The Black Flower Page 13

  The Archbishop made his way among the ruins. He tried to close his mind to everything—to the stars, the world, God, everything that lay outside the glow of his bull’s-eye lantern. There would be ample time for thinking tomorrow and the next day and in all the days and nights he would ever live; tonight he wanted only to be useful, and not to think at all.

  But he was tired, and his mind kept drifting into places he wished it wouldn’t go. Once he thought the dead were speaking to him, whispering of their lives. The whole field seemed to be alive with whispers as the dead men turned their faces toward the lantern. I was they seemed to say. They were insistent. I was. I was. And once the Archbishop thought he saw a horseman riding on the breastworks. He heard the scuffling hooves, the trickle of dislodged earth down the face of the parapet. The rider himself was featureless, only a darker shape against the stars. The Archbishop rubbed his eyes, and when he looked again he saw that there was indeed a horse, but it was dead. It lay draped over the works on its belly, shot in mid-leap. There was no rider.

  The Archbishop shook his head. I am too old for this business, he thought.

  The men had uncovered a layer of soldiers from the assault of Adams’ Brigade and the Archbishop felt strangely drawn to them. “Who are these?” he asked of a soldier.

  “Well, somebody said they’s Adams’ men,” said the soldier. “They said that was his horse yonder on the works. These boys right here is Miss’ssippi troops, you can tell by they buttons. Look—that ’un’s still alive.”

  The man pointed, and the Archbishop saw a soldier buried to his shoulders in the dead. He made his way to the man, peered carefully into his face. “I think I know him,” said the Archbishop. “He looks. …like a boy I knew once, somewhere.”

  “Well, shit-fire, let’s fetch him outen there,” said the other, and together they cleared away the dead men and pulled the soldier from the ditch.

  The Archbishop knelt, and looked again at the boy’s face. It was smashed and bloody, but death was not in it.

  “Taken a lick to the head, looks like,” said the helpful soldier. “There—his finger’s shot away too, but he be awright if the surgeons don’t get holt of him.”

  The soldier went on his way, and the Archbishop looked down at the wounded man’s face. Presently, he looked up to see the cornetist standing there.

  “Who’s that?” asked the cornetist. “Damned if I don’t know him somehow.”

  The Archbishop nodded. “Yes, I had the same thought, but I can’t seem to remember.”

  The cornetist bent closer. “Uh-huh, I know him all right. He’s from one of them damn Miss’ssippi regiments.” The cornetist’s face cracked a smile, remembering. “Over in Georgia, him and some other boys used to chunk pine cones at us when we was practicin.”

  “My,” said the Archbishop.

  “His own mama wouldn’t know him now.”

  “No, she wouldn’t,” agreed the Archbishop.

  “Well, let us get these traps off him,” said the cornetist. “You, Delmar! Bring that litter, sir!”

  While the two men untangled the soldier’s accoutrements, the piccolo player slouched up dragging a Saterlee Patent litter. He dropped it on the ground and began to walk away.

  “Whoa, now,” said the cornetist. “Where you goin? We got to accommodate this here man.”

  “Like hell,” said the other, but he came back and straightened out the litter. Meanwhile, the soldier began to groan amd mutter. The Archbishop tried to give him some water, but he retched violently. Finally they arranged him on the litter and the Archbishop put the man’s haversack and canteen on his chest and crossed his arms over them. The man pushed them off. The cornetist bent to retrieve them and the soldier sneezed in his face. Several men laughed at that; their laughter was like the croaking of ravens.

  “Bedamned,” said the cornetist, wiping the fine red mist of the soldier’s sneeze from his face.

  “Oh, my God,” said the wounded soldier in a voice made thin and reedy from his smashed nose. “Alas, poor Hiram!”

  The cornetist looked at the soldier in surprise.

  “What’d he say?” asked the piccolo player. “Alas who?”

  “Never mind,” said the cornetist. “The boy’s had his brains bashed out, for God’s sake.” He bent again and with his long fingers traced the embroidered square-and-compasses on the soldier’s jacket. Then he straightened. “Delmar,” he said, “do you take the head end, and I the foot.”

  “Like hell,” said the piccolo player.

  “I’ll take it,” said the Archbishop.

  “No,” said the cornetist gently. “Why don’t you carry his traps— Delmar, I’m sure, will take the head.”

  “I ain’t totin no goddamned litter,” said the piccolo player. “I done toted all the litters I mean to in this life.”

  “You may very well be right,” said the cornetist, “if you don’t by God pick up them handles.”

  “We are all tired,” said the Archbishop. But the piccolo player bent to the handles; they raised the wounded man from the earth and the Archbishop shouldered his haversack and canteen. “Well, boys,” said the cornetist, “as we used to say in the olden days:‘Forward, for Cleburne’s knows no other.’”

  “Aw, kiss my rosy ass, you and Cleburne both,” said the piccolo player. Then, with the soldier muttering between them, they started off toward the rear.

  The Archbishop carried the lantern, and by its feeble light the dead watched them pass. They stumbled over rocks, over corpses, over discarded equipment; men clutched at their legs and cried and implored. Again and again the Archbishop stopped to give comfort. He collected canteens from the dead and gave them to the living; he spoke to the living and dead both, covered them with blankets, arranged their clothing, pressed their Testaments into their hands. Now and then the cornetist had to call him to fetch the lantern.

  Once a Confederate battery came blundering out of the dark, drivers shouting, guns and limbers bouncing, horses galloping madly as if they had not been told the battle was over. Wounded men screamed as the wheels rolled over them; others, the cornetist among them, cursed with vain fury as the guns clattered by, frantic to reach a front that was no longer there.

  “Where was them sons of bitches this afternoon?” asked the cornetist.

  “Must’ve been a fish fry somewheres,” said the piccolo player.

  Many civilians were about the field now, wandering dazed and unbelieving through the shambles. Everywhere there were torches, fires, moving lanterns, but between these points of light was a tangible dark into which men vanished like ghosts. Across the field men were calling for their comrades, calling for each other, their voices sharp and unsettling above the monotonous crying of the wounded.

  The soldier on the litter moved his hands and talked constantly. Once he tried to sit up and nearly fell out of the litter; they had to stop and calm him down.

  “I declare, this boy is a trial,” said the cornetist.

  “Why’nt we jes leave the son bitch?” said the piccolo player.

  “Delmar—” began the cornetist.

  “Let us all rest a moment,” said the Archbishop. So they lowered the stretcher, and the Archbishop moved off with the lantern and a cluster of canteens. The cornetist watched him go, then shook his head and stretched out on the ground next to the wounded man. The piccolo player began to edge away.

  “Where you off to, Delmar?” asked the cornetist.

  “For God’s sake, Jim,” came the other’s voice from the darkness. “Can’t a feller take a leak on his own time?”

  “Sure,” said the cornetist. “You go right on.” He closed his eyes—oh, it felt so good to do that. Maybe the old man wouldn’t be able to find them again and he and this boy could just lay here all night and sleep and sleep. But, no—that wouldn’t do; directly he would have to go and hunt for the old man if he didn’t show. Then he grinned, listening to the piccolo player slip away into the night. Old Delmar. With any luck he’d ma
ke Spring Hill by daylight and some farmer would fill his ass with bird shot.

  The cornetist rubbed his eyes, trying to remember when he’d last slept. Maybe, when they got this boy back, the old man would listen to reason and they could go hunt a hole and sleep—though little enough of the night remained for sleeping. Already there was a copper taint of morning in the air. He could sleep right now, the cornetist thought—even on this cold earth with a rock in his back and the damp crawling through him like a worm.

  “Well, it’s all over,” he said aloud to the soldier and the stars that wheeled above them. “I wonder why we done it anyhow?”

  “Nevertheless,” the soldier said. The stars burned coldly.

  The cornetist ached in every fiber. His muscles were twitching, drawing up, and he knew that if he laid here much longer he would cramp. He’d seen men tied into knots from just this sort of thing. Still, it was good to lie quiet for a while, to tempt sleep and wander on the edge of dreams. He dozed and listened to the wounded man talking—from what he was saying, the boy thought he was back at the big dance in Murfreesboro, just before the Stones River fight. My, that seemed like a long time ago. It was a long time ago, ages and ages. They had a good band then, used to be called upon to serenade General Braxton Bragg himself. The cornetist remembered the soldiers’ dance at Murfreesboro very well; it was a long time since he’d thought of it, and now here was this boy bringing it all back again. There was a young widow there, just a girl; she was dressed in mourning from combs to slippers for her husband who was killed off in the east somewhere. They must have been infants when they were married—and to go so far so quickly. But widow or not, she’d danced with all the boys and scandalized the old folks. The cornetist grinned at the memory. What was her name, anyhow? He wished he could remember it. He searched awhile among the moments of that vanished night, seeing the girl’s face as clearly as if it were before him now, but her name was lost to him. Then suddenly he didn’t want to think about it any more, for the face of that girl was not something he wanted to carry into sleep—

  No, musn’t sleep. He made himself rise on one elbow, looked at the wounded man who lay beside him. The boy was having trouble breathing, his hands fluttered nervously. “Well, brother, you are forevermore a mess,” said the cornetist. “I hope to hell you are satisfied.”

  “Alas, poor Hiram,” said the soldier.

  “I know, I know,” said the cornetist, and patted the boy’s arm. He sighed, and lay down again and closed his eyes. What was that girl’s name—

  They lay in a low place where the morning mist had begun to form. The tendrils of mist and the smoke from the fires moved over them. The wounded man put out his hands as if he were dancing. The cornetist snored and dreamed of winter gardens where dark figures wept among the trees.

  Meanwhile, through the black fields beyond, a man was approaching. When the soldier spoke again, the man in the field stopped, listening.

  “Remy, you musn’t go,” said the wounded soldier. “It is rainin—don’t you see it’s rainin?”

  The visitor moved across a distant fire, like a refugee from the cornetist’s dream. He began to circle, closer and closer through the mist and smoke and the bitter hint of dawn. He came shyly, bending and bowing, whispering to himself. When the soldier spoke, the visitor stopped to listen. Then he came on again.

  “I never seen such rain,” said the soldier. “See how high the river is?”

  The visitor lurched out of the dark, into the low place where the soldier and the cornetist lay. He was shivering under his ragged quilt; he was barefoot, and blood seeped through the wet mud on his feet. He bent over the litter and peered into the soldier’s face. “Shhh,” he whispered, putting a finger to his lips. “We got to be real quiet.”

  “Rain, rain, rain.”

  “Rain, rain, rain,” echoed the visitor. With a tentative finger, he touched the wounded soldier on the nose—they boy groaned, the visitor backed away, waving his hands. “I didn’t do nothin, I didn’t do nothin,” he said. He watched, and after a moment approached again, cautiously. He knelt beside the litter, and whispered into the soldier’s face. “Say, you could help me. I am a-huntin my ramrod. You seen it?”

  The soldier frowned, his good eye open, moving in the starlight. “What? What?”

  “Bushrod,” said the visitor. “I knowed that was you.”

  The soldier tried to rise, fell back on the litter. “Nebo?” he said. “That ain’t Nebo—he’s dead.”

  The other bobbed his head up and down like a bird. “Oh, yes. Yes, indeedy. Been dead—only don’t tell em.”

  “They all dead,” said the soldier. “All the boys are dead.”

  “Yes, yes,” said the visitor. His thin fingers began to move down the soldier’s body, plucking at the cloth. “You ain’t seen it, have you? Won’t tell em I lost it?”

  “All dead,” said the soldier.

  “All dead, yes, indeedy.”

  Somewhere in Franklin a clock struck three. The visitor cocked his head and listened, then bent again to his work. His fingers reached the soldier’s shoes, he bobbed with sudden excitement and began to untie the laces. In a moment, he had both shoes and socks off the soldier’s feet. “These’ll be good,” he said.

  The cornetist spoke in his sleep, a woman’s name. The visitor looked up. “No, you don’t,” he said. “I ain’t done nothin.” Then, quick as a rat, he scuttled off into the darkness again, the soldier’s shoes clutched tightly to his breast.

  “I guess you have to go,” said the soldier.

  The cornetist sat bolt upright. “What?” he said, and looked groggily about, trying to climb out of sleep, not knowing for the instant where he was—the dark, the sound of movement. “Delmar?” he said.

  “Nebo,” said the soldier.

  “Ah, shit.” The cornetist came to himself, felt the dark world falling into place around him. He sat for a moment more, rocking back and forth, hurting in his joints like he had known he would but hurting inside too, as if the dark had gotten down in there and he would never get it out again—

  He looked up: somebody coming, a lantern bobbing along. Now what, he thought, but it was the Archbishop, returning through the broomsage, all his canteens gone. “Over here!” he called.

  The Archbishop was out of breath. “I am so sorry, didn’t mean to be gone so long. I found—” He stopped, looked at the soldier on the litter. He raised the lantern. “I declare,” said the Archbishop. “What become of his shoes?”

  The cornetist stared, then shook his head. “In the name of Jesus,” he said, “but this boy is a trial.”

  It took the two of them nearly an hour to find the great brick house. It loomed suddenly before them; men moved across the light of fires and lanterns, the windows themselves gleamed dully with lantern-light. When he saw the house, the cornetist’s legs began to quiver.

  “This is all the far I can go,” he said.

  “Yes,” said the Archbishop. “Soon we can rest.”

  They carried the litter through the wounded and stragglers in the yard. No one paid them any mind. The broad porch was full of stiffening dead; they crossed it and entered the hall and stopped, blinking in the light.

  “For God’s sake, move out the way, can’t you?” said a hospital orderly. He was carrying a bone-white leg that had been cut off at the knee.

  “Here’s a hurt man,” said the Archbishop.

  “Well, ain’t that a novelty,” said the orderly. He gestured with the leg toward an empty place at the foot of the staircase. “Jes put him down over there—we’ll get to him ’bout Tuesday.”

  “But this boy—” began the Archbishop. He was cut off by a piercing scream from the parlor where the surgeons were working. When the Archbishop found his voice again, the orderly was gone. The cornetist was staring after him. “Where do you reckon he was goin with that leg?” he asked.

  “With what?” asked the Archbishop.

  “God only knows,” said the cornetist, shaki
ng his head.

  The heat and the smell were making the Archbishop dizzy. Vague images passed across his mind: a room full of music, a house in bright sunlight, a horseman waiting in the road. “I know you,” he said.

  “What’s that?” asked the cornetist.

  “Nothing, nothing,” said the Archbishop. The pictures faded, the hall of the great brick house took shape again. He looked down at the boy on the litter. “Just us three,” he said.

  “Don’t I know it,” said the cornetist. “Come along now—let’s do as that fellow said. Somebody’ll come and see to this boy pretty soon.”

  They propped the soldier against the wall so that his feet would not be in the way of the traffic in the hall. The boy was quiet now, his head fallen forward on his breast. A bright trickle of fresh blood flowed over his mustache, down his chin and into the high collar of his waistcoat. The cornetist arranged the boy’s haversack and canteen beside him, then knelt and with his hand wiped away the blood, and with his bloody fingers touched again the emblem on the boy’s jacket. “Few days and full of trouble,” he said, and wiped the boy’s nose again, and stood. He found the Archbishop staring down the hall toward the dark rectangle of the front door. “Say, you gone be all right?” he said.

  “Oh, yes,” said the other. “I just want to rest now.”

  “Well, come on,” said the cornetist. “I reckon it is all over anyhow.”

  “Yes,” said the Archbishop.

  The cornetist took the old man’s arm; they moved off together, out the front door and into the pitch-dark morning beyond.

  The parlor clock struck four. In the hall, a fresh taper burned in the candle lantern. Though the night was cold, the house—full of candles and lanterns and with a fire on every hearth—was sweltering. The heat rose up the flume of the staircase to the upper rooms where, behind the wall and window facings, a multitude of red wasps stirred in their winter sleep. The heat awakened them, and hundreds over the long night groped toward the unexpected warmth. They thrust their wedge-shaped faces into the light, then, one by one, tried the air with their delicate paper wings. The air bore them up; they circled lazily over the heads of men, they lit on hands and faces and in the gaum of wounds, they died underfoot. They were swatted, and they stung in return.