by Sarah Bird
As I stood there studying that cap with the stupid horn on it weighing out whether putting on a harness and pulling a plow would be any worse than being in the infantry, I caught sight of Vikers and what looked to be his new bodyguards, Greene and Caldwell. The three of them were making a big show of adjusting their caps so that the crossed sabers of the United States Cavalry on the front caught the sunlight and gleamed like gold. Vikers and Greene were shrimp. But Caldwell. He was one of the few men taller than me. Vikers caught me staring and grinned. I don’t know how, but he’d managed to get them all into the cavalry.
Chuckling as they passed me by, the possum-faced Greene yelped out, “Enjoy your tramp to St. Louie, Stanky. Might air you out some.”
I watched Vikers and his new cronies strut off. Even in the shabby recruitment uniforms, they seemed to stand taller, walk prouder. It was the cap that did it. That cap with the crossed sabers. It was poison for me to have to ask anyone for anything and I already knew that, besides whatever IOU he would make me sign for his help, Vikers would demand a thorough licking of his hindquarters, but I didn’t see as I had any choice in the matter.
Chapter 32
After the necessary parlay with Vikers, I carried my uniform and the enlistment form he’d “adjusted” to the isolated spot on the river where I’d left my woman clothes and carried them to a secluded water hole.
On the bank, I found a nice mossy spot in a patch of sunshine. I hurled the foul buckskins as far away as possible then carefully placed my recruitment issue and the enlistment form that Vikers had fixed for me atop the mossy cushion. I had to keep the paper safe for Vikers’s work in changing my future had cost me dear. I couldn’t help but admire his precision as he had dabbed what he called his “magic mixture” onto the word “infantry” along with the company I’d been assigned to. I guessed his secret potion to be nothing more than lemon juice and baking soda, but it did the trick, lifting off near all the ink the private had laid down. What specks were left, Vikers picked away at with a pin, his hand steadier and his eye sharper than any I’d seen since watching Daddy do his fine handwork.
When the space was blank, Vikers set the paper to dry, and placed one of his IOUs in front of me. I asked him what the freight was, and he answered, “First three months’ pay and any and all favors and services I may require henceforth.”
The money was bad enough, but I near balked thinking of the yards of shit that conniver would have me eat. The whole deal threw a heavy shadow over my dreams of glory aback a horse. Still, I signed my X on Vikers’s paper, and in place of my infantry assignment, he wrote in “9th Cavalry Regiment (Colored), Troop J.” After I made sure that the swirls matched the ones on his paper exactly, I signed his damn IOU.
It took more than an hour to scrub away every bit of Dupree’s filth and stench, but I stepped from the chilly pond clean and fresh as a new-saved soul. I used Dupree’s stolen straight-edge to slice long, wide strips from my old skirt. When I’d collected enough to do the job, Iyaiya joined me and I kneeled so as to properly receive the strength she’d come to deliver. I traced my fingertips over the rows of dots that marked me as her Africa grandchild and whispered the words Iyaiya had learned Mama:
I cut strength into you. I cut belonging—me to you, you to me, we to the N’Nonmiton—into you. I cut a warning into you that no unwelcome hand shall ever touch you and go unpunished.
I tried to call the dead soldier back, to feel the touch of his fingers on my woman’s body before I hid it away. But he would not come. For a moment, I was sad to know that the bond between us wasn’t strong enough for me to call him back even for a moment. Then, like I always did, I put aside any feeling that made me weak and picked up a strip of the skirt’s fabric. “Negro cloth” it was called for such was the rough weave that my people wore and I now used it to bind my breasts. I wrapped the coarse, scratchy strips tight, pulling hard so as to make what had once been round flat.
The wool flannel army shirt ballooned out around me while the sleeves stopped near half a foot from my wrists, leading me to believe that the shirt’s previous owner must have had the shape of a cannonball. A whiskey barrel would have fit nicely in the sky-blue trousers. The only things keeping them in the vicinity of my body were the canvas suspenders and a belted strap I used to cinch them up until it looked like I was being held captive in a tow sack. The blue sack coat was little better except for this: it had the brass buttons with the eagle clutching his arrows.
I buttoned the jacket and rubbed my palms down the front, pleased that nothing bumped out. I took in a deep breath and was overwhelmed by a feeling I almost couldn’t identify as it came from a long time ago. From when my Iyaiya would hold me and sing her Africa songs. I felt as sleepy now as I had back when I was held in the old lady’s arms. I gathered up some fallen limbs and a few armfuls of tall grass to make myself a little nest, laid down, and sleep overtook me with a suddenness I hadn’t knowed since childhood. Before I blinked out, one word came to me, “Safe.”
That’s what I felt in the blue suit. I felt safe.
Chapter 33
“Oooh, Lord. Oh, sweet Lord Jesus.”
The faster the train went, the louder Lemuel’s terrified moans grew. I had been stunned when he’d boarded the cavalry train and took a seat beside me. There was no way that the hulking country boy, who was my height but had an easy thirty pounds on me, could have made it into the cavalry on the square. I realized then that Lem was a sight slyer than he let on and must have gone to Vikers to get his papers doctored just as I had. I had no chance to bring our shared secret up, though, for the instant the train jerked into motion, my friend took leave of his senses, and as the screeching, speed, and swaying picked up he went completely, moon-baying crazy.
When Lem’s eyes commenced rolling in his head, I feared he was about to go full possessed by the spirit and I clapped my hand over his mouth. Our car was packed. Lots more men than seats. Lemuel and me’d been lucky to grab two and I didn’t want to lose them anytime soon.
“Lem, don’t trouble yourself, man. This the way trains do. Nothing to fret over.” But Lem continued making low howls in the back of his throat, his eyes wide and wild. And he wasn’t the only one out of his head with fear. Though I let not a trace of fear appear on my face, I was also among those on the verge of making water in their pants. And why not? Fastest I’d ever moved in my life before this was whatever top speed a balky mule chose to attain, and now we were careening along in an iron box at, some said, close to twenty mile an hour.
Add to that the shrieks of the iron wheels against the iron rails, the rocking, the sudden jolts that pitched us all near out of our seats, and the eternal trickery of the white man, and who really knew what was to befall us? No wonder a right smart of the men had already heaved up their guts and the stink had the rest of us wobbling on the edge of doing the same.
And no hope of a breath of fresh air, either, as all the windows had been nailed shut and painted over. The Yankees could order the Rebs to carry us on their Central Virginia R.R., but it was up to the Seceshes how they’d do it. And nailing shut and painting the windows black was how they chose. Both to make the ride a torture for us and so whites couldn’t see their worst nightmare come to life: railroad cars filled with black soldiers wearing the blue suit about to be given guns and horses. Just like Solomon had warned, Southerners looked on us, not so much as cattle been rustled away from them, but as the rustlers themselves who’d stolen their God-given property. Ourselves.
Luckily, the painters had done a poor job and if I scooted down in my seat, I had a passable view through a spot they’d missed. What I saw was a country in ruins. The fields where cotton and corn had once grown were nothing but charred stalks. Sheridan had burned every barn and left nothing growing in the fields except stinkweed and bur grass. Soldiers more skeletons than men, their shoes tied to their feet with rags, tramped back to homes that probably weren’t there anymore. We chugged past a gaunt woman and her children, thin blond
hair whipped about by the train wind that blew hissing steam and hot cinders their way.
Should I have felt pity for these miserable souls? I did not. I wished with all my heart that I could of wiped the windows clean so that every planter, Rebel, pattyroller, slave catcher, and all the poor whites whose fondest hope in life had been to have their very own slave to whip could see us riding high above them. Only two things the South ever had was land and slaves. Now one was burned to ashes and the other was riding away on the railroad.
“Justice Vikers wants that seat,” Greene barked, startling me. Being Vikers’s buddy had put starch in the spine of that bat-eared fool. Vikers followed and the men packed into the aisle like a cartridge rammed down the throat of a musket made way as best they could.
“Cathay,” he said, smooth as a master who didn’t need to remind a slave who owned her. One word from him and some army clerk’d start checking the records and find out that Cathay, William, was meant for the infantry.
Reluctantly, I stood.
“You too, Mule,” Caldwell, the no-neck one, added.
Lem and I wedged in among those afoot. I put Vikers out of my mind and concentrated on imagining the Southerners out beyond the painted windows watching the source of their wealth and pride and way of life slip from their cruel grasp forever.
In that dark, puke-stinking box rocking us north, I smiled as I delivered the news to Iyaiya, I have escaped. I am captive no more.
Chapter 34
We unloaded on the banks of the Mississippi River in East St. Louis and took a ten-mile paddleboat ride downriver. At the dock we were met by a young white corporal name of Withers who was jovial and welcoming even though he had the strangely rosy cheeks of one taken with consumption and a cough that left his handkerchief speckled with blood. We gathered our traps and Withers led us up the bluff to the post, talking and coughing all the way.
As we entered the post, Withers told us that Jefferson Barracks had been a hospital during the war. Eighteen thousand patients, Yankee and Reb, himself included, had come through and left behind a whole quarry’s worth of white marble tombstones in a big graveyard.
“Want to have a look-see?” Withers asked, eager as a kid with a new bag of hand-rolled clay marbles to show off.
Graveyards were not one of my people’s favorite spots. Especially not when the sun was setting and the lonely cries of hootie owls were greeting the night. But the corporal was already leading us there, carrying on with his own special guided tour. As I’d done during the journey here, I hovered at the edge, away from the other men who were always jostling and bumping into each other, heedless as a litter of kittens. I stayed extra far away from Vikers, who kept his eye on me tight as a planter watching a bad runaway.
No matter how far from my draft group I went, though, Lemuel stayed right next to me, true as a shadow. My back ached from caving my shoulders forward so far my sack coat made a straight line from where I kept it buttoned below my chin down to my crotch. The sweat that collected along the rough bindings strapped around my breasts caused a terrible itching. I yearned to do nothing more than sit off by myself alone somewhere and scratch.
The corporal showed us an immense mound where they had buried the body parts sawed off by surgeons during the war. Then he went on for a bit about the unforgettable smell of gangrene. “Makes you want to cut off your own nose,” he promised us. “Just see if it don’t!”
After that detour, he led us to Jefferson Barracks. Though the place scared me spitless for reasons I’ll go into a bit later, it was a grand post. It set a few miles south of St. Louis, high atop a bluff looking down on the Mississippi River. From up there the river was a surging thing that, though brown as a muddy dog during the day, went golden when the sun set and evening came on.
The buildings were made of white limestone that fair shimmered in the sunlight, and everywhere you looked tall oaks cast a heavy, cooling shade. Long rows of one- and two-story buildings and wide verandas made a rectangle open on one end to the breezes that blew up off the river and set Old Glory to snapping on her high staff.
“And here is where you new recruits will be quartered,” Withers announced, stopping outside a plain, wooden structure. “Carlisle Barracks.”
We cautiously entered the two-story building, awed by the high ceilings and windows that let in a lavish of light. Though the floors were a good bit tore up and so moldy and rotted in spots that an odor of decay fell heavy about the large room, they were wood. For most who had slept on dirt their whole lives, it was paradise.
“Had the dysentery cases in here,” the corporal babbled on. “Tell you what: couldn’t pay me to sleep on them beds.”
All the Appomattox men kept glancing around. The same question that was on my mind showed on their faces. The old Cathy would of piped right up and asked, “Where’s Sergeant Allbright?” but William Cathay had to keep his head down, lay low, and not attract attention.
Finally one of a group of six friends who’d all come off the same plantation in Georgia and been recruited at Appomattox said, “Suh, ’scuse me, suh.” His accent was so country Southern the words dripped out of him more than being spoken. Later I would learn that his name was Duchamps but his friends called him Tea Cake. The rest had nicknames like Baby King and Ivory. Four of them were Duchamps’s brothers and cousins, but I never figured out which four.
“Yes, Private,” the corporal said.
“Where’s Sergeant Allbright?”
“Who?” the corporal said.
“Sergeant Allbright. One who recruited us. Said we’d be riding west with him.”
“Never heard the name,” Withers said. Shoulders sagged all around me. We’d been bamboozled again.
Chapter 35
I will now tell you why this cozy, damn near luxurious, warm, lighted place was hell: no privacy. I’d never expected the army would put us all inside, but Solomon was right again. There weren’t any tents where I could get off by myself to unwind the infernal binding and catch me a full breath. I wasn’t going to last three years without a full breath.
Worse even than the barracks, though, was when the corporal led us to the colored men’s washroom. A long, galvanized tin trough ran the length of one side. The men stepped right up and, with much jolly splashing, sent their torrents rushing down the thing.
In the hubbub, no one noticed me hanging back, the whites of my eyes turning yellow from having held my water for so long. At least on the train, there’d been a bucket off in a little closet. How was I going to do my business here? I’d pictured woods. Privies off by themselves. Just when I was about to give up and shuck off to pull a plow somewhere, the corporal said, “For those that need them, outhouses are around back.”
I rushed outside and slipped into one of those rickety, stinking chambers, praising the Lord for delivering me. Those disgusting outhouses would be my salvation.
Next stop was the quartermaster’s where we each drew thirteen pounds of hay. Back in the barracks, while we stuffed our mattress ticks with the hay, Corporal Withers informed us that our first duty the next morning would be to report to the bathhouse. “Army requires every man to get him a bath once a week. Keeps the lice down. Some.”
Oh, Queenie. Solomon chuckled. What’d I tell you? You figured you’d be off in your own cozy tent, sneaking on down a lonely creek once a month or so for a wash way soldiers always done, didn’t you? he asked.
That’s exactly what I had been thinking, remembering how the only soldiers I’d ever seen naked in water were the two ladies in Cedar Creek. Most of the men never even peeled off their drawers when they bathed. Just wet down a bit, snuck a hand inside, rubbed here and there, and called it a day.
Withers had even worse news. “When the bugler sounds reveille tomorrow, every single one of you will report to Sergeant Baumgartner at the bathhouse.”
Baumgartner?
The name had a terrifyingly Kraut sound to it. A bath was one thing, but a bath supervised by a Kraut was a whole oth
er can of worms as Krauts were known for their mania for cleaning every nook and cranny. The prospect of having my own personal nooks and crannies cleaned threw me into a state.
I panicked, imagining being stripped naked in front of Vikers and his men. The corporal had his hand on the doorknob about to leave me to my fate, when he tapped a finger to his head to signal he’d just recollected something, turned and said, “You all have to report tomorrow except for one man. I need a volunteer to carry food to the guardhouse.”
Iyaiya had saved me again.
Mine was the only hand that shot up.
Then the corporal added, “Besides the bath, this volunteer will be excused from drill and all duty except…”
Every single man put his hand up.
“… sink duty.”
All the hands dropped and even mine quivered a bit for sinks were latrines and I already knew enough about men and latrines that I was gagging at the thought. Still I kept my hand up. Not another one was raised, and I thought my worries were over. Then I spotted one other volunteer. Tea Cake. The other Georgia boy they called Ivory explained brightly, “Tea Cake cain’t smell. Not a lick. Not since he got too close when Sherman was running the Rebs out of Atlanta and they done set fire to all them railroad cars loaded with ammunition. The boom knocked the smell right out of Tea Cake’s nose.”
Tea Cake grinned proudly as Ivory concluded, “Stick a dead possum under his nose, he’ll eat that booger and lick his chops while he’s doing it.”
Tea Cake lowered his eyes modestly at the extent of his gift. Withers picked him for the guardhouse duty.
As soon as the door closed behind the corporal, Vikers, who’d gathered a whole new congregation about himself, brayed out, “All right, men, everyone claim a spot.” Which we were all going to do anyway, but him saying it first made it like we were following his orders. Me and Lemuel took bunks as far from Vikers as we could get and settled in for the night.