by Ralph Peters
The Jew told the leader of the patrol, “This is Colonel Oates, of the Fifteenth Alabama, ordered home on convalescent leave. For his sixth wound of the war, if I count correctly.”
“Don’t look like no invalid to me. Just scared like. Maybe stole that uniform, killed an officer for it.” The captain began to examine Coleman more closely. He was a mean-eyed, long-faced man, the sort who lashed his niggers when he was drunk. Oates knew the type. In his law practice, he’d defended a few of them.
Oates clenched his fist and shifted his feet for balance.
Deftly—maybe with some Jew art—Coleman reached inside Oates’ cloak and produced his orders. Oh, he knew where they were, had seen Oates struggle to draw them from that pocket many times.
Oates burned at Coleman, too, now. At the humiliation, the helplessness. Although he knew that his friend was being sensible, that there was no point, after all, in getting themselves shot down or lynched by these vainglorious scoundrels.
The “captain” looked over the much-creased-but-orderly documents, taking his time, while the train waited and impatient passengers watched them from the windows. The patroller could find nothing wrong with the orders.
He handed the documents back to Oates. With hatred in his eyes. Hatred Oates matched and returned with compound interest.
As he and Coleman reboarded the battered carriage drawn by that wheezing, get-out-and-push locomotive, the patroller called after Oates:
“Sad day, when a white man needs a Jew to see to his business. Be niggers next.”
Coleman pushed Oates into the carriage before Oates could respond.
That was his Confederacy. A world fallen so low that men were murdered over a deed to five acres.
And now he was home, in Abbeville, dirty, tired, and glad. He’d chosen the town as the right place to make his fortune before the war; it was where he’d embraced the laws that he’d once broken and where he’d bought into a newspaper, the latter endeavor a casualty of the times. The town looked scuffed and bruised, but not yet ravished.
Before he could properly dust himself off, folks he knew came loping over to greet him. Nobody asked for his papers here. On the contrary: They seemed to know more about him than he knew himself. Not all of it true, of course. Maybe not the half of it.
He took a drink with three white-haired men and Coleman, who was known and tolerated. Then, as impatient as he was tired, he said he’d be off to see just how dilapidated his shack had become, if it still had a roof and one window unbroken.
One of the men smiled. As if he knew a thing he wasn’t telling.
With only a blanket roll and haversack, Oates walked down the familiar street, touching the brim of his hat now and again as faces passed and muttering greetings, until he reached the corner that would take him around to the little piece of this hurt world to which he held the title.
To his surprise—then concern—smoke rose from the chimney of his one-step-up-from-a-cabin domicile.
If anybody had taken to squatting in his house, he’d …
Out of patience with life and drained of all energy but his manly outrage, he strode down the stretch of planks laid above the street mud. Almost losing his balance, he threw open the front door.
Oates smelled stew.
What he was like to say wasn’t going to be fit for the town’s ears, so he slammed the door shut behind him.
Didn’t draw a response, no exclamation or movement, no alarm. He did believe he heard humming, though. Woman-humming.
He marched through a door frame into the kitchen and found old Colonel Toney’s Sallie, the dusky gal he’d sported with while recovering from his last wound at Roseland Plantation. More than once, he had recalled her fondly.
“Him jes’ come in here like a great, big bull,” she declared, speaking to an invisible third person, the way the coloreds did. “Body think he a mad-bit dog, way he act.”
Oates said nothing. He was struggling not to cry. He dropped his blanket roll, the haversack, the overcoat.
The woman glanced at him once, took in the armless sleeve, and said nothing about it. Just kept stirring the contents of that pot, languid and easy.
When he did not, could not, speak, she told him, “Heard how you was comin’ today, so’s I kep’ the fire up. Cunnel Toney say you needs to keep warm.” She set aside the spoon and turned to face him, one hand on a hip. She was a slender gal, but big where big was useful.
“You hungry?” she asked.
December 25, 1864
Petersburg
Mahone wasn’t hungry, but he ate what he could of the Christmas dinner Otelia and her servant girl had scavenged: mutton masquerading as lamb and ’taters in buttermilk. He’d had one Christmas dinner already, what he could eat of it, a frugal meal shared with his officers as they all tried to be merry and failed badly, with good men drinking too much punch too early.
Returned from a round of nursing up in Richmond and working in Petersburg now, Otelia had found a fine house to rent as the population thinned. His wife had thinned out, too, and she looked careworn, not much bothered by the wounds she bandaged but torn apart by the letters home she took down for dying boys. She did remain feisty, though, and Mahone praised the food she put in front of him.
“Billy, you never could tell the difference between good food and bad. That camp cook of yours could put a mud pie in front of you.” She shook her head. “All your pretending…”
“That isn’t true, woman, and you know it. I’ve always respected my vittles and this here meal is a wonder. Going to turn me into a glutton, that’s what you’re going to do.”
When the slender meal was done, with a portion left for the kitchen girl, he and Otelia moved into the parlor. She’d put up a German tree, a practice she’d introduced into their lives. Every year, she said the same thing about it, that Prince Albert had brought the tradition to Britain for Queen Victoria. And there stood this year’s offering, a scrawny thing adorned with a handful of candles of a quality she would not have bought for slaves in the past. A bucket of water and another of sand stood by the pine.
Mahone lit the candles carefully, rationing the lucifer matches gleaned from Union corpses. The little flames did brighten the afternoon, the winter grayness.
“You sit down now,” Otelia told him. “You just sit right there.”
She went out and returned with a bundle wrapped in plain paper, but banded with ribbons he knew she’d reuse for her hair.
“Merry Christmas, William.”
“Well, now, I do wonder…”
“Just be quiet and open it. I won’t have your fussing.”
He untied the ribbons and opened the paper carefully—all things had to be husbanded now.
His wife, beloved beyond mortal expectation, beyond human capacity, sat beside him, eager as a girl.
The gift was a uniform tunic of dove-gray wool, pleated and tapered to his form, the cloth fine under his hand. He saw it would fit without trying it on.
The woman knew him.
“Now, how the devil … Otelia, this is grand.” He held it up by the shoulders. “Robert E. Lee himself doesn’t have such finery.”
“I won’t have you looking bedraggled, General Mahone.”
“Now you wait here, woman.” He went into the foyer, where he’d left his satchel. His gifts were not wrapped as artfully as Otelia’s offering had been.
Extending the two small packages, he said, “Do better next year. I promise.” And he sat close beside her again.
On the tree, a candle sputtered. The cheap tallow smelled.
She opened the first package—a book, no way to disguise it.
“Why, it’s a new one!” she said with pleasure unfeigned. “You know how I enjoy Trollope.” She opened the cover and fingered the rough-edged paper. “You’ve already cut the pages for me, Billy. That was a kindness.” Bending toward him, as enthused as a child, she held out her treasure. “Look, there’s even a picture by Mr. Millais! How ever did you get it
through the blockade?”
“I have my ways.” He did not tell her that it came from the saddlebag of a dead Yankee. “Open the other one, might as well.”
His other gift was an ivory-colored mantilla of Spanish lace. Otelia swept it over her hair and shoulders.
“I shall have to learn gypsy dances,” she told him, following up with a kiss. “It’s beautiful, Billy. It must’ve cost a fortune.”
It had not cost a fortune. He’d bought it for a pittance in a transaction undertaken by Doc Brewer, his old friend, who shielded the identity of a lady in greater need of food than lace. Nor was pale lace wanted these days, only black was asked.
They sat for a bit as the window light waned.
“I do miss the children,” Mahone said.
“No place for them, this isn’t.”
“I know that.”
“They’re better off in the country.” She looked about to cry.
“I know that. But Christmas…”
It wasn’t just the living ones who haunted the parlor then, but all those who had died before leaving the cradle. Otelia had suffered a bad run over the years.
“I try not to think about them,” Mahone went on. “I can’t bear thinking about them. I just shut them out of my mind.”
Otelia looked at the candles on the tree. He reached for her hand and she returned his grip with a blacksmith’s ferocity. Soon, he would order her to the country, too. Because the Yankees wouldn’t wait a day longer than they had to, they might not wait out the winter, and then they’d come on with all their might and things would arrive at a grim and terrible end. Every man who wasn’t a damned fool knew it. But they had to fight on, couldn’t just give up. Not now, not after everything.
With tears on her cheeks, Otelia smiled. Blushing, embarrassed to be so much a woman.
“I haven’t wept since I heard they went for Lincoln,” she said.
Billy snorted. “Damn fools, all of us. Thinking it might be different.” It was his turn to shake his head, mirroring Otelia’s gesture. “After they declared war on us and fought us for nigh on four years … it was folly to think they’d just give in when they’re whipping us.”
A candle on the tree guttered out.
“I’ll light the lamp,” he said. “Need to snuff those candles soon.”
But he didn’t rise.
Still gripping his hand, Otelia asked, “What’s to become of us, Billy?”
“We’ll get on. You’re the one always saying it. We’ll start over and we’ll get on just fine.”
Brutally, she twisted free of his hand and got to her feet, stepping toward the window. Refusing to look at him.
“Don’t you go getting killed,” she cried, her voice as sharp as a blade. “Don’t you be stupid and get yourself killed, please, Billy.” She locked her arms over her chest, gripping his life to her heart on the Belgian carpet. “If you do … if you get yourself killed, William Mahone, I swear I’ll … I’ll marry a Yankee!”
Mahone laughed and rose to embrace his wife.
“You’d never find one brave enough,” he told her.
February 10, 1865
Columbia, South Carolina
Hampton doubted he’d see his home again. Sand Hills stood just a few miles south, but he could not leave for even a brace of hours, not with Sherman approaching and wielding hellfire. He knew that Sherman would burn Sand Hills and Millwood out of vengeance. Kilpatrick would probably light the fires himself. And that would be that. Hampton only wished he could make a last visit and pass through the rooms one last time, then stand on the porch, look out on the fields, and remember.
It was nearing the end. He knew it, and he refused to know it. He’d assured the governor and mayor he could defend South Carolina’s capital. By day, he believed it. At night, he did not.
Preston filled his dreams, calling from his grave. Young Wade had survived, but would never again enjoy time in the saddle or bend without pain. And when Hampton’s wife had rushed to Virginia to comfort him in November, marauders—Yankee fugitives or Southern deserters—had ransacked Sand Hills, stolen Mary’s jewels, slashed portraits, axed furniture, and scrawled insults on the walls. After that, he had ordered his sisters to leave Millwood for the state’s deepest interior.
Hampton had learned hatred. Of a degree he did not know a man could feel.
Only this day had he finally gained full authority over the forces defending Columbia. When he’d sent Hampton to South Carolina in January, Lee had recommended his promotion to lieutenant general but failed to assign him a status, leaving Hampton outranked by “Fighting Joe” Wheeler, whose cavalrymen were brave in a clash but as ruinous as the Yankees between battles. Now, terribly late, Beauregard had confirmed Hampton’s authority, but still refused to concentrate all the forces in South Carolina, trying to protect too much and destined to protect nothing.
Beauregard wanted to save Charleston. Hampton wanted to defeat the enemy. Each purpose betrayed the other.
Again, he felt the impulse to ride out and have a final look at Sand Hills. But he didn’t do it. He feared that, should he go, he would not be able to leave his home again, that he’d stay there to make a lone stand against Sherman’s army.
In Columbia’s streets, his soldiers staggered drunkenly, steeling themselves against the end of the world.
February 14, 1865
Rome, Italy
Barlow sat on a stone in the Roman Forum, a volume of Gibbon unopened in his hand. The morning had grown warm, and his frock coat, tailored while he underwent treatment in London, felt as heavy as a soldier’s blanket. Beginning to sweat, he gazed at the ruins dutifully.
Arabella would never see them.
He’d removed his mourning armband weeks before. It had begun to seem an affectation. And he tired of the questions, sought no pity. Of course, he should have worn it longer on two counts, for Belle, but also for his father, murdered under opaque circumstances hours after a friend had delivered an offer of help from his son. But Belle had begun to recede—he struggled to mind his memories—while his father’s death had startled but not moved him.
An English doctor had brought him back to life, a fellow discovered by luck. Barlow had asked for an open leave to seek treatment in Europe and had been granted an exception to policy, but the spells cast by London’s medical wizards had proven as useless as those in New York and Boston. Until a Scotsman furrowed his bushy brows and remarked, “I have a colleague who might take a special interest.”
The colleague in question had served for decades in India and believed that Barlow harbored a parasite. The thought was nauseating, the treatment worse. He’d endured hellish cramps and a scorched digestion for weeks, daily swallowing poison. And then, at last, he’d gone a full day without shitting himself. Life resumed, although he had to eat cautiously—plain chops and unadorned noodles here in Rome.
In the Forum’s grimy ruins, equally grimy children played roughneck games. Touts roamed, offering counterfeit treasures for sale or presenting themselves as guides. They all went ignored by the English travelers who simply declined to acknowledge them; by the Germans rendered insensate by their guidebooks; and by the Americans perched in Rome for the season, praising Italy’s glories and shunning Italians. All of them passed by Barlow, not without curiosity but, somehow, kept at bay by his demeanor. Even those who knew him only nodded.
One fellow surprised him, though, approaching with rolls of canvas or heavy paper under an arm. Italian and a man of middle years, he had graying hair, a damaged smile, and the scent of desperation.
Barlow watched his approach with hooded eyes.
The fellow knelt in the dust and unrolled a watercolor. It showed the Forum, seen precisely from Barlow’s vantage point.
“You buy, signore?”
“I think not,” Barlow said, conditioned to fend off Rome’s many classes of beggars.
The fellow appeared crushed by the rebuff. As if he’d risked his soul to approach Barlow. But he didn
’t fuss or grow noisy, as many did. He merely rolled up the painting and turned away.
Barlow caught himself: He was becoming one more ass on a holiday, closed to the very world he’d come to see. The fellow’s picture had been quite good.
He didn’t rise, but called, “Signore! Maestro!” Thereby nearly exhausting his sum of Italian.
The broken fellow turned, briefly disbelieving that he could be wanted.
Barlow motioned him back, then gestured for him to show the painting again. Eager but protective, the fellow set his two other rolls in a cleft before holding up the painting of the Forum. Barlow hardly considered himself a critic of the arts, but he really did believe the work was good. He laid his unread book aside and bent forward.
The painting could be his peace offering for Ellen Shaw. For Nellie. To whom he’d been a beast, he had to admit. The poor girl had persisted in her visits, never knowing which form of monster she’d meet on a given day. He really was in her debt.
And he’d thought of her. Too often, perhaps. In ways not always seemly. He wished to think only of Belle, to guard her memory, but he strayed.
“How much?”
“Inglese?”
“Yes. English.”
“Ah, London!”
“No. I meant I speak English.” Barlow tapped his chest. “American.”
“Ah, americano!”
“How much?”
The fellow held the picture high, then pointed to himself. “I paint.”
“I see. How much?”
The fellow named a figure so extravagant that Barlow laughed. Or brayed. It startled the poor devil.
“For you, signore, I make very low,” the man said urgently. The price dropped by two-thirds. It was still a bit high, but Barlow didn’t mind. He really wanted to have it for Nellie Shaw.
He heard her reading patiently in his room, saw amber twists of hair bowed over a book.
Barlow nodded. “Good. Bene.”
“Grazie, signore. Grazie.” He reached for another of the rolls. “You look?”
Have I a choice? Barlow thought, amused.
The second watercolor captured the Colosseum rather handsomely. He thought it would be a wry gift for his mother, who had the soul of a gladiator.