Heaven and Hell (70 page)

Elbows on the desk, Custer scrutinized him. It was hard for Charles to remember that this world-famous soldier was not yet thirty years old

"We've met before, somewhere," Custer said.

The Year of the Locust 441

"You're right, General. We were on opposite sides at Brandy Station."

"That's

it." Custer laughed. "You gave me one or two hot moments, I recall. What was your unit?"

"Wade Hampton's Legion."

"Fine cavalry officer, Hampton. I've always liked Southerners."

Custer opened a file. "You know the general purpose of our expedition, I presume. We're to search out and attack the enemy when they are least prepared, and kill as many" of their warriors as practicable. To use the phrase of Senator Ross, we intend to conquer a peace."

Charles nodded. Custer scanned something in the file. "You must have an affinity for the Army. I see you tried to get back in twice, under a different name each time."

"Soldiering is all I know, General. I went to the Point a few years before you did. Class of '57."

"I see that here. I graduated in '61 by the grace of God and the fall of Fort Sumter." He closed the file. "Do you know the Indian Territory?"

"Your man Milner asked that. I was there for over a year, with a couple of trading partners the Cheyennes butchered."

The blue eyes pinned Charles. "So you'd have no hesitation about taking the lives of hostiles?"

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"No, none."

Yet he was vaguely troubled by his answer. He decided it was because of the news about Black Kettle being turned away from sanctuary at Fort Cobb. Well, chances were the expedition would miss the tipis of the peace chief. The Indian Territory was vast.

"Griffenstein recommended you for this campaign. You two hunted together."

"Yes, sir. We worked for Buffalo Bill Cody."

"Do you speak Cheyenne?"

"Some."

"I've got a greaser who was raised with the tribe. You can back him up." He wrote a note. "Now let's go back to your experience.

How well do you know the Territory?"

"I told Milner the exact truth. I've been over part of it. Any man who claims much more than that is a liar. The whole western part has never been explored in any systematic way. The Salt Fork of the Arkansas, the Canadians--white men have seen pieces of it, that's all."

"Fair enough. I'd rather have candor than lies."

A few more cursory questions, and then Custer nodded. "All right, you're on. You take orders from Milner or from me. The first time you don't, you'll be disciplined."

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A muscle in Charles's jaw jumped. He knew about Custer's famous discipline. It included such illegal punishments as head-shaving, flogging, imprisonment in a pit in the ground--and then of course there was Custer's order to his subordinates to shoot deserters.

Charles's hesitation annoyed Custer. "Something unclear about what I said, Mr. Main?"

"No, sir. It's clear."

"Good," Custer said, no longer quite so friendly.

Charles took it as dismissal. Standing up, he inadvertently knocked the stack of newspapers onto the frozen ground. Retrieving them, he saw several other articles marked in ink. "You must be interested in

politics, General."

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Custer gave him a cold look as he stood and drew on fringed gauntlets. "I make no secret of that. I'm watching General Grant's campaign closely, because some important people in the East have suggested I consider running for office. From a military victory to the presidency isn't such a long step, provided the victory is substantial, and gets headlines." Charles wondered how that might affect tactics on the campaign.

"Good evening, sir," Custer said, lifting the tent flap and following Charles outside. Charles's attention was caught by a man crossing the far side of the lamp-lighted headquarters area. Although his features were indistinct--light snow was falling again--his russet beard and stiff bearing were unmistakable.

The officer ducked into a tent. Custer said, "Do you know that man?"

"Unfortunately, I think so."

"If you have a grievance against him, keep it to yourself. General Sheridan is planning to join us. A number of his aides from Departmental staff are already here. Captain Venable is one of them." Pointedly, he added, "A first-rate officer. Capable and loyal."

Loyal. That word confirmed something Charles had heard before: You were Custer's admirer or you were his enemy. There was nothing between.

"Yes, sir," he said.

"You will excuse me." From the way the general turned his back, Charles knew Custer's final impression of him was poor.

Custer strode away into the dusk. The snow gathered on Charles's shoulders and hat brim. Venable. Good God. He recalled the sentry's remark about luck when he rode in. His had turned bad again.

w

47

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He waited there on the high seat, the wagon parked close to the wall of the granary. Above him on the wall loomed a huge head, the heroic head of a soldier in uniform, bordered in red and blue with a decoration of white stars, let us have peace appeared in large letters in the decorative border above the head. Similarly large, the lower border said grant.

Cold rain poured from the night sky. Bent sat glaring at the portrait of the candidate. From time to time a shiver shook him; the November air was as bitter as January. All the residents of the tiny farm community of Grinnell were safely indoors.

From the granary came Drossel, a wad of cash in his fat hands. Drossel was a farmer for whom Bent had worked since drifting into this

hamlet in Iowa late in the summer. He was smaller than Bent, an elderly but hardy man. He stepped close to the wagon, counted off bills, and handed them up. "Your wages," he said in his heavily accented English.

"Thank

you, Herr Drossel." Herr and Frau Drossel addressed one another that way, with old-world formality, and he'd fallen into the habit.

The Drossels had migrated to America shortly after the political upheavals in Europe in 1848. They had found rich land in Poweshiek County, Iowa, and a promising future. They were Republicans, Lutherans; gentle, industrious people who had unquestioningly accepted Bent's assertion that he was a Union veteran traveling west in search of relatives believed to have gone to Colorado during the war. He wanted to be reunited with his family, he said. The Drossels understood that kind of quest, and the loneliness that fueled it. God had blessed them 443

444 " HEAVEN AND HELL

with everything but children, Frau Drossel had told him at supper on Bent's third day at the farm. Saying it, she wept, her head averted.

"The last of the crop is sold, handsomely. Our cribs are full for the winter. Follow me home, Herr Dayton. I have a special schnapps put by for this festive evening."

"Not very festive weather," Bent said, watching the roll of cash Drossel put away beneath his shabby wool coat. Drossel was portly, wore half-spectacles and had a neat fringe of white beard running from ear to ear. His boots slopped in the mud as he walked toward a wagon parked ahead of Bent's. His mind racing, planning, Bent pointed at
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another poster on the granary wall. Grant's had been pasted over it, and all that was visible of it were the letters mour.

"I take it the Democratic candidate isn't popular in this part of Iowa?"

"Tcha," Drossel said, a kind of clicking sound. He clamped his round wool hat on his head and climbed the wheel to the seat of the first wagon. "What do we know of that Seymour? A New York governor.

He might as well come from the moon. Grant, though, Grant we know. Grant is a national man. That is why he was nominated. That is why he will win."

"On his reputation," Bent said, experiencing the first turn of the awl of pain between his eyes. Pinpoint lights began to wink in his head.

Military success could have carried him to the nation's highest office if only his enemies hadn't denied him an Army career.

Calm, he thought. Stay calm. Thinking of old wounds only reopened them. They could never be healed. All he could do was continue to extract a blood price for them. He'd done it in Lehigh Station and soon would do it again with his next, thoughtfully chosen victim.

"Herr Dayton, are you asleep?" Drossel was teasing, but with a certain Teutonic sternness. Many times during the weeks of hard labor in the cornfields, Drossel had ordered Bent to do this or do that, and Bent had almost gone for the old man's throat. Only the larger goal, the money he needed to continue his quest, overcame the strong urge to choke Drossel's orders down his throat.

"The rain is very hard. We are wasting time. Frau Drossel is waiting with a special supper."

In Bent's head, a white light-burst shaded into warm pink. Another flashed scarlet. That isn't all that's waiting tonight, he thought, with a sly smile Drossel didn't see. The old man was shaking the reins over his mules, turning the wagon into the dark, away from the lights of the farming community.

The Year of the Locust 445

The Drossels lived a half hour from Grinnell, on rolling land. There was no neighbor within two miles, and the topography made it hard to catch a glimpse of their neat white house and barns from a distance.

Once in the house, Bent changed to a dry shirt and socks in the cramped garret space up a short stair from the entrance to the Drossels'

second-floor bedroom. Frau Drossel, resembling some little girl's button-eyed doll, and always prattling, brought steaming platters of schnitzel
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and red cabbage to the lace-covered table. Herr Drossel offered his dusty bottle of schnapps as though it were French champagne. Its hot peppermint bite soothed Bent's nerves somewhat; it warmed him and made him forget the tedious sound of the rain. Presently, the rain stopped.

Bent was gratified. That would help his plan.

"We are so sorry you will be leaving, Herr Dayton," Frau Drossel said after the meal was over. "It is lonely out here. So hard to fill the long winter nights."

You'll, never have to fret about filling another, Bent thought. He was barely able to grunt an answer, because his head hurt so much.

When Drossel left the table, Bent noted the bulge of the cash in his pants pocket. The farmer kept the money with him as he busied about the downstairs, checking window latches, locking doors. Bent pleaded tiredness and said good night.

"Good night, Herr Dayton," Frau Drossel said, impulsively standing on tiptoe to kiss his stubbly cheek. He fought to keep from recoiling in disgust. Her weepy old eyes sickened him. "It has been so good, your company for all these weeks."

"I wish I could stay, Frau Drossel. You and your husband are like a family to me." The lights were flashing and bursting behind his eyes.

His low-hanging shoulder throbbed from the damp cold. "I shall truly miss you. But life takes each one of us along a different road."

"Yes, what a pity," she exclaimed, while he envisioned the hell bright glare at the end of her road. He nearly giggled. But he maintained his pious expression as she patted him. "But I understand that you must locate those who are dear to you."

"Yes, and I'm close now. It will be soon."

"Good night, Herr Dayton," Drossel called as Bent climbed the narrow little stair. Closing the garret door, he heard Drossel's parting remark. "You are a good man."

Instead of preparing for bed, he donned his coat again, then wrapped a long wool scarf around his neck. He pulled his valise from under the bed and examined the contents. He did it every night, a kind of superstitious ritual to guarantee success.

The rolled-up painting lay in the bottom under a few dirty gar 446 HEAVEN AND HELL

ments. He groped down among the clothing until his fingers touched the teardrop earring.

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Smiling, he shut the valise and snapped the clasps. From a corner shelf he took the soiled plug hat stolen to replace the one lost in Lehigh Station. He put the hat on, then drew on mittens with most of the fingertips missing. He sat fully dressed on the edge of the bed while the awl of pain bore deeper into his skull, and the imaginary lights burst and dazzled.

Below, he heard the clock in the old couple's bedroom chime half after twelve. Time.

He crept down the stairs and slowly turned the knob of their door.

He opened the door, listened to the regular breathing from the two sleepers. He stepped in and shut the door, which clicked faintly. A moment later muffled cries filled the house.

The rain had passed, but a residual damp remained. Bent was shivering as he hobbled out of the dooryard of the farm. He turned left into the westbound road, a rutted mire of standing water and wet brown soil.

His boots went in and out of the mud with sucking sounds.

He walked a quarter of a mile before feeling safe enough to stop and look back. He kept his left hand in his pocket, the fingers stroking and caressing the huge lump of cash taken from Herr Drossel. His excited manhood pushed against the lump from the inner side of the pocket.

"Ah--" A beatific sigh. The farmhouse was no longer merely a white blur in the night. Rosy light glowed behind smoking curtains in upstairs windows. As he watched, the curtains ignited.

Bent huddled at the roadside, anticipating the delicious sound that he heard a moment later. The old couple. Bludgeoned unconscious, then securely lashed to their bed with strips of sheet. They were waking up.

Feeling the heat of the fire he'd set in the downstairs parlor. Feeling it scorch and cook the floor under their bed--the bed they couldn't escape from.

They had thought him such a good man. They should have learned it was dangerous to trust appearances, or take strangers at their word.

in this shit-hole world.

An upper window burst, then another. Flames shot out. Behind the roar, he heard screaming.

Bent turned his back on the brilliance and crouched over his valise.

From it he took the teardrop earring in its setting of filigreed gold.

He passed his fingertips over the pearl several times, each time with an exquisite sexual thrill. The memory of Constance's gashed throat was vivid.