The ferryboat struck the shore, and Zeb started to thank the man for the ride, to tell him he hoped his son Melvin would come home soon, but when he saw Abel Lee’s face, there was nothing to say. Silently they left the smoking river, began climbing the road up the hill, while Abel Lee silently returned his ferry across the river. As he followed Zeb, Ebenezer kept looking back, staring at the ferry, until the fog covered it like a shroud.
* * * * *
Hills thickened with brush, and the rains fell that afternoon, and all the next day. Rain and fog. Fog and rain. The road got muddier. The road grew steeper.
Toward evening, when the rain had stopped, they found a carpetbag on the side of the road. Zeb quickly hurried to it, opening it, pulling out a woman’s blouse, a scarf, tossing them into the woods.
“Zeb,” Ebenezer said. “That’s not your stuff. You shouldn’t . . .”
“Shut up!” He tossed a book into the mud. “Maybe there’s some food.”
There wasn’t, however, and after Zeb had emptied the satchel, he threw it angrily across the road with a vile curse. He shook his head and looked down at Ebenezer, saw him opening the pages of the book.
The slave looked up, smiling, and said, “It’s Gulliver’s Travels.” As he stood, he turned another page, and read: “‘The author of these Travels, Mr. Lemuel Gulliver, is my ancient and . . .’” He had trouble with the next word. “‘. . . intimate friend.’” Smiling, he repeated the word. “Intimate.” Nodding with satisfaction, he started to read more, but Zeb ripped the book from his hands, and tossed it deep into the woods.
“Words,” he snapped. “What good is a book? It ain’t gonna feed us. If you’re coming with me, come on.”
Zeb kept walking, his boots making a squishing sound as he trod across a wooden bridge. Moving with a purpose. It was dusk. Ebenezer felt worn out, exhausted, but he made himself sprint until he caught up with Zeb a few rods after they had crossed the river.
“Let’s rest a spell,” he said.
Zeb strode on.
“Zeb!”
The soldier didn’t stop.
“I bet we can find a cave,” Ebenezer said. “In these hills. Get a fire going. Dry ourselves.”
Zeb acted as if he hadn’t heard.
Ebenezer raced after him. “Where you going, Zeb, in such an awful hurry?”
“Vicksburg,” he said.
“Well, we’re not going to get there today. We’re not even in Elyton, yet, and Vicksburg’s plumb on the other side of Mississippi, according to our map.” Zeb was still walking. “Zeb, you’re not making a lick of sense.” He reached out, grabbed Zeb’s shoulder.
Zeb spun, slashed out, knocking away Ebenezer’s arm, almost knocking the runaway slave into the mud. “You keep your hands off me you black . . .”
Blood rushed to Ebenezer’s head. “Why don’t you,” he roared, “say it? Say the word. It won’t be the first time I’ve heard it.”
“I ain’t saying nothing.” Zeb turned, started.
Ebenezer reached out again, jerked Zeb around. “Something’s in your craw,” Ebenezer said. “What is it?”
“You.” Zeb’s right fist caught Ebenezer in the cheek, and the slave dropped like a fifty-pound sack into the mud. Zeb stared, absently massaging the fingers on his hand, hardly believing the look on the slave’s face as he pushed himself into a seated position, shaking his head, gingerly fingering the cut underneath his eye.
Slowly Zeb let out a sigh, and extended his left hand, mumbling: “I’m sorry, Ebenezer. I didn’t mean . . .” He never finished.
With a primal scream, Ebenezer pushed himself up, lowered his shoulder, slammed into Zeb’s stomach. Air whooshed from Zeb’s lungs as the two boys fell hard against the black rocks on the side of the road.
Chapter Ten
Ebenezer rolled over, came up, swung, missed. Looking down, he caught a blur, then felt Zeb’s shoulder ram his stomach, sprawling him into the woods. An oak tree met his back, and he grunted, watched Zeb slide off him and slip on the straw and leaves, wet from rain. Straightening, ignoring the pain in his back, chest, gut, hands, Ebenezer turned and kicked out at the boy on the ground. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He, a runaway slave, tried to smash Zeb Hogan’s nose with his brogans. He would have done just that, too, if Zeb hadn’t spotted him, and dived away at the last instant. Ebenezer’s ears were ringing, his chest heaving.
Zeb scrambled to his feet, watching the slave catch his breath. Their eyes met, locked, but neither spoke. They circled each other, feeling their way around the trees, watching the evening grow darker. Zeb spat out a glob of blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then charged. A backhand slapped him across the face, and he slipped again. Rolled over. But Ebenezer was on top of him, straddling him, reaching down, locking his fingers around Zeb’s throat.
This was no good. Zeb had spent too many months in a prison camp, wasting away, while Ebenezer had been eating real meals, or so he thought, working in the fields, digging graves. Zeb didn’t have the strength in his arms to whip this boy. He reached for the revolver in his waistband, heard Ebenezer’s gasp. Shaking his head, Zeb dropped the pistol in a bush. He couldn’t use a gun on an unarmed man. Wouldn’t . . . unless it was Sergeant Ben DeVere. Yet he couldn’t whip Ebenezer Chase, not with his fists.
But his legs . . . Now that was different. He had been marching so long, during his time with the 16th Wisconsin and for the past month, walking across South Carolina, Georgia, and into Alabama, that his legs were as strong as springall. He arched his back, moved his hips to his left, then shot out with his legs to the right, and Ebenezer fell to his side. Zeb came up first, kicked out, felt his boot graze the slave’s shoulder. The slave leaped up, and Zeb shot out with his right fist, but the boy ducked, and his hand smashed a tree, bark gouging his flesh, jamming two knuckles.
Zeb swore. Shook the pain from his hand. Ebenezer’s fist found Zeb’s jaw, and Zeb was down, spitting out blood, shaking his head, trying to get his eyes to focus. The slave’s fist felt like an anvil.
“You miserable little darky!”
Zeb felt confused. He hadn’t said that. Had he?
“I’ll teach you to strike a white man, boy.”
Zeb tried to place the voice. A scream cut through the cool air, and Zeb reached out, felt hands gripping his arms, felt himself being jerked to his feet. His vision cleared, and he stared into hard faces.
Ebenezer cried out, and as the hands let him go, Zeb pushed a path through the people, saw a man in duck trousers and a butternut jacket placing a knife against Ebenezer’s throat.
“You leave him be!” Zeb demanded, and the man with the knife spun around.
“No coon ever touches a white man, boy. Not in this here part of Alabama.”
“It’s none of your affair. Leave him alone.” Odd, Zeb thought, spitting out more blood. A minute ago, I was trying to kill that slave, and now I’m defending him. Why? I wonder . . . “I said leave him alone.”
He knew he needed Ebenezer. Zeb couldn’t read, couldn’t write, didn’t know this country. He’d feel lost without the slave. What’s more, he’d be dead if not for Ebenezer Chase.
“And who the blazes are you?” The stentorian voice turned Zeb around, and Zeb looked at a big man holding a Dragoon Colt.
“He’s a Yankee spy!” another man shouted.
Zeb swallowed. Eight, no, nine men. All armed. Two of them carrying torches. Other sounds drew his attention out of the woods and onto the road. He couldn’t see that well, but he knew more men, wagons, and horses were out there. By the Eternal, Zeb thought, an entire army sneaked up on us while we were fighting each other.
“You heard Hank,” one of the men with a torch said. “What you doin’ in these woods?” He extended the flame toward Ebenezer. “Brawlin’ with the likes of him?”
“Who are you with?” the man with the Dragoon demanded. “Canby or Wilson?”
“I’m with Bedford Forrest,” Zeb said, his voice cracking
from the pain, “you blasted idiot.”
The man lowered the Colt. He seemed at a loss for words.
Another man, much older, calmer, and not toting a huge six-shooter, pulled a handkerchief out of his coat pocket, and offered it to Zeb, who took it and used it to stanch the flow of blood.
“Who are you?” the man asked. This one didn’t seem as rough, as unkempt as the others. He wore a broadcloth coat, tall black boots, and a wide-brimmed straw hat. He turned to the one with the knife. “Put the blade away, Conn. Leave the darky alone.” Facing Zeb again. “I’ll ask you again . . . who are you?”
“I’m Melvin Lee,” Zeb said. “I’m a scout for General Forrest.” Lying had always come easy to Zeb. He just prayed the fool Ebenezer Chase wouldn’t do anything to give him away.
A pleasant grin stretched across the Alabaman’s face as he pointed at Zeb’s trousers. “Last report I got was that Lieutenant General Forrest commanded the cavalry corps of the Department of Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. You’re wearing the britches of an artillery soldier.”
“And the boots of a horse soldier,” Zeb shot right back at him. “Maybe you don’t know how it is . . . you being safe in your homes while us young men are off fighting, and dying, for you. We wear whatever we can get our hands on, these days.”
The man’s smile transformed into an angry frown. “Mind your manners, son,” he said tightly. “I’m old enough to be your father, maybe your grandfather, and I’ll tan your hide if I’ve a mind to. And we haven’t shirked our duty. We’re the Jones Valley Militia . . . skirmished a Yank patrol two days back. Now you say you’re riding with Forrest. That’s well and good, but I don’t see a horse for you or your pal here.” He hooked his thumb at Ebenezer.
“Remounts,” Zeb answered. “We’re looking for remounts. Lost my horse a couple of days ago.”
“He don’t sound like he’s from Jones Valley,” the man with the Dragoon Colt said, picking up Zeb’s revolver, “but he’s got a Spiller and Burr .36, and that’s a Rebel gun.”
“My pa captains the ferry on the Coosa River,” Zeb said, and pointed east. “Abel Lee.”
“I know Abel Lee,” said a man in the back. He limped forward, and Zeb and Ebenezer saw he was on crutches, and that his left leg was gone below the knee. “Big fellow, gray beard, walks with a limp.”
“Mister,” Zeb said, “you don’t know my pa at all. He ain’t much bigger than me, his hair is red, or looks red when he washes it, and if he ever limps, it must be because he ain’t found his land legs, riding that rocking river all day and half the night.”
The man gave a little smile, and shook his head. He’d been trying to catch Zeb in a lie. “I know your brother, Greg.”
“Knew him,” Zeb said. “Greg was killed by Yankees in Pennsylvania. All my brothers is dead.”
“He’s Melvin Lee, I reckon,” the man said, and moved back on his crutches.
“Whose the colored boy?” the older man asked.
“His name’s Ebenezer,” Zeb answered, pulling away the bloody handkerchief for inspection, returning it as he kept on with his lies. “General Forrest loaned him out to me. Now what brings you fellows out in the middle of this wet night?”
“Why were you fighting? Conn’s right. No Negro ever strikes a white man, even a white boy. Not without serious repercussions.”
Zeb wasn’t sure what repercussions meant. “We weren’t fighting.”
The one with the Dragoon chuckled. “What do you call it then?” The smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he turned, thumbing back the hammer, pressing the barrel at Ebenezer’s heart. “What do you call it, boy?”
“A . . . lesson.” Ebenezer swallowed down his fear. “He . . .” For the life of him, he couldn’t remember what name Zeb had used. “He . . . was teaching me what to do . . . in case . . . we got captured . . . by . . .”
“By Yankees,” Zeb said.
The one in the broadcloth coat laughed. “I don’t know who was teaching who what, but you both have a lot to learn about fisticuffs.”
“And how to carry on during a war,” Dragoon Colt added.
Broadcloth Coat introduced himself as Captain Andrew Whitaker, commander of the Jones Valley Militia.
“You know how it’s been,” Captain Whitaker told Zeb, nodding at him, calling him Melvin. “We’re feeling the life squeezed out of us from the Yankee tyrants who have controlled Huntsville since practically the war began . . .”
“Don’t forget all them Yankee-lovin’ scalawags from up there, neither,” Dragoon Colt said. “Ask me, we should ride up there and hang every mother’s son of them. They’s traitors. Traitors to Alabama. Traitors to the South.”
Captain Whitaker let him finish, then tugged down on the brim of his hat and shook his head. “And from the south, down around Mobile. We’re caught between the Yankees to the north and south. Squeezing us tighter and tighter. From what we hear, General Canby’s preparing to assault Fort Blakely and Spanish Fort, and we hear that Wilson is preparing some type of assault from up north from the Tennessee River. We’ve been sheltered in Elyton, where I live, and Jonesboro, where Hank has a farm.” Here he tilted his head at the man with the Dragoon. “This valley has always been sheltered. Soil’s too rocky for cotton, the land too hard to clear. We don’t have much here but iron. Iron has been our savior, helped us keep this fight going, providing material for the Confederacy. Yet now, I fear, iron might spell our doom. If the Yankees attack us . . . destroy our ironworks.”
One man handed Zeb his revolver, and he slipped it into his waistband. “What are you doing?” he asked Captain Whitaker.
“That bridge,” Captain Whitaker said. “We have to destroy that bridge. Keep the Yanks from crossing the Cahaba. That’s what we came to do. You’ve seen the signs, Melvin. You know there are Yankee patrols all across the valley. We had a set-to with some Bluebellies two days ago. Those rains, flooded streams, quagmires for roads, they might keep Wilson from leading any campaign of any strength for a while, but that hasn’t stopped him from sending out patrols.”
“If they get control of this bridge,” the man named Hank said, “they’ll be able to capture, or burn down, the iron furnaces at Oxmoor, maybe Irondale.”
Captain Whitaker nodded.
“We’re here to destroy the bridge,” Captain Whitaker said. “We’d planned to burn it, but . . .” He sighed, and gestured at the falling rain.
“We have powder. Plenty of powder.” This came from Hank. “Brought it up from Selma.”
A sudden pop drew their attention to the road. Another. Then the cannonade of musketry, followed by the screams of horses, the ripping of bullets into woods, into men.
“Capt’n! Capt’n Whitaker!” a voice cried from the road. “Yankees are upon us.”
Muskets roared. From where he stood, Zeb could see the flashes.
The men turned, ran, drawing their weapons. Zeb felt himself being pushed, heard one of the Alabamans say he had a pistol and he’d better use it. Looking over his shoulder, Zeb saw Ebenezer running with the others.
On the Elyton road, those pops had become steady, and a whole lot louder, echoed by screams, shouts, curses. Zeb stopped at the side of the road, ducked behind a tree, reached out and grabbed Ebenezer’s arm, pulled him down into a ditch. Twenty or thirty men stood on the road, ramming rods down muskets, lifting their weapons, aiming, firing at will. Flashes pockmarked the blackness on the other side of the Cahaba River, and somewhere in the darkness a trumpet blared. A bullet buzzed past Ebenezer’s ear. Eyes widening with fear, Ebenezer flattened his face against the dead weeds.
“Steady men!” Captain Whitaker called. “Steady!”
Firing became general. A geyser of mud shot up over Zeb’s head.
“Hank!” Whitaker called out. “We need those barrels of powder. We have to blow that bridge. Now!”
“I’ll fetch ’em, Capt’n,” Hank said, and he climbed out of the hole he’d taken cover in, started running down the ro
ad. Two other militiamen followed, but one fell down immediately, and he didn’t get up. Another, carrying a torch, ran on.
“Come on.” Zeb grabbed Ebenezer’s hand, practically dragged him out of the ditch before he let go. He took off after Hank and the other soldier, and Ebenezer figured that he had no choice but to run right after him. Bullets sang past them, clipping trees, digging in the mud, or striking flesh. Never had Ebenezer been in a battle, but he couldn’t mistake when a ball hit a man. He knew he would keep hearing that sound for the next month when trying to sleep. Now, maybe, he understood how Zeb Hogan could be such a hard-rock for a boy a few months younger than Ebenezer was.
They reached two covered wagons parked on the edge of the road. Behind those wagons, by the flames of campfires, Ebenezer spotted several horses picketed to the ground. About half a dozen soldiers raced from those fires, shouting, trying to get their muskets or shotguns—one held just a pitchfork—into the ready position.
Hank had climbed into the back of the wagon, and now he reappeared with a barrel in his arms. He handed it to the other militiaman, who dropped it into the mud.
“Careful with that torch, Thaddeus,” Hank said. “The grand ladies of Selma donated their chamber-lye to help make the saltpeter needed to produce this powder for our boys.”
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