by Jeff Mann
I wait. I wait. There’s a distant shot. I think of roasted turkey and my belly rumbles. I wait longer, divesting myself of the weight of my blanket roll, haversack, cartridge and cap boxes. A second shot resounds down the valley. I rest my rifle across my knees and put my head in my hands. Behind broken gray clouds, the sun is setting beyond the valley’s western wall, last light lingering along the eastern ridge. The stone is cold beneath me. “Git back here, Yank,” I growl, impatient. “We really should be looking for shelter.”
The flurries thicken; the shadows lengthen. Chilled, I wrap my arms around myself and rest my chin on my chest. Leaves rustle on the forested slope behind me, startling me from my drowse. How did Drew skirt me? Surprised, I grip my musket, rise and turn.
It’s not my Yank. It’s another Yank, in a deep blue uniform. He’s tall, solidly built, in his mid-thirties, from the look of his tanned, lightly lined face. He’s blond and blue-eyed like Drew, with curly hair about his shoulders and a curly mustache over his lip. There’s a pistol in his hand aimed at me. And I have no pistol to pull in return. Drew has it.
“Drop that rifle and that big knife of yours, then put your hands up, boy.”
Silently cursing my own carelessness, I obey. At the same time, I take in the landscape about us, gauging the possibility of escape, preparing to dart into the woods, only to find another blue-clad soldier flanking me. Burly, with a barrel chest and huge shoulders, he’s around the same age and height as his comrade, with lush dark hair, a clean-shaven face, and cruel brown eyes. Their uniforms—I can’t help but note despite my perilous situation—are finer than mine has ever been, even during those hopeful days back in ’61 and ’62. Do these Yanks ever lack for anything? No wonder they’re closer and closer to winning the war.
“You a butternut, aren’t you, son?” says the Yank with the pistol. “Got to be, wild-looking and disheveled as you are.”
“Yes, sir, I am,” I say, setting my jaw and lifting my head. I’m terrified, but I’ll be damned if I cower. This is my country, not his. “And you’ve got to be Federal cavalry, prettily coiffed and nattily garbed as you are.” I curl my lip.
He chuckles. “Your envy is noted. Yes, we’re detached cavalry, cleaning this valley of scum like you. I’m Captain Will Stanton. This is Sergeant Hiram Jones.” He takes a step closer, looking me up and down and shaking his head. “You don’t look like you’ve had a meal in six months. And you’re still fighting? That overheated Southern blood has made you all insane. Dixie’s one vast madhouse, seems to me. Are you alone, boy?”
No way in hell I’ll betray Drew. They can shoot me through the head before I’ll do that. “Yes.”
“Was that you I heard shooting?”
“Yes. I was hunting. Tried to bag a squirrel.”
“Any luck?”
“No. I ran out of ammunition.”
“What’s your name and division?” he says. They both move closer, satisfied that one man will be no threat.
“I’m Private Ian Campbell. I’m not giving you any more information than that.”
“Probably because you’re a spy or a guerilla, which means you’re liable to be shot through the head whenever we feel like it. You’re our prisoner, private. You’re coming with us.” He nods to his companion. “This boy looks half-wild and likely to bolt, given half a chance. Tie him, Hiram. Good and tight.”
I might be able to punch them both out, big as they are, if I could wrest that gun away from them. But it’s too late. The shorter soldier grabs my arms and pulls them behind me. I give him some fight, but when the pistol muzzle is pressed against my cheek, I submit. About my wrists, rope loops and tightens, loops and tightens, loops and tightens. In a few minutes, I’m bound as securely as Drew ever was in our Rebel camp. God, I pray, staring into the gray woods where my golden giant disappeared, don’t let Drew fall into this trap. If he returns right now, unaware, gleefully carrying a bagged turkey, and he startles these soldiers, they might shoot him on sight.
“Get on, scum,” says Hiram, shoving me. I trip and fall onto one knee. He grips me by the arm and jerks me to my feet. Both pistols are trained on me now.
“On up the creek,” Stanton says flatly. “Our horses are over that rocky ridge.” Hiram shoves me ahead of them. I stagger over frozen mud, stub a toe, and nearly trip.
Hard metal jabs my back. “Get on, grayback,” Hiram snarls. “It’s nearly nightfall. If my supper’s cold by the time we get back to camp, I’ll take it out of your hide.” I pick up my pace, heart thumping in my throat. About us the woods are silent, except for the tiny ticking of snow in dead leaves.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
We ride for miles up Craig Creek, Stanton on his black mount and in the lead. Hands bound behind me, I’m unable to clutch the saddle horn, so I balance—tensely, precariously, every other moment convinced that I’m about to topple off—on the saddle in front of Hiram, his big arms steadying me as his dapple-gray gallops along the winding, snow-coated road.
The distance between Drew and me, I am most painfully aware, widens with each passing second. It’s a realization that makes me both fearful—who might save me from this situation but he?—and relieved—at least he’s not in the danger I find myself in. Still, when Hiram’s horse leaps over a particularly wide puddle, I take advantage of the jarring impact to tilt my head to the side and so lose my cap, hoping that Drew might find it, if he’s able to follow, and know that we were by here.
Dusk deepens, intensifying the late-winter gray of hills and valley. At last we slow our pace, trotting up a western knoll overlooking the road. At the crest, another handsome dapple-gray is tethered to a sapling and grazing in a clearing. My captors rein in at the makeshift paddock. Stanton dismounts first, then helps Hiram haul me off. “Come on, boy,” Hiram says, heavy hand gripping the back of my neck. Hands aching, thighs shaking, I obey.
Inside a stand of sheltering pines, three roomy tents are pitched around a crackling fire, where another Yank—this one older, in his forties, perhaps, with a gray mustache and iron-gray hair—is tending a pot. His looks remind me of Sarge, most especially the stern gray-eyed gaze with which he greets me. For a moment, my fear’s adulterated by a sudden surge of guilt, a feeling I shake off. This is no time for sentiment, however appropriate. Sarge is dead. There’s nothing I can do about that. I’m still alive, at least so far. Somehow I’ve got to get out of this.
“Meal ready yet, Silas?” Hiram says. Without warning, he shoves me from behind. I trip and fall face first into the leaves, cutting my cheek on a sharp rock.
“What have we here?” says the cook.
“Another ragged Rebel. Private Ian Campbell, he said his name was. We caught him down by the creek,” Captain Stanton explains. “He says he was hunting for squirrel. We’re not convinced. As it is, the hunter ended up bagged. Right, boy? Should have been more careful, eh?”
I say nothing. Why give them any more pleasure than they’re already enjoying? I roll onto my side, spectacles askew, and glare up at them.
Hiram gives a dry, razory laugh. “Pretty sad catch, I’d say. Looks too lean for the pot.”
“What are you planning to do with him?” Silas asks.
“Guess we can decide that tomorrow,” Stanton responds. “Probably keep him till we get down into the Valley, then send him off to prison up north.”
“Or shoot him for a spy. Or hang him for a bushwhacker,” Hiram suggests with hearty enthusiasm. “That’d be less trouble by far.”
“True,” Stanton agrees.
I shake the spots from my vision and struggle to sit up. The warm wet tickle in my beard is no doubt blood. “I’m a s-soldier on leave, not a guerilla or bushwhacker. You have no call to treat me like a dog.”
“My little brother’s death at Trevilian Station is more than enough reason.” Hiram strides over, digs his fingers into my forearm, and jolts me to my feet. Before I can struggle or protest, he backhands me. My spectacles go flying. The taste of blood—iron and salt—spa
tters my tongue.
“Now, Hiram. He’s a slight thing. Harmless, defenseless. Don’t hurt him,” Silas protests.
“Shut up,” says Hiram, backhanding me again.
Helpless as I am, the red rage that made me such an efficient force on the battlefield surges through me, untimely but inevitable. “Goddamn you,” I snarl, spitting blood on his neat uniform. “You expect me to apologize? Y’all killed my brother Jeff at Antietam! Seems like we’re even. Stop manhandling me, Yank! Or untie me, and I’ll show you how I can fight.”
He slaps me yet again. Blood fills my mouth. Then his fist slams into my belly. Doubling up, I fall to my knees. “Fucking…swine!” I gasp, swaying. Pain fills my belly with acid and fire, fills my head with a dulling black cloud I try to shake off. If I pass out, cruel as this man is, I may never wake up.
“Easy with him, Hiram,” says Stanton. The tone of his voice is less scolding or commanding than bored. “He’s just a boy. We can deal with him tomorrow.”
“You two leave me alone. I’ll do what I please. He’s trash. Like all of them.” Hiram’s fist catches the side of my jaw and I go down. Agony curls me into a groaning ball. The dead leaves are wet against my face; snow’s tiny pins of chill prick my cheek.
“Looks like this turkey stew’s done,” coaxes the cook. “Get over here, Hiram. Leave the lad alone and come eat. It’s really good.”
“One more minute,” says Hiram cheerfully. A warm gob of spit hits me on the cheek, joining the snowmelt there. Wincing, I shift onto my back, blinking up at my assailant. There are two of him now; they’re smiling and blurred, as if they were mocking me behind a pane of filthy glass.
“You l-lemme loose, Yank, and I’ll…p-punch your face in. Ain’t no one can box like me,” I mumble, licking blood from my lips and shaking the oozing sleep from my head. “Goddamn y’all to hell. Why’d you ever come down here? Y-you git on home, you fucking Feds. Git on home, or, better still, go to hell, you—”
Hiram’s boot swings back, and woe explodes along my spine, lightning shooting down an oak’s trunk. The clouds thicken, mossy at the edges, pure black, rustling like leaves, stuffing my skull. Whimpering, fighting to stay conscious, I curl back into a tight ball, just as Drew used to do when he suffered so sharply in our camp. Help me, Drew. Stay away, Drew. Firelight flickers over my face. A single sob slips from my lips. Don’t be a coward, Ian. Don’t let them take pleasure in your fear, in the sounds of your pain. Head swimming, I grit my teeth and close my eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Fire licks the darkness behind my eyelids. It burrows inside my head. It smolders inside my jaw, my lips, my belly, my backbone. The remainder of my body’s quaking, as if I were half-submerged in a pool of icy water.
I open my eyes. Without my spectacles, the world is blurred. I must have been unconscious for only a few minutes, for there my captors are, on the far side of the fire, hunched forward in camp chairs, still bent over their supper plates, beneath a tent flap hoisted on sticks to make a roof against the continuing sift of snow flurries. The stewed turkey smells wonderful. The scent fills my belly with longing. If I weren’t so prideful, I’d beg them for a morsel, though, considering the way I’ve been treated so far, I seriously doubt that I’d get more than another beating.
I close my eyes, feigning unconsciousness, and work my hands around in the tight circles of rope binding them. With fumbling fingertips, I pick at knots. Nothing gives. My wrists shift from a cold numbness to fiery pain. Still I struggle, till the flesh beneath the ropes is chafed and burning.
Footsteps crunching leaves. “Boy? Wake up, boy. Are you all right?”
Opening my eyes, I study the boot by my face. Then the blue-flanneled calf. Then the face of the man hunkered beside me. It’s Silas, the gray-mustached Yank who was cooking when we got to camp. The concern in his eyes edges me toward tears, tears I would give vent to were I alone. His glance reminds me of Sarge, the way my uncle looked at me when, fighting by his side, I took a bayonet at Antietam and when, later, he carried me from the battlefield. Determined not to cry, I close my eyes, but when I do, I remember another look in Sarge’s eyes, the expression of betrayed shock and hurt when I admitted that I’d planned to help Drew escape, mere minutes before I punched Sarge and that Yankee shell ended him. Tears fill my eyes. Cursing myself, I rub them off in the grass.
“Poor boy,” Silas says, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t cry. You’re terrified, aren’t you?”
His kindness only evokes in me further tears. “I am, sir,” I pant. I take several long gulps of cold night air, choking back sobs, throat throbbing with the effort. “F-forgive my unseemly lack of composure. I’m not only scared, I’m grieving someone. You remind me of my uncle. He died only a few days ago.”
“He’s crying? Priceless!” Hiram chortles. “Get back here, Silas. I want more of that tasty stew.”
Silas ignores his bossy tone. “He’s not crying,” he says, giving me a conspiratorial wink. “This boy’s braver than that. Look here now, soldier. I fetched your spectacles. Not even cracked.” He adjusts them on my head, and the world grows sharp-edged again. “Do you want some food, Private Campbell? And some water?”
“You aren’t feeding him.” Across the fire, Hiram’s voice is low and angry. “Let him starve. That’d be one less Rebel to bear arms against us. Why waste food on a man we’ll probably shoot tomorrow morning?”
“Good point,” says Stanton.
“But we got plenty. The lad’s in bad shape, thanks to your tantrum. He’s half-starved.”
“Silas,” says Hiram, “have you lost a brother in this war?”
“Now you know the answer to that. I never had a brother.”
“Then get back over here and dish me up some seconds. Let him be.”
“I’m not your nigger. Fetch your own food. I’m at least going to give this boy some water.”
“Suit yourself,” says Captain Stanton. “That we can spare.”
Silas leaves me only long enough to fetch a canteen. He slips an arm beneath me, helps me sit up, and holds the canteen to my lips. I take a grateful swallow. “Thank you, sir. I much appreciate your kindness. I know we’re enemies, but…”
“But we’re both Americans too.” Snow powders his gray hair. He gives me a sad smile.
“Yes, sir. We are. And, as welcome as kindness is in times of peace…”
“Yes, son. I know what you’re going to say, and I agree. Kindness in times of war is even more precious. And it’s God’s grace when it comes from a source you’d never expect, from the hands of a foe. I know. I was one of the men at Fredericksburg who survived that night under the Northern lights. I was wounded before that terrible stone wall, and there was a Rebel boy who risked being fired upon to give us fallen Federals water.” He lifts the canteen to my lips again, and again I take a swallow. It’s cold, but it tastes clean.
“Yes, sir. I was there, shooting at y’all from behind that wall. You bluecoats fell like sheaves of wheat all afternoon. And it was so cold that night, with those weird lights, like great ribbons of blue and yellow and green, unscrolling across the sky while fallen men groaned and screamed across the field before the Sunken Road. Those heavenly lights were like some sign from God. Sir, I knew that man. His name was Richard Kirkland. A South Carolinian. That was a great and brave thing he did. So you were one of the men he aided?”
“Yes. More water?”
When I nod, he gives me another gulp.
“If you ever see Mr. Kirkland, please give him my thanks,” Silas says, lowering me to the ground and capping his canteen. “I would without doubt have died without his thoughtfulness.”
“He’s dead, sir. He died at Chickamauga. At least that’s what was reported to me.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. Well then, he’s gone to a great reward, a man as compassionate as that.”
“Stop jawing with the prisoner, Silas, for God’s sake,” Hiram shouts. “You always were fond of fraternization. If
you weren’t such a damned fine soldier, I would have accused you of Southern sympathies by now.”
“Just because I have some cousins in the Confederate army doesn’t mean you have any reason to question my loyalty to my country,” Silas snaps. “I can’t help it if I have kin in Virginia.”
“Is that boy one of them?” Hiram snickers.
“No. I’m just trying to show the lad some Christian kindness. Isn’t that what Jesus would have done?”
“Jesus? What place does he have in war?”
“Blasphemer. Lord God, your heart’s black as hell.”
“Gentlemen, stop feuding,” says Captain Stanton, sounding bored again.
“Sorry about Hiram, son,” Silas whispers, shrugging his shoulders and rising. “He’s got a cruel streak.”
“Thanks for the water, sir.”
“Certainly. You do remind me of my cousin Kent from Staunton. Well, God willing, we’ll all survive this war.”
Silas returns to his companions beneath their canvas shelter. The Yanks enjoy another plate of food. Then they sit back, pass a flask, and prop their feet up, warming them near the fire. The snow thickens, dusting me with white.
“That boy’s got to be cold,” say Silas, taking a long pull on the flask. “I’m going to cover him with a blanket.”
“What blanket? Yours? We can’t spare a blanket,” Hiram snarls.
“We got an extra in—”
“The damn Reb is probably crawling with lice.”
“And you ain’t?” Silas snickers. “You want the boy to freeze to death during the night?”
“Would spare us the shooting of him. I think he’s a spy,” Hiram counters.
“Didn’t the boy say he was a soldier on leave? We have no reason to shoot him. He’ll be in a prison camp up north soon enough. I don’t think—”
“Hiram has a point,” Stanton interjects. “He’s a burden.”
“Let’s shoot him at dawn,” Hiram says. “Hey, boy!” He rises unsteadily. “Give me that flask,” he says, snatching it from Captain Stanton and taking a swig. “Which you want? Want to end up at a prison camp? Camp Chase, or Johnson’s Island? Or Elmira? I hear your kind die like flies there. You think you’re chilly now, wait till you—”
