by Julianne Lee
Oh, God. He wanted her to fight. “Ssssuh...suh, sir, I got no rifle. I’m Captain Brosnahan’s brother. I’ve come to find Captain Lucas Brosnahan.”
“Don’t know him,” said the gray-clad shadow, in a tone that suggested Lucas therefore couldn’t possibly exist.
“He’s with the 2nd Tennessee. Bate’s Brigade.” Or was it Polk? The units were reassigned to generals so easily and so often. What had Lucas said in his last letter?
The man nodded. “Second Infantry? They just came through here. Now, let’s get you a gun, boy.” He pulled on her arm to guide her.
“I can’t!” She held back.
“Say what?” There was a note of challenge in his voice, as if he wanted her to tell him he’d heard wrong.
“I mean, I’m assigned to Captain Brosnahan. I’m his...aide. This here horse is his, and he’ll be needing it. I’ve got to take him his horse.”
The man chuckled, without humor. “I expect he’s a mite indisposed just now, son. In fact, I guarantee it. Hand over the horse to me, and I’ll see he gets it in the morning.”
Shelby trusted this man less each moment. “No. I’ve got to give it to him myself. He’s my brother. I can’t just leave his horse.”
He tried to take the reins. “Give me—”
“Hey!” She pulled back and shoved the roan away from him. “I said, I’m taking her to my brother!”
The fellow was plainly displeased he wasn’t going to get the horse without a lot of noise and fuss, and there was an edge of anger to his voice when he said, “All right, then, kid. Come with me. Bragg’s headquarters tents are thataway.” He pulled hard on Shelby’s arm and she couldn’t help but follow. She held fast to the reins and pulled the mare along.
Up the road and off it to the left, there stood a cluster of tents around a large campfire. Runners came and went, boys in ragged clothes that sometimes bore resemblance to the uniforms of their elders and superiors. Many important-looking men in uniform went about the business of conducting a night battle they couldn’t see, and wouldn’t see for the trees even if it were daylight. The odd, Doppler wail of something large moving fast made everyone in the vicinity flatten themselves against the ground, and Shelby was too slow to know why. One of the tents flew apart, and near it a tree lost half its crotch. Leaves and splinters went every which way, and that was when Shelby realized a cannon ball had passed fifty feet away from her. She dropped tardily to the ground, feeling like an idiot for being the last one standing. It now seemed keeping low was a good idea, but it wasn’t possible to crawl around with her belly to the ground all the time. When the men around her began to rise and go on with their business, she did as well.
Her escort left her outside a tent, then went on his way without another word. A guard wanted to know what business she had there.
“Captain Brosnahan. Lucas Brosnahan, he’s my brother. He’s with the 2nd Tennessee. I need to find him.” Her gaze darted this way and that, looking for Lucas and hoping he was nearby, and therefore not in the midst of shooting.
The guard gave her a blank look, then said dully, “All right. Once things settle down some out there, we’ll go see if he’s still alive.”
A sick chill ran through her. Her knees failed her and she sank to a log seat by the fire, the horse’s reins in her fists, making herself as small as possible and flinching at every cannon shot and every stray bullet whizzing through the trees like a bumblebee gone mad. It seemed hours, and may very well have been. The night cold was damp, and she was glad for the blaze nearby. Every once in a while a Private came to refresh the flame. The horse dozed by her side. Eventually the shooting died down and the sounds gave way to men shouting and screaming in the distance, eerie in the night. Shelby continued to wait, and weariness crept in.
There was no telling what time it was when she heard Lucas’s exhausted voice off down the trail in the darkness beyond the firelight. “I got a message, wanting me to report here.” She stood and searched the milling faces for his, wanting terribly to run to him but she didn’t dare put on that sort of display.
Someone replied to him, “Yeah. Over thataway. And wait...while you’re here, I got a couple letters for you. From home, looks like.”
“Thanks.”
There he was, just entering the circle of light, his rifle balanced in one hand and the other stuffing letters into his tunic. He was thin. Terribly, awfully thin. His tall lankiness had become nearly skeletal gauntness, and his uniform hung on him like rags. Stubbled, hollow, cheeks, he was nearly unrecognizable, except that she’d seen him exactly like this before, long after his death. He said to the soldier walking with him, “Why was I called in?”
The other man said, “Your brother is here.”
Lucas’s eyes brightened and he glanced around. “Which one?”
“Little one. Young fellow.”
A blink. “Huh? I got no...” He spotted Amos’s horse and a puzzled look crossed his face. Then he saw her. Puzzlement turned to surprise, then surprise dissolved into anger and his brow furrowed and his eyes darkened. He peered at her, as if trying to convince himself she was someone else, and his face flushed red. Knots of muscle stood out on his jaw, and he said nothing.
The other soldier said, “He brought you a horse.”
“Thank you,” Lucas said in dismissal, his voice taut with the strain of holding his rage. The other soldier went on his way. When they were left to themselves, ignored by the men passing this way and that, Lucas went to her and said in a voice nearly too low to hear, “What in all damnation are you doing here?”
“I’ve come to take you home.” She looked straight into his eyes and hoped he couldn’t tell she was trembling.
He started to say something in reply, but choked on it then clamped his mouth shut. A white line appeared around his lips, and he looked to see if anyone was noticing this scene. Finally he said, “You have gone completely insane.”
“Lucas—”
“What am I going to do with you? Do you know how dangerous this place is? What if you got shot by a stray bullet? What if....” His voice failed him, and he looked around at the destruction nearby, at the splintered tree and wrecked tent. “This place is in range of their cannon. What if their artillery found you? What if you got killed?”
“What if you got killed?”
“This is my duty.”
“Your duty is to me.”
He poked a finger at her face. “No! My duty is—”
“Lucas, both your brothers are dead. I...”
His stricken look stopped her cold, and she was suddenly sorry to have blurted. Face slack, his mouth dropped open and he lowered his hand. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.”
He looked lost. Confused. He searched her face, as if hoping it were a lie or a joke. “How? What happened?”
She started to tell him, but an officer came up to them with a rifle in his hands. He wore a handlebar mustache and an officious mien. She couldn’t tell by the insignia what rank he was, but it was plain he had authority over Lucas, for he simply butted into the conversation by thrusting the rifle at Shelby. “Here. You’re with your brother’s unit now.”
“No!” said Lucas before Shelby could even react, and he turned on the other officer.
“Yes. He’s got a gun, he can fight, so he’s going to get his skinny ass out there and fight.”
“I said, no.” Lucas’s eyes were wild, white all around. “I mean, no, sir.”
“Even if he is your little brother—”
“She’s not my brother.” Deeper red crept in at Lucas’s ears, and his voice lowered as he glanced around the area. “He...she...she’s not my brother. She’s my wife.”
The officer’s face went slack, and he gaped at Shelby. She wanted to shrink until she would be invisible. “He’s your wife?” The man’s voice was appalled.
“She. Mary Beth. She came in disguise to...to bring me...news.”
The officer blinked, gaped at L
ucas some more as his mustache twitched, then seemed to recover himself some. “Well, then. We can’t have her just wandering around loose. Take her to the medical tent. She can help out with the other women.”
“I’ll deal with her.”
“Good. See that you do.” The officer turned and made his retreat, his back rigid and his Victorian sensibilities plainly shaken.
Lucas grabbed Shelby by the arm. “You’ve got no business here.”
“Neither do you. Come home. We need you home more than the Yankees need you to be shooting at them.”
That absolutely did not have the desired effect. Lucas’s frown darkened even more. He grabbed the horse’s reins with his free hand and pulled her and the animal along with him. She staggered and hopped along, off balance, her bare feet dancing with pain on rocks and branches on the ground.
“I’ve got men I’m responsible for. I can’t be dallying here with you and leave them in the midst of a fight.”
“Lucas—”
“Silence. Do not say a word. What you have done is about as wrong as anything you could have done, other than to lie with another man. You will listen to me, and—for tonight at least—you will say nothing.”
“Lu—”
“Nothing.”
She shut her mouth, and let him haul her along through the forest.
They came to a spot, deep among the trees, where the undergrowth was relatively thin, and badly trampled in any case. Huge branches lay about, splintered and scattered by artillery. Small campfires dotted the area, some cooking food and others dwindling as their owners slept. There was little talking, but there were many sounds of pain and weeping. Somewhere in the distance a wounded man was screaming, terrified, knowing he was about to die. One of the shadowy men nearby said, “Someone shut him up.” Another responded, “He’s a Yankee. Gotta be a Yankee.” The first said, “Then shoot the son of a bitch so’s I can sleep.”
Lucas finally stopped by a tree and tied the horse to it. “Sit,” he said as he loosened the cinch and slid the saddle off. Shelby found a small fire falling to embers, and a bedroll next to it. She set her own bedroll on the ground and sat on Lucas’s blankets, then set about investigating a sharp pain in her heel. A thorn of some kind had lodged there, and she picked it out carefully as Lucas set the saddle on the ground and sat next to her to tend the fire.
“Lucas—”
“Shhh.”
She hushed. The night was oppressive with the pain of others. Under the heady sap-smell of trees freshly ripped open, she found she could discern the blood and bile of the men likewise ripped open. The sharp odor of spent powder occasionally wafted through on the breeze as clouds of smoke dissipated.
Her husband stoked the fire with sticks laid beside it, and when it was high enough to throw light he reached into his pocket for the letters he’d just received. An itch on his nose made him scratch, and his fingers left a smudge of ash across it. He opened one of the letters and began to read by the campfire. Then he grunted. “It’s from Ruth. All it says is that you’re coming to see me, and that you have news, and that I should keep an eye out for you. Dated near a month ago, and downright terse.”
“Ruth doesn’t write much. She doesn’t think she does it well.”
“Yeah, I’m the lucky one whose wife is too damn smart for her own good,” he put Ruth’s letter aside and opened the other, “who mouths off, and won’t stay put, and threatens people with a fire poker....” He looked at the salutation of the other letter and grunted again. “This one’s from you.”
“Me?” She hadn’t written since well before she’d left Hendersonville. “When is it dated?”
“October. Last year.”
Good God. “It took that long to catch up with you?” It was hard to keep track of what had been received and when, particularly when missives had to travel across enemy lines and were dependent on strangers who happened to be going a particular direction.
Lucas said dryly, still angry with her, “Uh huh. War can purely be a hindrance to mail delivery.” He didn’t glance at her, but held the letter at an angle where he could read it by the light of the fire.
October of last year. Shelby figured it must be the account of the robbery and Martha’s death. He read on, and sagged very much the way Amos had when he’d heard the news. When he finished, he carefully folded the pages, slipped them into his pocket again, then said softly, “I take back what I said about you and fireplace pokers.” Then took a cigar from inside his tunic, and bit an end from it which he spit into the fire. He picked up a dead leaf from the ground and lit one end of it in the fire, then used it to light the cigar.
He gazed into the middle distance, thinking. Finally he said, “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you.” His voice was so low she could barely hear him. It was almost a mutter. “Whenever we come up on a fight, and it looks like there’s going to be shooting, I think of you. I think of going home to you. You’re the light I go toward, and it keeps death away from me. I stay alive because of you.”
She’d seen him like this before, even to the gauntness of his body and the smudge on his nose, but now he wasn’t longing for Mary Beth. The horrible loneliness in which she’d seen his spirit trapped wouldn’t hold him into eternity, for the woman he loved was alive and she was here, and he was telling her how she filled him with hope. That much, at least, Shelby had accomplished.
He sat, smoking his cigar, saying nothing further. For several minutes he stared silently into space, then asked, “Is Dad still alive?”
“Yes.”
He drew a deep, relieved breath, then hesitated before speaking again. “What happened to Amos and Gar?”
“Gar was shot while his unit was retreating from Ohio. Amos was hung when they caught him at home.”
Lucas screwed his eyes shut, and his head tilted under the burden of pain. His mouth was a hard, thin line, and when he opened his eyes he stared vacantly into the fire.
“What am I going to do with you?”
“Take me home. I’ll go quietly.”
That brought a wan smile. “The Yankees are just over there.” He nodded into the darkness. “The fighting is going to start up again just as soon as there’s light to aim by. I can’t leave, and I can’t just send you away.”
“You can leave. You must. If you don’t, you will die tomorrow.”
“Quit it.”
“Lucas, I’m serious. I know what’s going to happen tomorrow. And for the rest of the war. Just like I knew how the Yankees were going to invade Tennessee.”
“You made a good guess.”
“Just the same, I’m guessing tomorrow’s battle will be the end of you if you don’t come with me right now.”
Anger crept back into his voice, a tension that made it go low like a growl. “I can’t just cut out like that. I don’t even want to. I’d hate myself forever, were I to leave my men behind and run like a coward.”
“You know the cause is bogus. You know there’s no hope.”
“I know no such thing.”
“Do you really think Americans will be better off as two countries?”
“I know that if we don’t fight the South will be ground under the heel of Federalism and gutted by the North.”
That gave her pause, for he was right. That was exactly what was going to happen during “Reconstruction”. But, unwilling to give up on her own personal cause, she drew a deep breath and played her trump card. “Matthew needs you. I don’t want him to grow up without a daddy.”
Lucas shut his eyes, and his head tilted again. He sat that way for a long moment, then said, “We need to sleep.” She knew that was all she was going to get out of him that night. He carefully tamped out the lit end of his cigar and restored it to his pocket, then shifted to lie on his blanket and drew her down next to him with his arm around her.
Then, without a word, he reached for the buttons of her shirt and slipped two of them. With one hand he reached inside and pulled up her undershirt, then
tugged at the knot holding the cloth binding her breasts. It wouldn’t budge, so he reached into his boot for his knife and cut the knot. After returning the knife to its scabbard, he began tugging the cloth from around her. She said and did nothing to stop him. It wasn’t possible he intended to make love to her right there on the ground in front of God and everyone. Was it?
No. The binding unwound and the calico tossed aside, he then buttoned her shirt again and pressed her back down onto the blanket beside him. She scratched her freed breasts through her shirt, for that binding had been awfully tight. After a moment of silence, he whispered, “If I’m a-going to die tomorrow, I don’t want the men’s memory of me to include having lain with a boy.” Then one hand cupped a breast and he settled in to sleep.
Shelby laid a hand over his to keep it there, and closed her eyes to do likewise.
The sun was high when they awoke the next morning. Far from beginning shooting at dawn, neither side seemed in a hurry to continue the fray. But neither did they care to break it off. From where Shelby and Lucas had slept, she could see smoke from fires in the Yankee encampments, and figured if she wandered too far in that direction she’d be taken out by a picket. Throughout the morning she stuck as close to Lucas as she could without stepping on him.
Breakfast was cooked and eaten in a tense hurry, ammunition and rations distributed, guns cleaned and loaded, bedrolls and belongings packed, and then they waited. Men lounged and wandered about in an atmosphere of expectation that Shelby could taste the way she could taste on the air the blood from yesterday’s battle. Dark pools coated with yellow film lay on the ground, and the stench of meat and feces gathered in the pale warmth of the fall day. Bodies were carried away for burial at the rear. The wounded were quiet, many of them now among the dead and the rest believing they might live. Finally, at about mid-morning, word came to form up. Lucas stood and called for his lieutenant.
Shelby rose with him. “Lucas, don’t go into the battle today.”
“We discussed this last night. I have no choice.” He was shoving dirt over his fire with the instep of his boot. She saw the sole was giving way and the toe was beginning to separate from the upper.