to a quick resolution. Doubt was an illness, a creeping, insidious sickness that weakened a man to the point of inactivity. And now, it had a firm grip on him.
Chapter 8
The Beaufort Asylum for the Insane
Five Miles from Quebec City, British Canada
The artist worked in limited colors, painting five dark figures on a canvas of bright snow and lining the umber trunks of regimented naked trees on the edge of the frosted field. Dominating the background was the dull gray bulk of the asylum, heavy with misery, two-story stone buildings facing one another across a commons. They were joined by palings—stout wooden posts that denied the inhabitants entrance to the world that had discarded them. On the left were three comfortable houses, the largest belonging to the superintendent, and smoke curling from chimneys into a sky that was nearly as white as the fields. The only true colors that existed in the scene were those of the two sleighs—red for one, and yellow for the other.
Silence could have been another color, all sounds muted to whispers on the monochromatic canvas—those that escaped did so in respectful hushed tones.
Goodwin stood with two men, far enough from January and the Confederate agent Provine to give them privacy. Sorrel was a small squat man, angry about something, everything. Locker was taller, even tempered—the kind who paces easily through life. They were both a good head shorter than Goodwin, as were most men.
Goodwin offered the two men cigars. “How long have you been up here?”
Both men took the cigars, Sorrel jerking his from Goodwin’s hand. “Too damned long,” the shorter man said, waiting for a light. He puffed on the cigar, drawing smoke from the tip that mixed with his frozen breath. “We don’t do nothing but talk. All we do is talk.”
“A little over a year,” Locker said, rolling the cigar over the match, patiently nursing the tip until it glowed red. One more speck of color on the canvas.
“And we’ve done nothing,” Sorrel said, watching January and Provine talk near the sleighs. It was obvious he wanted Goodwin to understand their trials. “Mr. Provine there isn’t the kind of man who wants things done quickly.”
Locker was prepared to be more charitable. “He’s thoughtful.”
“Do they pay you well?” Goodwin asked.
Both men answered, “No.”
Sorrel elaborated. “I think Mr. Provine’s feathering his own nest.” He looked at the landscape in disgust. “He likes it up here.”
Provine and January stopped some distance from the others.
The Confederate agent marveled at the scene. “Isn’t it beautiful, Mr. January?”
“Cold,” January concluded. “Desolate.” He shivered. “This is a long way from Quebec City.”
“No. No,” Provine corrected him. He was dressed in an expensive topcoat and a beaver hat. His face was chapped from the chill wind, his mustache stiff with frost. His eyes gleamed with opportunity. “It is the perfect place to discuss business. No one will discover us here.” He felt it necessary to tutor January. “They spy on us constantly, you know. Union men, English men in the pay of the federals. Everybody must know what everybody else is doing. We cannot simply go about without taking precautions. I’ve told Richmond this. And yet all of the resources go to Montreal. Look. See my two agents there? Incompetent, but they are all I have.”
“I don’t need men,” January pointed out, once again. Provine didn’t seem to grasp his need. In fact, he never acknowledged it. “I need to transport my goods to Baltimore. I would like you to approach Mr. Ledford for me.”
“There are other shippers,” Provine said.
“Not men who are friendly to our cause. Ledford is discreet. He has a network in place.”
“Ledford is a valuable man,” Provine noted, almost incidentally.
“Yes. I know,” January said.
Provine skillfully slipped away from the object of the discussion. “Mr. January, I’m sure you will find a shipper with Mr. Ledford’s level of sensitivity. Unfortunately, Mr. Ledford, and I concur with him on this matter, is reluctant to involve himself with Confederate activities unless he knows the participants well. I could advocate you and your need, truly I could, and I will. You have my word on that, but he is wary of such efforts.”
“Except those proposed by you?”
“He is cautious,” Provine confirmed. “I will speak to him, but I have little hope that he will accede to your wishes.” The landscape captured his attention. “It truly is breathtaking. Not like that hated swamp. I tell you, between the heat and pestilence, Richmond could claim ten years from a man’s life.”
“Will you speak to Mr. Ledford for me?” January asked. “We have very little time.”
“I have a house picked out. In the Upper Town. You must come and visit me.” Provine grew sympathetic. “I will speak to Ledford. I can promise you nothing, but I will convey to him your need for his assistance.” His interest drifted. “I lived in one tiny room in Richmond. In the summer the air stank of sewers and in the winter it was choked with wood smoke.”
“We all had to endure,” January said, signaling for Goodwin. They watched in silence as Provine and his companions climbed into one of the sleighs. In a few minutes the vehicle had disappeared over the white landscape, the only evidence of its passage the thin shadows of its runners.
“His men aren’t happy with him,” Goodwin said.
“They have company,” January said, taking a cigar from Goodwin, followed by a lit match. He waited for the cigar tip to glow before continuing. “I have to have Ledford. He is the only trader I can trust. I cannot get those items south without him.”
“Will Provine represent you?”
“Provine—” the word followed by a burst of smoke “—is far more concerned with establishing his home in Quebec City. I suspect he feels if he does nothing, he will suffer no harm.” January said, “What of those two? Will they come to us?”
“Yes. They can be bribed, although they don’t know it.”
They walked to their sleigh, and as January stroked the horse’s mane, he asked, “Can you do it? All of it?” It was complicated, he knew. Perhaps far more so than Goodwin was capable of understanding. He was intelligent, and with time and examination there wasn’t a machine he was incapable of comprehending. But this was more than machines, and Wilmington proved that control was not always possible.
“Yes,” Goodwin said. He added, “I know as much as he did. I’ve got copies of everything. I never let a thing pass that I didn’t ask questions. What about Provine?”
“‘Either betray’d by falsehood of his guard, Or by his foe supris’d at unawares.’”
Goodwin waited patiently. He never understood how a grown man could dress up and pretend to be someone else.
“Kill him,” January said, his talent unrecognized.
