“He’s a good artist,” Starbuck said, trying to keep his voice toneless.
Sally was standing over him. “Ethan says he’s going to take me away one day. Make me a real lady. He said he’d give me pearls, and a ring for my finger. A gold one. A proper ring, not like this one.” She reached out her newly beringed finger and stroked Starbuck’s hand, sending a jolt like lightning straight to his heart. She lowered her voice into something scarce above a conspiratorial whisper. “Would you do that for me, preacherman?”
“I’d be happy to teach you to read, Mrs. Decker.” Starbuck felt light-headed. He knew he should move his hand from beneath that stroking finger, but he did not want to, he could not. He was captured by her. He stared at the ring. The letters cut into the silver were worn, but just legible. Je t’aime, they said. It was a cheap French ring for lovers, of no great value except to the man whose love had worn it.
“You know what the ring says, preacherman?” Sally asked him.
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
He looked up into her eyes and immediately had to look down again. The lust was like a pain in him.
“What does it say, mister?”
“It’s French.”
“But what does it say?” Her finger was still on his hand, pressing lightly.
“It says ‘I love you.’” He could not look at her.
She laughed very softly and drew her touch down his hand, tracing the line of his longest finger. “Would you give me pearls? Like Ethan says he will?” She was mocking him.
“I would try.” He should not have said it, he was not even sure he had meant to say it, he just heard himself speaking, and there was such a sadness in his voice.
“You know something, preacherman?”
“What?” He looked up at her.
“You’ve got eyes just like my pa.”
“I do?”
Her finger still rested on his hand. “I ain’t real married, am I?” She was no longer teasing, but was suddenly wistful. Starbuck said nothing and she looked hurt. “Would you really help me?” she asked, and there was a genuine note of despair in her voice. She had abandoned her flirtation and had spoken like an unhappy child.
“Yes,” Starbuck said, even though he knew he should not have promised such help.
“I can’t stay up here,” Sally said. “I just want to be away from here.”
“If I can help you, I will,” Starbuck said, and knew he was promising more than he could deliver, and that the promise came from foolishness, yet even so he wanted her to trust him. “I promise you I will help,” he said, and he moved his hand to take hold of hers, but then she jerked her fingers away as the cabin door opened.
“As you’re here, girl,” Truslow said, “then make us some supper. There’s a fowl in the pot.”
“I ain’t your cook any longer,” Sally complained, then dodged aside as her father raised his hand. Starbuck closed the Bible and wondered if his betrayal was obvious to Truslow. The girl cooked, and Starbuck gazed into the fire, dreaming.
Next morning Thomas Truslow gave his house and his land and his best leather belt to Robert Decker. He charged the boy only to look after Emily’s grave. “Roper will help you with the land. He knows what grows best and how, and he knows the beasts I’m leaving you. He’s your tenant now, but he’s a good neighbor and he’ll help you, boy, but you help him too. Good neighbors make for a good living.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Roper will be using the saw pit these next days. Let him.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the belt’s for Sally. Don’t let her be your master. One taste of pain and she’ll learn her place.”
“Yes, sir,” Robert Decker said again, but without conviction.
“I’m going to war, boy,” Truslow said, “and the Lord alone knows when I’ll be back. Or even if.”
“I ought to be fighting, sir. It ain’t right that I can’t fight.”
“You can’t.” Truslow was brusque. “You’ve a woman and a child to look after. I’ve none. I’ve had my life, so I might as well spend what’s left of it teaching the Yankees to keep their thieving hands to themselves.” He shifted the tobacco wad in his cheek, spat, then looked back at Decker. “Make sure she looks after that ring, boy. It belonged to my Emily, and I ain’t even sure I should have given it to her, except that’s what Emily herself wanted.”
Sally stayed in the cabin. Starbuck wanted her to come out. He wanted to have a few moments with her. He wanted to speak to her, to say that he understood her unhappiness and that he shared it, but Sally stayed hidden and Truslow did not demand to see her. So far as Starbuck could tell Truslow did not even bid farewell to his daughter. Instead he selected a bowie knife, a long rifle and a pistol, and left the rest of his weapons for his son-in-law. Then he saddled a sullen-looking horse, spent a few private moments at the grave of his Emily, and afterward led Starbuck toward the ridge.
The sun was shining, making the leaves seem luminous. Truslow paused at the ridge’s crest, not to gaze back at the home he was leaving, but rather to stare east to where the land lay bright and clean, mile after mile of America, stretching toward the sea and waiting for the butchers to begin its dismembering.
PART TWO
DUST SIFTED THE AIR ABOVE RICHMOND’S CENTRAL FAIR Grounds. The dust was being kicked up by the eleven regiments that were marching and countermarching on the massive field that had been abraded free of every last blade of grass, then pounded into a fine powder by the endless exercises of drill that Major General Robert Lee insisted inflicting upon the recruits who came to defend the Confederacy. The reddish brown dust had been carried by the wind to settle on every wall, roof and hedge within a half mile of the Fair Grounds so that even the blossoms of the magnolias that edged the site seemed to have been dulled into a curious pale brick color. Ethan Ridley’s uniform was powdered with the dust, giving the gray cloth a fleshlike tinge. Ridley had come to the Fair Grounds to find his plump and myopic half-brother, Belvedere Delaney, who was mounted on a sway-backed piebald horse, which he sat with all the elegance of a collapsing sack as he watched the regiments march smartly past. Delaney, though in civilian clothes, saluted the passing troops with all the aplomb of a full general. “I’m practicing for when I join the army, Ethan.” He greeted his half-brother, showing no surprise at Ridley’s sudden appearance in the city.
“You’ll not join the army, Bev, you’re too soft.”
“On the contrary, Ethan, I am to be a legal officer. I invented the post myself and suggested it to the governor, who was kind enough to have me commissioned. I shall be a captain for the moment, but I shall promote myself if I find that rank too lowly for a man of my tastes and distinction. Well done, men! Well done! Very smart!” Delaney called these encouragements to a bemused company of Alabamian infantry that was marching past the applauding spectators. A visit to these Fair Grounds was a popular excursion for the citizens of Richmond, who now found themselves living in the new capital of the Confederate States of America, a fact that gave especial pleasure to Belvedere Delaney. “The more politicians there are in Richmond then the greater will be the corruption,” he explained to Ridley, “and the greater the corruption, the greater the profit. I doubt we shall ever compete with Washington in these matters, but we must do our best in the short time God grants us.” Delaney bestowed a beatific smile on his scowling half-brother. “So how long shall you be in Richmond this time? I presume you will be using Grace Street? Did George tell you I was here?” George was Delaney’s manservant, a slave, but with the manners and demeanor of an aristocrat. Ridley did not really like the supercilious George, but he had to put up with the slave if he was to use his brother’s rooms on Grace Street. “So just what brings you to our fair city?” Delaney enquired. “Beyond the charms of my company, of course.”
“Cannon. Two six pounders that Faulconer discovered in Bowers Foundry. The guns were supposed to be melted down, but Faulconer’s bought them.�
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“No profit for us there, then,” Delaney said.
“He needs ammunition”—Ridley paused to light a cigar—“and limbers. And caissons.”
“Ah! I hear the soft chink of dollars changing hands,” Belvedere Delaney said with delight, then turned to watch a regiment of Virginian militia march past with the fine precision of shuttles on a mechanical loom. “If all the troops were as good as that,” he told his half-brother, “then the war would be as good as won, but my Lord, you should see some of the rabble that turns up wanting to fight. Yesterday I saw a company that called itself McGarritty’s Mounted Lincoln Killers, McGarritty being their self-proclaimed colonel, you understand, and the fourteen mudsills shared ten horses, two swords, four shotguns and a hanging rope between them. The rope was twenty feet long, with a noose, and more than adequate for Abe, they told me.”
Ethan Ridley was not interested in the rarer breeds of southern soldier, but only in the profits he might make with his half-brother’s help. “You’ve got six-pounder ammunition?”
“In lavish quantities, I’m afraid,” Delaney confessed. “We’re virtually giving the round shot away. But we can certainly make an indecent profit on the canister and shell.” He paused to touch his hat to a state senator who had been avid for war before the first guns fired, but who had since discovered a lame leg, a crooked back and a troublesome liver. The invalid politician, propped up with lavish cushions in his carriage, feebly raised his gold-headed cane in response to Delaney’s salute. “And I can certainly find some limbers and caissons at a wicked profit,” Delaney went on happily.
His happiness was occasioned by the profits that stemmed from Washington Faulconer’s insistence that not one boot or button be bought for his Legion from the state, which obstinacy Delaney had seen as his opportunity. Delaney had used his extensive friendships within the state government to buy goods from the state armories himself, which goods he sold on to his half-brother, who acted as Washington Faulconer’s purchasing agent. The price of the goods invariably doubled or even quadrupled during the transaction, and the brothers shared the profits equally. It was a happy scheme that had, among other things, brought Washington Faulconer twelve thousand dollars’ worth of Mississippi rifles that had cost Belvedere Delaney just six thousand dollars, forty-dollar tents that had cost sixteen dollars, and a thousand pairs of two-dollar boots that the brothers had purchased for eighty cents a pair. “I imagine a gun limber must cost at least four hundred dollars,” Delaney now mused aloud. “Say eight hundred to Faulconer?”
“At least.” Ridley needed the profits far more than his older brother, which was why he had been so happy to return to Richmond, where he could not only make money, but also be free of Anna’s cloying affections. He told himself that marriage would surely make things easier between himself and Faulconer’s daughter, and that once he had the security of the family’s wealth behind him he would not so resent Anna’s petulant demands. In affluence, Ridley believed, lay the solution to all life’s griefs.
Belvedere Delaney also liked affluence, but only if it brought power in its wake. He checked his horse to watch a company of Mississippians march by; fine-looking bearded men, thin and tanned, but all armed with old-fashioned flintlocks like the ones their grandfathers had carried against the redcoats. The coming war, Delaney hoped, must be brief, because the North would surely wipe away these enthusiastic amateurs with their homely weapons and gangling gait, and when that happened Delaney intended to realize an even larger profit than the paltry dollars he now made from equipping Washington Faulconer’s Legion. For Belvedere Delaney, though a southerner by birth and breeding, was a northerner by calculation, and though he had not yet become a spy he had quietly permitted his friends in the northern states to understand that he intended to serve their cause from within the Virginian capital. And when that northern victory came, as it surely must, then Delaney reckoned that the southern supporters of the legitimate federal government could expect a rich reward. That, Delaney knew, was a long view, but holding the long view while all around him fools gambled their lives and property on the short gave Belvedere Delaney an immense amount of satisfaction. “Tell me about Starbuck,” he suddenly asked his brother as they walked their horses about the Fair Grounds perimeter.
“Why?” Ridley was surprised by the abrupt question.
“Because I am interested in Elial Starbuck’s son.” In truth it had been thoughts of southerners supporting the North and northerners fighting for the South that had made Delaney think of Starbuck. “I met him, did you know?”
“He didn’t say anything.” Ridley sounded resentful.
“I rather liked him. He has a quick mind. Much too mercurial to be successful, I suspect, but he’s not a dull young man.”
Ethan Ridley sneered at that generous assessment. “He’s a goddamn preacher’s son. A pious son of a Boston bitch.”
Delaney, who fancied he knew more of the world than his half-brother, suspected that any man who was willing to risk his whole future for some strumpet off the stage was probably much less virtuous and a deal more interesting that Ridley was suggesting, and Delaney, in his long drunken meal with Starbuck, had sensed something complicated and interesting in the younger man. Starbuck, Delaney reflected, had immured himself in a dark maze where creatures like Dominique Demarest fought against the virtues instilled by a Calvinist upbringing, and that battle would be a rare and vicious affair. Delaney instinctively hoped that the Calvinism would be defeated, but he also understood that the virtuous aspect of Starbuck’s character had somehow got under his half-brother’s skin. “Why do we find virtue so annoying?” Delaney wondered aloud.
“Because it is the highest aspiration of the stupid,” Ridley said nastily.
“Or is it because we admire virtue in others, knowing we cannot attain it ourselves?” Delaney was still curious.
“You might want to attain it, I don’t.”
“Don’t be absurd, Ethan. And tell me why you dislike Starbuck so much.”
“Because the bastard took fifty bucks off me.”
“Ah! Then he did touch you to the quick.” Delaney, who knew the extent of his half-brother’s greed, laughed. “And how did the preacher’s son achieve this appropriation?”
“I wagered him that he couldn’t fetch a man called Truslow out of the hills, and goddamn it, he did.”
“Pecker told me about Truslow,” Delaney said. “But why didn’t you recruit him?”
“Because if Truslow sees me near his daughter, he’ll murder me.”
“Ah!” Delaney smiled, and reflected how everyone created their own tangled snares. Starbuck was enmeshed between sin and pleasure, he himself was caught between North and South, and his half-brother was snagged on lust. “Does the murderer have cause to kill you?” Delaney asked, then took a cigarette from a box and borrowed his half-brother’s cigar to light it. The cigarette was wrapped in yellow paper and filled with lemon-scented tobacco. “Well?” Delaney prompted Ridley.
“He has cause,” Ridley admitted, then could not resist a boastful laugh. “He’s going to have a bastard grandchild soon.”
“Yours?”
Ridley nodded. “Truslow doesn’t know the baby’s mine, and the girl’s been married off anyway, so all in all I came out smelling like rosewater. Except that I had to pay for the bitch’s silence.”
“A lot?”
“Enough.” Ridley inhaled his cigar’s bitter smoke, then shook his head. “She’s a greedy bitch, but my God, Bev, you should see the girl.”
“The murderer’s daughter is beautiful?” Delaney was amused at the thought.
“She’s extraordinary,” Ridley said with a genuine tone of awe in his voice. “Here, look.” He took a leather case from his top uniform pocket and handed it to Delaney.
Delaney opened the case to find a drawing, five inches by four inches, which showed a naked girl sitting in a woodland glade beside a small stream. Delaney was constantly astonished at his half-brother’
s talent which, though untrained and lazily applied, was still startlingly good. God, he thought, poured his talents into the strangest vessels. “Have you exaggerated her looks?”
“No. Truly no.”
“Then she is indeed lovely. A nymph.”
“But a nymph with a tongue like a nigger driver and a temper to match.”
“And you’re done with her, yes?” Delaney enquired.
“Finished. Done.” Ridley, as he took back the portrait, hoped that was true. He had paid Sally a hundred silver dollars to keep silent, yet he had remained frightened that she would not keep her side of the bargain. Sally was an unpredictable girl with more than a touch of her father’s savagery, and Ethan Ridley had been terrified that she might appear in Faulconer Court House and brandish her pregnancy in front of Anna. Not that Washington Faulconer probably minded a man fathering bastards, but whelping them on slaves was one thing and having a girl as wild as Truslow’s daughter screaming her outrage up and down the main street of Faulconer Court House was something entirely different.
But now, thank God, Ridley had heard how Sally had been married off to her straw-haired puppy-boy. Ridley had heard no details of the wedding, nothing about the where or the how or the when, only that Truslow had sloughed his daughter off onto Decker and given the couple his patch of stony land, his beasts and his blessing, and by so doing he had left Ridley feeling much safer. “It’s all turned out well,” he grunted to Delaney, yet not without some regret, for Ethan Ridley suspected that he would never again in his life know a girl as beautiful as Sally Truslow. Yet to lie with her had been to play with fire and he had been lucky to have emerged unscorched.
Belvedere Delaney watched a pack of recruits trying to march in step. A cadet from the Virginia Military Institute who looked about half the age of the men he was drilling screamed at them to straighten their backs, to keep their heads up and to stop looking around like mill girls on an outing. “Does Colonel Faulconer drill his men like this?” Delaney asked.
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