Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (21 page)

Leaving Drew’s urine-moist boots outside the tent’s
entrance, I wash his fetid pants and drawers in the stream, then
hang them over a nearby sapling’s limb. I empty the pail of water
in the latrine-trench, then head for the fire. My uncle’s there,
relaxing with the majority of his men. Rufus is annoying everyone
with his attempts on the harmonica. George, playing cards with his
New Market buddies, gives me a jagged grin. I spare him a glare,
then settle into a chair beside Sarge, accept his proffered flask,
lean back, and close my eyes. Now that I’ve decided what I have,
it’s more important than ever that I act as I did before the Yankee
came.

“Sir, I’d like to have a better sense of where we’re
going tomorrow. May I examine your maps?”

Sarge rubs his chin—freshly shaved, looks like—then
his bushy gray moustache. It was black when I was a child. I used
to tug on it when I sat on his knee. I’ve known him all my life.
Some of my strength I’ve learned from him. What I plan to do he
will never forgive.

“Certainly, Ian. The relevant one is on my desk.
You’re welcome to examine it tonight. We’ll be heading off at dawn.
How’s the prisoner?”

“Unconscious, sir. Pretty beaten up. The boys used
him hard.”

Sarge laughs softly. “Then he’s served some purpose
on this earth. Will he make the march tomorrow?”

“I think so, sir. We’ll see. May I find some new
trousers and a shirt for him? His own pants reek. I don’t want to
have to smell his stink. You know several of the boys, while he was
bucked…”

Another laugh. “Only fitting. Using a foe as a
chamber pot is a high pleasure in this life. I won’t allow him
upper garments; let the scum stay shirtless and suffer from the
elements. But for decency’s sake, yes, I think we have some
leftover trousers somewhere, ones big enough for him. Those ones
that Jebediah left when he got caught in the crossfire near
McCormick’s Depot. They’re liable to be packed, though. Look for
them when we make camp outside Lexington. You’ll have to tolerate
his smell till then, or simply tie him up outside.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll keep him in the tent tonight, just
because he’s in such bad shape. He can wear his own clothes till
Lexington.”

Someone cheers. Jeremiah is tuning up his banjo, and
poor tone-deaf Rufus has given up his musical attempts. I stay by
the fire for several songs, sprawling in the chair as if I were
drunk or entirely relaxed, before bidding Sarge good night.
Jeremiah gives me a nod as I leave. George, it seems, has retired.
The New Market boys, inveterate gamblers, are quarreling over their
card hands.

The big map I need’s already unfolded across Sarge’s
camp desk, where he said it would be. The candle lantern flickers
and starts; shadows hunch up and recede in the corners of the tent.
I find the present here, tonight, this mountainside south of
Staunton. I find the approaching future here, near Lexington, then
up the pike to Purgatory. Then, in maps charting ranges to the
west, I find a farther future—fate, luck, and smarts allowing—here,
up the James, up Craig Creek, over this mountain, then down the New
River. The days to come, I’m beginning to see, are not a ravine
we’re dumbly driven down. They’re limbs to climb, if we have
sufficient strength and reach.

_

CHAPTER FORTY

_

“Ian?” Drew’s voice is small, scared. It’s pitch dark
in here, but at least the smell of piss is diminishing. “Is that
you?”

“Yep,” I say, sealing the tent flaps behind me before
peeling off my jacket and undershirt. Unsheathing my Bowie knife, I
put it atop the cot, within easy reach.

Feeling around for him, I brush his shoulder’s hard
bulge and hot skin. He’s here on his side, curled into another of
his frightened balls like a sowbug does when it’s alarmed. “Just
keep quiet. George is ranging around somewhere, so I got to keep
you quiet.” I kiss him hard before pushing one balled-up bandana
into his mouth, then tying another between his teeth and around his
head. I settle in behind him, spooning him beneath the quilt.

“Pretty soon you’ll be spending the night outside,
boy,” I say, smoothing the bandages I’ve bound across his back. “So
tonight, considering how badly you’ve suffered today, I’m going to
make you feel as fine as I can. I know you’re real sore. All you
got to do is lie there and stay silent. All right? Let me know if I
hurt you, if you don’t like what I’m doing, if you want me to stop.
All right?”

“Uh huh,” Drew mumbles, snuggling closer.

“We’ve waited long enough,” I say, mouth pressed to
his ear. My arms circle his thick torso; my fingers play with the
hair on his breast. When I find his nipples, he gasps, pressing his
ass against my groin and thrusting his chest against my hands.

“Shhh, shhhh,” I say. “You like that, huh?”

Drew nods hard, then sighs, then gasps again as I rub
and flick the nubs of smooth flesh, hard little islands in a sea of
soft fur.

My trouser-pent cock’s bumping his buttocks now,
rubbing his crack. As much as I want inside him, I’ve promised him
not to go that far, so I focus on his nipples instead. My
long-reined-in excitement makes me rougher and rougher; the rubbing
and stroking become a hard tugging, pinching, twisting. If I’m
hurting him, he seems to like it, tossing his head, emitting tiny
moans. I clamp one hand over his mouth, pull his head back against
mine, and knead the big mounds of his chest like biscuit dough
before narrowing my attentions to his nipple-nubs again.

Now my hand ranges over his famine-flat belly, the
indentation of his navel. I wish I were there, the day he was born.
I wish I were there to hold him in my arms, to cradle and comfort
him as if I were his father. Well, I can do some of that now. I’m
sifting his pubic hair, running a finger up and down his erection
till he’s shuddering and half-repressed groans well up beneath my
hand. “Shush,” I say, kissing the back of his head and squeezing
his stiff penis in my fist. “Keep real quiet, or I’ll stop.”

No groans now, just hard breathing through his nose,
as I stroke the thick column of his sex and tug at his scrotum, an
oriole’s nest sagging with the weight of two precious eggs.
Silently he rides my hand, cock sliding in and out of my grip like
a dagger being impatiently sheathed and unsheathed.

“It’s time to taste you,” I murmur. “Roll onto your
back; stretch out. Keep your hands above your head or I’ll tie you
down. I don’t need touched right now. Touching you is sufficient
pleasure tonight.”

I climb on top of him, my fuzzy warrior, my naked
man-mountain. Cupping my hands beneath his head, I lift his face to
my lips. I kiss his cheeks, his cloth-stuffed mouth, the swelling
around his eyes. Then I’m sliding down his body’s long length. He’s
like a river in high summer, all white water welling, riverweed
waving, hard mossy stones. My mouth roams over him, tugging on his
body hair with my teeth, tongue searching amid the soft foliage of
his breast till one nipple’s found, then another. I suck, lap,
chew. His arms are around me. I force his hands back over his head.
I suck, lap, chew. He’s groaning once more; once more my hand falls
over his mouth. My other palm’s a celebration, grasping his cock,
peeling back his foreskin. Silenced, he bucks, fucking my fist,
nodding beneath my hand. His breast-hair tickles my nose, then his
belly-fur, then his crotch-bush, as I slip lower, wrapping my arms
around his waist, resting my head on his prominent hipbone.

“Cover your mouth with your hands, boy. I’m going to
finish you, and no one must hear. Promise me you’ll be quiet.”

“Uhh,” Drew grunts, cupping his palms over his lips
as ordered.

With that, I take the head of his penis between my
lips. It’s salty, a mite soapy from his earlier bathing, already
aromatic with the animal flavors of sex-musk and private sweat.
Drew bucks into me; his cockhead fills my mouth. I take him in,
inch by inch, tongue flickering over the head, up and down the
shaft. He thrusts; I choke, take a deep breath as if I were about
to swim underwater, and gulp in his entirety. I bob on him, choke,
surface, seize air, go under again. One hand clutching his sac, I
pull, massaging the orbs inside the loose folds of flesh, then pull
a little harder. Here’s the rhythm, here’s the taste of him I’ve
longed for, better than any feast of meat, stew, sweet, or biscuit,
honey on cornbread, maple syrup on buckwheat cake, moonshine or
wine. I stop sucking him just long enough to lap my own forefinger
wet, then resume. Saliva spills from my mouth, tickling my
chin.

“On your side.” We shift yet again, my cheek on his
thigh, his flesh humping my mouth, my lips sliding tightly up and
down him, my hands kneading his ass. My moistened finger finds his
crevice now, and, within that overgrown grove, the tight spot there
my tongue has known before. My fingertip circles and tickles that
sweet gate, then nudges, then rubs. For a second he forgets
himself, a low growl seeping beneath cloth and his own obedient
grip. Then he’s silent, hammering my throat harder as the tip of my
forefinger slips inside him. His thighs stiffen, his hands grip the
back of my head, he heaves against my face, and my mouth floods
with the milk of him, surge after surge I gulp down. He tastes like
sarvis berries, marigold petals, prayer. If prayers were solids,
not sounds, this is what God would taste, what God would learn to
crave.

My boy’s patting my face, rubbing my shoulders. I
ungag him, rearrange the blankets about us, lie back on the
oilcloth, and pull him to me.

“My God, Ian, my
God
. I’ve
never felt anything so sweet in all my years.” He curls beside me,
head on my shoulder, his pants subsiding.

I chuckle. “That’s just what I was wanting to hear.
We’ve both been waiting for that for a long time.”

“I never knew that men could…love like that. Never
knew it could be so damn good.”

“My guess is that men have been loving men that way
from the beginning of time. At least that’s what I gather from some
books I’ve read.” I stroke the fur about his navel. “Now you know
what you’ve been missing, buddy. I’ll be giving you more of that as
long as I can.”

Drew shakes his head and whistles low. “
Hell
, yes! It does help. It is a healing balm indeed.
Even better than your salve. Those nasty preachers back home, I
think they rage against sodomy just ’cause they want it and are too
ugly to have it.”

I’m in the midst of another chuckle when a tentative
hand cups the lump in my pants.

“Ian? May I? I’m sure beholden. I think I’m ready to
try…ready to taste you. I’d very much like—”

“No need for that tonight. Tonight I’ve had bliss
enough. Next time, perhaps. We need our rest now.”

“Ian, next time? Aren’t our nights together running
out?”

“No words, Achilles. Except these: you make it to
Purgatory, and, I swear, we’ll share the same and more. Your days
of suffering are approaching an end. When we get to Purgatory,
somehow, I don’t know how yet, I’m leaving Sarge and this company
behind. And you can be damn sure I’m taking you with me.”

_

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

_

They’re gone when I leave the tent for reveille:
Drew’s boots, the pants and drawers I’d left outside. I cuss, range
around the tent, and find nothing. I have no doubt who took them,
but there’s no time to track George down or demand them back. After
morning muster, the men begin packing up the last few tents and
cook pots. Rufus is passing out cold hoecake, pouring the last of
the coffee, and dousing the little fire left with water. When he
pours my cup, he says, “We’re heading off in half an hour. And
here.” Rummaging in a basket, he looks furtively around, then hands
me a little package wrapped in handkerchief and string.

“Two pieces of hoecake. One for you; one for your
poor Yankee. And listen here! Inside’s a nice little slice of bacon
I been saving for you all too. Sarge told me to give you that nasty
hardtack to feed him, but, hell, Ian, it’s wormy. The boy was
tormented real bad yesterday, by George and the New Market twins in
particular. I feel sorry for him. I hope he makes it.”

I pocket the food fast. “I’m beholden, Rufus. Don’t
suppose I should hug you now?”

Rufus grins. “Naw. Save that for some big-tittied
pretty back home. Anything to peeve George. Sarge, he’s a great
man, and he’s brung us a long way, but George has been
rattlesnake-mean to me since I joined up. He ain’t fit to tote guts
to a bear. If helping that big Yank drag his poor tore-up ass to
Purgatory sours George, well, then, I’m happy to contribute.”

Drew’s sitting on the cot, the quilt shawling his
shoulders, when I dip back beneath the tent flap. “Here, here,” I
say. “Rufus gave us some treats. Eat up. We’re about to leave.”

My Yank licks his lips. He fumbles with the kerchief,
opens it, and stuffs his mouth with crumbly hoecake. “Dear God,
bacon!” He chews off half of it faster than I’ve ever seen him eat
anything.

“One of these days, my Northern friend, you and I are
going to sit down to a groaning board together. Maybe sooner than
you think.” I love watching him eat. That’s it again, what charms
me so: the little boy inside the thick-muscled man.

“But, uh, Ian?” He holds up what’s left of the bacon
and the second hoecake.

“Aw, no, I had mine by the fire.” At this point, I’ll
lie to anyone, even him, to keep him alive.

“Yeah? Well, hell, you’ve fetched me a feast then!”
Grinning, he falls to. The few crumbs that fall from his hands he
fishes from the grass with a tongue-moistened fingertip.

“How you moving today? Think you can make the
trip?”

Drew rubs his elbows, then his knees. He licks a
greasy remnant of bacon off his palm. “I’m mighty sore. Joints like
an old man. But even an old man will keep moving if it means he’ll
stay alive.”