Obedient, the horse went at his heels. I sensed that men might follow Angel, too, despite his coloration. He had a certain quality that draws. We see it alike in the saint and the confidence man.
Now, you will say, “Jones, you were a soldier. Unbecoming it was to fear a horse.” But I will tell you: Do not laugh too quickly in your pride. Every man on earth has got his fears, although they may be hidden half his life. When yours leap out before you, think of me.
I took me near the fire, dropped down, and wrote. And found my hand as shaky as my thoughts. Still, I filled four pages, then had to fold them up so I could sew. When I asked round, Broke Stick tossed me needle and thread, then bent back to his saddle-mending. He might have been a Scot, for all his silence. I think the Scots believe that words are money, see, and worry they will go poorer if they spend one. Perhaps they are related to Red Indians. The Highlanders I knew were wild enough. They made good soldiers when they were not drunk.
I was embarrassed to show them my unmentionables, though they were new and clean. I always was a shy one, understand. First, I did my coat sleeves, then my trousers. At least I had the skill of sewing fast, although not half so well as my Mary Myfanwy. Back when I was a young buck in my regiment, no sergeant turned out finer on parade.
The night turned flannel dark, then preacher’s black. The earth had stilled, except for a soldier’s rumpus off in the tents. The world felt tired. Perhaps it truly was the end of days.
What if it was, and I was parted from my wife and child?
But that was nonsense. A weary man sees phantoms in his coffee.
Sufficient unto the day the labors thereof. Plenty there was for Abel Jones to think on, from horses to the massacre of forty. And I had much behind me to regret, from the banks of the Indus to the banks of the Tennessee. But let that bide. The time had come to sleep and gather strength.
Angel had brought me my saddle and the kit strapped behind it. General Sherman had equipped me well, indeed. From a white cloth to serve as a parley flag down to a blanket rolled in a rubber cape. From such, a soldier makes a warm cocoon, and keeps him dry in all but storms and floods.
I did not forget to search the ground for ants.
FOUR
HAD NOAH BEEN A TOUCH LESS DILIGENT, HE MIGHT have spared me misery in plenty. I wish that he had left the horse behind. We rode out at the hint of dawn, when a man still senses more than he can see and the first birds call. Beyond our lines the air was lovely clean. But Eden itself would have been lost on me. I bounced along to shatter tooth and bone, reduced to constant dread of a four-legged beast.
The horse would run, and then the horse would slow. The horse would kick, and then the horse would canter. The other riders helped in his regulation, but Rascal was a creature aptly named. Remember that our Savior rode a donkey. It’s Death that rides the pale horse in the Book. That tells a fellow something, if he’s mindful.
My trials began before I reached the saddle. The creature whipped its tail across my face and knocked the tin of coffee from my hand. And then the devil swung its head to bite me, nipping at my bad leg then the good. The stirrups seemed a mile from the ground as I struggled to mount. They helped me up, did Angel and Broke Stick, while Lott’s son held the horse and purred to calm him.
We rode through the softening dark. Soon my private circumstances ached. I dared not speak for fear I’d bite my tongue off. The fellows laughed. Quiet like, though, for we had passed into disputed territory.
Now, I will tell you: A Welshman will not show himself a quitter. I stayed on that horse’s back and did not fall once. I may have looked a fool, but the prancing devil could not cast me down, although he knew more tricks than an Irish barrister.
Rascal snorted. Rippling his great body. I felt the shiver pass between my legs.
Captain Lott come back and rode beside me in the young light.
“It does look,” he said in a low voice, “as if you’re more familiar with the Gospels than the saddle, Brother.”
And so all men should be. I gripped the reins as tightly as I could. No man of any sense would join the cavalry.
“Ho, steady now,” Lott told my nickering bane. Then he turned his hawk’s face back toward me. Below the wide brim of his hat, his gleaming eyes anticipated sunrise. “Can you feel it, Major? Is it creeping up and down your back?”
I knew not what he meant. All I felt was numbness in my nether parts.
“We’re coming up on the place,” he said, glancing about. “Not a mile off. Can you feel the sin? The wickedness? The guilt of those who laid their hands on innocents?”
I understood him then. But I could feel no change in our surroundings. Twas but the same trail through a poor man’s world. The trees broke and we passed a derelict cabin, its yard home to a wagon without wheels, the axles braced on little piles of rocks. Broken implements lay strewn about, and the fence gaped. A balding path led under the sagging porch. But nothing stirred.
Except a halo of flies about my horse.
Woodland brooded on both sides of the path again. “How did you find them?” I asked. A hind hoof sparked a rock. “It must have been a startling sight, Captain Lott.”
He looked away. The light snooped through the trees like scenting hounds.
“Wasn’t hard to find them, Brother. They were meant to be found. All credit to the Lord, for He guides our every step. But those poor Negroes were strung up right where the trails crossed, for all the world to see. Hanging there heavy as sin. Though I am confident their souls rest in His bosom.” Lott’s pitch dropped to a growl. “Their nakedness was a mockery. A mockery of Adam, of His image. And the women . . . the children . . . all carved up like a heathen sacrifice . . .”
He soothed my horse again. “The Southron is a heathen, Major Jones. No matter what he pretends. No matter how smooth his tongue or polished his manner. I know, for I was born among his kind.” He reined in his horse to stay by me. “Evil comes in many guises, even that of angels. Comely and fair was Lucifer, who betrayed his God. The Southron is Antichrist. And his armies are the legions of Antichrist. The end of days is near. The ears of the faithful hear the final trumpet.”
I heard only hooves and the rustling of trailside brush clipped by our passage. The truth is that my thoughts were far away, where those we killed had skins of brown, not black. Not even a fitful horse could scatter the memories.
MOUNDS AND CROSSES marked the killing ground. There were not forty beds, but only six, their placement irregular. Negroes had not needed separate graves. No more than slaughtered villagers in Oudh.
I wondered how the dead had been divided for burial. Did the women and children sleep separate from the men? What of the married? Must they sleep forever in the arms of strangers? Was every mother with her rightful child? And father by son? Or had they been dropped in the closest hole, forever wed to strangers, indiscriminate? I recalled how callous we grew in India. Killing numbs you worse than any saddle. We mostly burned our victims to save time.
What did it even matter who lay where? Was that not empty sentiment? The flesh is but corruption and a shell.
Yet, I would lie forever by my wife, when my time comes. I cannot bear the thought of separation.
I had some minutes alone by the graves, see. While Lott dispatched his pickets and looked round. Alone, that is, but for a thousand ghosts.
I never turned my wrath on woman or child. Believe me. There was no shortage of others with a taste for such work. Not after we learned of Cawnpore. And, truth be told, some had the taste before. I was ready and willing to look away, though. Or to pass along the orders from above. Until that hot day when my young strength left me.
I will have a plenty to answer for. But let that bide.
When Lott returned, I had him show me exactly where they had hanged the men, and where the women and their young had lain. Demanding all the precision his memory could give, though some of the signs were evident. Their bark rubbed raw, branches recorded the scraping of the rope
s. The brush had broken down where others fell. I found a shred of cloth, dotted and faded, dangling from a skein of briars. My back rebelled when I bent over to pluck it. I was stiff as drumhead justice from the ride. Fingering the strip, I almost felt the flesh it had clothed. Imagining the terror at the end.
I knew that terror. I had looked it in the face. And neither distance nor years had paled the memory.
Overconfident of the capability of my bad leg, I had left my cane strapped back of the saddle. Now my folly told. I labored awkwardly climbing down into a streambed. I had only thought to go a little way, see. But we are led along unexpected paths. Suddenly, I was not my own master. I went as if obedient to orders.
The wet earth gave as I descended, slopping my shoes and trouser bottoms. I nearly lost my balance. Twas hardly more than a ditch, but the cut was steep. The sort of hiding place that draws the fool. I imagined quaking children, and the killer’s iron smile. But I found nothing.
I was not searching for a specific thing, see, but looking for anything that might turn up. Like a tramp at the dustbin.
“Looked to me like they rounded them up right quick,” Lott said from the lip of the bank above me. Glimpsed from below, he towered. “No sign of a chase. Oh, a child or two tried to slip off and got killed back in the bushes. But it looked to me like those Negroes just gave up and surrendered. Maybe fooled into thinking they were only being led back into bondage, nothing worse waiting for them than a whipping. The tongues of false men always bear a promise, and the innocent believe.” He crushed some tiny creature beneath his heel. “Maybe they knew their captors, Brother? Trusted them? Who knows what the slave-catchers told them? No doubt, Herod’s men did likewise unto the children of Bethlehem, luring them out with sweet and wicked promises. Careful down there. Moccasins are out.”
I clambered out of the gulley, ignoring a recitation of Bible verse he began. I fear I had no patience with sermons that morning. Far from true religion I was, and my mood was black as plague. Besides, I do not like my scripture barked. Over-use cheapens the Holy Word, and makes me wonder what men really mean.
“Did it appear they had been here long, Captain Lott?” I interrupted him. “Before the killing began? Did you find any campfire ashes?” I scanned and saw no scars amid the green, excepting the grave mounds. “Or concentrations of excrement, perhaps?”
He looked at me oddly. I am sure my methods struck him queer.
Lott’s eyes set hard enough to silence the birds. Perhaps he felt my questions lacked in reverence. “Nothing like that,” he said. “Nothing I noticed. Nothing at all. Only mortality, Brother. Mortality, and blood that cries for vengeance.”
The members of Lott’s band not riding picket stood about, uneasy, with carbines in their hands and horses near. They did not like the place, twas clear enough. And that made sense. For each would have his memory of the discovery, of human flesh made carrion. When animals go at a body, they take the soft bits first. It makes an ugly sight.
“How did you bury them, if I may ask? How did you choose who went into each pit? Proximity? Propriety?”
“We didn’t bury them,” Lott said, growing restless. “Sherman’s men did that. We just prayed over them, then rode back in to report the sign we’d been given.”
I paced the ground, wobbly as a drunkard without my cane. I picked up a stick to help me, but it was rotten and broke at the first pressure.
“They hanged the men first,” I said suddenly, although I had not planned to share my thoughts.
Lott had a pistol ready in his hand. Pray as he might, he still relied on powder.
“And then they killed the women,” I continued. “Although there may have been indecencies in between. They killed the children last. Except those who screamed and annoyed them.”
Lott had paused some paces to my rear. I turned back toward him. For though I had not meant to speak at all, I craved an audience now.
“Have you . . . had a vision, brother?” he asked, fingering his pistol. “Do you see the sinful deed?”
Such as me will not be granted visions. Only memories.
“It is only a thing of logic,” I lied. “The men must be finished first, for they are strongest. Their strength would surge up at the torment of their women and children. They could make difficulties, were one or more to break his bonds. Even tied up tight, they’ll bite a nose off. Anything to protect their loved ones.”
I paused before a rank of yellow flowers. I had not marked their loveliness before.
“So you kill the strongest first,” I told him. “And keep the others bound and under guard. The women are killed next, for they would be unsettled and second strongest. There is a pattern to the thing, see. Most men will save the comeliest woman for last. Even if she is not ravished, they will kill her only when the rest are dead. Although a certain breed of man kills the beauty first.”
The morning was not warm, but sweat had drenched me.
A breeze disturbed the petals at my toes. “Some children cry out, but most are cowed. They whimper, rather than scream. And then, it’s the queerest thing, the way they settle to a common sound. It is a low noise, like a pulse. The youngest do not understand the doings, of course. Not in a manner they can fit to speech.”
I took a desperate breath of the April air.
“It is clear how it was done, Captain Lott. Clear and regular. First, the men were done with. A few of the women pleaded for their husbands, but the mothers among them were more reserved than a fellow would expect. They hoped to save their children, see. Through good behavior. Imagining a charity not to be granted.”
I turned to face Lott, recalling something else. “And then there is the numbness that comes over the women at the killing of their men. I left that out. That is a queer thing, too. Oh, some cry and collapse. But there is not the lasting noise you might expect. For violence shocks and stills the tongue.” I smiled bitterly. “And never forget the power of hope. Each hopes that she will be the one preserved, the exception . . .”
White of face, Lott eyed me hard. As if I had conjured memories of his own. I have been told that Kansas was not pleasant.
He nodded. Slowly. “The end of days is upon us,” he repeated. “His will be done.” At that, he signaled to bring up our horses. “We’ll double back and strike for the Corinth road.”
THEY HIT US from both sides of the trail, shrieking like demons. Firing from their saddles and swarming over us. As if they had erupted from the earth.
I drew my Colt and thumbed the hammer back. Just in time to shoot before I was shot. My round discharged into a fellow’s face. And he tumbled. My horse shied and I grabbed onto its mane.
Three times our count I made them out to be. Although you cannot tell for sure in the wildness. A fellow in a checkered shirt fired close. Near enough to share his spittle. Had Rascal not bucked, the bullet would have slain me. I heard the crack and felt the throb of air. I shot, but missed the man as he surged by.
“Y’all come on,” Angel shouted to me. “Gotta git.” Galloping past, he leaned and smashed a Rebel’s jaw with the butt of his revolver.
Then he was gone.
I am good on the ground. I know how to receive a cavalry attack. But I could not control the horse beneath me. I aimed for the chest of a fellow riding with a pistol in each hand. Riding for me and grinning.
Rascal shied and twisted. I missed, but so did my enemy.
Our horses tangled and our legs collided. With a great whack to my knee. The shock of it bent me double and my pistol stabbed into the fellow’s thigh. I pulled the trigger. Just as the devil smacked my shoulder with the flat of his revolver.
His blood splashed over my trousers and covered his own.
The Rebel howled, recoiling. His mount peeled off from mine. Somehow, I kept my seat. I kicked my horse to goad him on after the others, but only lost the stirrups for my efforts.
Then Rascal reared up high, and I went down.
I struck the ground level, from head to hi
ps, with my face toward the sky. Loud as a bass drum I hit. A great whacking thump it was. My wind fled in a gush. I must have lowered an inch, I drained so empty. The shock slammed my eyes shut.
Nothing on this earth is as swift as combat. When you are in such a mêlée. The affair lasted not a minute. No sooner had I reached the earth than all the shooting ceased. I heard complaints and curses. Men dismounted with a creak of leather, as hooves tapped to idleness. In the distance, horses raced away.
I opened my eyes and found two guns trained on me, a shotgun and a pistol like my own.
“Kill the sumbitch,” a tin-thin voice said. “Shoot the sumbitch where he lies. The little sumbitch’s the one killed Leakey. And put that bullet in McGilley’s leg. The little sumbitch.”
“Shoot him yourself,” the fellow with the shotgun said. “I wouldn’t waste the powder when we got rope.”
I wished to speak, but had not found my voice. I had fallen hard.
Not far away I heard a voice I recognized. “Oh, no, oh, no, Lord no . . . pleath, no, oh, no. Pleath . . .”
“Git up, you sumbitch,” the tin-voiced fellow said to me. He was so lean he hardly blocked the sun.
I struggled to rise. “Papers . . .” I got the word out.
“You jist git up.”
“Oh, no, oh, no . . .”
I rose to my elbows and saw him then. Just at the start of the trees. They had captured the fellow who lacked his front teeth. The one who had praised my horse. Wounded now, he poured blood down his shirtfront. But it was not his wound that caused his dread.
Tin Voice kicked me hard, but I was transfixed. They already had a rope around the lisper’s neck.
“Lord, no,” he cried a last time. Three Rebels pulled the rope that spanned the branch. His body rose in a frenzy. Legs kicked wildly, mad hands grabbed at the noose. Blood sprayed off his wound and men stepped back. When they drop you down, it snaps your neck. But when they haul you up, the end comes slowly. I watched his eyes bulge and his tongue swell darkling.
Call Each River Jordan Page 8