General Burbridge strode up to them. “Who's this?”
“Colonel Adam Jameson,” Janet said.
“And you're Janet Todd, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
Hopemont was burning furiously. The flames licked out the lower windows. Orange light glowed in the upper windows. Beyond Burbridge, Janet could see her father's blank dazed face. Her mother clung to him, weeping. There was no trace of Mrs. Havens.
“You deserve to go to jail like the rest of them,” General Burbridge said. “But an agreement is an agreement.”
“General,” one of the federal soldiers said. “Colonel Jameson's wounded bad. Hit in the eyes. Can we take him down to our ambulances?”
“I suppose so,” Burbridge said. “Personally, I'm inclined to hang him. But I've been reprimanded by Washington, D.C., for hanging and shooting too many people. Our idiot president apparently thinks I'm supposed to win this goddamn war without killing anyone.”
Adam was led away by an escort of four soldiers. A half-dozen of his men, all badly wounded, went with him, along with a dozen federals. The rest of Adam's men were dead or had escaped into the night. Commandeering a horse from Hopemont's stables, General Burbridge ordered Gabriel Todd to mount it.
“Where are you taking him?” Janet asked.
“To the federal prison in Louisville.”
In another five minutes they were gone. Janet was left with her dazed mother and the bodies of the four Sons of Liberty colonels and the dead Confederates, looking like creatures from a nightmare world in the glare of blazing Hopemont.
Mrs. Havens reeled out of the darkness and wailed over the dead. “I knew it, I knew it,” she said. “I knew
something terrible was about to happen. Not even the spirits of the dead could stand it! No wonder the angels have turned their eyes away from this war!”
“Come, Mistress,” said a dark Negro voice. “Come down to my place now. Come along. I'll fix you some coffee.”
It was Lillibet, inviting Letitia Todd to her slave cabin. Numbly Mrs. Todd obeyed her servant.
Janet gazed in bewilderment at the dead men, the roaring pyre of Hopemont. Slowly, words penetrated her numbed brain.
An agreement is an agreement.
General Burbridge had said that. He had agreed with someone that she would not go to jail. Who was it?
Paul Stapleton. Who else could it be? He was the betrayer of victory. The seductive destroyer of her dream. Janet's hand went to the butt of her pistol. If she ever saw him again she would kill him.
A SLEEPLESS PAUL STAPLETON LAY on a cot in Sergeant Schultz's office, alternately cursing Colonel Henry Gentry and ruefully admiring him. If Paul had followed his instincts and headed for Kentucky, he might be dead at this very momentâor on his way to court-martial and execution in Louisville. Death had no terror for him. But he recoiled from inflicting disgrace on his brother, Jonathan, and on his father's reputation as a defender of the Union.
Paul's watch read 3:00 A.M. when Sergeant Schultz and his rifle-carrying escort opened the office door. “Herr Colonel Gentry wishes to speak with you,” the sergeant said.
They marched Paul to the storm cellar door and let him make his own way across the darkened interior to Gentry's office, where a single oil lamp cast a yellow glow. The colonel had already done a lot of damage to the bottle on his desk. He poured a hefty slug for Paul.
“You're worried, I suppose.”
Paul nodded.
“That makes two of us.”
“Any news of Adam Jameson's men?”
“They passed south of Lexington yesterday. I suspect they're heading for Henderson County. Trying to get west of us. Where we're less likely to expect them. It will make it easier to trap them against the Ohio. They'll never get back to Virginia.”
“How many men does Burbridge have?”
“About fifteen thousand. They shipped him ten thousand from the Tennessee garrison by railroad.”
“Taking no chances.”
“As Lincoln said in 1861, to lose Kentucky is to lose the whole game.”
“They'll arrest Colonel Todd?”
“I'm afraid so.”
“You're arresting the other leaders?”
“All over Kentucky and Indiana. I hate to admit it but General Carrington has done a good job. He had double agents working with the top people.”
“What about the rank and file? They've got fifteen thousand Spencer repeating rifles I found for them in New York.”
“We'll issue a proclamation offering amnesty to anyone who turns in his gun.”
Blam!
The noise was so unexpected, they both took a sip of bourbon before reacting to it. “That sounded like a shot,” Gentry said.
“It was,” Paul said.
They had sentries patrolling the property. Since the ambush of the Germans, Gentry felt they were under semisiege. Gentry handed Paul the pistol he had taken from him yesterday. Together they stepped cautiously into the night.
Sergeant Schultz rushed up to them. “Major, Colonel,” he said. “Private Bockman has been shot! He's dying.”
They rushed to the gate, where poor Bockman lay groaning. He had been hit in the chest by a shotgun blast. He died before they could get him back to the barn.
“The Sons of Liberty?” Paul said, gazing around them into the darkness.
“It's possible,” Gentry replied. “Though it would be twelve hours ahead of their schedule. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with events across the river.”
They calmed down Schultz and the other Germans by giving them several bottles of bourbon from Gentry's seemingly inexhaustible liquor cabinet. The colonel and Paul went back to the cellar. The first hints of dawn were beginning to gray the eastern sky. Gentry lumbered ahead of Paul toward the office.
As Paul closed the storm cellar doors, a voice whispered from the darkness to his left, “Put up your hands, Major.” He felt the muzzle of a shotgun against his back.
It was Rogers Jameson. He removed Paul's pistol from his holster and shoved him toward the office. Gentry saw them at the door and slowly sat down in the chair behind his desk. Paul sat down in the chair on the other side of the desk. Jameson covered them both with the shotgun.
“Hello, Rogers,” Gentry said.
“Hello, Henry,” Jameson said.
Jameson was not in very good shape. He had been shot in the shoulder. A big bloodstain covered the top right side of his blue work shirt. His face and hands were smeared with Ohio River mud. He must have fallen several times as he waded through the shallows.
“Your sneakin' coward's plan worked pretty well, Henry. You sicced Burbridge and his hounds on us and killed and captured just about everyone,” Jameson said.
“I'm sorry to hear that,” Gentry said. “I was hoping no one would get hurt.”
“That sounds just like you, Henry.”
“I hope Janet Todd's all right,” Gentry said.
“The last I saw, Hopemont was burnin' bright. Burbridge used Greek fire on it. If Janet was inside, she sure as hell ain't all right.”
“Burbridge promised me he'd protect the women and servants,” Gentry said.
“I couldn't care less, Henry. But I can tell you this much. You and your Yankee hero here ain't gonna be protected unless you give me two or three thousand dollars, fast.”
“I'm not sure I have that much money in the house.”
“A thousand will do the trick. I'm headin' west. Nobody puts Rogers Jameson in jail.”
“I don't have the money here, Rogers. It's upstairs in the safe.”
“The Yankee hero here will go get it. If he brings back a dozen Germans, I'll blow you away, Henry, and go down fightin' like my boy Adam. He attacked Burbridge as I was gettin' out of the Todd garden. If you know as much as you seem to know, I don't guess he has much of a chance.”
“That's about right, Rogers. Burbridge has fifteen thousand men in Kentucky.”
“You're so goddamn smart, Henry. I'm tempted to blow a hole in you now and forget the money.”
“Major Stapleton will get you the money, Rogers.”
Gentry took a set of keys out of the desk drawer and handed them to Paul. He pointed to a delicate brass key. “That'll open the wall safe in my bedroom. It's behind the Hamilton portrait. Bring down whatever's in there.”
Paul took the key and climbed the cellar stairs to the first floor. The house was silent. He went up to Gentry's bedroom and opened the safe. There was a lot of money in there, wrapped in elastic bands. Beside it was Gentry's pistol. What a nice coincidence. Should he leave the gun here and give Jameson the money, hoping he would go away?
No, Paul decided. Jameson was almost certain to kill Gentry and probably him. He would give them each a single barrel of the shotgun at close range. Another possibility was an order to Sergeant Schultz to surround the house. That would guarantee Gentry's death, followed by Jameson's. No one would reproach Major Stapleton for it.
But he would reproach himself. He owed something to Gentry. Exactly what Paul chose not to define. He checked the chambers of the gun. Six bullets. He tiptoed
down the hall and woke up Lucy. She was still sleeping in his bedroom. “Go out the back door and tell Sergeant Schultz to surround the house,” he whispered. “Rogers Jameson is downstairs with a shotgun, getting ready to kill Colonel Gentry.”
“Yes
suh,
” Lucy said.
Paul pulled off his boots and descended the cellar stairs as quietly as possible. Staying beyond the glow of the oil lamp, he tiptoed to the left until he could see into the office. Gentry was still in his chair behind the desk. Jameson was sitting in the chair on the other side of the desk with the shotgun leveled at Gentry's chest.
If Paul shot Jameson from behind, his fingers would convulse on the shotgun's triggers and blow a very large hole in Gentry. Paul decided to try to get Jameson to turn in the chair, hoping he would move the shotgun in the same motion.
“I hated you the first time I saw you, Henry,” Jameson said as Paul walked softly toward the door, the greenbacks in his left hand, the pistol in his right handâconcealed behind his back.
“The feeling was mutual, Rogers,” Gentry replied.
Just inside the door, Paul stopped and held out the money. “Here's your greenbacks, Jameson.”
Exactly as Paul hoped, Jameson turned his head and moved in the chair. The shotgun moved with him until the muzzle was pointing at the wall to Gentry's left. Paul shot Jameson twice in the middle of the forehead. The shotgun boomed, a terrific crash in the low-ceilinged cellar. But it only blew a hole in the wall.
A flicker of dismay passed over Jameson's face. His hand scrabbled at the shotgun. Paul shot him again. Jameson slid out of the chair and thudded on the floor, dead.
“I was wondering how you were going to do that,” Gentry said.
Paul pulled his Navy Colt pistol out of Jameson's belt and returned it to his holster. “I'm heading for Kentucky,” he said.
Gentry nodded mournfully. “Tell anyone who's willing to listen that I'm sorry about Hopemont.”
“I don't think they'll be interested.”
“I suppose not,” Gentry said.
Mounting his horse, Paul rode for the ferry. It was 6:00 A.M. by the time he got there. The three-man crew had just shown up to start the day. Paul paid them five dollars to take him across on an unscheduled trip. He rode down the river road while the sun rose spectacularly over the Alleghenies, Kentucky's eastern rampart.
At Hopemont the air was heavy with the smell of burnt wood and cloth. The big house was a gutted shell. Most of the front wall had collapsed. A few spasms of flame danced against the side and rear walls. There were at least a dozen dead Confederate cavalrymen on the lawn. Paul dismounted and walked past their sightless stares. In the driveway before the porch he found the riddled bodies of the four Sons of Liberty colonels. He had no trouble figuring out what had happened. He only wanted to know one thing: was Janet alive?
Almost as if he had shouted the question, she appeared around the west side of the house. She was wearing a gray cloak over a green riding dress.
“Janet! Thank God,” Paul said, walking toward her, his arms open.
Janet's right hand went under her cloak. When it emerged there was a large silver pistol in it. She gripped it with both hands and aimed it at his chest.
“Traitor,” she said.
“No,” Paul said.
“You betrayed us. I'm going to kill you.”
“Janet, I didn't! I swear to God I didn'tâ”
She shook her head. “You planned it with General
Burbridge. I can see you in Louisville, telling him every detail.”
“Janetâit was Gentry. Someone told him everything. The date, the names. He put me under arrest.”
“Liar,” Janet said, still holding the pistol with both hands. “Say your prayers, if you have a conscience.”
“Janet, I love you. You love me. This whole thing was madnessâa passing madness. I always knew something like this could happen.”
“Burbridge wanted to arrest me. But he said he couldn't. An agreement was an agreement. What else could that mean but an agreement with you? Why would Henry Gentry worry about me?”
“Because you're a woman. You're his blood relation. He's a decent man. He knew about us.”
“Liar.”
“All right,” Paul said. “I'm a liar. Shoot me. Get it over with. I've only got one more thing to say. I love you.”
Hot tears ran down Paul's face. It was ending exactly as he had feared. But disaster only seemed to intensify the love he felt for this woman. He would never love another woman with the unique blend of desire and exaltation Janet Todd had created in him.
Silence. The womanâwas it really Janet, with that hate-twisted face?âcontinued to aim the pistol. A part of Hopemont's back wall crashed into the flickering debris. The sunrise was filling the sky with red and gold and amber light. Hands at his sides, Paul waited for her to pull the trigger.
The gun thudded to the ground. “I can't kill you,” Janet said. “I still love you. I'll love you for the rest of my life. But I'll never let you touch me again. I'll never let myself touch you.”
“No!” Paul said.
“In some way, shape, or form, you knew this was going to happen.”
“I
didn't
know. Gentry told me and then arrested me. There was no way I could have warned you.”
“Why has he let you go?”
“Because he hoped our love for each other could survive this insanity. Maybe he's trying to make some amends for Lucy.”
She saw it. She saw it now exactly as he saw it. Paul was sure of it. Their love was more important than this patch of mad murderous history in which they were still trapped. Could they escape it?
Paul realized he had to tell her one more thing. She had to know it in the name of the honesty they had pledged beside the Ohio. “I didn't want you to win,” he said. “It was because of the blacksâbecause of Adam Jameson shooting my men at Saltville. I stayed because I loved you but I didn't want you to win.”