This Scorched Earth

by William Gear

  “Butler?” Doc cried, straightening.

  Butler set his case down and wrapped Doc in a bear hug. The Mississippi accent was gone when he said, “Good to see you, brother! My God, it’s been what? Four years?”

  Doc pushed him back. “Damn, boy! Let me look at you. Where’s the goggle-eyed lad I left behind? You’ve grown into a man … and a damned solid one at that.”

  “I’d like to say you haven’t changed,” Butler told him with a smile. “But you’re still uglier than a mud fence.”

  “God, but it’s good to see you. John Mays, may I present my brother, Butler Hancock. John, here, is one of my surgical assistants. The other, Augustus Clyde, will be along directly.”

  “My pleasure, sir.” Butler shook his hand. “However, from here on out I would stay away from poker games.”

  “Poker games?” Mays asked, taken by surprise.

  “Why, Mr. Mays, the only explanation I can think of that would have brought you so low as to have to serve with my brother is that you were trying to bluff against four showing aces and lost your soul to the devil.”

  Mays grinned, lifting the pan with its wash water. “If you two will excuse me, I think I’ll go see if I can find a game crooked enough to take my bottom deal, and see if I can’t win my soul back.”

  “He’s a good man,” Doc said as he watched Mays leave. “When did you get in? I’d heard that General Johnston had arrived from Tennessee.”

  “Last night. Hardee’s Corps is settling in outside of the town. I’ve been up to my eyebrows in meetings at headquarters. They just can’t get on without me. If they didn’t have someone to hand orders to, which means me and a couple of others, the whole generals’ staff would have no other occupation than the consumption of fine brandies, ports, and Madeira.”

  Butler cocked his head, water still dripping from his hat. “Paw said you were here. Seen him?”

  “Unfortunately.” Doc crossed his arms. “He inconvenienced himself enough to step out of a saloon and share his felicitations as I was walking down the street.”

  “What happened between the two of you? It was never spoken of.”

  Doc considered, the reality sinking in that his brother was no longer the dreamy-eyed, towheaded boy who once had lain before the fire, a book propped in the flickering light.

  “A woman. You remember Sally Spears?”

  “Up at Elkhorn Tavern. Tall, raven-black hair, daring dark eyes, and a rather large female endowment that challenged restraint by the sturdiest of garments. Half the men in northern Arkansas were in love with her. I do remember that you spent considerable time up there.”

  “I thought I had the inside track.” Doc hesitated, reading Butler’s expression. “Until the night I found her entertaining another. In ways that I had hoped she would entertain me. After we were married.”

  Butler sucked in a breath. “Paw?”

  Doc nodded, tensing his crossed arms. “Now, don’t you go passing that around. Maw need never know.”

  Butler smiled sadly. “Philip, never suppose that Maw isn’t among the canniest of the fair sex to have ever drawn breath. Reckon she’s fully aware of Paw’s weaknesses. It’s a wonder she didn’t throw him out years ago.”

  “I wasn’t sure I should tell you. Wouldn’t have. But seeing you now…?”

  “I know Paw as well as you do, better probably. It’s good you told me. Means I won’t put the two of you in the same room by mistake.” He pulled his hat off, hanging it on a wooden chair back and plucking up the black leather case. “But enough of that! I brought you something. Spoils purloined from behind Federal lines just prior to our precipitous retreat from Kentucky.”

  Setting the square case on Doc’s surgical table, he began unbuckling the long straps that allowed it to be attached to a saddle or wagon. Opening the leather exterior, he produced a wooden mahogany box, its corners fitted with brass caps and lockset. The top had been emblazoned with an escutcheon marked “U.S.A. Hosp. Dept.”

  “You know what this is?”

  Doc gasped, running his fingers down the waxed wood. “My God, it’s a surgeon’s operating case. And a cussed expensive one at that.”

  Doc flipped the latches open and exposed the fine instruments, each held in place by dark blue velvet dividers. Tourniquets, scalpels, amputating knives, catlins, the various saws, scissors, probes, and sounders, it was all there.

  “I thought it would do a heap more good in your possession than it would among the Federals. Those bastards are rich enough they can buy more.”

  “Butler, I don’t know what to say. My dear Lord, it’s a Hernstein & Son set. Among the best in the world.” He lifted out the straight forceps, marveling at the serrated surface inside of the curved beaks.

  “Just keep our boys alive. That’s all the thanks I need.” Butler looked around and stepped over to the cupboard, peering at the bottles in their lines. “Some surgical hospital. Where’s the medicine?”

  “Which medicine precisely are you interested in?”

  “I think the medicinal term is ‘pop-skull,’ or ‘Who-hit-John.’ On some occasions it hangs on to the moniker ‘oh, be joyful.’”

  Doc grinned, used his foot to lift the lid on a trunk, and tossed his brother a bottle of whiskey. “That came from a distiller outside of Memphis. I’d tell you it’s most likely the finest sour mash you’d ever tasted, but I reckon that hanging out with the kind of generals you do, you’ll only find it passable.”

  Butler pulled the cork, took a drink, and worked it with his tongue before swallowing. “I’d say it’s every bit as good as what we sampled from Lynchburg.” He found two of Doc’s tin cups, pouring liberally. After handing one to Doc, he parked himself backward in the chair, arms braced on the back to steady the cup.

  Doc seated himself on the trunk, clicking rims with his brother in toast. He studied Butler for a moment, wondering again at the intense young man across from him. “You’ve heard about the fight at Elkhorn Tavern?”

  “That’s one of the reasons I came to see you. I’ve read the report Van Dorn sent to General Johnston. After Curtis finished kicking the stuffings out of the Army of the West, Van Dorn extracted what was left of his army down the Huntsville Road. Maw, Sarah, and Billy would have been right in the middle of the retreat. Abusing my position, I’ve shamelessly sent five separate letters, but who knows what condition the post is in. All I can tell you is that the battle itself was up on the ridge around Elkhorn Tavern and over around Foster’s farm. The family should be all right.”

  Doc nodded. “What about you? What’s it like serving with Tom Hindman of all people? Most folks say he’s a pompous prig.”

  Butler raised an expressive eyebrow. “When it comes to a firebrand, the man’s hotter than a burning corncob. He and I don’t see eye to eye on every subject—especially slavery—but he’s smart. Really smart. If this war could be won on passion, he’d be the one to win it. No one I’ve met has ever impressed me like he has.”

  “How on earth did you come to his attention?”

  “Paw. Of course. I finally got the story out of Hindman. The man draws trouble like a lightning rod. After a rather fiery speech in the legislature, Hindman stepped out into the street. Five of Johnson’s thugs jumped him. One grabbed Hindman from behind and pinned his arms so he couldn’t draw his pistol while the others prepared to beat him to death with clubs. Paw appeared out of the darkness and laid about him with that sap he always carried.

  “According to Hindman, Paw helped him to the nearest tavern where Hindman medicated Paw with brandy until all hours. Hindman drank soda water. They both decided that politics aside, they were, and I quote, ‘the most convivial of kindred spirits.’ At least when it came to a street brawl.”

  “You’ve come a long way. You talk like a gentleman instead of a Benton County Arkansan. But then I always expected you to be a professor of history or philosophy. A lecturer on the classics. How life has taken us by surprise.”

  Butler stared into his
whiskey. “Surprised indeed. Fact is, I rather like being an officer. To my wondrous discovery, war is not only fun, but exhilarating. I organized our withdrawal from Bowling Green. I’m at the heart of the army, watching history being spun off the looms of great men.”

  Butler paused, his sensitive face thinning. “But some of the things I’ve seen? I get the night chills, brother. I see the faces of the suffering. They call out in my dreams. It is like … Dante’s Hell, newly broken loose in America. And we may see worse to come.”

  “John Gritts used to say you heard the spirit voices.”

  “Enough of me. What of you? The last I heard you were in Boston, and pop, you’re a regimental surgeon? Ain’t that a twist to chaw on?”

  “I’m betrothed.”

  “Do tell?”

  “Her name is Ann Marie Morton, a physician’s daughter in Memphis.” Doc smiled. “Seems that I fell for the most wondrous laughter, beauty, and poise. I think, though, looking back, it was the freckles that God scattered across her nose that laid me low. You could do a lot worse for a sister-in-law, and I would consider it my greatest honor if you would stand up with me on the day I finally marry her.”

  He’d deal with Young James on that subject when it came around. Surely his friend would understand.

  “Of course I will. Come hell or high creek water! When is the event?”

  “Perhaps next spring. For the time being, I’m sort of looking after her brother, James. He’s in A Company. The Shelby Grays. Meantime, I’m saving every penny, hoping to purchase a building where I can open a surgery in Memphis. I’m hoping that by then the war will be over, and we can all go back to our lives.”

  Butler’s lips pursed in that old familiar way.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I know that look. You used to get it when you were hiding something. Like the time you let those horses Paw bought in Fayetteville get away because you didn’t latch the corral gate.”

  Butler glanced around as if for reassurance, and leaned forward. He indicated the surgical case, and, voice low, said, “I think you’re going to be needing that soon. A Federal army is building at Pittsburg Landing on the Tennessee River about twenty-five miles north of here. Meanwhile our old friend Don Carlos Buell is marching his army to join Grant’s. We’re going to crush Grant before Buell can arrive. And that, brother, is information as privileged as what you told me about Sally Spears.”

  “And when is this happening?”

  “We’re moving within days. If all goes according to plan, Grant’s army will be destroyed in the first week of April. Then we’ll catch Buell on the other side of the river, and send him reeling back in defeat. By the end of May, we should be back in Nashville, reestablishing our northern line. And, best of all, the British and French, seeing the Union take yet another licking, will grant recognition and protection to the Confederacy.”

  “And you can come be my best man,” Doc said with finality.

  “As Paw’d say, here’s to it, you ol’ coon,” Butler agreed, clicking his tin cup to Doc’s in toast.

  21

  11:00 A.M., April 6, 1862

  Insanity! It brewed and stormed, boiling around Butler’s head. Lost in the instant, to Butler it seemed that the world had splintered. Blown apart. As if reality had vanished in this ear-shattering banging, screaming, and shrieking.

  Time had been consumed in the whirlwind of hideous images, sounds, and smells. Rational thought no longer existed. Reality had funneled down to terror, thirst, confusion, and the frantic beating of his heart.

  They were making another of the endless assaults on Union General Prentiss’s retreating forces. It had started in the morning when they caught the sleepy Yankee camp by surprise. All day they’d been driving them northward toward Pittsburg Landing, launching one bloody assault after another on the wavering Yankee lines.

  Until they’d reached this place: a sloping open field. Someone said it belonged to a farmer named Duncan. At its crest a little-used and sunken road crossed before a thick stand of vine-laced brown timber.

  The Federals finally had managed to hold the line at the sunken road just across the bloody and torn field. At Hindman’s side, Butler watched the Arkansas brigade—its ranks already thinned by the morning’s fighting—charge with the shrieking scream of banshees. So far they’d broken every formation the Federals had thrown together to stop them.

  “Come on, boys,” Butler whispered as the gray and butternut formations surged out of the trees and into the body-dotted field. The Arkansas companies made no more than ten paces before the first rounds of canister and grape tore into them. Butler winced at the mayhem as bodies were torn and tossed. Gaps, like swaths, cut through the ranks.

  And then a volley of musketry exploded from the sunken road. Whizzing death made a pattering sound as men were shot down.

  They’d made it less than halfway across the open field before great clouds of blue-gray smoke spurted and puffed along the Federal line of fire, and a blizzard of lead savaged the ranks. Men dropped. Spun. Staggered. Shrieked in pain. As if of its own accord, the gray mass stopped, hesitated. All the while, the Yankee batteries blasted death and carnage as the Federal infantry shot at will, their position hidden by a wall of expanding smoke.

  “By the Lord God!” Hindman cried as his troops staggered back, the once-tight formation breaking into confusion. “Arkansas! You shall not break!”

  When Hindman spurred his horse forward, Butler followed, keeping Red to the general’s rear.

  Dear God, what are we doing? A cold wash of fear, like a winter wave, ran through Butler’s soul.

  Hindman’s mount dashed out before the milling ranks of confused, frightened, and disorganized Arkansas regiments. In his dress uniform, little Tom Hindman lifted his sword on high, shouting, “Re-form your ranks! One more charge and they’ll break! Arkansas! Follow me!”

  Hindman kept swinging his sword, heedless of the balls that cut the air around him in rasping whirs.

  Butler, terrified to the point of tears, Red plunging and prancing, shouted his encouragement. As the Arkansas regiments rallied at the sight of their commanding general, Hindman turned his horse to face the enemy.

  What the hell are you doing, Tom? Charging them headlong? You won’t make ten paces.

  A wreath of thick gray smoke, like a miasmic fog, hung over the sunken road and hid the Federal soldiers. Lances of fire and the bang of the Union artillery in the trees added to the hellish scene.

  Red shied as she stepped on the dead and screaming wounded that lay strewn across the bruised grass. The smell of gunpowder, blood, and brutalized guts mixed with the scent of crushed grass.

  It happened in an instant. Butler would replay it again and again in his memory. Hindman laid spurs to his horse, the big black gathering itself, muscles bunching under the sleek and sweaty hide.

  In a blink, the animal exploded. The horse’s head and neck shot up. The muscular shoulders and ribs ballooned wide. The front legs burst out sideways like wings. The right rear hip and leg vanished in a jetting spray of blood, chunks of muscle, and fragments of splintered bone.

  Hindman, still in his saddle, was smacked into the air. At the height of his flight, he twisted like a rag doll before falling limp onto the blasted carnage of his mangled horse.

  Butler didn’t remember dismounting, only that in the next instant he was crouched beside the unconscious Hindman. The smell from the horse, gutted stem to stern by artillery round shot, was overpowering.

  “Help me!” Butler cried, wondering if Hindman were alive or dead. Bullets were zipping past his head, the sound mixing with the shouts of panicked men and the screams of the wounded and dying.

  And then Hindman blinked, sucked in a frantic breath, and moaned.

  The air beside Butler’s shoulder was torn away as a round shot ripped past. Standing, powered by panic, Butler jerked Hindman up and tossed him over his shoulder. Turning, he ran like he’d never run in all h
is life. At the rear of the receding gray wave, he pounded over the torn grass. His boots slipped in the blood, clawed for purchase as he leaped over the sprawled dead, and darted to one side or the other of the crawling wounded.

  Dear God, save me. Please, just let me live!

  The memory faded into a confused swirling of images. He was back among the shot-chewed trees. Weaving through disorganized formations of weary and dispirited Arkansas volunteers.

  Then he was placing a groggy Tom Hindman on the ground, leaning him against a tree. Around them, the shattered formations were fleeing Duncan field. Butler stayed at his general’s side until a stretcher could be brought from the medical service, and two privates loaded the dazed Hindman onto the stretcher.

  As the stretcher bearers bore him to the rear, Hindman called, “Butler?”

  “Yes, Tom?”

  “Stay with the brigade! You are my eyes and ears!”

  “But Tom, you’ve just—”

  “Damn it, man! Stay with the brigade!”

  Butler stopped short, a feeling of disbelief eating a hole in his chest.

  As the general vanished behind the wall of trees, Butler looked around at the stunned and horrified men who had dropped to the ground beneath the trees.

  Hindman’s final order.

  Stay with the brigade? And do what?

  Overhead a shell burst, shrapnel cutting the air with a fluttering sound followed by twigs, branches, and spring-green leaves as they rained down from above.

  22

  2:30 P.M., April 6, 1862

  Tom Hindman’s horse had exploded in the morning. Since then, Butler had ridden Red back and forth through the chaos as the remains of the division fell back and replenished their ammunition. With Hindman and his replacement, General Wood, disabled, Alexander Stewart of the First Corps had taken command of the disorganized Arkansas brigades.