MacPherson's Lament

“Too bad you’re not back on your piss-ant farm,” said Bridgeford. “You could just go out in the woods and shoot you something.”

“I would, too,” said Gabe. Bridgeford was a carpet knight from Wilmington who thought that potatoes grew on trees. “I reckon I could shoot me a wild pig that could feed-”

But Bridgeford wasn’t listening. “Look what’s coming!” he said. “Steamer, pulling alongside.” A uniformed man stood waiting to board the ironclad. He looked grim and he held a package tightly under his arm as he stared up at the flag.

“What do you reckon he wants?” asked Gabe. He was only a master’s mate, and the rituals of the flagship were strange to him.

Bridgeford sneered at such a tomfool question. “Admiral Semmes is aboard, isn’t he? They just were sending dinner along to his cabin as I came up. It’s probably some military intelligence for him.”

“Maybe we’re going to attack!” Gabe was tired of sitting in the river, listening to the war in echoes.

“In that case, let’s play a hand of cards,” said Bridgeford, reaching in his pocket for the worn and crumpled deck that had almost outlasted the war. “Might as well enjoy what’s left of a perfect day.”

“Play cards on Sunday?” cried Gabe.

Bridgeford shook his head. “Hawks, they’re killing people in Petersburg. Do you think the Lord will notice a friendly hand of poker?”

They were still at it when twilight came and the order was given to get the ships under way for Drewry’s Bluff.

“What are we going to do up there?” Gabe asked as a seaman hurried past.

The sailor stopped, wide-eyed, and whispered, “I overheard the admiral talking to his messenger. He says he’s going to destroy the fleet!”

“Just before the battle, Mother”

– GEORGE FREDERICK ROOT,

Civil War song

CHAPTER 1

Edinburgh

June 8, 1992

Dear Bill,

There is a silly rumor going around the family that you have graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and are actually setting yourself up in practice as a partner. I suppose that this will settle the betting pool once and for all. I wonder which one of us picked this decade as the probable date of your graduation! Of course I told Geoffrey that he hadn’t a hope of winning in any case; I don’t even think they’d let you stay in law school until 2041. My guess is Mother will win the pot; I’m sure she came the closest to the correct year. That’s probably why she’s gloating about your newly elevated status. A partner, indeed! Reading between the lines of Mother’s propaganda, I deduced that you did not get hired by a real law firm and are therefore striking it out on your own to chase ambulances and draw up wills in the unsuspecting city of Danville, Virginia.

As I recall, your graduation gift to me in days gone by was an IOU, which I could with perfect justice return to you on the present occasion, but I am more gracious than you (also more solvent), and so enclosed you will find a check for five hundred dollars, which I hope you will use to buy a desk or other bits of office furniture for your new establishment, but if you’d rather buy a thousand baseball cards or a collection of Perry Mason videos to instruct you in trial procedure or whatever else takes your fancy, then you have my blessing. (Seriously, Bill, we are all very happy for you. Keep me posted about your most exciting cases. If you can afford the overseas postal rates.)

No doubt you are all aquiver to learn how your baby sister is doing in the capitals of Europe. Well, the capital of Scotland, anyhow. And the answer is: very well, thank you. Cameron is back from the high seas and he’s keeping busy with his flippered friends at the lab while I am attempting to put my Ph.D. in forensic anthropology to some practical use, short of grave-robbing-a time-honored profession in Edinburgh, as you doubtless know. The way Cousin Geoffrey keeps going on about Burke and Hare, you’d think he had stock in the company.

In conclusion, I have just one teensy question about this new law practice of yours. Mother says in her letter that you have gone into partnership with A. P. Hill, which is charming for both of you, I’m sure, except that I had the distinct impression that A. P. Hill had been dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years. I take it, then, that you are the junior partner? I await your explanation of this phenomenon with bated breath.

May you please the Court,

Elizabeth

“Letter from my sister,” said Bill MacPherson to his new law partner, the aforementioned A. P. Hill. “I thought you might like to read it. I’ve already cashed the check, though.”

A. P. Hill scanned the letter without a trace of a smile. “Dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years. People always say that when they hear my name.”

“Surely not always,” murmured Bill. “There are probably scads of Yankees who don’t recognize it at all. Anyway, if it bothers you, you could always use your first name. Amy Hill is a perfectly good name.”

“Amy Hill isn’t auspicious enough for a practicing attorney,” she said, frowning.

“How about using your middle name? Powell is okay. And it’s what your folks call you, isn’t it?”

His partner shrugged. “Only because I refuse to let anyone call me Amy. I just think initials have a more aggressive and professional sound. Especially for someone as harmless looking as I am.”

Bill observed his partner appraisingly. She was just over five feet tall, with short straw-colored hair and the sort of angelic face that necessitated the showing of her ID card rather oftener than most people her age were required to do. “You do put one in mind of a high school cheerleader,” Bill conceded. “At first glance, I mean. For those who haven’t seen your pit-bull tactics in trial class. But that gleam of blood lust in your green eyes ought to tip off anybody who’s paying attention. I expect you come by it honestly, what with all those cavalry charges in your bloodlines.”

Bill was referring to the original A. P. Hill, one of Robert E. Lee’s generals during the Civil War. The present bearer of that name was the warrior’s great-great-granddaughter, who had chosen to fight her battles in court rather than at the head of an army. The family resemblance was there, though, in her no-nonsense manner and in the easy self-confidence that she displayed in legal combat. Her grades in law school had been better than Bill’s, and he still marveled at his good fortune that she had agreed to go into partnership with him. He was sure she could have snared a lucrative position in an established law firm if she’d wanted one. But she said that if she didn’t strike out on her own, the family would make her practice law with her cousin Stinky. She wanted to make it through her own efforts, she said, without family influence.

Bill had never met his law partner’s family, but he knew that she came from somewhere west of Roanoke, and, although she didn’t speak of it, he could well imagine a rural law practice in southwest Virginia, replete with drunk drivers and bad-check cases. There would already be a couple of well-established attorneys there who would get all the business, leaving newcomers to scramble for the lowest-paying leftovers. Here in Danville there was at least a chance of some criminal cases, which were A.P.’s specialty, and a population of sufficient size to provide them with the more prosaic legal business of wills and no-fault divorces, which would generate most of the revenue for the