I Shall Be Near to You (29 page)

Jeremiah kneels to take the fresh bread, his face gentled by the niceness of the offering. That boy smiles so wide when Jeremiah says, ‘Why thank you, Sir,’ and it is tender seeing how he might look on his own child.

W
E WAKE TO
the crack of gunfire and the roar of artillery echoing through steep ravines growing oaks and pines and tangles of mountain laurel. From my map I know we are marching on the National Road, heading for a place called Turner’s Gap.

The louder that artillery gets, the closer Jeremiah stays to my heel. When I catch him watching me one too many times, I give him a sharp look.

‘You stop worrying,’ I say, for both of us really, but Jeremiah starts taking slower, smaller steps like that is enough to keep us safe. A look passes between Jeremiah and Sully, and then Sully starts to the front.

‘You feeling all right?’ Jeremiah asks.

‘Just fine,’ I say.

‘You been sleeping more than I’ve ever known you to,’ he says. ‘Can’t even stay awake to eat half the time.’

‘I’m just getting what rest I can. Besides, hardtack ain’t worth staying awake for anyway.’ I don’t tell him how the sight of it, especially when there’s weevils making tunnels through it, gets my whole stomach wanting to empty itself, not when he’s already finding things to ask questions about, when I can’t stop the tiredness from just overtaking me.

Sully shakes his head at Jeremiah when he gets back, saying, ‘There’s no word.’ We know from the sound it ain’t peace. Down at the road, the lead Regiment lets out a loud cheer that ripples through the five Regiments ahead of us, far off at first but getting louder and louder as we march. And then all the boys and Sully and Jeremiah beside me join the noise.

There, sitting on the blackest horse I ever saw, overlooking the road and the mountain, is General McClellan. He is something spectacular, like a king, his mustache trimmed and a straw-colored sash about his waist with his sword hanging from it. As the men keep cheering, wave after wave, McClellan flings his arm toward the top of the mountain we’re climbing, pointing to where a crown of smoke rests above the trees. He don’t say a word, only moves his arm to point again, and everyone cheers again.

Our enemy is coming closer all the time, and there ain’t no way to
escape the fighting if they keep bringing it North to us, maybe not even if I were back home. That’s what I tell myself. Our Army ought to be winning, that’s what everyone says, and if those Rebels keep beating us, we’ll end up with nothing. Thinking that gets me to yelling too, and just for a bit I don’t even feel the weight of the rifle on my shoulder or the heaviness in my belly.

I
T IS LATE
afternoon when we turn off the National Road and follow a little farm road to a pasture filled with smoke and noise and crawling with soldiers. Sergeant yells, ‘Get down!’ and we kneel, our rifles ready, our breath coming in gasps that don’t allow for talking. Before us is a rough zigzag fence and a small, scraggly cornfield cleared of trees and scratched out from rock, the work of farming land like that barely even worth the harvest. Union men from another Regiment mash themselves against the near side of those rails, hunkering down and keeping their heads low because there are lines of Rebels, maybe a whole Brigade of them, snaking through that cornfield. The fence must give more shelter than I’d guess because the soldiers there are pushing those Rebels back, leaving the silent dead and hollering wounded, Union and Rebel, so close the men at the fence line could reach through and stab them quiet or haul them to safety without leaving their post.

We wait in reserve, seeing everything and doing nothing. The men load and fire as one and I can’t help grabbing Jeremiah’s elbow, just to make him give me an almost-smile before he goes back to watching the field, to remind me this is where I ought to be, that we are safe here so far behind the fence. The crack of the rifles echoes back off the hills and a line of Rebels is cut down and there is more crying out before the next roar of artillery. I think on that cheering when we passed McClellan and there’s none of that Glory and Courage now, with the madness all around.

When the sun drops behind the mountains and shadows creep over us, the chill comes with it. After a time the shooting dies down and there is only the cries of the wounded. It is too dark for there to be any use in
fighting anymore, but those Rebels ain’t gone from the trees, so we’ve got orders to stay put and sleep on our arms. I can’t see how any of us can rest like that but still, with Jeremiah on my left and Sully to the front and Will along my right side, it is almost morning when I startle and see I’ve slept as deep as ever and dropped my musket too.

Most everyone is stirring. Captain Chalmers is talking to Sergeant Ames back behind the last rows of our Regiment and before long Sergeant comes to us and says, ‘Seems the Rebels left in the night. We’ve got the high ground now, and we’ve got to bury our dead before we press on.’

‘Must be nice, sitting up there in fancy deerskin gloves, watching us be the reapers,’ Ambrose says, frowning even more than usual at Colonel Wheelock on his horse at the edge of the trees.

‘Dirty work or not, it isn’t right leaving those men out on open ground,’ Will says, and no one can argue with a thing like that.

My feet are leaden as we go straight out to that fence line with bodies still draped across it, not fifty paces from where we slept. Some of the boys push the bodies away and clamber on over, but Jeremiah goes to a place where there’s nobody to move off the fence and that’s where we climb. On the field all manner of dead lie among the cornstalks bent and broken. One man lays with his hands like claws and blood clotting his beard and no shoes on his feet. Standing next to another body, licking at the blood jellied where that man’s head should be, is a skinny-looking farm dog.

‘Get home!’ I yell, gagging to watch that dog doing what only comes natural. ‘Go on! Get!’ I yell until that dog slinks away, but I know it will come back as soon as we’re gone. I can’t stand the faces of those men lying there, some still looking like the terror is on them, some looking like sleeping except for the trickles of dried blood coming from their mouths or noses or ears.

Jeremiah stoops low over a body and when he straightens and turns it is almost a marvel to see him moving, to see him whole and strong. He don’t notice me and from the look of his eyes he is thinking on Jimmy again, or maybe wondering about the men staining his soul. When he finally feels me staring, his face brightens for a moment. Then I stop thinking about the
bodies and smelling everything that comes from them and only look close enough to know which need burying and which are still cursing and crying.

‘Ross!’ Jeremiah calls from where he is kneeling, his hand on a boy’s shoulder. ‘I need your help.’

‘I’m coming,’ I say, taking my fingers away from the cold neck of a soldier, picking my way through more bodies to Jeremiah.

‘You’ve got to help me get this soldier to the wagons,’ he says like he might come apart. ‘Maybe they can get a surgeon.’

‘We ain’t got a stretcher,’ I say.

‘Don’t matter. We can’t leave this one.’

He’s crouched down beside a boy curled up on his side, crying and holding his stomach.

‘We’ve got to get you to the doctor,’ he says.

That boy wails ‘Noooooo,’ to Jeremiah or to the way he’s feeling or maybe both.

‘We can call the band to come get him,’ I say. ‘We ain’t here for the living, Jeremiah.’

‘No. It’s got to be us,’ Jeremiah says softly. ‘Come here.’

Squatting at that boy’s side, seeing his face, I gasp. Beneath the dirt and blood and tears that face is smooth with a narrow jaw and not a single whisker, and it almost makes me start crying.

I ain’t the only one. A rush of words spills into my mouth, things I want to ask, but I catch most of them.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask that girl, but she don’t answer for all the crying she’s doing.

‘Rosetta!’ Jeremiah says quiet, but firm. ‘We’ve got to get her off the field!’

That girl’s eyes lock on mine.

‘I’m Rosetta Wakefield. This is my man.’

And then her voice comes, all ragged. ‘Emma Davidson,’ she says before she is moaning again.

‘You got kin?’ I ask.

She says ‘Nooooooo’ again, but maybe she is just crying. The best thing
we can do for her is find her people if she has got any here. I look all around, wondering if one of the bodies sprawled here is her man, but not a soul is stirring. If she’s got anybody looking for her, hopefully they’ve got ideas where she might be. I wonder how Jeremiah would ever find me, if the worst happened.

‘You got kin here?’ I ask over.

‘That ain’t what matters!’ Jeremiah says, grabbing her feet, but he is wrong, he is only thinking about this moment and not what comes after.

That girl don’t answer, though, and there’s no sense in waiting. I hoist her from under her shoulders, listening to her shriek and seeing the shimmering of blood, her torn clothes showing gashes like small mouths gaping. With wounds like that, she ain’t keeping her secret if she gets to a hospital.

We bump back over the field, over the fence, our every stumble making her wail, and it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done carrying that girl screaming from the field until the moment when her crying stops.

Maybe the pain has got to her and she has fainted.

‘Jeremiah! Jeremiah. We ought to check.’

Jeremiah stops. ‘Okay.’

We lay her down gentle in the dirt and rocks sloping away from the battlefield. Jeremiah comes to her shoulders and I lean over her. Her eyes are wide open and when I put my ear to her mouth there’s no breath against my cheek. My fingers scrabble under her collar, feeling for a pulse, but there is nothing.

‘She ain’t breathing,’ I say. ‘Maybe—’ But then Jeremiah is on his knees, doing all the things I just did like he ain’t even heard and then he just sits back on his heels, his chest heaving.

There is only one thing else we can do, and so I open up her coat. Inside the breast pocket is a thin strip of paper, the name
David Galloway
printed neat across it. Jeremiah clutches that paper when I give it to him. There ain’t a single letter for anybody back home. Emma Davidson was thinking she was being smart, keeping her name safe, keeping her people from being shamed. But we ain’t ever going to find out another thing about her.

‘We can’t leave her here,’ I say, and prod at him, but he don’t move.

I take up Emma’s body again and try dragging her back to where some of the boys are digging shallow graves but she is cumbersome, her arms flopping like they are loose-hinged and her legs trailing, leaving marks in the dirt.

Seeing me struggling is what gets Jeremiah up. ‘You oughtn’t be doing this,’ he says.

I slowly lower Emma, laying her hands across her chest. ‘What else should I be doing then?’ I ask, only I ain’t sure I want to hear his answer. Maybe he knows something of my fears.

‘Not this,’ Jeremiah grumbles.

‘You help me then, if you’re so worried about it.’

Jeremiah looks at me and heaves a big sigh.

‘You get the arms,’ he says. ‘I’ll take the legs.’

We don’t get but a few steps when my grip starts slipping on her wet sleeve, and already there is a cold dampness to Emma’s body that makes me want to pull my hand away fast like touching Mama’s stove, that brings my sick feelings back. Jeremiah keeps walking over the rough ground while the body between us tips and swings.

‘You’ve got to slow down,’ I say.

‘What?’

‘Slow. Down. I’ve got no grip—’ I stumble and Emma’s right arm slides clean out of my hand. Her whole body sways and then my other hand slips and I ain’t never seen a thing so disrespectful as dropping that body, her head banging into the ground with a thud and then the whole motion of it making Jeremiah lose hold on those feet too.

‘Damn it, Rosetta!’ Jeremiah says, straightening up and acting more mad than he has a right to.

‘Don’t you speak to me like that,’ I yell back at him. ‘You’re walking too fast!’

‘You can’t be dropping people! It ain’t right, forgetting—None of this is right.’ He don’t yell, but he is working to make his voice stay quiet.

‘If you just keep your ears open, and listen when I ask you to slow down—or maybe if you take the heavy end, like you ought to—’

‘Like I ought to?’ he says. ‘Like you always do what you ought to? Is that what you’re thinking?’

We ain’t arguing about the same thing as we started. We’ve got ourselves into something else, only there’s boys around now so I don’t want to do this. I don’t want Jeremiah getting me so riled I tell him something I’m not ready for him to know, especially after seeing what happened to this girl.

‘I ain’t been thinking anything like that, except right now with moving bodies,’ I say. ‘I’ve got blood and stuff up here making me sick, and a face looking at me and you’ve just got to slow down is all. I ain’t talking about a thing else.’

Jeremiah looks at me for a long minute. Then he sighs and it ain’t a nice sigh like he is giving in, it is a sigh like he ain’t going to bother with me.