by Bob Mayer
“You must be Skull,” the tall man said, sticking out a powerful hand.
Skull took the handshake, feeling the squeeze and returning it as hard as she could with her callused hand. “Forrest.” She recognized the fat man. “Father Declan. It’s been a while.”
“Ah, now lass, I’m no longer with the church,” Declan said. “I found my faith lagging and thought it best to move on with me life. Whatever happened to the pretty young thing that was with you in Banquete?”
“Why you asking?”
“Ah, she was quite the blossoming flower—“ Declan began but Forrest waved a hand, cutting him off as he turned to the man between them. He gripped the back of the man’s neck. The man gasped as Forrest lifted him to his toes.
“Found out this piece of horseshit has been stealing from me,” Forrest said. “Running a loose table in the gambling parlor and skimming the take.”
The man started to protest but Forrest silenced him by smacking him in the face with his other hand, drawing blood from a split lip.
“I’m a fair man,” Forrest said, his focus on St. George and Skull. “But I’m not a man to be crossed.” He tossed the thief to the deck. “Fair means you get a chance to fight. That’s the law of the river.” He gestured at Declan. “Give him your knife.”
Declan pulled a foot long knife from his belt and tossed it to the man. Forrest reached to his own waist and drew the heavy cavalry saber. It was unusual, sharpened on both sides, so he could slash in either direction with equal effect.
“That aint fair!” the man protested.
“It’s as fair as a thief gets,” Forrest said. He raised the saber and the man scrambled to his feet, the knife held with trembling hand.
“Please, Mister Forrest, I swear on my mother I aint ever again going to—“ he didn’t get a chance to finish as Forrest swung the heavy saber. The razor sharp edge caught the man in the neck and passed through skin, muscle and bone easily, separating head from body.
The momentum of the strike threw the head out into the darkness, to splash into the dark waters of the Mississippi. The body fell to its knees, blood spurting from a still beating heart, then crumpled onto the deck.
“You think maybe his eyes still seeing?” Forrest mused as he wiped the saber off on the man’s coat. “Maybe his head’s drowning while his body’s still bleeding?” He stepped over the body and grabbed a crate. He slid the saber back in its scabbard and took a seat. Declan joined them.
“Mister Forrest, this here St. George Dyer,” Skull said.
Forrest shook St. George’s hand. “Y’all know what the fools in charge got planned for the cotton?”
“Do now,” St. George replied.
Forrest grabbed the bottle without asking. “So what do you have planned?” he asked Skull.
“New Orleans will soon be out,” Skull said. “So we run cotton north and south overland through Mexico.”
Forrest seemed bemused. “North? To the Yankees? We’re at war.”
Skull shrugged. “There’s plenty who don’t care about the war except how they can make some money.”
“Like you,” Forrest said.
“Like me,” Skull agreed.
“You don’t support the cause?” Forrest asked, arcing one thick eyebrow in query.
“The cause will need money,” Skull said.
“True,” Forrest said. “And guns and medicine and a lot of other gear those smart boys in the capitol haven’t thought about yet while they’re busy waving the flag and pounding each other on the back about how honorable they be.” Forrest turned to Declan. “You can get guns, right?”
“Yes indeed, sir,” Declan said. “From Europe and up through Mexico. Rifled muskets, cannon, powder and ball. Expensive though,” he added, almost apologetically, but not quite.
“Of course,” Forrest said dryly. “Everything’s going to be expensive soon. I want enough weapons to outfit my own regiment.”
“Certainly,” Declan said. “I have a shipment of muskets moving up river two days behind as we speak.”
“Rifled?” Forrest asked. “Good quality? Won’t blow up in my men’s face when they pull the trigger?”
Declan hesitated, eyes shifting to the still warm body. “Perhaps a week before I can get a proper shipment to you, kind sir?”
“A week,” Forrest confirmed. “And we’re going to need as many cannon you can get your hands on,” he continued. “The Yankees make most of the weapons. There isn’t a forge this side of the Appalachians that can turn out large guns in any quantity in the Confederacy, except maybe in Nashville, and that’s a couple of rivers away.”
“Consider it done, good sir,” Declan said. “And I assure you, the quality will be the best.”
Forrest stared hard at Declan. “Some say you were the one who got those muskets John Brown used. You travel far.”
“I travel where I’m needed, sir,” Declan said.
“Who you really work for?” Forrest asked.
“My avarice,” Declan said.
“Well, that’s something that can be counted on more than most things,” Forrest acknowledged, but he didn’t sound convinced.
“There’s something else to be done,” Skull said.
“And that is?” Forrest asked.
“We won’t be able to get everything you need through Mexico. Some things, it would be best if we went right to the source.”
“And you have a plan for that.” Forrest made it a statement.
“By the time Jeff Davis and those others figure out their self-blockade aint gonna make the Brits or Frenchies move,” Skull said, “Union ships will be doing the job.” She glanced at St. George before turning her attention back to Forrest. “We can run cotton north, but we can also send cotton overseas ourselves and get top dollar. Get in return those things people are gonna be wanting.”
“How?” Forrest asked. “You just said the ports will be sealed by Yankee boats soon.”
“Blockade runners,” Skull said. She pointed at Declan. “That’s where he comes in. He got the connections in England. They can build ships. Fine ships.” She turned back to Forrest. “You have the money to pay for the ships. I’ll make sure you get your investment back and more. And, you’ll be helping the cause. And whoever you really be working for,” she added to Declan.
Forrest nodded. “I approve.”
“I’ll get working on my part,” Declan said. “I do indeed know some English fellows who build fast ships.”
St. George had been fidgeting, on the periphery of the conversation and the plans. “I want to fight. Let me join your regiment, Mister Forrest.”
Forrest shook his head and spoke before Skull could. “No. We need you to keep the cotton growing and moving, both north and south.”
“But-“ St. George began, but Forrest cut him off, placing a hand on the overseer’s arm. “And we need you to stay in the Natchez area, keep the nigras in their place. All the fancy men going to be riding off to war. We need you to do the hard work you always been doing. The dirty work. But now it’s more important than ever. Some of those nigras are going to be getting ideas in their heads. You need to destroy those ideas.”
“I can do that,” St. George said.
“Good,” Forrest said.
“But I need a favor in turn,” St. George said.
Forrest crossed his arms. “Yes?”
“You right about the fancy men riding off to war. Militia be forming up. The young master of my plantation, he going to be leading the local boys from Natchez. Once they in the army, they get sent where they ordered, right?”
“That’s the nature of an army,” Forrest said.
“I hear a big fight brewing in Virginia. Send ‘im there. You got that kind of pull?”
“Consider it done.” Forrest stretched his back out. Then picked up the bottle and took a deep drink. “Killing is thirsty work.” He extended the bottle to Sally Skull. “And tell your man back by the paddlewheel to lower that rifle and come on over
and join us for a drink.”
“Gabriel!” Skull called out.
St. George was incensed. “What she doing here?”
“She’?” Forrest was amused.
“My daughter’s with me, nothing strange ‘bout that,” Skull said as Gabriel came out of the dark shadow of the starboard paddlewheel, un-cocking a Spencer carbine. She slid the short rifle around to her back on a leather sling. Like her ‘mother’, she packed a pistol on each hip. She wore dungarees, a calico shirt and ornately engraved leather boots with metal tips, which upon closer inspection proved to be tiny skulls forged out of silver. She had a black felt slouch hat pulled low over her eyes, her hair pulled tight in a bun under it.
“She always cover your back?” Forrest asked Skull.
“She does.”
Forrest held out his hand for the Spencer. Gabriel hesitated, looking to Skull for permission. She nodded and Gabriel handed the carbine over.
Forrest looked at the rifle. “Interesting. How many cartridges does it hold?”
“Seven round tube,” Gabriel said. Her voice was cool and low, neither male nor female.
Forrest held it out to her. “Fire two rounds for me.”
Gabriel took the rifle, threw it her shoulder, cocking the hammer en route and fired, indicating there had been a round in the chamber. She charged the lever around the trigger, extracting the expended shell, loading a new one from the tube under the barrel. She fired. All within two seconds.
“Impressive,” Forrest said. He looked at Declan. “Can you get me these?”
“Well, dear sir,” Declan said, “they are made in the north.”
“So? She got one. And,” Forrest added, “you got Northern connections since you shipped those Sharps Bibles to old John Brown, right?”
“I will do the best I can,” Declan promised.
“You can work both sides,” Forrest said to Declan. “It’s the nature of fellas like you. I can’t change that. Just don’t ever be working direct against me. You got to make a choice, you make it in my favor. Clear?”
“Indeed, sir. Your point has been driven home.”
Forrest stood up, ending the meeting. “We dock at Natchez in the morning. Go our separate ways. But let me tell y’all something. You saw what I do to thieves. I know y’all are going to make money. But don’t go too far. Deliver what’s been promised. The Cause comes first.” He slapped his hand on the hilt of his saber. “Always!”
11 June 1861, St. Louis, Missouri
Elijah Cord reached out and gently removed the just-delivered shot glass from Ulysses S. Grant’s hand. “Not now, Sam.”
“I’ve tried to re-enter the service in vain,” Grant said, not protesting the alcohol disarming. “I must live and my family must live. Perhaps I could serve the army by providing bread. I did that quite well in Mexico. Surely there are some who remember that. I was a good quartermaster.”
The two West Point classmates were seated in a hotel lobby in Cincinnati; a wall removed from a bustling street where volunteer soldiers wandered to and fro, many of them drunk, with an occasional courier dashing by as if on an important errand. Cord sat facing the entrance, Grant across from him.
“What have you been doing?” Cord asked.
“Inducting regiments. I’ve helped train a few. But nothing permanent, nothing with a future.”
“Who have you petitioned for a commission?” Cord wore his buckskins. His long rifle was leaning against the wall behind him. He kept one eye on Grant and one eye on the door. Grant wore mufti, his clothes patched and dusty, a soft black hat that had seen better days resting on his head.
Grant’s jaw tightened. “McClellan commands here. A major general. Can you believe that? I’m older and I ranked him when I was in the Army.”
“Sam, you haven’t been in the Army for a while,” Cord said. “What the devil happened?”
Grant’s head drooped. “I resigned. Back in ’54. They had me in the loneliest place a man could be. On the northern California coast. Fort Humboldt. Half a country from Julia.”
“And?” Cord pressed.
Grant looked down at the amber liquid in the shot glass, then up at Cord. “You don’t imbibe any more?”
Cord shook his head. “Haven’t had a drop in years.”
“Why not?”
A haunted look passed over Cord’s face. “The price is too high when I imbibe.”
Grant sat back in the rickety chair. “You know the spirits have always been cruel to me. They thought I was hiding my drinking at Humboldt. I didn’t hide it. It was the same as it had been at Benny Havens, which means not much, but with ill effect. I just couldn’t stand the loneliness. Being out there, doing nothing, missing Julia.”
Cord remained silent, waiting.
Grant continued. “I was sick for a while. Then McClellan came through on some mission of exploration to the Pacific Northwest. To find the best route through the Cascades to Seattle. I fulfilled all his requisitions, but you know him—“ Grant paused—“or perhaps you don’t. A man who spends his time on the details and cannot see the larger picture. I believe he was behind it. My commander gave me a choice. Resign or face court-martial. I wanted to be with Julia more than I wanted to fight a court-martial although many urged me to.”
“Then why come to McClellan for a commission?” Cord asked.
“Where else to go?” Grant said.
“Fremont has been assigned to command the Department of the West,” Cord said.
“I don’t know Fremont,” Grant said, “and he’s said to inimical to West Pointers. Plus he has not yet arrived to take his command. They say he tarries in the east making political connections and won’t be here for weeks.”
“That’s the Fremont I know,” Cord said. “Don’t worry, once he gets here, I’ll get you squared away. The problem is, he won’t be here for a while and you can’t be sitting around as a civilian that long. We’ve got to get you a command.” Cord gestured to a passing waiter. He put the full shot glass on the man’s tray and ordered coffee. “So you resigned. Tell me what happened next.”
“I came east to Julia.” Grant gave a bitter laugh. “I wasn’t certain she would take me back. I made it to New York City on a loan. Then Simon Bolivar Buckner, you remember him, class of ’44, on the Vigilance Committee, helped me in New York until my father wired money to settle my debts.”
“I remember Buckner,” Cord said. “And Nathaniel Lyon. They say he saved St. Louis from going to the Secessionists.”
“And killed a group of civilians in the process,” Grant said. “I will not go to him for a commission either even though he currently commands the Army of the West awaiting Fremont.”
“You’re awfully particular, Sam.”
Grant shrugged. “My father tried to reverse my resignation by writing the war department. But old Jeff Davis accepted it as Secretary of War and would hear no more of the matter. And now,” he said, coming full circle, “no one will have me.”
“What of our friends?” Cord asked. “I know Rumble is still at the Academy. Sergeant of the Horse.”
“I haven’t spoken to him in years.” Grant pulled himself out of his misery. “How is Lil ‘Ben? I imagine he isn’t so little any more”
“I went to Palatine as soon as I crossed the Mississippi,” Cord said. “Things are grim there, but Mrs. Rumble assured me that Ben is safely ensconced in Theological School and would be traveling abroad before I would have a chance to make it to the east coast to see him. Did you know he entered the Corps briefly?”
“I did not,” Grant said. “What happened? Why is he not still in gray?”
“Rumble and Delafield conspired to have him removed. Turns out Lidia extracted a deathbed promise from Rumble to never allow him into the Corps. Turns out Lidia was smarter than any of us, because the Corps, even now, still has whispers of what happened so many years ago and treated Ben like an outcast. Another thing that I can add to my long list of regrets in life. But since he is safe for now,
that’s why I am here and not there.” Cord didn’t want to discuss his own affairs any more. “What of Pete Longstreet?”
“Ole Pete went with his state,” Grant said simply.
“We’ll miss him in the days ahead,” Cord said.
“We will miss him,” Grant agreed. “He was best man at my wedding. Who’d have thought it would come to this?”
“Cump Sherman then?” Cord asked as he thought of dark prophets. “I talked to him in San Francisco when he was lawyering. His brother is a senator.”
The waiter came by and slid two barely warm mugs of coffee onto the scarred table in front of the two men, snatching up Cord’s dollar, accounting for both the untouched whiskey and the coffee.
“I saw Cump in late ’57 in St. Louis,” Grant said, eyes losing focus as he remembered. “I’d failed once more. Failed at farming. Told Cump that and he said West Pointers make poor farmers, merchants, mechanics and bankers. Cump’s lawyering days in San Francisco didn’t turn out well either. Then he was down in Louisiana, teaching at a military school, something he was more adept at. When the secess demanded he turn over the arsenal, he refused and came north. He passed through St. Louis not long ago, heading east. He has connections in Washington. His brother is indeed a Senator. I heard he got command of a regiment of volunteers.”
“Then ask him for help,” Cord said.
Grant shook his head. “I decline to receive endorsement for permission to fight for my country. I won’t play politics. I’m a soldier. That should be enough.”
“What should be and what is are often two very different things,” Cord said.
Grant focused on his classmate. “Are you the same Elijah Cord I last saw in Mexico City?”
Cord allowed a slight smile. “Thirteen years on the frontier can change even the most obstinate fellow. I went through a little addition by subtraction.” The smile faded. “I saw things.”
“Apparently,” Grant said.
“It’s a long story for another time and place,” Cord said. “I agree with you about the politicians. Too many men are seeking a commission to gain fame so they might further their future political agendas. What did McClellan say to you?”