The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller (10 page)

Lincoln closed his eyes and then paced toward his horse and took up his reins once again. He was getting ready to step into the saddle when Ollafson spoke.

“You promised. It is time, Mr. President.”

Abraham Lincoln lowered his head and wrapped the leather reins around the pommel of the McLellan saddle. He took a deep breath.

“Your expedition has already been approved by my office, Professor,” Lincoln said as he finally pulled himself up into the saddle.

Ollafson was stunned at the quiet announcement. He didn’t know how to proceed. He didn’t know if it was worse when he thought the president was ignoring him or the fact that the decision had already been made and he was to be left out.

“And … and you were not going to inform me?” Ollafson said, his heart sinking.

Lincoln placed both hands on the saddle’s pommel and then gently patted the horse on his thick neck. “It was thought that with your current … your current ties at the university, it may not be in good security conscience to allow you to go. I am sorry, Professor. My secretary of war says he will not support me in this if you are included on the expedition. Your foreign ties are what stand in the way of his trust.”

“But, but I am an American. I have my papers proclaiming this! Why am I not included? I am loyal to the Union.”

“It’s not your loyalty as an American, Professor, it is your former acquaintances and colleagues that scare Mr. Stanton. It was hard enough to get that old war dog to see things my way, Professor. If I lose his support, we lose the expedition.”

“Mr. President, the expedition needs me. I am a loyal American and I no longer have those friends, those acquaintances, nor the colleagues. Why am I being left behind?”

Lincoln lowered his head. “I’m afraid our little secret is not the secret it once was, my good professor. It seems there have been loose tongues wagging about.” Lincoln shook his head sadly. “But when are there not wagging tongues in this bullet-hole-riddled vessel we call Washington?”

“Mr. President, I—”

“Professor Ollafson, the British government has somehow received word that we may be interested in a region of the eastern Ottoman Empire, and you and I both know they will go to untoward lengths to see us embarrassed. And if this information leaks to our very opinionated press corps, I am afraid I will not only be laughed out of office before my task is complete, but we will also lose all national credibility after this madness ends. If you are involved, the British will know exactly what it is we are trying for, and we just cannot have that. I promised certain people, north and south, that this would not be the case. I am truly sorry. You will be in on the final drafting of the orders but will not participate. I have to think about the young boys I am sending on this voyage. I will answer to them and them only.”

“Mr. President, if I could only—” Ollafson pleaded.

“Ride with me for a spell, Professor. It’s been so long since I spoke to a man with so many letters after his name that wasn’t seeking a posting, or this office or that one.”

Ollafson looked up at the thin man on the horse and then saw the tiredness written on every line of the man’s face. Since 1860, when the professor first met the president, Abraham Lincoln had aged. One hundred years’ worth of worry and pain were etched in those deep-cut wrinkles.

Lars Ollafson nodded his head and slowly walked beside the president as if the men were only on a nightly constitutional as they continued Lincoln’s journey to see the wounded.

*   *   *

An hour later Lars Ollafson stumbled from the front doors of the old soldiers’ home. He held his hat in his hand as he leaned from the porch railing. He swallowed as he tried in vain to get his emotions and stomach under control. He finally lost his late supper into the bare earth of the garden. Abraham Lincoln stepped from the hospital and hesitated as he took in the night air and sky. He half-turned back to peer inside the home for his wounded soldiers and shook his head as he raised his tall hat. Down below a black private held the reins of the president’s horse and another that had been delivered for Ollafson.

“It appears we may see some rain before dawn.” The president momentarily placed his hand on the smaller professor’s shoulder, looking into the roadway beyond as if he were searching for something in the darkness. “It’s never an easy thing. The first few times visiting this place shook me to my very soul, Professor. I told myself as I gazed upon those boys in there that what I was doing was the right thing.” The president squeezed Ollafson’s shoulder and then quickly patted it as he broke contact and moved off the porch. “But I lose my convictions most times when I look into some mother’s son’s eyes as he lies dying.” He accepted the reins from the private and mounted his horse awkwardly. He adjusted his long legs into the stirrups and took in a deep breath of the night air. “Healing.”

Ollafson wiped his mouth with his pocket handkerchief and glanced up to see the president just sitting there. “Sir?” he asked, not understanding the one-word comment. The professor kept envisioning the young boy inside who had no lower jaw and he became aware of his stomach trying to come back up to invade his throat once more.

“I must find a way to heal this bloody wound I have inflicted upon the nation.” Lincoln looked over at Ollafson and tipped his hat to the smaller man. “You have given me an opportunity, my good professor, and a chance at bringing back together an entire people. Even if we find absolutely nothing in that faraway place, just the attempt should do nicely. The rejoining of two peoples into one would be a salve to the nation.”

Ollafson saw the sadness, the deep-seated agony that the president was experiencing, and for the first time thought he understood. Mr. Lincoln cared little for what was supposedly buried on that mountain; he was far more concerned about the men being sent to retrieve it. If he could see them return as one, then the voyage would prove that wounds could be bound and a healing could take place. Not for treasure, not for discovery … this was for his country.

“Professor, please understand, I have to give those boys the best chance possible at returning. Otherwise what is this all about?”

Lars Ollafson only half-nodded his head.

“I ride alone back to the White House, Professor.” The president turned his horse as Ollafson stood rooted to the porch. “My company is not warm after my visits to this place, you understand,” he said softly as his horse ambled down the dirt road. “You’ll be contacted soon.”

The professor watched the president leave and he became saddened for the man who was leading the nation. He placed his hat on his head as he turned back toward the open door of the hospital in time to hear a boy cry out for his mother. The cry was void of hope.

With determination Ollafson bounded down the steps and took the offered reins from the private. He knew now that bringing back the artifact was the only thing he could do to assist this man. He had come to admire him even though he now knew that the president was wrong. It did matter that they find it. The nation needed the guidance, the inspiration. He mounted the horse and spurred it forward. Lars Ollafson rode hard.

They needed to know that God was on the American side and there was only one place in the world where that could be accomplished—the Ottoman Empire.

*   *   *

The president slowly moved into the grand hallway and then paused as his eyes looked toward his office. He placed his hat on the small table as he turned toward the window, deep in thought.

“You should be well asleep by now, young man,” he said without turning from the window.

John Hay stood silently behind the president. He never knew how his boss was always keenly aware when he attempted to come upon him with stealth. He shook his head in wonder.

“I have secrets also. I always wait up until you return from the soldiers’ home.”

Lincoln turned with a small smile on his lined face. “I knew that too.”

Hay held out a telegram for the president, who looked from his secretary to the yellow paper and then turned back to the window and the brief flash of lightning in the distance. The illumination only caused him to think about General George Meade and his failure to pursue Robert E. Lee into Virginia fast enough to end this damnable war. It was if the lightning had illuminated the future for his thoughts. He knew Meade would fail.

“You read it, Johnny, my eyes have beheld enough misery for one night. I can’t see anymore.”

Hay grimaced as he watched the president’s shoulders sag. The young secretary knew that another change in command was forthcoming. Which would mean Mr. Lincoln would soon bring back a general the president despised—George McClellan was the only man capable of getting the grand army back in the war after their victory at Gettysburg. He decided that now was the most opportune time to deliver the message from the War Department and Secretary of War Stanton. Hay read the telegram.

“War Department to A. Lincoln. Be advised that orders have been transmitted to Fort Dodge, Kansas. Expect delay as subject is not currently assigned to post. Signed Stanton, Secretary of War.”

Lincoln said nothing as his thoughts were in ten places at once, per his usual mode of mind games.

“What if the colonel is not found in time? Do we attempt to bring in another commanding officer to lead the expedition?”

“No,” Lincoln said as he watched another bolt of lightning streak across the sky on the far side of the Potomac. “There is only one man who can do what we are asking.”

“If you are thinking about relieving General Meade with your old enemy George McClellan, the odds are pretty good that our colonel, if he arrives intact from the west, will meet Little Napoleon here in the capitol, and then you know all hell will break loose.”

Lincoln finally turned away from the approaching storm and smiled broadly at Hay when the secretary used the derogatory moniker for McClellan.

“Are you saying the two may kill each other?”

“Possibly.”

“Well, they always say there is a bright side to all things.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Inform me when the colonel acknowledges receipt of his new orders.”

“Yes, sir.” Hay turned to leave.

Lincoln rocked on his heels momentarily as he thought about his old acquaintance, Thomas. He would love to see the face of the man when he received the orders recalling him to Washington. He would more than likely think he was being recalled to finally be hung for his transgression against his old commander—one George B. McClellan. He smiled.

“Colonel John Henry Thomas, it’s time to come home.”

3

ONE HUNDRED FIFTY MILES NORTHWEST OF FORT DODGE, KANSAS

JUNE 1864

There was no decent water, no shade, and no protection from the unrelenting winds of the plains. The sparse trees were windworn and scraggly. The branch of the small creek, dubbed Sandy Creek by an obviously gifted mapmaker ten years before, was nothing more than a ribbon of water in the spring runoff at its height and a muddy wallow for buffalo in the summer months. The site was unappealing to the two men dressed in filthy clothing and even filthier hats, which they used to shade their eyes—eyes that had long felt as if they had half of the Sahara desert embedded in them.

The larger of the two men took in a deep breath of the stagnant summer air as he gazed upon the site the experts had chosen from their comfortable offices at Fort Dodge and Washington. The location had either changed dramatically in the past six years since it had been surveyed or someone had outright lied on their field report as to the possible location of a new fort. This was not the place the two men had hoped it would be. The large man with black hair removed his brimmed hat and wiped sweat from his face. The smaller man with the graying beard kicked at the sandy dune from which they spied the small barren valley.

“You wanna know what I think, boyo,” the smaller of the two said as he too managed to wipe sweat away that immediately reappeared as if the filthy shirtsleeve had never been used. “I think if the buffalo have bypassed this place, we need to look somewhere else.”

The big man replaced his dirty white hat, glanced at his companion, and slowly mounted his horse. As he adjusted his sore hindquarters into the saddle he finally spared the man the only few words he had uttered that morning.

“No, this is not the place. No covering trees, no fresh water within three miles, and the winds here would drive your average trooper mad within a month. We’ll go farther north and hopefully find what others may have missed.” He slowly turned his large roan and lightly encouraged the big mount with the taste of his spurs. “And, Sergeant Major, at least add a ‘Colonel’ when you call me ‘boyo.’”

The smaller man smiled as he too mounted his horse. He laid spurs to the animal and shot forward to catch up.

“Aye, Colonel Darlin’, that I can do, at least from time to time.”

United States Army Colonel John Henry Thomas didn’t respond as he kept riding at a slow gait. He was about to pull the old territorial map from his shirt when the third member of their party rode up, pack mule in tow. Thomas nodded to the Indian, who had been waiting for them on the side of the small rise.

Gray Dog was a Comanche who had been with Thomas for many years when he had found himself in either Texas or New Mexico territories, and long before the start of the madness in the east. They had been separated since 1861 and had no contact until his reassignment to Fort Dodge to assist the war department in locating desirable areas for future army accommodations. Thomas knew the brass in Washington were possibly gearing up for a major push into Indian Territory after brother stopped slaughtering brother in the civilized east.

Gray Dog was all of twenty summers and Colonel John Henry Thomas had known him since the boy was fifteen years old. The Comanche had been orphaned after hostile Kiowa killed his entire family near the Brazos River in Texas on the very same day that Colonel Thomas had lost his wife Mary to the same band of Kiowa. Now Gray Dog once more joined him on his reassignment to Kansas. After all those years Gray Dog had refused to wear the white man’s clothes and had remained full Comanche, to many a Texan’s discomfort.