An adventurer, a seller of weapons, a blockade runner during the Civil War, the former guardian of a beautiful young Indian woman with whom he had once had an ambiguous relationship, a spy for a foreign power, a friend of Indian chiefs—those were a few of the rumors Finerty had heard about Rubalev. Whatever the man was, he knew a great many people who knew, in the end, very little about him. Finerty had been forming his own ideas about the man, after corresponding with colleagues at the New York Herald, the Bismarck Tribune, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Rocky Mountain News. Their letters had told him of a man who would appear in their communities with a seemingly inexhaustible amount of money to spend and a number of friends to visit before he vanished once again into the farthest reaches of the Plains.
Rubalev, Finerty had concluded, was at the center of a conspiracy, one that might involve a fair number of people at this point, and which somehow involved events on the Plains. The problem was that he had precious little evidence for his suspicions, and no notion of what the purpose of such a conspiracy might be. Impetuously, he had dashed off a note to Rubalev, telling the man that he had spent some time in Omaha at the headquarters of General Crook and inviting him to join Finerty for coffee or a drink at the Willard Hotel. Maybe if he got Rubalev talking, some clues about the fellow might slip out. To Finerty’s surprise, Rubalev had taken him up on the invitation.
Frederick Douglass looked toward him as Finerty sat down. “Are you perhaps planning to interview Mr. Rubalev?” Douglass asked.
“Maybe. It seems the gentleman confused his dates by making appointments with the three of us at the same time.”
“Our business with him will not take long,” Douglass said. “Mr. Rubalev indicated that he would be willing to escort several Negro families to new homes in the West. We came here only to make the final arrangements, and to ask if it might be possible for him to take a few more.”
Finerty added another item to his mental list of Rubalev’s pursuits: a Moses to those colored people who were seeking a new life in the regions bordering the Plains, where the red man, the white man, and the black man had apparently begun to aspire to a kind of Promised Land.
“Of course,’’ Finerty said, “given the signs of military activity in the city, Mr. Rubalev may be delayed in making his way here.” He paused. “You haven’t heard anything about why the army might have been called out, have you?” He had learned during his time in Washington that the blacks who lived here often found out about certain events in advance of many whites, perhaps because their lives here were always more precarious. Preserving their safety required constant vigilance.
“I have heard nothing,” Douglass replied, and Finerty did not know if the Negro was telling the truth or not. It annoyed him as a newspaperman that he had had no inkling of why the troops were in the city streets, that the reasons for their actions were completely mysterious to him. Perhaps some desperate Southerners had entered Washington hoping to commit an act of sabotage.
“Well, I’ll be,” one of the men over at the doorway said. His voice echoed through the empty lobby. “There’s a stream of carriages coming out through the White House gate. Almost looks like a funeral procession.”
Assassins, Finerty thought, and quickly got to his feet. He could not sit here any longer without trying to find out what was going on. He hurried to the entrance and went outside, not looking to see whether Douglass or Wormley were following him.
The air had grown warmer and more humid, a precursor of the summer heat that drove everyone who could afford to leave town out of the city. Five carriages were heading up Pennsylvania Avenue, away from him. Finerty turned in the direction of the Capitol and saw more blue-uniformed men on horseback. A few of the soldiers manning the barricade blocking the avenue turned to look at him. The colonel was several feet away, talking to another officer.
“What’s going on?” Finerty asked.
A freckled lad squinted at him. “All I know is we were ordered—” The colonel turned around and shot him a glance. The young soldier looked away and quickly stood at attention.
“I am a correspondent for the Chicago Times,” Finerty called out.
The colonel came toward him and said, “Then don’t go running off to Western Union hoping you can get a story out. Nothing goes out, nothing comes in. Washington City’s under martial law now.”
Finerty backed away and walked back to the Willard. Rubalev was there, standing at the top of the steps leading to the entrance. He wore a plain brown suit, a bit on the shabby side, which seemed unlike him; the few times Finerty had seen him at receptions or in restaurants, he had always been impeccably and expensively dressed.
“Mr. Rubalev,” Finerty said as he ascended the steps, “I am John Finerty.” He looked back at the barricade. “That officer told me that the city’s under martial law.”
Rubalev nodded. “I know,” he said. “I found that out earlier this morning. I had to slip out of my house by the back door and enter the Willard by the service entrance.”
“You did not have to go to all that trouble on my account.”
Rubalev smiled. The smile held no trace of joy or warmth. “I came here on Mr. Douglass’s account, Mr. Finerty,” he replied.
“Och—of course. I was speaking to him and Mr. Wormley inside.”
“Unfortunately, it now looks as though there’s very little I can do for them.” Rubalev turned and went inside.
Finerty followed him into the lobby. “I have failed as a newspaperman,” he said. “These events have taken me completely by surprise.”
“They have taken everyone by surprise, Mr. Finerty. I do not know what business it is you have with me, but you will please excuse me while I speak to Mr. Douglass and Mr. Wormley. If you are still here later, perhaps I can give you a few moments.”
The tall blond man strode away. Finerty remained by the entrance. It was time, he thought, to nose around more, to sneak outside somehow and see what he could find out. It was unlikely that Southern forces were now threatening the city, as they had during the War Between the States; there were enough occupying forces in northern Virginia to prevent that.
The thought of assassination came back to him. An assassin had robbed Abe Lincoln of his life, Andrew Johnson had nearly been thrown out of office, President Grant had died suddenly in what was assumed to be an accident but might not have been, Colfax had been caught with stock holdings that could only have been bribes—it was enough to make Finerty worry about the welfare of President Blaine. He thought of the rumors he had heard for some time, that still circulated in some Washington circles, of a post-war conspiracy designed to remove Lincoln and Secretary of State Seward and other members of the government from power in order to replace them with more radical Republicans, men who would punish the South and tighten their grip on the rest of the Union. Occasionally, even now, the name of Edwin M. Stanton would be whispered in connection with such rumors. The chief justice, it was said by any who were brave enough or reckless enough to voice such thoughts, was so fervent in his devotion to the Union, and in his hatred of those who had tried to tear it asunder, that he would destroy the Constitution itself in order to preserve the Union. Blaine had been meeting in secret with Stanton. Finerty wondered if that had bought the president the chief justice’s favor, or had only sealed his fate.
Wild suppositions, perhaps—but Finerty was beginning to feel that his reporter’s instincts were now at work again. He would see what he could find out. He would have to be careful not to give anyone an excuse to use martial law to clap him in jail. He moved toward the entrance and realized that he should also start giving some thought as to how, if it should prove necessary, he could get out of the city.
In the few years since the Treaty of Fort Fetterman, a town had sprung up at the northeastern end of Kansas, across the river from St. Joseph, Missouri. The white and black inhabitants of the town called it Elysium, Kansas. The Kiowa who came there to trade, the few Cherokee who made their homes there, a
nd the bands of Lakota and Cheyenne who set up their camps there during the winter months called the town a variety of other names.
Lemuel Rowland, riding across the grassy hills toward the outskirts of Elysium, again felt astonishment that such a place could exist. Well-traveled trails led from the circles of tepees toward the wooden structures of the town. Farms owned by blacks, whites, and Cherokees were within a day’s ride of the town; there were two blacksmiths now, a telegraph line that connected the town to Atchison and Fort Leavenworth, and a ferry that carried passengers across the Missouri between Elysium and St. Joseph.
Lemuel rode past a small Cheyenne camping circle of ten tepees. Three small children were helping two women tie bundles of belongings to a travois. The Cheyenne and the Lakota who were camped here would soon be taking down their tepees and moving out to the Plains to hunt the buffalo and to gather for their annual Sun Dance. Rubalev had persuaded, or bribed, several engineers from Britain and a few gunmakers from New York to come to the town of Deadwood not long after bringing Edison to Bismarck. There was a small ironworks in Deadwood now, and the Lakota were now making some of their own firearms. The Wasichu engineers were not allowed into the Black Hills themselves, and the Chen brothers now made their ever larger and more destructive rocket-arrows in a settlement two days’ ride south of Bismarck. The Black Hills, the Center of the World, would remain sacred, untouched by outsiders, if not by the Lakota themselves. They had to go into Paha Sapa to mine the gold that had been given to them by the Great Spirit, the gold that could buy the Wasichu medicine men and the white man’s magic that would give them the power to hold and keep their land.
Lemuel thought of Katia. They had been in Elysium only a day before he had ridden south to Leavenworth to speak to Jeremiah Clarke. The colonel had surprised him with both a newfound sobriety and stories about dissension among the commanding officers above him. Sheridan had been called to Washington over two weeks ago, and there had not been a word from him since then, or from General Sherman, for that matter. General George Crook was sitting up in Omaha, waiting for orders that had not yet come, as was General Alfred Terry in St. Paul, Minnesota. Clarke had been put in temporary command at Fort Leavenworth, with no word of when the next commanding officer would arrive, or who he might be.
Lemuel had found out about the confusion and disaffection in the army only after Jeremiah had told him the most recent news out of Washington. “Came by telegraph a day ago,” Clarke had told him moments after Lemuel had entered the fort and then his office. “Three Rebs somehow managed to get into the ranks of the White House guards. President Blaine was at a meeting with the vice president and some members of the Cabinet when they burst into the room. One God damn Reb killed Vice President Hayes straight off and wounded Blaine, and then some other guards rushed in and shot the assassins. That’s about all I know. There’s martial law in Washington now, and nothing’s getting out.”
Clarke had stared thoughtfully at Lemuel for a long time before continuing. “I’ve been out here a long time now,’’ he said. “Thought when I first came that we’d be fighting the Indians before too long. The longer I wait, the more I wonder about what we’re doing here. I’ll be honest with you, Lemuel. I don’t want to fight Indians. Hell, I gave up drinking because I got sick and tired of court-martialing enlisted men for trading liquor to the redskins and figured I had better set them an example.”
Clarke fell silent again, then said, “You can tell Touch-the-Clouds and Sitting Bull and the other chiefs that I’m not their enemy.”
Lemuel considered what Jeremiah had told him as he followed the trail toward the dirt road that led to Elysium and to Katia. Ahead lay the tree-lined road that would take him to the center of town. A few of the willows and elms were little more than saplings, having been planted only a year ago; some of the dwellings were barely more than shacks.
He swayed in his saddle, suddenly feeling the odd disorientation he had felt when he and Katia had first arrived. The cluster of buildings he had seen on the bluffs above him as he stepped from the steamboat ramp onto the wooden dock had almost looked like a mirage. Now he felt that way again, as if this community south of the Lakota lands might disappear forever, as insubstantial as the shared dream that had created it.
How they must hate this place and the others like it, he thought then, thinking of the bankers and railroad men he had seen in the East. Again he felt how precarious the existence of Elysium was.
There were no fences around the plots of the houses that lined the road. Children and a few women stood near the road, making no sign to Lemuel, watching in silence as he passed them. He was near the stable before noticing that a large crowd had gathered in front of the telegraph office next to the town’s general store, across the road from the stagecoach stop around which the town had grown.
He left his horse at the stable and hurried toward the crowd. Garry Toland, one of Elysium’s two telegraphers, stood on the wooden walkway, speaking to the townsfolk. Katia stood near Toland. She caught sight of Lemuel and went to him, took him by the arm and drew him away from the crowd.
“President Blaine is dead,” she said to him in a low voice. Lemuel could hear Toland shouting something about a Supreme Court ruling and an emergency council. “The vice president is dead, too. They were shot by assassins, and apparently several Cabinet secretaries were wounded. Washington will be under martial law for at least the next few months, until the council is certain that they’ve found all of the conspirators.” Her hand shook as she gripped his arm more tightly.
“Wait here, Katia.” Lemuel pushed his way through the crowd until he was standing just below Toland. “I just got here,” he said. “What’s going on?”
Toland turned toward him. “There’s a state of emergency been declared,” the telegrapher said in his flat voice. “Martial law in Washington and at least two other Eastern cities. In the absence of a successor to the president who is able to assume his duties, an emergency council will govern until the emergency is past.”
“Who are the members of this emergency council?” Lemuel asked.
“Got that written down.” Toland pulled out a piece of paper from his pants pocket. “General George B. McClellan, General Nathaniel Pope, General Ambrose E. Burnside, General William Tecumseh Sherman.”
“General McClellan?” a man shouted from the crowd. “Thought he were a senator.”
“Been recommissioned as a general, it says,’’ Toland replied.
McClellan, Lemuel thought, an incompetent that President Lincoln had removed from command during the Civil War. Had McClellan gone mad? Were he and Pope and Burnside even capable of seizing power in this way? And Sherman—somehow he found it hard to believe that Sherman could be a part of this revolt.
“Oh, one more thing,” Toland said. “It’s Justice Stanton who ruled that they could suspend the government and form this here council.”
Stanton, Lemuel thought, the man who had precipitated the crisis that had led to President Johnson’s impeachment. The man had to have been weaving his web ever since being forced out as Secretary of War in 1867. There had been plenty of Washington rumors about Stanton a decade ago, but he had campaigned for Grant for president and been rewarded with a seat on the Supreme Court.
Lemuel was abruptly convinced that this seizure of power was mostly Stanton’s doing, and that McClellan and the other generals were merely his tools. McClellan might have become a part of the scheme in hope of reining in Stanton’s harsher actions against the South. He thought then of Sherman and Sheridan. Sherman had always distrusted Stanton; now Lemuel was convinced that the general could have had nothing to do with the coup. The conspirators might only be using Sherman’s name, possibly to convince other officers that Sherman was still in command of the army, that he and Sheridan would finally move against the Lakota. Lemuel wondered if Sherman, and perhaps Sheridan, were under house arrest, being held in a prison somewhere, or were already dead.
“What does it mean?” a
colored man in the crowd asked, looking from Toland to Lemuel.
“I don’t know,” Lemuel said. “Stanton wanted to punish the South after the war. Given all the uprisings there, and now the assassinations of the president and vice president, he can probably claim that he was right all along about that.”
“But what does it mean for us?” another man asked.
“I don’t know that, either,” Lemuel replied, then began to make his way through the crowd to Katia. People parted to let him pass.
Katia still stood where he had left her. She stared past him as if she did not see him.
He said, “We had better go home.”
Her fingers closed around his wrist. “No.” She was speaking in Lakota now. “I want to stay. We have to send a message.”
“A message about what?”
She swayed a little, then steadied herself. “To Touch-the-Clouds. He has to know that war will come.”
Climb the Wind: A Journey Into Another Past Page 34
