Authors: Thomas Fleming

When This Cruel War Is Over (34 page)

BOOK: When This Cruel War Is Over

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“I'm sure you have. But you are not alone here, dear Mrs. Todd. We come together as a band of seekers. Alas, one of us must be wishing for something that's forbidden.”

Janet trembled. Damn the woman! Was she wishing for the freedom to love Paul Stapleton and Adam Jameson? Wasn't that what an adventuress would do? Love them on alternate nights, keep them both in her power?

“Maybe there's another explanation, Mrs. Havens,” Gabriel Todd said. “Maybe the silence is telling us the
boys are happy in Abraham's bosom. They're no longer concerned with the trifling woes of us earthbound mortals. Maybe we're being told it's time to trust in faith and abandon signs and wonders.”

“It's never happened to me before, Colonel Todd. I swear it!” Mrs. Havens said.

“I have an idea. Why don't you stay here with Mrs. Todd for a few days? We'll pay you for your time. Perhaps the spirits will return when two doubters like me and Janet are out of the house. We're planning a trip to Cincinnati.”

“Cincinnati? Why in the world?” Letitia asked.

“We've got to find some hands to work this farm, Letty. I've been told there's a raft of unemployed Irishmen down there that can be hired cheap. Strong boyos who can do the work of three slaves. I want Janet to come with me. They may want to bring wives with them and she can talk to the women.”

“Can we afford it? We barely made a profit with slaves.”

“We'll have to try. We'll leave you and Mrs. Havens now. Rogers Jameson and some friends are coming in for cards. The servants will bring you supper in a few hours.”

Janet and her father went downstairs. “I hope that didn't trouble you,” Gabriel Todd said.

“Of course not,” Janet lied. “I never took Mrs. Havens seriously.”

“Good. Let's prepare for our trip to Indianapolis tomorrow. We won't have a minute to spare once Jameson and his colonels arrive.”

In the kitchen, Janet asked Lillibet to fill two haversacks with enough salted ham and dried beef to last two or three days. Also enough cornmeal to make cakes in a skillet over an open fire and plenty of bread. In her room, Janet took the pistol from the valise and slipped it into a
holster she planned to carry on a leather shoulder strap, concealing it beneath a light cloak. Beyond an extra dress, she saw no need to burden herself with clothes.

Hoofbeats thudded on the twilit drive, soon followed by male voices downstairs. She found her father and Jameson and his colonels in the dining room, helping themselves to drinks from the sideboard. She offered to bring them anything they wanted from the kitchen but they all said no. For the time being they would fortify themselves with good old Kentucky bourbon and eat something just before they began the march to the ferry. She sat down at the table with them, contenting herself with a glass of water.

They were all Rogers Jameson's ageâabout fifty, with faces weathered from years spent in the sun and wind and rain on their farms. They looked durable but not terribly bright. None of them had Jameson's forcefulness. Once more Janet wondered if he could or would obey orders.

Gabriel Todd unrolled a detailed map of Indiana, revealing all the roads and rail lines. He and Paul had been thinking a good deal about their march to Indianapolis. They had decided it might be useful to commandeer the railroad and put as many men as the available cars could carry on a train that would roar ahead of the main army and outflank enemy attempts to block the roads and river crossings.

Rogers Jameson shook his head. “It's too risky, Gabe. There ain't enough cars to carry more than a thousand men. That's not enough to handle a heavy attack. They could get surrounded and cut up before we got to them.”

“There's plenty of Sons of Liberty up ahead who'll come out to help them,” Gabriel Todd said.

“They ain't got Spencers,” one of the colonels said. “It's them guns that've given our boys confidence. Nobody wants to fight the federals with a squirrel gun.”

The colonels all nodded in unison. They were backing
Rogers Jameson. Janet found herself wishing Paul were here to support Gabriel Todd. Her father was thinking like a cavalryman. He knew the value of lightning strikes in the enemy rear. Such bold moves cut communications and created fear and disorder.

A strange tinkling sound interrupted them. Janet realized it was coming from the cut-glass chandelier above their heads. Something was shaking it. What? Surely not the wind. Then Janet heard a deeper sound, a kind of muffled thunder. She realized it was the hooves of hundreds of horses.

Janet rushed to the front parlor window, followed by Rogers Jameson. They gazed out at a terrifying sight. Coming down the drive and across the lawn was a tidal wave of federal cavalrymen, rank after rank. The lead horsemen carried pine torches. Just ahead of them rode Major General Stephen Burbridge.

“My God!” Janet gasped.

“Jesus Christ!” Rogers Jameson snarled.

He raced back to the dining room. “Guns!” he roared. “Where the hell are your guns, Gabe? There's a thousand federals on the lawn. Someone's ratted us!”

“In the caseâin the library,” Gabriel Todd said.

They raced into Hopemont's library. Around them loomed the books that Gabriel Todd had enjoyed all his life. With trembling hands he tried to open the gun cabinet. Rogers Jameson snatched the keys away from him and opened it. He handed shotguns to the colonels. They shoved shells into the chambers.

“I'll fight, too!” Janet cried. “I've got a pistol.”

“GABRIEL TODD AND ROGERS JAMESON AND YOUR FELLOW TRAITORS!” General Burbridge was using a metal speaking trumpet. “WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE. WE'VE ALREADY SEIZED THE WEAPONS AND SUPPLIES YOU HAD STORED AT ROSE HILL. SURRENDER IMMEDIATELY. THE HOUSE IS SURROUNDED.”

“There ain't enough of us to make a stand, Rogers,” one of the colonels, Sam Davidson, said. Fear drained manhood from his face. His words had a similar effect on the other colonels.

“If we hold out until midnight, the brigade will start arrivin',” Rogers said. “They'll take'm in the rear.”

“That's four hours away,” Davidson said.

“You want to rot in some federal jail? It's our only chance!” Jameson roared.

“DO YOU HEAR ME? IN EXACTLY ONE MINUTE WE WILL STORM THE HOUSE!” Burbridge said in his tinny voice of doom.

“Wait a moment!” Gabriel Todd said. “Waitâaâmoment! We are not goin' to fight them. My wife is upstairs an invalid. My daughter, my only survivin' child, is standin' next to you. I'll go out on the veranda now and surrender to them. If you fellows want to try to get out the back way, go to it. I'll do my best to keep them occupied for a few minutes.”

“I always knew you had no guts,” Rogers Jameson snarled. “All we got to do is kill a few and they'll keep their distance for the rest of the night. They're third-rate soldiers. If they were any good they'd be with Sherman in Georgia.”

“WE'VE GOT SOME OF YOUR GREEK FIRE OUT HERE! WE'RE READY TO USE IT,” Burbridge said.

“See what I mean? He don't want to storm us,” Rogers Jameson said.

“Janet,” Gabriel Todd said. “Go upstairs and get your mother down to this floor.”

Janet raced upstairs. In her bedroom she slung her pistol and holster over her shoulder and tied the gray cloak at her throat. She was going to defend herself. She was not going to surrender. She was not going to prison.

In her mother's room, Mrs. Havens was standing at the window, terrified. “Miss Todd, what's happening?
Are those horsemen real? They look like spirit riders of the apocalypse!”

“They're all too real. Help me get my mother downstairs.”

“What is it, Janet? What's happening?” Letitia Todd cried.

“I'll explain later, Mother,” Janet replied.

Together Janet and Mrs. Havens hoisted Letitia to her feet and labored down Hopemont's curving staircase. As they reached the bottom step, Gabriel Todd joined them. “Janet, I want you to come out on the veranda with me,” he said. “We'll insist on our innocence. The other fellows are goin' to run for it through the garden. Mrs. Havens, stay here with my wife.”

Mrs. Havens nodded numbly and helped Letitia to a large Tudor chair a few feet from the door. Gabriel Todd opened the door and stepped into the flickering torchlight. As Janet followed him, she realized she was carrying her gun. She could only pray no one noticed it beneath her cloak.

“I have no idea what you're here for, General Burbridge,” Gabriel Todd said. “I hope you do.”

“I'm here to arrest you for treason! Where's the rest of them?”

“There's no one in the house but me, my daughter here, and my invalid wife and a guest,” Gabriel Todd said.

The drumming sound again. Not quite as heavy. It was coming from the darkness beyond Burbridge's mass of mounted men. Janet's eyes leaped past the federal phalanx and saw a line of gray-uniformed cavalrymen emerging from the darkness. Leading them was a huge black-bearded man. It was Adam Jameson and his horsemen.

It was a miracle of deliverance. Janet's heart leaped into a stratosphere of fierce gratitude that transcended love and desire. The Confederates pulled up about ten
yards from the federal horsemen. Suddenly there were shotguns in every gray-uniformed rider's hands. A blast of flame tore a terrific gap in the federal ranks. Men screamed and toppled; horses bolted. Adam drove his horse through the opening toward the Todds on the veranda, firing left and right with two pistols. He pulled up at the foot of the steps and shouted, “Come on!”

Janet realized he was talking to her. He could do nothing for her parents or Mrs. Havens. She was the one he wanted to rescue from a federal prison. He leaned down and she leaped from the steps onto his arm. He slung her into the saddle in front of him as if she weighed no more than a doll.

Bullets whizzed around them. The federals were firing back. Adam's men were answering them with pistols. She saw how few the Confederates wereâand remembered what Adam had written about riding ahead with forty picked men. He was taking a desperate gamble to rescue her.

A federal cavalryman charged Adam with upraised saber. He shot him out of the saddle, hauled his horse's head around, and started for the darkness at the end of the drive. Just ahead of them Janet saw a dozen Confederates flung out of their saddles by bullets. Riderless horses dashed left and right, whinnying with terror. General Burbridge was shouting commands. The night was livid with booming guns and roaring cursing troopers.

“I've got a gun!” Janet said and tried to pull it out of the holster.

Chunk.
An alien sound. The horse lunged ahead. But Adam was no longer in control. The hand that had been holding the reins was clutching his head. The horse slewed drunkenly. Adam was wounded! Janet grabbed for the reins. Sprawled against him, sitting sideways, she could exert no control. Adam regained the reins and hauled the horse to a stop.

“My eyes,” he said. “My eyes are gone.”

Hooves pounding. A dozen federal cavalrymen surrounded them. Head drooping, Adam sat motionless in the saddle. Janet reached for her gun. They would die together here. But something froze her hand on the butt. What was the point of dying now? The western confederacy had been betrayed. Victory had dwindled to a forlorn dream. Adam needed help.

She jumped to the ground. “This is Colonel Adam Jameson,” she said. “He's wounded. We must get him to a doctor.”

To her amazement, the cavalrymen sheathed their sabers and holstered their pistols. “So that's Adam Jameson,” one said.

“Never thought I'd see him alive,” another one said.

“We'll do what we can for him, Miss,” a third said. “We've got ambulances down the road.”

For a moment she was bewildered by the code of the soldier. She realized that three years of war had created a separate world for these men in which they did unto the enemy what they hoped the enemy would do for them. Maybe the hatred did not go as deep as she had thought. Maybe there was still some kind of bond in the word American.

She took the reins of Adam's horse and walked back toward Hopemont. The troopers rode on either side of her. When they were about halfway there, the lower floor of the house exploded into bright yellow flame. “No!” she cried.

“What? What is it?” Adam asked.

“They're burning Hopemont.”

“The general's usin' that Greek fire stuff. He swore he'd do it,” one of the federal troopers said.

When they reached the gravel drive in front of the porch, Janet saw the bodies of the four colonels. They had all been shot many times. Their faces, their chests, oozed blood. But there was no sign of Rogers Jameson.

“Is Pap here?” Adam asked. His tongue was thick, as if he were drunk.

“No,” Janet said. “I think he got away.”

BOOK: When This Cruel War Is Over

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