‘All right!’ Jed shouted when he reached the pike. ‘We’ll ride into town, gentlemen. Flankers out, please! Scouts forward!’
They reached the town without incident a few minutes before noon. He halted the column at the head of North Main, directing twenty men to ride south on West and a further twenty to do the same on East. Then he ordered the colors to the front and led the rest of the squadron down the street. People came out to see them. There were cheers and flags appeared. All down the street the stores had been looted and vandalized. There was scarcely a whole pane of glass in the town. Doors hung swaying on broken hinges. Wooden crates littered the streets. A bolt of calico flapped idly where it had been tossed into a tree.
‘Captain Foster, be good enough to send a courier to General Jackson to say that the Federals have abandoned the town!’ he said to the young officer riding on his right. Foster saluted and wheeled away. As he reached the corner of West Street Jed saw Dan Holmes hurrying towards him, and the look on his face struck a chord of anxiety in Jed’s heart.
‘Mr. Holmes!’ he said. ‘Have you seen my father?’
‘ Jed, lad, I don’t... I can’t tell you how… .’ Holmes pointed up West Street towards the court house. ‘I’m sorry, lad. Sorry.’
Jed turned his horse towards the west and rode along the street. As he passed the jail he saw that a gallows had been erected in the courtyard outside it and that there were two corpses hanging from it. He brought the column to a halt and rode slowly across towards the gallows.
‘Sergeant-Major Blass!’ he shouted, without turning around. ‘A six-man detail, on the double, if you please!’
He heard the sergeant shouting hoarsely as he stepped down from the saddle. The two bodies swayed slightly in the soft breeze. The ropes creaked in the silence. Then Jed heard boots pounding on the hard-packed earth as Blass ran the detail across the courtyard towards him.
‘Cut them down,’ he told the non-com. ‘Gently, if you please.’
He watched as Blass cut down the two bodies. The waiting soldiers caught them and laid them on the ground. Jed knelt down and cut away the black hoods which had been placed over the heads of the hanged men.
‘Jesus!’ he heard one of the soldiers say, and he heard the man retching into the dirt.
‘Tell that man to get a hold of himself, sergeant-major!’ Jed said softly. He looked down at the two faces. The one on the right was a stranger.
‘You know these men, sor?’ Blass whispered.
‘I don’t know that one at all,’ Jed answered, getting up off his knees and looking away from the contorted faces of the men on the ground. ‘But the one on the left is my father.’
‘Oh, Jaysus, sor, I’m sorry, sor!’ Blass breathed. ‘Them murtherin’ bast—’
‘That will do, sergeant-major!’ Jed said. How odd to be so controlled, he thought. I could shout angrily, break down, cry, something. Yet I do not feel anything, not a thing. My father lies dead on the ground in front of me and it does not seem real. Strange, strange. It doesn’t seem real. ‘I’ll want a tarpaulin and a wagon, sergeant-major,’ Jed said. ‘Get a burial detail organized for the other man. I’ll take my father home.’ He would want that, he thought.
‘Very good, sir!’
‘And I’ll need a carpenter,’ Jed added.
Sergeant-Major Blass saluted and clumped away, taking the detail with him. Jed walked across the courtyard and into the street, where the troopers sat stolidly, awaiting orders. It doesn’t mean anything to them, Jed thought, angered at their indifference. Just two more dead men.
‘Captain Foster,’ he said. ‘You will take command of the squadron. I have some … personal business to attend to.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Foster said. ‘I’m truly sorry, Jed.’
‘Thank you, Henry,’ Jed answered. ‘Carry on.’
Foster saluted. He was a fresh-faced man of about forty who had won promotion, like Jed, at Slaughter’s Mountain. Next to Jed he was the senior officer in the squadron: all the others, a captain, two lieutenants and two second lieutenants had died in the battle.
Jed took hold of his horse’s bridle and led him to the hitching rail in front of the courthouse. He watched his troopers trot down the street. The horses passing by made empty thunder with their hooves. He felt alone, empty, separated from everything. He did not know what to do next. He stood there for a long time, a dark, sturdy man with empty eyes staring at nothing.
Next morning Jed rode out to the cemetery at Washington Farm behind a wagon carrying his father’s body in its rough pine coffin. He watched, dry-eyed, as the sweating pioneers dug a grave alongside that of Joanna Ten Eyck. The regimental chaplain, a fine man from Macon, Georgia, read the service: it was just words. Jed tried hard to remember whether his father had ever said anything with regard to how he wished his burial service conducted, but he could think of nothing. He would have liked Andrew here, Jed thought, and Uncle Sam. The ‘whole fan damily’ he used to call us. Well the damned war had taken care of that. The ironical thing was that, had the fortunes of battle gone the other way, it would have been Andrew and Sam Strong standing beside David’s grave, not Jed. Just so long as he’s with her, he thought. At least let that be true. He watched stolidly as the burial detail lowered the coffin slowly into the earth. Bees murmured among the nodding flowers. He heard Aunt Betty weeping. He tried to close his ears to the sound of the earth falling on the top of the coffin: it was so utterly final.
Then it was over. The chaplain touched Jed’s shoulder. ‘If there’s anything I can do, son, you come and talk to me.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Jed said. ‘I’m just going to stay up here for a while.’
‘I understand,’ the chaplain said and followed the burial detail down the hill to where the wagon waited. Jed heard the wheels rattle on the drive and then it was quiet again.
He looked up. Aunt Betty was standing by the side of the grave. Her thinned face was wet with tears. He went across and put his arm around her shoulder.
‘What I goan do, Mahse Jed?’ she said. ‘What I goan do?’
‘I don’t know, Aunt Betty,’ he said. ‘Have you any people?’
‘Dis fam’ly my people, Mahse Jed,’ she said. ‘Ain’t never had no others.’
‘I’ll give you some money,’ Jed said. ‘You can go to New York and find my father’s brother, Sam. Tell him what has happened. Maybe he’ll be able to help you.’
‘Yessuh,’ she said doubtfully. ‘Anything you say.’
They stood there for a while. It was warm; cicadas laid their whirring drone upon the silence. After a while, Aunt Betty stepped away from Jed’s embrace.
‘I goan wait for you down below,’ she said. She went away, feet silent in the long grass. Jed looked at the inscription on his mother’s tombstone. Remember me. That was what we hoped for in dying: that someone would remember. A Latin phrase he had read somewhere came into his head, as though it had been waiting, ever since that moment, for this time to come. Non omnis moriar. I will not altogether die.
That’s what I’ll put on his stone, Jed thought. He’d like that. He believed you didn’t die, that there was more waiting for you up there. Jed looked up at the sky.
‘Good-bye,’ he whispered.
He got up and walked down the hill to where his horse stood cropping the grass. Only when he got to the bottom was he able to let the tears come.
Twenty-Two – The Story of Abigail Strong
April 1863
As usual, Broadway resembled nothing so much as a kicked-over anthill. The sidewalks were thronged with a never-ending river of people, the avenue itself crammed with omnibuses, drays, hansoms and carriages. Crossing from the ‘shilling’ side to the ‘dollar’ side – east to west – could sometimes take as long as half an hour and was perilous at any time of day or night. Twenty years ago, Abby thought, there were only private houses north of City Hall. Look at it now!
The huge, white marble St Nicholas Hotel stood on Broadway at Broome Street.
Its lobbies and parlors were as crowded, if not busier, than the sidewalks had been. Abby pushed through the crowds to the reception desk, on the fourth floor. Abby’s resolution wavered. Was this the right thing to do?
Louise’s note had been short and dramatic. I must see you immediately. It is a matter of life and death. I am staying at this hotel. Come at once. The note was on the hotel’s stationery. What does she want? Abby wondered. I haven’t heard from them for more than six months.
As if she had been waiting behind it for Abby’s knock, Louise swung open the door.
‘You’ve come, then,’ she said.
‘I very nearly didn’t.’
‘You’d better come in.’ Louise was dressed in a loose-fitting smock with a foulard pattern. Her hair was tied loosely behind her head with a red ribbon. She wore no make-up and it made her look younger and strangely defenseless. She was clearly pregnant. Five months gone, Abby thought, maybe six.
‘May I sit down?’ she said.
‘Suit yourself.’
‘Where is Travis?’
‘Gone.’
‘Gone where?’
‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me.’
‘But you must have some idea—’
‘It don’t matter all that much, anyway,’ Louise said in the same offhand way.
‘You don’t care what happens to him?’
‘I never said that.’ Louise showed animation for the first time. ‘What I said was, it don’t matter. You don’t ask Travis for reasons. Fire burns because it’s fire. That answer your question, lady?’
‘Listen, Louise,’ Abby said firmly. ‘You and I had better get something straight right now. I won’t take being slanged, not by you, not by anybody. Either we call a truce or we fight to the death. I want you to know something, Louise: I’ve been kicked about by life every bit as much as you have, perhaps more. I’m just as tough as you are, maybe tougher. If you want to find out just how tough, let’s get started right now. Otherwise quit acting like a street fighter and tell me why you asked me to come here!’
Louise opened a box and took out a cigarette. She lit it and blew smoke through her nostrils, eyeing Abby warily. Then she nodded, as if she had made a decision.
‘I figured you were the one with balls in your family,’ she said. ‘And I was right. Let’s talk.’
‘First,’ Abby said, ‘give me one of those cigarettes.’
‘You smoke?’
‘I haven’t smoked a cigarette since I was sixteen, but I suddenly feel the need of one.’
Louise handed her the cigarette box, and lit the cigarette for her. Abby coughed some over the first lungful, but although it tasted vile, it was a lot easier than she had expected. The things your body can do, she thought. The taste of the tobacco brought the memory of Sean Flynn’s lips upon her own vividly to her mind. How could it be a quarter of a century ago, yet seem like the day before yesterday? She realized that Louise was still watching her, waiting.
‘Tell me about the baby,’ Abby said. ‘When is it due?’
‘September.’
‘Is that what you wanted to see me for?’
‘Partly.’
‘There’s something else?’ Abby queried. ‘You said it was a matter of life and death.’
‘It’s all of that,’ Louise said. ‘What does the name Bellamy mean to you?’
Jesus! Abby thought, sweet Jesus Christ almighty! ‘Bellamy?’ she said weakly. ‘I … don’t think ... I know … the name.’
‘You’re lying,’ Louise said.
‘No.’
‘Yes,’ Louise said inexorably. ‘Don’t lie to me, Abby. I know. Travis took the papers out of that box of yours. He found a letter written by a man named Bellamy and he figured out that the baby mentioned in it was you.’
‘Oh God,’ Abby whispered.
‘You want a drink?’ Louise asked. Abby nodded. Louise went across to the wardrobe, opened it and brought out a bottle. ‘I’ve only got whiskey.’
‘Whiskey is fine.’
Louise handed her the glass and sipped from her own, watching Abby over the rim of the glass.
‘Your son,’ she went on, ‘is a mean sonofabitch. You know that?’
Abby nodded. Bad blood, she thought. Travis was Sean Flynn’s son. The same wicked blue eyes, the same rogue’s smile, the same devil in his soul. ‘Bad blood,’ she said softly.
‘Bad blood my ass!’ Louise said. She was talking as much to herself as to Abby. ‘He enjoys being mean. He was mean when I met him and he’s gotten meaner every day since. He’s got a crazy streak. It’s gotten worse ever since they whipped him. In the army. You know about that?’
‘Yes,’ Abby said, remembering how she had wept when Sam told her about it. ‘I didn’t know when you … when we—’
‘It don’t matter none,’ Louise said. ‘The whipping wasn’t what made him ornery. Something deeper inside him done that.’ She went over to the table and poured herself another man-sized drink. Then she raised her eyebrows and held up the bottle.
‘Why not?’ Abby said. The first drink was glowing redly in her brain. She had stopped thinking.
‘Let me tell you about your son,’ Louise said. ‘You know what the last thing he said to me was? He came in through that door, with that crazy light in his eye. Threw three hundred dollars on the table. I don’t know where he got it. Stole it, probably, or bilked some poor pilgrim. It don’t matter none. He just throwed it on that table there an’ told me he was leavin’. “Oh, yeah,” says I. “An’ where might you be goin’ to?” , “None o’ your goddamned business!” says he. “Well, so it is, too!” says I. “Me being pregnant, thanks to you!”, “Hell,” he says. “You’ll be taken care of.” . , “Well, no damned three hundred dollars is going to do it,” says I, thinking he means, well, you know what. He looks at me and that light in his eye gets stronger and madder and I swear to God it like to scared the shit out of me. “You even think a thing like that, and I’ll kill you, you bitch!” he says. “I’ll cut you up so bad they won’t even be able to sell you for dog meat!”. Well, I seen him in a knife fight once. Some feller crossed him at the gamblin’ tables down there in Dallas, started to pull a gun on him. Travis gutted him afore he even got it out o’ the holster. I like to passed out, there was so much blood. An’ that feller kickin’ on the floor, groanin’, an’ Travis standin’ there with the knife drippin’ blood an’ that hellion’s smile on his face. Then this feller tries to get to his feet an’ —’
‘Don’t tell me!’ Abby said.
‘Can’t take it, huh?’ Louise sneered. ‘I figgered you for tougher than that.’
‘Not that,’ Abby said. ‘I had a man once … died the same way. They brought him home to me in a blanket. His hands … his body, everything was cut. It was … awful.’
Louise looked at her with a new respect. ‘You been around, lady, ain’t you?’
‘Some,’ Abby said.
‘This feller of yours,’ Louise said. ‘What was his name?’
‘Sean Flynn.’
‘Was you in love with him?’
‘Utterly,’ Abby said, remembering Sean’s hands, heat, surrender. ‘But he had that mean streak, too.’
‘How old was you?’
‘I wasn’t yet eighteen when they brought him home to me, dead.’
‘Then – you married Sam Strong carryin’ Travis?’
Abby nodded. ‘He doesn’t know. Neither of them know. ‘
‘That’s what you think,’ Louise said. ‘We was talking about that Bellamy feller.’
‘Yes.’ Abby felt the fear seeping back into her brain. ‘I got a letter from Travis.’
‘I thought you said—’
‘It don’t say where he’s at. It was posted in Boston.’ Louise got up, went across to the bedside table and came back carrying an envelope. ‘I’ll read you what it says,’ she went on, opening it out. ‘It says: “I expect you are getting short of money now. I told you you’d be taken care of. Get in touch w
ith my mother. Not my father. Tell her this. Tell her I have the letter written by her father. Tell her I said she can no longer use pride as a weapon, propriety as a shield. Tell her I said she is to give you a home and to care for you and the baby. And tell her that if she does not, I will come back and tell Sam everything!”.’
She looked up from the letter. Abby sat stunned, staring at her. She could not believe it was possible and yet somehow she knew that it was true. Who could have believed that losing her virginity to a sweet-talking Irishman on a hot summer’s day all those years ago was the first step on the road which led to this?
‘How … Sam?’ she said.
‘You’ll take me in, then?’ Louise said. There was a strange wistfulness in her eyes. Was she acting? Abby wondered. Could anyone act that well?
‘Do I have a choice?’ she said coldly.
‘Listen, Abby,’ Louise said. ‘You probably won’t believe this, but I like you. You’ve had hard times, same as me. You’ve kept your chin up, no matter what. So have I, Abby. Sure, I was a whore. I didn’t have no choice. I run away from home when I was fourteen, because if I hadn’t of, then my old man was gonna come into my room one night drunk and do it, an’ if he’d of done that I’d of killed him and then killed myself. So I run. I got to San Antone and got me a job in a cathouse. It was terrible at first. But I got used to it. I was real pretty. You’d be surprised how many old men want a pretty little girl. They used to give me extra money, an’ I saved it. An’ then I moved south, to Dallas, an’ bought me a concession. That was the one thing I’d learned. Bein’ a madam, you could choose who your customers were. Then Travis came along. He was crazy. He never said he loved me, or anything. He just said it kind of tickled his fancy to have a madam for a wife. Put him apart from all the other men. So we got ourselves married and come East. It was dumb of me, I suppose, but I had this idea that maybe … maybe I could get away with it. Be respectable, live in a nice house. I never had a real home. But I couldn’t. When I seen the way you and Sam were together, I realized how it was between me an’ Travis. A joke marriage, not a real one like yours. So when he lied to you about me, I – couldn’t let it ride. I had to end it, even if it meant gettin’ kicked out. I suppose what I really hoped was that you’d say it didn’t make no difference. I suppose that’s what I was prayin’ would happen. How stupid can you get, huh?’
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