Джон Джейкс: Love and War

In half an hour he caught up with the black family, resting at the roadside. The moment the adults recognized him, they looked alarmed. Stopping in the center of the road, Charles took off his hat and tried to smile. It came hard. It had nothing to do with who or what they were. It just came hard.

"Evening."

"Evening," the father said.

Less suspicious than her husband, the woman said, "Are you going north?"

"Washington."

"That's where we're going. Would you like to sit down and rest?"

"Yes, I would, thank you." He did. One of the girls giggled and smiled at him. "I lost my mule. I'm pretty tired."

At last the father smiled. "I was born tired, but lately I've been feeling better."

Charles wished he could say the same. "If you're willing, I'll be glad to help you pull that cart."

"You're a soldier." He didn't mean a Union soldier.

"Was," Charles said. "Was."

Brigadier Jack Duncan, a stocky officer with crinkly gray hair, a drink-mottled nose, and a jaw like a short horizontal line, strode into the War Department, shoulders back, left hand resting on the hilt of his gleaming dress sword. When he emerged half an hour later, he was beaming.

He had enjoyed a brief but highly satisfactory chat with Mr. Stanton, who commended him for his performance of Washington staff work throughout the war and for his patience when repeated requests for field duty were denied because General Halleck wanted his administrative skills. Now, with the war concluded, his wish could be honored. Duncan had new orders and travel vouchers in his pocket.

He was being posted to the plains cavalry, where experienced men were needed to confront and overcome the Indian threat. He was to depart immediately, and would not even see the grand parade of Grant's army, scheduled for a few days hence. Special reviewing platforms and miles of patriotic bunting were already in place for the event.

Musing on how it would feel to ride regularly again — for the past couple of years, he had managed only an occasional Sunday canter along Rock Creek on some livery-stable plug — the brigadier prepared to cross crowded, noisy Pennsylvania Avenue. He noticed a slender, tough-looking fellow with a long beard, cadet gray shirt, and holstered army Colt. Obviously nervous, the man chewed a cigar and studied the building Duncan had just left.

The stride — better, the swagger — suggested the man might be a cavalryman. A reb, to judge from his shirt and threadbare appearance. Union boys were keeping themselves trim and neat in preparation for the grand review.

There seemed to be hundreds of ex-Confederates swarming around town, though if that wild-looking specimen had indeed fought on the other side, he was risking a lot carrying a side arm. Stepping off the walk, Duncan nimbly dodged a dray, then an omnibus, and forgot about the man. There was really just one reb with whom he was concerned: a brevetted major named Main.

Would he ever hear from the fellow? He was beginning to doubt it. He had written three letters, paid exorbitantly to have each smuggled to Richmond, and received no answer to any of them. It seemed likely that Main was dead.

In a guilty way, the brigadier was grateful for the silence. Of course Main deserved to have his son with him. But Duncan was enjoying the responsibility of caring for young Charles. He had his housekeeper and more recently had hired a fine Irish girl to wet-nurse the infant and take care of certain other odious duties.

She was expert at her job. The housekeeper must be given notice and a month's wages — no, two, he decided — but Duncan had obtained the Irish girl's promise that she would accompany him to any new post where duty took him. She might well refuse to go out among the Indians, however.

If she did, he would find someone else. He was determined to take the child with him. Being a great-uncle and de facto parent had added an unexpectedly rich dimension to Duncan's lifelong bachelorhood. The one girl he had adored as a young man had died of consumption before they could be married, and none other had ever been fine or sweet enough to replace her. Now the void where love belonged was filled again.

He soon reached the small rented house a few blocks from the avenue. Jaunty as a boy, he took the steps two at a time and roared through the door into the dim lower hall.

"Maureen? Where's my grandnephew? Bring him here. I have splendid news. We're leaving town tonight."

Few things in life had ever intimidated Charles. For a day or two, the newness of West Point had. Sharpsburg had. Washington did now. So many damn Yankees. Whether soldier or civilian, most were hostile as reptiles when he asked a polite question in his distinctly Southern voice. The bunting everywhere depressed him further by reminding him of defeat. He felt like some scruffy animal just out of the woods and surrounded by hunters.

With an air of confidence he didn't feel, he walked through President's Park and up the steps of the War Department. He had left his gypsy cloak at the squalid island rooming house and fastened the throat button of his faded cadet gray shirt for neatness, though the effect was lost because of his chest-length beard. Nothing could do much to improve his wolfish appearance, and he knew it.

Nervously fiddling with a fresh cigar, he entered the ground-floor lobby and walked through the first open doors he saw. In a large room, he found a great many noncommissioned soldiers and civilian clerks shuffling piles of paper at desks on the other side of a counter. This was worse than setting yourself up for battle.

But he had to go through with it. Any humiliation or scrap was worth it, if only he could find Duncan and satisfy himself about Gus.

One of the clerks in blue, bald as the knob of a cane although he barely looked thirty, approached the counter after making Charles wait three minutes. The clerk stroked his huge oiled mustaches, first the right, then the left, as he scrutinized the lean visitor.

The clerk took note of Charles's patched shirt of cadet gray. He eyed the army Colt and the cigar held between wind-browned thumb and forefinger almost as if it were a second weapon. He found the visitor vaguely menacing and barely worth the time of an offhand "Yes?"

"I'm trying to locate an army officer. Is this the right place for —"

"Haven't you got the wrong city?" the clerk broke in. He had reacted visibly before Charles finished his first sentence. "The United States War Department maintains no files on rebels. And in case no one's told you, if you were paroled, you're carrying that gun illegally." He turned away.

"Excuse me," Charles said. "The officer belongs to your army." As the words came out, he knew it was a bad slip, caused by nerves. He had confirmed his former loyalty. Tense, he continued, "His name is —"

"I am afraid we can't help you. We aren't in business to look up records for every paroled traitor who walks in the door."

"Private," Charles said, seething, "I am asking you as politely as I know how. I need help. It's urgent that I find this man. If you'll just tell me which office —"

"No one in this building can help you," the clerk retorted loudly. The raised heads, suspended pens, sharp stares said he spoke for all those in the room. "Why don't you go ask Jeff Davis? They locked him up in Fort Monroe this morning."

"I'm not interested in the whereabouts of Jeff —" Again the clerk turned away.

Charles dropped his cigar, shot his hand across the counter and grabbed the clerk's collar. "Listen to me, damn you."

Consternation. Men running. Shouts — Charles's the loudest. "You can at least do me the courtesy of —"

Voices:

"He has a gun."

"Take it away from him."