A pall of devastation hung over the parsonage all week. Parishioners came and went, doing what they could to comfort and offer support and help with daily needs. The minister returned home the next day, arm in a sling and still under the doctor’s close observation. His wife remained in bed, though she was now talking and eating, ministered to by older daughter Rachel, an aunt, and more church women than it was comfortable to have around.
Within two days the police were able to confirm that a Sergeant Damon Teague was indeed registered with the Confederate Army. Initial leads placed him in Mississippi. Robert was convinced that he was closer than that, and remained determined to locate him. Not wanting to worry his father about his activities, he confided his plan with the policeman in charge, a detective named Heyes. The policeman didn’t seem to think much of it.
“Look, young man, I know you mean well,” he said. “But you’re just a kid and you’re still in an emotional state. You just lost your sister and we all feel bad for you. But you’ve got to let us do our job and not interfere with your wild schemes and theories.”
“But I’m sure he’s there, Mr. Heyes.”
“Sure . . . how?”
“I don’t know . . . a hunch.”
The policeman could not help smiling.
“Believe me,” he said, “hunches are overrated in this business. It’s persistent detective work that always pays off in the end. If the guy’s a soldier, we’ll track him down through channels. He’ll turn up.”
“Why couldn’t we just go to the regimental commander and ask if Damon Teague is in his unit?”
“Because we might spook him and he’d make a break for it.”
“Then we could go after him, Mr. Heyes.”
The policeman laughed. “This isn’t the Wild West, son. We don’t do things with posses and lynch mobs. That’s the stuff of dime novels. We do our police work slowly and carefully until all the pieces fit into place.”
“But, sir,” insisted the minister’s son, “surely if he is in this regiment here, we could find out.”
“And we will find out. But the army protects its own. If we start asking questions, the commander will go to him and ask him if he was involved. He’d deny it, then the army would back him up and we’d never get to him. They would protect him behind a wall of military secrecy. I’ve dealt with the army before. If your man’s there, the only way to root him out is by going through proper channels and not upset the apple cart too soon.”
But Robert was not to be deterred. He continued to haunt the camp, now taking with him a large notepad and sketching pencils. He was enough of an amateur artist to make it convincing that he was using the camp as a setting for a series of drawings about soldiering life. As he wandered about the camp, with sketch pad, easel, and pencils, gradually the soldiers began to recognize him and talk to him, some even offering to pose while he drew them. He became known as “the artist”—none suspecting his identity or real motives.
Six days after the shooting, the funeral was held. His mother recovered. His father’s sling was removed. Gradually the family began to return to a normalcy that would never truly be normal again. No family who has lost one of its precious ones, from whatever cause, can ever be completely whole again in this life, until that place in the next where all is healed, rejoined, and where all that has been lost is restored.
“What are you up to, young man?” asked the same officer he had seen before. “Are you the artist I’ve been hearing about, doing some sketches of the men?”
It was three or four days after the funeral and Robert was spending several hours a day at the army camp.
“I see . . . uh, that you’re feeling better than that first day I saw you last week.”
“Yes, sir,” said Robert, forcing a smile.
“And you’re not carrying that gun around anymore. You had me a little worried.”
Robert added a few strokes to the paper in front of him but did not reply.
“Mind if I have a look?” asked the officer.
“No . . . go ahead,” answered Robert.
The officer walked over and stood behind him.
“Hmm . . . not bad,” he said.
“How much longer are you going to be here, sir, if you don’t mind my asking?” said Robert.
“You’re not a Union spy, are you, son?” said the officer with a smile.
“No, sir,” replied Robert, also smiling.
“To tell you the truth, we don’t know. We’re waiting for orders from General Lee and General Early. My guess is another week or two at the most.”
Robert watched the man go. When he was out of sight, the boy picked up his things and moved on. Without drawing attention to himself, and under the cover provided by his sketch pad and easel, he was trying to systematically make his way through the camp in such a way as to be able to look over every tent and every group of soldiers within each tent. The fact that they came and went freely and drilled and had other duties throughout the day made it difficult. He knew there was no guarantee of success and that in the end he had to get lucky. But he had often heard his father say from the pulpit that luck was the opposite side of the coin of hard work. So maybe if he put in the hard work, he would eventually be rewarded with being in the right place at the right time. His father said that’s how life worked—the harder you worked the more “luck” came your way.
In the middle of his sketch pad, on a page never on top nor seen by any of the soldiers who came and went looking at his work, was a sketch of the layout of the camp. It showed every tent, every temporary barricade, all the corrals and equipment and mess wagons. On it he kept track of his own thoughts and observations. He referred to it many times a day and marked out his own movements accordingly.
As he went about he watched . . . and listened . . . and waited.
BY THE STREAM BANK
5
MIDWAY THROUGH HIS FIFTH DAY PRETENDING TO be an artist, young Robert’s patience at last paid off. He was a little ways away from the camp, sketching a man trying to train a horse—which wasn’t easy since they kept moving—when suddenly behind him he heard the words,
“All I’ve got to say is, long live Corporeal Jacob’s beef stew!”
Then followed the sound of two or three men laughing.
“You’re right, Sergeant,” said another. “The last unit I was with had an old boy as cook who must have been seventy and didn’t know the difference between a chicken leg and a mutton chop.”
“You think that’s bad . . . down in Mississippi we had a fellow who put the leftover oatmeal in the bottom of the coffeepot—said it added character!”
But the listener hardly heard any of this. The words long live had gone off in his ears like a gong. They had an eerily familiar ring. It was not only the words . . . he was sure he also recognized the voice!
Quivering, he hurriedly glanced behind him. But he was only in time to see the backs of three men as they walked into a tent forty or fifty feet away. He had not been able to get a look at any of their faces.
He crept toward the tent as the three men disappeared inside. But little was visible through the open flap.
He couldn’t afford to look too conspicuous or call attention to himself. He backed away, returned to his easel, flipped up the pages to his drawing of the camp, and marked the tent.
Too agitated to make a convincing appearance of trying to concentrate on his work, he picked up his things and started wandering about, thinking what to do next.
He glanced back every few seconds, keeping the tent in view from a distance.
Several minutes later one of the three soldiers reemerged. He wore a hat, the shadow from the small bill in the late afternoon’s sun partially obscuring his face.
He had a feeling it was the man he had heard with his long live the stew comment. But he couldn’t tell.
Maybe it was the hat that was throwing him. He had not thought about it until this moment. But as he recalled that day in the church, at the fi
rst sounds of commotion as the man had stormed in, he had turned around in the pew where he sat with the rest of his family . . . yes, the memory was suddenly clear—the man who had run in hadn’t been wearing an army hat. His hair was waving about as he ran.
No wonder he hadn’t been able to spot him yet. It was impossible to separate the face he had seen from the long hair.
Nothing eventful happened the rest of the day. It was late. Dusk had already begun to fall. He went home eagerly anticipating the next morning and already trying to scheme a way to get close enough to see the man’s face clearly, hopefully without his hat.
He arrived early, hoping to catch the men in the process of washing and getting dressed in the informality of early morning.
He wandered about, eyeing the man’s tent in the distance. He hoped that no one would notice that he seemed to be doing more staring than drawing. But he was so near the end of his search, he couldn’t stop now.
The smell of coffee and bacon was in the air. Several men in his vicinity headed toward the nearby stream in their undershirts. Unfortunately they were all wearing their hats. He followed from a safe distance. The men reached the stream. Others slowly joined them. Some drank, some doused their faces and heads, others took off their hats and shirts and doused their entire heads and shoulders and torsos and made a mini-bath of the occasion.
As he stood watching, while most of the men’s backs were turned, a voice spoke beside him.
“Not much of a scene for a painting, I wouldn’t think.”
Robert turned to see the same officer he had run into several times before.
He laughed, though a little uneasily. The man had startled him.
“No, sir!” he said. “But it’s all part of camp life, I suppose.”
“It hardly seems it would interest a civilian.”
“I, uh . . . thought I would try to capture some daily life like this. I’ve just been thinking of a few ideas to see what might be best to work with.”
“Ah, right . . . I see. But your pad is still under your arm.”
“I only got here a minute ago. I hadn’t decided what kind of scene to do.”
The captain eyed him a moment longer, a hint of suspicion apparently brewing under the surface whether this young so-called artist was telling him everything. But he did not pursue it and continued to stand at his side watching the men wash.
The man was certainly inquisitive!
One of the men along the row at the stream bank took off his hat, bent low, and completely dunked his head into the chilly water, then rose up with a wild exclamation of delight. Shaking his wet hair, he reached for the towel at his waist. Then he walked up away from the stream, eyes wide and sparkling from the exhilaration of his cold dunking.
An audible gasp escaped the lips of the minister’s son.
It was him!
“What’s that?” asked the man at his side.
“Oh . . . oh, nothing,” replied Robert. “I just thought . . . it’s nothing.”
His brain was spinning. He had to act fast. The man was returning to his tent.
“Excuse me,” he said to the officer.
He walked quickly after the man who had arrested his attention, trying to calm down so his voice wouldn’t tremble and give him away.
“Sergeant Teague,” he said from behind, hurrying to catch up.
The man paused and turned, obviously surprised when he saw who had spoken.
“That’s right,” he said.
“I heard that you used to be stationed in Mississippi,” Robert said. “I’ve never been there. What’s it like? Is it just like this?”
“Any camp is just like another,” the sergeant answered. “Hotter and wetter is all.”
“How long have you been here?”
“Not long. I was at Vicksburg. That was a nasty one. But I managed to get my share of Yanks. That all you want to know?”
“Uh, yeah . . . I suppose so.”
Teague hesitated. His eyes narrowed and he gazed intently into the young man’s face as if revolving something around in his mind. Then he shook his head and returned to his tent.
Robert watched him until he was inside, confirming once more the tent location on his camp drawing. In the distance the inquisitive captain was watching him. Robert hurried back to his horse and rode out of camp back toward the city.
APPREHENSION
6
HE RODE STRAIGHT TO THE BALTIMORE POLICE headquarters and asked for Detective Heyes.
“Mr. Heyes,” he said excitedly, “I’ve found him. I found Damon Teague. It’s him. I recognized him from the shooting.”
“What do you want me to do?” asked Heyes skeptically.
“Well . . . go arrest him, what else?”
“Have you ever heard of proof . . . innocent until proven guilty?”
“Sure. But can’t you arrest him on suspicion? He’s got to be arrested if he’s going to be brought to trial. You’ve got to do something before they break camp.”
“What would be the basis of an arrest?”
“A witness—me!”
The detective eyed him and his thoughts were plain enough to read on his face, that he didn’t think much of the so-called witness’s credibility.
“And when time for a trial comes,” Robert added, “I can guarantee you, there will be a dozen or more eyewitnesses who will agree with me. I saw him, Mr. Heyes. I was there. I tell you, Damon Teague is at the camp outside of town right now. He’s a sergeant in the Confederate Army and is the same man who visited our church four years ago, and he is the man who shot my sister. If you don’t do something about it, I will.”
The detective saw that the young man was not going to be dissuaded.
“All right,” Heyes finally agreed. “I’ll talk to my superiors.”
“When?”
“When I can.”
Unconvinced, the minister’s son hurried from the room in obvious frustration.
Heyes watched him go, then realized he could have a mess on his hands if the kid ran into the camp and started shouting accusations. He’d better follow him and make sure there was no trouble.
But by the time Detective Heyes and several of his men reached the camp, the ruckus they had hoped to avoid had already begun.
When the minister’s son next walked into the Confederate camp, he was carrying no sketch pad or pencils, though he still wore the large overcoat that had also been his trademark during the past week.
His stride was purposeful for a seventeen-year-old. A gleam of determination shone in his eye. Two weeks ago his heart had been set on entering the ministry. But for nearly all of the previous sleepless night he had been asking himself if he was prepared to kill, to take another human life. The consequences to his own life and future were not ones he could think clearly about right now. He only knew what he had to do—bring his sister’s killer to justice . . . one way or another. Who could tell what the man might do in the future if not brought to justice? What if he killed again? Robert had not analyzed his own motives deeply enough to distinguish between vengeance and justice in his own heart. That was a quandary whose resolution would have to wait. At this moment he was acting on impulse, emotion, grief, and perhaps more human vindictiveness toward the sinner rather than righteous indignation toward the sin than he would have been capable of recognizing. He was also little aware of the danger to himself.
The captain saw him walking through the camp and knew immediately from the expression on his face that something had changed.
“Hey there, son . . . just a minute,” he called after him. “I want to talk to you. I have a few questions.”
But Robert continued on. The captain followed, quickening his pace. He was just in time to see the boy walk straight into the tent of one of his sergeants and several of his men.
“Sergeant Teague,” said Robert.
The man glanced up from his bunk. The heads of two or three others in the tent also turned toward the intruder.
&nbs
p; “Get up!” demanded Robert.
“What?” said the sergeant in annoyance.
“I said get up.”
Damon Teague was not the kind of man who took kindly to being ordered about by a boy half his age. His annoyance instantly turned to anger.
“Look, kid, I don’t know who you are, but unless you—”
The boy reached into his pocket.
Teague stopped in midsentence. Suddenly he found himself staring into the barrel of a Colt 45.
“Get up,” repeated the boy. “You’re under arrest.”
“For what?” Teague shot back. His temporary shock at the sight of the gun subsided as quickly as it had silenced him. He was not one easily intimidated, though he warily kept his eye on the boy’s finger. “Get out of here!” he said.
“I said you’re under arrest,” said Robert again. “For murder. Now get up!”
Teague glanced around at the other men, then broke out in laughter.
Just then the captain hurried in. In the dim light it took him a few seconds to make sense of the situation.
“What’s going on here?” he demanded.
“I am making a citizen’s arrest of Sergeant Damon Teague for murder,” said Robert.
Again Teague laughed. All the while Robert kept the gun pointed straight at his chest.
“The kid’s crazy, Captain,” said Teague. “Can’t you get rid of him? He’s a lunatic. He barged in here waving that gun and making ridiculous accusations.”
“Don’t make a move, Captain,” said Robert. “Or any of the rest of you. This man is a murderer.”
“What’s it all about, Teague?” asked the captain.
“I tell you the kid’s a lunatic. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”
“You’re going to have to come with me, son,” said the captain, taking a step forward and laying a hand on Robert’s arm.
Suddenly a shot echoed through the small tent. Teague cried out in momentary alarm as dirt flew up beneath his cot. The two corporals watching from their bunks leapt up and ran outside.
“I’m serious, Captain,” said Robert, again pointing the gun up at Teague. “I am taking this man with me.”
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