Muletrain to Maggody Page 7

  “Yeah, I know,” said Simon. “I don’t have a lot of lines on camera. Most of it will be voiceover and I can read from a script in an air-conditioned studio. Too bad the rest of this crappy skirmish can’t be staged there, too.”

  “Mules, dear,” Corinne said. “So messy.”

  Yawning, Sweetpea stood up. “Sorry, but the tennis must have worn me out. Simon, you’d better run me home so I can take a nap before I get ready for the party.” She bent over to brush her cheek against Corinne’s. “I enjoyed visiting with you. Maybe we can talk about flower arrangements next time. Better yet, after we get back from wherever this town is, we can do lunch and drop by some of the floral design studios. Pamela discovered a divine one run by an Italian who claims to be a count. She said he positively licked her hand.”

  “Yes, we’ll do that. Simon, kindly fetch the copy of the journal before you leave tonight. I barely glanced at it when it arrived the other day. Perhaps I can find a way to incorporate some of it into my presentation. A little local color makes it more interesting for the children.”

  “As you wish, ma petite mère,” he said, proving he had picked up a semblance of culture from the prep schools and colleges that had expelled him over the last six years.

  Once they’d left, Corinne took the glasses to the kitchen. She returned to her office and sat down behind the walnut desk. Sunlight now shone on the bookcases lining two walls, bathing the spines of well over a thousand books in a musty glow. Some were collections bound in leather. Others were more mundane but necessary for research purposes. Simon kept badgering her to use the Internet, but it was much more satisfying to pull out the perfect volume and curl up in the overstuffed armchair. Countless of her characters had done so in their libraries, even as war raged in the adjoining county.

  Rather than retreat to one of her great-great-grandmother’s volumes of poetry, however, Corinne picked up the letter from her agent in New York. She’d read it before, but she forced herself to read it once more before she took it to the barbecue grill in the backyard and sacrificed it to the gods of publishing. Which might be futile, since they were a godless bunch.

  Sales down, returns up, interest flagging at her current publishing house, the possibility of a smaller advance for her next book. She’d received an almost identical letter the previous year. Her sales had shot up after each of the miniseries had aired, but then tapered off. The die-hard historical readers were aging and therefore dwindling; the younger readers preferred contemporary novels with sex rather than romance.

  The letter obliquely emphasized the importance of a marriage between Simon and Sweetpea (and her family’s money). Ancestry and tradition still dictated Charleston society, but neither paid the bills. Nor would her advances and royalties if Simon was not tightly curbed. Sweetpea had a pretty face, but Corinne suspected she also had an inner layer of icy calculation. She probably knew to the penny what her first pair of white party gloves had cost, as well as the Jaguar her daddy had given her. Not, of course, that she would admit it if she were tied to a stake and knee-deep in kindling. Charleston’s finest were oblivious to money, as long as they had it.

  Corinne was in the living room, the crumpled letter in her hand, when she saw the police car pull up in front of the house. As she had done several times during the previous few days, she ducked into the kitchen and steeled herself to ignore the peal of the doorbell.

  At the very same time that Corinne was cringing in her kitchen, Kenneth Grimley was admiring himself in his bathroom mirror. He often dressed in the dark blue uniform, with brass buttons and gold trim, a cape lined with scarlet silk, a broad-brimmed hat with a plume, and always the Colt army revolver and the sword in its engraved silver sheath. Such a dashing figure, he told himself as he squared his shoulders and shot his reflection a bold, if not cocky, grin. General Wallingford Ames, commander of the Illinois Army, leader of the troops that had defended the indivisibility of the nation, grinned back at him.

  For the moment, it didn’t matter that he was short and chubby, had an unfortunate habit of squinting when he was nervous, and taught nineteenth-century history to students who slept through his lectures and cribbed their term papers from the Internet. That his second wife had moved out and was threatening to get her mercenary little hands on his pension and almost all of his assets. That he’d been turned down as a candidate for the chair in Nineteenth-Century American Studies. That his latest proposal for a book on the impact of the struggle for control of the Mississippi River in 1863 had been rejected by his own university’s press. That his cat had run away. That his socks didn’t match. That his microwave made a curious humming noise that most likely would lead to an explosion.

  General Wallingford Ames was above such concerns.

  After half an hour of waving his sword about and posturing, Kenneth put away the uniform and settled for a civilian ensemble of pajamas and a robe. Still a professor at a second-rate school, still wearing one brown and one navy sock, still a loser in all aspects of his life, still worried about the microwave.

  He poured himself a glass of wine and sat down at his desk to make sure that his airline tickets were in order. The historical society, wherever it was, had promised to pay expenses as well as an honorarium, which amounted to a nice sum. Speaking to brain-dead elementary and high school students required minimal energy. The only instances in which he could raise a few eyelids were when he whipped out his sword and slashed about as if a rebel soldier were crouched under a desk. He had yet to discover one.

  Kenneth had never given up hope, however. The enemy was lurking. The Confederates had overtly abandoned the Cause, but the South had neither forgotten nor forgiven. Resentment stewed in every cast-iron skillet, in every pool hall, in every meeting hall that hosted weekly gatherings of the Sons of the American Confederacy and provided tables for the Daughters of the American Confederacy to hold their bake sales. Sure, they claimed they were raising money for the upkeep of monuments and cemeteries.

  Kenneth knew better. They were slowly and surely arming themselves, weapon by weapon, so that they could wage war against the North and reclaim their pride and independence. They were insidious. They were the maggots that fed off diseased corpses and awaited their time to take wing. He’d met them at reenactments, when they pretended that they were pretending. He knew they were practicing. They’d learned from Bull Run and Gettysburg, and now they were preparing to drive out the lawful government and seize back their plantations, their right to own slaves, their lavish lifestyles of mint juleps and sexual excesses. Even the trailer park scum seemed to feel entitled to some fraction of the decadent past. Kenneth wondered if they had any idea how their venerable ancestors had lived—and died.

  He found the photocopy of the journal that he’d been sent. He’d skimmed through it earlier, but it was of minor interest. General Wallingford Ames would not have participated in a minor skirmish, or even noticed it. At best, a lieutenant, a colonel, and a dozen privates had gotten themselves shot over a cannon and a few mules.

  The reference to Confederate gold was curious, but unreliable. Kenneth had referred to the records kept by General Alessio’s army, but no mention of gold had appeared. What remained of the records from Little Rock was vague. One mostly illiterate private’s journal was far from definitive. General Lambdin’s army had been coming from the Indian Territories, but there was no evidence they’d been allotted pay.

  What was more worrisome was the quiet but nevertheless potentially violent rebellion arising south of the Mason-Dixon Line. No one else suspected, or would admit it, anyway. But if there was a fortune in gold from a federal depository, then it rightfully belonged to the Union. Kenneth Grimley knew he had no choice but to accept the responsibility to recover it before it fell into the hands of the enemy. He owed that much to President Lincoln.

  Wendell Streek was as excited as a retired accountant could be, even when confronted with blatant miscalculations in the corporate books. The journal by Henry Largesse was fas
cinating—no, it was positively thrilling. The names, the dates, and even the family details gave Wendell a heady sense of déjà vu, as if he’d ridden a mule to the very campsite beside Boone Creek and pitched a tent. Fired his musket at unseen Yankee soldiers. Fretted that no one in the unit could use the cannon to return fire. Fled when death was imminent, and sacrificed himself to defend Farberville from General Alessio’s army. Felled in the field by a musket ball while charging the artillery line. Left amongst the stubble of corn to curse the Yankees and whisper a final word to the pale-complected girl who prayed nightly for his safe return.

  Wendell took out a magnifying glass and made sure that he was accurate in his transcription. The young private had not been impressively skilled in penmanship, and often scratched out words and even sentences. Sloppiness that would not have served him well had he survived and looked for work in a local business. His spelling was at best primitive. The journal, Wendell decided, would hardly merit publication as a document of historical interest. It covered only a few months, from when the private volunteered until he returned home with an amputation wound festering with gangrene. Field surgeons had done what they could without antiseptics or anesthesia. At best, a splash of whiskey had served as both.

  What intrigued Wendell were the names sprinkled throughout the fifty pages. Henry Largesse seemed to have convoluted connections with most of the soldiers he encountered. This one was a second cousin, that one was the brother-in-law of a third cousin, the next was the husband of a girl with whom Henry had danced at a fancy party in Little Rock before enlisting. It was as if the South had been an expansive family, in which everyone was related from Richmond to New Orleans. Except, of course, for the slaves and the peckerwoods and the swamp rats who lived in shacks and never came to town.

  Wendell was gratified to have traced his ancestors back to sturdy shop owners and blacksmiths loyal to the Cause. It would have been nice had there been a plantation owner among them, or even a banker. Alas, he knew that he was descended from the middle class. But they had been the backbone of the South. For his own entertainment, he’d traced Harriet Hathaway’s ancestry all the way back to a colonist who’d arrived in Georgia in the early eighteenth century. Branches of her family had gradually moved westward, farmers for the most part, with an occasional blacksmith, cooper, or schoolteacher. Harriet’s paternal great-great-grandfather had owned a newspaper in a small town south of Memphis. In an editorial, he’d condemned the institution of slavery and been horsewhipped in front of the local courthouse.

  Wendell’s ancestors had been ignored for the most part.

  Genealogy could be so very interesting, he mused as he peered at a word that was no more than a squiggle. It was likely to be a name, but almost impossible to decipher. He flagged the page and continued. Henry had conscientiously recorded names whenever he could, presenting Wendell with the delicious specter of months and months of research as he traced each individual as far back as records would permit.

  And then, when he’d completed his efforts and could write the definitive work on the Skirmish at Cotter’s Ridge, he might find a publisher, if only a small regional press specializing in obscure Civil War history. He might be invited to speak at a conference, or at least at a Stump County Historical Society meeting. He would be the logical candidate to introduce the documentary to groups of schoolchildren touring the Headquarters House.

  Wendell blotted his forehead with a tissue, then returned with renewed energy to his task. When his mother warbled his name from the bottom of the staircase, he went down to join her for a cup of tea and a documentary on the History Channel.

  Jeb Stewart sat on the front stoop of his trailer, soaking his boots in a bucket of water so they’d be as stiff as beef jerky for the reenactment over in Arkansas. They were a size too small, so he could already rely on them to raise blisters and leave bloody sores, but it never hurt to add a little insurance. The rebs hadn’t selected their shoes at a boutique selling sweat socks and wristbands. Once the boots that they’d brought from home fell apart, they’d worn what they could find in the field. A good number of them had gone barefooted, mutilating their soles on prickly weeds and sharp rocks.

  He’d already lost fifteen pounds in the last two weeks, eating nothing more than hardtack and a squirrel he’d run down on his drive home from work. Belluccio, his boss, had threatened to fire him for bouts of dizziness, but Jeb didn’t give a shit. Crop-dusting didn’t demand much more than staying awake for endless passes across a field, sort of like marching in formation for days on end. All those boys had been obliged to do was keep on moving, step by mindless step.

  He was rationing himself on water, too. One canteen a day, if that much. He was still drinking tap water, but he was thinking he should be getting his water from the creek behind the trailer park. If it gave him diarrhea, so much the better. He’d had a dandy case at Gettysburg, and been so doubled over with cramps that he could scarcely stumble forward when the order had been given. After he’d been shot, so to speak, he’d lain in the middle of the field for the rest of the afternoon, soiling his pants and ending up with such a bad sunburn that he’d had chills and fever the next few days.

  A fine battle, Jeb thought with a smile.

  The Skirmish at Cotter’s Ridge was going to produce far fewer opportunities for authenticity. According to the information he’d been sent, he and the rest of the unit would stage a scene in which they rode in on mules provided by area farmers. They were to set up camp, and then act out some melodramatic nonsense in which they confiscated a pig to cook for supper. Spend the rest of the day hanging around the camp, cleaning their muskets and splashing in the creek for the benefit of tourists with their camcorders and designer sunglasses. Then, the following morning, they’d draw to determine the order in which they’d get killed and only then get around to some action. Jeb hoped he wouldn’t have to go down right at the start. Just lying there, puffing up his belly so he’d look bloated, wishing he could swat the flies off his face but knowing he couldn’t—well, it wasn’t like crouching behind a wall, shooting at the damn Yankees.

  This business about the gold bothered him. He tugged at the tips of his mustache, which straggled well below the corners of his mouth. Confederate gold, rightly belonging to the CSA (or one of its loyal descendants). It sure as hell didn’t belong to the federal government, which had swept through the South with its superior weaponry and better-equipped armies. These days, the Yankee soldiers like he’d met at Chancellorsville, had cell phones in their packs and asthma inhalers in their coat pockets. At Pea Ridge, Jeb had overheard one of them who died early in the day talking to his stockbroker. Fuckin’ farbs.

  The saddlebags of gold were rumored to be hidden in a cave on some nearby ridge. He wasn’t real particular to caves, preferring the wild blue yonder above the cotton and okra fields. There might be a chance to slip away and have a look, though. The filmmaker would have to pack up before dark, so they’d be left for the rest of the evening to compare the patina of their buttons and belt buckles, while drinking whiskey out of battered tin flasks. Diarrhea would give him a fine excuse to wander away, presuming there’d be enough moonlight to prevent him from falling off a bluff.

  Jeb was more comfortable with the relentless flatness of Mississippi. Still, he figured, if there was gold to be found, he was the one who aimed to do it, before some bastard got lucky, even if it meant quitting his job and heading there a few days early. Then he could sell the contents of the saddlebags to a dealer and finish up his doctoral degree.

  Andrew Pulaski’s day had been very profitable. His employees had sold three new Cadillacs, and he himself had persuaded a fetching blond divorcée to take a used Mercedes off his hands at what he’d assured her was an incredible price. Her personal information was written neatly in a notebook he kept at the office. Taking it home would lead to complications if his current wife were to find it. She was a suspicious sort, inclined to leap to conclusions.

  But to his delight, sh
e’d left for the evening to attend a benefit for the St. Louis symphony, which meant Andrew could sit on a deck chair on the patio, sip scotch, and smoke a cigar. He finished looking over the information provided by the Stump County Historical Society. Most of it involved inane events he would not attend and discomforts he would not experience. He had contempt (unspoken, of course) for the reenactors who insisted on wearing long johns under bulky wool uniforms, no matter the season. He did not object to a certain display of perspiration, but he had no intention of collapsing from a heat stroke. As the colonel of the cavalry troop, he could remain on his horse, barking orders and cutting a fine figure for the camera. He still received compliments for his demeanor when he’d reported to President Lincoln in The Blue and the Gray. It might be time to start a subtle campaign within the unit to be promoted.

  It was going to prove interesting to see who was participating in this minor reenactment. He’d heard that Kenneth Grimley was coming, which was not surprising since Grimley would appear for a garage door opening if he were paid. Frank Reinor, always a bore, a few men from Springfield and Branson, and some unfamiliar ones from Illinois and Tennessee. What Andrew found more intriguing was that Corinne and Simon Dawk were listed as participants. He knew Corinne well, having encountered her at various reenactments and found her chillier than a frozen margarita. Simon was beneath his notice—but his fiancée was not. The lovely Sweetpea, as refreshing as a mint julep, as fetching as a dewy blossom, and as passionate, sweaty, and foul-mouthed as a Tallahassee whore in August, when the nights were so steamy it was hard to catch a breath.

  Oh, yes, he thought, puffing on his cigar. Darlin’ Sweetpea.

  Waylon Pepperstone, an auto parts salesman when not a private first class in a brigade out of Rolla, Missouri, tried again to explain to Gretchen why he was going to be out of town on her birthday.