Back in the lost and distant days of peace, Clovis was a minor trade center on the U.S.-C.S. frontier. The town was founded in the early years of the century with the unromantic handle of Riley’s Switch; a railroad official’s daughter suggested renaming it for the first Christian King of France. Cattle from the West Texas prairie paused at its feed lots before going on to supply the meat markets of California. It had flourished when western Texas, under the name of Houston, joined the USA: those same cattle kept coming west, only now without a customs barrier. Houston’s return to Texas and to the CSA sent Clovis into a tailspin from which it had yet to recover.
Men in green-gray weren’t cattle, even if they were often treated in ways that would have made a rancher blush or turn pale. Feeding them and separating them from the little money the U.S. government doled out to them had produced a small upturn, but the Clovis Chamber of Commerce still sighed for the days when the longhorn ruled the local economy.
The Chamber of Commerce’s sighs were not Dowling’s worry, except when the local greasy spoons all jacked up their prices to gouge soldiers at the same time. He growled then. When growling didn’t work, he threatened to move his headquarters and place Clovis permanently off-limits to all military personnel. A threat to the pocketbook got people’s attention. Prices promptly came back down.
Up till now, that was the biggest victory Dowling had won. Both his side and his Confederate counterparts patrolled the border on horseback. Even command cars were hard to come by in these parts, and some of the terrain was too rugged for anything with wheels. Every so often, cavalrymen in green-gray and those in butternut would shoot at one another. Their occasional casualties convinced both sides they were being aggressive enough.
Dowling was plowing through paperwork and patting himself on the back for getting out from under Daniel MacArthur when his adjutant stuck his head into the office. “Sir, there’s an officer from the War Department here to see you,” Major Angelo Toricelli said.
“There is?” Dowling blinked. “Why, in God’s name?”
“Beats me, sir. He didn’t say,” Toricelli answered cheerfully. “All he said was that his name is Major Levitt and he’s got something he’s supposed to hand-deliver to you.” Toricelli paused. “I had him searched. Whatever it is, it’s not a people bomb.”
“Thank you, Major,” Dowling said. “Maybe you’d better show him in.”
Major Levitt was skinny, sandy-haired, and not particularly memorable. After Toricelli ducked out of the office, he said, “Your adjutant is, ah, a diligent young man.”
“Well, yes,” Dowling said. In a low-key way, Levitt had style. Dowling knew his features would have been much more ruffled if he’d just been frisked. “What can I do for you today, Major?”
“I have this for you, sir.” Levitt set a sealed envelope on Dowling’s desk. “Major Toricelli didn’t find anything obviously lethal about it.”
“I’m so relieved,” Dowling murmured, not about to let the officer from Philadelphia show more sangfroid than he did himself. Levitt smiled. When he did, his whole face lit up. He looked like a human being, and a nice one, instead of a cog in the military machine. Dowling opened the envelope, unfolded the papers inside, and began to read. He suddenly looked up. “Jesus Christ!” he said, and then, “You know what’s in these orders?”
“Yes, sir,” Levitt said. “You’re allowed to discuss them with me.”
“Oh, joy.” Dowling went on reading. When he finished, he looked up again. “I understand what I’m supposed to do. But why on earth am I supposed to concentrate my forces and launch an attack? There’s nothing in West Texas worth having.”
“I know.” Major Levitt smiled another of his charming smiles. “I served there for a while between the wars, when it was Houston.”
“These”-Dowling tapped the orders with the nail of his index finger-“are very strange. When I was sent here, they told me that as long as the Confederates didn’t steal Albuquerque and Santa Fe while we weren’t looking, I’d be doing my job. And now this. What’s going on?”
Levitt told him exactly what was going on, in about half a dozen sentences. “Any questions, sir?” he finished.
“No,” Dowling said. “You’re absolutely right. I can see the need. Just the same, though, Major, and no offense to you, I’m going to keep you here for a while, till Philadelphia confirms that it really did send these orders. They look authentic-but then, they would if they were phony, too. Featherston’s bound to have some good forgers in Richmond, same as we’re bound to be forging Confederate papers.”
“No offense taken, sir,” Levitt said. “As long as your force gets rolling by that date, what happens beforehand doesn’t matter.”
“Ha!” Dowling muttered. Major Levitt was a General Staff officer. To them, logistics was an abstract science like calculus. They didn’t have to worry about moving actual men and guns and munitions and fuel and food. Abner Dowling did, and knew his supply train was as flimsy as the rest of the alleged Eleventh Army. “Major Toricelli!” he called. “Can I see you for a moment?”
“Yes, sir?” Toricelli was in the office in nothing flat, sending Levitt a suspicious look. “What is it?”
Dowling handed him the orders. “Please get confirmation of these from Philadelphia. Until we have it, Major Levitt is not to leave this building.”
“Yes, sir!” Toricelli gave Levitt a real glare this time.
“Highest security,” Dowling added. “Don’t compromise the orders to verify them.” Toricelli saluted and hurried away. Dowling nodded to Levitt. “Care for a cigarette?”
“No, thank you, sir. I never got the habit. I ran track at West Point, and they’re bad for your wind.”
“Ah. I was a football man myself-a tackle,” Dowling said. “Even back in those days, I was built more like a brick than a greyhound.” He lit up. He wasn’t running anywhere.
Not quite half an hour later, the telephone on his desk rang. He picked it up. “Dowling here.”
“Hello, sir. This is John Abell. Do you recognize my voice?”
Even across two-thirds of the country and an indifferent connection, Dowling did. “Yes, indeed, General,” he said.
“Good. That makes things easier,” the General Staff officer said. “I can confirm those orders for you. We did send Major Levitt west with them. Please follow them precisely.”
“I’ll do it,” Dowling promised. “Anything else?”
“No, sir. That covers it,” Abell answered. The line went dead.
Dowling nodded to Levitt. “All right, Major. You are what you say you are, and these”-he tapped the orders again-“are what they say they are. I’ll carry them out.”
“Thank you, sir.” Levitt grinned. “Would you be kind enough to let your adjutant know I don’t have horns and fangs and a spiked tail?”
Dowling smiled, too. “If he frisked you, he should already know that.” But he did get up and let Major Toricelli know the courier was neither a devil nor, worse, a Confederate.
“I didn’t think he was, sir, but you never can tell,” his adjutant said. “I wondered if he was a Mormon in disguise, too, to tell you the truth.”
“Gark,” said Dowling, who hadn’t thought of that. “No wonder you checked to see if he was loaded with explosives.”
“It’s a rum old world, sir,” Toricelli said.
“Ain’t it the truth?” Dowling agreed. “And we’re going to be the busiest people in it the next few days. The Eleventh Army is strung out from the border with Chihuahua to the border with Sequoyah. I want to concentrate here, but I want to leave enough of a screen behind so the Confederates don’t notice we’re concentrating till we go over the border.”
“That would be easier if we had more men,” Major Toricelli said.
“Of course it would. And if pigs had wings we’d all carry umbrellas,” Dowling said, which made his adjutant send him a quizzical look. He ignored it and went on, “Let’s go to the map room and see what we can work out.”