Chloe smiles drowsily. “Am I born yet?”
“Nope, just some advance PR.”
Chloe yawns. “The best is yet to come: my close-up in Act III.”
Marlena asks, with a new seriousness in her voice, “Chloe, do you think there is hope for the human race? How do we sirens tackle the evil-minded Hawkers and Browns of the world?”
“Well, it is unfortunate, but bigotry and superstition continue. We take one step forward, two steps back. When Horowitz was growing up in Russia, they thought he was possessed by the devil because of his precocious talents on the violin. On the other hand, humans have managed to legislate an end to slavery and back street abortions.”
“Do you suppose they will ever pull it all together? Put an end to war, for instance?”
As Chloe yawns again, she sprays a mist of particles into the air. They both laugh.
There is a knock on the door, followed by Annie in her chenille bathrobe, bearing a tray of coffee and rolls. She retreats, grumbling about “the of two of yous missing an entire night of sleep…what nonsense.”
“Interesting you mentioned war,” said Chloe. “You have created the perfect transition into the third act of Cassandra's life. Or perhaps you want me to finish another time?”
“Not on your life. In for a dime, in for a dollar. That's the siren way.”
“Good.”
Chloe sits up straighter, adjusts her gown, and takes a preachy tone.
“To understand the enduring appeal of war, we need to look at the way men relate with one another. From a psychological perspective, the jealousy old men have for young men is institutionalized in war. Ten million men died in the so-called Great War—needlessly, from the perspective of some socio-historians. What did it solve?”
Marlena drains the last drop of coffee from her cup. Her eyelids are red-lined and drooping, but she flashes a smile of encouragement at Chloe, who has paused, as she is lost in thought.
“Do go on with your story,” insists Marlena. “I am wide awake now.”
She is curious about the role that war played in Cassandra’s amazing life. Certainly war played a central role in her parents’ lives and by extension her own generation's thoughts. The glories of WWII and the Allied victory over a real-life monster made it difficult for the two generations to communicate on the Vietnam conflict, a topic she and her parents were not able to discuss without getting angry. Austin said he owed everything to joining the service, meaning his wife and daughter. Faith was unapologetically jingoistic, believing all good men and women should consider it their duty to join in the extermination of evil.
Marlena believes war to be as brutish as slavery and back-lot abortions. Perhaps, she thinks, when women take over, they will do away with the last barbarism. She pats her tummy, a gesture which is not lost on the narrator.
Chloe again picks up Cassandra's story, jumping to April of 1917 for the last act of the play…
Chapter Thirty-Six
War Fever
April, 1917
Alta, Wyoming
When the United States entered World War I, war fever and patriotism ran hot in masculine veins, despite mounting death tolls overseas. Movie stars, including Nevada Carson, toured the country selling war bonds, and small-town veterans hawked the virtues of war in building the characters of untested young men.
Through the spring of 1917, in Casper, Wyoming, Homer Lathrop's Private Hospital was holding drills in preparation for invasion. In the northeast district of Wyoming, the general attitude of the elder native sons was expressed this way: “It’s about damn time our youngsters got off their soft arses and became men, like we did.”
In April, a few of the younger men drove over to Rapid City to watch the troops assemble. It was thrilling to watch them march and hear the cadence.
You had a good home and you LEFT, you’re RIGHT
You had a good home and you LEFT, you’re RIGHT
SOUND OFF one two
SOUND OFF three four
One two three four sound off, SOUND OFF!
No one could say exactly what the war was about, except it had something to do with an archduke who got himself assassinated in Sarajevo in June of 1914. The last war in memory had been the Spanish-American War of 1898. There was a plaque on the wall of the church vestibule commemorating the native sons who had died in Havana harbor, along with the famous slogan “Remember the Maine!”
Former Mayor Ted Hawker had been too old to serve in the Spanish-American War, but he had served on the Union side in the Civil War and fought in the Indian-white wars. Now a man of seventy-some years and no longer able to walk far on his own, he still functioned with vigor as an unofficial military conscription arm for Uncle Sam.
By the Fourth of July, Hawker was in top form, holding court at the Plush Horse and buying drinks for the young bucks. His son Thomas—who never married but had sired a brawling, beady-eyed bastard—deposited the Mayor in his wheeled chair.
Thomas sat quietly nearby, waiting to cart the old man home after he concluded his patriotic duty. Between pitchers of beer poured by proprietor Jeannette Thomas, Hawker made sure to speak seriously with every able-bodied man in the bar. He was selling personal honor and one’s duty to country. As he was bitterly aware, there was no chance of recruiting his coward of a son, but he had his eye on a few likely prospects.
Few are better suited to arouse the machismo necessary for young males to enlist in armed services than a bushy-browed, colorful old soldier holding court in a saloon decorated with American flags. Despite the tearful pleadings of mothers, wives, and sweethearts, under such circumstances boys will be drawn to war in droves. By the time Hawker had worked himself hoarse, Fairwell’s oldest son Turk, Sam the gunsmith, and “Dode” Nelson were fairly itching to get overseas and kick some Kaiser butt.
The following day, Caleb Scattergood was listening skeptically to Horatio’s impassioned description of the glorious future in store for him overseas. At the end, he shook his head.
“You have a talented brain, Admiral,” said Caleb. “I would hate to see it splattered all over a cornfield in France because some old coot sold you on a fairy tale.”
“What do you mean, a fairy tale?”
Caleb had to look up to him, because Horatio had sprouted up into a very tall, handsome man. He was nearly thirty and still unmarried.
“Speaking plainly, son, war is hell. It is sheer hell, not a glorious adventure. And when it is not hell, it is boring, which can feel even worse. When you’re not in danger of losing life and limb, you’re marching in black water up to your knees, picking off leeches, and fending off crotch rot. The pay is bad, the food is worse, and when it’s all over, no one even knows what it was about. All goes back to the way things were, minus the young men who died, until the next war breaks out. It is a vicious cycle.”
“The way you talk, maybe there shouldn’t be any wars at all.”
“Well, Admiral, there must be a better way to go about resolving the serious problems in the world. I am what they call a conscientious objector. My mother was a Quaker. She said war is as barbaric as slavery, but so long as it is sanctioned by good men, it will go on. Why we keep on doing it is anyone’s guess, but then it took us pretty near up till now to get rid of slavery. See my point?”
“I guess so,” said Horatio. “Just the same, I will enlist tomorrow.”
Caleb sighed. “What about the other lads?”
“There are two will be signing up for sure. We’ll take the train together for the west coast. I’ll be shipping out from San Francisco. We leave in two weeks.”
“That soon. Well, I’m sorry to hear it. But I wish the best of luck to you. You always have a friend here, and a place to work if you want it.”
“You mean you would hire me again, if I come back?”
“You bet.” He turned away so the young man could not see the tears in his eyes.
Caleb’s pacifism gave pause to Horatio, who admired the ice man above all othe
r men in town. He had also been schooled by Nicholas Brighton, when he was still alive, to be open to all angles on an issue. Caleb’s was an unusual perspective that went against the grain of what the men in town were saying.
Horatio wanted to do the right thing. In a situation like a country’s call to war, where emotions ran high and patriotism was the prevailing force, what should a red-blooded American male do? If President Wilson called forth the nation to defeat an axis of evil, shouldn’t every able-bodied American heed the call? He had thought of being a teacher like Brighton or a businessman like Scattergood, but now, in all the excitement of men going to war, those careers seemed a tepid choice.
Working first in Caleb’s ice business and then in his farm operations had allowed Horatio to live fairly well. He had been able to care for his parents until their deaths. Now he lived alone in a cabin in Corinthus.
There was nothing to prevent Horatio from going to war. His mother was gone, and there was no sweetheart tugging tearfully at his sleeve. His only misgiving was exactly what Caleb articulated, a suspicion that enlisting in a war was not the right thing to do, despite the cultural pressure. Because the multitude was all for it, Horatio wondered if he shouldn't be against it, on principle.
At Mill’s Creek, having dinner with Captain Vye, Horatio sought one more opinion.
“Well,” said the Captain, “I guess it is what I would do if I were your age. I always say it’s good to be part of the military while you are young and foolish enough to have a chance of living through it.”
“They say it will be over in a few weeks.”
“Yes, they always say that. I myself have never seen a war that didn’t drag on for years longer than anyone wanted.”
“Well, thank you for the evening, sir. I better be going on home now.”
As Horatio got up to leave, Captain Vye sensed he wanted something else. It turned out Horatio was thinking of looking up Cassandra when he was in San Francisco. Horatio blushed crimson red as he mentioned his plan, and the Captain repressed a smile. It was plain the strapping man standing in front of him was still in love with Cassandra, who was now a woman of almost forty. How about that? he thought. When it comes to a beautiful woman, there is a damn fool born every minute.
Horatio twisted his hat in his hands. “Do you think Miss Cassandra would remember me?” He didn't say that not a day passed without his thinking of her, that he still wore her locket around his neck.
“Remember you? Of course she would! And be right glad to see you, too. She don’t have any friends around her who are worth anything; only a bunch of girly men and show people. But don't tell her I said that.”
“Have you been to visit her, sir?”
“Oh, gosh no. San Francisco is not a place for me, Dode. I have no more desire to travel. Too old to bother any more, I guess.”
What the Captain did not say, but everyone in town knew, was that his days and nights were now well occupied by a slow-brewing relationship with Jeannette Thomas. He was no longer the lonely widower he had been when his granddaughter fled. The romance between Captain Vye and the female proprietor of the Plush Horse was an established part of the ongoing gossip on at Bottomly's, where amusing speculation flourished as to exactly what the pair might be doing and whether they weren’t too damned old to be doing it. In fact, the old rascal was bedding the inn's proprietor often and well.
While Horatio was getting on his horse, the Captain ran out and gave him a scrap of paper with Cassandra’s Nob Hill address scrawled on it.
“I have never given this to anyone before, but I'm sure she won't mind my making an exception in your case, son. Tell her I miss her, will you? And that I’m not getting any younger, so she needs to come and see me. Her old grandfather is proud of her, no matter what anyone around here has to say!”
The Captain forgot to mention to the lovelorn Horatio that his granddaughter went by a stage name.
Alas, when Horatio arrived in San Francisco, the piece of paper with the address was no longer with him. He had stashed it in a small duffel bag that was stolen while he slept on the train.
The locket he wore on his neck was of no use in locating her either, nor was the name by which he was attempting to find her: Mrs. Cassandra Brighton.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The Bounder
May 25, 1917
San Francisco, California
After days of wild-goose chasing in San Francisco, the young man's high spirits were fading. Horatio Nelson had only two more days left in the States, and he had set his heart on seeing the love of his life before going off to war. But Cassandra was nowhere to be found. This, coupled with all the changes in his life suddenly seemed a lot to bear. He wept in his sleep.
Then, the next day, to lift his depression, he told a whopper of a tall tale to his comrades, about a young woman of great beauty living in San Francisco to whom he was engaged, and how he planned to marry her before he left.
To each other they said, “There goes Mark Nelson again. All talk and no action.”
Mark was Horatio’s first name, after his father. In Wyoming, he had gone by his middle name or as “Dode.” But in the military, each recruit was called out by his first name or his last, and it was no use trying to correct the drill sergeant. Nor did he dare tell the other recruits his nickname was “Dode.” That would be tantamount to committing social suicide. The young man had grown used to being called Mark Nelson, and that is how he introduced himself when asking around for Mrs. Cassandra Brighton at various places on Nob Hill.
No one knew a Cassandra or a Brighton. Cassandra's tony neighbors only knew her by her stage name of Nevada Carson, a name that Horatio had never heard.
Until this frustrating juncture, the Wyoming native had found military life agreeable. He could handle regimentation well, and there was a code of valor under pressure that suited him. He was not a natural-born leader, but Private Mark Nelson was an adept follower. It turned out that he was also adept at storytelling. He could fabricate an amazing story on almost any subject, much to the amusement of his comrades-in-arms.
His buddies exploited this characteristic, mercilessly stringing him along and pretending to believe every detail in the exaggerated versions of the tales he told, only to confront him later on with embarrassing gaps in the truth of those details, which often made him the butt of jokes.
And now the icing on the cake, the hilarious matter of the mysterious San Francisco fiancée. She was an angel and crazy about him; he would be seeing her every day prior to shipping out. His buddies pretended to believe him for their own purposes, and now with the hour of departure approaching, they were looking forward to an amusing payoff.
The word went out Mark Nelson must produce a paragon by the eleventh hour, or else forfeit his status as a cowboy lothario.
In a moment of true folly, the young man went so far as to name a place and a time when they would all meet his fiancée.
He promised to deliver the goods at Jim’s, a soda fountain they all frequented down by Pier Nine, just past the Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. The date would be two days prior to shipping out, and the time would be six o'clock.
On the appointed day, five soldiers were wandering around Union Square. As the clock struck three, the tall, auburn-haired soldier started going through the motions of hailing a cab, in the pretense that he was about to round up his fiancée, for the big meet-up later at the soda fountain.
“Hey, Mark,” one of his pals called out as he stood on the curb, signaling with his thumb. “Give the lady a wet tongue down the throat for me, will ya?”
“For you? No, but I’ll do it twice for me!” he shouted back. He waved and gave a thumbs-up. He could see the fellas winking and nudging each other, guffawing at his pretense of having a beautiful girl holed up in this rip-roaring city.
“Hey, lover boy!” yelled a redheaded swaggerer they called Tiger. “Produce the gorgeous tomato by six o’clock at Jim's, or you owe me a fiver.”
He grimaced obligingly and gave the thumbs-up. “We’ll be there!” he yelled back, and then added with a final flourish of bravado, “unless we’re in there.” He pointed at the gold dome of City Hall looming ahead. “I'm thinkin' of a-gettin' hitched!”
“Prove it with papers, Nelson,” Tiger shouted, “and I’ll fork over a tenner!”
“Deal!”
A cab was coming from City Hall just then. Horatio extended his thumb and the cabbie applied his brakes, coming to a shrieking stop beside the soldier at the curb. Horatio reached down to open the door. Then he saw there was someone already in the back seat of the cab.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said to the cabbie. “I didn’t realize your cab was occupied.”
The cabbie jerked his thumb backwards. “Get in the back, soldier. The lady’s good fer it. Thinks it’s her patriotic duty to git you wherever it is you’re wantin’ to go.”
“Yes, sir! Well, thank you very much.”
All legs and arms, Horatio stumbled into the back seat of the cab. He then turned to thank the lady. His head swiveled, then froze in position, while his eyes goggled at the femme fatale draped there, swathed in boa feathers. She held a cigarette aloft in an elegant holder, and the smoke swirled alluringly around her perfectly coifed platinum hair and stunning face. She was simply the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
She wore her hair in a long platinum bob that was tucked behind one shell-shaped ear, revealing a sweet earlobe dripping in diamonds. The startlingly beautiful features of her face were angelically curved, with high cheekbones, a lovely nose and smoldering, cat-like topaz eyes. The loveliness of her flesh was provocatively hinted at with a delicately strapped ankle here, a bare shoulder there. In her white satin sheath, glittering headband, and white boa, she projected the misty aura of a goddess.
With amused eyes, the lovely woman who lolled in the back seat of the cab slowly examined the soldier's lean face and gaping jaw. Smoke from her French cigarette curled into his face. Horatio coughed, but continued simply to stare in mute stupefaction.
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