March (20 page)

I paused to wipe the sweat from my forehead, and I looked over the bent heads, and saw Marmee, her head held high, looking straight at me with tears in her eyes. She had heard a truth in my words and recognized my intention even before I knew it myself. We held each other’s gaze for a long moment. I read the question in her face as clearly as if she shouted it aloud, and I nodded.

I had said “we will go.” She knew, even before I did, that I meant it. She lifted her palms in a gesture of assent, as if to put wind beneath my wings. And so I cried out:

“I say ‘we,’ my friends, because if the army will have me, I propose to go with you.” The youths raised their heads then, and made me a great huzzah. I hushed them, and went on. “We will go forth together. And together we will return, God willing, on that great and shining day, when all the children of Israel have come into their inheritance : and that inheritance will be one nation, and that one nation will be forever free!”

I stepped down from the stump, and made my way through the press to Marmee. She was so proud of me that she could not speak, but only took my hand and clasped it, the pressure of her grip hard as a man’s.

The village treated me like a hero in the weeks that followed. All the great and the good of Concord came to our house. They took up a collection and presented me with a purse, and everyone wanted to congratulate me. If some thought me imprudent, at my age, to embark upon such an undertaking, only my Aunt March felt free to say so. She called me a vainglorious fool, and an irresponsible father, and predicted I would die down there and leave my family destitute. I thanked her for her honesty and asked for her prayers, if not her blessing.

As it happened, the Concord unit’s commander had already assigned its chaplaincy to a clergyman of more orthodox stripe than I. So I did not depart with our own lads; but I had said I would go, and could hardly give back either the purse or the plaudits, and so Reverend Day recommended me to a unit filled with the sons of strangers from the mill towns, and I joined them that autumn, and served them as best I could, although, as I have set down, that tenure was brief But it has led me here, to this service among the people of Oak Landing.

And now, a year has passed since I undertook to go to war, and I wake every day, sweating, in the solitude of the seed store at Oak Landing, to a condition of uncertainty. More than months, more than miles, now stand between me and that passionate orator perched on his tree-stump pulpit. One day, I hope to go back. To my wife, to my girls, but also to the man of moral certainty that I was that day; that innocent man, who knew with such clear confidence exactly what it was that he was meant to do.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Red Moon

The memory I return to, when I want to block out the images of what came after, is of a shimmering mantle of white so pure it dazzled the eyes.

We were, the Negroes said, uncommonly fortunate. It had been a season without setback, and our crop stood flawless in the fields. They said we would be done picking in time to dance by the light of the full red moon, so named for the color of the orb as it rose in the humid skies at summer’s end. We were ready for a great harvest. The telltales were set up at the ends of the rows, the pickers’ sacks all mended, the gin house cleaned to receive the new crop. But we never brought the harvest home.

They came even before the first thin shard of the red moon had pierced the horizon. In the silent and piceous hour just before dawn, they advanced at a slow trot, fanning out through the slave quarters and into the yard that divided the gin house, the mill, and the buildings where Canning and I slept unaware.

I think I must have heard something in my sleep, the snort of a horse’s breath in the dark, the clink of a stirrup. Something, at any rate, woke me, and I smelled the ripe odor of fresh horse droppings. No horses were stabled nearby. Without pausing to think, I rolled off my pallet and scrambled into my hiding hole. I tugged at the sacking and a tumble of seed whispered into place behind me.

The shiver of breaking timber came minutes later. I heard the complaint of an old hinge giving way, and then the clump of boots on wooden boards. There was the soft shush of seed settling as someone kicked at my mattress, and then a curse.

“Bed’s still warm,” answered a calm voice. “Damned abolitionist can’t have got far.” Through the air tunnel I had made, I could glimpse the flare of a lamp swinging back and forth as they scanned the room, looking for me.

“There’s a missing plank back here,” said another voice from the rear of the storehouse. “He must have wormed out this way.” The light danced again and was gone. The darkness in my hole was complete. I was hunched over, my knees drawn up to my chest. My hands, filmed with sweat, were clenched tightly right in front of my face, but I couldn’t see them.

I heard running feet-many pairs-pounding the packed earth outside. Then I heard yelling, a pistol shot, and a scream.

They were dragging something across the yard. They stopped just by the storehouse. I heard moans and cries, and then Ethan’s voice, ragged, crying “No!”

The responding voice was calm, low, almost courtly.

“I regret to say that unfortunate limp of yours will be a little worse after tonight. Please summon him, Mr. Canning. Otherwise I’ll be obliged to shoot you in your good leg also.”

“Damn you!” Ethan gasped.

There was another shot, and a scream so pitiful and filled with pain that it made my stomach contract and heave up its contents. The sour stink of my own vomit filled the airless hole. I was shaking. I had to go out. I had to give myself up. But fear lay on my chest, crushing the air out of me, pinning me like a rockfall. I did not move.

Through the ocean roar of my own pounding blood I heard the courtly voice continue. “Do us both a kindness, Mr. Canning. He can’t get far. We’ll catch him in the woods if we don’t take him now.” Ethan sobbed and gasped, struggling for breath. He said something, but I couldn’t make it out. There was the scrape of a saber exiting its scabbard, another scream, and then a thud.

“He’s fainted,” said a different, coarser, voice.

“Never mind. Tie him onto his horse and bring up the old nigger.”

There was a brief moment of more scuffling. Then, “What’s this boy’s name?”

“Ptolemy, Major.” The answer-low, calm, respectful-was not Ptolemy’s ancient quaver, but the voice of a younger Negro: Zeke.

“I always did care for that name,” said the major. “We used to own a Ptolemy. Now, boy, be good enough to kneel down, no, over there, that’s right, near the saw logs, by that chopping block. Thank you.” The major raised his voice then, to a resonant shout that filled the yard. “Mr. March, I do hope you can hear me. Because I know you love niggers. We’ve got one here name of Ptolemy, and I’m afraid I’ll be obliged to cut his head off if you don’t come on out here and greet your callers.” He dropped his voice and addressed his men. “No manners at all, these Yankees!” There was laughter.

I was sweating and shivering. My mind told my body to move, to crawl, to go out and save the old man. But my sinews had turned to broth.

Then I heard Ptolemy’s cracked voice crying out. “Marse March, if you there you stay put, you hear? I’s all used up and I’s ready to go to G-”

There was a scrape of metal, a thud as the blade bit into wood, then a dull thump as Ptolemy’s body hit the earth. I felt as if a spear of ice had run me through. My cowardice had just caused the death of a harmless old man. I sagged in my hole, smacking my head against the seed sacks, sobbing like a child.

“We haven’t got time for any more hide-and-seek,” the major said. “You three, bum the gin house and the seed store. The rest of you, fire the fields. When you’re done, muster at the nigger houses.” He must have spurred his horse then, for it whinnied, wheeled, and cantered off in the direction of the Negro quarters.

I heard a crackle, then a roar. The lint in the gin house had caught. They were coming now to the seed store. I smelled the sharp scent of paraffin. They were splashing the fuel from their lamps onto the timbers of the shed. If I did not get out I would be incinerated. Finally, my craven limbs consented to move. I was man enough, it seemed, to save my own life. I pushed my way through the scrim of seed and crawled on my belly across the floor to the loose plank the guerrillas had found at the rear of the shed. They had kicked the board free and enlarged the hole, so that I was able to squeeze through. I stayed flat, using my elbows and knees to squirm across the open ground toward a stack of sawn timbers. The fires had lit up the inky night and I would have been spotted, easily, if any of the guerrillas had turned my way. But the burning building stood between us, and their attention was upon it. I reached the timber pile. As I shifted the boards my hands shook. A long splinter drove itself into the fleshy place at the base of my thumb. I shifted the sawn fence posts and wriggled in behind. It wasn’t until I was hidden by the timbers that I could look out through the slats and survey the scene.

The yard was bright now, both buildings burning fiercely. In that terrible light, I saw Canning. He was lashed to Aster, his legs dangling oddly. There was dark blood dripping from wounds where his knees had been. His head lay slumped against the horse’s neck. The gelding’s mane, too, was all clotted with blood from the side of Canning’s head. They had cut off his ear. Aster, terrified of the fire, and of the smell of blood, was dancing, his eyes white, trying to throw off the unwanted burden.

A grimacing youth clutched Aster’s reins as he struggled to keep command of his own horse. He was not much more than a boy, slightly built and very thin. As Aster reared, the reins tore at his hand. He swore, and then called to the others. “We ain’t got no more to do here. Let’s git the niggers and git done with this place. But throw the old nigger in the fire first.” The other three—older men with line-scored faces-seemed somehow under the youth’s authority. Two of them picked up Ptolemy’s frail body; the other, cursing, grasped the head. They tossed their burdens into the blaze as casually as if they were feeding logs to a bonfire. I murmured the prayer for the repose of his soul.

But why would God listen now, to any prayer I offered? My heart was a black pit of hatred. For the unseen, honey-voiced commander, for the thin, cruel youth, for the hard-faced men. But most of all, for myself

 

I stayed hidden in the woodpile until they were gone. Then I crawled out and lay on the ground, working my fingers into the packed earth. I had cowered in my hole and let one man be tortured and another murdered.
Why
had I done that? Why had I let fear master me so completely? Because I wanted to live. But what good was living, if one had to live with such self-knowledge? What would my life be, after this night? How could I face my wife, my children, with this shame blazoned upon me like a brand?

Slowly, through my grief and self-disgust, a sense of purpose grew within me. I forced myself to stop writhing and to rise up off the dirt. I was on my knees. I wiped my hands over my face, the dirt smearing my cheeks and the splinter scraping against my eye. I would have to redeem the work of the last hour, somehow, and if doing so cost me my life, well, that was worthless now anyway. I took stock of my condition. I was dressed for sleep in a light blouse and pantaloons. I was barefoot. My boots and jacket had been looted, or else had gone up in the blaze. What use I could be in such a state was far from clear. But I knew then that I had to follow Canning, even if all I could do was to be with him at the end. If there were any mercy left in the world, there would be time, at least, for that.

The darkness had begun to give way a little, and in the pearly grayness I moved at last, running across the yard and into the house, pausing inside to see if there was anyone still there. The place was dark and silent. I ran swiftly through the dining room, noting that the guerrillas had been through the house, with a quick and quiet efficiency, stripping away the very few effects of any value. The candlestick was gone; so was the small amount of china. The precision of their theft spoke of treachery. Zeke. All those months, and his loyalty had remained with his sons, and the Confederate spawn they served. I suppose he had nursed the grievances born of Canning’s early harshness, and nothing that had passed since then had caused a change of heart.

But Zeke had not known of the hiding place, under a loose floorboard in one of the upper rooms, where Ethan had kept a small store of his personal things. He had shown it to me only recently, against just such a contingency as this. I threw open the shutter to get a little light, and then felt around on the floor for the loose board. I pried it up. There was a leather folder where Canning had told me he kept a small amount of cash. When I flipped it open, I saw that it also contained an ambrotype—a picture of a young, dark-haired girl about the same age as my Meg. Canning had never spoken of her. I brought the image close to my face and took a few seconds to study it. Since there was no resemblance whatsoever between the sweet, round-cheeked, dark-haired girl depicted and the fair, ferret-faced Canning, I couldn’t think it was his sister. The possibility that Canning had a beloved, that he was working himself to a raveling in order, perhaps, to win this girl as his bride, sent a stab of sadness through me. I closed the wallet and stuffed it in the inner pocket of my blouse, where I kept the small silken pouch containing the hair of my dear ones.

I tried to force my feet into Canning’s best boots, but my feet were many sizes larger than his and my attempt was futile. And yet boots I had to have. I carried them to the kitchen, found the least dull of the knives stored there, and with shaking hands made a rough job of hacking out the toes. The boots were too narrow, and squeezed me, and my bare toes protruded several inches onto the ground, but even so they would serve me better than nothing.

I ran then, out the door, across the yard, and on toward the fields. They were already ablaze. Above the roar and crackle of the fire, I heard cries coming from the Negro quarters. I changed direction and headed there, coming up through the corn patch that ran all the way to the first dwellings. The corn was high and ripe, and offered good cover.

I could see now what I took to be the full strength of the force ranged against us. There were twenty men, a ragged company, clad in a motley of butternut and homespun. Two of them were Negroes; Zeke’s sons, I guessed, which probably meant that the lean youth leading Aster was the son of Oak Landing’s former overseer. One of the Negroes sat his horse a little behind an older, better-dressed man, whom I took to be the major. They seemed to be consulting on some kind of sorting process. The rebels had formed a cordon with their horses, ranging themselves in a circle around the Negroes, whom they had gathered together into the yard where we had performed the shout. There were about sixty of our people. I could only surmise that the others-the swiftest-had managed to escape.

The rebels had two dozen of the Darwin’s Bend Negroes-mostly women but some four or five of the men-roped together at the neck. One of the rebels rode to where the little girl Cilla, the one who reminded me of Amy, cowered behind her grandmother. He pushed the woman away, grasped the child’s wrist, and hoisted her up onto his own horse. When she cried out and tried to climb off, he struck her.

The others then walked their horses into the midst of the crowd and began snatching up children. They pushed aside the parents, ignoring their pleas and cries. One of the guerrillas grabbed Jimse. I saw the little boy reach out, crying, to his mother. Zannah ran forward with her arms outstretched for her child. The rebel struck her in the face with the butt of his rifle. She got-up, blood streaming from her nose, and ran at him again. This time, he pointed his pistol at the child’s head, and she fell back, dropping to her knees in the dirt. This was too much. I didn’t know what I would be able to do, but this time, I had to do something. I moved forward, parting the corn with my arm. A blow to the back of my knees caused me to crumple. A big hand clapped itself over my mouth. “Stay put, marse,” hissed Jesse, behind me. “Now ain’t no time to make a move.”

Just then, the major raised his voice above the sobs and the roaring of the blazing fields. “Gentlemen, move out!” he called. “We have an appointment to keep.” He turned to the Negroes. “We’ll have no further quarrel with anyone here so long as you refrain from growing cotton for the enemy. Good day to you.” He lifted a battered
chapeau de bras
and swept it across his body in a mockery of a bow, and turned his horse for the woods. The youth leading the still-unconscious Canning fell in behind him, followed by the other irregulars, driving the bound slaves and some six of our mules. Zeke, I noted, was mounted on one of them. I wondered when exactly it was that he had determined to betray us. Then I saw that Zannah was running after the party, the need to be with her son more powerful than her fear of reenslavement. One of the irregulars also saw her, and turned to alert the major. The major shrugged, and so the guerrilla pushed Zannah forward into line with the tied slaves and roped her by the neck.