Sea to Shining Sea

by Michael Phillips

  The meeting was scheduled for December 13, announced all the newspapers. There was a band, and Mr. King did all he could to make it festive so hundreds and hundreds of people would come. There were brightly colored banners and patriotic posters and handbills to get people to feel loyalty and enthusiasm for helping the Union. At the last minute I overheard Cal telling Mr. King he wouldn’t be able to attend. He said he had some important business to take care of, but that he would be available all the following day to help gather what had been pledged. I was standing ten feet away, but I don’t even think he saw me, he was so distracted. When he left Mr. King, he walked off through the crowd of gathering people without so much as a word to me. He hadn’t even looked around to find me.

  I have to admit, my mind wasn’t on the talk I would have to give in about an hour. I couldn’t help feeling hurt.

  Suddenly without even thinking about what I was doing, I hurried through the crowd in the direction Cal had gone. It didn’t occur to me that I was actually “following” him, I just found myself leaving the assembly under the great canvas top that had been erected for the purpose, and walking toward the business section of Sacramento. About a hundred feet ahead of me, Cal was walking briskly along the boardwalk.

  I continued behind him, keeping alongside the buildings, stopping in front of a store window now and then. I would die if he turned around and spotted me!

  I hated myself for spying on him like I was! But I couldn’t stop. The drive inside to find out what he was doing was stronger than my good sense.

  With trembling step, and even more trembling heart, I kept inching forward, ever closer—mesmerized with mingled fear and agony, yet unable to tear my eyes away from the figure in front of me.

  He stopped and made motions as if to glance around.

  Terrified, I ducked quickly into an open doorway.

  “May I help you, Miss?” said a voice surrounded by laughter.

  I looked up to discover that I hadn’t walked into a store at all, but a men’s barber parlor. Immediately I felt my cheeks and neck turning red.

  “Uh . . . no, I’m sorry . . . I must have made a mistake,” I mumbled, backing out.

  I glanced up the street. Cal was just disappearing inside a building.

  I ran across the street and dashed into an alley. I leaned up against the building, then sneaked a look out and over to the other side to try to see where he had gone.

  I couldn’t see through the window because of the glare of the sun reflecting off it. But the gold lettering painted on the glass was legible enough. WESTERN UNION it read in big letters. Underneath, in smaller script were the words “Transcontinental Telegraph Service.”

  I stood there waiting.

  Suddenly I realized what a fix I was in! What if Cal came out and went back toward the meeting? I’d be stuck there and unable to get back without him seeing me! If the meeting started and I wasn’t there, how would I explain myself?

  I glanced out again. Maybe I should make a quick dash back across the street now. But it was too late—there was Cal coming out of the telegraph office!

  I yanked my head back behind the building. I breathed in deeply, but couldn’t get my breath. I was sure he’d know I was there and walk straight over to confront me.

  What in the world are you doing here, Corrie. Spying on me, eh! No good can come of that! My mind played out the terrible possibilities.

  Slowly I tried to look out around the edge of the building, not even thinking that my bonnet would lead my eye out into the open by at least six inches.

  He was still there! I kept watching. Then he turned and continued on down the boardwalk the way he’d been going before. Several steps along he glanced down at a small scrap of paper he had in his hand, held it in front of him for five or ten seconds, still walking, then crumpled it up and tossed it into the street.

  Suddenly I found my eyes following the wadded-up scrap instead of Cal, who walked on, rounded a corner, and disappeared.

  My heart was pounding. Did I dare? What if he came back around the corner and saw me?

  I waited another several seconds until I couldn’t stand it any longer!

  Suddenly I was out of the alley and running as fast as I could across the street in the direction of the Western Union office. I reached the other side. There it was! I ran the five or ten more yards, stooped down, grabbed up the piece of paper, clutched it in my hand, and sprinted back toward the meeting, hardly aware of the noise my boots were making along the boardwalk.

  Faintly I heard some yells as I passed the men’s parlor, but I just kept going. There was only one sound I dreaded hearing behind me—Cal’s voice calling out my name!

  There was the canvas tent, the grassy expanse where people were standing and sitting. The meeting hadn’t yet begun!

  I slowed to a walk, breathing in huge gulps of air into my lungs. I skirted around the edge of the crowd, trying to calm myself down.

  Just then the band started to play. I knew Mr. King would expect me up on the platform any minute. I breathed deeply again. I had to calm down! I would never be able to say a word about anything in the condition I was in.

  I had to go join the others. But first I had to know what I had in my hand. I unclasped my fingers and unfolded the tiny piece of paper. I was trembling so violently I could hardly focus my vision on the few handwritten words that met my gaze.

  The message was brief and made not the slightest bit of sense to me: F-BURG OURS STOP NO TIME TO LOSE.

  “Corrie . . . Corrie, where have you been?” I heard a voice say behind me.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. Thinking it was Cal, I fumbled with my hands quickly, trying to make them disappear someplace in the folds of my dress.

  “What are you so jumpy about?” asked Mr. King, walking up as I turned around. “It’s not like you.”

  “Oh . . . oh, nothing,” I faltered. “Just nervous, I suppose.”

  “Come, now—that’s not my Corrie Hollister. We’ve got to be at our best. Shall we go? They’ll be expecting us momentarily.”

  He led the way and I followed toward the platform where chairs were set out for us. I managed to get through it, but that day’s speech was not one of my best. I kept thinking of the message written on that scrap of paper:

  F-BURG OURS . . . NO TIME TO LOSE.

  Chapter 56

  It Can’t Be!

  Cal never returned.

  When the meeting was over, I was anxious to be out of there and get back to Miss Baxter’s.

  I was walking away from the platform when a man accosted me.

  “Mind if I speak to you a minute, Miss?” he said. I looked up to see the man Cal had gotten so angry with a few months back. My first feeling was one of fear. He saw it.

  “Don’t worry, Miss Hollister. I mean you no harm.”

  I continued walking. I wasn’t in much of a frame of mind for talking, especially to that man. But he fell in and started walking along beside me.

  “Name’s Jewks, Miss Hollister . . . Terrance Jewks.”

  I nodded.

  “Where’s your friend Burton?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He wasn’t at today’s meeting,” I answered.

  “So I saw. How much do you know about him?” he asked.

  “Enough, I suppose,” I said, still on my guard.

  “I hope he treats you better than he did me.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Just that he seems to take pleasure in ruining people.”

  “How so?”

  “Only that a certain Democrat with a bright future ran into your friend and found himself in the hospital for three weeks, and with lies spreading about him the whole time. Lies enough to put an end to my political career.”

  “What does Cal have to do with it?” I asked, stopping to look at Mr. Jewks.

  “He has everything to do with it. He was the one who did it to me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

/>   “If it wasn’t him personally, he was behind it. It may have taken me a while, but a few months ago I finally found out who it was that hired the thugs that pulled me out of my San Francisco hotel and left me for dead in an alley. That’s when I came looking for him.”

  “Cal would never do such a thing,” I said.

  “Not even to win an election? Come now, Miss Hollister, you must know him better than that.”

  All of a sudden the conversation I had overheard between Cal and Alexander Dalton snapped into my mind. Of course—this must be that Terrance Jewks!

  “Why are you telling me this?” I asked, finally more attentive to Mr. Jewks. “I’m a Republican and pro-Union. You’re a Democrat, as I understand it.”

  “Perhaps I’m just concerned for a nice-looking young lady and I don’t want her to get hurt like I was.”

  “Perhaps. But why do I have the feeling there is more to it?”

  Jewks laughed. “You are a shrewd one, Miss Hollister! Honestly, I would like to keep you from trouble if it’s possible. But along with that, I have two other motives. One is simple revenge for what your friend did to me. I’m sure you can understand that.”

  “I don’t happen to think revenge a worthy motive,” I said, “but I suppose I do understand it. What’s the second?”

  “Let’s call it a change of heart.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I was a Douglas Democrat. Didn’t care too much for Lincoln, but I was no southerner. Once the war broke out, I realized my loyalties were with the government, not with the South. I’m from Ohio originally. I voted for Douglas, and I’m still a Democrat. But the North has got to win this war or else the United States is all over—a dream of democracy that didn’t work.”

  “I still don’t see what any of this has to do with Cal . . . or me.”

  “A change of heart is what I called it,” Mr. Jewks went on. “I had one, once the war started. And so did your friend, Mr. Burton. I’ve been following him, checking up on him, asking questions of people, using some of my old Democratic contacts. Spying on him, you might say, finding out things, without telling the folks exactly how I stood myself now, if you understand me.”

  “I’m not sure I do,” I said slowly.

  “Then let me put it to you plain, Miss Hollister, and you can use the information however you think best.” He paused, took a breath, and went on. “I used to have lots of friends in the other camp. Breckinridge people. Once the war broke out, then especially after Stanford was elected, they all went underground. Had to keep out of sight. But I kept tabs on what was going on and didn’t let my new loyalties be known. All the time I kept an eye out for who’d had me beaten up and what I might do about it. I found out the who several months ago, like I told you. And the what I might do to him, I just got to the bottom of this week.”

  He stopped.

  I’m listening,” I said.

  “Miss Hollister . . . your Cal Burton is a member of the Knights—the Knights of the Columbian Star.”

  “But who . . . what. . . ?” I faltered.

  “It’s an offshoot of the Knights of the Golden Circle.”

  “No . . . it can’t be!”

  “It is, Miss Hollister. Believe me.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand.”

  “It’s really quite simple—your Cal Burton is a southern sympathizer.”

  “I don’t believe it!” I finally burst out.

  “I finally have the proof,” Mr. Jewks added. Worse even than being a sympathizer—the man’s a spy for the Confederacy!”

  Chapter 57

  Confrontation, Heartbreak, and Betrayal

  The rest of that day was one of the most awful of my life.

  I couldn’t believe what Terrance Jewks had told me—or wouldn’t. I was too mixed up and confused to know the difference.

  I don’t even know what became of the hours between my interview with Jewks and nightfall. I walked for miles, I suppose, slept in my room at Miss Baxter’s, stubbornly trying to convince myself it was all a lie. Hadn’t Jewks himself admitted that revenge was his motive? How better to get revenge on Cal than to turn me against him! It was a cruel hoax, an attempt to ruin Cal’s reputation, and maybe even bring scandal upon Governor Stanford.

  Jewks was just being a loyal Democrat. He was the southern spy, and his assignment had been to undermine the credibility of one of California’s most loyal Unionists, the assistant to the governor himself!

  It all made perfect sense! And I was Cal’s weakness. They had probably been spying on me, too! I had been part of their plot all along! I had to warn Cal, and warn the governor that right here in Sacramento there were forces trying to destroy them!

  But at the same time, I couldn’t get rid of an uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. Cal’s strange activities . . . the odd looks on his face that would come and go. I knew there must be an explanation! He would tell me everything about Jewks and set my mind at rest completely. That was the only thing to do. I had to talk to Cal tomorrow. I’d confront him with Jewks’ accusations. I’d tell him everything that Jewks said. He’d probably laugh the whole thing off!

  Despite my attempts to reassure myself, I slept fitfully through the night. My mind told me I had nothing to be anxious about. But my stomach was quivery regardless.

  The next day, the fourteenth, was a full one for all of us, contacting people, collecting money and checks and gold, confirming pledges that had been made, banking the contributions. Mr. King had called a meeting that morning to make all the arrangements and give us our assignments. It was the first time I had seen Cal since the previous afternoon. He looked and sounded like always.

  We spent most of the afternoon together about the committee’s work, all except for about half an hour. He knew there was something on my mind. I wasn’t very good at concealing it. But we didn’t have an opportunity to talk until later.

  When we finally did, I just burst out and told him everything Mr. Jewks had said.

  “I know it’s not true, Cal,” I said, nearly breaking down. “But I had to tell you so you’d know.”

  “Of course it’s not true,” he said with a lighthearted laugh. “Jewks is nothing but a two-bit politician, and a liar on top of it!” He laughed again, but the laughter sounded forced, and a little too quick on the heels of his words.

  “A troublemaker, that’s all he is,” he added, denying the accusation too forcefully for me to feel altogether comfortable. “Probably a spy himself!” Again he laughed. But he looked straight at me as he did. I think he realized in an instant that I knew he was bluffing. I may not have been the prettiest or the smartest or the bravest person in the world, but I was able to look into someone’s face and know which way the wind was blowing through their mind. I suppose up till then I hadn’t made too good use of that ability with Cal. And right at that moment, I would have given anything not to have known what was behind his forced laughter and bravado.

  Cal’s laughter died away. He kept looking at me, kept watching my face for signs of what I was thinking. Then he looked away and glanced down toward the river from the little patch of grass where we were sitting. I knew him well enough to know that he was revolving things over in his mind, trying to decide what to say. Then he glanced up at me again.

  Still neither of us said anything. I hadn’t realized how much my face must have betrayed my doubts. But it must have, because he quit trying to deny everything. After another minute or two, a smile slowly spread across his face. A melancholy, cynical smile.

  “Ah, Corrie . . . Corrie,” he sighed. “You are naive.”

  I didn’t understand his tone.

  “What do you mean, Cal?” I said.

  “You see the world so simply, so black and white. There’s no gray for you, is there, Corrie—no in-between? Right and wrong, that’s all there is.”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “It’s a complicated, mixed-up world, Corrie. Circumstances don’t always fit so neatly i
nto black and white compartments. Sometimes there is gray—places where you don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong.”

  “What are you trying to say, Cal?” I asked, getting alarmed by his sarcastic tone. “Mr. Jewks isn’t right, is he?” I asked, still not wanting to face the truth.

  “Ah, Jewks! What does he know? A low-level incompetent. If he couldn’t take care of himself in this game, they should’ve sent somebody else!”

  “Cal . . . it isn’t true what he said?”

  “We had to win the election. It’s a rough game . . . I told you that a long time ago.

  “But it’s not right.”

  “Right? What’s right? Everything has its twists and ironies. Who’s to say what’s right in the middle of it all?”

  “What twists, Cal?” I asked. “Please . . . tell me what you mean!”

  “Don’t you see the irony of it? Here I am, out West, on my way up, assistant to one of California’s most powerful men, when from out of nowhere my past comes back to haunt me. Suddenly the country is at war, and I am in the wrong place.”

  “What do you mean . . . what about your past?”

  “I’ve made no secret of it, Corrie. I was born in North Carolina. You knew that. I told you about my fondness for the country, and how I admired it in you.”

  “Yes . . . but, what—”

  “Don’t you hear what I am telling you, Corrie—North Carolina. I’m a southerner!”

  “But . . . you’ve been a loyal Republican. You’ve worked for Mr. Stanford and the Union. You left the South years ago, just like my Aunt Katie. Lots of Californians came from the South originally.”

  “Ah, but there’s the bitter irony, Corrie. I’m not just an ordinary Californian with southern roots.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of who I am, because of my position here. Ever since I heard about Edie leaving and returning to Virginia, I realized I had to do the same thing—not for any noble motives, but because if I didn’t, everything I had worked for would be lost.”