How Few Remain Part 41

"Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise," Sorge translated. "Martin Luther. A progressive in his day, aiding the rising bourgeoisie against the church and the feudal aristocracy that supported it. Now, Mr. Lincoln-why do you stand here?"

"Because it has been made painfully clear to me that the Republican Party is not and cannot be the party that represents the laboring cla.s.s in the United States," Lincoln answered. "I believe that cla.s.s deserves representation. I believe this democracy will fail unless that cla.s.s has representation. If the Republican Party is not up to the job, then the Socialists will have to be."

Friedrich Sorge and Ludwig the typesetter exchanged several excited comments in German. After a minute or so, Sorge returned to English: "This is what we have been doing since founding the party ten years ago."

"I know," Lincoln said. "I've watched you. I've watched your progress with no small interest. I would have watched it with even greater interest had there been more progress to watch."

"Too many American workers are in love with the status quo status quo to make progress quick," Sorge said with a grimace. "It is the same as it is in Europe. No, it is worse than it is in Europe. In the United States, a man who despairs of factory labor will go and start a farm or prospect for gold in the hope of becoming rich at a stroke. This can never be an answer, but it can look like one, and it gives the capitalists a safety valve to drain off revolutionary energy." to make progress quick," Sorge said with a grimace. "It is the same as it is in Europe. No, it is worse than it is in Europe. In the United States, a man who despairs of factory labor will go and start a farm or prospect for gold in the hope of becoming rich at a stroke. This can never be an answer, but it can look like one, and it gives the capitalists a safety valve to drain off revolutionary energy."

"The safety valve will not stay open much longer," Lincoln said. "The prairies are filling up. Failed miners become proletarians in Western towns instead of Eastern cities, or they stay on as miners for the lucky handful who do grow rich, and serve as labor in the mines of the big companies."

"Yes." Sorge nodded emphatically. "So, as I say, though progress is slow, the revolution will come, and will throw down the capitalists and their minions."

"You believe the engine is is broken and broken and will will explode," Lincoln said. Sorge nodded again. So did Ludwig. The ex-president went on, "I believe the engine explode," Lincoln said. Sorge nodded again. So did Ludwig. The ex-president went on, "I believe the engine is is broken but broken but may perhaps may perhaps be repaired. The Republicans would not hear me because I dared to say something was wrong with the engine. Will you now cast me forth because I dare to say it may be set to rights?" be repaired. The Republicans would not hear me because I dared to say something was wrong with the engine. Will you now cast me forth because I dare to say it may be set to rights?"

For a moment, he thought Sorge would tell him yes, and that would be that. Then the Socialist newspaperman said, "Come back into my office, Mr. Lincoln. We do not need to speak of these things standing here at the counter like men choosing pickles from the barrel."

The office was small and cramped and dark and full of bookshelves. Most of the books on them were in German, the rest in English and French. The word Socialist Socialist looked much alike in all three languages. Sorge had to clear more books off the chair in front of his desk to give Lincoln room to sit down. The desk itself was a disorderly snarl of papers. looked much alike in all three languages. Sorge had to clear more books off the chair in front of his desk to give Lincoln room to sit down. The desk itself was a disorderly snarl of papers.

Seeing Lincoln take the measure of the little room, Sorge chuckled wryly. "I, you see, will never be a wealthy capitalist. Luckily for me, I never wanted to be a wealthy capitalist."

"Had you wanted to be one, I should be here, or perhaps somewhere else close by, speaking of this with someone else," Lincoln answered, "for the Socialists in Chicago would have a leader, regardless of whether or not you were he. Now to come back to the question I asked out front: will you condemn me for not being revolutionary enough, as the Republicans condemned me for being too revolutionary?"

"Socialist thought is divided on whether the proletarian revolution is inevitable," Sorge said. "The Marxian Socialists, now, believe it is, and-"

"I am familiar with the division," Lincoln broke in. "Not long ago, in Montana Territory, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt accused me of being a Marxian Socialist, and I told him I had to decline the honor. This was before he became a national hero, you understand." His laugh was as wry as Sorge's. "Now, of course, I could deny him nothing."

"Of course," the Socialist answered, his voice curdled with irony. "The only confusion the papers have had is whether to fawn more on Roosevelt or on Custer. If something is before their eyes, they will never look farther. Pah!"

"This digression is my fault," Lincoln said. "I do apologize for it. Let me ask my question a third time: am I too soft for you, as I am too hard for the men of what had been my party?"

Sorge frowned in thought. "I have seen little in the behavior of capitalists to cause me to believe they will not create so much outrage among the proletariat as to make revolution inevitable."

"You have never seen the behavior of capitalists reined in by government regulation, either," Lincoln replied.

"No, I have not," Sorge said. "I have not seen the second coming of Jesus Christ, either. I do not expect to see the one thing or the other while I live, and which is less likely I would not even guess."

"Here in the United States, the power of the ballot box gives the laboring cla.s.ses a power, or the potential for a power, that they lacked in the days when Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto Communist Manifesto, and in the places he knew best," Lincoln said.

"Marx yet lives. Marx yet writes," Sorge answered in tones of reproof.

"But he does not live here. He does not write here," Lincoln said. "By what I have read of his writings, he does not understand the United States well. You have lived in New York, you say. Now you live in Chicago. Can you tell me I am mistaken?"

He gave Friedrich Sorge credit: the Socialist gave the question serious thought before answering. At last, Sorge said, "No, Marx does not understand this country as well as he might."

"Good. We can go on from there: Will you also agree this is true of many Socialists in the United States?" Lincoln asked, pressing the newspaperman as if he still were a lawyer questioning an opposing witness. "With the labor problems this country has, would you not have enjoyed greater success if you could have figured out how to make the voting man see things your way?"

"It could be. It is not certain, but it could be," Sorge said cautiously. "I think you are now coming to say what it is your aim to say. Say it, then."

"I will say it," Lincoln replied. "Leaving revolution out of the bargain save as a last resort, I feel the Socialists offer the laborers of this country their best chance to reclaim it from the wealthy. If and when I bolt the Republican Party, I can bring some large fraction of its membership-a third, maybe half if I'm lucky-with me into the fold here. That is not enough to elect a president or senators, not yet, but it is enough to elect congressmen, state legislators, mayors, and it is a base from which to build. When Blaine goes down in '84, as you know he will, more people will see the Republicans are doomed and join our ranks. Now, how does that look to you?"

Sorge licked his lips. He was tempted; Lincoln could see as much. The prospect of some actual power hit the newspaperman like a big slug of raw rotgut whiskey. Playing to win was a game very different from playing to agitate. Slowly, Sorge said, "This is not something I can decide at once. Also, this is not something I can decide alone. I shall have to talk with some men here and wire others what you propose." He dug through the rubbish on his desk till he found a pencil. After licking the point, he scribbled for a minute. Then he said, "If I understand you, what you have in mind is ..."

"Yes, that's right, nor near enough," Lincoln said when the Socialist had finished reading back his notes. "Off the record, Mr. Sorge, how does it strike you?"

"I am more revolutionary than you; you are right about that," Sorge answered. "But you are also right in saying we have not done as much as we might have. Maybe-maybe, I say-this will show us the way."

"This is how the Republican Party was born, more than a generation ago," Lincoln said. "Antislavery Whigs, Free-Soilers, Know-Nothings, even a few Northern Democrats who couldn't stomach the extension of slavery-we all joined together to work for a common goal. I think this new coalition may do the same in regard to wage slavery."

"I hope you are right." Sorge gave him a keen look. "President Blaine will call you a traitor, and, when he loses the next election, he will say it is for no other reason than that you and your followers left the party."

"President Blaine is not in the habit of listening to what I say, no matter how hard a time I have convincing people that that is so," Lincoln said, sadly remembering John Taylor's miscalculation. "I see no reason why I should be obliged to take notice of what President Blaine says, especially when, from this day forth, we shall no longer be members of the same party."

Friedrich Sorge pulled open a file cabinet behind his desk. When his hand came out of the drawer, it was clutching a whiskey bottle. More rummaging in the cabinet and in his desk produced two tumblers, mismatched and none too clean. He poured a couple of hefty dollops, handed one gla.s.s to Lincoln, and raised the other high. "To Socialism!" he said, and drank.

Lincoln drank, too. The whiskey was bad, but it was strong. "To Socialism," he said.

Brigadier General George Custer rode along bare yards south of the forty-ninth parallel of lat.i.tude, the border separating Montana Territory from Canada, along with a troop from the Fifth Cavalry. Bare yards north of the border, not quite in rifle range but not far out of it, a troop of red-coated British cavalrymen rode along d.o.g.g.i.ng his trail. Neither side had fired a shot since General Gordon took his mutilated army of invasion back over the border. Both sides were ready. For his part, Custer was eager.

Several reporters rode along with the Fifth Cavalry. One of them, an eager young fellow named Worth, asked, "How does it feel, General, to have your brevet rank made permanent?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Charlie, it beats the h.e.l.l out of going to the dentist to get a tooth yanked," Custer quipped. Charlie Worth and the rest of the reporters laughed appreciatively. Custer held up a hand to show he wasn't through. The newspapermen fell silent, to hear what other pearls of wisdom might fall from his lips. He went on in a serious, even a bombastic, vein: "My only regret is that the promotion comes as the result of a battle from which we could not seize the full fruits of victory because of the cease-fire's having gone into effect. Absent that, we should have pursued to destruction the ruffians who dared desecrate our sacred soil."

Awkwardly, the reporters scribbled as they rode. "G.o.d d.a.m.n, but he gives good copy," one of them muttered to another in admiring tones. The second man nodded. Custer didn't think he was supposed to hear. His chest swelled with pride. Truly he was the hero of the hour.

He waved to Charlie Worth. The reporter, honored at being shown such a confidence, rode up close to him. Custer said, "Do you mind if I make another foraging run amongst your cigars, Charlie?"

"Why, not at all, General." Worth held out a leather cigar case. Custer took a fat stogie from it and reined in so he could strike a match. He coughed a couple of times after he got the cigar going and sucked smoke into his mouth. Before the battle by the Teton River, the only tobacco he'd smoked had been in a few peace pipes handed him by the leaders of Indian tribes he'd smashed.

A reporter asked, "What is your view of the cease-fire, General?"

"I regret that it came when it did, as it prevented us from punishing the British as they so richly deserved," Custer replied. "I also regret it even more on general principles, for it has humiliated us before the nations of the world for the second time in a s.p.a.ce of less than twenty years."

His stomach knotted at the thought. He had loved his country longer and more faithfully than he had loved his wife. Now, as in 1862, the United States were going down to mortifying defeat, and that despite his victory, a victory which, had he learned of the cease-fire in time, would never have happened. When he'd married Libbie after the War of Secession, he'd promised to stop cursing and stop drinking. He'd held to the promise till he learned his victory counted for nothing. He'd stayed drunk for days after that, and let out all the oaths he had in him. He was still drinking, he was still swearing, and he'd taken up smoking for good measure.

Camp that evening brought everybody up close to everybody else; men stayed near the greasewood fires for warmth. To the north, the campfires of the troop of British cavalry were a constellation of brightly twinkling stars on the horizon.

Custer and his troopers wolfed down salt pork and hardtack. Some of them crumbled the biscuits and fried them in the grease from the pork, of which there was always an adequate supply. "How do you people eat this stuff day after day, week after week, and live to tell the tale?" one of the reporters asked.

"So sorry, boys," Custer said. "Next time you ride along with us, we'll make sure we cater the affair from Denver."

That got a round of laughter, as he'd hoped it would. Then one of the reporters-it was Charlie Worth, d.a.m.n him-asked, "How did Colonel Roosevelt and the Unauthorized Regiment take to Army rations?"

"I'm afraid I really don't know," Custer answered, his voice all at once as cool as the breeze hissing down from the north. "I never discussed that with Mr. Roosevelt." He laid the tiniest bit of stress on the civilian t.i.tle.

The reporters, of course, made their living noticing tiny stresses. "Come on, General," one of them said. "What do you really think of Colonel Roosevelt"-he laid the tiniest bit of stress on the military t.i.tle-"as a soldier? What do you think of the men of the Unauthorized Regiment as soldiers?"

"Have mercy, gentlemen," Custer said. "I've answered those same questions a lot of times over the past weeks." And I'd like it a lot better if you asked them a d.a.m.ned sight less often And I'd like it a lot better if you asked them a d.a.m.ned sight less often. Having to share the limelight with the boy colonel gave him worse dyspepsia than salt pork and hardtack gave the reporters.

They wouldn't leave him alone. He might have known they wouldn't leave him alone. "Come on, General," Charlie Worth coaxed. "Give it to us straight. You can do that."

"I can only repeat what I've said a great number of times," Custer answered: "Colonel Roosevelt and his volunteers were gifted, patriotic amateur soldiers, and fought as well as men of that sort could be expected to fight." Every word of that was true. If the reporters judged the tone to be ever so little on the slighting side, was that his fault?

One of the newspapermen said, "General, isn't it a fact that the Unauthorized Regiment performed better against the limeys than the Fifth Cavalry did?"

"Like h.e.l.l it's a fact," Custer snarled, "and if Roosevelt has been saying that, he's a d.a.m.ned glory-sniffing liar."

"No, General, I never heard it from him," the reporter said hastily. "But didn't the Unauthorized Regiment fight Gordon's cavalry to a draw and then chase the redcoats halfway back to Canada after the what-do-you-call-'ems-the Gatling guns-chewed them to smithereens?"

"The Unauthorized Regiment," Custer said, as if lecturing on strategy at West Point to a cla.s.s of idiots, "engaged the enemy forces pursuant to my orders. Had I placed them in the center and us on the wings, we would have done as well against the British cavalry, but they would have fared far worse against Gordon's foot. Since my men were fighting dismounted at the battle by the Teton, they were not so well positioned to pursue as were the Volunteers."

All that was true, too. Had Theodore Roosevelt been sitting by the campfire, Custer was sure he would have agreed with every word. (Custer was also sure he would have tried to aggrandize himself one way or another, though; that trait being acutely developed in him, he had an eagle eye for spotting it in others.) But reporters were not after agreement. Agreement didn't sell papers. Argument did. "What about the-Gatterling?-guns, General?" another news hawk asked.

"Gatling guns," Custer corrected. "Gatling." Idiots indeed Idiots indeed, he thought. "Well, what about them? Even if we hadn't had a one of them, Gordon's men hadn't a prayer of carrying our position."

He thought that was true, too, but he wasn't quite so sure. Bold as he was, he wouldn't have cared to mount an infantry a.s.sault on men in earthworks. Even in the War of Secession, that sort of business had proved hideously expensive. With the right troops, though-good American boys, not those limey b.a.s.t.a.r.ds-he might have had a go of it.

Charlie Worth said, "I hear tell Roosevelt says those Gatling guns saved your bacon in that fight-chewed the Englishmen up and spit 'em out again."

"This being a free country, Mr. Roosevelt may say whatever he likes," Custer answered. If you prefer the word of a man who became a soldier only because he was rich enough to buy himself a regiment over that of one who has devoted his entire life to the service of his country, you may do so, but I daresay no one will take you seriously afterwards."

That flattened young Worth, who gulped his coffee down in a hurry so he could get a big tin cup in front of his red face. But one of the other men asked, "Colonel Welton, down at Fort Benton, tells it pretty much the same way, doesn't he?"

"I haven't heard what Henry has to say," Custer replied. "I will note that, while I and many of the officers of my regiment were promoted for our work by the Teton, Colonel Welton remains a colonel. In this you have the War Department's judgment on the value of our respective contributions."

The reporters scrawled furiously. One of them muttered, "When the devil are we going to be able to get to a telegraph clicker?"

Charlie Worth came up with a question no one else had asked Custer: "Andrew Jackson licked the British after the War of 1812 was over, and he ended up president of the United States. Now that you've done the same thing in this war, would you like to end up the same way?"

"Why, Charlie, the notion never entered my mind till this moment," Custer answered truthfully. Also truthfully, he went on, "Now that it is in there, I have to tell you I like it." The reporters laughed.

"You're a Democrat, aren't you, General?" somebody asked.

"What sensible man isn't?" Custer returned. "Did I hear rightly that Lincoln has shown the Republicans' true colors by going Communard?" Several reporters a.s.sured him he had heard rightly. Sadly, he shook his head. "If Blaine weren't in the White House, General Pope could have done the country a good turn by hanging old Honest Abe. He'll cause more trouble now, mark my words."

"Lots of Democratic politicians who could run for president," Charlie Worth observed. "We don't have so many soldiers who know how to win battles. What if they want you to stay in the Army?"

"I shall serve the United States wherever that service can lend the greatest aid," Custer declared, his tone grandiloquent and, on the whole, sincere.

Winter was on the way to Sonora and Chihuahua. That was obvious to Jeb Stuart: instead of being hotter than blazes, the weather was all the way down to warm. As for Stuart himself, he was on the way to El Paso, which suited him down to the ground.

He turned in the saddle and spoke to Major Horatio Sellers: "Won't it be fine, getting to spend Christmas somewhere near the edge of civilization?"

"Yes, sir," his aide-de-camp agreed enthusiastically. "If El Paso isn't civilization, at least it's on the railroad line to it."

"I like that," Stuart said. "It's true both literally and metaphorically. We are going to have to build a line through to the Pacific just as fast as we can sc.r.a.pe together the capital. Until we have one, and the feeder lines down to the city of Chihuahua and to Hermosillo, we aren't going to be able to control these provinces ... Territories ... states ... whatever we finally call them."

"That's true, sir." Major Sellers nodded. "I expect we'll end up with a Pacific Squadron in the Navy, too, and we'll also need the railroad to keep that supplied." He chuckled. "The d.a.m.nyankees will love having us for neighbors, too; you can just bet on it."

"One of the reasons they fought this war was to keep our frontier from touching the Pacific; no doubt about that," Stuart said. "But they lost, and now they'll have to make the best of it."

"Serves them right for starting the fight in the first place," Sellers said. "You ask me, sir, President Longstreet ought to squeeze an indemnity out of them that would make their eyes pop. Paying for a railroad would be a lot easier then."

"Old Pete knows what he's doing-you can doubt a lot of things, Major, but you'd better think twice before you doubt that," Stuart said. "My guess is, he reckons the United States hate us plenty now that we've licked them twice. Piling on an indemnity would be adding insult to injury: that's how he'd see it, I think."

Before Major Sellers could reply, a commotion to the rear made him and Stuart both look over their shoulders. Stuart soon heard men calling out his name. He waved his hat and shouted to show where he was.

A grimy, sweaty rider on a lathered horse came pounding up to him. "General Stuart, sir," the Confederate trooper gasped, "everything's gone to h.e.l.l back in Cananea, sir."

"Oh, Lord." Stuart did not look at his aide-de-camp. Horatio Sellers had been sure nothing good would come of cooperating with the Apaches, and maybe he'd turned out to be right after all. "I left a troop of cavalry behind there to make sure the Mexicans and the Indians didn't go at each other."

"Yes, sir," the trooper said. "Wasn't enough, sir. You remember that Yahnozha who ran away with the Mexican gal, and she says he drug her off and he says she was beggin' for more?"

"Oh, yes. I remember," Stuart said, a sinking feeling in his midsection. "What about him? Did he steal another woman?"

"No, sir," the soldier answered. "The gal's father and her brother, they was layin' for him, and one of 'em put about three bullets in his belly, and the other one, he put two, three more in his head. Then they cut off his privates, sir, and left 'em sittin' by the carca.s.s for the Indians to find. That started the fightin', and it's been a regular war ever since-you'd best believe it has."

"Christ," Stuart said, an exclamation that had nothing to do with the approach of the holiday season. "What the devil have you men been doing to put the lid back on the place?"

The look the trooper sent his way reminded him how insubordinate so many Confederate soldiers had been during the War of Secession. They were men accustomed to speaking their minds regardless of the niceties of rank. This cavalryman was stamped from the same mold. He said, "What we've been doing, sir, is trying to keep from gettin' ourselves killed. h.e.l.l of a lot more Apaches down by Cananea than we-uns, an' every one of 'em totes a Tredegar just like the ones we've got. h.e.l.l of a lot more Mexicans than we-uns, too. They got every d.a.m.n kind of rifle you ever did see. We try and get between the greasers and the redskins, only means we get shot at from both sides at once."

"Who's winning?" Major Sellers asked. His voice was exuberant, almost gleeful. "Whoever gets killed off, long as it isn't our own soldiers, we're well shut of 'em." Stuart glared at him. He stared right back, not so noisily insubordinate as the man who'd ridden in from Cananea, but not backing away from his opinion by even an inch, either.

"Well, sir, that's right hard to say," the Confederate trooper answered. "The Mexicans, they don't get to go out of their houses a whole lot, but they've got plenty of vittles, and any Injun sticks his head up inside of rifle range, he's liable to end up with his brains rearranged, you know what I mean? Every now and again, some of the greasers, the ones with the best guns and the most b.a.l.l.s, they'll sneak out of a night and shoot at the Apaches' camp."

"We can't have that," Stuart said. "We can't have any of that sort of nonsense. If we let it go on there, it'll go on all over these two provinces." He heaved a deep, regretful sigh. "So much for Christmas on the edge of civilization. Bugler!"

"Yes, sir!" The trooper produced his polished bra.s.s horn.

"Blow Halt," Stuart said. He sighed again. "Then blow About-face. We're going to have to go back there and stamp out that foolishness."

"The whole army, sir?" Major Sellers sounded appalled. He'd been looking forward to Christmas in Texas, too, perhaps even to taking leave and traveling back to Virginia for Christmas with his family.

But Stuart answered, "Yes, the whole army. The Apaches and the Cananeans are going to think they were strolling along the railroad tracks when a train ran over them. If we smash both sides now, it will save the Confederate States a lot of trouble for years and years to come."

"All right, sir; we'll do that, then." Sellers' laugh held a gravelly rumble of doom. "I've been saying all along that we ought to clean out those Indians. The faster and harder we do it, the better off these provinces will be."

"I knew you'd say, 'I told you so,' Major," Stuart said, and his aide-de-camp grinned, altogether unabashed. The commander of the Department of the Trans-Mississippi stroked his beard, working through the orders he would have to give to make the army reverse its course. "First thing we need to do is send a wire to El Paso, letting people know what's happened. Next thing-" He glowered his discontent at the desert all around. "We're already the other side of Janos, better than two days away from Cananea no matter how hard we push." He shook his head, annoyed at his wits for working slower than they should have. "No, most of us are better than two days away from Cananea. Colonel Ruggles!"

"Sir!" At that shout, the commanding officer of the Fifth Confederate Cavalry rode up on his camel. Stuart's horse snorted at the other beast's stink and tried to rear. He didn't let it. Calhoun Ruggles went on, "What can I-what can we-do for you, sir?"

Briefly, Stuart explained what had gone wrong in Cananea. He finished, "I want the Fifth Camelry to ride out ahead of the rest of the army and hit the Indians and the Mexicans before either side expects you. If you can, smash 'em up by yourselves. If you can't manage that, do everything you can. You know we won't be far behind you."

"All right, sir, we'll handle it," Colonel Ruggles said. "And if the redskins light out for the mountains, I reckon we'll chase 'em down before they can get there. They say they can go faster on foot than troopers can on horseback. I'd like to see 'em try and outrun my critters." He leaned forward in his peculiar saddle and set an affectionate hand on the side of his mount's neck. The camel twisted and tried to bite. Ruggles laughed as if he'd expected nothing else.

As Stuart had seen for himself, the Camelry was not in the habit of wasting time. Aboard their moaning, snorting, hideously homely mounts, Ruggles' troopers soon headed west. Stuart would have sworn his horse let out a sigh of relief when the camels trotted away.

Major Horatio Sellers gave Stuart a sly look. "I notice you're not riding with the Fifth this time, sir," he said.