Last of the Dixie Heroes

by Peter Abrahams

  “Yes,” said Lee.

  “Looks like a nice bike.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What kind is it?”

  “Harley Sportster.”

  “Oh yeah?” said Tonya, swinging around toward Lee. “Eight eighty-three or twelve hundred?”

  “Twelve hundred.”

  “Take me for a ride?” said Tonya.

  “Sometime.”

  “I like that name-Lee,” said Tonya. “Where you from?”

  “Atlanta.”

  “That how you know Roy?”

  “We’re in the same regiment.”

  “Regiment? Wouldn’ta taken you for military,” said Tonya.

  “Civil War regiment,” Lee said.

  “That sounds cool,” said Tonya. “Got any tattoos on you, Lee?”

  “No.”

  “I do.” She stuck her breast out at Lee.

  Lee did something Roy wouldn’t have expected then, extending a finger, touching Tonya’s breast, tracing the beginning of the tattoo design, carefully, as though carrying out scientific fieldwork. Tonya’s mouth opened and stayed open, revealing crooked teeth with one or two gaps.

  “Did it hurt?” Lee said, looking up at Tonya’s face.

  Tonya licked her lips. “Did it hurt?” Another pitcher of beer appeared, and two fresh glasses of Old Grand-Dad. “No guy’s ever asked me that before. Nah, it didn’t hurt-I was so loaded I couldn’t feel a thing.” Tonya’s gaze rested on Lee’s face. “Know something? You’re the best-looking one of the bunch.”

  “I second that emotion,” said Tyla, raising her glass, downing half of it.

  “Isn’t he a mite scrawny for two big babes like you?” said Sonny.

  “Scrawny?” said Tyla.

  “Big difference between scrawny and lean,” said Tonya.

  Sonny smiled at Lee across the table. “How tall are you, little buddy?”

  “Five feet four inches,” said Lee.

  “What do you weigh?”

  “One hundred twenty-five pounds.”

  “I’ve taken shits bigger’n that,” said Sonny.

  It was quiet in the bar, and Lee spoke quietly. “That just makes you an especially big asshole.”

  Sonny Junior went rigid: Roy could feel it, as though some powerful current had been switched on in the room. Then Sonny was up and on the move, brushing past Roy, keg chair topping backward. But not quite past Roy: Roy was up too, in his path. “Easy, Sonny,” Roy said.

  Sonny grabbed Roy, lifted him right off the floor. “Three times now you’ve told me that,” Sonny said.

  Roy looked in Sonny’s eyes-Sonny had pale eyes with red flecks in the blue-knew Sonny’d had him helpless like this once before, long ago in the barn. Eyes don’t change. As the memory stirred Roy went off, but inside, capped down tight; so tight that his voice sounded close to normal when he spoke: “I’ve got the gene too.”

  “Huh?” said Sonny.

  Roy drove his elbow down into Sonny’s shoulder, right where it meets the neck. Sonny made some bellowing noise, let him go. Then Tonya or Tyla spilled her beer, glass shattered, the bartender straightened behind the bar, a ball bat in his hands. Sonny tilted his head back a little, the angle somehow murderous. Did Roy look the same? He knew it was possible. What wasn’t, now?

  Lee stepped between them.

  “That’s enough.”

  Roy and Sonny looked down at Lee. Sonny was the first to find it amusing. As he started to laugh, Lee put a hand on each of their chests and pushed them apart. Sonny took a few exaggerated steps backward.

  “No offense, tough guy,” said Sonny.

  “None taken,” said Lee.

  “I just didn’t like the way you copped a feel of Tyla’s tit back then.”

  “It was Tonya’s tit,” Lee said.

  “I didn’t mind, Sonny, honest,” said Tonya.

  “That’s not the way we cop a feel around these parts,” Sonny said.

  Lee gazed up at him. “My apologies.”

  “It was a nice way of copping a feel,” Tonya said. “Why doesn’t anybody understand me?”

  Lee dropped a few bills on the table, took Roy by the arm, walked him outside.

  The moon was up, not quite full. And two moons, again, which Roy had to work down to one and a half, and one.

  “That’s the second time you’ve rescued me,” Lee said. “I’ve decided I don’t like it.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Roy said; and knew at that moment that despite the copping of feels and the breaking up of fights, his eyes hadn’t deceived him at Chickamauga: no man would have said that.

  “Did I mention we’ve got a little group inside the regiment?” Lee said. “More hard-core?”

  “Something about it,” Roy said.

  “Interested?”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Tacticals. Behind the lines kind of stuff. Basically live in 1863.”

  “When the water was good,” Roy said.

  Lee looked up at him. “Was it, Roy?”

  “I can prove it,” Roy said.

  Two cars with New Jersey plates turned into the lot as Roy and Lee pulled out.

  Roy drove up to where the last dirt lane petered out, Lee following on the bike. Lee kicked down the stand, glanced inside the Altima, saw the uniform.

  “Why not put that on, Roy?”

  Roy nodded.

  “Mine’s in the saddlebag,” Lee said.

  A cloud shaped like a slender bird slid over the moon. They changed into their uniforms in darkness.

  “Got your weapon?” Lee said.

  “In the trunk.”

  “Bring it.”

  Roy heard a muffled clink, knew it was the sound of bullets, heavy bullets, dropping into Lee’s cartridge pouch. Then the moon came out and there was Lee, the most natural sight in the world, in full uniform with an Enfield muzzleloader like Gordo’s, much longer than Roy’s carbine, held over one shoulder in marching position, a mule collar supply roll over the other. Roy got the carbine out of the trunk and started up the mountain. Behind him, Lee moved so quietly Roy had to glance back in the moonlit patches-the sunny patches of daytime-to see if they were still together. They were every time.

  The ridge appeared, a black bulge in the night that seemed to be falling slowly toward them. Roy heard water bubbling up above, the source of Crystal Creek, climbed toward it. The ridge stopped falling, now backed away, retreating with every step. This sudden elasticity of the physical world could have been unsettling, but wasn’t, might even have led to air supply problems, but didn’t. Roy kept going, almost as quickly as he had by day, breathing evenly. He listened for the sound of Lee breathing, heard nothing. They were good. This was the way to move behind enemy lines, to enter their camp by night, spike the guns, run off the horses, blow up the powder. He rounded the head of the ridge; the moonlight caught the water pouring from the rocks-the sound was frothing water but the sight was diamonds spraying from the earth.

  They knelt by the stream and drank. Then something strange happened: without a word, and as one, they dipped their faces in the water. Pure, cold, savage water: it went right through Roy’s skin, into his blood, readied him for anything. He opened his eyes underwater, watched the diamonds flowing by. He turned his head and saw Lee’s eyes open too-silver ovals black at the core.

  They climbed around the ridge, up through the sloping meadow, the moon bright enough to bring out colors now, the silver-green of the tall grass, gray-green of the flower stalks, charcoal-gray of the white petals, beet-red of the red ones. Only the distant trees remained black, and even they flashed silver in their crowns when a breeze passed by. Lee came up beside him. Roy smelled fresh sweat and hot wool, in no way unpleasant.

  To the top of the meadow, into the apple trees on the plateau, and didn’t the moon, lower now, shine through that same rough stone rectangle that had once been a window, turning the complex spiderweb silver? The web trembled slightly, like a tiny trampoline under a tiny
athlete. Roy heard Lee take a deep breath.

  “The Mountain House of Roy Singleton Hill,” he said.

  Lee went inside, looked around, then leaned the Enfield against the wall, took off the mule collar roll, laid it on the ground.

  “Hungry?”

  “A little.”

  Lee reached in the roll, handed Roy a small, dense square.

  “What’s this?”

  “Hardtack.”

  Roy bit into it. “Is it food?”

  “You can live on it indefinitely.”

  “I like your muffins better.”

  They stood in the Mountain House, moonlight on the metal of their weapons and buckles, the spiderweb, Lee’s eyes. “The muffins aren’t authentic,” Lee said.

  Lee bent down, spread the roll on the ground: a wool blanket with hardtack inside, a canteen, a candle, and a few smaller things Roy couldn’t identify.

  “The blanket’s authentic,” Lee said, “but not as authentic as no blanket at all.”

  Lee pushed the hardtack, the canteen, the candle, the other things to the side, lay down on the blanket, gazing up at Roy.

  “We’re sleeping here?” Roy said.

  “Got a better idea?”

  Roy shook his head. “But I don’t have a blanket of my own.”

  “That’s authentic too.”

  Roy sat down on Lee’s blanket. He smelled wool, fresh sweat, and mint. The air was rich with mint. He filled his lungs with it, glanced over at Lee. Lee’s eyes were closed. Roy lay down on the far side of the blanket.

  The moon sank below the treetops, and in a way that made no sense the air got colder, as though there was some kind of celestial confusion. Stars popped out all over the sky, more than Roy had ever seen, and not just white, but blue, red, yellow. This was reality, Roy realized, all those stars were present all the time, blazed away all the time, didn’t go anywhere. The daytime part was false.

  Lying on his back, watching that distant reality, Roy cooled down from the climb. For a while he felt just right. But his sweat soaked into the wool uniform, kept him from drying off completely, and he started to shiver. Had Roy Singleton Hill shivered too, in this uniform, on this mountain, in 1863? Roy doubted only the shivering part.

  “Is there a blanket for on top?” he said, not sure Lee was awake.

  “Almost never happened,” Lee said, from closer than he thought. “They spooned on cold nights.”

  “Spooned?” said Roy.

  “Roll over,” Lee said.

  Roy rolled on his side. From there he could see the spiderweb, no longer moonlit, just a faint pattern in the night, still trembling. He felt Lee slide in against him, adapting to his shape, front to back.

  “Nothing more authentic than this,” Lee said, voice close to Roy’s ear. Roy shivered, maybe because of the cold, maybe because of the voice in his ear. He smelled Lee’s breath, the same minty smell of the night, shivered more.

  “You’re cold,” Lee said.

  Roy felt a hand, a small hand, touch his side, move around to his chest, press him gently. What he had to go on-that one female remark about not wanting to be rescued, plus the image he’d glimpsed after Sergeant Vandam’s tackle had popped the buttons of Lee’s jacket-didn’t seem very substantial at the moment. Remarks were open to interpretation and he’d never been better than average at that sort of thing, usually worse; and a nighttime image could be mistaken, or nothing more than wishful thinking.

  Roy rolled back over. Lee was watching him, mouth slightly open, small even teeth lit by the stars. Roy slipped his hand under the high waistband of Lee’s pants, forced it down below, eliminated all doubt.

  “Authentic,” Lee said.

  Roy shifted his hand up, under Lee’s jacket.

  “If it’s Tyla’s and Tonya’s tits that heated you up,” Lee said, “then these are going to be a disappointment.”

  “You don’t know me,” Roy said.

  He kissed her mouth. They moved together, half in, half out of their rough wool uniforms. Whatever he’d imagined happening with Tonya, or that real time with Marcia farther down Crystal Creek? They didn’t compare. The daytime part was false.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Roy smelled smoke, thought the Mountain House was on fire and everyone in it would die. He opened his eyes: daytime, and alone; in uniform, lying on his side on the blanket, a lone spoon in a drawer. On Lee’s half of the blanket lay the two guns, side by side.

  Roy got up, followed the burning smell out the back of the house, found a small fire pit dug in the ground, with a rusted grill over it and wood burning underneath. Not far away stood another ruin he hadn’t noticed before, this one made of faded barnwood slats, most of them gone. Roy went closer, called, “Lee.” No response. He peered inside, saw weeds sprouting through a dirt floor, and what he thought at first was a blackened basketball, then realized was the ball part, flaked and rusted, of a ball and chain.

  Roy went back through the Mountain House, past the apple grove, to the edge of the plateau. He saw Lee, or at least someone in a rebel uniform, at the distant end of the sloping meadow, waving flowers marking the route like a sailboat’s wake. Not long after, the figure, tiny now, disappeared over the top of the ridge. Roy started down across the meadow. An electric-blue dragonfly buzzed up from under his feet and got lost in the sky.

  Roy went through the meadow, cut across the face of the ridge, came to the hole in the rocks where the creek poured out. He scanned the mountain for signs of movement, saw nothing through the trees. Something splashed in the creek, not far away. Roy walked over, looked down, saw a small fish making no headway against the current. He began following the creek.

  It led him around the side of the mountain, away from the ridge. He soon heard a sound like the wind, faint at first, then louder, although the air was still. Roy struggled through a thicket, came out on a rocky shelf: a cliff, actually, with the creek falling off it, straight down.

  Roy stood at the top. He’d never stood at the top of a waterfall, didn’t know whether everyone who did had to fight the urge he was fighting now. Down below lay a pool, frothy under the waterfall, placid at the other end where it narrowed, the creek continuing down the mountain. Flat rocks lined the narrow opening, and on one of them lay Lee, in uniform with sleeves rolled up, hands in the water, motionless.

  Roy watched. He was beginning to think that Lee was daydreaming, meditating, perhaps even asleep, when there was a sudden movement and Lee sprang up, a fish in his hands. In her hands. A big brown fish: it wriggled frantically for a second or two and then went still. The look on Lee’s face when that happened scared Roy a little. He started back up to the Mountain House.

  Trout: with clear brown eyes, fins and tail still pink at the edges, no sign of injury. Lee cooked it whole over the fire pit.

  “Where’d you find the grill?” Roy said.

  “Out back,” Lee said, nodding toward the remains of the barnwood shack.

  “Where the slaves lived,” Roy said.

  Lee, squatting by the fire, gazed at Roy sitting cross-legged on the other side, heat shimmering in the air between them. “Slavery was just about universal throughout human history.”

  “So?”

  “So you’ve got to decide if you’re going to let that ruin everything.”

  “What do you mean by everything?”

  Lee took out a knife, sliced up the trout, put some pieces on a broad leaf and brought them to Roy. “Us, for starters.”

  “Us?”

  She knelt in front of him, trout steaming on the leaf. “Do you care about me at all, Roy?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m in love with you,” Lee said. Her face glowed, perhaps from the heat of the fire.

  Was this the moment he had to make some similar statement? Roy knew something big was happening between them but wasn’t ready to call it love. “I don’t know what Gordo’s told you, but I’ve just been through-”

  She cut him off. “None of that matters.”
<
br />   “None of what?”

  “I don’t need to know about your situation. Don’t need to, don’t want to.”

  “What’s that mean, my situation?”

  “Your present life, Roy.” Lee rose. “Eat up.”

  Roy ate. The glistening flesh of the fish, its saltiness, its heat-he’d never tasted anything like this. Saying grace, a habit his mother had fallen out of when he was still very young: all at once, he understood where the idea came from; answer to a question he’d never even considered.

  “You like?” Lee said.

  “Yes.”

  She took something from the pocket of her butternut jacket, held it up. “Know what this is?”

  “A bird feather.”

  “Quail feather, specifically. I found it on the ridge. Saw deer tracks too. And the creek’s full of trout. Throw in a few chickens and you could live here forever.”

  A crazy idea: the list of objections so long it was pointless even to itemize them. Roy had a crack at itemizing anyway. First there was Rhett, of course. And next? And after that? Nothing jumped out at him.

  “We’ve been searching for a place like this,” Lee said.

  “Who?”

  “The progressive element in the regiment, I’ve been telling you about. Hope I’m not being too forward, Roy, but would it be all right with you if a few of them came up for a look?”

  “What’s that got to do with me?”

  “It just feels right, Roy, asking you.”

  This line of talk put Roy in mind of Sonny Junior and their lost lands, but he didn’t think it was a good time for mentioning Sonny, so he ate the trout in silence, washed it down with creek water Lee had brought back in her canteen. A bumblebee the size of one of those fifty-eight-caliber rounds flew by, not very fast. Then another, even slower, and a yellow butterfly, slower than that.

  “Sleepy?” Lee said.

  “Now that you mention it.” But he wasn’t.

  They lay on the blanket.

  “Does Jesse know?” Roy said.

  “Know what?”

  “Or any of the others-about you?”

  “Of course not,” Lee said. “How authentic would that be?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Women fought in disguise-horrible word-but no one ever knew until they got them to the surgeon’s tent or the burial pit. Therefore telling people isn’t authentic.”