North and South Trilogy

by John Jakes

  He put his boot in the stirrup and, when Sport took his weight, felt the gray’s foreleg almost buckle. He had to escape—the firing would bring nearby Union videttes—but first he had to do a little more to ensure survival of the Yankees. He shot twice; two partisans dropped, one killed, one injured. As a couple of the Union engineers took possession of fallen weapons, the remaining partisans turned their horses, abandoned their dead leader, and thundered away in the vapor rising from the warming ground.

  The gelding began to trot. “Can you do it, Sport?” Charles asked in a dry, strained voice. They passed over a patch of clean snow and, looking behind, he saw the trail of bloodstains, splashes at regular intervals. He knew what the end would be and began to curse.

  In the melee he had dropped his shotgun and forgotten it, he realized. Didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but this beautiful brave horse that had carried him so far, so faithfully, only to be hit by chance in a meaningless little fray that wouldn’t even merit a footnote in official records. “Jesus,” he said, squeezing his eyelids shut till he could barely see. “Jesus, Jesus.”

  Sport seemed to know they had a good distance to travel to safety. He galloped with the strength and exuberance of a colt, hoofs rifling out snow and mud beneath his tail, then rat-tatting along a stretch of plank road and through a covered bridge. They turned west again, into denuded pasture. Charles heard a drumming that grew louder. There was pursuit.

  Over his shoulder he saw a pair of Deacon Follywell’s partisans riding down on him. One dropped his rein and fired his carbine. The bullet dug a ditch in front of Sport, who veered with the sureness of an experienced war-horse and left the ditch stained red.

  The thin, cool sunshine cast pale shadows of the riders in the field, one ahead, two behind. Charles breathed almost as hard as his horse, wanting the sanctuary of some woods directly ahead yet knowing that every bit of extra exertion pumped more blood from Sport’s wound. The gray’s mane stood out horizontally, fringe petrified by the wind. The eye Charles could see had the wild cast of battle, pain, both.

  Another shot from the pursuers. It thunked a tree as horse and rider plunged into the woods. Abruptly, an ice-covered brook loomed. A shot broke a limb three feet behind, dropping it with a crash. Charles applied spurs. Up and over the stream Sport flew, leaving a misty red ribbon in the air behind him.

  Branches whipped Charles’s cheeks and laid one open. He could hear the gelding’s labored breathing now, sense his strength faltering. Sport couldn’t jump Hatcher’s Run; they had to gallop through, tossing up fans of water. A moment more, and Charles saw the Confederate works.

  He waved his hat, yelled the countersign. He indicated his pursuit, and the boys behind the earthworks began pinking away. The partisans wheeled and retreated. One shook a fist, then both vanished.

  Charles reined in, dismounted, wiped his bleeding cheek, and walked Sport past the end of the earthworks, bending to murmur a gratitude so profound he could scarcely find words for it. A lot of men had joshed him about treating a horse as if it were human, but Sport had acted that way these past fifteen minutes, understanding Charles was in peril, giving everything—everything—to save him if he could. He owed as much to the gray as he did to Billy.

  Sport stumbled, almost fell. Charles led him into a natural semicircle of bare shrubbery, let the rein drop, and watched as the gray slowly toppled onto his right side and lay there, heaving. Pink lather covered his left side from withers to belly.

  A couple of mangy pickets tiptoed up. Without looking around, Charles said, “Find me a blanket.”

  “Sir, they ain’t no blankets out here on—”

  “Find me a blanket.”

  Within five minutes, a piece of sewn-together carpet square was passed over his left shoulder. Charles laid it gently on Sport. The gray kept trying to raise his head, as if he wanted to see his master. Charles knelt, the wet ground soaking his knees. His hand moved up and down Sport’s neck, up and down.

  “Best horse in the world,” he whispered. “Best horse in the world.” Twenty minutes later, Sport died.

  On his knees next to the gray, Charles pressed dirty palms tight against his eyes. He wanted to cry, but he was unable, as he had been ever since Sharpsburg. He remained motionless a long time. Faces of gaunt, starving boys peeked from the door of a nearby bombproof. There was no comment, no mockery of the tall man with the bleeding cheek kneeling bareheaded by the horse.

  Presently Charles struggled to his feet. He put his hat back on. He felt different inside. Purged. Dead. He walked slowly to the bombproof and said to one of the starving boys, “Now I need a shovel.”

  “So I buried him,” Charles told Fitz Lee. “Dug the pit myself, put him in, and covered him. Then I piled up a few stones for a marker. Not a very fitting memorial to the best horse I ever rode.”

  Fitz had heard of the loss and invited Charles to his tent for whiskey. The burly, bearded general now looked far older than his years. He gestured to the tin cup on the field desk.

  “Why don’t you drink that? You’ll feel better.”

  Charles knew he wouldn’t, but he took some to be courteous. It was poor stuff, scalding to the throat.

  “So it was Bunk Hazard who saved you?”

  A nod. “But for him, I’d be dead right this minute. I hope he’s all right. Looked to me as if he was hit pretty badly.”

  Fitz shook his head. “You’ve had one blow after another lately. First your cousin—”

  Frozen, Charles repeated, “Cousin?”

  “Colonel Main. Pickett’s Division. It happened two or three weeks ago. I assumed you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  “That he came across a wounded Yank in the woods and stopped to help him, but the Yankee had a hide-out gun.”

  “Is Orry—?”

  “Gone. Almost instantly, according to the orderlies who were with him.”

  Once, at West Point, Charles had fought bare-knuckled. It was a challenge, a contest—no animosity. After twenty minutes, his opponent, shorter but more experienced and agile, began leaping through his guard time and again to land blows. There had been a point at which every blow hurt exquisitely—and then a sudden crossing into another state in which he could still feel each one but only its weight; he was beyond his own capacity for pain.

  So it was now. He stared down between his scarred boots and thought of all he owed Orry, who had seen something worth saving in a scapegrace boy. Orry had urged him to try for the Academy, had even arranged for a tutor to prepare him for the entrance examinations. Charles loved his tall, slow-spoken cousin. Madeline loved him, too. What would they do?

  “Charles, I am deeply sorry to break tragic news in such a blundering way. Had I understood—”

  A vague wave. “It’s all right. Never mind.”

  After a moment Fitz asked, “Do you have any present plans?”

  “I’m not going to the dead-line camp, that I can promise you. I want to get a pass, head south, and hunt for a remount.”

  “Doubt you’ll find one in all of Virginia.”

  “North Carolina, then.”

  “There, either.”

  A listless shrug. “Maybe General Butler will have an extra. He’s in South Carolina.”

  “So is Cump Sherman.”

  “Yes.” It had no power to alarm him. Nothing did. With a sigh and a stretch of his aching bones—he was falling victim to rheumatism—he rose from the camp chair, then picked up the scrap-and-rag cloak, which by now had developed a fringe from heavy wear. He poked his head through the slit in the center and settled the garment on his shoulders. He could still smell horse on it. He wished that tears were not mysteriously locked up inside him.

  “Thank you for the drink, Fitz. You be careful now that we’re so close to winding things up.”

  Fitz didn’t care for the admission of defeat implicit in the remark. Annoyance flickered in his eyes. But he checked it, shaking Charles’s hand and saying, “Again, my most sincere condol
ences about your cousin. I’m also sorry you lost the gray.”

  “I’m sorry I lost them both for nothing.”

  “For nothing? How can you say—?”

  Without rancor, Charles interrupted, “Please don’t use that superior-officer tone with me, Fitz. We fought for nothing. We lost family, friends—hundreds of thousands of good men—for what? We never had a chance. The best men in Dixie said so, but no one listened. It’s a pity.”

  The friend insisted on being the general. “That may be true. But it remains every Southerner’s sacred duty—”

  “Come on, Fitz. There’s nothing sacred about killing someone. Have you taken a close look at a dead body lately? Or a dead horse? It’s goddamn near blasphemy, that’s what it is.”

  “Nevertheless, duty demands—”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll do my duty. I’ll do my fucking duty until your uncle or Davis or someone with sense realizes it’s time to run up the surrender flag and stop the dying. But there’s no way you can make me feel good or noble about it. Good evening. Sir.”

  Two nights later, on foot, he reached the contested Weldon Railroad line south of Petersburg. A raggedy figure with a revolver on his hip, the oilskin-wrapped light cavalry sword tucked under his arm and a piece of cigar smoldering between clenched teeth, he climbed aboard a slow-moving freight car. Shells had ripped two huge holes in the car, windows on the moonlit countryside and the bitter white stars above. He wasn’t interested in scenic views. They could blow up the whole state of Virginia for all he cared. They damn near had.

  Ratlike stirrings and rustlings from the head end told him there were others in the southbound car. They might have passes; they might be deserters. He was indifferent.

  He stood in the open door as the train chugged slowly through a way station where army signalmen waved dim lanterns at several switch points. He smoked his cigar to a stub and threw it away. Night air bathed him, cold as he felt inside.

  The fringe of his rag cape fluttered. One of the boys huddled in a front corner thought he should speak to the new passenger. Then he got a look at the fellow’s bearded face by the light of a waving lantern and thought again.

  121

  ASHTON ACHED FROM SLEEPING in strange beds and straining to avoid contact with her husband’s lardlike body beside her. How sick she was of all the dissembling—with James and with strangers who continually asked about their accents.

  “Why, yes, sir—yes, madam—we are Southerners of a sort. We are Kentuckians, but of the loyal Union breed.”

  How galling to repeat that lie over and over, to be forced to endure the graceless remarks and cramped quarters offered by inn and hotel keepers along the route of their long, seemingly endless pilgrimage. With their forged papers, they had traveled from Montreal to Windsor and Detroit, then on to Chicago, and now, in early February, to St. Louis, where their paths would diverge. Powell and her husband would head due west on the overland stage; she was to take the twice-weekly service for Santa Fe.

  On the afternoon before her departure, Powell sensed Ashton’s malaise and risked inviting her for a walk on the levee while Huntoon napped, Ashton’s husband had been in a stupor all day, having consumed far too much bourbon the night before.

  “I’m sorry we’re forced to part for a while,” Powell said. Without touching, they strolled by a gang of noisy, laughing stevedores; the black men were putting cargo aboard a river steamer. “I know the journey has been difficult.”

  “Vile.” Ashton jutted her lower lip. “I have no words to describe how sick I am of unclean beds and cheap food.”

  Assuming that no one on the busy river front could identify them, Powell took her hand and slipped it around his left arm. Their squalid hotel lay two blocks behind, and Huntoon had been asleep when they left.

  “I understand,” Powell murmured. “And some hard days are still ahead.” He reached over to caress her right hand. She wondered why that produced such an uneasy feeling.

  The back of her neck itched, too. But then, she was presently passing through those few days that were womankind’s monthly burden; she had learned to suffer debilitating aches and peculiar moods as part of the experience.

  “Once those are behind us, we can begin to build our enclave for people of true merit. Those who believe in the only genuine aristocracy—that of money and property. No egalitarians or negrophiles need apply.”

  She didn’t smile; nothing was amusing today. “I really don’t relish going on by myself.”

  “You will be perfectly safe in the coach. You have emergency funds—”

  “That isn’t the point. It’s another long, miserable trip.”

  He flared. “Do you think mine will be easier? To the contrary. In Virginia City, I must load two wagons with secret cargo—remaining constantly on watch for thieves all the while. Then I must bring those wagons several hundreds of miles to the New Mexico Territory, through a wilderness infested with hostile savages. If I consider the potential rewards worthy of such risk, I should think you could curb your complaints about a relatively tame ride in a stagecoach.”

  Pain cramped her middle abruptly; the corners of her mouth whitened. A crude plainsman swaggered by, running his eyes over her bosom. The greasy fringe of his hide shirt brushed her arm. She felt as though a leper had touched her.

  And Powell was still glaring. Everything angered him lately; he, too, must be feeling great strain. Realizing that moderated Ashton’s cross feelings.

  “Yes, you’re right—I apologize.” She lowered her head briefly to acknowledge his authority. “I just don’t think you understand what a trial it’s been to get in bed with James night after night and wish it were you.”

  A whistle sounded from a packet churning upstream in the broad river. “Never forget what I said on the Royal Albert. James is necessary. James is”—a pointed look—“a good soldier.”

  Some color appeared in her face, which had grown pale over the winter and gaunt because she had refused so much bad food. She had quite forgotten the military metaphor.

  Powell’s eyes brightened. Sometimes, seeing that particular glint in them, Ashton questioned whether her lover was altogether sane. Not that it mattered; a conventional mind was not an attribute of a man with epic dreams.

  “I also remind you,” he continued softly, “that it’s a very long way from the Comstock to our destination. With miles of waterless waste to traverse, and the Indian threat, something could happen to any of the soldiers accompanying me.”

  She laughed then, feeling relieved, buoyant in spite of her feminine complaint. She did experience a twinge of pity for James. Poor soldier; about to start his last campaign. But it was brief.

  Half a block away, hidden in shadow by the high wall of a mercantile building, Huntoon shook his head, reached under his spectacles with a kerchief, and vigorously wiped each eye. He then continued toward the river, following his wife and Powell until they disappeared behind a pyramid of casks.

  Tears welled again. He blinked them away, dazed and angry. This was no surprise. He had suspected for more than a year and, since rejoining Powell, had caught more than one furtive glance between the lovers.

  He didn’t blame Lamar, whom he still advised. He blamed the bitch he had married. He had pretended to nap, then came skulking after them, because he wanted absolute proof, which he had obtained by spying. He must now write a second letter, telling her about the first one.

  He faced about and walked swiftly back to the cheap hotel where they were staying. His expression was so odd—maniacal—that two blanket-wrapped Indians seated against the wheel of a wagon watched him long after he sped by.

  In the clamor before departure, Huntoon kissed Ashton’s cheek, then pressed a sealed envelope into her hand. Passengers were already boarding the elegant egg-shaped Abbot-Downing coach that rested on wide, thick leather thorough braces. The manufacturers in Concord, New Hampshire, had painted it to order—lustrous dark blue—and decorated the doors with identical sentimental po
rtraits of a beautiful girl admiring a dove on the back of her hand. Ashton cared less for aesthetics than for the availability of good seats, all of which would soon be taken. Crossly, she said, “What is this?”

  “Just some—personal sentiments.” His smile was limp; he avoided her eye. “If anything should happen to me, open it. But not before. You must swear you’ll honor that request, Ashton.”

  Anything to humor the fat fool and get aboard. “Of course, darling. I swear.”

  She presented her cheek for a parting kiss. Huntoon buried his head on her shoulder, giving her a chance to cast a final longing look at Powell, very elegant and ebullient this morning. He twirled his stick and regarded the loving couple from a polite distance.

  The coach driver poked his head into the vehicle while Ashton was engaged in her prolonged farewell. He had a big fan-shaped beard, white, and a beaded vest that looked as if it had once been rinsed in vegetable soup.

  “How many of you folks rid in a Concord ’fore this?” Only one hand went up. “Wal, she’s mighty comfortable, as you’ll soon find out. But if you’re travelin’ the whole way to Santa Fe, I got to warn you that we hit some mighty twisty roads. Gits so bad some places, the horses kin eat out of the luggage boot.”

  Having delivered his standard joke for tourists, he tipped his hat, climbed to the box, and began separating the various reins of the four-mustang hitch.

  Impatiently, Ashton pushed Huntoon away. “I must go.”

  “Godspeed, my love,” he said, handing her into the coach. She managed to squeeze into the last place on the rear-facing front seat, leaving two laggards, a middle-aged drover in poor but clean clothes and a sleazy drummer with a sample case, to take the hard drop seats in the middle.

  She examined the envelope. He had written Ashton on the front and closed it with three large drops of wax. He certainly did want his request honored if he sealed it that carefully. She dropped the letter in her reticule and then, despite the prospect of the rough roads, foul food, and verminous sleeping accommodations en route, began to feel quite cheerful. She suspected it wouldn’t be long before circumstances required her to open the letter.