MANGAS COLORADAS, COCHISE, and Victorio sat in the sweat lodge, wearing only their breechclouts. Perspiration dripped to the dirt floor as red coals radiated heat.
“The time has come,” said Cochise, “to make peace with the Mexicanos. For we have laid waste to their lands, stolen their cattle, and caused much devastation. Now, out of fear, they shall bargain with us.”
Mangas Coloradas raised his forefinger. “Perhaps they want revenge and will attack when they see you.”
Victorio added, “If we go in strength to speak with them, they will think we are raiding, and if we send a few warriors, they will be killed on sight. Your idea is good, Cochise, but how can we ask for peace?”
“If we do not council with them,” replied Cochise, “we will face worse consequences. The stagecoaches passing through the homeland are a sign of what is to come, while the Mexicanos have made no similar effort to settle Sonora and Chihuahua. It is there that we must make our effort.”
“It is too dangerous,” said Mangas Coloradas. “The emissaries would be wiped out.”
“But we cannot fight the Nakai-yes and the Pindah-Lickoyee together,” insisted Cochise.
The three foremost chiefs continued their council in the sweat lodge as scraps of conversation were overheard by passersby. Everyone was anxious to know the latest plans, and mothers worried about the future of their children.
After the conference, Mangas Coloradas returned to his wickiup. His daughter Dos-teh-seh, wife of Cochise, was waiting. “I wish to council with you,” she said.
“My dear child,” he replied, placing his arms around her. “Do not be so serious.”
“I have had a vision,” she said, raising her hand in the air. “I and another woman will journey to Fronteras and attempt to make peace.”
The old chief shook his head vehemently. “Never!”
“Cochise is right, and we cannot miss this opportunity. If women go, the Nakai-yes may not molest us.”
“It is an opportunity for my daughter to die, and I will not permit it.”
“Then I will ask Cochise.”
“He is your husband, but I am your father. I forbid you to go, because I could not bear to lose you.”
“What are the lives of two women compared to the future of the People?”
After leaving Mangas Coloradas, Dos-teh-seh made her way across the encampment, entered her wickiup, and found Cochise speaking with Coyuntura, his brother.
“I would like to council with you, my husband,” she said solemnly. “It is not necessary that Coyuntura leave.”
“Why are you serious?” asked Cochise. “Is the bluecoat army on the way?”
“I and another woman will go to Fronteras and make peace, because the Nakai-yes will not molest women traveling alone.”
“I think they will shoot you, women or not.”
“If you refuse permission, I shall go anyway,” she said. “I would rather face your punishment than the destruction of the People.”
“I will tie you to a tree before I let you go to Fronteras,” he said, and even as the words left his mouth he knew that she would make the journey, because the only way to stop her would be to kill her, and that he could not do.
Beau heard excited conversation among warriors and women, but it was in Apache language, and he’d learned few words. He could limp about, and his chest hurt whenever he took a deep breath, but he was much improved and hoped to be capable of riding soon. As he made his way through the camp, some Apaches appeared angry at him, others friendly, and he realized that the tribe consisted of many disparate tendencies, like a town of white people.
He returned to his wickiup, where Constanza cooked a pot of stew. They were living as man and wife, and he was haunted by guilt, like a good Presbyterian, as was she, a pious Catholic. Both knew without speaking that he would return to his wife, and she would be on her own. I have betrayed Rebecca yet again, he thought.
Yet he loved Constanza, perhaps not the same as he loved Rebecca, but it was love nonetheless, and could become quite torrid in the dark of night. He sat nearby and undressed her with his eyes. She glanced at him and smiled faintly. With her scabs and bruises mostly healed she was quite pretty, her youth especially invigorating. He arose and headed toward the wickiup, crawled inside, and began removing his clothes. She arrived a few moments later, and without a word unbuttoned her blouse.
A dusty, bearded cowboy rode down the Paseo de Peralta in Santa Fe, but no one paid attention. Strangers arrived and departed fairly constantly in the big town, and most looked like murderers after a month on the trail.
But Steve Culhane really was a murderer, and his stolen herd grazed on the other side of the Sandia Mountains, under the watchful eyes of his partners in crime. Now he needed more precise directions regarding the Barrington ranch.
Culhane never had seen Santa Fe, but his instincts led him unerringly to Burro Alley, where the most notorious saloons, cantinas, and whorehouses could be found. It was midafternoon, but the rails were lined with horses, and fandango guitars could be heard. Culhane maintained his hand near his gun, in case a victim from his past might appear. Culhane climbed down from his saddle, looked both ways, tied his horse to the rail, and entered a saloon with no sign over the door.
It was small, dark, and filled with smoke, about half full of customers, with the usual prostitutes wagging their butts. Culhane angled toward the bar, where the man in the apron waited, polishing a glass. “A double whiskey right hyar,” said Culhane, reaching into his pocket for the coins.
The bartender placed the glass before him. “We got a hotel in back, in case yer interested.”
“Nope, cuzz I’m travelin’ with a herd of cattle that I’m s’posed to deliver to a feller name of Barrington, who’s got a ranch somewhere’s west of here. Ever hear of ’im?”
The bartender wrinkled his nose, which sported a large pimple. “There ain’t no ranches out thar. It’s Apache country, and I’d advise you to stay away from ’em.”
“To hell with Apaches,” said Culhane. “If we could handle the Comanches, we can handle anythin’.”
It was a lie, but Culhane told so many untruths, he barely knew the difference. He viewed himself as the Robin Hood of the West, although he took from everyone and kept for himself.
On the next stool, an army sergeant turned toward Culhane. “Did I hear you say Barrington?”
“Sure did.”
“He used to be my commanding officer.”
“You know whar his ranch is?”
“You got a map?”
“Right hyar.” Culhane unbuttoned his shirt, pulled the map out, and unfolded it on the bar.
Sergeant Duffy’s eyes were half closed, his eyes traced with red lines. He took out a stubby pencil, studied the map, and made an x. “Thar.”
Following the conversation, Culhane moved to another part of the bar, as Sergeant Duffy sipped his whiskey, and stared at bottles lined against the mirror, like soldiers on parade. He was so drunk, he already had forgotten his conversation with the stranger.
Fort Buchanan was a scattering of ramshackle buildings on the eastern bank of the Sonoita River, named after President James Buchanan, and garrisoned with six companies of the 1st Dragoons, commanded by Captain Richard Stoddert Ewell of Virginia.
Not much happened at Fort Buchanan besides the usual drinking, gambling, and fighting in the sutler’s store. Occasionally a crowd of cowboys might pass through, or a stagecoach. Deep in Apache territory, with an estimated three thousand warriors in the vicinity, Fort Buchanan was one of the most exposed army posts on the frontier.
The monotony of garrison life was broken one day by the arrival of a cowboy crew and their wagon. Soldiers gawked openly at the aliens as they rode toward the sutler’s store. Mahoney, the sutler, looked out a window, contemplating riches headed his way.
The cowboys halted in front of the store, dismounted, and loosened the cinches of their saddles. They appeared tired, dusty, and bearded, except for one smooth-faced slightly built fellow. Everyone thought him a boy, but then the word spread across Fort Buchanan that a strange new female had arrived!
Clarissa wore tan cowboy pants, brown leather chaps, a natural color canvas shirt, and a brown leather vest. She took off her wide-brimmed hat, slapped it against her leg, and a cloud of dust billowed through the air. Then she turned to Blakelock and said, “Follow me.”
“Ma’am,” he replied politely, but the sneer never left his tobacco-stained lips.
She led them into the store, which had four tables, a counter, and the usual merchandise stacked on shelves. Since coming to the frontier, Clarissa had seen many such establishments, and they’d been of various sizes, but all appeared similarly dingy, and all smelled like coffee, tobacco, and whiskey.
Behind the counter, Mahoney smiled broadly. A bulky man of thirty-eight, he carried lead in his left leg, a souvenir of Cerro Gordo. His thick prematurely graying hair was brushed back and his jaw was the prow of a ship. “Howdy,” he said, taken aback by the woman in cowboy clothes.
Clarissa pulled a folded sheet of paper from her shirt pocket, spread it on the counter, and said out the corner of her mouth, just like Blakelock, “Can you fill this order?”
Mahoney looked at the items. “How you gonna pay?”
“Letter of credit.”
“Drawn on what?”
“The Bank of New York.”
Mahoney shook his head. “I can’t let you have the merchandise until the letter clears. Might be two months. I mean no disrespect, but—what if it’s a forgery.”
“I am well known at the Cerrillos Bank in Santa Fe.”
“You should’ve asked somebody there to endorse the letter. Sorry, but until I know you, I can’t extend credit.”
No one ever had refused Clarissa’s letter of credit, and her New York dignity became aroused. “But we need the merchandise!”
“Sorry,” said Mahoney.
Blakelock hitched up his belt, then advanced toward the counter, spurs jangling. “We ain’t askin’ fer charity, ’cause Mrs. Barrington can buy and sell you a hundred times over, and still have enough to buy New Mexico Territory.”
“If she’s so rich, whar’s her money?” asked Mahoney, who’d been in barracks brawls during his military career and did not back down before intimidation.
“Are you callin’ her a liar?” asked Blakelock.
“Hell no—I’m just explainin’ my side of it. But you best watch yerself, tubby, or I’ll come out from behind this counter and kick yer ass.”
A flush came to Blakelock’s cheeks, all the cowboys stepped back, and soldiers rose to their feet, in case dodging bullets became necessary. Blakelock hooked his thumbs in his belt, leaned forward, and said, “Like to see you try.”
Mahoney removed his apron as he advanced from behind the counter. Blakelock raised his fists, and in the old days Clarissa would attempt to stop them, but had learned to stay out of the way. The two combatants circled each other, looking for openings in the other’s defense, prepared to beat each other bloody, but before either threw a punch, the door to the general store opened, and a bearded fierce-looking captain appeared. “That’ll be enough,” he said.
All eyes turned to this singular individual. He looked like a biblical prophet in army uniform, with the bulging eyes of a fanatic.
Mahoney spoke first. “Yer just in time, sir, becuzz I was about to kick the shit out of this fat old man.”
The mustache atop Blakelock’s lip bristled. “You best put this son of a bitch somewhere, afore I kill him.”
“There’ll be no killing at Fort Buchanan unless I give the order,” replied Captain Ewell, post commander. “You’d best move on, cowboy. We don’t want trouble here.”
“Neither do we,” said a woman’s voice.
Captain Ewell appeared surprised, because no women was in the vicinity. Then he realized a cowboy had spoken, and he turned in the direction of the voice. “How can I be of service, ma’am?”
“The proprietor won’t honor my letter of credit, sir.”
Mahoney retorted, “I’ve been stuck before, and I ain’t a-gonna git stuck again.”
“But my husband was in the army,” said Clarissa. “And he had a fine reputation for paying bills. In fact, I have it on the best authority that he was responsible for the success of several saloons in Santa Fe.”
“What’s his name?” asked Captain Ewell.
“Nathanial Barrington.”
Captain Ewell appeared thunderstruck. “I’ve met your husband. Whatever happened to him?”
“We’ve got a ranch about a week’s ride from here, and we need supplies.”
The post commander turned to Mahoney. “I will vouch personally for Mrs. Barrington.”
Mahoney indicated the appropriate document, Captain Ewell scratched his name, then turned to Clarissa. “I would be honored if you dined with me tonight, madam.”
“What I really would like,” she replied, “more than anything in the world, is a bath.”
“Feel free to make use of my tub, or anything else at Fort Buchanan. You are the wife of a friend, and nothing is too good for you.”
After Captain Ewell departed, Clarissa supervised the purchasing of goods, making certain Mahoney didn’t press his thumb too heavily on the scale. Cowboys carried the merchandise to their wagon, then Clarissa signed the documents. All transactions with the sutler completed, it was time to pay the men. She sat at a table and they crowded around like a herd of cattle. “Make a line,” she ordered.
“Oh come on, Clarabelle,” said Dobbs.
“Nobody’s getting paid unless they’re in line.”
They growled and grumbled, but this time she had the power. One by one they pushed into line, fidgeting and working their shoulders.
“Before I begin,” she said, “I want to say that I hope the injuries won’t be too severe in the brawling later today.”
Some glanced at the ceiling, others the floor, behaving like naughty boys. She paid Blakelock first, then he stood beside her, thumbs hitched in his belt, belly hanging like a collapsed roof as he watched her give dollars to the rest of the cowboys. They made a beeline for the counter, where the sutler stood with his bottle of whiskey and a broad smile.
After the last man had been paid, Clarissa turned to Blakelock. “I don’t like to issue orders, Mr. Blakelock, because I know how fragile is your masculine pride, but I expect you to do everything in your power to stop fights before anyone is hurt too badly.”
“I have always believed,” he replied, smoke from his cigarette making him squint, “that if two men want to beat on each other, the onliest thing to do is git out of their way.”
Clarissa wanted to explain the immorality of fighting, not to mention its dangers, but decided to keep her peace, despite the righteousness of her position. She’d have to travel back to Whitecliff with them and didn’t want to end in the fire. “Blakelock,” she said, “if you knew how mad you make me, you’d be in fear of your life.”
“Oh, Clarabelle—who the hell’s skeered of you?” He laughed.
“What if I were to walk behind you someday and blow your brains out, if you’ve got any left.”
He leaned forward until his gruesome face was inches from hers. “You couldn’t kill me on the best day of yer life, even if I was bound and gagged, lyin’ on the ground, out cold. Besides, what the boys do on their time is their bizness, Clarabelle.”
“I told you to stop calling me that horrid name.”
“I think you orter take me along, to scrub yer back when yer takin’ yer bath.”
“You should pray more.”
“I pray all the time that you’ll let me...” He let his voice trail off.
“If I did, you couldn’t do anything anyway, you old buzzard. And you wouldn’t dare speak that way if my husband was here.”
“But he ain’t.”
“Yes he is—in spirit, and besides—you’re not serious. You just want to frighten me, and make me uncomfortable because it amuses your depraved sensibilities. But during this trip, I have become so accustomed to vulgarity, I doubt anything will shock me ever again.”
He made his malignant smile. “Wanna bet?”
Broadway was New York City’s most heavily policed area, making it possible for Nathanial’s mother to meet Clarissa’s mother once a month at Taylor’s Restaurant, at the corner of Chambers Street, although they didn’t especially like each other, and Clarissa’s mother had opposed the marriage from the beginning.
But now Myra Rowland had become a widow, and Amalia Barrington a near-widow, her husband moderately insane, and she preferred to leave him home, where servants could keep him from mischief. At her meetings with Myra, Amalia usually arrived first, a thin, austere woman who wore high-necked dresses, her gray hair combed into a neat bun behind her head. She ordered a cup of tea and read the Tribune as she waited for Clarissa’s mother.
The most important business story of the day came from Japan, where a New Yorker named Townsend Harris, America’s first ambassador to the land of the rising sun, had negotiated a treaty opening more ports to U.S. ships and providing permission for Americans to reside in Japan. Naturally Amalia knew Mr. Harris, as she knew most New Yorkers of the foremost classes.
The major domestic story concerned Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, running for reelection against an upstart Republican contender named Abe Lincoln, known as Long Abe due to his unusually tall physique. The Tribune’s Horace Greeley favored Douglas, since Douglas had opposed the Buchanan administration’s proslavery Lecompton Constitution, and Amalia felt like walking to the Tribune office and giving Horace a piece of her mind, because she despised Douglas, considering him even more contemptible than President Ten Cent Jimmy Buchanan.
Myra Rowland arrived, her great jowls barely contained by a quadruple-stranded pearl necklace, a stout, overbearing woman with graying hair piled high on her head, and she appeared top-heavy, as if she’d fall onto her face. “Sorry to be late,” she said as the waiter pulled back her chair.
“That’s what you always say,” replied Amalia, reluctantly folding the paper. “I think it’s insulting when people can’t keep appointments.”
“I wanted to let you read your Tribune. Has anything happened that I should know about?”
“Why should you know anything?” asked Amalia. “Ignorance is bliss, they say.”
“You may consider me ignorant, but I don’t care to read about the decline of my beloved country. When I grew up, I met Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, whereas today’s politicians are nothing short of scoundrels, but I didn’t come to argue politics. Have you heard from Nathanial?”
“No—and evidently Clarissa hasn’t written either.”
“You don’t suppose the Indians got them?”
“Someone would have notified us, I’m sure.”
“How would anyone know?” inquired Myra. “They’re in the middle of God knows where, and I don’t understand why that son of yours doesn’t return to New York and lead a normal life.”
“He hates normal life, and it’s interesting to point out that your daughter follows him everywhere, like his puppy dog.”
“It is my conviction that he has cast an evil spell over her, odd though that may sound. Don’t they know how much we worry about them?”
“If I were young again,” said Amalia wistfully, “I might go west myself, to see how they’re doing with my own eyes.”
“I prefer modern plumbing, and I wouldn’t want wild Indians to burn me at the stake. And then there’s the criminal element that invariably flocks to border areas, to escape prosecution in their own jurisdictions. For all I know, your son is keeping Clarissa against her will. I don’t mean to be rude, because you’ve done your best with him, God knows, but I wouldn’t put anything past Nathanial Barrington.”
“He certainly has mesmerized your daughter, who is so desperately in love with him, there’s nothing she won’t do, apparently.”
“The young people of today—I don’t know what to think about them,” complained Myra. “They’re all transcendentalists, see their phrenologists regularly, and call themselves progressive. Well—I prefer the old days, when people attempted to be dignified, and obeyed their parents, instead of running off to live among bloodthirsty savages in New Mexico Territory, of all places.”
Clarissa made her way to Captain Ewell’s residence, saddlebags over her shoulder. She knocked on the door and was greeted by a bony old black woman wearing a red bandanna on her head. “You must be the Yankee lady,” she said. “Come on in—I got a bath prepared. My name’s Hester.”
In the kitchen, an empty tub was set beside the stove, on top of which bubbled four pails of water. Hester picked up a pail, then dumped it into the tub. Meanwhile, Clarissa undressed. “You can’t imagine how wonderful that water looks to me,” she said.
“Oh yes I can, becuzz I can smell you all the way over here.” Hester mixed pails of cold water with the hot, continually testing with her hand. “Want me to wash yer back?”
“I can manage, thank you.”
Clarissa let herself soak, realizing that Hester must be Captain Ewell’s slave, and he’d probably brought her all the way from the old plantation to care for his domestic arrangements. Clarissa hated slavery like any good northern abolitionist, but preferred to avoid arguments with southerners, particularly since so many had settled in New Mexico Territory. Then she wondered how Nathanial was getting along without her, because he was a man not much different from her cowboys, or in other words, not to be trusted. She took a nap in the warm water when someone knocked on the door.
“Has you died?” asked Hester.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
The slave entered, carrying Clarissa’s ironed dress, which she’d removed from Clarissa’s valise. Clarissa dried herself, put on clean clothes, then returned to the parlor as Hester placed a cup of coffee and cookies on the table. Meanwhile, two soldiers emptied the tub and cleaned the kitchen.
“Do you like it here?” Clarissa asked Hester.
“I miss Virginia, but the massa needs me.”
If he needs you so much, why doesn’t he pay you a decent wage? thought Clarissa. And then the fatigue of the journey hit her, not to mention the tension of contending with her cowboys over every little issue. She dragged herself to the sofa, closed her eyes, and it wasn’t long before she fell fast asleep, dreaming of endless cactus plains.
She was awakened by the sound of a door. It was evening, and Captain Ewell had returned. “Sorry to disturb you,” he said gruffly. “Didn’t know you were sleeping. Hester should have given you the guest room.”
He lit a candle on the table, removed his hat, and revealed his bald head, the reason his men called him Old Baldy. With his protruding eyes, he would appear laughable were it not for his steadfast military appearance, and the sense of inner strength that he radiated. Clarissa could understand why he’d been entrusted with remote Fort Buchanan. This is a man who’d fight on even if a leg was blown off, evaluated Clarissa.
He poured himself a glass of whiskey, sat at the table, then hollered, “Hester!”
The kitchen door opened and a dusty face appeared. “Suh?”
“Where’s my supper!”
“It’ll be there in a minute,” she replied on the other side of the kitchen door. “Gawd—you sound like you ain’t et fer a month.”
The door closed, and Old Baldy turned to Clarissa. “The nigras are supposed to be downtrodden, according to what you northerners say, but I’ve never been able to win an argument against Hester. She always has to have the last word.”
Clarissa did not reply, although she wanted to deliver an abolitionist lecture. Instead she smiled pleasantly as she joined him at the table.
“I’m surprised Nathanial let you travel with that bunch of outlaws you call cowboys,” said Captain Ewell. “Someone told me he lived with the Apaches for a spell. Has it changed him much?”
“He has become disillusioned with the government’s treatment of Indians.”
“He loves Indians now, does he? Well, wait till they burn his ranch down. Do you have any idea how precarious your position is in the Sonoita Valley? Even I, sitting at Fort Buchanan with two hundred men, don’t feel secure. And those cowboys of yours—I’ve never seen a sadder-looking bunch in all my days. I wonder how long before they tear up the sutler’s store.”
As Clarissa enjoyed polite conversation with Captain Ewell, it was silent in the sutler’s store, soldiers and cowboys sitting on chairs or the floor, tin mugs of whiskey in their hands, gazing balefully at each other.
Their lives were so stark, brutal, and loveless, it wouldn’t require much to set them off. And Blakelock was maddest of all, because he had fallen in love, although he’d never admit it, even under torture. The object of his desire was the boss’s wife, Clarissa Barrington, and his was a love that dared not speak its name.
He was old enough to be her father, she was married, and he knew that she considered him a filthy old drunk, which in fact he was, but that didn’t prevent him from lusting after her, even as she humiliated him daily with her outlandish and impractical orders. Blakelock feared that his cowboys were losing respect for him, and he was losing respect for himself, but it wasn’t easy to take orders from a woman, especially one who didn’t know anything. If only she kept her pretty mouth shut, thought Blakelock.
He drained his glass, then arose from the square of floor where he’d been sitting. His eyes blurred, he blacked out for a moment, then his head cleared, and he stumbled in the general direction of the bar, inadvertently bumping into a corporal.
“Watch whar in hell yer going,” snarled the corporal, a redhead built like a beanpole, teeth stained with tobacco juice.
Blakelock smashed his tin cup into the corporal’s face, dazing him momentarily, but like a good soldier the corporal countered with a right hook toward Blakelock’s liver. The foreman was shaken by the blow, sank toward the floor, and the corporal bent his knees for an uppercut, when Dobbs leapt onto him, but then Dobbs was crowned with a chair in the hands of a private built like a bull moose.
Soon fighting became widespread in the tiny store, men were knocked off their feet, and everyone threw punches and anything else they could find, including candlesticks and the cuspidor. Mahoney ran out the back door and hollered, “Sergeant of the Guard!”
Meanwhile, the post commander enjoyed roast beef and biscuits with his old friend’s wife. “Never figured Nathanial would leave the army,” he declared.
She lay down her knife and fork. “Richard,” she replied, because they had advanced to a first-name basis, “I don’t mean to be disagreeable, but what’s so wonderful about the army? Look at how you live at Fort Buchanan. Why don’t you get married?”
“To whom? In case you haven’t noticed, there are no women here, not even Indians.”
There was pounding on the door, and in an instant Captain Ewell was on his feet, gun in hand. He flung the door open, expecting Apaches on the attack, but it was the sergeant of the guard. “There’s a fight in the sutler’s store, sir!”
“Call the men to arms!”
The sergeant of the guard ran to the barracks as Captain Ewell marched resolutely toward the sutler’s store, from which shouts and crashes could be heard. Clarissa followed, holding her skirts in her hands, wearing her cowboy boots and Colt strapped to her waist. How could somebody not be killed in such an uproar? she asked herself.
They arrived at the store, hearing sounds of bodies bouncing off walls inside. “I think you’d better step back, Clarissa,” said Captain Ewell as he reached for the doorknob. “This might get ugly.”
“There’s nothing those pigs could do that would surprise me,” she replied.
Captain Ewell drew his service revolver, pulled open the door, and a scene of incredible carnage seared Clarissa’s eyes, Blakelock in the middle of it, red-faced and punching wildly, even connecting occasionally. Old Baldy raised his revolver and fired one round at the rafters. The loud report in a small enclosed general store produced an instantaneous effect on eardrums, and everyone stopped suddenly, standing like a fantastical marble frieze in a public square off the Via Veneto in Rome, which Clarissa had visited on her honeymoon, but Caesar’s legionnaires never wore cowboy boots.
“Next time I’ll shoot to kill!” shouted Captain Ewell.
They could have overpowered him, but he’d shoot a few first, and something about his stance gave them pause. The sergeant of the guard arrived with the rest of the soldiers, armed with rifles and fixed bayonets.
Men picked themselves off the floor, faces bloody. Clarissa followed Old Baldy into the store, and saw something that looked like a tooth lying next to an overturned cuspidor. I will never understand men as long as I live, she said herself. Nor do I want to. It appeared that none of her cowboys had been killed, although there were plentiful split lips, broken noses, and one had a shattered jaw. Blakelock stood in the middle of the carnage, a wicked smile on his mangled features. She wanted to call him a worthless bastard, but insults never had moved him in the past. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” she said coldly, then with one last expression of disdain, she walked back to the post commander’s residence to finish her coffee.
Clarissa’s cowboys weren’t the only Americans afflicted with broken bodies on that warm summer night, for not even wealthy and famous citizens could escape limitations of the human body. And one of the most celebrated Americans, Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, lay in a dark room in his mansion on G Street in Washington, D.C., his head bursting with pain, left eye ulcerated and covered with yellow mucous.
Jefferson Davis, fifty, was one of the most renowned heroes of the Mexican War, along with Albert Sydney Johnston, Robert E. Lee, and Thomas Jonathan Jackson. Jeff Davis had survived the hottest fighting at Buena Vista, turning point of the war, but at Fort Winnebago, he’d become afflicted with pneumonia, the results of which were lifelong neuralgia and the strange oracular disease. His political enemies said he’d caught it from an unwashed squaw.
The senator’s condition had worsened during the previous session of Congress, when he’d led the southern bloc in crucial debates concerning Kansas-Nebraska, the rail-road bill, the Homestead Bill, and the annexation of Cuba. Jefferson Davis had fought hard, even challenging other senators to duels on the floor of that hallowed chamber.
But the harder he’d fought, the worse his old illness became. He’d collapsed at the end of the session, and had been in bed ever since, taking laudanum to control the pain, wishing he’d die and get it over with, but the South needed him, and he could not fail his native land.
Like many Americans that tumultuous summer, Jefferson Davis worried about civil war, and the more he worried, the thicker the film grew over his left eye. But how could he not worry, with his world about to be destroyed?
The bedroom door opened, and his wife, the former Varina Howell of Natchez, entered the bedroom. She was thirty-two, a tall light-skinned woman, but some whispered that her features looked part Negro, however no one chanced such remarks within earshot of the hero of Buena Vista. She sat at the edge of the bed. “How are you feeling, Jeff?”
“Worse,” he grunted.
“I do wish you’d try to sleep.”
“How can I sleep with those damned Yankees trying to ram through their railroad bill, although it’ll cost more than mine, and take longer to build? They’ll do anything to favor their section, and are incapable of fairness.”
She placed her hand on his forehead. “Shhh,” she said soothingly.
“Why didn’t this illness strike Sumner or Seward?” he asked. They were two northern senators.
“Because neither was in the army, and it’s the price you’ve paid for serving your country. But I was thinking, Jeff—why don’t we leave Washington for the summer, and I don’t mean traveling back to Mississippi, where you’ll only become embroiled in local politics. Why don’t we have a real vacation?”
“Where?” he inquired.
“I’ve always wanted to visit Maine. They say it’s lovely this time of year, and we can visit Frank on the way.”
She referred to Franklin Pierce, the previous president of the United States, an old friend and war comrade of Jeff Davis’s, who had appointed him secretary of war. Pierce had retired to civilian life in New Hampshire, the most unpopular president in American history, but a stalwart defender of the South.
“I can’t travel anywhere,” groaned the former colonel of the Mississippi Rifles. “I’m much too ill.”
“The fresh air and sea breeze will do you good, and you can forget politics for awhile. I’ll take care of everything.”
He held her hand. “I’ve forced you to spend your best years caring for a sick old man.”
“I would rather be with you, even when you’re sick, than with Edwin Booth himself.”
She referred to the most handsome young actor of the day, much beloved by ladies. “You’re mad,” said Jefferson Davis, a smile creasing his aristocratic features.
“May I make plans for a trip to Maine?”
“Anything you like.”
She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then they lay together in the darkness, yet another American couple fearing the conflagration that lay ahead.
Long Abe Lincoln continued his busy campaign schedule, visiting towns large and small, railing against the evil of slavery. Many citizens listened sympathetically, for morality was the bedrock of their lives, while others hurled insults. But Long Abe stood his ground, because he believed that backwoods reasonableness could solve most problems, even the slavery issue.
The outclassed candidate slept on trains, stage-coaches, even on horseback, his long legs nearly dragging on the ground, as he crisscrossed Illinois. Frequently he wondered why he was inflicting a political campaign upon himself, when he should be supporting his family, but somehow fate and hard work had elevated him among the morass of Illinois abolitionists.
One night, riding a train to Decatur, the weary campaigner read a batch of news clippings in the light of the gimballed oil lamp affixed to the wall. According to the Chicago Times:
Abe Lincoln went yesterday to Monticello, following Douglas’s train. Poor, desperate creature, Lincoln wants an audience; poor, unhappy mortal, but the people won’t turn out to hear him, and he must do something, even if that something is mean, sneaking, and disreputable!
We have a suggestion. There are two very good circuses and menageries traveling the state, and the Republicans might make arrangements to include a speech from Lincoln in their performances.
Anyone who ever heard Lincoln speak, or is acquainted with his style of speaking, must know that he cannot provide five grammatical sentences in succession.
The words wounded Abe Lincoln, who once had been a dirty-faced poor white child raised in a log cabin. The anger welled up inside him like a white hot righteous flame. The mouth of the wicked and the mouth of the deceitful are arrayed against me, he thought, recalling Psalm 109. But the LORD shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul.
Although not a regular churchgoer, Abe Lincoln had been raised on the Bible and believed in its moral principles. I may not be good enough for fancy newspaper reporters, he told himself, but when I meet Douglas face-to-face, I’ll show him what I’m made of, and on election day, it won’t be newspapers but votes that’ll count.
The train chugged into the night, carrying the insulted candidate toward his next speech. He dozed, and dreamed of himself sitting in a theater, watching a play. A shadow loomed behind him, but then he awakened suddenly, a grim foreboding came over him, but Abe Lincoln was a man of many dark moods, as well as the light of the Lord, as he traveled the Illinois election circuit during the summer of ’58, speaking the truth to the people.