiled.
“Show me that you understand what I just told you. Show me what you are. Get down on your knees.”
“What the hell—?” Billy growled. Behind him, another officer said, “You fucking reb ape—”
“Murch?” Vesey gestured. Using his side arm, the private hit the outspoken officer in the back of the head. The man staggered. A second blow laid him on his side, barely conscious.
Vesey smiled again. “I said,” he murmured, “kneel down. Heathen niggers. Kneel—down.”
The artillery captain dropped first, panting. Someone cursed him. Vesey dashed to the third row and hit the offender, then seized his shoulder and forced him to his knees. Anxious looks flashed between the prisoners, tired men who wanted to save themselves from this lunatic. Slowly, one by one, they knelt, until just three naked officers remained standing. Vesey studied the trio and walked to the nearest—Billy.
“Kneel down,” Vesey purred, smiling broadly and fixing him with those October eyes.
Heart hammering, Billy said, “I demand that this group of prisoners be treated according to the rules of war. The rules your superior surely understands even if you do no—”
He saw the hand flying toward his face, tried to jerk aside but was slowed by his fatigue. The open-handed blow hurt more than he anticipated. He lurched sideways, almost fell.
“I told you before. There are no rules here but the ones I make. Get down.”
He dug immaculate fingernails into Billy’s bare shoulder. “Jesus,” Billy said, tears in his eyes. Vesey’s nails broke skin; blood oozed as he dug deeper.
“Now you blaspheme. Get down!”
Wanting to stay on his feet, Billy felt his legs giving out. His head began to vibrate like some faulty part in a machine. He clenched his teeth, resisting the steady downward pressure—
Unexpectedly, Vesey pulled. The shift unbalanced Billy, and he tumbled over, knees whacking the floor, bare palms skidding along it; a long splinter drove into his right hand.
He raised his head and saw the corporal turn away. “Murch?”
“Sir?”
“What’s his name?”
“Main. William Main. Engineers.”
“Thank you. I want to be certain to remember that,” Vesey said through lips so tight with rage they had lost all color.
His eyes shifted to the two other officers still standing. First one, then the other, knelt down. “Good,” Vesey said.
Billy scrambled up on his haunches. Blood leaked along his forearm from the wounds left by Vesey’s nails. He watched the bright October eyes return to him again, marking him.
That day, just at five, the wind strengthened, the sky blackened, the heat broke under an assault of raging rain, pelting hail, thunder loud as massed field guns. Orry started across the capitol rotunda as the storm burst, and, with no gas jets lit as yet, found himself in near-darkness. He blundered into another officer, stepped back, astonished.
“George? I didn’t know you were in Richmond.”
“Yes,” said his old friend Pickett in a peculiar, detached voice. Pickett’s long hair was uncombed, his eyes ringed by shadows. “Yes, for a while—I’m temporarily detached. Good to see you. We mus
t get together,” he said over his shoulder as he hurried into the dark. Thunder tremors vibrated the marble floor.
He didn’t recognize me. What’s wrong with him?
But Orry thought he knew. He had heard the stories. Once so courtly and light-hearted, Pickett had gone up Cemetery Hill, leading his boys to a slaughter. He had come down a ruined and a haunted man. Orry stood motionless in the center of the rotunda. The whole building shook, as if the elements wanted to tear it apart.
On the same day, in Washington, George received a bedraggled envelope forwarded by means of a three-cent stamp added at Lehigh Station. So far as he could tell, the envelope bore no other franking. Curious. He opened it, unfolded the letter, saw the signature, and whooped.
Not only was Orry in Richmond, he was with Madeline, who was now his wife. George shook his head in amazement as he read on through the letter obviously sent to Pennsylvania by illegal courier. Fate had ironically shunted the two friends along similar paths. Like George, he could barely tolerate most of his war department duties.
In spite of the letter’s tone of melancholy, it brought a smile whenever George read it. And he read it, aloud to Constance and silently to himself, many times before he put it away with his permanent keepsakes.
None of the drinkers in the hotel bar laughed; few raised their voices above a mutter. What was there to be cheerful about? Not even the weather. The heat wave had broken, but relief had come with a storm so fierce it sounded as if it might level all of Richmond.
Trying to shut out the voices of discontent all around him, Lamar Powell worked on a draft of a letter to the foreman of the Mexican Mine. He had chosen a table in a back corner for privacy and was writing to advise the mine foreman that sometime within the next twelve months he would personally appear at the site to take charge.
When he was satisfied with the wording, he began to consider ways to get the letter out of the Confederacy. He distrusted the illegal mail couriers who operated between here and Washington; they were a duplicitous lot, sometimes dumping a pouch of letters into some gully or creek and disappearing with their meager profits. Still, they represented the fastest and most direct means of sending mail across enemy lines. Perhaps he should use a courier but send a copy of the letter by another route. To Bermuda, via Wilmington. That way—