by John Jakes
“Hardy. I remember. I hope it’s still true.”
“Sometimes I wonder, George. So much has changed. Colored men in uniform. Railroads flying up and down the countryside carrying whole regiments. Dead men piled up like kindling—something no one ever expected. I wonder if any of the old things can survive. Including friendship with the Mains—excepting the one I married, of course.”
George scratched the stubble on his chin. He had the same fears. Exhaustion sharpened them, exhaustion and depression brought on by the misjudgment and malingering that were as bad in the field as in Washington. By the endless counting of bodies. By the common agreement that the war would probably continue into next year.
Still, he was the older brother, and for some damn reason it was ordained that older brothers were always supposed to be wise and strong. Though he felt his effort was probably transparent and ludicrous, he tried.
“I ask myself the same question when I’m feeling down. My answer has to be yes, or I couldn’t keep going. The verities will outlast all the changes—and help winnow the worthless ones. That’s the meaning of the laurel, I think. Friendship—the love of our wives and our families and people we cherish, like the Mains—that’s more permanent than anything else. That endures and helps us do the same. Otherwise, I’m not sure we could. We’ll come through, don’t worry.”
Billy lifted the tin cup, tilted it to drain the last of the cold coffee. In his brother’s eyes George detected a sad skepticism. Billy didn’t believe what he had just said.
Well, he didn’t, either. He had seen too much of Washington and Petersburg. He had heard the fire bells in April, long ago.
117
THE SCRATCH OF HER pen and the pound of the sea—those were the only sounds in the cramped and wretched stateroom.
Ashton bent over the account book on the tiny table she had pushed against the wall beneath the single flickering lamp. Wearing a loose silk shirt and stained trousers, Huntoon lay in the lower berth, watching her with resentment. During the entire first day after leaving Hamilton, Bermuda, he had puked into a bucket at least every half hour. The second day, he was able to reach the rail, but the earlier stench still tainted the cabin. One more grievance she bore against him.
Ashton weighed nine pounds less than she had on the disastrous night Orry aborted the assassination plot and sent them flying out of Richmond in a closed carriage. She yearned for an opportunity to repay her brother for his ruinous meddling. But at the moment she had more important goals. Surviving. Reaching Montreal, then the Southwest. Restoring her beauty; the way she looked now was loathsome.
Most compelling of all was the need to be with Powell again. Huntoon sharpened the need because of his constant snuffling and tossing in the berth.
Cresting waves struck and shook the steamer. She was Canadian, the Royal Albert, and was presently running as close to the American coastline as she dared, being a neutral. It was the evening of election day in the North. More pertinently, as Ashton’s occasionally queasy stomach reminded her, it was November. November meant the onset of this kind of rough sea in the North Atlantic.
From the bunk, Huntoon bleated, “What time is it?”
Writing numbers, Ashton said, “Look at your watch.”
He made a pathetic sound to tell her of the suffering induced by the effort. “Almost eleven. Won’t you put out the lamp?”
“Not until I’m finished.”
“What are you doing?”
“Reckoning our compound interest.” The Nassau bank in which, at her insistence, all the Water Witch profits had been deposited, wouldn’t know where to send quarterly reports until Powell established the new government. In Hamilton, Ashton had been able to cash a draft on the bank, just enough money for minimum traveling expenses. The rest remained safe in their account, in sterling. Sometimes she shuddered, remembering how close she had come to putting it all in a Charleston bank.
Quickly, she toted up the figures and swung around, flourishing a little book at him. “Nearly a quarter of a million dollars, as closely as I can compute it. That’s something to compensate us for this misery.”
Huntoon’s round spectacles misted; he was sweating. “Lamar may ask for some of that money.”
“Oh, no.” She shut the book and tucked it in her bulging reticule. “He doesn’t get the loan of a penny until the new government is in place, and perhaps not even then. In this venture, he hazards the gold from his mine—we hazard ourselves.”
“I’d sooner surrender that bank account than our lives,” he countered in what she considered a sniveling way. “But if you look at matters honestly, Powell has placed more than his gold at risk. I mean, he faces the same physical dangers we do—”
“He should. It’s his scheme.”
Ashton loved Powell, but she saw no contradiction of that in her reply to her husband. One plot had foundered; a second might also. Curiously, failure hadn’t embittered her lover, even though he had been forced to hide in that filthy attic for weeks, then flee down to Wilmington by himself after he returned to Richmond and found the farm in the hands of the provost’s men.
At Ashton’s insistence, Huntoon left a sealed letter at one of Powell’s drinking haunts. Thus he learned more of what had happened and where the Huntoons were bound. From Wilmington, he had continued on to Nassau before rejoining them in Hamilton. Discovery, hasty flight, fear of pursuit—those had perversely strengthened his determination. It helped convince Ashton that although the possibility of failure was always present, Powell would succeed this time. He would bring the new nation into being.
The need for it was more desperate than ever; that had become clear in the weeks since their flight from Richmond. Lee was stalemated, Sherman was driving to the sea, the old Confederacy was going down. In Nassau, Powell said, some Southerners had begged him to join rebel agents already in Toronto, headquarters for new schemes to throw the North into turmoil, foil Lincoln’s election and pave the way for peace negotiations. One plan Powell heard about involved Illinois Copperheads who were supposed to overwhelm Camp Douglas and free great numbers of Confederate prisoners. Another, even more witless in his estimation, called for burning every major hotel in New York City.
“King Jeff is trying eleventh-hour ploys to save the regime he’s already destroyed. I’ll not help such a mad and desperate man. That’s what I told the people in Nassau, and when they didn’t like it, I told them to go to hell.”
Those were Powell’s remarks at luncheon yesterday. Huntoon was in his bunk at the time. To sit opposite her lover and be unable to do so much as clasp his hand frustrated Ashton. They hadn’t enjoyed a moment of privacy since leaving Hamilton. Always, there were crewmen close by or passengers. The steamer was carrying several Canadian business travelers and three couples returning from an autumn holiday in the tropics. In the dining saloon, Powell haughtily refused to speak to any of them.
Ashton rose, smoothing her skirt and catching a flash of her image in a small, cracked glass on the wall. The sight was sickening. Her hair was dull, her arms bony, her bosom shrinking. She clung to an imagined future in which she would be attractive again, sharing Powell’s bed in the presidential mansion.
From time to time she pressed him for specifics about the new state. Where would he create it? On how much land? How many settlers did he expect, and how many armed men to defend them? He claimed to have all the answers but preferred to keep them to himself—an additional reason Ashton would give him her body but not her money. Not just yet.
“Ohhh!” Huntoon clutched his middle. “I think I’m going to die.”
I wish you would. She stamped her foot. “I know I’ll go insane if you don’t stop your childish complaining.”
“But I feel so terrible—”
“Believe me, you’ve made that clear. Whine, whine, whine! You hated the hotel in Wilmington, even after we were lucky enough to get there without being caught and arrested. You complained about the seediness of the man who sold us forged
passports for three times what they’re worth. You didn’t want to sail to Bermuda on a fishing boat, even though there was no other vessel to take us. You hate this steamer, Canadians, the sea—What would make you happy?”
He dragged his legs over the side of the berth and pulled off his glasses. His eyes looked wet and weak. Like a boy’s. She could have sunk through the deck when he answered: “To go back to South Carolina—to be done with this business. I’ve thought it over, endlessly. I can’t stand the strain. The possibility of danger, death. It’s tearing my nerves to pieces.”
“Do you think our poor Southern boys on the battlefield feel any differently? You enlisted when there was glory in the air, but now you want to desert. Well, you can’t.” He cringed away from the denunciation. “There will be a new Confederacy, and we are going to be important in it. Very important.”
“Ashton, I just don’t know if I have the courage—”
“Yes, you do.” She clawed hold of both shoulders and shook him, fairly spitting. “By God, you do or you’re no husband of mine. Now go to sleep. I want some air.”
She snatched a cape, blew out the lamp, slammed the flimsy slatted door behind her. Hurrying away, she cursed foully when she heard him crying.
Her rage didn’t abate as she struggled up the steeply tilting stair to the main deck. Only one passenger was in the saloon, a bald man sleeping with a month-old London Times tented on his paunch. Treading softly, Ashton reached the outside door and leaned against the weight of the wind to push it open.
The spill of light revealed Powell at the rail. His hair, much more gray than brown now, tossed in the wild gusts. He had run out of his favorite dye pomade; he had searched the apothecary shops in Nassau, but they had none.
“You shouldn’t be out here in this terrible weather, Ashton. Beware the deck—it’s wet and slip—”
The warning ended as the Royal Albert rolled sharply to port. Ashton’s heels flew out from under her. She shrieked, tumbling toward the rail. Only Powell’s body, with which she collided painfully, kept her from being flung overboard.
She leaned against him, queasy and terrified by the enormous white-topped waves visible in the glow from the ship’s portholes. As a degree of calm returned, the physical contact suddenly aroused her. She pushed her breasts against Powell’s sleeve, crushed them, almost to the point of pain. She didn’t see him smile when he pulled her head down on his shoulder.
They were motionless a moment, then abruptly separated. A seaman in rubber foul-weather gear rushed by, reiterating the danger of being on deck in a heavy sea.
“I need air; I’ll be careful,” Ashton called to the disappearing figure. She was; she clutched the varnished rail with both hands. “I do need air,” she said to Powell, “but more than that, I need some relief from James. He’s driving me insane with his complaining. I can’t stand this, I can’t stand that—” Her high-pitched voice mimicked him cruelly. “But I’m the one who’s breaking, Lamar. I can’t come to your stateroom alone. I can’t kiss you or even touch you.” Half ill and overcome with love, she reached down and closed her hand on him. “This is what I want. Using nothing else, you chained me up as completely as some nigger plantation girl. You made me lose sleep—respectability—my sanity sometimes—just wanting this. You made me a slave to it, and then you took it away.”
The whispered tirade delighted him. She lowered her head, realizing what she had done. She let go. He patted her arm in a way that was almost avuncular.
“I took it away, as you so delightfully put it, out of necessity. What’s upset you?”
“Wanting you!”
“Nothing else? Has James forced himself on you?”
“Do you think I’d allow that?” An unsteady laugh. “But, my God—you don’t know how resisting him has taxed my capacity for lying. I’ve gone through the unmentionable monthly complaint, nerves, headaches, the vapors—an encyclopedia of excuses. Can you imagine how happy I was when he got seasick? For a while I even found the smell of the bucket tolerable. Doesn’t that tell you how desperate I am?”
“Patience,” he murmured, stroking her arm although the seaman was returning. “Patience.”
“I don’t have any left!” She was almost in her husband’s state, ready to cry.
When the crewman was gone, he said, “Patience is vital. We need James awhile longer. Israel Quincy is gone and that Bellingham fellow—he was peculiar, but he had the makings of a splendid aide-de-camp. I need at least one man to go with me to Virginia City and help transport the gold from the mine.” They had already argued violently about his plan for Ashton to travel separately to the destination in the Southwest he had not yet revealed. “There are some rough fellows I can enlist in Nevada, but none’s as loyal, dependable—or pliable—as your husband.”
She started to speak, started to tell him Huntoon’s dependability was questionable, his loyalty all but gone. She decided against it. Things were bad enough.
Powell interpreted her silence as agreement. The steamer rolled again; spray burst over them, soaking her hair and streaming down her cheeks. Here with him, she didn’t mind. Powell flung a look each way along the deck, then bent quickly and slid his tongue between her lips.
Weak, she grasped the rail again. Seconds passed, then he drew away, smiling. “What you talked of a moment ago, sweet—what you covet—will soon be placed back where it belongs.”
“I can’t live without you much longer, Lamar. James is more than disgusting—” she tried to warn him then “—he’s weak. Things in Richmond changed him. The arrogance of the Virginians. His loss of faith in Davis. Certainly our deteriorating relationship played a big part. In any case, he isn’t the man I married or even the windbag who gasconaded bravely so long as he was safe on some lecture platform. Don’t put too much faith in him.”
“Ashton, my dear, I place no faith in anyone but myself. Remember how I characterized James before I revealed my plans to him? How I described his role? He’s a soldier. Useful so long as he obeys orders. Should he prove himself unwilling or unable to do that—well—” He shrugged. “The greatest factor separating the general from the private is the latter’s expendability.”
“Expendability? You mean you’d—?”
He smiled. “Without a qualm.”
“Oh, God, I love you, Lamar.” She gripped his arm and leaned her damp cheek against his lapel. That was the moment the purser chose to thrust his knobby head out the saloon door.
“Really, sir—madam—you are taking grave and unnecessary risks by remaining on deck in this weather. I saw you through the porthole. Since I am responsible for the welfare of passengers, on this voyage, I really must insist you come inside.”
Powell gave the stuffy little man a disdainful look, murmured a good night to Ashton, and sauntered away down the glistening deck without touching anything for support. Tired, wet, but filled with renewed confidence, Ashton went into the saloon.
A few days later, Cooper returned from Charleston along the river road, riding an old nag borrowed from a neighbor. Though he detested firearms, he had traveled with a loaded pocket pistol because Judith insisted.
His overnight visit to the besieged city could hardly be called a success. All he had been able to buy were two badly used Hawkens, twenty years old and caked with rust. Of the .50-caliber ammunition for the muzzle loaders, there was none. But he had found a mold and some bar lead, all of which would be coming up the Ashley on next week’s steamer. Powder couldn’t be had anywhere; they must make do with the small supply left at Mont Royal.
The afternoon was showery, the natural tunnel through the live oaks darker than usual. The closer Cooper and the plodding horse got to the plantation, the louder and more frequent became the cries of the salt crows. He had never known them to be so numerous this far upriver, but when he peered into the brush or the treetops, he couldn’t see a single one. To his left, away from the Ashley, scarcely anything was visible.
In Charleston, he had also searche
d for little presents for his wife and daughter. Marie-Louise was stricken with girlish grief now that Lucius Chickering had returned to Richmond in the wake of Cooper’s resignation. The best gifts he had been able to find in the depleted shops were two crudely made sachets. He took one from his pocket and peeled back part of the brown wrapping paper. He smelled the sachet. “Damn.” The scent, weak to begin with, was nearly gone. Cheap goods, profiteer’s goods—
A wild burst of crow calls, seeming to surround him, nearly caused him to drop the sachet in the mud. He shoved it in his pocket and heard a disembodied voice. “Mist’ Cooper?”
He snatched the pocket pistol from inside his coat. “Who’s there?”
“Cain’t see me, Mist’ Cooper. But I can see you good.”
Recognizing the voice brought shock to Cooper’s face. Some distance back from the left side of the road, palmetto fronds rattled.
“Cuffey? Is that you?”
There was no denial, so he knew he was right. Unseen crows sent their raucous cries up and down the empty road. Then the voice again. Having gotten over his surprise, Cooper could hear the rage in it.
“They said you was back. Want to tell you som’pin. Bottom fence rail gonna be on top pretty soon.”
“If you’re a man, Cuffey, show yourself.” Silence. “Cuffey?”
CuffeyCuffeyCuffeyCuffey—the shout rolled away into the gloomy distances. The horse shied; Cooper reined him sharply.
“Bottom rail’s gonna be on top, and ol’ top rail’s gonna be broke up. Chopped up. Burned. Gone for good. You count on it—” Word by word, the unseen voice faded till nothing was left but an echo and a final rattle of the fronds.
Sweating, Cooper whirled the pistol muzzle left, then right. There was no target except a bulge-headed blue skink darting across the road in front of the spooked horse. Cooper stared at the pistol he had brandished with abandon. Revulsion on his face, he shoved it back in his pocket with such violence the lining tore.