Unholy Fire (11 page)

It was locked from the outside. In a futile rage, I feebly hammered against it. A minute or two later, a key began moving in the lock. The door swung open, revealing the crippled man. He had left his red wig upstairs. The crown of his head bore witness to a horrible scalping wound.

“Must leave now,” I said.

“You need to go back to your bed,” he said, taking my arm and propelling me across the room like a helpless invalid. I sagged down on the bed, drained of energy, and began shivering again.

“Must have laudanum,” I gasped, as he covered me again with the blankets. “I will pay you.”

Ignoring my plea, he went instead to the pitcher and bowl, wetting a rag and bathing my face with it. He built up the fire and left the room. I finally slept again. The next time I awoke it was to find Val back in his chair, reading. In the firelight his vast hairy head looked like a mass of knotted gray thongs. He glanced up and saw me watching him.

“What time is it?” I asked.

He removed his watch from his waistcoat.

“About three,” he said.

I had lost track of whether it was night or day.

“In the morning,” he said, sensing my confusion.

My mouth was very dry, and I had trouble swallowing. Val went to the table and poured me another glass of water from the pitcher. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he raised my head and put the glass to my lips. It was very cold. I had never tasted anything so good. When I finished it, he poured me another. I finished that one, too.

“Let's see if it stays down this time,” he said, returning to his chair.

It did.

“Well done,” he said a few minutes later, as if I was becoming a prize pupil. “It should become easier now.”

“How do you know so much about all this?” I asked.

He paused for a time, as if undecided on whether to tell me.

“Two reasons,” he said finally. “The first is that I once studied medicine. My father was a doctor, and … very strong willed. He expected me to follow in his path.”

It was hard for me to imagine someone more strong willed than Val.

“My father died when I was in my last year of medical college,” he went on. “I saw no reason to pursue it further. The law was always my true passion.”

“And the second reason?”

He stared back at me for several seconds again before he spoke.

“Because I was like you,” he said.

“I don't believe you,” I said. “I've never even seen you drink a glass of wine.”

“How do you think I got this?” he said, pointing to his off-kilter nose. “I had my demons, and they led me to where you are now.”

“What kind of demons?” I asked, still skeptical.

He stared into the fire.

“There was a time when I was known in the Springfield, Illinois, courts as the mastodon,” he said, with a taut smile. “Aside from obvious physical similarities, it was principally because I regularly enjoyed trampling my opponents in the courtroom. I never let up. My favorite targets were the railroads. Very difficult adversaries … several of them were represented by the best lawyer I ever met.”

“Who was that?” I asked.

“Abraham Lincoln.”

“He represented the railroad interests?”

“Very ably. It made him one of the wealthiest lawyers in Springfield. And he needed every penny to pay the bills Mary ran up each month.”

“Who won?”

“Who won what?”

“The cases in which you were adversaries,” I said.

“Who do you think?”

I was still pondering the question, when he said, “Abe is the one who started calling me ‘the mastodon.'”

I smiled at the thought of it.

“And then?”

“And then I took an important case in the Colorado Territory representing several Indian tribes. The federal government had appropriated their land on behalf of the Western Pacific Railroad Company. It was typical of those times. No compensation. I was there for several months before the case was settled.”

Standing up, he walked over to the fireplace and added another log to the grate. When he turned toward me again, his face was veiled in darkness.

“It was two weeks before Christmas, and I was preparing to return home,” he said. “A wire arrived from my brother stating that my wife was very ill. Of course, I left immediately.”

I waited for the words I already sensed were coming.

“She died the day before I arrived.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, knowing that words could give no comfort.

He nodded and said, “She had succumbed to scarlet fever.… Highly contagious, as you probably know. We had three children … two girls and a boy. They contracted it as well.”

The only sound in the room came from the flames licking the new log.

“I was unable to do anything to ease their suffering. It took them all.”

The enormity of his loss took my breath away.

“The rest is predictable, I suppose.… Whiskey was the easiest path to oblivion. I went on a bat that lasted two years. I stayed drunk … mostly fighting drunk.… I tried many times to die.”

“Will the craving ever go away?”

He shook his head and said, “If you are like me, you will be cursed to spend part of every day thinking about the next draught … It is not an easy road.”

“Have you ever lost control of it?” I asked.

“Not yet,” he replied.

I drifted away again. When I came back, he was standing by the bed with a steaming mug in his hand.

“Do you think you could keep down some broth?”

“Yes,” I said.

I tried gripping the mug with both hands, but was wracked by another bout of shaking, and he had to feed me like a child, one spoonful at a time. The broth remained in my stomach less than five minutes before it was gushing into the tin wash pan.

“We'll try again in an hour,” he said. An hour later, it stayed down.

Afterward, I fell into a deep sleep. I found myself dreaming again. This time the dreams were not about Ball's Bluff or Johnny Harpswell. They were of my island home off the coast of Maine, just as it had been when I was a boy.

Bathed in a radiant summer sun, I saw our fleet of two-masted schooners swinging gently at anchor in the harbor. There was a fresh catch, and the fishermen were standing in their aprons beside the wood plank tables in the flake yard, gutting and cleaning the cod with razor-sharp knives. The beach was covered in scaly flakes.

Great flocks of gulls swooped overhead, their shrill cries interrupted by sudden attacks to pounce on the entrails, heads, and tails. I could smell the reek of salted fish curing in the sun.

Then, suddenly, it was winter, and cold rain was leaking down from the slate shingles under the roof in the attic and soaking my pillow. I opened my eyes to the pressure of a cold wet rag on my forehead.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

The craving was no longer there. I was sure that it had not gone far, but the desperate need to have the opiate inside me was gone. I told him so.

“You might not believe it yet, but this is the beginning of a new life for you,” he said.

“How long have we been here?” I asked.

“Three days and nights.”

“No … that's impossible.”

“It's true. I secured a week's leave for you. The next step is to regain your strength. Are you ready to go back?”

“Yes,” I said weakly, and meant it.

As we came to the top of the stairs, Val introduced me to the man in the red wig. His name was Crisp, and he was originally from Springfield, having once served as Val's law clerk. His wounds were suffered during the Seven Days.

Less than an hour later, we were back at Mrs. Warden's.

The following day I began my new life. Upon rising, I took a long hot bath, had breakfast, and then ambled slowly around Lafayette Square, stopping several times to rest along the way. Within a week I was walking all the way to the Capitol, eating my packed lunch in the park beyond it, and walking back without a pause. My appetite was such that Mrs. Warden threatened to charge twice the fee for my weekly board. I cheerfully volunteered to split the new pile of firewood in her yard, and she readily accepted the offer.

As each day passed, I grew steadier in my resolve that I could tame the beast inside my brain. For that was where it lived and still lurked. I went back to work the following Monday.

C
HAPTER
S
IX

Through much of that November I was primarily occupied with desertion cases, although I did handle the court-martial investigation of a soldier who was accused of stealing laudanum from a field hospital. He had become addicted to it after the amputation of his leg following Malvern Hill. I was able to get the charges against him dismissed.

One morning I arrived at the office to find a large envelope on my desk. It was addressed from the Adjutant General, U.S. Army. Inside was a parchment document that read: “Know ye, that reposing special trust and confidence in the patriotism, fidelity, and abilities of John McKittredge, I have nominated and with the advice and consent of the Senate do appoint him Captain in the army of the United States.”

It was signed by Abraham Lincoln.

My first reaction was to send it to my parents because I knew it would make them proud. Upon closer inspection, I saw that my name and new rank were filled in with ink, while the rest was printed on the vellum stock, along with the presidential seal. Although it looked like Lincoln's signature at the bottom, there were far too many captains in the army for him personally to have signed all our promotion papers.

My colleague Harold Tubshawe was duly impressed. However, it was obvious from the disgusted look on his face that he had seen nothing in my performance at the Provost Marshal's Office to warrant a promotion of any kind.

In mid-November, I became embroiled in the military trial of one Simon Silbernagel. At first the case did not appear at all different from dozens of others I had already handled in my job, although it was on a much bigger scale. Simon Silbernagel was then the largest contractor supplying fresh beef to the army commissariats in Washington and Maryland.

The charges against him were detailed in a docket folder that landed on my desk one morning along with three others. I noted on the cover page that Tubshawe had been assigned to prosecute the case. The top of the first page read:

CHARGES: FRAUD AND MURDER

It is charged that said contractor, Simon Silbernagel, contracted to deliver to the Subsistence Department of the U.S. Army, fresh beef in equal proportion of fore and hindquarters meat (necks, shanks, and kidney tallow to be excluded) from steers of four years of age or older.

And that said Simon Silbernagel did willfully, corruptly, and knowingly deliver large quantities of beef from bulls and cows, as well as large quantities of diseased, ulcerated, and decaying beef, when he knew the true quality and condition of said meat.

And that said Simon Silbernagel did therefore willfully cause the death of Pvt. Ratliff Boone, a cook in the Subsistence Department who consumed such meat and thereafter died.

“This is a murder case,” I said to Harold. “I'm not qualified to look into it.”

“You would be wasting your time anyway, McKittredge. There is nothing to investigate,” he said. “The man is guilty.”

I might never have done anything further with it if he had not then added, “Silbernagel is a Jew.”

“That is not evidence,” I said.

“They are by nature parasites. Perhaps you read the newspaper of General Grant's recent order in his own military jurisdiction.”

“Ulysses Grant?”

“The same. He has ordered all the Jews out of the Western Theatre of Operations. I only wish President Lincoln would do the same here. Obviously, this man Silbernagel didn't count on his diseased meat killing someone, but I will make him pay for it.”

“What penalty will you seek if he is convicted?” I asked.

“Death by firing squad,” said Harold. “I would prefer to see him drawn and quartered, but shooting him will serve as an example to the rest of the tribe.”

It seemed to me that if bigotry was the underlying reason Tubshawe had already decided he was guilty, then prejudice might have also factored into the inquiry that led up to Silbernagel's indictment. That was the sole reason I decided to look into it.

I spent the next four days interviewing everyone whose name appeared in the docket folder, starting with Mr. Silbernagel. He was about sixty, with dark, liquid eyes and a well-cropped silver beard.

“I swear to you, Lieutenant,” he said, with great emotion, “I have never sold diseased beef to the army. It's true I do not always supply steers, but a fat heifer provides better meat than an old steer. Ask anyone in the business.”

I did ask, and every contractor I spoke to, including several of Mr. Silbernagel's competitors, took the same position he did.

“I probably shouldn't be saying this,” one of them told me, “but he could have gotten a much higher price for his meat from private buyers than from the Subsistence Department. The bid he made to the army was so low there was no way he could make a profit on it. I remember asking him why he would want to lose money, and he told me he did it because he believed in President Lincoln and wanted to do his part to help win the war.”

After talking to many people Mr. Silbernagel had done business with in the previous year, I became convinced that he was not a fraudulent contractor. Of course, that didn't mean he wasn't guilty on this one occasion.

It was clear from reviewing the army documents that an inspector from the Quartermaster Corps named Major Dana Pease was the pivotal witness in the case. He was in charge of the office responsible for inspecting meat delivered through the Subsistence Department to all the military camps in the district. On the day the ulcerated meat was delivered to the camp in question, he happened to be there on an inspection tour. Coincidentally, it was the same day Private Ratliff Boone, an army cook who was apparently fond of eating raw beef, died from food poisoning after consuming a portion of it. Major Pease had personally inspected the remainder of the suspect beef after Private Boone died and declared it to be diseased. He had ordered Silbernagel arrested and placed in confinement, pending the charges that were ultimately brought against him.