The Violent Peace Read Online Free Page B

just a shade over five feet six inches in height, his build compact rather than slight, and suggested adequate strength instead of  great  power. Like so many young men who had survived the bitter fighting of the war just ended, he looked older than his actual years, which totaled twenty-eight. He had a long face with regular features which gave him a nondescript handsomeness: likely to interest women though certainly not sweep them off their feet. His mouthline was gentle, his nose straight and his black eyes honest. His hair was pre-naturally grey with only a few hanks of dark red to show its former coloration. It was trimmed neat and short and this was the only obvious sign of the five years he had spent in the army of the Confederate States. A more subtle indication of how he had used the war years could be seen in his clothes. Black riding boots, dark grey pants, oddly slit at the seam about the calf of the right leg; a white shirt with a neckerchief decorated by an ornate pin; a hip-length sheepskin coat in dark brown; a low-crown black hat and black leather gloves. All were brand new with the store stiffness still in the material - purchased immediately upon his discharge to replace the grey uniform of a cavalry lieutenant. All over the country, tailors were growing rich supplying new clothes to men anxious to shed uniform serge.
    The city was very quiet as Steele entered the streets of its southern section and he was mildly surprised at this, Washington was the capital of the victorious northern states and he had expected it still to be in the throes of triumphant revelry even this long after Lee's surrender.
    But he did not give too much thought to the matter, beyond appreciating that he was spared the expected humiliation of seeing his former enemies rejoicing in the defeat of the Cause. For he had another, more important subject on his mind. And it was this upon which he ruminated as he rode the gelding along the silent meagerly lit streets of Washington.
    He had no trouble finding his way to his destination, for he had been a frequent visitor to the city in pre-war days and little had changed during the intervening years. So it was not until he turned onto Tenth Street that he pulled up short in surprise.
    The street was as quiet as all the others had been, but there was a difference. Where the others had been deserted, this one was crowded with people. The great majority of them were huddled together in a large group before a house diagonally across the street from the darkened facade of Ford's Theatre. Most of the buildings lining the street were in darkness and this seemed to emphasize the wedges of light falling from the house which held the crowd's interest. In the splashes of yellow, the faces of the people were wan and sad. The rifle barrels of the soldiers ranged in front of the house, keeping the crowd well back, gleamed with an oily sheen.
    Occasionally, one or more of the silent spectators would drift away from the crowd. One such was an old woman who stepped unwittingly, in front of Steele's horse as he urged the animal forward. She looked up at the rider, showing no emotion at almost being trampled. Deep shock dwelled behind her moist eyes.
    “What's happening here, ma'am?” Steele asked, his voice smoothed by a Virginia drawl, as he touched his hat brim with a gloved hand.
    The old woman blinked, and a tear was squeezed from the comer of each eye. “Mr. Lincoln,” she replied tremulously. “They’ve shot Mr. Lincoln.”
    Under different circumstances, Steele knew he might have felt a surge of joy and expectation that the event could signal new hope for the South to rise against defeat. But he had come to Washington determined to forget the past and adjust himself to the best future he could make.
    Even so, he had difficulty in injecting a degree of the mournful into his voice as he asked: “Is the President dead?”
    The old woman shook her head as she turned away to go around behind Steele's