Salvation

by Jeff Mann

“If he’s a sodomite, wouldn’t fucking his asshole be pleasuring him instead of punishing him?” Dave sniggers, pulling on his boots. “Hell, if you need a tight hole that bad, let’s take turns on that nigger-bitch, or head back to Newport and get some more of that hotel lady. I doubt her husband will be in any position to stop us. You got to be damned desperate, George, to want that bluecoat’s big hairy butt. Nasty! Sounds like you’re ready to join the ranks of the abominations, to use that hotel lady’s words.”

  “Goddamn you, I told you not to laugh at me! I’ll slit your throat, I swear it.”

  “All right. Christ. Calm down.” Dave coughs, clears his throat, and hawks mucus on the floor a foot from my face. “I hope this nigger has some coffee stuck away somewhere.”

  “Hell, fuck him if you want.” Will shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t give a shit. I need the outhouse bad. When I come back, let’s fry us up some ham.”

  “Then we can hang these boys”—Dave nudges my hip with his boot—“and be on our way. I got a cousin back in Iron Gate who’d give us a good bit for that stallion.”

  Behind me, the front door creaks open; light falls across Drew’s frightened face. “It’s warming up out here,” Will says cheerily. “Raining now. Melt’s falling off the pine trees. After we’re done up here, let’s take a trot down into Newport. I hear tell—”

  The rifle’s report is deafening. The porch thumps resoundingly beneath a fallen mass.

  “No! Oh, God!” Dave manages to shout before the gun explodes again. Behind me, another heavy weight hits the floor, and a delicate fan of blood spatters the wood just inside my vision.

  “Get back, you bitch!” George shrieks.

  “You motherfuckers. That’s what my woman would say.” I can’t see Tessa from this position, but her voice is clear and confident, only yards away. “Hurting on those boys and tearing up Lorena Mae’s house. And killing my little dog! You takes that carving knife of mine, mister, and you cuts those poor boys free. Right now. They might not look it, but them’s kin of mine. Do it. Or I’ll shoot a hole in your ugly face so goddamn wide you could ride an ox-cart through it. I’ll use your balls for trout bait. Now! Stop quivering, and do it now!”

  “No. Damn you, nigger! I ain’t losing this. I ain’t losing this!” George steps back, nearly astraddle us. He flings the knife to the side and fumbles for his pistol.

  George dodges just as Tessa’s rifle roars. She misses. The bullet shatters a mirror on the back wall.

  Drew gives a deep grunt beneath his gag. Eyebrows arched, his glance meets mine, then veers to a point over my shoulder. At the edge of my vision, I can see George above and just behind us, pulling his pistol. He’s standing only inches from the back of my knees. Understanding, I nod.

  “This is for you, bitch.” Grasping his pistol in both hands, he extends his arms and takes aim.

  With mingled grunts, Drew and I kick together, he forward, I backward. It’s awkward with our legs tied together, but we do it well enough, catching George mid-calf and knocking him off-balance just before he fires. His bullet sings off, wide of its mark.

  “We’re done, you trash.” Tessa’s voice, nearer now, is low and steady. “I never miss more’n once.” I can make out George’s contorted face, then his hands covering that face, then his cowering crouch, before Tessa’s rifle roars again.

  Very close behind me, there’s a third heavy thumping to match the first two. The smell of gunpowder fills the room. Drew stares over my shoulder, then closes his eyes. I press my face against his chest. The prayer I mumble is one of sheer thanks.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  “Oh, you sweet boys, thank the Lord you’s all right.” Falling to her knees beside our trussed forms, Tessa takes up the carving knife and begins cutting rope. It takes her long minutes to liberate us from the tight yards binding us. After hours of restraint and the brutal beatings George inflicted, my big blond boy and I can move only with great effort.

  Finally finished freeing us, Tessa drags the corpses—Dave’s first, then George’s—out the front door to join Will’s. There, cursing quietly, she rolls all three off the porch and into the yard. Drew and I meanwhile, shaking, aching, and stiff, help each other crawl up onto the love seat. There, exhausted, we lean together, trying to muster our strength, rubbing the circulation back into each other’s long-tied wrists.

  Drew tugs at the knot behind my head and gently pulls the bloody rag from my mouth. I do the same for him.

  “Ian, my poor little man. Your face…”

  “Drew, your pants,” I whisper, licking my cracked lips. His ass is still bare after George’s interrupted violation.

  “Goddamn,” he grunts, tugging his underclothes and trousers back up with an awkward jerk, then knotting his rope belt.

  “Drew, did George manage…?” I can’t say it. “Before Dave caught him trying to…? He didn’t…get that far, did he?”

  “No, Ian.” Grimacing, Drew looks away. He rubs his bruised face and tosses golden locks out of his eyes. “He…just…a finger…just a knuckle’s worth. That gift is still intact, still…reserved. Still waiting for you.”

  He turns back to me, head bowed. He takes my hands in his, recommencing a gentle kneading of my rope-chafed wrists. Then his split lips curve into a wide smile and his blackened eyes glitter.

  “We’re still here! Still together!” He cups my face in his hands, brushes his golden beard over mine, and kisses me. Damaged as our mouths are, we both wince. Drew gives a rueful laugh. Then he wraps an arm around me, lies back, and heaves a great sigh. I rest my head on his shoulder, shaking with weakness. My limbs are throbbing; my hands and feet are numb.

  Done with her gruesome chore, Tessa slams the door and locks it. “We’ll get rid of them bastards later. I dragged them ’neath the boxwood hedge. Hardly nobody passes by here, but those who might won’t be able to see the bodies from the road.”

  Entering the kitchen, she pours water from a big pitcher into the sink and washes up, then pours more water into a pot on the cook stove. “Damn them. Damn them. Killing poor little Missy. She was a snippy old thang, but I loved her.”

  “We’re so sorry, Miss Tessa,” I mumble.

  “You saved us, Miss Tessa,” Drew croaks. “We were dead for sure, if you hadn’t shown up.”

  “Y’all saved me, honey. That cur would likely have shot me if you hadn’t kicked him.” Tessa fetches us a cup of water. We take turns gingerly sipping.

  “I need to go fetch the doctor now. There’s one down in Newport. Y’all are in bad shape. Your faces are all bloody and bruised and puffed up.”

  “No, Miss Tessa, p-please.” I shake my head, huddling closer to Drew. As swollen as are my mouth and tongue, it hurts to speak. “If your friend Mr. Harman heard about what happened in New Castle, folks in Newport will have heard by now too. If the doctor recognizes us from the description Mr. Harman gave you, we’ll be in more trouble.”

  “Ian’s right. Can we please just…will you help us upstairs? Help us to bed?”

  Tessa crosses her arms on her breast. “But what if something’s broken? Or if y’all are damaged inside?”

  “I’m very, very sore all over, especially my head and my belly…and my groin, where he kicked me, but…” Drew feels of his many wounds, wincing. “I don’t think anything’s broken. What about you, Ian?”

  “I…don’t know.” Following Drew’s lead, I examine myself, ache by ache. “Nothing feels broken, just real, real tender. I’m mighty dizzy. My hands are still numb, and my right arm, it really hurts to move, but I think it’d be hurting worse if it were broken. My ribs…I don’t know. It pangs me some to breathe.”

  “Take your shirts off, boys.” Tessa orders. “I got that water a’heating on the stove. We’ll wash you up.”

  Unsteadily, we both stand. Stiffly, we both strip to the waist.

  “Oh, Jesus,” Tessa gasps, regarding us with dismay. “All them bandages. And bruises.”

  Beneath the golden fur covering Dr
ew’s bandage-wrapped torso and the dark hair covering mine, we’re both blotted with black, from our hips to our collarbones.

  “And what’s that? A slave collar?”

  Drew’s hand darts to his throat. The bandana he customarily wears about his neck has been loosened by his recent struggles, exposing the ring of black iron.

  “It is indeed a slave collar, ma’am,” I begin. “We mean no disrespect, since you said you once were a slave…”

  “Ian’s uncle made me wear it when I was their prisoner. Then it became, well, a sign…of how much I owe Ian. How much I belong to him.”

  Tessa shakes her head. “Well, it certainly has other meanings for me, but I know how lovers gots to have their little keepsakes.” She taps the locket on her breast, the one containing a lock of Lorena’s hair. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost this. Ian, honey, take them bandages off Drew now. We’ll change ’em.”

  When I do, she gasps again, seeing the savaged state of his bared back, the plethora of scars and half-healed welts.

  “They did that? Those men in your camp you told me about? Sarge and George?”

  Drew is silent, his face averted with shame.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I reply. “And George followed us. He was one of the men you just shot. Those first two men you killed, they were members of the Iron Riders. But the last man, that was George. He was the one who—cut Drew and beat him.”

  “That was him? Lord. Following y’all all this way? Oh, honey! Well, he’s dead now, and soon enough he’ll be food for worms.” Shaking her head, she moves into the kitchen, where she pours the warmed water into a washbowl. “Come on in here,” she directs, brandishing a cloth. “Mr. Harman brought me some nice lye soap the other day. Let’s clean you up.”

  Drew and I stand by the kitchen table, swaying and whimpering, as Tessa washes us front and back, then towels us dry. From a cabinet, she fetches bandages and a vial of ointment—“supplies Lorena left, just in case,” she explains. “Terrible. Terrible,” she mutters, salving Drew’s back, then wrapping his wounds up. She probes his bruises, checking the depth of his damage.

  “Now you, honey,” Tessa says, bending to me. “God, you’re both so thin.” Gently she touches my myriad bruises, running a finger along my prominent ribs. I groan under the slight pressure, anguish flickering up my sides.

  “All right.” Tessa’s brow knits up, but she nods. “You’re both bad off, and bruised up something awful, but I don’t think either of you’s broken. It’s God’s miracle, or the fact that you soldier-boys are so young and so tough, but I think you’ll recover. But if either of y’all works up a fever, I’m fetching the doctor, whether you like it or not. I might just fetch him tomorrow anyway. I’ll have to sleep on it. Meanwhile, you’re staying here till I know you’re going to be all right. That ride to West Virginia will have to wait a while.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Drew mumbles meekly.

  “Up to bed now,” she says. “I’ll help you. You first, Mr. Drew. You’re going to be a mite harder to guide than your friend here, so let’s get this over with.”

  Grinning sheepishly, my Yank rises. When he staggers, Tessa takes him by the arm. “Come on now. I got you.”

  They shuffle off, across the blood-spattered floor and up the stairs, slow step by step. Soon Tessa’s returned for me. Dizzily, I climb to my feet. Wrapping an arm around Tessa’s broad waist, I weave across the room and, with her help, clamber up the stairs. In the upper hall, we turn not to the left, into the little room Drew and I shared the first night we arrived, but to the right, into the bedroom Tessa had previously had closed. It’s low-ceilinged as well, but more spacious, with a bigger bed, a dresser, a wash stand, and two windows overlooking the front yard, swinging bridge, and creek. Drew’s trousers and shoes lie in a pile on the floor. He’s already stretched out beneath the blankets, head propped on a pillow, his blackened eyes swollen half shut.

  “This is the room Lorena and I shares when I’m lucky enough to have her home, but y’all can have this bed for the duration. Skinny and beat-up as y’are, I figures you poor soldiers could do with a little pampering.”

  I clear my throat. “Ma’am, I should warn you. We both, well, we, the camps, we’ve both caught…”

  “The same damn lice Lorena caught and give to me?” Tessa treats us to another belly laugh. The cheerful sound is a delight after the terror of the last few hours. “Your man Drew here has already told me. I know all about that. I’m a soldier’s wife, in a manner of speaking. Come the war’s end, we can all take kerosene baths together. Gets on in there, Ian honey. Shucks off them britches and snuggle with that big boy of yours. I figure y’all can comfort each other better’n I can. You all want some breakfast?”

  “No, ma’am.” Shyly, I slip off my brogans and trousers, then crawl beneath the blankets in my underclothes. The sheets are already warm with Drew’s body heat, a soft cocoon that seems eons and leagues distant from the perils from which we were so recently redeemed. He opens one eye, grins wearily, and rolls onto his side, bare back to me. I scoot against him, wrapping an arm around his solid frame. “I think we’ll just sleep for a while.”

  “Y’all do that then. I gots some cleaning up to do.” Tessa pulls the drapes, dimming the room. “Those scum made a mess of Lorena’s pretty house.”

  “We could help you in a bit,” I mumble.

  “No need for that.” She pats my head. “Y’all just rest now.”

  I manage a weak nod of response. I’m asleep before she leaves the room.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  It’s dark when I wake. My boy and I have slept away the entire day. Rain’s drumming softly on the roof and Drew’s snoring, his back pressed against my chest. For a few minutes, I simply rest inside the cherished feeling of his body against mine, running a finger over his fresh bandages and burying my face in his thick yellow hair. I can’t believe we’re still alive, still whole, albeit damaged and feeble.

  Drew’s snores cease. “Hey, Reb,” he grunts, nestling closer. “You’re so warm. How you feeling?”

  “I’m sore all over. I’m all right, I think. You, big man?”

  “The same. My head don’t hurt as bad. I just want to lie here with you forever. Thank God we’re both still sound.”

  I hug him; he takes my hand. We’re cuddling together in the faint sounds of rain when there’s a knock on the door, then it creaks open. It’s Tessa, holding a lit candle.

  “You boys awake?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Drew rolls onto his back, stretches, and groans. “It’s night already?”

  “Yes, sir. Y’all needed a hard sleep, that’s clear. Nice start to your recovery.” From her pocket, Tessa pulls out my shattered spectacles. “Found these downstairs. They were yours, weren’t they, boy?”

  I take them from her with a sigh. “Yes, ma’am. I’m surprised they survived this long. Things are all smeary without them. I got another pair in my haversack, thank God, otherwise Drew here’d have to lead me around like I was a blind man.”

  Tessa chuckles. “Weak eyes, strong heart. Feel good enough to eat? Those bastards et up a good bit of the ham in their rampage, but there’s still a decent bit left. And they didn’t find my second well-hidden bottle of Mr. Harman’s whiskey. I had a few sweet taters, so I made us a nice pudding. And I simmered up some mustard greens with bacon grease.”

  “Oh, that all sounds tasty. I’m real hungry,” Drew exclaims, rising on an elbow. “You, Ian?”

  “I could eat, yes, ma’am. That meal sounds as good as any I’ve had back home. As busted up as our mouths are, it’ll be hard to chew, but we’ll manage.”

  “Good to hear y’all haves your appetites yet. That’s a promising sign.” She rests a hand on my forehead, then on Drew’s. “And, praise God, neither of you’s got a fever. I’ll bring y’all up a tray directly.”

  “No, ma’am. Don’t you go to all that trouble. We can make it downstairs, right, Reb? We’re big, tough soldiers, right?” A grin spr
eads across Drew’s damaged face. He flexes an arm. When the pale skin of his biceps bulges, my sex stirs in my underpants, despite my battered and weakened state.

  Throwing back the covers, I climb from bed, ignoring the pain every movement entails. “Uhh! Ouch! Yep. Big and tough. Lead on, Miss Tessa.”

  “Stubborn, ornery, and prideful. That’s how Rebel soldiers have made it this far,” Tessa says, heading into the hallway. “And you Yanks too, I reckon. Well, come on down when you’re ready. It’s cold up here, but I got a big fire going.”

  We dress slowly, flinching and grunting with pain. I fetch the extra pair of spectacles from my haversack, then we limp down the stairs. Tessa ushers us over to the hearth-ledge to sit in the warmth while she slices the remnants of the ham. The kitchen table is already set, with silverware and plates, as well as a bottle of spirits, a pitcher of buttermilk, and a steaming bowl of sweet potato pudding, aromatic with whiskey and nutmeg.

  ”If you think y’all will be all right here alone,” Tessa says, forking slices of ham onto plates, “tomorrow I’ll ride down to Newport on one of the pretty new horses I have, thanks to those raiders, and fetch supplies and horse feed. I ain’t had any mode of transport since Lorena’s old mule died, so it’s a luxury to have so many mounts to choose from. Found ’em in the woods, tugging on new grass, and led ’em to the stable. They’s a chestnut mare, a white stallion, and a sorrel gelding in there now, to keep your sweet Walt Solomon company. When I searched those villains’ saddlebags, I found me two bottles of good brandy and a stash of money—paper and coins—they likely stole. We can split it.”

  “You’re welcome to the money, ma’am,” I say. “Use it to buy those Newport provisions. The brandy, though, we’d be glad to share that. That would be a luxury.”

  “We’d also be glad to help you fetch supplies, Miss Tessa, except we might be recognized by townsfolk as those infamous sodomites.” Drew’s grin is wry. “Guess we’re legends around here by now.”