Salvation

by Jeff Mann

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two of them, from what I can gauge. There’s the rustling of garments—probably overcoats shucked off—and now, goddamn it, they’re eating breakfast. That crunching has got to be hardtack. At least they haven’t come any closer than the back of the church. Probably sitting on the far pews, waiting for the rain to slow.

  “What you think we’ll find when we get to the Valley?” one says. His voice is raspy, and it’s Southern. Sounds like he’s from the country. He sounds like me, actually. They’re either detached Confederate cavalry or members of some partisan band. As I used to be, until our escape—my desertion—at the base of Purgatory Mountain, day before yesterday. If they find us, with luck we can both pass for Rebel soldiers. “Word was there was a fiery skirmishing ’round Purgatory Mountain.”

  “More’n that. The goddamn Yanks used artillery and blew the hell out of what was left of a couple of companies. Nelson’s crew. And the Rogue Riders.”

  Sound of chewing. “Fuck,” the first one swears.

  “Yep. Took ’em a bunch of prisoners. I heard the Riders’ captain was blown to bits. Erastus Campbell. He was ahead of me at the Institute. Tough soldier. A real loss for the South.”

  Sarge. My uncle. Just as I feared. My fault. Punching him, shoving him backwards into his tent, so that Drew and I might escape. The explosion, mere seconds later.

  Drew stares at me, blue eyes wide, clearly afraid this terrible news will cause me to do something rash, unwise, and audible. My eyes grow wet. I wipe them. No time to mourn now. Later. Later.

  “So what do we do now?

  “We get to Buchanan, fall in with some friends of mine, then track the goddamn foe down and harry his heels as much as we can. My guess is they’re heading east to help that devil Grant around Petersburg.”

  “Petersburg ain’t fallen yet?”

  “No, thank Jesus, but it’s only a matter of time. I don’t think our boys behind those siege lines have any more to eat than we do.”

  “Or anything better.” The man growls. “This hardtack’s got worms in it.”

  There’s a slamming and a skidding. A half-chewed piece of hardtack shoots down the aisle past us and comes to a stop at the base of the pulpit.

  “Damn fool. Throwing away food. Fetch that here.”

  Oh, no. I hold my breath. My eyes and Drew’s interlock.

  “Hell with you. It’s lousy with worms, I tell you. You fetch it.”

  I grip my pistol harder. Drew grits his teeth and rolls his eyes.

  “I ain’t fetching it.”

  “Then let it lie, brother. Let the church mice have it. They’re liable to be as starved up and broke down as you and I.”

  I close my eyes, heartbeat pounding in my head and beneath my bandages, inside the wounds I’ve received over the last week. The Yankee ambush south of Lexington, the grapeshot during the bombardment of our camp, then the Federal cavalryman on the trail as we made our escape… I’ve been very lucky. All just grazings, surface wounds. I wonder if I’ll make it home before my luck runs out.

  “Let’s go,” says the man who sounds like me. “If we get to Buchanan early enough, maybe we can talk some citizens out of provisions before your buddies show up.”

  Rustling of donned coats, clomp of boots, the long squeak of the door, and they’re gone. Drew and I lie still, till the clopping of hooves has diminished into nothing.

  “God, what next?” Drew rolls out from beneath the pew and sits up.

  “It’s going to be like this all the way home. We knew that.” I climb to my feet, sheathe my pistol, and help him up. “Maybe we can find us a decent meal at Eagle Rock and some clothes and shoes for you. I’ll tell folks we’re soldiers on leave. Southern citizens, they treat us Rebel privates real nice, yes they do. But you, you keep your mouth shut, boy, and let me do the talking. You don’t sound like you’re from around here. You—”

  “Ian? Come here. I’m not ready to leave yet.”

  “Why not, big man? There’s nothing here.” I shoulder my pack and head for the door. “Come on, now.”

  Drew’s hand falls on my shoulder. “I’m sorry about your uncle.”

  “I don’t want to talk about him now, boy. Let’s just get on up the road.”

  “Give us a moment.” Drew pulls me to him. “I hated him—he treated me like a dog, and if it hadn’t been for you, he’d have seen me dead. But he was your kin, and I know you must be grieving mightily.”

  “Not now.” I pull away. My eyes are moist, and I wipe them with the back of my hand. “We’re not safe here. Let’s get to Eagle Rock and find a room.”

  “Tough little bastard. You Southern hill-boys are made of stern stuff.” Drew tousles my hair. “Later it is.”

  Drew’s got his hand on the door when my eyes fall on the alcove. The Bible is of no use to us—just another thing to carry over the mountains—but the clerical shirts, that’s another matter.

  “Might make nice bandages and foot-wraps,” I say, snatching them up and stuffing them into my haversack. “God helps those who help themselves, my daddy always said.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A tiny hamlet snuggled in between gray mountains, Eagle Rock’s just a muddy road lined with a handful of buildings. Below the bluff, the James River, wide and wintergreen, swirls by. The streets are empty in the steady drizzle.

  It’s nigh dark, the sky a solemn sheet of lavender and gray. Drew and I, damp and cold, shawled in oilcloths, huddle inside the evergreen shelter of a laurel thicket on the edge of town, taking our bearings.

  “There’s the town’s namesake,” I say, pointing at a great jagged rock across the river. “There’s the last lock of the canal. And, look, old lime kilns. They look like brick beehives. Somewhere over there is Craig Creek, the lick we need to follow high into the hills. It’s a way so remote that we should, God willing, be free of soldiers both blue and gray.”

  “What about raiders? I’ve heard talk that they not only bushwhack us Federals, they thieve and burn their own.”

  “Lower than a snake’s belly, my Aunt Alicia used to say.” I spit on the ground, pull my Bowie knife, and polish the blade against my trousered thigh. “I hate them twice as much as bluecoats. At least some of them are honorable. But raiders…they’re curs.”

  “Just be real careful. Who knows when a crew of Federal troopers might come galloping through?” He grins and shakes his head. “I used to be a Federal trooper. Now here I am, on the run in the Virginia mountains, with a wild little Reb who’s bound and determined to get up my ass. Funny where our fates lead us, huh?”

  I take my customary and cautious look around—nothing but dripping laurel leaves—before giving Drew a kiss on the lips. “I thank fate every day for leading me to you. You stay here and keep hidden, and I’ll come fetch you in a bit. Hold onto my musket for me. Don’t want the citizens to get skittish. I want to look more pathetic than dangerous. Maybe someone’s patriotism will net us a meal and a fireplace.”

  Handing Drew my rifle, I give his hand a quick squeeze before pushing aside the limber boughs of laurel leaves and stepping into the muddy road. Pulling my oilcloth around my shoulders, my pistol-holster and Bowie-sheath both loosened in case of sudden need, I head into town. I’m trying hard not to think of certain facts: in times of war, anything could happen at any time, and every time Drew and I part, we might be parted forever. The same fate that brought us together could at any minute separate and end us.

  The rain thickens. I trudge down the middle of the road, between buildings with shuttered or curtained windows, looking for any indication of a tavern or boarding house. Mud sucks at my shoes; my right foot gets stuck. When I pull free, my brogan’s upper, with an audible rip, separates from the sole, and mud squelches between my toes.

  “Splendid. Now we both need shoes.” I sit on the jagged edge of a wooden porch, just inside a dripping overhang, prop my foot on my knee, and assess the damage. It’s then that the door behind me opens, and a thin voice says
, “Good evening, young man.”

  I turn. She rustles through the narrow door, a short, thin figure in a black silk dress and a jet-black shawl. Beneath a mourning bonnet, flaming red hair streaked with gray falls over her shoulders. She’s got a cane in one hand and a paper-wrapped parcel in the other. With difficulty, she closes the door behind her.

  “I ought to lock it, but the cussed Yankees have already taken everything worth taking, except for some withered root vegetables and buckwheat flour. The silver’s buried where they’ll never find it, the blue-clad fiends,” she says, waving her cane toward the mountainside rising steeply just behind the house. “Last time they came through, I told them it was hidden in the outhouse. They dug around a good bit, up to the elbows in unseemly muck, before they gave up. You should have heard the language they assailed me with in the aftermath of their greedy attempts. I am ashamed to admit that, in the heat of the moment, I borrowed some of their vulgar phraseology to lob back at them. To call them ‘dung-heaps’ at that point was less malice than accurate observation.” She strides to the head of the steps. “Well, may hell receive them.”

  Astonished as I am by her monologue, nevertheless I stand and take off my rain-sodden forage cap. When I’m around the fair sex, my behavior is automatic; inside my head, my mother’s voice is coaching me in gentlemanly behavior and refined speech. After four years of war and male companionship, dull times in camp and bloody days on the battlefield, my manners and language have coarsened, of necessity, but I’ve also come to miss women mightily. It is, after all, the reason we Rebs are fighting: to keep both Southern women and our Southern land safe from invaders.

  “H-howdy, ma’am.” I offer a little bow as she descends the porch stairs. “I’m Private Ian Campbell. I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  “And I’m Irene Stephens. Would you be kind enough to buy a lady a drink?”

  Her question is unexpected in these circumstances. “I fear I don’t have much in the way of money, but I’d be g-glad to treat you to a libation if funds permit.” I’m shy around strangers, and anxiety sometimes makes me stammer.

  “That’s kind of you. My nephew is the proprietor of a tavern just down the street. He’s been hobbled since birth, and is, if I may say so myself, a bit of a mooncalf…miserly as well. ‘Tight as the bark on a tree,’ my sister, his own mother, used to say, God rest her soul. But the boy can brew some excellent wine and applejack.”

  “May I carry your package, ma’am? It looks heavy, and, if you’ll p-permit me to say, you look a mite delicate.”

  “Why, certainly, sir.” Mrs. Stephens smiles up at me as she hands over the package, which is lumpy and indeed somewhat heavy. “I’m not as delicate as I look. After four years of war, all the frail folk have drooped like daisies and been summarily plowed under.”

  She’s in her fifties, I’d say, with a high, pale forehead, the skin taut and glistening over prominent cheekbones. Her lips are full; her eyes are bright, her manner confident, regal. She might have been a beauty in her youth. Upon her breast rests a locket hanging from a necklace of black beads. She takes my arm and leads me briskly down the rainy street.

  “Relax, young man. I can tell you’re shy. Haven’t you the coins for a comb? Your hair’s as shaggy as a bull’s rump and your beard’s bushy and tangled as a greenbrier thicket. Dirty as you appear, though, your manners are excellent. ”

  “A debt I owe to my family in southern West Virginia, ma’am. I must apologize for my appearance. The war hasn’t given me much of an opportunity for grooming.”

  “No, I’d imagine not. Men tend to revert to a wild state without women around.” We’ve passed only five ramshackle buildings before Mrs. Stephens leads me onto another covered porch.

  “This town is in a sad state. I’m certain that communities all across the South are as bedraggled after long years of war,” she says, shaking out her rain-bedewed shawl. “Here we are. Eagle’s Nest. I hope my sluggard of a nephew has a good fire going. That scent of wood smoke is a promising sign. A March chill’s in my bones. Doubtless I am not the sort of lady you would normally escort, Private Campbell. Handsome as you are, I’d imagine you’ve spent quite a few hours in drawing rooms with crinoline-clad admirers, enjoying many a cup of punch and many a plate of petits fours.”

  I laugh. “In the war’s early years, ma’am, yes, I did enjoy such delights. As you know, the world’s changed quite a bit since then.”

  Thin as she is, she pushes the tavern door open with such force that it clatters against the wall. Inside’s a long, low-ceilinged room, a few tables, a dim lamp, and, as hoped, a lively fire. “Just put that on the counter, young man,” she says, indicating the package I bear. “Jack,” she shouts, tapping the floor with her cane. “Where are you? I’m standing in need of some refreshment. Now!”

  From a back room a squat man shuffles. He’s in his thirties, I’d say, and as unkempt as I, with droopy, unshaven jowls. His shirt’s a dull homespun; his blue trousers look suspiciously like Federal army issue. “Who the hell is this?” he growls, glaring at me.

  “Regard the kepi cap. Regard the gray flannel uniform. Regard the Bowie knife and the pistol, both at the ready,” says Mrs. Stephens, pointing out each feature with a thin finger. “This is one of the young men who have been risking their lives for the last four years to win our independence. This is Private Ian Campbell.”

  “And what does our hero in gray want?” Jack crosses his arms across his chest. I’m surprised by his snarl. Every other civilian has shown me nothing but kindness and gratitude since the day I volunteered back in 1861.

  “This gentleman is buying me a drink. Fetch me a glass of that elderberry wine I so favor, and our guest some of that fine applejack of yours, dear nephew,” Mrs. Stephens says, her voice shifting into a purr with a sardonic edge. She chooses a table near the fire. Unshouldering my oilcloth, I pull a chair out for her. She sits down with a pained sigh.

  “And what will the gentleman be paying with?” asks our churlish host, fetching two bottles, one of purple liquid and one of amber, before approaching us.

  “Charging a soldier? Oh, Jack.” Mrs. Stephens tut-tuts while I pull from my trouser pocket several of my few remaining Confederate bills and spread them on the table. It might have been wiser to hoard them for Drew’s and my future use, but perhaps they’ll be an investment that will pay off. My Yank and I are in sore need of some Southern hospitality, and Mrs. Stephens seems like just the patriot to help us. “Is this enough?”

  Jack snorts. “Just barely.” Uncorking the bottles, he pours out two glasses, hers ample, mine meager.

  “Don’t be stingy. This man’s risked his life for our cause. Isn’t that true, soldier? What battles have you seen duty in? Manassas? Fredericksburg? Spotsylvania? Cedar Creek?”

  “Yes, ma’am, all those and more. My partisan band, the Rogue Riders, fought most often with the Stonewall Brigade.”

  “Then I’d say liberality is called for. I’m also thinking that the second round should be on the house.”

  Jack rolls his eyes and pours out more applejack. Muttering beneath his breath, he corks the bottle and limps off into the back of the building.

  “In my less kind moods, I’ve told that boy that he should try to be attractive in his manner since he can’t be attractive in his looks, but he has little use for such advice.” Mr. Stephens takes a long sip of her wine. “He hates soldiers because he’s a coward. He came home after the conflict at Malvern Hill and has been skulking around here ever since. Shameful, though considering the piety-gnarled poltroon his father Philip is, I shouldn’t be surprised. Jack was a conscript, and now he’s a deserter.”

  So am I, not that Mrs. Stephens needs to know that. Nearly four years in the army, fighting battle after battle as part of my uncle’s band, and now I’ve deserted my comrades and my duty. If I hadn’t, I know, Drew would have been murdered. If the Yanks hadn’t bombarded our camp, if Drew and I hadn’t fled in the aftermath, Weasel-Teeth George,
at my uncle’s behest, would no doubt have put a bullet through my golden-haired boy’s head. As it is, Sarge is dead and George is probably a prisoner of war. Strange to know that, given the chance, I would do nothing differently yet still will carry regrets all of my life to come, just as Drew will carry the scars George and Sarge cut upon his body with whip and blade.

  No time to woolgather. My bare-chested Yank’s shivering in the cold March rain while I’m enjoying the warm fireside. I’ve got to get him in out of the elements and find us shelter for the night. And that’s likely to involve both charm and a little duplicity. If Mrs. Stephens knew my Yank helped General Sheridan burn the Valley last autumn, I suspect she’d be far less friendly.

  “This fire feels good.” I sigh. “My messmate and I have been walking in the rain for days, sleeping in caves and barns at night.” I take a long sip of applejack and savor the sweet burn on my tongue, satiny going down. “This is very fine, Mrs. Stephens. We’ve had little in the way of rations in the camp, much less the luxury of liquor.”

  “I know how fond you soldiers are of strong drink. Save for General Jackson. Word is that strong waters rarely if ever passed his lips. A saint, he was. I wept for days after he died. My husband, Edward, was far less of a saint. He certainly kept his flask and our decanters well filled. May I sweeten your drink, young man?” She raises an eyebrow. “Don’t you just love that expression? I used it many a time on Edward during our years in Charleston.”

  “Yes, ma’am, you may,” I say, smiling. I hand her the glass. She takes a tiny sip, then hands it back.