The manager grinned as he greeted them. “Mr. Carter. Mr. D’Avignon. How nice to see you again. Will you be staying with us?”
“Indeed we will,” Vincent said.
“Your same rooms?”
“If you please.”
George and Vincent kept careful watch as the bellboys labored to carry the small but surprisingly heavy chests upstairs. They went away with sweaty brows, broad smiles, and a two-dollar tip that would double both their wages for the week.
“My, my, my,” Vincent said as he undid his tie and unbuttoned his collar. “I have to say it, my friend: I did not think you would do it.” He laughed lightly and slowly eased himself into an upholstered armchair. “No, I didn’t. A year ago when you came to me I thought: I’ll go along. I’ll even make some money, peut-être, enough to start a ranch or set up a decent shop in a nice town like this.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and waggled a finger back and forth.
“But let me tell you, I did not expect it to be like this, sharing a room with a quarter million dollars in gold, nor did I expect to have over twelve thousand dollars to my name.” His finger stopped and jabbed at the air. “You, Young Custer, are without a doubt, the most pig-headed, single-minded, mule-stubborn, no-quarter bulldog I have ever met.”
George smiled. “You haven’t met my father.”
“No,” Vincent said with a sigh of relief. “And I don’t care to. But enough chit-chat. We must prepare. I sent one of the boys to find McTavish.”
“Now wait a minute,” George said. “I’m not leaving this gold here to trail after you and Angus while you bounce from tavern to tavern.”
“Relax. I wouldn’t dream of leaving this fortune unattended. We’ll entertain Angus with the best our hotel chef can offer. You have the keys, yes?”
George patted his coat pocket. The keys to the chests jingled.
“There, then,” Vincent said. “The chests are secure. The dining room is just off the lobby. I don’t think anyone will be able to pound off the locks or sneak one of these chests past us to the street without our notice, do you?”
“No,” George said with a chuckle. “I suppose not.”
“Good. Now, why don’t you go down and tell the cook to kill the fatted calf and put the champagne on ice while I make use of the facilities.”
After George had spoken with the cook about supper, he repaired to his own room to clean himself up. A quick scrub-down at the dry sink, a long-needed shave, a clean shirt, and a freshly-starched collar made him feel ten years younger. A supple brush took the dust of the road off his coat and trousers, and a shout and a nickel got his shoes shined until they gleamed.
He stopped, though, as he was combing back his hair, and looked at himself in the silvered glass that hung over the dry sink. He leaned in and for the first time in many months really looked at himself.
His eyes were still the pale Custer blue, though he noticed the first seams of weathering at the outer corners. His skin had been darkened by the sun and toughened by the wind. His nose was strong and aquiline, and with his blond hair long down to his shoulders, he resembled more than ever his father, President Custer, the Boy General, the Savior of the Battle of Kansa Bay. To the People, though, while his father was simply known as Long Hair, there were other words used to describe him.
Murderer. Liar. Evil.
It troubled him, this similarity to a man he understood so little, a man so reviled by the people to whom George himself owed so much.
Who knows, he thought to himself. After this, I may have a similar reputation among by own people.
He met Vincent in the common room that separated their bedrooms. The old trader, too, had scrubbed and shaved. With his fine waistcoat, golden watch chain and fob, high collar, and a tie of watered silk, he was transformed.
“You look almost respectable,” George said.
Vincent shrugged on his dark frock coat. “Thank you,” he said quietly, not rising to George’s bait.
“Something wrong?” George asked.
“Eh? Wrong?”
“You seem distracted.”
Vincent smiled weakly. “Just nervous, I suppose. Nothing more. Just nervous.”
Someone knocked at the door. George went to answer it. It was William, one of the bellboys.
“Mr. McTavish is here, sir. He’s waiting for you downstairs.”
“Thank you, William.” George gave the youth a coin. “Please ask him to wait. We will be down presently.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Carter. I will, sir.” He headed off toward the stairs and George closed the door.
“Angus is here.”
“Yes,” Vincent said, checking his watch. “A little early. He must be anxious to start reaping the rewards of his investment.”
“Can you blame him? He must have had quite an outlay of cash.”
“Don’t forget that we gave him some on account.”
George shrugged. “Compared to what we brought? It was a pittance.”
Vincent regarded him frankly. “You are a kind man, do you know that?”
Embarrassed by such an unusual display of kind-heartedness, George busied himself with straightening his cuffs.
Vincent changed the subject and they talked for a time of little things. Then Vincent stood and stretched. “It’s nearly seven,” he said. “Angus has waited long enough. Let us go down to supper.”
Angus was as convivial and forthright as ever. Over sherries in the sitting room he displayed the manifests for the goods he had purchased.
“Eight thousand rifles,” he said. “With enough ammunition for a year.”
“What about the heavier guns?” George asked.
Angus produced another piece of paper. “Here y’go, Mr. Carter.”
The manifest listed four crates carrying the parts and assemblies for two Gatling guns, ammunition, and mounting tripods.
“Good lord,” George breathed. He looked up at Angus. “You are a marvel.”
Angus beamed.
Dinner was the best the town and the cook could offer. After a puree of tomato soup came a stuffed trout in a dark ham-flavored Spanish sauce. This was followed by a selection of roast beef, roast loin of pork, and shoulder of mutton in a piquant Sauce Soubise made from sweet onions and heavy cream. Vincent insisted on the best vin d’hôte, a French Champagne that he selected himself, and he further insisted that George partake.
“No excuses,” Vincent said. “This is a celebration.”
George was feeling light-headed by the time a light salad was served to finish off the supper. When the choice of either rice pudding or apple pie with melted Edam cheese was offered him, he could only nod.
The trio retired to the upstairs suite for cigars and brandy. George found himself sitting out on the balcony, a snifter in one hand and a lit cigar in the other. Before him, the long evening of the Canadian summer colored the sky a greenish-blue. Streetlights flared as they were lit one by one. Horses clopped by, their hoofbeats echoing in the emptying streets. Occasionally a merchant would rush by, shop apron fluttering, hurrying home after a late evening at the store.
George sniffed the brandy, unmindful of the quiet conversation that engaged Vincent and Angus, happy to simply be here on the far side of the mammoth task that had consumed him for the past year. He tasted the liquor and coughed at its harshness. His head swam and Vincent was there, patting him on the back.
“Perhaps you should turn in for the evening, my friend. I will entertain our guest.”
“Ya,” was all George could manage. The world tilted as he was taken inside. Vincent and Angus helped him to his room.
“Poor lad,” he thought he heard Vincent say.
“Cannae hold ‘is drink,” Angus said.
“No, nor that.”
The room began to spin and the dark figures above him split apart and joined together.
“I think I’ll sleep now,” George said.
“Aye,” Angus said. “That y’will.”
Aeons l
ater, George began to become aware of certain things. The first of these was an incredible pain in his head. His skull felt like it had been split like a soft-boiled egg. Of course the thumping didn’t help.
The thumping was the second thing. The double-pulsed, metallic rhythm was like some giant mechanical hammer pounding on a steam-driven boiler. It shook the room with each ba-bang ba-bang, and the split in George’s head widened as it thudded against the floor. The piercing train whistle only made it worse.
Train whistle?
George sat up quickly, regretted it, and turned to vomit. His flesh went cold and clammy as he realized where he was.
Strong sunlight slipped through the cracks between the boards of boxcar, spearing the darkness. The car was empty but for some hay strewn across the floor. It smelled of cattle and manure, now mixed with the acrid stench of bile from his own upheaval. George inspected himself.
He was fully-clothed in shoes, shirt, tie, trousers, and frock coat. He saw his hat lying on the floor near the sliding door. A small leather valise lay beside it. George winced as he crawled over to it and opened the flap.
Inside were a small bag of coins and a folded piece of paper. He checked his coat pockets. They were empty. Gone were the keys to the chests, and also the nugget that had been the gift from Speaks While Leaving. Tears sprang to his eyes. He took the paper from the valise and unfolded it, knowing what it said before he even read it.
Sincere apologies for the tap on the head,
Young Custer. And much gratitude for all
your hard work.
It was in Vincent’s handwriting.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” He crumpled the paper and threw it into the darkness of the far corner. “Damn you, Vincent D’Avignon! God damn you!” He collapsed into the straw. His hand found the pouch of coins. He lifted it, ready to throw away anything that had to do with his betrayer, but felt something larger inside. George undid the ties and poured out the contents.
A fistful of copper and silver coins tumbled into the straw, catching bits of light and scattering it about the dark interior. He shook the pouch again and the larger object fell to the floor with a solid thunk. With reverent hands, George picked up the gold nugget. The gift from Speaks While Leaving. He squeezed it, pressing it into the flesh of his palms, and held his clenched hand to his forehead as he crouched down, curled up on the thumping, straw-covered floor, and wept.
The sun was a bright circle in the hazy sky. The heavens lowered down upon the land like a stove-pot lid, holding in the heat. Crickets sang despite the noon hour, their reedy hymn a lonely susurrus beneath the somber proceedings in the cemetery. The air was a thin soup: humid, hot, and sloppy with the scent of wild onions. Custer stepped up to the lectern. He looked toward the crowd that was gathered on the cemetery hilltop, but he did not look at their faces. He looked past them, down the gentle slope toward the white-trimmed red-brick houses in the quiet crossroads town of Gettysburg. The place had infected him. From the moment he stepped down from his train, it had seeped into his brain and swathed his every thought in black crepe.
On the far side of town was a rise of land. Custer spied the splash of pale green that was the cupola atop the seminary tower. His gaze swept along the spine of Seminary Ridge, southward along the dark line of oaks that cloaked its undulating length, and then back west across the awful ground that lay between the far ridge and the one on which Custer himself now stood.
At the top of Cemetery Hill, Custer scanned the broad semicircular sward. Set in the earth were curving rows with thousands of low marble markers—most carved with a name, some with only a number—each indicating the grave of a fallen soldier from those three terrible days that to Custer did not seem so long ago. At the apex of the semicircle was the grand, gothic monument—a column of fine Connecticut marble flanked by four seated figures of white bronze, topped by a fifth figure, standing, who looked out across the graves in silent wisdom.
Around the monument, men in black coats and high silk hats stood still and upright in the late summer heat. The few women in the crowd, their gowns dark and sparkling with beads, lazily fanned themselves with their programmes.
Custer cleared his throat.
“I am not here today,” he began, “in my capacity as the President of our United States. I am not here as a former commander or officer. I am not even here as a decorated hero.” The audience’s attention was focused upon him, but he did not feel the pressure of their regard. Instead, the day seemed to open up before him, a panorama of memory. “This terrible and hallowed place has the power to strip me of every title, every accomplishment. Here, I am reduced, but not diminished. Here, I am rebuked, yet elevated. Here, mindful of the ghosts and prayers that live in this place, I am simply: Soldier.
“Twenty-five years ago, the greatest battle known to Man was fought in these hills. We have gathered on this consecrated ground with the greatest respect and resolve to rededicate this ground, and our selves, to the same spirit of Unity with which it was first sanctified.”
He continued reading the words that he had written several days before, but his mind continued to wander, drawn down old paths. The faces of old friends passed before his mind’s eye, faces long gone, some buried beneath the very grass at his feet. But his battle had not been here, at Cemetery Ridge. His venue had been a few miles to the east. The clash of saber, the pounding of hooves, and the shouts of men filled his memory.
God, he thought. I was so young. So brash. I never knew that any of us could die.
He looked at the markers, the named and the unknown, and thought: This place certainly taught me otherwise.
He concluded his brief remarks and left the podium to the polite applause of the assembled guests. As the final speaker, his departure was the signal that the rededication ceremony was about to end. The gathering began to fragment, reforming in smaller groups divided along party lines.
So much for Union, Custer thought as he was greeted by fellow Republicans.
He nodded and shook hands with senators and congressmen, handing out pleasantries and platitudes like they were candy.
“Wonderful speech, Mr. President.”
“Thank you, Senator.”
“Very much like what Lincoln might have said.”
“Well, Senator, if we learn nothing else from him, it should be brevity.”
His security detachment helped him make his way through the crowd.
“Congratulations, Mr. President,” said a reporter on the sidelines.
“Congratulations? For what, sir?”
“On the Homestead Act. It passed, sir, by a margin of twenty-four votes.”
Custer stopped in his tracks.
“Please, Mr. President,” said Higgins, the security guard on his left. “We must keep moving.”
“When did you hear this?” Custer asked the reporter.
“It just came in over the wire.”
Custer felt the weight of the day slip away. He had to consciously keep from breaking into a silly grin. Such a display would not be proper in this place.
“Do you have any comment, Mr. President?”
“I’m very pleased,” he said. “Very pleased.”
“Thank you, Mr. President.”
“Mr. President, please, keep moving.” Higgins urged him along with a meaty hand.
He yanked his arm away and turned on his bodyguard with a scowl. “Do you think someone is going to assassinate me here? In this place?”
“No, Mr. President,” Higgins said coolly. “Not while I’m here.”
He and Higgins stared at one another for a long moment. “I will not be ushered about like a schoolgirl. Clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President. Now if you’ll please come with us, sir, your train leaves in twenty minutes.”
No apology, Custer noted. Well, that’s all right, I suppose.
He turned and walked briskly down the cemetery path, gravel crunching under his feet. Though he tried, he found that not only could he not keep u
p his anger, but that the spell that Gettysburg had cast upon him had been dispersed as well. With the Homestead Act in place, with Morton effectively fracturing the Democratic voting bloc, with the bridge at Westgate complete, and with the railroads advancing out into the territory, everything—everything—was going according to plan.
Herron’s new aide was an officious prig named Graham Noyles. He was lanky and weak with thin blond hair and rabbit-pink skin, and his heavy-lidded eyes gave the impression that he doubted everything he heard. He never laughed at Herron’s humor, and always scowled at his profanity.
But, Herron thought as Noyles laid out the map, prepared the coffee, and ushered McCormack into the office, he’s efficient, ambitious, and thorough; three things more important to the post than a winning personality.
McCormack saluted. Herron responded and they walked over to the table.
“Coffee?” Herron offered.
“Yes, sir,” the colonel said. “Thank you, sir.”
Before Herron could ask, Noyles had readied a cup. “Cream or sugar?” the aide offered. Herron left the niceties to his aide and turned his attention to the map.
The narrow oblong of paper ran the table’s length and covered half its width. On the right side was the serpentine course of the Missouri. Hash-marks denoted Herron’s headquarters, the growing town of Westgate, and the Robert Matherly Bridge. On the left of the map was the Niobrara, but as its course still a matter of some guesswork, the lines that represented its banks were less crisp than those of the grand Missouri.
Creeks that drained into the two rivers were noted as well, but the main focus of the map was the extension of the Chicago & Rock Island Rail Road, a solid double line that extended in a west-northwesterly fashion from the bridge at Westgate. In straight segments and shallow arcs, it pushed outward from Westgate into the middle of the map, at which point the line sputtered and thinned into penciled dashes that wandered onward into the wilderness.
Herron put his finger on the end of the solid track. “Here,” he said to the colonel. “That’s all the track we’ve laid this year.” He pointed to a place only two-thirds of the way to that spot. “Your forts are complete only to here.”
The Spirit of Thunder Page 25