Skeletons (30 page)

"None want war; all want peace. But peace can only come when we welcome the last of our errant brothers into this union of second life. I ask our human citizens to lay down their weapons and open themselves to second life, and so bind the nation's wounds.

"The nations of the world are fighting their own battles in this war. These are tumultuous times. I pray tonight that we will once again, as we did those many years ago, achieve a lasting peace among ourselves and, by so doing, among all the nations of the world."

I closed my eyes and prayed to God then that I had said the right things. As always, I feared my voice too weak, too high-pitched, my words ineffective.

It was then that Justice William Douglas, "The best man they could dig up for the job," as he had quipped, administered the oath of office.

I removed my hand from the Bible, and, thankfully, the task was over.

"That was wonderful, Mr. President," Stanton said, beaming beside me.

The cameraman, leaving the back of his giant electronic eye, made a face.

"Didn't look into it straight, did I?" I said, smiling.

He got all flustered and said, "Of course you did, Mr. President. You were . . . fine."

"Hogwash. I looked down at the paper I was reading from, just like you told me not to. Don't you worry about it." I rose and clapped him on the back.

Mary, huddled in the corner, looked like she had been crying, so I went to her.

"Happy for me, Mother?" I said, putting my arm around her.

"Happy!" she fumed, pushing away from me.

"It was just a joke," I said gently. "I know how you feel. I feel the same way. But— “

"But nothing, Abraham! You served them once—" She broke off in tears, left the Oval Office, and wouldn't look back at me. "Once again, my heart shall be broken."

I gazed at her sadly.

My sadness didn't last, though. Eddie and Willie were into the room, making a mess of my desk, fooling with the television equipment.

"Father, look!" Willie said, swiveling the lens to point it at me.

I put my hands over my face in mock surprise. "Oh, no! Not the press again!"

"Speaking of the press . . ." Stanton said, sidling up to me.

"I know, I know," I said. I could hear their babbling in the outer office. I knew I'd have to face their pens—and cameras—at any moment. "I don't mind most of them. But that CNN . . ."

Billy Herndon was next to me. "They're under control, Mr. Lincoln. We've promised Huey Long a cabinet post, perhaps secretary of the treasury."

I guffawed. "That robber!"

Herndon's eyes shone. "Exactly. It will keep him quiet and busy, and we can keep an eye on how much he steals. In exchange he's turned the station over to a man loyal to us."

"All right."

I looked back wistfully at Eddie and Willie. The cameraman was unsuccessfully trying to wrestle his equipment back from their hands. Then Herndon and Stanton led me to the door, and the press beyond.

"We'll deal with other appointments later, Mr. Lincoln," Billy said.

My eyes were still on Eddie and Willie. Then I was nearly pushed through the door, into the waiting arms of the Fourth Estate and its bright lights.

The first question came: "Mr. President, now that there's stability in the country, do you expect the war against the humans to last long?"

"It will last as long as it takes. . ." I said.

Later, as I sat in my office alone, in darkness, waiting for Stanton and Herndon to return, a weariness fell over me. I thought of my speech again. I was sure it was inadequate. I had no doubt I had gotten through to our people, but what I had striven for was to make the other side see the rightness of my course. If I could only make them see that the only logical path for them to follow is for them to come over to us, arms open, as brothers . . .

But I doubt they will see that. They fight, just as we fight. No doubt they see the rightness of their course, also.

This was what bothered me. Perhaps this was the root of my own concern. Were we in the right? I knew there was a basic animosity in us toward the first-lifers. I felt it myself. Yet it bothered me, just as my deep-seated violence, so adeptly brought out by Herndon and Stanton, bothered me. Were we in the right? Did our mere existence exonerate us from being wrong?

Logic told me that we are here, and this is the way the world is now, but was this right and just?

I didn't know. I could only follow the course I had set. And I prayed to God that it was the right one. Because I knew in my heart that we would win, would drive the human race from the earth . . .

I turned in my chair and looked out the window to the lawns and lights of Washington beyond. I thought what a different, and in many ways more marvelous, world this was from the one I knew.

The room lights were thrown on. I swiveled around, unbending my long frame from the chair to stand, as an old friend strode into the room, smoking a cigar and smiling through his beard.

"Grant!"

"Yes, sir," Ulysses Grant said, shaking my hand. Stanton came in behind him, grinning.

"We thought you were dead in Ohio!" I said to Grant.

"I was, in a manner of speaking. But no, after I . . . rose, I, uh, had a bit of trouble adjusting." He made a drinking-glass motion with his hand and smiled.

Stanton laughed.

"Didn't we all have trouble! Didn't we all!" I said.

"Well," Grant said, "near as I can figure, I went on a fifteen-day bender. I never did that before, on or off the battlefield."

I said, "Remember when I had complaints about your drinking, and I told 'em to find out what your brand was and deliver barrels of it to all my generals?"

We all laughed.

"My Lord, you sat in this chair of mine, too," I said, suddenly remembering.

Grant waved his hand. "I'm not back here for that, Mr. President. That was bad enough when I had to do it the first time around."

"Ulysses would like to command," Stanton said. Grant puffed his cigar. "I think we can win this war quickly."

I was not surprised. But I feigned the emotion.

"Excellent! From what Secretary Stanton tells me, the federal armies are in disarray in the southeast and the west. With—"

"Sherman is in the south already, Mr. President," Grant said, "and Phil Sheridan is on an army plane, heading west, as we speak. Some of our own kind in California have tried to form their own little country. They're calling it the New Federation. That won't last long." He paused. "I'm told you know about Dwight Eisenhower heading the new Allied Command Forces. From his record we think he will be excellent in coordinating the campaign with overseas allies. This isn't the same world we knew, Mr. President."

"That's true. And Eisenhower, too, sat behind this desk
 
. . ."

Grant continued, "The home armies will be in shape within a week. The National Guard has most civilian areas stabilized—"

"New York?"

"New York is quite a mess, to put it mildly. Much of Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston have been greatly damaged. In the south Atlanta is in flames again—only this time it wasn't our doing, Mr. President. The humans burned the city as they fled. Sherman's men are restoring order."

"Lord, the irony," I said. "If only the first-lifers would let themselves be turned . . ."

Once again that vague feeling of wrongness, of a flaw in my logic, sought to fill me with despair.

"But Mr. President," Stanton said brightly, "we have every reason to believe the war will not be a long one. Almost every major country around the world has stabilized and is now in full movement against the human population. China is turning thousands a day, Russia—the Soviet Union, as they call it now—is making great strides. And you must remember that with each human turned, another soldier is added to our own armies."

"Yes . . ."

"We feel that within a few months, six at most, the job will be done. There will be a stable world order. Then we can get on to other business."

"A world free of war?"

"If not that," Stanton interjected, "then a world making a new start. Our nation will come out of this in a strong position, Mr. President."

"Yes, I suppose it will." I gave them a thin smile. “That reminds me of the possum who ran up the tree. Ever hear this story?"

Both Grant and Stanton looked at me indulgently. "Can't say I have, Mr. President," Grant said.

"There was this possum whose
arse
end got struck by lightning. He knew if he got hit again, he'd be one dead possum. So he ran high up a tree, thinking he'd be safe there. Only, the tree then got hit by lightning, and he fell out of it, and got himself killed anyway." I sighed. "I feel like that possum, gentlemen. I think we all should."

"What do you mean by that, Mr. President?" Stanton asked.

"I fear, Mr. Stanton," I said, "that we are more human now than we ever were. And that real peace is something we may never find in this world."

I knew I had been brooding. So I looked up and smiled. I shifted my own
arse
on my chair, threw my leg over it to make myself more comfortable. "But anyway, one lightning strike at a time, eh, gentlemen?"

Over the next few weeks things did go well. I had some heady conversations with foreign leaders via the telephone, men such as
Xeng
Lo Pin, the eighth-century leader of China who had emerged on top in that country. He was a remarkable man, one of the few from his era to prosper and adapt to this modern age. He also knew some good ribald stories.

Our own armies became one, and under Grant's administration they turned from petty squabbling to the full business of turning the humans into second-lifers. There was a huge battle in Illinois, where our Fourth Division, under the leadership of George Custer, routed and turned ten thousand humans under the command of General Norman Schwarzkopf. When Schwarzkopf was captured and turned, he immediately assumed command for Custer, who had managed to get himself boxed in and destroyed by an encircling force of desperately noble humans. The humor of the outcome made me wince.

I was obliged to appear on television with uncomfortable regularity. I came to regard the chore as a necessary evil. Television communication had been restored to most of the country. It seemed to give our people strength to see their president on their little boxes, speaking to them directly. I found I had little to say, as usual, but it seemed to be enough. Another revolting modern development, the opinion poll, showed me to have what I was told was an astounding approval rating. I never bothered to find out exactly what that meant, but took Billy Herndon's word that it was a good thing.

Once again the industrial might of the United States, this time the entire United States, north and south, was a deciding factor in the progress of the war. Americans were just plain good at making things. Especially things to kill others with. Every soldier in our armies seemed to have two guns and more bullets than he or she knew what to do with. But all of this might was being put to good effect.

Sadly, Mary became more of a problem. She always was sensitive to my black moods, and seemed to feed off them, making herself even more worrisome than she had been. Sometimes she would refuse to see me for days. She was horrible with the White House servants. There were many complaints about her conduct. She could not even concentrate on keeping the White House the way she wanted it. Occasionally she would lock herself in her bedroom and cry, sometimes scream. Even the boys became frightened of her. It became so bad that I took her to my side one day, holding her there with my arm, and pointing from the window of my office to a building in the near distance.

"Do you see that place, Mother? Do you remember what I told you once, the first time we were here? That's an insane asylum, and I fear that if you do not get better, we will have to send you there."

She looked at me with her bright, frightened eyes. "Don't you even know then from now? Don't you know that I ended up in a place like that!"

"Mother . . ."

"I warned you, Abraham! I told you that all I wanted in this new life was for you to be with me and the boys! You gave yourself to the country once!" Her cry turned to a near shriek. "
Why do you have to let them have you again
!"

"Mother, there are things out of our control—”

“There is nothing for me in this life! I thought I was waking up into heaven, and this is hell."

"Mary, you have the boys."

"I have
nothing
! Don't you see that none of this is right! This is not paradise! I want to go home, to Springfield, or back to the ground, oh, Abraham . . ."

She turned into my shoulder, and wept. "I cannot stay in a world like this. . ."

I patted her, and held her, and tried to remember the girl I had courted, whose face I had seen again after we had both returned from the grave. "Mary, dear . . ."