Heaven in a Wildflower (45 page)

He grabbed Anjele’s arm and squeezed, at the same time leaning to whisper, “Please. Let me handle this.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, hearing sounds of people pressing closer. It was unnerving, and, like Brett, she didn’t want to linger longer than necessary.

Brett straightened and looked the picket squarely in the eye as he resolutely declared, “We talk to the officer in charge, or not at all.”

Motioning to one of the other guards to take over, the picket led the way.

Anjele could feel curious eyes upon her as they walked. “Talk to me,” she pleaded nervously. “Tell me what’s going on.”

He described the camp, an endless sea of tents. Soldiers sat around, cleaning guns, polishing boots. Horses munched on hay in a corral.

Outside the hospital tent, the wounded lay on stretchers. He didn’t tell her about the small pile of amputated limbs, awaiting burial in a pit somewhere—the gangrenous aftermath of the battle up in Corinth a few weeks earlier.

At last, they reached the heart of the command post. Brett told her it was bigger than any of the others. A large Confederate flag was flying outside. There were also two guards, who stepped to cross their rifles, barring their going any further. The picket almost apologetically proceeded to recount Anjele’s startling outburst. The guards exchanged skeptical glances. Brett was losing patience, about to turn and leave, when the flap of the tent flew open.

General John Pemberton, double rows of brass buttons gleaming down the front of his gray tunic, stepped out. Thick gold epaulets of his rank adorned his shoulders. “Well?” He glared about him, finally raking Brett and Anjele with annoyance. “What’s going on out here? What are these civilians doing in my camp? And why aren’t you in uniform?” he demanded of Brett.

Repeating his lie of having paid someone to take his place in combat, again reminding it was legal to do so, Brett then suggested, “Could we talk in private? What we have to tell you is very important.”

“No,” General Pemberton said. “Talk to one of my officers. I’m busy. Sergeant Crenshaw,” he called out, snapping his fingers.

Brett saw a potbellied soldier step from the crowd that had gathered.

The general waved his hand in dismissal. “Take them somewhere and find out what they want.” With a scowl of warning, he snapped at the picket, “And don’t be bringing any more civilians in here, understand?” He disappeared inside the tent.

Sergeant Crenshaw motioned for Brett to follow him, leading the way to a nearby tent. Inside, after they were seated, he ordered in a bored tone, “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Anjele couldn’t resist blurting, “I think your general is rude. And besides,” she added scornfully, “he has a Yankee accent.”

Brett, ignoring the sergeant’s annoyed frown, told her, “That’s because he is a Yankee, by birth, anyway. I’ve heard he’s from Pennsylvania, but his wife is a Southerner, from Virginia, I believe. He graduated from West Point but went with the South, because he supports states’ rights. That explains his accent. It also explains”—he looked pointedly at the sergeant—“why his background causes a lot of Southerners to mistrust him. I have my own doubts now, after he didn’t care to hear us out.”

“Yes, well, he’s a busy man. So am I. You got something to say, say it,” Sergeant Crenshaw impatiently snapped.

Brett proceeded to confide what had happened the night before.

The sergeant listened, and the more he heard, the more interested he became. Still, suspicion needled. “You say you-all was camped out in a deserted house. What were you doing there?”

“Seeking shelter,” Brett responded. “We’ve nowhere else to go. We lost our home.” That was no lie, he thought resentfully.

“Let’s see now…” Sergeant Crenshaw scratched his chin thoughtfully, leaning back to gaze up at the roof of the tent. “We hear Grant is up at LaGrange. Damn bastards took the railroad at Holly Springs.

“Yes,” he went on, talking to himself, “it stands to reason Grant would send out reconnaissance forces to try and find out our strength here, and damn it…”

He suddenly pounded the desk and turned to glare at them. “What better way to do it than sending a couple of civilians right into our camp, pretending they overheard Yankee spies, so they can count heads and report back to Grant?”

Brett tensed, fearing any minute the man was going to yell for guards to throw them in jail as spies. “Wait a minute, Crenshaw, you’re fixing to mess up real bad here.”

It was Crenshaw’s turn to be uneasy. Somehow, he knew he was looking at a man who could be quite dangerous. “Now, see here,” he began, starting to rise from his chair.

“No,
you
see here.” Brett leaned toward him, eyes shooting angry sparks, the nerves in his jaw tensing.

Anjele caught her breath, held it, fearing something terrible was about to happen. Maybe Brett was right, and they were wrong to come here, and…

Brett proceeded to inform the sergeant, “Now, we’ve come here to do the Confederate army a favor and report that the house where we’re staying may be used as a meeting place for Yankee reconnaissance. If you-all don’t care, then neither do we, damn it.”

Crenshaw swallowed hard, apprehension a lump in his throat. Maybe the man was telling the truth. He reached for a pen and a piece of paper. “All right. Exactly where is this house?”

“Oh, to hell with it.” Brett got up so fast his chair tipped over. He grabbed Anjele’s hand and pulled her with him.

Sergeant Crenshaw was right behind them. “Wait a minute. We can ride out, take a look around. We can even station a patrol there, in case they come back, and—”

“And scare them away, is that it?” Brett couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Well, I really doubt—”

Brett snapped, “Forget it. If we see them again, we’ll let you know,” he lied, heading out of the tent, wanting to get as far from the camp, and Vicksburg, as possible.

That night, he tried to convince Anjele they should move on.

“Where would we go?”

“It doesn’t matter. I just don’t feel you’re safe here.”

“We’re not going to be safe anywhere,” she argued. “The fact is, you’re a deserter, because you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, which was take me to the Confederates. But at least we’ve got the chance now to help the South.”

He laughed shortly. “I’d like to know how. You heard what happened today. All that fat sergeant wanted to do was find the way out here so he could capture a few Yankees to show off for General Pemberton. He didn’t give a damn that there might be a chance we could turn the tables, spy on them, and—” Brett caught himself, realizing he actually sounded indignant. Good Lord, he was an officer in the Union army. What was happening to him?

They had gone to bed for warmth, because it was a chilly night, and Anjele snuggled closer to plead, “Let’s do it, anyway. Let’s stay a little while longer. I feel so useless, Brett, but this way I’ve got a chance to do something for my people.”

Brett knew he could force her to go with him. Helpless, she wouldn’t dare stay behind without him. True, she and Rufus had got to be good friends, and he knew the old man would probably lie down and die for her, if need be. Still, she wouldn’t want to depend on a decrepit ex-slave. She would go with him, all right, and part of him wanted to tell her that’s how it was going to be.

Yet another part of him wanted to stay.

In the days and weeks following, Brett wandered about the plantation and the countryside. Reminded of his past, he came to realize how more good memories were being evoked than bad. After all, he had grown up there, and till Margette came into his life, times had been pleasant—except when his father went on one of his drinking binges. Brett learned to stay out of his way, and that’s how he came to spend so much time in the swamps, learning his way around—and also learning to hunt alligators.

He ventured deep into the swamp and found the place where he’d once lived. There wasn’t much left as evidence there’d ever been a village there. Rufus told him the Cajuns who’d lived there had moved north of Vicksburg. Working for plantations along the Yazoo River, most had settled in the Chickasaw Bayou. It was just as well, Brett decided. He didn’t have to worry Anjele would hear someone call him by the name that would lose her to him forever.

Sometimes he was embittered to think how his background now made no difference to her. Dependent on him, she didn’t care whether he was rich or poor, so long as he took care of her. But maybe, he brooded, it wasn’t right to think that way. After all, her parents weren’t alive to censure, and she was no longer engaged to marry someone else. Maybe, under similar circumstances back then, she might have loved him then as she loved him now. At least, he liked to think that’s how it would have been.

November faded into December. They were ever alert for any sign of Yankee scouts, but no one came around.

Rufus learned more about what was going on in the war than Brett, due to his daily vigil on the riverbank. Folks got to know him, and fishermen, too old to have to fight, would stop and share the latest news with him.

They learned that Grenada, around a hundred miles northeast, had fallen to the Federals, but not before the Confederates were able to destroy a large number of locomotives and wagons to keep the enemy from using them.

Brett was content to exist in a state of limbo, taking one day at a time. He was confused, because he finally came to realize he didn’t want to return to fight for the North, not when he was becoming increasingly stirred with feelings of loyalty to his homeland.

With each passing day, he loved Anjele more and more, but felt guilty to think that he’d rather have her blind, if her regaining her vision and discovering who he really was meant losing her. Painfully, he knew that could happen, which made him shy away from her hints of marriage. He couldn’t do that to her. It would be one thing for her one day to open her eyes wide and see him and instantly hate him and be able to just run away. But to look at him and realize he’d tricked her into marrying him, well, he didn’t want to think about that.

Rufus asked him one day when they were alone if he thought she’d get her eyesight back. Brett had to tell him nobody knew. “Well, she’s got such pretty eyes,” Rufus remarked. “Sho’ is a shame she can’t see with ‘em.”

And Brett felt another stab of guilt.

Anjele tried to content herself but became increasingly restless. She was desperate to know what was going on in the world. Travel along the river had come to almost a complete stop since word spread that the daring Confederate Brigadier General Nathan Bedford Forrest was on his way from Tennessee with nearly three thousand cavalrymen. They were after General Grant, who, it was said, was headed for Vicksburg, and they intended to attack his lines of communication.

Brett had told her all they could do was dig in for the winter but warned that if the fighting got too close, they were getting out.

One chilly day in mid-December, Brett had asked her if she minded his going hunting with Rufus. He was short on ammunition, but they had made themselves bows and arrows and both were drooling at the thought of fresh venison. She told him to go ahead, but he insisted she stay in their room. He didn’t like her wandering around when he wasn’t there, afraid she might get hurt, and also hesitant to believe no one would ever pass by.

Reluctantly, she had agreed, crawling beneath the covers to keep warm and thinking how bored she was. But what was there for a blind person to do? Then she chided herself for allowing self-pity, and thought maybe Brett was right, after all. Maybe they should leave. He had hinted a few times he would like to go out West, and she wasn’t opposed. She just wanted a little more time to make sure she was ready to turn her back on the past forever. After all, the war wouldn’t last forever, and when it ended, maybe the North would let the Southerners reclaim their homes. But did she really want to go back to BelleClair? Increasingly, she found herself dwelling more on bad memories than good. Perhaps it was time to put it all behind her and think only of the future—with Brett.

She drifted away to awaken with a start, for even in slumber, her senses had become keen, alert for any sound. She could hear voices coming from the dumbwaiter shaft, and she carefully got out of bed and made her way closer. Putting her head inside, she could hear them almost as clearly as though they were right in the next room. One had a nasal inflection, the other was gruff, gravelly.

They were talking about how they’d rendezvoused a few miles downriver and were beginning to think they were lost when finally they’d found the house. Nasal voice said he didn’t think it was such a great meeting place, and his gravel-voiced cohort agreed.

At first they said nothing of interest, each expressing fatigue, hunger. There were other sounds, as if they were looking around. Brett had told Anjele he made sure the other rooms in the house were kept bare, so there’d be no evidence anyone was staying there. Even in the kitchen out back, all traces of their food preparation were cleaned away the instant they were finished.

She could also be confident Brett would not walk in on them. Always, when coming or going, he scouted about to make sure there were no surprise visitors.

Abruptly their conversation shifted to something she found interesting. Nasal voice asked sympathetically, “Did those sons of bitches really get as much as we heard they did?”