Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (12 page)

It’s near dark again when Drew shifts, groans, and
opens his eyes. He looks up at me, snuggles into the blanket, and
sighs, “God
damn
, this is cozy. Helluva
improvement over last night.”

I smile. “How do you feel?”

Drew stretches and winces. “Pretty bad. Stiff as ice
and twice as brittle.”

“You need the latrine?”

Drew shakes his head. “Naw. Haven’t had enough food
and drink lately…”

“You hungry?”

“
Hell
, yes.” Biggest grin
I’ve ever seen him muster. He sits up stiffly, arranging the
blanket about his bare shoulders.

I hold out biscuit, cheese, and dried apples. Instead
of taking them, he looks up at me. “You can feed me if you want.
With my hands tied and all, I, well, I’m used to you…”

My throat’s suddenly too tight to speak, so I say
nothing. Instead, I sit cross-legged beside him and hand-feed him
his cold supper. Occasionally, his moist lips brush my
fingertips.

“Thanks for driving off that bastard,” Drew mutters,
gulping down cheese and a mouthful of the now-cold tea. “If I
hadn’t been tied,” he says, working his thick wrists around in
their encircling rope, “I’d have…”

“I know, I know, you’re the Yankee Achilles. Big as
you are, you’d have broken him across your knee. Wish I had your
muscles.”

Drew laughs softly. “You did all right for a little
guy, Rebel…Patrok…?”

“Patroclus,” I correct.

“Yeah, Patroclus. So we’re army buddies, huh? Greek
warriors together. Too bad we’re on different sides,” Drew sighs.
“Though, good as you’ve been to me, it doesn’t feel like we’re
foes. But anyway, you have quite a pair of fists.”

The admiration in his voice makes my cheeks glow.
“T-thanks,” I say. “You-you’re my responsibility, and George is a
cur. I’ve been charged to keep you prisoner, b-but”—how I hate to
stutter, but this close the rich smell of him is unnerving, a mix
of sweat, mud, and piss-wet wool—“as my prisoner, you deserve my
protection too.”

The food’s gone now, though our bellies both rumble
yet. We settle back into our damp blankets, me on my cot, Drew on
the ground, trying to get warm, watching what’s left of the light
fade beyond the canvas pitched above us.

“I’m still hungry,” Drew says.

“Me too. There’s no other food to be f-found.” I
stretch out, trying to stabilize my tongue. “Sarge will be back
tomorrow, and my guess is that he and the boys will have tracked
down victuals of some sort from local farmers. They’re masters at
foraging and confiscating.”

“Listen, little Patroclus,” Drew chuckles. “If you
let me loose…well, all right, I know you can’t, but…well, if I
survive this somehow and get home…and if the war ever ends,
then…you hie your ass to Pennsylvania, and my family and I will
treat you like a prince. We will feed you well; these damned days
of stale hardtack will be a distant memory.”

“That sounds mighty fine to me,” I say, proffering my
freshly replenished flask.

Drew’s fingers fumble over mine as he takes the flask
from me. He enjoys a long slurp before passing it back. “Let me
tell you how it’ll be. I hope you like bacon, pork roast, and ham,
because we have quite a few pigs. Oh, and sausage too, and ribs
simmered with sauerkraut. And potatoes! My mother sure knows how to
cook up potatoes! Fried potatoes and potato cakes and potato
dumplings…and dried corn and green beans, and baked chicken and
chowchow and scrapple…have you ever had molasses pie? Or dried
apple pie?”

“If you don’t shut up, I’ll have to gag you again,” I
chuckle, rubbing my belly. “Is this how you take your revenge on
me? Those menus are reminding my innards of all I’m missing. I feel
like a hollow sycamore trunk.

“Well, I can play this game too, Achilles. If I could
drag you back to West Virginia on your tether, get us both home
safe, we’d be able to tuck into pinto beans cooked with ham hocks,
with cornbread and kale on the side. We’d have fried potatoes there
too, and fried cabbage and corn pudding, and half-runner beans with
bacon grease. And for dessert, maybe apple stack cake or cherry pie
with cream.”

“Oh damn,” Drew groans. “Lead the way! I’ll gladly
tolerate the tether for a heaven like that!”

I suck down another flask-sip and sigh. “But as it
is, we’re stuck with hardtack and homesickness and eternally damp
blankets. Just say your prayers of thanks that we have this tent. A
lot of my buddies have to sleep in the open wrapped in oilcloths
they’ve stolen off dead Yankees.”

Drew gives a matching sigh. “I guess we’re both
bound, huh? You to me, me to you, both of us to this war. How long
since you’ve been home?”

“Two years. Not many furloughs in the Rebel army. And
lately, no pay either. Not that Confederate money’s worth anything
anyway. You?”

“Six months since I was home. Few furloughs for us
either, though we were still getting pay. I used to cry in my tent
at night, I missed my family so much. But I hardened up some, got
at least a little used to it. Back home we were taught that
hardship was God’s will, his way of testing our strength.”

“We were taught that too. I guess the war’s both your
test and mine. You’ve taken more than I ever could. I’ve never been
whipped or bucked. No way I could take it.”

“I didn’t take it. I cried when your uncle whipped
me, and I cried when I was bucked. I break easy, Ian.” Drew’s voice
is low, shaky. “I may look strong, but I’ve got this scared little
boy inside me. His tears shame me again and again.”

“But you survived. You’re here still yet. You’re
still strong and brave and…”

“I ain’t brave. I’m terrified. I’m terrified that
soon I’ll be strung up again for your buddies to mock and abuse.
I’m terrified of that lash your uncle used. I’m afraid that nasty
little man who slapped me around will get hold of me in your
absence, and you won’t be there to help me, and—” Drew’s voice
cracks; the rush of words ceases, like a stream vanishing over a
precipice.

I shift from my back to my side, speaking now not to
the tent’s pitch but to his silhouette on the ground. “Makes sense
that you’re scared. But I’ll be there, buddy. You’re my charge.
I’ll keep an eye out, I promise. I’ll do what I can to protect
you.” I reach down and pat his bare shoulder, hard whiteness off
which the blanket has slipped. For a second I think about crawling
off the cot and lying on top of him, but I don’t think either of us
is quite ready for that.

Instead we lie there, side by side in thickening
nightfall. Another screech owl is lamenting somewhere, that weird
shiver of descending notes, what a ghost must sound like. Seemingly
inexhaustible sleet taps the tent.

“Drunk yet?”

“Yes, thank God,” Drew chuckles. “Thank God and thank
you. When I’m drunk, I’m not so scared. How about you?”

“Yes indeed. Small as I am, it doesn’t take
much.”

“So when does the torture start up again?” Drew’s
voice is flat, calm. The question’s like a tack shoved in my
temple.

Shakily, I pass the flask back. Not much left; I can
tell by the weight. “Tomorrow. Sarge will be back from his
reconnoitering.”

“Him or you?”

I know too well what he’s asking, despite the verbal
shorthand. “Him. It’ll be him from now on, I think. I don’t think
that, well, I
hope
that he won’t pressure
me again to beat you. I told him that, after all he’s lost in the
war, he deserves the pleasure of wielding the lash. I t-told him I
wanted you fed and out of the elements so you’d keep alive and
strong, so he c-could beat you.” Goddamn tongue. Weak fool. “I
t-told him that I was b-beginning to enjoy—”

“Seeing me beaten?”

“Yes.”

“And do you?”

“Yes.” God, I’m so glad I’m drunk.

“Why? I know you don’t hate me. Why do you enjoy
seeing me suffer?” He tugs at the iron collar about his neck and
rolls onto his side. We stare at one another in the dim light.

“I-I don’t know. S-something about how s-strong you
are, how handsome.” I want to look away but I can’t.

“You like this too?” Drew lifts his hands, looking
pointedly at the rope that’s bound them for days now.

“Y-yes,” I sigh. Now I drop my gaze to the tent
floor.

“Why?”

“B-because I…b-because you…”

“Stop stuttering and look at me.”

I do. I can just barely see Drew’s face in the last
of this day’s light—this bitterly cold day in March 1865, one of a
long, long series of days, I’m suddenly aware, that have faded and
passed into the dark. To my surprise, he’s smiling.

“Finish up the liquor first,” he says, passing me the
flask.

One last gulp and it’s gone.

“Who am I going to tell?” Drew whispers. “I owe you
my life. I just told you I used to cry like a child in my tent.
You’ve seen me sob several times now. You wiped my ass. I’m
ashamed; you’re ashamed. All right. We’ll live with shame together.
Please tell me.” To my amazement, Drew reaches up, brushing my
cheek with one hand—briefly, gently—before settling back down and
tugging the blanket up over his bare shoulders. Gazing at me, he
waits.

“I don’t know why,” I admit, forcing myself to return
his gaze, despite my throbbing urge to turn away and look at
anything—ground, tent-side, the insides of my own eyelids—rather
than face him. “You’re so strong and handsome that—you’re the kind
of man I’ve always wanted to be, and—when I see a man as brawny as
you made weak, a man with a body so powerful, your helplessness
makes me feel strong, and, oh hell, I don’t know!” The stutter’s
gone from my tongue, but in its place is a quivering along my
limbs, the way a horse’s hide shudders beneath a farrier’s touch.
“You’re like Achilles, but you’re like Christ too, half-naked,
bound, and wounded, and, yes, damn you! I admit it! I want to keep
you tied, so I can feel strong and in control. I want to take care
of you, protect you, but, yes, I want to hurt you too. There’s been
this crazy spirit in me since I was a child; it mixes up kindness
with cruelty. Ever since I saw that man in our barn one night when
I was ten… That’s where it started, I think, where I first
felt…”

“What? You felt what? What did you see?”

“That’s another story. Maybe I’ll tell you later. My
body hankers for things my head can’t comprehend. I want to bring
you to tears and then comfort you, hold you, wipe those tears
away.”

Pressing my face into my blanket, I squeeze my eyes
shut. “I think you’re beautiful. I think you’re beautiful bound.
Your face…your body, your blood, and your tears. So’s the collar
around your neck and the rope around your wrists. If I had my
druthers, I’d own you. I’d take you home to West Virginia, keep you
safe, and keep you prisoner. I’d treat you like a comrade and a
slave. My heart’s a monster’s heart. Is that enough? Have you heard
enough?”

For a good while, there’s no sound but that of sleet
on the tent. He’s collecting his voice to curse me, surely, or
collecting his strength to lunge at me, despite his restraints, and
bludgeon me senseless. He won’t get far in those shackles. The
sentry will bring him down with a bullet before he reaches the
woods.

“That’s enough, yep. Thank you,” Drew says. “Would
you
please
look at me?”

“You’re one bossy captive.” I lift my face from the
cot, suddenly all obedience, to study the pale features of his face
and his eyes, their blue hue nothing now but deeper shadows in the
dwindling dusk. “Did you…this morning, D-Drew, d-did you mind me
kissing you? It didn’t d-disgust you?” Questions of great
consequence always give my tongue the craven shakes.

“I kissed you back, didn’t I?” Drew says firmly.
“Ian, don’t you remember? I told you your touch was a comfort. I
told you I could sense your caring beyond the blows of that belt. I
can’t explain any of this, except that…I feel things I can’t make
sense of either.”

Drew sits up now, cross-legged by my cot. The blanket
drops to his waist; his scent washes over me. Wrapping his big arms
around his torso, hugging himself in the cold, he continues. “I
think it has to do with that little boy inside me. I get so tired
of being what all my muscles make people expect of me. I get tired
of trying to be brave, of always being strong. I
like
how you…how you take care of me, take charge of
me. I asked you to keep hand-feeding me even when I could have fed
myself, remember? Sure, I want to get away, I don’t want your uncle
and his cronies to humiliate me, I don’t want to die—but I’ve come
to depend on you, and that feels good. If it takes regular beatings
to keep me alive, I’ll suffer that.”

Drew reaches over; again his hand brushes my face.
Now his fingers caress my beard. I sigh and close my eyes again,
trying to memorize the moment. I’m as starved for touch as he is.
Making love to Thom back home in the barn was a long, lonely time
ago.

“You’re no monster, Ian. You’re my defense. You’re
God’s grace. You’re keeping the monsters at bay. Maybe, if we get
through all this, after the war we can be real friends. Free to
live as we please.”

Speechless, I nod. His fingertips are warm and
callus-rough. They graze my lips and stroke my brow.

“If I don’t make it, will you be the one to bury me?
Like you did the others?”

A nod’s all I can muster. I swallow hard. What feels
like woodchips are caught in my throat.

“Good,” Drew says. “That’d be fitting. Will you write
a letter for me and, if I don’t survive, take it to my family when
the war ends? And some keepsakes? This ring my father gave me?”

His hand rests on my cheek. I grope for it and find
the band around his left middle finger. I lift his hand to my mouth
and kiss it, first the ring, then the palm, then the back of his
hand, hair soft against my lips. “Yes,” I croak, like some kind of
stunned bullfrog.