Slant of Light

by Steve Wiegenstein

  “But what about out here, in the country?” Turner said.

  Willingham shrugged. “Out here, I don’t know what to tell you. Figure things out as you go, is the best I can say.” He cast a look down the road. “I tell you one thing. I would rather have just sent out letters, or rode out here by myself instead of with all these soldier boys. A crowd of Federals like that draws trouble as sure as shit draws flies, and the bigger the pile the more flies.” He stopped and put his hand over his mouth. “I embarrass myself. I apologize, ma’am. Best I should look to my own manners.”

  “It’s all right,” Charlotte said. “These are difficult times.”

  “You can say that again. Well, I’d better catch up with these boys. If some puke with a powder horn is sitting on that bluff up ahead, I’ll be harder to hit if I’m in the middle of that bunch than out by myself.” He tipped his hat. “Goodbye, folks. Good luck to you.”

  They watched him ride away. “So that’s our law, is it?” Wilson said. “Well, thank you very much.”

  At the community meeting that week, Wilson resigned. “I’m going up to St. Louis to enlist,” he said. “It’s only a three-month enlistment, and they’re giving out bonuses. If I’m going to have people shooting at me, I’d just as soon know which direction they’re shooting from.” No one said anything, but eyes naturally turned to the Widow Shepherson. Wilson had been paying call on her for more than a year, and the quiet assumptions that a community makes had been made regarding the two of them. But her face was composed, and she remained silent. It was not clear whether this was a parting, or whether promises had been exchanged.

  At the end of the month, fifteen women and children came up the road from the south. Most of the children and about half the women were barefoot, their feet bleeding, and they moved with the slow urgency of the starving. When they reached Harp Webb’s house, they stopped and knocked on the door, over and over, until it was clear that no one was home; then they moved up to the colony.

  Charlotte’s was the first house they reached. She spread them out under the maple tree to rest and brought them leftover biscuits from breakfast, which they divided among themselves, a quarter of a biscuit to each.

  “We’ll cook lunch soon,” she said. Newton was hiding behind her skirts, looking at the strange assembly. “Run down to Mrs. Wickman’s and tell her we’ve got company,” she told him. He ran off, looking over his shoulder every few steps.

  “I remember this place,” said one woman, the oldest of the group. “We passed through here a few years ago.”

  “You did?” Charlotte said.

  “There was a whole train of us. Father Hogan was leading us into the wilderness. My name’s Flanagan, Kathleen Flanagan.”

  “The Irish group,” said Charlotte. “I remember you. What happened?”

  “Some of the boys went off to enlist,” she said. “Don’t know what’s become of them, the mail don’t get through. Then bushwhackers started coming around, stole the cattle and anything else they could find. Some of them said they were procuring for one side or another. Maybe they were, I don’t know. If you put up an argument, they shot you down. We’ve lost four men already, my husband included. The rest of the men sent us off, said it was too dangerous. They’re going to try to hold things down until the war’s over.”

  “Are your men armed?”

  “Some hunting rifles, nothing special. They don’t go out to the fields any more except in groups.”

  They were interrupted by the arrival of Mrs. Wickman, who came running with some chunks of salt pork in her apron. “We’re having pork and beans today,” she said. “I fished these out. This’ll tide you over till lunchtime.”

  The group divided the chunks of meat and fell to eating, the children licking their fingers to get every taste. Charlotte had Newton bring pans of water; after they had drunk their fill, they bathed their feet. “We don’t have enough extra shoes to go around, but we can help some of you,” she said. “That house over there is empty. Perhaps you can stay there for a while.”

  The Irish women looked at each other in silent consultation. “Maybe so,” Mrs. Flanagan said. Our men want us to keep heading north, but some of these babies ain’t fit to travel. We can rest up for a few days.”

  By now more of the Daybreak women had arrived and were seeing to the children while their mothers rested. Charlotte looked up to see Marie Mercadier sitting at the base of the tree, a toddler in her lap, washing its feet with a damp cloth. She walked over to her.

  “I’m not too sure about this little one,” Marie said.

  Charlotte looked closer at the child. His skin was pale and clammy, and he was breathing in shallow gasps. She looked around. “Who is the mother of this child?” she called.

  “He ain’t got one,” said a girl standing nearby. “She died. I been carrying him part time.”

  “Are you his sister?” Marie asked.

  “No ma’am,” said the girl. “I just didn’t have anybody to carry.” Charlotte put her hand on Marie’s shoulder. “You still have your milk?”

  “Yes.” Their gazes met.

  “It may not help,” Charlotte said. “But we should try.”

  Marie nodded. She lowered her eyes, turned away, and opened her blouse to the hungry lips. A flash of pain pierced Charlotte, knowing the same gesture had been performed for Turner somewhere, but then she returned to the moment, remembered the advice in her father’s letter, and let go.

  The Irish group stayed into the fall. Emile Mercadier made shoes for all those who did not have them. To everyone’s surprise, the baby, whose name was Angus, survived. Kathleen Flanagan spent much of each day sitting with Marie, tending the child. Mrs. Flanagan proved to be a sociable, talkative woman, with a hearty laugh and strong opinions. When the hemp had been fully retted, the Irish helped break the stems, pick out the fiber, and feed it into the jack. But as October drew on, Mrs. Flanagan announced that it was time to start north again.

  “Our men will not know where to find us, assuming they survive,” she said. “We must place ourselves where we can be found.” But she asked for a private conversation with Charlotte and Marie. Although Charlotte had never spoken of her troubles involving Marie, Mrs. Flanagan somehow sensed them; she did not ask to meet in Charlotte’s home. Instead, they sat on the porch of Harp Webb’s house, where the group had made its quarters.

  “I am bound north with my people,” Mrs. Flanagan said. “They need me, and I will take them. But the child should stay behind. “His father is gone, maybe forever. His mother is dead. And there is nothing ahead for him but the foundling home, the workhouse, and God knows what else.” She took Marie’s hand. “Will you take him in, girl?”

  “Yes,” Marie said. Her voice was low.

  “I understand your own little one is without a daddy.”

  “Well.…” The moment was acutely painful, but Charlotte sat silent,

  waiting to hear what Marie would say. “Not in the legal sense.”

  “Then God in Heaven is her father, and let her not be ashamed of that,” Mrs. Flanagan said. “This boy, give him your name. His family name is Flynn, and you can tell him that someday. But Mercadier is a fine name. I’ll venture there’s not another Angus Mercadier on the earth. In fact—” She hesitated. “In fact, your father has asked me to return here after I have fulfilled my duties, and take on the name Mercadier as well. But I need to know if you have any objections.”

  “Objections!” Marie cried out. “Heavens, no, I have no objections!” She jumped from her chair and embraced the woman.

  “Your father plays a fine fiddle,” Mrs. Flanagan said with a sly smile. “Jigs and reels and fine airs that I thought only an Irishman could master.”

  “Then we shall dance,” Charlotte said. “I’ll send the word around. Tomorrow you leave us, so tonight we dance. Let the rebels and the Federals battle as they may, and Lord knows we may all be dead by Christmastime.”

  “If your neighbor ever returns to his house, gi
ve him our thanks, though the house was not willingly lent,” Mrs. Flanagan said. “We broke nothing and stole nothing, and we are leaving it cleaner than we found it.”

  Charlotte did not answer.

  In the night they danced in the Temple of Community, women for once outnumbering men, the chairs and tables pushed against the wall as always. Emile’s fiddle sounded thin and lonely to Charlotte; she remembered how well the annoying Mr. Smith could play, and how he matched Emile’s melody or harmonized with it, his own playing wandering off into its own odd reaches before returning to the main theme. And she missed George Webb, with whom she had never gotten to dance, she suddenly recalled. So, determined not to miss another such chance, she danced every song, pulling men out of their chairs and dragging them onto the floor. There weren’t enough people for a quadrille, so they stuck to simple line and pair dances, and at the moments when she partnered with Adam Cabot, Charlotte remembered that this was how she had first begun to think of him, the two of them gliding across the floor. A deep mournfulness inhabited his eyes now; it pained her to think that she had helped put it there. And, she thought, perhaps such a look was in her own. It was best not to face the mirror sometimes.

  In the morning the Irish waded across the chilly river on their way north.

  Mrs. Flanagan had refused the offer of wagons to take them to town.

  “We are under our own power,” she said. “What becomes of us will become of us. And should your wagoners be killed by bushwhackers on their way home, I could never forgive myself for having led them out into the open. Till we meet again.”

  Then they were gone, and Daybreak returned to its former rhythm, finishing the year’s ropemaking, plowing the field to sow the winter wheat, listening in anxious silence for the sound of horsemen. Turner finished his edition of The Eagle and bundled the copies to take to Fredericktown. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to get them mailed,” he said. “I may have to bring them back. But at least it’s done.”

  A few weeks later, a little past dark, they heard slow, solitary hoofbeats passing their door, and went to the doorway to see Harp Webb riding past. Harp stopped his horse.

  “Yep,” he said, “They let me out. Never could put nothing on me, and the place was getting filled up with honest-to-God rebels. So it was hang me or turn me loose, and they turned me loose.” He spat onto the road. “Even gave me my horse back, the damned fools.” He looked toward his house. “I see it’s still standing. Heard you loaned it out to some white niggers while I was gone.”

  “It was an emergency,” Turner said. “It was a desperate circumstance.”

  “Yeah. Desperate circumstances all over.”

  “We’d do the same for any group that needed our help,” Turner said. “Loyal or rebel.”

  “Still trying to play both sides,” said Harp. “That’ll come back to haunt you someday.”

  “I don’t see it as playing both sides. I see it as helping my fellow man.”

  “Doesn’t matter how you see it. What matters is how some officer on one side or the other sees it. That sergeant who came to get me, he wanted to hang me from a tree branch so bad it was downright comical. Lucky for me he had orders in his hand, or I wouldn’t have made it to the top of the hill. He had plenty of hanging to do once he got to town, though. That old feller was the best recruiter Jefferson Davis ever had. Only about half those boys in jail were rebels when they went in. The rest of them were like me, fellers that somebody had jigged on for their own advantage. But they were all sure enough rebels when they got out, those that didn’t end up doing the dance, that is.” He started his horse forward again. “See you later.”

  Charlotte and Turner shut the door. They looked at each other in the lamp light.

  “Are you afraid?” Charlotte asked him. His gaze was steady and even. “No. Are you?”

  Charlotte smiled. “No, I’m not afraid.”

  October 1861

  Chapter 25

  Turner worked his way across the field, shocking cornstalks. It was his turn to go up the mountain and bring down the cattle for milking, and he figured he would do that before returning home to wash up for supper. The October air was clear and fine; it was a day no one minded working outdoors.

  The only other one left in the field was Cabot, four rows over. Turner had the feeling he was lingering to talk, and in a few minutes Cabot came over. “I have reached Charlotte’s father through an acquaintance of mine in the War Department,” he said. “He is well. His regiment is in Virginia attached to the Department of the Potomac, under McClellan.”

  “Thank you,” Turner said. “I’ll pass along the news.”

  Cabot picked up a cornstalk and absent-mindedly twisted it around a shock. “I sent word to him that I would like to serve as his aide, if he needs me. Obviously I’m no good for fighting, but an army needs clerks and correspondents too.”

  Turner straightened up from his work. “What about Daybreak? Don’t you think Daybreak needs you?”

  “Oh, I know it does, of course I do. But we’re in a time of sacrifice now. I feel called back East.”

  Turner was sick at heart, although he didn’t doubt Cabot’s good intentions. But was this what the colony was to come to? One by one, men trailing off to join one side or the other, until no one was left but wives, children, widows, old men—and him?

  “You should tell Charlotte,” he said to Cabot. “She will make sure

  Wickman refunds your share.”

  “Oh, I don’t want my share,” Cabot said. “I intend to return someday, when all of this is said and done, and we can return to our common labors.”

  “I bless that sentiment,” Turner said. “But I fear that by the end of this war, our common feelings will be gone.”

  They stood in silence, contemplating the uncertainties ahead of them. And as if they needed any illustration of their fears, up the road from the south came a man walking. He was haggard and bearded, a rifle held low in one hand, wearing something resembling a uniform.

  “What do you think?” Cabot said in a low voice. “Soldier, runaway, beggar, or thief? Or some combination of all?”

  “Good Lord,” said Turner as the man drew nearer, passing Harp Webb’s house without a glance. “It’s Prentice.”

  They trotted down the road to him, meeting him at the edge of Daybreak. “Stars in heaven, man, it’s good to see you alive!” Turner said. “All your arms and legs intact, too.”

  “I’m welcome, then?”

  “Of course you’re welcome!” By now some of the children had spotted them walking into the settlement, and Turner sent one to find Mrs. Prentice.

  “Thought maybe you’d all gone over to the other side,” said Prentice.

  “No sides among friends,” Turner said. “Has it been three months already? Your enlistment up?”

  Prentice gave him a scornful look. “My three months turned into six the minute I got there,” he said. “Probably turn into a year next. But I ain’t staying a year, that’s for sure. I’ll take a shoe leather discharge first.”

  “You look hungry,” Cabot said. “Let’s get you some food.”

  The mention of food struck a nerve with Prentice. He looked behind himself in alarm.

  “I don’t have much time, boys,” he said. “I’m with a foraging party. The rest of ‘em stopped in French Mills, but I told ‘em I thought I knew of a farmhouse up the road. You’ve got to give me some food to take back, or else the whole party will be here in an hour. And they’ll pick you clean. There’s two thousand men over on the Fredericktown road, eating their way north.”

  “What do you need?” Turner said.

  “Couple sacks of corn should so it, and a chicken or some eggs. And do you have bread? Some real bread?” Mrs. Prentice and their three children came running down the street, and Prentice tottered up to meet them. “And can you have somebody boil a pot of water?” he called out over his shoulder. “I want to boil my clothes, get rid of these graybacks.”

  In a
n hour Prentice was headed back south, a sack of provisions over his shoulder and a smile on his face. The community gathered at the junction to send him off. His wool outergarments were still damp, but he didn’t mind. “At least I’m the only thing living in ‘em,” he said. “Throw away them underclothes,” he said to his wife. “They ain’t fit to keep. And pick ‘em up with a stick when you do, unless you want to get acquainted with my little friends.”

  “Where have you been? Are you safe?” Charlotte said.

  “Oh, we’re all right. We’re with Colonel Thompson down around Bloomfield. He’s a horseman, so us infantry boys mainly sit and wait while he and his cavalry ride around and get into scrapes. We’re supposed to march up to Fredericktown and wait for them. They rode off way up north somewhere, God only knows where.”

  “But Fredericktown is occupied,” Turner said.

  “Yeah, I expect we’ll have to fight,” Prentice said.

  The thought made them all silent. “Well, be careful,” Turner said.

  “I always am.” Prentice kissed his wife and gave each of the children a hug. “I hear that Pap Price is planning another big run north again. But that might just be a camp canard.”

  Then he was gone, and Mrs. Prentice turned to hide her tears.

  Now it was nearly evening, and Turner thought he would tie up one last shock of corn before heading up the mountain. The idea of two thousand men heading north, just a few miles away, amazed him. Those two thousand would be met by thousands more somewhere, who knows where. For all he knew it could happen here. He looked out over the cornfield and tried to imagine four, five, six thousand men, battling across the valley. The little community they had worked these years to create would be swept away in such a clash.

  It was impossible. He couldn’t imagine it. There was no point in trying.

  He started up the mountain after the cattle, but stopped at the barn beforehand and dug one of the rifles from under the hay, the bolt-action Greene. All the talk of troops and raids had given him an uneasy feeling.