The Bloody Ground - Starbuck 04 (13 page)

"I served a few weeks with the provosts here," Starbuck said. They had been miserable weeks that had ended with his imprisonment on suspicion of being a Northern spy. A gutless little officer called Gillespie had made Starbuck's life a hell in that prison, and that was one prospect of revenge that Starbuck treasured.

He stepped over a pile of garbage and turned into an unnamed street. The stench of the iron works hung heavy here and the sound of the furnaces roared to rival the foaming of the nearby river where it cascaded over the rapids. A dozen slaves lay in the smoke-dimmed sunlight with stone bottles of liquor, which they raised in an ironic salute as Starbuck passed. "Why ain't they at work?" Martha demanded.

"They work hard enough," Starbuck said. "You can't whip a man into working hard, ma'am. You have to give them some rope and once the slaves are trusted in the Iron Works they can come and go pretty much as they please. Long as they stay down here and don't go into the upper town, no one minds. This is their territory, not ours."

"Matthew wouldn't come here, would he?"

"Lots of soldiers do. There aren't any rules here, and the liquor's real cheap."

A mad preacher in an ankle-length black coat stood on a corner yelling the good news of Christ to a town that was not listening. A dwarf woman, drunk to the wind, reeled down the cobbles singing, but otherwise there were not many people in the streets. Midday was the witching hour for the Hells, the time when the sun shone brightest and Screamersville's denizens slept indoors as they prepared for the night's business. Starbuck chose a random tavern and plunged inside. A few soldiers slouched on benches, but none was Potter. One offered Martha a dollar if she would go upstairs with him, while another looked up at her, sighed with lust, and then vomited. "I told you," Starbuck said as he led her back into the street, "that this is no place for a lady."

"Hell, Major," Martha said sturdily, "no real lady would have married Matthew Potter. Besides, I've heard worse."

She did hear worse that day, but she stayed close to Starbuck as they searched the canalside shacks where most of the Hells business was done. The smell of the place was nauseating; a mix of coal smoke, vomit, sewage, and raw liquor. They were summarily ejected from one house by four black men who had been playing cards. A thin white woman sat in the room's corner with a bruised face. She spat when Starbuck entered and one of the men picked up a shotgun and rammed it into the stranger's face. "She don't want you here, mister," the black man said.

Starbuck took the hint and backed out into the alley. "I'm looking for a friend," he explained hurriedly.

"Not me, soldier, not them," the slave gestured at his companions, "not her, not no one in here." He paused and gave Martha a long speculative look. "She can come in, though."

"Not today," Starbuck said.

"He shouldn't talk uppity like that," Martha protested when the door was slammed on them. "And why's he got a gun? That ain't allowed!"

"Ma'am," Starbuck sighed, "I told you there weren't any rules here. He'd love me to pick a fight and a minute later you'd have a dozen black folk beating me to pulp."

"It ain't right."

"The underside of Dixie, ma'am. Sweet liberty." He gently edged Martha into the entry of an alley to keep her out of the way of a furious woman who pursued a man onto the street and hurled insults after him. The row became general as neighbors joined in. "Social gravity," Starbuck said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means we all go downhill, ma'am, till we hit the bottom."

"Some of us didn't start very high up."

"But keep going up, ma'am, keep going up." Christ, Starbuck thought, but if it were not for the rebel army then he would probably be down in these same slums. He had fled New England for a woman, and for her he had become a thief, and only the outbreak of war had offered him a chance of escape. What would he have done without the war, he wondered. Become a clerk and sought the solace of cheap drink and women, probably. And what would he do when the war was over, he wondered.

"Are you married?" Martha suddenly asked him.

"No, ma'am." Starbuck pushed open a door to find a cockpit made of straw bales arranged in a circle. Three rats fled the pit's floor, which was stained with blood and feathers, as Starbuck flooded the hovel with daylight. A soldier lay asleep on the bales stacked for the spectators, but he was not the missing Lieutenant.

"Matthew's real good looking," Martha said after she had inspected the sleeper, who was missing one eye and most of his teeth.

"Is that why you married him?" Starbuck asked, going back into the street.

"Marry in haste, my grandma always said, and repent at leisure," Martha said sadly.

"I've heard the advice," Starbuck said, and crossed the road to push open another shaky door. And there they discovered Matthew Potter.

Or rather Martha recognized the man sleeping on the wooden verandah that creaked under their weight as they stepped onto its thin boards. Rats scuttled from under the planks and ran along the canal's edge. "Matthew!" Martha called and knelt beside her husband, who was dressed in nothing but gray pants.

Potter did not wake up. He groaned and stirred in his sleep, but did not open his eyes.

"I wondered when some soul would come for him," a black woman appeared at the verandah door.

"Been here long, has he?" Starbuck asked her.

"So long I thought he'd take root. Likes his liquor, don't he?"

"I hear he's fond of it."

The woman wiped her nose with a corner of her apron, then grinned. "He's a nice boy, though. Speaks nice. Kind of took pity on him. Tried to feed him, even, but he didn't want food, just his guzzle."

"Sold you his shirt, did
her'

"And his coat, and his shoes. Just about every damned thing he had."

"His revolver?" Starbuck asked.

"He wouldn't have done that, sir. 'Gainst the law, isn't it?" She grinned at Starbuck, who grinned back. "He says he's from Georgia," the woman said, peering at the prostrate Lieutenant.

"He is."

"A preacher's son, see? They're always the worst." The woman laughed. "He was dancing for a time, and he even spoke poetry. Such nice poetry, I could have listened to him all night except that he fell over. Is that his wife?"

"Yes."

"Born to trouble. I never did understand why good women marry bad men." "Lucky for us they do, eh?" She smiled. "You going to take him away?" "I reckon."

"Well, he had a good time. He won't remember it, but he did. Sad to think he'll probably go down to a Yankee bullet, a nice boy like that."

"He won't wake up!" Martha wailed.

"He will," Starbuck promised, then he pulled her away from her husband and made her go inside the shack. "Wait there," he told her, and once he had shepherded her off the verandah and closed the door he put his hands under Potter's armpits and hauled him first to a sitting position and then upright. It was not difficult, for Potter, though tall, was frailly built and as thin as a rail. Starbuck leaned the Lieutenant against the shack's wall.

Potter stirred at last. "Time is it?" he asked. He was, as Martha had said, a good-looking man with fair lank hair and a week's growth of pale beard. His face was long and thin and had a delicacy, almost a look of noble suffering that, when Potter was sober, might have suggested spirituality or some artistic sensitivity, but now, in the throes of his monumental hangover, the Lieutenant simply looked like a whipped and sick puppy. A young puppy too, Starbuck guessed; certainly not more than nineteen. The Lieutenant tried to raise his head. He blinked slackly at Starbuck. "How do ye do," he managed to say.

Starbuck thumped him in the belly. He thumped him real hard, grunting with the effort of the blow that made Potter open his eyes wide, then double over. He almost fell, but Starbuck shoved him back against the wall before stepping smartly to one side as Potter threw up. Starbuck skipped further aside to stop the stream of vomit from splashing onto his boots.

"Jesus," Potter complained and cuffed at his mouth. He groaned. "You do that?"

"Stand up, Lieutenant."

"Oh, Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Sweet Lord Jesus." Potter tried to straighten. "Oh, suffering Jesus," he moaned as a stab of pain rammed down from his head. He pushed a long hank of
hair off his race. "Who are you?
' he demanded. "Announce yourself."

"The best son of a bitch friend you ever had," Starbuck said. "Is anything left in your belly?"

"It hurts," Potter said, rubbing his yellow-white skin where Starbuck had hit him.

"Stand straight!" Starbuck barked.

"Soldier! Soldier!" Potter said as he made a feeble effort to stand to attention. "Jesus wants me for a soldier." He retched again. "Oh, my God."

Starbuck pushed him back onto the wall. "Stand up straight," he said.

"Discipline," Potter said as he tried to straighten up. "The cure for all that ails me."

Starbuck took a handful of Potter's long, fair hair and rammed it back against the shack's wall, thus forcing the Lieutenant to look into his eyes. "What's going to cure you, you son of a bitch," he said, "is looking after your wife."

"Martha? Is she here?" Potter immediately cheered up and looked left and right. "Don't see her."

"She's here. And she's been looking for you. Why the hell did you leave her?"

Potter frowned as he tried to remember his last few days. "I didn't precisely leave her," he finally said. "I wandered, true, and did misplace her for a time. I was in need of a drink, you understand, and met a friend. Do you notice how that happens? You go to a strange city, incur a thirst, and the very first person you meet is someone you were at school with. The workings of providence, I suppose. Would you mind, sir, very much letting go of my hair so that I can be sick again? Thank you," he managed to say the last two words before jack
-
knifing forward and spewing up a last pathetic throatful of vomit. He moaned, closed his eyes, and slowly stood up again. "Rinsed out now," he said reassuringly as he looked at Starbuck. "Do I know you?" "Major Starbuck."

"Ah! Starbuck! A famous name!" Potter said and
Starbuck
tensed himself for the usual attack on his father, a notorious enemy of the South, but Matthew Potter had a different Starbuck in mind. "First mate of the
Pequod,
aren't I right?"

"Think of me as Captain Ahab, Lieutenant," Starbuck said.

Potter gazed momentarily at Starbuck's legs. "Rather over
-
endowed with pins, aren't you, for such a role? Or is one of those an ivory peg?" Potter giggled, then winced as another pain lashed at him. "Should I be pleased to meet you?"

"Yes, you damn well should. Now come on, you son of a bitch, we're going to fight a duel."

Potter stared with horror at Starbuck, then shook his head. "Not in my line of business, sir. Really not. Don't mind battle, but not pistols at dawn."

"It's swords at dusk. Now come on! Don't tread in that!" Too late.

Potter placed a bare foot in his puddle of vomit, grimaced, then followed Starbuck into the tavern where an emotional Martha threw herself into her husband's enfeebled arms. Starbuck thought about offering to buy back the Lieutenant's shoes and shirt, then decided against wasting his money. Potter could be equipped from the thin stores at Camp Lee, and until then he could go barefoot and barechested.

He persuaded a now-remorseful Lieutenant out into the street. Martha led Potter by the hand while he tried to explain his conduct. "Not intentional, my most darling one, not with malice aforethought, as the lawyers would say. It was merely a whim, a notion, a gesture of amity for an old friend. Thomas Snyder. That is his name and Snyder will vouch for the purity of my motives. He is an artilleryman now, he told me, and has gone partly deaf. All those loud bangs, you see? Whatever, I merely kept him company. We were at school together and together we mastered McGuffey's readers, together we added and subtracted and divided, and together we got drunk, for which I apologize. It will not happen again until the next time. Oh God, do I really have to walk?"

"Yes," Starbuck said, "you do."

"I do dislike strong, noisy men," Potter said, but stumbled obediently behind Starbuck up the hill toward Main Street. "The army is filled with strong, noisy men. The life must attract them. You didn't, I suppose, bring anything to eat, my dearest chick?" he inquired of Martha.

"No, Matthew."

"Or a mouthful to drink, perhaps?" "No, Matthew!"

"Water, dearest love, mere water. A moment, Captain Ahab!" Potter called, then pulled away from his wife and staggered over the street to a horse trough that was already occupied by a shaggy cab horse. Potter stood beside the horse and plunged his face into the water, scooped it over his hair, and then drank greedily.

"I'm so ashamed," Martha said to Starbuck.

"I like him," Starbuck said, realizing as he spoke that it was true. "I do like him."

Potter stood and belched. He apologized to the horse, patted its neck, and walked unsteadily back to his wife. "My father," he said to Starbuck, "always maintains that self-knowledge is the harbinger of self-improvement, but