Charles, waiting for him to say more, relighted the stub of a cigar. Duncan laid his chapeau aside and poured a drink. "I've been at Division all afternoon, Charlie. Bill Sherman's to replace John Pope as commander."
"Is that your bad news?"
Duncan shook his head. "We have a million men still under arms, but by this time next year we'll be lucky to have twenty-five thousand. As part of that reduction, the First through the Sixth Volunteer Infantry Regiments are to be mustered out."
"All the Galvanized Yankees?" They were Confederate prisoners who had been put into the Union Army during the war in lieu of going to prison.
"Every last one. They acquitted themselves well, too. They kept the Sioux from slaughtering settlers in Minnesota, rebuilt telegraph lines the hostiles destroyed, garrisoned forts, guarded the stage and mail service. But it's all over."
Charles strode to the window. "Damn it, Jack, I came all the way out here to join one of those regiments."
"I know. But the doors are closed."
Charles turned, his face so forlorn Duncan was deeply moved. This South Carolinian who'd fathered his niece's child was a fine man. But like so many others, he'd been cast adrift in pain and confusion by the end of the war that had occupied him wholly for four years.
"Well, then," Charles said, "I suppose I'll have to swamp floors. Dig ditches —"
"There's another avenue, if you care to try it." Charles waited. "The regular cavalry."
"Hell, that's impossible. The amnesty proclamation excludes West Point men who changed sides."
"You can get around that." Before Charles could ask how, he continued. "There's a surplus of officers left from the war but a shortage of qualified enlisted men. You're a fine horseman and a topnotch soldier — you should be, coming from the Point. They'll take you ahead of all the Irish immigrants and one-armed wonders and escaped jailbirds."
Charles chewed on the cigar, thinking. "What about my boy?"
"Why, we'd just follow the same arrangement we agreed on previously. Maureen and I will keep Gus until you're through with training and posted somewhere. With luck — if you're at Fort Leavenworth or Fort Riley, for instance — you can hire a noncom's wife to nursemaid him. If not, he can stay on with us indefinitely. I love that boy. I'd shoot any man who looked crosseyed at him."
"So would I." Charles pondered further. "Not much of a choice, is it? Muster with the regulars or go home, live on Cousin Madeline's charity, and sit on a cracker barrel telling war stories for the rest of my life." He chewed the cigar again, fiercely. Casting a quizzical look at Duncan, he asked, "You sure they'd have me in the regulars?"
"Charlie, hundreds of former reb — ah, Confederates are entering the Army. You just have to do what they do."
"What's that?"
"When you enlist, lie like hell."
"Next," said the recruiting sergeant.
Charles walked to the stained table, which had a reeking spittoon underneath. Next door, a man screamed as a barber yanked his tooth.
The noncom smelled of gin, looked twenty years past retirement age, and did everything slowly. Charles had already sat for an hour while the sergeant processed two wild-eyed young men, neither of whom spoke English. One answered every question by thumping his chest and exclaiming, "Budapest, Budapest." The other thumped his chest and exclaimed, "United States Merica." God save the Plains Army.
The sergeant pinched his veined nose. " 'fore we go on, do me a favor. Take that God-awful collection of rags or whatever it is and drop it outside. It looks disgusting and it smells like sheep shit."
Simmering, Charles folded the gypsy robe and put it neatly on the plank walk outside the door. Back at the table, he watched the sergeant ink his pen.
"You know the enlistment's five years —"
Charles nodded.
"Infantry or cavalry?"
"Cavalry."
That one word gave him away. Hostile, the sergeant said, "Southron?"
"South Carolina."
The sergeant reached for a pile of sheets held together by a metal ring. "Name?"
Charles had thought about that carefully. He wanted a name close to his real one, so he'd react naturally when addressed. "Charles May."
"May, May —" The sergeant leafed through the sheets, finally set them aside. In response to Charles's quizzical stare, he said, "Roster of West Point graduates. Division headquarters got it up." He eyed Charles's shabby clothes. "You don't have to worry about being mistook for one of those boys, I guess. Now, any former military service?"
"Wade Hampton Mounted Legion. Later —"
"Wade Hampton is enough." The sergeant wrote. "Highest rank?"
Taking Duncan's advice made him uncomfortable, but he did it. "Corporal."
"Can you prove that?"
"I can't prove anything. My records burned in Richmond."
The sergeant sniffed. "That's damned convenient for you rebs. Well, we can't be choosy. Ever since Chivington settled up with Black Kettle's Cheyennes last year, the damn plains tribes have gone wild."
The sergeant's "settled up" didn't fit the facts as Charles knew them. Near Denver, an emigrant party had been slain by Indians. An ex-preacher, Colonel J. M. Chivington, had mustered Colorado volunteer troops to retaliate against a Cheyenne village at Sand Creek, though there was no evidence that the village chief, Black Kettle, or his people were responsible for the killings. Of the three hundred or so that Chivington's men slew at Sand Creek, all but about seventy-five were women and children. The raid had outraged many people in the country, but the sergeant wasn't one of them.
The dentist's patient shrieked again. "No, sir," the sergeant mused, his pen scratching, "we can't be choosy at all. Got to take pretty near whoever shows up." Another glance at Charles. "Traitors included."
Charles struggled with his anger. He supposed that if he went ahead — and he had to go ahead; what else did he know besides soldiering? — he'd hear plenty of variations on the tune of traitor. He'd better get used to listening without complaint.
"Can you read or write?"
"Both."
The recruiter actually smiled. "That's good, though it don't make a damn bit of difference. You got the essentials. Minimum of one arm, one leg, and you're breathing. Sign here."
The locomotive's bell rang. Maureen dithered. "Sir — Brigadier — all passengers on board."
In the steam blowing along the platform, Charles hugged his bundled-up son. Little Gus, six months old now, wriggled and fretted with a case of colic. Maureen was still wet-nursing the baby, and this was his first bad reaction.
"I don't want him to forget me, Jack."
"That's why I had you sit for that daguerreotype. When he's a little older, I'll start showing it to him and saying Pa."
Gently, Charles transferred his son to the arms of the housekeeper, who was also, he suspected, the older man's wife-without-marriage-certificate. 'Take good care of that youngster."
"It's almost an insult that you think we might not," Maureen said, rocking the child.
Duncan clasped Charles's hand. "Godspeed — and remember to hold your tongue and your temper. You have some hard months ahead of you."
"I'll make it, Jack. I can soldier for anyone, even Yankees."
The whistle blew. From the rear car, the conductor signaled and shouted to the engineer. "Go ahead! Go ahead!" Charles jumped up to the steps of the second-class car and waved as the train lurched forward. He was glad for the steam rising around him, so they couldn't see his eyes as the train pulled out.