Salvation

by Jeff Mann

Tessa guffaws. “Yes! A terror to good Christian people. I don’t need no help, truly. Don’t you fret. Lots of folks in Newport owe Lorena Mae loyalty, and they’ve been real helpful to me while she’s been gone. Along with supplies—got to feed my two soldier-boy invalids till they recover, right?—I’ll need help disposing of them villains. I’ll be damned if I want ’em buried around here, with their evil haints a’floating around, and I don’t think you two are yet in the condition to help, so I’m going to have some boys from Newport bring a cart up here and haul the bodies away. Everybody would be damn delighted to hear that those evil Iron Riders are no more, but some white folks might get upset hearing ’bout a black woman gunning down white mens, so we’ll just dispose of ’em in secret. Y’all can just keep quiet in here while my helpers are about. No need for ’em to have a sodomite sighting.” Tessa rolls her eyes and chuckles.

  “We’ll be fine up here, Miss Tessa. Don’t think anyone will be bothering us. My uncle, well, I had hoped that there might be some chance that he’d survived, but George confirmed that he was dead. Even said he’d buried him. And with George gone now, thanks to you…”

  “We’ve run out of enemies for the moment.” Drew tousles my shaggy hair. “Ma’am, you said that the brother and sister sodomites were to have a celebratory feast, but that meal was interrupted in a manner most dire, but now that danger’s done, thanks to you, and we three are here, still together, and safe now, so if you don’t object, let me pour out some glasses from that bottle there and we’ll toast again.”

  “Certainly, sir. Helps yourself. I’ll just spoon out this pudding.”

  Drew and I hobble over and take our seats. Drew pours out generous amounts of whiskey. Tessa dips mustard greens and pot liquor into bowls, then sits down as well.

  “To Miss Tessa! Our heroine!” Drew exclaims. “You saved our asses. Not to be crude, ma’am, but it’s true.”

  “To my soldier-boys! Your quick kick saved my ass too. And to the endurance that’s helped us all survive these awful times,” Tessa adds.

  “To mutual salvation,” I say. “And to long lives together. Drew and me. You and Lorena Mae.”

  “Oh, honey, that’s the best toast of all.”

  We clink glasses and drink deep, then fall to. Something about having come so close to dying makes every bite more delicious than food has tasted in recent memory. We finish every scrap of ham, every spoonful of pudding, every tender leaf of greens, every drop of broth. Finished, Drew and I insist on cleaning the kitchen before we three take to our previous positions of relaxation, Tessa in her rocking chair, Drew and I slumped together on the love seat, all three sipping whiskey.

  “This liquor helps me not to hurt so much, ma’am,” Drew sighs. He stretches his limbs, emitting a pained grunt. “Thank you.”

  “Same here. My arm seems about back to normal. I can move it better now.”

  “Good, good,” Tessa says. “Y’all can recover here as long as you please.”

  For a few moments, there’s nothing but contented silence among us. The fire crackles; gusty rain spatters the windowpanes.

  “Boys,” says Tessa, after taking a long sip of whiskey and appreciatively smacking her lips. “I don’t mean to bring up a painful topic, but I saw Drew’s trousers when I untied you. Y’all had told me about George, about how you thought he wanted Drew in a carnal manner. Did he…manage to do the awful thing that I suspect? Did he violate you, son?”

  “No, ma’am.” Drew sighs. “Thank God. He came mighty close, but no.”

  “He was fixing to, Miss Tessa.” I take Drew’s hand. “This morning. He had a knife to Drew’s throat and was…handling him. But the noise we’d made in protest woke his cronies. They interrupted, and then, well, you made sure George would never touch Drew again.”

  “Lorena’s sometimes accused me of ‘indelicacy,’ as she puts it, though she’s mighty indelicate herself when her temper flares. But I, well, I don’t means to be indelicate or to offend, but I’m curious, and I figure, as much as we three have been through together…do you mind a few questions? About how mens love on mens?”

  “Oh, Lord.” Drew gives me a pained grin.

  “Go on, Miss Tessa. Satisfying your curiosity is the least we can do after all you’ve done for us.”

  “What ways do you mens lie with each other? One man’s sex and another man’s mouth?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I reply. I clear my throat.

  “And that gives pleasure? To both mens?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Drew and I say simultaneously.

  “One man’s sex and another man’s rump?”

  Drew giggles, a sound both incongruous and endearing coming from a man so powerfully built. “Oh, Lord,” he says again, massaging his forehead and staring fixedly into the fire.

  “Yes,” I say, face heating up. In any other circumstance, I can’t imagine discussing such intimacies with a woman, but something about the perspective our near-escape from death has provided, as well as Tessa’s frank ease, and the fact that she shares our secret, makes such a conversation possible. I’ve half a mind to ask her what pleasures two women take together and how, but I think better of it. If she told me, I’d be even more disconcerted.

  “And that gives pleasure? Rump-love? For both mens?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say. “From what little I’ve experienced.”

  “Have y’all? Together?” Tessa’s smile is downright salacious.

  “We’ve never,” Drew blurts, blushing. “Not that way.” He squeezes my hand. “Not yet.”

  “I have. Once. With Thom, a boy I knew back home. He was the only man I’d ever been with, in a bodily way, till I met Drew.”

  “You, Mr. Drew? What other mens had you been with before y’all met?” Tessa queries, rocking and sipping, clearly fascinated, as if she were observing some exotic tribe in French Polynesia. “Like I told you, Lorena Mae and I were each other’s firsts.”

  “A buddy of mine back in Pennsylvania, Rob, he and I got to wrestling one night in his barn, and then we got to kissing. That was all. Till I met Ian.”

  Drew rises. Limping to the hearth, he adds another log to the flames. “Want some smoke, ma’am?” he says, retrieving his pipe and tobacco from his pocket.

  Tessa shakes her head. “No, sir, these spirits will do me tonight. I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. Truly. You all are just the first such mens I’ve encountered, so my curiosity’s made me unmannerly.”

  “Never unmannerly. No, ma’am. Ian and I never would have survived this long if there hadn’t been such kind folks like you along our way.” Drew packs his pipe with tobacco and lights it before rejoining me on the love seat. “Ian and me, we haven’t had much opportunity for loving…especially in that, uh, deeper way. Have we, buddy?” he says, wrapping an arm around me.

  “No,” I sigh. “Ever since we fell in love, I’ve been wanting to get us away from this war and back home to West Virginia, where we can be together and not be constantly afraid, constantly looking over our shoulders. George and the Iron Riders were just the latest—and the worst so far—of the dangers that have beset us, Miss Tessa. It’s hard enough to come to terms with loving when you know all the world will despise you for that love, but being soldiers in wartime, and then fugitives, well, we’ve been hard put just to survive.”

  Drew gives me a quick peck on my swollen cheek, then leans back, closes his eyes, and puffs his pipe. “Ian’s right. We’ve just never been safe. Apart, we’d been at risk for years, him on one side of the war and me on the other. Then I became his prisoner, and then, thank God, his lover, but all we had was Ian’s tent to be together in, and there was his uncle beating me, and that goddamn George sniffing around, taking advantage of every opportunity to frighten me and deepen my hurt…and then suddenly we were on the run, liable to be attacked or ambushed at any moment, and what happened in the New Castle hotel made my fears even sharper.”

  Drew shakes his head. He falls silent, puffing his meer
schaum.

  “Well, you’re safe here, you little honeys. And I’ll be gone tomorrow. And y’all are welcome to stay in bed all day and share what comforts you can.” Tessa winks. “Lorena, when she gets all amorous with me, she sings a little song about ‘gathering rosebuds while you may.’ Sounds to me like y’all got some rosebuds yet to pluck.”

  Drew blushes furiously. “Rosebuds? Well, ma’am, I don’t know, uh…”

  “We d-do indeed feel safe here, ma’am. It’s just, well…we’ve never discussed…such things with anyone but each other. Certainly not with…a lady.”

  “Lordamercy, those red faces. Looks like you’re both about to burst into flames. This is your refuge, boys. That’s all I’m saying. Now that those foes of yours are dead…”

  “I can’t imagine a safer place. Can you, Ian?” Red-cheeked, Drew squeezes my hand. “Now, ma’am, you have us both flustered, so we’ll change the subject of discourse, if you don’t mind. How did you escape the shed? George and his two friends said they locked you up. And where’d you get the rifle?”

  “Bessie. Remember, Drew? She said that—”

  “Yep. Lorena insisted I hide arms around the property, just to be prepared for whatever war might bring. As for getting out the woodshed, I don’t know why Lorena Mae and Ferrell put a lock into that shed door in the first place. Who’d want to steal wood? Well, they did store hams in there before they built a new smokehouse. Maybe they was afraid the Yankees might come through on a raid. Anyway, well, after I come to—those curs hit me upside the head when I wouldn’t oblige them.” She shakes her head and chuckles. “When they got to grappling with me—I nearly caught one of them in the balls and another in the jaw—Missy, she tore into them like she was ten foot tall. Bit that George on the ankle. He kicked her, damn him to hell. She was deader’n a doornail before she hit the ground.”

  “We’re so sorry about your dog, Miss Tessa,” says Drew.

  “We’re so sorry you were in peril because of us,” I add. “If you hadn’t taken us in…”

  “If I hadn’t taken y’all in, I never would have met two honey-sweet mens like Lorena and me. That I wouldn’t have missed for the world. Things happen according to His will, boys. Y’all know that by now, don’t you? Missy, she’s on the far side of the river with ole Stonewall, a’chasing the long-eared rabbits of Paradise. At least that’s my hope. Well, so, after I come to, after dark, I went to feeling around, trying to find something I could use to pick the lock, ’cause I knew you boys was likely to be in a mess of trouble, and I figured them mens might come back and grab ahold of me in ways I wouldn’t much appreciate. Then I found this here little knife in the sawdust.”

  She pulls it from the pocket of her dress and opens it. Its brown wood and brass gleam. My belly clenches.

  “I spent the rest of the night trying to get out,” Tessa continues. “Lock wouldn’t spring, no matter how much I cussed and jiggled the blade around, so I dug out the wood around it. Took a long time. By the time I got out, it was morning. So I pried ole Bessie from her hiding place, a’praying that y’all was still in one piece. I was trying to decide whether I should just tear in or lie in wait when that first man opened the door. I figured then that God was giving me an opening, so I took it.”

  “Ma’am,” I say, swallowing hard. “Would you pass that knife here?”

  The trembling in my voice makes both Drew and Tessa stare at me with concern.

  “Surely, honey. Here it is.” She lifts it. Rising, I step over and take it.

  “What’s wrong, Ian?”

  I turn it in my hand. Yes, it’s the same pocketknife. No question. Dear God, how?

  “Ian?” exclaims Drew. “You’re pale as that Craig Creek snow out there. What is it?”

  “This knife. I’ve seen it before.”

  “Where, buddy?” Drew grips my arm. “When?”

  “Many times. All my life. It was my uncle’s. It belonged to Sarge.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  My thighs won’t stop shaking, so at last I cease my nervous pacing and sit down. Drew hands me the meerschaum pipe and I take a deep draw off it before handing it back. Then I lift my glass and swig the rest of the whiskey.

  “How can that be, Ian? Are you sure?”

  “Look here. The monogram. EHC. Erastus Hiram Campbell. I tell you, I’ve seen it all my life.”

  “When did you see it last?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe in Sarge’s tent. It might have been there on his desk when I went in to study his maps, to figure out a way for us to get home.”

  “A haint. A haint for certain,” Tessa whispers. “I’ve heard tell of such things. Visitations! He come to save you.”

  Chills zigzag down my spine. “I’ve had nightmares about him since he died. I figured he’d never forgive me.”

  “Looks like he has, son! I never would have gotten out of there if I hadn’t come upon that knife.” Tessa finishes her drink and rises. “Who knows what lessons the dead come to learn on the other side? You boys get on up to bed. You both look wore out. I’m going to check on my stable full of fine steeds and treat ’em to some feed.”

  Striding to the door, she takes a tattered coat from the closet and pulls it on. “I’ll be gone by the time y’all wake tomorrow, that’s my suspicion—I think I’m going to ride that pretty chestnut mare—but I’ll leave out some breakfast. If y’all will check on the other horses and keep up the fire, I’d appreciate it.” Tugging a scarlet kerchief from her coat pocket, she slips it over her head and knots it. “I may be back by nightfall, or I may stay over with the Crawfords. They’s a family of freedman just this side of Newport. Mama Lizzie always fries a chicken when I come to supper. I’ll bring y’all some, if they can spare a few pieces. There’s a pot of beans a’soaking on the stove, if you want to cook those up before I get back.”

  Tessa opens the door. A wet breeze pours in, and the sound of fine rain on the porch roof. “As I said, I’ll most likely be back with some mens to help me get rid of these scums’ bodies, so y’all just stay in bed and be quiet till they leave.” She lights a lantern hung by the doorframe. “You soldier-boys take care of each other. After all you’ve been through, least the Lord can do is give y’all a little honeymoon, and I’m glad to be helping Him with the arrangements.” With a gleeful wink, she’s gone into the rainy night.

  “Honeymoon? That sounds glorious.” I pat Drew’s thigh.

  “She’s a godsend, no doubt of that. And to think I used to be a little unnerved by Negroes. What a stupid boy I was. Being with you—and going through all we have—it’s all made me a man.”

  “One of the best men I’ve ever known, buddy. God knows how I cherish you.”

  Drew stands, stretches, and yawns. “Time for bed, you handsome little Rebel sweet-talker,” he says. “I’d carry you up them stairs if I weren’t so beat-up. Tonight, well, I’m too tired for anything more than sleep, but tomorrow’s a different matter.”

  My golden giant lights a candle at the hearth, then pulls me to my feet. Leaning together, laboriously we climb the stairs. In the bedroom, we wash our blackened faces by candlelight.

  “I want you naked, Reb,” Drew says hoarsely, pulling off his jacket, then slipping off his shoes. “I want us to sleep together all night. I want to hold you, all naked and bare-assed and hairy, in my arms.”

  “Whatever you say, Yank,” I say, pulling off my brogans. Despite my aches and exhaustion, my cock stirs as I watch Drew tug his undershirt over his head, revealing his torso. “I want you naked too. Even bruised-up and bandaged, your body is the most beautiful thing I know.”

  I’ve unbuttoned my jacket and am about to pull it off when Drew’s hand falls on my shoulder. “I want to undress you, Ian. May I?”

  “You’re more than welcome.” I stand, wrapping my arms around him and nuzzling the hair in the pit of his neck.

  In silence, Drew slips my jacket off, then peels my undershirt up over my head. Next he loosens my belt and unbuttons my t
rousers. Falling to his knees before me, he pulls them down and off, followed by my underpants. Now I’m naked, save for the socks Mrs. Stephens gave us back in Eagle Rock.

  Kneeling still, Drew looks up at me with a wide-eyed look that seems to match the awe I feel every time I see his body bare. Now he nuzzles the black hair on my belly. Taking my half-hard cock in his hand, he strokes it. He kisses the tip and runs his tongue over the head, before rising to his feet with wincing difficulty.

  “That’s just a taste of what’s to come, Reb,” he says with a tired smile, shucking his trousers off. “I don’t care how sore we might still be tomorrow, we’re gonna have us that honeymoon Tessa spoke of.” When he pulls his underpants down off his lean hips, his candlelit sex, fully erect, bobs in its dense nest of hair. When he turns to snuff the candle, I can see the golden fuzz I so dote on coating his rounded ass-cheeks.

  “Good God, Drew,” I say, slipping beneath the blankets. “You’re so finely formed. God never managed more splendid craftsmanship. Get in here and let me hold you.”

  “Honey-tongued Southerner.” Drew blows out the candle. Now the room’s nearly pitch-black. “Let’s get a good night’s sleep,” he says, clambering into bed. “I got grand plans for us tomorrow.”

  For a while we lie face to face, stroking each other’s beards. Then Drew rolls over, curls back against me, sighs, and in only a few moments is snoring. I nestle closer against his blessed heat and rest a hand along the curve of a buttock, listening to wind grumbling around the eaves and rain pattering the roof. This morning, we nearly died. Tonight, instead of resting together in a muddy grave, we’re here, in this warm, clean, soft bed. Murmuring another prayer of thanks, I close my eyes.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  I’m a child again. I’m in Sarge’s backyard, behind his handsome farmhouse in the Valley. Beyond the fences, the hayfields are June-green, rippling restlessly in the breeze. Above me, the cigar tree is blooming, big bunches of frilly white. I circle the heavy feedbag hung from a branch, dancing and feinting.