Land of the Brave and the Free (Journals of Corrie Belle Hollister Book 7)

by Michael Phillips

  “And where did you know him?”

  “Derrick was in California, trying to dig up some dirt on Mr. Fremont to keep him from being elected. I was on the trail of a story for my paper and tried to stop him. He was going to print lies.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. His article made it into print, and Mr. Fremont was defeated.”

  The memory of it came back to me all so vividly that I no longer felt like laughing, that was for sure!

  Christopher sat down in a chair opposite me, and the room was silent for a minute. At last I shook myself out of my reverie and looked up at him.

  “Do you think you could take me into Richmond and help me find him?” I asked.

  “I know where the newspaper office is,” he answered. “Whether he’d be there is another question. I’ve seen reports he’s filed from all over the South.”

  “That’s something we can’t know. But it’s a place to start. And from the sound of this article, he may be in Richmond. I’ve got to try.”

  The following morning, immediately after Christopher’s chores around the farm were completed enough to allow for him being gone awhile, he cleaned up and then we rode off toward Richmond.

  I was nervous. The last time I’d been in the Confederate capital, I’d been as good as a spy and on a dangerous mission. I couldn’t help feeling the same way now, thinking that everyone was looking at me and would know immediately that I was a Northerner. Christopher saw my anxiety and kept telling me to relax. I knew he was right, and that no one would think a thing out of the ordinary. But still I couldn’t help myself.

  He knew where the building of the Richmond Star was and led the horse and buggy straight to it, pulling up in front, then jumping out and tying the horse to the wooden rail.

  “Do you want me to go in with you, or wait here?” he asked.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I answered. “Now that we’re here, I hadn’t really thought about what I ought to do.”

  “I’d be happy to accompany you in.”

  “Uh . . . no . . . now that I think about it, it’s probably something I should do on my own.”

  “Then I’ll be waiting right out here if you need me.”

  I hesitated before entering. The last time I had seen Derrick Gregory in Sonora, Robin and I had been running up into the forest with Derrick firing at us from below. Would he still be angry with me about taking his notes and ruining possibly the best story he would ever have? Would he look upon me with disdain, or forgive me for all I had done to him? I couldn’t imagine why he would help me. What reason would he have to do something for me?

  A great wave of doubt swept through me. “What am I doing here?” I asked myself. “Derrick Gregory is not the right man to ask for what I need to know. A stranger would have more reason to help me than he.” He might even try to keep me from finding my friends! Yet . . . it was a chance I had to take. He was the only person in Richmond I had any connection with who could possibly have some contact within the Confederate army.

  I took in a deep breath, tried to hold my head up, and strode onward and through the door.

  I walked inside and timidly looked around. There was a long hallway with offices on each side. Nobody seemed to be around. It wasn’t a very lively place. I made my way slowly down the hall. Most of the offices were closed, though there were a few open doors, but still I didn’t see a soul.

  Down at the end of the hall I could hear voices and the sounds of activity. The doors were open, and as I drew closer I saw a large room with some people bustling around inside. It was the layout room, and as I came to the doorway and stopped, I saw all the familiar sights and heard the sounds common to a newspaper room. There were voices and familiar clicking sounds, and I could smell the strong odors of ink and paper and machinery. It gave me such good memories of the Alta building in San Francisco. A large printing press stood at the far end, some men closer by were sitting hunched over desks, setting type, and here and there others occupied desks at various jobs or clustered in small groups of two and three talking.

  I took in the whole scene in a moment, then went inside. A man at a desk closest to the door glanced up and saw me. I quickly walked up to him before I should lose heart and retreat and asked if he knew Derrick Gregory.

  He nodded but didn’t say anything, stood up, sent his eyes searching about the big room, then pointed toward the other end down toward the printing press and promptly sat back down without giving me another look.

  I thanked him, to which he didn’t respond, then walked on through the desks and machines and people and presses in the direction he had pointed. As I drew nearer I saw a desk and a man’s back, for I was approaching from the rear. I knew Derrick Gregory instantly, even without seeing his face.

  As I drew closer I saw that he was sitting beside the opening to a designated area with walls only about four feet high that was like an office in the middle of the larger room. A tiny sign on the wall next to the desk read “Derrick Gregory.”

  Nervously I approached, looking at the papers on his desk. I wondered what sort of article he was working on.

  I reached him and stopped. I tried to clear my throat and say something but couldn’t. I must have stood there a minute or two, and then all at once Derrick realized someone was standing there. He turned his head and his eyes came to rest on my face.

  For a second or two there was just a blank stare. Then a subtle glimmer began in his eyes and the hint of a twitch about the corners of his mouth. The slightest sense of recognition had dawned on his face, but I knew it was not enough for him to remember where he knew me from.

  It all happened in less than three or four seconds, but I knew his brain was racing frantically through all its corners trying to pin down something vague his eyes were telling him about having seen this person somewhere a long time before.

  “Can I help you, miss?” A voice behind me startled me. I hadn’t realized that I’d been mesmerized in a sort of trance for the few seconds too. I turned and saw two men approaching.

  “I wanted to speak with Mr. Gregory,” I answered toward the man who had asked the question. “Hello, Mr. Gregory,” I said, now turning back toward him. “Remember me . . . Corrie Hollister?”

  All it took was for Derrick to hear my voice. Suddenly the light dawned all over his face.

  “Cornelia!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe my eyes!”

  “Yes, it is, Mr. Gregory,” I said. My nervousness must have shown.

  “You don’t need to be afraid of anything,” he said.

  “I . . . I thought you would be angry with me.”

  “Oh, Cornelia!” he exclaimed, though with a softness of tone I had never heard from him. He rose from the desk and walked the few steps over to where I had been standing. “I have been hoping to see you again for the better part of these eight years.”

  “But why, Mr. Gregory?” I said. “I destroyed one of your best election stories ever.”

  “Come on, Cornelia . . . Derrick. We went through too much together to be so formal.”

  A shadow must have come over my face because he quickly added, “Besides, what’s behind us is over and done with. I’m a reformed man now, Cornelia. You’d be proud of me!”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “I’m an honest newspaper reporter now, just like you. No more of that shady stuff I was involved in back then.”

  By now the other two men had gotten closer and had begun to listen to us. Derrick suddenly seemed to realize it and began to introduce me.

  “Gentlemen, I want to introduce you to one of the finest reporters this side of the Mississippi . . . or the other side of it, for that matter too,” he added, laughing. “Let me present Miss Cornelia Ho—”

  But I interrupted him. It suddenly occurred to me that it might not be such a good idea for my name to be loudly voiced around the room.

  “Please, Derrick,” I said. “These men don’t care in the least what my name is. But I am in a hurry. Is the
re a place we can go and talk?”

  He gave me a funny look, not seeming to understand, but then answered, “Well . . . sure, Cornelia,” he said. “We’ll find an empty office somewhere and catch up on old times.”

  He glanced back at his desk, shuffled a few papers together into a stack, then led me away. I followed him back through the big room, into the hall where he led me to a small vacant office. He closed the door, offered me a chair, and then said, “It’s really great to see you again, Cornelia. And I was serious a minute ago—I really have changed since all we went through together back then.”

  I could tell from the expression on his face and the softness of tone in his voice that he meant it.

  “As I said, I have truly been hoping to see you for all these years,” he added, “and not because I was angry with you.”

  “How do you mean?” I said.

  “I mean all those things you said to me sank in,” he replied. “You remember that day we rode out to Big Oak Flat?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said. “That was a day I’d never forget.”

  “You asked me about honesty and right. You remember?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I have to admit I thought I had everything figured out back then. I thought the senator would make me a rich man, and I reckon I figured you were just a naive little kid.”

  “I guess in some ways I was,” I laughed.

  “No, Cornelia, you were far more than that. You had guts. You were—how old were you, anyway?”

  “Let’s see,” I said. “I’m twenty-seven now . . . so I’d have been nineteen.”

  “There, you see what I mean! You were nineteen, but you had the guts to stand up to me, for the sake of what you believed, and that kid who was with you—what was his name?”

  “Robin O’Flaridy.”

  “Flaridy, that’s it. He didn’t have much in the way of guts!”

  “Robin’s grown some since then, too.”

  “But what I was getting at is that you had what it took to stand up to me and not give me my papers in order to save that kid O’Flaridy’s life—even though I had a gun on you. I tell you, Cornelia, I never forgot that night.”

  “You wouldn’t really have shot me, would you, Derrick?” I said.

  “Nah, heck no, I’m no murderer. I haven’t even fought in this war. I managed to talk my way out of it every time they came after me to try to put a rifle in my hands!”

  I laughed. “That I can believe,” I said. “I knew you fired over our heads on purpose, though I was mighty scared at the time.”

  “I guess you were,” he said, then stopped and grew real serious. It was quiet for a minute. I knew he was thinking, and I didn’t want to interrupt it. He was sitting in a chair opposite me and staring down at the floor. Finally, after what seemed like a long time, he looked up.

  “I’ve been waiting eight years to tell you this, Cornelia,” he said, “hoping the whole time that our paths might cross again. Even said a prayer about it a time or two. I wanted to lay eyes on you again to apologize for what I did—for almost getting you into a real bad situation, and for shooting at you like that . . . even if I did make sure I missed.”

  “It’s okay, Derrick,” I said. “I forgave you a long time ago.”

  “Well, I appreciate it,” he replied, “but it wasn’t right. It was a cowardly, selfish, unmanly thing to do. Not only were you a woman, you were practically just a kid, and I’ve been ashamed of myself ever since. So now I want to look you in the eye, like a man, and say it.”

  His eyes bore straight into mine, and I almost thought he was going to start crying.

  “So, Cornelia Hollister . . . I’m sorry. There—I said it, and it’s from the bottom of my heart.”

  “And I forgive you, again,” I answered, smiling at him and having to work to keep from crying myself!

  “So, like I said,” Derrick went on, “I thought a lot about you since back then in Sonora. But it was more than just what you said to me about a writer being truthful. It was that you had more guts and courage than I did to stand up for something you believed in. It got me thinking a lot about what I did believe in, and I can’t say I found that I believed in anything but just myself. The more I thought about it, the more it struck me as none too noble a thing. I realized that what I was doing wasn’t the way to get Buchanan elected. You were helping your man by building him up, not by tearing the other man down. Just that small realization helped change my whole outlook, Cornelia. And the long and the short of it is that the next time the senator offered me one of his dirty jobs, I turned him down. I decided if I couldn’t learn to be an honest newspaperman, then I couldn’t call myself much of any kind of man. By 1860 a total change had come over me. I wrote for the Democrats again, but I didn’t write one article against Lincoln, even when I found something that might have really been able to hurt him.”

  “I’m happy to hear it, Derrick,” I said.

  “You ought to be, Cornelia Hollister, because you made an honest man out of me! After the war started I landed this job with the Star, and that’s where I’ve been ever since, covering the war. And that reminds me—you’ve been making quite a name for yourself, young lady! I’ve seen your name all over the papers from the North, whenever we can get them, and I had the feeling it was you.”

  “That’s why I didn’t want you to tell anyone my name in there,” I said. “I didn’t figure a Northerner like me would be any too welcome in the Confederate capital.”

  “Now that I think of it, what are you doing here anyhow, Cornelia?” As he asked the question, Derrick’s expression grew serious. For a second it worried me.

  “You’re not going to turn me in, are you, Derrick?” I said.

  “Turn you in?” he said, laughing. “Who would I turn you in to? There’s no law against being from the North. And you’re not even from the North at all, but from California. No, no, I’m not going to turn you in.”

  “You had an expression on your face I didn’t know about.”

  “I just remembered about the war,” he said. “I couldn’t figure out what you were doing here right in the middle of Lee’s and Grant’s armies.”

  “I know it may sound strange, us being on opposite sides like we were back then,” I said, “but I need your help.”

  “Listen, Cornelia, if you ever have anything you need from me, don’t you even think twice about asking. Nothing I could do would ever repay what you did for me.”

  “Thank you, Derrick. I think now’s that time, then.”

  “But how did you know where to find me?”

  “I saw an article of yours in the Star, so I figured I’d try to see if you were here.”

  “Well, you found me. What’s the favor?”

  “It’s got to do with the war, Derrick. It might get you into trouble if anyone was to know you were helping me.”

  “Aw, let me worry about that. I owe you, Cornelia, and now’s as good a time as ever to pay you back. What is it you want?”

  “I’m trying to locate two Union soldiers. They’re probably being held prisoner around here someplace, if they’re still alive.”

  “Northerners . . . and you want me to help! What makes you think I could find them?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the only person I knew to ask. I know being a reporter’s gotten me into a lot of unusual places. I figured you’d have connections, and—”

  “I got a few among the troops,” he said, then stopped and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  “Why do you want to find them?” he asked after a moment.

  “Do I have to tell you?”

  A grin spread over his lips. “You are still just as cagey as ever, aren’t you, Cornelia? No, I don’t suppose it matters. I owe you more than I do the Confederacy. I’m not so convinced that slavery’s a good thing, if you want to know the truth of it—just don’t tell anyone around here you heard it from me!”

  “I won’t.”

  “All right, so you want
to find two men. You don’t want to tell me why. Fair enough. What are their names?”

  “Geoffrey Dyles—he’s a captain—and Jacob Crabtree, a Negro man who works for the army.”

  “Hmm, a darkie, you say . . . he’s not likely to be faring too well, though if they are around that might make them easier to find.”

  Derrick thought a moment, then drew in a deep breath.

  “Well, there might be something I can do, Cornelia,” he said. “But I’m none too sure.” He took a piece of paper and wrote the names down. “It may raise some suspicions, but I’ll see what I can do. Where are you staying?”

  “I’m a few miles out of town, in a little farmhouse.”

  “What are you doing there, Cornelia?”

  “It’s a long story. I’m not sure I want to tell you.”

  Derrick laughed. “Maybe it’s best I don’t know,” he said.

  “Could I come back in a few days to see if you have found out anything?” I asked him.

  “You don’t want to tell me where you’re at?”

  “No, I think it’s best I come back.”

  We said good-bye, and I left the building.

  Christopher still stood beside the wagon patiently waiting for me. My face must have said more than I realized because his next words were:

  “It’s easy enough to see you found Mr. Gregory.”

  “I don’t know if I like that you can tell so much about me just from a look at my face,” I said as we climbed back into the wagon. “That transparency again.”

  “I had a long time to learn when your sleeping face had to tell me things your mouth couldn’t. Guile is the opposite of transparency, and Jesus gave one of the highest compliments in the Gospels when he said of Nathaniel that he was a man ‘without guile.’ So by saying I can read your face, I too am complimenting you.”

  “Then I will take it as you meant it.”

  “What did you find out?”

  “Nothing about the captain and Jacob. But Derrick’s going to see if he can learn anything. I have to come back in a few days.”