Antebellum BK 1 (53 page)

“
If you’re hungry, there’s a plate for you in the kitchen. It may need warming. The fire’s probably burned down by now. Mrs. Keller’s asleep.”

Anna poured a glass of wine and sat down beside Nancy. “What’s the matter?”

“
Nothing. I’m bored.”

“
Where’s Robert?”

“
On his way to St. Louis to see an old friend from the army.”

“
Who?”

Nancy shook her head. “Something Grant. Sam, I think he said.”

“
Doesn’t ring a bell. Were your ears burning earlier?”

“
Why? Were you talking about me?”

“
My former boss says you’re a looker,” Anna giggled.

“
What’s a looker?”

“
From the context I presumed it to mean attractive.”

“
How did my appearance become a subject of discussion between you and your former boss?”

“
He tried to pay me a compliment about my looking young for my age.”

“
In other words, he tried to get you in bed.”

“
I wish.”

“
What happened to that lawyer you were seeing? Francis Scott Key’s son. Phillip is it?”

Anna nodded. “My old standby.”

“
Is he still available?”

“
He’s always available.” Anna smiled. “To any woman this side of the grave.”

“
Get a hook in him.”

“
He’s also married.”

“
Oh, that’s no good.”

“
There’s a pool in DC betting whether his wife, a jilted mistress or an irate husband will be the first to shoot him,” Anna giggled.

“
Forget I mentioned him. We’ll have to find you an unattached stud.”

“
The older I get the less important the sex becomes, yet I seem to need male companionship more. Odd, isn’t it?”

“
I don’t know. To me the sex is better than ever.”

“
Eww. I don’t want that mental image of you and my brother, thank you.”

“
Jack didn’t seem troubled by it,” Nancy said with a giggle.

“
What?”

“
When Robert and I were on our so-called honeymoon, Jack was in the next room at the Free-State Hotel. It turns out that the walls are paper thin. I was a bit vocal on numerous amorous occasions.”

Anna laughed out loud. “It serves him right. Jack and his first wife, Caroline, used to rock the rafters when they visited here for Christmas.”

Nancy looked puzzled. “Something about being here, or were they always like that?”

“
I think it was just the freedom of having somebody else watching their children.” Anna shook her head sadly. “Do you remember Little John?”

“
Yes. Jack brought them down from Buffalo. I think it was the Easter before they died.”

“
That was the sweetest little boy. It almost broke Dad’s heart when he died.”

“
I remember. Your father never seemed to regain his sense of humor after that.”

“
I think Uncle Thomas died and Aunt Nanette left for France at almost the same time.”

“
Does anyone ever hear from her? Is she still alive?”

“
Aunt Nan? Yes, she’s ninety-eight and still alive. She lives in Paris, under a cloud of suspicion. Poor soul.”

“
Poor soul?” Nancy laughed. “I think by now we can safely say that she’s gotten away with murder.”

“
What makes you so sure she’s guilty?”

“
Everyone knew that she’d vowed to kill Banastre Tarleton and then, by coincidence, she just happened to be in Leintwardine, England on the day he died from some exotic poison? Please. Who ever heard of Leintwardine, let alone visited the place on a whim?”

“
I’ve never been able to reconcile the image of that sweet little old lady with the cutthroat that she was supposed to have been during the Revolution or the cold-blooded murderess afterward.”

“
She always had a hard edge on her.”

“
Did she?”

“
She intimidated your mother. Who else could make that claim?”

Anna tipped her head to the side. “Now that you mention it.”

September 18, 1856

Near St. Louis, Missouri

R
obert Van Buskirk climbed the steps of the battered stoop and knocked on the screen door.

“
Hello, Robert.” Julia Grant appeared behind the screen. Because her right eye roamed, she always stood with her head turned to the right, looking at the world through her stable left eye and presenting herself in profile.

“
Hello, Julia,” Robert said cheerfully. “Is Sam here?”

“
Yes. Did you come to collect a debt?”

“
Me? No. In fact I came to pay one.”

“
To Dudy?” she asked in surprise.

“
Yes. He loaned me five hundred dollars on the day that Mexico City fell. I’d completely forgotten about it until my new wife came across the IOU last week. You heard I was married?”

“
Indeed. Congratulations,” she said.

“
I’m embarrassed that it’s taken so long to repay the money. You see, my father had just died and I was badly distracted at the time.”

During Robert’s speech, Julia’s husband, Ulysses, had appeared in the shadows behind her. Now he stepped forward and pushed open the screen door. “Come in, Professor, come in. I’m happy to see you.”

Robert shook Grant’s hand but stayed on the stoop. “If Julia will be so kind as to excuse us, I’m not used to spending so much time in the saddle and need to walk the kinks out.”

“
Of course.” Grant walked out and followed Robert down the steps. “I heard that lie you were telling my wife.”

Robert looked back to see if Julia might have heard and was relieved to see that she was gone. “It wasn’t a lie. It was a small stretch of the truth.”

“
I loaned you five hundred pesos to buy two identical burial urns, not dollars. And Jack paid me back the next day. Or Thomas. I’m not sure which now, but I was repaid.”

Robert shrugged. “So I mixed up a few facts. Who cares?”

“
I heard what happened to you in Kansas. Damn politics have ruined the Army.”

“
I used my authority to help a family member. They had grounds.”

“
They had grounds to slap you on the wrist,” Grant agreed, “but not to dismiss you from the Army. The War Department’s filled with pro-slavers and they were out to get you. The scum.”

“
Don’t you own slaves?”

“
No. My father-in-law does. I work them, try to treat them like humans, and pretend that I don’t hate myself for it.”

“
So this is Hardscrabble farm?” Robert said to change the subject.

“
Yes. Quite a sight, isn’t it?”

“
I had some difficulty finding you. I was first told that you moved away from here after Julia’s mother died.”

“
We did. I still run this place and Julia’s father’s place. I had to come here to see to the harvest and Julia decided to come with me. I don’t know why. She hates this place more than I do.”

Robert handed him an envelope. “There’s a bank draft in there for five hundred dollars and a line of credit for five thousand. You can draw on the credit line as you wish. Julia need not know that it exists.”

“
I can’t accept this, Robert.”

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Why not?”

“
Look at this place. Is there any way that it could earn enough to pay you back?”

“
War’s coming, Sam. Within a few years you’ll be drawing colonel or general’s pay.”

“
They’ll never take me back. I have the reputation of a drinker.”

“
You have the reputation of a drunk, which is only partly true. The whole truth is, you’re a cheap drunk. I’ve seen you in a stupor after a single shot of whiskey.”

Grant chuckled. “True. And I welcome the quick oblivion, but the consequences are hard.”

“
Stay away from whiskey and you’ll redeem yourself when the war comes.”

Grant looked pensive. “Civil war in America. I’d feel very guilty hoping for it.”

“
Don’t feel guilty. Nobody can stop it. In fact, the war’s already started in Bleeding Kansas. The rest of the country just hasn’t realized it yet.”

Grant bent to pick up a stick, took out his pocket knife and began whittling as they walked. “Do you really think they’ll give me a command?”

“
Let me put it this way. When the war starts, the Pro-Slavery, field-grade officers will all be going south. That pretty much guarantees that I’ll be able to get a brigade or a regiment. If you can’t get a command on your own, I’ll give you one.”

“
Why would you do that?”

Robert shrugged. “You’re a natural leader and I’ve never known anyone that could envision a battlefield the way you can. It’s a true gift that you have.”

Grant looked thoughtful. “If you’re right, I suppose it would be a good idea, politically, to distance myself from my father-in-law as soon as possible.”

“
What would you do then?”

Grant shrugged. “I don’t know. Work for my father selling harnesses, I suppose. But working two farms with his slaves makes me feel like a hypocrite.”

“
I can’t advise you on that, Sam.”

“
I know.” He looked around at the fields. “I didn’t want to go to West Point but after I was out in the field with troops behind me, I thought I’d found my calling. I’m no longer sure that I have a calling.”

“
Yes you do. Like me, you’re a soldier.”

“
Some soldiers we are.”

Robert smiled. “We will be again. If you get a command first, please don’t forget me.”

“
Of course not. Unlikely as that is.”

March 8, 1857

Washington, D.C.

P
resident James
Buchanan did not look up or rise from his desk when Anna Van Buskirk was ushered in. “I found your recent feature article to be both insulting and distasteful,” he said as the outer door closed.

“
Was it inaccurate?” Anna stood near the door, waiting for an invitation to sit.

He met her eyes now. “It was misleading. You were accurate in stating that I wrote to Associate Justice John Catron before the inauguration but the implication that I tried to influence the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott versus Sanford decision was untrue.”

“
It’s a matter of public record that in your inaugural address you said that the slavery question would ‘be speedily and finally settled’ by the Supreme Court. You would have no way of knowing that unless you had some communication from someone like Chief Justice Taney.”

He sat back in his chair and folded his hands across his chest. “Conversations between the Judicial and Executive branches of Government are not illegal.”

She put her hand on the door handle. “Is that all that you called me here to say?”

“
No. I called you here to warn you that the press is not beyond the reach of the law.”

“
Sue me,” she said angrily. “Sue the paper. We’d welcome the opportunity to show the Country how you tampered with the basic premise of separation of powers. The Dred Scott decision will almost surely set the North against the South. What kind of President would foist civil war upon his country? You, sir, are a disgrace to the office and to humanity.”

Buchanan came to his feet. His face above his high starched collar was nearly purple. “You cannot speak to me that way.”

“
I still have freedom of speech, and as long as I have it I will do my absolute best to shine a very bright light on you, Mr. President.”