Raintree County (77 page)

The monster spawned twenty heads where one was cut off.

Just before leaving on his trip to Beardstown, he had said,

—Why, Susanna, child, what makes you think that so many people would want to spend so much time and money on one poor little Rebel? Believe me, honey, the United States Government has better things to do.

She immediately corrected his remark in several ways. To begin with it wasn't just the United States Government—
that,
she had known for a long time. In the second place, it was not just herself
that They were after—Goodness, she had no vanity on that point!—it was what she
stood
for and what They thought They could get her to
tell. She
was just an instrument in their loathsome designs. It involved the
child,
too, and
Johnny
was involved in it too. She had warned him
many
times, and
some
day he would learn to value the intelligence, courage, and foresight of his little wife.

—Why, honey, I'm not in any danger from anything, Johnny said. Honestly, I never see any signals or anything. I——

—Hmmmmm, she had said. Then when you were talking with Mrs. Gray this morning, you didn't even notice?

Susanna sucked in her cheeks and regarded him knowingly with raised brows.

—Notice? What?

She looked at him intently. She spoke clearly, enunciating every syllable sharply.

—She—closed—her—purse—and—put—it—under—her—left—arm!

Johnny waited, mouth open. But that was all.

—Well? he said.

—But don't you see! Susanna said, shaking her head impatiently at his stupidity. Don't you understand! That shows she's in it too. Don't you remember? I told you.

—Mrs. Gray is
not
in it, Johnny said. She——

Then he realized how hopeless it was. Here he was trying to acquit Mrs. Gray and thereby tacitly admitting the existence of the whole thing.

—Not
directly
in it, Susanna said. But They're
using
her. She doesn't know it herself.

As for the letter apprising him of her alleged visit to Indianapolis, he had no idea what to make of it. After all, in her condition Susanna might be capable of anything. And yet with the onset of her derangement she had shown extraordinary sexual reticence. Lately, she had been convinced that They had designs on her person. In particular, They were determined to see her scar, and so she had recently taken to wearing only highnecked dresses again, as before their marriage, concealing even the beginnings of the ancient firemark on her breast.

But perhaps now in a climax of her illness she had flung herself
into an orgy of lustful abandonment. He pictured his mad little wife in an Indianapolis hotel, drunk, shrieking with laughter, pawed by lechers who winked at each other and passed the news around. Under the circumstances, he hoped it was some acquaintance of his.

But most of his anxiety was spent on Little Jim. Since he had picked up the letter at the office, he had avoided thinking that any real harm could come to the child. Somehow, Little Jim would pass through the horror of these days and come back safe at last. The stationmaster at Freehaven had said that the boy was smiling and apparently happy when Susanna boarded the train, three days ago.

Johnny Shawnessy bowed his head. Somehow, all had gone wrong for him. Two helpless children, entrusted to his care, had been lost. As in the old poem, they had wandered away on a bright summer's day. Bitterly, he reproached himself.

At Beardstown, where he changed to the main line for Indianapolis, he saw Cash Carney waiting to board the same train. Johnny would have preferred to go on alone, but Cash saw him and came over, and they rode to Indianapolis together. After a little hesitation, Johnny told him the purpose of his trip, omitting some details. He expressed his fears for Susanna and the child, explaining that his wife had been upset with a case of nerves and was really not responsible for her actions.

—Don't worry, John, Cash said. They'll turn up. What could happen to them? Susanna probably went up there to get in on that Copperhead Rally they're having. Garwood's up there and will probably look after her. You know yourself Susanna's a worse Rebel than Jeff Davis.

Cash had clearly been doing well for himself. He had acquired interests in railroads operating out of Indianapolis and had got his finger into the munitions pie as well, where there were scandalously fat plums to be had. His soft brown eyes glowed; he waved his cigar like a wand of pelf and power.

—This war is changing our ideas, he said. We're learning how to do Big Things. The railroad and Northern industry are coming into their own. After we whip the South——

—Do you think we'll whip them? Johnny said. How about this invasion and the battle in Pennsylvania?

—We can afford to lose battles, and they can't. The squeeze is
on here in the West. Grant is about to take Vicksburg—I have that on very good authority from a private source high up. That'll free the river to the Gulf and turn their flank, goddam 'em. Of course, our great advantage in men and materials has been sadly misused. I wouldn't say it publicly, but Lincoln is a damn backwoods bonehead and has no more idea how to choose generals and fight a war than you have, John. If we had just one general like Lee, we'd of been in Richmond a year ago. Nevertheless, the Republican Party is the War Party, and the War must be won. And the War
will
be won. We have the enterprise, the skill, and the goods. The War's being won right now on the trunklines of the Nation, in the factories, in the places the lunkheads back home would never think of looking. They think it's all bayonets and glory charges and the boys in blue.

—Somebody has to have the guts to stand out there and stop Lee's yelling infantry, Johnny said. Don't forget that.

—Of course, Cash said, I don't forget that. God knows, poor bastards, they've suffered. I could tell you stories that would make your flesh crawl. These poor dumb farmboys have no idea what they're getting into when they join the Army. No wonder Indianapolis is full of bountyjumpers, deserters, and Copperheads. For Christ's sake, John, whatever you do, stay out of the Army.

—Sometimes I don't see how we can pull through, Johnny said, with all this Copperhead sentiment.

—If I had my way, Cash said, we'd hang 'em all in the nearest orchard and get on with the War. And the first fat neck I'd tighten the noose to would be that of our mutual and esteemed friend, Garwood Jones. Imagine the folks back home electing that traitor to the State Legislature! I suppose with so many loyal men in the Army, the Copperhead vote was overwhelming.

Chatting with Cash about the War, Johnny had hoped to lull his anxiety a little, but it only increased as the train went on mile after mile toward Indianapolis. All the things he believed in were smutted with disloyalty or threatened with destruction. A few short years ago he had lain on the banks of the Shawmucky dreaming of a fair republic in which he was to be the great sayer, the maker of poems. Now, here he was, a haggard young man, assistant to the editor of a smalltown newspaper, going toward a wartorn city, full of traitors,
deserters, bountyjumpers, wounded veterans, speculators, thieves, cutthroats, tramps, pimps, whores. And somewhere in this corrupt city his poor mad wife and his little son were at the mercy of depraved people. A few hundred miles away in the summer weather a horde of grayclad men, speaking a speech that was not of Raintree County, were perhaps shattering the proud Army of the Republic and realizing at last their dream of a separate nation. And so the country would become two, the Mississippi would flow through alien lands, and the institution of slavery would be perpetuated for centuries.

At the station, he said good-by to Cash, who had an important conference, and inquired the way to the Maddon Hotel. On his way over, he told himself that his fears were baseless. Now that he was here, the Capital City of the State appeared to be after all only a greater Freehaven, a rather crudely constructed, messy collection of hotels, places of business, public buildings.

People were all stirred up over the news of the battle in Pennsylvania. At the window of a newspaper office, Johnny saw bulletins announcing that a sharp skirmish had been fought the day before at an undisclosed place. It was clear that no one knew yet what had happened.

Just before he reached the hotel, a Copperhead parade went by. Men and women carried transparencies with pictures of an apelike monster, supposed to be Lincoln, and Copperhead slogans.

ABE, WE WANT JUSTICE
. . .
NO MORE BLOODSHED FOR NIGGERS
. . .
PEACE NOW

Men boiled out into the path of the marchers, fists flew, men cursed each other, the parade poured brokenly on.

The Maddon Hotel was a dingy framebuilding about three blocks from the Capitol. From the open door a stale breath gushed. Johnny found the lobby emptied by excitement over the parade. The air stank of beer and tobacco. The floor around the brass cuspidors was stained with spit. Flies swarmed in the diningroom. The desk was empty, the clerk having gone out to see the fun. Johnny opened the
register and ran his eyes over the entries. Close to the bottom he saw

Susanna Shawnessy and child

The room number was 34.

He ran up the stair. The thirdfloor hall was dark, the floor sagging with age. As he hunted for the room, something started along the wall and scrambled through a half-open door at the end of the hall. It was a fat gray rat.

Johnny found the door and thundered on it with his fist.

—Susanna!

No answer.

—Jim! It's Papa. Jim!

There was no sound. He tried the door. It was locked.

He ran down the hall, down the stair, into the lobby. People were pouring back into the hotel now. Johnny shoved through them.

—Where's the clerk?

A little man whose yellow teeth jutted longly from under big pale lips, said,

—What can I do for you, friend?

—I want to know if a Mrs. Shawnessy is here. With her son. I saw their names in the register. But they don't seem to be in their room. Room 34, I believe it is.

The clerk turned back to a man he had been talking with.

—If Morton calls out troops, he said, he'll have a rebellion on his hands right here in Indianapolis. The people'll stand for just so much.

—Listen, Johnny said, I want to know if——

The clerk's voice was querulous and ugly.

—This draft call's the last word. They're makin' slaves of us to fight for slaves. By God, I——

—Listen, Johnny said.

He had the ratfaced man by the arm and pulled him around.

—Are you the clerk here or not?

—What's the big hurry? the ratfaced man said.

He moved slowly around behind the counter and fumbled with the keys.

—What's the name?

—Shawnessy, Johnny said, opening the register. Here it is.

The man's teeth slipped out of the pale flaps of his lips, smiling.

—O, that one! he said.

—You remember them?

—I'd hope, the man said. Was that your wife?

He winked at the man he had been talking with.

—Yes, Johnny said. For God's sake, tell me where she is if you can.

—I don't know where she is, the little man said.

He smiled and spat a brown stream prolongedly on the floor. He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

—But you better look after her, friend.

—Did she leave here?

—O, yes. Yes. O, yes, the clerk said.

He winked and smiled at his friend again.

—Did she have the child with her?

—Yes, come to think about it, she did. That wasn't all she had either.

Johnny controlled himself.

—Let me share that room, will you? he said. I'll pay the charge already on it and whatever else it comes to.

—That'll be four dollars so far, the clerk said. Here's the key.

Johnny went back upstairs and opened the door. The little bare room had a stale smell of perfume and breathed air. The bed had been slept in and left unmade. The usual cheap fixtures were in the room and nothing else. Susanna's suitcase was gone. The view from the window was a jungle of backyards and alleys. The city appeared to be decaying in a sticky heat. Johnny went downstairs and left a note at the desk for Susanna, telling her if she returned to the hotel, to wait for him there.

At the hall where the Copperhead Rally was being held, guards stood at the door, stopping and questioning people and keeping the soldiers out.

—Name?

—John Shawnessy.

—Party affiliation?

—I just want to see if my wife's here, Johnny said.

Everyone within listening range laughed.

—Better get 'er out a
there,
a man said. She won't come out pure as she went in.

The crowd laughed.

—Go on in, the doorkeeper said, laughing.

In the convention hall, the program was already started. Johnny scanned the crowd for Susanna's face but without success. Speakers took turns expressing sympathy for Vallandigham, the arch-Copperhead. Once when Jeff Davis' name was mentioned, several people cheered. On the platform among the notables was Garwood Jones, looking fatly pontifical.

Johnny stood helpless through the speeches. He was stunned by the openly treasonable character of the meeting. Here within a few blocks of the Capitol Building, within earshot of hundreds of furloughed veterans who had risked their lives to preserve the Union, people openly expressed their contempt for the Cause. Here were hundreds of people, most of them respectable and well-to-do, who hated Abraham Lincoln, opposed the War, sympathized with the South, and favored a peace at any price, even if it meant the dissolution of the Union and the perpetuity of slavery.

It was well along in the afternoon before the Convention broke up and Johnny got to talk with Garwood. As he told about Susanna's disappearance with the boy and her overwrought condition, he watched Garwood narrowly. Garwood occupied himself with lighting a cigar. His eyes were remote, impassive.