On Secret Service (33 page)

In February, Miss Van Lew visited Castle Thunder twice a week. Lon only glimpsed her; she didn't approach him. Her behavior left him confused and frustrated. Had he invented the message in the book out of desperation and misguided hope?

The last day of the month, a Saturday, was bright and mild. Lon joined a dozen prisoners for a half hour's freedom in the walled yard. It was no great boon; the overflowing latrine pits steamed in the sun.

Miss Van Lew, typically unkempt, appeared with a basket of flowers. She looked at the prisoners apathetically shuffling around the yard, spied Lon, and came toward him with mincing steps and a foolish grin.

“Care for a posy, sir? Brighten your day.”

The flowers were poor, ugly things, wire and wallpaper scraps to which watercolors had been applied. He chose one. “Thank you.” He wished she'd brought bread. The prison was observing one of Jefferson Davis's fast days, decreed by the President to conserve food and test the loyalty of all good rebels. Stores and markets closed for the day.

She linked arms with him. “Care to walk with me, sir?” After a few steps she hissed through her teeth, “Don't look at me. Frown or laugh, as though I'm talking nonsense. I can't say how long they'll permit us to talk. That swine Alexander wants to stop me from speaking to inmates. Turner wants to revoke my prison pass altogether. Thank God for my friend Johnny Winder.” They turned away from the reeking sinks. “Colonel Baker wants you out.”

“How does he know I'm here?”

“Through me.”

“Do you work for him?”

“No. We don't have time for lengthy explanations. I'm to help you escape.”

“How?”

“I have a man here, inside.”

Lon stabbed a hand into his beard, caught an unwelcome visitor, and disposed of it. “You're not a bit crazy, Miss Van Lew.”

“I hope not. But they must keep thinking I am, all these jailers and their sadistic detectives.”

“There are a couple of them I want to meet on neutral ground someday.”

“Listen, please. It's arranged for next Friday, two hours after dark. Do you have a timepiece?”

“No. They took everything.”

“Then you'll have to gauge the hour as best you can. The Cary Street door will be open. The guard will be elsewhere. Go straight down to Canal, don't stop for anyone or anything. One of my couriers will be waiting with a wagon. Probably Mr. Rowley of Charles City. He's a farmer who supplies food to the prisons. He can travel freely at night.”

“What happens after I—?” She pulled away suddenly. Warden Alexander had emerged into the sunshine, Nero at his heels. Miss Van Lew plucked a paper flower from her basket and waved it.

“Dear Captain! Here's a blossom just for you.” She went skipping across the yard, waving the flower above her head. The boar hound growled. She kicked dirt in the dog's face. The captain laughed at that, disarmed.

Lon twirled the paper flower. What a strange creature. Could she possibly be clever enough to run a spy ring that included farmers and butchers and God knew who else? Did he dare trust her promise of a door standing open next Friday?

He decided he must. Pinkerton was gone, but the odious Colonel Baker offered him a chance for revenge against these bastards; revenge for Sledge, and for himself. His life was worth nothing in Castle Thunder. He might as well gamble it on Crazy Bet.

 

Wednesday, when Lon's anticipation was mounting, Miller reappeared.

“My duties required me to be in Baltimore and New York,” he said as a guard prodded Lon toward the prison parlor, which had been cleared of loungers. “Take a seat on the stool, please.”

The March afternoon was cloudy, the light dreary. Hummy Cridge stood behind Lon, slapping a bulging sock in his palm. He informed Lon that the sock contained minié balls. Warden Alexander waited at the open doorway to bar intruders.

Miller's left shoe scraped as he took a position in front of Lon. “Now, Mr. Price, tell me how you know my sister.”

“I don't.”

Miller glanced at Cridge. The detective said, “‘The Lord hateth a lying tongue.'” He smashed the loaded sock on Lon's shoulder. Exquisite pain danced down his arm and into his neck.

“Margaret Miller was her name before marriage. Margaret Miller of Washington and Baltimore.”

“I'm from upstate New York.”

Cridge hit him. Lon almost fell off the stool. Miller was angry. What frightened Lon was the lunatic gleam in his eye. Miller, not Miss Van Lew, was the crazy one.

“The hell you say, Price. You're lying. You're a filthy, conniving liar. My sister knows you.”

“It must be a mistake.”

Cridge hit him.

The questions went on, and the beating. Lon's head lolled. Blood drooled from the corner of his mouth. A piece of tooth lay at his feet. At the end of a half hour Miller was apoplectic.

“I am accustomed to getting the information I want. I can't make a career out of interrogating you. I have many more important duties. But I will break you down, Mr. Price. I will succeed, because I place no restrictions on the methods I'm willing to use. I will come back, and I will succeed, and you will crawl and tell me everything.”

Miller jammed his derby on his head. “Put this piece of dung where he belongs.” Cridge threw the bloody sock on the floor and yanked Lon up by his left arm. Lon couldn't suppress a strident cry.

He stumbled past cowed prisoners who had watched the interrogation from the hallway. At the door of the citizens' room, Cridge kicked him in the small of the back. Lon toppled forward on his face. Rampling and John Scully and Pryce Lewis stared at him but didn't move to help him. Lon lay with his right cheek in the blood running from his nose.

 

On Thursday he could barely stand. He was a mass of misery, from his purpling legs to his bruised chest to his aching arms and shoulders. In a little more than twenty-four hours he had to attempt to escape. If anyone stopped him, he wouldn't have strength to fight. He hardly slept that night, turning on one side, then the other, then back again, finding no relief from the anxiety or the pain.

Miller didn't return on Friday, which was a blessing. A second blessing was the weather, stormy again. Black clouds sailed over the city. Gale winds rattled the prison windows. Every few minutes there was a cloudburst.

At nightfall the storm was undiminished. Lon lay rigid in the straw, trying to guess how much time had passed. Finally, hopelessly unsure, he dragged himself to his feet. Pryce Lewis woke from a doze. “Where are you going?”

“Latrine. Sick.”

Lon shuffled into the hall. His left leg trembled and almost gave out. He leaned on the wall to prevent a noisy fall. After a minute he limped to the staircase. Thunder shook the building, muffling other sounds.

He knew that just one guard patrolled the lower hall during the nighttime hours. He prayed it was the guard loyal to Miss Van Lew. On the lower floor, all the gas mantles but one were shut off, and the remaining one was trimmed low. He moved toward the entrance one slow, arduous step at a time. He passed under the glowing gas fixture. His bent shadow leaped ahead of him on the wall.

Thunder rolled. The floor vibrated. Ten steps left.

Now nine.

Six…

Sudden confidence warmed him like whiskey. Sometimes in life, a whole string of bad things happened one after another, with no rational cause. But sometimes too, the dice rolled the right way; the cards came up all aces. Two more steps and he was out the door into the pelting rain.

The rain felt wonderful, cool and cleansing. It fell so heavily, he couldn't see lights along the canal, or in the windows of Libby a block away. He slipped and slid down the cobbled slope of Eighteenth Street to Canal. Sure enough, huddled in a poncho and a black sombrero, a man sat on the seat of a wagon with a two-mule hitch. Man, mules, and wagon glistened with a silvery radiance, then vanished as lightning flickered out.

Lon came on the wagon from behind. “Rowley?”

The round eye of a gun barrel poked from under the poncho. “Price?”

“Where do I hide?”

“Under the straw, and be quick.”

Climbing the wagon wheel felt like climbing a mountain. He groaned as he hauled himself over and flopped on the wet straw. Lying on his back, he piled straw on his legs, his torso. The wagon was already in motion, bumping over rough paving. One of Lon's hands touched something that moved.

He lay with his face exposed to the rain. The farmer would get him out of the city, he would rest a little to renew his strength, then go on to Washington and—

He heard a horse approaching. “It's the watch. Cover yourself.” Lon rolled onto his belly, flung handfuls of soggy straw over his head. He could barely breathe. His face was hard against the wooden wagon bed. Something squeaked.

“Hold up there. Who are you? What's your business?”

“Hugh Rowley of Charles City. I'm a victualer for the prisons. I come this way twice a week.”

“Devil of a night for it. Show me your pass.”

“Bring your lantern and lean over here, I don't want the ink to run.” The squeak sounded again, close to Lon's ear.

After a minute the watchman said, “It's in order, you may pass on.” A tiny spot of cold touched Lon's cheek. He almost screamed. A second rat sank its teeth into his hand. He thrashed uncontrollably. “What the fire is that?”

“Barn rats,” Rowley said. “I try to clean them out, but a few always manage to ride along.”

“Well, I have the cure for that.”

Alarm in Rowley's voice: “What are you doing?”

The rat bit Lon's hand again. He heard layers of sound: the roaring rain, the watchman's horse moving up beside the wagon, the cock of a pistol. Lightning struck close by. The watchman leaned over the side of the wagon and emptied his pistol into the straw.

One shot hit Lon. The last thing he heard before consciousness faded was the watchman saying, “That'll take care of your rats.”

Splinters of light. Sensation returning. Right leg heavy and stiff; the slightest motion painful.

He rubbed his eyelids. Saw a room, a patchwork quilt, a crude footboard someone had carved and finished by hand. A sunlit muslin curtain danced at an open window, a grape arbor beyond. He said, “Oh,” remembering.

“There you are,” a man said. “My wife's cooking some beef soup. Reckon you must be starved.”

Lon saw his benefactor at the bedside, his big hands on his hips. “Where are we?”

“Rowley's farm. Charles City County. Got here night before last.”

Memory poured into him: the escape, the storm, the rats, the gunshots. Rowley continued, “I feared you were dead but I couldn't look at you till I got away from the watchman. When I stopped, I saw he'd plugged your leg. I tied it off best I could and drove on.”

Lon fingered his beard lying outside the quilt. “I don't remember any of that.”

“The Lord was on our side. He kept the rain and thunder going strong. The guards at the city limit waved me right through. We got here at sunrise, about the time the storm quit. Our pastor studied medicine before he heard the call. He dug the ball out and dressed your leg. Regular doctors in the neighborhood are secesh.”

Lon moved his leg again; grimaced. “Feels like I'll be wrecked forever.”

“Don't think so, but you'll hobble awhile. My son Ike's carving you a walking stick. Ah, here's Miz Rachel with the soup.” A buxom woman brought a wooden tray into the room.

The soup was hot and delicious. Lon was clumsy with it, twice spilling some into his beard. Two slices of white bread slathered with country butter accompanied the soup. He ate half a slice. Rowley's wife pointed to the beef bone on the tray. “Suck the marrow, it'll give you strength.”

He had just enough strength to do as she asked. Soon, with the warm breeze blowing over him, he was asleep.

 

Days passed. He rested, ate, talked with Rowley when the farmer came in from his fields in the evening. War news was scanty. Lon asked about Elizabeth Van Lew, whom he called a most unlikely spy.

“'Cause she's a lady, and acts so daft,” Rowley agreed. “She's Union to the core. Schooled up in Philadelphia as I recall. Her family freed their slaves when she was nine or ten. Not everyone in Virginia is part of the slavocracy. I never owned a human being, black, white, or green, nor will I.”

“This Richmond ring. How extensive is it? How many people?”

“Don't know. She keeps that secret, for everyone's protection. I know there's a superintendent of one of the railroads, and a German butcher—”

“Retz. I met him.”

“—but that's all I know. This farm's one of her depots.”

“What do you mean, depot?”

“Place where scouts pick up cipher messages. Miss Van Lew sends two or three a week. They send back requests for certain kinds of information. Couriers like me deliver them to her.”

“Who sends requests? Who does she work for?”

“Why, the Union Army, I reckon. The scouts are spies, but they're Army. You'll meet one presently.”

“It wasn't the Army that arranged my escape, it was Colonel Ba—someone else. How did the Army get in on it?”

“General Hooker. He set up some kind of spy branch the end of last year.”

“Have you heard of a man named Pinkerton? He ran a secret service for General McClellan on the Peninsula.” Rowley shook his head. “Or Major E. J. Allen?”

“Him neither. I'd better go see to my laying hens. In the morning Ike will help you try the walking stick.” Rowley dimmed the bedside lamp, leaving Lon to ponder the reshuffling of the cards that had occurred since his imprisonment. Was the Army's new spy bureau connected in any way with Lafayette Baker? He wouldn't know till he was in Washington. That was his goal, Washington. He kept it in his thoughts as he drowsed off with the lamp still burning.

Margaret passed through his dreams, and her brother, Cicero, and Hummy Cridge. They were torturing her. He woke in a sweat of terror. Moonlight whitened the footboard and quilt. Someone had blown out the lamp. He was awake for an hour, shaken by the bad dreams.

 

Next day he took his first steps with the aid of Rowley's husky son, and the stick, a hardwood limb shaped roughly and finished with a clear lacquer. After ten steps his right knee buckled, but Ike was there, catching him with ham-sized hands. “You'll make it, sir. You're doing just fine.”

Sometimes at night Lon heard a horseman arrive or leave. One sunny morning Rowley brought in a skinny, long-jawed man wearing farmer's clothes. Not much more than twenty-five, Lon guessed, but his face was lined and darkened by weather. A long mandarin mustache gave him a sinister look.

“Leonidas Whittaker,” he said as they shook hands. “My job's to get you to the Potomac. We'll start tomorrow if you're up to it.”

“I'm up to it,” Lon said, though his leg hurt like the devil. He had to reach Washington to find a way to strike back at Miller and Cridge and their ilk. When he'd done that, he'd sort out the situation with Margaret. Plainly her marriage was a mistake and would eventually end. How Margaret's brother fit in was something he couldn't deal with rationally; not yet. It remained a huge problem.

The journey with Whittaker required four days. The scout had a big roan; Lon bounced along on a mule. They hid by day and traveled at night, progressing slowly through fields and woodlands, avoiding roads and Confederate patrols. Whittaker was a cautious man who spoke only when he deemed it necessary, but Lon was an aggressive questioner. He soon drew out the story of what had changed in his absence.

Plagued by the amateurish mistakes of the first two years of the war, the new commanding general, Hooker, had concluded that the gathering of intelligence should be the purview of the Army. His provost marshal, General Marsena Patrick, created the Bureau of Military Information and put in charge one Colonel George Sharpe, a Yale lawyer and former commander of the 120th New York. Sharpe ran the string of scouts who picked up messages at the depots round about Richmond.

“Are you acquainted with a Colonel Baker?” Lon asked.

Whittaker chewed a blade of grass and regarded a sulphur butterfly hovering over his outstretched boot. They were resting in a glade beside a purling creek, waiting for sunset.

“Yes, we all know Baker. He works directly for Stanton. Calls himself chief of the National Detective Police. They run a secret operation. General Patrick don't like it, but Baker's wormed himself in pretty deep, so we have orders to steer clear of him and his men.”

At twilight, a couple of elderly home guardsmen hailed them across a cornfield. Some hard riding got them away, pursued only by a few rounds of musket fire. The two-mile gallop on muleback pounded Lon's leg and lit the fires of pain again.

They passed by the hamlet of Weedonville in the dark. Near the Potomac below Aquia Creek, Whittaker brought them to a cabin belonging to a solidly built black man whose name was Eakins; first or last, Lon never found out. Eakins's clothes were poor but his determination formidable. He showed Lon a pirogue hidden in reeds on the riverbank. He'd felled the tree, charred it, and hollowed it out himself. He made two or three runs across the Potomac weekly, carrying messages or passengers.

“Ten year ago, master sold me off,” Eakins explained. “Sold my wife, Clytie, and my son, Eakins Junior, to another man, from down North Carolina way. Only good thing, my new master freed me 'fore he joined up with the rebs. I could've run North, but I stayed here to fight best way I could. They took my wife and my boy. They broke up a family. God's my witness, I'll find Clytie and Eakins Junior, after I see Linkum bring the jubilee an' hang Jeff Davis.”

The first night with Eakins was too clear for a crossing. The next night brought fog; they poled and paddled to Maryland under cover of the murk. Eakins helped Lon out of the pirogue. “You on freedom's ground now. You safe. Tell Father Abraham that Eakins is one more good soldier on his side.”

“I will.” Eakins's handclasp was like a vise.

Eakins jumped in the pirogue and paddled away. Lon buttoned the old denim jacket Mrs. Rachel Rowley had given him, fished a pebble out of his shoe, and set off for Washington City.

 

Lon's Irish landlady in K Street shrieked when he appeared at her door. She'd already let his room, assuming he was dead down there on the Peninsula. But she had a smaller room, a refurbished garret. His things were stored in her cellar. She hadn't had the heart to sell them.

“I don't have a room for Mr. Greenglass,” she said.

“Mr. Greenglass won't be coming back, Mrs. Phelan.”

“He…? Oh, dear Lord.” She crossed herself.

Lon cleaned up and prevailed on the landlady to trim his beard to a respectable length. He brushed his black suit, rolled up for so long that the wrinkles looked permanent. He tied a black boot lace into a bow knot at the collar of his white shirt and trudged to the War Department.

“I am here to see Colonel Lafayette Baker.”

The guard at the entrance stuck out his chin. “Provost Marshal Baker don't see anyone without an appointment.”

“He'll see me. Give him my name. Alonzo Price.”

“I'm not authorized to—”

“Give him my name,” Lon said, a baleful glint in his eye. Only two or three years separated them, but the guard was a soft-cheeked innocent. Lon had the look of a man who'd walked through fire. The guard left him on a bench, ignored by civilians and high-ranking officers who bustled in and out with great self-importance. The guard returned at double time.

“Take the stairs to the basement. Room at the end of the hall.” As Lon went down the steps, he heard a stentorian voice he took to be Stanton's, rejecting someone's plea at his morning audience.

The gaslit lower hall was gloomy, without windows, and smelled of the eternal Washington dews and damps. Baker waited in the doorway, like a figure in a picture frame. He shook Lon's hand in a comradely way.

“We pulled you out. By heaven, I'm pleased.”

“I'm grateful to you, Colonel Baker.”

“I arranged for your removal from Virginia because I respect your abilities, Mr. Price. Come in, close the door. We have a great deal to talk about.”

He seemed less arrogant than Lon remembered. His wintry gray eyes were less hostile, or perhaps Lon only hoped so. A fancy gold frame on his desk held a miniature oil portrait of a woman. Baker noticed Lon's curiosity. “My wife.” Lon didn't know Baker had a wife.

They talked for an hour. Lon related all that had happened to him since Allan Pinkerton had sent him to Richmond with Sledge.

“You understand that Pinkerton's completely out of the picture,” Baker said.

“So I was told. Do you know the man I described, Cicero Miller? Slightly crippled, left leg shorter than the right?”

“I know him by reputation. He's high up in their Signal Service. Considered to be one of their smartest agents. Some say he's not quite right in the head. Based on what you told me about Castle Thunder, you must have similar suspicions.”

Lon nodded. “How did you learn that I was imprisoned?”

“Miss Van Lew isn't one of my operatives, but occasionally I have access to her information, through channels we won't discuss. Years ago, she sent a free colored girl to Philadelphia to be educated at her expense. The girl remained in the North, but when the war started, Miss Van Lew asked her to return to Richmond. I don't know how it was pulled off, but this young woman secured a position in the residence of none other than Jeff Davis. Waiting on his table. Serving his food.”

“Remarkable,” Lon said, though knowing Miss Van Lew, he wasn't altogether surprised.

“One evening when Cicero Miller dined with Davis, they discussed your case. The colored girl was in and out of the dining room many times. Miss Van Lew reported what the girl overheard.”

Baker held out a cigar case, silver, obviously expensive. Lon declined. “I can't offer you a drink, I'm a temperance man,” Baker said rather piously. “Permit me to ask about your prospects and intentions.”

“I want to see the secesh whipped, Colonel. I want to see the worst of them dead.”

“I applaud your determination. We have not exactly enjoyed a cordial relationship in the past, but it isn't necessary to be friendly in order to work together. If, as you declare, your goal is to punish the rebs, I can guarantee you many excellent opportunities. You can utilize your experience by working for me, or you can throw it away and join the Army. You don't impress me as a man who enjoys regimentation.”

“No.”

“Then what do you say?”

Lon suspected it was a pact with the devil. He didn't care.

“Yes, sir, I'll sign on.”

“Splendid.” Baker came around the desk and gave him a brotherly slap on the shoulder. “Mr. Peter Watson, the assistant secretary, will handle the papers and discuss salary and allowance. We're paid well in this department. I suppose you should submit a formal resignation to Mr. Pinkerton in Chicago.”