I Shall Be Near to You (27 page)

Just when I can maybe wipe my mind clean as a slate, Will comes back from reporting to Sergeant. He slows to help another soldier stumbling up the road, stooped and filthy like every single one of us, stained with blood and dirt and gunpowder and who knows what else.

Will ain’t long hefting that man up the steps into one of the houses and then he is before me.

‘You think you might want to help at one of the hospitals?’ he asks. ‘Pretty near every building in this town has got wounded in it.’

I think of new casualty lists posted in every town in this whole country, of Jennie Chalmers keeping her worries at bay nursing over a new stream of boys at the Judiciary Square Hospital. There is sadness everywhere now.

I shake my head and tell Will, ‘I can’t muster up the energy just now,’ but really I can’t touch those wounded and not think on Jimmy, not think on John Morgan holding his dead son’s hand, cradling his face, or that soldier I aimed at so careful.

Will looks at me through narrowed eyes before shrugging. ‘I’ll be checking on how Thomas is, ministering to John, and then I’ll be over at that house, if anybody needs me,’ he says.

I nod. Across the way, the bloody hands and feet and legs and arms keep spewing through the front window. Those parts land in a big heap, and bodies lie out in the front yard and we watch like steers waiting our turn for slaughter, listening to the crying and groaning while the surgeons carve our boys up into cuts of meat, hoping that ain’t what’s coming for us.

CHAPTER
24

FORT CORCORAN, VIRGINIA: SEPTEMBER 4–6, 1862

Fort Corcoran ain’t much to look at and I never thought it’d feel at all nice to see those dirt piles and telegraph wires. But after days of rain and mud and mourning, anything meaning shelter and rest where we can pitch tents and live almost civilized makes me feel a tiny bit better. We don’t know how long we’ll stay here, and I know it ain’t anything worrying on can fix, but that don’t stop me.

Now we’ve seen action, Captain’s lost his keenness for drilling all the time and that is just fine by me, except away from the battlefield, my mind won’t stay easy. I wake before morning, remembering dreams of mouths filling with dirt, of blood wrung from soiled cloths, of embroidered names I can’t read, of Papa burning bloody sheets. I reach for Jeremiah, thinking to hold his hand, but we are spread as far apart as can be. He twitches and grinds his teeth until they squeak.

He takes a sharp breath, and then he is bolting straight up, looking all around with eyes that ain’t focused on anything, saying, ‘You’re here?’

When I say, ‘Course I am,’ he lies right back down and is sleeping so
fast that he must not have ever been full awake. After that, my mind is working ’til dawn, wondering how long before I have to tell Jeremiah my fears, how long before I’ll know for sure. I am glad when Jeremiah wakes up proper except for the circles under his eyes.

Outside in the shade of our tent, Jeremiah sits, tight and drawn. I look sidelong at him, thinking on how his face was always easy and peaceful back at home in our Little House, wondering if a baby would be a thing for him to be happy on again when Sully comes walking fast down the aisle, carrying a newspaper.

‘You heard the rumors about General Lee?’ he says, and thrusts the paper at Jeremiah.

‘Can’t say we have,’ Jeremiah says, his voice flat even as he reaches for Sully’s paper.

‘Everybody says he’s moving his Confederates into Maryland.’ Sully talks loud, and Hiram from the next tent over looks up from whatever he’s carving.

‘I got that paper from Thomas Stakely and it says Lincoln’s fired Pope,’ Sully keeps on.

‘Course Lincoln ought to fire him,’ Edward yells from where he sits by Hiram. ‘They brought him from out West to win and all he did was lose the biggest battle since the first Bull Run!’

‘What’s this mean for us?’ I ask Sully.

‘What it means is McClellan’s in command of our Army now.’

‘What it means is we might be leaving for Maryland any day,’ Jeremiah says, looking up from the paper as Sully snatches it away, my heart sinking at the words.

Hiram calls over, ‘McClellan is damn slow moving, but his soldiers like him real fine.’

Edward says, ‘That’s because he keeps them in supplies. And he don’t get them killed. Look at how many we lost—Jimmy, Frank, Henry—and we didn’t even see an hour of action.’

Hearing those names rattled off don’t make me want to go to Maryland and chase after General Lee. Jeremiah is already pulling inside himself, and if we are moving soon, I can’t add new worry to the weight of all that.

‘Henry ain’t dead,’ Jeremiah says. ‘He’s still out there.’

‘Sure he is,’ Edward says. ‘Bet he’ll be joining us any day now.’

I let myself think on deserting. Only instead of going to keep watch over Jimmy’s grave like Henry must’ve done, there’s me and Jeremiah walking through the dusty yard, pushing open the door to our Little House, sitting down at Mama and Papa’s table to tell them the news about a grandbaby on the way. But I get that far and my brain says
no no no no
. Neither of us is going to live easy if we put aside this duty we signed on for, if the red-hot branding iron is always burning in the back of our minds. There’s no going back and pretending we never left, and I ain’t going home to nothing but waiting when all I’ve got is a sick feeling. Maybe that feeling ain’t nothing but nerves.

Will comes shambling over, and Sully turns his back on Edward when he says, ‘Chaplain Will! Now we might be going off to Maryland, guess I’ll wait a few more days and ask the Good Lord for forgiveness right before I die. What do you think about that?’

‘You’re not worried you won’t get that chance?’ Will asks him.

‘Well, see now, I’m worried about other things I mightn’t get the chance for—liquor and gambling and women. Mostly women,’ Sully says, and I wonder how he can be poking fun, after everything.

‘Aren’t you worried about your future self?’ Will asks. ‘How do you expect to ever find yourself a wife of noble character, if you aren’t virtuous yourself?’

‘Aw, Chaplain! Stop quoting the Bible at me! Any wife I find won’t have to know a thing about my sins, and God knows I’ve got the best intentions. He’s hearing me right now, saying I aim to be good and sorry for doing the things I ain’t done yet. And if I can get all the benefits of a wife for a few bits, well, the Good Lord wants us to be happy, now don’t he?’

‘That’s not how salvation works,’ Will says, and then he is looking at me. ‘You’ve got to be penitent. You’ve got to regret those things you’ve done, and struggle against that sin in your heart. What you’re talking about doesn’t sound like turning away from sin.’

‘This mean you ain’t getting a new deck of cards?’ I ask, wondering if Will is talking about what he tried with me in the woods.

Sully don’t give him a chance to answer.

‘Ain’t none of us playing poker, not with Henry and Jimmy gone,’ Sully says, his voice gravelly with feeling. ‘Ain’t the same. But no. I ain’t turning away from sin. I don’t care what Chaplain Will here says. I’m running right into it. God knows if he gave me time to find a wife, then I wouldn’t be in this position.’

Jeremiah says, ‘My soul ain’t the only thing thanking the Lord I already found a wife of noble character, and I didn’t even spend a single ruby neither.’

I blush at Jeremiah talking bawdy like that about me, about things we’ve done. I ain’t ever heard joking like that from him before. Sully laughs and winks at me, making my face go so hot I’ve got to turn away, especially thinking how
noble
is the last word Jeremiah might call me if he knew the secret I ain’t found a way to tell him yet.

‘It isn’t right, blaming God for your sins,’ Will says, like he can’t see how Sully’s already made up his mind.

‘I don’t blame God so much as the Union Army,’ Jeremiah says, so quiet I almost don’t hear it.

‘I ain’t saying my sinning is God’s fault,’ Sully says. ‘What I’m saying is I ain’t willing to risk dying and never tasting horizontal refreshments, pardon my frankness. Not if God is going to let so many good boys die out there. Now, I’ve got some idea Captain ain’t going to turn down a request or two for passes to the Capital, so you want to join me for a night on the town, Will? Or you going to stay here and deny how hungry you are?’

‘I’m all full up,’ I say.

Sully snorts and then Jeremiah and he both get to laughing for the first time since we marched on the Warrenton Turnpike.

Finally Jeremiah stops and then he looks at me and says, ‘I ain’t hungry neither.’

That almost sets them off again, but then Sully’s face goes sullen.

‘You mean, there ain’t no one to come with me?’ He says it like the idea is a toy that just broke and lost all its sheen.

Hiram walks over from where he’s been sitting and slaps Sully’s back, holding up what he’s been carving, a coarse white ring.

‘You know what this is?’ he asks.

All of us stare at him, at that thick circle of some boy’s backbone resting on his palm. There’s worse things than the pulling inside Jeremiah’s been doing.

‘It’s a little something I found at Bull Run,’ he says. ‘I’m sending this ring to a gal I like to play stink-finger with sometimes, to keep her thinking about my finer qualities. But have I ever got a treat for you! I’ll show you a good fucking establishment or two.’

All I can think is how if Henry hadn’t left and Jimmy weren’t gone, Sully wouldn’t have to go anywhere with the likes of Hiram. But Sully steps off with Hiram, something like a smile pasted to his face, a hollow laugh coming out of him when Hiram says, ‘You and me can give those old whores fits!’

W
E HAVE ALMOST
given Sully up for the night when the sound of a fiddle comes reeling through the tents.

‘You think that’s them?’ Will asks.

‘Even if it ain’t, it’s worth taking a look-see,’ Jeremiah says, and with that the three of us are up and moving toward the sound.

There is already a crowd when we get to the parade ground. In the center is a woman, her foot resting on a stump, her red dress hoisted up to show her whole calf, an upturned kepi in her hand. Behind her another woman dances with Edward, while Sergeant Fitzpatrick plays the fiddle.

Sully sits on the ground, three jugs at his feet, a tin cup in his hand, a silly grin on his face.

‘We brought you fellas a dance!’ Hiram shouts, and points at Sully. ‘The whiskey is thanks to all the poker we’ve been winning, but if you want to dance with a real lady you’d better bring some greenbacks of your own!’

That sends some of the boys running back for their tents, whooping and shouting like they’ve never seen a battlefield.

‘I like the view I’m getting for free just fine,’ Ambrose says, and makes his way over to the line starting up by Sully. Me and Jeremiah and Will stay
put. I don’t know where to look, at those ladies doing things that don’t belong in public, or at the boys making fools of themselves over it. Still, it ain’t long before Jeremiah’s foot gets to tapping. Some of the younger ones, like Josiah Price and Levi Blalock, get to hopping around Edward, who is still dancing with that woman of low virtue.

‘Let’s dance, Rosetta,’ Jeremiah whispers, his breath hot in my ear.

‘We can’t!’

‘I don’t see why not. There ain’t enough women to go around, and with those two ladies, you and me ain’t going to attract no notice. I for one am not letting this chance go to waste,’ he says, and tugs on my arm.

As we push past the crowd around Sully, he yells, ‘Come on, Chaplain! When are you ever going to live a little?’

Not two seconds later, a cheer goes up and that is the moment Jeremiah puts his arm around my waist, saying, ‘Not a single one of them is going to remember this night, but us.’

That is all that needs saying and then we are waltzing through the dark, covering ground across the open space, moving farther away from the ruckus. Jeremiah’s steps are long and sure, his hand cupping my shoulder blade, telling me where to go. He lifts his arm and pushes me under to make a turn, and as I spin, I catch sight of Jennie Chalmers and her billowing skirts, dancing at the other end of the parade ground with Captain, the fiddle washing over all of us, everything else fading into the night.

I don’t know how long we dance like that when a yell goes up and all kinds of laughing. Jeremiah and me turn as one to see about the fuss. Someone has built a bonfire at the edge of the parade ground, and in the light, other pairs of boys dance and Hiram’s two whores put on a show to make any decent person blush. But that ain’t where the hooting is coming from.

Will is hanging on that boy with the torn-up leg, Milo, and Edward and Hiram and a few others there watch, the fire playing on their faces.

I don’t even try explaining to Jeremiah. I scurry to where Will is leaning to kiss that boy on the mouth, making the others gathered around hoot and slap their knees all over again.

‘Will!’ I holler as I get close, and he turns lazily toward me, loose-limbed from drink.

Hiram jeers, ‘Aw now, Ross, don’t spoil our fun! It ain’t every day we get to watch a real gal-boy in action!’

‘I ain’t spoiling nothing,’ I say. ‘I’m just aiming to get myself a word with the finest dancing Chaplain you ever saw.’

‘Oh, hi there, Ross,’ Will slurs, nearly falling as I take up his free hand, leaving Milo standing there looking so confused the other boys start laughing again.

‘You got cut in on by a real lady!’ Sully laughs, and I pray Jeremiah is right that none of these boys will remember a thing come morning.

‘Being a Chaplain must get powerful lonely, is all I got to say,’ Edward calls.

‘You come on with me,’ I say, and when he leans his head on my shoulder it is a dead weight, the vapor coming off him thick.

I practically drag Will to the edge of the field. Jeremiah is standing where I left him, but when we get away from the light of the bonfire and the other boys, he comes to help me get Will off the field.

‘What were you doing, Rosetta?’ he hisses as he takes up Will’s other arm.