The Titans

by John Jakes

  Finally he dropped the canvas and turned. She’d returned to the stool. The open Bible rested on her knees.

  “Thank you,” he said. “He looks fine.”

  A bob of her head. The wheat-colored hair glinted. “I fixed him soup. He took every drop. I also gave him half a dipper of Papa’s whiskey to help him sleep.”

  “Oh, then you’re not averse to drinking?”

  “Mr. Boyle, don’t bait me. Alcohol does have its purposes. Everything on earth has God’s purpose concealed somewhere within it if you search hard enough.” It was a quiet, rational-sounding declaration. He tried to detect a touch of the sanctimonious in it and failed.

  He indicated the open book. “Are you searching now?”

  “I do so whenever I can.” She touched the page. “I was reading Second Chronicles.”

  He tried another smile. “I’m afraid my knowledge of scripture has shrunk to some memorized verses.”

  “Boyle’s an Irish name. Are you Catholic?”

  Damn, how direct she was! He’d never met such a woman.

  “Are you?”

  She smiled, enjoying the sparring. “Lutheran.”

  “Well, I am a Catholic—or I used to be. I’ve not been inside a church for a long time. Is my specific religion of importance?”

  “Why, yes, it is.”

  “You dislike Catholics? You’re not alone.”

  “I do not dislike Catholics. I asked for another reason entirely. We’re isolated out here, among rough men. Those who profess any faith at all belong together. For mutual protection, wouldn’t you say?”

  She was still smiling. He did too. “I honestly couldn’t offer a worthwhile opinion. My religion’s like—like an object you carry, out of habit but seldom use.”

  She met his gaze, then averted her eyes. He detected a tinge of color above the collar of her shirt. A point scored! Hannah Dorn wasn’t quite so holy as she pretended. She was self-conscious with a man in her quarters.

  “Well,” she said, “at least you’re honest. That’s a virtue.”

  He touched the pipestem to his forehead. “Thank you kindly for the compliment. I’ll be going along—”

  He was totally unprepared for her next remark. “If you’re thirsty, I could warm some coffee.”

  The pink colored her throat again. He knew his earlier guess had been right. She had her religion, but it wasn’t quite enough to counterbalance a certain loneliness. He wasn’t sure he wanted any further involvement with such a curiously complex creature.

  Torn, he hedged. “That would be very hospitable. But it’s growing late.”

  “Not that late. I’d like some coffee myself. And I do want to attend to your hands. But outside. It’s less compromising.” The half smile was at her own expense. “I suspect I know what the men in camp are saying about me. Any woman who travels to a place like this—”

  “You’re wrong,” he interrupted. He pointed to the Bible. “They say you’re devout.” His hand moved to indicate the Hawken. “And definitely not to be interfered with. You wouldn’t believe how much that combination disappoints them.”

  She laughed; she had beautiful, regular teeth. The effect was dazzling.

  “I do know how to use the rifle. Both of the Hawkens are loaded with the extra charges of powder hunters use to stop buffalo. I don’t hold with killing, but I’m willing to wound the first man who tries anything improper. It’s a matter of principle.”

  “Oh, of course,” he murmured, straight-faced.

  “Mr. Boyle, you’re laughing at me.”

  “No, ma’am! You’re just not—not what I expected.”

  “Please don’t tell me what you did expect,” she teased, “or our acquaintance will probably come to an abrupt end. I must admit I’m glad you stopped by. I don’t often get to talk to anyone with some degree of education. It’s a pleasure.” Her eyes sparkled in the lamplight. “Even though you clearly have vices.”

  “Now you’re the one who’s laughing.”

  “So I am. Forgive me. Let’s go out, shall we?”

  Again she smiled, as if eager to establish at least a tentative friendship. He raised the canvas to allow her to precede him.

  She left the Hawken where it stood, carrying a coffeepot in one hand and her Bible in the other. The two objects struck him as representing a contradiction. Warmth and reserve. But it was just that contradiction that made her intriguing—and, somewhat to his surprise, made him interested in knowing her better.

  His eye fastened on the swaying curve of her buttocks. Delightful sight!

  Or it was until caution intruded:

  Have a care, Boyle. Don’t broaden your interest to include wanting to know her in the biblical sense or she’s liable to blow your head off.

  Wait. Not your head. She doesn’t condone killing. No doubt she’d aim for a functional member more closely allied with your vices.

  Bet she’d hit it dead on, too.

  The mere thought made him wince as he followed her from the tent.

  Chapter VIII

  The Bible and the Knife

  i

  HANNAH DORN ASKED HIM to rekindle the fire with fresh buffalo chips stored behind the tent. As he went to fetch them, he recalled with amusement the first evening he’d been sent to collect them on the prairie.

  He’d been at the railhead no more than two days. Sean Murphy had soberly instructed him to go to a nearby wallow and bring back any chips he found. “Wallow chips are the very finest,” Murphy had assured him.

  He’d returned with a huge load, carefully piled half a dozen together, and touched a match to them. He’d already been informed the chips ignited easily and produced a virtually smokeless fire.

  By the time he’d struck ten matches, Murphy was laughing so hard tears came. Then he explained the joke played on greenhorns. Bison rolled in wallows to find relief from biting flies and mosquitoes. The mud that dripped from their bodies when they emerged formed unburnable but otherwise perfect counterfeits of real chips containing partly digested grass. Since that night, Michael had sent several newcomers to similar wallows; it was a sort of ritual of initiation.

  He gathered the chips and walked back toward the fire, asking himself why he was interested in the company of Hannah Dorn when Julia was the only woman he really cared about.

  Perhaps I’m making it too complicated, he thought as he rounded the corner of the tent. Hannah was placing a stool near the ashes. I’ve been away from any sort of female companionship a long time. There’s no sin in enjoying a bit of it—even though, for all of this lady’s good looks, she’s a strong, spiky sort.

  He didn’t quite believe that assessment, though. Once or twice, Dorn’s daughter had inadvertently revealed a softness—a vulnerability—beneath the shell of her religious conviction. He saw evidence of it again now—a noticeable uneasiness as she fidgeted with the lid of the galvanized tin coffeepot, peered down inside, replaced the lid, then lifted it again for another doubtful glance.

  “It’s the last of the morning coffee, Mr. Boyle. Very strong, I’m afraid.”

  “Couldn’t be stronger than the poison they pour in the dining car,” he laughed, dumping the chips.

  Hannah used a thong to tie the pot’s wire bail to a tripod improvised from three rusty iron rods. She dug matches from her pocket. Michael extended his hand.

  She passed him two matches. Their hands touched. She inhaled softly at the unexpected contact.

  He pulled his fingers back quickly. Damned if I’m not as nervous as she!

  The chips caught almost instantly. Soon scraps of flame were tossing in the night breeze. He sat down cross-legged near her stool. Out of sight beyond Dorn’s wagon, the workers had begun to sing again, this time “The Vacant Chair,” a slow, mournful war ballad about a family’s loss of a son. He turned his head to listen as a soprano voice soared above the rest. That would be Tom Ruffin, the lad from Indiana. One by one the older men stopped singing. Only the boy’s voice was left—pure and alm
ost painfully sweet under the Nebraska stars.

  “You were in it, then?”

  Startled, he swung around. “What brought that to mind?”

  “The look on your face when you heard the song from the war.”

  He tried to shrug as if the music raised no memories.

  “Yes, I was in it. The New York 69th of the Irish Brigade. I was in it up until the Wilderness, where I took a wound.” A bitter smile. “It was a struggle all the way. The fighting was enough to scare twenty years off your life every time you went in. And practically from the beginning, we never had enough men. After Gettysburg—we were only in sharp action on the second day—we had just about three hundred muskets left. We carried five regimental flags, every one supposed to represent something like a thousand soldiers. We tried to fight ten times as hard, as if we were a true brigade; but it was futile because so many had been lost along the way.”

  Studying him, she asked, “Were you proud of fighting?”

  “Proud of killing other Americans?”

  Michael’s hand strayed to his mustache. An index finger smoothed the gold and gray hair as his eyes fixed on the fire.

  “No. I came to hate it.”

  She was pleased. “As all men should who keep the commandments God gave Moses.”

  He grimaced. “I’m afraid my hatred of the war only appeared after I broke that commandment a number of times.”

  “How many?”

  “Four that I saw for certain. Possibly more. I preferred never to be too sure.”

  His head lifted.

  “On the other hand, Miss Dorn, I’d like to believe that when we were required to kill, we did it for a just cause.”

  “The Southern side thought the same.”

  “Admittedly.”

  “There should have been another way to settle the differences.”

  He sighed. “A great many men more clever than I tried to find one. For thirty years they tried. The differences were too strong. Too fundamental—ah, well. It’s over.”

  But the memories weren’t. Helpless, he was pulled back to a July afternoon of billowing smoke and blaring bugles. He heard again the incredible, earth-shaking bombardment Tom Seminary Ridge that had preceded the slaughter of Pickett’s infantrymen as they advanced gallantly toward the clump of trees, only to be shot down, blown down, stabbed down—the highest cresting of the Southern tide, men called it. Michael’s brigade had watched it from afar. His inner eye saw the gray-clad bodies tumbling, singly and in great masses, as other Irishmen—the Pennsylvania 69th of the Philadelphia Brigade—blunted the assault at Pickett’s center.

  He wrenched himself from the reverie.

  “I do confess I took pride in our unit. The Union commanders put special faith in the Irish Brigade. Before an action, they’d ask, ‘Are the green flags ready?’ The flags were decorated with bright golden harps and sunbursts. A man could usually see the gold even in the thickest smoke. But by the end, there were too few marching behind the flags.”

  “Too few on both sides,” Hannah agreed. “I’ve read that altogether four hundred thousand were lost.”

  “I’ve heard more than half a million, and perhaps the same number injured. No one will ever know for certain. Both sides kept shamelessly poor records. An officer I met in the hospital told me some Confederate units were still listed on the rolls when only six or eight from the original complement were left.”

  She sensed his distaste for the subject and shifted to a slightly different one. “You said you belonged to a New York regiment. Did you mean the state or the city?”

  “The city.”

  “It’s your home?”

  “Was.” He nodded. He pointed at the dark bulk of the train. “That’s my home now.”

  “Why did you come out here?”

  He pondered the question. Should he be honest? Yes. But not entirely.

  “Several reasons. To find work. Earn money—”

  “Was there no work in New York City?”

  “I could have returned to the docks, I suppose. I started there, as a longshoreman, when I was young.”

  She smiled. “Come, now. You’re far from old.”

  “But getting there.” His own smile faded. “When I left the hospital, I wanted a particular sort of work. No, better to say I needed it. Everywhere in the East, there are crippled men. Stumbling along the streets having left part of themselves in some damn—some bloody field or forest. It’s too depressing a reminder of the price we paid to hold the Union together.

  “I’ve read they’re recruiting cavalry regiments for service against the Indians out here, and because so few able-bodied men are left, the Army’s waiving many of its restrictions. The Plains Army will accept one-armed fellows, or men who’ve lost an eye. Men with a limp are welcome in the cavalry since a limp won’t impair their riding. We’ll be a nation of invalids for a generation. I hoped to see less of that on the railroad.

  “But there’s a more important reason I came to the U-Pay. I decided I’d done my share of destroying things. Property. Lives. I wanted work to balance that. I wanted to build, not tear down. The railroad’s a worthy enterprise, even though many say it’s controlled by schemers who aren’t above bribing Congressmen to get it finished. But the heart of it’s good, and important. Unfortunately”—a rueful smile—“I haven’t been entirely successful in my effort to get away from fighting. I allowed myself to be drawn into the scrape with Worthing. He deserved what he got, but I’m ashamed I was the one to dish it out.”

  She continued to study him without speaking. He’d experienced a strange release in describing his past. Unexpectedly, he found himself telling her most of the rest.

  “I also left the East because of personal problems. Before the war, I was employed by a wealthy family. The Kents.”

  The name produced no response.

  “I was discharged—rather, I did a thing or two which made it impossible for me ever to work for them again.”

  Such as telling Louis I would not cooperate in his scheme to trade with the enemy.

  Such as nearly raping his wife that very same night at Kentland, then finding myself smitten with her—

  He sat up straighter in an effort to clear his mind. For a moment Julia’s blue eyes seemed to glow near Hannah Dorn’s face. He blinked. The vision vanished.

  “No need for you to listen to any more, Miss Dorn. It’s a tedious story, full of mistakes and regrettable lapses into many of those vices you abhor.”

  “Why, Mr. Boyle, that almost sounds like an insult.” But she wasn’t angry.

  “Please, I don’t mean to mock your faith. I expect these times require more of it, not less. But as I suggested inside, I—just don’t have any of my own.”

  “I don’t believe you. Every man has something he wants to achieve.”

  “Yes. To lay a mile of track a day.”

  “I mean some goal he wants to reach.”

  “To get the job done. To reach the hundredth meridian, then see the Atlantic and the Pacific joined by the rails.”

  “And that’s all?”

  He nodded.

  “What will you do when the railroad’s completed?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “That’s a sad and aimless way to go through life, Mr. Boyle.”

  “In truth, it is. But it’s better than making war.”

  His brows knit together. He was unsettled at the way this woman was drawing out confessions he’d never intended to make.

  She lifted the Bible from her lap, stood up, and touched an index finger to the pot. She withdrew it quickly; the coffee was hot enough.

  “At least you’re better off than Papa,” she said. “You have a goal to last you a while. Papa never thinks beyond the next dipper from the barrel. We had very high hopes when we came to America in 1850. I recall it well—I was twelve when we made the passage in steerage. I can still hear Mama talking before we left Hamburg about how grand the future would be. Better by far than what we we
re leaving.”

  She untied the thong with one hand and held the pot bail with the other. “There are two china mugs on the washstand, Mr. Boyle.”

  He walked into the tent, returned with the cups, and let her pour. She held the pot by the bail and the bottom, as if it weren’t even warm.

  Steam drifted from the mugs as she finished pouring and bedded the pot in the ash of the disintegrating chips. She accepted one of the mugs. Her eyelids dropped briefly as their fingers accidentally touched a second time.

  He sat down again. “You came from Germany, you said.”

  She took her seat on the stool, stared into the mug, spoke softly. “Papa was the last of fourteen brothers. Fourteen men and not a girl among them to marry off. The family brewery couldn’t support him as well as a wife. Eight of his brothers also had to make their way in other kinds of work. It was Mama’s savings and Mama’s insistence that brought us here from Hamburg. We got as far as Cincinnati. Papa tried the butcher trade. First working for a shop owner to learn it, then opening a place of his own. But as a young man, he’d gotten too fond of beer and spiritous liquors. The habit was fixed. In Cincinnati he abused his customers. Word soon got around. The business failed. Papa managed to make a little on the sale of the building, but it was nothing more than luck.”

  “And your mother?”

  “Mama wore herself out raising my brother Klaus. He was born in ’52. She also worked with the Cincinnati Negro railroad, helping blacks who’d escaped from Kentucky on their way to Canada. One night six years ago, she and two other women and I were giving food bundles to three runaway boys on the Cincinnati waterfront. We were set on by a farmer who’d rowed across the river to recapture the boys. There was no violence, just a good deal of rough talk. The farmer did brandish a gun, however. And Mama’s heart was bad. She suffered a seizure and died that night.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It took Papa a year to recover, realize the butcher shop had failed, and sell it. We came from Cincinnati to Nebraska because Germans had settled here too. Papa set up the store in Grand Island, and within two or three months it was Cincinnati all over again. He drove customers away with his foul temper and his discourtesy.”