Skeletons (13 page)

"Douglas!" I laughed.

He saw the humor of his own juxtaposition of Genghis Khan with Stephen Douglas, and laughed himself.

"But the plain fact is, Mr. Lincoln," he continued, "there's a fight brewing for who's going to run things. A big fight. And . . . good men are needed to win the fight."

I already saw where he was headed. I cut him off before he got there. "I'm not through puzzling this thing out, Billy. I imagine I'll be puzzling it out for quite some time—in solitude, if you don't mind."

"How can you say that?"

"Because it's the way I feel. And Mary..."

"Mrs. Lincoln?" Billy said cautiously. They had never gotten along, since poor Billy had long ago made the mistake of comparing Mary, guilelessly, to a serpent.

"She's ... herself," I said. "She's been happy the past few weeks, Billy, and I'd like to keep her as happy as I can, within bounds."

He weighed my last words. "Which means you're not just going to hide in your home forever ..."

"No, I couldn't do that. But as for involvement, this war between the living and the newly alive ..."

"Mr. Lincoln, it's much more than that!" He knew he had my interest now and didn't reach for a drink. “Tell me what you mean, Billy."

“There's war within our own kind! Think about it! All the evil men of history suddenly made alive again, along with all the good! Caligula, as well as Charlemagne. Cromwell as well as Washington. Napoleon—"

"Surely, Washington is more able than I—"

Now he broke off for another drink. "Washington is dead. Many of them are. There has been a lot of fighting already. The television reports have been horrible. A man named Hitler rose briefly in Europe, before he was cut down by the forces of Napoleon, who himself was assassinated three days ago. Alliances have been made and broken a hundred times. There's chaos on every continent. And of course the humans are still out there, attacking in small force, banding together, waiting...."

“This is impossible," I said, shaking my head. For the first time since I had awakened, the old despair dropped down toward me, crushing all the wonder of the last weeks, making me realize that it might be a different world, but it was still surely the same one. "Billy ..." I said slowly.

"Yes, Mr. Lincoln?"

"Have you noticed a certain . . . viciousness in yourself, a quickness to anger, to violence, that was never there before?"

He paused to finish his drink. "I have. It's one of the reasons I've locked myself in here with these bottles. . .

"And have you noticed that though this latent anger is intensified when faced with humans, it exists toward those of your own kind, also—especially those who do not fit in with your own plans?"

"Yes."

"What do you make of this, Billy?"

"What do you make of it, Mr. Lincoln?"

"It's been one of the greatest puzzles to me, Billy. Human beings have always been a vicious race, but I believe we were saved by the temperance of thought." I smiled wanly. "If not the temperance of
likker
."

"Yes ... Mr. Lincoln," Billy said, returning my wan smile.

"But in these new circumstances, I believe we have something fundamental at work. In my reading the past few weeks, I came across mention of a man named Charles Darwin—"

"I have his book
On the Origin of Species
here, Mr. Lincoln!" Billy said, digging a volume out of the pile on his desk. He began to page through it, stopped, began to read.

I held up my hand to make him stop. "You know I don't have the patience for that, Billy. Thank Providence for the encyclopedias I found in the library. They gave me the kernel of it. This idea of the survival of the fittest."

"Yes," Billy said.

"I thought that a frightening idea, until I turned it around and looked at it. It makes perfect sense. We saw it all the time when I was growing up. An animal, a man, became sick, and died. Another, stronger one, lived on. If the sick ones did all the childbearing, there'd soon be nothing left. Everything's trying to better itself. If you look at it in that fashion, it's not a cold thing at all, but rather sound, don't you think?"

"I do, Mr. Lincoln."

"So I think that's what we have here. It reminds me of the man who had two stoves. One of them cooked things hot, the other warm. So one winter night he came in with his
arse
end frozen solid. He sat on the warm stove, and nothing much happened. Then he sat on the hot stove, and soon his
arse
end was unfrozen, and he was a happy man again.

"I think what we've got here, Billy, is a warm and a hot stove. This war with the humans—well, that's a warm stove. This fight amongst ourselves, that's the hot one. We've got to go to the hot stove now and sit on it, or none of us will have
arses
left!"

"Exactly, Mr. Lincoln! The humans can be dealt with later. If we don't stabilize our own people, root out the tyrants from history, we'll end up with a country, and a world, in chaos. This is a unique chance to make the whole world safe for democratic principles, once and for all. . ."

"There is, of course, a way to sit on both of these stoves at once, I think. . ."

Billy looked at me expectantly.

I felt my stomach turning over. 'This all sounds too familiar, Billy. And the cost in lives . . ."

"It will happen anyway, Mr. Lincoln, with or without you. And I'm afraid that without you what will happen will be a terrible thing."

I clenched my fist, watching the bones through my faint flesh form a claw. I still hadn't gotten used to this new appearance entirely, and it still frightened me, the new feelings I had. "But these feelings of violence, I fear they will get out of hand."

"They will, unless we rein them in."

I made a sudden decision. "No, Billy, I cannot. I cannot do this to Mrs. Lincoln, and frankly, I cannot do it to myself. I fear for the world, but it would take a hard man to do this job. I don't feel I have that hardness in me anymore."

"I think you do, Mr. Lincoln. I think you, of everyone, would find the balance in these new feelings, and put them to the public good."

"It would mean sending thousands, millions, perhaps, back to their graves, not to mention the millions of humans we would turn into our own kind." I hit my hand with my fist. "I cannot allow myself to do that. Not again . . ."

Billy put his hand on my arm. "Mr. Lincoln, if you don't . . .”

I held up my hand. "Enough, Billy." I turned to Eddie and Willie, busy breaking the points of our old preserved pens against the stove in the room. My heart filled with satisfaction at the sight of them, even though I was already forcing down the pride and lust for power that Billy Herndon had awakened in me, along with the guilt at knowing he might be right about me.

"Come on, you scamps!" I said to the boys, putting my hat back on my head. I walked to the door and waited for Eddie and Willie to run to me, shouting as they scooted out of the office under my arm.

"We'll come and see you, Mr. Lincoln," Billy said. "There are others who believe as I do. We'll convince you, soon."

I pointed to the stove, which, being summer, wasn't lit. "That stove is cold, Billy. Think of it as me." And then I left.

They did come see me, a few days later. It was hellishly hot, all of a sudden, the end of June and the first heat wave of the year. I had prided myself on figuring out the mechanism of the machines in our home that cooled the air, providing much relief. We had no visitors and, not having a television or radio, knew only that the world immediately outside our home had quieted for the most part. Now and then there was a ruckus in the street, but no one came to bother us. Once or twice I went out for a paper, but few new ones had been printed, and those, sadly, provided scant news of the chaos that seemed to be prevailing elsewhere in the world. I tired of reading old news from the library. Mostly I played with the boys, and sat thinking.

During these days Mary became even happier. Though she had been older than me when she had passed on, her features had regained their youthful glow. I think she saw that some crisis had passed in me, and that she would have me to herself after all. We ate meager meals, and were content with them, though my one foraging trip to the supermarket with Tad proved that foodstuffs were getting low on the shelves. In the back of my mind this bothered me, and gave another portent of that breakdown in order that seemed to be forming.

Billy Herndon and three others came after dinner while I sat on the porch admiring the fact that the sun, no matter what went on in the world, still went down in beauty like it always had. There was a sliver of moon up, and I enjoyed that, also. The mumble of Herndon and the others' voices stopped as they reached my gate, and they stood silent for a moment, unsure of how to proceed.

"Mr. Lincoln—" Billy began finally.

"Come in, gentlemen," I said, unhinging my long leg from the side of the rocker where I had let it dangle and rising. "We'll go into my study and talk."

As we passed into the house Mary appeared and clutched at me. "Father, what is this?"

"It's all right," I said, holding her close for a moment before releasing her. "Just some men come to speak with me. You remember Billy Herndon . . ."

She gave Herndon a tight-lipped stare. "I do . . ."

Billy bowed his head. I think he felt Mary's stare burn into him as we all went into my study.

I closed the door, feeling a pang at seeing Mary, obviously upset, stomp off into another part of the house.

"Sit down, gentlemen," I said. I moved to lift a pile of books from one chair, noting the vaguely familiar features shrouding the bones of one of Billy's companions, the thin face, the goatee. Of the two others, one looked even more familiar, and the third I knew immediately as Stanton, my old secretary of war.

"Mr. Secretary!" I said warmly, clasping his hand. It was then I saw that his other wrist was manacled to the man in the goatee.

"What's this?" I said.

"Mr. President," Stanton said, not without warmth himself, but avoiding my question.

As none of the men made a move to sit down, I went behind my desk and sat down myself. I picked up a paperweight, a heavy glass globe which trapped a miniature White House inside, held it for a moment, placed it carefully back on the desk.

"I'm listening, gentlemen," I said.

The stranger who looked most familiar to me spoke up. He was an old man, in his eighties, I'd guess, tall and thin, with the air of someone who has spent time in government service.

"Hello, Father," he said, "it is I, Robert."

"Robert!" I said. I made to stand up, then sat back in my chair, overcome with the fact that my son, the only one who had survived to manhood, now stood before me a full twenty-five years older in appearance than I. The last time I had seen him he had been a commissioned captain, at my own timid request, on General Grant's personal staff. He'd been twenty-two years old. "Robert, I can't believe it!" Now I did stand, came around the desk to clasp him stiffly. I had the unreal feeling of embracing my own grandfather. I stood back and looked at him. "Well, you certainly did make a go of it." I pointed to the door. "You march right out there and kiss your mother and brothers, immediately." I scowled. "Be gentle with your mother, will you, though, Robert? It will come as quite a shock."

"Yes, sir," he said. To my surprise he looked to Herndon first.

"It's best you're not here anyway," Billy said. Robert nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

I turned my attention to Billy, who had a decidedly haggard look about him.

"You never were much for listening to your own temperance speeches, were you, Billy?"

"Things have gotten much worse in the past days, Mr. Lincoln," Billy said. "The United States alone is now split into five territories, three of them ruled by outright tyrants. The south, including Mexico, has been taken over by Aaron Burr, after fighting off, and eventually killing, Sam Houston. They're calling it the Second Alamo. Florida is ruled by Cortes. The northeastern section, including Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., is presently the most stable, with three territorial governors, none of them very strong, allied with a former president from the 1960s, Lyndon Johnson. There's word he's heartsick for Texas, doesn't have the stomach for what's happening, and would like to leave someone in charge and go south. Burr has promised him a governorship. Obviously, this stability could be shaken at any time, but we feel that if Johnson could be replaced soon, there's a chance of the continuance and growth of a democratic system. Most of the army is presently under Johnson's control. We think this will be our final chance to make something permanent out of the new order that's forming."

"That's all . . . interesting," I said, picking up my paperweight from the desk, holding it, putting it down.

"Mr. President," Stanton said. "Let me be blunt. Thomas Jefferson is dead, John Adams is dead, you already know that Washington was killed during the first days of fighting. Hamilton has apparently gone insane. Andrew Jackson has been seen in New Orleans, but he has reunited with his young wife Rebecca and has no designs on power. The later presidents we're not so sure about, though most of them, from what we hear, want nothing to do with the fighting or have not decided. Some of them, we feel, are not up to the task. A few of them are dangerous. In short, Mr. President, we think you're the only one for the job."