“You will see him?” Martha said. “I mean make sure he finds out?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“And you promise to tell him everything?”
“I won’t be long.” Janroe went out the back door and mounted Luz Acaso’s dun mare.
He crossed the river and hurried the dun up the slope to the horse trail, following it north, almost blindly in the night darkness of the trees, brushing branches in his haste and kicking the dun. He moved along the ridge, though with no intention of visiting Cable.
He knew only that there was no time for Cable now. He could admit that to himself without admitting the other, that the war was over. Certainly it could be at the very edge of the end. This could be the last day. It might very well be the last day. All right, it was the last day and now there was no time for Cable. The war was not over yet, he told himself, but there was time to do only one thing now.
Four, raging, uninterrupted years of war did not end with two women standing in a kitchen and saying that it was over. You would expect that of women. It was typical. A woman would tell you anything. Lies became truth to them because they felt justified in using any means at hand to hold life to a sweet-smelling, creeping pace; to make this a woman’s existence with no room for war or fighting or so many of the things that men did and liked to do and only really proved themselves as men when they were doing them.
If he had not entered the kitchen he wouldn’t have heard anything. A man couldn’t wait and plan for eight months and know what he had to do, and then see it all canceled by walking into a kitchen. That couldn’t be.
So the two women had lied and it was stupid to think about it. And even if it was not a matter of their lying, then it was something else, something equally untrue; and whether the something was a lie from the women or a trick or an untruth from another source was beside the point.
He was hurrying, as if to keep up with time, so that not another moment of it would go by before he reached the Kidston place. But even after half admitting this was impossible he told himself that right now was part of a whole time, not a time before or a time after something. It was a time which started the day he came to live at the store and would end the day he saw the Kidstons dead. So this was part of the time of war. But almost as he thought this, it became more than that. Now, right now, was the whole of the war, the everything of a war that would not end until the Kidstons were dead.
It took him less than an hour altogether. By the time he left the horse trail he had cleared his mind of everything but the Kidstons. Winding, moving more slowly through the sandstone country, he was able to calm himself and think about what he would do after, what he would do about Cable, what he would tell Martha and Luz. Martha…
By the time he reached the edge of the timber stand bordering the Kidston place, looking across the open area to the house and outbuildings, he was composed and ready. He was Edward Janroe who happened to be riding by, say, on his way to Fort Buchanan. He was a man they had seen at least once a week for the past eight months. He was the one-armed man who owned the store now and didn’t say much. He was nothing to be afraid of or even wonder about. Which was exactly the way Janroe wanted it.
Janroe came out of the trees, letting the dun mare move at its own pace toward the house. He was aware of someone on the veranda, certain that it was Duane when he saw the pinpoint glow of a cigar.
There was no hurry now. Janroe’s eyes rose from the veranda to the lighted second-story window, then beyond the corner of the house, past the corral where a dull square of light showed the open door of the bunkhouse. There were no sounds from that end of the yard, none from the big adobe that was pale gray and solid looking in the darkness. The cigar glowed again and now Janroe was close.
“Good evening, Major.”
Duane leaned forward, the wicker chair squeaking. “Who is it?”
“Edward Janroe.” Now, almost at the veranda, Janroe brought the dun to a halt. He saw Duane rise and come close to the railing, touching it with his stomach.
“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Janroe said.
“You didn’t startle me.” There was indignation in Duane’s tone.
“I meant you sitting here by yourself…Is Vern about?”
“No, he’s up at his pastures. You wanted to see him?”
“I’d like to have. But I guess you can’t have everything.”
“What?”
“Where’s Vern, out on the horse drive?”
“Getting it started. He’s been gone all day.”
“You alone?”
“My daughter’s in the house.”
“And somebody’s out in the bunkhouse.”
Duane seemed annoyed, but he said, “A couple of the men.”
“I thought everybody went out on the drives,” Janroe said.
“We always keep one man here.”
“You said a couple of men were there.”
As if remembering something, Duane’s frown of annoyance vanished. “The second man rode in a while ago to tell us the news. I’ve been sitting here ever since thinking about it.” Duane paused solemnly. “Mr. Janroe, the war is over. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to General Grant on April ninth.”
“Is that a fact?” Janroe said.
“I have been thinking of a place called Chancellorsville,” Duane said gravely. “I have been thinking of the men I knew who died there: men I campaigned with who gave their lives that this final victory might be accomplished.”
“A touching moment,” Janroe said.
Duane’s eyes rose. “If you had served, you would know the feeling.”
“I served.”
“Oh? I didn’t know that. In the Union army?”
“With Kirby Smith.”
“Oh…You lost your arm…were wounded in battle?”
“During the fight at Richmond, Kentucky.”
“Is that right? I was in Cincinnati at the time. If I hadn’t been on my way to Washington, I would have answered General Nelson’s call for volunteers.”
“That would have been something,” Janroe said, sitting easily and looking down at Duane, “if we’d fought against each other.”
Duane nodded gravely. “More terrible things than that have actually happened. Brother fighting brother, friend against friend. The wounds of our minds as well as those of our bodies will have to be healed now if we are to live together in peace.” Duane added, for effect, “The war is over.”
“You’re not just telling me that?” Janroe said.
“What?”
“That the war’s over.”
“Of course it is. The word came direct from Fort Buchanan. They learned about it this afternoon. Their rider ran into Vern, and Vern sent a man here to tell us. Vern realized I would want to know immediately.”
“I haven’t been told,” Janroe said. “Not officially, and your telling me doesn’t count.”
Duane was frowning, squinting up at Janroe in the darkness with his cigar poised a few inches from his face. “How could you learn more officially than this? The message came from Fort Buchanan, a military establishment.”
“You learned it from your side,” Janroe said. “I haven’t been told officially from mine.”
“Man, you’ve been out of the war for at least a year! Do you expect them to tell personally every veteran who served?”
“I haven’t been out of it.” Janroe paused, studying Duane’s reaction. “I’m still fighting, just like you’ve been with your saddle-tramp cavalry, like your brother’s been doing supplying Yankee remounts.”
Duane was squinting again. “You’ve been at your store every day. I’m almost sure of it.”
“Look under the store,” Janroe said. “That’s where we keep the Enfields.”
“British rifles?”
“Brought in through Mexico, then shipped east.”
“I don’t believe it.” Duane shook his head. “All this time you’ve been moving contraband arms through the store?”