Lincoln's Dreams

“Is that you, Jeff?” Broun said, and came clattering down the stairs. He was wearing a black overcoat that looked like he’d slept in it. “Thank God!” he said, and hugged me. His beard hadn’t grown at all in the week we’d been gone, and the rough stubble scratched my ear. “Are you all right? I called every motel in Fredericksburg, but nobody had you registered.” He pushed me out to arm’s length and peered at me with his sharp little eyes. “You got Richard’s message then?”

“What message?” I said. I pulled away from him, and shrugged out of my coat. “I’m fine, now that the damn galleys are finished. What a mess! Transposed chapters, missing chapters, the works. I finally called Annie here and talked her into coming down to help me finish them. You remember my boss, don’t you, Annie?” I said. I draped my coat over the newel post. “The man who is responsible for all our misery these last few days? Broun, you remember Annie?”

“Yes, of course,” Broun said, and shook hands with her.

“Hello,” she said gravely. I couldn’t read her face at all.

“It’s freezing out here in the hall,” I said. “Didn’t you turn the heat up? Let’s go in the solarium.” I took Annie’s arm and led her into the room. “Good, it’s warmer in here. Annie, let me take that wet coat.”

Broun came and stood in the doorway. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick, Jeff?” he said. “I thought there was something wrong that night you got in from Springfield. Why didn’t you tell me you were having chest pains? I would have canceled my trip. Have you been to see a doctor?”

“The records from the family doctor show a problem with the EKG,” Richard had said. “Have you noticed any chest pains?” Broun had thought the message was about me, had flown home to help me, but it was too late. I looked at Annie. She had taken her gloves off and had backed up until she was against the table that held the African violets. She stood there twisting her gloves and watching me, waiting to hear what I would say.

“I’m not the one who’s sick,” I said. “Annie is. I brought her home to put her in the hospital.” I took hold of her hands. “I called Richard,” I said. “He’ll be here any time.”

She stood very still for a moment, as though she were going to speak, and then lurched forward, the way Lee had when Traveller bolted, the gloves still in her hands.

“You’re suffering from angina,” I said. “That’s what’s making your wrist hurt. Lee had angina all through the war, pains in his shoulder, along his arm, in his back. He died of a heart attack. The dreams are a warning. Like Lincoln’s dreams. You’ve got to see a doctor.”

“And so you called Richard.”

“Yes.”

She sat down on the couch. “You promised,” she said.

“That was before I knew the dreams were killing you. I’m doing this for your own good.”

“Like Richard,” she said, twisting the gloves in her lap.

I knelt beside her. “Annie, listen to me, the dream you had this morning, it wasn’t about Antietam. I lied to you. The meeting you dreamed was at Grace Church in Lexington. Lee went to that meeting and sat there all afternoon in the cold and then walked home in the rain and had a heart attack! I’m not going to let that happen to you!”

“I have to do this.” She twisted the gloves. “I have to see it through. Please try to understand,” she said, gravely, kindly. “I can’t leave him. I promised to have his dreams. Poor man … I have to try and help him. I can’t leave him. He’s dying.”

“He’s not dying, Annie!” I shouted. “He’s dead. He’s been dead over a hundred years. You’re holding on to the hand of a corpse. You can’t do anything for him! Don’t you see that?”

“I promised.”

“And I made some promises, too, but I’m damned if I’m going to let you die for the sake of a goddamned answering machine! That’s what it is, some kind of biological prerecorded message that switches on when you’re going to have a heart attack and leaves a message for you to call the doctor.”

“No, they’re not,” Annie said. “They’re Lee’s dreams.”

“Lee’s dreams,” Broun said. He took hold of the door jamb and leaned against it as if he couldn’t stand.

“They’re prodromic dreams, Annie! They’re caused by the angina!”

Broun took a step toward Annie. “Are you having Robert E. Lee’s dreams?” he said in a labored, uncertain voice, as if he could not get his breath.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Annie said.

Broun groped blindly behind him for a chair and sat down heavily. “Lee’s dreams,” he said.

“Annie, don’t you understand?” I said. “You’re in danger. I have to get you to a hospital.”

“I can’t. I promised.”

“What did you promise? To march up to the Bloody Angle and get yourself killed? You’re not one of Lee’s soldiers! His soldiers had to stay with him. They’d have been shot for deserting.”

“That isn’t why they stayed,” Annie said.

It was true, barefoot and bleeding, they still hadn’t deserted him, not even at the end. We’ll go on fightin’ for you , Marse Robert.

“Lee’s soldiers knew when they signed up they could get killed. You didn’t. You didn’t sign up at