by Tom Murphy
Lily looked at him and beyond him, saying nothing. The courtyard was a shambles. Six riders, still mounted, were grouped defensively against the corral. In front of them, in the dust, was the bloodied corpse of Stephen Baker, a deer rifle still in his pale hand.
A wave of nausea rose in Lily, choking her, riding over her dread and loathing: May God take his soul, the poor lad, trying a deer rifle against this lot. Stephen had gotten his wish at last. He’d met a real bandit.
Tiberio’s laughter drew Lily’s eyes from the pathetic corpse to his dreadful face. She looked at him dumbly, unable to form even the simplest greeting or the most basic curse.
The most frightening thing about Tiberio’s face was that you could still see in it some trace of curdled aristocracy, of gentle breeding thinned out and twisted. He was a big man, wide-shouldered but wiry, dark-skinned and dark-haired and dressed all in black. His eyes glowed with a strange dark fire, eyes that had seen every signpost on the road to hell, eyes in which any hint of human compassion had long since hardened into steel. Lily knew he was beyond desperation, that only death itself could stop him.
A beard covered the lower half of Tiberio’s face, and from his forehead to his left ear ran a deep and livid scar. His hair was wild under the wide-brimmed vaquero’s hat. He wore two revolving pistols in a black leather belt tooled in silver.
And he laughed.
Finally Tiberio spoke, and Lily was astonished to hear his voice. It was a quiet voice, educated, with all the quiet menace of coiled snakes and bad things lurking under rocks. “Buenas tardes, Señorita Lily Cigar,” he said softly, mocking, bowing as his men laughed in the background. “It is only fitting, is it not, that my ancestral home should be dwelt in by a whore? May I come in, if you please?”
Lily stepped aside, and stood in silence while he marched into the hallway.
“Yes. It is as I heard. You have done well by my heritage, Señorita Lily Cigar.”
Finally she found words. And even as she spoke them, Lily knew they were the wrong ones.
“I bought the ranch fairly, from your uncle, as the public records show.”
“As the public records show!” He laughed, a high-pitched, almost feminine giggle. “It is my ranch. My hills. My house. And you…you are my woman.”
Lily felt her blood chill, and suddenly she seemed incapable of thought or movement. Tiberio grabbed her then, and pulled her to him and kissed her violently while one hand fumbled with the buttons on her simple calico dress. Lily’s first impulse was to vomit. The stench of the man, his greasy hands pawing her, the Baker boy dead in her courtyard, and Kate…Kate! You must buy time, Lily, you must delay the monster, for Fred will be coming soon, Mary may have gone for help somehow. She was sure he’d rape her then and there, and kill her too, all the time laughing. And it was the thought of the rape that gave her the beginning of a plan.
She twisted in his arms as though overcome by passion. She pulled her face away from his and smiled a slow seductive smile. Then, choking back her nausea, Lily lifted his greasy hand to her lips and kissed it.
“Por favor…” she murmured, and took his hand and led him up the great stairway.
Tiberio smiled and went with her. It was as he suspected: the famous bandit was irresistible to the famous whore. Still holding his hand, Lily led him down the hallway to her bedroom. He looked around and laughed, and held her tighter. He would have his fun before turning her over to the others. Why, they might stay for weeks!
There was a decanter of sherry on a low chest of drawers. Lily poured him a glass, and one for herself. She lifted the delicately etched crystal to her lips. “Salud, Señor Tiberio.”
“Salud.”
Then Lily put her glass down and slowly unbuttoned her dress. She stepped out of it where it fell, and unlaced the chaste white camisole she wore underneath, pulled off her shoes and stockings and all the rest.
Tiberio’s eyes glittered, never leaving the amazing creature before him. The snake, Lily thought, watching the rabbit. Still, she continued the performance, smiling sweetly in anticipation of the pleasures to come.
He watched, smiling, curling his tongue around the bottom rim of the wineglass.
Finally, naked and glowing, she came to him. Again he clutched at her, violently, as if to crush her then and there. But Lily only smiled, put her finger to her lips, and whispered in her halting Spanish: “Quiero todo un hombre, Tiberio mio.”
She reached up and began unbuttoning his vest, then his shirt. Graceful as a dancer, she knelt and eased off his muddy boots, struggling not to gag as she noticed the fresh bloodstains. Then she stood and pressed her face into the reeking black mat of his chest, and began unbuckling his belt, her breath growing heavier, her motions quicker. Gently, now, his arms encircled her again, stroking her back.
This was the moment. Quick as thought, Lily jerked the pistol out of its holster and shot him three times through the chest.
She reeled back from the explosion, trembling.
In all her life Lily would never forget the expression on his face.
Tiberio smiled. His eyes widened as he looked down at the gaping holes in his chest, as the blood poured out of him.
Then his eyes seemed to glaze, to go all blurry.
He spoke softly, and not in anger: “It is fitting…puta…”
Tiberio seemed to float down to the floor. He sank in a slow, boneless flow of movement, curiously graceful, drifting into death. It was over in seconds, but to Lily, awestruck, his was a lingering death. She watched him for a moment, too shocked to fully realize what she’d done, then pulled on the dress over her nakedness, reloaded the pistol, and went to the door.
She was just in time. The six bandits were on the stairs, so close together that Lily’s first shot got two of them, who fell screaming back on the rest. Two shots drilled into the fresh plaster behind her head, then three more. Lily began to feel faint. She ducked behind the bedroom door, only to be greeted by a thundering volley from the bottom of the stairs, a mad concert of anguished screaming, then a deep and smoky silence.
At last a voice reached Lily and sank into her consciousness. It was a woman’s voice, faintly familiar, but changed somehow, a voice drained of all emotion. Mary Baker’s voice, Stephen’s mother. “It’s all right, Lily. They’re dead. All dead.”
Silently, wondering if this was some terrible dream, Lily walked down the stairs. She stepped over the twisted, bloodied corpses of Tiberio’s bandits, trailing her skirts in their blood, hardly seeing them. Mary stood limp, holding a smoking shotgun. Lily embraced the woman, yet still she could find no words of comfort. Together they walked into the kitchen, and all at once Lily came to her senses. She put down the pistol and ran to the little cupboard and pulled open the door. There sat Katie, terrified, the tears half-dried on her little cheeks. Lily scooped her up and covered her face with kisses.
“It’s all right, my darling,” said Lily softly, “the bad men can’t harm us anymore.”
Brooks Chaffee lay still in his little tent, awake, as usual, before dawn. He looked up at the dirty canvas and tried to guess the time. A faint wash of gray was seeping through the blackness. It must be nearly four. September 17, 1862. Neddy had whispered that this might be the day. Little Mac might finally be going to move it. Brooks’s head whirled. He felt that inside of his brain was nothing less than a complete Government Survey map of the Sharpsburg area, with special emphasis on the sleepy little creek with the unlikely name of Antietam. It was such a miserable excuse for a river! Why, any athletic boy could skip stones across Antietam Creek. And now two great armies were making it their own private Rubicon, Lee to the west and McClellan to the east, and three little bridges would tell the tale: Upper Bridge, Middle Bridge, Lower Bridge. Brooks saw the boldness of Robert E. Lee’s plan, a wild thrust into the North, crossing the Potomac itself with a weary, understrength army, betting on reinforcements that might not come, riding his own legend and his own unshakable conviction in the justice of th
e Confederate cause. It might be a madman’s gesture, it might be suicidal, but Brooks admired Lee for all that, the boldness of his moves and the unflagging devotion he inspired in his men. And the good Lord knew the Union forces could use a bit of inspiration just now!
He felt a small ironic smile forming on his lips and thought: A few more days of this and I’ll be cynical as Neddy. His men—all the men—were spoiling for action, seething with boredom.
A sentry came and roused Brooks then, and from the new tension in the trooper’s whisper Brooks sensed that Neddy was right, this was the day! He fairly leaped out of the narrow cot and into his uniform. Brooks shaved carefully by the light of a small kerosene lamp, checked his pistol, and went out into the camp to help ready his men. The camp seethed with anticipation. Here were nearly seventy-five thousand Federal troops, regular and reserves, from every part of the Union, from every conceivable background, bustling and cursing and working up their courage for the big thrust to come. By God, and wouldn’t they drive Robert E. Lee right back over the Potomac and right into the ground, for that matter?
Brooks was second in command of a reserve platoon. Now, in the half-light before dawn, he went to his men and helped them check their gear. Ammunition was counted, rifles oiled, dry socks that might never be worn were tucked into knapsacks, hostages to an uncertain future. And then, in the light of guttering candles, letters were written to lovers and family and friends. Brooks watched a young Vermont farm lad painfully struggling with a broken-off quill and blotted paper. What was the boy’s name? There were so many names to learn, and so little time to do it in. Patterson. Bill Patterson. “Snowville,” they called him, for that was his home town. Snowville. Brooks stepped up to the boy. Big as he was, Snowville couldn’t have been more than seventeen. They would be missing those shoulders, that strong back, from the harvest this fall.
Brooks spoke softly. “Can I help you, Bill?”
The boy blushed, looked away quickly, and as quickly met Brooks’s eyes, and when he spoke, it was with the trace of a stammer. “I…just don’t know how to finish the darn thing. It’s to Vivie, see? She’s a girl.”
Brooks postponed the smile that wanted to form on his lips. When he spoke, it was with measured gravity. “Well, when I write to young ladies, I often end with ‘Affectionately yours.’ Assuming, that is, that I feel affectionate toward them.”
“Oh, I do that. That’ll be just dandy, and I thank you. Lieutenant…?”
“Yes, Bill?”
“How do you spell ‘Affectionately’?”
They formed ranks in darkness, and in darkness they marched. Brooks could feel the awesome power of Little Mac’s massed cannon and mortars banked on the hills at his back, on the heights east of the creek, silent, waiting. Four abreast they marched, for the little path would take no more, it being a road for farm wagons at best. There was a shuffling, creaking, rustling sound to it, try as they did for silence. It seemed to Brooks as if some old stiff-scaled dragon was painfully pulling itself through the woods, across the cornfields, rustling, scaly, hate in its heart, ready to breathe fire on whomsoever might be so bold as to offer opposition. Brooks knew, too, that there was virtually no chance at all of their movements going undetected by Lee’s spies. The creek was so small, the woods were such a perfect hiding place for the spies of both camps. Brooks wondered what General Hooker was like. His platoon was backing up Hooker, crossing the Antietam creek at Upper Bridge to attack Lee’s flank. But Brooks had never met the general. They crossed Upper Bridge just as dawn broke, and their footsteps made a muffled drumming on the worn boards.
The cart track led through woods and past a cornfield. Brooks could smell the late-cut corn, a good rich smell. He wondered who’d cut the corn next year.
Then the earth began rippling like a flag in a windstorm, and a roaring grew in his head that had the crashing density of a hundred thunderstorms reverberating inside a big tin drum. His ears hurt but there was no time to feel the pain. They broke formation without an order, scattered and dived for cover, and Brooks could feel the pent-up tension in him breaking too, as the silence of the Antietam dawn was blasted away along with half of the opposing hillside. That’ll wake up Johnny Reb good and proper, thought Brooks as he yelled an order for his men to regroup, shouldered his rifle, and shot at he knew not what Brooks wondered why his men weren’t obeying him, for they were good men, and only then did he realize that the noise was so overwhelming no one could hear his shouted commands. And he was hoarse already with the yelling. Running, stooping, darting this way and that he made the perilous cover of the woods at the end of the cornfield. The battle roared around him. It was nothing at all like textbook battles, and bore no resemblance to the map in his head. Everything was roaring and smoke, confusion punctuated with screams, a swirling, dodging, turning whirlpool of a skirmish that seemed no part of a larger plan.
Brooks made it to the woods but felt no gain in it, nor safety either. For the woods were thin, and exploding around him. Brooks couldn’t tell whether the artillery blasts were coming from Lee or McClellan, and it seemed not to matter in this awful new world of smoke and screaming. The woods thinned out into another field filled with burning haystacks, and at the far end, the blackened shell of someone’s farmhouse.
Someone ran past him, close, and Brooks turned. It was the boy Snowville, running low, crouched. As Brooks watched, the boy clutched at his throat and fell, silently, not even whispering, a pantomime of death. Brooks rushed to his side, knelt looked, and as quickly looked away. The boy hadn’t cried out because his throat had been blown open, leaving a gaping red crater big enough to put your fist in. There was a horrible gurgling sound. Brooks fought down a quick, hot wave of nausea, and remembered the boy’s letter to Vivie. He unbuttoned the lad’s tunic, reached into the pocket, and withdrew the letter. He looked at it: cheap white paper, crudely addressed by a hand that would never move again: Miss Vivian Macdonald, Ledges Farm, Snowville, Vermont. Poor Vivie. Brooks carefully pocketed the letter, vowing that if he got out of this hell alive, the first thing he’d do would be to post it with a covering letter to the girl and Snowville’s parents. And he thought of Caroline. How right he’d been not to send any eve-of-battle maunderings to Caroline. It would only add to her fears and worries, and goodness knew she had more than her share of those. He wrote regularly, and at leisure. Not that any written words could sum up what he felt for Caroline. Then a new volley of artillery hit the hayfield and shook Brooks from his reverie. He leaped up and ran for the far side of the field, past the burnt-out farmhouse, beyond fear, beyond thinking. He had yet to see a Confederate soldier.
Brooks lost all track of time. The sun rose hot at his back, made pale by battle smoke, by the haze of peaceful things burning. The smoke seared his throat, burned into his lungs, made his eyes run red with rage and sorrow. He had started this black day with two hundred rounds of ammunition. He ran out well before the sun climbed to its noontime heights, and stooped, running, and almost without thinking liberated an ammunition round from an armless Federal corpse. The fields grew bodies now, and his eyes had seen so much death, such oceans of blood, that it all became one death, one wound, and his heart was numb with the force of it. There was only so much horror a mind could hold without overflowing. Brooks could feel his fear slipping away with his sanity in this world without logic or direction. He had no idea where he was, or where he was supposed to be. It had been hours since he’d seen one of his own men, or anyone else he recognized.
Noon found him on a little rise with a knot of ragged Federals, and someone said Hooker’s line was that way, and when Brooks looked that way, all he could see was a fringe of woods and puffs of smoke, nothing like a line or a formation of any kind. Madness. They crouched on their rise, embracing tree trunks. Suddenly, from the woods where Hooker’s line was supposed to be, there emerged a screaming rabble of Confederates, the first enemy Brooks had actually seen this day. He felt strangely calm as he raised his rifle and fired. One of
the Confederates fell down. He aimed again, fired, missed. Aimed again. Another gray-clad figure fell. The line was wavering now. And now a mortar came whistling out of heaven and did the rest, roaring death, exploding in a burst of fire and smoke, leaving a crater and no grays at all. And the little knot of Federals dissolved as mysteriously as it had come together. Brooks ran for the left of the woods, not knowing whether it was the right direction, not caring. This will go on forever. I am trapped for eternity in this roaring hell. He was tired beyond exhaustion, tormented beyond the edge of fear, running on pure gut instinct now, and it was a wild new instinct, the urge to kill, to get through the next five minutes alive at any cost, just to reload and fire one more shot.
He was in a plowed field now. The neat furrows had grown a nightmare crop of corpses. Brooks had stopped trying to help them now: in a world where death was the standard, surely it was madness to try and prevent it.
A familiar shape appeared at the far edge of the field. Almost idly, between shots, he wondered what it was.
How like Neddy to ride into my nightmare on a big black horse. But there he was, in the flesh, Captain Edward Hudner Chaffee, fresh as a daisy and galloping. Of course. Little Mac’s aide with a message. Is the message that we can stop playacting now, Neddy? Tell me it is, tell me it’s all a dream. Please.
Brooks watched his brother rein in the stallion. The huge horse reared up. Just like all those equestrian statues in the town squares of Europe. Very good, Neddy. Play your cards right and we’ll have you on a coin. Neddy was looking for someone—Hooker, beyond a doubt. Neddy must have some vital scrap of news, the entire secret of warfare, no doubt. Brooks wondered why he didn’t care. Ned was maybe fifty yards away. Was it etiquette, in full battle rig, to exchange a few idle pleasantries with one’s only brother? He thought not. The roaring was so constant now that it had become something beyond noise, a physical thing, insistent and terrible, punctuated only by some very close shellfire and rare, eerie moments of silence.
