Charles recalled some remarks of Willa's about a tour. And for a moment he was amused. The type in which Sam Trump's name was set was twice the size of Mr. Shakespeare's. A magnifying glass would have helped him read the line containing Mrs. Parker.
"That is her, ain't it?" the old man asked. "The one you talked about a while back?"
"It is," Charles said, his smile fading.
"Well, you got my permission to bring the detachment in the night before, 'less you're in a jam." Inked on the bottom of the handbill were the words Ft. Harker Nov. 3 — Ellsworth City Nov. 4.
So he rode out that morning with the knowledge that he would see Willa again, and the feeling that he wanted to see her. He wondered what a reunion would be like. Happy? Explosive? Would it give him a worse dose of the pain that had been with him like a toothache ever since he rode away from her in St. Louis?
Come November, he'd certainly find out.
MADELINE'S JOURNAL
August, 1867. Gen. D. Sickles has become the most hated man in the state. He interferes with civil law — puts Negroes on juries and into public conveyances. But worse than that (so runs the argument), he is registering freedmen to vote in the 109 precincts into which S.C. is now divided. Sickles may not last. It's said that Andrew J. feels him too radical
... Another Yankee invader! A man named Klawdell has come to the district to start a Union of Loyal League. In the North during the war, I am told, the Union League was formed for patriotic support of Lincoln and his generals. Patriotism is now replaced by politics. The new leagues are to be clubs to educate the blacks in matters of government, the vote, etc. On the face of it, a worthy purpose — but will freedmen be told about the Democratic as well as the Republic Party? I doubt it.
Andy asked what I thought about his attending a meeting. Reminded him that he did not need my permission, but warned him that the white riffraff will be pushed that much closer to renewed violence by this latest instance of Radical intrusion. ...
Randall Gettys's reaction to news of a political organizer in the district was exactly what Madeline anticipated. Fury. He could barely concentrate on the monthly report of profits from his Dixie Store. The report was mailed to an address in Washington, D.C., as were similar reports from all forty-three Dixie Stores now operating in South Carolina.
The firm to which Gettys sent his reports, his orders for goods and twice-yearly bank drafts — the store's enormous profits — was called Mercantile Enterprises. He knew nothing about the people behind it. Whoever the Yankee owners might be, they stayed well hidden. On two occasions they'd communicated instructions through an attorney who signed himself J. Dills, Esq.
Gettys finished the report and glanced at a poorly printed wall calendar bearing the escutcheon of the reorganized Charleston & Savannah Rail-Road. Today was Saturday. He could anticipate a brisk sale of corn whiskey to Captain Jolly and some of the other whites in the district — perhaps even some lively fun should a darkly foolish venture to the Summerton crossroads on this, the recognized day of the week for the white man to enjoy himself. On the bottom of the calendar Gettys had written Des due on Oct. 1. First thing he'd do when his friend was released was tell him about this new outrage, the club for niggers. Meanwhile, he had other correspondence accumulated from the past couple of weeks. There was a pathetic request from a cousin who needed a loan for an eye operation; Gettys tore it up. Two tatty circulars from German-run junk shops in Charleston advertised the finest goods and the complete libraries of leading Carolina families at sacrifice prices. Gettys threw them out.
At the bottom of the pile he found a wallpaper envelope bearing the address of Sitwell Gettys, another cousin. Sitwell was a schoolmaster, and a loyal Democrat, up in York County, perhaps the most ardently Southern part of the state. Sitwell had enclosed a yellowing clipping from the Pulaski, Tenn. Citizen which you may find of interest.
Indeed he did. The brief paragraphs described a white men's social or sporting club formed some months ago in Pulaski by several war veterans. What intrigued Gettys was the fact that the members went roving at night in fantastic costumes that concealed their faces. They visited freedmen considered uppity, claiming to be Confederate dead risen to life, and evidently succeeded in terrifying them.
The club had a curious name. If Randall remembered his schooling in the classics, the word kuklos meant circle, and the name of the organization had obviously been derived from that. He re-read the clipping with mounting excitement, then speared it on a nail he used as a wall spindle. When Des got out of jail, he must be told about the new Kuklux Klan. It offered an amazingly simple solution to their very own problem, anonymity. With Des's approval, he would try to get more details.
To Charleston. Judith home. Marie-Louise was away for a day and from her studies at Mrs. Allwick's Female Academy, one of dozens of such academies that have opened in the state to offer young ladies and gentlemen a proper Southern education among their (white only) peers. M-L went with her father to inspect the Charleston & Savannah Rail-Road. Cooper is one of a group of investors who have bought the second-mortgage bonds of the insolvent line. Even at $30,000, it is not a bargain. The line remains in ruins, the track runs about 60 mis. down to Coosawhatchie, and at the Charleston end, a ferry crossing is required; the Ashley River trestle is not yet rebuilt.
Nor is much of the lovely old city, I discovered. Windowless gutted buildings still abound. Ragged Negroes idle everywhere, and white men loafing outside Hibernian Hall spit tobacco and lewdly accost women. I slapped one's face. Had he known of my "racial status," I would have been in serious trouble.
Tradd Street remains an island of cleanliness and calm, though even in Judith's kitchen the ripe stench of the night-soil wagons penetrates. We discussed Sickles, prompting Judith to say that she now utterly despairs of Cooper's political rigidity ...
The bell clanged. Under dark gray clouds, in air heavy with dampness, Cooper helped Marie-Louise up the dented metal steps of the single passenger car.
He hated going back in the car. The journey down had been bad enough. Half the car's seats were gone, and every window glass. The car had been almost empty on its slow chugging journey south to Coosawhatchie Station, but now, from the rear of the car, Cooper saw that every seat was filled with civilian or military passengers.
At the car's head end, standing beneath one of several huge holes in the roof, an immense black woman with a bundle in hand timidly studied the seats. That damn Sickles had made it permissible for her to board a car with white passengers. But not one man rose to offer his seat.
A rumble of thunder said the clouds would soon spill their moisture. With a lurch and a squeal of rusty iron wheels, the locomotive jerked the car forward. Dense green undergrowth, the fecund forest of the Low Country, slid slowly past the open windows, into which butterflies and insects flew.