He walked into the center of the empty crossroads and surveyed it, and then the dead, empty land. For one strange moment, he felt as if all of the might of the Union had been directed against him personally.
It had beaten him, too.
He stood at the crossroads in the lowering dusk, tired desperation in his eyes. He just wanted to lie down. Stop. For good.
But pictures kept intruding. The Bible salesman he had met in Goldsboro who said they wanted cavalrymen on the plains. He had the right experience. It would be a way to survive. Start over. Maybe find a scrap of hope someday.
Hope in a world like this? Stupid idea. He'd do better to lie down in the roadside grass and never get up.
But more pictures came. Men with whom he had served. Ab Woolner. Calbraith Butler. Wade Hampton. Lee — imagine how he must have felt, once the superintendent of West Point and the country's finest soldier, forced to ask a fellow Academy graduate for terms. They said Old Marse Bob had conducted himself with dignity, rebuffing a few hotheads who wanted to continue guerrilla war from the hills and woodlands.
Although the men Charles remembered had, in his opinion, fought for the wrong reasons, they weren't quitters. Gus wasn't a quitter either. He dwelled on her memory awhile. It summoned a detail he had forgotten. A name.
Brigadier Duncan.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Gus had unmistakably signaled that their love affair was over, but he could at least satisfy himself as to her whereabouts and her well-being. Duncan might be able to help, if Charles could locate him.
Only one place to start. Not the safest place, either. But he didn't worry too much, because suddenly recalling Duncan infused him with the kind of energy he hadn't felt in a long time. His head started to clear, and his chin came up. Still a lot of daylight left. He had time to walk awhile. He picked up the gypsy robe and left the crossroads, northbound.
In half an hour he caught up with the black family, resting at the roadside. The moment the adults recognized him, they looked alarmed. Stopping in the center of the road, Charles took off his hat and tried to smile. It came hard. It had nothing to do with who or what they were. It just came hard.
"Evening."
"Evening," the father said.
Less suspicious than her husband, the woman said, "Are you going north?"
"Washington."
"That's where we're going. Would you like to sit down and rest?"
"Yes, I would, thank you." He did. One of the girls giggled and smiled at him. "I lost my mule. I'm pretty tired."
At last the father smiled. "I was born tired, but lately I've been feeling better."
Charles wished he could say the same. "If you're willing, I'll be glad to help you pull that cart."
"You're a soldier." He didn't mean a Union soldier.
"Was," Charles said. "Was."
143
Brigadier Jack Duncan, a stocky officer with crinkly gray hair, a drink-mottled nose, and a jaw like a short horizontal line, strode into the War Department, shoulders back, left hand resting on the hilt of his gleaming dress sword. When he emerged half an hour later, he was beaming.
He had enjoyed a brief but highly satisfactory chat with Mr. Stanton, who commended him for his performance of Washington staff work throughout the war and for his patience when repeated requests for field duty were denied because General Halleck wanted his administrative skills. Now, with the war concluded, his wish could be honored. Duncan had new orders and travel vouchers in his pocket.
He was being posted to the plains cavalry, where experienced men were needed to confront and overcome the Indian threat. He was to depart immediately, and would not even see the grand parade of Grant's army, scheduled for a few days hence. Special reviewing platforms and miles of patriotic bunting were already in place for the event.
Musing on how it would feel to ride regularly again — for the past couple of years, he had managed only an occasional Sunday canter along Rock Creek on some livery-stable plug — the brigadier prepared to cross crowded, noisy Pennsylvania Avenue. He noticed a slender, tough-looking fellow with a long beard, cadet gray shirt, and holstered army Colt. Obviously nervous, the man chewed a cigar and studied the building Duncan had just left.
The stride — better, the swagger — suggested the man might be a cavalryman. A reb, to judge from his shirt and threadbare appearance. Union boys were keeping themselves trim and neat in preparation for the grand review.
There seemed to be hundreds of ex-Confederates swarming around town, though if that wild-looking specimen had indeed fought on the other side, he was risking a lot carrying a side arm. Stepping off the walk, Duncan nimbly dodged a dray, then an omnibus, and forgot about the man. There was really just one reb with whom he was concerned: a brevetted major named Main.
Would he ever hear from the fellow? He was beginning to doubt it. He had written three letters, paid exorbitantly to have each smuggled to Richmond, and received no answer to any of them. It seemed likely that Main was dead.
In a guilty way, the brigadier was grateful for the silence. Of course Main deserved to have his son with him. But Duncan was enjoying the responsibility of caring for young Charles. He had his housekeeper and more recently had hired a fine Irish girl to wet-nurse the infant and take care of certain other odious duties.
She was expert at her job. The housekeeper must be given notice and a month's wages — no, two, he decided — but Duncan had obtained the Irish girl's promise that she would accompany him to any new post where duty took him. She might well refuse to go out among the Indians, however.
If she did, he would find someone else. He was determined to take the child with him. Being a great-uncle and de facto parent had added an unexpectedly rich dimension to Duncan's lifelong bachelorhood. The one girl he had adored as a young man had died of consumption before they could be married, and none other had ever been fine or sweet enough to replace her. Now the void where love belonged was filled again.
He soon reached the small rented house a few blocks from the avenue. Jaunty as a boy, he took the steps two at a time and roared through the door into the dim lower hall.
"Maureen? Where's my grandnephew? Bring him here. I have splendid news. We're leaving town tonight."
Few things in life had ever intimidated Charles. For a day or two, the newness of West Point had. Sharpsburg had. Washington did now. So many damn Yankees. Whether soldier or civilian, most were hostile as reptiles when he asked a polite question in his distinctly Southern voice. The bunting everywhere depressed him further by reminding him of defeat. He felt like some scruffy animal just out of the woods and surrounded by hunters.
With an air of confidence he didn't feel, he walked through President's Park and up the steps of the War Department. He had left his gypsy cloak at the squalid island rooming house and fastened the throat button of his faded cadet gray shirt for neatness, though the effect was lost because of his chest-length beard. Nothing could do much to improve his wolfish appearance, and he knew it.
Nervously fiddling with a fresh cigar, he entered the ground-floor lobby and walked through the first open doors he saw. In a large room, he found a great many noncommissioned soldiers and civilian clerks shuffling piles of paper at desks on the other side of a counter. This was worse than setting yourself up for battle.
But he had to go through with it. Any humiliation or scrap was worth it, if only he could find Duncan and satisfy himself about Gus.