[Continuing chapter fourteen]
The first thing to do, Stewart decided, was to hide his clothes and weapons—ideally someplace well away from the river. If he was going to have to leave Washington in a hurry, any potential pursuers would likely expect him to move south, alongside or on the Brazos. Well, he’d simply go in some other direction then. If Walker truly was invading the republic from Louisiana, he’d be approaching the capital from the north-east. So that was the best direction to travel in.
Should it be necessary to flee. He still wasn’t certain this would be the case.
It’s increasingly likely, though, he thought. Even as he skirted the town along the west, keeping to valley bottoms and woods whenever he could, Stewart could see that the republic’s capital did not look much like a city going about its usual business. Instead it reminded him too much of the way Harpers Ferry had looked the day, just over a year ago now, when he and several thousand members of the Army of Virginia had marched up to it to drive the Federals out. Nothing he saw now was sufficient to disabuse him of the idea that had fixed itself on him from the boiler deck of the Bluebell.
Walker had supporters within the capital if not the government itself, and those supporters had taken control, or were in the process of doing so.
Well, he’d been told as much by Uncle James and Senator Brooks, hadn’t he?
This is going to complicate things. Even more than Governor Houston’s presence would have. He hadn’t thought much about what he was going to do—what he could do—to thwart Uncle James’s plot; his planning had pretty much stopped once he’d got himself into Texas and on the Bluebell heading north. But the little thought he had put into this part of his project had definitely included the presence of a sympathetic government in Washington-on-the-Brazos. And now it appeared he wasn’t going to have that.
After following the course of the Brazos northward and crossing at a narrow bend about a half-mile north of the last buildings of the capital, Stewart found a satisfactory hiding-place in the midst of a copse of fountain-shaped trees whose feathery leaves were out in full, providing decent cover to a pile of dead leaves from previous seasons; his bag and cloth-wrapped rifle and pistols he buried under the dead-fall. Then, applying a military engineer’s eye to the place to fix its features in his mind, he set off—not back the way he’d come but on a circuitous route around the top of the town, in order to approach it from the west. He saw nobody on the roads—paths, really—or in the fields as he walked. Washington was a very unhappy and withdrawn place today.
Perhaps I should have changed into uniform, he thought as he approached the capital again. The soldiers on whom he kept a cautious eye were dressed in a somewhat debased version of Confederate uniform—which was itself a somewhat debased version of the white-and-blue worn by both French and Habsburg soldiers and their many imitators in those German principalities and electorates that had somehow avoided being swallowed by the Holy Roman Empire. His own uniform—brand new and only worn for the few hours he’d spent in Memphis waiting for the boat to New Orleans—might have helped him blend in with the groups whose presence dominated the streets. No, he decided: I’d have stood out even worse. The uniform’s too good for this army. Besides, there wasn’t any point in dwelling on a decision he couldn’t reverse. It was already late afternoon, judging by the position of the sun—or its glowing proxy behind the clouds beginning to dominate the sky—and he was running out of time in which to investigate the situation before he’d have to find shelter for the night.
“Hey, you! Hold there!” The voice was a rattling scraping thing, like a wagon going over sun-dried ruts. Stewart, guessing he was its target, stopped and looked around.
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Should it be necessary to flee. He still wasn’t certain this would be the case.
It’s increasingly likely, though, he thought. Even as he skirted the town along the west, keeping to valley bottoms and woods whenever he could, Stewart could see that the republic’s capital did not look much like a city going about its usual business. Instead it reminded him too much of the way Harpers Ferry had looked the day, just over a year ago now, when he and several thousand members of the Army of Virginia had marched up to it to drive the Federals out. Nothing he saw now was sufficient to disabuse him of the idea that had fixed itself on him from the boiler deck of the Bluebell.
Walker had supporters within the capital if not the government itself, and those supporters had taken control, or were in the process of doing so.
Well, he’d been told as much by Uncle James and Senator Brooks, hadn’t he?
This is going to complicate things. Even more than Governor Houston’s presence would have. He hadn’t thought much about what he was going to do—what he could do—to thwart Uncle James’s plot; his planning had pretty much stopped once he’d got himself into Texas and on the Bluebell heading north. But the little thought he had put into this part of his project had definitely included the presence of a sympathetic government in Washington-on-the-Brazos. And now it appeared he wasn’t going to have that.
After following the course of the Brazos northward and crossing at a narrow bend about a half-mile north of the last buildings of the capital, Stewart found a satisfactory hiding-place in the midst of a copse of fountain-shaped trees whose feathery leaves were out in full, providing decent cover to a pile of dead leaves from previous seasons; his bag and cloth-wrapped rifle and pistols he buried under the dead-fall. Then, applying a military engineer’s eye to the place to fix its features in his mind, he set off—not back the way he’d come but on a circuitous route around the top of the town, in order to approach it from the west. He saw nobody on the roads—paths, really—or in the fields as he walked. Washington was a very unhappy and withdrawn place today.
Perhaps I should have changed into uniform, he thought as he approached the capital again. The soldiers on whom he kept a cautious eye were dressed in a somewhat debased version of Confederate uniform—which was itself a somewhat debased version of the white-and-blue worn by both French and Habsburg soldiers and their many imitators in those German principalities and electorates that had somehow avoided being swallowed by the Holy Roman Empire. His own uniform—brand new and only worn for the few hours he’d spent in Memphis waiting for the boat to New Orleans—might have helped him blend in with the groups whose presence dominated the streets. No, he decided: I’d have stood out even worse. The uniform’s too good for this army. Besides, there wasn’t any point in dwelling on a decision he couldn’t reverse. It was already late afternoon, judging by the position of the sun—or its glowing proxy behind the clouds beginning to dominate the sky—and he was running out of time in which to investigate the situation before he’d have to find shelter for the night.
“Hey, you! Hold there!” The voice was a rattling scraping thing, like a wagon going over sun-dried ruts. Stewart, guessing he was its target, stopped and looked around.
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen
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