The Confederate

by Forrest A. Randolph

  Bobbie Jean fired the Starr again. The .44 slug tore through the foul-mouthed man’s shirtsleeve and split the skin of his left arm.

  “Aw, hell, there goes my lovin’.” He took aim and shot Bobbie Jean in the chest. “Bitch, wouldn’t do what was good for you. Now yer gonna suffer for it.” He shot her again.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” Jeremy wailed and ran to where his mother had fallen. He dropped to his knees and cradled her head in his arms. Blood seeped from her wounds and her eyes had begun to glaze. “Oh, Mommy!”

  Funny, Bobbie Jean hazily thought. It didn’t hurt. This being shot was not at all like she had expected. She felt light, sort of floating above the ground. She vaguely heard another weapon discharge and a faint cry that could have been Cicero. She felt her son’s small hands on her temples and the hot wetness of his tears on her cheek. Why couldn’t she feel the gunshot wounds?

  Someone, she discovered, had drawn a gray sheet over the world. Everything seemed indistinct and far away. And cold, oh, so very cold. She heard coarse men’s laughter above her and saw a ring of legs. Then something bright burst inside her head and the last thing she saw was the anguished face of her child as he held her to his sob-wracked body.

  Chapter Nine

  “WITH MAJOR GRIFFIN Stark lost, this command has been given a severe blow, gentlemen,” General Jubal A. Early announced at the staff meeting, the morning after the battle at Leesburg. “General Lee, himself, has been on to me to insure we follow up on what has happened to Stark.”

  “Do you think he is still alive?” a fellow cavalry officer inquired.

  “Hard to tell. The report I received indicated that the Bluebellies swarmed over him and the last of his men like ants at a picnic. They all went down. In the confusion and the final Union counterattack, we simply don’t know.”

  “He had been wounded … several times.”

  “Their medical facilities are a horror compared to ours,” Colonel Lawton offered. “At least when it comes to treating one of our boys. Yankee soldiers come first.”

  “Fits,” another Confederate officer snapped. ‘‘Honest and Yankee are a contradiction in terms.”

  “You’re being unfair, John,” Lawton answered him. “Although I will admit from what some of our boys who have escaped from their prisons and hospitals have said, the term ‘compassion’ is unknown to them in regard to ourselves.”

  “But why? They pushed us into a war we didn’t want. And for what?”

  Jubal Early snorted. “Economic dominance of the South, gentlemen. Don’t for one minute think that the minds and power in the North that are behind this war care a fig for the fate of our slaves. If the climate of Boston was more salutary for darkies, Massachusetts would be a slave state as well. But the topic of discussion, gentlemen, was the status of Griffin Stark. Anyone care to hazard a guess as to what we should record as the final disposition?”

  Missing in action won’t do?” Lawton suggested. “I’m afraid not. General Lee was most precise in his inquiry.”

  “Then … considering the number of wounds he received in front of my men and that the Yankees took him off the field, we can assume he is dead, or will be so in a matter of hours or days.”

  “You are certain, Colonel Lawton?”

  “Sure as I can be, General.”

  “That’s it, then. He’s from Georgia. No chance to notify his family, but we will do so at the earliest convenience. That’s all for today.”

  A somber sun, blood red, its face disfigured by deep purple clouds, set over southern Georgia. In the distance, a tall column of black smoke continued to rise, marking the destruction of Riversend. A slender, young black woman walked along the narrow dirt road toward the nearest occupied plantation. She staggered from time to time and tears ran down her cheeks, wetting her long, graceful neck and the top hem of her plain cotton dress. She held a small white boy by one hand. The child struggled to keep pace and looked up periodically at the girl to ask the same question over and over.

  “Daphne, where’s my Mommy?”

  “She’s gone, Jerry-Bob, gone,” Daphne would repeat monotonously.

  “Gone where? Where’s my Mommy gone?”

  “To heaven to see your Gran’pa Stark, Jerry-Bob,” she told him at last, tired of answering the questions, sick in her soul at the degradation the Yankee marauders had subjected her to after binding her wound and reviving her.

  They had raped her. Actually violated her body, she recalled in seething impotent fury. Shamed she was now. Oh, Jesus, and all the old gods of our people, don’t let me be with child as a result. She shuddered at the thought. Worse, Massah Jeremy had witnessed the ultimate indignity. Between bouts of searching for loot, the bandits had come back for more, always with the solemn, big-eyed little boy looking on. One had even suggested to Jeremy that he might like to try a’swing at her. Daphne had scratched and bitten and fought until she lost consciousness. Monsters. Yet they say they came down here to liberate us colored folk. Liberate us fo’ what? she wondered angrily.

  “Where are we going?” Jeremy inquired in his small, high voice.

  “To your Auntie Julie’s, boy. You know that. You done axed me about it not five minutes ago.”

  “Oh, sure. Auntie Julie’s. What are we going there for?”

  “Don’t you never mind about that. Ev’r’thing will be fine once we get to your Auntie Julie’s. Ev’r’thing’ll be all right.”

  “Will the bad men be there? The ones who knocked Mommy down and wrestled with you?”

  “N-no,” the word stuck in Daphne’s throat. “Oh, no, Jerry-Bob. They won’t be there. You’d best pray to God they won’t ever find your Auntie Julie’s place.”

  In the distance, approaching them rapidly, Daphne heard galloping hoofs. She pulled Jeremy off the road and they hid in a culvert.

  Two minutes later, a dozen mounted Union soldiers rode past, uniforms dust-covered, sabers jingling. Not the same sort as the vultures who came to Riversend, but the same enemy, no matter, Daphne told herself. She waited, a protective arm around Jeremy, until the patrol rode well out of sight.

  “He’s resting now. It was all I could do to get him to swallow that soup, Damien.”

  “You’re wearing yourself to the bone, Jenny. I know I’m the one who argued against taking him to Oaklawn, but maybe we should have. There you would have help.”

  “No. There’s too much danger for Papa and Mama if we hid a Confederate officer in their home. We have enough supplies here in the town house. None of the neighbors saw us bring him in, and besides, he is in a Union uniform.”

  “All true, Sis. Only … he’s so very sick, needs constant attention and I have to return to Washington tonight and go on to my post tomorrow. With you working ten hours a day as a volunteer nurse, when will you ever get any rest?”

  “I’ll manage, Damien. Believe me I will. The orderlies, even some of the doctors seem to resent the presence of us women in the hospital. If it comes to making a choice, perhaps I’ll leave my work. Sunderland is a convalescent hospital, it’s not like the orderlies are needed for surgery all the time. Let them empty bed pans for a change.”

  “Still my fiery little sister. And, of course, if they discovered that you had lied about your age, that you are only seventeen, you’d be out on your pretty little bottom anyway.”

  “My pretty what!” Jenny wailed with wounded dignity. “When did you ever see my bottom?”

  “Lots of times. I used to stand in the nursery and watch you being bathed by Mother or your nurse.”

  “Well, my bottom has changed a great deal since then, I’ll have you know.”

  “All for the better, I hope. We should look in on Griff again,” he added to change the subject.

  A crease marred Jenny’s flawless forehead. “I worry so, Damien. The fever comes and goes and one minute he appears to be on the verge of dying, the next you could swear that he is rational. Except … all he talks about when he is like that is Bobbie Jean. He holds conversatio
ns, answering my questions as though … as though I were his wife.”

  “Isn’t that what you always wanted, Sis?” When he saw the pain that clouded her eyes, he hurried to apologize. “I’m sorry, Jenny. Really I am. The old flame has never died out, has it? Tend him well, sister dear. Now let’s go see.”

  Damien opened the door to the spare bedroom in the Carmichael town house in Sunderland, Maryland and looked in on Griffin Stark. He lay like the desiccated husk of some primordial creature who had crawled into this place to shed his skin. He had a waxy, yellow color, highlighted by crimson fever splotches on his cheeks, and what little meat he had on him at the start of the battle so long ago had melted away. While brother and sister peered at him, Griff moaned and thrashed on sheets worn threadbare by repeated launderings to remove the stains from his draining wounds. Beneath them the mattress’s white ticking with blue pinstripes had become soiled with the oily sweats of his fever, and the cotton and horsehair stuffing smelled rank and sour.

  “It’s the fever again,” Jenny told her brother. “When he’s like this, I feel certain he will die. Are you sure … positive we are doing everything the doctor told you?”

  “When the wounds fester, do you put maggots in like the doctor ordered?”

  Jenny looked at Damien in despair. “I … I try, but it is so … awful. And, I have to steal them from the hospital. You know I can’t use just any old maggots from a manure pile or something like that.”

  Damien’s heart went out to her. “This is rough, sis. And I regret that it has to fall on your shoulders. Three weeks now and very little improvement. Sometimes I wonder if it is to any avail. You know there is no guarantee that Griff will ever be able to walk. Meanwhile, this abominable war drags on. Lee cannot hold out much longer. Grant is pressing him. The war has to be over soon. Then … well, then we can see to better care for Griff.” Damien pulled the door closed and turned toward the front hall.

  “It’s funny. When I was a little girl and the two of you came home from West Point together and I fell so madly in love with Griff, I never dreamed that some day—”

  “Some day, what?”

  “That I would spend three weeks bathing and caring or him, changing his clothes and tending his wounds. Oh, why did this awful war have to be?”

  “Who knows the answer to that one? Uh … sis, there’s something else. You will have to get used to calling Griff by another name. He is Captain Stewart Bradford from Michigan. Major Griffin Stark is officially dead. It’s the only way we can safely keep him here. I managed to obtain the papers on Captain Bradford. I made the substitution, even arranged that Bradford be buried in a grave marked with Griff’s name. The official papers were exchanged two days ago with the Confederates.”

  “Oh! His poor family. Is there … has there been anything you could find out about Riversend or Grif—uh, Stewart’s family?”

  “Why are you so curious about his family, Jenny? You seem to bring it up in every other sentence.”

  Jenny Carmichael looked down at the floor, momentarily embarrassed. “It’s hard to say, Damien. I mean, seven years have gone by. Griff is married and has a child. A boy who would be, ah, five now. I’ve changed, too. I thought I had lost my little girl infatuation with him. The truth is—”

  “The truth is you haven’t. Is that what this build up is all about?”

  Jenny’s head came up, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “Oh, yes, Damien, yes. I … I think I am falling in love with him all over again. And yet… yet he has a family whom he loves and who love him and he is responsible to. I can’t... I simply cannot rest until I know that they are all right and that they are aware that he is alive. Then … maybe then I can put aside my notions as the foolish romanticizing of a teen-aged girl. Now you tell me about the false certification of his death. Oh, how unspeakably cruel that will be to his wife. We have to find a way to let her know the truth. Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “I have already put out the word to friends in Sherman’s command. They are supposed to be seeking information on Riversend and who all, if anyone, is living there. Jenny ...” Damien paused, uncertain of how to reveal the scattered intelligence he had so far accumulated.

  “Jenny, some of Sherman’s men went, well, sort of wild. They formed into bands of brigands who raided plantations, robbed refugees. They hanged a number of civilians for no cause except to attempt to learn about any hidden valuables. It’s an ugly story, a disgrace. For some strange reason, Sherman seemed to encourage it, handed out only light punishment to those caught.”

  “Then you think … that Riversend … that Bobbie Jean and Jeremy may have been killed? Oh, how horrible.”

  “There’s nothing certain, Jenny. Not as yet. Let me … look into it more. I won’t be able to come back for several weeks. Meanwhile, don’t mention any of this to Griff during his lucid periods.”

  “Those are few enough, God knows, and far between. Now, let me fix you a good home meal before you have to go back. I’m so worried for Griff and his family, yet …”

  Three men sat around a bare oak table in the darkened dining room of a small farmhouse outside Pamplin, Virginia. They leaned forward, intently, and the speaker, a small man with a pointed, weasel face held the other two with his words.

  “You have done well so far. According to your report,” he nodded to a large, florid-faced man in the Confederate gray, “Stark is dead. Officially confirmed so by the Union Army. My agents tell me that Yankee marauders burned Riversend and dispersed the darkies. In the process, although entirely unplanned, Mrs. Bobbie Jean Stark was killed.”

  “I would consider that a bonus, Mr. Treadwell,” the Confederate colonel replied.

  “So does my cousin. He is extremely pleased. Particularly with the way you managed to place Stark in the thick of the fighting during that unfortunate setback in Leesburg. Because of his crippled hand, poor Albert was unable to participate in the present conflict, for either side, and the opportunity to see his old enemy brought to accounts has done much to compensate him for it.”

  “I had never liked that young whelp. He had risen in the ranks far too rapidly, seemed to lead a charmed life. And he had been a spy of some sort for the Union before the war. Not to be trusted,” the colonel offered to justify his betrayal.

  “Will my services still be needed?” inquired the third man. He had a gentle, smiling face and soft gray eyes that twinkled when he rolled them behind thick, wire-rimmed spectacles.

  “Yes,” Lattimer Treadwell answered. “Your success in ferreting out information from the Northern leaders has allowed our consortium to make a tidy profit. Each of you will have a respectable bank account when this war ends.”

  “That can’t be much longer,” the bespectacled man opined.

  “No. Two months, perhaps. Three at the most, Mr. Kane,” the Confederate officer advanced.

  “Remember, it is the wish of the consortium that the fighting be prolonged if possible. Selling material to both sides is what makes us all rich.”

  “Unfortunately, I can do little about that. What is to happen after the fighting is over?”

  “There is a plan, Colonel, by which a defeated Confederacy can be turned into private fiefdoms for members of the consortium and their friends. How would you like to own, say, a quarter of the state of South Carolina?”

  Surprise registered on the colonel’s face. “They’ll never get away with it. It’s too ambitious and even the politicians in Washington would not condone such a blatant power grab.”

  “Not necessarily. Of course, certain obstacles will have to be removed.”

  “Starting at the, ah, top?” Kane suggested. “Perhaps. Now, we’ve been here entirely too long. I think this meeting should come to an end. On behalf of my associates and my cousin, Albert, thank you again.”

  Lattimer Treadwell rose and left the room. A moment later, Peter Kane followed him. Last to depart was Colonel Chester Braithwaite, C.S.A.

  The straight razor’s edge
grated on bristles. Jenny Carmichael continued to scrape the whiskers from Griffin Stark’s face with a frown of concentration on her own. Despite the ravages of his illness, Griffin Stark remained a handsome man, his light hair a mop of yellow that often flopped boyishly over his forehead. He had a noble nose, a small mouth, with moderate, generous lips. His eyes, properly spaced, were of that particular dark blue that sometimes seemed to be black. He lay at ease now, the intermittent ravages of his fever gone for the while. At times like this, Jenny’s heart felt near to bursting with love. It only tormented her, she knew, wracked with guilt at her emotions in the full knowledge that Griff was married and loved another. She could not evade her feelings, though. Unexpectedly, he stirred.

  His movement caused her to nick the smooth, sallow flesh of his face. Quickly she bent forward to staunch the flow with a stick of alum. His eyes fluttered open, unfocused, questing.

  “Bobbie Jean? Is that you, darling?” his weak voice grated out.

  “There, there, everything’s all right, beloved.” Jenny had come to speak to him this way, knowing that it soothed and calmed him, unmindful of what it revealed of her own feelings.

  Griff reached out with his good arm and encircled Jenny’s shoulder, drew her close. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, darlin’. Give me a kiss, my sweet.”

  Tears formed in Jenny’s eyes and quickly flowed down her sun-rouged cheeks. With a gentle, but determined effort, she disengaged Griff’s arm, swiftly bent forward, and gave him a light peck on the forehead. One small fist went to her mouth to choke off the sob that rose in her throat and she fled from the room.

  After a brief three minutes of industrious dusting, she got control of herself and returned to finish the task of shaving her patient. To her surprise, she found him sitting upright.

  “I’m a very trying patient, aren’t I?” he asked in a clear voice.

  “No. Not at all.”

  “I know you, don’t I?”