Different Sin

by Rochelle Hollander Schwab

  Oh God, Zach, Zach!

  Shouts started, the din of renewed Reb assault. David snapped from his reverie, huddled further under the caisson. God, he had to get a grip on himself! It was hopeless to think of making a run for it to the Union lines. Just sit tight, keep under the cover of the caisson, then surrender first chance he got. Better to be in Libby prison than dead.

  “Hell, only a fool would tangle with them Johnnies again! Ain’t no chance of fightin’ our way outta here!”

  “Damn right! Only chance we got is to throw down our arms.”

  David jumped at the echo of his thoughts. He peered cautiously out. Around him, other men were taking shelter, some dozen or so jammed up by the opening of the escape shaft, displaying no intention of trying to beat back the assault.

  “Shit! We ain’t got a fuckin’ chance even so!” The voice of the third speaker shrilled in near hysteria. “I been listenin’ to a feller made it out of the trenches this mornin’ one step ahead of them Reb bayonets. Way he tells it, them Johnnies charge yellin’,” Death to the niggers! No quarter!’ Now what the hell you reckon them Rebs gonna do they come on us fightin’ cheek by jowl with them stinkin’ darkies?!”

  “Hell, ain’t by no doin’ of ours.”

  “You gonna stop and ‘splain that to Johnny?!”

  “I’ll be damned if you ain’t talkin’ horse sense. What we oughta do—” The hoarse voice dropped too low for David to hear. More voices joined in an inaudible murmur.

  “Hell yeah!” the shrill voice rose. “We kill them darkies ourselves, oughta prove to Johnny we ain’t no lousy nigger-lovers!”

  David gasped in shock and horror, scrambled from under the caisson. A line of six or seven men, bayonets at the ready, were quietly closing the distance to where Amos and two other Negro boys stood huddled, their eyes riveted to the wave of Reb troops pouring down the opposite slope. David jerked to his feet, stumbled after the men, screaming hoarsely, “Amos! Amos, look out!”

  His yells went unheard. He ran faster, his field glasses banging his chest. He yanked them off, clutched the leather strap in his fist. The soldier nearest to Amos prepared to plunge the bayonet into his back. David sprinted. “Amos! Amos! Leave him alone! Leave him alone, you goddamn bastard! Amos!!” he shrieked.

  Amos leaped aside as his assailant lunged. David swung the field glasses on their strap. The heavy glasses smashed into the side of the white infantryman’s face. Blood streamed from his ear and nose. The soldier next to him spun in disbelief, started furiously toward David. He swung the glasses wildly at the man, heard the sickening snap of bone, pulled his arm back to strike again when a searing blow struck the back of his head, sent him reeling to the ground.

  He rocked dizzily on his hands and knees, barely taking in the sounds of struggle raging above him or the more distant yells of the Reb troops streaming into the crater. He felt himself yanked to his feet then, dragged toward the slope by Amos and a second, unfamiliar black soldier, pulled roughly up the crater side, pelted by loose dirt and debris.

  Then they had clawed their way to the top and Amos’ wiry arms jerked him over the rim. David stumbled blindly across the expanse of field, clinging to the two boys with desperate strength, only dimly aware of the blue-clad mob streaming by in a single-minded, frenzied dash for the Union lines. The crash of artillery sounded in his ears like distant thunder. The Union breastworks swam up before him and consciousness fell away.

  Chapter 24 — 1864

  GRINNING VICIOUSLY, DEMONS CAME AT HIM WITH BAYONETS. He shrank back into the horde of dead men around him. The devils shrieked with laughter, swung their weapons with gleeful abandon, lopping off legs and arms and pitching them into the smoking pit that yawned behind them. David struggled to flee; the mob of screaming, moaning men pinned him where he stood. The bloody bayonets flashed toward him. He closed his eyes, screaming, felt a hand grab his. “It’s all right now.” The voice was firm, warmly familiar.

  “Zach? Oh God, Zach, did they get you too?”

  “It’s all right, David,” the voice repeated. “There’s nothing to fear. I’ve got hold of your hand.” Zach’s body bulked against him reassuringly. The demons drew back in dismay.

  David drew a breath of incredible relief. “Oh God, Zach! Thank God!”

  “It’s all right, David. Are you awake now?”

  He opened his eyes. Wounded men lay all around him on the hard clay ground, bodies bound in bloody bandages, some moaning or crying out, others still with shock. A heap of discarded limbs was tossed on the ground outside the surgeons’ tent, a swarm of flies buzzing above them. The stench of gore hung over everything. Above him a cloudless sky soared to infinity. “I’m still alive,” he murmured.

  “How do you feel?” Al asked him. Her hand gripped his. He turned toward her. The motion filled his head with throbbing pain. Nausea assailed him. The sensations were unimportant next to his growing joy at having survived. He smiled at her weakly. “I’ve a pretty fierce headache, but—”

  “No wonder,” Al interrupted. “Reckon you got a pretty hard knock on the head. You’ll be all right though. I got one of the doctors to take a look at you. He said there’s no sign of skull fracture, just a flesh wound.” She paused. “That colored boy told me you saved him.”

  “They were going to kill him,” he said slowly, half under his breath. “Just stab him in cold blood to save their own skins. God, Zach was right. There are worse sins.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head, bringing on a new wave of pain. “Never mind.”

  Al gave him a quick smile. “You never let on you were so brave.”

  “Oh God, Al, I’m not brave. I didn’t— I just—”

  “Still and all, you could of got yourself killed. I was plumb scared to death when I first saw you, matter of fact. Thought I’d be writing your pa like we had to Colin’s wife. But the doctor says scalp wounds always bleed like a stuck pig.”

  He closed his eyes, pictured his father’s face on receiving such a missive. At least he’d have had Mike nearby to turn to. He wasn’t alone in the world the way Zach was, for all his acquaintances. Hell, she’d never have known to write Zach. He’d have had no idea— Though he supposed Leslie would have mentioned it in print. He envisioned Zach coming on the item unawares, as he sat after supper in the boardinghouse parlor. Or would Elliot have rushed to inform him, waiting slyly for his reaction? Not that Zach would’ve been unduly distressed, he supposed. He’d made it pretty plain he was through caring for him. David opened his eyes, gazed unseeing at the blue of the sky, remembering the loving pressure of Zach’s hand on his.

  Don’t be a damn fool, he told himself then. You don’t stop caring just like that. Hell, he hadn’t stopped caring for Zach. Not for a minute. He made a weak effort to sit up. His head swam. “I’m going back to New York,” he said.

  “Don’t try and sit up now!” Al pushed him gently back down. “You can’t go traveling anywhere till you get that cut on your head stitched up. The doctor that examined you couldn’t take time to do it with so many boys worse off. Told me just to keep this cloth pressed against it to stop the bleeding.”

  Now that he’d made up his mind, a delay of even a few hours seemed impossible to bear. David fingered the makeshift bandage gingerly. “It’s stopped bleeding, I’m pretty sure. I can—”

  “Don’t be headstrong, David. The doctors’ll get to you ‘fore too much longer.”

  David looked at the gruesome spectacle around him, winced at the steadily growing pile of arms and legs. “Overnight at least. It could even be a day or two more. I’ve got to get away from here. And you ought to do the same. Hell, we’re still within range of a shell. If you can get me a spot in one of the ambulance cars—

  “No, wait! Listen to me, Al. It won’t hurt me to ride in the car. It’s only a few miles. And from there I can get on one of the steamers taking men north from the City Point hospital, stretch out on the deck the same as if I was lying here, be in Alexandria i
n a day. I’ll stop and rest at my father’s house, I promise. Remember, he’s a doctor. I’d sooner trust him to take care of me than one of the surgeons here, anyway.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  The airless freight car was laid with straw bedding to cushion the ride along the spur of uneven track laid from the front to City Point. Even so, the short trip was worse than he’d anticipated. David stumbled dizzily off the medical transport, clutching at Al. She looked up at him with quick concern. “I’m okay, Al. I—” He tried to marshal his thoughts. “I guess if you could ask Ed Forbes to take charge of my horse. If the poor thing hasn’t wandered off or been stolen by now. Though I suppose whoever Leslie finds to take my place will—”

  “Hush now, David. I’ll see to it. Don’t worry over it.” She paused. “Reckon you might write me a few words once you get home, let me know you made it okay.”

  “I will. I promise. And you be careful, hear? I— Oh God, Alice, I don’t know how to thank you. I’m— I’m sorry. I mean—”

  “It’s all right, David. I reckon there was never meant to be any great romance between you and me.” She gave him a faint smile, reached up and brushed a bit of straw from his beard. “You go on back to New York and make up that quarrel. I reckon as eager as you are to get back to her, that sweetheart of yours must be a plumb special lady.”

  ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

  “I fail to understand your hurry,” Dr. Carter said testily, settling himself more comfortably in the wing chair. “You’ve already played the part of a fool, dashing up here from the front lines without getting your wound attended to and now—”

  “I’ve got to get back to New York, Dad. I told you. I feel well enough to travel. Better, probably, than if I’d waited for some army sawbones when I could get better doctoring from my own father.”

  His father smiled. “I guess my skills aren’t as rusty as I’d feared. But I don’t mind telling you, son, when you stumbled in here yesterday my heart was in my mouth. I just thank the Lord you weren’t hit on the site of your old concussion. Another inch or two and—”

  “I know, Dad,” David crossed his legs restlessly, recrossed them the other way. His father had insisted on cleaning the cut with stinging carbolic acid before suturing it with hands he kept from trembling by sheer force of will, his face tense with strain. David smiled at him affectionately. “I expect you’re right. I should’ve—”

  “What’s done is done,” Dr. Carter said firmly. “Thank God, it’s worked out for the best. But now you’re here—”

  David glanced at the mantel clock. “I really have to go, Dad. If I wait any longer I’ll never make the train.”

  “I can’t believe you’re going to rush off after less than twenty-four hours. Setting aside the question of your stamina, I should think a simple respect for your father’s wishes— It’s not as if we got a chance to visit with any frequency these days.”

  “I’ll come back for a longer visit. I promise. In a month or two. Three at the very most.”

  “David. I’m seventy-seven years old. In two or three months I could be dead and buried. And the only thing on your mind, apparently, is trying to please that editor of yours. Is he more important to you than your own father?”

  “It has nothing to do with Leslie.”

  “Mail him your pictures. Or send them by courier, if it is that urgent. You’ve just come within a hairsbreadth of dying. You deserve a few weeks to recuperate.”

  “Dad, I told you. I’m not rushing back on account of Leslie.” A steel vise fastened itself around David’s head. “It has nothing to do with Leslie,” he repeated irritably.

  “Well then, I fail to see any reason why you can’t stay on. I’m all alone here, as you very well know, and—”

  “You’ve got Mike. He’s right across the river.”

  “Michael’s a doctor, David. Peoples’ lives depend on him. You can’t expect him to drop his work and come running over here all the time.”

  David winced, rose abruptly from his chair. He crossed the room to his father, put a hand on his shoulder. “Dad, I’m sorry. I’ve really got to—”

  “Why, in God’s name? What’s the urgent business that you have to rush back for?”

  “There’s— there’s someone I need to see.”

  “Someone— You just told me—”

  “Not Leslie. Someone— someone I’m fond of.” The band of pain tightened around his head. He closed his eyes, pressed his hands to his lids. Zach’s face swam up in front of him. Dear God, let him be waiting for me. Don’t let him have found someone else. Please God. He opened his eyes. His father was beaming at him.

  “You might have said so! That’s wonderful, David. The best news you could have brought me! After all this time. I resigned myself years ago to the fact of your being a bachelor. And now— When will you be married? Don’t put it off, I beg you. God willing, I’ll live long enough to see a son of yours.”

  Christ! Why in hell had he opened his mouth? David cut into his father’s happy babbling. “Dad. Please, Dad, I’m not getting married.”

  “You’re not— But you just said—”

  “I didn’t say a word about getting married. Dad, I’ve got to go now. I’ll—”

  His father’s hand shot out, seized his wrist with surprising strength. “Don’t run off on me, David! What kind of affair are you having, that you aren’t planning— Is she a colored woman? Is that it? No? Well then— Son. You’re not having a liaison with a married woman!”

  “Dad, for God’s sake—”

  Dr. Carter tightened his grip on David’s wrist, overrode his words. “Have you taken leave of your senses? Leaving aside the question of morality, do you realize the danger you’re courting? The chance of being called out to a duel? Or worse yet, shot down on the street with no warning at all? Can you tell me this woman is worth—”

  “It’s not a woman!” David jerked loose from his father’s grasp, stared with annoyance at the pained bewilderment on the old man’s face. “Dad, just leave it alone, will you? It’s not important.”

  “Important enough for you to desert your father and go charging off to New York with an unhealed head wound! David, I demand—”

  “It’s a man. It’s important that I see him.”

  “I don’t understand you, David. What is it you have to see this man about?”

  “Damn it, Dad, it’s none of your—” David broke off, tried to choke back the anger welling up in him. “He’s a friend. A good friend of mine. Zachary Walker. You’ve met him.”

  “Just a friend and yet you have to—”

  His father’s reproach was drowned out by drumbeats of anger pulsing through him now, coming in violent bursts, pounding against his temples more fiercely than the throbbing headache, anger that seemed to have been a part of him as far back as he could remember. David trembled, fought desperately for control. Stop it, stop it for Christ’s sake! Tell him anything, a business deal, a— “Not just a friend. I love him. I love him, do you hear!”

  The room was filled with the silence that follows the accidental shattering of some favorite heirloom.

  “David, what—”

  “I love him,” he repeated deliberately. “I have a— an unnatural lust for him.”

  “What in God’s name—” his father demanded. But his face was already filling with unwilling comprehension. “David, no! You’re overwrought! You don’t know what you’re saying!”

  “I know, goddammit! I’m a nance. A sodomite.”

  “I’ve read of such— such abominations,” his father whispered. “But I couldn’t bring myself to believe— No!” He rose, grabbed David’s shoulders, shook him like a small boy. “It’s a sin! You’re committing a mortal sin, don’t you understand that, you and that, that filthy son of a bitch!”

  “Shut up, dammit!” David wrenched himself loose from his father’s grasp, trembling, his eyes filling with tears of rage. “Just shut up about him, dammit!”

  “David, I forbi
d you! Do you hear me? You’re not to go back to him! It’s a sin, do you hear me, a mortal sin!”

  “Who the hell are you to talk about sin, Dad?”

  “David! Don’t you dare—”

  “Who the hell are you to talk about sin, damn it! Are you so goddamn free of sin? At least we’re not bringing any little nigger bastards into the world!” Through his tears he saw his father wince with pain as if he’d struck him. He bolted through the front door and ran blindly down the street.

  Chapter 25 — 1864

  DAVID LAID HIS ARM ALONG THE BACK OF THE TRAIN SEAT, rested his cheek on it, trying to cushion his head from the rocking of the car. The doors at either end crashed open and shut, admitting the conductor, newsboys, urchins offering gum drops, tobacco and cakes. He ignored their cries, struggled to fix words in his mind to say to Zach, words to mend the rift between them. He’d been so certain Zach would still care. But suppose— He could see Zach’s face when he’d left him, cold with anger, as he stalked from his room with bitter finality.

  He shuddered, gazed blankly at the passing houses, where lamplight began to show in windows, one by one. The sky darkened, the overhead lanterns spilled their dim light through the train car, turning the passing landscape to wavering reflections. He stared at his face, tried to picture Zach’s warm, loving smile. Instead his father’s image formed before him, welcoming him home with anxious concern, fumbling bravely through his seldom-used medical kit.

  The doctor’s concerned frown vanished, his face turned gray with shock, sagged into deeper lines of age. Christ, he’s almost eighty years old! How the hell could I have screamed at him like that? My God, at his age anything could happen. His heart— I could’ve killed him! The train slowed for Baltimore. David got to his feet, nearly fell down the high steps in his haste and raced across to the south-bound platform of the station.