“David, steady yourself. Try to put it out of your mind now.” Zach pressed the brandy glass into his hand, steadied it till he finally gulped it down.
He looked up at Zach. “I just stood there. I just stood there and let them beat the kid to death. I didn’t even try to stop them.”
“You couldn’t have done. You’d have been helpless against them.”
“I could’ve tried. I might’ve gotten him out of there. But I was too damn scared to even try. I just stood there—”
“David, listen to me, they’d have served you the same way if you’d tried to thwart them.”
David shook his head. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t even try to help him.”
A moment went by. “You set it down on paper for the world to see though.”
“On paper— Christ, I don’t even remember walking to the paper. I just found myself there drawing the whole thing right on the blocks. Leslie was pleased. God, pleased. He wants to put out an extra.” He took another shuddering gulp of the brandy.
“And he should. When the public sees what’s been done, they’ll be bound to come to their senses and put an end to it.”
“That’s not gonna help that kid any.” David closed his eyes, then opened them and looked at Zach so he wouldn’t see the crushed skull, the ruined brains dribbling onto the brown skin.
Zach was silent a moment. “Not that one, no.”
“Oh God, he looked like Josh— He must’ve been the same age, he was of a size, and those big eyes— And I just stood there— Christ, what the hell kind of a man am I?”
“Hush, hush now. It’s not your blame. Get some sleep now.” Zach wrapped his arms around David and stroked his hair as if he were a frightened child in need of comfort. David drew in another gulping sob and let himself slump against him. Zach tightened his arms and held him, rocking him gently till he could no longer hold his eyes open against the brutal, bloody images.
Chapter 14 — 1863
“In the midst of life we are in death; of whom may we seek for succor, but of thee, oh Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased?”
THE WORDS OF THE ANTHEM TRAILED OFF. Stones and sod dropped with a final grating clatter onto the lid of James Harrison’s coffin. David shivered. He stepped back from the edge of the grave and took his father’s arm. The service of committal sounded solemnly over their bowed heads. “In sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life though our Lord Jesus Christ, we commend to Almighty God....”
The mourners dispersed. His uncle’s body lay in the ground. And his soul? Hell, whatever his faults, Uncle James probably never knowingly sinned. Which is a damn sight more than I can say for myself.
David rubbed a few loose grains of sod from his palm onto his trousers and shuddered again. In the midst of life— How would he stand with the Almighty if he were to be overtaken by death right now? It was right there in First Corinthians: “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? ... neither fornicators... nor adulterers... nor abusers of themselves with mankind....”
It had been far too many months since he’d even attended Sunday worship. As soon as he returned to New York he’d see a priest, ask him to hear his confession. Though why wait? He could do it here just as well. The ritual phrases of penitence ran through his mind. “For these and all other sins... I am truly sorry. I pray God to have mercy on me. I firmly intend amendment of life....”
Christ. How many times over the past three years had he promised himself to amend his ways? What would it avail him to make the promise in confession if he fell into sin again the moment he found himself alone with Zach? He sighed. Since that terrible night of the draft riots two months ago he’d clung to Zach’s company and comfort more than ever. He couldn’t separate from him.
“I’m thankful you were able to reach home before James passed on. It meant a good deal to him to be reconciled with you his last years.”
David gave a guilty start, wondering how many of his father’s words he’d missed, lost in thought as he’d been ever since they’d left the graveyard of Christ Church. “I’m glad I was able to see him a last time.”
George Carter nodded, his face growing slack with fatigue as they entered the house. He sank into his wing chair with a sigh and closed his eyes.
David looked at him with concern. He looks so old and worn out. And he must be five or six years older than Uncle James was. “Are you all right, Dad?” he asked.
His father managed a tired smile. “I’m fine, son. It’s just—Troubles seem to follow at one another’s heels, don’t they? Peter missing and then James passing. Crusty as he was, I miss him sitting there. The house seems empty without him.”
“I wish I could stay with you longer, but I’ve got to get back to work.” David drummed his fingers absently on the arm of his chair. “You’ve got Mike nearby though.”
George Carter brightened. “Thank God! He was disappointed to be posted to a hospital in Washington City, instead of out by some field of battle, but I’m thankful for God’s mercy in keeping him safe. Will you have time to see him on your way back to New York?”
“I thought I might.” David slumped in his chair, thinking of his last visit with Mike, in Boston that May. I couldn’t get Zach off my mind then either. And those damn advertisements— He closed his eyes, visualizing their horrors. Still, Mike is a doctor. He might know of some way. If I can bring myself to ask him. But what other choice is there? One of the doctors who sit and gossip over beer at Pfaff’s? At least I can trust Mike. And I’m sure as hell not amending my life on my own.
He opened his eyes again. “Yeah, I can take time to see him, Dad.”
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Like Alexandria, Washington had become a city of military encampments and hospitals. David rode the horse car to the last stop, then continued on foot down the muddy, rutted lane northwest toward Twelfth and R streets: the location of Freedman’s Hospital, established by the government for the contrabands, those runaway slaves who’d slipped through the Union lines to freedom.
Hundreds of makeshift shanties stretched beyond the boundaries of the rickety wooden barracks that had been provided to house the contrabands. Half-naked children ran and shouted in the rapidly falling evening, women stirred pots of greens over smoky fires, men lounged together talking and laughing. Chickens and dogs roamed free, squawking and barking, their noise drowned out by the sound of hymns swelling from fire to fire. The smells of people crowded together, cooking pots and poorly drained outhouses hung over the area.
The hospital was a one-story frame building, in little better repair than the fugitives’ barracks. A Negro man wearing the uniform of an army officer was entering the front door. David called him. “Mike! Hey Mike, wait a minute.”
The man turned, startled, then hurried toward David. “Can I help you?” he asked.
David looked at him in embarrassment. From the front he didn’t look much like Mike at all. The same mulatto coloring, but his features were sharper and Mike had never sported a handlebar mustache like that. “I was looking for a colored man who’s a doctor,” he managed.
“Well, you’ve found one, sir.” The man smiled and held out his hand. “I’m Major Augusta. I have charge of this facility.”
David extended his own hand. “I didn’t realize—” He stopped, feeling foolish.
The major smiled again. “That there was more than one colored doctor serving in the army? I believe there’s seven or eight of us stationed in Washington City. Who are you looking for?”
“Mike- Michael Mabaya. He’s—”
“Yes, I know him. He’s here. He should be going off duty about now.” Augusta waved his hand in the direction of the doctors’ quarters.
Mike smiled a greeting, leading the way to a bench outside the noisy barracks. David sank down next to him. He looked older, David thought. His frizzy black hair showed new patches of white at the temples. The same place Dad first started to gray—
David started, realizing he’d missed Mike’s words of condolence on his uncle’s death. Not that Mike could be very grieved, after the way Uncle James had dragged him back to slavery. “Do you see much of Dad?” he asked.
“When I get a chance. We’re pretty well swamped here. The camp’s full of smallpox, yellow fever.” Mike closed his eyes a moment, rubbed them with the back of his hands. “He’s been helping out at one of the hospitals in Alexandria a couple of times a week. At his age.” He smiled tiredly.
“He didn’t say.” David paused. “I— I wanted to ask you—” He broke off. How could he bring himself to ask Mike for his help? They sat in silence a few minutes. Hell, he’d come all the way out here. “There’s something I thought maybe you could tell me—”
“What?” Mike turned to look at him. “Sorry, I wasn’t paying you much mind.” He rubbed his eyes again. “I had my mind on Peter. Truth is, I haven’t thought of much else all summer. God help me, sometimes I think it would be easier if I knew for sure he’d been killed.”
Christ. He’d been so caught up in his own troubles he hadn’t said a word to Mike about Peter. David stared down at his hands. To tell the truth he hadn’t paid much attention to the scanty news stories, following on the heels of the draft riots, of the failed assault on Fort Wagner, spearheaded by the 54th Massachusetts. Nearly a fourth of the regiment had been lost on the flat stretch of sand dunes surrounding the fort or in hand to hand combat on the earthworks that formed its defenses. Colonel Shaw, struck down as he urged on his men, had been buried by the Confederates “in a common ditch with his niggers,” news reports said.
Even when he’d gotten the news that Peter was missing in action, it had barely intruded on his own concerns. He looked back at Mike. “You haven’t heard anything more?”
“Not a thing.” Michael gave a deep, shuddering sigh. “Abigail found one of the boys in hospital, when she went to Beaufort to help with the nursing, who thought he’d seen Peter wounded inside the earthworks. He didn’t know how badly. She was going to see if he could tell her more when he’d recovered a bit, but he died of his wounds before she got the chance.”
David swallowed. “But if he was taken prisoner, surely they’d have put him in a hospital. It might take months to get news of him. You shouldn’t give up hope yet.”
“It’s what I tell myself, what I write Rachel and the children. I can’t make myself believe it though. Oh Lord, David, I’m so scared for him. I keep thinking—if he was captured by the Rebs he might be better off to have been killed outright.”
“Christ, Mike, don’t say that!” David looked at him in shock. “He couldn’t be better off dead than to be a prisoner.”
“The Confederates won’t treat colored as prisoners of war. He could be sold into slavery. I keep thinking of him being chained up, whipped—hanged even, like the prisoners they took at Milliken’s Bend.”
Both the Tribune and Times that summer had carried stories of colored prisoners summarily put to death. “But since then,” David argued, “Lincoln’s warned the Secesh our government’ll retaliate if they murder colored prisoners or try to enslave them. Anyway, it’s the thought of arming slaves that troubles them. There’s no reason for them to treat free colored any different than white.”
“Free or slave won’t matter. A nigger’s a nigger to them.” Mike’s voice shook. “Those white boys are savages. Get a little liquor in them, there’s no telling what they’ll do. They’re not gonna be stopped by any order from Lincoln.”
It had grown too dark to see Mike’s face but David could feel him tremble. I’ve never seen him so scared, he thought. He searched for words to dispel his fear. The memory of the draft riots rose vividly in his mind. It had taken the force of troops recalled fresh from the victory at Gettysburg to stop the mobs from their mindless violence. He shuddered and kept silent.
Christ. He couldn’t just sit here. David reached out and put an arm around his brother’s shoulders, held him tightly for a long moment. “It’s too soon to give up hope,” he said finally.
Mike drew a deep breath. “I know. Thanks. There’s no use borrowing trouble.” He managed a smile. “What was it you wanted to ask me?”
He couldn’t ask him now. Mike had enough burdens as it was. “I don’t remember. I— I guess it wasn’t that important,” David said.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
He continued to cling to Zach’s company through the fall, missing him even the few days Zach was in Pennsylvania, covering the dedication of the cemetery for the war dead at Gettysburg. He admitted as much to Zach on his return.
“And I you. I’d hoped we could travel there together. It’s a shame Leslie decided to rely on photographs.”
David grimaced. “I’ve been copying them all day. I have good news though. Mike’s had word of Peter. He was taken prisoner. They’re being held in the city jail in Charleston.”
“That is good news.”
“Yeah. Though he lost an arm in the fighting.” David shuddered. “Mike wrote he’s just thankful his life was spared. He was so frightened for him.” David fell silent, musing on his visit with Mike and the help he hadn’t brought himself to ask of him.
“Do you ever give thought to how we’re imperiling our souls by lying together?” he asked abruptly.
“What brings that up all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know. I guess it’s been preying on my mind since Uncle James passed on.”
Zach grew thoughtful. “I think I can answer you best in verse,” he said, smiling at David.
“When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand...
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom,
I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.”
David smiled reluctantly. “More Whitman? But hell, Zach, that’s not enough.”
“It’s enough. I find it so, at any rate.”
“I wish I did. But you know we’ll have to answer for our sins in the next life.”
“Not every religion preaches hellfire and brimstone.” Zach finished unpacking and sank onto his chair. He pulled off his shoes, then slumped back with a comfortable sigh. “I’d sooner spend Sunday mornings other than listening to a sermon, but when I was younger I sought out churches that taught God’s love instead of His vengeance. The Universalists, Unitarians. I’d not mind attending again if you’d like.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You might at least read a few modern religious thinkers. I know you’ve read precious little of Emerson or—”
“Hell, Zach, just because someone sets down his notions in an essay or poem doesn’t make them so.”
Zach’s brows drew together in concentration, preparatory, David knew, to pursuing his argument. David cast about for a change of subject. “Where the hell is he anyhow?”
“Where is who?”
“Whitman. I haven’t seen him around Pfaff’s for months.”
“Washington City. He’s been helping tend the wounded there, I’ve heard. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered. He must have his hands full if he’s helping care for wounded. When I was home this fall it seemed half the houses in town had been turned into hospitals. It’s a wonder there’s any men left to go on fighting.”
“Let’s pray Lincoln can bring it to a speedy conclusion. When I gave thought, at Gettysburg, to how many—” Zach halted himself. “There’s precious little point to such gloomy conversation. What do you say to a glass or two of beer at Pfaff’s?”
“I don’t think so. It’s late to go out. And I ought to finish my letter to Mike.” David took in Zach, still slumped in his chair, and smiled. “Anyhow, by the looks of you, you’d do better to get a good night’s sleep than go out drinking.”
; Zach’s smile stretched into a yawn. “I daresay you’re right. Once I’ve got my shoes off, I’m fairly well settled for the evening. Though I’ll probably do a bit of reading before turning in. Speaking of which, why not take my copy of Emerson with you?”
“Maybe another time. I’m too tired to wade through Emerson this evening. Sleep well.” David kissed him lightly on the brow and left the room.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
David slid the completed letter into an envelope. He stood and stretched, walked restlessly around his room. It was still an hour before his accustomed bedtime.
He should’ve taken the essays, he thought, read a few pages. If nothing else, it would’ve pleased Zach. Well, he doubted Zach was asleep yet. He knocked softly, then pushed Zach’s door to as he entered his room.
Zach was in his nightshirt, reading in bed, back propped against the pillow, legs stretched out atop his coverlet. David glanced at the clothes strewn across the chair, and sank onto the foot of the bed. Zach drew up his knees to make room for him. “I hope you ‘re not about to suggest going out for a beer at this hour.”
“Hardly. I came to borrow your book after all, but I’m not so sure I feel like reading either, to tell the truth.” David leaned back against the wall, smiling at Zach’s comfortably sprawled body. Zach’s thick hair was already as disheveled as after a night of sleep, his rumpled nightshirt hiked up to his thighs, exposing the pink tip of his penis.
“You’ll catch yourself a chill, sitting like that.” David reached forward to tug the nightshirt down. His hand strayed to Zach’s thigh, fingers twining themselves in the heavy pubic hair, his palm beginning to tingle as it moved in tiny, quickening circles. Zach gave a sigh of delight. His shirt fell back further, exposing the quickening excitement in his member.
David caught his breath as the tender, wrinkled skin swelled with life. His hand moved between Zach’s thighs and encircled the hot throbbing flesh. God, he thought, all my talk about sin and I can’t be in a room with him five minutes without— Zach’s first moans of pleasure sounded softly in his ears, banishing his dismay. Zach stroked David’s hair, murmuring his name in joyful gasps.
Different Sin Page 14
