I Have Seen Him in the Watchfires

by Cathy Gohlke

  Seventeen

  Chap. Goforth commandeered Stargazer and led him alongside the medical supply wagon, where I helped Katie Frances sort the last of the powders into packets. I turned my back as she hid the packets in pockets sewn beneath her skirts, while she fussed, “Pray the scoundrels don’t search women! No sense handing them the medicines our dying men need!”

  Chap. Goforth grabbed my shirt sleeve and ordered, “Find Wooster. Have him ride with you. Don’t let him out of your sight. Drift out of our lantern light as the watch changes. I’ll distract the sentry. Ride hard for the river. Where it’s shallow-swim across, follow it south, and then southwest. We can’t be far from the North Carolina line—maybe even below it. There’s a bedroll and kit—keep them dry.”

  “They could turn aside, still miss us,” I said.

  Chap. Goforth jerked me from the wagon, shoved a jacket into my arms, and clamped my hands over Stargazer’s reins. “They’re coming, Robert. Don’t you feel it?”

  “Feel wh—?”Then I did—a pounding of the earth in the distance, a sort of rumbling, like thunder, growing steadily under my feet, coming from the earth instead of above it. I couldn’t hear anything for the cracking of whips, the creaking of wagons, the braying of mules, and the ugly epithets thrown to whoever listened—all our own. But I felt it. It traveled through my boots and up my two legs.

  “Go! Now!”The chaplain shook me.

  “I can’t leave you! I can’t leave you and Katie Frances.”

  “If you don’t take this horse the Union will—unless they shoot him first. They’ll send you and Wooster to prison—where neither of you are likely to survive! Find Wooster.”

  Chap. Goforth pushed me toward the saddle, but I shook my head. “No! No! Col. Monroe will blame you for our taking Stargazer.”

  Katie Frances Goforth must have been listening. She rose from her tucking and pinning, leaned out the wagon, and kissed me firmly on the mouth. “We’ll be seeing you after this war, Robert Glover. You’re not to worry—they’d not dare to take a woman prisoner, nasty though they be. And Andrew’s never borne arms. But you and Wooster are another matter. Your encoded Testament will do you no good with the Yankees, and Wooster’d not survive a prison camp. You know that. For all that is good and holy, go, and look after your mam and that girl whose name you can’t speak without blushing; finish the work you’ve been given to do. Let us finish ours.”

  It was good I stood outside the lantern light. I didn’t want anyone to see my face. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know how to move, couldn’t leave them.

  “Go! You owe that to Wooster,” Chap. Goforth urged, pushing Stargazer from the wagon’s edge. “And God go with you.” Stargazer reared and shied. It was all I could do to steady him. He was ready to run. All the days of gentling him couldn’t erase his memories of war, the instinct this pounding in the earth brought him.

  I rode back along the column of wagons, searching faces in the lantern light, looking for Sgt. Pete and Wooster. They were near the rear, one of the last commissary wagons.

  “Wooster,” I called, “ride with me.”

  “I’m staying with Sgt. Pete—he needs me. We’re circling the camp with wagons.”

  I hadn’t figured on Wooster turning me down. “Chap. Goforth needs you. He sent me for you—said to bring your bedroll—too many sick to watch. He needs us both.” I was surprised how smooth and easy the lie came.

  “Go on, Wooster boy. It’s a good thing. I don’t want you outside the circle with those bluebellies comin’, anyhow. Better to be up with the wounded.”

  “But—”

  “Go on now! Chaplain’s called you.” Sgt. Pete sounded gruff, but it was plain he hated to see Wooster go.

  I rode up alongside the wagon. Wooster reached for my arm and threw his leg over Stargazer, then pulled hard to right himself. Sgt. Pete tossed Wooster his bedroll, and I felt the oilskin lump of the Testament through the thin blanket, the thing Wooster never let out of his sight.

  “Hold tight!” I called over my shoulder, doing my best to steady Stargazer, doing my best to steady the pounding in my chest, my head. We walked ahead, edging the light. Wooster asked nothing as we faded into darkness. He didn’t speak when we felt our way through the night, skirting trees that loomed black and gnarled over the river’s edge. He braced his bedroll as Stargazer stepped into the frigid water, and held tight to my waist as we swam across, a long ripple in the cold moonlight. We held our feet as high as we could, as long as we could, trying to keep them from the icy water, swimming, begging God in the night, and finally climbed up the opposite bank.

  In a little copse of trees we clung to Stargazer, shivering. I pulled Andrew’s jacket, the Confederate jacket he’d pushed into my arms, tight around me, and we listened and listened, straining against the stillness.

  We saw the sudden flash from the Union repeating rifles even before we heard the crack of gunfire. Stargazer reared time and again, and would have bolted had I not reined him in sharp. Too far away to separate one voice from another, the din of horses and mules, the screams of men too ill to defend themselves—the turmoil shredded our souls.

  I steadied Stargazer again—I don’t know how. Helpless, we watched the stray flashes of rifle fire—sharp and quick, the sudden flares made by lanterns extinguished or overturned. Sometimes a flame would shoot high—something afire—maybe a blanket. It would flare for a minute, then go out. It never lasted long, and maybe that was good. We prayed that was good-surrender and not slaughter.

  “Let it be! Oh, God, let it be surrender!” I wanted to soothe Wooster, but it was me crying, praying out loud in a way I hadn’t prayed for—for so long I had no memory. I don’t know when Stargazer finally settled, how long we stood there, or when I dropped the reins. But long into the quiet he led us away.

  I came to when I heard Wooster urge in my ear, “Steady, boy! Steady.” I thought he was talking to me before I woke up enough to realize Stargazer was slipping, stepping, sliding down a steep bank. I picked up the reins and helped best I could, till we reached more gently rolling ground, flatter, along a stream bank. The moon had crossed the sky. I’d no idea how long I’d slept. I couldn’t believe I’d slept—not when Andrew and Katie Frances might be—

  “Robert! Robert! Wake up!” Wooster was surely talking to me now, but I wanted to shut him out. “Robert!” He jabbed me in the sides, shook my shoulder. And he wouldn’t stop. But I didn’t answer him.

  Next I knew Wooster stood on the ground. I didn’t know how he got there. He’d taken Stargazer’s reins, was doing something with them. Wooster pulled his crutch out of the saddlebag, and I laughed. We’d just been in battle—almost—and we had a crutch in our saddlebag. No rifle, but a crutch. It was perfect. I sat on a horse meant for a Confederate chaplain, who might or might not be dead. And I was whole—able bodied, but no soldier—after a battle I didn’t fight in, or a surrender I didn’t surrender—with a crutch.

  Once I started laughing I couldn’t stop. Pretty soon I couldn’t remember why I was laughing or what was funny, but I kept on laughing just the same. Wooster shook me, harder and harder. I laughed, louder and louder, clean off the edge of reason, till he pulled me to the ground and slapped me. Still I laughed. I laughed so hard I might have split in two if Wooster hadn’t socked me in my jaw.

  I stopped laughing and rubbed my jaw. That’s when I remembered Katie Frances’s kiss. I stopped laughing and started shaking—from cold, from fear for Andrew and Katie Frances, from I don’t know what. And then I cried. And Wooster cried with me. We sat in a heap on the ground, crying, shaking, like there was no end to it all.

  It was near daybreak when, finally spent, we fell quiet—so spent and so cold we couldn’t move, even if we’d had a mind to. We might have frozen to death if it was just one of us. Stargazer nuzzled my ear, my cheek, bit my hair. I looked at Wooster. He slept now, a tangle over his stump and leg, sprawled across the frozen ground, looking more dead than alive.

  I pulled
my legs out, rubbed life into them, felt my toes. Beyond Stargazer stood a building, tall and dark against the breaking sky, and a waterwheel, edging the stream.

  I shook Wooster. He didn’t move. I shook him harder. “Wooster! Wooster, wake up!” Still he didn’t move, and his limpness scared me. I took hold of the stirrup on Stargazer’s saddle and pulled myself up, stomped my feet, rubbed my arms, then went to work on Wooster.

  It wasn’t clear if Wooster was dead tired and sleeping—or if he’d lost consciousness. “Stargazer,” I soothed, pulling Wooster to his leg, pushing him up. “We’ve got to get Wooster across your back—get him into that mill—warm him up. Help me, Stargazer.” Somehow, we managed it.

  I led Stargazer inside, Wooster hanging over his back.

  The mill stood empty, except for a woodstove in a corner boxed off from the rest. It looked like the owner had built himself a storage room with the comforts of home—a coffee pot, a pallet on the floor, a tin cup and plate. I led Stargazer to the door of the small room, pulled Wooster off, and dragged him to the pallet, wrapping both our blankets tight around him.

  There was no way of knowing if anyone would come to the mill that day, if the miller lived there, if he’d gone home, or if he’d moved on. Lots of mills had been destroyed, shut down by the Federals. I’d heard that, even in Maryland. With all the foraging from both armies few farmers in the South had wheat left to mill, and mills didn’t run for customers that never came. Starting a fire in the stove seemed risky. It might draw attention. But one look at Wooster’s pale and chalky skin told me there was no choice.

  I blessed whoeverd left the small stash of firewood, split to size, on the floor. I checked the stove and pipe, pulled out a bird’s nest, glad for it; the mill had been abandoned a while.

  Once the fire sputtered, caught, and blazed inside the stove, the little room warmed quickly. I pulled off Wooster’s boot, rubbed his foot and calf, hoping to rub some life into him. The wood couldn’t last long, but I didn’t want to leave him to go hunt for more. He didn’t move, not a twitch, and I began to worry. I wished I’d thought to bring food, but there was no time. I hardly knew I moaned.

  Stargazer whinnied. I looked up, fearful somebody might be coming. I checked the mill, looked through cracks between the boards, but there was no sign of anyone. “It’s all right, Stargazer. He’ll come around. He’s got to.” When I knelt once more by Wooster, Stargazer whinnied again, tossing his head in the doorway.

  And that is what made me see. His saddlebag—both saddlebags bulged against the doorframe. Why hadn’t I realized it before? “Good boy, Stargazer! Good boy!” I could barely pull up the flap in my eagerness. Oats. Oats in one. I cried out for joy-knowing Andrew had thought of that, provided for Stargazer even before he brought him to me. The other bag was stuffed with food, rations and things he must have pilfered from the commissary—or Sgt. Pete. I looked at Wooster and knew Sgt. Pete would have given anything he had to help Wooster. In the bottom was a little pouch of tea, tied with a hair ribbon—a gift from Katie Frances.

  I nearly choked in my thankfulness. “Thank You, Lord,” I prayed out loud. And the sound startled me. It came strange and foreign to my ears. I swallowed. It was just so good, so unexpected.

  I grabbed the coffee pot from the floor and ran outside, washed it in the stream, dipped it into the icy water, and carried it back to the stove. I’d use some for tea and some to wash Wooster’s face. Maybe it would bring him around.

  I wondered where Andrew and Katie Frances and Sgt. Pete were now—if they were prisoners, if they were still alive. What happened to all those wounded men? Surely the Union wouldn’t murder surgeons and wounded soldiers in a field hospital. Surely they could see it was a hospital. We’d posted double lanterns. Even in the dark they should have been able to see the red flags posted everywhere with all that light. But it was war, and I’d already learned that bad things happen in war, things that should never happen. The skirmish hadn’t lasted long. I needed to hope, to believe they were alive and safe.

  All morning Wooster lay without opening his eyes, without moving, his chest rising and falling just a little. The firewood was gone before noon. After feeding Stargazer and leading him to the creek to drink his fill, I took him along to comb the nearby woods, searching for fallen limbs. I had no axe, not even a hatchet. I swung longer limbs against stone out-croppings till I got a crack big enough to step on, then wrenched the limb in two, two again, and two more.

  When we returned Wooster lay as still as ever. I kept the fire going through the night and slept on the floor, using Stargazer’s saddle for a headrest. It was the warmest I’d been in a while—till the fire died near morning. Even then we were out of the wind, and the floor was drier than the tarps in the hospital tents had been. There was enough food to last four more days—eight if we divided them in half, or if Wooster didn’t wake up.

  But I pushed that thought away, determined to pour more of Katie Frances’s slippery elm tea down Wooster’s throat, determined that he would get well and we’d ride on to Salem. I wasn’t sure of the day, but I guessed it to be early December. If there was any way to get Wooster home in time for his Christmas Eve, I’d do it. “Please, God,” I prayed, “let Wooster make it home.” I didn’t even pray for me, for Ma or Emily. I was afraid to ask too much.

  Late that second day Wooster’s color perked up. Near morning he opened his eyes, saw me filling the wood stove. “Heat feels good,” he said.

  “Hey! It’s good to see your ugly face!” I nearly shouted for the gladness of it. “Here, have some tea.” I helped him sit enough not to slosh the tea down his front. He sipped the hot liquid on his own, and I thought my heart would burst out of my chest. “You’re gonna be all right, Wooster. You’re gonna be all right.”

  He looked at me like I’d gone mad. “’Course I am. I’m on my way home—in time for Christmas Eve.”

  “In time for Christmas Eve.” I laughed. “If there’s a way, we’ll make it. I swear it.”

  It took more doing—more rest for Wooster, more firewood trips for Stargazer and me. I set some rabbit snares and speared a fish in the stream, then roasted them on a little spit I built in the woodstove. I didn’t mention the rations Andrew had stored in the saddlebag. We might need those later, and we weren’t likely to find a room with a woodstove between here and Salem. On the fourth day Wooster sat up. That night he hobbled outside, testing his leg and the strength in his arms.

  “A couple more days and I’ll be ready to ride,” he said.

  “Me too. Time’s getting on.”

  Wooster sat quiet on his pallet through the evening, his back against the wall. I figured the trip outside had tuckered him. But at length he said, “Should we go back?”

  I looked up at him, sharp. I stood, poked the fire in the stove, then settled down again. “I been wondering that, too.”

  “I guess whatever’s happened has happened. There’s no undoing it,” Wooster said. “But I can’t help but wonder…”

  “I’m not sure which way we came that night, are you?” I snapped a twig in two. “I’m sorry I fell asleep. I can’t believe I fell asleep for all of that.”

  Wooster shook his head. “I was too numb to know you were sleeping till we’d almost stopped.” We sat for long minutes in silence.

  I told him what Chap. Goforth had said to me, about the kiss from Katie Frances and her instructions. “They must have planned it long. They’d filled the saddlebags already—everything was ready, waiting.”

  “You don’t think it was provisions they’d meant to take themselves?” he asked.

  I considered that. “No, I don’t. It seemed like they had it worked out in their minds—what they’d do and what they wanted us to do. Katie Frances said for us to finish the work we’d been given to do, and let them stay and finish theirs.”

  “We’d best pray about it,” Wooster said.

  And we did. Wooster prayed out loud, as we sat together there by the woodstove. I prayed again when
I’d bedded down for the night.

  But praying raised something inside me, something I couldn’t name that gave me no peace. And in the end I thought again of Cousin Albert and his deceit. I understood from Wooster why he’d done it; I just couldn’t forgive him—not for that, and not for Ma. And now my fear for Andrew and Katie Frances had been added to the long list of struggles in my brain. Were they lying dead now because wed taken Stargazer? Would Andrew have tried to run with Katie Frances if not for me? Could I lay that at Cousin Albert’s door too? I wanted to. I wanted to blame somebody, blame him.

  Blaming him had become a well-worn path in my brain. No matter what the colonel or Wooster thought of him. Of course they’d think he’d done right. He hadn’t lied to them. He hadn’t conjured a hold over their mothers or kept them from getting to them. He was a hero in their eyes. And what of Emily? She nearly worshiped her pa. I turned over, angry again. How did one man do all that? I thought again of Ma looking up at him, smiling, like all was well when she stood beside him. Cousin Albert’s pull on her must have been stronger than I’d guessed all these years. Knowing that raised a bitter gall.

  Eighteen

  The next morning, as I fed and brushed Stargazer, Wooster surprised me by getting up, rolling and stowing his bedroll, heating the water. He carried his load of chores, such as they were, all morning. “I’ll be ready to ride tomorrow,” he announced at noon.

  I nodded. “I’ll check my snares. We can cook up whatever’s caught to take along.”

  Just before dusk we wrapped the last of the roasted rabbit in leaves and stowed it in Stargazer’s saddlebags. I hid the bags upstairs, where they’d keep cold, where no animals could get them. We meant to get an early start. I was tempted to turn in before moonrise.

  We’d used most of our firewood to cook. I didn’t want to go out in the cold again, but Wooster kept nagging me, edgier than a cat. It wasn’t like him, and that made me edgy besides. Neither of us hankered after a cold night. So I saddled Stargazer, wrapped my bedroll tight around me, and set out to collect a final load.