Andersonville (17 page)

Something came swirling out of the cloud, winding swiftly toward the earth like a whirl of black leaves.

All around him, little objects fell and alighted upon the ground.

Sparrows. Hundreds of them.

The women pointed and cooed at the birds, interrupting Tewkes and Turner's negotiations.

Seeing an opportunity, Barclay knelt and snatched the nearest little bird. Giving a silent thanks to Bedessy and an apology to the bird twitching in his fist, he crammed its head into his mouth and bit through its neck.

The Tewkes girl shrieked.

Fighting down his own revulsion, he spit the bird's head to the ground and squeezed, letting its tiny heart empty its blood over his tongue as its white and black defecation squirted through his fingers.

All around him, the nearest prisoners began to holler and pounce on the birds, clubbing them, catching them in sacks, some devouring them raw just as he did, tearing the little bodies apart and sucking the meat from their skeletons.

Barclay glanced up and saw the planter catch his swooning wife while the daughter continued to scream and cry at the massacre.

“What the hell kind of men are these?” Tewkes was yelling as he dragged his wife from the platform.

Turner gave no explanation but glared down once at Barclay.

The boy sentry at his side looked like he was going to cry at the sight, too.

“Jesus, what do we do, Sergeant?”

“Nothing, boy,” Turner said. “Let 'em eat. It's Yankee Thanksgiving down there.”

Barclay took another bird and retreated from the midst of the desperate eaters. He went off to his tent, where he killed and plucked the sparrow.

He dozed in the afternoon heat, waking only when Clemis returned. He cooked the small bird for his bunk mate over a fire.

“Ain't you goin' eat?” Clemis asked, relishing the roasted meat.

“I already had some,” Barclay answered.

Wirz oversaw morning roll call the next day.

When it was finished, he rode over to the wicket and let in a group of guards bearing a crate among them.

Wirz steered his horse in front of the crate and produced a document from his jacket, which he snapped open with a flick of his wrist and presently read in a loud, official voice:

“General Order number 57. A gang of evil-disposed persons among the prisoners of war at this post having banded themselves together for the purpose of assaulting, murdering, and robbing their fellow prisoners and having already committed all these deeds, it becomes necessary to adopt measures to protect the lives and property of the prisoners against the attacks of these men. In order that this may be accomplished, the well-disposed prisoners may and are authorized to establish a court among themselves for the trial and punishment of all such offenders. The proceedings, findings, and sentence in each case will be sent to the commanding officer for a record, and if found in order and proper, the sentence will be ordered for execution. By order of Brigadier General John H. Winder.”

The men stood in stunned silence.

Barclay wondered at the wording of “the sentence will be ordered for execution.” Was Winder then encouraging them to pass a death sentence against the Raiders?

Wirz folded the order and replaced it in his jacket.

“And now, step forward with your Regulators, Sergeant Laughlin.”

Limber stepped out of the crowd. Along with him were all of the delegates he'd taken into Wirz's office, plus dozens of men Barclay knew only by name. Sergeant Key, Carrigan, most of the rough western sergeants, men from the Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, and Kansas regiments. He even saw Charlie there. She looked grim and a little scared. He noticed with a wry smile that none of the black or Indian soldiers were among the bunch.

Wirz backed his horse up and ordered the crate the men behind him bore tipped over.

A pile of billy clubs spilled onto the ground with a musical, tropical sound.

“Now listen!” Wirz said, standing in his stirrups. “I told you I would have order here. I will never issue any more rations to you until the men you call Raiders are brought to me. These men have stepped forward to protect you. They now have the authority of the Confederate States of America behind them in the boundaries of this stockade. What the rest of you rabble choose to do, whether to help or hinder their cause, is up to you.”

Then he wheeled around like Pontius Pilate and rode out through the gate.

Limber and his men went over and took up their clubs.

“Lieutenant Day,” rumbled the elderly man with the shock of wild white hair and matching goatlike chin hair behind the desk in the cramped office. “You're in charge of mail, aren't you?”

“Outgoing prisoner mail, General,” Day confirmed, standing at attention though the sweat ran down from beneath his hat brim and skimmed his good eye. “Yes, sir. I'm the examiner.”

“All right, Lieutenant,” the brigadier general said, taking off his reading spectacles and laying them on his desk. “What can I do for you?”

“With respect sir,” said Day, “I've received word that my father is ill. I would like permission to take a brief leave of absence and visit him, sir. In Americus. Say, ten days?”

“In Americus?”

“Yes, sir, at the Bragg Hospital.”

“Is he an officer?”

“No, sir, a doctor. He caught something from one of his patients as I understand it, something that's laying him low. I don't know the details, I'm afraid. He's really far too old to be practicing. I told him so.”

The general furrowed his considerable brow at the younger man's consternation.

“Calm yourself, son.”

“I'm sorry, sir,” Day whispered, closing his eyes. “I have had a recurring dream, sir, since the war began that I return home to see my father and meet only his funeral bier.”

“Calm yourself, I say,” the general insisted. “I fully understand paternal affection, but to carry on so is unmanly, sir.”

“You're right, sir. Please accept my apology. I won't trouble you anymore, sir.”

“Just a minute, now,” said the general, pyramiding his wrinkled fingers. “What's your workload like here, Lieutenant Day? By my last count we have about twenty-five thousand prisoners. How many outgoing letters do they on average write per diem?”

“Well, sir. It's hard to say. We've seen an increase recently. Those two thousand Yankees that were taken at Plymouth, they'd just been issued back pay and never had a chance to spend it, so there was a real influx of money into the prison economy. Usually not too many men can afford to send letters, you know.”

“How many men are currently assisting you in your department?” the general asked impatiently.

“I have three additional readers, sir.”

“Officers?”

“No, sir. Enlisted men.”

“And none of them are empowered to sign off as official postal examiners?”

“No, sir.”

“So what would happen to all that prisoner mail if you were to take a leave of absence?”

“It would go unexamined, sir, officially.”

“Officially,” said the general, leveling his eyes with disapproval on the younger man. “Meaning one of them might conceivably fulfill your duty, but illegally.”

“It would be against regulations, sir. I see your point. I withdraw the request.”

“Don't be so damn hasty, Lieutenant. I'm certain we can come to some kind of arrangement. Perhaps, if your readers can do their jobs, I can sign off on those approvals myself.”

“Sir,” said Day, brightening, “that would be—”

“Of course, were I to vacate
my
position for ten days and request you fulfill
my
obligations in addition to your own, I would surely see to it you were compensated justly during your period of additional duty.”

“Compensated,” Day said. “I see what you mean, sir. That would be…magnanimous of you.”

The general raised his bushy eyebrows expectantly.

“And what manner of compensation would
you
expect to be paid, Lieutenant Day?” he asked.

“I think,” Day said after a moment's consideration, “that ten days' worth of your monthly pay would be fair compensation, sir.”

The general pursed his shriveled lips.

“Yes, but my pay grade is a little more than
triple
your own,” said the general. “I think such a drastic increase in your funds would raise too many questions. Would it be unacceptable for you to cover my responsibilities while being paid for
half
the number of days? Would we still be in a spirit of fair
reciprocation
?” He touched his finger to the side of his nose.

Day swallowed and nodded.

“Of course we should make allowances for the difference in our pay grades. Yes, sir.”

The general smiled thinly.

“You're a smart boy. Tell me. Where'd you lose your eye?”

“Sir?”

The general did not repeat himself.

“Magnolia Cemetery, sir,” Day said.

“I'm not familiar with that battle.”

“Baton Rouge, sir. I was with the 30th Louisiana then.”

The general looked Day over.

“Didn't General Tom Williams die there?” he asked quietly.

“The Union commander?” Day asked. “Yes, sir. Did you know him?”

“A little. We served together at Mexico City. How'd it happen?”

“I didn't see him killed, sir.”

“I meant your eye.”

“Oh. A bayonet, sir.”

The general sucked in his teeth.

“Well,” he sighed. “I suppose a man with one good eye shouldn't burn it out reading correspondence all day. Ten days it is. I'll write you a pass. Go and requisition a horse and come back here. I'll have it ready.”

Day saluted smartly.

“Thank you, sir! And God bless you.”

When the young officer had left, the general wrote out the pass and rang a bell.

Sergeant Turner entered.

“General?” Turner asked as he sauntered in, saluting halfheartedly and then fishing out his tobacco pouch and makings.

General John Winder frowned but returned the salute.

“Lieutenant Day is off to Americus for ten days to see his father at Bragg Hospital. I want you to take some men and make sure he's going where he says he's going.”

“All right,” said Turner, grinning to himself as he rolled a cigarette.

Winder frowned at the man's back as he turned and clomped out of the office.

Quitman Day stepped at last out of General Winder's office with his signed pass in one pocket and the coded letter from Barclay in the other.

As he mounted his horse, he did the figuring in his head. Winder had intimated that he expected twenty days, or two-thirds, of his first lieutenant's monthly pay of ninety dollars in exchange for his signature on a ten-day pass. How could he have ever thought that the old man was the architect of some grand occult plot when he was perfectly willing to swindle one of his own junior officers out of sixty dollars for a pass to see his ailing father? Barclay had been right. The man was no magician; he was a petty crook. How did a pimp like that get to become a brigadier general? All that mock concern for the mail when they both knew damn well that the surgeon Dr. White's shrewish wife personally opened the envelopes of the incoming prisoner mail and pocketed anything valuable before burning the letters in his chimney.

That left the unlikely Wirz as the mastermind, or perhaps it was someone else they didn't expect. At least Winder's base corruption pointed toward the Confederacy itself not being responsible, as he had expected. Even if it was Wirz, it was entirely possible that he was conducting his ritual under General Winder's oblivious nose.

Day set out at a brisk gallop for Americus, turning his attention from the bill of sale in his left pocket to the mystery in his right.

The Chronicle of Mastemah
was no mystical work he had ever heard of, but he was sure the book had some kind of significance. He recognized the word
mastemah
from his studies of the Hebrew language. It was archaic, but it meant something like “hatred” or “persecution.” The title had the ring of a grimoire, perhaps something his research hadn't touched on or something relatively new. After all, he had not kept up with the progression of magical thought much since his father's death. He had been too caught up in the war for the last three years.

Everything since the fall of New Orleans seemed a blur to him sometimes: the minor tactical victories offset by the catastrophic military failures, the pitched dirty fighting, the months spent suffering the ministrations of dubiously trained field surgeons, the clandestine work. Since he had lost Euchariste and their unnamed son, he had become the man who would not refuse any assignment. He had plunged headfirst into war and espionage, perhaps hoping to meet his end on the battlefield or at the end of a court-martial rope as punishment for his failure. He had told Barclay he had done everything to get back to her. But had he? He had buried his grief in bloodshed and intrigue, but seeing his old friend had brought it all back, and he had found himself mulling over everything again as if the whole tragedy had occurred only yesterday.

He remembered the last time he saw his beloved Creole girl, her belly swollen with their child, pleading with him not to take his musket and go. Why had he gone off to fight the Yankees? At the time he had told himself it was to protect his property, his father's estate, the home he would make with Euchariste. But was Barclay right? On some deep, shameful level had he balked at the prospect of a future with a colored wife and child? He had lost friends over his engagement, been disowned by family. His father had stayed resolutely behind him, but his failing health had claimed him before he'd seen them joined.

No, he had loved Euchariste dearly. Still did, achingly, the same as when he'd first become aware of his feelings in the vodoun ceremony all those years ago, his first, when she had been mounted by the goddess Erzulie and come to him, hips swaying, the firelight showing through her white ceremonial dress, wet and clinging to her caramel skin with sweat and rum, the bold dark eyes of a spirit looking out at him, making him at last aware of what he had known but overlooked all along.

Their wedding had been a grand affair in the gazebo at Day's End, his family home, under the same bower his parents had married beneath, officiated by Barclay's father. The three of them had stood together, friends, lovers, in the same gazebo he and Barclay had whitewashed together the summer they had met and become friends. A light rain had fallen, enough to lend the grounds a peaceful, verdant feeling without driving the small party indoors. The blessing of creation itself, Mr. Lourdes had called it.

Now he ached to see Barclay, too. His friend's cold, disgusted eyes held the same hateful look of the friends and family that had disavowed themselves of him for his “miscegenating” ways. They were the eyes of an enemy, no different from those of the Yankee soldier who had leaped over a bullet-chipped tombstone in the thick of the hardest, bloodiest skirmish of his life to thrust the point of that white-hot bayonet in his eye. They looked like they would like to finish the job. Worse, he feared they mirrored his dear wife's eyes as she expired in that damned pestilential refugee camp while he retreated to Camp Moore with the rest of his regiment, driven off by Farragut's cannons.

More had died in that refugee camp than his hope. His faith had died, too. What God, what flock of supposedly benevolent angels, would stand by and allow such doom to settle on a man's heart? In his younger days he had communed with the higher planes, dedicated himself to the will of the divine. Now he didn't care a thing for the eternal struggle. On earth, to him, it was already lost.

He bore these tortured thoughts ten miles and not much else: his pistol and saber, a canteen, his greatcoat, and the clothes on his back.

When he arrived at nightfall, a cool breeze had kicked up, stirring the trees. He rode straight through the gaslit streets, navigating the crowds of wounded soldiers taking air at the two hospitals, to a plain cabin at the outskirts of town.

He tied his horse outside, took off its saddle, and rubbed it down. In the middle of watering the animal, the cabin door creaked open, and a spectacled man with more belly and less hair than might be considered ideal peered out, wearing only a shabby nightshirt and hastily drawn on trousers, the braces still hanging loose.

“Who's there?” the man in the doorway called.

“The secret things belong unto the lord our God,” Day said in Hebrew.

The man's jaw fell slightly slack.

“Both what is still hidden and what has already been revealed concern us and our descendants forever,” the man in the doorway answered reverently.

Deuteronomy 29:29. It was the greeting of the Mystic Seven, a secret society to which he, his father, and his mother had all belonged. Seven mystics at seven universities, or “temples,” situated throughout the North and South, dedicated to magical study and the eternal struggle against dark powers. His father had established the Temple of the Owl at the University of Louisiana and had led the society there during his tenure as a professor of languages.

“Atticus Dooley,” said the man in the doorway, holding two fingers to heaven and directing the five fingers of the other to the earth in a mystic sign. “Temple of the Sword.”

“Quitman Day,” Day answered, returning the sign. “Temple of the Owl.”

The man held open the door and gestured for him to approach.

“Quitman Day. You're the son of Brother Wayman and Sister Balmerlee, then?”

Day patted his horse and went to the door of the cabin.

“Yes, sir. We met once at Orna Villa at the dedication of the society oratory.”

“Yes, yes. I remember now. I was sorry to hear of your parents' passing, Little Brother. They were good people. Come on in.”

Day passed into the cabin and was confronted by what at first sight seemed like a lunatic's decor, illuminated by the glow from an oil lantern on the kitchen table. Stacks of books lined every wall, piled floor to ceiling. They filled an entire room, gathered like dust atop every stick of furniture. In places, they looked to have been arranged to take the place of furniture. There was musty smell to the place of old paper and leather.

Higher learning had practically ceased to exist in most of the country as all young men of age and many below had vacated their classrooms to participate in the war. He knew Emory College, his father's alma mater, had closed its doors for the duration and been repurposed as a hospital. He also had surmised that the trove of books in the university's impressive library had to have gone somewhere. He had sought out Dooley, the former university librarian, hoping to find out where. He hadn't guessed the man had taken them all into his private residence here in Americus.

“Are these the contents of the entire library?” Day whispered in wonder.

“Oh, of course not,” Dooley said. “I had to part with the widely circulated volumes. These are the rare books. First editions, sole translations, reference books, and primary sources from the special collections. Someday when the war is ended, I hope they will return to their home. For now, they're just boarding with me. Would you like some coffee, Little Brother?”

“It
has
been a long ride. If it's not too much trouble,” Day said, doffing his hat and draping his greatcoat over one of the kitchen chairs. “Thank you.”

“Not at all, not at all,” said Dooley, though he frowned deeply for a moment before busying himself with the stove. “You're in the army, eh?” he said over his shoulder in a poor attempt at nonchalance.

The Mystic Seven didn't approve of military service, he knew. They taught that an intellectual went to war for the souls of men in the classroom, not with a rifle in hand.

“Yes, sir,” Day said, sitting down at the table.

“And what brings a Confederate officer to my door?” Dooley asked, cranking a coffee grinder with some difficulty.

“Here, let me do that, sir,” Day said, standing up.

“No, no, don't trouble yourself.”

He sat back down.

“I'm actually looking for a book. I was hoping you could direct me to it, but it may be you have it right here.”

“It was a rare edition, then?”

“I've never even heard of it. It certainly wasn't in my father's library, but I believe it might be a grimoire.”

“What does the army want with a grimoire?”

“I'm not here on behalf of the army.”

“You wear the trappings of a soldier,” Dooley said sourly, setting a pot to boil.

“I
am
a soldier.”

“Then I ask again, what use is a grimoire to a soldier? Haven't you chosen the profane road?”

“I still serve the cause of the brotherhood,” Day said testily.

“Would your father agree?” Dooley asked sharply.

“Sir, my father's opinion of my service will never be known in this life,” Day said. “What it has cost me already you cannot know. I have a wife and child in the grave, and I wasn't even there to lift the spade that turned the earth over them. I didn't even know whether it was a son or a daughter I'd lost till a little while ago. The path I have taken, it is my lot to reconcile with. So if you seek to heap reproach on me for the uniform I wear, don't trouble yourself. Be assured that I have suffered, that I continue to suffer every day. But I put it on, and I will not take it off until it is taken from me.”

Dooley stared for a while down at Day, then self-consciously removed his spectacles and wiped them.

“I'm sorry, Quitman. I didn't know.”

“How could you?”

“What book are you looking for?” the old man said, returning to brewing the coffee.

“
The Chronicle of Mastemah
.”

Dooley looked back at him askance.

“Why would you want
that
?”

“You know it?”

“Intimately. I translated it for the society four years ago. Oversaw the pressing myself. We distributed six copies to the other temples.”

“You have it here?” Day asked, holding his breath.

“I have the original Hebrew text here somewhere. Our translation unfortunately went missing from the library around the time the students all left to fight. But it's not really a grimoire. As the title suggests, it's a chronicle. An apocryphal history, probably pseudepigraphical, like the Book of Enoch. Supposedly, it was written by Aaron, the brother of Moses. I suspect it was a medieval work.”

Day wondered if the copy Barclay had seen in Wirz's office was the missing Emory copy and how he had gotten hold of it.

“What is Mastemah?” Day asked.

“Mastemah is one of the Grigori. The two hundred watcher angels who were tempted by mortal women and fell from grace,” said Dooley.

Day knew this story. The children of the Grigori, the monstrous giant Nephilim, were the reason God had loosed the water of chaos in Noah's time to scour the earth clean.

“The Grigori were cast from heaven and joined Lucifer. But Mastemah cried up to God and begged to be allowed to test mankind's worthiness. Like Lucifer, he coveted God's favor toward man. At the same time, he was driven mad by his own weakness and blamed mankind for his fall. He became the prosecutor of humanity, actively tempting us to corruption and sin at every turn.”

“Isn't that Lucifer's office?” Day asked.

“According to the
Chronicle
, Mastemah operates independently of Lucifer and pursues his charge with more vigor than even the Lord of Hell can summon. He corrupted Sodom and Gomorrah so completely that the Lord's angels destroyed the twin cities with the ha-Mashchit.”

“The ha-Mashchit?”

“The ha-Mashchit is the name of the being which constituted the tenth and final plague of Egypt.”

“The death of the firstborn.”

“The Destroyer,” Dooley said, nodding. “The chronicle says the ha-Mashchit is a feral, destructive entity created as a weapon by Lucifer and Belial during the rebellion in heaven. Its original purpose was to devour all of humanity. Since the rebellion was the result of Lucifer's refusal to serve mankind, he thought that by obliterating us, it would end the need for the war. When Lucifer faced defeat, as part of the cessation of hostilities he was given hell to reign over. In turn, he relinquished the secret of the ha-Mashchit to Michael and the loyal archangels.”