Sion Crossing by Anthony Price Read Free Book Online

Morris was right, the son-of-a-bitch!”
    Latimer’s unease increased. “I’d quite like to know that too.” Beneath the homespun Mid-West frankness, this old American was sharp as a needle: he had manoeuvred his victim into a position from which he could hardly withdraw now without loss of face, no matter what he wanted.
    “I’ll bet you do—” Another tap-tap interrupted the Senator’s enjoyment. “Okay, Bob — just two minutes!” The Senator winked at Latimer. “ Protocol —what Bob doesn’t know—I know how to keep the President of the United States waiting—I guess I’m just dam’ good at apologizing, and that’s the truth … We’ve got men back home who are real smart and know their business—give them a rifle and a scent, and some good ol’ dogs, and they’ll chase any varmint on earth, two legs or four, until it’s done running. But they’re the hunters , do you see? And hunting is what comes naturally to most men—it’s in their blood from way back, when it was all that made the difference between having a full belly or an empty one … and some men are better at it than others, but it’s something they all understand well enough. So there’s no shortage of hunters.” He studied Latimer. “But a hunter you’re not, Mister Latimer.”
    “No?” The Senator knew exactly what he was. But a question seemed to be required. “And what am I then, Senator?”
    “Huh! I heard it called a lot of fancy names. In the old times you were the guys who threw the bones to see how they fell, and sang the songs and made the pictures … to see what was true and what was false.” The Senator nodded. “You don’t look for needles in haystacks—you look at the haystack, and you know whether there’s a needle in it. Right?”
    It was a curious description of the work of Research and Development. But it was not altogether wide of the mark in its homespun way, thought Latimer.
    “Son, I’m going to tell you a story—” Senator Cookridge didn’t wait for confirmation of his statement “—but it’s going to have to be a short one… . Fortunately, you already know about General Sherman—okay?”
    Not okay. “I know that he … marched through Georgia. To the sea, I believe?”
    The Senator grinned at what he took to be scholarly modesty. “Spreading fire and the sword sixty miles wide—‘bringing the jubilee’. They still remember him in those parts.” He paused. “Ever heard of a place called Sion Crossing?”
    Now the trouble was starting. “‘Sion’ is biblical—the Holy City, is it? The Promised Land?” He shrugged slightly. “I can’t say I have, Senator.”
    Mercifully, the Senator did not seem surprised. “Billy Sherman’s boys came through there in ’64. It was right on the edge of their march. But they burnt it all the same.”
    Latimer nodded. This was pure Gone With the Wind history. Sherman seemed to have burnt practically everything.
    “Sion Crossing was a great plantation, Mister Latimer. It was the home of the Alexander family—the Alexanders of Sion Crossing. The first Alexander was a Scotsman who fought the Indians and carved his fields out of the forest—had a son killed crossing the river, and built a church on the spot. And his grandson married an heiress from the coast—Marie-Louise de Brissac. And her grandfather was reputedly a pirate, who’d robbed the Spaniards and the English up and down the Spanish Main in his time—”
    Knock knock-knock!
    “I hear you!” Cookridge scowled at the door, and drew a deep breath. “I guess I’ll skip the rest until the war—James Alexander inherited in ’59, after the fever took his parents. There were two younger brothers and a sister, Marie-Louise. The boys were all killed in the war—one died in a prison camp … James died in the trenches in ’65. And Marie-Louise died of small-pox in Savannah in ’66. That was the end of the Alexanders. And Sion Crossing went back to the woods.” He paused.
    “Very