West Point to Mexico

by Bob Mayer

  King abruptly reined in his horse. Cord did the same, looking about to see the cause. Cotton fields stretched on either side of the road to distant wood lines. Dark figures toiled in the fields. The view had been the same for many miles; Cord couldn’t see what was different now.

  “I visited Major Lee before I met you in Pittsburgh,” King said.

  “Major Robert Lee?” Cord asked, wary.

  “Of course. To thank him.”

  “For what?”

  “For the opportunity he gave me.”

  “The Somers was a disaster,” Cord said.

  “It served its purpose,” King said. He turned to Cord. “The opportunity you prodded him to give me.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “Sam.”

  “I felt I owed you something,” Cord said.

  “So you do believe in honor?”

  Cord shrugged. “Honor, maybe. Perhaps a sense of loyalty to a fellow cadet?”

  “What do you believe your destiny in the army will be?” King asked.

  Cord chuckled. “I focused so much on whether I’d graduate, I’ve never really thought beyond.”

  “You have to look ahead, Elijah. My father failed to do that and it destroyed him. We’re part of something that will be bigger than us.” King pointed at the slaves. “See them. See how they follow orders blindly? That is part of what is necessary.”

  “Necessary for what?”

  “For this country to grow, to become the world power it must be.” King turned in the saddle and faced Cord. He raised his hands, horsewhip dangling from his right wrist. He intertwined his fingers. “The north with its industrial might and the south with its agricultural and moral might. The two can be a potent mix. The Somers was the most modern ship produced by the Navy. It was the crew that failed, not the ship. Specifically, it was the captain who failed. We have a code of honor in the south. And we have respect for God.”

  “Yes, but—” Cord began.

  King cut him off. “Might is in here.” He slapped his chest. “Not in this.” He tapped the hilt of the heavy naval saber strapped to his waist.

  Cord smiled. “But the sword could cut your heart out.”

  King did not smile in turn. “Not if it goes against a sword wielded by one with a stronger heart.”

  “I suppose that’s true,” Cord said.

  “Major Lee thinks the same. He’s a very honorable man.”

  Cord rubbed the badly healed burn on his right temple. He had been unwilling to go to the post surgeon and admit what had happened, so he’d treated the wound himself in the barracks with less than perfect results. “I don’t think it will happen simply.”

  “What do you mean?” King asked.

  “There are those who feel that—” he pointed at the slaves—“is an institution that should be ended. Even my own father has gone over to the abolitionists. He denounces slavery loudly. It’s getting dangerous for him in Norfolk.”

  “I am sorry to hear that,” King said. “Abolitionism is a criminal cause.” He jerked on his reins and headed down the road, leaving Cord in his dust. He hurried to catch up and they rode on in silence once more.

  A few miles further south they heard coughing ahead. Coming over a slight rise, they saw a thin man in dusty Army blue hunched over his mount, slowly plodding down the road. As they got closer, Cord suddenly recognized the officer.

  “Sam!”

  Grant looked over his shoulder, his face pale and covered with sweat. “Elijah. And King. It’s good to see you both.”

  Cord rode up to his friend and shook his hand. King nodded a greeting.

  “Are you all right?” Cord asked.

  Grant coughed again, so hard that his entire body was wracked with the effort.

  “Tyler’s Grip?” King asked.

  Cord shot King a warning look, but Grant seemed not to care. When he finished the bout, he took a deep breath, the air rattling in his lungs. “My Uncles Noah and John died of consumption, so it’s possible. But I would hope not.” He sat a bit taller in the saddle, which only served to accentuate how painfully thin he was. “According to the fellow I asked a few miles back, Palatine is not far ahead.”

  They reached a crossroads and Grant turned right. Cord followed without hesitation. King halted for a moment, then followed.

  They stopped as a cluster of shacks appeared around the bend. A house, more a defensive blockhouse, crowned the top of the small knoll above the shacks. Negroes moved about the shanties, none daring to look at the three white riders.

  “Samual!” Cord called out, spotting the giant man carrying a heavy load of firewood on his back toward one of the shacks.

  Samual halted and turned in their direction, but kept his head down. “Sir?”

  Cord halted his horse in front of the slave. “We met at West Point. In the woods. The night Ben Agrippa Rumble was born.”

  Samual looked up, a flash of anger in his eyes. “Agrippa be born here, twenty year ago, sir.”

  “What the devil are you talking about?” Cord asked.

  “Don’t be speaking of the devil, sir,” Samual said, eyes once more downcast.

  “How is Mister Rumble—Lucius?” Cord asked.

  “I don’ work in the big house, sir. My wife and daughter say he and children be fine.”

  Grant leaned forward in the saddle. “Who was this Agrippa born twenty years ago here, sir?”

  Samual’s head slowly came up. His coal-black eyes pierced right through Grant, chilling him with the intensity of the anger in them. “My son, sir. My son. They say he was kilt trying to escape.”

  “What the hell you think you doing, Samual?” The voice came from the knoll. St. George was easily recognizable at a distance by his bulk, his brown slouch hat and black sash.

  Samual’s head dropped to his chest as if struck by a guillotine. He’d been under the weight of the firewood the entire time without apparent effort and he turned and continued on his way. St. George stomped past him, saying something in a harsh tone the riders couldn’t hear. The overseer came up on them.

  “I know you, boy,” he said to Cord.

  Cord touched the scar on his temple. “I know you also.” His hand drifted toward the pistol tucked into his waistband.

  St. George placed his right hand over the top of his sash, resting lightly on his solid belly. “You now thinking something you ought not be thinking, boy.”

  “You shot at me,” Cord said.

  “Yes, but I didna hit, did I?” St. George gave his reptile smile. “I was just playing boy.”

  “I’m not,” Cord said.

  “Easy,” Grant whispered. “We’re here for a wedding, not a duel.”

  “A day of reckoning will come,” Cord said to St. George.

  “Oh yeah, boy. For sure. Now get on out of here.”

  Grant reached out and grabbed the bridle on Cord’s horse. He tugged on it and they rode off.

  Behind them, St. George spit into the dirt, then looked about for a slave on whom to vent his anger. But not Samual.

  “They say war with Mexico is inevitable.” Seneca Rumble sat in a wicker chair to the right of his father and was trying to get a conversation going in the face of Tiberius’ chilly reception to their new guests. Seneca was as tall as his brother, but slender and his face was more open and friendly.

  To Tiberius’ left was Violet, seated in a comfortable, cushioned chair brought out from the dining room. To her left was the bride-to-be, the lovely Rosalie Little. She wore a pale blue dress, her body corseted tightly into an alluring hourglass figure that none of the men could help but appreciate. She had long blond hair, arranged in what appeared to be a haphazard pattern, which had actually taken many hours to prepare. Behind the four, a pair of slaves waved wide feather fans in a hypnotizing rhythm.

  Seated across from the four on a hard bench, backs to the railing, were Cord, King, Lucius Rumble and Sam Grant. The latter was having a hard time staying awake, given his illness, the he
at, and the fans waving up and down.

  “It’s very likely there will be war,” Cord finally answered, when no one else did.

  Violet Rumble was staring at him in a disconcerting manner, so he continued speaking, as if that could help him escape her gaze.

  “The Mexicans are within their rights to claim Texas. I believe they have been quite lenient and generous with the Texans up to this point.”

  King snorted. “The Texans defeated the Mexicans soundly at San Jacinto. It’s only a technicality by which Mexico still claims the territory.”

  Grant roused himself. “A technicality that could cost a lot of men their lives. It would be a most unjust war, if it came to that.”

  Tiberius raised a liver-spotted hand. “But you will fight, won’t you, Lieutenant Grant?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Cord and I are posted to Jefferson Barracks. We have a friend, Pete Longstreet, who’s been there a year already and he’s written that the regiment is well trained. We will serve in the 4th Infantry and if there is war, the 4th is certain to be in the thick of it.”

  “And you,” Violet said, pointing with deer gloved hand, “is it Lieutenant also, my dear relative from Virginia?”

  King shook his head. “No ma’am. I’m an ensign in the Navy. The rank is equivalent, but the terms different.”

  “Oh, men and their ranks and uniforms,” Rosalie said. “It all seems so foolish.”

  “Hush, dear,” Seneca said to her, but she ignored him.

  “Where will you be going after the wedding?” Violet asked Cord. “To sea?”

  “To Annapolis, Maryland, ma’am. I’m to help Commodore Perry found the Naval Academy.”

  “Noble endeavors all of you,” Tiberius said. He looked at his eldest son. “Well, most of you. I am sure they still need someone to take care of horses at West Point.”

  “Now, now, dear,” Violet said.

  “I think,” Rosalie Little began, spacing out the words which caused everyone to look at her, a not unpleasant task, “that all this talk of war is quite gloomy. I say we put a moratorium on it until at least after Seneca and I enjoy our wedding night.”

  Seneca Rumble blushed and Tiberius grunted a laugh. “A fair enough request from a most fair lady,” he said.

  Violet stood and all the men scrambled to their feet. “Gentlemen, I believe it is time for my afternoon stroll.” She looked over the four young men. “A woman has rarely had such a fine array of candidates for escort.” She extended her gloved hand. “Come, Lieutenant Cord, would you please accompany me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Oh, please would you all stop calling me that? Makes me feel like I’m running a house of ill repute. Call me Violet.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the four young men all said at the exact same time. Which caused a peel of laughter from Rosalie.

  Violet led Cord down the majestic main staircase of Palatine and out the front door. She turned left and went around the house, Cord half a step behind her and to her right, as he had been taught in etiquette class at West Point when in the presence of a lady. He was searching for a topic to engage in conversation, as he had also been taught, but his mind could conjure nothing.

  “I do so love the garden,” Violet said as she led him into an opening in an eight-foot high hedge.

  “It is very nice, ma—Violet.”

  They wove through a maze of tall hedges. Ahead was the sound of children playing. Cord was lost within seconds as Violet took a series of sharp turns and then they were in an open space with an eight-foot high fountain in the shape of an angel in the center, water spouting from her mouth, stone wings arching overhead. Several children, black and white, were splashing in the basin at the base of the angel.

  “Tiberius would be quite upset if he saw this,” Violet said, “but then he would have to get out of his chair and come here to see it. I don’t believe in all these years he ever learned how to negotiate the hedges. It is my place, just as his is on that porch. I planted all of this years ago when I first came here to Palatine. I enjoy it, but it is also a reminder of how much time has passed since then. So it is with life.”

  Cord recognized Ben Rumble among the children. An older black woman was keeping careful watch, Abigail in a crib basket at the woman’s side.

  “So,” Violet said.

  Cord wasn’t sure if that was a question, and if it was, what it was about, so he remained silent.

  Ben recognized him and came running over, his clothes soaked. “Uncle Elijah!”

  Cord hugged Ben, getting the front of his uniform wet. “It’s good to see you again, Lil’ Ben. Go and have fun.”

  Ben squirmed out of his arms and ran back to his playmates.

  “’Uncle’?” Violet asked.

  “An honorary title,” Cord said. He ran a finger inside the collar of his uniform blouse, which was suddenly tight.

  “Did you know his mother? Lidia?”

  A trickle of sweat ran down Cord’s back. “Yes. We all knew her.”

  “Did you all?” Violet sighed. “Mary,” she called out to the negress.

  “Yes, mistress?”

  “Take the children to be cleaned up for dinner.”

  “Yes, mistress.” She began to shoo the children out of the water.

  “I understand you’ve met Samual,” Violet said.

  “Yes.”

  “You were in the woods watching the cabin when Ben was born.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why weren’t you with them in the cabin?”

  “I was on quarters restriction. I wasn’t supposed to be off post.”

  Violet turned and peered into his eyes. “Really?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But you were off post.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So you break rules?”

  “I did, on occasion. I try not to any more, though.”

  “You said you weren’t in the cabin because it was against the rules. But then you admit to breaking the rules that night. A strange mixture.”

  Cord had no answer.

  “Mary is Samual’s wife,” Violet finally said.

  Cord glanced at the negress as she gathered the children.

  “I own Samual. But Tiberius owns Mary. We have kept the lines of who owns what here very clear ever since I brought my dowry to Palatine. It has not been easy. Do you know what the vows for a slave wedding are?”

  “No, I don’t.” Cord was glad the subject had changed from him.

  “’Until death or distance do you part’.”

  Cord could hear the rustle of cloth on hedge and Rosalie Little appeared, a parasol twirling over her shoulder, keeping her long blond tresses in the shade. “Violet darling,” she called out in a drawl as she came over. “I just knew I would find you here.”

  “That’s because I asked you to meet us here,” Violet said. “You don’t have to pretend around Lieutenant Cord. He doesn’t appear to be a man who requires pretension from females.”

  Rosalie swung the parasol down and jabbed the point into the grass. “You are quite correct, Violet. Lieutenant Cord, I know you might think us women to be frivolous, but we work with what power we have. Did you know that I am barren?”

  Cord flushed red. “Ma’am, I did not, and there’s no reason I should know such a personal thing.”

  “Lucius knows,” Rosalie said. “But he did not tell you.” She mused on that for several seconds before continuing. “Lucius always keeps his cards close to his chest. Are you his friend?”

  Cord had to think about the question and Rosalie took that as his answer.

  “Interesting,” she said. “But there’s a link between the two of you, even if it is not friendship.” She tapped the ivory handle of the parasol with long fingers. “Do you know why we invited you and Lieutenant Grant?”

  “To support Lucius.”

  “Support him in what?” Violet asked.

  Cord felt like he was being interrogated at the boards back a
t West Point and he was unclear of the direction or purpose. Regardless, he knew he would be the Immortal of this conversation. “Mister Rumble—Tiberius—disowned him when he married Lidia. You—” he nodded at Violet—“want him to keep his connections to the family.”

  “And why would we want that?” Violet asked.

  Cord didn’t answer right away.

  “Please, sir,” Rosalie said. “Add it up.”

  “Because of Ben,” Cord finally said.

  “Very good,” Violet commented. She took a step closer to Cord, the hem of her hoop skirt brushing up against his shoes. “Is there something we should know about Ben?”

  “He’s a good boy.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, Violet.”

  Violet glanced at Rosalie, then back at Cord. “Understand that no matter what, we have the boy’s best interests at heart. He is the future of Palatine.”

  “Lucius might have something to say about that,” Cord pointed out. “As well as Ben once he is of age.”

  “I am certain they both will,” Violet said. “But as Lucius’ friend, I ask you to help him keep an open mind about the future.”

  “I can do that,” Cord said, anxious to get out of this maze.

  “And if there were something about Ben,” Violet said, “some secret, I believe only three people would know the real truth. And one of them has now passed on, has she not?”

  Cord met her gaze, but said nothing.

  “Ben is Lucius’s son,” Violet said. “And as such he is our blood.”

  “And he will be part of my family as of the ‘morrow,” Rosalie added. “So he is also tied to the future of Rosalie Plantation.”

  “I think that’s good for Ben,” Cord said.

  Violet retreated a step and Cord breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Very well,” Violet said. “I will see you for dinner.” With a rustle of her skirt, she was gone behind the hedges.

  “Do you know the way out?” Cord asked Rosalie.