by Suzanne Weyn
Since birth she’d suffered the worst headaches — blinding pain that nauseated her, made light itself splinter into shards. Any kind of hardship or upset would bring it on.
But now she had no pain — at least not in her head.
Her side was hot, though, right at her lower abdomen. It wasn’t her time of month; that had passed. It was something else and it wasn’t right. Unbuckling her pants, she pushed them down, revealing the blue-black birthmark at her side, the one that her mama said looked like a stab wound. She poked her side tenderly. Ow!
After a moment of lying there, breathing deeply, the pain subsided enough that she felt able to go out to get food.
Outside in the courtyard, the men were up and about, eating the chipped beef being served by the regimental cooks at a long, rough-hewn table. A bonfire roared at the center of the courtyard, turning the men into dark silhouettes with the occasional vivid face jumping into clarity as a soldier was illuminated by the flame.
There was boisterous singing of off-color ditties. Uproarious laughter exploded into the night. High spirits over the day’s victory overpowered any fatigue.
Lou smiled and nodded at the others in her regiment as she loaded her plate. Usually, the Kansas First Regiment ate a bit away from the others, never knowing what kind of reception they’d receive from the white soldiers, and preferring the ease they experienced only among one another.
It was different for Lou, though. She remained aloof even among her own regiment. None of these men suspected that she was female, and that was how it had to stay.
Tonight the Kansas First seemed to have dropped much of their wary guard. Earlier, General Blunt had praised their courage and military skill in front of all the regiments. Now they laughed and joked with the white soldiers, who in turn praised them with high spirits.
They were drinking beer, and soon General Blunt’s assistant appeared with an oak barrel of whiskey. This was met with an uproar of cheering.
Lou accepted the whiskey that was poured into her tin mess cup, but discreetly poured it into the dirt at her feet. Letting the whiskey ease her into an unguarded moment could have disastrous consequences.
After a few rowdy songs by members of the cavalry, the Kansas First soldiers were called upon to sing. They began a spiritual called “Swing Lo, Sweet Chariot.” A lot of the other soldiers knew it and sang along.
While they were singing, Lou felt thirsty and searched for something nonalcoholic to drink. Remembering a pump she’d seen back by the fort’s outer wall, she left the warmth of the bonfire to pick her way through the shadows to get some water.
In the darkness by the pump she was quickly aware of an even darker form a few feet away. He was vomiting violently onto the ground.
She quickly pumped some water into her tin cup and brought it to him. “Hey, have this,” she offered.
The sick man was the same soldier she’d met down by the river. Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he gulped from the cup and spit into the dirt. “Thanks.”
“Hope it wasn’t that chipped beef,” she said with a hearty laugh. “I just finished a plate of it.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s the fire. It’s part of the problem, anyway.”
“The fire?”
He sat down heavily on a rough-hewn bench close by. “I’m scared to death of it, always have been. I’m also out of the stuff I take for the pain in my ankle. Laudanum.”
“What happened to the ankle?”
“Nothing. It’s always been a bum ankle. The laudanum is supposed to help the pain. I’ve been on the stuff so long that being without it is making me real sick.”
“Ask the doctor for some,” she suggested.
“I did. He said he wished he had some. He’s amputating legs with only whiskey to give guys for the pain. When he hears Blunt gave some of the whiskey out tonight, he’s gonna have a fit.”
She nodded somberly, having witnessed field hospital conditions and knowing the atrocities.
“You’re a runaway slave, aren’t you?” John said.
“Yeah, I ran away,” she heard herself say, as though the words were coming from someone else’s mouth. The Fugitive Slave Act had been repealed last year and slaves no longer had to be returned to their owners, but admitting to being a runaway still made her nervous.
“I had a feeling,” he replied. “You didn’t seem too at ease talking to me back there by the river. How’d you do it?”
She chuckled bitterly. “You’re going to hate this. I was working in the house and I set the drapes on fire. While everyone was busy stomping on the fire, I slipped out the back door. It was so simple, I could hardly believe it.”
“You were lucky,” he commented.
“Lucky, and I had help. I made it to the Ohio River by night. A former slave now living free in Ohio rowed out and brought me over.”
“Have you seen a lot of fighting?” the man asked.
She shook her head. “Up to now, we’ve been used as escort troops, mostly. We were attacked by Texas troops with some Seminole while escorting a supply train here to the fort. We sent them running, so I guess the general felt okay about calling us in today. This was our first real official fight.”
Although the night was cool, the other soldier was sweating profusely. “How did it feel out there today?” he asked, wiping his brow with his sleeve.
She reflected on this a moment before answering. To fight full out — what a release! To no longer bite down on murderous rage as she’d done in her role as slave. She’d felt wildly free during the fight at the train and again today. And yet, as she’d watched the other side retreat off the battlefield, something in her had shifted. She was aware of it though she couldn’t quite name the feeling. “I felt sorry for them,” she said at last.
The soldier let out a harsh laugh. “Don’t. It will cripple you. You’ll be no good to anybody. I used to be full of empathy but this war has knocked it out of me. And you know what? It feels good not to care.”
“You don’t care for anyone?” she questioned.
It was his turn to reflect. “No. I don’t think so … my brother, maybe, but who knows where he is right now. How about you?”
“My mother was sold downriver before I made a run for it. If we win this war, or even if we don’t, I’m going to try to find her. Other than her, I have no one.”
“I have a wife, but to tell the truth, I don’t miss her. In fact, it’s been a relief to be without her these days. If there’s one good thing that’s come to me from this war, that’s it.”
Since she’d taken on this male disguise, it had been interesting to talk to men without the barrier between men and women standing in the way — the polite or not so polite flirtation, the unspoken implication that there was so much out there in the world that was beyond her understanding. All that was swept aside when she began dressing as a man.
It astounded her how easily she took to life as a man; she felt entirely comfortable in the male role at most times. Although her former slave life had been harsh, as a house slave she’d been spared the rigors of the fields and cast into the feminine role of cook’s helper. It had been hard work but she accomplished it all within the guidelines of polite female comportment. She would have thought these things were ingrained in her, yet she had thrown them all off with ease. She’d even learned to spit freely without feeling self-conscious, even discovering that she was quite good at it.
This ability to assume a male role was, in a way, akin to her mysterious skill with a bow and arrow.
Where had that come from?
Of course, she had watched the Cherokee warriors closely, fascinated by their prowess with the bow. It was strange that the ability had found its way into her body, for that was how it had felt, like a skill that bypassed her brain and came straight from her spine, arms, and hands. It had saved her life out there on the field.
The sound of the singing Kansas First drifted on the air. Their song was now “Amazing Grace.”
“I love this s
ong,” Lou said.
“I do, too. It was written by a former British slaver who gave up slaving after a near shipwreck. I learned it in the orphanage.” He lifted his sweat-moist face as a faraway look filled his eyes. He sang along with the distant voices of the Kansas First.
His voice was full, rich, and deep. While he sang, his sweating cleared, his hands stopped trembling. An otherworldly light radiated from his face. Lou sat, transfixed, gooseflesh rising on her arms at the sound of his singing. He seemed transported, as was she, into some other realm.
When the song ended, he smiled fleetingly, a little embarrassed at having given himself over to the rapture of the music. “It’s a good song,” he muttered.
“It is,” she agreed. “You sing it well.”
With a quick nod, he brushed off the compliment. “What will you do after the war?” John asked.
“After I find my mother and get her to safety, I’d like to write a book, tell a story about everything I’ve seen,” she admitted, then laughed at her own lofty aspiration. “First thing I’ll have to do is learn to write, of course. What are your intentions? You should sing on the stage.”
“In the city, I sneaked into the opera once and watched from the sides. I liked it but it’s not for a poor man like me. I was thinking of starting my own pottery shop, like the one I used to work for in New York City. People are always going to need cups, bowls, and plates, and I love to work the pottery wheel.”
“Don’t you need to put fire on it?” Lou asked.
“Yep. But I’m determined to get over this fear of fire. I feel it is the one thing I must do before I die. And I probably should try to kick this addiction to the laudanum.”
“Addiction?” Lou asked. She didn’t know the word.
“I’m so dependent on the stuff. I can’t live without it.” He had begun sweating again. He nodded toward his badly quivering hands. “How can I fire my musket when I’m like this?”
Lou nodded. “We have to get you some of that laudanum. I think that there was some on the supply train we escorted in.” She nodded for him to follow her. She knew exactly where the crates had been stacked.
Alone in his tent, John snapped open one of the glass phials of laudanum Lou had found for him. What an odd guy Lou was, so delicate and yet so gutsy. Together, under the cover of darkness, they’d cracked open a crate of the drug and loaded themselves with as many glass phials as they could carry.
As they were getting away, Lou had buckled over and clutched his side. When John asked what was wrong, he’d insisted it was nothing. He hoped the kid was all right. It was strange how he felt so at ease with him, so comfortable, especially considering how different they were. It was as though Lou was some long-lost brother John had been reunited with, instead of a stranger whose former life he couldn’t even begin to imagine.
He sure owed Lou a lot for finding this laudanum.
With badly shaking hands, John brought the greenish brown liquid to his lips. The bitter taste suffused him with warm relief. Lying flat on his bedroll, he waited for the familiar relaxing sensation to wash over him. This phial held more than he usually took, but he’d been so long without it that he didn’t care and finished the entire thing.
He had never before taken so much that it brought on hallucinations, and so he was unprepared for what happened next.
His body lifted out of his tent, serenely happy to be floating above the earth in the night sky. One star was brighter than the others and kept growing increasingly brighter. As it came closer, a giant bird flew out of the brightness. It held Lou in its talons, his legs dangling, and his face joyful.
An explosion of yellow light obliterated everything and suddenly he was traveling at full speed through desert sands. He was singing “Amazing Grace” beside a crystal blue pool abundant with floating lotus flowers. Lou walked next to the pool wearing his Union uniform. He was captive of a Confederate soldier. John’s wife Jane was there, pouring beer from a jug for members of the audience.
His eyes fixed on Lou. He waited for Lou to tell him something but Lou didn’t seem able to talk. John continued to sing and his voice became much higher than he recognized.
He saw himself in the pool’s reflection. He had become a woman with thick black hair.
How had he disappeared like this?
He found himself again, sitting on a small boat in a murky river surrounded with fog. An old man stood at the bow. Looking over the side of the boat, he saw a pair of green gemstone earrings, hooked one to the other. Without stopping to think, he went over the side to get them.
In the water, his long, tangled hair floated out around him. Lou was swimming toward him. He was in his uniform but his jaw jutted forward, his brow sloped. He was Lou but different.
They were both swimming toward the green earrings.
The earrings swirled.
A turquoise Eye of Horus formed around the green gems.
The Eye of Horus spun so fast it became a glistening green orb.
Lou wrapped his hand around it. John grasped just as tight. Both clutching the stone, struggling for it, they shot out of the water straight up into the starry night….
John’s eyes snapped open and he shook, his teeth chattering. Someone had hurled a bucket of ice water at him. He lay on a cot in a tent with the sides tied up. He was strapped to the cot with rope.
“Wake up, soldier!” the tall, lanky field doctor barked, untying the rope. He was the same doctor John had asked for laudanum days earlier, the one with the eye patch over one eye. “I don’t know where you got all that laudanum but we need this cot for soldiers with real injuries.”
John’s mouth was like a wool blanket. All his muscles ached.
“You raved for a full day before we could get hold of you,” the doctor reported. “You’ve been here for two more. That’s as much as we can spare for a drug addict. By the way, don’t go looking for that laudanum. You’re on your way to being free of it now; you don’t want to go back. Besides, we confiscated what we found in your tent.”
“Water, please,” John murmured.
The doctor poured some water from a pitcher into a cup and handed it to him. Anguished cries of injured soldiers could be heard from the other tents. “In fact,” the doctor went on, “we couldn’t give you more even if we wanted to. We’ve used up the small supply they sent us, just in the last three days alone.”
A terrible moan came from the next tent over. “I wish I had some for that poor soul,” the doctor remarked. “Ruptured appendix.”
John staggered to the back of the tent and looked over. “Lou,” he gasped softly.
“You know him?” the doctor asked. “Or should I say, her?”
John whirled sharply toward the doctor. “Her?”
The doctor nodded. “Young women disguised as soldiers: It’s not the first time I’ve seen it in this war — young women following a sweetheart, looking for adventure, wanting to serve the cause. If you can lend her some comfort, go ahead, ’cause she’s not going to make it.”
“Hey,” Lou said softly when he came into her tent. “You okay? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m all right,” he replied, sitting at the side of her bed. “How do you feel?”
“Like death. The pain in my gut is awful.”
He nodded. “Can I get you anything?”
“You could promise me something. It’s a lot to ask but I don’t have anyone else.”
“What?”
“My mother’s name is Eva Jones. She’s in Mississippi somewhere. The North is going to win this war. Afterward, would you try to find her and see that she’s all right? Help her if she needs help.”
“I promise,” he replied.
Pain made her press her lips together hard. “Don’t have any of that laudanum, do you?”
As though suddenly remembering something, he reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a nearly empty phial. At the bottom was a tiny puddle, mere drops, of the drug.
He held it
up. A crack of sunlight shafting down from a tear in the tent roof caught the edge of the glass phial. It threw a prism of green and yellow against the tent wall.
Eyeing it hungrily for a moment, he wrapped his hand around it, killing the prism.
“That green light was pretty. Put it back,” she requested.
“I’ll give it to you for the pain,” he offered.
“Not yet,” she said. “I want to look at it while you tell me a story.” She had discovered that staring at the green prism distracted her from the pain, eased her mind somehow.
“What kind of story would you like?”
“Anything at all that I can listen to while I look at this green light, just to keep my mind off the pain.”
“I can’t think of a story.”
“Tell me a story about two friends who just met but feel like they’ve known each other for a long time.”
“All right. I’ll make it up as I go along.” He held the phial up to the sunlight, and the greenish yellow prism once again appeared on the tent wall. He peered into it as if, somehow, the story lay within.
“There once was a girl who lived in ancient Greece. She hated her boring life there. She longed for adventure and freedom. One day she met a wild boy in the woods. He was hunting with a bow and arrow on her father’s property. The moment she looked at him, she felt that she had known him all her life, that he was somehow a part of her and always would be.”
“That’s nice,” she said. It was exactly how she’d felt when she spoke to him there by the pump the other night. That night seemed like a lifetime ago. It was before he’d fallen into a laudanum-induced delirium, before her appendix had erupted in agony. “Go on,” she prompted in a weak voice, her eyes still fixed on the green prism.
“The girl wanted the boy to come win her hand in marriage,” he continued. “She was sure he’d come because the connection between them had been so strong. She was sure he loved her as much as she loved him.”
“He did,” she murmured, not sure how she knew it.
“Then why didn’t he come for her?”
“He was hurt. A rival for her affection had beat him up and left him for dead.”