"Damn Stuart, you black-assed bastard," one of the dusty troopers called back.
Priscilla frowned, stared, and hardly dared to believe the suspicion that suddenly crossed her thoughts. These men wore blue coats, not gray or brown, and the leader of the troop was suddenly familiar beneath the mask of dust on his suntanned face. The man had a square, golden beard and blue eyes that looked up to meet Priscilla's gaze. He half smiled, then courteously touched the brim of his hat. It was Adam Faulconer.
"Get back!" Priscilla shouted at the children, and such was the fear and anger in her voice that all but the most rebellious of her pupils obeyed.
For there were Yankees in Faulconer Court House. Adam had known it was imprudent to take his men through the very center of his hometown, but once he had thought of the notion, he could not shake it free. He wanted to flaunt his new allegiance in front of his father's neighbors, and the very hurtfulness of that disloyal act made it all the more appealing. He suddenly felt free of both his father and of his father's money, and that liberation had made him cast all caution to the wind and bring his blue troopers into the heart of his hometown. "Sergeant Huxtable!" he shouted when he saw Priscilla Bird pull back from the open schoolroom window.
"Sir?" Huxtable called.
"Let the banner fly, Huxtable. Let's not be coy!" "Yes, sir." Huxtable grinned, then ordered Corporal Kemp to pull the cloth cover off the Stars and Stripes. Kemp unrolled the banner, then raised it high on its lance shaft-pole. A last child had been cheering from the schoolroom but fell abruptly silent as the old flag unfurled to the bright Virginia sun. Adam, looking at that flag, felt the familiar catch in his throat.
It was a sweet moment for Adam as he rode through Faulconer Court House beneath his proper flag. He rode proud in a strange uniform, and he enjoyed the astonishment on the townspeople's faces. "Good morning, Mrs. Cobb!" he called happily. "Your husband's well? You'll doubtless be hoping for some rain for your vegetables." He waved to Grandmother Mallory, who was on the steps of the bank, then greeted the blacksmith, Matthew Tunney, who was one of a group of drinkers who had crowded out of Greeley's Tavern to watch the strange horsemen pass. "Keep your hand off your gun, Southerly!" Adam warned an elderly man whose face displayed a livid outrage. Adam's own men had unslung their Colt rifles.
"Traitor!" Southerly called, but kept his hands in clear sight as the dusty, hard-faced horsemen passed by. The horses, some of the townsfolk noted, were mangy and ill-kept. "Should be ashamed of himself, a Faulconer, riding nags like that," Matthew Tunney observed.
Adam led the nags past Sparrow's Dry Goods Store, then by the Episcopal church and the Baptist church, the courthouse and the livery stable. Sleeping dogs were startled awake and slunk out of the road as the horses clattered by. Adam paused by the livery stable to touch his hat to a wan, thin woman. "I was so sorry to hear about Joseph, Mrs. May," he said, "sincerely sorry." Mrs. May just stared in apparent shock. Some townsfolk followed the horsemen, but once Adam had passed Medlicott's water-mill, which marked the eastern extremity of Faulconer Court House, he quickened his troop's pace and so left the curious townspeople behind. "They'll be sending for help," Sergeant Huxtable warned Adam.
"There's no help nearer than Rosskill," Adam reassured the Sergeant, "and we'll be well gone before anyone can get there and back. And no one in Rosskill will hear that noise!" he added as someone in the town began to tug the rope of the courthouse bell. The bell was still tolling its alarm as Adam turned his troop into a white-gated entrance that opened into an avenue edged by mature live oaks. Beyond the oaks were deep, well-watered pastures, where cows stood to their bellies in cool ponds, while at the end of the avenue was a wide, comfortable house clad in creepers that smothered the house's weatherboards and encroached on its steep-gabled roofs. A weathervane shaped like a galloping horse surmounted a clock tower above the stable entrance. The only warlike aspect of the house was a pair of bronze six-pounder cannons that flanked the main entrance. The twin guns had been purchased by Washington Faulconer at the war's beginning in the expectation that the Faulconer Legion needed to have its own artillery, yet in the rush to reach the first battle the weapons had been left behind and Faulconer had found it simpler to appropriate the two cannons as garden ornaments.
Adam pointed Huxtable toward the stable. "You'll probably find a half-dozen decent horses in there," he said, "and the rest will be in the bottom fields. I'll take you there when I've finished in the house."
Huxtable paused before swerving away. "A nice place," he said, staring up at the house.
"Home," Adam said with a grin, "sweet home."
Home was Seven Springs, Adam's father's country house where Washington Faulconer kept the Faulconer stud that was reputed to breed the finest horses in all Virginia. It was here that Adam would find the remounts for his cavalrymen, and not just any remounts, but horses sprung from the best Arab blood crossed and strengthened with sturdier American strains to breed a fast, willing, and enduring horse that could hunt a long cold winter's day among the short hills and wooded valleys of Virginia, or else be spurred into a winning gallop in the last furlongs of a lung-breaking, sweat-streaked steeplechase. Adam had risked coming this far south to equip his men with the best horses in America— horses that could outrun and outlast the best of the South's famed cavalry. Indeed, they were horses that should have belonged to the Southern cavalry, for the Richmond government had ordered that all saddle horses should be surrendered to the army, but Adam knew his father had chosen to ignore the command. Faulconer horses, according to Washington Faulconer, were too valuable to be wasted on war, and so the stud still existed.
Adam let himself into the house. He did not know whether or not his mother would want to see him, but he intended to pay his respects anyway, though as he walked into the front hall with its four portraits of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Washington Faulconer, the first person he met was Nelson, his father's personal servant. Adam stopped in surprise. "Is my father here?" He asked the question with some trepidation, for though he felt he was making a fine and defiant gesture in stealing a score of horses from Seven Springs, he did not particularly want to meet his father while he made it.
Nelson shook his head, then put a finger to his lips and gave a glance upstairs as though warning Adam of some danger. Then Nelson beckoned Adam along the corridor that led to Washington Faulconer's study. Adam followed the black man. "The mistress sent John to Rockville, Mr. Adam," Nelson said when he was certain that no one in the household could overhear him. "Young Master Finney ran here from the town, saying how you'd arrived with the soldiers, so Mistress sent young John to fetch help."
Adam smiled. "Then no one will be here for at least an hour and a half."
"Maybe," Nelson agreed, "but the mistress says you're to be held here. She says you're mind-sick, Mr. Adam. She says you're to be locked up till the doctors can see you." The two men had reached the study, and Nelson now closed the door to give them privacy. "They say you've clear gone plumb mad crazy, Mr. Adam," the servant said.
"They would say that," Adam admitted sadly. He knew his parents could not stomach his betrayal of Virginia, nor would they ever accept Adam's conviction that Virginia was best served by adherence to the Union. He looked out of a window and saw some of the stable boys running in panic from Sergeant Huxtable's men. "What are you doing here, Nelson?" he asked the servant.
"The General sent me to deliver something," Nelson said evasively. He was a trusted servant, much older than his master, and in charge of three younger black men who served the General as valets and cooks. Nelson, like all Washington Faulconer's servants, was a free man, though freedom, in Adam's experience, rarely lifted a Negro out of poverty or released him from the need to show an obsequious respect to all white men, and Adam suspected that the outwardly servile Nelson still harbored the secret resentments of most slaves. Washington Faulconer, on the other hand, believed utterly in Nelson's loyalty and had provided him with a pass enabli
ng him to travel freely throughout Confederate-held Virginia.
Adam crossed to the giant map of Virginia that hung on a wall of the study. "Do you think I'm mad, Nelson?"
"You know I don't, Mr. Adam."
"Do you think I'm wrong?"
Nelson paused, then shrugged. Somewhere deep in the house a woman's voice called in sharp reproof and a bell rang. "The mistress will be wanting me," Nelson said.
"Where is my father?" Adam asked. "Here?" He stabbed a finger at the peninsula east of Richmond, where he had last seen the Legion.
Again Nelson paused, then seemed to cross whatever Rubicon of loyalty had been restraining him and walked to Adam's side. "The General's here," he said, placing a finger on the banks of the Rapidan River to the west of the road going north from Gordonsville to Culpeper Court House. "They fought against General Banks up here"—Nelson's finger moved up the Culpeper road—"then they went back again. I guess they're just waiting."
"For what? For the North to attack?"
"Don't know, sir. But on my way here, sir, I saw ever so many troops marching north. I reckon there'll be fighting soon.
Adam stared at the map. "How's my friend Starbuck?" he asked, half ironically, yet also interested in the fate of the man who had once been his closest friend.
"That's why the General sent me here, sir," Nelson said mysteriously, and then, when Adam frowned in puzzlement, the servant gestured across the study to where a flag lay draped across the General's desk. "Mr. Starbuck captured that flag, sir, from the Yankees. The General took it from Mr. Starbuck and made me bring it back here to be kept safe. It's a Pennsylvania flag, sir."
Adam crossed the study and picked up the powder-stained, scorched, bullet-torn flag of purple cloth. He smoothed out the embroidered eagle with its long talons above the German motto: Gott und die Vereinigten Staaten. "God and the United States," Adam murmured aloud, and the sight of the captured Northern banner gave him a sudden and exciting idea. He went back to the map and asked Nelson to describe the Faulconer Brigade's deployment, and as he listened Adam found his idea becoming ever more practicable. He was remembering the Reverend Elial Starbuck's fervent wish to be presented with a rebel battle flag, and Adam suddenly saw how he might be able to fulfill that desire.
For the moment, however, he contented himself with confiscating the Pennsylvanian banner. "I'll return it to its rightful owners," he told Nelson, "but first I should visit Mother."
"And your sister," Nelson said, "she's upstairs, too. But don't be long, master. Young John can ride fast."
"I won't be long." Outside the study window Sergeant Huxtable's men were busy saddling their wonderful new horses. Adam smiled at the sight, then crossed to the study door. God willing, he thought, those horses would carry him to a coup that would make the North ring with triumph and the South cringe with shame.
Then, his mother's bell clanging loud, he climbed the stairs and nerved himself for combat.
By sunset Dead Mary's Ford was properly protected. At the edge of the woodland Starbuck had dug a line of fifteen rifle pits that were invisible from the river's far bank. The red excavated earth had all been thrown back into the undergrowth, and the pits' parapets disguised with brush and dead logs so that if an enemy did try to cross the river, they would be met with a blast of rifle fire from an apparently deserted tree line. The advance picket was hidden inside Silas's ruined house, where four men could keep a close watch on the far woods, but the majority of Starbuck's 130 men were bivouacked two hundred yards behind the rifle pits. There they had made their encampment, and there they would wait in case they were needed to reinforce the men serving their turn of duty in the ruins or in the rifle pits.
Colonel Swynyard approved all he saw. "Have you sent anyone over the river?" he asked.
"Sergeant Truslow!" Starbuck called, and Truslow came and told the Colonel what he had found on the far bank.
"Nothing," Truslow said. He spat tobacco juice, hitched his pants higher, then told how he had led a dozen men up the far track until the trees ended. "That's a fair ways, 'bout a long mile. Beyond that's a farm. Family called Kemp lived there, but they're gone." He spat again. "Yankee lovers," he explained both his expectoration and the absence of the Kemp family. "Saw a neighbor at the farm. She lives another half-mile north and says she ain't seen a live Yankee in weeks."
"So you're probably in for a restful time, Captain," Swynyard said. "Did you consider putting pickets on the far bank?"
"I'd rather not," Starbuck said. "I don't want anyone shooting one of our own men by mistake."
"I told the woman at the Kemp farm to stay away from the river," Truslow said. "And the Captain said the same to the old nigger."
"But a sentry post a hundred yards up that track would give you more time to rouse your reserves," Swynyard pointed out.
Truslow answered for his Captain. "I laid a dozen felled trees over the track, Colonel. There ain't a Yankee born who can come down that road without waking the dead."
Swynyard nodded his approval, then turned and gazed westward, where another track followed the riverbank. "Where does that lead?" he asked.
"To Lieutenant Davies and twelve men," Starbuck answered. "There's a ruined barn just out of sight. That's our western picket."
"You seem to have thought of everything!" Swynyard said approvingly. "Including, I hope, the need to provide me with supper? And after that, Captain, you'll doubtless allow me to lead a small prayer group for those men who care about their souls?"
Starbuck shrugged. "We're pretty short of food, Colonel. Not that you ain't welcome, but supper's nothing but rough rice, stewed squirrel, and pea coffee if you're lucky. But I'm staying here." He wanted to see the night fall across the river so he would know what to expect when he took the late sentry watch.
"Don't get too tired," Swynyard advised; then he strode back to where the cooking fires sifted their smoke into the leaves. Starbuck stayed at the tree line and watched as darkness fell and as the moon climbed above the far trees to silver the shallow water hurrying across its gravel bed. He walked along the rifle pits and was filled with pride because this was his first independent command. If a Yankee cavalry patrol should come south and prove foolish enough to force its way past the felled trees, then Starbuck would fight his very own battle, and if he recognized the truth, he wanted to fight that battle because he knew he would win. He would turn the silver ford bloody and add a pack of Yankee ghosts to join the unquiet spirit of poor Dead Mary.
The river ran quick, the moon threw black shadows, and Starbuck prayed that God would send him his own, his very own, small battle.
Chapter 6
THERE WERE TIMES WHEN General Washington Faulconer needed to leave the problems of the Brigade behind him. Such times, he said, gave him an opportunity to assess his Brigade from what he called the distant perspective, though most of his officers suspected that the distant perspective merely served to relieve the General's distaste for the discomforts of campaigning. Washington Faulconer had been raised to luxury and had never lost his taste for cosseted living, and a month of bivouacs and army food inevitably drove him to discover a hotel where clean sheets were smoothed onto a properly stuffed mattress, where hot water was available at the pull of a bell rope, and where the food was not hardtack, worm-ridden, or rancid. The General even believed he deserved such trifling luxuries, for had he not raised the Legion with his own money? Other men had marched enthusiastically to war, but Washington Faulconer had added an open wallet to mere enthusiasm. Indeed, few men in all the Confederacy had spent as much on a regiment as Washington Faulconer, so why should he not reward himself with a few civilized trappings from time to time?
Thus, when his Brigade was properly settled into its bivouac on the western flank of Jackson's army, General Faulconer soon found reason to visit Gordonsville for a night of comfort. He was not supposed to leave his Brigade without General Jackson's permission, but in the certain knowledge that such permission would not be forthcom
ing, Faulconer found his own justification. "I need spectacles," he told Swynyard airily. "Can't see the fine detail on maps these days," and upon that medical excuse he mounted his horse and, with Captain Moxey in attendance, rode eastward. The town was barely three hours' ride away, so the dereliction was hardly serious, and Swynyard had been left with the strictest instructions that nothing was to be done without Faulconer's permission and that, if any emergency did arise, a messenger must be sent to Gordonsville immediately. The General considered that even a fool could understand those simple commands, and Swynyard, in the General's opinion, was a fool. The man had made an idiot of himself with the bottle but was now making himself an even more conspicuous idiot with his ludicrous addiction to the Holy Spirit.
The General's own spirits began to soar the moment he rode away from the encampment. He always felt such an elation when he could leave behind the small-minded irritations of the Brigade, where nothing was ever straightforward and where the simplest order provoked a flurry of queries, obstructions, misunderstandings, and even downright disobedience, and the more he pondered those frustrations, the more convinced he became that the root cause of all his problems lay in the hostility of men like Thaddeus Bird, Colonel Swynyard, and Nathaniel Starbuck. Especially Captain Nathaniel Starbuck. Take the simple matter of the crescent patches. It had been no small achievement to have the cloth badges made, for such furbelows were a luxury in the war-straitened Confederacy, yet Faulconer had succeeded in having the insignia manufactured in France and then smuggled into Wilmington on a swift blockade-runner. The cost of the badges alone demanded respect! And certainly the proposed function of the badges was admirable, for the red crescent had been intended both to foster pride in the Faulconer Brigade and to serve as an identification mark in the smoky chaos of battle.
Yet what had happened? Grinning soldiers had employed the patches for gambling counters or given them to girl-friends. Others had cleaned their rifles with the badges or else used them to patch the seat of their pants, an insult that had driven the General to decree severe punishment for any man not displaying the red crescent insignia on his uniform jacket, whereupon there had been a religious outcry against the wearing of a Mohammedan symbol in a Christian country! Letters had been written to hometown newspapers, prayer meetings were held to intercede for Washington Faulconer's heathen soul, and seven army chaplains had carried their protests to the War Department itself, forcing Faulconer to explain that the crescent moon was not intended to be a religious symbol but was merely a part of his family's escutcheon, yet that explanation had only prompted new complaints about the restoration of aristocratic privileges in America. The campaign against the insignia had been an outrageous farrago of lies, and now the cause was utterly lost because any man who objected to wearing the red crescent could plausibly claim to have lost the badge in battle. Which all meant that Washington Faulconer had little choice but to accept defeat—a defeat made all the more odious because he was convinced it had been Nathaniel Starbuck who had orchestrated the whole controversy. Only Starbuck could have dreamed up the religious objection or have invented the fantastic claim that wearing the patch reduced the Brigade to the level of European serfs.