by David Fuller
When the gunfire and artillery resumed, he was able to move again. He stepped over something that shifted like a snake but was in fact greasy uncoiling intestines roasting in the sun.
He grieved, he grieved as he looked at the men piled dead alongside the actively dying; he grieved that they would so willingly give up so much just to keep him in subjugation. He looked at them littering this giant field and he knew that he would never be free. He saw the fate of his people in their twisted faces and dead open eyes, and he knew that he would be a slave forever.
He heard a sound and saw movement, and knelt down to roll a body aside. A Union soldier looked up at him, shot in multiple places but alive, a survivor in the cornfield. Cassius knelt to give the man water from the canteen still stretched across his chest. The man was so parched that he could not find sound to accompany his mouth forming the words "thank you." Cassius decided that this one man would not die, not here, and he lifted him onto his shoulders. The man grunted in pain but did not cry out. Cassius was surprised to find him frail and weightless. He toted the man back through rows of cornstalks that no longer stood, through the woods east of the cornfield to the road just around the bend from the action, where men who had yet to see the elephant sat waiting. They took the man from him and placed him on a litter, and Cassius followed, walking, as they ran him down the road.
As the battle raged in multiple places over there, he stayed out of the way, in the shade of an old maple on the east side of Antietam Creek, unable to understand why he had so much difficulty convincing himself to stand up.
But he did stand. He looked around. He was again thinking about crossing to the Confederate side. He headed back from where he had come, but a soldier bumped into him, an older man who looked hard into Cassius's eyes.
"What's with you, boy, you lost? Where you think you're goin?"
Over there, said Cassius, indicating the small, nondescript, white building in the distance.
"So you got a tongue in your head," said the older soldier unpleasantly.
Cassius gave him the smallest of nods and turned to move away.
"That there building's a church," said the older soldier. "You ain't goin there."
Don't look like a church, said Cassius.
"German church, Dunkers. Pacifists. You go there, them Rebs send you right back where you belong. Say, you think them Pacifists is mad, watchin all this? You think maybe them Pacifists is fightin mad?" He laughed at his own joke.
Could be, said Cassius, without conviction.
"Gettin mighty hot over there," said the man. A battle was taking place in the distance, up and down the turnpike near the Dunker church, a push—pull attack and counterattack. Cassius watched it dispassionately.
"You be a smart boy, wait till it dies down 'fore you give yerself back to them Rebs."
Cassius found the ford point north of the middle bridge and crossed the creek, sludge and sand filling his shoes. He followed the smoke from the burning farmhouse, then cut directly south, staying clear of another farmhouse where beehives had been hit by artillery, which meant another sort of trouble. The battle had moved and a great concentration of Federal troops was massed in a field and moving south toward a rise. He continued on below the farmhouse, walking parallel to the Yankees, and he had this area of the field to himself. Beyond the Federal troops, over near the turnpike, he saw where the big Confederate guns had repositioned themselves. He walked a little farther, so that from his vantage point he could see the far side of the rise that the Federal troops were approaching. What he saw within sixty feet of the rise caused him to drop down on one knee.
Before him was a farmer's road that had been carved out of a swale, worn lower over the years by carts. On the north brow of this sunken road, fence rails were piled and he could see where the rails that had earlier lined the south side of the road—the land rose up a few feet on that side to meet a cornfield—had been carried to the north side to fortify the position. Confederate soldiers had taken cover in this low place, a natural defensive position, hundreds of them spread prone along the bank, aiming their rifles and using the fence rails as protection and foundation. Looking down the stretch of sunken road, halfway toward the turnpike, the road came to a soft arrow point and angled off to the left, traveling southwest, and while more men defended that position, Cassius could not see around the corner to know how many more. They expected an attack, and Cassius saw what they could not see, the Federals coming up the rise on the far side. The crest of the rise was so close to the lane that Blue and Gray could not yet see one another, but when the Yanks hit that crest, they would be very nearly on top of them.
Cassius watched them march, young men in fresh blue uniforms with clean, cream-colored boot guards. Cassius knew from their demeanor that they were not so much Blue as green, climbing the rise in splendor; what a magnificent way to walk into a massacre. Once over the crest they would be so close to the Gray position that the protected Confederates could not miss those young men in their new uniforms with their cream-colored boot guards who were so obligingly lined up shoulder to shoulder. And so they came and so they crested and so they died. They died in rows, and a second group crested behind them and stepped over them and they died. The few left standing turned and ran down the rise on the far side. They tried to warn a third contingent of soldiers just approaching, but these soldiers were veterans. They did not have clean uniforms or fresh faces, they were war-hardened, and they stopped on the far side of the crest, using it as cover, and they stood to fire, then ducked back down, giving it back to the Confederates crouching in the lane. The Confederates were three deep, the men in back loading and passing muskets to the better shots in front, but it wasn't like picking off those first green troops. Artillery hit the lane, and more Blues came from new angles, and they charged and were repelled, then others charged and were repelled, and the sameness of the killing left Cassius numb. Almost an hour passed, and the killing was constant and many of the attacks were pointless and wasteful, but Federals kept coming and made progress, and after a while fewer Confederate muskets fired back.
Cassius had watched the hat in the sunken road for some time before he became fully conscious that it was familiar. He emerged from his daze to try to identify the face of the small man on which rested the tan slouch hat with the brim turned up in front. Now and then the man lifted his head or turned to call to someone behind him, and Cassius thought he wore a beard with no mustache. If it was indeed him, how had he come to this place? He later thought that the man might have been delivering ammunition from the supply wagons and had found himself in the middle of it when the attack began. Cassius imagined him thrilled to be forced into action; an opportunity, as glory would speed his promotion.
Something happened then. Federals charged and broke through at the arrow point, firing down the road in enfilading fire. An order was given and Confederates retreated, trying to go up the south bank, Federals shooting them down as well as slaughtering the men still lined up on their bellies, filling the road with corpses and blood. Cassius watched the tan slouch hat escape into the cornfield, and now Cassius moved with purpose, sideways to see if he could keep track of the hat in the corn, and here and there through the rows he saw it. He ran at an angle, finally entering the corn himself, anticipating its destination from the last place he had seen the hat. His hands and arms separated stalks making a path, head swiveling to see every runner, catching the occasional hatless retreater to search his face in case the man had lost his, throwing him aside when it wasn't the man he sought, hearing sounds of others crashing through the corn over the sounds of distant gunfire and artillery. Then, without warning, the short man in the tan slouch hat with the upturned brim was there, and Cassius grabbed him by the upper arms, his full rage gathering. Whitacre's face was stretched long, mouth shaped into an oval soundless scream, eyes aghast, warped to unrecognizable by terror. His eyes met Cassius's eyes and where Whitacre recognized nothing, Cassius saw the enormity of the man's hell, wh
ere his broken spirit unhinged his sanity.
He had him in his hands. Whitacre struggled to escape, but Cassius held him, examining his uncomprehending eyes. His fingers dug into Whitacre's shoulders, one hand moving to his throat. But Whitacre did not understand what was happening. Artillery exploded and fragments cut horizontally across the corn, shearing down stalks a row away. Whitacre flinched, ducking, shrieking, shitting his trousers, but Cassius did not let go. He further studied the man's eyes, and they were the eyes of a feral animal, not of a sentient human being.
Emoline, said Cassius. Emoline Justice.
He raised his voice to be heard over gunfire and artillery, but received no response. A cornered fox would have understood more. Cassius was about to repeat her name again; even in Whitacre's mental absence he was willing to try him for his crime, right here, right now, in the corn, but he saw he would be trying and killing a man out of his mind, a man who did not know what he had done, a man who would not know his own name.
He let go and Whitacre bounded away, as if he had never been stopped.
Without giving chase Cassius watched Whitacre vanish in the corn, running alone with no weapon in his hands to slow him down.
The afternoon aged. Battles continued around him, one concerning a bridge that spanned Antietam Creek somewhere to the south. But Cassius had chosen his position wisely and was not obliged to move. As night came on, the fighting diminished. The sun set before him on his expansive view of the battlefield, the ground shockingly littered with objects that had once been men and horses, until they vanished into the complete blackness of night. He listened to their gruesome screaming and weeping as they slowly died in the dark. He watched pinpoints of light creep across the battlefield, moving, stopping, then moving again, the lanterns of looters, as bodies were stripped of their possessions. He slept finally, and when he awoke the following morning, the bodies remained but the moaning and weeping had grown feeble, and Cassius was glad he did not have to listen to it. He instead heard a peculiar silence, even as the two armies remained interlocked like oddly shaped puzzle pieces. Cassius waited for the artillery to begin. It did not.
He wandered the battlefield. The Federals controlled most of the territory over which they had so desperately fought, and they carted their dead and wounded from the field while Confederate dead were left behind. Over every rise, gathered in every swale, Cassius discovered more of the same.
He found his way back to the sunken road and looked around what was left of the nearby cornfield, the last place he had seen Whitacre. He walked in the direction where he had watched Whitacre run. He passed a civilian who was meticulously picking through the belongings of dead men. The civilian reared up in surprise when one of the dead men moved and looked at him, and the civilian grunted as he backed away, "I'll come back later."
Cassius stopped at the edge of the open space behind the cornfield, bordered on its south end by an east-west turnpike, and surveyed the area. He watched for a time a group of Federals as they piled Confederate bodies, one on top of another, preparing to inter them in a mass grave. He looked away, and saw that he was not the only one watching this activity. Standing off to the side of the Federals was another interested party, a woman. Women were not an unusual sight, now that the battle was done, but this was a black woman and she was strikingly familiar. He continued to look at her with skeptical eyes, finding it odd and unlikely to have come across her, although it was not in the least bit impossible, as he had earlier seen her master. She did not dissipate like fog, so he walked toward her.
Maryanne sensed someone coming directly for her and she turned to see Cassius approach. She looked at him as if he were someone she knew but could not remember if he had lived in her dream or was simply a shade come to life.
Maryanne, said Cassius. Her entire body shuddered in surprise, thinking the shade had spoken. You remember me?
She leaned forward and looked him hard in the face and her expression changed. A new wonder came over her, and she laughed, as if she found this moment to be ridiculous and hilarious.
What're you doing here? said Cassius.
I go where my master go. That always the way it be, I follow ol' Cap'n Solomon, said Maryanne.
Well I've been looking for him.
You done found him, said Maryanne.
That was yesterday, but I've spent all morning—
She nodded her head to the pile of Confederate bodies. He turned and saw, among the corpses and the gray uniforms, among the kepis and the haversacks and the canteens, a tan slouch hat with an upturned brim.
An odd sensation flowed through him, as if his muscles had become liquid. He walked directly to the bodies, took hold of a dead man's arm, and pulled on it to drag him off another, thus revealing Whitacre's calm face. A Federal corporal came on the double.
"Son of a bitch, what the hell you think you're doing there? Just because they're Rebs don't mean you can desecrate their bodies, these were men!'"
Looking for a family member, said Cassius.
"Family member? But these are white men."
So it seems.
The corporal looked at Cassius, trying to understand if he was being made the object of derision, but Cassius did not smile. Cassius looked back eye to eye with the corporal, and something there made the corporal pause. He had more than enough work ahead of him on this day, so he retreated.
Cassius now turned his gaze to Whitacre and viewed the man's empty face with a deep and penetrating sadness. Here was her murderer, slain himself in a senseless battle. And yet the pit of rage, one he had kept close concerning the murder of one woman, one woman in the face of the excessive slaughter of multiple battlefields, still burned fiercely and would not be quenched. His journey was at an end, and still he ached.
He approached the provisional line that separated Federal from Confederate. Pockets of opposing soldiers swapped food, swapped stories, and he found it curious that one day they were butchering one another and the next exchanging pleasantries. He looked back at one point and noticed that Maryanne had followed him onto Confederate—held ground. She had also found no difficulty traveling from one army to the other. He did not know why she shadowed him, but he was frankly unconcerned, as he walked with purpose.
Soldiers in butternut treated him no differently than had the soldiers in blue. He stayed away from men in groups, approaching individuals to ask after Major Jacob Howard. Some of the soldiers looked at him as if at a wooden door or a porch swing. Others seemed not to hear him. One soldier had never heard of Major Howard, but knew a Corporal Holland.
Cassius reconsidered his approach. The next man he came to, he asked after the 7th Virginia Cavalry.
"Seventh Virginia? Think they's somewheres round the West Woods."
Which is the West Woods? said Cassius.
The man pointed toward the Dunker church. "Back side of the church."
Cassius went in that direction. Once near the church, he asked again. After a few rude responses, he came upon a captain inspecting the fetlock on the right rear leg of his horse. The horse would not put weight on that leg, and the captain's hand came away cupped with blood.
Cassius asked for the 7th Virginia Cavalry. The captain did not look at him, just pointed beyond the West Woods, and said, "Nicodemus Heights." The captain brought out his sidearm, put it to the horse's head, and pulled the trigger. The sound shocked Cassius, as it was the only battle sound he had heard that day. The horse went down in an instant and briefly twitched. The captain turned away with tears flowing freely down his cheeks.
Cassius walked along Hagerstown Turnpike, and passed the Dunker church. He glanced back and Maryanne continued to trail behind him. He did not care. He cut through the woods and walked up a hill to high ground that had more than a dozen guns, many of them still operational. They had been hit hard by Union artillery on the previous day. Behind the guns were cavalry units, and Cassius walked unchallenged between the batteries. He picked his way around tents and campfires, but
this time he did not ask for Major Howard. If Jacob was alive, he did not want him to be warned of Cassius's approach.
He saw a horse that had the distinctive markings of Jacob's mount. He was unsure, as this horse was appreciably thinner, but then Cassius recognized Jacob's saddle. He went to the horse, which shied nervously away. He laid his hand easily on its neck and the horse calmed as if it recognized him.
"Ho there, boy, what you doing to my horse?" said a voice behind him.
Cassius turned. He thought that if this stranger was the horse's owner, then Jacob was dead. He took his hand from the horse's neck and felt an unexpected sadness that his old master would not be coming home. Then he started. He cocked his head, looking beyond the heavy beard and mustache and the gaunt face that was ten years older than Jacob had been ten months ago when he had left Sweetsmoke.
Jacob Howard, said Cassius. Never before had Cassius called him anything but Master Jacob.
Jacob Howard squinted. "Cassius," he said, with unmistakable surprise. "How have you come here? Did my father send you? You have come a great long way."
I'm sent by your mother, said Cassius.
"Cassius. Of all people. And my mother, she is well?"
Well enough. Your father not.
"My father will outlive us all." Jacob looked around at the sad scarecrow men, at the bodies being buried, at the weapons and horses. "That will by no means be difficult."
She calls you home. Says you won't see him alive again if you don't come along.
"I may never see anyone alive again. I may not survive this day."
I got her letter for you, said Cassius. He pulled the letter out of
Jacob's old haversack. It was crumpled and stained with grease. Jacob took it and put it into his pocket without opening it.
"There is a good place to sit over there," he said pointing. "We are close to the river."