The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  The only real excitement came when the back door of the house slammed open, and a barefoot woman in a nightdress swept into the yard, her hair falling in a dark cascade, ankles flashing for all the boys to admire, a sweet thing to see in the early morning but for the frying pan she carried.

  “Great God! Dismount!” laughed one of the boys.

  “Horse holders to the rear!” cried another.

  They all laughed then, and the woman’s face reddened, and she swung the frying pan at the rump of the nearest horse. “Out of my way, damn you!” she cried, while the old fellow on the gallery came hustling down. One of the troopers made a snatch at her, but she bounced the flat of the pan off his knee; he yowled and grabbed his leg, and the soldiers made way, laughing.

  “Morgan, for God’s sake!” cried the gentleman in the frock coat, but she beat him to the front and drew up short at the sight of the prisoners. The soldiers heard her say only a single word: “Gawain?”

  “Here now!” said von Arnim. The troopers did not much like the Lieutenant for his being an infantry officer—and they were no longer taking this business very seriously anyhow—so they cheered and whistled when the prisoner broke away and gathered the woman up. She dropped her frying pan and flung her arms around the man so that both of them nearly fell to the ground, then as quickly broke away and pointed her finger at the fellow some of them knew as the tavernkeeper. “This is your doin!” the woman cried, and the man ducked his head as if he’d been slapped, and the old gent came up at last and tried to pull her back, and von Arnim said, “For the love of Jesus, you people settle down, can’t you?” and the soldiers laughed.

  “I belong to this house!” said the woman.

  “I am sensible of that, Miss Rhea,” said von Arnim.

  The sound of her name seemed to surprise the woman. “Well,” she said. “Well, anyhow, these men are our guests—how dare you—”

  “Singular guests!” said von Arnim. The Lieutenant was carrying three confiscated pistols and a Henry rifle. He dropped the pistols and thrust the flat of the riflestock under the woman’s nose. He tapped on the brass plate inlaid in the wood. “Look at that, Miss. Read the name!”

  She read it. The troopers watched her shoulders sag, heard her say, almost in a whisper, “Oh, of course. Of course it would be his.”

  The Lieutenant turned to the old gentleman. “You will be Judge Nathaniel Rhea, I presume?”

  “How do you know me, sir?”

  “Only by reputation, sir,” said von Arnim. Then, to the troopers’ amusement, he swept off his cap and made a little bow to the woman. “And you are Miss Morgan Rhea.”

  “And how do you know me, sir?” Morgan snapped. “My reputation is hardly the sort that you would have any knowledge of!”

  The troopers guffawed at that. Von Arnim replaced his cap and glared at his men. “It is my business to know things!” he said to Morgan. “For example, I know of your father’s rabid sentiments which, fortunately for you, lie outside this morning’s affairs. I know all about the man who owns this rifle, and how he brought grief to your family in addition to his other sins. I know also, even without your bold demonstration, that you and this fellow”—he pointed at Gawain—“who but lately had this rifle in his possession, are … may I say, intimate?”

  “Now, see here—,” began the Judge, but his daughter hushed him. “You may say that, sir,” said the woman. “More than that, we are … we are soon to be married!”

  The three prisoners and the old Judge dropped their jaws in astonishment.

  “Ah,” said von Arnim. He lowered his voice, and the soldiers had to strain to hear him. “Well, at any rate, I am very much interested in all these matters,” he said. “The complex permutations of life, you know, and how things come to be the way they are. Perhaps you and the good gentleman would care to explain—just for my own curiosity, understand—how Thomas, a traitor and a spy, came to be in your barn?”

  “Sir,” said the Judge, “I would see your commander.”

  “No, sir,” said von Arnim. “He has enough to think about at present.” He turned to the sergeant of the escort then. “Get your picket ropes,” he said.

  “You can’t!” shouted the woman.

  “I can!” returned the Lieutenant, red-faced. “Now, my advice to you is to gather up these old gents and get back in the house, and be damned glad I don’t burn it out of principle!”

  “Old gents!” protested the Judge.

  “Quiet, sir!” said the Lieutenant. “Now tie these men and get em to the graveyard.”

  The prisoners’ hands were tied with lengths of picket rope. Thomas, his face gone the color of ash, was sick in the yard. The sergeant stepped back until he was finished, then tied his hands. The one called Gawain kept his eyes on the woman. She tried to go to him, but this time her father held her back. Only the third man spoke. He flipped his long hair out of his eyes and addressed the Lieutenant. “Sir, Harper was not at the tavern. He killed Gault’s man is why he has the rifle. You shouldn’t—”

  “Quiet, sir,” said the Lieutenant. “You have been trouble since you arrived. Mister Harper needs to be more selectivé of his bedfellows.”

  In a moment, the prisoners were led away, shuffling awkwardly between the files of horses. Harper watched the woman over his shoulder as long as he could. The old fellow in the nightshirt followed them down to the road, still pleading, “Gentlemen. Gentlemen, please,” until one of the troopers stopped and led him back again.

  THE PEOPLE EMERGED from their tents and shebangs, or stopped in their morning work, to watch silently as the column passed. Children and dogs ran along beside, trying to scare the horses, until the cavalrymen chased them off. Still they followed, but at a little distance, throwing mud clods and making up rhymes:

  Lucy, goosey, puddin and pie,

  Hang by the neck until you die.

  The horsemen rode in two files; the prisoners walked between them, pulling at the foul mud that weighed them down. Gawain Harper tried to keep his distance from the horse next to him, expecting to be kicked or stepped on or bitten any minute. He could hear Aunt Vassar: You get too close to horses, they’ll knock you in the head. Gawain’s face burned with shame and anger, and he was glad there were no goddamned redbirds singing of freedom in the trees, as they had sung once on the road, and again in his waking dream.

  Gawain’s mind went around and around, and his stomach churned with hunger and the bitter knowledge that he ought not to be here at all. He watched Stribling and Thomas stumbling along ahead, and for the moment he hated them. Morgan was right—the man Thomas had brought him to this pass, drawing him into a circle of doom that had nothing to do with Gawain Harper. And why did Stribling have to be such a busybody, poking his nose into places it did not belong? Damn them all: Gault and Stutts and Stribling and Thomas and Nobles—and the journalist Wooster, too, who had surely betrayed them just as Ben Luker had. Gawain wanted to be shut of them all; he wanted to be among the citizens by the roadside, who would return to the business of life after this shabby procession had passed. Of course, Gawain despised himself, too, for thinking of his comrades, and even his enemies, in such a light. He felt small, selfish, cowardly; he imagined his features turning ratlike, snoutish, his hands curling into little claws. His voice, if he tried it, would be a vile squeaking, so he remained silent, letting his thoughts turn where they would.

  Morgan! Was that a dream last night? What was all that about marrying, he wondered. Where did it come from? He decided not to think about marrying, not now. Then, the more he tried to put the idea away, the more it mocked him, and wove itself into the whole garment of emotion that was smothering him. He held up his bound hands; the picket rope seemed coiled around his vitals too, his heart and lungs and soul, constricting them like a rat snake. I can’t stand this, he thought, stumbling along beside the horse while the citizens watched. I can’t stand it—

  Gawain had always said he would never be captured, swore an oath that he would
die before he was put into a prison hole like an animal. The gods heard, and so, at Stones River, Gawain and three others were surrounded and taken in the first charge of the morning. Gawain threw down his rifle but kept his bayonet; in the killing, in the yelling and the smoke (the countercharge was just beginning to roll over them) nobody noticed. It was sleeting, and Gawain, terrified, could hear the ice needles pattering in the cedars, even among the iron rain of the case shot bursting overhead that killed the other three prisoners and left Gawain cowering against the wet bark of a cedar. He squatted there, hands over his head, while the Federal line swept past, yelling. Gawain wept and pleaded, choking on his own phlegm and the blood running from his nose. When he raised his eyes at last, he saw that he was alone. Around him lay the darkness of the cedar grove, the deep shadows full of dead men, and he knew that he could hide among them until he was forgotten, until he was free. The idea of deliverance opened like a flower in his mind. Gawain’s heart was beating louder than the guns now; he was about to move when a boy soldier came back—young, his smooth face black with powder, in a frock coat too big for him—yelling at him No, you don’t, goddamn you! in a flat Hoosier voice that trembled with fear and rage. You my pris’ner! Git up! Gawain, squatting, moved his hand to the socket of his bayonet as the boy jabbed him with his own, shouting not words now but only sound, his eyes wide, chest heaving for air. The boy would shoot him, Gawain knew, but that was all right—he had sworn an oath, and the gods reminded him of it now as he rose, drawing his bayonet in the same motion, the boy watching him in disbelief. Then the boy’s eyes went all white as Gawain drove the bayonet into him, pushing with both hands, and when the boy fell, Gawain was on top of him, leaning into the bayonet, hating himself, hating the proud gods who had made this little joke on them both. Then Gawain put his hand over the boy’s face and squeezed until he believed he could feel the soul passing through his fingers, loosed and free as he was now—

  Gawain strained at the rope that held him, the panic rising in him like a foul smoke, choking him. They were crossing the square now, and Gawain could see the steps of the Presbyterian church rising into nothing, and the thought came to him that if only he could make the steps and climb them, he would pass into nothing, too. Better than hanging. Better than prison, where it was said men did dreadful things to each other, and where you couldn’t walk out in the air and light whenever you wanted, nor lift your face to the rain. I can’t stand it, he thought again, wanting to speak but afraid of the voice he might hear, and he gathered himself and was about to run when Stribling tripped him, and he fell face-first into the mud. Then Stribling was kneeling beside him, pulling at him with his bound hands, whispering, “Don’t you even think about it, goddamn you, Gawain Harper.” Then Gawain was spluttering, spitting mud, while the column halted and a soldier dismounted and jerked him to his feet. The soldier wiped Gawain’s eyes with his own handkerchief. “It ain’t far now,” said the man.

  Then, where the southerly road entered the square, they were met by a mounted officer. The column halted while the officer spoke to the sergeant of the escort, then moved again, taking the Oxford road now. As they crossed the bridge over Town Creek, Gawain speculated that maybe the yankees had decided to skip the trial and get on with the hanging. He felt his throat tighten; again he wanted to speak, never mind the voice, but he couldn’t now. Instead, he began to cry, unashamed, sorry that the long road had come to this. He remembered sitting in the hot summer field with the little fyce, making coffee, breaking the good biscuits while the dog watched with his bright eyes. Why couldn’t he be there again? It was only just a little ways back, and he could start over again—sit there a little while longer, let Stribling get on down the road so that they would never meet. Then he would go straight to Aunt Vassar’s and climb in his old bed and pull the counterpane over his head.

  “You can’t go back,” said Stribling, and Gawain looked at him and thought that, if he had a bayonet again, he would shut Harry Stribling up for all time. But the other only smiled. “It’s all right,” he said. “It ain’t our funeral we’re goin to.”

  And it wasn’t. Instead, it was the funeral of Rafe Deaton, the old soldier whom neither Indians nor rebels could kill, who was shot down drunk in the yard of the Citadel of Djibouti. The column passed through the Federal camp, where the cooks and contrabands watched them in even deeper silence than the citizens had. Queenolia was there, and she spoke to Thomas, but Thomas staggered on, his eyes on the ground before him, and the old woman set up a keening in their wake. Then they were at the soldiers’ burying ground where Captain Bloom’s company was again formed in a hollow square around the grave of their comrade. Old Hundred-and-Eleven was there with Dauncy and Jack; the old man waved at Gawain and Stribling, grinning under his umbrella. “Hidy, boys,” he called, and would have said more had not an officer cursed him silent. Wooster was there, too, a dozen yards away, his notebook open.

  Gawain wiped his eyes on his sleeve and looked around carefully for any sign of a gibbet. Then he thought What if they mean to shoot us instead? and cast around for open graves, but the only one he saw was the Federal sergeant’s. The sight of so many armed Federal soldiers, and the drummers standing with their sticks under their arms, was beginning to make him sick to his stomach. The national flag floated out on the morning breeze beside the blue regimental colors, and Gawain thought of those two banners, always together: how they waved frantically in the smoke of an engagement, and how beautiful they were. He wanted to huddle beneath them, wrap himself in them, kiss them if necessary, if it would allow him to get back in the world again. Then, oddly, he remembered the sergeant at the Citadel of Djibouti, the one with the clever pipe, and Gawain wondered if this was him they were about to bury.

  “Say,” said Stribling, nudging Gawain with his elbow. “Look over yonder, in the willows. Is that Molochi?”

  Gawain peered into the bright sunlight and saw Molochi Fish standing in plain sight with his arms at his sides, his face shadowed by the wide straw hat. But Gawain was not interested in Molochi Fish just then, and his irritation with Stribling flared anew.

  “Well, ain’t it?” asked Stribling again.

  “Yes, dammit,” said Gawain. “So what? So what, Harry?”

  Stribling looked at him. He started to speak, then turned away.

  In a moment, the three comrades were joined by Nobles, Craddock, and Bloodworth. They, too, were bound, and accompanied by a detachment of infantrymen with fixed bayonets. “Well,” said Nobles, his face gray, eyes baggy with his hangover. “I was afraid they’d catch you.”

  “It was Wooster, wasn’t it?” asked Gawain. “He told.”

  “I don’t know,” said Nobles. “I expect he did, but I’m not sure what it means.”

  “It means he’s a goddamned lying son bitch,” said Craddock.

  “He got them to let Brown go,” said Bloodworth hopefully.

  Before Gawain could reply, the guard came to attention in that shuffling, self-conscious way that signals to all old soldiers the unhappy news that an officer is approaching. Unconsciously, Gawain drew himself to attention too. He smelled the grass, the wood smoke from the camp, the damp wool of the soldiers and the stink of fear and sweat and sleeplessness that rose from his own body, and he had but to close his eyes to imagine himself in the ranks again. Then he heard one of the soldiers say, “These are the ones from the barn, sir.”

  Gawain opened his eyes and found himself looking at a tall officer—a Lieutenant Colonel by his shoulder straps—bearded, in full dress uniform with sash and white gloves, watching them with nothing in his face at all, neither anger nor curiosity nor compassion. Gawain expected the man to make a speech of some kind, but he only looked at them, then turned and stalked away, his gloved hand on his sword hilt.

  “That’s Colonel Burduck, the commander,” whispered Nobles. “He is a wheelhorse, sure.”

  “Quiet,” said one of the guards.

  In the course of his campaigning, Gawain had se
en any number of military funerals: some furtive, some hasty, some full-blown with the rigid decorum and propriety that only the military can bring to such rites of passage. He had seen men buried in snowstorms and rain, in dark of night, under fire, under bright skies where buzzards circled and feral dogs watched patiently from the woods. He had even presided over a few, where Masonic rites had been called for. But he had never seen the yankees do it, and for a moment, he forgot his fear and watched as the troops came to present arms, and the white gloves of the officers rose slowly in the hand salute. Then the command for shoulder arms was given, and the white gloves moved slowly out and downward, leaving on the eye a trail like the arc of a falling star. Gawain listened to the little Methodist minister, whom he’d known since childhood, recite the Twenty-third Psalm and the verse from Ecclesiastes where man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets. Then “Present … arms!” and the rifles came up, bayonets rattling, and the white gloves slowly rose, palms outward, and five riflemen stepped out to the grave, their officer’s sword flashing, and fired three volleys by the beat of the drum. Each volley was a perfect clap of sound like the discharge of a single rifle; in the intervals, the ramrods flashed and rang in the bores, while the smoke drifted away on the morning breeze and wreathed the colors like a benign ghost. Then, at the last, the square broke up into columns of platoons, the men went to right shoulder shift, bayonets bristling, and the company moved off to the quick march, drums beating and fifers playing “The White Cockade.” And Gawain Harper stood at attention with tears in his eyes again, thinking this was not such a bad end to the journey, and how it would be denied him and his comrades, who had fought so long and honorably, but who were now prisoners and rebels and traitors.