Call Each River Jordan

by Ralph Peters (as Owen Parry)

  “He is a killer, and a dirty one. And there is true. He is a killer and a bushwhacker. A bad sort, that one.”

  “It seems to me there are plenty of bad sorts, and I have met more than my share of them lately.” I tried to keep my disgust within sensible bounds. “Why did you join them, anyway? Welshmen are not slavers. Not even Cardiff men.”

  “Well, I did not say I am for slavery, did I?”

  “But you’re fighting to defend it, man.”

  “Noooo. I am fighting by my butties. Beside the friends of mine who are my neighbors. There is simple. I do not see how slaves and Negroes figure.”

  He was a Cardiff man, as thick as oak. As thick as oak doubled and banded.

  “And what, pray tell, is the name your father handed you in Cardiff?”

  “Evans,” he said. “It is not a common name.”

  YOU KNOW THAT IS NOT TRUE. Not that any Welshman is dishonest. That I do not mean. But Cardiff men are as vain as they are dull-witted, and, truth be told, they want nothing more dearly than to be “differentiated.” Evanses are common as the raindrops. Wales drips with Evanses. Evanses fall from the eaves, they spill from the waterspouts. There is a very flood of Evanses, from the Wye to Caernarfon Bay. There are more Evanses in Wales than there are Frenchmen without morals. And that is a plenty, I am told.

  This one was Dai Evans, settled in a Southron town that robbed the name of Oxford. He claimed they even had a university, though I was in a mood to disbelieve him. He had no evident bond to my roster of Evanses, but Evanses are shells upon the shore. And he was a Cardiff man, which implies an overseas influence, to put it delicately. Such are not always sound in their paternity. But let that bide.

  We found a tie, though, on my dear wife’s side. For the mother of the wife of this Dai Evans was a Protheroe, come down from Merthyr. Yet, the link was not so direct as that suggests. The woman was, by birth, an Abergavenny Protheroe, but married young to a Merthyr Williams, who died of an aggravation in the blood, after which she wed a Cardiff Rhys who come visiting. Now the Abergavenny Protheroes are, of course, related to the Protheroes of Ebbw Vale, who have matrimonial ties by way of the Davies family of Brecon to the Morrises of Tredegar who were originally out of the West, although that should not be held against them. For I will tell you straight: There are good men living west of Gower, although they rarely attain the heights of achievement common to men of the Valleys. But to be short: A Morris of that Tredegar branch married an Aberdare Roberts, second cousin to my Mary Myfanwy’s mother. Twas clear as day, once we figured it. I judged us wedlock cousins, at a tenth to twelfth remove.

  And still the fellow would have seen me hanged.

  “Oh, they are set to do it,” he said to me one soft-complexioned morning. With his comrades snoring in house and barn and Captain Wylie gone off the day before. “They are set and waiting for the word.”

  The fellow should have been an undertaker, for all the dourness of him. Talking to curl the quiet he was, with never a joyful word. “And joke they do that the deed must be done by daylight. If you were hanged by night, they say, we two might be mistaken by our voices and I might see the sunrise from a tree. For we are not differentiated by the sound of us. It is a great teasing and mockery I have endured because of you, Abel Jones.”

  It was not true that we sounded a bit alike. His voice was Welsh as leeks. While I, in my maturity, by diligence in the study of elocution, have acquired a tone worthy of emulation by gentlemen and young persons alike. I have become a complete American, as anyone can tell.

  I did not argue. For I had other matters on my mind that wanted ears to hear them. There is a human impulse to confide.

  “This is my birthday,” I told him. Across the yard, the woman come out and drew a bucket of water from the well. I craved the wet of it. “I am a man of thirty-four today, Dai Evans. This nineteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord, eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-two. Thirty-four I am.”

  “Well, that is ripe. May you have joy of it.”

  “It is no pleasant spot to spend a birthday.”

  “Better it is,” he said, “than to be hanged.”

  “And they still do not see the crime in it?”

  “Noooo. You rode with Lott. And all who do shall hang.”

  “But why, man? What’s so bad about Lott? You said he was a ‘killer.’ All soldiers are killers in war. The better the soldier, the worse. Who has he killed that makes him any different?”

  “His wife, for one,” Dai Evans said. “Before the war that was. I have heard tell of it many times, for it is a great popular subject. He was a preaching fellow up in Ripley. They found her in a barrel, covered in salt. With her head clean off. He should have hanged, see. But he was gone in a twinkle. He took his son and went. We heard he meant to liberate the Negro, but never thought to see him back again. For there is talk in plenty in this world, but fewer deeds.” The fellow sighed. “Well, he will hang soon enough. And deserve it. For he has killed good men. And women, too. They say he was a terror out in Kansas. But such will not be tolerated here. Lott has differentiated himself most awful, and his wife’s relations set a price on his head of five hundred dollars. Though they are Scots and likely will not pay. But look you. It is not the money that will hang him. Many’s the man would kill him for the sport.”

  Just then, Captain Wylie come trotting up the lane, in all the fine of the morning. The hounds ran out to meet him, yapping gaily. But as they closed the distance they went quiet, for a dog will read his master’s mood most clear.

  I could feel the rage in Wylie before I could see one detail of his face. He glowered, and he treated Rascal rough.

  It was his wont to dismount by the fence post and take himself directly to the house. But this time things went otherwise. He dropped down from the horse and lashed the reins around a rail, kicking at the dogs.

  He ignored the men emerging to meet him and strode across the yard toward my jail. No words describe our many shades of fear.

  The door of the pen slapped back so hard it bounced. Wylie reached inside and grabbed the first part of me he found available. Twas the flap of my tunic, which I had not yet peeled off, for the morning was still cool.

  He dragged me into the yard. I could only stumble with my ankles chained. The light struck fierce.

  “You blue-bellied sumbitch,” he said. “You low-bred, snot-face bastard.”

  I tried to stand up proper like a sergeant. For such have better posture than the officers. And I would not be bullied in my final moments. Although I was not sure my resolve would last.

  I thought, of course, that he had returned to hang me.

  “General Beauregard wants to see you,” he said, in a voice all spit. He could no longer look me in the eyes. The men had gathered round to see a hanging. Now they started in to curse and jeer. “I’m bound to deliver you to General Beauregard himself,” the captain went on in a tone of enduring disbelief. His mouth pursed as if he had swallowed vinegar. “I should’ve hanged you straight off and got it done.”

  “Aw, hang him anyhow, Buck,” one fellow said. “You kin tell the general we hung him while you was gone and it weren’t your fault. I’ll fetch a rope.”

  Wylie turned to face his men. More appeared from the house and barn each moment. They must have slept in piles.

  “We ain’t going to hang him,” the officer said, sun-cured face made crimson by his anger. “Orders is orders. But I swear . . . by God, I do . . . I swear that if he ever comes my way again, he won’t even need hanging.” He glanced at little Dai Evans. “Ev, you water that damn horse of his and walk it a little. I’m going to eat some, then take him on into Corinth.”

  A Rebel dishevelled as a Hindoo holy man said, “Buck, you surely ain’t going to give him back that horse, too? Are you?”

  “It’s his damn horse. It’s nothing but a damn no-good Yankee horse, anyhow.”

  “And,” I said, buttoning up my tunic and tugging my cuffs, “I will have my pistol, thank y
ou.”

  The captain turned and stared, amazed. The men drew closer.

  “You’ll what?” Wylie asked.

  “I’ll have the pistol that you took from me. For it is mine and seized improperly.”

  “Hang him, for Christ-sakes, Buck. Old Borey won’t miss him.”

  “I will not go without my pistol,” I repeated, although my voice was not quite as steady as I might have wished it. “For it was seized against the rules of war.”

  Captain Wylie clenched his fists until they were hard as cannonballs.

  “It is not gloating I am,” I said. “But fair is fair. You kept me in a pen and that was improper. I was no prisoner, but an emissary. Now you must return all that is mine.”

  A shabby creature drew a pistol, cocked the hammer back, and stepped toward me.

  “Buck, why’unt you just look over yonder for a moment. The general couldn’t complain none of an accident.”

  His fellow troopers murmured their agreement.

  But the officer turned his rage on them instead of me. “This is an army, damn it, not some Memphis hoor-house. You’ll follow orders. Every damn one of you. Just like I follow ’em. Any man don’t like it, we can settle it here and be done.” He glared from face to face.

  “Aw, come on, Buck. Gabe didn’t mean no harm.”

  “That’s right. I was only fooling, Cap’n.”

  Wylie swung toward me again. He looked me up and down with frank disgust. “Truth is, boys, this here tiny little Yankee ain’t worth the hanging. Just look at him. Now where’s my breakfast? Ada broke out any ham this morning?”

  A last brave, bitter voice said, “He killed McGilley, Buck, and it ain’t—”

  “Just let it go, boys,” Wylie said resignedly. “Let it go. There’s plenty Yankees left that need a killing. Ada? Ada, you got biscuits working? Where are you, woman?”

  The woman, it turned out, was the officer’s wife and the farm his own. He told me that as we rode into town. Not without some pride. There was strange, I will admit, but that is how these people are. His spirit toward me softened with the miles, for the Southron will mean to kill you one moment, then open his heart and his home to you the next. I do not say that we became all friendly. Only that he accepted what passed his way, the way he accepted the flies that dogged our horses.

  It is a different world, the South, and a poor one for most. Although I could not see their stake in the war, these “crackers” were all for the fight. Perhaps they liked the change that war provides. Their lives seemed humdrum, otherwise, and hard. When the battle standard was raised, they rushed toward it. They are proud of what they view as manly skills and make a cause of any slight encountered. But that is the way of things, I suppose, from Ireland to far Kafiristan. The less a man possesses, the harder he fights for it. The rich man bends to fit the changing times. A poor man’s bones are always at a discount.

  But I must not stray too far.

  Even after it was resolved that I would not be hanged, the Rebels offered me no common courtesies. I had a crust and a dipper of water for my meal, as usual, but might not even wash my face and hands. Evans stepped round and handed me my pistol, for the man who had claimed it was off in a terrible sulk. Twas Evans took my leg irons off, as well. Then he let me be while he saw to the horses. I could have run off, but to where?

  Captain Wylie come out and took himself to the privy. Evans waited by the fence with our mounts. When I limped near, Rascal shook his head and snorted. It made a fellow wary. I thought they might at least have kept the horse. I could have used a proper walk just then.

  Wylie strutted toward us, fixing his belt, and Evans whispered:

  “Now you have had a fine birthday gift, Abel Jones. And there is good. For sad I would have been to see you hang. It is an end unworthy of a Welshman. And you a relation.”

  FIVE

  WE TRAVELED A THREADBARE COUNTRY. DESPITE THE succulent green, the soil felt poor and the husbandry negligent. Churned by an army’s muddy retreat, then hardened by the sun, the roads would break the wagon wheel that chanced them. Our horses threw a regiment’s dust, though we had slowed as the heat rose. Deep in a field, a woman steered a plough, twitching the inside line to work her mule. She paused and watched in silence as we passed.

  It seemed a narrow place, this Mississippi, where men did not look past the near horizon. There were no grand plantations by the roadside, only shanties poor as Hindoo nooks. The men who cut these farms out of the forest had dragged their poverty along behind them. As if they feared to let it go.

  The sun erased our shadows. The air brewed thick. I found my surroundings as foreign as India.

  My fine new cap had gone lost in the skirmish that led to my ignominy, but my uniform was otherwise preserved, if meanly soiled. Wylie told me to remove my tunic so its blue would not draw fire. Truth be told, I was glad to be free of the wool. The shirt beneath was filthy, but it did not seem to matter greatly here. I laid the frock across the nose of my saddle. Then I thought me better and stuffed it under my rump. For there is not a great deal of beef on my hindquarters, if you will excuse my indelicacy, and I was bouncing up and down on bones.

  I was not blindfolded, which surprised me. We passed the Rebel outposts with a nod. Once, at a barricade of logs, we stopped for a ladle of water. A sergeant touched the brim of his cap and said, “Regards to Ada, Buck. How’s them dogs?”

  “Passable, Clem,” Wylie answered. “Ain’t getting out much. War and all. Dog needs to run, if you want him keen.”

  “That’s a fact.” The sergeant considered my trousers. His eyes moved to the coat stuffed under my backside. “That little fella a Yankee, Buck?”

  “More or less.” Wylie slurped more water.

  “Looks like he still got him a pistol.”

  Wylie handed back the dipper. “Ain’t loaded. Best to the missus, Clem.”

  And we rode on.

  As we were approaching Corinth, earthworks shouldered the road. Faces watched us from the parapets, but their curiosity never rose to a challenge. Jackets hid stacked rifles from the sun. Tents laced the groves and knotted every tree line that faced north. The heat pressed down on all. And this was April. I wondered what their summers must be like.

  I smelled sickness in the camps. Wounded men in plenty there may have been, but it was the sourness of disease I caught in my nose. All fetid bowels and sweat it was, not the minty rotting of gangrene. I knew the reek from hot-weather campaigns in India, when more men fell to fevers than to jezails.

  The Rebel encampments were uniform only in their slovenliness, and the soldiers looked slack. We passed unkempt fortifications and, by the batteries, gabions shaded idle cannoneers. I saw a defeated army. These Confederates could have been brushed aside, had our generals moved with dispatch. I pitied us such dereliction. I did not know that Grant was in disfavor, with General Halleck in personal command and creeping south by inches, schooled in caution. But I must cling to my story, so let that bide.

  Wylie had done me a good turn unintended. His days of riding Rascal had tempered the beast. I could not like one shred of the experience, but riding had become less unpredictable. Do not imagine that the horse obeyed me. It merely kept to the pace of Wylie’s mount. Still, that was progress.

  We heard cheers up ahead. You would have thought a bastion had been carried, except that there were no shots. I turned to Wylie with a question spread over my face, but he had caught a scent and put his nose up, peering past the trees that blocked our view. Without a word, he teased his mount to a canter. Hastening toward a rise where the grove gave way.

  Rascal hurried after, bruising my bruises.

  From the knoll, we saw a disorderly crowd and heard the drumming of hooves. Rascal perked up like a wicked child. Of a sudden, the cheers resumed. Above the throng of heads and waving hats, a pack of riders rushed toward a post.

  Twas a horse race. There is wicked. Men ride to the devil and money is wagered. Liquor is consumed. Profanity pursues bo
th man and beast. Shameless women have been known to attend, though, to be fair, I saw none such on that particular day. But it is a constellation of depravity, the horse race, and a decent fellow wants none of it.

  Wylie spanked his mount with his hat and went off at a gallop. Rascal asked no further encouragement, but shot along as if in a race himself. I held on for dear life and seemed forgotten.

  I nearly pitched over headlong when we pulled up. I ended with my arms round Rascal’s neck. Wylie had halted just at the rear of the crowd.

  A race was done and money passed about. Beside me, Wylie stood up in his stirrups, searching the field.

  Then he settled. Grinning. “Lord,” he said to me, as if to an old friend, “I do love a horse race. Ain’t nothing like a horse race.”

  Now, I have seen proper garrison tourneys, and that is a separate matter, conducted between officers on Indian service when the weather cools. A certain propriety is observed and there is a testing of skills applicable to the military. There is no squalor. Such events may be tolerated, if not condoned, by Christian men. I am even told that fine society is not above watching a race in England, although I suspect the tongues that tell of such affairs speak indulgently of the wealthy and debauched for selfish interests. But this was just a rabble at a fencerail. Gawking. Untoward stimulation had, I fear, made them intemperate.

  Now, you will say: “I have been counting days, and this was a Saturday, and should not soldiers have a bout of leisure? You, yourself, have said their lives are hard.” But I will tell you: The devil loves a Saturday afternoon, when drink and gambling have ruined many a youth. A man should use such hours for reflection. And though I did not wish the Rebels victory, the old soldier in me gets his powder up when he sees a hard-smacked army doing nothing when it should be fixing every cause of failure. Here, all was indulgence. Jugs of liquor bobbed from hand to hand. On the edge of the crowd, two men went to fisticuffs. Their language was as naked as their feet.

  The next running paired but two riders. I could not help observing them as they come up, for I was at the mercy of my escort. The first fellow was a sooty, bearded sort, with that ropy look the Rebels often had. As he was hatless for the race, the sun caught the gleam of sweat where hair had quit him. His horse had a reddish tint akin to Rascal’s.