by John Jakes
If you ever read these scribblings, dear wife, you will know how much I love and need you at this moment. But I dare not try to say it in a missive because other things would surely creep in, and you would be forced to assume part of a burden which is properly mine—the burden of men who feel abandoned, who dare not say aloud that they have no hope.
63
TWO NIGHTS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, Charles rode to Barclay’s Farm at dusk. A bag made of coarse netting hung from his saddle. The bag held a fine Westphalia ham taken from Yankee stores captured on recent night raids north of the river.
The evening had an eerie quality. The bare limbs, bushes, and roadside fences glittered like glass. It had rained last night while the temperature dropped.
Most of the clouds had gone now; the sky in the west had a purple cast, pale near the tree line, darker above. The moon was visible, a gray sphere with a thin crescent of brilliance on the bottom. There was enough light for Charles to discern the ice-covered farmhouse and the two red oaks standing like strange crystal sculptures.
Sport proceeded at a walk; the road was treacherous. Charles’s beard reached well below his collar, and his teeth shone in the midst of it. Anticipation put the smile on his face and helped banish the memories of Sharpsburg that were with him so often. He had never received the promised commendation for helping to move the Blakely gun on the battlefield. Either the major had forgotten Charles’s name or unit or, more likely, he had been one of the thousands who had not survived what was the single bloodiest day of the war. This was his first opportunity to visit the farm in months, even though the cavalry had been camped not far away, over in Stevensburg, for several weeks. With his scouts and picked bands of troopers, Hampton had been in the saddle almost constantly since, raiding above the Rappahannock.
Night ghosts, they drifted behind enemy lines and took a hundred horses and nearly as many men at Hartwood Church; rode up the Telegraph Road, cut the enemy wire to Washington, and seized wagons at the supply base at Dumfries; rode again, hoping to go fifteen miles, all the way to Occoquan, only to be forced around when an entire regiment of Yankee horse materialized against them. They escaped with twenty wagons loaded with sutler’s delicacies: pickled oysters, sugar and lemons, nuts and brandy, and the hams, one of which he had commandeered as a present for Gus. It would be a hearty Christmas celebration at the encampment, though a short one. Charles had to be back by Christmas night, because Hampton proposed to return to enemy territory the following day.
During the weeks of riding and fighting in snow and thaw, pressure against the town of Fredericksburg had mounted, culminating in savage battle and Burnside’s defeat. Charles worried constantly about Gus’s safety. If Hampton’s lean scavengers crossed the Rappahannock to raid, Union detachments could do the same coming the other way. He had tried to find someone who could tell him whether the Fredericksburg fighting had reached as far as Barclay’s Farm, and finally learned it had not.
On the road, he experienced a surge of relief. She was there. Transparent smoke rose up to vanish in the starlight. Unseen lamps brightened the rear of the house and shone from the half-open door of the small barn nearest it.
“Sport,” he growled, sharply reining the gelding on a crust of ice, which crackled. Hunching forward, he inhaled the piercing air. Lamplight in the barn at this hour?
Tied to the pump, which had a gleaming stalactite at the spout, were two horses. He supposed there was an innocent explanation, yet the sight of them so close to enemy positions across the river set him on edge. He dismounted in the center of the road, led Sport to the side, and tied him to a fence rail. The gray stamped and blew warm breath that plumed in the cold.
Charles set off on foot for the farmhouse, a short walk of a hundred yards. In the silence, his spurs jingled like tiny bells stirred by a breeze. He crouched and with some difficulty removed them. All of this continued to strike him as slightly foolish; he would say nothing to Gus when her callers turned out to be neighbors.
Still—why was that barn door open? And Washington and Boz nowhere to be seen?
Where the fence ended and the dooryard began, Charles paused to study the horses. Old riding saddles, neither Grimsleys nor McClellans, told him nothing. He stole toward the house, whose ice-covered shakes flashed back the light of the moon for a moment. He was conscious of each crunch and crinkle underfoot; he couldn’t avoid a certain amount of noise, no matter how carefully he trod.
The horses grew aware of him, shifted and stamped softly. He held still near the house, listening.
He heard laughter. But not hers. It came from the owners of the horses.
One of the animals stepped to the side, whinnying. Charles held his breath. The laughter stopped. Perhaps that had no connection with the horses. He might be imagining the whole—
The horses had changed position, giving him an unobstructed view of the barn. Inside, outstretched legs projected into his line of sight. The ankles were lashed with rope. The parson and his wife didn’t tie people when they called, did they? They didn’t visit on a night so brutally cold, did they?
He leaned against the house, his heart beating at frantic speed. Gus was threatened. The woman he cared about was inside—threatened.
Backed against the building, he knew how much he loved her. So deep was the reverse of that emotion, his fear for her, he couldn’t move for half a minute. His mind was in confusion. Suppose he took rash action and got her killed?
Another minute went by. Do something, damn you. Do something.
He broke free of the numbing confusion and pictured the back porch. He didn’t dare enter that way. It would be ice-covered, noisy. He twisted his head toward the road. The red oaks. Great climbing trees. Could he reach one of the dormers and prize it open? If so, he had a chance of surprising the men holding Gus in the kitchen or one of the back rooms. That they were Yankees he now took as a certainty. Everything depended on surprise and silence.
He stole to the front of the house and over to the stoop, where he sat and jerked off his boots. Then, crossing the porch, he slowly turned and tested the doorknob.
Locked. All right, it had been a faint hope anyway.
He put his filthy right sock onto the top step, and his whole body tilted wildly. He went flying off the steps; the edge of one cracked him across his spine. He bit back a yell but made a loud bump. He rolled on his side on the hard ground, listening—
After a few seconds, he exhaled. They hadn’t heard the noise. He had to be more careful. The ice was everywhere.
Under the tree, he stretched, grabbed, threw a leg over, and pulled himself up on the lowest limb. From there on it wasn’t so easy. He wasn’t clinging to bark with his knees and elbows, his gauntlets and filthy socks; he was clinging to frozen grease. He went up with excruciating slowness and nearly fell three times. Finally he reached a large branch that hung over the roof.
Taking hold of a thinner one above it, he stood up, then began to move along the icy branch, sliding his right foot toward the house a few inches, then his left one, then his right again. Progress was slow because of the cold; he had lost nearly all feeling below his ankles.
Save for the stars and the crescent moon, the sky was black from horizon to horizon. Balanced on the branch near one of the dormers, he studied the situation. He would have to lean out, grasp the dormer peak, and hope he could hang on. Attempting to stand or kneel on the roof itself would be futile because of the slope and the ice.
He swallowed. Extended his hand. Stretched—
His fingers were three inches short of the peak.
Still holding the limb above, he stepped six inches nearer the house. The branch sagged, began to crack. “Holy hell,” he whispered, gambling, letting go and flinging both hands forward. He felt himself falling, caught hold of the peak. The sudden weight shot excruciating pain along his arms. His knees banged the shakes of the dormer. They would hear that all the way to the Floridas.
He hung from the peak by both hands, then re
moved his right one, reaching downward to the window.
He tugged. Nothing.
Again. Nothing.
Locked, goddamn it. He let out an enraged groan and yanked a third time, thinking he would have to smash his fist through—
The window rose an inch.
His left hand slipped on the peak, but he held on, panting. He slipped his other hand under the window and slowly, slowly pulled it up far enough to allow him to swing through into the dry, chill dark of some cobwebby place. Eyes closed, he rested on his knees. He felt tremors in his quaking left arm.
He waited until a little of that passed. His vision adjusted, and he picked out certain shapes: trunks, an old dress form. This was an attic. A pale oblong showed where the stairs descended to the house proper.
He heard laughter again, then blurred words from Gus. She sounded angry. Next came a smacking sound. She retorted, still angry. A second smack silenced her. He almost felt the blow himself.
He controlled his rage and stood up cautiously, so as not to creak the floor or thump a beam with his head. He stripped off his gloves, blew on his fingers, flexed them, blew again until he felt circulation returning. He unbuttoned his old farmer’s coat and eased the loaded Colt from the tied-down holster.
He advanced to the stairs and crept down, a silent step at a time. The anger thickened, possessing him. At the bottom, he took half a minute to twist the handle, ease the door open—no squeak, thank the Lord—and slide through to the warm hall.
To the right, the kitchen doorway. The voices were distinct.
“Meant to ask you, Bud. You ever been with a female?”
“No, Sarge.” That voice was light; the speaker sounded younger than the previous one, who seemed to have an accumulation of phlegm in his throat.
“Well, m’ lad, we’ll change that pretty quick.”
Charles moved, sliding toward the kitchen, his back to the wall.
“Ever spied a plumper pair of tits, Bud?”
“No, sir.”
“Want to take a look at them ’fore we start the real festivities?”
“If you do, Sarge.”
“Oh, yessiree, I do. Sit still, missy.”
“Get away from me.” Charles was a yard from the door when Gus said that.
“You be quiet, missy. I wouldn’t want to bruise up a pretty little reb like you, but I’m gonna open that dress and have a look at them plump things hangin’—”
Charles lunged to the doorway, thumb and finger of his gun hand ready as he spied the two Yanks. Neither wore a uniform—scouts, then, like himself.
The nearest, a blue-eyed youngster with a scraggly yellow mustache, saw him first. “Sarge!”
The older Yankee blocked his view of Gus, who was evidently seated in a chair. Charles stepped into the room and thoughtlessly made an error; he jumped a pace to the right to see if she was hurt.
“Gus, are you—?”
Almost too late, he saw what he had missed before—the horse pistol in the waistband of the younger Yank. Out it came, looming huge. Charles fell to his knees and fired at the same time as the younger man.
Only the drop saved him. The Yankee ball passed over his head. His ball flew into the boy’s open mouth and through the back of his head, carrying parts of it and splattering them on the wall. Gus screamed. The sergeant goggled at the boy blown backward against the stove. Then he stared at Charles on one knee, his Colt curling out smoke.
The sergeant was scared and consequently slow. Even while he groped for his side arm, he realized he had no time. Wetting himself, he staggered on a crooked path to the back door.
Charles lunged forward, next to Gus’s chair, and aimed at the man’s back. “You piece of Yankee shit.” He squeezed the trigger and simultaneously Gus pulled his arm.
The ball went low, hitting the sergeant’s left leg. With a yell he pitched through the door he had opened a moment earlier. He slid belly down across the porch and dropped off the edge, leaving a blood-swath on the ice.
“I’m going to kill the—”
“Charles.”
Pale, she gripped his arm and gazed at him, unable to countenance what she saw. The fever in his eyes, the death’s-head expression—
“Charles, I’m all right. Let him go.”
“But he may—”
They heard a horse whinny, weight on it suddenly. It went clattering toward the road. Boz and Washington shouted from the barn. Slowly, Charles released the hammer of the Colt and laid the gun on the table. He was shaking.
He grasped the shoulders of her plain dress, leaned down. “I’ve never shot a man in the back, but I’d have shot that one. You certain you’re all right?”
A small nod. “Are you?”
“Yes.” The madman’s glint was dimming; his facial muscles relaxed. He knelt and freed the ropes they had wound around her and the chair. Yes, she said, they were scouts, unable to resist a bit of foraging in a warm place.
“When you stormed through that door, I thought I’d taken leave of my senses.” She managed a broken laugh, standing, stretching. “I thought it was a vision. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you.”
“I sent letters.”
“I got them. I sent some, too. Half a dozen.”
“Did you?” The start of a smile.
“You received them, didn’t you?”
“Not a one. But that’s all right. I’d better go to the barn and untie your men. Sport’s down the road—my spurs, too. My gauntlets are in the attic. I came in by the roof. I’m strung out all over this farm.” His mood swinging wildly back to elation, he left the house across the bloody ice.
An hour later, down to his long underwear and bundled in three blankets, he rested by the great hearth. The Westphalia ham reposed on the chopping block. Gus had scrubbed the wall, and the boy’s corpse was gone; Washington and Boz had seen to that, after repeatedly shaking Charles’s hand and thanking him for saving their mistress and them.
Shivering, Charles stared at the fire, still astounded by his own behavior. He had shot a stripling without a qualm about the victim’s age. Then he had been ready, even eager, to kill the sergeant with a bullet in the back—and not on a battlefield, but in a kitchen. Those were extreme and alarming changes. What was happening in this damned war? What was happening to him?
He tried to puzzle it out. It was the duty of a soldier to destroy the enemy, but not with pleasure. Not without some human feeling other than rage. The boy with the scraggly mustache wasn’t a counter on a board or a figure in a report. There were parents, a home, innocent ambitions, perhaps a sweetheart—none of that had entered his head until this minute. All he had wanted to do was shoot, as casually as if the target were some game bird in an autumn field.
Gus returned to the kitchen, moving straight to his side. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked frightful when I walked in.”
“Cold, that’s all.”
“Can you spend Christmas?”
“If you want me to.”
“Want you to—oh, Charles,” she cried as the firelight shimmered on the walls, revealing one stain not quite wiped away. “I was so frightened during the fighting in town. I lay awake listening to the guns and wondering where you were.” She knelt in front of him, resting her forearms on his blanketed knees, her face soft, damp, no defenses in place. “What have you done to me, Charles Main? I love you—oh, my God, I can’t believe how much I love you,” she exclaimed, reaching up, pulling him down to a kiss.
With his arm around her, he led her along the hall, worried about his dirty underwear. Her room was cold. They tumbled into bed, groping for one another. “Gus, I need a bath before—”
“Later. Hold me, Charles. I want to forget how that poor boy died.”
“He was a damned evil boy.”
“He thought he was punishing the enemy.”
“There’s no manual prescribing the kind of punishment they wanted to inflict on you.”
“Well, it was horrible, but it’s over, so do stop debating and love me as hard as—what’s this?”
Her fingers had found the leather bag. She insisted on lighting a candle while he unbuttoned his underwear and, after some coaxing, slipped the thong over his head and handed her the bag.
Delight spread over her face as she opened it. “You’ve kept the book with you all this time?” The smile vanished. “The book was hit. You were hit. This is a bullet.”
“What’s left of it. Mr. Pope saved my life at Sharpsburg.”
She burst into tears, seized him, began raining kisses on him. They pulled each other’s clothes off. The coupling was quick, almost desperate, with a certain clumsiness because the shock of earlier events still lingered. In less than five minutes he fell away from her and fell asleep.
He woke an hour later to find her jogging his shoulder. “Hot water’s in the tub.” She had donned a robe, had better color. Her hair, undone, hung nearly to her waist. “I’ll wash your back, and we’ll go to bed again.”
This time, less numb and stunned, Charles lay with her in the cave of warmth beneath the comforter. She kissed his eyes and beard. His hand touched and played with each round breast, then strayed lower. She gripped his wrist and pressed.