Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (18 page)

Drew looks down over the strips of white, shaking his
head. “I’m already a corpse wrapped in grave clothes.”

“You aren’t a corpse just yet. Here, get up on my
cot.”

Some effort and a lot of wincing, and Drew’s settled
in for the afternoon. Before I leave, I tug a bandana from my back
pocket. “You’re supposed to be gagged, so…” I knot it loosely about
Drew’s neck. “Put it in your mouth if you hear someone nearby.”

Drew, damn him, pulls the bandana up and grips it
between his teeth.

“You know how handsome you are like that?” My hand
seems to have a will of its own, stroking his golden-bearded
cheek.

We stare into one another’s eyes. I lean over and
kiss his gagged mouth, then pull the bandana down over his chin,
leaving it to hang about his neck.

“You like me with a rag in my mouth, don’t you, Reb?
Another thing that makes you feel powerful and protective?”

“You’re mocking me.”

“No, sir, I’m not. I’m just asking what pleases you.
After all you’ve done for me, least I can do is please you.”

Such a simple word, “sir.” Nevertheless, it makes my
face flush and a shiver climb my spine.

“You’re flirting with me like a—”

“Whore? Like a whore? No, Private Campbell. Like a
buddy. A buddy who’s hoping you’ll lie atop him tonight while we
still can. A buddy who’s helpless, who knows you savor his
helplessness, but who’s nevertheless hoping you’ll save his
life.”

I pull the rag back up over his chin, centering it
between his teeth. “I’m getting you home, Yank. If not your home,
then mine. Here are my promises: I’m going to salve your ass and
somehow I’m going to save it too. Now lie down and shut up.”

“Yes, sir.” That’s what he’s mumbling. With that, my
captive does what he’s been told, falling silent and curling into
the blankets. I love his obedience. It moves something inside me,
as if a log dam were dislodging, allowing a river to rush into its
ancient, customary channels. Leaving him in the tent, I head off to
help Jeremiah with the wood.

_

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

_

Jeremiah’s good with an ax, far better than me. The
maple he’s downed splits neatly beneath his swing. For a time, we
work side by side without speech, making a goodly pile to feed the
cook-fires. When we take a break, sipping water, the talk
begins.

“How’s the Yank?” Jeremiah hones his ax with a
stone.

“Pretty weak, in a lot of pain. He’s still
unconscious in my tent.”

Jeremiah nods. I take his lead, scraping a whetstone
across my own blade. It smells like pine out here, and moldy
leaves, a welcome change from the camp’s smells of damp wool,
unwashed bodies, the latrine-trench, moldy tent canvas, and wood
ash. Through the trees, I can make out the blue-gray horizon of
distant hills.

“In a few days we head for Purgatory Mountain,” says
Jeremiah, eyes on his blade. “Wild place, I hear tell. Bear and
painter-cats still live up there. Prowl down the slopes and kill
cattle.”

“Sounds like home,” I say. “My Granny was always
talking about hearing painter cats on the ridge above her place.
She said they sounded like women screaming. We’re used to wild,
aren’t we? Remember when your Daddy drove that bear cub from the
orchard with a hoe?”

“Yep, he hates to kill things.” Jeremiah musters a
faint smile. “I always got to butcher the hogs come November. But
Ian, you know there might be more’n big cats screaming back home.”
He spits, wipes his mouth. “Isn’t that why we’re in this war? To
keep marauding Yankees out? If the Yanks have invaded…back home,
there’s women screaming. Our kin. Folks we love.”

We fall silent. I try not to imagine. “I don’t think
so. I hope not. The last letter I got, when we were in winter
quarters outside Staunton, said the Yanks had left them alone so
far.”

“I pray you’re right, friend. All right, let’s get
this wood done. And we should do some packing up after this.”

“Surely. Though I’ll need to feed the prisoner
first.”

“Think he’ll make it to Purgatory?”

“I don’t know. He’s young and strong, but…”

A whetstone scraping metal seems like a small scream.
It sets my teeth on edge.

“Word is he’ll be spending all day tomorrow bucked
and gagged. I know what that feels like. Will he be able to keep up
when we decamp?”

I shrug, trying to be nonchalant. But Jeremiah’s the
one who caught me kissing Drew. Why am I trying to hide how I feel
from an old friend from home?

“Are you planning to help him escape?”

I look up. Jeremiah’s eying me calmly.

I put down my whetstone and ax. I stand up, looking
out over the valley.

“George has been talking so much about how you’re a
Yankee-lover that some of the men are getting wary of you. And I’ve
been asked to keep especial eye on your tent at night when I’m on
sentry duty. So have some other men.”

“By Sarge?”

“Yep. Ian, I’ll have to shoot him if he runs. I won’t
want to, but—he don’t mean as much to me as he does to you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Now Jeremiah lays down his whetstone and ax as well.
He strides over and rests his hands on my shoulders. “Friend, I
ain’t no fool. I’ve known you since we were brats weeding corn in
the garden and picking blackberries in the dell. I remember how you
looked at Thom back home, before he up and left. It’s the same way
my brother used to look at his…friend when he thought no one was
watching. The way you look at that Yankee, it’s the same. Only
harder. There’s something deep there, Ian. Don’t you know what it
is?”

I shake my head, wiping some wet from my eye.
Somewhere in the woods nearby, a mourning dove sobs. Rain crow, we
call it back home. The sound means rain’s on its way. Or grief.

“You’re falling in love with him, man. Face it.
You’ve got to root that out of your heart. He’ll be good and dead
mighty soon.”

“Love?” I turn from Jeremiah with a snort. “I’ve only
known him for a few days.”

“Yes. But war…everything’s faster, grander in war.
It’s like God’s whetstone, sharpening our edges. It—it’s like a
still. The sour mash gets run through, comes out fire.”

I can’t help but laugh at Jeremiah’s metaphors. That
doesn’t stop him.

“Since he was caught, you two have spent constant
time together. You’ve had to feed him, help him piss and shit.
You’ve had to watch his suffering and dress his wounds. You’ve had
to sleep in the same tent. Friend, we’re all half-starved and
homesick, all crazy as hell and craving some comfort. So it’s no
wonder you’re feeling strong things. But, Ian, it’s treason if you
help him get away. Any man in the company would be obliged to shoot
down both of you.”

I pick up my whetstone and rub its rough length along
my palm. “Jeremiah, I fear you’re right about all of this. I’m not
asking you to help me, nor asking you to allow him to escape. Just
don’t tell anyone what you know. About how I feel.”

“I won’t, Ian. But are you? Going to let him
loose?”

“I don’t know. I thought I might, but with the
suspicions you describe…”

“He won’t get far. You won’t get far. My advice is to
enjoy him while you can but prepare yourself for parting. And pray.
Who knows? I suspect during wartime the air’s thicker than usual
with prayers, but despite that clotted babble the Lord might hear
you yet.”

_

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

_

Drew’s ravenous again. I feed him slivers of squirrel
that Rufus shot and bean-broth poured over crumbled cornbread.
Leaving him curled on the cot, as comfortable as a gagged and
cuffed man covered with lash marks can be, I range around the camp
helping my company-mates begin packing for the move to come. At
dusk we leave off our efforts, gathering about the fire for supper.
I do my best to be sociable, the self I was before the prisoner
came. I have doubts to allay.

If my companions suspect me for a Yankee-lover, I
can’t see it in their eyes. Field peas and stewed squirrel finished
up, we pass flasks; I tell a few vulgar tales the boys have heard
before but ask for again. Lots of laughter; a couple of palms
pounding my back with uproarious appreciation. For a few hours, it
feels like old times. Jeremiah, bless him, abandons his usual
mournful tunes to lighten the men’s moods with some banjo jigs.
Only George is clearly suspicious, watching me from across the fire
as he chews a mouthful of tobacco. We glare at one another through
the sparks and smoke before his glance skitters sideways. He spits
into the fire and moves off into the darkness.

I try to head to bed several times, but the boys,
pressing drink on me, demand more stories. “Tell us the one about
the country girl and the city girl in the diddling contest! How
about that ant and elephant tale? Or the one about the preacher and
the street-whore?” When I’m done with those rank entertainments,
Jeremiah launches into his version of “Bile Them Cabbages Down.”
Rufus does a little dance; someone joins in on harmonica; the boys
clap in time. Then Jeremiah and I sing along to his version of
everybody’s favorite, “Home, Sweet Home”; after a verse, all the
boys join in. I can almost believe that I’m truly part of all this,
can almost forget that I’ve got a much-bandaged Yank in my tent
fearing for his life.

My feet have a little stagger on by the time I leave
the fire, carrying a pail of more warmed water. Beyond the circle
of firelight, it’s the thick dark of country midnight; I stumble a
few times, sloshing water on me, then lean against a tree to regain
my balance. It’s a sarvisberry, I think. I finger a twig and can
feel the buds swelling with the new year. Taking a deep breath of
cold air, I look up the trunk, into the branches and past them into
the sky. Above us, there’s the Dipper and the Bear, those
constellations my Daddy taught me when I was a child. They look
like mosaics of ice set against burnt-black wood. I wish I could
heave Drew over my shoulder, climb this tree, and just keep going,
up into those stars where no one could hurt us, where our bodies
would interlock and burst into flame and, embracing, hang in the
heavens forever.

“You asleep?” I whisper, putting down the pail inside
the entrance and closing the tent flaps behind me. I bump into a
tent pole, curse, fall to my knees, and crawl over to the cot.
Here’s Drew, warm wooly hill beneath my fingers. “You sleeping, big
man?”

“Huh uh,” Drew mumbles. Fumbling in the dark, I find
his face, pull the bandana out of his mouth and down over his chin.
I kiss him, sloppy and hard, then tug the blanket down to his waist
and rest my head on his bare chest.

Drew chuckles. “You’re drunk as a lord. And smelly as
a still.”

“How you been? How you feeling, boy?” My lips range
through his chest fur, find the satin-smooth circle of a nipple,
and kiss it.

“I slept good and hard. And I feel better already.
That Indian salve of yours really helps.” His fingers stroke my
hair.

“That cot can’t hold us both. Get down here.” Tugging
the blanket off him, I roll onto the ground on the nest of
oilcloth. “And drop your pants while you’re at it. Get bare-assed.
I owe you more salving.”

“About damned time,” Drew rumbles. Silence, then the
sound of trousers slipped down over thighs.

“I left that jar of medicine under the cot. Fetch it,
Yank.”

Rattle of the shackle chain binding his feet. “You
sure are domineering when you’re drunk, Private Campbell. Or is it
’cause you figure, since you got me collared like a slave, you can
order me around?”

“That’s it, yes. I already told you I’d like to take
you back to West Virginia and own you, now didn’t I? Get on down
here, boy. Stretch out on your belly.”

“Yes,
sir
!” Drew says. That
word again. Drew’s intonation is ironic, but I’m exhilarated
nonetheless. More shackle-clink, then he’s bumping my arm with the
jar of ointment and lying heavily down beside me.

“Got to clean you up first.” I shake my head, trying
to disperse the whiskey-fog. “Uhhhfff, drank too much.” With
awkward effort, I light the candle-stub. Dipping a cloth in the
warm water, I gently rinse his buttocks and the cleft between them.
Drew spreads his thighs as far as the short length of shackle chain
allows, rests his head on his arms, and says nothing save for
little moans of gratitude as I wash him thoroughly, rinse him, and
pat him dry.

“Jeremiah told me something today. Said that, thanks
to George’s evil talk, some of the men are suspicious. Said
sentries have been ordered to watch this tent,” I say, sliding a
palm lightly over his buttocks. They’re hard and curved, covered
with soft fuzz; scabs my belt left make rigid paths across them,
like the trails the habitual hooves of cattle cut along the slope
of a hill on the way to a pond or salt lick. The nearness of him
sobers me up, or, rather, replaces one intoxication with another.
“Even if you were willing to ‘overpower’ me, make a run for it, and
leave me to face the consequences, I’m pretty sure you’d be shot
down.”

“All right, Ian,” Drew says. He stretches his cuffed
hands above his head and presses his cheek against the ground. “I
wasn’t willing to go that route anyway. Don’t want you suffering
for me.”

The end of words for a while. I uncap the salve and
spread it smoothly over his right ass cheek. My fingertips trace
the scabs with unguent and massage the swollen bruises. Drew sighs
with pleasure.

“We leave for Lexington day after tomorrow, Purgatory
Mountain a day or so after that. If you can make it to the
mountain—you’ll be tethered to the cart again, and it’ll be hard
going, even harder since you’ll be bucked all day tomorrow—maybe
there I can figure out how to get you out of this.”

When I move my attentions to the left buttock—there’s
an especially bad swelling here, spreading across the curved muscle
and over his hip—Drew winces, lifts his head, and looks back at me,
here where I kneel between his spread legs. “I sure wish I could
say I ain’t afraid to die. But I am afraid. Could we just be here
now and not speak of such things? I want to savor what time
together we have left. If we keep talking of what’s to come, I
might piss myself.”