by Tracy Groot
“Hotel . . . ?” J. W. Pickett shook his head in confusion, then demanded, “And who is Burr? And how can you all assume Dance is there and not at the front? This is preposterous. You imply that my son is a lawbreaker.”
“Andersonville Prison has broken every law,” said Reverend Gillette. “Whatever your son is up to, it is to right something.”
“Violet, did Dance say he was going in?” said Papa.
“Everything in here says it.” She clutched the scrip to her stomach. “This is the man I will marry. I will marry him or I will marry no one.”
Ellen hollered from the kitchen, “Praise de Lawd! Fo’ mo’ to go. Den I can look Jesus straight in de eye.”
“Well,” Papa said—and it seemed for the first time in a very long time, he was himself again—“tomorrow, then. First train. We will fetch him home.”
“You will find he is not there,” J. W. Pickett said crossly, but far less certainly.
“Perhaps so,” said Papa. “But I think he is.”
“Papa,” Violet whispered, for she could not trust her voice, “he is who I hoped he was all along.” I am yours, and you, Dance Weld Pickett, are mine.
Mother sank to the sofa, weeping. Lily joined her, weeping and laughing, and soon Mother laughed, too.
21
“THEY SAY YOU ARE A TRAITOR.”
“I am called that. Though I prefer Traitor Christian. You can call me T. C. for short.”
“You are the only traitor we know,” said the boy.
The two children, eating cinnamon cakes as they went, led Posey Stiles through fields and woods and more fields to an old cave dug in the back of a hill, not far from the river. The hill, it was said, was part of the grounds of the Creek Indians who had once inhabited Americus. No one knew if the cave was of Creek or white settler origin. People played there as children and forgot about it when they got old.
The two children pulled away brambles and branches and stepped aside for Posey to see.
Posey peered into the darkness.
“We didn’t know who to go to, except a traitor.”
When Posey saw what she was meant to see, she gave a little wave and received a wave in return. She didn’t know that face, but she knew those clothes. She drew back.
“You did right,” she said. She put her hands on her hips and scowled thoughtfully in unconscious imitation of her mother.
“What do we do?” said Ambrose Fremont, a boy a little older than Posey. It made Posey feel important to be consulted by an older child, and a boy, to boot.
“What do we do?” Tessie echoed, scowling in imitation of Posey.
“I must think on it. It is not easy being a traitor.” She thought hard, as if planning a move at checkers. She could jump this way or she could jump that; it was very important to choose one move, and it had to be the best one.
“I want to be a traitor,” Tessie said enviously. “Mama won’t let me.”
“Just another thing to be borne, in this old war,” Posey said kindly. She looked at Ambrose. No one knew exactly where Fremont loyalties lay. Whatever Posey decided to do, she had to know. “You for us or against us?”
Ambrose looked from Posey to Tessie, and then to the cave.
He drew himself tall. “I am for, though they slay me.”
Posey smiled and thought maybe she’d let him come courting one day.
“That suits me down to the ground. Tessie, you shore yourself up; you have played an important part. We must fetch Ellen, and that right quick.”
—
Posey leaned on the chopping block. She put her nose down to it. It smelled of onions and turnips.
Posey had not seen Ellen this cheerful in some time. Ordinarily she’d take advantage of it and wheedle cakes or biscuits or pudding out of her. But the time called for steady thinking.
“Why you need me to come?” Ellen asked crossly. “I ain’t got time.” She clattered a lid onto a cook pot and snatched a spoon, humming.
“Never in my life have I needed you more than now.”
Ellen slowly turned. Hands went to hips. Black eyes fastened on Posey’s. It was time to run when there was more white than black, but so far, Posey did not have to run.
“Posey Eden.” A squinty eye trembled. “What you up to?”
Posey drew a deep breath, and said bravely, “Traitor deeds. You best summon your courage.” She took Ellen’s hand and they left the kitchen.
22
“HALF PAST ONE, and all is well!” a sentinel called in the dark. Dance listened to the call make its way down the wall.
In less than twelve hours, Emery had an appointment with the scaffold. Had Father come? Did he find anything in the Articles? Dance wished he could drop by the north gate and ask Burr. But he was cut off from the doings outside and had to get used to it.
Why did he do it? Andy’s question had stayed with him all day long. It spoke loudest when Andy came back from collecting rations and gave Dance a handful of meal; it was a no-bake day for this side of the pen. Today the other side got theirs baked.
Dance sifted through the cornmeal. No wonder the men were sick. Aside from what was in this meal, some had no way to cook it. No fire, no cooking pot, many times not even a tin cup—some carried their ration from the wagon in a knotted shirtsleeve. He’d seen it all from the top of the stockade wall. He’d seen men so hungry they didn’t even mix it with water first, just ate it dry out of cupped hands.
Why did he do it? It seemed very important to find that out. His gut knew, but if he knew it upstairs as well as downstairs, it would strengthen him for whatever lay ahead. Truth makes free. It was something preached at both Methodist and Episcopalian churches. It was something he believed.
Dance gazed through a hole in the tent. He could see a star through it if he leaned enough. This little star through a ragged tunnel hole—he began to understand how isolated these men felt from the rest of the world; it was one thing to watch it, it was another to sit in it.
Coming in didn’t mean anything to these men, because now he couldn’t help them at all, he was as helpless as they.
Then the answer sprang free, and it was a question, too.
What are they not doing that you wish you would?
Dr. Stiles had scooped him out with a shovel, left him raw and empty.
“Come on out, Johnny Reb,” whispered a voice outside. “We know who you are.”
“Wait.” Dance sat up. “Andy—I kept waiting for them to do something. But I was waiting for me.”
The tent flap rose. “Come on out.” He wasn’t whispering anymore.
“Oh, hold your horse,” Dance said. He shook Andy awake.
“What?” Andy said, rubbing his face.
“I wanted Americus to help these men.”
“What’s going on over there?” said someone down the way.
“Pipe down, it’s none of your business,” said the man. “Come out right now, secesh.”
“I said hold your horse—I’m saying good-bye.” He turned back to Andy. “But Americus didn’t. The ‘didn’t’ bled on me, and here’s the thing: I let it.”
Andy sat up. “What the sam hill is going on?” He looked at the raised tent flap, and saw the shadows outside.
“I couldn’t watch you boys, so I watched Burr. He never went along with it. He stayed himself. Well, this is a relief. I know it in the attic, as Emery would say.” He clapped Andy’s arm. “So long, Andy. I hope you survive.” He crawled out of the tent.
Three men waited in the darkness. He got to his feet. “I can put up a caterwauling fight and bring down all kinds of attention on you and me, but I’ll not do it if you promise me something.”
“Wait! Where are you going?” Andy said.
“What’s that?” the tall one asked Dance.
“On my Christian mother’s grave, the boys in that tent had nothing to do with me coming in.”
“All right. That’s good enough for me.” He took Dance’s arm.
“W
ait!” He yanked free, and dropped to his knees. He put his head under the flap. “A chief diversion for me and my friends is to point out hypocrisy. It is a pleasurable vice. But I held Americus to something I wasn’t doing. And now that I’m doing something, I don’t hold them anymore. Isn’t that interesting?”
Hands grabbed his legs and dragged him out.
“Let him go!” Andy shouted. “He’s done nothing wrong!”
“There goes the new Lew.” Martin sat up. “Where’s he going?”
“What’s going on down there?” called a sentinel from a tower.
Andy lunged for the opening, but fell over Martin and took the tent down with him. By the time he divested himself of both, the dark figures and Dance were gone.
23
THE TRAIN SCHEDULE did not suit. Only troop trains were going through, bound for Macon and then for the front. Violet did not care if they rode a troop train or not. She argued with the man in charge, whose title she did not know, and said it was going past Andersonville on the way to Macon anyway, surely it could slow down to drop them off. It was not allowed. Civilians had no part, said he, in the drama about to play out.
The party of four—Violet, Dr. Stiles, J. W. Pickett, and Reverend Gillette—went to the hotel hostler in the back of one of the inns, and rented a two-horse carriage. It was an hour to Andersonville by carriage, and only if the horses were swift.
Violet clutched the scrip in her lap. It was Saturday morning, the day Emery was to be executed. Now he was on a train bound for exile and she was in a carriage bound for Andersonville and that left only Dance from this F.A.P. triumvirate. I must do something first, he said.
Then do it, Dance. Do it quickly, and come back to me.
—
Elliott was perspiring. He did not want to show himself weak, but couldn’t help the sweat. He knew what he had to do, but that didn’t make the doing easy.
It was easier to be like Mosby, just a grubbing brute. This took thinking. This went to the heart of things. This was a matter of country, and it rose above mere survival—this was principle, but he didn’t like what principle demanded. They had to give Wirz a message, a strong one, so he’d quit sending in spies.
They had kept the north gate guard in the little pine-bough lodge most of the day. The Reb lay on his side in the center of the group. He was bound hand and foot, his mouth stuffed with scraps of cloth and carefully wrapped with the same so no one would hear him.
He said he wasn’t here to find tunnels, but no one believed him. Why else would he be here?
“You want me to—?” said a sympathetic Stern, and Elliott said, “No!”
Perspiring, he picked up a strip of cloth and began to wrap his knuckles.
—
Papa asked Reverend Gillette to stay with Violet in Andersonville while he and J. W. went to see Burr. It told of Violet’s otherworldly preoccupation that she accepted this without fuss and went to sit on a bench outside the train depot.
“It takes a brave man to open the eyes of another,” said Reverend Gillette after they had sat for a time.
“It takes a brave man to open his own,” Violet said, glancing at him. “He said you have only a small measure of hypocrisy. That is high praise from Dance.”
Reverend Gillette chuckled. “Well, I think you’ve found your match, Violet Stiles. No one else could manage you.”
“I do not intend to be managed.”
“I think you’ll find we manage each other. That is the best marriage.”
Violet rubbed a water stain on the scrip. “It is very bad in there, isn’t it?”
Reverend Gillette made a move toward his face, and stopped. Ruefully, he said, “I keep forgetting my beard is gone. It helped me answer things.” He sighed. “It is bad, Violet. And it is vast.”
“How will they find him?”
“The question is, will he be found? I do not know what is in his mind. I’d like to know what that guard knows.”
—
Burr leaned on the rail. From the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, Burr had stood this watch every day with Pickett for many months. It was lonesome without him. Half the time he had his head in the pines, the other half he said things to make a man whistle.
Someone was coming up the ladder.
“Why, Doc Stiles. I just seen you yesterday.”
“Hello, Burr.” He took a lemon out of his pocket and gave it to him. “This is for your friend.”
“Well, I’m obliged.”
“Burr—Violet read Dance’s papers.”
Burr looked at the lemon. He ran his thumbnail along the skin of the lemon, and lifted it to his nose. “That’s a smell of heaven around here.”
“Where is Dance?”
“Well, I ain’t gonna say. If he turns up and they know where he’s been, it’s the same for him as that Jones boy. Only he ain’t gettin’ out of it, as in their eyes he’d have done far worse.”
“We know he’s gone in. We want to get him out, before there’s trouble.”
Burr studied the lemon. “There’s already trouble.”
“How do you know?” said Dr. Stiles, fear springing up.
“I asked Old Abe to check on him today. He’s not there. They got to him.”
Dr. Stiles grabbed his arm. “Who got to him?”
“They, they!” Burr’s lips trembled. “They who believe he means harm. There’s no fetchin’ him now. He’s gone.”
Dr. Stiles released him. “What do I do?” He looked out on the mass of men. “What do I tell my girl?”
Burr raised brimming eyes. “You tell her he did well.”
“What do I tell his father? He’s right below.”
Burr drew his arm across his face. “Why don’t he come up?”
“He doesn’t want to.”
Burr froze. He handed the lemon to the doctor. He unshouldered his musket and went to the ladder. The musket went to his eye, and he drew a bead on J. W. Pickett.
“You get up here,” Burr called down.
The old man looked up.
“Oh, it ain’t a fancy rig the regular army gets. But it’ll blow a hole in a man. Get movin’.”
“Burr, don’t—he’s just afraid.”
“Fancy-pants what never put themselves in the way of mizry will find naught but mizry themselves. Start climbin’, you old rooster.”
The old man started climbing. He got to the top, and Burr backed away, gun trained on him.
“You want to get hold of where your boy is?” He motioned with the rifle. “Take a look. He went to them, ’cause you would not.”
J. W. Pickett hesitated, then firmed himself and came forward.
Burr and the doctor watched him for several moments as he took in the sight. He could not seem to move. Then he staggered and fumbled for the rail. The doctor seized his elbow.
He pulled away and lurched again for the rail. He cried out over the pen, “Dance! Dance!”
Men in the stockade looked up and shook their heads. “Crazy stinkin’ Rebs.”
“And always that tower.”
“Dance!” the old man cried piteously.
“How can we dance?” one shouted back. “Ain’t no music.”
—
“Here they come,” said Reverend Gillette.
Violet jumped up—but Dance wasn’t with them.
Papa was supporting J. W. Pickett.
Reverend Gillette hurried over. “Is he all right?”
“He’s taken a turn. Let’s get some water. Easy does it, Cousin.”
They helped him to a bench and Reverend Gillette went for water.
“Papa . . . where is he?”
“I don’t know, Violet girl.”
“Well, your face says something else,” she snapped. She looked at the lost old man on the bench. “So does his.”
“Violet . . .”
“Do not touch me.”
“Come here, my darling. No—Violet, where are you going?”
“I�
��m going to fetch him.” She started for the stockade and broke into a run, dropping the leather scrip.
He ran to catch her. He pulled her into his arms and held tight.
“Is he lost to me, Papa?” she cried.
“I don’t know,” he whispered, and held her close. “I don’t know.”
A sob broke loose, but it could not unravel now. She pushed away and when Papa tried to follow, she held up a hand.
“I must know my course.” She paced back and forth, hand on her head, and then said, “I will not believe anything bad until my eyes tell me different. Until my eyes tell me different. Is that clear, Papa? That is my course. What is our course?”
“We can’t take it to Wirz or Winder. He left his post—he’s already in trouble. If they find out, it will be far worse than being absent without leave. Burr will watch. We will wait.”
“Then we will wait. We will wait. That is our course.”
She walked back toward the depot, snatching up the scrip on the way.
24
THE RISING SUN FELL SOFT on a patch of Yankee blue lying in front of the gate. Yellow rays slowly illumined the still, dark heap, and the guard on tower watch leaned to look. He’d had a feeling it was a man, but he waited for sunrise to be sure.
The golden aura made it plain.
The guard sighed. Well, Burr came on watch in a few minutes. Let him take care of it. He just wanted to get home to his wife and breakfast and a few hours of respite from this godforsaken place. He’d pretend he did not see, as was Andersonville custom. His partner was sleeping; he’d keep him distracted when he awoke and so cause no undue fuss.
—
“I’m gonna get me a Yank!” piped the runt, as he waited with Burr for the other two guards to come down. One came down frowsy and sullen, a slovenly man who looked like he just woke up. Fine sentry, that one.