by John Jakes
All right, the war was evil. What then?
He thought it through. He would no longer lend himself to wars except the one of which Judith had spoken, the inevitable one against the political barbarians, whose names he knew well. Wade. Davis. Butler. Stevens. The South would need men to stand against their onslaught. It would be a fierce battle, full of unexpected dangers. Burke, as always, had words to frame the challenge: The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any landmarks from the wisdom of our ancestors to guide us.
Because our ancestors never lost a war on this continent, he thought with a meditative smile empty of humor. Our ancestors were never a conquered people, as we shall be.
He rested a while, and imagination assumed control. He saw himself passing in and out of a dark valley, quite long, which ran from Sumter through Liverpool and Nassau to Richmond and the fateful corner where the Union prisoners passed. In that valley lurked error and the madness of dogmatism. His experience there and the miraculous shock of the street attack that had driven him sane again—there was no other term for it—gave him some grasp of what Catholics must mean by suffering in purgatory.
He had returned from his own purgatory, but the nation was not so blessed. Even if the shooting stopped this instant, America, all of it, would be torn as never before. He knew the dimensions of the hatreds the war had loosed. Within his own heart and mind, one red-handed hater had lived and reigned three years.
So he must rest and prepare. When the formal fighting ended, he would be called to the fiercest fight of all.
Cooper’s meditation was interrupted by the firing of distant siege cannon. It shook the house and rattled windowpanes. He got out of bed, poured tepid water from a pitcher to a basin, chose a twig from several in a small glass, scrubbed his teeth with the only dental compound available any more: powdered charcoal.
He rinsed his mouth, winced at the emaciated man in the shaving glass, and wiped gritty black particles from the corners of his lips. His mouth tasted clean enough. A simple pleasure; a welcome one.
He changed nightshirts, put on an old gown, tied it around his shrunken waist, and hunted up slippers. He went downstairs.
Marie-Louise was speechless when she saw him: Then she cried and threw herself into his arms. Judith held Cooper’s hand when Mallory arrived and Cooper spoke to him.
“Stephen, I’ll be in your debt the rest of my life. Your visit today saved me. From many things, but most of all from my own bad side. You have my highest admiration—you always will. But I can’t work for you. I can’t build war machinery any longer. Something’s changed. I’ve changed. I want the war to end. I want the dying to stop. Henceforth, I plan to spend my time speaking and writing on behalf of an honorable negotiated peace coupled with emancipation for every Negro still enslaved in the South.”
Mallory’s open mouth showed a confusion of reactions: disbelief, mockery, anger. At last he muttered, “Oh?” His voice strengthened. “And where do you propose to conduct this new, high-minded crusade?”
“From Mont Royal. My family and I are going home.”
101
WHILE THE OIL IN the lamp burned away, Orry and Charles laid plans.
“I can write the order to get him out of Libby—”
“When you say write, you mean forge,” Charles interrupted, the cigar stub temporarily out of his mouth. He had taken off his boots and propped his smelly stockinged feet on the edge of the table Orry used for a desk.
“All right, forge. I suppose you’re technically right, since the release is illegal.”
“What else do we need?”
“A gray coat and trousers to replace his uniform. A horse—”
“I’ll arrange for the horse.”
Orry nodded. “Finally, he’ll need a pass. I can also take care of that. How he gets across the Rapidan is up to him. More whiskey?”
Charles drained his glass and pushed the empty toward his cousin, who was struck by the way time and war had altered their relationship. They were no longer man and boy, mentor and pupil, but adults, and equals. When Orry had poured the refill, and one for himself, he said, “I plan to accompany you to the prison. I won’t let you undertake the risk by yourself.”
Charles thumped his feet on the floor. “Oh, yes, you will, Cousin. You outrank me, but I’m going alone, and that’s that.”
“I can’t allow—”
“The hell you can’t,” Charles broke in, flinty. “I’m afraid you forget one pretty important detail. Through no fault of your own, it’s too damn easy for guards to remember and describe you later. I don’t want the authorities hunting me up a week after they’ve caught you. This has to be a solo performance.”
The notion of saying this had come to him on the ride to Richmond. He could think of no better way to spare Orry any dangers beyond the real ones he would incur by forging the documents. But Charles did his best to hide motives under a cold smile when he glanced at Orry’s pinned-up sleeve.
“On this point, Cousin, I insist on having my way.” Charles twisted in his chair. “What do you say, Madeline?”
From the sideboard, where she had been standing and listening, she said, “I think you’re right.”
“Blast,” Orry said. “Another conspiracy.”
Charles puffed his cigar again. “Another? What’s the first one?”
“Just a figure of speech,” Orry said, noting Madeline’s anxious glance. “We’re always hearing of imaginary plots against the government.” He had already decided to say nothing of Powell’s group or Ashton’s involvement. Charles despised Ashton, and rekindling his anger might divert him from the task ahead. For that task he needed every bit of intelligence, nerve, and concentration he possessed.
Only one detail remained to be settled. Charles named it.
“When?”
Orry said, “I can get the necessary forms and do the, ah, pen and ink work in the morning.”
“Then I’ll bring him out tomorrow night.”
Charles tied Sport to one of the iron posts on Twenty-first, around the corner from Libby’s main entrance. A fishy stench blew from the canal, driven by a stiff wind. He could see a picket standing guard down there. He knew there were others all around the building.
Charles stroked the gray. Without taking the cigar stub from his teeth, he said, “Rest while you can. You’ll have a double load to carry pretty soon.”
That was his hope, anyway. It was by no means certain, and various parts of him told him so, including his stomach. It had ached for the past hour.
He strode up the sloped walk to Cary, sweat breaking out in his beard. His old army Colt bumped his thigh, most of the holster hidden by the India-rubber poncho borrowed from Jim Pickles. The rubber blanket, which had a practical checkerboard painted on the inside, was hot as hell. But it was a focus, one detail for guards to remember about him, so they would forget everything else. That part, too, was still theoretical, his stomach reminded him.
The wind whirled dust clouds along Cary. Charles bent against it and climbed the prison steps past the armed guard, a red-faced youth with blond curls and china-blue eyes. The soldier gave him a keen stare.
Inside, Charles wrinkled his nose at the stench as he presented the forged order to the corporal on duty. “Prisoner Hazard. William Hazard.” He emphasized the name by poking the cold cigar butt at it. He dropped the stub into a spittoon full of brown water. “I’m to remove him to General Winder’s office for questioning.”
Without a second glance at the order, the corporal laid it on the paperbound book he had been reading with an avid expression. From the yellow front and back, Charles guessed it to be some of the pornography sold in the camps. The corporal picked up a stack of wrinkled pages, leafed through, searching the inked names. Other guards passed. One gave Charles a long look but didn’t stop.
“Hazard, Hazard—here ’tis. Y’all find him on the top floor. Ask at the guardroom. Head of the stairs.”
The corporal opened
the desk drawer, started to put the release order away. Charles snapped his fingers. “Give me that. I don’t want to be stopped upstairs.”
The noncom reacted before thinking—exactly what Charles counted on. He thanked the corporal by raising the forged order in a kind of salute, then wheeled and mounted the first flight of creaky steps.
Libby Prison breathed and whispered like some haunted mansion. The dim gas fixtures, widely separated, heightened the effect. So did the sounds. Distant sobbing; laughter with a subterranean echo to it; a sustained low noise like the murmur of disembodied voices. On the outside of the old warehouse, something banged and banged in the fierce wind.
Forlorn prisoners stared at him silently from corridors to the right and left of the landings. He heard a melody on a mouth organ. Smelled unwashed clothes, festering wounds, overflowing latrines. He tugged his hat brim farther down, the better to hide his face, before he reached the top floor.
He stepped into the rectangle of light at the door of the guardroom. Once more he showed the order, repeated what he had said downstairs.
“Should of brung a litter with you,” the bored guard told him. “Hazard ain’t walkin’ so good these days.” He turned to the other private in the room. “Go find him, Sid.”
“Fuck that. Your turn.”
Grumbling, the first soldier stepped past Charles. “Pretty queer to drag him out for questioning at this time of night.”
“If you want to make your objection known to General Winder, I’ll be happy to convey it, soldier. Together with your name.” Charles said it harshly, relying on what long service had taught him: men usually responded automatically to intimidation. It had worked downstairs, and it worked again.
“Never mind, thanks anyway,” the guard said with a nervous snicker.
At the entrance to a large room in which hundreds of prisoners sat or lay with hardly an inch between them, the guard halted. “Hazard? Where’s William Hazard?”
“Billy,” someone said, prodding the prisoner next to him. Charles held his breath as a shrunken figure slowly rose to sitting position, then stood with the help of those closest to him.
A huge silhouette with the corridor light at his back, Charles waited and felt his heartbeat quicken. This was the first critical moment—when the prisoner hobbling on the padded crutch came close enough to recognize him.
A drop of sweat fell from Charles’s nose. His mouth felt like a cup of dust. Billy staggered. My God, how wan and weak he looked, all rags and beard. When he was within a few feet of the door, Charles spotted bruises and a healed cut on one ear. His friend had been beaten.
The guard raised a thumb toward Charles. “This yere officer’s takin’ you down to old Winder’s office a while. What did y’do this time?”
“Not a damn thing.” Eyes enlarged and darkened by the hollowness of his face, Billy looked at Charles, who was silently crying out, Don’t say anything.
Billy’s mouth hung open a moment. “Bison?” His face showed that he instantly recognized his mistake.
The guard was watching Charles, suspicious. “What’d he call you?”
“Nothing you’d want to repeat to your mother.” He grabbed Billy’s dirty sleeve. “Don’t you say one damn word, or I’ll deliver you to the provost in little pieces. I lost a brother at Malvern Hill to you Yankee scum.”
Reassured, the guard said, “Don’t know why we coddle ’em so. Ought to burn the whole place down—with them inside.”
“My sentiments, too.” Charles pushed Billy’s shoulder too hard. Billy almost fell. He propped himself up with the crutch and a hand against the wall, giving Charles a searching, wary stare. Good, Charles thought. He motioned the prisoner forward.
The guard lingered at the door of his room, watching Charles prod Billy down the first few steps. Billy was slow, much to Charles’s annoyance. He was unsteady, too, obviously needing the crutch. The descent to the ground floor would take a hell of a long time. The longer they stayed inside Libby, the greater the risk of discovery.
“Bison?” Billy whispered, leaning against the stained wall beneath a guttering gaslight. “Is it really—?”
“For God’s sake shut up,” Charles whispered. “If you want to get out of here, act like we don’t know each other.” Two guards appeared on the landing below, coming up. Charles nudged Billy, said loudly, “Keep moving, bluebelly.”
Down they went, one labored step at a time. Billy held fast to the crutch and now and then uttered a little groan. What in hell had they done to him? Charles’s anger rapidly grew as strong as his fear of discovery.
The second floor. Billy sweated and breathed hard. More men watching. Charles yanked his revolver from under the poncho. “Step lively, or I’ll blow your sonofabitching head off.” He shoved he muzzle in Billy’s back, almost tumbling Billy down the stairs headfirst.
Ground floor. The duty corporal stood. Held out his hand. “I’ll take back the release order, if you please.”
Charles fished it from his pocket, hoping the forged signature would pass muster. They were so close now, just steps away from the doors leading out to Cary, where dust and rubbish rushed on winds of near gale force. The corporal shut the order in the drawer and remained standing, regarding Charles and his prisoner with an unreadable expression.
Six steps to the bottom and the doors.
Four.
Two.
Billy rested his head against the bilious wall. “Give me a minute—”
Hurry, Charles shouted in silence, darting down to the doors so he could turn and observe the duty corporal. The corporal was frowning, sensing something amiss—
“Hurry it up, or I’ll drag you by the heels.”
Billy gulped, pushed away from the wall, struggled down the next step. Charles thrust the door open, feeling the wind’s force on the other side. From under his hat brim he continued to watch the corporal, counting the seconds till they escaped his scrutiny. The corporal represented the maximum threat, Charles felt—discovering his error when he turned in the doorway. There stood the blond guard, musket raised, blue eyes glaring.
“Where are you taking that prisoner?”
“Does everyone have to answer to you, Vesey?” Billy mumbled, immediately conveying to Charles some special animosity between himself and the guard.
“I don’t answer to any pissant private,” Charles said. “One side.”
“Hey, Bull, where are they taking this Yank?” Vesey shouted to the duty corporal.
“Provost’s office. For questioning.”
“Provost?” Vesey repeated, while Charles took Billy’s elbow to help him down the first step. “Mr. Quincy was here not an hour ago, while you were at supper. He didn’t say anything about springing a prisoner.”
The pale eyes widened. “You!” He aimed the musket at Charles. “Hold it right there. I know every one of General Winder’s boys, and you aren’t one of them. Something’s fish—”
Charles smashed the barrel of his Colt against Vesey’s head.
102
VESEY YELLED AND RECOILED against the building. His musket tumbled over the stair rail. Inside, the corporal shouted to raise the alarm. “Go on, around the corner,” Charles told Billy, an instant before Vesey lunged at him with both hands.
Charles thrust the hands away, flung Vesey against the doors so the corporal, pushing from inside, had trouble opening them. Charles started down the steps. Again Vesey tried to grab him. Two fingernails ripped a bloody track down Charles’s cheek. Pain, anger, desperation brought instant response; Charles jammed the Colt into Vesey’s stomach and shot him.
Vesey screamed and died toppling. That noise of the shot went rushing away on the wind. Charles saw that Billy had fallen on hands and knees at the foot of the steps. Charles ran down to him. The corporal inside didn’t open the doors, though now he could have. He resumed his shouting instead.
“Come on,” Charles said, jerking Billy to his feet too roughly; Billy uttered a low cry. Inside Libby, Charl
es heard more and more voices, a whole baying chorus. At the corner of Twenty-second and Cary, a picket appeared, musket raised. He was young, inexperienced, hesitant. That was worth a few more seconds. Charles forced Billy rapidly to the opposite corner, Twenty-first, where they nearly collided with another picket, who appeared suddenly. Charles pointed the Colt at the boy’s face.
“Run or you’re dead, youngster.”
The picket dropped his musket and ran.
But one more was dashing up the slope of Twenty-first from the river side of the building. Charles hastily untied Sport, shoved his boot in the stirrup, mounted, and fired a shot across his saddle to turn back the running guard. Tightly reining the nervous gray, he pulled his left foot back and thrust his free hand downward.
“Grab hold and use the stirrup. Quick!”
Billy groaned at the exertion, and so did Charles. He fired again to keep the guard cowering. When he felt Billy settle into place behind him, he shouted, “Hang on, Bunk,” and spurred the gray the short distance up to Cary. His friend’s Academy nickname had come back without thought.
Three pickets gathered on the corner to fire at them as Sport carried them by. Billy wrapped his arms around Charles’s poncho and held fast. One shot boomed, then two more. All three missed. The gray galloped away into howling wind.
In an alley a mile from the prison, Billy donned the butternut pants and corduroy shirt unpacked from a blanket roll on the saddle.
“Jesus,” Charles said as he handed Billy the gray jacket.
“What’s wrong?”
“I killed that guard. Didn’t even stop to think about it.”
“You deserve a medal.”
“For shooting a boy?”
“You did every man in Libby Prison a service. That guard is the bastard who put me in this condition.”
“That right? Then I feel better. Glad I did it.” Charles smiled in a way that made Billy shiver. He gave Billy the last article from the blanket roll, a kepi. “Let’s go.”
Billy waited in the darkness with Sport while Charles entered the stable where he had previously arranged to hire a mule for the night. “Get him back by eight in the morning,” the sleepy liveryman said. “I got another customer.”
