John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Just caught up; I love how Grant's militia plan is now paying political dividends, tying all the political threads together.
Let Us Have Peace
- Thread starter AnywhereButOTL
- Start date
Outstanding work Anywhere!
Thank you very much.
Indeed!
I gotta say, this is honestly one of the best active TLs I'm following.
High praise! Thank you very much, I'm glad that you're enjoying it.
An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge... turns out for the better.
Nicely done.
Best,
I was hoping that the dream/near death sequence in the Spanish mission wasn't too cliched. Glad that you liked it.
Well certainly not what I was expecting (also yay you got the Red Dawn reference!
WOLVERINES! I mean...of course I got the Red Dawn reference, it's like mandatory viewing here in the greatest country in the world...I mean...America.
Can't wait to see how Outlaw manages to overcome his near lynching, but still...dammit Paisley!!!
The fun thing is, Paisley was a real dude who was in fact this big of an asshole. I don't even have to make up most of his arc, history was kind enough to provide it for me.
And the best part is, that part of it was mostly unintentional. Grant basically threw a boomerang and it happened to clock the Radicals in the back of the head upon returning, thus preventing a party split.
However, the administration's troubles with the Radicals are definitely not over.
Chapter 43
43.
Debating the emancipation of the peasants had become one of Andrew Curtin’s favorite leisure activities during his time in Russia. His sparring partner for this purpose had come in the form of former Minister of the Interior Pyotr Valuyev, who had left office the previous year and even now was angling for a position as Minister of State Assets.
A tall, sallow man with a truly stupendous set of muttonchops, Valuyev spoke softly but with a certain force that made his sentiments very clear. Curtin suspected that Valuyev was speaking to him at least partially only because he wanted to practice his English, but didn’t mind. Valuyev was sharp, and a good conversationalist.
“The outcome of these reforms,” Valuyev was saying, “is that the peasants will own more land of their own and have a greater degree of freedom regarding the economic choices that they make.” He spoke English with a slight lisp that wasn’t at all present in his native Russian.
“It seems similar to our efforts to emancipate the Negro in my country.” Curtin commented.
“Perhaps,” Valuyev shrugged, “but the serfs of Russia are people like you and me.” Curtin blinked.
“Hmm?”
“Your Negroes are inferiors, so you have to work carefully not to overburden them with things that they wont understand.”
“I suppose…?” Curtin shrugged. Truth be told he didn’t really have an opinion regarding whether Negroes were equal to white men or not. It just wasn’t something that was very important to him.
“They’re like Ukrainians,” Valuyev continued, “or Poles. Unfit to govern themselves. They must be ruled strictly and strongly. To guarantee that they are set upon the right path.”
“Wouldn’t assimilation be a better path than persecution?” Curtin asked, a little unnerved by Valuyev’s words. Sentiments like his were quite common in Russia, amongst commoners and the nobility alike.
“Perhaps,” Valuyev admitted, “but you cannot trust these people to assimilate by themselves.”
“So then what?” Curtin asked, “how would you assimilate them?”
“Remove their language entirely,” Valuyev said without hesitation, “we’ve already forbidden the printing of school books in Little Russian, in order to destroy secessionist urges. We could go further. Demand that sermons be given in Russian, that literature be printed in Russian. It would inspire some unrest, I’m sure, but only in the short term.” Curtin sat quite still, alarmed. In all of their discussions he hadn’t seen this side of Valuyev. He’d only ever heard Valuyev’s opinions on the peasant reforms (which he supported), not what he thought of the various frontier provinces of the Russian Empire.
“That’s tyranny!” He said, horror buzzing through his words. If he was offended Valuyev didn’t show it.
“You’re not in America anymore,” Valuyev said, “you’re in Russia. This is how Russia works. You cannot run a nation like Russia in the American way, just like I’m sure that you could not govern America in the Russian way. We have our own historical destinies to follow, and they shall not be changed. Reforming the way the peasants live was inevitable, just as assimilating the Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians and Finns is inevitable. Otherwise we will fly to pieces in the next big unrest.”
“How about a drink.” Curtin said, deciding not to continue down this avenue of conversation. It was quite foreboding already, and he thought that a few shots of vodka would do wonders in erasing it from his mind.
“Da.” Valuyev smiled, and so it went.
_______
“Fred graduates in a week,” Julia sighed, delicately folding a dress into her suitcase, “isn’t that something?” Grant nodded proudly. The past few days had been practically perfect. He had repealed the Tenure of Office Act, avoided a party split (by the skin of his teeth), and now his son was graduating from his first year at West Point, and in the top third of his class to boot. He could hardly be prouder. He himself had graduated twenty first in a class of thirty nine men. Hardly the most impressive showing, but then again he had never really liked West Point, whereas Fred seemed to be enjoying his time there.
“It is,” Grant agreed, “I just hope that there is peace for a long time once he goes into the service.” Julia looked critically at a calico dress, then set it aside in favor of a sequined gown.
“That will be up to you and God,” she said gravely, “and I have faith in both of you.”
They were packing for a trip to West Point, to see Fred graduate and to take him home afterwards. Grant was planning on staying in town for a few days to speak with old friends, leaving Wade to hold down the fort in Washington.
General Thomas was also coming along, for similar reasons. He knew nobody in the graduating class, but had many friends amongst the faculty, dating back from when he had taught at West Point himself.
Grant wasn’t entirely sure if things between him and Thomas had been repaired, but certainly the man had been treating him pretty decently so far. Grant had allowed him virtual free reign in the military department, and a major role in the Negro militia plan, and hadn’t accused him of being slow once. That had to be warming the cockles of the old general’s heart.
_______
“A corruption probe.” Sumner had been invited to Grant’s latest cabinet meeting, and here, seated between Borie and Hoar, he was shaking his head in horror. “All that that would do is give the Democrats ammunition against the Freedmen’s Bureau. Free ammunition!” For a moment the table was silent. Hoar looked over.
“We’re planning on masking it with other actions.” Hoar’s effort to mollify the senator sizzled away, like a saucepan of water tossed into the heart of an inferno.
“Like…?” Sumner asked. No…demanded.
“Like a full enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment,” Grant said, “once it’s ratified and on the books then we will start taking advantage of section two and crafting legislation to augment it. That is where you come in.” Sumner blinked. Stared. Blinked again.
“A full enforcement?” He asked, cautious joy coloring his tone. Grant and Thomas nodded in unison.
“Exactly. So that the midterms go well, and so that this anti-corruption probe is buried in all of the controversy that our actions in other theaters will cause.”
“I like the sound of full enforcement,” Sumner admitted, “I like it a lot. But I’m still leery of this proposed anti-corruption drive.” Hoar nodded sympathetically.
“So was I,” he said, “at first. But then General Thomas started proposing action. And my concerns eventually melted away.”
“You have your cabinet behind you on this, don’t you?” Sumner asked Grant. The President nodded.
“I do. And I would appreciate your support in this as well. Your involvement so that the Bureau is funded and the Negro militia plan accelerated. This way we can win.” From next to Grant Secretary of State Fish smiled.
“If this succeeds,” he said, “then we will have reconstructed the south by the turn of the next century.” This, Grant thought, was far beyond any sort of optimism that he found plausible, but he decided to entertain it regardless. It was certainly having a good effect on Sumner.
“This wont happen until the fall,” Sumner said after a moment’s pause, “what will the administration be doing until then?” Grant exchanged a look with Fish.
“We have a busy schedule,” the Secretary of State said, before Grant could speak, “we will be appointing new officials now that the Tenure of Office Act has been repealed,” an unhappy look from Sumner at the mention of the Act, “focusing on guaranteeing the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. We’re also considering lobbying for a Naturalization Act to allow people of African descent to become American citizens.” Sumner nodded slowly.
“You favor the Naturalization Act,” Sumner said with a grin, “that is a good piece of legislation. I look forward to working with the administration in passing it once it is fully written.” Grant looked over at Fish once more. The Secretary of State shook his head slightly but Grant ignored his silent objections.
“We’re also planning on putting together a treaty to annex Santo Domingo.” He said casually.
The silence at the table was deafening.
_______
“I’m gonna let Deputy Holt in now,” Frost was saying, “he’ll be a better person than I to speak with.” Reaching out, Outlaw caught Frost’s coat. Even that simple motion hurt his ribs, pain jangling up through him, other areas yowling in sympathy.
“Eli?” Outlaw managed to croak, then made a gruesome groan, face screwed up in pain. Frost shook his head and went into a little cabinet, pulling out a container of Onondaga brand salt. Mixing some of this briskly into a glass of water, he handed it over to Outlaw, then fetched a clean tin bedpan.
“Gargle with the saltwater and spit into the pan. If you’re gonna insist on talking then that’s about the only thing that’ll undo some of the damage. I also got some opium tincture if you want any.” Outlaw shook his head slightly, wincing at the crackles of pain that even that slight motion sent sparking through his head.
He did as Frost asked, managed to gargle just a little bit, and then coughed the water out into the pan. It hurt, and the mere action made him feel miserable, but he supposed that Frost had to have some basis for making him do it.
“Where’s…my boy?” He asked faintly after another gargle. Frost gestured to the door.
“Should be outside, with Deputy Holt and Mr. Albright.” Outlaw motioned for Frost to open the door and set the half empty glass of salt water aside. His mouth stung now, cuts aggravated by the salt. But the pain of his wounds seemed trivial compared to the worry that he felt for his son.
Eli raced in the moment that Frost opened the door, brushing past the doctor and throwing his arms around Outlaw. Outlaw bucked in bed and had to work very hard to stop himself from screaming. Eli pulled away hurriedly, aghast.
“Did I hurt you papa?” He asked fearfully, eyes huge, face paler by a few shades, “I’m sorry…” Outlaw shook his head, ignoring an unpleasant creaking in his neck as he did so, and held out his arms.
“I’m fine,” he croaked, “but be gentle…” Eli’s expression of horror only grew stronger as he listened to the raspy groan that came from his father’s mouth. A tear ran down his cheek. Behind him Holt and Albright squeezed into the little room as well, standing shoulder to shoulder, trapping Frost inadvertently in a corner.
“Jesus Christ Wyatt,” Holt said, “I think you look worse than when they dragged your ass in here.” Outlaw held up a finger wearily.
“Language.” He warned. Holt couldn’t keep himself from wincing at his friend’s voice. Albright stepped forward and knelt before the bed.
“I’m glad that you’re alive Wyatt,” he clasped Outlaw’s hand between his own, almost trembling, “I cant even say how glad we are…” Eli hugged Outlaw again, gingerly this time, and Outlaw stroked his son’s hair with his free hand.
“Are…you alright?” He asked, splinters of broken glass sawing merrily away at his windpipe with every word he spoke. Eli nodded slowly.
“They dropped me when that shot came. Ran away and left me alone.” Outlaw tried to nod but it was simply too painful. He smiled instead, overcome with relief.
“Did you recognize any voices when they grabbed you?” Holt asked. He had brought out a little notepad and a grease pencil from his pocket.
“Fowler.” Outlaw said, and watched as Holt and Albright shared a look.
“We aint seen head nor tail of that son of a bitch since the lynching. Aint seen none of them other night riders neither. They laying low I think.” Outlaw frowned viciously. It hurt the cuts on his lips but he could hardly have cared less at that moment.
“One of ‘em got shot.” He growled. Holt nodded.
“Yeah. We found plenty a blood at the scene, but aint nobody come to Frost since then.”
“Or Doc Worth over in Company Shops,” Albright said, “and I doubt they’d go to Greensboro when it’s full up of soldiers.”
“Laying low.” Outlaw repeated, and then gestured for Holt to come closer. “Sit me up.” He said. Frost shook his head.
“You need rest Wyatt,” he said, looking nervous, “movement aint gonna do nothing but aggravate your injuries. Especially on your neck.” Holt glanced from Outlaw to Frost, unsure. But Outlaw couldn’t just sit still. Not when the night riders were still out there licking their wounds. Plotting.
“Sit me up.” He insisted, and Frost shook his head but did nothing to intervene. Holt placed a hand under Outlaw’s shoulder and lifted him up. Outlaw cried out, eyes filling with tears as his bruises and cuts were disturbed, but when they cleared he was sat up, propped up with pillows. He found that he could breathe much easier from this position, even if every breath rattled and hurt.
“I’m going to remind you of your injuries now Wyatt,” Frost said, maneuvering between Holt and Albright, holding a little wood framed hand mirror, “you were badly beaten and then almost lynched. You have at least one cracked rib, several others are bruised, severe contusions on your face, neck and back, and very probably a concussion. You need to rest if you wish to recover.” To emphasize his point Frost held up the mirror, allowing Outlaw his first good look at what the night riders had done to him.
The side of his head was noticeably swollen, the bandages over the worst of the damage (a club, he realized as his legs suddenly lost cohesion) stained a darkening scarlet. His left eye was swollen almost shut and around his neck he could see fresh bandages, spots of red already appearing on them. He took a long slow breath, then looked down. Underneath the nightgown he wore he supposed that the rest of his body would look similar. And his house…the night riders had torn up everything that he owned. His shop was smashed, his son alive only due to providence…
It all made him furious, like a gentle breeze awakening a slumbering ember deep within the ashes of a dead fire. He wanted to go out and throw a brick through the front window of the Red Bird, haul John Fowler into the street and beat him with a whip. He wanted to ride into the countryside and slash and burn the homes of all of the night riders out there. Show them the wages of fear and sin, and what a man with the backing of a vengeful God could accomplish.
He blinked. Snapped from his furious fantasizing, ashamed and slightly horrified at himself. This was a side of himself that he had worked hard to bury. He wasn’t going to let it destroy him now.
“Any leads?” He asked Holt, ignoring Frost for the moment. He looked away from his battered reflection and Frost let down the mirror, looking distinctly unhappy.
“Our best bet would be finding whoever caught that bullet,” Holt said, “then we’d have a good lead.” Outlaw nodded very slightly, then turned to Frost.
“I’m gonna have to do something that you aint gonna like.” He said slowly. Frost shook his head slowly, the mirror coming to a rest against his thigh.
“You are not going out there in your condition.” He said firmly, crossing his arms, blocking the doorway with his body to emphasize his point. Outlaw smiled sagely.
“No…I’m not. I want you to.” Frost froze. His arms dropped to his sides and he shook his head once more.
“You are not going to deputize me. You have no right to.” Holt shrugged.
“I think that you’d be a great deputy.” He said, but Frost didn’t seem to hear him. He was still staring at Outlaw.
“I want you to go to the Red Bird,” Outlaw had to pause here to bite back a cry of pain, “and ask to check up on John Fowler. You saw him after the last night ride, right?” At this moment Frost began to realize that perhaps he wasn’t going to be able to escape Outlaw’s demand.
“I did…” He said cautiously.
“Then you have a reason to go back and ask for him. See where he is, if he’s still in town.” Albright added. Eli followed the conversation with his eyes, still holding onto his father, as if for dear life.
“Did he say anything,” Holt asked, “during that last visit y’all had?” His tone was more than a little pointed. Frost hesitated, then looked to Outlaw and nodded.
“He told me to stop helping you in investigations. Otherwise I’d get paid a visit late one night and…” He drew a thumb briskly across his own throat, then fell silent.
“And you didn’t tell us this?” Outlaw asked. Frost sighed.
“I just want things to be normal. Stable. Peaceful. I’ve been scared for a long time Wyatt. I spent my childhood scared that I was gonna be a disappointment to my father. I spent the war scared ‘cause I woke up each day convinced that I was gonna die. I just don’t wanna be scared any more.” Frost leaned back against the wall, shoulders slumped, bags under his eyes dark and huge. He looked immensely tired and incredibly frightened.
“I can understand that,” Outlaw said, paused to cough and then grimace, “but things aint never gonna be normal if you let the night riders keep doing this.” Frost considered. Thought of the people who had come into his clinic in the past, to get tar scrubbed off of them, to get cuts and bruises and broken bones treated after Klan beatings. Of the autopsies that he had had to perform on the two nameless young Negroes only a few days prior.
“If I do this then the Klan is gonna come down on top of me.” He said, but Holt shrugged.
“They already gonna come down on you. You got the chief of police in Graham in your care.” Frost considered this silently, the room going very quiet. Outlaw watched the doctor think, let him take his time. Finally Frost spoke.
“If I do this I want you to promise me that we’re even. That you will never deputize me again after this.” Outlaw smiled faintly.
“Deal.” He said.
_______
Not too far away, behind a glittering glass window and two doors, John Fowler was asleep. But just barely. Outside of his bedroom door, Lily could hear her father groaning and muttering. Even through an inch of pine she thought that she could just about feel the heat of the fever baking off of him.
She was chewing the inside of her cheek again. A bad habit, but hardly one that she could control. It happened when she was stressed, and today was perhaps the worst day of her life.
Her father, perhaps the person she understood most in the world, was gravely injured. He had staggered home, borne by a pair of white masked men who had set him at his own front door and promptly hightailed it out of Graham. Lily had gone out and scrubbed any traces of a blood trail into the dirt, while her mother wept and trembled and tried to treat her husband’s shattered arm.
There was no going to a doctor. They knew that. Frost had turned out to be a nigger lover, and even if he had been threatened not to help Outlaw and his wild buck constables anymore, the chances were simply too great that the tired young doctor would crack and give her father away.
Fowler had even said as much, before drifting off into a fitful unconsciousness. Sometimes he would drift back into lucidity, but more often whenever he opened his eyes they would be glassy and unfocused. He would ask for men that he had not known since the war, and demand to know why the Yankees had been allowed to advance within two hundred yards of the baggage train.
Lily watched this with horrified fascination. She longed to reach out and touch the blood sodden bandages that wrapped her father’s shattered elbow, but feared that she would hurt him more if she did.
Behind her, leaning tiredly against the wall, Lily could hear her mother breathing. She could almost hear her heartbeat as well, fast and pattering, like a trapped bird.
“He’s burning up,” Caroline Fowler said, exhaustion robbing her voice of any sort of real emotion. She was spattered with blood, from her skirt to forehead. It had taken a long time to finally get a tourniquet around her husband’s arm. He kept swatting at her, shouting and bucking on the table, eyes rolling madly in his head. But now he was calmer, muttering with fever, but not trying to leave his bed.
“He’s gonna get better.” Lily said, though she wasn’t sure how much of the firmness in her voice was delusion. She smiled, a bead of blood rolling from the corner of her mouth. Her mother winced.
“Lily…” She protested weakly. Lily swallowed a little mouthful of bloody saliva. She had made herself bleed again, and almost without even noticing it.
“I know,” she said, letting the scarlet drop run down to her chin, then drop to the floor, “I’m not supposed to do that.” Stepping away from her father’s door, she daintily wiped the blood from her face using a fold of her mother’s dress and continued onwards to the kitchen. She was starving.
Debating the emancipation of the peasants had become one of Andrew Curtin’s favorite leisure activities during his time in Russia. His sparring partner for this purpose had come in the form of former Minister of the Interior Pyotr Valuyev, who had left office the previous year and even now was angling for a position as Minister of State Assets.
A tall, sallow man with a truly stupendous set of muttonchops, Valuyev spoke softly but with a certain force that made his sentiments very clear. Curtin suspected that Valuyev was speaking to him at least partially only because he wanted to practice his English, but didn’t mind. Valuyev was sharp, and a good conversationalist.
“The outcome of these reforms,” Valuyev was saying, “is that the peasants will own more land of their own and have a greater degree of freedom regarding the economic choices that they make.” He spoke English with a slight lisp that wasn’t at all present in his native Russian.
“It seems similar to our efforts to emancipate the Negro in my country.” Curtin commented.
“Perhaps,” Valuyev shrugged, “but the serfs of Russia are people like you and me.” Curtin blinked.
“Hmm?”
“Your Negroes are inferiors, so you have to work carefully not to overburden them with things that they wont understand.”
“I suppose…?” Curtin shrugged. Truth be told he didn’t really have an opinion regarding whether Negroes were equal to white men or not. It just wasn’t something that was very important to him.
“They’re like Ukrainians,” Valuyev continued, “or Poles. Unfit to govern themselves. They must be ruled strictly and strongly. To guarantee that they are set upon the right path.”
“Wouldn’t assimilation be a better path than persecution?” Curtin asked, a little unnerved by Valuyev’s words. Sentiments like his were quite common in Russia, amongst commoners and the nobility alike.
“Perhaps,” Valuyev admitted, “but you cannot trust these people to assimilate by themselves.”
“So then what?” Curtin asked, “how would you assimilate them?”
“Remove their language entirely,” Valuyev said without hesitation, “we’ve already forbidden the printing of school books in Little Russian, in order to destroy secessionist urges. We could go further. Demand that sermons be given in Russian, that literature be printed in Russian. It would inspire some unrest, I’m sure, but only in the short term.” Curtin sat quite still, alarmed. In all of their discussions he hadn’t seen this side of Valuyev. He’d only ever heard Valuyev’s opinions on the peasant reforms (which he supported), not what he thought of the various frontier provinces of the Russian Empire.
“That’s tyranny!” He said, horror buzzing through his words. If he was offended Valuyev didn’t show it.
“You’re not in America anymore,” Valuyev said, “you’re in Russia. This is how Russia works. You cannot run a nation like Russia in the American way, just like I’m sure that you could not govern America in the Russian way. We have our own historical destinies to follow, and they shall not be changed. Reforming the way the peasants live was inevitable, just as assimilating the Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians and Finns is inevitable. Otherwise we will fly to pieces in the next big unrest.”
“How about a drink.” Curtin said, deciding not to continue down this avenue of conversation. It was quite foreboding already, and he thought that a few shots of vodka would do wonders in erasing it from his mind.
“Da.” Valuyev smiled, and so it went.
_______
“Fred graduates in a week,” Julia sighed, delicately folding a dress into her suitcase, “isn’t that something?” Grant nodded proudly. The past few days had been practically perfect. He had repealed the Tenure of Office Act, avoided a party split (by the skin of his teeth), and now his son was graduating from his first year at West Point, and in the top third of his class to boot. He could hardly be prouder. He himself had graduated twenty first in a class of thirty nine men. Hardly the most impressive showing, but then again he had never really liked West Point, whereas Fred seemed to be enjoying his time there.
“It is,” Grant agreed, “I just hope that there is peace for a long time once he goes into the service.” Julia looked critically at a calico dress, then set it aside in favor of a sequined gown.
“That will be up to you and God,” she said gravely, “and I have faith in both of you.”
They were packing for a trip to West Point, to see Fred graduate and to take him home afterwards. Grant was planning on staying in town for a few days to speak with old friends, leaving Wade to hold down the fort in Washington.
General Thomas was also coming along, for similar reasons. He knew nobody in the graduating class, but had many friends amongst the faculty, dating back from when he had taught at West Point himself.
Grant wasn’t entirely sure if things between him and Thomas had been repaired, but certainly the man had been treating him pretty decently so far. Grant had allowed him virtual free reign in the military department, and a major role in the Negro militia plan, and hadn’t accused him of being slow once. That had to be warming the cockles of the old general’s heart.
_______
“A corruption probe.” Sumner had been invited to Grant’s latest cabinet meeting, and here, seated between Borie and Hoar, he was shaking his head in horror. “All that that would do is give the Democrats ammunition against the Freedmen’s Bureau. Free ammunition!” For a moment the table was silent. Hoar looked over.
“We’re planning on masking it with other actions.” Hoar’s effort to mollify the senator sizzled away, like a saucepan of water tossed into the heart of an inferno.
“Like…?” Sumner asked. No…demanded.
“Like a full enforcement of the Fifteenth Amendment,” Grant said, “once it’s ratified and on the books then we will start taking advantage of section two and crafting legislation to augment it. That is where you come in.” Sumner blinked. Stared. Blinked again.
“A full enforcement?” He asked, cautious joy coloring his tone. Grant and Thomas nodded in unison.
“Exactly. So that the midterms go well, and so that this anti-corruption probe is buried in all of the controversy that our actions in other theaters will cause.”
“I like the sound of full enforcement,” Sumner admitted, “I like it a lot. But I’m still leery of this proposed anti-corruption drive.” Hoar nodded sympathetically.
“So was I,” he said, “at first. But then General Thomas started proposing action. And my concerns eventually melted away.”
“You have your cabinet behind you on this, don’t you?” Sumner asked Grant. The President nodded.
“I do. And I would appreciate your support in this as well. Your involvement so that the Bureau is funded and the Negro militia plan accelerated. This way we can win.” From next to Grant Secretary of State Fish smiled.
“If this succeeds,” he said, “then we will have reconstructed the south by the turn of the next century.” This, Grant thought, was far beyond any sort of optimism that he found plausible, but he decided to entertain it regardless. It was certainly having a good effect on Sumner.
“This wont happen until the fall,” Sumner said after a moment’s pause, “what will the administration be doing until then?” Grant exchanged a look with Fish.
“We have a busy schedule,” the Secretary of State said, before Grant could speak, “we will be appointing new officials now that the Tenure of Office Act has been repealed,” an unhappy look from Sumner at the mention of the Act, “focusing on guaranteeing the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. We’re also considering lobbying for a Naturalization Act to allow people of African descent to become American citizens.” Sumner nodded slowly.
“You favor the Naturalization Act,” Sumner said with a grin, “that is a good piece of legislation. I look forward to working with the administration in passing it once it is fully written.” Grant looked over at Fish once more. The Secretary of State shook his head slightly but Grant ignored his silent objections.
“We’re also planning on putting together a treaty to annex Santo Domingo.” He said casually.
The silence at the table was deafening.
_______
“I’m gonna let Deputy Holt in now,” Frost was saying, “he’ll be a better person than I to speak with.” Reaching out, Outlaw caught Frost’s coat. Even that simple motion hurt his ribs, pain jangling up through him, other areas yowling in sympathy.
“Eli?” Outlaw managed to croak, then made a gruesome groan, face screwed up in pain. Frost shook his head and went into a little cabinet, pulling out a container of Onondaga brand salt. Mixing some of this briskly into a glass of water, he handed it over to Outlaw, then fetched a clean tin bedpan.
“Gargle with the saltwater and spit into the pan. If you’re gonna insist on talking then that’s about the only thing that’ll undo some of the damage. I also got some opium tincture if you want any.” Outlaw shook his head slightly, wincing at the crackles of pain that even that slight motion sent sparking through his head.
He did as Frost asked, managed to gargle just a little bit, and then coughed the water out into the pan. It hurt, and the mere action made him feel miserable, but he supposed that Frost had to have some basis for making him do it.
“Where’s…my boy?” He asked faintly after another gargle. Frost gestured to the door.
“Should be outside, with Deputy Holt and Mr. Albright.” Outlaw motioned for Frost to open the door and set the half empty glass of salt water aside. His mouth stung now, cuts aggravated by the salt. But the pain of his wounds seemed trivial compared to the worry that he felt for his son.
Eli raced in the moment that Frost opened the door, brushing past the doctor and throwing his arms around Outlaw. Outlaw bucked in bed and had to work very hard to stop himself from screaming. Eli pulled away hurriedly, aghast.
“Did I hurt you papa?” He asked fearfully, eyes huge, face paler by a few shades, “I’m sorry…” Outlaw shook his head, ignoring an unpleasant creaking in his neck as he did so, and held out his arms.
“I’m fine,” he croaked, “but be gentle…” Eli’s expression of horror only grew stronger as he listened to the raspy groan that came from his father’s mouth. A tear ran down his cheek. Behind him Holt and Albright squeezed into the little room as well, standing shoulder to shoulder, trapping Frost inadvertently in a corner.
“Jesus Christ Wyatt,” Holt said, “I think you look worse than when they dragged your ass in here.” Outlaw held up a finger wearily.
“Language.” He warned. Holt couldn’t keep himself from wincing at his friend’s voice. Albright stepped forward and knelt before the bed.
“I’m glad that you’re alive Wyatt,” he clasped Outlaw’s hand between his own, almost trembling, “I cant even say how glad we are…” Eli hugged Outlaw again, gingerly this time, and Outlaw stroked his son’s hair with his free hand.
“Are…you alright?” He asked, splinters of broken glass sawing merrily away at his windpipe with every word he spoke. Eli nodded slowly.
“They dropped me when that shot came. Ran away and left me alone.” Outlaw tried to nod but it was simply too painful. He smiled instead, overcome with relief.
“Did you recognize any voices when they grabbed you?” Holt asked. He had brought out a little notepad and a grease pencil from his pocket.
“Fowler.” Outlaw said, and watched as Holt and Albright shared a look.
“We aint seen head nor tail of that son of a bitch since the lynching. Aint seen none of them other night riders neither. They laying low I think.” Outlaw frowned viciously. It hurt the cuts on his lips but he could hardly have cared less at that moment.
“One of ‘em got shot.” He growled. Holt nodded.
“Yeah. We found plenty a blood at the scene, but aint nobody come to Frost since then.”
“Or Doc Worth over in Company Shops,” Albright said, “and I doubt they’d go to Greensboro when it’s full up of soldiers.”
“Laying low.” Outlaw repeated, and then gestured for Holt to come closer. “Sit me up.” He said. Frost shook his head.
“You need rest Wyatt,” he said, looking nervous, “movement aint gonna do nothing but aggravate your injuries. Especially on your neck.” Holt glanced from Outlaw to Frost, unsure. But Outlaw couldn’t just sit still. Not when the night riders were still out there licking their wounds. Plotting.
“Sit me up.” He insisted, and Frost shook his head but did nothing to intervene. Holt placed a hand under Outlaw’s shoulder and lifted him up. Outlaw cried out, eyes filling with tears as his bruises and cuts were disturbed, but when they cleared he was sat up, propped up with pillows. He found that he could breathe much easier from this position, even if every breath rattled and hurt.
“I’m going to remind you of your injuries now Wyatt,” Frost said, maneuvering between Holt and Albright, holding a little wood framed hand mirror, “you were badly beaten and then almost lynched. You have at least one cracked rib, several others are bruised, severe contusions on your face, neck and back, and very probably a concussion. You need to rest if you wish to recover.” To emphasize his point Frost held up the mirror, allowing Outlaw his first good look at what the night riders had done to him.
The side of his head was noticeably swollen, the bandages over the worst of the damage (a club, he realized as his legs suddenly lost cohesion) stained a darkening scarlet. His left eye was swollen almost shut and around his neck he could see fresh bandages, spots of red already appearing on them. He took a long slow breath, then looked down. Underneath the nightgown he wore he supposed that the rest of his body would look similar. And his house…the night riders had torn up everything that he owned. His shop was smashed, his son alive only due to providence…
It all made him furious, like a gentle breeze awakening a slumbering ember deep within the ashes of a dead fire. He wanted to go out and throw a brick through the front window of the Red Bird, haul John Fowler into the street and beat him with a whip. He wanted to ride into the countryside and slash and burn the homes of all of the night riders out there. Show them the wages of fear and sin, and what a man with the backing of a vengeful God could accomplish.
He blinked. Snapped from his furious fantasizing, ashamed and slightly horrified at himself. This was a side of himself that he had worked hard to bury. He wasn’t going to let it destroy him now.
“Any leads?” He asked Holt, ignoring Frost for the moment. He looked away from his battered reflection and Frost let down the mirror, looking distinctly unhappy.
“Our best bet would be finding whoever caught that bullet,” Holt said, “then we’d have a good lead.” Outlaw nodded very slightly, then turned to Frost.
“I’m gonna have to do something that you aint gonna like.” He said slowly. Frost shook his head slowly, the mirror coming to a rest against his thigh.
“You are not going out there in your condition.” He said firmly, crossing his arms, blocking the doorway with his body to emphasize his point. Outlaw smiled sagely.
“No…I’m not. I want you to.” Frost froze. His arms dropped to his sides and he shook his head once more.
“You are not going to deputize me. You have no right to.” Holt shrugged.
“I think that you’d be a great deputy.” He said, but Frost didn’t seem to hear him. He was still staring at Outlaw.
“I want you to go to the Red Bird,” Outlaw had to pause here to bite back a cry of pain, “and ask to check up on John Fowler. You saw him after the last night ride, right?” At this moment Frost began to realize that perhaps he wasn’t going to be able to escape Outlaw’s demand.
“I did…” He said cautiously.
“Then you have a reason to go back and ask for him. See where he is, if he’s still in town.” Albright added. Eli followed the conversation with his eyes, still holding onto his father, as if for dear life.
“Did he say anything,” Holt asked, “during that last visit y’all had?” His tone was more than a little pointed. Frost hesitated, then looked to Outlaw and nodded.
“He told me to stop helping you in investigations. Otherwise I’d get paid a visit late one night and…” He drew a thumb briskly across his own throat, then fell silent.
“And you didn’t tell us this?” Outlaw asked. Frost sighed.
“I just want things to be normal. Stable. Peaceful. I’ve been scared for a long time Wyatt. I spent my childhood scared that I was gonna be a disappointment to my father. I spent the war scared ‘cause I woke up each day convinced that I was gonna die. I just don’t wanna be scared any more.” Frost leaned back against the wall, shoulders slumped, bags under his eyes dark and huge. He looked immensely tired and incredibly frightened.
“I can understand that,” Outlaw said, paused to cough and then grimace, “but things aint never gonna be normal if you let the night riders keep doing this.” Frost considered. Thought of the people who had come into his clinic in the past, to get tar scrubbed off of them, to get cuts and bruises and broken bones treated after Klan beatings. Of the autopsies that he had had to perform on the two nameless young Negroes only a few days prior.
“If I do this then the Klan is gonna come down on top of me.” He said, but Holt shrugged.
“They already gonna come down on you. You got the chief of police in Graham in your care.” Frost considered this silently, the room going very quiet. Outlaw watched the doctor think, let him take his time. Finally Frost spoke.
“If I do this I want you to promise me that we’re even. That you will never deputize me again after this.” Outlaw smiled faintly.
“Deal.” He said.
_______
Not too far away, behind a glittering glass window and two doors, John Fowler was asleep. But just barely. Outside of his bedroom door, Lily could hear her father groaning and muttering. Even through an inch of pine she thought that she could just about feel the heat of the fever baking off of him.
She was chewing the inside of her cheek again. A bad habit, but hardly one that she could control. It happened when she was stressed, and today was perhaps the worst day of her life.
Her father, perhaps the person she understood most in the world, was gravely injured. He had staggered home, borne by a pair of white masked men who had set him at his own front door and promptly hightailed it out of Graham. Lily had gone out and scrubbed any traces of a blood trail into the dirt, while her mother wept and trembled and tried to treat her husband’s shattered arm.
There was no going to a doctor. They knew that. Frost had turned out to be a nigger lover, and even if he had been threatened not to help Outlaw and his wild buck constables anymore, the chances were simply too great that the tired young doctor would crack and give her father away.
Fowler had even said as much, before drifting off into a fitful unconsciousness. Sometimes he would drift back into lucidity, but more often whenever he opened his eyes they would be glassy and unfocused. He would ask for men that he had not known since the war, and demand to know why the Yankees had been allowed to advance within two hundred yards of the baggage train.
Lily watched this with horrified fascination. She longed to reach out and touch the blood sodden bandages that wrapped her father’s shattered elbow, but feared that she would hurt him more if she did.
Behind her, leaning tiredly against the wall, Lily could hear her mother breathing. She could almost hear her heartbeat as well, fast and pattering, like a trapped bird.
“He’s burning up,” Caroline Fowler said, exhaustion robbing her voice of any sort of real emotion. She was spattered with blood, from her skirt to forehead. It had taken a long time to finally get a tourniquet around her husband’s arm. He kept swatting at her, shouting and bucking on the table, eyes rolling madly in his head. But now he was calmer, muttering with fever, but not trying to leave his bed.
“He’s gonna get better.” Lily said, though she wasn’t sure how much of the firmness in her voice was delusion. She smiled, a bead of blood rolling from the corner of her mouth. Her mother winced.
“Lily…” She protested weakly. Lily swallowed a little mouthful of bloody saliva. She had made herself bleed again, and almost without even noticing it.
“I know,” she said, letting the scarlet drop run down to her chin, then drop to the floor, “I’m not supposed to do that.” Stepping away from her father’s door, she daintily wiped the blood from her face using a fold of her mother’s dress and continued onwards to the kitchen. She was starving.
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"Dictoral" or "tyrannical" would probably be the most accurate. If all the times Democrats three around accusations of Licoln being a dictator and a tyrant being anything to go by.
There's a Lincoln quote that I think captures the Russian mentality quite well:
Abraham Lincoln said:
Whereas the Americans were quite strident in their defense of freedom (even in a nation that was at the time a practicer of slavery) the Russians accepted their authoritarianism and promoted it as the only way to govern their nation. I've always found that attitude interesting, probably because it's so alien to my own pro-democracy attitudes. I'm always slightly surprised that there are people in the world who think that total control is the only way to govern a people.
Indeed it is, I have changed the word to something less anachronistic.
I second this!
I'm not sure what it is but I really enjoy writing psychopaths. I think it's how simple their world view is, no empathy, everything is black and white, tremendous capacity for cruelty and violence since they don't have any concept of other people's wellbeing. It's morbidly fascinating to me.
King Abraham Africanus the First! If only...
Chapter 44
Two updates in one day? Gee Anywhere, you're so awesome.
44.
“I kept quiet in the meeting because I did not want to start shouting in front of your cabinet,” Sumner said, very calmly, “but now that we are in a private setting I am going to have to ask you what in the hell you think that you’re doing.” Grant propped up his feet on the edge of his desk, looking over to where Sumner was seated.
“That was very diplomatic of you Charles,” he said, “though when I mentioned the annexation your face did turn the darkest shade of purple that I’ve ever seen on a human being…” Sumner didn’t look amused in the slightest. But before he could speak Wade, who was sitting next to him, spoke instead.
“Why are you antagonizing the Radicals Sam?” He asked. The question seemed to exist in a weird little paradox, Grant realized, both more and less blunt than Sumner’s query.
“I’m not antagonizing anybody,” Grant said, “the annexation of Santo Domingo is something that the entire party can get behind.” Both Sumner and Wade looked flatly unconvinced.
“No,” Sumner said tonelessly, “it isn’t.” Grant sighed to himself.
“I suppose that this is the part where we compromise.” He said, but Sumner just shook his head.
“The annexation is anathema to me. To Radicals in general. And to the Democrats as well. You will never pass a treaty.” Sumner looked genuinely angry now, his voice kept calm only through supreme force of will. Wade glanced to his friend but said nothing.
“May I ask why you are so opposed to the annexation?” Grant asked.
“Because,” Sumner lingered on this first word for a moment, “this nation is founded upon color phobia and all sorts of prejudices that would do harm to the people of Santo Domingo. We would be erasing the independence of one of the very few nations in the world that has been founded and administrated by colored people, and replacing it with our own authority. And a coaling station. For battleships.” Grant nodded slowly.
“Secretary Fish said much the same thing when I first asked him about Santo Domingo. But he adhered to my wishes because the people of Santo Domingo support the annexation. They want to become a territory of the United States, and very possibly a state in the near future. They want to take part in our democratic experiment Charles, would you really turn them away?” Sumner didn’t look convinced at all.
“They support the annexation because they fear an invasion by Haitian forces. That’s it. If they knew how this nation treats its Negroes then they would sooner embrace Port-au-Prince than us.”
“Are you familiar with a man named Benjamin Hunt?” Grant asked.
“The merchant?” Sumner asked, a little warily.
“My envoy to Santo Domingo. He’s currently engaged in a fact finding mission. I’d like you two to go and join him in touring the country. See for yourself what the people have to say.” Sumner opened his mouth, reconsidered what he had been about to say, then curtly shook his head.
“I am President of the United States Senate Sam,” he said, “I do not have time to be traipsing around Santo Domingo, researching an annexation that will not happen.” Wade took a deep breath.
“Who else would you be sending along?” He asked. Grant furrowed his brow. He hadn’t gotten that far in planning the little expedition, it had only been there as an option.
“I’m not sure.” He said finally.
“I’d suggest Frederick Douglass,” Wade said, “if you can secure him a place in this trip then I’d be glad to go as well. There’s nothing coming up in the Senate that looks likely to need my presence.” Grant perked up a little bit at that suggestion. Douglass would be perfect, Radical enough to make Sumner look like a conservative, and perhaps the most influential Negro in the country. If he ended up supporting the annexation then it would have to sway Sumner’s opinion on the whole thing.
“Robert,” Grant said, calling over Sumner’s shoulder to his secretary, “could you send a message to Mr. Douglass. I’d like to invite him to the White House for a travel proposal. It’s about Santo Domingo.” With that done, Grant settled back into his chair. Sumner glanced from Wade to Grant.
“You are endangering my ability to rally the Radicals in support of you,” he warned, “I may have been able to forgive you over the Tenure of Office Act fiasco, but there are others who are still very angry…and would only become angrier if this proposed treaty were to come to light.”
“The Act would have fallen eventually,” Grant shrugged, “if not in my presidency then in the next. You really ought to be thanking me for removing that albatross from around your neck.”
“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just say that,” Sumner said stiffly, “and instead hope to God for your sake that Frederick Douglass responds to your call. Because if he doesn’t end up praising your annexation to the heavens above then your treaty will never leave my Foreign Relations Committee.”
_______
“We were kidnapped by Klansmen on our way home from a nightcap,” Paisley muttered to himself, “Curtis, Josiah and I.” He was tugging at Curtis’ belt, trying to get it off, but the dead man’s weight was pinning it to the table. For a moment Paisley yanked fruitlessly away, then merely rolled Curtis from the table. It was easier to take the belt then.
“They came from the woods, five or ten of ‘em…and…and took us here.” He gestured widely at the cabin around him, like he was encompassing his entire flock during one of his sermons. Yet this was no church, and his only disciples were the two dead men on the floor in front of him. They were beginning to decay, a sickly sweet smell that turned Paisley’s stomach.
“They took our guns.” Paisley said, loading his arms with the three gun belts and leaving the cabin, kicking the splintery old door open. The sunlight nearly blinded him but he squeezed his eyes shut and soldiered on. Set the gun belts down in a pile and removed the pistols from them.
For a while he wondered what to do with them, then tossed them, one by one, into the woods. That was what the night riders would have done, he decided. The guns were lost from sight. Nobody would look for them there. Maybe in another decade or so a wandering child would find their rusted remains. But not before then.
“They…” He paused, and the full reality of his situation hit him like a brick wall. He felt faint. Oh God. He had killed. He had killed his friends. Unbelievers…but friends…? Right?
“False prophets,” he groaned to himself, trying to contain the tide of nausea slowly turning his gut into a churning battlefield, “charlatans…”
He raised his head at the whinny of a horse.
He had forgotten all about the horse. And Josiah’s mule. They had stayed put through the gunshots. Had probably panicked at least a little, but neither of them had run away. For a foggy moment he wondered where Curtis’ horse was, then remembered the fiasco of his raid. That horse had been left behind.
“They took us here, and took our guns…” He trailed off again, staring hard at the horses. This part of the scene didn’t look right. The night riders wouldn’t just leave the horses here, alive and well.
Paisley turned to the gun belts. Opened his mouth and then shut it again. He had thrown the guns away. Into the woods. They were gone now. Now what?
“Oh Lord…” He sank to his knees. Now what?! And behind his forehead, someplace deep in the meat of his brain, he felt something pop, almost audibly. It blurred his vision and sent him fully to the ground for a second. But in that moment he was gone from the world entirely.
And when he came back, standing upright again with no memory of having clambered up from the ground, the reverend Allen Paisley understood.
Behind the cabin, sunk into a rotten stump, was a rust streaked axe. Paisley wandered towards it like a man in a dream, and felt splinters prickle his hands as he wrested it from the stump with a squeal. It was falling apart, the wood of the handle damp from rain and swollen with internalized rot, the blade red and orange with rust, sharpness a distant memory.
“The instruments of the Lord are not always pretty.” Paisley said firmly, and walked back to the front of the cabin. Where his horse and Josiah’s mule were.
His horse regarded him, but its eyes slid away. It looked unhappy, feet stamping, morning dew beading its mane. It hadn’t had much of a breakfast probably, Paisley supposed.
That thought was still in his head when he raised the ax and brought it down onto his horse’s neck. The blade sheared through vertebrae and then stuck fast, the horse jerking away, then flopping gracelessly onto its side. Blood jetted from the wound, arteries pumping claret into the air, spattering Paisley, filling his mouth with iron and salt. He fell back.
When he got up again the horse was trying to regain its feet, hooves pawing weakly at the ground, eyes wide and glossy, nostrils flared, blood running weakly from them. The horse panted, its breathing bubbly and weak, the ax sticking almost straight out of the wound like some bizarre new limb. The mule watched this with ears pricked straight up and eyes uncommonly wary. It stared at Paisley, almost like it was waiting for him to make a move.
“The night riders hacked our horses to death with an ax,” he grunted as he twisted the ax free, blade grinding against splinters of bone and tendon, “and then forced us into that cabin…” He paused, huffing for breath, splattered with gore, palms stinging from splinters, horse dying quietly besides him. The mule watched. Waited.
He stepped forward, raised the ax, and suddenly the mule was lunging, yellow grave stoney teeth bared, snapping like a turtle. Paisley shrieked and jerked back, the ax scoring a gash into the mule’s shoulder, then he was falling back. The ground jolted the air from him, the ax fell free and he heard a strangely elastic brrrrooiinnngg as the mule rebounded on its tether.
It was growling. The goddamn mule was growling like a rabid dog. Paisley felt gooseflesh erupt all over him and he scrabbled blindly for the ax, watching the branch that the mule had been attached to begin to bend. This beast was of the devil, he thought wildly, a cold sort of paralyzing terror filling his heart like frozen cement. Possessed. Here to turn him back from his mission.
The devil took the most unlikely shapes, so Paisley had read in the Bible. Why not a mule?
“But you are no mule,” he hissed, feeling his fingers close around the handle of the ax, slippery with horse blood, “you are Baal, you are Baphomet!” He swung and knocked the mule’s lower jaw off of its hinge, blood dribbling freely from the beast’s bizarrely hanging mouth. Yet it still strained forward, eyes blazing with unholy hatred. With a disturbingly human sense of intelligence.
The limb cracked and splintered, the mule jerked forward a few inches, still making that same horrifying growl, mouth slathered with blood. Paisley shouted, swung again but the ax only bounced off of the mule’s head. Now a flap of skin shivered and bounced in time with the mule’s motions, its ear sporting a bloody notch.
“Begone!” Paisley screamed. “Begone!” He raised the ax again, swung it down, and suddenly everything was quiet.
He left the ax where it was and stumbled back to the door of the cabin before vomiting. He was trembling, head to toe, teeth chattering, hands shaking, eyes vibrating in their sockets. He couldn’t possibly imagine how anything would ever be alright ever again.
“The night riders hacked our horses to death with an ax,” he forced himself to whisper, the words clearing the buzzing chaos of his thoughts just a little, “and then they forced us into this cabin…”
_______
Frost looked at the front door of the Red Bird and stood still for quite a while. There was a CLOSED sign placed quite prominently in the center of it, telling him to go away politely and in bold red letters. For a moment he was tempted to turn around and just go back to the clinic. Before someone asked him why he was staring. Before Fowler somehow deduced that he had been betrayed and sent a lynching party after him. Before…before…
God.
He knocked. Nothing happened. The interior of the Red Bird, dark behind the gleaming glass window, remained so. Nothing moved. Bottles flashed dully with reflected sunlight, a wagon trundled by behind him. Frost took a deep breath. Knocked again.
Same result. Nobody home.
“Nobody in the bar.” He corrected himself quietly, and then steadied himself. He could feel an alarming buzzing sensation of numbness beginning to creep over him. So similar to how he felt during the war, in the middle of battle. Surrounded by death.
He walked to the side of the Red Bird, shuffled himself past a trash bin and moved on to the back of the building. There was a stable back here, with at least two horses in it. One of them was resting its muzzle listlessly upon the door of its stall, watching his approach silently with glossy brown eyes.
There were two windows on the back of Fowler’s building but both had the curtains drawn, any view of the inside obscured by lace trimmed linen. A few chickens pecked at the ground in a far corner of the little yard behind the Red Bird and for a moment Frost entertained the idea of turning around again.
He could still leave. Nobody had noticed his approach yet. If he backtracked then he could just go back to the clinic and tend to Outlaw, and check his stocks once more. He knew that it wasn’t such a good view to hold but he couldn’t help but feel antsy just leaving a bunch of Negroes unsupervised in his clinic. He assured himself that Will Albright, who Frost saw as a fairly upstanding man (odd outbursts aside) would curtail any old jungle instincts.
There was a door set into the back of the building and Frost took a step towards it, then another. Raised his fist, and before he could stop himself he knocked. Three brisk raps with the points of his knuckles.
For a moment nothing happened. He raised his hand to knock again but then the door opened. Perhaps an inch. A sliver of a face peered out at him, the single eye he could see wide and frightened, red rimmed from exhaustion.
“Oh…Doctor Frost…” Caroline Fowler said, voice bright with mingled terror and false cheerfulness. Was that blood in her hair…? Frost ignored the sense of dread prickling away at his stomach and forced himself to smile. Like nothing in the world was wrong.
“I’m just coming by to check up on your husband Mrs. Fowler ma’am,” he said, keeping his smile light and friendly, “he blacked his eye pretty good a few days ago and didn’t come in for his appointment today, so I figured I’d come by and see if he’s alright.” For a moment Caroline stared, then smiled and let out a hysterical little titter of laughter. An over exaggeration of anything close to how a normal person would react.
“John is…John is down with a fever, but he’s getting better. Yes…better.” She smiled vaguely and tried to shut the door but Frost managed to slide his foot between the door and the jamb.
“A fever?” He asked, raising his eyebrows in mock concern…yes, that was definitely dried blood in her hair, what the hell? “Fevers can be quite dangerous if they get too high. Do you know what temperature your husband is running right now?” He felt slightly calmer slipping into medical doctrine, it was familiar and safe. Caroline looked frazzled, eyes wider than ever, still exerting a steady pressure on the door, pinching Frost’s foot now.
“I…umm…” Frost raised his eyebrows.
“You look tired ma’am,” he said, and wasn’t that the truth? “Would you mind if I took a quick look at your husband, took his temperature, prescribed him a tincture or two to break his fever? And before you answer that, for how long has he had this fever?” Frost felt slightly bad speaking so rapidly to the poor woman, but he needed her to let him in. If she didn’t then the Red Bird would be as impregnable as a medieval castle, at least from a legal standpoint.
“He’s uh…oh dear.” Caroline looked about ready to burst into tears now, unsure of how to deal with Frost, “you cannot come in Doctor Frost, I’m so sorry.” She tried to shut the door again but Frost’s foot was still in the way. He bit back a yowl of pain and instead kept the same concerned look on his face.
“I can understand if asking for help is embarrassing,” he said soothingly, “but please, for your husband’s sake, let me in ma’am.” He could see Caroline’s face crossing into new expressions that he had never seen before, contorted combinations of terror, pain, relief, horror and regret. The last one baffled him…at least until Caroline stepped back from the door, letting it swing fully open.
Frost stared. Caroline Fowler was covered in blood. He had seen a few beads of the stuff in her hair, but the sheer quantity of the stuff was horrifying. Had she killed her husband? As soon as the thought came into his mind Frost discarded it. Caroline Fowler wasn’t exactly the homicidal type, even if her husband was none other than John Fowler.
“Oh dear.” He said mildly. It did nothing to capture the situation whatsoever.
“He’s been shot.” Caroline managed to say, then burst into tears. She sank to her knees, Frost racing to catch her. To comfort her. He felt such pity for the poor woman.
“Show me. And please find Lily, I’m going to need a lot of boiling water, for cleaning my instruments.” Caroline nodded slowly, then forced herself to her feet, still clearly overwhelmed but not quite as much. Frost looked around him.
The Fowler residence seemed to consist of a living room with an attached kitchen, then a corridor that branched off into two bedrooms. Oddly enough, Frost noted, it was quite similar to Wyatt Outlaw’s house.
“He’s on the left there…” Caroline said, pointing to a wooden door, the knob smeared with half dried blood, and then turned and began moving back towards the kitchen, perhaps to get started on the boiling water that Frost had requested.
Frost wrapped his handkerchief around the doorknob before touching it. He had no desire to get Fowler’s blood on his hands before he absolutely couldn’t avoid it.
Fowler’s room was dark and unpleasantly humid, practically shimmering with heat. So Caroline was trying to burn her husband’s fever out, Frost noted, wincing and taking off his coat, squinting in the dimness. Not exactly the most effective of methods when it came to wounds. Hot, humid conditions only made it easier for the wound to fester, and judging by the sickly undertone to the smell in here Frost could tell that that had probably already happened.
Moving over to the curtain that blacked out the room, Frost threw it open, noting with some disgust that it was streaked with blood. Most everything in the room was, he could see now, from the bedsheets to the walls to the floor…Jesus. How was Fowler even alive after losing that much blood?
A thin groan sounded from behind him, and Frost opened the window to admit some fresh air before turning. He could see a pale arm, tourniquet applied and bandage wound tightly around the elbow, poking above the mound of blankets, but the rest of John Fowler seemed to be completely buried.
The blankets were limp and damp with sweat. Frost handled them gingerly, peeling layer after layer from Fowler until he was draped solely in a sweat soaked sheet, groaning and trying vainly with his good arm to shield his eyes from the light now pouring into the room.
“Shot in the elbow,” Frost marveled quietly to himself, “that is going to require amputation…” Even as he said that he felt a strange prickle run up his spine and turned, to see Lily Fowler leaning in the doorway. Had he seen the gleam of a knife disappearing into the folds of her dress? No…
“Ma’am,” Frost said politely, keeping careful track of where Lily’s hands were, “could you tell me how your father sustained this wound?” Lily didn’t look exactly happy to see him, but as he watched that unhappiness faded, replaced by a puppy eyed look of fatigue and fear.
“He was cleaning his gun. He walked across the room to get something and it fell over and went off.” Frost blinked. Now didn’t that sound similar to what Jed March had told him roughly an eternity ago?
“That seems to be happening a lot lately,” he sighed, “what caliber was the bullet?” For a moment doubt flashed through Lily’s eyes, then she nodded briskly, having latched onto an answer.
“It was an .58 Minie,” she said, “from a Richmond rifle.” Frost supposed that Fowler did actually own a Richmond rifle, probably one he’d carried home from the war.
“Could I see the rifle?” He asked, and Lily’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why?” All concern faded from her tone, replaced by hard edged resistance. Not quite hostility, but Frost got the unpleasant feeling that it could spill over into that at any time.
“Curiosity. Was it a full load of powder?” Lily kept up that same unnerving stare, eyes flat and probing.
“I don’t know.” She said finally, and then was gone. Frost didn’t feel at all safe turning his back to the doorway but did it anyways. Opening his medical kit, he took out a little container of opium tincture and set it onto the nightstand. He would need to wash his hands before he touched anything else.
Caroline came shortly, holding a large pot of water just past boiling. Frost thanked her.
“How did your husband sustain his wound?” He asked. She froze, eyes wide, then shook her head slightly.
“An…an accident.” She said quickly, and left hastily, before Frost could ask her anything else.
Frost washed his hands until they were pink and then washed each of his tools in turn, placing them onto a little tin tray. When his initial preparations were complete, Frost took Fowler’s pulse. It was weak and just a little slower than Frost would have liked. Frost decided against administering any opium tincture and placed it back into his kit. Opium slowed down the heart, and if he gave any to Fowler then it would probably kill him.
“Not that you don’t deserve it.” He said quietly to Fowler, but the man showed no signs of having heard him. Touching the man’s forehead, Frost winced. His patient was burning up.
Fowler was in bad shape, and as he peeled off the man’s blood sodden bandage, Frost realized with an unpleasant jolt that he’d only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the damage.
Fowler’s elbow had been almost completely obliterated by a large caliber round of some sort, the joint having swollen nearly as thick as Frost’s knee, and the flesh an angry reddish purple color that screamed of infection. If he were to make an incision anywhere around it, Frost realized, then he’d get nothing but clear, ugly smelling ichor from all of the inflammation.
The bullet had gone completely through as well, probably taking a number of bone fragments with it. Amputation was probably the only option at this point, even without the tourniquet to take into account.
The tourniquet had been the first thing to really tip Frost off to the severity of the situation. Tourniquets were good for stopping blood loss fast, but once they went on then the blood in the limb that it went around would effectively come to a stop. And if Frost had learned anything during the war, it was that halted blood quickly loaded up with toxins. More than once during the war he had seen men tear tourniquets from their limbs, only to drop dead of septic shock less than an hour later.
“Is he gonna be alright?” Lily asked from right behind him and Frost nearly shrieked. Instead he flinched and then turned quickly around. Lily had gone through the doorway this time, and was standing in the corner of the room, watching him. Contrasted with the bright light streaming in through the window Lily was almost completely hidden, a silhouette in a white dress. Hers, Frost noted, was almost completely clean compared to her mother’s crimson spattered articles.
“His condition is very serious,” Frost said, looking more closely at the wound, “how long ago did this happen?” Caroline appeared next to Lily, holding another pot of water, steam drifted gently upwards. She set it down, glancing between Frost and her daughter uncertainly before vanishing once more.
“Last night,” Lily said, “at about eight.” Frost looked from her to Fowler’s wound, then back again.
“It looks older than that. And some of the stains on your mother’s dress have faded entirely to brown. That takes longer than a few hours to happen.” For a moment Lily looked completely shocked, eyes widening, an expression of terror flashing across her face, then it all slammed closed again. The steely look of defiance was back. And this time Frost could just about see the hostility in her gaze beginning to spill over into her actions. Like grease bubbling dangerously close to a cooking fire.
“Are you gonna have to amputate?” She asked after a few moments. Frost stayed silent, inspecting the wound further. He made an incision, a little one, and surely enough a small pool of yellowish fluid appeared.
“It looks like there’s some foreign matter in this wound,” he lied, hoping that it would get a reaction from Lily, “like dirt. How’d that get in there?” Lily said nothing, but Frost could see that her fists were balled now, trembling with anger. Frost kept a tight grip on the scalpel he held, keeping Lily in the corner of his vision at all times.
“I’m going to drain the wound one last time,” he said, “to see how badly infected his arm is. Then I am going to need to amputate.” Lily said nothing, just turned and slowly stalked from the room. Once she was gone Frost heaved a silent sigh of relief.
44.
“I kept quiet in the meeting because I did not want to start shouting in front of your cabinet,” Sumner said, very calmly, “but now that we are in a private setting I am going to have to ask you what in the hell you think that you’re doing.” Grant propped up his feet on the edge of his desk, looking over to where Sumner was seated.
“That was very diplomatic of you Charles,” he said, “though when I mentioned the annexation your face did turn the darkest shade of purple that I’ve ever seen on a human being…” Sumner didn’t look amused in the slightest. But before he could speak Wade, who was sitting next to him, spoke instead.
“Why are you antagonizing the Radicals Sam?” He asked. The question seemed to exist in a weird little paradox, Grant realized, both more and less blunt than Sumner’s query.
“I’m not antagonizing anybody,” Grant said, “the annexation of Santo Domingo is something that the entire party can get behind.” Both Sumner and Wade looked flatly unconvinced.
“No,” Sumner said tonelessly, “it isn’t.” Grant sighed to himself.
“I suppose that this is the part where we compromise.” He said, but Sumner just shook his head.
“The annexation is anathema to me. To Radicals in general. And to the Democrats as well. You will never pass a treaty.” Sumner looked genuinely angry now, his voice kept calm only through supreme force of will. Wade glanced to his friend but said nothing.
“May I ask why you are so opposed to the annexation?” Grant asked.
“Because,” Sumner lingered on this first word for a moment, “this nation is founded upon color phobia and all sorts of prejudices that would do harm to the people of Santo Domingo. We would be erasing the independence of one of the very few nations in the world that has been founded and administrated by colored people, and replacing it with our own authority. And a coaling station. For battleships.” Grant nodded slowly.
“Secretary Fish said much the same thing when I first asked him about Santo Domingo. But he adhered to my wishes because the people of Santo Domingo support the annexation. They want to become a territory of the United States, and very possibly a state in the near future. They want to take part in our democratic experiment Charles, would you really turn them away?” Sumner didn’t look convinced at all.
“They support the annexation because they fear an invasion by Haitian forces. That’s it. If they knew how this nation treats its Negroes then they would sooner embrace Port-au-Prince than us.”
“Are you familiar with a man named Benjamin Hunt?” Grant asked.
“The merchant?” Sumner asked, a little warily.
“My envoy to Santo Domingo. He’s currently engaged in a fact finding mission. I’d like you two to go and join him in touring the country. See for yourself what the people have to say.” Sumner opened his mouth, reconsidered what he had been about to say, then curtly shook his head.
“I am President of the United States Senate Sam,” he said, “I do not have time to be traipsing around Santo Domingo, researching an annexation that will not happen.” Wade took a deep breath.
“Who else would you be sending along?” He asked. Grant furrowed his brow. He hadn’t gotten that far in planning the little expedition, it had only been there as an option.
“I’m not sure.” He said finally.
“I’d suggest Frederick Douglass,” Wade said, “if you can secure him a place in this trip then I’d be glad to go as well. There’s nothing coming up in the Senate that looks likely to need my presence.” Grant perked up a little bit at that suggestion. Douglass would be perfect, Radical enough to make Sumner look like a conservative, and perhaps the most influential Negro in the country. If he ended up supporting the annexation then it would have to sway Sumner’s opinion on the whole thing.
“Robert,” Grant said, calling over Sumner’s shoulder to his secretary, “could you send a message to Mr. Douglass. I’d like to invite him to the White House for a travel proposal. It’s about Santo Domingo.” With that done, Grant settled back into his chair. Sumner glanced from Wade to Grant.
“You are endangering my ability to rally the Radicals in support of you,” he warned, “I may have been able to forgive you over the Tenure of Office Act fiasco, but there are others who are still very angry…and would only become angrier if this proposed treaty were to come to light.”
“The Act would have fallen eventually,” Grant shrugged, “if not in my presidency then in the next. You really ought to be thanking me for removing that albatross from around your neck.”
“I’m going to pretend that you didn’t just say that,” Sumner said stiffly, “and instead hope to God for your sake that Frederick Douglass responds to your call. Because if he doesn’t end up praising your annexation to the heavens above then your treaty will never leave my Foreign Relations Committee.”
_______
“We were kidnapped by Klansmen on our way home from a nightcap,” Paisley muttered to himself, “Curtis, Josiah and I.” He was tugging at Curtis’ belt, trying to get it off, but the dead man’s weight was pinning it to the table. For a moment Paisley yanked fruitlessly away, then merely rolled Curtis from the table. It was easier to take the belt then.
“They came from the woods, five or ten of ‘em…and…and took us here.” He gestured widely at the cabin around him, like he was encompassing his entire flock during one of his sermons. Yet this was no church, and his only disciples were the two dead men on the floor in front of him. They were beginning to decay, a sickly sweet smell that turned Paisley’s stomach.
“They took our guns.” Paisley said, loading his arms with the three gun belts and leaving the cabin, kicking the splintery old door open. The sunlight nearly blinded him but he squeezed his eyes shut and soldiered on. Set the gun belts down in a pile and removed the pistols from them.
For a while he wondered what to do with them, then tossed them, one by one, into the woods. That was what the night riders would have done, he decided. The guns were lost from sight. Nobody would look for them there. Maybe in another decade or so a wandering child would find their rusted remains. But not before then.
“They…” He paused, and the full reality of his situation hit him like a brick wall. He felt faint. Oh God. He had killed. He had killed his friends. Unbelievers…but friends…? Right?
“False prophets,” he groaned to himself, trying to contain the tide of nausea slowly turning his gut into a churning battlefield, “charlatans…”
He raised his head at the whinny of a horse.
He had forgotten all about the horse. And Josiah’s mule. They had stayed put through the gunshots. Had probably panicked at least a little, but neither of them had run away. For a foggy moment he wondered where Curtis’ horse was, then remembered the fiasco of his raid. That horse had been left behind.
“They took us here, and took our guns…” He trailed off again, staring hard at the horses. This part of the scene didn’t look right. The night riders wouldn’t just leave the horses here, alive and well.
Paisley turned to the gun belts. Opened his mouth and then shut it again. He had thrown the guns away. Into the woods. They were gone now. Now what?
“Oh Lord…” He sank to his knees. Now what?! And behind his forehead, someplace deep in the meat of his brain, he felt something pop, almost audibly. It blurred his vision and sent him fully to the ground for a second. But in that moment he was gone from the world entirely.
And when he came back, standing upright again with no memory of having clambered up from the ground, the reverend Allen Paisley understood.
Behind the cabin, sunk into a rotten stump, was a rust streaked axe. Paisley wandered towards it like a man in a dream, and felt splinters prickle his hands as he wrested it from the stump with a squeal. It was falling apart, the wood of the handle damp from rain and swollen with internalized rot, the blade red and orange with rust, sharpness a distant memory.
“The instruments of the Lord are not always pretty.” Paisley said firmly, and walked back to the front of the cabin. Where his horse and Josiah’s mule were.
His horse regarded him, but its eyes slid away. It looked unhappy, feet stamping, morning dew beading its mane. It hadn’t had much of a breakfast probably, Paisley supposed.
That thought was still in his head when he raised the ax and brought it down onto his horse’s neck. The blade sheared through vertebrae and then stuck fast, the horse jerking away, then flopping gracelessly onto its side. Blood jetted from the wound, arteries pumping claret into the air, spattering Paisley, filling his mouth with iron and salt. He fell back.
When he got up again the horse was trying to regain its feet, hooves pawing weakly at the ground, eyes wide and glossy, nostrils flared, blood running weakly from them. The horse panted, its breathing bubbly and weak, the ax sticking almost straight out of the wound like some bizarre new limb. The mule watched this with ears pricked straight up and eyes uncommonly wary. It stared at Paisley, almost like it was waiting for him to make a move.
“The night riders hacked our horses to death with an ax,” he grunted as he twisted the ax free, blade grinding against splinters of bone and tendon, “and then forced us into that cabin…” He paused, huffing for breath, splattered with gore, palms stinging from splinters, horse dying quietly besides him. The mule watched. Waited.
He stepped forward, raised the ax, and suddenly the mule was lunging, yellow grave stoney teeth bared, snapping like a turtle. Paisley shrieked and jerked back, the ax scoring a gash into the mule’s shoulder, then he was falling back. The ground jolted the air from him, the ax fell free and he heard a strangely elastic brrrrooiinnngg as the mule rebounded on its tether.
It was growling. The goddamn mule was growling like a rabid dog. Paisley felt gooseflesh erupt all over him and he scrabbled blindly for the ax, watching the branch that the mule had been attached to begin to bend. This beast was of the devil, he thought wildly, a cold sort of paralyzing terror filling his heart like frozen cement. Possessed. Here to turn him back from his mission.
The devil took the most unlikely shapes, so Paisley had read in the Bible. Why not a mule?
“But you are no mule,” he hissed, feeling his fingers close around the handle of the ax, slippery with horse blood, “you are Baal, you are Baphomet!” He swung and knocked the mule’s lower jaw off of its hinge, blood dribbling freely from the beast’s bizarrely hanging mouth. Yet it still strained forward, eyes blazing with unholy hatred. With a disturbingly human sense of intelligence.
The limb cracked and splintered, the mule jerked forward a few inches, still making that same horrifying growl, mouth slathered with blood. Paisley shouted, swung again but the ax only bounced off of the mule’s head. Now a flap of skin shivered and bounced in time with the mule’s motions, its ear sporting a bloody notch.
“Begone!” Paisley screamed. “Begone!” He raised the ax again, swung it down, and suddenly everything was quiet.
He left the ax where it was and stumbled back to the door of the cabin before vomiting. He was trembling, head to toe, teeth chattering, hands shaking, eyes vibrating in their sockets. He couldn’t possibly imagine how anything would ever be alright ever again.
“The night riders hacked our horses to death with an ax,” he forced himself to whisper, the words clearing the buzzing chaos of his thoughts just a little, “and then they forced us into this cabin…”
_______
Frost looked at the front door of the Red Bird and stood still for quite a while. There was a CLOSED sign placed quite prominently in the center of it, telling him to go away politely and in bold red letters. For a moment he was tempted to turn around and just go back to the clinic. Before someone asked him why he was staring. Before Fowler somehow deduced that he had been betrayed and sent a lynching party after him. Before…before…
God.
He knocked. Nothing happened. The interior of the Red Bird, dark behind the gleaming glass window, remained so. Nothing moved. Bottles flashed dully with reflected sunlight, a wagon trundled by behind him. Frost took a deep breath. Knocked again.
Same result. Nobody home.
“Nobody in the bar.” He corrected himself quietly, and then steadied himself. He could feel an alarming buzzing sensation of numbness beginning to creep over him. So similar to how he felt during the war, in the middle of battle. Surrounded by death.
He walked to the side of the Red Bird, shuffled himself past a trash bin and moved on to the back of the building. There was a stable back here, with at least two horses in it. One of them was resting its muzzle listlessly upon the door of its stall, watching his approach silently with glossy brown eyes.
There were two windows on the back of Fowler’s building but both had the curtains drawn, any view of the inside obscured by lace trimmed linen. A few chickens pecked at the ground in a far corner of the little yard behind the Red Bird and for a moment Frost entertained the idea of turning around again.
He could still leave. Nobody had noticed his approach yet. If he backtracked then he could just go back to the clinic and tend to Outlaw, and check his stocks once more. He knew that it wasn’t such a good view to hold but he couldn’t help but feel antsy just leaving a bunch of Negroes unsupervised in his clinic. He assured himself that Will Albright, who Frost saw as a fairly upstanding man (odd outbursts aside) would curtail any old jungle instincts.
There was a door set into the back of the building and Frost took a step towards it, then another. Raised his fist, and before he could stop himself he knocked. Three brisk raps with the points of his knuckles.
For a moment nothing happened. He raised his hand to knock again but then the door opened. Perhaps an inch. A sliver of a face peered out at him, the single eye he could see wide and frightened, red rimmed from exhaustion.
“Oh…Doctor Frost…” Caroline Fowler said, voice bright with mingled terror and false cheerfulness. Was that blood in her hair…? Frost ignored the sense of dread prickling away at his stomach and forced himself to smile. Like nothing in the world was wrong.
“I’m just coming by to check up on your husband Mrs. Fowler ma’am,” he said, keeping his smile light and friendly, “he blacked his eye pretty good a few days ago and didn’t come in for his appointment today, so I figured I’d come by and see if he’s alright.” For a moment Caroline stared, then smiled and let out a hysterical little titter of laughter. An over exaggeration of anything close to how a normal person would react.
“John is…John is down with a fever, but he’s getting better. Yes…better.” She smiled vaguely and tried to shut the door but Frost managed to slide his foot between the door and the jamb.
“A fever?” He asked, raising his eyebrows in mock concern…yes, that was definitely dried blood in her hair, what the hell? “Fevers can be quite dangerous if they get too high. Do you know what temperature your husband is running right now?” He felt slightly calmer slipping into medical doctrine, it was familiar and safe. Caroline looked frazzled, eyes wider than ever, still exerting a steady pressure on the door, pinching Frost’s foot now.
“I…umm…” Frost raised his eyebrows.
“You look tired ma’am,” he said, and wasn’t that the truth? “Would you mind if I took a quick look at your husband, took his temperature, prescribed him a tincture or two to break his fever? And before you answer that, for how long has he had this fever?” Frost felt slightly bad speaking so rapidly to the poor woman, but he needed her to let him in. If she didn’t then the Red Bird would be as impregnable as a medieval castle, at least from a legal standpoint.
“He’s uh…oh dear.” Caroline looked about ready to burst into tears now, unsure of how to deal with Frost, “you cannot come in Doctor Frost, I’m so sorry.” She tried to shut the door again but Frost’s foot was still in the way. He bit back a yowl of pain and instead kept the same concerned look on his face.
“I can understand if asking for help is embarrassing,” he said soothingly, “but please, for your husband’s sake, let me in ma’am.” He could see Caroline’s face crossing into new expressions that he had never seen before, contorted combinations of terror, pain, relief, horror and regret. The last one baffled him…at least until Caroline stepped back from the door, letting it swing fully open.
Frost stared. Caroline Fowler was covered in blood. He had seen a few beads of the stuff in her hair, but the sheer quantity of the stuff was horrifying. Had she killed her husband? As soon as the thought came into his mind Frost discarded it. Caroline Fowler wasn’t exactly the homicidal type, even if her husband was none other than John Fowler.
“Oh dear.” He said mildly. It did nothing to capture the situation whatsoever.
“He’s been shot.” Caroline managed to say, then burst into tears. She sank to her knees, Frost racing to catch her. To comfort her. He felt such pity for the poor woman.
“Show me. And please find Lily, I’m going to need a lot of boiling water, for cleaning my instruments.” Caroline nodded slowly, then forced herself to her feet, still clearly overwhelmed but not quite as much. Frost looked around him.
The Fowler residence seemed to consist of a living room with an attached kitchen, then a corridor that branched off into two bedrooms. Oddly enough, Frost noted, it was quite similar to Wyatt Outlaw’s house.
“He’s on the left there…” Caroline said, pointing to a wooden door, the knob smeared with half dried blood, and then turned and began moving back towards the kitchen, perhaps to get started on the boiling water that Frost had requested.
Frost wrapped his handkerchief around the doorknob before touching it. He had no desire to get Fowler’s blood on his hands before he absolutely couldn’t avoid it.
Fowler’s room was dark and unpleasantly humid, practically shimmering with heat. So Caroline was trying to burn her husband’s fever out, Frost noted, wincing and taking off his coat, squinting in the dimness. Not exactly the most effective of methods when it came to wounds. Hot, humid conditions only made it easier for the wound to fester, and judging by the sickly undertone to the smell in here Frost could tell that that had probably already happened.
Moving over to the curtain that blacked out the room, Frost threw it open, noting with some disgust that it was streaked with blood. Most everything in the room was, he could see now, from the bedsheets to the walls to the floor…Jesus. How was Fowler even alive after losing that much blood?
A thin groan sounded from behind him, and Frost opened the window to admit some fresh air before turning. He could see a pale arm, tourniquet applied and bandage wound tightly around the elbow, poking above the mound of blankets, but the rest of John Fowler seemed to be completely buried.
The blankets were limp and damp with sweat. Frost handled them gingerly, peeling layer after layer from Fowler until he was draped solely in a sweat soaked sheet, groaning and trying vainly with his good arm to shield his eyes from the light now pouring into the room.
“Shot in the elbow,” Frost marveled quietly to himself, “that is going to require amputation…” Even as he said that he felt a strange prickle run up his spine and turned, to see Lily Fowler leaning in the doorway. Had he seen the gleam of a knife disappearing into the folds of her dress? No…
“Ma’am,” Frost said politely, keeping careful track of where Lily’s hands were, “could you tell me how your father sustained this wound?” Lily didn’t look exactly happy to see him, but as he watched that unhappiness faded, replaced by a puppy eyed look of fatigue and fear.
“He was cleaning his gun. He walked across the room to get something and it fell over and went off.” Frost blinked. Now didn’t that sound similar to what Jed March had told him roughly an eternity ago?
“That seems to be happening a lot lately,” he sighed, “what caliber was the bullet?” For a moment doubt flashed through Lily’s eyes, then she nodded briskly, having latched onto an answer.
“It was an .58 Minie,” she said, “from a Richmond rifle.” Frost supposed that Fowler did actually own a Richmond rifle, probably one he’d carried home from the war.
“Could I see the rifle?” He asked, and Lily’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why?” All concern faded from her tone, replaced by hard edged resistance. Not quite hostility, but Frost got the unpleasant feeling that it could spill over into that at any time.
“Curiosity. Was it a full load of powder?” Lily kept up that same unnerving stare, eyes flat and probing.
“I don’t know.” She said finally, and then was gone. Frost didn’t feel at all safe turning his back to the doorway but did it anyways. Opening his medical kit, he took out a little container of opium tincture and set it onto the nightstand. He would need to wash his hands before he touched anything else.
Caroline came shortly, holding a large pot of water just past boiling. Frost thanked her.
“How did your husband sustain his wound?” He asked. She froze, eyes wide, then shook her head slightly.
“An…an accident.” She said quickly, and left hastily, before Frost could ask her anything else.
Frost washed his hands until they were pink and then washed each of his tools in turn, placing them onto a little tin tray. When his initial preparations were complete, Frost took Fowler’s pulse. It was weak and just a little slower than Frost would have liked. Frost decided against administering any opium tincture and placed it back into his kit. Opium slowed down the heart, and if he gave any to Fowler then it would probably kill him.
“Not that you don’t deserve it.” He said quietly to Fowler, but the man showed no signs of having heard him. Touching the man’s forehead, Frost winced. His patient was burning up.
Fowler was in bad shape, and as he peeled off the man’s blood sodden bandage, Frost realized with an unpleasant jolt that he’d only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of the damage.
Fowler’s elbow had been almost completely obliterated by a large caliber round of some sort, the joint having swollen nearly as thick as Frost’s knee, and the flesh an angry reddish purple color that screamed of infection. If he were to make an incision anywhere around it, Frost realized, then he’d get nothing but clear, ugly smelling ichor from all of the inflammation.
The bullet had gone completely through as well, probably taking a number of bone fragments with it. Amputation was probably the only option at this point, even without the tourniquet to take into account.
The tourniquet had been the first thing to really tip Frost off to the severity of the situation. Tourniquets were good for stopping blood loss fast, but once they went on then the blood in the limb that it went around would effectively come to a stop. And if Frost had learned anything during the war, it was that halted blood quickly loaded up with toxins. More than once during the war he had seen men tear tourniquets from their limbs, only to drop dead of septic shock less than an hour later.
“Is he gonna be alright?” Lily asked from right behind him and Frost nearly shrieked. Instead he flinched and then turned quickly around. Lily had gone through the doorway this time, and was standing in the corner of the room, watching him. Contrasted with the bright light streaming in through the window Lily was almost completely hidden, a silhouette in a white dress. Hers, Frost noted, was almost completely clean compared to her mother’s crimson spattered articles.
“His condition is very serious,” Frost said, looking more closely at the wound, “how long ago did this happen?” Caroline appeared next to Lily, holding another pot of water, steam drifted gently upwards. She set it down, glancing between Frost and her daughter uncertainly before vanishing once more.
“Last night,” Lily said, “at about eight.” Frost looked from her to Fowler’s wound, then back again.
“It looks older than that. And some of the stains on your mother’s dress have faded entirely to brown. That takes longer than a few hours to happen.” For a moment Lily looked completely shocked, eyes widening, an expression of terror flashing across her face, then it all slammed closed again. The steely look of defiance was back. And this time Frost could just about see the hostility in her gaze beginning to spill over into her actions. Like grease bubbling dangerously close to a cooking fire.
“Are you gonna have to amputate?” She asked after a few moments. Frost stayed silent, inspecting the wound further. He made an incision, a little one, and surely enough a small pool of yellowish fluid appeared.
“It looks like there’s some foreign matter in this wound,” he lied, hoping that it would get a reaction from Lily, “like dirt. How’d that get in there?” Lily said nothing, but Frost could see that her fists were balled now, trembling with anger. Frost kept a tight grip on the scalpel he held, keeping Lily in the corner of his vision at all times.
“I’m going to drain the wound one last time,” he said, “to see how badly infected his arm is. Then I am going to need to amputate.” Lily said nothing, just turned and slowly stalked from the room. Once she was gone Frost heaved a silent sigh of relief.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
Hm, I wonder how the Russia subplot plays out.
Btw, what month and year is it?
Btw, what month and year is it?
These various subplots with the American Ministers talking to their foreign counterparts are mostly just an exercise to show how things are overseas. They'll be occasional but mostly conform to IOTL, since the changes in America haven't really flowed over enough to change anything major yet.
Right now it is the middle of May 1869. Grant is almost exactly two and a half months into his term as President.
Thank you very much for your readership.
Right in the middle of a cabinet meeting too. Sumner will be talking about the treaty and being blustery. Grant will calmly get up and then just sink his teeth into Sumner's forehead or something.
All joking aside Grant knows that he currently holds power over Sumner (in the form of the militia plan), which is what's allowing him to remain so calm even while Sumner rants and rails against his administration's plans. That and he was a pretty mild guy in most cases. When he got angry then he got angry. Like, apocalyptically so. That'll happen at some point, and it will be glorious to behold.
Perhaps. She's got a lot of darkness swirling around inside of her. So far she's managed to maintain a mask of sanity to the world as a whole (games with Lou and exchanges with Frost not withstanding) but that may very well slip as her world comes undone.
Chapter 45
45.
“The Chomps Elise,” sighed a young woman happily, “it’s so gosh darn pretty aint it?” Watching from the shade of a green umbrella in the cafe Alcazar, Elihu Washburne, Minister to France, couldn’t help but agree. Mangling of the venerable avenue’s name aside.
“Your move monsieur,” the man sitting with him said gently, and Washburne’s attention was broken. He turned back to the game of chess that he was playing, and looked over the situation on the board.
He was losing. And quite badly too, his pieces having been crowded up against the back of the board, with no real escape other than through a gauntlet of his opponent’s pieces. But of course, Washburne supposed, that was what one got when they played against a Marshal of France.
His opponent, Patrice de MacMahon, was an older man, hair gone entirely white, with a finely trimmed mustache. He looked very gentle while contemplating his situation, but behind that Washburne could sense a steeliness that had definitely served the man well during his various military campaigns.
MacMahon had fought valiantly in the Crimean and Italian wars, and could have been the highest ranking military man in all of France if he so wished. but instead he seemed content to safeguard his nation from the shadows of semi-obscurity. Nobody walking down the street recognized either Washburne or the Marshal, and MacMahon seemed to like it that way.
“I believe that I have been beaten.” Washburne said, trying to work a way out of his predicament. MacMahon shrugged slightly.
“But are you? I see moves left that you may make.”
“I would lose pieces in virtually any move…” Washburne said. MacMahon smiled humorlessly and then traced a line from a black bishop to a white pawn. He tapped the top of the pawn lightly.
“There.” Washburne blinked and then chuckled.
“Oh…I didn’t see that. Thank you.” He checked for dangers around the vulnerable pawn and then took it. MacMahon sat back in his chair, looking over the board.
“I’m curious,” the Marshal said, “about America. You have no monarchy there, and an almost slavish devotion to liberty. I’m curious how that effects the development of a nation.”
“We believe in freedom,” Washburne said simply, “freedom of representation, of religion and speech and press. If a man can choose not only what to believe but also what to pursue in order to achieve happiness then he is truly free.”
“So you are a Republican I understand.”
“Yes,” Washburne said, watching the Marshal draw back one of his pieces, moving slightly defensively now, to account for the presence of the black bishop, “I am. As is the President and most of our congress.” For a moment MacMahon looked slightly confused, then he smiled.
“No, not the political party. I meant in terms of believing that a republic is inherently superior to a monarchy.”
“Oh. In that case then yes, I am. And so is virtually everyone in my nation. France is a bit more divided, isn’t it?” MacMahon nodded slightly and watched Washburne make his own move.
“Yes. There are people of every political persuasion here. Monarchists, republicans, communists…” He shook his head slightly, “the past few decades have been chaotic times in France. And I trust that the future will not be much more stable.” He pressed a rook forward and took one of Washburne’s pawns.
“In terms of the Prussians?” Washburne asked. Tensions between Bismarck’s empire and the French state were high and almost everyone expected war to break out at some point in the near future. The Marshal nodded slightly but seemed distracted.
“In any war,” he said finally, watching Washburne contemplate his next move, “the states involved undergo stresses unrelated to the fighting taking place on the front. Social stresses, mental, spiritual. They all add up, and even if the military of such a state holds up against that of the enemy, if the people of that country give up then the war is lost.” Washburne nodded slightly.
“Of course. In our own civil war there was some concern towards the end about us being forced to make a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. Our people were tired, but fortunately we were able to pull through.” MacMahon shifted a pawn forward one space. Waited for Washburne’s reply.
“I am worried about the conditions of French society,” MacMahon said finally, “and I hope that you don’t take offense in me saying that republicanism is a definite factor in our weakening.” Washburne shrugged.
“Why do you say that?” He asked genially.
“Because republicanism, where it sprouts up, often leads to…dangerous ideas. I’m sure that it works in America because your nation is so young, but in France and other countries with millennia of culture and religious devoutness built up, then its side effects can be catastrophic.” Washburne paused in his contemplation of the chess game, intrigued.
“Explain these dangerous ideas to me.” He said. The Marshal seemed more than happy to comply.
“I suppose what concerns me the most is a death of spiritualism in France if the republicans get their way. There is a tendency to denote every religion as equals in republican society, when that is not the case. You are a Protestant I assume?”
“Presbyterian.”
“Ah, an offshoot of Protestantism. In any case, France is a Catholic nation. It was founded by Catholic men on Catholic values and as such is inherently tied to its founding conditions. If we suddenly remove those values from our society then what have we done but destabilize the entire foundation of our civilization? Do you understand what I’m saying Minister?” Washburne couldn’t help but feel a powerful sort of dislike for the Marshal’s ideology, but he was far too good of a diplomat to let that show. Instead he nodded politely and knocked out one of MacMahon’s knights.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” he said, “but what of Protestants and Jews in France, and what of Moslems in your North African holdings? Shouldn’t their beliefs be represented as well?” The Marshal looked slightly confused.
“What of them?” He asked.
“Surely they’ve aided in the development and ascension of France, just as its Catholic citizens have. Shouldn’t they have some representation as well?”
“Jews?” MacMahon asked doubtfully.
“Yes,” said Washburne insistently, “Jews. Moslems. Protestants. Isn’t the concept of a state religion inherently discriminatory towards those minority groups?”
“France does not currently have a state religion…” MacMahon said, and Washburne nodded.
“I know that, but it seems like you’re arguing in favor of establishing one.” The Marshal nodded slowly.
“I am a Legitimist,” he said after a pause, “I admit the excesses of the royalty leading up to the Revolution, but what has happened afterwards has been much worse than anything that Marie Antoinette or King Louis XVI could have done. If it were up to me then yes, Roman Catholicism would be the state religion of France.” The Marshal fell into surly silence for a moment, then moved his surviving bishop. “Check.” He said.
“But you didn’t answer my question,” Washburne said, moving his king behind the protection of a pawn, “isn’t a state religion discriminatory to religious minorities?” The Marshal raised his eyebrows at him.
“You Americans. You’re so touchy, so worried about offending people ever since those Radicals of yours took the White House.”
“If caring about equality makes me touchy then feel free to call me that all you want.” For a moment Washburne was worried that he might have said this a little too sharply, but all the Marshal did was cock his head slightly.
“All religions are not equal,” he said, “and I don’t believe that it would be at all fair to promote them to the masses when the true religion can simply be established at a national level. I am not a cruel man Minister, I’m not going to force the Jews and Protestants and Moslems of France to practice Catholicism. They can condemn themselves to hell if they wish to, but I do want to make sure that Catholic values are protected in France. So that we can be strong again.” He slid a rook along the board and placed it two squares over from Washburne’s king. “Checkmate.” He said gently. And somehow Washburne knew that the conversation was over.
_______
“I cannot perform an amputation here,” Frost said, “he needs to be moved to the clinic.” Behind him, trembling in the doorway, Caroline Fowler was at a loss as to what to do. Frost had practically let himself in, and while he didn’t seem terribly suspicious of her husband’s gunshot wound, she knew that the nigger constables (those of them still unharmed at least) would definitely find out if she took poor John into town.
But…
What else could she possibly say? She doubted that Frost would react well if she insisted upon keeping John here, in the charnel house that had so recently been their bedroom. He would find it odd. Unless of course he already knew everything and was playing dumb for her benefit.
“I’ll get you some more hot water.” She squeaked, snatched one of the dirtied pots of water, and hurried off down the hall before Frost could say a word more. He had drained the pus filled wounds in her husband’s elbow, but had said something disconcerting about infection all the same. She had thought that she’d cleaned the wound well, but maybe her hands had been shaking too much. The way they always did when things didn’t go well. When John was giving her that flat, sullen stare that he used when he was really angry. When he wanted to hurt her.
“Why did you let him in?” Caroline jumped, dropping the pot of blood pinked water she had been holding. It splashed, still almost hot enough to scald her. She turned. Saw Lily standing there, right next to the doorway to the kitchen.
Lily could be quiet. She had been tombstone silent, and was again. Even her breathing was muted. She stared, face expressionless, eyes flat but for something worrying that coiled in those depths.
“He…I…” Words failed. Lily raised up one hand very slightly, the folds of her dress falling apart to reveal a little paring knife. She had had it the whole time. That revelation turned Caroline’s stomach.
“Daddy said not to do that.” Lily said. She dropped the knife onto the kitchen counter, the clatter making Caroline jump again. She was trembling from head to toe now, words virtually impossible.
She could remember growing up in Charleston, her mother swatting her hands with a willow wand every time she stuttered. Her father away, the house empty but for the occasional fits of piano music her mother attempted when she was feeling well enough to try. Funny how it all came back in times like this.
“He…” She swallowed her fear, forced her jaw to stop trembling, “Doctor Frost can help us.” She said, pot forgotten now, sodden dress clinging unpleasantly to her ankles.
“Doctor Frost is a nigger lover.” Lily professed flatly, and then turned from her position just next to the doorway. “You made a mistake here,” she said quietly over her shoulder as she left, “you both did.” And then she was gone.
_______
“Papa?” Eli asked once Frost had left for the Red Bird, “are they gonna come again?” Outlaw wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“I don’t know Eli,” he said finally, “I hope not.” Speaking still hurt but by remaining quiet Outlaw found that he could reduce the prickle in his throat to a manageable level. Albright and Holt were still standing by, and as Outlaw observed them Holt leaned in a little bit.
“Another thing,” he said, “Eustace, you know him?” Outlaw nodded very slightly.
“Yeah.”
“He said he heard gunfire out in the direction of Company Shops a few hours before you got hung. Might be nothing, but who knows.” Company Shops…
“Paisley?” Outlaw asked, then winced and held up a hand to his throat. Albright put a hand on Eli’s shoulders.
“I think your papa needs to talk to Deputy Holt about some things,” he said gently, “how about we go home for a little bit.” Eli reluctantly agreed and clung to Albright’s hand as they exited.
“Bye papa,” he said quietly, and then was gone. He looked much younger when he was scared, more vulnerable. Outlaw hated seeing him like that. Wished that he could bound up out of bed and chase after them…
“You still think Allen Paisley the one behind the McMillan raid?” Holt asked, slightly skeptical.
“I do.” Holt let out a long sigh and sat down on the floor next to Outlaw’s bed.
“I just cant imagine no Negro out there low enough to attack another Negro’s farm. Even if he be blaming it on night riders…”
“You start seeing a lot of potential for evil in the world when you have a child to protect.” At this Holt was silent. He lived alone, his family had all died back on the plantation. Perhaps the closest thing to family he had was Outlaw.
“That boy didn’t stop shaking for hours after you was brought in,” he said finally, “kept trying to pray but nothing came out right. Then Albright showed up and calmed him down,” Holt snapped his fingers, “just like that. Sang him songs, held him close. You real lucky to have a boy like Eli and a friend like Will Albright.”
“He saved my son,” Outlaw said, feeling crushingly tired all of the sudden, “and…he saved me too.” For a moment Holt paused, wanting to ask Outlaw what exactly he meant by that. But when he turned to voice his query Outlaw was already asleep.
_______
When Caroline Fowler came back with a fresh pot of hot water she looked like she’d seen a ghost and the hem of her dress was soaked. Frost didn’t ask her what had happened, didn’t think that that would help, but instead thanked her for her help and stood up.
“Your husband is in poor shape,” he said, “that arm needs to be amputated immediately and his fever broken, otherwise he will die of infection before the day is out. Additionally, I’m going to need to know the nature of the accident that caused this and the rifle that was used. Your daughter Lily said that it was a .58 Minie ball from a Richmond rifle, is that accurate?” Caroline nodded slowly, blinking rapidly, confused and frightened.
“I don’t…” She trailed off and then hugged herself, trembling. Frost wondered where Lily was, then decided that he didn’t really want to know. She could be anywhere at all for all he cared, just so long as she wasn’t near him.
“Could I see the rifle?” He asked, and Caroline’s eyes widened further.
“I…”
“Please,” Frost insisted, “it’s important.” This was enough to send Caroline off. The poor woman crumbled whenever it came to the slightest bit of authority. She’d be much better off without her husband poisoning her life. Next to Frost John Fowler was still twitching and grumbling, but had still not woken up. Even through what had had to be an extremely painful cleaning of his wound he hadn’t so much as opened his eyes. He was deep into a fever trance, Frost supposed, and would only awaken when his temperature was lowered.
Caroline returned momentarily, a short rifle in tow. It wasn’t quite a carbine, for Frost could see that the barrel had been sawn down so that it could be used from horseback, but he could remember seeing them during the war. Popular amongst light infantry and cavalrymen. He accepted the weapon, drew back the hammer a half cock and made sure that the pan was free of powder and primer. He sniffed the pan but smelled nothing but gun oil. For good measure he sniffed the barrel as well, but the unmistakable odor of burnt powder was nowhere to be found.
“This rifle hasn’t been fired in a long time.” Frost said, and set it into the corner of the room. Caroline Fowler opened her mouth but said nothing. She looked like a deer caught in a hunter’s sights. Absolutely frozen.
“I might have…cleaned it.” She said finally, choking on her own words, but Frost shook his head.
“Mrs. Fowler, ma’am,” he said soothingly, “I need you to tell me what happened to your husband, otherwise I wont be able to help either of you.” Caroline Fowler folded slowly to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest, trying not to sob.
“I…I can’t!” She wailed, and Frost left Fowler’s bedside, falling to his knees besides the tear streaked wife.
“You wont be in any trouble whatsoever if you tell me the truth about what happened to your husband. Nobody will come after you, I’ll make sure of it.” He wasn’t sure what possessed him to say that last part but immediately Frost felt a glow of satisfaction pass through him. He was protecting somebody, being proactive in the safety of the town instead of sitting quietly back and dealing with the aftermath of its little catastrophes.
He reached out and gently took her hands, away from where they were cupping a tear flooded face. For a moment Caroline was silent, eyes wide and glossy with the shock of the whole day, but then she managed to smile gently. Frost could feel her hands trembling in his, like trapped birds.
“Why…why are you doing this?” She asked. Frost wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Because it’s the right thing.” He said, and watched the tired, abused woman before him smile for what felt like the first time in years. It wasn’t much, but it felt genuine, and that made Frost feel better. It erased some of the terror from this whole ugly situation.
“My husband is…” she paused, the old fear coming flooding back into her face, aging her by a thousand years, highlighting old bruises hidden under fading makeup, “I…” She shook her head. “I cant.” She said pitiably.
“It’s alright,” Frost said, surreptitiously scanning the hallway behind Caroline for Lily. He didn’t see her. “You can tell me.”
“Is my husband going to be arrested?” She asked. Frost hesitated, and in that moment he told Caroline Fowler everything that she needed to know.
“If you tell me…” She shook her head.
“You’re with the constables,” she said, “with Outlaw.” But this realization didn’t seem to faze her nearly as much as Frost had feared it would. Instead of jumping away or fleeing she just bowed her head and shook it slightly from side to side in self reproach.
“John was shot during the lynching, wasn’t he?” He asked. And Caroline sighed. She didn’t pull her hands away, just remained still, staring at the blood flecked floor.
“My husband was a night rider,” she said at last, tonelessly, “a night rider…” Slowly she got up, hands slipping from Frost’s, and turned to look at her husband’s supine form.
Frost could see a tray full of scalpels and scissors, some bloodied, others still clean. He got up as well, hoping that that wasn’t where Caroline was looking as well. She seemed to have been erased by the stress of the situation. She had even stopped trembling. Now she just stood, like a statue, regarding her husband, unsure of what to say next.
“Was he involved in the attempted lynching of Wyatt Outlaw?” He asked, somewhat cautiously, slowly moving between Caroline and the scalpels.
“I told him once that he was going to get hurt if he kept riding. Hurt or killed maybe. He hit me in the nose and told me that if I kept talking back to him then I’d get hurt…or killed maybe.” Frost could remember treating her for a broken nose one time. She had had a door opened into her face she said. Frost hadn’t believed it for a second. He hated treating Caroline Fowler for domestic injuries like that. Not because of her, but because of John Fowler standing in the corner of the room. Watching. Staring. Sometimes his knuckles were even still red.
Lily Fowler never came into his clinic for things like that. Never sported any bruises or cuts. Walked upright and never so much as flinched, even as her mother jumped at every shadow. Frost had wondered what exactly possessed John Fowler to lay into his wife but not lay a finger on his daughter. Now he supposed that he knew.
“I’m going to need to take him to the clinic so that I can amputate this arm.” Frost said, and Caroline turned slightly, to face him.
“He did it.” She said quietly, and then brushed past him, shaking from head to toe all over again.
“The Chomps Elise,” sighed a young woman happily, “it’s so gosh darn pretty aint it?” Watching from the shade of a green umbrella in the cafe Alcazar, Elihu Washburne, Minister to France, couldn’t help but agree. Mangling of the venerable avenue’s name aside.
“Your move monsieur,” the man sitting with him said gently, and Washburne’s attention was broken. He turned back to the game of chess that he was playing, and looked over the situation on the board.
He was losing. And quite badly too, his pieces having been crowded up against the back of the board, with no real escape other than through a gauntlet of his opponent’s pieces. But of course, Washburne supposed, that was what one got when they played against a Marshal of France.
His opponent, Patrice de MacMahon, was an older man, hair gone entirely white, with a finely trimmed mustache. He looked very gentle while contemplating his situation, but behind that Washburne could sense a steeliness that had definitely served the man well during his various military campaigns.
MacMahon had fought valiantly in the Crimean and Italian wars, and could have been the highest ranking military man in all of France if he so wished. but instead he seemed content to safeguard his nation from the shadows of semi-obscurity. Nobody walking down the street recognized either Washburne or the Marshal, and MacMahon seemed to like it that way.
“I believe that I have been beaten.” Washburne said, trying to work a way out of his predicament. MacMahon shrugged slightly.
“But are you? I see moves left that you may make.”
“I would lose pieces in virtually any move…” Washburne said. MacMahon smiled humorlessly and then traced a line from a black bishop to a white pawn. He tapped the top of the pawn lightly.
“There.” Washburne blinked and then chuckled.
“Oh…I didn’t see that. Thank you.” He checked for dangers around the vulnerable pawn and then took it. MacMahon sat back in his chair, looking over the board.
“I’m curious,” the Marshal said, “about America. You have no monarchy there, and an almost slavish devotion to liberty. I’m curious how that effects the development of a nation.”
“We believe in freedom,” Washburne said simply, “freedom of representation, of religion and speech and press. If a man can choose not only what to believe but also what to pursue in order to achieve happiness then he is truly free.”
“So you are a Republican I understand.”
“Yes,” Washburne said, watching the Marshal draw back one of his pieces, moving slightly defensively now, to account for the presence of the black bishop, “I am. As is the President and most of our congress.” For a moment MacMahon looked slightly confused, then he smiled.
“No, not the political party. I meant in terms of believing that a republic is inherently superior to a monarchy.”
“Oh. In that case then yes, I am. And so is virtually everyone in my nation. France is a bit more divided, isn’t it?” MacMahon nodded slightly and watched Washburne make his own move.
“Yes. There are people of every political persuasion here. Monarchists, republicans, communists…” He shook his head slightly, “the past few decades have been chaotic times in France. And I trust that the future will not be much more stable.” He pressed a rook forward and took one of Washburne’s pawns.
“In terms of the Prussians?” Washburne asked. Tensions between Bismarck’s empire and the French state were high and almost everyone expected war to break out at some point in the near future. The Marshal nodded slightly but seemed distracted.
“In any war,” he said finally, watching Washburne contemplate his next move, “the states involved undergo stresses unrelated to the fighting taking place on the front. Social stresses, mental, spiritual. They all add up, and even if the military of such a state holds up against that of the enemy, if the people of that country give up then the war is lost.” Washburne nodded slightly.
“Of course. In our own civil war there was some concern towards the end about us being forced to make a negotiated peace with the Confederacy. Our people were tired, but fortunately we were able to pull through.” MacMahon shifted a pawn forward one space. Waited for Washburne’s reply.
“I am worried about the conditions of French society,” MacMahon said finally, “and I hope that you don’t take offense in me saying that republicanism is a definite factor in our weakening.” Washburne shrugged.
“Why do you say that?” He asked genially.
“Because republicanism, where it sprouts up, often leads to…dangerous ideas. I’m sure that it works in America because your nation is so young, but in France and other countries with millennia of culture and religious devoutness built up, then its side effects can be catastrophic.” Washburne paused in his contemplation of the chess game, intrigued.
“Explain these dangerous ideas to me.” He said. The Marshal seemed more than happy to comply.
“I suppose what concerns me the most is a death of spiritualism in France if the republicans get their way. There is a tendency to denote every religion as equals in republican society, when that is not the case. You are a Protestant I assume?”
“Presbyterian.”
“Ah, an offshoot of Protestantism. In any case, France is a Catholic nation. It was founded by Catholic men on Catholic values and as such is inherently tied to its founding conditions. If we suddenly remove those values from our society then what have we done but destabilize the entire foundation of our civilization? Do you understand what I’m saying Minister?” Washburne couldn’t help but feel a powerful sort of dislike for the Marshal’s ideology, but he was far too good of a diplomat to let that show. Instead he nodded politely and knocked out one of MacMahon’s knights.
“I understand where you’re coming from,” he said, “but what of Protestants and Jews in France, and what of Moslems in your North African holdings? Shouldn’t their beliefs be represented as well?” The Marshal looked slightly confused.
“What of them?” He asked.
“Surely they’ve aided in the development and ascension of France, just as its Catholic citizens have. Shouldn’t they have some representation as well?”
“Jews?” MacMahon asked doubtfully.
“Yes,” said Washburne insistently, “Jews. Moslems. Protestants. Isn’t the concept of a state religion inherently discriminatory towards those minority groups?”
“France does not currently have a state religion…” MacMahon said, and Washburne nodded.
“I know that, but it seems like you’re arguing in favor of establishing one.” The Marshal nodded slowly.
“I am a Legitimist,” he said after a pause, “I admit the excesses of the royalty leading up to the Revolution, but what has happened afterwards has been much worse than anything that Marie Antoinette or King Louis XVI could have done. If it were up to me then yes, Roman Catholicism would be the state religion of France.” The Marshal fell into surly silence for a moment, then moved his surviving bishop. “Check.” He said.
“But you didn’t answer my question,” Washburne said, moving his king behind the protection of a pawn, “isn’t a state religion discriminatory to religious minorities?” The Marshal raised his eyebrows at him.
“You Americans. You’re so touchy, so worried about offending people ever since those Radicals of yours took the White House.”
“If caring about equality makes me touchy then feel free to call me that all you want.” For a moment Washburne was worried that he might have said this a little too sharply, but all the Marshal did was cock his head slightly.
“All religions are not equal,” he said, “and I don’t believe that it would be at all fair to promote them to the masses when the true religion can simply be established at a national level. I am not a cruel man Minister, I’m not going to force the Jews and Protestants and Moslems of France to practice Catholicism. They can condemn themselves to hell if they wish to, but I do want to make sure that Catholic values are protected in France. So that we can be strong again.” He slid a rook along the board and placed it two squares over from Washburne’s king. “Checkmate.” He said gently. And somehow Washburne knew that the conversation was over.
_______
“I cannot perform an amputation here,” Frost said, “he needs to be moved to the clinic.” Behind him, trembling in the doorway, Caroline Fowler was at a loss as to what to do. Frost had practically let himself in, and while he didn’t seem terribly suspicious of her husband’s gunshot wound, she knew that the nigger constables (those of them still unharmed at least) would definitely find out if she took poor John into town.
But…
What else could she possibly say? She doubted that Frost would react well if she insisted upon keeping John here, in the charnel house that had so recently been their bedroom. He would find it odd. Unless of course he already knew everything and was playing dumb for her benefit.
“I’ll get you some more hot water.” She squeaked, snatched one of the dirtied pots of water, and hurried off down the hall before Frost could say a word more. He had drained the pus filled wounds in her husband’s elbow, but had said something disconcerting about infection all the same. She had thought that she’d cleaned the wound well, but maybe her hands had been shaking too much. The way they always did when things didn’t go well. When John was giving her that flat, sullen stare that he used when he was really angry. When he wanted to hurt her.
“Why did you let him in?” Caroline jumped, dropping the pot of blood pinked water she had been holding. It splashed, still almost hot enough to scald her. She turned. Saw Lily standing there, right next to the doorway to the kitchen.
Lily could be quiet. She had been tombstone silent, and was again. Even her breathing was muted. She stared, face expressionless, eyes flat but for something worrying that coiled in those depths.
“He…I…” Words failed. Lily raised up one hand very slightly, the folds of her dress falling apart to reveal a little paring knife. She had had it the whole time. That revelation turned Caroline’s stomach.
“Daddy said not to do that.” Lily said. She dropped the knife onto the kitchen counter, the clatter making Caroline jump again. She was trembling from head to toe now, words virtually impossible.
She could remember growing up in Charleston, her mother swatting her hands with a willow wand every time she stuttered. Her father away, the house empty but for the occasional fits of piano music her mother attempted when she was feeling well enough to try. Funny how it all came back in times like this.
“He…” She swallowed her fear, forced her jaw to stop trembling, “Doctor Frost can help us.” She said, pot forgotten now, sodden dress clinging unpleasantly to her ankles.
“Doctor Frost is a nigger lover.” Lily professed flatly, and then turned from her position just next to the doorway. “You made a mistake here,” she said quietly over her shoulder as she left, “you both did.” And then she was gone.
_______
“Papa?” Eli asked once Frost had left for the Red Bird, “are they gonna come again?” Outlaw wasn’t sure how to answer that.
“I don’t know Eli,” he said finally, “I hope not.” Speaking still hurt but by remaining quiet Outlaw found that he could reduce the prickle in his throat to a manageable level. Albright and Holt were still standing by, and as Outlaw observed them Holt leaned in a little bit.
“Another thing,” he said, “Eustace, you know him?” Outlaw nodded very slightly.
“Yeah.”
“He said he heard gunfire out in the direction of Company Shops a few hours before you got hung. Might be nothing, but who knows.” Company Shops…
“Paisley?” Outlaw asked, then winced and held up a hand to his throat. Albright put a hand on Eli’s shoulders.
“I think your papa needs to talk to Deputy Holt about some things,” he said gently, “how about we go home for a little bit.” Eli reluctantly agreed and clung to Albright’s hand as they exited.
“Bye papa,” he said quietly, and then was gone. He looked much younger when he was scared, more vulnerable. Outlaw hated seeing him like that. Wished that he could bound up out of bed and chase after them…
“You still think Allen Paisley the one behind the McMillan raid?” Holt asked, slightly skeptical.
“I do.” Holt let out a long sigh and sat down on the floor next to Outlaw’s bed.
“I just cant imagine no Negro out there low enough to attack another Negro’s farm. Even if he be blaming it on night riders…”
“You start seeing a lot of potential for evil in the world when you have a child to protect.” At this Holt was silent. He lived alone, his family had all died back on the plantation. Perhaps the closest thing to family he had was Outlaw.
“That boy didn’t stop shaking for hours after you was brought in,” he said finally, “kept trying to pray but nothing came out right. Then Albright showed up and calmed him down,” Holt snapped his fingers, “just like that. Sang him songs, held him close. You real lucky to have a boy like Eli and a friend like Will Albright.”
“He saved my son,” Outlaw said, feeling crushingly tired all of the sudden, “and…he saved me too.” For a moment Holt paused, wanting to ask Outlaw what exactly he meant by that. But when he turned to voice his query Outlaw was already asleep.
_______
When Caroline Fowler came back with a fresh pot of hot water she looked like she’d seen a ghost and the hem of her dress was soaked. Frost didn’t ask her what had happened, didn’t think that that would help, but instead thanked her for her help and stood up.
“Your husband is in poor shape,” he said, “that arm needs to be amputated immediately and his fever broken, otherwise he will die of infection before the day is out. Additionally, I’m going to need to know the nature of the accident that caused this and the rifle that was used. Your daughter Lily said that it was a .58 Minie ball from a Richmond rifle, is that accurate?” Caroline nodded slowly, blinking rapidly, confused and frightened.
“I don’t…” She trailed off and then hugged herself, trembling. Frost wondered where Lily was, then decided that he didn’t really want to know. She could be anywhere at all for all he cared, just so long as she wasn’t near him.
“Could I see the rifle?” He asked, and Caroline’s eyes widened further.
“I…”
“Please,” Frost insisted, “it’s important.” This was enough to send Caroline off. The poor woman crumbled whenever it came to the slightest bit of authority. She’d be much better off without her husband poisoning her life. Next to Frost John Fowler was still twitching and grumbling, but had still not woken up. Even through what had had to be an extremely painful cleaning of his wound he hadn’t so much as opened his eyes. He was deep into a fever trance, Frost supposed, and would only awaken when his temperature was lowered.
Caroline returned momentarily, a short rifle in tow. It wasn’t quite a carbine, for Frost could see that the barrel had been sawn down so that it could be used from horseback, but he could remember seeing them during the war. Popular amongst light infantry and cavalrymen. He accepted the weapon, drew back the hammer a half cock and made sure that the pan was free of powder and primer. He sniffed the pan but smelled nothing but gun oil. For good measure he sniffed the barrel as well, but the unmistakable odor of burnt powder was nowhere to be found.
“This rifle hasn’t been fired in a long time.” Frost said, and set it into the corner of the room. Caroline Fowler opened her mouth but said nothing. She looked like a deer caught in a hunter’s sights. Absolutely frozen.
“I might have…cleaned it.” She said finally, choking on her own words, but Frost shook his head.
“Mrs. Fowler, ma’am,” he said soothingly, “I need you to tell me what happened to your husband, otherwise I wont be able to help either of you.” Caroline Fowler folded slowly to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest, trying not to sob.
“I…I can’t!” She wailed, and Frost left Fowler’s bedside, falling to his knees besides the tear streaked wife.
“You wont be in any trouble whatsoever if you tell me the truth about what happened to your husband. Nobody will come after you, I’ll make sure of it.” He wasn’t sure what possessed him to say that last part but immediately Frost felt a glow of satisfaction pass through him. He was protecting somebody, being proactive in the safety of the town instead of sitting quietly back and dealing with the aftermath of its little catastrophes.
He reached out and gently took her hands, away from where they were cupping a tear flooded face. For a moment Caroline was silent, eyes wide and glossy with the shock of the whole day, but then she managed to smile gently. Frost could feel her hands trembling in his, like trapped birds.
“Why…why are you doing this?” She asked. Frost wasn’t sure how to answer.
“Because it’s the right thing.” He said, and watched the tired, abused woman before him smile for what felt like the first time in years. It wasn’t much, but it felt genuine, and that made Frost feel better. It erased some of the terror from this whole ugly situation.
“My husband is…” she paused, the old fear coming flooding back into her face, aging her by a thousand years, highlighting old bruises hidden under fading makeup, “I…” She shook her head. “I cant.” She said pitiably.
“It’s alright,” Frost said, surreptitiously scanning the hallway behind Caroline for Lily. He didn’t see her. “You can tell me.”
“Is my husband going to be arrested?” She asked. Frost hesitated, and in that moment he told Caroline Fowler everything that she needed to know.
“If you tell me…” She shook her head.
“You’re with the constables,” she said, “with Outlaw.” But this realization didn’t seem to faze her nearly as much as Frost had feared it would. Instead of jumping away or fleeing she just bowed her head and shook it slightly from side to side in self reproach.
“John was shot during the lynching, wasn’t he?” He asked. And Caroline sighed. She didn’t pull her hands away, just remained still, staring at the blood flecked floor.
“My husband was a night rider,” she said at last, tonelessly, “a night rider…” Slowly she got up, hands slipping from Frost’s, and turned to look at her husband’s supine form.
Frost could see a tray full of scalpels and scissors, some bloodied, others still clean. He got up as well, hoping that that wasn’t where Caroline was looking as well. She seemed to have been erased by the stress of the situation. She had even stopped trembling. Now she just stood, like a statue, regarding her husband, unsure of what to say next.
“Was he involved in the attempted lynching of Wyatt Outlaw?” He asked, somewhat cautiously, slowly moving between Caroline and the scalpels.
“I told him once that he was going to get hurt if he kept riding. Hurt or killed maybe. He hit me in the nose and told me that if I kept talking back to him then I’d get hurt…or killed maybe.” Frost could remember treating her for a broken nose one time. She had had a door opened into her face she said. Frost hadn’t believed it for a second. He hated treating Caroline Fowler for domestic injuries like that. Not because of her, but because of John Fowler standing in the corner of the room. Watching. Staring. Sometimes his knuckles were even still red.
Lily Fowler never came into his clinic for things like that. Never sported any bruises or cuts. Walked upright and never so much as flinched, even as her mother jumped at every shadow. Frost had wondered what exactly possessed John Fowler to lay into his wife but not lay a finger on his daughter. Now he supposed that he knew.
“I’m going to need to take him to the clinic so that I can amputate this arm.” Frost said, and Caroline turned slightly, to face him.
“He did it.” She said quietly, and then brushed past him, shaking from head to toe all over again.
Really liked the update.
MacMahon's conversation was rather enlightening. His whole spiel about Catholic values would seem so alien to so many of us today, but I've been surprised in my own reading about how strong those ideals were back then. The conversation echoes lots of 1860s sentiment you could find in Quebec!
Looking forward to where we go forward to from here
MacMahon's conversation was rather enlightening. His whole spiel about Catholic values would seem so alien to so many of us today, but I've been surprised in my own reading about how strong those ideals were back then. The conversation echoes lots of 1860s sentiment you could find in Quebec!
Looking forward to where we go forward to from here
I certainly hope that he isn't Prime Minister after France gets destroyed at the hands of Germany or we'll get Ancien Regime 2.0.