Quipu: Bonny Blue Flag 20.1

6 JUNE 1851

WASHINGTON-ON-THE-BRAZOS, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS

“Am I being bloodthirsty?” Stewart turned to Cleburne. “I probably ought to go straight back to General Lee… but after all that’s happened I think I owe it to myself—and to everyone who died because of him—to stay here to see William Walker hanged.”

“Then I’d say you weren’t so much bloodthirsty as, well, thorough.” Cleburne smiled and clapped him on the back. “Justified, too. I’ve no interest in seeing another man hanged—got more than enough of that in my travels—but it might make an interesting story for you to share with your uncle.” Stewart laughed, but even to himself the laugh sounded flat, even bitter.

Do I really want to go back to Virginia? The thought was unexpected, and it forced Stewart to look around him.

The Texas capital was a pretty, bustling, place, as suited a new and growing nation. A lot of the buildings Stewart saw were simple structures of white-washed wood, but there were plenty of two- and even three-story buildings to be seen, and many of those under construction were of brick. There was a rawness here that one wouldn’t find in Richmond or Fredericksburg, but somehow that suited the place. Is it possible, Stewart wondered, that I might be happy here?

Certainly the Texans had treated him very well in the week following the battle along the creek. Travis had even insisted on his doctor examining Stewart’s injured leg. Though after more than a year of rough treatment there was little likelihood Stewart would ever been free from pain, nor as mobile as he’d been before his first battle, and the doctor had echoed Cleburne in warning Stewart against trying to ease the pain with laudanum.

“You’re probably asking yourself,” Cleburne said, “if this is the place where your Thomas Jefferson’s utopia of yeoman farmers could be built.”

“Am I that easily read?”

“You have developed an appraising eye in the time since we met, young Stewart, and from what you’ve told me of your father’s beliefs it wasn’t too hard for me to guess what you might have been thinking, looking around the place as you were.” He smiled, but his face grew more serious as he asked, “Are you going to go back to your family? Knowing what you now know?”

“My father was never part of this, Cleburne. But—I can’t go back. I haven’t told you everything that I learned, and it wouldn’t be safe for either of us if I did tell you. What I will say is that my parents have left Virginia. My uncle—you already know what he got up to, and if he’s very lucky he’ll never hear from me again.

“So if I went back to Virginia, it would be from a sense of military duty and nothing more.”

“There’s always New Orleans,” Cleburne said. He winked in an exaggerated fashion that made Stewart laugh in spite of himself.

“Too English for my taste, even with that leavening of French and Spanish—and Irish.” Stewart winked back. “If I thought I could persuade Pauline to come away with me…”

“You won’t know the truth of that, boyo, unless and until you try.” Cleburne rested a hand on Stewart’s shoulder. “You would be doing me a world of a favour, though, if you’d consent to stay here.”

Stewart had been staring at the dirt street, but at this he looked up. “What are you talking about? You wanted an adventure, and it seems to me you got rather more than you asked for.”

“There’s a lesson to be learned there, all right.” Cleburne grinned, but Stewart was certain he saw a hollowness in the man’s gaze. “I’m staying, of course. But you knew that.” Stewart nodded.

“What I didn’t tell you before is, Travis has asked me to serve as a military adviser. He’s also hinted strongly that if I wanted to put on the uniform again, he could see to it that I wore one with enough braid on it to sink a gunboat. The Texas army lost its commanding general, and for some reason beyond fathoming, Travis seems to think that I could fill the position.”

“He struck me as a pretty clever man, did Secretary Travis,” said Stewart.

“The jury might still be out on that charge, Stewart.” Cleburne laughed. “Travis has also offered a regiment to George Patton.”

“I have nothing to say about that,” said Stewart, reaching for Cleburne’s hand. “But I will say I doubt there’s a man in the Republic who could do a better job of leading its army than could you, Cleburne. If it’s truly what you want to do.”

“And I don’t know that it’s what I want to do,” Cleburne said. “But it might be something to keep me occupied until I finally decided on what exactly it is that I want to do with my life.

“If I do decide to take on that job, though, I can’t think of a better man to be my adjutant than yourself.” He looked Stewart in the eye, and for a moment Stewart was sure he saw hope, and pleading, in the man’s expression.

“Cleburne, I—”

“Don’t worry yourself,” Cleburne said in a rush. “It’s not as if you didn’t have compelling reasons for leaving. I just—I would rather you didn’t, is all. There really is something in this place, Stewart, and you could really make something of yourself here while helping Texas to make something of itself.”

“It’s not that I’m not tempted,” Stewart said. “Quite the contrary. I’ve learned a lot from you, Cleburne, and I know there’s a lot more I could learn yet.

“But I have a debt to repay to my country. The Confederate States aren’t free and clear of the old Union yet. And until they are, I think my place is in the field, working to make my home free.”

“I hope that Virginia and the Confederacy appreciate what you’re going to do,” Cleburne said. “I’ve met more than a few men who called themselves patriots, but there’ve been few enough who actually did anything patriotic. Especially if it called for the kind of sacrifice you had to make deliberately.”

“You’re embarrassing me, Cleburne.” Stewart fumbled for something more to say, and then there was Patton himself, riding up to them and hooting a hello that made Stewart smile with relief.

Nothing final had to be said. Not just yet.

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