The Pied Piper of Death

by Forrest, Richard;

  On the far wall above the cupboards was the tattered battle flag of the Connecticut 31st Regiment.

  Each exhibit represented the name of one man from the Civil War, and the wall was covered with 467 of them.

  “My God, what does this mean?” Lyon said half aloud. “And why here?”

  FOURTEEN

  Lyon was involved in one of his recurrent nightmares—a tedious trip on the New Jersey Turnpike surrounded by large semis driven by irritable truckers. For reasons he couldn’t comprehend, the car radio seemed capable of only transmitting static. Bea had fallen asleep before they passed the Newark Airport and now her head pressed against his shoulder. The scenery was sparse, the trip dreary.

  Bea shifted in her seat and awoke. She looked at him sleepily. “You okay to keep driving?”

  “Oh, sure.”

  “Now that I think about it, did you get any sleep at all last night?”

  “Now that you mention it, no. When we get to Washington, do you think you can get an appointment with the Secretary of the Interior?”

  “An undersecretary can take care of things for me.”

  “It’s nice to have such an important wife that she can call for favors at high places.”

  Bea laughed. “I’m not important. Occasionally I make lots of noise, so they like to keep me quiet. Anyway, I’m to arrange for a park ranger to meet you at the Antietam battlefield.”

  “One with expertise on that particular battle.”

  “Right, some sort of expert.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate the favor.”

  “You know, Lyon, I agree with Rocco. We both think you’re overly complicating this whole Piper matter. It seems obvious that the Civil War colonel murdered his first wife to marry his second. He stashed her away in the Underground Railroad station because it was never used after the war and was a great place to hide a body. Since the colonel was probably a little wacko, it follows that once he considered the room a tomb, he also established his own macabre regimental museum in the same place. Presto, the ancient mystery is solved. Now that it’s done, let’s turn around and go home.”

  “Why would the colonel keep his strange little museum such a secret? Why didn’t he put that stuff in the library with the other material? Why didn’t he build a separate room for it? Why were the mementos so odd? The items appear to have been scavenged, not collected. As the colonel of the regiment who raised, equipped, and uniformed it, he could have built nearly any sort of shrine for his men that he wanted. No, he didn’t collect that junk, someone else did.”

  “The same person who’s been killing Pipers all down the years?”

  “You’ve got it,” Lyon said. He violently jerked the steering wheel, returning the Saturn to its proper lane in response to a semi’s airhorn shriek.

  Bea looked up at the truck cab as it passed. The driver leered at her and made an obscene finger gesture. She retaliated with her brightest political smile. The driver pointed the finger at Lyon and pantomimed a gunshot. Bea nodded and smiled. The trucker grinned in return.

  “The suggestion has been made that we change drivers,” Bea said. “Pull over at the next rest stop and let me take the wheel.”

  They came to a pull-off a mile down the road and switched places. Bea continued with her thought when they were back on the interstate. “Now, let me follow your logic. A contemporary of Caleb Piper’s collected war memorabilia in a room that no living person knew about. This individual then proceeded, over the next hundred and thirty or more years, to knock off the firstborn Piper of every generation.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you’re going to the Antietam battlefield in Sharpsburg, Maryland, to check for other ghosts still treading that hallowed ground?”

  “Something like that.”

  “We’ve seemingly become a spiritualist in our dotage?”

  “You know me better than that, Bea. I hardly believe in the supernatural. There’s always a rational answer for things once you find the key. I believe that everything that’s happened so far leads back to the battle of Antietam. The newly appointed colonel recruited his regiment and they fought their first and last battle at Antietam. If anything happened in the Civil War that started this train of events, it had to begin on September seventeenth, 1862. That was the single day that battle was fought.”

  “What happened to the colonel during the remainder of the war?”

  “According to family records,” Lyon said, “he was breveted from lieutenant colonel to full colonel, cited for heroism, and assigned to rear echelons to work on ordnance for the duration. This was considered a reward for his heroic acts and knowledge of explosives.”

  “And the names on the wall of the secret room?”

  Lyon pulled a pad from his pocket while Bea frantically steered around a slowing semi. It was the same driver. He pursed his lips in a kissing gesture. It was her turn to give the finger.

  “I wrote down the names,” Lyon said as he concentrated on his notes and missed the minor highway drama. “All four hundred sixty-seven of them. Considering he commanded a regiment, this is probably a list of the casualties that someone meant to honor. Of course it could also be a list of deserters and stragglers marked for revenge. But considering the size of a regiment in those days the second alternative seems unlikely. It wasn’t unusual for a quarter of a unit’s men to drop out of a march for one reason or another and not be on the battle line when the skirmishing started. There’s a significance to those names and that’s what we have to find out. I’ll drop you off in Washington, swing through Frederick, Maryland, go on to Sharpsburg at Hagerstown.”

  A mile north of Sharpsburg on a road that ran parallel to Antietam Creek, Lyon pulled the Saturn to the side of the road and parked between a Confederate cannon and a historical marker. He knew he was at a location that overlooked a portion of the battlefield they called the cornfield. An early morning charge against the Southern lines at this location was the first phase of the battle. Quiet now. It was hard to imagine that single day so long ago, the bloodiest in the history of the United States.

  He placed his hand on the barrel of the cannon warming in the sun. Squatting on a low rise just above the cornfield the cannon looked out over the land it would guard for eternity. It waited for the rush of men who would never charge again.

  The first phase of the Army of the Potomac’s attack had been launched by General Hooker from an area called the North Woods. They were stopped in the cornfield by the men of Stonewall Jackson. Union General John Sedgewick had stormed the nearby West Woods, where two thousand men fell under the withering fire of Jackson’s hidden troops.

  Lyon turned toward the center of the battlefield. It was here that both sides had contested a single farm lane called “the sunken road.” Five thousand fell where cows now grazed. The narrow roadway had been renamed Bloody Lane. It was later in the day during the fight on Lee’s right flank to the south where the bridge had played such a crucial part. It was there that Colonel Caleb Piper and his Connecticut regiment had fought so gallantly.

  Lyon turned away from the Bloody Lane. He could feel their presence and hear the haunting sounds of a muted and distant thunder. They were there to be heard, but he did not want to listen to the voices of the past yet. He wanted those feelings to be clear and powerful when he visited the bridge. He must see and feel the place where the men from his home had died.

  He returned to the Saturn and drove the short distance to the park building.

  The battlefield’s Visitor’s Center was a low-slung stone structure built into the side of a ridge and designed to blend into the surrounding fields. It was on high ground above the cornfield, located on a spot where artillery had once fired canister and grape during the heat of battle. The building housed a small auditorium where a short film on the battle was shown every hour. A tiny museum displayed artifacts from the battle. A bookstore and a lounge with large windows overlooking the battlefield completed the interior.

  Lyon identi
fied himself at the reception desk and was directed downstairs to a small office and locker room used by park personnel.

  “You Wentworth?” The heavyset park ranger looked a decade and a half past mandatory retirement age. His feet were propped on a scuffed desk, a fat book lay on his stomach, and his hands were laced behind his head. His massive mop of graying hair topped a wide face and broad smile. The name tag read, RUSTY WEST—VOLUNTEER.

  He waved the book in the air. “Did Lee make the frontal assault at Gettysburg and sacrifice Pickett’s men because he didn’t feel well that day? Or was it because Stonewall had recently been killed and wasn’t present with advice?”

  Lyon knew that notwithstanding the man’s friendly smile, the question was a test. “I think Lee ordered that disastrous charge because he wanted the war to end that day, one way or the other. I think he was astonished when his defeated army was allowed to retreat back to Virginia without further loss.”

  The ranger’s feet thumped to the floor as his hand shot out with a sincere grip. “A lot of people think Lee was the greatest general that ever lived and would throttle you for that notion. You’re talking near treason.”

  “Pickett’s charge could have been ordered by a man who knew that continuing the battles was insanity.”

  “Interesting idea. You know your war?”

  Lyon smiled in the realization that somehow he had passed the man’s test. “Afraid not. I know Gettysburg because I worked there for a short while.”

  A frown fought with the ranger’s greeting and lost. “Honest answer, anyway. So, now you’ve got more time on your hands and want to learn about Antietam?”

  “It’s more complicated and important than that. Someone’s life may depend upon what I find. I can’t explain it now.”

  “Will you someday?”

  “Yes.”

  Rusty West considered this a moment, then with a barely perceptible nod agreed to the conditions. “I need to know a great deal about this battle,” Lyon continued. “Particularly the third phase.”

  “You mean Burnside’s attack on Lee’s flank?”

  “Someone tipped you off.”

  “A fax from Washington. I know all about General Burnside’s bridge. I suppose I know about as much as anyone in the world. Not that it did me any good when mandatory retirement rolled around. Be that as it may, I’m still a sucker for my battle. Anything in particular you want to know?”

  “I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking for, but whatever it is will revolve around the Thirty-first Connecticut Rifles.”

  “Those poor bastards.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Unlucky Thirty-first they were called. They fought at the Bridge. Yes, sir, they really did fight at the Bridge. Interesting story that. I’ll tell you when I take you down there. Where do you want to start?”

  “I’d like to begin with my list. I have four hundred sixty-seven names. They probably have something in common, but I don’t know what it is.”

  “Do you think the names are soldiers who fought in the war?”

  “I believe they were all members of the Union army. I think they belonged to the Thirty-first Regiment, but I’m not sure. In fact, so far that’s about all I do know about them.”

  “We can run it through our computer program.”

  “How does that work?”

  Rusty West led Lyon over to a computer pushed into the corner of the small office. It was covered with a sheet, which he took off and neatly folded. “We had the damn thing out on the floor for everyone to use, but some computer nerd kids kept feeding strange programs into the damn thing and screwing it up.”

  “What is the program?” Lyon asked.

  “This is the ‘Civil War Soldier’s System’ that we developed with the National Archives. The Mormons were in on it too. Out in Salt Lake City the Mormons have some of the best genealogical records in the world. So, working with volunteers and people like myself, we put the system together.”

  West’s voice slipped into a lecture mode as he continued explaining the computer program. “If you consider both sides of the conflict, three and a half million men fought in the Civil War. Our system includes the North and the South. We’re talking seven thousand regiments.”

  “Exactly what does it cover?”

  “If you feed a name into the system it will tell you if he was a Confederate or Yankee. It will give you his rank, what unit he was attached to, and indicate if he was killed, wounded, captured, or reported missing. We have a database that might show you where he is buried, what decorations he received, and any other data that we’ve managed to accumulate. Once you know his unit you can trace that out also. It will show you what battles and skirmishes his regiment participated in, his commanding officers, and things of that nature.”

  “I’d like to run my list of names through the system,” Lyon said.

  “Hell, Wentworth, sit down and do your duty.”

  Rusty West went back to his book and only occasionally looked over at the computer. Lyon booted up the system and began to type in his list of names in the exact order that he had copied them from the room wall at Bridgeway.

  The readings for each were nearly identical. ‘Casualty: killed in action, missing in action, or wounded in action’ … he knew after the first dozen names that the pattern would continue.

  Lyon turned to the ranger after his list had been entered. “Can I print this out?”

  “Sure. Let me show you.”

  The dot matrix printer by the side of the computer began to clank out the names with their continual “casualty” entry.

  The ranger ran his finger down the column of names. “It figures considering these men were all in the Thirty-first Connecticut.”

  “You mean it’s logical that they all were casualties?”

  “Sure. Those boys had a rough time that day.”

  “I ran the database on the regiment. This seemed to be the only battle they fought in during the whole war.”

  “After their hour on the bridge there wasn’t enough of the regiment left to fight anything,” West said.

  Lyon gingerly held the printout and ran his finger down the list of names that were becoming so familiar. He knew that many of the regiments at that time were enlisted from the same geographical areas, so it was logical that most of the men in the 31st came from the Middleburg-Murphysville region of the state. It also followed that some names would be familiar to him since so many families had lived in the area for generations. He was still surprised:

  Roger Candlin, the congressman’s namesake, wounded in action.

  Warren Fraxer, killed in action. He would not be surprised if he were a relative of Paula’s boyfriend, the activist college student, Chuck Fraxer.

  Drummer boy Willard Welch, Rabbit’s forebear, missing in action, later designated as wounded in action.

  And the greatest surprise of all was the name Swan. Major Swan, the regiment’s adjutant, had died from wounds received at the battle.

  And there were others, many more, 467 all told.

  Rusty West reverently folded the printout and placed it in an envelope for him. “It was a bloody day that September. Twenty-three thousand fell here. Come on, let’s go down to the bridge and I’ll show you what happened to the Thirty-first Rifles. You’re not related to anyone named Piper, are you?”

  “No. Why?”

  “In that case, I’ll tell you why the Thirty-first was decimated.”

  West directed Lyon as they drove away from the Visitor’s Center. It was still early in the season, so there were few cars on the auto tour portion of the battlefield. They turned south along a road that ran parallel to what was now known as the Bloody Lane. Most of the battlefield land was still in private hands. The fields were planted with the same crops as 130 years ago. It was good rolling land enriched by Antietam creek, which ran clear and cold one thousand yards away. The Potomac River was not far to the west. Rich land fertilized with the blood of thousands of youn
g men.

  “Antietam isn’t much of a river,” Rusty West said. “It’s a creek really. But she runs cold and swift enough that her high banks made an obstacle for a large army. Three bridges cross her at Sharpsburg. The Yanks held the upper bridge from the start and that’s how they came across to attack Stonewall’s men in the cornfield. The lower bridge, or as folks around here called it, Rohrback’s Bridge, became known as Burnside’s Bridge after the battle. They named it after General Burnside, whose men paid so dearly to capture it. Anyways, the lower bridge controlled Lee’s right flank. But the Rebs gave the Yanks a bit of difficulty in crossing it.”

  At the ranger’s signal Lyon parked the Saturn at a pull-off. They walked a few yards to an overlook on a high bluff that looked directly down at the creek crossed by the Burnside Bridge.

  “My God,” Lyon said in awe. “The Southerners were up here?”

  “If you look carefully you can still see the remains of their rifle pits just a mite below where you’re standing now,” West said. “Just a few hundred of General Tomb’s Georgians held this spot. They beat back Burnside’s Corp time and time again.”

  “I can see why,” Lyon said. He looked down at the river and small bridge a few hundred feet below them. The terrain appraisal faculties he had honed so carefully during his war returned with all their accuracy. Infantry warfare had not changed fundamentally in the intervening century and a half. Young men with rifles still had to march against other men with rifles. One group had to wrest good high ground from other men. A great many people died in the process.

  It was obvious to Lyon that the spot where they stood was nearly an impossible position to assault. The sturdy stone bridge was narrow. It was wide enough for only one farm cart at a time to cross. The bridge faced directly into the bluffs on this side of the river.