How Few Remain (39 page)

The men with revolvers didn’t seem inclined to argue with him. As long as he did what they said, they didn’t care what else he did: stacked against a Colt, what did an insult or two matter? They had a buggy tied up outside the building. The silence behind Sam as he shut the door hurt him worse than his sallies hurt the spy-hunters.

“The both of you are plumb loco,” Clemens said as the smaller fellow took up the reins and began to drive. “If I’ve been such a grand and dreadful terror to the United States lo these many years, what in sweet Jesus’ name was I doing as assistant to the governor’s secretary in Nevada Territory even before the blamed war was over?” That the secretary had been his brother Orion, after whom his son was named, he did not bother mentioning.

“Don’t know,” replied the bigger gunman, the one with some trace of wit. “What
were
you doing there?” By his tone, Sam might have been sending a daily telegram to Richmond from Carson City.

Clemens replied only with dignified silence. He also did not ask where they were going, as he had intended. He judged that would become obvious in short order, a judgment vindicated when the little ruffian headed north and west, away from the heart of the city. The only thing of any consequence in that direction was the Presidio, the Army base charged with defending San Francisco.

No matter how long Sam had lived in these parts, he never ceased to marvel at the beauty of the view across the Golden Gate, looking north toward Sausalito: blue sky, green-blue sea, the wooded headland rising swiftly above it. A ferry boat, thin black plume of smoke rising from its stack, gave a touch of human scale to nature’s grandeur.

So did the stone walls of Fort Point. When a sentry came forward to demand the business of the new arrivals, the bigger of Sam’s captors said, “We got a feller here might be a spy.”

“Like hell I am!” Sam shouted. As far as the sentry was concerned, he was invisible and inaudible. The bluecoat waved the wagon into the fort.

Having reached the garrison commander’s waiting room in jig time, Clemens proceeded to put it to the purpose for which it was named: he waited, and waited, and waited. The bravos who’d shanghaied him didn’t wait with him: they had better things to do. When he poked his head out of the door to the parade ground through which he’d come in, a soldier pointed a bayoneted Springfield at him and growled, “You get back in there. The colonel’ll see you in his time, not yours.” Fuming, Sam retreated.

At last, after what had to be closer to two hours than one, the door to Colonel William T. Sherman’s office opened. “Come in, Mr. Clemens,” Sherman said. Lean and erect, he wore a close-trimmed beard that had once been red and was now mostly white. His mouth was a thin slash; his pale eyes did their best to stare through Sam. Harsh lines ran down his pinched cheeks, losing themselves in his beard near the corners of that narrow mouth. The word that sprang to Clemens’ mind for him was
bitter
.

His office presented a stark contrast to the genial clutter that made finding things on Sam’s desk an adventure. Everything here was obviously just where it belonged. Sam was sure anything that had the gall to go where it didn’t belong, even to sidle an inch out of place, would end up in the guardhouse to teach it never to get gay again.

Sherman sat; he did not invite Clemens to sit. Glancing down at the beginning of the editorial the smaller gunman had purloined, and also at a large, neatly written sheet of paper on which Sam could make out his name, he said, “Why don’t you tell me why you’re here, sir?”

Clemens normally wisecracked without thinking, much as he breathed. Facing this man, he restrained himself. “I am here, Colonel, because I served something less than a month in the Marion Rangers, a Confederate unit of sorts in Missouri, during the War of Secession. Because of that, someone has decided I must be a spy.”

Sherman said, “When Louisiana seceded, I was teaching at a military academy there. I resigned at once, and came north to serve my country as best I could. How is it that you fought under the Stars and Bars?”

“I never fought under them,” Sam replied. “I marched a bit and rode a horse a bit, but I never once fought. Governor Jackson called for soldiers to repel the U.S. invaders—so he named them—which is how the Marion Rangers came to be. It was a grand and glorious unit, Colonel—there were fifteen of us, all told. The one time we got near a farmhouse that some U.S. troops were guarding, our captain—Tom Lyman, his name was—told us to attack it. We told him no; to a man, we said no. The rest of my so-called military career was cut from the same stuff. I never fired a shot at a soldier of the United States. None of us did, before the Marion Rangers became as one with Nineveh and Tyre.”

Sherman’s jaw worked. “You put this down to youthful indiscretion, then?—for you would have been a young man in 1861.”

“That’s just what I put it down to, Colonel,”. Sam said with an emphatic nod.

“And you did serve the U.S. government in Nevada,” Sherman said, checking that paper again. Sam wondered how much of his life’s story was contained thereon. In musing tones, Sherman continued, “Yet these days, you speak out strongly in the papers against the war, as you have here.” He let a finger rest on the editorial fragment for a moment. “What connection, if any, has the one to the other?”

“Colonel, you’ve seen real war at first hand, which is far more than I ever did,” Clemens said. “What is your opinion of it?”

“My opinion?” He’d startled Sherman. But the officer did not hesitate long; Sam got the idea he seldom hesitated long about
anything. “War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it. Its glory is all moonshine. Only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded cry aloud for blood, vengeance, and desolation. War is as close to hell as a merciful God allows upon this earth.”

That was more than Sam had bargained for. “If you can speak so strongly and still defend our country, how does questioning the wisdom and conduct of this war make me a Confederate agent?”

Sherman stroked his chin. “You might be an agent, using such a pretext as concealment.” His mouth thinned further; Clemens had not thought it could. “But I have no evidence to say you are, not a particle. What you say of the Marion Rangers squares with what I have on this sheet here—the men who brought you in were overzealous. We were all quite mad twenty years ago. It should never have happened.” That thin mouth twisted. “I shall write you a good character, Mr. Clemens, which you must show to be released from this fortress, and may show to anyone seeking to trouble you hereafter.” He inked a pen and began to write.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Clemens said fervently. “One thing more?” Sherman looked up from his work. Sam went on, “May I beg the use of a horse or buggy? The gentlemen who brought me here did not wait upon the outcome of your hearing.” He said not a word about how long he’d waited himself.

“I’ll see to it,” Sherman said. The pen scratched over the paper. Sam did not mind waiting now, not a bit.

    Bountiful, Utah lay about ten miles north of Salt Lake City, on the railroad line. George Custer had come south past it on the army’s triumphal march toward and then into the capital of Utah Territory. He’d paid it no special mind then: just one more no-account town among so many. Now, though, he wasn’t going to pass it by; along with the two troops of cavalry at his back, he was going to go through it like a man searching his pockets for a five-cent piece with which to buy his sweetheart a sarsaparilla. His own sweetheart, worse luck, was back at Fort Dodge.

“Blast John Taylor anyhow,” he grumbled. “Dash and double-dash him. Why couldn’t the old fraud have stayed in Salt Lake City, so we could snatch him up and stretch his neck and have done?”

“Don’t be such a sourpuss, Autie,” his brother Tom said. “If it weren’t for Taylor and the rest of the scoops who ran away, we’d
be stuck with garrison duty instead of doing something halfway useful out here.”

“Halfway useful is right. We ought to be fighting the Rebs, not sitting on these confounded Mormons.” Custer paused and sent Tom a quizzical look. “‘Scoops’? What’s a scoop?”

“A Mormon. Heard it the other day,” his brother answered. After removing his hat, Tom mimed removing the top of his skull in the same way and scooping out a large portion of its contents. “Have to have most of your brain missing to buy what they’re selling, don’t you think?”

“Mm, you’re likely right.” Custer weighed the word. “Scoops. I like that.” He laughed, then pointed ahead. “We’ve got a whole scoopful of scoops coming up.”

Much the biggest building in Bountiful was the Mormon chapel, a wood-and-adobe structure with five spires that looked as if it might have grown from the ground instead of being built. The lands around the chapel were bountiful enough; no matter how foolish the Mormons’ religion was in Custer’s eyes, he couldn’t deny they made skillful, diligent farmers.

People came out into the street from the chapel, from the houses, and from the barbershop and dry-goods store to stare at the soldiers. Their dogs came out with them. The troopers had shot several dogs on the way up from Salt Lake City. They’d probably shoot more here. Mormons’ dogs ran from mean to meaner.

Nobody said anything as the troopers rode up. Custer knew he wasn’t loved here. He didn’t care. Whatever the Mormons loved, as far as he was concerned, had to have something wrong with it.

He held up his hand. Behind him, the cavalrymen reined in. Every one of them carried a loaded carbine across his knees. That wasn’t just for dogs. So far, the Mormons hadn’t given any trouble. The best way to make sure they didn’t give any trouble was to be ready to smash it down ruthlessly if it arose.

Tom Custer said, “I hate all these staring faces. Back in Salt Lake, at least the Gentiles were on our side. Out here, there aren’t any Gentiles to speak of, and nobody’s on our side.”

“We are in the right. We must never forget it,” Custer declared. He raised his voice and called out to the people of Bountiful: “We are searching for John Taylor. Anyone who knows where this fugitive from justice is lurking will be handsomely rewarded.” He
waited. No one said a word. The wind, full of the salty tang of the Great Salt Lake, blew up little dust devils in front of his horse.

He’d expected nothing different, but the effort had to be made. His orders said so. The silence from the Mormons persisting, he moved on to the next step in the program: “We are going to search the houses and buildings of this town for the person of John Taylor, and for the persons of other fugitives from justice in this Territory. You are required to assist and cooperate with the brave soldiers of the United States engaged in this task. Any resistance will leave the guilty party subject to summary trial and the full rigors of military justice.”

That drew a response from the crowd: somebody called, “Where’s your search warrants at?”

Custer’s smile was anything but pleasant. “We have none. We need none. Utah Territory, having been declared a region in rebellion against the lawful authority of the government of the United States of America, has forfeited the protections enshrined in the Constitution. You people should have thought more about what would follow from your actions before you attempted to coerce the national government into approving of your hideous practices. Having willfully flouted the government, you will have to earn its good graces once more by showing you are deserving of them.”

He waved to his men, who swung down off their horses. Custer told a squad to follow him to the Mormon chapel. They searched the grounds, finding nothing out of the ordinary, and then went inside. Other than being ornamented with a large portrait in oils of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, the interior might have belonged to any church.

One of the men of Bountiful came inside. “Gentlemen, Mr. Taylor is not here,” he said. “He has not been here.”

“Who are you, and how do you know?” Custer growled.

“I’m O. Clifton Haight, and I have for many years been a lay preacher at this chapel,” the man replied, “and I know Mr. Taylor has not been in Bountiful because I should have heard of it if he were.”

“Not if he’s lying low—and not if you’re just plain lying, either,” Custer said. Haight assumed an indignant expression. Custer, feeling briefly charitable, ignored it. He waved. “This church looks nice and fresh and clean, as if people had been in it
just the other day, say, or last Sunday. Public worship in Mormon churches is forbidden by order of General Pope, you will recall.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” O. Clifton Haight said.

“You haven’t by any chance forgotten that order?” Custer said.

“Why, no, of course not.” Haight’s eyes were wide and candid. He was lying. Custer knew he was lying. He undoubtedly knew Custer knew he was lying. But he also knew Custer couldn’t do anything about it. Until Pope had enough men to put a permanent garrison into every one of these miserable little towns, the Mormons would ignore every order they could. No one was likely to betray them, not when they all conspired together to set at nought the commands of the military governor.

Shaking his head in angry frustration, Custer stalked out of the chapel. His soldiers followed. His eyes lighted on a house across the square. It was built in a pattern with which he’d become all too intimately acquainted in Salt Lake City: a central structure that had undoubtedly been erected first, with several whitewashed wings spreading out from it. Pointing toward the house, he asked, “Who lives there?”

“That’s the Sessions place,” Clifton Haight answered. “Peregrine Sessions was the first settler here, better than thirty years ago now. That house there, that belongs to his brother, Zedekiah.”

“General Pope forbade more than public worship to you Mormons,” Custer said, a certain hard anticipation gleaming in his eyes. “He also forbade the practice of polygamy, which has made you people a stench in the nostrils of decent Americans everywhere. Looking at that house, Mr. Haight, how many wives would you say, uh, Zedekiah Sessions is likely to have?”

“I only know of one,” Haight said. “Irma Sessions is a pillar of our little community here.”