by S. L. Hawke
“So what does this have to do with me?” I leaned on my chair’s arm, wondering what kind of job this truly was.
“He says you are a man of principles. Strong Union ones.” Sweeney was watching me for any hint of a lie.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t believe in enslaving other men and I have complete faith in the line in our constitution about how all—”
“—all men are created equal?” we said in unison. Suddenly he looked out the window. My heart had a hard time beating evenly. The room felt stifling and hot even though I could see the fog filling the street outside. Sweeney continued: “What you just saw out there in the bay is what we’ve been trying to fight. Folks don’t really know it, but we’re fighting the War out here too.”
“The Confederates were privateering?” Resisting the urge to comb my hair for bugs, I focused instead on the pendulum clock behind Sweeney.
“Well, it just so happens that the frigate out there in the bay, the one that tried to bust through our ‘gate’—” Sweeney paused here for a moment. “I like to call the opening to our bay that name, ‘gate’— sounds kind of heroic, like Beowulf.” Sweeney looked back at me. He was a learned man as well. My esteem for him went up a bit.
“The Whore, and the Union Frigate.” I nodded for him to continue. Impatience made me shake my leg.
“Hmm, well…it was carrying powder and ammunition, cows, eggs, and some oddball shit called eucalyptus.” Sweeney put the stone down on his desk.
“Very flammable. Australian in origin. Keeps vermin out of cloth and food. Also has some medicinal qualities, like for that itchy rash you get on your feet when you don’t air your boots out right.” Facts came out of my mouth whether I wanted them to or not. The younger deputy snickered. I frowned at him. Foot scale was not a laughing manner if you had it bad. The deputy straightened and tried to look serious.
“Well, all that shit, came from Santa Cruz.”
My surprise was not hidden.
“I can see smoke coming out of your ears from all those thoughts, A.J.” Sweeney smiled at me. “I can call you that?” Arthur leaned forward. “Besides his name—” pointing to the young man next to him, “—is also Andrew Jackson.”
I chuckled and nodded to one side with a shrug. My mother had often reminded me of the popular name. In a single room schoolhouse I attended as a boy, there were at no given time at least three of us with this name. The teacher divided us by nicknames: “Jack” for me, Andrew for another, and Drew for the third. The same thing happened in the Army. I chose “Drew” at that time.
Now things were making sense to me, especially what my cousin had said, about making things right with the government and clearing my name. Sweeney was watching me as I worked it out. California was the perfect place for the Confederate rebels.
“You want me to spy on someone.”
“Shit.” The young deputy laughed. “They weren’t kidding.“
“About what?” I countered, feeling annoyed. Were they going to arrest me? “Look, I know I’ve done some things in my life I truly regret but it was war and frankly I did what any decent—” Did they want me to confess? What did they really want from me?
“Calm down, A.J.” Sweeney pointed to the young deputy. I was ready to state my case, again, and escape, but there was Hiru to consider. My hands had balled into fists. I shut my mouth.
2
“Anger steals.” Master Aimen had me pinned against the floor with my arm twisted and my other arm pinned with his tabi covered foot. He was barely five feet tall and some said he was over 70 years old. “Do not approach your enemy in anger or he will steal your victory.” Master Aimen released me. I bowed, feeling ashamed. “I’m sorry Master,” I mumbled. He tapped my shoulder and I fell backwards. Master Aimen let out a happy laugh. I tried hard not to become angry, but the heat of it made me get up. Then I saw Tomiko standing there with the tea tray. I walked over to Master Aimen and saw that he was smiling at his granddaughter. I pushed him aside. He hopped, but his eyes were wide and twinkled with joy. “Love is ALWAYS victorious. “
My thoughts came back to the present.
“We also know that a man named Captain Rufus Ingram—” The other Andrew appeared suddenly with a paper envelope which Sweeney opened and laid the contents of across his desk. The crisp white paper held sharp black and white images of a mountain camp as if time itself had frozen. There was a picture of a tent and a cave with stacks of metal tubes, a fire pit with an iron pot hanging from a tri-pole, and a table laden with what looked very much like rifle butts.
Blurry ghostlike figures appeared behind the pieces of munitions, men moving past the supplies too fast for the lens to keep the image pinned down. Beehive shapes off to the left of the rifle-making supplies looked to be blacksmithing ovens made in the style of the Persian Armies, used no doubt to make bullets. I studied the small details of the camp, horses, ornate saddles with Spanish livery and silverwork. How they took this picture without anyone seeing them was beyond my understanding. I recalled the last “camera” I had seen. It was a boxy affair with a flash on a bulky tripod.
These were photo plates. I whistled, impressed at this incredible method of capturing the truth. I’d seen only a few in my life and they stopped my heart each time. There was no doubt in my mind now that this was a serious investigation, not an arrest of myself.
“How did you do this?” I whispered in awe of the sight before me. How in the world were they even allowed to have someone in this camp stand there for twenty minutes or so taking each photograph? Whoever was at the camp must have been trusted completely by the leader AND informing, or worse yet SELLING this to the Marshals. The crisp details did not lie, so this was pure information from the direct source. To try and fake this kind of picture would be next to impossible and take too much time.
Then again, that might be exactly what was hoped for...the enemy needed to buy time. Sweeney chuckled.
“Takes the wind right out of your sails, doesn’t it? We have this guy who has managed to make these little boxes that make paper plates, he calls the paper plates FILM—anyway, I don’t know how he does it, and he’s always tinkering. He taught one of our agents how to use the box, how to make the paper plates into images, and now, we can really catch the bad guys doing bad things.” Sweeney was shifting in his chair with a huge grin. All of this took money. Presidential money. The war had intensified.
“So these were taken by someone you trust?” My skepticism was not hidden.
“Former someone,” Andrew added, crossing his arms. He was watching me with a look that seemed almost…well, I really don’t know what.
Then it hit me. Former someone.
“They catch him taking the photographs?” Still studying the detail and taking a magnifying glass from Sweeney, I saw that the tubes in the photo were parts, possibly from abroad by the way the light was reflecting off the barrels. There were no foundries out here that I knew of.
“Look, are you gonna help us or not? I mean they killed a US Marshal for God’s sake!” Younger Andrew said with the exasperation of the youth that turns to anger when you were my age. Well, my question about ‘former someone’ was answered.
Sweeney, noting both my respect and my interest, rotated the rest of the papers so that I could study them.
“You think you could infiltrate this camp?”
“What makes you think this camp is Confederate?” I said. The remark made Sweeney sit up in his chair with a grin and the deputy also cracked a smile.
“That’s a yes, I take it,”Andrew said, the grin heavy in his voice. Hearing him sound pleased made me feel better. “Hicks said you spoke Spain too?” the young deputy added. His accent was like his boss’s. Union Kentuckians, meaning most likely southern Ohio, which meant most likely we had kinship. Damn my twin cousins. They knew I couldn’t say no to even a hint of family relation to my mother’s kin, on top of the need to clear my name. Lawyers.
“Spanish, Mexicana and Castellano di
alects, some Oaxan,” I added, enjoying the lad’s eyes become like dollar bits. “What exactly do you need me to do?” I asked, leaning back in my chair. Sweeney rubbed his hands together as if he were a genie in the Arabian Nights serial I read vociferously in the paper. He handed me a note from my cousins.
“I wish you had come to us first, dear cousin. You would have made an excellent barrister. Your keen mind and obsession with facts and the absolute need to find justice at any cost, except to the client, would have changed the law in California as we know it. But consider taking this job as one of family duty, especially to Aunt Eliza, your dear mother, without whom your humble cousins would not have gotten an education.”
“Can you fire a pistol?” the young man asked with a face that looked like it was about to laugh. He must have thought I was easy with death, with killing, and liked the domination a firearm can have on the weak. I stiffened. After the war, I had made a vow about firearms. Death follows them everywhere. If that Brit hadn’t pulled that pistol and struggled, he would still be alive today.
“So do you think Hicks still remembers you?” Andrew asked. The moment, the one that bound me to John Adams Hicks, then, back in the Mexican conflict came alive as if it were yesterday. I closed my eyes but the memory bubbled up anyway.
“Dammit Jad! What the hell are you doing? Get out of here!” I still held the smoking pistol, shaking, at our dead captain who had a hole directly in between his eyebrows. Elena, the daughter of a nearby Don, holder of a vast land grant and Jad’s fiancée, beaten and whipped, was weeping and clinging to Jad.
“A.J., you’re shot in the arm, man, put the pistol down! He’s dead. You won. It’s over! He can’t do anything bad anymore—”
“You can fire a pistol? Sir?” Andrew asked me again.
“I prefer not to,” I mumbled, trying to forget the deed I did so long ago, before Hiru, before Japan.
“What do you mean, you ‘prefer not to’?” Andrew frowned, holding his jagged smile. He pointed to my belt. There was a light in his eyes that reminded me of this past.
“It means—” Sweeney tapped the deputy on the shoulder, “he’s a rifleman. Right A.J.?”
No, not a rifle either. Again, the memories came, as if called.
The stench of the body-strewn field made me vomit. I did. My rifle I had reloaded. My pistol was empty. I’d hit three soldados in the stomach trying to get back to the Rancho where Jad had married Elena. I survived the faceless attacks from an enemy that shot back with incredible accuracy and it seemed, with the same weapons. I suddenly saw that these soldados were the men from another unit, out of Texas, masquerading as Mexicanos. It was their captain who gave the order to massacre the Pueblo because he wanted the land. We were to hold position and protect the Pueblo from the Mexican Army takeover. Civilians were to be defended at all costs. That was what my Commanding Officer had said right before he died in my arms. “This war is wrong, Sloan. There is no one to fight…”
Now I saw, as I walked on blood, excrement, and bowel-strewn ground, that I’d shot my own people. Men I bunked and ate with…
Where the hell was Jad? These Pueblo inhabitants were Natives, not enemies. Why kill them? Why?
I made a vow never to fire a pistol or a rifle, ever again. The one I wore in my belt today was a gift from Hiru’s grandfather in Hawaii. I found just holding it as if to fire it, was often enough of a deterrent. Disarming a man hand to hand was the way I fought my battles now. But like the coward I was, I nodded, swallowed hard, sweated, and made fists with my hands again, trying not to shake.
Sweeney smiled and slapped my back. “So you’ll take the job?”
I came out of my hell finally and focused on the papers in front of me.
“Look, I know that Edward and William said I needed to clear my name, but are you sure I have the skills you need to do this job?”
A snort and snicker answered me. Andrew looked at me with disbelief as if I were being given a plate of gold and pushing it away.
Sweeney patted the young man on his shoulder in a way that suggested a familiar relationship.
“Forgive my son, A.J. He wants to go, but I need someone who can speak the language and who can’t be—”
“Anyone locally known. And I’m not exactly considered respectable.” I got up out of the chair and went to the window. I could practically hear my sister Cynthia’s voice telling Sweeney about my marriage to a foreigner, my ‘fall’ from Christian faith, my running away from my responsibilities to the family…
“You do realize that if you are discovered, we can deny your involvement too.” Sweeney said these heavy words with dignity, not slime, as some in my past have often done. I could trust this man with my life, I decided. Turning around I extended my hand.
“Just tell me what to do. My only concern is my son. I want to make sure he is safe from all this.”
Sweeney grabbed my hand and gave me a firm shake.
“Well, just get settled first, then talk to one of our sources in the area. Keep us appraised of the situation by private telegraph whose locations are in Watsonville. We’ve got a contact inside the newspaper there.”
“That and we have a source of intelligence in town. A man by the name of Guild,” Andrew added, grinning like a cat that ate the canary.
“Jonathan Harwood Guild?” I asked warily.
“Your brother-in-law. Actually it’s his wife, your sister, if I might add, who has been a reliable source of information on Confederate movement.” Andrew crossed his arms again. This young man was very smart. Sweeney chuckled.
“Cynthia is rather—”
“She wears the pants in that family, no doubt about that!” Sweeney rang a bell and a Japanese man servant came in with tea. Hiru woke quickly. I could see by the way he went over to the tea tray that he was hungry. The servant gave him a wave and took him out.
“It’s okay,” Andrew touched my arm, which caused me to slide away. Andrew backed off a step, looking confused at my speed. I smiled and nodded. “Nobu is getting him a meal. Has one for you too when we are done here.” I nodded with gratitude. My fatigue suddenly descended upon me like a heavy saddlebag.
I did not look forward to seeing my family swirling in their own stink like flies in an outhouse, lice in their hair, fleas in their homes, bedbugs, and the stench of unwashed bodies in unventilated rooms. I just hoped that Margaret could calm all the ruffled hen feathers I was about to encounter. It was Sophia I feared most. Her hen pecking could best the strongest man.
Another envelope came out from a cabinet next to the window and was handed to me by Andrew.
“Looks like there might be a local businessman, maybe a Confederate contact, with a mine or some sort of factory or—” Andrew started to explain, but I took the envelope with his consent and opened it to see the contents..
“We think someone in the Santa Cruz Township might be involved. Someone who might be in your family.” Sweeney was watching me again. I blinked, not understanding his inference. Andrew pulled out a paper. It was a marriage license. He slid the paper across the desktop to me.
“Your sister, Elizabeth Woolsey, married the County Supervisor just a few days ago.”
Beth didn’t even wait the proper mourning time. Now, I was angry and willing to do what was necessary to solve this case. Beth was a very gentle woman, a kind one, and easily bullied. Her first husband she married because I was off to war, but I didn’t like him. He made fun of her and teased her too often. His death was a relief. I wrote and told her so, something she held against me, and as far as I knew, still did. She wrote and told me that all she had now was Frank, her son. My apologies went unanswered. The money I sent her, however, was taken.
The meaning was clear. Beth had married someone under pressure.
My heart was pounding. I went away for a few years and a war, death, conspiracy, all embraced my family. My father would have said that our pagan beliefs were to blame, or lack of them. Again, the past opened a wound in me.
> “Well, your sister Elizabeth sent her five-year-old son away nine months ago and now is married to—” Arthur checked the license. “John Towne, Supervisor of Santa Cruz County and member of the Odd Fellows Temple.” Sweeney waited as I simply stared at the document. “Could be nothing, but the Odd Fellows are more secretive than the Freemasons.”
“The Masons also have Brethren there, but the two don’t get along,” Andrew added. “If it were me, I’d check them out, if only to eliminate their involvement, and maybe you could convince the guy to help you out. I hear he’s connected to the rich, anyway.”
Andrew had a good point. I would need allies in the township. The family complications were not comfortable. A bad feeling overcame me for a moment.
“Makes you want to start your own secret Brotherhood, doesn’t it?” Sweeney checked his pocket watch. “I’d like to see one dedicated to the very holy act of ale consumption.”
A laugh came out before I could catch it but both men joined me. Levity was needed here.
“I really doubt Beth would marry any man that hated the Union. Our father died for it,” I said, mostly to convince myself.
“Yes, well, that is what we are hoping, but your sister Cynthia has a different belief.” Sweeney gestured to Andrew for another paper envelope. “We took the liberty of collecting your mail.”
I took the stack of letters and saw most, if not all, had been opened.
“What the hell?” I growled, low. Angry.
“It wasn’t us,” Andrew added quickly. “Your cousins held the letters, then opened them up thinking you didn’t survive the massacre at Nagoya.”
I looked away from both of them. Breathed slowly. I flexed my hands. It was understandable. Still, those were for me. No wonder those cousins of mine didn’t have the cojones to greet me at the dock. My private life, being read by strangers. It felt obscene and degrading. Cousins or no, they had no right…or maybe they did. What if my letters had fallen into someone else’s hands? Someone who did not have my family’s best interests at heart? My father’s inner voice calmed me.