YOU'VE JOINED THEM.
THE WORDS blazed in Paul Stapleton's head. That moment in the stifling boxcar, when he saw those third-rate Mexican muskets, swelled in his mind and heart to a historic dimension. Everything had coalesced. Honor and love and The Crater. The Republican abuse of the Constitution in Indiana and Kentucky. The loathing for Lincoln everywhere, even among his own detestable party. Robert E. Lee's elegiac moral grandeur, Jefferson Davis's desperation. All these realities became part of an equation that produced a new solution.
Paul saw with his trained soldier's eyes the disaster Janet Todd's military innocence and Mason's disillusioned greed were about to create. He also saw with equally overwhelming intensity the futility of his attempt to love Janet without accepting her as a Todd, as a woman with unalterable loyalty to the desperate all-but-doomed South. The heart's imperative had flung duty, honor country into history's dustbin. He was part of this conspiracy now, part of their despairing motto, victory or death.
He sensed, he saw, the new power this commitment gave him. When Janet hesitantly asked what they would do if they could not find any other guns, Paul said, “We'll find some. The country's awash in guns.”
Instead of arguing angrily, she accepted his judgment. They were partners now in a new electrifying way that sent energy coursing through Paul's body. “Let's visit our old friend Fernando Wood and see if we can
get some advice for our twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said.
They took a horsecar to Printing House Square, near New York's elegant city hall, and found the
Daily News
building at the bottom of a crooked street. Outside it looked dilapidated and inside it was not much better. Editors and reporters hunched over battered desks that looked like relics of the previous century. Only Fernando Wood's office had any trace of style. His big desk was gleaming gold-trimmed mahogany. In a corner were several oversize armchairs, covered with red plush velvet. On the walls were photographs of Wood shaking hands with governors and presidents and a framed copy of the
Daily News
hailing his speech to a massive “Peace Convention” he had organized in the city a year ago.
Paul told the ex-mayor what had happened in the Jersey City railyards. “Without the guns there's no western confederacy. We may have to ask for our money back,” he said.
“I know Bart Mason. I'll talk to him. You'll get the best goddamn guns available. I guarantee it,” Wood said.
He took them upstairs to show them the
Daily News'
s steam-driven presses spewing out an extra reporting that a group of Republicans senators were meeting in New York to find a candidate to replace Lincoln. “They're shooting themselves in both feet,” Wood said. “It makes your move in the West look better and better.”
Paul and Janet walked down Broadway toward the Astor House in the almost suffocating heat of the early afternoon. Maybe Wood was right. The United States of America seemed on the brink of collapse. Maybe the western confederacy's declaration of independence would be all that was needed to kick out the last props. Maybe there would be no need for any shooting.
“Do you think we should change hotels?” Janet asked.
“Mason won't bother us,” Paul said. “He knows I've got their guns.”
“Paul! Paul Stapleton. Am I seeing things?”
The female voice came from a hack, standing in the traffic. Before he turned his head, Paul knew it was his mother. Caroline Stapleton was framed in the hack's open window. She was wearing an expensive green silk bonnet decorated with ostrich feathers. Her beautiful face was delicately rouged, her mascaraed eyes wide with astonishment.
“Mother,” Paul said. “What a nice surprise.”
Caroline paid the driver and descended from the hack. She was wearing a black plush pelisse and a green silk dress with a lingerie collar. She embraced Paul without so much as glancing at Janet. “What brings you here?” she asked, stepping back. “Why didn't you tell me you were coming? Who is this?”
“Janet Todd, Mother. She lives in Kentucky, just across the river from Keyport,” Paul said. “She's visiting friends here in the city. I'm here to see a doctor about my Gettysburg wound. I've been having terrible headaches. I didn't mention them in my lettersâI didn't want to worry you.”
“How dreadful,” Caroline said, her white-gloved hand gliding down the side of his face in a gesture that was both maternal and possessive. “I'm so glad to meet Miss Todd.” She gave Janet a conspiratorial smile. “Paul mentioned you in one of his letters.”
“Favorably, I hope,” Janet said.
“He said he was in love with you,” Caroline replied. “Are you still, Paul dear?”
Some young men would have been flustered. But Paul was used to his mother's directness. “I only mentioned I had hopes, Mother. Miss Todd remains as elusive as I gather you were at her age.”
“I'm so
pleased,
” Caroline said. “I don't think any woman should simply
succumb
to these arrogant males. Can we go someplace for a lemonade or some iced tea? According to the newspapers, this August sun can kill old ladies.”
In ten minutes they were in the relatively cool Rotunda Bar of the Astor House, sipping iced tea. Caroline confessed that she was in New York to see a doctor too. When Paul asked why, she dismissed the question with a wave. “It's nothing immediately fatal. Who is this head doctor you're seeing?”
“To be completely honest, Mother, I'm here on secret service business. I can't tell you a word about it until after you read it in the newspapers.”
Caroline turned to Janet with another conspiratorial smile. “My youngest son has grown up. Are you part of this secret business, Miss Todd?”
“As a matter of fact, I am,” Janet said.
“How fascinating. How
thrilling,”
Caroline said. There was the tiniest edge of mockery in her tone. She seemed to be suggesting that she had a very good idea what their real business might be. Or at least had no difficulty imagining it.
“I don't want to know a thing about it. If I've learned anything as a parent, it's the necessity to let each generation pursue its own version of happiness. I can only tell you this, Miss Todd. Of my three sons, Paul's the one who's never disappointed me.”
Sitting between two women who assumed they controlled him, Paul sardonically contemplated his fate. He decided he was glad he had become a soldier. No matter how doomed he was to be overpowered by these formidable creatures, a barracks, a battlefield still guaranteed him a reasonable amount of independence.
“What do you think of the political situation?” Janet asked. “Paul's told me there are few people in the country with better judgmentâ”
“I'm retired from politics, Miss Todd. A mere bystander. But I find it hard to see how Mr. Lincoln will be reelected. Does it look that way in Kentucky?”
“Decidedly,” Janet said.
In the front of the bar a pretty brunette began playing
an upright piano and singing “Weeping Sad and Lonely, or When This Cruel War Is Over.”
“The sheet music of that song has sold a million copies,” Caroline said. “It gives you an idea what people are thinking.”
“It's very popular in Indiana,” Paul said.
“And Kentucky,” Janet said.
“I was disgusted by this war from the start,” Caroline said. “Its effect on New York has only confirmed my original intuition. It's created what they call âThe Shoddy Aristocracy.' Thousands of people have gotten so rich they don't know what to do with their money. Women are powdering their hair in gold dust and silver dust. The men spend enough on a single dinner with their mistresses at Delmonico's to feed a soldier and his family for a year.”
“It makes you wonder if the Republicans started it with money in mind,” Janet said. “If they were real patriots, they would have trusted the essential goodness of the American people to solve the problem of slavery. Eventually I'm sure the South would have found a way to free the blacks in gradual steps, so people didn't feel threatened by a race war.”
“My sentiments
exactly,
” Caroline Stapleton said.
Caroline Stapleton smiled at Paul in that elusive, somehow mocking way. “I see you've found a woman in my image, Paul. I'm flattered. Can I lure you both to New Jersey for a few days?”
“I'm afraid we don't have time. The situation in Indiana is very tense. They want me back as soon as possible,” Paul said.
Caroline's eyes told Paul she understoodâand approvedâwhat was happening between him and Janet. Would she also approve the western confederacy? Paul was almost certain the answer would be yes. Encountering her in this way seemed to validate the choice he had made in the boxcar.
“I have a train to catch,” Caroline said. She kissed Paul on the lips. “Write and tell me
everything
as soon as you feel free to do it.”
She bussed Janet on the cheek and hurried out of the bar.
“I like her
tremendously,”
Janet said.
“I'm not surprised,” Paul said wryly. “You have a lot in common.”
“What do you mean?”
“She has the soul of an adventuress. But she married a rich Democrat and became respectable.”
Janet's lips curled into a pleased but impudent smile.
As they strolled into the Astor House lobby, Bart Mason pushed through the hotel's brass front doors. With him was his second Irish partnerâthe one who had not gone to Jersey City with them. Mason waved to them and they sat down on an overstuffed sofa. There was a bluish bruise on Mason's right cheek. The Irishman remained standing, glowering at Paul.
“I've found some first-class guns. They'll cost you a lot more money,” Mason said.
“What kind?” Paul asked.
“Spencers.”
“Let's go look at them,” Paul said.
In three minutes they were in a hack, riding toward the East River docks. “I hope I didn't hurt your Irish friend too badly,” Paul said.
“You broke his nose. He brought it on himself. I didn't tell him to pull that gun.”
Remembering Mason's threats, Paul thought this was rather far from the truth. Perhaps Mason was just trying to cover himself with the Irishman's friend. Either way Paul was glad he had two pistols inside his coat.
In a half hour they were in a warehouse on New York's East Riverâa hot dim cavernous place. On an upper floor were more stacks of boxes, ten times higher
than those in the railroad car. A man about Mason's age, of no distinguishable ancestry, opened a box.
A glance told Paul the guns were Spencer repeating riflesâlonger-barreled versions of the carbines he had obtained for his black troopers in Keyport. They had the same linseed-oiled wood stocks, case-hardened frames, locks and hammers in mottled colors and rust-blued barrels. The small work was brightly polished and heat-blued. On the frame was stamped: SPENCER REPEATING RIFLE CO. BOSTON, MASS.
Paul peered down the barrels of a half-dozen guns. They had the standard three-groove rifling. He pulled the triggers to check the firing mechanisms, inspected the seven-bullet magazine. They were in perfect condition.
“They're direct from the factory,” Mason said. “They were going for export. The federal idiots in Washington are still buying mostly Springfields.”
“This is the right stuff,” Paul told Janet. “They fire seven shots a minute. A regiment armed with these things can take on a whole division armed with single-shot Springfields. You have to load them down the muzzle. With these, you just slap seven bullets into the magazine.”
“Wonderful,” Janet said.
“How soon can you get them to us?” Paul asked Mason.
“I'll have them in Indiana in a week. From there you'll have to take charge of them.”
“What city will you send them to?” Janet asked.
“It depends on which railroad we can bribe. Probably Evansville,” Mason said.
“You've got thirty thousand?” Paul asked.
Mason shook his head. “Fifteen thousand. But they're worth thirty thousand muzzle loaders.”
“How much?”
“Four hundred thousand.”
“It's a deal,” Paul said. He took the wad of $500 greenbacks out of his money belt and counted 400 of them into Mason's hands. “There's two hundred thousand. You'll get the balance in a few days,” he said.
For a moment the Englishman's eyes smoldered. Would he have ordered his Irish henchman to shoot yesterday if he had known Paul had the money on his body? It no longer mattered. They had found the right guns for the Sons of Liberty. Were they too part of his fate? It looked that way.