The Titans by John Jakes Page A

editing and proofreading. To his surprise, he found he both liked the work and had a talent for it. He asked Payne for more responsibility. Within a year of starting at the Union, he was put on his own as a general reporter. Despite his share of beginner's blunders, he succeeded. Even drew an occasional compliment from the editor about a particular story. When the Union's Washington correspondent died of a stroke, Jephtha was chosen to replace him. Payne lectured him before he left for the capital. The assignment had nothing to do with Jephtha's family connections. He had become a good reporter; an able writer, aggressive in his search for news. If his performance didn't continue at that high level he'd be recalled. Fair enough, Jephtha said, excited by the new challenge. In Washington he'd performed well enough so that the possibility of recall soon vanished. He took to cigars; to whiskey. Then to a woman whose bed he now shared without benefit of wedlock. Ten years earlier The Titans99 such behavior would have struck him as grossly immoral. In terms of biblical absolutes, no doubt it still was. But like the South, he had been faced with an alternative. Change-or suffer as a prisoner of the past. He'd changed. Perhaps not entirely for the better. But at least he'd managed to build a new life out of the wreckage of the old. He seldom read scripture these days-and never with the full, mystic faith of his youth. That, together with the cigars, the whiskey, and Molly, occasionally produced painful twinges of guilt. But he was free of his yesterdays- As free, that is, as a father could be. The past still exerted a hold on him because of his sons. Sometimes he could bring himself to a calm understanding of the reason Fan had turned the boys against him. She believed she was right and he was dangerously wrong on the question of Negro freedom. Still, her actions had left scars. Occasionally, in the darkest part of the night, he would awaken sweating from a nightmare in which he saw himself striking his former wife. He was fearful that if he ever encountered Fan again he might not be able to refrain from doing her injury. His capacity for hate was a harrowing truth about himself that he couldn't wish away, despite the warning of a remembered passage from Proverbs: "Whoso diggeth a pit shall jail therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him." In his own way, he supposed, he was as wicked as those men, North and South, who had fomented a war out of their hatreds and would now feel the crushing weight of the stone rolling back upon them. Jephtha jogged the mare up the long sunlit drive to the pillared house familiar to everyone in the capital. He had no idea where his boys were. Nor did his friend at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, 100Colonel Lee Professor Thomas Jackson, with whom he corresponded occasionally. Jackson wasn't on good terms with Fan's father, because of the way Tunworth abused his slaves. Consequently he knew nothing about Fan, her children or her new spouse, he wrote. And he doubted Tunworth would give him an answer even if he inquired. Once, in a moment of extreme despair, Jephtha had asked Jackson whether a visit to Lexington would be safe. He could make inquiries in person- Bluntly, Jackson warned him to stay away. His name was still remembered. He would certainly get no cooperation. He might even find his life in jeopardy. From time to time Jephtha saw a reference to Fan's husband in an old issue of a Southern paper. Twice he'd written to theaters where Lamont had been playing. One of the letters had been returned bearing a notation that the troupe had moved on. He'd heard nothing from the second. He supposed the boys might be traveling with their stepfather. But relying on outdated newspapers to verify it proved futile. Of one thing Jephtha was dismally sure. With Fan to inspire them, the boys might be hurt-die-in the coming war. He shook his head and slowed the mare to a walk as he