His stare was unwavering, "You're from South Carolina. I don't care about that unless it means you can't live by my rules. If you can't, I don't want you."
Tense now, fearing rejection, Charles said, "I can, sir."
"You can deal honestly, squarely, with Negro soldiers?"
"I got along well with blacks on the plantation where I was raised."
The wrong tack again. Grierson waved with bitter scorn. "Bondsmen, Mr. Main. Slaves. Immaterial here."
Charles's voice hardened a little. "Let me put it another way, sir. No, I won't get along with every last man." Grierson started to retort, but Charles kept on. "I didn't get along with all of the white men in the Wade Hampton Legion or the Second Cavalry in Texas. Every outfit has its share of idiots and berry-pickers. I always warned that kind of man once, but only once. If he kept on, I locked him up. If he still kept on, I got him discharged. I'd behave the same way in the Tenth." He locked his gaze with Grierson's. "Like a professional."
Silence. Grierson stared. Suddenly, between the bushy mustache and luxuriant beard, he flashed a smile.
"A good answer. A soldier's answer. I accept it. Men of the Tenth will be judged on merit, nothing else."
"Yes, sir," Charles said, though his prompt answer made him a little uneasy. He was quick to speak because he wanted to join a regiment, any regiment, and this one was desperate for officers. But he had reservations about the ability of city blacks to become good soldiers — exactly the same reservations he'd had about the white flotsam he'd found at Jefferson Barracks. The bias probably came from his West Point training, but there it was.
Grierson leaned forward. "Mr. Main, I detest liars and cheats and am about to qualify myself as both. You will be required to do the same when the special review board examines you. At least one member, Captain Krug, will bore in hard. He hates every man who wore Confederate gray. His younger brother perished in Andersonville prison."
Charles nodded, filing the name away.
"Now. Particulars." Grierson inked his pen. "You've applied for pardon?"
"The letter will be written today."
"I know about your experience at Jefferson Barracks. What name shall we try this time?"
"I thought it should be something familiar again, so I could answer to it naturally. Charles August. The name August has some family connections."
"August. Good." The pen scratched. "What was your highest rank in Hampton's scouts?"
"Major."
Grierson wrote, None — irregular status (scout).
"It's best that we forget you ever saw West Point. How many Academy men would recognize you now, do you think?"
"Any of them who were there when I was, I suppose. That's how I was discovered at Jefferson Barracks."
"Who identified you?"
"A Captain Venable."
"Harry Venable? I know him. Excellent cavalryman but a pompous little monster. Well, in regard to former classmates you might encounter, we'll just have to chance it. Next point. My officers are supposed to have two years of field experience."
"I do. With the Second Cavalry in Texas."
Dryly, Grierson said, "That was before you changed sides. Let's forget about Texas. The subject might lead someone back to the Academy." Charles watched the scratchy pen move. Prey, exp. — 4 yrs. vols.
They talked for another hour. At the end Grierson knew a lot about Charles's personal life. He knew about Orry, the surrogate father; about Charles's trouble with Elkanah Bent; about the horrifying impact of Sharpsburg, the loss of Augusta Barclay, the frantic search for their son. Finally, Grierson put his notes away and shook Charles's hand. It struck Charles as more ceremonial than friendly. The colonel was still reserving judgment.
"My adjutant will tell you how to prepare for the written test. You should have no trouble with it. The review board is another matter." Grierson walked him to the door, smoothing his beard. "Do something about your appearance. It works against you. Either trim the beard or get rid of it."
"Yes, sir." He stressed the second word, the old West Point way, then snapped his right hand outward in his best cadet salute. Grierson returned it and dismissed him.
After the door closed, Grierson went back to the desk. He gazed at the ambrotype for a moment or so, then started a letter.
Dearest Alice,
I may have got a good one today. A former reb who wants to exterminate the hostiles. If I get him past the examiners, and harness his wrathful impulses, the regiment may benefit, for I have yet to meet a quality officer who did not have some demon driving him ...
In front of the pocket mirror Duncan loaned him, Charles gazed at his soaped face. He hadn't shaved in months. The dangerous edge he'd honed on Duncan's razor pulled and tore when he attacked his beard.
He thought of Grierson's warning about the review board as he pulled the razor down with reckless haste. The edge bit through his beard to rasp the skin. As he stroked, sections of his beard fell around the basin. A new, almost unfamiliar face appeared. More lines. More of time's markings.
"Ahh!" He grabbed a towel and pressed it to his bleeding jaw. When the gash clotted a little, he flung the towel down and attacked the other side of his face. Thinking of Wooden Foot, Boy, Fen, he cut himself deeply a second time, but scarcely felt it.
In general, the relation of the Anglo-Saxon race with inferior races, all the world over, is a most unpleasant matter to contemplate. Whether it is with the Hindoos, or the Australians, or Jamaicans, or on this side with California Chinese, or Negroes, or Indians, the uniform habit and tendency of this "imperial race" is to crush the weak. ... The dealings of this nation toward the Indians form one of the most disgraceful chapters in modern history. We first drive them from their land, and then suffer them to be poisoned with our diseases and debauched by our vices. They are steadily driven back to the region of the buffalo, and now even in the wild mountains bordering on that region, the miners are destroying the game and breaking up the solitude on which their support as hunters depends...
Editorial comment,
25
Brigadier Duncan telegraphed the pardon request to the attorney, Dills, and transferred funds to a Washington bank. He dispatched a carefully worded letter to General Sherman at Division, stressing Grierson's need for qualified officers and the outstanding ability of one Charles August. Charles wondered how Sherman would react if he knew "August" was the unkempt trader he'd met on the prairie.
Charles took a room in Leavenworth City but returned to the post every day, trying to get reacquainted with little Gus. The boy would be two in December. He was walking, talking in rudimentary sentences, and still had a certain reserve in the presence of the tall, gaunt man who took him for walks and called himself Pa.
Maureen usually went along on the walks. She continued to disapprove of Charles as a parent — he was, among other things, merely a man — but since his return, he had shown her a new and unpleasant side of his personality. He showed it again as the three of them came back from a stroll along the river one sparkling afternoon. Hand in hand, Charles and little Gus were marching like soldiers. The boy loved the reviews and evening retreats at Leavenworth, and he liked to imitate them. Charles obliged. The two of them moved briskly down the path ahead of Duncan's housekeeper.