Sarny (6 page)

“There ain’t nothing but trouble, south,” one old woman told us. “Promised land is north …”

Dark caught us still moving hard. It was Lucy’s turn on the wheelbarrow and she finally just quit pushing. “We’re going to stop now and make a fire and cook some cornmeal and pork fat and be like regular folks.”

“Regular folks?”

“Yes, missy. I’m taking a rest. We can’t just walk all night.”

’Course she was right but I couldn’t help myself. Kept thinking of how we found Tyler Two crying back in a closet, and of my own Tyler and little Delie. Stopping was the hardest thing for me to do but she was right.

Now we had some vittles in us and she was laying up next to the small fire and she was talking about Tyler Two.

“Must have been what he saw that keeps him from talking,” she said. “The way his kin were treated. That poor girl—”

“Hush on that. Because he can’t talk don’t mean he can’t hear. Just hush on all that and put it out of your head and get some sleep. We’ll be moving before light.”

I wrapped little Tyler Two next to me in a blanket. Small body next to me breathing, felt his chest rise and fall when he fell asleep and took some peace from it, but tired as I was I didn’t go to sleep for a spell.

Thought of all we’d seen and done. How
fast it was all happening. One day I’m on a plantation and a man owns me. Can sell my children, sell me, whip me to death and nobody can say a word to him. Then a boy in blue comes along and sticks a bayonet through him and I’m free and I’m on my way to New Orleans with a wheelbarrow full of food and blankets and a white boy who can’t talk.

Crazy life.

Thought on Nightjohn. Just as my thinking closed down for the night I thought on Nightjohn and how he really started it all. Saved me. Hadn’t we been able to read we wouldn’t have found the paper about New Orleans that I kept in a pouch tied under my shift.

Nightjohn he gave me that. Gave me reading so I could find my children. Wondered about him. Was he still alive? He’d be some older now. Been five and another five and one year. Hoped he was out there still, making them to read.

Missed him. Missed Martin too, and little Delie and Tyler. But missed Nightjohn more in some way. I wanted to thank him and couldn’t and that made me to miss him heavier.

Then sleep.

*  *  *

Things change.

First I had Delie and she was my mother. Not my real one but the only one I got to know. Then along came Martin and he was my family and then little Delie and Tyler and now all of them were gone.

Now I had Lucy. Cross between a daughter and younger sister. And Tyler Two and the wheelbarrow. New family.

Pushing the wheelbarrow when it was my turn gave me time to think. The wheel rolled on the side of the road like it was meant for it and it had a spoke sticking through the steel a little so every time it went around it made a small bump.

Pretty soon it was like music. When Lucy she pushed she started singing, using the bump for a beat, and when I was pushing it made me think.

I didn’t count miles. Didn’t know how to count three hundred and fifty and as long as it took us to do one or two I would have felt sick waiting for New Orleans.

Days were easier. We’d been traveling two since the officer told us ten and that left five and a mark and then three more. Eight days and we’d be in New Orleans.

Bump of the wheel was like a clock to me. Bump, tick, bump, tock, bump, tick … Working on another day.

But things change and by midday the clouds came up and it started in to raining. Soft at first and I hoped it would blow over but then it came hard and before long the road was too muddy for the wheelbarrow and we stopped under an old oak and made a shelter with the blankets. Didn’t stop the rain but the oak took some of it and the blankets let some of it slide off so we didn’t get as wet as we might.

It kept on raining through the day and we made a cold camp because we couldn’t find any dry wood to light—though I did think to put the matches in an empty water jar so’s they wouldn’t get wet.

Rained all day into dark. The road was a mess and close as we were to it we got to watch the soldiers working at getting south. The mud churned under their feet like runny brown butter and soon they were in it up to their knees, mud sucking their shoes off. Some tried to walk out to the side but it soon was the same and then they just walked in it. The horses sunk to their bellies and the wagons and big cannons went down to their axles and it was near impossible for them to move but they kept going. Men screaming curse words and whipping the horses.

“War don’t care,” Lucy said, sitting under the oak with the blanket over us. “Don’t care
about people, don’t care about horses, don’t care about weather—war it just goes on no matter.”

I thought on a picture I’d seen in the big house where we found Tyler Two. Big old thing on a high wall with a fireplace. Showed some battle somewhere with men using big knives and spears, wearing armor. Everybody in the painting was stopped forever the way the painter he caught them. Knife in air, never come down, man screaming forever with spear through him.

It was the same watching the soldiers going by. Men pulling on wagon spokes, screaming at each other, calling God bad names, mud and pouring rain and fallen horses and mules all frozen some way. Pictures in my brain that didn’t seem to move. After dark it kept raining and there was some lightning and I was worried it might strike the oak but it never did, never did, and with each flash I would see pictures like the picture over the fireplace. Men beating horses, screaming at each other except the sound wouldn’t cover the thunder—flash of light and then gone.

Lucy she was right. War don’t care. Don’t care spit for nothing.

Rain didn’t stop for two days.

It let up some the second day and I thought it might clear but then it came on again and just kept coming.

The soldiers had a kind of slick cloth to keep the rain off their backs, hung around them like a tent, and Lucy she found three cloths soldiers had cast off or lost.

The blankets were soaked through and hardly slowed the rain down so we tied the three slick sheets together with bits of string and made a shelter that only leaked a little at the seams. Made some difference but camp was still cold. We ate cold ham—getting down to the end of it—and I saved the last of the corn bread for Tyler Two. Young bellies need that break-down food.

He still didn’t talk but I saw him smile once when a soldier slipped and fell in the mud. I thought on it. Young are tough. Come back
quick long as they aren’t reminded of what brought them down.

Took me to distraction, sitting waiting for the rain to stop. Had a dream that little Delie and Tyler were on a train. Never seen a train ’cept for a drawing in one of the newspapers we stole back at Waller’s. Big thing, ran on some kind of rail and they said it went fast. In the dream I thought here I sit in the rain while little Delie and Tyler are on the train going away from me. Made me want to run, catch up, and I woke with my legs moving like I was running.

Middle of the third night I was asleep and suddenly woke up. Still, quiet ’cept for men and horses moving on the road, and for a speck I couldn’t think on the difference. Then I realized it had stopped raining.

Cool breeze and stars all over the sky.

“Wake
up
.” I shook Lucy. “Wake
up
.”

She shook her head free of sleep. “What’s the matter?”

“The rain stopped.”

“It’s still dark.”

“I don’t care. Same as war for me. War don’t care, I don’t care. Sarny don’t care if it’s dark anymore. We’re going.”

Stupid. But I just couldn’t sit any longer. Mud was still some bad and the wheelbarrow
proved evil in the dark. Found every rut there was. But we started and I wouldn’t stop and by light we had made a good two miles, maybe more. The morning sun baked the mud dry in no time and then it was just a job to dodge ruts which took no work when we could see.

By dark we were in different country. More hills and not so many plantations. Some swamps between the hills, and water now and again—ponds and such. I had never fished but Delie she told me about it and I thought there might be fish in some of the ponds and wished I had some line and hook since we were running low on meat.

We made corn bread that night when we stopped, and had it with ham. Tyler Two he wanted more but I didn’t see where more food was coming so I made everybody eat short. Figured we still had seven or eight days to New Orleans and didn’t know what would happen when we got there. Maybe there wasn’t food there either.

Didn’t matter because the next day we were in a battle and the day after that we met Miss Laura and everything changed again.

No warning when it came.

It was just before soft evening. Sun still high and hot and the mud turned to dust. Soldiers moving along in the heat too tired to swear,
horses wet with sweat, and it was Lucy’s turn on the wheelbarrow when I looked up on a ridge maybe five stone throws away and there’s a line of raggedy men. One second they weren’t there, then they were, spread across wider than two hands held out.

For a blink nobody else saw them. All the men in dust and some looking down and then the men on the hill raised their rifles and I heard somebody swear and yell, “Rebs!”

And they shot.

Like bees all around us. Bullets whistling by like bees, little hissing sound. We would have been hit sure ’cept a team of horses stood between us and the men on the hill. I heard the bullets hitting the horses and they grunted and went down and I grabbed Lucy and Tyler Two and pulled them back off the road and down into a small ditch no higher than a rabbit.

Everything went to pieces. The men on the hill reloaded and fired again and again and men fell around us, some dead and some about to be dead and some screaming and more horses were hit and they screamed ’most as bad as the wounded men. Bullets were as thick as flies and you could hear them hitting things over and over. Horses, men. Dead men were hit just laying on the road and I was sure we’d die.

Even if we weren’t shot flat out those on the hill were gray fighters and we were with the blue. Did they come on down and find us I didn’t think they would be gentle.

But the blues weren’t about to let that happen. Took them some minutes but pretty soon they had pulled two of the big guns around and loaded and fired up at the ragged line. I never heard such a sound—so loud it seemed to come from inside my head. God sound. Big wagon guns blew so hard when they fired they were flung back on their wheels and the men would roll them up and load them and fire again and again until the men on the hill couldn’t stand it and ran below the top of the hill line and were gone.

Terrible then. Horrible. Horses shot to pieces but still alive kicking and trying to get up until men came around and shot them and wounded men pulling themselves off the road into the ditch.

“God,” Lucy said. We were still laying down not sure it was done and she said it over and over again, holding her hands over her ears. “God, God, God …” I thought at first she was swearing but she wasn’t. Was praying and I prayed myself, holding little Tyler Two under me and praying.

Didn’t see no ambulances coming and knew now we had to help. Nobody else did.
Soldiers who weren’t wounded just walked away from those who were. Cut dead horses out of harness, doubled up wagon guns on horses that could still pull and off they went.

“Help them,” I told Lucy. “Help them that’s been hit.”

“What do I do?”

I stared at her. “Why, you ease them, just ease them. Give them a smile and try to find a rag to bandage the wound …”

Easy say hard do, as Lucy liked to say. For bandages we didn’t have anything but our blankets and the shirts off the men who were wounded. Some of them hit two, three times there wasn’t much to bandage, wasn’t much to do but sit and hold their hand while they slipped away.

Just boys. One man with stripes on his sleeve, older man, past his prime, died looking at his feet. But mostly just boys and they died hard, asking for their mammies or sweethearts and wanting us to tell them it would be all right.

It wasn’t. Some not wounded so bad, hit in the arm or cut fine by bullets passing close, they got up and started walking back north. We eased the rest the best we could and just at dark some men they come in ambulances and started loading.

Before they’d pick the soldiers up they’d rip
their shirts open to show their bellies. Seemed stupid so I asked one when Lucy and me were helping to load them.

“We look to see if they’ve been hit in the guts. If they’ve been hit there we can’t help them. Gut wounds might live a day or two but they always die so we just leave them.”

Said it like he was talking about meat. Said it while we’re stepping past men with belly wounds just laying there. Heard every word he said and knew they were going to die. Lucy she turned away and I could see she was crying and I felt stinging in my eyes.

The ambulances left and there were still four men there on the ground, all hit in the bellies and though they cried and were the most pitiful thing I’d ever seen the ambulance drivers turned their teams and left without them.

“We’ll stay.” Lucy she said it like there wouldn’t be any arguing and I nodded.

“Yes. We’ll stay awhile.”

Didn’t take two days. We couldn’t move the four men and they were scattered some apart so we’d sit with one and then another and hold their hands. They were all thirsty and I tried giving water to one but he screamed when it went to his belly and so we stopped.

We cried some more. They cried. One gave
me a letter soaked with blood that he had inside his shirt and asked me to send it to a girl name of Margaret and I did too. Carried that letter over a year and then sent it.

One long day. Longest day of my whole life except one. The last one he passed over the next evening, almost exactly one day after the battle. Soldiers they kept marching past, heading south, but when they saw us they didn’t help. Turned their eyes away and walked by fast and Lucy she said, “They don’t want to see what can come on them later.”