Salvation

by Jeff Mann

  “Where’s she buried? I’d like to visit her grave soon.”

  “We’ll all do that this weekend.” Mommy takes my hand and squeezes it. “She’s buried in our family plot in Barger Springs. We’ll take some wildflowers and some lilac sprigs.”

  “My news is equally sad.” I clear my throat. “Uncle Erastus…we were near a big mountain near Buchanan, Virginia, he and the rest of our band, and Yankee artillery caught us by surprise. He fell.” I pull the pocketknife from my jacket and hand it to Daddy.

  “Was it mid-March?” says Mommy. “That’s when I had my dream.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He was, as you might expect, strong and stubborn to the end.”

  “Well.” Daddy takes the knife, opens and closes it, and places it on the table. “Stubborn, yes. Born to be a soldier, that’s for sure. He fell in battle then. Well. That was one of his ambitions.” He bites his lower lip, then rises abruptly. “Let’s stable your horse, Mr. Conrad. Would you like a tour of the farm?”

  “Yes, sir. I’d appreciate that.” Drew rises and follows Daddy out.

  “I’m so sorry about Aunt Alicia, Mommy,” I say, wiping my eyes.

  “She had a happy life, up there in the woods, where she wanted to be, with her animals and her herbs. She left you a note. It’s stuck between the strings of her dulcimore. She loved you dearly, Ian. And there’s something else here waiting for you.”

  Rising, she retrieves an envelope from a desk in the corner. “It’s a letter from Virginia. Go on into the parlor and relax.”

  I take the letter. I’m about to enter the parlor when my mother seizes me in another hug. “Thank the dear Lord you’re home! I prayed every night.”

  “I prayed a lot too. I never would have made it home without Drew.”

  “He’s welcome here as long as he’d like to stay. Where’s he from?”

  “Well, north of Winchester. He had distant relatives in Pennsylvania before the war.”

  “Yankee kin? Mercy. Well, we do have that cousin in Washington, don’t we? You boys are both terribly thin, but I’ll remedy that soon enough. And your faces are bruised a bit.” She lifts a finger to my cheek. “What happened to you?”

  “We had some nasty run-ins with raiders of both sides a few weeks back. But we’re healed. None of our hurts was serious.”

  “Raiders? Oh, Lord. We had a few around here, but your father and Alicia ran them off. You aren’t the only crack shot in the family. You sure you boys are whole? I could fetch a doctor from Hinton’s Ferry.”

  “I’m sure, Mommy. Don’t fuss over us. We’re men, not boys.”

  “Well, y’all survived four years of war, so I guess you are. Go on now. I’m going to make you men a welcome-home meal you shan’t forget.”

  In the parlor, I stoke up the small fire on the hearth, then settle onto the settee. In a shaft of warm sunlight, I tear open the envelope. To my surprise and delight, it’s a letter from Jeremiah.

  March 20, 1865

  Lexington, Virginia

  Dear Ian,

  I’m alive! Bet you been wondering. I couldn’t find you in that terrible mess the Yanks made of our camp there at Purgatory, so I ran off across the fields and hid with some local folks. Was making my way by back roads down the Valley when who should I find but Rufus, in an old orchard, shaking the branches for shrunk-up apples. We’re in Lexington now. Rufus is a cook at a local tavern and is making the place quite popular with ladies old and young. One plump gal with enormous breasts seems to be sweet on him. And speaking of young ladies, my Pearlene and I have gotten married! No more men for her. Just this one. We’ve got a nice little room up above Rufus’s tavern. I’m helping to clean up the burnt shambles that motherfucker Hunter made of the military institute and finding work here and there. Carried three lemons to Stonewall Jackson’s grave the other day, one for you, one for me, one for Rufus. I hope to God you and that big bluecoat have gotten somewhere safe. If you get this, I guess you’re safe indeed. Rufus still talks about what sinners you two are, how that big Yank picked you up in his arms and told Rufus you all were sodomites. He says to say hello, and hopes that you’ve repented. Me, I hope you’re loving each other all goddamn night. Me and Pearl surely are.

  If you’d like to write to me, you can, care of the Jefferson Tavern, Lexington, Virginia.

  I love you, friend. When this war’s over, with luck we’ll see each other again.

  Jeremiah

  Drew appears at the parlor door. “Walt’s put up and happy. Your father gave him a bunch of carrots he went mad for. What you reading?”

  “Come over here, friend,” I say, patting the seat. “It’s a letter from Jeremiah. He’s doing well. Let’s read it together.”

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Full on a celebratory dinner—beef stew, ham, buttered rolls with blackberry jam, mashed parsnips, and kale—Drew and I rest by the parlor fire for a good hour, dozing contentedly. When we rouse, I show him the little room where I spent my childhood, the bed where I was born, and family daguerreotypes: my brother Jeff and I about to head off to war, Aunt Alicia and Mommy, my parents in their wedding clothes. Then we prepare to saddle up again. Thanks to my aunt’s generosity, Drew and I have a new home, and I’m eager to see it after so many years away.

  “You sure you two don’t want to spend the night here?” Daddy says. “Alicia’s place can wait till tomorrow.”

  “Now that you’re home, we can’t get enough of you,” Mommy says, hugging me again.

  “I’d like to see the place, straighten it up, get it in order a bit. We’ll be back down the mountain tomorrow, though, I promise.”

  “Well, take some rolls and some ham for y’all to eat on while you’re up there, and some scrapple for breakfast. Tomorrow, come by around three in the afternoon. I’ll fry a chicken and make some spoonbread for dinner. Would y’all like a pie?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. Please.” Drew, face flushed, rubs his hands. “I’d mightily appreciate that.”

  “I did promise Drew here lots of pies if we made it home.”

  “He did, ma’am,” Drew adds, eyes gleaming.

  “In that case, I’ll make a couple. Fried apple pies and buttermilk pie, I think.”

  “Oh, Lord,” Drew sighs. “West Virginia’s already seeming like heaven to me.”

  After packing us a bag of food for our overnight jaunt, my parents step out onto the porch to see us off. Drew and I load up our impedimenta, including a bag of feed and more carrots for Walt. Then we’re on the road again, the key to Aunt Alicia’s house in my jacket pocket. The sun’s disappeared behind clouds, and a brisk wind is moving up the river. Soon we’re out of sight of my parents’ farm, alone with the mountains and the spring-high Greenbrier River.

  “Going to rain again tonight, or worse,” I say, studying the sky.

  “I’ll keep you warm, Reb.” Drew turns in the saddle long enough to give me a quick kiss. Walt clops down the road only another half a mile before I direct Drew to the left and up the mountainside. This road’s still icy in spots, and narrow, climbing through thick woods, taking sharp turns. The slope’s precipitous. Far below, the Greenbrier winks with light.

  A few more miles along the top of a ridge, and we’re there. The house is like my parents’, white clapboard with a big front porch. It’s set half a mile from the road, among a clump of sheltering sugar maples. Behind it are a barn, a springhouse, a smokehouse, a little orchard of gnarled apple trees white with bloom, and a reedy pond lined with sedges and cattails. Behind those structures, scraggly fields stretch for another quarter of a mile before rising into forest and angling up into mountaintop.

  I dismount slowly. The sadness I expected takes me—this is the first time I’ve been here without Aunt Alicia to greet me with a whoop of delight. But there’s happiness too, to know that Drew and I might have a home here.

  “It’s beautiful, Ian. It’s bigger than I expected.” Drew dismounts, tethers Walt to a white porch column, and takes my hand.

&
nbsp; “I can’t believe it’s mine. Let’s take a look around.”

  We check the outbuildings first. There’s one ham hanging in the smokehouse. The woodshed has a low pile of split wood and a box of kindling. The outhouse is cobwebby and in need of repair. The water in the springhouse is cold, clean, and sweet. The barn’s small but solid, with heaps of hay in the loft. The garden patch, overrun with weeds where it isn’t covered with leaf mulch, rustles with last season’s corn stalks, a few withered tomato plants tied to stakes, and scrawny dead squash vines. The split-rail fences between the backyard and the pasture could do with some work. Beneath the house, the root cellar contains a bin of potatoes, their eyes sending out pale feelers, a couple of cabbages, and some onions standing in strong need of use.

  On either side of the front porch are rose bushes sprouting tiny leaves. I pluck a hip and hand it to Drew. “Remember that red tea we had in camp a few times? Aunt Alicia was always sending me rose hips, along with that salve.”

  “That salve probably saved my life, Reb. That, and the isinglass plaster you bought off Miss Pearl. All those wounds I received, and none of ’em festered. Miraculous, really.”

  “Guess God was saving you for something better. The wind’s coming up. Looking more and more like rain. Why don’t you set Walt Solomon up in the barn and I’ll open up the house?”

  Drew nods, leading our stallion away. I climb the porch stairs. Three dead mice—or, rather, parts of them—are scattered on the porch. Rodents, damn it. Well, that’s what comes of leaving a house to sit without occupants.

  I unlock the front door. It’s chilly inside, already a little musty-smelling and dusty after being empty for a month. Here’s the parlor, with the rocking chair in which my aunt died, a fireplace, and a couch. Here’s a small dining room, a bedroom, and a well-lit kitchen with a wood stove, a pantry, and windows overlooking the pastures and mountain out back. Upstairs is a low-ceilinged bedroom much like the ones we shared at Tessa’s, with a fireplace and a spacious bed. Across the narrow hall are a much smaller bedroom, with a cot and black walnuts set out on newspaper to dry, and a sewing room, where quilt squares Aunt Alicia never finished are set in neat stacks on a little table. I pick up a square of blue and red and stroke it.

  “Thanks, ma’am,” I whisper, as sentimental as my Yank. “All the gifts you gave me, and this home the greatest of all.”

  “Ian,” Drew’s shouting downstairs. “Where’d you go?”

  I put down the quilt square and descend the stairwell. “Look.” Drew points out the open door. Two lean cats, one orange, one black, are sitting on their haunches at the top of the porch steps, regarding us curiously.

  “I found those tomcats in the barn. They just followed me around the yard. They’re real friendly. The orange one tried to climb up into my arms. Were they your aunt’s?”

  “Must have been. She loved her pets. Had geese and ducks, chickens, cats and dogs, cattle and horses, even goats at one time or another. Guess these toms survived the last month without her by mousing. See those legs and tails on the porch? I bet they’d love a little ham.”

  I dig into my haversack, pull out a slice of meat, shred it up, then hunker down and brandish the pieces at them. The cats, without hesitation, prance into the house and leap onto the meat. Drew and I tentatively stroke them. They arch their backs and keep eating. Done with their meal, they allow us a few more moments of petting before the orange one leaps onto the black one and they begin to wrestle. A quick tussle, and the black one bolts out the door, his companion on his heels.

  “Lively brutes, ain’t they? They’ll be some entertainment,” says Drew. “And they’ll keep the mice down.”

  There’s Aunt Alicia’s dulcimore, leaning against the edge of the couch. As Daddy had said, there’s a folded note pushed between its strings. I pull the paper out and unfold it. In spidery handwriting, my aunt has written two simple sentences.

  “From your aunt?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it say?”

  “Welcome home. We will meet again inside God’s green-gold.”

  I put the paper down with a shaking hand.

  “Is this home?” I ask Drew, sitting down on the couch and resting my forehead against my palm. “Will you live here? With me?”

  Drew sits beside me on the couch. “Of course. For the rest of our lives, little friend. Gladly.” He cups a hand under my chin, lifts my face to his, and kisses me softly on the mouth.

  “Lord God, I love you, Ian. That damned war is over. Our hurts are nearly healed. And now we have this wonderful farm. I’m so thankful. All our pain and all our struggles weren’t in vain.”

  Drew wraps his arms around me. We hold each other for a long time. Then he stands.

  “All right. Work to do. I’m going to feed Walt, clean out the stables, find an axe, and split more firewood. How about you make up the bed and clean up the house? And see if that pantry has anything we can use to supplement the rolls and ham for supper.”

  Drew and I work hard the rest of the afternoon, as the wind increases and the sky grows grayer. At dusk, a soft rain begins. Labors complete, we start a crackling fire on the parlor hearth.

  “So what did you find in the pantry?” says Drew, brushing wood dust off his shirt and trousers.

  “Some seeds Aunt Alicia stored for spring planting. Dried apples and dried corn. Some cornmeal and coffee. A bottle of bourbon and a jar of honey. A jar of sarvisberry jelly, made from the fruit of that kind of tree whose flowers I plucked for you back at Miss Tessa’s. And, most importantly, some lard.” I arch an eyebrow and grin.

  “Lard, huh? How about we start our first evening here with whiskey and a pipe? Might get into the lard later.” Winking, he pats his rump.

  “Sounds mighty sweet to me.” I head back to the pantry to fetch the bourbon.

  We sip whiskey, share the meerschaum, and cuddle shoulder to shoulder on the couch beneath a blanket. When meows resound beneath the windows, we let the tomcats in. Purring, they rub our calves, then curl together before the hearth and fall asleep, clearly delighted to be inside and to have human company once more.

  “They look like us, Drew, all curled up together like that. And they’re both toms. Sodomite cats, I reckon.”

  Drew, chuckling, stirs up the bowl of his pipe and refreshes its fire. “I reckon so. Think we’ll call the black one Abe and the orange one Jackson, just to keep things fair.”

  “How much should we tell my parents?” I ask. “If we live here, we’ll be seeing them a lot.”

  “Hmmm. Good question. How honest should we be?”

  “I don’t know yet. If they warm up to you as much as I think they will, maybe sometime in the future we can tell them that you’re a Yankee. You’ll be wanting to go north soon, I suspect, to see your family, right?”

  “I will. But I want you to go with me when I do.”

  “May we stop in Shepherdstown on the way? I want to visit Jeff’s grave.”

  He nods. “Will you write my parents a letter tomorrow? I want them to know I survived the war and am healthy and whole. No mention of me as a prisoner, though. It would only upset them.”

  “Looks like we’ll both need to keep some secrets. I don’t think I could ever tell my parents about my desertion. Or what happened to Sarge. He and Daddy were always at odds, but still I don’t think Daddy’d be able to forgive me. And as for the way you and I love, well, they’ll just have to regard us as confirmed bachelors. I don’t think any parent wants a sodomite for a son.”

  “Guess not. Though what that means is that our families will never know how much we care for one another, and that’s sad.” Drew puts down the pipe, leans back into the arm of the couch, and pulls me against his chest.

  “Do you wish you’d been there? At the end? At Appomattox?”

  “Yes. I wish I’d finished the war with my friends…and I wish the South had won. But, given the chance, I would do nothing differently. I guess what I regret is not being able to do b
oth—to fight out the remainder of the war with my comrades and also to be with you. But circumstances made that impossible, and, hell, fate often leaves us little room to choose. That goes the same for history.”

  “Guess we’ll all be in some history book someday. The great rebellion of 1861 to 1865.”

  “The war will be. Not sure about us.”

  Drew sniggers. “No ‘Notorious Sodomites Terrify New Castle Christians, Escape Volley of Federal Bullets’? No ‘Grand Reconciliation of the North and the South, Beneath the Sheets and Sealed with Lard’? Damn. Ah, like we talked about on Purgatory Mountain, in days to come someone will know we were here. Men like us, who share their lives, their bodies, and their beds as we have, they’ll know we were here. All right, lover. It’s our first night in our new home, so let’s have our first meal.”

  I soak the dried apples, sweeten them with honey, and fry them in lard. We eat them before the fire, along with the ham and Mommy’s rolls covered with sarvisberry jam. Drew smokes another bowl of tobacco, then stretches out on the couch, sighing with contentment. The orange cat detaches himself from the tangle he and his buddy have made only to leap onto Drew’s chest, curl up, and fall asleep. I take Aunt Alicia’s dulcimore down and pluck out a few melodies: “Lorena,” then “Dixie,” then “Home, Sweet Home.”

  “Both sides loved that song, didn’t they? Never thought, hearing it back in the Union camps, I’d end up finding that sweet home with a Rebel from the West Virginia mountains.” Drew shakes his head, stroking the cat. “Play that one again.”

  I do so. Drew sings along, in a deep, rich bass. I join him on the chorus.

  ’Mid pleasures and palaces though I may roam,

  Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home;

  A charm from the sky seems to hallow us there,