A Good Man

by Guy Vanderhaeghe

  THIRTEEN

  December 8, 1876

  AFTER NEARLY THREE MONTHS, I have received Father’s response to my news that I am proprietor of a ranch and have no intention of standing for Parliament. His style of communication is, as ever, sharp and to the point. He says my ingratitude has given ample proof that the raising and educating of me has been a waste of time and money, and that trying to talk sense into me is pointless.

  Do not think that in defying me you do me an injury. No, you only harm yourself. I am done attempting to save you. If the Prodigal Son is bound and determined to end his days as a swineherd (or in your case a cowherd) so be it. For years you have been shooting yourself in the foot and I should not be surprised if, sooner or later, you do not put the pistol squarely to your head and pull the trigger. You have shown a foolhardy tendency to do harm to yourself before. I am referring of course to the statement you were asked to prepare for my solicitors when it looked as if you would soon be facing public disgrace. All that was required was a simple outline of your actions, “I did this and then I did that.” But you had to beat your breast in a frenzy, indulge yourself in weepy self-recrimination. My advice to destroy that nonsense was the last time I can recall you ever listening to me. So for your own good, heed me one last time. Rid yourself of that ranch like you rid yourself of that foolish document. Do not squander the money your mother left you because I assure there will be nothing coming your way from me if you persist in your recklessness. Be assured, I will wash my hands of you.

  It comes as a great relief to me to be finally disowned. Father always believed that making me his heir gave him an incontestable right to meddle in my affairs. He let himself think that the threat to disinherit me was a sword held over my head. He has let it descend now, to no effect.

  If the Lumber Baron knew that “statement of fact” still existed, he would question my sanity even more than he does now. I still have not been able to cast it aside, still wrestle with the memory of the Battle of Ridgeway as Jacob wrestled with the angel. Like Jacob, who put the thigh of the angel out of joint with a touch, that day has the same power over me; the faintest recollection of it can leave my mind limping.

  I always knew what Father’s purpose was in having me write that account – to give his lawyers a document they could examine so as to decide which “facts” should be emphasized, which expunged. He wanted a dress rehearsal of evidence so his solicitors could coach me on how to present what had occurred, if a trial could not be avoided. My day in court never came, but I continue scouring those pages, trying and retrying myself. Yesterday, I took them out and reviewed my actions as I have done so many times before. The judgment is the same as always. So why do I pursue it, over and over again? Because it seems that sometimes even the convicted man is uncertain of the real motives of his crime.

  On the morning of December 29 a chinook arch appears in the western sky, a shelf of red-and-yellow cloud that is a presage of the warm wind that soon comes spilling down the slopes of the Rockies and roaring across the plains. In a matter of hours, the temperature rises forty degrees. Snowdrifts slump; icicles rain a quick, steady drip down on the heads of pedestrians, and Fort Benton’s streets turn to muddy paste. Heavy winter coats are cast aside and men stroll around in their shirtsleeves. By the second day of the “snow-eater,” the ground lies brown and bare, but on the thirty-first the mercury plummets as quickly as it shot up, turning cold enough that Case dons his buffalo coat to ride into Fort Benton for Major Ilges’s New Year’s party. Joe had spurned the invitation, saying, “I ain’t one of the quality. Their occasions ain’t for the likes of me. Tonight, I’ll bay at the moon with my own kind. From a saloon.”

  After stabling his horse at the Benton livery, Case strikes off for the post, footsteps ringing on a roadway hard as iron, frozen puddles crackling under his heels. There are carriages parked outside the garrison, their teams blanketed against the cold, noses buried in feed bags. Soldiers loiter near the gate, passing a bottle back and forth, faces lit in the ruddy glow of pipe bowls. From inside the mess there comes the prodigious tootling and thumping of a military band. Case mounts the steps, gives the door a push, and enters a room already so crammed with guests he has difficulty finding a peg on the wall on which to hang his coat. A covey of ladies has taken roost near a spindly, now desiccated Christmas tree hung with forlorn strings of popcorn and decorated with tiny candles whose flames flap and hover on the point of extinction every time the door opens or closes. The greatest social event of the year has brought out the competitive instincts in all the women, even the dowagers, who have decked themselves out in satin and taffeta and loaded themselves down with all the jewellery their necks and ears can support. Expansive tracts of bosom are on display, and a constant, coquettish fluttering of painted fans agitates the air. The blaze in the fireplace, the exertions of the dance, the densely packed crowd lend a tropical atmosphere to the mess. The band is flirting with heat prostration, mopping their faces and swigging from tankards of beer as they take a break from playing.

  Case lingers by the doorway, running his eyes over the room. Ilges had told him that he had received a message from Walsh announcing that this year the Police would break with tradition and not be attending the New Year’s Eve party. Despite this, Case had still entertained the hope that Walsh would see the wisdom of putting aside his pique and accepting the hospitality of Major Ilges, which might have gone some way towards mending relations between them. But there isn’t a scarlet tunic in sight.

  Case knows he is no dab hand at hail-fellow-well-met; there is no question of inserting himself into any of the clusters of men exhibiting a loud and easy camaraderie. Instead he takes a stroll down the long buffet table, sidling past a punch bowl, bottles of wine and liquor, platters of glazed ham, turkey, roast beef, venison, and buffalo boss ribs, scalloped potatoes, candied yams, fruit pies, custard, compote, trifle, and fruitcake. But once the collation has been surveyed, there is nothing left to do except jam his hands deep in his trouser pockets and try to look amused by the passing scene. Then he sees Guido Ilges approaching him, resplendent in his dress blues, Civil War decorations winking, looking as if he has spent as much time polishing up his smile for the occasion as his orderly has putting a shine to the Major’s brass buttons.

  “Ah, Mr. Case, so good to see you! But there is nothing in your hand! You are dry! Jeffries,” he calls to one of the sweating privates acting as carvers and barmen, “serve this gentleman a cup of that excellent punch!”

  The punch, Case discovers, is a rather tepid, watery brew reeking powerfully of cloves and cinnamon.

  “It is my mother’s receipt,” confides Ilges. “We all looked forward to Christmas, just because of it. Papa used to say, ‘If I could have got the secret of your mother’s punch without having to marry her, you children would never have seen the light of day.’ ” So as not to leave the wrong impression, the Major adds, “It was a joke.” A boisterous mazurka strikes up, sending the gentlemen rushing to the ladies to claim a partner. “A military band,” observes Ilges, raising his voice and leaning into Case’s ear to make himself heard, “is perhaps satisfactory for the dancing. But I long for the sound of a piano and singing. As it was at home,” he confesses. For a moment, Ilges remains sunk in nostalgic reverie. Then his face darkens at the sight of two men who have just come in from the cold and are lifting their coattails to warm their rumps by the fire. One of them, a man in a fawn-coloured ditto suit and paisley waistcoat, is J.J. Donnelly, prominent Benton lawyer and Democratic politico. When Case had first arrived in Fort Benton, he had taken the trouble to have Donnelly pointed out to him, remembering the strange document Dunne had given to Walsh regarding the Irish threat in Fort Benton. By repute, Donnelly is one of the most influential of the town’s Fenian rabble-rousers. The other man, a tall, bony, pigeon-chested individual, is unknown to him.

  “The gall of that Collins,” says Ilges, looking angry enough to spit. “I warned him he was not welcome at my post. An
d now he sails in with Donnelly. It’s a provocation.”

  The Major’s fury, the linking of Collins to the notorious Donnelly, prompts Case to ask, “And what has this Collins fellow done to stir you up so?”

  “He’s been trying to recruit my Irish enlisted men to join some colony scheme in Nebraska, painting it as a Garden of Eden, buying them drinks in the Stubhorn, filling their heads with nonsense. But what he is doing is tantamount to encouraging them to desert. He claims to be an immigration agent. It’s outrageous. And now he has the cheek to walk in here as if he owned the place.”

  As the mazurka ends, Donnelly spots Ilges, gives him a friendly wave, corrals Collins by draping an arm over his shoulder, and begins to walk the immigration agent over to Ilges and Case just as the band launches into a waltz.

  “My god,” Ilges mutters. “The effrontery of those two.”

  Donnelly, seemingly impervious to the chill coming off the Major, positively radiates bonhomie. “There he is, our convivial host himself! Will you allow me to say, Major Ilges, that I cannot recall, in all my years, a finer commencement to a New Year! A bang-up job, sir! First rate in every respect.”

  “Too kind,” says Ilges, bowing coldly and perfunctorily, tightening his lips.

  Donnelly is squinting at Case in a fashion meant to be taken as humorous. “And all sections of society represented. It is the defrocked British policeman Mr. Case, isn’t it? Known to me by reputation, seen passing in the street, but never before met face to face.”

  The word policeman has curdled Collins’s face with disdain.

  “Not defrocked – retired,” says Case.

  “Ah, yes, my mistake. Not defrocked, but perhaps reformed? Put the nightstick away in favour of ranching, isn’t it? I commend you.” Donnelly quickly steers for another shore. “Major, I have come to present to you my great good friend Mr. Patrick Collins. It seems a little bird has been twittering falsehoods in your ear about this gentleman, and I have come to correct any misrepresentations you may have heard.”

  Collins hasn’t taken his eyes off Case. “Maybe it wasn’t a bird at all. Maybe it was a lobster-back, who clamped his claws to Major Ilges’s ear.”

  “Ah, dear me, dear me,” says Donnelly, “not the best of starts, Patrick. You must forgive him, Mr. Case. Two years in prison, you know, for advocating the cause of Irish liberty. No love lost between Mr. Collins and the English police. We have touched a tender spot, a very sore and tender spot.” Donnelly gives Ilges a knowing wink. “A very fervent fellow, Mr. Collins. It may be why you may have been misled about him. He has a missionary’s heart, the soul of a Redemptorist priest. Wants to save the poor, give them a chance in this cruel world, see they have a little parcel of ground that is all their own, a bit of sod to scratch a living from. He burns with that noble goal – sometimes so hotly his intentions are mistaken.”

  Collins adds, far more loudly than is necessary to make himself heard above the music, “As General O’Neill is fond of saying, ‘If the Irish cannot be free in Ireland, let them be free in America.’ ”

  “Exactly,” says Donnelly, “nail struck fairly on the head. The General seldom misses the nail. An energetic, enterprising fellow is the General. He has already planted a hundred colonists on the ground in Nebraska – a town sprung up – O’Neill City – a lovely spot. Grand, bustling place.”

  “I am delighted to hear it,” says Ilges. “I have no objection to the General’s enterprise. Only to the inducements this gentleman makes to my soldiers to desert.”

  “Well, there’s the rub, Major, there’s the misunderstanding. Mr. Collins spoke only to soldiers whose term of enlistment is drawing to a close. And those poor fellows have to make their way in the world, and there’s no more honest life than that of the agriculturalist – am I correct, Mr. Case? Haven’t you found that to be true?”

  “Indeed,” says Case, affecting a lack of interest in the conversation, shifting his gaze to the couples swirling by.

  “There you have it, Major Ilges, from a man who knows whereof he speaks. But you see, when the commanding officer leaves the impression something is not on the up and up, what’s the ordinary soldier to think? What headway is likely to be made with them?”

  “Men with experience in the West are worth their weight in gold,” volunteers Collins. “Most of our colonists arrive straight from the slums of Boston and New York. They don’t know a hawk from a handsaw. They need guiding hands, need to be shown the ropes by fellows who know a thing or two.”

  “Yes, soldiers,” says Ilges, “they know a thing or two. Well versed in raising crops, seeding, ploughing, and so forth. It’s what we train them for.”

  “Ah,” says Donnelly, “the Major is being facetious.”

  Collins manufactures a sneer. “Or bloody insulting.”

  Case turns back from watching the dancers and says to Collins, “Perhaps neither.”

  “Meaning?” says Collins.

  “Perhaps the Major is too polite to question you about your strong preference for soldier colonists. It is curious. Guiding hands, you call them. To what purpose?”

  “Don’t stick your nose in what isn’t your business. Unless you want a fist in it.”

  “Patrick,” warns Donnelly, “temper.”

  “I will take the fist in the nose under advisement,” says Case. “General O’Neill should do the same. His nose got broken several times before, putting it where it wasn’t wanted.”

  “The peeler has forgotten the Battle of Ridgeway. The way I remember it, the Saxons shat yellow there, had to wipe their arses with the butcher’s apron – that blood-soaked rag, the Union Jack.”

  “Indeed we did shit yellow. But you, sir, conveniently forget how your crew turned and ran when they heard British Regulars were moving up. They scuttled for the border with their tails between their legs. I would say both sides distinguished themselves equally on that occasion.”

  Collins steps forward, thrusts out his jaw at Case. “I invite you to take the air with me,” he says.

  “Enough,” says Ilges. “Mr. Collins, you are not welcome here. Leave, please.”

  “Out I go,” says Collins, “when this bastard walks out the door with me.”

  “I think not,” says Case. “I am very comfortable where I am.”

  Ilges throws a look at Donnelly. “Will you talk sense to your friend?”

  Donnelly shrugs. “Aspersions have been cast on Irish honour.”

  < height="0em" width="1em" align="justify">Ilges raises his hand to two junior officers and beckons. “Very well. Then I will have these gentlemen escort you out.”

  Ada Tarr, Celeste, and Lieutenant Blanchard’s arrival at the New Year’s party was delayed because Randolph would not give up trying to get a shoe on his foot. That morning his axe had glanced off a piece of wood he was splitting and had clipped him below the ankle. The wound had looked small and trifling at first, but by suppertime Randolph’s foot had swollen to alarming proportions. He iced the bruise for hours, even cut the sides of an ankle boot to be able to get it on. Nothing had worked. When Ada had volunteered to remain at home in case he needed anything, he had quashed that idea. What impression would be left if neither of them were present when Celeste made known the news of her engagement? People might conclude her parents had some objections to the match. No, Ada must accompany the happy couple, beam joy, and explain the father’s absence.

  Ada has no desire to act as her husband’s proxy, to smirk and simper over congratulations in his stead, to pretend to be as pleased as he is by Celeste’s choice of husband. On the other hand, going to the party would present an opportunity to speak to Dr. Strathway and prevail upon him to come to the house to examine Randolph. For weeks she has been insisting he seek medical advice for his worsening condition, his listlessness, and all his other symptoms, but Randolph refuses. He has a terror of doctors, seems to believe that illness and contagion cling to them and might rub off them onto him.

  Celeste and Lieutenant Blanchard’
s engagement is hardly a week old, but Ada is already heartily sick of the groom’s smug talk about “my Cessie’s sparkler,” her stepdaughter’s constant ogling of her ring. But relief is in sight. In a matter of days, the pair will be heading to Baltimore, where Celeste will live with a married sister of the Lieutenant’s who he has decided is equal to the task of instructing his fiancée in the social graces expected in a Blanchard wife and in seeing to it that his precious diamond in the rough is buffed until she acquires the necessary dazzle. The Lieutenant’s ultimate destination is Washington, where he will serve out the last months of his term of enlistment as aide-de-camp to a general who owes his father a favour. This will keep him close to his fiancée and allow him to supervise his sister’s work as she puts the final touches to Celeste’s training before the girl is revealed to Baltimore society at a fashionable wedding. Lieutenant Blanchard has thought of everything. A certain Mrs. Upham, a recent Benton widow who desires to return to Pittsburgh, will act as their chaperone on the trip east. Blanchard has offered to pay her expenses and travel fare so that appearances are preserved, all the proprieties observed. The Lieutenant is obviously a planner.

  Randolph is ecstatic about all this. His last words to Ada were, “It falls to you to represent the Tarrs tonight.” What a ridiculously grandiose way of putting it. As if she were being charged to present papers of accreditation to the Court of St. James’s. The poor man, so eager to rise in the world, so avid for prestige that he is willing to ride up the social ladder clinging to his daughter’s back like a monkey. How he had fussed over what his “representative” was to wear tonight, limping over to peer worriedly into her wardrobe, clucking like an old brooy hen until he had made his selections, a sleeveless Prussian blue shot silk gown, a jet necklace and matching set of earrings her mother had left her. “Both set off your complexion so nicely,” he had said. “It is your best feature. White as pure milk.” Seeing him so let down at missing the party, looking so old and tired, had nearly brought tears to her eyes. “I’ll be back as soon as possible to give you a report,” she had told him.