‘That’s a hell of a big gun,’ he grinned.
‘You’re right,’ Jed said. ‘It would blow a hell of a big hole in you, Jonah. So don’t make me use it.’
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Jed said. ‘Sorry I’ve got to do this, Jonah.’
‘What the Hell?’ Jonah laid his hands flat on top of the table and glared across it at Jed. ‘You must be out of your mind!’ He opened his mouth, looking past Jed to the door.
‘Don’t!’ Jed said and eared back the hammer of the gun. Jonah looked into his eyes and saw the death there. His mouth snapped shut. ‘That’s better,’ Jed said.
‘You’ll never get out of here! Put that damned gun down.’
‘On your feet,’ Jed said. ‘Colonel.’
He waited, poised, as Jonah came around the table. If there was going to be opposition, it was always right away. He actually saw the tension go out of Harvey’s shoulders and elation surged through him.
‘This is what we’re going to do, Jonah,’ he told him. ‘We’re going to walk to the perimeter, down by the river. If anyone asks us why, you’ll give them some damned reason or other. And keep in mind that I’ll have this gun stuck in your ribs the whole way. One squawk, and I’ll festoon your innards over a tree.’
‘And I was appealing to your sense of honor!’ Harvey said, disgustedly. ‘I should have known better!’
‘Indeed you should, Jonah,’ Jed replied softly. ‘I haven’t got time for honor anymore. The kind of war I’ve been in tends to put it a long way behind survival.’ He gestured towards the door and Jonah Harvey opened it. The sergeant outside looked up expectantly.
‘Carry on, sergeant,’ Harvey ordered. ‘I am taking the prisoner to Division.’
‘Sir!’ the sergeant threw a sloppy salute. Harvey walked briskly ahead with Jed on his right side, the pistol hidden beneath a folded overcoat he had thrown across his arm. It took them about five minutes to get to the riverbank.
‘What happens now, Jed?’ Jonah said softly. ‘The minute you run, I yell.’
Jed glanced up and down the riverbank. One or two figures moved here and there, and there were men crossing the pontoon bridge, about sixty or seventy yards upstream.
‘Jonah,’ he said softly. ‘I’m doing what I have to do.’
He hit Harvey suddenly with the barrel of the pistol. Harvey slumped to his knees, then all the way down. Jed stuck the gun into his waistband and ran for the river. It was deep and wide: he hoped he could make it across. He plunged into the water and started swimming strongly. The current bore him rapidly downstream. He heard shouts behind him and flung a look back at the shore. He could see the tall, stoop-shouldered figure of Jonah Harvey gesticulating, and men running down the bluffs above river, rifles ported, leaping over stones and skirting clumps of scrub. He heard the flat splat of the carbines and dove under water. The current was very strong. He was going downstream very fast and not making much progress across. A chunk of driftwood bobbed into view and he threw an arm over it gratefully. The shots were dying away behind him. Sorry, Jonah, he said silently.
About half an hour later Jed managed to claw his way ashore where the river made a bend, swirling even more rapidly through huge boulders that had fallen down the steep, timbered banks. He staggered into a small clearing and fell down, panting with exertion. His clothes steamed in the hot sun.
He glanced up at the sky, gauging direction. He wanted to move more or less southwestern the general direction of Montgomery, Alabama. Then, for a long while, he would be in Confederate-held territory. Only when he came to the Mississippi would he again have to run the gauntlet of Federal control.
He knew where he was going now: to Texas. That was where Old Man Maxwell was. ‘Old Edward Maxwell always was a mite close to loony,’ a man in Culpeper told Jed. ‘Got a damned sight worse after his wife died. When the war moved south, he went with it. Said he was goin’ to visit the wrath o’ God on the Rebs. Got hisself a scalawag crew o’ Nigger freedmen, prison scourin’s, deserters and God knows what else, and went on down Georgia.’
In Georgia, Jed learned that the Maxwell gang had burned a small country town to the ground. Steaming up the Altahama River to Darien, they had fired cannon shells into the plantation buildings, although there were only women and children in them. When they reached the town, Maxwell turned his guerrillas loose, ordering them to put everything they could carry away on the boat. Then he put the place to the torch; not a plank was left standing. Federal troops pursued him and drove the gang out of Georgia. A talkative provost-marshal in Darien told Jed they had gone, south again.
‘Last news! got,’ he said, ‘they was turned bad the way Charley Quantrill did. They’s makin’ raids all over Texas. Austin, San Antone, all round that area.’ He squinted at Jed curiously. ‘Why you lookin’ for Maxwell, anyway?’
‘He’s lived too long,’ Jed said.
He got into a fight with a frock-coated dandy in a Natchez deadfall. Jed was winning: the ten dollars with which he had walked into the dive was up to nearly fifty and he pushed it all forward when he found himself holding jacks and kings. It was a come-on hand; and the’ thin-faced gambler with the foxy eyes was just about to deal himself a third ace off the bottom of the pack when Jed’s hand clamped his wrist in a grip of iron, pinning it to the table.
‘I want no trouble, sir,’ he said gently. ‘So I am going to ask one of these gentlemen watching to look at that card. If it is not an ace, I owe you an apology, and the pot is yours.’
He could feel the hostility all around: the place was full of the man’s friends. In other circumstances Jed would have backed off and let it be. But he needed the money desperately. He had to buy a horse, some winter clothes, a decent pair of boots.
‘You callin’ me a cheat, suh?’ the man said. ‘You air callin’ James Delauncey a cheat?’
‘No, Mr. Delauncey,’ Jed said. ‘Not without proof.’
One of the men who had been watching the game leaned forward and flicked over the card. It was the ace of hearts. Jed leaned back, releasing Delauncey’s hand. He flipped over his own hand. ‘Two pairs, kings and queens,’ he. said. ‘Now if Mr. Delauncey has two more aces, I’d say that was fair proof he made a mistake, and I’m sure it was no more than that.’
It was a try at giving the gambler a chance to get off the hook, without making an issue of it, but he saw the anger stain Delauncey’s eyes and knew there was no hope of that.
‘You damned liar!’ Delauncey shouted, and shook a snub-nosed Derringer out of the sleeve of his jacket. Its snapping report merged with the heavier boom of Jed’s Mexican gun. Delauncey was snatched backwards as if he had been roped by a man on a running horse, slamming against the wall and sliding down it, his eyes still open, dead before he hit the floor. The Derringer ball missed Jed’s head by a fraction, coming close enough to jar his skull in passing and burning a red track above Jed’s left ear. He reeled and almost fell, but regained his balance as Delauncey’s friends started forward.
‘It would be a mistake,’ he told them and they froze. ‘Now, if one of you gentlemen would be kind enough to hand me my winnings?’ he suggested. ‘You, sir?’ A small, portly man with a fancy waistcoat nodded and hastily raked up the money on the table.
‘In my pocket, if you please,’ Jed said pleasantly. The man sidled close, pushed the money into Jed’s overcoat pocket and scuttled away, as though afraid Jed might bite him. Jed backed out of the saloon and into the street. There were horses standing hipshot at the hitching rail and he ran across and got on the nearest one, a big, lineback dun with a deep chest, rangy and strong. There was no point worrying about horse-thieving now. If he stayed in town Delauncey’s friends would get him and if Delauncey’s friends didn’t get him the law would. He kicked the horse into a run and thundered out of town.
Two weeks later he rode in San Antonio, a bearded man on a rangy dun, wearing a thick blanket coat against the wicked winds slicing across the llano. On his left hip in a
cut-top cavalry holster he carried a heavy pistol. On the right, slanted forward for cross draw, was a leather handled bowie knife. He rode along Portrero Street and up to the Alamo Plaza. Everything looked exactly the way it had done more than five years earlier, when he had first arrived in San Antonio to report to Colonel Robert E. Lee.
Well, a lot of other things had changed, Jed thought, as he swung down outside Menger’s hotel, and handed the reins of his horse to a waiting peon. He was surprised how easily the Spanish came back as he told the man to feed the horse and curry him.
It was cool and shady inside the hotel. Jed went to the bar first and had a cold beer. There were a few soldiers in Confederate uniform lounging around, off-duty. He nodded hello to them. They regarded him without interest.
After he got his gear stowed at the hotel, Jed walked down the street to the office of the provost marshal. He found it occupied by a short, square-jawed officer of about forty, who told Jed his name was Kerr.
‘What can I do for you, Mr. Strong?’ he asked, indicating that Jed should take a chair.
‘I’m looking for someone, Captain,’ Jed told him. ‘A man named Edward Maxwell.’
Captain Kerr’s head came up and he eyed Jed sharply. ‘May I ask you why?’
‘Personal business,’ Jed answered.
‘You know this Maxwell?’
‘Years ago,’ Jed said. ‘I was told he’s turned guerrilla.’
‘That’s right,’ Kerr said, getting a stogy out of his jacket pocket and lighting it, releasing huge clouds of pungent blue smoke. ‘You want one?’ he said to Jed.
‘No thanks,’ Jed grinned. ‘I don’t have a permit.’ The Confederate officer grinned and then his face grew serious again.
‘It’s obviously none of my business, Mr. Strong,’ he said, tentatively. ‘But I’d recommend you stay a long way away from Old Man Maxwell and his gang.’
‘You know where he is?’
‘Not exactly,’ Kerr replied. ‘It’s a big country we’ve got down here, Mr. Strong. The Maxwell gang operates roughly between here and Fort Stockton. They raid into Mexico and even as far north as Dallas. It’s said they hole up somewhere on the Colorado or in the San Saba. Nobody knows for sure.’
‘You haven’t tried to bring them in?’
‘We’ve tried,’ Kerr said grimly. ‘We’ve sent half a dozen patrols out after those murdering scum. They cut the last one to pieces. Worse than damn Comanches!’ He reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a sheaf of dodgers. He riffled through them, withdrew one and slid it across the desk to Jed.
WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE
One thousand dollars reward will be paid to any person or persons who will capture EDWARD MAXWELL and deliver him either to me or to the military in Texas. Satisfactory proof of identity will be required.
Gonzales y Cordoba; Governor
‘Is that old General Gonzales?’ Jed asked.
‘The same,’ Kerr replied. ‘You know him too?’
‘I was here in ’59, Captain,’ Jed explained. ‘With Lee.’
‘Ah,’ Kerr said. ‘You … stayed with him?’ It was a delicately put question and Jed appreciated the way Kerr did it.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Till I got this, at Gettysburg.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Do you know whether General Gonzales’ daughter still lives in town?’
‘You couldn’t live in San Antone and not know it, Mr. Strong,’ Kerr grinned. ‘I’d wager half the men in town are in love with her.’
‘No bet,’ Jed said. ‘About this Maxwell.’
‘What about him?’
Jed picked up the reward poster. ‘You got yourself a bounty hunter, Captain.’
‘You don’t remember me, do you?’ he said.
‘I do not think so,’ Maria Gonzales said.
He told her his name and reminded her of their meeting in the home of the alcalde at Brownsville, but still she did not remember. The man standing before her was a bearded, one-armed stranger, whose eyes told her that he had seen death on his winged horse many times. The boy who had flirted with her had not been at all like this one. He looks like a half-tamed animal, she thought.
‘My name is Jedediah Strong,’ he told her again. ‘I was a lieutenant then. We fought El Gato, the bandit.
‘I remember that,’ she said frowning. She noticed the keenness of his inspection, the way his eyes checked her hands for a wedding band and the flicker of relief when he did not see one.
‘Well?’ she said. ‘What can I do to help you, sir?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I only came to see if you were as beautiful as I remembered. And you are.’
‘You are … direct,’ she said.
‘Forgive me,’ Jed said. ‘I’ve come a long way and have perhaps forgotten the rules a little. A man alone on the trail thinks in straight lines. Food, warmth, shelter, love.’
‘You have been traveling for a long time?’
‘Long enough, God knows,’ he answered. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve seen anyone like you.’
‘And that is all you came here for. To tell me this?’
‘That,’ he said. ‘And to leave word for your father that I will bring him the head of Old Man Maxwell.’
‘You?’ Her glance touched his pinned sleeve. ‘But he has many men, señor. And all of them are killers. Especially the sons.’
‘Sons?’ he frowned.
‘They are worse than he.’
‘How old are they?’ he asked her.
‘Young men,’ she said. ‘Twenty-three, twenty-four.’
‘I thought they had been killed. In the war.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘They ride with their maldito padre. Why do you go after them? Can you need money so badly that you will hunt men like animals to get it?’
‘I’m not doing it for the bounty,’ he said. ‘I don’t want money.’
‘Then why?’
‘I’ll tell you when I come back,’ he answered. He made as if to go and then turned back. ‘You never married? That Coronel? I forgot his name.’
‘Lopez y Hoya,’ she said. ‘No. We did not marry.’ She did not elaborate. He did not ask. ‘And you?’
He did not answer. She tipped back her head and the dark hair swung. ‘There was someone, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘She meant a great deal to you, I think,’ Maria said. ‘For a short while, she was all there was in all my world,’ he said.
‘And – where is she now?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jed said. ‘I don’t know. I think she is probably dead.’
Maria shook her head. ‘Not while you remember her like that, Mr. Strong. She lives in your eyes, your mind.’
‘I’ll tell you about her,’ Jed said. ‘One day.’
‘Why would you tell me?’
‘My name is Jedediah,’ he said. ‘Remember it. I will tell you because you will want to know. And because I will want you to.’
He left San Antonio next morning at dawn. There was a wicked edge on the November wind, and the smell of rain in the air.
Twenty-Nine – The Story of Samuel Strong
December 1864
Nothing was the same after Abby died.
Sam went about his business much the same as he always had, working more hours than he should, straining to keep up with the orders flooding in for the Carver carbine from every branch of the service. But it wasn’t the same. Every time a door opened he looked up, expecting it to be her coming into the room. Every time someone knocked, he would think, She’s home. While the busy day’s work surrounded him, Sam managed to be much the same as he had always been. But night and the empty bed that awaited him in the house on Clover Hill were more than he could face without help. By the time his son Henry brought his wife-to-be, Ann Beecher, to New York, in the week before Christmas of 1864, Sam was getting through a quart of whiskey a day. It didn’t take the pain away, but it dulled it a little, and it made sleep possible.
The change i
n Sam, however, was as nothing to the change in Louise. The more he sought solace in liquor, the further apart from her he grew. It was as if Abby’s death or the way that Travis had stormed out of their lives had thrown a switch in her, changing the direction of her life. Louise had adopted a widowhood every bit as real as if her husband had actually died and been buried in the family graveyard in Virginia. Instead of grief, she plunged into religion and out of the religion came utter disapproval of every mortal sin.
Sam tried to remain loving. She rejected his affection as she might have rejected the pawing of a drunken brute.
She put the children in the hands of a qualified nursemaid and set about rendering herself indispensable to the firm of Carver & Strong. The more indispensable she became, the less there was for Sam to do. The less he did, the more he drank. Sometimes he arrived at the factory at eleven or later in the morning and she could smell the reek of the saloon on his clothes.
‘Well, lovely lady,’ he would say expansively. ‘And what excitements have we today?’
‘The usual,’ she would snap, angry at him for being the way he was, angry at herself for exacerbating his condition, helpless somehow to prevent either.
She wore black. No other color. She neither drank nor smoked, and her obvious displeasure if someone did either in her presence dissuaded all but the most hardy souls from risking the edge of her tongue.
‘A custom loathsome to the eye,’ she would icily recite, in the words of James 1st of England. “Harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless!”.’
Or, ‘Mr. Emerson, sir, says: “Drink is the only vulgarity.”. I, sir, say it is the vilest one!’
Sam worked six days a week; he did not relish temperance lectures throughout the seventh and so he absented himself more and more from the house on Clover Hill. More and more it became not the house of Sam and Abby Strong, in which the one-time prostitute Louise Gray Strong had come to live, but the house of the highly moral and much-respected Mrs. Strong, to which the well-meaning, blunderingly drunken Sam was permitted grudging entrance.
Call to Arms Page 39