General Liggett shuffled through papers on his desk. Finding the one he wanted, he shoved it, face down, across the polished expanse of mahogany to Dowling. "This may be of some interest to you, then."
"Thank you," Dowling said, wondering if he ought to thank Liggett. He turned the paper over, glanced at it-and stared at his superior. "Thank you very much, sir!" he exclaimed.
"You're welcome, Colonel Dowling," Liggett replied. "Congratulations!"
"Thank you very much," Dowling repeated. "Uh, sir… Would you have given me this if I hadn't asked for it?"
Liggett's smile was as mysterious as the Mona Lisa's, though a good deal less benign. "You'll never know, will you?" His chuckle was not a pleasant sound. He found another sheet of paper, and passed it to Dowling, too. "Here are your orders, Colonel. Your train goes out of Broad Street Station tomorrow morning. I'm sure you'll do a fine job, and I know for a fact that General Pershing is looking forward to having you under his command."
" Do you?" All of a sudden, Dowling's world seemed less rosy. During the war, Pershing's Second Army had fought side by side with Custer's First in Kentucky and Tennessee. The two armies had been rivals, as neighbors often are, and their two commanders had been rivals, too. Custer was suspicious of his younger colleague, as he was suspicious of any other officer who might steal his glory. Dowling had forgotten Pershing was military governor of Utah these days.
"I think I know what's bothering you, Colonel," Liggett said. If anyone knew about rivalries, the chief of the General Staff would be the man. He went on, "You don't have to worry, not on that score. I meant what I said: General Pershing is eager to have you."
But what will he do with me-to me-once he's got me? Dowling wondered. He couldn't say that. All he could say was, "That's good to hear, sir."
"Which means you don't believe me," Liggett said. "Well, that's your privilege. You may even be right. I don't think you are, but you may be."
Dowling was by nature a pessimist. If he hadn't been before, ten years under General Custer would have made him one. "I'll do the best I can, sir, that's all," he said. And what ever Pershing does to me, by God, I'll have eagles on my shoulder straps. That makes up for a lot.
General Liggett nodded. "As long as you do that, no one can ask any more of you."
"All right, sir." Dowling started to rise, then checked himself. "May I ask you one more thing, sir? It's got nothing to do with Mormons."
"Go ahead and ask," Liggett told him. "I don't promise to answer, not till I've heard the question."
"I understand. What I want to know is, are we really cutting back on building new and better barrels? I've heard that, but it strikes me as foolish." Like most professional soldiers, Dowling had no use for the Socialist Party. There as in few other places, he agreed with the man under whom he'd served for so long. He would have expressed himself a lot more strongly had he been talking with General Leonard Wood, a lifelong Democrat and a friend of ex-President Theodore Roosevelt.
But Liggett nodded again, and didn't sound happy as he answered, "We aren't just cutting back, as a matter of fact. We're gutting the program. No money in the budget any more. That outfit at Fort Leavenworth called the Barrel Works…" He slashed a thumb across his throat. "As our German friends would say, kaputt."
"That's-unfortunate, sir." Dowling used the politest word he could. "Barrels won us the last war. They won't count less in the next one."
"Don't be silly, Colonel. There'll never, ever be another war. Just ask President Sinclair." He's still a soldier first, then, Dowling thought. Good. Both men laughed. But for the bitter undertone in each one's voice, the joke might have been funny.
A nne Colleton was studying the Wall Street Journal when the telephone rang. She muttered something under her breath, put down the five-day-old newspaper, and went to answer the phone. Back in the days when she'd lived on the Marshlands plantation, her butler, Scipio, or one of the other Negro servants would have done that for her and spared her the interruption. These days, though, the Marshlands mansion was a burnt-out ruin, the cotton fields around it going back to grass and bushes. Anne lived in town, not that St. Matthews, South Carolina, was much of a town.
"This is Anne Colleton," she said crisply. She was in her mid-thirties. With her sleek blond good looks, she could have lied ten years off her age with no one the wiser-till she spoke. Few people younger than she-few her own age, for that matter, but even fewer younger-could have so quickly made plain they put up with no nonsense at all.
"And a good day to you, Miss Colleton," replied the man on the other end of the line. By the hisses and pops accompanying his voice, he was calling from some distance away. He went on, "My name is Edward C.L. Wiggins, ma'am, and I'm in Richmond."
Long distance, sure enough, Anne thought-he sounded as if he were shouting down a rain barrel. "What is it, Mr. Wiggins?" she said. "I don't think we've met."
"No, ma'am, I haven't had the pleasure," he agreed, "but the Colleton name is famous all over the Confederate States."
He doubtless meant that as pleasant flattery. Anne Colleton had heard enough pleasant flattery to last the rest of her life by the time she was sixteen-one consequence of her looks men seldom thought about. "You can come to the point, Mr. Wiggins," she said pleasantly, "or I'll hang up on you no matter where you are."
"Once upon a time, President Semmes sent me up to Philadelphia to see if I could dicker a peace with the Yankees, but they wouldn't do it," Wiggins said.
That wasn't coming to the point, or Anne didn't think it was, but it did get her attention. "This would have been fairly early on, before we finally had to quit?" she asked.
"That's right, ma'am," he said.
"I heard rumors about that," she said. "With all the money I gave the Whigs in those days, I would have thought I deserved to hear something more than rumors, but evidently not. So you were representing President Semmes, were you?"
"Yes, ma'am, in an unofficial sort of way."
"And whose representative are you now, in an unofficial sort of way? I'm sure you're somebody's."
Edward C.L. Wiggins chuckled. "I heard you were one clever lady. I guess I heard right."
"Who told you so?" Anne asked sharply.
"Well, now, I was just getting to that. I-"
Anne did hang up then. She wasted not a minute getting back to work. With her finances in the state they were, they needed all the time she could give them. They needed more than that, too: they needed something close to a miracle. She wasn't a pauper, as so many prewar planters were these days. But she wasn't rich enough not to have to worry, either, and she didn't know if she ever would be.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again. Anne picked it up. "Why, Mr. Wiggins. What a pleasant surprise," she said before whoever was on the other end of the line could speak. If it wasn't Wiggins, she would have to apologize to someone, but she thought the odds were good enough to take the chance.
And it was. "Miss Colleton, if you would let me explain myself-"
She cut him off, though she didn't-quite-hang up on him once more. "I gave you two chances to do that. You didn't. If you think I'm in the habit of wasting my time on strange men who call me out of the blue, you're mistaken-and whoever told you what you think you know about me hasn't got the faintest notion of what he's talking about."
"Oh, I don't know." Wiggins' voice was dry. "He told me you were sharp as a tack but a first-class bitch, and that doesn't seem so far out to me."