Jacob's Ladder: A Story of Virginia During the War

by Donald McCaig

  “Now wait a damned minute, Uncle Silas. What’s gone wrong with you?” Ellam scuttled into a corner as the smaller man stalked him.

  Silas said, “Have I got your attention?” His voice was so mild. “That was your father’s trouble. My brother, my wellborn, legitimate brother, ran good businesses into the ground. And it wasn’t for lack of sensible men, including myself, warning him to watch his step, that people weren’t as witless as he thought they were; they expected value for what they bought and a fair price for what they sold. You’d think that wouldn’t be beyond a grown man’s powers of comprehension. But, by God, your father sold shoddy and paid late in Virginia and he did no better in Tennessee and God knows what he’s doing out in Missouri, because I surely do not. My poor bankrupt brother never could pay attention. Oh, he was kind enough, kind to his servants, kind to his wife, the only Omohundru who ever claimed kinship to me. My legitimate brother’s creditors never thought he would cheat them until he did. I cannot count the times I sat down to explain matters and your father’d smile and say, ‘Yes, Silas,’ and in that moment perhaps he did understand. In the next instant, sir, the cloud would lift from the sun or a pretty girl would walk by and he’d forget every word I ever told him. I trust you will show more improvement.”

  “Yes, sir, Uncle Silas.”

  “Now, pay attention.” Ellam cautiously dropped his hands from his face. A servant wench came in and knelt to clean up the mess. “I am a slave speculator. Do you know what it is I do?”

  “Yes, Uncle Silas.”

  “The hell you do!”

  Ellam clapped his hands over his face and peeked through his fingers.

  “I ride the backroads of Virginia and North Carolina and I let it be known that I’m seeking prime negroes, and I wait. I wait until word gets around that I’m in the neighborhood in a buying frame of mind and I wait until somebody’s banker says no, no, he can’t lend any more money on the mortgage. Or the new heir, who is feeling his oats on account of he hasn’t distinguished between what he has earned himself and what someone else has given him, that heir gets to playing cards with fellows who are older than he is and have seen his like before. After dark, comes the knock on my door and there’s this young gentleman who I never saw before and might not see again, and Christ, he’s got to have a thousand dollars then and there, because he’s got to get back to the game, and he points to his carriage and he says, ‘You see my coachman?’ ”

  Uncle Silas spoke to the servant wench. “Bring more hot coffee. My clumsy nephew has spilled it.

  “Now, it would be easy to inspect this prime negro and offer half what he’s worth, and you know that heir would curse me, take the money, and get back to his game. You’d take that advantage, wouldn’t you, boy?”

  “No sir, Uncle Silas.”

  “Yes, you would. Yes, you would. Your father he would have too. Your father would have bragged on it. And the young fellow he beat, when he wakes up in the morning and is grabbing his head, which is fat as a slaughter hog, you think that young fellow’s going to say, ‘I brought that on myself,’ or ‘I would have lost that money anyway’? No. He will cry out to any man who will listen, ‘Silas Omohundru has cheated me.’ Because, boy, it is a sight easier for a man to admit to being robbed than admit to being a fool. And when I come back into that neighborhood next year to buy, well, what do I find? What do I find, boy?”

  “Nobody’ll sell to you?”

  The servant set one jug of coffee close to Uncle Silas, and he thanked her and said no doubt she’d wait to clean the table because they weren’t quite finished with their business.

  “What’s a negro wench, boy?”

  “Sir?”

  “We got eight wenches, fourteen bucks, two infants. What are they all?”

  “They’s what we buy and sell?”

  Uncle Silas sighed and poured himself a cup of black coffee, and Ellam kept his eye on it for fear it’d be flung at him.

  “They’re human beings, boy. They can smile and they can frown. They get angry as we do. They can grieve. God said there should be the white man and the black man and the white man should have the care of the sons of Ham, because they can’t look after themselves. Some idiots look at that fact and conclude, ‘Niggers just another beast in the field,’ but, boy, they’re not. Some can read and some can preach and some play banjos and jump Jim Crow. And some of their women are the prettiest things a grown man ever saw. Many white gentlemen see no harm in lying with a negress, since if she gets a baby, it’ll be lighter than the mother, and if it’s a girl, perhaps even light enough for the fancy trade, like that Maggie woman you were diddling last night.”

  Ellam opened his mouth to deny everything but closed it again when he saw Uncle Silas’s eyes.

  “Good,” Silas said, setting his cup down. “Might be you can learn. What will that wench bring in Vicksburg, herself and the child?”

  The boy shook his head.

  “Twenty-four hundred dollars, maybe more. Man buys her, sets her up, and she brings in ten dollars a night, every night except when she’s bleeding and Sundays. Fancy woman costs two hundred a year to keep, so after one year, he’s got his money out of her and he’s still got the pickaninny if it lives. Now, boy, pay attention! Suppose you’re a buyer for the fancy trade, what do you want?”

  “Pretty. Light-skinned. Young.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I don’t know, Uncle Silas.”

  “You are looking for a girl who is pert and gay. What kind of girl is Maggie?”

  “Sir?”

  “You diddled her. What’s she like?”

  “Like you said, sir. Right pert.”

  His uncle shook his head. “Did you talk to her or just stick it into her?”

  “She seemed pert to me,” Ellam said stubbornly.

  “That girl hasn’t known more than one, maybe two men in her life, and she’s got a way of speaking sometimes you can’t tell if she’s a white woman or not. You’re lucky you caught that girl young. Two or three years hence, if you try to stick it in her, she’ll cut it off and hand it to you. Until we get to Vicksburg, you chain Maggie every night and don’t come near when she’s got anything sharp in her hand. You gave her something to think about, boy, and I’ll not thank you for that. In Vicksburg, when we put her on that block and tell her, ‘Sing and dance, Maggie, so you fetch a good price,’ you know what she’ll be thinking? ‘Why should I dance and act pert when some stupid white boy stick his thing in me anytime he want?’ She’ll stand on that block like she’s cross, and you know what the buyer for the fancy trade will be thinking? He’ll think that maybe she won’t bring ten dollars a night, and if some customer acts up with her, maybe Maggie will scratch his eyes out. That buyer will say to me, ‘Silas, that’s a fine high yellow you sellin’ there, Silas, but she seems a handful. I’ll give you fifteen hundred for her.’ ”

  “Oh hell, Uncle. I didn’t mean nothin’ by it. I didn’t hurt her any.”

  Silas rubbed his forehead. “God forgive you, you’re no smarter than your father.” He thought for a moment. “What did I promise you for coming with me and helping me?”

  “Hundred dollars.”

  Uncle Silas smiled, and Ellam sort of wished his uncle hadn’t smiled. “What’s that wench worth?”

  “Twenty-four hundred dollars.”

  “That’s right. And in lieu of paying you, I’ll give you every cent over sixteen hundred dollars she brings, herself and the baby. Nephew, you might get rich. Boy, you might just change your luck.”

  THE PLUNGER

  GOSHEN, VIRGINIA

  APRIL 18, 1861

  “GENTLEMEN,” PROVISIONAL THIRD Lieutenant Duncan Gatewood exclaimed. “Thank God for secession. We live a new life.”

  Catesby Byrd interlaced his fingers behind his head and cricked his neck from side to side. “I’d rather have new cards,” he said. “Spaulding, what time do you show?”

  The florid-faced young man extracted a silver hunter. “I
fear we are in violation of the Sabbath. It is ten past four—if the watch keeps good time.”

  “It did when I last wound it,” Catesby muttered. “You military gentlemen have cleaned me out.”

  Duncan grinned. “What’s mere wealth compared to our prospects? Catesby, the prospect of military glory invigorates a man.”

  Catesby eyed him somewhat sourly. “A king of hearts would have invigorated me wonderfully. He or his diamond brother. Lord knows there were two of them in the deck, unemployed.”

  “Catesby,” his young kinsman objected, “our Commonwealth of Virginia has seceded and is the brightest star in the new Confederate Nation. Like our forefathers, we create a new nation. Patriots are rushing to the colors throughout the South”—he gestured solemnly at the invisible host—“while you fret about a game of cards.”

  Three men, two in cadet uniforms, lounged in the empty saloon of the hotel that served Millboro passengers of the Virginia Central Railroad. They’d been playing cards since Catesby Byrd made his surprise appearance last night after dinner.

  “I’d not fret,” Catesby said, “if you returned my watch. I had no notion your studies included the mechanics of gulling kinfolk.”

  “Wheelhorse and I did play some cards at the Institute,” Spaulding said, smiling. “I’ve many a demerit for cardplaying. How innocent that all seems—demerits! How we shall miss the dear old Institute.”

  Duncan stretched. “I believe there’s daylight in the sky. Remember that damn train when we went to hang old John Brown? It was my first train ride, and I was devilish sick. I remember when we finally reached Relay House, a hundred cadets rubbed the sleep from their eyes and dined on tea and hot bread. And afterward, when we huffed and puffed along the Patapsco: the sun burned the fog off the river and none of us knew whether a thousand armed abolitionists were coming to free Brown. Spaulding, that was the finest morning of my life.”

  The older youth yawned. “Railroad journeys can be tiresome. Richmond isn’t a hundred twenty miles, but my Christmas travels took every bit of thirteen hours.”

  Duncan’s face darkened. “God, how I wish I had accepted your invitation. I wish . . .”

  Spaulding waited for more, but Duncan fell silent.

  “Why not travel to Richmond by canal?” Catesby asked. “You could float majestically down the James while ladies on shore wave lacy handkerchiefs and swoon at your martial splendor.”

  “The best regiments are filling up,” Spaulding said briskly. “I’d hoped to join my cousin A. P. Hill, but his regiment is already chock-full. Duncan, you’ll remember I attended Cousin Hill’s wedding. Lord, how those regular officers can drink! Cousin has commended us to the 44th Infantry—its adjutant and lieutenant colonel are Institute men.”

  “Such laudable ambition,” Catesby drawled. “Duncan, wouldn’t you rather exercise your appetite for mayhem in the company of your familiars? I’m sure Spaulding here is a good fellow, but the regiment he hopes to join will be strangers, none from our mountains.”

  “Catesby, I damn well will not ever again have aught to do with my previous acquaintances!” Duncan’s young face was cold. In a lower tone he added, “You know my reasons.”

  Catesby coughed. He shuffled the cards, once, twice. He turned to Spaulding. “Do you think this war will last long enough for you to get into it?”

  “God, I pray it will! General Johnson has already seized Harpers Ferry, cut the National Road, the canal, and the Federals’ rail link from the west. I worry he will take Washington before we get a chance at them!”

  Catesby sighed. “Duncan, you’re a horseman. Why not the cavalry?”

  Spaulding answered for his friend. “Oh, the cavalry’s the place for a swaggerer. If a man wants to cut a figure, there’s nothing like a fine horse to help him do it. But battles aren’t decided by cavalry. The infantry carries the day. Our regiment will want good noncommissioned officers, too. You are a patriot, Mr. Byrd. Why not accompany us?” Spaulding consulted his new watch. “Our train departs in a quarter hour.”

  “My wife and two children are hostages to fortune.”

  “Catesby, surely you’ll sign up! The enlistment is only a year. Think how awful you’ll feel afterward if you miss the fun.”

  A shadow crossed Catesby’s face. “You think so, Duncan? Wars have a way of getting away from men.”

  “Well, this war is going to get away from Mr. Lincoln. The Federals can’t whip our gallant boys.”

  Spaulding slapped the table and upset his tumbler. “Duncan, that is the spirit!” He pushed his bench from the table and swept spilled whiskey onto the floor with the edge of his hand. “Is that the locomotive bell? I thought I heard a bell.”

  Duncan went to the door and leaned into the darkness.

  “Yesterday,” Catesby noted in his quiet voice, “I came hoping to dissuade my young kinsman from rashness. When we met, at this place, I found him already celebrating the rashest thing imaginable. . . .”

  Duncan said, “I cannot go home to Stratford, Catesby. You know that.”

  “I know that you are young and occupy a place in my affections!”

  “And you do like to play cards. Admit it, Catesby—you do!”

  “Yes, young friend, I am partial to cardplaying. Cardplaying promotes conviviality. Tonight I am fortunate I didn’t wager my horse.”

  Spaulding laughed too loudly. “Mr. Byrd, your horse is happy you haven’t wagered him! You are a plunger, sir. I know you because I am a plunger myself. Wager on anything and devil take the hindmost, eh?”

  “Sir, risk makes the time pass faster.”

  “Catesby . . .”

  Catesby raised a hand. “One last entreaty, Duncan. If you can’t think of me, won’t you consider your sister and mother?”

  The younger man placed his hand on the older man’s shoulder. “Catesby, I am thinking of them, can’t you see? Surely you can understand! If I go away, they will forget me. I will no longer shame them.”

  Spaulding was listening somewhat distractedly as he went into his pockets and plucked banknotes from here and there. He dipped into his purse for two gold coins, which he employed to weight the bills. He added watch and chain. He shuffled the cards and pushed the deck toward Catesby, where it sat, smug and mysterious as a heathen idol. “Sir, in the course of this evening I have satisfied myself as to Gatewood’s good opinion of you. I think I could enroll no better man in our new regiment. Let us decide the issue by wager. Win, and this”—he gestured at the money contemptuously—“is all yours. Lose, and you’re in for the fun. Let a single card decide.”

  Attorney and responsible family man Catesby Byrd felt a spasm of loathing for Cadet Spaulding. Catesby considered that Cadet Spaulding resembled a white Leghorn rooster which had once tormented his daughter, Pauline, rushing at her whenever she went with her basket for eggs. He’d made, Catesby recalled, a rubbery supper.

  The locomotive bell was drawing nigh. Its clatter was unmistakable. Carelessly, Catesby Byrd reached out and revealed the fatal card.

  CONSCIENCE

  RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

  APRIL 24, 1861

  ON APRIL 22, in Warm Springs, Virginia, Judge Robert Ayres sentenced Sallie and Alexander Kirkpatrick to terms of five years in the state penitentiary in Richmond. Nine days previously, Fort Sumter had surrendered, and shortly thereafter, Virginia joined its fortunes to the new Confederacy.

  Dismissing Uther Botkin’s heartbroken pleas for leniency and Samuel Gatewood’s stated conviction that the Kirkpatricks had acted from Christian motives, the judge observed that neither felon demonstrated contrition and Mr. Kirkpatrick had, throughout the proceedings, treated the court with grave disrespect. Furthermore, although, since legally he was a nonperson, Jesse’s testimony could not be taken, Judge Ayres understood that the slave was also unrepentant. “These times do not permit mercy to those who, if not abolitionists themselves, are the abolitionists’ willing accomplices,” Judge Ayres said.

  Since the county possess
ed no adequate conveyance for transporting felons to the penitentiary, the sheriff hired a closed carriage, with a canvas partition between the seat where Alexander Kirkpatrick and his warder sat and that of Sallie and the warder’s wife.

  Under command of silence, the warder’s wife read her Bible and dozed. Below the curtain the men’s footwear could be seen: Alexander’s dress shoes, his laces clumsily spliced, next to the warder’s blunt brown boots. Sallie avoided looking at them; their mute testimony distressed her. Sometimes Sallie wished she’d been less defiant, had uttered mealy-mouthed lies in the courtroom; but when she’d wavered, a hot coal at her core whispered that betraying Jesse was to betray herself, to betray the sweet hopes she’d had for her own poor infant.

  At the trial, Alexander had shown his customary contempt.

  The streets of Lexington were thronged with men in bright militia uniforms. Had Sallie not been making this melancholy journey, she would be knitting socks for soldiers or piecing brave new flags. She smiled at her own foolishness: the quality of her needlework restricted her to sock patriotism.

  The warder’s wife pulled down the shade, so they traveled in musty dimness. What was the woman thinking—that Sallie would cry for rescue?

  As the carriage rolled south, the seasons accelerated. There’d been redbuds still on Warm Springs Mountain; in Lexington the dogwoods were in flower. Outside Buena Vista they passed through lilac groves aromatic and spicy, and in Lynchburg peach trees were faintly pinked with blossom.

  They tarried overnight in that city’s jail.

  The roads were dry. They crossed the James at Scottsville and again at Bremo Bluff. Sallie felt like a chip upon the current, willy-nilly in the spring flood. She had always been busy and had no knack for indolence, but now her only duty was obedience—“Step out, here, ma’am,” or “My wife will accompany you to the johnny house.”

  The carriage rattled past red clay soil, turned and glistening, awaiting the transplanting of tobacco. In the warm and hazy afternoon, Sallie remembered the baby she had hoped to bear. Alexander had wanted the baby as much as she. The baby was perhaps the only thing Alexander wanted. He had neither sought a new position nor embraced his new circumstances. She did the chores, she brought in the firewood. If Sallie took the trouble to command him, Alexander obeyed—but nothing called to him. Sallie had come to think their baby would disappoint him no less than she had. Alexander expected something . . . extraordinary, a baby who’d give a grown man everything he lacked. Alexander had been so certain the infant would be a son.