The Year of Jubilo

by Bahr, Howard;

  You! cried Thomas, and grabbed Old Hundred-and-Eleven with one hand and Molochi Fish with the other. Help me get these men! The smoke rolled over them, the air humming with balls, hissing with shot. A riderless horse, stirrup irons flapping, nearly ran them over. Molochi Fish had seen the woman, the one like the stone figure from the graveyard, and the old one from Harper’s. Molochi wished it were night, even with his mother yowling outside and the gray smoke of the dogs moving in the trees. Nevertheless, he followed the man from the tavern, moving stiffly, his mouth opening and closing for breath. Suddenly, at his feet, a red-bearded man with plaited hair. Jesus, the man said. Jesus Jesus Jesus. He was torn across the breast, like Molochi’s mother was torn by the machinery. Molochi Fish bent stiffly and lifted the man by the shoulders and began to drag him after the others.

  Carl Nobles had made Brown go back to the surgeon, and now he was falling in with the troops at the magazine—the balance of Captain Bloom’s company and six dismounted cavalrymen from the headquarters guard. Lieutenant Osgood, his sword in his hand, was shouting, bullying them into line. Nobles stood with the Enfield at shoulder arms, in the accoutrements he had taken from a dead Federal soldier in the yard, feeling the old, familiar press of the men to either side as they dressed ranks. The man to his right, sighting down the line, looked at Nobles curiously. Nobles, in his short gray jacket and slouch hat, his accoutrements, his musket, awoke in the soldier unpleasant memories. Shouldn’t you be across the way? asked the soldier. Prob’ly, replied Nobles. Where’d you come from, any how? the soldier asked then. Nobles grinned at the man. The Army of Northern Virginia, he said. How ’bout you?

  In his years with the army, Henry Clyde Wooster had learned to load a musket. He was loading one now, while Marcus Peck lay prone, firing around the corner of the house. Hurry up! cried Peck. It’s a goddamned turkey shoot!

  I can only go so fast! replied Wooster, ramming a charge down the muzzle. Beside him lay the cap box and cartridge box he had snatched from a stack of muskets. Wooster was intent on his work, but in his mind lay a calm center, and there he was busy collecting images. The yard full of horses. The women by the gallery. The yankee rifleman who chewed tobacco. Craddock and Bloodworth emerging from the privet hedge, raising the old cry that used to scare him so. Nobles among the yankees. The man Gault—it must have been he—in the gray coat, whirling, swinging his saber, then vanished as if he had never been at all. The indifferent trees moving in the light breeze, and a redbird flashing overhead, the pinions of his wings stretched out, each one clear and defined against the sweet blue, cloudless sky. The correspondent passed the loaded musket to Peck and took the empty one and fumbled for a cartridge. Hot damn, it’s the judgment day! shouted Peck in his joy.

  Hit’s jedgment day! cried Old Hundred-and-Eleven, pawing at the collar of a Federal soldier. That one’s dead, said Thomas. Find you another one! The old man felt the snick of a ball cut his cheek. He put his hand there and brought it away bloody. Heliotrope! he bellowed. Gault, damn you to the fires of perdition, amen! Then he saw von Arnim lying on the porch.

  Molochi Fish, returning from the Shipwright house where he had left the red-bearded man, walked stiffly to another. This man was lying on his back, eyes open. He had been shot in the side, and the ball had passed through his lungs, and when he breathed, a red bubble popped at his lips. Molochi looked at his face and felt the fragile brush of memory, as if just beyond this moment lay another, a different one, hazy with the smoke of woods fires, where the breeze rattled in leaves gone dry as beetle hulls and men rode up from the treeline, their horses raising little puffs in the dust. Molochi heard the man say Well, it’s ripe, but Gah damn if it ain’t dry as a corn shuck though the man’s mouth didn’t move except to open and close like Molochi’s own, popping the little bubble of blood. Molochi heard the man’s voice again Gah damn if it ain’t dry and for a moment thought he was talking about that other day. But no, there was something else, elusive, swirling inside the red bubble. Then he remembered the squaw woman last night, watching him from down the hill, and Wall Stutts’ bones gnawed by the dogs, and the great birds. Molochi knew the man then. The man watched as Molochi sat down beside him in the mud and drew his knife.

  Had the guns at the magazine been trained a little further to the right, they might have spread Bloodworth’s and Craddock’s brains across the landscape. As it happened, the two emerged from the hedge just in time to be deafened by the muzzle blast, and to find themselves in a mad shambles of horses and men. Now Bloodworth had a specimen of his own: a big, sliteyed, mean-looking man whom they had pulled from his horse while he was reloading. Bloodworth drove his fist again and again into the man’s face until Craddock stopped him. Whoa, shouted Craddock. Ease up boy. You liable to break your hand on that son bitch! Craddock was holding a pistol that he had taken from another fallen raider and emptied into the general melee. Bloodworth rose and looked at his bloody hands, and at the man who lay at his feet. Goddamn you Bill Huff! he cried, and cursed him for raising the demons again, and kicked him one last time, and was satisfied.

  Inside the house, Stribling sat the women down on the horsehair settee in Burduck’s office. You set there now and don’t you move and don’t give me no argument, he said.

  Captain Stribling, you are such a handsome man, said Aunt Vassar, fanning herself, the pistol lying in her lap.

  Find Gawain, said Morgan. You can do that for me.

  Yes, said Stribling. Then he was on the porch again, and found Old Hundred-and-Eleven, his shirt wet with blood, kneeling beside the provost. Stribling knelt too, and began to unbutton the officer’s coat, but the old man stopped his hand. Ain’t any use in that, said Old Hundred-and-Eleven. Thomas came out of the house, swabbing his body with a bloody rag. Is he dead? asked Thomas. Stribling nodded, and closed the man’s eyes. He was all right, said Thomas. He was all right, agreed Old Hundred-and-Eleven, and followed Thomas back into the yard.

  Stribling had to go all the way around the house before he found Gawain Harper leaning against a porch post, his legs stretched out in front of him. Across his lap lay a double-barreled shotgun. The rosary was around his neck. At the bottom of the steps lay a barefooted man in a jeans sack coat, his breeches tied with a length of twine. The man had been badly used by the shotgun and was dead, though his right foot still twitched in the mud.

  Are you all right, boy? asked Stribling. Are you hurt?

  Gawain looked at him with dull eyes, as if he had just awakened. No, I ain’t hurt, he said. He lifted his hand toward the dead man. I tried to get him to surrender, but he wouldn’t.

  Stribling sat down on the steps, rubbed his face. They won’t surrender, he said. Then he shook Gawain’s knee. Have you seen Gault?

  I swear to God, that’s the last one, said Gawain, looking at the dead man. I swear it to Almighty God.

  Stribling shook him again. Listen—have you seen Gault?

  I do not give a goddamn about Gault, said Gawain. He sat up then and wrapped his hand in Stribling’s shirtfront. Where is Morgan? Don’t be tellin me she is still out there. He loosed his hand from Stribling’s shirt and pressed the palm to his temple. Dammit, I should not of left her.

  She is safe, and your aunt, too, said Stribling. I seen to it. Now answer my question.

  For reply, Gawain rose to his knees and took the shotgun by its muzzle. He was about to fling it into the yard when Stribling stopped him. Not yet, said Stribling. Keep it just a while longer. Then he plucked the sheriff’s badge from his coat and pressed it into Gawain’s hand. You want to throw somethin, throw this.

  Gawain smiled then. He cocked his arm and threw the badge toward the creek; they watched it sail in a silver arc and disappear among the trees. Stribling got up and pulled Gawain to his feet. We got to find him, he said.

  Whos’ asked Gawain.

  THOUGH THE CHARGE was heavy, its momentum was quickly spent. Gault’s planned movement from column into line, especially under fire, was impossible for men accustome
d to the simple tactics of guerrilla raiders. In any event, the guns by the magazine and, after a moment, the volleys of the infantry formed there, broke up the head of the column and turned it back into the yard, and Solomon Gault lost even the illusion of control. Moreover, Captain Bloom’s men were moving up from the south in open order, firing at will, choosing their targets with good effect.

  Across the road, in a little clump of cedars, Solomon Gault sat his horse coolly. He had long since sheathed the saber, and now he noticed the carbine in his hand. He was curious as to how it came to be there. Certainly he had not fired it, he would remember that. Well, he ought to make some use of it. Too late for the business here, but there was something else just as urgent, something else to be taken care of.

  Gault steadied his horse and watched the fight across the road. He was removed from the scene, nothing more than a spectator now, calm and fair in his judgment, nodding his head as if everything was happening just as he’d expected. You cannot—he told himself, shaping the thought carefully, you cannot hope to defeat a great evil with a lesser. The instruments of liberty must be tuned to a higher purpose, must be driven by the hope, not of gain, but of sacrifice. That was as far as he could go at the moment; he repeated the phrase to get it firm in his mind, thinking it would do to open the epilogue of his memoirs.

  A stray round clipped through the cedars, and Gault looked up, irritated. He was tired of the spectacle in the yard, and anyway, it was nearly over. Men were surrendering, throwing their weapons down, raising their hands. Others were fleeing south, hoping to break through the line. Some did, others did not. Peckerwoods, thought Gault. Goddamned yellowhammer trash. The sight of them filled Gault with disgust, and he cursed again the fate that put him always at the head of such men. You could not sublimate the rabble nor lift them to any plane higher than the urges of their own glands. Well, he was done with them.

  Clearly, it was time to go. There was much work to be done if this morning’s events were to take their logical place in the design. As an experiment, the attack was a failure; however, it had borne fruit in unexpected ways. The enemy was off-balance. Certainly they were off-balance. Power, if it is to be useful, must lie in the balance of force and reason. Should the scales be tipped either way, a weakening of morality and will must inevitably—

  A handful of Federal cavalry came around the corner of the Shipwright house and galloped after the fugitives; no doubt they would find … Gault blinked, tilted his head. They would find something—what was it? The bridge, of course, and the shadows moving in the road, the smell of dust warm at nooning. There is the river, there the green banks where the wild sweet William grows. No, nothing left to find but silence. Solomon Gault was finished here, finished and done with all of them.

  Yet something remained. A gesture. A loose end. Then it came to him. Solomon Gault smiled and shook his head like a man remembering where he left his pocketbook. Of course, of course. He looked once more at the shambles in the yard and pitied the fools who had thought themselves worthy. Then he turned the horse and rode out of the cedars toward town.

  XXIII

  Solomon Gault was careful to avoid the square where a crowd had gathered, all hats and walking sticks and umbrellas, all abuzz with talk, all careful to stay clear of the southerly road in case a stray ball came traveling up that way. Gault was not surprised to see the citizens; he knew the smell of blood would draw them like jackals, though they would not venture far while there was any danger. For a moment he thought he might ride out among them, see if there were any old soldiers he could appeal to. He could imagine them growing silent and turning their faces toward him, could hear his own voice shaping for the last time the deliverance, the sacrifice, the cause he represented. But that was as far as his vision would carry him now. It ended with the image of their mute faces turned upward in the sunlight, believing in the light, ignorant of the dark that was falling.

  Gault spat the powder taste from his mouth and turned his back on the square. He pushed the horse through a ragged jumble of tents and shanties and found a group of women with their hands wrapped in their aprons, half-naked whelps clinging to their legs. Negroes stood among them, silent, watching toward the south. The negroes looked away as Gault passed. One of the women spoke a question, but Gault ignored her. In a moment, he was on the road that led to Holy Cross church, and here he met the new priest. The man was hurrying along, holding the skirts of his cassock out of the mud, his face glowing with an earnestness that Gault found absurd. “You’re too late, Father,” he said, pulling the horse crossway in the road. The priest stopped short and looked at him, blinking in the bright sun.

  “Too late?”

  “For martyrdom, I mean,” said Gault. “It’s all right, though. There’s plenty about to cross over—maybe they’ll let you hold their hands.”

  “Sir, let me pass,” said the priest, his pale cheeks coloring.

  “Sure,” said Gault. “I need your help first, though. You know Judge Nathan Rhea?”

  “I … yes, I know him. I just saw him, in fact.”

  “And where was that, Father?”

  “Well, it was in Mister Carter’s yard. He—”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Gault, and backed the horse out of the road so the priest could pass. The man hurried on without looking back. “Come up,” said Gault to the horse, and pricked him with his spurs.

  AT THE SHIPWRIGHT house, Gawain found Morgan and Aunt Vassar in the dining room with the wounded. The women’s faces were shiny with sweat as they moved among the men with a bucket of water and a dented tin dipper. Thomas told him later that the two women had volunteered to tear up their petticoats for bandages in the old Confederate way, but the surgeon assured them, with ponderous courtesy, that the Federal army was well supplied with bandages, and they could better serve by providing refreshment.

  “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” said Aunt Vassar. “Bringin water to the yankees, my God. Next thing, I’ll be servin tea to the nigrahs. Morgan, honey, you go outside with Nephew and take the air—I’ll linger among these handsome lads. Maybe one’ll want me to write a letter for him after while.”

  “And maybe the surgeon has some laudanum,” said Gawain when he and Morgan were in the hall. He shook his head. “My beloved aunt.”

  “Don’t fault your good aunt,” said Morgan.

  “Never,” Gawain said. “She has lived with my daddy all these years without killin him—she may have all the relief God can provide.”

  “Do you suppose it was God provided laudanum?” she asked.

  “That is an excellent question,” said Gawain. “I’ll ask Harry, next time we are havin a discussion, and let you know.”

  They were about to pass through the door when old Mister Shipwright emerged from the parlor in a dressing gown and fez. “Excuse me,” said the old man. “Do you have any word? Any word at all?”

  “About what, sir?” asked Gawain.

  “Ain’t you heard?” said the old gentleman. “There has been a great cataclysm! Oh, a very great cataclysm!” He lowered his voice and grasped the sleeve of Gawain’s coat. “You know, of course, Mrs. Shipwright has a nervous disposition—she believes it heralds the end of the world.”

  “Oh, that,” said Gawain. “You may tell her that the Army of God has prevailed.”

  “Thank you,” said Mister Shipwright, turning to the stairs. “That is exactly what I told her, but of course she won’t listen!”

  They passed through the open front door then. Gawain noticed for the first time that the oval pane of ruby glass was broken out, a mildewed shelter half tacked in its place. On the porch the wounded raiders lay, looking as wounded always did: numb, reeking, disheveled, strangely removed, as though they had crossed an invisible chasm. They waved at flies, picked at their clothes, muttered to themselves. Some groaned and writhed in pain; others, having arranged themselves for death, lay calmly and stared at nothing. Dozens of yellow butterflies danced among them, as if the wounded men
were curious flowers opening.

  Gawain took Morgan’s arm, thinking to lead her past this wreckage, but she stopped him. Brushing Gawain’s hand away, she approached the soldier on guard. “What are these poor devils doin here?” she asked. “Who is lookin after em?”

  The soldier removed his cap. “The surgeon said they must wait, Miss.”

  “Blessed God,” said Morgan. “Tell me, then—where are the ones who are already dead?”

  The soldier pointed to the yard beyond the end of the gallery. Morgan passed down the steps, Gawain following.

  YOUNG ALEX RHEA had thought the war over. Now it seemed to have commenced again, and he and Beowulf spent the morning on the front gallery listening to the guns. He was forbidden to go into the yard, so he perched on the balustrade and tried to imagine the scene, as he had done before when there was fighting around Cumberland. His only reference were the engravings in Harper’s Weekly, which his father had received in the post all the way up through the second year of the war, so he usually thought in terms of long lines of men dressed exactly alike, sweeping forward under little puffs of smoke. Somehow, though, that image did not suit his mind now. Since yesterday, he had gathered in his memory too many faces of men who had been to the places described in the magazine. These were not easily imposed on the faceless swarms in the engravings.