Mignon

Chapter 25

Back in the flat i didn’t quite say yes, but they smelled I was going to, and she made herself so sweet butter wouldn’t have melted in her mouth. Next morning she came early, snuggling close to me, and whispering little jokes in between the kisses. She got my promise at last, and I went on down to see Hager and cancel my pass application, since if I was going to Shreveport it would head off all kinds of mix-ups if I reapplied up there to the new Provost Marshal, without still another request dangling in Alexandria. But he waved as soon as he saw me, there in the courthouse door, and left his desk to come over, stepping past doctors, orderlies, and wounded lying on stretchers. “Surprise for you, Cresap!” he roared as soon as he’d shaken hands. “You’re on your way out, you’re leaving! The Warner’s going tomorrow, and I’ve arranged to get you on board. And the style you’ll be going in! Two gunboats are taking her down — you’ll be like Mason and Slidell!”

“Fine!” I said. “Love to feel important!”

Because of course this couldn’t be turned down, just at the drop of a hat, without my making sure how Mr. Landry felt. On his own favorite principle of grabbing the bird in hand, he might want me to go. And even if outvoted, I could decline the honor later in the day. So I talked along, got the various details, like the leaving time of the boat, which was eight o’clock in the morning, and the probable space I’d have, which was half a stateroom. “But,” he warned, “this is for Cresap alone. It does not include a lady, or the lady’s courtly father.”

“That’s understood,” I told him.

“You board tonight. Get there first.”

“I’ll be there with bells, Captain.”

“I think they’ll be stopping at Cairo, and you can go to Springfield from there. But if they take you to Cincinnati, that’s not so far either.”

“Cincinnati’s perfect with me.”

And it was perfect with Mr. Landry, as I learned when I came charging in with my news — and not only with him but with her. Shreveport was entirely forgotten as both of them got all excited over definite action at last. “It’s the difference,” she said, “between a million up in the sky and one-twenty thousand there in the bank — sixty thousand for Father and sixty thousand for us. Who wouldn’t take what’s sure?” He told her: “Nothing’s sure, Daughter, especially in this war — but short of having the money, this is as sure as anything can be.” We talked of getting married, of going to Dr. Dow, the Episcopal rector there, and having it done at once, that same day, before I left. But she didn’t want to be married in Alexandria. “I was once,” she said, “and it didn’t turn out very well.” And also, I think, she was shy of marrying a bluebelly here, where everyone knew her, and starting a lot of talk. We checked their end of it over, and he said: “Don’t worry about us, Mr. Cresap — if, as I assume, the Union goes through to Shreveport, that’ll end the war in the West, and we’ll stay right where we are until navigation resumes and then join you in Springfield, if you care to have us come. If, on the other hand, they’re captured or manage to cut their way out, this place will be under the Rebs — but we’ve nothing to fear from them. We’ll leave as soon as we can, and be seeing you before very long.” Communication would be a problem, but we left it that they would write me in care of General Delivery at Springfield, and I would write them whichever way I could, in the light of the news as it broke. I asked: “Isn’t somebody sorry I’m going?”

“Of course,” she yipped. “We both are!”

“I’d like to be missed, a little!”

She kissed me, right in front of him, said: “You’re going to be missed a lot — morning, noon, and night, but specially in the morning. Now come on, I’ll help you pack.”

I was sitting there with him, the packed bag beside me, my overcoat, oilskin, and hat piled on top, and she was in the kitchen putting me up some lunch, in case food was scarce on the boat, when a knock came on the door. He answered and then came back with Sandy, who was looking pretty glum, not to say seedy, and whom I hadn’t seen since that day on the falls. He shook hands, and seemed surprised when I asked if his boat was one of those stuck. “Why, yes,” he said, “in a way. She kind of got permanently stuck and we had to scuttle her.”

“Oh? When did that happen?”

“Last week.”

“And what boat are you on now?”

“We all got distributed around, pending reassignment, and I got taken on board the Neosho — monitor aground on the upper falls. I’m subject to duty as ordered, meaning at-large mud-turtle to this dam they’re trying to build.”

“Which is not going well, I hear.”

“It’s not going at all.”

She came in about that time, with her packages wrapped in newspaper, and after shaking hands, excused herself while she stuffed them into my bag. He had been eyeing it, and now asked: “You going somewhere, Bill?”

I told him about the Warner, and he said: “Well, in that case I’ll forget what I came about.” I pressed him, of course, and he said: “No, if you have a chance to get out, and especially to go to Springfield, I can’t stand in your way. That’s important — it’s the one way to get the money we’re going to need, so let’s forget the dam, which can’t be built anyhow. It’s a completely ridiculous idea.” It came out, little by little, that what he had wanted of me was to Walk across the bridge and pass out a couple of pointers to the boys on the left bank about how to do their work. “On this side,” he said, “it makes sense — not much, but a little. They’re building cribs out of logs, hauling them into the stream, and filling them with stone. How much water they hold I wouldn’t like to say, but at least they stay there, they don’t go floating off. But on the other side it’s a madhouse.” He explained about the brackets, corroborating what Mr. Landry had said, and went on: “They wash out, they break apart, and it’s not only the river. It’s the troops, a bunch of Maine woodsmen, who can cut trees down but can’t hook ’em together. I’ve tried to tell ’em, but they won’t listen to me, and besides I don’t really know. But you do, and to you I thought they might pay some attention — that’s all. But, you’d have to stay with ’em, of course, see it through to the end; so let’s forget it.”

“How long is this thing going to take?”

“It’s win or lose in a week.”

“You mean, win or starve in a week?”

“Yes, that’s just what I mean!”

“There’s talk going around that in the event the dam doesn’t hold the march will be resumed up the river to Shreveport.”

“Not by the Navy. It doesn’t have the water.”

“I’m talking about the Army.”

“I can’t speak for them.”

I thought over what he had said, and told him: “You catch me by surprise, as I hadn’t known until now there was anything I could do — an army does not, as a rule, need help to run. So I don’t know what answer to give you.”

“Answer? You haven’t been asked, yet.”

“Thing like this, I shouldn’t wait to be asked.”

“You mean, you’d even go?”

That was Mignon, and when I said yes, she exploded in my face. “Well, all I can say, Willie Cresap,” she blazed, switching her skirt around, “is I wish you’d make up your mind. First you come up here, to condole with me, so you said — if that be something to do. Then, with my help and Father’s help and Sandy’s help, you turn around and decide to trade in cotton — and we sign the papers for you. Now you think you may build a dam! What next, pray tell — if you know? Picking daisies, maybe, and starting a flower shop? Or buying a sword-cane and rake and going in business with her, running a gambling dive? Is that what it’s been all along? Is that what you’re up to, is that what you really want?”

“She talks like a wife,” said Sandy, “and she might even be right. Wife, I’ve noticed, generally is.”

“I wonder,” I said. “Maybe.”

Mr. Landry got in it then, repeating Sandy’s arguments, and not repeating hers, but adding some stuff of his own. And on top of everything else was my own feeling about it, that the dam was just plain silly. And what I might have decided I can’t exactly say, but while we were arguing about it there came a knock down the hall. Mr. Landry answered, but came back with word that no one was there. Mignon glanced at him sharply, and I thought he looked very strange. Then the knock was repeated, and he gave her a long stare. That’s when I woke up. I scooted down the hall, but didn’t turn into the crosshall that led to the outside entrance. I kept on to the trapdoor in the pantry. I flung it up, drawing my gun, and calling: “Come up, whoever you are — you’re covered, so keep your hands high!” Then a ragged, filthy, bony thing clambered out, wearing a thick gray beard and squinting with watery eyes. I had slapped it up for guns and taken the Navy Colt before the jackboots told me who it was that I had.

It was Burke.

“I think you know everybody,” I told him very coolly, as I marched him into the sitting room. “Don’t stand on ceremony. Have a chair, take the load off your feet. Make yourself at home.”

“It’s my home,” snapped Mr. Landry, furiously.

“Then you invite him, why don’t you?”

“Frank,” he said, “is that you? I hardly know you.”

“Aye,” Burke groaned in a hollow voice, “ ’tis I — but the ghost of the man you knew. I never reached the Sabine at all. I was taken direct to Shreveport as soon as I crossed their lines, and escaped by the barest chance — I’d hate to say what it cost me in bright, yellow gold.” He said he’d arrived in the night, but not wanting to be seen, had come in the back way, using his key as before, as soon as he’d had some sleep. Then: “What brought me, Adolphe, is the news I picked up in Shreveport — ’tis tremenjous.”

“Later, Frank — it’ll keep.”

“Just now, I could use a bit of food.”

“I’ll get you some,” she chirped.

“Not so fast,” I said, blocking her from the door.

They’d been playing it as though they hadn’t seen Burke before, but there’d been that exchange of looks, and I took it for an act. If that seems slightly unbalanced, there were things setting me off, like the prickles I felt all over me at her friendly concern for his hunger, and what it was going to be like with me out of the way and him under foot all the time. I stood there waving the gun, trying to calm myself down, but feeling my gorge rising. I said, licking my lips, swallowing now and then, and spacing my words kind of queerly: “Mr. Landry — it’s all quite clear to me now — why nobody seemed to mind — that I was shoving off. With someone to take my place — with another godpappy to claim the Shreveport cotton — to pick up that million bucks — why should anyone mind?”

“You talking about me?” she asked. “Well I don’t!”

“I’m not talking — about any particular one.”

“Then who are you talking about?”

“All,” I said. “Everyone.”

“Not me,” said Burke. “Do I care what you do?”

“Oh yes, you,” I told him, feeling for some reason humorous. “Take it easy. Stick around — I’ll explain where you come in.”

“And certainly not me?”

That was Sandy. I said: “Especially you.”

Then to Burke, pushing the gun at him: “What’s your tremenjous news?” And when he didn’t answer: “Come on, talk, spit it out!”

“The Rebs—” he began.

“Now we’re coming,” I said. “The Rebs?”

“Have overplayed it! They’re trying to bag two armies, instead of going for one! They’ve divided their forces, they’ve left their fortress unguarded!.. ’Tis all I know, me boy! I thought Adolphe might like to hear it!”

“Why should he like it?”

“Well — he lives here, after all!”

“You’ve heard the Union’s going to march up there?”

“Aye, if this dam goes out they’ll have to!”

“And then there’ll be the cotton?”

“ ’Twas the whole reason for this fiasco!”

“That’s all I wanted to know.”

I waited, no doubt with a grin on my face such as Samson may have had before he pulled down the temple. I said, mainly to Burke, but including them all: “There’ll be no march on Shreveport, no million made by claiming the Shreveport cotton. That dam is going to be built! It can’t be done, but I’ll build it! So calm down, one and all — Burke’s tremenjous news has been superseded by Cresap’s tremenjouser news!”

“But Bill,” said Sandy, “you’re leaving!”

“Oh no I’m not,” I said. “Nobody’s leaving! And so no one is tempted to, so there’s not any reason to leave, we’re doing away with this cotton, this devil’s bait we all sold our souls to grab — we’re burning it, right now!”

“No!” she screamed. “No!”

“Not me own cotton?” wailed Burke.

“The same old stuff!” I said. “Surprise!”

“Bill, you can’t!” yelled Sandy.

“Oh yes I can — hand me my bag,”

Nobody handed it to me, but I grabbed it up and piled on back to the kitchen. They were all on top of me, but a maniac waving a pistol doesn’t get interfered with. It was a chorus of despair as I opened the bag and dug into it, coming up with the same swatch of papers, done up in the same Navy oilskin, I had tucked away there six long weeks before. I lifted the lid on the stove, jammed everything in, and poked it down with the gunpoint while Sandy yelled warnings. I banged the lid on again, and waited while the flames licked up. In five minutes I opened the stove up, and nothing was there but red, black, and gray fluff, curling around. I holstered the gun, picked up the bag, told Sandy, “Come on, let’s go.” But I didn’t get out of there before Mr. Landry told me, a venomous look in his eye: “Maybe you build that dam, but it’s not going to stand, I promise you.”

“It’ll stand till the fleet gets down.”

“We’ll see about that, Mr. Cresap.”

With Sandy, who was so furious he couldn’t talk, I clumped around to my own flat and flung the bag inside. When I got down to the street again, she was there talking to him, her eyes squinched up mean, her mouth twisting around. When I saw she was making spit, I fetched her a clout on the cheek that sent her staggering back to the front of the Schmidt store. Then, grabbing Sandy’s arm, I marched on down to the courthouse and turned in my pass. Then, still with him to take me through, I headed for the bridge.