“Molly.”
“You can fly above the waves, John, but there’s no letting go this time, promise me.”
“Molly, I can’t.”
“I won’t wait five minutes after you leave that gate if you don’t. Without this promise I won’t waste one second of my life waiting to hear about how you died.” Molly almost hissed it.
“All right, I promise, I won’t let go,” he said.
“I’ll be waiting, John Michael.”
John reined Pegasus and headed for the gate and another hurrah went up from the throng that echoed along the columns of the porch.
Augie Powell pulled the bridle bit from the horse’s muzzle and raised its head and looked up its nose. He pulled on its lips to lay bare the gums and teeth and nodded a silent acknowledgment to himself that the prospects of the horse enduring the journey north were middling at best. Billie was loading feed in the bed of the wagon as his wife, Bea, stood on the porch of the Powell cabin, their little Willie squatting next to her, fixating on a frog in his hands.
Angus limped sideways down the stairs under the pair of two oversized horseshoes that adorned an old awning in front of the house. He climbed down the steps sideways, favoring the leg that had grown arthritic to the point he could hardly walk. For forty years, he had been the overseer on the Sommersville plantation, but the pain of standing had retired him. He lived out his days on a rocking chair on the front porch of his shack reading his books, a lot in life that suited his temperament. Angus saw Willie within earshot and snapped, “Put water on the back that toad, tortur’n it for no good cause.” Willie darted off the porch and ran to the brook that trickled down rocks out back of the shack. As Angus approached the wagon, Billie climbed the porch steps to Bea and they gently nodded their foreheads to one another and spoke in soft whispers.
Angus limped to the horse and studied Augie over the withers and said, “I knew you’d do it, and go’n and dragg’n Billie into it. You two been runn’n to trouble in them woods since you was knee-high—it’s my fault for lett’n you run wild, I shouldn’t’ve spared the rod.”
“Huh, I don’t recall you spare’n it all that much.”
“This war ain’t gonna be like all that Caesar crap in ’em books I was a damn fool to fill your head with. Them Yankees is rich as Solomon and their side got their own pack of prideful nabobs. Son, they no different than the fools you two is follow’n up there. Neither one gives a hoot how many got to die so long as they keep their coin. Who is this Walker kid, anyhow, think’n he know someth’n about soldier’n?”
Augie synched the billet strap and stared back at Angus. “Pa, that’s it, you done beat your drum enough. Anyhow, Walkers done fitt’d out a hundred Sommersville boys with horse and kit. They put their money up, John Michael go’n; so he ain’t like the rest of all ’em all pay’n some other boy to take their place.”
“Walker got five hundred hands in them fields; he could fit out a thousand and wouldn’t feel no pinch; and lo’ and behold that sapling is now some captain of cavalry. Walker’s daddy let’m go ’cause he thinks it’s good for business. I swear every fool in this county caught the fever of this here nonsense. Walker’s daddy gonna earn coin off this war, you mark my words and heed that. And it be Bea over there with her two pennies, she be the widow giv’n more than any of ’em money lenders.”
“Pa, we leav’n. I’ll bet you two bits to a penny we back by Christmas morn.”
“In a pine box if you is back by Christmas. Son, you got to use them blessed smarts of yours. You watch out for you and Billie, and don’t go follow’n some biggity fool down a rabbit hole you two can’t crawl back out.”
Through his field glasses Walker surveyed the hill in the distance swarming thick with Napoleons and 24-pound howitzers. The great gamble of the infantry flank attack had shocked the Yankees and they had fled in disarray down the roads and across the open fields. He stood on a high knoll south of the Yankee hill next to Corporal Powell. He took a moment to scout the land about him and bore witness to the fiery chaos stretching in every direction. To his east, he could see plumes of black smoke and hear the deafening thud of mortars as the missiles crunched and pulverized the earth into submission. Lone Confederates mounted on fast steeds darted to and fro across the scarred and broken tree lines, carrying hastily penciled orders from high command that reached maneuver units at the very moment changed circumstances dictated different strategies. To the west, he witnessed a column of five hundred rebels marching down a farm field road at double time in his direction only to halt and about-face and head with equal urgency in the opposite direction.
Walker had waited in the shadow of this knoll for two hours for orders. The Yankee artillery unit was digging in and barricading its flanks with caisson. He knew enemy support infantry would eventually reach the position and render it impregnable to cavalry. The thick smoke carried on a spring breeze drifted across his vision, and he waited until an alley of sight swayed open. He spied a mounted officer through his field glasses. The Yankee sported a trim mustache and a little spot of hair beneath the lower lip. He had adorned himself with polished brown leather boots that reached nearly to his crotch and the cuffs of his white leather gloves flared to his elbows. Walker could tell he was highborn New England, probably Massachusetts; it would not have surprised him to learn the officer’s kin had shuffled down the plank of the Mayflower. Walker watched him upon his magnificent black steed. He handled the stallion with deftness and rode back and forth across the cannon line encouraging his troops. Walker saw the artillery men rallying to the patriot in their midst; the lone man trying to seize the day and alter the fortunes of a nation.
Walker handed the field glasses to Corporal Powell, who stood beside him.
After a moment, Walker said, “It’s now or never.”
Augie responded, “I reckon, that pilgrim work’n them boys up into a tizzy.”
Walker knew the moment was now but his orders were to hold. He was not to assault until he heard from Colonel Smith. He had two company of horse under his command ready to charge and every minute of delay ticked an eternity in his mind. The captain of the second company was dead. Handsome Jack Carlton had been shot in the mouth and died choking to death on lead and blood behind a muddy parapet. Colonel Smith had joined Carlton’s company to his boys some two hours ago and that was the last he had heard from his commander. He looked down the reverse slope of the knoll at the two hundred horsemen. They sat their horses in ranks of fifty as quiet as church mice. The only movement was the reflexive hunch of their shoulders when mortars landed in the distance and the air cracked with lighting strikes of sound. Walker knew the farm boys were uncomprehending of such noise, and the idleness, the lack of action, amidst the madness, was eating away at their resolve.
“I expect orders shortly,” Walker muttered.
“Snow get here too, eventually, sir,” Augie drawled in response.
Walker grimaced at the remark and took back the field glasses. He looked but the enemy position lay fully shrouded in the waves of black smoke that drifted from an artillery duel somewhere off to the west. They mounted their horses and rode back down the knoll. Walker reined up in front of the ranks and sat his horse, feeling foolish. He looked at the familiar faces of his Sommersville boys and it fortified him. They had fought in a half-dozen skirmishes and he knew they had gumption, but his doubts mounted again when he realized he had never asked them to charge a fixed position of cannon. He sat there brooding and his doubts multiplied, including the notion that Handsome Jack’s men didn’t know a goddamn thing about him. He cursed again his indecision and muttered to himself, “Ah, the hell with it, luck favors the crazy.”
He would gamble. He figured he could fire up his boys and flirted with the vague confidence that Handsome Jack’s boys would catch the fever and follow because anything was better than standing still in this madness. He stood tall in the stirrups in front of the ranks, the butterflies churning in his stomach and his heart thumpin
g so hard he worried the boys could see it pulsing beneath the thick wool of his tunic.
“Men, our brothers in the infantry have kicked some Yankee tail today.”
And a muted hurrah went up from the ranks.
“But our enemy is not broken; the invader holds positions on this side of the river. On that hill a half mile to our front he is building a citadel of cannon. We cannot let him finish that task. I cannot tell you what the next hour of this day will bring, but, here, now, at Chancellorsville, the Almighty has chosen this moment for we few to show them damn fool Yankees how stupid it is to cross our border, invade our homes, and pick a fight with southern boys.” He raised his sword. “For our nation’s freedom let us ride, my brothers, and drive them blue-bellied sons-of-bitches into the river.” Walker angled his sword toward the hill and spurred Pegasus, and a great fear mounted in his breast that nobody was following him. Then he sensed the surge after him, as if he had grabbed a fistful of blanket and dragged it behind him off a newly made bed. He never looked back because he could feel that he was the head of some great pulsing venomous snake. As he galloped northeast around the knoll and gained speed, they were with him. He could feel them in the slightest change of direction of his mount; the vibrations of the earth crackled in waves beneath him, like a swarm of yellow jackets, the two hundred mimicked their leader’s actions—they were many and one.
He hit north and then reined hard west and headed straight for the side of the hill trying to flank the guns before the Yankees could turn and mass their cannon fire. He could see the guns being wrenched from their forward positions and the Yankees dragging them so the barrels faced the charge of horse, and he knew it would be a close-run thing. He spurred Pegasus and the steed surged beneath him. The shuddering of the two hundred shook the earth and a throaty hurrah roared in the air. Two Yankee cannons belched fire. The blast of smoke and heat washed over him but he emerged unscathed and spurred again. He gained the foot of the hill and looked up to see an artilleryman drop a long cannon plunger and flee. The Yankee officer atop the black steed swung the flat of his sword across the soldier’s back and sowed the air with curses upon his soul but the man ran unheeding.
Pegasus climbed the hill in great bounds and the rebels about him screamed bloody oaths. Walker vaulted over a caisson and the mounted Yankee drew his long revolver and fired; the round spit the top of Pegasus’s ear but the animal did not break stride and Walker closed and slashed the man from jowl to shoulder. The blood spurted out from his neck in two faucet spouts and his steed rounded about like a little boy’s wooden toy horse and trotted down the row of cannon. The dead rider bobbled about in the saddle and anointed the ranks of his men with the droplets of his blood. The macabre visage sent a primordial compulsion through the Yankees, as if a dead man riding a dark horse were the incarnation of some ancient superstition, and they fled in streams down the back side of the hill trying to escape the divination.
Those with courage tried to hold, but were slaughtered with sword and pistol. Walker watched in awe as his boys dismounted, turned and loaded the cannons, and unleashed volley after volley, the Yankees scattering for the woods like roaches fleeing a lit candle placed on the floor of a dark kitchen. Walker became wild-eyed with the killing, the blood beating in his ears and the hairs of his body tingling. He dismounted and ran the line of cannons and bade his men to fire and fire again. He vowed that they would charge the woods and butcher every last one of them and not stay the slaughter until the river flowed red with blood. His passion frothing, he mounted again and reined Pegasus but his eyes looked upon the western sky and he saw the deep and wide expanse of crimson being devoured by the land. He raised his fist and railed at the day’s end, wishing he were Joshua and could summon the Almighty to arrest the day so the battle could rage on eternally. Walker stared at the sky and a flood of fatigue washed over him.
Later, as the shadows blanketed the woods to the north, he was ordering the boys to fix the cannon and brace for a counterattack when Colonel Smith and adjutant, Major Barnes, crested the rise on their horses. Walker formally greeted the colonel, who dismounted and strode toward the vantage point on the north side of the hill with a martinet’s prance. He held out his hand and Major Barnes filled it with field glasses.
The scores of dead and dying in the field below looked like the scattering of toppled scarecrows. The soft wind carried the moaning, and the twilight revealed the shapes of bloody hands raised from awkward piles of limbs begging for water or beseeching for a mother’s comfort. The silhouette of a lone Yankee could be seen with his right leg torn from his body; he kept trying to walk on the phantom limb, only to fall again and again, like some broken stick-figure puppet manipulated by a sadist.
The colonel scanned the north woods, which lay dark and silent without a trace of the enemy, and paid little heed to the vestiges of life in the field. He lowered his glasses and nodded slowly, as if the torments had been righteously called forth into this world by an act of his will. He twisted his upper body to engage Walker, “Captain, I can tell you that this day has not gone unremarked, the general sends his regards. He has been briefed that you were trusted with the point of the regiment’s lance this day. Regrettably, my duties prevented me from leading the charge. I envy you Providence’s favor to grant you such a station on such a glorious day for our nation.”
Walker nodded.
“Yes, a fine victory, very fine. The tax, of course, for victory is paid with the blood of patriots. Carlton died gloriously, as did Powers, and Major Hughes lays in a cot from which I fear he shall never rise. The birth of a free nation, like a new soul, cannot be brought forth without blood, don’t you agree, Captain?”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Smith bade Walker to sit with him on the parapet overlooking the field and like a father congratulating a child he placed his hand on Walker’s shoulder.
“John, I understand your people came from old Virginia, built their fortune cultivating tobacco.”
“Yes, sir. The story goes a hundred years ago my people sold the tobacco fields and headed south to raise cotton because the old Virginia families would not forget they were newcomers.”
“Hah, hah, hah, we are a stuffy bunch. I understand too that you and I come from highborn blood in the old country. A duke? Hah, I had the order of a knight on my mother’s side. As fathers to slaves, you and I understand better than most how time does little to diminish what runs in the blood. I wager noble warriors in our clans joined ranks in centuries past on hills such as this one. John, I am entrusting you with Carlton’s and Powers’s companies. You have a battalion to command now, Major Walker.”
“Yes, sir.”
Augie stood holding the reins of Pegasus, dabbing liniment on the horse’s mangled ear, using the handkerchief he took from the pocket of the dead Yankee officer. He listened to the two talk amidst the anguished cries in the field below and he fought the dread that rose in his chest. He was convinced now the colonel was a plumb fool. Walker was no fool but he didn’t know if Walker believed a word of what this colonel was spouting or if he was just pretending, playing the part of the junior officer. The colonel’s chattering raked the coals of his memory and the embers of Angus’s forebodings rose from the ashes and burned in his mind. He tied the reins of the dead Yankee’s stallion and Pegasus to a caisson and sat down heavy on the muddy traverse, holding the reins of his cagey old mount, which took to nuzzling him about his shoulder. A work crew in the deepening darkness lit a lantern and he gazed at Billie hefting a cannon wagon so the two soldiers could reattach a wheel to the axle. He cursed himself for dragging that big boy into his adventure.
Nearly two years to the day after they took the hill at Chancellorsville, Walker sat his horse and watched the half-crazed stares of Rebel infantry spill out from the killing tangle of the Wilderness. When the field was taken at Chancellorsville, the Yankees had scrambled away leaving wagons and horses standing in their traces, whole regiments collapsing in a great dash n
orth. Walker rode forward on reconnaissance and from a wooded ridge he spied the Union army, which had lost the field at Spotsylvania the day before. He saw a sea of blue stretching in serpentine lines to the horizon, marching on despite the rebels having filled the woods full of their dead. A few days later at Yellow Tavern, the Sommersville boys were thrashed for the first time by Union cavalry, losing a score in a single cavalry clash lasting a moment, and the fabric of their courage frayed.
In the camps at night the boys took the only solace they could, sipping Colonel Smith’s pilfered whiskey and telling tales about home. They took turns conjuring up ghost stories from the past. Three nights after Yellow Tavern, the Sommersville boys lay about a fire pit in a half circle of strewn blankets, using their saddles as headrests. The night was without a moon and the fire crackled with wooden fence posts. The boys had torn the posts from the ground where they had stood unmolested for a decade. Savage acts to the locals but to the boys it was their right to gain a moment’s respite from the war–a soldier’s means to carve out a chunk of time from the eternal clock before it tolled again in the morning, summoning battle and another day of dying.
Three dozen had defied the odds these four long years, and they sat close, resting and leaning on each other, the fire’s light illuminating the sharp angles of the salt lines that scarred the tattered blankets they shared. Moment to moment the jug of stolen whiskey would surface and navigate about the half circle filling canteen cups until it sank again into a hole secreted under a worn saddle. Most nights they would sense Walker’s approach and one of their number would ring out with a “Fine evening, sir, think we’ll have rain” to alert the others to an officer’s presence. The storytelling would ebb to silence. Walker would exchange a greeting and before the awkwardness seeped into his bones he would retreat to the officers’ tent to engage in their formal exercises of banter. As he would depart, the familiar cadence of their storytelling would flow and the easy laughter of their world would once again punch the night air.
Angels of North County Page 14
