Andersonville (23 page)

Barclay still had the hellhound fang in his hand. He turned on his side and thrust it into the chest of the kastiri with the mutilated head, piercing, he supposed, both its heart and its brain if it was constructed at all like any other creature.

It jumped back, yellow light seeping from around the tooth, its bloody hands clasping the instrument of its destruction before it melted like red candle wax in an iron stove before his eyes, leaving behind only a steaming, darkening pool of blood.

Barclay forced himself to his feet, nearly passing out from the agony the movement afforded him. He skirted the shaft, which was now overflowing with blood, and splashed out into the night.

He didn't know where he was going. His eyes were blinded by blood, and his side throbbed, each pulse sending an outward wave of fire to his body. He was poisoned. He could feel the infernal venom coursing through his body.

He clenched his stinging eyes and stumbled, ignoring the curses of the men sleeping in the open and the epithets of those whose makeshift tin crockery he stumbled through or whose lean-tos he upset in his mad blind flight.

Finally, his feet splashed ankle deep and he recoiled, knowing he was in the creek. He did not want to die here. Not so close to that opening to hell. He turned around, slid in the mud or shit, and collapsed in the mire with a wet plop.

He lay there for a few minutes, bleeding, gasping, gulping in the fetid air.

Then he felt hands on him, flipping him onto his back.

He would not open his eyes. He did not want to see what thing had a hold of him now.

It was hot, a blazing day without respite and, come noon, without shade. It was as if the fires of hell were being stoked in anticipation, the heat climbing even to the earth, cooking the stoic crowd like hapless fleas on a warming plate.

The gate opened, and Captain Wirz rode in on his white horse, blinding in a spotless suit of white duck. Behind him Father Whelan walked, his antithesis in all black, reading from an open Bible, a purple stole hanging from his neck, flanked by armed Confederate guards. Wirz dismounted and ordered the six Raiders released from their sleepless night in the stocks. They were ushered into the procession, their hands bound behind their backs.

All the prisoners who could stand were gathered to bear witness. The scaffold stood in the center of a hollow square created by a ring of club-wielding Regulators amid the multitude. Waiting inside at the foot of the stair were Limber and Key. A pair of corporals stood beneath the gallows, and Romeo, Big Pete, and a Regulator named Goody stood on the platform, holding empty meal sacks.

Above all their heads, the hills were dotted not only with the soldiers from the post but with a thousand or more picnicking onlookers from the surrounding area and their slaves. The artillery pieces had been turned inward, facing the stockade as if they, too, were eager not to miss the singular event about to unfold.

The six men staggered with their heads down, too exhausted even to look up. They merely watched their shoes and halted when the men in front of them halted.

When they were within the square, Wirz stood in his stirrups and said in a loud voice: “Prisoners, you have tried these men yourselves and found them guilty. I have had nothing to do with it. I wash my hands of everything connected with them. Hang them or release them; entrust yourselves again to their mercy or relieve yourselves forever of their oppression.” He smiled slightly then and said; “May
Gud
have mercy on you and on them.”

Then he sat back down, ordered his guards to about-face and march, and turned and rode to their head, exiting the gate without another word or look.

It was then that the six men one by one took in their immediate surroundings, blinking as if in a daze.

Patrick Delaney was the first to speak, his face slack with shock, eyes wide awake now and bugging: “My God, man!” he exclaimed. “You don't really mean to hang us up there?”

“That seems to be about the size of it,” said Key.

All six of them began talking furiously at once, shaking their heads in disbelief, anger, and denial. Muir began to weep quietly.

Delaney yelled: “You've already branded our flesh! Ain't that enough?”

Father Whelan shut his book and turned. He went to them, waving his hand and the Bible and speaking to them. It was a minute until they calmed.

Then the priest turned in a circle and held up his hands. He called out in a loud voice that made the crowd strain to pay attention.

“But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just shall live by faith. And the law is not of faith: but, the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.”

Seeing that he had their attention, Whelan mounted the stair of the scaffold so that he could be seen and heard better.

“When Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior came across the adulterous woman about to be stoned to death for violating the law of Moses, he said to the accusers, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.' It's said that the people looked into their hearts, and from the eldest to the youngest, they departed. And when Jesus looked and saw that he and the woman were alone, he asked her, ‘Where are thine accusers? Hath no man condemned thee?' She replied, ‘There are none, Lord.' And Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn thee. Go, and sin no more.' ”

When the priest finished his speech, a few of the Regulators holding back the onlookers shouted over their shoulders:

“No! Hang 'em!”

“Hang those bastards!”

“Don't let 'em go!”

“Never!”

The vitriol spread outward like the shock wave from an artillery strike, bellowing from the throats of the next row of men and the next until twenty thousand men howled for death.

Romeo called down from the scaffold, shaking the empty meal sack clutched in his fist:
“The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge!”

Limber, Key, and a few others jostled the prisoners, pulling and pushing them toward the stairs.

Curtis, heaving and huffing excitedly, suddenly broke into a run and threw himself over the shoulders of the barrier of Regulators, plunging through the crowd, barreling down the emaciated men like tenpins, and hauling off north.

There were faraway shrieks from the hillside and shouted orders. The people on the hills scurried about like army ants.

“The guns!” some prisoner cried out. “Good Lord! They mean to shoot!”

Fearing that Wirz had ordered the artillery to fire on them in case of a riot, the men were driven to do just that and began scattering in every direction, snapping frail bones beneath their feet, pushing comrades into open wells, and crushing haphazard shelters in their mad rush to flee the inescapable barrage.

For five minutes the prison was in absolute chaos, all except for the bare execution ground, in which the Regulators and the other condemned men and the priest stood their ground. Delaney made a halfhearted attempt to follow Curtis's example, but Limber tripped him easily, fetched him a swift kick while he was down, and hauled him back to his feet.

Limber then produced a bowie knife and held it high, announcing: “Any other one of you sons of bitches tries to run, I'll open you up from one end to the other!”

He shoved the quivering Delaney up the stairs.

Key and the other Regulators escorted the rest to the scaffold.

Muir fell to one knee on the steps and for a minute wouldn't be budged, not for pulling, not for blows, not for threats.

“Come on up here, boy,” Mosby said as Romeo slid a meal sack over his head. “Show yourself a man and die game.”

Finally Whelan knelt beside him, whispering in his ear. They talked back and forth for a moment, then slowly Muir rose and went to the platform himself.

Whelan followed and recited the Extreme Unction as the men were lined up under their respective nooses and the sacks were put one by one over their heads.

When the prisoners saw this, most returned to watch, their terror of the nonexistent artillery strike forgotten.

Whelan's prayer was drowned out by calls from the Raiders down to their former compatriots, who were bruised and bloodied from their gauntlet runs but present.

Sullivan called out: “Where's that skinny fellow? Where is he? Oh, God, please, won't he come up and forgive me for Libby?”

But no one answered or came forward, and the sack staunched his entreaties like a hood over a parrot's cage.

“God bless my soul!” Muir croaked as he disappeared under his own hood.

“Do it already,” Sarsfield muttered as they covered his head.

Whelan made the sign of the cross over each man, closed his book, and descended the stair. Romeo, Goody, and Big Pete followed behind, smiling uniformly.

Limber gave the order.

The corporals took hold of the ropes around the two stays supporting the beam on which the men stood and gave it a jerk in unison.

Twenty thousand witnesses shared a gasp as four men fell through the platform and hung six feet above the ground, two kicking, two twisting with their necks broken.

The fifth hung for a second, then fell heavily to the ground, his rope snapped.

It was Muir.

Limber stalked over cursing, grabbed a bucket of water, and threw it over the man's covered face.

The body jolted and gasped, sucking in the wet meal sack, drowning.

Romeo tore off the hood, exposing Muir's red face and staring eyes. He was streaming blood from his ears and nostrils.

“Am I in the other world?” he gasped.

“Not yet,” Limber answered, pulling him to his feet by his shirtfront.

“Oh, for God's sake, don't put me up there again! God's spared my life! Don't you see? I'm an innocent man! Mercy, please!”

Limber dragged him out from under the scaffold and pulled him back to the stair.

A black prisoner near the front yelled, “No! Don't do it!”

A few others looked as if they were about to say something but thought better of it.

Father Whelan grabbed Limber's elbow as he reached the stair, but Limber flung him clean across the square.

The black man caught him.

“God!” the priest shouted.
“God!”

Muir was as limp as a rag, his head lolling.

Limber stooped down and hoisted him in his arms as he had the dead drummer boy, carrying him up to the platform as the corporals below reset the stays.

On the north end of the square, two men pushed their way through the crowd, pulling Curtis between them; he was muddied and panting, exhausted.

They took him to the stair, and he fell from their arms, laying his head on the bottom step and heaving.

Limber put Muir's head through the unused noose himself while below, Romeo took the rope from around Mosby's neck and sent it up.

Limber held the wavering Muir until Big Pete had come around and gotten Curtis to his feet and to the top of the platform.

As the noose went around his neck, Curtis muttered, “This is a hard sight, boys.”

They had to cut the slack on Muir's rope to keep him standing when Limber let him go. The two Regulators vacated the platform.

Before they had reached the bottom step, the last two Raiders were dangling, Muir for the second time.

Father Whelan sagged in the arms of the black man, weary beyond reckoning.

The black man helped him to his feet.

“Thank you, my boy,” he managed. “What's your name?”

“Clemis, sir,” the black man said. “ 'Fraid I got another man, back at my tent, requires your attention today.”

Whelan nodded.

Was there no end to the misery of this place?

In the office of Captain Wirz sat the man, and in the man sat Mastemah. Mastemah contained nothing per se. No heart kept his worries, no soul bled or swelled. He was burning spirit, given over only to various untempered passions at a given moment. Once, at the edge of darkness and chaos, seeing the Father's creation bloom like a rose in the wastes, he had shone with scintillating untold hues, knowing only joy and love. But as creation and the beasts the Father saw fit to inhabit it with multiplied, his joy became envy, then a smoldering lust, a desire to be once again what the Father was fondest of. Then, for time uncounted, he had blazed with alternating fires blue and white, of regret and wrath and unappeasable longing.

But now, as the sounds of unfettered souls screaming on the wind drifted through Wirz's window, he flared with something he had thought the eons of exile had extinguished in him long ago.

Anticipation.

Barclay could barely move. Every limb ached as if he'd been beaten by mob of men. It was worse than the flogging because this time he knew that no physical surgeon's attentions could do him any good. He was poisoned with a venom secreted in the depths of hell. If there was an antidote, it didn't grow among the pines.

At least the blood had been washed away.

He didn't know if the darkness before his eyes was natural or if the kastiri's poison had taken his sight. All he really knew was the pain, and he worked his mind, trying to draw his attention from it.

The kastirin had manifested physically in the tunnel. Being able to perceive them in the spirit world was one thing, but to be attacked by a physical form in the mortal world was unheard of. Normally a creature such as a kastiri could not hope to affect the physical world directly except through the mechanism of possessed bodies. They were ethereal, and like a man who suddenly found himself five fathoms down without diving dress, they could not hope to survive in the physical world. It meant that all of Andersonville was overlapping with the infernal world. It meant that this place was so thoroughly wicked, its soil could somehow sustain demonic life.

The blood.

The blood that had filled the tunnel. That must have been the catalyst that had allowed them to manifest. Had they been covered in it, or had they used that ancient sacrificial blood, that blood which held the ha-Mashchit in check like something yet to be born and suspended in amniotic fluid, to manifest? Probably the latter. They had not been covered in blood but
formed
of blood.

Thank God and the
lwa
Corbett had given him that hellhound's tooth.

Corbett.

He was slipping away. If only Corbett had been here, he might have had a chance. Now…

There was a terrifying blast of light in his face then, and he moaned, thinking the kastirin had found him somehow, remembering the death light in their shining eyes.

But no, it was just the afternoon sun pouring in through the fissure of the open tent flap.

He could see. He was in Bruegel's tent.

“Clemis?” he muttered.

“No,” said a distressed voice. “It's Charlie.”

Barclay blinked.

“Charlie?”

She moved into the light. She was a mess. The right side of her face was a mass of purple bruises, and her left eye was filled with blood. The corner of her lip was split and puffy, and clean streaks on her ruddy face marked the path of tears.

She leaned in close.

“Oh, my God,” she exclaimed. “What's happened to you, Barclay?”

He almost grinned. He must be a sight indeed if she, in her battered condition, had stopped short at the sight of him.

She wrapped her fingers around his hand. He could barely feel it.

“You're cold! I'll fetch that Indian.”

“I don't need a doctor,” he said, wincing. “I need a preacher.”

“He's here,” Clemis said, opening the tent flap and holding it for the figure stooping behind him.

“Oh, Lord, Barclay,” Charlie murmured. “Not you, too.”

“Father?” Barclay said weakly.

“I'm here, my son,” said Father Whelan, crossing the dugout to kneel at his other side. He kissed his stole and made the sign of the cross over him. “Would you like me to hear your confession?”

“Wrong preacher,” Barclay groaned.

The priest looked at Charlie and Clemis for explanation and, finding none, back down at Barclay.

Barclay reached out to him with one trembling hand.

Father Whelan grasped it firmly.

“I'm here. I'm here.”

Barclay twisted his hand away, annoyed, and reached past, gesturing frantically for Clemis to lean forward.

“Fetch…the…
Hatter
!” he gasped.

Clemis looked confused but nodded and ran from the tent.

Father Whelan pursed his lips and looked at Charlie.

“Are you certain he's a Catholic?”

Charlie shrugged.

“I can't tell by lookin'.”

“In nómine Patris, et Fílii, et Spíritus Sancti, extinguátur in te omnis virtus diáboli per impositiónem mánuum nostrárum, et per invocatiónem gloriósæ et sanctæ Dei Genitrícis Vírginis Maríæ, ejúsque ínclyti Sponsi Joseph, et ómnium sanctórum Angelórum, Archangelórum, Mártyrum, Confessórum, Vírginum, atque ómnium simul Sanctórum. Amen.”

As he recited the Extreme Unction, Whelan produced a small glass phial with a cross and removed the black rubber stopper, tipping it over on his thumb. He then made the sign of the cross on Barclay's forehead.

The prayer might have been enough if the priest had been true, but there was something not quite right. It was as if the priest's words were a medicine that had aged beyond its potency. The pain dulled somewhat, but it was still there. He could still feel himself slipping away.

When the tent flap opened again, spilling light into Barclay's eyes, he nearly thought he had died. Clemis reentered, dragging along a huddled figure who was sobbing and shrilly protesting.

Then the smell of Boston Corbett hit his nostrils, and his filthy face filled his vision, blood leaking from his left nostril.

“Good Lord!” exclaimed Father Whelan. “What is this wretch doing here?”

“I had to drag him here,” Clemis said, panting. “Son of a bitch bit me, and I had to cuff him.”

“Oh, my poor brother,” Corbett whimpered, ignoring the Irishman. “What's happened to you-er?”

“Bless me, then,” Barclay gasped, closing his eyes. “Bless…my wound.”

“I would have come quiet if only I'd known-er. Let me have that bottle, Father,” Corbett said, holding out his dirty hand to the priest.

“I will not!” Father Whelan said, aghast.

“Do it,” Barclay rasped with all the effort he had left.

“Just do it, man!” Clemis shouted, and he reached forward and pulled back the blanket, uncovering a pile of billowy cotton through which the wound was bleeding profusely. He peeled it away, exposing the ragged, suppurating tooth marks.

“Dear Jesus, what's been at you?” Whelan exclaimed.

“I know what's been at him,” Corbett said. “Give me that bottle-er.”

He reached out and snagged the old priest's wrist, wrenching the bottle out of his hand.

“Say your prayer, Father!” he commanded, tipping the phial back like a shot glass of whiskey.

Father Whelan shook his head and began to stand, but Clemis forced him back down.

“Do what he says, goddammit!”

Whelan stammered through his Latin prayers as Corbett sloshed the holy water around in his mouth, leaned over, and spit it into the bleeding wounds.

Barclay hissed as the water touched his flesh and began to bubble.

Whelan paused in his prayers, eyes widening.

“What's happening?” Charlie screeched.

“Shut up!” Clemis snarled, and then to Whelan, “Pray, Father!”

Whelan was at a loss, but he stuttered through the Our Father, and Corbett joined in. Charlie put the back of her hand to her cut lips and backed away, eyes wide in fear. She scooted right out of the tent and did not return.

By the time the priest said “Amen,” the water had totally washed away the bites as though they were merely blood and dirt. There was nothing left but a few minuscule scars.

Barclay breathed deeply and opened his eyes. He could feel the life returning to his limbs and rolled onto his side and coughed out the last of the poison in bloody gouts.

“Water,” he said.

“I don't have any more,” the priest said.

“I mean to drink.”

Clemis went to the corner of the tent and came back with a canteen, putting it in Barclay's groping hands.

“Go easy on it. We may not get any more for a while.”

Barclay stared at him for an explanation.

“Duncan's mule fell in a tunnel this morning durin' roll call. They pulled a couple poor bastards out. Ain't a one of 'em lived. Wirz was red in the face. He let a couple squads in, and they kicked down most of the tents and busted up a bunch of tents, lookin' for more tunnels. They found Doctor John's well and a whole passel of others and made the men fill 'em in. Almost canceled the executions.”

“Almost?” Barclay said, his heart stopping in his chest. He sat up sharply.

“They hung the last of 'em 'bout twenty minutes ago,” Clemis said.

“Damn!” Barclay cursed, rubbing his face to life with his hands.

“Excuse me, boys,” Whelan said, holding up his finger, “but will one of you tell me just what in the hell is going on here? Was this a goddamned
miracle
?” he asked, poking Barclay's side like a doubting Thomas.

Corbett slapped his hand away.

“Don't blaspheme, Father,” he said.

“But…my God, you were dying.”

“Thank you, Boston,” Barclay said, grasping Corbett's hand.

“Give your thanks to the one who needs to hear it most-er,” Corbett said, flitting his eyes quickly to the stupefied Father Whelan.

Barclay understood.

“You saved me, Father,” he said, “and I'm grateful. But now tell me something,” he said, not sure of the priest's disposition and so falling into the old patois. “If you a man of God, how you hold truck with all these slave owners?”

Whelan's jaw set.

“I have lived most my life in this country,” he began. “I held the first Catholic Mass in Georgia, and I ministered to the troops, even got locked in Castle Williams with them when Fort Pulaski fell. I am a Kilkenny man by birth, but I am a southerner by the grace of God.”

At least he hadn't pulled some prepared Bible passage out of the air to condone slavery. That showed that perhaps he was a thinking man.

“Who comes first, though?” Corbett asked. “God or the South?”

“God the Father, in all things,” said Whelan quietly, like a chastised boy.

“That Union prison you spent time in,” Clemis said, “was it like this?”

“No,” Whelan answered, lowering his eyes. “No, it was not like this. It had its horrors but none like this.”

“You ever work a miracle before?” Barclay asked.

“Never.”

“Not till you pray over a black man in the midst of this hell,” said Barclay. “Maybe God tryin' tell you somethin', Father.”

Whelan knelt there, saying nothing.

Barclay's tunic was in ruins, but his undershirt, though bloody, was still serviceable. He pulled it on.

“Where's Charlie?” he asked when his head popped through the neck.

Clemis shrugged. He hadn't seen her go.

Barclay frowned, wondering what had happened to her, why she had come to him. It would have to wait.

“Come on,” Barclay said, standing up slowly and passing through the tent flap.

“You can let yourself out, Your Holiness,” Clemis said, holding the flap for Corbett before following.

When they were squinting in the sun, Barclay shielded his eyes and looked toward the gallows. They were empty. Too late to save Muir. Maybe not too late to avenge him, though.

Corbett was noticeably perturbed outside and seemed to hunker and flinch from unseen tormentors.

“They are very bold today,” he muttered.

“Get back to your shebang, Corbett,” Barclay said. “It's all right. You've done enough for today.”

“You know where to find me,” Corbett said, and scampered off, peering fearfully up at the sky as he went.

“That's an odd fellow,” Clemis remarked, watching Corbett go.

“Did you have to hit him?”

“Draggin' him out his shelter was like draggin' a baby from the womb. What now?”

“I want to see the bodies,” Barclay said.

“Kiss my ass! What for?” Clemis said in disbelief.

Barclay's only answer was to start off toward the South Gate.

“Hey, Barclay,” Clemis called, catching up to him. “You think you got through to that priest?”

“All I can do is hold it out there and hope he grabs on,” Barclay said.