Fiddlehead

“Quite a character, that one,” Julia summed it up. “I’m glad you pardoned him. And what of Troost?”



Grant shook his head. “He’s still refusing his own pardon. For one thing, he says he’s guilty of enough that he doesn’t deserve it. For another, he doesn’t want it. He likes his reputation in its tarnished state, and wouldn’t have it any other way.”



“Odd little man.”



“Truer words were never spoken. I ought to have him arrested, I suppose, but we all know that won’t happen. The world is too complicated a place; it has room for men with good hearts and bad hands.”



“I like that. You should put that into the book.”



“No, he asked me not to. He asked me to leave him out of it altogether. He prefers his anonymity, he said. I’m choosing to respect it.”



“How kind of you.”



He shrugged. Was it kind? Or was it merely convenient?



Kirby Troost had murdered a representative and fled, taking up with a pirate crew and contributing to the havoc of the unincorporated West. But he’d also moved heaven and earth to send help when he couldn’t be there himself. He’d saved two presidents, a scientist (as well as that scientist’s kidnapped family), a doctor, an old lady, and a serving girl. And countless colored men and women through the years, smuggling them up the railroad lines and into safety. He was a hero, but a dangerous one. And in the back of Grant’s mind, he felt that it was simply easier to let the man have his way.



In cooperation with former Confederate States, we created a task force to manage the encroaching threat of the guttersnipe lepers, the wheezers, the cankers, the Hungry, the zombis. They had many names, for they had found a foothold in many places. But by their sheer unlikelihood they had successfully remained a fearsome bedtime story long enough to grow their numbers and expand their menace.



By the time the Fiddlehead was heeded, it was almost too late.



I watched Hayes and Stephens sign the papers, while Gideon Bardsley stood stiffly beside me, and Abraham Lincoln sat next to us, confined to his marvelous chair. Maria Boyd was there, too, standing by Croggon Hainey and the crew of the Free Crow, for apparently they were acquainted already. (I never did learn how that odd, unlikely friendship came to be.) The marshal Henry Epperson joined them, having been released from the Robertson hospital in Virginia, where his care was managed by the renowned Sally Thompson. And Robert Lee’s son was in attendance, for the great man himself had passed away three years previously.



Likewise, Jefferson Davis was there, looking tired. He looked like a man watching other men finish something he’d started, and he was neither happy nor unhappy—he barely looked present.



Desmond Fowler was not in attendance. He was in a grave, beyond the edge of Arlington, for I would not see him buried with the heroes. According to the doctors who examined him, he committed suicide after his involvement in the treachery that nearly ended us all was discovered. There was a note. I was never privy to its contents, but I do not care what he had to say for himself, if in fact the note was even real. If in fact the gun in his mouth was put there by his own hand, and no one else’s.



I have my doubts.



It is possible that he was heartbroken when his puppet-mistress abandoned him, leaving him to face trial alone for the war crimes they perpetrated together.



But even as those of us who remained stood there and signed, holding our breaths for this momentous occasion—this moment in history—we heard unsettling scrapes from outside, the sound of ragged breaths being drawn through shredded lungs.



The courthouse was evacuated, and we finished the ceremony in the Capitol, on the steps of Congress. The taps lit up around the globe.



The world was watching.



“Good night, dear.”



“Good night,” Grant replied, turning his cheek for her to kiss on her way to bed. “I’ll be up before long.”



“Do you promise?”



“One drink, and no more.”



“And one pipe,” she chided.



“And one pipe,” he confessed. “I’m restless, that’s all.”



She nodded, and kissed the top of his head. “The new routines have been difficult for everyone.”



“You’ve adjusted easily enough.”



“You know me—I’ve always been able to sleep through anything.”



“Must be nice,” he mumbled, reaching for his glass, then rising to fill it. “Some of us are not so lucky. Still, I’ll join you soon.”



She retired upstairs.



He was as good as his word. He put the bottle away when he’d finished pouring, and once his pipe was stuffed and lit, he put the tobacco pouch away as well.



One more drink. One more smoke.



The tobacco comforted him in a way the drinks did not, anymore. Once he had been delighted for the blurry feeling of brandy, or the wobbly pleasantness of whiskey. Now he needed his faculties too much to dull them, much as the temptation remained. His memoirs were nearly finished, and that was a relief—one project accomplished before he reached the end.



As for the rest …



He walked to the window and looked out over the stretch of grass behind his house, bright with floodlights that would blind him if he gazed straight into them. They were electric, designed by Bardsley and installed with haste at the same time as the fence—which was also electric. A powerful current ran its length, created by the noisy diesel generator that ran day and night. Anyone who touched the fence would surely fry, and notices to that effect were posted round its length. The host of warnings declared: FENCE IS ELECTRIFIED FOR THE OCCUPANTS’ SAFETY. DO NOT TOUCH. These warnings were underscored by the Secret Service agents who patrolled in full body armor, night and day. Grant was getting used to them. He was even beginning to learn their names.



At the fence’s far left corner, a bright burst of sparks announced the sizzling demise of something human-shaped, but no longer human. It shuddered and jerked, and collapsed into a smoking pile of flesh.



He closed the curtains and finished his pipe.



Then he left the remainder of his drink on the sideboard, and joined his wife in bed.