I Shall Be Near to You (18 page)

‘What are they going to do with her?’ I ask.

‘Spying is treason,’ Will says.

‘Ain’t that a hanging offense?’ Jimmy asks, and I can’t help but look over at the gallows.

‘Oh, they ain’t hanging no woman for this thing. She’s been passing gossip, is all,’ Henry says.

That gets my dander up, even if what that lady spy done is wrong, like he thinks she ain’t smart enough to do more than gossip. I wonder about that candle Mrs. Greenhow had burning, her sitting there watching the street. I swallow the lump of sowbelly in my mouth quick and say, ‘Seems to me a lady don’t get arrested for gossip if there ain’t something to it.’

Will says, ‘I heard sometimes those guards out on the street see her waving to people, like maybe she’s still passing messages. I never would have thought—’

‘You think a woman can’t fight for her country?’ It comes flying out of my mouth, even as I wonder if I ought to go to Captain with what I saw. Jimmy looks at me, his mouth dropped open.

‘It isn’t usual, that’s all I mean,’ Will answers, but his words are careful, like he is measuring something he don’t like in my voice. ‘Can you imagine after what Hiram—’

‘Plenty of things that ain’t usual ain’t wrong,’ I say.

‘I heard they found some ladies in soldier’s clothes in the Second Maryland,’ Jimmy says, and it is my turn to look at him with my mouth gaping.

‘What happened to them?’ I ask.

Jimmy says, ‘They drummed them out of the Regiment with their heads shaved and then they clapped them in jail.’

‘How’d they get found out?’ I ask. The look Mrs. Greenhow gave me flashes in my mind, and I know right then I ain’t going to Captain with anything. That woman can’t be trusted if she knows what I am.

‘Don’t know,’ Jimmy says, and shrugs.

Henry looks at me and says, ‘Oh, a woman couldn’t stay a soldier long and not get caught. They should have made them put on dresses and go back home.’

‘Being a soldier isn’t a job for women,’ Will says.

‘Surely ain’t,’ Sully says, looking at me. My thoughts go dark and I wish Jeremiah were here. I take another bite of meat to keep from saying anything.

‘Isn’t a job for any of us, really,’ Will says, and gives me a look I can’t read.

CHAPTER
17

FORT CORCORAN, VIRGINIA: JUNE 1862

The relief of being back at Fort Corcoran after the week of prison guard has long since worn off with weeks of drilling when I decide I ought to send word home, even if my folks ain’t ever going to write me a kind word again. With Jeremiah sitting at our fire and the water on for coffee, I pull out my papers and write:

June 8, 1862

Virginia

Dear Papa, Mama, and Betsy
,

I think You don’t like me to Write before now, but I thought You should Know how I fare
.

I liked to hear about the Farm in your Letter. I want to know how that Spotted Calf does and if the Fields are planted and what in (Wheat or Potatoes or maybe Corn) and have you had Help to do it?

I have been Drilling and cooking for Jeremiah and the Flat Creek boys before now. We had Prison Duty and what do you think I saw there but a Lady Spy who is called Rebel Rose. She is a handsome figure and most of the boys don’t think she can be a Spy, but I know better
.

I can get plenty of money for myself so whatever I send, I want you should keep it. When All this is through I hope to come see You, if you will have me. My future is with Jeremiah and after we visit we will be gone to take care of ourselves out West, where no one cares how I dress or what I do
.

If you write, You can direct it the same as Before, but to Virginia
.

Good-bye for this Time
,

Rosetta

I have only just sealed the cover when a loud cheer goes up from the boys down the way. I know in my bones that it is our orders to battle and drop down on my stump, wondering how long ’til we know for sure where we’re going, if I should open that letter back up and tell my folks the whole of it. Jeremiah stands to look down the aisle, his head cocked.

Edward calls over to us as he saunters up to his tent, ‘You heard the news about the lady spy?’

Jeremiah shakes his head, and the gallows at Old Capitol Prison come up in my mind.

‘They deported her back to Rebel country. Guess you got lucky guarding her, Little Soldier,’ Edward says. ‘They say she’s been spying the whole damn time she’s been in prison!’

‘And they sent her home?’ Jeremiah asks.

‘Yep. Right to Richmond. Guess they figure she can’t do much harm there.’

I can’t help but be glad she’s been sent home safe, away from the likes of Hiram, even after being caught passing messages, even if she was doing it right on my watch, like I thought. It almost serves the Army right, if they ain’t taken her serious, sending her back to her own folks to live like she really is only some silly gossiping widow. Jennie Chalmers said that making
slaves free will help women, but I don’t know how she can be right when there’s still most men who can’t see the things a woman does, even when she’s doing them right under his nose.

Sully comes back, all full of smiles. ‘Well, it ain’t a battle victory, but getting rid of a Rebel traitor is something to celebrate! We ought to go for a swim, wash ourselves clean of that Rebel filth, and get the laundry done at the same time!’

None of it seems right, not Rebel Rose going free, not celebrating it like a victory, but the idea of swimming being the same as doing laundry makes me snort. Course, it ain’t surprising seeing how most these boys think licking their mess plate is the same as washing it.

‘No one’s going anywhere ’til this coffee gets drunk,’ I say.

Jeremiah and Sully are already done gulping their coffee when Will comes from down the aisle, his hands behind his back, his hair wet and fresh combed.

‘Where you been so early?’ Sully asks. ‘You heard the news?’

‘I heard,’ Will says, and comes over to me at the fire. From behind his back he holds out a big cup with a lid and a handle on it.

‘You want coffee?’ I ask.

‘No,’ he says. ‘I found this mucket at the sutler’s. Might be better than what you have there. You want it?’

‘That’s all right,’ I say, looking at my mess plate. ‘This works.’

‘I don’t have much use for it,’ Will says. ‘And you’re always cooking for me …’

‘If you don’t want it,’ I shrug, wondering why he bought a mucket from the sutler in the first place, but it has a nice handle for hanging over the fire so I ain’t asking any more about it.

‘Here,’ he says. ‘You can keep it.’

I look at him sideways. ‘You just trying to lighten your pack? Give me the heavy stuff?’

‘Jeremiah!’ Sully hollers. ‘I think Will here is sweet on your cousin!’

The color comes up in Will’s cheeks. ‘I thought maybe you could use it.’ And then he ducks his head and scurries back to his tent before I can
even say a word of thanks, but not before Jeremiah gives me a sharp look and it dawns on me that Will bought that mucket as a gift.

I
T IS JUST
past noon when we head to the river, Jeremiah, Henry, Jimmy, Sully, and me. The four of them are like a family of skunks weaving in and out and around each other as they make their way down the hill away from our rows of tents, and I am remembering burning Summer days picking ripening seed heads from the hayfields walking to the creek with the four of them, getting our swimming and fishing in before the harvest. I rub my fingers down from my temple and the dust and sweat pills up under my fingers, almost black. I ain’t ever felt so dirty in my whole life.

We have only just gotten to the path worn into the grass, when Sully slaps his knee and says, ‘Damn it all! I’ve got to go back to camp—’

‘You forget all that laundry you was aiming to do?’ I ask him.

‘Something like that. You all go on ahead—I’ll be right back.’

Jeremiah shrugs. ‘We won’t go far from the trail.’

We walk through the trees edging the water to a place that slopes all gentle into the river.

Near the bank, the boys strip down to nothing but their underdrawers, dropping their trousers and shirts and shoes like cow pies along the shore. Jeremiah is the tallest and anybody would say he’s the handsomest too, all muscle. Jimmy is the first one to the water, where the earth turns to hard-packed mud, his freckles standing out on his pale skin. He moves careful into the river, testing the bottom like he always does.

I leave my shoes next to Jeremiah’s and roll up my trousers to my knees, trying not to see the dirt ground into my hems. I wade to where the water licks at the cuffs, the last one to get in the river flowing smooth and flat. Jeremiah is already out past Jimmy and Henry, the water lapping at his thighs, his milk-white belly sucked in tight at the cold of it, a line of grime marking his collar. I am thinking about sinking all the way into the current and swimming out to him when we hear crashing in the brushes and loud whoops.

It ain’t much of a surprise when Sully bounds out of the bushes. The surprise is when Edward and Hiram and Will come chasing after him. Sully don’t even stop moving to get himself undressed, kicking off his brogans in a patch of grass, stepping on the toes of his socks to pull them off and hopping out of his trousers, leaving them in one pile, his shirt in another close to the water.

Will stops at the bank, but Edward and Hiram strip and run into the water right behind Sully. Sully is the skinniest thing, all arms and legs, yelling as he leads them splashing past me, the cool water drenching me. When he gets to where Jimmy teeters, moving careful out into the river, where it is too deep to run, Sully dunks himself underwater and Hiram follows right after him, jumping in with a big splash, leaving Edward, his broad back covered with black hair, holding his arms out straight like a scarecrow’s, moving slow like the water is thick.

Sully bobs up from the river, yelling, ‘Feels great! Why ain’t you boys in yet?’ and then splashes Jimmy until all Jimmy can do is sink himself, while Hiram floats on his back, spouting water from between his teeth. Will leaves his clothes folded neat at the river’s edge and starts walking out to where I am standing, and that is when I see my shirt is sticking to me, the thin white fabric showing what’s underneath.

‘You coming in?’ he says.

I cross my arms over my chest and shake my head. ‘Don’t swim,’ I say, and all the fun goes out of the afternoon for me.

‘What you mean, you don’t swim?’ Henry says, turning back to look. ‘We’ve all been swimming with you before.’

Sully stops splashing on Jimmy long enough to yell, ‘Come on, Ross! You getting shy on us now?’ Something about the glint in his eye when he says it gets me thinking it ain’t by accident the other boys came swimming with him.

‘What’s the matter, Little Soldier?’ Edward calls. ‘You afraid of water?’

‘What you ought to be afraid of is what happens to Rebel lovers,’ Hiram says. ‘I hear they don’t swim too good.’

‘I ain’t swimming,’ I say, cutting each word short, keeping watch on
Hiram. It ain’t easy, not when the water is cool and clear. Not when swimming at the creek with Jeremiah is how we first got to talking about our farm in Nebraska. But I don’t like the feeling dripping off these boys when they look at me.

‘How did you grow up and not learn to swim?’ Will asks.

‘Just did.’ Then I add something that is the truth, something so the lie won’t feel so bad. ‘My Mama worked so hard having me and my sister, she was afraid of us drowning.’

‘I could show you,’ he says. ‘If you want to learn.’

Will stands still a moment, waiting for my answer, but Jeremiah starts yelling, ‘Get out here, Will! What’s the matter? You afraid of fish?’

Will raises his eyebrows and gives me a shrug before inching farther out into the water.

‘I bet me and Edward could get Ross in.’ Hiram grins and starts moving toward the shore. ‘Teach you to swim real fast.’

Hiram is always in the fray when poker games break out into shouting, and the story goes it was him who gave Edward that black eye when they first enlisted. I don’t know what I was thinking, standing between him and Rebel Rose.

‘Two dollars says Ross swims worse than a bag of drowned cats but puts up as much fight,’ Sully laughs.

I back away like a runt pushed out of the nest, while Hiram smirks and the rest all watch, bitterness boiling up in me with each step.

‘Let’s see—’ Hiram coils himself, making to come after me. That’s when Jeremiah runs the flat of his palm along the water, sending a wall of water right into Hiram’s face. Then those two yell and splash like schoolboys, until Jimmy comes to help and Hiram grabs him around the neck. He shoves him under the water and holds him there, his arms flailing and his legs kicking.

Sully yells ‘Hey!’ and charges through the water, punching Hiram in the jaw before Henry and Jeremiah and Edward all rush Hiram, leaving Will standing where he is. There is yelling and splashing and Jeremiah has got his arm across Hiram’s throat before finally Jimmy pops up, sputtering
and coughing. That don’t stop the boys from throwing punches, and the difference between real fighting and playing is too close to call. I get out of that river as fast as I can, finding a place where the sun can dry out my wet clothes, keeping my arms crossed and my knees up.

Those boys keep grappling and fighting, water splashing everywhere, ’til three girls wearing bright colors come out of the trees on the other bank. Those red and green and blue dresses are a magnet to Hiram, who stops dead, and the rest of the boys, even Jeremiah, go still when they catch sight of what he is looking at.

‘You ladies like what you’re seeing?’ Hiram yells, puffing his chest out as he stands in the river.

The girls giggle and one of them, a tall auburn-haired girl wearing wine-red, says, ‘I don’t know yet. I can’t see much of anything!’ and that gets the other two pealing with laughter.