Once an Eagle (7 page)

Sam felt bewildered and vaguely pleased. You never knew what would do it in this world. He saw the humor of his request, but persisted nevertheless, “Well, I only figured you've had a chance here to gauge me as a man—”

“Yes, I have,” Matt Bullen cried, still laughing. “Indeed I have. I give up, son. I give up in a walk.” He came around the desk, wiping his eyes, and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “All right, boy,” he said, “you've got it. On the strength of that irrefutable logic alone you've got it.” He walked toward the door. “Now I have to tell you that a principal has already been named for this year. But I'll put you down as alternate appointee and you can take the exams. The principal may fail his exams or withdraw for some reason. That's the best I can do for you.”

“Thanks, Mr. Bullen. That's all I ask.”

“You're all right, son. You're just what the doctor ordered.” He swung open the door, and the thin-faced girl, now back at her desk, saw Sam and rose to her feet in an angry fluster.

“Mr. Bullen, I'm sorry, I had to go down the hall and I thought he'd left—”

“That's all right, Arlene. I wouldn't have missed this unscheduled interview for worlds. Not for worlds. You just take down this young feller's name and other pertinent data for the military examinations, will you?”

“Certainly, Mr. Bullen.”

“That's a good girl.” Turning again to Damon he shook his hand and clapped him on the shoulder again, smiling. “You're okay, son. You take those exams. And I'll be rooting for you.” He went back inside and closed the door.

Standing by the desk and looking down into the girl's resentful face, answering her questions, Sam could hear voices and laughter from the private office. He had his chance! The chance he needed. You couldn't keep a good man down, as they said. But even then you needed a shot of luck. He stole a glance at his watch: he still had nine minutes to make the train.

3

The wind came
up again and the dust lifted, swirling in baby twisters across the diamond from first to third; and Sam Damon put his glove to the side of his face. When it cleared again Sergeant Kintzelman, known to his intimates as Jumbo, went into his ponderous, pumping motion, rocked and threw. The batter, a corporal named Hassolt, lashed at the pitch—the ball skipped like a dirty white pebble into right field, where Mason fielded it and threw in to second to hold the runner. There was a stir in the little knots of soldiers clustered along the foul lines and Sergeant Merrick, captain of the Company B team, coaching at third, began to holler: “Old Jumbo's fading, he's blowing sky-high …”

Far away on the horizon there were mountains like great beasts: mountains a hundred miles away. But around them there were only plains. The post was a dreary little huddle of huts and barracks on a tiny rise beyond the ballfield. Turning his head, Sam Damon gazed at it, the lumpy adobe buildings, the flag snapping out straight from its staff, the drifting plume of dust made by a solitary horseman coming from Valverde. He still felt mildly astonished at the chain of events that had flung him down here at Fort Early, in this vast desertland on the edge of Mexico …

He had gone back to Lincoln again a few weeks later and taken the entrance exams for West Point. He felt certain he'd passed; and when he'd come in from haying for Fritz Clausen and his mother had handed him the long envelope his heart had given the high, taut leap reserved for such momentous occasions. He had lowered his eyes.

“It's a very important-looking letter,” Kitty Damon ventured shrewdly.

“Yeah,” Uncle Billy said. “I couldn't help noticing the return address.”

“That's bad manners, Billy.”

“Do you think so? Maybe. Matt Bullen must be running scared if he's out recruiting suckling babes. Ever since Wilson's got in they're terrified the bloody revolution's on the way.”

Sam sat down and opened the letter, ran his eye quickly along the lines. It was straight and to the point. He had passed the examinations with flying colors. The principal appointee had also passed, but he, Bullen, was pleased to inform Sam that he would definitely be named as principal appointee for the following year. He sent his warm regards.

The following year. Sam folded the letter with care. After the interview with Bullen, the exams, the soaring sense of possibilities, of destiny unfurling, the delay was like a defeat; cruel, not to be borne. A full year to wait. But he let no trace of consternation or chagrin cross his face. If that was how it was, that was how it was. They were all watching him.

“It's nothing,” he said calmly, and slipped the letter back into the envelope. “Just a little idea I had.”

Uncle Billy laughed once. “Black Matt trying to turn you into one of his grubby ward heelers, is he? That why you've been running to Lincoln all the time?”

That was the trouble with small towns: everybody knew everything about you; they knew when you used the privy and what for. Well, they wouldn't find out if
he
could help it.

“Oh no,” he said easily. “No, it was a different matter entirely.” He smiled. “It just didn't pan, that's all.”

“Jesus, I hope not,” Billy Hanlon said. “It'd be a sin and a shame to see you get mixed up with that bunch of tinhorn crooks, and so young in life at that.” He scratched his chin with a thumbnail. “It isn't like the Hanlons to be secretive about such matters, I'll say that much.”

“Leave him alone, Billy,” Kitty Damon said. “He's old enough to know what he wants, and that's more than you can say.”

“At eighteen? At eighteen you're the prize gull at the carnival.”

“Well, you're not looking at any gull,” Sam answered tartly; he rose to his feet holding the letter.

“It's all part of his secret scheme to set the world on fire,” Peg put in slyly, grinning at him. “Honestly, I've never seen such a sneak …”

“Leave him alone, Peg,” his mother repeated. Her sharp blue eyes rested on him a moment, dropped again to her sewing; he knew she had read his bitter disappointment. Quietly he went upstairs to his room …

Now, back of third base, Traprock Merrick clapped his hands. He was a squat block of a man with little button eyes and a mouth that made a huge black square when he shouted. He was pugnacious, harsh, given to much taunting of subordinates, and he was riding Kintzelman hard, shouting that he was all through, his arm had turned to blue glass, they were going to beat him right now, the way they always had. Jumbo stared at him a moment doggedly, then turned back to the plate. The batter, a lanky, round-shouldered Kentuckian named Cloren, drove the next pitch down the third-base line. Devlin darted to his right, leaped headlong, hit rolling in the dust and came up with the liner held high. The A Company crowd yelled and Sam whistled shrilly between his teeth. Old Dev. What a save.

The next hitter was already standing in, waving his bat. Kintzelman turned and waved Sam farther toward right field. Sam drifted over a few steps until Jumbo appeared satisfied, then spat in the base of his glove and worked it in with two fingers of his throwing hand, his feet spread, waiting.

…The following year. He had sat at Mr. Thornton's desk, weary from his day's work in the fields, listening absently to the shrill of katydids in the swamp, opening and closing his hands. It was impossible to keep his mind on the battle of Austerlitz. A full year. Matt Bullen might change his mind or forget about him entirely, he could even be defeated in November; Uncle Bill might succumb to wanderlust again—run off gold mining in the Yukon or hunting for sunken treasure in the Caribbean—and Sam would find himself carrying most of the load again. Anything could happen in a year. One day his father had been a healthy, vigorous man: a few weeks later he was minus a leg and wasted away to a shadow, his face the color of dirty flannel; a dying man. If you didn't force the issue, snatch at life when you could, it would turn on you like a snake. Sitting at the head of the stairs listening to the drone of voices down in the bar, impatience would catch him up and shake him like violent hands. You had to act, to act—

So he did what he had always done since he'd been a little boy: he acted quickly and without reservation. He took the Union Pacific train to Lincoln still again, and enlisted in the United States Army. Ability would tell: he would work his way up through the ranks, he would make a name for himself even before the year was up. Every soldier carried a field marshal's baton in his knapsack: hadn't the greatest self-made soldier of them all said so?

The recruiting sergeant, a tall Texan with a low forehead and a broad, engaging smile, was delighted with him. He'd make a first-rate soldier, he could promise him that. Advancement was rapid, it was a slick army, an expanding army—they were going to war with Mexico any day now, and then you'd see the fur fly. And he'd passed the West Point exams, had he? Keen, that was keen—his colonel would rush that through in no time at all …

His family's reaction to the news had not been quite so enthusiastic. It surprised him a good deal. His mother looked alarmed, then angry; her eyes began to fill with tears. Mr. Verney turned grave and tugged nervously at his beard. Uncle Bill became apoplectic.

“Why, you simple fool—you poor, ignorant, misbegotten idiot!” He began waving his arms; the tattooed eagles on his forearms shivered and writhed. “What did he offer you?”

“Who?”

“That stinking, conniving recruiting sergeant, that's who! What did he promise you? a dozen dusky maidens in a nipa hut and a bag of gold?”

“He didn't promise me anything.”

“The hell he didn't—he painted a life of riotous pleasures, island girls and tuba by the flowing gallon, lolling under the palm fronds all day and all night too—and you fell for it! You ignorant sod, they'll wipe out the latrines with you for reveille! They'll have you holystoning the range and currying every bloody officer's horse in Fort Riley …”

Sam stared at him in dismay. Uncle Bill was shouting and swearing, and his mother was too distraught to say a word; even Mr. Verney was nodding in grim agreement.

“But Uncle Bill, you went to Tientsin and Samar, you told me yourself you—”

“I told you nothing! nothing at all! You'll wish you were dead …”

“I'll make my way up in the ranks. The sergeant told me there would be lots of advancement—”

“You'll
what?
Oh, you poor sod. You'll be sorry you ever were born! Why in Christ's sweet name didn't you listen to me—!”

“But I
did,
Uncle Bill—”

Wild Bill Hanlon smote his forehead. “God forgive me. I should never take a drop nor open my mouth for anything but victuals …”

“It's no good upbraiding the boy,” Mr. Verney concluded with hollow resignation. “He's taken the action, and he must pay the price of it.” He turned his sharp old eyes on Sam. “But how in Tophet a fine, promising lad like you could throw away his life in so foolish a manner is beyond me.”

“But Mr. Verney, how can you say that? You were at Shiloh and Missionary Ridge, you marched to the sea with the Army of the Tennessee, the greatest hiking army the world has ever seen …”

“And so we were,” the old man cried softly, “we swung along thirty miles to the day, a blanket and a canteen full of molasses, and before old Johnston knew it we were snapping at his flanks, burning ties and twisting iron—and when we took Atlanta even Jeff Davis knew the game was up … But that was
war,
boy!” Sam had never seen him so agitated. “You don't join the army in
peacetime,
to consort with thieves and drunkards, ignorant moonshiners and the riff-raff of the cities of the East …” Sam glanced at Uncle Bill, expecting him to flare with anger, but the old sergeant was only wagging his head unhappily and scratching his chin. “Outlaws, and men without names—that's what the Army's filled with now, boy …”

“Did you
sign?
” Billy Hanlon demanded wildly. “Did you sign a paper in his presence—?” Sam nodded. “Then there's no hope. You ringtailed, horn-headed prince of fools. You'll be sorry you ever took that train to Lincoln. You'll wonder why there ever was a human race—”

Wilgus, a tall, quiet ex-cavalryman, swung from the heels and lashed a tremendous liner to right that landed not three feet foul and skipped and bounded on down to the stables with Mason chasing it. Merrick danced up and down on his stovepipe legs with joy, roaring, “Here we go!
Everybody
hits!
Everybody
hits away …”

Uncle Bill had been solidly, mountainously right. He had been drilled until he staggered, he'd been kept at attention under a merciless sun and swarms of gnats, he had dug great square holes in the ground; he had done KP duty for a bunk that looked as far as he could see just like all the others, he had scrubbed mess tables and dug out latrines. Sadistic and horny-handed sergeants rode him, he did more manual labor in less time than he would have believed possible. He was woefully disconcerted. He kept his rifle spotless, he mastered the intricacies of close-order drill and the care of his personal equipment—and it all led to nothing. It was even as Uncle Bill had said: he was a rookie and he was made to feel it. There was no field marshal's baton anywhere in this dusty world of incessant guard duty and drill and fatigue details, let alone in his private's pack. As for the colonel, he had laid eyes on him just twice in the first three weeks. There were only sergeants and they were as omnipotent as God.

Jumbo had just thrown what was nearly a wild pitch, Thomas making a fine stop on his knees. Hassolt, quick as a cat and twice as bold, danced off first, chirping and hollering. The Company B bench with its supporters was all alive now. Sam moved back a step or two and pumped his glove.

What had rescued him—partly—were his marksmanship and his athletic prowess. On his first day at the range, wild with release from the dreary, interminable sighting and aiming drills, he had fired a possible at five hundred yards—nothing exceptional for the noncoms but impressive enough for a raw rookie, and Lieutenant Westfall had begun to keep an eye on him. Keen eyesight is a prerequisite for good shooting; he had always been an excellent hunter, and he didn't need to have the sergeants tell him that in the Springfield he had the finest infantry rifle in the world. He qualified as expert on his first record day.

The other avenue of escape was the company ball team. He could throw and hit a baseball harder and farther than most men, and he knew it. Captain Parrish had been delighted at the rare good fortune that had sent him this tall, rawboned Nebraskan with the quick hands and feet. The company commander was a lean, leathery man with bright blue eyes and fine silver mustachios, and he was a rabid baseball fan. He had played constantly in his younger days, but a Spanish bullet at El Caney had put an end to that. He could get around all right, he could ride superbly and walk the line like a clockwork soldier, but he couldn't field ground balls or run the bases anymore. All his passion was centered around a ball team that could whip those arrogant, invincible sons in Company B, and when he watched Sam convert two of Kintzelman's best curves into savage line drives that first practice evening, his joy was unconfined. Captain Parrish and Ted Barlow were as different as two American males could be, but they would have understood each other perfectly. There was suddenly, magically, far less KP duty for Private Damon.

Wilgus swung now, the ball lifted nicely, high, hanging in the dry Texas air off to Sam's left. He loped back easily and got under it, set himself, gathered it in. Slattery was right where he knew he'd be, a step or two up from the bag, crouched, his hands low, waiting, and he threw to him smartly to hold Hassolt, though there was no need for it—Company B already had a very healthy respect for his arm. Thomas came out toward the mound with his mask off, the little and forefingers of his right hand waving above his head in the traditional sign. Two out. Maybe they'd beat them after all, this time. The infield chatter started up again and Sam joined it, that crackling litany he loved. The dust churned around him fiercely again, and subsided; he rubbed his eyes and pulled his visor lower.