The Sword (25 page)

A
s soon as they started down the main road of Petersburg, they knew something momentous had happened. Men rushed up and down the street, clutching newspapers, calling out to acquaintances. Boys ran, too, from sheer excitement, ducking among the crowds, yelling. Prosperous-looking men smoking fat cigars stood in groups of three or four, talking animatedly. Southern gentlewomen were never known to stand out on the street for any reason, but here and there were groups of them, dressed in their graceful wide skirts, poring over newspapers and talking among themselves with animation. Riders galloped recklessly up and down; the road was choked with wagons and buggies.

“I wanted to go to the newspaper office first thing,” Clay told Jacob and Chantel.

Jacob nodded. “We’ll drive on up to the edge of town and wait. Will you come and let us know what’s going on?”

“Yes, sir, I’ll find you,” Clay replied. Dismounting, he tied Lightning to a hitching post and began to thread his way through the throngs.

He found the newspaper office, but there was such a crowd that
he couldn’t even get outside the building.

A tall rawboned man who was dressed in a farmer’s rough clothing was standing beside him.

Clay said, “Good day, sir. Would you mind telling me what’s going on?”

“Waiting for the next edition,” he answered succinctly.

“But—you mean the paper is putting out more editions than just the morning one?”

“Oh yes, as soon as they get more information by the telegraph they print it up,” he answered then looked at Clay curiously. “Haven’t you heard the news?”

“I guess not, sir. I’ve been—er—in the country for three weeks. We didn’t hear much news.”

The man’s pale blue eyes lit up. “U.S. Army tried to resupply Fort Sumter in South Carolina. Confederate forces fired on the supply ship, turned them away. Virginia seceded from the Union, and now the Confederacy is gearing up. There’s going to be a war, all right.”

Clay was shocked. Of course he had been aware of the political tensions ever since Abraham Lincoln had been elected, and seven Southern states had seceded in January and February. But other Southern states were hesitant, distancing themselves somewhat from the most voluble “fire-eating” states like South Carolina and Mississippi.

Though he had not closely followed all of the political maneuverings, Clay had thought, somewhat vaguely, that a compromise would be found. In particular, he had believed that Virginia, with her close ties to Washington just across the Potomac River, would not make such a momentous decision, even though she definitely depended on the cotton economy and had many slaves.

As he stood there brooding, a man came out with his arms stacked with newspapers up to his chin. The crowd started shouting and waving coins in the air. Clay pushed forward, paid his nickel, and grabbed the paper. Two-inch-high headlines read: L
OYAL
S
ONS OF
V
IRGINIA!
A
NSWER THE
C
ALL!
There were two small articles
about some appointments to the Confederate States of America War Department, but most of the two pages were covered with advertisements of different units forming as volunteer companies, with prominent Petersburg men organizing them.

After the crowd had dispersed, Clay went into the busy office. A small, bespectacled man looked up from a littered desk and asked, “May I help you, sir?”

“I hope so,” Clay answered. “By any chance do you carry copies of any Richmond newspapers?”

“Oh yes, sir, we do. But they’ve been as hard to keep on hand as our own
Petersburg Sentinel
has been. Were you looking for any specific date, sir?”

“I’m not exactly sure. Do you have editions for the last two weeks?”

The man shook his head. “Oh no, I’m afraid those would be long gone. Or—perhaps we might have one or two, in the storeroom.”

“Would you mind just checking, sir?” Clay asked courteously. “It would be a very great help to me.”

“I don’t mind,” the man said. “Wait here just a moment and I’ll see what I can find.” He went to the back of the offices and through a door.

In only a few minutes, he returned. “As I said, it’s not as if there are stacks to go through. We’ve had a difficult time keeping any editions on hand. I’m afraid all I could find were two editions of the
Richmond Dispatch,
from just two and three days ago.”

“Thank you, sir, you’ve been most helpful,” Clay said. After paying him for the newspapers, he left. But he was so anxious to see if he could find some news about Barton Howard that he stopped on the plank sidewalk just outside the newspaper office and started to search through them. A small whisper went through his mind,
Not an obituary, please, God, no notice of a funeral …

But on the second page of the newspaper from three days ago, he found what he was looking for. A sizable advertisement read:

Clay threw his head back and closed his eyes with relief. “He’s alive,” he murmured to himself. “Alive.”

Passersby stared at him curiously, but he stood unmoving, muttering to himself for a few moments. Then he tucked the newspapers under his arm and walked slowly down the street to where he had hitched Lightning. As he walked, he collected himself, and his mind began to churn.

He patted the horse’s silky black nose then opened the newspaper again. Notices such as the one the Howards had placed were numerous. Also, there were a lot of articles about the organizations of the hospitals and the ladies of Richmond meeting to assemble small sewing kits for the men, to roll bandages, and to collect funds to buy pencils and paper for each soldier.

But two of the notices in particular caught Clay’s attention.

Clay had read of Captain—then Lieutenant—J. E. B. Stuart and Colonel Robert E. Lee in their involvement with John Brown at Harpers Ferry. The newspapers had been fulsome in praise of Lieutenant Stuart and Colonel Lee’s decisive and quick action in apprehending the raiders. For days they had written articles about John Brown, of course, but usually they included more praise of the two officers, and there had been much about Lieutenant Stuart’s exploits in the West, fighting Indians.

Staring at Lightning thoughtfully, he said, “Well, old boy, I think we’re bound for the cavalry. Captain J. E. B. Stuart sounds like the kind of man I’d like to serve with. And I’ll bet you can beat his horse.”

Mounting up, he made his slow way through the crowded streets until he reached the warehouse district north of town, close to the railroad junction.

Jacob and Chantel waited for him there, under some shade trees by a tin dispatcher’s shack.

“I brought some newspapers,” Clay said. “The South is going to war.”

Jacob nodded sadly. “Those dark clouds have been gathering for some time now.”

“And I found out what I needed to know,” Clay said, dismounting and coming to stand by the wagon. They were sitting in the back. He hesitated for long moments, slowly tying Lightning to the wagon, his head down. “I thought I might have killed a man. But I didn’t.”

Jacob and Chantel glanced at each other. “Why did you try to kill this man?” Chantel asked.

Clay stared off into the distance. “It’s a long story, and it’s not a story that I want to tell anyone if I don’t have to. He did take a shot
at me first. But in a way he had good reason to.”

Jacob said, “Clay, Chantel and I already know you are a sinner. We know this because all men are sinners. We have no right to judge you and no right to demand that you confess to us. Leave your sin behind, and ask forgiveness from God, and He will save you from all of your sins. Simple.”

Clay smiled, a twisting of his mouth with no humor in it. “It’s not always that simple, Mr. Steiner. Not for a man like me anyway.”

Jacob started to reply, but then he stopped and grew silent. As a wise man, he knew that arguing with men in Clay’s position did little good.

Chantel stared gravely at Clay, her violet eyes wide and dark. Her face was unreadable. All that Clay saw was disgust and dislike when she looked at him, but his perception was colored by guilt.

He dropped his eyes.

Finally she asked quietly, “So, what will you do, Mr. Tremayne?”

Again it pained Clay that all warm familiarity was gone from her voice, and they were back to the formalities of relative strangers. “I’m going to join the army, of course, Miss Chantel.”

“But why?” Chantel asked with a quickness that surprised him.

For the first time that day he was able to look her squarely in the eye and speak pure truth. “Virginia is my home. I may be a wastrel, but I love my home. If Virginia fights, then I fight.”

“One thing I have learned, in all my time in the South,” Jacob said, “is that these people love this country. And, in some ways, they already consider themselves set apart from the North. Many men will fight, Chantel. It will be a terrible war.”

Clay asked curiously, “And what will you do, Mr. Steiner? Where will you go?”

“I’ve been praying for God to give me some direction,” he answered, frowning. “But sometimes He demands that we walk in faith, without clearly seeing the path laid out for us. I do feel, though, that I will stay here, in Virginia. If, of course, my granddaughter will stay with me,” he said, patting her shoulder affectionately.

“I will stay with you always, Grandpere,” Chantel said in a low voice. “You’re my family, you.”

Jacob smiled at her then turned to Clay. “And so, Clay, you are going to join the army. Do you go to Richmond then?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All right. Would you be so kind to escort two peddlers there?”

Sheriff Asa Butler appeared shocked to see Clay walk into his office. He was leaning back in a wooden chair on wheels but shot bolt upright when he saw him. “Clay Tremayne! I figured you were halfway to Atlanta by now.”

“No, Sheriff. I’ve been—in Petersburg,” Clay said. “I came back to town to join the army. But first I wanted to come here to see if I have any charges against me.”

He leaned back again, the chair creaking noisily with his considerable bulk. “No, as a matter of fact, you don’t. And that would be because of Miss Belle Howard. Those brothers of hers tried to send her back home before I could talk to her, but she just came sashaying in here by herself and told me what happened. Or most of it anyway. Enough for me to know that Barton Howard came busting in on you two, guns blazing. Miss Howard said that you weren’t even really trying to shoot him. You were just returning fire, and then you took off.”

Clay said, “It’s true I didn’t shoot first, Sheriff.”

Butler nodded; then his eyes narrowed as he looked Clay up and down. “So where’d you go, Clay? Ed and Charles disappeared for a couple of days after all the ruckus. Thought maybe they might have gone looking for you.”

“Yes, they did.”

“Did they find you?” Butler asked alertly. “You’re looking kind of whipped, Clay. You’re skinnier and pale.”

Clay shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “They found me, all right. But Sheriff, I want to forget all that now. If I’m not going to jail, I’m going to war. Somehow that makes all this seem kind
of … unimportant, if you understand me.”