Caudell stared down Alston Street without really seeing it. Instead, with frightening vividness, he saw Josephine’s dress fall from her shoulders, saw her dark charms exposed for buyers to admire, saw the frustrated lust on the Alabama man’s face when Piet Hardie—a schoolmaster even in his own thoughts, he spelled the Rivington man’s name correctly in his mind—outbid him. He also saw her face peering through the jasmine by Stony Creek, heard the terror in her voice, heard the nigger hounds baying on her trail. He wondered what Hardie had done to her, to make her first try to flee and then take her own life. Mollie would know, he thought, and then shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold. Some knowledge, he decided, he could live without.
He read the letter again, then slowly and deliberately tore it into tiny pieces. He hurled them down to the dirt of the street. The chilly wind whirled them away, as if it were snowing again after all.
* XIII *
Robert E. Lee glanced over at a map of Kentucky, then noted a last couple of corrections to an order changing the size of the garrisons in the new Confederate fortifications along the Ohio River. With a satisfied nod, he fixed his signature to the bottom of the paper. Then he got up, stretched, and set his hat on his head. The sky was beginning to go more purple than blue—enough for one day. In peacetime, he could think that and keep his conscience clear.
The lobby of Mechanic’s Hall was all but deserted when he went downstairs. Even John Beauchamp Jones’s proud brass nameplate presided over a bare desk and an empty chair. A sentry came to attention as Lee walked past him into the gathering twilight.
Another man in Confederate gray was coming down the steps of the building across the street from the War Department, the building that was the Richmond headquarters of America Will Break. Lee’s mouth tightened, ever so slightly; he wished soldiers would stay away from the Rivington men, especially since the war was more than a year and a half over. He had contemplated a general order to that effect, but set the notion aside as being unjust and without foundation in fact: the Rivington men troubled him, but on balance had done his country far more good than harm.
As he and the other man approached each other, he noticed the fellow’s tunic buttons were grouped in three groups of three. His frown deepened. What was a general doing, consorting with the Rivington men? He peered through the gathering darkness, but did not recognize the officer.
The other man appeared to have no such doubts about him, but then his face was arguably the most widely known in the Confederacy. The man saluted, then held out a hand and said, “General Lee, sir, I’m delighted to meet you at last. I am Nathan Bedford Forrest.”
“The pleasure is mine, General Forrest. Forgive me, I beg, for not knowing you at once.” As he spoke, Lee studied the famous cavalry commander. Forrest was a big man, a couple of inches taller than he, with wide shoulders but otherwise Whipcord lean. He bore himself almost as erectly as Jefferson Davis. His hair receded at the temples; gray streaked it and his chin beard. Deep shadows dwelt in the hollows of his cheeks.
His eyes—as soon as Lee saw those gray-blue eyes, he understood how Forrest had earned his reputation, for good and ill. They were the hooded eyes of a bird of prey, utterly intent on whatever lay before them. Of all the officers Lee had known, he could think of only two whose visages bore the stamp of implacable purpose that marked Nathan Bedford Forrest: Jackson, whom he would mourn forever, and John Bell Hood. What this man set out to do, he would do, or die trying.
Lee said, “I was just heading home, sir. Will you take supper with me?”
“I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble, General,” Forrest said doubtfully. His voice was soft and pleasant, with a strong flavor of backwoods Tennessee.
“Nonsense,” Lee declared. “There will be plenty. In any case, I may keep you too busy to eat, as I intend to talk your ears off.”
Forrest’s smile enlivened his brooding features remarkably. “I am at your service, then, General Lee, and I will make sure I keep my hands on my ears at all times.”
“My house is only a few blocks away,” Lee said. “Do come along. I’ve wanted to meet you for some time, to discuss with you your extraordinary campaigns in the west, but circumstances have kept you in the field even while the rest of us enjoyed the fruits of peace.”
“Blame the Yankees, for trifling with our niggers,” Forrest said.
“I am sick to death of blame, General Forrest, and of endless recriminations on both sides, let me say,” Lee added hastily. “The United States are here, as are we; our two nations have a common border which stretches for two thousand miles, more or less. Either we learn not to be distracted by our differences or we fight a war every generation, as the nations of Europe are in the habit of doing. I would not care to see such folly come to our shores.”
“Spoken like the true Christian you are, sir,” Forrest said. “Still and all, knowing I can lick the Yankees whenever I need to will make me sleep better of nights. As for the nigger soldiers they left behind, we’ll be years getting’ ‘em all to remember who their masters are. And for that, I wish God would send all the Yankees straight to hell.”
“Do you think it can be done, even given years?” Lee asked.
“Kill enough of ‘em, General Lee, sir, and the rest of ‘em will get the notion,” Forrest said with brutal pragmatism.
The cavalry general and Negro fighter seemed very sure of himself, but Lee still wondered if simple savagery could produce even a Tacitean peace. The promise of force had always had its place in maintaining slavery and keeping revolts from breaking out, yet that promise rarely had to be kept in the days before the war. He wondered how—and whether—the Confederacy could withstand a constantly simmering rebellion.
Hoping to change the subject, he asked Forrest, “What brings you to Richmond at last?”
“I think I wrecked the last nigger robber band that halfway deserved to be called a regiment, so I had the leisure to present my report in person,” Forrest answered. “I gave it to a clerk this afternoon, so I daresay you’ll see it tomorrow. I thought I’d look at the slave markets, too; plenty of prime niggers here, since this is the capital.”
“I see.” Lee could not keep a certain chill from his voice. He knew Forrest had made his fortune trading slaves, but he had not expected him to refer to it so openly. No Virginia gentleman would have done so, that was certain.
Forrest might have picked the thought from his mind. “I hope I’ve not offended you, sir. My father was a blacksmith who neither read nor wrote. He died when I was sixteen, leaving me the oldest of eight brothers and three sisters, so I’ve had to come up as I can. My son will be a gentleman, but I’ve not had the leisure to learn that way of life myself.” He drew himself up straighter than ever in touchy pride.
“You’ve done well for yourself, General Forrest, and for your family, and for the Confederate States,” Lee said, which had the virtue of being both true and polite—gentlemanly, as a matter of fact. Nevertheless, he could not quite suppress a touch of pique at Forrest’s implied criticism of his own upbringing and social class.
By then the two men had reached Lee’s house. Lee knocked on the front door, took off his coat as he waited for Julia to open it. Forrest followed his example; now that spring was here, an uncovered moment at night was no longer uncomfortable. Crickets chirped here and there in the grass.