I smiled at her. "Let's say I was pretty hopeful, or maybe I thought that if you saw poor Jezebel all hitched up to the buggy it would make it hard to say no."
"That's a very slippery answer, Jubal Foster."
"Yes it is," I said. "Can I help you into the buggy?"
* * *
We drove west, following the line of the river, crossed over it at one point, and turned into the road that led up the side of Camel's Hump Mountain. There was an apple orchard and sugarbush about a half mile up, owned by a friend of my father's, and I pulled the buggy to the side of the road next to a field dappled with late-blooming flowers. I took a blanket from the buggy and helped Rebecca down and turned her toward the rising vista of the mountain as I slipped my arm around her waist.
"I've always thought this was one of the most beautiful places on earth," I said.
She pointed to the top of the mountain in the distance. "Look, there's snow on top of Camel's Hump."
I spread out the blanket and we sat down facing each other. "I'm going to hate not being in Jerusalem's Landing every day. I missed it so much all the years I was away."
Concern and surprise crossed Rebecca's face. "Are you leaving, Jubal?"
"I'm going to go back to school in Burlington. I want to finish my degree, maybe study medicine after that. Doc Pierce seems to think I have an aptitude for it, and a friend of his, a teacher at the school, said they'd give me a job so I could support myself."
"How . . . when will I see you?"
I reached out and took her left hand in my right. "It won't be much of a life for a time, but you'd make me very happy if you'd go with me."
"Go . . . go with you? I don't understand. What are you saying, Jubal?"
I reached into my pocket and took out the small ruby ring. "This was my mother's," I said. "I'd like you to wear it. And when you're ready . . . soon, I hope . . . I want you to marry me and come with me to Burlington." I slipped the ring on her finger. "Will you?"
She stared at me in disbelief. Then she stared at the ring and her face broke into a wide smile and she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me fiercely. "Oh, yes, Jubal," she said in my ear. "Of course I'll marry you. And I'll go anywhere you want."
* * *
Chancellorsville, Virginia, 1864
I awoke in a field hospital a few miles east of Chancellorsville. Josiah was sitting beside my cot. My mouth was dry and cracked but I managed one word: "Abel?"
"He dead, Jubal," Josiah said.
I squeezed my eyes shut and passed back into unconsciousness.
When I awoke again Josiah was gone. A nurse came by with a wet cloth and moistened my lips. She was a pretty young woman with brown hair and soft brown eyes that seemed very tired and full of the suffering she had witnessed.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"My arm hurts," I said.
"It will for a bit more," she said.
I glanced down and saw the bandages that swathed the stump that had been my left arm. I tried to raise my head, but couldn't. "Where is it?" I asked, surprised by the horror I heard in my own voice.
"The doctor had to amputate," she told me. "The wound was too severe."
"What did you do with it?" I demanded. My voice was a hoarse croak that I barely recognized.
The nurse wiped my forehead with a damp cloth; it felt cool and soothing. "Try to sleep," she said.
I knew very well what they had done with my severed arm. When on litter-bearer duty I had carried limbs out of our field hospitals and dumped them in the pits that had been dug for them, arms and legs and loose tissue, all piled together as though they were the remnants of some grotesque explosion in a human butcher shop.
I slipped into unconsciousness again, waking hours later with a start. In my dream I had seen my arm lying in a pit filled with limbs, the hands still attached to arms that reached out, the fingers grasping for whatever they could find, the severed legs straining to gain some purchase that would allow them to climb from the pit. Then Abel's body was dropped in and he turned and looked at my arm and I saw tears gather in his eyes. "I'm sorry, Jubal," he whispered. "I'll take yer arm home with me. I'll take it home an' I'll keep it fer ya. I promise, Jubal. I promise."
I shook my head, fighting the image away, and I gasped at the pain that surged through the remnant of my arm. It was dark outside and the odors that filled the tent were overpowering, deep pungent smells of rotting flesh and pus and excrement.
The man beside me moaned deeply and I saw that both of his legs were gone well above the knees and there were heavy bandages on one side of his face.
I felt a hand gently touch my shoulder and I turned my head and saw Josiah staring down at me.
"How ya feelin', Jubal?"
"Like shit," I croaked.
He smiled at me. "Now tha' sounds more like the man I knows."
"What happened to Johnny?" I asked. "Is he back in camp?"
Josiah shook his head. "Las' time I seen him, he was runnin' north, tryin' ta git back cheer, him an' Suggs an' them others too. Up ahead of 'em I could see the Rebs closin' in, but then I din' hear no shots, so I figgered they got 'emselves captured. I axed the lieutenant 'bout 'em an' he said they was prob'ly on the way ta some Reb prison."
"They should be dead, all of them. Johnny too."
"Yeah, they should."
"They killed Abel," I said, hearing the plea for vengeance in my own voice. "He'd be alive if they hadn't forced us out into that field." I closed my eyes. "Or if I hadn't taken us to that goddamn farmhouse."
"Ya did what was right, Jubal. An' ya was tryin' ta help tha' no-account Johnny too."
"I wish we'd never gone there," I said, my voice weak and distant. And a phrase my father had used when I was a small boy, a boy who was always wishing for impossible things, came back to me: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.
* * *
I awoke the next morning to the sound of singing. It was a rich baritone voice and it was coming from the next bed, the soldier who had lost both his legs.
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
let me hide myself in Thee;
let the water and the blood,
from Thy wounded side that flowed,
be of sin the double cure;
save from wrath and make me pure . . .
A nurse rushed over to his bed. "Corporal James, you must be quiet," she whispered. "You're waking the other men."
"I'm practicin'," James said. "I gotta practice if it's gonna work out."
"What are you practicing for?" the nurse asked.
"Fer when I git outta here. Fer when they sits me on that board with the wheels on it, so's I kin move myself aroun' with my hands. Ya see, I'll have ta earn my keep. I was a teamster afore the war, drove wagons at an iron mine way up in New York, near ta Buffalo." He let out a cold laugh. "Can't do that no more, an' singin' is the only other talent I got. So, ya see, I figger I'll sit on my board an' move myself up an' down the street, singin' ta folks, an' they kin drop their pennies in my cup."
He started singing again and the nurse tried to hush him, but he ignored her. She shook her head and left, his voice following her:
While I draw this fleeting breath,
when mine eyes shall close in death,
when I soar to worlds unknown,
see Thee on Thy judgment throne,
Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in Thee.
The singing stopped and I turned to him. The barrel of a pistol was pressed under his chin and before I could shout a warning, James squeezed the trigger and the sound of the shot filled the tent.
Blood and bits of bone and brain covered the pillow and the bedsheets and I turned away as doctors and nurses rushed needlessly to his side.
I closed my eyes and thought about my missing arm, wishing I could follow Corporal James on the journey he'd just begun. I bit down and squeezed my jaws together. Not until you make them pay, I told myself. Not until Johnny an
d Suggs and the others pay for what they did.
As I lay there I could hear the nurse begin to sob and another stanza of the same hymn that I'd known since childhood flowed through my mind:
Nothing in my hand I bring,
simply to the cross I cling;
naked, come to Thee for dress;
helpless, look to Thee for grace;
foul, I to the fountain fly;
wash me, Savior, or I die.
They had me sitting up three days later. The doctor said it was better for the healing process. By the end of the first week they had me on my feet, claiming I needed to walk to regain my strength and balance, and to keep blood clots from forming. They said pneumonia was the greatest threat, and I needed to move about to keep my lungs clear. I thought about Stonewall Jackson. He had died after his arm had been amputated and pneumonia had set in. I thought he was a lucky man.
* * *
Josiah had gone off with the army. Grant had continued the fight at Todds Tavern and Spotsylvania Court House, and when he finally disengaged, Lee's forces were on the run, headed south toward Richmond.
Although the newspapers differed on the Battle of the Wilderness, with some calling it inconclusive, and others—the Southern papers mostly—claiming it was a tactical Confederate victory, our officers were elated, insisting that Grant had won a great strategic victory and would now pursue a war of attrition. Lee, they said, had been left with only two choices: fight to the death, or surrender. In either event they claimed the war would be over in less than a year. A year too late for Abel.
My father and Rebecca wrote every week. Everyone was crushed by news of Abel's death and wanted to know anything I could tell them about how he died and where his body had been buried. I did not know what to say, so I said little, other than to tell them that Abel had been buried at a military cemetery outside Chancellorsville, Virginia. They also wrote that Johnny was a prisoner of war at Andersonville, and that a prayer service had been held to thank the Lord for his survival and to ask for his safe return to his family.
* * *
Two months passed before I was finally strong enough to go to Lieutenant Nettles to bring charges against Johnny and Suggs and the others. I found Nettles seated in his tent; my left arm was missing, just as his right arm was.
He ran his hand through his thick brown beard. "If we were twins we'd have a whole body, Foster." He grimaced at his own comment. "At least you can still salute with the proper hand. I feel like a fool using my left. What can I do for you, sergeant?"
"I'm here to press charges against a number of our men."
"What charges?" he asked, his eyes growing dark.
"Assaulting a superior officer, rape of a civilian woman, murder of two civilians, raiding and pillaging of a civilian home, and the murder of a member of the Union Army."
"Very serious charges, charges that would place these men before a firing squad if they were convicted. Do you have any witnesses?" the lieutenant asked.
"Yes sir. Myself and a litter-bearer named Josiah Flood."
"Is Flood a Negro?"
"Yes sir."
"You know this Flood well?"
"Yes sir. I grew up with him in Vermont, and know him to be an honest and honorable man."
"Tell me what happened."
I took a sheaf of papers from my pocket and laid it on his field desk. "I took the liberty to write it all down. I only know the names of two of the men, but I'm sure they'll reveal others under interrogation. I could also identify the others on sight. Unfortunately, they're all in Andersonville Prison."
"And right in the sights of General Sherman," the lieutenant said. "My bet is they won't be there too much longer." He picked up the sheaf of papers. "Let me read this, and consult my superiors. It may take a bit of time. The senior staff is concentrating on General Lee at the moment, but I assure you this will be read and acted upon."
Chapter Twenty-five
Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865
We dug up Johnny's body at night, when it was unlikely anyone would be passing by the cemetery. It was the lone condition Virgil Harris made. He did not want people telling his wife that the grave had been violated. He said it was more than the woman would be able to bear.
The cemetery had a stone crypt dug into a hill where those who died during the winter were stored until the ground thawed enough for burial. Josiah, my father, Doc Pierce, and I carried the wooden coffin there and placed it on a stone platform that lay against one wall. Lanterns were hung on the wall above the coffin to give Doc the light he would need.
"I feel like a grave robber," my father said, as he and Josiah fitted pry bars under the coffin lid and forced it up.
Johnny's body lay in the casket with a gold coin covering each eye, making his bloodless face seem even whiter.
"Wha's the money fer?" Josiah asked.
"It's an old custom," Doc said. "It actually started with the ancient Greeks and Romans, but they put the coins under the tongue. The English found that practice unpleasant, so they placed coins on the eyes instead."
"But what's the money fer?" Josiah asked. "It supposed ta keep the eyes closed?"
"It was for Charon," Doc explained. "He was the mythical ferryman who rowed the dead across the River Styx, taking them from the land of the living to the land of the dead. It was his payment for the service, and if he didn't get it the body of the deceased was forced to wander the banks of the river, looking for the pauper's entrance to the afterlife."
"I wonder why a Christian minister like Virgil would do that," my father said.
"His people were from England," Doc said. "Maybe he was just keeping with custom."
Doc unbuttoned Johnny's tunic and exposed his chest. Widely spaced sutures closed the incision from the autopsy and the lanterns made his pale, white chest appear to shimmer in the flickering light.
"Dis here is spooky," Josiah said. "I gonna be dreamin' 'bout dis fer a long time."
Doc took the awl and compared the long slender blade to the wound on Johnny's chest. "Looks like it fits perfectly," he said. "We'll have to check the interior wound."
Doc cut the sutures and pried the rib cage back. The ribs had been cut and spread for the autopsy and they moved easily, making a distinct sucking sound that sent a chill down my spine.
"Jesus," my father said, indicating it had done the same to him.
Doc took the awl again. All the organs had been removed and examined during the autopsy and lay inside the body cavity. They had begun to putrefy and a heavy odor of decay rose from the body, causing all but Doc to cover our noses and mouths. Doc picked up the heart and carefully slid the blade of the awl into the wound. He looked at us in turn. "It's a perfect fit," he said. "That makes it ninety percent certain this was the weapon the killer used."
* * *
My father, Doc, and I were seated at our kitchen table and a bottle of whiskey had been set out. We had returned Johnny to his grave and it left a pall hanging over us. I had seldom seen my father drink hard liquor, but I could tell he needed it to put aside the evening's work.
"Walter Johnson came ta see me this afternoon," my father said, trying to push other thoughts away. "He invited us ta supper next weekend ta talk over weddin' plans."
My father was avoiding the question he wanted to ask, but Doc stepped in and asked it for him.
"I'm real happy for you, Jubal," Doc began. "Please be certain of that. But I'm also worried. What are you going to do if it turns out someone in the Johnson household killed Johnny Harris?"
I tapped on the table. "The only evidence we have is the awl, our belief that it was the weapon that killed Johnny, and the fact that it was found behind some boxes in the Johnson barn. What we still need to find out is how it got there. Right now I can't answer that question. But one thing's certain: anyone could have thrown it behind those boxes. Anyone."
"You're right, son," my father said. "But there's also the talk that Mary Johnson was involved with Johnny. An' tha
t could point a finger at both her an' Walter. Have ya talked ta either one of 'em?"
"I talked to Mary. She denied there was anything between them." The words burned in my throat. I had never lied to my father, not even as a boy. Now I had.
* * *
Chancellorsville, Virginia, 1864
Word came in November that General Sherman had put Atlanta to the torch and was now headed for Savannah and the sea. Jubilation filled the ranks. Everyone believed the South would now crumble before Sherman's marauding army and that he would march through the Carolinas leaving destruction in his wake. Within months he was expected to unite with Grant to deal the final crushing blow to Confederate forces.
My wounds had healed and I was working as a clerk at the field hospital. We were between battles with few new casualties coming in, and my job was limited to filling out discharge papers for those who were being sent home. I had expected to be sent home myself, only to be told that the loss of a single arm left me capable enough for clerical work, thereby freeing up a more able-bodied man for battle.
Lieutenant Nettles came to my small clerical tent while I was filling out papers for a man who had lost both an arm and a leg. The army had decided to send him home to his wife and child in New Jersey, even though his wife had written telling the army she could not care for him and insisting he be kept in a military hospital. Otherwise, she warned, they would leave her no choice but to turn him out to the streets.
Nettles picked up the papers and read quickly through them. "How does a woman like that live with herself?" he wondered aloud.
"How does the army?" I replied.
"The army is supposed to have a cold and calloused heart. It's the nature of the beast."
When Johnny Came Marching Home Page 25