A moment of silence followed the murmured amens. Then Andy said, "I'll finish the rest. You all needn't stay." Billy put his arm around Brett and walked out through the gate in the badly rusted fence. Wrought iron, he noted. Hazard's iron would have lasted longer. He was momentarily embarrassed by the thought.
Cooper and the others trudged after the young couple. Suddenly Brett stopped, gazing through the live oaks to the black ash heaps where the house had stood. Tears came again, but only briefly. She shook her head and turned to Billy.
"Mother's passing just now — it's a kind of watershed, isn't it? The end of something. That house, this plantation — it never was quite what it seemed to be. But whatever it seemed to be is gone forever."
Madeline overheard and nodded melancholy agreement. It was Cooper who replied, quietly but with a fervor surprising to his younger sister.
"We have let the worst go, but we'll rebuild the best. And fight for it with every breath."
Who is he? Brett asked herself in wonderment. I hardly know him. The old Cooper wouldn't have said such a thing. I am not the only one the war changed.
Three days later, following the arrival of a soiled letter misdelivered to the nearest neighbor, Charles reappeared in the lane riding his mule. Brett ran to greet and embrace him. He pressed his bearded cheek against hers, but it was perfunctory. She found him sullen and withdrawn; alarmingly so. When she tried to ask him about his experiences with Hampton's cavalry, he brushed the questions aside with terse, empty answers.
Before the evening meal, Madeline found an opportunity to speak to him. "How is Augusta Barclay?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen her in some time."
"Is she still in Fredericksburg?"
"I hope so. I'm going there in a few days to find out."
After dark, he and Cooper strolled the riverbank near the site of the ruined dock, at Charles's request. Before they got down to their talk, Cooper reported a piece of news.
"We've received specific information about Orry. It came day before yesterday, in a letter from General Pickett, much delayed. Orry's body was not put in a mass grave. It was shipped south together with a number of others when it became possible to locate enough draft horses to portage the coffins around a break in some rail line below Petersburg."
"The Weldon," Charles said with a nod.
"That took place many weeks ago. Unfortunately, there was an accident."
"What kind of accident?" Cooper told him. "Jesus." Charles shook his head. "Jesus Christ."
They walked on in silence for five minutes. Charles collected himself and informed his cousin that he wanted to leave for Virginia as soon as he felt those on the plantation were safe from danger.
"Oh, we're safe enough," Cooper said with an empty laugh. "Starving, perhaps, but safe. May I ask what takes you back to Virginia?"
"Something personal."
How closed and somber he's become, Cooper thought. "Will you be returning here?"
"I hope not. The trip involves a lady."
"Charles — I had no idea — that's wonderful. Who is she?"
"I'd rather not discuss it, if you don't mind."
Mystified and a little hurt by the rebuff from the cold stranger Charles had become, Cooper bobbed his head to signal acceptance, then fell silent.
It was their season for callers, it seemed. The following Monday, as Charles prepared to leave, Wade Hampton arrived on horseback. He was bound for Charleston but stopped off because he had heard of the burning of Mont Royal and Clarissa's death. Though never close, the Hampton and Main families had known each other for three generations. Most of the great planters of the piedmont and low country had at least a nodding acquaintance, but in this case it was Charles who had strengthened the ties.
Besides visiting Clarissa's grave alone and expressing his sympathy to the family, he had another reason for calling, he said. He hoped to hear something about one of his best scouts. To his surprise, they met face-to-face. Hampton was visibly appalled to find Charles in such a scruffy state, and so dour.
No longer in uniform and grayer than Charles remembered, Hampton wore a holstered side arm beneath his coat. His favorite, Charles observed. The revolver with ivory handle grips.
Because of his high military rank, Hampton had been denied the amnesty given the majority of Confederate soldiers after the surrender. The general carried this burden openly. Bitterness was particularly apparent when he stalked all around the rubble that had once been the great house.
"As bad as Millwood," he said, shaking his head. "We should take a photograph and mail it to Grant. Perhaps it might teach him the real meaning of what he calls 'enlightened war.'"
Later, in the hot May dusk, the men sat on crates and small casks on the grass in front of the pine house; it had no piazza. Hampton had brought a bottle of peach brandy in his saddlebag. They shared it, using a collection of unmatched cups and glasses.
Hampton questioned Charles about his last days in the cavalry. Charles had little to say. Hampton told them briefly of his own experiences. He had indeed wanted to continue the fight west of the Mississippi. "What they did to my son and my brother and my home persuaded me that I was not morally bound by the surrender." So he had ridden on in pursuit of the fleeing President and his party.
"I would have escorted Mr. Davis all the way to Texas. Even Mexico. I had a small company of loyal men, or so I thought. But they dropped away, gave up, one by one. Finally I was alone. At Yorkville, I chanced to meet my wife, Mary. She and Joe Wheeler — General Wheeler — persuaded me that trying to find the President was futile. I was tired. Ready to be persuaded, I suppose. So I stopped."
Cooper asked, "Do you know where Davis is now?"
"No. I suppose he's in jail somewhere — perhaps even hanged. What a disgraceful end to the whole business." He tossed off the last of his brandy, which seemed to calm him.
Hampton went on to say he was living in a house belonging to a former overseer. "My daughter Sally's to be married in June. I have that happy event to anticipate, along with the work of rebuilding this poor, wracked state. I'm glad you're on Mont Royal again, Cooper. I remember where you stood at the time of the secession convention. We're going to need men like you. Men of sanity and good will. Patience, strength — I think the Yankees will press us hard. Try us — punish us — severely. Booth did us incredible harm."
"Has there been any word of him?" Billy said.
"Oh, yes. He was caught and shot to death a couple of weeks ago on a farm near the Rappahannock."
"Well, gentlemen —" Charles stood up and set the fruit jar from which he had been drinking on the log that had been his chair "— I'll excuse myself with your permission. I have business in Virginia, and I want to be on the road by daylight. I leave you to your high ideals and the reconstruction of our glorious state."
Billy was baffled by this sourness. His old friend stood out in memory as lighthearted, quick to laugh. This shabby, bearded skeleton wasn't Bison Main, but someone much older, of much darker temperament.
"Someone must champion the South," Cooper declared. "We must defend her with every peaceful means, or there'll be nothing left for generations but burned earth and despair."
Charles stared at him. "That isn't what you used to say, Cousin.''
"Nevertheless, he's right," Hampton said, some of the old authority in his voice. "The state will need many good men. Including you, Charles."
With a bow toward the visitor, Charles smiled. "No, thank you, General. I did my job. Killed God knows how many fellow human beings — fellow Americans — on behalf of the high-minded principles of the high-minded Mr. Davis and his high-minded colleagues. Don't ask me to do anything else for the South or its misbegotten cause."