The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  FROM THE BACK parlor of the Shipwright house, through the open window that looked out on the muddy back yard and the trees along Town Creek, Colonel Burduck could hear the drum and fife. He stood at the window, his hand pushing back the heavy winter drape that still hung there. He could see the ivy-shrouded cookhouse, the paling fence that leaned around the weedy ruins of the old truck garden, a wheelless carriage set up on cedar bolts, its top and seats stolen away by the soldiers for their camp. Among these remnants of an old, vanished life, the tents and fire pits and stacked arms of the headquarters guard ought to have seemed alien, intrusive; as it was, Burduck had long since grown used to the juxtaposition, and the only odd note registered on his mind was that the ramshackle garden fence was still unburnt. No one thought any longer of the civilian world as a safe and separate realm, but as a landscape that existed solely to accommodate the soldiers—one of the fruits of a war fought in towns and cornfields and pastures, along country lanes and railroads and through back yards where laundry was hanging. At times, Burduck had looked out this window and felt sorrow nudge him like a finger at his breast. Not for the rebels, not even for the Shipwrights who were all dead of war or grief—save the old man, who lived in the attic but prowled the lower rooms, peering into them with his face shriveled like an old pecan, his hands curled into impotent claws. Burduck felt the loss of beauty as a diminishment of all men, no less the beauty that must have hovered over this plot of ground, contained here in shadows and silence and the peaceful curl of kitchen smoke—beauty that now was vanished, made irrelevant by the slow beating of the drum. At last, he turned from the window to the others waiting in the room.

  Lieutenant Rolf von Arnim leaned on the mantel, his spurred, muddy boots crossed, his fingers tapping lightly on the mantel. Mister Henry Clyde Wooster, special correspondent for the Cincinnati papers, spread his bulk across a horsehair settee, his mechanical pencil poised over a notebook. He was an elegant man, though given to sweating in the unaccustomed heat of Mississippi. Beside him, in the little space remaining on the settee, Sheriff Ben Luker sat stiffly, hands in his lap, his pistol holster pulled awkwardly across his belly. He had taken a fresh chaw before entering, and now he wished he hadn’t, for there was no place to spit. Finally, in a parlor chair across the table from the Colonel, sat Mister L. W. Thomas.

  Thomas was dressed in tan breeches, a waistcoat of the same material (with a gold watch chain looped across it), a dark butternut sack coat, and a wide cravat of yellow silk. He had fetched as well his broad hat of brown felt, which he now held in his lap. Thomas uncrossed his legs and looked from one officer to the other.

  Colonel Burduck sat down at his table, picked up a pencil, waved it vaguely. “Mister Thomas,” he said, “you occupy a unique place in the community. You have always enjoyed the protection of the government—without seeming to need it. Remarkable accomplishment.”

  Thomas fidgeted in the chair. “Yes, well—I am—I am loyal, of course, but I have few prejudices—if you understand me.”

  “I understand, sir,” said the Colonel. “And be at ease, I won’t hang you today.”

  Thomas nodded. “That’s real good to know,” he said.

  Burduck went on. “You can hear the fife and drum, sir. I don’t have to tell you what it means.”

  “No,” said Thomas, “it is for the boy that was killed at the bridge last night. Tom Kelly. I knew him. He was … a good boy.”

  “Did you see who left with him? Or soon after? Was he in any kind of argument, do you recall?”

  Thomas looked at the faces around him, then back at the Colonel. “No, there was a fight out there yesterday, a little skirmish, but Kelly wasn’t in it.”

  “No,” said von Arnim, addressing the Colonel. “He was on guard detail in the afternoon. Fact is, he was not at liberty to go off last night. He paid a man to take his place on the guard.”

  “How was I to know that?” asked Thomas.

  “Never mind, it is immaterial,” said the Colonel. “Go on.”

  “He came in, drank too much, got tighter’n Dick’s hatband—not like him atall. He was agitated about his wife, seems like. Anyhow, I made him leave—I always do when they get too full. Now I wish I hadn’t. That’s all I know about it, Colonel.”

  On the Colonel’s table lay the sheet of paper he had found. He slid it across to Thomas. “What do you make of this?” he asked. “It was discovered on the body.”

  Thomas picked up the paper and read aloud. “‘Deo vindice.’ God has vindicated. God will vindicate us.” He looked up at the Colonel. “I never got good marks in Latin.”

  “God vindicates,” said von Arnim.

  Thomas looked at the provost. “Thanks so much,” he said, and tossed the paper on the table.

  “Well,” said the Colonel, “can you attach any particular meaning to it in the circumstance?”

  “I suppose it means what it always means,” said Thomas.

  “And what is that, sir?” asked the Colonel.

  Thomas shrugged. “Everybody thinks God is on his side and not the other fellow’s.”

  Burduck closed his eyes, felt the ache beginning in the base of his skull. For an instant he saw the bright morning again, the mist rising from the creek, the mud bank and the willows—and in the shadow under the bridge, among the trash and leaves and branches left by the high water, the boy with his arms uplifted, his eyes that would not close. Requiem aeternam dona eis Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. The boys’ faces lifted in the candlelight among the bells, and the incense smoke drifting, rising toward the dark ceiling, and the words rising Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna into the darkness where carved faces no living man had seen leered from the vaulted arches. The darkness drew him, so he would not look but kept his eyes on the frayed hem of the priest’s chasuble, letting the words and the smoke go up without him among the hovering souls that waited. Then another bell rings, four clear strokes, each one dying away in solemn reverberation, then gone into time. He is in the eyes of the ship; he can hear the hiss of the water under the bow, the creak of lines, the wind plucking at the shrouds; he can feel the rail, the deck moving beneath him. No stars, no moon tonight; he lifts his hand, it is invisible against the great dark that lies all around, the infinite blackness through which the ship moves, seeking her way Requiescat in pace—

  “—insight into this matter,” Burduck heard himself say, and the room took shape again, folding out of the darkness.

  Thomas was stroking his beard. “I might have, but you won’t like it.”

  When Burduck did not reply, von Arnim tapped the mantel with his knuckles. “You may try us,” he said.

  Again Thomas shifted in the chair, wincing now, as if in pain. “What is it, sir?” asked the Colonel.

  Thomas grimaced again. He looked down at his hat, ran a blunt finger around the brim, his head cocked as if in contemplation. “You know I am a Southerner, sir,” he said.

  Burduck was surprised. “No,” he said. “Your speech does not betray you.”

  Thomas stood then, slowly, and lay his hat on the chair behind him, and straightened, and looked at the Colonel.

  “Now, sit down,” said von Arnim, moving away from the mantel. “Be at ease.”

  Thomas ignored the provost. He gathered his shirt in his fingers and pulled it back over the white flesh of his belly. There, in his flank, was the puckered spray of a bullet wound, still angry looking and oozing a little from the half-healed tear of the ball’s entrance. The pus had left a yellow stain on the shirttail. Thomas looked down, daubed at the wound with his fingers. “That is from a rebel ball in the Wilson’s Creek fight.” He raised his eyes, turned his body so the provost could see. “I was with the loyal Missourians—I have my release, signed by General Halleck in St. Louis, if you want to see it. The hole still pains me, don’t want to heal. It makes a mess of the bedclothes every night.”

  “An impressive wound,” the correspondent said.

  “You miss my point, sir,” said Th
omas. “If I wanted to impress you, I’d show you where it came out.”

  Burduck waved them silent. “I am sorry for you,” he said, “but your loyalty is not in question here. What is your point?”

  Thomas gingerly tucked his shirttail in. “My point is illustrative,” he said. “You ask for insight, and I’d as soon you know my qualifications. I know these people very well, and I would ask a question of you, sir. Have you any idea how much some of them hate you?”

  Again Burduck was surprised, though he tried not to show it. “We are not here to win their affections,” he said.

  “Of course not, though many will say they’ve been fairly treated—so far. But you won’t be here forever, and them who come next will not be so fair, and the people know it, and some of them make no distinctions.” Thomas waved his hand toward the window. “The woods out there are full of men who would slit that boy’s throat for recreation—but you know that. What you may not understand is that a great many would do it out of hate—pure Old Testament hate, red with vengeance. Did you hate the rebels, Colonel?”

  The correspondent scribbled furiously. Von Arnim waved his hand. “Now, see here—,” he began, but Burduck motioned him silent. He leaned back in his chair. The ache in his head was moving forward, lurking behind his eyes. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Yes,” he said at last. “Sometimes I did.”

  Thomas pressed on. “It’s a grand feeling, ain’t it? Clears the air, makes everything so much simpler. When did you hate em most, out there in the field?”

  “When we lost,” he said. “No—I take it back. I hated them the most when they believed we had lost.”

  Thomas thought about that a moment. “Yes,” he said. He picked up his hat. “Yes,” he said again, nodded, and went out, closing the door behind him.

  “Well,” said von Arnim, folding his arms over his chest.

  Sheriff Ben Luker had grown more and more uncomfortable during the interview. He wondered what kind of man would have no spittoon about. But he had to speak now, and when he did, the juice ran from the corners of his mouth, and his voice was garbled, as if he were speaking under water. “Aw, hell, Colonel, Thomas is all right. He don’t know nothin.”

  Burduck looked at the man as if he’d materialized out of the air. Luker wiped his mouth with his hand, his eyes moving from the Colonel to von Arnim and back again. “I’ll keep a eye on him, though,” he said.

  “I am glad to hear it,” said the Colonel.

  “Well,” said von Arnim again.

  “Well what, sir?” said Burduck.

  Von Arnim shook his head. “I hate to agree with the constable, but I think he’s right—Thomas don’t know anything.”

  Burduck laughed. “You believe he was shot up in Missouri?”

  The provost stroked his moustache. “I believe he was shot somewhere, Colonel,” he said.

  Henry Clyde Wooster consulted his notes. “An unusual character, this Thomas,” he said. “I would trust him about as far as I could throw an anvil.”

  The two officers ignored the correspondent. Deep in the house, a clock chimed nine. Through the open window, voices drifted, and the crowing of a cock. Burduck rose from his chair and leaned over the table, steepling his fingers on the scarred top. Then he raised his open hand and brought it down hard, making pens and inkwell jump and papers flutter to the floor. “God damn it,” he said.

  The provost moved circumspectly to the window, pulled the drape aside and looked out into the morning. “I will say this, Colonel. Some bad men live out yonder in the county, just as Thomas said. I would not like to see us get tangled up in a bushwhacking war.”

  “Nor I,” said Burduck. “But that’s what’s about to happen, isn’t it?” The provost turned and leaned against the sill and folded his arms. He looked at the Colonel. “Maybe,” he said. “But why would they telegraph their intentions? Why not just come out of the woods one night and murder us all in our sleep?”

  “They are cowards,” said Wooster.

  “No, sir,” said Burduck. “On the contrary. I think whoever wrote that message wants us to be ready, is so sure of himself that he prepares us for a fight to make the victory sweeter.”

  “Or maybe ashamed,” said the provost. “These local yahoos took a noble thrashing up on the Tallahatchie just before we got here.”

  Ben Luker was made even more uncomfortable by the turn this conversation had taken. In fact, he was about to gag on his own spit. Clearly something had to be done. He looked at his companions. Burduck was deep in thought, the provost had turned to the window again, Wooster was writing. Luker took the opportunity to open his coat and pull open the inside pocket with his finger. Into this he emptied the sodden chaw and all the accumulated ambure. When he looked up, a thin brown string suspended from his lower lip. Wooster was watching him in disgust.

  “Good God, man,” said the correspondent, and rose from the settee. Luker smiled and wiped the string away with his fingers.

  Burduck was thinking about the incident on the Tallahatchie. “Now here is something,” he said at last. He looked at the provost. “Who led the partisans around here? He still around?”

  “Don’t know, sir,” said von Arnim. He looked at Luker. “How about it, Ben? Were you in that fight?”

  “Oh, no, indeed,” said Luker. He was aware that the ambure was seeping through the front of his coat. Von Arnim pointed to the spreading stain. “Damnation, you got one of those leaking wounds, too?”

  “Who led the partisans, Ben?” said the Colonel.

  Luker hunched forward on his seat, tapping a pudgy hand on each knee.

  “Oh—,” he began. He looked at the ceiling, at the walls, at the floor. “Oh, seems like that feller was from down in Yalobusha County, somebody I never heard of. I never did mess with them rangers, Colonel. They was a bad lot. I mean—but they was hanged, most of em, and them that wasn’t—no, they won’t give you no trouble, depend on it. Why, after the Tallahatchie, they wouldn’t come back for pie, nosiree. Why, they would no more—”

  “All right,” said the Colonel. He turned to the provost. “You find the man that led the rangers.”

  “I can do it, Colonel,” said von Arnim.

  “I’m tellin ye,” said Luker, “ain’t nobody around here—”

  “That’ll do,” said Burduck. “Ben, why don’t you go out in the yard and spit. You are about to make me ill.”

  The sheriff lost no time in making his exit. When he was gone, Wooster returned to the settee. “Will you close down the Citadel?” he asked.

  Burduck thought a moment. “No. The tavern is not the problem. Besides, it is all the men have in this damn place.”

  Von Arnim nodded thoughtfully.

  “I will send to LaGrange for another cavalry company,” said Burduck. “Double up the patrols. The men may leave the camp for the tavern, but only in pairs—we’ll read the order at evening post. And Mister von Arnim?”

  The provost turned from the window. “Sir?”

  “You tighten up that civilian curfew. I do not want to see a goddamned house cat on the streets after seven o’clock.”

  GAWAIN AND STRIBLING discovered that the crib behind the house would not be usable without a good deal of cleaning up; it was full of the tendrils of trumpet vines, pale yellow in the gloom, and rats’ nests and swallows’ nests and wasps’ nests, and the crinkly webs of furtive black spiders. These last were not the brutes of the well-house, but the glassy orbs called cherry spiders by the old people—though the only red about them was in the hourglass each sported on her belly. So Zeke was tethered in the yard for the moment, and curried with a scraggled brush, and left to crop the new grass as best he could. That done, Gawain and Stribling curried themselves, and brushed the caked mud from their cuffs, and set out for the Carter house.

  They went down through the trees that lined the Holly Springs road; here, on the north end of town, the trees seemed to have fared better at the hands of the soldiers, though there were some stumps he
re and there, baring their stark white faces to the light. In a moment they passed a grove of oaks among which stood the hollow shells of buildings, and Gawain detoured through the gate. He led Stribling across an overgrown lawn to a fire-crumbled wall of red brick. Curiously, the door remained intact, though the windows were sightless, their wooden sashes charred into black velvet, tongues of soot lapping from their upper edges. Gawain brushed the broken glass off the steps and sat down, his elbows on his knees. Stribling watched him. After a moment, Gawain said, “Why do you reckon they burned such a thing as this, that never did them any harm?”

  “Well,” said Stribling, “what was it, anyhow?”

  “The Academy,” Gawain said. He looked over his shoulder at the wall, then back at Stribling, then beyond him. He shook his head. “The sons of bitches. The perfidious sons of bitches. Harry, did you ever burn anything?”

  Stribling shrugged. “Some bridges. A barn once—I don’t recall why.”

  “It was fun, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Stribling. “Yes, it was.”

  They were quiet then, remembering. After a moment, Gawain spoke again. “This was the Cumberland Female Academy—the name used to be over the gate yonder, but it’s gone now, I notice. I used to teach here. Literature, if you can imagine. To girls. Good God.”

  Stribling looked up at the wall, then bent and picked up a loose brick. He tossed it through a paneless window; they heard it clump in the rubble on the other side. “Nothin there, pard,” said Stribling. “Just air is all. Now come on.”

  Gawain dusted off the back of his breeches. “I had a good time here,” he said. “Why you reckon they burned it?”