Call Each River Jordan

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

I had put on my uniform again.

  “Stay close to the river,” Raines told me. “Your people are a few miles along. There’s an outpost where the trail forks.”

  The morning cool was frail and the day would burn. The birds had taken asylum in the trees, leaving the sky an unmarred blue, deep and clean. I remember the river and the sky, and the leaves heavy with a month’s rain and sun.

  Raines had eyes as pure as that sky, though they were brown not blue. But there was a different quality to his look now. Twas slight, but you would know it. He bore the taint of someone who has seen more than the common run of men. By the end of the war, many would carry that look. Or a worse one. But let that bide.

  He was not ready to part from me, for the heart wants resolution. We like a proper ending to our stories, although the wonder is how we continue.

  “I trust you will greet Mr. Barnaby for me,” I said. The Englishman was recovering from his wound in a country house renowned for the wealth of its larder.

  Raines nodded. A lone bird called and careened. Swooping over the river. My companion sighed.

  We all lack words to say the things we mean.

  “Look after yourself, you hear?” he said. Staring across the river, not at me.

  “And you,” I answered. “Do not confuse foolishness and duty.”

  He looked down to where his hands reposed on leather. “I don’t like thinking of you . . . over there.” His fingers struck me as peculiarly delicate that morning. Gesturing northward, he said, “It’s a troubling business, this war.”

  “As all wars are, Lieutenant.” I reached into the pocket of my tunic and brought out my little Testament. His old friend’s book was still in my saddlebag, see. This Donkey Hotie, as it is pronounced. Raines would not take it, and I dared not abandon it, though it was a novel and dubious. For books are jewels far finer than the diamond. So, I would make us even, and still more.

  I held out my present to him. Twas stained, but the words were pure.

  “Look you,” I said. “Take this for good luck.”

  He weighed it in his hand. Young and lovely foolish he was. For he valued the gesture more than the Scripture itself. But he would have time to see his way, if war did not consume him.

  “Thank you,” he said, with a smile. “I’ll keep it by.”

  He thought my spirit simple. Well, if it is, I count that as a blessing. I would be simpler still, if only I could.

  Twas hard to part. A great war stretched before us, and soon it would close between us again.

  We spent another moment judging the river. Past a bend, above the treetops, black smoke stained the day.

  “One of your gunboats, no doubt,” Raines said, tucking the Testament in a pocket. “We’re a good ways from the Jordan.”

  I held out my hand. He buttoned the book away and leaned toward me. His grip was fine, but firm.

  “Perhaps, it isn’t very far at all,” I told him. “If only we had sense enough to see.” I broke our handshake, for duty must be done. “Now I must go and give them my report. General Halleck will want to know as much as your Beauregard.”

  “After the war, then. You come on down here. As my guest.”

  It was his way of saying, “Do not die.”

  “I am a bad penny,” I assured him, “and will turn up. You look to your safety, Lieutenant Raines. Remember that rashness profits no man.”

  I thought he would ride off. Instead, he reached inside his tunic and drew out a letter. Twas neatly folded and sealed.

  Holding it toward me, he said, “Please. Take this.” A smile he wore, but a wistful thing it was. “I wish you could deliver it in person, but I suppose that’s unlikely. She needs to know about Billy. Send it on to her. Please. When you get back North. I give you my word there are no military secrets in—”

  I raised my hand to tut him. Above the muddy river, the smoke thickened.

  “I will see it is delivered,” I said. “Now go on with you. Before the gunboat comes and makes a fuss.”

  “I’m beholden to you, Major.”

  “We are all beholden.”

  He smiled, all youth and warmth and possibility. Bright as the day of a sudden. The look of him would have softened Caesar’s heart and turned a very Hector from his spear.

  With a snapped salute, Raines tore off his hat then turned his horse and slapped it. He galloped off. A smile lingered where the dust had risen. Approaching a grove, he waved a last time and let out a “Rebel yell.”

  I turned northward, singing out a hymn.

  THE MEMORY OF THE PORTRAIT let me spot her. Playing at mallets and balls she was, upon a lawn that led down to the sea. She looked a chastised queen, like Scottish Mary. The balls she tapped might have been worlds she ruled.

  I called to her from the edge of the game, but the breeze was brisk and northern. It rinsed my words with salt and swept them off. So I intruded, though with great reluctance. Young swells, who should have been in their country’s uniform, shot me looks they might have given a beggar. Newport drew the gentry, see. And though the mansion where she stayed was not so grand as those that would rise later, twas fine enough to mock all thoughts of equality.

  At first she seemed to think I was a servant, my uniform a livery. I will admit I do not look distinguished, although I keep my buttons polished up.

  When I made her understand I bore a letter from Raines she paled. Lifting a hand to her mouth. The wind robbed her hair of its order, teasing her eyes. Wide they were, and blue with a hint of purple. Have you ever seen a girl with lilac eyes?

  She took the letter. At first, she held it gingerly. As if it were alive and threatened harm. Then she mumbled a pardon—she who was so proud and clear of speech—and hurried off. Unsteady she went, and it wasn’t the wind that swayed her. Waving off inquiring looks, she hastened to a bench above the sea, Twas on a little bluff. I thought of Shiloh. Although this was a thousand miles away, and cool, and orderly, as better folk insist.

  I took me off a little ways to a painted iron chair beneath an arbor. It was a welcoming place to sit, with the smell of the sea all clean and flowers for sweetening. I meant no further intrusion upon her, but felt that I must linger. In case poor Mrs. Barclay had a question. For she was made a widow unexpected, and well I know how little letters tell. She might be anguished over a trifle that could be explained in a word. I had come far, and might bide half an hour.

  I sat on the chair and watched the gulls and the boats out in the chop. It was a bracing place after the Southland. Twas a world I understood. Despite the wealth about me, I knew the rules. I am a Northern man, see.

  White sails scooped the wind and hulls danced over the gray-green sea. I watched them until I was half mesmerized. But I could no more escape my memories than could the young woman with the letter in her hands.

  Halleck had been harsh and, I thought, foolish. If you will permit my judgement of a superior officer. He asked me questions then answered them himself. He did not listen. But glad enough the general seemed that all had been resolved, saving him the need to make decisions. He scorned the South in each regard, and had no taste at all for Negro matters.

  Grant was subdued and sad. Halleck paid him no respect. I felt Grant’s service might be at an end.

  Sherman raged that Micah Lott had fooled him. And that the world was not as it should be. Born to fight, he was. And fight he would. Who could see how far that rage would take him? Or that he would break slavery’s back himself?

  I did not see my dear friend Mick Tyrone, for he was sent with patients to St. Louis. I left a letter.

  Washington had been squalid with the spring. McClellan promised a great campaign in Virginia, all flanking maneuvers by sea and strategic lines, but Mr. Lincoln feared it would come to nothing. My friends were glad to see me and I them, although dear Mrs. Schutzengel was dismayed that her revered Herr Marx did not think the time yet ripe for the convention she had proposed. Now she was unlike to go to London to change the world. Of course, she had
a boarding house to run and pies to bake. I still doubted Molloy’s fitness for marriage, but I stood up by his side and didn’t he grin? I did it for Annie Fitzgerald’s sake, you understand.

  I hoped I might go back to my clerking duties in the War Department. It was the one thing I was fit to do. But first I begged a parole of Mr. Nicolay, Mr. Lincoln’s private secretary, to take the letter north to Mrs. Barclay.

  On the way, I snatched a Sunday with my beloved in Pottsville. One day with her is a decade with Helen of Troy. Although I won’t compare her with a pagan, for she’s a chapel woman to the bone. My only sadness was my little son. Oh, John was in fine health and walking proud, and he had his mother’s intelligence. But he was growing up in his father’s absence and I seemed queer to him. It nearly broke my heart. War breeds cruelties far from the fields of battle.

  Other matters prospered. I bought a few more shares of railroad stock. Already, there were gains on my initial purchases. Evans the Bags at the bank was pleased as punch. For a Welshman does not mind a tidy profit. And he had developed beneficial relations with a correspondent on the Philadelphia exchange out of the business. The collieries prospered under the war’s demands, though the Irish miners were truculent, and my Mary Myfanwy’s dressmaking venture drew so much society trade she could not answer it all, but must hire on a girl fresh over from Galway. The lass was clever and clean.

  I had one golden day at home. And a silver night fit for polishing in the memory. Nor do I mean that indecently.

  Monday morning, seated in the railroad car, I read a newspaper to staunch my tears. Officers must not weep before the public, see. For there are those who would not understand. Before the train reached Hamburg, I found sorrow in a society report.

  Olympia Cawber, the young wife of Mr. Matthew Cawber, industrialist and financier of Philadelphia, had departed this earth. Her illness was unspecified, for high folk think the flesh a shameful thing, and she come of a great family. I recalled Cawber’s letter and its mention of an indisposition. Who can foresee the moment after next? The poor man loved his wife with great ferocity.

  Let that bide.

  At last, I got me to Newport. It seemed a splendid place to me, although its glory days were just beginning. Naval fellows were on the town like lice, but the Good Lord put serpents in Eden and we must learn to take the good with the bad. I had learned through telegraphic communications that Mrs. Barclay had gone to her summering early, see. I had not hinted at the note I carried or the sorrowful matters I had witnessed. Her family assumed I was pursuing a legal matter to do with her illstarred marriage. And I suppose I was.

  Now I sat and waited. White clouds rolled in and pressed down on the gulls. I filled my lungs. But my eyes kept returning to Mrs. Emily Barclay. She sat with the iron posture of a sergeant. Staring off across the inlet. As if awaiting a verdict. And yet I knew the verdict had been returned.

  She did not fuss. Nor act the least bit unseemly. I was too far away to read her features, but sensed that her weeping had been brief. She looked as controlled as a well-drilled company. Utterly unmatched to the Southron temper she was.

  What had she dreamed would come of such a marriage?

  I felt a man’s impulse to go to her. But that would have been the impertinence of a peasant tugging at the elbow of an empress.

  I sat and waited.

  The game on the lawn broke up. It held no allure for the players once their queen was gone. Indeed, the other women seemed her handmaidens. And the men were as slight as the cloth of their summer suits. I caught one fellow looking back toward her. But even he knew better than to approach. She sat with the letter clutched at her waist, staring into the past. Or the future.

  Twas then I realized I had been forgotten. I am the sort of man her kind forget.

  I would have slipped away, leaving behind a note with the name of my inn, had the commotion not erupted.

  A fellow in a Navy uniform come racing through the gardens. Now I must tell you: Such folk do not run. They dress up finely, sailing officers do, and barely lift a finger. As if they were aristocrats commissioned. But this fellow was fair galloping on his pins. Hat waving in his hands like a signal flag. And shouting he was like a madman.

  Then I heard his first distinctive words.

  “Major Jones,” he shouted. “Major Abel Jones . . . can anyone tell me—”

  This would never do. It was indecorous. And we must leave the widow to her grief.

  I got me up and waved my cane, prepared to bark him down if he failed to see me.

  Barking my name again he was, when his eyes found me at last. It took him long enough, and I pitied the crew at sea when he kept the watch. An enemy ship would be on him before he noticed.

  He hushed, for which I was grateful, and slowed from a run to a trot. Closing on me, his pace broke to a walk. Red and out of breath he was, for sailors don’t like effort.

  “Major Abel Jones?” he asked. Looking down at me doubtfully. I do not aspire to naval elegance, see.

  Up the lawn, by the covered porch, the leisured folk had paused to watch our doings. For a rich woman is as curious as a peddler’s wife.

  “I am Major Jones, sir,” I assured the fellow.

  “Thank God,” he said. Now that is another thing. These sailing folk have no proper religion and use the Lord’s name vainly without cease. And I hear tell they have improper habits.

  Nor did I know what to call the fellow, for naval ranks are queer and I can’t read them. The braided devil neglected to introduce himself, but only said:

  “I have a telegraphic message for you. From . . . it’s from the President’s office. I had to get my code book out.” The fellow was fair cooking with excitement. “We’re to sail at once. My ship’s at your disposal . . . England . . .”

  “May I see the message, sir?”

  That flustered him the worse. He blundered through his pockets. Fishing the paper out at last, he placed it in my hand.

  Twas from good John Nicolay, Mr. Lincoln’s secretary:

  aj. Report immed C. F. Adams U. S. minister London. USS Hammond your disposal. Waste no moment. Agents murdered unknown hands. Confed involvement feared. Conspiracy. Danger, jn.

  HISTORY AND THANKS

  ALL AUTHORS OWE MORE DEBTS THAN THEY CAN recompense, but an immediate payment in prose is due to Fred Chiaventone, former cavalryman and author of two fine novels of the American frontier, A Road We Do Not Know and Moon of Bitter Cold. Although we share the experience of soldiering and an interest in the human realities of our national past, Fred’s abundant knowledge shames mine. His critical reading of this novel—especially of Abel’s description of Shiloh—gave the tale a generous burnishing. The tarnish that remains is mine alone.

  As for that national history of ours, I am a fundamentalist. I believe the Civil War formed the America we know, modernizing our country and destroying the imperial legacies of human bondage and a landed aristocracy. The cause of the war was slavery. And the sin of slavery haunts us to this day. I hope our new century will, at last, finalize the justice a great war enabled and a spoiled peace delayed. Our progress has been mighty over these last decades. But our journey is not finished. The Jordan is in sight, yet we cannot reach its banks without our brothers.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE, 2012

  I’M EXCITED ABOUT THE RE-PUBLICATION OF THE “BY Owen Parry” series of Civil War mysteries and am grateful to Stackpole Books for undertaking it. The novels featuring Abel Jones have attracted a cult of followers, and the most frequently asked questions I field as I travel and talk on other subjects are versions of “When’s the little Welshman coming back?” While I hope to add new books to the series in the future—after fulfilling other writing commitments—I’m glad Abel’s able to huff and puff and pontificate through these first six novels again. His character was always a joy to write.

  Call Each River Jordan opens with a gritty account of the battle of Shiloh and then sends our hero southward into the red-dirt hills that, early in
the next century, would become the realm of Faulkner. It was my first chance to write about the Deep South, a land as mysterious to the Northern-born as Assyria or Sheba. I had served in the South as a modern-day soldier (becoming intimately acquainted with that red dirt . . .), and my first collision with that rich, exotic—to a Yankee—culture came in a mess hall when I helped myself to a big scoop of oatmeal one morning. It was, of course, grits—a delicacy that I have come to love (don’t spare the butter, salt, and pepper, health be damned!). So it was a great lark to have a go at both the myths and the historical reality in a land so grandly hospitable that even our stern and straitlaced hero, Abel Jones, tucked in with gusto.

  It’s become a truism that “the South never smiled after Shiloh,” but I hope the reader will smile at the down-home ruckus attending Abel as he preens his way through the countryside that one day will host Bayard Sartoris and Flem Snopes.

  —Ralph Peters, aka Owen Parry, March 2, 2012