by Naomi Finley
“Is that so?” Private Cane said with a smirk. “We will see for ourselves. I suggest you lower that gun.”
“I can’t do that.” The boy’s expression held the fierceness of a grown man bent on protecting what was his, but the slight trembling of his hand revealed his fear.
A shot rang out, and the boy let out a wail and dropped the gun.
“Johnny!” a woman screamed and raced from the house as the boy staggered back in shock.
“I just grazed him, ma’am. He will be fine. I’m Private Cane, and we come on request of General Sherman to collect supplies for our men.”
She quailed as though from the name of the general commanding us. “We don’t have anything left to give. The Union has taken all we have.” She was petite, with honey-colored hair. She cradled the boy close to her side.
The scar-faced soldier who had made the lewd comment on the hill leaned forward in his saddle. He eyed the woman like a rabid dog homing in on the hunt. But a flash of movement shifted my attention to a young girl of fifteen or so in a blue frock who was racing across the backyard in the direction of the barn. My heart thumped faster, and I looked at the other soldiers, but it appeared no one had noticed the girl.
“We will check for ourselves,” Private Cane said and waved a hand in the air. “Boys, dismount and search the barn and house.”
Before swinging my leg over to dismount, I saw terror wash over the woman’s face. Her eyes flitted to her right, but she kept her head positioned straight ahead, too scared to look in the direction of the barn.
“You.” The private nudged his head at Zeke. “Get that cow and tie it to the back of the wagon.” He spun to face the soldier I’d developed a grave dislike for, then looked at me. “You two check the barn.”
We all disbanded.
The soldier assigned with me grumbled under his breath. “Probably wants the woman all to himself.”
Dread teemed in my gut as I shifted from him and darted toward the barn with him close behind. I hadn’t seen the girl disappear inside, but I hoped for her sake she’d bypassed the barn and vanished into the tree line at the edge of the property.
The door screeched as we pulled it open, and the soldier shouldered by me and strode inside. I followed and moved about the barn, looking for grain and hidden supplies while keeping an eye open for the girl.
“She was right. There ain’t a thing left in here,” the soldier said.
“A small helping of grain is all I’ve found,” I called back before proceeding to another stall. Glimpsing blue fabric peeking out from beneath a pile of freshly scattered straw, I halted. All hopes that the girl had disappeared into the woods vanished.
I glanced at the soldier as he walked my way, pausing to peer into every nook and cranny. I bent and scooped up an armful of straw. “I know you’re there. But stay silent,” I said in a low voice. “I’ll lead him away.” I tossed the straw over the visible fabric of the girl’s dress.
“Did you say something?”
I jumped back and cracked heads with the soldier, who’d come up behind me. He cursed and stumbled back. “You staggering fool. Is it the first day on your feet?”
“Sorry.” I held up the almost empty sack of grain. “I said, I found this.”
“And that’s all?”
“Yes.” I swallowed hard as he eyed me with suspicion.
A nerve-racking minute passed before he turned on his heel and headed for the door. “Let’s go, then.”
I dashed after him, relieved that the girl would not suffer at his hands. Images of my own childhood always induced fear during raids of plantations and farms, but to my relief, I hadn’t witnessed the raping of women and girls.
As we rounded the corner of the house, Private Cane walked out onto the porch. My heart stopped as I looked to the disarrayed hair of the woman who hovered in the shadows of the doorway. The young boy sat with his knees pulled up to his chest on the porch. The private patted the boy on the head as one would an old dog on his way by, and the child recoiled from his touch.
“May you burn in hell, you filthy Yankee.” The boy’s eyes flashed with anger.
I held my breath at his outburst.
Private Cane chuckled and squatted before the boy.
The woman hurried from the house. “Please, my son didn’t mean any harm. H-he is disturbed, is all.” I noted her red face, the missing buttons on her dress, and a cold knot lodged in my gut.
The private gripped a handful of the boy’s hair and yanked his head back. “You got some fight in you, boy. I hear the Confederates allow boys of all ages to join their cause. Why aren’t you out there killing yourself some ‘filthy Yankees’?”
“’Cause I need to take care of my mama and—” Panic replaced the rage in his eyes. The color ebbed from his mother’s face.
“And who?” The private tugged the boy’s hair harder.
“My sister. But she died, the same as my pa.” Tears flowed freely from the boy’s eyes as despair overwhelmed him.
“Ain’t much here but a few chickens and a cow.” A soldier held up two squawking hens by the legs.
“All right.” The private released the boy with a taunting jab. “Saddle up, and we will move on to the next.”
“Please, at least leave the hens,” the woman said. “How do you expect us to feed ourselves? That’s the last we have.”
“Let the Confederates worry about that,” a soldier spat. “Let it be known General Sherman leaves a crater in his wake. No animals, supplies, or crops are safe.”
I looked to the mother as I swung myself up onto my horse. She gathered her son from the ground and held him in a protective embrace. She regarded us with hollow eyes and an expression of complete devastation.
Tears welled in my eyes, and I kicked my heels into my horse’s flanks and hurried after the others.
Reuben
September, 1864
I HAD FLED THE ARMY of the Potomac soon after Lincoln released General McClellan from power, and joined up with General Grant and Sherman’s army under a new alias. Under General Sherman’s command, we had marched on to Atlanta and captured the city. The Confederate coward, General Hood, had evacuated, but he’d detonated the munitions train, entrenchments, and rail installments, and set fire to military supplies before his departure.
The trust General Sherman’s men had in him didn’t extend to me. The man preached destructive war and how he would rain down fire and brimstone, but he lacked the ruthlessness of a man like myself. In his position, I would have pulverized Atlanta’s citizens. He merely aspired to crush the South’s spirit. He’d struck at the heart of the Confederacy in hopes of collapsing their war efforts. He ordered the citizens’ eviction and their transportation to the south of the city. When we’d captured Atlanta I’d savored the vision of them fleeing in terror, but his approach had hardly satisfied.
I hammered on the door of a mansion. “Out with you. General’s orders.” I heard scurrying inside before an elderly black woman opened the door. “The family is coming,” she said as I elbowed past her and strode inside.
A middle-aged man and woman dashed across the landing above before hurrying down the grand spiraling staircase with suitcases in their hands. The woman paused at the bottom and leaned in to whisper in the slave’s ear.
I seized her arm and thrust her toward the door. “I said out.”
The man yelped and raced after his wife as I sent her and the suitcase she had been carrying tumbling down the front steps.
I craned my neck to look at the slave. “You too. Are there any more of you?”
“No, sah. Et jus’ me now.” Defiance shone in her eyes as she marched past me with her shoulders back and head held high.
I wanted to snuff the spirit right out of her and envisioned hurling her to the stone below, where her masa gathered his weeping wife, but the arrival of a recruit dispelled the notion.
“Missus Sarah, you all right?” the slave said as she scurried to join the couple.
>
The woman grasped the slave like one would a mother. I gritted my teeth as Willow Armstrong’s face flashed in my mind’s eye—another white woman coddled all her life by her mammy. Our army had traveled into the heart of the South, advancing me, a wanted man, closer to ending Willow once and for all.
“Check the house. Make sure that is the last of them,” I said to the recruit. He dashed up the front steps and into the house.
The man helped his wife and the slave into the back of a Union transport wagon.
Two soldiers exited the mansion next door and shared a few words before the broader of the pair strode down the steps and disappeared. The other paused, and I examined his side profile and scowled. The recruit looked familiar, but I couldn’t put a name to him. He descended the stairs and looked up and down the street. Recognition struck. Amelie? My eyes narrowed. Yes, indeed. It was her, all right.
She turned and started walking away as the soldier I’d sent inside the house returned.
“That was the last of them, sir.”
“Very well.” I strode down the stairs and turned in the direction Amelie had gone.
I quickened my pace to close the distance between us. I would see the traitor dead before hour’s end. She turned and ducked between two homes, and I darted after her.
“Amelie!” My voice echoed off the buildings.
She halted, and my heart sang. Cautiously she turned, her flesh ashen, and pure, undeniable fear gleamed in her eyes. “Oliver…”
Before she could reach for her weapon, I pulled my pistol and aimed it at her chest. I strode forward, stopping when I stood within a foot of her. She was quite lovely, even in a man’s clothing. “The name’s Captain Smith.”
“Oliver, Silas, Reuben, Smith. Does it really matter?” she said dryly.
“Come now, my darling. Are you saying that you haven’t missed me after all these years?”
“A snake like you is impossible to forget.” Her lip curled with disgust.
The feeling was mutual. I would quite enjoy ending her life. I took another step forward, and she backed up.
“Stay back.” She fumbled for her sword, and it caught.
I lunged at her, and we toppled backward. The uniform couldn’t conceal the softness of her body, and a vision of her naked beneath me rose, but I shoved it away.
Her eyes widened with fear, and she clawed at me. “Get off of me.”
“Gladly, once I split you arse to throat.” I removed my blade and held it to her throat. “And I’ll relish every moment.”
Her fighting ceased, and she lay limp and unmoving, like the endless dead we had rolled into shallow graves. Damn her! She sought to remove the fun from the kill. “Do you think you can rob me of this moment?” I seethed, hauling her up by the throat. I pinned her dangling body against the exterior wall of a home. “I won’t let you. I’ve dreamt of this moment for far too long.” She scratched at my fingers, fighting for air. “That’s right, fight for your life.” Calmness washed over me as her eyes bulged and her flesh turned a magnificent shade of purple.
Then a shot rang out, and pain ripped through my chest.
No, no, no…
Amelie
I SCRATCHED AT HIS HANDS, fighting for air, and the pressure in my head threatened to explode.
“That’s right, fight for your life.” Reuben’s face was filled with rapture.
Tears slid down my cheeks from the force of his grasp, and I envisioned Zeke’s face as my vision blurred. Our talks of settling down on a ranch somewhere in the west would never happen. History would write about a woman, a Union soldier, who’d lost her life in Atlanta. The truth of my death and the monster who’d taken my life would never be recorded.
A gunshot cracked, and the grip on my neck slackened. I dropped to the ground, landing in a gasping, heaving heap as air raced into my lungs. A grunt made me look up to discover Zeke holding a pistol on Reuben, who stood with blood gurgling from his mouth, looking astonished. He gaped at the hole in the middle of his chest before stumbling forward. I scrambled to get out of the way as he plummeted to the ground.
Zeke hauled me up. “You all right?”
“Yes,” I said between gasps. “Is he…dead?”
He rolled Reuben over with the toe of his boot, and I peered into his lifeless eyes. “It appears that way.”
I clutched his arm. “No, check his pulse. He has infinite lives.”
He squatted and placed his ear to Reuben’s chest before straightening. “He’s dead.”
I covered my mouth to stifle a whimper, relieved but still disbelieving.
He stood and steered me back the way I’d come. “Now, let’s get out of here before someone pins his death on us.”
As we raced toward the chaos happening on the main street, I envisioned Reuben rolling over after we left him and gasping as life returned to his body. “You’re sure he’s dead, right?” I whispered as we turned onto the boardwalk and slowed our pace.
“As dead as dead can be,” he said through clenched teeth, keeping his gaze straight ahead.
“Soldiers.” An officer gestured at us.
“Yes, officer,” Zeke said as we halted before him.
“I’m assigning you both to drive this wagon of citizens to the south of the city.” He nodded at an overflowing wagon of weeping women and children and solemn-faced men.
“Straightaway, Lieutenant,” Zeke said.
We clambered into the front, and he took the reins and steered the team into the flow of wagons heading out of the city.
If Reuben’s body was ever discovered, we never heard of it in the weeks that followed.
General Sherman ordered the destruction of warehouses, factories, railroad connections, and private homes. He decreed the city’s systematic end, leaving nothing for the Confederates to recoup after our departure. But the Confederates had fled south ahead of our army, leaving destruction in their path, endeavoring to block our advance. They destroyed bridges, hacked down trees, and burned supplies. General Sherman dispatched his own turbulence by pillaging farms and estates, stealing and slaughtering livestock as we advanced toward Savannah. We captured the city in December, and General Sherman delivered Savannah as a Christmas gift to President Lincoln.
Willow
“HE DID IT.” WHITNEY CHARGED into the house, waving a report. “The United States Congress has approved the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Slavery is abolished,” she announced triumphantly.
“Give it here, let me see,” I said. She handed me the paper, and I quickly scanned it, noting the date. “That was weeks ago by this account.”
“What you carrying on ’bout now, Missus Tucker?”
Whitney and I pulled our heads apart as Mammy descended the stairs to the foyer.
“Lincoln did it.” I darted forward and squeezed her in a massive hug. “Slavery is abolished.”
“Sweet Jesus!” Her body trembled. “You sho’?”
I pulled back and held out the report. “It says it right here.” Tears gathered in my eyes as I regarded her. “The day we have all longed for is finally here.”
“But are ya really sho’? Dat report ain’t no trickery, is et?” She looked doubtful.
“No trickery,” I said with a tender smile.
Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I got to tell Big John.” She turned to dash for the back door but halted as Big John strode toward us. She clapped her hands and flung them to the heavens. “You free!”
His eyes widened, and he looked beyond her to me. “Et true?”
I grinned and nodded. “Whitney just brought the news.”
“No more hiding from your masa. You a free man, John. A free man!” Mammy walked into his arms and laid her cheek against his chest, sobbing.
I stepped closer to Whitney, also a mess of tears, and encircled her waist with an arm.
“De Lard finally heard our prayers.” Mammy lifted her head and caressed Big John’s cheek. He nodded through tears and dipped his head to kiss he
r. My heart felt like it would burst with joy at the exchange.
“We must tell the others,” I said. “But I would like to inform Jimmy myself.”
“I will gather the others in the backyard. You go ahead and tell James, but make it swift.”
“I will,” I said over my shoulder before exiting out the front.
I walked to the forge and found Jimmy hammering at a piece of red-hot metal.
“Hello, Missus Willie. What brings ya down here today?” His smile had a way of hugging my soul. He stepped away from his work and strode toward me.
My tears came in floods, and the smile on his face vanished. “What de matter? Is et de masa?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s something splendid.”
He stood in confusion, and for the first time, without fear of who was watching, I embraced the man who had been a father to me. “You are free.” My words were but a whisper. “Lincoln has succeeded.”
He pushed back and looked hard into my eyes. “You say free?”
I nodded through my tears. “You’re as free as any white man.” I gripped his forearms and laughed. “It is a blessed day!”
He stepped back and paced the floor, and I observed the slight trembling of his hand as he wiped it over his face and pulled down. “I free.” He cast another look at me before he sank to his knees and swayed back and forth, moaning and sobbing gently. When he pulled to his feet, he craned back his neck and peered at the rafters with widespread arms. “Nellie, I free. I ain’t a slave no more!” he cried.
After a moment, his expression taut and drawn, he plodded back to his work and raised the hammer with quivering hands. “A man longs all his life to be free, and now dat et here, I don’t know what to feel.” He struck the metal and missed his mark.
I strode to his side and removed the hammer from his hand, and clasped his hand in mine. “Come. No work today.” He allowed me to lead him from the forge and out into the work yard.