“Oh, for sure, because this is where it really gets interesting. Very early in the morning of May sixth, Longstreet marched his divisions up to Parker’s Store on the Orange Plank Road, including the Devil’s Brigade. They arrived about dawn. The whole line of the Union army was advancing through the woods, and up in front of them Heth’s and Wilcox’s divisions had broken, and they were running for their lives.
“It was at this point that Longstreet deployed Kershaw’s division on the right of the plank road, and Field’s on the left. They managed to check the enemy’s advance, but it was impossible for them to make any real headway because the underbrush was so thick.”
She started reading again from Longstreet’s diary.
“The line of battle was pressed forward and we came in close proximity to the enemy. The dense and tangled undergrowth prevented a sight of the opposing forces, but every man felt they were near. Everything was hushed and still. No one dared to speak above a whisper. It was evening, and growing dark.
“Then a man coughed, and instantly the thicket was illumined by the flash of a thousand muskets, the men leaped to their feet, the officers shouted, and the battle was recommenced. Neither side would yield, but I could see that some of the bravest officers and men of my corps were falling all around me, and I realized that our line was close to breaking point.
“I called for Major General Maitland and Colonel Meldrum and advised them that I wished to send forward one of their special brigade to see what assistance he could give to our divisions. Colonel Meldrum argued that we should send forward at least four or five of them, but I was reluctant enough to send any at all. The Negro servant John said that if I was adamant that we should send only one, we should call upon Major Shroud to be possessed by the god of fire and lightning, Changó, since the woods and the thickets were highly inflammable, and the wind was in our favor, from the southwest.
“Major Shroud came forward and, witnessed by only four or five of us, performed a ceremony involving stones which he called ‘thunderstones,’ and the crushing of a snail, whose juice he dropped upon the stones, and oil. Then he brought forward a rooster and cut its throat, dropping its blood upon the stones also.
“The fighting was very close now, and musket balls were snapping through the underbrush and striking the trees. John made one last incantation and hung a necklace of red and white beads around Major Shroud’s neck, which he explained were the sacred colors of Changó.
“The transformation of Major Shroud was appalling to behold. Like the Negro servant John, his flesh appeared to melt from his face like candlewax, leaving him the appearance of a grinning eyeless skull. He furled his greatcoat, and as he did so I could see that his chest was nothing but a bare rib cage.
“John took a lighted cigar and blew a stream of smoke toward the enemy lines, uttering some words that were completely incomprehensible. Major Shroud turned and began to make his way in that direction. He appeared to be able to walk through the underbrush with no difficulty whatsoever, more like a terrible shadow than a man.
“Only a few minutes later, the woods were luridly lit by lightning, a hundred times brighter than the flashing of musketry. Lightning struck in eight or nine places all at once, and was followed by a peal of thunder that shook the very ground beneath our feet. Fires sprang up on every side, and in a very short time the woods were fiercely ablaze, here, there, and everywhere.
“Men scream in battle, when their bowels are penetrated by a musket ball, or their leg is torn off by solid shot, or their arms crushed by a minié round. I was familiar with such screams.
“But that night in the woods of the Wilderness I heard screams that sounded as if they had been uttered by souls being shoveled wholesale into the fires of hell. They were screams of such hopelessness that my very skin shrank, and when I turned to Major General Maitland and Colonel Meldrum to adjudge their reaction, I could see that they were similarly affected. Major General Maitland was so deathly white as to resemble a ghost of himself.
“The lightning continued to strike with a horrendous crackling and the thunder continued to split the skies. As the fires burned furiously northeastward, our divisions were able to make a general advance in their wake, since most of the entangling brush was burned away. At this time I gave orders to Lieutenant Colonel Sorrel to take the brigades of Generals Mahone, G.T. Anderson, and Wofford and to conduct a flanking movement behind the enemy’s left and rear. The movement was a complete surprise and a perfect success. With the woods afire all around them, and our volleys striking them on three sides, the Federals fell back in utter disarray.
“Major Shroud returned to our ranks, his flesh restored to him, but his face blackened by smoke, and in a very diffident mood. I ordered him to bathe and rest since his experience seemed to have put him into a very unpleasant humor indeed.
“By the light of dawn I was able to assess the extent of the carnage. We came across many of the enemy with their bodies indescribably mutilated, with their limbs twisted into impossible positions, and many of them had been turned completely inside out, like my unfortunate mockingbird, so that their intestines were bound around them like twisted ropes. Others had been cremated where they stood, and were nothing but columns of black charcoal. Although I did not see him myself, another was reportedly stretched out so long that until they discovered his distorted face the surgeons did not realize at first that he had once been a man.
“Despite the success of our action, I resolved that this was to be the first and only time that I would call upon the forces of Santería to assist us. War has no glamour, but it has honor, and codes of conduct, and should the Confederacy win this noble struggle, I want our victory tainted by nothing that could cause our sons and daughters to think of us with shame.
“The brigade was assembled, and I thanked them for their commitment to the cause, and informed them of my decision. However, Major Shroud flew immediately into the most incontinent of rages, and said that he still had much work left to do, and would never rest until the last of our enemies had been incinerated and their cities razed to the ground. He held forth with such appalling curses and imprecations that I immediately ordered him to be put under guard.
“Colonel Meldrum’s servant John informed me that while Major Shroud had returned to the appearance of normality, it was plain that the spirit of Changó still exercised control over him. When I asked how this spirit might be exorcized, John said that Changó had obviously found Major Shroud to be such an amenable host that he would never be wholly free of this possession for as long as he lived. It was true that while Major Shroud was an excellent officer in the field, and discharged his military duties with courage and diligence, he did have a reputation for his evil temper and his unwillingness to forgive even the smallest of slights. He had also been demoted after First Manassas for cutting the ears off a living Union prisoner as a souvenir of victory, and it was said (although never proved) that he had cut the privates from two other prisoners while they were still alive and forced them into their own mouths.
“John was of the opinion that Major Shroud would continue to pursue the enemy until every last one of them was dead, and any who tried to thwart him in this purpose would suffer a similar fate. Even after the cessation of hostilities, there was a real danger that he would pose a mortal threat to anybody who was unfortunate enough to cross him in any matter large or trifling.
“John said that the only way in which this threat could be contained would be to seal Major Shroud alive in a casket lined with solid lead, in which would be placed various propitiatory fruits and herbs, such as apples and sarsaparilla, and over which, once welded shut, a male sheep would be sacrificed.
“This casket, he said, should be taken to sea and sunk to the bottom, since Changó’s power was much circumscribed by water.
“Of course I was now faced with a truly appalling dilemma. Major Shroud had agreed voluntarily to be possessed of this spirit, and had turned the tide of battle most decisively in ou
r favor. Almost single-handedly, he had prevented the rout of our divisions and the taking of Richmond. Yet it was clear that he had become a threat of unimaginable magnitude not only to our enemies but to ourselves. Even as I discussed this matter with Major General Maitland and other officers, a duty sergeant came to advise us that Major Shroud had become so uncontrollably furious and violent that his guards had been obliged to shackle him with the chains which were normally used to secure the cannon.
“John warned that Changó was one of the fiercest and most warlike of all Santería gods and that he would not easily be consigned to his casket. He therefore suggested that all of the remaining volunteers should go through the ceremony of possession, which would give them the combined strength to restrain Major Shroud while he was thus imprisoned.
“I was very reluctant to approve this course of action, since there was obviously a risk that the other eleven men would also be possessed forever by their respective gods, and represent eleven times more danger to the Federal forces and to those around us as Major Shroud. John, however, assured me that this was unlikely. He said that Major Shroud had probably committed an act of vengeance sometime in his past life which had made him especially susceptible to Changó’s possession. Evil, he said, would always give a home to evil.”
Decker finished his beer. “So that’s what they did? They all got themselves possessed? And they buried him alive?”
Captain Morello nodded. “Lieutenant General Longstreet says that he fought against their influence like a devil out of hell. There was lightning, and thunder, and several officers and privates were killed or injured. But between them the eleven other volunteers were strong enough to overpower him and lift him into his casket. It was like ‘eleven columns of dazzling light, with a billowing cloak of absolute darkness in the arms.’ They filled up the casket with all the apples and herbs that were required to make an offering to Changó. Then the lid was welded shut by the same marine engineers who had worked on the Hunsley—the hand-powered submarine that the Confederacy had built in their attempt to break the Union blockade of Chesapeake Bay.”
She read again from Lieutenant General Longstreet’s diaries.
“That night, the casket was hurried by gun carriage to Richmond, and at midnight put aboard the frigate Nathan Cooper to be taken as far out toward Chesapeake Bay as was possible, having regard to the Union blockade, and dropped at the greatest possible depth.
“Unfortunately, the Richmond waterfront suffered that night a heavy barrage from the enemy’s naval guns, and before she could even be untied from the dock at Shockoe Creek, the Nathan Cooper was struck amidships by a cannonball which sank her immediately, along with eighteen of her crew. I am sad for their unfortunate demise, but at least I am safe now in the knowledge that Major Shroud will be incarcerated in his casket forever underwater, and will never again represent a threat to humankind.
“I myself am overwhelmed with remorse for my misjudgment, and for having been tempted to take the wrong path, because it is only through the will of the Lord God Almighty that righteousness may prevail; and if the Lord God Almighty considers that I was gravely mistaken in appealing to a heathen religion for assistance in our time of extreme trouble, then I can only beg Him for forgiveness, and hope that He will understand that I was looking only to save the Confederacy, and its commitment to glory, and to honor, and to God.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
The telephone warbled right next to his ear and made him jerk. He was hunched on the couch with his coat over his shoulders. He had started off the night in bed, but as soon as he had fallen asleep he was overwhelmed by nightmares of fire and screaming and men made of nothing but bones, and so he had camped the night in the living room, with the lights on.
“Lieutenant?”
Decker stiffly sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. “Hicks? What the hell time is it?”
“Seven-twenty. I’m haven’t left home yet, but I’ve been checking my e-mail.”
“What do you want? A citation?”
“I had a message from public records in Charlottesville. Alison Maitland’s maiden name was Alison Bell, but her mother was the great-granddaughter of Lieutenant Henry Stannard, of the Second Company, Richmond Howitzers.”
Decker reached over to the coffee table and picked up the transcript of Lieutenant General Longstreet’s private diary. “Bingo. Lieutenant H.N. Stannard was one of the Devil’s Brigade, too. He was possessed by Oyá, who was syncretized with Saint Anne of Ephesus. Father Thomas guessed right. Saint Anne was supposed to have been a virgin, but she became pregnant with a child whom she claimed was ‘a gift from God.’ Her child was killed in the womb and then she was beheaded.
“This is what our perpetrator is doing, sport, beyond any shadow of a doubt. For some reason he’s taking his revenge on the descendants of every man who served in the Devil’s Brigade, and he’s killing them in the same way that their syncretized saints were martyred. Saint Anne, stabbed and beheaded; Saint Erasmus, disemboweled; and so on. And he’s doing it in the same order as their saints’ days.”
“So what was your great-great-grandfather’s saint, Lieutenant?”
“Hold on … here it is. He was Osun, the messenger of immediate danger, whatever that means. He was worshiped in Santería under the name of Saint James Intercisus.”
“So whatever happened to Saint James what’s-his-face … the same thing’s going to happen to you?”
“I guess so. The trouble is, I don’t know what happened to him.”
“I’m still on the Internet … I can check it out for you. Want to give me that name again?”
“In-ter-cis-us. Listen, I’m urgently in need of some coffee. I’ll see you at nine, okay? If Ayula Adebolu is right, Changó wants this to be my last day on earth. I’m just going to make damn sure that it isn’t.”
“Okay, Lieutenant. Be cool.”
Decker took a shower. Then he brewed himself a double-strength espresso. He dressed in a dark gray shirt with a maroon silk necktie and black pants. As he flicked up his hair into his usual pompadour, he suddenly stopped and stared at himself. There were damson-colored circles under his eyes that matched his necktie, and the lines in his cheeks looked as if they had been engraved in his skin. What if this was his last day on earth? What if his visions and nightmares were all going to come true? There was no evidence yet that Moses Adebolu had been killed by anything other than a freak lightning strike, but supposing he had been incinerated by Changó, because Changó was angry at him for offering Decker his help?
Aluya had seemed to believe that was what had happened to him; and Cathy had warned him again and again, even at the risk of suffering her killing over and over again, for all eternity.
Up until now, in spite of everything he had witnessed, he hadn’t been able to believe that he was in any real danger. Ghosts and visions were frightening, but after all they were only ghosts and visions. But he thought about Lieutenant General Longstreet’s account of men being “shoveled wholesale into the fires of hell” and for the first time in his career he felt genuinely unsettled. He had coped in his career with attacks with broken bottles, knives, and shotguns. Once a half-ton block of concrete had been dropped onto the roof of his car. But there nothing so disturbing as knowing that somebody evil and angry was coming for him, somebody he might not even be able to see, and that he was helpless to stop him.
He walked back through to the living room to read through Toni Morello’s transcript again, and to finish his coffee. As he did so, the long net curtains along the window appeared to ripple, as if they had been stirred by an early-morning breeze. The strange thing was, though, that all of the windows were closed.
He stared at the curtains for a while, but they didn’t move again. For some reason he had the distinct feeling that he wasn’t alone, that there was somebody else in his apartment, hiding. He didn’t know why. He put down his coffee mug and went across to the kitchen. Nobody there. The front door was still locked and chained, a
lthough he knew from the way in which Cathy had manifested herself that spirits weren’t deterred by walls or locked doors.
He took down his shoulder holster from the hat stand and buckled it on. Then he crossed the living room and went back into the bedroom.
“Anybody there?”
This was insane. Yet Jerry Maitland must have thought that he was insane, too, when his arms started to bleed all down his new wallpaper, and when his pregnant wife was stabbed and her head cut off in front of his eyes. And Major Drewry must have thought he had lost his reason, when he was gutted in the shower. And John Mason, too, when he was blinded and boiled.
There was somebody here, or some thing. Some deeply malevolent force, a force that wanted to do him serious harm. It had warned him right from the very beginning, on Alison Maitland’s 911 call, and it had warned him in his dreams. It wasn’t quite ready to take him yet, but time was hurrying away and it was very close.
He listened and listened but he couldn’t hear anything. But that was what disturbed him so much. The interior of his apartment was utterly silent. No traffic from I-95; no steamboats hooting; no airplanes flying overhead from Richmond International. He felt as if the entire apartment had been swaddled in thick insulation, or his ears had been packed with cotton.
He took one step across the room, and then another. He stopped and turned around. For an instant, out of the corner of his eye, he thought he glimpsed a shadow flitting across his bedroom mirror, but inside it, as if it were another room.
He hefted out his gun and approached the mirror very slowly. He reached out and touched the glass with his fingertips. The man in the mirror stared back at him as if he had lost his way and didn’t know where to turn next.
Hicks had his feet propped up on his desk and his mouth was full of apple donut.
“Oh, hi, Lieutenant. The captain was looking for you.”
Decker went to his desk and quickly rifled through his memos and notes and letters. He sniffed and said, “Any idea what he wanted?”
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