by Debra Diaz
Tobe shook his head. “Ain’t got no sympathy for folks what goes off and leaves their animals. Us people, we can fend for ourselves. These dogs round here, they ain’t never lived in the wilds. They’re starvin’ and dyin’ all around here. It ain’t their fault this sickness come. It just ain’t right.”
“No,” said Genny, shaken. “But maybe their owners are — dead.”
“Some of ‘em is, but a lot of folks went off and left ‘em.”
They went a ways further, and Tobe abruptly stopped the wagon. Genny looked around for a moment, having lost her bearings, then turned to look bewilderedly at Tobe.
“Why are we stopping here?”
“This here Miss Annie’s place. Doctor Carey say to bring you here.”
“What for?”
Tobe shrugged. He placed a wad of tobacco in his mouth and sat chewing placidly.
“Tobe, I must have a bath and a change of clothes! And I’m not sleeping here. Take me to the hotel.”
Tobe, except for his jaw, was motionless.
“So he paid you off with tobacco, did he? And I suppose he thinks I’m going to stay up all night nursing! Well, I’m the one who hired you, and I’m telling you you’d better take me back to the hotel this minute!”
Tobe didn’t move. After a moment he secured the reins, settled back, propped up his feet, pulled the dilapidated straw hat he’d found somewhere over his eyes, and folded his arms.
Her lips tightly compressed with exasperation, Genny leaned over and made a grab for the reins. A surprisingly quick brown hand stopped her.
“I wouldn’t do that, Miz Carey. He say under no conditions was you to go all the way back to the hotel after dark. Don’t seem like far in the daylight but I seen that man back at the saloon. Lucky he didn’t try somethin’. I’ll be right back here in the mornin’ should you need to go somewheres.”
Genny glared at her disobliging driver, then without another word jumped off the wagon and ran up the steps of Madam Annie’s, holding her skirts high and gritting her teeth.
She charged through the front door and spotted her husband standing at the end of the hall, talking quietly to a nurse. He looked up, saw Genny advancing on him like a thundercloud, and must have dismissed the nurse…who promptly disappeared through a doorway.
“Ethan Carey, how dare you treat me this way! You’ve no right to order me about like — ”
Ethan’s hand closed around her arm. He dragged her relentlessly into an unoccupied corner.
“I have my reasons,” he said, looking down into her angry face. “There’s a couch in that storeroom down the hall. You can sleep there.”
“What reasons could you possibly have for making me stay here against my will?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. Genny stared up into his tired and bloodshot eyes and all at once was struck by the idiocy of her behavior. Well, she was tired, too.
“There are still thieves out there,” he said finally, releasing his grip upon her arm. “And worse. The police can’t be everywhere at once. It isn’t safe.”
Genny stared at him. He went on, “You can go back there in the morning and…do whatever you have to do. You’ll be safe enough in the daytime as long as Tobe’s with you.” He smiled a little. “Good man, Tobe. Brave, too.”
Genny whispered, “Ethan, come with me to the hotel tonight.”
The smile faded. “Genny, I can’t leave here. Not now.”
A moment of silence passed, and someone spoke behind them. They both turned. It was the nurse Ethan had been speaking with before, a young woman who fit rather snugly into her dress and apron.
“Doctor Carey, Margaret needs to know what to order from the druggist.”
“I’ll be right there.”
The nurse vanished. He started to brush past her and Genny caught his arm.
“Ethan, wait. I’m sorry. You’re so tired. Please go and rest after you’ve seen to this. I’ll stay up and help the nurses.”
He paused. His hand came up and lightly touched her face. “Dear Genny,” he said, and walked away to leave her standing alone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Genny awakened to a sound like none she’d ever heard…a keening wail that seemed to fill up the entire house. For a moment she lay paralyzed, unable to comprehend where she was and why someone should be screeching so pitifully. She scrambled up, her hair straggling from its net, and flew from the room. She hurried down the long hallway and stopped abruptly, her eyes widening with horror.
A woman crouched low in front of an open window in the parlor, her eyes darting back and forth, terrible eyes dark with insanity. Her hair was a wild, tangled mass, her clothes dirty and askew. In her arms she clutched a small baby, a very white and still baby that made no sound at all.
“No, no!” the woman screamed, and crouched lower. “They tried to take Percy, but I’ll not let them take him and put him in the dark. He don’t like strangers touchin’ him!”
The rooms had become unnaturally quiet, as if even the desperately sick were listening and watching the awful spectacle. The room was dimly lit with candles and lamps. Genny glanced around her and saw some of the patients trying to rise up and look.
The poor woman had to be stopped, Genny thought — she had to be silenced. Two nurses stood nearby, staring. A male nurse with the short stub of a cigar protruding from the side of his mouth approached the others.
“Who is she? Where did she come from?”
“We don’t know. She climbed in the window.”
The man slowly approached the woman. “Ma’am, you must give me the baby. Your baby is — the baby has passed away.”
“No! He ain’t dead! They was tryin’ to bury him and he ain’t dead. I done seen ‘em bury somebody that wa’n’t dead. Don’t touch him!”
Genny stood riveted, her hand clutching her throat. A movement across the room caught her eye, and she saw Ethan coming through the doorway. With a look of relief the man hurried toward him.
“Doctor Carey, do something! That baby’s been dead for two days, at least.”
Ethan handed some dirty towels to one of the nurses and walked slowly toward the woman, picking his way carefully among the cots, and yet never taking his eyes from her.
“You stay away from me!” she cried, her chin jerking spasmodically. She held a sharp, filthy-looking knife in one hand. “I’ll kill you if you try to take Percy away from me!”
“I want to look at him,” Ethan said quietly. His voice was low and hoarse with fatigue. “If Percy isn’t dead, maybe I can help him. I’m a doctor.”
The woman said nothing, eyeing him suspiciously. Ethan advanced another step, then so suddenly and cleanly that Genny barely saw the movement, clipped the woman on the jaw. Her eyes closed and she sagged downward, still clutching her dead baby. Ethan caught her and eased her onto the floor. The man and the other two nurses hurried forward.
Ethan spoke to them absently, mechanically. “MacNeil, see that she’s put in a room by herself, one of the smaller ones. Tie her to the bed…use a sheet, not ropes…secure but not too tight. See if she will eat or drink anything, then give her something to make her sleep.”
He turned to another nurse. “Make her as comfortable as you can. Get some ice for her jaw.” To McNeil he said, “In the morning take the baby to the Howard office. They’ll know where to get a coffin. Tell them to make sure they record where they bury him. Use the name Percy, age about three months, and write that he came from this house, that his mother was mad and her name was unknown.”
They hastened to follow his instructions. Ethan walked by Genny without even seeing her, and then stopped abruptly, his hand going out against the wall, his other hand rubbing dazedly over his face.
Genny went to him at once. “Ethan, for heaven’s sake, will you sit down and rest for a while?” She grasped his arm in both of her hands. He turned and looked down at her.
“Sit down,” she begged, giving a hard tug on his arm.
Then
she saw the tears that were running down his lean, unshaven cheeks. He didn’t seem to be aware of them; he looked at her almost as if he didn’t know her.
“Ethan,” she whispered. “Will you come with me?”
“Leave me alone, Genny,” he said softly. Then he began to walk down a long corridor, toward a door that led outside.
* * * *
His hands deep in his pockets, he walked aimlessly through the dark streets of the city, unmindful of the smells and the strange activities of those others abroad in the night. A group of men skulking in the areaway of a building scattered at his approach, probably thinking him a policeman. Another time a man walked toward him from a distance, head down and shoulders hunched, tensing as Ethan neared, for his intent was robbery. But when he saw Ethan’s burning eyes and the look on his face, he quickly lowered his head again and melted into the darkness.
Ethan didn’t know how long he walked before he felt a gentle downward slope, and realized he’d come to the river. He stood on a bluff, well beyond the buildings of downtown Memphis. Before him, the mighty Mississippi gleamed silver and black in the moonlight. No sound of a living person came from anywhere. He was alone, more alone than he’d ever been in his life.
He sat down, his knees half raised and his arms resting on top of them. Mosquitoes swarmed around him and he waved them away, not even conscious that he did so. He stared at the river, now empty of its boats and barges, listening to the distant lap of water against the shoreline.
As long as he lived, he would never forget the desperate, mad face of the woman with her dead baby…it was too terrible to be borne, too terrible to witness.
“God,” his mind railed, “God, God! I’ve had more than I can take. There’s no sense to any of it. Why do you let it go on?”
He put his head in his hands. “What kind of God are you?”
There was no answer; there was nothing, only silence, and the same darkness that had engulfed him for years. He looked at the river again. Maybe he should go for a swim…a long swim, of no return. Surely hell could be no worse than the darkness in his soul.
Darkness, weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth. Who had said that? Why, his father had said it, describing hell in one of his more colorful sermons. Separation from God, darkness like a hole that falls forever, remorse like a worm twisting in a flame…
He thought about all the eternal souls who were leaving their bodies this very minute. The Catholic priests were dying, the Baptist missionaries were dying, the Episcopalians, the Methodists, the Presbyterians… the atheists, the agnostics, the blasphemers, men of influence and men of infamy, women and children, rich and poor… they were all dying, and they would all go … somewhere. He could almost envision the great horde of spirits ascending over the city to meet their Maker.
He had no doubt of that. He’d never had trouble believing in God, or in life after death. It was only in trusting that he balked…
Ethan leaned back against the ground, and fell asleep from sheer exhaustion.
* * * *
Something strange happened as he lay there, as if he dreamed, but it was so real, so intensely vivid, that he felt certain he rose and began to walk throughout the city.
He knew these streets almost as well as he knew Nashville’s. He’d been here many times since the war. And there was that night, the night he now revisited in his dream, the night Forrest’s cavalry had raided Union-occupied Memphis.
The objective, he’d been told, was to capture the three Yankee generals, Hurlbut, Washburn and Buckland, who commanded the city. Later he discovered that Forrest, though he did hope to capture at least one of the generals, intended the raid as a diversionary tactic, and in this regard was successful. The formidable A.J. Smith, who was in Mississippi with orders to pillage and burn the countryside (and to kill Forrest) was recalled to Memphis as a result of the raid in order to “protect the city” — which was panic-stricken at the suspicion that Forrest might be planning a full-fledged attack. Mississippi obtained a much-needed respite at the departure of Smith.
It had been a wild and somehow bizarre night. Forrest had ordered that no one was to make a sound until the generals had been captured, but so great was the excitement of his men that no sooner had they entered the city than someone whooped the Rebel yell, causing widespread alarm among the Yankees and initiating a spate of gunfire in the foggy darkness.
Riding with Forrest’s brother, Ethan and a few chosen others headed for Hurlbut’s hotel. Some of the soldiers actually rode their horses into the lobby. Ethan, less excited and more methodical, dismounted and ran inside, searching in every room for the Yankee general. As he opened one door, a young woman in a nightgown threw herself upon him, exclaiming, “Oh, sir, what is happening? Save me!”
By the time he extricated himself, the hotel was overrun with Confederates, with not a Yankee to be found. He learned later that Hurlbut had slept elsewhere that night. The other two generals, being forewarned by the noise and confusion, also escaped …Washburn in his nightshirt.
In his dream, Ethan stood on the street in front of the Gayoso House, remembering it all as if it had happened the night before.
He looked up and saw General Forrest astride his horse, his face red with zeal for his mission, his athletic body poised for battle, his mouth shouting profanities. But Forrest wasn’t supposed to be here, at this point, Ethan thought, confused — the general had been somewhere else…
Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see a white-haired figure standing in the shadows, watching him.
“That man is dead,” the figure said, stepping beneath the lamplight.
Ethan stared, and said, “But you are that man.”
The face of General Forrest looked back at him, lined and gaunt but still handsome, still emanating great power of personality. Tall and extremely thin because of his illness, he looked exactly as he had the last time Ethan had seen him alive.
The older Forrest shook his head. They both watched as the younger one rode off, brandishing his sword, practically standing in the stirrups.
“That man is dead,” he said again, looking into Ethan’s eyes, his deep-set blue ones very intent.
Then Ethan remembered how, shortly before his death, Forrest had undergone some sort of spiritual experience. “I’m not the same man I was during the war,” he had told Ethan.
Was that what Forrest meant? Ethan wanted to ask, but in the mysterious way of dreams was not able to.
The white-haired Forrest touched his shoulder again and pointed to a man walking down the street, his hands in his pockets. As he drew nearer, Ethan saw that it was himself.
“That man died tonight,” Forrest said, and when Ethan turned to look at him he had disappeared.
He woke abruptly. The river still moved on its lazy way, the moon still glowed on its surface. He sat for a moment watching it, his mind oddly clear, his heart strangely light.
He was remembering things Forrest had told him, during their last visit together. “I’m a dying man, Ethan, but I got peace, because I know God’s in control. You and I both know I should have died a hundred times in that war. You too, Ethan. But God brought me out of it and into this place where I am for a reason. Don’t know why he should have bothered with me. But here I am. Yes, sir, sometimes don’t nothing make any sense, but I reckon it ain’t up to us to try to figure out the mind of God.”
Ethan had made some noncommittal reply. Forrest had looked at him sharply and said, “The war’s over, Ethan. Time to let it go.”
The war was over…He’d fought long enough, fought against things he could not, did not want to understand, fought against a power too great for him, under which he finally realized he had no choice but to surrender. And with surrender, came peace.
Somehow he knew he wouldn’t dream of Shiloh again.
* * * *
Genny went upstairs to see the patients in “Madam Annie’s girls’” rooms. In most cases, entire families occupied these rooms, each m
ember in some phase of the disease. Genny moved among them, giving them water, changing soiled linens, speaking soft words of comfort, all the time wondering anxiously where Ethan had gone. He hadn’t come back at all last night.
The crazed woman with the dead child had awakened early in the morning and begun screaming. The nurse summoned two policeman, who took the poor woman away.
“There’s no place to take her just now, except to jail,” one of them, a kind-faced black man, said. “But we’ll see that she’s fed and taken care of. We’ll try to find her family.”
It seemed unnaturally quiet after her departure. At noon, Genny went back downstairs to check on the progress of Mrs. Johnson, who seemed to be improving. Then she saw Ethan come in the front door.
He smiled when he saw her. He looked rested, she thought, and lighter, somehow. But one of the nurses engaged his attention at once, and Genny had no opportunity to speak to him. The hours wore on until she was so tired she could hardly stand up. Finally she saw Ethan in a corridor; he was alone, carrying a box of supplies. She worked her way across the room and hastened to his side.
“Ethan, can you spare a moment?”
He stopped and looked down at her. Her heart quickened, and she was unhappily aware that she must look a fright. “Ethan, I hardly slept any last night. I’m going to the hotel.”
“Of course, Genny,” he said politely. “Get some rest. But don’t be out after dark.”
“I wish — ” She swallowed and nervously pushed back a stray lock of hair. “Ethan, we must talk. Will you come to the hotel tonight, and have supper with me?”
He gazed at her for a moment without speaking. At last he said, soberly, “All right, Genny. We’ll talk.”
* * * *
The bright sun stabbed into her eyes. True to his word, Tobe waited for her in the somewhat wilted shade of a nearby cottonwood tree. When he saw her, he stood up with more alacrity than was his habit, and climbed on the wagon.