Love and War: The Coltrane Saga, Book 1 (60 page)

He remembered something. Turning sharply, he said, “Since when did you want to sit around and chew the fat with me, Wright? I’ve had the feeling all along you’d shoot me in the back if you got a chance.”

“I don’t shoot men in the back, Coltrane, I’ll admit, at first I thought about it. I hated you for what you did to my little girl. Then I talked to Sam and Andy, and I started figuring out a few things for myself. I’ve also watched you fight. Takes a man with plenty of courage to fight the way you do, I have to respect that. I figured if anybody could help me find Kitty, it’d be you. When Tate took her before she wound up with you, I didn’t know about it—couldn’t do anything about it. I guess I went a little crazy when the war first broke out; anyway, I wasn’t thinkin’ too straight. But now I am straight and I do know about my girl being taken by those sons of bitches and as soon as we whip Johnny Reb tomorrow, I’m going to find her.” He paused, gave his words time to soak in, then added, “I kind of hope you’ll go with me, Coltrane.”

A Sergeant walked up just then, addressing them gruffly, “The General says for everybody to write his name on something and pin it to his shirt. If you get killed, we need to know who you are so we can send word to your family.”

Travis smiled sardonically. “What’s this ‘we’ stuff, Sarge? What makes you think ‘we’ won’t be sending a letter home about
your
guts being blown out?”

John Wright laughed and the Sergeant bellowed, “Just pin your goddamned name on your shirt, soldier. And make sure you’re keeping your cartridges dry and the nipple on your musket’s firing pin is dry and there ain’t no mud stopping up the barrel.”

“You’re talking to a cavalryman, Sergeant, and I’ve got a breech-loading repeating rifled carbine.”

“I don’t give a shit what you got, soldier. You just make sure it’s ready to fire when we start shootin’. Damned cavalry!” He stomped away into the night, cursing, “Think they’re so goddamned great and glorious. Hell, whoever saw a
dead
cavalryman, anyway.”

Travis and John laughed, and the tension was gone. They sat together through the night, beneath the tree, talking about Kitty, how they’d find her, how they would make it through this battle and the next and the whole damned war. John had a jug of “red-eye” and the more they drank, the better they felt about the whole world around them—waiting for it to end.

“You going to pin your name on?” Travis asked as the first pink hem of dawn began to appear over the trees.

“No. I don’t see where names matter so much right now, Coltrane. Me and you will be the only ones who go to look for Kitty. If we don’t, she won’t get found—and who else cares if I get killed?”

“I’m not pinning a name on either, John.”

They were called together for briefing. The officer in charge stood before them and repeated the words they had heard before. “Do not shoot till you are within effective musket range and fire deliberately, take care to aim low and don’t overshoot. If you wound a man, so much the better—they’ll have to be taken off the field, by unwounded soldiers and they make good targets. Pick off the officers, especially the ones on horses. Hold your ranks and don’t huddle together when the firing gets heavy. When you hear the order to charge, do so at once and move fast. You’re less apt to get killed moving steadily forward than if you hesitate or retreat; but if we have to fall back, do it gradually and in order. More men are killed during a disorganized retreat than at any other time.”

The officer looked around him; he was young and Travis thought he seemed nervous. Well, he had reason to be. They all did. Whether they drove Bragg off the mountain or not, one thing was for certain: a hell of a lot of men were going to die this day.

“Don’t be afraid of the artillery,” he went on, trying, Travis knew, to sound fierce and authoritative, making his voice gruff and stem. “Artillery is never as deadly as it seems. A rapid movement forward will reduce the battery’s effectiveness and hasten the end of its capacity to destroy. Do not—I repeat—do not pause or stop to plunder the dead or pick up the spoils. Battles have been lost by this temptation. And as cruel as it might sound, do not heed the pleas for assistance from your wounded comrades. The best way to protect your comrades is to drive the enemy from the field. Straggling under any guise will be severely punished and cowards will be shot!”

He paused again and took a deep breath, pushing his chest forward a bit. “Do your duty in a manner that befits the heroic example that your regiment has already set in earlier fields of combat.”

Somewhere the snare drums began the long roll. The color bearers moved forward. In the early morning mist, intense activity could be seen all around. Surgeons were preparing their kits and litter bearers and ambulances were grimly waiting. Some of the soldiers were down on their knees praying; others read from their testaments. And some, like Travis, bit off a chew of tobacco, jaws working furiously. Everywhere, suspense was bearing down with a crushing force—and the silence was overwhelming as they waited after the drum roll ceased.

Travis looked at the red-haired boy huddled beside him. Andy had grown up quite a bit since they had been together. He could fight like a man and would never be the kind to turn and run from a battle. They had grown close and he never failed to feel a spirit of big-brother protectiveness when danger prevailed. “You all right, boy?” he whispered, noting that he had pinned his name on his shirt while Sam, John, and Travis himself had all neglected to do so.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” He spoke quietly. Too quietly.

“Are you worried, Andy? This is just another battle, you know. You’ve been through them before. You’ll do fine.”

“It ain’t just another battle.” His tone was clipped, short, almost defiant, and the three of them, Travis, Sam, and John, all turned to stare at the boy. “It ain’t just another battle to me. If I get killed in this one, it ain’t all over. None of it.”

“Boy, you ain’t makin’ no sense,” John said worriedly.

“Yeah, I am. The parson come by my tent last night and prayed with me. I’m saved.”

“Saved?” Sam Bucher spit out a wad of tobacco and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “What do you mean, you’re saved? You ain’t saved from fightin’ today, boy. You’re goin’ into battle just like us. If you sit here and don’t fight ‘cause some preacher thinks he got you out of it, General Grant will have you shot quicker’n Johnny Reb skins boots off a dead Yank.”

Andy’s sigh was impatient. “Sam, you don’t understand what I’m saying. I’m not talking about the parson savin’ me from going into the battle. I
am
going and I intend to fight, but I’m
saved
, Sam! My soul is saved. I’m a born-again child of God, and if some Reb ball tears into me today, I’ll still be alive, don’t you see?”

He looked at each of the men in turn, his gaze imploring them to understand his words. “The parson says my sins are washed away; if my time comes to die, I’ll die in peace. He says if I get killed today, I’ll dine with the Lord tonight.”

Sam slapped his knee, roaring with laughter. “Well, ask the good preacher if he’s hungry and would like to go along and eat, too. I already seen him ridin’ in the opposite direction, heading out of here like the devil himself was after
his
immortal soul!”

Travis managed to hold back his own laughter and kept a straight face as he said, “Leave him alone, Sam. If the boy feels better going into battle now that the preacher says he’s saved his soul, then don’t make light of it.”

Sam and John exchanged incredulous looks. Andy smiled appreciatively. Travis knew that the boy had only pledged his allegiance to the North because of the way he had attached himself to him and looked up to him. And he felt a responsibility for him. True, he didn’t understand a lot about God and heaven and hell, but he wasn’t about to make light of those who did. And just the expression on Andy’s face mirrored some kind of inner peace that he himself could not identify with.

And then they heard the rattle of musketry in front. The Confederate pickets had been alerted that an attack was about to come. Everyone stretched to immediate alertness. A signal gun fired, then the artillery guns began to explode in all their fury. Someone screamed, “Charge!” And the battle was on.

They moved forward, aware that comrades were already falling right and left. Travis paused, took aim, and fired. A soldier in gray toppled screaming from his perch high in a pine tree. A feeling of exultation filled him as he surged forward with the others, anxious to get to the enemy now.

Smoke rolled in torrents, spreading darkness about them. The Federals were firing their ten-pound Parrotts, ten-pound rifled ordnance, and twelve-pound Napoleons. They were using projectiles—conical, spherical, spiral. The smoke was becoming so thick that it was hard to see where they were going, but still they kept moving, shooting as they ran.

And the Confederates fired back—twenty-four-pound shells, twenty-pound, twelve-pound, ten-pound projectiles; they fired everything they had, and each had its own breath, its own voice, its own message of death.

Travis stepped over a soldier he recognized as having been a player in a card game with him a few days before, but now his stomach was gaping, his eyes staring blankly upward. Trees were breaking away everywhere. Horses fled in panic through the woods. A few men were wandering around dazed, completely unaware of what they were doing. An officer snatched at one soldier, shoved him forward, threw him to the ground, cursing. Travis kept moving. The noise all around him was deafening. Blood, smoke, sulphur, explosions, screams of the dying and wounded. This was the world, and it wrapped itself about him like a giant fist, squeezing, choking. He fought to breathe, to survive.

He came upon a good-sized boulder, crouched down behind it as Sam, John, and Andy fell in behind him. They were able to take aim and fire at the Rebs in the trees on the mountainside above, dodging when an enemy shell exploded nearby. “We’ve got to keep moving,” Travis said finally. “We’ve got to get to them. We can’t wait for them to come to us.”

“Travis…” He heard Andy shouting in his ear as they prepared to move out. “When this is over, I’ve got something to tell you. I was afraid to before…”

“Hell, boy,
move
!” There was no time for talk. What was the matter with him, anyway? They were out in the woods, running, dodging the exploding trees. A wounded soldier called out, pleading for help, but they kept moving, doing as they had been told. There was no time to help the wounded. Not now.

General Bragg had only a skeleton Confederate force, dug in on the slopes of Lookout Mountain, rather than on the crest. The day, Tuesday, November 24th, 1863, was cloudy and bleak. All day they fought, but midway through the afternoon there came a break in the cloud cover and the sun shone through.

“Look at that!” John Wright saw it first, and he pointed above them, a grin spreading across his sooty face.

And there, waving proudly in the breeze, the Northern flag proclaimed victory.

Word spread that General Sherman had taken his Army of the Tennessee units upstream and attacked the Confederates on their right, making some progress; but he still had a grim fight on his hands. The top of the mountain might have been taken, but the battle was still on.

Darkness fell, and the four men huddled together behind a large boulder, firing when anything moved that might be the enemy. There was no food, no water, but no one complained at the moment. Travis felt his stomach rumble once and wondered if it were hunger or fear. He couldn’t remember having ever been afraid before in his entire life. But here, with death all around, something was clutching right at his gut.

Someone passed the word that Grant had told General George Thomas to push his Army of the Cumberland forward in an attempt to take the Rebel rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge, exerting the necessary pressure to force Bragg to recall troops from Sherman’s front.

And as dawn once again streaked across the smoky skies, it became obvious to Travis and the others that Thomas’s soldiers had taken things into their own hands. They had suffered a long, slow burn for over a month as both Hooker’s and Sherman’s men had jeered them for their defeat at Chickamauga, not letting them forget that other armies had gone to their rescue. The Army of the Cumberland had had enough, and they were moving forward, taking the Confederate rifle pits as ordered. By midday it became obvious that without further orders from either Generals Grant or Thomas, they intended to charge straight up the steep mountain slope to try to hit Bragg’s right line, which was the strongest.

Travis and his comrades followed. They were in the thick of the fighting when suddenly Andy screamed and fell to his knees, clutching at his stomach and toppling forward. And orders previously given about stopping to help the wounded were thrown to the winds as the three men gathered quickly around the boy, lifting him to carry him quickly to the shelter of a nearby rocky ledge along the incline.

Travis bent quickly and looked at the wound, then lifted his gaze to the waiting eyes of Sam and John. Without a word, he conveyed the grim message. Andy was dying.

Andy gasped, blood gurgling from his lips. Feebly, he clawed at his shirt pocket.

“What is it, boy? You want your Bible or something?” Sam asked anxiously, tears unashamedly streaming down his face.

“Didn’t tell you…” the words were barely audible, gurgling in the blood oozing from his throat, “…’fraid you wouldn’t stay…and fight.” Andy clutched at his pocket again. Sam reached for him, withdrawing a crumpled, bloodstained letter.

“Travis,” Andy moaned. Sam handed Coltrane the letter.

“Tonight…” the boy’s face contorted with pain, “I’ll eat with the Lord.”

His eyelids popped open as he stared straight up, his eyes glazing over. One final gurgle of blood bubbled from the corner of his mouth as his head lolled sideways. Sam turned away, sobs racking his heavy body. John Wright cursed beneath his breath, slammed his fist into the rocky ledge and brought it away, bloodied.

Travis was struggling for self-control, biting down on his lips. He pulled the sheet of paper out of the envelope to give himself something else to fasten his attention on. He was fighting to hang on to his sanity. He loved the boy like a brother. Damnit, without realizing it, he’d really come to love the boy and in that moment the pain burned as it had when he learned of his sister’s death. It burned and it hurt, and he gritted his teeth so tightly that his jaws ached.