Call Down The Hawk Read online

  The man’s expression was hostile. “On the contrary, you were standing outside this vehicle, therefore one must assume it to be unengaged and since I have occupied it, the taxi is now engaged by me.”

  “You assume wrongly. I was here first and I’ve paid the hire of this man to transport my baggage to a specified address. Now, I suggest you vacate and wait for another cab.”

  The cab driver, enjoying the confrontation, gestured toward Seth with his thumb. “This gent was here first and has paid me in advance, but if he don’t mind, I can deliver his bags and also drop you off afterwards.”

  “Sounds reasonable to me,” Seth said, looking at the interloper.

  Instead of showing his gratitude, the man in the back seat scowled. “Well, I certainly do mind. I am late for a very important meeting and I have no intention to ride all over Washington with somebody’s luggage.”

  Seth shrugged. “Have it your way then, but this happens to be my cab, so you hie yourself out of it and find another in which you won’t have to ride all over Washington with somebody’s luggage.”

  “I will not get out, so please remove these bags at once.”

  Seth glanced at the face of the driver which had lost its amusement. The driver sighed and opened his door and came to the open back door. He leaned in toward the man in the back seat. “All right, this has gone far enough. I am asking you now to get out before I yank you out. This cab is taken. So you had best get out, now!”

  The man, seeing that it was no bluff, hastily climbed out the other door saying to Seth, “I won’t forget you, sir—no, I certainly won’t!” Turning to the driver, he added, “As for you driver, I shall report your insolence and threat of violence to your cab company.” With a withering look at both Seth and the driver, he stomped off in search of another cab.

  “Sorry about that, sir,” the driver said and returned to his front seat. “But I would watch out for that one, if you ever meet up.”

  “Not to worry, he can’t do anything to me, but what about his calling your cab company?”

  The driver grinned and started his engine. “I am my cab company.”

  Seth tipped the driver and waiting red cap with an extra dollar and expressed his apology for keeping them waiting.

  He left to search for Ginny and Alan, unaware of the crowd of reporters not more than one hundred feet away clustered around the nominees for Secretary of State and Secretary of Navy who had just arrived on the Seaboard line from North Carolina.

  “Colonel Bryan!” the New York Times man shouted, “Is it finally confirmed that you and Mr. Daniels are going to be in the cabinet?”

  Bryan beamed. “I understand the president-elect has provisionally completed his cabinet but it won’t be officially announced until he submits all the names to the Senate on Wednesday.”

  “Is it true that you will handle the diplomacy for the new administration and Mr. Daniels will handle the Navy?” the Times reporter persisted.

  “Yes, if confirmed, I will be involved with diplomacy,” Bryan said, “but, as for the Navy, why don’t you ask Mr. Daniels? He’s of age.”

  “Mr. Daniels?”

  “Apparently, I will have the Navy to look after, provided the United States Senate confirms the appointment,” Daniels answered and smiled.

  “Mr. Bryan!” It was a woman reporter waving her notebook for attention.

  Bryan winced as he recognized that voice from the Baltimore Convention. “Ah—it’s the correspondent from the largest German language newspaper in America, Miss-”

  “Faver, Mr. Bryan. Annaliese Faver. I am the new bureau chief of the Brooklyn Tagblatt here in Washington.”

  “To be sure, Miss Faver. Oh perdition, that means you are going to be around every day to plague me.

  “Mr. Bryan, there are reports in circulation that you will make an emphatic protest to President-Elect Wilson about the appointment of Mr. McAdoo as Secretary of Treasury on the ground that he has close affiliation with the big corporations. Is that true, sir?”

  Bryan sighed. “Miss Faver, you never fail to disappoint me. In answer, let me say that I have heard that McAdoo rumor, and I wish to unequivocally deny any truth to it. It’s pure fiction.”

  “One more question, Mr. Bryan?”

  “Yes, Miss Faver?”

  “There is also a story in circulation that you and several others intend to make a vigorous protest to Mr. Wilson over his failure to include Mr. Louis Brandeis of Massachusetts in the cabinet. Is that true?”

  “I have seen the Brandeis story,” Bryan said wearily, “but so far as it in anyway brings me into it, it is without foundation of truth. This and the McAdoo story are both fakes, Miss Faver . You should be more careful of your sources of information. Is there any thing else—Miss Faver?”

  She smiled sweetly. “No, thank you, Mr. Bryan.”

  As they walked away from the reporters, Bryan murmured to Daniels, “Well, praise the Lord, that woman has the persistence of a horsefly on a hot July day. I thought her a minor annoyance in Baltimore. Now that she is here in Washington, not even the Biblical Job should have put up with that woman.”

  Daniels chuckled. “You do seem to be an attraction for her, but you must admit, Will, she’s a pretty little thing.”

  “I suggest we start looking for a taxi cab, don’t you?” Bryan said.

  3

  THE STREETS AROUND THE CAPITOL were choked with marchers forming up, with noisy good humor and a great milling about, while the parade organizers desperately tried to form them into their proper march serials. The marshals for the major march divisions congregated around the Peace Monument, listening to the Grand Marshal, Mrs. Richard Coke Burleson, shout last minute instructions, in a drill sergeant voice that would have made her army officer husband proud.

  Seth, Ginny and Alan watched this activity for a moment until the Englishman suggested that it was time to find a location from which to better watch the parade. “Our best move would be to walk down D Street to Eighth and then cut over to Pennsylvania Avenue.”

  “Lead on,” Seth said. “You know the town and we are strangers here.”

  When they reached Pennsylvania, they found the curbs lined with people and the chances of finding a spot among them unlikely. In the distance they could hear the sound of band music coming down the avenue from the Capitol. Alan bought seats in one of the temporary wooden bleachers erected for tomorrow’s Inaugural Parade.

  “We might as well be comfortable,” he said.

  The cigar smoking entrepreneur said, “If you like, I can reserve those same seats for you so you can catch Woody’s big one tomorrow.”

  Out of curiosity, Seth asked, “How much for tomorrow?”

  “Seven fifty a seat, and believe me, brother, that’s a bargain. The guy across the street is charging ten big ones.”

  “Thanks, I reckon not,” Seth said, and they climbed up and sat down on the wooden plank. The band music was coming closer and to Ginny’s disgust, the crowd reacted by pushing down the police restraining ropes and surging out into the middle of the street.

  “That is stupid,” she said, “how do they expect the parade to get through, if they block the street like that? Why don’t those policemen do something?”

  “I suspect they are angry with the women’s organization for insisting on holding a parade of this size the day before the inauguration,” Alan said.

  “They do seem to be very offhanded about what’s going on,” Seth commented.

  “I don’t like the looks of some of those hooligans over there,” Alan said.

  “Yes, they appear to be well liquored up.”

  Two police motor vehicles came into view, leading the first elements of the parade. They slowly edged into the crowd blocking the avenue, forcing it to give way, back to the curbs. But, once the police ve
hicles had passed, the crowd surged back into the street.

  A contingent of suffragists appeared on horseback. As they met the crowd in the street, an imposing woman dressed in a white Cossack costume caused her white horse to rear up, sending the blocking crowd scurrying to each side, thereby opening a narrow lane for the other horsewomen to come through. The marching band immediately behind managed to force the crowd even farther apart, making it possible for the floats to follow through. The policemen on the street just stood, arms folded, and watched the encounters with the crowds.

  Next to appear was the first of what turned out to be seven sections of the parade element consisting of an all women marching band wearing blue uniforms. The banner said they were from Marysville, Missouri, followed by another marching unit. That to the crowd’s surprise included a number of men. This unit was preceded by two women carrying a large banner demanding, “WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE.”

  Up to this time, the crowd had been respectfully silent, but now it became raucous, yelling at the male marchers. It was difficult to distinguish the cheers of the respectful onlookers from the jeers of the hooligans and drunks. Then almost in front of their bleachers one of the District’s less noble citizens stepped out and spat tobacco juice in the face of one of the marching women. Ginny gasped in anger, and Seth and Alan both started down, but the culprit disappeared into the crowd across the street. The policeman over there either didn’t see it, or preferred to stand back.

  Section by section of marching women continued past the stand, heads held high, ignoring such taunts and jibes as, “Go home, lady” and “How about a kiss, honey?” Ginny’s outrage continued to build and Seth was beginning to feel uneasy for the safety of the marchers. Then, a partial solution to his worry appeared. Some members of the Pennsylvania National Guard, in town for tomorrow’s parade, had volunteered to act as escorts for some of the floats. In addition, other floats were being escorted by Boy Scouts. Hooliganism stopped for the moment.

  Seth glanced at his pocket watch and was about to suggest they had better be leaving, when the next float appeared on which were seated several young barefoot girls, wearing diaphanous pastel colored gowns. Seth shook his head. Not a bright idea given this crowd.

  “I say,” Alan exclaimed. “Doesn’t that girl in blue look like old Molly Langdon?”

  Sure enough, Seth recognized Molly, wearing a blue filmy gown, sitting near the edge of this side of the coming float. The smile she wore seemed frozen, and even from where they sat, he detected tension and strain in her young face. For one thing, he felt, she must be cold in that gown (it was only the third of March). For another, she could be scared about those obscene suggestions by some of those ruffians.

  Ginny let out a cry of concern and grabbed her father’s arm. “Oh lord, look, that awful man has grabbed Molly.”

  A dirty looking hulk of a man had moved to the side of the float and grabbed Molly’s bare foot and was trying to run his hand up her leg. Molly, her eyes wide with terror, desperately tried to pull back on the float, but was unable, because the man was holding tight to her leg. No one on the float noticed the assault.

  Seth hit the ground off the side of the bleachers, closely followed by Alan. They charged toward the slowly coming float, shoving protesting spectators aside. They arrived at the float to find Molly had a third rescuer. A slender Boy Scout had appeared from nowhere and hit Molly’s attacker a vicious blow in the groin. The ruffian let out a cry of agony, let go Molly’s leg, and doubled up retching on the pavement.

  “Good show, ole man!” Alan shouted, clapping the Scout on the shoulder.

  “My duty, sir,” the young boy replied, and saluted.

  The float was still moving as if nothing had happened. A few spectators on the curb had applauded the Boy Scout for his actions. Seth tried to get Molly’s attention. She just stared at him, eyes glazed in shock. Alan also called out to her, with the same result. Seth shouted to Alan, “Stay with her and take her home.”

  Alan nodded assent. “Right, see you later. Tell Ginny goodbye for me.” He trotted off after the float with the hero of the moment, the Boy Scout.

  At Seth’s feet on the ground, the hoodlum was struggling to get up, shouting after the Boy Scout,

  “Come back here, you little scut!”

  Seth regarded the wretch at his feet with contempt,and in turning to go back to Ginny, stepped on his hand. The fellow howled a second time in real anguish. He looked up through pain reddened eyes to locate his new assailant.

  “Did I step on your hand, partner? Sorry.”

  “You crushed it!” the man snarled.

  “No, I don’t think so. Look, you can still wiggle your fingers. You’ll be fine.”

  “Damn you! If I could get up—”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Hey, you,” a pot bellied policeman bore down on them from across the street yelling, “Did you knock that man down?”

  “I cannot tell a lie, officer. A Boy Scout did it.”

  The policeman glared at Seth, his face turning red. “None of your sass, Buster.” He looked down at the ruffian slowly getting to his feet. “How about it, sir, did this man knock you down?”

  “Naw, a Boy Scout did it. But, this guy stepped on my hand, see?” He held it up in the officer’s face, who stared in disgust at the vomit remains on the ruffian’s shirt and trousers.

  “I think the two of you are drunk. I ought to run the both of you in for that cock and bull malarkey about a Boy Scout. But I won’t. Just get the hell out of my street.”

  “Most good of you officer,” Seth said, touching the brim of his Stetson and heading back to the bleachers to get his daughter.

  4

  THE LARIMER RESIDENCE IN THE 1600 block on P Street NW was an imposing three story building. Its entrance was from a small porch under an insignificant portico. The solid dark oak door was opened by a solemn-faced young maid whose heavy black eyebrows contrasted with her pale complexion. The late afternoon sunlight illuminated a coppery sheen in her shiny black hair.

  “Good afternoon,” Seth said. “I am Mr. Cane and this is my daughter, Ginny, grand niece of Mr. and Mrs. Larimer.”

  “Sir and young miss, please to enter. Your luggage has already arrived and they are expecting you,” she said, standing aside for them to enter.

  They entered a dark, wood paneled foyer where the young servant relieved them of their light outer garments and hats. After hanging them up, she opened two large oak double sliding doors on the right of the foyer and indicated they should wait in the front parlor while she informed her mistress of their arrival.

  The parlor was late Victorian with a cream and gold patterned wallpaper; a fireplace with a dark wood mantel and iron coal stove. The furniture consisted of a high-back fringed upholstered sofa, three upholstered arm chairs, one bent arm rocker; and a single pedestal round oak table in the center of the room. The walls were hung with three oil paintings, two of full rigged naval ships and the third of a stormy seascape.

  “Ugh, what a depressing room,” Ginny said. “It smells like old people. If this is what Great Aunt Eudora and Great Uncle Perry are like, I want to stay in the dormitory of Dunstan Hall. Are they?”

  Seth remembered the time when he and Elizabeth had stopped over in Washington on return from their European honeymoon and in this very room he had also asked her what the Larimers were like.

  “I am not exactly sure,” Elizabeth had replied removing her gloves. “After all, Seth, they are getting up in years and I haven’t seen them since my Dunstan Hall days.”

  The Larimers had turned out to be unfriendly country for him. Admiral Perry ( just Commodore then) was an overbearing, insufferable bore. Compared to his wife Eudora, however, his company was almost tolerable.

  From the outset, she indicated disapproval of the man her favorite niece ha
d made the mistake to marry. It was made clear in so many ways that she felt Elizabeth had married far beneath her, just as Elizabeth’s mother had done in marrying that “uncouth, down at the heels, shiftless cowboy person.”

  Seth gaped upon hearing (according to Eudora) that Matt Singletary had spirited her only sister far off into a God forsaken wilderness where the hard life had ultimately caused her to sicken and die.

  His own prospects as a promising young Oklahoma lawyer had cut absolutely no ice with her. In fact, she made a point of telling him that she regarded all lawyers as being only a step or two removed from mountebanks. But he slid even faster down the scale of the disreputable when she learned he was a Populist. She announced that the Hartwells (she was a Philadelphia Hartwell) as well as the Larimers had been

  Republicans from the time of Abraham Lincoln. Before that they were Whigs. His mention of his support of William Jennings Bryan produced a sniff and comment , “That man is no better than a demagogue and a charlatan. If elected president, he would destroy the corporate structure of this country.”

  Stung, he had retaliated with some uncomplimentary words about those corporate interests such as the railroads and banks who had been holding the poor farmers hostage for decades. Since the Hartwell money came from both railroads and banking, Aunt Eudora charged him with a direct attack upon her family’s honor and morals. Elizabeth later took him to task for browbeating her old aunt; his defense that Aunt Eudora had started it found no sympathy with his wife. An excessively polite but cool atmosphere between himself and his wife’s aunt characterized the remainder of their visit. The atmosphere between him and Elizabeth hadn’t been much warmer.

  So it was that now Seth had to frame his reply to Ginny most carefully.

  “You must realize that your Great Aunt and Uncle are quite advanced in years. They both come from eastern backgrounds that cotton to different manners and customs from our folks back home. Uncle Perry was a great naval hero, retired with honor, and may seem somewhat eccentric to our lights. Nevertheless, he deserves our respect and consideration. Now, your Great Aunt Eudora may seem a trifle stern and demanding but deep down, she is a very kind person who loved your mother very much, just as she will love you. Give her half a chance, and you will love her back.”