The Handsome Road

by Gwen Bristow

  They started toward the river, going by a path that led around the gardens of one of the big houses. It seemed a long way from the road to the levee, longer than Corrie May had realized. The river road got its name because it followed the river’s turnings, and out where the plantations were you could look across the flat fields and see the levee. She was tired. The thought of all the miles she had to go before Budge would be safe made her tireder still. She tried not to think about them. At the foot of the levee she paused and looked up at the grassy slope, black against the stars. It had never looked so high before.

  “You tired, sugar?” Budge asked anxiously.

  “Not a bit,” said Corrie May. She laughed. “You must think I’m a fine lady that can’t hardly put her foot to the ground.”

  “You was breathing kind of heavy,” said Budge. “And we been going a long time.”

  “Not long enough,” she insisted. “Come on. Do we walk on top of the levee?”

  Budge looked up at the lofty earthern rampart that held the river back from the fields. “No, it’s easier walking up there, but if there was anybody in the field they would see us too plain. Let’s stay here where it’s black dark.”

  Corrie May leaned against a tree growing at the foot of the levee. “What’s that bundle you got under your coat?” she inquired.

  “My gray army coat and hat,” said Budge.

  “What you aim to do with them?”

  “Throw ’em in the river. You wait.” Budge climbed the grassy slope of the levee and crossed its broad top. She heard him scrambling down the slope on the river side, and a moment later she heard a faint splash as he flung his bundle into the water. He clambered over the levee again and rejoined her. “There now,” he said with finality. “I hope that’s the last I ever see of the Confederate army.”

  They started walking along the little strip of grass between the levee and the plowed fields. They were plodding northwards. At their right side the fields stretched away from them, dark and flat; at their left stood the levee, fifteen feet high, and behind it the river swept silently toward the Gulf. Corrie May thought yearningly of the west bank. Over there Budge would be so much safer. But it was foolish even to wish they could swim across. The river here was a mile wide, with a current so powerful it was a rare athlete who could make the crossing. She had never until tonight thought much about how vast the Mississippi was.

  She was so tired! Budge was trudging doggedly beside her, and she wondered if his legs felt as heavy as hers. Her shoes were thick with soft earth. They were light gaiters Ann had given her because she had carelessly bought them too big, and though they were well made and of good leather, they had never been meant for such walking as this. She envied Budge his stout army shoes, built for long marches.

  “There’s a shed up here a piece, on the Ardeith land,” she told him, “where they pile up the cane sometimes. If we can get to it by daylight maybe we can sleep there awhile. You shouldn’t try journeying in the daytime.”

  “I’d feel safer if we was across the river,” Budge answered. “Seems to me there’s a ferry landing somewhere hereabouts. Only I don’t know if the ferry runs at night.”

  If she got on a ferry-boat long enough to sit down, Corrie May thought, she’d go directly to sleep. She concentrated all her mind upon the work of putting one foot in front of the other.

  Budge gripped her arm. “What’s that?”

  They halted. From further along the levee they heard men’s voices.

  “Just some niggers, I reckon,” she whispered.

  “Them ain’t nigger voices,” he whispered back. “It’s white folks.”

  Corrie May listened, then laughed under her breath. “Why Budge, we’s a pair of ’fraid cats. It must be that ferry landing you was talking about.”

  As she finished a man in the darkness cried, “Halt!”

  They stiffened with terror. Some yards in front, horses’ hoofs were padding in the grassy strip at the foot of the levee. In the darkness Corrie May could just see the outlines of three or four horsemen riding toward them. The starlight sent a pale streak along the barrel of a gun.

  “What you doing out here this time of night?” called one of the men.

  Corrie May whispered quickly, “You let me answer,” and aloud she called back, “We’s just walking, mister.”

  “Oh Lord, sergeant, one of them’s a girl.” There was low amused laughter. “What’s that, sergeant? Yes sir, all right.” He raised his voice again. “Sorry to interrupt you, sister. But we got to have a look at you and your young man.” He flung himself off his horse. “What are you all up to anyway?”

  There was another laugh from his companions. One of them asked, “Didn’t your mother ever tell you the facts of life?”

  “Oh, shut up. Give me that lantern.” A match flared. “I hate this worse than you do, young folks, but it’s orders. Patrol the levee and stop anybody prowling around.” He walked toward them.

  Corrie May’s blood nearly congealed. As one of the men lit a lantern she saw that all the group wore Confederate uniforms. Wildly she thought what a hideous color gray was, and that never in her life would she ever wear a gray dress. She was trembling. But Budge was standing straight, and his arm around her was steady.

  The soldier came up to them, and she saw thankfully that his face bore a good-natured grin. “Sorry,” he said, “but you all got business to stay home nights, you know. What you got in that bundle?”

  “Things to eat,” said Budge stoutly.

  “Let’s see.”

  Budge took his arm from around Corrie May and opened the package.

  “I see,” said the soldier. “Where you going you need to carry your breakfast?”

  “Up the river,” said Budge. “To—to Baton Rouge.”

  “Hum.” He raised the lantern to shine on their faces. “What’s your name?”

  “John. John Smith.”

  “Where you live?”

  “Dalroy.”

  “What you do for a living?”

  “Work on the wharfs.”

  “What you going to do in Baton Rouge?”

  “Got a chance at a better job.”

  “But how come you got to start there in the middle of the night?”

  Corrie May leaped into the breach. “It’s on account of me, sir. We wants to get married. And my folks don’t want me to marry him. So we had to run off.”

  “Oh, I see. Well, all right.” He lowered his lantern. “Get along.” Then he stopped abruptly. “Hel—lo!”

  He was staring down toward the ground. As they started to pass him he grabbed Budge’s arm. “Wait a minute, Mr. John Smith. Where’d you get those shoes?”

  Budge swallowed. “Er—I bought ’em off a fellow was in the army.”

  “You did? What’d you pay for ’em?”

  “A dollar and a half.”

  “Huh. Who was he?”

  “Fellow named—” Budge’s imagination was faltering. “Fellow named Budge Foster. Fifteenth Louisiana.”

  “What business he got selling his army shoes to you?”

  “Uh—I don’t know, mister. He just said would I buy em.

  “So you bought ’em, did you? Well, suppose you just wait a minute, John Smith. Maybe you’re lying and maybe you’re not. But we’d better see.”

  Budge took a step as though about to run. But the soldier’s gun was against his ribs. He was being shoved ahead toward the other horsemen. Corrie May cried out and ran after him. The sergeant, still on horseback, was saying, “You might as well look him over. You never can tell.”

  They had a gun on Budge and had made him hold his hands above his head. The soldier took something from the pocket of the preacher-coat.

  “What’s that?” asked the sergeant.

  “A Bible, sir.”

  “Oh. Well, gi
ve it back to him.”

  The soldier reached into the pockets of the pants under the overalls. Corrie May could have shouted with relief that he did not attempt to examine the pants themselves. He appeared, in fact, bored by the whole performance.

  “And what’s this?” he was inquiring. “A love-letter?”

  He whisked the paper out of the pocket and glanced at it by the light of the lantern. His bored chuckle changed to a gasp of horror.

  “Holy angels! You—filthy—rat! And you toting a Bible, too!” He wheeled around. “Keep that gun on him. Take a look at this, sergeant. Identification papers.” He faced Budge again. “So, Private Foster, you thought you’d change your coat and head North, did you?”

  Corrie May felt her legs crumpling under her. She did not know what Budge said or did. She went down against the levee side and with her face against the grass she began to scream. She didn’t mean to scream. It just happened. She was so exhausted and so utterly conquered. In the midst of her despair she found herself thinking how dreadful it was not to know how to read, for if Budge had known what was on that paper he could have thrown it into the river along with his gray coat and hat.

  She felt one of the soldiers giving her a shove with his foot.

  “Get up, sister. And quit that damn yelling or I’ll tie your face up. Do I bring her along, sergeant?”

  “Sure. Helping a deserter escape? Sure.”

  He picked her up roughly by one arm.

  Budge was fighting like a madman. He kicked and clawed and bit. But it was no use. One of the soldiers knocked him on the head with the butt of his gun and Budge collapsed on the ground. Corrie May cried out again, and breaking from the soldier she rushed to Budge. But the soldier dragged her away.

  “Come on. He’s not dead.”

  They threw Budge across a horse. He hung limply. They put her on another horse, with one of the soldiers holding her there. She had never been on a horse before. She slipped and slid and would have fallen off but for his support. Her legs ached, and pains began to shoot from her knees into her thighs. It seemed ages before they got to town.

  They rode by the calaboose. The soldier got off from behind her and she fell on the ground like a sack of meal. Day was breaking around her. After awhile the soldier came back with the jailer and they dragged her up and made her walk inside. They pushed her into a cell. She fell on the floor and lay there. When she turned over a ray of sun was poking between the bars of the little window high over her head. She did not know whether she had fainted or had been asleep.

  The days passed curiously. She did not know how many of them there were. Two policemen came and got her and took her into a courtroom where there were a lot of people and a judge sitting in a high seat. They said she had been helping a deserter. They seemed to be doing a lot of talking. She did not understand any of it very well. They took her back to the cell again. Sometimes her mother came to see her. Her mother always cried when she came. Corrie May did not pay much attention. It was as though she were half asleep all the time. But finally she did rouse herself enough to ask what had happened to Budge.

  Her mother began to cry again. She said they had stood Budge up against a wall and shot him. The penalty for desertion was death.

  Chapter Eight

  1

  Ann wondered mildly what had become of Corrie May. Her first assumption was that she might be sick, and it occurred to her that she ought to send and inquire, but though Corrie May had said she lived in Rattletrap Square that part of town might have been in China for all Ann knew about it. There was something in the paper about a private named Foster being executed for attempted desertion, but as Ann had never heard of him she did not think of connecting this with Corrie May’s disappearance. She concluded that Corrie May must either have married somebody or found a job at better wages, and though she did not care she did think it ungrateful of the girl not to have given notice. In a few weeks Ann had virtually forgotten about her.

  Her mind was occupied with other matters. Denis was at Vicksburg and Colonel Sheramy at Port Hudson, and though the river forts seemed impregnable she was frightened for both of them. The first shining excitement of the war had passed, and it had become terrifying. Everybody said those soldiers at New Orleans might be expected to storm back up the river any day, and for awhile Ann went to bed every night trembling with the fear of being wakened by guns. But the time passed and passed, and they did not come. Yet though nearly everywhere she heard of magnificent Southern victories, the war dragged on and on.

  The newspapers contained nothing but accounts of battles and lists of dead. Ann felt revolted before such a mountain of death. The war ceased to be glorious; it became ghastly, it became sickening. The papers did not describe it, but one could not help hearing things. At Shiloh the first day of the battle the ditches ran with blood like water, and by the second day it had clotted so thick the horses bogged in it. At Corinth there was a barb-wire fence, and wounded men stumbled over it and hung there, their intestines dangling out of their bellies, and stayed hanging there screaming until they died. That was war. That was this golden adventure in which you threw roses at brave heroes marching off to fight for your country. Sometimes Ann sat for hours at the foot of the spiral staircase looking up at the portrait of Denis in his gray uniform, which she had insisted on his having painted before he went away. She looked at it, twisting her hands together till the fingers hurt. She stopped praying, “Please Lord, let them hold the river forts.” She simply prayed now, a dozen times a day, “Keep him alive! Oh, God in heaven, don’t let those things happen to him!”

  Still it went on. The war lasted nearly two years before Denis even got a furlough. Ann waited for him tremulous with hope. She had not discovered until Denis went away how much she loved him and how childish their marriage had been. The war had made her feel lost and helpless. It had shown her an aspect of reality for which she had no preparation, and she longed to turn to him for a defense against it. And now Denis was coming home. He would make her understand the reason for all this, and when they had understood it together they would be married as they had never been before.

  But when Denis came home, lean and grim, she found that he would discuss any subject on earth but the war. To her amazement she realized that Denis did not know she had heard those accounts. He thought she still saw the war as a march of drums and roses. Or if he did not quite believe this he wanted to believe it. He had been at Vicksburg, and Vicksburg was a blazing cauldron of blood and hell. While he was free of it he wanted to be aware only of Ardeith with its gracious halls and dreamy gardens, and of her, gay and delicate and perfumed, a lovely lady who would make him forget the war. He kept following her around as though the sight of her refreshed him; he would pass his hands over her arms and shoulders, feeling the soft texture of her skin and murmuring in a voice that was almost awestruck, “Ann, you’re so clean!” He never mentioned what he had seen or how it had scarred him.

  Very well, then, she would not ask him any questions nor tell him anything that would make him know she too had shuddered at it. She did not even tell him about the minor hardships of home—how soap was a dollar a bar and toothbrushes two dollars apiece; how you had to go to shop after shop for the simplest necessities, hoping frantically they had managed to get something through the blockade; how careful you had to be with little things like needles and buttons, for once lost they could not be replaced. But she felt bitterly cheated. She had wanted so much from him. Now she could not ask for it. But she kept silent. There was not much she could give him to make the war more endurable, but at least she could keep the illusion of beauty and charm he wanted. As a last gesture she gave a ball, the night before Denis went back to Vicksburg.

  In preparation for the ball Ann worked harder than she had ever worked in her life. This was to be as if nothing had happened, her last pretense that the war was the gallant adventure both she and Denis had thought it wa
s going to be.

  She spent money madly, buying wheat flour, coffee, vanilla, ginger, chocolate, rare luxuries that cost enormous sums in her yellow Confederate notes. She pled with the shopkeepers and cajoled them and flirted with them to make them open their priceless goods that were there only for the army. If Denis had had any idea how she was getting these things, she thought sometimes, he would have stopped her in dismay. But he did not know. He was still largely ignorant of the state of affairs at home. He must not be allowed to guess that the head of the commissary absolutely refused to part with one of his barrels of wheat flour, telling her they were to be sent to the hospitals, until she laid on the counter the diamond bracelet Denis had brought her in remorse after their first quarrel. She laughed as she rushed about with her preparations, and he laughed too. He kept telling her she was so pretty, everything she said seemed so wonderfully clever, and he adored her. He protested he had never seen her so busy in preparation for a party—couldn’t Bertha and Napoleon attend to it? But never, Ann insisted; this had to be very special because he was going away again, and besides she had got used to attending to things herself since Mrs. Maitland left, and she scampered off again to search for the priceless delicacies that would assure Denis she knew nothing about the war.

  Only once her resolute merriment gave way, when Mrs. Larne voiced disapproval of her wild extravagance, and Ann exclaimed coldly, “I’ve thought of a new simile. As mean as a person who’s stingy with Confederate money.” But this was not in Denis’ hearing. And she did not tell Mrs. Larne that she had not only bribed the commissioner with her bracelet, but in order to get the money she was spending she had pawned a watch and some rings and breastpins for half their value.

  Some day Denis might ask her what had become of her jewelry, but she crushed that possibility down into the general confusion of her mind, though she knew she could crush it down only because the confusion contained a stronger possibility, persistent in spite of her refusal to acknowledge its presence, the thought that it did not matter because he would not come back from Vicksburg to observe that so many of her trinkets were gone. For the present, all she would let herself think was that she had to have the usual refreshments at the party supper because corn-meal cakes sweetened with brown sugar would remind Denis of the war.