Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (34 page)

With George insensible, tonight could be the time to
get Drew out of here. But there goes one of George’s buddies, on
sentry duty, giving me a suspicious eye before passing by. And
Drew’s as dead-drunk as George, in no condition to flee with me.
Besides, I have more thieving to do. I wait till the sentry’s well
past before taking another empty poke to a supply tent; I return to
my tent hefting more pilfered food and ammunition, hiding the
second poke beside the first, beneath an oilcloth.

I’m about to climb back beneath my blanket when I
hear Drew’s moans and mumbles. Moving fast, I’m by his side. He’s
shaking and jerking; I squeeze his shoulder and pat his face. He
wakes, eyes rolling and wild.

“Only a nightmare, buddy,” I whisper, hunkering down
beside him. He pants against his gag, then grunts and nods. I press
my palm to his chest—deep breathing, heart pounding. And here’s
that dream-snow again, drifting between us, dusting his shoulders
and unruly hair. I catch a falling flake on my palm and finally
understand. It’s one of the white petals of the blooming
sarvisberry tree he’s tied to. The night breeze is casting petals
about my boy like a benevolent ruler might cast a beggar alms.

Or like a gravedigger might cast earth-clods upon a
corpse. I suppose it’s tomorrow’s uncertainty that makes me take
this risk.
Touch while you can,
that seems
to be the message of this night beneath the sarvisberry, by the
James, at the base of Purgatory Mountain. I look and listen
carefully, then, reassured that we’re alone in the dark, I drop to
my knees between Drew’s spread legs. I knead hard the hard mounds
of his chest; I brush his beard with mine. Unbuttoning my boy’s
trousers, I pull his limp penis and balls out. I spit into my palm,
apply the wet, and stroke.

Drew shakes his head, teeth clamping down on rope,
gaze casting around for hostile witnesses. Despite his obvious
fear, he’s hardening up fast.

“Oh, yes,” I say, tightening my grip around his
shaft. I bend to lick curls of hair upon his chest, to lap a nipple
before taking it between my lips. “Oh, yes. Keep silent and savor
this,” I mutter, filling my mouth with his torso’s fuzzy flesh.

Drew’s head falls back. He spreads his thighs wider.
He bucks into my hand; his shoulders flex, his back slams against
the tree trunk, evoking a fresh shower of petals; he winces as my
teeth bear down on his breast’s broad tenderness. My shaft-stroking
speeds up. He grunts and thrusts, rocking against me. When I tug
hard on his balls, that finishes him. He gives up a strangled sigh,
then erupts, tiny comets of white semen arcing from my grip to join
fallen sarvis petals on black earth and dead leaves.

“Not quite done,” I say. Looking around cautiously,
still seeing no one, I stand between his legs, unbutton, and haul
out my own sex. Drew nods, grinning whitely against the rope-gag.
He heaves another long sigh as I rub my penis against the soft bush
of his beard, across his taut lips, through his shaggy hair.
Another palmful of spit, and I’m well moistened. He stares up at
me, blue eyes become black pebbles edged with mother-of-pearl in
this country dark. I ride my hand for a long minute, add more spit,
and pound my palm a little longer. Sweet welling, like an
underground stream leaping from its long journey beneath the hills
to spurt into the sunlight.

Now I’ve arrived, his bearded cheeks splashed with my
own sticky white, his long hair streaked with my spasmodic dew.
Dropping to my knees beside him, I’m breathing hard, staring into
his eyes. He’s nodding as I rub my thick seed over his lips, into
his hair and beard, over his petal-scattered shoulders. I kiss him,
tasting myself on his mouth. By the time the rustle of leaves
alerts me to the sentry’s approach, Drew’s slumped and drowsing,
the rain’s started up again, and I’m back in my tent, licking my
lips and mumbling my prayers. My prayers are all for more. More
touch, more taste, more shared days to come.

_

CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

_

I
 
’m just leaving the tent,
stepping out into dawn light and recurrent drizzle, when I hear
Rufus’s shout. There’s Drew, still asleep in his bonds, slender
petals of sarvis white sprinkled over him, caught in his torso’s
hair, rain-plastered along his cuffed arms and wet pants, and
there’s Rufus, running toward me, looking very unhappy. He’s barely
had time to tell me the bad news and to scuttle off when George
appears between the row of tents, sporting the bullwhip and a big
grin.

“What the hell’s that for?” I step between George and
Drew, mouth twitching. It’s the protective animal in me, lips
curling up over teeth, an instinctive snarl.

“I saw Rufus over here. So I suspect you know.”
George strokes the braided whip-leather and looks over my shoulder
at Drew, still asleep against his tree. George is braided like the
lash he holds: rage, lust, and hatred, all twisted up together like
greenbrier vines.

“You ain’t beating him,” I say. “You ain’t beating
that boy.”

“Sarge says different. You going to give me this
Yankee, or you wanting me to fetch Sarge?”

“Fetch him then, you ferret-faced fuck,” I shout.
“You’re a bald-faced liar.”

Lips pursing, George turns without another word and
heads toward the center of camp.

Drew’s awake now. He must have heard everything, for
he’s staring at me, his blow-blackened eyes fear-wide. I squat
beside him, grasping his arm. “Listen to me. I think you’re about
to be bullwhipped again. And not by Sarge. I think George has
talked Sarge into…”

Drew’s eyes clench shut. His teeth grit the rope. He
shakes his head. He whimpers.

“Oh, buddy, I’m so sorry. I’ll try to stop this.
Listen, I swear, just survive this, and soon, swear to God,
I’ll—”

“Ian!” Sarge’s voice is distant but, from the sound
of it, rapidly approaching.

I stand and turn, preparing the earthen ravelin of my
arguments.

Sarge strides up, looking the same way he used to
when I was a child and he’d caught me pilfering a biscuit from the
bread box: brow crinkled up, thin lips grim. George follows him the
way stink wafts in the wake of skunk. Crossing his arms, Sarge
says, “No need to doubt George. I have indeed given him permission
to beat the prisoner after breakfast. The boy will be dead soon;
might as well get more use and amusement out of him before
then.”

“But sir,” I begin. “Shouldn’t we spare the poor
bastard a little mercy, show him a little pity in his last days?
Besides, he’s asked me to write a letter to his folks.”

“You can do that after the whipping. Let him dictate
the letter and then gag him again.”

“But sir, wouldn’t a Christian show…even to an
enemy…”

Sarge waves off my words like a cloud of gnats in
summer. “An
enemy
, Ian. We’ve had this
conversation before. I’ve told you I’m weary of this softness.”

“No softness, sir. Twice now you’ve offered me the
privilege of beating the prisoner. If he must be beaten, then I’m
willing to—”

Sarge laughs softly. “You don’t own him, Ian. You and
I don’t own his suffering. No monopoly here. George is eager to
learn the whip too. Such a skill would behoove him. My suspicion is
that his nature tends toward it. Far more so than yours. Now, I’m
off to breakfast. Will you join me? George will fetch the prisoner
after we eat.”

I stare at them, arrayed smilingly against me, and
behind them, the drift of campfire smoke, the lines of tents, my
company-mates rising, coughing, shaking off the night’s moisture,
eager to fill their bellies with coffee and hoecake. Hate has too
many heads today. Once again I am too few, too small.

“Come with us to breakfast,” Sarge says, mouth set.
“Leave the prisoner here. He’ll be dead tomorrow or the day after.
No need to waste food on him. A gravedigger, on the other hand,
needs to keep his strength up.”

Before me, George snickers. Behind me, Drew shifts in
the noisy brittle of leaves. He whimpers once, then falls silent.
Without looking back, I follow my enemies toward the column of wood
smoke, a stubborn swirl of black in the rain.

_

CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

_

This must be the ecstasy of a man who, achieving
heaven, finds that his final reward has taken exactly the forms
he’s dreamed of. George is clumsy with the whip for a good five
minutes before he finds his rhythm.

I suppose I could have hidden in the tent and refused
to watch the proceedings. But that devil-part of me who’s
fascinated by beauty’s suffering—who studied picturebook-paintings
of the Crucifixion as a child, who studied that outlaw thrashing on
the barn’s straw-strewn floor, who stared, transfixed, at the blood
running down Drew’s naked back the day he was first dragged into
camp, strung up, and beaten—that devil drove me out into the
daylight to serve as witness, as did the part of me who realized
that refusing to watch would be just another sign of weakness that
George might use to turn Sarge against me. I do not need to rouse
further suspicions, especially with stolen goods in my tent and
escape mapped out in my mind.

When they came to fetch him, Drew fought back. As
soon as I uncuffed my Yank from the tree, Drew swung at George,
narrowing missing him. Two of George’s Valley cronies, brought
along to subdue any possible resistance, seized Drew. He threw them
off. What a joy that must have been, after having been bound and
tormented for so long, finally to be able to use his great strength
against them. But George brought his pistol butt down on Drew’s
head, stunning him, dropping him to his knees. When Drew rose,
wobbly but ready to swing again, the mouth of George’s pistol poked
his chest, the two men grabbed his arms and dragged him to yet
another whipping-tree.

This one’s thicker than the little sarvis, thick
enough to withstand Drew’s considerably brawny efforts to escape
agony and the lash. It’s a shagbark hickory in the middle of camp,
bark peeling off in gray shards. Drew’s arms are wrapped around it,
his hands cuffed together on the far side. He’s hugging it in his
pain as if it were a lover who might offer tenderness or solace,
his gagged face pressed against the trunk. Save for the slave
collar, George has him entirely naked. The bandages have been
ripped off his back and his feet. His ankles have been unshackled
and his trousers have been removed, exposing both back and buttocks
for punishment.

Drew’s screaming. Drew’s screaming. I want to stop my
ears with mud, with the wax Odysseus used as he cruised past the
sirens’ rock. A soft rain falls upon the camp. George swings and
swings; the bullwhip cracks, cracks, opens up old wounds across
Drew’s back and ass, maimings I so carefully medicated and
bandaged, then paints the raw hues of new welts. Again the slow
drool of red across white skin and bruised skin. Again the broken
sobs muffled by rope and rag, the big body shaking, straining
against metal, thrashing against the trunk, high branches shifting
against sky as if the tree were being axed.

George has stamina. He’s dreamed of this gray day,
this naked body, these shrill cries for so long. We have, I
realize, several passions in common. He labors on far longer than
Sarge ever did. Finally, with a pant and a chuckle, he throws the
whip into the leaves and rubs his forearm. Drew loses his hold on
the tree; he slumps against it, then slowly slides to his knees.
Down his back, blood descends in lazy lines.

“Fine job, George,” says Sarge, here at my elbow. His
eyes have been on me quite a bit during the whipping, gauging my
responses. I’ve hidden my grief as best I could, allowing instead
my devil-fascination to show. Let him believe what he wants: that
I’m in love only with the man’s pain, rather than with the man
himself, the man’s racked and bound body, the sweet boy-soul
within.

More orders. The same damn orders. I know, I know, I
know. Dead soon, dead soon. Don’t waste food; don’t waste medicine
or bandages. Buck or hogtie, write the letter, gag, leave all day,
all night, to serve once more as spittoon and piss-pot.

Sarge strides off. I stare at the prisoner, the naked
and collared slave, on his knees in the grass, slumped against the
hickory. I stare at the man I love, on his knees in the grass,
slumped against the hickory. George pats my back as he passes.
“That boy was born to be a whipping post. He’s a blessing, ain’t
he?”

Mechanical now, as if my will had receded, gathering
its forces for more opportune times. I uncuff Drew’s blood-wet
wrists and he falls onto a patch of new grass. Having been given a
choice between two options, I choose the less painful, a hogtie
here by the base of the tree. Drew’s only half-conscious, but he
knows it’s me. He gives me no fight as I bind him. Wrists crossed
behind the back and tied together. Ankles crossed and tied
together. Wrists and ankles hauled close behind him, evoking a
moan, then lashed together with a short length of cord, making of
him a circuit, a straining circle. Blue blinking of eyes; flash of
teeth gnawing rope. Then limp again. Blood and golden hair
streaking his pale ass cheeks.

Sarge again. Another order, this time masked as an
invitation. How about I borrow a mount and accompany him on a short
scouting ride into Buchanan, just around the mountain’s flank, to
see what damage the Yanks have done and to question the citizens
about troop activity roundabouts? Good job, says Sarge, examining
Drew’s wrist and ankle knots. While you’re at it, says Sarge,
here’s another hank of rope. Bind his knees together; bind his
elbows together. Like this. Very good. No, a little tighter, till
he hurts. Very good, that pained sob. Very good, blond beard
serving as boot brush. See? Downright immobile. Leave him in the
grass to bleed. See how drizzle thins the gore.