The Black Flower Page 6
Meanwhile the steamboat was gliding up to the landing, her miniature stern-wheel paddling lazily, her single stage run out. The boat’s captain was standing by the bell with a hammer in his hand. …
Why, Mister Rope, Jack was saying in the other dream. There ain’t any cause to be offended—I was only makin fun, wasn’t I, Virgil C.?
Sure, said Virgil C., Jack is always funnin.
No, said Simon Rope, I think you just got a big mouth. Anyway I’m fixin to make another one for you.
As the two dreams drew closer and closer, Bushrod thought: Well I know what is fixin to happen. Sure enough, the steamboat captain raised his hammer and Jack said Well, all right then, and the captain brought his hammer down on the bell and Jack Bishop, swinging from the hip, poleaxed Simon Rope with his shovel—
Clang!
Bushrod woke to see Simon Rope windmilling backward. The shovel blade whistled in the air as Jack swung again and missed, and Simon Rope disappeared over the edge of the trench. Bushrod heard him grunt as he landed among the Departed down below.
“Bully!” cried the Stranger. “First-rate! Let’s haul him out and do it again!”
But Bishop hadn’t stopped. He was already driving his spade into the pile of fill dirt; he brought up an enormous shovelful and flung it down into the trench. He followed it with a half-dozen more while the others watched in astonishment. Finally he stopped and looked at them, breathing hard. “Well, you gone stand there all day?” he said.
“But, Jack,” said Virgil C., “don’t you reckon we ought to see if he’s dead first?”
For an answer, Jack went back to shoveling. The hard dirt rattled in the trench.
“Wish we didn’t have to bury him with our men,” said the Stranger. “Maybe we could—”
“No!” said Bushrod. They all looked at him. “No! Cover him up! Do it quick, while we got the chance!”
Virgil C. shrugged. The Stranger shook his head. “You boys is somethin else again,” he said.
So they all began to shovel, and in no time that portion of the trench was filled. Bushrod worked as hard as the rest; he felt elated, better than he had in days. If they could just get the whole thing finished, maybe pile on a log or two. … And then he saw the Captain hurrying back from wherever he’d been watching and Virgil C. said, “Aw, shit, boys,” and they stopped.
“Here, here,” said the Captain. “What’re you men doin?”
“Why, buryin the dead, Cap’n,” panted Virgil C. “God rest their souls.”
“Amen,” said the Stranger.
“Now, hold on,” said the Captain, pointing to the trench. “Is that the new man you have under there?”
They looked at one another. “Well, Cap’n, he might be under there,” said Virgil C.
“Now, look here—is he dead?”
“He was feelin pretty low, the last we saw him.”
“Mighty low,” agreed the Stranger.
“Damn!” said the Captain. “Just dammit anyhow. You must dig him up right away. Bring him to light again.”
“But Captain, likely he’s dead now—”
The officer looked at Bushrod Carter. “Hush, boy,” he said gently. “You don’t know what you’re sayin.”
“Yessir,” said Bushrod, and ducked his head.
Bushrod Carter did not turn his hand to the job of uncovering Simon Rope. He stood by the Captain and watched, and the Captain left him alone. Presently, Virgil C. and the Stranger got down in the trench and hauled the conscript out. He was a mess, but no one doubted that he would survive. They leaned him against a spindly pine tree and poured a cupful of water over his head and went back to work.
“I suppose you have made an enemy, Jack,” said Captain Sullivan. “I’m sorry to have to put that on you.”
Jack Bishop shrugged. “Never mind, Byron. Maybe he learned some manners.”
“Maybe so. Anyhow, keep him in front of you in a fight. That is, if we should get into one before he runs off again.”
Bishop laughed this time, and shook his head. “Goddammed peckerwoods. This used to be a respectable army, Byron. What happened?”
“We lived too long,” said the Captain.
The sun was a malevolent copper ball just over the pinetops when they finished. All the many Departed had been hidden, at least for a little while; the living, moving like specters, turned their spades and picks back to the Federal Quartermaster’s men, then collapsed on the ground while the officers sorted them out.
The young Stranger from Cairo sat down by Bushrod. “Well, did you keep your shovel?” he asked.
“Shit,” said Bushrod. “I don’t ever want to see another shovel long as I live.”
They shared the last water in the canteen. The officers were prodding the soldiers back to their lines, though nobody was moving very fast.
“Lemme ask you somethin,” said the Stranger.
“Sure,” said Bushrod.
“You reckon we was really gone bury that fellow alive?”
“I reckon,” said Bushrod. “I was anyhow.”
The Stranger nodded. “I was too.” He thought a moment then, twisting the canteen strap in his hands. “Ain’t it curious,” he said at last. “What we’ve all come to, I mean.”
“Curious?” said Bushrod. He looked around at the field, the raw trenches, the hollow-eyed men and the frustrated birds still sailing overhead. “Naw,” he said.
The Stranger nodded again, and after a moment pushed himself erect. Bushrod rose with him.
“I better go,” said the Stranger.
“I better too,” said Bushrod.
They stood looking at the ground. Bushrod put out his hand. “Farewell,” he said. “Thanks for the good water.”
“So long,” said the Stranger.
They shook hands, and the Stranger was gone. Bushrod watched him stumble away over the clodded earth.
“Let’s move along, boys,” said an officer, herding his flock.
“Fix. …bayonets!”
Bushrod’s bayonet was already fixed when the command came, so he shut his eyes and listened as thousands of others rattled home on thousands of muzzles. He always shuddered at the sound, so terrible in its finality. They were going to move now, and soon. When Bushrod looked again, he saw that the sun was very low, almost to the trees, and the pale moon was climbing.
Again his breath failed him. There did not seem to be enough air. His heart began to hammer against his breastbone. Steady, the Other’s voice said. Steady. We have done this before. It is nothing—only a noise. Bushrod forced himself to breathe. He smelled the grass, the dust, the evening.
“Well, old pards,” said Jack Bishop, “we have come to that moment once again.”
“I wish we could do like the Chinee,” said Virgil C. “I’m told they fight one another with parasols and firecrackers.”
Bishop snorted. “Virgil C., why do you torment us with that rubbish? You know perfectly well—”
“Silence in the ranks, there,” said Jeff Hicks, the new Third Lieutenant, in a voice squeaking with excitement and zeal. He was a good boy from one of the best families in Cumberland, but since his appointment to Third Lieutenant he’d been a nuisance to them all, and especially to Jack Bishop, who had raised him in the army like a son.
“My, the young general is snappish today,” said Bishop.
They all laughed.
“Hey, I said ya’ll quiet’n down!” said Hicks.
Bishop turned his head. “‘Hey’?” he queried. “What is this ‘Hey,’ young Hicks?”
“Well. …just ya’ll quiet’n down,” said the boy. After a moment he added, “You’re at attention, y’know.”
“Well, goddamn, I am glad to know that,” said Bishop. He jabbed Bushrod in the ribs. “Straighten up, Carter—by God we are at attention.”
They laughed.
“Remember to keep your dress!” shouted the Captain from the right.
“Keep your dress, boys!” chorused the lieutenants.
But the light had gone out of Jack Bishop’s eyes like a snuffed candle. The skin of his face was taut and shiny, he was working hard to breathe, the air whistled in his nose. He was staring to the front.
“What’s the matter, pard?” said Bushrod.
“Nothin. Nothin is the matter.”
“Take it easy. It ain’t really all that far—just a little walk and we’ll be done.”
“Right-o,” said Jack. “Just a little walk. We done it lots of times before.”
“Lots of times,” said Bushrod.
Jack was breathing easier now. He spat and wiped his mouth and adjusted his spectacles. “Mankind,” he said. “I’m like you. I wish ’twere this time tomorrow.”
“It will be,” said Bushrod.
“When you think they’ll let us make supper?” said Virgil C. “I could sure use—”
“Shut up, dammit!” thundered the First Lieutenant. “Silence in the goddammed ranks!”
This time, the ranks were silent.
The band began to play “Dixie’s Land.” “Shoulder. …arms! Right-shoulder-shift. …arms!”
Bushrod and Jack and Virgil C. and hosts of other lads with similar names from back-country farms and houses in town and steamboats and offices and narrow, cluttered mercantiles and saloons and universities—all moved without thinking through the old, familiar evolutions, and in an instant the line was transformed into a bristling forest of rifle barrels and bayonets. The color bearers shook out their flags.
“Forward, quick time. …”
“Oh, shit,” said Jack Bishop.
“Easy,” said Bushrod. “Let the black flower blossom as it may.”
“Let the what?” said Virgil C.
“. …march!”
The drums began, the boys stepped out smartly, and Bushrod heard, far down in the company line, Uncle Ham Johnson’s voice raised in “On Jordan’s Stormy Banks”:
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the Promised Land!
Bushrod touched his medal, and set his face to the front.
CHAPTER TWO
Early on the afternoon of the Thirtieth of November, while Bushrod and his comrades were still toiling up the Columbia Pike, a Confederate staff officer of Stewart’s Corps rode out in advance of the line. He was nervous, for no one knew exactly where the enemy lay—hopefully, they were all up in Franklin digging holes in the citizens’ gardens, and the peaceful afternoon through which the staff officer rode would remain peaceful for a little while longer. In any case, there was nothing he could do about it, so he rode on, at a comfortable trot, trying not to think too much but watchful all the same.
He came out through a gap in the hills; here he reined up and sat for a moment in contemplation of the ground before him. Open ground, perhaps a mile and a half of rolling fields drowsing in the autumn sunlight. He could see the village among the distant trees, and between himself and the village he could see the enemy—or part of them at least, a brigade anyway—digging rifle pits in the fields. The officer shook his head, extracted from his coat pocket a thin cigar, and lit it carefully with a Lucifer match. He watched his hands, saw that they were steady, and flicked the match away. “Well, Buck,” he said, “I would not want to be those fellows when the army comes off the Pike.” The horse nodded as if in answer, the man smiled. “All right, Buck,” he said. “Let’s walk.”
He met a boy ambling along the road. “You seen a mule runnin loose?” asked the boy.
“No,” said the officer. “What’s he look like?”
“Like a mule,” said the boy.
“Well, I ain’t seen him. You know the way to McGavock’s?”
“Over yonder,” said the boy, pointing.
“Much obliged. I see your mule, I’ll tie him.”
The boy nodded and walked on, and the officer turned into the fields. He rode toward a big patch of oaks, and on the edge of these he discovered a great brick house. “McGavock’s,” he said, and the horse nodded.
He reined up in the yard, sat and smoked for a while and watched the oaks—a big grove, underbrush, a good place for pickets. Then he saw a pair of crows, they settled in a top branch and began to mutter quietly to themselves. “All right,” he said, and relaxed. For the first time in months he felt completely alone and unnoticed, so he sat his horse in the weak sunshine and studied the house before him.
He was raised on a similar place down in Limestone County, Alabama, and it all seemed familiar to him; the quiet yard, the smell of brown grass and wood-smoke and the bitter, dusty smell of the oaks, the shutters needing paint (it seemed all shutters, everywhere, were always needing paint), the dry forlorn tangle of last summer’s morning glory vines, the glimpse of a china figurine through a window. A little wooden horse on wheels watched him from the portico. More crows came to settle in the grove, and from the chimney of the kitchen-house a pale feather of smoke rose toward the sky.
The solitude and the sight of the quiet house moved the officer in ways he had not anticipated for this busy afternoon. The instruments of his trade—his pistol, the saber strapped to his saddle, his field glasses case, even his present purpose—seemed to let go of him, to fade away into some other place and time while he remained, touched by a longing he barely recognized—
Jesus Christ, thought the officer—I am homesick.
He laughed aloud, and the horse moved restlessly, and the world came back again. But the feeling did not go away; the officer did not know that he even wanted it to go away. There was no pain as there once was—only a calm place, like a pool, where the images of his life gathered and where he could still believe in possibility. He would have to shatter it soon, but not now. For the moment, he would look at the house and let his mind travel where it would—
Now just suppose what if there was a girl lived here—her name is Susan—no, no, let it be Nancy—and here I come ridin been ridin all this time toward this place without ever knowin it and she is here she would talk to me put her hand on my sleeve when I had to go—and what if I promised her—no, what if it was a long time from now, not today, only I promised her today, but it is a long time and I am coming back like I promised and the war—and I am, and the war—and the war is—
“Ah, shit!” said the officer aloud, and pulled the rein so that Buck began to turn in a little circle, turning and turning while the officer thought You are a goddamned fool, you are—because it was making him hurt and the war simply was and always would be, and besides, there would be no girl in the house yonder, and if there was she’d be married—they always were. Then Buck got tired of turning and nipped at his boot and the officer stopped. “All right, old pard,” he said. “Hell, let’s get on with it.” He drew once more on the cigar, stubbed it out against the pommel of his saddle, and flicked it away. “Come on, Buck,” he said, and together they walked the little way remaining to the house.
He had been in the saddle since daylight, and it was not easy to dismount. He stretched, and the horse nuzzled him in the ribs. “You are a good boy, Buck,” he said, rubbing the horse’s bony nose. “You stay right here while I go break the news to these good citizens.”
The officer straightened out the skirt of his jacket under the pistol belt, turned, and limped stiffly up the steps and across the little portico. He raised his hand to knock, and stopped. He looked around one last time, for it occurred to him that this place would not be the same after this day was done, not ever again. A movement caught his eye—a white hen strutted around the corner of the house and began to peck in the grass. She wouldn’t last long with the troops about, he thought. Then he knocked.
Later, the family would recall every detail about the officer but his name. They would remember how he stood before them just inside the door (he declined to come further), caked with mud and smelling of wood-smoke and horses, delivering his message as if he’d memoriz
ed it, then forgotten it: General Stewart sends his compliments, who has been informed by a scout who knows the country and therefore yourself, sir—that is, the General asks would Squire McGavock consent to his house—situated as it is, by the fortunes of war, in advantageous relation to the anticipated—consent, that is, with all due regard—that is, with every assurance of—in any event, consent to the use of his home as a hospital for the corps, to receive the inevitable fruits of the battle which even now—
“Battle!” interrupted John McGavock. “In the name of God, does General Hood mean to give battle here?”
The officer was out of breath from his speech. He had tangled it up so badly it was a wonder the gentleman even understood his purpose. He was about to make reply, about to say that, as far as he could tell, both God and General Hood seemed to have that intention, opened his mouth to say it, when he happened to glance toward the hall stairs and see the girl.
It was not fair, of course—that was his first thought. He had only allowed himself a moment’s dreaming, had let go only long enough to have a single foolish thought, and now look. The girl stood on the bottom stair, her hand on the banister, watching him.
“Captain?” said McGavock.
“Um, yes, sir,” said the officer, finding his voice. “As to that, I can only say, sir, that God—that is, yes, I believe General Hood will, yes. Sir.”
She was about his own age, he thought. Not a girl really—it was her slightness that fooled him. He understood that every woman his own age was either married or in eternal possession of her maidenhood. Still, she did not look married—
“Very well, then,” John McGavock was saying. “Please communicate to the General my willingness—”
The officer tried to listen: the house was at the General’s disposal, etc., etc. Indeed, some part of him did listen. The rest of him was thinking: A governess, that’s it then No, please not a governess they are always so encumbered with morals and What is she lookin at, anyhow? While Squire McGavock talked of battles and hospitals and death, the officer studied the girl’s left hand and even in the dim light of the hall he was sure there was no ring—