“Lexington’s get are most all turning out to be something special,” Jarret said. “Last year was his third in a row as leading stud sire, this year will make it four—and that’s with half his colts and fillies not racing but going off to the army, just like Cincinnati.”

  “Well, Grant loves that horse, and he’s a man who knows horses. The only other soul he lets ride him is the president himself.”

  “President Lincoln rides Cincinnati? That’s a fine thing to know.” Jarret wished he could tell his father that he’d bred a horse fit for a president. Harry Lewis would be proud.

  “You want to see Lexington?”

  “You know I do.”

  On the way to the stallion barn, Scott, muscle-weary and worn to a raveling, found it hard to keep pace with Jarret’s springy step. “You’ve fared well enough here, during the war?”

  “We’ve had a good amount of luck,” Jarret said. “Bushwhackers been through some nearby farms, snatching whatever horses they want. But seems like the secesh count on Mr. Alexander as a sympathizer, on account of his British raising. On the Federal side, they paid for the horses they got from us—including Cincinnati. Course now you told me where that horse ended up, I got to hope the rebels never get word we’re mounting Union generals.”

  They found Lexington turned out in the paddock, grazing under his favorite tree, a wide beech. Jarret whistled. Lexington’s fine head shot up, ears swiveling. Jarret whistled again and the stallion collected himself and cantered to where they stood by the rails. His nostrils widened, taking in Scott’s scent, then he dropped his head for Jarret’s caress.

  “I thought it then, and I think it still. This is the handsomest horse I ever saw.”

  “You fixing to paint him again, while you’re here?”

  “I wish I could; I don’t have my things.”

  “Mr. Troye left a good amount of his paints and linens and such, the last time he was here. He was planning to return, but I doubt we’ll see him while this war goes on.”

  Scott flexed his fingers. It would feel good, he thought, to have a brush in his hand, to lose himself again in a painting. He regarded the sightless horse, his head resting on Jarret’s shoulder. After his studies with Julien, Scott no longer shied from the idea of figure drawing. It struck him that it would be something, to capture the bond between Jarret and the horse. The stallion was still glorious, but there was a vulnerability to the champion now; it would be a challenge to see if he had the skill to convey that.

  That afternoon, he asked Jarret to pose with the horse. Jarret felt awkward as Scott stared at him. His mind churned with all the many tasks that would fall neglected while he stood there. Nevertheless, days later, when he looked at Scott’s finished canvas, he realized Scott had caught both Lexington’s grandeur and his defenselessness. Jarret had not spent any large part of his time considering his own appearance, so he barely recognized himself in the slender young gentleman that Scott had depicted. Scott had asked him to pose in his shirtsleeves, saying that the soft whites and creams of the linen would look well against the bright bay of the horse’s coat. He had painted Jarret gazing pensively at the horse, his face in three-quarter profile, his arm, holding the lead rope, raised in a graceful arabesque. Somehow Scott had conveyed, in that gesture and that gaze, the current of affection and trust that flowed between horse and man.

  “I think it might be the best one you done. And I don’t say that just cause I’m in it.” Jarret paused, trying to express what he meant to say. “This time, you set down who Lexington is.”

  Scott gazed at his own work and felt the rightness of Jarret’s words. It was his best picture. He would send it on to Julien in New York, where it could be put on public display and help to build his reputation.

  He was grateful to Jarret. What a journey it had been, since that day in Warfield’s paddock. That shy boy shoveling manure had traveled a long way, given the foul system that constrained him. As they walked to the stallion barn, Scott lowered his voice and placed a hand on Jarret’s arm.

  “You know, you could come with me when I leave this place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know the Union Army is enlisting colored soldiers now—which means you’d be emancipated. I could go with you to the colored’s unit, introduce you to the officer in charge.”

  Jarret stopped in his tracks so suddenly that Scott almost tripped over his own feet.

  “What makes you think you know what’s best for me?”

  “Well, don’t you—”

  “Want to be free? Course I do. But a soldier ain’t free.” He thought about May’s husband, his shattered arm, his uncertain future. “I respect the men who joined your army, I do. But I’ve been taking orders all my life, and now I’m giving them. I good as run this place, Mr. Scott. And I get paid to do it.” He saw the surprised look on Scott’s face. “Mr. Alexander commenced to pay us wages right after the president’s proclamation. What makes you think I’d give that up to take orders from some White officer, a stranger, who don’t care if I live or if I die? Just another massa, is all I see. We suffered enough on account of slavery already. I don’t plan on laying my life down to end it. You folk who made this mess, I reckon you owe us to clean it up.”

  Jarret strode off. Scott watched his retreating back. He couldn’t fault the logic.

  Scott was invited to dine with Alexander and Dan Swigert. He set about making himself as presentable as his meager wardrobe allowed. Someone had already placed a pitcher of warm water on his washstand. As he shaved, he stared at his reflection in the speckled glass. He felt much older than his thirty-two years. He had lost flesh and couldn’t help but imagine, as an anatomist will, the skull beneath his tired skin. He lifted a cheek with his index finger, trying to find his way to the younger man’s face he had worn not long ago.

  Why had he reenlisted? He surely had no further appetite for fighting. Partly, he acknowledged to himself, it was his bond with the men. Almost the entire unit had reenlisted and he was needed by them. He was more useful in the army than he had ever been in his life—more useful than he ever likely would be again. Because of him, men lived who would have died. That was something.

  And this, also: He had come to ardently believe in the rightness of his side. It was a conviction that had grown in him far beyond the common loyalty to birthplace and nation that had first prompted his enlistment. In the beginning, he had spent much time with the prisoners. It was his duty, if they were wounded, to tend to them. At first, he was kindly disposed to these men, young as they were, skinny, sometimes shoeless rural boys, most from farms too poor to afford slaves. It had seemed to him an evil fate, a geographical accident, that had forced them to take up arms in what was, to him, a war to secure the rich man’s wealth. Beyond what was strictly required for their care, he would talk to them, to better know their minds. But after a time, he had stopped seeking such dialogue. They were, all of them, lost to a narrative untethered to anything he recognized as true. Their mad conception of Mr. Lincoln as some kind of cloven-hoofed devil’s scion, their complete disregard—denial—of the humanity of the enslaved, their fabulous notions of what evils the Federal government intended for them should their cause fail—all of it was ingrained so deep, beyond the reach of reasonable dialogue or evidence. Scott had become convinced that a total obliteration of their rebellion was the only way forward. And since the drift of things was strong in that direction, he would see it through to the end.

  As he shook out his one clean shirt, he felt a certain heaviness about the coming dinner. He was in two minds about his canny host. Surely Alexander was wise to safeguard all he had built and all those who depended upon him for their sustenance and their safety. And yet to portray yourself as in some kind of sympathy, or even neutrality, with the slavers’ cause seemed to him a moral bridge most hard to cross. He buttoned his uniform jacket, wondering how he might, in the next few days, show an appropriate gratitude to his host for the kindness of this respite while not blurting out the grave reservations of his heart.

  As it happened, he need not have concerned himself.

  When he entered the dining room, there was the bell-like chime of fine crystal as Alexander lifted the stopper from the wine decanter. He turned from the sideboard to greet Scott. But the words never left his mouth. A kitchen girl, wide-eyed, plunged into the room, shrieking.

  “They here! They here! Rebels in the barn, stealing horses.”

  “In broad daylight, Sara? That seems un—”

  As Alexander spoke, a heavy tread pounded down the long hallway from the kitchen and Swigert burst into the room. “They’re in the training stable—eight or ten of them, and I think—I’m pretty sure—it’s that mongrel Quantrill in the lead, and those bloody-handed James boys with him. They’ve already got Lexington’s Asteroid and Bay Dick. I don’t know which others.”

  “Secure the house. Bolt the windows.” Alexander strode across the room and flung up the lid of his writing desk. He crammed a pistol into his waistband and took another, cocked, in his right hand. He turned. “Mr. Scott, are you armed, sir?”

  “No, not presently.”

  “Could I suggest you attend to it?”

  Scott took the stairs to his room two at a time. He had heard of the notorious William Quantrill. The brute had led a dawn massacre against antislavers in Lawrence, Kansas. They’d killed everyone—old men, boys, an entire encampment of unarmed Black recruits. They’d looted and burned the town. His unit had been warned that the brigand might have slipped into Kentucky with a small band of his most desperate killers. He felt his skin prickle and his heart pound. He hadn’t cleaned his gun in days. He was not ready for this fight.

  Alexander had gone out through the front door to confront the raiders. He stepped right into their path as they rode into the kitchen yard, raised a hand, and cried “Halt! What will you have, gentlemen?”

  Scott crept out by the rear door and made a way behind the house till he reached the cover of a copse of trees. He went stealthily, tree by tree, to the rear of the barn. Scott wanted to take the measure of this party so as to determine how many men they may be up against. Bushwhackers were like quicksilver—they’d come together for a big operation and then split apart into small units, the better to hide from Federal pursuit. It was a strategy that had kept the killers at their blood-soaked trades throughout the war.

  He could see now how they had the gumption to travel in daylight. They were clad in Federal blue. But as he crept closer, the motley nature of their disguise revealed itself. They wore an ill-assorted selection of clothing, probably pillaged from the bodies of soldiers they’d murdered. Most of them had the long, unkempt hair favored by ill-disciplined, bloody-handed bushwhackers. He peered at the strange collar around one man’s neck and it came to him with a sickening jolt that the necklace was made of human scalps. He felt a dreadful heaviness—had they come upon his own unit’s encampment? Surely not—they were opportunists who preyed on the weak. They would not hazard a fair fight with a large, well-armed force.

  He crept closer and flattened himself against the barn. Through a broken piece of board he was able to sight his gun on the guerrilla leader. Quantrill was a handsome youth, dark haired, with defined brows and generous lips that turned down at the corners in a kind of permanent sneer. His smooth, unlined face belied the hellish things he was said to have done. But his victims—the few left alive to speak of him—had always reflected in astonishment on his youthful appearance.

  Scott made a grim calculation. He could take the shot and wipe that sneer off for good and all. But he was an indifferent marksman. He might miss. Even if his shot was true, Quantrill’s men would surely fall upon Alexander and everyone else in the place.

  Alexander gazed up at the mounted Quantrill, who had just given the name “Marion” and was persisting in the threadbare fiction that he led a Union detachment, sent to press good horses for cavalry mounts.

  “Then let me see your orders,” said Alexander calmly.

  At this, pretense fell away. Quantrill raised his gun, and all his men did likewise.

  “These are our orders.”

  Alexander remained cool. He tilted his head. “Well, I suppose if you are bound to have the horses there is no need for a fight about it. But if you are bound to have a fight, I have armed men here and we will give you the best fight we can.”

  Quantrill gave a hand signal at that, and one of his raiders led up a sagging figure, mounted on what looked like a child’s pony. The man was slumped over on the horse’s withers, his face shadowed by a hood. Quantrill flicked his head and the raider drew off the hood to reveal Willa Viley, gagged, bound, already bruising from a beating.

  “You recognize your friend?”

  Alexander, for the first time, seemed discomposed. “For pity’s sake, unbind my neighbor. He’s an old man who should not be treated in this way.”

  “I will unbind him when you give me the horses, march out the armed men you brag on, and deliver up your arms.”

  “I will not, sir.”

  Quantrill reached over and violently tore the gag from Viley’s mouth. A trickle of fresh blood ran into his silver beard.

  “Tell him, old man.”

  Viley’s voice rasped. “For pity’s sake, Alexander, give him what he wants. They burned the depot and the freight cars at Lair Station last night. I tried to stop them. I—” His voice broke. “They’ll torch this place if you don’t.”

  Quantrill nodded. “I will. Now, where are the horses? I will have Lexington.”

  “But you must know Lexington is blind! He’s unridable. Let me give you—”

  Quantrill raised his hand.

  “I heard you got a boy here can ride him just fine. I’ll take him too.”

  “But why—I can give you two of the best cavalry mounts you could find—”

  “I already have a buyer for your blind hero. But since you offer, I’ll also take the two cavalry mounts.”

  “Whatever you expect to be paid for Lexington—I can match it.”

  “Bring out the cash then and we’ll see. And those arms you mentioned.”

  “But I’m giving you the horses. I need arms for my own protection. I will order my men to stack them until you leave, if you let Captain Viley go.”

  Scott, pressed flat against the barn boards, measured the distance from his hiding place to the stallion barn. He would try to get across the yard and warn Jarret. He might make it, while the two men haggled. He eased himself away from the barn, into the gathering shadows. Quantrill’s men had their guns fixed on Alexander, their attention on the parlay. If only they do not turn . . . He placed his feet carefully into soft leaf litter, trying to avoid a twig whose crack might draw an eye his way.

  “Fetch the arms out here then, and if one shot is fired I’ll torch the place.”

  “If one shot is fired it’ll be your men who do it.”

  Alexander turned on his heel and strode to the house. His mind raced with possibilities. But as he opened the kitchen door, he found himself face-to-face with one of Quantrill’s guerrillas. The man was molesting Daniel Swigert’s young wife. He spun round as Alexander burst in and cocked his pistol against her temple. Her little daughter, not yet three, clutched at her skirt, howling.

  This was more than Alexander could stomach. Impulsively, he swung at the man, knocking the pistol away from the girl and her child. The raider lunged and the two men fell, grappling, onto the gritstone floor. The pistol discharged. Alexander brought his knee, hard, into the raider’s groin. The raider bellowed like a castrated calf and folded up on himself, retching. Alexander struggled to his feet and pushed the girl and the child into the corridor, bolting the door behind them. Then he ran outside.

  Dusk had gathered but flames leaped from a fire by the training barn, and he could see four of Quantrill’s men leading out several horses. Then he saw Scott, hog-tied, helpless on the ground.

  From every direction, raiders converged with loot—candlesticks, paintings—anything small enough to carry off. Someone had raided Jarret’s cabin and shoved the portrait of Lexington into his saddle bag. Another threw one of Alexander’s prize calves onto the dirt next to Scott, pressing its head under his knee. The beast bawled as he plunged a knife into its heaving throat. A bright spurt of vermilion arced through the air, splattering Scott’s uniform with warm blood.

  Quantrill wheeled his mount and pointed his pistol at Alexander. “Harboring this filthy Federal on your farm, you damned traitor. All our bargains are off. Lead the way to Lexington or I’ll shoot this scum as he lays.”

  Alexander, impotent and furious, strode toward the stallion barn. Someone, he saw with satisfaction, had padlocked the door. Two of Quantrill’s men bashed at the barn boards with a piece of fence rail. Inside, the horses squealed. The timbers shivered and gave.

  Alexander stepped over the broken boards and into the gloom of the barn. Lexington’s stall gaped empty.

  “Jarret?” he called. No answer. Alexander allowed himself a small smile. But Quantrill’s rage made his gladness brief. “Take whatever’s here,” the guerrilla barked. “Bring the Federal and the old man.”

  He turned his horse. His raiders followed. One threw the steaming, half-butchered calf carcass across his saddle. They galloped for the gate, taking Scott, Viley, and a dozen thoroughbreds with them.

  Through dense trees, half a mile down the road, Jarret watched them hurtle past. He let them get just far enough ahead, and then he asked Lexington to follow.

  THEO

  Georgetown, Washington, DC

  2019

  “But she threw it out. She gave it away.”