Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (14 page)

“You smell good,” I say, nuzzling his armpit. “I love
how you smell. It gets me a little giddy.”

“Hell, I stink like unwashed soldier-sweat and your
devil-kin’s piss!”

“I’ll fetch us a bath soon. Meanwhile…” Breathing
deep, I nuzzle more. The feathery hair tickles my nostrils. “Your
pits smell like barnyard straw and salt-rising bread.”

Drew giggles like a little boy. “
Stop
talking about bread. You’re a torment. Salt-rising
with apple butter…”

“Hot biscuits with honey,” I murmur.

“Shut up!” Drew soft-slaps my back.

“All right, all right. No more food talk.”

Drew, sighing, presses his bearded cheek against mine
and strokes my shaggy hair.

“God, it’s good to be in here together. Outside it’s
all sleet and mud, cruelty, cavalry… I’m so sick of all of it. This
is so good, Ian. It’s as close as I’ve been to home since I left
home.”

“Me too. I haven’t touched a man like this since Thom
left.”

“He left?”

“That’s another thing I didn’t tell you before. After
that night, he wouldn’t speak to me again. He moved west right
after that.”

“Was it ’cause you took him that way? From
behind?”

“I assume so…but I didn’t force him. He showed me
how. He begged me to.”

“He was ashamed to face you, then?” Drew’s fingers
recommence their slow exploration of the back of my neck and the
long-unshorn locks of my hair.

“Yep, that’s it. He couldn’t face what he wanted. I
was pretty sad for a long time after he left. I was mighty fond of
him.” Absentmindedly I caress the curly silk across Drew’s torso,
then settle one hand upon his breast. There, now, his heartbeat,
slow and steady.

“I can tell you cared for him, Ian. I’m sorry. Think
I know how you feel,” Drew says. “I felt pretty sad when Rob and I
stopped wrestling and working together. Sometimes I caught myself
wishing…he didn’t have a wife and child so he and I…could just
homestead together.”

Stroking Drew’s chest-pelt, I count his heartbeats
for a while. I leave off at one hundred. That long line of numbers
is finite, I know, but it’s in my power to extend it, if I can only
find the cunning and the courage. “We need to get some rest, buddy.
Tomorrow will be torture for both of us.” Reluctantly I slip from
his embrace.

“All right.” Drew fumbles for my face, pats it, then
his fingers drop to my bare chest. “You got some hair there, little
man,” he mumbles, tugging gently at it. “Nice near-naked. Nice.”
His touch has me even harder.

Now his fingers stop their ranging. They find a
focus, stroking a zigzag across my breast.

“I figured you’d start finding them sooner or later,
if I ever took my shirt off in front of you and if I was ever lucky
enough for you to want to touch me,” I say.

“That’s right. That first night, you found my battle
scars, I told you about ’em, but I never got a chance to hear about
yours. Tell me, Ian. Please?”

“That there you’re feeling on, that was a bayonet at
Antietam. Jeremiah—he’s a bit of a poet—says it looks like ‘a white
lightning bolt in the black storm clouds of my chest hair,’ since
hair doesn’t grow on scars. I was in the camp hospital for a while
with that. Saw the piles of limbs after the surgeon left; thanked
God I still had my hands and feet. A fever almost took me, but I
recovered. And this,” I say, taking his hand and leading his
forefinger to my belly, “this was grapeshot at Fredericksburg.”

“Hmmm, feels like a bunch of little mole hills,” Drew
murmurs, tapping the scars with his fingertip, then ruffling my
belly hair. “Little mole hills and pasture grass.”

“Nice. Nigh as poetic as Jeremiah,” I say, laughing.
“And this,” I say, rolling on my side, “on my back, deep graze of a
bullet at Chancellorsville. Very close call.”

“Damn. How many do you have?”

“Three more. I’m pretty shy out of combat, but I’m a
wildcat in battle or boxing, as Sarge likes to say. This here,
along my right forearm”—Drew’s fingers fumble about, then find the
healed-over long slash—”was a Yankee dagger, hand to hand combat,
at Gettysburg. Here”—Drew’s finger circles the little pit on my
right shoulder—“was a bullet, also at Gettysburg. Being carted out
of there along those rutty roads was far worse agony than being
shot. And there’s more grapeshot scars here, “ I say, patting my
trousered right thigh. “That’s from Fisher’s Hill.”

Drew sighs. “Damn, I’m glad you survived these.” To
my surprise, he kisses my scarred chest. “I’m so sorry, Ian. That
men I might have known, men from my state, might have… Buddy, I’m
so, so glad you survived.”

I lie still, heart welling with thanks, patting his
head. Gently he moves me about, his lips meeting my old wounds one
by one. When my eyes well up, hurriedly I wipe them dry.

“My turn,” I say when he’s done, voice shakier than
I’d like. “Maybe, if you’re lucky, you can get to the one on my
thigh some other night.” Nudging him onto his back, I straddle his
legs and begin my own exploration. “Here,” I pat his ribs, the
slat-bones prominent beneath my touch, “this big slash…Yellow
Tavern?” My lips brush the half-moon, left by a saber that, more
accurately wielded, might have finished him.

“Yep. Good memory.” Drew grips my shoulder and
squeezes.

“Black day. Jeb Stuart was mortally wounded there,
dammit. Well.” I caress a pit on his arm, very much matching the
one on my shoulder. “Trevilian Station?” Bending down, I kiss
it.

“Right. Your test is almost over.”

“And this on the shoulder—oh, I know all these very
well, having salved and bandaged you—was outside Staunton.” A final
kiss, before I stretch out on my back and he curls against me, head
heavy on my shoulder.

“Speaking of Staunton,” Drew murmurs, fondling my
chest hair, tracing again the scar there, “I guess we’ve left out
another kind of sharing soldiers do. May I ask…if you’re not too
tired…”

“What?” I say, but I think I know what’s coming. “Go
ahead.”

“Well, outside Staunton was where…where I…first
killed a man. I mean, before that, I’d seen battle, and I’d shot at
many and many a Reb, but, what with all the powder-flash and smoke
and noise, hell, you know how it is, you load up, you charge, you
aim, you fire, but rare is the time, in such confusion, that you
see a man fall and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was you
who brought him down.”

Drew’s finger wanders down to my belly button,
circles and probes it, then his big arm falls across my chest and
he snuggles closer. “I was cavalry at Yellow Tavern—pistol and
saber—and I know I wounded a goodly number—and then again at
Trevilian Station—but near Staunton, the man whose ball caught my
shoulder, I think he even might have been a civilian, ’cause he was
dressed that way, well, the blow knocked me off my mount but I
scrambled up, I looked him in the eye—he had a musket, was trying
to reload—and I…I shot him in the head with my pistol.”

“And since then? Any others?”

“Yes. Confederate skirmishers and bushwhackers around
Staunton. Men like you, hiding up in the hills and harassing us
every now and them. I’ve shot them. Without hesitation. Them or me,
right? Shot them or…one man, my saber, well…that’s enough. Except…a
lot of my buddies, we were all real tender at first, but they
seemed to harden up, get used to the…necessity of killing. It
is
war, after all. But I never seemed to
grow that tough bark. It’s like they turned into men and I’m still
a little boy. Every time I touch this shoulder scar, I think about
that man gushing blood in a field outside Staunton and how I stood
over him, staunching my wound, till he stopped kicking and
twitching.”

I run my fingers through Drew’s beard and sigh. “My
turn, I suppose. Well, I have hardened up. Not as hard as Sarge
wants me to be, especially when it comes to prisoners. I mean, you
all are pretty helpless, you shouldn’t be tortured, but…men who’ve
come at me with gun or sword drawn, well…”

“ ‘Wildcat in war,’ were those the words?”

“Yes. This red rage comes over me, like I’m moving
through a mist of blood. In mythology I’ve read, they talk about
Vikings who went berserk, so I guess it’s like that. I’ve always
been this way, sort of quiet and peaceable, fond of books and
forest walks, but when I’m crossed, when someone threatens those I
care for…and I care for the South, and this company, so…I’ve killed
and killed and killed. Small as I am, you might not believe me,
but—”

“I believe you,” Drew whispers, his words tickling my
neck. “I know how you dealt with George when you defended me. I’m
just damned glad that you and I didn’t face one another on the
battlefield. Big as I am, I don’t know if I would have walked away
from that.”

“The first was a man about my age but twice my size
who almost gutted me with his bayonet. I shot him through the heart
with the pistol Sarge gave me when I joined up. They were all
blue-coated young men like you, for the most part, though a few
were older, men in their prime, probably with wives and children at
home. And I, hothead mountain boy, a crack shot thanks to years of
hunting deer back home…I…”

“That’s enough, Ian. I’m sorry I asked. I truly am.
Let’s get some sleep now. Just hold me, all right?”

I nod, staring into the dark, counting the men and
the battles, my throat dry.

“Glad you found me,” Drew says sleepily. Scooting
down, he curls up, rests his big head on my scarred chest, and
sighs. “Can hear your heart.” Then he’s gone into sleep. I’m left
with the sounds of sleet and his breathing. His breath is like the
distant soughing of pines.

_

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

_

Dawn, and the sound of campfire clatter and chat. No
reveille in Sarge’s absence. The sleet’s tapping has stopped. I’m
lying on my back. Drew’s bound hands are tucked up against my side.
His head still rests on my chest; my left arm’s numb beneath his
shoulders. Carefully I extricate myself, making sure he’s tucked in
warmly before pulling on my undershirt and jacket. Leaving him to
sleep, I head off to fetch coffee.

Outside, it’s still gray and damp. Melting ice drips
from bare twig tips. There’s a welcome warmth to the breeze,
though. About time. If I were home, I’d be helping my father sort
his garden seeds.

“No biscuit left,” says Rufus. He’s sitting
dejectedly near the fire, rubbing his hands, waiting for the coffee
to brew. “Lord, I hope Sarge gets back soon. He’s bound to bring
supplies.”

I nod, biting back words. Rufus would certainly not
understand why I hope Sarge takes his sweet time returning to
camp.

Coffee’s done. I pour two cups, handing one to Rufus.
It’s especially bitter, Rufus explains as he heads off to curry the
horses, because our coffee stores are so low that we’re having to
extend them with ground roasted acorns. I’m grimacing and about to
search for some kind of sweetening when Jeremiah taps my
shoulder.

The fear must show on my face, because Jeremiah is
quick to push me into a camp chair near the fire and whisper, “Be
easy, Ian! I ain’t telling anyone.” He looks around to make sure
there are no eavesdroppers before pulling up a chair and continuing
in a low voice.

“D’you remember when my older brother John left
home?”

“Yes, I do. Just before the war began? He must have
been about the age we are now, right? One week he was helping us
with the corn shucking, and the next week he was gone. You never
did tell me why.”

Jeremiah takes a deep breath, rubs the scruff on his
chin, and stares into the fire. “I saw my brother John do the same
once, the same as you, you know, with that Yankee? John was kissing
his friend Bobby in the springhouse. John had to leave home because
I told. Our father called him a blight and a sodomite, cast him
out, told him to leave and never come back. He hasn’t. We don’t
know where he is.”

I rise, pour a cup of acorn-coffee for Jeremiah, and
sit back down. He takes a sip and grunts. “Tastes like the war.

“At any rate, Bobby disappeared soon thereafter. I
hope he followed John and found him. I hope they’re together
somewhere, in Richmond or making a new life out west.”

“Is that why your banjo songs are slow and sad so
often?” I say.

Jeremiah grins. “Yup, I guess. The boys are always
begging me to play jollier, huh?” He takes another sip, makes a
face, and says, “That’s why I ain’t going to tell on you, Ian.
You’re my friend. I recognize kindness when I see it…even if your
version of kindness means treating that giant Yank like a
threatened damsel, which is nigh onto accurate, since we know what
happened to the last several Feds that Sarge fixed on. You better
watch out after ole Weasel-Teeth, though. He and the others won’t
be so understanding…and Sarge, well, if he gets wind of this, he’ll
throttle your big friend with his bare hands like he did that poor
Boston boy. Sooner rather than later, too.”

My turn to take a sip, black liquid bitter as what
surges up in my gullet now, frothy gorge of fear and hate. “George?
That goddamned ferret? What did he say?”

“He told ever’ body about you punching him, knocking
out a tooth, in defense of the prisoner. You may be Sarge’s kin,
Ian, but watch out. The boys all like you, ’cause you’ve always
been nice to all of ’em, and you haven’t taken advantage of your
kinship with Sarge—save for that sweet little tent we all envy—but
if George keeps on talking, well…”

I rise, uncurling the sudden fists I find my hands
stiffened into. “Thanks, friend. I won’t forget this.” I grip his
shoulder, fill my cup, then head back to the tent. Maybe Drew will
like this acorn-swill better than I do.

_

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

_

Drew’s still asleep when I enter the tent. I sit in
the camp chair, cup warming my hands, and watch him, still
disbelieving last night. That he asked me to hold him all night and
that I did, that we cuddled and kissed and touched one another,
those are blessings reserved for others, not me, not an unkempt
mountain boy from down by the Greenbrier. I can’t say why I find
beauty where I do, but I guess I’d better be thankful that there’s
any beauty left, after these many months of slogging camp-life and
savage wartime. All this must make me a sodomite indeed, this
longing to pull off Drew’s blanket, lie atop him, and wake him with
the weight of my body and my kisses.