I Shall Be Near to You (9 page)

Jeremiah is quiet a long time, looking down, his hands opening and closing in his lap. The cold breeze moves through the trees, moves between us, and I don’t know what he is thinking.

‘I wanted something to make it back for,’ he says.

That does it then. The feelings coming over me are all mixed up. It is maybe the best thing anyone has ever said to me, but I ain’t thought about us not making it back, not really, not if we’re together.

‘There’s other things to make it back for! We’ve still got our farm. We’ve still got a family to raise. With me making the same pay, we can get all that sooner.’

‘It’s a three years’ enlistment, Rosetta. It wouldn’t matter if we got the money now, there ain’t nowhere to go but with the Army.’

‘Then we’ll go where the Army does. Everybody says this war’ll be over soon.’

Jeremiah shakes his head, pushing furrows in the mud with his toe.

‘I never want to see you hurt,’ he says, and stands. ‘We’ve got to get back.’

CHAPTER
9

UTICA, NEW YORK: FEBRUARY 1862

I don’t know at first what Jeremiah means to do. We walk through the melting snow and mud, through a small village of men. Most of them look to come off farms like we’ve done, but as we pass one of the tents, that wiry-looking man says, ‘That fucking mill don’t pay damn near enough for the three of us. ’Specially not if that shit work is going to kill me.’

The Black Eye man answers him, ‘Don’t I damn well know it! That mill took my brother’s arm and I can’t hardly keep us fed on what it pays.’

‘Canal work ain’t no good either. I about break my back doing it and couldn’t even pay for a pine box to bury my wife in,’ says the serious-faced man who was marching near me.

Those men are in their old clothes, dirty now from days of wearing and traveling and drilling, but that ain’t what gets me thinking of Mama’s thick squares of soap, the foul mouth on that man worse than anything I ever tried saying, worse than anything Papa said when our cows busted through the fence and trampled Mr. Snyder’s corn. I stay close to Jeremiah as we
walk between the rows of tents, wishing I could grab his hand, how maybe then I’d know something of his mind.

There’s a laugh I know and Jeremiah stops in front of the tent it’s coming from. He catches my eye before calling out, ‘Hello!’

I step from behind Jeremiah and there, gathered around a campfire, are Henry and Jimmy and tent-pole Sully between them.

‘What took you so long?’ Sully asks from where he sits on a wooden crate, his long skinny legs folded up like a grasshopper’s.

Those three look between each other. Henry snickers and digs his elbow into Sully’s ribs.

‘We thought you might need some time to work things out, but damn! That was a while!’ Henry says. Jimmy turns away, his face red enough to almost hide his freckles.

‘This is important,’ Jeremiah starts to say, but Sully ain’t paying him any mind. He has got his knife out, whittling away at a stick, keeping his hands busy. Henry looks at me, every part of me, and then Jimmy asks, ‘What did you say you’re calling yourself now?’

‘Ross Stone,’ I say, and Sully’s head snaps up then too.

‘Ross is staying here,’ Jeremiah says. ‘With us.’

‘For tonight?’ Jimmy asks, and the air goes still like when a herd of cows is about to do something stupid.

‘No. She’s—Ross is coming with us. With the Regiment,’ Jeremiah says.

Henry looks between us and takes off his cap, rubs his ginger hair, so greasy now from days of going unwashed that it almost looks brown. He slaps the cap back on. I can’t think of a time when these boys ain’t let me join in with them.

‘Have you lost your mind?’ Henry says. ‘This ain’t no place for a woman. You got to get your wife in hand—’

Jeremiah takes a step closer to Henry. ‘You keep your voice down.’

I stay where I am.

‘You mean just ’til we get orders,’ Henry says.

‘I’m enlisted,’ I say, and stare at Henry. ‘I ain’t going home.’

‘Rosetta—you hush for once!’ Jeremiah’s hiss almost knocks the wind out of me.

Sully says, ‘You ain’t kidding?’ and Jimmy keeps his head down, like his feet are something special to see.

‘Is that the most fool-headed plan you ever heard?’ Henry asks, looking at Sully and Jimmy.

‘Pretty much,’ Sully says.

‘Well, it ain’t my plan!’ Jeremiah yells. ‘But it’s what happened.’

‘You think you’re going to be a soldier?’ Henry turns on me.

‘Being a soldier don’t seem so tough,’ I say, straightening up. ‘I already marched with you and nobody thought a thing about it.’

‘Jeremiah—you agreed to this? It ain’t right!’ Henry says.

‘It look like I got another choice?’ Jeremiah says, throwing his hands up.

‘The other choice is you send her home!’ Henry says, like I ain’t even standing there.

‘I ain’t going. Captain Chalmers has got his wife with him,’ I say.

‘Maybe you ain’t noticed, but she’s wearing a dress!’ Henry practically shouts.

Jeremiah clears his throat, his face looking pained. ‘Ross is staying. If that don’t suit you, maybe you’d best find another tent.’

There is a long silence. The boys look at each other and then Jimmy shrugs, shaking a crick out of his back, and smiles at me and shoves his hands into his pockets. When Sully sees Jimmy’s smile, he throws the stick he’s been holding into the fire, making a spray of sparks.

‘I’ll find myself another tent,’ Sully says, and my stomach drops, thinking I am breaking the boys apart and that ain’t what I meant to do at all.

‘If that’s how you feel, I ain’t stopping you,’ Jeremiah says.

‘I sure as hell ain’t sharing a four-person tent with no newlyweds,’ Sully says low, and then he shoves himself off the crate and toward the aisle.

‘Damn it!’ Jeremiah shoves the crate that was Sully’s and then sinks down onto it without even offering me a place to sit. ‘Lord knows it’s madness,’ he mutters.

‘Madness don’t even begin to cover it.’ Henry shakes his head, looking straight ahead, past me.

I forgot to take any of them to mind, to think how Sully can’t hardly keep his mouth shut, and how Henry gets meaner every year since his Pa
up and left, and how the three of them could get me sent home just as easy as Jeremiah can.

N
EXT MORNING
, I
am up before the sun even starts creeping over the hills because I’ve got to be, because I barely slept the whole night for fretting. That and sleeping on the hard ground, Jeremiah’s back to me and the cold seeping through my blanket. Jeremiah is still breathing deep and slow next to me, but now his arm’s across my belly, his mouth curved into what almost looks like a smile, now that he is too sunk in sleep to remember to be mad. I can’t help myself, I turn to him and kiss his cheek.

‘Mmmmm,’ he says, not moving a bit.

Jimmy and Henry are two lumps under their blankets. I wriggle out from under Jeremiah’s arm and our covers, bending to keep from touching the roof of our tent. I want to stay under the scratchy wool, in the heat coming off Jeremiah, but there ain’t any other way to get my business done.

My breath comes in puffs and my teeth are chattering before I even find the tent flap in the mostly dark, trying to stay quiet so I don’t wake the boys. The ties on that flap ain’t easy to undo, but before long I am out in the morning frost, sucking in the clean air. It don’t matter it’s cold; after a night under mildewy canvas anything fresh is a blessing. Down the wide aisle between our row of tents and the next, it looks like these boys have been living here for weeks with the lanterns and crates and knapsacks left lying about. In the dim light there ain’t another soul stirring, but the snoring and coughing of men sleeping comes through the tent walls and I hope Jeremiah has the sense to pull our blankets apart when he gets up.

The camp has got one big long latrine trough dug off a ways, but that don’t stop the bitter smell of piss from reaching all the way to the tents. There is burlap strung up to make a wall shading the trough from sight, but I can’t be using that, and anyhow it is more foul than even the old school privy. Heading away from the main camp, I weave through the trees and down into the woods. The ground crunches beneath my feet until I find cover enough for my private business.

When I get back near our row of tents, there is a man still keeping farm time, dragging a wet comb through his thinning hair before getting to the day’s work. He is wearing the homespun clothes and leather skin of a farmer. He don’t say a thing, just looks and nods at me. I don’t trust my voice to ask his name, so I nod back. There’s other boys stirring now too. The wiry foul-mouthed millworker pushes out of his tent right in front of me, rubbing his hands across the stubble on his face. He says, ‘Cold as a witch’s tit, ain’t it?’

All the times the boys used words like that around me, they sucked their lips in and made like my ears might bleed, and for a second, I don’t think he’s talking to me. Then I see there ain’t no one else close.

I make my voice go low. ‘Sure is.’

‘Anybody around here got a fire going?’ he asks.

I shake my head, ‘Not that I’ve seen.’

‘Goddamn it!’ Foul Mouth says to my back as I hurry off. ‘Fucking useless!’

Farther down the aisle, in front of the tent Sully moved himself to, a narrow-faced, towhead boy looking younger even than Jimmy sits cross-legged on the ground, his lips moving as he reads the Bible cracked open on his knees. I think about asking after Sully, but the boy don’t look up so I keep on past and slip back into our tent. Jeremiah stirs under the blankets but I don’t try waking him. Both O’Malleys look dead to the world. I sit myself down, tired already from worrying on getting caught and pretending for even an hour alone. But there ain’t no other way.

The blast of a bugle comes blaring. Jeremiah jumps out of the blankets, his hair every which way, and looks around like he’s lost something. He sees me and a hint of a smile lights and then fades. He rakes his hair with his fingers and it is good he has got all his clothes on so he can pop right up and go. Grumbling voices gather outside and Sergeant yells, ‘It’s reveille! Get moving to the parade ground!’

‘Let’s go,’ Jeremiah says.

‘I ain’t keeping you,’ I say, and haul our blankets apart. Jeremiah takes one look at the O’Malleys still sleeping and starts in on them, pulling at their feet. ‘Hey! Henry! Jimmy! Wake up!’

Henry kicks out and says, ‘Leave me be!’ and I get to wondering how he ever got to any farm chores, but everybody knows the O’Malley farm don’t prosper and maybe their Pa being gone ain’t the only reason.

Jeremiah practically drags those boys out of their blankets and into the sun, Henry grumbling and complaining the whole time while Jimmy trails after us, keeping out of the fray like always.

We line up on the parade ground, me taking Sully’s old spot beside Jeremiah, Sully off in the back row somewhere, Jimmy still sucking himself back. Leatherskin and wiry Foul Mouth and stocky Black Eye are in the row ahead of us. And then there is Captain Chalmers at the front with his wife looking small beside him, that black ledger back in her hands. She marks things in that book while Captain calls roll.

‘Levi Blalock!’

‘Yes, Sir!’ a short and squat boy not much older than Jeremiah answers.

‘Ambrose Clark!’ Captain says loud.

‘Here, Sir!’ says that serious-faced canalman to my right who has got the same liquor smell as Mr. Lewis back home.

Captain walks up and down the line yelling out names, and that is how I learn that Towhead Boy is Will Eberhart and Leatherskin is called John Morgan and the younger man beside him is his son Frank. Foul Mouth is Hiram Binhimer and his friend Black Eye is Edward Stiles, the two of them making a naughty pair. When Captain calls out ‘Ross Stone,’ there is a long pause and Jeremiah elbows my side before I remember myself. I forget to make my voice deep when I call out, ‘Present, Sir!’ My throat almost closes up to see dainty Mrs. Chalmers staring at me, but Captain keeps on down the line.

When all our names have been called, Mrs. Chalmers takes a small book from her apron and gives it to Captain before she swishes away in her long skirt. He opens it, flipping through the pages.

‘I ain’t ever seen book learning be any help when push comes to shove, but Captain can’t get enough of that manual,’ Ambrose Clark says, his voice thick and slurry.

‘It’s his wife I can’t get enough of,’ Hiram laughs from ahead of us.
‘Don’t know how he found a sweet-assed angel like that, but I’d sure like push to come to shove with her!’

My neck prickles. I want to get farther away from Hiram, but instead I stand tall, pretending not to see Henry’s smug face and the eyebrow he raises at Jeremiah.

‘We move together to keep safe,’ Captain tells us.

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, Ambrose says, ‘There ain’t no place safe on a battlefield.’

But Captain don’t hear him, one hand stroking his beard as if he’s ironing it, his eyes pasted to that book in the other hand. Finally he yells, ‘Company H as Skirmishers, by the Left Flank, Take Intervals, March!’

It ain’t a drill we did yesterday, but the other boys turn left so I follow.

We march forward twenty steps more and then Jeremiah whispers at me, ‘Stop right here and face front and then move ten steps to the right!’

I do like he says even though there ain’t no more orders coming from Captain yet and I don’t see how I’m going to get this drill straight, learning after everyone else already did. When I turn, the whole line of our Company is stretched out, some men kneeling and some lying down. I keep standing. I don’t see either how kneeling or making a left flank is going to help when the bullets start flying, but I feel better when everyone is doing the same thing.

Jimmy says, ‘Ross, take cover,’ and he kneels down on the ground so I do too.

And then Captain yells again, ‘Company H, Assemble on the Right Flank!’ and as we stand, Jimmy whispers at me, ‘Go back into fours!’

We keep drilling, going from marching in column to fanning out in line of battle and back again, ’til the ground that started out icy has turned to mud again. We get to where we move in a herd, only we don’t do it smooth on the flick of an ear or the turn of a haunch. After every new order, Captain looks up from his book to see if we’re doing like he said, his ironing hand sliding inside his frock coat.