Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (5 page)

_

CHAPTER SEVEN

_

“Sir, I respectfully request that you leave off. As a
prisoner of war, I should be treated properly. You should—”

Sarge nods. I stuff the rag into our prisoner’s mouth
and try to tie it in with a bandana. The Yankee spits it out and
continues his protestations, his voice a deep baritone. “Sir,
please
, I’m a private in the Union Army.
You should honor the rules. I demand that you—”

Sarge backhands him, splitting his lip. “Tougher,
Ian, tougher,” Sarge sighs, retrieving the rag from the mud,
stunning him with another slap, cramming the balled-up cloth
roughly into the man’s mouth, and then knotting the bandana between
his teeth so tightly his stubbly cheeks crease.

This is the customary welcome given to those
prisoners Sarge decides to keep. The tether’s been tossed high over
a tree limb and tied; the Yankee’s stretched out, hands hauled
above his head, swaying on tiptoes. “Strip ’im, Ian,” says Sarge.
Pulling out my Bowie knife, I cut the muddy coat, vest, and
undershirt off our captive, first slicing the layers up the back,
then circling him to tear off the remnants till he’s hanging there
half-naked in the cold mountain air.

His nakedness is like a poem. I don’t want to feel
this. The skin revealed is even paler than his face. A dense layer
of honey-hued hair covers his big chest and flat belly, making a
little ruff over his collarbones, feathery explosions in his
armpits. Freckles scatter his wide white shoulders. The thick
muscles of his torso and arms bulge in the extremity of his
restraint. I want to stand here and study him. Again I want to
stroke his face. The soldier looks down at me, trying to make sound
against the fabric gagging him. I think he’s begging. As if I’m in
control here; as if I could save him. His eyebrows arch; his
forehead furrows; he shakes his head; he tugs hard at the rope
suspending him.

“Stand back, Ian,” says Sarge and then brings the
bullwhip down. Against the taut cloth the Yankee shouts. I wince.
Much of me doesn’t want to watch this; much of me does. No matter.
Sarge always orders me to stand before the victims and watch the
expressions on their faces. He says it will toughen me.

So I watch the Yankee’s eyes go wild, the sweat run
down his face, his white teeth gnash the gag as the whip works his
bare back and the odor of blood tinges the air. For a long time,
after that initial shocked shout, his pride gives him the strength
to take it in stubborn silence, save for an occasional grunt as
Sarge slices open more skin. His blue-flannelled legs shake,
managing a tiptoe ballet, trying without luck to avoid the lash. He
stares at the sky, tosses his head, stares past me into the woods.
He fights the rope knotted about his wrists till they chafe and
bleed, delicate red runnels creeping down his forearms. He dances
more, twisting under the ceaseless whip’s black tongue.

Then his blue glare falls on me and fixes. I hold him
with my eyes; he holds me with his, even after he reaches his
breaking point and that brave silence is replaced by deep
rag-muffled shouts that soon climb higher into screams, then dip
down into sobs.
Oh God, please make it
stop,
he says silently, eyes growing wet and spilling over.
Something about my enemy’s gagged baby face, his tear-glazed
stubble-scruffy cheeks, hooks me inside, in the gut. Pity for him
pools, bitter in the back of my throat.
Please
hold on; please be strong,
I say silently.
You’re young and powerful; you can take this.
Our eyes
interlock like a long handshake till his sobs dwindle into
whimpers, his eyes roll back in his head, and his head drops
forward. The thrashings become jerks, then a sagging tremble, and
now he’s silent and still.

Swish of a sword drawn. The rope’s cut from the
branch. The Yankee collapses into rain-wet grass, entirely
insensible. Someone chortles. Sarge’s striding my way, wide smile
beaming beneath his bushy gray moustache.

“Clean this up, Ian.” He throws the bloody bullwhip
on the ground at my feet. “For now, this swine’s all yours. You’re
excused from morning muster, prayers, drill, and the picket line
for a few days so you can guard him. Keep him bound and collared
but keep him alive. This one’s mighty fine. I want to own him for a
right good while.”

Sarge turns, hesitates, kicks the unconscious man in
his honey-haired belly—as if adding a postscript to a long
love-letter—and heads back into camp. In his wake, the audience of
soldiers disperses. For a long time I watch rain thinning the blood
on the Yankee’s back. Then I call Rufus over. Together we grip the
tether still knotted about the big man’s wrists and drag him
off.

_

CHAPTER EIGHT

_

I
 
’m damned lucky to have
this roomy tent, complete with cot and camp chair, more examples of
Sarge’s largesse to kin. This deep into the war, not many Southern
soldiers have access to such luxuries; most have to sleep out in
the weather wrapped in what blankets or oilcloths they can
scrounge. Once the prisoner’s deposited inside and Rufus has
brought me a bucket of water, I close and tie the flap. Now the
Yankee and I are alone. His smell permeates the dim space: blood,
mud, and unwashed armpits. I breathe him in, licking my lips, then
begin my task, with some effort rolling my bulky charge onto his
belly to ready him for a captivity of as-yet-undetermined
duration.

First, his feet. The shackles Rufus fetched I lock
around the Yankee’s booted ankles—heavy iron with a foot’s length
of equally heavy chain between them. The key I hide in my
haversack. Now there’s little chance he’ll try to knock me out and
make a run for it—not that in his present state he’s likely to.

Next, his hands. Bloodied as his wrists are, I’ve got
to leave them bound tightly together. He’s too powerful, therefore
too dangerous, to be allowed much mobility or freedom. Besides, I
know Sarge’s ongoing orders: prisoners are always to be kept very
securely and very often painfully restrained. When I check the rope
about his wrists, I find it loosened from his struggle, so I
tighten it, adding another yard or so of rope to secure his hands
further. Wish I had handcuffs, but the pair I’ve used on past
prisoners got lost during the company’s last relocation up the
Valley.

Done, I stand astraddle him—Sarge’s captive, my
captive. His young warrior’s body is relatively helpless now.
Something about his powerlessness gives me pleasure. This overcome
invader’s at my mercy, face down at my feet.

Now that I know he’s not going anywhere, I can take
my time. Gently, I remove the gag, rags bloodstained from the lip
Sarge’s slap split. Another urge I’d rather not host: I come close
to taking advantage of his senselessness by kissing his swollen
mouth but force that floodwater feeling back. Next I rinse his
wounds—terrible bloody welts like claw marks across his back. No
soap, this late in the war, so creek water will have to do. We’re
alone, and he’s unconscious, and so my hands move over his flesh
freely. There’s delight in the density of muscle, pity in the
hate-maimed skin. For long half-tranced minutes my hands tend his
great body, tracing both the fresh wounds and the ridged curves of
old battle scars he’s received in past conflicts. It’s like daubing
red wine off white linen.

By now my sex is stiff in my pants, perverse demon, a
throbbing I have half a mind to tend to before he wakes. Duty wins
that war, however—still too much to do. With Aunt Alicia’s Cherokee
salve smoothed over his back and bandages in place, I shove, heave,
and roll his dead-to-the-world weight onto my cot—head and torso
first, then hips, then legs—and cover him with blankets. Right now,
I know, he needs the cot’s comfort more than I do. Around his neck
I lock the slave collar each of Sarge’s chosen ones has worn, a
smoke-black circle of iron.

My captive secured, I wipe foe-blood from Sarge’s
bullwhip, as ordered, and curl it in the tent-corner to be returned
later. Exhausted, I settle into a camp chair and wrap myself in a
blanket against the nippy mountain night, watching my prisoner
sleep and reading poetry in candlelight, prized books sent by kin
back when mail still reached us. Homer first, then Shakespeare’s
sonnets, then a book by a Yank named Whitman.

Words give me comfort. I see myself in them. “Anger
came on Peleus’ son, and within / his shaggy breast the heart was
divided two ways.” “A man in hue, all hues in his controlling, /
Which steals men’s eyes and women’s souls amazeth.” “For thus
merely touching you is enough, is best, / And thus touching you
would I silently sleep and be carried eternally.” Hours pass, night
falls, and the long rain ceases. I listen to distant sounds—the
burbling of the nearby creek, the soft laugh of my company-mates
about the campfire—and wonder how many days or weeks this one will
survive.

He could be dead now, still as he is. I lean over
him, bending close. Yes, there’s his breath, just barely. I can
hear it, feel it on my face. Such thick blond eyebrows. Something
about him makes me ache. I can’t help myself. I touch his moist
brow, trailing a finger along one round, stubble-coarse cheek.
Pulling the blanket down to his waist, I rest one palm on his bare
chest to check his heartbeat. I ruffle the soft hair there, finger
a big satin-smooth nipple. It’s been a long time since touch made
me tremble so.

Sharp intake of breath. A groan. The big man’s
eyelids flutter open. He looks up at me, knitting his brow, then
the pain floods in, contorting his face. He shifts on the cot,
tries to rise, and falls back with a gasp.

Sarge told me to take care of him, and for once his
orders are ones I welcome. “Lie still and keep quiet,” I command,
borrowing another of war’s hard tones. I leave the tent, fetch my
ration of spit-roasted rabbit and hoecake from the campfire, then
return. The Yankee looks pretty weak yet, so I prop his head up on
my haversack and feed him with my fingers. My captive’s ravenous,
gobbling every morsel I hold to his lips, gulping water, even
sipping a bit of flask-whiskey Sarge’s shared with me. Out of
politeness, I try not to stare at his muscled shoulders and the
deep furry valley between his pectorals. In between bites, he looks
at me with a mixture of fear, hatred, and gratitude—candlelight
giving his blue eyes sea-depth—muttering a sheepish “Thanks” when
we’re done. I guess we’re both confused by this enforced intimacy.
Am I his captor or his nurse? Is he my captive or my patient?
Sometimes I wish the world were as simple for me as it is for
Sarge.

By this time the candle’s low, so I blow it out—we
have to conserve everything at this point in the war—then cover him
with the blanket and stretch out on the ground in my own little
nest of smelly wool and oilcloth. Silence, then simultaneous sighs.
Now the big blond Yankee and I begin to talk, two enemies lying
side by side in the tent’s darkness as if they were brothers.

_

CHAPTER NINE

_

“What’s your name, Yank?” I say, studying his black
silhouette against the backdrop of tent-canvas gray.

“Drew Conrad.” His voice is low, tired.

“How old are you, Drew Conrad? How long you been a
soldier?”

“I’m twenty. Been in the ranks a year and a
half.”

“And where’re you from, up there in Yankee-land?”

“Hell, why should you care? I’m your enemy, that’s
all that matters.”

“Well, yes, but we’re stuck here together, so—”

“Leave me alone,” Drew growls. “Don’t you know you’re
a goddamn rebel? You’ve turned on your own country like some kind
of nasty dog. Do you really think you scruffy backwoods boys will
win this war?”

“Oh, hell,” I sigh. “I don’t have the energy for
this. You big stupid boy, don’t you bluecoats realize that the
Confederacy had every right to do what it’s done? You’re invaders;
we’re defending our homes. It’s the Second War of Independence,
and—”

Drew snorts. “Oh no, it isn’t. It’s mass treason. And
another thing, your sergeant’s going to pay for whipping me. Don’t
you know that flogging a man’s illegal? He’s breaking the rules of
war. Makes you a collaborator in a war crime.”

“I’m honestly sorry about that. Sarge has a savage
side, and after those sons of bitches Hunter and Sheridan did what
they did to the Valley last fall, burning all those homes and farms
and barns and mills—”

“You Rebs started this war, so it seems to me that
Virginia is getting exactly what Virginia deserves.”

“Shut up, you damned fool,” I hiss between clenched
teeth. Now I remember why I should be hating Yankees. “Are you
insane? Talking like this to a man who has power over you? I
could—”

“I know, I know. Punish me like the miserable captive
I am. Fine, Reb. I’ll shut up. Don’t want to talk to a traitor like
you anyway.”

My heart’s pounding. I want to punch him. Instead, I
lie here, hands clenched, trying to calm down, concentrating on the
play of firelight and shadow across the tent’s canvas, the soothing
sounds of the creek.

Across the tent, sounds of shifting on the cot. A
deep groan. Another long silence. Then, “Damn, Reb, I can’t sleep.
Hurting too bad. We can talk if you want. Unless you want to
sleep.”

“I’m too riled up for slumber, thanks to you. Yes, we
can talk. Except we’d damn well better change the subject.”

“All right. Least I can do after you bandaged and fed
me. Guess I’m not being a very appreciative, uh, guest.”

More silence, like black earthworks between us. Then
Drew mutters, “So what’s
your
name?”

“I’m Ian Campbell.”

“All right. So…” Sounds of scratching. A muffled
curse. All too familiar.