Rebels of Babylon (45 page)

Our destination was a ruined plantation, impoverished before the war began and then abandoned by some cavalier who rushed to battle instead of paying his debts. Mr. Barnaby told the story in all its tawdry details, the family ravished by
pride and speculation, the mistress stunned by poverty and the daughters left unwed. Listening to his narration, I wondered if the family of that Rupert of the South had been much aggrieved to learn of the master’s death in a cavalry spat.

But let that bide. I had another matter to resolve. Before we arrived at the scene of Bolt’s captivity.

Mr. Barnaby overflowed with tales as we rattled along. Each shuttered dwelling seemed to have a name, in French or Spanish. Each name then had a reason. And each reason summed a long parade of foibles. Every family had a tangled history, whelping lions and alley cats in turn. Those who lacked a heritage invented one. It hardly mattered, as long as the fable pleased. Wealth and style could buy a past acceptable to the present. Just as poverty cancelled every glory.

When Mr. Barnaby paused at the sight of barren fields and brown water, I seized the opening.

“I have been thinking, Mr. Barnaby.”

He looked my way with an almost-startled expression. Reality was humble cloth compared to the rich brocade of recollection.

“I should like you to come with me to Pennsylvania,” I told him. “I have a business proposition for you, see. Pottsville lacks a proper outfitter for gentlemen. The rich go all the way to Philadelphia. Those who hope to become rich go to Reading. Pottsville is only good for woolen stockings and spare collars. I believe a well-run haberdasher’s would return a handsome profit to all concerned.”

Mr. Barnaby looked surprised. And doubtful.

I did not wish him to speak. Not yet. So I continued, “We would be partners, you and I. You would run the business, while I would supply the capital.” I leaned toward him for emphasis. “New Orleans will not recover for years to come. If at all. The tales you tell yourself suggest the city has more past than it has future. But Pottsville is growing rich. Wise men will grow rich with it. The future of this country lies in the North, in coal and industry.”

“That’s very kind, sir, terrible kind. But I couldn’t go.”

“And why is that?”

“First off, sir, you understands that Magdalena wants looking after. I ’as ’er placed with a most respectable ladyfriend. For the period of ’er convalescence, as they say. Which I ’opes will not be long. And … and I know you ’as complicated feelings about such matters. But I intends to wed ’er, to make Miss Magdalena Mrs. Barnaby. If she’ll ’ave me, sir.”

I was not as shocked as the poor fellow expected. Indeed, I was hardly surprised. Still, I asked, as a friend must, “Won’t that be risky?”

He all but exploded. With emotion, not with anger. “Oh, Major Jones! If any risk’s worth taking, ain’t it love? When a fellow’s lucky enough to love a body what loves ’im back, shouldn’t ’e plunge ahead? Shouldn’t ’e dive off the cliff and take ’is chances?” He shook his head. “I should be an awful coward, if I didn’t.”

His eyes sought a connection beyond the ordinary. “I always says to myself, I does, that I’d rather love and end up broken-’earted, than never know the joys of love at all. Do I regret those sweet years with Marie? No, sir, not for a minute! Not for all the pain what come after she and our little babes met Yellow Jack. Sometimes I think love’s all what keeps us going, begging your pardon. It’s the only thing as makes this ’ard life soft for even a blink. No, sir, love ain’t a risk. It’s a necessity, it is. God would’ve made us different, if we was meant to be alone. But ’e made us so we’re only ’appy together.”

“Then … then you must bring your wife to Pottsville.”

The words had escaped my lips before I could regulate them. I sat astonished at the thing I said.

Mr. Barnaby pondered. As if my offer might have some merit, after all.

“Well,” he said, “I supposes that … given as ’ow certain aspects of ’er person is complicated—and I’ll say no more, sir, I’ll say no more—I suppose, speaking theoretical, that if a person ’ad traces of colored blood, as they say some does … said person would ’ave a better chance in the North. Are negroes and such welcome, Major Jones?”

That was a question greater than myself. The truth is that I did not like the answer I feared might be the honest one.

“Things are a bit confused,” I allowed. “With the war, see. People … do not know their own minds. That is to say …” I reached inside and found a winning compromise. “Look you. We will give her out as a Spanish lady, your bride. It would not be a lie. Not exactly. For she is from the Spanish isles and speaks the tongue. Does she not? After a sort, I mean. And she is pale enough to pass for a Spaniard …”

He did not look convinced.

“Look you,” I said, a bit irritably, “this is America. We can re-fashion ourselves according to circumstance. I have done it myself. In a manner of speaking. If we have the will, we can leave the past behind. And plenty of men have a past that is worth the leaving. Women, too. It would not be a lie, exactly, to claim your wife was Spanish in her origins. Who would know? Would you be more welcome in New Orleans? A white man married to a woman seen to have negro blood?”

“I didn’t mean to stay ’ere in New Orleans, sir. Not very long. Only until Lieutenant Raines comes back and I seen ’im established proper. I ’as a mind to go to Argentina. They wants people down there. And they speaks Spanish.”

I played my trump. I will not beg your forgiveness for the gambling reference, for I was trying to save a good man’s life.

“Lieutenant Raines will not be returning to the South,” I told him. “Not until the war is over.”

For the first time in our acquaintance, his rage rose up at me. He reared like a bull provoked, filling the carriage. I feared he would speak words he would regret.

“Hear me out!” I commanded. “You will listen until I am finished. If you wish my help at all with Lieutenant Raines. I intend to keep my promise, see. I shall do all in my power to see him released from his prison camp. But I will
not
have him paroled back to the South.” I frowned to lend authority to my words. “Don’t be a fool! You know the lad. Even with his parole signed, he would let himself be talked into serving again in some foolish manner. Lucky he was to be captured and not
killed, as things stand now. He is the sort of lad whom war devours. The Confederacy would waste his life, while sparing men far worse. If I can gain his parole, Mr. Barnaby, I will insist that he remain in the North for the war’s duration. It will be written into his papers, with his honor as his bond.”

I tried to remain severe and avoid a smile, for I felt my argument closing like a trap. “Now, if you had a prosperous shop in Pottsville … perhaps I could find employment for young Raines. Nothing beneath his dignity. Or beneath the dignity he imagines for himself. We may see him safely through the war, you and I.” With unnecessary meanness, I added, “If he is still alive, there in his prison camp.”

“But—”

“There you have it, Mr. Barnaby. I will not be the instrument of the lad’s death. And if he is returned southward, he will die. One way or the other. His father will not protect him. On the contrary, from what you yourself once told me of the father and his pride in his Richmond post, he would only plague the son. Listen, would you? Their cause is lost. Unless the North gives up, which is not likely. The blood already spilled has made men bitter. They will not shy from spilling oceans more. The Southrons have not discouraged the North. That is a bedtime tale for wounded pride. They have awakened the North to its power. And all the vanity of the Southron gentry will not stamp further armies from the earth, nor will it call factories for armaments from thin air. They cannot win, but can only delay defeat until they have ruined themselves and all they champion. You know it as well as I do. The North grows rich, the South grows poor, and the difference grows by the day. This war may drag on for another year. Mayhaps two. And the bitterness will haunt us long thereafter. But they’ve lost. The rest is spite. Accept my offer to bring your wife to Pottsville. And I will do what I can for Lieutenant Raines.”

My companion removed a tear. Which disconcerted me.

I went on talking, although I might have stopped. “If you do not like Pottsville, which is a lovely town, you may do what you like once our business is established. You may take your share of
the profits and carry yourself and your wife to Argentina. Or to anywhere else you have a mind to go. But come north with me now, Mr. Barnaby. It is for the best.”

The big fellow had begun to weep abundantly, a response I had failed to foresee.

“Forgive me, Major Jones,” he said, in a voice reduced and cracking. “I know you wants the best for all concerned. And I accepts, sir, I accepts. Speaking for myself and Magdalena. It’s ’orrible kind of you.”

“Nothing of the sort,” I assured him. “I look upon it as a business venture. And expect a tidy profit, mind. As well as discounted goods.”

Tears conquered his cheeks. I looked away. The sky outside the carriage was thrilling blue.

“It’s just that I ’as grown unused to kindness,” he told me.

HIS CAPTORS HAD not been gentle with Captain Bolt. His uniform was gone, replaced by rags, and his face looked as if he had gone some rounds with a pugilist. A nasty welt concealed one eye and I was not certain he retained all of his teeth. The negroes had bound his hands behind the slats of a ladderback chair, which stood in a derelict shanty under cypresses.

He was awfully pleased to see me.

“Thank God,” he wailed through swollen lips. “Thank God!”

He seemed a sudden convert to the catechism.

“For the love of God, man,” he begged. “Get me out of here, would you?”

“All in good time,” I told him. “First, you and I must talk. And I mean plainly.”

“Ask anything. Anything you want.”

His guards moved closer to his chair, displaying iron muscles and broken smiles. I suspected they had enjoyed their term of authority and were not anxious to see it reach an end.

I looked about me. Besides my Christian self and Mr. Barnaby, a gamut of negroes had crowded into the cabin. The lot of them had followed our every step since our reception. Which
had not been as warm as I expected. If anything, they seemed to resent my coming.

They looked to be runaway slaves and “free people of color” joined together in a common purpose, yet hesitant to mix among themselves. I suppose even negroes have their forms of snobbery.

The one thing they had in common was their temper, which was bad.

We might have been in Africa, in the twilight of that hut. Faces black and brown and beige surrounded us. Their persons did not smell of French perfume. Of course, young Bolt did not improve the aroma, since he had been left to wallow in his slops. Like the slaves upon that ship.

A beating knocks unexpected things out of a man.

“Who that, who that?” one fellow muttered anxiously. He bounced and bent, eyes jumping from place to place.

“That Gen’rul Banks, that who.”

“Naw, that Gen’rul Butler, come back for his revengin’.”

“Maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. But he sure one ugly white man. Little, too.”

Others spoke French, I think, amid the hub-bub.

“You must all leave,” I told them. “I wish to speak with the prisoner by myself.”

They did not move at once. In fact, they did not move at all.

“Go on with you now. We need to speak in private.”

They did not care for my request. Nor did they care for me.

Disconcerted, I turned to Mr. Barnaby, who sought to appease them in some odd vernacular. Grumbling, they took his direction and wandered outside.

At last, with great reluctance, the guards left, too. They looked me over as if they thought I deserved a chair of my own beside Captain Bolt.

Before he joined the coloreds, Mr. Barnaby took me aside for a whisper. He was not especially quiet and I suspected that he wanted Bolt to hear.

“They ain’t in a trusting mood, begging your pardon. They ain’t chock with good will, sir. They knows what the captain’s done and they doesn’t like it.” He looked me up and down, more interested in my uniform than my person. “They’re afraid you’re going to take ’im off and free ’im, once you’ve got ’im in your power. He’s been bragging about ’is father and ’ow important ’e is. When ’e wasn’t trying to beg ’em with promises of bribes and all such like. ’E only made ’em angrier, with ’is chattering.” He settled his hat farther back on his head. “They wants ’im brought to justice, Major Jones. And they ain’t convinced that anybody wearing a blue coat is going to give it to ’im.”

“Convince them,” I said, a bit curtly.

He did not reply, but chewed his lip and left. Out in the yard, the negroes enjoyed their arguments.

“Don’t waste any time, for God’s sake,” Bolt told me. “They’re savages.”

“Savages, is it?” I asked. “And are you civilized?”

“Oh, don’t be an ass, Jones. Don’t tease. My father’s going to be unhappy enough with you as it is. Look at me. They’ve treated me disgracefully.”

“They were only having a bit of their own back,” I said mildly.

“Come on. Untie me, before they come back in. They’re wild animals. Beasts.”

“And what are you, Captain Bolt?” My tone grew stern. “Regard me, boy. Come down off your high horse. Or I will leave you here and walk away.”

“You wouldn’t do that. To a fellow white man.”

“Would I not?”

“And to a brother officer.”

“You are far from my brother, Captain Bolt. No matter what the Holy Bible says. Or the law of races, or military practice. Do you know what happened on the river yesterday?”

“I have no idea.”

“One hundred and fifty negroes burned alive. Perhaps more. Men you meant to sell back into slavery.”

To my astonishment, he looked relieved. As if he thought he and the world were well rid of the victims.

“They burned alive!”
I repeated. “Can you imagine what that felt like, boy?”

“They don’t feel pain the way we do.”

“Do they not?”