"Proceedings of the Democratic National Convention in New York last July."
"I read that you were a delegate."
Without bitterness, he said, "The Republicans named it the reb convention. Bedford Forrest was a delegate. Peter Sweeney, the sachem of Tammany, too — very odd bedfellows, but that's the Democratic party for you."
"It's about General Forrest and his Klan that I've come to speak to you. I want the culprits punished."
"What have the authorities done?"
"Nothing so far. It's been over two weeks. If too much time goes by, other things will take precedence and it will all be forgotten. I'll not have that. My teacher and the freedman at least deserve simple justice for a memorial."
"I concur. I'll tell you a fact about Forrest. He's ready to deny his connection with the Klan and order it to disband. It has gone too far even for him."
"No consolation to Andy's wife, or Prudence Chaffee's brothers and sisters."
"I understand your bitterness. Grant despises the Klan. Permit me to write him. I shall also ask General Lee to do so. We're on good terms. On behalf of all the investors in the little insurance company I organized in Atlanta, I asked him to assume the presidency. He declined. He's happy presiding at the college up in Lexington. But we're friends, and his word will carry weight." She glimpsed his melancholy as he stroked his side-whiskers and mused, "Now and again there is some small benefit in being a war-horse who came through it alive."
She noted the care with which he'd chosen the last word, leaving others — unhurt; unmarked — unspoken.
When Randall Gettys began to recognize his surroundings, Colonel Orpha C. Munro called on him. The hospital matron warned him that he couldn't stay long. With an acerbic smile he assured her that he could accomplish his mission quickly. "I am here at the request and on the authority of President Grant."
The matron unfolded a screen for privacy. Munro sat down beside the bed. Gettys resembled an intimidated child, the sheet tucked up to his pale chin and his pudgy fingers nervously playing with it. In the melee at Mont Royal he'd broken the right lens of his spectacles, which he'd had no chance to replace. He watched his visitor from behind a pattern of cracks radiating from the center of the lens.
With deceptive friendliness, Munro said, "It's my duty to inform you that the small hand press kept at your Dixie Store for printing your newspaper has been confiscated. You are no longer in the business of disseminating hatred, Mr. Gettys."
Gettys waited, certain there was worse to come.
"I would take a horsewhip to you if that were permissible. I'd do it despite your wound, because I find you and all your kind richly deserving of it. You're like the doomed Bourbons of France — kings too filled with arrogance to forget the past, and too stupid to learn from it."
Munro drew a long breath, forcing restraint on himself. "However, the recourse I mentioned is denied me. I suppose that's best. Using a horsewhip would pull me down to your level. Let me instead pose a question." Something hard, even a bit sadistic, showed in his eyes. "Do you know of the Dry Tortugas?''
"Small islands, aren't they? Off the Floridas."
"Quite right. The government now sends Carolina prisoners to the Dry Tortugas. A godforsaken spot, especially in the summer months. Blistering heat. Insects and rats and vermin. Wardens only a little less depraved than the inmate population." Munro smoothed his gauntlets, which he'd laid on his knee. He smiled. "New prisoners are subjected to certain — initiations, while the wardens look the other way. Without steady nerves and a strong constitution, a prisoner sometimes fails to survive the ordeal, which I understand can be savage. After all, when men are penned up together, without women —"
"My God, what has it all to do with me? I'm a gentleman."
"You're nevertheless going to the Dry Tortugas, for the murder of the freedman Sherman and the teacher Prudence Chaffee."
"I didn't kill them," Gettys exclaimed, his voice rising toward shrillness. "You can't send me to some — some bestial place like that."
"We can and we will. If you didn't actually commit the crimes, you belonged to the unlawful combination bearing responsibility."
Gettys's hand shot to the braided sleeve, clutching. "I'll give you the names of those in our klavern. Every last one."
"Well." Munro cleared his throat. "That might put a different coloration on it, being a cooperative witness." He concealed his amusement. He had expected a quick capitulation. He had inquired extensively about die character of Randall Gettys.
Gettys's pink face sweated. "If you keep me out of prison, I'll give you something else useful."
Colonel Munro was nonplussed. Cautiously, he said, "Yes?"
"I'll tell you about the Dixie Stores. People think it's a Southern company. Some old rebs hiding behind a name and committing usury. Well —"
Gettys hitched higher against the pillow, practically babbling in his haste to save himself. "It isn't that at all. The owner, the people bleeding this state, may be some of the very people who pose as high-minded Yankee reformers. My store and all the others like it are owned by a firm called Mercantile Enterprises. I don't send my receipts and reports to Memphis or Atlanta, I send them to a Yankee lawyer in Washington, D.C. I'll give you his name and address. I'll turn over the records. Is that enough to keep me from the Dry Tortugas?"
From the end of the ward a young man's delirious voice called for his Nancy, and water. Colonel Orpha C. Munro recovered his composure. "I think it may be, Mr. Gettys. I do indeed think so."
Munro here briefly. All the remaining den members are arrested. M. hinted that he has also discovered some scandal involving this district and persons from the North. He would not say more. Cannot imagine what he means.
63
Bent said, "You don't understand what you're doing."
Charles and Magee ignored him. Charles held the bridle he'd put on one of the mules from the corral. Magee, astride the frisky chestnut, pulled on the rope to test it. The rope was tied to the branch of the pecan tree hanging over Vermilion Creek. A few brilliant white clouds floated in the blue northwest. The day was sweet and summerlike.
"Lean your head down," Magee said.
Bent refused. Tears rolled down into the stubble on his cheeks. "To do this is criminal."
Charles was weary of the man's ranting. He glanced at Magee, who knocked Bent's plug hat off. It landed in the creek and sat upside down in the purling water. Magee yanked Bent's head down by the hair and slipped the noose over. He snugged the noose with one pull.
Blood still leaked from Bent's torn earlobe. His wound was soaking his left pant leg. He cried now, spewing wrath and self-pity. "You're trash, ignorant trash. You're robbing the nation of its greatest military genius, you and this lowlife nigger."
"God above," Magee said. He was too astounded to be mad.
Bent shook his head violently, as if he could get rid of the rope that way. "You can't do it. You can't deprive the world of the new Bonaparte." His voice was so loud that redbirds along the creek flew up in alarm.
Charles brought his Colt from his hip, cocked it, and held the muzzle an inch from Bent's mouth. "Shut up." He looked in the direction of the whiskey ranch, not wanting the outcries to carry. His son and the Cheyenne girl had had enough. Bent saw the determined eyes behind the revolver and struggled to control himself. He bit his lip; but the tears kept rolling from the corners of his eyes.