Howl no longer, thought Willie Collins, as his whole awareness and minor intelligence went draining into his boots. Howl no more.
He gave a shivering gulp. Thick tears began to ooze. His voice was shaking, humble. He called through the almost visible spume of threats and curses, Be quiet, you bastards!
Strangely they became quiet. Their terrified calm went spreading like a cloud’s shadow through the population around them, and raced over the stockade as a moving representation of that same cloud, a brown silent formless wraith darkening the hill it passed across. The pen was more quiet than it had been, day or night, from the moment the first prisoners passed through the gate in that distant torch-lit February. At one end of the world sounded a locomotive’s whistle, at the other end of the world crows made their wah-wah-wah; slopes of staring people were unspeaking and uncalling in between. At last Willie Collins and the rest might seek the very help they had derided.
Be still, lads. Willie added, with that pitiful dignity achieved by the brutal when they have fallen, Let the priest speak for us.
Ah, prisoners, cried Peter Whelan. Soldiers, if you like. Hear me now, please to give ear to me words. Can you not find forgiveness in your hearts? Have you no pity and no mercy? Remember our dear Lord who died upon the Cross to save us all from shame and sin! What would our Lord say, think you now, if He were standing among us at this moment, with His dear face aglow with inner mercy, with the light of compassion shining from His dear eyes? Would He ask for blood? Nay, nay— He would be beseeching you to spare the lives of these, your fellow men—
No, said one flat voice in the nearer crowd.
Be merciful, spare them, O Lord!
Be merciful, deliver them, O Lord!
Be merciful, deliver them, O Lord!
From Thy Anger, deliver them, O Lord!
From the danger of death, deliver them, O Lord!
The dry shivering voice continued its plea. What will it profit you if you demand now the death of these six miserable men? Sure, they’re sinners. But aren’t we all, does not each of us here on earth have his faults, are we not mortal as these poor condemned men are mortal? Oh, lads, prisoners, men of the North— Will this gallows bring back from the grave the boys who’ve been done to death? Never. Can this gallows expunge, lads, the miseries which have been done, the pain that’s been inflicted? Never, never. A gallows cannot make, it can only mar. Search your hearts, now, lads— And find pity for these miserable sinners— And find mercy again in your hearts, for surely you shall find God when you find mercy— Spare them, lads!
No, that same single voice came biting.
Ferocious hating brothers of the lone boy (whoever might he be? And perhaps his mother or sweetheart or Sunday School teacher had said many times, Luke is the tender one. Just see how gently he handles Tab’s kittens. He’s such a gentle lad, wouldn’t harm a flea) put their cry up against his, and supported him a thousand fold and supported him ten thousand fold. Peter Whelan’s supplication went drowning. No. No. No. The short grunting yells thudded as if a master chorister stood with ferule uplifted, beating rhythm. No. No. No. No. No!
Hang them, rose the high-pitched hoot of a mountain boy who’d been stripped at the North Gate eight days before. Hang them, by Mighty! Haaaang them.
Hang them, said posts of the fence. Haaaang them, said every sentinel’s platform. The gallows cried, Haaaang them; each beam and timber implored a choking. You could see that lacy face of old Peter Whelan turned in agony. (He was more miserable than he would be at any moment until he dragged himself out of the gate for the last time, in October.) His lips were moving, his jaws went up and down, but no man standing at his elbow could have heard him now.
From an ill end, deliver them, O Lord!
From the pains of hell, deliver them, O Lord!
From all evil, deliver them, O Lord!
From the power of the Devil, deliver them, O Lord!
No, no, no, no, no! Never deliver them, let them strangle and stretch. Let the long jarring fall snap their necks, let nooses crunch, let the men’s breath fail, let them die hard. Never deliver them, O Lord. Hang them, hang them, haaaang them!
Henry Wirz had reached his office some minutes before, but the wide slamming chant brought him out immediately, he stood bewildered on the step. What were those prisoners up to? Bears, what message do you growl?
Was gibt’s?
Said the clerk who stood behind him, speaking in German— Captain, it is the prisoners, all calling together. They demand that the big men be hanged.
Why don’t they get on with it, then?
Charles Curtis stood at the right of the file against whom the implacable demand of Hang them, Hang them, was cried. His gorilla shape was shortest in stature of any of the condemned. When honest (but dull and brutal to those about him) he had wielded a tamping-bar on the railroad in Providence. There was trouble because he struck a fellow workman with that same tamping-bar; his fist would have been nearly as lethal. Curtis decamped to Boston, found employment on the docks, found opportunities for profitable banditry. Again the police chased him, this time to Brooklyn, where he and a partner went buccaneering in a stolen boat through several lucrative seasons. In time they quarreled over the use and abuse of an anguished housemaid, a Scandinavian immigrant whom they’d kidnapped and lugged to a deserted wharf. Curtis’s partner was found floating a day or two later, minus a portion of his skull; Charles Curtis sought seclusion in a battery of the Fifth Rhode Island Artillery. He was believed to have killed at least a dozen men with his own hands while in Andersonville, and to have been responsible for the murder of many others in his role as gang leader. But still he did not wish to hang, and now roared that he would not hang. Other Fifth Rhode Island artillerymen would sink to their doom in the mire of this place: Doyle would die in August, Calvin would die in September, Fay in August, Garvey in August, Sisson in August, Eaton in October; even at this moment one William Wallace lay in final stupor; and all were comrades, some from Charles Curtis’s own battery. Not one of them but would have prayed to see him swinging. Still he did not wish to hang. I’d ruther die this way, his thick harsh voice came bursting. With arms folded across his face he dove into the line of Regulators.
His weight and force and suddenness flung their bodies away on either side of him, and two men went flat and his feet came down upon them as he plunged. Some idiot shrieked that Curtis held a weapon. He’s got a knife, got a gun, look out, he’s got— A mass of crowding prisoners outside the ranks of policemen scattered in terror. Curtis made rapid progress down the slope, he did not need to fling people away, they flung themselves in fear. A string of Regulators sped yelling a few rods behind. Get him! That’s Curtis! Stop him, you down there! and the emphasis of their hollering cancelled the chorused litany which was still being called on the northern slope.
To the taut mind of Henry Wirz this commotion suggested but one thing: a prison break. It had been so long a dread that now, in coming (he thought it coming, he thought it in progress) it was nearly welcome. Gus, he screamed, tell the battery commander— When Gus the clerk lingered useless, dumb and rooted to planks whereon they stood, Wirz himself leaped from the stoop with a jar which racked him and went flurrying up the hill toward the star fort. He extracted his revolver from its holster as he ran, nearly dropped the weapon, he tried to cock it as he ran. Fire! soared his anguished cry, slender and shrill as the voice of a child at play, a child playing Indian. Fire! Son of a bitch! Why do you not fy-urrrr? . . . All soaked and gasping he stumbled past an embrasure, fighting through a tangle of country people and slaves who pushed first one way, then another; they did not know where to run, they felt that they must run somewhere.
The battery’s commander glared in disgust. Gol damn, Captain Wirz, can’t you see nothing? Those prisoners are running away from the fence, not towards it—
They try to break loose—
Naw, naw, naw. The artilleryman reached for Wirz’s arm, clutched the right arm which was of course the wrong arm. Wirz howled. The artilleryman managed to turn the hysterical superintendent around, he tried to soothe him. Anyway, how the hell would I dare pull a lanyard with all these niggers and youngers and old folks too, square in front of my guns? Them Reserves ain’t worth shit.
Henry Wirz bullied the Georgia Reserves back to their task. They came with shamed faces from sentry platforms, came out of the crowd itself. Responding to their brandishing of bayonets and threat of muskets, citizens and blacks allowed themselves to be folded away from the cannon. Guns could fire now were it necessary, but no necessity lived. People within the pen were become more static; they thronged to watch the capture of Charles Curtis, who’d halted mired to his middle in the slough of feces and maggots.
Regulators halted their pursuit at the margin of the swamp when they saw how speedily the Rhode Islander’s excursion into freedom was halted. Well, here he is. A voice sang it from somewhere in the rear, as such voices always sing. Who in hell’s going to go into all them worms and turds after him?
Without a word Nathan Dreyfoos waded to the task. He thought, In some fashion I can cleanse myself later. Someone must fetch the beast or he’ll never come. At least I am strong enough to resist him in turn if he resists.
For some time Nathan had been reduced to the wearing of sandals carved and stitched by himself; but with the overthrowing of the raiders he was well-shod from Patrick Delaney’s private hoard of boots. In amusement he felt now that it grieved him more to insert these new (to him) beloved shoes in the sickening bog than it did to know that ooze was working steadily higher on his torn pants and pasting putridity against his skin—skin perhaps not too clean, but at least pure, purer than the slow-foaming lake of drainage human and inhuman. A line came to his fancy: Not all the perfumes of Arabia— He felt young pardonable pride in knowing that others behind him were admiring the fortitude he displayed.
Curtis stood gasping in an attitude of defense, arms half bent, fists but half clenched. No, Nathan told him in a low voice, you will not die here. You shall hang; you have been sentenced; you shall hang.
Nathan pushed his long left arm forward, but holding the hickory club ready in his right hand, until he felt and saw his fingers grow around the open collar of Charles Curtis’s flannel shirt. Bulbous green eyes stared into his own eyes with no hatred which Nathan Dreyfoos might detect; first he saw a fear and then a yielding, a blankness. He thought to himself, I have hypnotized him, or else he has hypnotized himself through his very flight—and how foolish it was! and where could he have fled to?—
Come, Nathan commanded in a stronger voice.
Curtis moved with him humbly, almost as if pleased to return. But his heavy breathing was a frog’s grunt; his breath came quicker and quicker, he shook visibly with each labored respiration.
Want— Want a drink—
You shall have water.
Not— Not this—
There is water waiting you. At the gallows.
A certain amount of whistling exultation rose protractedly out of the thousands who observed; there were a few hands which spatted in applause; for the most part the inhabitants watched in silence. His hands holding Curtis’s wrists behind his back (Nathan heard his tutor’s suave voice out of the past: I say, old chap, shall we wrestle today?) the captor brought the condemned man up to more solid earth. First their brown shining dripping thighs were visible, then knees and lower limbs; maggots dropped along with the breakage of muck reluctant to be severed. Once Nathan slid and tripped, but the rock of Curtis’s body kept him from falling.
The Rhode Islander continued with painful gasping. Give me— Drink—
Yes, you’ll get water—
There was a tangle of Regulators on the margin; Nathan delivered his prize into this clump. Then he staggered toward even firmer ground; he did not realize it, but he was breathing almost with the force and noise of the man he’d caught. His mouth hung open, sweat drenched down from his bony face, dripped from the high point of his beaked nose; but his eyes were luminous with triumph. People gave him plenty of room because of the pudding which clung to his clothes. Curtis was dragged up the south side of the ravine, but Dreyfoos made his way along an avenue which opened before him to the west. He saw the creek gurgling under and around the posts, heard it gurgling. When he’d come fairly against the deadline he looked up at the sentry station with smiling appeal.
Let me—go inside—if you please. In the stream—
Yank, get away—!
Please! I wish— Only to—stand in the creek? The water’s comparatively—clear—within the deadline. My legs—are plastered with—
The little sentinel gabbled a threat, but someone pushed him out of the way, and the plump chin-whiskered face of Lieutenant Davis looked down in excitement amounting to anguish. Nobody’s to fire at this Yank, he said distinctly. Pass it to them other stations, hear me? The word went along the fence, called to each guard within range. Don’t fire, don’t fire at that big Yank. All right, tall feller, said Davis to Nathan. I’ve done got you covered with my own pistol, so’s you can get inside that deadline and clean yourself off. If you can! Gratefully Nathan obeyed. The swarm of nearer prisoners watched with envy. Numerous men had been shot at that point, trying to scoop cleaner water from beyond the deadline. Nathan splashed and scrubbed with his hands.
On the hill Seneca MacBean told Limber Jim, Well, that ought to help a little. But if we all club together, we can buy better water from some of the wells. Kind of think we owe it to Brother Nathan. He’d present an awful problem to the Sucker Laundry and Cleaning Company right now.
What about Curtis? asked someone.
Lived dirty, can die dirty, said Limber Jim.
Limber Jim felt satisfaction in the knowledge that only one raider had sought to follow the runaway Curtis. That was Patrick Delaney: he’d taken a tentative step or two and then Limber Jim was in front of him with uplifted knife. Delaney backed away and allowed himself to be tied as the others were now tied, as the wretched smelling Curtis would be tied whenever he got up from the step where he had collapsed.
He sat for five or ten minutes, he sat on the bottom rung of the rough stair on which the six must ascend to execution. His legs had crumpled inside their dreadful coating. Give me drink, he kept saying, over and over. The charitable bucket turned toward him with each request. He drank with sputtering gulps, pushed the pail from him, gasped, belched, water ran from his beard and from the corners of his mouth. His eyes were fat as clams. It was as if he saw nothing but the bucket, wanted nothing but water.
Through Thy nativity, deliver them, O Lord!
Through Thy cross and passion, deliver them, O Lord!
Now indeed would Willie Collins kiss the object so foreign to his thick lips. He was not to die taunting; for the first time he knew that he was about to die, and in a fashion in which he’d never believed that he would die. Along with Curtis and the rest he drowned himself in water. Gossiping wonder rose from nearest crowds, those who could see the thirst of this grotesque clan and hear their petition and swallowing. Already one—twas Rickson, people whispered—had filled his belly until it was bursting . . . he threw up, threw up water and whatever else was inside him. Regulators jumped out of the way. Yet a minute or two afterward Rickson was beckoning to the boys with pails. Several of them kept trotting back and forth to supply this inordinate demand.
Sergeant Key, please— Them Clevelanders said to tell you they want to know who’s going to pay for all this water.
Too bad, said Key. But their well is nearest.
Tell them Clevelanders, came the drawl of Seneca MacBean, that the Good Lord will reward them in His own good time. And no funny business, or I’ll be over there directly and drop them down their own well.
A suggestion was made: Give them Mosby’s watch. Re
ckon he’d ruther have water than his watch.
MacBean went to speak to the giant. Father Whelan was busy with Delaney beside him, and Seneca was compelled to push next to the priest; he apologized at disturbing him. Peter Whelan did not even hear him. His lined face was blue with effort, his wide firm mouth had become a blur, the soul within him must be blurring as it labored—embracing the doomed with one spiritual arm, jogging the Devil away with the other. Sen MacBean came back with a gold watch chain hanging over his finger.
Says he gave the watch to a guard outside, hoping to have his bonds cut loose, but I assume the guard didn’t dast. Anyway here’s the chain to it.
Mister. The slow-spoken question of A. R. Hill. Is that chain made of little oak leaves kind of hanging together?
Yep.
Than I guess twould be Martin’s chain. Willie Collins took it off of him whilst we were at Belle Isle.
Know the heirs?
That I do.
Give them avaricious well-owners maybe a link apiece? Twould more than pay for the water; and you take the rest to the heirs, should you ever survive to get back to Ohio.
That I will. Hill put the chain in his pocket.
Through Thy death and burial, deliver them, O Lord!
Through Thy glorious resurrection, deliver them, O Lord!
Through Thy admirable ascension, deliver them, O Lord!
On the platform of distant Station Number Thirty-three, Ira Claffey spoke to the Reverend Mr. Dillard.
(Cato Dillard had come early from Americus with some idea of visiting the six hoodlums and praying over them. Ira explained to his friend that he’d heard the men were all Catholics and thus would not desire Presbyterian attention. Cato breakfasted lengthily at the Claffey house, could not make up his mind whether any good purpose would be served if he witnessed the hanging; he said that he had never seen anyone die except in bed. He believed that the gravity and horror of the thing might be reflected valuably in future sermons wherein he should describe certain penalties awaiting the unregenerate. Ira Claffey himself had intended all along to watch the execution were it possible. Lucy shivered away from him, and did not understand, and spoke indignantly of Morbid Curiosity. Ira had seen a man hanged long before, in Mexico—a man put to death for a criminal assault upon a child. He had approved that sentence and was glad to witness the dealing out of punishment—as now, he believed, he would be glad to observe the final agony of these rogues. Had it fallen to him to be a hangman in such a case, he would not have cringed, he would have done the work. He thought that a man might not know how to be gentle toward recipients who needed gentleness, did he not know how to be savage with the proper targets for savagery. He thought his a just and honorable code. Secretly he believed it should be followed internationally, but doubted that it ever would be. Thus, after toilsome examination of their separate philosophies in the matter, the two gentlemen arrived in the vicinity to find the roughs already marched inside; and it was cried that one of them had broken away in flight but was recaptured. Every station near the scene was weighted with spectators past the point of safety. Officers and men hung upon the ladders. Ira and the minister were compelled to walk the stockade’s path to the far east wall. Accompanying Ducky Duckworth on Station Thirty-three roosted a corporal who came often to the Claffeys’ for garden truck. This youth took the guard’s musket and sent the frightened sputtering ancient down the ladder, to his immense relief. The two citizens climbed up and gazed at gallows and thick knots of humanity corded there, they saw the infinity of paupers who looked on.)
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