The Railroad War (30 page)

And yet, though the devastation continued to anger and sadden him, it did not prove to be a complete curse to Noah. Because
the inventory took so little of his time, he was free to pursue activities other than those specified by General Johnston.
He journeyed up to Canton, for instance, which was about twenty miles north of Jackson, and discovered there a nearly intact
railroad machine shop that was somehow overlooked by Sherman’s marauding soldiers. This machine shop was likely to prove indispensable
when it came time to refurbish the locomotives north of Jackson.

He also had time to make inquiries about Jane Featherstone.

Nothing he learned about her was nearly as satisfying as his uncovering of the Canton machine shop. As far as he could determine,
Jane had simply vanished, along with the building that had housed her. The entire block on which she had lived was now charred
rubble.

From interviews with survivors, he found out about the rape attempt on the morning Sherman’s troops moved into Jackson. Some
Union soldiers had broken into Jane’s rooms, but Jane had a revolver which she did not fear using. She had shot and killed
one or two of the criminals. The others had fled from her rooms, but they were soon captured. After that she was not seen
again.

Or at least she was not reliably seen. An old man Noah talked to claimed he had seen Jane in the company of a Union captain.
But the old man, who took most of his nourishment from rum and whiskey, could not be trusted.

Late on Saturday afternoon of August 29, Will Hottel arrived in Jackson. He came accompanied by a colonel of cavalry with
whom Noah Ballard was familiar, though the two men had not talked for ages.

While he was in Jackson, Noah’s fury grew along with his sense of paralysis. He was as powerless as a prisoner in a castle
keep to attack the causes of his many disappointments. And Jane Featherstone’s baffling absence only served to magnify his
fury. Her disappearance dripped like acid in his heart.

In order to keep himself occupied while waiting for Joe Johnston to move himself, Noah had taken on the job of supervising
the rebuilding of the Jackson railroad yards.

As Hottel, his new companion, and a third man drew near him, Noah was occupied with the erection of a large water tank. A
crew had constructed a scaffolding beside one of the tracks, and now they were setting up the framework for the tank itself
on a platform they’d laid at the top of the scaffolding. When it was finished, it would be a huge, straight-sided barrel.
A long tin spout, close to a foot in diameter, would deliver water to the tanks in locomotive tenders.

Noah was standing on top of the scaffolding at the center of the platform, while workmen installed the framework of the huge
barrel. It was close to sundown, and not nearly enough work had been completed that day to satisfy him. He was weary, impatient,
and testy.

“Noah!” a voice called. “Noah Ballard!”

“Hello!” Noah answered vaguely, turning around, searching for the source of the voice. He saw three men striding toward where
he was working. He could not see their faces, for they were silhouetted by the declining sun, but he knew two of them from
their shapes. One was Will Hottel, and the other was Gar Thomas, who had been working all day at the ruins of the depot. The
voice, however, came from the other man. It was a voice he recognized, and recognizing it, his weariness, impatience, and
testiness started to fade. “I know you!” he called out louder.

“Noah Ballard, you old bastard, come down from that tower this instant!” the other man answered. “That’s a command from a
superior officer.”

Noah finally saw the man’s face, and as he started to scramble down the scaffold he called out to him, “Lam Kemble! Why, son
of a bitch, it’s
you!
I never imagined!”

When Noah reached the ground, he dashed across the rails and ties to his friend and, disregarding his own grease and filth,
embraced the impeccably attired colonel—complete to pearl-gray, wide-brimmed felt hat with plume.

“Lam! Jesus Christ it’s good to see you!” he hollered, though Lam Kemble was right next to him, and as he hollered, he pounded
his fists hard against Lam’s back.

Lam endured the pummeling with amused toleration but when Noah stepped away from him to drink him in with his eyes, he could
not resist a tease. “I believe, Major,” he said frostily, “that striking a superior officer is punishable by hanging, drawing,
and quartering. In your case you will be hanged by your drawers and quartered with poxed whores.”

Noah answered that by giving him another blow—a light, playful one—on his shoulder. Then he stepped back again so that he
could decide how his friend had changed.

Hardly at all, he concluded. Lam was every bit as boyish and eager as he’d been on graduation day at the Academy. From the
testimony of his appearance anyhow, Lam had had a superb war—promotions, decorations, bravery, dash and glory. Lam had made
himself the perfect image of the man every boy lusts to grow up to be.

He’s enjoyed his war more than I have mine, Noah thought to himself sadly and bitterly. But he allowed himself the sadness
and the bitterness for only a moment.

“Ah, you look simply splendid, Lam!” he said, beaming. “A colonel no less! My Lord, a colonel! I’m pleased for you, sir!”
There was only the slightest tinge of mockery in the “sir.”

“And you, Major,” Lam said in his most arch tones, wrinkling his nose as fastidious matrons do when they detect unpleasant
odors, “appear purposefully employed.” Then he broke into a brilliant smile and clasped his arms around his friend. “But I
am absolutely delighted to see you, Noah. It’s grand to see your face. And,” he said, stepping back, “I have even better news.”
Noah cocked his head. “We are to be working together.”

“Not a dashing cavalry officer with a poor, plodding, misbegotten engineer,” Noah said with a greatly exaggerated southern
drawl, showing his friend that he could still dish it out. “Why, poor Lamar, that must be a horrendous comedown for you.

“But,” he added in his normal voice, “tell me about it. And about all your news. Tell me everything you’ve been up to for
the—oh, thousand years since I’ve seen you. And tell me what your family is up to. And,” he added, his mind flashing on a
golden afternoon years in the past, “I
must
learn all about your delicious sisters!”

“My sisters?” Lam said with mock incredulity. “Whatever do you want to hear about them for?”

“Yes, do that, Colonel,” Will Hottel interrupted. He and Gar Thomas had hung back while the two friends had made their greetings,
but now, wearing a grave and businesslike expression, he moved in. “But not here. It’s not the place for serious discussion.
Let’s go somewhere quiet.”

“Absolutely,” Gar Thomas said. “We’ve done just about everything we can do here for today.”

Noah looked for a moment at the uncompleted tank, and then nodded his acquiescence. The men at work there had already begun
to wrap it up for the night.

“Where in this waste,” Lam asked, looking about, “is there someplace quiet?”

“Would my home do?” Gar asked with a shy, tentative look. “In fact, it’s suppertime soon. My wife, I expect, could even put
together some kind of meal for you—not a feast, mind, as there’s damned little available, but enough to take the edge off.
Anyhow,” he added quickly, embarrassed by the near starvation that he and his family, like nearly everyone else in and around
Jackson, were forced to endure, “I can offer you a nice, quiet, cool place to sit and talk.”

“We’ll take you up on the location,” Noah said, “but we’ll decline with regrets the offer of a meal.” He said that because
he was only too aware of how strapped the Thomas family was for food.

Gar turned to Lam. “Colonel,” he said, “I insist on feeding you. It will be a great honor. Really, I do insist.”

Lam glanced at Noah, who gave him a warning look and a practically invisible negative shake of his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Thomas,
but I must also decline.”

Gar started to try to persuade Will Hottel then, for his pride and his sense of honor required it, but seeing the look on
Hottel’s face, he decided against it with a sigh of relief.

“Mr. Thomas,” Hottel said, “I think your home is a fine place for us to gather, and there we will all gather and bring ourselves
up to date, for there is indeed much to catch up on, after which there is much to transact. Nevertheless, I must delay my
arrival there. I have other business to transact before I can let myself relax.” He turned to Lam. “I’d appreciate it if you
would hold off discussing the matter we’ve come here to discuss until I return.”

“But I’m dying of curiosity,” Noah said.

“Oh, no,” Hottel said. “You’re not dying of curiosity, Major Ballard. Hardly. Without your curiosity, Noah, you’d surely die.”

“What’s all this bullshit about?” Noah asked Lam. “If he can’t tell me, you surely can.”

“I think,” Lam said after a quick confirming glance at Hottel, “that I better not.”

“Goddamn,” Noah said.

“You’re a patient man, Noah, as recent days have abundantly proved,” Hottel said. “You can wait.” Then he turned to Gar Thomas.
“Would you do me the kindness of pointing out the way to your home?”

Gar Thomas gave Hottel instructions; then he, Noah, and Lam proceeded to Gar’s house while Will Hottel went off on his own.

By the time Will arrived some two hours later, Lam Kemble had recounted for Noah the high points of the wartime parts of the
Kemble family chronicle, and Noah had told Lam his own news—much more briefly. Noah had litle appetite to dwell on his own
story, and besides, he was more interested in the doings of the Kembles, especially the doings of the delicious Kemble girls.
Pierce’s death touched him; he had liked Lam’s father. But Miranda and Ariel…!

Brief mention was also made of Sam Hawken, but the subject of Sam was not one that either friend found much to his taste.

When Hottel hammered on the front door Noah, Lam, and Gar were seated in the parlor while Mrs. Thomas, a furtive little woman
with hesitant, uncertain eyes, kept herself out of the way in the kitchen.

“Halloo!” Hottel called. “Halloo inside! I need help. Will someone give me a hand?”

Gar moved instantly toward the door, but Noah and Lam quickly joined him. When they reached the entrance hall, Gar had already
let Hottel inside.

In his arms was a load of food in so many different packages that it threatened to spill catastrophically—a pair of chickens,
eggs, vegetables, rice, potatoes, flour for baking, sugar, salt and a jug from Will’s apparently limitless supply of sour
mash.

“How in the name of hell did you find that!” Noah cried.

Gar stared, his face white.

Lam moved in to lend Hottel a hand.

And Mrs. Thomas, hearing the commotion, darted in to see what was the matter. When she saw the food, she swayed precariously.
Then after steadying herself against the wall, she moved in to take charge of the astonishing bounty that Hottel had brought.

She might have been pretty, it occurred to Noah, under different circumstances. It also occurred to him that she was at least
fifteen years younger than her husband and that her eyes kept flicking in Lam’s direction when she thought she was not being
observed.

“Thank you, Captain,” she said, as she relieved Hottel of some of his packages. “I…I…we don’t know how to thank you enough,
my husband and I and our sons.”

“It’s thanks enough,” Hottel said smoothly, “for me to witness your joy.”

“Yes, thank you so very much,” Gar Thomas said, coming out of his stupor, “I can’t tell you how grateful we are.”

Hottel bowed his acknowledgment.

“How did you find all of this?” Noah asked.

But the captain just smiled enigmatically and lifted his shoulders in a slight but expressive shrug.

By now Mrs. Thomas was scuttling off to the kitchen with her load of food, with Lam closely behind her. “But you can repay
me for this,” Hottel said to her as she was leaving the room. “I’m not letting you off scot-free.”

“What is it you wish?” she said, looking back over her shoulder at him.

“A meal,” he said with an imperious clap of his hands. “No, not a meal, a banquet!”

She looked at her husband, who gave her a nod. “Yes, of course, Captain. I’ll do my very best.”

“I’m sure that will be superb,” Hottel said. “She’s a lovely woman,” he continued, for Gar Thomas’s benefit, once she had
left the room.

“I’m pleased you think so,” Gar said.

“What are we doing standing here?” Noah asked. “Why don’t we sit in the parlor. And perhaps at long last you can bring me
up to date about the business you’ve come to discuss.”

“Yes, splendid idea,” Hottel said “except for the discussion. We’d best put that off until after supper—though I know how
anxious you are, Noah, to hear our news.”

“It’s not anxiousness, Will,” Noah said, “it’s torture.”

The meal that Mrs. Thomas prepared was no banquet, but though plain, it was good. At mealtime the two Thomas boys, twelve
and fourteen, appeared. They ate as though this were the only meal of a lifetime.

“There are folks in Jackson who’ve eaten dogs and cats,” Gar explained after dinner, when the men had retired again to the
parlor and lit the cigars that Hottel had produced from one of his pockets.

“It’s a fact,” Noah agreed. “A meal of dog meat is a luxury for many here. And things can’t improve soon.”

“There’s a rumor that Grant has ordered Sherman to send relief,” Lam said.

“If Sherman sends anything,” Noah said, “it’ll be sand and cinders.”

“He’ll send food,” Lam said, “if Grant tells him to. Cump Sherman may be a wild and crazy son of a bitch, but he does what
U. S. Grant tells him to do.”

Noah just shook his head. He didn’t believe rumors about help from anybody wearing a blue uniform.

“So what have you got,” he said to Will Hottel, “that you’ve been holding back from me for the best part of a day?”

Hottel broke into a wicked grin. “I’ve got you on pins and needles, have I? You’re sitting on the edge of your seat, are you?”