by Tony Masero
“That’s mighty civil of you, Zack,” James said it with a look of surprised gratefulness on his face. “I don’t believe anyone has ever put themselves out on a limb like that for me before in my entire life.”
He was grimacing in pain but Zack was struck by the sincerity behind the words. “We’ll make it,” he promised. Lifting the sagging body up, Zack took James’ good arm over his shoulder and they struggled on at a limping pace.
By evening after a long day they were both near collapse and when they came to a solitary cabin in the woods Zack was eager to get inside not caring who inhabited the place. He set James down and with the Enfield cocked made his way towards the run-down shack. He had lost direction during their run through the forest and had no idea where they were but his prime concern was to get out of the cold night and rest before they both perished.
Quietly, he made it to the porch and could see through a chink of sack curtain that there was the soft glow of an oil lamp inside. He could smell wood smoke and the prospect of a warm fire at his cold feet reinforced his resolve. He slipped the latch and with the rifle held before him pushed the door open.
A young woman sitting before an open fire spun around as she felt the draught on her back.
“Wha…!” she gasped, her eyes widening in terror.
Zack stepped into the single room cabin and could see that the woman was alone. She was a pretty looking girl, not more than twenty or so, with brown hair tied back carelessly and dressed in clothes that were frayed and had obviously seen some hard wear but once upon a time had been fine garments of quality, that much Zack could tell in a single glance. His eyes quartered the room cautiously but he could see nothing harmful except poor furniture and signs of poverty.
“What do you want?” the woman squeaked.
“Are you alone?” Zack asked.
“My…. My husband. He’ll be back any minute,” she said but Zack could see the lie in her eyes and no ring on her finger.
“I mean you no harm, ma’am,” he said to calm her. “My friend and I are lost in the woods and nigh on dead of cold. We just need some time to get warm and rest some. I’m real sorry to bust in on you like this. But we’re desperate.”
The woman bit her lower lip nervously. “I have nothing here,” she said. “There’s nothing to eat.”
“That’s alright, ma’am. If maybe we could sit awhile by that fire there. That’s all we need.”
“Well, I don’t know….”
“My name’s Zachary Endeavor, ma’am. I apologize for intruding but like I say, we’re desperate out there. My friend’s like to die he don’t get inside.”
“I guess there’s not much else I can say, you have the gun,” with her words Zack knew she was softening a little at his politeness.
“Look here,” he said. “I’ll lay down my rifle, just so you know I speak the truth when I say we mean no harm.” He rested the rifle up beside the door. “I’ll go and get my friend.”
When he staggered back with a barely conscious James she had taken the rifle and was pointing the heavy weapon in his direction.
“You….” She stuttered wildly. “You get out of here. You’d best leave me alone.”
Zack shook his head. “Might as well pull that trigger, lady. We’re dead either way. Out there or in here, either way it don’t matter.”
“You’re Federals aren’t you?” she was struggling to hold the heavy gun and her aim weaved under the weight.
“I’ll just set my friend down here,” said Zack, lowering James onto a rough homemade wooden chair. Totally exhausted, James promptly slumped forward onto the table in front of him and lay still.
“What are you men? Where did you come from?”
Her voice was not that of a country girl and Zack surmised that once she had been a southern woman of education.
“I’ll not lie to you,” he said tiredly. “We’re escaped from Libby Prison.”
Her heard the baby then, a slow whining complaint from a corner of the room. The woman looked around abruptly, her gaze swinging from Zack to the child then back again.
“Put down that rifle before you drop it,” advised Zack, nodding at the gun. “Go see to your child, it’ll be all right, I promise.”
“You won’t hurt us?” she asked desperately as the child’s cries mounted.
“Lady, I’m so danged tired I couldn’t lift a finger to defend myself even if a Johnny Reb armed with a feather duster walked in here.”
Her face lightened a fraction, a slight smile playing on her lips. She laid the rifle on the floor and hurried over to a cot in the corner and picked up a baby bundled in a poor blanket. She cooed over the child affectionately, trying to pacify it.
“He is yours?” Zack asked.
“She is,” the woman corrected. “My man is lost to us and this poor mite is now alone but for me. I’m sorry,” she said quickly, as if suddenly recalling her manners. “My name is Mary Hardy.”
“And the little one?”
“That is Prudence.”
“A fine child, Mrs. Hardy. But what are you doing alone out here in these wild woods.”
Mary sighed and said with some vehemence, “I am, sir, cast out of my home.”
“For want of battle activity, ma’am?”
“No,” she looked away sharply, was silent for a moment and then glanced down at the child. “For other reasons.”
“I see,” said Zack, understanding immediately that the baby had probably been born out of wedlock.
“Your husband is lost to you then?” he asked quietly.
“That is what he would have been had he survived,” she admitted.
“I see,” said Zack. “Then I am truly sorry for your loss.”
“It is the way of war, I suppose,” she said somberly, rocking the baby gently in her arms. “My father, you see, is a zealously religious man. He did not see it as I did, as a joy to be doted on. To him it was an act of abomination and so he threw me from my mother’s embrace and from my home.”
“That must have been hard on a woman just delivered.”
“It was indeed. There is little of succor out there right now as you probably know and I walked many miles before stumbling on this hovel. I had a small sack of provisions to tide me on my way but now that is almost entirely gone.”
“We have a little,” Zack admitted. “You are welcome to share.”
“Thank you, Captain…. It is captain, isn’t it? Thank you, Captain Endeavor. You are kind to offer when you have so little.”
“I wonder Mistress Hardy? My friend, poor James, is sorely wounded. Will you take a look at him? I fear I am a clumsy surgeon and am unsure if I have done him the best.”
She looked across at the sleeping James and nodded, “I am no nurse but will do what I can.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“Now, sir. If you will oblige me, will you turn away and allow privacy as I have to feed the child?”
Zack nodded agreement and turning his back, lay down on the beaten earth floor before the fire. He stared into the flames and before long his eyelids grew heavy, his head drooped and he slept.
Chapter Four
Boston – 1876
It was a troubled Zack Endeavor who called on his fiancé that evening.
After a long conversation with the Secret Service agent Caleb Smith he had sat long into the approaching hours of darkness pondering on what they had discussed. As the evening wore on it was Williams coming in with a lighted lamp that had woke him from his reverie.
“You will be staying late, sir?” asked Williams, well used to his master’s long hours.
“No, not tonight,” said Zack, brushing aside his thoughts and rising from his desk. “I am to see Mistress Isabel. I shall leave you to lock up, Williams. There’s no more to be done here today.”
“Very well, Mr. Endeavor. I’ll see to it.”
“Have my coach brought around, will you?”
As Zack was driven through the streets of Bos
ton he noted the energy of the place and it did something to dissipate his concerned thoughts. Bands of tired and grubby Irish laborers filed through the streets, their shift at the Roxbury landfill site over for the day. Soon that entire area would be filled and the annexed land would allow more room for the city’s expansion. With a busy seaport exporting rum, fish and tobacco to the world and the canals allowing many more mills to open inland, the town’s population of 180,000 was set to rise even higher. Already the railroads had allowed the burgeoning manufacturing centers to extend their increasing trade in garments and leather goods across the country.
It was a city on the climb and he was glad to be a part of the place. It filled him with hope for the future and he looked forward to forgetting Caleb Smith for the moment and to be with Isabel making plans for their future together in such a successful climate.
The Columbine family was one of the elite families of Boston, the so-called ‘Brahmins’ and as such they were a part of the wealthy city leaders who owned a controlling influence in the town and their home represented that status. As part of a terraced row of similar town houses it was a five-storied, tall and narrow structure with three gabled windows in the sloping slated roof and a buttress of bowed windows in front beside the steps leading up to the impressive front door. The brown brickwork out front was covered with a manicured growth of ivy that gave the building a considered aura of gentile antiquity.
Zack had his carriage wait as he ran up the steps to the door and knocked.
Isabel was reprimanding when he was shown into her presence. She was quite a beautiful woman, with night-dark hair and mellow seductive eyes that had attracted Zack from their first meeting. She was wearing a fashionable tea gown, and this robe de chambre was an elaborate item with much lace and frills and a little overdone to Zack’s eye. Although normally a matron’s gown, Isabel wore it in deference to her often-older companions and yet she could somehow manage to look good in anything she wore.
“Where have you been, Zachary?” she scolded. “You know we are to Mr. Wendell Holmes tonight. He has completed his new translation of Dante’s Divine comedy and it is said that his associate the great poet, Mr. Longfellow will be there as well for the presentation. We are late, it is already a disaster.”
Zack smiled at her discomfort. “They never start on time, as you well know,” he said. “There will be all the preamble and chatter before things get under way. We have plenty of time. Besides there is something I must discuss with you first.”
“It never does to be late, my dear,” she chided. “Once you are a member of the family you will understand. Certain things are expected of us. We have a position to maintain.”
“Come,” he said. “Let me kiss you, you know you look stunning, particularly when you are all of a flutter.”
“Oh, stop it,” she said as he took her in his arms. “The maid….”
But he stilled her complaint with a kiss and she surrendered and threw her arms about his neck and returned his kiss with her own fervor.
“I can’t wait,” she breathed. “Until we are married.”
“It will be soon, my love. I promise.”
“Well then,” she pushed him away in a false show of pique. “What is this important matter you wish to discuss?”
Zack went across to the unlit fireplace and lent against the marble, his finger playing with the glass face of a decorative ormolu clock resting there.
“I had a visitor today,” he paused, deciding how best to go on.
“Oh, yes?”
“He has brought me a problem from the past. It is difficult to explain as I am sworn to secrecy on the matter but it will mean I shall have to take a trip.”
“Where and for how long?”
“Neither of which I can divulge. I’m sorry, Isabel but it is an issue of some importance so my visitor informs me.”
“Oh dear, Zachary. I have quite a social calendar planned for us. It’s most inconvenient, can’t you put it off until later?”
“I’m afraid not, it’s a matter of pressing urgency. Believe me I would rather not go, I can tell you this much. I am to journey into wild frontier country. It will be uncomfortable and unpleasant, probably dusty, dirty and insufferably hot as well.”
She frowned, “Sounds awful.”
He could see her mind was already far away, re-planning her schedule and deciding on just how to make excuses for his absence. Sometimes, Zack tired of all the social activities that Isabel arranged. Most of them he found exceedingly boring and usually involving gentry many years in advance of himself. He suffered it all on Isabel’s behalf but the prospect of their married years attending such soirees did not appeal particularly.
He demurred to her on most things though and if he were honest with himself he found that his self-depreciation irked him and caused a certain irritable restlessness within. Despite this, he found Isabel a beautiful and lively creature and he foresaw that their life together would be a passionate and loving affair and for that matter he was willing to suffer the often inconvenient and sometimes tiresome tedium of her socializing.
There was also the question of her late father’s investment in his law firm. The General, a rather overbearing and conservative fellow before his sudden death a year before, had offered the arrangement on the understanding that Zack would marry Isabel and had implied, in a not very subtle manner, that the money he offered represented a dowry of sorts and that instead of an interest in the firm it would be Isabel that should benefit from any shared income the business made.
Zack had taken the onus placed on him to heart and agreed to the deal, even though at the back of his mind there was always an uneasy sense of resentment at being manipulated in such a manner. It was the way of things with the ‘Brahmins’. They added much to the town in respect of culture and charity but beneath the beneficent exterior they were a tribe of hardheaded businessmen who usually had their own interests at heart.
Isabel flounced into a chair and gathered the long train of her skirt about her. “Well,” she sighed. “I don’t know. It’s all going to be very awkward, you understand?”
“You’ll manage,” he said, thinking in reality that where he was going it was more likely to be a darn sight more awkward for him than her.
Why had James settled there? He wondered. In Texas, of all places. Why, it was no more than dust and savages down there. A wild place with little going for it but vast herds of cattle and the rough men that managed them. And they were indeed regular bands of desperadoes if all he had heard was true. He had better go armed, he suddenly realized.
Isabel broke into his thoughts. “Are you listening to me, Zachary? I declare you are miles away.”
“I’m sorry, my dear. It’s true I was already planning the trip in my head. You were saying?”
“When do you leave? Will we have time to attend on Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright for tea tomorrow before you go?”
He shook his head. The Cartwright’s! Oh God, No! That bumptious mill owner and his florid wife who was also an insatiable gossip and troublemaker, it would be unbearable. Already the arid deserts of Texas were beginning to take on a rosier shine.
“I’m afraid not. I have a meeting early tomorrow and must take my leave right away.”
“Are you sure you cannot fit it in?” she said, looking at him beseechingly. “Facing Mrs. Cartwright alone is an awesome task.”
“Then why do you organize these things with these sort of people when you know it will be such a bore?”
“Oh, Zachary. You really do not understand the way of things here, do you? Not even after all these years. The Cartwright’s are related to Mayor Gaston’s family and Mr. Gaston, I have it on good report is shortly heading for the State Senate. It is an entrée. If we are to be invited to his ball this year, this is the way we approach it. You know, you really are going to have to get the trick of this. Once we are married I want us to move amongst society at the highest level, it can only benefit you in your law firm. With suc
h connections you shall go far, I’m sure. Who knows? One day it may be you who sits in a senator’s chair.”
Zack could see she was her father’s daughter and wondered how many true friends she had amongst her many acquaintances. Every human connection she made seemed to have an ulterior motive behind it without any thought given to genuine affection or concern. It put him in mind of his comrades in the army again, so many of them lost now but they had held a genuine friendship for each other. One, it was true, forged in the heat of battle but valid none-the-less and probably richer and truer for it.
At such times he understood how the war had changed him. It had left him with something of a solitary loneliness and the fripperies of Boston society did little to fill the hollowness he felt. Perhaps, he considered, the trip away would be a good thing after all. Some time in the open spaces with rowdier companions might blow away some of the stuffiness he encountered here or at least give him a fresh eye on things. Who knew? It might even make him more grateful for what he had here, the promise of a beautiful wife and a thriving business in a city bulging with prospective wealth. He was, he thought, being particularly stupid to resent the prospect.
“Oh, look at the time,” said Isabel. “We really should go or it will be all over.”
With any luck, thought Zack miserably as he flicked the offending timepiece with his fingernail.
~*~
Zack arrived at his place of business next morning to be met by a distressed Williams, who jumped up from his clerk’s desk the minute Zack walked into the outer office.
“I’m sorry, sir, but he just would not listen,” Williams bleated, wringing his hands. “I could do nothing to stop him.”
“Who?” said Zack. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“The man in your office, sir. He just walked right past me. I tried, believe me, Mr. Endeavor. But he is…. um, quite forceful.”
Zack looked at his closed office door for a moment. “Very well, Williams. I’ll see to it. I have some luggage in the carriage, will you bring it in, please?”