by Джон Джейкс
"Where is he?" Stanley demanded of Wood.
"Room 16. Same place we put all the editors and reporters."
"Did you clear out the others in the room? It's imperative that no one recognize me. Newsmen certainly would." He was assured it had been done. "You've bungled this, Baker — you know that."
"Not my fault," Baker complained as Stanley started upstairs through the shadows, the stenches, the flicker and play of gaslights spaced wide apart.
"The secretary thinks otherwise. If we can't straighten this out, you may lose your precious toy — those four troops of cavalry you persuaded Mr. Lincoln to give you."
Up they went, past rooms holding inmates, and others where interrogations were conducted, sometimes lasting hours. Room 16 was a long, desolate chamber with a single gas fixture and one filthy window at the end. Spider webs festooned the ceiling corners. Strange stains discolored those portions of the wall that could be seen; bunks piled with dirty blankets and luggage hid the rest.
Packing boxes, empty bottles, items of men's clothing littered the floor. The furniture consisted of two dirty pine tables with benches. The quality of the prison's food could be judged from what was scrawled on the wall in charcoal:
MULE SERVED HERE
"Lower bunk, on the left," Wood whispered.
The floor creaked as they tiptoed toward the small, almost dwarf-like man snoring with his back to the room. The visible side of his face was heavily bruised, his eye a puffy slit yellow with matter. "Good Christ," Stanley said.
Randolph stirred but didn't waken. Stanley shoved Baker aside and walked out. Downstairs, in Wood's office, he slammed the door and said, "Here's the long and short of it. A black whore escaped when Randolph was taken at Mrs. Devore's. The whore telegraphed Cincinnati. The owners of Randolph's paper are Democrats, but they have sufficient influence in Ohio to elicit a response from a Republican administration — I speak particularly of Mr. Stanton. Habeas corpus or no habeas corpus, Randolph goes free first thing in the morning."
Baker sighed. "That clears it up, then."
"The devil it does. Who beat him so badly?"
"That man you sent me. Dayton."
"Get rid of him."
Baker stroked his beard, shrugged. "Easy enough."
"And the witnesses."
"Not so easy."
"Why not? One's in custody —"
"The white prostitute," Wood said. "She's with the other women."
"Get the nigger's name from Mrs. Devore," Stanley ordered Baker. "Find her and get both women out of Washington. Threaten them, bribe them, but I want them five hundred or a thousand miles from here. Tell them to use assumed names if they value their skins." Baker started to raise some objection, but Stanley blustered, "Do it, Colonel, or you'll no longer command the First District of Columbia Cavalry, or any other organization."
With an unintelligible mutter, Baker turned away. Wood scratched his chin. "There's still Randolph to be reckoned with. Nobody cut his tongue out, y'know."
Stanley's glance lashed the warden for joking at such a time. "Randolph is Mr. Stanton's responsibility. The secretary is calling on Senator Wade right now, and it's expected that some well-respected congressmen will soon counsel with Randolph's publishers. The message will be quite simple. It will be to their advantage to keep quiet but infinitely troublesome for them if they don't. I suspect they'll choose the former. Then, if Randolph talks, who'll corroborate his wild statements? Not his paper. Certainly no one here —" Baleful, he eyed the warden and the chief of the Detective Bureau.
"The women won't," he continued. "They'll be gone. Dayton, too. Many unsubstantiated tales of government excess are circulating these days. One more will hardly cause a ripple."
"I'll speak to Dayton tomorrow," Baker promised.
"Tonight," Stanley said and went down and out to the square, where Union officers, evidently rounded up for disciplinary reasons, stumbled from a newly arrived van while raffish men and women leaned from the prison windows, crying, "Fresh fish! Fresh fish!"
"I regret this," Lafayette Baker said to a still-sleepy Elkanah Bent. It was half past eleven. Bent had been wakened and dragged to the office by Detective O'Dell, who professed to know nothing about the reason for the urgent summons.
Baker cleared his throat. "But facts are facts, Dayton. You injured Randolph by repeatedly hitting him."
Bent clutched the arms of his chair, straining forward. "He resisted arrest!"
"Even so, it's evident that you employed more force than was necessary."
Bent struck the desk. "And what do you and Wood employ when you question someone? I've been at the prison. I've heard the screams —"
"That's enough," Baker said, his tone ominous.
"You want a scapegoat —"
"I don't want a thing, Dayton. You're an able agent, and if I could keep you, I would, believe me." Bent spat an oath. Baker colored but kept his voice level. "I am under orders from the War Department. The secretary himself. Some satisfaction must be offered for what happened to Randolph, and I regret —"
"That I'm the bone to be tossed to the wolves," Bent cried, very nearly shrieking. Someone tapped on the door, asked a question.
"Everything's fine, Fatty," Baker called back. Then, more quietly, "I understand your feelings. But it will be to your advantage to take this in good grace."
"The hell I will. I refuse to be thrown on the trash heap by you, by Stanton, or by any other —"
"Shut your mouth!" Baker was on his feet, pointing at the other man. "You have twenty-four hours to remove yourself from Washington. There is no appeal."
Like a sounding whale, Bent came up from his chair. "Is this how the government treats loyal employees? How it repays faithful service —?"
Abruptly, Baker sat again. His hands began to move through dossier folders like busy white spiders. Without raising his eyes, he said, "Twenty-four hours, Mr. Dayton. Or you will be placed under arrest."
"At whose instigation? By whose order?"
Livid, Baker said, "Lower your voice. Eamon Randolph was severely beaten. Much worse will happen to you if you make trouble. You'll disappear into Old Capitol, and you'll be a gray-beard before you see daylight again. Now get out of here and out of Washington by this time tomorrow. O'Dell!"
The door flew open. The detective shot in, right hand under his left lapel.
"Show him out. Lock the door after he leaves."
Blinking, panting, Bent was in an instant reduced to helplessness. His shoulders sagged, then his body. He uttered a single, faint, "But —"
"Dayton," Fatty O'Dell said, and stepped aside, leaving the doorway unblocked. Bent lumbered out.
A few hours earlier, an elegant gig open to the night air clipped along the perimeter road of Hollywood Cemetery, west of Richmond. Lights gleamed in distant houses. Shadows of leafy branches flitted over the faces of James Huntoon and the gig's driver, Lamar Powell.
"I can't believe what you've told me, Powell."
"That's precisely why I called for you and brought you out here," Powell replied. "I'd like to recruit you for our group, but I couldn't risk issuing the invitation where we might be overheard."
Huntoon pulled out his pocket kerchief to remove a sudden film of steam from his spectacles. "I certainly understand."
Powell shook the reins to pick up the pace on the straight stretch of road. Monuments, obelisks, great crosses, and anguished stone angels glided by, half seen in the foliage to their right. "I know we didn't begin our, ah, business relationship on the best footing, Huntoon. But, ultimately, Water Witch earned you a fine profit."
"That's true. Unfortunately, to obtain it, my wife deceived me.
"I'm sorry about that. Your wife strikes me as a charming person, but I know little about her, so it would be rash as well as rude if I commented on your domestic situation."
He kept his eyes fixed on the starlit road beyond the ears of the horse. He felt Huntoon's suspicious stare for a moment. Then a whis
tling sigh told him the lawyer's thoughts had jumped back to the plan Powell had described. He probed for a reaction.
"Are you appalled by what I told you a few minutes ago?"
"Yes." More firmly: "Yes — why not? Assassination is — well — not only a crime; it's an act of desperation."
"For some. Not my group. We are taking a carefully planned and absolutely necessary step to reach a desirable end — establishment of the new Confederacy of the Southwest. Properly organized, properly controlled — free and independent of the bungling that has doomed this one. There will be a government, of course. You could play a role. A significant one. You most certainly have the talent. I've inquired about your work at the Treasury Department."
Like a pleased boy, Huntoon said, "Have you really?"
"Do you think I'd be speaking now if I hadn't? You're one of a number of highly competent men King Jeff has misused — wasted in menial posts. It's deliberate, naturally. He downgrades those of us from the cotton states in order to please the damned Virginians. For you, I could envision an important post in our Treasury Department, if that appeals to you. If it doesn't, we can certainly satisfy you with some other high office. Very likely at cabinet level."
Under the wind-rustled branches, Huntoon wondered if he could believe what he was hearing. It was the call of opportunity — the kind of opportunity to which he had aspired in the early days, but which Davis had denied him.
Cabinet level. Wouldn't Ashton be pleased? She might not consider him so inadequate, publicly or — his tongue moved over his damp lip — privately.
But it was dangerous. And Powell spoke of murder so lightly. Hesitating, he said, "Before I decide, I would need more details."
"Details without a commitment on your part? I'm afraid that's impossible, James."
"Some time to consider, then. The risks —"
"They're enormous, no denying it," Powell cut in. "But brave men with vision can meet and master them. You uttered an appropriate word a few moments ago — desperation. But it applies to them far more than it does to us. The Confederacy of Davis and his crowd is already lost, and they know it. The people are beginning to know it, too. The only government that can succeed is a new government. Ours. So the question's quite simple. Will you join it or no?"
Huntoon's mind brimmed with memories: Ashton's adoring eyes at the moment she accepted his proposal; the cheering, clapping crowds to whom he had argued the case for secession from lecture platforms — even tree stumps — throughout his home state. He had starved for both kinds of approval since coming to this wretched city.
"Your answer, James?"
"I'm — inclined to join. But I must think a while before the decision can be final."
"Certainly. Not too long, though," Powell murmured. "Preparations are already going forward."
He shook the reins again; the clip-clop quickened. The breeze lifted Powell's hair and refreshed his face as he swung the gig back toward the city. He was smiling. The fish was securely on the hook.
When Lafayette Baker dismissed him, Elkanah Bent's tenuous self-control broke like a dry twig. He rode straight for the residence of Jasper Dills, passing the Star office en route. Swarming crowds read bulletins by torchlight. The armies had engaged or were about to engage near some obscure market town in Pennsylvania.
As he had once done at Starkwether's, Bent pounded the door of the Dills's house. Beat on it until his fist ached and an austere servant answered. "Mr. Dills is out of the city for several days."
"Coward," Bent muttered as the door slammed. Like so many others, the lawyer had fled at the first threat of invasion.
With his sole source of help unavailable, he knew he dared not stay in Washington. An unexpected option suddenly presented itself. Why stay in the North at all? He hated its army for failing to recognize his military talent, thus denying him the career he deserved. He hated its President for favoring the Negroes. Most of all, he hated its government for using him when it was expedient and casting him aside when it was not.
In his rooms, snuffling and cursing those who had conspired against him, he rummaged through a trunk to find the pass he had saved from the Richmond mission. Wrinkled and soiled, it was still too legible to serve his purpose. A sentry would have to be blind not to detect forgery of a new date — which he had neither the materials nor the skills to accomplish anyway.
Use the bureau's regular sources, then? No. Baker might hear of it and guess his destination. He must cross the Potomac without papers, without using any of the bridges. There were ways. The bureau had taught him a lot in a short time.
His damp hair clinging to his forehead and his shirttails flying out of his trousers, he flung clothing and a few possessions into a portmanteau and a small trunk. The last item he packed was the painting from New Orleans. As he worked, the pressure of hatred built again.
He swung to stare at his reflection in the old, speckled pier glass. How ugly he was; gross with fat. With a cry, he seized the china water pitcher and crashed it into the mirror, breaking both.
Moments later, the landlady was pounding on the door. "Mr. Dayton, what are you doing?"
In order to leave, he had to unlock the door and shove the old woman aside. She fell. He paid no attention. Down the stairs he went, trunk on his shoulder, portmanteau in his other hand while the woman bleated about rent in arrears. A sleepy boarder in a nightcap peered at him as he went out.
In the sultry dawn, he rattled south in a hired buggy. Some blustering and a flash of his little silver badge took him through the fortification lines. He went straight on along the roads of Prince Georges and Charles counties toward Port Tobacco, where certain watermen were known to be loyal to the Confederacy provided the loyalty was secured with cash.
Bent scarcely saw the countryside through which the buggy carried him. His mind picked over the decision to which he had been driven, constructing additional justifications for it. Perhaps the Southern leaders weren't as bad as he had always believed. They hated the darkies as much as he did, which was in their favor. And during his time in Richmond, he had found that he could blend in without causing suspicion. There had to be a place for him in the Confederacy; there was none in the North any longer.
He was still realistic enough to acknowledge some facts about his defection. The established government — more specifically, the army — probably wouldn't employ him. Put it another way: He did not want to ask them for employment. Though he was by no means the first person to change sides in this war, they would still distrust him, hence put him in a menial post if they put him in any at all. Second, he dared not say who he really was or reveal much about his past. To do so would lead to questions, requests for explanations.
He would find some other way to survive. One occurred to him as the morning grew hotter and the road dust thicker. Baker had mentioned a man said to be conspiring to establish a second Confederacy. What was his name? After some minutes, it came to him: Lamar Powell. As Baker said, it was probably just a tissue of rumors. But a question or two wouldn't hurt.
In the drowsy town of Port Tobacco, an old waterman with half his face stiffened from a paralytic seizure said to Bent, "Yes, I can smuggle you over to Virginny for that sum. When will you be comin' back?"
"Never, I hope."
"Then let me buy you a glass to celebrate," the old man said with half a grin. "We'll make the run as soon as the sun's down."
85
"After them," Charles yelled, and spurred Sport down the country lane. Shotgun in his left hand, he closed on the quartet of alarmed Yankees who had ridden out of a grove half a mile distant. "We want to catch one," Charles shouted to his companion, two lengths behind. He was a new-issue replacement, a farmer boy of eighteen who weighed around two hundred and thirty pounds. He was a cheerful, biddable young man with two simple ambitions: "I want to love a lot of Southern girls an' bust a bunch of Yankee heads."
Jim Pickles was his name. He had been posted to the scouts because he was deemed too
bulky and inelegant for regular duty. He would probably be on the dead line most of the time, having broken the backs of his mounts because of his weight. He had been sticking close to the senior scout — who insisted on being called Charlie, not Major Main — ever since Stuart and his men began their ride northward out of Virginia and away from the main body of the army, which Longstreet was leading into enemy country.
Three brigades — Hampton's, Fitz Lee's, and that of the wounded Rooney Lee under the command of Colonel Chambers — had crossed the Potomac on the night of June 27. Their route took them almost due north, east of the mountain ranges, under rather vague orders from General Lee. They could, at General Stuart's discretion, pass around the Union army, wherever it might be, collecting information and provisions en route. They had gotten some of the latter already, together with one hundred and twenty-five captured wagons. But of the former they had gotten almost none. They pressed on without knowing the whereabouts of the main Union force.
Charles heard gripes about that, muttered statements that General Jeb was keen to pull off another spectacular stunt — something similar to the ride around McClellan on the peninsula that had brought him fame and turned out crowds to strew flowers before his troops of horse as they rode back into Richmond. Stuart's reputation had been tarnished at Brandy Station when he kept his men so busy with reviews that they failed to detect the Union reconnaissance in force. Maybe he thought a second dash around the Union army would remove the tarnish.
They rode into Pennsylvania on the thirtieth of June. Hunting for Lee, they found the Yanks at Hanover, and after a sharp little fight, read local newspapers for their first solid information about the invasion of the state by Lee and Longstreet.
Familiar history began to repeat. Short rations. Scant sleep or none. Forced marches, with men dozing in the saddle or falling out. And for Charles, contradictory thoughts of Gus. A longing to see her, and doubts about the wisdom of it.
They went on to Dover and Carlisle and then another twenty-odd miles overnight toward Gettysburg, where the army had more or less blundered into an unwanted engagement on ground not of its choosing. It was said this happened because Stuart was off gallivanting — following his vague orders — and was thus unable to provide Lee with accurate reports of the enemy's whereabouts.