Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (16 page)

“Is that what would happen to you? You’re the
bastard’s kin. Wouldn’t that fact spare you?”

“Probably. Not necessarily. Sarge is big on fairness.
He hates being accused of favoritism. And he knows the boys envy me
my tent and the little extras—like this coffee, or the whiskey he
shares with me. But spending a few hours bucked and gagged would be
worth it if you could get away.”

“No, Ian. No.” Drew grabs my hand.

“Would you rather I bury you?”

“If I run, why can’t you run with me?”

“I can’t leave my company-mates. I won’t run like a
coward. This is my home, these mountains. And I intend to help in
the defense of them. As much as I care for you—” I stroke his hand,
then release it.

“You’re no slave-owner. You’re a hillside farmer’s
son like me,” Drew says, shaking his head. “Why are you even
in
this war? Use those keys tonight. We’ll
make our way north; I’ll take you home. My family will treat you
like a hero.”

“I’d be the soldier of an enemy nation if we made it
to Pennsylvania, big man. You’d be obliged to turn me in.”

Drew’s head keeps shaking, more emphatically now.
“No, no. I could hide you till the war ends.”

“Too dangerous for you and for your kin. And I’m in
this war because these are my people, because my homeland has been
invaded—”

“By boys like me!” Drew snorts. “To keep this country
united, and to—”

“To drive boys like me into submission. Who the hell
are you Yanks to force us into a union we no longer want or believe
in?”

“You Rebs are so frigging stubborn and stupid. So
high and mighty, so frigging proud. You make me want to spit. How
can you continue to—”

“Shut up, Drew,” I say. I hate how my voice shakes
when I’m angry. I sound like a little kid.

“Why? Don’t you want to be in a rage when your uncle
whips me? Won’t that make it even easier to watch? Won’t that make
it easier to shoot me through the head sometime soon?”

“I’ve had enough of you,” I mutter, rising. “Sarge
says to keep you gagged and to lock your wrists behind your back
when I leave you alone. Keep still and don’t fight me.”

Drew shrugs and frowns. I offer him a hand; he takes
it; I help him up off his haunches and onto his knees. Squatting by
him, I unlock the cuffs. Obediently he clasps his hands behind him.
I lock the metal in place, then stand over him. He tugs on the
cuffs; the muscles of his shoulders and biceps swell and relax. He
looks up at me with a bitter grin. “Now I’m even more defenseless.
Just how you want me, right? Uncomfortable, on my knees,
half-naked, and at your mercy?”

I’m hard inside my pants. The bastard’s always right.
It takes all my willpower not to push him to the ground, straddle
him, and kiss his lips bloody. Instead I fetch rag and rope from my
haversack. I bunch the rag up and hold it in front of his face;
Drew gives me a glare but opens his mouth. As before, I work the
rag in, then secure it with several feet of rope pulled tight
between his teeth and knotted behind his head.

Done. My captive stares up at me, angry and scared,
blinking his eyes of burning blue. He’s so beautiful, so pitiable
like this. I’d like to keep him this way forever.

I borrow Sarge’s hard tone for the first time in
days. “That’ll shut you up. I’ll be back when it’s time.”

With that, I turn my back on him and push through the
tent flap. The sun’s bright; it hurts my eyes. After so many gray
months, my senses are accustomed to winter’s dimness. The cardinal
flying through the corner of my vision looks like a bloody
bullet.

_

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

_

No bloodroot yet. No bluebells, no dog’s tooth
violet, no coltsfoot. No sarvis blooms, or redbud, or the wild
crabapple. Only the willow’s yellow-green buds convince me that
spring is near.

Walking in the woods has done no good. Drinking
whiskey has. It’s smooth, a nice accompaniment to the half-cooked
field peas I’m having for lunch. I make small talk with Rufus by
the campfire. George passes silently, giving me a venomous look.
Then Sarge’s hand is on my shoulder, his orders are lodged in my
ear, and it’s time to prepare the prisoner.

In the tent, Drew’s curled up on his side. He looks
at me once, then avoids my gaze. I take in the sight of his gagged,
half-naked helplessness. At precisely the same time, tenderness
floods my chest and lust flexes between my legs.

“It’s nigh about time. We have half an hour. You want
some food?”

Drew shakes his head.

“You need the latrine?”

Drew nods.

“Up,” I say, cupping a hand beneath his elbow. He
rises unsteadily to his knees, then his feet, staggering a bit
before finding his balance. Parting the tent flaps, I lead my
captive outside. Drew blinks against the sunlight, lifting his face
into a warm breeze moving up the mountain. I grasp his arm, leading
him to the camp’s edge, past the latrine trench, into the woods and
over the side of the hill for some privacy.

“Here all right?” It’s a little clearing among
mountain laurels, their evergreen leaves offering shelter among the
otherwise still-bare trees.

Drew looks around, finds us alone—no other witnesses
to his humiliation—and grunts, “Uh huh.”

“You need to…? Both?”

Drew nods. His blue stare’s begging.

“No, I’m not going to uncuff you. We’re doing this
together.”

I could certainly release his hands long enough to
allow him the brief luxury of bodily independence, but I don’t want
to do that. Part of it’s my remnant anger, I guess. Part of it’s
seeing him so vulnerable; part of it’s the power I feel in
reminding him of how a captive as strong as he depends on a captor
half his size for the most basic necessities. Part of it’s the
chance to touch him in his most private places.

That shamed droop of his handsome head, so pathetic,
so moving. A giant in shackles. Now I’m remembering another book of
myths, on the shelf in my bedroom back home. Prometheus, the
fire-giver, chained to a mountainside where an eagle chews his
flesh in slow, sweet gobbets.

Standing before Drew, I unbutton his trousers. Here
it is, small bulge inside his underclothes. I pull it out, limp
thing nestled within its bush of hair, sparse inches’ worth. I
should step back now, aim it for him, allow him release, but
instead I cup it in my hands. And in my hands it begins to swell.
Spring bud, freshet after rain, little sapling the passage of years
plumps up to hard-girthed trunk.

We both stare at its growth for a few seconds, then I
look up to find Drew gazing down at me. His mouth may be packed
with rag and rope, but he can still muster a smile. I look around,
checking the woods. Still no one in sight. Smiling back, I gently
rub the flesh expanding in my hands. He closes his eyes, pushes
himself against me, and sighs. I take the head between right thumb
and forefinger, grip it tightly, and stroke. The thing’s gifted
with as heroic a proportion as the rest of him. I lick my lips.
Drew shoves his flesh into my fist and groans.

“Ian!?” Rufus’s voice. The sound of distant footsteps
in leaves. “Sarge is looking for you. He says to git on back here.
It’s time.”

I turn, and there’s Rufus trudging over the hilltop,
about fifty yards away.

“I’ll be right there,” I shout. “The Yankee had to
take a piss.”

Rufus is sweet but he’s simple-headed. Why Drew and I
are using the middle of a laurel thicket instead of the
latrine-trench doesn’t seem to occur to him. He waves again and
disappears back over the hill.

My heart’s pounding; Drew’s cock has shrunk into its
formerly puny state. A few more minutes, and who knows what Rufus
might have seen? Another few strokes, and I would have been ready
to drop to my knees and take Drew into my mouth.

“Shit,” I mutter. “Not much time, Yank. Better get to
this.” Sarge’s stern tones again. I’m always acting tough when I’m
really scared, acting angry when I’m really hurting.

I aim his sex, the urine arcs into the sun, the
forest floor steams. I pull his pants around his calves and help
him lean against a tree. Drew squats, eyes firmly shut, forehead
bunching up. Pressing my shoulder against his to steady him, I
whisper, “This is nothing. We’ve done this before.”

I clean him; I button him up. Back toward the camp I
lead him. Quick duck into my tent to fetch the whip. Holding it out
of his sight. Passing lines of tents and the pursed lips of
soldiers. Approaching the appointed place and time.

“I’m sorry we argued. I’ve always been too prideful
for my own good. And I’m sorry for what’s about to happen.” I talk
low, so only Drew can hear.

We keep walking, eyes fixed ahead, on the whipping
tree, a distant oak on the far side of camp. Drew’s arm is
trembling in my grasp. Boys I’ve spent years of my life with,
drinking and eating with, fighting beside, are spitting on the
ground as we pass, saying things we both refuse to hear. If Sarge
decides to remove Drew from my charge, he won’t last more than a
day or two before the boys beat him to death.

“I feel such a tenderness for you, Drew. I want to
take care of you. Tonight, afterwards…I’ll care for you tonight. I
promise I’ll ease you, I’ll soothe your wounds.”

Drew stumbles over a stone. I steady him. Someone
laughs. Drew straightens with a stifled cussing, then we continue.
The oak grows, the trunk thickening, the limbs spreading wider,
gray clawing clouds and fracturing sun.

“Remember what I told you. Give Sarge a show. It
might help lengthen your life. I’m trying to give us time, so
somehow I can save you. You believe me? I’m coming to care more
about you than about this war.”

We both stop walking. Drew stares over at me. Trust,
doubt, and terror mingle, moistening his blue glance. His teeth
grip the rope.

“I mean it. I intend to save you. Somehow. If I can.
Do you understand?”

He grunts, nods, then stares straight ahead again. We
continue walking. The row of tents ends, and here’s the oak above
us, and, about us, parentheses of men come to see Drew bleed
beneath the lash.

_

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

_

Sarge’s pistol is beautiful. Rich walnut grip, brassy
trigger, and long barrel the color of blizzard-bearing clouds. It’s
polished to a high sheen, as Sarge’s weapons always are, like the
gleam of sunburst breaking through that same snow-heavy storm. The
mouth of it’s pressed against Drew’s cheek. Drew and Sarge glare at
one another, then Drew looks away. Hard to hold the devil’s eyes,
Aunt Alicia used to say.

To me, Sarge says, “Cuff his hands before him.” To
Drew, Sarge says, “You, pig, keep still.”

Behind Drew’s back, I turn the key, easing the metal
off his wrists. In obvious pain, Drew stiffly edges his arms to his
side, takes a long breath, then holds his hands together and lifts
them toward me. The chafed skin’s scabbed red and oozing. Across
those wounds I close the iron with twin snaps, twin key-twists.

“George, string him up,” says Sarge.

Here’s George now, face flushed and smiling. He
circles Drew’s cuffed wrists with rope, tightening it roughly till
Drew flinches. He tosses the rope over a branch, tugs Drew onto his
toes, and secures the rope to the trunk. My Yankee hangs there
before me, wide back naked and quivering.

All’s ready now. Sarge takes the braided leather lash
from me. “Much of the skill’s in the wrist. One works the shoulders
first, then the upper back. If you can curl the whip around to
catch the chest or belly, so much the better. Watch now,” he says,
patting my shoulder. “Perhaps one day you’ll find sufficient
strength to take a turn.”

I nod. He snaps the whip back, then forward. The
black lash disappears, reappears for a mere second across Drew’s
left shoulder with a cracking sound that makes me jump, then
vanishes again. In its place is a red welt scrolled across white
skin, joining the marks Sarge made the day Drew came to camp.

Drew’s made no sound. He sways on his toes, utterly
silent. He stays silent as the whip leaps forward again—arc of a
rattlesnake I once saw strike a dog—and paints a matching welt on
his right shoulder. If only I were facing him as before, so I could
hold him steady with my eyes.

“One can make a kind of art this way, Ian. With skill
and practice, one can mark an enemy up with a kind of symmetry,”
Sarge says, grinning. “And if you step just a bit closer”—he does,
then lifts the lash again—”and angle the blow just so, you can
catch him with the whip’s tip on the front or side.” Again the whip
parts the air too fast to follow. Again that awful cracking, like a
lightning strike. This time, Drew gasps. His head jerks back, then
forward, then droops.

George ambles over to the prisoner. “Good one,
Sarge,” he says, running his hand over Drew’s nakedness. “You
caught him across the left breast and side.” He steps back and
stands there now, staring up at Drew’s face, close, just out of the
whip’s reach. “Sir, see if you can mark him that way on the other
side. I’ll wager you can do it, sir.”

“Ah, a challenge!” Sarge’s arm angles back, then
forward. Another whipcrack. Another gagged gasp.

“Yes, sir! You did it! Perfect! He’s bleeding!”
George shouts. Even from this distance, I can make out the jubilant
gleam in his eyes. What Drew sees now is that red, evilly rapturous
ferret’s face.

I lose track of the number of blows Sarge delivers. I
try to concentrate on the skill being demonstrated just so I can
impress the entire company with my supposed enthusiasm for this. I
try to keep in mind my purpose: if I can convince Sarge of my
cruelty and loyalty, maybe Drew will live a little while longer,
albeit welted, bruised, and bleeding. But Drew’s gasps and George’s
flushed face defeat any rational focus I might muster, as a
gridiron of welts appears, line by line, across Drew’s back.