Zeb managed to swallow down whatever was rising in his throat. “They shouldn’t use a whip on nobody,” he said, suddenly soft-spoken. “Them four had no right to beat you with that belt.” It seemed best to change the subject. “You want to walk some this day? It’s warmed up. We ain’t seen nobody on this road all last night or yesterday. Might be we could cover more ground.”
“I’m game,” Ebenezer said. Hefting the rifle, he walked off.
Ignoring their empty stomachs, they walked along the edge of the road for a couple of hours. When they came to a crossroads, they spotted a wagon coming from the west. Zeb started to dash for cover in the woods, but Ebenezer stopped him.
“They’re Negroes,” Ebenezer said, and sure enough, as they come closer, Zeb realized his companion was right.
A white-haired man and a younger man in his twenties—most likely the elder one’s son—rode up cautiously in a buckboard loaded with firewood, pulled by a floppy-eared old mule that was blind in its left eye. They stopped the wagon and stared, focusing more on the weapons butted on the dirt than on the two boys holding them.
“Afternoon,” the old man finally said.
“How are you this wonderful day?” Ebenezer said.
“Fine.”
“We’re traveling,” Ebenezer said. “Wonder if we might ride in the back of the wagon . . . if you’re going our direction.”
“Going to Atlanta,” the man said.
“We’re bound that way ourselves, then on to Elyton,” Ebenezer said.
“That road goes right to Elyton,” the old man said. “’Bout a hundred and fifty miles west of Atlanta.”
“How about after that? Say, Mississippi, maybe? Or Dallas, Texas?”
He shook his head. “Never been farther west than the ironworks at Roupes Creek, a few miles beyond Elyton.”
“Is it all right if we travel with you?” Ebenezer asked.
Again, the eyes of both men trained on the rifles. The old man wet his lips, and looked at the younger man, who shrugged. “Hop aboard,” his son said.
* * * * *
A little more than an hour later, the old man reined in the mule and turned, eying his passengers over the load of firewood. “If you don’t mind, we’s at the outskirts of Atlanta. Y’all might want to get off here.”
Meaning, Zeb figured, that he expected trouble. He couldn’t blame those two Negroes for that. He and Ebenezer looked like they’d attract trouble, certain sure. “Thanks for the ride.” Zeb slid off the end, and tipped his hat. Ebenezer eased off, too, and gave the black men a nod of appreciation.
“I admired that bedroll you got there,” Zeb said, pointing to a rolled-up piece of canvas between the seat and the wood. “Reckon you-all might be willing to sell it? Trade for it?” The old man looked at his son, who gave a little shrug. More than likely they figured Zeb would just take the bedroll anyway, or shoot them.
Ebenezer stared at Zeb, trying to figure out what on earth this Wisconsin soldier boy wanted with a ratty old bedroll.
Zeb handed the young man one of the powder horns, and fetched the bedroll. “Thanks again,” he said.
They watched the wagon go on down the road. Finally Ebenezer found his voice. “Maybe it’d be smart for us to walk around this city.”
Zeb shook his head. From where they stood, maybe a mile from the city limits, they had an unobstructed view of that burned-out wreck.
“Anybody who still lives in Atlanta’s got a fair view of us already. We try sneaking around this burg, we’d just be inviting trouble. Besides, it ain’t like there’s a place we can hide.”
A treeless plain stretched out from the city of rubble. Even from where the two boys stood, they could make out “Sherman’s sentinels”—chimneys rising out of the ash from what once had been homes, businesses, churches.
Quickly Zeb placed the bedding on the ground and began unrolling it, saying, “Hand me your Enfield.” Ebenezer obeyed, and Zeb put both rifles on the blanket, rolled them up in it, tied it off, picked it up, and tilted his head toward the wagon with the firewood making its way into the city. “We walk right through this city,” Zeb said.
Ebenezer gave a pitiful look, like he didn’t trust Zeb at all.
Pretending to ignore the slave’s look, Zeb kept talking. “Might find something to eat. Besides, this road leads right to Elyton, and that’s where we need to get to.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
Ebenezer was scared. Zeb could see that clearly but, grinning, he placed his hand on the slave’s shoulder.
“Ebenezer,” he said, “you know all about swamps and noodling for catfish. You got us this far. I’ll give you that. But this is a city. Was one, anyhow. I’m a city boy. I’ll get us through Atlanta. This time, you just do like I say.”
Chapter Eight
“You keep your head down.” Zeb gave Ebenezer a friendly shove. “Head down, and keep walking. Don’t look nobody in the eye. If somebody says something, just pretend you didn’t hear, and keep right on walking. Walking with a purpose. Now, if it happens that somebody stops us, you let me do the talking. Let’s go. Just walk like you know where you’re going, what you’re doing. We’ll get through Atlanta in no time.”
Only it proved impossible for Ebenezer to keep his head down. He walked and stared. Never had he seen such destruction, and maybe now he understood why white folks back home feared these Yankees so much.
Railroad tracks had been ripped apart. Nothing on them except heavy iron wheels and ash, a lot of ash. Many of the iron rails were twisted. Ebenezer stopped and looked at a pile of them, scarcely imagining how anyone had managed to turn that iron so crooked.
“Sherman’s hairpins,” Zeb told him. “That’s what the Secesh call them. Uncle Billy ordered us to make sure the Rebs couldn’t never use a rail or tie again, so we’d burn the ties, heat the rails over the coal, twist them like that. Look at them two there.”
Some creative soldiers had bent two iron rails until they formed the letters US.
“May not be able to read and write,” Zeb said, “but I know what that means.”
“Golly.” It sounded stupid, but it was all Ebenezer could say. Then it hit him, what his companion had just admitted: Zeb Hogan couldn’t read. Or write. Ebenezer had suspected that. Now he knew for sure. Maybe that’s why Zeb was always trying to prove something to Ebenezer, show how smart he was.
That was the last bit of conversation for a spell.
They walked.
The first house they passed, one that had not been torched, was pockmarked with holes from cannonballs and musket fire, the glass in the windows all gone, and a whole chunk of wall blown out. The trees that had lined the driveway lay on their sides, riddled with bullets, dead. Nobody lived there any more. Ebenezer didn’t think the owners would ever return.
Like tombstones in a graveyard, chimneys rose from the ash and débris, and Ebenezer guessed that was what Atlanta had become—a cemetery.
While the carnage seemingly had no effect on Zeb, it tore at Ebenezer’s nerves. He imagined that this was how Columbia, South Carolina, looked now—a blackened wreck of a city. He wondered if any of those homeowners were rebuilding. At first he thought the lumberyards were making a healthy profit, but he quickly realized that he heard no saws and few hammers. The city was quiet. Like a graveyard.
They walked by more charred ruins, more eerie brick “sentinels,” and a few poor whites, who just stared at the two boys. Men and women Negroes passed them, and they didn’t say anything either. The only voices the boys heard came from children, Negro girls and boys, singing in the streets, playing.
Not all of the buildings had been destroyed. A two-story brick building still stood near the railroad tracks. The sign in the façade read: BILLIARDS and SALOON. It hadn’t been burned, though the stone building next to it was a roofless wreck with the western side caved in. Yet even the saloon and billiards hall, with its windows intact, was deserted, its front door locked, the windows dark.
At
the corner, a couple of men in sack suits walked by, and one of them glanced at the two strangers, but didn’t stop, and offered no greeting.
It had been long time since Zeb and Ebenezer had eaten, but neither felt hungry. Zeb didn’t think there were enough scraps left in Atlanta to feed a starving rat.
“Where are the Union soldiers?” Ebenezer asked. His own voice startled him, sounding so strange in a city of rubble.
“Ain’t here,” Zeb said. “A new prisoner at Florence told us that Uncle Billy led his entire Army out after burning the city.” A wicked grin stretched across Zeb’s face. “By the Eternal, I reckon there wasn’t nothing left to occupy.”
Now Ebenezer lowered his head, watching his feet, not the heaps of ash, charred timbers, toppled bricks, never daring to lift his eyes again. He feared he might see another face, a citizen of Atlanta, white or black, and feel those cold, hollow eyes staring at him. He realized that everyone he had seen in Atlanta looked like a corpse. Again, he was struck by the thought that the entire city was nothing but a cemetery.
They walked. After a while, Zeb let out a little oath.
Quickly Ebenezer looked up, and drew in a deep breath. Soldiers were marching toward them, led by a man in a dark blue coat, riding a black horse, holding a saber.
“Head down,” Zeb whispered, “and just keep walking.”
Ebenezer dropped his gaze, again watching his feet trod across the dirt. He could feel his heart beat. “I thought you said . . .” he began, but Zeb told him to shut up and keep walking. He heard the horse snort and paw the ground as the soldier stopped it, but Ebenezer never slowed his pace, not daring to lift his head, feeling Zeb alongside him, and the eyes of every one of those blue-coated troopers boring through his insides.
“You there,” the soldier on the horse said.
The two boys kept walking.
“I said you there!”
Still walking, still not looking up.
“Halt!”
When Zeb stopped, so did Ebenezer. His eyes focused on his now motionless feet.
“Yes, sir?” Zeb said.
“What are you two young ’uns doing?”
“Going home,” Zeb told him.
“You were in the Confederate artillery?”
“No, Lieutenant. My brother was. These were his britches. I grew into them.”
The soldier considered this, and Zeb reached his right hand inside the bedroll he was carrying. Ebenezer caught his breath, knowing Zeb’s hand was probably touching the trigger and hammer of one of those rifles he had wrapped inside that section of canvas. Now Ebenezer looked up, wetting his lips, wondering if Zeb was such a fool as to think he could shoot down fifteen Union soldiers. Thinking: He’ll get both of us killed!
“Where’s your brother now?” the man on the horse said.
“Dead,” Zeb said. “Came home on furlough. Died of fever.”
Ebenezer couldn’t believe how well Zeb could tell such falsehoods. Zeb’s voice never faltered, and he kept looking that black-mustached Bluecoat in the eye. Then Ebenezer recalled that some of what Zeb was saying was true. His brother had come home on furlough, and had died of fever.
“And what of you?” The officer’s penetrating hazel eyes locked on Ebenezer.
Immediately Ebenezer’s gaze fell back on his feet.
“You! Look at me.”
Trembling, Ebenezer made himself obey.
“What are you doing?”
“Going home to my family,” Ebenezer said.
Zeb cut in suddenly. “Lieutenant, we done explained ourselves to a Yankee colonel by some building still standing downtown . . . or what once was downtown.”
The officer’s eyes narrowed. His men started looking uncomfortable.
“A colonel?”
“Yes, sir. Had a bunch of Bluebellies. Reckon they come down from Tennessee.”
“Where were they?”
Zeb pointed. “Just down the road a bit. They had pitched their tents. Horse soldiers.” He winked. “Never seen a dead cavalryman. How about you?”
The lieutenant stared down the rubble-lined road.
Ebenezer studied his feet again. Zeb began to tell another story. “My folks got a farm on the other side of the Chattahoochee River. I told that Yankee colonel the same thing. Said he wasn’t interested in Confederates. His orders were to capture foragers.”
“All right. You two boys get out of Atlanta.” The lieutenant tapped the side of his horse with the flat of his saber. The soldiers moved on, turning off on the first road they passed, long before they reached downtown.
Zeb watched them a while, then started walking.
Quickly Ebenezer caught up with him. “How’d you manage to tell them such lies?” he asked.
Zeb shrugged.
“They weren’t any Union soldiers back in town. Why’d you lie to that officer?”
“He’s no officer,” Zeb said. “He’s a forager. Scavenger. Deserter. Those men he was leading came from different outfits. Didn’t you notice the differences in their uniforms? One was a Zouave, by the Eternal. Another wore an artillery kepi. Reckon that lieutenant is the bull of the woods, or thinks he is. They ain’t better than them sidewinders that flogged you.”
Ebenezer let those words sink in. After a moment, he asked: “Well, how’d you know about the Chattahoochee River?”
“I was captured just northwest of here,” Zeb said, smiling.
They didn’t run into anyone else in Atlanta, and nor did they meet any travelers bound for that deserted city. Most folks, Ebenezer guessed, had been forced out during the battle, and hadn’t bothered to return. Thinking: What’s left to come back to?
Chapter Nine
Days dragged into weeks. Georgia blended into Alabama. They crossed so many creeks and rivers, ate so much fish, they felt as if they had become waterlogged. Cold rains didn’t help. Now the boys seldom spoke, just walked. Ebenezer no longer felt frightened or feared capture. The prevailing mood was one of monotony. Walking, sleeping, hiding. Drudgery. None of which helped their tempers.
The country started changing. Trees still lined the little road they traveled, towering longleaf pines that often made it seem as if Ebenezer and Zeb were walking through a tunnel, but the terrain started rolling, and the boys found themselves in hills of black, glassy rocks.
By now they had stopped traveling at night, and rarely fled into the woods whenever they saw someone on the road. Once, they met a family riding in an old, rotting-out wagon, and traded two powder horns for pork, coffee, a mess kit, and stale corn pone. The man told them they were fifty miles from Elyton.
As soon as the family had disappeared around a bend, the boys scurried off the road into a clearing. Zeb began striking flint against stone till the char paper caught a spark. Shortly afterward they had a fire going, coffee boiling in the cup from the kit, while they ravenously devoured the pork and pone like it was Sunday dinner. For all either of them knew, it might indeed have been Sunday.
“How long we been on the road?” Zeb asked.
Ebenezer reached for the coffee cup. “I don’t rightly know, but my feet tell me we’ve been walking for nigh a month. Maybe longer.” He drank, the coffee warming his insides.
The sinking sun shone through four slits in the bluish-gray clouds.
“Looks like rain,” Zeb said. “Again.” The last word came out as a sigh.
Ebenezer nodded, and passed the coffee to Zeb.
Zeb took the cup, and absently wiped the lip with his sleeve before he drank.
“You afraid your lips will look like mine?” Ebenezer said, unable to control the trembling of his voice. “If you drink after a Negro.”
Zeb stared, not comprehending. “Huh?”
“Nothing.” Ebenezer swore under his breath, rose, and walked deeper into the woods.
The rain began falling ten minutes later, the temperature dropping, the wind picking up, but none of it managed to cool Ebenezer’s anger.
* * * * *
&
nbsp; Another damned river, Zeb thought.
The river looked like it was on fire. Fog steamed off the water on a chilly morning, lifting about a foot off the black water, like smoke. There was no fog anywhere, except on the water. Water and fog stretched for an eternity from one tree-lined bank to another. Wider than any river they had yet seen since Florence County.
“I don’t think we can float a log across this one,” Ebenezer said.
“We don’t have to. Maybe.” Zeb was already walking down the hill. “Come on.”
They followed the road to a ferry, where Zeb traded the cartridge and cap boxes for passage. The ferryman, a red-bearded, toothless man who called himself Abel Lee, said the river was the Coosa, and asked Zeb if he had heard anything about General Forrest.
“We ain’t heard nothing about nobody,” Zeb answered testily.
“I heard Sherman’s arsonists burned Columbia, South Carolina,” Abel Lee said, “to the ground.”
Ebenezer’s eyes looked at that fog twisting around the ferry as Abel Lee worked the tiller. “That’s true,” he whispered. “We seen that ourselves.”
Lee spit a stream of tobacco juice into the river. “Atlanta. Columbia. We’re lucky to still have Mobile in Confederate hands, though that Yankee blockade has pretty much shut us off.” He shook his head. “Lord, I don’t rightly know how much longer Alabama can hold out. I heard Gen’ral Canby has more than eighty thousand men ready to march out from Fort Morgan.”
The boys said nothing.
“Where y’all headed?”
“Elyton,” Zeb said.
“And y’all ain’t had no word about Bedford Forrest?”
“No.”
“Got a boy. All I got left. Not much older than either of you two. He j’ined up with Bedford. Last letter I got from him was in November. He was at Spring Hill, up in Tennessee.”
Zeb kept quiet. To him, it seemed that Abel Lee didn’t want to start up a conversation. He just wanted to talk. Maybe, Zeb thought, it’s easier for a fellow to talk to a stranger than to his pals.
“Greg, he was my oldest. He fell at Gettysburg. I got a daughter, just two years younger than Greg, and her husband fell at Day’s Gap. Samantha, that’s my girl, she’s still a-wearin’ black, whenever she gets out of bed, and that ain’t very often. She’s just give up. Preacher McCall tried to tell her it was God’s will, but she don’t even hear him. Barely knows I’m around. This war . . .” Reaching up, Abel Lee wiped a tear from his eye. “Then there was Eli. Fever claimed him, just like it claimed his mama, whilst he was a-marchin’ with Gen’ral Hood. Lucas, he fell at Brice’s Crossroads. Oh, he wasn’t kilt quick, not like Greg and Orrin . . . Orrin bein’ Samantha’s husband. No, Lucas hung on for two months after that pill-roller sawed off both of his legs. He made it back home, for me to bury him beside his ma. I guess there’s some comfort in that, don’t you reckon? I mean, Greg, Orrin, and Eli . . . I got no notion where they’s buried. Wouldn’t know they was even dead if their officers or bunkies hadn’t writ me. Melvin, he’s all I got left. I sure hope he ain’t dead, too.”
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