The Railroad War (5 page)

And yet, though her brother was the shortest and slightest of the three, he was the only one with flawless military bearing.
Lam sat there on the grass, calm, confident, straight-backed and impeccably tailored.

Sam’s appearance was not nearly so perfect—not that he was sloppy. Miranda knew it was hard for careless men to graduate from
West Point. But Sam was not so carefully composed as Lam, nor so scrupulously groomed. Sam’s thick thatch of sandy-red hair
seemed to have been combed no more recently than the previous week. And as soon as he was out of sight of watchful officers,
he had unfastened his collar and the top buttons of his jacket.

Noah, as in much else, seemed to find a median between Lam and Sam. Where Lam was stiff, Noah was easy and casual. But he
was not as loose and free as Sam was, not by a long shot.

Yet it wasn’t his appearance that chiefly set the young Texan apart from the other two; it was his manner. He didn’t say much,
and he was powerfully self-possessed, but he wasn’t calm or cool. Far from it. Rather, he was restless, intense, charged with
energy. Even sprawled on his side with his head propped up on his hand, it was easy for Miranda to imagine this young man
leaping into combat at the first note of the bugle. This was no parade soldier; this was a warrior. Or at least so her imagination
wanted to picture him.

And he had delightful eyes that were a lovely shade of hazel. The eyes were calm, still, but they didn’t miss a thing, and
they were focused on Miranda often. The look he gave her was frank and penetrating. Yet never during his glances did Miranda
feel discomfort or shame. Nor did she bashfully avert her face when he looked at her, as most fifteen-year-olds of her class
would have done. She looked right back at him.

In this she was her mother’s daughter, curious, open, and direct. Ariel, however, took after her father in much of her style
and most of her attitudes. She was not nearly so bold as her sister.

The conversation on the walk up to the Crows Nest had been witty and amusing. But as the sky grew dimmer and more golden and
the shadows lengthened, the conversation turned serious, even grave. The pressure of tomorrow’s events superseded the cadets’
mirth. Of course, they each had new assignments to accept, and they were each exhilarated and hopeful about their new duties.

But they could not help but feel uneasy about the world they were entering. The times were difficult and perilous. The peace
and order that they were swearing to preserve and protect were dangerously threatened, and not by an external enemy. The threat
came with within. The states of the Union were growing ever more out of balance—so out of balance that the nation might become
disunited and split in two. And if that happened, the two halves would almost certainly battle for dominance.

And then where would the soldiers and officers at West Point be?

They’d have to choose sides, and that would mean they’d have to fight men whom they’d come to love and revere. And there were
darker possibilities. What if the three friends split just as the country threatened to do? Could one of them actually choose
the side the other two opposed?

The long and heavy fears about the future made the three cadets anxious and apprehensive. But the prospect of imminent leave-taking
filled them with more immediately pressing feelings of sadness and loss. They were about to separate from each other, which
was bad enough, for many cadets, West Point was the closest family they had ever known. Leaving it was harder than leaving
their mothers and fathers.

These moments on the Crows Nest on the afternoon before graduation—with the two delightful girls as attentive and pleasant
listeners—might be for Lam, Noah, and Sam the last chance to speak intimately with their closest friends for God only knew
how many years.

They talked first about graduation and about the sadness of the leave-taking. But they didn’t dwell long on that subject.
None of them had experience or age enough to find words adequate to the depth of feeling it raised. Conversation swiftly flowed
toward the hopes and dreams each of them had for their new assignments.

Miranda and Ariel already knew that Lam had been ordered to report to Fort Leavenworth, where he would serve with the First
Cavalry. Sam and Noah each described for the sisters his own coming assignment.

Sam, like Lam, would see his fill of horses. He was going off to San Antonio and the Second Cavalry.

Sam’s assignment, Noah told the girls, was more than a nice piece of good fortune that would put him close to his home. It
was a great opportunity, for Sam was being sent to the Second Cavalry at the request of its commander, Colonel Robert E. Lee,
and Lee was known to be a man who was going places. He was also known as a man who took good care of his friends. Lee had
been superintendent for the first three years Sam and his friends had been at West Point. During that time, Lee had grown
fond of the Texan, for Sam had qualities Lee appreciated in an officer.

The First and Second Cavalry, Lam went on to explain, were both newly formed, elite units, and it was quite an honor to be
assigned to one or the other of them. They’d been created at the instigation of Mr. Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War.
Davis, himself a West Point graduate, had distinguished himself for bravery in the War with Mexico. He was also, as it happened,
delivering the commencement address the next day.

The job of the Second Cavalry was to protect the settlers of the Texas frontiers from the raids of the Comanches and other
hostile Indians. And the original intention had been that the First Cavalry would perform similarly in Kansas, but other kinds
of violence had outrun plans in that- tragic territory. Over the past months, Kansas had become a battleground between Free-Soil
settlers and proslavers. It looked likely that the First Cavalry would have to do what it could to keep the peace. And this
was going to be no easy matter, for the army was at least as sharply divided over the issue as other Americans—though the
division would presumably still not prevent the soldiers from taking the orders of their officers. Meanwhile, Kansas was turning
into a lake of blood.

And that was exciting Lam. He wasn’t pleased about the bloodshed, but he was pleased that he might have a chance to display
his own soldierly virtues while restoring the peace and preserving order.

Noah Ballard had been assigned to the Corps of Engineers, and was being sent to Charleston, where he’d be one of a team working
on improving the fortifications at Fort Sumter.

“He’s a damned fine engineer,” Lam said to his sisters in praise of his friend. “So fine that I’d be willing to wager he never
sees battle. He’ll be so busy building things, he’ll never have the time or inclination to burn them down.”

Noah laughed at that. And then he added, “I very much hope so—not that I would shrink from a battle,” he quickly added apologetically.

“Of course not,” Lam said.

“But Lam’s right,” Noah said to the sisters. “I’m more engineer than army officer.”

Ariel stared at him for a long moment. Her brow was deeply furrowed, and her hand was on her cheek, tugging at a long ringlet
of hair that hung there.

“Do you really mean that?” she asked with a vague, perplexed smile. “You would seriously prefer being an engineer to being
a commander of men?” she went on, her voice growing darker and her fingers pulling more nervously on the lock. Ariel’s face
was innocent and open, but Miranda knew her sister. She knew what lay behind Ariel’s expression. Ariel was disturbed by what
she was learning about Noah Ballard. Miranda waited to find out what exactly was bothering her sister. The explanation was
not long in coming.

“I will command railroads,” Noah answered briskly.

“Really?” Ariel asked with a curl of distaste on her lips.

That’s it, Miranda suddenly understood. She
likes
him— or at least she’s attracted to him and wants to like him. Yet she doesn’t approve of men who build things, especially
who build railroads—which, after all, are dirty, smelly, and uncomfortable.

Miranda knew that in this opinion, as in most of her opinions, Ariel echoed her father. Pierce Kemble was convinced that things
mechanical and practical, and the men who dealt with them, were beneath the attention of any man of taste and judgment. It
was the business of gentlemen to fight and ride, to drink and hunt, to appreciate fine wine, fine horses, fine women, and
fine surroundings—and to rule. All the more utilitarian and functional matters were to be left to those who were less than
gentlemen.

Lam was already fast turning into the perfectly finished embodiment of the man his father expected him to be. Lam was handsome,
arrogant, dashing—half bold cavalier and half sensitive poet. Ariel was quite evidently disturbed that Noah might aim his
life in other, less respectable directions.

“Really?” Ariel repeated still again after Noah did not favor her with an instant response. Miranda could see her sister’s
eyes flash.

“Yes, really,” Noah said at last, carefully. “I’m proud of what I choose to be,” he continued, his voice sharp, his eyes angry.

And
he
likes
her,
too, Miranda thought, glad to see him fight back and show his mettle.

“Well, I’ll say,” Ariel drawled haughtily, “I’m sure that if such things please you, then far be it from me to try to stop
you. But,” she tossed her head, “you clearly do not intend to be a gentleman. No gentleman occupies himself the way you intend
to occupy yourself. Why, engineers are no better than shopkeepers.”

“Then I am proud not to be a gentleman,” he said with forced calmness.

“Ariel,” Miranda warned in a quiet voice, “don’t make a fool of yourself.”

“I’m not making a fool of myself,” Ariel said with a shrug. “I’m simply making the very same observation that father makes.
‘There are men of character,’ he says, ‘and there are men of utility. Men of character are called gentlemen. Men of utility
are called servants.’ “

“And you believe that?” Sam Hawken asked quietly. His voice was as soft as Miranda’s had been.

“Yes,” Ariel said. “I do. I certainly do.”

“We’ll have to get you out west,” he said to her.

“What do you mean by that?” Ariel said.

“I don’t have time to explain now,” he replied in a voice that was again soft. “But someday I promise I will.”

“He means you’re spoiled,” Miranda said with a smirk.

“That’s not true!” she cried.

“Of course it’s not true,” Noah said. Ariel gave him a piercing look. “You’re not spoiled, Miss Kemble. You just don’t know
what the hell you’re talking about.”

At that, Ariel’s face fell. Lam laughed when he saw her crushed expression, and Sam smiled, too.

“You don’t need to insult me,” Ariel said.

“I didn’t insult you. I told you you were misinformed, which is hardly a shameful thing.”

Miranda was liking Noah more than she’d imagined she would. When she first met him, he seemed soft, unformed, and boyish,
while Sam was lean, tough, and leathery. But she was seeing an attractive toughness now in Noah, too. And a fervor that approached
zeal. “I don’t take it as a kindness when you tell me I’m dumb and ignorant,” Ariel pouted.

“You are neither dumb nor ignorant, Miss Kemble. Anything but. You’re as breathtakingly lovely a creature as I’ve met, and
your head is by no means hollow, either. But you’ve got attitudes that are misguided.”

“I don’t think…” she started to say, but he held up his hand to stop her.

“There’s no blame in you for what was never taught you. When somebody gets older and makes no effort to learn, then there’s
some blame in that. It’s older people who’ve been telling you the things that you’ve got wrong.”

“Everything I’ve told you I’ve learned from Father,” she said, bristling.

“I know that,” Noah said. “And I like your father, and I respect him. But he’s wrong, and he’s taught you wrong.”

Miranda glanced at her brother, for she was afraid that he’d take umbrage at Noah’s negative words about their father. And
since she wanted to hear what Noah had to say, she didn’t want Lam to interrupt. But Lam simply sat there, stiff as ever,
taking in all that was happening.

“First,” Noah said, “you’re wrong about gentlemen.”

“All right,” Ariel said, managing to produce a sullen pout.

“A gentleman,” Noah said, choosing his words carefully, “is a man who puts a mark on the world. A visible, palpable mark that
anyone can see or know about. And then when he leaves the world, he leaves it better than when he found it.

“Before the coming of machines, you put a mark on the world by mastery of the land, by mastery over the people that worked
the land, and by mastery over the men that fought the battles.

“But there’s a new mastery. It’s the mastery of the machines and of the industries that the machines make possible.”

Ariel was shaking her head. “No. You’re wrong,” she said.

“How so?”

“If you’re right, then a factory owner is as good as a landowner.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head more vigorously. “No factory owner can be a man of character. It’s just not possible. Factories
are all clockwork. Factory owners spend all their time wringing their hands over schedules and output. They have no time for
graciousness and hospitality and…”

“Isn’t she eloquent?” Lam interrupted. “Pay attention to her, Noah. She’s not just beautiful.”

“But she’s still wrong,” Noah said. And he continued, “Don’t farmers worry just as much about schedules and outputs? Of course
they do,” he answered his own question. “In fact, in the future farms will turn more and more into factories. And the gentleman
farmer will lose his position to the farm engineer.”

“No!” Ariel cried softly. “Never!”

“I’m telling you what’s happening,” Noah said, aware that he was winning the debate. “Not what people in the South want to
happen. They want time to stand still. But it won’t.”

“Why do you hate the South?”