“Miriam wanted to visit their graves,” Gus said after they’d continued on for another devastated block. “I had to tell her there weren’t any. For a while I thought she’d never speak again, then she threw herself into her causes and educating her maid Janey. Slowly that good woman came back to me.”
“And now I bring you more sorrow.”
“It’ll never end, Buck. But as Miriam would say, the world, which was made for us, abides; but we, for whom it was made, depart. Sometimes it seems to me, though, we’ll be in mourning for the rest of our lives. All Miriam and I . . . All any of us can do now is hold on to each other.”
They walked on side by side for another half block, before Gus commented, “My boys were fighting for state rights, you know, not slavery.”
It was hairsplitting, Buck had long realized. The state rights they were fighting for was the right to own slaves.
“I think you’re aware of my feelings about the peculiar institution,” he reminded his friend, “and the rift it caused between my father and me.”
“You’d be surprised how many families around here were split over it, but it was a matter of economics. It bothered me to have to lend money to plantation owners to buy slaves or to accept the cash value of their slaves as collateral for loans. Here I was supporting an institution I detested by day and helping undermine it by night.”
“Undermine it? What do you mean?”
Gus paused a moment, then on a deep breath said, “At last I can tell you, but I do so in the strictest confidence, Buck, for there’re people who would happily wreak their vengeance on us if they knew.” He paused again. “For years Miriam and I have been active conductors on the so-called Underground Railroad.”
Buck stopped short, aware his mouth was hanging open but unable to close it. “You were aiding runaway slaves?”
“So they could get to Canada or other safe havens.”
“My God, Gus. You could have been shot if you were caught. And Miriam.”
“It was a chance we had to take. Slavery is . . . was wrong. Owning people the way one owns a dog or a horse is immoral, not to mention the way some of them were treated.”
“By white trash like Saul Snead,” Buck offered belligerently.
“He was as bad as any of them, worse,” Gus agreed.
Buck shook his head. “In these past war years I thought I’d seen the bravest of the brave, but you two top ‘em all.”
“I’d like to take the credit, but I must tell you I merely furnished the funds. Miriam provided the means and moral courage. She clothed and fed them, gave them shelter and even transported them. No, my friend, if you want an example of selfless bravery, look to Miriam.”
They continued on. Gus had slowed his pace, perhaps in consideration of his young companion, perhaps because he was caught up in his own thoughts and memories. It was during this almost relaxed perambulation that something dawned on Buck that sent a shiver down his spine.
Was it possible that while the parents were undermining the singular cornerstone of southern society, their boys were going off to be killed in defense of it?
“Gus—” he hesitated “—did Bert and Harry know?”
“They knew. They died for the right of free people to make their own decisions.” Emotion silenced him for several strides, then he recovered and said, “I realize that sounds contradictory, but they were fighting so we could make the right choices on our own, not have them dictated by self-righteous outsiders.”
“We could have solved our own problems, if we’d been allowed to,” Buck agreed. “Is that what you mean?”
Gus shrugged. “Firing on Ft. Sumter was a grievous mistake. Firing on any fort is stupid if you can’t win the battle that will inevitably follow. Did those idiot politicians here in Columbia think Lincoln would tuck his tail between his legs and give us independence?”
“I hated slavery,” Buck said, “but like you I thought of myself as a South Carolinian first and an American second. General Lee felt the same way about his allegiance to Virginia. I guess now we’re all Americans first.”
They turned the last corner on their approach to the hotel.
“Gus, we’re lifelong friends. Why did we never have this discussion before?”
“I felt sure you agreed with me in principle, but I was afraid, with your famous Thomson temper, you might inadvertently compromise what we had to do in secret. Besides, when were you around for me to tell you? We haven’t seen you in what . . . six or seven years? First you went off to college, then medical school, then into the war.”
“A war that should never have happened.” He thought of the carnage he’d seen. The wasted lives. The ruined lives. A generation of men scarred and crippled.
“Yet you fought on the side of the Confederacy,” Gus observed.
“Because we were invaded under force of arms by the Yankees. I wasn’t defending slavery. I loathe it. Or state rights. Do we have the right to be morally wrong? I was helping in the struggle against northern aggression. Nobody points a gun at me and mine without me fighting back.”
They’d arrived at the Sand Hills Hotel, a three-story frame building with four grand columns in front. Its northwest wing had suffered fire damage and was obviously no longer habitable. Inside the main entrance, however, there was little evidence that the world outside had changed forever. Plush settees, crystal-shaded lamps and claw-footed tables gleamed, while neatly dressed Negro servants poured tea for finely gowned peaches-and-cream ladies and decanted aged Cognac for distinguished white gentlemen.
The clerk at the registration desk greeted the banker with polite respect.
“Good evening, Mr. Grayson. How may I help you and your young friend?”
“Doctor Thomson requires accommodations for—” he asked Buck “—how long will you be staying?”
“A week perhaps. No more.”
“The John C. Calhoun Suite is available, sir.”
“That’ll be fine.” Grayson turned to Buck. “I’ll leave you now, but I’ll be back tomorrow morning at nine. We have a great deal to discuss. Get some rest. You’ve had a trying day.”
Buck extended his hand. “Thank you for your help, old friend. And please thank Miriam for me.”
After Gus left, Buck arranged for a message to be sent by courier to the stagecoach company in Charleston notifying them of the highway encounter and the death of their driver. It was ironic that the drunken guard had survived. Buck also identified Otis Jeffcoat as the point of contact for the disposition of the driver’s remains.
He then sent a note to Dr. Meyer’s office canceling Mr. Greenwald’s appointment. After informing the man behind the desk that the surrey would be arriving sometime that evening and directing that his baggage be brought to his room, Buck retired for the night.
#
“He killed Floyd.” Rufus stomped in front of the cold pot-bellied stove in Lexington County’s infamous pot house. “He killed my brother.”
Hank wiped his handlebar mustache of beer foam. “Where?”
“Cedar Creek crossing.” It was supposed to be so simple. Shoot the horse and the driver, then put a slug in Thomson’s shoulder. Would have worked if Thomson hadn’t been riding guard, wielding that rifle. Never trust a doctor with a gun in his hand. “He killed my brother and now I’m gonna kill him for sure.”
Hank held up his pewter mug to the bartender for a refill. “What about Fat Man?”
Rufus slammed his fist on the plank bar. “Killed him too.”
“Their bodies still out there?” Shifty replaced Hank’s empty stein with a frothing one. “Or’d you bring ‘em back with you?”
“No time.” Rufus paced angrily, remembering the barrage of gunfire and the shower of leaves. There was no way he was going to hang around with Thomson wielding a gun. “Get a couple of the boys and a wagon out there to pick ‘em up,” he told Hank. “I’m gonna see to it Floyd gets a decent burial. Fat Man too,” he added as an afterthought.