He hushed then, embarrassed. He had not meant to speak at all.
She turned and came back to him and put her palm against the lapel of his coat. “Go on,” she said. “What was Father doing?”
“He was standing there,” said Cass, pointing as though he had found the spot in the darkness, “and the road was just over there, through the trees. He had his sword buckled on and his cap tilted down over his eyes, and he was watching the men passing on the road. We could all see them, but we didn’t know and didn’t much care who they were—but I think the colonel knew. He shook his head and turned away and walked past us where we were laying down. … He spoke to us, but I don’t remember—”
He hushed again because he didn’t know how to tell it: Colonel Sansing walking by them in the firelight, for a moment seeming taller than any man, and stronger than any of them, and his voice a comfort because he was the best of them all, and he was theirs. Then he vanished into the trees, leaving in his wake a cold place as if he were already gone forever. I knew it then, Cass thought, but he would not say it to the woman watching him in the drizzle of the train yard. “It is only an ordinary thing,” he said. “A man standing by the fire, walking off into the woods …”
Alison’s hand closed briefly on his lapel, then dropped away. “I will settle for ordinary,” she said.
“Only he wasn’t,” said Cass. “He wasn’t ordinary. He made … he made people want to follow him.”
“You did follow him once,” said Alison, “and now you have again.” She took his arm and pulled him toward the train. As they walked, she said, “I do not flatter myself to think you came because I asked you, Cass Wakefield.”
Cass did not reply, for it was only truth. He let himself be carried along. He wanted to tell Alison all that had happened, all the things he might have told Janie once. Tomorrow, he thought. I will tell her tomorrow, knowing all the while that it was too much ever to tell, no matter how long Tomorrow was.
Some of the Boys
5
THE REGIMENT TOILED IN COLUMN-OF-FOURS THROUGH the dust of its own passage, under a sky empty of cloud, over ground baked hard by the killing sun. The men moved through brittle grass and pans of curious flat cactus where fat grasshoppers leaped in their faces and clung to their jackets, or buzzed dryly away in the dust. Nothing stirred in the pines: no wind, no birds but the watchful crows. Overhead, a kettle of vultures circled patiently. No one spoke—talking was too great an effort to spend on the obvious or the trivial—but from the column rose a dull murmur of shuffling feet, a clank of tin cups and canteens, the creak of dry leather.
In the last company, the men struggled in a mysterious void. They perceived the sun as a copper disk floating just beyond reach; the sky they could not see at all. In spite of the heat, many had wrapped themselves in blankets or shelter halves so that, in the cloud of bitter red dust, they seemed a procession of terra-cotta monks. They hacked and coughed; they spat; they stumbled up the road they could not see, following blindly the rumor of the men before them.
At the end of this unhappy company trudged an old man of thirty-four, lean like a fence rail, of long brown hair and mustache and hawkish nose, his head full of bad thoughts and visions. Cass Wakefield had once been a pilot of steamboats. Now he was a sergeant and file-closer in the Twenty-first Mississippi Infantry of Adams’s Brigade, Loring’s Division, in the fabled, though seldom victorious, Confederate Army of Tennessee. His charge on this hot afternoon’s stroll in Georgia was to watch for stragglers, to encourage the weak and faint of heart, the exhausted and the lame, the sunstruck, the shirkers and conscripts, and the merely lazy who littered the column’s wake, who might otherwise be snatched away by the yankee cavalry that had been harassing them for days: the despised, arrogant horsemen of Illinois and Indiana and Ohio who appeared out of nowhere, carbines snapping, sabers glinting, as if the vultures themselves had suddenly descended and taken the shape of armed and dangerous men. Cass hated all cavalry, even his own, but right now he hated the stragglers more, and this for complex reasons. They were the cause of his discomfort; if conscious, they groaned and complained; if swooned, they were pitiful and beyond his help, though he had used nearly all the water in his canteen to revive them. But most of all, he hated them because they were himself, and if he could, he would join them.
What’s keepin’ you from it? The old question intruded on the moments of conscious thought that clotted from time to time in Cass’s mind. Honor, he might have said in reply. Duty. But these words seemed to have dried up, withered like squashed frogs in the terrible sunlight. Pity might have answered in the early hours of the march. Then Cass had done the best he could, prodding, kicking, cajoling; doling out scorn and shame where they served; fatherly concern, even compassion, when they were called for. He bathed the faces of unconscious men from whom the sun had drawn all strength and will. One of these, a lad of perhaps sixteen, had cried out, Cass, oh, Cass—Jesus, I ain’t been baptized! Cass said, You’re all right. Just take some of this good water, but the boy shook his head. No, I can’t see anything. Cass, I am goin’ to hell, and it is black as night. Cass took the boy’s face in his hands and whispered hoarsely in his ear, Do you repent you of your sins, known and unknown? The young soldier choked, gasped, his face all blistered and red. At last he nodded frantically, forcing the words: I do, I do! I am so sorry. I ain’t always been good. I ain’t—Cass patted the flushed cheek. Hush, he said. He tilted his canteen and poured the last of the rust-red water over the boy’s head. I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Then he took the boy’s hand. Go in peace—your sins are forgiven you. The other tried to speak again, but a convulsion took him, and he crossed over quick as a bird. Cass folded the lad’s hands on his breast, then rose and staggered on after the column, knowing the buzzards would come pretty soon.
Another man, a veteran of many campaigns, had leaped from the earth with sudden energy, squalled, Pap, you tech me agin, I’ll bash yore goddamn head in, then ran off howling through the pines and scrub oaks. No doubt someone would find his bones out there, years hence.
As the day wore on, Cass Wakefield gave up trying. He’d passed several unfortunates and malingerers in the last few miles without taking any notice. Indeed, Cass seemed unable to take notice of anything. He had pulled his blanket so close around his head that he could hardly breathe. The sweat ran in muddy rivulets down his face. His mouth was full of grit, his head ached, the blood drummed in his temples. All he could see of the world was a twilit circle where moved the vague outline of the man to his front, who might have been Bushrod Carter—he had a broad blue patch sewed over the seat of his breeches—though Cass couldn’t tell for sure. He had no sense of anything beyond the moment through which he passed, though strange, disconnected images crept through his mind: a girl with a flute, white geese on a pond, a window sheeted with ice, roaches scurrying over the deck of a wharf boat in the rain. These did not seem to have anything to do with his own history, nor even with any world that he knew of.
Beside Cass Wakefield stumbled his comrade Roger Lewellyn, who had not spoken for hours, except to himself. Roger was betrothed to Cass’s cousin, Sally Mae Burke. Cass had been looking after Roger for three years now, and the man was forever a trial and a penance to him. Cass could hear the pattern of Roger’s voice rise and fall as if in conversation; he seemed to be bringing up a lot of questions, though on what subject Cass did not know or care. He was not interested in speculation any more than he was in stragglers. He hadn’t the energy. It was all he could do to accommodate the phantoms that wandered uninvited through his own head—the pelican, for example. He hadn’t seen a pelican in years, yet here was one flapping along above a placid sea, folding its wings now and then to dive, rising again in a spray of water, a fish flapping like a silver ribbon in its beak.
Then, around two o’clock by the coppery sun—Cass couldn’t get to his watch, and the hour was of no importance anyhow—the woman came. She appeared so
suddenly, and seemed so real, that Cass could not be sure if she was inside his head, or if he were really seeing her through the opening in the blanket. Cassius Wakefield, she said. She stood hipshot, one hand on a gallery post. She was thin and pale, her graying hair pulled back. Her sunken cheeks were a faint rose color like in a tinted daguerreotype, though no picture of her existed anywhere but in Cass’s memory, a facility that never seemed to rest and that now erected around his mother a gallery with rocking chairs and barrels and a set of deer antlers over the door: Frye’s Tavern, away back home. A breeze stirred in the woman’s apron and moved leaf shadows across her face. Cassius, she said, what you mean, wearin’ that blanket in the heat of the day?
Ma? said Cass.
Her face softened, and she smiled. You want some water?
Cass shut his eyes tight, but the woman was still there, only now it was not his mother but his young wife, Janie, moving lightly down the steps of Sally Mae Burke’s house. She carried a clay jug in her hand and wore a loose summer dress of palest green. By the way it moved, by the way it clung to her, Cass knew there was no corset, no stays, under there, only the flesh damp and warm. Her brown hair was pulled up off her neck in the heat, though wisps of it were fallen loose and moved in the breeze.
Janie, he said, you ought not to be here. He put out his hand, wanting badly to touch her. His heart was beating fast, he grew dizzy, and the girl was of a sudden diffused in a red light. The pain settled on his breast like an anvil. You ought not to be in this place, he said.
But the girl did not seem to hear his voice. She looked about her, then tilted the jug and began to pour water on the nodding caladiums by the porch.
“Don’t do that!” cried Cass aloud. “You ought not to be here a-tall!”
Roger Lewellyn jumped as if slapped. “What? What did you say?”
“Go on away from here,” said Cass, but he needn’t have, for his wife was already gone.
“Well, that’s rich,” Roger said. “Where am I supposed to go?” He was shrouded in a quilt Sally Mae had sent him long ago. It was greasy now, and the colors all faded. Roger flung the quilt back over his shoulders and glared at his companion through the settling dust. “Well?” demanded Roger.
“I was not talkin’ to you,” said Cass. “I thought I saw—”
“Fine!” shouted Roger. He stopped, turned in a circle until he was facing rearward. “I shall go over there,” he said, pointing to the tree line. “That’s Leaf River, right there!” He struggled wildly against the quilt as if it were a living thing, and finally flung it away. He unslung his rifle and threw it clattering to the hard ground, followed by his hat, then all his accoutrements. He stood swaying in the road, babbling about Leaf River, which, like Frye’s Tavern, was hundreds of miles away in Cumberland, Mississippi,
Cass traveled a little way on momentum, then he, too, stopped in the road and watched for a moment as the column moved on. When he looked back, Roger was sitting in the road, rocking back and forth, moving his mouth without sound. Cass turned back then, gathered up rifle and hat and quilt and accoutrements, and pitched them off the track under a stunted blackjack oak that gave of a little shade. Then he seized Roger by the collar and pulled him to his feet. “Come along, pard,” said Cass.
He led Roger to the oak and stripped his jacket off, then shed his own jacket and cartridge box, belt, and haversack. He spread his blanket under the tree, and the two of them sat down. A big copperhead snake slid away in grudging accommodation.
“That’s a deadly serpent, Cass,” warned Roger. “You will find them in these river bottoms.”
“Never mind him,” said Cass. “And this is not a river bottom.”
“His mate is around here somewhere,” said the other, peering about.
“Shut up,” said Cass.
His canteen was empty, used up on the dying lad who lay back down the road where the vultures, no doubt, were already busy at him. Cass could imagine them huddling around, squawking, jostling one another, their black clothes whisking and rustling. He shook the thought away. Roger had a cupful of water remaining in his own canteen; it was hot, and it stank of the green pond from which he’d drawn it, but Cass put it to Roger’s mouth and wet his lips, then dampened a handkerchief and wiped the boy’s face. He took a drink himself, then poured the rest over Roger Lewellyn’s head. In a moment, they were both breathing again, the flush diminished in their faces. Roger said, “I wish we’d of got married before we left.”
“I can’t marry you, Roger,” said Cass. “People would talk.”
“I was not speaking of you and me,” explained Roger patiently. “I meant Sally Mae and me.”
Cass did not need to be told how Sally Mae and her Own True Love had put off their marriage until the war’s end, which they all believed would be by summer’s end. That was another summer, a long time ago. Discussing the postponement was like watching a sad play over and over again: you kept hoping the end would change, but it never did. Cass said, “You did the right thing. Just think how nice it’ll be when—”
Roger said, “How long is it?”
Cass did not want the boy to think about it. He did not want to think about it himself. “A long time,” he said. “Now, shut up. Think about somethin’ else.”
“Two years and a quarter, since after Shiloh Church,” said Roger, holding up two fingers. “That is a long time not to see her face.” He dragged his haversack over on his lap and stared at the buckle. Cass knew he wanted to get out his tintype of Sally Mae, which the sunlight (Cass had warned him time and again, but Roger never listened) had faded until little more than a ghost of the image remained: a beautiful girl ghost in a patterned dress, dark of hair, with olive skin like a Spaniard, and hands prettily shaped. Cass had no tintype of Janie. He had not seen her either in two and a quarter years, and the mail was unreliable, so that Janie lay on the other side of long silences. Lately these facts had been worrying at him. Anything could happen in all that time. Too much could happen. They had not been together long when he left, and she might have forgotten him. Sometimes he could not see her face clearly. Now that Roger had brought it up, Cass wished more than ever that he hadn’t. A little moth of panic fluttered in his heart.
“Redbirds mate for life,” said Roger, his fingers puzzling at the buckle. “I think rabbits as well, and badgers.”
“What the hell you know about badgers?” said Cass, anxious to change the subject. “God damn the animal kingdom and their habits! Now, listen to me: this is not a good topic for conversation. We must rest, then catch up with the boys, lest we get snatched by the cavalry.” He peered around at the thought, half expecting to see armed troopers encircling them.
Roger said, “Snakes, I do not think, do, though they stick together when they are. Still, nature is rife with examples.” He gave up trying to open his haversack. He put it aside and drew his bayonet and began to thrust it into the orange clay, chuff-chuff-chuff.
Cass lowered his voice to a whisper, though no one was around to hear. “Roger, sometimes I think I am goin’ to desert. What do you think of that?”
“You can’t,” said Roger. He picked at the flakes of skin on his sunburned face.
“Why not? Others have.”
“You promised Sally Mae you would look out for me until we returned. We have not returned yet. Anyway, what would you do?”
“I want to go back to the river,” said Cass. “I can pilot on the gunboats. You can go with me, and I’ll show you—”
Roger waved his hand. “Bosh,” he said. “I am not doing any such thing, and you would never make it to the river through all these yankees. Besides, don’t change the subject. I know what you promised Sally Mae.” He turned now and pointed the bayonet at Cass. “You promised her you’d watch out for me. I know you did.”
“Now, listen to me,” Cass said. “I am beginnin’ to have visions. I am not well and cannot stand the strain. I could of swore I saw my mother just now, and her dead these many years. I also saw—
”
“Sometimes I wonder if those people ever were at all.” Roger sighed. “Still, you see them, the ones that are gone, I mean—when you get too close, like we are now. There is only a little way between us and them—you ever think about that? I see them, oh, all the time—” He nodded off, then caught himself. “What was I saying?”
“Forget it,” said Cass. “Take your rest.”
“Who was that you saw?” asked Roger. He yawned, and Cass yawned in sympathy. They sat with their long, aching legs outstretched. If they stayed here too long, Cass knew, their muscles would cramp, but he didn’t much care right now. A fence lizard came, gaped at them, then scurried away. After a moment, Roger spoke again, his voice drowsy and slurred. “Your mother, yes,” he said. “I never knew her.” He yawned again. “More and more, I have trouble remembering things. Seems like now I can’t much remember any way but this. Can you?”
Cass’s problem was just the opposite: he couldn’t quit remembering. He leaned back against the galled, knobby trunk of the oak. He imagined the gallery of Frye’s Tavern again, the moon vine, the woman who had been his mother for ten years of his life. He wondered if she had really looked that way. He thought of Janie, of her hair and eyes, her talking, her boyish, miniature body that he might never know again. He shut his eyes and tried to call them back, but they wouldn’t come. Just as well. Maybe Roger was right; maybe they had never been at all.
“Go to sleep awhile,” said Roger. “You will feel better if you do.”
“Might,” said Cass. He thought about telling Roger to keep watch, and almost did, but the words drifted away from him like leaves on the water.
The Judas Field Page 6