Death on the River

by John Wilson

  “What are the Raiders?” I let go of Billy’s shirt.

  “Mosby’s Raiders. That’s how we survive, Jake. See that big tent yonder?” Billy points to a large patchwork tent set up on the far side of the compound, close to the dead line where the creek runs into the camp. Now that Billy’s pointed it out, I can see that the big tent, and those round about it, are cleaner and in better condition than the rest of the camp.

  “That’s the Raider’s headquarters,” Billy says. We begin walking down toward the tent. “The boss lives there. His name’s William Collins, but he likes everyone to call him Mosby after that rebel raider. Story is, Collins ran his own street gang in New York. It’s said he controlled all the cheap whisky and whores south of Forty-second Street.”

  “How did he end up here?” I ask.

  “He got too big, or he didn’t pay off enough of the right people. Anyways, he made powerful enemies and the gangs round him moved in to pick up the scraps. With most of his men either dead or runnin’, he had to get out of there. Ended up with a gang in the Shenandoah Valley, but back in ’62 that was Stonewall Jackson’s territory. Collins started gettin’ big ideas and callin’ hisself Mosby. He says there was a battle, but I heard it weren’t nothin’ more’n a skirmish. Those of Collins’s men who didn’t run fast enough ended up here, and that was the beginnin’ of the Raiders.

  “Hold up.” Billy thrusts his arm across my chest. “We don’t want to tangle with this.”

  A small cart, drawn by two stumbling men, crosses the path in front of us. Its progress is followed by a chorus of curses from the people who have sprawled out onto the path and have to move to allow it by. On the bed of the cart lie three emaciated, naked corpses, their limbs flopping hopelessly over the edge with each bump.

  “Dead cart,” Billy says, carelessly. “There’s thirty thousand men in this hellhole,” he continues as we move on. “Dozens is dyin’ every day. Only way to survive is to organize. That’s what the Raiders do, organize. We share what we has and take care of each other. And we’re al’ays on the lookout for fit young lads such as yourself to join us. How old are you, Jake Clay?”

  “Eighteen,” I answer.

  “Eighteen,” Billy repeats. He’s several inches shorter than me, which means he has to look up when he speaks to me. His look is slyly arrogant and makes me feel uncomfortable.

  “You must have joined up young.”

  “I volunteered a year ago,” I say.

  “Volunteered!” Billy exclaims. “Ain’t no one volunteers no more, ’cept maybe a few rich folk as wants to strut in an officer’s uniform back at headquarters and say they bin in a war.”

  Billy sniffs noisily. “Draft got me, like all the other poor slobs who ain’t got the money to pay someone poorer’n them to go in their place. Why in hell’d you volunteer?”

  “My older brother Jim was killed in the cornfield at Antietam.”

  Billy nods understandingly. “And you wanted to get revenge on them filthy Rebels.”

  I don’t say anything. I didn’t join up for revenge, but I don’t want to explain my family to Billy.

  “Where was you took?” Billy breaks into my thoughts.

  “Cold Harbor in the Wilderness Campaign.”

  “That was quite the fight, I hear,” Billy says thoughtfully. “Story is that old Grant left the wounded out on the battlefield to die rather’n appear weak and be the first to ask fer a truce. Was you wounded, Jake, boy?”

  “I was knocked unconscious in the fight at the breastworks. Rebels pulled me in.”

  “You was lucky then. Me, I was taken at Chancellorsville in the spring of ’63. To tell the truth, I was runnin’ away from the whole bloody mess, but wouldn’t you know it, I ran straight into half of Lee’s army. Bin in one prison or another since, but this here’s the worst.”

  As we head down the slope, I am continually aware of how fit, healthy and well-dressed I am compared to the average inmate. All around me, exhausted bodies lie near death, and dull eyes stare enviously at my jacket. I’ll do anything not to end up like them, another member of the walking dead whose only goal is to summon up enough energy to stagger up the hill and cross the dead line. It might not be fair that I’m here, but I can’t do anything about that. All I can do is swear to myself that I’ll survive.

  We’re almost at the Raiders’ tent now and the surroundings are improving. A group of healthy-looking men stand outside the entrance flap talking.

  The creek water coming in under the stockade beside the big tent is muddy, but at least here it is still flowing between firm banks. Farther on, the banks disintegrate and the water barely moves through stinking black puddles.

  A man steps out of one of the smaller tents, walks to the creek, drops his pants and squats. Almost immediately, a large man leaves the group, approaches the squatting man and punches him hard on the side of the head. The man falls into the water.

  “What the hell you think you’re doing?” the big man says. The other man struggles to pull up his pants and stand. “You know we don’t foul our own nest. You need to shit, you go downstream out of our territory.”

  The big man punches his victim in the face once more and turns away. He notices Billy and me.

  “Got a new recruit for the Raiders?” the big man asks. His head is almost square and his face shows the marks of a violent life. The eyebrows are swollen like a prize fighter’s and his nose looks as if it has been broken several times. A curved, ragged scar dominates his left cheek above a scraggy growth of beard. I feel a shiver run down my spine as the man leers at me, exposing a mouthful of broken, tobacco-stained teeth.

  “Yes, sir,” Billy replies, standing up straighter. “This here’s Jake Clay. Taken in the Wilderness and but eighteen years old. Jake, meet William Collins, the boss of Mosby’s Raiders.”

  SEVEN

  Mosby takes my hand in his huge hairy mitt and squeezes. I can feel my knuckle bones grating against each other. I doubt that showing any weakness in front of this man is a good idea, so I clench my teeth and try not to wince.

  “You wanna be one of my Raiders?” Mosby asks.

  “I hear that’s the best way to survive here, sir,” I say.

  Mosby nods. “That it is.” He increases his grip on my hand. “There’s a membership fee. How much money did you bring in?”

  “Not much,” I say, thinking of the six silver dollars I have sewn in the lining of my jacket.

  Mosby pulls me closer until I can smell his foul breath. “That’ll do then. Hand it over.”

  I hesitate. Mosby’s face is so close I can feel his spit on my cheek when he talks. “I know a nice brought-up boy like you got something hid away, and it ain’t that worthless Confederate paper.

  “Now, you got a choice, Jake Clay. You can pay the fee and live safe with the Raiders. We look after our own. Ain’t that right, Billy?”

  Billy nods and smiles.

  “Or”—Mosby tilts his head to the side at the rest of the camp—“you’re free to go out there.”

  My hand is going numb and my jaw aches from clenching it against the pain.

  Suddenly, the grip on my hand is released. I gasp with relief. Mosby moves his hand to feel the collar of my jacket.

  “Mind,” he says, “come winter, lots of folk here don’t mind a few bloodstains on a nice warm jacket like this, and I seen men get their throats slit for a lot less.”

  I think back to the envious looks I received as I walked through the camp. Mosby’s probably right about men getting their throats cut for a good jacket. And I suspect it’s his Raiders who do most of the cutting.

  “Okay,” I say. I take my jacket off and rip the lining open. My hand hurts, but I ignore it and reach in to pull out the coins. They clink as I pour them into Mosby’s hand.

  “Welcome to the Raiders,” Mosby says as all the money I own in the world disappears into his pocket. “Billy, young Jake can bunk in with you. Take him and the boys out tonight. Check out them new arrivals.”
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br />   “Yes, boss,” Billy says, but Mosby has already turned away.

  “That was money well spent,” Billy tells me as he leads the way to a small tent up the hill from the headquarters.

  “It was everything I had,” I say.

  “Don’t fret. It ain’t smart to cross Mosby, and you’ll get some of your money back tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  We arrive at a tent. It’s army issue with fewer tears and patches than many I’ve seen. In front of it, three men sit around a tiny fire watching a black pot of watery-looking soup.

  “New tentmate, boys,” Billy says cheerfully. The three men simply grunt.

  “Ain’t the most sociable types,” Billy says with a laugh. “Grab a mess tin and have some soup.”

  I do as Billy suggests, and he ladles a couple of spoonfuls of thin gray liquid into my tin. There’s a layer of grease floating on the top and a few unidentifiable pieces of meat lying on the bottom. It tastes oddly bitter, but I don’t care. I haven’t eaten anything but a couple of hard biscuits and a hunk of stale bread for three days.

  “Tonight,” Billy explains as he helps himself to some soup, “we go farming.”

  “Farming?”

  Billy and the other three laugh. “Bringing in the crops,” one of them says.

  “Them boys that come in with you this mornin’,” Billy continues. “They bin with you a while?”

  “Most were taken with me at Cold Harbor,” I say, “but I don’t know any of them. Couple of others joined along the way here.”

  “Ain’t none of them friends of yours then?”

  On the journey here, I deliberately didn’t talk to any of the others. The only one I said more than three words to was the skinny kid, and that was only because he followed me around like a lost puppy.

  “No,” I reply. “All my friends are dead.”

  Billy nods. “Friends tie a man down, and I do notice that, in this here war, they have a habit of dyin’.”

  “What’s farming?” I ask.

  “Like yourself,” Billy says, “most boys who ain’t been held prisoner too long got some money or valuables hid somewhere on them. Money, a watch, a pocketknife, even buttons; it’s all good fer tradin’. Now you was lucky I spotted you. Mosby don’t let everyone be a Raider. You get somethin’ fer your money. The rest just get relieved of some extra weight.”

  “Robbery?”

  “I prefer to think of it as gathering in the crop from the ripe plants that comes our way.” One of the other men laughs coarsely. “Like I said,” Billy continues, “we got to organize to survive in Hell, and the Raiders do that. You got a problem with what I’m sayin’?”

  So this is the choice Mosby offered me—join his gang of thieves and live, or be thrown back into the rabble to die. Mosby frightens me, I don’t trust Billy and I don’t want to be a robber, but I’m scared of dying even more. The normal rules don’t apply in this place.

  “I don’t have a problem,” I say.

  “Good.” Billy tips up his mess tin and slurps the last of his soup. He burps loudly and wipes his greasy lips. “Can’t beat a good hearty bowl of rat soup.”

  EIGHT

  “And don’t be afraid to use it.” Billy hands me a rough club. “Quiet’s what’s important in this work, and there ain’t nothin’ like a gentle tap with a solid knot of hickory to quieten a troublemaker.”

  “Thanks,” I say, hefting the club. It’s not large but the dark knot that forms the head gives it a good weight.

  “Personally, I prefer a blade,” Billy says, running his finger lovingly along a long thin knife that glints in the moonlight.

  I look around. The sky is clear and the moon almost full. All around the Raiders’ part of the camp, small groups of shadowy figures are moving out.

  “How do they know where the new arrivals are?” I ask.

  “I weren’t the only Raider that met you boys yesterday.” It’s light enough to see Billy’s grin. “We know where most of them is bunked.

  “Sam, here”—Billy waves at one of my new tentmates—“he followed one of them, looked like the sort that’s got something of value stashed away.”

  The idea of robbery doesn’t bother me too much. My fellow prisoners mean nothing to me, and if I’m to survive, I’ve got to live by the rules of this place. If I’m clever and lucky enough to get in with the Raiders, and others like the skinny kid are too stupid, then it’s not my fault. I didn’t make the rules here.

  “Right, let’s go. Sam, lead the way.”

  Even with the full moon, moving between the scattered tents and around the bodies sleeping in the open is slow work. Eventually, Sam points to a tattered lean-to on the edge of the swamp. The ground is soft here and the smell so powerful I feel the rat soup tickling the back of my throat. Billy and Sam roughly drag the two surprised occupants of the shelter out into the open. The first one out I’ve never seen before, but the other’s the skinny kid. He stands awkwardly, trying to rub the sleep from his eyes.

  “We’re here from the Raiders,” Billy hisses. “We don’t want no trouble, so just hand over your money and we’ll be on our way.”

  Billy is grasping the kid by the shirt. The boy is looking around stupidly. He sees me over Billy’s shoulder and his eyes widen in recognition. They’re blue. Why have I never noticed that before?

  “Jake, is that you? What’s going on?” His voice is high-pitched and too loud.

  Billy slaps the boy hard across the cheek. “Keep your whinin’ down if you know what’s good fer you. We know you got money, so just hand it over.”

  “I got nothin’. Jake, tell him I got nothin’.”

  Billy slaps the boy again.

  The kid starts crying. “I got nothin’,” he blubbers. “I shoulda sewn it into my jacket like you told me to, Jake, but I didn’t. Couple of fellas hustled me when I come in the gate. Took everything. You saw them, Jake.”

  I remember seeing the kid being jostled when we arrived. He was such an obvious target. I feel a twinge of pity. The kid’s so helpless. My brother Jim always said you have to help those weaker than you. But that was a different world. This is Hell, Jim’s dead and the kid’s whine grates on my nerves. I’m annoyed that this isn’t going smoothly.

  “Give him your money, kid,” I say, more harshly than I intend.

  “I don’t have it anymore, Jake.” A track of snot runs from the kid’s nose, and he wipes at it weakly with his sleeve. “They took it at the gate, like I said. I swear to God, Jake. That’s the truth.”

  Billy’s knife blade glints silver in the moonlight.

  “If you want to see another sunrise,” Billy says, holding the point to the kid’s neck, “you’d best give us the money.”

  The kid jerks convulsively and Billy’s blade nicks his throat, leaving a small drop of dark blood.

  The kid squeals. “Oh God, I’m cut. Please don’t kill me.”

  I step forward. This is getting out of control. The kid’ll wake the entire camp. I grab his arm. “Listen,” I say. “Calm down and do as you’re told and everything’ll be all right.”

  At that moment, the other man from the tent lashes out at Sam, whose attention has been focused on Billy and the kid. Sam stumbles to the side and the man breaks away and runs, crashing against tents and triggering a stream of curses. By the time Sam’s back on his feet, the man has vanished.

  The kid half turns and tries to pull away. “Help,” he yells. I drop my club and grab his other arm, trying to keep him under control.

  “Calm down,” I repeat.

  Billy moves closer.

  “He’s going to kill me,” the kid screams. He’s struggling wildly and I am having trouble holding him.

  “Shut up,” I snarl, frustration making me angry. “No one’s going to kill anyone.”

  “Oh God,” the kid gasps and stops struggling. Billy is up close in front of him now, and the kid is staring down between them. I let him go and move to the side.

 
About half the knife in Billy’s hand is sticking straight into the kid’s stomach. The kid is staring stupidly at the knife.

  “Jake?” The kid looks up at me. His expression is an almost comical look of surprise. “Why, Jake?”

  Billy takes a step forward and forces the knife hard up under the boy’s ribs, almost lifting him off his feet. The kid takes in a lungful of air and coughs out a spray of blood. His surprised look vanishes as his features relax. His mouth hangs open, a thin stream of blood running from one corner. His head flops to one side, his knees buckle and Billy lowers him almost gently to the ground.

  I’m in shock. It’s all happened so quickly. “You killed him,” I say stupidly.

  Billy’s already on his knees going through the kid’s pockets and feeling the lining of his jacket. “Look in the lean-to,” he orders. “Maybe the money’s in there.”

  I obey automatically. There are only a couple of thin blankets. Roughly I pull them aside. There’s nothing there except a creased letter. I pick it up. It’s bright enough to read by the moon.

  The letter’s written in a neat hand.

  Dearest Nathaniel,

  I hope this finds you well. Louise sends her regards. She and her mother stopped by for tea last Friday and…I turn the letter over. It ends halfway down the page. In hopes that this dreadful war is over soon and that you can return to your family.

  Your Loving Mother.

  The kid’s never going home. So what? There’s thousands of boys never going home from this war. I crush the letter in my fist and hurl it angrily away.

  I hear Billy curse and crawl out into the open.

  “You find anything?” Billy asks.

  “No,” I say.

  “What’s goin’ on over there?” I look up. There are dark figures looming out of the moonlight. “You Raiders, we’ve had enough of you. Your time to pay’s comin’.”

  There are eight or ten figures and they’re getting closer.

  “Come on,” I say, grabbing Billy’s arm.

  “The money,” Billy says. “We got to get the money.”

  “Damn the money. We got to get away.”