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He paused, for drama’s sake, and Pete leaned forward.
“They started moving the gold. ”
“Gold?”
“The treasury of the Confederacy. If the Union got it, every ounce would have been lost for good. The war was clearly going to end against us; but it didn’t have to break us too. We couldn’t let them take everything. We were going to need that money to rebuild—we would need it to start over. And we weren’t going to let them have it. ”
Pete frowned. “So…so what did we do? Where did we put it?”
Rudy let go of the television and turned away towards the kitchen. “Here and there. ”
“What, that’s all? Here and there?” Now Pete was getting pissed. What a stupid story, one without even an ending that was worth tacking on. “Nobody knows, do they?”
“Not exactly, but don’t be like that about it. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. They sent it off, but they didn’t just drop it into a hole and shoot all the diggers. They made plans. They took precautions. ” He pointed a stern finger at Pete’s chest. “And your ancestors were part of it. ”
“Andrew and William knew where the money went?”
“Some of it, anyway. Davis didn’t just write out a check for the whole amount and hand it off to some flunky. They split it up. They broke it into big chunks, and sent it in different directions. Andrew was a bank man, and he kept the ledgers. He kept all the records of where the money was going to go and how it was going to get there. And I think that they put the Buford brothers in charge of the chunk of change that went out west. William had already spent time out there, and he could’ve made arrangements someplace. And Andrew was coming along behind him. I think, with the paperwork. ”
“So what happened? Where did the gold go?”
“You’d have to ask Andrew. But you can’t, because he’s dead. ”
Pete threw himself back against the couch and tossed his hands into the air. “Then what’s it all about? Why are you all wound up about it, if nobody knows and it don’t matter now?”
“Well it would matter. ”
“How do you figure that? Those brothers have been dead for a hundred years now, and—”
“One hundred and forty, more like it. But if anyone knew where either of them finally fell down, it could mean a whole world and a ton of gold—that’s why it matters. William, we might never know. Rumor has it he ran off to Mexico after the war, but I don’t know if that’s true or if he died with the secret in his mouth. ”
“And Andrew?”
“Andrew went down at Chickamauga. ”
“You lie. ”
“You know I don’t. ” Rudy snapped his fingers. “And I can prove it. There’s a letter. I mean, there was a letter. Your mother had a photocopy of it. She found it in some archives and ended up donating it to the museum out there at the battlefield. But she copied it before she got rid of it. ”
He shuffled off into his sister’s bedroom and opened drawers, closing them hard when he didn’t find what he wanted. A minute later he whooped a cheer and came triumphantly back to the living room, waving a folded sheet of paper that had once been white.
“Here it is, right here. ” He held it under Pete’s nose and whipped it back up to his own face, peering hard at the narrow, crooked handwriting. “It’s hard to read. ”
“Let me see it,” Pete asked, holding out his hand.
“No, I’ve got it. I’ve got the gist of it, anyway. It’s from some young private Andrew knew. He’s the one who wrote the family after Andrew died. It was the kind thing to do; soldiers who lived tried to do that much for the loved ones of those who died, and this fellow Bentley did that for us. ”
“Bentley?”
“It’s a family name; don’t you mock it. ”
“Sorry, sir. ”
“Now Bentley was there at the battlefield, and he was one of the lucky ones who made it home. This is what he said. He said, ‘Dear Mr. or Mrs. Buford, I am sorry to write you with news like this. I was out at the fields with your son on the nineteenth of September, and I am sorry to tell you that he was killed in the woods out behind the cabin at Dyer’s farm, and there he is buried with too many others. ’ This next part is hard to make out, but it says something about him fighting bravely. Or maybe boldly—it’s tough to read. Anyway, he then goes on about how hard the war has been on everyone, and how many friends he’s lost, and how he counted Andrew among them. ”
But Pete was confused. “He died fighting at a farm?”
“Well yes, boy. All those fields out there, those were farms back then. There was Dyer, and Snodgrass, and Poe, and a few other families too, I think. Some of those old homes still stand. The park preserved them. ”
