The Black Flower Read online

  Winder threw up his hands. “Now we’re in for it,” he cried. “I told you to be quiet!”

  But Hattie’s relief, and the satisfaction of thwarting her brother in a felony, evaporated when the second figure rose up in the firelight. Now she was done being brave. She screamed.

  Winder ran to the bed, fluttering his hands. “Hush!” he said. “Do hush up, sister—it’s only a Confedrit officer, old Nebo. We ain’t doin anything—”

  Nebo Gloster shambled up and stood beside the boy.“Hidy!” he said.

  “Mama!” squalled the girl.

  “Lord amercy,” said Nebo.

  Winder crawled up in the bed and bounced on it. “Sister, Hattie, listen—it’s all right no foolin we are huntin Nebo’s ramrod is all you can help us really you can Mama won’t care honest injun. Oh hush up do—”

  Winder went on bouncing on the bed, pleading and cajoling while Nebo shifted from foot to foot and grinned hopefully. Finally, when it was apparent that no reinforcements were coming, and that the scarecrow leering down at her was harmless, and that Winder himself was not afraid, Hattie ceased crying. She sniffed resentfully for a moment, then wiped her nose on the shawl and said, “Winder McGavock, who is this person?”

  “I told you. It is old Nebo. He is a Confedrit officer and we—”

  “Why, he isn’t anything of the kind,” said Hattie. “Just look at him in that old straw hat. Look at those shoes around his neck. When did you ever see—”

  “Say, I got somethin,” said Nebo suddenly. He began to dig in the pocket of his ragged trousers. “You can have it if you want.”

  “He’s an officer,” insisted Winder.

  “He is not,” said Hattie.

  “Looka here,” said Nebo. He held out his hand; in the palm was an oblong bit of green glass, a lens from a pair of sun goggles. “I got it from a feller down at Alabama, where the big river was that we crossed. I give him a whole dollar for it. It’s magic.”

  “Magic?” said Hattie and Winder together.

  “Yep,” said Nebo. “The feller said when you hold it up and look through it, whatever you look at turns green. I tried it, and sure enough. Here, you can have it.” He pressed the glass into Hattie’s hand. “Try it yourself,” he said.

  Winder laughed. “Why, it turns green because—”

  “Hush up, Winder,” said the girl, fixing him with the sidelong glance she’d learned from Anna. “I mean it!” Then she looked at the glass in her hand, turning it over and over. “You really want me to have this?” she asked Nebo.

  “Yes’m. It’s yourn.”

  She nodded. She made an “O” of her thumb and forefinger and fitted the glass inside it. She looked at Nebo, then slowly, solemnly, lifted the glass to the firelight. She drew a sharp breath. “Why, you’re right!” she said. “It is magic, sure enough!”

  Anna found her cousin on the back gallery. She was sitting in a straight chair by the door, her head bowed, her hands resting idly in her lap. Beyond her on the gallery lay the soft, muted shapes of dead men, dozens of them, heels together and hands crossed upon their breasts. Anna had the eerie feeling that she had intruded on some intimate communion between Caroline and the dead men, a final moment before the bridge of life and suffering dissolved into the mist between them. Anna wondered what her cousin’s thoughts must be, and understood that she could not know them and never would, and how strong her cousin’s heart to bear them all.

  Anna watched a little while, until her cousin raised her head and brushed at the fall of hair in her eyes. Anna spoke her name, and Caroline McGavock turned on her a face so deep in weariness it should have been past all feeling, but the dark eyes lit in recognition and Caroline McGavock smiled.

  “As I live and breathe,” Caroline said. She put out her hands, and Anna came and took them. “I had hoped you would sleep and sleep, but here you are.”

  “I did sleep, cousin,” said Anna.

  “And why is your lip bleedin so?”

  “Oh, I bit it. In my sleep.”

  “Ah, me,” said Caroline, and touched Anna’s lip with the tip of her finger. “I am sorry to bring all this on you.”

  “Hush, darlin,” said Anna. “It wasn’t you turned the dogs loose.”

  “Who do you suppose did?” said Caroline.

  Anna smiled. “I don’t know, but if I ever find him—”

  “Now, listen at you.”

  Anna loosed her cousin’s hands and sank, as gracefully as she could, to the rough planks of the gallery. She leaned her head against the balustrade, the cool air felt good on the back of her neck. She told her cousin then about all that had happened since she’d first awakened in the room upstairs, from the dream of the dark birds to the wounded soldier who said he would help her if she’d bring him some coffee. In the telling it all sounded vaguely melodramatic, as if she had made it all up, and she half-expected her cousin to laugh at her—or at the tale anyway. But Caroline didn’t laugh. When Anna finished, the older woman simply nodded her head, as if she’d just been told a little light gossip about the neighbors.

  “Yes, I saw that bearded fellow,” said Caroline. “He was a nosegay, all right—went off toward the grove, going to town I expect. Maybe somebody will shoot him. But you say my little pirates were fine?”

  “Oh, they were sleepin when I left them,” said Anna. “And no doubt they are safe. Still, it is mighty scary up there, and I will try and fix it if you will only tell me how.” She took her cousin’s hands again, thinking Yes, and you might also tell me that everything will be all right and that all of this trouble has only been the old house dreamin and pretty soon it will wake and we will laugh away its dreamin and everything will be just like it was. … She took her cousin’s hands and looked at them, the hands she loved, that had petted her all her life; they were twined with her own, and Anna thought it made a pretty picture, never mind the blood and dirt and skinned knuckles, and then all at once Anna realized that she really was seeing them—

  “The light!” Anna cried, and looked up at her cousin’s face.

  “Yes,” said Caroline. “It seems the night is over at last.”

  “I didn’t think it ever would be. Not ever. I mean, I really did not.”

  “You, too?” said Caroline. “I thought I was the only one with that notion.” She turned her face to the dead men lying on the porch; over them, too, the light was falling. “Do you reckon it really matters? You think it makes a difference if it is light or dark, or the day ever comes at all?”

  “Yes,” said Anna. “Maybe sometimes I forget it—maybe that’s what the night is for, just so’s we can know the difference when the light comes again.” She waved her hand toward the dead men. “Those yonder, they can’t see it—but we can.” She laughed. “That don’t make any sense.”

  Caroline looked down at Anna. She leaned forward and touched the girl’s face. “That was the right answer,” she said.

  Together they watched the growing light. It was gray and pale, and where the barren trees rose against it they showed every branch. The fires seemed dimmer now; the smoke lay along the ground in tattered, dingy sheets. They could see the men moving about in the yard, their white shirts glowed like foxfire and their voices were clearer, sharper, suddenly unmysterious. The men stretched and yawned and looked at their watches, no longer shadows but men again. Anna could see the bricks in the wall, the old familiar facing of the door, the little chips of white paint that still clung to the chair in which her cousin sat. The world was emerging, taking shape again. The dawn had come, and with it, out in the oak grove, the thin voice of a single bird.

  At last Caroline spoke again. “Now, this boy you told me about—the one by the stairs. Does he seem. …reliable?”

  “Well, I only just made his acquaintance,” said Anna. “He does have pretty hands, though.”

  “Hah! Well, that is important, a lofty recommendation. Will you and this paragon go and see to Hattie and Winder for me? That would be a mighty help—and I can
make myself useful in the yard.”

  “Yes, cousin,” said Anna. “But I think you ought to take a rest.”

  “Rest?” said Caroline. “With all these men trompin around the house? Why, I could sooner rest at a gander-pull, whatever that is. Did you ever know what one of them was?”

  “I never even heard of one,” said Anna.

  “Well, anyway, I got things to do. Pretty hands, eh? Well, Anna Margaret, you are a grown woman, I can’t be worryin about—Oh, look, yonder goes Major Cross, poor man. He has had the devil’s own time with these pitiful provost guards. I will ask him to bring some order to the second floor if he can, and maybe he can chaperone you and Sir Lancelot—”

  “Lord, I wished I’d never mentioned it,” said Anna, and the two women laughed and men in the yard turned their faces to the sound as they might to unexpected music.

  “Well,” Caroline said, “I am going to sit here five minutes more—by the watch, mind you—and I might ask you to do one thing for me.”

  Anna looked up expectantly.

  “Down in the cookhouse you will find Mattie Lee and that yellow girl from the widow’s—they will likely be arguin about religion or some such thing, but no matter, it is the closest pot of coffee I know anything about. You might drop a tin cup by this chair on your way back. Now, what did you say this boy’s name was?”

  Anna smiled. “Well, it is Bushrod,” she said.

  “My lands,” laughed Caroline McGavock. “Wherever is he from?”

  “Excuse me,” said Bushrod Carter. He was just inside the dining room door, about to dispossess an officer of his pistol. The officer was dead, but Bushrod still felt he should be polite. It was always his way when relieving the Departed of their belongings. He moved aside the still-warm hand and slipped the pistol from its holster. He was pleased to find it was a genuine Colt’s Navy model. He checked the caps and loads; the blunt gray noses of the balls stared back at him from all six chambers. Be damned, thought Bushrod, and looked at the man’s sword scabbard. It was empty. “Well, you went in with the blade, didn’t you?” said Bushrod. “Lot of good you were.” The Departed stared back at him with empty eyes. “Oh, don’t mind me, sir,” said Bushrod. “I been knocked in the head.”

  The officer was still wearing his boots, but Bushrod could tell by looking that they were way too big for him, and he didn’t care much for boots anyway—too clumsy for walking, and he would have a long way to walk pretty soon. He went back out to the hall and leaned against the newel post again and considered the pistol. No doubt he would need it on the long walk home, and he might pick up a shotgun, too, if he could. He stuck the revolver into the waist of his trousers; the barrel was cold against his leg. Maybe he ought to take the belt and holster, too—

  But it was too much to think about right now. He was dizzy again, his head hurt, his left hand throbbed with a dull ache. He held the hand up and pondered it. Amazing! The finger he had known all his life was gone. The severed stump was crusted and brownish, seeping droplets of fresh blood, and there was a white circlet of bone. He wondered why it didn’t hurt any worse than it did, and in the same moment realized he’d better quit thinking about it, better get it out of sight. I got to bind it, he thought.

  He eased back into the dining room where the dead officer lay. He opened the man’s coat. There was a big hole in there, just above the belt buckle. “Beg pardon,” Bushrod said, and began to prowl through the dead man’s pockets. He found a buckeye, two cigars (unfortunately broken), a pencil, a bloody note concerning the issue of rations. Then he found what he was looking for: a silk handkerchief, reasonably clean, monogrammed “HTW.” Bushrod took the handkerchief and wrapped it around his finger. “Much obliged,” he said.

  Back in the hall, Bushrod sat down on the stairs. Bending over the officer’s body had made him dizzier than ever. Through the door at the end of the hall, Bushrod could see daylight. Gray and sullen it was, but daylight all the same. Through the years Bushrod had seen the dawn come to many fields, after many hard fights, and it was always a sacred moment to him—proof that the universe was still intact in spite of the blood on the ground, the hosts of Departed beginning their first day in eternity, the dead horses and broken gun carriages and scattered equipment—in spite of all the panoramic ruin of the battlefield so brutal and grotesque that it was a wonder God did not bury it in darkness forever—and with it the guilty living, who crept from their holes or their stiff blankets and looked about with astonishment on what they had done. But God never would bury it. He always seemed to want to start over again, whether out of anger or pity Bushrod could not say. And now here was another dawn, after another great fight, and once more God had permitted Bushrod Carter to live.

  Bushrod sifted reluctantly, cautiously, through the fragments of his memory and decided that yesterday they must have formed up right out there. He could remember that, and he remembered thinking what it would be like to hide out in the great brick house. Well, here he was. He wondered if the girl Anna had been watching from one of these windows. She might have looked him right in the face without knowing it. It was strange to think about. What if she saw Virgil C. get shot?

  Bushrod knew that, if he wanted to, he could walk right over to that door and see Virgil C. lying in the yard. He had to be right out there, lying face down in the wet grass, all by himself. The thought made him sick, and he turned from it. He had to wait for Anna—maybe after a while she would go with him out there.

  Then he thought about Jack Bishop, and the thought caused a twinge of guilt and resentment all at once.

  Should’ve thought of him before now, said the Other in his old practical way—always mindful of what Bushrod Carter ought to do, or ought not to do, or should have done already—

  But I am hurt, Bushrod answered, and Jack is out there messin around as usual and why ain’t he—

  Jack is dead, fool.

  “Shut up!” cried Bushrod aloud. He stood up again, too fast, and his head spun like the moon in Barlow’s Planetarium and the pistol jammed sideways into his privates.

  Jack is dead and you are alive—

  Bushrod waved his arm. “Shut up! I got no more business with you!”

  A wounded soldier limping by grinned at Bushrod out of his beard. “Hee, Gawd,” he laughed, “you crazier ’n a bessie bug, ain’t ye?”

  “Leave me alone,” said Bushrod.

  “Aw, that’s all right,” said the soldier. “I’m crazier ’n dog shit my own self. I kin talk to animals an’—”

  Bushrod put his hand on the pistol butt. “You get away from me or I will blow your goddamn brains out right here in this hall.”

  “I tolt ye,” laughed the soldier. “A brass-frame lunatic if ever I see one!” He limped away down the hall, laughing to himself.

  “Son of a bitch,” muttered Bushrod. “Tell me I’m crazy.”

  He listened for the voice again, but there was only silence from that quarter. “Hey!” Bushrod said into the silence. “Don’t you be comin around me no more! Jack and me are goin home—you got somethin to say about it?”

  Bushrod clung to the newel post, breathing hard. Men moved past him in the hall, ignoring him. The candle lantern had gone out; the wax of many tapers had overflown onto the fine finish of the table. In the wax were the hard, twisted bodies of wasps.

  “Hey!” Bushrod said. “You listenin to me? If you got somethin to say—”

  Someone touched his arm and Bushrod squawked and turned so quickly he would have fallen if the girl had not caught him.

  “Lord have mercy,” said Anna. “Here’s your coffee. What’s the matter with you now?”

  When Bushrod had composed himself, the girl handed him a dented tin boiler of steaming coffee and a big hoe cake—only the Tennessee people, Bushrod had learned, called it a “journey cake.”

  “Ah,” said Bushrod, taking the cup. ‘“A sweeter draught from a fairer hand. …’”

  “Oh, please,” said Anna, rolling her eyes.

&nbs
p; “Well, did you find your aunt?” Bushrod asked. He ate slowly while the coffee cooled; he did not want to get sick again.

  “Cousin,” said the girl. “It’s my cousin. Yes, she is grateful for your help, though skeptical. I assured her you were a gentleman.”

  “Hmmm,” said Bushrod. He held out the remnants of the cake. “Do you want some of this? I should’ve asked sooner.”

  “Thank you, no,” said the girl. Bushrod noted she had a way of turning her head just a little, watching him out of the corner of her eyes. It made him vaguely uncomfortable.

  “Who were you talking to just now?” she asked.

  Bushrod chewed the rest of the cake, swallowed, affected a smile. “Just now, you mean?”

  The girl watched him.

  “Well, to myself, I guess,” said Bushrod. “I do that all the time.”

  “You talk to yourself all the time?”

  “Well, some of the time,” said Bushrod, taking up the tin boiler. “Don’t everybody?”

  The girl made no reply. She seemed interested only in asking questions. Bushrod wrapped his hands around the boiler and drank—carefully, letting the coffee cool the rim. It was thin coffee, like the Yankees made, but Bushrod was not about to complain.

  “What is that gun for?” asked the girl.

  Bushrod had to think: Gun? Gun? “Ah, yes,” he said. He looked down at the butt of the pistol in his waistband. “Well, that is a good question.”

  “Well, what do you want it for?” the girl asked.

  “Well, it’s for. …well, I guess I thought—”

  “Where’d you get it? You didn’t have one before.”

  A little red flag unfurled itself in Bushrod’s mind. He set the coffee down carefully on the hall table and looked at the girl. “A man gave it to me,” he said.

  “Why?” asked the girl.

  “Why what?”

  “Why’d he give it to you?”

  “Why, why,” said Bushrod, gritting his teeth, wishing he could make himself shut up. “Because he didn’t need it no more, that’s why.”