by John Jakes
“I had no idea what was needed. I felt like a helpless fool.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Orry. Mama carried a lot of the burden of this place. More than you men ever realized.” That was as close as she came to teasing him, and it was just a brief, gentle sally accompanied by a smile. She touched his hand again. “Let me help you run the plantation. I can do it.”
“But you’re just—”
“A little girl? Why, you sound just like Ashton.”
From a whole quiver of arrows she had chosen precisely the right one to pierce and destroy his resistance. He burst out laughing. Then he said, “You’re right, I had no idea how much Mama took care of. I’ll bet Father didn’t either. I’ll be glad to have your help. Thankful for it! Take over wherever you see a need. If anyone questions you, tell them you’re acting on my authority. Tell them to speak to me—what’s wrong?”
“If the slaves must check every important order with you, it’s pointless for me to do the work. What’s more, I won’t. I must have equal authority, and everyone must know it.”
“All right. You win.” His admiration was tinged with awe. “You’re a wonder. And only fifteen this year—”
“Age has nothing to do with it. Some girls learn to be women at twelve. I mean they learn everything, not just how to be pert and flirtatious.” The jab at Ashton wasn’t lost on Orry. “Some never learn at all. I’ll be hanged if I’ll be one of those.”
With an affectionate smile, he said, “Don’t worry, you couldn’t be.” He felt no less tired but a lot better. “Well, I guess we should arrange to get some curing salt.”
“Cuffey’s already on his way to Charleston with the cart. I wrote his pass myself.”
Again he laughed, then slipped his arm around her. “I have a feeling things are going to be a lot better on this plantation.”
“I know they are,” she said. In the field a couple of the trackers exchanged looks, and then relieved smiles.
Ashton paced back and forth in front of the bedroom hearth. Brett was bent over the desk. Outside, ice-covered tree limbs clashed and tinkled. The wind howled along the river.
Another series of sneezes exploded from the guest bedroom. Ashton grimaced. Huntoon had brought her home from Charleston right before the storm hit and had promptly gone to bed with raging influenza.
“I do wish he’d stop that dreadful sneezing,” she exclaimed. Brett glanced up from one of the plantation ledgers, struck by the venom in her sister’s voice. How could anyone be so enraged by illness?
But Ashton wasn’t infuriated by that so much as by some other things. She already missed the lights and gaiety of Charleston. Huntoon had squired her to the season’s most prestigious social event, the great ball sponsored by the Saint Cecilia Society. Back here on the Ashley, she felt caged.
Her little sister, however, seemed perfectly content to spend her time with shopping lists and ledgers. In the past few weeks Brett had started acting as if she were mistress of the plantation. What was even more galling, the niggers treated her as if she were.
“When I’m finished here, I’ll mix up a batch of Mama’s hot lemon toddy,” Brett said. “It might clear his head some.”
“Quite the little physician, aren’t we?”
Again Brett looked at her sister, but this time her expression was more stern. “There’s no call to be snide. I just do what I can.”
“Every chance you get, seems like. I heard you were down in the cabins again today.”
“Hattie developed a bad boil. I lanced and dressed it. What of it?”
“I really don’t know why you waste your time on such trashy business.”
Brett snapped the ledger shut. She pushed her chair back, rose, and kicked her skirt to one side.
“Somebody ought to remind you that all that trashy business, as you call it, keeps Mont Royal running in the black. It pays for those bolts of brocade you bought for your Saint Cecilia gown.”
Ashton’s mocking laugh was a defense. She had chosen to reach her goals by manipulating others while pretending to play the traditional feminine role. Brett, by contrast, was asserting her independence. Ashton envied that. At the same time, it made her hate her sister all the more.
She hid the hatred with a shrug and a pirouette toward the door. “Calm down. I don’t give a hoot if you bury yourself in this place. But remember one thing. Those who mean to rise in the world don’t waste time on the problems of niggers and white trash. They court the important people.”
“I expect they do, but I’m not trying to rise, as you put it. I’m just trying to help Orry.”
Smug little bitch, Ashton thought. She wanted to use nails on her sister’s eyes. Injure her, make her weep for mercy. Instead, she smiled and said gaily, “Well, you go right to it, and I’ll tend to James. Oh, but I am curious about one thing. You’re so busy doctoring and ciphering, when will you have time to answer those letters from your cadet? He’s liable to forget you.”
“I’ll always have time for Billy, don’t you worry.”
The quiet words pushed Ashton close to the point of explosion. She was diverted by the sound of another gargantuan sneeze from Huntoon. She rushed into the hall, nearly colliding with Cousin Charles, who was on his way downstairs. A moment after she stepped back, she too sneezed.
“Say, Ashton, where’d you get that cold?” Charles grinned and hooked a thumb toward the guest room. “Did he give you anything else in Charleston?”
“Go to the pits of hell, you foul-minded scum!”
“What’s the matter? Getting too uppity for a joke?”
The slam of a door was his answer.
Inside the guest room, Huntoon stared at Ashton while listening to a storm of the vilest profanity he had ever heard.
In the spring following the inauguration, President Pierce toured the North with members of his Cabinet. Lavish banquets were held in several major cities. George and Stanley attended the one in Philadelphia.
Pierce was a handsome, affable man. Stanley was so overwhelmed to be in his presence he practically fawned. George was more interested in the new secretary of war, Jefferson Davis.
Davis carried himself like a soldier. He was in his mid-forties and still slim, although his fair hair showed a generous amount of gray. He had high cheekbones and deeply set blue-gray eyes. George had heard that one eye was blind but didn’t know which. Nor was it apparent.
During the reception that preceded the dinner, George had a chance to hear some of the secretary’s views. Davis began with a topic that seemed to be his chief reason for accompanying the President—promotion of a transcontinental railroad.
“I am a strict constructionist,” the new secretary told George and half a dozen others gathered around him. “I believe the Constitution prohibits the Federal government from making internal improvements in the separate states. So you might logically ask—”
“How is it possible to justify government aid for a railroad?”
Davis smiled politely at the man who had interrupted. “I couldn’t have said it better, sir.” Everyone laughed. “I justify it as a matter of national defense,” he went on. “If not linked to the rest of the country, the Pacific coast territories could all too easily be snatched away by some foreign aggressor. Further, a transcontinental line—running through the South, preferably”—a couple of his listeners bristled at that; the secretary appeared not to notice—“will help us defend our frontiers by making it easier to move men rapidly to threatened areas. At present, the Army numbers only about ten thousand officers and men. Between here and California there are an estimated four hundred thousand Indians, forty thousand of them considered hostile. That danger demands new responses.”
“What might those be, Mr. Secretary?” George asked.
“For one, more men in the Army. At minimum, two new regiments. Mounted regiments that can travel a long distance in a short time. The Indians don’t fear our foot troops. They have a name for them. ‘Walk-a-heap.’ It is a term o
f contempt.”
George had heard that Davis was more soldier than politician; he was beginning to believe it. The man impressed him.
“Many things about our military establishment are badly out of date,” the secretary continued. “Our tactics, for example. To remedy that, I plan to send an officer to study the tactics of the French army. If the Crimea explodes, as appears likely, we’ll also have a rare opportunity to observe European armies in the field. Further, improvements need to be made at our Military Academy.”
“That interests me, sir,” George said. “My brother is currently a plebe, and I graduated in the class of ’forty-six.”
“Yes, Mr. Hazard, I’m aware of both facts. In my opinion, the West-Point curriculum must be expanded”—nothing new there; the idea of a five-year course of study had been afloat for several years—“with more emphasis given to mounted tactics. I want to build a new riding hall. Enlarge the stables—”
Another listener broke in, “They say you might also build a second military academy in the South, Mr. Secretary.”
Davis whirled on the speaker, sharp for the first time. “Sir, that is a false and pernicious rumor. A second military academy may have been proposed by others, but never by me. Such an institution would only promote sectionalism, and sectionalism is the last thing we need in this country at present. When John Calhoun spoke against the Clay compromise, he said that the cords binding the states together were breaking one by one. He believed disunion was inevitable. I do not. One of the bulwarks of my faith stands in the Hudson Highlands. If any institution promotes a national point of view, it is West Point. I for one intend to keep it that way.”
In spite of automatic suspicion of any politician from the deep South, George found himself joining the others in a round of applause. Still, Davis’s attitude represented the ideal rather than the reality. Billy had recently written to say that strong Northern and Southern cliques existed at West Point and that sectional tensions were increasing. Charles Main would be enrolling at the Academy in June. Would the tensions interfere with the friendship he and Billy had formed? George hoped not.
When the applause subsided, George said, “Good for you, Mr. Secretary. There are too many extremists on both sides these days. We need more voices like yours.”
He lifted his glass. “To the Academy.”
Davis raised his own glass in response. “And the Union,” he said.
35
CHARLES TRAVELED NORTH WHILE Russia mobilized for war against Turkey and her allies on the other side of the world. The prospective cadet arrived at West Point wearing a wide-brimmed planter’s hat and an old coat of rust-colored velvet. His hair hung to his shoulders, and his bowie knife was tucked in his boot.
Billy and his friend and classmate, a jolly Virginian named Fitzhugh Lee, leaned out a window in the second floor of the barracks and watched Charles come trudging along the street below. They had been expecting him all afternoon. Presumably Charles had already turned in his appointment papers and signed the adjutant’s register and circumstances ledger. In the latter he had no doubt listed Orry’s financial status as “affluent” rather than “moderate.” Having deposited his cash with the treasurer, Charles was now coming to find his room.
“My Lord,” Fitz Lee said in amazement. “Just look at all that hair.”
Billy nodded. “I knew he had plenty, but I didn’t expect that much.” A gleeful look crept into his eye. Friendship hadn’t prevented him from organizing a reception for Charles.
“He’s shaggy as a bison.” The moment Fitz spoke, something clicked in Billy’s mind. Charles didn’t know it, but he had just received his Academy nickname. Billy was still searching for his.
Charles sensed someone watching and started to glance up. Billy pulled back hastily, dragging Fitz with him.
“Don’t let him see you. Is the room ready?”
“Far as I know,” Fitz said with a grin of unabashed wickedness. The young Virginian was the superintendent’s nephew, but Billy felt sure that wouldn’t save him from eventual dismissal. Fitz Lee habitually broke the rules, and did so with relish. “Beauty went up awhile ago to lay out his tools and slip into one of those smocks we stitched together. I’ll fetch mine. You keep the victim here till I come back.”
“All right, but hurry. We don’t have much time before parade.” Billy leaned out the window, waved. “Hey, Charles. Hello!”
Charles blinked, then returned the wave with enthusiasm. “Damn, it’s you! How are you, Billy?”
“Anxious to see you. Come on up.”
Again he retreated from the window and discovered Fitz still lingering at the door. “What’s wrong?”
“I forgot to tell you that Slocum invited himself to the party. You know Beauty—he’s so blasted cordial, he tells everybody everything.”
Billy scowled. “Well, Slocum had better not give the game away. Tell him I said he’s to keep his mouth shut.”
“Do you want me to say it that—ah—directly?”
“Yes. I’m not his plebe whipping boy any longer.”
“Right you are.” Fitz grinned and hurried out.
Moments later Charles bounded up the stairs, the swallowtails of his coat flapping. He and Billy whooped and embraced like long-lost brothers. Then Charles flung his hat and valise on one of the beds and pushed his long hair off his damp forehead.
“Godamighty, Billy, you look fine in that uniform. But I forgot that the North got so blasted hot.”
“It’ll get hotter for you before the summer’s over—even if the temperature dips. You’re going to be a plebe, remember? And I think I can make cadet corporal in camp.”
Charles frowned. “Does that mean we can’t be friends for a year?”
“We can be friends. We just can’t show it too much, or—”
“Cadet Main?”
The bellow from the hall sent Charles into a crouch. Billy had to grip his friend’s arm to keep him from pulling his knife.
Charles scowled at the stranger in the doorway. It was Fitz Lee, wearing a thigh-length smock of coarse gray cloth. “Who the hell are you?” Charles demanded.
Fitz matched his truculence. “Don’t raise your voice to me, sir! I am Mr. Fitz, one of the post barbers. It is the duty of Mr. Jeb and myself to attend to the tonsure of all incoming cadets.”
“The ton-what?”
“Your hair, sir. It is decidedly in need of attention. Should you refuse to cooperate, I shall be forced to report you to the superintendent.” Hands raised, Charles said, “No, wait. Billy, do they always do this when you get here?”
“Absolutely,” Billy answered with a straight face. “Mr. Fitz and Mr. Jeb gave me a trim the first hour I was on the post.”
“Damn if they look old enough to be barbers.”
“Oh, when they took care of me they were still apprentices.”
“Well—all right.”
Still suspicious, Charles nevertheless followed Fitz out the door and up the stairs to the trunk room, which had been cleaned and prepared for the occasion. Billy brought up the rear, barely able to suppress eruptions of giggling.
The trunk room felt like an inferno. Windowless, it was illuminated by a pair of oil lamps that added to the heat. On a cheap table lay a silver-framed mirror, combs, brushes, shears, and a razor. Next to a rickety chair stood Beauty Stuart. He wore a smock and radiated authority.
“Sit down, sir. Quickly, quickly! This cadet is waiting for a trim as soon as we finish with you.”
He pointed to Caleb Slocum, who was lounging by the wall. Billy and the Arkansas cadet exchanged nods but neither smiled. As soon as the first classmen had donned Army uniforms and departed, Slocum would be going home on leave. None too soon to suit Billy.
Charles sat down. With great panache, Stuart motioned and snapped his fingers. “Mr. Fitz? The cloth, if you please.”
Fitz Lee produced a filthy, tattered sheet which he proceeded to fasten around Charles’s neck. “That’s a damn dirty sheet,” Ch
arles complained. “Looks like a whole flock of people bled on it. What kind of tonsorial parlor is—?”
“Quiet, sir, I cannot concentrate when you babble,” Stuart said, giving his customer a fierce look. He clicked the shears several times, then attacked Charles’s hair above his left ear. Billy tried to judge the time by sounds from downstairs. They had only until four o’clock.
“The mirror, if you please, Mr. Fitz.”
The assistant barber jumped forward, tilting the glass this way and that in response to Stuart’s exaggerated gestures. How could Charles not see it was all a sham? Yet no newcomer ever did; fear and unfamiliar surroundings made it work perfectly, year after year.
Presently Stuart cocked his head to the side, folded his right hand under his chin, and rested his right elbow on his left palm, studying his artistic creation. The entire left side of Charles’s head had been clipped to a length of half an inch, while to the right of a perfect dividing line across the top of his head the hair was as long and full as ever, untouched. Billy faced the wall and bit his lower lip while tears ran from his eyes.
“Half done,” Stuart announced. “Now for the other—”
Out on the Plain the bugle pealed. Perfect timing. Mr. Jeb dropped the shears. Mr. Fitz threw the mirror on the table, and Billy and Slocum cut for the door. “Wait,” Charles cried. “What’s going on?”
Stuart ripped off the smock. “We must assemble. Come along, sir.”
“We’ll finish the trim another time,” Fitz shouted from the landing below.
“Another time?” Bellowing, Charles pursued his tormentors. From the door of. the trunk room he gave Billy a withering look—the look of a man betrayed—which Billy could barely see through his mirthful tears. “What other time?” Charles screamed. “How in hell am I going to explain the way I look?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Fitz caroled as he ran away down the stairs. “But explain it you shall—for I’m sure all the officers will be curious about it.”
“A damn trick!” Charles howled. He yanked his knife out of his boot and flung it.
Slocum had lagged behind. The bowie flashed past his ear and buried in a beam on the landing below. While the knife hummed, Charles launched into a profane tirade against West Point men and West Point perfidy.