The Last Full Measure

by Ann Rinaldi

  David closed the door, expecting anything. I got right to it.

  "When you go down to see Mr. Cameron, you're going to find a note on his lapel," I told him.

  He scowled. "Explain."

  "His son wrote it and left it for his pa."

  He nodded his head slowly, his eyes narrowing. David was nothing if not wise. "His pa was sleeping and he did not wake him," he said dully.

  "Yes."

  He cursed. Nobody could curse like David. It was never in anger, always done softly and carefully, almost like a prayer. I think God must have taken it as one, because—and I hope this is not blasphemy—God's name was somehow always in it.

  Silence between us for a moment while I waited to see where he was going to lay blame. Likely on me.

  I was right. "You were there with him."

  "Yes."

  "You gave him the paper and pencil for the note?"

  "Yes."

  "Why didn't you wake Mr. Cameron?"

  I'd asked myself that a hundred times since Michael had left. I'd asked myself in my sleep. "I don't know, David. I thought about it, but I didn't know if I had the right to."

  "The right? The right? You had the obligation! That man's father is in our house. We are caring for him. And that is part of caring for him. Seeing after his interests. God, Tacy, don't you have any sense at all? I thought that sooner or later you'd acquire some, unselfconsciously, at least, just absorb it like a flower absorbs the sun!"

  I started to choke back tears.

  "No crying. I won't have it! Come along with me."

  I ceased crying before it even started. The tears were scared out of me. I followed him out of Pa's study, down the hall, and past Mama and Josie, then down the cellar stairs. There we found Mr. Cameron, still sleeping. We stood over him just half a second.

  Then David reached down and gently took the note from him.

  "David, no!" I whispered.

  His scowl was so fierce that all it needed was black powder to wound me in the head.

  He gave the note to me. "Don't read it," he directed. "Rip it up."

  "But, David, we have no right!"

  "We have no right to let him have it and break his heart. Or maybe kill him on the spot. Now rip it up."

  I did so. Then he took the pieces and, for good measure, threw them in the fire that burned in the cellar hearth.

  "Tell this to nobody," he said.

  I could not believe what we had just done. What I had just done at his bidding. Of course, I had no choice: I had to do his bidding. I had to obey him. Mama herself had told me that.

  But how, how could he have been so certain that he was right? How could he always be so sure of his own rightness and never question himself? Never waver for a moment to see the other person's side of it? Not even for a God-given little minute? Myself, somehow, despite my young years, I always knew there was another side to everything, and that was what frightened me in this world. The other side of things, and the fact that I might not see them.

  But not my brother David—oh, no. He knew all and he saw all, God help him.

  I personally was acquainted with people who prayed to be like David, and likely would never make it. Was it a blessing in the end to be like him? Or was it a curse? Only God knew, I decided. All I knew was that it must be a terrible burden.

  We went upstairs and David told Josie to fix supper for Mr. Cameron, to bring it down and wake him up to eat.

  Without looking at me, he said. "Come and talk to me sometime when you acquire some sense."

  It was worse than being slapped.

  By now, Yankee officers were taking their lives in their hands to ride through the street and yell, "Women and children to the cellars! The Rebs are going to shell the town!"

  So David helped me and Josie bring mattresses and pillows and blankets down to the cellar. Josie, who lived with her own mother a block away, usually went home at night, but this night David asked her to stay. He was fearful to let her go.

  We slept in the cellar that night, all of us except David. I don't know where he slept or if he slept. He brought in extra straw from the barn to put beneath the mattresses, careful to keep it away from the hearth, warning us sternly not to put lanterns near the straw and supervising all around. Josie brought down a fresh pot of coffee and all that went with it. And soon we were comfortably ensconced in the cellar, if that word could be correctly applied to our situation, what with the constant explosion of shells going on outside.

  I don't know if the correct word to describe the sound of the shells is screaming or piercing or screeching or shrilling, because just as they got done doing all that, they exploded and burst and violated the night and tore and ripped and destroyed and ruined everything I felt was secure and safe and holy and sacred inside me.

  I lay there under my blanket, away from everyone else, trembling. The whole world was surely breaking in two, and it would never be whole again after this night. I felt the house shaking. I pulled my blanket over my head. Everybody in the room was quiet. All that could be heard was the crackling of the fire in the hearth and the occasional footsteps of David upstairs.

  Then some time went by. I don't know how much, because the way things were, time could no longer be measured in the same manner. The dimensions of its value now must be the number of lives lost with each shell.

  I heard David's footsteps coming down the stairs. I tried not to whimper. I did not want him to think I was a sissy-boots now, along with completely having no sense.

  He was walking around, likely inspecting everything. I heard him pause, checking things. Oh, I wished he'd go away. I managed not to whimper, but I knew I was still trembling. Then I was mindful that he had stopped and was standing over me.

  I pretended to be sleeping.

  "Tacy?" his whisper came.

  I tried to breathe easily.

  I felt his hand at the edge of my blanket, cautiously pulling it down from my face. I did not open my eyes. Next I felt a kiss on the side of my face, so gentle it was like a butterfly had decided to land there for just a minute, then flew away.

  My heart stopped. Hearts do that sometimes. Then he adjusted the blanket so it came to just below my chin and walked away, going back up the stairs.

  I stopped trembling and fell asleep.

  ***

  SOMETIME DURING the night, Marvelous came. She was there in the morning in a corner of the cellar, wrapped in a quilt, sitting up and grinning at me.

  I had slept late in spite of everything, all the shelling, the noise, the crowds of Rebs in the street outside. Everybody else except Mr. Cameron was upstairs having breakfast. He was outside, having gone to the outhouse, accompanied there by David, Marvelous told me.

  "Where did you come from?" I almost screamed it at her.

  She came to kneel down beside me. "'Bout time you got up. I wanted to wake you, but that brother of yours said no, let her sleep. I came in the middle of the night. My daddy, he brought me. And David said yes, he'd keep me, and he brought me right down here. My mama, she wanted me to come. There be so many wounded in that church now, there be no place for me to sleep. And the Rebs, they're taking over the town."

  "They are?"

  "Yes, and my mama said, if they come into the church she'll fight them to the death, and so will the other women, before she'll go with them, but she doesn't want me in the middle of it. So she sent me here."

  I hugged her. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Let's go upstairs for breakfast."

  ***

  IT WAS THE second of July, and we did not know what to expect next. The terrible shelling had stopped, yes, but only because the Confederates did seem to have taken over the town.

  We were prisoners in our own village, if you wanted to think of it that way.

  Outside the sky was a clear blue and the sun was bright, and I thought, eating my eggs and bacon, how any other year this time we'd be making food for a Fourth of July picnic. But I said nothing. Maybe I was finally acquiring s
ome of that sense David had accused me of not having.

  We all ate quickly, in silence.

  Except for David. He had already been out and about. He told us that the Confederates had erected barricades at the end of the streets and dismantled backyard fences. "Some Rebs have been in houses, demanding to be served breakfast," he said. "If they come in here, we've got to oblige them. Tacy, you stay out of the way. Marvelous, you stay out of sight. No arguments from anybody. Give them what they want and they'll go away. We've got whiskey. Two bottles of it in Pa's study. If they ask for whiskey, give it over. And whatever you do, don't sass them."

  The subject was so solemn, so unreal, that nobody said anything.

  "Now, I'll be here most of the day. I've just got to escort Josie home to see if her mother came through the night all of a piece. Somebody already told me they saw our cow, Daisy, in a field near the railroad. On the way home from dropping Josie off I'm going to try to bring Daisy home, if it is her. The whole business should take me just an hour. Mama and you girls should be fine until then."

  He got up, took his musket and Josie, and they went out the back door. I stood watching. He mounted his horse and helped Josie up behind him. I minded how she put her arms around his waist, hugging him close, and they were off. It wasn't far to her house, but I knew how she would lean her head against his back, how she would enjoy that ride. I wondered, Would he?

  "It'll be all right," Mama told us. "You finish your breakfast. I'll start to clean up."

  But before we finished, she was sitting down again. Turned out she had a terrible headache. "The shelling kept me awake all night," she said.

  Marvelous and I brought her mattress and bedding upstairs to her bedroom and fixed things up proper-like for her, and in no time she was asleep. Then we crept down and finished cleaning up from breakfast.

  Within ten minutes there was a knocking on the back door. Marvelous and I looked at each other. "Go hide," I told her.

  "Likely it's my mama," she said. "She told me she might be by this morning if the shells didn't kill them all."

  "No, go hide!" I insisted, as I ran to the door.

  I opened it. Three Rebs stood there. Two privates and one lieutenant. "We need some breakfast, miss," the lieutenant said. "Can we come in?"

  Well, you're in already, I wanted to say. Then I minded what David had told us about not sassing them. I backed off and they stood in our kitchen, holding rifles. Their uniforms were dusty, buttons hanging off, sleeves ripped, pants ragged.

  "Smells good in here," one of the privates said. "I smell bacon."

  "Looks good, too," the other private added. He was eyeing me.

  Then they sighted Marvelous standing a little aside near the corner window in the kitchen.

  The private who said he smelled bacon stepped forward. "Well, well—what we got here? This the downstairs gal?"

  "All right," said the lieutenant, "take off your hats and act like gentlemen."

  They did so.

  "I'm Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia," he introduced himself. "This is Private Joel Walker and Private John Calhoun."

  They gave half bows, as if they were at a formal dance, then sat at the kitchen table. I started to make breakfast while Marvelous poured hot coffee and got out the cream. The two privates could not keep their eyes off her.

  In no time at all I had eggs, bacon, bread, cheese, butter, and jelly in front of them. They ate ravenously. I had to make three portions of eggs.

  In between bites, they asked me who else lived in the house. I told them.

  "My mama. She's upstairs sleeping. The shelling kept her awake all last night. My brother David. He's off trying to get back our cow. Somebody stole her."

  How old was David, they wanted to know. Then, why wasn't he in the army? And where was my father?

  I answered all their questions. Were there any other menfolk in the family? I said yes, two other brothers who were with the Second Pennsylvania Cavalry.

  "Ho," said Private Calhoun, "they have intense hostility toward us."

  "Hush," Lieutenant Marshall said. "We wouldn't be at war if they didn't. Fine group of horsemen. I've seen them in action."

  Then the privates asked about Marvelous. "She bound or free?" Private Calhoun questioned. "We heard there were a lot of free darkies in this town. That some of our soldiers captured a lot of 'em and took 'em south."

  "She's free." I might have said it a little too sassily.

  Calhoun looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "That so."

  "Yes," I said, politely now. "That's so."

  "Well, then," said Private Walker, "she's up for grabs, isn'tsh e?"

  "What do you mean," I asked, "up for grabs?"

  "What I mean," Walker explained patiently, "is that we have taken the town as of today, and you all are our prisoners. And that being the case, we can take this darkie girl here—what did you say her name was?"

  "Marvelous," I told him. "Her name is Marvelous Biggs."

  "Marvelous!" He near shouted it. "We can take her with us, because she is our prisoner now. Free no more, but ours. The spoils of war. And we can take her with us back down south. To slavery."

  The room went silent. The coffee bubbled on the stove. I heard Marvelous draw in her breath. I looked at her briefly, then at Walker, who looked so self-satisfied, I wanted to throw a dish of eggs in his face. Then I glanced at Calhoun, who had the audacity to wink at me. If I had David's Colt .45 I would kill him on the spot, I decided. Never mind that I did not know how to use it. I would learn how to use it.

  I looked at the lieutenant. He was sipping his coffee.

  I kept right on looking at him. Someone in this room had better take charge, I thought. And soon. Before I go plumb crazy.

  The lieutenant saw me eyeing him. I don't know what kind of look I had on my face, but he set his cup down in the saucer and smiled at me. "Great coffee," he said.

  My eyes were bulging out of my head. I was waiting, and he knew it.

  "Did you have something you wanted to say to me, Miss Tacy?" he asked gently.

  "Lieutenant." I composed myself, though it took all the effort I had. Somehow I knew that this man would accept no less. "Lieutenant, please, sir, Marvelous is my friend. Don't let them take her away south and put her into slavery. Please, sir. She is a good person. And, she's my friend."

  I wanted to say more. There was so much more I should say! A whole war was being fought out there and people were bleeding to death, and I could not even form the words to tell it.

  I have failed! I have said nothing to save Marvelous. What good am I?

  The lieutenant compressed his lips, nodded his head slightly, and folded his arms across his chest. "Do you think I could have more coffee?" he asked.

  I started to move.

  "No." He put up a hand. "Let Marvelous get it."

  Oh my God, I thought. He's trying to tell me he sees her as nothing but a slave.

  Marvelous moved forward from her corner to fetch the coffeepot from the stove, brought it to the table, picked up the lieutenant's cup, and poured the coffee. Then she set the cup down carefully in front of him.

  He looked up at her. "Thank you, darling," he said.

  She nodded and moved away.

  He took the sugar bowl and put two teaspoons of sugar into his cup and stirred it slowly and carefully. While stirring, he spoke. "This is a terrible war," he said, as if musing to himself. "Men are dying horrible deaths all around. And the reason, the very reason is being acted out right here in this kitchen."

  He put the spoon into the saucer, poured some cream into the coffee, and considered the whole business as if the answer were in the cup. "If I could end it now, I'd end it. But I'm just an insignificant lieutenant. Nobody asks my opinion about important matters. But I'm being given the opportunity to give my opinion about an important matter now."

  He looked up at his men, first one, then the other, then at me. "She's your friend," he said. "I lost two fr
iends so far in this war. The girl stays."

  I jumped up on my toes. I put my hands over my mouth so I would not scream.

  "Call her over here," he said.

  I did so. He gestured she should come to him. When she did, he said to her, "You are free, Marvelous. And you will stay here and stay free. You are not, and never will be, up for grabs."

  Marvelous gave him a curtsy. "Thank you, sir." She ran around the table to me and we hugged.

  Then Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia stood up and looked at his men. "Let's go," he ordered.

  They got to their feet, looking rather shamefaced.

  The lieutenant came over and extended his hand. Thinking he wanted to shake hands, I gave him mine. He bowed and kissed it. "Thank you for the excellent breakfast. We Southerners are not all savages. I don't want you to think of us all that way."

  "I won't, sir."

  He nodded to me, then went out.

  "Oh, Marvelous," I said as we danced around the kitchen, "they're not all bad, after all. They aren't."

  I don't know why it took something like this to make me realize that perhaps they weren't. To understand that perhaps they might be people just like the rest of us, dragged into this war without wanting to be. But I did know that I would remember Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia all of my life. I never knew if he survived the war. But I always hoped he did.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  MIRACULOUSLY, NONE OF this had woken Mama. Marvelous and I cleaned up the kitchen and before another hour had passed, David came riding into the backyard, leading Daisy by a rope.

  Across his saddle, in front of him, he had something. Something wounded. At first glance I thought it might be a human being. At second glance, a baby calf. And then, I saw it was a dog. A wounded and frightened dog. I looked at Marvelous and she at me, and I grabbed a towel and we both ran outside.

  "What do you have there?" I demanded of my brother. I never demanded things of my brother, but this time the occasion warranted it.

  He slid off his horse, grabbed the towel from me, and carefully wrapped the dog in it. It was medium-size, black and white, and it was bleeding from its side. But its eyes were open and it was whimpering.