High Hearts

by Rita Mae Brown

  Finally, Lee, who didn’t have time for personal huffs, took Hill out of jail and sent him to Jackson, hoping those two could pull in harness. General Pope was on the upper Rappahannock threatening northern Virginia. His supply line was the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, and he might mean to cut up the Virginia Central Railroad, which was Richmond’s link with the west. The point of the Confederate compass was stuck in Richmond, but the pencil leg was swinging out into northern Virginia.

  Jackson attacked Yankees at Cedar Mountain, driving them off the field. The papers said it was the advance guard of General N.P. Banks.

  What concerned Lutie more than the scandal or the battle of Cedar Mountain was the massing of Confederate troops at Gordonsville, just a holler from Charlottesville. Federal cavalry raided Beaver Dam Station in Louisa County last month. That was close, but Gordonsville was closer.

  Geneva was out there somewhere. Lutie’s thoughts centered on Geneva more and more, not only because she was all that was left of the family, but because she knew her daughter was caught in a cross fire between Mars Vickers and Nash Hart.

  Geneva’s destiny might be bizarre, but it was hers, and she grasped it. Lutie respected her for that, but she missed her strong presence at home!

  Standing in the meadow, ankle deep in sweet grass, Lutie watched the sun disappear in the west, flooding the hills, the plains, the running streams with the pink and golden glow of life. Clouds rose up from the meadows like soft creamy wings seeking the bodies of gigantic birds. Watching the sun rise made her want to soar like the low clouds rising up to meet the sky, the sun, perhaps God.

  Poor orphan God, she thought, as a brilliant red cardinal darted out of the struck chestnut tree. We have deserted you, haven’t we? Does man first desert God or other men? Where is the initial rupture in accord? Perhaps the initial rupture, the first drifting away from harmony, occurs inside the self.

  As a young woman, she thought her marriage would be one long idyll. When Henley began his disastrous liaison with Di-Peachy’s mother, Lutie thought Henley’s unfaithfulness was her fault. Why didn’t she see then that Henley wasn’t responsible for her happiness? He could add or detract, but only she could create happiness.

  The children brought some happiness, but they also brought trials. In Geneva, she wanted a replica of herself. She wasn’t always cheerful when she got it. Her first inkling that Geneva absorbed more than she realized was at dinner one night when Geneva was four years old. Henley led the family in a prayer of thanks for the abundant food. Geneva said, “Me and Sumner didn’t pray.”

  Henley indulgently chided her. “Where is my good little girl?”

  “She’s not here today.” A few mouthfuls later, Geneva added, “But she’ll be back in time for dessert.” Lutie’s irreverence stared at her from the face of her four-year-old daughter.

  And I never appreciated her, Lutie thought. She had to find her way in her time. I was young in a different time. Why was I so hard on Geneva? Lutie felt she had no right to look for answers in her children when the answers should have come from inside herself.

  As for Di-Peachy, how could she have taken out her hurt on an innocent child? But she had, and she still couldn’t warm to her. And as for Sin-Sin, she took her for granted. She never asked Sin-Sin what she wanted, even if Sin-Sin was her servant.

  In subtle or blatant ways, she used everyone in her life to give her what only she could give herself: joy, meaning, peace.

  Lutie held out her arms to the sunlight. Her anguish had brought her this form of resurrection. Her mistakes had brought her closer to God. She did not know God as much as she felt God.

  A loud munching startled her. Decca, one of the big draft horses, had pushed open a paddock gate. “Come on, Decca, let’s go back to the stable, big girl.” She patted the mighty neck and was rewarded with an affectionate nuzzle on her cheek. “Decca, everything here is the same, but I have changed.”

  AUGUST 22, 1862

  Geneva scrawled “Master Sergeant James Chatfield, First Virginia Cavalry” in the register of the Warrenton Hotel when Stuart allowed his men to rest an hour. She thought she’d be grand and put her name in the register.

  She’d ridden hard the last two days, rising with the moon at 4 A.M. Late in the afternoon at Kelly’s Ford on the Rappahonnock, her regiment skirmished with Yankee cavalry.

  From that afternoon and all of Thursday, a series of dogfights entangled both the Yankee and the Confederate cavalry. The Yankees no longer ran at the sight of a gray horseman. Mars said they were watching the fords to catch early intelligence of their troop movements.

  The entire cavalry in Virginia was now under the command of J.E.B. Stuart, who’d been jumped up to major general. He had three brigades, fourteen regiments, and two batteries for his cavalry division. Lee was using Stuart more efficiently, and Lee himself was becoming more efficient.

  After the Battle of Seven Days, a great many promotions were handed out. Mars was promised a brigade when enough recruits were found to form one. Benserade was a major. Nash, to his surprise, was promoted to a sergeant. Mars asked Banjo if he wanted his name put forward for captain. Banjo said being a lieutenant was about as much officering as he could stand.

  Every lady who could run, walk, or hobble under the overcast skies gathered down at the Warrenton Hotel to admire the cavalrymen. Von Borcke, now a major, swaggered to good effect for the damsels. Geneva leaned against the registration desk and laughed at his antics.

  When a lady, seeing her alone, offered her a dyed feather for her cap, Geneva graciously took it and kissed the lady’s hand.

  Mars walked into the lobby from the serving room. He spied Geneva with the feather in her cap and the fluttering Warrenton girl. “What have we here? A little Stuart? How about a Stuartette? Or Stuart Minor? Why is it everyone wants a plume in their hat just like J.E.B.?”

  “What’d you eat in there?” Geneva noticed the girl oogling Mars. “Oh, Miss …?”

  “Rebecca Rifton.”

  “Miss Rebecca, this is Colonel Mars Vickers, a military legend. When he isn’t beating up on the Yankees, he keeps in practice on his wife.”

  Rebecca Rifton was shocked.

  Mars bowed to the stupefied girl. “Jimmy has an overactive imagination, ma’am. But I think I’ll take a lesson from him and start beating up on this poor, sapskulled boy.”

  He picked Geneva up under her armpits and carried her to the lobby amidst the laughter of the men. Putting her down, he addressed his comrades and the ladies.

  “Boys, let’s mount up. Ladies, we will return to you as soon as we convince our former comrades in the United States Army to pay us proper respect and go home to their own ladies. You know, I believe the reason they are trying our patience with their presence is now that they’ve caught sight of you beautiful Virginia ladies, they don’t wish to return to the homegrown variety.”

  Back on the road, the column turned east toward Auburn, seven miles from Warrenton. Once at Auburn they turned again toward Catlett’s Station. The clouds which threatened them throughout the day changed violet-black after sunset, hurling their fury earthward. In brutal darkness and lashing rain, the men halted outside of Catlett’s Station. Despite the weather, they kept in tight formation. They were in General Pope’s rear. At any turn they might encounter Yankees, and they knew without a doubt that Catlett’s Station was loaded with Yanks.

  “Aren’t we going to attack?” Geneva asked Mars.

  “Not until we know exactly where we are. You can’t see the hand in front of your face.”

  The horrendous downpour drowned out sounds. At the front of the column, Stuart questioned a prisoner taken with the few Yankees they’d rounded up today. He was a black teamster, and upon recognizing Stuart, he offered to guide him through this mess right to Pope’s headquarters between Catlett’s Station and Cedar Run, which by now would be boiling over.

  The man was as good as his word. Stuart and his men found themselves at the very edge of a large e
ncampment which they could only see during the flashes of jagged lightning. The Ninth Virginia was ordered to hit Pope’s headquarters. The First and Fifth Virginia were to make a diversion at the adjoining camp. Captain Blackford, the engineer with the Fourth Virginia, was ordered to destroy the railroad bridge over Cedar Run.

  With a surge Geneva hurtled forward in the blinding rain. As they crossed the tracks, Geneva reined in. Sam Wells, coming up behind her, shouted through the thunder and quick gunfire, “What are you doing?”

  “I’ll cut the wire. Hold my horse, will you?”

  Sam seized the reins, and Geneva shimmied up the telegraph pole like a monkey. At the top, she pulled her saber and slashed the wires. She slid down, leaping off about fifteen feet from the ground. As she swung into the saddle, she grasped Sam’s hands for the reins. The searing blue of lightning showed her Sam was slumped forward in his saddle. She pried his reins out of his hand and lead them both forward into the pitch, the screaming, and the commotion.

  Banjo almost collided with her in the darkness. “Can’t destroy the bridge. Not enough axes.” He stretched forward. “Who’s that?”

  “Sam Wells.”

  Recall sounded between thunderclaps. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve done all we can do.”

  Fearing harassment by pursuing cavalry, Geneva couldn’t attend to Sam until they were two miles from Catlett’s Station.

  Nash helped her. “His legs are frozen on this animal.”

  Mars rode up. “We can’t stop.”

  “I’ve got to see if he’s alive.”

  “Who is it?” Mars called.

  “Sam Wells,” Nash answered.

  Geneva felt his pulse. “He’s dead, Colonel.”

  “If the Yankees come after us, you’ll have to dump him,” Mars shouted through the relentless downpour.

  “I know,” Geneva answered.

  By daybreak the cavalry was back in Warrenton.

  Geneva removed Sam Wells’s personal effects to send to his family. If the army had time to bury a man, the family was told the location in case they wished to remove the body later or visit the grave. Very often there wasn’t time for that. Sometimes the body was sent home, although this was usually reserved for officers.

  Geneva opened Sam’s Bible. A note fell out. The note read: The bearer of this body to Martha Wells of Charlottesville, Virginia, will receive $500.

  Nash read it. “He must have had some premonition like your father.”

  Banjo found a box to use as a casket.

  The three of them, before resting themselves, laid Sam’s body in the sturdy pine box. They also located a young boy who was willing to drive the body to Charlottesville in his wagon. They put the note in an envelope and addressed it to Martha. They wrote a second note to Sam’s infant son, Samuel Wells, Junior.

  As the wagon rolled down the Warrenton Turnpike, Geneva thought to herself, “Who next?”

  AUGUST 24, 1862

  The one thing Geneva liked about hard fighting was that she didn’t have to do the dishes. Camp life worked on her nerves. Life in the saddle suited her. A hot meal was a rarity. Often they awoke and leapt in the saddle without even morning coffee, although Banjo, ever hopeful, wrapped a tin coffee pot in his bedroll.

  Last night when they bivouacked, they didn’t unsaddle their horses although they let them graze. The cavalry patrolled the south side of Hegeman’s River which fed into the Rappahannock. Every ford of the Rappahannock was contested. Pope massed eighty thousand men on the other side of the river plus he had another twenty thousand at Aquia Creek. Confederate forces were half that number.

  In the faint light of dawn, Geneva consulted her church almanac. It was Sunday, the Feast of St. Bartholomew, the tenth Sunday after Trinity. The lesson was Numbers, chapter 23, and Acts, chapter 28. Acts stretched through the summer. St. Paul relished his misadventures, and Geneva began to suspect that he might have exaggerated.

  Geneva mused to herself that Stuart probably called yesterday’s battle a skirmish. No fighting is a skirmish if one is in it, and yesterday one thousand mounted men rode up to the Waterloo Bridge from Fords below it, firing, ducking, and running every inch of the way.

  She walked down to the river to fill her canteen. The temperature was deliciously mild for late August, but then the sun wasn’t over the horizon yet. She saw a Yankee on the other side of the river, also filling his canteen.

  Putting her hand on her holster, she called over, “Yank, I won’t fire if you won’t.”

  “All right by me. I’ll get you later.” He waved, finished his task, and left.

  An approaching Confederate rider sent Geneva back to the camp. The men were up. Mars, with field glasses, studied the bridge. The corporal saluted Mars and asked for Benserade. Mars pointed to the major.

  A courier grinned as he handed Benserade a smudged envelope.

  Benserade nervously opened the message and then let out a whoop. “Boys, I’m a father! An eight-pound baby girl!” He leapt in the air. The other men crowded around him, slapping him on the back. “If we ever hit civilization again, I’m going to buy every man in this regiment a drink!”

  Geneva, Nash, and Mars rejoiced with Benserade, but each was inwardly glum because having children seemed impossible now.

  The sun, finally free of the horizon, brought with it artillery fire from the other side of the river.

  “The only reason they want this bridge is because it’s named Waterloo.” Nash quickly mounted.

  “And it’s easier to get an army over a bridge than through the fords.” Geneva rode beside him.

  Mars deployed his men. Most of them had already dismounted, firing across the river. He sent Geneva and Nash northward to check the videttes posted on the upper fords. The lower fords were well covered. Banjo was dispatched back to General Longstreet to inform him that the bridge was going to be hotly contested and might he show his infantry in force as well as bring up artillery?

  A small stucco house, painted bright white, at the edge of the bridge already had cannonballs stuck in its side.-As Geneva and Nash galloped past it, she thought years from now these souvenirs would add to its charm, the owner bragging about the fight for Waterloo Bridge. Right now though, everyone in that house was either under the bed or running to Warrenton.

  At each ford they stopped, learned that no Federals had been seen, and continued to the next one.

  Nash, in ebullient spirits, was whistling. “What have we got, one vidette left?”

  “Yes, but I heard there was another ford about one mile or a mile and a half above it. To be safe we ought to check it, too.”

  As they approached, the four men posted on the ford straightened up. A short, stocky man saluted.

  “Seen anything?” Nash asked.

  “Nothing. What’s going on down there? Sounds like a tussle.” He was curious.

  “Contesting the bridge. Something to do, I guess. Takes their minds off the heat.”

  “Not too bad today. Bugs are fierce,” the stocky man replied.

  “Thank you, Private. We’re going to check one last ford.”

  “Nobody’s posted up there.”

  “I figure they’ve seen our videttes same as we’ve seen theirs. If they did a decent job of reconnaissance, they may have discovered this ford by themselves.”

  “Sergeant,” he said, addressing Nash, “they’re getting tougher, don’t you think?”

  “No longer novices in killing.” Nash saluted and pushed on, the river on his right.

  After fifteen minutes at a pleasant curve in the river, they beheld the huge gates to an estate.

  The two of them stopped, tilting their heads up. The stones were pale gray and smooth, giving the gate a triumphal appearance. Carved over the left gate in Latin was the following inscription:

  SALVE

  En age segnes

  Rumpe moras—vocat ingenti

  clamore Cithaeron

  Tangetique canes—domitrixque

  Epidaurus
equorum

  Et vox assensu—nemorum

  Ingeminata remuquit.

  Carved in the same bold style on the right gate was:

  HUNTLAND

  Fields, woods, and streams

  Each towering hill

  Each humble vale below

  Shall hear my cheering voice

  My hounds shall wake the lazy morn

  And glad the horizon round.

  “Here’s to today’s fox.” Nash held out an imaginary toast.

  “Makes me homesick.”

  “The gate or thinking of foxhunting?” He stood up in the saddle and stretched.

  “Both.”

  “If you were home, you might see the Harkaway Hunt.” Nash teased her.

  “I hope not. Might as well go back. I think we’ve seen everything.”

  A splashing of water drew her attention away from the gate. Six Federal cavalrymen clambered up on the other side of the bank.

  “Nash, let’s go!”

  He turned from the gate, still saying the Latin out loud, “Et vox—”

  A volley of shots rang out. Geneva felt something slide along the sole of her boot. She galloped downstream. Nash wasn’t with her.

  Pulling her pistols, she turned Gallant and headed back to the gate. The Yankees were gone as quickly as they had come.

  Nash was sprawled on the ground, face to the sky.

  “Nash!” She bent over him. One small hole, the only evidence of damage, was through his heart. A small patch of blood seeped out of the wound. Numb, she caught her horse and with difficulty threw his body over it. She headed back for Waterloo Bridge. No need to look for a field hospital. Nash was dead.

  JUNE 11, 1910

  “Then what?” Laura’s wide cognac eyes, the color of her grandmother’s, were moist.

  “I remember riding back into the fight. The colonel went white when he saw me. He accompanied me to the rear of our lines. I could move my limbs, but I couldn’t think. He assigned Banjo to take care of me, and Banjo wrapped Nash’s body in a blanket. How he found a coffin, I don’t know, but he did get one, and we rode the train down to Charlottesville. Colonel Vickers must have wired Mother, because she met us at the station. I only remember that I asked Nash’s father whether he wanted Nash buried next to his mother or buried at Chatfield. The old gentleman asked to have his son, and I didn’t fight him.