whites wanted better sport; they converged on the garbage heap. The rats and the little girls fled. Suddenly Jones spied a head in a third-floor window. 'There's one!'
The head vanished. Jones led a party of ten up through the fetid building, kicking open doors in the search. They discovered a young Negro couple and an infant lying on a pallet. A smiling white woman picked up the child, rocked it back and forth a few times, then stepped to the open window, leaned out, and dropped it.
The mother screamed. Jones bashed her head with the truncheon. Outside, in the reddening light of the burning city, they carried the husband and wife to a stunted tree near the garbage heap. Ropes went up, and the two were quickly tied so they hung by their wrists. A shrieking white woman rushed forward with a butcher knife, but a man held her back.
'Don't use that. I found some kerosene.'
He doused it on both Negroes; kerosene dripped on the hard-packed ground. Jones shivered, pleasurably imagining the buck was Orry Main. The husband pleaded for the mob to spare his dazed, bleeding wife. That only generated more jeers and jokes. Someone struck a match, tossed it, jumped back —
The fireball erupted with a roar. A smile spread over Jones's cherubic face as he watched the victims burn.
Horsemen. That was the sound he heard. Horsemen cantering through the pines beside the rail line. Hands on top of his head, Billy opened his eyes.
Six men, two in uniform, reined up around the others. The one to whom Black Suit and the rest immediately deferred was a slight, slender officer with sandy yellow hair showing under a hat with an ostrich plume. The man's gray cape, tossed back over both shoulders, displayed a bright red lining. The officer was about thirty. His clean- shaven face looked stern but not unkind. He seemed more interested in Black Suit than in Billy.
'What is happening here?'
'We pulled this Yank off’n a work train that went by a while ago, sir. We were preparing —' Black Suit swallowed, nervously eyeing his comrades.
'To execute the prisoner?' the officer prompted, quieting his dancing horse with a few quick pats.
Black Suit flushed, said faintly, 'Yes, sir.'
'That is against the rules of civilized warfare, and you know it. No matter what calumnies the Yankee newspapers print about us, we do not engage in murder. You will pay a penalty for this.'
Frightened now, Black Suit hastily holstered his dragoon pistol. Billy's heartbeat slowed. 'Lower your hands,' the officer said to him. Billy obeyed. 'Give me your name and unit, please.'
'Captain William Hazard, Battalion of Engineers, Army of the Potomac.'
'Well, Captain, you are the prisoner of the Partisan Rangers.'
Billy caught his breath. 'Are you —?'
Gauntlet touched hat brim. 'Major John Mosby. At your service.' He suppressed a smile. 'Pulled you off a train, did they? Well, at least you're in one piece. I will make arrangements to have you transported to the Richmond prison for Union officers.'
Mosby's unexpected arrival had left Billy elated and befuddled — so thankful he hadn't stopped to think of the consequences of a reprieve. Prison was better than death, but not much; paroles were becoming fewer as the bitterness of the war intensified.
He should have recognized Mosby at once; after Stuart's, his plume was the most famous in the Confederacy. Mosby addressed the other man in uniform, a sergeant. 'See that he's fed and not mistreated. We must move on to —'
'Major?'
Annoyed, Mosby glanced at Billy. 'What is it?'
'One of my men was shot to death just before I was captured. He's lying up there in the weeds. Might I ask that he be given a Christian burial?'
'Why, yes, certainly.' A hard look at Black Suit. 'You're in charge. See that you do it properly.'
There was no complaint from Black Suit, not even a flicker of resentment in his eyes as Mosby and his party resumed their canter through the woods. One of their number had been left behind to take charge of the prisoner. While that trooper was loosening the saddle girth to rest his horse, Black Suit managed to whisper to Billy.
'You're going to Libby Prison. When you see how they treat Yankee boys there, you'll wish to God I'd pulled that trigger. You'll wish I'd killed you. Just wait.'
87
August infected Richmond with soaring temperatures and humidity, with dusty leaves and still air awaiting a great relieving storm that muttered northwest of the Potomac but never seemed to march farther, and with a pervading despair that followed two realizations: the Mississippi was lost; and Gettysburg had not been the quasi- triumph the high command at first pretended it was. One clear signal was the state of the trade in illegal currency. A Yankee greenback dollar, of which there were thousands in circulation, cost two Confederate dollars before the debacle in Pennsylvania. Now it cost four.
Vicksburg spilled thousands of new captives into the already overcrowded camps and warehouse prisons. Gettysburg sent thousands of new wounded to the overtaxed hospitals. Huntoon absorbed this marginally as he scratched away at work he no longer cared about. Memminger had assigned him the odious task of preparing lists of those business establishments, nearly numberless, engaged in printing and distributing illegal shinplasters.
The Confederacy had no silver for small coins, so the Treasury had authorized states, cities, and selected railroads to issue paper, in denominations from five to fifty cents, for change-making. But hundreds of other businesses took up the idea, and the Confederacy was now suffering a plague of shinplasters more numerous than Biblical frogs and locusts. Huntoon wrote list after list — grogshops, greengrocers, taprooms, short-line railroads. This morning he was copying out names provided by Treasury informants in Florida and Mississippi — hateful work onto which his sweat fell as he hunched over it, blotting it like tears.
What this government did no longer mattered to him. But a new Confederacy — that was tantalizing, that mesmerized him. He lay awake nights thinking about it. Spent long periods daydreaming about it at his desk, until some superior reprimanded him. Finally, one hot noontime, he startled his drone colleagues by seizing his hat and dashing from the office, a kind of crazed exaltation on his face.
He had already made inquiries in saloons. Most barkeeps were well acquainted with Powell, and Huntoon soon learned the Georgian's address. He refused to ask Ashton, for fear she would reveal that she knew it.
Huntoon wanted to put some additional questions to Powell. He needed more details, yet at the same time didn't want to risk offending. So he had delayed a while. Finally, however, his agitated state drove him out of the office that broiling noonday and into a hack.
'Church Hill,' he called through the roof slot, rapping with his stick for emphasis. 'Corner of Twenty-fourth and Franklin.'
Leaves coated with dust hung motionless over the brick wall. Excited, Huntoon lumbered up the steps and knocked. A minute later he knocked again. At last, the door opened.
'Powell, I've decided —'
'What in hell are you doing here?' Powell demanded, giving a yank to tighten the belt of his emerald velvet dressing gown. The vee of flesh showing between his lapels was glittery with sweat.
St. John's Church began to ring the half-hour. Queasy, Huntoon felt that the bell was sounding a knell for his opportunity. 'I didn't mean to interrupt —'
'But you have. I'm extremely busy.'
Huntoon blinked, overcome with fright. 'Please accept my aplogy. I came only because you said you wanted my decision promptly. I made it this morning.' A swift look down the street. Then he thought he heard some unseen person stirring behind the door.
'All right, tell me.'
'I — I want to join, if you'll have me.'
Some of the wrath left Powell's face. 'Of course. That's excellent news.'
