Bunyan had lost count of the number of patrols they had already dodged. Fortunately Meade and Lee had already bloodied each other badly enough that no one was expecting any sort of night-time incursion. The patrols they encountered were men wounded or asleep on their feet, hardly a challenge to slip past.
Hawthorne dismounted and tied his horse to a tree; Bunyan followed suit. They needed to complete the final phase of the journey on foot. The location was secluded enough to prevent discovery of the horses as long as they returned and left the area by dawn.
Hawthorne whispered as they walked. “Our sources indicate that he is sick and making frequent trips to the latrine. That will be our opportunity to speak with him.”
Bunyan nodded, feeling a measure of relief. Their original plan of sneaking into the officers’ quarters seemed reckless, but he hadn’t seen any alternative. Hawthorne always held things close to the vest, and Bunyan had wondered if he would come up with an alternate plan. Now they’d have a fighting chance to deliver their message.
They wore a style of gray uniform which some southern regiments had worn earlier in the war. They wouldn’t survive close examination, but they might provide enough misdirection to allow the completion of the mission. As they walked now, they saw more and more tents as well as men sleeping in the open.
They saw bodies too, and the stench that assaulted Bunyan’s nostrils was familiar from his time in uniform. The smell was a combination of blood, sweat and decay, but Bunyan associated it with only one thing: death.
Hawthorne pulled him aside under some of the few trees that had survived the invasion of tens of thousands of men. He gestured with his hand. “Quarters are about three hundred yards that way. All we need to do is find the nearest latrine.”
Bunyan nodded. “The one used by the top ranking officers will likely be covered, unlike the ones for the rest of the men. But how do we find it?”
Hawthorne grinned, barely visible in the dim light from various sources in the area. “We follow our nose”
Bunyan couldn’t pick up anything beyond that smell of death, but Hawthorne’s nose was obviously more discerning. In short order they crouched in the darkness near what had to be the officer’s latrine.
“What now?” Bunyan asked.
“We wait.”
They didn’t wait long. A figure with a white beard stumbled towards the covering, bent over with a hand on his stomach. The torch nearby illuminated his face, and Bunyan recognized him easily despite the illness-induced pallor. General Robert E. Lee.
Hawthorne moved quickly the instant Lee disappeared through the opening, and Bunyan hurried to keep up. He ducked inside just in time to hear Hawthorne say, “General Lee. We’d like a word with you.”
Lee turned, his hand already reaching for his sword. Hawthorne held a pistol aimed at his midsection. “Please put that away. We have no desire to hurt you, but if you attack us or call out I’ll have no choice but to fire.”
Lee’s hand remained on the hilt of his sword for several seconds. The pain from his stomach was evident on his face, but his hand and his head remained steady. Finally he nodded and put his hands at his sides. “Say your piece. With those uniforms, you’re northern spies and you won’t be leaving here alive.”
Hawthorne said, “I’ll be brief and direct. I have a document here which can help end the war.”
“If you think that, son, you know nothing about war.”
“Why don’t you read it and judge for yourself?”
Still keeping the pistol trained on Lee, he removed an envelope from an inner pocket and handed it to Bunyan. Bunyan opened it, extracted a piece of folded parchment and handed it to the general.
Lee unfolded it and began reading. His face gave nothing away, though Bunyan thought he detected an extra weariness descend over the man. When he finished Lee looked up.
“How do I know it’s real?”
“You’re a student of history. What do you think?”
Lee sighed. “I think men smarter than me have been fooled before. But even if it is real, what do you want me to do?”
“You’ve heard that West Virginia is about to be admitted to the Union? One more northern state?”
Lee nodded.
“Well think about that document and imagine the impact.”
Lee held up the document. “This carries no weight of law.”
“Maybe not, but if you bust through the Union center tomorrow, that document could sway enough minds to force the abolitionists to back down. Compromise will be possible.”
Hawthorne reached out his hand. “I’ve taken enough of your time. I’ll have that back and you do what you think is best. If you can win a great victory tomorrow, that document will be made public.”
Hawthorne took the document before Lee could react further. He began back-pedaling, and Bunyan scrambled to get out of the opening before him. Bunyan kept expecting a bullet or a sword in the back, or at least a yell,which would expose them. None came.
Back in the tent, Robert E. Lee hadn’t moved, his mind reeling. They want me to bust through the Union center. As if I can just order that and have it be done. If I succeed, it could change the course of the war even without that document. The loss of life will be massive, though, and failure here might doom us. A lightning charge might do it, hit them so hard and so fast it breaks them.
If I give the order, if we break through, if Meade doesn’t outflank us, if reinforcements arrive, if that document was real, and if the lunatic who just held a gun on me follows through.
Lee shook his head as another wave of cramps hit his stomach. A strike at the Union center was daring. But nothing good ever came of relying on that many ‘ifs.’
Hawthorne and Bunyan made it back to the horses and through the lines without incident. Bunyan wondered if the older man had made a deal with the devil as he seemed to anticipate and avoid every possible encounter with the enemy. By the time the first lights of dawn began to pierce the darkness, they had traveled many miles.
Bunyan heard the gunshot and the cry from Hawthorne at about the same time. Hawthorne toppled from his horse to the ground, and only Bunyan’s military training prevented him from calling out. Instead, he slid out of the saddle with his pistol ready. He couldn’t see anything in the dim light, and he crouched next to Hawthorne while keeping his ears open for anyone coming closer. He felt terribly exposed, but he needed to find out how badly Hawthorne was hurt. If Hawthorne couldn’t continue, he needed to get the document to safety.
“Get those Rebs!”
The cry was followed by the sound of hoof beats, at least a dozen horses by the sound of it. Shots tore into the ground around him and Bunyan dived for some bushes a few feet away. He scrambled on his hands and knees like a wild man, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the shooters. The irony of being attacked by Union troops was not lost on him, but he had to focus on survival. He would have to come back for the document.
The trees grew thicker, and he got to his feet and started to run. Bullets and excited voices pursued him. A sharp pain hit his leg and he fell to the ground, rolled once, and then felt himself sliding downward. Some part of his brain knew that he had stumbled into a steep gully, but he couldn’t see anything as he somersaulted.
Then his head struck something hard and everything went black.
The sun was in the middle of the sky when he woke up. He felt thankful that the Union soldiers had missed him. Then he remembered Hawthorne and staggered to his feet.
Everything looked different in the light, and it took him over an hour to find the location of the attack. He wouldn’t even have found it except that his pack was still tangled in the bushes near where he had lunged away from the shooting.