Then on top of that there was the fact that both of them slept till noon every day, drank whenever the mood took them, fought like cat and dog every half hour on the hour, and every night, rain or shine, went on a round of the Manhattan gambling joints, returning in the small hours, noisy and, as usual, drunk. There had been complaints from the neighbors, threats to call the police, black looks on the street. Clover Hill was considered to be a very nice class of place to live in New York. People didn’t take kindly to drunks falling about in the street at three in the morning, swearing at cab drivers, shouting and singing. Decent folks needed a good night’s rest. They all had to work the next day.
Of course to say something like that to Travis was about the equivalent of waving a cape at a fighting bull: he’d go after it just for the hell of it. The more folks complained, the more Travis jeered at them. Finally, one of them took a swing at him. Drunk as he was, Travis had beaten the man to a bloody mess and left him unconscious in the street. He laughed when they protested and told the policeman who came to the door that if he didn’t take himself off, damned if he wouldn’t give the patrolman some of the same treatment.
They’d managed to calm things down before the patrolman sent for a paddy wagon and had Travis locked up but, as Abby told Sam, it was only a matter of time before he did something else.
‘Well, what the Hell can we do, Abby?’ Sam said vexedly. ‘He’s our son, after all!’
Well, she thought, but wisely held her tongue. ‘Sam, he’s a man grown. He can’t freeload off you forever. He eats your food, drinks all your whiskey, comes and goes just as he damned well pleases, and you don’t seem to give much of a damn, one way or the other.’
‘Abby, Abby,’ Sam said. ‘What can I do? You know what Trav is like. That mean streak of his—’
‘You’re afraid of him!’ Abby interjected, suddenly realizing what it was.
‘No,’ Sam said. ‘Of course not!’
‘You are!’ she insisted. ‘My God, Sam! I can’t believe it!’
‘I couldn’t fight him, Abby,’ Sam said. ‘If it came to a fight, I – couldn’t hit him.’
‘God damn you, Sam Strong!’ Abby said. ‘You mean you’re leaving it to me?’
‘He’ll listen to you, Abby. He respects you. The girl does too.’
‘Her,’ Abby said scornfully.
‘I’ve seen the look on her face,’ Sam insisted. ‘She likes you.’
‘Be that as it may, Sam, I don’t like her. And I don’t like the way they’re treating our home.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I want you to tell them to go, Sam.’
‘I … Hell, Abby, isn’t that a bit harsh? They got no place to go.’
‘Then let them find someplace!’ Abby snapped. ‘I’m sick and tired of being treated like a skivvy in my own house!’
‘Don’t yell at me!’ Sam said. ‘He’s your son too, don’t forget!’
‘I’ll yell all I damned well please!’ Abby said, raising her voice. ‘I feel like yelling!’
‘And what the Hell do you think that’ll solve?’
‘It doesn’t have to solve a damned thing!’ Abby shouted. ‘It just makes me feel better!’
‘What’s the matter, Ma?’ Travis had come into the room without either of them hearing him. Abby jumped at the sound of his voice.
‘Do you have to sneak around the damned place like an Indian?’ she squalled. ‘You like to made my heart stop!’
‘Didn’t want to interrupt you,’ Travis grinned. ‘It sounded like a real good fight. Didn’t it, Lulu?’
‘Sure did,’ Louise said, coming in from the hallway. ‘What’s all the ruckus about, Abby?’
‘You want to know?’ Abby said, storm signals flying. ‘You really want to know?’
‘Abby,’ Sam said warningly.
‘Let me guess,’ Travis said, with that goading grin of his. ‘You were arguin’ over whether you love me better than Louise.’
‘Love?’ Abby snapped. ‘What did you ever know about love?’
‘Only what you taught me, mother dear,’ he sneered. ‘You—’
‘Hell, Abby, don’t let him get you riled up like that,’ Louise said, trying to mediate. ‘He’s just mean-mouthed, that’s all.’
‘If he is, he learned it from you!’ Abby retorted.
‘Hey!’ Louise said. ‘What did I do?’
‘Would you care for a list?’ Abby said sweetly.
‘Well, shit!’ Louise said in disgust. ‘Listen, you ain’t no day at the beach yourself, you know that?’
‘You little slut!’ Abby said getting to her feet, ‘I’ve had all your lip I’m going to take. I won’t stand for any more of it!’
‘What you gonna do, Ma?’ Travis grinned. ‘Sock her?’
‘Get her out of my house!’ Abby said, every trace of her anger leaving her. Her voice and eyes were as cold as pack-ice and there was no mistaking the sincerity of her meaning. ‘Get your slut out of this house!’
‘Louise is my wife, Ma!’ Travis said and there was a dangerous edge to his voice now. ‘Be careful what you call her!’
‘What could I call her,’ Abby said, ‘that she has not been?’
‘What she was before don’t matter!’ Travis said, raising his voice. ‘What she is now, does. Louise is my wife and I demand that you accept her on that basis!’
‘Demand?’ Abby snorted. ‘You don’t demand anything from us, young man! You have never in your life brought a penny piece into this house, so you have no right to demand anything. Especially to demand that we close our eyes to this … creature.’
‘Listen, Travis,’ Louise said. ‘Don’t fight no more. Let’s—’
‘No, goddammit!’ Travis said. ‘This is my home. I’m entitled to live here. I don’t have to ask permission!’
‘Nobody said otherwise, Trav,’ Sam said placatingly. ‘What your mother means—’
‘I’ll tell him what it means!’ Abby blazed. ‘Since it’s plain as a pikestaff you won’t, Sam Strong. I won’t have this, you hear me? If she stays, then I go! It’s that simple!’
‘And that’s it?’ Travis said. ‘You’re making all the decisions, is that the size of it? God Almighty again, eh Ma?’
Abby said nothing, just glared at her son. She was hating herself for saying the things she was saying and yet no power on earth could have prevented her from doing so.
‘Listen, Travis, come on,’ Louise said. ‘We don’t want to stay if we’re not wanted.’
‘I thought you’d stand by me!’ Travis said bitterly. ‘I thought that was what your parents were supposed to do.’
‘We’re trying to, Trav,’ Sam said. ‘You’re not making it any easier.’
‘You agree with her?’
‘Your mother and I—’
‘Don’t give me any of that “your mother and I” crap! I don’t want no sermons!’
‘Come on, Travis,’ Louise’s voice was harder now. ‘Let’s get the Hell out of this place.’
‘Yes, get the Hell out of here!’ Abby said. ‘And the sooner the better!’
‘You going to let her do this, Pa?’ Travis said, tears of rage in his eyes. ‘You going to let her turn us out into the streets?’
‘That’s where she belongs, isn’t it?’ Abby regretted the words the moment she had uttered them. Travis looked at her, a vein throbbing in his temple. There was a wild light in his eyes.
‘If you were a man,’ he said softly, ‘I would have killed you for what you have said tonight.’
‘Is that your reply to everything?’ Abby said. ‘Killing?’
‘You’ll see there are all sorts of ways to do that,’ Travis said, and his very control made Abby uneasy.
He grabbed Louise’s hand and dragged her out of the room. Two hours later they were gone.
Nineteen – The Story of David Strong
August 1862
I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t manacle me, David thought, as they marched
him across the square from the lockup and into the courthouse. It was a nice day, already shaping up to be hot. They said there had been a big fight down around Slaughter’s Mountain on August 9. That was pretty damned close to Culpeper. The word was that Stonewall Jackson had whipped Johnny Pope’s army yet again, and now they were moving north. Jed would be with them; it would be good to see the boy again. Have to tell him about shipping the broken sword and the Bible to Sam, David thought. It was damned strange. Half the time he was living in the South and disbarred from communicating with the North. He could write to Jed but not to Andrew or Sam. When the Federals occupied the town he was disbarred from any contact with Jed, but it was perfectly all right to send letters to his brother and to Andrew, serving with Grant in Tennessee. No damned sense to any of it, he thought, so no point in trying to make sense of it.
The courthouse stood on the corner of West and David Streets, a blend of the Georgian and Classical Revival styles of architecture. There had been talk of building a cupola on top of it before the war but that had been set aside until better times. His escort led him inside. David was surprised to find that he did not feel nervous, not anything. This whole trial business was something he could not bring himself to take seriously. It was like taking part in some child’s play-game. You did it only to indulge the child, as David was doing this now only to indulge the military. Surely to God they did not think to hang a man for doing what he had done?
There were seats in rows inside the courtroom, but no audience, unless you counted a couple of stone-faced infantry privates with rifles grounded at the door. David sat down next to Major Darby and looked up at the bench. What would be in the minds of the men who sat there? What would his fate mean to them? On the right of David’s place was another table, at which sat Edward Maxwell. He glowered as David’s eyes met his: he looked intense and angry.
‘That’s the prosecutor,’ Darby said. ‘Captain Maxwell.’
‘I know him,’ David said. ‘He hates my guts.’
Darby looked startled. ‘You should have told me,’ he said.
‘Would it have made any difference?’
‘I don’t know,’ Darby answered. ‘Probably not. But we could have tried.’
‘No matter.’
At ten o’clock precisely they were called to attention as the three judges came into the room. The first was an old man who wore the insignia of a brigadier-general. The other two were wearing the full-dress uniform of majors in the Federal cavalry.
The general, as president of the court, read out the charges, nodded, and then turned towards Edward Maxwell.
‘Captain Maxwell,’ he said. ‘You may proceed.’
‘Sir,’ Maxwell got to his feet. He walked over to stand below the podium, stroking his beard reflectively. When he looked at David his eyes were vindictive.
‘In times of war,’ he began, ‘the most dangerous animal is not the enemy, for we know the enemy and can see him. No, gentlemen! I put it to you that in times of war, the most dangerous animal is the man who will betray his country: for money, for pride, for glory or for all three. It is such a man who appears before this court today. It is my intention to demonstrate that he had knowingly, willingly and persistently aided and abetted the cause of the Confederacy!’
The pattern was plain to see, he told the court. Here is a man with a son serving the Confederate cause. Here is a man who converts his home, at his own expense, into a hospital for Confederate wounded. A man who allows Confederate troops to requisition every horse he owns without payment. A man who will strike a Federal officer and speak treasonably against the Union.
‘Yet he asks us to believe that he is neither for the Confederacy or for the Union. He claims neutrality!’ Maxwell’s scorn was vast. ‘I ask you, gentlemen, whether the actions I have described are the actions of a neutral? And I put it to you, gentlemen, that they are not, most emphatically not! I even go so far as to state categorically that no man can remain neutral in times such as these. And that the accused, David Strong, is not neutral and never has been!’
‘Yes, Major Darby?’ General Moore said.
‘Gentlemen,’ Darby said. ‘It is the intention of the defense to show that Mr. Strong is a good and loyal citizen of the United States, and that the actions of which he stands accused were not occasioned by any desire to aid the cause of the Confederacy.’
‘Very well, Major Darby,’ General Moore said.
‘Will the court permit the calling of witnesses to David Strong’s character?’
‘Captain Maxwell?’
‘The prosecution would object strongly to such witnesses being called before this court, sir!’ Maxwell said, getting to his feet again. ‘For how would we be able to ascertain the loyalties of the witnesses without prior examination?’
General Moore consulted in an almost silent whisper with Major Alley and Major Carlson. Then he nodded.
‘Objection sustained. No character witnesses, Major Darby.’
‘Then I call to the stand the defendant, David Strong.’
David went to the stand and was sworn. He looked at Maxwell. He looks damned confident, he thought. Knows he can razzle-dazzle Darby and probably the old general too. Maxwell was an actor, albeit a bad one. The legal profession seemed to attract a lot of those.
‘Do you deny that you have a son serving in the Confederate cause, Mr. Strong?’ Darby asked.
‘No, sir. But I also have a son serving on the staff of General Grant, in Tennessee.’
‘Then you would have much to lose whatever your sympathies?’
‘A man with a son on both sides can hardly win.’
‘True.’ Major Darby glanced meaningfully at General Moore. ‘And is it also true that you converted the barns and stables of your farm into a hospital?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And you used your own money?’
‘Yes I did.’
‘Will you kindly tell the court why?’
‘I did it because there were men lying in the streets dying,’ David answered. ‘Fearfully wounded men who needed medication, surgery, a decent place to die.’
‘Confederate wounded, Mr. Strong?’
‘Aye, Confederate,’ David said. ‘But it wouldn’t have made any difference what the color of their uniforms was. I’d have done it anyway.’
‘To what use is that hospital at present being put?’
‘It is being used for Federal wounded.’
‘Very good,’ Darby said, again looking at the old general. ‘Now, what about the horses, Mr. Strong? Is it true you gave horses to the Confederate Army and asked no payment for them?’
‘I had no choice in the matter,’ David replied. ‘The horses were commandeered. There was never any question of payment.’
‘Surely they offered you government scrip?’
‘That they did, and I told them what they could do with it!’
‘You mean because Confederate scrip is worthless?’
‘I mean because all government scrip is worthless, regardless of which government issues it!’ David growled. Darby blinked and looked uneasy for a moment. Then he moved on quickly to his next point, informing the court that it was a matter of record that the Federal Army had been purchasing horses from Washington Farm for many years.
‘Now, Mr. Strong, to the most serious charge of which you stand accused. Did you or did you not strike a Federal officer and utter treasonable remarks?’
‘I struck that man,’ David said. ‘And I admit it. But would this court perhaps accept that a man may strike another for reasons which have nothing to do with his loyalty to one cause or another?’
He looked up at General Moore. The old soldier nodded him to continue.
‘As for speaking treason, gentlemen, was it treason to say what was no more or less than the plain truth? If this court, or any court, believes Order Number Eleven and honorable order for an army to issue and calls it treason if decent people speak against it, then I, for one, am with Patrick Henry!�
� David declared. ‘If this be treason, make the most of it!’
He turned to face the three soldiers on the podium as he spoke and he saw that his words had made a good impression on them. They’ll be fair, he decided. He turned to see Edward Maxwell coming across the well of the court towards him, smiling.
‘You ask this court to believe you have acted disinterestedly in all these matters,’ Maxwell said. ‘Is that correct?’
‘It is indeed.’
‘And you are a loyal citizen.’
‘I am!’ David said, his head coming up, anger in his eyes.
‘Then you will not refuse,’ Maxwell said, springing his trap, ‘to swear the oath of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America?’
‘I do not give allegiance to pieces of bunting!’ David snapped, angered by the way Maxwell had maneuvered him. ‘My allegiances have always been the same: to honor, to duty, to my family and to the land upon which I live!’
‘You refuse to take the oath?’ Maxwell said.
‘If you mean that I must choose, sir, then I refuse!’ David answered. ‘As I would refuse to take an oath of allegiance to the Confederate flag!’
‘You are not a Quaker, Mr. Strong?’
‘You know very well that I am not!’
‘Then there is no choice. You take the oath or this court must surely conclude that you are guilty of the charges brought against you.’
‘I would like to ask permission to address the court,’ David said, holding his temper on a short rein. Maxwell watched him, black hatred in his eyes. I’ve got you, they said.
‘Major Darby? Captain Maxwell?’
Both advocates nodded; permission was granted for David to speak.
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