by Peter Troy
MICAH
CHARLOTTESVILLE
JANUARY 1, 1863
You’re all in a daze again. The way you’ve been most of the time since you left Mary’s window. That horse from the man you killed did all the riding. All the figuring out where to go, it seems. He rode you far and fast out of there. Like he wanted to get out of Richmond more than you did. Like he wasn’t leaving anything behind the way you were.
You rode all that day, rested at night for a while. Rode some more that night and all the next day. It went like that for three days ’til you reached the turn in the river. The place you and Mary were gonna leave the boat, and head northwest to the Blue Ridge. You came to life for long enough to chase that old horse off. Didn’t kill him for a few meals’ worth of meat. He’d done you too good for that. Plus you got a soft spot for things that live only to serve their masters.
So you walked the rest of the way from that turn in the river. Only it wasn’t straight to the Blue Ridge. No, you were headed more north somehow. Like it was that horse still carrying you there, only it was your own feet this time. You knew the way. You’d been all around these roads with him before. You knew the way to his house as much as you knew the line of Mary’s cheek. Or the shimmer of her eyes. And you were thinking on Mary some of the time. Wondering why God brought her into your world only to take her away. It only stirred up more of that anger. Fed the daze. And you walked along country roads in the broad light of day. Not caring if anyone came by. Ready to take that Home Guard’s pistol and put a bullet in the first white man that looked you in the eye. Those were the thoughts you sometimes had. But mostly it was just mindless walking. Like a broken-down nag with blinders on. Not so much you moving your feet as something, someone, else.
Whatever that something or someone is, it brought you here. Beside the familiar stable where you used to feed and water his horse. You can tell straight off by the look of things that he’s still here. Place doesn’t look abandoned, just neglected. Like a shit carpenter lives here. Making his excuses to himself about why the place looks like it does.
It’s a while, maybe six eight ten hours that you wait. Hard to tell about something that matters so little as time. All day passes anyhow, and then it’s dark again. You know it must be cold ’cause you can see your breath. You should be hungry ’cause you can’t recall eating that day. But you don’t feel either thing. ’Til sometime in the dark come the squeaking wheels. And he’s home. You can hear him inside the broken-down stable. Unhooking the carriage. Cussin’ the broken-down horse for needing water and hay. He walks out to the well, and you can hear him breaking the thin layer of ice on the water line. Drops the bucket onto it three four five times. When he comes back to the stable, cussin’ at the water he’s spilling out of the buckets he’s holding, you know this is why you came here. This is the moment.
Water’s over there, Tom. You carry your own buckets.
Only then do you realize another man is riding up to the stable. When you see who it is, you can feel a strange half-smile form on your face. He pours his buckets into the trough and hands them over. Starts pitching some hay into the pen. It’s a few minutes before they’re both in there together, and you get ready to act again.
Albert’s stoppin’ t’get the dogs.
He’s bringin’ ’em here?
Three miles closer’n our place. If we headin’ inta the Blue Ridge, save us an hour in the mornin’.
And that strange half-smile returns. One perfect thing in all this mess. The three of ’em all together, like you couldn’ta planned it. You wait until they’re inside, walk up to the back window. Look inside through the caked-on dirt. You see them sitting on opposite ends of the fire in the front room. Passing the jug back and forth, smoking their cigars. Fat country squires. Talking about where they’re going in the morning.
Albert wadn’t too happy you brung me in on ’is one, I guess.
Needed some convincin’.
Dunno why he had t’go all th’way t’Richmon’.
How th’dogs gonna know the scent if we ain’t got a piece o’ his clothes?
I gotta old shirt a’his right in th’room there.
Tom laughs.
That thing’s almost two years old. How ya ’spect the dogs t’pick up a scent from that?
All right, all right.
You know how he hates to look like a fool. But there’s no punching his way outta this one. Not with Tom.
But I tell ya, Tom, you boys won’ regret takin’ me in wicha for partner. I know’m, an’ I tell ya he’s comin’ this way up th’Blue Ridge. He’s ’bout as smart a nigga as I ever know’d. He’s goin’ up th’Blue Ridge all th’way t’them Yankees up in Pennsylvania.
You smile a little now, and it’s a strange feeling. He does know you after all. You come out of the haze for a minute. Can feel the cold for the first time. Look around the place where you spent seven years of your life. But looking around only makes you madder. Thinking now about the time that’s been taken from you. The haze returning now. And it seems forever before Albert arrives with the dogs.
They’re barking like crazy, pulling him in your direction. You get the pistol out of the holster, keep the ax in your left hand for the dogs. But he stuffs them in the stable. Tells them to shut up. Then it’s the three of them together again, drinking from the jug, smoking cigars. Talking about how they’re gonna hunt you down tomorrow morning. How the thousand dollars gold is just a bonus. How they’d do it just to put a few more stripes across your uppity shoulders. And you smile. A thousand dollars gold. Making for that same strange kinda pride you felt gettin’ sold in the first place. But there’s a different kinda reward these fellas got coming. One perfect thing. In all this mess.
Tom’s the first to step outside. Gotta do his business, the whole thing, so he can’t just lean off the end of the porch. Walks back to the outhouse with cigar in hand. And it’s easy enough to be there waiting for him when he comes out. Your knife does the job of keeping him quiet right off. Slash across the throat, then finish the job with the ax. Stuff him back inside the outhouse. Stand alongside it, your heart settling again now. Waitin’ to see who’ll come looking for him.
Twenty minutes later it’s his brother calling out from the back door. Starts walking over to the outhouse and stops. Maybe thinks about getting the dogs, from the look on his face. Then shakes his head like he can’t be bothered. Cusses his brother and stomps his way straight toward you. Doesn’t seem to notice the puddle of red you tried to cover up with fresh snow. Just goes right on and opens the door. It’s not as clean now, the way he yells before you can make him quiet. Two, maybe three good shouts before the job is finished. Dogs start barkin’ a storm now.
And then it’s the reason you came here in the first place. He’s out the back door with the shotgun in his hands, stumbling and loading it as he goes. Calling for Albert and Tom. Who won’t be answering him back anytime soon. You got the pistol to take care of things now. Let go with two shots straight off. And he’s on the ground, rolling over to his side, shotgun knocked from his hands. ’Til all that’s left is to stand over him and watch his face. That strange half-smile you can’t hold back now. Him with that look on his face. Trying to figure out how you got the best of him after all.
You a dead nigga now … shot a white man. He says.
For his last words in this life.
And you just keep smiling. Watch him struggle to say something more. But he can’t summon the breath for it, the life draining fast from his body. You could make it faster with another shot, but this seems about right.
And the haze starts lifting again. You can hear the dogs howling. Decide it’s their time, too, with how many folks like you they hunted down. Three shots take care of them. And it’s quiet again. Across the way, you can see a light on in the front room. Hinkley’s up. Probably pissing himself, figuring his neighbor and his friends are shooting at fence posts again. Wouldn’t dare come outside, you figure.
So then it�
�s just the matter of dragging all the bodies into the outhouse. Covering the blood best as you can. Taking what food’s there in the house. The frying pan, too. And the shotgun with two dozen rounds.
Albert Embry’s horse looks the best of the three. So you pack your things onto him and set off. Pull the other two horses behind you. Not racing now, like on the Home Guardsman’s horse. But easy. Like nothing matters much. Deep into the woods you let the other two horses go. And then it’s on to the Blue Ridge. Only now it’s you making your own way. No something or someone else doing the riding. No haze, no fog. Only memories.
MARCELLA
STAFFORD HEIGHTS, VIRGINIA
JANUARY 1, 1863
It’s another amputation, maybe the third or fourth you’ve assisted in during just that morning alone. For Dr. Wyler it’s maybe his tenth, and you marvel at how he manages it, a man pushing sixty and with the worn face to prove it. But there he is, asking you for the hacksaw again, this time to take a leg, which will certainly be more gruesome than the arms you’ve seen cut on this shift so far. None of the wounded have faces anymore. They just keep pouring in, carried to the operating tables by exhausted orderlies, and then it’s bandage this shoulder, remove this piece of shrapnel, stitch this leg, or just cut it off entirely. They’re lined up row by row now, those waiting for an operation, those already operated upon, those who have died and haven’t been taken away yet. Be ready with the bandages, the Doctor says, looking intently at you as he cuts away what’s left of the patient’s trouser leg and pours some water over the wound. Then he starts to cutting, and it’s the nauseating sound of him sawing at flesh the way a carpenter cuts a piece of wood, and you apply the first of the bandages, holding it there until it’s saturated with blood, then grab another, and then a third. He’s at the bone now, but the patient starts to stir. He’s waking up, and you rush over to the head of the table, taking the chloroform-coated rag and pressing it against his mouth and nose again, calling out for one of the greenhorns nearby to soak up the blood, as the Doctor keeps sawing … slower now … breathing heavily himself, then stopping altogether before his eyes close and he drops to the ground. And you hold the patient down best as you can, considering how there isn’t but a drop or two of chloroform on that cloth and the ether is long gone by now. But the patient’s still moving, and the chloroform rag drops to the ground. You yell at the greenhorn to take your place and hold the patient still … then you pick up the saw … beginning to move it back and forth, wanting to faint just like the Doctor did, from the chloroform and the fatigue and the sickening sensation of saw grinding through bone, made even worse when you’re the one doing the grinding … but you keep sawing, feeling like you’re cutting through rock … and the greenhorn is wrestling with the patient, who’s waking up more and more … and it’s no longer a straight line you’re cutting back and forth … with the screeching sound of the bone being cut … and the Doctor’s awake on the ground now, yelling at you to keep the damn saw straight, but it’s screeching louder still until the patient breaks free of the greenhorn’s grasp and bolts upright at the waist, glaring at you with eyes that shout WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?!
She wakes up in a shiver, her heart racing and her hands wrapped one around another, gripping a piece of the blanket that’s been gathered in a bunch like the handle of a saw. Her eyes try to take in what light can be offered in this predawn waking moment, but it’s nothing more than the trickle of moonlight through the window and the flicker of the oil lamp in the hallway glowing faintly around the seams of the door. So she lies silently in her cot until there is enough light from outside to suggest that dawn will soon be here. And comforted by it somewhat, she pushes herself up, taking her shoes and her coat, then navigates the maze of cots, most all of them occupied, until finally she is at the door. It’s then just a matter of pulling it open deftly enough to minimize the creak of the hinges, and she is safely out into the hallway, where the lamp offers a comfort of light and warmth far beyond what its tiny flame would otherwise seem to yield. And she lingers beneath it, leaning up against the wall, even after she has put on her shoes and coat, even after those too-familiar images of not long ago can be placed firmly in the past, and the realm of dreams.
Ethan is always up early, with first light most days. He says it’s from being in the army, and being a fisherman before that, and even back to working in the stables of the … What was the name of that aristocratic family back in Ireland? she thinks, back in th’Old Country? And then she smiles to think of the way he says it, like it’s a long-lost love he’d left behind … aahhh the Old Country. Why don’t I ever think of España that way? she thinks. Only Abuela would I ever think of in that way, and I spent as much time in España as he spent in Ireland … maybe because we never suffered from The Hunger. And she laughs to herself a little now to think of the funny way he has of calling things—The Hunger, the Father, the Old Country, the Penance, and of course, Mam and Da and Aunt Em and me brudder Seanny, and dear Aislinn rest her soul … And she starts to amuse herself now by forming sentences from the words and phrases that have warmed her own heart in these past few weeks, imagining him saying Back in th’Old Country, before The Hunger, when it was just me and Da and Mam and Aunt Em and me brudder Seanny and dear Aislinn rest her soul, I once told a lie and had to go to the Father for the Penance, and sure didn’t he tell me t’say two Hail Marys and t’ree Ahhr Fahthers …
And now she laughs loud enough to be aware that she could be heard if there were anyone else in the hallway. But there’s no one, of course. It’s still well before five, and aside from the few nurses standing night shift in the wards, and the guards outside, there will be no one stirring for another hour at least. She walks to the end of the hallway, admiring as always the elaborate design of the woodwork, thinking about what a nice place this must have been before it was turned into a hospital. Before it became haunted, she thinks. Ethan said he’d heard a rumor that this was the place where General Lee once courted his wife. Well, they’re welcome to have it back.
She could go and find Ethan in the orderlies’ room, where he’s packed in every bit as tight as the nurses are in theirs, only with plenty more snoring and far worse smells, from what she’s heard. But even if he is awake, lying there in the cot right beside the door, the one the men insist he take because he’s always up before them, she’d rather let him at least rest his leg for a while longer. And she’ll see him soon enough besides, at the morning service—the one to celebrate the momentousness of this day.
What will Mrs. Carlisle and Catherine be doing today? she thinks. The Ladies Abolition Society will be in all its glory. But still, she’d rather be here. For now.
She walks into one of the wards, the beautiful dining room that must have held some grand parties in the days before the war, and there is Kerry, fighting to keep herself awake so late in her shift.
“Good morning, Kerry,” Marcella whispers. But it’s loud enough to wake her from a half slumber in a start.
“Good mahrnin! … aahh fer Chroistsakes, Mahrcella—I t’ought you were Nurse Av’ry,” Kerry says, and the lilt of her brogue is enough to make Marcella more comfortable in an instant. “What’re ya doin’ here—it’s still an hour before I’m t’be relieved. And not by you, as I recahll.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” Marcella replies, and sits in the chair beside Kerry, who was once a greenhorn, not four weeks ago, but has the sort of confidence of a woman who’s done plenty of nursing without the formality of being called a nurse.
“Care for some company?” Marcella asks, knowing better than to volunteer to take the rest of her watch, something that would be most frowned upon by the Nurse Averys of the world.
“Aahhh, Mahrcella, sure yer an angel—and how’s yer man Ethan?”
HE HAD STAYED IN THE only way he seemed to know how, not off on the fringes of the encampment with the rest of the press corps in warm, whiskey-filled cabins, but in the middle of it all, volunteering as an orderly right there i
n the hospital. The nightmares had grown more frequent for her as the exhaustion of those early days after the battle abated enough to allow such a thing as dreams, but each morning there he was, unharmed and wearing the brave exterior of a smile despite all that had been lost.
One late afternoon some days after the battle, he walked her out to the bluff along the river, playfully telling her to cover her eyes as he led her by the arm, and only when she opened them did she realize that it was Christmas Eve. He would later explain, when greatly pressed, that he had used the glass from his remaining photographic plates, chiseling at them with a nail to create the long shards, then affixing them to white thread and hanging them carefully from the branches of the evergreen shrub. The ribbons were torn from red and white cloth one of the supply sergeants had liberated from Fredericksburg before they were chased back across the river. And the star was formed of branches he had woven together and affixed on top, accentuating it with shards of the glass as well. All of it, shimmering in the fading light of sunset and nestled in a thin blanket of snow, was the closest thing to Christmas she could imagine in such a haunted place as this.
Down below them the campfires were soon lit. The entire army was safely back across the river by then, and what remained of their spirits was poured into bittersweet strains of God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay and the like. And he lit the fire he had arranged, as they sat on the chairs he had set up beside the tree, sipping the watered-down coffee made more tolerable by the sugar he had somehow bartered for along with the cloth for the ribbons. And she knew then that she was stuck, that there’d be no escaping this love unscathed—short of yielding to it. Only somehow she didn’t seem to mind.
