Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (4 page)

Sarge sighs. Always a bad sign. “I know the boys
enjoy your salacious tales, nephew, but that kind of storytelling
is neither gentlemanly nor Christian. It erodes moral fiber in both
speaker and listeners; it’s bad for you.”

Bad for me, yes. It reminds me of the erotic—how
hungry I am for another man’s body and how hopeless that hunger is.
“Yes, sir,” I say, taking a long swig from the flask, then handing
it back.

“I fear the Indian blood on your mother’s side of the
family tends you toward bodily corruption.”

“Perhaps, sir,” I say, puffing on the cigar. If Aunt
Alicia heard him now, she’d snatch him bald-headed. They’ve always
had a healthy hatred of one another. “Though some would regard
flask and tobacco as corrupt, would they not?”

Sarge chuckles. “Spare me your slippery sophistry.
These are mere manly diversions when not indulged in to excess.” As
if to highlight his point, he takes a long draw on his cigar. “And
as lustful as your tales often are—yes, I know you tell them only
when I’m absent, but George is fond of reporting them to me for
some reason; you know how he’s always trying to curry my favor—you
yourself seem free from lust. I watched you with the young ladies
today. You’re handsome, nephew, despite your war-worn state,
despite your perpetually disheveled hair and unshorn face. Girls
like you. Yet you seem without true interest. You seem
dispassionate. Why is that?”

Dispassionate? I’m half-tempted to laugh. How can I
feel close to any person on this planet when I must lie to
everyone? No one knows me.

“I’m shy, sir. And I’m here not to court, but to
fight. Correct?”

“Yes. Good point. Well, when the war’s done—God help
us, I don’t know how much longer our country can hold out…” He
takes a long gulp from the flask, caps it, slips it into his coat,
and clears his throat. “When you get home, God willing, now that
that little Susan’s free…after what happened at Antietam…”

The familiar knot in my throat. “Perhaps, sir,” I
rasp.

“Well, off to bed with you!” Sarge knows when to
change the subject. He gives me one of his rare avuncular
shoulder-pats. “The mayor has offered me his guest room for the
night, and my age-petulant joints have encouraged me to accept his
kind offer. He’s promised us some horses, more provisions, and a
cart. He says that little bands of Yanks have been spotted west of
town, so get some sleep, for we may have a fight tomorrow. I want
to get us up into the hills to recover our strength. Then we’ll
move south, with luck pick off some bluecoats here and there, and
meet up with Nelson around Lexington or Buchanan. Sources assure me
he’s moving north. Once we join his force, we can turn east and add
what few men we can to the struggle for Petersburg.”

Sarge flicks the glowing butt of his cigar out over
the rain-wet tracks, where it gives an audible hiss. “Good night,
Ian.” He rises. Before I can reply, he strides off into the
storm.

Pick off some bluecoats.
As
much as I hate them—they’ve invaded and systematically destroyed
the land I love—I’ve never been able to despise them the way Sarge
and George do. Sarge talks about them like they’re potato beetles,
not men.

I sit back on the bench, pull my uniform jacket a
little tighter around me, and take my time finishing my cigar. The
whisky warms my head. For no good reason, I remember Brandon’s
maimed, hair-coated chest the night before he died. I cleaned his
fresh wounds. Within the thick bush of his auburn goatee, his red
lips trembled. He begged me to save him. I could do nothing. Or,
rather, I did nothing.

Dispassionate, Sarge called me. What a joke. What a
blessing detachment would be. At any time, but especially now, in
the midst of war. Dispassionate and strong, like Sarge, that’s what
I wish I were: hard as an oak bole, sharp and ruthless as the blade
of my Bowie knife. The rest of my comrades admire me for my
sharpshooting abilities, my courage, but what would they do if they
knew how I ached, what I ached for? At best, they’d probably drive
me off. At worst, hell, they might string me up, if they knew what
moves me most—the beards and muscles, the fuzzy solidity of other
men’s bodies. God help me if they knew whom I’ve loved. Thom, damn
him. And I was beginning to love Brandon before he was killed, even
though it was so clear that my feelings for him weren’t
reciprocated that I never admitted them. A mad, entirely
inappropriate affection. A foe and a prisoner, not to mention the
fact that the poor boy had a wife back home.

Maybe that’s my fate, forever to find my love
unreturned. To be loved by friends and kin, not lovers or a mate.
Pathetic, Ian. Such self-pity. You’re alive. Think of Sam wrapped
in that bloody flag. Think of all the men you’ve seen die. You’re
still here yet, scarred but whole. There are far worse fates than
to live without love.

“Weak bastard. Whiner,” I mutter. My turn to flick
what’s left of my cigar into the rain. After today’s long ride, my
butt and thighs are sore. I stand and enter the dark station. I
weave carefully in between the sleepers, through the odor of
long-unwashed bodies and wet wool uniforms, through coughs and
sighs, mumbles and snores. Our poor, decimated band. Such grand,
heroic hopes we had. Now we’re just grateful for fresh bread and a
dry place to sleep. And a bedroll. I wrap myself in it and pass
out.

_

CHAPTER FIVE

_

The dream disperses like fog off a frosty pasture.
One second Brandon is moaning beneath me, on his hands and knees;
I’m gripping his hips and shoving my cock into him just as I’ve
always longed to do, the hard, rough way I mounted Thom. The next
second, Brandon’s gone, back to his shallow grave, and I’m awake,
my penis hard in my pants, arms and legs wrapped around my
oilcloth.

Jeremiah’s gripping my elbow. “Got you one of those
Female Academy girls there?” Jeremiah drawls. “I dreamed about them
all night.”

“Uh, yep.” My lies are effortless after all these
years. Concealment is second nature. I blush and adjust myself
beneath the blanket.

“Sarge let us sleep late. But now he’s here, and
townfolks are bringing us coffee. Real coffee too, not one of those
roasted grain abominations. And, Jesus, biscuits too. And some
decent-looking bacon. Rufus is about to have a paroxysm!”

Breakfast’s hurried, since there are rumors of
Federals to the north of us, moving up the Valley Pike. At least
the rain’s stopped. As he’d promised, the mayor presents us with
more horses, as well as a rickety cart drawn by swayback mares and
loaded with the provisions we received yesterday, along with a few
cabbages and two more sacks, one of beans and one of cornmeal.
Sarge, no doubt tired of sharing his saddle with me, gives me
command of the buckboard, so up I hop, folding my oilcloth beneath
me to make the hard seat more comfortable. The young ladies of the
Female Academy show up at the last minute to wish us well and see
us off with a great deal of tears and tittering. One gives Jeremiah
a pink handkerchief as a token.

Under gray skies, we move west along the muddy
Staunton/Parkersburg Turnpike, through the little town of West
View, up through the low hills of Buffalo Gap. The road’s steeper
and steeper, leaving behind the fields of the Valley and climbing
into the Allegheny Mountains. It’s slow going with the wagon, but
speed means less to us right now than the happy fact of all those
provisions packed in the buckboard bed behind me. Early afternoon,
we make camp in a gray hillcove high above the turnpike, a
concealed place amid thick oaks and evergreens where we can watch
the road below without being easily seen.

“Tents this time, boys. We’ll stay here a day or
two,” Sarge announces before leading a few of the boys off on
horseback to reconnoiter. The rest of us set to work, the customary
chores involved in setting up camp: digging a latrine ditch,
gathering firewood, pitching tents. Duties done, I’m snug beneath
my canvas, digging out my books, enjoying the privacy of my tent.
After a few paragraphs of
The Iliad
—I’m
infatuated with Achilles, swift-footed and shaggy-breasted as he
is—I slip off my spectacles, cover myself with a blanket, close my
eyes, and drowse. Haven’t savored the luxury of an afternoon nap
since we left winter quarters. For a second I think I hear distant
artillery—God knows my dreams are often full of it—but then rain
starts tapping the canvas above me and there’s a rumble of distant
thunder. Thankful to be warm and dry, I drift off.

_

CHAPTER SIX

_

The way a stone shatters a pond’s smooth skin, that’s
how Rufus’ shouts shatter my sleep. He throws open my tent flap,
yells, “Sarge caught him another Yankee! He sent me to fetch you!
Come on!” and disappears.

I lie there for half a minute, listening to rain
pattering the tent. Despite my wool blanket, the shivering starts
up again. Then I rise, pull on my brogans, check my pistol, put on
my forage cap, and push out into the drizzly afternoon.

There’s a commotion on the far side of camp, so I
hurry in that direction. A good half of the company’s standing
around in the cove’s cold air, staring expectantly into the
leafless woods. Gray uniforms, grey tree trunks, horses’ nickers,
and then a telltale flash of hated blue. Pretty soon Sarge rides
into the clearing, wide smile on his face, dragging the Yankee
behind him.

The man’s big and blond. His hands are tied in front
of him and tethered to Sarge’s saddle horn. He’s bare-headed, cap
lost in some scuffle, I guess, dressed in Union blue and muddy
boots, and he’s gasping and stumbling, trying to keep up with the
horse’s pace.

Oh God, not again. A man that young and brawny,
that’s the kind of prisoner Sarge tends to keep. I know what’s
coming next, and it makes my belly hurt. Sarge has done this
before, despite the proper rules of combat. No one in the company’s
got the guts to object. Guess they’re afraid if they do, they might
end up suffering like the Yankees. Besides, most of them enjoy the
spectacle and convenience of a helpless foe to focus their rage on.
The war’s been going on for years; despair and exhaustion make men
mean.

“Ian! Get over here!” Sarge yells. I lope over just
as the Yankee slips in the mud, falls onto one knee, then hits the
ground face-first.

Sarge laughs and spits. He drags his prisoner a few
yards on his belly just for the fun of it before reining his horse
to a halt. A few of the men join him, guffawing and hawking spittle
in the captive’s general direction. Most of them both fear and
admire Sarge; they imitate him, and sometimes, especially after
last autumn’s Burning, that means they’re viper-vicious, especially
toward the few Yankees we seize. In the past, most prisoners Sarge
has sent off, as is proper, to our big Confederate prisons like
Libby or Andersonville, where, with luck, they might be paroled or
exchanged. Lately, though, the prisoner-exchange system has broken
down, so good-looking, burly boys like this, those are the ones he
occasionally keeps around to torment. Guess he finds their size and
strength a challenge. He loves to see them break. He always breaks
them. I try to look away, but I can’t. Something inside me likes to
see them suffer almost as much as he does. I guess cruelty runs in
our family.

“Get him up, Ian,” Sarge says, swinging down off his
saddle and striding off in the rain to fetch what’s needed for what
comes next. I know better than to argue. Hateful as he can be,
Sarge is generous to kin and has always taken good care of me. I
unknot the rope-tether from the saddle horn, then stand above the
Yankee, who lies prone and panting. I want to reach down and help
him up, but Sarge has told me pity has no place when one’s homeland
is being threatened, so instead I nudge him in the side with my
shoe.

“Stand up, boy,” I say, mustering that hard-edged
voice I’ve learned, tugging on the tether, “if you know what’s good
for you.” The soldier tries to obey, pushing himself up on bound
hands. He slips again, hits the mud, and curses. Then he takes a
deep breath, rolls over onto his side, and looks me in the
eyes.

He’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen. That’s my
first incongruous thought, despite the grimace on his mud-smeared
face and the blood caking his brow. His eyes are weirdly blue, the
color of burning moonshine. Many days’ worth of blond beard stubble
roughens his baby face. His mouth is small, with full red lips;
beneath the mud and blood he’s very pale; his forehead’s high, with
a premature widow’s peak; his hair’s shaggy, of medium length, a
pale yellow like jonquils; his jaw is square and set. I can tell
he’s scared badly but trying to look brave. Hell, he looks several
years younger than me, and I’m just twenty-five. Suddenly I want to
help him out of this, touch his young, scared, pretty face.

Feelings are damned useless. I need to be tougher; I
need to be tougher. How many times has Sarge told me that? I should
hate this man, this fucking invader. “Get on up now,” I say,
jerking on the rope.

The Yankee licks his lips and then rolls onto his
knees and stands up, looming over me. I look up at him, suppressing
a gasp. He’s probably twice my bulk and height. I’ve never been
physically impressive—the puny one in my family, and more of a
scholar than a soldier. My lean frame, round spectacles, shaggy
hair, and scruffy black beard have never intimidated anyone, much
less this blond giant, which is why I have my gun out now.

“I’m a crack shot, big man,” I say, which is no lie,
one of several skills I’ve developed to compensate for my slight
size. “Don’t be bolting.” The Yankee looks down at me, licks his
lips again, and nods. Gun in his back, I push him through the rain.
Sarge is waiting. The men follow, sniggering.