Cold Glory

by B. Kent Anderson

  “What they did to me, and to Pete Parsons, makes me angry. The other things they’re doing make me angry. And the fact that no one is taking this seriously just makes matters worse. I’m trying to do what’s right, and the only ones paying attention are the ones who were shooting at me.”

  “Well, I’m paying attention,” Sandra said.

  “You know what I meant.”

  “I guess I do.” She sighed. “Let me tell you about the Poet’s Penn.”

  “What is it?”

  “I told you my brother is an English prof. Even he had to dig to find it. The Poet’s Penn was a very small, very obscure literary journal that was published in Louisville, Kentucky, from 1858 to 1864.”

  “It ended the year before the war was over,” Journey said.

  “Right. And the double n was a wordplay. The editor—and as far as my brother could find, the only contributor—was named David Stanton. He had originally come from Pittsburgh to settle in Louisville.”

  “So the double n was for Pennsylvania.”

  “Stanton’s clever way of paying tribute to his home state.”

  Journey leaned forward. “Did your brother know about the reference to the waters running and the strong bending?”

  “No such luck. Remember, this was a very small journal. Stanton evidently had a patron, a Louisville banker, who supported him because he liked Stanton’s work. The journal was never circulated very widely; then it folded, presumably because the funding ran out. Stanton lived until 1908, but never published another word. He was apparently something of a traveling photographer for the rest of his life.”

  “Is there an archive of the journal? Even the most obscure publications show up somewhere.”

  “Randy couldn’t find any evidence of a library archive, but there is one place where some issues of the journal are transcribed online.”

  “But I already did an online search for it.”

  “That’s because in this archive, the person doing the posting refused to spell the title of the journal with the double n. She insisted on using the standard spelling of pen and then putting an asterisk beside it with a note about Stanton. Here’s the Web address.”

  Sandra pulled out a piece of notepaper and handed it to Journey. “Belgium? You must be kidding. The archive of an obscure American literary journal is on a Web site originating in Belgium?”

  Sandra shrugged. “Stranger things have happened. It’s a grad student in literature, who is studying American poetry of the nineteenth century. This isn’t the only journal she’s put up. There are several others, equally obscure.”

  “Have you looked at it yet?”

  Sandra shook her head. “I wanted to bring it to you first.”

  “Let’s see what we have, then.” Journey turned toward his computer and began typing in the URL, which was long and filled with numbers and symbols. When the page settled onto the screen, it was very simple, with few graphics and a generic light blue background. Three buttons filled the monitor: NEDERLANDS, FRANÇAIS, ENGLISH.

  “Dutch, French, and English,” Sandra said, reading over Journey’s shoulder, her hand resting on the back of the chair.

  He clicked on the English button and waited for the page to change, then read the new page.

  Hello!

  This is the Web page of Sherri Blake. I am a doctoral student in Comparative Literature at the University of Liege, Belgium. Originally from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, USA, I earned my undergraduate degree from the University of Sioux Falls. My master’s degree is from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. My research area is mid-nineteenth-century American literature, with special emphasis on the distinctive voices of regional literary and poetry journals and the work of “undiscovered” writers whose works were known regionally but never achieved wider recognition. This Web site is dedicated to archiving several such journals.

  Journey scrolled down the page to a list of the journals Sherri Blake was in the process of archiving.

  Minnesota’s Voice—Minneapolis, Minnesota (1835–1838)

  Quarterly Literature Review—Mobile, Alabama (1842–1861)

  The West—Los Angeles, California (1852–1868)

  Once I Dream’d—Chancellorsville, Virginia (1860–1861)

  Authors and Poets—Somerville, Massachusetts (1830–1888)

  The Poet’s Pen*—Louisville, Kentucky (1858–1864)

  Journey read the appended note about the double-n reference, then clicked the title.

  The Poet’s Pen* was published in Louisville, Kentucky, and appears to have been solely dedicated to the poetry of David Stanton, a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who settled in Louisville in 1853. At its highest circulation, The Poet’s Pen published 300 copies in the summer quarter of 1864. Stanton’s work, though not widely known, was highly regarded in the area. His publication of a poem in a local newspaper caught the eye of prominent banker Samuel B. Williams, who financed the journal for six years. David Stanton’s poems are generally reflective of the area and its people and paint an enlightening picture of a border area during the period leading up to and during the American Civil War.

  Journey looked at his watch—it was past six o’clock. He glanced at Sandra. “Don’t you need to do something, Sandra? This is going to be tedious work. I can—”

  Andrew came into the room, tapping his straw and pencil. He passed both adults and lowered himself onto the floor in front of the couch.

  “Hi, Andrew,” Sandra said, and waggled her fingers at him.

  He jabbed a flat hand in her direction.

  “Hey, he acknowledged me,” Sandra said, and grinned.

  “We’ve been working on that,” Journey said. “The waving is a big deal, getting him to acknowledge coming and going, or that people are talking to him.” He looked at Andrew and smiled. “That’s good waving, son.”

  “Do you want me to leave?” Sandra said.

  Journey was silent a moment. “I think I need some time to process this.”

  Sandra nodded. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  “I’m not trying to be rude,” Journey said.

  “I know.” Sandra stood up. “This is one of my nights to work out at the gym anyway, and I have a couple of other errands to run.” As she passed the couch, she said, “See you later, Andrew.”

  Andrew looked at her and made the flat-hand motion again.

  Journey smiled. “That’s good. He’s really acknowledging you well. It usually takes him a lot longer to get used to someone new—what they look like, what they sound like, maybe even what they smell like.”

  Sandra paused with her hand on the door. “Talk to you later.”

  “Yeah.” She stepped through the doorway onto the porch. “Sandra?” he said, and she turned.

  “Why don’t you go to the gym, do what you need to do, then stop back by later? Maybe I’ll know something in a few hours.”

  “Maybe so,” she said, and walked to her car.

  Journey watched her go, closed the door behind her, and stopped at the couch. He found the porcupine ball that Marvin Colbert had given Andrew, and tossed it back and forth a few times before the boy decided he was more interested in squeezing the ball and feeling the little puff of air against his face. Journey looked at his son for a long moment. Sandra’s scent was still in the room. He wondered if Andrew could smell it as well.

  * * *

  Journey didn’t feel like cooking, so he opted for the traditional fallback of the single father: pizza delivery. Plain cheese pizza for Andrew, sausage and jalapeños and mushrooms for himself. They ate quickly, and Journey washed the pizza sauce from his son’s face. He let Andrew watch Animal Planet on television for a while as he was drawn back to the computer, to The Poet’s Penn and the verses of David Stanton.

  By seven thirty, he’d read up through the 1862 editions of the journal. He gave Andrew his bath, as always trying to get his son to use the washcloth on himself. Andrew rubbed the cloth halfheartedly around his hands and nec
k, then became fixated on the bathtub faucet and flapped both hands in the water while vocalizing loudly. Same routine with drying—Andrew dried his face and feet repeatedly, ignoring the rest of his body while he dripped all over the floor. Journey helped him into his loose-fitting nighttime sweatpants and SCCO T-shirt. Their usual routine involved getting him to bed and reading to him, everything from Dr. Seuss to historical journals. Andrew never wanted to look at pictures in books, but he understood that it was bedtime when his father sat on his bed with a book. Sometimes the routine worked. Sometimes Andrew was agitated and would lie in bed, screaming and laughing at nothing, for an hour or more. Tonight he was calm, and Journey slipped quietly out of his room after reading to him.

  Back at the computer, he touched the keyboard and the screen saver—an image of him holding Andrew as a newborn, with Amelia carefully cropped out of the picture—vanished, replaced by The Poet’s Penn.

  David Stanton had come from Pittsburgh, so Journey assumed his wartime sympathies lay with the Union, though the poet never took sides in his writing, which was highly unusual for the time. He lived in Louisville, Kentucky, a border city in a border state. Kentucky had remained part of the Union, but with strong Southern tendencies. Louisville itself, thanks to its strategic position on the Ohio River, was an important supply depot for the Union throughout the war. Still, Stanton appeared neutral, chronicling in verse the horrors of war to both sides, to all sides.

  At three minutes after nine, Journey read:

  In the gloaming of day, Twilight between blue and gray.

  Where the strong river bends, Toward its bitter and bloody end.

  There is no grace nor light, O’er the battle’s hot black night.

  So to leave the dead and forget the lame, All these men who sleep with no name.

  ’Tis a cold glory crowning warriors all, Lo! The waters rage and fall.

  Journey looked at the words again. He slowly pulled the photocopy of the Fort Washita document from the pile on his desk.

  The Poet’s Penn causes the strong to bend and makes the waters fall.

  Journey reached out his hand and touched the computer monitor.

  Where the strong river bends …

  Lo! The waters rage and fall.

  It was one section of a long and rambling poem Stanton had published in the summer of 1864. Journey scrolled back up the screen to the top of the page, where he read the poem’s title: “Ruminations on the War, At the Falls of the Ohio.”

  CHAPTER

  24

  Sandra was back at nine thirty, wearing workout gear and sipping from a bottle of water. “The Falls of the Ohio,” Journey said before she was through the door.

  She raised one eyebrow at him. He motioned her to the sofa and handed her a printout of David Stanton’s poem.

  Sandra read it, her brow furrowing. “The strong bends and the waters fall. Esoteric, but it fits.”

  Journey nodded. “It raises more questions, but it seems to answer one, at least, and that is that the next piece of this thing has to do with the Falls of the Ohio. I was in Louisville a few times when I played ball, but I don’t know that area well.”

  Sandra drank water. “I grew up in southern Illinois, not all that far downriver from there. My parents took me to the Falls once when my brothers and I were little. It’s really not a falls per se, not like Niagara, but more a series of rapids, and the river lowers in elevation over the course of a couple of miles. It’s famous for the fossil beds that are uncovered when the river is low.”

  “I did a little online research a few minutes ago. There’s a state park there now, on the Indiana side of the river. A lot has changed since the Civil War.”

  “They put in dams through there a long time ago. At one time, it was considered the only real navigational obstacle on the entire Ohio.” Sandra put down her water bottle. “So this cryptic note points to the Falls of the Ohio. What is there? The rest of this document? More weapons, or something else altogether?”

  “Good question,” Journey said. “And here’s another question: Who did this? David Stanton? How would he have been able to get close to both Lee and Grant? Besides, if you read some of his prose pieces in the journal, and then you read this first page of the Fort Washita document, it doesn’t sound anything like him.”

  Sandra read the poem again. “Here he talks about ‘the bitter and bloody end’ and ‘cold glory crowning warriors.’ But the Grant and Lee paper is so … I don’t know, more formal, businesslike.”

  “So if Stanton didn’t write this—” Journey tapped the photocopied document three times. “—then who did?”

  “And what’s the connection between this and the Glory Warriors?”

  “I think the answer is in the rest of the pages to this document. Whoever did this went to great pains to protect it. We think he was in Appomattox on April ninth, 1865, at Lee’s surrender. At some point after that, he was around Fort Washita. He could easily have gone from Appomattox to Louisville, either on horseback or even part of the way by train. Some of the rail lines were still running. The war had cut off a lot of them, but not as much the farther west you went. Louisville was a major steamboat port then. He could get on a boat there and go to the Mississippi, then get another boat on the Arkansas River to Fort Smith, buy a horse, and ride the rest of the way here.”

  “But again, why?” Sandra said. “What’s the purpose of all this?”

  “I’m hoping I find that out at the Falls of the Ohio.”

  “You’re not thinking of going there yourself? Aren’t you going to give this information to the cops? Call those two who were here.”

  “You said yourself that they didn’t take me seriously, that they’re not going to do anything.”

  “You can’t just take off like that. What about your classes?”

  “My TA, Clark, will cover them. He’s a good kid, and he’ll do fine with the material until I get back.”

  “Nick, I don’t think you should do this. Look, walking up to those guys on the highway was one thing. And even that was crazy of you to do. I get it that you need to deal with this, but I don’t think you can just go halfway across the country—”

  Journey tapped his finger three times, then shook his entire hand from side to side. “I think we’d better establish some boundaries here, Sandra.”

  Sandra sat back. “What are you talking about?”

  “Look, I appreciate the fact that you got in touch with your brother and put out the effort to get this information for me. You didn’t have to do that, and it means a lot to me. But you—” Journey swallowed. Sandra was looking straight at him, her eyes never wavering. “My life is complicated, and I don’t think you want to get tangled up in this any further.”

  “Everyone’s life is complicated. That’s a cop-out.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Sandra stood up. “If you don’t want me around, say so. But please don’t insult my intelligence with this line about your life being complicated. And I certainly don’t need you or anyone else to tell me what I do and don’t want to do.”

  “You’re overreacting,” Journey said, working to keep his voice level. “I don’t want to see anything happen—”

  “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” Sandra’s voice had been rising steadily. “And what about your son? Have you thought about what you’re going to do with him while you run off to Louisville?”

  “Well, there’s really no one here in town that I’m comfortable leaving him with overnight.”

  “You think I don’t know that? Everyone knows that, Nick.”

  Journey tapped his index finger against his lip. “I was thinking I would drop him off with his mother in Oklahoma City.”

  “And just pull him out of school? Won’t that disrupt his routine? What will his mother think about that? Hasn’t she already done her token two weeks this year?”

  “Don’t you presume to tell me how to take care of my son!” Journey shouted with sudden anger. “You
know nothing about my life!”

  “And whose choice is that?” Sandra yelled back.

  Journey absorbed the words like a slap across the face, and the two of them stared at each other across the living room. After a moment, Sandra picked up her water bottle and strode to the door. “I should go.”

  “Sandra … I have to go to the Falls of the Ohio. I have to see what’s there. You don’t understand.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Then she turned and was gone.

  CHAPTER

  25

  The chief justice of the United States Supreme Court possessed the figure and demeanor of a jolly, round little grandmother from Alabama, one who still liked to can her own vegetables and made jams and jellies. She was also the sharpest legal mind of her generation, and when President Harwell nominated her to be the top jurist in the land two years ago, she’d been confirmed with only twenty-four “no” votes on the Senate floor. After years of a Supreme Court that had been directed by ideological chief justices, Nan Darlington was a pragmatist, a centrist in every sense of the word.

  Now sixty-four, Darlington had come to Washington a decade earlier upon being named to the D.C. Court of Appeals, which was well known as the “training ground” for the Supreme Court. She’d been on the federal bench in Birmingham for the decade prior to that. The chief justice and her husband, Professor Edmond Norman, who taught criminal law at Georgetown, lived in a beautiful old row house on O Street in Georgetown, not far from the law school.

  Darlington was a creature of habit. When in D.C., she rose promptly at six o’clock each morning, ate a breakfast of two scrambled eggs, bread, and juice, exercised on her StairMaster for exactly thirty minutes, and spent a few minutes in her study, silent and alone, praying and meditating on the day ahead. Then she would quickly dress in one of the forty or so black suits she owned, would talk to her husband about what his day held, then would kiss him at the front doorway. She would be on her stoop at seven fifteen, awaiting her car and driver. She never kept them waiting.