Adam Re-enlists

Adam Trask was discharged from the United States Cavalry in 1885 and began a slow, wandering journey eastward. He reached Chicago, rented a furnished room, and stayed there for two days before moving on to Niagara Falls, where he watched the water for hours, stupefied and hypnotized by its roar. A crippling loneliness for the close men of barracks and tent drove him into a crowded bar, where he drank whisky and absorbed the contact of the human clot. When the bartender finally asked him to leave, Adam announced, "I guess I'll go home in the morning. I mean my real home." But back in his boarding house, listening to a roomer's patient cough, he knew he could not go home. He had heard old soldiers tell of doing what he was about to do: begging the sergeant to let him back in, as though the sergeant were doing him a favor. In Chicago, Adam re-enlisted and asked to be assigned to his old regiment. On the train going west, the men of his squadron seemed very dear and desirable.

Reunion with Cyrus in Washington

While waiting to change trains in Kansas City, Adam heard his name called and was handed orders to report to the Secretary of War's office in Washington. In the anteroom, his father Cyrus found him. Adam took a moment to recognize Cyrus, and much longer to get used to him. Cyrus had become a great man: he dressed in black broadcloth, wore a wide black hat and an overcoat with a velvet collar, carried an ebony cane that he made seem a sword, and spoke with slow, mellow, measured speech. New teeth gave him a vulpine smile. Most startling of all, Cyrus no longer wore a wooden leg; a mechanical leg with a hinge and a spring allowed him to walk with only a slight limp. Adam felt a faint distaste. Something was not true. The speed with which doors opened, the obsequious respect of the colonel, and the words "The Secretary will see you now, sir" did not remove Adam's feeling. When Cyrus introduced him to the Secretary of War as "my son, a private soldier—just as I was—a private soldier in the United States Army," Adam corrected him: "I was discharged a corporal, sir." He thought to himself, "This is the Secretary of War. Can't he see that this isn't the way my father is? He's play-acting."

The Confrontation

In Cyrus's hotel room, with the mechanical leg removed, Cyrus became himself again—the self Adam remembered. Cyrus asked why Adam had re-enlisted. Adam replied, "I—I don't know, sir. I just wanted to." Cyrus pressed him: "You don't like the army, Adam." Adam admitted he did not. When Cyrus asked why he had gone back, Adam confessed, "I didn't want to go home." Cyrus offered to get Adam into West Point, but Adam refused. "Are you defying me?" Cyrus asked quietly. After a long pause, Adam said, "Yes, sir." Cyrus then threatened him with his influence—he could throw the Grand Army at any candidate, make men and destroy men—but Adam remained unmoved. Cyrus offered to have Adam assigned to Washington, to teach him his way about, but Adam said, "I'd rather go back to my regiment, sir." Adam saw the shadow of loss darken his father's face. Cyrus sighed and said, "Maybe I made a mistake. You've learned the dumb resistance of a soldier. You'll rot in barracks." Adam thanked him and then asked, "Why don't you bring Charles here?" Cyrus replied, "Because I—No, Charles is better where he is—better where he is." Adam remembered his father's tone and how he looked, and he had plenty of time to remember, because he did rot in barracks. He remembered that Cyrus was lonely and alone—and knew it.

Consequences and Aftermath

The re-enlistment condemned Adam to five more years of the "dreamlike routine" of peacetime soldiering: endless polishing of metal and leather, parade and drill and escort, ceremony of bugle and flag. In 1886, his regiment entrained for the Chicago packinghouse strike, but the strike was settled before they were needed. In 1888, the Seminoles stirred restlessly, and the cavalry entrained again, but the Seminoles retired into their swamps and were quiet. Adam's second five years were up before he knew it. In late 1890, he was discharged with sergeant's stripes in the Presidio in San Francisco. He wrote to Charles, "This time I'm coming home," but that was the last Charles heard of him for over three years. Instead of returning, Adam waited out the winter wandering up the Sacramento River, ranged in the San Joaquin Valley, and when spring came, he had no money. He rolled a blanket and started slowly eastward, sometimes walking, sometimes riding the rods under slow-moving freight cars, and before he knew it, he was a bindlestiff himself—a wandering man who followed warmth and avoided great heat and great cold, learning to beg for food, to shave with broken glass, and to judge a house before knocking for a handout.