Lord, you don’t hear a thing, I said, suddenly angry. Don’t you see this boy suffer? You do nothing. Somebody said the language of God was silence, the big silence of a long time passing. I thought: there is nothing up there in the sky but crows. There is nobody who can hear me.
And then I thought: If God does speak, he speaks the language of cruelty. He speaks the language of pain and torture. Everywhere I looked in the world I saw pain and hurt. I found sickness and brutality. If God talks, he talks with cruelty and silence. The language of the world is hurt and suffering, guilt and hatred.
As the boy was pulled higher his legs danced like he was walking on air. If you couldn’t see the rope you would think he was skipping and treading on the air. They pulled him higher and he looked like a body raised in a spell or vision. His eyes stared out like he was startled.
All the men had taken off their hats. They stood respectful, like it was a sacred moment, now that the boy was squirming and dying. They had done it to him, and now they acted reverent out of respect for him. They stood at attention like it was a ceremony to honor him. They watched the body jerk and shudder till it was still.
What does it mean, I thought, that they are all so respectful as he dies? What is the use of that? And what is the use of a God that would let it happen?
Then I was ashamed of myself, for I knew I was out of my head thinking such things. Was I losing my mind the way Mama had lost hers? My anger and my pride had gotten hold of me. Who was I to question the working out of God’s will in the world? I was the one who had killed Mr. Griffin and deceived everybody about being a boy. I had killed many redcoats that day. What did I know about the nature and mystery of things? Josie, you be quiet, I said. You should think of your baby. You should think of Mama and of John. I was sorry for my anger, and sad for the young Hez Carlton. I was sad for myself.
THE GROUND WAS SHAKING and jolting under me. The hard ground shoved my shoulders and shook my belly. The jerking was so bad I was afraid my bones would pull apart. I was afraid the shaking would hurt the baby. I wondered if it was an earthquake or thunder.
I was so deep asleep I couldn’t open my eyes. I couldn’t even turn my head. The ground knocked and rattled. I was afraid it would shake the baby inside me so it tore loose. I strained to put my hand on my belly to hold it still. It took all my strength just to move my wrist.
The jolting rolled me to one side and then to the other. Is the battle still going on? I wondered. Are the cannons firing? Is there thunder and grinding rocks in the ground? Are millstones rubbing together to make this noise?
And then I remembered I’d seen the preacher at the service for the dead soldiers and he looked like John.
“John,” I called out, and tried to open my eyes. But my eyelids were heavy as stones. “John,” I said again. My eyelids felt glued together, like I had been crying and the lashes stuck. I opened my eyes a little, and the light crashed in and blinded me.
“Oh,” I said.
I had to open my eyes. I had to see what made the ground rock and sway. Why was I pushed to one side and then the other? Why did the ground slam against my back and shake my belly?
I opened my eyes a little more and light hit me like a fist driving a spike into my head. “Oh,” I said again. It was cloudy overhead, but the light was still bright.
“Now you just lay still,” the orderly said.
“Where is John?” I said.
“Don’t know no John.”
The orderly was moving and trees overhead were moving. Limbs swayed and floated out of sight. I must be in a cart or wagon bouncing on a rocky road, I thought. It wasn’t the ground that was quaking, but a wagon bed or cart of some kind. The road jolted me and knocked my belly.
“Where is the general?” I said.
“General done gone north,” the orderly said.
I remembered how Old Morgan had winced when he knelt beside me. He had fought the battle while in great pain. Trees washed past in the air above me. As the wagon jolted, trees dipped and swayed. Sycamores and poplars rushed past me.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“Don’t know, miss,” the orderly said. “Reckon we looking for a place to camp.”
The wagon must have hit a rock or log, for I was knocked sideways. And the jolt woke the pain in my leg. Pain washed through me and over me, and I cried out before I knew it. I hollered louder than I expected to.
“When we stop I’ll give you some more laudanum,” a voice said. I squinted and saw the sergeant walking beside the wagon, the sergeant who had helped the doctor with the wounded.
“My leg hurts,” I said.
“We’ll stop soon to rest,” the sergeant said. “We’ve got to get away from the field before Cornwallis arrives.”
I groaned and reached out to hold the side of the wagon. The pain made me want to crawl away from my leg and out of myself.
“Just hold still,” the sergeant said. “We’ll leave you at the first house we come to.”
“You can’t leave me till I find John,” I said.
“The major says we can’t have no woman in the army,” the sergeant said.
“Whoa,” somebody called out. The wagon tilted sideways and stopped. I heard horses galloping, getting closer and louder.
“It’s not Tarleton?” I said, but nobody heard me, for there was hollering and drumming of hooves. I heard shouts and saw men go by in the sky above me. Horses panted and I smelled sweat and wet horses. Mud and dirt flung into the wagon, and a drop of muddy water splashed on my face.
As quickly as they had appeared the horses were gone. They had passed us and gone on up the road. The hoofbeats faded.
“That was Colonel Washington’s men,” the sergeant said. “I reckon they chased Tarleton as far as they could.” He held a little bottle to my lips and I took a sip of the earthy, musky tincture. I was hurting so badly I needed the sweetness of the laudanum, the saltiness of the tincture. The laudanum soothed like grains of salt on the tongue, making the blood calm and the seconds shiny.
“Don’t leave me out in the woods,” I said.
“We’ll leave you at the first house we come to,” the sergeant said.
“I don’t want to lose my foot,” I said.
The wagon started creaking and jolting again. I slammed from side to side, and the boards smacked against my back. But the laudanum soaked out through me and warmed my legs and toes. I tried to move my toes, but my feet were floating. I was floating and rocked by the wagon. The wagon tilted like a boat in a storm.
I thought how Mama was left alone with nobody to help her. Mama had run me off just when she needed me to stay with her and help her. She was afflicted in her mind. Had the patriots burned her house down? Had they shaved her head and stuck tar and feathers all over her?
If I found John we would go to Mama and help her. The thought of a place in the mountains where we could live in peace brought tears to my eyes. The thought of finding John and going off to the mountains was almost too good to wish for. The thought of being forgiven by Mama in her right mind was too much to hope for. But first I had to find John. I had to ask him to forgive me for deceiving him. I had to tell him about what I had done to Mr. Griffin. But if he was the minister conducting the service on the battlefield we were going away from him.
“You must find my husband John,” I said.
“We don’t have time to look for nobody,” the sergeant said.
If they left me at the first house we came to, I might never find John. If they left me in the woods I would never find my way back to Pine Knot Branch. I could never ask John for his forgiveness. If I died in the woods my baby would die also.
Trees swayed above me and the wagon swung over rocks and banged in mud holes. Would the Lord punish me for my angry thoughts on the battlefield? Would he chastise me because I had questioned his silence and absence? I wondered if I had committed the unpardonable sin.
Don’t punish my baby, I prayed. Punish me but don’t punish
my baby. Don’t punish Mama as a way of punishing me. Instead of being prideful and angry I needed to humble myself. Instead of accusing God I should have admitted my own weakness and sadness. I was helpless on my own.
The wagon jolted but I didn’t feel the pain anymore. The wagon veered like the ground was having fits. “How far have we come?” I said.
But the sergeant must have gone on ahead, or dropped behind, for nobody answered.
“You just lay still,” the orderly said.
WHEN I WOKE AGAIN the wagon bed was tilted so steep I felt I was sliding off. I grabbed the sideboard and raised my head a little. We were on the bank of a wide brown river. I thought it must be the Broad, except water had spread out among the trees and bushes. Water slurped and swerved over the clay banks. Then I remembered that the Broad had been in flood, which was why General Morgan had turned back and fought at Cowpens.
Men were chopping down trees and sawing logs. “Why have we stopped here?” I said. But nobody answered me. All the men except the wounded were chopping and sawing, and sharpening sticks with knives and hatchets.
“Why can’t we use the rafts the army used to cross?” I said. Captain Cox’s company had crossed here more than two weeks before. And then I remembered those rafts must have washed away in the flood or been used by the army that had crossed earlier that day. The army had left their rafts on the other side, as they hurried away from Cornwallis.
“We don’t want to cross over,” I yelled to the sergeant when he walked by carrying an ax. But he ignored me, like my words didn’t make any sense except to me. If John was behind us helping to bury the dead, I wanted to stay on the south bank of the river. I wanted to wait right there till his party caught up with us. How long had I slept? Maybe I had just dreamed I’d seen John on the battlefield.
The pain in my leg and in my side began to return. As the men chopped and sawed and grunted, the pain woke in my shin and in my thigh. Was the pain going to reach the baby in my belly?
I could feel the baby there in the middle of me. The baby was like a glowing seed. And I thought: It is an eye at the center of me. The eye of the future is watching me and seeing all that is happening. All I do is being seen.
I shuddered with the pain. And I put my hands on my belly to protect the baby from the cold, and to keep it from seeing the mess I was in, the mess the world was in.
“Oh!” I said in spite of myself. The pain licked through my bones and over my side. The pain turned my flesh brown and blue, and pulled my thoughts to one side so I couldn’t think clearly.
“Oh!” I said again. But the sergeant and the orderly were too busy to come to me. All the men were chopping logs and joining the logs into rafts with ropes and pegs. Men grunted and heaved. They pulled logs with horses and hollered as more trees started falling. All along the riverbank they hurried as they rolled logs together. They wrapped vines and ropes around logs to make bundles. I tried to look at the river and not think of the pain. But I was too weak to hold my head up for long. The river moved fast and had dimples and pockets and snag scars everywhere. The river was so high it broke in pieces and pulled away in eddies. We can’t ever get across, I thought. We will be drowned.
“No,” I said, but nobody was listening. The wagon moved, and I watched the orderly drive it up onto a raft. The wagon jerked and tilted. And then I felt the logs beneath grind over mud as they pushed them into the river. I raised my head to see what was going on. The orderly and another man held poles and pushed the raft out into the river. One stood on one side of the wagon and the other stood on the other side. With the poles they held the raft steady and pushed it into the middle of the river.
They leaned on the poles and shoved, and the raft dipped and trembled in the fast water. Water seemed to splash right near my ears and close to the back of my head. I was too weak to move and here I was in the shaky wagon in the middle of the raging river. Lord, you’ve got to help me, I said. My baby is in your hands.
A duck flew by making an awful noise. The raft jerked and jumped as the men held it steady with the poles. They pushed together and held the raft against the current. I could smell the ugly water. The river smelled of rotten things, earthworms, mud in sinkholes. I figured we were in the middle of the river, where the current was fastest. I figured we were getting closer to the other bank.
“Whoa!” the man poling with the orderly shouted. I couldn’t see what happened, but the raft turned like a big hand had spun it around. “Whoa!” the orderly shouted. The raft turned and pulled away, and I felt it sweep sideways.
When I raised my head I saw the bank going by and the furrowed river spinning around. I saw the far bank and the other rafts. We hit a snag and jerked to one side. It felt like the wagon would roll off the raft. The men grabbed the wagon and held its wheels. The mules brayed a cry of terror. The other man took the reins and held the mule’s head. “Whoa there,” he said.
We veered sideways and turned a little more. It looked like we would be swept away in the flood and washed all the way to the ocean. I held my belly, and hoped I would float. I would hold onto the wagon hoping it would float.
I tried to see what was happening, but fell back and banged my head on the boards. Instead of sinking and turning over, the raft seemed to slow down. I looked out and saw we had come to a bend in the river. The river turned and slowed there. The raft hit a log and almost stopped. The men pushed with poles and we rocked into the still water where leaves and foam and logs circled and backed in the eddy. The men shoved against the poles and we rocked toward the shore.
The men already across the river found us and cut away brush and grapevines and briars so they could drive the mule and wagon up on the bank. I kept my eyes closed and tried not to feel the ache as the wagon lurched and heaved into the woods and we drove back to the road. It was cloudy and darker now.
Before we lined up on the road and started moving again, the sergeant gave me another sip of laudanum. After I drank the medicine I quit shaking and began to calm down. I was helpless to do a thing to protect myself. I was just the fruit around the seed of the baby, like the flesh of an apple or peach to protect the seed and nourish the seed.
As I dropped off to sleep in the jolting wagon I thought I could see another wagon far behind us. It had crossed the river after us. In the wagon were the men who had performed the burial ceremonies. They were ministers riding in the wagon with the men who had dug the graves. As they rode along they sang, and I heard John’s voice. I knew it was John’s voice. He was tired from the long day and the many burials, but he sang to refresh himself and the others.
As I listened to the voices in my dream it came to me what forgiveness was. I had felt so guilty and angry and disturbed I had forgotten what forgiveness meant. Whatever I had done I would be forgiven. It was that simple. I had heard forgiveness described a hundred times, by John and by others, but had not thought it applied to me. I had forgotten that forgiveness was a gift, and all I had to do was accept it. I would not be forgiven because I was good or because I had earned it. I would be forgiven because I was human and a sinner, and because I was loved. A new world had come into being, and I saw things in a new way. When I saw John I would tell him all, and he would forgive me.
“MAMA,” I SAID, and somebody laughed. I opened my eyes and looked around. Tiny raindrops were melting on my face, and a board stuck against my back, jolting and rocking me. I heard a grinding sound, and people talking. I looked around and saw I was still in the wagon, but nobody was driving it.
“Where are we going?” I said, twisting around.
“Lie still, friend,” somebody said.
There was a shadow inside the light that I couldn’t blink away. The rain falling was so fine it was almost a mist. Trees dripped and my face was damp with a cold sweat. The rain was clean as forgiveness.
“Where are we?” I said.
“Hold on there,” a man said.
A blanket was wrapped over my legs and I couldn’t see anything down the
re. “Is my foot gone?” I said.
“Be quiet,” the man said. “You’re weak; you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
Trees were going by and men were going by. Nobody was driving the wagon, so they must be leading it up front. Crows called in the trees and I saw one flapping across the low sky.
I must have closed my eyes then, for everything got dark and I sank back into the swamp, washed by waves of warm water. But the pool was cooling off and my feet were getting chilled. Rain splashed the pool. I tried to step forward but my feet and hands were stuck under the water. I couldn’t do any good.
“We’re going north, following the general,” somebody said.
The water washed over my face and I rocked deeper and deeper into the silt, the way a crawfish will back its way into the mud by scratching and swaying. The mud was warm at first and then started getting colder.
When I woke again it was evening and the rain had stopped. The wagon rocked along same as before and my back was stiff. My joints were cold and my belly was cold. Was the baby cold? I felt my belly, and trees passed overhead, lurching and tilting away.
“Where are we going?” I said.
“North,” was all the man said.
“Whoa,” somebody said, and the wagon creaked to a stop. The trees all around looked like apple trees. And I could smell smoke, cooking smoke. It smelled like tenderloin frying.
They spoke in low voices around me, and I couldn’t make out what they said. I was so empty and weak the smell of smoke made me sick again. Something rippled and bubbled in my belly, but nothing came up.
“Here you go,” a man said and handed me a canteen. My mouth was so dry it felt like flannel. My lips were cracked and peeling. I put the neck of the canteen to my mouth and cold water rushed over my teeth as I swallowed. And then I swallowed again.
I shivered and jerked and could feel my feet, both my feet. The soles of my feet itched and the right foot ached. It started throbbing.
Brave Enemies - A Novel Of The American Revolution Page 31