The Mountain

2

The small man had been waiting every day for the past three years. Like clockwork he would arrive at 6:00 a.m., except on Sundays, and sit in the same chair patiently awaiting his name to be called. For three years it had not. The staff, including the president’s personal secretary, John Hay, even called the goofy professor by name, his form and figure had become so familiar.

Professor Lars Ollafson had met with Abraham Lincoln the second week into his term as president. Every day since that meeting, the former professor from Harvard College had returned, hoping for the answers to his questions of three years before. The man had been patient.

It was now past seven in the evening and most everyone had left the hallway where visitors and office seekers piled in to see the president. Ollafson sat alone, his old and battered leather case at his feet. His beard was growing long and looked as if it had not been trimmed in over a year. His clothes were looking ragged and unkempt. Ollafson was polishing his glasses when the door to the president’s office opened and John Hay emerged. He was reading a document when he looked up and frowned. The young secretary was saddened to see the old man still waiting to see the man who had tried to ignore him for the past three years. He grimaced and then approached the sorrowful soul sitting alone.

“Professor,” Hay said as he stepped up to the old man and sat beside him. “The president sends his regards, but with the action happening in Virginia and with the festivities of the anniversary of our independence, the president just hasn’t the time to meet. I’m sure you can understand.”

Ollafson replaced the old and bent wire-framed glasses on his small nose and inspected the youthful face of John Hay.

“The victory of General Mead in Pennsylvania, was it as resounding a defeat for the southern forces as the newspapers claim?”

Hay was taken aback by the inquiry. He sat back in his chair and looked the old professor over. He replaced the letter he was reading into his small case and then smiled.

“Well, Professor, yes, it was a resounding victory for our boys and the president is absorbed in continuing the fight even as we speak.” He continued looking at the man who was now an outcast among his own kind. “However, Mr. Lincoln is quite adamant that General Mead follow up and destroy what’s left of General Lee’s army. There is some hesitation, I’m afraid, and we just may lose the advantage. So, that’s the main reason the president has very little time for other matters.”

Ollafson squirmed in his chair but still made no move to gather his case and once more leave the White House without seeing the man he’d come to see. He pursed his lips and looked at the far younger secretary.

“The president, he said … I would know the time. I believe now is that time.”

“Perhaps it is not the exact victory the president once referred to, as many things have changed during these hard years.”

“He said I will know the time,” he repeated.

Hay exhaled and then slowly stood. “I know you’ve waited many years for this to happen, Professor, but the war has changed the president.”

“That is why I must remind him. Now is that time he spoke of three years ago. It has to be now or others will see to it that it is too late to act. The history will be lost to others who will not share in the glory of the find. We must act and act now.” He stared straight ahead as he spoke, not focusing on anything other than the point he was attempting to make.

John Hay looked down upon the professor. “I’m sorry.” He started to walk away as the features of the old man drained of color. Hay made a show of clasping his small case as he paused on his way out.

“I would say that the best chance you might have to see the president is when he sneaks out at eleven o’clock to visit the soldiers’ home on the outskirts of Washington City. Seeing his boys and asking if they needed anything calms him.” John Hay half-turned as he placed his case under his arm and adjusted his suit jacket. “But being Mr. Lincoln’s secretary, as I am, I would be remiss in saying that.” He started walking away from the silent and stunned professor, who watched the secretary’s retreating form. “Good evening, Professor Ollafson.”

Ollafson just nodded his silent thanks and then reached for his leather case. He pulled out his pocketwatch, which had also seen better days, and noted the time. He had a long wait and he knew he couldn’t do it on the White House grounds.

Professor Lars Ollafson knew where he had to be at eleven o’clock.

The professor had paid his cab fare and the carriage had left him at the dirt road leading to the soldiers’ home. The festivities of the Fourth had dwindled down to only a few shots being fired into the air by rowdies across the river. Every time a loud report sounded Ollafson would duck his head as the noise reminded him of the running fight with the dark forces four years before. Every night he had been visited since returning from the mountain, and his memories of those days and nights refused to fade from his old and tired mind. He would swear he could hear the screams of his friends and colleagues who died on the slopes and roads of that black place.

The sound was so light that the professor almost missed it among the gunshots across the river. The horse’s falling hooves came to his ear and he forcibly tried to remove the memory of those days from his thoughts. He gathered himself and looked out upon the road, spotting a large brown roan approaching. The figure on the mount was clearly recognizable. His pant leg was hitched up far past his ankle, allowing Ollafson a good view of a white leg and beyond that, cotton long-johns.

Abraham Lincoln rode easily and without movement as he made his way along the road to the old soldiers’ home. The tall hat he was known for was not on his head but was held in his left hand. The dark hair was tousled and his face was lowered as his thoughts carried the president to another place, another time. This nightly sojourn was the only time Lincoln had all to himself. His sneaking out was a secret he thought was shared with no one.

Ollafson swallowed and then stepped out into the darkened road. Before he could utter his greeting another rider came springing out of the line of trees. Ollafson’s eyes widened behind his thick glasses as the second rider came charging toward him with a drawn weapon. The professor threw his hands into the air and stepped back as the rider thrust his mount past the president’s and came between him and the man in the roadway.

“Stop or you will be fired upon!” the man said loudly as his horse slid to a halt.

“Whoa, whoa,” Lincoln called out.

“No, no, do not shoot, it is Professor Lars Ollafson, of Harvard Yard!” The professor actually hopped up and down several times in his anxiety over the thought of being accidentally shot.

“Mr. Pinkerton, are you going to shoot a distinguished man of learning, especially when you are not even supposed to be here?” Lincoln said as he placed his tall stovepipe hat on his mangled hair.

The heavyset man on the horse looked from the professor to the president. He un-cocked the double-shot derringer he held in his right hand as his own bowler hat came flying free of his bulbous head.

“I had to see it for myself. You have gone against all advice; all of my warnings have thus far been treated like folly. You cannot do this, Mr. President. This sneaking out without escort has to stop!” Allan Pinkerton spun his horse around and then slid his small pistol into a shoulder holster he had secured under his black coat.

“I see that my secret isn’t quite the secret I thought it was. What tipped you off, sir?” Lincoln asked in mocking kindness even though he was furious deep inside.

“Mrs. Lincoln isn’t as preoccupied as you may believe, sir. She informed me of your clandestine activities several weeks ago and I have been following you every time you leave the White House.”

“So, my own wife is the spy. I should have known.”

“Now, for you, sir, who are you and why are you here?” Pinkerton sprang from his horse and roughly searched Ollafson for any weapons. Allan Pinkerton’s eyebrows rose when he pulled a brand-new navy Colt revolver from Ollafson’s coat. Even Lincoln raised a brow when the weapon was shown to him. But still the president remained silent. “And what was the plan for this?” he asked the much smaller man. Ollafson was still too shocked at Pinkerton’s sudden arrival to answer without stuttering. “Well, man, speak, will you?”

“I … I … I … am afraid of…” Ollafson lowered his head in shame.

“Come on, man,” Pinkerton said as he lightly shook the professor.

“From what I’ve heard, the professor here has an inordinate fear of dark places. Does my memory fail me?” Lincoln asked as he clumsily stepped down from his horse with one leg momentarily getting caught in a stirrup. He straightened and then walked up to the pair. The moonlight allowed him to see the professor’s frightened face. Lincoln reached out and patted Pinkerton on the arm until he released the old man’s suit collar. The president reached out and took the Colt revolver from the security man, looked it over, and then handed it back to Ollafson, who was just as stunned as Pinkerton.

“Mr. President, you cannot—”

“Far be it from me to remove an item that makes a man feel more secure. After all, Mr. Pinkerton, I have you.”

Ollafson took the offered weapon and then placed it back into his coat pocket.

Pinkerton reached down, retrieved his bowler hat, and angrily placed it on his head. He turned to face the president.

“All right, I did not want to do this, but I’m going to inform Mrs. Lincoln about this … this … security debacle, and let me say, sir, she will not be pleased.” Pinkerton started to turn away and move toward his horse.

Lincoln smiled down upon the much smaller Ollafson.

“That woman has not outwardly been pleased for the past three years, especially with me.”

Pinkerton ignored the remark and then pulled himself onto his horse. He spun the animal around and faced the two men.

“Don’t come-a-hollering when those Johnny Rebs lie in wait and ambush you both. I guarantee you won’t be laughin’ and foolin’ around then, will you?” he said as he spurred his horse and sped away.

Lincoln closed his eyes and then paced toward his horse and took up his reins once again. He was getting ready to step into the saddle when Ollafson spoke.

“You promised. It is time, Mr. President.”

Abraham Lincoln lowered his head and wrapped the leather reins around the pommel of the McLellan saddle. He took a deep breath.

“Your expedition has already been approved by my office, Professor,” Lincoln said as he finally pulled himself up into the saddle.

Ollafson was stunned at the quiet announcement. He didn’t know how to proceed. He didn’t know if it was worse when he thought the president was ignoring him or the fact that the decision had already been made and he was to be left out.

“And … and you were not going to inform me?” Ollafson said, his heart sinking.

Lincoln placed both hands on the saddle’s pommel and then gently patted the horse on his thick neck. “It was thought that with your current … your current ties at the university, it may not be in good security conscience to allow you to go. I am sorry, Professor. My secretary of war says he will not support me in this if you are included on the expedition. Your foreign ties are what stand in the way of his trust.”

“But, but I am an American. I have my papers proclaiming this! Why am I not included? I am loyal to the Union.”

“It’s not your loyalty as an American, Professor, it is your former acquaintances and colleagues that scare Mr. Stanton. It was hard enough to get that old war dog to see things my way, Professor. If I lose his support, we lose the expedition.”

“Mr. President, the expedition needs me. I am a loyal American and I no longer have those friends, those acquaintances, nor the colleagues. Why am I being left behind?”

Lincoln lowered his head. “I’m afraid our little secret is not the secret it once was, my good professor. It seems there have been loose tongues wagging about.” Lincoln shook his head sadly. “But when are there not wagging tongues in this bullet-hole-riddled vessel we call Washington?”

“Mr. President, I—”

“Professor Ollafson, the British government has somehow received word that we may be interested in a region of the eastern Ottoman Empire, and you and I both know they will go to untoward lengths to see us embarrassed. And if this information leaks to our very opinionated press corps, I am afraid I will not only be laughed out of office before my task is complete, but we will also lose all national credibility after this madness ends. If you are involved, the British will know exactly what it is we are trying for, and we just cannot have that. I promised certain people, north and south, that this would not be the case. I am truly sorry. You will be in on the final drafting of the orders but will not participate. I have to think about the young boys I am sending on this voyage. I will answer to them and them only.”

“Mr. President, if I could only—” Ollafson pleaded.

“Ride with me for a spell, Professor. It’s been so long since I spoke to a man with so many letters after his name that wasn’t seeking a posting, or this office or that one.”

Ollafson looked up at the thin man on the horse and then saw the tiredness written on every line of the man’s face. Since 1860, when the professor first met the president, Abraham Lincoln had aged. One hundred years’ worth of worry and pain were etched in those deep-cut wrinkles.

Lars Ollafson nodded his head and slowly walked beside the president as if the men were only on a nightly constitutional as they continued Lincoln’s journey to see the wounded.

An hour later Lars Ollafson stumbled from the front doors of the old soldiers’ home. He held his hat in his hand as he leaned from the porch railing. He swallowed as he tried in vain to get his emotions and stomach under control. He finally lost his late supper into the bare earth of the garden. Abraham Lincoln stepped from the hospital and hesitated as he took in the night air and sky. He half-turned back to peer inside the home for his wounded soldiers and shook his head as he raised his tall hat. Down below a black private held the reins of the president’s horse and another that had been delivered for Ollafson.

“It appears we may see some rain before dawn.” The president momentarily placed his hand on the smaller professor’s shoulder, looking into the roadway beyond as if he were searching for something in the darkness. “It’s never an easy thing. The first few times visiting this place shook me to my very soul, Professor. I told myself as I gazed upon those boys in there that what I was doing was the right thing.” The president squeezed Ollafson’s shoulder and then quickly patted it as he broke contact and moved off the porch. “But I lose my convictions most times when I look into some mother’s son’s eyes as he lies dying.” He accepted the reins from the private and mounted his horse awkwardly. He adjusted his long legs into the stirrups and took in a deep breath of the night air. “Healing.”

Ollafson wiped his mouth with his pocket handkerchief and glanced up to see the president just sitting there. “Sir?” he asked, not understanding the one-word comment. The professor kept envisioning the young boy inside who had no lower jaw and he became aware of his stomach trying to come back up to invade his throat once more.

“I must find a way to heal this bloody wound I have inflicted upon the nation.” Lincoln looked over at Ollafson and tipped his hat to the smaller man. “You have given me an opportunity, my good professor, and a chance at bringing back together an entire people. Even if we find absolutely nothing in that faraway place, just the attempt should do nicely. The rejoining of two peoples into one would be a salve to the nation.”

Ollafson saw the sadness, the deep-seated agony that the president was experiencing, and for the first time thought he understood. Mr. Lincoln cared little for what was supposedly buried on that mountain; he was far more concerned about the men being sent to retrieve it. If he could see them return as one, then the voyage would prove that wounds could be bound and a healing could take place. Not for treasure, not for discovery … this was for his country.

“Professor, please understand, I have to give those boys the best chance possible at returning. Otherwise what is this all about?”

Lars Ollafson only half-nodded his head.

“I ride alone back to the White House, Professor.” The president turned his horse as Ollafson stood rooted to the porch. “My company is not warm after my visits to this place, you understand,” he said softly as his horse ambled down the dirt road. “You’ll be contacted soon.”

The professor watched the president leave and he became saddened for the man who was leading the nation. He placed his hat on his head as he turned back toward the open door of the hospital in time to hear a boy cry out for his mother. The cry was void of hope.

With determination Ollafson bounded down the steps and took the offered reins from the private. He knew now that bringing back the artifact was the only thing he could do to assist this man. He had come to admire him even though he now knew that the president was wrong. It did matter that they find it. The nation needed the guidance, the inspiration. He mounted the horse and spurred it forward. Lars Ollafson rode hard.

They needed to know that God was on the American side and there was only one place in the world where that could be accomplished — the Ottoman Empire.

The president slowly moved into the grand hallway and then paused as his eyes looked toward his office. He placed his hat on the small table as he turned toward the window, deep in thought.

“You should be well asleep by now, young man,” he said without turning from the window.

John Hay stood silently behind the president. He never knew how his boss was always keenly aware when he attempted to come upon him with stealth. He shook his head in wonder.

“I have secrets also. I always wait up until you return from the soldiers’ home.”

Lincoln turned with a small smile on his lined face. “I knew that too.”

Hay held out a telegram for the president, who looked from his secretary to the yellow paper and then turned back to the window and the brief flash of lightning in the distance. The illumination only caused him to think about General George Meade and his failure to pursue Robert E. Lee into Virginia fast enough to end this damnable war. It was if the lightning had illuminated the future for his thoughts. He knew Meade would fail.

“You read it, Johnny, my eyes have beheld enough misery for one night. I can’t see anymore.”

Hay grimaced as he watched the president’s shoulders sag. The young secretary knew that another change in command was forthcoming. Which would mean Mr. Lincoln would soon bring back a general the president despised — George McClellan was the only man capable of getting the grand army back in the war after their victory at Gettysburg. He decided that now was the most opportune time to deliver the message from the War Department and Secretary of War Stanton. Hay read the telegram.

“War Department to A. Lincoln. Be advised that orders have been transmitted to Fort Dodge, Kansas. Expect delay as subject is not currently assigned to post. Signed Stanton, Secretary of War.”

Lincoln said nothing as his thoughts were in ten places at once, per his usual mode of mind games.

“What if the colonel is not found in time? Do we attempt to bring in another commanding officer to lead the expedition?”

“No,” Lincoln said as he watched another bolt of lightning streak across the sky on the far side of the Potomac. “There is only one man who can do what we are asking.”

“If you are thinking about relieving General Meade with your old enemy George McClellan, the odds are pretty good that our colonel, if he arrives intact from the west, will meet Little Napoleon here in the capitol, and then you know all hell will break loose.”

Lincoln finally turned away from the approaching storm and smiled broadly at Hay when the secretary used the derogatory moniker for McClellan.

“Are you saying the two may kill each other?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, they always say there is a bright side to all things.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Inform me when the colonel acknowledges receipt of his new orders.”

“Yes, sir.” Hay turned to leave.

Lincoln rocked on his heels momentarily as he thought about his old acquaintance, Thomas. He would love to see the face of the man when he received the orders recalling him to Washington. He would more than likely think he was being recalled to finally be hung for his transgression against his old commander — one George B. McClellan. He smiled.

“Colonel John Henry Thomas, it’s time to come home.”

3

There was no decent water, no shade, and no protection from the unrelenting winds of the plains. The sparse trees were windworn and scraggly. The branch of the small creek, dubbed Sandy Creek by an obviously gifted mapmaker ten years before, was nothing more than a ribbon of water in the spring runoff at its height and a muddy wallow for buffalo in the summer months. The site was unappealing to the two men dressed in filthy clothing and even filthier hats, which they used to shade their eyes — eyes that had long felt as if they had half of the Sahara desert embedded in them.

The larger of the two men took in a deep breath of the stagnant summer air as he gazed upon the site the experts had chosen from their comfortable offices at Fort Dodge and Washington. The location had either changed dramatically in the past six years since it had been surveyed or someone had outright lied on their field report as to the possible location of a new fort. This was not the place the two men had hoped it would be. The large man with black hair removed his brimmed hat and wiped sweat from his face. The smaller man with the graying beard kicked at the sandy dune from which they spied the small barren valley.

“You wanna know what I think, boyo,” the smaller of the two said as he too managed to wipe sweat away that immediately reappeared as if the filthy shirtsleeve had never been used. “I think if the buffalo have bypassed this place, we need to look somewhere else.”

The big man replaced his dirty white hat, glanced at his companion, and slowly mounted his horse. As he adjusted his sore hindquarters into the saddle he finally spared the man the only few words he had uttered that morning.

“No, this is not the place. No covering trees, no fresh water within three miles, and the winds here would drive your average trooper mad within a month. We’ll go farther north and hopefully find what others may have missed.” He slowly turned his large roan and lightly encouraged the big mount with the taste of his spurs. “And, Sergeant Major, at least add a ‘Colonel’ when you call me ‘boyo.’”

The smaller man smiled as he too mounted his horse. He laid spurs to the animal and shot forward to catch up.

“Aye, Colonel Darlin’, that I can do, at least from time to time.”

United States Army Colonel John Henry Thomas didn’t respond as he kept riding at a slow gait. He was about to pull the old territorial map from his shirt when the third member of their party rode up, pack mule in tow. Thomas nodded to the Indian, who had been waiting for them on the side of the small rise.

Gray Dog was a Comanche who had been with Thomas for many years when he had found himself in either Texas or New Mexico territories, and long before the start of the madness in the east. They had been separated since 1861 and had no contact until his reassignment to Fort Dodge to assist the war department in locating desirable areas for future army accommodations. Thomas knew the brass in Washington were possibly gearing up for a major push into Indian Territory after brother stopped slaughtering brother in the civilized east.

Gray Dog was all of twenty summers and Colonel John Henry Thomas had known him since the boy was fifteen years old. The Comanche had been orphaned after hostile Kiowa killed his entire family near the Brazos River in Texas on the very same day that Colonel Thomas had lost his wife Mary to the same band of Kiowa. Now Gray Dog once more joined him on his reassignment to Kansas. After all those years Gray Dog had refused to wear the white man’s clothes and had remained full Comanche, to many a Texan’s discomfort.

“Is it too soon to say I told you so?” Gray Dog asked in almost perfect, unbroken English as he joined the two men. The coyote-skin cap he wore bobbed up and down as he maneuvered his mount and pack mule in beside Thomas as the sergeant major gave the Comanche a dirty look.

“Would it stop you if I said it would be?” Thomas said as he pulled the map from his shirt.

“Yes it would, especially since I already said what was meant to be said,” Gray Dog said with a smirk.

“Goddamn Indian speaks better English than me,” the sergeant major muttered under his breath. “And in words I never understand.”

Thomas opened the map to survey rugged terrain ahead. “You’ll have to excuse Sergeant Major Dugan. He’s just thrilled at the prospect of riding farther north.”

“And why don’t you take that damn dog off your head? It’s starting to get to me.”

Thomas looked up from the map to eye the filthy bowler hat that Dugan wore. The small Irishman was always mad at the world, and Gray Dog was a frequent target for his frustrations. He had also known the boy from his days with Thomas while riding with the fifth cavalry in Texas.

“And he’s a jealous sort of Irishman because you wear better headgear than he. You get a coyote, he gets a dirty and very much dead skunk.”

Sergeant Major Giles Dugan quickly removed the stinky bowler and looked it over. He was happy to be wearing a hat of his choosing over the blue cap of a cavalryman. He sniffed, recoiled, and then angrily placed the hat back on his head. He snorted and cast Gray Dog another withering look. He was about to comment when a shot rang out across the prairie. It was quickly followed by another, and then another.

“What the bloody hell?” Dugan pulled on the reins of his horse. Thomas and Gray Dog had already stopped and were listening intently.

“Northeast,” Gray Dog said as he spied the sloping land ahead, which afforded no view of the area in front of them. More and more gunfire erupted, and to Thomas gunfire meant white men. These were the first sounds of gunfire he had heard since the battle of Antietam in 1862.

“I believe that is the sound of Spencers, Colonel boyo,” Dugan said as he turned in the saddle to face the colonel. “Lord knows we heard enough to know.”

Without a word Thomas reached over and relieved Gray Dog of the mule’s reins and then nodded the Comanche forward. The Indian without command to his small horse shot away as Thomas dismounted and tied off his horse and the pack mule on a scrub brush. He quickly removed his Henry repeating rifle from its scabbard. Dugan, seeing this, did likewise.

“Come out here in the godforsaken wasteland only to walk head-on into a firefight. Who in the world wants to shoot each other in this heat?” he mumbled as he pulled an older-model Spencer carbine from his saddle. He quickly followed Thomas as he made his way forward in the wake of Gray Dog, who had silently gone ahead to spy the happenings in the valley.

The two men had only gone a hundred yards when Gray Dog returned and brought his Appaloosa to a brutal stop as he hopped from the old cavalry blanket covering the horse’s back. He immediately caught the extra-heavy Spencer carbine Thomas tossed to him.

“What do you have?” Thomas asked as he kept moving forward.

“Soldiers. They are attacking a family of Sioux.”

“A family, you say?” Dugan asked as he hustled to keep up with the two younger men.

Gray Dog didn’t respond but only led the way to the ridge ahead. He ducked low and then crawled to the edge. Thomas and then Dugan joined him as the gunfire ceased below. The colonel quickly assessed the scene. Below at about two hundred yards, ten U.S. cavalrymen had dismounted and were checking the bodies of what looked like eight Sioux Indians. Thomas quickly noted the small children and women lying among the dead. He gritted his teeth as he heard a few of the men laughing at the sport of killing the family.

“Stupid sons of bitches! What did they have to go and do that for?” Dugan asked as he saw that at least the family had gotten off a few defensive shots before dying at the hands of the troopers from Fort Dodge. At least three of the ten men had taken arrows and were being attended to by their comrades.

“Look,” Gray Dog said, pointing to the three circled buffalo-hide tepees and the meat still roasting on a spit over the undisturbed fire. “The family of Sioux had stopped for a meal by the small, muddy creek. They were doing nothing but eating a meal, John Henry.”

Thomas remained silent as he scanned the horrid scene below. He was about to comment when a scream sounded in the preternatural silence that always falls after a gun battle. He looked to the left and saw a large man with the three stripes of a sergeant pulling a Sioux woman by the hair and laughing. Thomas became furious as he knew what was going to befall the young woman next.

“Sergeant Major, disable that trooper … now!”

“T’would be a pleasure, Colonel Darlin’.”

Dugan aimed his Spencer. The act of shooting was natural for the man from Belfast, the best shot Thomas had ever seen. He had learned his trade while a guard for the Knights of the Vatican before joining the U.S. Army as a lad of twenty.

The man was still laughing as the bullet hit before the sound of the blast could echo down to the other men. The large round caught the sergeant just left of the groin. The man looked shocked and immediately released the woman’s hair. He screamed after his hand went to the wounded area of his leg and he fell to his knees. The other troopers looked stunned until they realized they were under attack. They drew their weapons, aiming in all directions around the small Indian encampment. Thomas spied the man in command as he ordered several of his men to relocate their positions. As the young officer reached for his own pistol in its holster, Dugan’s second shot exploded a geyser of sand and dirt only inches from his feet.

“Hold your fire!” Thomas yelled, dropping to his knees in case the troopers below became brave enough to fire on an armed and wary attacker, unlike the small group of familial Indians they had just slaughtered.

The men in the valley looked around in fear as they swung Spencer carbines in all directions.

“Stupid bastards. If we leave ’em alone, they’ll just shoot each other. Look, they don’t know what to do with someone shooting back at ’em.”

Thomas finally stood and presented his filthy form to the men below. Gray Dog followed suit and then Dugan, with the still-smoking carbine aimed below.

“Who are you and why are you interfering with United States Army business?” the young officer called out. Thomas noticed that the man had holstered his revolver.

“It doesn’t matter who we are, you stupid son of a whore!” Dugan yelled out while still aiming his weapon.

“Sergeant Major,” Thomas said in rebuke to Dugan.

“This is the one time I agree with Hair Face,” Gray Dog said. “I think we should shoot them all down like they did that Sioux family.”

Thomas gave withering looks to both Gray Dog and Dugan.

“Colonel Thomas, is that you?”

John Henry Thomas started down the slope, disregarding the frightened troopers below, who were shaking and still aiming their weapons at the three men approaching. As the colonel entered the killing field he felt his stomach roil in his gut. Two of the male Sioux had already been scalped, the hair and skin discarded by the soldiers. Three small children lay within an arm’s reach of the mother who fallen to protect them. Thomas glanced at Dugan and nodded his head in the direction of the woman who had been about to be scalped, which to Thomas would have almost been preferable to being manhandled by the pig of a man moaning and writhing on the ground in front of him, cursing that he needed help.

“Colonel Thomas, I’m Lieutenant Biddle, C Company, Fort Dodge. We were sent to find you, sir.”

Thomas tossed his Henry rifle to Gray Dog, who was staring at the man on the ground with hatred in his eyes, and then he confronted the young, fresh-looking lieutenant who stood at least seven inches shorter than the colonel.

“But you decide to stop off for some sport instead,” John Henry said as he took the man by the tunic collar and shook him. The colonel had been ashamed of army blue since the battle of Bull Run in 1861. He caught himself before his famous temper became apparent.

“Colonel,” the boy stammered as Thomas released his uniform collar. “We thought they were a band of hostiles that raided into Kansas last week. We thought—”

“Enough, Lieutenant.”

“She’s dead, Colonel, shot before this animal started dragging her away,” Dugan said, rising from the body of the young woman.

“May I attend to my wounded man, sir?” Biddle asked, afraid to look the large man in the eyes. The wounded sergeant had stopped screaming and was mumbling as the blood flowed heavily from his wound. Soon he stopped moving completely and the lips stiffened into a tight line of death.

“That man fell to enemy fire from the hostiles, and that is what your report will read, Mister, is that clear? If it isn’t, consider yourself under arrest for the illegal killing of an aboriginal family.”

The lieutenant swallowed hard against the bile rising in his belly. Thomas glared at the new officer until he could bring his boiling blood back down to normal. He was sorely tempted to give the boy a hard whack across the face, but past experience — and the reason for him being out west in the first place — stayed his gauntleted hand.

“Tend to your other wounded and get these bodies buried.”

“No, John Henry, leave them,” said Gray Dog as he continued to check for any form of life from the eight Sioux. “They will be found and the death rites performed by their own. More Sioux will come.” Gray Dog looked up after checking for a pulse from a small boy of only six or seven. “More will come.”

Thomas nodded but didn’t like leaving this innocent family for the wolves. He finally turned to the lieutenant with a scowl. “Now, what in the hell are you doing this far away from Dodge?” he asked as he took a menacing step toward the young man who was reaching into his tunic as quickly as he could. He pulled out a telegram and passed it to Thomas, who was finally joined by Sergeant Major Dugan. The officer appraised the bearded sergeant and his filthy bowler hat and wondered just what sort of soldiers these men were who traveled with a savage and were as arrogant as any two men he had ever seen before.

“Major Cummings received this telegram from Washington City.”

John Henry opened the folded paper and read. Dugan, ever curious, held his patience while Thomas finished reading.

“Well, boyo, has the brass in Washington found a new and better way to have us killed than being stuck out here in Indian territory” — he looked over at the lieutenant — “where it seems young fools have the right to shoot and kill whoever they want?”

“Who are you?” Biddle asked Dugan.

“He’s the second name mentioned in this telegram, and he is a sergeant major, in every way your superior, is that also clear, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir!”

Dugan raised a brow and snickered at the boy’s naiveté. “Well, since it mentions your old sergeant major, what in the bloody hell does it say?”

Thomas turned and walked a few steps away and then addressed Gray Dog, who was looking at him, afraid that he would again lose his friend to the war in the east. John Henry winked at him.

“Feel like traveling?” he asked the young Comanche. He turned back to Dugan. “We’ve been recalled to Washington.”

“Now, Colonel Darlin’, don’t tell me we’re going to drag dog-head boy with us?”

“I’m not leaving him again. He comes with us and the Army can go straight to hell if they don’t like it.”

“Well, we’re probably being recalled just to be put in front of a firing squad anyway.” Dugan smiled at Gray Dog. “Yeah, maybe old dog-head should come along.”

Gray Dog only watched the two men, who always seemed to be at odds. He knew Dugan was close to the colonel, almost as close as himself, but the man was rougher than a corncob and he took a lot of getting used to.

“I guess old George B. McClellan finally got his way and reached out and grabbed us.”

Thomas quickly and briefly smiled for the first time.

“Oh, no, McClellan isn’t in command any longer. We received word that General Grant turned the Rebs back in Tennessee and George Meade whooped Lee in Pennsylvania … somewhere called Gettysburg.”

“Then who in the hell recalled us?” Dugan asked, perplexed, as he was expecting to be either court-martialed or designated to the west for the rest of his career. Thomas handed Dugan the telegram.

The sergeant major opened it, observing the colonel’s smile. He lowered his eyes and read the words slowly. He wasn’t as accomplished as Gray Dog at reading, but he managed. It was the one name at the bottom of the telegram that gave him chills. He folded the telegram and then walked away a few paces, still seeing that name — Stanton.

“The secretary of war?”

“Yes, but he would never have sent that without authorization,” Thomas said as he accepted the telegram back from Dugan.

“Who, then, Colonel?”

“I imagine the order came from the president.”

“President? You mean President Lincoln?” Dugan said as the color drained from his face.

“Yes, at least he was president before our little trip to the western climes.”

The young lieutenant just stared at the filthy men before him. Just who in the hell were these two that they received personal messages from not only Secretary of War Stanton, but also from Abraham Lincoln?

Two hours later Gray Dog, Sergeant Major Dugan, and Colonel John Henry Thomas were riding east toward Fort Dodge and closer to the madness that had overtaken the nation.

They assumed they were heading back to war against their brothers in the south.

4

The fort was built on a small rock island lying in the Narrows between the lower end of Staten Island and Long Island, opposite Fort Hamilton. Hamilton was designed and built by Robert E. Lee, then a major in the United States Army, and overlooked the older post that housed the rebellious men of the Confederacy. The crowded conditions would have shocked most northerners, who complained so bitterly about the treatment of Union soldiers in camps such as Andersonville. If the truth had been known, Fort Lafayette was almost as bad. There was no funding to keep prisoners fed and clothed with the massive slaughter still continuing in the south. Lafayette held mostly commissioned and noncommissioned officers the Union would never exchange back to the South for Union officers. The men here were considered much too valuable to the Confederate war effort and would remain interned for the duration.

The man stood six-foot-three. Most of the weight he had been able to maintain through the early yea rs of the war had long since departed. Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Jessop Taylor stood over Lieutenant Giles Pentecost, a boy of only twenty, who stared up at him from the ragged cot where he lay dying. It had been six days since the four nurses and the constantly drunk country doctor had been to the camp to treat the sick. That left most of the care and healing to the other prisoners of the camp, and they were losing a battle with the elements, the food, the lack of cold-weather clothing, and the biggest killer of all, typhoid fever. This was what young Pentecost and over a thousand other prisoners were dying from. The rest were sick with malnutrition, trench foot, and the filth of living in such close quarters.

“We tried, didn’t we, Colonel?” the boy said as his eyes stared at a spot to his right where Jessy Taylor wasn’t standing. Taylor stepped to the side, hoping the boy could see him better. He didn’t. The eyes were covered in white film and the face was drawn. Taylor reached down and took the boy’s hand. He had to pry the filthy blanket from his fingers to do so.

“We gave them hell, Giles, old boy.”

The young lieutenant went into a fit of shivers as another prisoner stepped to the cot and handed Colonel Taylor a wet cloth. He nodded to the other thin prisoner, who was starting to suffer the chills of the early onset of the same illness. Taylor used his free hand to apply the cloth to the boy’s forehead. Thankfully Pentecost closed his milky eyes as the coolness touched his burning skin.

Suddenly the young lieutenant’s eyes opened and seemed to fix on Taylor.

“Why didn’t General Stuart come back for us?”

Taylor didn’t know how to answer. They had performed a rearguard action to stall and make time for Jeb Stuart’s cavalry to escape from the Virginia countryside more than a year past. The action had caused the surrender of Taylor’s regiment, which never received orders to fall back after Jeb Stuart’s escape. They had been in a series of camps since their capture and had finally arrived in New York and Fort Lafayette last fall. Since that time Taylor had lost more than three hundred men to disease and starvation.

Taylor recalled that dark, rainy night on the outskirts of Antietam. General Robert E. Lee had praised Taylor in the Richmond newspapers, saying it was a classic textbook example of a rearguard action. Taylor thought differently. The heroic James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart had escaped the trap but had never sent word back to Taylor to break off the action and return to the Army of Northern Virginia. Taylor knew Stuart to be a brilliant commander, but that night he had fallen far short of his reputation, just as he had at Gettysburg in July the previous year when he became a missing element in Lee’s attack in Pennsylvania.

He finally looked back at the boy with his customary answer to that infernal question. The boy was staring at nothing. He had died. Taylor gazed at the face of the young man who had been barely old enough to shave, and then angrily tossed the now-dry cloth into a corner.

“We’ll take care of the lieutenant.”

Taylor finally stood on shaky legs and faced the man he had been with since the start. Sergeant Major Ezekiel McCandless nodded that he too was saddened at the loss of the brave boy. Taylor brushed a hand through his dirty brown hair. He felt the lice crawling on his fingers when he lowered his hand but made no move to shake off the pests.

“That’s eight just this morning. We have to plant them now; the heat’s going to turn them fast, I reckon.”

Jessy Taylor angrily pushed past his sergeant major and stepped outside into the hot sun. His gray undershirt was already soaked through with sweat and it was only eight in the morning. He looked toward the high fence and the guards who patrolled it. One was eating an apple and staring at him, and was soon joined by the commandant of the camp, Major Nelson Freeman, a Boston abolitionist’s son who held no love for the Confederacy or the men who fought for her. Taylor saw a cruel smile cross the major’s features. He actually nodded his head in greeting at Taylor and then moved off with his hands behind his back as if he was pleased another Rebel was on his way to hell. Colonel Taylor knew he would kill that man someday for his cruelty at Lafayette.

McCandless ordered two men to carry the body away to join the others who had died that morning and the previous night. The sergeant major used the tattered remnants of his uniform jacket to wipe sweat from the sides of his thickly bearded face.

“We have to get the men out of here, Colonel. Anything is better than dying like pigs in a filthy pen.”

Taylor glanced back up at the smiling guard on the wall, who tossed his half-eaten apple down into the muddy yard where six men immediately started fighting for it.

“The last that I heard, Ezra, most people feed their pigs.” Taylor’s eyes never left the corporal, who was now laughing at the winner of the fight for the apple core. The man was covered in mud, as was his trophy, yet he ate the apple without concern for the filth.

“And yes, it is time for us to take what’s left of our boys and get the hell out of here.”

“’Bout damn time too.”

Taylor looked at the sergeant major, who had lost more than seventy pounds himself, and nodded. “I want officers’ call at sixteen hundred; all noncoms will attend. We have to start gathering information, as much as we can get. I need to know what harbor is the closest. We’ll never be able to get anywhere overland; we have to make our escape by sea. That means the Yank guards who are known to be loose-tongued have to be handled right to get what information we need.”

While Taylor spoke he continued to spy the retreating form of the camp commandant as he made his way around the stone battlements.

The most renowned Confederate cavalry officer outside of Jeb Stuart, a classmate at West Point, had made up his mind to get his men out of Lafayette or die trying.

Professor Lars Ollafson waited patiently, tossing bread crumbs to the pigeons that walked around his bench. He held the satchel between his feet as his eyes scanned the area around him. The people of the city avoided the park for the most part, since the army had taken it over for training. Several Union soldiers walked past, laughing as they made their way from the Sheep Meadow at the center of Central Park. Ollafson watched the soldiers leave, and then as his eyes moved he spied the man he had been waiting for. The young student walked to the bench and sat. He unfolded a New York Herald and started to read.

“I have the lockbox secured, Professor. The artifacts will be well guarded.”

Ollafson didn’t respond as he tossed the last of the bread onto the ground. He carefully used his shoe to slide the satchel toward his student.

“Is that everything, Professor?”

“All except for the two planks. I still need them for the president’s meeting with the war department.”

“I thought you were not to be included on the expedition. I was under the impression the president refused to let you go.”

Ollafson stood. “With the ace I have up my sleeve, young man, I don’t see how Mr. Lincoln can leave me out of it.” He finally looked down and spared the boy a brief smile. “I mean, he does not know what is really there, does he? The expedition has taken far too long to plan and coordinate. If the president’s chosen officer does not arrive from the west soon, all will be lost.”

“I don’t understand,” the boy said as he finally lowered the newspaper to look at his former Harvard professor.

“It has taken me more than a year to get the expert translation of the symbols, and now I will explain the real reasons we must get to our find before anyone else.” The smile grew on Ollafson’s face as he turned and started to walk away. “The president cannot refuse me when he’s informed. There is too much at stake.”

“What, Professor? What is more important than the artifact?”

“God, young Simon. God.”

Fifteen minutes later the student carried the heavy satchel toward the New York Bank and Trust Company in Times Square. There he would deposit the satchel in a safe where no one could access the material except Ollafson himself. He smiled as the doorman opened the glass door for him.

“Deposit vaults?” he asked.

“Second floor, sir,” the doorman said. The former student in Ollafson’s Harvard religious studies course nodded and moved toward the stairs.

Just as he stepped onto the marble-tiled second-floor landing, he was confronted by two uniformed New York City policemen. They deftly grabbed the young man by the arms and steered him toward a room where another man in civilian attire was waiting with the door opened. The student started to say something, but that was when the club silenced him and he went limp in the two men’s hands. The satchel fell to the floor and the man holding the door smiled and retrieved it, following the three inside the empty office.

The two men dumped the boy unceremoniously on the wooden floor. The one on the left knelt over the young student.

“Ah, we must have hit him too damn hard. He’s not breathing.”

The civilian looked unconcerned as he stepped over the boy’s dead body, removed an envelope from his jacket pocket, and handed it over to the corrupt policeman. He opened it, saw the bills inside, and then nodded and the two policemen left the room. The man waited until their footsteps retreated, and then he dropped to a knee and opened the satchel.

He was shocked to discover it filled with papers. Old paper, new paper, a few rocks, but no artifacts. He angrily emptied the bag and then tossed the satchel as he searched in vain for the material he had been hired to retrieve. Frustrated, he pushed at the gathered papers, knowing he had just wasted a thousand dollars and would have to face the people who had hired him for the job, and they were far more unforgiving of failure than even himself.

He cursed his luck, realizing that Professor Ollafson had removed all evidence of the artifact from his satchel before handing it over. As he was about to stand, something caught his eye. He reached out and turned over a large and very thick paper and studied the design upon it. His brow furrowed and he reached up and removed his top hat, then took the paper to a window so he could see in the dim lighting of the room. He held the paper up as the light revealed strange designs on its surface. It looked to be copied from something. A rubbing, perhaps — he wasn’t sure. He decided that maybe he wasn’t left empty-handed after all.

When the well-dressed man with satchel in hand stepped from the bank building, ignoring the pleasantries of the doorman, he could not help but see the strange drawings and writings on the pages he had recovered. They were burned into his retinas and he could not shake them free from his brain.

An hour later the man with the satchel crossed over Seventh Avenue and headed for the Knickerbocker Hotel. Throughout the long city blocks, he had not noticed the other passersby, or even the women’s temperance group as they serenaded him against the evils of drink. He roughly pushed past them without hesitation.

As the doorman opened the hotel’s front door, two men immediately fell in beside him as they approached the staircase. There were no words exchanged as the three made their way to the sixth floor and into room 602. The man gave his top hat and coat over to one of the men who had escorted him up, who carefully placed it on the coat rack in the fancy suite. The man removed a set of handcuffs and then placed the satchel on a large table in the center of the living area. He stared at the old beaten-leather case for a full minute. He took a deep breath and then held out a hand to the gruff-looking gentleman in an ill-fitting suit, who laid a padlock into his palm and then stepped back just as a knock sounded on the door. The man nodded his head toward the door. The second withdrew a revolver and this action elicited a frown from their boss. He quickly holstered the weapon underneath his coat.

“We do not have gunfights in the Knickerbocker Hotel,” the man said with a heavy French accent.

The second brute opened the door and stepped back as a woman in an elegant violet dress with matching hat walked briskly into the suite. The man with the satchel and handcuffs did not turn to see who it was; he already knew. The man who had opened the door returned to the table as the woman nodded her head and then sat quietly on the love seat as she daintily removed her light gloves.

“Was there any trouble?” the woman asked as the man padlocked the satchel. He finally acknowledged the woman as he turned to face her.

“No, not after the foolish constabulary accidentally killed the courier, no trouble at all.” The man raised his left brow, waiting for his employer to say something about his methods. It didn’t take long.

“That was just a boy,” she said, her accented English also hinting at the South of France.

“One that will never become a man. Sometimes, Madame Richelieu, bad things have to happen to innocents, as I am sure you are aware in your business.”

“Murder can become quite expensive in our line of employment, Mr. Renaud. You should have taken the satchel and made it look as if he was robbed by one of these American thugs roaming New York.”

The tall man shrugged and then used his left hand to indicate the man who had opened the door should raise his right hand. When he did, Renaud placed the handcuff on his wrist and then snapped the other cuff through the leather-and-steel-wire handle of the large satchel.

“If you arrive without the satchel, your hand had better be missing also. Is that most clear?” Renaud said as his brown eyes glared at the courier.

“Yes, sir, very clear.”

“When at sea, you are to deposit the satchel in the captain’s safe and leave it until you arrive in France. Is that also clear?”

“Clear, sir.”

“Good. Madame Richelieu has your passage voucher.”

The woman rose and handed the man two tickets purchased that very morning. “I’m afraid you have very little time. I suggest you and your partner leave this minute. American merchant ships do not dally leaving the harbor.”

The man took the tickets and then he and his associate left the room.

Renaud removed a white kerchief from his breast pocket and slowly wiped his hands clean. He never understood how working men could live with constantly filthy hands. He shook his head in disgust and threw the monogrammed kerchief into the wastebasket. He spared the woman a withering look.

“Do you think they will allow a woman to berth on one of the expedition vessels?”

“If my dear friend Professor Ollafson goes along, how could he ever leave his Aramaic and ancient-text expert behind?”

“If you are so trusted, Madame, how is it you failed to know about the little surprise that awaited me inside of the satchel?”

The woman stared at Renaud. She pulled a long hatpin from her wide-brimmed hat and removed her dark veil so she could see the man Paris had assigned her two years before. She angrily stuck the long pin back in the hat and then turned on him.

“The artifact was not inside?”

“No, it was not. But there was something quite interesting that the good professor did not share with his ancient-languages expert.”

“What was it?” she asked. “And why did you let it leave here without allowing me to examine it?”

“That will be determined by others in our government, not you. It seems Paris has lost faith in your efforts to uncover the real reason for the professor’s interest in fairy tales.”

“I have done my job. Perhaps you should also. Why the big push from Paris?”

Renaud smiled and walked toward the credenza where a silver service had been set up. He poured himself a glass of port while offering the woman none. He drank deeply from the crystal glass and then sat in the chair Madame Richelieu had vacated.

“Once certain people in power found out the Americans were involved in this ridiculous pursuit of myths and legends, naturally we had to become more aggressive in the quest to find out what it was they were going after and why.”

“You fail to realize that—”

“Enough.” The man stood and poured himself another drink. “Are you aware of what happened at Hampton Roads last year?”

“I fail to see—”

“That, Madame, is exactly why I was attached to you — because you fail to see.” He returned to his seat and relaxed, stretching his long legs out and fixing her with a kindhearted, poor-little-girl-doesn’t-know-anything smile. He shook his head. “The United States and the Confederate navies in one day made every wooden warship on the high seas obsolete.”

A look of dawning understanding came to the beautiful woman’s face.

“You refer to the battle of Hampton Roads between the Union Monitor and the Rebel vessel Merrimack?”

“Yes, now I see that you may be on the verge of understanding.”

“A little, perhaps. But I am no military strategist.”

The man chuckled. “No, Madame, you are not. But I and my department are experts. With the Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line coming up with naval sciences such as the world witnessed in Carolina between two advanced warships, do you think we would allow an American expedition to go unnoticed? Will we let them recover something that may even place them further ahead of the world? Whether it be military or philosophical in nature is no matter. We must curtail this American arrogance. Whatever is there, we will recover it. If they think this artifact is important, who are we to allow them to get to it first? This is not the way the real world plays, and the Americans and their barbaric president must learn this.”

The woman remained silent as she realized once again that she had been used by ruthless men in Paris.

“Now our intelligence sources say that the British have become aware of Professor Ollafson’s discovery. They even had men ensconced in the last expedition to the area in 1859.”

“Then why did they not steal the artifact then?” she asked, becoming curious as to this man’s real intentions.

The tall man lost the look of arrogance for the first time. “Because, Madame, for reasons about which we still are in the dark, Ollafson was the only one to return from the expedition alive.”

“The professor never mentioned anything like that.”

“Because he knew how important this find was and he knows how to keep a secret, a secret your prowess as a spy failed to uncover, foolish woman.”

“And now?” she asked a little nervously, as Madame Richelieu knew she was in over her head.

He stood, placed the empty glass on the table, and turned on the woman as his arrogant smile returned.

“Simple. You had better be sure we are included on the roster of that expedition.”

“You? How am I to justify your presence when we are not even sure if President Lincoln will allow the professor to go?”

“I and your superiors have every confidence in your abilities — of persuasion at least.”

“And if I do, you expect to just take whatever is there away from the Americans?”

“Not us. We are only to observe and report. Others will take what we need. Paris has prepared far better than the Americans.”

“The fools are willing to go to war for what you believe is a fairy tale?”

“There will be no war. Paris believes the Americans will never make this public knowledge, not after the deaths of so many in their little familial squabble. To waste time and precious money on an expedition? No, whatever happens on the high seas will remain there. No one will witness the death of any wayward warships that get in our way. Whether they be American, British, or German, no one will ever know.”

Paul Renaud of the French Army looked at the novice spy like a new life-form that he had just discovered, and then laughed at the expression on her face.

“If the Americans want to play, we will play.”

Madame Richelieu knew at that moment that the Americans were not the only nation to have gone insane — it was the entire world.

The courier from Her Majesty’s government droned on as First Viscount, Richard Bickerton Pemell Lyons, Her Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United States, stood silently listening at the open window as he tried to catch the afternoon breeze that broke some of the summer swelter in Washington. The portly, mustachioed man listened and when the courier was finished, he stood waiting for the ambassador’s answer.

“Her Majesty and Lord Palmerston know my feelings and opinion on interfering in internal matters concerning the bloody Union. If they think the United States will take that interference lightly, they are not thinking very clearly in London.” Lyons went to his desk and sat heavily in the large chair. The captain remained at attention and that was just the way Lyons wanted him. He did not trust the military and never would. That prejudice was starting to show more and more as this American Civil War continued. Finally he placed the message from Victoria and Lord Palmerston on the desk, rubbed his tired eyes, and nodded at the captain. “Please sit, Captain. The heat has me out of sorts this afternoon and this message of yours has not made my day any easier.”

“Apologies, My Lord.”

Lyons waved off the false apology and reached for the crumpled message once more.

“And how are we supposed to infiltrate this … this … expedition?”

“I am to inform Lord Lyons that the army has already taken that step.”

The ambassador was shocked as he looked from the message to the courier. “Excuse me?”

“Her Majesty’s armed forces will have not one, but two personages onboard any American naval vessel leaving for Europe. One of these individuals will be in the inner circle of command.”

“If they are found out, the Americans may very well turn all of this advanced weaponry you’re so frightened of our way. Do they realize that at the palace?”

“Whatever happens over there, or on the high seas, will remain secret. No one the wiser. They cannot go to the press with this. Their President Lincoln would be committing political suicide if they did.”

“When are the Crown and the army ever going to realize that they cannot analyze the Americans in such broad strokes?” Lord Lyons stood from behind his desk and leaned forward to look the captain in the eyes. “The army underestimated American ability twice before, if I’m not mistaken, and here we are doing it again. Lincoln is unpredictable; the Crown must realize this.” He slammed the message on his desk. “Now, who are these infiltrators?”

“I am afraid I do not have that information available to give you, My Lord.”

The glare was famous. He held the man’s eyes, searching for the lie. It was there in the way the captain raised both brows.

“Does the Crown know why the Americans are doing this?”

“Again, My Lord, I have very little information to pass along. The P.M. and Her Majesty thought the less you know, the better for all … on an official basis, that is.”

“Do not play word games with me, Captain. If this thing goes public it will be a disaster. Our upper classes may favor a Confederate America, but our people are adamantly against the South. Slavery is distasteful, Captain, and if we are caught hindering an American reconstruction we could all feel the heat. Revolutions are not just an American and French invention; they have been going on for quite some time in the world.

“What happens if the Americans get what they go after? What then?” Lord Lyons walked around his desk and confronted the Captain, who didn’t know whether to stand or remain seated. “Go to war?”

“Her Majesty’s navy may have a surprise or two in store for the Yanks if they do succeed in their mission. A rather nasty surprise.” He smirked as if he were privy to the navy’s plans. “Do you have a return message for Her Majesty?” the captain asked as he finally stood with his black cap under his arm.

“None. Dismissed, Captain.”

The red-coated army captain clicked his polished heels together, bowed, and then left the well-appointed office. Lyons watched him leave and returned to the window. He watched more soldiers and civilians move along the street and then closed his eyes in silent prayer.

“Just what are you after, Mr. Lincoln?”

The two men were sore from their long journey from Kansas. The train was full and everyone was looking out at a city that had very nearly been taken by Robert E. Lee a year before.

Colonel John Henry Thomas was not interested in the view as the train started to slow as it entered the station. Sergeant Major Dugan was also not looking out the window but making faces at the boy who kept popping his head up now and again from the seat in front of them. He would stick out his tongue and the boy would laugh and dip back below eye level. He finally tired of the game and looked over at Thomas, who lay half-reclined on the wooden seat with his dirty white hat tenting his eyes. Neither man had bothered to shave since their time on the plains. Their orders were clear — return to the capital at the fastest possible speed with no delay.

“We’re coming into the capital, Colonel,” Dugan said as he looked out of the filthy window to see the old wooden platform as the train slowed.

Before Thomas could remove the hat and answer Dugan, there were several screams of horror from the front of their car. Thomas heard the car’s conductor stutter as he shouted and women screeched.

“Hey, you can’t be in here! Get back to the baggage car where you’re supposed to be.”

“Oh, Lord,” said Dugan as he nudged Thomas with a sharp elbow. “Old dog-boy’s makin’ an appearance.”

John Henry Thomas finally removed the hat from his eyes and looked toward the front of the car where the shouts of fear and loathing could be heard. He immediately recognized four soldiers he had seen earlier and the train’s conductor holding a very angry-looking Gray Dog as he attempted to get by the roadblock.

“Damn it,” Thomas muttered as the mother of the small boy turned with a gasp at the colonel’s language. Thomas was about to apologize but decided he had better save Gray Dog from hanging first. He stood and tipped his hat at the woman and then made his way up the aisle as the train came to a stop at Harrisburg Station.

“Goddamn Indians and darkies are taking over the damn country, thinkin’ they can do anything they want,” said a gruff sergeant with a bandage around his head. Agreement was mumbled by the other three soldiers and conductor holding Gray Dog at bay.

The Comanche was dressed as he always was in a shirt of purple material that had been purchased for him at Fort Dodge for his trip east, and Gray Dog had thought at the time that Thomas’s gift was a wonderful joy to wear. The boy had been proud. But it wasn’t the shirt that was so frightening to the unenlightened — it was the breechcloth over the leather leggings and that infernal coyote head on his black top-knotted hair. All the passengers were leaning as far away from the Indian as they could get without jumping from one of the open windows. One middle-aged woman had already swooned and her outraged husband was tending to her.

The wounded sergeant and his friends held Gray Dog, who was struggling to escape the filthy hands holding him. Finally the sergeant drew a revolver and was raising it above his head to strike at the Comanche. As he brought it down a powerful hand grabbed the sergeant’s wrist and twisted.

“What the hell do you—”

The sergeant stopped abruptly when he realized a big man was about to break his wrist, and his eyes widened when he saw that the man had two embroidered silver eagles on his shoulder boards. The other three soldiers saw the same thing and immediately released the angry Indian. Thomas again twisted the sergeant’s hand until the pistol fell free, where he caught it and without wasted motion tossed it backward to Dugan, who was standing right behind the colonel. Thomas released the sergeant’s hand as the four soldiers came to an abrupt attention.

“At ease,” Thomas said as he reached in between the four troopers and the conductor and pulled Gray Dog free of the mass of men.

The sergeant didn’t know if he should salute or again reach for the Indian.

“This man is with me, and if anyone touches him again I’ll throw that man” — he looked at the people staring at him from their seats — “or woman through the nearest goddamn window. Is that clear?”

“But, Colonel, he’s an Indian,” the sergeant said.

“And he was supposed to stay in the baggage car,” the conductor said with all of the mustered indignity he could spew.

“We’ll soon be off your train, Mister. As for you four, I would think we have our hands full enough without picking fights with Indians” — he looked at the five soldiers one at a time — “or darkies.”

“Yes—”

“Now get away from me.”

All five of the men saw the killer eyes of the man in front of them, and not being used to seeing an officer in such worn and dirty attire, it was frightening at the very least.

“You should have waited until the sergeant major came for you,” Thomas said as he and Gray Dog made their way back to their seats. Several women and a few of the male passengers leaned as far away from the Indian and crazy colonel as they could.

“I wanted to see Washington City.”

“You could have waited. We’ll be seeing plenty of it before too long.”

“Wanted to see now,” Gray Dog argued.

Thomas knew that Gray Dog was not a servant of his nor an employee. Gray Dog thought himself free and not tied to anyone. He tolerated the orders given to him by John Henry, but he wasn’t forced to follow them if he did not want to.

“If I ever get the chance, I’m going back to the Brazos to hang Reverend Percival for teaching English to this boyo,” Dugan said as he reached up for the colonel’s bag. He angrily tossed it to Gray Dog, but it bounced off the small Comanche’s chest and hit the floor. Gray Dog looked at Dugan and his eyes told him the tolerance and respect that he showed John Henry in no way related to his feelings about Dugan. The prejudice of the man came out of every pore. John Henry knew the truth of the matter. Sergeant Major Dugan saw the exact same prejudice that he’d faced in Ireland by Englishmen, now being thrown at Gray Dog, and he was angry but didn’t know how to say it.

John Henry Thomas reached down to retrieve his valise but Gray Dog beat him to it. The Comanche just didn’t want Dugan to hand it to him. Principle, Thomas thought.

“Let’s go see what this is all about, shall we?” Thomas said, eyeing both Gray Dog and Dugan as he moved down the aisle.

“After you, dog-boy,” Dugan said as he half-bowed to Gray Dog.

“Old and ignorant fools always go first, hair-face,” Gray Dog said as he halfbowed in return.

“‘Hair-face’? Why you coyote-wearing son of a—”

“Oh, this was a good idea,” John Henry said as he shook his head and moved off, to all the passengers’ relief.

The man who would command the strangest expedition in the brief history of the United States had arrived.

The patrons of the Willard Intercontinental Hotel were aghast at the sight in the main lobby — two soldiers in filthy frontier uniforms, who still carried most of the dirt and grime of the prairies clinging to their skin and their clothing, from the dual suspenders of the officer to the grimy yellow kerchief of the sergeant major next to him. However, even more shocking was the savage Indian in their company. Although completely dressed, his bird-bone chest piece and the coyote hide on his head shocked most and angered the rest. This was the position the hotel’s manager was attempting to point out.

“Sir, your rooms are ready, but I’m afraid our bylaws will not allow your … your … guest to stay in the hotel. I am sorry.”

John Henry Thomas looked around him at the well-dressed men and women. He saw the brass in the lobby — the officers were either on leave or were the professional types Thomas despised. They all looked at him in his sand-encrusted blue cavalry uniform as if he had just crawled out of their kitchen cabinet. He glanced at Gray Dog, who was busying himself staring at a feathered plume rising from a lady’s large hat. She finally noticed when his fingers reached out and touched a feather the likes of which he had never seen before. Sergeant Major Dugan slapped his hand away, eliciting an angry glare from the Comanche.

“Look, you are supposed to confirm my party, no matter what or who it consists of,” Thomas voiced, knowing that it was falling on deaf ears, especially after the second attempt of Gray Dog trying to snatch the long purple feather from the lady’s hat. She screamed and quickly moved off as Dugan again held the Indian at bay. Thomas rolled his eyes and then angrily slapped his white, wide-brimmed hat on his striped pant leg, creating a small cloud of dust that elicited gasps.

“Having a problem checking in?” a voice sounded from behind Thomas, who knew something was wrong when he saw Dugan stop his angry rebuke of Gray Dog.

Thomas turned and he then he knew why Dugan was so angry. Standing before him was an army officer. His mustache and small beard were expertly trimmed and his double-breasted dress uniform immaculate. The officer stood before him, holding a cigar at chest level and looking up and into the eyes of the much larger John Henry Thomas. The man who had attempted to have himself and Dugan court-martialed two years prior stood before him. Major General George Brinton McClellan, “Little Mac” as he was called, was standing arrogantly before him as if he was the exterminator sent to destroy a household pest.

“Perhaps it’s the company you keep, Colonel,” McClellan said as he examined both Dugan and Gray Dog. “I see nothing much has changed in two years, except for one or two items,” he finished with a note of disgust as he eyed Gray Dog up and down.

“General,” was all Thomas said as he immediately held out a restraining hand to Dugan’s ample chest as he turned his attention to Little Mac instead of Gray Dog. With a slight shove he sent the sergeant major reeling away.

“I see you still have that little wart of a man at your side. I was quite hoping he would have been scalped by now.” McClellan looked at Gray Dog as he wheeled Dugan about and walked a few paces away. “But I see you made friends with the hostiles out west. Very good way to keep your hair, Colonel.”

“What can I help you with, General, or is it candidate McClellan?” Thomas said, throwing his twin saddlebags over his shoulder as he looked down upon the small two-star general.

Mac rolled up on the heels of his shoes and then flicked his cigar ash. He smiled. “Correct, it may not be ‘General’ for very much longer, Thomas, old man. It seems I still may be able to hang you and that mutinous little bastard Dugan after all, only this time I will not be signing off on the order as commander of United States forces, but as commander-in-chief.”

Thomas remained silent and as neutral as his features would allow, although he did feel some of the empty-stomach bile rise in his throat at the thought of this man as president.

“I wish you luck in that … endeavor,” Thomas finally managed to say as his fingertips rose to his black hair in mock salute. “On both the presidency, and hanging us.”

“Miserable son of a—”

“At ease, Sergeant Major!” Thomas said.

“I will someday see to it, Colonel, that you are stripped of the popularity you have with men in power, most assuredly that great baboon that sits in the White House at this very moment.”

Thomas couldn’t help it. He took a menacing step forward, having almost the same angered reaction as at the battle of Antietam that started this whole mess for him and Dugan. Several other army officers and a few naval officers started to take interest in the standoff in the lobby — until another presence entered the room.

“Well, until such a time as we call you commander-in-chief, perhaps you can let these men bathe and shave for their meeting with the real president?”

McClellan turned and he immediately lost his good humor. A man he hated almost as much as Thomas or Lincoln was standing before him. Of equal size to Little Mac, the man in the immaculate three-piece suit stood with an even larger cigar than McClellan’s.

“Mr. Secretary,” McClellan said as he half-bowed, his sword jutting out far enough that Dugan wanted to kick it.

Secretary of State William H. Seward stood with an immensely satisfied smile on his face. One arm was behind his back and one was holding the cigar — meaning he was not about to shake the general’s hand.

“Yes, with Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Seward here in your corner, I suspect you’ll go a long way, Colonel, at least until the election.”

Little Mac turned abruptly on his heel and returned to the table he’d been sitting at, where the curious eyes of financial backers were watching the spectacle at the front desk.

“Now,” Seward said as he turned to the front-desk clerk, “these men need rooms, and I am here to secure them, or to close this hotel down for harboring suspicious activity.”

“Suspicious activity?” the manager said with all of the dignity he could muster.

“If I wished to do so I could surround this hotel and bring out at least six spies for the Confederacy that I know of. Should I start picking them out for you, sir?” Seward said as his gray, wiry brows rose.

The hotel’s manager knew the power that Seward wielded and immediately turned and lifted two sets of keys off the hook. “I’m afraid only two rooms were reserved. We are currently full.”

Seward reached out and took the room keys and then tossed them haphazardly to Thomas. “I’m sure they’ll figure out the sleeping arrangements on their own.”

Thomas nodded at Seward, whom he knew from the night the president had pardoned him and Dugan and then clandestinely sent them on their way out west to count Indians and survey for new fort locations.

“Colonel,” Seward said with a distasteful glance at Little Mac, who was looking their way and laughing with his well-appointed friends. “You and you alone will meet with the president at exactly twelve midnight. A carriage will be out in front of the hotel at eleven thirty. Be there.”

Seward turned away and started to walk toward the large bar for a quick pick-me-up before returning to the hot and dusty streets of the capital.

“Mr. Secretary, what is this about?” Thomas asked as he tossed Dugan one of the keys.

Seward stopped and then his smile grew as he turned to face the weary man they had dragged from the plains. “I could tell you now, Colonel Thomas, but I think this should come from the president,” he said as he started to turn away, then he stopped and faced John Henry once more with an even larger smile. “I would never deprive Mr. Lincoln of the look you will give him when he informs you of your mission. I assume it will be as priceless as mine was.” He laughed, shaking his head as he finally walked away.

“Don’t tell me I have to share a room with—”

Thomas closed his eyes as Dugan voiced his concerns about the sleeping arrangements.

“Not one, but all of my favorite people are showing up. This is going to be wonderful,” he mumbled in resignation as he moved toward the stairs.

5

An hour later John Henry returned from the bath and spa area, clean for the first time in what he thought was a full year. Gone was his beard that had been in place since the last stages of the battle of Antietam. The mustache that curled at the corners of his mouth and the small patch of beard below his lip were the only facial hair that remained. A new uniform had been delivered to him from the war department, and he even sported new shoes.

Thomas entered the room on the third floor of the Willard and immediately saw Sergeant Major Dugan leaning out of the window. By the shaking of the Irishman’s hindquarters, Thomas could see he was angry.

“Are you such a son of a bitch that you’re now screaming at pigeons?” the colonel asked as he tossed his old, dirty uniform on the floor. “And why are you doing it in my room and not your own?” he asked as he went to the dresser and poured himself a small glass of whiskey.

“It’s that goddamn Indian, boyo, he’s out on the damn ledge and will not come down!” Dugan said as he ducked his head back in the window. “And the only reason I am in your room, Colonel, sir, is that this coyote-wearing bastard is just sitting there on the ledge. Causin’ quite a spectacle down on the street.” Just at that moment a knock sounded on the door. Thomas shook his head and pulled the door open to see the hotel’s night manager.

John Henry immediately held up a hand to stay the manager’s disapproval of Gray Dog’s nocturnal activities.

“We will bring our friend in. He … he … likes to sit in high places, not so unusual for Washington I would think,” Thomas said as a small joke. The night manager just stared at the colonel.

“He is scaring people down on the street, sir.”

Thomas only nodded and then unceremoniously closed the door on the small, prissy man’s face. He downed the liquor and then went to the window where he grabbed Sergeant Major Dugan by the suspenders and pulled him away from the window. He ducked his freshly combed hair out of the window and saw that Gray Dog was sitting calmly on the ledge with his moccasins hanging idly over the side. The ledge itself was only nine inches wide but the Comanche didn’t seem to have a problem with either the narrow dimensions or the height at which he risked his life. Thomas shook his head when he realized that Gray Dog was talking to his ancestors. He sat looking up at the full moon. Thomas cleared his throat.

Gray Dog didn’t respond at first and then his nose wrinkled and his head slowly turned. He saw Thomas and his new haircut and the clean-shaven face and his eyes betrayed his amazement. Much to John Henry’s shock and horror, Gray Dog leaped to his feet. The colonel’s eyes widened when he realized that Gray Dog would fall right over and go crashing down to the street far below. There was a gasp from the few onlookers that had camped outside on the walkway to see the strange Indian fall. Then came an audible moan from the crowd as the Comanche did not fall but balanced gracefully on the nine-inch ledge and made his way to John Henry.

“Don’t suppose it’s asking too much for you to come inside the hotel?”

Gray Dog didn’t respond as he dropped to one knee with John Henry cringing in fear the Indian’s equilibrium would give way. It didn’t. Gray Dog brought his hand to John Henry’s face and touched the freshly shaven and perfumed skin of his cheek. Thomas allowed him to feel the difference.

“Stupid bastard,” Dugan mumbled from behind. Thomas used his hand to signal for Dugan to hush.

“Now, come inside,” he said as he eased back through the open window. Gray Dog easily ducked inside and then gave Dugan a withering look.

“Now, can you two get along long enough for me to find out why in the hell we are here?”

“Ah, Colonel, I can’t turn my back on this savage for one minute without him getting into some kind of mischief.”

“Deal with it,” Thomas said as he reached for the new hat box on the end of his bed. This was also delivered over from the war department. He opened the round box and withdrew a new hat. It was turned up on the side and had his silver eagle planted on the front. A bright red feather adorning the side made John Henry wince.

“Ah, that is an adorable chapeau, Colonel Darlin’.”

John Henry shot as angry a look at Dugan as Gray Dog had delivered only a moment before. Thomas ripped the long red plume from the blue hat and tossed it on the wooden floor. Gray Dog immediately sprang forward and retrieved the feather and stared at it.

“That may keep him occupied for a while.” He turned to face an astonished Dugan. “Now, go to your room and lock yourselves in so he doesn’t head down to the theater district or something. Can you do that, Sergeant Major?”

Dugan just glared at Thomas. “Come all this way to babysit a coyote-wearing savage, why I ought to—”

“That’s enough. Just follow orders without question, for once in your miserable career.”

Dugan saw that Thomas was not in the right mood for any bantering or complaining. He just nodded his head and then looked at Gray Dog, who was now blowing on the red feather, amazed at its softness.

Thomas shook his head, opened the door, and quickly left.

“Tonight John Henry learns his destiny as written by the Great Spirit.”

Dugan poured himself some of the colonel’s whiskey and then turned to face Gray Dog, who was still staring at the brightly colored feather and blowing lightly to see it fluff and wiggle.

“Great Spirit my Irish ass, boyo.” He swallowed the glass of whiskey whole and then reached for the bottle once more.

“This is why I am going with John Henry. The spirit that lives on mountain far away is calling me, as it is you, and I will go to see this great thing.” Again he blew on the feather. “Where does this big red bird live?” he asked as he blew on the feather again.

“Red bird?” Dugan then saw the feather and realized that Gray Dog had changed subjects on him. “Oh, no, that is from a peacock, a strange bird that lives down south, I think. Now what in the hell do you mean, ‘great thing’?”

“John Henry will know. We will both go into the darkness to find what calls us.”

Dugan stared at Gray Dog and shook his head before downing the second glass of whiskey.

“Darkness, Great Spirit, mountains, you talk like a bleedin’ officer, boyo. And don’t think I ain’t noticed your English gets better around John Henry.”

The carriage was out front of the Willard at precisely thirty minutes to midnight. The coach was empty, occupied only by the driver sitting on his high seat. The corporal saluted as he opened the door for the colonel. Once in, the coach sped off into the humid Washington night.

The road they traveled was a familiar one that led northward from the capital. John Henry felt as though he was heading into court to find out his execution date. After the debacle of Antietam, Thomas had decided to resign his commission after the last shot of the war was fired. His career was over in the army and he knew it. Even though most general officers knew he had been right to challenge the orders of Little Mac, he was never to be fully trusted again because of that challenge to command. He wouldn’t fight Indians after the war and he wouldn’t be garrisoned in some far-off European posting. He would return to Texas and live a quiet life raising his cattle. The life he always intended to live with Mary.

The coach soon arrived at a small farmhouse just three miles outside the city. The corporal opened the door for Thomas with a tip of his cap. John Henry stepped out and saw the small, but very well kept house with a picket fence surrounding a patchy lawn. He pulled open the gate and made his way up the walk. The house seemed dark but the lantern on the front porch illuminated the front of the yellow house in crystal clarity.

“My staff thinks my mind is gone, foregoing their security and meeting out here,” came a familiar voice from the porch.

John Henry stopped as he reached the front steps of the house. He looked to his left and saw two long legs with one pant leg showing a bony, white ankle. His eyes swept over to the man who was stretched out on the porch swing. John Henry immediately snapped to attention.

“We’ve come far too many miles for that nonsense,” came the soft, very tired voice. “Come sit for a moment before we join the others.”

The man John Henry Thomas had known for more than fifteen years sat with his trademark stovepipe hat upon his lap. His black hair was now graying and was in its traditional scattered state. The beard was thinning and the man’s eyes were as drawn as his face. He had aged fifty years since he’d last seen his friend.

“And don’t you dare say anything about how tired I look. I get enough of that from Mrs. Lincoln, and that damn Seward.”

“Never, Mr. President,” John Henry responded without much conviction as he eyed the president of the United States. He eased in beside Abraham Lincoln and then also stared out into the yard. The president reached out and patted John Henry on the knee.

“I am happy to see you, my boy.” For the first time Lincoln looked over and took in the colonel. “Glad the wild Indian tribes didn’t get your hair.”

“They may not be as wild as everyone has been led to believe, sir.”

“I suspect they are not. But some angry politician will claim they are eventually.” Lincoln took in a deep, long, and very sad breath. “I would like to protect them, but alas that task may have to fall to another.” Again the tap on the leg. “Life used to be a lot simpler. How long has it been since you escorted me around when I was an attorney for the railroads?”

“Fifteen years, Mr. President.”

“You were what was known as a young shavetail, Lieutenant, if I recall correctly.”

“You do, and I was a shavetail.”

Again Lincoln patted Thomas on the knee as he drew up his own legs and placed the hat on his head. “I wish we had more time, my boy, to reminisce about better days, but we have some surly gentlemen awaiting us inside.” Lincoln stood slowly. John Henry heard his joints popping audibly as the president stretched his long frame.

John Henry rose as the president turned toward the front door. “Sir,” he said as he gripped the ridiculous Union officer’s hat in his hands. Lincoln stopped and turned. His sad smile was in place as he waited for Thomas to say what was on his mind. “I never had a chance to thank you for what you did for me and Sergeant Major Dugan after Antietam.”

Abraham Lincoln allowed his smile to grow and for the first time Thomas saw a little of the old log splitter there. He shook his head as he turned away for the door once more.

“After all of this time I thought you would have hanged that ill-tempered Irishman by now. How is the old coot?”

“The same, only worse. But one thing he is, sir, is grateful.”

“I think maybe you both ought to hold off on your praise of your savior until you have heard why I brought you back from the wilds of Indian Territory. You may not be too grateful afterward.”

The door was opened for the president as he stopped and turned to John Henry with a sad look on his wrinkled and drawn face. “Shall we?” He gestured for Thomas to follow.

The living room of the small farmhouse was darkened as they were escorted in by a private from the Washington barracks. A door opened and Thomas heard the cessation of talking in a smoke-filled room. As the president entered many of the men around a large table stood, but Lincoln waved them down with a flash of his hat.

“Gentlemen, Colonel John Henry Thomas,” Lincoln said as he placed his hat on the table and then sat at its head.

John Henry looked around the room to see many a familiar face. Sitting next to Lincoln was the sour and long-bearded face of Secretary of War Stanton. His rotund size took up a lot of space as he was glaring at the new arrival. Stanton, it was presumed, had not been in favor of saving him nor Dugan after Antietam, but relented when he found out the order saving them would go against General McClellan’s wishes. He hated Little Mac as much as the president himself. Thomas nodded his head at the secretary. Next to him was the man he had seen that very afternoon, Secretary of State William Seward, his ever-present cigar lit as he looked at Thomas with raised brows. On the far side of the president was a man Thomas had only seen pictures of, and those images did not come close to revealing the stern presence of the secretary of the navy, Gideon Welles. Next were several men and a woman Thomas did not know.

“We’ll save the formal introductions and make them as we go, shall we?” Lincoln said and then cut off Secretary Seward before he could say something. Lincoln patted the man’s arm, trying to get his former antagonist, turned close friend, to relax.

“To begin, I would like placed into the formal record that I am in serious doubt as to the reasoning behind this action. It’s foolhardy and ill advised.” Edwin Stanton puffed out his chest and waited for the president to give him a rebuke.

As John Henry took his seat he made eye contact with the woman, whose expression told him he was just another despicable military officer to her.

“Yes, we know your position, oh mighty Hermes. Besides, wise one, there is no formal record of these particular proceedings,” Lincoln said, eliciting snickers around the smoke-filled room. “Colonel Thomas, the gentleman to your right is Professor Lars Ollafson, most recently a professor of biblical studies at Harvard University. My son vouched for him over three years ago when I was introduced to him.” Ollafson nodded his gray head at Thomas. “Next to him is an assistant to his former department, Miss Claire Richelieu, an interpreter of ancient tongues and written language — quite an accomplishment for a young lady.”

The woman who was known in other circles as Madame Richelieu didn’t nod or smile; she just looked at the colonel without greeting.

“Professor?” Lincoln said as he gestured for the small man to take over the meeting.

“In the spring of 1859, I and many close colleagues from differing nations funded and mounted an expedition to eastern Turkey. We gather tonight to discuss that journey and what we are to do next.”

“I guess that’s already been determined by God, without my approval I may add,” Stanton cried as Lincoln frowned at him, silencing the irritable man.

“As I was saying, after this meeting concludes, we should come to the logical deduction by all parties” — he looked at Stanton with raised brow waiting for another interruption, but Stanton only mumbled and grumbled — “that the new expedition must proceed at all cost and speed.” Ollafson looked at the president, visibly angry. “After all, this was supposed to happen last year immediately after the Battle of Gettysburg, but it is only now we prepare.”

“Professor, once more may I explain that an expedition this size and this complex takes planning, safeguards — that’s time, sir,” Lincoln said. “Now continue, please.”

John Henry looked from the white-haired professor and glanced at the president.

Ollafson cleared his throat. “The question Mr. Stanton needs to ask himself, and anyone else with any doubts, is why was it that so many knowledgeable men in the fields of not only religious studies, but also archaeology, lost languages, and human history, were so interested in Eastern Turkey?” Ollafson stood from his chair and then through the cloud of hazy cigar smoke lifted a small wrapped article and placed it on the table. He stared at the oilcloth-wrapped parcel for the longest moment and then he placed a hand on the shoulder of the pretty woman sitting next to him. “My assistant in ancient languages will explain.” The professor returned to his chair but kept his eyes on President Lincoln.

The lady stood and then without ceremony tossed the oilcloth away from the parcel. Lincoln watched the eyes of the men around the table. Only he, Stanton, and Seward had ever seen the artifact before. John Henry noted that Richelieu had a peculiar strength about her and automatically knew her to be the type that hated men for their preconceived notions on the subject of women in any profession. Thomas didn’t hold with that since he had seen plenty of women take a hospital element with all its death and horrors and make it their own. Yes, Thomas had grown to respect the women of the world.

“We have here two prime examples of what is known as Angelic Script, or what is being taught at universities worldwide as the Enochian language.”

“Which, I must confess from my limited reading skills, is known as a language thought up by two men in the 1500s, and that this Angelic Script you proclaim is the basis of this theory of yours, was and still is a fraud,” Lincoln said as he challenged the woman for the benefit of the men around the table. Lincoln never led anyone anywhere unless he knew his subject would benefit from it.

“Precisely.” The woman returned the challenge with her green eyes. She then placed a white glove on her right hand and lifted the blackened stone to the weak lantern light. “These symbols here are a warning, described in that very same Angelic Script alphabet. A warning, or a curse if you prefer.” She showed the line of strange circles and glyphs to the men in the room. “I have an alphabetic key for those who wish to double-check my facts.” Her gaze went to Stanton and then to Seward. Both men only looked on with mild interest.

“This, gentlemen, is wood,” Ollafson said. “We cannot know its age. We only estimate that it has to be at least five thousand to ten thousand years of age.”

Seward snorted and Stanton closed his eyes while shaking his head. Gideon Welles, the secretary of the navy, seemed keenly interested.

“How can you come up with that estimate of its age?” Welles asked, looking like a stern teacher at a boy’s school with his white beard and hair.

“Excellent point, mighty Poseidon,” Lincoln said, comparing Welles to the Greek god of the seas.

“Two reasons,” Claire said as she again lifted the first of the heavy slices of thick, petrified wood. “One, this particular piece of wood came from a specific area of the globe. Two, the name inscribed in Angelic Script found on this smaller piece.” She touched the second.

“You’re dancing around the question, woman,” Stanton said in his no-nonsense voice.

“Yes, I guess I am. It’s the theater coming out in me. This first one was recovered by a Turkish explorer in 1827. This second was discovered in 1842.”

“The point, woman!” Stanton said as Lincoln again scolded him for interrupting.

“They were both found on the mountain in Eastern Turkey called Ararat.”

Silence met her disclosure and it confused her momentarily. She turned her attention to the new man in the room, John Henry Thomas.

“It’s the mountain mentioned in the—”

“—Bible, as the resting place of the Ark described in Genesis,” Thomas answered for her. “Most of us went to Sunday school, ma’am.”

She nodded to Thomas and then with a stern look at Stanton she said, “Yes, but maybe more than a few around the table needed to be reminded. Now, the second reason is this.” She held up the second piece. “Placed side by side we have a story. The first states that whoever disturbs the resting place of God’s gift to man will suffer the wrath of heaven and all of its archangels.” Claire Richelieu dabbed her gloved fingertip at each symbol as she explained. “This one is the bridge that completed the theory. It’s a name. You see here where the broken end of the wood cuts off after the dire warning of a curse?” Most leaned forward in their chairs, all except Stanton and Lincoln, to see better. “The name is simple and was the easiest to decipher. The word inscribed on the wood, or stone if you prefer, is the name Noah. Coupled with where these were discovered, the name gives us the true identity of these artifacts. Noah’s Ark is real and can be located just where the Bible said it would be, Mount Ararat. The evidence is right here on this table. It’s a fact the Ark is where I say it is.”

Stanton snorted; Seward turned his head angrily, which he did every time he heard the theory; Gideon Welles laughed aloud but clapped his hands in delight; and Lincoln only smiled. As for John Henry Thomas, he was beginning to feel ill. Claire Richelieu nodded at the professor and then sat as she peeled the white glove from her right hand. Her eyes went to John Henry, who sat stoically silent at the far end of the table.

President Lincoln stood and walked to the cold fireplace and placed his arms on the mantel as if deep in thought. Thomas knew different; it was Lincoln’s famous pause before he told everyone his plan, which he had formulated a full year before sending for Thomas. The president turned and walked back to the table, reached down and took a small book from the tabletop, and slid it down the table to John Henry.

“It’s time to call in favors, John Henry. I figure you owe your president one. That, sir, is a journal. Two years’ worth of entry space. You will take that with you and recover or gather proof of whatever it is upon that mountaintop. You will make it an American discovery.”

Thomas made no move to retrieve the leather-bound journal. He looked from it to the president. Then a look toward Ollafson and then finally Claire Richelieu.

“This, in the middle of a war we may very well still lose?” Thomas was looking at Lincoln as if he had lost his mind.

“As my old war horse here will attest” — Lincoln placed his hand on the thick shoulder of the long-bearded Stanton — “the war will be over in a year. The forces in rebellion have never fully recovered from their Pennsylvania adventure. It’s cut and dried. General Sherman is down south at this very moment explaining it to them.”

“I cannot accede to your order, Mr. President, out of good conscience. I could never do this while men are fighting and dying on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. I request a combat assignment.”

“Denied,” Lincoln said, almost angered at Thomas’s response. “You will do what is asked, and I have my reasons, Colonel.”

John Henry noticed Lincoln used his rank instead of “my boy” or “John Henry.”

“The war was the simple part of this equation. The peace is what will be hard fought. Imagine yourselves, Americans all, how you would feel after losing a war, which Americans have never done before. We have beaten back the world’s most deadly power not once, but twice. The thought of losing is inconceivable to most Americans, north or south. Hatred will rule the land for three hundred years. Unjust sanctions will be placed on the South — sanctions I want to avoid at all cost. This” — he pointed at the two pieces of petrified stone — “can save precious time in our endeavor to bring true peace to the nation. You, Colonel Thomas, will bring back that prize on the mountain for the nation or proof that it truly exists, and the men that will assist you in doing this will help solve that reconstruction problem I have referred to.”

“You have lost me, sir,” John Henry said as his jaw muscles clenched.

“I imagine I have.” Lincoln nodded at Stanton.

Edwin Stanton slid a thick piece of paper down the table and it landed in front of Claire Richelieu, who picked it up and handed it to Thomas.

“That is a roster of Confederate prisoners of war. The war department has selected one hundred and twenty individuals under the command of an officer you may know. These prisoners will be given the opportunity to participate in this … this … miscarriage of military spending. These men are offered as a goodwill gesture by their commanding officer, General Robert E. Lee. You will be in overall command.” Stanton sniffed and snorted as Lincoln watched Thomas for reaction.

“Lee signed off on this?” Thomas asked.

“Yes, he knows as well as we that the war for the South was essentially lost at Gettysburg.”

John Henry Thomas knew he had to delve back into his history and current events of world politics.

“You do realize that this amounts to no less than an invasion of the Ottoman Empire? And the last I knew they were busy forging alliances with England and France. They are nervous as they watch their empire being reduced by thousands of miles each and every year. And we’re just going to sneak in and steal what amounts to their property? We’ll be ending one war just to enter a world war soon after.”

Lincoln, instead of disparaging Thomas and his argument, laughed for the first time. “You see, gentlemen, this is the right man for the job at hand. He understands what’s at stake for this country.”

“I wasn’t agreeing with you, sir, I was warning you of what will happen.”

“Yes, and we do have a way around that. The Ottoman Empire, or in this case a little closer to home, Turkey, is trying to push itself into modern times. They have begun a massive railroad buildup and infrastructure construction inside their nation. The United States, ever a friend to the Empire, has made a gift of a thousand miles of railroad, which will connect their eastern provinces with Constantinople and the northern Black Sea. This gift is from the people of the United States on the anniversary of the birth of their leader, Sultan Abdülaziz. He has gratefully accepted this gift.”

“Your force will pose as civilian engineers that will lay out the route of said railroad, one east from the capital and the other south from the sea,” Seward said proudly, as it was he who had thought up the ruse. “While you and your second-in-command will be official Union Army engineers, the president thinks enough of his railroad years soaked into your head to pass muster on that account.”

“Force?” Thomas enquired.

“With the Rebel prisoners, you will be in command of two hundred army, marines, and naval personnel,” Stanton finished for Seward. “Much more if you count the crews of the vessels involved.”

“Colonel, this will have a most healing effect on this country. The nation, together, will bring back the grandest prize in the history of the world. I cannot stress enough that a successful expedition by two warring sides will show that no matter the differences between us, we are one, and forever will remain so.”

“Hear, hear,” said Gideon Welles as he rapped his knuckles on the tabletop. This elicited sour looks from both Stanton and Seward.

John Henry felt as if he were a rat trapped in a maze of confusion. He suspected that everyone, including his old friend Abraham Lincoln, had lost their minds in taking resources from a war that in his opinion was far from over. These people were underestimating the war prowess of Robert E. Lee. Thomas knew the man personally and also knew that even if the war was eventually lost due to his setback at Gettysburg, Lee would fight a war of attrition, which was what they were all taught at the Point … fight until the other side tires of war.

“Along with this dubious command, who else is a part of this expedition?” Thomas asked, avoiding the subject of everyone being absolutely insane. “These two?” He gestured at Ollafson and Madame Richelieu. “Why not ask Jeff Davis to join also? That should add even more credibility to this mission.”

“That’s about enough, Colonel,” Stanton said angrily. “I may not back this plan as well as maybe I should, but listening to serving line officers fighting the legitimate chain-of-command has come to be quite tiring.”

John Henry knew he had possibly gone too far. He nodded with a resigned feeling of being ambushed. He was more afraid of being labeled a shirker of presidential orders like his enemy, Little Mac.

“And the good professor will sit this expedition out, my boy,” Lincoln said with a kind nod toward the man who had found the artifacts.

“On the contrary.” Ollafson looked as if he were a big-game hunter and his quarry had just entered his killing field. “I beg to disagree with you, Mr. President. I and my assistant will be coming along. You need us.” He nodded toward Claire. “Both of us.”

“You’ll do as you are told, sir.” Seward glared at the Scandinavian professor as he flipped a long ash from his ever-present cigar. “And be pleased that we have acceded to your wishes about this whole endeavor.”

The professor didn’t respond; he only leaned over and brought up another parcel. Even his young assistant was surprised as she eyed the oilcloth as it was laid upon the table.

“What in the Sam hell is that?” Seward asked. Lincoln raised his scraggly brow and watched as the professor played out his hand.

“The final piece of the puzzle, gentlemen, and the reason you have no choice but to include my assistant and myself passage on this voyage.”

“We do not like surprises, sir!” Stanton said as he slapped his hand down upon the tabletop.

“Which is exactly what Colonel Thomas will get if you allow this expedition to commence without us.”

“Okay, Professor, show us your hole card,” Lincoln said.

“Without me, everyone going to that mountain will die, just as my colleagues died five years ago.” Professor Ollafson unwrapped the last parcel and everyone, with the exception of Claire Richelieu, leaned forward.

“My God,” was all she said when she saw the writing.

Ollafson smiled. “No, but maybe God’s executioner.”

The only person in the room who understood what she was looking at was Claire Richelieu. She was flabbergasted to say the least. For a spy with her credentials to be fooled by the old professor stunned her. He had held out from her the most important information imaginable. The symbols that were etched into the stone made her weak in the knees. Could Ollafson be putting one over on not only her but the learned men around the room? Was he running the bluff of all bluffs?

“I was notified this evening that a student of mine was murdered for this.” He waved his hand over the petrified wood. “This is the artifact that we recovered on the expedition of 1859. Many men died to get this out. Yes, we two are going, only because without us you will not be able to decipher the old tongue of the angels. We” — he placed a hand on the suddenly shaken Claire — “will go, and you must allow it to give the colonel here every advantage.”

“Please, Professor, explain the ace that you have just presented the game. We are most curious, I assure you,” the president said as he kept his dark eyes on the man from Harvard rather than the artifact he had just presented.

“The assassins of my student presumed I had passed this on for safekeeping. They were wrong and my dear student paid horribly for my bluff.” His eyes went to Lincoln. “It is now obvious I had been watched without knowing.”

Madame Richelieu felt the twinge of guilt in the pit of her stomach for the young man’s death at the hands of her colleague from the French army. If she couldn’t keep her calm she felt that everyone in the room would know her complicity in the unseemly matter. As she looked at the scripture on the ancient wood she shuddered and prayed it was a hoax by the old man.

“The symbols depicted upon the wood reveal that you may be dealing with far more than you realize inside the glacier where the Ark is entombed. I said that on the last expedition, we had been attacked — well, not only attacked, decimated. Forty-seven men. From the summit of that black forbidden rock to the lower valleys, we were assaulted at every elevation until our assailant weakened as we came closer to the sea.”

“All right, my good professor, I’m sure you have Colonel Thomas’s attention. You sure have mine. So tell us, sir, what does this particular artifact tell you?” Lincoln asked, hoping to call Ollafson’s bluff on the validity of the plank and its feigned or real significance.

“It only adds a name to the entity giving the curse its power and backing according to the wishes of the Lord God himself.” Ollafson glanced at the stunned Claire Richelieu. “Please, Claire, since this is also new to you, and by the look upon your face, just as shocking, perhaps you can explain to them the symbols I have kept from everyone, including my closest advisors and colleagues.”

The woman cleared her throat and stood on shaky feet. She nervously looked at John Henry, who watched silently. She couldn’t help it — for some reason she felt the colonel could see directly through her ruse. Not only Thomas’s suspicious gaze, but Ollafson’s duplicity also gave her doubts.

Never before had she seen the symbols, but she knew them to be as devastating as the professor claimed. She started to explain.

“This first symbol here.” She pointed, immediately regretting not putting her white gloves back on. The touch of the petrified wood under her finger sent a wave of nausea through her stomach until it threatened to tighten her throat, making speech difficult at best. “It’s rough and burned very deeply into the ancient wood.” Her finger moved away as she found she could not touch the symbol.

“According to the ancient Hebrew texts I’ve studied, it symbolizes the names of all of God’s archangels as one entity, a very rare symbol, and one I have never seen depicted in any form outside of mere guesswork by scholars. But these other two next to it symbolize one particular archangel rarely mentioned at all in the Bible. Usually when God has to kill, he will call upon the angel Gabriel, a chap we have learned throughout biblical history to be very adept at killing. But when the Lord has a task that is devastating in nature, he could never trust one archangel to perform it. He needed all. Michael, Rafael, Gabriel, Simon, and the rest. According to Hebrew scripture, when they are called, a piece of each is used to create this one archangel to finish the untasteful job, and that is this name here.” Her fingers came close, but she could not bring herself to touch the stone. She pointed at the second symbol.

“This is the name that is never to be used or said aloud. A name synonymous with death. Not like the children’s tales made to frighten them into behaving. It is the name of the angel of death, and it is his job to see the curse through. God wanted this mountaintop protected, and he’s sent his best soldier to do it.”

“Every schoolchild knows about the specter of the angel of death, Madame. The scythe, the hooded robe, very frightening indeed.” Stanton snorted, even though looking at the symbols left him with an uneasy feeling. And in these times the subject of death had numbed the secretary of war.

“Every schoolchild has been lied to,” Ollafson said, breaking in. “The angel of death is so much more than a scary image. He is sent when the killing is on a mass scale. I have seen how this darkness works.”

“The last symbol?” Lincoln asked as his eyes took in an unbelieving John Henry who had remained silent since the rebuke from the president.

“The name of the Angel of Death?”

“Yes,” Seward asked with almost childish curiosity.

“Azrael,” Claire said almost as a whisper.

“Yes, Azrael,” Ollafson repeated. “And I have seen him.”

“Yes? I would be most interested to know what he looks like. We may have seen him in Washington,” Seward half-joked. Ollafson wasn’t.

“Just step out into the night, Mr. Secretary. You will see his image.”

“And that is?” Seward pushed.

“Blackness. The dark, the night killed my colleagues, and that blackness has teeth, gentlemen.”

The looks around the table were cold but remained neutral. Lincoln looked at Thomas.

“Colonel Thomas, it looks like your expedition’s roster has grown by two names.”

Thomas looked from Lincoln to Ollafson, and then his eyes found the woman. She sat silently looking at the plank of petrified wood. She finally looked up and that was when John Henry knew this woman wasn’t bluffing. She was truly frightened.

“Now, one last bit of business,” Seward said as he pulled out two envelopes. “Your second-in-command — it’s about time you know who it is and where you can go to find him. He may be a familiar of yours.”

Colonel Jessop Taylor looked at the moon as the first of the dark clouds started to move past. He knew there would be rain soon and that was nothing but good news for he and the men he planned to lead out of the camp that very morning. He lay on the louse-infested bunk and turned his head.

“Time, Sergeant Major?”

The gruff old soldier rolled onto his side and looked at the colonel in the darkness of the wooden barracks.

“Sorry, Colonel, I left my pocketwatch in my other suit.” He snorted.

“I meant the time of the guard’s last walk-through,” Taylor hissed.

“Ten minutes.”

Taylor slowly rose from his bunk and then lightly tapped on the cot’s wooden frame three times. Silently several men rose in the darkness and made their way to the shuttered windows. All but the one through which Taylor observed the moon were secured. Five of his healthiest men waited by the large double doors of the barrack. Their dress was in a state that guaranteed they could not walk the streets of Brooklyn without immediate discovery, so at this juncture of his plan the men started to strip their tattered uniform coats and shirts. Jessop Taylor nodded at the youngest of his men, Private Wilcoxin, a devout boy of seventeen from Wheeling. The boy produced a wrapped brown-paper package and snapped the white string that held the large bundle together. Taylor nodded when he saw the freshly cleaned wash that had just been returned from Fort Hamilton across the way. They were Union enlisted men’s uniforms.

“Not exactly my favorite color, Colonel,” a ragged corporal said as he held up the Union-blue jacket of a private.

“Hell, I’ll take anything that doesn’t house the entire louse population of the north,” another said as he quickly donned his jacket.

Taylor accepted his absconded uniform jacket from the private. He winked, acknowledging the boy had done well in stealing the laundry that afternoon.

“Guard,” hissed one of the men at the doorway.

Taylor finished with the last brass button and then nodded at the largest of his men, Anse Poteet, a sergeant from Georgia. The giant stood at six-foot-six and had worn out more cavalry horses than an entire troop during the three years of war his men had seen.

Poteet opened the rickety wooden door an inch and then waited. When the boot falls came close he opened the door with a quickness that would only be expected from a much smaller man. The ham-sized fingers quickly closed around the guard’s neck and without a sound pulled the man inside. With eyes wide in terror, the guard looked around frantically when the giant hand closed around his mouth. Poteet looked up at Taylor, a knife in his free hand, but Taylor only shook his head. Poteet nodded and then brought the knife’s hilt up and then down upon the young man’s head with a thump. He immediately went limp.

“We’re not going to get too far if we allow mercy to come between us and that gate, Colonel,” the sergeant major said quietly as he glanced out the open doorway.

“We only kill those that need killing, Ezra.” Taylor nudged the unconscious guard with his worn boot toe. “This isn’t who I want,” he said with finality.

“Wait a minute. You’re not comin’, are ya?”

“Your job now is to get as many as you can to the harbor. Corporal Yulee can handle most anything with a sail. That’s all, Sergeant Major. Get my men out of here.”

“And what is your grand design?” the small sergeant asked angrily, as the colonel had not bothered to share this part of the plan with him.

Taylor looked at his men gathered at the door.

“I have a man to talk to for a while. I’m going to hold that cowardly bastard while you get those boys free. As long as I have Major Freeman, the rest won’t be able to blow their own noses.”

“No!” the sergeant major said as loudly as he dared and even reached for the colonel’s sleeve as he slipped out the door and into the rapidly developing storm.

“Goddamn him,” the sergeant major hissed. “Well, you heard him, let’s get to the stables, Private.” He turned to look for the young man who had delivered the uniforms. “Get the other boys together and wait by the doors until we signal. Hey, where did Private Wilcoxin go?”

The sergeant major cursed as he glanced around for the boy, but he was nowhere to be seen. “Well, hell, we can’t wait. Hope he catches up.” Sergeant Major McCandless left the protection of the barracks and started through the rain toward their goal.

Colonel Jessy Taylor watched the southern guard tower and saw no movement. The soldier normally manning the post must have been hunkered down as far away from the rain-washed edges of the covered box as he could get. Taylor knew the soldier was an old man by the name of Jennings, a leftover from the Mexican war and one not very affable to discomfort. Taylor had specifically picked this night because of the rainstorm and the fact that they had all the right Union staff on duty. Lazy men, volunteers for the prisoner of war camps that allowed them to serve but not to fight. Cruelty was the order of the day and these men, roughs and toughs from the boroughs of New York for the most part, loved their duty and followed Major Nelson Freeman’s orders to the letter.

Taylor signaled to the barracks and the sergeant major moved the first of the men toward the fenced section of the compound where the stables and the armory were located. The four-man guard unit was huddling under the eave of the roof’s overhang. Taylor saw they were laughing and slapping rainwater onto each other. They figured, and rightly so, that the men inside Lafayette were so weakened by disease and malnutrition they couldn’t even walk, much less escape.

Taylor watched the first sixteen men, in their newly cleaned Union jackets and a few borrowed Billy Yank caps, move toward the four men, who didn’t notice their approach. He grimaced when the men were jumped. He didn’t want the guards killed. That was a point he had made with McCandless — they would not lower themselves to the Union camp commander’s level and kill for no reason if the guards gave up, which he suspected they would when faced with the angry men they had been abusing for over a year.

More men moved forward from the barracks when the sergeant major gave them the all-clear. They would place as many men as possible inside the four wagons allotted the post and then simply escort them out with a small unit of riders. That was the plan, anyway.

Taylor looked up and saw the dim light coming from the commandant’s office and private quarters. With a look back at his men who were now moving into the stables and the large stone barn, he saw the first flash of lightning. He quickly used the white light to view the parade grounds now filled with windblown waves of mud and water. It was clear. He moved to the stairs and ducked underneath. He knew an orderly would be on duty, but Taylor suspected the man had his boots up on the desk and was napping, as was his habit at night.

He waited for the signal from the barn. He knew he had not been able to get as many men to escape as originally thought. He would only move out thirty-six. These were the healthiest. He would remain behind with the others — if he survived Freeman’s wrath. His duty on this dark night was clear. He would remain and hold Major Freeman, and then stand trial for it and the escape. He would do this to protect those that came after him, to draw attention to the conditions at Lafayette. The man in charge of the camp was insane and he had to end this.

He moved out from under the wooden stairs and then crept silently upward. Another streak of lightning and the view changed as his eyes moved to the barn below. The rumble of thunder shook and rattled the windows around him, and then the nightmarish reality became clear. The thunder had not been the only sound heard. Gunfire had erupted inside the barn. He quickly turned and burst through the commandant’s door. He immediately saw that the orderly was not at the desk and he most assuredly was not sleeping. He was standing next to Freeman’s private quarters with a shotgun pointed his way. The dreamlike sequence was made real when Taylor saw the Union corporal smile. He raised the weapon and took aim at Taylor’s chest as more gunfire erupted from below. Taylor closed his eyes and listened to the falling rain, knowing his chest would soon be exploding out through his back. That was when the door opened and Major Freeman stepped out with six men behind him. Another soldier went to the wall and sent the brightness of the lamp to full.

The gunfire outside dwindled to nothing. Taylor eyed Freeman and then shook out of the wet Union-blue coat. He let it slide to the wet floor.

“Caught with a Union uniform in an escape attempt.” Major Freeman looked around first at his men and then the tidy office. He walked to an old file cabinet and tilted the five-foot box until it capsized. Drawers popped free and papers spilled. “Or was the colonel using the stolen uniform for spying purposes?” He looked around him, a look of mock disgust on his mustachioed face.

“He’s a spy, Major. Hell, as far as I can tell, there ain’t been no escape attempt. He was here to gather information and wasn’t wearing his proper uniform. Yep, a spy.”

“Which means, Colonel Taylor, I can legally shoot you.” The smile grew on Freeman’s face.

Taylor deflated when he realized they had all been set up to be murdered by the ingenious Freeman.

“I can see that Boston College education is paying off, Major,” the haggard Confederate colonel said as two men took up station on either side him.

“Actually, it wasn’t all that difficult to figure out what was happening. As you know, I keep my ear pretty close to the ground,” Freeman said as he walked to the main door, pulled it open, and allowed the wash of the rain to cool the room. He stepped back as a corporal entered the office portion of the quarters. “Report?”

“Thirteen dead, fifteen wounded.” The corporal smiled and looked at Taylor. “Them boys tried to put up a fight, Major. We had to subdue the escape attempt in the harshest terms.”

Before the corporal could react, and with the smile still on his face, Taylor reached out and grabbed the man’s well-maintained sideburns and brought his face down into his right knee. He felt the corporal’s nose break under the onslaught and the man screamed in pain. Taylor was about to bring his knee up again when Major Freeman brought his pistol down on Taylor’s head, dropping him to his knees.

“Colonel Jessup Taylor, you are under arrest, sir, for spying inside a federal installation. You are hereby ordered to face camp punishment. This is to be carried out at noon tomorrow. These men will witness on an official basis, not that we will need their testimony.”

Jessy heard the words as they were spoken but the world had become a spinning, blurred view that made his stomach give up the watery celery soup he had eaten earlier. He went to his hands and vomited as blood coursed down his head and onto the wet floor. He was grabbed and brought to his feet. He wobbled and one of the men holding him slapped him hard on his bearded face. Then as the corporal straightened he pulled his hand away from his destroyed nose and delivered a punch to the colonel’s face, making him go limp as he was held. His eyes remained closed until the pistol barrel of Freeman’s weapon raised his chin. When his eyes opened he saw a man enter the room.

“No one does anything in my camp without me knowing about it, you traitorous scum.” Freeman laughed as the image of the man came into Taylor’s view.

Taylor let out a moan that was quickly covered by the Union guard’s laughter. Standing before him, twisting the Union cap he had stolen and still wearing the Union-blue jacket, was Private Johnny Wilcoxin, the same lad who had provided the stolen laundry for the escape.

“I … I … just didn’t want to hurt no more, Colonel.”

Taylor tried to raise his head and speak to the boy but Freeman stepped forward and brought the barrel of his Colt revolver down once more. This time Jessy Taylor went out for good.

“Rebel force, turned back.” Freeman looked at his men. “That’ll look good in the papers, huh boys? Maybe get me a personal write-up for that baboon in the White House to read?”

As the major’s men laughed, Lieutenant Colonel Taylor was taken away to face his execution the next afternoon.

The silence had been palpable since the train ride north from the capital. It had continued in New Jersey and even now as they looked out at the early afternoon sun from the deck of the paddle steamer, S.S. Westfield II. The rainstorm of the night before had made the afternoon clean, the smell of the city having been washed away.

Sergeant Major Dugan watched John Henry Thomas for a long moment and then glanced at Gray Dog. The Comanche was wearing his bright purple shirt and was currently touching a small redheaded child. He had never seen such majestic, bright red hair before. Just as Dugan was about to slap Gray Dog’s hand, he heard a gasp and a rotund woman in a black dress pulled the boy away in terror. The child was still smiling at Gray Dog as his mother admonished him for being so close to the savage.

“Don’t touch people, you … you … damn Indian! This here is not the plains, boyo, it’s civilization.”

The look on Gray Dog’s face was incredulous. From what he had observed thus far in the east, these people were anything but civilized. Not like his own, where anyone’s property in camp was shared by all. He would never understand John Henry’s people.

“Now, are you going to tell me what has you so riled up?” Dugan asked, turning his attention to the colonel, who had his hat off and was looking toward the docks of the city as the ferry made its way across the sound.

John Henry remained silent as he took in the skyline of a city he had visited many times in his youth. When on holiday leave from West Point he couldn’t rightly just hop on a train and return to Texas, so he would come to the city with other displaced classmates. This was the city where he had met his wife. A small cotillion had been put on by the Gentlemen’s Club of Astor Place. He wanted to smile at the memory but knew it to be too painful. John Henry had lost his young bride Mary five years earlier near the Brazos and his family’s ranch. She had been killed in a Kiowa raid when he had been deployed into southern Kansas chasing Gray Dog’s people. He always blamed himself for her loss.

He finally turned to face the sergeant major. Gray Dog even moved closer to the two soldiers when he thought the colonel was finally going to speak for the first time since he had awakened them at three in the morning and then placed them all on a semi-deserted train north.

“Sergeant Major, this afternoon I want you and Gray Dog to return to Washington. I will have transportation orders for your return to posting in Kansas. You two will not be traveling with me after today.”

The Irishman laughed and nudged Gray Dog, who took the shot to the ribs with annoyance as he didn’t understand the white man’s humor.

“That is one thing we won’t be doin’, Colonel Darlin’. You know better. Now, just tell me what those madmen in Washington has us doing.”

Thomas was about to explain when an old deckhand approached the three men. “Gentlemen, please step back. We are about to dock, and the crazy son of a bitch driving this damn thing has a tendency to smash the bow into the wharf every now and again.”

Thomas saw the ferry coming in at breakneck speed so he decided he would have to delay explaining until later.

“Secretary Stanton telegraphed Fort Hamilton to send over three mounts and a small detachment of marines to escort us to Fort Lafayette. Evidently the camp commander is one of those Boston bluebloods and a hard-nose when it comes to his prisoners.”

“Another war-avoiding rich man, you mean, and just what do we need a detachment of marines for?” Dugan asked while looking suspiciously at Gray Dog.

“We are heading into hostile territory to see an old friend of mine.” He looked back at Dugan. “And as far as the detachment of marines is concerned, that will become obvious when I’ve had time to explain.”

Dugan and John Henry watched as the ferry was tied to number-three dock. As for Gray Dog, he was busy looking at a few of the Union warships that had gathered in the harbor. The Comanche had never laid eyes on anything larger than a shallow-draft river barge in his life. He gaped at sailors scrambling up and down the ships’ rigging and was in amazement at the sheer size of the frigates and cruisers. It wasn’t until Dugan nudged him that he came out of his trance.

Many men, women, and children walked past the three men with wary eyes upon the Indian. Dressed as he was in leather leggings, the coyote head on his top-knotted hair, his bone chestplate, and the brightly colored gift from John Henry, the purple shirt, he was a sight among the working men and civilized women. His black hair was hanging loose, and two large eagle feathers dangled from the back. Children were amazed and men and women horrified at the sight. Sergeant Major Dugan dipped his head at the ladies and nodded at the men but made a horrid face at the children as they walked past.

“There’s our men,” John Henry said as he spied twelve blue-clad United States Marines with three extra horses arriving just beneath the dock area. The three men walked down the gangway and were greeted by a young lieutenant who saluted as he stepped forward.

“Second Lieutenant Jenson Parnell,” he said as he saluted John Henry. The salute was returned but the young clean-shaven lieutenant, a recent graduate from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, kept the salute in the air as he examined the Comanche, who was staring at his turned-up hat with a red feather pinned to the side.

“At ease, Lieutenant. He’s not exactly officer material,” John Henry said just as Dugan slapped Gray Dog’s hand away from the marine’s hat.

“Uh, uh, yes, sir,” Parnell said as his hand slowly came down and his head bobbed to avoid having the feather garment taken from him by the Comanche.

John Henry didn’t hesitate as he climbed aboard one of the horses, realizing just how much he missed it when he wasn’t in the saddle. Dugan followed suit but stopped short when the enlisted marines in the group shouted at Gray Dog. Thomas and Dugan watched as the Comanche fulfilled a ritual that most white men could not fathom. Gray Dog had unbridled his horse and tossed the McClellan saddle from its back, leaving only the blue blanket. Then he grabbed the animal’s mane and pulled himself up onto the creature’s back. He looked at the men staring at him and realized that he was the center of attention.

“Excuse my friend, Lieutenant. He’s a little more at home feeling what his mount will do. That’s a Comanche way of feeling the animal’s back muscles and the leg tendons. He knows in advance what a horse will do. That’s their way.”

Parnell looked from a curious Gray Dog to the colonel, quickly gathered up the discarded saddle and handed it to the unit’s corporal, and then mounted himself.

“Just never seen no Indian before, sir,” he said as he took up station next to Thomas.

Thomas pulled the reins of his mount and started forward. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. His people are probably the greatest light cavalry on the planet. Now, shall we go meet my new second-in-command, sir?”

Lieutenant Colonel Jessy Taylor was chained and shackled to the wall inside the barn. The blow to his head delivered by Major Freeman had concussed him enough so that Freeman was actually sorry the Rebel colonel would more than likely expire before he had a chance to hang him. Taylor felt the pain in his wrists and hands long before the pounding of his head as his eyes fluttered open. He blinked against the bright sunshine that reached his eyes through a hole in the old barn’s roof. The colonel tried to get his bare feet to move to take some of the strain from his shackled wrists. He finally managed to relieve the pressure by standing as best he could. He tried to open his eyes once more.

“Excellent! You’re not going to die after all — at least not until I say so,” said a familiar New England — accented voice. “You had me worried enough that I had my corpsman stitch up your head to stop the blood loss.”

Taylor blinked as his blurry vision started to focus. He took in the thin frame and the immaculate uniform of Major Freeman. He stood before him, but when Taylor moved his head he hastily stepped back. The Confederate colonel knew the man to be afraid of his own shadow. Taylor had seen men like Freeman the whole of his military career. From West Point to the Cimarron River in Texas, either wearing Union blue or Confederate butternut, it never mattered. Cowards like Freeman would forever be a blight on the fates of real soldiers.

“My … my boys?”

Freeman took a cautious step forward, making sure the guard armed with the Spencer rifle was aware he was doing so. The weapon was cocked, ready to dispatch Taylor at the moment the order was given.

“Excuse me, Colonel? What was that?” Freeman placed a hand to his ear in mocking fashion.

“My men?” The words were barely audible.

“You mean my men? You obviously don’t take care of them the way you should, Colonel Taylor, so now they are my men.”

“Where is Sergeant Major McCandless?” Taylor’s head finally moved upward to glare into the dark eyes of the abolitionist’s son.

“Ah, the sergeant major.” Freeman placed a manicured hand on Taylor’s black hair and patted the colonel like a wayward child. “Well, he is a responsible noncommissioned officer, Colonel. He is with your men, watching over them since you sent them off to die in a manner not befitting a real soldier. Yes, he is with the others.”

“Don’t hang my men. They … were following … orders.”

Freeman stepped back from Taylor in mock shock. “Hang them? I would never do such a thing.” To Taylor’s horror the major laughed and stepped away, but reached out and took a brutal hold of curly black hair once more and forced the colonel’s head up. Taylor’s vision focused as he knew immediately what he was looking at.

“No, I won’t hang them, but their suffering at your hands and through your orders is over, Colonel Taylor, as you can clearly see.”

A moan escaped Taylor’s bloody mouth as he saw the bodies on the hay-strewn floor of the barn. They were uncovered and each was caked in thick mud. The blood coating them had dried to a sickening maroon color. His eyes roamed the twenty corpses in front of him. Sergeant Major McCandless was near the center. His bearded face was looking up blindly at the rafters of the roof. The men he had sent with the sergeant major were arrayed to his left and his right. Another moan escaped his lips and his head started to dip once more as he wanted nothing more than to seek shelter from this horror by slipping into the pleasures of unconsciousness. Freeman’s hand once again brutally pulled Taylor’s head up.

“No, no, no, no, Colonel. This is the result of your arrogance in trying to escape my care.” He gestured with his free hand. “This will be what awaits all of you bloody sinners in the South, my friend — death and dirt, that’s what awaits the traitors and their kin.”

Taylor mumbled something.

“What was that, Colonel?” Freeman said, eager enough to hear that he bravely took a step toward Taylor as he released his hair.

“I said, I am going to kill you.” Taylor slowly looked up and then smiled with bloodstained teeth. He spit with all the strength he could muster.

Freeman felt the bloody spit strike his perfectly curled moustache and he immediately stepped back from the chained man. He quickly took a kerchief and wiped the bloody spittle from his face.

“I would normally say that would have cost you dearly, traitor, but my plans for you remain unchanged.” He looked at the first guard and then nodded to Taylor. “Unchain the prisoner. His execution will be carried out immediately.”

The private glanced at Freeman only momentarily and saw the crazed look in the young officer’s eyes. He immediately moved to release Taylor.

“Your sentence of death will be carried out at exactly the hour of noon, Colonel. I am just sorry your men could not join you on the gallows.”

Freeman tossed the bloody kerchief to the ground as Taylor was dragged from the barn and then the stable area. He walked out into the sunshine then smiled. He turned to the corporal next to him.

“Assemble the camp’s company. I want his men to see what happens when a man thinks he can outwit me.”

On the afternoon of August 2, 1864, the war was truly over for Taylor and his men.

Twenty minutes later the riders entered the Fort Hamilton area of Brooklyn and Thomas was taken by the surreal setting of peace and tranquillity of the wooded area. But the preternatural quiet disturbed him. While the activity at Fort Hamilton was brisk, three hundred yards away was a very different picture at Fort Lafayette. The prisoner-of-war camp was silent, and Thomas saw several women holding banners outside of the main gates being confronted by army personnel, who seemed to be angrily addressing the women’s group over a sensitive issue.

It was marine lieutenant Parnell who held his hand up, stopping the marine escort mere yards from the gate. He nudged his horse slowly forward and approached the nearest private.

“Clear a path and open the front gates,” he ordered, trying to make his schoolboy’s voice sound commanding. Thomas and Dugan watched from horseback.

“The camp is closed this morning to all visitors on order of Major Freeman, camp commandant.” The private looked nervous as he took in the army officer being escorted by the marines. He stood rigid when he saw the embroidered silver eagles on John Henry’s shoulder-boards.

“I guess that double-breasted monkey suit does command attention. Maybe you should wear it more often,” Dugan said with a smirk and a spit of tobacco juice. Many of the protesting women saw this and grimaced. Dugan winked at the largest woman he had ever seen standing in the front.

“Sorry, Lieutenant. My orders are explicit.”

“Soldier, open that gate,” Parnell said as calmly as he could. There had been rumors across the street at Fort Hamilton that the officer running Fort Lafayette was a little on the bizarre side.

John Henry saw another soldier approach. This was a sergeant who was obviously in command of the gate. He was bearded and had an arrogance about him that Thomas immediately disliked.

“Now, Lieutenant, the private has his orders as well as myself. No one gets in today. We had an escape attempt last night and we are in the middle of sorting it all out.” The man’s beady black eyes went to Thomas, who sat stoically watching the confrontation.

“Why don’t you just let me shoot these rear-echelon sons of bitches?” Dugan said, staring at the arrogant sergeant. He was getting so angry he hadn’t noticed that his chinstrap had slid up and covered most of his mouth, so John Henry heard nothing but a garbled request.

“Adjust your headgear, Sergeant Major,” Thomas said without looking over at him. He easily slid from his saddle but motioned everyone to stay mounted. He adjusted his uncomfortable coat and the sword dangling on its strap at his side, and approached.

Dugan angrily removed the leather chinstrap from his mouth and then turned that anger on Gray Dog. “And you, you think you’re impressin’ people with that purple shirt the colonel got ya? Well, let me tell you, you don’t wear a Comanch’ breastplate over it. And what’s that, your official dress feather hanging there?”

Gray Dog looked from the scene before him and turned his gaze to the feather hanging from the middle of the bird-bone breastplate over his shirt. He fingered the feather and then looked curiously at Dugan.

“Like talkin’ to a rock,” Dugan said as he turned and watched the colonel.

Thomas took young Parnell by the shoulder and moved him out of the way as he confronted the sergeant and the private. Through the thickly slatted gate he noticed a lot of activity in the yard of the prison. He turned to one of the women after Parnell angrily stepped aside.

“Ma’am, Colonel John Henry Thomas. What is this all about?” he asked with a tip of his upturned hat.

The woman came close to curtsying but caught herself. She was middle-aged and was wearing mourning black with a veil over her face. She angrily turned to the two guards.

“Sir, this is Wednesday, and our ladies’ group has permission from your war department to bring in medicine and extra food for those poor delusional souls inside the prison. These men will not allow us to pass,” she said as the other women, many of them older than the first, started to agree, shouting angry epithets at the men at the gate. “We do this because many of these mothers and wives have husbands and sons at places like Andersonville Prison. Perhaps if we feed and take care of their sick, they could possibly do the same for their boys.”

John Henry wanted to say that although noble in act, this was not a very realistic proposition, but as he looked at the faces of the many anxious women at the gate, he decided now was not the time to inform these women that the South was on the verge of starvation.

“I’ll see what I can do, ma’am,” Thomas said as he touched the brim of his hat. He stepped around the woman and then faced the arrogant sergeant. As he stepped up he gestured behind him for Dugan, making a movement with his thumb and index finger. Dugan saw this and immediately removed the string from his flapped holster. Gray Dog immediately moved his horse to the far side of the column and without anyone noticing he dismounted and disappeared into the shadows of the large trees lining the front of the fort.

“Sir, I have my orders,” the burly sergeant said.

“Lieutenant Parnell, have your marines dismount, please.”

Parnell smiled as he gave the command. The twelve marines did as ordered and lined up behind the lieutenant.

John Henry never looked behind him to see if his order had been obeyed. He simply stared at the well-fed sergeant before him. His blue eyes cut deeply into the man’s black ones.

“In thirty seconds, if that gate remains closed I will give the order to open fire on your men. Is that understood, Sergeant?”

The heavyset man looked around at the suddenly anxious marines to his front, who seemed to relish the thought of firing on his men. He knew the marines at Fort Hamilton had been wary of everyone from the camp, simply because of the rumors that floated about Brooklyn concerning cruel punishments and murder inside the prison. He swallowed as he turned and took in the dangerous man before him.

“But, sir!” he protested.

“Lieutenant, deploy two-man fire teams, we will assault and then enter the prison on my command,” Thomas said, still staring at the bearded sergeant. Dugan actually drew his Colt revolver from its holster.

“Sir, I have orders that no one—”

The sergeant felt the knife at his throat. He had failed to notice the Indian who had vanished a moment before. Gray Dog had used the heavy shadows of the thick trees to get close enough that his own guard detail did not see him. The bowie knife had been a gift from John Henry and it was Gray Dog’s most prized possession. The knife dug in and Thomas and Dugan both didn’t know how Gray Dog could see anything because the bulk of the sergeant obscured everything except the shiny blade. The private standing next to the sergeant stepped back. The women gasped and moved as far away from the gate as they could.

“Open the gate,” the sergeant said without moving his head.

The private turned and gestured behind him. The large doors of the gate finally started to crack and then it opened. Thomas smelled the prison before really laying eyes upon it.

John Henry returned to his horse and mounted. He ordered the marines to do the same.

“Gray Dog, leave him be. He’s decided to be a soldier again,” he said as he spurred his horse forward. He tipped his hat at the women who were watching. “Ma’am, I’ll see what I can do about getting you in.”

Gray Dog vanished along with the knife. The sergeant spun around, but saw nothing as the Comanche disappeared as fast as he had arrived. As the sergeant gingerly touched the line of blood at his throat he was amazed to see Gray Dog had already mounted and was riding past him without so much as a look.

As the escort rode through the gates, more than one of the marines had pulled a kerchief from their uniform jackets to place over their noses. The mud-caked parade ground was awash in bodies laid out in the afternoon sun. The colonel quickly counted twenty-two.

“Jesus, Colonel, what in the hell went on here?” Dugan asked as he took in the scene. He kept his pistol free of its holster. Gray Dog was the only one of the command group who wasn’t shocked by what he was seeing. After all, he had seen the army’s work many times before.

John Henry saw the makeshift and rickety scaffold at the center of the parade ground. Seven men were lined up on the top and they all had ropes around their necks. There were also several Union guards and an officer staring at him from on high.

“What is the meaning of this? The camp is closed to all outside personnel.”

“You come down from there, you dirty son of a—”

“Sergeant Major!” Thomas said, not too loud. Dugan looked put out and disgusted.

“Who is in command here?” John Henry asked as he stepped from the saddle once more.

“I am in command, and who, may I ask, are you, sir?”

“Come down here and report, Mister,” John Henry said, loud enough that all of the camp heard, even those prisoners lined up to witness the executions. The colonel’s eyes roamed over the seven men about to be hanged. One was being supported on shaky feet by a younger man. John Henry immediately recognized who he was looking at and became furious. He waited as the major who was overseeing this punishment descended from the scaffolding. John Henry quickly turned to Parnell. “Lieutenant, send a man to Fort Hamilton. I want two companies of armed marines here immediately.”

“Aye, sir,” Parnell said as he gave the order to one of his men, who was more than happy to leave the stinking interior of the prison.

The Union officer in immaculate dress came down and stood before Thomas, refusing to salute him.

“Sir, while you are in my prison, I must inform you that there is no higher authority than mine, and this punishment is being carried out in accordance with camp procedure and military law.”

John Henry remained looking at the man on the scaffold being supported by two of his own. He appeared only semi-conscious. “Sergeant Major, check on those bodies, please.”

Dugan quickly dismounted and went to the long line of men who were lying in the stinking mud of the camp. He leaned over the first few.

“Shot in the back.” He moved the brown and mud-caked hair of a young Confederate soldier. “Also shot once in the back of the head.” He straightened. “Over half of these men were murdered, Colonel. Looks like they were shot from behind, and those that didn’t die right off were executed,” Dugan said as he took in the spit-and-polished officer who was arrogantly staring at Thomas and his men. The sergeant took a menacing step toward the first guard he noticed was standing too close. The man backed away three steps. Dugan smiled and then spit a long stream of tobacco juice from his bearded face. “That’s about what I thought, you bunch of heroes.”

The marines under the command of Thomas could not believe what they were seeing. The blood from the dead men mixed with the mud produced by the storm the night before, and the sight made them sick to their stomachs.

John Henry handed his reins to the closest marine, and then placed a hand on Major Freeman’s shoulder and pushed him brutally away. The major backpedaled and then fell backward into the mud. This brought cheers from the starving men lined up to watch the hanging. As for Freeman, he was stunned to the point he couldn’t talk.

“Lieutenant Parnell, this man is to be placed under arrest.” Thomas didn’t wait. He made his way to the scaffolding. “Relieve all noncommissioned officers of sidearms and keys. They are also under arrest.”

With a smile Parnell jumped to attention. “Yes, sir!” he said, giving the army salutation instead of the navy way.

Thomas walked up the stairs slowly. Gray Dog was right behind him. The Comanche didn’t understand fully what was happening, but he saw the intense sorrow on John Henry’s face and knew that his friend and protector had been deeply saddened.

“Cut these men loose,” he said to Gray Dog, and then moved as quickly as he could toward the first man in line, who was being held up by a private in a butternut-colored jacket.

“Those men were wearing Union blue during their escape attempt, and their commanding officer was caught inside the headquarters gathering intelligence. Thus they are being hung as spies, so you have no right to interfere with—”

Dugan lightly rapped the major on the top of his head with his Colt. “Hush now,” he said as Freeman grabbed the top of his hat where it was now indented from Dugan’s blow.

“Ow,” was all he could say.

Gray Dog pushed the first guard away rather brutally, sending the man tumbling down the wooden steps to land in the mud below. Another tired and worn cheer erupted from the gathered prisoners. The Comanche started cutting the ropes and releasing the men.

Thomas looked at the boy holding up the officer. He nodded at the boy as John Henry removed the rope from around the man’s neck and then the private’s. He allowed the officer to fall forward and Thomas eased him onto the mud-covered decking of the scaffold. The black hair was blood soaked and the eyes nearly swollen shut. Suddenly the green eyes flashed as the man tried to sit up. “No,” he said in a barely audible whisper. “Not my men, it was me!” This came out a little louder.

“Easy,” John Henry said as he tried in vain to wipe some of the blood away. The green eyes were barely visible through the swelling but John Henry hoped the man could see him nonetheless. The wounded officer raised a hand, took a filthy grip of Thomas’s tunic, and pulled him close. “Hang me, not them.”

“No one is getting hanged today,” he said, as even Gray Dog had stopped to watch the exchange. Thomas removed the grip of the man’s hand and then looked at the face and how it had aged since he had last laid eyes on him.

It had been in Texas in 1861. They had served together chasing Kiowa and Comanche who were raiding frontier farms and ranches along the Brazos and the Cimarron. When the war began, like most of the professional officers at the time, they had said farewell as the war divided the army like nothing before. This man had been called home to Virginia, himself to the Army of the Potomac and Washington. From the looks of things they had both taken a bad road and now were here together again.

“Jessy. Jessy,” he said as quietly as possible.

The eyes tried to open but the swelling kept them mostly closed. The green eyes, bloodshot through and through, opened as best as they could. They focused on the clean-shaven face before them.

“John … Henry … Thomas,” Taylor whispered, and then the eyes closed.

Thomas laid Taylor’s head down and then stood to face the men below.

“This prison is now mine.” He saw the arrival of fifty U.S. Marines as they entered the post at a rapid pace and in formation. They split off as if on cue to cover not the prisoners, but their guards, who started to lay down their weapons in the mud. The bayonet points looked very menacing. These were not unarmed and defenseless prisoners — these were marines and they looked the part. Thomas then looked down at the major, who was still holding his head where Dugan had tapped him.

“This action is illegal,” was all he said.

“Sergeant Major, place this officer into submission, and you do not have to be gentle about it,” he said as his eyes grew with the fire he was feeling in his gut. “Place him in irons and then have the marines escort him to Fort Hamilton. The same for the noncoms. For now, allow that ladies’ group in to care for these men, make sure they are fed.” Thomas stood and then pulled Dugan in close. He looked at the lined-up bodies of Confederate murdered lying in the mud and grime of the parade ground. “And get one of these marines to get the New York Herald over here before officialdom takes charge. People need to know about this.”

“Still won’t be a lot of sympathy for the Rebs, you know that. Our boys fare far worse down south.”

“Do as ordered, and make sure those ladies are forewarned of what they will encounter this side of the gate. Is that clear?”

“It sure is, Colonel Darlin’.”

“You don’t have that authority,” protested Freeman. “I was appointed by General McClellan himself.”

John Henry knew the letters tucked inside his tunic at that moment made him the most powerful man outside of the White House. Instead of telling the major the predicament he was in, he watched as Gray Dog with the help of two marines assisted Lieutenant Colonel Taylor from the scaffolding.

Thomas’s second-in-command might not see the sun set that day.

Claire had been sleepless since the meeting the night before had broken up and she and Professor Ollafson were escorted to the Willard Hotel. While lying awake in her room she had heard sounds in the hallway outside her door. When she cracked it open she spied Colonel John Henry Thomas, a gruff little man in sergeant’s stripes, and a third man dressed in leather leggings and a purple shirt walking down the empty hall toward the stairs.

Throughout the sleepless night she had deep and disturbing thoughts about the artifacts Ollafson had surprised everyone with that night. The images of the Angelic symbols flew through her mind and each vision gave her uncontrollable chills. It was as her mother used to say about a goose walking on one’s grave.

After her futile hours chasing sleep, Claire ended up in the hotel’s dining area. She had just finished her morning tea and was about to make her way back to her room when she saw a familiar face staring at her from the corner of the room. The brazenness of the man never ceased to amaze her. The French master spy was sitting in the dining room with no more fear than a man would have at his own breakfast table. Their eyes only met for a moment before Claire left the dining room.

Madame Claire had been in her room less than five minutes before the light knock sounded on the door. She knew the game she played was the most dangerous in the world. She removed her long, sharp hatpin, took a deep breath, and then made her way to the door and cracked it open an inch, making ready her hatpin weapon.

“Are you going to wait until I am discovered lurking in the hallway like a forlorn lover?”

Claire swallowed when the man spoke in his unfettered and unaccented English. She opened the door and stepped back to allow the Frenchman in.

Paul Renaud walked toward the desk and then tossed his hat on its polished surface. “Generals, generals, generals everywhere. They ply the waters of Washington like a grouping of sharks smelling blood.” He smiled. “Each one wants to become the next man in charge.”

Claire closed and then locked the door. “I suspect that Mr. Lincoln may have found the right man in this General Grant. I believe he may make short work of the South. The president seems to like him very much.”

“Speaking of the apple of the president’s eye, what have you learned about our colonel from the west?” he asked as he made his way to the sofa and then sat. He touched the material and grimaced as he rubbed his fingers together with a sour face. The Willard was not exactly the Knickerbocker Hotel in Manhattan.

Claire slowly pulled the light blue gloves from her hands and then tossed them on the bed with her unpacked luggage. She took a deep breath and then made her report.

“The man, unlike most military professionals, keeps his private opinions to himself, so that makes him a very hard read. But you can tell the president trusts him like no other, even his closest advisors.”

Renaud looked curious. “And why is that, do you think?”

“From what I could learn, this Colonel Thomas has been associated with Mr. Lincoln for nearly fifteen years. The army and the railroads assigned him to be Lincoln’s personal bodyguard during the president’s legal days when he represented the railroads in several hard-hitting litigations. From what I hear they are extremely close. So close that Lincoln actually intervened when Thomas faced a general court-martial on charges of dereliction of duty and disobeying a direct order of the commanding general at Antietam.”

“Yes, I seem to have read something about that when last in Paris. I understand that caused a rift between General McClellan and the president.”

Claire turned and wanted to smile at the small man but stopped herself. It seemed she knew something he didn’t. “No, the rift between McClellan and the president is a little deeper than that. Thomas was on the fast track for a star on his shoulder-boards before the incident. Who knows, maybe even eventual command of the Union forces? Lincoln has that much confidence in John Henry Thomas.”

“All right, they have their man and now we have him. Now, you and the professor, are you in on the expedition?”

Claire walked to the credenza and poured herself a glass of water. She feigned taking a drink and then turned to face the most dangerous man she had ever met. That was when the thought struck her. It had come to her only a half hour since she had seen Angelic Script on the petrified wood. She shuddered as the image of the symbols blazed into her mind.

She mentally shook herself and then halfheartedly smiled. “Yes, we are in. From what I understand we will depart without much notice and at the colonel’s discretion.”

“Excellent. I need the names of all naval vessels involved.”

“I don’t have that information.”

“Obtain it, Madame.”

“That you will have to do on your own. I haven’t the time.”

He laughed as he stood and placed his expensive hat on his head. “I also do not have the time. You see, I must pack because I am now a part of the team.” He held a fist halfway up in mocking gesture of a cheer. “I am replacing the student that came up mysteriously dead in New York.”

“Is that why you murdered that boy? Just to gain passage?”

“I am just taking advantage of an accidental death,” he said, his eyes sparkling as he opened the door and then paused. “It was nothing to get a letter of introduction to Ollafson from Harvard, as you know we have many high-placed officials ensconced there.” Again he smiled, and then he left.

Claire turned and faced her unpacked luggage and then went to the door. She had to stop to clear the images of the professor’s symbols from her head. She didn’t let Renaud know about what she had discovered or what Ollafson had held back from her. She had her reasons, none of which coincided with the fact that Renaud might not be the most proficient killer on this trip after all. She suspected something on that mountain may be even better at it, and Ollafson had actually seen it in action.

Claire went to the hallway and then took the stairs down a flight. She cautiously walked the corridor until she came to the right room and rapped her small knuckles against the door. It opened and she stepped through. The man was wearing his uniform. She thought maybe the arrogant bastard slept in it, but that was as far as she would allow her private thoughts to go when she thought of the man before her.

“Wonderful, you weren’t arrested after all.” The British Army officer closed the door. “So, the meeting with the president went well, I take it? You and Ollafson will be included?”

Claire appraised the blond Englishman. Captain Steven McDonald, British Army Intelligence, was chipper of mood as he waited for her answer. The man who had couriered Her Majesty’s wishes overseas stood and waited with that irritating smile he had.

“Yes, but I am afraid we are not the only ones included on the passenger manifest, Captain.”

“And just what does that mean?” he asked as he gestured that she should sit.

She ignored his hospitality and turned to face him.

“Our friend Renaud will also be going. He will be attached to the professor and myself as an assistant.”

“A very dangerous game he is playing,” McDonald said as he placed a hand to his chin and started pacing.

“It is also a dangerous game I also find myself in, Captain.”

McDonald stopped pacing and smiled. The man’s Scottish aristocracy came through at these moments of levity and she hated him even more for it.

“Such is the life of a double agent. But you will also have the company of one who will watch over you.” He smiled as he took in her beauty. “I am also included on the crew’s manifest.”

Claire was shocked. “You?”

The smile remained. “Yes, you are not the only persuasive one. I am to be included as Ollafson’s personal secretary. Hired just this morning by your dear employer when he requested a diarist from his old department at Harvard.”

Claire watched as the captain turned and opened the door for her. He smiled again. “My dear, it will be reported to Her Majesty that you have done an excellent job of infiltrating the French spy ring here in America. She will be most grateful.”

Claire was in shock as she left the room. Was every spy in the western world going on this expedition? For the first time since becoming an agent for both France and England, Madame Richelieu was beginning to think she was as insane as the rest of them.

6

John Henry watched Jessy’s eyes as they fluttered open. It had been three hours since he had taken over the prisoner-of-war camp at Lafayette. The U.S. Marines were now in control. The prisoners would get better treatment, at least for the time being.

The colonel knew he didn’t have much time to do what needed doing. He looked to the corner of the darkened room and saw Gray Dog praying to his ancestors. John Henry didn’t know if the prayers were for them, the Reb colonel, or something else. He never asked Gray Dog about his praying habits.

Thomas removed the wet cloth from Jessy’s forehead and then stood and removed his double-breasted tunic. The cottony white shirt was already soaked through in perspiration. He tossed the coat on the floor, adjusted the suspenders, and then leaned over his old friend and classmate.

“I would have sworn old Jeb would have had you shot by now,” he mumbled as he applied another cloth to the back of Taylor’s head.

Thus far there had not been much of a stir at Fort Hamilton as far as the takeover of the prison was concerned. A simple and very brief telegram from the war department had seen to the quick and thus far quiet transition. The letter from the president bearing his signature had had the desired effect on the marine major manning Fort Hamilton.

“Maybe he didn’t have me shot, but he sure as hell … left my ass in the bushes a week before Gettysburg.”

John Henry smiled as he heard the softly spoken words.

“Yeah, that’s the Jeb Stuart I know. Great tactician, terrible friend.”

Taylor finally managed to open one eye as he took in Thomas. Then with a curious look he turned his head to the right when he heard the soft humming and chanting coming from the dark corner. He managed to focus momentarily on Gray Dog and then his head fell back.

“I see you still associate … with … the … very best … families.”

John Henry laughed as Taylor regained some of his old self.

“Actually, you were the one that found his family massacred in ’58. He’s been with me ever since.” He looked at Gray Dog, who had stopped praying and was watching the two old friends.

“Long time ago,” Taylor said as he tried to sit up. “My … my men?” he asked when he found he couldn’t come to a sitting position on the small bed. He lay back down and rubbed the bridge of his nose, where behind the skin and bone there was a little devil hammering his brain to pieces.

John Henry looked at his bearded old comrade. Taylor had aged since leaving Texas four years before. The gray in his beard was testament to the fact that he had seen some hard fighting in Stuart’s cavalry. Now he had to tell his friend about his murdered men, which would not sit well with Taylor, especially for what he had to tell him about his immediate future. He reached down and retrieved his coat from the floor. He produced a handwritten letter and then opened it.

“Twenty-two dead, sixteen wounded.”

“Ezra?” Taylor asked as his arm immediately covered his battered face.

Thomas looked at the notes he had hand-delivered from Lafayette only thirty minutes before.

“By Ezra, do you mean Sergeant Major McCandless?”

Taylor didn’t respond, only waited.

“Dead.”

The arm came away as Taylor’s eyes glared at his old friend. The one open eye was filled with splotches of blood from the concussion he had sustained at the hands of Major Freeman.

“Sons of bitches,” he hissed.

Thomas folded the report and then laid it beside Taylor. He nodded his head. “I suspect that we are. All of us.”

Taylor closed his eye. “What in the hell are you doing here?” Taylor asked as his chest heaved silently and his tears soaked into the muddy blue coat he was still wearing.

“The man that did this will never harm anyone again. He may have influential people backing him, but so do I. I suspect he will get off of the murder charges, but his professional career as an officer is over. Secretary Stanton said he would see to it. But to be frank, Jessy, things are only going to get worse for all prisoners, North and South, if this damnable war doesn’t end soon.”

“He’ll get away with it until I catch him and kill him,” Taylor said as he finally lowered the arm and took in Thomas.

John Henry watched Taylor closely. Even Gray Dog was interested in what was being said.

“When the time comes, I’ll hold him while you use that famous knife of yours to convince him of the errors of his ways.”

“Lost that damn knife at Fredericksburg.”

“I think we can come up with something, Colonel.”

“The rest of my men?” Taylor asked, his voice somewhat stronger than a moment before. He reached over and found the report John Henry had tossed next to him and he fought against the darkness of the room with his one good eye to see the names of the dead.

“Being fed and cleaned as we speak. The ladies’ auxiliary for Fair and Ethical Treatment of Prisoners has taken over the care of your men, at least until the army gets over their initial shock at having their little secret out in the open.”

“Now,” Taylor said as he placed the report to the side and tried to sit up once again. This time with the help of John Henry he managed to come to a sitting position. “Why are you here, just out to enjoy the wonders of prison camp treatment?” Taylor felt the swelling around his head and grimaced when he touched a sensitive spot.

“I have a letter for you.”

“You came all the way here to give me a letter?” Taylor laughed out loud and then immediately regretted it. He winced as he grabbed the side of his head. This was immensely funny to Gray Dog, who smiled from his corner. “I know that look, John Henry. It’s the same one you were wearing when we filled the commandant’s office at West Point with duck feathers as a senior prank.”

“Well, while not on that epic scale, it is pretty good. I have been laughing since one o’clock this morning. Laughed all the way from Washington. I would never have believed the creative way both of our high commands have come up with killing us.”

The blank look on Taylor’s face said in no uncertain terms that Thomas was crazier than when he was but a schoolboy.

A knock sounded on the door and John Henry opened it. A man in a blood-stained white coat with frazzled gray hair was there.

“Doctor Halverson. Are you Colonel Thomas?” he asked as he peeked into the room and saw Gray Dog sitting on the bare wooden floor. He blinked and then his eyes spied Taylor. The doctor pushed past Thomas and went to the wounded man. “I have just come from Lafayette. I am the doctor here at Fort Hamilton and I have been treating the Rebel prisoners. Malnutrition for the most part. But there has been brutality there.” He turned and with his eyes looking over his round spectacles he said to Thomas, “That should be looked into.” He turned and raised the swollen eye of Taylor and then shook his head. “Boy, they really laid into you.”

“They had their fun,” Taylor said.

The doctor straightened and then frantically felt around his white coat and the jacket underneath. He took a deep breath when he found what he was looking for. He pulled out a folded telegram and held it out to John Henry.

“A rather boorish and foul-mouthed little sergeant major asked me to relay this to you. It just arrived from the telegraph office.”

John Henry unfolded the telegram and read.

“Doctor, how many of the prisoners are healthy enough for travel?” he asked as he placed the telegram in his pants pocket and then removed a watch and noted the late hour.

“None. I said they were malnourished, Colonel. If not fed a healthy diet soon they will not be able to walk, much less travel.”

“Doctor, if fed properly for three weeks will they regain their strength?”

“Possibly. I can’t say for sure. These prisoners are all former cavalrymen. They are strong, but I can make no guarantees.”

“Good enough. Please get a complete roster of Colonel Taylor’s healthiest soldiers to that foul-mouthed sergeant major you met. Tell him we move out tonight. I also need ten wagons and the marine detail that was assigned to me earlier.”

“My men aren’t traveling anywhere. What is the meaning of this, John Henry?” Taylor asked as he saw the astonished look on the doctor’s red face.

Thomas finally held out the letter he had brought in to show Taylor. He opened and then folded the note until only the bottom portion was showing. He held it close to Taylor so he could see it in the dim lamp.

“Do you recognize this signature and seal?” John Henry smiled. “You should. You probably received enough signed orders from him the last three years.”

Jessy Taylor’s eyes remained on Thomas’s for the longest time. Then his one good eye strayed to the letter and the signature that was verified by the wax seal. The good eye widened. John Henry smiled and then asked the doctor to step from the room. He then unfolded the letter and gave it to Taylor, who read it with suspicion. Thomas pulled another letter out of his uniform jacket. As he watched, Taylor’s mouth went slightly ajar. Then he looked at Thomas as if he had lost his mind.

“That’s not the only madman’s signature, Jessy. Here’s another one you know.” He held out a second letter but didn’t divulge its contents, only the name. The two names would be floating in front of Taylor’s eyes even after he closed them fifty years later.

And then on the second letter’s lower half was the second signature that completed the madness:

The horse-drawn trolley allowed John Henry the time to think. As he stared out at the busy streets of Brooklyn and the bustling activity near the navy yard, he knew that his old friend and West Point classmate Jessup Taylor was near the end. He could see it in his face and hear it in his words. Gone was the prankster, the man who bought every round but never seemed to pay for it at the end of the night. He was not only worried about Taylor, but the men of his command. He still didn’t have any idea who was to accompany him other than the few Confederate soldiers deemed healthy enough to withstand the voyage. This was definitely an army plan.

The bell rang as the trolley pulled up to the navy yard. The guard shack was well manned as he stepped from the car. He was saluted by a naval rate and then passed through after showing his card and orders. A two-man navy escort went with him and guided him through the maze of dry docks and buildings until he reached a slip that was covered in a tarpaulin as large as the roof covering the Hippodrome in Manhattan. He looked around and saw civilian workers entering and exiting the dry-dock area.

“This is as far as we can go, sir,” the petty officer said as he and his companion spun on their heels and left the area.

“Colonel Thomas?” came the accented English from behind John Henry.

He turned and saw a small man with pure white hair. He was wearing civilian clothes and looked angry. The little man’s face seemed familiar.

“Yes, I am Thomas,” he answered finally.

“What you see before you is your cover story.” The man gestured toward the giant tarpaulin. “It is meant to give the Turks something to see as far as a railway is concerned.” They stepped up to a smaller guard shack and saw a rather large marine standing before it with a menacing Spencer carbine at port arms. He didn’t look friendly. The small man’s accent was strange, and it was one Thomas had heard recently. “It is basically a large barge, capable of seagoing travel. Very stable. It will hold several thousand tons of railway ties and rail. Even for a locomotive, however, looks can be deceiving, Colonel.”

John Henry stepped through the tarp’s opening and was stunned at what he was looking at. Yes, there were railroad ties and rails going into the hold of the giant ship-shaped vessel. But it was what the railroad equipment was hiding that made Thomas’s eyes widen.

“May I present to you, Colonel Thomas, your ace in the hole if you ever need it. This is the sail barge U.S.S. Argo.”

“I see you are a man of the classics, sir,” Thomas asked, referring to the name of the ship before him.

“Yes, the Argo was the vessel Homer listed in his classic tome about Jason and his amazing Argonauts.” He looked at John Henry and his smile widened. “Fitting name, do you not think?”

John Henry didn’t answer. Instead he looked from the barge and its amazing contents back to the man who was smiling and rocking on his heels as if he were a proud parent looking at a newborn son. He finally recognized the face with the long sideburns he had seen in the eastern newspapers. The man was famous. And it wasn’t the same accent of Professor Ollafson he had heard the night before. It was another, close but not the same. He was hearing a Swedish accent and the name he was searching for was a naval engineer’s name: John Ericsson, a name most of the world was familiar with since he’d come on the scene two years before, when a battle that changed the world took place off the Carolina coast. That little fight, if John Henry remembered correctly, was one called the battle of Hampton Roads. The man before him was the designer of the Union ironclad, U.S.S. Monitor.

“I wish I were going with you, sir,” Ericsson said as he continued to smile and rock on his heels.

“Believe me, sir, you do not.”

“Nonetheless, Colonel, an adventure looms in your future and I so wish…” The engineer turned toward Thomas and then smiled with mild embarrassment. “Just an old fool planning ways to beat the gods at their own game. Anyway, I will be traveling with you to Baltimore where you will see the other three ships of your armada.”

“Armada?”

Ericsson laughed and then closed the tented tarp. “The sail barge will be towed to Cape Hatteras, where the four vessels will rendezvous. From there your journey begins in earnest.”

“Mr. Ericsson, do you have any idea what all this work was for?”

“Yes, yes I do, Colonel Thomas.” The man’s eyes were alight with passion.

“And your belief in—”

“Does it matter what one’s beliefs are, Colonel Thomas? What is a worthier goal in life, fulfilling this mission of discovery, even if nothing is discovered, or using my inventions to kill other men?”

Thomas watched the crazed man in whom Lincoln had such a firm belief. By all accounts the mad little Swede was insane at the least and a genius at the most.

“No, Colonel, this mission is the only mission. To die in an attempt is so much more desirable than taking a bullet from a brother, wouldn’t you think, sir?”

For the first time John Henry was going to show a hole card in his personality. He raised his dark eyebrows and his blue eyes blazed at the smaller man.

“I have found dying is dying. It doesn’t matter to the dead what the cause was, all he knows is that he’s dead and would much rather have been alive and bypassed all of this so-called glory.”

Ericsson did not take offense. He nodded his head. “I think the world would be a better place to live in, Colonel, if there were more professional soldiers such as yourself. But until that day arrives, I will keep building my little wonders to stop those men who do not think as you and I. Now, shall we go?”

Thomas watched the man walk away with a light step. He closed his eyes and then opened them to see the giant tented tarp and wondered just what in the hell he was to do with Ericsson’s gift. He looked up and saw a skeletal locomotive being loaded onto the three-hundred-foot barge.

As Thomas watched the activity at the navy yard he turned away and saw the sun lowering in the eastern sky and wondered what was waiting for his little madcap expedition over that horizon.

As he watched, the cloud formation of billowing fluff made the shape of a huge mountain with its peak rising to the sky. The sun cast an angry glow to the image and then the shape vanished as if he had been seeing things.

Out there the mountain waited.