The Black Flower Page 21

  “Are you feelin dizzy?” said Anna.

  “It’s hard to tell,” said Bushrod. “I feel so comprehensively bad that it’s hard to pick out just any one thing. Do you know what I would give to be able to crawl in this bed for about a week?”

  Anna blushed. “I am sorry I struck you,” she said.

  “No you ain’t,” said Bushrod gently.

  “Well, maybe a little,” said Anna. She drew the handkerchief from her sleeve, it was stiff with blood and she had to shake it out. “Look here,” she said, and Bushrod turned and she began to wipe the blood from his mustache, his mouth, his chin. “I do not intend to have to do this again today,” she said.

  Bushrod winced as she daubed at his nose. “Anyway, I deserved it for bein such an ass. I thought. …well, I thought it would be different. It is a common failin of mine.”

  “Let it go,” said Anna. “It is all over now.”

  “Yes, I suppose it is. All over. Jesus.”

  Anna stepped back, twisting the handkerchief in her hands. “Bushrod—” she began, then stopped, composed herself, spoke again: “It is all right to grieve, I would not try to tell you otherwise. Only. …there is no use in blamin yourself.”

  “You think that’s what I’m doin?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. …because you are alive. Would it fix anything if you were out there with—what’s his name?—Virgil C.?”

  “Anna,” he said, and put out his hand to touch her but she backed away. He smiled and dropped his hand. “All right,” he said. “But what you say is true, and I thank you.”

  Anna looked away. “It is I who ought to be thankin you. For bringin me up here, I mean.”

  “Oh, me,” he said. “I wish I could do it over—”

  “You can’t do anything over!” said Anna, louder than she meant to. “That’s what I’m tellin you, boy!” Then she caught herself, looked down at her hands. “I got to get another handkerchief,” she said. “You have about worn this one out.”

  “Well, here,” said Bushrod. He unwound the officer’s silk handkerchief from his finger. “Now, take it easy, I won’t bite you,” he said, and touched the handkerchief to the blood on Anna’s cheek, his own blood. Anna stood stiffly while he wiped it away. Then he held the handkerchief out. “Take this,” he said.

  She took it in her hand.

  “It is a memento of the battle,” he said, then added: “For the fair.”

  “What?”

  Now it was Bushrod who looked away.

  “Oh, you,” said Anna, blushing again. Damn them all and their gallant ways—“My, it is hot in here!” Anna said. “Do let me open a window.”

  She moved to the windows and flung back the shutters, the light and air poured in and suddenly the little bedroom looked seedy and rumpled and tired, as rooms will after a long night. “Hattie!” she said. “Leave that poor man alone and come make up this counterpane before Mister Carter bleeds all over it. And you, Winder—take that pallet out on the gallery, and don’t be botherin those men out there.” She moved about, fussing with candlesticks, plumping up pillows. She found the hearth broom and moved to the fireplace. “What are all these things?” she asked.

  Bushrod, too, was looking at the hearth. “Those are ramrods,” he said, and looked at Nebo.

  Nebo Gloster seemed much smaller than the last time Bushrod had seen him, as if the long night had shriveled him. His eyes under the straw hat were puffy and bloodshot, his hands were trembling, his feet looked as if he’d walked through briars. He lifted one of his long, bloody feet and scratched his shin with it. “Them are mine,” he said, “but you can have em if you want.”

  Bushrod pushed away from the bed and came to Nebo and took the lapels of the officer’s frock coat in his hands. The other shrank back, pulled his head into his collar like a turtle.

  “Nebo Gloster,” said Bushrod, “do you remember killin Virgil C. Johnson?”

  Nebo looked away. Bushrod shook him. “Do you remember killin Virgil C. Johnson!”

  “Bushrod!” said Anna, but Bushrod ignored her.

  “Look at me!” said Bushrod, and shook the man again.

  “I was tryin to clear my piece,” said Nebo. “Like you told me.” Then he began to cry.

  “Ah, my God,” said Bushrod, and let him go. He looked down at the ramrods. “What are you doin with these?”

  Nebo wiped at his eyes. “Well,” he said, “he told me I had to find mine again. These are all the ones—”

  Bushrod looked up. “Who told you?” Then he waved his hands. “No, no, never mind—I don’t want to know.” He bent over the ramrods, shuffled through them, they clanged and rattled on the hearth. Finally he chose one, held it up. “Here. This one’s yours. This is the one. Take it.”

  Nebo took it, his eyes wide with astonishment. “How’d you know?”

  “I just know,” said Bushrod. “I know everything there is to know about a ramrod. Now go on, go somewheres. Maybe Miss Anna will take you out on the gallery.”

  “Well. …I thank ye,” said Nebo. “It’s a relief.”

  Bushrod waved him away.

  Anna came then, took Nebo by the arm. “Come on,” she said gently. She turned him toward the open window.

  “Wait a minute!” said Bushrod.

  He came to Nebo, lifted one of the shoes that still hung around the man’s neck. “Where’d you get these?”

  Nebo hunched his shoulders. “Traded a feller for em,” he said.

  “Well, they look to be about my size,” said Bushrod, and lifted the shoes over Nebo’s head. Anna shot him a glance. “Oh, peace,” said Bushrod. “He ain’t ever wore shoes his whole entire life.”

  “Don’t say ‘ain’t’,” said Anna, and led Nebo out to the gallery.

  When she returned, Bushrod was sitting on the floor with Winder beside him. He had pulled on the stiff gray socks he’d found in one of the shoes, and he and Winder were contemplating the shoes themselves, which lay before them like two slabs of granite.

  “These are my shoes,” said Bushrod, shaking his head.

  “I suppose you know everything about shoes as well?” said Anna.

  “Ol’ Nebo stole the shoes right off his feet,” said Winder. “While he was layin wounded on the field.”

  “Hush,” said Bushrod. “You don’t have to be tellin everything.”

  Winder motioned to Anna, she came and knelt beside them and Winder took her hand. “Mister Bushrod was in the battle, and he smote em hip and thigh,” said the boy.

  Hattie was sitting on the bed. “He was struck down in his prime,” she told Anna.

  “Tragically,” said Bushrod. “Don’t forget that part.”

  “Oh, yes—tragical.”

  Anna shook her head. “Tragical, indeed. Mister Carter, I am gone five minutes and you have already done a day’s worth of lyin.”

  “Well, they wanted to know of my adventures.”

  “Hmmm.” She looked at his hand, remembering what the surgeon had said. “We need to do somethin about that.”

  “It does throb some,” said Bushrod, cradling his arm.

  “I have just the thing.” Anna rose, went to the wardrobe and opened it, searched for a moment and came out with a little stoppered jug. “Cousin John keeps this for the humors,” she explained.

  “Now, hold on a minute—”

  “Let me see your finger.”

  So Bushrod held out his hand and Anna poured some of the clear liquid over the shot-away joint.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Bushrod, and pulled his finger away. Winder laughed.

  “Bushrod Carter,” Anna said, “your language is—”

  “Oh, never mind—it is the way old soldiers talk. Let me borrow that jug, if you please.”

  Anna gave him the jug, he turned it up and took a long swallow. When he brought the jug down, he gagged and shook his head. “Works better from the inside,” he said to Winder.

  There was a knock at th
e door. Anna gave Bushrod a fearful look, but he only grinned—the whiskey had washed the blood from the edges of his teeth. “Might as well let em in—it’s been pretty dull lately,” he said.

  Anna went to the door. She opened it, and a man with the collar star of a Confederate Major stepped into the room. When he saw Anna, he smiled and swept off his forage cap. “Well, my goodness,” he said.

  Bushrod gaped in astonishment. “R.K., as I live and breathe!”

  The Major laughed, his tired, congenial eyes crinkling at the corners. “Heard you was up here, Bushrod—knew there couldn’t be two fellers with such a name.” He turned to Anna. “I am Major R.K. Cross, provost and gentleman, at your service. Your gracious aunt—”

  “Cousin,” said Anna. She held up the jug. “Would you have a drink?”

  An hour later, Bushrod Carter stood on the broad lower gallery, hunting in his waistcoat pocket for a Lucifer match. He was feeling better, had washed his face and hands and gotten his finger properly bound. Winder had followed him down; the boy stood beside him now, Bushrod’s haversack and canteen crossed over his narrow shoulders. The haversack nearly dragged the boards.

  “I got pipe and tobacco,” said Bushrod to the boy. “You keep a watch over these other things ’til I call for em. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy.

  “Splendid. Now, go back to Miss Anna and look after her—God knows she needs it. There’s a good lad.”

  The boy saluted. “Forward,” he said,“for Claytons knows no other!” “Cleburne’s,” said Bushrod. “Like I told you.”

  The boy saluted again and disappeared into the house.

  Bushrod found one of the matches Jack Bishop had left him and lit his pipe. Before him, sitting on the balustrade, his hand draped casually over the hilt of his saber, was Major R.K. Cross of the cavalry. He, too, was smoking. Major Cross had done Bushrod a good turn upstairs; he had told Anna a long-winded anecdote from their University days, and though Anna had blushed a little at the text, she seemed impressed to learn that Bushrod was a bona-fide University man. It was just one more reason for Bushrod to feel better.

  Bushrod crossed the gallery and leaned on the balustrade by the Major. “Well,” he said, “how you like bein provost, bullyraggin us poor fellows around, scarin the women and children—”

  “Hah!” said the Major. “You just better be glad it’s me. Say, what was you doin up there anyhow with that good-lookin green-eyed cousin?”

  Bushrod grinned. “Why, sodierin,” he said.

  “I have never heard it called that,” said the Major. He drew on his pipe. “By the way, all that talk of the University reminds me—did you boys hear that Oxford was burned?”

  “No!” said Bushrod. “When?”

  “Back in the summer. Late August it was.”

  “It couldn’t of been Uncle Billy, he was chasin us through Georgia then.”

  “No, ’twas Smith from over in the west somewheres. We was in that campaign, skirmished with him all the month, but he drove us south of town finally and put the torch to it. I mean there was not one brick left atop another.”

  “Good God,” said Bushrod. “The college, too, I reckon?”

  “No, I am told old Quinche saved it almost single-handed. Can you imagine?”

  Bushrod could easily imagine. He and Major Cross had suffered torments in Latin recitation under the eye of Professor Alexander Quinche.

  “Old Quinche. I’ll be damned,” said Bushrod. Saying the man’s name was like opening a trunk and finding something lost. Bushrod’s good mood slipped a little.

  The Major slapped at a wasp. “Damn these things,” he said.

  “They was God’s plenty of em upstairs,” said Bushrod.

  “Don’t I know it. My daddy once remarked that a wasp is the only creature that’s born mad, and dies mad, and never is anything but mad his whole life long.”

  “Yes,” said Bushrod, “I believe he was correct.”

  They pondered that a moment, watching the swatted wasp circle aimlessly at their feet. They watched trance-like, as tired men will do, the struggles of the wasp pushing everything else from their minds. Finally the Major shook himself out of it.

  “See here, Carter, let’s change the subject. Tell me all about that girl up there, Miss Anna. She is awfully sweet to look at.”

  “Just never you mind about her, R.K.,” said Bushrod.

  “Hah!” said the Major. “I’ll bet she’s tellin her aunt about me right now.”

  “She don’t even know you.”

  “Well, what difference does that make?”

  “Listen, Major,” said Bushrod, “you have not seen her at charge-bayonet. She is a piece of work, I’ll tell you.”

  “Well, ain’t they all?” said the Major.

  Bushrod thought they probably were. As the Major began a story about one of his romantic interludes on campaign, Bushrod looked down at his hand and remembered how he’d given Anna the silk handkerchief. Now there was a bold thing, too bold by half. Then there was all that business with the yahoos on the landing, and with Nebo and the pistol. She must think him a damn fool, University man or not.

  But then, what difference did it make? In a few days, maybe even tomorrow, he and Jack and Virgil C. would be dodging cavalry patrols, shying for the old Trace road and home. But, no, that wasn’t right—Virgil C. wouldn’t be dodging any patrols. They would have to bury him here and come back for him later. But then, how would he keep? He wouldn’t, of course, not even in the wintertime. They would have to come back and get whatever there was left of him—have to dig him up, dig up old Virgil C. out of the cold ground—

  “Oh, Christ,” groaned Bushrod.

  “What is it?” said the Major. “Are you hurtin?”

  “No, no,” said Bushrod. “Just thinkin.”

  “Well, quit thinkin,” said the Major. “It ain’t good for you.”

  “Oh, I am so goddamn sick and tired of this business.”

  “I know, boy. Well, if you got to think, why don’t you think on Miss Anna for a while. That ought to right you up.”

  Yes, it ought to, thought Bushrod, and it did, a little. If he never laid eyes on her again, at least he’d been chosen for a little while, though he’d acted like a fool. Such madness, and in the middle of it all the memory of Anna handing him a cup of coffee, wiping his face—

  But tomorrow he would be gone, and there was an end on it. Still, they did have to come back for Virgil C. and maybe he could see her then. They could get a spring wagon from Uncle Relbue and a good strong box from the undertaker, and they would come back next winter when the roads were hard and there wouldn’t be so much of Virgil C. left to dig up. He could see the girl then, maybe—she didn’t have to know he deserted, he could make up a story. But then, she didn’t live here all the time. She said she was from Fayetteville—where the hell was that?

  But maybe he would go and talk to Anna again before he left. Yes—he would go and tell her what he meant to do, even put it to her why he was done with soldiering and why he and Jack ought to go home now. What did he have to lose?

  The thought of seeing Anna again made him feel better. It would be good to tell her the truth, too—just as soon as he figured out what it was. For now, he would quit thinking about it. He looked around in his mind for other things to worry about, and he found the army there.

  With the coming of daylight, the catastrophe that had befallen the Army of Tennessee was apparent to every soldier on the field. Bushrod had not seen the field, but he had seen the wreckage at the great brick house, and he knew that it was all over at last. Bushrod put that down as something he would tell to Anna.

  It was so strange, the coming of day in this place. Every field hospital was a shambles after a big fight, but almost always you could feel the army beyond it, pulling itself together, telling itself that tomorrow was another day. This time Bushrod, an old soldier who knew of such things, could not hear the army beyond this yard. There was onl
y a great stillness out there, over the field of Franklin.

  “You are thinkin dark thoughts again,” said the Major.

  “Yes, I suppose I am.” Bushrod gestured toward the yard with his pipestem. “Look out there, Major. And I am told we won this fight.”

  The Major laughed, but without humor this time. “Oh, yes. And directly we shall all go up to Nashville and whip them again.”

  Bushrod looked at his friend in astonishment. “What? You are foolin. This army is—”

  “Oh, we shall go up to Nashville, and the gallant Hood, like a pillar of fire, shall lead us.” He raised his hand toward the river. ‘“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.’”

  “Yes,” said Bushrod. He closed his eyes, trying to remember the words.‘“And I beheld, and lo a black horse: and he that sat on him. …had a pair of. …’ What?”

  “Balances,” said the Major. He slid down from the balustrade. “Balances, to weigh all us poor soldier boys against duty and honor and—oh, all the rest. Well, there’ll be a reckonin all right, but not here. Last night I thought it surely was, but I was wrong. It’ll be up yonder, on the Cumberland.”

  Bushrod shook his head. “No, Major. It is all over.”

  “For some,” said the Major. He looked out at the yard, and at the dead men arranged on the gallery. “For them it is, but not for us. Unless. …well, I suppose there are some choices left, eh?”

  “Yes. Some choices.”

  “And what do you choose, old pard?”

  Bushrod did not answer right away. He thought of not answering at all, or of making up a story, or changing the subject, whatever it took to quit thinking. But he said: “Understand me, Major. I am played out. I been tried in the balances, and that little river just yonder is as far as I mean to go.”

  “I see,” said the Major. He smiled. “Hell of a thing to be tellin the provost officer.”

  “I’m just glad it’s you.”

  The Major laughed, again without humor. “Well, I’ll tell you a thing that is true. Were I not so scared of Bedford Forrest, I would stay here with you. We could fight over Miss Anna instead of Nashville—she’s a better prize, by a damn sight.”