Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (32 page)

“Yes, sir…” Drew cuddles closer and soon is fast
asleep. I lie there, holding him, seeing artillery explode over
Petersburg, a battlefield where my company and I are badly needed.
I imagine cutting George’s throat, throwing his body into a creek
as I did that poor Yank I stabbed to death just days ago. I
remember the maps in Sarge’s tent, and the path to freedom I’ve
planned: into the mountains, up a long creek, down a big river, and
on home.

_

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

_

It’s mid-morning when George returns. We’ve had
reveille and another sparse breakfast, this time of leftover beans.
Sarge has been pacing in front of the campfire, drinking acorn
coffee, checking his pocket watch, and muttering to himself,
obviously eager to get on the road. I’ve managed to sneak some food
to Drew and am leaning against a tree trunk cleaning my pistol when
there’s a clattering sound in the woods, a few scattered shouts,
and then George appears, grinning triumphantly, driving into camp a
new cart drawn by two sway-backed mangy mule mares. His own horse
follows, tethered to the back.

Reining the mules to a halt, George swings down.
Sarge steps forward with a smile. The two men shake hands. “Found
’em in a pretty little place right outside Buchanan, foot of
Purgatory Mountain. The farmer gave me some trouble, Sarge, but I
was able to persuade him that his country needed this mule-cart
more than—”

George’s proud explanation is cut short, for he makes
the mistake of patting the left mule’s gray rump. She bucks and
kicks, narrowly missing George. The hoof catches Sarge’s coffee
cup, knocking it out of his hand. For the next few minutes, the
air’s tinged blue with a long string of vulgarities as George
attempts to discipline the mule and the mule attempts to kick the
traces. The other mule joins the fray, biting and braying, until
Sarge takes a stick to the animals’ ears. A few quick, sharp blows,
and the beasts subside.

“My God, they’re high strung,” George grumbles, as
the left mule tucks back her ears, lifts her head into a
ear-splitting bray, and musters a final half-hearted kick at Sarge
before falling to on a clump of new grass.

“Always are,” Sarge chuckles, retrieving his dented
tin cup. “God’s thunder would be hard pressed to compete with a
voice so tremendous. I myself have descended to profane language
only a handful of times, and each time was inspired by the
recalcitrance of mules. Ian, fetch Jeremiah and you two help George
empty the old cart and load up this one. We leave by noon.”

We’re halfway through our task when Left Mule lifts
her head from peaceable grazing long enough to take a bite of
George’s ass. George yelps, drops the box of hardtack, and swats
the mule’s flank. She snorts and returns to her green
breakfast.

We can’t resist. “George, buddy!” I say, slapping him
on the back. “Looks like you finally found yourself a girlfriend.
She thinks you’re some sweet eating!”

“Damnation, Ian,” Jeremiah joins in. “That critter
don’t know how close it came to poison fodder. One bite of that
haunch, and it’d be four stiff legs in the air for sure!”

Jeremiah and I laugh so hard that George, red-faced,
stalks off with a snarl. “You boys should know better by now than
to laugh at me. Finish the job by yourselves, you bastards.” He’s
off, rubbing his butt, in the direction of Sarge’s tent.

By noon, as Sarge has insisted, everything’s loaded
up, the last tent struck and folded, the fire doused. Drew sits in
his ever-present cuffs and shackles at the base of a little maple,
leaning back against it, the customary rag knotted between his
teeth for the march to come, another tether-rope hanging from his
wrists ready to be attached to the cart. I’m checking the contents
of my haversack. The men are lined up, ready to depart.

“Fortuitous, this delay, as far as the prisoner’s
concerned.” Sarge’s voice at my back. His hand on my shoulder: the
weight of family, the gravity of blood and homeland. “He looks like
he might make the march.”

I turn, dislodging his hand, sensing accusation in
his tone. Before I can reply, Sarge says, “Prior to our departure,
I want you to help George with something.”

My mouth twists. I want to spit. Instead, I wipe my
lips with the back of my hand.

“Off with you. It won’t take long.” Sarge nudges me
forward. There’s George, smiling his rat-toothy smile, standing at
the wood’s edge. “We need us a log,” he says, licking his thin
lips.

Our sullen-silent search doesn’t take long, though I
don’t know why we’re hunting firewood here when we could gather it
at tonight’s camp at the base of Purgatory Mountain. Within
minutes, George has found a moderately heavy fallen branch about
six feet long. “This one,” he says, with inexplicable glee. He
takes one end; I take the other; together we carry it back to where
Sarge waits. I make to heave it onto the cart, but George abruptly
drops his end, crosses his arms, and stands beside Sarge, face
flushed.

Confused, I’m about to ask what’s going on when Sarge
whips out another of his curt orders. “Nephew, fetch the
prisoner.”

Something’s happening, something I don’t understand.
I help Drew to his feet, take his elbow, and lead his shackled
shuffle across the little clearing to stand before my uncle.

“Ian, George just told me something interesting. He
said that the farmer from whom he borrowed the mule-cart lost a
barn to the Yanks’ torches last fall. The farmer described the
leader as tall and blond. As he put it, a ‘Yankee Goliath.’ George
thinks it might have been your Yank here.”

“Absolutely not!” I blurt out before I can think.

“Oh? How would you know what that boy was doing
before we captured him?”

“I don’t.” I square my shoulders and take a step
back. “It just seems to me, in the time I’ve observed the prisoner,
that he wouldn’t be the sort to, to…” The memory of Drew’s
confession, the way he helped Sheridan do what he did last autumn,
claws at me, filling my throat like acrid smoke. Is George
right?

George is quick to take advantage of my momentary
befuddlement. “Well, Yank, what do you say?”

We all look up at Drew. If it’s true, and if he feels
so guilty that he confesses, this tattered company of Rebel boys
will tear him apart before we ever get to Purgatory.

Drew stares into my eyes. “Huh uh.” He bites down on
the rag, teeth flashing in the gray light. He shakes his head
vehemently. “Huh uh. Huh uh.”

“Let me take the rag out,” I say. “Let him defend
himself.”

“How about a vote?” George says. “How many of you
boys think this Yank’s guilty as hell?”

The entire company is standing about us now,
listening, scratching their heads. George raises his hand, glaring
about at what’s left of our once-fine, once-handsome,
once-confident band. One by one, the hands go up. Only Jeremiah,
Rufus, and I are holdouts.

“Shit, boys, this Yank ain’t bad atall,” Rufus
mutters. “In fact, I like him a damned sight better than some of
you.” He spits in George’s direction, turns on his heel, and heads
off to secure the pile of cookware atop the cart.

“He bandaged me up. I’m his enemy and he bandaged me
up,” Jeremiah says quietly. “I ain’t going to assume something bad
about the man just because
George
says that
a farmer I
never met
—”

“Vote taken, Sarge,” George interrupts.

“Yes, indeed.” Sarge clears his throat. “George has
suggested for this crime further torment. Strap him to the
stick.”

I step forward. “Haven’t we done enough to make this
boy suffer? Haven’t we—”

“Enough, or he can stay here. You understand me?
Beneath the sod.” Sarge’s right eyebrow cocks, the angle of a
buzzard frozen in mid-flight.

I step back. Drew’s eyes meet mine, then he bows his
head.

“On your knees, Yank. You, Ian, unlock his manacles.
You, Jeremiah, help George bind him,” says Sarge. “If we keep up
our pace, we should make Purgatory by dusk.”

Sharp click of keys in shackles. Gently I pull the
iron off Drew’s wrists and ankles, then unknot the rope-tether. He
drops to his knees, massages his chafed flesh, then nods me off, as
if to say, “Move on now. I can handle this.”

From the cart seat I look back. George and Jeremiah
hoist the thick branch onto Drew’s shoulders and then rope his
wrists and arms to it. “Git on up, Yank,” George growls.

Drew’s brow furrows. He grunts, tries to rise, sags
beneath the wood’s weight, then, heaving himself to his feet,
straightens up, white teeth gnashing the rag and grim determination
stiffening his features. George shoves Drew forward and ties his
slave collar to the cart, the bugle cheerily lines out the
“Forward” call, I snap the mules’ flanks with a whip I find on the
cart seat, and we’re on the move, the last leg of our long journey
to Purgatory.

_

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

_

Purgatory Mountain looms to the southwest, a
slate-gray cairn growing slowly closer, its horizon-edges bristling
with bare-black trees, its top swathed in mist. By the time our
lengthy march ends, Drew’s staggering like a drunk, bowed beneath
his burden, my Yankee Christ lurching along the way to Calvary,
barely able to stay on his feet.

The sun’s setting behind a heap of cloud, orange and
green edging ominous slate-grey, as we make camp at the mouth of a
dell, here at the base of Purgatory’s southern slopes, where a
noisy little creek drops down over rocks to meet the river. Above
us are the mountain’s rocky steeps, spotted with high stands of
pine and lingering snow, and a solitary buzzard riding the winds.
To our east are the broad Valley and the distant rooftops and
spires marking the little town of Buchanan. To our west are the
Allegheny Mountains, like gray waves frozen in air. And beside us
is the James, a narrow stream this far inland, before it widens and
drifts down into the rich Tidewater of Virginia. We’re at a lower
altitude than we’ve been for weeks. Here, the land seems to be on
the verge of budding. The forest’s hue is gray, certainly, the same
cadaverous gray we’ve been slogging through for months, but here
and there are hints of green, along the limbs and unfurling from
the drab ground.

There’s a blankness to Drew’s eyes, a hollowness to
his face, I haven’t seen before. When I untie him from the cart, he
drops to his knees. I help him lie back onto the ground—between his
size and the weight of the branch he’s bound to, it takes all my
strength—in a dry, satin-sheened pile of dead oak leaves the wind
has heaped here.

I unknot the sodden rag between his teeth and pull it
out. “We’re there then?” Drew gasps. “The mountain? Purgatory?”

“Yes, buddy. The day’s done. You rest now.”

He’s out like an air-starved candle. Rufus and I
unload the cart, dispersing the supplies. Done, Rufus heads off to
start up the cook-fires, while I unpack my tent where the woodland
begins. I’ll pitch it here, near this little sarvis tree. My Daddy
used to say that you know spring’s near when a sarvis blooms, for
it’s the only kind of tree blossoming this early. This one is still
leafless but in full flower, its slender gray trunk rising into a
delicate cloud of white. I pull a branch down, push my face into
the snow-flurry petals, and take a deep breath. The perfume’s faint
but feminine. As much as I love men, I’ve spent too many months
exclusively around them. The scent of these flowers makes me miss
my mother and yearn for the past, an era with less harsh edges.

“He made it, I see.” The voice is like a file, a
rusty spike, a needle shoved under my skin.

I turn, guy-rope in hand, to find Sarge standing over
Drew. He lifts a boot, resting it on Drew’s cheek. He scrapes his
sole along Drew’s face. A groan, a smear of mud. Inside my head,
inside that sphere of twisted gray, there’s a sprig, a spark of
green. It will not be trampled. It will not be snuffed out.

“Strong boy, this Yankee pig. I didn’t think he’d
make it up the pike.”

“He’s weak and shaky, sir, from hunger and hard use,
but he’s stubborn. I suspect he can keep up for many days yet.” I
turn back to my task, unfolding mold-streaked tent canvas. I can no
longer bear to look at Sarge. Every kindness he has ever shown me
his cruelty to Drew has canceled out. If I were a hard or vicious
man, the man he’s always pushed me to be, I would blot him from the
world.

“I’m weary of him, Ian. We can’t spare the food, as
fine as it would be to keep him around for the men’s amusement and
my practice with the bullwhip. He stays here. You understand? After
seeing what the Yanks did to the Institute, I can’t stand the sight
of him. If it’s true what George heard, that he led Yanks who
burned the Valley, it’s high time the man was ended.”

I drop the canvas and turn. Sarge is standing very
near me. His hand drops onto my shoulder, like a hammer comes down
on a nail. “When we leave for Lynchburg—it should be within a few
days—he stays here. Here, here”—Sarge stamps the ground beneath the
sarvis—“bury him here. Or,” Sarge says, squeezing my shoulder, “if
the effort of grave-digging is unwelcome—why waste time and effort
on such a man?—roll him into the river. I would suppose that the
creatures of the James are as famished as we.”

If I needed any further fuel for my resolve, Sarge
has just unwittingly given it to me. I nod, avoiding his eyes. My
years of obedience are nearly done.

“Remember, now that we’re here, no more tent-time for
him. Tonight, gag him good and tight with rag and rope and cuff his
hands behind that sarvis tree. And don’t forget his foot-shackles.
Tomorrow, buck or hogtie him in the middle of camp. The boys could
do with more distraction; they enjoyed working him over the other
day.”