Love and War

trash bin. Still, Orry missed his old friend, and saying it on paper made him feel better. The June heat continued. And the waiting.

'I'm worried,' Ashton said, the same night Orry mailed his letter.

'About what?' Powell said. Naked except for drawers, he sat examining the deed to a small farm he and his associates had purchased. The place was situated on the bank of the James, below the city near Wilton's Bluff. Powell hadn't explained why owning it was advantageous, though Ashton knew it had something to do with the scheme to eliminate Davis.

Powell's perfunctory question made Ashton snap, 'My husband.' He heard the pique in her voice and laid the deed aside. 'Every morning he questions me about my plans for the day. When I was shopping downtown yesterday, I had the queerest feeling I was being watched — and then, from the vestibule of Meyers and Janke, I spied James on the other side of the street, lurking behind a water wagon and trying to look inconspicuous.'

A hot breeze blew from the garden, riffling pages of the deed. Far away, heat lightning shimmered. Powell's four-barrel Sharps lay near the document. He placed the gun on the deed like a paperweight and lightly drummed his fingers on the stock.

'Did he question you this evening?'

She shook her head. 'He was still at work when I left.'

'But you think he knows.'

'Suspects. I don't want to say this, Lamar, but I feel I must. It might be better if we stopped these meetings for a while.'

His eyes grew glacial. 'Do I take that to mean I've become a bore, my dear?'

She ran to him, reached down from behind his chair and pressed her palms to his hard chest. 'Oh, my God, no, sweet­heart. No! But things are going badly for James. He's — disturbed. No matter how careful you are, he might take you by surprise some night. Harm you.' She began to rub slowly, near his waist, her bodice pressing the back of his head as she bent toward the chair. 'It would kill me if I were responsible for something like that.'

Powell guided her hand lower, murmuring, 'Well — perhaps you're right.'

He allowed her to continue a moment or so, then abruptly took her hand away and nodded at another chair. She sat obediently as he spoke. 'My personal safety's the least of my concerns. Momentous work is under way. I wouldn't want it interrupted by some witless and preventable act of violence. To tell you the truth, I have been a bit worried about your husband.' He brought his fingertips together and peered over the arch. 'Last week I hit on a way to make sure he doesn't threaten us. I've pondered it since then, and I'm convinced it's sound.'

'What are you going to do, get him dismissed and sent home?'

Powell ignored the sarcasm. 'I propose to recruit him for our group.'

'Recruit him?' She jumped up. 'That is the most ridiculous, not to say dangerous —'

'Be quiet and let me finish.'

His cold voice stilled her. Cowed, she moved back to the chair as he continued. 'Of course that is precisely how it sounds — at first. But think a moment. You can find logical and compelling arguments in favor of it.'

'I'm sorry, I fail to see them,' she countered, though not loudly.

'In any enterprise of this kind, one always needs a certain number of — call them soldiers. Men to carry out the most dangerous phases of the plan. In our case, the men must be more than trustworthy; they must be foursquare against the black vomit of nigger freedom, because only that kind of fervor will beget absolute loyalty. Our soldiers must hate Davis and his coterie of West Point bunglers and Jew bureaucrats, and endorse the formation of our new Confederacy. Except for the last aspect, which he as yet knows nothing about, I submit that your husband meets the specifications in every particular.'

'Well, put that way, perhaps he does.'

Powell's sly smile broadened. 'Finally, would it not be far better to have him close by, where he can be watched, than to have him running about on his own, as he's doing now?' The low-trimmed gas cast his shadow across her as he padded around the table and fingered a lock of her hair. 'With your husband actively involved, it would be far easier for you and me to see each other. I don't think he's clever enough to suspect the ruse.'

'I agree about that — especially now that he's in such a state about the failures of the President.'

'You see? It isn't such a crazy notion after all.'

He curled the strand of dark hair around his index finger, then moved the finger gently back and forth. 'But suppose, despite every precaution against it, he did find us out. Became unbalanced, therefore untrustworthy —' He let the hair fall and laid his hand on the four-barrel Sharps. 'That, too, can be dealt with.'

Ashton's eyes leaped from his face to the shining gun and back again. Frightened, joyous — aroused suddenly — she flung her arms around his neck, kissed it, and whispered, 'Oh, my dearest Lamar. How clever you are.'

'Then you don't object to my plan?'

'No.'

'Not to any part of it?'

Over his shoulder, she saw the Sharps shining on top of the deed. 'No — no. Anything you want is fine, as long as I can stay with you always.'

Against her skirt she felt him, large and potent. She felt she was touching more than something physical. She was touching his strength; his ambition; the power they would ultimately share.

'Always,' Powell repeated, picking her up as if she weighed no more than a child, 'To ensure it, however, we must agree that James Huntoon, Esquire, is expendable.'

Her open-mouthed kiss gave him the answer.

Late on Wednesday, July 1, Stanley stepped from the first-class car of the train from Baltimore. Even cushioned by swigs from a bourbon bottle, he could hardly accept all that had happened to him in the past twenty- four hours.

Rumors of an impending battle had reached Lehigh Station. He and Isabel had been packing to retreat to the family's summer home, Fairlawn, in Newport, when Stanton's angry telegram arrived. Stanley had traveled most of last night and all of today, buffeted by crowds talking of nothing but the battle about to begin, if it hadn't already, in the vicinity of the market town of Chambersburg. Exhausted and half drunk, Stanley entered the secretary's sanctum at half past six. He endured ten minutes of Stanton's wrath, then took a hack to the north side of Capitol Square.

Squalid shops and barracks had grown up around the old brick building at First and A. By turns, the building had been a temporary national capitol after the British burned the official one in August 1814, a rooming house for senators and representatives —  Calhoun had died there — and, since '61, a prison for a wide variety of inmates. These last included female spies working for the Confederacy; sharps and prostitutes; newsmen; fight-prone officers such as Judson Kilpatrick and George Custer.

Stanley had sent messages ahead. Baker's bay, Slasher, was tethered to the ring post at the First Street entrance. The colonel was waiting outside, truculent but clearly nervous. With him was the prison superintendent, Wood.

'Where is he?' Stanley demanded of Wood.

'Room 16. Same place we put all the editors and reporters.'

'Did you clear out the others in the room? It's imperative that no one recognize me. Newsmen certainly would.' He was assured it had been done. 'You've bungled this, Baker — you know that.'

'Not my fault,' Baker complained as Stanley started upstairs through the shadows, the stenches, the flicker and play of gas­lights spaced wide apart.

'The secretary thinks otherwise. If we can't straighten this out, you may lose your precious toy — those four troops of cavalry you persuaded Mr. Lincoln to give you.'

Up they went, past rooms holding inmates, and others where interrogations were conducted, sometimes lasting hours. Room 16 was a long, desolate chamber with a single gas fixture and one filthy window at the end. Spider webs festooned the ceiling corners. Strange stains discolored those portions of the wall that could be seen; bunks piled with dirty blankets and luggage hid the rest.

Packing boxes, empty bottles, items of men's clothing littered the floor. The furniture consisted of two dirty