Love and War

89

A mild winter softened Virginia's tortured look. Softened but could not erase it. Too many fields lay stripped. Too many trees showed raw circles where limbs had been cut. Too many roads had hoof craters and wheel canyons. Too many farms had walls pitted by musket balls, windows knocked out, a fresh grave that revealed itself like a sugared loaf whenever a light snow fell.

The snow melted and the ditches filled, creating freakish sights. The head of a dead horse appeared to float on tranquil water, resembling some salvered delicacy offered at a medieval feast. The winter soil grew strange crops: shell casings; splintered axles and wheels with spokes missing; thrown-away suits of long underwear patched beyond wearing; broken brown bottles; paper scraps thick as a fall of flower petals.

Haymows were empty. Livestock pens were empty. Larders were empty. So were chairs once occupied by uncles and brothers, fathers and sons.

Three years of asking too much of the earth had inevitably marked it. The fields and glens, the creeks and ponds, the hillsides and blue mountain summits exhaled thin mist in the pale sunshine. It was the breath of a sick land.

In the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia, Charles had become a minor legend. His courage and concern for others made him something more than other men, his lack of ambition something less. It was said, behind his back, that the war had done things to his head.

He developed odd habits. He spent long hours with his gray gelding, currycombing and brushing him. He was sometimes seen holding lengthy conversations with the animal. Every once in a while during the winter he galloped off to see a girl near Fredericksburg, but always returned in a state of moody silence. He roamed the camps regularly in search of yellow-backed Beadle novels to buy or borrow. He read only one kind, Jim Pickles noticed — those dealing with the Western plains and the scouts and trappers who inhabited them.

"How long was you in that part of the country?" Jim asked over their cook fire on a night in January. They were dining on cush they had prepared themselves from hoarded bacon grease and scraps of leftover beef that they stewed in a little water with week-old corn bread crumbled into it. The dish was a favorite in the army and a lot tastier than the purpling meat and field peas comprising the regular ration.

"Long enough to fall in love with it." Charles used his bowie to lift stew to his mouth. Jim had no implements except a stick and could get none from army sources; the two scouts had taken a canteen off a dead Yankee and split it into a plate for each of them.

After another bite, Charles added, "I'd go back out there tomorrow if we didn't have to fight."

Startled, Jim said, "What about Miss A'gusta?"

"Yes, there's that, too," Charles said. He stared into the fire for a while.

From the darkness, another of the scouts called, "Charlie? I think your gray's loose."

He leaped up, spilling his food. He went charging through leafless underbrush in the direction indicated by the other man. Sure enough, he came on his horse frantically chewing a triangle of gray cloth; Sport had snapped his tether.

Angrily, Charles yanked the blanket out of Sport's mouth. The gray whinnied, peeled back his lips, and nipped at Charles's hand. "Goddamn it, Sport, what's wrong with you?" Of course he knew. There was no longer any forage; the horses were wild with hunger.

As he led Sport back to the customary boards and straw of winter — having publicly threatened to put bullets into the head of anybody who even thought of stealing them — he saw by the light of another fire that the gray's ribs showed regular as rail ties.

He swore again, filthy oaths. He had known for weeks that Sport was losing weight. He guessed the gray was down thirty or forty pounds from his weight at the time of purchase. The wasting away filled Charles with pain and rage, as did, to a lesser degree, the fate of other animals in the cavalry. Many were dying. Why not? The cause was dying, too. Almost every day, Hampton dispatched mounted parties to hunt for fodder, but they seldom found any. Both sides had picked the state clean.

Charles's malaise came to the attention of Hampton, promoted to major general and given a division in the latest reorganization. Fitz Lee had received a similar promotion and the other division. One night Hampton invited Charles to his tent to dine on camp beef, which neither of them would touch.

By the deep gold light of lanterns, Wade Hampton still looked fit, remarkable in view of the severity of the wounds from which he had recovered. His beard, thick and curling, had grown even longer than Charles's, and he waxed his mustaches to points. Yet Charles saw lines that hadn't been there when Hampton raised the legion. A new solemnity draped the general like a mantle.

They gossiped a while. About the unpopularity of Bragg, rewarded for his Western failures by an appointment as military adviser to the President. About the resulting demands from certain newspapers that Mr. Davis be removed in favor of a military dictator; Lee was mentioned. About reports that big John Hood had been ingratiating himself with Davis by frequently going horseback riding with him in Richmond.

Charles had the feeling all this was preparation for something else. He was right.

"I want to say something to you which I know you've heard before, from many others, including your friend Fitz."

Wary, Charles waited. Hampton swirled a little remaining whiskey in his tin cup while his black orderly cleared away battered tin plates and bent forks. "You should be nothing less than a brigadier, Charles. You have the experience. The ability —"

"But not the desire, sir." Why not tell the truth? He was sick of keeping it to himself, and if he could trust anyone to understand, he could trust the general. "I'm coming to detest this war."

Not a trace of reproof; only a brief sigh. "No one wants peace more than I. Why, I wouldn't trade the joys of it for all the military glories of Bonaparte" — points of lantern light showed in his solemn eyes — "but we mustn't deceive ourselves as some do.

Vice President Stephens and many others in the government believe peace will simply mean a cessation of the war. It won't. We have come too far. Too much blood has flowed. We'll be fighting as hard afterward, in a different way, as we are fighting right now."

The thought hadn't occurred to Charles. He examined it a few seconds, finding it both realistic and depressing. His response was a shrug, and the playing of a theme only Jim Pickles had thus far heard.

"Then maybe I'll scoot for Texas and find myself a cabin and a patch of farmland."

"I would hope not. The South will need men of strength and sense to look after her interests. In this life, we are called to use our talents responsibly."

Quietly said, it still stung, as Hampton had intended. Having gotten a refusal and answered it, the general let his remarks simmer. He stretched out his powerful booted legs and smiled in the way that won him so many friends; even Stuart had begun to thaw toward him, although everyone knew Fitz Lee would be forever jealous and resentful of the older general.

"Ah, but I suppose we won't have to confront peace for a long time yet," said Hampton presently. "And I do believe we shall win."

Charles kept his face in repose; such lies were required of those belonging to the senior staff. Only occasionally did such men let down. A while back, Charles and Tom Rosser — younger, now a brigadier — had discussed the war over whiskey. After one round too many, the pugnacious Texan opened up and said he saw but one feasible strategy left for the South now: hold Atlanta and hold Richmond and hope to hell that George McClellan ran in the Northern election in the autumn and whipped Old Abe. Then a fair peace could be negotiated.

Hampton, however, continued his discussion of winning. Giving his great brown beard a stroke or two, he mused, "You will go west when we've done it, you say. How does that young lady in Fredericksburg feel about your plans? I have heard your affair of the heart is quite serious."

Somehow, the teasing nettled Charles. "Oh, no, sir. Times like these, I can barely look after my horse. I've got no business trying to look after a woman, too."

Soon they said good night, Hampton shaking his hand warmly, then accepting his salute and again urging him to think about commanding a brigade. Charles promised he would, but it was only politeness.

Blowing out breath plumes in the dark, he trudged through the eternal mud to see Sport. Although he had spoken about Gus in a joking way, he had said what he believed. Ab and Brandy Station had started the thought process, which had reached a definite conclusion. He loved Gus more than he had ever loved another human being. But he needed to break it off, for both their sakes.

Charles wasn't the only member of his family with a growing sense that the death of the Confederacy was inevitable. Cooper believed it, though he never said it aloud, not even to Judith.

Cooper and his family were in Charleston, sent there the preceding fall by Secretary Mallory. Lucius Chickering had accompanied his superior.

The city to which Cooper had come home was no longer the charming seaport of lamplight, good manners, and chiming church bells with which he had fallen in love after his father exiled him there. Charleston was still scarred from the great fire of '61, exhausted by blockade and siege, menaced by the enemy on water and on land. The graceful old town was hated throughout the North like no other. Above all, the Yankees wanted to recapture Fort Sumter or obliterate it, for purposes more symbolic than military.

Cooper found that the old waterfront complex of the Main family firm, the Carolina Shipping Company, no longer existed as such. The military had taken it over, enlarging the warehouses and permitting the piers to sag and rot because Charleston could not be supplied by sea. The cool, high house on Tradd Street had escaped the fire, although Cooper and Lucius were forced to arm themselves to drive out half a dozen white squatters. It then took brooms, paint, and fumigation to restore the house to something like its former condition. Not that the effort was really worth it, Judith thought scarcely a week after their arrival. Her husband spent every day and a good part of each night in his office or that of General Beauregard, in both places trying to lend needed direction and confidence to the testing and launching of the submersible boat Hunley.

A central fact of existence in Charleston was the federal blockade, which took the form of an inner ring of ironclad monitors, a chain barrier, and an outer perimeter of wooden ships. Here, as everywhere, the blockade was proving cruelly effective, and not merely because it continued to isolate the South from sources of essential goods. With the Yankees in virtual control of the Atlantic from the Chesapeake to Florida, it was deemed necessary to spread troops thinly along the entire coast, to cover all points that might be subject to attack. Scott's Anaconda was no longer a theory to be mocked. The coils were crushing the South to death.

A second nerve-wearing reality in the new Charleston was the continuing Yankee pressure to reduce or capture the city. Since coming home, Cooper had heard the terrible story again and again. The preceding spring, Du Pont had tried to take Charleston with a naval assault and failed. After that, the Union had adopted a mixed strategy. Early in July, Federals under Brigadier Quincy Gillmore had established beachheads on Morris Island and begun installation of their batteries among the dunes. Then, on July 18, some six thousand Union infantry had surged forward and surmounted the parapets of Battery Wagner, a Cummings Point fortification whose guns commanded the harbor entrance.

By evening the Yanks had been driven back to their lines, and with particular fury because Shaw's Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Colored Infantry had been in the van of the attack. Black faces swarming over bastions held by white soldiers made the whole town remember old names: Nat Turner; Denmark Vesey.

The failure to keep Battery Wagner galled the Yanks, but it had no significant effect on the siege campaign or the speed with which it took shape. Union artillerists kept working, in scorching sunlight all day and beneath calcium flares all night, to place siege mortars and great breeching guns in their sand batteries. Charleston lived in special dread of one eight-inch, two-hundred-pound Parrott nicknamed "the Swamp Angel." The great monster of a gun was intended to send incendiary shells on a low trajectory of eight thousand yards — right into the city. Cooper had read of the Swamp Angel in Richmond, thinking what an irony it would be if Hazard's had any part in its manufacture.

After days of practice firing, the massed guns opened the bombardment in mid-August. Since that time there had been three periods of heavy shelling, each lasting several days. Sumter now resembled a stone heap, though a garrison of five hundred, manning thirty-eight guns, still held on in the ruins. As for the Swamp Angel, it had done hardly any damage, had in fact blown up soon after discharging its first rounds.

The city withstood the bombardments and took relatively little damage. Sumter still flew the Confederate and state flags. Yet the enemy had neither given up nor gone away; the Yanks were out there in the haze beyond James Island, where Cooper had started his fledgling shipyard. To boost morale, President Davis had visited the city last November, on his way back to Richmond from the endangered West. Crowds gave Mr. Davis loud and friendly welcomes at each of his appearances. Cooper chose not to attend any of them. Only deeds, not patriotic homilies, could help now. His job was Hunley.

The fish-ship had been transported from Mobile last summer and since then had been plagued by misfortune. Docked with one hatch left open, she had been swamped when a much larger vessel passed nearby. All of her eight-man crew, including the skipper, Lieutenant Payne, were aboard. Only Payne escaped drowning.

During a test of the submersible with a replacement crew, five more men lost their lives. Old Bory gave up on Hunley, but changed his mind when Mallory reaffirmed his faith in the design, pleaded for patience, and promised that two of his trusted aides would be sent to supervise her testing and operation.

Meanwhile, on October 5, the torpedo boat David scored a hit on U.S.S. New Ironsides, a bark-rigged steamer with armor plating on her sides. David's spar torpedo successfully detonated six feet below the enemy's waterline, and although the sixty-pound charge was not enough to sink her, it did enough damage to force her to retire to Port Royal for repairs.

Cooper and Lucius arrived then. They pointed out to Beauregard that Hunley offered one advantage that David did not: silence. The official reports showed that David's engine had alerted New Ironsides to danger before the torpedo boat struck. Beauregard protested that he had had no time to scrutinize the reports, else he would have drawn the same conclusion. Cooper suspected the pompous little Creole was lying but settled for the general's promise of encouragement and cooperation. It was needed, he discovered. Hunley had already been nicknamed "the Peripatetic Coffin."

Hunley himself reached Charleston a few days later to take charge of the next test, on October 15. He and the entire replacement crew brought from Mobile lost their lives. "She was buried bow first, nine fathoms down, at an angle of roughly thirty-five degrees," Cooper said the night afterward. He hunched before a plate from which he had eaten nothing.

His daughter asked, "How deep is nine fathoms, Papa?"

"Fifty-four feet."

"Brrr. Nothing but sharks in the dark down there."

And that Peripatetic Coffin.

"But you've already raised her —" Judith began.

"Raised her and opened her. The bodies were twisted into horrible postures."

"Marie-Louise," her mother said, "you are excused."

"But, Mama, I want to hear more about —"

"Go."

After their daughter left the room, Judith briefly covered her mouth with her napkin. "Really, Cooper, must you be so graphic in front of her?"

"Why should I sugar-coat the truth? She's practically a young woman. The disaster happened, and it needn't have." He thumped the table. "It needn't have! We studied the bodies carefully. Hunley's, now — his face was black and his right hand was over his head. Near the forward hatch, which he was clearly trying to open when he died. Two others had candles clasped in their hands. They were down by the bolts that secure the iron bars to the bottom of the hull. The bars are extra ballast, unfastened and dropped when the captain wants to come up. But not a single bolt had been removed, though the poor wretches had clearly been trying. It was all a puzzle till we made the important discovery: the seacock for the ballast tank at the bow was still open."

"Telling you what?" Her tone and look said she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"How she went down! Another crewman was manning the pump that empties the tanks. Panic must have ensured. Perhaps they used up the air, and the candles went out. In that confined space, that would do it. They were trying to bring her up, don't you see? But the seacock was open, and in the dark, with the panic, Hunley failed to order it closed. Or the man responsible was incapable of doing it. That's why they died. Operated properly, the vessel is seaworthy. She can kill plenty of Yankee sailors, and we're going to test her and train a crew until she's ready."

Judith gave him a strange look: sad, yet not submissive. "I'm frankly tired of hearing about your holy crusade to take human lives."

He glared. "Judah means nothing to you?"

"Judah died because of the actions of people on our side. Including your sister."

Cooper shoved his chair away from the table. "Spare me your mealy-mouthed pacifism. I'm going back to the office."

"Tonight? Again? You've been there every —"

"You act as if I go larking off to some bordello or gaming house." He was shouting now. "I go to do work that's urgent and vital. General Beauregard will not, I repeat to you, he will not put Hunley into service unless we prove her seaworthy and equip her with a bow spar sturdy enough to hold a charge capable of sinking an ironclad, not merely damaging her. The spar must carry at least ninety pounds of powder. We're evaluating materials and designs."

With slow, elaborate movements, he rose. Bowed. "Now if I have once again explained my behavior and motivation to your satisfaction, and if there are no further trivial questions for which you require answers, may I have your permission to leave?"

"Oh, Cooper —"

He pivoted and walked out.

After the Tradd Street door slammed, she continued to sit motionless. His bolting off reminded her of his behavior when he had been struggling to build Star of Carolina. But then, living and working in a state of perpetual exhaustion, he had been gentle and affectionate. The man she had married. Now she lived with a vengeful stranger she hardly knew.

Those had been Judith's thoughts last October following the fatal test. As the holidays neared, nothing changed — unless you considered worsening to be a change. Worsening of matters at Tradd Street, worsening of matters in Charleston.

The city continued to resound and shake from enemy shell fire. Pieces of china had to be set well back on a shelf lest the tremors tumble them off. The Parrotts sometimes boomed all night long, and reflected red light on the bedroom ceiling frequently woke her. She wanted to turn and hold her husband, but he usually wasn't there. He seldom stayed in bed longer than two hours.

Curtness became Cooper's way of life. Just before Christmas she suggested that it might be well for them to travel up the Ashley to check on matters at the plantation. "Why? The enemy is here. Let the place rot." One night he brought Lucius Chickering home to supper — the purpose was additional time to work, not hospitality — and twelve-year-old Marie-Louise watched the young man adoringly all through the meal. She uttered several sighs impossible to miss or misinterpret.

When she and Judith left the men alone with brandy, Lucius said, "I think your charming daughter's in love with me." "I am not in the mood to waste time on cheap witticisms." Nor are you ever, Lucius thought. He found himself possessed of surprising courage as he cleared his throat. "See here, Mr. Main. I know I'm only your assistant. Younger than you, far less experienced. Still, I know how I feel. And I feel a little lightness isn't out of order even in time of war. May help, in fact."

"In your war, perhaps. Not in mine. Finish your brandy so we can get to work."

Now it was January. Old Bory's flagging faith in Hunley had been kept alive by Cooper's pleading and by the enthusiasm of the new captain and crew. The former was another army officer, Lieutenant George Dixon, late of the Twenty-first Alabama Volunteers. The crew had been recruited from the receiving ship Indian Chief, and each man had been told Hunley's history. General Beauregard insisted.

Cooper knew, absolutely, that the submersible could be effective against enemy vessels blockading the harbor. Beyond that, and more important, if she could operate as designed, she could generate fear out of all proportion to her size. This was Mallory to the letter. Innovation, surprise — the sea route to victory or, barring that, an honorable negotiated peace for the nation whose military adventures were failures.

Thus, morning after morning, Cooper and Lucius stepped into their rowboat at the battery for the long pull out past the fallen casemates of Sumter, within sight of Catskill and Nahant and the other monitors, to the inlet on the back side of Sullivan's Island where the fish-ship tied up. The trip was hard, but easier than that of Captain Dixon and crew, who marched seven miles from their barracks just to start the day.

The creaky dock jutting from the sandy beach was pleasant in the winter sunshine. The two Navy Department men and Mr. Alexander, the gnarled British machinist who had helped build the vessel, repeatedly watched the crew submerge Hunley for short periods, with no mishaps.

Finally, late in January, there came a mellow afternoon when Dixon announced: "We are ready, Mr. Main. Will General Beauregard authorize an attack?"

Cooper's thinning hair fluttered in the wind. His face, normally pale, was the color of pond ice. "I doubt it. Not yet. You've only stayed down a few minutes each time. We must demonstrate that she can stay down much longer."

"Well, sir, how long is much longer?" Alexander asked.

'Till the air runs out. Till the crew has reached the absolute limit of endurance. We must find that limit, Dixon. In fact, I want you to choose one man and put him ashore for the next test. I'll replace him — I got Old Bory's permisssion yesterday. I did it because it will help banish his doubt. I must prove the Navy Department trusts this vessel, that all the deaths have been the result of human error, not faulty design."

"But Mr. Main," Lucius protested, "it could be extremely dangerous for you —"

Then, reddening and realizing he was in the presence of someone else who would face danger, he shut his mouth. He avoided his superior's murderous eye. Dixon's own reaction surprised Cooper.

"Mr. Chickering's right, sir. You are a married man with a family. Is your wife agreeable to —?"

"I need General Beauregard's permission, but I don't need hers. For anything. Keep that in mind, if you please. I want Hunley in service, sinking Yankee ships and drowning Yankee seamen, without further delay. I am going to take part in the test dive. We are going to make it tomorrow night."

His hunched posture, compressed lips, furious eyes made argument inadvisable. Seaward, the Parrotts boomed as the day's bombardment started. A dozen big, black-headed gulls lifted from the beach in fright.

90

Approaching the end of his sixth month in Libby Prison, Billy weighed twenty-eight pounds less than he had the day he walked in. His beard hung to the middle of his chest. His face had a gray, sunken appearance. But he had learned how you survived.

You poke your food with your finger, hunting for weevils. Then you smelled the food. Better to starve than swallow some of the spoiled slop fed to prisoners. Bad food could induce the flux and force you to run repeatedly to a trough in one of the odorous wooden closets the keepers dignified with the name bathroom. You could die before you stopped running.

You inserted no angry words or sentiments, no criticism of the prison or its administration, in the letters you were permitted to write. To conserve paper, the allowable length of each letter had been reduced to six lines. Billy took this as a sign of the war going badly for the rebs. You didn't count on any of the letters reaching the North; Billy suspected some or all were burned or dumped in the James.

You slept lightly in case prisoners from another part of the building staged a rat raid, hunting for items to steal. To sleep lightly wasn't difficult. Each of the large rooms of the prison held between three hundred and five hundred men; the place was bursting because exchanges had slowed to a trickle. Billy's room on the top floor was so crowded that everyone slept spoon fashion. Without blankets. That added to the ease of sleeping lightly now that winter had come.

You stayed away from the windows. You did so no matter how strong your longing for a whiff of fresh air instead of the stinks of fumigation. Guards outside, and even some civilians, occasionally shot at prisoners who appeared at windows. These marksmen received no reprimand from the warden.

You broke the tedium by taking an apple or newspaper or small homemade oatmeal cake from the basket of Crazy Betsy, then chatted with her for a bit about matters of no consequence. Crazy Betsy was a tiny, tense, blue-eyed woman, about forty, addressed formally as Miss Van Lew. Boys loitering outside the building shrieked "witch!" when she entered. Occasionally they threw stones at her. But that didn't deter frequent visits, and the authorities allowed her the run of Libby because she was a lifetime resident of Church Hill and helped keep the inmates pacified with her little gifts.

You did everything possible to avoid depressive thoughts of your situation. You played checkers. Swapped combat stories. Learned French or musical theory in one of the informal classes taught by prisoners. If you had spare paper, you scribbled out an item for the Libby Chronicle and handed it to the editor, who stood up and recited an entire newspaper twice weekly to huge crowds jammed into one of the largest rooms.

Above all, if you were Billy Hazard, you avoided contact with Corporal Clyde Vesey.

Throughout the early weeks of Billy's imprisonment, that wasn't hard. Vesey was still posted on the ground floor, where he continued to receive new prisoners and maintain records of those already inside. One night right after Christmas, however, in the freezing room where Billy was trying to sleep amid the restless men around him, Vesey appeared, specterlike, carrying a lantern.

"There you are, Hazard," said he, smiling. "I was anxious to find you and tell you I've been transferred up here, nights. It means half again as much in wages. It also means I shall be able to give you the attention you deserve."

Billy coughed into his fist; he had caught a cold. After the spasm, he said, "Wonderful news. I'll treasure each and every golden moment in your presence, Vesey."

Still sweetly smiling, Vesey glanced at the hand with which Billy braced himself on his bit of floor while he spoke. Quickly Vesey shifted and stepped on the hand with his hobnailed boot.

"I'll have none of your arrogant college ways while I'm on duty." He put more weight on Billy's hand. "Clear, sir?"

Billy clenched his teeth and squinted. Tears filled the corners of his eyes, and a little line of blood ran from under the sole of Vesey's boot. "You son of a bitch," Billy whispered. Fortunately Vesey was talking again.

"What? Do I see the brave Yankee weeping? Excellent. Excellent!" He twisted his boot back and forth. Billy couldn't hold back a low, choked sound. Vesey raised his boot, and Billy saw the gashes, the blood shining in the lantern light. "I must go on my rounds. But I shall be back often from now on. We shall have regular lessons in humility, until you learn your proper station. Lower than the lowest nigger. Good evening, Hazard."

And off he went, humming a hymn.

Billy blinked several times, tore a piece from his ragged shirt, and wrapped his bleeding hand. He sneezed twice. Men lay on either side of him and at his head and foot. He was certain they must be awake, but not one had stirred during Vesey's visit. He didn't blame them. He wasn't sure he would risk his own chances of survival just to defend some other prisoner unlucky enough to draw a guard's wrath.

By early January Billy's hand was infected and his cold much worse. Vesey sought him out at least once every night to abuse him verbally or force him to march up and down the prison stair­case for two hours, or stand in a comer on tiptoe while Vesey sat on a stool, a bayonet on his musket and the steel tip held half an inch from Billy's trembling back.

"Confess," Vesey would croon to him, smiling. "By now you must be cognizant of your inferiority. Your heathen nature. Your wrong thinking. Confess that you admire President Davis and consider General Lee the greatest soldier in Christendom."

Billy's legs shook. His toes felt broken. He said, "Fuck you."

Vesey tore Billy's shirt and raked his back once with the bayonet. Luckily the wound didn't fester as his hand had; the hand was all yellow and brown with pus and scabs. "We shall continue this," Vesey promised as his duty sergeant came looking for him. "Be assured of it, heathen."

Billy's attitude about helping other prisoners soon underwent a change. Eight new men arrived in the top-floor room to occupy the space of a captain who had died in his sleep. One of the newcomers, a sallow, curly-haired youth with a high forehead, found space next to Billy. The newcomer's name was Timothy Wann. He had enlisted at the end of his freshman year at Harvard and been brevetted to second lieutenant after three others holding that rank in his unit were killed one by one.

On Wann's second night in Libby, officers from another room conducted a rat raid. Billy woke out of his usual light sleep to see three bearded men carrying the Massachusetts boy toward the communal washroom. A fourth soldier, unbuckling Wann's belt, said, "Skinny little ass on this chicken. But it'll serve."

Billy knew such things went on, though he had never been threatened or been a witness. But he couldn't tolerate such treatment for a young officer who was really just a schoolboy. He wiped his dripping nose, staggered to his feet, and wove his way through dozing prisoners till he caught up with the quartet carrying the round-eyed, terrified Wann.

"Let him go," Billy said. "You can do that in your own room if you must, but not in here."

The gray-haired man who had unbuckled Wann's belt pulled it loose and stroked it, scowling. "Got some claim on this youngster, have you? Is he your pet bird?"

Billy reached out, intending to pull Wann off the shoulders of the three carrying him like a side of beef. The other soldier stepped back for room, then whipped Billy's cheek with the belt.

Sick as he felt — a fever had been on him for the past twenty-four hours — he found strength in his anger. He ripped the belt away from the older man, grasped both ends, looped it over the soldier's head, and crossed his hands. The soldier gagged. Billy pulled harder.

The friends of the strangling man let Wann fall to the floor. "Get back to your place," Billy said to Tim as one of the raiders punched him. In the corridor, he spied a lantern.

"What's the commotion? What's happening in there?"

Vesey appeared, lantern held high, side arm in his other hand. Billy released one end of the belt. The gray-haired officer stepped away, rubbing his red throat. "This crazy loon attacked me. Started to choke me to death — just 'cause we were in here speaking to friends and he said we disturbed his sleep."

"Your accusation doesn't surprise me, sir," Vesey replied with a sympathetic nod. "This officer is a violent man. Constantly provoking trouble. I shall take him in hand. The rest of you go back to your quarters."

"Yessir," two of the raiders muttered. None wasted any time leaving.

"What are we to do with you, Hazard?" Vesey managed to speak, sigh, and smile at the same time. "My lessons up here have failed to bring an end to this constant rebellion. Perhaps one conducted in the fresh air would be more effective."

"I want my shoes if we're going out —"

"March," Vesey said, yanking his collar. Billy had a glimpse of heads raised here and there in the room. Then they sank down again, and he wondered why he had been so stupid as to help Tim. The young prisoner started to get up. Billy shook his head and walked out of the room ahead of Vesey.

On the river side of the building, Vesey handed his lantern to the guard at the door, then prodded Billy down the steps and pushed him to his knees. Vesey proceeded to lash Billy's wrists and ankles together behind his back, pulling the ropes steadily tighter until Billy's shoulders bowed with strain. In a matter of seconds, his leg muscles were aching.

Light rain began to fall. Vesey shoved a foul-smelling gag in Billy's mouth and secured it with a second rag tied around his head. While he worked, Vesey hummed "What a Friend We Have in Jesus."

By the time Vesey was finished, the rain was falling hard. Cold rain, freezing rain, Billy realized. He sneezed. Corporal Vesey ran back up to the shelter of the doorway.

"I shall return as soon as I find my overcoat, Hazard. It's nippy out here, but I must watch you undergo your punishment for a while. If we can't break your spirit, perhaps we can break your spine."

That night, miles away in Charleston, Judith said, "I don't understand you any longer, Cooper."

He frowned from the other end of the dining table. Wearing a loose silk shirt, he hunched forward in his customary tense posture. His untouched plate had been pushed aside.

"If this is another of your complaints about my failure to perform my husbandly duties —"

"No, blast you." Her eyes glistened, but she fought herself back to control. "I know you're tired all the time — although it would be nice if you treated me like a wife at least occasionally. That was not the reason I said what I did, however."

A breeze from the walled garden fluttered the candles and played with the curtains of the open French windows. "Then it's the test," Cooper said suddenly. "Damn Lucius for drinking too much claret."

"Don't blame poor Lucius. You invited him again this evening. You poured all that wine. For him and for yourself as well."

He answered that with unintelligible sounds. Out of sight in the parlor, Marie-Louise began to play "The Bonnie Blue Flag" on the pianoforte. At Judith's urging, she had taken the Mains' frequent guest into the other room after he inadvertently blurted a remark about the test now scheduled for Monday of next week. Cooper had withheld all mention of it from Judith, hoping to avoid tiresome reactions — bathetic tears, moralizing — which would in turn require him to waste energy dealing with them.

Looking hostile, he asked, "What did you mean about not understanding me?"

"The sentence was plain English. Is it so difficult to decipher? You're not the man I married. Not even the man with whom I went to England."

His face seemed to jerk with a spastic fury. He locked his hands together, elbows pressing the table so hard it creaked. "And I remind you that this is no longer the world in which either of those events occurred. The Confederacy is in desperate straits. Desperate measures are required. It's my duty to involve myself in this test. My duty. If you lack the wit to appreciate that or the courage to endure it, you're not the woman I married, either."

"Hurrah! Hurrah! For Southern rights — hurrah!" sang the adolescent girl and the guest in the parlor. "Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!"

Judith brushed back the dark blond curls on her forehead. "Oh," she said, with a small bitter twist to her mouth, "how you misunderstand. It isn't the risk to yourself that's upsetting me now, though God knows that kind of upset has become a constant of life here. I object to the callous way you've pushed this infernal fish-boat project. I object to your insistence on another test. I object to your forcing seven innocent men to submerge that iron coffin once more because you think it must be done. There was a time when you hated this war with all your soul. Now, you've become some — some barbarian I don't even recognize."

Icy, he asked, "Are you finished?"

"I am not. Cancel the test. Don't gamble with human lives to fulfill your own warped purpose."

"So now my purpose is warped, is it?"

"Yes." She struck the table.

"Patriotism is warped, is it? Defending my native state is warped? Or preventing this city from being burned and leveled? That's what the Yankees want, you know — nothing left of Charleston but rubble. That's what they want," he shouted.

"I don't care — I don't care!" She was on her feet, weeping. The patriotic anthem had ended in mid-phrase. "You are not the sole savior of the Confederacy, despite your attempt to act like it. Well, go ahead, kill yourself in your holy cause if you want. But it's hateful and immoral of you to demand that other lives be sacrificed to appease your anger. The old Cooper would have understood. The Cooper I loved — I loved so very —"

The broken words faded into silence. Out in the garden, palmetto fronds rattled in the wind. Like some long snake uncoiling, Cooper rose from his chair. His face blank, he said, "The test will proceed as scheduled."

"I knew that. Well, commune with yourself about it from now on."

"What does that mean?"

"It means you may take your meals in this house, but don't expect me to be present when you do. It means you may sleep in the extra bedroom. I don't want you in mine."

They stared at each other. Then Cooper walked out.

Judith's facade gave way. Voices reached her from the parlor, the first one — her husband's — curt:

"Lucius, get your coat. We can still accomplish a good deal tonight."

Marie-Louise, vexed: "Oh, Papa, Mama said we'd all gather and sing —"

"Keep quiet."

Judith put her head down, pressed her hands to her eyes, and silently cried.

91

For days after his ordeal — Billy had been kept kneeling in the sleet storm till morning — he hobbled rather than walked. Most of the time he curled on the floor, hands locked below his pulled-up knees in a futile effort to stave off chills that would abruptly change to fever and set him raving. And every night Vesey was there — to insult him, to prod with a musket, to lift his boot and nudge the hand that would be forever nail-scarred.

Vesey, a farm boy from Goochland County who had achieved sudden and unexpected importance because of his absolute power over prisoners, reminded Billy of an Academy upperclassman George had mentioned a few times. Some fat fellow from Ohio who had pitilessly deviled his brother and Orry Main and all the other plebes in their class. Billy had never been much for contemplation of philosophic issues, but the fat cadet and Clyde Vesey convinced him that there was indeed such a thing in the world as the person with no redeeming qualities.

On the credit side of the ledger he placed the Tim Wanns.

The Massachusetts boy, though not sturdy, was quick-witted. Under Billy's instruction he rapidly learned the tricks of survival. Because Billy had gone to his rescue, Tim became Billy's devoted friend, eager to share anything he possessed. One thing he possessed, which Billy didn't, was greenback dollars. About twenty of them. The money was in his pocket when he was captured, and two of the dollars had persuaded the check-in guard to let him keep the rest.

With money, little luxuries could be obtained from the more cooperative guards. Frequently, Tim urged Billy to let him buy him something, whatever he wanted. Tim said it was small payment for the bravery that had earned Billy punishment and a persistent influenza that left him feeble and frequently dizzy.

Billy said no to the offers until one longing grew too strong.

"All right, Tim — a little writing paper, then. And a pencil. So I can start a new journal."

Tim put in the order ten minutes later. Delivery was made at nine that night. Tim objected.

"This is wallpaper! Look at all these bilious blue flowers. How is anyone supposed to write on this side?"

"Ain't," said the guard selling the goods. "But if you do want to write some'pin, you write it on that or nothin'. Jeffy Davis hisself can't get anythin' better these days."

So Billy began.

Jan. 12 — Libby Pris. I vow to survive this place. My next, most immed. aim is to send a letter to my dear wife.

He wanted to add that he had been asked to join the escape that was currently being plotted but decided he had better not commit that to paper in case the journal was found. Besides, he had so little to write upon — three sheets a foot square cost Tim three dollars — he must hoard the empty space.

Every night that Vesey was on duty, he continued to show up to harass his favorite prisoner. But Billy managed to endure the pokes with a bayonet, the kicks with a hobnailed boot, the nasty remarks about his friendship with the Harvard boy — he endured it all until he wrote the letter to Brett.

Tim insisted he be allowed to buy an envelope to hold the letter. What was supplied was greasy butcher's paper, folded and held together with paste. Billy addressed it for maximum legibility and enclosed a small square of wallpaper carrying a brief, affectionate message: He was in fine health, he loved her, she shouldn't worry.

The envelope, left open for the censor, was handed to the proper guard at noon. Vesey brought it back that night.

"I am afraid the censor refused to pass this letter." Smiling, he opened his right hand. The envelope and its contents, all in small pieces, fluttered to the floor.

Weak, dizzy, hating the feel and stench of the filthy clothes he removed each morning for the required lice inspection, Billy pushed up from his small section of floor, slowly gained his feet, and stood eye to eye with the corporal.

"There was nothing illegal in that letter."

"Oh, that is for the censor to determine. The censor is a chum of mine. Some weeks ago, I asked him to watch for any letter you might write. I'm afraid none will ever gain his approval for mailing. Your dear wife will just have to go on suffering and grieving —" he winked, smiling "— thinking you dead in a heathen's grave."

"The rules —"

Vesey's hand flew to the back of Billy's head; twisted in his long, matted hair. "I told you — I told you," he whispered. "There are no rules here except mine. I hope your wife's grief grows unsupportable. I hope she develops a violent aching in her female parts. A desire so fierce, so insistent —"

He leaned closer, face huge, china-blue eyes gleeful.

"— she'll be driven to fornicate madly to relieve it. Maybe she'll fornicate with some white tramp. Maybe she'll pick a buck nigger."

Billy was shaking, trying to hold back, not see the looming face or hear the whispering.

"Just imagine one of those big coons — your equals, aren't they? Old Abe says they are. Think of him humping and sliding all over your wife's white body. Pushing his blackness into her tender orifice so hard she bleeds. Think of that along with what you'd like to say in all those letters you'll never get past these walls, you heathen, godless —"

With a cry, Billy struck. When three other guards with lanterns rushed in to pull him off, he had Vesey on the floor, pounding his head with both hands. One of the guards hauled Billy up by his jacket. A second kicked him in the crotch, twice. Coughing, he pitched sideways and crumpled. The third guard said, "You all are in for it now, Yank."

92

Although light remained in the west, Cooper saw only darkness and winter stars out toward the Atlantic. Would he see the sight again? His daughter? Judith? The moment the questions came, he drove them out as unworthy sentimentalities.

Lucius Chickering had come down to the dock along with Alexander, the machinist. The young man shook Cooper's hand. "Best of luck, sir. We'll be waiting for your return."

With a brief nod, Cooper glanced at the small crowd of soldiers who had gotten wind of the test and gathered to observe it. Mingled with them were a few villagers from Mount Pleasant. One stared at Cooper in a manner that could only be characterized as pitying.

Alexander went down through Hunley's forward hatch. Once Cooper had secured Bory's permission for the test, the machinist had insisted on taking part. It was his right, he said; it was his submersible.

Stepping from the pier to the hull, Cooper bent over the hatch. "Ready for me to come down, George?"

"Ready, Mr. Main," Lieutenant Dixon replied in his customary drawl. Cooper lifted a long leg over the coaming with its quartet of small, round windows set ninety degrees apart. He lowered himself into the dark interior while a crewman reached up to close the rear hatch with a clang, screwing it down tight. He squeezed past Dixon, who remained at the instruments: a mercury depth gauge and a compass for steering underwater. In a niche between these, in a cup, stood the lighted candle that measured the air supply and provided the sole illumination.

Cooper positioned himself slightly behind and to the side of the skipper, bending and sliding his rear onto a small iron seat attached to the hull. The six crewmen occupied similar seats, three on either side of the fore-to-aft shaft that had been cast with sections offset in the shape of broad, shallow U's. The crewmen grasped these to turn the shaft and propel the submersible at its maximum speed of four knots.

"Mr. Main," said Dixon, "would you be so good as to explain the test procedures to our crew?" As he spoke, he tested two handles. One operated the rudder attached to the propeller housing; the other controlled the angle of port and starboard diving planes.

"Simple enough," Cooper said. His back already ached from bending to the curve of the hull. "Tonight we will not use that candle as the sole determiner of how long this vessel can stay underwater. We shall use you gentlemen. We shall remain submerged an hour — an hour and a half —" some apprehensive murmuring at that "— perhaps more. We will not surface until the first man reaches his limit and announces that he can't continue to function without fresh air. Each man must find that limit for himself, being neither too confident of his own powers of endurance nor too quick to surrender to discomfort."

The final words bore a clear note of scorn, causing Dixon to react. But he was facing the instruments; Cooper didn't see the frown.

"When the first man calls out one word — up — that will be our signal to empty the tanks and rise to the surface. Any questions?"

"I just hope we can come up," one man declared with a nervous laugh. "Some of the sojers say this fish ought to be named Jonah 'stead of Hunley."

"Belay that kind of talk," Dixon said as he climbed the short ladder and poked his head out the forward hatch. From his cramped position, Cooper could glimpse a small section of the hatch opening: an oval of sky decorated with faint stars.

"Cast off the bow and stern lines."

Dockhands ran noisily to obey Dixon's order. Cooper could feel Hunley float free all at once. Dixon climbed down again and addressed the mate.

"Airbox shaft open, Mr. Fawkes?"

"Open, sir."

"Stand by to reverse crank. Half speed."

"Half speed — crank," the mate repeated. Grunting, the crewmen began to revolve the shaft.

It was awkward work, but Dixon had drilled the men well and developed smooth timing. The candle flickered. Water lapped the hull with a queer hollow sound.

Again Dixon went up the ladder, calling down commands to the mate, who had taken the rudder. As soon as they backed from the dock, they reversed direction and picked up speed. Sweat trickled on Cooper's chin. He felt entombed, wished he were anywhere but here. He fought rising panic.

Still with his head in the open, Dixon looked all around, three hundred and sixty degrees, then came down, reached overhead and secured the hatch.

"Stand by to submerge."

Cooper's heart was tripping so fast his chest hurt. He felt a keen respect for these men who had volunteered for this duty and some sense of the agony of those who had perished in the earlier dives. Then he chided himself. He was indulging in sentimentalities again.

"Close airbox shaft."

"Airbox shaft closed," the mate sang out.

"Opening bow tank seacock."

Cooper heard the gurgle and rush of water. The hull swayed and dipped. He grasped a stanchion mounted above him as Hunley's bow tilted down. He thought of Judith, Marie-Louise. He couldn't help it. They did call this the Peripatetic Coffin, after all.

She settled to the bottom with a shiver and a soft thump. The men relaxed against the hull or leaned on the drive shaft. One fellow said the hardest half of the voyage was over. No one laughed.

Dixon studied the mercury tube in the depth gauge. Cooper fought sudden, terrifying fantasies. Someone tightening a metal band around his head. Someone locking him in a lightless closet whose door had no inside knob —

Alexander patted his waistcoat. "Any of you gents have a time­piece? In the excitement, seems I forgot mine altogether."

"I do." Cooper fumbled for the slim gold watch he always carried. He snapped back the lid. "Ten past seven." The flame of the candle stood straight. Wax ran down to form tiny mountain chains on the sides.

At half past the hour, the candle was visibly dimmer. A man muttered, "Air's growing foul."

"Someone let one go," said another crewman. The snickers were halfhearted. Cooper's eyes began to smart. Dixon kept stroking his side whiskers with index and middle fingers.

"How long?" Alexander asked abruptly. Cooper roused. Either his sight was failing or the candle, half gone, had dimmed still more. He had to lift his watch near his chin to see.

"We've been down thirty-three minutes."

He kept the watch open in his hand. How loudly it ticked. As the light continued to dim, his mind played pranks. The intervals between ticks grew far apart; he seemed to wait a half hour for the next one. When it came, he heard the sound for a long time.

Alexander started to sing softly, some Cockney ditty about wheelbarrows and vegetable marrows. Crossly, Dixon asked him to stop. Cooper longed for Liverpool, Tradd Street, even the deck of Water Witch. Thoughts of the blockade-runner led to thoughts of poor Judah, his remains lying somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic. Cooper felt moisture on his cheeks, averted his head so no one would see —

The candle went out.

A man inhaled, a panicky hiss. Another cursed. Dixon scraped a match on the iron plating, but it produced no light, only a quick fizzing noise and then a smell.

Alexander's voice: "How long, Mr. Main?"

"A few minutes before the candle went out, approximately forty-five minutes."

"The air is still quite breathable," Dixon said. Someone's grumble disputed that.

Without sight, Cooper couldn't judge the passage of time. Nothing remained but a mounting pressure on his temples and devils in the mind, persuading him that he was suffocating, persuading him that he heard the iron plates cracking, persuading him that one thing after another was going wrong. He passed rapidly through dizziness, sleepiness, extreme confidence, the certainty of the imminence of his own death.

He ripped off his cravat, tore loose his collar button. He was strangling —

"Up!"

Laughter then, a rush of conversation. For a moment, wiping his sweaty neck, Cooper nearly convinced himself he had been the one to cry out. Calm, Dixon said, "Mr. Alexander, man the stern pump, if you please. I'll handle this one. Mr. Fawkes, Mr. Billings, unbolt the ballast bars."

Cooper rested his head against the hull, anticipating the sweet night air waiting up above. He heard the squeak and hiss of the pumps, the ring of an iron nut falling to the deck. The sound was repeated several times. "Ballast bars unfastened, sir."

"The bow's coming up," Dixon grunted, working the pump handle. "We should be lifting momentarily."

Everyone felt the bow rise. The men laughed and whistled, but that didn't last long. One exclaimed, "What's wrong, Alexander? Why ain't the stern coming up, too?"

"Captain Dixon?" The little Englishman sounded frightened. "The tank is still full. It's the pump." "We'll die," said the man immediately behind Cooper. Dixon: "What's wrong with it?"

"Fouled, I should suspect. Damn bloody seaweed, probably." "If we can't fix it, we can't return to the surface." Dixon's words, blurted like a command to Alexander, had a bad effect on the crewman who had spoken a moment before.

"We're going to suffocate. Oh, God, oh, God — I don't want to die that way." His baritone voice ascended to a high register, the words punctuated by the hiccups of his crying. "We're going to die. I know we're going to —"

Cooper twisted and reached into the dark. The watch fell; he heard the crystal smash as he seized the hysterical man's arm. With his free hand he struck the man's face twice. "Stop that. It will do no one any good." "Damn you, let go — all of us — we're —" "I said stop." He struck a third time, so hard the man's head thudded on the hull. Cooper released his arm. The man kept crying, muffling it with his hands. At least he wasn't screaming. "Thank you, Mr. Main," Dixon said. Alexander spoke. "Sir? I am going to dismantle the pump a section at a time. I think I can do it in the dark — I know exactly how she's put together. It may be that I can reach and remove whatever's fouling her."

"If you do, the water will rush in."

"Give me another idea, then!"

More softly, Dixon said, "I'm sorry. I have none. Take whatever measures you think will help, Mr. Alexander."

So the nightmare continued, more intense than before. Cooper imagined he couldn't breathe. Not at all. Yet somehow he did: thin breaths, each costing him pain. Or was the pain imagined, too? A silence that was almost sharp settled in the submersible, every man listening for the squeak or chink of a metal part being unscrewed or removed and wondering, What does that noise mean? That one?

Cooper groped near his feet for his broken watch. Just as he touched it, he heard a bubbly roar. A man screamed, "God preserve us," and water gushed from the pump, filling the vessel with spray, sloshing along the deck.

Alexander exclaimed, "One minute more — now — there. I have a big handful of seaweed, sir. I think that's all of it. Now I must force the pump back together against the pressure —"

The water continued to rush in. Cooper lifted his left foot and tapped it down. Splash. The man he had struck was moaning again. Cooper reached behind and shoved the man's head against the hull. That shut him up.

Almost at once, he felt bad about treating the fellow so brutally. The man was right; they would all die soon. He had a swift and sure sense of that. He fought to draw a little of the malodorous air into his lungs and, with doubt about the outcome removed, settled down to wait for the end.

He began to review his past life quickly, by-passing the shameful moments and dwelling on those of intense pleasure — as when he had first seen Miss Judith Stafford on the deck of the coastal steamer bringing them both to Charleston long ago. He composed a little farewell speech to tell her how grateful he was that she had married hi —

"Done," Alexander shouted. Cooper automatically looked toward the stern, though he could see nothing. He heard the drawn-out squeal of the pump piston. Then Alexander again.

"She's working!"

"Hurrah," Dixon cried. The crew applauded. Tears spilled from Cooper's eyes as he labored to breathe. He thought he felt the stern lift. Dixon confirmed it.

"There she comes!"

Minutes later, Hunley broke into the moonlight.

Dixon and Alexander attacked the fore and aft hatch bolts like madmen seeking escape from an asylum. Suddenly Cooper glimpsed stars, felt and inhaled sweet, cold air. In no time, the crewmen were briskly turning the crank as if nothing had happened.

Dixon climbed up to peer over the forward coaming. "Only one person left. Can't see who it is."

Slowly, the submersible nosed back to the pier, where Lucius Chickering jumped up and down and clapped and spun round and round with his arms at shoulder level, like some happy bird. Dixon ordered him to stop capering and help tie up the vessel.

"I'm not capering, I'm celebrating," Lucius exclaimed as Dixon worked his way to the bow and flung a line. "The soldiers and townspeople went home after forty minutes. They all said you were dead, but I had this crazy idea that if I stayed — if I didn't give up — that would prove everybody else was wrong and presently the boat would come up. But Lord Almighty, Lieutenant, you surely tested my faith. Do you realize what time it is?"

Climbing out after Cooper, Alexander asked, "How long were we down?"

Cooper raised his watch to his ear. Good heavens. Still ticking. He jumped to the pier, tilted the watch toward the moon, shook bits of shattered glass from the white face. He thought he had misread the hands, but he hadn't.

"It's fifteen minutes before ten. We were submerged two hours and thirty-five minutes."

"I told you, I told you," Lucius cried, grabbing Cooper's shoulders and whirling him. "Isn't it incredible? You were right. She works." Alexander muttered something; Dixon shushed him. "She can sneak out and kill Yankees any time now — Oh." Lucius stopped his gyrations. "I forgot, Mr. Main. One soldier said he was going to General Beauregard's headquarters to report Hunley sunk again. With all hands lost. I'll bet your wife's heard it by now."

"Oh, God. Lieutenant Dixon, well done. I take my leave."

He had begun to do so before the end of the sentence. He rushed toward the rowboat, resembling some great gangly shore bird scurrying on the sand. Lucius jammed his plug hat on his head. "Wait for me, Mr. Main!"

When Cooper reached Tradd Street after his incredible adventure, Judith wept with relief, even though Lucius Chickering's prediction had been incorrect; she had heard no news.

She hugged her husband long and hard. But she still chose to sleep alone that night.

93

"Warden," Vesey said, "that Yank turned on me like a ravening animal. He did so with no provocation but the prompting of his evil disposition. It is your duty, if I may be so bold — your duty as a responsible commander and Christian gentleman to grant me the right to punish him."

Dubious, young Turner thought a while. "I would, but I can't allow that kind of thing inside Libby, for several reasons. One, we've too blasted many Philadelphia lawyers among the inmates. Two, we're getting close scrutiny from that damn busybody who works for Seddon."

"You referring to that one-armed colonel, Warden?"

"That's right. Main. The self-appointed conscience of our prisons. You've seen him nosing around without so much as a by-your-leave from this office." Vesey nodded. "Recently we've been spared his visits — I understand he contracted a bad flux and is confined to his bed. But sure as I say go ahead, he'll recover and pop in here the very day you do."

Vesey looked glum. Then he noticed the slow beginnings of a smile. "Of course, if you could find some way to conduct the, ah, disciplinary lesson away from this building, I could issue a temporary release order, which you could destroy afterward with no one the wiser."

Vesey leaned forward, his smile twice as broad as Turner's.

"Should you need helpers in this — I mean to say, if there are witnesses," the warden continued, "they must be absolutely trustworthy."

"No problem there, sir."

"If you mark him, it must appear to have happened accidentally."

"I guarantee it.'

"Then I'll prepare the pass. Before I hand it to you, I'll want to know your plan in detail."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!" Vesey said, fairly clicking his heels as he saluted. "You'll have the information practically right away, I promise. Thank you again, sir."

"Pleasure to help out." Turner was still smiling. "You're an exemplary soldier, Vesey. Wish I had more like you."

That conversation took place on the thirtieth of January. On the first, Vesey returned, glowing with excitement. Catching the corporal's mood, Turner asked, "Well? How are you going to do it?"

"With a caisson borrowed through my cousin in the artillery of the Department of Henrico. A caisson and the roughest road we can find. My cousin's the one who suggested the idea. He told me the Yanks use it on serious offenders all the time. Good enough for them, good enough for us, I say."

He continued speaking for more than a minute. At the end, Turner laughed loudly. "First rate! You'll have the release order in an hour. It will be best if you take him out late at night. Fewer people awake then. We'll say he's being removed to General Winder's office for an urgent interrogation."

"That's perfect, sir." Vesey couldn't suppress his glee. "I must tell you this in candor. We will have a small group at the event — my cousin, some of his pals. But I pledge, Warden, every man can be trusted."

"I'm holding you responsible for that," Turner said with a genial smile. "I wish I could go with you. Get in a few licks for me." "Yes, sir. We surely will."

"This is General Winder's office?" After the question, Billy spat, but it only dripped down on the spokes because of the awkward angle of his head.

"Shut your face, Yank," said Clyde Vesey's cousin. He pulled Billy's head back, then pushed it forward against the wheel. The horses pranced and snorted. It was a bright, breezy morning, warm for February. Bare trees soughed along both sides of the deserted, heavily rutted road that ran over a succession of little hills.

Billy was spread-eagled against the spare wheel mounted on the rear of the artillery caisson at an angle of about forty-five degrees. His bare back stippled with goose bumps, he lay with the wheel hub jammed into his gut. Normally, six horses pulled the caisson, but taking so many for this kind of excursion might have caused suspicion, so only two had been harnessed. They could handle it; the caisson had been considerably lightened by removal of the ammunition chests.

While four soldiers watched, Vesey inspected the knots of the ropes holding Billy's wrists and ankles to the fellies of the wheel. His body was vertical though tilted forward by the wheel's angle. After brief scrutiny, Vesey said, "Quarter turn, lads. I hear the trip's even better that way."

Snickering, they put their shoulders to it and with effort turned the wheel on its tight hub mount. Vesey called for extra ropes to secure the wheel in that position. Billy's head was now at three o'clock, his feet at nine.

"Crawford?" Vesey's cousin stepped forward. "To you falls the honor of riding postilion." The oafish fellow eagerly mounted the near horse. Cheeks pink in the winter sunshine, Vesey stepped to one side, where the prisoner could see him.

"Gentlemen, are we ready to commence?" Nods, grins. "Ought we to start by singing a hymn? Better still, maybe we should pray for the soul of one about to depart — whether to the nether regions, where all good Yankees go, or merely to the land of the cripples, it is not ours to know just yet."

Following his cousin's example, he seized Billy's hair, yanking his head far back, till he saw Billy grimace. Vesey bent to within three inches of Billy's face.

"One thing sure, boy. You'll never forget the ride."

Billy poked his tongue out between cracked lips and blew spit. This time he didn't miss.

Vesey slammed his head against the spoke, then ran around to the near horse. "Two miles down the road and back, Crawford." He whipped off his cap and lashed the horse, spooking it to greater effort with a long rebel yell that wailed against the noise of the caisson gathering speed.

No matter how determined Billy was, no matter how he braced himself, his body was yanked away from the hub, then hurled back against it as the caisson went over each hump in the road. Being tied horizontally created disorientation; his left eye saw the sky, his right the brown road flying by beneath.

Vesey's cousin whipped the team. "Come on, you nags, do your duty!" Billy's face mashed into a spoke. The inside of his cheek split. Blood began to fill his mouth. A bruise appeared on his temple as it repeatedly hit the wheel. Vesey had known exactly how loosely to tie him, the bastard.

He got a little relief when the team slowed to turn around. But he had been bashed so hard, jerked so violently, that starting up again was twice as bad. His head buzzed. He had a feeling they would break half his bones at least. His emotional control started to slip. He pictured Brett's face. That helped. The return trip seemed to last much longer. Billy sailed beneath a few winter clouds, watching them expand, shrink, blur. Blood ran from the lower corner of his mouth. Pain spread from his belly, hit repeatedly by the hub, to skull and toes. The caisson slowed, then, mercifully, stopped.

"Well, cousin, what d'ye think?" asked Crawford, scratching himself. Vesey strutted back and forth where his victim could see him. "Oh, I think he's enjoying himself too much. I see not the slightest sign of repentance for his heathenish behavior. Let's untie him and turn him over with his back next to the hub. And, Crawford, this time go all the way to the covered bridge before you turn. That's at least a mile more each way." So it started again, Crawford driving up the road as if charging to battle. Billy's middle jackknifed out, then back, the hub battering his spine. Wind-whipped blood trailed away from his upper lip, stringing out behind his head like periods in the air. Finally, ashamed but powerless to stop, he cried out. And blacked out.

The doctor, a sixty-year-old hack, heavy tippler, and native Virginian, happened to despise the young warden of Libby Prison.

He stomped into Turner's office late next day, informing him that prisoners from the third floor had brought him a man, one Hazard, whose body was cruelly battered. A man who could not stand, or speak coherently; a man lying this moment on a cot in the surgery, his life in the balance.

"His back isn't broken, but it's no thanks to whoever beat him."

"Just return that Yank to decent health, and I'll root out the person or persons who did it and discipline them," Turner promised, voice tremoring. "However, Dr. Arnold, we may find it was an accident. A slip on the stairs, a tumble — some of the prisoners get pretty weak, and there isn't much I can do about it. Yes, sir, I'll wager an accidental fall is the answer."

"If you believe that, you're even stupider than I thought. He could have fallen out of one of those reconnaissance balloons and not be hurt this badly." The doctor laid his hands on the desk and pushed his plum nose toward the warden. "You'd better remember one fact, youngster. We may be at war, but we are not on the staff of the Grand Inquisitor of Spain. These are Americans locked up in this building — and Southern honor still stands for something. Find the culprit or I'll go to President Davis personally. I'll see you cashiered."

That might have been the outcome, except for the commotion caused by the great escape.

The escape took place on the ninth of February. A Pennsylvania colonel named Rose had climbed down a prison chimney and discovered an abandoned room in the cellar. There, he and others worked in shifts for several days to tunnel under the wall of the old warehouse. The tunnel they dug was almost sixty feet long. They broke ground and ran, a hundred and nine of them.

Libby was thrown into an uproar, Turner into dire trouble. Special inspectors from Winder's office prowled the area at unexpected hours of the day and night, spying on prisoners for signs of suspicious behavior and insuring that the general's order to double the number of guards on duty had been carried out. Turner, meantime, desperately wrote reports to shift blame for the escape and save himself from charges. All the while, Billy lay on the cot in the surgery, too deep in pain to remember he had been invited to join the escape.

Tim Wann visited at least twice a day. Asked questions of Dr. Arnold, one more than others: "Who did it, Doctor?"

"I can't find out. I've tried like hell, but the guards in this place are a foul breed. They protect one another."

Tim suspected he knew the ringleader. He said, "Someone carried him off in the middle of the night. I was asleep — I never woke up." Pale with guilt, the Massachusetts boy looked at the puffed, discolored face on the thin gray pillow. Even sleeping, Billy occasionally winced in pain.

"No one else in your room saw anything?"

"They say not. It was late. Dark. Those who took him must have worked quietly."

"Goddamn us all for what we do in the name of patriotism. They did a job on him, all right. Something a lot worse than a beating with fists, though I still can't figure out the method."

"Can't Billy tell us? Give us the names or at least the descriptions of those responsible?"

Billy thrashed, arched his back, cried out softly. His left nostril began to ooze blood. The doctor bent to wipe it, giving Tim a bleak look.

"If he lives," he said.

Sunset. Sea birds circling. The air was calm and cold, though in the north massive cloud banks were building rapidly. Over on the Battery, windows glowed and the last daylight touched roof peaks and steeples. Bundled in his caped greatcoat, Cooper noticed mist forming on the water.

George Dixon finished his survey of the harbor and pushed the sections of his brass telescope together. "The mist will help. We have an ebb tide to assist us when we're ready to start back. It's our best opportunity thus far. I think we'll go."

He pivoted and called to the mate. "Mr. Fawkes? Rig the torpedo boom, if you please. I want to get under way promptly."

"Aye, aye, Captain," said the former Alabama soldier. All of the landsmen had learned nautical ways with speed and relish. Having survived the underwater test, they took pride in behaving like experienced tars.

"Which of the ships will be your target?" Cooper asked.

"I think it's best to determine that once we're past the harbor bar."

"I intend to row over to Sumter to watch." He held out his hand. "Godspeed, George. I'll expect you back by midnight."

"By all means," replied the young skipper with a brief smile. "I'm very proud to be taking her out. You should be proud, too. If we succeed, this night will live in history."

"You'll succeed," Lucius said, hovering behind his superior.

"Well — good-bye, then," Dixon said, striding down the pier as confidently as any master who had first gone into the tops as a boy. "Careful with that powder, lads. It's meant to sink a Yankee, not us."

A shiver chased down Cooper's back — a reaction not at all connected with the plunging temperature. This moment made all the peril, the worry, the pleading with Beauregard — even the coldness of his wife, who simply didn't understand him or the importance of his work — worthwhile.

Lucius climbed into the boat first. Through thickening mist, they rowed hard for the landing stage of the shell-blasted fort. Halfway there, Lucius pointed over Cooper's shoulder. "She's heading out." Cooper twisted clumsily on the thwart, barely in time to glimpse a red-orange glitter on the iron hull. Then the dark clouds closed. The slight bulge on the surface of the water disappeared.

From the seaward side of Fort Sumter, they watched darkness and mist rapidly hide the blockade fleet. Only a few signal lanterns showed where the vessels lurked. The night remained very quiet, very cold. Cooper grew nervous. He had just checked his watch once again — 8:47 p.m. — when fire and noise erupted in the offshore mist.

Cooper caught his breath. "Which ship is it?"

"Housatonic," said the major from the fort who had come up to watch with them. He passed his telescope, which Cooper peered through just as a sheet of flame carried pieces of timber and rigging skyward. The roar came rolling in over the harbor bar.

"She's hulled on the starboard side," Cooper crowed. "Just forward of the mainmast, I think. I can see men scrambling up the main and mizzen — oh — she's listing already!" He fairly hurled the telescope at his assistant. "Look while you can, Lucius. She's going down."

New lanterns were quickly lit on other ships in the enemy squadron. They heard faint yells through speaking trumpets. The steam warship nearest the sinking vessel put down lifeboats while men from the Sumter garrison rushed out of their quarters, clamoring to know what Confederate battery had fired and mortally wounded the steam sloop.

"None," said Cooper. "She was sunk by our submersible boat, Hunley."

"You mean that coffin ship from Sullivan's Island?" "She no longer deserves that reputation. Lieutenant Dixon and his crew will be decorated as heroes."

But they were slow to return. At eleven o'clock, Cooper and Lucius rowed back to the pier and kept a vigil that grew colder and grimmer by the hour. At six in the morning, Cooper said, "Let's go back to Charleston."

A haunted man, he trudged up Tradd Street and let himself into the house. No one in the city knew anything about the sinking of Housatonic, only that an explosion had occurred on one of the blockade vessels. Of the submersible there was no trace.

A few days later, following the capture of a Union picket boat, Cooper was able to confirm for General Beauregard that Housatonic had indeed gone down. He was disappointed to learn she had lost only five hands, thanks to the quick arrival of rescue boats.

"Two less than the number aboard Hunley." he said to Lucius.

In the next few days, Cooper drank large amounts of whiskey and gin, hoping to induce heavy sleep. It refused to come. Every night he roamed the house or sat in a high-backed white-painted wicker chair, staring through the window at the garden drenched by winter rain. Of the garden he saw nothing. He saw instead his drowning son. Dixon's brave face just before Hunley sailed at sunset. Strangest of all, he saw the darkness that had surrounded him inside the fish-ship during the test. He saw it, smelled it, tasted it, too, knowing fully, painfully, how Dixon and the rest felt as they died. During these reveries he heard the great bells from the steeple of St. Michael's Church, though the ringing never seemed to coincide with the quarter-hours. All the clocks in the house were set wrong, he decided.

One night, nearly as exhausted as her husband by now, Judith brought a lamp to the room with the white wicker chair.

"Cooper, this can't continue — sitting up, never resting."

"Why should I go to bed? I can't sleep. The night of the seventeenth of February was a milestone in naval warfare. I try to find peace in that thought, and I can't."

"Because you —" She stopped.

"I know what you started to say. I am responsible for that milestone. I wanted it so badly I killed seven men."

She turned her back, unable to withstand his glare. He was right, though. She whispered to herself as much as to him, "You should have left her to rust. But you didn't, and I wouldn't have wished harm on any of those poor boys, but I'm glad Hunley's gone. God forgive me. I'm glad. Perhaps it will finally purge some of the madness that torments you —"

His head jerked up. "What a peculiar choice of words — madness. I performed my duties to the best of my ability, that's all. I did my work. And there's more, much more, waiting. I will do it in the same way."

"Then nothing's changed. I had hoped —"

"What could possibly change?"

She raised her voice. "Won't you even let me finish a sentence?"

"To what purpose? I ask you again, Judith. What could possibly change?"

"You're so full of this awful rage —"

"More than ever. Poor Dixon's life must be paid for, and the life of every man who went down with him." His lips turned white. "Paid for ten times over."

The shudder of her arm rattled the lamp in her hand. "Cooper, when will you understand? The South can't win this war. It cannot."

"I refuse to debate the —"

"Listen to me! This — dedication to slaughter — it's destroying you. It's destroying us."

He turned his head, stiff and silent.

"Cooper?"

No movement. Nothing.

She shook her head and carried her lamp away, leaving him glaring at the rainy garden, the fury on his face digging lines so deep they were becoming permanent.

Passing the head of the stairs, Tim Wann noticed the motionless figure on the landing below. Tim looked a second time to be sure.

"Billy?"

The emaciated prisoner raised his head. Tim saw new streaks of white in the untrimmed hair. "Billy!" With a whoop and a slap of his leg, he bounded down to his friend, who supported himself with a padded crutch under his arm. "You're all right!"

"Well enough to come back to our splendid quarters. There are still some ribs healing, and I'm not steady on my feet — you talk too loudly, you're liable to blow me over. I'm a little slow getting around. It's taken me ten minutes to come from the ground floor."

"Someone should have helped you."

"I guess Turner doesn't believe in coddling his guests. You can help me the rest of the way if you want."

Tim slid his arm around Billy, who put his across the shoulders of the young soldier. Thus they reached their room, where Billy was greeted by exclamations of surprise and shouts of welcome. Even one of the daytime guards said he was happy Billy had pulled through.

A lieutenant thoughtlessly slapped Billy on the back. Billy made a desperate stab with his crutch and prevented a fall. "Jesus, Hazard — I'm sorry," the lieutenant said.

" 'S all right." Sweat showed in Billy's beard suddenly. "I need to sit down. Someone give me a hand —?"

Tim did. Others crowded around. Billy asked, "Is it still February? I lost track downstairs."

"It's the first of March," a man said. "They've doubled the guard force outside. There's a column of our cavalry north of Richmond — practically on the doorsill. Three or four thousand horse. The rebs fear they've come to free us and raze the city." "Do you know about the escape?" someone else asked. Billy shook his head, and heard about it. More than forty of the prisoners involved had been recaptured; but the rest, presumably, were on their way back to federal lines or already across. He learned next that Vesey, demoted to private, had been transferred to less comfortable duty outside one of the main doors.

They asked questions about his treatment downstairs, how he had gotten hurt. He answered each question with silence or a shake of his head. When he said he needed to visit the lavatory, Tim and another soldier lent a hand.

After Billy gained his feet, Tim said: "It was Vesey, wasn't it? Vesey tortured you and that's why he was demoted and tossed outside. That's right, isn't it?"

Billy's silence was already a matter of pride with him. "Never mind," he said. "I know who did it, and if I get a chance, I'll settle with him."

He wobbled on the crutch, pale and too feeble to settle much of anything. Tim and the other man exchanged looks. Tim had kept Billy's improvised journal safe. That night, while distant cannon fire reverberated through Libby, Billy wrote with the pencil stub.

94

Stanley found it increasingly hard to accept and deal with all the changes in his life. Pennyford continued to send monthly reports of the enormous profits earned by Lashbrook's. Stanley read each with disbelief. The figures could not possibly be real. If they were, no man deserved such wealth. Certainly he didn't.

He found it hard to cope with the swift flow of public events as well. Weariness with the war now infected the entire North, the President having hastened the process with his proclamation of amnesty and reconstruction, announced last December. Lincoln proposed to pardon all rebels except the highest government officials and former army and navy officers who had defected.

The plan was not harsh enough to suit Wade and Stevens and their crowd, therefore not harsh enough for Stanley either. But what other kind of plan could one expect from a negrophile half mad from perpetual sleeplessness and depression? Instead of thinking rigorously about the enemy and the postwar period, Lincoln busied himself with trivialities, pious orations at cemetery dedications and the like. At Gettysburg last November he had delivered himself of one such anthology of homilies, to the monumental boredom of the crowd.

Because of his increasingly pro-Negro position and his failure to bring the war to a successful end, Lincoln was a detested man. The capital seethed with rumors of plots to kidnap or murder him. Stanley heard a new one approximately once a week.

Further, influential Republicans believed the President had done the party great harm by insisting on a new draft of half a million men on the first of February. There would be a call for an additional one or two hundred thousand by mid-March, Stanton had confided. Humans were being ground up like sausage meat in a butcher shop because the generals couldn't win. Thomas had held fast at Chickamauga last autumn — the Rock, the rabble quickly named him — but the engagement itself had been disastrous, redeemed only slightly when Bragg's army was driven from Chattanooga into Georgia in November. Now, flogged to almost insane desperation, Congress had reactivated the grade of lieutenant general and bestowed it on a man Lincoln had chosen — that drunkard, Unconditional Surrender Grant. As general-in-chief, he would soon take charge in the Eastern theater; Old Brains had been demoted to chief of staff.

None of that would save the President, Stanley felt. Lincoln would lose the fall election — no cause for grief there. But the number of Republicans he could drag along to defeat frightened Stanley and his friends.

Increasingly, Stanley felt a desire to leave Washington. He still relished the power that went with his job. But he wasn't comfortable with the philosophies and programs of those with whom he had allied himself in order to survive the Cameron purge. In January, the Senate had proposed a constitutional amendment to abolish slavery — in Stanley's view, far too radical a step, taken too hastily. Too many Negroes were already free and out of hand. Everywhere you looked in the city, black soldiers and freedmen postured and paraded, swollen with new self-importance.

One morning Stanley was summoned by the secretary only moments after arriving at his desk. Stanley's cravat was askew, his hair rumpled, his appearance wild-eyed. Stanton noticed.

"What the devil's biting you?" he asked, brushing the under­side of his scented beard. Before leaving home, Stanley had taken some swallows of whiskey on the sly. They loosened his tongue.

"Walking here on the avenue, I had an unbelievable experience. Unbelievable — disgusting — I scarcely know the proper word, it shook me so. I came face to face with seven freedmen who forced me to step into the street to get around them. They would not give me room on the walk!"

The whiskey lent him courage to ignore Stanton's sudden scowl. "I realize they have been downtrodden people, sir. But now they presume too much. They strut about with all the boldness of white men."

Through the little round spectacles, Stanton peered at his assistant. The patient air of the teacher replaced the anger of the zealot. "You must get used to it, Stanley. Like it or not, that's the way it will be henceforth. As Saint Paul wrote to the Corinthians, 'For the trumpet shall sound — and we shall be changed.' "

Not I, Stanley thought, still seething when he and the secretary concluded their business and he left. Not I, Mr. Stanton.

Yet he knew he swam against a flooding tide. When his part of the office was temporarily deserted, he unlocked a bottom drawer and pulled out a bottle of bourbon. He had slipped the first bottle into the drawer on the first business day of the new year; this was the third replacement.

A swift look at his surroundings. Safe. Moted sunlight flashed from the bottle as he tilted it. The loudly ticking clock showed twenty before ten.

The thunder blow — "Missing in action" — had fallen on the Hazards late last year. In mid-February, George finally learned something definite about Billy's fate, and with mingled relief and reluctance telegraphed Lehigh Station: YOUR HUSBAND SHOWN ON LATEST ROSTER LIBBY PRISON RICHMOND.

Brett packed the instant she got the news and took the first available train for Washington. When she arrived at the house in Georgetown — thinner now; nervous from months of anxiety — her first question was "What can we do?"

"Officially, the answer is very little," George said. "The mills of the exchange system have nearly ceased to grind. Too much bad feeling on both sides. Each receives reports of the other starving and mistreating prisoners. The War Department's furious because the rebs won't follow protocol when they capture men from Negro regiments. They treat them as runaways and ship them back to slavery. White officers commanding Negro units are threatened with flogging or hanging. It's all gotten very nasty."

Brett flared. "You're right, that isn't much of an answer."

"Did you hear me precede it with the word officially?" George retorted. "I do have another suggestion."

Constance stepped behind his chair, reached down, and gently kneaded his shoulders. He was sleeping poorly these days, worrying about his brother and about his transfer to military railroads. It had not come through.

Brett was waiting. He cleared his throat. "In his post in the Richmond War Department, Orry may be able to help us. Old Winder has direct responsibility for Libby and Belle Isle and the rest of those —" he caught himself before saying hellholes "— places. But Seddon oversees Winder. And Orry works for Seddon."

Constance, eagerly: "You think Orry might be able to arrange Billy's release?"

"He's in the central government, and I'm sure he took an oath to serve loyally. I wouldn't ask him to break it. Even more important than that, he's my best friend. I would never risk endangering him by asking him to intervene directly."

Brett struck her skirt with her fist. "Billy's your own brother!"

"And Orry's yours. Be so kind as to let me finish, will you?" George jerked away from his wife's hand, rose, and paced from the breakfast table. "I can ask Orry to find out all he can about Billy's condition, and exactly where he is in Libby." "How will you do that?" Constance asked, skeptical. George looked at her. "By doing what he did when he wrote me last year. Break the law."

Out of uniform and wearing a dark overcoat, he rode south through a mid-March snowfall two nights later. He reached Port Tobacco after eight and paid the sly, toothless man who was waiting for him the sum of twenty dollars, gold. He gave the man a letter addressed to Orry, and a warning.

"You must give this to Colonel Main without drawing attention to him or to the act of delivery."

"Don't fret, Major Hazard. It'll be done just that way. I deliver secret mail into offices all around Capitol Square. You'd be astonished at how many."

And with the wink of the experienced profiteer, he slipped out the tavern's back door into the blowing snow.

Grant had come to Washington at the first of the month. His hard hand was already being felt. A huge campaign would start in the spring, perhaps the final one. Fewer men would be exchanged because slowing paroles or stopping them entirely hurt the South more than it hurt the North.

Meantime, George and Brett and Constance waited. George had said nothing to Stanley about the illegal letter. When informed of Billy's capture last fall, Stanley had expressed only perfunctory sorrow.

George seldom saw his older brother these days. The war had transformed Stanley into a man of enormous personal wealth and a degree of importance in the radical Republican faction. It had also transformed him, incomprehensibly, into a person almost constantly under the influence of spirits. Stanley would have been dismissed, literally and otherwise, as a mere drunkard had he not been rich. Instead, he was tolerated by most and avoided by some, George being among the latter.

George had given up on Virgilia in much the same way. He had sent a letter to her hospital at Aquia Creek, reporting Billy's capture. She didn't reply. Fearing the chaos of the mails, he wrote again. The second time, he decided the silence was deliberate.

As spring drew closer, one of George's worries was relieved. He received orders to report for duty with the Military Railroad Construction Corps on the first of the month.

"I'll be working for old McCallum of the Erie instead of Herman, but at least it's field duty. No more contracts, crazed inventors, water-walkers — Winder Building!" He gave Constance a hug as they lay in bed the night he got the news. He felt her shiver, quickly added, "Don't fret over this. I'll be in no danger."

"Of course you'll be in danger," she said, a certain rare note in her voice, which told him something unusual was happening. He touched her cheek and found it damp.

She took the hand in hers. "But I shall pack up our things, dutifully return to Lehigh Station, and try to pretend otherwise."

Taking him by surprise, she shifted his hand to her breast and pressed it there. "If you'd make love to me, I might be able to sleep tonight."

He laughed softly, nuzzled her neck. "A pleasure, dear lady."

"Portly as I am?"

"Portly is in the eye of the beholder. If you call yourself portly, then portly's perfect."

"Oh, George — you are such a dear man. You can be obstinate. You're short-tempered. Sometimes even a bit vain. And it's impossible for me not to love you."

"Wait now — just a minute —" During the last part of her affectionate little speech, he had done a great lot of rolling and thrashing and flinging of bedclothes, propping himself at last on one elbow. "Since when do I deserve to be called vain?"

"You know as well as I that age is affecting your eyesight. Every evening I watch you bring the Star so close to your nose you almost poke a hole in the paper. But you won't admit you need spectacles — George, don't snort or harrumph like Stanley. What I said was all part of paying you a compliment. Heaven knows neither of us is perfect, but I was clumsily trying to say you could have a thousand faults instead of your one or two, and I'd still love you."

He cleared his throat, paused, then did it again. She could hear the smile in his voice as he relaxed and reached for her waist, drawing her in.

"Well," he said, "you'd better. And right away, too."

George exploded when the toothless man showed up in the Winder Building next morning.

"Good God, what possessed you to come here?" He shoved the courier toward the stairs, past the usual collection of contract-seekers and saviors of the Union who continued to treat the department as a second home.

" 'Cause I thought you'd want this right away." The man dangled a soiled and wrinkled envelope in front of his client. "It was waiting at the Richmond drop day 'fore yesterday."

"Not so loud," George whispered, scarlet. A brigadier coming upstairs cast a distrustful eye on the scruffy visitor. "I suppose you also brought it here expecting extra pay."

"Yessir, that did enter my mind. That's what this yere war's all about, ain't it? A chance for the enterprising fellow to make himself comfortable for the future —"

"Get out of here," George said, jamming bills in the courier's hand.

"Hey, these are greenbacks. I only take —"

"It's those or nothing." Snatching Orry's letter, he rushed back to his office.

He didn't dare read it there. Allowing time for the courier to leave the building, George put on his hat and escaped to Willard's. Seated at a rear table with beer he didn't want, he opened the letter. His hands shook.

Stump, it began. No names this time, except the old ones from the Academy. Orry was smart as ever, George thought, embarrassing tears in his eyes for a moment. He wiped them away and read on.

Emotionally shattered by what he was reading, George gulped the beer he didn't want. Flashing images in his head brought back the fiery night in April '61. The ruined house. The charred and swollen bodies. The harm beyond hope of repair. The fear was crawling in him again. Some moments passed before he had the courage to complete the letter.

"An effort will be made." Brett clasped the letter between her breasts. "Oh, George, there it is, in Orry's own hand. An effort will be made!"

"Provided he can find Charles. He warns it will take a while."

Her face fell. "I don't know how I'll survive till we hear something."

"If Orry can stand the risk, you can stand the wait," George said, severe as a father chastising a thoughtless child. He had a premonition that it would be a very long time indeed before they heard anything. He prayed that if word did come, it would not be tragic.

95

George kissed his children after delivering a short lecture on how they must behave while he was gone. Then he embraced Constance, who struggled to contain tears. She presented him with a dried sprig of mountain laurel obviously pressed in a book. He kissed her once more, tenderly, by way of thanks. Then he slipped the sprig in his pocket, pulled on his talma, promised he would write soon, and went out to find transportation to Alexandria.

The day was gray and warm. A downpour started as the work train chugged to Long Bridge, which was wide enough to accommodate tracks and a parallel roadway for wagon and foot traffic. Pickets near a sign reading walk your horse waved at George on the rear platform of the caboose. He had chosen to ride there because the interior was stifling.

He touched fingers to his hat to return the greeting, then seized the handgrip and leaned into the rain to look ahead to green hills and the solid brick homes of the riverside town. Forsythia and daffodils, azaleas and apple blossoms colored the somber day. That was Virginia. That was the war. Memory showed him lurid images of Mexico and Manassas and the foreman's burning house. He was still glad to be going.

After searching nearly an hour, he located Colonel Daniel McCallum, Haupt's replacement, in the steamy O&A roundhouse. McCallum, a Scot with a fine reputation as a railway manager, had a fan-shaped beard of the kind common among senior officers. He also struck George as having a bad disposition. George's arrival — the interruption — didn't sit well.

"I've not a lot of time for you," the colonel said, motioning George to follow. They left the busy roundhouse with its great cupola, a local landmark, walked between stacked rails, some of Hazard's, and entered one of the many temporary buildings scattered in the yards. McCallum slammed the door in a way that said much about his frame of mind.

Taking the only chair in the tiny office, he unrolled the pouch containing George's transfer orders and smoothed the papers under rough, big-knuckled hands. He flipped to the second page, the third — too rapidly to be reading. It took no intelligence for George to realize he was unwelcome.

Understandable enough, he supposed; the papers included a letter of recommendation from Haupt. In Washington, it was said that McCallum had intrigued against George's friend, done his utmost to ingratiate himself with Stanton and turn opinion against Haupt so that McCallum would eventually inherit command of the department.

McCallum put the papers in the pouch and handed it back with a slashing motion of his forearm. "You have no practical experience in bridge repair or rail construction, Major. So far as I can determine, your prime qualification for the Construction Corps seems to be your friendship with my predecessor."

George clenched his hand around the pouch, ready to punch the colonel's face. McCallum wrinkled his nose and peered out a small, filthy window. A spring shower was splattering a nearby stack of rails.

Finally he deigned to return his attention to the man standing before him. "General Grant wants the Orange and Alexandria kept open, in good repair, all the way down to Culpeper, his base camp for the spring offensive. It's a tall order because of the Confederate partisans who operate along much of the right of way. The trestle at Bull Run has been rebuilt seven times. What I am saying is, we have not a spare moment for instructing beginners."

"I can swing a pick, Colonel. I can dig with a shovel or pound a spike. No training required." The man offended George because his dislike of Haupt, and therefore Haupt's friends, was not hidden. George wanted no part of such politicking. He wanted to work, and he didn't give a damn if he had to give offense to secure the place to which his orders entitled him.

The rain drummed. A whistle blew, bells rang. McCallum's silence conveyed increasing belligerence. All at once George realized he might be holding a trump or two.

"I know you need officers in the Construction Corps, Colonel. A lot of white men won't command contrabands. I will."

McCallum's sour mouth twitched. "A worthy suggestion, but one our table of organization won't allow, I regret to say. The basic unit of the corps is a ten-man squad. Two such squads are led by one officer. A first lieutenant." The twitch became a smirk. "You are too well educated, laddie —"

George recognized a jibe at the Academy when he heard one. This time he really had to fight the impulse to hit the old bastard.

"— too qualified, if you see what I mean. Have you considered applying for staff duty with General Grant?"

George showed his highest card. "I attended West Point with Sam Grant. I campaigned with him from Vera Cruz to Mexico City. Maybe I should apply to him to straighten out this mess." He shook the pouch. "I was granted a transfer to the military railroads, and now I find I'm refused."

In seconds, McCallum turned gray as the weather. "Nae, nae — there's no need to involve higher-ups in this. No problem's insurmountable. The rules can be bent a wee bit. We can find you a place —"

Seeing George mollified, the older man studied him in a sly way. "If you are indeed willing to lead colored men."

"That's what I said, Colonel. I am."

Twenty-four hours later, in the mustering area, George met his two squads and began to question the certainty with which he had spoken. Tense, he inspected the Negroes while they inspected him. If his scrutiny reflected interest and curiosity, theirs was suspicious. In a few cases, hostile.

They were no more varied, physically, than any randomly gathered group of men except, George quickly observed, in one way: all but one of the blacks were taller than George.

He had dressed for this meeting with special care, though the effect was the opposite. His outfit consisted of old corduroy trousers, non-regulation, stuffed into muddy boots, and a short fatigue jacket of summer-weight linen. He wore no insignia except a turreted-castle-and-wreath device pinned at a careless angle on the stubby collar of the jacket. The silver metal of the device showed he was an officer, but that was all.

At that, he looked better than his men, most of whom were dressed for duty, not show. Their pants were as assorted as their faces, but all had regulation army pullover work shirts without cuffs. At the long-vanished moment of manufacture, the cotton flannel shirts had been white. Three men wore shoes whose uppers had separated front the soles. Products of Stanley's factory, perhaps?

Preparing to address the men, George clasped his hands behind his back and unconsciously raised on tiptoes. Someone caught that and chuckled. George spoke at once, loudly.

"My name is Hazard. I have just transferred to the Construction Corps. Henceforward, you men will be working for me."

"No, sir," said the one Negro shorter than George, a dusky mite with wrists no thicker than saplings. "I'm takin' orders from you, but I'm workin' for me."

The quickness amused George, but he felt he shouldn't show it. "Let me see if I understand. Are you saying you're a free man, therefore this duty is your choice?"

The dusky man grinned. "You're pretty smart — for a white boss."

Laughter. George couldn't help joining in. His tension broke. These men would be all right.

96

Burdetta Halloran had carried her investigation as far as she could. Now she must involve the authorities. But to whom should she give her information?

The question stayed with her, unanswered, during the frightening raid conducted by two bodies of Union horse, led by Brigadier Judson Kilpatrick and Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, son of the Yankee admiral of the same name. Kilpatrick's men had ridden to within two and a half miles of Capitol Square before home guards under Bob Lee's boy Custis drove them back, with assistance from Wade Hampton.

The second attacking force, five hundred horse commanded by Dahlgren, approached Richmond through Goochland County. After Dahlgren died from enemy fire, a thirteen-year-old boy found orders and a memorandum book on the body. The documents, in Dahlgren's handwriting, outlined the purposes of the raid.

The Confederate capital, which had reeled with fright at the approach of the cavalry, began reeling with rage the moment the contents of Dahlgren's papers were disclosed. The liars in Washington immediately claimed every word a forgery.

During the emergency, there was little outward change in the life of the auburn-haired widow. Burdetta Halloran continued to wage her daily war with escalating prices and the riffraff swarming on the streets and the pervasive certainty that the armies of U.S. Grant would strike at the Confederacy with the onset of warm weather.

Most of all, Mrs. Halloran struggled with the question of greatest emotional importance to her. How to set retribution in motion? If she waited too long and Richmond came under siege, government officials might be too busy to listen to her. The quarry might escape. To whom should she speak?

She was still without an answer when a friend boasted that she had been invited to one of the increasingly rare levees at the White House. Pleading, Mrs. Halloran arranged an invitation for herself. She had by this time rejected the idea of going to the most logical person, old Winder.

She did so for several reasons. He was vile-tempered, with a reputation for being contemptuous of women. His staff consisted mostly of illiterate former criminals. And he acted so harshly and precipitously in many cases that he had a long record of over­turned arrests and thwarted prosecutions. Gossip said he wouldn't last another three months. Mrs. Halloran wanted to deal with some official who could handle her information properly.

On the evening of the levee — late March — more than a hundred people filled the White House. Wearing her finest dark blue velvet — a trifle heavy, but rich-looking — Mrs. Halloran quickly separated herself from her friend in order to circulate.

She took a cup of sassafras tea — she would drink nothing spiritous tonight; she wanted a clear head — and over the rim surveyed the crowd of government officials and senior military men and their wives. A merry crowd, she thought, considering the circumstances. Then she spied Varina Davis.

Only in her late thirties, the President's wife had the worn appearance of a woman twenty years older. Her husband's burdens had become hers. The President himself, gracious as ever with his guests, was, like his spouse, clearly exhausted. Small wonder, Mrs. Halloran thought as she recovered from the shock of seeing the first lady. Davis was under fire on every front. Under fire because he clung to Bragg and rejected Joe Johnston. Under fire because of worthless money and runaway prices. Under fire because his government and his leadership had failed for three years and continued to fail.

Burdetta Halloran tried not to become depressed as she mingled. She kept her mind on her objective.

She joined a group around Secretary Seddon. Grimly, the secretary was describing how he had nearly lost his Goochland County estate to the torch of Dahlgren's raiders. She moved on to plump, suave Benjamin, who had many more listeners than Mr. Seddon.

"I contend that the Confederacy might do well to steal a leaf from Lincoln's book and adopt his program of emancipation in toto."

The reactions — astonishment, anger — did nothing to perturb Benjamin. Up came one cautioning, well-manicured hands as he continued. "It is, I know, a proposition easy to dismiss as radical. But consider: at one stroke we could augment our depleted army with great numbers of Negroes and instantly undercut all the moralizing that has become a way of life for the black Republicans."

"Nigras will never fight for the people who chained them," someone snorted.

Benjamin first replied with a nod and a rueful smile. "That, of course, is the plan's great flaw. In any case, the President has asked that I do not promote my view to the public at large. I comply. I therefore ask you to regard this conversation as private, among close friends. I endeavor to be, always, a good and faithful servant."

One of his plump hands plucked an oyster from a silver bowl and dispatched it down his throat with gusto. You also endeavor to be a survivor, so I hear, Burdetta said to herself, gliding on.

Across the room, she noticed a tall officer, handsome in a gaunt sort of way. He drew the eye because of his empty left sleeve, pinned up at the shoulder.

She approached cautiously. He was making some point about the military situation to three other people, one a handsome woman with the look of a Spaniard or a Creole. The woman clung to the officer's good arm. His wife?

The man impressed her. She glided away again, inquired here and there, and soon got an answer.

"That's Colonel Main, one of Mr. Seddon's assistants. His duties? Various. I don't know all of them, but one is to act as a watchdog on that beast Winder."

Burdetta Halloran beamed. "Thank you so much for the information. Will you excuse me while I exchange this empty cup for a glass of white wine?" The search was over.

She was ushered to Orry's desk in the War Department at half past eleven the following morning. Polite and surprisingly graceful despite his handicap, he positioned the visitor's chair for her. "Kindly be seated, Mrs. — Halloran, I believe you said?"

"Yes, Colonel. Is there somewhere we might speak that is more private? I've come on a matter of extreme gravity which is also highly confidential."

Skepticism flickered in Orry's dark eyes. Despite his good manners, he was tense and had been for two weeks. Each morning he awoke with the hope that today he would glance up from his desk to see Cousin Charles striding in. As soon as he had received the letter from George and gone to Libby to see Billy's condition for himself, he had written Charles, in care of Hampton's command, requesting an urgent meeting.

Of course, when the Yanks, the Kilcavalry, struck, Charles had no doubt been occupied, to say the least. But the emergency was over. At minimum, he could have sent a note. Couriers traveled between Richmond and field headquarters frequently. Did the silence mean Charles was hurt? If so, all the responsibility fell on him —

With some struggle, he wrenched his attention back to Mrs. Halloran's question. "Let me see whether our small conference room is free."

It was. He led her in and shut the door. From her reticule she took a folded paper. Spread out, it proved to be a sketch map of the James River below the city. She had indicated several landmarks and drawn four small squares on the riverbank in the Wilton Bluffs area.

She pointed to the squares. "These represent the buildings of an abandoned farm, Colonel. Abandoned, that is, except by those now conducting business on the premises at night. If you investigate, you will find this farm is the headquarters for a cabal led by a certain Mr. Lamar Hugh Augustus Powell, of Georgia."

Orry tap-tapped his long fingers on the gleaming table. What did this attractive woman want? She had a steely, desperate quality he had detected at once. It showed in her posture, her eyes, her controlled voice.

"Powell," he said. "I believe I've heard the name. Speculator, isn't he?"

"By profession. His avocation is treason."

Quickly, she told the rest. Powell's cabal was gathering and storing weapons at the Wilton Bluffs farm. With her nail she touched the rectangle immediately next to the line representing the bluff. "This is the shed that once housed implements. On this side it's a sheer drop, a long one, down to the James. But the shed may be approached safely through this field to the north. Or possibly —"

"Wait, please. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but before we go on, you must tell me the purpose of the cabal. There's nothing illegal about owning and storing weapons, especially if the purpose is home defense."

"The purpose," she said, "is to assassinate President Davis and one or more senior members of the cabinet."

In that deliberate way of his, Orry remained motionless to let his thoughts catch up. After his astonishment passed, he didn't laugh. Didn't even feel like it. "Mrs. Halloran — with all respect for the patriotic impulse that brought you here — do you have any concept of how many reports of threats against the life of Mr. Davis reach these offices every week? One or two — at minimum. Many weeks, the number is much higher."

"I can't help that. My information is correct. If you search this building I'm showing you, I guarantee you will discover rifles, revolvers, infernal devices —"

"Bombs?" That rattled him; it wasn't typical. "What type? How are they to be used?"

"I can't answer either question — I don't know. But I assure you there are explosive devices on the property. Stage a raid; you'll find them. You may even find the plotters. They meet frequently."

"How soon is this attempt to be carried out?"

"I've been unable to learn that."

"All right, then how did you come by the information you do possess?"

The steel was impregnable. He saw it even before she said, "It's impossible for me to tell you that. My refusal involves matters of trust. Promises made —"

"Obviously your inquiry must have taken a great deal of time —"

"Months."

"And determination."

"I am a patriot, Colonel Main."

Somehow he doubted the assertion. Again he said nothing. The attractive Mrs. Halloran struck him as one of those people who had a tightly guarded inner place where true opinions, motives, methods were carefully hidden and permanently unreachable. In that respect, she reminded him of Ashton.

He cleared his throat before resuming. "I don't doubt you for a moment. Nevertheless, it would be extremely helpful if I had some idea of how you came by your information."

"I gathered much of it myself. A person I trust helped with other pieces — actual observation of the farm at night, for example. That is the most I can say. Why do such details matter? What counts the most is the plan. The threat!"

"Agreed. Please allow me another question."

Curiously, the sudden masked look of her eyes reminded him of someone he hadn't thought of in a long time: Elkanah Bent. "All right."

"Didn't it occur to you that the provost marshal is the logical man to hear what you've just told me? Oh, but perhaps you've already —"

"No." She made a face, as if she had bitten into spoiled meat. "I have never met General Winder, but I despise him, like any right-thinking citizen. The civilian population can't find enough food, yet he persists with his ridiculous price decrees that anger the farmers and make the situation worse. I would never deal with a man who's done as much to harm our cause as any general on the other side."

On that point, anyway, Mrs. Halloran had a lot of company. She sounded convincing. His fingers tap-tapped the table. Beyond the closed door, war clerk Jones complained about some error in paperwork.

"Is there anything else?"

"No more facts, Colonel. Only this: I promise that if you investigate, you'll find every word is true. If you fail to investigate — dismiss what I've said, for whatever reason — the death of the President will be on your conscience."

"That's a heavy burden." He sounded unfriendly for the first time.

"Yours now, Colonel. Good day."

"Just a moment."

The command caught her half risen from the chair. "We're not finished. I will take you to one of my clerks. You'll give him your full name, place of residence, and other pertinent information. That is routine with everyone who aids the War Department."

Burdetta Halloran's tension melted under a flood of relief and joy. Main's long, furrowed face, his patient manner — above all, his anger when she tweaked his conscience, and his subsequent display of strength — told her something important. Her intelligence and judgment were all she believed them to be. He was precisely the right man.

She smiled. "Thank you, Colonel. I'll cooperate to the full, so long as I can remain anonymous."

"I'll do my best to respect your wish, but I make no promises."

She hesitated. Thought of Powell. Murmured, "I understand. I agree to the terms. What will you do first?"

"That, I'm not free to say. But I assure you of one thing. The statements you've made won't be ignored."

She saw the iron wall drop in his eyes and knew it was useless to argue or ask more questions. No matter. She had set the machine in motion. Powell was finished.

"Of course I said her statements wouldn't be ignored," he explained to Madeline that night. "What else could I tell someone pretending to be sincere?"

Madeline caught the significance of the word pretending. He went on. "I didn't inform her of the next step because I was damned if I knew what it should be. I still don't. One thing I told her was correct. Reports of assassination schemes are common. Yet this one — How can I properly explain why it feels different? Not because the woman impressed me. I think she's out to get someone. Powell, probably. What bothers me is one question: Why should she invent so many concrete details when it's obvious that an hour's investigation can prove them false? Is she stupid? No. Telling the story may be her way of getting revenge. But maybe the story's also true."

"Powell," Madeline repeated. "The same Powell who was Ashton's investment partner?"

"That's the one."

"If there's a plot, could she be involved?"

Orry reflected only a moment. "No, I don't think so. Ashton isn't precisely a zealot about the cause. Beyond that, it's my impression that those who try to change history by killing someone are afflicted with several kinds of lunacy. Condoning murder — being willing to do the deed — that's one, and the most obvious. Another, slightly less obvious, is lack of concern about personal consequences. Ashton never heard of self-sacrifice, or if she did, she laughed. Ashton cares for Ashton. I could believe that James would risk himself in some crazy political scheme, but not my sister."

She nodded. "Does anything else bother you?"

"Yes. The woman's refusal to go to Winder. It was perfect — and perfectly performed. Yet Winder's precisely the man who should be told first. He'd arrest Powell, lock him up, then look into the charges. Instead of doing that, Mrs. Halloran came to the War Department — surely knowing we'd be more deliberate than the provost, though ultimately, if we built a case, it would stand up. Winder's often don't. What I'm saying is, I think she wants results more than she wants quick revenge. Wants them and knows they can be gotten. That bothers me — that and those damn details. We hear of plot after plot, but seldom do we get specifics. Here we have the very center of the cabal pinpointed. She drew the map, which I locked in my desk. One last detail disturbs me most of all."

"What is it?"

"Bombs. It's the first time I've heard infernal devices mentioned in connection with assassination. Knives, pistols, yes. But not bombs."

Raising his hand, Orry slowly squeezed space between thumb and forefinger. "It's the kind of tiny detail that sets my teeth rattling — with or without that prod about bearing the guilt if I do nothing and something happens."

"Will you go to the secretary?"

"Not yet. Nor Winder either. But I may take a ride down the river alone some evening soon."

She knelt at his side, rested her cheek on his right sleeve. "It could be dangerous if you do."

"But disastrous if I don't."

97

"And then —"

Charles interrupted the tale to puff his cigar, down to a stub now. The smell grew as the length decreased.

Gus could barely tolerate the smoke. She shifted sideways, away from his bare hip, and pulled the light cover higher on her stomach. The cigar's glow faded, the pale plane of Charles's chest disappeared in the dark.

Though she wouldn't have admitted it, when he failed to say something about her pulling away — didn't even reach for her hand — it was a hurt. Small, but there were so many of them recently. They devastated her. She no longer had the ability to armor herself with words. Once she had lowered the defense, she couldn't seem to raise it again.

"— Hugh Scott and Dan and I slid some logs into the river. We hung onto them and paddled across. The water was cold as sin, and the dark made it worse." He was speaking quietly, reflectively — almost as if he were alone with his thoughts. Which in a sense was not far from the truth.

For most of the winter, he had bivouacked at Hamilton's Crossing. It was no great distance from the farm, but that didn't mean she saw him more often. He was away on duty most of the time. Tonight, as usual, his arrival had taken her by surprise. He rode up just after dark, wolfed the supper she prepared quickly, then grabbed her hand and led her to bed with the same brusqueness he had exhibited at the table. Scarcely a trace of his old politeness remained, though that wasn't the serious issue. The war had wrought a change, and the change had beaten many things out of him, manners being but one.

He was describing events at the time of last month's Richmond raid. She prompted him to go on by saying, "You crossed the river toward the enemy?"

"That's usually how it works when you're a scout. You've been around me long enough to know that much."

"Do forgive my lapse of memory."

Instantly, she regretted the bitterness. The regret was wasted. He just hitched his body higher against the creaky headboard and turned his face away, toward the open window and the slow, stately dance of moonlit curtains. The April night smelled of the earth Washington and Boz had plowed that day. In the pasture behind the barn, where rain had created small ponds in low places, bullfrogs honked.

"We did a lot more than swim the Rappahannock that night —" The memory brought a chuckle, which pleased and relieved her; she hadn't heard him laugh in quite a while. "We went on, soaked through, till we found the Yankee column. It was Kilpatrick, all right. We hid out until we could snag three of his spare horses as they went by. We mounted and rode along for a while, bareback."

"In the middle of the Union cavalry?"

"No one noticed in the dark. And it was easier for us to count noses while we were right among 'em. We even forded the river with General Kilpatrick and his boys. I wish we could have shot some of the sons of bitches, but we had to carry our information back to division. So, south of the river, we split away — the dumb sods didn't notice that, either. We rode like fury, and that's the reason General Hampton was waiting when Little Kil showed up."

She wanted to soothe the hardness from his voice. "That is quite a story," she said, patting his bare arm.

Instantly, he rolled away, lifted the curtain, and flipped the cigar butt into the side yard. An Indian cobra of smoke formed in the moonlight. "Got a few more —" a great loud yawn "— but I'll save them for morning."

He pulled up the cover, pecked her cheek, rolled onto his left side, and within half a minute started to snore.

The curtains leaped and fell back, partners in a moonlit quadrille. Gus pushed the back of her head deeper into the bolster and once again tugged the cover higher, to warm her breasts. She rubbed her right cheek, surprised and angered by what she felt.

I think he's done with me, and I don't know why. I think he wants to end it and hasn't the courage to say so.

The change, whose causes she understood only in a general way, was poisoning every part of their relationship. His love-making had been drained of tenderness; he thrust hard and hastily all the time, with few kisses and no spoken endearments. What was she to do? There were no alternatives. She couldn't stop what was happening to him or stop loving him either.

Facing that quandary and the growing feeling that they were finished, she had been sleepless many a night lately. This promised to be another such night. "Oh God," she said very faintly, continuing to cry in silence.

Later, she opened her eyes and realized she must have slept after all. Freezing there beside him, she burrowed under the cover and called herself a ninny for her earlier behavior. "Oh, God." The tears. The despair.

She had always prided herself on strength, self-sufficiency. And merely because she had lowered her defenses and thereby gotten her emotions trampled, she needn't let it continue. She did love Charles, but if the price of it was perpetual misery, she refused to pay. The wrenchings of the war wouldn't stop — at least not soon enough — so it was up to her to force him to his senses.

He needed a shock. A dose of strong medicine. She would give it to him in the morning. Feeling secure again, she fell asleep.

He had others things on his mind in the morning. He strode into the kitchen soon after sunrise, tucking in his gray shirt and pulling up his galluses. She had scarcely offered her greeting before he announced, "I meant to say my piece about Richmond last night. Any day now —"

"There will be more fighting. You must think I'm an idiot, Charles, always needing instructions from the all-knowing male. I realize the Union forces are at Culpeper Court House and they'll march soon — this way, undoubtedly. But you aren't going to decide when I must look for shelter in the city." She struck her wooden spoon on the edge of the stove, where grits were simmering. "I will decide."

His face grew long above his white-spiked beard. He hooked a stool with his boot, pulled it from under the table, and lit a fresh cigar as he sat down. "What in hell's got into you?"

She threw the spoon on the stove and marched toward him. "A strong desire to settle some things. If you care for me, act like it. I'm tired of your clomping in here whenever you take a notion. Helping yourself to a meal and — whatever else you want, and grumbling and growling like a boor the whole time."

He drew the smoldering cigar from his mouth. "Having me around doesn't suit you, Mrs. Barclay?"

"Don't glare and sneer at me. You treat me like a combination cook, laundress, and whore."

He jumped up. "In the middle of a war, people don't have time for all the little niceties."

"In this house they do, Charles Main. Otherwise they don't set foot in it. Every time you're here, you act as if you'd rather be somewhere else. If that's true, say so and let's be done with it. Believe me —" no, don't, said a voice she ignored "— in the state you're in, you're no prize."

In the side yard, her rooster chased two cackling hens. Boz, chopping wood, sang "Kingdom Coming" with la-la's instead of words. Charles stared at Gus, his eyes wide above the dark half-circles that had been there since he came back from Pennsylvania last summer. Suddenly, she saw a startled innocence in his gaze.

Elated, she didn't dare smile. But she had gotten through. Now they could talk. Work it out. Save —

Fierce knocking. Washington on the kitchen stoop.

"Man on horseback jus' turned in. Comin' around back right now."

Hoofbeats and the jingle of metal sounded outside. Charles grabbed for his gun belt hanging on a chair, jerked out the six-shot Colt. He was crouching when the horseman's round face and flop hat passed the side windows.

Charles stood, hung the gun belt over his shoulder, and opened the kitchen door. "What are you doing here, Jim?"

"Hate to roust you out, Charlie, but this here letter come for you 'bout ten o'clock last night. Morning, Miz Barclay." Jim Pickles touched his hat with the crumpled missive, which he then handed to Charles.

"Good morning, Jim." Gus slowly wiped one hand on her apron, then the other. The chance was lost.

Jim pointed to the letter. "Says War Department on it. Personal an' confidential. Mighty fancy."

"Looks like it's been buried under six feet of dirt."

"Well, pretty near. Man who brung it said it was in a bunch of letters an' dispatches somebody come across in the woods near Atlee's Station. They found the courier shot dead — been there some time, I guess — an' his pouch open an' this an' a lot of other stuff strewn about. Mebbe Kilpatrick's sojers did it. Anyway, the letter's been a while in root, as the saying goes."

To Gus, Charles said, "Atlee's Station in the place General Hampton and three hundred of us bushwhacked Kilpatrick on the first of March. We yelled so loud, we made 'em think we were three thousand —"

He was breaking the seals, unfolding the sheet. His beard lifted in the morning breeze. "You're right, Jim; it was written in February. It's from my Cousin Orry, the colonel."

Stunned, he read on. Then he gave Gus the letter. Consisting of one long paragraph, it was inscribed in a fine hand, with all the proper loops and flourishes. As she finished reading, Charles said to Jim, "Billy Hazard is in Libby Prison. Half dead, according to that."

"You talkin' about some Yank?"

"My old friend from West Point. I've told you about him."

"Oh, yeh," said the younger scout, unimpressed. "What are you s'posed to do about it?"

"Go see Orry in Richmond right away. I'll get my gear."

Starting back into the kitchen, Charles had a thought. He turned and pointed at Jim. "And you forget what I just said, understand? You never heard a word."

The swift clump of his boots faded inside. Jim Pickles dismounted, stretched in the sunshine, scratched his armpit, as cardinals swooped in and out of the budding red oaks at the front of the property.

"So Charlie's goin' to Richmond, hah? I s'pect he can get away, all right. Things are still pretty quiet. Guess it's the old calm before the storm. General Hampton's back home in Columbia, tryin' to muster three new regiments so Butler an' some of the old hands will get a little relief. Say, Miz Barclay, may I show you something?"

Reluctantly, she turned her gaze from an empty kitchen. "Surely, Jim."

From the pocket of his butternut shirt he took a small, square case of cheap yellow metal. "Mighty proud of this. Came two days ago. My sisters got together an' paid for it." He opened the case on an oval ambrotype of an unsmiling middle-aged woman wearing a black dress. Her face looked like something made from granite, with very little of the granite block removed.

"That's my ma," he said proudly. "Fine likeness, too. She's raised us kids since Pa died. I was only four when he went out shootin' deer with a bunch of boys an' got his leg blowed off. He only lasted two weeks. Ma ain't been in the best of health the last year or so. Worries me. I love her better than any person in this world, an' I ain't ashamed to say it. I'd walk through fire if it'd please her."

"That's commendable, Jim," Gus said, returning the case.

Charles appeared with his hat, patched jacket, and the little cloth bag in which he kept his razor and cigars. He squeezed her arm gently, gave her cheek a peck.

"You mind what I told you about Richmond."

Unhappy because the chance to set things straight had slipped away, she burst out, "I'm not one of your recruits to be ordered about. I told you, I'll make my own decision."

The fiery sunrise filled his eyes. "All right. We'll settle this whole mess next time." It was less plea than warning. She folded her arms over her bosom.

"If I'm here."

"My God, you've got a vinegar tongue this morning."

"So have you. And I'm astonished by your tender concern for your Yankee friend. I thought you wanted to kill every last man on the other side."

"I'll only go to Richmond because it's Orry who's asking. That enough explanation for you? Come on, Jim, let's get my horse."

She stormed inside and kicked the door shut. When she heard the flurry of hoofs at the side of the house, she didn't leave the stove or raise her hand. The grits were burned. Ruined.

As the sounds grew faint, she ran to the side window, the tears born of failure coming again. She strained and squinted, but she could see nothing but dust where the Fredericksburg road vanished into the greening countryside.

Halfway to the capital, a pass in his pocket, Charles rested Sport beside a sunlit creek. While the gray drank, he reread Orry's letter. What business did he have answering such a summons? No more than he had prolonging his involvement with Gus. War changed a lot of things.

He sat on a half-buried rock beside the purling stream and read the letter a third time. Old memories, emotions, began to under­cut his rigid sense of duty. Hadn't the Mains and the Hazards — well, most of them — vowed that the bonds of friendship and affection would survive the hammerings of this war? This wasn't simply one more Yank Orry was writing about. This was his best friend. And the husband of his own Cousin Brett.

That was one bond. Another, forged at the Academy, couldn't be broken or dismissed easily either. Many an officer leading troops against an old classmate had learned the truth of that.

He put the letter in his pocket, ashamed of his first impulses to ignore it. He didn't like himself much any more, for that and a lot of other reasons. He smoked another cigar, then galloped on toward Richmond.

98

Afterward, Judith realized she should have been prepared for catastrophe. All the warning signs were there.

Cooper seldom slept more than two hours a night. Often he never came home at all, spreading a blanket on the floor of his office. He was dragging Lucius down, too. The exhausted young man finally got up nerve to appeal to Judith privately — could she not do something, anything, to slow her husband's demented pace?

Lucius hinted that some of the tasks Cooper assigned him were make-work. Judith didn't question that, since it was already clear to her that her husband's fatigued mind was confusing motion with purpose.

She promised Lucius she would try to remedy the situation. She spoke to Cooper in what she considered a gentle and tactful way, but only provoked an outburst that kept him away from Tradd Street for two whole days.

Since his temper erupted without pattern or logic, there was no way to anticipate and avoid circumstances that might trigger it. She could do little more than keep the house calm and quiet whenever he was there. Marie-Louise was forbidden to play or practice her singing, a ban that brought on arguments with her daughter. She issued no social invitations and refused the few they received.

In this way she preserved an uneasy tranquillity until mid-April, when it was announced that General Beauregard would leave to command the Department of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. What was really being thrust on him was responsibility for the Richmond defense lines. A farewell reception at the Mills House was quickly arranged. Cooper announced this fact and said they would go. On the day of the reception, Judith tried to persuade him to change his mind — he had rested less than an hour the night before — but he seized his tall gray hat and matching gloves and his best walking stick, and she knew she was defeated.

They left through the Tradd Street gate. Judith took her husband's arm. His expression bemused, he was listening to the tolling bells of St. Michael's.

At Meeting, they turned north toward the hotel. The mild air, mellow gaslights, and blue shadows of evening created the illusion of a city at peace. She could tell Cooper wasn't at peace. He hadn't spoken since leaving the house. His downturned mouth and vacant eyes, familiar sights, still had the power to inflict great hurt.

They reached the Broad Street intersection and paused beside two soldiers near the steps of St. Michael's. About half a block away, on the other side of Meeting, a group of eighteen or twenty prisoners approached. The Yanks had probably been captured out on Morris Island. Three boys in gray, none older than eighteen, guarded the older men, who were laughing and talking as if they enjoyed their captivity.

Gaslight flashed on the bayonets of the young guards and cast bright glints into Cooper's eyes. His head ached from the loud ringing of the bells in the steeple above. He watched the Yanks come shambling and skylarking across Meeting toward the corner where he stood with his wife. A blue-coated sergeant, heavy-bellied, noticed Judith, smiled, and said something to the prisoner next to him.

Cooper flung her hand off his arm and ran into the street. She called his name, but he was already pulling the sergeant out of line. The youthful guard at the head of the column and the two at the rear looked stunned. Cooper shook the astonished prisoner.

"I saw you watching my wife. Keep your eyes and your filthy remarks to yourself."

Voices overlapped. Judith's: 'I’ m sure the man didn't —"

The guard in charge: "Sir, you must not interfere —"

The Irishman next to the sergeant: "Listen here, he never said a —"

"I know otherwise." Cooper was shrill. He jabbed the sergeant with his stick. "I saw it."

"Mister, you're out of your skull." The sergeant backed up hastily, bumping men behind. "Will someone help me get this crazy reb away from —"

"I saw your expression. You said something filthy about her." Cooper had to speak loudly because of the noise of the other prisoners protesting, the bells pealing.

"Please, sir, stop," pleaded the guard without effect.

"I know you did, and by God, I'll have an apology."

The sergeant had had enough. "You'll get nothing but the back of my hand, you fucking traitor, you —"

The descending stick shimmered in the gaslight. Judith cried out as Cooper struck the sergeant on top of the head, then on the right temple. The sergeant raised his arms to block the blows. "Get him off me!" Cooper dragged one of the Yank's hands down and hit him twice more. The sergeant dropped to one knee, groggily shaking his head.

The Irish prisoner tried to intervene. Cooper's hat fell off as he rammed the cane ferrule into the man's throat, then struck the sergeant again. The blow broke his stick. "Oh, my God, Cooper, stop." Pulling at him, Judith saw spittle on his lips. He threw her off.

He reversed the piece of cane still in his hand. He smashed the sergeant's head with the silver knob. Blood showed in the prisoner's hair. Judith again attempted to take hold of Cooper's arm. He rammed it backward, snorting like an animal. His elbow bruised her breast. She heard obscenities he had never uttered in all the years she'd known him.

A couple of prisoners joined the terrified guards in attempting to block Cooper's renewed attack. Somehow he fought past them, locked both hands on the piece of stick, and raised it over his head. The sergeant, kneeling in the street, pressed a hand to his right eye. Blood flowed down his forehead and ran out between his fingers.

"You killed my son," Cooper screamed, landing one more blow. Finally, enough hands in blue sleeves caught hold of him and were able to restrain him, break his grip, tear the stick loose. The sergeant started to weep with shock. The prisoners and the guard in charge surrounded Cooper, dragging him back. He was pulling, kicking, biting, lunging side to side.

"Let me go — he killed my boy — my son's dead — he killed him."

The mass of men bore Cooper to the sidewalk as the eight steeple bells started tolling the hour. The sound reverberated in Cooper's head as the Yanks loomed over him. One kicked him.

"Please, let me through. He isn't himself —"

They paid no attention to Judith. She watched another prisoner step on Cooper's outstretched hand. She beat and pushed at blue worsted, her desperation rising.

"I'm his wife. Let me through!"

Finally, they opened a way, and she fell on top of him, repeating his name, hoping it might calm him. He rolled his head from side to side, foam in the corners of his mouth. "Stop the bells — they're too loud — I can't stand it."

"What bells?"

"In the steeple," he shouted, his gaze flying up past her shoulder. "There — there."

"The bells are gone, Cooper." She started to shake his shoulders as he had shaken the sergeant. "They took the bells from St. Michael's months ago. They sent them to Columbia so the Yankees would never get hold of them."

His mouth opened and his eyes, too, for a moment's deranged recognition. He stared at her, then the steeple, then at her again. "But I hear them." The cry was like a child's. "I hear them, Judith —"

Groping for her hand, he stiffened suddenly. His eyes closed, and he went limp. His head fell sideways, cheek resting on the sidewalk.

"Cooper?"

99

Andy thought a branch had cracked until he heard the ball buzz past.

The shot came from the thickets on his left, the side of the road away from the Ashley. As he booted the mule with his worn field shoes, Andy tried to spot the person with the gun. The man stood up, well back in the shadowed undergrowth. He snugged a musket against the right shoulder of a uniform jacket of Union blue, worn open to show his black chest. The man's left eye closed while the right slitted down, taking aim. Recognition of the swollen, fat face struck Andy like a ram.

"Go, mule." He kicked the animal again.

The mule sped toward a bend in the road. Andy's pass danced on the piece of twine around his neck. The gun boomed, but the aim was bad. The ball sliced off palmetto fronds ten yards behind the fleeing mule and rider. Moments later, both were safely past the bend.

When Andy reached Mont Royal, he went straight to Meek's office. He found the overseer shuffling bills with a bewildered air, as if wondering which two or three to choose for payment with the plantation's dwindling supply of inflated currency. Dry-mouthed, Andy reported his worst news first.

"He was aiming to kill me, Mr. Meek. And he had two muskets. He couldn't have fired off the second round so fast if he had to reload."

Meek's eyes, watery and dismayed, met Andy's over the tops of his half spectacles. The job of trying to run the plantation with crops going to the government for less than full value and essential supplies scarce and the slaves disappearing one or two at a time had bowed his shoulders and furrowed his face. He looked ten years older than he had the day he arrived.

"You're sure it was Cuffey?"

"I wouldn't make a mistake about that face. It was him. I heard he was with that bad lot of runaways, but I didn't believe it till today. He was wearing a Yankee soldier's uniform, and he's fat as a spring toad. That bunch must eat mighty well."

He started to smile, but Meek's anger checked it. "They do. They're thieves. Who do you think carried off those six hens a week ago? Reckon we'd better prepare to give 'em a welcome if they come back. We need to mold some musket balls and inspect those two kegs of powder for dampness."

"I'll do it," Andy promised.

Meek pinched the top of his nose. "You haven't said anything about the curing salt."

Andy shook his head. "Isn't any to be had, Mr. Meek. I even went by Tradd Street in hopes of borrowing some from Mr. Cooper. No one was home. Least, no one answered. I knocked long and hard at the street gate. I'm mighty sorry to come back empty-handed."

"I know you did your best. Tomorrow you can ride over to Francis LaMotte's place. I hate begging favors from that conceited little rooster, but I heard he brought some salt from Wilmington when he came home on leave." He waved in a tired, absent way. "Thank you, Andy. I'm glad you didn't get hurt."

Leaving, Andy saw Meek pick up the Testament he kept on his desk. The overseer opened the book and bent over a page, his lips moving silently. His face had a desperate look. Well, no wonder, Andy thought as he walked down the path. A tense and dismal atmosphere pervaded the district and the plantation. On top of all the other problems, out in the marshes there was that band of runaways, thirty to fifty of them. Including Cuffey.

The swollen face sighting along the gun barrel stuck in Andy's mind as he approached the great house in search of Jane. The runaways left the marshes to steal food or kill and rob travelers unlucky enough to be caught alone on deserted back roads. Two white men from Ashley River plantations had been found dead last month. In January, the band had been seen building cook fires near the abandoned great house at Resolute, where Madeline had lived with Justin LaMotte. Shortly thereafter a blaze had leveled the place.

"Evening, Miss Clarissa," Andy said as he reached the front drive, Orry's mother didn't respond. Motionless on the piazza, she gazed down the lane of arching trees toward the road, her smile sweetly bewildered. She raised her right hand and brushed it past her face as if some of the ubiquitous low-country gnats were bothering her. Andy hadn't seen any this evening.

Shaking his head, he entered the house and followed the sound of hammering till he found Jane. She was helping a houseman nail strips of scrap wood over a downstairs window that had broken in a recent windstorm. Replacement glass couldn't be bought in Charleston, or good lumber either.

She smiled when she saw him, but his expression told her something was wrong. Drawing her aside, he reported the incident on the road, though he minimized the danger. "I'll bet that crazy Cuffey is just waiting to do mischief to this place. Maybe —" he lowered his voice to be certain the houseman wouldn't hear "— maybe we should go ahead and jump over the brooms and steal off together some night."

"No. I gave Miss Madeline my word that I'd stay. And I don't want to jump over the brooms. That's for slave weddings. You and I are going to be married as free people." Taking his hand, she pressed it tightly. "It won't be long. A year. Perhaps even less."

Affection warmed his eyes. "Well, I guess I'll still go along with that, since I haven't met any woman I fancy more than you. Yet."

She batted at his head, and he jumped away, laughing. He hoped the laughter helped hide his gloom. He was sure there'd be a visit from the renegade band one of these days. He was sure because Cuffey was part of it now.

That night he slept badly, dreaming of Cuffey's bloated face. In the morning, as he prepared to leave for Francis LaMotte's place, Philemon Meek took him aside and pushed a small revolver into his brown hand. "That's loaded. Make sure it's out of sight if you meet any white folks on the road. Hide it in the brush while you're on LaMotte's property. You could be hung for carrying it."

"You could be hung for giving it to me, Mr. Meek."

"I'll stand the risk. I'd hate to see something happen to you."

Andy's smile grew stiff. "Don't want to lose your number-one nigger?"

Angered, Meek said, "I don't want to lose a good man. Now get on your mule and get out of here before I boot your uppity backside."

Andy drew a long breath. "Sorry I said that. Old times doing the talking."

"I know."

They shook hands.

Whistling "Dixie's Land," Andy jogged down a dim, over­grown lane, a shortcut to Francis LaMotte's. Old Meek wasn't half bad, he was thinking just as he came upon something dark and misshapen, like a bundle of discarded clothing, in the center of the weedy track.

"Whoa, mule," he whispered. He sat listening. He heard bird cries, the small stirs and rustlings of the low-country forest, but nothing alarming. He climbed off the mule and walked slowly along the track with Meek's revolver in hand.

The bundle was a black man, raggedy and still. The pockets of his pants had been turned out. Two red-edged holes marked his forehead like a second pair of eyes.

Andy shivered, swallowing and studying the brush on both sides of the lane. On his right, he saw a large area trampled down. He walked there, rousing half a dozen noisy salt crows farther back among the trees. Looking that way, Andy invoked the name of Jesus under his breath.

In the humid breeze, something that was not a festoon of Spanish moss swung slowly from a water oak limb around nine feet off the ground. Andy recognized Francis LaMotte, in his Ashley Guards uniform — or the remains of it. LaMotte hung by a rope around his wrists. His top boots had been stolen, and his stockings, too. His feet were bare.

Andy could have been staring at some fantastically colored bird. LaMotte's bright green chasseur's jacket was ripped in many places, creating a feathery effect. The jacket and canary-colored trousers showed patches of red still brilliant because they were still wet.

The sagging limb creaked. LaMotte's body turned slowly, pierced by stab wounds. Andy stopped counting the wounds when he reached thirty.

That same April evening, Orry approached the farm Mrs. Halloran had sketched for him. Thin clouds dulled the moon and stars. That would make it easier for him to cross the unplowed field as his informant had suggested.

Orry wore the black broadcloth suit he had packed away when he arrived in the capital. Into the sheath on the outside of his right boot he had slipped a bowie knife, but he was otherwise unarmed. Should something go wrong, he would claim to be a traveler who had lost his way.

He tied his horse to a fruit tree at the side of the field farthest from the four buildings on the bluff above the James. It was a long way down to the river. By day, the view must be spectacular.

The old house, main barn, and chicken coop all showed as solid black masses. A pronounced V-shaped break in the roof line testified to the barn's disrepair. But the structure Mrs. Halloran called the implement building, perched on the side of the bluff, seemed to have its near side marked with vertical yellow lines — a trick of lantern light shining through gaps in the siding.

On the night wind, Orry heard the whicker of a horse. He drew the back of his hand across his damp upper lip and started a slow, quiet walk toward the lighted building.

There was no cover, no way to remain unseen unless he crawled. When he was halfway across the field, its weedy soil broken here and there by the indentation of rain gullies, he thought he saw a match flare out beyond the house, a good distance to his left. A sentry on the road? More than likely.

Now he heard the horses, softly stamping. A ten-yard strip of thick, tall grass separated the building from the edge of the field where he hunkered down and counted the animals: four saddle horses and a fifth hitched to a covered buggy. Based on this evidence, Mr. Lamar Powell's revolutionary army was minuscule. But Orry had read his Julius Caesar as a boy, and he knew it didn't take an armed host to commit a political murder.

Riding out from Richmond, through the picket posts where he had presented his pass like any other traveler, he had begun to feel sheepish, even gulled. At one point he almost turned back. Now he was thankful he hadn't.

Remaining crouched, he started to work his way toward the siding where the light shone through. He grimaced at all the rustling and crackling of the weeds, struggled to advance more cautiously, minimizing the noise. Halfway to the wall, he heard muted conversation. For a moment he doubted his own senses. Mixed in with the male voices, he detected a woman's.

Because he was surprised, when he moved again, he shifted his weight too quickly. His right boot broke an unseen twig with a loud crack.

"Wait, Powell. I thought I heard a noise outside."

"Probably a rabbit — or a rat. They infest this place."

"Shall I take a look?"

"No. It isn't necessary. Wilbur's on watch at the road." In the voice of the man identified as Powell, Orry heard absolute authority. As fast as he dared, he crept the rest of the way to the wall and pressed his eye to one of the gaps.

Damn. Powell's back was turned. Orry could see nothing but fawn trousers, a dark brown velvet coat, and graying hair, pomaded. Boots stuck into Orry's line of sight to the left — someone seated, legs stretched out.

"Our most important arms shipment arrived yesterday," Powell said, walking toward crates piled on the straw-littered floor. Reaching them, he turned around.

In his late thirties, Lamar Powell had the kind of face Orry supposed most women would term handsome. He posed in a theatrical way, one slim hand clasping the right lapel of his coat. He gestured to a rectangular crate resting on two square ones, both smaller. Painted on the rectangular box was the word WHITWORTH. "As you can see, we will be equipped with the finest."

"Whitworths are goddamn expensive —" someone began. Powell's eyes showed sudden fury. The speaker mumbled, "Beg your pardon, ma'am."

"Expensive indeed," Powell agreed. "But they're the finest sharpshooting rifles in the world. The .45-caliber Whitworth has a mean radial deviation of one foot or less at eight hundred yards. If there are only a few of us taking aim at the enemy" — a humorless smile jerked his mouth — "each must achieve maximum accuracy."

By uttering just those few sentences, Powell managed to unsettle and alarm Orry. Unlike many fanatics, the man had an air of competence. He would not fail through stupidity, Orry suspected.

Powell continued, "I don't believe any of you would care to hear how many illegalities were necessary — how many costly bribes — to obtain this shipment. The less you know, the safer you are. And we'll be risking the rope soon enough as it is."

"I didn't hazard the long ride out here to joke, Lamar."

Orry's mouth opened, silent shock. The voice belonged to James Huntoon.

"I want to get to the issue," he said. "When and how do we kill Davis?"

Then Orry thought he truly had lost his mind. The next speaker who approached Powell was the woman.

"And who dies along with him?"

There, clearly visible beside Powell, he saw his sister Ashton.

Kneeling by the wall, he shook his head, then again. But of course truth couldn't be banished so easily. Undoubtedly she had become involved through her husband. Madeline had recognized the possibility, but he had dismissed it. He owed her an apology.

He must identify the other conspirators if he could. He changed position, thus able to see a different part of the interior. A man leaned against the wall that overlooked the river. On each side of him, a large window framed a rectangle of darkness dulled by the grime of the glass. The man was a rough, burly sort, unfamiliar to Orry.

Anxious to see more, he put his palm against the wall and pressed his other eye to the crack. The siding creaked under his hand. Huntoon said, "Someone's out there."

Powell ran across Orry's line of vision. Orry scrambled back, almost losing his balance as Powell shouted, "Put the lanterns out."

The verticle slits of yellow turned black. Orry lunged up and ran toward the field, bent low. A door rolled back. He heard voices outside the implement building, Powell's the loudest.

"Wilbur? We need you. We've been spied on."

Orry's chest already hurt from running. Halfway across the field, he heard a horse galloping up the dirt road to the buildings, loud voices again, a confusion of questions and orders. The rider turned into the field, firing a shot.

The bullet slashed through weeds two feet left of Orry. His boot caught the moist earth, and he lost his balance. The shot frightened his own horse, who neighed. Orry slid on his knees, then pushed up so hard he felt a spasm in a muscle in his arm. He ran on, reaching his horse and mounting as his pursuer passed the field's midpoint.

He booted his mount down the lane by which he had approached. Low branches whipped his cheeks and forehead. The man behind him fired a second round. It missed. Orry galloped into the wider main road that curved away from the James. Pulling away from his pursuer and topping a slight rise, he saw the sky glow that identified Richmond.

He breathed deeply of the wind rushing against his face. He was riding away from shock and peril — but toward an inevitable meeting with his conscience. It took place about midnight. Madeline sat on the edge of their bed, arms folded over the bosom of her nightdress, while he paced one way, then other, lumps of mud falling from his boots.

After he told her everything, the first thing she said was: "How in heaven's name did she become involved?"

"Right away I decided it was because of James. But I'm not so sure. Something bothers me about that explanation, though I haven't figured out what it is. Anyway, explanations hardly matter at this point. I'm the one person with knowledge of a direct threat to the President's life. Other lives, too —"

He seized the bedpost. "I must go to Seddon with the information. And Winder. The provost can pick up the conspirators quietly — It's the first time I've ever been thankful Stephens failed in his congressional crusade." In February, despite the politicking of the vice president, suspension of habeas corpus had been reenacted.

"All the conspirators?" Madeline asked. "Does that include your sister?"

"She's one of them. Why does she deserve special consideration?"

"You know, Orry. I don't like her any better than you do. But she's family."

"Family! I'd sooner have Beast Butler for a relative. Madeline, my sister tried to have Billy Hazard murdered."

"I haven't forgotten. It doesn't change what I just said. I know you dislike hearing it, but it's true. There's also this: No crime has been committed as yet."

"The very most I could do — and I'm damned if I think she deserves it — is refrain from mentioning her name or the fact that I saw her."

"You would have to do the same for James."

"I owe him nothing."

"He's Ashton's husband."

A long silence. Then a disgusted sigh. "All right. But that's as far as I'll compromise for either of them. I'll identify Powell and no one else. If he implicates Huntoon or my sister, so be it."

"We're discovered — we'll be arrested — what in God's name are we to do, Lamar?"

Huntoon's wail sickened Ashton. Outside the implement building, with the others crowding around, Powell shot out his hand, twisting Huntoon's collar. "The one thing we will not do is cry like infants." He shoved Huntoon away as the sentry, Wilbur, came trotting back across the field to report.

"Lost him."

"But you got a look at him —"

"No, I didn't."

"Damn you." Powell turned his back on Wilbur, who tugged his farmer's hat down over his eyes and sat silently.

Powell rubbed his knuckles against the point of his chin, thinking.

Another of the conspirators cleared his throat. "They'll be out here by morning, won't they?"

Huntoon spoke up. "Perhaps not. Suppose it was just some nigger boy hunting chickens to steal." He was trying to reassure himself.

"It was a white man. I seen that much," Wilbur said.

"But maybe he meant us no harm —"

"Are you an imbecile?" Powell said. "He approached by stealth. He observed us through one of the cracks in that wall. But setting that aside, do you seriously imagine I'd sit and wait to find out whether he's harmless?"

He shoved the humiliated Huntoon aside and strode along the weedy strip of ground beside the implement shed. He scanned the bluff, the field, the other buildings. "What we require are sound tactics for meeting the situation. If we think them out carefully and keep our heads, we'll come through this unscathed."

Badly scared, Ashton clung to her faith in Powell's brains and courage. But it was shaken when he returned to them, smiling, and she heard him say, "The first thing we must do is enlist the aid of Mr. Edgar Poe. My favorite author. How many of you know his tale of the purloined letter?"

"You're the one who's an imbecile," Huntoon ranted, "talking of cheap hack writers at a time like this."

For once Ashton silently sided with her husband. Her lover didn't say a word to explain himself, merely gave Huntoon another insulting push and walked past him, laughing.

At daylight, Orry marched up the high stoop of Secretary Seddon's residence and used the knocker so loudly he was sure he woke the whole neighborhood. Within minutes, grumpy Winder was summoned. When he arrived, he resisted for half an hour — Orry was not, after all, one of his most trusted colleagues — but gave in under pressure from Seddon. He would send investigators to Wilton's Bluff before noon.

"I'll go immediately to the President," the secretary said. He was by now largely recovered from the shock of Orry's news. "All cabinet members will be warned. Meanwhile, Colonel Main, yours is the privilege of casting the net for the biggest fish."

"I'll do it with pleasure, sir."

A few minutes past ten, a curtained van raced to Church Hill and wheeled into Franklin Street. Orry jumped out and led an armed squad up the front steps. A second squad, dropped off a block away, had already deployed in the garden. Orry quickly found himself reacting as Seddon had when he first heard the story.

The front door offered no resistance. Dumbfounded, he said to his men, "It's been left unlocked."

Inside, the household furnishings remained, but no clothes or personal belongings.

Lamar Powell had disappeared.

That evening, a second shock. It came in Winder's sanctum, delivered by the man with the long nose, weedy black clothes, and vaguely clerical air.

"I found nothing. No signs of habitation. And, most especially, no trace of those crated weapons you reported, Colonel. In my opinion, no one's been at that farm for months. The neighbors I questioned agree."

Orry jumped up. "That can't be."

Antagonized, the other man said, "Is that so? Well, then —" a gesture to the door, derisive "— question the two operatives I took with me. You've heard my report, and I stand by it. If you don't like it, ride back there and make your own."

"By God, I will," Orry said, as Israel Quincy stepped to the window and gazed at the sunset.

Evening's dark red glinted on the river, lighting Orry's stricken face. He had searched the implement building and found what Quincy and his colleagues predicted: nothing. He had left the building a moment ago, closing its door on the dirt floor, straw-littered and unmarked by any boot prints save those of men. Some were his. Some surely belonged to Winder's operatives — and Powell's crowd. Or did they? Orry hadn't discovered a single imprint of a woman's shoe.

He felt angry, humiliated, baffled. He walked away from the bluff and searched the farmhouse. He found only dust and nesting rats. He searched the barn and chicken coop. Again nothing. By then night had come. He mounted and took a shortcut toward the main road, walking his horse across the same field he had crossed last night. The black of the plowed earth matched his mood exactly.

His meager supper of rice and corn bread untasted, Orry said to Madeline, "Quincy's been bought. Winder, too, for all I know. Mrs. Halloran inadvertently stumbled on a conspiracy that must reach very high. I intend to find out just how high."

"But the President is safe now, isn't he? He's been warned —"

"Yes, but I still have to know! At this moment, I wouldn't be surprised if Seddon and his wife were speculating on my mental condition. Am I a drunkard? Do I take opium? Did I see visions at the farm? I swear to you" — he went to her around the table — "I did not."

"I believe you, dearest. But what can you do? It appears they've opened and closed the case all in the same day."

"I haven't. And I know someone who was at the farm. She's still in Richmond — I verified that before I came home tonight. I intend to start some detective work on my sister first thing tomorrow."

But his vow went unfulfilled. In life's strange way of piling one crisis on another when it was least needed, the street bell rang at half past ten. Orry ran downstairs. It had to be for him; the landlady never received callers this late.

Covered with dirt, his head a mountain peak above clouds of cigar smoke, there stood Charles.

"Your letter took a detour to Atlee's Station, but I finally got it. I'm here to do something about Billy."

100

Stephen Mallory arrived in Charleston that same night, after a hard trip in one of the dirty, unheated cars of the decaying Southern rail system. A telegraph message from Lucius Chickering had summoned him.

Cooper didn't know that. Following the incident on Meeting Street, soldiers of the local provost had borne him home, none too gently, and since then he had been in bed, not moving, not speaking, not touching any of the food Judith brought. The pattern with the trays was unvarying: each was left an hour, then removed.

Cooper did rouse a little — turn his head toward the door — when Judith opened it after knocking softly.

"Darling? You have a visitor. Your friend Stephen. The secretary."

He said nothing. He lay beneath blankets layered too deeply for the mild weather. Everything within the dark, sweat-tainted room had a blurred quality. So did sounds from outside — birds in the garden, home guards quickstepping along Tradd Street to the accompaniment of a fife and a snare drum beating time.

"Might I see him alone for a moment, Judith?"

She glanced at her husband. His eyes were round and vacant. As they were every day. She was careful to hide her pain from the visitor.

"Of course. If you need me, there's a small hand bell on that table. Can you see it?"

Mallory nodded and pulled a chair to the bedside. Judith glanced sadly at the bell, which Cooper hadn't used once since being carried home. Mallory sat down. Judith shut the door.

The secretary stared at his assistant. Cooper's eyes fixed on the ceiling. Mallory spoke with the abruptness of a gunshot.

"They say your nerves are gone. Is it true?"

His voice lacked the treacle of conventional sickroom conversation. Cooper acknowledged that by blinking once. But he didn't move or reply.

"See here, Cooper. If you can hear me, have the courtesy to look me in the eye. I didn't ride the train all the way from Richmond to converse with a corpse."

Slowly, Cooper's head tilted over toward the visitor, cheek resting on the feather pillow, graying hair spread above, fine and thin. But the eyes remained empty.

Mallory persisted. "That was a scandalous thing you did. Scandalous — no other word for it. The enemy already considers us a nation of barbarians — regrettably, not without some justification. But for a government official to behave like a demented prison warden, and in public —" He shook his head. "There may be a few brutish Southerners who would condone your behavior, but not many. I'll not pretend, Cooper. You damaged our cause, and you damaged yourself, gravely."

Those words finally produced reaction of a sort: rapid movement of Cooper's eyelids and a compression of his lips. Mallory's face looked nearly as gray as that of the man in bed.

"I couldn't sleep on that wretched train, so I sat up trying to devise some polite way to request your immediate resignation. There is none. Therefore —"

"They killed my son."

The sudden words jerked Mallory like a puppet. "What's that? The prisoners you attacked and fought? Nonsense."

Cooper's hands twitched on the counterpane, aimless white spiders without webs to spin. He blinked rapidly again, said in a hoarse voice, "The profiteers killed my son. The war killed him."

"And it was grievous and tragic; I'll not deny that. But in these times, if you except Judah's extreme youth, neither was it special."

Cooper's head lifted. Anger flooded the holes of his eyes. Mallory pushed him down gently.

"Not special to any but you and your family. Do you know nothing of the figures? How many sons lost to how many fathers? It runs into the hundreds of thousands, all over the South. All over the North, too, for that matter. After a suitable period of mourning, most of those fathers manage to function again. They don't lie abed and weep."

The secretary sagged a little then. The effort was a strain and, worse, unsuccessful. He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and wiped his cheeks. He smelled a chamber pot under the bed. One last try.

"You've served the Navy Department more than competently, Cooper. You have served imaginatively and, in the case of Hunley, with great bravery. If you're the same man who endured foul air and fear of death at the bottom of Charleston harbor for two and a half hours, I still need your services. We are not yet done with this war. The soldiers and sailors are still fighting, and so am I. Therefore I'd be inclined to substitute a letter of censure for resignation. But, of course, in order to come back to work — " stern as a parent, he stood up "— you would have to get out of bed. Kindly send me word of your decision within seventy-two hours."

He took pains to shut the door more loudly than necessary.

Downstairs with Judith, he mopped his sweating face again. "That is the hardest thing I've ever done — concealing my sympathy for that poor man. It breaks my heart to see him so lost."

"It's been coming for a long time, Stephen. An accumulation of fatigue, frustration, grief — I have no way to bring him out of it. Kind words won't do it; nor will angry ones. I decided some different kind of shock was needed. That's why I begged you to speak as you did."

"I wasn't entirely playacting. I have had demands for his resignation. Strong ones, from important men."

"Oh, I'm sure of that."

"Our resources are depleted, our armies on the brink of starvation —" She wanted to say the civilian population soon would be, but she didn't. "We have little left us but our honor, so a man who behaves as Cooper did isn't easily forgiven." Toying with the hat he picked up from a taboret, he added, "But I'll happily shoulder the criticism and ignore the outcries if I can get him back to work."

She squeezed his hand in silent appreciation. "Would you like something to eat? A cup of coffee? I hit on a way to parch acorns, then roast them in a little bacon fat. It makes a passable substitute."

"Thank you, but I'd rather go back to the hotel and sleep an hour or so."

"I'm the one who owes thanks." She kissed his cheek. Mallory blushed.

"What I said was brutal — at least for me," he said as he walked to the door. "I only hope it may do some good."

When he was gone, Judith looked toward the stairs, then realized she was famished. There was nothing in the house except leftover artificial oysters, fried up from a sticky batter made of grated green corn, one precious egg, and a few other scarce ingredients. But they were less scarce than the oysters themselves, which the Yankees gathered or the greedy oystermen sold directly to civilian customers who would pay an exorbitant price. You couldn't find oysters in the markets any longer. You couldn't find much of anything.

In the kitchen, she discovered her daughter listlessly trying to repair a plate she had broken while helping with the dishes. All they had for glue was a concoction of rice flour simmered in water. As Marie-Louise spread some on one of the broken edges, she gave her mother a dolorous look, as though protesting a sentence of hard labor. Judith's reply was crisp and firm.

"You've begun well. Please finish the same way, clean up, then go to your studies."

"All right, Mama."

Thank heaven their daughter caused them no serious problems, Judith thought, walking through the downstairs with a headache beginning to push at her temples. Cooper in bed day and night, depressed, silent — that was enough.

She wrote a letter to Mont Royal, requesting some rice flour if it could be spared, and a note of congratulations to a cousin in Cheraw who had delivered her first baby last month. On the Mont Royal letter she put a ten-cent rose-colored stamp; on the second, a blue five and one of the older green ones. How tired she was of the face of the President on stamps of every denomination.

She sat down at the pianoforte, her sense of failure deepening as she bent over the keyboard. A few white strands showed in her blond curls. Slowly, expertly, she began to play "The Vacant Chair." Like so many of the war songs published in the North, it was popular on both sides. The lyric suited her mood. Soon she was singing in her fine soprano voice:

A sound startled her. She played the wrong keys, jangly discord, and looked toward the ceiling. Had she imagined —?

No. Faint but unmistakable, the little bell rang again.

Weeping with hope, she ran up the stairs, flung open the door of the stale room. She couldn't see him in the dark, but she heard him clearly.

"Judith, would you mind opening the draperies to let in some light?"

The salt wind reached Tradd Street from the sea, flowing in to cleanse the bedroom. Late that afternoon, Cooper consumed half a bowl of turkey broth and a cup of Judith's imitation coffee. Then he rested with his head turned toward the tall windows, open to show the great live oak just outside and the rooftop of his neighbor's house.

He felt weak, as if he had just thrown off a prolonged high fever.

"But my head's clear. I don't feel — how should I put it? — I don't feel the way I did before Stephen called. I don't feel so angry."

She sat against the headboard and pulled him gently to her small bosom, left arm cradling his shoulders. "Something in you burst like a boil when you attacked that prisoner. You despised slavery and where it was leading the South for so very long, but when you took your stand three years ago, you did it with all the fervor you'd once directed the other way. That was commendable, but I think it started terrible forces warring inside you. Judah's death made it worse. So did long hours at the department, trying to accomplish too much with too little." She hugged him. "Whatever the reason, I thank God you're better. If I were Catholic, I'd ask them to canonize Stephen."

"I hope I'm sane again. I know I'm mightily ashamed. What of that sergeant I attacked?"

"A concussion. But he'll recover."

A relieved sigh. "You're right about the struggle inside. It's still there. I know the war's lost, but I suppose I should go back to work if the department wants me. Where is Stephen, by the way?"

"He's resting at the Mills House. As for working again — I'd think a while. My feelings about the war haven't changed. At the time Sumter fell, they were your feelings, too." His eyes shifted away from her, to the neighbor's rooftop.

"This war's wrong, Cooper. Not only because all war is wrong, but also because it's being fought for an immoral cause — no, please let me finish. I know all the rhetoric and apologetics by heart. So do you. It isn't the tariff or states' rights or Northern arrogance that brought all this suffering. It's what we did — Southerners — either directly or through the complicity of our silence. We stole the liberty of other human beings, we built fortunes from that theft, and we even proclaimed from our pulpits that God approved."

He took her hand, his voice like that of a bewildered child. "I know you're right. But I don't know what to do next."

"Survive the war. Work for Stephen if you must. Whatever you decide, it will be all right. Your head's clear now. But promise yourself — and promise me — that when the South falls, you'll work just as hard for peace. You know how it will be when the shooting stops. Animosity will persist on both sides, but the losers will feel it most. You know that because you went through it. You know what hatred does to a man."

"It feeds on itself. Multiplies. Begets more hate and more pain, and that begets still more —"

Overcome, she let the tears fall, hugging him harder. "Oh, Cooper, how I love you. The man I married — went away for a while — but I think — I found him again —"

He held her while she cried joyously.

Presently she asked if he wanted to talk to Mallory when he returned. Cooper said yes, he thought so. He would put on a fresh nightshirt and dressing gown and join them for supper. She clapped her hands and ran to find Marie-Louise.

Feeling buoyant, free of pain — composed — he returned his gaze to the garden. Above his neighbor's roof he saw a rectangle of clear, brilliant sky; his beloved Carolina sky. He had lost sight of how greatly that kind of simple perception cheered and exalted a man.

Lost sight of a great many other things, too. Including his own nature.

Judith was right: grief for his son had precipitated the worst. That grief would never leave him, just as his loathing for Ashton would not, or the unbecoming wish that she be punished for her greed. But the emotions building and building within him for so long had been purged in that explosion on Meeting Street, purged by his rain of cane strokes on the luckless Yankee.

The aftermath had left him wanting to die — or at least sleep a long time. Was it possible that the emotional desolation was the actual start of healing? He recalled another passage from the pen of the man he most revered, Edmund Burke. The storm has gone over me, and I lie like one of those old oaks which the late hurricane has scattered about.

Weakened but not destroyed. Mending; that was his condition. He was no longer the same man who had attacked the sergeant. He could again examine past behavior with objectivity, if not exactly with pride.

He had veered for a time into absolute patriotism — unquestioning acceptance of all things Southern. Before Sumter fell, he knew what was fine and worthy in his homeland. He loved that part, rejecting the rest. But then he had changed, gradually became willing to fight for and accept all of it. Including what was represented by the whitewashed huts three-quarters of a mile from Mont Royal's great house. The attitude was wrong before, and it was wrong now. It was one of the first things he would set right.

He examined his feelings about the war itself. He knew the storm had passed him because he once more felt as he had in the fateful spring of '61. The war was misbegotten because it couldn't be won. The war was an abomination because it pitted American against American. How shameful to grasp now that he had, for a while, become one with those who had pushed the nation into the war. One with the James Huntoons and Virgilia Hazards. One with those who could not or would not find a means to prevent the holocaust.

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 the 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 piss-ant 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, Charles 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."

"Guaranteed," Charles said, leading the balking animal into the dark.

He had his pass, and Billy had the one Orry had forged, so they traveled north through the defense lines without incident. They dismounted in an orchard, and Charles gave his friend a second, smaller, bundle.

"That's a little hardtack and sliced ham Madeline fixed up. I wish I had a gun for you, or more gear, so you'd look more like a furloughed soldier."

"I'll make it the way I am," Billy promised. "What I wish for is more time for the two of us to catch up on things." Once past the last picket post, they had hardly stopped talking, covering the whereabouts and fortunes of most of the members of both families. Charles learned why the guard at the prison entrance had taken special interest in Billy; the story of the ride on the caisson wheel disgusted him and, as a Southerner, shamed him, too.

Now he said, "I'd like to take you to see Orry and Madeline, but it's better if you put some miles between yourself and Richmond before daylight. With a spot of luck, you should be all right even if you're stopped and questioned. The pass will take you through. When you reach your own lines, don't forget to ditch the cap and jacket."

"I won't — and I'll approach with my hands high in the air, believe me."

Both were trying to minimize what lay ahead for him: hours of riding, patrols on the road, hunger, anxiety. And all of it made worse by his weakened condition. There was plenty to contend with, and Billy knew it. But there was also hope now. A goal. The safety of his own side.

The chance to write Brett with miraculous news.

The wind tore petals from the trees and whirled them around the two friends in the spring dark, each a little awkward with the other because the intervening years had made them near-strangers.

"Bison."

Eyes fixed on the Richmond road, Charles said, "Um?"

"You saved me once before. Now I'll never get out of your debt."

"Just get out of the Confederacy; that's good enough. That'll make me happy."

"My worst problem's liable to be my accent. If I have to answer questions —"

"Speak slowly. Like — this — here. Drop some of your g's and tell 'em you're from out West. Nobody in Virginia really knows how a Missouri reb talks."

Billy smiled. "Good idea. I was stationed in St. Louis — I can pass." More soberly: "You told me about Orry's marriage and a lot of other things, but you haven't said a word about yourself. How have you been getting along? What command are you with?"

"I'm a scout for General Wade Hampton's cavalry, and I'm getting along fine," Charles lied. "I'd be getting along a hell of a lot better if this war was over. I guess it will be soon."

He thought of saying something about Gus. But why mention a relationship that had to end? "I'd like to talk all night, but you ought to go."

"Yes, I guess I should." Billy patted his pocket to be sure he had the pass. Then, with slow, pained movements, he mounted the mule. Charles didn't help him; Billy had to do it himself.

Once Billy was in the saddle, Charles stepped forward. They clasped hands.

"Safe journey. My love to Cousin Brett when you see her."

"Mine to Madeline and Orry. I know what he risked to help me. You, too."

The laugh was dry and forced. "West Point looks after its own, doesn't it?"

"Don't joke, Bison. I'll never be able to repay you."

"I don't expect it. Just stay away from our bullets for the next eight or ten months, and then we can have a good, long visit in Pennsylvania or South Carolina. Now get going."

"God bless you, Bison."

In a surprisingly strong voice, Billy hawed to the mule and rode rapidly out of the orchard. He was soon gone in the darkness.

Petals blew around Charles, a light, sweet cloud, as he thought, He'll either make it or he won't. I did all I could. He was unable to forget the dead guard, but it had nothing to do with regrets about killing him.

He felt drained. He wanted whiskey. "Come on," he said to the gray, and mounted.

The clock chimed four. Bare feet stretched to a hassock, Charles swirled the last of the bourbon in the bottom of the glass, then swallowed it.

"I got scared and shot him. Panic — that's the only word for it."

Madeline said, "I imagine killing someone, even an enemy, isn't easy."

"Oh, you get used to it," Charles said. She and Orry exchanged swift looks that he didn't see. "Anyway, the guard was the one who tortured Billy. The reason it bothers me is, I lost control. I've seen the elephant often enough. I thought I could handle tight spots."

"But how many prison escapes have you staged?" Orry asked.

"Yes, there's that." Charles nodded, but he remained unconvinced.

"How did Billy look?" Madeline asked.

"White and sickly. Feeble as the devil. I don't know if he can make it even halfway to the Rapidan."

"How is Brett? Did he say?"

Charles answered her with a shake of his head. "He hasn't heard from Brett in months. That guard, Vesey, destroyed every letter Billy wrote, so I'd guess he destroyed any that came in, too. Orry, can you spare some cash for the liveryman? He'll never see his mule again."

"I'll take care of it," Orry promised.

Charles yawned. He was worn out, ashamed of his loss of self-control, and most of all saddened by the reunion with Billy. It seemed to him their talk had been trivial and difficult to carry on. Years of separation, their service on different sides — everything took its toll. They were friends and foes at the same time, and every halting sentence they had spoken expressed that without words.

"One more drink, and I'm going to get some sleep," he announced. "I'd like to be out of Richmond early in the morning. We'll be in the field soon —" He extended his glass to Orry; the liquor trickled noisily from the brown bottle. "Have you heard Grant's bringing a new cavalry commander from the West? Phil Sheridan. I knew him at West Point. Tough little Irishman. Greatest man with a cussword I ever met. I hate to see him in Virginia. Still —"

He tossed off the two inches with a speed that made Madeline frown. "It just means things will wind up that much faster."

Orry watched him a moment. "You don't think we can win?"

"Do you?"

Orry sat still, his gaze wandering through the pattern of the carpet.

Presently Charles stretched and yawned again. "Hell," he said,

"I'm not even sure we can sue for peace on favorable terms. Not with Unconditional Surrender Grant turning the screw."

"I knew him," Orry mused. "We drank beer together in Mexico."

"What's he like?"

"Oh, it's been years since I saw him. Our keen-minded Southern journalists scorn him for being round-shouldered and slovenly. Really important considerations, eh? Ask Pete Longstreet whether he respects Sam Grant. Ask Dick Ewell. Three years ago, Ewell said there was an obscure West Point man somewhere in Missouri whom he hoped the Yankees would never discover. He said he feared him more than all the others put together."

"God help us," Charles remarked, reaching for a blanket. "Would it be all right with you two if I went to sleep now?" Orry turned off the gas, and he and Madeline said good night. Still fully dressed, Charles rolled up in the blanket and shut his eyes.

He found it hard to rest. Too many ghosts had arisen and roamed tonight.

He dragged the blanket against his cheek. He didn't want to think about it. Not about Billy in enemy country, riding for his life. Not about the Union horse already surprisingly good but now with a chance at supremacy under Sheridan. Not about Grant, who preached something called "enlightened warfare," which meant, so far as he could make out, throwing your men away like matchsticks because you always had more.

He fell asleep as some distant steeple rang five. He slept an hour, dreaming of Gus, and of Billy lying in a sunlit field, pierced by bullet holes thick and black with swarming flies.

When he woke, the comforting aroma of the Marshall Street substitute for coffee permeated the flat. In the first wan light, he trudged to the privy behind the building, then returned and splashed water on his face and hands and sat down opposite his cousin over cups of the strong brew Madeline poured for them.

Orry's expression indicated something serious was on his mind. Charles waited till his cousin came out with it.

"We had so much to talk about last night, I never got to the other bad news."

"Trouble back home?"

"No. Right here in the city. I uncovered a plot to assassinate the President and members of his cabinet." Disbelief prompted Charles to smile; Orry's somber expression restrained him. "Someone well known and close to both of us is involved."

"Who?"

"Your cousin. My sister."

"Ashton?"

"Yes."

"Great balls of Union-blue fire," Charles said, in the same tone he might have taken if someone had told him the paymaster would be late again. He was startled to probe his feelings and find so little astonishment; scarcely more than mild surprise. There was a hardening center in him that nothing much could reach, let alone affect.

Orry described all that had happened thus far, beginning with Mrs. Halloran's visit and ending with the abrupt and mysterious disappearance of the chief conspirator and the arms and ammunition Orry had seen at the farm downriver on the James.

"For a few days after that, I thought I was crazy. I've gotten over it. They may have highly placed friends helping them cover the trail, and I know what I saw. The plot's real, Huntoon's involved, and so is Ashton."

"What are you going to do?"

Orry's stare told Charles he wasn't the only one whose hide had thickened.

"I'm going to catch her."

103

They surprised him on the creek bank at first light, creeping up while he slept. None of the three identified himself. He named them silently — Scars, One Thumb, Hound Face. All of them wore tattered Confederate uniforms.

To allay suspicion, he shared the last of his hardtack and ham. They shared their experiences of the past few days. Not to be sociable, Billy guessed, merely to fill the silence of the May morning.

"Grant put a hundred thousand into the Wilderness 'gainst our sixty or so. It got so fierce, the trees caught on fire, and our boys either choked to death on the smoke or burned up when the branches dropped on 'em." One Thumb, whose left eyelid drooped noticeably, shook his head and laid the last morsel of ham in his toothless mouth.

"How far are the lines?" Billy asked.

Hound Face answered, "Twenty, thirty mile. Would you say that?" His companions nodded. "But we all are goin' the other way. Back to Alabam." He gave Billy a searching look, awaiting reaction; condemnation, perhaps.

"The omens are bad," One Thumb resumed. "Old Pete Longstreet, he was wounded by a bullet from our side, just like Stonewall a year ago. And I hear tell Jeff Davis's little boy fell off a White House balcony a few days ago. Killed him. Like I say — bad omens."

Scars, the oldest, wiped grease from his mouth. "Mighty kind of you to share your grub, Missouri. We ain't got much of anythin' to aid us on our way home" — smoothly, he pulled his side arm and pointed it at Billy — "so we'll be obliged if you don't fuss an' help us out."

They disappeared five minutes later, having taken his mule and his pass.

Lanterns shone on the bare-chested black men. The May dark resounded with shouting, the clang and bang of rails being unloaded from a flatcar, the pound of mallets, the honk of frogs in the marshy lowlands near the Potomac. A group of George's men seized each rail, ran it forward, and dropped it on crossties laid only moments before. The rail carriers jumped aside to make room for men with mauls and buckets of spikes. It was the night of May 9; more accurately, the morning of May 10. Repair work to reopen the damaged Aquia Creek & Fredericksburg line down to Falmouth had been under way since dawn yesterday.

The butcher's bill from the Wilderness had been staggering. Now Lee had entrenched at or near Spotsylvania, and presumably the Union Army was shifting that way to engage. Without being told, George knew why the major portion of the Orange & Alexandria had been abandoned on the very morning Grant started his war machine across the Rapidan and why the Construction Corps had been transferred eastward to this duty. These tracks would soon carry dead and wounded.

George saw one of his best workers, a huge brown youngster named Scow, stumble suddenly. This forced the men behind him to halt. A lantern on a pole reflected in Scow's eyes as he swung to stare at his commander.

" 'M gonna drop."

George slipped in behind him and took the rail on his own shoulder. "Rest for ten minutes. Then come back. After we finish this fourteen miles of track, there's the Potomac Creek bridge to repair."

"You keep givin' ever' one of these niggers ten minutes, you gonna run out of minutes an' fall over yourself."

"You let me worry about that. Get going."

Scow rubbed his mouth, admiration and suspicion mingled on his face. "You're some damn boss," he said, and walked off, leaving George in doubt about which way to take that. With a grim amusement, he wondered what Scow would say if he knew his commander controlled and ran a huge ironworks and a thriving bank.

He took Scow's place in the rail-carrying team. Dizzy and growing sick to his stomach, he strove to hide it. "Come on," he yelled to the other men. He knew they felt as bad as he did, hurt in every muscle as he did. But together they ran the next rail forward, placed it, jumped down off the roadbed as the first mauls arched over and struck, and dashed back for the next one.

On the Brock Road, Billy fell to his knees and crawled into a ditch as a shell whistled in and burst, tossing up a cloud of dirt and stones. Sharp rock fragments rained on his bare neck as he lay in the weeds, the wind and what little strength he possessed knocked out of him.

From the west, the north, the east, he heard the multitudinous sounds of battle. They seemed loudest to the east. He had worked his way through the smoke-filled streets of Spotsylvania Court House and out this far without detection or interference. But as he began to breathe regularly again, and with effort regained the road, staggering from tiredness and hunger and lingering pain, a captain on horseback — from one of Jubal Early's commands, he presumed — loomed through the smoke deepening the gray of the morning.

The bearded officer galloped past Billy before he really took notice of him. He reined in, dismounted swiftly, and wrenched his sword from his sheath. "No straggling," he shouted, hitting Billy's back with the flat of his sword. 'The lines are that way."

He pointed eastward with the blade. The ends of a strip of black silk tied around his right sleeve fluttered in the breeze. Mumbling to disguise his voice, Billy said, "Sir, I lost my musket —"

"You won't find another cowering back here." A second stab east. "Move, soldier."

Billy blinked, thinking, I'll have to try to cross someplace. Guess it might as well be here.

"You and your kind disgust me," the captain said gratuitously. "We lose a great man, and your tribute to his memory is a display of cowardice."

Billy didn't want to speak again but felt he must. "Don't know what you mean, sir." He didn't. "Who's been lost?"

"General Stuart, you damn fool. Sheridan's horse went around our flank to Richmond. They killed the general at Yellow Tavern day before yesterday. Now get moving or you're under arrest."

Billy turned, staggered down the road shoulder, and moved in ungainly fashion through high weeds toward distantly seen entrenchments. A shell burst over him, a black flower. He covered his head and stumbled on, hurting more at every step.

At Potomac Creek, the gap from bluff to bluff was four hundred feet. A deck bridge eighty feet above the water spanned it, but the Confederates had destroyed the bridge. Haupt had rebuilt it; Burnside had destroyed it a second time so the enemy couldn't use it. Now the Construction Corps was building it again.

At the bottom of the chasm, George and his men cut and laid logs for the crib foundation. Haupt was gone, but not his plans and methods. In forty hours, a duplicate of the trestle Mr. Lincoln had wryly referred to as a mighty structure of beanpoles and cornstalks was complete.

They had to rush the work, sacrificing sleep, because men returning from the battle joined around Spotsylvania Court House said the Union and Confederate casualties were piling up like cordwood in the autumn. The temporary hospitals could hold only the worst cases. During the frantic rebuilding of the trestle, eight men fell off from various places. Four died. Their funeral rites consisted of quick concealment beneath tarpaulins.

Now the rails were laid, the huge hawsers rigged across the bridge, the locomotive brought up.

"Pull," the black men and their white officers chanted together, thick ropes running through their hands and over their shoulders and across the trestle to the locomotive spouting steam on the far side. "Pull — and — pull."

As Haupt's Wisconsin and Indiana volunteers had done once before, they pulled the empty locomotive across the trestle while a lurid green twilight came down, presaging storm. Lightning flickered and ran around the horizon. The sky seemed to complain, and so did the bridge. It swayed. It creaked.

But it stood.

Now. Now. Now.

He had been saying that to himself for ten minutes to strengthen his nerve because his body was still so weak. Finally he knew he had to obey the silent command. One hand tight on the Confederate musket they had given him, Billy clawed a hold on the top of the earthwork and labored over while the torrential rain soaked him.

"Hey, Missouri, don't be crazy. You go any closer, you'll get kilt sure."

That was some reb noncom shouting from the earthworks he had just left. He lurched to his feet and limped through long, slippery grass, rapidly using up the small reserve of strength left to him. His kepi did little to shield his face from the hard rain.

He stumbled, sprawled, gagged when he slid into a dead Union vidette gazing at a lightning flash without seeing it. When the glare faded and darkness returned, he dropped his musket and flung off the kepi. The next flash caught him struggling to remove his gray jacket, his mouth opening and closing, silent gasps of pain. He was spotted by the same rebs who had earlier accepted his arrival without much question since the heavy fighting had shattered and mixed different commands all along the Confederate line. The noncom's voice reached him again.

"That dirty scum ain't attackin' nobody. He's runnin' to the other side. Shoot the bastard."

"Running — oh, damn right," Billy panted, trying to beat back fear with mockery. Guns cracked behind him. Lungs hurting, he kept moving, away from them. One shoulder rose and fell in rhythm with his hobbling gait. Thunder rolled in the wake of the last lightning, then in a new burst silhouetted fresh-budded trees and lit a Union bayonet like white-hot metal.

The picket with the bayonet, one of Burnside's men facing the rebel position, spied the filthy figure. Behind the picket, other shoulder weapons started crackling as loudly as those of the rebs. "Don't shoot," Billy yelled in the crossfire, hands raised. "Don't shoot. I'm a Union officer escaped from —"

He tripped on a half-buried stone and twisted, falling. He flapped his arms, losing all sense of direction. So he never knew who fired the shot that hit him and flung him on his face with a muffled cry.

George learned more about the spring offensive from Washington papers than he did from anyone in the war theater. Everyone called it Grant's campaign and praised Grant's brave men, although the actual commander of the Army of the Potomac was Major General Meade. Grant, however, was a general of the armies who took the field. Meade was relegated to a role something like that of a corps commander. It became Grant's war and Grant's plan. Ignore Richmond. Destroy Lee's army. Then the card house would fall.

But the papers also used one more phrase accusingly and often: Grant's casualties. The dispatches took on a sameness as the decimated army refilled its ranks and marched by night in pursuit of the retreating Lee. The repetitious headlines fell like a slow drum cadence: IMMENSE REBEL LOSSES AND OUR LOSS TWELVE THOUSAND and HEAVY LOSS ON BOTH SIDES.

George and the youngster named Scow watched one of the death trains traveling north from Falmouth on the reopened Aquia Creek & Fredericksburg. They could always identify the trains of the dead from Falmouth because they traveled noticeably faster than those carrying wounded or prisoners. Hundreds of firefly sparks swarmed above and behind the locomotive, which rapidly vanished. The line of cars was so long that despite its speed it seemed to take forever to pass.

"Twenty, twenty-one — twenty-two," Scow said, watching the last go by. "That's a mighty lot of coffins."

"The general's killing a mighty lot of men, but he'll kill more."

Scow said "Um" in a way that denoted sadness. Then asked, "How many you figure?"

Depressed, George swatted at a floating spark. He missed, and it stung his cheek. "As many as it takes to win." He was proud of the work he and the black men, so diverse in appearance and personality and yet so united in purpose, had accomplished. But he hated the reason for the work.

He clapped Scow on the shoulder in a friendly way that wasn't suitable for an officer, but he didn't give a hang, because the corps was an odd outfit. Odd and proud. "Let's find some food."

Presently George sat cross-legged next to Scow at a campfire built of pieces of broken crossties. He was spooning beans from his tin plate when a whistle signaled the approach of another Falmouth train. He and Scow peered through a maze of stumps toward the track a quarter of a mile away. Northern Virginia was a land of stumps; few uncut trees remained.

George watched the white beam of the headlight sweep around a bend, stabbing above the stumps and bleaching Scow light tan for a few moments.

"Wounded," George said, having judged the speed. He went back to his beans as the car carrying his brother rattled by.

104

In a thunderstorm, Virgilia and eight other nurses rode the cars from Aquia Creek to Falmouth. There a temporary field hospital had been established to augment the deserted Fredericksburg churches, stables, and private homes used for the same purpose. Casualties were pouring in from the contested ground around Spotsylvania. The worst cases, the ones who couldn't survive even a short rail trip, were treated at Falmouth.

The car in which the nurses traveled had been gutted, the passenger seats replaced by bunks exuding the familiar smells of dirt and wounds. The windows were boarded over, except for one at each end left for ventilation. From these the glass had long ago been smashed. Rain blew in as the train rolled south. A lantern hung by the rear door, but flashes of lightning washed out its glow and lent a corpselike look to the cloaked women attempting to sit decorously on the bunks.

The nurse in charge was Mrs. Neal, from whom Virgilia had three times tried to escape. Each time, Miss Dix had answered her transfer request in the same terse language. Miss Hazard was considered too valuable. Miss Hazard was an asset to her present hospital. Miss Hazard could not be spared for duty elsewhere.

Virgilia suspected Mrs. Neal had a hand in the refusals. The older woman recognized Virgilia's ability but took pleasure in frustrating her. Virgilia, in turn, continued to despise her supervisor, yet could not bring herself to resign. The work was still deeply satisfying. She brought comfort and recovery to scores of men in pain. The sight of the maimed and dying kept her hatred of Southerners at full strength. And when she lost a patient, she was philosophic, remembering Coriolanus again. Volumnia saying, "I had rather eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit out of action."

"— they say the Spotsylvania fighting has been fearful." That was a buxom spinster named Thomasina Kisco. The edge of her black travel bonnet cast a sharp shadow across her face. "And the number of casualties enormous."

"That will assure Mr. Lincoln's removal in November," Mrs. Neal said. "He refuses to end the butchery, so the electorate must." She seldom stopped electioneering for McClellan and the Peace Democrats.

"Is it true they're bringing Confederate wounded to this hospital?" Virgilia asked.

"Yes." Mrs. Neal's tone was as cold as her stare. Virgilia was accustomed to both. She shivered. She was chilly because her cloak was damp, but at least the odor of wet wool helped mask those of the car. She considered the supervisor's answer and decided she had to speak.

"I will not treat enemy soldiers, Mrs. Neal."

"You will do whatever you are told to do, Miss Hazard." Her anger drew sympathetic looks from the others — all for Virgilia. Mrs. Neal retreated. "Really, my dear — you're an excellent nurse, but you seem unable to accept the discipline of the service. Why do you continue?"

Because, you illiterate cow, in my own way I'm a soldier, too. Instead of saying that, however, Virgilia merely shifted her gaze elsewhere. Prig and martinet were only two of the terms she applied to Mrs. Neal in the silence of her thoughts.

The past year had been difficult and unhappy because of the supervisor. Many times Virgilia was ready to do exactly what Mrs. Neal wanted — resign. She hung on not only because she drew satisfaction from the work but also because she had become good at it, knowing more than many of the contract hacks who posed as distinguished surgeons. Whenever the need to quit overwhelmed her, she fought it by remembering that Grady had died unavenged — and that Lee, then still a Union officer, had led the detachment that put an end to John Brown's brave struggle. After that, the work always won out.

It did so now. The car swayed, the wind howled, the rain blew in through the shattered windows. Miss Kisco cast an apprehensive eye on the ceiling.

"That thunder is extremely loud."

"Those are the guns at Spotsylvania," Virgilia said.

The storm continued, battering the canvas pavilions of the field hospital. The pavilions were located near the Falmouth station, so that in addition to the outcries of the patients and the swearing of the surgeons and the shouts of the ambulance drivers there was a constant background noise of shunting cars, ringing bells, screeching whistles — war's bedlam.

Virgilia and Miss Kisco were assigned to a pavilion that received men who, though seriously wounded, didn't require immediate surgery. The slicing and sawing went on in the next pavilion, where Mrs. Neal took charge. She inspected Virgilia's about once an hour.

"Over here next, Miss Hazard," said the chief surgeon of the pavilion. A paunchy, wheezy-voiced man, he fairly jerked her along to a cot where orderlies had placed a slim lieutenant with silky brown hair. The young man was unconscious. Though his cot occupied the pavilion's darkest corner, Virgilia clearly saw the color of his uniform.

"This man's a rebel."

"So I assumed from the gray coat," the surgeon said crossly. "He also happens to be shot." He pointed to the right thigh. "Remove that dressing, please."

The surgeon stepped to the left side of the cot, where a large scrap of paper was pinned to the blanket. He ripped it loose to read it. "Bullet lodged near the femoral artery. Vessel torn but not clamped. He's a Mississippi boy. General Nat Harris's brigade. Captured in front of the rifle pits at the Mule Shoe Salient. Can't quite decipher his name —"

He tilted the scrap toward the nearest lantern some yards away. Virgilia, meantime, forced herself to remove the dressing from the torn trouser leg. In the next aisle, a boy gagged and wept. From the operating pavilion, she heard the rasp of saws in bone. So much suffering — and here she was tending one of those who had caused it. Her rage intensified like fire in a dry woods.

The reb's wound had been decently cleaned and dressed by the ambulance orderlies. The bare, pale leg felt slightly cool when she touched it. That explained the lack of bleeding; it had stopped when his temperature dropped.

"O'Grady."

Virgilia's head jerked up. "I beg your pardon?"

"I said," the doctor growled, "his name appears to be O'Grady. Thomas Aloysius O'Grady. Didn't know there were any potato-eaters down in Mississippi. Let me have a look."

The weary doctor waddled around the end of the cot. Virgilia remained where she was, her eyes fixed, unblinking.

"Will you please stand aside?"

Mumbling an apology, she obeyed. Her head hit the sloping canvas; she bent forward to avoid it. O'Grady. She hated the silky-haired boy twice as much for bearing that name. She clutched her apron and began to twist it, gently at first, then with increasing violence.

"Miss Hazard, are you ill?"

His wheezing question wrenched her back from her private anguish. "I'm sorry, Doctor — what did you say?"

"I don't know what you're thinking about, but kindly pay attention to this patient. We must clamp off that artery and try to remove the —"

"Doctor," Miss Kisco called from the other side of the pavilion. "Over here, please —emergency."

Hurrying away, the surgeon said, "I'll tend to him as soon as I can. Put on a new dressing and watch him carefully."

Virgilia withdrew gauze pads from the lacquered box in the center of the pavilion and returned to the cot of Lieutenant O'Grady. How many Union soldiers had the Mississippi boy killed, she wondered. She knew one thing: he wouldn't kill any more. How fitting that his name was so close to that of her dead lover.

She noticed Mrs. Neal at the pavilion entrance, conferring with another of the surgeons. The supervisor, in turn, watched Virgilia for a few seconds. She was always trying to catch her in a mistake, but never could. When Mrs. Neal returned her attention to the doctor, Virgilia carefully and gently rebandaged the wounded thigh.

Without the slightest movement or expression to betray her excitement, she pulled up the wool blanket so it covered the young lieutenant. She found a second blanket and couldn't suppress a little smile as she laid it on top of the first. Softly, soothingly, she stroked the boy's cool forehead, then glided away.

Sudden cannon fire shook the pavilion. All the lanterns swayed. Two more ambulances arrived outside, the horses snorting, the wheels slopping in mud. The rain had diminished to a drizzle. Virgilia decided it must be close to dawn — they had gone to work immediately upon leaving the car — but she' felt energetic, renewed. She could hardly keep from glancing at the unconscious reb while she helped with the new cases coming in.

During the next twenty minutes, the chief surgeon didn't have time to return to Lieutenant O'Grady. But Virgilia found time, walking to the cot with fresh gauzes draped over her arm.

Carefully, she raised the blankets. Bright red arterial blood stained the gauzes applied earlier. The soldier's breathing was louder, labored — as expected. She laid the dressings on the cot and felt for his pulse. Stronger, faster — also as expected. The blankets had raised his temperature, and secondary hemorrhaging had begun. As expected.

Drawing the blankets down, she laid two new dressings on top of the first. It would take some time for the pumping blood to soak through all those layers. Should someone raise the blanket, it was doubtful that a problem would be apparent. Once more Virgilia brought the blanket up and tucked it neatly beneath the boy's chin. She felt not the slightest prick of conscience. This was the enemy. She was a soldier. Grady had long cried out to be avenged.

"Miss Hazard!"

The shout of the chief surgeon drew her back to the center of the pavilion. A captain with a serious chest wound was rushed in on a litter. The only vacant cot was that next to O'Grady, back in the poorly lit corner.

Heart racing, she maneuvered herself into the space between O'Grady's bed and that of the new patient, partially blocking the surgeon's view of the reb. Pressed with so many urgent cases, the surgeon did nothing except nod toward O'Grady and ask, "How's that one?"

"Satisfactory the last time I checked, sir."

"Seems to be breathing hard. Have a look."

"Yes, sir." Terrified, she started to turn.

"I mean after you help me here."

Virgilia's tension melted. They worked over the captain for six minutes, until the exhausted surgeon staggered off to answer another appeal from Miss Kisco, who was receiving a new ambulance-load at the entrance. Virgilia snatched fresh gauzes from the storage box and rushed back to O'Grady. She lifted the blanket and saw the small, bright red stars — just two — on the field of white. Her smile was almost sensual.

She applied an additional dressing and once more drew up the blankets. He was bleeding to death unnoticed. Unmourned. Her best estimate was that he would be gone within a half hour. She returned the other dressings to the box and went about her work with a sense of warmth and happiness.

In three-quarters of an hour, carrying a waste pail, she went back to the corner and disposed of the thoroughly soaked dressings, replacing them with a new one, the last that would be needed. She replaced the blankets on the body, put the pail among others with similar contents, and resumed her other work. Despite the clamor and foulness of the pavilion, she floated in a near-euphoric state for twenty minutes. Then she got a jolt.

Unnoticed by Virgilia, Mrs. Neal had returned to inspect various patients. It was her sharp outcry that drew Virgilia's attention. She saw the supervisor back in the dim corner, her squat body silhouetted against the canvas brightened by the light of the new day.

With her right hand, Mrs. Neal held up the blankets that had covered Lieutenant O'Grady. The startled O of her mouth broke.

"Doctor — Doctor! This boy is dead. Who was charged with watching him?"

105

"Name and rank of the prisoner?"

"Private Stephen McNaughton."

"Caught where?"

"Approximately three miles north of here, sir. He was identified by those." The frog-voiced three-striper hooked his thumb at the prisoner's soiled tartan pantaloons.

The hanging lantern glared in the eyes of the regimental adjutant, a major half the prisoner's age, slight and sandy-haired, with ginger-colored Dundreary whiskers. "Step forward," he ordered, rolling the r slightly. Cap in hand, Salem Jones advanced two paces to the field desk.

"Scum of the streets — that's all we get anymore." The major's complaint drew a nod from one of the two corporals who, together with the sergeant, had brought Jones to regimental head­quarters. "Such a depraved, vice-hardened, desperate set of human beings never before fouled any army on the face of God's earth."

Worried as he was, Jones had no fundamental disagreement with the major's opinion. When he had signed on as a replacement in his last regiment, a Pennsylvania reserve unit, he had been held in a Philadelphia stockade for three and a half days, constantly watched by armed guards. The other recruits similarly confined terrified him; they were clearly criminals, men who would have knifed or strangled him and looted his pockets if he hadn't already lost his bounty in a high-stakes poker game.

"What was your original occupation, Private McNaughton?

Cardsharp? Thief? Murderer?" The major's next words sounded like pistol shots. "Never mind, I know the real answers. Opportunist. Coward. You're a disgrace to this regiment, the United States Army, the state of New York, America, and your ancestral homeland."

Pious little prick, Jones thought, envisioning several painful ways he would murder the major, given the chance. Ah, but he mustn't waste time on fantasies. He had to concentrate on saving himself. His was the misfortune of having chosen a Scottish alias, and the adjutant was a Scot. Jones had the feeling this officer wouldn't let him off so lightly as others had.

The major seemed incapable of curbing his temper — understandable, given the great numbers of misfits and jailbirds being shoveled up throughout the North to fuel Grant's war engine. The officer came around the desk and planted himself intimidatingly close to Jones.

"On how many other occasions have you claimed the enlistment bounty, then jumped? Several, I'll wager. Well, McNaughton, if that is your name, which I doubt, it will not be so easy henceforth."

Salem Jones's legs wobbled. His stomach began to slosh as the major said to the sergeant, "Fetch the barber and have him heat the iron. And get this piece of garbage out of my sight."

First the shears, then a razor, the latter applied with little soap and no gentleness. The noncom who functioned as the regiment's unofficial barber twice drew blood as he scraped Jones's skull. Jones didn't dare cry out for fear of provoking him.

He sat on a stool while the barber removed the last of the hair that ringed his bald head. About thirty soldiers had turned out to watch the punishment. He was infuriated by some of the smirking faces. They belonged to men who had enlisted for the bounty under false names, just as he had, with every intention of deserting. Jones had joined up and run away four times during the year since he had conceived the idea at the height of the New York rioting. He knew men who had pulled it off seven or eight times, with never a capture. That kind of luck had eluded him, as luck had eluded him most of his life.

The May night was warm. An owl hooted somewhere. From the great sparking fire, the shirtless three-striper called, "Ready."

The ring of observers opened. Corporals pushed Jones through to the fire as the sergeant reached into it with a right hand protected by a thick gauntlet. The sergeant seized the handle of the branding iron and pulled. The end that slid from the coals was white.

While others held him, someone shoved a bottle of popskull at Jones. They forced him to drink several mouthfuls of the fiery swill. With liquor running down his chin and blood trickling around his left ear from one of the scalp nicks, he was thrust to the fire. The boisterous witnesses closed in behind.

The sweating three-striper lifted the iron. Bastards, Jones screamed in silence. I'll kill you. To those grasping him by the arms and shoulders, the sergeant said, "Hold him steady."

Rising toward his eyes, the white iron grew larger and larger. Jones writhed, began begging. "No — no, don't." A familiar face floated to one side of the intense light. The major had come out to watch.

"I said hold him," the sergeant snarled. Hands clamped Salem Jones's head. He began screaming several seconds before the sergeant pushed the iron against his face.

He flung the firebrand on the tent and ran.

Down a grassy embankment, up the far side, into an apple orchard. There he finally whirled around, clutching an overhanging branch and watching flames ignite the tent. Shouts, oaths came from within. He didn't really suppose he could burn the major to death, but at least he had given him a fright. He turned and ran on.

Three days after the punishment, Jones had been returned to duty, because the army was preparing to march — by night, which seemed to be the rule now — and the fools believed that head shaving and branding had broken him. Besides, they needed bodies to throw into the war machine. His was good enough. Those of immigrants, thugs, physical cripples were good enough. The Union Army was full of splendid specimens these days.

Brimming with rage and a pain that would last far longer than that in his face, Jones met the order to march by stealing some nondescript trousers from another regiment, encamped nearby. He threw away his tartan pantaloons, donned the plain ones, and ripped all the military buttons from his rancid jacket. He had no cash; more gambling had disposed of that. He had no weapon, and he had no identification except the one burned on him. He was preparing for his last desertion.

Even if he could manage to reenlist for another bounty, he wouldn't do it. The war had grown too savage. Lee had withstood Butcher Grant in the Wilderness and bloodied him at Spotsylvania — during the latter action, Jones kept busy straggling or dodging to the safest sectors — but Grant wouldn't quit. The major who had ordered the punishment had once told his assembled regiment about Grant sending a telegraphic dispatch to Washington to express his determination to win in Virginia. The heart of Grant's message was printed in papers all over the North to improve civilian morale, the major said. He could even quote the essence of the message: "I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer."

Well, he would do it without Salem Jones, by God. Jones had enjoyed the benefits of the bounty system for a while, but recapture and the ordeal at the fire had put an end to that. He was bound south, as fast and as far as he could travel. He might go as far as South Carolina. He would love to be there when the Confederacy fell, as it surely would now that Grant's bloody engine was rolling. It amused Jones to imagine what he could do to Mont Royal and the people who had discharged him when Carolina became a conquered province —

As he fled through the orchard, the scene behind him — shadowmen running, shouting — convinced him the major had escaped from the burning tent. Too bad, but he had done his best. Now he must worry about slipping through the Union lines and the Confederate ones farther south.

At the adjoining regimental bivouac, he dashed through a gap between picket posts. A few moments later, the May moon sailed from behind a cloud, drenching him with light. Two inches high, the D stood out black and clear beneath his right eye.

Within twenty-four hours of the arrival of the nurses, conditions at the field hospital improved. Sanitary Commission wagons with flocks of black youngsters merrily chasing them brought bottled morphine, tinctured opium, chloride of lime. And food. In the first hours, while the hurt, dying, and dead had been shuttled in and out at dizzying speed, only hardtack and coffee had been available.

Amidst the constant activity and occasional confusion, Virgilia managed to marshal her wits and courage for the confrontation that had become inevitable the moment Mrs. Neal raised the dead boy's blanket. She suspected the supervisor would approach her first, rather than go to the surgeon in charge; she would want that satisfaction.

At the end of Virgilia's first full day on duty, there came a lull. No new patients, and nothing more to be done for those already there. Virgilia wiped a tin cup on her apron and ladled hot coffee into it. She was spent, having slept less than an hour in one of the commission wagons that afternoon.

She wandered outside. It was dusk. Fire-blackened stumps and tree trunks surrounding the hospital still gave off the smell of charred wood. Dull pain reached from Virgilia's feet to her lower back, the result of standing for so long. She wandered past the corner of her pavilion, tensing when she heard a rustle of skirts behind her. Without turning, she sat on a stump and brushed away a fly.

"Miss Hazard?"

Her face composed, Virgilia shifted her position to acknowledge the presence of the older woman.

"I have an extremely serious matter to discuss. I fear we both know what it is."

You fear? she thought, wrathful. You revel in it. She detected a sparkle of malice in Mrs. Neal's eyes. The supervisor walked to another stump and stopped behind it, facing her subordinate like a presiding judge.

"You allowed that young Southerner to bleed to death, didn't you? In other words, you killed him."

"Of all the ridiculous, insulting —"

"Taking the offensive with protests and bluster will do you no good," Mrs. Neal interrupted. "You told me on the train, very explicitly and before witnesses, that you would not minister to enemy wounded. Your extreme hatred of the South is well known. You covered that young soldier with blankets when you knew full well that warming him would start the damaged vessel bleeding again."

"Yes, I did cover him. I admit to that mistake. In the confusion — so many needing help — the surgeons all yelling at once —"

"Nonsense. You are one of the best nurses I have ever met. I have always disliked you, but I don't minimize your ability. You would not make that sort of mistake unless it was deliberate."

Feeling dampness under her arms and a series of tight little convulsions in her middle, Virgilia rose. She had gambled that admission of one mistake might lend credibility to a denial of greater guilt. Mrs. Neal was not taken in. Without looking at the supervisor, Virgilia bluffed. "If I confess to the error in judgment, you'll have a hard time proving it was anything more."

"I can certainly try. I shall report that you put the blankets on the patient, fully understanding the consequences, and you then concealed the hemorrhaging by covering one bloodied bandage with another and another — several, in fact — so that inevitably —"

"Damn you, I didn't!"

Whirling to cry at her tormentor, Virgilia saw two huge black birds perched on the one surviving branch of a scorched tree. She imagined the birds had been drawn by the smell of wounds. Including hers.

Mrs. Neal lifted her several chins, her glare challenging. "If not you, then who?" "I don't know. One of the orderlies —" "Again — patent nonsense." "I admit to the blanket, nothing else." "In the face of that, further discussion is fruitless. But I know what you did, and I shall take the evidence to Miss Dix. I shall see you punished. I suggest you spend the evening rehearsing your defense. You'll want to have all your lies in order when the investigation begins." And she swept by with a sideways look of pleasure. Virgilia stayed outside among the ruined trees as it grew dark. The black birds remained on the charred limb. She took a sip from the cup. Cold. She threw the coffee on the ground. Inside the pavilion, a wounded man began to weep.

She scarcely heard. Given Mrs. Neal's politics and personal animosity, the supervisor would certainly press for an investigation. And it would probably take place. Who besides Miss Dix would be involved? The surgeon general's staff? The civil police in Washington? Exhausted, disheveled, Virgilia saw fantasies in the lowering dark. A barred cell. A man in judicial robes high above her, passing sentence —

"God," she cried softly as something flapped past and brushed her face.

When she recovered, she saw one of the roosting birds sailing above the pavilion. A train whistled. She knuckled her eyes to rid them of tears of fright. Keep your nerve. Think clearly. What you did isn't a crime. It was for Grady. There are millions who would call it patriotic. He was the enemy.

All that rationalization did nothing to cancel the other fact. Mrs. Neal would report her. There must be no investigation. It was up to her to prevent it and the possible consequences: prosecution, prison —

How, though? How?

"There you are, Virgilia."

The woman's voice startled her. She saw Miss Kisco at the pavilion entrance. Belatedly, she heard something new in the tone of the other nurse: hostility.

"What is it?"

"The chief surgeon wishes to speak to you."

"Tell him I'll be there in a moment. I'm a bit dizzy from all the fumes inside."

"Very well." Miss Kisco vanished.

Virgilia turned and walked the other way into the dark.

Her pass was in order; she had no trouble boarding the first train leaving for Aquia Landing. By sunrise she was on a steamer chugging up the Potomac.

She would never go back to the field hospital, or any other. But neither would she hide. It had come to her outside the pavilion that she had but one hope of aborting an investigation, and that was through the intervention of some person of influence. A person powerful enough to thwart Mrs. Neal and even Miss Dix.

Virgilia sat on deck bundled in her cloak, her valises between her feet. Despite her situation, she had no regrets. The Southerners had been responsible for Grady's death, and she had taken a life in reprisal, as the Confederates themselves did. As the biblical kings did.

She was sorry she could no longer continue as a nurse. The work had given her life a direction it had lacked since the debacle at Harpers Ferry. But at least she had closed out her field career as any good soldier should. By destroying an enemy.

Now she must deal with another. In the cool of the early morning, she debarked at the city pier, her face calm, her course determined. As soon as she found a room and cleaned up, she would set about contacting Congressman Sam Stout.

106

In his bed in Harewood Convalescent Hospital, Billy wrote:

On the day Lincoln won renomination, joined on the ticket by Governor Johnson of Tennessee, a Democrat, Isabel packed up the twins and left for a long holiday at the house in Newport. Washington had become intolerable. Almost hourly, the trains and steamers carrying the dead rattled over Long Bridge or tied up at the Sixth Street piers. Morticians wandered about with glassy expressions, exhausted from conducting their trade and counting their profits. Eighteen to twenty thousand patients jammed the district's military hospitals. Wounded walked even in the best districts, and pestilential smells overpowered even the strongest scent.

Stanley didn't object to his wife's departure. It enabled him to visit more freely with a young woman whose acquaintance he had made one night in April when he and some Republican cronies, all rip-roaring drunk, visited the Varieties, the big theater on Ninth Street whose front was bedecked with flags and splashed by the rainbow colors of a transparency wheel revolving in front of a calcium light.

The audience for the show was almost entirely male. Before the appearance of the sentimental soloists, Chinese contortionists, black-faced comedians, the scantily clad members of the dancing chorus performed a crowd-pleasing routine set to patriotic airs. The prettiness of one of the dancers, a busty girl of twenty or so, unexpectedly prompted Stanley to leap up on the bench, shouting like dozens of sweaty, tobacoo-chewing soldiers all around him.

A ten-cent whiskey in each hand, Stanley riveted his eye on this particular dancer and, afterward, struck up a conversation back­stage — not difficult once the young lady took note of his age and expensive clothing and heard him say he was a confidant of Secretary Stanton, Senator Wade, and Congressman Davis among others.

The last two legislators were much in the news lately. With their Wade-Davis bill, recently passed in the House, they had openly declared war on the President's moderate program for postwar reconstruction. The bill stipulated that civil government would be restored only after fifty percent of a rebelling state's white males took a loyalty oath; Lincoln's plan kept the percentage at ten. Other Wade-Davis provisos were equally harsh, and the President had made it known that he would bury the legislation with a pocket veto if it cleared the Senate.

Enraged, Wade retaliated by saying publicly, "The authority of Congress is paramount. It must be respected by all — and I do not exclude that hag-ridden creature who haunts the Executive Mansion and daily heaps more disgrace upon his office and his nation."

At the reception where Wade first uttered the statement, Stanley clapped and muzzily cried "Hear, hear!" He hadn't gone so far as to attend the splinter nominating convention in Cleveland, where a Republican faction had named General Fremont its candidate. But he was dedicated to Lincoln's overthrow, and this was but one of many facts he conveyed to his new light-of-love.

Miss Jeannie Canary — the last name was something she had adopted to replace the unpronounceable one bestowed by her Levantine father — was impressed by Stanley's friends almost as much as she was by his unlimited cash supply. On the night after the renomination, she and Stanley lay naked in bed in Miss Canary's cheap rooms on the island — quarters from which he had pledged to move her soon.

Pleasantly blurry from bourbon, Stanley rested on his ample stomach, diddling Miss Canary's dark nipples with his fingertips. She usually smiled continually. But not this evening.

"Loves, I want to see the illuminations. I want to hear the Marine Band play 'Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!' "

"Jeannie" — he spoke as if explaining to a slow child — "the celebrations constitute a slap in the face to my closest friends. How dare I attend?"

"Oh, that isn't the reason you're saying no," she retorted, flouncing over and showing him her plump rear. Beyond soiled curtains, a fiery line ran upward in the sky, bursting into a shower of silver spangles. Other rockets, green, yellow, blue, followed. In the direction of Georgetown, many balloons were aloft, dangerously illuminated by lanterns in their baskets.

She poked an index finger into her cheek, as a bad actress might to convey a pensive mood. 'The real reason is you don't want to be seen with me."

"You mustn't take offense at that. I am known in this town. I am also a married man."

"Then you've got no business being here, have you? So if you won't take me out, don't bother to rent a new flat for me. Or come backstage again — ever."

Her dark eyes and her pout undid him. He heaved his pale body out of bed, found the bottle, and swigged the last of it. "All right. I suppose we could go for an hour — though I want you to appreciate the risk I'm taking." He reached for his oversized underdrawers.

"Oh, loves, I do, I do," she squealed, scented arms around his neck, breasts mashed flat against his flab. Moments like these somehow canceled Stanley's awareness of his age and banished every thought of Isabel. At such times, he felt like a young man.

The sight Miss Canary wanted to see was the Patent Office, above the avenue on F Street. They caught a hack — Stanley never brought his own carriage and driver to the island — and on the way he attempted to explain why he and his friends despised Lincoln. He started with the different plans for reconstruction, descriptions of which confused her and stiffened her smile, a sure sign she was growing cross again. He immediately tried the military approach.

"The President chose Grant, but Grant's campaign is virtually at a standstill. Cold Harbor was a disaster, the dimensions of which we are just discovering. The general has lost something like fifty thousand men — nearly half the original force with which he advanced across the Rapidan, and almost the same number as you'll find in Lee's entire army. The nation won't tolerate a butcher's bill that high — especially with Richmond still not captured."

"I'm not exactly sure where Richmond is, loves. Down near North Carolina?"

Sighing, he patted her hand and gave up. Jeannie Canary was sweet and droll, but her talents, while delicious, were limited. One shouldn't expect more of actresses, he supposed.

"I want to get out," she insisted when the hack stalled in the crowd at the corner of Seventh and F. He tried to persuade her that they shouldn't, but she opened the door anyway. With a quiver of fear, he followed.

Fireworks exploded overhead, thunderous. The crowd whistled and cheered the red, white, and blue star bursts. On the front of the Patent Office building, great illuminations had been created — huge transparency portraits of Lincoln and the unknown Johnson and tough-jawed Grant blazed in the night. Miss Canary squealed and clung to his arm, and he watched strangers take notice of them. A shiver chased along his spine. The danger had a certain piquant quality, something like the thrill experienced by a soldier, he felt sure.

"Good evening, Stanley."

Paling, he swung sharply and saw Congressman Henry Davis of Maryland tip his hat, skewer Miss Canary with a glance — she was oblivious — and pass on.

Oh, my God, oh, my God, was all that passed through Stanley's head for the next couple of moments. What a fool he was, what an absolute ass. The danger here wasn't piquant; it was deadly.

And he was now a casualty.

Charles wanted to mourn for Beauty Stuart, but no tears would come.

Instead, he examined memories; shining bits of glass in the great bright window of the Stuart legend, a window fashioned partly by Stuart's admirers, partly by his detractors, partly by the man himself. At the end, Charles could forgive Stuart's suspicion and shabby treatment of Hampton early in the war and remember instead how lustily he sang. They said that while he was dying he had asked friends to sing "Rock of Ages" at his bedside.

As senior brigadier, Hampton stood next in line to command the cavalry. He immediately got a large part of the responsibility, but not the promotion. Charles and Jim Pickles and every other veteran knew why. Lee distrusted Hampton's age. Was he fit enough to withstand the rigors of the command?

Charles thought it a ridiculous issue. Hampton had long ago proved himself able to endure hardships, bad weather, long rides, and campaigns that would fell many men who were years younger. Still, those high up seemed determined to test him further. Charles felt bad because he suspected the delay also had something to do with Fitz Lee wanting the promotion for himself. Once back from Richmond, Charles had no time away from duty, no chance to visit Gus, though he thought of her often. He had decided that the love affair must be cooled off if not ended completely. The war was helping.

At the same time, he worried that harm would come to her as ferocious campaigning started in the Wilderness. He knew the Federals had overrun Fredericksburg again and many of the inhabitants had fled. A note from Orry in answer to one of his said Gus and her freedmen weren't in Richmond or, if they were, they hadn't come to Orry and Madeline for sanctuary. From that, Charles guessed she was still at the farm. He wanted to find out if she was all right but couldn't do it.

Which was better, knowing or not knowing? Jim Pickles received letters from home, and each depressed him for days after it arrived. His mother was bedridden. One doctor suspected she had a cancer and might not last the year.

"I got to go home," Jim announced one day.

"You can't," Charles said with authority.

Jim thought for a while. "I s'pose you're right." But he didn't sound convinced.

Grant's army reeled past its own dead at Cold Harbor, apparently intent on investing the strategic rail junction at Petersburg. Phil Sheridan's cavalry feinted toward Charlottesville; Lee was forced to send Hampton in pursuit. Near Trevilian Station, on the Virginia Central line, Charles briefly saw the curly-haired Yankee, a general now, who had marked him at Brandy Station.

The Federals were about to make off with wagons, ambulances, and around eight hundred horses. Calbraith Butler's brigade was fighting elsewhere, so Hampton sent Texas Tom Rosser galloping in. Charles rode with Rosser's men, and it was then that he spied the boy general, recognizing him first by his scarlet neckerchief. Charles fired one shot, which missed. Custer fired back and rode away. It was doubtful that he recognized Charles, who now resembled a bearded bandit more than a soldier.

The next afternoon, Charles fought dismounted from behind hastily built earthworks on one side of the Virginia Central tracks. He and Jim were back with Butler's troopers. Across the tracks, Sheridan's cavalry formed and advanced on foot while brass instruments dinned "Garryowen."

"D'ja ever hear such noise?" Jim shouted, ducking at the whiz of a Minié ball not far above him. He wasn't referring to the gunfire.

"Little Phil always orders up plenty of music," Charles replied, emptying his revolver at the enemy, then crouching down to reload. "They say he does it to drown out the rebel yells."

Flinging himself up to the fence rails topping the earthworks, he steadied his revolver with both hands, aimed, and slowly squeezed off two shots. A boy in blue crumpled on the tracks.

With a grunt expressing satisfaction, Charles hunted his next target.

"This here's got to be the most tuneful war anybody ever fought," Jim observed. "One thing — it sure ain't the kind of war I expected."

Beyond his gunsight, Charles saw a spectral springtime road where natty gentlemen soldiers trotted their matched bays in smart formation. "It isn't what anybody expected," he said, and blew a hole in another youngster's leg. He found he shot with greater accuracy if he considered the Yanks just so many animated clay targets in a gallery.

On they came, gamely firing carbines braced against their hips. The last assault took place near sunset. When it was repulsed, Sheridan withdrew his men from battle. They began slipping away toward the North Anna during the night. Charles and the other scouts were in the van of the pursuit. Thus they were the ones who discovered the scene of horror.

Jim came upon it first, near an abandoned federal campsite. He galloped to find Charles, told him what he had found. Then, before he could lean out far enough, he threw up all over his own shotgun, saddle, and surprised horse.

Charles rode into the sunny pasture, smelling the slaughter before he saw it. He heard it, too — carrion birds flapping in the weeds, an orchestra of thousands of flies. A couple of minutes later, his mouth set, he turned Sport's head and trotted the starved-looking gray toward the general's temporary headquarters.

Hampton, ever the gentleman, broke that characteristic attitude as he rode bareheaded to the site. The breeze lifted his beard while he stared at the fantastic sculptures of fly-covered horses heaped upon one another.

"Have you counted?" he whispered.

"There are so many of them, so close together, it's hard, General. I figure eighty or ninety, minimum. Jim found as many or more over there near those trees. I searched for wounds — other than those made by the bullets that killed them, I mean — for as long as I could stomach it. I didn't find any. The Yanks must have decided a horse herd would slow down the retreat."

"I've shot injured horses but never foundering ones. To kill fine animals wantonly is even worse. It's a sin."

And no sin to chain a nigra? Aloud, his response was, "Yes, sir."

"Goddamn them," Hampton said.

But as Charles gazed at what men had done and considered what he had become, he felt the general was a mite late with his request. God had already done a pretty good job on most of the population.

Cold Harbor rattled the windowpanes of Richmond again. At night Orry and Madeline lay with their arms around each other, unable to sleep because of the guns.

They had heard them earlier, in May, when Butler pushed up the James to within seven miles of the city. They heard them again on the stifling June nights in the wake of Cold Harbor. Now the fighting raged at Petersburg. After four fruitless days of trying to overcome the fortifications on the old Dimmock Line around the town, the Army of the Potomac halted its attack and settled down to besiege Petersburg instead.

"Lee always said that once the siege starts, we're finished," Orry told Madeline. "If they want, the Federals can keep bringing men and supplies through the river base at City Point till the end of the century. We'll have to capitulate."

"A long time ago, Cooper said it was inevitable, didn't he?"

"Cooper was right," he murmured, and kissed her.

Everywhere, Orry saw signs of the tide flowing the wrong way. Sheridan's horse had ridden almost to the city's north edge, and Butler's infantry had nearly reached the southern one. Joe Johnston — Retreating Joe, people called him hatefully — was withdrawing toward Atlanta in response to Sherman's inexorable advance. Another Union general, Sigel, was loose in the valley.

Few blockade runners got into Wilmington anymore. The nation's money supply was rapidly becoming so much worthless paper. Cold Harbor had brought déjà vu — scenes of panic like those of the Peninsula campaign. But this time there was little heart or martial courage to sustain the resistance. The mighty generals had fallen: Orry's classmate Old Jack; Stuart, the singing cavalier. And the greatest of them all, Marse Bob, couldn't win.

One morning after Cold Harbor, Pickett appeared at the War Department. Dull-eyed and wasted, he resembled a walking casualty. He still wore his scented hair in shoulder-length ringlets, but a great many tiny coils of white showed now. Orry felt sorry for George, who was gamely trying to maintain an air of youth and jauntiness when every jot of both had been beaten out of him.

In the hot, dusty silence, Orry shared his personal discontentments with his friend. In reply, Pickett said, "There will always be a place on my divisional staff should the time come when a field command suits you." A certain dark undertone in his voice hinted that Orry might think twice about such a decision. Was he remembering the charge at Gettysburg that had failed and aged him in a single day?

"I find myself wanting something like that lately, George. I haven't discussed it with Madeline, but I'll keep the offer in mind. I genuinely appreciate it."

Pickett didn't speak, merely lifted his hand and let it fall. He shambled away through slanting bars of sunshine.

There had been an official inquiry into the escape of a Union prisoner from Libby, abetted by a Confederate officer no one could identify except to say that he was exceptionally tall and heavily bearded, a description that fit several thousand men still in the army. The military threat to Richmond helped reduce the importance of the escape and, slowly, the inquiry. Orry only hoped Billy Hazard had reached and regained the Union lines without harm.

Mallory paid a call, stiffly informing him that Cooper had resigned after declaring his intention to leave Charleston and return to Mont Royal. Orry heard the alarming story of Cooper's attack on the Union prisoner.

"He's undergone a drastic change," Mallory said. "An abrupt and, in my opinion, reprehensible shift to favoring peace at any price."

Irked by the criticism, Orry said, "It was the shift to favoring war that was abrupt and reprehensible, Mr. Mallory. Maybe the brother I used to know has come back."

The secretary didn't like that and promptly left. Orry wrote a letter to Cooper in care of the plantation, posting it with little hope that it would be delivered. He was glad Cooper had gone home. Yet the possible significance of his brother's action depressed him for the same reason he was bothered by an incident the next morning.

"Who is that woman who just applied for a pass?" He asked a departmental clerk.

"Mrs. Manville. Came here from Baltimore in '61 to open a sporting house. She just closed it down."

"She's going back to Maryland?"

"Yes, somehow. She's determined, and we've no reason to stop her."

"Is she the first prostitute wanting a pass?"

"Oh, no, Colonel. There have been a dozen since Cold Harbor."

That night, on Marshall Street, he said to Madeline, "The so-called scarlet women are leaving. There's no more doubt. The curtain is starting down."

One personal problem continued to plague Orry: the mystery of the cabal, which had disappeared as if it never existed. Seddon had warned President Davis, Judah Benjamin, and others in the cabinet, but could do nothing more in the face of lack of evidence. Powell had vanished, or at least hadn't shown up at the farm. Twice, at Orry's insistence, Israel Quincy had returned to survey the place, finding nothing. From his own pocket, Orry paid a departmental clerk to go there at night to verify Merchant's report. Again, nothing.

Orry had seen the crated guns. And James Huntoon. And his sister. But the baffling events that followed his secret visit sometimes made him question his own sanity. Whenever he thought about the puzzle, the result was nothing but frustration. If Ashton had been part of a scheme to kill the President, she must be called to account. But how? The department lacked the manpower to watch her day and night, and he couldn't do it himself. Whenever he expressed the frustration to Madeline, she soothed him and urged him to put the problem away as insoluble. His answer was always the same: "Impossible."

The situation left him angry. Angry with himself, with his sister, with her husband. His feelings finally exploded at an unexpected time and place: an evening reception at the Treasury offices given for Secretary Memminger, who had let it be known that he planned to submit his resignation as soon as he finished a couple of important tasks. He expected to be gone by July.

Several South Carolinians in the capital worked with Treasury staff members to arrange the reception. The guest list included all those in Memminger's department and people from his home state. Huntoon qualified on both counts. He brought Ashton.

And Orry brought Madeline.

The secretary's humorless personality virtually assured a dreary party. So did its location. No spirits could be served in the Treasury Building, just a bowl of rust-colored punch of some indefinable citrus flavor. The wives of clerks and assistant secretaries had provided vegetable sandwiches, mostly carrots or pitiful slices of cucumber.

Munching a sandwich, Orry left Madeline chatting with some ladies and drifted toward his sister. She was, inevitably, the lone woman in a group of five men. It included Huntoon, cheeks puffed big as a toad's as he listened to a senior clerk declare, "Hang Governor Brown and his opinions. I still say recruiting colored troops is the only way we can continue to wage this war." Huntoon snatched off his spectacles to show the ferocity of his conviction. "Then it's better to surrender."

"Ridiculous," another man said. "The Yankees aren't so stiff-necked. My brother-in-law tells me nigra troops are thick as ticks around Petersburg."

Ashton, fetchingly gowned yet noticeably haggard — she had lost weight, Orry saw immediately — tossed her head in reply to the last comment. "What else would you expect of a mongrel nation? I agree with James. Better to lose everything than compromise. As it is, we're close to seeing the Confederacy legislated — dictated — into disaster."

Dictated was an obvious reference to Davis. Where had she caught the sickness of fanaticism and from whom, Orry wondered as he lounged against a desk near the group. Was it from Huntoon? No; Powell, more likely.

She saw him and broke away while the others continued to argue. "Good evening, Orry. I saw you and your lovely wife come in. How are you?" Ashton's tone and expression said the inquiry was obligatory, nothing more. "Reasonably well. You?"

"Oh, busy with a thousand things. Did you hear that Cooper resigned from the Navy Department?" He nodded. "They say Secretary Mallory was outraged. Really, Orry — we might as well have the Sphinx for a brother. I would understand it more than I understand Cooper."

"He isn't so hard to figure out." Orry's response was relaxed and cool. He fixed in mind that she was his quarry, not merely his blood relation. "Cooper's always been an idealist. High-minded —"

"Oh, yes, very high-minded — when it comes to disposing of the property of others. He shares that quality with some of our highest officials."

As if she hadn't spoken, Orry finished his sentence: "— fundamentally opposed to demagogues. And deceit."

Ashton was clever enough to realize he had introduced an element that had no bearing on what preceded it. Warned, she immediately raised a defense — a brittle smile — and looped her left arm through his while he finished the limp sandwich. She drew him toward a quieter part of the office, where she spoke to him like a pretty, puzzled child.

"You used the word deceit. Is that a reference I should understand?"

"Possibly. It could apply to your associate Mr. Powell, for instance."

She dropped his arm as if it were spoiled meat. "Cooper told you? I suppose it's logical that he would, the moralistic prig."

"This has nothing to do with Cooper. When I mentioned Powell, I wasn't referring to your little maritime enterprise, but to the group which formerly met at the farm downriver."

Surprise crumpled her composure for a second, before she masked it. Standing as erect as possible so his height would add to the intimidation, he bore in. "Surely you know the place I mean. Wilton's Bluff — where the sharpshooting rifles are stored? The .45-caliber Whitworths?"

A laugh of desperation. "Really, Orry, I've never heard such raving. What on earth is it all about?"

"It's about your presence in that gang of conspirators. I went to the farm. I saw James there, and I saw you."

"Nonsense," she snarled through her smile, then darted a step beyond him. "There's Mr. Benjamin arriving."

Orry turned. The plump, suave little man was already surrounded by admirers. He seemed more interested in greeting Madeline. He strolled straight to her side.

Ashton's last words had been quite loud. Huntoon noticed, excused himself from the debate, and approached Orry from the left. Ashton spun back to her brother in the aisle, exclaiming, as if she felt obliged to reinforce her denial, "What you're saying is absurd. Ludicrous."

"Call it what you want," he said, shrugging. "I saw and heard enough to learn the purpose of the gatherings. God knows how you got involved in such business" — Huntoon stopped next to him, goggling with shock as the nature of the conversation sank in — "and I realize most of you have covered your tracks. But it's only temporary. We'll catch you."

Orry had underestimated his sister, never expecting a serious counterattack. She smiled charmingly.

"Not if we catch you first, my dear. I've been meaning to find an opportune moment to discuss the nigger in your own woodpile. Or is it boudoir?"

Orry's palm was ice; his face, too. He peered around the vaulted office. The party grew noticeably quieter, some of the guests realizing a quarrel was in progress, although the only person who could hear particulars was Huntoon. He looked as if he might die within the next few seconds.

Ashton tapped Orry's wrist with her fan. "Let's bargain, brother dear. You maintain a discreet silence and so will I."

A blood vessel appeared under the skin of Orry's temple. "Don't threaten me, Ashton. I want to know the whereabouts of Lamar Powell." Sweet venom: "You can just go to hell." Benjamin heard that, Madeline as well. She flashed a surprised, anxious look at her husband. The three women in her conversational circle noticed. Voices began to fade away in mid-sentence. Heads turned.

"Ashton," Orry warned, his voice raw with anger. "I've been meaning to ask you, dear," she trilled. "How did you manage to conceal the truth so artfully all this time? You certainly hid it from me, you sly fox. But a certain Captain Bellingham showed me indisputable proof. A portrait, which I believe formerly hung in New Orleans —"

Bellingham? Portrait? The first meant nothing, but the second brought a sudden memory, hard as a blow. Madeline's father, Fabray, had told her before he died that a painting of her mother existed, though she had never seen it.

Sensing victory in the making, Ashton grew increasingly animated. Rising on tiptoe, she grasped Orry's forearm and whispered, "You see, I do know all about her. There's more than a touch of the tar brush on your lovely wife. You were a fool to accuse me." She dug her nails into his gray sleeve, then let go.

Whirling and raising her skirts, Ashton ran down the aisle to Madeline, Benjamin, and the circle of women, speaking gaily as a belle prattling of a beau, a hairstyle, an aunt's favorite recipe for conserve:

"Darling, do tell us the truth. When my brother married you, did he know your mother was a New Orleans quadroon?" Benjamin, who had been holding Madeline's hand in both of his, let go. "Employed in a house of ill repute?"

A woman on Madeline's right sidled away from her, frowning. A second woman began to scratch a facial mole nervously. Madeline threw Orry another look. Her dark eyes brimmed with tears. He had never seen her lose control that way. He wanted to run to her and, at the same time, murder his sister on the spot.

"Come, sweet," Ashton persisted. "Confide in us. Wasn't your mother a nigra prostitute?"

Orry seized Huntoon's shoulder. "Get her out of here before I do her bodily harm."

With all the strength of the right arm he had built up to compensate when he lost the left one, he flung Huntoon down the aisle. Huntoon's spectacles fell off. He nearly stepped on them. Ashton was spitting mad; she had been holding the stage and he had taken it away.

Spectacles replaced but not straight, Huntoon lurched up to her. "We're leaving."

"No. I am not ready to —"

"We are leaving." His near-scream piled a new shock on all the others. He pushed Ashton. When she complained, he did it again. That told her Huntoon was hysterical, dangerously so. Refusing him, she could lose all she had gained. She gave Orry a swift, cold smile, flung her shoulder forward to release herself from Huntoon's hand, and walked out.

He hurried after her, frantically rubbing thumbs against the tips of his fingers. "Good evening — excuse us — good evening." And he was gone down the stairs.

Away toward Petersburg, artillery fire began. The office chandelier swayed. Memminger watched Orry with bleak, speculative eyes while Benjamin, once more suave and smiling, comforted Madeline.

"I have never witnessed such shameful behavior. You have my sympathy. I naturally assume that boorish young woman's accusation isn't true —"

Madeline was trembling. Orry strode up the aisle, disgusted by the transformation taking place in Benjamin. The secretary slid from his role of friend to that of government representative by adding two words: "Is it?"

Orry had never loved or admired his wife more than when she said, "Mr. Secretary, does the law require that I answer your discourteous question?"

"The law? Of course not." Benjamin's eyes resembled those of a stalking cat. "And I certainly meant no discourtesy. Still, refusal may be construed by some as an admission —"

The woman with the mole huffed, "I for one would like to hear an answer. It would be disgraceful if a member of our own War Department was married to a colored woman."

"Damn you and damn your bigotry, too," Madeline exclaimed. The woman stepped away as if stung. Orry reached his wife, somehow managing to bridle all the chaotic, conflicting emotions — surprise, anxiety, wrath, simple confusion — the past few minutes had generated. Quiet and strong, he touched her.

"This way, darling. It's time we went home, too." Gently, he slipped his arm around her. He could tell she was about to collapse.

Somehow they got past the frowsy wives in last year's gowns, the overdressed clerks, Memminger, the assistant comptroller slack-jawed at the punch bowl. A hot, grit-laden wind blew through Capitol Square, whirling paper and other debris. The dust was so thick, the edges of buildings blurred. "How did she find out?"

"God knows. She said something about a Captain Bellingham. I've never heard of him. The rank could mean army, navy, or it could be self-bestowed. I'll start a search of the records, though they've gotten so jumbled we don't know the names of half of those currently in the services. But you can be sure I'll try. I'd like to find the bastard."

"I didn't have to answer the secretary. He had no right to ask!"

"No, he didn't."

"Will it hurt your position in the department?"

"Of course not," he lied.

"Was it the same as an admission when I refused to answer?"

When he remained silent, she seized him and shook him, her hairpins unfastening, her dark locks streaming and tossing as she cried into the wind, "Was it, Orry? The truth. The truth!"

The wind howled in the silence.

"Yes. I'm afraid it was."

107

Though her money was running out, Virgilia asked for one of the better rooms at Willard's. "We do have less expensive ones," the reception clerk said. "With smaller beds."

"No, thank you. I require a large bed."

To conserve her cash, she avoided the dining room that night. Hunger and nerves made it hard for her to fall asleep, but eventually she did. Next morning she ate no breakfast. About ten, she set out along the wrong side of the avenue, weaving through a throng of Negroes, peddlers, clerks, and the wounded soldiers who were a permanent part of the Washington scenery. Ahead, she observed that the scaffolding had finally been removed from the Capitol dome. The statue of Armed Freedom crowning the dome gleamed in the June sunshine.

The morning was warm, her clothing too heavy. She was awash with perspiration by the time she climbed all the steps, entered the Capitol, and slipped into the House gallery. After some searching, she located Sam Stout at his desk on the floor, lanky legs stretched out while he sorted documents.

Would he come, she wondered as she slipped out again. If he didn't, she was lost.

She left the sealed envelope at his office. On the face, she had inscribed his name and the words Confidential/To Be Opened Only by Addressee. Nervous, she strolled on the shabby mall for half an hour. Wandering cows chewed what little grass grew there; pigs rooted in the many mudholes. Finally she returned to Willard's and threw herself on the bed, flinging a forearm over her eyes. But she couldn't doze, couldn't even relax.

At noon she bought two day-old rolls from a street vendor. One served as her midday meal in her room. At three, she undressed and bathed. After drying off, she chose a dark skirt and snug linen blouse with puffed sleeves, buttons down the front, and a stylish tie she could fasten in a bow. She fussed with her hair for three-quarters of an hour, then ate the second roll.

Last night she had bought a Star, which she now tried to read. She had trouble concentrating. The official front-page War Department dispatch, dealing with Petersburg and signed by Stanton, might have been printed in Chinese. She was repeatedly distracted by visions of the vindictive Mrs. Neal whispering to government officials.

Sounds in the next room drew her attention: a creaking bed, a woman's strident cry, repeated rhythmically. Virgilia's room seemed hot as a furnace. She dabbed her lip with a handkerchief, which she had tucked into the cuff of her blouse. The cuff was damp.

She picked a roll crumb off the bedspread, pulled and patted until it was perfectly smooth. She paced to the window to look at the wagon and horse traffic on the avenue but never saw it.

In the note, she had asked him to come at seven. At half past nine she was seated by a small table near the gas mantle, slowly rubbing her forehead with her left hand. Despair had eaten away her hope and her energy. She had been an idiot to suppose that —

"What?" she said, her head jerking up. Her heart started racing. She rose, hastily pushed her wrinkled blouse into her waist­band, tightening the linen over her breast. She ran to the door, patting her hair.

"Yes?"

"Hurry and let me in. I don't want to be seen."

Weakened by the sound of the rich, deep voice, she fumbled with the door. She finally got it open.

He hadn't changed. His brows were still black hooks on his white face. His wavy hair, dressed carefully with fragrant oil, glistened as he made that unnecessary stooping movement that always accompanied his passage through a doorway; he liked to emphasize his height.

"I do apologize for my tardiness," he said as she closed the door.

"Please don't, Samuel. I can't tell you how much I appreciate this." She could barely keep from touching him.

His gaze lifted from her blouse to her face. "I wanted to see you again. And your note said it was an emergency."

"You didn't show that to —?"

"I read the envelope. No one saw it but me."

He sat down, crossing his thin legs. He smiled at her. She had forgotten how crooked his teeth were. Yet she found him beautiful. Power was never homely.

"I'm late because committee work is so heavy these days. But let me hear about this emergency. Is it something that happened at Aquia Creek?"

"Falmouth. I —" She took a breath; the linen stretched even tighter. He played with the fob of his pocket watch. "There's no way to tell you but straightforwardly. I've left the service. At the field hospital at Falmouth, they brought in a young Confederate officer, badly wounded." She plunged. "I let him die. Deliberately."

He drew out his watch. Opened and glanced at it. Shut it with a snap. Pocketed it again. Even when it was out of sight, she heard, or thought she heard, the maddening tock-tock of the movement; that and nothing else. The silence grew unendurable.

"I thought I was doing a good service! He'd only have gone back to kill more of our boys —" She faltered.

"Are you waiting for me to condemn you?" He shook his head. "I commend you, Virgilia. You did the right thing."

She broke then, rushed forward and dropped on her knees beside his chair. "But they're going to punish me." Unconsciously fondling his leg, she poured out the story of Mrs. Neal and her threats. He listened so placidly she was terrified. He wasn't interested.

Just the opposite was true. "Is that all you're worried about, some damned Copperhead widow? There'll be no investigation started by anyone like that. I'll speak to a couple of people I know." His hand crept into her hair. "Put the whole matter out of your mind."

"Oh, Sam, thank you." She rested her cheek on his thigh. "I'd be so grateful if you could prevent trouble." Despite that moment of fright, the scene was playing out exactly as she had hoped. She had felt sad planning it, because circumstances forced her to accept less than what she wanted. But perhaps she could one day turn the compromise to greater advantage.

He cupped her chin and raised it, teasing with his smile but not his eyes. "I'm happy to help, Virgilia. But in politics, as I'm sure you know, the rule is quid pro quo. I'm still a family man. Much as I personally might like to alter that, it's impossible if I'm to stay in Congress. I want to stay — I plan to be Speaker of the House before I quit. So if you want my assistance, it must be on my terms, not yours."

What she had once hoped to bargain with, she was now trapped into surrendering. Well, why not? She was confident Sam Stout would rise and wield power and help trample out the weaknesses of Lincoln and his kind. Having part of such a man, like having half of the proverbial loaf, was better than having nothing.

He patted her hand. "Well? What's your answer?"

"It's yes, my darling," she said, rising and reaching to loosen the tie of her blouse.

108

The day after Stanley's philandering was discovered, he wrote a letter to Jeannie Canary saying that urgent business called him out of town.. He enclosed a one-hundred-dollar bank draft to soften her grief and fled to Newport.

To his amazement, Isabel showed hardly any surprise when he alighted from an island hackney at the door of Fairlawn. She asked how he managed to get away. He said he had trumped up a story about one of the twins being injured. It might come true; out on the lawn they were attempting to brain each other with horse­shoes. How he despised those obnoxious boys.

During the night, he wakened grumpily to see Isabel passing the open door of his bedroom on the way to hers. "Was that someone at the downstairs door?"

"Yes. They mistook this house for another." Her voice had a peculiar, strained quality. The lamp chimney rattled in her hand as she said good night and disappeared.

Early next morning, before breakfast, she handed him his coat. "Please take a walk with me on the beach, Stanley." Though the request was phrased politely, her tone left him no option. Soon they were alone on the seashore. The air was cool, the water calm, the tide running out. A few spotted sandpipers pecked about, hunting tidbits. Sunlight turned the Atlantic into a carpet of silver beads.

Isabel spoke suddenly and with unexpected ferocity. "I would like to discuss your new friend."

A witless smile. "Which friend?"

She bared her teeth. "Your doxy. The performer at the Varieties. The person who came to the house last night had the correct address." She pulled a crumpled flimsy from a pocket of her skirt. "And this telegraph message."

So quickly? "My God, who — who informed —?"

"It isn't important. I've known about the woman for weeks, and I'll give you no explanations there, either. I understand she's hardly talented enough to be called an actress, though I suppose she has other, less public, talents." Except for the moment when she brandished the flimsy, Isabel maintained perfect control, which somehow made her assault all the more threatening.

Stanley bit his knuckle and wandered in an agitated circle, like one of the shore birds. "Isabel, if you know, others must. How many?" She didn't answer. "I'm ruined."

"Nonsense. As usual, you misunderstand the way the world operates. You're dithering over nothing. No one cares if you philander, provided you're discreet and sufficiently well off." She took several steps away from him while, with vacant eyes, he watched the wind ripple sand ribbons along the beach. "It doesn't matter to others, and it doesn't matter to me. You know I loathe that part of marriage anyway. Now I want you to pay particular attention to what I'm going to say next. Stanley?"

She raised a fist, then forced it down to her side before continuing. "You may do whatever you wish in private. But if you ever again show yourself in public with that trollop — an hour after you paraded at the Patent Office, it was all over town — I will enlist a regiment of lawyers to strip you of your last penny. I will do it even though every property law in the land favors husbands over wives. Do you understand?"

A fine spray from her mouth struck him. He scrubbed his left cheek with the back of his hand. She had made him angry.

"Yes. I see how it is. You don't care a damn for me. It's only my money that holds you. My money, my position —"

The morning wind became a chorus of eerie voices, whispering. Isabel seemed touched with sadness, although, after a shrug, her reply was firm. "Yes. The war's changed many things. That is all I have to say."

He was too upset to notice the unsteadiness of her step as she left. In a moment she paused to look back, and the sunlight struck her eyes, lending them the brightness of the reflecting sea.

"I did rather like you when we were courting, though."

She turned and walked away through the sand ribbons and scurrying shore birds.

Stanley wandered up and down the beach for a while. With a blink, he realized he was wearing his royal blue frock coat. He groped in the large inner pocket — ah! Shuddering with relief, he pulled out the flask and uncorked it. He swallowed half the remaining bourbon, then staggered to a large rock and sat down.

A fishing smack hove into view, coming around from Narragansett Bay. Scavenging gulls swooped close to the stern. Stanley felt very close to being ill, with a monumental sickness no doctor could name or cure.

A word Isabel had hurled surfaced in his churning thoughts. The changes had done it. There had been too many, too rapidly. Boss Cameron's patronage, unexpected financial opportunity, great personal profit achieved without his brother's help or interference.

Change bestrode the country like a fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. A mob of free niggers had been loosed in the land to frighten God-fearing white people with their strange dark faces and, worse, to upset the economic order. Just last month a freedman had brazenly applied for a job as floor sweeper at Lashbrook's. Dick Pennyford hired him. After his first day, the Negro was waylaid at the gate and beaten by six white workers. That grieved and angered Pennyford, but he wrote Stanley that it also taught him a lesson. He wouldn't repeat the mistake.

Stanley knew who was responsible for such incidents and for the new assertiveness of Negroes. His friends. It was their program he was forced to pretend to admire if he wanted to preserve and expand his influence in Washington. That pulled him two ways, left his nerves shredded —

There were so many changes he could hardly count them all. He was independently wealthy. He was a confidant of politicians who would control the nation within a very few years. He was in love, or thought so. He was a known philanderer. And he was far along the road to becoming a drunkard and didn't give a damn.

He finished the bourbon and threw the flask at the tide line, a futile gesture of rage. No hiding from the truth any longer. He was incompetent to deal with so much change. On the other hand, his status was such that few, if any, of the problems created by the changes would affect him adversely, provided he conserved his capital and observed a certain hypocritical standard of behavior. That was the most staggering change of all. One so vast and bewildering that he leaned over, elbows on his knees, palms on his eyes, and cried.

Stanley would have been surprised to know that his wife, whom he considered glacial and a shrew, also wept that morning. Safely locked in her rooms at Fairlawn, Isabel cried much longer and harder than he did. Finally, when she had exhausted her tears, she settled down to think and to wait for the redness to leave her eyes, so she could again show herself to the servants.

Her husband was lost to her except in name. Well, so be it. She had used him as an instrument for accumulating new wealth, and with it she could now finance a rise to unprecedented social eminence in Washington, her home state, and the nation. By no stretch of the imagination did Stanley have the ability to become a national political figure. But he already had the money to buy and sell such men. Since she would always guide his choices, that made her the true possessor of the power.

Putting aside her brief and regrettable descent into sentimentality here and on the beach, Isabel contemplated all the days of glory still ahead. She was sure she would experience them if she could only keep Stanley in favor with the Republicans and sober. Success had ruined him, for reasons she could neither understand nor identify.

It didn't matter. Many a strong queen had ruled through a weak king.

109

At the end of the day on which Billy rejoined the Battalion of Engineers, he wrote:

110

Along the Ashley, those old enough to remember the Mexican War and how Orry Main came home from it thought history had repeated itself with Orry's older brother. Orry had lost an arm, Cooper a son. Hardly the same thing, yet the results were oddly similar. Each man was changed, withdrawn. The less charitable gossiped about severe mental disorder.

Cooper no longer insulted the occasional Mont Royal visitor by forcing him or her to listen to radical opinions. It was presumed that he still held such opinions, though one couldn't be positive. He limited his conversation with outsiders to pleasantries and generalities. And although Sherman's huge army was rumbling down on Atlanta, he refused to discuss the war.

But it remained very much on his mind. That was the case one hot June evening when he sequestered himself in the library after supper.

Cooper loved the library with its aroma of fine leather mingled with inevitable low-country mustiness. There in the corner stood the form holding Orry's old army uniform. Above the mantel spread the realistic mural of Roman rums, which Cooper had delighted in studying when he sat on his father's knee as a boy.

Although the orange of sunset still painted the wall opposite the half-closed shutters, he lit a lamp and was soon in a chair, using a lap desk to write. The metal nib scratched so loudly he didn't hear the door open. Judith walked in with a newspaper.

"You must look at this Mercury, dear. It contains an overseas dispatch that came through Wilmington day before yesterday."

"Yes?" he said, glancing up from the memorial he was drafting to send to the state legislature. It argued for preventing further loss of life any means of a cease-fire and immediate peace negotiations.

His question said he wasn't greatly interested in interrupting the work to read overseas dispatches. So Judith said, "It concerns the Alabama. A week ago Sunday, she went down in the English Channel. A Union vessel named Kearsarge sank her."

Instantly, he asked, "What of the crew?"

"According to this, many survived. The captain of the Kearsarge picked up seventy, and a British yacht that sailed out of Cherbourg harbor to watch the engagement saved another thirty officers and men."

"Anything about Semmes?"

"He was one of those rescued by Deerhound, the yacht."

"Good. The men are more important than the ship."

He made the declaration with such feeling that Judith couldn't help rushing to his chair and throwing her arms around him. The Mercury fell on crumpled sheets of writing paper discarded on the floor.

"Cooper, I do love you so." She hugged his shoulders. "Everything's in disarray around us. Mont Royal has never looked shabbier. There isn't enough food. Everyone's frightened of those men living in the marshes. Yet I couldn't be more thankful to be here with you. Even with so much uncertainty, Marie-Louise is happier, and I am, too."

"So am I."

"I hope you didn't mind this interruption. I thought you'd want to know about the ship."

He reached up to pat her hand, staring away past the Roman mural to unguessable seascapes of the past. "She was a beautiful vessel. But she served the wrong masters."

Suddenly rising from his chair, he kissed her long and ardently.

The embrace left her gasping, with curls out of place. She was enraptured to see a teasing smile.

"Now, Judith, if you truly do love me, let me return to my labors. I must finish this memorial, even though our heroic legislators will tear it to shreds and dance on it. The ones who've never heard guns fired in anger will tear the most and dance the hardest."

"I'm sure you're right. But I'm proud of you for trying."

"There are no ordained results in this world, I've discovered. The trying is what counts most."

She left him scribbling in the last of the dusty orange daylight. She had worked hard all day — since returning, she had taken on many of Madeline's duties — and in the late afternoon had spent an hour with Clarissa. Though Cooper's mother was unfailingly pleasant, her memory loss made such visits taxing. By supper Judith was exhausted. Yet now, closing the library door, she felt light as a wisp of breeze-blown dandelion seed. Carefree. Sherman's host might be marching across the moon instead of into Georgia.

For the first time since Charleston, she was certain. Her beloved husband was a new, healed man.

It was Benjamin who wielded the velvet ax. After the fact, Orry realized he was the logical choice because of his suave, diplomatic style. The summons came a few days after the reception at Treasury.

"First, I must establish that I am speaking on behalf of the President," Benjamin said to Orry, who sat rigidly on the far side of the desk. "He hoped to see you in person, but the press of duties —" A supple gesture finished the thought.

"The President wanted to express deep gratitude for your concern for his welfare — specifically, your warning of a possible plot against his life. Not to mention the lives of a number of the rest of us," he added with his customary sleek smile.

Orry felt sweat trickling to his collar. In the summer heat, the voices of State Department functionaries sounded sleepy beyond the closed door. That was the moment the image of the velvet ax popped into his head.

"The plot was undoubtedly like many others we hear about — chiefly wishful thinking inspired by barroom bravery. Nevertheless, your loyalty and diligence have been noted and commended by Mr. Davis. He — Is something wrong?"

Orry's tight expression answered that. The government still didn't believe his story. Then and there, he decided to take a step he had only considered until now. Using personal funds, he would hire an agent to carry out a plan he had in mind. He would do it right away.

He forced himself to say, "No. Please go on."

"I have given you the sense of the President's message." Manicured hands folded, the secretary oozed sincerity. "Now I have one or two questions of a personal nature. Are you content with your post in the War Department?" When Orry hesitated, unsure of the purpose of the question, Benjamin prompted him with, "Please be frank. It will go no further."

"Well, then — the answer's no. I think we both know the likely outcome of this war." He expected no agreement with that and got none. "I hate to sit out the final months authorizing passes for prostitutes and monitoring the misdeeds of a martinet."

"Ah, yes, Winder. Are you saying you'd like field duty, then?"

"I've been considering it. Major General Pickett offered me a place on his division staff."

"Poor Pickett. Never have I seen a man so transformed by a single event." Benjamin sounded sincere but immediately slipped back into his official mode. After a slight clearing of his throat, he said, "There is one other subject which I regret I must discuss with you. Your sister's accusation against your charming wife."

The words slid into him like a stiletto of ice. He had been waiting for the matter to come up in some fashion. He had agonized over the best way to deal with it and reached a decision that pained him because it went against his conscience. But Madeline mattered more.

He sat very erect now, his posture a kind of challenge. "Yes? What about it?"

"To put it to you squarely — is it true?"

"No."

Benjamin showed no sign of being relieved, no reaction of any kind. He continued to study his visitor. Am I such a transparent liar? Orry thought.

"You realize I was compelled to ask the question on behalf of the administration," Benjamin said. "The cabinet — indeed, it's fair to say most of the Confederacy — is experiencing a terrible schism on the matter of enlisting our Negroes in the army. The mere statement of the idea drives some of our most influential people to the point of incoherence. So you can see the enormous potential for disruption and embarrassment if it were found that the wife of a high War Department official —"

He could stand no more. "Damn it, Judah, what about Madeline's embarrassment? What about the disruption of her life?"

Unruffled, Benjamin met the attack. "I can appreciate her feelings, certainly. But the charge has implications far beyond the personal. If it were true, it could taint the credibility of the entire government. Mr. Davis, you see, refuses to consider the enlistment of nonwhite —"

"I know how Mr. Davis feels," Orry said, rising. His loud voice momentarily stopped the sleepy conversations outside. "With all due respect, the President's views aren't the issue. An accusation is the issue. My sister made her statement for one reason. She holds a long-standing grudge against me."

Like a prosecutor, Benjamin said, "Why?"

"I see no reason to go into that. It's a family matter."

"And you maintain that this so-called grudge is Mrs. Huntoon's motive for saying what she did? Her sole motive?"

"That's right. May I leave now?"

"Orry, calm yourself. It's better that you hear unhappy news from a friend. I am your friend; please believe that." The supple hand opened outward. "Do sit down again."

"I'll stand, thank you."

Benjamin sighed. There passed a few seconds of silence.

"To minimize potential embarrassment for all concerned, the President requests that Mrs. Main leave Richmond as soon as practicable."

Orry's hand closed on the back of the visitor's chair. His knuckles were the color of chalk. "To keep the administration untouched by the tar brush, is that it? You don't believe my answer —"

"I most certainly do. But I am an official of this government, and it remains my duty to accede to the President's wishes, not question them."

"So you can keep your job and enjoy your sherry and your anchovy paste while the Confederacy collapses?"

The olive cheeks lost color. Benjamin's voice dropped, sounding all the more deadly, somehow, because of a small, chill smile.

"I shall pretend I heard no such remark from you. The President expects compliance with his request within a reasonable length of —"

"His order, isn't that what you mean?"

"It is an order courteously framed as a request."

"I thought so. Good day."

"My dear Orry, you must not hold me personally responsible for —"

Slam went the door, well before he finished.

Around noon, Orry's wild anger moderated. He was again able to concentrate, perform routine duties, and answer questions from his colleagues with some coherence. Seddon passed Orry's desk on his way out to dine, but the secretary refused to meet Orry's gaze. He knows what Davis is demanding. He probably knew before Judah told me. Instantly, Orry made up his mind to ask Pickett to make good on his offer.

Orry was not in doubt about Madeline's reaction. If they discussed the decision at all, he must be circumspect. Present it as something under consideration, not final. That would spare her worry. Anyway, the first priority wasn't the transfer, but proving to Judah, to Seddon — to the President himself — that the conspiracy was real.

He glanced at a corner desk occupied by a young civilian, Josea Pilbeam, who was handicapped with a club foot. Pilbeam, a bachelor, had undertaken several questionable assignments for the department in the past year. Orry walked over, greeted him affably, and made an appointment to speak with him that evening. Off the premises.

For the rest of the day, although he continued to scrawl his signature on passes and scan the daily quota of self-serving reports from General Winder, his mind wrestled with the presidential fiat and what he should do about it. His first reaction, born of insulted honor, was to dig in and refuse to comply.

On the other hand, suppose Madeline did remain in Richmond. She would be ostracized. And with Grant settling in at Petersburg to the frequent sound of rumbling guns, Richmond was no longer a safe place. Orry definitely didn't want his wife in the city when it surrendered. He believed all signs pointed to such a capitulation relatively soon.

So, much as he hated to admit it, he knew Madeline would be better off — safer — if she left.

Which raised another problem. Where could she go? The most logical answer struck him as far from the best or easiest. He thought carefully on it and by late afternoon had devised a plan that seemed to offer the least risk.

When the office closed, he and Josea Pilbeam left together. At a quiet table in the Spotswood bar, Orry went immediately to the point.

"I suspect my sister Ashton — Mrs. James Huntoon — of treasonous activity. I want to hire you to watch her house on Grace Street in the evenings and follow her if she leaves. I want to know where she goes and a description of whoever she sees. You can report to me each morning. I know it'll tax you to work all day, then stay up most of the night. But you're young and fit" — eyes on the foam on his beer, the clerk scraped his three-inch shoe sole back and forth under the table — "and for good work, carried out in the strictest confidence, I'll pay you from my own pocket. I'll pay you well. Ten dollars a night."

Pilbeam drank some beer. "Thanks for the offer, Colonel. But I have to say no."

"Good Lord, why? You've never objected to a little spying before."

"Oh, it isn't the nature of the work."

"What, then?"

"I have no choice about taking my regular wages in Confederate dollars, but we both know how much those are worth — about as much as the government line saying we can still win the war. I won't do a private job for payment in our currency."

Relieved, Orry said, "I'll get U.S. dollars, somehow — provided you start the surveillance tomorrow night."

"Done," Pilbeam said, shaking his hand.

For supper, Madeline divided a small shad between them, garnishing each plate with two tiny boiled turnips. Nothing else could be bought that day, she said.

He told her he had continued to search departmental records for any mention of an officer named Bellingham. Thus far he had come up with nothing. "It's frustrating as hell. I'd give anything to find out who he is and get my hands on him."

After they finished eating, she suggested they read some poetry aloud. Orry shook his head. "We must have a talk." "My, how portentous that sounds. On what subject?"

"The need for you to leave Richmond while it's still possible."

A fleeting look of hurt crossed her face. "There have been repercussions from the party."

Deeper into the net of lies — for her sake. "No, nothing beyond some snide jokes I've overheard. The two reasons you must leave are mine. First, the city's going to fall. If not this summer, then in the autumn or next winter. It's inevitable, and I don't want you here when it happens. I left Mexico before our army marched into the capital, but later George described some of the atrocities. No matter how good the intentions of the commanders or how stern their warnings to their troops, matters always get out of hand for a while. Homes are looted. Men are killed. As for women — well, you understand. I don't want you to face any of that."

Sitting motionless, she said, "And the second reason?"

"The one I've mentioned before. I'm sick of the department. I'm considering asking for a transfer to George Pickett's staff."

"Oh, Orry — no."

Swift retreat: "Here, not so serious. The word is considering. I've done nothing about it."

"Why risk your life for a lost cause?"

"The cause has nothing to do with it. Pickett's a friend, I've had a bellyful of desk work, and officers are desperately needed in the field. Nothing to fret over — it's still in the speculative stage."

"Let's hope it stays there. Even if it does, what you're really doing is banishing me. Well, thank you very much, but I'm not the coward you think I am."

"Now wait, I never implied —"

"You most certainly did. Well, I intend to stay."

"I insist that you go."

"You'll insist on nothing!" She rose abruptly. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must darn your stockings again. There are none to be had in the stores." She stormed out.

Whenever he tried to restart the discussion that evening, she refused to listen. They went to bed barely speaking. But around three, she curled against his back, gently shaking him awake.

"Darling? I feel wretched. I behaved like a harpy. Forgive me? I was mad at myself, not you. I know I've brought shame down on you —"

Sleepy but suddenly lighthearted, he rolled over and touched her cheek. "Never. Not ever while I live. I love you for what you are — everything you are. I just want you safe."

"I feel the same about you. I hate the idea of your going off with George Pickett. The siege lines are dangerous."

"I told you, I've done no more than think about it. Other matters come first."

A low, short sigh. "You want me to go home to Mont Royal, then?"

"That would be ideal, but I think it's impractical as well as too risky. South of here you'd encounter the whole Union Army, stretched from City Point clear to the Shenandoah Valley. The roads and rail lines are constant targets. You might slip through, but I believe I have a safer alternative. It may not sound so at first, but I've thought about it a lot, and I've concluded that it's feasible. I want you to go the other way. To Lehigh Station."

The effect was the same as if he had said Constantinople or Zanzibar. "Orry, our home is South Carolina."

"Now wait. Brett's at Belvedere. She'd be happy to have your company, and I don't believe you'd be there very long. Not even a year, if I read the signs correctly."

"I'd have to cross enemy lines —"

"The country north of Richmond is a no-man's-land. When Grant chased Lee to Petersburg, he took most of his army with him. Our reports show no significant troop concentrations around Fredericksburg, for example. An occasional cavalry or infantry regiment passes through, but that seems to be the extent of it. Furthermore, getting into Washington won't be hard. You simply say you're a Union sympathizer, and they'll think you're a woman of ill repute who decided —"

"What kind of woman?" She sat up, managing to convey mock wrath in the midst of a giggle.

"Now, now — you can stand it. The most you'll suffer are some insults and a brief detention. An hour or two. That bosom of which I'm so fond may be thumped to see if it pings."

"Pings? What are you talking about? You've lost your mind."

"No. Women who are, ah, less amply endowed than you resort to metal breast forms."

"Since when have you become a student of metal breast forms?"

"Since those who can't fill them started smuggling medicines and paper money in the, ah, empty spaces. No ping — no search."

He felt like an actor, playing a light role solely because the play demanded it. But he refused to have her know anything about the President's edict, refused to have the woman he loved shamed for something over which she had no control. Tar brush or no, she was worthier, finer, more valuable than a thousand Ashtons — or Davises.

"Best of all," he continued, "unless Augusta Barclay's abandoned her farm, you needn't make the trip to Washington alone. I'll get one of Augusta's freedmen to go with you as far as the Union lines. She promised a favor if we ever needed one, remember."

"When are you going to see her?"

"This weekend."

"A Confederate colonel can't go riding blithely to Fredericksburg. What if you should encounter one of those Yankee units?"

"Believe me, I don't intend to let anyone know I'm a colonel. Stop worrying."

"Easy for you to say —"

He knew an old, conventional, but extremely pleasant way to stop such conversations and allay anxieties. He began to kiss her. Then they made love and fell asleep.

He replaced his uniform with his black broadcloth suit. He donned a wide-brimmed dark hat bought secondhand and tucked Madeline's Bible in one pocket. In another he placed a pass he had written for himself; that is, for the Reverend O. O. Manchester.

He set off on a hired nag at least twenty years old. Badly swollen hock joints indicated a case of bog or bone spavin; Orry hoped the animal could make it the forty-odd miles to Fredericksburg.

He had read reports of the devastation that had struck the town, but reality proved far worse. He saw burned wagons and a decomposing body in ruined fields on the outskirts. He glimpsed a small band of men at a smoky fire back in some woods. Deserters, probably. Fredericksburg itself had an abandoned air; half the houses were empty, and many business establishments boarded up. Some homes and commercial buildings had been blown down by artillery fire. Foundations remained, but the rest lay strewn along the cratered streets, together with shot-away tree limbs, pieces of glass and fragments of furniture.

With his Bible in plain view under his arm, Orry asked an elderly man for directions to Barclay's Farm. He reached it an hour later, appalled by what he found. Charles had described the place in some detail, and its most prominent features, the barn and the two red oaks, were gone, the former razed, the latter cut down. Only stumps remained in the dooryard.

Boz and Washington recognized and hailed him as he climbed down from his quaking mount. The black men were attempting to plow a trampled field. Washington guided the plow; Boz pulled it in place of a horse. That spoke of how completely the farm had been stripped.

He found Gus in the kitchen, listlessly churning butter. Her plain dress, its color gone in repeated launderings, fit her tightly at the waist; she was plumper than he remembered. Haggard, too, especially around her blue eyes.

"More than half the townspeople ran away when the Yankees came," she said after she got over the surprise of his arrival. "A good many who stayed took in enemy wounded. I did. I had one captain here, a polite fellow from Maine who was covered with bandages but acted very lively. He refused to let me help change the dressings. I had Boz watch him. He wasn't hurt. The bandages were borrowed from someone else. I have no idea how he got them, but he must have put them on and run away to avoid fighting. I turned him out and replaced him with a pair of real patients. New York boys. Irish — sweet and gentle and never in battle before. One left after eight days. The other died in my bed." She resumed the slow, tired churning.

"I don't know why we hang on here," she said, sighing. "Stubbornness, I guess. And if I left, Charles wouldn't know where to find me. Have you — have you seen him?" That catch in her voice said much about her emotions.

"Once, before the spring campaign heated up." Seated at the sun-drenched table with a cup of tasteless imitation coffee, he described Billy's escape from Libby.

"Remarkable," she said when he finished. "But Charles would do that. The old Charles." The odd statement puzzled Orry. "I imagine he hasn't had time to ride up this way. Have you had any further word from him since the escape?"

"None. But I'm sure he's fine. I watch the casualty rolls carefully. I haven't seen his name." There was no reason to add that many of the dead and lost were never identified.

His encouragement lightened her mood a little. "I can't tell you how startled I was to see you on the back porch — Reverend Manchester. You do fit the role."

"Ah, but the reverend is protected against worldly emergencies — and Yankees." He showed her the knife concealed in his boot. "I also have a used but serviceable navy Colt in my saddlebag. Let me tell you why I'm here, Augusta. I need your help — that is, I need the help of one of your men, to escort Madeline to Washington."

Weary astonishment: "Washington? Have you forgotten which side we're on?"

"No, but I must get her out of Richmond, and with Grant entrenching all around Petersburg, it will be much easier and safer to send her to my friend George's home in Pennsylvania, where my sister is — the one married to Billy Hazard — than back to South Carolina."

He explained more of his plan. She readily agreed to help, even insisting that Boz accompany him back to Richmond to assist Madeline with her packing. After Orry ate some stale bread and homemade cheese — the invaders had graciously allowed Gus to keep one milk cow — he and the freedman prepared to leave. "You ride first while I walk," Orry said to Boz. "That nag can't carry two of us."

It was hot. He fanned himself with his hat, then shook Gus's hand. "I'll bring Madeline back as soon as I can prepare the documents she'll need for safe conduct. It may take as long as two weeks."

It took less than one because of continuing pressure from the highest level. Although the department was inundated with work — the news from Georgia was bad; Sherman had advanced to a position near Marietta and at any hour might assault Joe Johnston's Kennesaw Mountain entrenchments — Benjamin wanted Orry to set everything else aside and concentrate on his wife's departure. Seddon told Orry he personally sanctioned it.

The Mains and Boz set out for Barclay's Farm at the end of June, while the war news continued to worsen. Davis, a burned-out man, informed the papers that he had sent Retreating Joe Johnston all the reinforcements that could be spared. Now, whatever happened at the doorstep of Atlanta was the general's responsibility, the general's fault. At the same time, Davis tried to persuade journalists and the public that because Grant had neither crushed Lee nor captured Richmond, the Virginia situation was improving.

No one believed him.

The Reverend Manchester once again traveled to Fredericksburg with Scripture, knife, and .36-caliber navy Colt. He and his companions rode in an old buggy whose cost Orry didn't care to think about. For replacing a broken axle, the wheelwright had charged five times the prewar price.

On a Wednesday, the second-to-last day of the month, Orry and Madeline said good-bye on the front porch of the farmhouse. The weather was appropriate to the occasion. To the northwest, onyx clouds tumbled and spun, speeding over the gutted land through a strange pearly sky. The wind picked up. The first spatters struck the dust of the dooryard. Orry could hardly think of all he must say in a short time.

"— once you're in Washington, use some of the greenbacks to telegraph Brett."

"Yes, we've gone over that, darling. Several times. Boz will see me safely to one of the Potomac bridges — I'll be fine." She touched his face. "Somehow you must send me news about yourself. I'll worry constantly. At least you haven't said anything more about that mad idea of field duty."

"Because I've done nothing about it. There never seems to be time." There was deliberate deceit in the answer, the words chosen and arranged to allay her fear. He hoped she didn't see through the trick. He added quickly, "I'll send a letter by courier when I can."

She came closer, strands of wind-loosened hair blowing around her strangely sad little traveling hat — a sort of cap with a single black-dyed aigrette, which the wind bent and nearly broke. Tears filled her eyes.

"Do you know how much I'll miss you? How much I love you? I know why you're sending me away."

"Because it's unwise for you to stay in —"

"Thousands of other women are staying in Richmond," she broke in. "That isn't the reason — though I love you more than ever for pretending it is. You've been protecting me." Dust blew around them; the landscape whited out in the glitter of lightning. "Your superiors believe Ashton's accusation. Don't bother denying it; I know it's true. A War Department official married to a Negress — that's intolerable. So I must be gotten rid of. Except for missing you so terribly, I'm not especially sad to leave. I've never been happy as a lady-in-waiting at a court of bigots."

She gave him a quick, intense kiss. "But I do love you for trying to spare me the truth."

The clouds burst, the rain roared down. Tall and bleak as some Jeremiah, he glowered at her. "Who told you?"

"Mr. Benjamin, when I chanced to meet him on Main Street day before yesterday."

"That slimy, dishonorable —"

"He didn't say a word, Orry."

"Then how —?"

"He cut me dead. Saw me coming and crossed the street to avoid me. Suddenly I understood everything."

He flung his arm around her, wracked by wrath and sorrow. "God, how I hate this damn war and what it's done to us."

"Don't let it do anything worse. To give your life now would be squandering it for nothing."

"I'll be careful. You, too — promise me?"

"Of course." Shining confidence returned to her face as they huddled on the porch, which had grown dark. "I know we'll come through this and be back together at Mont Royal sooner than either of us expects."

"So do I." He eyed the rain beating on the great raw stumps of the vanished trees. "I must go."

"I'll wait until it lets up a little."

"Yes, good idea —" He was wasting time on commonplaces. He swept his arm around her again and kissed her for nearly half a minute, with passion. "I love you, my Annabel Lee."

"I love you, Orry. We'll come through."

"I am sure of it," he said, smiling for the first time.

She stayed on the porch until the falling rain hid the buggy on the road.

On the return trip, Orry started sneezing. By the time he reached the city at noon the next day, his head felt light. Madeline's absence created a gloom in the silent rooms on Marshall Street. As he changed into his uniform to return to the department, he vowed to spend as little time as possible in the flat. He would immerse himself in work till a transfer came through. He could even sleep on one of the office couches if he chose.

It might be wise to do that for the first night or two. He missed Madeline fiercely, and there were too many memories here. Seddon wouldn't object if he stayed in the building. After all, he had proved himself a model bureaucrat by disposing of the troublesome Negress.

God, the bitterness. He couldn't help it. He no longer had the slightest wish to fight or die for any of the bankrupt principles of Mr. Jefferson Davis. He could hardly believe that just three years earlier he had been willing. Joining Pickett was not a matter of patriotism, but of survival. He was answering the drum, as he had when he went to West Point and soldiered in Mexico, because of the drumbeat, not the rhetoric of the drummer. I'd damn near fight for the Yankees to get out of this town, he thought as he left the flat.

He had been at work less than ten minutes when a sound made him look up. Foot scraping, Josea Pilbeam struggled to Orry's desk and whispered, "I must see you at once. It's urgent."

On a staircase heavy with darkness and humidity in the after­math of the storm, Pilbeam said, "Last night the lady and her spouse left the city for nearly four hours."

"Where did they go?"

"To that location you described. They conferred with a heavy-set man I've never seen before."

They were using the farm again. Patience had been repaid. He would show Seddon, Benjamin, the lot of them that he was no lunatic. Excited, he said, "Did you hear the man's name?"

Pilbeam shook his head. "No one used it while I was listening."

"Where exactly did they meet?"

"In the building right at the edge of the bluff. After about a quarter of an hour, they were joined by someone I did recognize. He's been in our office many times."

Orry put a handkerchief to his dripping nose, suppressed a sneeze. "Who was it?"

The marble walls and steps seemed to rumble and quake when Pilbeam said, "Winder's plug-ugly. Israel Quincy."

111

So infernally simple, Orry thought as he slipped across the field, following the same route he had taken the first time. Ever since his conversation with Pilbeam, he had marveled at the beauty of the obvious — effective because it was almost always overlooked. The investigator from Winder's office had found no evidence of a plot because he was part of it.

The evening was moonless and still. Orry's broadcloth felt heavy with dampness; his shirt was already soaked through. Half­way to the implement building, he paused to survey the field by the fitful pulses of red light accompanying the federal bombard­ment to the south.

The earth around him had lately been subjected to digging and trampling. He cast his mind back. His first night here, he remembered, the field was weedy. Then he had ridden out a second time and discovered —

What? He cudgeled his tired mind while sniffing through his dripping nose. He choked off an unexpected sneeze with his hand clapped over his face. He distinctly remembered plowed soil on his second visit. Curious that someone would work the field of an abandoned —

"Stupid. Stupid!" The obvious again, and he had missed it. He knew how the Whitworth rifles and ammunition had disappeared. They had been hidden right under everyone's nose.

"Feet," he corrected in a whisper. The trick came straight from Edgar Poe's famous detective tale of the stolen letter. As a Poe fancier, he was doubly humiliated. And I'll wager Mr. Quincy took charge of inspecting this part of the farm. Mr. Quincy strolled over the newly plowed field and noticed nothing unusual.

Had Powell himself hidden somewhere on the property all the time? With Quincy involved, it was certainly possible. Orry rubbed his nose with his damp handkerchief while red light ran around the southern horizon and the artillery storm muttered again. He put the handkerchief away, reached across beneath his coat, and drew the navy Colt from the bulky holster tied to his left leg. He pulled the hammer back to half-cock and resumed his cautious advance.

He approached the same light crack through which he had spied before. When close to the building, he discerned a buggy and two saddle horses near the main house. He pressed his cheek to the wood and bit down on his lower lip in a flash of rage. There, perched on one of the dirt-covered Whitworth crates resurrected from the field, James Huntoon.

Gaps showed between the buttons of Huntoon's bulging waist­coat. He had removed his outer coat, rolled up his sleeves, and was holding a large piece of paper by the edges. Some sort of plan or diagram. He tilted it forward, resting it on his paunch so others could see it.

"May I have your attention?" someone else said. "This is the device Mr. Powell described before he was called away for a few days to attend to other details of our campaign." Orry frowned; the speaker was out of his line of sight, but the voice was maddeningly familiar.

He knelt to change position and his angle of vision. Beside Huntoon on the rifle case he now saw a bright lantern. To the right of that, lounging against a beam and picking his teeth with a straw, the benign Mr. Quincy. Orry seethed.

He heard his sister's voice next. "Are you sure it will work, Captain Bellingham?"

Bellingham? Had he found the man who had shown her the painting —?

"My dear Mrs. Huntoon, infernal devices invented by General Rains at the Torpedo Bureau have a notable success record."

A corpulent man waddled into view. Only his back was visible, but something about the shape of his head tantalized Orry as much as his voice did. The man extended his right hand; Orry saw a large lump of coal in his palm. If this was indeed the Bellingham responsible for Madeline's humiliation and flight, Orry was tempted to shoot him in the back.

Lifting his hand slightly to call attention to the coal, the man said, "A device similar to this was placed in the coal bunker of the captured blockade-runner Greyhound when she lay at anchor farther down the James. A stoker shoveled it into the boiler with his coal scoop, and if Ben Butler and Admiral Porter had been standing in slightly different locations when the device exploded, there would be two more Yankees in hell."

Orry identified the voice. That is, he put a name to it — the right name — though he could hardly believe it. To the bubbling stew of his anger, the recognition added memories going all the way back to his first summer at the Academy; memories involving George and, later, Charles in Texas, when Charles wrote to express surprise and dismay at the unexplained vendetta of a senior officer of the Second Cavalry.

Israel Quincy made a sucking sound. "Sure is a fooler, Captain. Nobody could tell it from real coal."

"Not unless they handled it." He gave the device to Quincy, whose hands sagged beneath the weight. "Examine the casting. The shape, the texture, the perfect pigmentation of the iron — genius."

That was the moment Orry saw the profile of the former Union officer who had somehow become involved in a Confederate conspiracy. To be positive, he scrutinized the three chins, the receding hair, the one small, dark eye visible to him. There was no doubt. He was looking at Elkanah Bent — alias Bellingham.

If Orry hadn't seen Bent, made the identification, the rest might not have happened as it did; he might have crept away and ridden back to Richmond to turn out a full company of the provost's men, before the Whitworths could be buried again. But the life­long vendetta of Elkanah Bent of Ohio — a vendetta that had continued down to the present, with the revelation to Ashton — twisted some key in Orry's head. A door that should have remained locked burst open.

There were just three men inside, but in his state of mind it wouldn't have mattered had there been thirty. He stood and strode around the corner of the building. He had the navy Colt on full cock when he booted the door inward.

"Everyone stand still."

Ashton clapped hands over her mouth. Huntoon dropped the diagram and slid sideways along the edge of the crate. As for Bent — no mistake as to who it was, none — his face was full of bewilderment that swiftly melted into terrified recognition.

"Orry Main —?"

"I'll be a son of a bitch," said the calmly professional Quincy, shooting his right hand beneath his parson's coat. Orry twisted toward him and fired. The bullet flung Quincy backward against the beam. Orry heard his head smack as he dragged out his pepperbox, trigger finger jerking and jerking even as he slid down to land on his rump. The barrels discharged one after another; the last shot blew off the toe of Quincy's left boot as he toppled sideways.

Bent was juggling the coal bomb, shaking like a child caught with a stolen cookie. Orry saw Ashton warn her husband with her eyes. Attack him, or he'll get us all. Cringing, Huntoon shook his head. The image was reflected in one of the dirty windows overlooking the river.

"Captain Bellingham, is it?" Orry said in a raw voice. "I sure as hell don't know how you got here, but I know where you're bound, you and your friends. You're going to prison for plotting the murder of the President."

Bent was recovering; his eyes had a sly look. Like Orry, he didn't understand how the astonishing confrontation had come about. But he understood the potential consequences.

Huntoon pressed a fist into his groin and squealed. "Dear God — he knows. He knows everything!"

"So does Secretary Seddon," Orry said, "and the President himself. They've been anxious to catch the culprits with the evidence. You're done for, James. You, too, my dear, treacherous slut of a sist —"

Huntoon snatched the lantern by its bail and threw it.

Orry ducked. The lantern struck the siding behind him, shattering. Droplets of oil splattered the wall and dirt floor. Strewn pieces of straw began to smoke.

Orry had a swift impression of Huntoon passing him, Ashton dragging him by the hand like a child. He could give them no attention because Bent was rushing at him, raising the black iron casting with both hands. My God, he'll blow us up —

Bent struck for the top of Orry's head. Orry dodged; the casting raked his left temple. The only explosion was one of pain.

Bent smashed the casting against the outermost point of Orry's left shoulder, the stump of his amputated arm. Orry dropped to one knee. Silent tears of pain ran down his cheeks. There was no mistaking Bent's intention. The trapped animal would kill to escape.

"Bastard," Bent gasped, hitting at Orry's left ear with the casting and nearly knocking him over. Blood ran from a gash in Orry's hair. He had trouble focusing his eyes. The surroundings brightened; he felt heat behind him. The building was afire.

"Arrogant — South Carolina bastard —" Again Bent raised the casting, turning it until he had a sharp point aimed at the top of Orry's skull like some druid's knife. "Waited years for this —"

The casting blurred down. Orry aimed the Colt and fired. The ball hit Bent's left wrist, scattering little lumps of flesh and chips of bone. The wound made Bent cry out, jerk the casting to one side, and drop it. The casting grazed the stump of Orry's arm and landed near the fire spreading in the littered straw.

Hatred was powering both men. In all his life, Orry had never felt it so intensely. Scenes clicked in and out of his head like cards in a stereopticon. He saw himself walking an extra tour of guard duty, in a blizzard, thanks to Bent. He saw himself lying in the West Point surgery near death from exposure, courtesy of Bent. He saw the letter from Charles about the officer persecuting him; his sister's face as she spoke of the portrait shown her by a Captain Bellingham —

He came up from his knee, reversing the Colt and leaving it uncocked. He clubbed Bent's head with the base of the butt. Bent shrieked, staggered back.

Orry hit again. Bent's nose squirted blood. He flung his right forearm over his face to protect it, then his left. Bits of flesh were caught in bloody, torn threads of his powder-burned sleeve. Curses poured unconsciously from Orry as he hit again. Bent staggered to the right. Orry hit again. Bent wobbled —

That's enough; he's through.

Above the crackle of flames, he heard traces jingling, wheels creaking, rapid hoofbeats. Huntoon and Ashton in flight. It didn't matter. Only this doughy, cringing coward mattered — and Orry's boundless rage, the reaction to years of Bent's lunatic enmity and his discovery here among people who had driven Madeline away.

Bent continued to wobble. Take him prisoner; he can't fight anymore. The faint inner voice inspired no response. Crazed as his adversary, Orry hit again.

"Ah-ha." Bent's hurt cry bore a bizarre resemblance to laughter. "Jesus, Main — Jesus Christ, have mercy —"

"When did you?" Orry screamed, driving his right knee into Bent's genitals. Bent went backward, one staggering step, a second, a third —

Too late, Orry jumped to grab him. Bent's back struck one of the windows. For an instant, hundreds of tiny fires burned in the flying fragments. Bent fell through the sawtoothed opening, one side of his face ripped by glass still in the frame. He screamed as he plummeted. Then Orry heard the pulpy thump of a body hitting something.

Hair in his eyes, Orry stuck his head out the window. Bent had grazed an outcrop, spun away, and was still falling. He smashed into another and then bounced like a ball of India rubber, flying out and down and landing in the water with a mighty splash. A bubbling commotion disturbed the river for a moment. Then — nothing.

Orry strained for some sight of Bent's body, but it was gone, already swept underwater and downstream, toward the red lights pulsing on the wooded horizon.

A half-minute passed. Orry grew conscious of the heat and thickening smoke. A section of siding dissolved into fiery debris. Above him, flames ran along dry rafters. Burning straw was within inches of the coal bomb. Orry leaped and flung the bomb through the open doorway.

He wanted to pry open a crate and take two or three Whitworths for evidence. He barely had time to holster the Colt and snatch the diagram Huntoon had been holding — one corner was already smoking — and slip it into his pocket. Hunched over and struggling to breathe, he dragged Israel Quincy's body toward the door.

One of the beams eaten by the flame disappeared. The rafter above him sagged, broke, and rained sparks and flaming splinters on him. He smelled his hair burning as he gasped and strained, finally pulling Quincy's corpse into the open.

A box of cartridges exploded as he snatched the coal bomb and limped to a safe spot away from the building, whose glare washed out the red lights over Petersburg. All the ammunition blew, the reports rolling away through the night like the volleying of regiments in battle.

Bent. Elkanah Bent. By what twisted route had he come from the United States Army to this place? Transformed himself to Captain Bellingham? Embroiled himself in the plot?

He had two pieces of evidence of that plot. He put the bomb on the ground, unrolled the plan, and examined it in the light from the burning building. At first, because he was so shaken, the arrangements of smaller rectangles within larger ones made no sense. Then he realized he was looking at diagrams representing the different floors of the Treasury Building.

He saw inked crosses, each labeled. Those in the cellar said coal bombs. In a suite of second-floor offices identified by the letters J. D., the label was INCIND. DEVICE. The enormity of it left him weak with awe.

He waited long enough to be sure the collapsing implement building wouldn't threaten the other structures. The wind was blowing flame and smoke out above the James, where he envisioned Elkanah Bent's body drifting seaward in the current. He saw an imaginary picture of cockeyed General Butler on a pier at City Point, struck dumb by the sight of a corpse floating by.

Once Orry started to recover from the shock of Bent's death, a different kind of shock set in. It involved Orry's own behavior. He clearly recalled knowing Bent was whipped, able to be taken prisoner without further struggle. Old grudges had driven Orry's arm then, kept him hitting his tormentor unnecessarily, until Bent fell through the window. He had gone far beyond the demands of self-preservation. He had lost control. As he stood in the glare of the fire, he wondered how a human being could feel so glad someone was dead and so guilty and ashamed at the same time.

The exploding ammunition reminded him that people would be drawn by the noise and flames. He didn't want to waste time on explanations to farmers or military patrols in the area. He forced himself from his shock-induced lethargy, starting toward the farmhouse and discovering that in the fight he had twisted his left ankle. It hurt and made him limp.

Nevertheless, he conducted a rapid search of the house. In the attic he found confirmation of something that had come to mind earlier. The attic was arranged with a few furniture pieces and a square of old carpet — a living area. A large crate standing on end served as an open-sided press for three suits. A few books lay on a smaller crate beside a cot: The Prince, The Prose Romances of Edgar A. Poe, and his Tales as well. Beneath these, Orry found gold-stamped, leather-bound copies of the proceedings of the Georgia and South Carolina secession conventions.

Israel Quincy, then, had also searched the house, intentionally failing to discover Powell or his hideaway. Orry didn't know whether Powell would be caught. Perhaps not. But the conspiracy had been aborted a second time and, more important, Orry could now show proofs of its existence.

He limped down the attic stairs and out the back door. All that remained of the implement building were mounds of bright embers. With no more ammunition exploding, he heard voices and horses from the direction of the road.

As fast as he could, he retrieved his evidence and hobbled back across the plowed field to his horse, tethered in the orchard. Mounting, he saw a farmer's wagon pulled up beside the burned building. Three men sat in the wagon, clear as black-paper stencils against the light. Orry reined his horse's head around and took the road to Richmond.

Wearing a striped nightshirt, a sleepy Seddon stared at the man whose pounding on the street door had awakened him. Orry shoved a roll of heavy paper and a lump of coal into the secretary's hand.

"These prove the whole story — these and Quincy's body. He was one of them. When the fire's out, I'm sure we'll find unmelted pieces of the Whitworth rifles. Enough evidence for any reasonable man," he finished, unable to keep bitterness entirely contained.

"This is astounding. You must come inside and give me a fuller explanation of —"

"Later, sir," Orry interrupted. "I have one more task to do to close the books on this affair. Be careful of that coal. If you try to burn it, you'll blow yourself up."

He limped away, vanishing in the dark.

When he drew the empty navy Colt at the front door of the house on Grace Street, Orry noticed dark speckling on the butt. Bent's blood. With a shiver, he grasped the muzzle and beat on the door with the revolver. The bell had drawn no response.

"Someone open up." He leaned back to roar at the upper story. "If you don't, I'll blow the lock off."

That got immediate response, but it came from the other side of the street where gas lamps shed a pale, misty light. A grumpy householder flung up a window, snatched off his nightcap and shouted, "Do you know the hour, sir? Half past three in the morning. Stop that racket, or I'll come down and horsewhip —" The front door opened. Orry shouldered inside, expecting to see Huntoon's face. Instead, it was Homer's, half illuminated by an upraised lamp.

"Tell them I want to see them, Homer. Both of them."

"Mr. Orry, sir, they aren't —"

He ignored the old man and stalked to the stairs. "Ashton? James? Get down here, damn you."

The wild echo showed him how close he was to losing control again. He gripped the banister post and held tight, calming a little. He sensed Homer behind him; a light pool spread around his feet. Then a second glow, upstairs, preceded Huntoon, who cautiously approached the head of the stairs. Ashton followed, carrying the lamp. Neither was dressed for bed.

Orry looked up as she gripped the white-painted wood of the rail to the left of the landing. It was one of the few times he had ever seen his sister frightened.

"An old scene repeats itself, doesn't it, Ashton? I sent you away once in South Carolina and now I'm doing it in Virginia. This time, however, the stakes are higher. You don't just risk my anger if you stay. You'll be arrested."

Huntoon made a little retching sound and stepped back from the top step. Ashton seized his sleeve. "Stand up, you rotten coward. I said stand up."

She hurt him with her hand. But he steadied. Leaning over and looking down, she fairly spat, "Let's hear the rest, brother dear."

A cold shrug. "Simple enough. I have delivered evidence to Mr. Seddon sufficient to hang you both. I'm referring to a coal bomb and the marked plan of the President's offices. I imagine the provost's men are on their way to the farm, where they'll find the remains of the rifles, Powell's personal belongings, and Israel Quincy's body. Your informant, the one who called himself Bellingham — he's dead, too, drowned in the river."

"You did that?" Huntoon whispered.

Orry nodded. "The one thing I have not yet done is implicate the two of you. I don't know why I should grant you the slightest immunity just because we're related, but I find myself doing it. Although not for long. You have one hour to remove yourselves from the city. If you don't, I'll go straight back to Seddon and charge you with treason and attempted assassination."

"Lord God," Homer said in a shaken voice. Orry had forgotten he was there.

Ashton shrieked at him: "You damned nosy nigger, get out of here. Get out!" He did, taking the light with him.

Ashton's effort to smile through her rage was grotesque. "Orry — you must appreciate — even to begin to prepare to leave will take far more time than —"

"One hour." He pointed to a tall clock ticking away, its face a metal shimmer in the gloom. "I'll be back at a quarter to five. You ought to hang, the lot of you — I include your scummy friend Powell, wherever he is. If any of you are in Richmond an hour from now, you will."

He walked out.

When he rode back to Grace Street at half past four, the pre­dawn air was cold. He shivered again, starting to feel genuinely sick from the shocks and exertions of the preceding hours. He reined in before the brick house. The windows were dark. He tied the horse, climbed the stoop, tried the front door. Locked.

On the side terrace, he broke a pane of the French windows with the Colt muzzle, reached through, and let himself in. He roamed the rooms. Empty, every last one.

In their bedrooms — separate ones, he noted — clothes were strewn everywhere. Drawers hung open. Some had been left on the floor, partially emptied. Strangely, he felt no satisfaction, merely tiredness and melancholy as he struggled downstairs again, still favoring the twisted ankle.

What had possessed Ashton? What demons of ambition? He would never know. Somehow, he was thankful.

He started as the tall clock chimed a quarter to five.

By late the following afternoon, several versions of the assassination story were circulating in the offices around Capitol Square. About four, Seddon approached Orry's desk. Orry held a government memorandum and appeared to be reading it — an illusion, Seddon realized, taking note of Orry's blank stare.

He cleared his throat, smiled, and said, "Orry, I have some splendid news. I have just talked with the President, who wants to present you with a written commendation. It's the equivalent of a decoration for gallantry in the field and will be accorded the same treatment. Published in at least one paper in your home state —"

Seddon faltered. On Orry's face there had appeared disbelief and disgust of such ferocity they alarmed the secretary. Avoiding Orry's eyes, he went on, less heartily, "The commendation will also be entered on the permanent Roll of Honor maintained in the adjutant general's office." Cloth and metal couldn't be spared for making decorations; the Roll of Honor was the Confederacy's substitute.

"Mr. Davis would like to award the commendation in his office tomorrow. May we arrange a suitable time?"

"I don't want his damned commendation. He drove my wife out of Richmond."

Seddon swallowed. "Do you mean to say, Colonel — you will — refuse the honor?"

"Yes. That will certainly cause another scandal, won't it? My wife and I have grown used to them."

"Your bitterness is understandable, but —"

Orry interrupted, an uncharacteristic slyness in his eyes. "I'll refuse it, that is, unless you and Mr. Davis also promise me an immediate transfer to General Pickett's staff. I'm tired of this office, this work, this pig-mire of a government —"

He swept all the papers from his desk with one slash of his arm. As the sheets fluttered down, he rose and walked out.

Heads swiveled. Clerks buzzed. Seddon's face lost its conciliatory softness. "I am certain a transfer can be arranged," he said loudly.

112

In the aftermath of the Eamon Randolph case, Jasper Dills began to worry about his stipend. He heard nothing of or from Elkanah Bent. He knew Baker had discharged Starkwether's son because of brutality in the Randolph matter. Beyond that, the record was blank.

Work taxed Dills to the utmost these days. Although some of his employers were Democrats, none wanted a Copperhead or peace candidate elected president; a shortened war meant diminished profits. Nevertheless, he decided he must make time to call on the chief of the special service bureau. He did so in late June. Baker's initial response was curt.

"I don't know what's happened to Dayton. Nor do I care. I followed instructions and dismissed him. Then I forgot about him."

"Blast it, Colonel, you must have some information. Is he still in the city? If not, where is he? Will you force me to pose my questions to Mr. Stanton and tell him you refused to help?"

Instantly, Baker grew cooperative, though Dills wished he hadn't when the bearded man said, "I have it on good authority that Dayton was in Richmond about a month ago."

"Richmond! Why?"

"I don't know. I was only told that he was seen."

"Is it possible he defected to the other side?"

Baker shrugged. "Possible. He was pretty angry when I let him go. He was also, in my opinion, unbalanced. I frankly wish I'd never taken him on. I know your reputation, Mr. Dills. I know you have a lot of friends in this government. But I don't know why you're so interested in Dayton. What's the connection?"

By then Dills had decided he would get no help here and must go higher. "I'm not obliged to answer your questions, Colonel Baker. Good morning."

On Independence Day, a Monday, Dills did go higher, setting out in his carriage for the War Department. While it was technically a holiday, and the Thirty-eighth Congress was rushing to adjourn, many government offices stayed open because of the pressures of war and politics. Things were not going well on any front. The resignation of Treasury Secretary Chase, first submitted to the President last winter, had finally been accepted. Chase, presumed to have been encouraged by the same anonymous radicals who had helped draft the Pomeroy Circular, which called for Lincoln's defeat, was stepping down to become a presidential candidate, so rumor said. Literally overnight, his departure created widespread fear that the government was bankrupt.

Telegraph dispatches from the Shenandoah Valley told of increased guerrilla action — torn-up railroad tracks, burned bridges — and of the steady retreat of Union forces toward Harpers Ferry. No one in the North had quite recovered from the news of the enormous number of casualties in the spring campaign. To this was added the May humiliation at New Market, when Sigel was once again whipped, this time by a rebel force that included two hundred and forty-seven boys — youthful cadets from VMI, the military school where Jackson had taught.

Reaching his destination, Dills alighted on the avenue and wove his way through a large crowd of dusky contrabands, whom he carefully avoided touching in any way. The contrabands loitered on the walks at the edge of President's Park, hungry faces and envious eyes turned toward the picnic in progress on the grounds. Swings hung from the shade trees, and food and drink covered great trestle tables set up between the War Department and the Executive Mansion. With the consent and encouragement of the government, the picnic was being held to raise money for a new District of Columbia school for Negro children. The guests, numbering several hundred already, consisted mostly of well-dressed civilians from the town's colored community. Here and there Dills saw white faces, which disgusted him even more than the cause itself.

Dills had an appointment with Stanton's flunky, Stanley Hazard. Though a mediocrity, Hazard was rich and had somehow acquired a circle of influential friends. Dills supposed he had done it the customary way, by buying them. What made Hazard unusual was his ability to stay balanced at the fulcrum of the wild teeterboard of party politics. He chummed with the politicians who wanted to defeat Lincoln at the polls yet worked for a man considered to be the President's staunchest supporter and friend. Stanley Hazard's survival was doubly remarkable in view of the stories one heard about him, particularly that he was usually drunk by half past nine every morning. When he was extremely busy, no later than ten.

On tiny feet, the tiny lawyer climbed to Stanley's office. In one corner stood a brass tripod holding burning cubes of heavy incense. To mask the odor of spirits?

The incense did nothing to mask the fuzzy expression on Stanley's face as he gestured Dills to a chair. Glancing out the window, Dills allowed himself one pleasantry. "I must say, passing through that mob, I wondered whether I was in the District or the palace gardens of Haiti."

Stanley laughed. "What about a West African village? Did you happen to notice what the darkies are serving down there? I'm guessing it's barbecued effigy of Bob Lee."

Dills pursed his lips, for him the equivalent of hysterical laughter. "I know you're busy, Mr. Hazard, so let me come to the point. Do you recall a man you interviewed for a post with Colonel Baker? A man named Ezra Dayton?"

Stanley sat up straighter. "I do indeed. You recommended him, but he was discharged. Highly unsatisfactory —"

"I deeply regret that. I had no way of anticipating it. What brings me here is the need to learn anything I can about Dayton's whereabouts, for reasons I wish I could divulge to you but cannot."

"Privileged communication with a client?"

"Something like that, yes. In return for assistance from your department, I'm prepared to make a generous contribution to the political candidate of your choice. On the Republican side, I would hope."

"Naturally," Stanley said, not even raising a brow to question the probity of the offer. "Let's see whether we have anything." He summoned an assistant, who was gone for ten minutes, leaving the two men to uneasy conversation punctuated by long silences.

The clerk returned, whispered in Stanley's ear, departed. Stanley sighed.

"Absolutely nothing, I'm afraid. I'm very sorry. I trust the outcome won't affect your pledge, since I accepted your offer in good faith." Dills glimpsed the threat behind the fulsome smile. He reeled when Stanley added, "A thousand would be most generous."

"A thousand! I was thinking of much —" Hastily, Dills swallowed. How could such a puffy, pale creature carry an aura of power? But he did. "Certainly. I'll send my draft in the morning."

Stanley wrote and blotted a slip of paper. "Payable to that account."

"Very good. Thank you for your time, Mr. Hazard." About to close the door from the anteroom side, he observed Stanley bent over a lower drawer of his desk, as if hunting something. Stanley glanced up, scowled, and Dills quickly closed the door.

Bent was gone — and the information had cost him a thousand dollars. Beyond that, unless he could think of some other avenue where he might search for Starkwether's boy, the handsome stipend would disappear. He was in a foul mood as he left the building and crossed the park toward his waiting carriage.

Children at the picnic scampered round and round him, dark leaves whirling. He ran them off with a shout and wave of his cane. Though still angry, he was also bemused by the performance of the nimble Mr. Hazard. Dills had definitely smelled whiskey behind the incense. What a miraculous balancing act.

Ah, but there were many such balancing acts in Washington. It was, as experience had taught him, a city of carnival performers wearing the costumes of patriots.

In Lehigh Station, the cemetery workers dug new graves, arriving freight trains discharged new coffins, arriving cars delivered one or two of the newly injured or permanently maimed. About town there could also be seen the occasional able-bodied male who shouldn't be at home just now. Brett had been a resident long enough to recognize such men.

She chose not to attend the local July fourth celebration — there was little patriotic fervor these days — and instead spent nine hours with Scipio Brown's children, teaching ciphering. It was a time of stifling weather, sinking morale, sudden alarms. Jubal Early's army had encircled Washington and cut rail and telegraph lines to Baltimore. Jubal Early's army had reached Silver Spring, within sight of Union fortifications along Rock Creek. Jubal Early's army had almost pocketed Washington before being driven away toward Pennsylvania. And how far into the state might the rebs come this time?

It was a season of steadily mounting mistrust and hatred of Lincoln. Did he dare do what he said he might — call for another half-million volunteers to feed Grant's red machine before the month was out? It was a season of war-weariness and cynicism. Lute Fessenden's cousin had built up a handsome trade as a substitute broker. Conscription substitutes simply couldn't be found unless one dealt with him; he had cornered all those available in the valley by promising them higher rewards than anyone else. He charged eight hundred to one thousand dollars per substitute, depending on the applicant. The potential draftees raged. But they paid.

All this was a real but somehow immaterial backdrop to the central fact of Brett's life. With the help of Charles Main, Billy had escaped from Libby Prison, dashed through enemy country, and reached the Union lines during the titanic battle at Spotsylvania. A bullet had given him a light leg wound, but his letters said he was completely recovered and back on duty at Petersburg.

The joyous turnabout filled her days with cheer. To a lesser extent, so did the visits of Scipio Brown, who arrived with a new youngster every second or third week. The facility was by now hopelessly overcrowded. But Brown kept bringing more amber or blue-coal or cafe-au-lait children, and she fell in love with every single one.

Brown himself displayed a growing impatience to join a military unit before the South surrendered. "A commission in a Negro cavalry regiment. It's all I want. I must get it. I'm trying."

"I hope you do get it, Scipio. You're a splendid horseman. How can they not take you?"

Brett had been away from South Carolina three years. It no longer gave her pause to consider that when Brown joined the army, he would have the same status as any white man. She found the fact unremarkable — perfectly natural — because she now saw Brown solely as a man with a singular combination of traits, most of them likable. She knew he was a Negro, but color no longer played a part in how she felt about him.

Constance was a frequently amused and surprised observer of all this. "I declare, Brett, you're ever so much happier the day before Scipio arrives than you are the day he leaves."

"Am I?" A smile, a lifted shoulder. "I suppose. I like him." Constance nodded; both women understood it was the only explanation required. But in letters to George, Constance wrote of a marked sea change in the making.

Then came a stunning surprise. A plea by telegraph from Madeline Main. She was in Washington.

"Orry didn't want her trying to reach South Carolina," Constance said after reading the message again to be sure of the contents. "With the help of a black man from Fredericksburg, she reached Fort Du Pont, one of the fortifications along the East Branch, and crossed the lines. She was detained a day for questioning, then released. She wants permission to come here."

At once, Brett said, "I think someone should go to Washington to help her make the journey. I'm willing." "I won't have you do it alone. We'll both go." So, while the siege seemed to stall at Petersburg and Sherman seemed to stall before Atlanta, the two women made the long, dirty train trip to the capital, gazing anxiously out the window of the rattling car now and then. Half the passengers did the same thing. There were still wild tales of old Jube Early's men running amok on the lower border.

But they saw no sign of rebs between Lehigh Station and Washington. In a small, dark room on the island, Madeline greeted them from the middle of a pile of ripped clothing she was sorting. With her dark hair bunned and her hot bombazine dress rustling, she looked quite matronly. But still a beauty, Brett saw before they hugged.

"How good to see you," Constance said after she and Madeline embraced. "I'm glad Orry sent you this way instead of down South where there's so much danger."

"We'll take good care of you," Brett promised. "You do look worn out." "I'm much better now that you two are here." "Was it an ordeal?" Brett asked.

"Yes, but I'll spare you the details. There you see a few." She pointed to the torn dresses and undergarments. "It took a destructive search to convince one Union officer that I wasn't a smuggler or a spy. I'll have everything repacked in ten minutes. I can't wait to leave. We have big palmetto bugs in South Carolina, but the ones infesting this place make ours look like dwarfs."

Constance laughed, genuinely glad Orry had entrusted his wife to the care of Northerners. It meant that the ties of friendship between the families, though stretched and tenuous, were still intact. Sometimes, she knew, George feared the war would sunder those ties.

All at once Constance noticed a change in Madeline's expression. She was pensive, even pained. She sat down on the bed, hands in her lap, and looked from Brett to Constance. "Before we go, I want to explain why I had to leave Richmond. Other people learned what Orry's known since I ran away from Resolute. I —"

Silence for a moment. She seemed to struggle with some burden, then fling it off, sitting straighter. "I have Negro blood. My mother was a New Orleans quadroon."

Brett's admiration gave way to a rush of dizziness. She held still, not daring to move for fear she would shame Madeline, who continued to speak as calmly as if she were reciting a primer lesson. "You know what that means in the Confederacy. One drop of black blood and you're a black person." She paused. "Will that be true in Lehigh Station?"

Constance answered first. "Absolutely not. No one will know. You needn't have told us."

"Oh, no, I felt obligated."

Light-headed, Brett wasn't sure how she felt. Scipio Brown was forgotten as she struggled with the idea that this woman who shared her brother's bed and love — and the family name — was a Negro. Of course she didn't look it, but the truth was exactly as Madeline had stated it. Looks didn't measure blackness; only ancestry. Confusing emotions, childhood-deep, engulfed her.

"Are you positive it makes no difference?" Madeline asked.

"None," Brett said, wishing it were so.

"If I'd stayed on the river road, they'd have caught me sure," Andy said. "They popped out of the palmettos — two of 'em on mules — but I know some of the back paths and they didn't. That's how I got away."

"Well, sit down, rest yourself," Philemon Meek said, giving up his own chair. "I'm thankful you're all right."

The heavy air of a July twilight filled the plantation office. Meek paced, swinging his spectacles from his bent index finger.

How old he's grown, Cooper thought from the shadowed corner where he stood, arms folded.

After Andy came dashing up the lane, sweat and fright on his face, Meek insisted the three of them confer here rather than in the great house. In the office, the overseer explained, they wouldn't be overheard, thus would not alarm Cooper's wife and daughter or the house servants. It was the house people Meek worried about most. He didn't want them to run off.

Cooper went along with Meek, but he had fewer illusions than the overseer. The house people knew the guerrilla band was encamped nearby, its ranks growing weekly. The only person unaware of the danger was Clarissa.

"If I'd known an ordinary errand would be so dangerous, I wouldn't have sent you, Andy," Meek said. "I'm sorry. Hope you believe that."

"Yes, sir. I do." Cooper marveled. The apology and the response demonstrated the immense change the war had wrought on the plantation.

Meek stopped swinging his spectacles. "Now I want to be clear about this. You saw white men this time."

"That's right. Two in regular army gray, three in butternut. Those butternut coats didn't look like much. Still, you could tell they belonged to soldiers — either the ones wearing them or the ones they stole 'em from."

The overseer pronounced the verdict they all knew: "If white deserters are joining the nigras, then we've twice the reason to fear." He swung toward the possessor of final authority. "I have little doubt they'll attack us, Mr. Main. This is the largest plantation still operating in the district. I think we should arm some of the slaves — assuming we can find anything to arm them with. The attack may not come for a while, but we've got to be ready when it does."

"Is that the only way?" Cooper snapped. "Fighting?"

The overseer was momentarily stunned to silence. Andy didn't know what to make of the questioning response. After a few seconds, Meek said, "If you can suggest another, I'll be glad to hear it."

Stillness, filled with insect sounds. Up toward the house, a woman chanted the melody of a hymn. From a great distance they heard the raucous cry of a salt crow, answered by another. Andy peered out the window anxiously.

Cooper recognized defeat, sighed. "All right. I'll go to Charleston to see whether I can find some secondhand guns." Brusquely and with urgency, Meek said, "Soon, please?"

In Richmond next day, Orry packed the last of the few personal things with which he and Madeline had furnished the rooms on Marshall Street. The items went into a crate he nailed shut with a hammer wielded easily in his powerful right hand. Pounding the precious rusty nails one by one, he wondered if he would ever see the box after he consigned it to a local warehouse. He felt despondent about his negative answer, but comforted when he recalled that it was not an isolated reaction. Throughout the South, expectations sank daily.

He squeezed uniforms and gear into a small dilapidated trunk for which he had paid a barbarous price. He tagged the trunk with appropriate information and set it on the landing. Late in the afternoon, a white-haired Negro teamster appeared. The man's shoulders were round as the top of a question mark. Orry offered him a tip, but the man shook his head, gave him a sadly resentful look, and took the trunk away, making certain Orry heard his groans as he descended the stairs.

At dusk he donned his best gray uniform, locked the flat, and handed the key to the landlady. Carrying a small carpetbag containing items he didn't want to risk losing — his razor, a bar of soap, and two thin books of poetry — he walked to the marshaling yard where his transportation was waiting — a supply wagon bound south, seven and a half miles, to Chaffin's Bluff. There, Pickett's Division anchored the right end of the Intermediate Line, one of the five defense lines ringing the city.

The teamster invited Orry to sit next to him, but Orry preferred to ride in back, along with several unmarked boxes, his trunk and carpetbag, and his thoughts. He was happy to leave Richmond, but the prospect of joining Pickett's staff had not really lifted his spirits the way he had hoped. He was still shamed by Ashton's treachery and shocked by his callous disposal of Elkanah Bent. His loneliness since Madeline's departure could better be termed despondency. He prayed that she had reached Washington and would continue to think he was working in relative safety at the War Department.

Orry had always tried to draw lessons from experience. He had attempted it again after the entire government appeared to turn on his wife solely because she had a Negro ancestor. He found the lesson was familiar. Cooper had preached it for many years, and Orry had just as consistently ignored it until both sides had gone too far down the steep, dark road to war.

To this very day, the South was a stubborn pupil, rejecting the lesson even after the teacher's stick beat the pupil until he bled from mortal wounds. What would bring the Confederacy to an inglorious end was the same thing that had so foolishly created it: a rigidity of thought, a clinging to old ways, a refusal to adapt and change.

That was it, Orry saw with a little frisson of revelation. The fatal flaw. Minds of stone — pugnaciously proud of the condition.

Examples abounded. The South needed soldiers in the most desperate way, yet those who urged the enlistment of blacks were still called lunatics.

Were not the rights of states supreme? Of course they were. Thus the governor of Georgia needed no other grounds to exempt three thousand militia officers from army service and five thousand government workers besides. Using the same justification, the governor of North Carolina stockpiled thousands of uniforms, blankets, and rifles under the banner of state defense. Such right-thinking, principled men were more destructive than Sam Grant.

Orry wasn't a strong strategic thinker, but in sorting through probable causes of the inevitable defeat, he thought he had found another important one in newspaper dispatches describing the opposing presidents. At the start of the war, both Davis and Lincoln had personally directed military policy. Lincoln had even told McClellan the precise day on which he had to march to the peninsula.

Bloody losses had somehow taught Lincoln to revise his opinion of himself as a strategist and infallible judge of the capabilities of generals. On Capitol Square, it was widely held that at some point earlier this year, Lincoln had acknowledged his limitations by transferring control of the war engine to a man who ran it his own way: Grant.

Davis, by contrast, had never learned to recognize personal shortcomings, admit mistakes, adapt to new circumstances, change. The wheel revolved to Cooper again. When had Orry first heard him argue scornfully with their father that the South's greatest peril was its inflexibility? Longer ago than he could precisely remember.

Still, Orry reflected as the swaying wagon bore him toward Chaffin's Bluff, he mustn't be too hard on his own kind. Minds of stone were numerous not only inside Dixie but outside, too. There were plenty in the Yankee Congress; even one or two in the Hazard family, the foremost being Virgilia's.

But it was becoming clear to Orry that after the war ended, a new, entirely different world would arise. In that world there would be but one way for the South to survive and rebuild. That way was to accept what had happened. Accept that no black man would ever again labor unwillingly for a white man's profit. In sum — accept change.

He doubted whether most Southerners could do it. Many would undoubtedly go on hating, resisting, insisting they had been morally right, which Orry no longer believed. But again, he supposed just as many Yankees were willingly entrapped in the old modes of enmity and a yearning for reprisals. It was not, perhaps, merely the Southerner who failed to learn lessons, but every man in every epoch.

Trouble was, when you refused to learn, the result was what surrounded the rumbling wagon: soured earth; abandoned homes; imperiled lives.

Ruin.

Ruin and sadness like that on George Pickett's face when the general accepted Orry's salute and welcomed him to division headquarters.

"How good to see you at last."

"It's good to be here, sir."

A melancholy smile. "I hope you'll say that after you've spent a few weeks in close proximity to our old acquaintance from West Point. We have met a man this time who either doesn't know when he's whipped or doesn't care if he loses his whole army to whip us. There is no way effectively to oppose that kind of man for very long."

There is one, Orry thought. But he wasn't foolish enough to bring up the issue of black recruits and spoil the reunion and his first moments in the war zone.

113

Three women dining.

Constance called for candles instead of gaslight, believing it might warm the atmosphere for supper. It did, but that hardly mattered after her first effort to make conversation.

"Well, here we are —" she raised her claret to toast the guests seated on her right and left at the long table "— three war widows."

"I wish you wouldn't say such a thing," Brett exclaimed.

"Oh, my dear, I'm sorry. It was a clumsy attempt to make a light remark. I apologize."

"It's too serious to joke about," Brett said as Bridgit and a second kitchen girl marched in with china tureens of steaming mock turtle soup.

"I understand what you meant," Madeline said to Constance, "but I agree with Brett." She wore a clean, dark dress, and her hair was neatly arranged, but she hadn't lost the haggard air acquired on her long journey. She plied her spoon and tried to comfort Constance with a smile. "This is absolutely delicious."

Straining equally: "Thank you."

Presently, Constance steered the conversation to a safer track. She laughed and spoke ruefully about her continuing weight problem, hoping that jokes at her own expense would enable them to forgive and forget her misplaced flippancy. She saw little sign of success.

She answered Madeline's questions about her father, Patrick Flynn. He was in the pueblo of Los Angeles and busy improving his Spanish so he could serve native-born clients in addition to the settler community.

"And Virgilia?"

"We never hear from her. I presume she's still with the nurse corps."

"I would think she'd be a little more grateful for the shelter and guidance you gave her," Brett said. "Simple politeness would dictate an occasional letter, if nothing else."

Constance reached for the glinting knife on the cutting board. Smiling, she began to slice the hot, fresh loaf. "Alas, I don't think we can count gratitude among my sister-in-law's virtues."

"Does she have any at all?" Brett countered, and with that fell grimly silent, eating her soup.

Dear Lord, Constance thought, did my blunder cause all this? The answer appeared to be yes. The more she considered the dark possibilities wrapped up in her brief, careless remark, the more it depressed her.

Madeline sensed the tension. She said to Brett, "Tell me about this school for black waifs, won't you?"

"If you'd like, I'll take you up there tomorrow."

"Oh, yes, please."

Brett, too, was feeling ashamed of her outburst. Anxiety was the chief cause. The Ledger-Union was reporting many lives lost along the Petersburg siege lines. The word widow was one she hated to think about in connection with herself.

But she had to be honest; there was another irritant. Madeline's revelation in the rooming house. It had stunned Brett, but more than that, it had loosed an unexpected emotional reaction. As a presumed white woman, Madeline had earned Brett's whole­hearted respect and affection. Now — well, she couldn't help it — she regarded Orry's wife differently.

It was a reaction bred into her from childhood. That was an explanation, not an excuse. The reaction shamed her, and yet she seemed powerless to banish it or keep it from affecting her behavior.

Madeline was aware of the new reserve on Brett's part ever since that pivotal moment in Washington. Whenever she felt incensed, she reminded herself that Orry's sister was under great strain, had been living far from her native state for more than three years, had had her husband captured, imprisoned, wounded. That was an immense load for any wife to bear.

Brett's response to the revelation was a curious and ironic contrast to her involvement with the colored orphanage, Madeline thought. Her concern for the welfare of the black children was evident from the passion and frequency with which she spoke of them. At least that was a change, and a remarkable one for a young woman bred in the frequently arrogant traditions of the Carolina low country. The war was changing everyone and everything in some fashion; a pity it couldn't alter old attitudes about black blood.

She hoped Brett would eventually be capable of overlooking what she now clearly regarded as a taint. If not — well, it would certainly alter family relationships. It sometimes seemed to Madeline that God had put Americans to a cruel, perhaps impossible test when He permitted the Dutch to land that first shipload of slaves on the Virginia coast so long ago. The black man out of Africa had repeatedly exposed the white man's weaknesses. It was, perhaps, fitting revenge for the moment when the leg irons clinked shut.

There had been unpleasant notes sounded at this table tonight. Three war widows. She understood the attempt at lightness but found it disturbing. Thank heaven Orry had done nothing about joining Pickett's staff. He should be relatively safe in Richmond until the city fell. Afterward, he might be interned awhile — even mistreated — but he would survive that; he was a strong, brave man.

Trying to restart conversation, Madeline once more addressed Brett. "This friend of yours — the one who operates the orphanage — will I have a chance to meet him?"

"I think so. I expect he'll pay at least one more visit before he goes into the army. I certainly hope he will." Brett smiled. "You'll like him, I know."

And you like him very much indeed, Madeline said to herself. You seem able to accept him for what he is, but not me. Is that because you thought I was something you have always been told was better?

Sensing the onset of more bad feelings, Madeline blocked them by turning back to Constance, this time with a frivolous question about current fashions. The candles burned down, and conversation limped on, but something had gone out of Constance in the past few minutes. Her answers were forced, her efforts at banter unsuccessful. As they were finishing their lemon ices and coconut macaroons, she said abruptly, "I believe I'll go down to town for an hour."

Madeline asked, "Would you like company?"

"Thank you, no. I'm going to church."

It wasn't necessary to tell them she felt the need. Her face made it evident.

She drove the carriage herself down the twisting road in the night glare from Hazard's. Under Wotherspoon's guidance, the entire complex continued to operate twenty-four hours a day — and had never been so profitable.

Reaching the streets of the lower town, Constance felt the night wind rising, blowing dust. Lamps burned late in the army recruiting office. As she drove by, she noticed a sturdy Negro boy, the son of a worker at Hazard's, standing some distance from the entrance. Between the boy and the doorway, Lute Fessenden's cousin and some equally loutish crony whispered and joked.

When a few of the town's black men had attempted to visit the recruiter, there had been incidents of harassment. To prevent another, she slowed the carriage and prepared to speak to the substitute broker. Before she could, the black boy turned and disappeared in a dark alley. The significance of the two men loitering outside the office hadn't been lost on him.

Disgusted, she drove on to the small Catholic chapel that had been named, in a burst of poetic piety, St. Margaret's-in-the-Vale. The river valley, where flying soot and bits of cinder constantly blackened everything, could never live up to the literary connotations of vale, but it was a word very much liked by Lehigh Station's small Catholic community.

Because of the heat of the evening, the front doors of St. Margaret's stood open. Constance tied the horse to a wrought-iron post — Hazard's had donated and installed a row of eight — and slipped in, hoping meditation and prayer might lift the formless anxiety that had settled on her during supper. Inside the entrance, she genuflected, then slipped in to the second pew on the left.

Kneeling, she noticed a heavy, middle-aged woman across the aisle. The woman was poorly dressed, a shawl around her shoulders. Her forehead rested on her clasped hands as she prayed. Constance knew her. Mrs. Waleski's only boy had died in a Cold Harbor medical tent.

Hot wind gusting up the aisle fluttered the votive candles. The seven-foot Christ, painted and gilded, looked down from His cross with pity. Softly, Constance began praying.

Her mind was strangely divided, one part of it on her murmured plea for intercession, another on the great weight crushing her. She knew who had put the weight there. A stupid, thoughtless woman —

Here we are. Three war widows.

Ever since making that remark, she had been possessed by a premonition. For one of the three women at the table, the words would come true.

She was so sure of it, she was consumed with a fear no prayers could allay. Another fierce wind gust blew out half a dozen of the votive lights in their little glass cups red as blood.

114

Charles suffered a ravaging intestinal ailment during the first ten days of July. Still weak, still belonging in bed, he got up on the eleventh morning, obtained a pass, and set off on a dangerous ride around the west of Richmond, then northeast to Fredericksburg. His only guarantees of safe passage were his revolver and shotgun.

It would be his last trip to Barclay's Farm. He had decided that while lying with his knees drawn up against his pain-pierced gut. In bed, he'd had plenty of time to straighten out his thinking. The South would go down fighting, and he would go down with it. That was his sole duty now.

He couldn't deny he loved Gus, but she deserved a man with better prospects. Each day the odds against avoiding a fatal bullet increased. In the short run, he would hurt her. But when she found, as she surely would, a better man — someone whose head had not been oddly twisted by his war experiences — she would thank him.

He reached the farm at the end of a rain shower. The sun was out again, occasionally hidden by the clouds that flew over fields and woods at great speed, exchanging light for shadow, shadow for light. It was half past five in the evening. The clouds, the quality of sunlight at that hour, and the sparkling clarity of the land after the rain helped restore some of the farm's earlier beauty.

"Major Charles!" Washington, mending harness on the back stoop, jumped to his feet as Charles rode up. "Lord save us — old Sport looks about as starved as you do. Didn't expect we'd see you for a while. Wait till I tell Miz Augusta —"

"I'll tell her myself." Unsmiling, Charles yanked the back door open without knocking. "Gus?" He stepped into the kitchen, oblivious to the pained look on the aging freedman's face.

The kitchen was empty. Soup stock containing one large bone simmered on the stove. He shouted, "Gus, where the hell are you?"

She came dashing down the hall, hairbrush in hand. At the sight of him, her face glowed. She flung her arms around his neck. "Sweetheart!"

He pressed his bearded cheek to hers but broke the embrace when she started to kiss him. He flung a shabby butternut trouser leg over a low-backed chair and sat. He fumbled in his shirt for matches and a half-smoked cigar. His lack of emotion worried her.

At the stove, she swirled the long wooden spoon three times around the simmering pot. Then she laid the spoon aside and reluctantly confronted him.

"Darling, you don't look well."

"I caught the intestinal complaint again. I don't know which is worse, lying on a cot wishing my gut would fall out or riding over half of Virginia with General Hampton."

"It's been that bad —?"

"We've lost more men and horses than you'd believe. At least three whole troops of the South Carolina Sixth are in the dead­line camp, without remounts."

She glanced out the window. "You still have Sport."

"Barely." He knocked his knuckles on the table twice.

She brushed at a strand of loose blond hair. "It breaks my heart to see you so thin and white. And discouraged."

"What else can you expect these days?" He found his nervousness increasing. Originally, he had considered staying the night — making love one last time — but he found he didn't have the brass to do that to her. Or the strength to endure it himself. Abruptly, he decided on a quick end.

He bit into the cigar stub, scraped a match on the chair bottom, waved it toward the windows as sulfurous fumes filled the room. "The farm's a wreck."

"Thank the Yankees. Hardly a day goes by without Boz or Washington firing a warning shot at some deserter sneaking around."

"You shouldn't have stayed here. You shouldn't be here now. How can you raise anything? How can you and the niggers survive?"

"Charles, you know I don't like to hear that word. Especially in reference to my freedmen."

He shrugged. "I forgot. Sorry." He didn't sound it.

She tugged at the tight waist of her dress. Charles's head was bent, his eye on the match applied to the cigar. Blue smoke whirled around his beard as he blew the match out.

Frightened, Gus said: "You sound as though you don't really want me to answer the questions you asked. You sound as though you're trying to pick a fight."

He plucked the cigar from his teeth. "Now listen. It was a damned long ride up here —"

"May I remind you that no one begged you to make it?" The old defenses were going up again; the tartness, the wry mouth. They hurt him. But he had known for months that pain was necessary if he were to do what was right.

He smoked and stared, saw angry bewilderment in her blue eyes. He nearly relented. Then Ab Woolner came to mind, and Sharpsburg, and a great many other events and changes — so many, it hardly seemed possible that three years could contain them all. Or that any man could withstand them. Yet he had. But he was not unscathed.

More softly: "How long are you able to stay?"

"I have to start back when it's dark."

"Would you like —?" The unfinished question and her slight turn toward the door leading to the sleeping rooms had an adolescent awkwardness not typical of her. Red appeared in her cheeks.

"I need to water Sport and let him rest," he said, aching to carry her in to bed. She heard the unspoken refusal.

"I'll give you supper when you're finished."

With a bob of his head, he went out.

The dapple of shadow and light from moving clouds continued into the evening. Charles consumed two bowls of the thin beef soup and four pieces of coarse, delicious brown bread baked earlier. She ladled out a small portion of soup for herself but didn't touch it. While he ate, she said little, resting her chin on the backs of her interlocked hands, her elbows on the table on either side of the cooling soup. As she studied his face, she tried to fathom the sad mystery of what was wrong with him. Occasionally she prodded with a brief question.

He said he was sure the war was lost. He spoke of the high rate of desertion and Lee's failure to demonstrate faith in Wade Hampton by promoting him to commander of the cavalry. He mentioned actions whose names were unfamiliar and the escalating hostility.

"When Hunter was in the valley, he burned Governor Letcher's home in Lexington. The Military Institute, too. In Silver Spring, right outside Washington, they say Jube Early looted homes and farms in retaliation. Now he's loose in Pennsylvania — God knows what he's doing there. When this whole business started, it reminded me of a South Carolina tournament: fair ladies, courageous horsemen, games. It's turned into an abattoir, with butchers and cattle on both sides. Good soup," he finished insincerely, pushing the bowl away. Do it now. Don't prolong it.

"What I came to say, Gus —" he cleared his throat "— with things going so badly, I don't know when I can get here again."

Gus lifted her head, a swift, fierce movement, like a response to a slap. Bitterly, she said, "Next week or never, the choice is yours. It always has been. I —" There she stopped, shaking her head as if saying no to herself.

"Go ahead, finish."

Her voice strengthened. "I hope you didn't expect a flood of tears in response to your announcement. I'm not sure I want you here in your present frame of mind. It's hardly new or profound to say that war is terrible. And you seem to forget men don't carry the entire burden. Do you think it's any easier to be a woman with a son or husband in the army? Do you think it's easier to sit and watch grown men play soldierboy by tearing up a garden — all the food you have in the world — and ruining a farm with their hooliganism? I know the war's done hard things to you. It's in your eyes, what you say, everything you do. You seem to be filled with rage —"

He rammed the chair back and stood, cigar in his teeth. He had lit a new one after eating, having decided he would go when the cigar was smoked. He might be leaving sooner than that.

"Don't bother to display your truculence," Gus seethed. "I've had my fill. What gives you special dispensation to beat your breast longer and harder than any of the rest of us? I love you, idiot that I am. I'm sorry for you. But I won't be treated like some dumb animal that's misbehaved. I won't be kicked, Charles. If you choose to come here again, let it be as the man I fell in love with. He's the one I want."

Moments ticked by. He drew the cigar from his mouth.

"He died."

She returned his stare. Softly, without wrath, she said, "I think you had better go."

"I think so too. Thanks for the food. Take care of yourself."

He walked out, mounted Sport, and rode away beneath the lowering clouds of night.

For half an hour, Gus did nothing. She sat at the kitchen table, her hands on her stomach, while grief beat at her. Sometime during this period, Washington knocked at the back door. She didn't answer. He went away.

Darkness crept into the kitchen. When she finally stood, it was to light a lamp. She felt much as she had the night her husband died. She couldn't believe it had happened to her.

If she had been more realistic about Charles — less smitten — she would have recognized that something like this could happen. There had been signs, strong ones, during the past year. A couplet from "An Essay on Man" cycled endlessly through her thoughts: Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd. And now a bubble burst —

"And now a world."

The whisper died away. With mental pushes and kicks, she forced herself to move through the dark house. Dusting this. Straightening that. Motion, work — anything to numb the pain.

She lit two more lamps in the kitchen, heated water on the stove, pulled all her clean dishes from the shelves and washed each piece, dried them vigorously, and put them back.

Another knock. This time, Washington didn't wait for an answer before stepping inside. "Miz Augusta, it's near onto midnight. Too late for you to be up."

"This floor's filthy. I'm going to scrub it."

Washington's forehead furrowed; such behavior was incomprehensible. "Major Charles didn't look so good —"

"He's been quite ill. Dysentery."

"He didn't stay long."

"No."

"He comin' back soon?"

She had to he. "I don't know. Perhaps."

Still frowning, Washington chewed on his lower lip. "If you're goin' to wash the floor this time of night, you let me help you."

"I want to do it by myself. I don't feel sleepy." She remembered her manners. "But thank you."

The door closed, shutting out his troubled face.

She filled a pail and found her brush. She couldn't believe how badly she hurt. His leaving was the direct cause, but the deepest guilt was hers. She had let down her defenses. Opened herself to love, whose other Janus face was the possibility of loss.

Would she have changed anything? Refused to love him? It took her no time at all to answer with an emphatic no. But, God above, it did hurt now.

Despite that, she still took pride in being a self-reliant woman. She had endured this damned misbegotten war, and she would continue to endure it. She would endure the pain, too, for as long as it lasted. She knew how long that would be. Till the hour she died.

No matter. She would endure everything because there was always, even amidst the worst, some reason for wanting and needing to survive. She knew her own reason well and only wished she had been able to tell him. But it would have been a cruel and self-serving use of the truth.

Gently, she rested a hand on her waist. Then, as the clock rang midnight, she got down on her knees and began to scrub.

115

The night after the battle of the Crater, Billy wrote:

Along with its changing colors, autumn brought better news to the Lehigh Valley. Sherman had taken Atlanta on the second of September. That and the successful exploits of Little Phil excited the entire North. In scornful reply to the pacifists campaigning for the election of McClellan, Republicans proudly called the Irish cavalry leader "Peace Commissioner Sheridan."

Autumn also brought Scipio Brown to Belvedere for the last time. Gleeful as a boy, he pivoted in front of Brett to show off his light blue trousers with the broad yellow stripe and the dark blue jacket, without insignia — the means by which junior lieutenants were distinguished from senior ones.

"Lieutenant Brown, Second United States Colored Troops, Cavalry. I'm replacing an officer who was injured when the regiment skirmished at Spring Hill."

"Oh, Scipio — it's exactly what you wanted. You look simply grand."

Constance and Madeline agreed. The three women had gathered in the parlor to welcome and honor Brown with sherry and little sugared cakes. Madeline, who thought the slender-waisted amber-colored man cut a handsome figure, asked him, "Where and when will you report?"

"City Point, next Monday. I hope there won't be as much trouble as there was when I went to take my oath. Ran up against a gang of four white boys, two of them veterans. They didn't care for the idea of colored men entering their army, and they tried to stop me."

Perched on a chair like some long-legged water bird on a nest much too small, he showed them that infectious smile as he pushed outward with his palm. "But I cut a path."

"We have men like that right here in Lehigh Station," Brett said, noticing, as she never had before, that his palm was nearly as white as hers. Brown's chair gave a sudden creak, so he rose — happily, because it allowed him to stand to his full height in the uniform he wore with obvious pride.

Constance asked, "Have you any other late news from the city?"

"They're saying that with Mr. Lincoln's assistance, Nevada Territory will become a state by the first of November. That will provide the last two votes needed to ratify the amendment." It was not necessary for him to explain further; in Brown's lexicon there was but one amendment, the thirteenth.

He bowed to the ladies. "The refreshments were delicious, but I must go up and say good-bye to my children. My train leaves at six." He had arrived at nine that morning, after traveling all night.

"I'll go with you," Brett said immediately. Madeline flashed a glance at Constance, silently remarking on Brett's eagerness and Brown's pleased reaction. Constance smiled to say she saw the same things. Her smile seemed broader these days because her face was fuller; the slim woman George had married had disappeared inside a larger, rounder one. The effect was not unbecoming.

At the school, Mrs. Czorna cried, and the seventeen black waifs hopped and danced around Scipio, admiring the magnificence of his uniform: every button bright, no speck or wrinkle anywhere. He told Mrs. Czorna and her husband that the Christian Commission in Washington would continue to gather strays and route them to Lehigh Station from the temporary shelter in the Northern Liberties.

"It will not be the same," Mrs. Czorna wept. "Oh, never the same, you dear man." She hid her tear-streaked face on her husband's shoulder. She's right, Brett thought with mingled sorrow and pride.

Scipio Brown bid the children good-bye one at a time, leaving each with a hug and kiss. Too quickly, Brett found herself accompanying him down the hill again. Hazard's billowed its smoke into the October sky, dimming the autumn sun. Windblown laurel seethed on both sides of the path. Brown checked his pocket watch.

"Half past five already. I must hurry."

On Belvedere's veranda, she stood with one hand grasping a carved pillar — something she found necessary to steady herself. The western light blazed in her eyes, making it hard to see him. She feared the pitiless light and what it might reveal.

Brown cleared his throat. "I don't know how to begin this good-bye. You have been such a great help to me —"

"Willingly. I don't need thanks. I've loved every one of those children."

"When you feel just as much love for an adult of their color, you'll have made the whole journey. But you've come a long way already. An incredible distance. You are — " there was an un­characteristic hesitation "— you're a wonderful woman. I can understand why your husband is proud."

His black silhouette loomed against the softly lit mountains across the river. Without conscious thought, Brett reached out to touch him. "You must take good care of yourself. Write to us —"

He stepped away from the hand on his sleeve. Only then did Brett realize what she had done.

"Of course I will, as time permits." He sounded stiff and punctilious suddenly. "I must go, or I'll miss the train."

He untied the hired horse, mounted gracefully, and cantered down the road toward where it curved between the nearest houses. Light from the west glared above their roof lines; everything below was shadow. She lost the mounted figure in that mass of dark blue and stood with a hand shielding her eyes, trying to find it, for several minutes.

Belatedly, she understood why she had touched him. She had been overcome with emotion: intense sorrow, affection — most stunningly of all, intense attraction. Although she couldn't quite believe it, neither could she deny her memory. For the tiniest moment, lonely and inwardly empty because of Billy's long absence, she had been linked by longing to the tall soldier making his farewell.

And it had not made a whit of difference in that moment that Scipio Brown was a Negro.

By now the emotion had passed. The recollection never would. She had been unfaithful to Billy, and though the infidelity had been silent and brief, her sense of morality generated shame. But it had nothing to do with Brown's color. He was worthy of any woman's love.

Down by the canal, a whistle blew its long, lonely plaint. His train. She wiped tears from her eyes, remembering something he said.

When you feel just as much love for an adult of their color, you'll have made the whole journey.

"Oh," she whispered, and turned and ran into the house. "Madeline? Madeline!" She dashed from room to room till she found her, seated with a book of poems. As Madeline stood up, Brett flung her arms around her, starting to cry.

"Here, what's all this?" Madeline began, her smile tentative, wary.

"Madeline, I'm sorry. Forgive me."

"Forgive you for what? You've done nothing wrong."

"I have. Yes, I have. Forgive me."

The crying continued, and Madeline patted the younger woman to comfort her. At first she felt awkward, then less so. She held her kinswoman close for some length of time, knowing Brett needed absolution, even if she didn't know exactly why.

116

Shelling had partially destroyed the redoubt, forcing the Eleventh Massachusetts Battery to abandon it. For the second moonless night in a row, Billy led a repair and revetting party to the site, working at frantic speed so the redoubt could again be occupied.

It was October, hot for so late in the year. Billy worked without a shirt, his braces hanging down over the hips of sweat-soaked trousers. The wound in his calf had healed cleanly and no longer impaired movement. The bullet's point of entry sometimes ached late in the night, but that was the worst of it.

Billy's laborers were the men of a colored infantry platoon, the same kind of work force he had supervised frequently in the past weeks. The platoon lieutenant and a corporal stationed themselves on a restored section of the parapet to keep watch, a customary procedure.

Not that much was visible. Billy could barely discern the abatis line in front of the redoubt and could see nothing at all of the rebel works, which here ran parallel to those of the Union, with only a couple of hundred yards separating them. Occasionally a match flared on the other side, or someone spoke. The Yankee and rebel pickets talked to one another a lot. They had lately worked out a protocol that helped each side. Neither would open fire unless an advance was about to start. Advances were infrequent, so for much of the time the pickets — and crews like Billy's — were spared anxiety about stray bullets. Unless, of course, they were fired by some hothead, always a possibility — as was a sudden rain of larger projectiles. Soldiers on the front were seldom warned of an artillery bombardment.

The Negro in direct charge of Billy's men was a heavy, placid-looking sergeant. Named Sebastian, he had skin as light as coffee with milk in it, a huge hooked nose, and slightly slanted eyes that didn't fit with the rest of his features. He drove himself hard and expected similiar effort from the rest of the platoon. As he and Billy sweated to raise heavy half-timbers into place, Billy grew curious about him.

After another was set in position, both stepped back. Bits of dirt stuck to Billy's wet skin. He judged the time to be two or three in the morning. He was so tired he wanted to fall down on the spot. He took several deep breaths, then asked, "Where are you from, Sergeant Sebastian?"

"Now or a long time ago?"

"Whichever you want."

"I live in Albany, New York, but way back, my granddaddy ran away from a South Carolina farm where he was the only slave. Granddaddy was what they call a brass ankle. Little bit of white, little bit of black, little bit of Yamasee red all mixed together."

"You mean red as in Indian?" It helped explain the contrasting features.

"Uh-huh. Granddaddy's name was the same as mine. He —"

A scarlet burst in the sky over Petersburg curtailed the conversation. Out by the abatis line, the pickets cursed the sound of the shell whining in. Billy shouted a superfluous command for the men to fall to the ground. Most were already down when he landed on his chest, seconds before the shell made a direct hit on the half-restored parapet.

Billy covered the back of his head with both arms. In the down­pour of dirt and splintered wood, he heard someone yell, "Sergeant Sebastian? Lieutenant Buck's hurt or kilt."

Buck was the platoon officer on lookout. Sebastian wasted no time, scrambling up as other guns opened fire in the distant batteries. "I'm going out to get him."

"But it isn't safe while the bombardment —"

"Hell with what's safe. You heard Larkin. Buck's hurt or killed."

Crouched over, Sebastian began to run along the face of the redoubt, shouting over his shoulder, "Rest of you men back to the rifle pit."

Billy had voiced his objection out of prudence, not cowardice, but he knew Sebastian thought otherwise. He leaped up and raced after the sergeant.

As he ran, some Union picket, spooked by the shelling, fired a round. "Hey, damn you, Billy Yank, what you doin'?" an unseen reb called angrily. The last three words were barely audible as Confederate sharpshooters showed what they thought about the truce violation.

Balls buzzed and thunked into the redoubt inches above Billy; he was on all fours, crawling. Another shell landed six feet behind him, hurling wood and clods of dirt in all directions. Some pelted Billy. Ahead of him, Sebastian caught some, too; Billy heard him groan. Where there had been only heat and silence, now there were pulses of light, reverberating explosions, outcries from wounded pickets, and smoke so thick Billy choked.

"Pass him down, Larkin." Sebastian was on his feet, straining to reach to the crumbling parapet where the black officer lay. Crouching and moving forward again, Billy couldn't quite tell what was happening, but there was some difficulty. He heard Sebastian grunting.

Billy called, "Can you reach him, Sergeant?"

"No."

"I can't hear you. Have you got him?"

"I said no," Sebastian yelled, causing some marksman on the other side to aim for the sound and shoot. Sebastian jerked and exclaimed softly, clawing the dirt of the redoubt's unrepaired face. A shell landed fifty yards to the east. Men in the rifle pits took the burst, started screaming. In the glare, Billy saw Sebastian on his knees, blood running from his shoulder.

Sebastian hooked his fingers into the dirt in front of him. Pain contorting his face, he pulled himself back to a standing position. A bullet nicked a timber on the ground; the splinter hit Billy's neck like a flying nail.

Dry-mouthed with fear, he stepped up beside the sergeant. "Corporal Larkin?"

"Here, sir."

"Where's the lieutenant hit?"

"Chest."

"Let's try again. Lower him feet first. I know you're wounded, Sebastian. You go back right now."

"You can't carry him alone. I'm fine." He didn't sound like it.

"All right. I'll grab his boots. You're taller — you reach over my head and take him under the arms. We mustn't drop him."

"Larkin?" Sebastian gasped. "You hear that?"

"I hear," the scared soldier answered. "Here he comes."

Slowly, they maneuvered the wounded lieutenant down and into a horizontal position, then started to carry him toward the rifle pits. Billy took the lead, facing forward, holding one of Buck's boot heels in each hand. The enemy fire grew heavier. He hunched slightly, which struck him as hilariously futile in view of the number of shells and bullets landing all around. Sweat dripped off his chin. His heart beat hard; the fear persisted. He was ashamed when he thought of the sergeant carrying the wounded man along with a reb ball in his shoulder. Sebastian uttered a short, guttural sound each time he took a step.

"Here we are," Billy whispered at the timbered rim of the rifle pit. "You men down there, take the lieutenant. Gently — gently! That's it — Oh, goddamn it —" He felt Buck's upper body drop as Sebastian let go, fainting on his feet.

Other black soldiers were taking hold of the lieutenant's legs, so Billy pivoted and tried to check Sebastian's fall. But the sergeant slipped sideways, just out of reach, then tumbled into the rifle pit.

Two of Sebastian's men tried to catch him and failed. He landed hard. Billy heard the thump seconds before three more shells exploded. He jumped into the rifle pit, the impact scraping his teeth together. Tears flowed down his cheeks because of the smoke. The bombardment had become steady and thunderous.

He picked one of the black soldiers. "Climb out to the rear and find two litter bearers. Quick, dammit!"

Half the effort was wasted. Surgeons successfully extracted a Minié ball from Lieutenant Buck's chest and patched him up, but Sebastian died at daybreak while the smoke from the final rounds of the bombardment drifted away above the fortifications. Corporal Larkin had stayed flattened on the ledge during the shelling and returned without a scratch.

In his journal that afternoon, Billy put down some thoughts prompted by the sergeant's death.

The supply train chugged southwestward. George rode in the open on a flatcar, huddled in his overcoat. It was a gray Saturday; Monday would be the first of November. There was a smell of snow in the air, a sinister look to the barren trees, a sense that the siege would settle back into lulling quiet after last Thursday's failed advance. A thrust on the left, its objective the interdiction of the Southside Railroad, had been repulsed by Heth, Mahone, and some of Wade Hampton's horse. Hampton had been promoted to full command of the rebel cavalry in August. Was Charles still scouting for him? Was Orry still in Richmond?

Memories of the fire, of the burned bodies that night in April of '61 came back again; they were with him often. Another house had risen to replace the one destroyed, but the new one bore little resemblance to the old. The war had been long and devastating. When it was over, could past relationships be restored? Did they even exist any more? He was not confident.

Among the change rattling in his pocket were some of the new two-cent pieces authorized by Chase before his resignation and minted for the first time this year. Each bronze piece bore the words In God We Trust, a motto which had never before appeared on American coinage. George wondered whether that affirmation was also an unvoiced cry against the dark times; a declaration of lack of faith in human ability to find a way through the war's maze of misery and cupidity and blind chance. In God We Trust — but not in generals, contractors, even Presidents.

Nevertheless, it did appear that Lincoln would win a second term. The Republican radicals had decided a splinter candidate couldn't win and had patched together a sullen truce with the President. Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Phil Sheridan's trouncing of Jubal Early at Cedar Creek had completely reversed the political tide. October elections in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana resulted in strong National Union party majorities. George had voted in camp and, according to the note that had at last arranged a reunion between the brothers, so had Billy. Both cast their ballots for Lincoln and Johnson.

With other states yet to vote, governmental departments, particularly Stanley's, were doing everything possible to influence the outcome. George noticed that officers known to support McClellan were slow to receive promotions to which they were entitled. Each day steamers left City Point packed with men conveniently furloughed home to districts where a Republican victory might-be in doubt. George hoped for that victory and believed in the need for it, but he disliked the less than pristine methods being used to achieve it. He had visions of Stanley gleefully inking Dem. on promotion authorization and flinging each so labeled into a crackling fireplace.

A few white flakes flurried around George as an artillery colonel clambered aboard to share the edge of the car. They struck up a conversation and were soon discussing a notorious farmer from Dinwiddie County who called himself the Deacon and led a band of mounted partisans — the kind of band the rebel Congress publicly disavowed and secretly praised. The preceding week, Deacon Follywell's men had captured three Union pickets near the left of the siege line and hanged them.

"When we catch them, they should get the same treatment," the colonel declared. His tone left no room for dissent.

The train rounded a curve; shell-blasted trees fell behind, replaced by a vista of a crowded campsite. On frozen ground, among white tents, black infantry drilled, marching to the rear, then to the oblique, while George and his sullen companion rode by.

"Look at that spectacle," the colonel said. "Five years ago, no decent Christian would have believed it possible."

George turned and raised his eyebrows to indicate not merely surprise but disapproval. The colonel mistook it for interest and began proselytizing.

"Any intelligent man knows why it's happened — why the stability and moral fiber of this army and this nation are being undermined." The colonel leaned forward. "It's a conspiracy led by the worst elements of society."

"Oh?" George said above the whistling wind. "Which elements are those?"

"Use your head, man. It's obvious." He ticked them off on gauntleted fingers. "The crackpot editors. The free-love philosophers and perverts from New England. The greenhorn immigrants flooding our shores, and the Jewish usurers who are already here. The radical politicians. The New York banking interests. They're all in it."

"You mean the New York bankers consider Southern field hands to be potential customers? Fancy that."

The colonel was too intense to catch the straight-faced mockery. "They've plotted together to render the white man subservient to the nigger. Well, I tell you what the result will be. Blood in the streets. More blood than has ever been shed in this war, because white people will not permit themselves to be enslaved."

"Is that right?" George said, observing the crossing at the Jerusalem Plank Road coming up ahead. "I thought slavery was ending, not beginning. I do appreciate the enlightenment, sir."

"By God, you're laughing at me. What's your name, Major?"

"Harriet Beecher Stowe," George said, and dropped off the car.

The snow was thickening. He tramped toward the camp of the Battalion of Engineers in low spirits.

The camp rang with the noise of axes. The sudden cold weather had speeded the start of hutting. Three parallel streets had been staked out, and about a dozen timber cottages, no two alike, were already partly finished.

A headquarters orderly said Billy could be found in a work shed at the edge of camp. Welcome heat bathed George as he stepped into the gloomy building where a group of men crouched around a fire burning in a shallow pit in the dirt floor. With a stick or tongs, each man held a tin can near the flames.

Billy saw his brother, grinned and waved, then passed his tongs to the man beside him. As Billy hurried toward him, George thought, Lord, how thin and wan he is. Do I look that terrible? I suppose I do.

The brothers embraced, a hug and several slaps of the back. Billy's grin was huge. "How are you? I couldn't sleep last night thinking you'd be here today."

"Should have paid a visit weeks ago, but the rail line takes a lot of damage, so it always needs repair. Tell me, what in God's name is going on at that fire?"

"We're melting out the solder in the cans before we flatten them into sheets. From the sheets we build stoves. One of the boys in the battalion dreamed up the idea. Got to keep warm somehow. Looks like we'll be in Petersburg all winter. But come along to the mess. We'll find some coffee, and you can give me all the news."

The flurries had stopped, the clouds were breaking. Shafts of sun formed light pools on the bleak landscape. Seated at a grimy trestle table in a cold building made of unpainted lumber, George expressed shock at the sight of Billy's scarred left hand.

"A permanent souvenir of Libby," Billy said with a curious smile. "I have several."

After he described some of his prison experiences, the escape, and his wounding, they fell to discussing other topics: the South's virtually certain defeat, Sherman's brilliant triumphs, the whereabouts of all the members of the family except Virgilia. Then came a chance mention of the barrels of chicken and turkey meat promised for the last Thursday in the month; last year, a presidential proclamation had declared Thanksgiving a national holiday.

"I suppose we have a lot to be thankful for," Billy said. "I could have died in prison. Probably would have except for Charles."

"Any idea where he is?"

Billy shook his head. "Wade Hampton's been in some hot engagements around here, though."

"I gather the cattle raid is still a cause of some embarrassment."

"Some? Try monumental." In September, Texas Tom Rosser and four thousand riders had undertaken an adventure worthy of Stuart. Completely encircling the Union rear, they had rustled twenty-five hundred head of beef cattle from an abatis corral at Coggins Point, on the James, then driven the herd back to the hungry defenders of Petersburg — taking three hundred prisoners along at the same time.

"Some found the whole business pretty funny," Billy said. "Old Jeb's ghost tweaking Grant's nose — that kind of thing. It didn't amuse me much. I can't find humor in this war any more. Nor much enthusiasm for soldiering, either. If I ever get home, I'm not sure I want to come back to the army."

"The last time I saw Herman Haupt, he talked about the West. He predicts a boom in rail construction out there after the war. The idea of a transcontinental line will undoubtedly be revived. He said there would be great opportunities for capable engineers."

"Something to think about." Billy nodded. "Provided we ever get Bob Lee to surrender.''

"The siege surely does drag on," George agreed. "It's grim. They say the rebs are starving. Eating a handful of corn once a day, if that. I know they fired the first shot. I know they have to be whipped till they quit. But you're right: knowing you're part of something like that sours you after a while. I wanted duty on the lines. Helping run the military railroads is good, satisfying work. My black crews are fine. But I have days when I'm as low as I've ever been in my whole life."

Billy stared into his empty tin cup, held between hands that looked raw and red; the left one was the ugliest. "So do I. When that happens, I think about a conversation you and I had on the hill behind Belvedere. You talked about some things Mother once said to you. How she believed our family was like the laurel —"

"Hardy. I remember. I hope it's still true."

"Sometimes I wonder, George. So much has changed. Colored men in uniform. Railroads flying up and down the countryside carrying whole regiments. Dead men piled up like kindling — something no one ever expected. I wonder if any of the old things can survive. Including friendship with the Mains — excepting the one I married, of course."

George scratched the stubble on his chin. He had the same fears. Exhaustion sharpened them, exhaustion and depression brought on by the misjudgment and malingering that were as bad in the field as in Washington. By the endless counting of bodies. By the common agreement that the war would probably continue into next year.

Still, he was the older brother, and for some damn reason it was ordained that older brothers were always supposed to be wise and strong. Though he felt his effort was probably transparent and ludicrous, he tried.

"I ask myself the same question when I'm feeling down. My answer has to be yes, or I couldn't keep going. The verities will outlast all the changes — and help winnow the worthless ones. That's the meaning of the laurel, I think. Friendship — the love of our wives and our families and people we cherish, like the Mains — that's more permanent than anything else. That endures and helps us do the same. Otherwise, I'm not sure we could. We'll come through, don't worry."

Billy lifted the tin cup, tilted it to drain the last of the cold coffee. In his brother's eyes George detected a sad skepticism. Billy didn't believe what he had just said.

Well, he didn't, either. He had seen too much of Washington and Petersburg. He had heard the fire bells in April, long ago.

117

The scratch of her pen and the pound of the sea — those were the only sounds in the cramped and wretched stateroom.

Ashton bent over the account book on the tiny table she had pushed against the wall beneath the single flickering lamp. Wearing a loose silk shirt and stained trousers, Huntoon lay in the lower berth, watching her with resentment. During the entire first day after leaving Hamilton, Bermuda, he had puked into a bucket at least every half hour. The second day, he was able to reach the rail, but the earlier stench still tainted the cabin. One more grievance she bore against him.

Ashton weighed nine pounds less than she had on the disastrous night Orry aborted the assassination plot and sent them flying out of Richmond in a closed carriage. She yearned for an opportunity to repay her brother for his ruinous meddling. But at the moment she had more important goals. Surviving. Reaching Montreal, then the Southwest. Restoring her beauty; the way she looked now was loathsome.

Most compelling of all was the need to be with Powell again.

Huntoon sharpened the need because of his constant snuffling and tossing in the berth.

Cresting waves struck and shook the steamer. She was Canadian, the Royal Albert, and was presently running as close to the American coastline as she dared, being a neutral. It was the evening of election day in the North. More pertinently, as Ashton's occasionally queasy stomach reminded her, it was November. November meant the onset of this kind of rough sea in the North Atlantic.

From the bunk, Huntoon bleated, "What time is it?"

Writing numbers, Ashton said, "Look at your watch."

He made a pathetic sound to tell her of the suffering induced by the effort. "Almost eleven. Won't you put out the lamp?"

"Not until I'm finished."

"What are you doing?"

"Reckoning our compound interest." The Nassau bank in which, at her insistence, all the Water Witch profits had been deposited, wouldn't know where to send quarterly reports until Powell established the new government. In Hamilton, Ashton had been able to cash a draft on the bank, just enough money for minimum, traveling expenses. The rest remained safe in their account, in sterling. Sometimes she shuddered, remembering how close she had come to putting it all in a Charleston bank.

Quickly, she toted up the figures and swung around, flourishing a little book at him. "Nearly a quarter of a million dollars, as closely as I can compute it. That's something to compensate us for this misery."

Huntoon's round spectacles misted; he was sweating. "Lamar may ask for some of that money."

"Oh, no." She shut the book and tucked it in her bulging reticule. "He doesn't get the loan of a penny until the new government is in place, and perhaps not even then. In this venture, he hazards the gold from his mine — we hazard ourselves."

"I'd sooner surrender that bank account than our lives," he countered in what she considered a sniveling way. "But if you look at matters honestly, Powell has placed more than his gold at risk. I mean, he faces the same physical dangers we do —"

"He should. It's his scheme."

Ashton loved Powell, but she saw no contradiction of that in her reply to her husband. One plot had foundered; a second might also. Curiously, failure hadn't embittered her lover, even though he had been forced to hide in that filthy attic for weeks, then flee down to Wilmington by himself after he returned to Richmond and found the farm in the hands of the provost's men.

At Ashton's insistence, Huntoon left a sealed letter at one of Powell's drinking haunts. Thus he learned more of what had happened and where the Huntoons were bound. From Wilmington, he had continued on to Nassau before rejoining them in Hamilton. Discovery, hasty flight, fear of pursuit — those had perversely strengthened his determination. It helped convince Ashton that although the possibility of failure was always present, Powell would succeed this time. He would bring the new nation into being.

The need for it was more desperate than ever; that had become clear in the weeks since their flight from Richmond. Lee was stalemated, Sherman was driving to the sea, the old Confederacy was going down. In Nassau, Powell said, some Southerners had begged him to join rebel agents already in Toronto, headquarters for new schemes to throw the North into turmoil, foil Lincoln's election and pave the way for peace negotiations. One plan Powell heard about involved Illinois Copperheads who were supposed to overwhelm Camp Douglas and free great numbers of Confederate prisoners. Another, even more witless in his estimation, called for burning every major hotel in New York City.

"King Jeff is trying eleventh-hour ploys to save the regime he's already destroyed. I'll not help such a mad and desperate man. That's what I told the people in Nassau, and when they didn't like it, I told them to go to hell."

Those were Powell's remarks at luncheon yesterday. Huntoon was in his bunk at the time. To sit opposite her lover and be unable to do so much as clasp his hand frustrated Ashton. They hadn't enjoyed a moment of privacy since leaving Hamilton. Always, there were crewmen close by or passengers. The steamer was carrying several Canadian business travelers and three couples returning from an autumn holiday in the tropics. In the dining saloon, Powell haughtily refused to speak to any of them.

Ashton rose, smoothing her skirt and catching a flash of her image in a small, cracked glass on the wall. The sight was sickening. Her hair was dull, her arms bony, her bosom shrinking. She clung to an imagined future in which she would be attractive again, sharing Towell's bed in the presidential mansion.

From time to time she pressed him for specifics about the new state. Where would he create it? On how much land? How many settlers did he expect, and how many armed men to defend them? He claimed to have all the answers but preferred to keep them to himself — an additional reason Ashton would give him her body but not her money. Not just yet.

"Ohhh." Huntoon clutched his middle. "I think I'm going to die."

I wish you would. She stamped her foot. "I know I'll go insane if you don't stop your childish complaining."

"But I feel so terrible —"

"Believe me, you've made that clear. Whine, whine, whine! You hated the hotel in Wilmington, even after we were lucky enough to get there without being caught and arrested. You complained about the seediness of the man who sold us forged passports for three times what they're worth. You didn't want to sail to Bermuda on a fishing boat, even though there was no other vessel to take us. You hate this steamer, Canadians, the sea — What would make you happy?"

He dragged his legs over the side of the berth and pulled off his glasses. His eyes looked wet and weak. Like a boy's. She could have sunk through the deck when he answered: "To go back to South Carolina — to be done with this business. I've thought it over, endlessly. I can't stand the strain. The possibility of danger, death. It's tearing my nerves to pieces."

"Do you think our poor Southern boys on the battlefield feel any differently? You enlisted when there was glory in the air, but now you want to desert. Well, you can't." He cringed away from the denunciation. "There will be a new Confederacy, and we are going to be important in it. Very important."

"Ashton, I just don't know if I have the courage —"

"Yes, you do." She clawed hold of both shoulders and shook him, fairly spitting. "By God, you do or you're no husband of mine. Now go to sleep. I want some air."

She snatched a cape, blew out the lamp, slammed the flimsy slatted door behind her. Hurrying away, she cursed foully when she heard him crying.

Her rage didn't abate as she struggled up the steeply tilting stair to the main deck. Only one passenger was in the saloon, a bald man sleeping with a month-old London Times tented on his paunch. Treading softly, Ashton reached the outside door and leaned against the weight of the wind to push it open.

The spill of light revealed Powell at the rail. His hair, much more gray than brown now, tossed in the wild gusts. He had run out of his favorite dye pomade; he had searched the apothecary shops in Nassau, but they had none.

"You shouldn't be out here in this terrible weather, Ashton. Beware the deck — it's wet and slip —"

The warning ended as the Royal Albert rolled sharply to port. Ashton's heels flew out from under her. She shrieked, tumbling toward the rail. Only Powell's body, with which she collided painfully, kept her from being flung overboard.

She leaned against him, queasy and terrified by the enormous white-topped waves visible in the glow from the ship's portholes. As a degree of calm returned, the physical contact suddenly aroused her. She pushed her breasts against Powell's sleeve, crushed them, almost to the point of pain. She didn't see him smile when he pulled her head down on his shoulder.

They were motionless a moment, then abruptly separated. A seaman in rubber foul-weather gear rushed by, reiterating the danger of being on deck in a heavy sea.

"I need air; I'll be careful," Ashton called to the disappearing figure. She was; she clutched the varnished rail with both hands. "I do need air," she said to Powell, "but more than that, I need some relief from James. He's driving me insane with his complaining. I can't stand this, I can't stand that —" Her high-pitched voice mimicked him cruelly. "But I'm the one who's breaking, Lamar. I can't come to your stateroom alone. I can't kiss you or even touch you." Half ill and overcome with love, she reached down and closed her hand on him. "This is what I want. Using nothing else, you chained me up as completely as some nigger plantation girl. You made me lose sleep — respectability — my sanity sometimes — just wanting this. You made me a slave to it, and then you took it away."

The whispered tirade delighted him. She lowered her head, realizing what she had done. She let go. He patted her arm in a way that was almost avuncular.

"I took it away, as you so delightfully put it, out of necessity. What's upset you?"

"Wanting you!"

"Nothing else? Has James forced himself on you?"

"Do you think I'd allow that?'' An unsteady laugh. "But, my God — you don't know how resisting him has taxed my capacity for lying. I've gone through the unmentionable monthly complaint, nerves, headaches, the vapors — an encyclopedia of excuses. Can you imagine how happy I was when he got seasick? For a while I even found the smell of the bucket tolerable. Doesn't that tell you how desperate I am?"

"Patience," he murmured, stroking her arm although the seaman was returning. "Patience."

"I don't have any left!" She was almost in her husband's state, ready to cry.

When the crewman was gone, he said, "Patience is vital. We need James awhile longer. Israel Quincy is gone and that Bellingham fellow — he was peculiar, but he had the makings of a splendid aide-de-camp. I need at least one man to go with me to Virginia City and help transport the gold from the mine." They had already argued violently about his plan for Ashton to travel separately to the destination in the Southwest he had not yet revealed. "There are some rough fellows I can enlist in Nevada, but none's as loyal, dependable — or pliable — as your husband."

She started to speak, started to tell him Huntoon's dependability was questionable, his loyalty all but gone. She decided against it. Things were bad enough.

Powell interpreted her silence as agreement. The steamer rolled again; spray burst over them, soaking her hair and streaming down her cheeks. Here with him, she didn't mind. Powell flung a look each way along the deck, then bent quickly and slid his tongue between her lips.

Weak, she grasped the rail again. Seconds passed, then he drew away, smiling. "What you talked of a moment ago, sweet — what you covet — will soon be placed back where it belongs."

"I can't live without you much longer, Lamar. James is more than disgusting —" she tried to warn him then "— he's weak. Things in Richmond changed him. The arrogance of the Virginians. His loss of faith in Davis. Certainly our deteriorating relationship played a big part. In any case, he isn't the man I married or even the windbag who gasconaded bravely so long as he was safe on some lecture platform. Don't put too much faith in him."

"Ashton, my dear, I place no faith in anyone but myself. Remember how I characterized James before I revealed my plans to him? How I described his role? He's a soldier. Useful so long as he obeys orders. Should he prove himself unwilling or unable to do that — well —" He shrugged. "The greatest factor separating the general from the private is the latter's expendability."

"Expendability? You mean you'd —?"

He smiled. "Without a qualm."

"Oh, God, I love you, Lamar." She gripped his arm and leaned her damp cheek against his lapel. That was the moment the purser chose to thrust his knobby head out the saloon door.

"Really, sir — madam — you are taking grave and unnecessary risks by remaining on deck in this weather. I saw you through the porthole. Since I am responsible for the welfare of passengers on this voyage, I really must insist you come inside."

Powell gave the stuffy little man a disdainful look, murmured a good night to Ashton, and sauntered away down the glistening deck without touching anything for support. Tired, wet, but filled with renewed confidence, Ashton went into the saloon.

A few days later, Cooper returned from Charleston along the river road, riding an old nag borrowed from a neighbor. Though he detested firearms, he had traveled with a loaded pocket pistol because Judith insisted.

His overnight visit to the besieged city could hardly be called a success. All he had been able to buy were two badly used Hawkens, twenty years old and caked with rust. Of the .50-caliber ammunition for the muzzle loaders, there was none. But he had found a mold and some bar lead, all of which would be coming up the Ashley on next week's steamer. Powder couldn't be had anywhere; they must make do with the small supply left at Mont Royal.

The afternoon was showery, the natural tunnel through the live oaks darker than usual. The closer Cooper and the plodding horse got to the plantation, the louder and more frequent became the cries of the salt crows. He had never known them to be so numerous this far upriver, but when he peered into the brush or the treetops, he couldn't see a single one. To his left, away from the Ashley, scarcely anything was visible.

In Charleston, he had also searched for little presents for his wife and daughter. Marie-Louise was stricken with girlish grief now that Lucius Chickering had returned to Richmond in the wake of Cooper's resignation. The best gifts he had been able to find in the depleted shops were two crudely made sachets. He took one from his pocket and peeled back part of the brown wrapping paper. He smelled the sachet. "Damn." The scent, weak to begin with, was nearly gone. Cheap goods, profiteer's goods —

A wild burst of crow calls, seeming to surround him, nearly caused him to drop the sachet in the mud. He shoved it in his pocket and heard a disembodied voice. "Mist' Cooper?"

He snatched the pocket pistol from inside his coat. "Who's there?"

"Cain't see me, Mist' Cooper. But I can see you good."

Recognizing the voice brought shock to Cooper's face. Some distance back from the left side of the road, palmetto fronds rattled.

"Cuffey? Is that you?"

There was no denial, so he knew he was right. Unseen crows sent their raucous cries up and down the empty road. Then the voice again. Having gotten over his surprise, Cooper could hear the rage in it.

"They said you was back. Want to tell you som'pin. Bottom fence rail gonna be on top pretty soon."

"If you're a man, Cuffey, show yourself." Silence. "Cuffey?"

CuffeyCuffeyCuffeyCuffey — the shout rolled away into the gloomy distances. The horse shied; Cooper reined him sharply.

"Bottom rail's gonna be on top, and ol' top rail's gonna be broke up. Chopped up. Burned. Gone for good. You count on it —" Word by word, the unseen voice faded till nothing was left but an echo and a final rattle of the fronds.

Sweating, Cooper whirled the pistol muzzle left, then right. There was no target except a bulge-headed blue skink darting across the road in front of the spooked horse. Cooper stared at the pistol he had brandished with abandon. Revulsion on his face, he shoved it back in his pocket with such violence the lining tore.

He forced the nag to gallop up the river road. The salt crows screamed. Why did it sound so much like laughter?

118

Gray wolves slunk into the trenches of the Petersburg line that autumn. Clawed a den in the mud and turned, growling, to wait for their tormentors.

Gray wolves, they lived on burned corn but wanted most of all another drink or two of blood. Cubs of twenty, they had the eyes of predators grown aged from a hundred seasons of killing.

Colder weather bleached many of the faces. Others remained sun-red from the summer. Whether white or red, they looked mean, they looked deadly.

Toting a tin cup, blanket, cartridge box, gun, they had tramped and straggled and fought across the map of the state — plantation boys, farm boys, town boys, feared out of all proportion to their numbers. They had marched to the last rampart on the thickened skin of bare feet, in scarecrow garments, their bellies making wet complaint, their bowels noisy as pipes in a hotel. They crouched in the trenches with nothing left but their nerve and the reputation that was bigger than all of them. Bigger than five times all of them. So big it would outlast all the slogans and speeches and rallying cries they no longer remembered; outlast those who sent them here in an unjust cause; outlast their very bones.

Gray wolves, they were already passed into legend as the first snow fell. They were the Army of Northern Virginia.

The sound came from the right of the ruined plank road, gone before Orry could make sense of it. He reined in. So did the two orderlies, young and inexperienced Virginians from Montague's provisional brigade. The orderlies rode one behind the other on the same horse; because of the scarcity of mounts, doubling up was a common sight on the Petersburg lines.

The road lay east of Richmond. After fronting north of the James, the division had been shifted even farther from Petersburg, to the extreme left of the defense line. They were presently in position from Battery Dantzler, named for a fellow South Carolinian who had fallen, to Swift Creek. It was nine in the morning, Friday, the day before Christmas.

The horses, peculiarly nervous in the thick fog, snorted and refused to stand still. Orry's almost stepped into a gap left by a rotted board; there were many such on the half-demolished road. The woodlands on both sides had an evil look, all black tree trunks, leafless limbs, dark clumps of dormant brush between. The white fog muffled sound and slipped through every tiny space.

"Did you hear that?" Orry asked. His hand rested on the hilt of the Solingen sword. He and the two orderlies were returning from First Corps headquarters when the sound, loud enough to be heard above that made by the animals, brought them to a halt.

Wary eyes shifting from tree to tree, both orderlies nodded. "A holler for help, sir," one said. "Least, I think I heard the word help."

"Want us to look, sir?" asked the other.

Orry's instinct said no. They were late, held at headquarters too long, and the fog afforded perfect concealment. One man might be lying out there — or a dozen, armed for an ambush. He tried to re­create the sound in his mind. Like the orderlies, he did believe there was pain in it.

"I'll lead the way," he said.

The orderlies stepped their horse off the half-demolished planking and walked it to the side so Orry could pass. They drew their revolvers; Orry reached beneath his overcoat and drew his. He nudged his horse forward through the trees at a walk, peering left and ahead and right, then repeating the pattern.

The atmosphere of the morning depressed him. So did the prospect of Christmas without Madeline. Well, he would surely be back at Mont Royal, reunited with her, this time next year. Sherman was advancing to the ocean in Georgia. The next target of the Union Navy was certain to be Fort Fisher, and when that fell, so would the last open port. Bob Lee, stooped and gray and, it was said, atypically grumpy of late, had only sixty-five thousand hungry, worn-out men to defend a line stretching thirty-five miles from the Williamsburg Road here down to Hatcher's Run south­west of Petersburg. No one spoke seriously of winning anymore, only of holding on and ending the sad business without dishonor.

Orry drew a deep, slow breath. Strangely, eerily, the fogbound forest seemed filled with the fragrance of the sweet olive, a scent he associated with South Carolina, and going home.

A sudden whinny alarmed his mount. He controlled the animal, cocked his revolver, circled the next large tree, and saw a fallen cavalry gelding with a great bleeding tear in its side. It raised its head and thrashed its legs feebly. Orry studied the gear and the saddle. A Union horse, no doubt of that.

"Where are you?" he called into the fog.

Silence. Trees dripping moisture. The horse of the orderlies crackling the brush.

Then: "Here."

Orry again walked his mount forward. Over his shoulder he said, "The horse is done for. One of you shoot it." There was murmured acknowledgment, then the cannon-loud boom of a handgun, the echoes rolling away over the noise of the gelding's last great thrash.

Stillness again.

Passing another tree, Orry saw him, blue leg with yellow stripe stuck forward, left leg folded beneath the other to help brace him against the wet bark of the trunk.

Eyes met Orry's. They were full of pain, yet cautious, even cold. The trooper was a heavy-browed, stubble-faced young man, a tough-looking sort. His right hand was wedged near his extended right leg. His left rested on a bloodied rip at the waist of his dark blue coat. A bandage stained brown and yellow encircled his upper left arm. So far as Orry could tell, the Yank had no weapon but his sheathed saber.

"Found him," Orry said without turning. The orderlies rode up. The semiconscious Yank watched them with sullen eyes. "One of you take his sword."

The orderly riding behind dismounted and stepped forward, shifting his revolver to his left hand. The saber slid out with a steely sound. The orderly coughed. "My God, he's dirty. Pus and lice and Lord knows what else." He faced Orry. "Bad wound, Colonel. Belly wound, looks like."

"What's your name and unit, Billy Yank?" the other orderly demanded. The Yank licked his lips while Orry held up his hand.

"Time for that later."

The second orderly registered displeasure as he got down from the saddle. "Might as well shoot him, too, wouldn't you say, sir? Wounded that way, what chance has he got?'"

True enough. Stomach wounds were usually mortal. It would save their hard-pressed doctors time and effort if he just put a ball through the soldier's heart and was done with it. That was more humane than leaving him to suffer, and it might be wise from another standpoint as well. Orry distrusted the look in the young trooper's eyes.

Then shame flooded in. What sort of monster was he becoming even to entertain such thoughts? Slowly, he maneuvered the uncocked revolver into the holster on his left hip, beneath the overcoat. He dismounted and took pains to stand erect, a strangely courtly figure in spite of his patched and shabby coat of gray with its pinned-up sleeve.

"We should let the surgeons determine his chances," he said to the Virginia boys. He stepped toward the wounded trooper, who displayed no gratitude, no emotion at all. Well, Orry understood how emotion could be whipped out of a man by war's fatigue and pain. His wariness changed to cool pity as he stared down at the trooper, who stared back, forced by his position to look at Orry with a great deal of white showing in his eyes.

Orry stepped backward two paces to a point between the Yank's outstretched leg and the orderlies. He turned toward the pair, pointing. "See if we can fashion some of those limbs and a saddle blanket into a litter. Then —"

He heard the sounds behind him. Saw, at the same instant, the shock and fear on one orderly's face. Orry's tall body had momentarily prevented the young men from seeing the wounded Yank, who had used the opportunity to slide a concealed Colt from under his right thigh. He aimed at the back of Orry's head and fired.

The booming shot lifted most of the top of Orry's skull. As he dropped to his knees, already dead, the cursing, screaming orderlies began pumping shots into the Yank. The bullets jerked him one way, then another, like some berserk marionette. When the shooting stopped, he leaned to the right with a peculiar, peaceful sigh and lay down as if asleep. The trembling orderlies lowered their smoking pieces as the white silence settled again.

At a few minutes before noon that day, Madeline left Belvedere to walk in the hills. There was an air of jubilation throughout the house, generated by news that had come over the telegraph wire earlier in the morning and spread through all of Lehigh Station within two hours. Three days before, General Sherman had sent an unexpected greeting to the President.

I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the city of Savannah.

Madeline couldn't share the mood of celebration. Constance in particular was sensitive to this, and restrained in her remarks about Sherman's incredible march to the sea. Yet it was easy to detect her delight. Even Brett seemed pleased by the news, though she said nothing to indicate it. All of which made Madeline more than a little resentful.

She wasn't proud of the feeling, which she tried to purge as she adjusted her shawl around her shoulders and climbed a path toward one of the rounded summits covered with laurel. The December sun lent the day a welcome warmth. The weather had been unusually mild recently, almost autumnal. She wondered why she had bothered with the shawl.

From the hilltop, she heard the first clang from a steeple. St. Margaret's-in-the-Vale, she decided. After just a few weeks, she was able to identify the different churches by their bells. She had learned a lot about the industrial town and received a warm welcome there from the Hazards and all the servants. Yet Lehigh Station remained an alien place. Study it as she would, she couldn't create the illusion that she belonged here.

One by one, the other churches began to peal their bells in celebration of the news. Head down, Madeline faced away from the hazy vista of town and factory, obsessed by a single thought: How I wish Orry were here for Christmas.

Suddenly, feeling something on her neck, she raised her head and turned around. She studied the sky. A wide gray mass showed in the northwest. What she had felt was the wind shifting to a different quarter. It was chilly now.

She adjusted her shawl again, grateful that she had it. The colder wind began to tug and snap the hem of her skirt. She mustn't resent the bells, but find joy in them. Every Union victory sped the day when Orry would be free to leave Richmond and rejoin her at Mont Royal. Considered that way, the bells pealed a message of hope.

The earlier resentment gone, she lingered beneath the rapidly graying sky to listen to the loud, discordant, yet strangely beautiful music from the steeples. The peace of the season slowly filled her and showed her visions of many other Christmases she would share with her beloved Orry. She was happy when she took the downward path again.