by Noah Gordon
At midday the men departed to get food at Barnard’s store, leaving the two privates and one of the sergeants in the house. Shaman went into the kitchen and cooked a gruel, bringing a bowl to Alex, who looked dangerously exhausted.
Alex said he couldn’t eat.
“You must eat, it’s your way of continuing to fight!” Shaman told him fiercely, and Alex nodded and began to spoon the pasty stuff into his mouth.
After lunch, the interrogators exchanged places, the major questioning Alex, the lieutenant directing his queries at Shaman. Midafternoon, to the irritation of the officers, Shaman called a halt in the proceedings and took his time changing the dressing on Alex’s stump, before an audience.
To Shaman’s amazement, Major Poole asked him to accompany three of the soldiers to the place in the woods where he had burned the amputated section of Alex’s leg. When he had pointed out the place, they dug away the snow and grubbed in the charcoal remains of the fire until they had recovered some bits of whitened tibia and fibula that they placed into a kerchief and took away. The men departed by late afternoon. The house felt blessedly uncrowded, but insecure and violated. A blanket had been tacked over the broken window. The floors were muddy, and the air retained the odor of their pipes and their bodies.
Shaman heated the meat soup. To his pleasure, Alex suddenly displayed real hunger, and he gave his brother ample portions of beef and vegetables as well as broth. It stimulated his own hunger as well, and following the soup they ate bread and butter with jam, and applesauce, and he brewed fresh coffee.
Shaman carried Alex upstairs and placed him in Mrs. Clay’s bed. He tended to his brother’s needs and sat by his side until late, but finally he went back into the guest room and fell exhausted into the bed, trying to forget that there were bloodstains on the floor. That night, they slept little.
Next morning, neither the sheriff nor his men appeared, but the soldiers were there before Shaman had cleaned up after breakfast.
At first it appeared that the day was to be a repeat of the preceding one, but the morning was still early when a man knocked at the door and announced himself to be George Hamilton Crockett, an assistant United States commissioner for Indian affairs, stationed in Albany. He sat with Major Poole and conferred at length, transferring to the officer a sheaf of papers to which they referred several times in the course of their conversation.
Presently the soldiers gathered up their things and put on their coats. Led by the sullen Major Poole, they went away.
Mr. Crockett remained for some time, talking with the Cole brothers. He told them they had been the subject of a large number of telegraph messages from Washington to his office.
“The incident is unfortunate. The army finds it hard to swallow the fact that it has lost one of its own, in a Confederate soldier’s house. They are accustomed to killing Confederates who kill them.”
“They’ve made that clear, with their questions and their persistence,” Shaman said.
“You have nothing to fear. The evidence is too obvious. Sergeant Major Korff’s horse was tied up in the woods where it was hidden. The sergeant major’s footprints in the snow went from the horse to the window at the rear of the house. The glass was broken, the window left open. When they examined his body, he was still holding the gun, which had been fired twice.
“In the heat of wartime passions, an unscrupulous investigation might overlook the strong evidence in such a case, but not when powerful interested parties are scrutinizing it closely.”
Crockett smiled, and extended the warm greetings of the Honorable Nicholas Holden. “The commissioner has asked me to assure you he’ll come to Elmira himself if he’s needed. I’m happy to be able to assure him that such a journey won’t be necessary.”
The next morning Major Poole sent one of the sergeants with word that the Cole brothers were requested not to leave Elmira until the investigation was formally closed. When the sergeant was asked when that might be, he said, politely enough, that he didn’t know.
So they stayed on in the small house. Mrs. Clay had heard at once what had happened, and she paid a white-faced visit, peering wordlessly at the broken window and in horror at the bullet holes and the bloodstained floor. Her eyes filled when she saw the ruined bureau drawer. “That was my mother’s.”
“I’ll see it’s repaired, and the house set to rights,” Shaman said. “Can you recommend a carpenter?”
She sent someone over that afternoon, a lanky, aging man named Bert Clay, a cousin of her late husband’s. He tut-tutted, but went right to work. He brought glass in the proper dimension and repaired the window straightaway. The shambles in the bedroom was more complicated. The splintered floorboards had to be replaced, and the bloodstained section sanded and refinished. Bert said he’d fill the holes in the wall with plaster and paint the room. But he looked at the bureau drawer and shook his head. “I dunno. That’s bird’s-eye maple. I might be able to find a piece of that someplace, but it’ll be dear”
“Get it,” Shaman said grimly.
It took a week for the repairs to be made. When Bert was finished, Mrs. Clay came and inspected everything closely. She nodded and thanked Bert and said it would do, even the bureau drawer. But she was cool to Shaman and he understood that her home would never be the same to her.
Everyone he met was cold. Mr. Barnard no longer smiled and chatted when Shaman came into the store, and he saw people look at him in the street and say things to one another. The general animosity got on his nerves. Major Poole had confiscated the Colt when he came to the house, and both Shaman and Alex felt unprotected. Shaman went to bed at night with the fireplace poker and a kitchen knife on the floor next to the bed, and he lay awake as the house shook in the wind, and tried to detect the vibrations of intruders.
At the end of three weeks Alex had gained weight and looked better, but he was chafing to be away from there, and they were relieved and happy when Poole sent word that they could leave. Shaman had bought Alex civilian clothes, and he helped his brother into them, pinning up the left trouser leg so it wouldn’t get in his way. Alex tried walking with the aid of his crutch, but he had difficulty. “I feel lopsided with that much of the leg gone,” he said, and Shaman told him he would get used to it.
Shaman bought a great wheel of cheese at Barnard’s and left it on the table for Mrs. Clay, a guilt offering. He had arranged to return the horse and wagon to the stableman at the railroad station, and Alex rode to the depot lying on straw, the way he had left the prison camp. When the train arrived, Shaman carried him aboard in his arms and settled him in a window seat while other passengers stared or looked away. They talked little, but as the train lurched out of Elmira, Alex placed his hand on his brother’s arm, and the gesture spoke volumes.
They traveled home via a more northerly route than the one Shaman had used to come to Elmira. Shaman aimed for Chicago instead of Cairo, because he didn’t trust the Mississippi to be unfrozen when they reached Illinois. The journey was hard. The lurching of the train brought Alex severe and unremitting pain. There were many transfers along the route, and each time, Alex had to be carried from train to train in his brother’s arms. Trains almost never arrived or left on schedule. Numerous times, the train they rode in was shunted to a side track to allow a troop train to go through. Once, for about fifty miles, Shaman managed to get them upholstered chairs in a parlor car, but most of the time they traveled on the hard wooden seats of coaches. By the time they reached Erie, Pennsylvania, there were white patches in the corners of Alex’s mouth, and Shaman knew his brother could travel no more.
He took a room in a hotel so Alex could rest for a time in a soft bed. That evening, as he changed the dressing, he began to tell Alex some of the things he’d learned from reading his father’s journal.
He told him of the fate of the three men who had raped and murdered Makwa-ikwa. “I believe it’s my fault Henry Korff came after us. When I was at the asylum in Chicago where David Goodnow is being held, I talked too
much about the murderers. I asked about the Order of the Star-Spangled Banner, and about Hank Cough, and I left a definite impression that I’d cause them as much trouble as I could. Someone on the staff probably was a member of the order—perhaps everyone running the asylum is! No doubt they got word to Korff, and he decided to come after us.”
Alex was quiet for a moment, but then he looked at his brother in concern. “But, Shaman … Korff knew where to look for us. Which means somebody in Holden’s Crossing informed him you’d left for Elmira.”
Shaman nodded. “I have thought about that a great deal,” he said quietly.
They reached Chicago a week after they left Elmira. Shaman sent a telegraph message to his mother, telling her he was bringing Alex home. He disclosed that Alex had lost a leg, and asked her to meet their train.
When the train arrived in Rock Island an hour late, she was on the station platform with Doug Penfield. Shaman carried Alex down the coach steps, and Sarah threw her arms about her son and wept wordlessly.
“Let me put him down, he’s heavy,” Shaman complained at last, and he placed Alex on the seat of the buggy. Alex had been crying too. “You look good, Ma,” he said finally. His mother sat next to him and held his hand. Shaman handled the reins, while Doug rode his horse, which had been tied to the back of the buggy.
“Where’s Alden?” Shaman asked.
“He’s taken to his bed. He’s been failing, Shaman, the palsy is much worse. And he slipped and had a bad fall a few weeks ago, when they were cutting ice on the river,” Sarah said.
Alex watched the countryside hungrily as they traveled. So did Shaman; he felt strange. Just as Mrs. Clay’s house would always seem different to her, so was his life afflicted. Since his departure from here, he had killed a man. The world seemed awry.
When they reached home at dusk, they placed Alex in his own bed. He lay there with his eyes closed, sheer pleasure in his face.
Sarah cooked for her prodigal son’s return. She fed him roasted chicken and potatoes mashed with carrots. No sooner was supper done than Lillian came hurrying down the Long Path carrying a tureen of stew. “Your days of hunger are over!” she told Alex after she had kissed him and welcomed him home.
She told him Rachel had to stay with her children but would be over to see him in the morning.
Shaman left them talking, his mother and Lillian seated as close to Alex as their chairs would allow. He walked up to Alden’s cabin. When he let himself in, Alden was asleep, and the cabin smelled of raw whiskey. Shaman let himself out quietly and walked down to the Long Path. The snow on the path had been trampled and then had frozen, and it was slippery in spots. When he reached the Geiger house, through the front window he could see Rachel sitting and reading by the fire. She dropped her book at his rap on the glass.
They kissed as though one of them was dying. She took his hand and led him up the stairs to her room. The children were asleep down the hall, her brother Lionel was mending harness in the barn, and her mother could come home at any time, but they made love on Rachel’s bed with their clothes on, sweetly and determinedly, and with a desperate gratitude.
When he walked back over the path, the world was on an even plane again.
69
ALEX’S LAST NAME
Shaman’s heart sank when he saw Alden making his way about the farm. There was a stiffness to his neck and shoulders that hadn’t been there when Shaman had left home, and his face seemed a rigid, patient mask, even when the attacks of palsy were severe. He did everything slowly and deliberately, like a man moving underwater.
But his mind was clear. He found Shaman in the barn shed and delivered the small display case he’d fashioned to house Rob J.’s scalpel, and the new bistoury Shaman had asked him to make. He sat Shaman down and gave him a rundown of how the farm had survived the winter—the number of animals, the amount of fodder consumed, the prospects for spring lambing. “I’m having Doug move seasoned wood to the sugar house, so we can boil syrup soon as the weather tells the sap to run.”
“Good,” Shaman said. He steeled himself for the unpleasant task, and told Alden casually that he had instructed Doug to find a good worker to help handle the spring chores.
Alden nodded slowly. He harrumphed for a long time to clear his throat, and then carefully spat. “Ain’t as spry as I once was,” he said, as if breaking the news gently.
“Well, let somebody else plow, this spring. No need for the farm manager to do the hard work when we can get young fellas to use their muscles,” Shaman said, and Alden nodded again before he moved out of the shed. Shaman saw that it took him a time to begin to walk, like a man who had made up his mind to piss, but couldn’t. But then, when he began, it was as if his feet moved steadily in their own small rush, and the rest of Alden just went along for the ride.
It felt good for Shaman to get back to his practice. No matter how carefully the nursing nuns tried to look after his patients, they couldn’t substitute for a doctor. For several weeks he worked hard, catching up on postponed surgery and making more home visits every day than had been his custom.
When he stopped at the convent, Mother Miriam Ferocia greeted him warmly and listened to his report of Alex’s return with quiet joy. She had news of her own. “The archdiocese has sent word that our preliminary budget has been authorized, and they ask us to move ahead with the construction of the hospital.”
The bishop had reviewed the plans himself, and had approved them, but had advised against building the hospital on convent grounds. “He says the convent is too inaccessible, too far from the river and the main roads. So we must search for a site.”
She reached behind her chair and handed Shaman two heavy cream-colored bricks. “What do you think of these?”
They were hard and almost rang when he tapped them together. “I don’t know much about brick, but they look wonderful.”
“They will make walls like a fortress,” the prioress said. “The hospital will be cool in summer, warm in winter. This is vitrified brick, so dense it won’t absorb water. And it’s available nearby, from a man named Rosswell, who has built a kiln near his clay deposits. He has enough on hand to allow construction to begin, and he is eager to make more. He says if we desire a darker color, he can smoke the brick.”
Shaman hefted the bricks, which felt solid and real, as though he held the very walls of the hospital in his hands. “I think this color is perfect.”
“So do I,” Mother Miriam Ferocia said, and they grinned at one another with pleasure, like children sharing a sweetmeat.
Late at night, Shaman sat in the kitchen and drank coffee with his mother. “I’ve told Alex about his … relationship to Nick Holden,” she said.
“… And how did he take it?”
Sarah shrugged. “He just … accepted it.” She smiled wanly. “He said he might as well have Nick for a father as a dead outlaw.” She was silent for a moment, but then she turned toward Shaman again, and he saw she was nervous.
“The Reverend Mr. Blackmer is leaving Holden’s Crossing. The minister of the Baptist church in Davenport has been called to Chicago, and the congregation has offered the pulpit to Lucian.”
“I’m sorry. I know how you value him. And now the church here will have to search for a new clergyman.”
“Shaman,” she said, “Lucian has asked me to go with him. To marry him.”
He took her hand, which was cold. “… And what do you want to do, Mother?”
“We have become … very close since his wife died. When I was widowed, he was a tower of strength.” She gripped Shaman’s hand tightly. “I loved your father completely. I’ll always love him.”
“I know.”
“In a few weeks, it will be a year since his death. Would you resent me if I remarried?”
He rose and went to her.
“I’m a woman who needs to be a wife.”
“I just want your happiness,” he said, and put his arms around her.
She had to struggle ba
ck from the embrace so he could see her lips. “I told Lucian we can’t be married until Alex no longer needs me.”
“Ma, he’ll do better when you stop waiting on him hand and foot.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
Her face had become radiant. He had a heart-stopping glimpse of what she had looked like when she was young.
“Thank you, darling Shaman. I’ll tell Lucian,” she said.
Alex’s stump was healing beautifully. He was fussed over interminably by his mother and by the ladies of the church. Although he gained weight and his bony frame began to fill out, he seldom smiled, and his eyes held shadows.
A man named Wallace was making a reputation and a business in Rock Island as a builder of false limbs, and after much urging, Alex agreed to allow Shaman to take him there. Hanging along the wall of Wallace’s workshop was a fascinating array of carved wooden hands, feet, legs, and arms. The limb-maker had the rotund physical makeup that led men to be classified as jolly, but he took himself very seriously. He spent more than an hour measuring while Alex stood, sat, stretched, walked, flexed one knee, flexed both knees, knelt, and lay down as if retiring for the night. Then Wallace told them to call for the false leg in six weeks.
Alex was only one of an army of returned cripples. Shaman saw them whenever he went to town, former soldiers with missing parts, and many of them with maimed spirits. His father’s old friend Stephen Hume returned as a one-star general, having won a battlefield promotion to brigadier at Vicksburg three days before taking a bullet just below his right elbow. He hadn’t lost the limb, but the wound had destroyed the nerves, so that the appendage was useless, and Hume carried it in a black sling, as if he had a permanent broken arm. Two months before Hume came home, the Honorable Daniel P. Allan, justice of the Circuit Court of Illinois, had died, and the governor appointed the hero general to take his place. Judge Hume was already hearing cases. Shaman saw that some former soldiers had the ability to return to civilian life without blinking, while others had problems that haunted and disabled them.