by John Jakes
To ensure the arrangement, he added with a cagey smile, “Also, in the United States Cavalry there are many men of good character—single men—desirous of finding attractive, decent young women to marry.”
Maureen’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, sir. I have read that, too.”
Mrs. Caldwell, the buxom, middle-aged housekeeper, came downstairs as the brigadier held out his right index finger. “Ah, sir, it is you. I was in the attic, but I thought I heard you arrive.”
“Only to announce a permanent departure, this very evening.” While he said that, Maureen wiped the extended finger with her apron. Duncan then put the finger into the baby’s mouth. Up came one small, clutching hand, to find the knuckle and close.
Duncan explained matters to his housekeeper and entertained the baby at the same time. White spots, hints of teeth, had appeared on the infant’s gums, and he loved teething on the brigadier’s finger. He chewed it hard, grimacing and drooling happily.
“Then it’s a promotion, is it, sir?”
“Yes, Mrs. Caldwell.”
“My most sincere congratulations.” She touched a corner of one eye. “I shall be sorry to see you go. The past five years have passed swiftly. And pleasurably, I might add.”
“Thank you. Now we must discuss your future.”
Mrs. Caldwell was happy about the generous settlement and even found a positive side to the sudden departure. “My widowed sister in Alexandria has been begging me to come for a visit. I may stay a week or two—”
“By all means. I can handle storage of the furniture and close out the lease by letter. We needn’t bother with those things today. We have quite enough to do.”
“What time is your train, General?”
“Six sharp.”
“Then I’ll definitely go to my sister’s this evening. I’ll hire a cab.”
“Take the horse and buggy. I make you a present of it. I won’t be needing it again.”
“Oh, sir, that’s extremely generous—”
“No more so than you have been,” he said, remembering certain nights, lonely for both of them, when she was far more than a conventional housekeeper. Their gazes met, held a moment. Then, blushing, she looked elsewhere.
“You must at least permit me to drive you to the depot,” she said.
“No, we’ll hire a cab. That way, you can reach your sister’s before dark.”
“Very well, sir. Will you excuse me so I can see to your packing?” A great deal of it had to be squeezed into the next few hours.
But even little Charles seemed to approve of the abrupt redirection of their lives. He chewed harder than ever on his great-uncle’s finger.
Charles continued to draw stares in Willard’s saloon bar, but Prevo’s presence forestalled trouble. The gun belt on the table had some effect as well.
They started with a whiskey each. That led to three more as the hours slipped by in an increasingly pleasant and easygoing exchange of reminiscences. Charles felt a euphoria of a kind he hadn’t experienced since before Sharpsburg. Not only did he have Duncan’s address on a slip of paper in his pocket, but it was in Washington, close by. The brigadier had been on the general staff throughout the war.
Slightly bleary, Prevo held his pocket watch near his face. “I have an appointment back at the department at a quarter past five. That leaves us twenty minutes for one farewell drink. Game?”
“Absolutely. Then I’ll take a leisurely stroll to Duncan’s.” Prevo nodded, signaling the waiter. Charles went on, “Having another gives me a chance to mention something that bothered me for a long time. I’m also just drunk enough.”
Puzzled, the colonel smiled and waited.
“You recall the day we met? I gave you my word that the female smuggler wasn’t in the house.”
The colonel nodded. “Your word as an officer and West Point man. I accepted it.”
“But what I said was a trick. Oh, I was telling the strict truth. She wasn’t in the house—” The waiter arrived with two fresh drinks. Charles waited until he set them down and left. “She was hiding in the woods.”
“I know.”
Glass at his lips, Charles started so hard he spewed a spray of whiskey, some of which landed on Prevo. The colonel produced a handkerchief and used it, explaining, “I spied the buggy. Fortunately, none of my men did.”
Charles put the glass down. Shook his head. “I don’t understand. Why—?”
“I had to pursue her, but nothing said I had to catch her. I didn’t like making war on women, and I still don’t.”
With an owlish blink, Charles replied, “Damn shame some of your boys didn’t feel the same way. Sherman and his stinking bummers. The damage done to South Carolina went beyond all bounds of—”
Abruptly, he stopped. A new flintiness showed in Prevo’s eyes. He hadn’t touched his whiskey. Charles drew a hand across his mouth.
“I apologize. What you told that clerk applies to me, too. The war’s over. Sometimes I forget.”
Prevo glanced at his mutilated right hand, resting beside his glass. “So do I, Charles. We all paid. We’ll all remember for years.”
At ten past five, on the street outside the hotel, they parted with a firm handshake, friends.
At the Baltimore & Ohio terminal on New Jersey Avenue, amid a great crowd of departing passengers, Brigadier Duncan and Maureen, carrying the baby, boarded the cars. Duncan settled the Irish girl in her seat in second class-—he had first-class accommodations—then returned to the platform to find his porter and make certain every piece of luggage was loaded.
The platform clock showed 5:35 P.M.
145
STUDYING HOUSE NUMBERS, CHARLES moved along the block with a slight unsteadiness left over from Willard’s. Should be one of these, he thought, a second before his eye fell on the tin numeral matching that written on the paper. Something choked in his throat a moment, and he began to sober quickly.
The house had a dark, abandoned appearance. Every drapery closed. No lights showing in the spring dusk. Panicky, he bounded up the steps to the door, knocking hard.
“Hello? Anyone in there?” What if he’s moved? What if I can’t find him? “Hello?”
More pounding, attracting the unfriendly notice of a couple rocking on their porch across the street. Behind the house, he heard sounds. Wheels and traces, a horse. He ran to the end of the porch just as a buggy passed, driven by a stout middle-aged woman with a portmanteau on the seat beside her.
“Ma’am? May I speak to you?” A glance had told him the buggy had come from the shed in back of the house.
She turned her head, eyes widening at the sight of the bearded, threatening figure leaning over the porch rail. Mrs. Caldwell’s instinctive reaction was fright. She whipped up the horse.
“Wait! I have to ask you something—”
She turned into the street. Charles vaulted over the rail, landed in the side drive with a jolt, raced in pursuit of the buggy, which was gathering speed. The man and woman rose from their rockers, their expressions showing fear of the deranged-looking man chasing the vehicle.
Panting, Charles pumped his arms until he drew abreast of the buggy. “Please stop. It’s urgent that I locate—”
“Get away from me!” Mrs. Caldwell flailed at him with the buggy whip, stung his cheek. Charles’s instinct for defense took over. He shot his hand across to clamp and drag on her wrist.
“Stop! I don’t mean you any harm, but—”
Struggling with him, she was forced to rein the buggy to a halt. “The law,” she cried. “Someone call the law.”
“Damn it, woman, listen to me,” Charles said, breathing hard. “I need to find General Duncan.”
Releasing her, he stepped back. The whip in her right hand shook, but she acted less alarmed. “I didn’t mean to scare you—I apologize for grabbing you that way. But it’s extremely important that I locate the brigadier. That’s his house back there, isn’t it?”
Guardedly: “It was.”
; “Was?”
“The general has left for a new military post.”
Charles’s stomach knotted. “When?”
“He is at the B & O station at this moment, departing at six. Now, sir, I insist on knowing who you are and the reason for this alleged urgency.”
“Six,” Charles repeated. “It must be almost that now—”
“Your name, sir, or I shall drive on immediately.”
“Charles Main.”
She acted as if he’d hit her. “Late of the Confederate Army?” He nodded, thinking. “Then you are the one—”
“Move over,” he said suddenly, climbing up and practically shoving her to the far side of the seat. “Better hold the rail. I’m going to catch that tram. Hah!”
He slapped the reins over the horse. Mrs. Caldwell screeched, clutching both her hat and the rail as the buggy shot forward like a bolt released from a crossbow.
Mrs. Caldwell was convinced she would die on the breakneck ride to the depot. The bearded man, the one Brigadier Duncan had sought so diligently, then given up for lost or dead, rammed the buggy through impossibly narrow spaces in evening traffic, causing pedestrians to scatter, hackney drivers to swear, dray horses to rear up and whinny. Rounding the corner into New Jersey, driver and passenger saw a water wagon looming ahead. Charles hauled on the reins, braked, veered, and stood the buggy on its left wheels for a moment. Mrs. Caldwell uttered a scream as the right ones came crashing down, the buggy missing the back end of the water wagon by inches.
Axles howling, wheel hubs smoking, the buggy jerked to a stop directly in front of the station, whose outdoor clock showed a minute after six. Leaping out, Charles flung the reins at the stunned woman, remembering to shout, “Thank you.” He plunged into the depot like a distance runner.
“Train for Baltimore?” he yelled at a uniformed man rolling an iron gate shut.
“Just left,” the man said, pointing down the platform toward an observation car receding behind billows of steam. Charles turned sideways to squeeze through the opening. “Here, you can’t—”
Almost at once, he had three station officials in pursuit. They were older and in poor condition; he was lean and desperate. Still, his lungs quickly began to hurt from the exertion. And he was losing the race. The train was already out of the roofed shed.
He saw the end of the passenger platform ahead. It was too late to brake his momentum. He jumped for the tracks.
He landed crookedly. His wounded leg twisted, hurling him onto the ties. “Get that man!” one of the pursuers howled.
Hurt and panting, Charles pushed up, gained his feet, and ran again, harder than he had ever run in his life. His beard flew over his shoulder. He thought of Sport. Sport could do it. Sport would have the stamina—
That drove him to greater effort. He came within a hand’s length of the rear car. Reached for the handrail of the steps. Missed his stride again and almost fell—The rail receded. Concentrating on a memory of Gus’s face, he put everything into a last long step.
He caught hold of the step rail with both hands. The train dragged him, his boots bouncing and bumping. He kicked upward with both legs, knowing that if he didn’t, his legs might be pulped under the train.
One boot slipped on the metal step. He nearly fell off. His wrists and forearms felt fiery, tortured by the strain. But he pulled—
Pulled—
Weak and gasping, he staggered upright on the rear platform, only to see the car door open and a broad-shouldered conductor step through, barring him. The trainman saw the pursuers staggering down the track, understood their shouts and gestures.
“Please,” Charles said, “let me go inside.”
“Get off this train.”
“You don’t understand. It’s an emergency. One of your passengers—”
“Get off or I’ll throw you off,” the conductor said, starting to push. Charles lurched backward, his left boot finding just empty air above the second step. Frantically, he grabbed the handrail and only in that way kept himself from tumbling into space.
“Get off!” the conductor yelled, raising his hands for a second, final, shove. Something hard rammed the center of his vest. He looked down and went rigid at the sight of Charles’s army Colt pressed into his stomach.
“You have ten seconds to stop this train.”
“I can’t possibly—”
Charles drew the hammer back to full cock.
“Ten seconds.”
With a flurry of signal flags and alarm whistles, the train stopped.
146
ONLY BRIGADIER DUNCAN’S INTERVENTION and influence prevented Charles’s immediate arrest and imprisonment. At half past ten that night, the two men sat in the parlor of the reopened house, their faces grim as those of opponents still at war. The Irish wet nurse was upstairs with the child Charles had looked at twice, the second time with feelings of confusion and even revulsion. After returning from the depot, Duncan had told him the whole story, and Charles wished he hadn’t.
The evening had grown sultry, with rumbles of an approaching storm in the northwest. His neck button still fastened, Charles sat in a plush chair, an untasted shot of whiskey on a small table to his right. His lamplit eyes looked dead. As dead as he felt inside.
Suddenly, with fury, he leaned forward. “Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Major Main,” the brigadier replied with icy correctness, “that is the third, possibly the fourth time you have asked the same question. She loved you very much—as I stated in the letters you never received. She grieved because the war had—damaged you, to use her phrase. Damaged you to the point where you mistakenly believed you could not continue your relationship with her. But my niece was a decent and honorable young woman.” Unmistakably, there was the suggestion that Charles had neither of those characteristics.
Duncan continued, “She refused to hold her—condition as a club over your head. Now I shall not explain all that again. Indeed, I am beginning to regret you found me. I cannot understand your coldness toward your own flesh and blood.”
“The baby killed her.”
“There is indeed something wrong in your head, Main. Circumstance killed her. Her frailness killed her. She wanted the child. She wanted to bear your son—she named him after you. Do you seriously mean to tell me you want nothing to do with him?”
Anguished, Charles said, I don’t know.”
“Well, I have no intention of remaining in Washington while you undertake your bizarre deliberations on the matter. I thought that if I ever found you, the reunion would be a joyous moment. It is anything but that.”
“Give me just a little time—”
“Hardly worth my while, Major—having heard your remarks of a moment ago. I shall be on tomorrow evening’s six o’clock express for Baltimore and the West. If you do not want your son, I do.”
A dazed blink. “The West—?”
“Duty with the plains cavalry, if it’s any of your affair. Now, if you will excuse me, I find this conversation odious. I shall retire.” He stalked to the parlor door, where strained politeness made him pause and say, “There is an unused bedroom at the second floor rear. You may spend the night if you wish.” Duncan’s eyes flayed him. “Should your son cry out, you needn’t trouble yourself. Maureen and I will look after him.”
“Goddamn you, don’t take that tone with me,” Charles yelled, on his feet. “I loved her! I never loved anyone so much! I thought I should break things off for her sake, so I could do my job and she wouldn’t worry constantly. Now if that’s a crime in your estimation, the hell with you. When I stopped your train and found you inside, I didn’t know I had a son. All I wanted was to learn where she is—was—”
“She is buried in the private cemetery in Georgetown. There is a marker. I shall ask you tomorrow, Major, before my departure, to give me your decision about young Charles.”
“I can’t. I don’t know what it is.”
“God pity any man who must say words like those
.”
The brigadier marched up the stairs. On the upper landing, he heard the front door slam, then a rumble of thunder, then silence. White light glittered through the house. Duncan raised his head as the hard pelting rain hit the roof. He heard no further sound from below.
With a shake of his head and a sudden sag of his shoulders, he continued to his room, a grieving and dismayed man.
Charles walked all the way to Georgetown in the lightning and thunder and rain. Knocking at a cottage, rousing the owners, he obtained directions to the private cemetery. The sleepy couple with the lamp were too frightened to deny him an answer. He was a hellish apparition on their wet porch, a nightmare man with furnace eyes and a soaked gray shirt and rain dripping from his beard and his holstered gun.
Hurrying on, he reached the cemetery in an interval of pitch darkness. He slipped in wet grass, falling forward and nearly impaling himself on the spikes of the low fence. On his knees next to it, he felt the metal. Wrought iron.
Was it Hazard’s? He uttered a crazed laugh. He was losing his mind. Everything was slipping, fusing, jumbling together. He wanted to scream. He wanted to die.
He kicked the gate open and lurched into the cemetery, searching by lightning flash. Granite angels spread granite arms and granite wings, imploring him to heaven with granite eyes. No thank you, I’m at my proper destination already.
In the dark he stumbled repeatedly over low headstones or crashed painfully into cold marble. Jagged lightning ran through the sky. He saw a towering obelisk against the glare and a name carved huge on the pedestal, STARKWETHER.
After a long period of wandering one way, then another, he found the grave. The headstone was small and rectangular, with a slightly sloping top upon which Duncan had put her name and the years of her birth and death, nothing more.
Charles sank to his knees, every inch of him soaked by the rain that still poured down. He didn’t feel it or the cold. Only the misery, the awful, mind-destroying misery. He knelt beside the grave, careful not to kneel on it, and without conscious volition closed his fists and began to beat them on his thighs.
