The Titans Page 15

  “Books? I got one—”

  “One only?”

  “That’s right. Poems by some fellow named Whitman.”

  “Damn!”

  “My father sent you the package?”

  “Why not? You said you mentioned my name and position in the letter I smuggled out for you.”

  “True, I did, but—”

  “I expect he wanted to be certain the books reached you. I knew I should have brought ’em into the pen personally. Didn’t take the time because I had to do three amputations that morning. But I guarantee there were more books than one. There were half a dozen. Books with meat in them. The sort of thing you said you needed to help educate yourself.”

  “How do you know there were so many?”

  “The parcel had been opened and inspected before it was delivered to this office. The contents were listed on a form I had to sign. Let’s see—”

  An index finger tap-tapped a pile of papers.

  “There was a second edition of John Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. A volume of essays and poems by Oliver Holmes. Reade’s Cloister and the Hearth—that’s a romance. Historical stuff, but not bad. There was Waldo Emerson’s Conduct of Life. And your father even included Parson Brownlow’s Book published two years ago. Brownlow’s a hard peace maniac from Tennessee, but I expect your father thought you were man enough to hear what the shrillest anti-Southern voices are still saying. The Whitman was the final item in the package—you got none of the others?”

  “None.”

  “That thief!” Lemon seethed. “That miserable shit of a thief. Kent, wait! Let me report it to Schoepf. Don’t brace Tillotson yourself, you’ll only damage your chances of getting out of—”

  The slam of the door cut off the rest of the warning.

  Gideon was barely conscious of the cold as he reeled into the open, his ears still buzzing and his stomach aching from the liquor. He crossed the yard in a limping run, understanding now why so much twine and paper had been wrapped around a single book.

  One of the barracks sentries made a snide remark about Gideon’s kissing the doctor’s behind to obtain favors. He paid no attention. A larger anger occupied him as he lurched past the armed men. His blue eyes took on a glazed, almost demented look as he kicked open the barracks door and, a moment later, Tillotson’s.

  iv

  “See here, sir!”

  The sergeant leaped up, Leslie’s Weekly drifting to the desk in disordered sheets.

  “Who gave you leave to crash in that way? When the door’s closed, the order is knock.”

  “You’re a thief, Tillotson,” Gideon rasped. “You’re a thieving Yankee son of a bitch.”

  Tillotson’s pink face paled. His eyes darted, worried. Gideon swayed on his feet, dizzy from the cold and the alcohol, yet buoyed by his rage.

  “I’ll not stand for such profane, insolent talk from a prisoner,” Tillotson warned, raising the walnut stick hastily plucked from beside the family photograph.

  “You gave me one book! My father sent more. Where are the rest?”

  Tillotson blinked. “The rest? I don’t understand, sir!”

  “The rest of the books in the package Dr. Lemon delivered to you!”

  “Dr. Lemon?” The way the sergeant pronounced the name gave it an unclean sound.

  “I just saw him.”

  Tillotson sniffed. “Evidently. Serving spiritous liquors to prisoners is against the rules of—”

  “Shall I fetch him over here to repeat his story?”

  Oliver Tillotson eyed the unsteady figure in front of his desk, calculating Gideon’s physical strength—or lack of it. Then, surprisingly, he smiled. “Not necessary. I expected this matter to come up eventually.”

  “So you admit it!”

  “Why not, sir? You have no voice in what you receive and what you don’t. The other books—decent literature, I might add—are safe in my house in Salem. Christmas is coming. The wages here—well, they’re hardly adequate for a man with a large family. Every bit helps. I let you have one book, so let’s not make an issue of the rest.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t steal them all!”

  “Why, I wouldn’t have anything by that Whitman in my home. He’s notorious. A pervert, they say. We’re God-fearing people. But my boys, now—they’ll be delighted to find Reade and the Holmes book under the tree. ‘The Chambered Nautilus’ is a first-rate poem. First-rate!”

  “You had no damn right—” Gideon began.

  “I wouldn’t make an issue of it, Major Kent,” Tillotson purred, stroking the stick. “Leave this office immediately.”

  The order, and the insulting tone, shattered Gideon’s control. Even as he circled the desk, he knew he was inviting reprisal. But he couldn’t help himself—and hardly cared.

  Before Tillotson could react, Gideon caught the sergeant’s throat in both hands.

  The obese man’s eyes opened wide a moment, terrified. Then he lunged upward from his chair, pushing Gideon. He sidestepped, a wrenching movement—

  “Assistance! Assistance here!”

  Bellowing, Tillotson tore loose from Gideon’s strangling grip. In the shed proper, Gideon heard raised voices—the other prisoners, wondering about the outcry.

  Gideon groped for the sergeant’s throat again, feeling perilously weak. Tillotson brought the walnut stick arcing toward the side of his head.

  A moment after the impact, Gideon’s legs buckled. His cheek raked the corner of the desk. He fell to his knees, clung to the desktop with both hands.

  “Assistance!” Tillotson screamed, beating the stick on Gideon’s knuckles.

  Damn fool, Gideon thought as pain tore along his forearms. Damn fool to lose your head when you don’t have any strength left.

  The door burst open. The guards appeared, bayonetted rifles at the ready. Tillotson hit Gideon’s knuckles again. Gideon let go of the desk, sliding sideways.

  Tillotson darted around the desk and booted him in the ribs, twice. Gideon flopped over. Heard men running.

  The sergeant’s white hair was disarrayed. “Waldo, come in! Prentice, stay outside and close the door. If anyone tries to push by, use the bayonet. No matter what you hear.”

  The door shut. Gideon couldn’t focus his eyes. He saw two Saint Nicholas faces, one lapped over another.

  Tillotson crouched down, the stick in one hand. With his other he seized Gideon’s beard and yanked.

  Gideon’s head jerked up, wrenching a neck muscle. Tillotson hung on, wet-lipped, panting. Gideon lifted his right hand. He could barely bend his fingers, let alone form a fist. Tillotson beat his hand down to the floor with two blows.

  “Waldo, kneel on his belly. That’s the way. Major Kent assaulted me. Assaulted me. Can you fancy that? It’s necessary for us to discipline him. Oh, yes. Severely!”

  The sergeant’s figure loomed, distorted, as he rose and lurched to the open stove. He thrust the tip of the walnut stick into the flames. Almost instantly, Gideon smelled burning wood.

  “Did you know Major Kent is a student, Waldo? A reader?” Tillotson’s chest heaved; he was still out of breath from the surprise attack. “He hopes to improve himself. Wants to be ready to be welcomed back into the populace when the war’s done. But he’s also rebellious. Dangerously so. I’ve been too lenient.”

  The smell of charring wood grew stronger. Gideon saw a wisp of smoke curling past Tillotson’s sweaty face.

  “Too lenient,” the big man repeated, smoothing his small goatee. Outside, Gideon heard a clamor of questions from the other officers, then the guard warning them he’d fire if they came any closer.

  Tillotson was at last able to chuckle. “I believe we should make it somewhat more difficult for Major Kent to practice his rituals of self-improvement.”

  Terrified by a sudden suspicion, Gideon tried to struggle up. “You sadistic, fat old—”

  Tillotson drew back his right boot, then drove it forward, kicking Gideon’s temple.

  His head s
napped over—violently. What little strength he had left drained away. He began to float in a kind of haze. Tillotson sounded far off.

  “One more such remark, Major, and we’ll make it impossible for you to study. Impossible. I trust that sort of lesson won’t be required. Clamp your hand on his head, Waldo. Hold him still!”

  Then Gideon saw it. The walnut stick. Its smoothly rounded end glowing red. An inch down, the wood smoked.

  Tillotson dropped to both knees, adding his restraining hand to the guard’s. Gideon tried to wrench his head away. Failed.

  He felt the heat. He watched the red tip of the stick grow and grow, like the August sun doubling, tripling in size. Behind it, Tillotson’s avuncular face glistened with sweat.

  Gideon’s hand moved unconsciously toward the wrapped lock of hair in the pocket of his blouse. He lacked the energy to reach it.

  “You were very rash to assault me, sir,” Tillotson scolded, slipping the heated stick between his wrist and the guard’s.

  The second after Gideon’s left eyelid closed reflexively, the stick touched it.

  Tillotson put weight on the stick. Gideon arched his back, the pain nearly unbearable—

  The pressure lifted. His spine struck the floor. He gasped for one good breath, couldn’t seem to fill his lungs. He was too weak to resist any longer.

  Tillotson released his chin and used his free hand to carefully lift Gideon’s left eyelid. The flesh of the lid was burned, stinking.

  “Yes, indeed, you made a mistake, Major. As that fellow Poe wrote in one of his queer tales—no one attacks me with impunity. No one, sir!”

  Panting, he jammed the stick against the exposed eye.

  Gideon screamed.

  Book Two

  War like a Thunderbolt

  Chapter I

  Enemy at the Gate

  i

  AS THE SOUND OF Judge Claypool’s chaise faded away, Catherine confronted Serena and Jeremiah in Rosewood’s drive. “It certainly took you long enough to hide the wagon.”

  “Got dark, ma’am,” Jeremiah said quickly, to prevent an outburst from the girl. “Made the work of maneuvering the wagon a mite harder.”

  Catherine looked pointedly at her stepdaughter’s bedraggled dress. “If that’s all you did. Work.”

  Before Serena could retort, the older woman turned to Maum Isabella. “I expect we’d better heed the judge’s advice. You and the house girls empty the sour mash jugs in the larder. Pour out every drop. The wines and cordials in the sideboard—get rid of those too.”

  At last Serena had a chance to retaliate. “Even your favorite blackberry?”

  “Everything.”

  “You mean to say you can get along without it for more than twenty-four hours?”

  Catherine stayed calm. “I can. Go help the girls.”

  Serena’s eyes mirrored the fire smearing the horizon. “That’s nigger’s work!”

  “It’s our work now. You do it.”

  “Blast it, I won’t!”

  Catherine stepped forward, digging her fingers into her stepdaughter’s shoulder. Serena wrenched away. For a moment Jeremiah saw pure enmity in the eyes of both women.

  But Catherine wouldn’t be denied. She grabbed her stepdaughter again. Serena winced. Her right hand fisted. Jeremiah thought she might strike out.

  Catherine stared her down. Maum Isabella stepped up to Serena’s side and touched her gently. “Come on, Miz Serena. The work won’t take long.”

  “I’ll be glad to lend a hand—” Jeremiah began.

  But Catherine shook her head. “I want you out here with me. We’ve got to keep watch.”

  Serena’s height gave her a certain advantage over her stepmother; But Catherine’s will offset any physical difference between them. Catherine’s will—and Catherine’s eyes. With a disgusted exclamation, Serena flounced into the house. Maum Isabella followed, carrying the lamp.

  Catherine walked a short way down the piazza. The distant firelight falling through the cypresses made a lattice of light and shadow on her cheeks. In a polite voice, she asked, “Would you fetch a couple of chairs out here, Jeremiah? We might as well be comfortable while we wait.”

  He went into the house, hearing muttered complaints above the clink of glassware in the dining room. Serena rebelling—even as she did what she’d been ordered to do. As a kind of soothing counterpoint, Maum Isabella kept up a running patter of talk.

  Jeremiah carried the chairs out one at a time, arranging them a yard to the right of the dark open windows of the sitting room. Catherine settled herself gracefully.

  He took a place beside her, checking to make sure the sheathed knife was secure in his boot, and the hilt tugged up enough to be easily grasped in a hurry. Noticing Catherine’s quizzical look, he explained, “Just seeing to my knife. We may need it soon.”

  “You’ve been saying we wouldn’t.”

  “I know. But the stories keep getting worse. Now there’s that fire—I thought the burnings would surely stop.”

  Catherine’s nod was slow, grave. In contrast to her firmness with her stepdaughter, she looked almost beaten now.

  Her shoulders slumped. She stared down the lane of live oaks toward the highway. Finally, grasping the arms of the chair as if to draw strength from them, she said, “For the moment let’s try to forget General Sherman. I sent Serena inside because I wanted to speak privately about another matter. One that’s very important. To you.”

  Her faint intonation of warning set him on edge. Guardedly, he replied, “What is it?”

  He already suspected the subject and wished he were somewhere else.

  Her first sentence proved his suspicion was correct. “It shouldn’t have required so much time to hide the wagon.”

  “Mrs. Rose, I told you—the darkness was a handicap. We—”

  “Spare me your fibs, Jeremiah,” she broke in softly. “I’m not angry. You’re too young to know what you’re doing. Or, rather, what’s being done to you.”

  He bristled. His tiredness, and the tumultuous emotions Serena had aroused, pushed him close to anger again. Catherine kept gazing at the red-tinged oaks while she continued.

  “I dislike raising indelicate subjects. But I feel I must. I’ve noticed a change in Serena’s attitude toward you. A very rapid and abrupt change. You don’t lack intelligence. Surely you’ve noticed it as well?”

  A nod admitted it.

  “Do you know the reason for it?”

  “I have an idea.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No, ma’am. You tell me.”

  “Isn’t it obvious? She’s discovered you’re not a poor boy. In fact I expect you’ve more wealth and—if we survive this war—better prospects for the future than the half-dozen beaux Serena’s had since she was dismissed from Christ College. No, please don’t interrupt. I must say this while there’s time. Young men in the neighborhood know Serena’s character. Oh, she’s charming to the eye. But those same young men—before they all went off to the army—Jeremiah, there wasn’t one among them who called more than three or four times. Her behavior shocked them. I feel un-Christian saying this about my late husband’s child. But—”

  A shrug. He knew she wasn’t telling the truth. She loathed Serena as much as Serena loathed her.

  “—but it’s for your own benefit. I was a teacher, you know. I’ve worked with young people. You think you’re grown, but you’re not, Jeremiah. You’re still—unshaped. Malleable. You must understand one fact above all.” A long sigh. “Serena is—not possessed of a stable temperament.”

  Catherine turned in her chair and gazed directly into his eyes. “Do you understand what I’m attempting to say?”

  He wanted to swear, wanted to curse her for speaking against the girl who’d roused such intense feelings within him. He restrained the impulse and settled for a deprecating laugh.

  “Think so. But my own mother used to say as much about me.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I can’t beli
eve that.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. She did. She claimed my brothers and I all inherited what she called a cussed streak. We got it from our great-grandmother, a Virginia lady named Fletcher.”

  “Well, you don’t strike me as cussed, as you call it. Just very young. Very susceptible to—”

  Another pause. Somewhere inside, perhaps in the hall, he thought he heard a footstep.

  “—to feminine ways.”

  Catherine leaned toward him.

  “I’m deeply appreciative of what you’ve done for us, Jeremiah. Just your presence—a male presence—has been a great comfort. And the loyalty to my late husband that brought you here is commendable. But the moment the trouble’s over—the moment the Yanks are gone and it’s safe for you to travel—you must leave. I won’t repay you by allowing you to become—entangled with Serena. You’re a decent young man. But still”—a gesture—“malleable.”

  Suddenly there was a raw sound to her voice. “I tried to raise her well! But Henry favored her too much. Overruled my discipline constantly!”

  Because you despised her real mother, and he tried to make up for it?

  He didn’t utter the question aloud. But he was becoming convinced Catherine Rose was striking back at a dead woman through her child.

  “I hope you do understand what I’m trying to say, Jeremiah. I’m worried that you’ll allow Serena to”—again she searched for words—“to exert an influence you’re too inexperienced to resist.”

  His resentment had become overwhelming. “Ma’am, I’m fully old enough to look out for—”

  She refused to let him finish. “I won’t be so rude as to subject you to questions about why you took such an unusual amount of time hiding the wagon. Or why Serena came back so disarrayed. Frankly, I don’t need to ask. I simply want to beg you to leave as soon as you can. I’ve seen the way you look at her. She’s a handsome girl. I don’t deny that. But there are—depths to her that you can’t begin to perceive after such a short acquaintance. She has traits in common with her mother. She’s greedy. Lewd. She”—the momentary compression of Catherine’s lips pronounced final judgment even before she finished the sentence—“she is not moral.” A whisper then: “Not a moral person. All the young gentlemen who called soon realized it.”