High Hearts

by Rita Mae Brown

  “Wore a pink coat, white breeches, and those top boots, did he?” Banjo unceremoniously pointed to the Prussian.

  “It worked. Stuart noticed him.”

  “He’d be hard to hide,” Private Parker chimed in.

  “Colonel,” Geneva asked Mars, “do they look like that in Prussia?”

  “Some do.” Mars rested his hands on his saddle pommel. “Some units have long horsehair manes dyed in regimental colors flowing from their helmet halfway down their back. You should see it when they ride. Male Valkyries!”

  “What’s that?” Banjo inquired.

  “One of twelve female warriors from Valhalla, the Teutonic heaven. When a warrior dies on the battlefield, a Valkyrie rides down to bring him to the hall of heroes where he feasts with Odin.”

  “Do they fight, too?” Geneva let a hint of a grin flicker across her face.

  “The fiercest warriors in Teutonic mythology are the Valkyries. They ride naked from the waist up except for breastplates.”

  Parker’s ears picked up. “Say, think we might enlist a few?”

  “Just for you, Parker,” Mars replied.

  Heroes removed the body of Latane from his horse and swiftly carried him into the nicely kept house. Stuart emerged, remounted, and the column moved on. The ladies and servants of the Brockenborough place came out on the porch to wave to the men as they passed by.

  “Where are we headed now?” Banjo asked, after another sixteen miles of fighting and marching.

  “Tunstall Station,” Parker said. “About eight miles from here. That’s where we’re going unless the general changes direction.”

  “The Yankees have to know we’re here.” Geneva unbuttoned the top of her tunic, revealing the shirt underneath. The sun was blazing.

  Mars called back, “They know we’re here. The question is, Where are they?”

  From a slight distance it sounded like Chinese firecrackers.

  Mars fished his gold filigree watch from his back pocket. The chain, fastened to his belt, was long enough so he could bring the timepiece around his waist. The sun fried him. “Someday someone will figure out how to make an accurate, light watch, and that man will make a fortune.”

  “Sure ’nuff,” Banjo agreed, “but you’d lose a valuable weapon. Twirl that thing over your head, Colonel, and you could decapitate offenders.”

  “Parker, up front,” Mars ordered the young private. “They’re ready for you to scout.” Parker tipped his hat to Banjo, Geneva, and Sam and cantered forward.

  “That’s the life,” said Geneva, “being a scout, jumping ditches and fences, a life of adventure.”

  “If we fight around Charlottesville, you can be our scout,” Mars promised.

  “Think we will?” Geneva’s high voice climbed higher.

  “No one knows where armies will collide, especially when commanded by peculiar generals like that Yankee Hooker, for instance. But I think Charlottesville is safe. No important railroad junction or precious material will lure them that way. Course, if they want horses, you might get raiding parties.”

  Geneva thought of Yankees riding up the long driveway. What would her mother do? Well, it couldn’t happen.

  “Firing stopped,” Banjo laconically noted.

  “Think we’ll turn back, Colonel?” Sam Wells asked. There was an army between him and Richmond. Not that he minded.

  “We know where their right stops. But if we turn back, they’ll be waiting for us at every crossroads along the way. If they aren’t that alert, you’d think they’d have the sense to burn the bridge at the Totopotomy and bag us there,” Mars replied.

  “This is most interesting. I don’t think I’ve ever been in this situation.” Banjo grinned mischievously.

  “Tunstall’s Station is McClellan’s main supply line, according to Parker.”

  “There ought to be infantry there.” Sam removed his cap and ran his fingers through his sweating head, hair sticking out between his fingers. “What’s to prevent the Yankees from sending troops down the York River Railroad to intercept us there?”

  “Nothing,” Mars replied. “Except everything we’ve seen indicates these boys are sloppy as hell.”

  “Isn’t General Stuart’s father-in-law commanding?” Banjo enjoyed personal gossip.

  “If he is, he’s doing a piss poor job of it.”

  “It’s this heat.” Banjo appeared philosophical. “Those fellows can’t stand the heat. That’s why they wear blue coats. Makes them dream of ice and snow. They’d be better off if they’d go home, poor things.”

  Mars called ahead and put Sam Wells in charge. Sam cut out and moved ahead of the unit. Banjo and Geneva, side by side, rode behind him. The column spread out longer than its formerly tight half-mile span. News came up from the rear that the firing was from advance Federal units who withdrew after harmlessly discharging their rifles.

  Geneva turned and looked behind her. A fantastic red ball seemed to be advancing upon her or the earth. Sunset and the long, summer, Virginia dusk would soon envelop them in pink light.

  “First firefly!” She pointed out the blinking light to Banjo.

  “Just think if we could light up our rear ends like that. Never get lost in the dark.”

  “Banjo, who knows what you’d attract?” Sam jibed him.

  A commotion rumbled up from the rear.

  “What in the hell are they doing back there?” Sam twisted in his saddle.

  “Well, they’ve got that big rifle and the howitzer. Guess they have a right to commotion. This road has seen better days,” Geneva reminded him.

  “Captain, may I go back?” Banjo said.

  “Yes, but then come forward.” Sam thought this would give him relief from Jimmy and Banjo’s incessant chatter. If a fence rail was down, one would point it out to the other. If a red-winged blackbird flew overhead, Jimmy would relate some superstition about it. A squirrel brought forth a torrent of culinary advice from Banjo.

  Banjo soon reported back to Sam. “A party of about twenty-five Federals plus a captain and one assistant surgeon surrendered to Lieutenant Colonel Martin. They think we’re advance guard for a large body of infantry. Ignorance is bliss.”

  “Thank you, Banjo.”

  Banjo fell alongside Geneva. The gossip started again, as inevitably as the sea returning at high tide. Wells thought, it’s a terrible death to be talked to death.

  Geneva noticed that two squadrons detached themselves from the main body when they halted at Wynne’s Shop and Hopewell Church. While watering Gallant, Geneva inquired about the squadrons. She was informed that Garlick’s Landing by the Pamunkey River was two miles east. Supplies and horses were supposed to be there, and Stuart aimed to have some. Peeved, Geneva mounted up. Why was everyone else getting to have the fun?

  As they moved toward the railroad station, Geneva encountered overturned wagons, their goods spilling out along the road. The Yankees were running from them fast and light. A sack of potatoes beckoned her but she sighed, kept in line, and beat back dreams of richly scalloped potatoes, cut thin and swimming in cream sauce. Ernie June slowly acquired the proportions of a saint.

  Great plantations, many of them founded long before the Revolutionary War, invested this part of Virginia with special significance. In these rolling lands, washed over by the Atlantic Ocean millions of years back, and today laced with rivers, the English began the slow, brave, and oftimes cruel process of cultivating the New World. Henley’s people began here in the mid-seventeenth century. One bold, dissatisfied Chatfield struck out from the Tidewater and headed for the bloody frontier, the Blue Ridge Mountains. He found the site for Chatfield, traded with Indians, fought when he had to, and eventually found a woman to share his hardships and triumphs.

  The ladies of these hallowed plantations reposed in open carriages where their private road cut into the road to Tunstall. Parasols swaying, they waved, carried out food and drink, and even pressed scented handkerchiefs into the hands of those considered handsome. T
heir servants perched on the fences and shouted out encouragements to the troopers.

  As Mars rode back to his men, he was particularly favored by a dark-haired beauty. He politely chatted with her and eventually his men caught up with him. He bid farewell to the lady and joined Sam Wells.

  “Oh, Colonel, you are just the handsomest man in the Confederate States of America. I do think I may faint from the sight of you.” Geneva waved her hand over her nose, imitating a lady taking the vapors.

  Mars laughed, then spoke to his regulars. “Well, boys, we’re going to ride around them! We aren’t turning back!”

  “Holy shit!” Sam exclaimed. “Excuse me, sir.”

  “I don’t mind but if Stuart hears you, he’ll give you a speech about temperance and the Methodist Church, it’s worth leaving off creative abuse to be spared.”

  The sky turned velvet cobalt blue, the color of Kate Vickers’s eyes. Another detachment under Captain O.M. Knight separated itself from the column. Von Borcke, John Mosby, and a detail surged ahead to Tunstall’s Station. Geneva wondered if the enemy squared off along the road. If they did, there wasn’t much choice but to try and flank them or bull straight through. Exasperated that she was lodged in the main column and not with the squadron sent to Garlick’s Landing or with the advance party to Tunstall Station, Geneva became sullen.

  “Halt!” Mars ordered.

  The column of tired men and horses lurched to a stop. Another ripple passed from the head of the column to the back. “Bring the guns up.”

  A ripple passed from the rear to the front. “The guns are stuck.”

  They waited.

  Finally Lieutenant Breathed put a keg on the gun and told the men they could have it, if only they would pull. They pulled the guns through the mud and were rewarded with a whiskey keg captured at Old Church earlier in the day.

  Frayser, one of the scouts who lived but a few miles from the road, dashed in from the direction of Tunstall’s Station and reported to Mars. Moonlight now flooded the fields, and the young cornstalks shone like small, silver spears.

  “Form platoons!” Mars impatiently hollered. “Draw sabers! We’re going in!”

  Geneva heard the head of the column break into a gallop. Within minutes Gallant, excited by the sounds of hoofbeats running, happily shot forward.

  They roared into Tunstall’s Station. Nothing. The advance guard had scattered the Federals.

  Mars let his saber fall to his side and spat on the ground. “Unbelievable! If I were Abraham Lincoln, I’d court-martial every son of a bitch over the rank of major in this army! Look at this!”

  The station, a ripe plum, was virtually undefended. The two Yankee companies assigned to defend Tunstall Station had made no effort to secure the town. Mars wondered how the Yankees could ignore the fact that the railroad was their lifeline to supplies and to Washington itself. Did they think their opponents would be as lax as themselves? It seemed McClellan’s idea of a campaign was for an occasional shelling in the direction of Richmond or up in the air to give the gunners practice.

  “Look up there.” Banjo pointed to Lieutenant Robins dangling atop a telegraph pole cutting the wires.

  “All right. Dismount. Put the horses where they can graze.”

  Men began to chop down poles and drag them on the tracks. Mars yanked off his tunic and removed his shirt. Barechested, he lit into a telegraph pole. Banjo and Geneva grabbed axes and did the same. While they were sweating away, about eight men pulled a fourteen-foot-long oak sill across the tracks.

  “Heads up!” Mars cupped his hand to his mouth.

  The telegraph pole crashed across the track. Within seconds, Banjo’s pole fell and then Geneva’s also.

  A train whistle sang its piercing, eerie song. It was about quarter to eleven.

  “Colonel, should I fetch the horses?” Geneva asked.

  “No, enough of the men are in the saddle. If it gets thick and we have to make a run for it, we’ll take our chances. Come with me, Chatfield. Let’s roll this baggage cart alongside the track and turn it over. We can fire from behind it.”

  They ran, their legs rubbery from eighteen hours in the saddle.

  “Take the front and guide. I’ll push the rear,” Mars shouted.

  Geneva and Mars pushed and pulled the cart away from the station, then with help from Banjo and Sam, they turned it on its side. Using a second cart, they created a small barricade about two hundred yards behind the obstruction on the track.

  “Here she comes!” Mars pulled his gun.

  The train slowed, then ripped forward at full speed as the engineer saw the ambush ahead. There were flatcars and a wood car behind the engine. The men on these cars shouted as they were jolted forward.

  Geneva dumped lead into the men on the flatcars as they sped past. A few couldn’t fathom what was happening to them, and they stood straight up in the moonlight. Most of them, upon hearing the shots, wisely dropped flat on their stomachs. Others jumped off, screaming as they hit the tracks.

  “Look at Will Farley!” Sam Wells pointed to his right.

  Will Farley, a young man known for his almost insane disregard for danger, was galloping next to the engine. He put a rifle to his shoulder and fired into the cab. “I got him! I got him!” Farley yelled, waving the rifle over his head. The train pulled away.

  Mars rose. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  They walked along the tracks. Several Yankees were crumpled on the sidings or crawling to get away from them. Geneva easily caught up with one whose legs were broken. He rolled over and pulled his pistol, but she shot him. He twitched and then relaxed. “I wasn’t going to kill you.” She nudged him with the toe of her boot. “What’d you draw for?”

  Banjo was dragging a sergeant major under the arms. “Here, help me with this one. His legs are folded up like an accordion.”

  The Yankee moaned as they dragged him to a waiting bench under a chalked-in train schedule. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “Nothin’,” Banjo replied. “One of your own will find you soon enough. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I thought we held this side of the river.” The Yankee tried to straighten his leg, but couldn’t do it.

  “That’s a matter of opinion.” Geneva looked up and saw billows of smoke curling skyward to the east. “We’ve been successful there, too.”

  Banjo motioned for a trooper to give the Yank a light off his cigar.

  Mars walked over. “Take what food you can out of the wagons over there, burn the rest, and then let’s go. It’s neck or nothing.”

  After looting the wagons, Geneva and Banjo stopped at a small house. An older woman was contentedly sitting on her big, hanging swing. “Hellzapoppin!”

  “Might we ask you a favor, ma’am?” Banjo removed his hat. “We put the Yanks with broken bones by the station office. Would you bring them water? I think it will be a time before their people return.”

  She nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  The column formed up and rode out of Tunstall’s Station. Stuart sent out scouting parties and a detachment to New Baltimore Store but the bulk of the column rode, stumbled, and fought to keep awake as they threaded down the dirt roads.

  JUNE 14, 1862

  Geneva, because of her youth, didn’t get as sleepy as the others. Gallant was worn, but not blown out. Banjo curled his right leg around the pommel of his saddle and slept.

  Mars bobbed to one side and then the other. Finally Geneva rode up next to him. Every time he’d fall over, she’d hold out her arm to right him, then he’d mumble and doze off again.

  The moon was on the other side of the sky when they stopped at St. Peter’s Church.

  Mars dismounted, groggy but willing himself awake. “Boys, take a break. Water your mounts, wrap the reins over your shoulder when you’re done, then lie down for a spell.”

  The men thankfully did as they were told. Geneva dropped on the ground lying on her back with her arms outstretched. She wrapped t
he reins around her wrist. She didn’t know how long she slept, but it was still dark when she was ordered to her feet. “Mount up!”

  A flicker of gray glowed in the heat. The column turned down the lane to Sycamore Springs, the house of Lieutenant Jonas Christian. They passed the house and came to a blind ford. Forge Bridge was a mile away, but had been destroyed. Stuart figured that’s where the Federals would head. Stuart knew the Yankees were two hours behind his column, and this ford would get his men across unnoticed. By now the Yankees were aroused at Stuart’s encirclement of their entire force. They were determined to catch the twelve hundred Confederates and save face.

  Mars, wide awake, walked up and down the banks of the raging Chickahominy.

  “It’s never been this bad,” Christian mournfully said.

  Rooney Lee stripped and swam across. Swimming back, the half-drowned man was hauled out of the gurgling water by John Easten Cooke. “What do you think of the situation, Colonel?”

  Dripping wet, Rooney shook himself and began putting on his clothes. “Well, Captain, I think we are caught.”

  “There’s got to be a way over!” Mars hunkered down. “What if I swam across with a rope and pulleys, and we rigged a tram?”

  “We’d get the men over, but not the horses,” Rooney replied.

  “Some of us could swim the horses over.”

  “Too many of them. We’ve picked up over two hundred and fifty besides our own. And there’s mules, too.”

  “Let’s walk downstream to see if we can find another ford,” Mars pressed.