by James Lear
XI
BENNETT YOUNG DISMOUNTED, LEAPED UP THE FRONT STEPS of the bank—from my upstairs window I could see the bald spot that no amount of elaborate combing could altogether conceal—and fired his gun twice in the air. The few citizens still in the street took shelter in doorways or peeped out from windows.
“This city is now in the possession of the Confederate States of America!” he yelled, in a voice loud enough to be heard in every building in town. “Resistance is futile.” And looking at the gang of desperadoes who rode behind him, about 20 in total, some of whom I recognized, it looked very much as if St. Albans had been invaded.
The gang thundered down Main Street, herding pedestrians onto the village green, where they cowered in a small circle while horsemen galloped around them, much as we are told native Indians do to their captives. There was gunshot and shouting, screams and crashes, but I could see no more.
What happened in St. Albans that day I have pieced together from newspapers, personal accounts, and my own suppositions. I see now that a plot had been hatching directly under my nose, and I was too cockstruck to see it. The web of lies that Young spun around me, from the moment he caught my eye in that hotel in Rutland right up to our final parting, had caught me just as surely as a spider catches a fly. Camp Harmony was nothing but a base for Confederate bandits hell-bent on raiding the unprotected Northern borders, carrying off what booty they could and diverting it back to sustain the Rebel cause in the South. Young’s fine talk of “European powers” and “real governments” was nothing but a smoke screen, guaranteed to blind me to the truth. How well he had read me! He knew my vanity—how much I would enjoy the idea of being in on some kind of secret society, making me superior to the ordinary folks who believed what they read in the newspapers. And he counted on my ignorance, the fact that I wouldn’t recognize uniforms or names that were bandied around the camp, or even the songs that were sung around the fire, as the badges of the Rebel cause. I had allowed myself to be used as a decoy, the willing little Yankee boy who was sent into town to do Young’s business, putting up a respectable face while he plundered and cheated all through the Northern states. And to make sure I asked no questions, he plugged my mouth and my ass with his ever-ready dick. When he suspected that I might be tiring of him, when he saw that I was awaking from my reverie and starting to look around and ask questions, he threw me to the rest of the pack, who fucked all the sense out of me and got me hooked on new thrills, washing away my conscience and dignity in gallons of their hot piss.
While I’d been living at Camp Harmony, happily eating food that had doubtless been stolen from the honest homes and stores of my home state, Young and his gang had been planning the St. Albans raid with the precision of a military operation—and I had been a key component in that shameful plan. The fact that it misfired so badly says much about Young’s own shortcomings as a commander. Just as his elaborate combings and dressings concealed a bald spot of which he was clearly ashamed, his grand military gestures, fancy uniform, and brave talk concealed a lack of strategy and an almost suicidal contempt for common sense. It was some consolation to me that the plot of which I had been the ignorant instrument turned out to be such a fiasco.
Young and his henchmen rode down Main Street, where they divided into three parties. One of them harried the townsfolk on the streets, stealing wallets, jewelry, and any personal effects that might be worth a few dollars to unscrupulous Confederate traders. The women, apparently, screamed and fainted, assuming they were about to be raped, little knowing that in fact it was their menfolk who were in far greater danger. The other two parties headed for the two main banks in town, which they intended to clean out. One of them they found shuttered, locked, and bolted—not because the manager had feared any such raid, but simply because they were closed for some essential plumbing work, due to start on the morrow, which Young could easily have discovered had he paid attention to such mundane difficulties. Thus half the gang’s “takings” were slashed at a stroke, and the frustrated party rode around town firing their guns, unsure of what to do next. They broke a few windows and then, apparently, repaired to a local bar, where they drank whiskey and waited for Young’s orders.
Young, meanwhile, was faring little better. He and his four companions—Doty, Gregg, Teavis, and Brown—burst into the one remaining bank, which was staffed by only a single teller, a pleasant gentleman named Bishop with whom I had had many dealings (the Northern Rock account was held at that bank). They whipped out revolvers and threatened Bishop’s life. Instead of panicking, as doubtless Young would have, had he been in his shoes, Bishop coolly “surrendered” and handed over a bunch of keys to Young. Whooping and whistling, the gang swarmed over the counter, unlocked a safe, and started stuffing their leather bags with as much money as they could. Estimates of how much they took vary from $50,000 to $200,000. When they left, Bishop immediately closed up the bank with himself inside it, secure in the knowledge that Young, in his greed and hurry, had completely overlooked the main safe (to which Bishop had not given him the key), which contained at least $500,000.
The plan, as detailed in Young’s diary, which I later extracted from its hiding place and handed over to the governor, was to meet with the rest of the gang at the railway lines, which they would dynamite before riding out of town, back across the Canadian border, to disappear into the mountains, later making their way south to meet Jefferson Davis’s forces and pour money into his shrinking coffers. The gang—many of them, I later learned, escapees from Union jails whom Young had rounded up, seduced, and indoctrinated over the last 12 months—would swell the ranks on the eastern front.
It didn’t quite turn out that way. One-third of the gang, those who had been robbing civilians, had ridden to the other side of town, where they thought they might be able to plunder some wealthy houses; they were driven off by armed civilians, some of them women, and suffered terrible injuries. The second party, who had taken shelter in the bar, were late for the rendezvous, and, when they finally emerged, could hardly mount their horses. Whoever was meant to bring the dynamite for the railroad tracks had forgotten to do so, and Young was obliged to do what little damage he could with a crowbar. In the confusion, the gang became increasingly desperate to demonstrate their “control” of St. Albans, and indulged in ridiculous feats of horsemanship, rearing their mounts up on their hind legs or racing up and down Main Street at top speed. Their leather satchels scattered money at every turn, and soon the street was covered in bills, which some of the gang started trying to pick up. Gusts of wind blew the money around like confetti; this I saw for myself, from my window in the Northern Rock office.
Finally, Young gathered as many of his men as could still ride and, realizing that state troopers would soon be on the way, rode out of town. As they left, they threw what looked like packets of cornmeal, but which I later learned were homemade bombs, at all the storefronts; none of them went off as planned. Young intended to leave St. Albans in flames, but managed only to destroy a rickety woodshed into which Teavis accidentally drove his horse.
Less than an hour after the first gunshots, Young disappeared, leaving Caleb Wallace dead, and several wounded, behind him. They crossed the border into Canada as planned, but never made it south. What remained of the gang—many of them seem to have deserted Young after the raid—were arrested in Canada, and the money was recovered. And that was end of Camp Harmony, Bennett H. Young, and a foolish dream from which I had only been awoken by violence.
I had time to reflect on my folly, as I remained locked in the Northern Rock office for much of the rest of the day, until soldiers broke down the doors and found me cowering within. In all honesty, I was in no hurry to be released, knowing that I would face interrogation, suspicion, and shame as an accomplice of Young’s gang. And so I sat in Young’s expensive swivel chair and meditated on the path that had led me to this shameful place.
It was easy to blame Bennett Young, with his smooth lies, his lack of morals, his in
satiable appetite for sex and power. But I could see, even then, before I knew the full scope of what he had done and what he had intended to do, that the real responsibility lay at my door. My love of cock had blinded me to everything else. Whenever questions had formed in my mind, instead of asking them I filled my mouth with a prick. Instead of pursuing the truth, I pursued orgasms. With every mouthful of spunk that I swallowed, I swallowed an even greater load of lies. Young had fucked me, and fucked me over, and I had rolled over and taken it all.
What was I to do now? First, of course, I would have to face the music. But after that? If I managed to persuade the authorities that I was a dupe, that I had in fact committed no crime (had I? I wasn’t sure…) and was allowed to go free, where would I go? Who were my friends? If danger awaited me even in Vermont, where I thought I could hide my head and ignore the realities of war, then what would be my fate when cast out into the world, a marked man, friendless and suspected?
Of one thing I was certain as I sat in the office waiting for deliverance: I would never again allow my lust for cock to betray me into such degradation as it had up till now. Better to face danger as part of an army than to expose myself to the ridiculous risks of life as a male whore—for what else had I been? I had believed since the first inklings of manhood, and certainly since my induction at the White Horse Inn, that being the way I was somehow exempted me from the duties of my normal peers. As a lover of men, I was neither a man nor a woman, neither Confederate nor Union, neither abolitionist nor pro-slavery. I believed that, insofar as I believed anything. I never allowed myself the time to reflect; there was always cock to be chased. But now, I saw, my queer brothers were no different, no better, than the rest of humanity. They were not above the law, serving some greater government, the possessors of some secret knowledge. They were just crooks and mercenaries, pure and simple. And if Young and his gang were such low scum, what was I? I, who had built myself up in my own mind as a kind of hero, was lower than the bum begging for pennies around the bars.
So: no more cock. Time for decisions. When the door was finally kicked in, and four handsome soldiers burst into the room, I didn’t even bother to flirt with them—as if they would have been interested anyway. I allowed them to lead me off to jail without a struggle. Just a week before, I would have regarded a prison cell as little more than a playpen. Now it seemed a fitting setting for my utter humiliation. I sat in the corner and spoke to nobody.
I faced a list of charges as long as my arm, and when I was arraigned before the court I had almost resigned myself to execution by firing squad, hanging, burning at the stake… But in fact my life was of little interest to the court; they could see, I suppose, that I was little better than a child led astray by the promise of candy, although perhaps they didn’t realize exactly which sweetmeats I preferred. My only use to them was not as a scapegoat but as a source of information, and I happily sang like a canary, giving them the names and descriptions of as many of the gang as I could, and details of Camp Harmony. I led them to Young’s diary—typical of the man’s incompetence that he would leave it behind in the hotel—and explained as much as I could. I like to think that it was my information that put the gang behind bars and prevented them from taking the money to support the Rebel cause.
After my cooperation with the authorities, it was quite clear to them that I was not really in on the plot, that I had been a victim as much as anything. And yet there still remained the question of what they were going to do with me. They could keep me in prison in St. Albans, at some expense, or they could send me home, they supposed, for my father to deal with. A third alternative I suggested; I could join the army, and go to war, and by my death I could buy back some of the self-respect I had sold at so cheap a price to Bennett Young and the Rebels.
I left St. Albans by train and headed south to Montpelier, my original destination. I did not announce my arrival to my friend James or his family; they would have read of my disgrace in the newspapers, and I was not yet strong enough to see the disappointment in a friend’s eyes. Let me regain some worth first, or die trying. Instead I walked straight from the station into the recruiting office and announced that I wanted to fight for my country.
The officer to whom I was handed over was a tall, shaven-headed man of perhaps 30, with tanned skin and the most piercing blue eyes I had ever seen. He sat behind his desk as I was shown into his office, and looked at me in silence for what must have been a minute. I wondered how much he knew about me, whether he recognized my name from the forms I had filled in, and whether he was about to upbraid me for my part in the St. Albans raid. I could not help noticing that he was handsome, with his finely shaped skull covered in the merest dusting of stubble, with his strong jaw and large, mocking mouth. His shoulders were broad, and he wore his uniform with the kind of casual grace to which Young, with his dandified airs, aspired. This man looked at home in his skin in a way that Young never could.
“Edgerton,” he said at last, in a tone of voice that confirmed all my worst suspicions.
“Yes, sir.”
I braced myself for the onslaught, but it never came.
“You are ready, then, to do your duty?”
“I am.”
“I wondered when we would be seeing you.”
“Sir?”
He did not explain himself. Perhaps Aaron Johnson had been right; more people than I dreamed of knew of my exploits. Well, I was over that now, over any pride or fear that I had about my “secret” life. As far as I was concerned, my life was over, and any secrets were public property. This officer, his fellow officers, and, for all I knew, every soldier in the Union Army had probably been laughing at my foolish cock-crazed ways for months.
“Do you think you’re able to fight, Mr. Edgerton?”
“Yes, sir. At least, I think I am able to die.”
“You’re of no use to us dead, Edgerton.”
“No, sir.”
“So you’d better learn how to keep yourself alive. Think you can manage that?”
“I’ve never fired a gun, sir. I’ve never been any good at fighting. I’m not much of a man…” I could feel tears rising, my face flushing, and I thought it best to stop talking.
“Let’s see if you can at least stand like a soldier,” he said, getting up from his desk and walking around me. “Come on. Straighten up. Shoulders back.” He placed a hand on each shoulder and pulled them into a more military position. “Stomach in.” He reached around, placed his hands on my belly, and pulled it toward my backbone. “Head up.” He put a hand under my chin and lifted it.
“That’s a bit more like it,” he said, continuing his walk. “You could be a credit to the force, Edgerton.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say yes, Captain Healey.”
“Yes, Captain Healey.”
“Good boy.”
He paced around to the front and perched on the edge of his desk. He was taller than me, but in this position he had to look up. His eyes were hypnotizing me, so cold, so blue.
“You’ve taken a few wrong turns in your life, Edgerton. Ain’t you?”
“Yes, Captain Healey.”
“But we’ll let bygones be bygones. The army is one big happy family and nobody is going to ask too many questions in the middle of a war. You understand? You can consider yourself forgiven.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“At least, as soon as you got those papers in your wallet that show you’re Private John Edgerton of the First Vermont Medical Corps.”
Is that what he had in mind for me? Well, I was in no position to argue, although I had a sudden vision of severed limbs and burned faces, which almost made me faint. But I kept my chin up, my chest out.
“Think you can live with that, Edgerton?” Healey had obviously seen the look of disgust flitting across my face.
“Yes, sir. I’ll do as I’m told.”
“You’ll go where you’re needed. I understand you’re not stupid.” He flicked over a pile of
papers that, I saw, formed some kind of record of my short and misspent life. “You’ve been to school. You have an aptitude for learning. You’re not going to be much good to us in the front line, but you seem like the kind of boy who can take care of those who are doing the real work. Would you say that’s a fair assessment?”
“I don’t know, sir. I think I might be a coward.”
“That’s the first intelligent thing you’ve said. A knowledge of weakness is the first step to strength.” He looked up at me with those piercing blue eyes—and I recognized that one of those moments had just passed between us in which we had reached a new plane of understanding. The “old” me would have said something such as “I’d like to see how strong you are, sir,” and licked my lips, knowing that within five minutes, maybe less, I’d be tasting the Captain’s hard dick. Instead, I glanced up toward the ceiling, remembering the trouble that such behavior had already got me into.