Scene Ten Baltimore, MD, September, 1872
For the next six days, 'Jim' made a great show of getting to work 'pulling together his report for the President. But he seemed subdued and restless at the same time. And his partner had a time of it not showing his growing concern. Artie had already found it only angered the younger man and got him nowhere with 'Jim'. This came to a head when the President's schedule changed yet again and he was due in Baltimore the next day, a full week earlier than first planned. Thomas Macquillan, and Colonel Richmond were delayed in Washington, to their great frustration, and Courier's great relief. Frank Harper and Jeremy Pike had more trouble with their trip east than they'd had in half a dozen coming the other way. Courier did his best to counterfeit regret at that news, and privately praised his 'luck'. Jacques D'eglisier wired he'd been about to take the first southward bound train, when his niece fell ill. Finally, Artie decided he had to say something that evening, when he found Jim pacing the length and width of the suite, a crumpled piece of paper in one fist and a dozen or more like it on the rug.
"Redecorating at this time of year, James?"
"Yeah, Artie, Yeah, I thought I'd go in for the trashed look that's all the rage in Godey's Lady's Book!" Courier, finding the older man more and more irritating and far too curious, snapped back.
"Oh, so these aren't ten or twelve rough drafts of your report for the President, then?"
"No, they 're not. And I don't know why I should write it down, anyway. There are plenty of secretaries and aides to do that kind of busy work, aren't there?"
" Sure there are, usually, except when you're having a private meeting with the Man, and that was always your rule for those meetings, Jim, not his."
"Some things between the Commander in Chief and his security advisor should be kept between them, partner, don't you think? Some things really do have to be done in secret or they won't get done at all' Courier said, and shuddered.
The Turncoat is trying to climb back up again! Damn you, go back to your burial pit! I have the grand endeavor as my charge and my privilege to carry out! I will have nothing and no one, especially not one who's already failed to defeat us, prevent me now! Now Courier nodded with satisfaction, in this instance, at least, the Turncoat had not even managed to speak within his mind. That failed entity had less and less strength to make the 'climb' any longer, his opposite number considered.
"I'd say so.'' Artie answered and then looked more closely at the younger man. '' James, James are you even listening to me? I just agreed with you.''
"Then what were you sniping at me about just then?" Courier demanded.
"Me? Nothing." Artie lied. "You just seem a bit worn, a bit tired, still and maybe…'
"Maybe what?" Courier challenged him, sure he knew what was coming next. And now the 'Play-Actor' proved him right.
"Jim, you are tired. Anyone with one good eye in his head can see that. And that being the case, and knowing that you carry all this around in your head as well as if you had one of these 'picture taking' memories you like to plague me about…
And being that no more former Rebels were killed in more than eight months time…don't you think you should wire the Man, James. Don't you think you should put off your meeting with him, Don't you think you should put off this meeting at least a day so you can catch up on some sleep?"
Courier frowned, and then paced a few more steps away, before turning that frown on West's partner. "Well, first of all, what I'm tired of most of all is your acting like a mother hen all the damned time. And second of all, I never said I didn't have a good memory, I do, and it just doesn't come up to snuff when compared to the team genius! And after that comes the part where we DON'T KNOW that no more ANV veterans were murdered in the last eight months or so, partner. We only know that we haven't found any more of them dead on the streets, or out in the countryside or anywhere else around the District.
And lastly, comes the part where an aide, an agent, a staffer or an advisor to the Commander in Chief doesn't put off meetings with him. He puts off meetings with us, as his schedule demands, or he moves them up, as necessary to the work he does every day. And he's moved this one up! So it really doesn't matter to me, whether I'm in the pink of health or if I'm half dead, Artemus. Because it's my highest duty and my utmost honor and my greatest privilege, that I can report directly to the President! And that's exactly what I'm going to do, partner, again, tomorrow.''
'' Well, that's that, then, I suppose.'' Artie frowned searching his thoughts for another tact, to take.
'' You don't need to suppose, Artemus, it's the plain fact of the matter. I have my duty to carry out and I will carry it out precisely as ordered. That's just my Army training coming out, I'd imagine. In the Regular Army you just take orders and obey them. You don't try to figure them out. And you never question an order, ever.'' Courier answered frowning in turn
'' Not if you're a Regular Army martinet, or some sort of automaton with a bayonet where your backbone's supposed to be.'' Artie groused, knowing exactly how hard that kind talk pushed Jim's 'Regular Army' button.
Courier looked up from gathering the crumpled pieces of paper and glared at the older agent. '' Well, the Volunteer Army doesn't even exist any longer.'' 'the automaton impersonating West' answered. 'I suppose most of them only came along for the ride, anyway. Now, since we agree I don't need to write this blasted report out, can we just drop the subject?''
'' For now, sure. Except…'' Artie hedged.
'' Except what, now?'' Courier demanded.
'' Except something that has a lot to do with the Army, and that makes me think it has to do with the War, James m' boy has had you all but sleep-walking the past few days. And I tend to think it's not getting much if any sleep even when you try to, that's got you this angry, this worn out, with no sense of humor, and on this short a fuse, since you got back. And I tend to think it can't hurt and it might help if you tell me why you're constantly dreaming about the War.''
Well, he's finally asking a question that falls within the patterning, again. Courier thought. Not that the Play-Actor needs to know that I don't really need to sleep, or eat any longer, for that matter. Not when the Reckoning is so close at hand! '' Artemus, don't you have enough to do to keep you busy? Do you really need to spy on your partners too? Didn't you ever hear of privacy?' Courier asked, half smiling. '' And I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm only asking what makes you think I've been dreaming about anything, including the War?''
'' James, I have more than enough to do.'' Artie fired back. '' To answer your questions in order. And I don't spy on my partners and my friends. I just have good hearing, that's all. And so I don't have to think you're dreaming anything. I can hear you, just fine, partner, getting up and down ten times a night, muttering and mumbling and then cussing, and then shouting, as well. You haven't been getting five winks, much less twenty. And what you've been shouting about the most , Jim, is what I think you told me your worst memory of the War.''
''Fredericksburg.'' Courier answered, dully, looking down and away. '' That's got to top the list, alright. And after that bloody day, surely come Antietam, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, Little Roundtop, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, … Cold… Harbor, just to name a few … highlights.''
''Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Franklin.'' Artie added, nodding. '' Murfreesboro, too. And Atlanta, all make my list. So I am right, Jim. You've been dreaming every night about the War.''
''It's all those crazy people I went looking for, and found, talked about, Artemus; when they weren't talking about killing the President, that is. '' Courier nodded. '' So, it's a lot of what I've been thinking about, too. And I'm not sure I'd call what I've been doing, dreaming, exactly. More like .. . being dumped right back into … one melee or another. And it's like being surrounded, again by all the boys I knew, all the boys I grew up with, all the boys who ended up on the other side of a cornfield, or a river, or a hillside… all those boys who went 'to see the Elephant', and just plain got stomped by it. . And a lot of us never came home again. And a lot of us came home pretty much wrecked by the War, what we'd seen, and what we'd done there.
And I keep thinking too, about my Grandmother Randolph. She helped to birth and tend and mend so many of those same boys, including me and my cousins. And I think about how she cried and raged and wept over her boys… which grouping takes in at least four states and five armies. She hated that we were all fighting each other, then. She hated that we were shooting, barraging, enfilading, imprisoning, maiming and killing each other. And she hated that I left home in '57, to go to West Point and really never looked back, again.'' 'West' said, and fell silent, again.
''All right, I get that. But I think you might be exaggerating, just a tad-bit. You were down at her home every chance you got, Jim, once the War was over, and a few times before that, too. Norfolk was back in Federal control, pretty early on, wasn't it?'' Artie asked, studying the younger man's stance and manner again.
'' She raised me, Artemus. When my mother died, I'd barely turned five years old, for the Love of G-d! Of course I went back to see her whenever I could! She and my Grandfather were more like my parents, than my grandparents, when I was little. And that's all wound up in these … dreams if that's what they are, too. I find myself wondering how much she kept back. I find myself wondering if I don't understand better than I want to, how much she hated that War!
It was just about in her backyard, after all! And we made it a battlefield, again, again and again! I hate that we did that. I hate that people and places I love were destroyed by what we had to do just to end the War! It feels as though, my head still knows we were right, that there was no choice, by that time. But the rest of me…. Isn't quite that sure… no, not so much, not anymore… '' Courier started shaking now, and Artie crossed to him, guiding the younger man to a chair. Stay where you are, Turncoat, or I'll give you a very good reason to wish you had! Courier thought at his alternate. You're already going to be in trouble up to your neck, as it is. You don't want to add another charge to your indictment, do you? A charge of murdering your best friend, maybe?
Courier, the still weary other answered. I don't think you could do that, since you're so much a part of me. And that's a big part of the reason I don't think you can fulfill your damned mission, either. But that I guess we'll have to wait and find out who's right or wrong about that, tomorrow. Whatever happens, Courier, just remember you're not really walking around in this beat up framework of ours, alone, not anymore. So put this in your bank, or in your pipe and smoke it; you're not going to kill Artie, or anyone else, Courier, not on my watch! Talk to you tomorrow, little brother.
''Take it easy, partner.'' Artie told him. '' I don't think there's a man or a woman our age who doesn't understand just what you're saying. Like I said, before, I was at Shiloh, Donelson, Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Chattanooga, at Atlanta and on the March, too. I saw and heard and did things, then, I'd never claim to be proud of, either. And it was what had to be done, and it's still not always a good memory. I'd have to think it would be the same for everyone who came home alive from that time, Jim. And maybe it's the same for everyone who didn't', too.''
'' I sure as hell hope you're wrong, Artemus, at least about the boys who didn't come home! I for one wouldn't wish these memories on my worst, worst enemy! But you wanted to know more about these damnable dreams, right?'' Courier asked, looking up at the older man.
'' I wanted you to talk to me about them, yes. Because it helps, sometimes, just to get something like that out of your gut… into words. It helps me, anyhow Give it a try, why not? Talk to uncle Artemus.''
''All right. Just don't forget one very important thing: you asked. Well, it seems to me that there must be a crack in my brain, somewhere.''
'' Only one, James?'' Artie quipped. '' Oh, sorry, go on.''
'' Thanks, I will. I said, there must be a crack in my brain somewhere, because all the worst war stories I heard in the last few months seem to have seeped in there… and then they all got stuck! Try these, just for starters, I can't shut my eyes without seeing, without dreaming, ,I'm back at the Bloody Lane at Antietam, watching the Irish Brigade keep coming on and getting shot to ribbons! I can't even lay my head down without hearing the boys screaming, a burning alive at the Wilderness because nobody, nobody could get anywhere near them to get them out of that damned woods. I can't stop thinking about and worse dreaming about Cold Harbor; listening to our boys die, while we waited for word from Marse Robert as to what we would be allowed to do, to be allowed to get our wounded and our dead out from between the lines!
And yes, like you said, I can't rest for thinking about Fredericksburg, either. I wish I could. I wish I didn't know the first thing about that day! I wish I'd been anywhere else, that day! I wish I'd been on the moon, or the North Pole, or the Gobi desert, or the depths of hell. Well, no, not that last, because it surely seems to me that the depths of hell were right there at Marye's Heights, that damned day! Six separate charges we sent across that field! Six!
And not one got within twenty-five yards of those damned impregnable cliffs! 13,000 men died in that one-day! A blue carpet as far as the eye could see, lay there… made up of dying men! And those dying men, Artemus, they'd try to grab the feet or ankles or legs of the men going forward… to hold them back from being slaughtered, too! And honestly, Artemus, I'm not sure I know why that had to happen. I'm not sure, any longer, why any of those terrible days had to happen, at all! ''
''And do you really think this is the frame of mind you should take that report to the President, in, James? I'm sorry to put it quite this way, but I don't think you're in any state of mind to see the Man. And it seems to have come down to me, to talk sense to you now, whether you'll listen or not. So that's what I'm doing, And it's what Mac, Frank, Jacques or Jere, or the Colonel would be doing if they were standing here, listening to you, right now.'' Artie said, wondering again about the subtle, and not so subtle shifts and changes he'd seen in his partner, in the past few days.
'Jim' had turned to study the fireplace next to his chair. Now he turned back to Gordon, frowning so darkly it was as if he loathed his best friend. No, Artie thought. It's much more as if he doesn't know me at all; and believes I don't know him!
'' You know what, Artemus? I don't believe you. I don't think you're a damn bit sorry for that. And besides that little point, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I don't think you understand the first thing I'm talking about! I'm not a little boy in short pants, any longer, partner! I'm full grown, a fully-fledged Major, and I know what I'm doing, I know what I'm saying! And even though I don't have my father any longer, that doesn't mean I need or want to be patronized this way! And I absolutely DO NOT NEED ANOTHER POPPA!''
Then, as Artie watched, the younger man visibly made himself relax. He pulled his shoulders down and back, and took a deep breath. But he still looked as tense as a coil of copper wire. And he proved that assessment in the next second, saying: " PLEASE ARTIE, DON'T. DON'T POPPA ME, RIGHT NOW! JUST DON'T!"
''Jim,'' Arte started to say, as a preface for a much more heartfelt apology. But as he watched, the younger man turned away and back again. And when Jim turned back, he looked not angry at all, but out of a blue sky, terribly afraid. Not once in their acquaintance had he seen Jim look afraid at all, much less to this extent. And the younger man was plainly, vividly, not afraid of Artie, who he could likely take three falls out of three, any day of the week. But Jim seemed to be very much afraid of what either one of them would say or do next.
Artie kept watching the frightened younger man's face, and then made another decision, based on a startling idea. There had been two distinct versions of Jim West in this hotel suite, ever since he arrived. One was a whole lot like the Regular Army 'martinet' Gordon first met, and first assessed West to be. That 'Jim West' was distant, diffident and constantly on the watch for anything that would push Gordon out to arms length, or farther. The other 'Jim' was a great deal more like the one he saw peering out of that apprehensive mask, and much more like the partner Artie got to know, over time. Young, sure, funny, a lot of the time, reckless, painfully so, bright as a copper penny, resourceful without a doubt, and possessed of both a sharp wit and some very sharp wits. It was that 'Jim' Artie wanted to draw out now, to bring back, full time. And there was only one way the older agent could think of. Somehow he had to try, or at least imagine trying to get inside his partner's 'overly battered' braincase.
Jim, c'mon, talk to me, Artie urged the friend he sensed looking out from somewhere behind that frightened mask. What goes on with you? What is it? What did those sobs do that have you wound up like the clock on a homemade time bomb?
You just nailed it, partner. You did. That friend's voice, with its familiar Tidewater slur fully in place answered. And now you have to back off. you have to back off of this, now. And I don't give a flying damn what you believe or don't believe about anything else right now, Artie, You've got to believe me on this! I'm set to go off, I'm wired and locked down and I'm set to explode. And I will, Artie, I will do just that, the next time someone comes at me like another Poppa! That's why I've got to get out of this room, right now, and you've got to stay, right here, and you've got to drop this whole damned thing…Don't say one more word about it, don't ask me even one more question, Don't! Because I'll blow, Artie, I'll blow sky high, like that damned mine at Petersburg, the very next time someone tries to act like my father!
Alright, Jim. All right, I hear you, loud and clear. You go on and try to …well, try to rest, anyway. I'll stay here. Just sing out, you know, if…
If I need a hand, Yeah, get that. But Artie, for the love of G-d, don't break your word to me on this, not on this. It's too damned important for that kind of gamesmanship, Got that? Good. See you, Artie, see you.
The frightened expression died away and the one Artie had seen more than he wanted to, distant and diffident came back to Jim's face now. Then he turned and strode back into the bedroom without another word spoken between them. Courier was back on duty, having let his guard down for several long minutes. He could not allow more, not even to the one who was his own origin, his own source, the Oldest one of all he knew. He had a dangerous, difficult, and likely fatal duty to carry out, and soon. No one and nothing would be allowed to prevent that, not now. It was what had to be done. It was what he was ordered to do, by whom he wasn't altogether able to recall, now. And it was all there was left of his duty, his oaths, and his sworn allegiance to that same nebulous entity. He was to clear the path of someone's destiny. He was to follow a pattern so strictly enforced on his mind that there was no time for any further delay and no place for the least contradiction.
Courier was following that pattern even now, washing and dressing in an Army of the Potomac, 9th Corps, Major of the 2cnd Maryland Volunteers uniform, complete with a cockaded hat Jim West admired and affected as a young aide to George McClellan. Then he made his way out of the back window of the bedroom, along a widow's walk style ledge and down to street by way of a convenient gutter pipe. From there, he entered the hotel bar and made his presence clearly known there, drinking, or seeming to drink a great deal of Irish whisky, and making all the appropriate political remarks a soldier off duty is likely to make about his absent or deceased superiors. What the actor did, with the brief insight he'd been permitted, didn't matter now.
Courier's patterning said Gordon would likely hurry off to tell his friends about this most recent odd discussion with 'Jim West'. What the Bostonian and the Canadien and the rest of their friends did with what they 'd managed to glean from a few slips here and there couldn't and wouldn't change anything, now. And what they still didn't know, was that Courier had full authority to blindside, confuse and misdirect their every effort which was already enough to send them off on a few dozen snipe hunts, wild goose chases and fishing for any number of red herrings. More than that, he had orders to summarily execute anyone who acted with any force at all to prevent his mission being carried out. They did not have high enough clearance to know that, either.
Courier fully expected to die in performance of his duty, which meant nothing to him. He'd been prepared for nearly a year for that eventuality, and …a long time ago, so long he couldn't honestly say he recalled it, now. Meeting and presenting Aynsley's 'terms' to Ulysses Grant was his only responsibility his sole charge now, and the only thing that still mattered was meeting and carrying out his orders, following his patterning, as regards his meeting with Ulysses Grant