Slant of Light

by Steve Wiegenstein

  “These men will be off to Riley soon enough, or perhaps Utah. Then they’ll have occasion.”

  They took the path around the perimeter of the fort—not as picturesque as the nightly path her father had walked at West Point, but with its own vistas: the Missouri River winding below them to the north and east, and to the south the dusty boomtown of Leavenworth. They paused on a hummock overlooking the river, an Indian burial mound, or so her father said.

  “So you’re determined,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Your mother will miss you.”

  “And you?”

  “You know better than to tease me,” he said, his voice low. “Of course I shall.”

  They watched as cookfires were lit along the riverbank, new emigrants, probably, or boatmen stopping for the night. She would miss him too. In the months since Caroline’s death, they had strived daily to relieve her mother’s melancholy, and failing that, to make life bearable for each other. Sometimes they felt as much friends as father and daughter.

  “You know I disapprove. Not of him, but of this scheme. He said he would send for you when the place was ready.”

  “Yes, I know. And you know my place is with my husband, in fair or foul.”

  Her father shrugged. “Young people. No sense of time and the appropriate unfolding of things. And you were supposed to be the sensible one.”

  “Things never unfold. One must unfold them.”

  Brave talk, borrowed from James, she knew, but she was tired of being the sensible one, the cautious one, the one who kept everyone else together at the cost of her own desires. When the celebrated lecturer, author, and social thinker James Turner came to town, she had demanded that her father take her down the hill, more for diversion than interest in the man’s ideas. She’d heard of his philosophical romance, Travels to Daybreak, and sent off for a copy. It was a good story: A young man, rich and spoiled, embarks from America on a pleasure trip to the South Seas; is shipwrecked on a tiny, mysterious island; discovers the inhabitants, who welcome him into their society; and befriends the young son of a prominent family. The people of the island call it Daybreak, after their daily practice of greeting the morning sun from the island’s eastern cliffs. His new friend teaches him about the laws and principles of Daybreak, which include pure democracy, universal suffrage, and the common ownership of property. The young man falls in love with his friend’s beautiful sister, renounces his inheritance, and chooses to spend the rest of his life among the happy, simple inhabitants of the island nation.

  Yes, it was a good story, but at first she couldn’t understand the furor it had caused. People back East had started “Daybreak Societies” and gathered monthly to discuss its principles. It was debated in the literary reviews and monthlies, and the Greeley paper even speculated about forming a model community somewhere within American borders. But then she went to the lecture and heard James Turner speak. Then she understood the excitement.

  There was no lecture hall in Leavenworth as yet, so Turner had lined up three wagons at the bottom of a sloping meadow to make a platform, and once the crowd had assembled, he leaped upon them with an energetic spring. “Hello, fellow slaves!” he cried.

  The audacity of his greeting stunned the audience. “Ain’t no slaves here but that fella,” a man shouted, pointing toward a black man collecting admission at the entrance.

  “Oh, yes, there are,” Turner replied, striking a defiant pose. “There’s you, and your friend there, and myself, and—he mimed searching the crowd—well, I see nothing but slaves.”

  A tall, broad man, with intense blue eyes and a flop of sandy brown hair that he brushed back from his face occasionally, Turner moved with the lightness of a cat on his makeshift platform, a sheaf of notes in one hand, popping with energy like a cedar log in a fireplace. He leaped from wagon to wagon with a zest that stopped just short of recklessness, drawing in the people at the edges of the crowd.

  Charlotte could not take her eyes off him. Once he gained the audience’s attention, he began to work his way through his points. The tyranny of property, the false assumptions of superiority by the rich, the distortions of human nature brought about by want and greed. Occasionally someone would heckle or call out a question; Turner would stop, grin, tell a joke, draw the man in, make a point, move on. The lecture became a rolling conversational game, Turner in charge, but just barely. He seemed to relish the challenge of staying one step ahead of his listeners, entertaining and provoking at the same time. When he turned to his remedies—common ownership of land and resources, sharing the fruits of common labor, first in small communities, then growing ever larger—people stirred, grumbled, and finally listened.

  Two hours later, as the people dispersed, Charlotte climbed the hill to the fort in the gathering twilight, oblivious to the chatter of the crowd. Is this how it feels to fall in love? she wondered. If so, it was a feeling she was glad to keep—breathless, excited, longing for the next chance to see him. His stance, poised and confident. His smile, engaging and bright, drawing everyone in. His voice, ringing over the murmur of the listeners. And his ideas! Oh, my. That was the best part of all. A truly original thinker, out here on the edge of civilization. Who could imagine it?

  Her father invited Turner to the fort that evening to dine with the senior officers and their families. The two men debated in a friendly way, and she could see the pleased surprise on Turner’s face when she joined in, articulating her own views. Turner had a habit of gazing intently at the person he was talking to, even when the talk was not especially important, a habit which both unsettled and flattered her. But Charlotte liked that intensity and returned his gaze with equal power. His eyes had thin, pale lashes, and when she spoke, he looked directly into her eyes, not at her birthmark. Before long she was smiling broadly, laughing, her self-consciousness gone.

  It was nearly midnight when the conversation broke up, but she was out of her room by seven the next morning, for a walk to town, yes, but also in hopes of seeing him. She took care to stroll by the Leavenworth House. And there he was, in a chair by the front window, a notebook in his lap as if to write, but nothing on the page. He escorted her on her walk, and by the time they returned they had made a plan to ride out to the Delaware village in the afternoon. Her father accompanied them in the coach, where the debate continued from the previous night. Could humanity really be reformed? In one generation? Two? A hundred?

  The Delawares were courteous but indifferent to their discussion. They already had their answers.

  At the lecture the next evening, the Indian village was mentioned, their attitude toward private property, and Charlotte was pleased to hear her views repeated. Again they dined together, and by the end of the visit Turner had been invited to return.

  Then he was off to more towns on the frontier. Charlotte waited for his letters; he was scheduled to return by way of St. Joseph, and she had already prevailed on her father to ride up with her. His letters grew more personal during the weeks of his absence, and by the time he returned to Leavenworth she was ready for what followed. Proposal, acceptance, her father’s cautions and demurrals, her mother’s wan inquiries, a day’s tense pause, the family stepping in and out of rooms in the house with a short question and reply, then retreating for solitary thought and, finally, surrender, for, as they all knew, no one could deny Charlotte her wishes for long. Soon there was a marriage in the parlor of the family home, and she had gone from spinster to bride in three months’ time.

  Her father interrupted her reminiscence. “Thinking about your young man, I suppose.”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed. “Well, I was a young nonesuch once. Bless you both.”

  They stood in silence, their shadows projected onto the trees at the base of the bluff. Then another shadow appeared beside theirs, growing fast as a soldier came running up the slope from the fort. He saluted, breathless.

  “Beg your pardon, sir.”

  “What is it?”

 
“News from town. They’re fixing to hang a man in front of the hotel.”

  Carr strode down toward the fort with Charlotte and the soldier trailing behind. “Get my horse and gear,” he called. “And tell McGrath to assemble his troop. We shouldn’t need more than one.” He paused mid-stride to smile at Charlotte. “No need to drill in the hot sun, eh, daughter?”

  Chapter 4

  Charlotte could not resist the impulse to follow her father, so she walked behind at a distance to stay out of his sight and avoid a chiding. She would not be denied her one opportunity to see him in military action. The troopers urged their horses into a gallop when they reached level ground, disappearing from sight, but Charlotte knew where they were headed.

  She hurried into town, if one could call Leavenworth a town—more a cluster of houses and shops in a continual state of construction. By the time she reached the Leavenworth House, the sun was down and shadows had gathered.

  Her father sat at the point of a wedge of troopers, his reins loose in his one hand and the other hand resting on the pommel of his sword. There was a wagon drawn up in front of the hotel, a man kneeling in the back with his hands tied behind him, coated with tar and feathers. Surrounding the wagon was a crowd of forty men. One of them stood before her father, a torch in his hand.

  “This ain’t a military matter,” the man said. “Everybody knows you ain’t supposed to interfere in civil affairs.”

  “If this is a civil concern, then I’ll see your marshal’s commission and have your name, sir.”

  “Puddin Tane,” the man said. “We caught this man out in the country with a pack of stolen goods.”

  “I said I’ll see your marshal’s commission,” Captain Carr said. “And failing that—”

  He drew his sword from its scabbard and rested it on his shoulder. There was a stir from the crowd, and at the sign, the troops spread into a line across the street.

  “Failing that, I’ll have my men clear the square.”

  Into the charged silence came the sound, from somewhere in the crowd, of a breech block being snapped into place. Her father lifted his nose slightly, as if smelling the air, but gave no other indication that he had heard, keeping his eyes on the leader of the mob. It was almost a nod, but not quite; but Charlotte sensed from that small move that mayhem would erupt at the firing of the first shot.

  The leader of the mob raised his hands for calm. “Now, we ain’t here for trouble with you boys.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Her father nudged his horse forward, pushing between the man and his wagon. “Come up the hill tomorrow and file a report on these stolen goods, and I’ll return your horse and wagon.” In a swift movement he scabbarded his sword, took the reins of the wagon horse, and wheeled. The man in the wagon toppled over with a thud. “Sorry about that, young fellow,” he said, not looking back.

  The troop spun and joined him, and in a moment they had vanished. The crowd began to mutter and curse; Charlotte retreated up the hill. There was enough light to see by, but even in the dark she could have followed the sweaty tang of a horse troop and the faint odor of tar.

  She had thought to circle the outside of the fort’s square of buildings and come to the family’s quarters unseen from behind. But when she reached her house her father was already there, sitting on the back steps with the young man from the wagon.

  “There you are,” he said. “I need your help cleaning up this gentleman.”

  Charlotte wanted to tell her father that she had seen it all, that she had been awed by his transformation from the mild, distant man at the dinner table to the commanding presence she had seen in the street, but she knew he would be peeved. Besides, there was a task.

  “Hello,” she said. “I’m Charlotte Turner.”

  The man stood, extending a tarry paw. “Adam Cabot, ma’am. Please don’t shake it. I’ll soil you.”

  Charlotte laughed and took his hand. “I admire your consideration, but I’m not one for hesitance. In a military home one grows acquainted with messes of all sorts.”

  She looked him over. The tar had been slapped on over his clothes and had not been hot, thank goodness, so there were no burns on his skin. Some scrubbing with lamp oil and soap would put him back into form. She drew a pan of water from the kitchen pump, fetched rags and brushes, and brought up a chair.

  “No permanent harm done,” she murmured, working a glob out of Cabot’s hair.

  Cabot didn’t answer. He was a compact, tightly built man, clean shaven, with a narrow nose, thin lips, and dark brown eyes. Handsome but for the sticky black coating, Charlotte thought.

  “That’s all right,” she said. “I wouldn’t be conversational either, if such a thing had happened to me.” She picked a few feathers out of his hair.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just can’t talk. I can’t think of anything to say. Strange, and all the way into town I was trying to come up with my great final words, my Nathan Hale speech.”

  “Did you?”

  “No,” he said glumly. “Words fail me when I need them the most.”

  Charlotte realized in the fading light that Cabot’s eyes had filled with tears. She felt his hesitation, his embarrassment, but he continued nevertheless.

  “Kansas has been full of killing for three years,” he said. “But until you’ve had the rope around your neck—”

  He broke off and turned away. Charlotte’s heart went out to him, but she too could think of nothing to say. She worked more tar out of Cabot’s hair, but it was clear the task was hopeless. “We’ll have to shave this, I’m afraid. But it will grow out again.”

  Her father had been watching them from the other side of the steps, stroking his beard, and at the pause in conversation he cleared his throat.

  “Your life is forfeit if you stay in Leavenworth, Mr. Cabot,” he said. “I suppose you know that.”

  Cabot started to speak but then checked himself. “I do,” he said after a minute.

  “So I have request for you. My daughter leaves for St. Louis on the morning packet boat. She goes to join her husband and a band of settlers who are forming a community in the south of Missouri. It would comfort me to know she had an escort to St. Louis. I do not care for her traveling alone.”

  Cabot’s voice was hoarse. “You saved my life, Captain. I will gladly do this and more.”

  “Lives are lost and saved every day, Mr. Cabot. Most of the time it happens out of the common sight. When you came to Kansas, you threw your life into the bargain. You could have lost it two years ago, or you could have lost it tonight, but it had already been thrown down. The great moment came when you made your choice, not when my men plucked you out of the crowd. Saving a life when you have a cavalry troop at your back is easier than casting it down for a cause.”

  “You do me honor, sir.”

  “Have you read the Stoics, young man?”

  “Some.”

  “I keep Aurelius by my bed to remind me that we are all on the way to death, every day, and what matters is not when or how it arrives, but what you have done on your way to meet it. ‘To the thrown stone, there is no more honor in rising than shame in falling.’ Keep that in mind, my friend. The streets of Leavenworth this night were not the time nor place for you to die.”

  Charlotte spoke up. “I never knew you to be so fatalistic, Father.”

  Carr sniffed. “Growing old, I suppose. Or perhaps it’s the times. All seems a slide toward destruction, with nothing to distinguish us but the gracefulness of our fall.” He stood up and stretched.

  “It’s still a young world,” she said.

  “I’ll have to take your word for that. But you’ll take my instruction, and have Mr. Cabot as your escort tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile. “I will take your instruction.”

  He patted her arm. “Words I rarely hear these days, and they warm my heart. Mr. Cabot, I shall send some men to fetch your things. It would not be wise for you to return to town.”

  Cabot aw
oke the next morning sore from his head to his knees. The kicks and cuffs from his captors merged with the bruises he had gotten from bouncing in the back of the wagon like a load of rocks. But at least he was alive, and ready to—to what? He didn’t know. He had collapsed into sleep without thinking of today, or of the rest of his life. The captain was right about Kansas. He was marked now. Perhaps he should return to Boston. Or he could strike out in a new direction. Perhaps the captain was right about the greater parts as well. He had already thrown his life onto the table and only had to decide what number to pick.

  They took a wagon to the landing with an escort of soldiers and Captain Carr, and now it was Charlotte’s turn to be inward and silent.

  “You’re on your own after you round the bend, young man. Good luck to you,” the captain said, shaking his hand. Cabot turned to unload his belongings, to give Charlotte a private moment for her farewell. A slave from the packet slouched down the gangplank to help, but Cabot waved him away. He was not about to accept the fruits of the poisoned tree now.

  Father and daughter embraced as two soldiers carried Charlotte’s trunk to the steamboat, a crowded vessel about twenty feet wide that inspired less confidence than its coat of bright red paint might have merited.

  “Distance cannot diminish your parents’ love for you,” the captain told her.

  “Nor mine for you.”

  Carr turned away. “Write,” he said. “Visit when you can. All good will to your husband.” He mounted his horse abruptly and rode off at a fast trot.

  Cabot had booked deck passage, so he arranged their trunks on the shady side of the boat, as far forward as he could manage. The porters waved Charlotte toward the ladies’ cabin, but she ignored them. “We came out on a boat like this,” she told Cabot. “The ladies’ cabin was the dullest place imaginable, but of course we all had to stay together. I’d rather not spend my day fanning myself and talking about the heat.”