Andersonville (107 page)

Damn it, Captain, what you want?

Excuse me, sir. I—I have an invitation—

Invitation? Winder snorted, swallowed down the spoonful of drops, sputtered, wiped his sagging mouth with the back of his hand. From whom?

From myself, sir.

The devil! What kind of invitation do you want to give me?

Sir, it has come to my attention that you are very fond of fresh pork.

Where the devil did you hear that?

Sir, it was—your son—the captain— I chanced to overhear him speaking with Major Crawley—

John Winder said decisively, after belching over the Harlem oil: Hell, yes, I do like fresh pork. Who doesn’t? Precious little we’ve got around here these days.

But, General, a whole hog has come into my possession, and—

Twelve officers, including the trembling Kight, sat down to a pork banquet in the Kight dining room. It was a midday meal: Winder insisted that he could accept only if the meal were served at noon on Wednesday, February the eighth. He had to go over to Columbia on the afternoon train.

The drawn-faced Mrs. Kight managed briefly to greet her husband’s guests, to be presented to the general; then she staggered back to the kitchen. She had been up most of the night, overseeing groaning black women in the preparation of sausage. Mrs. Kight had done the bulk of the work herself. . . . Penny, the dullard slave, managed to chop up a portion of the best loin, instead of scraps set aside for the purpose. . . . Nevertheless the other loin was roasted. There were patties and chops . . . the roast was garnished with strips of side meat. Appetizers of pickle were ready on the table, with several bottles of tart wine and two bottles of spirits which the desperate Sam had wheedled from his brother in exchange for the Kight mantel clock. There were two bowls of sweet potato pudding, mounds of corn sticks on platters. A private plate of sausages was put before General Winder. The old man gobbled rapidly, never looking at his host, talking only to the aide who sat at his left hand. . . . The general drank but little. He said that he must have a clear head for multitudinous tasks awaiting him.

Scorched and oily smells of roast and fried meat drifted up the staircase to torture a throng of wan children huddling above stairs. The children wondered what was being done with the bones; they wished that the soldiers would leave quickly; the children would like to put their hands on those bent chewed ribs before the wenches got at them. . . .

Less than an hour after they’d trooped in through the unpainted double doors, the guests took their departure. Soon General Winder and his military family stood upon the railway platform, awaiting transportation.

That was a meal, sir, said Captain Peschau.

Too damn greasy. That captain’s niggers don’t know how to cook. . . . Sammons Kight was not present to hear these words: he was in his house, praying actually and idiotically for a promotion which never came.

Captain Peschau said something or other to the general; the other officers were standing at a distance; later Peschau could not remember exactly what it was that he said. He thought he heard a responsive grunt. It was a strange response. Peschau turned quickly to look at his commander.

The platform of the Florence station was composed of cinders and gravel, tamped down between old splintery ties; it was one of those wide ties upon which Winder beat his swollen face as he fell. Peschau saw him sagging, Peschau tried to hold him, Peschau was a slight man, he could not support the weight. The old man’s bulk draped the aide’s straining shoulder, swept his arm aside, pitched loose. Other people exclaimed, came diving. They turned John Winder on his back. Eyes glared out of a face slaty blue. People kept exclaiming, crying to the general. They kept calling, General Winder, again and again, as men might try to awaken a sleeper.

Cashmyer’s tent, said someone.

He referred to the nearby abode of Philip Cashmyer, John Winder’s detective officer.

Ralphie, run for the surgeon!

Ralphie was running already.

Five pairs of hands slid beneath the great chunk. Two hands slid under each of the old man’s thighs, two hands were straining up under each of his shoulders. Another pair of hands supported the mighty drooping head and helped to support the shoulders as well.

The officers went laboring toward a tent beyond the station. The detective came rushing to hold up the tent fly and admit them. As gently as possible they put the general upon the single cot, saw it sag deeply, weight straining the cords; they heard the crunch of cords against wood. . . . John Winder was breathing. . . . The surgeon came at a dog-trot. A ring of idle ragged troops gathered at a safe distance from the tent.

Inside the tent John Winder gazed at the canvas roof with eyes unmoving, bulbous. Presently he gave an explosive belch; there drooled a trickle from one corner of the open mouth; the massive head swung slightly to one side. The black blood was turning blacker. . . . A little later the surgeon pushed down the crusty eyelids and weighted them with Federal coins.

When Andersonville learned of this demise, they were quick to supply the last words spoken by John Winder (although in fact he was not granted the dramatic gesture of a last utterance): My faith is in Christ. I expect to be saved! Wirz, cut down the Yankees’ rations!

Two railroads—the North Eastern, and the Wilmington and Manchester—formed a junction at that insignificant village of Florence. In a gray wintry swamp not far from the intersection of iron paths, straggles of moss clung to empty branches. This was not the luxuriant Spanish moss of more southerly regions: it was a brittle neglected fuzz, a last relic of sub-tropics. It dangled dried and feeble on emaciated boughs, dark as the stuffing of a carriage cushion. Amongst these tatters roosted a convocation of vultures. Solemn in silence they wadded on higher boughs. They had lunched to repletion (as had the officers in the Kight house) but a consumptive cow had been their fare. The buzzards squatted, waiting for a new death, or for the discovery of an older death.

Suddenly they moved, shifting position, some moved to outer limbs. Their wide heavy wings stretched when they hopped; there was the scraping of feathers as they shifted and then draped scalloped black shawls about their bodies again. A raw wrinkled neck twisted, a hooked beak went out and drew back into immobility. It was almost as if another of their kind had come, unseen yet detected, to dwell among them.

 LVI 

C
oral Tebbs slid his shotgun through the drying leaves, resting its weight in a low crotch of a sweet-gum sapling. He bent lower to sight. The hawk was still there: that was its favorite perch on the stub of a high dead cypress branch. You could tell that it was the hawk’s favorite perch, for even at such a distance (he estimated that it might be ten rods) the accumulation of droppings showed like whitewash on a lower limb. The hawk bent forward, disturbed its wings as if for flight, then folded back onto the stub again. Old chicken stealer, thought Coral. I’ve come a weary way, crutches sticking in soft ground long the edge of this here marsh. Wonder how many other one-footed folks ever try to leg it through woods like these, crutches and all? . . . Chicken stealer! I’m going to spoil your guts.

He had been waiting over two hours for the hawk to return to its perch, and now the hawk had come back, and Coral’s bony finger sank slowly against the trigger.

Powder exploded, the boom hurt, the butt crunched into the youth’s shoulder. A dust—feathers?—blew loose from the bird. The hawk went forward into space, wings half lifted again, but wings bent under, wings bent under.

Got you, you son of a bitch, cried Coral in his heart with hate like glee. Birdshot’d never carry up there, but a mite of buckshot done the trick. That’s a right heavy animal, he thought in continuation, as he heard the body go plunging through cypress twigs and heard stringy streamers of moss ripped loose and saw them waving. Then came a light damp mingled thud and splash as the hawk landed at the edge of some shallow pool which Coral could not see.

He put his dark brows together and rubbed his hairy chin with a speculative hand. Well, now. Hawk must be a hundred and fifty foot over yonder and all sorts of brush and vines in between.

But damn if he wasn’t going to get that hawk, if he had to crawl to do it. He’d have a sorry time, hoisting his crutches and wriggling his one sound limb over all those logs and tangles but— By God, he meant to take that hawk home. Tote it all the way home, and maybe his mother would like to have a couple nice big hawk-wing fans for next summer instead of the regular turkey-wing fans that most folks had. Tote it home, dump it down on the stoop and say, Here’s one robber ain’t going to make off with no more of our fries. Cripple or no cripple! And wouldn’t that puny little dragged-out Flory be fetched? Sick at heart, poison sick with the jealousy, Flory would be. Flory couldn’t have got this hawk first shot or hundredth.

Coral took a bearing on the hawk’s vacant perch, perceiving where the area directly beneath it must lie in the thicket ahead. Tough work, a-crawling and a-climbing, and he’d have to leave the shotgun right here. No help for it; but he could always use a crutch on a snake if he met one. Coral reloaded the gun and hung it in a tree. Then he hitched his way along the damp cypress log and pushed through a layer of vines, looking back constantly to keep to the bee-line he had established. Thorns bit him, but Coral only cursed in spirit monotonously and proceeded on his cautious stubborn path. He fell when his crutches caught on a root; then he cursed aloud. He swore at root, crutches, swamp, hawk, the winter sun overhead; he swore at his own clumsiness, at the Yankees who’d riddled his foot, at the surgeons who had cut it off. He went on, breathing heavily; and from ahead sounded a faint plashing as if some wild animal were molested by his approach. Oh, damn to hell, why hadn’t he toted that gun along, somehow or other? Here he might meet up with something else to shoot, and he would have no gun, and—

At last he panted beneath the half dead tree. Surely this was the place—it was open, a small glade higher and drier than the surrounding thickets—yet no hawk could be seen. Yes, yes, here were white spatters of dung on some sodden old cypress knees; this was the place, it had to be. But no hawk.

What was that sound he’d observed as he came? Surely not the beating lunging flopping noise a big bird would make if, not killed as dead as Coral had thought, the creature were still trying to take flight or struggle off through the woods. Then, immediately before his gaze, Coral Tebbs saw footprints in the mould, and those footprints were filling slowly with water.

All right, God damn it, he heard a strange strained churlish voice; it was fearful to recognize that voice as his own. He’d just passed another tupelo tree, and now he found himself backing against that tree, small as it was. All right, God damn you, he said again to the gloom. Got a knife here.

So he had, one made at home, and in a scabbard of his own construction. He’d sewn the bent fold of old leather with toil through several evenings; it contained the honed blade of a butcher knife which, had he but known it, once graced the kitchen of his grandfather Lumpkin. Coral had made a handle for that knife by wrapping the rusty spike with strings of rawhide.

Got a knife here. Come out them bushes, Mister.

Sprouts and vines and moss were motionless, then they twitched, then the twitching died and they were motionless again.

Telling you for the last time, come out them bushes.

A figure arose to confront him. It was such a spook as might have sent any field Negro of the region scuttling. It was a spook somewhat smaller than Coral Tebbs, nearly beardless, with a crusted blackened skull for a face, and dressed in scarecrow shreds of flannel and jeans. Coral could not recognize immediately this starveling for what the thing really was. He had never stood aloft on a sentry’s perch, rimmed on the stockade; his condition precluded any climbing of ladders. True, he had lurked to watch wagonloads of bodies go past, but usually the dead were naked; often they were bloated, before or after death.

By God, said Coral, that’s my hawk you got in your hand.

Sure enough. The creature had the hawk, and the hawk hung limp-winged and bloody.

What you doing with my hawk that I just shot off’n this cypress?

The figure tumbled loosely out of the vines and went down among twisting knees of the swamp: it was half a sitting down, half a falling down. The thing wore a mouldy cap with a corroded clover leaf on the top of it; you could see that the clover leaf had once been red, but the visor of the cap was gone. The thing still held the hawk.

What was you going to do with my bird, you?

Faint weak voice whispered, Eat it.

Well, I hope to shit, said Coral Tebbs. Son of a bitch if you hain’t a damn Yankee!

Yes.

God blast your measly soul to hell!

Guess He’s nearly done so.

What you say?

Nearly blasted my soul to hell already.

You got loose from that pen over yonder! Well, I’m going to turn you in.

Go ahead.

Reckon I’ll get a reward, too. You got ary weapon about you?

Naw.

What might be your name? You are a measly rat for certain.

Name’s Stricker.

What?

Naz Stricker.

What?

Nazareth Stricker.

That’s a hell of a name. God damn Yankee name. Where you from?

Hundred and Forty-eighth Pennsylvania.

You mean to say you damn Yankees’ll eat a hawk? Hawk ain’t fit.

I’d eat anything, said Naz Stricker.

I did hear them trail-dogs in the night. Never did hear the catch-dogs a-barking. Reckon twas you they was after.

The Yankee swayed, seemed about to fall flat, then caught himself and remained in a hunched sitting position.

Coral Tebbs swung his crutches and his leg, moving closer. What’s that red dingus on your cap, you?

I don’t know.

You don’t know? Guess you damn Yankees don’t know nothing. Worse’n a pack of niggers.

Yes . . . do know. It’s—clover leaf. That means Second Corps. Red because we were First Division of the Second Corps. . . .

What division was that?

Naz Stricker considered dreamily. The battle was a long time ago, a lifetime ago. Caldwell’s, he said.

When Coral lay on old dry blood-blackened straw in a wagon, while a column of wounded pitched and screamed and muddied up and down the racking Maryland hills, he had seen prisoners marching alongside, unwounded ones. At Anderson Station he had, many times, watched ranks of fresh prisoners being formed into squads while Wirz danced and mouthed at them. Thus he had seen many Yankees close at hand. He had felt the venom fly from his own eyes, it was as if the Yankees must feel it also, spraying over their skin and burning as it sprayed. Put the sons of bitches in the pen; let them stink; let them yell; shoot the first bastard who comes nigh the deadline. If he’d received a lighter wound with no amputation resulting— Oh, he’d learned that there were plenty of them, wounded Confederate veterans who were considered unfit for further duty in the field; yet they had been accepted to help fill up new ranks of the Georgia Reserves. They were guarding Yanks, and a thousand times Coral Tebbs had wished that he might stand among the guards. Bet he’d show those blue-bellies who was boss . . . how he’d show them! A thousand times he had looked at Flory, with his thin little-girl voice with scarce a rasp in it— Looked at Flory prancing to show Ma what a swell he was as a soldier, all togged out in Yankee jacket and Yankee breeches too big for him, and a big calico hat sinking over his ears— Looked at Flory and thought, Devil beat the ass off of me. Look at that: he can pack a musket, and go on guard, and all I can do is crutch myself through the brush— Looked at Flory and hated Flory’s guts, silently or aloud.

You going to come along of me.

The Yankee’s eyes were shut.

Want I should bust your head with this here crutch?

Go ahead, came the whisper. Bust it.

Hold up your hands, God damn you! So’s I can see you hain’t got a weapon.

The hawk slid into muck below the cypress knees. The ragamuffin’s right hand came wavering up; the left hand came wavering up, except that there was no left hand. Nothing but a tattered sleeve and what appeared to be a grimy bone sticking out of tatters.

Coral made a sound. Oh, by God, his soul was saying, oh, by God, and yet he could not speak a word which sounded like a word.

The escaped prisoner’s arms fell back beside him.

Yank. The harsh sound of the word hurt the throat of Coral Tebbs as if that throat were scraped by a dull knife. Yank, what you got there? What befell you? Your hand—

They—took it off. Right at—the wrist.

Who took it off?

Rebel surgeons.

Where’d you get hit?

I was damn near—back home. Just a few counties away—up in Pennsylvania. Twas at—Gettysburg.

A red glare swept Coral’s gaze. For a moment he could not see the shriveled youth in rags before him, could not see the shriveled face or the foolish visorless cap, could not see the rotten embroidery of the red clover leaf; nor could he see the barred wings of the hawk he’d shot, or gloom pervading there in loneliness.

What day? . . . God damn it, I asked you. What day of the battle?

Second day, I guess it was. Right by that—wheatfield.

Oh, by God. We come against you! I was with the Fifty-third Georgia. I’ll be buggered with a cob!

The Yankee sat without moving. Then shudders began to disturb his body as if he suffered an attack of ague. His lips were jelly; he hadn’t lost all his teeth, you could hear some of his teeth clattering against each other as he shook.

Look at what you done to my foot! Coral swung his leg forward. Think you’re the only one got hit? I’d rather be shy a hand like you than shy a foot like I am!

This shrunken scarecrow spook could be made to say nothing, he could not be made to look up. Coral tore a crutch from beneath his right arm and wrapped his hand around the stem of it. By God, I’m going to bust you . . . but the cudgel remained suspended in air. Coral’s breath was burning out of his lungs in blasts, and saliva trickled from the corners of his open mouth. Slowly he lowered the crutch. At last he slid it into his armpit again.

Yank. Come on. Going to take you in!

The boy tried to arise; he seemed to try to arise; again he slid back among cypress knobs.

Catch-dogs ought to have got you and that’s a fact. How come they never got you last night?

I held—to—wet places. And used—pepper.