The Titans

by John Jakes

  The Republicans, it is said, would like Custer in their camp—and never mind his views about the fitness of blacks for citizenship. On the subject of permitting Negros to vote, Custer is fond of stating he’d “as soon think of elevating an Indian Chief to the Popedom of Rome.” Can you doubt that the aim of some Republicans is not justice throughout the land, but absolute rule by their party?

  Everywhere, in fact, there is much to dismay men of conscience. Davis is still in prison at Fort Monroe, facing indictment for treason. Lee—honorable, misguided Lee whom I also saw in Lexington at the time of Fan’s funeral—is eking out a living as president of Washington College. Good neighbors who know his straits send bags of walnuts, potatoes, and pickles to his household table while Northern newspapers vilify him as a “sinister conspirator”—this proud, torn, Christian man who refused a plea at Appomattox that he give his soldiers leave to take to the hills and woods and continue to fight as partisans. He told them to go home, admit defeat, build new lives. Yet he is labeled “sinister. “ Is this the “malice toward none” of which Lincoln spoke, and which Johnson is struggling to implement?

  Still, I am not totally without hope. While the political war rages here in the East, there is a counterbalancing dynamism—a sense of our nation being only moments away from the dawn of a mighty age of expansion, if we can but keep the Union whole. Never, they say, has there been a period of such enormous industrial growth—or such visions of a prosperous, thriving land from sea to sea.

  You are part of one of the remarkable enterprises that can bring those visions to reality. The transcontinental railroad will open the West to commerce and settlement in a manner undreamed of even a decade ago. Public land is there for the taking, a hundred and sixty acres of it available to any man, thanks to the Homestead Act.

  Though we live in a troubled time, it is also a time of promise. I try to believe a spirit of healing, not hatred, will prevail. I try to have faith that even the schemes of a rapacious new class of moguls who care nothing for the human lives they exploit to see their factories prosper—yes, and their railroads built—will, in the end, yield blessings we cannot imagine.

  Michael, forgive this long discourse written late at night. Poor Molly despairs of my nocturnal panderings and scribblings. But there are not many others with whom I can share my deepest thoughts.

  I wish you good health and success in your courageous venture in a part of the country foreign to you. From such willingness to strike out in bold new directions was this country born—and, as I recall, the Kent family founded!

  Slowly, Michael laid the churchwarden on his belly. He stared at the last sheet in his blistered hand. The paper seemed to fade, replaced by Julia Kent’s blue eyes.

  Courage?

  Bold new directions?

  Jephtha, I’m glad you don’t know all the truth.

  With effort, he returned to the brief conclusion.

  I look forward to any descriptions you can send of the exciting enterprise in which you are involved. May God bless and protect you. Remember that from this hour, my revised will makes you a bona fide member of the family to which, by word and deed, you have belonged for many years.

  Your kinsman, Jephtha

  Michael was still touched and overwhelmed by Jephtha’s act of generosity. All at once an idea came to mind. An important idea.

  He gathered up the pages, folded them, and slipped both letters beneath his blanket. He jumped down from the bunk and quickly left the car.

  vi

  Two stragglers were all that remained at the paymaster’s cubicle. Michael fretted impatiently while one received his greenbacks, and the balding clerk noted the wages of the second in a thick ledger. The clerk yawned as Michael stepped to the counter.

  “Give me the book containing the B’s, Charlie. And your pen.”

  “What is this, Boyle? You’ve already received—”

  “I know. But my name isn’t listed properly.”

  “What?”

  “Just ink your pen and give it to me.”

  Annoyed, the clerk handed him the pen, together with another ledger. Michael thumbed the pages. Located the correct line. He slashed a stroke through three words, hoping his dead parents would forgive him for abandoning Aloysius, which they had bestowed. His eyes looked wet as he wrote carefully.

  He returned the pen and rotated the ledger so the clerk could read it.

  “There. That’s the correct version.”

  The clerk peered. “That’s all you wanted? What the hell does it matter if we’ve got your middle name right or wrong? You’re paid the same either way.”

  “It matters more than you’ll ever appreciate,” Michael replied softly. “Much more.”

  He turned and left while the puzzled clerk studied the drying ink that spelled out Michael Kent Boyle.

  Chapter VII

  Dorn’s Daughter

  i

  MICHAEL STEPPED DOWN FROM the office car and breathed deeply. The air had turned cool and invigorating. His assortment of aches and bruises seemed less troublesome now.

  The dark near the train was relieved by two torches stabbed into the ground at the corners of Gustav Dorn’s whiskey wagon. Dorn himself was dispensing liquor from one of the barrels. He was a short untidy man with a gray-shot beard. His huge belly hung over his belt. He seldom smiled.

  At the moment he had at least thirty customers lined up. Each drinker took the dipper from Dorn and swallowed whatever amount he’d bought while those waiting shouted for him to hurry. When the customer had finished, he went to the merchant’s son a few steps away.

  The phlegmatic-looking boy was perched on a small box behind a crate. His Hawken lay across his knees. The customer deposited his money on a tin plate lying on the crate. Occasionally the boy had to change a greenback or a coin. The rest of the time he paid no attention to the drinkers, staring out past the nearest torch in a joyless, vacant way.

  As Michael walked closer to the wagon, one man who’d evidently passed through the line more than once spilled the contents of his dipper. Those waiting laughed and hooted. Dorn demanded payment. The worker refused.

  Beyond the train, a cow lowed. Michael paused by one of the torches to watch the outcome of the dispute. Dorn spoke English badly but got his point across.

  “You buy—you pay. Not my fault you sloppy.”

  “I’ll be damned if I’ll give ye a cent for somethin’ I never tasted, Dutchie.” There was humor in the customer’s eyes, but testiness in his slurred voice. He wobbled around to get a judgment from those in line. “What d’ye say, lads? Am I fair or not fair?”

  “Fair, fair!” a couple of his friends yelled.

  Dorn snapped his fingers and barked German at his son. The stolid fat boy raised the Hawken. With a start, Michael saw the hammer was back, ready to fire.

  Dorn looked smug as he tapped the customer’s shoulder. The man batted his hand away. Excitedly, the workers in line pointed to the rifle. The drinker saw it and turned pale.

  Torchlight shimmered on the Hawken’s thirty-four-inch barrel. The St. Louis-made gun might be a good twenty years old, but at short range it could ruin a man with its .50-caliber ball. Dorn made clear that he intended nothing else.

  “Shit with fair, Paddy. You pay. Now. Or my boy, he take the price out of your hide.”

  Grumbling, the man dug a hand into his pocket. He clenched his fist around the coin, then raised his hand as if he meant to hit the merchant.

  Dorn retreated a step. “Klaus!”

  The Hawken jutted forward across the top of the crate.

  After another glance at the rifle, the drinker lowered his hand. He gave Dorn the coin.

  The little act of extortion finally produced a smile from the merchant. He waved the man aside and brandished the dipper at the fine. “Next fellow! Step lively, hah? Got a business to run here.”

  The boy returned the Hawken to his knees, uncocked. Michael shook his head. The East had no monopoly on greed.
And if the little scene he had witnessed was typical of the way Dorn conducted his trade, serious trouble was bound to erupt eventually.

  He walked by the rear of the line, waving to acquaintances. Out in the dark near the end of the track, a fire of buffalo chips blazed. A group of Paddies sat around it. One started a song on an old concertina.

  Michael recognized it instantly: “Corcoran to His Regiment,” sometimes known as “I Would Not Take Parole.” Corcoran had commanded the New York 69th at First Manassas, been captured and imprisoned in Richmond. Paddies by the fire—men who’d never come anywhere near the Irish Brigade but were still proud of its record—bellowed the words.

  “Raise the green flag proudly,

  Let it wave on high—”

  The song conjured memories for Michael—memories of smoke, thundering shells, wounded comrades begging for help as the ranks plunged past them. Bits of terrain he’d seen in Pennsylvania and Virginia—woodlands, hillsides—blended in his imagination like a mural by a deranged artist.

  “Liberty and Union

  Be your battle cry!”

  Sean Murphy lurched to his feet. Fists on his hips, he began to jig while the singers applauded in rhythm.

  “Faugh-a-ballagh shout

  From your center to your flanks—

  And carry death and terror wild

  Into the foeman’s ranks!”

  “Faugh-a-ballagh.” How stirring that Gaelic cry to clear the way had been during the early days, and how sadly futile in the weeks and months after Gettysburg, when the ranks were so disastrously thin.

  Michael returned a hail from one of the revelers, declined an invitation to join them, and strode on. He wanted no more fighting—not even in memory.

  Yet he’d gotten more of the real thing this very day. The railroaders’ music reminded him of the peace that seemed to elude him. The thrill of Jephtha’s news was all at once blunted by a recollection of Leonidas Worthing.

  Quickly, Michael looked behind him. His gaze encompassed torches at the whiskey wagon, the smudged yellow of the train’s windows, the starry dark above. For a moment he’d been certain he was being observed. He saw no indication of it.

  An uncontrollable gloom settled over him. He’d traveled thousands of miles to escape war, but as long as Worthing remained at the railhead, he was smack back in the middle of one. A lone man or a regiment—either could kill you.

  Despite his gloom and nervousness, he forced himself to stand still while he relit his churchwarden. Then he hurried on to the Dorn tent.

  ii

  The tent stood a good twenty yards behind the wagon. A lamp inside made the front section glow. The rear was dark. He stepped to the flap and called softly.

  “Hallo?”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Beg pardon, Miss Dorn—is that you?”

  The unseen girl laughed. “I’ve seen no other women in this godless place. I expect so.”

  A feminine silhouette appeared suddenly on the front of the tent. Unlike her father, she spoke without an accent.

  “Who might you be?”

  “The name’s Michael K. Boyle.”

  “Oh, yes, Papa mentioned you.” It was crisply said, with a faint edge of reproof. “The one who caused the trouble.”

  “The one who was on the receiving end of the trouble, if you don’t mind! I had no hand in causing it.” Not quite true. But the unseen girl had irked him.

  “Well, it makes no difference,” she replied in an airy way. “It was still ungodly quarreling.”

  That was two references to godlessness in a space of seconds. Disgusted, he blew out a puff of smoke. She must be a proper prude, all right.

  He tried to control his annoyance. “Whatever the cause, the result was the shooting of my friend Christian. I understand you’re tending him?”

  “That’s correct. He’ll recover splendidly.”

  “I came to visit him—which is pretty blasted difficult with this tent between us. Would you be so kind as to let me in?”

  She ignored his sarcasm. “Are you alone?”

  He had a good notion to inform her that a dozen wild-eyed rapists were hovering behind him.

  “I am.”

  “All right, then. But your friend’s asleep.”

  A hand lifted the flap. Michael ducked, starting inside, then stopped short. His mouth opened. The churchwarden fell from his lips. He caught it in time, letting out a loud “Oww!” as his thumb accidentally jabbed into the hot bowl.

  Licking his thumb and wincing, he didn’t move. He was still thunderstuck.

  A single lamp hung from the ridgepole. An open Bible lay on a stool beside an untidy cot along the left wall. To judge from the garments strewn on it, the cot belonged to her father or brother. The twin of the boy’s Hawken was propped against an equally messy cot on the right—another male domain; a pair of patched trousers lay beneath.

  Directly in front of him—no longer disguised by distance or a shapeless coat and hat—was the real cause of his surprise.

  In one way, the workers whose hurts she’d tended had exaggerated. But perhaps to men of forty, a woman in her late twenties could properly be called young. Their other claim had been understated. She was more than just pretty. Without benefit of paint or furbelows, she was lovely.

  iii

  “For heaven’s sake come in or go out, one or the other, Mr. Boyle,” she said in a sharp tone. She wore trousers of denim cloth tucked into heavy boots, and a man’s work shirt that fit tightly over large well-shaped breasts. She had her father’s square jaw but a more generous mouth and clear, blue-gray eyes. Hair the color of summer wheat was drawn into a bun at the back of her head.

  Her skin had a sunburned coarseness—more noticeable on the backs of her hands. The knuckles were red. Yet he found the weather-beaten look curiously attractive. She had fine wide hips and smelled not unpleasantly of strong soap.

  “I’m afraid I’m not familiar with your first name—” he began.

  “Is there any reason why you should be? It’s Hannah. Now do you wish to see your friend?”

  She turned sideways, inadvertently drawing his eye to the curve of her breast. When she noticed, her cheeks pinked. “Mr. Boyle!”

  He jerked to attention. “Yes?”

  “He’s behind the canvas partition. I don’t think it would be advisable for you to wake him up. Just glance in.”

  He didn’t know what to make of the woman. She seemed to have more than a touch of her father’s stern temperament, and some of her remarks would have been downright disagreeable had they not been tempered by her smile and a pleasant voice. Her gaze was uncomfortably direct.

  Michael shifted the pipe from one hand to the other. She gestured. “You burned your thumb.”

  “Nothing serious.”

  “A burn is always serious for a man who works with his hands. You’ve blisters, too, I see. I have some salve that would help. I’ll apply it before you leave.”

  “Truly, it’s not necessary.”

  “Yes, it is. Women know more about such things than men. However, I’d appreciate it if you’d extinguish your pipe.” She smiled. “Smoking is a wasteful, unhealthy habit.”

  “Oh, I see! Whatever you say, Miss Dorn.” His tone was as tart as hers of a few moments ago.

  He stuck his arm outside, turned the pipe over, and shook the remaining embers and tobacco to the ground. When he faced her again, he surrendered to an ungentle-manly impulse and said, “Do you consider smoking worse than drinking whiskey? Or selling it?”

  Immediately he regretted the clumsy sarcasm. Instead of anger, it produced a look of hurt. She hid it by turning away.

  “Though it’s no affair of yours, I don’t condone my father’s trade, nor”—softly—“nor his own dependence on the product he sells.”

  She looked at him again. “But he is my father. My brother Klaus is very young. Someone must look after them.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply—”

  �
�That my father’s a drunkard? He is. Don’t the roughnecks in this camp know that by now?”

  He was too embarrassed to answer.

  “You see, Mr. Boyle, my father owns a small store in Grand Island. General merchandise. The store is failing because Papa’s too fond of his whiskey to attend to its management or care about his customers. And he’ll let no one help him, except in the most menial way. When he chose to try to make some extra money by temporarily closing the store, fixing up the wagon, and driving all the way out here to this hideous place, I had a choice. Let him take Klaus and bring harm to himself or both of them by provoking others with his brusqueness—railroad men are not so placid as farmer’s wives, they say—or come with them. I’m afraid Papa’s only the first of many who’ll be following the tracks to take advantage of men’s vices. Now if that satisfies your curiosity about my motives—?”

  She spoke well, he was thinking. She was uncommonly well educated, or more likely self-taught.

  “Miss Dorn, I didn’t mean to pry—or annoy you with my tactless remark about the whiskey.”

  “That’s all right. I just wanted you to know I was here for the sake of people, not profits.”

  The words carried an odd undertone. Pain?

  He was at a loss to understand why she’d revealed so much in a few sentences—unless she’d contained a deep hurt for too long, and had no one but a stranger with whom to share it.

  That gave him a little better insight into her character. She might be strong, but she wasn’t marble. Not marble at all, he thought with another covert glance at her bosom.

  He walked to the canvas partition and raised it at the divided center. Christian lay on a cot by the rear wall, snoring lightly. His dark skin tended to blend with the shadows in the unlit back section. But the neat white bandage on his right calf was bright in the lamplight falling over Michael’s shoulder.

  He was conscious of time ticking by. He couldn’t prolong the visit much more, though for some unfathomable reason, to prolong it was exactly what he wanted. He was conscious of Hannah Dorn’s fragrance—the clean, bracing odor of soap.