The Warriors (39 page)

Michael knew what Jephtha meant. The Omaha and St. Louis papers had told him a war of quite a different sort had been under way in the capital almost since the hour the bells tolled Lincoln’s death. Some of the more extreme Republicans had supposedly hailed the assassination as a godsend, assuming the new President would throw Lincoln’s Reconstruction plans into the dustbin and take a harder line.

They’d gotten a shock when Johnson began to implement policies dating all the way back to an 1863 formula for establishing new Southern governments after the war. At that time Lincoln had been willing to grant executive recognition to rebel states in which ten percent of the eligible voters of 1860 took an oath of loyalty and agreed to support emancipation.

No such easy terms would satisfy the Republican extremists any longer. As a result they were at war not only with the President and the Democrats but with the more conservative members of their own party; a fierce and bitter war rooted in a fundamental dispute over the nature of the four-year military struggle.

In the papers, old Thad Stevens, the cynical and vituperative leader of the House’s radical wing, constantly referred to the seceded states as “conquered provinces” whose future condition depended on “the will of the conqueror.”

Johnson’s position, and that of the more moderate Republicans, was simply that the Southern states had never seceded because it was impossible for them to do so under the Constitution. They were still states, to be dealt with accordingly. Jephtha mentioned Stevens.

Though in his seventies, he possesses the unrelenting energy—and savagery—of a man half his age. He busies about Washington with his queer black wig askew and his club foot dragging, never bothering to deny press accounts of his liaison up in Lancaster with his mulatto housekeeper, Lydia Smith. He is aligning his forces for the coming battle to determine whether the President or the Congress shall dictate Reconstruction policy.

Michael’s mouth quirked in distaste as he drew smoke from the pipe, exhaled, and let the fragrance of the tobacco mask some of the fetid smell of the deserted car. Outside he heard a whoop from the direction of Dorn’s wagon. He reminded himself that he owed Christian a visit as soon as he finished reading.

I do not believe Louis has joined the Stevens’ wing from humanitarian motives. He would be the last to welcome freed blacks at his dining table, no matter how much he prates about the wisdom of universal suffrage. I imagine he only sees the potential for power—the deliberate and pitiless manipulation of human beings that could assure Republican supremacy for years to come. No doubt he has allied himself with the cause in order to be on the winning side. The taint has crept even into our family.

Thus the war goes on. Different from the last, but no less furious. You would be appalled by the actions of politicians in both camps as they seek to influence public opinion by enlisting the support of popular war heroes. How ardently both sides court Grant!—though Johnson appears to have him in his pocket for the moment.

Second only to the supreme commander is Custer, the “boy general. “ His chief military talent seems to have been the ability to commit huge numbers of men to slaughter in order to secure commendations for himself and advance his career.

Yet he remains overwhelmingly popular. He was here late in March, attending lavish dinners at the Manhattan Club, and was constantly in the company of Democrats. He himself belonged to the McClellan clique whose political views divided and nearly destroyed the Army of the Potomac for a time, just as surely as did McClellan’s own vacillations and presidential ambitions.

The Republicans, it is said, would like Custer in their camp—and never mind his views about the fitness of blacks for citizenship. On the subject of permitting Negros to vote, Custer is fond of stating he’d “as soon think of elevating an Indian Chief to the Popedom of Rome.” Can you doubt that the aim of some Republicans is not justice throughout the land, but absolute rule by their party?

Everywhere, in fact, there is much to dismay men of conscience. Davis is still in prison at Fort Monroe, facing indictment for treason. Lee—honorable, misguided Lee whom I also saw in Lexington at the time of Fan’s funeral—is eking out a living as president of Washington College. Good neighbors who know his straits send bags of walnuts, potatoes, and pickles to his household table while Northern newspapers vilify him as a “sinister conspirator”—this proud, torn, Christian man who refused a plea at Appomattox that he give his soldiers leave to take to the hills and woods and continue to fight as partisans. He told them to go home, admit defeat, build new lives. Yet he is labeled “sinister. “ Is this the “malice toward none” of which Lincoln spoke, and which Johnson is struggling to implement?

Still, I am not totally without hope. While the political war rages here in the East, there is a counterbalancing dynamism—a sense of our nation being only moments away from the dawn of a mighty age of expansion, if we can but keep the Union whole. Never, they say, has there been a period of such enormous industrial growth—or such visions of a prosperous, thriving land from sea to sea.

You are part of one of the remarkable enterprises that can bring those visions to reality. The transcontinental railroad will open the West to commerce and settlement in a manner undreamed of even a decade ago. Public land is there for the taking, a hundred and sixty acres of it available to any man, thanks to the Homestead Act.

Though we live in a troubled time, it is also a time of promise. I try to believe a spirit of healing, not hatred, will prevail. I try to have faith that even the schemes of a rapacious new class of moguls who care nothing for the human lives they exploit to see their factories prosper—yes, and their railroads built—will, in the end, yield blessings we cannot imagine.

Michael, forgive this long discourse written late at night. Poor Molly despairs of my nocturnal panderings and scribblings. But there are not many others with whom I can share my deepest thoughts.

I wish you good health and success in your courageous venture in a part of the country foreign to you. From such willingness to strike out in bold new directions was this country born—and, as I recall, the Kent family founded!

Slowly, Michael laid the churchwarden on his belly. He stared at the last sheet in his blistered hand. The paper seemed to fade, replaced by Julia Kent’s blue eyes.

Courage?

Bold new directions?

Jephtha, I’m glad you don’t know all the truth.

With effort, he returned to the brief conclusion.

I look forward to any descriptions you can send of the exciting enterprise in which you are involved. May God bless and protect you. Remember that from this hour, my revised will makes you a bona fide member of the family to which, by word and deed, you have belonged for many years.

Your kinsman, Jephtha

Michael was still touched and overwhelmed by Jephtha’s act of generosity. All at once an idea came to mind. An important idea.

He gathered up the pages, folded them, and slipped both letters beneath his blanket. He jumped down from the bunk and quickly left the car.

Two stragglers were all that remained at the paymaster’s cubicle. Michael fretted impatiently while one received his greenbacks, and the balding clerk noted the wages of the second in a thick ledger. The clerk yawned as Michael stepped to the counter.

“Give me the book containing the B’s, Charlie. And your pen.”

“What is this, Boyle? You’ve already received—”

“I know. But my name isn’t listed properly.”

“What?”

“Just ink your pen and give it to me.”

Annoyed, the clerk handed him the pen, together with another ledger. Michael thumbed the pages. Located the correct line. He slashed a stroke through three words, hoping his dead parents would forgive him for abandoning Aloysius, which they had bestowed. His eyes looked wet as he wrote carefully.

He returned the pen and rotated the ledger so the clerk could read it.

“There. That’s the correct version.”

The clerk peered. “That’s all you wanted? What the hell does it matter if we’ve got your middle name right or wrong? You’re paid the same either way.”

“It matters more than you’ll ever appreciate,” Michael replied softly. “Much more.”

He turned and left while the puzzled clerk studied the drying ink that spelled out
Michael Kent Boyle.

M
ICHAEL STEPPED DOWN FROM
the office car and breathed deeply. The air had turned cool and invigorating. His assortment of aches and bruises seemed less troublesome now.

The dark near the train was relieved by two torches stabbed into the ground at the corners of Gustav Dorn’s whiskey wagon. Dorn himself was dispensing liquor from one of the barrels. He was a short untidy man with a gray-shot beard. His huge belly hung over his belt. He seldom smiled.

At the moment he had at least thirty customers lined up. Each drinker took the dipper from Dorn and swallowed whatever amount he’d bought while those waiting shouted for him to hurry. When the customer had finished, he went to the merchant’s son a few steps away.

The phlegmatic-looking boy was perched on a small box behind a crate. His Hawken lay across his knees. The customer deposited his money on a tin plate lying on the crate. Occasionally the boy had to change a greenback or a coin. The rest of the time he paid no attention to the drinkers, staring out past the nearest torch in a joyless, vacant way.

As Michael walked closer to the wagon, one man who’d evidently passed through the line more than once spilled the contents of his dipper. Those waiting laughed and hooted. Dorn demanded payment. The worker refused.

Beyond the train, a cow lowed. Michael paused by one of the torches to watch the outcome of the dispute. Dorn spoke English badly but got his point across.

“You buy—you pay. Not my fault you sloppy.”

“I’ll be damned if I’ll give ye a cent for somethin’ I never tasted, Dutchie.” There was humor in the customer’s eyes, but testiness in his slurred voice. He wobbled around to get a judgment from those in line. “What d’ye say, lads? Am I fair or not fair?”

“Fair, fair!” a couple of his friends yelled.

Dorn snapped his fingers and barked German at his son. The stolid fat boy raised the Hawken. With a start, Michael saw the hammer was back, ready to fire.

Dorn looked smug as he tapped the customer’s shoulder. The man batted his hand away. Excitedly, the workers in line pointed to the rifle. The drinker saw it and turned pale.

Torchlight shimmered on the Hawken’s thirty-four-inch barrel. The St. Louis-made gun might be a good twenty years old, but at short range it could ruin a man with its .50-caliber ball. Dorn made clear that he intended nothing else.

“Shit with fair, Paddy. You pay. Now. Or my boy, he take the price out of your hide.”

Grumbling, the man dug a hand into his pocket. He clenched his fist around the coin, then raised his hand as if he meant to hit the merchant.

Dorn retreated a step. “Klaus!”

The Hawken jutted forward across the top of the crate.

After another glance at the rifle, the drinker lowered his hand. He gave Dorn the coin.

The little act of extortion finally produced a smile from the merchant. He waved the man aside and brandished the dipper at the fine. “Next fellow! Step lively, hah? Got a business to run here.”

The boy returned the Hawken to his knees, uncocked. Michael shook his head. The East had no monopoly on greed. And if the little scene he had witnessed was typical of the way Dorn conducted his trade, serious trouble was bound to erupt eventually.

He walked by the rear of the line, waving to acquaintances. Out in the dark near the end of the track, a fire of buffalo chips blazed. A group of Paddies sat around it. One started a song on an old concertina.

Michael recognized it instantly: “Corcoran to His Regiment,” sometimes known as “I Would Not Take Parole.” Corcoran had commanded the New York 69th at First Manassas, been captured and imprisoned in Richmond. Paddies by the fire—men who’d never come anywhere near the Irish Brigade but were still proud of its record—bellowed the words.

“Raise the green flag proudly,

Let it wave on high—”

The song conjured memories for Michael—memories of smoke, thundering shells, wounded comrades begging for help as the ranks plunged past them. Bits of terrain he’d seen in Pennsylvania and Virginia—woodlands, hillsides—blended in his imagination like a mural by a deranged artist.

“Liberty and Union

Be your battle cry!”

Sean Murphy lurched to his feet. Fists on his hips, he began to jig while the singers applauded in rhythm.

“Faugh-a-ballagh shout

From your center to your flanks—

And carry death and terror wild

Into the foeman’s ranks!
”

“Faugh-a-ballagh.”
How stirring that Gaelic cry to clear the way had been during the early days, and how sadly futile in the weeks and months after Gettysburg, when the ranks were so disastrously thin.

Michael returned a hail from one of the revelers, declined an invitation to join them, and strode on. He wanted no more fighting—not even in memory.

Yet he’d gotten more of the real thing this very day. The railroaders’ music reminded him of the peace that seemed to elude him. The thrill of Jephtha’s news was all at once blunted by a recollection of Leonidas Worthing.

Quickly, Michael looked behind him. His gaze encompassed torches at the whiskey wagon, the smudged yellow of the train’s windows, the starry dark above. For a moment he’d been certain he was being observed. He saw no indication of it.

An uncontrollable gloom settled over him. He’d traveled thousands of miles to escape war, but as long as Worthing remained at the railhead, he was smack back in the middle of one. A lone man or a regiment—either could kill you.