I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires

by Cathy Gohlke

  I’d wandered about a half mile from the mill when I first felt the pounding in my feet. It rose up from the earth, lighter but the same sort of pounding I’d felt before the Federals invaded the field hospital. My tongue crusted dry. My heart skipped its beat and shot to my throat. “Wooster!” It was a prayer. I shoved the wood from Stargazer’s saddle, swung up, and dug my heels into his sides. He needed no urging. We flew through the woods and over the hill. We’d reached the last wooded ridge, just before the steep bank to the mill, when I saw the riders. Stargazer reared as I reined him in. There were seven or eight. I couldn’t count for sure in the waning light, but it looked like too many to take on. Where was Wooster? Had he heard them coming? Was he still inside? I slid off Stargazer and led him back into the stand of trees. I couldn’t risk him being seen.

  That’s when a shot blasted from inside the mill. My stomach lurched and my fingers fumbled as I tied Stargazer’s reins to a low branch. “Please, God, no. No! Not Wooster. Don’t let it be Wooster!” Loud, drunken laughter rolled up the hill. I hit the ground and crawled over the ridge, down the bank, along the stream. Crouched low, covered by the spreading darkness, I circled the mill. There was a window just over the waterwheel. I prayed they’d strike a light, so I could see something—anything.

  That’s when I saw him. Teetering on the slats of the water-wheel, climbing over the top and down the front, about to jump or fall, inched Wooster on his one leg. He threw his crutches and bedroll across the frozen stream. I stole to the bottom of the wheel and hoot-owled softly.

  “Robert?” he whispered into the dark. A light sprang in the window behind him. Two men stood, arguing in the lantern light. They’d have seen Wooster, sure, if they’d only turned a little and if they weren’t so caught up with their own fire.

  “Jump!” I called in a whisper, loud as I dared. And I marveled that Wooster did it, that he trusted a voice in the dark when he couldn’t see what was below him. He fell, on top of me, and we both fell against the frozen stream, heard it crack with our weight. But we rolled over again and again onto the bank, just as a head thrust out the window above us. We scrambled into the shadow of the waterwheel, grateful for the darkness.

  “I tell you I heard something,” said a voice from above us. “Something’s out there!”

  “Bill, you take the light and go see.”

  “Why me? What does it matter what’s out there? Probably some wild animal, looking for supper. I don’t want to be it!”

  “We can’t risk anybody spying after us. Now, go on. Then you take the first watch.”

  We didn’t stay to hear the argument. “My crutch!” Wooster begged—the first begging I’d ever heard in his voice. “I threw it over there!” I left him to grab the crutch. We heard the mill door close out front. Our time was gone.

  “Climb on!” I whispered, crouching in front of him. We’d do just what the Irishman had done the night he carried Wooster out of the Maynards’ cellar. Wooster grabbed his bedroll and crutches in one arm and tightened the other around my collar bone. I gripped his legs. Together we climbed the hill.

  “Somebody out there?” a voice behind us called. “Show your face—now!” We didn’t wait to know if he’d really seen us. A shot fired above us. I slipped, tumbling us both onto the ridge.

  “Wooster! Wooster! Are you all right?” He didn’t answer right away and all the fear of God swept over me. “Wooster!”

  “Shut up!” he hissed. “You’ll bring the whole passel of them down on our heads!”

  I breathed for the first time. “Thank God. Thank God.” The man below swept his lantern back and forth over the hillside, looking for us. I was pretty sure he’d heard us by now, but he didn’t seem sure which direction our noise had come from. Then he turned and headed straight toward us.

  “What you shooting at, Bill?” A new voice came from outside the mill.

  “There’s something out here, or somebody. Get the boys!”

  “Climb up again!” I whispered, and Wooster leaned over my back. I stumbled, running as fast as I could, before I stumbled some more, toward Stargazer. We reached him, breathless, and Wooster scrambled from my back to Stargazer’s, shoving his crutches in the saddle without missing a beat.

  I was about to swing up behind him. “Your bedroll! Grab your bedroll!” Wooster pushed me toward it. I just wanted to go. I didn’t want to think about anything else. How could he be thinking about all this stuff at a time like this? But I grabbed it and shoved it in his arms, grabbed Stargazer’s reins, and led him through the trees, quiet as we could.

  “There he is! I told you I heard something!” Another shot rang out.

  This time the shot found its mark. Wooster cried out.

  “Wooster!” I swung up behind him. “Wooster!”

  “Ride, Robert!”

  I dug my heels into Stargazer, only once. He took off as if he’d been shot, and raced up to the second ridge. We hit the road flying. Two more shots fired somewhere behind us, but they flew wide. Not knowing if they’d follow, we raced on and on, maybe an hour, until we couldn’t breathe, until Wooster slumped against me.

  I reined in Stargazer and pulled off the road, toward a stand of evergreens. The moon rode high, bright white above us, but the trees’ heavy branches swept the ground, shielding us from passersby. “Wooster? Wooster? Can you hear me?” I shook him gently He moaned, but didn’t answer. I laid out my bedroll, then pulled him from the saddle to the ground.

  “Take it easy!”

  “Whered they get you?”

  “My arm. I think it’s just a graze. I’m just so tired.”

  “We’d best take a look. Let me pull your arm out of your jacket.” It took some time, but we got the arm out. The moon was full enough to see that it wasn’t too bad. It looked like the ball had passed clean through, and near the surface. The bone seemed all right. It needed cleaning, but had stopped bleeding fresh on its own. “Thank You, God,” I whispered.

  “Thank You, Father,” Wooster echoed.

  I ripped off the tail of my shirt and tied it in a bandage around Wooster’s arm. “We can rest here a while, till you’re stronger.”

  “No. If you can hold me up, let’s ride. They might follow-especially as it gets daylight.”

  “They seemed bound on going the other way. They came up this road, pounding dirt hard.”

  “Sounds like deserters,” Wooster guessed.

  “Maybe. Which side?”

  “Rebels. Didn’t you hear them talking? They sounded like South Carolina men to me, low country. We’d best stay clear of them. Deserters got nothing to lose. Bands like that think the law doesn’t mean them—think they’re above the law, that the countryside owes them. All they fear is being caught.”

  “Maybe that old mill’s their hideout.”

  Wooster shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. We just need to make tracks. South.”

  “I think we are. Look at the stars.” The night sky was ablaze with white lights, pinpricks through a dark blanket. We found the North Star. I could have stayed lost in their patterns. I didn’t want to breathe or blink for fear they’d move.

  Wooster lay back, breathing hard, tuckered through. “How can a soul look at that sky and not believe in God?” Wooster whispered.

  How could it be done? I wondered. But I looked away, feeling my own restless pricks.

  Wooster tried to stand, and it brought me around. “Help me up, Robert.”

  “You don’t want to rest longer?”

  “No, I want to go home. I want to get to Salem.”

  “You’re an ornery cuss.”

  “Yes, I am. Now, help me up.” I whistled for Stargazer, who’d wandered off to graze in a hidden patch of old grass.

  “Did you get enough, boy?” I patted Stargazer’s rump and leaned my head against his shoulder. “Hold steady, now.” I could tell Wooster’s climb over Stargazer’s back pained him. I swung up behind, and we were off again, slower this time. The moon, traveling across the sky, made goo
d company as we picked our way south.

  Nineteen

  Days and nights rode into one another. We followed the road slowly by dark and slept by day—the same as I’d often done traveling North on the Underground Railroad, before the war. Sometimes wed find a stream and follow it a while, always making sure we headed south or southwest. That way we could fish a little, let Stargazer graze.

  We came across a deserted farmhouse once. We stayed there two nights—slept easier and warmer with a roof and a door. I tried snaring small game. But the land had been picked clean by more than three and a half years of war and foragers. Luring the scrawniest rabbit or squirrel turned out next to impossible. My luck was out, and our spines gnawed at our bellies. We rested most of that second day, then saddled up at dusk to avoid travelers and followed the road.

  The sun hadn’t colored the east when we edged into a town, the first we’d ridden through. Even in the dusky light something about it tickled the edge of memory. I don’t think I’d have remembered but for a sign nailed to a lamppost, “Jamestown.” Ma and I had ridden through Jamestown on the train years ago, on our way to Ashland. That was less than a day’s ride to Salem! It was almost five years since Jeremiah and I had stolen through Jamestown on our way North, Christmas night 1859. We’d hidden in a tight cave behind a Quaker family’s farmhouse. The next day we’d ridden in their false-bottom wagon north, toward Petersburg.

  Jamestown was where the boy Timothy had done me out of Stargazer, just before we reached the Quaker farm. The memory knotted my stomach, and I was anxious to ride, to get beyond this town. But it would soon be daylight. We needed a place to hide, to rest, needed food and something solid for Stargazer. I remembered the strips of rabbit meat, roasted and wrapped in leaves, sitting in our bags upstairs back at the mill. For the hundredth time my mouth watered, and I groaned.

  I wondered if I could find the Quaker farm where Jeremiah and I had hidden. I wondered if they would take us in, or at least let me feed and water Stargazer. The sound of an early morning wagon rumbled toward us. I pulled Stargazer off the road and into the woods until the wagon passed.

  “We’d best do something, boy.” Wooster’d slumped forward, asleep for the last hour or so. Back on the road I picked up the pace, hunting for the farm. I remembered it sat back, along a main road, that the barn was built into the slope of a hill. We’d nearly passed it when I recognized the barn. No lights burned.

  Down the road we came to more woods. I walked Stargazer down the hill, through the trees, then backtracked along the riverbank, just as Jeremiah and I had done. When we reached the back of the Quaker family’s barn, the ground floor where they’d kept livestock, I pulled open the door, praying it wouldn’t squeak on its hinges. It never did, and I thought how careful these Quaker abolitionists were about everything. I wondered if they still hid the false-bottom wagon on the second floor of their barn, where they could pull it out onto the top of the slope, near the main road. I wondered if the cave was still behind the tanning table, or if it had been blocked up. Maybe we could sleep there.

  The barn and its smells, the lowing of the cattle, even the way my feet trod the path all brought a rush of memory. I held Stargazer’s neck so tight he whinnied. “Shh. I’m sorry, boy. I’m sorry. You have to be quiet.” He snorted like he understood.

  I made a temporary bed on the hay for Wooster and set to feeding and watering Stargazer. I meant to brush him, to check his hooves, but never even pulled off his saddle before I fell asleep on the hay beside Wooster.

  I felt the prod of the pitchfork against my shoe before I heard the boy’s voice. Blinding daylight shone through the cracks in the barn walls, and I covered my eyes with my arm.

  “Thee is alive.”

  “What?” I tried to wake up.

  “Is thee a deserter?” The voice came from a boy, curious, wide-eyed, not more than eight or nine.

  “No. No, I’m not.”

  “Then why did thee steal our hay?”

  “I’m sorry. I should have asked, but there was no light burning. I didn’t want to wake anybody.” It was a half truth, and the boy stood waiting. “I stopped here some years ago. I hoped your family wouldn’t mind if I fed and watered my horse, if—if—my brother and I rested before heading on home.”

  “I must tell Father.”

  “Sure. Tell him I’ll work for the hay, and if your family could spare a little food, I’ll work for that too. Tell him, please.”

  “Father does not allow deserters. He does not want trouble.” The boy stared at me, then turned to run for the house. A name crept on the edge of my memory.

  “Wait! Wait—Jedediah?”

  The boy stopped in his tracks and turned to stare again, his eyes wider yet. “How does thee know my name?”

  I grinned, trying to put him at ease. “Tell your pa that I was here the Christmas of’59, and that his two packages made it to the promised land.”

  “But what about me? How does thee know my—”

  “You and your brothers and sisters played in the snow that Christmas night. One of your older brothers swooped you up and called your name. You were the littlest. Five years back. I figured it must be you.”

  Jedediah puffed his chest and lifted his chin. “I am the littlest no more. Hannah Grace is the littlest now!”

  “That’s good to hear, Jedediah. Will you tell your pa what I said?”

  “I will!” And he turned, running full speed for the house.

  “Robert?” Wooster mumbled. “Robert, who’s there?”

  “A boy, Jedediah.” It felt good to know his name, to know him, sort of, from before. “He’s gone to tell his pa that we’re here. I’m hoping they’ll have food for us, maybe let me work it off.”

  “We need to get home. We need to get home to Salem.”

  “We will. I swear it.” Wooster looked paler, thinner in the morning light. Two bright red spots stained his cheeks. Dark circles spread under his eyes, darker than the day before, despite his sleep. “How you doing, Wooster?” I tried to keep my voice steady, not to sound as alarmed as I felt.

  “I don’t know. Not too good, I think.” Wooster sat up, held his head with his good arm, and looked like he was having trouble focusing.

  “We’re not too far from Salem. Hang on till we can get to your family.”

  “How do you know we’re not far? Did that boy tell you?”

  “No, but I saw a signpost. We’re in Jamestown. Not more than a day’s ride to Salem.”

  “A day! A day—I can hang on another day.”

  The Quaker family did better by us than I’d imagined. They took us into their barn loft, fed us, bathed and dressed Wooster’s wound, gave him tea for his fever, and let Stargazer eat his fill. Food and sleep work wonders—at least they did for me. But Wooster didn’t rally, and that night the Quaker lady drew me aside.

  “Thy brother needs a doctor. There is no more I know to do.”

  “I’m taking him to his ma in Salem.”

  She frowned. “There are good doctors in Salem, or there were before the war drew so many away. But I don’t know if he can withstand the ride.” She’d said the very thing I worried over.

  “I’ve got to try. He’s got it in his head to be there for Christmas Eve.”

  “But tomorrow is Christmas Eve! He is not fit to travel so soon.”

  “Tomorrow?” I looked at Wooster, then back at her. I’d lost track of the days. I sat down. “I promised him. I promised him I’d get him home for his Moravian lovefeast on Christmas Eve.” I ran my hand through my hair. “It’s the thing he wants most in all the world.”

  “And thee does not?”

  “What? I mean, ma’am?”

  “It is what thy brother wants, but thee, a Moravian also, does not?”

  I felt the heat rise up my neck, the way it always did when I was caught in a lie. “Wooster’s my friend. He’s not my real brother, and I don’t know too much about the Moravian religion.”

  “Thee was not truthf
ul with us.” It was a statement. Then more kindly, “Why?”

  I looked at her. She waited patiently for my explanation, and I wanted to give it. I wanted to pour out the whole long story about Ma having left and Pa being gone, about Cousin Albert’s deceit and death, of Wooster helping me, and Rev. Goforth and Katie Frances saving us, of wondering if they’d been killed, and how Wooster was shot at by deserters. I wanted to tell her how scared and worn I was, how this had all grown too big, and now Wooster’d better not die on me. He just plain better not die!

  But how could I say any of that? I was all of eighteen, supposed to be a man, and should have been a Union private. I was in the South helping an escaped rebel prisoner get home, looking for my ma, hoping against hope that Emily cared what became of me. Even if I enlisted now, how could I kill rebels when my mother and my new best friend, and the girl I—the girl I cared about—were all rebels? I nearly laughed. How could you shoot at the idea of war without shooting at real people? And where did that thought come from now? My head went light. I steadied myself against a hay bale.

  “Thee must sit.” She steadied me, guided me to stretch out on the hay. Then she sat beside me, still waiting.

  “When my friend—another friend—and I stayed here all those years ago, when you and your family helped us North, you didn’t want to see us, so you could honestly say you hadn’t seen any runaways staying in your barn.” She nodded. “It’s like that now. It might be safer if you didn’t know the whole story.”

  She weighed that. “Does thee put my family in danger?”

  “No, ma’am. No one will ever know we were here. I swear it. And my brother—my friend—will honor that promise. I know he will. We’re grateful, ma’am, for all you’ve done for us.”

  “Deserters.” She sighed.

  “No, ma’am. We’re not. Wooster has discharge papers, because of losing his leg. And I never joined at all.” I colored, ashamed and relieved all at once, that I could tell that truth.