'Ma'am, if it's any trouble, I'll find another tree,' Sam said.
The woman shook her head. 'It's no trouble at all-or it won't be, unless you make some. But if you made a lot of trouble, you wouldn't have said you'd go someplace else like that.'
'I'm peaceable,' Sam agreed. If he hadn't paid a call on the house where Isabella worked, he might have felt like making some trouble: she was a pretty woman, even if she looked tired. And she'd said the girl's-Mary Jane's- father was a sailor, which probably made her a widow. Sometimes widows missed what their husbands weren't there to give them any more. As things were, though, Sam just sat down on the grass near the tree trunk, in the deepest part of the shade.
In a rustle of wool, the woman sat down, too, and took a blanket from the basket and spread it out on the grass. She started putting bowls of food on the blanket. While she was doing that, her son asked Sam, 'Sir, did you know anybody who sailed aboard the USS Ericssonl'
'Can't say that I did,' Carsten answered. Then his eyes narrowed as he remembered where he'd heard the name. 'That ship! Was your father on her, sonny?'
'Yes, sir,' the boy said. 'And the stinking Rebs sank her after the war was over. That's not right.'
'It sure as… the dickens isn't,' Sam said, inhibited in his choice of language by the presence of the woman and little girl. 'I'm awfully sorry to hear that. My ship got torpedoed once, by the Japs out in the Pacific. We didn't sink, but I know we were just lucky.'
'And the Confederate skipper who sank the Ericsson is still walking around free as a bird down in South Carolina,' the woman said. 'He murdered my husband and more than a hundred other men, and no one cares. Even the president doesn't care.'
'If Teddy Roosevelt had won his third term, he'd have done something about it,' Carsten said. 'If the Rebs didn't hand that… fellow over, TR would have walloped the Confederate States till they did.'
'I think so, too,' the woman said. 'If women had the vote in Massachusetts, I would have voted for Sinclair when he got elected. I've changed my mind since I found out about the Ericsson› though.'
'I bet you have,' Sam said. 'One thing you have to give Teddy-he never took any guff from anybody.'
'No.' The woman pointed to the food. 'Would you like some fried chicken and ham and potato salad? I made more than we can eat, even if these two'-she pointed at her children-'do put it away like there's no tomorrow.'
'Are you sure, ma'am?' Carsten asked. If she was a widow, things were liable to be as tough for her as for the whore who'd gone down on her knees in front of him-tougher, maybe. But she nodded so emphatically, turning her down would have been rude.
He ate a ham sandwich and a drumstick and homemade potato salad and pickled tomatoes, and washed them down with lemonade that made him pucker and smile at the same time. Even though her children did eat like starving Armenians, the woman tried to press more on him.
'Couldn't touch another bite,' he said, which wasn't quite true, and, 'Everything was terrific,' which was. 'Haven't sat down to a spread like that since I was a kid.' That was true, too.
'I'm glad you enjoyed it,' she said, and seemed happy for a moment. She took a pack of cigarettes from her handbag. He got out a box of matches and lit the smoke for her. But as she drew on it, she frowned. 'He's probably walking around down there in Charleston, puffing a big fat cigar. Damn him.'
Sam had heard women swear before, but never with that quiet intensity. He didn't know what to say, so he didn't say anything. He watched the children play for a while, then got to his feet. 'Obliged, ma'am-much obliged,' he said. 'Good luck to you.' She nodded, but didn't speak. He went on his way. Only after he'd crossed half the Common did he realize he hadn't learned her name.
XVIII
Arthur McGregor stared down at the copy of the Rosenfeld Register he'd just set on the kitchen table. The headline stared back at him: RETIRING GENERAL CUSTER TO VISIT ROSENFELD NEXT WEEK.
His wife eyed the newspaper, too: eyed it as she might have eyed a rattlesnake coiled and ready to strike. 'Please let it go, Arthur,' she said. 'Please let him go. The debts are paid, and more than paid. Let it go.'
'I'll do what I have to do.' McGregor didn't feel like quarreling, but he knew what that would be.
So did Maude. 'Let it go,' she said again. 'If you won't do it for my sake, do it for the sake of the children you have left.'
That hurt. McGregor had to mask his feelings against his wife now, as he'd had to mask them so often against the outside world. When he answered, his voice was steady: 'Ted Culligan will take care of Julia, I expect. Shall we ask Mary whether she wants to see George Custer go on breathing?'
Maude bit her lip. Like her husband, her younger daughter had never come close to reconciling herself to what the Americans had done to Canada or to Alexander. But Maude replied, 'Shall we ask Mary whether she wants to see you go on breathing?'
'I'll be tine,' McGregor answered easily.
His wife glared at him, her hands on her hips. 'I don't see how.'
'Well, I will,' he said. He even meant it. The bomb he intended for Custer had been sitting under the old wagon wheel in the barn since not long after he'd learned the U.S. commander in Canada would make a last gloating tour of the country he'd held down. With any kind of luck, McGregor thought he could make Custer pay and get away clean.
Instead of arguing any more, McGregor went out into the farmyard. He'd set a large, empty wooden keg in the middle of the yard, not far from the chopping block where hens spent their last unhappy moments on earth. A few feet away from the barrel lay a gray rock. He picked it up and hefted it. It weighed the same as the bomb he'd made, within an ounce or two. He'd checked them both on Maude's kitchen scale, one night after she went to bed.
He paced off fifteen feet from the keg, tossing the rock up and down as he walked. If he stood at the back of the crowd watching General Custer, that was about how far away he'd be. He'd have no trouble seeing the general in his motorcar; he had several inches on most people. Custer's automobile wouldn't be moving very fast. The U.S. commander wouldn't hold a parade if he didn't want people gaping at him.
McGregor threw the rock. It thudded down into the keg. He strode over, bent down to pick it up, then paced off fifteen feet again. His next throw thudded home, too. He'd been practicing for weeks, and had got to the point where he could drop it in about eight times out of ten. If he could do that with a small-mouthed keg, he'd have no trouble landing a bomb in Custer's motorcar.
He kept practicing for about twenty minutes, making sure each toss was slow and relaxed. He wouldn't need to hurry. He didn't want to hurry. When he finally threw the bomb, time would seem to stretch out, as if he had forever. He didn't want to do anything foolish like heaving too hard. He'd get only one chance. Do it right, he told himself. You 've got to do it right.
And then, as quietly and inconspicuously as he could, he'd slip away. When the bomb went off, people wouldn't pay attention to him. They'd pay attention to Custer's funeral pyre. With a little luck, nobody would notice he'd flung the nail-encased sticks of dynamite.
Maude watched him from the kitchen window. Her face was pale and set. He'd never said a word about why he kept throwing a rock into a keg. She'd never asked him, either; that wasn't her way. But they'd been married a long time. Maude knew him well. She'd understand. He knew her well, too. She was no fool.
Her lips shaped a word the kitchen-window glass made silent. He could read her lips anyhow: 'Please,' she was saying. He pretended he didn't see her, and turned away. When he looked toward the farmhouse again, she wasn't standing at the window any more.
What if he didn't slip away? What if the Yanks caught him? They'd shoot him or hang him. He could figure that out for himself. But Julia, married to Ted Culligan, would be all right. Maude had grit and to spare. She'd get by. And Mary? She was his youngest, his chick, so of course he worried about her. But she was also his firebrand. She'd grieve for him. He wanted her to grieve for him. But she would understand why he had to do this. She would understand it better than Maude seemed able to do.
'Alexander,' McGregor said. Were his son at his side, he might have accepted Yankee rule. Not now. Never again. 'Not as long as I live,' he said.
