by John Jakes
“—but that isn’t the same as being a popular one. As you know, Charles, the men are not entitled to hold new elections until their one-year enlistments come up for renewal. However, I thought I should advise you of how matters stood and ask—”
This time he interrupted Hampton. “Let them go ahead. Tomorrow—I don’t care.” He did but hid it, standing rigidly straight.
Frowning, Butler asked, “But what if you lose?”
“Begging the major’s pardon—why do you state it that way? You know I’ll lose. The number of signatures on the petition guarantees it. I still say let them hold the election. I’ll find some other way to serve.”
The senior officers exchanged looks. Charles realized this had been planned with some care, and not solely to administer bad medicine.
Hampton spoke quietly: “I appreciate the spirit in which you said that, Charles. I appreciate all the qualities that make you a fine officer. Your bravery is beyond dispute. You have a father’s concern for your men. I suspect it’s your discipline that precipitated this, since so many in the legion still fancy themselves Carolina gentlemen, rather than soldiers awaiting the sanguinary pleasure of General McClellan. Also, your Academy training may have worked against you.”
It hadn’t worked against Stuart or Jackson or a score of others, Charles reflected with bitterness. But it was stupid to blame anyone else for his own shortcomings.
Hampton’s voice rose emphatically. “I do not want you lost to this command. Nor does Major Butler. Therefore, if you don’t care to campaign against your, ah, opponent—”
“I wouldn’t waste a minute on that stupid Dutchman!” Charles caught his breath. “I’m sorry, sir.” Hampton waved the apology aside.
“We have another arrangement to propose,” Butler said. “You’re a loner, Charles, but that can be valuable. Would you consider leading Abner Woolner and a few more of my best men in a squad of scouts?”
Hampton leaned forward, half his face in darkness. “It’s the most necessary and most dangerous of all mounted duty. A scout is constantly at hazard. Only the best can handle the job.”
Charles pondered, but not long. “I’ll accept on one condition. Before I start, I’d like a short furlough.”
That brought another frown from the major. “But the whole army’s moving, or soon will be.”
“To the rear, I’m told. To the Rapidan and the Rappahannock. The lady lives near the Rappahannock. Fredericksburg. I can rejoin the legion quickly if necessary.”
Hampton smiled. “Request granted. Do you concur, Major Butler?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then,” said Charles, “I accept duty as a scout. With pleasure.”
Even though the rejection hurt, and would for a long time, he felt, at the same time, set free. He was happy. Did a manumitted black man experience similar feelings, he wondered as he walked back to his hut at a brisk pace, whistling.
His military passport, countersigned in Richmond, noted his age, height, complexion, hair and eye color, and stated that he had permission to travel to the vicinity of Fredericksburg, subject to the discretion of the military authorities. If that discretion had somehow proved an obstacle, Charles would have put the spurs to Sport, jumped over the authorities, and taken his chances.
As he crossed the miles to Spotsylvania County, first through rainstorms, then a cold snap that whitely crisped the dead fields and bare trees, his eagerness to reach Barclay’s Farm increased, together with anxiety that he would find her gone again. At last he saw the sturdy stone house and wooden barns and outbuildings on the north side of the narrow road.
“And smoke coming out of the chimney,” he yelled to the gelding.
It was a fine farm, well maintained despite the war. From the appearance of the fields, he judged that her property spread on both sides of the road. The main house had a look of great age and strength, fortresslike behind a pair of ninety-foot red oaks that must have sprung up wild, hunting the sun they needed. Since the house was old, the trees had probably been saplings when it was built. Now they had grown and spread until their thick limbs hung over the wooden roof shakes and touched the front dormers of an upstairs floor or attic. Wonderful trees, made for climbing and making him wish he was a boy again.
As he reined in, in the dooryard, he heard a squeak and whine. Away to his right he glimpsed a jet of sparks in the dark interior of an outbuilding. He dismounted, and the pedals of the grinding wheel stopped squeaking. A Negro of about twenty emerged from the building. He wore heavy plow shoes, old pants, a mended shirt. He had both hands on the curved scythe he had been sharpening.
“Something we can do for you, sir?”
“This man’s all right, Boz.”
The new voice belonged to another Negro, older, moon-faced, with few teeth; he appeared from behind the house, a sack of henhouse feed over his shoulder. Charles had met him in Richmond the night of the ball.
“How are you, Captain?” the older black asked. “You look like you rode through eighty acres of mud.”
“I did. Is she home, Washington?”
He let out a kind of hee-hee laugh. “Indeed she is. It’s early for a social call, but don’t you mind that—she’s always up before daylight. Probably frying our morning ham right now.” Washington jerked his head to the right. “Back door’s quicker.”
Charles walked past him and up the wooden stoop, spurs jingling. “Put the captain’s horse in the barn, Boz,” the older freedman said to the younger. Charles knew he should look after Sport himself, but all he wanted to do was rap on the door, hoping he didn’t appear or smell filthy. He could scarcely believe his own excited state.
The door opened. Gus gasped, and a flour-white hand flew to her chin. “Charles Main. It is you?”
“So my passport says.”
“You confused me for a moment. The new beard—”
“Is it all right?”
“I’ll get used to it.”
He grinned. “Well, it’s warm, anyway.”
“Are you on your way somewhere?”
“I didn’t realize the beard was that repulsive.”
“Stop that and answer me.” She had liked his retort.
“I am responding, ma’am, to your kind invitation to visit. May I come in?”
“Yes, yes—certainly. I apologize for making you stand in the cold.”
Her old cotton dress, much laundered and nearly bleached of its yellow dye, still became her. She looked a trifle sleepy, yet pleased and excited. He noticed a button missing in the row rising over the swell of her breast and saw flesh in a momentary gap. He felt faintly wicked and fine.
She had been stirring batter. She laid the spoon aside and put her fist against her hip. “One question before we get down to visiting in earnest. Are you going to insist on calling me by that wretched name?”
“Most probably. This is wartime. We all have to put up with a few unpleasantries.”
He had tried to mimic her tart style. She picked that up and smiled again. “I shall make a patriotic effort. Breakfast will be ready shortly. There’s plenty. I’ll heat some water if you want to wash first.”
“I’d better, or your house will look like a mudhole.”
She surprised him by grasping his left sleeve. “Let me look at you. Are you all right? I hear there may be heavy fighting soon. You’ve survived the winter so far—so many men haven’t, they say.” She responded to his reaction with an annoyed shake of her head. “Are you laughing at me?”
“No, ma’am. But I counted about half a dozen statements and questions whizzing by. Which shall I take first?”
She blushed, or so he thought. It was hard to be sure because only the fire in the great stone hearth illuminated the room, and the day was dark.
The kitchen was huge, peg-floored and furnished with tables, chairs, a work block on thick legs. All were simply but well designed, with an appearance of strength that matched the house. Like Ambrose, Barclay must have been a good woodworker, Ch
arles thought with a jealous twinge.
“First?” she repeated, lifting and turning pieces of frying ham in a black iron skillet. “This. How are you? I didn’t hear from you. I was worried.”
“Didn’t I ever tell you I’m a bad letter writer? I especially lack the nerve to write someone as well educated as you. Another thing—the army mails are slow as glue. Your gift arrived late. I thank you for remembering me.”
“How could I not?” Then, hastily averting her head: “At Christmas.”
“The book’s handsome.”
“But you haven’t read it.”
“No time yet.”
“That’s a hedge, if I ever heard one. How long can you stay?”
Underneath the lightness of the question he believed he heard something different, unexpected, vastly pleasing. “Until tomorrow morning, if it won’t compromise you. I can sleep in the barn with my horse.”
Hand on hip again: “With whom would it compromise me, Captain? Washington? Bosworth? They’re both discreet, tolerant men. I have a spare room with a bed and no neighbors closer than a mile.”
“All right, but I still have reason to worry about you. There’s liable to be fighting around here, and you’re—”
A soft clunk. He glanced down. A lump of mud had dislodged from his pants and lay on the floor. Sheepish, he picked it up. She waved the spoon.
“Off with those things, then we’ll eat and talk. Go into my room—straight down there. I’ll send one of the men with water for the tub and a nightshirt that belonged to Barclay. Some of his things are stored in the attic. Leave your uniform in the hall, and I’ll brush it up.” Through all this urging, she prodded him with the spoon, determined as any sergeant drilling a recruit. A last prod—“Now scat.” He left, laughing.
Gus Barclay’s mere presence drew him out of the dank inner places where he had dwelled of late. He sank into hot water in the zinc tub and scrubbed himself with a cake of homemade soap, having first removed the thong from around his neck and laid the leather bag where it couldn’t get wet.
He put on the nightshirt and returned to the kitchen, where she filled him with plain, hearty food. The freedmen ate, too. They regularly took their meals in the kitchen, she explained. “Though they always come and go by the back door. Some of my neighbors—fine religious folk, church every Sunday—would probably burn me out if they saw black men crossing my threshold at all hours. Washington and Boz and I talked it over, and we decided we could all stand a bit of injury to our pride if that’s the price of keeping the roof over our heads.”
The freedmen smiled and agreed. The two of them and Gus were a family, Charles realized; one into which he was immediately welcomed.
After he dressed in his cleaned-up clothes, she showed off her fields and buildings in a leisurely ramble on foot. The frost melted, the temperature rose, bare earth oozed moisture and scents of a coming spring. They spoke of many things. Of Richmond, where she had sold produce from the farm twice in the fall. “It was my impression that every person in that city is engaged in swindling every person in some fashion.”
Of his disillusionment with the army. “Staff officers are a pretty busy lot. I calculate they spend fifty percent of their time politicking, fifty percent fiddling with pieces of paper, and fifty percent fighting.”
“That’s a hundred and fifty percent.”
“That’s why there hasn’t been much fighting.”
Of her uncle, Brigadier Jack Duncan. She wished she knew his whereabouts so that she could write him. Unofficial couriers—smugglers—could carry almost anything across Confederate and Union lines, using a combination of forged passports and bribes.
Then, without prompting, she spoke of things past. “I wanted a child, and so did Barclay. But I became pregnant only once, and then only with extreme difficulty.”
They were strolling along a lane bordering a small apple orchard. The lowering sun threw a web of branch shadows down upon them. She was bundled in an old hip-length coat, a coat for chores, and had crossed her arms over her breast and tucked her hands under her sleeves. She didn’t look at him while she discussed the subject of childbearing, but otherwise there was no sign of embarrassment. Nor did he feel any.
“I was sick almost constantly for the first four and a half months. Then one night I lost the child spontaneously. I would have had a fine son if he’d lived. I may be able to quote Pope, but I’m not as good at simple things as the old cow in the barn who keeps us in milk and calves.”
She made a joke of it, but she kept her head down, kicking at stalks of long grass beside the lane.
For the evening meal she spit-roasted a round red roast of beef. Washington said he and Boz had chores and so would not be able to join the others for supper. Gus accepted the fiction without question. She and Charles ate by the light of the kitchen hearth—one of the best meals he had ever tasted. Thick slices of browned potatoes grown on her land. Hot corn bread unlike the army’s; no wiggling visitors revealed themselves when he broke a piece in half. And the juicy, tender beef, free of the stink of brine and the Commissary Department.
She brought a jug of rum to the table and poured a cup for each of them.
He shared more of his thoughts about the war. “Independence is a fine, laudable quality in a man. But an army that wants to win can’t accommodate it.”
“Seems to me the government is caught in the same dilemma, Charles. And suffering. Each state puts its own wishes and welfare ahead of every other consideration. The principle we’re fighting for may turn out to be what destroys us. But here—we’re getting too gloomy. Will you have some more rum? Tell me about your command.”
“Shrunk considerably since we danced in Richmond.” He mentioned the petition and his reassignment to Butler’s scouts.
Solemnly, her blue eyes fixed on his. “I’ve read about the duties of scouts. Very dangerous.”
“But less trying than leading men who want to go fifty ways at once. I’ll be all right. I value my horse and my hide—in that order.”
“My, you’re in a good mood.”
“It’s the company, Gus.”
“Odd—” A log broke in the hearth; fire and shadow moved sinuously over the walls, the stove, the handmade shelves holding her dishes. “I can almost listen to that name without cringing. As you say”—eyes on him again, briefly—“the company.”
Each felt, then, the isolation of the house, the sex and rising emotion of the other. Charles brought his legs together under the table. She began to fuss with dishes, forks, spoons, clearing things. “You must be worn out—and you have a long ride tomorrow, don’t you?”
“Yes and yes.” He wanted to follow her as she moved away, sweep his arms around her, let only one bedroom in the dark house be occupied tonight. It wasn’t propriety that prevented him, or fear that she would say no, though she certainly might. It was a self-spoken warning from the silences of his mind, one he had heard before. A warning about time and place and the circumstances that had brought them together.
He pushed away from the table. “I suppose I had better turn in.” He did feel pleasantly tired, his muscles loose, his body warm, his heart content except in one regard. “It’s been a wonderful day.”
“Yes, it has. Good night, Charles.”
Going to her, he leaned down and gently kissed her forehead. “Good night.” He turned and walked to the spare bedroom.
He lay under the comforter an hour, reviling himself. I should have touched her. She wanted it. I saw it in her eyes. He flung the cover off. Strode to the door. Listened to the night house, the tiny creaks and shifts. Reached for the knob. Stopped with his fingers an inch from it. Swore and went back to bed.
He wakened with his heart beating fast and caution gripping him. He heard noise in the hall, sounds not normal for a house at rest. Light flashed under the door. Barefoot, in the borrowed nightshirt, he jerked the door open. Augusta Barclay stood in a listening attitude near the foot of the attic stairs. She wore a cotto
n flannel bed gown with an open throat, and had braided her yellow hair.
“What’s wrong?” he said.
She hurried along the hall, an old percussion rifle in one hand, a lamp casting tilting shadows in the other. “I heard something outside.” Saying this, she stopped close to him. He clearly saw her nipples raising the soft flannel. Restraint and good sense deserted him. He put his right hand on her breast and leaned down, inhaling the night warmth of her skin and hair.
She pressed to him, eyes closing, lips opening. Her tongue touched his. Then knocking began.
She pulled back. “What have you done to me, Charles Main?”
The knocking grew louder, overlaid by Washington’s urgent voice. Charles fetched his revolver from the bedroom and ran after her to the back door, where he found the two freedmen, obviously upset.
“Powerful sorry to wake you in the middle of the night, Miz Barclay,” Washington said. “But they’s all sorts of commotion on the road.” Charles heard it: axles creaking, hoofs clopping, men cursing and complaining.
Gus motioned with the rifle. “Come inside and close the door.” She put down the lamp and cocked the weapon.
Charles strode through the dark to the parlor, crouched by the window, and returned presently with reassurance. “I saw the letters CSA on the canvas of two wagons. They’re moving toward Fredericksburg. I don’t think we’ll be bothered.”
Back in the parlor, standing side by side at the window but careful not to touch, Charles and Gus watched the train of heavy vehicles pass in bright moonlight. When they were gone and the bellowed complaints of the teamsters, too, Charles saw daylight glinting. There was no time to go back to bed, for any reason.
Washington and Boz said they were cold. Gus began brewing coffee. So the night and the visit ended. He left after breakfast. She walked to the road with him. Sport, well rested, was frisking, eager to be off.
She touched his gauntleted hand where it lay on his left leg. “Will you come again?”
“If I can. I want to.”
“Soon?”
“General McClellan will have a lot to say about that.”