Love and War

see him.

The face of the departed stranger lingered in his mind. Bent motioned for the barkeep. 'Did you see that gentleman who just left?'

'Secretary Cameron.'

'No, the one with him.'

'Oh, that's one of his flunkies. Stanley Hazard.'

Bent's hand clenched. 'From Pennsylvania?'

'I suppose. Cameron brought a lot of political pals to the War Department.' A nod to the empty glass. 'Need another?'

'Yes, I do. A double.'

Stanley Hazard. George Hazard's brother, surely. That would explain the familiarity despite the soft, sagging face. For a moment such overwhelming emotions buffeted him that he felt sick, dizzy.

Orry Main and George Hazard had been one year behind Elkanah Bent at the Military Academy. From the start, they had despised him and conspired to turn others against him. He held them directly responsible for his failure to win promotions and commendations. That had been true at West Point and again during the war in Mexico.

In the late fifties, Bent had been posted to the Second Cavalry in Texas. There, Orry Main's cousin Charles, a brash new lieutenant in the regiment, had further besmirched his record.

In this war, the Mains naturally sided with the Southern traitors. George Hazard had left the army years ago, but his younger brother, Billy, was in the Union engineers. Bent didn't know the whereabouts of any of them, but this he did know beyond doubt: Elkanah Bent was destined for greatness. Supreme power. All of his adult life he'd believed he would emerge as the American Bonaparte, and he still believed it, even though an upstart Academy classmate, George McClellan, lately returned to the army, had somehow persuaded the gullible press to confer the title on him.

Never mind. What mattered was the power itself. It would bring recognition and reward for Bent's military genius and, just as surely, the opportunity to destroy the Mains and the Hazards.

He gulped whiskey and fixed a clear image of Stanley's present appearance in his mind. After he emptied the glass, he pulled out his watch. Past seven already. Soon it would be dark, and when it was, the steets were unsafe. Unlike the daytime police, those on duty at night were paid by the government, principally to protect public buildings, not citizens. He ought to be leaving. Though he wore his dress sword, he didn't care to invite the attention of the thugs and robbers who hunted for victims when the sun went down. Men like that terrified him.

One more drink, then he'd go. He sipped it, struggling to summon satisfying visions of throttling Stanley Hazard or stabbing his sword into Stanley's belly. The effort did him no good. The one he wanted to hurt was George. George and that damned Orry Main.

Clutching the hilt of his sword, he lurched out of Willard's. He could feel and smell dampness in the air; another pestilential fog would soon be rising from the river. He bumped into an oyster-seller giving one last toot of his horn as he wheeled his cart away. Bent cursed the blurred figure and wove on through twilight shadows from which strange, taunting voices whispered to him. Real voices? Phantoms? He wasn't sure. His walk approached a run.

Three blocks of this torment brought him to the safety of the boardinghouse. Panting, he climbed steps to the lighted veranda and huddled there until his tremors of relief subsided. Then he went into the parlor, where he found another boarder with whom he'd struck up an acquaintance. Colonel Elmsdale, a jug-eared New Hampshireman, chewed a cigar as he pointed to some papers on a table.

'Picked up my orders today. Yours, too. There they are. Not the best of news.'

'Not — the best —?' Licking lips already moist, Bent snatched the orders. The handwriting, typically ornate, seemed to writhe, as if snakes were somehow imprisoned in the paper. But he understood every word. He was so frightened, he passed wind uncontrollably. Elmsdale didn't laugh or smile.

'Department of — Kentucky?'

A grim nod, 'Army of the Cumberland. Do you know who's in command? Anderson. The same slave-owning bungler who hauled the flag down at Sumter. I know a lot of people called him a hero, but I'm hanged if I do.'

'Where's this Camp Dick Robinson?'

'Near Danville. Camp of instruction for volunteers.'

Incredulous, Bent said, 'I've drawn line duty — in secesh country?'

'Yes, and I've drawn the same. I'm no happier than you are, Bent. We'll have greenhorns to command — bushwhackers behind every tree — nobody fighting by the book. I'll bet the plowboys we're supposed to train can't even read the goddamn book.'

'There's been some mistake,' Bent whispered, wheeling and stumbling to the stairs.

'There certainly has. The army kind.' Elmsdale sighed. 'Not a thing we can do about it.'

Lumbering upstairs, Bent didn't hear. Down a dusty, gas-lit hall reeking of stew beef and onions — the dining-room supper he was too sick to eat — he found his room. He slammed the door. Sank to the edge of the bed in the dark. Line duty. Commanding illiterates in a wilderness where a man ran a high risk of dying from the bullet of some Southern sympathizer.

Or from the inattention of superiors who had all but forgotten his potential — his very existence —

What happened? In the stale dark, smelling of uniform wool and his own sweat, he was nearly crying. Where was his protector? From Bent's earliest days that man had labored secretly on his behalf. Secured the Academy appointment from Ohio, and then, after the machinations of Hazard and Main brought dismissal, his protector had won reinstatement for him by an appeal to the Secretary of War. Except for unavoidable service in the Mexican War and that one posting to Texas, he'd always been given safe duty. He'd been kept in the army, out of danger —

Until now.

My God, they were sending him into exile. Suppose he wound up leading combat troops? He could die. Why had his protector let him down? Surely it was unintentional. Surely no one knew of these orders except a few army clerks. That had to be the explanation —

Still shaking, he decided on what he must do. It was a violation of the clear and long-standing agreement that he must never contact his protector directly. But this crisis — this absolute disaster — took precedence over the agreement.

He ran out of the room and down the stairs, startling Elmsdale, who was just coming up. 'Fog's gotten mighty thick out there. If you have to go somewhere, take your revolver.'

'I don't need advice from you.' Bent shoved him. 'Stand aside.' He lurched out the front door, sword scabbard swinging wildly. Elmsdale swore and said to himself, How has a lunatic like that managed to stay in the army?

7

The hired hack turned north into Nineteenth, where the homes were few in number. The wealthy built in this remote section to avoid the dirt and dangers of the central city.

'Which house between K and L?' the driver called.

'There's only one. It takes up the whole block.'

Bent hung from the inside hand strap as if it were a life line in the ocean. His mouth felt hot, parched, the rest of his body cold. The Potomac fog hung drapes of dirty gauze over even the brightest windows.

Bent's destination was the residence of a man named Heyward Starkwether. An Ohioan, Starkwether had no profession in the traditional sense, no office, no visible source of income, though he'd lived in the city twenty-five years. The only term to describe his circumstances during the last sixteen was opulent. Reporters new to Washington — young men, usually, and long on nerve, short on wisdom — sometimes described him as a lobbyist.