The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel

The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Read Free

Book: The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel Read Free
Author: Louis Bayard
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when the phaeton, riding up on a boulder, came within inches of toppling over. Through it all, he kept the bearing of an executioner, and there were times, it's true, when that carriage became--because I was still not in my waking mind--a tumbrel, and ahead lay the mob... the guillotine...
    And then we came to the end of a long ascent, and the ground to our east fell away, and there was the Hudson. Glassy, opal-gray, crumpling into a million billows. The morning vapor already a butter-haze, and the outlines of the far shore cutting straight for the sky, and every mountain melting into a blue shadow.
    "Nearly there, sir," offered Lieutenant Meadows.
    Well, this is what the Hudson does for you: it clears you. And so, by the time we had taken the last push up to the West Point bluff, by the time the Academy came peeping out of its mantle of woods--well, I felt equal again to what would come, and I was able to take in the views the way a tourist might. There! the gray-stone bulk of Mr. Cozzens' hotel, belted by a verandah. And to the west, and rising above, the ruins of Fort Putnam. And rising still higher, the brown muscles of hill, bristled with trees, and above that, nothing but sky.
    It wanted ten minutes to three when we reached the guard post.

    "Halt!" came the call. "Who's there?"

    "Lieutenant Meadows," answered the coachman, "escorting Mr. Landor."

    "Advance and be recognized."
    The sentinel came at us from the side, and when I peered out, I was startled to see a boy staring back. The boy saluted the lieutenant and then caught sight of me, and his hand itched its way to a half salute before my civilian status could make itself felt. Down it came, still trembling by his flank.
    "Was that a cadet or a private, Lieutenant?"

    "A private."

    "But the cadets walk guard, too, don't they?"

    "When they're not studying, yes."

    "At night, then?"

    He looked at me. For the first time since we'd left the cottage. "At night, yes."
    We passed now into the Academy grounds. I was going to say we entered, but you don't really enter because you don't exactly leave anything. There are buildings, yes--wood and stone and stucco--but each one seems to rise on Nature's sufferance and to be always on the brink of being drawn back. We came at length to a place that is not Nature's: the parade ground. Forty acres of pitted ground and patched grass, light green and gold, punched with craters, running northward to the point where, still hidden behind trees, the Hudson makes its dart to the west.
    "The Plain," announced the good lieutenant.

    But of course, I already knew its name, and being a neighbor, I knew its purpose. This was the windswept pitch where West Point cadets became soldiers.
    But where were the soldiers? I couldn't see anything but a pair of dismounted guns and a flagpole and a white obelisk and a narrow fringe of shadow that the midday sun hadn't quite pushed away. And as the phaeton passed down the hard-packed dirt road, there was no one abroad to remark on our coming. Even the drumming had stopped. West Point was folded in on itself.
    "Where are all the cadets, Lieutenant?"

    "In afternoon recital, sir."

    "The officers?"

    A slight pause before he informed me that many of them were instructors and were to be found in the section rooms.

    "And the rest?" I asked.

    "Not for me to say, Mr. Landor."

    "Oh, I was just wondering if we had ourselves an alarum going on."

    "I'm not at liberty to say..."

    "Then maybe you can tell me, am I to have a private audience with the superintendent?"

    "I believe Captain Hitchcock will be present as well."

    "And Captain Hitchcock is... ?"

    "The Academy commandant, sir. Second in authority to Colonel Thayer."
    And that was all he would tell me. He meant to stick to his one sure thing, and he did: delivered me straight to the superintendent's quarters and led me into the parlor, where Thayer's manservant was waiting for me. Name of Patrick Murphy, a soldier himself once, now (I would later

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