The Mountain: An Event Group Thriller by David L. Golemon

from the soldiers’ home.”
    Lincoln turned with a small smile on his lined face. “I knew that too.”
    Hay held out a telegram for the president, who looked from his secretary to the yellow paper and then turned back to the window and the brief flash of lightning in the distance. The illumination only caused him to think about General George Meade and his failure to pursue Robert E. Lee into Virginia fast enough to end this damnable war. It was if the lightning had illuminated the future for his thoughts. He knew Meade would fail.
    “You read it, Johnny, my eyes have beheld enough misery for one night. I can’t see anymore.”
    Hay grimaced as he watched the president’s shoulders sag. The young secretary knew that another change in command was forthcoming. Which would mean Mr. Lincoln would soon bring back a general the president despised—George McClellan was the only man capable of getting the grand army back in the war after their victory at Gettysburg. He decided that now was the most opportune time to deliver the message from the War Department and Secretary of War Stanton. Hay read the telegram.
    “War Department to A. Lincoln. Be advised that orders have been transmitted to Fort Dodge, Kansas. Expect delay as subject is not currently assigned to post. Signed Stanton, Secretary of War.”
    Lincoln said nothing as his thoughts were in ten places at once, per his usual mode of mind games.
    “What if the colonel is not found in time? Do we attempt to bring in another commanding officer to lead the expedition?”
    “No,” Lincoln said as he watched another bolt of lightning streak across the sky on the far side of the Potomac. “There is only one man who can do what we are asking.”
    “If you are thinking about relieving General Meade with your old enemy George McClellan, the odds are pretty good that our colonel, if he arrives intact from the west, will meet Little Napoleon here in the capitol, and then you know all hell will break loose.”
    Lincoln finally turned away from the approaching storm and smiled broadly at Hay when the secretary used the derogatory moniker for McClellan.
    “Are you saying the two may kill each other?”
    “Possibly.”
    “Well, they always say there is a bright side to all things.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Inform me when the colonel acknowledges receipt of his new orders.”
    “Yes, sir.” Hay turned to leave.
    Lincoln rocked on his heels momentarily as he thought about his old acquaintance, Thomas. He would love to see the face of the man when he received the orders recalling him to Washington. He would more than likely think he was being recalled to finally be hung for his transgression against his old commander—one George B. McClellan. He smiled.
    “Colonel John Henry Thomas, it’s time to come home.”

 
    3
    ONE HUNDRED FIFTY MILES NORTHWEST OF FORT DODGE, KANSAS
    JUNE 1864
    There was no decent water, no shade, and no protection from the unrelenting winds of the plains. The sparse trees were windworn and scraggly. The branch of the small creek, dubbed Sandy Creek by an obviously gifted mapmaker ten years before, was nothing more than a ribbon of water in the spring runoff at its height and a muddy wallow for buffalo in the summer months. The site was unappealing to the two men dressed in filthy clothing and even filthier hats, which they used to shade their eyes—eyes that had long felt as if they had half of the Sahara desert embedded in them.
    The larger of the two men took in a deep breath of the stagnant summer air as he gazed upon the site the experts had chosen from their comfortable offices at Fort Dodge and Washington. The location had either changed dramatically in the past six years since it had been surveyed or someone had outright lied on their field report as to the possible location of a new fort. This was not the place the two men had hoped it would be. The large man with black hair removed his brimmed hat and wiped sweat from his face. The smaller