Once an Eagle

  More minutes passed. Minutes of gold, of ivory, of steel. He was at the edge of the world—that fierce and glittering realm where men traveled for days in Pullman cars or rode up grand avenues in carriages or sat in oak-paneled board rooms and decided, in crisp, concise strokes, the world’s affairs. This was that world—an edge of it, anyway—and here he sat, on the edge of this edge, waiting, sticky with sweat, his hands in his lap; ineffectual. The thought lent a furious heat to his blood. When he looked at his watch again he was horrified to find it was nearly three; he’d never make it to the train. As he put the thin gold case back in his pocket the old farmer heaved himself to his feet with a grunt and lumbered by him, his heavy boots creaking on the worn floor, and went out.

  Sam waited until it was exactly three o’clock. Then he rose, and pulling down his coat again walked over to the private door, knocked smartly once and entered.

  Three men were sitting around a big mahogany desk, a much grander desk than Mr. Thornton’s, with legs like a lion’s claws sitting in glass gliders. There were two shiny brass cuspidors, one at each end of the desk. Two men were sitting in chairs at each side, the third was standing behind the desk and tapping with a pencil a huge map scored with intersecting roads and dotted with bright blue and yellow patches. All three men were in their shirt sleeves with the cuffs rolled back and they were all smoking Pittsburgh stogies. The windows were open but cigar smoke hung in the room in fragrant blue clouds.

  The man standing behind the desk was big and broad-shouldered, with a tough, craglike face as if poorly cut from some coarse-grained stone, and black wiry brows. Sam Damon recognized him at once. There had been posters up in Walt Whitman the year before, and Representative Bullen had stopped over once at the Grand Western. Sam had given him Number Fourteen, the best of the singles.

  “Congressman Bullen?” he said.

  The harsh face stared at him, irritated and expectant. “What is it, son?”

  “I’d like to see you about an appointment to West Point.”

  “Look, I’m pretty busy right now. You go talk to Miss Millner.”

  “I did, sir. But she’s been out of the office for some time, and I’ve got to catch the three forty-seven back to Walt Whitman or I’ll be late for work this evening.”

  Matt Bullen glanced at the other two men, then thrust out his lower lip and tossed the pencil on to the map in front of him. Sam couldn’t read his expression at all. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Samuel A. Damon.”

  “And you want to go to West Point, do you?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “You one of Albert Damon’s boys?”

  “No, sir. He’s my uncle, he lives over in Sheridan Forks. Carl Damon was my father. He died some years ago.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember.”

  “They never got along very well, my father and my uncle.” Sam felt all at once embarrassed at having said this, and added: “I didn’t know you knew my Uncle Albert.”

  “I know a lot of things folks don’t think I do,” Matt Bullen said, and one of the other men laughed. “That’s part of my business. Albert Damon votes the Democratic ticket, don’t he?”

  Sam paused. The room all at once seemed quieter. The other two men had turned in their chairs to watch him.

  “Yes, sir,” he answered. “My father did, too.”

  Matt Bullen leaned forward on his hands and bit into his cigar. “Son, how old are you?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “You still got to learn what the world runs on.” He picked up the pencil again and tapped the stiff paper of the map. “Now you give me three good reasons why I ought to recommend the nephew of a man who’s always voted against me, for an appointment to the United States Military Academy at West Point on the Hudson River.”

  Sam placed his hands behind his back and clasped them tightly. All three men were looking at him now; the Congressman’s face was particularly forbidding. He said in a quiet voice: “Mr. Bullen, when I serve my country as a soldier I’m not going to serve her as a Democrat or as a Republican, I’m going to serve her as an American. To my last breath.”

  Matt Bullen’s expression remained unchanged. “All right. Two.”

  “Two,” Sam echoed. “I’m my own man and not my father’s or my uncle’s. It’s true I can’t vote just yet, but when I do I intend to vote for the best man, regardless of his party. I can promise you that.”

  The Congressman’s eyelid flickered. “Fair enough. Three.”

  “Three,” Sam Damon said. He had no idea what he was going to say until he’d said it. “Because I’m the best man you’ll get for the job.”

  Matt Bullen started at that; he threw the pencil on the map again. “That’s a pretty broad statement. You prepared to back it up?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just what makes you think so?”

  “Try me out, sir. I’ll outhike, outfight, outshoot, outthink any man you can put up. And I know my military history into the bargain.”

  Matt Bullen stared hard at him. “You’re pretty salty for a young fella.”

  The man who had chuckled earlier, a sandy-haired man with a big red nose, said, “You better treat him gently, Matt. He’s the kid that knocked out Big Tim Riley with one punch and never skinned his knuckles.”

  Bullen took the cigar out of his mouth. “He did? Who told you?”

  “George Malden,” the red-nosed man said affably. “Said it was all over the county. Said Riley swore he wouldn’t touch another drop of red-eye for a month of Sundays if the kid wouldn’t hit him again.” He said to Sam, “Aren’t you the Damon?”

  Sam hesitated. “Well. I didn’t knock him out …”

  “By thunder, you look as if you could do it, too,” Matt Bullen said as though he hadn’t heard him; he started pacing up and down behind the desk. The red-nosed man looked at Sam and winked solemnly. So it had got here. All the way to Lincoln. That was the way the world was: whatever you did was magnified—if you did something bold you were a hero of Homeric proportions; if you did something cowardly …

  “That’s a mighty tough course of sprouts at the Point,” Bullen was saying. “You know about that?”

  “I know it is, sir. But when I put my mind to something I usually finish it.”

  “What makes you think you can pass the entrance examinations?”

  “I graduated from Walt Whitman High with the highest grades in six years. And I’ve been studying on my own since then.”

  Matt Bullen stopped pacing and looked at him again, his hands in his pockets. The red-nosed man said, “Oh, give him a shot at it, Matt. He’s convinced me, even if you’re too damned stubborn.”

  “You keep out of this, Harry,” Bullen retorted genially. He was studying the applicant shrewdly. “Maybe you can, son. Maybe you can at that. Now, who can you give me for personal recommendations? Character testimonials, that kind of thing.”

  “Well, there’s Mr. Thornton, Mr. Herbert Thornton, who’s manager of the Grand Western Hotel. He’s my boss, I’m night clerk there. And Walter Harrodsen—he runs the Platte and Midland Bank in town …”

  “Walt Harrodsen, yes. I mean someone who pulls weight. Someone with influence.”

  Sam stopped. He couldn’t think of anyone. Then the inner monitor, the swift and irresistible voice, spoke and he looked up again and said: “To tell you the truth, I thought maybe you would, Mr. Bullen.”

  Matt Bullen gaped at him. “I would?…”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  “—But I don’t know you from Adam’s off ox, boy …”

  “Well, I’m standing right here in front of you,” Sam said simply.

  “…You mean you want me to—to give a character reference …” For another moment the Congressman stared at Damon, his deep blue eyes round with amazement; then all at once threw back his big craggy head and roared with laughter, in which the other two men joined. “Well, if that don’t beat everything I ever heard in all my life. Everything!
” He kept wagging his head, laughing, tears hanging in his eyes. “You want me to give you a character reference so that I can recommend you on the basis of that reference for an appointment to West Point … you want me to—” And he and the others dissolved again in mirth.

  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?”