The Negro's eyes widened; he recognized what Jackson had done. Ever so slightly, he inclined his head to the Confederate general-in-chief. "It is more generous than I had dared hope. As soon as my identity was known to my captors, I thought a rope hoisted over a tree branch my likeliest fate, an apprehension of which they did little to disabuse me. I know your opinion of me here."
"Not far removed from your opinion of us," General Alexander remarked.
"Perhaps." Douglass shoved that aside with one word. His features took on a look of intense concentration. "President Longstreet is a clever politician. He realizes, where many in his position would not, that harming me would in the end also harm the reputation of your country even more, and refrains from taking the brief pleasure that hanging me would bring." His shoulders hunched and slumped as he sighed.
"President Longstreet is a clever politician," Jackson agreed. He eyed Douglass. "And you, sir"- every consideration -"unless I find myself badly mistaken, are at the moment somewhat dismayed that you shall not make your cause a martyr after all."
"I cannot contest the charge," Douglass said. "And yet I should also be lying were I to claim that I am not glad to go on living, and, even more so, to be restored to liberty. Having lived without it more than twenty years, I know how dear it is."
"At dawn tomorrow, 1 shall send an officer under flag of truce to arrange for your return to the United States," Jackson said. "I delay only because a flag of truce may not be recognized at night, and 1 would not willingly expose a man to danger thus."
"I understand." Douglass turned his dark, clever eyes on Jackson. "Tell me, General, what would you have done with me absent President Longstreet's instructions?"
"Since I did not know what to do with you, I asked for those instructions," Jackson answered. It was an evasion, and he knew as much. To his relief, Frederick Douglass did not press him on it.
Cananea baked in the Mexican sun. No sooner had that thought crossed Jeb Stuart's mind than he rejected it. Sonora now being part of the CSA, Cananea baked in the Confederate sun. The Stars and Bars hung limp from a flagpole in the middle of town. The tents of the Confederate army and its Apache allies vastly outnumbered the squalid adobe houses that made up the miserable little place.
Water mirages danced and shimmered on the desert. Stuart knew they weren't real. They were amazingly convincing, though. Someone thirsty who hadn't seen them before would surely have chased them till he perished or realized that, like wills-o'-the-wisp, they endlessly receded before him and were not worth pursuing.
Major Horatio Sellers walked up beside Stuart. "Good morning, sir."
"Hmm? Oh, good morning, Major," Stuart answered, a little sheepishly. "I'm sorry. I was looking at the mirages and not thinking about very much of anything. If you hadn't come along, the buzzards probably would have picked me up and carried me off in an hour or two."
"Really, sir?" Sellers looked surprised. "I would have guessed you were thinking about your son."
"Captain Stuart, do you mean?" The commander of the Department of the Trans-Mississippi smiled. "If he's not the youngest captain in the history of the Confederate Army, I'll be everlastingly surprised. What I should be is jealous. I wasn't even at West Point at his age, let alone winning battlefield promotions."
"War will give a push to things that would have happened more slowly without it," his aide-de-camp said. Sellers suddenly looked as if he'd bitten down on a lemon. Without seeing any more than that, Stuart understood what it meant.
Sure enough, Geronimo and Chappo silently came up to stand beside the two Confederate soldiers. Their soft moccasins were far better suited to quiet movement than the boots Stuart and Sellers wore. As always, Geronimo greeted Stuart as an equal. That bothered the general less than the impression he got that Geronimo was stretching a point to do so.
Through Chappo, the medicine man said, "Is it true your son is now a warrior? I have heard this from my men who have some English."
"It is true," Stuart agreed gravely. "Your son, Chappo here, fought well against the Yankees in New Mexico Territory. My son, who is Chappo's age and has the same name I do, fought well against the Yankees in a land called Kentucky, far from here."
"For boys to become men is good," Geronimo said. "Your son, I hear, did something very brave, something very fine. What is it?"
"The Yankees were attacking," Stuart answered, "and all the officers of higher rank in his regiment were killed or wounded." That was oversimplifying, but the Indian wouldn't know the difference, and explaining it struck Stuart as more trouble than it was worth. "He took charge of the regiment and fought back against the Yankees and stopped their attack."
After that was translated, Geronimo and Chappo went back and forth for a couple of minutes, as if the old man was making sure he understood correctly. Then he said, "But your son, with only Chappo's years-how did the other soldiers, the men who were soldiers for a long time, how did they obey him? They were already men, and he a boy in his first fight, not so?"
"Yes," Stuart said. "But he had higher rank"-again, oversimplifying-"and so they had to obey."
"Foolish to make men who have been in many fights obey a boy in his first. He might lead them wrongly," Geronimo said. Under normal circumstances, he would have had a point. Circumstances where Jeb Jr. was hadn't been normal. And, realizing he might have been tactless, the Indian added, "But this is your son, and he did well in the fight, you say. This is good. A father is always glad when his son grows up well." He set a hand on Chappo's shoulder, to show that he too had a son of whom he was proud.
They would have gone on, but the alcalde of Cananea came up and waited for Stuart to notice him. Senor Salazar was a round-bellied little man who wore a dirty red sash of office over a black jacket, ruffled shirt, and tight trousers that had all seen better days. "Yes, sir? What is it?" Stuart asked him, respecting the dignity of his office.
Salazar, fortunately, spoke fair English; the U.S. border lay only a few miles to the north. "Can I talk wit' you, General, by yourself?" His black eyes flicked to Geronimo and Chappo. The Apaches, Stuart had discovered, frightened the whey out of him and out of everybody in Cananea. The farmers had scarcely dared work their parched, meager fields since Maximilian's National Guards withdrew in the wake of the Confederate occupation.
Geronimo sent Senor Salazar the sort of look a coyote gave a pork chop, which did nothing for the alcalde's composure. Stuart had mercy on the petty official. "Well, yes, senor, I suppose so." He stepped a few paces away from the two Indians. Salazar followed with obvious relief.
Geronimo and Chappo both frowned, though their unhappy expressions did not make Stuart start to turn to jelly, as they did with Salazar. The Confederate officer understood why the Apaches were unhappy. The alcalde made Major Horatio Sellers seem as if he were on the Indians' side. Salazar not only feared the Apaches, he hated them with a Latin passion beside which Sellers' feeling toward them hardly rated more than the name of mild distaste. He would have slaughtered them all if he could. He only hated them the more because he couldn't.