Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (7 page)

“Enough about food! So where has your company been
ever since? You call it a company, by the way, but I ain’t seen but
twenty or so men. Our companies are around one hundred.”

“Well, we
were
a lot larger.
We’re an odd collection, we Rogue Riders. Semi-independent, like
partisan rangers, since Sarge has some kind of sway with folks in
Richmond. For much of the war, we’ve been aiding the Stonewall
Brigade, though occasionally Sarge would take us off on little
raiding jaunts near the Yankee lines, back when we had a goodly
number of horses. Most of the boys were from the Valley, a few of
us, as I’ve said, from southern West Virginia. We were all
volunteers; no trashy conscripts here. Never any artillery. Mainly
infantry these days, though at the start we had some fierce
horsemen. General Ashby—Lord, he was a handsome man, and a great
hero, he was Jackson’s cavalry chief, died early in the war at
Harrisonburg, shot through the heart, I cried and cried when I
heard—well, anyway, he was mighty impressed with us. I wish I could
be more like him.”

I lie back, close my eyes, and remember that black
beard, those dark eyes, that terrible day near Harrisonburg. I was
half in love with Ashby, I think. “Well, so, we have very few
horses left these days—hell, we can hardly feed men, much less
horses. I’m surprised the cart mares we have survived this long.
What with short rations and sickness—the flux has killed a lot of
us, and pneumonia, and camp fever—for, as you’re unlucky enough to
discover this very night, it’s hard to keep warm, there are never
enough blankets and tents. Last winter quarters, the flux came
through, ran all over the camp. “The Virginia Quickstep,” we called
it, trying to make a joke of it, but there was little laughter soon
enough, just cussing and moaning. I was laid up for three weeks,
barely survived. Seven men died. Thanks to Abe Lincoln’s cursed
blockade, we have no medicines left, save for what we can make
ourselves from roots and such. Also, a lot of us died at Antietam
and Gettysburg and…all the other battles. We’re twenty-three men,
about a quarter of what we were.”

“And you keep fighting? Got to admit you Rebs have
stamina. So where did you go after Cedar Creek?”

“There wasn’t much left of General Early’s army, so
Sarge led us boys up into the western hills. We went into winter
quarters near Staunton in November, left there when we heard we
were needed at Waynesboro to back Early again. Lost there too, as
I’m sure it gives you pleasure to know. That was the end of Early’s
Army of the Valley. Another narrow escape; I almost ended up in
your shoes, a prisoner of war, but Sarge got us boys out of there.
So we’re hiding up in these western hills again, sending what
little cavalry we have down into the Valley to harass you Yanks
when we can, till Sarge figures out what move to make next.”

Drew shifts again, his shackles clinking. “Hey,
Johnny Reb? I want to hear more—listening to you helps me focus on
something other than how I’m hurting from these welts—but, well,
may I please have more whiskey? If you can spare it? I heard you
Southerners could be a mite hospitable to well-behaved guests.”

I chuckle. “Such flattery. Such sweet talk.
Certainly, Billy Yank. It’ll probably help the pain.” Pulling the
flask from my haversack, I take a swig and hand it over. The
conversation continues, interrupted occasionally as we pass the
flask back and forth, Drew’s bound hands brushing mine.

“So, Johnny, where you been wounded? I have me a few
battle scars, and I’ve only been fighting for half the war.”

That’s pride I hear, like a little boy too shy to
boast outright. “I know you’ve had wounds. I cleaned you up,
remember? I saw your scars. Tell me about ’em, then I’ll tell you
about mine.”

“Well,” begins Drew. “That half-moon on my ribs? A
saber at Yellow Tavern. This on my arm? A bullet at Trevilian
Station. This one on my shoulder, another bullet right before we
took Staunton.”

I recognize those battles. Suddenly my heart gives a
sick jolt; the back of my neck crawls. “So you were cavalry? For
Sheridan?”

“Yes, sir! Till one of your slimy bushwhackers got my
horse late last fall, till I fell ill and got transferred. That was
a fine mount, a—”

“Were you one of those Yanks who helped Sheridan burn
the Valley?” I growl. “Because, if you were… God help you. Sarge
lost his wife then, Aunt Ariminta. She was killed by a Yankee
skirmisher. It must have been an accident—for what coward would
shoot a woman?—but ever since her death Sarge has abhorred you
Yanks even more than before and has slaughtered and tortured as
many of you as he can get his hands on. He lost his farm too, to
Federal firebrands, and all his livestock, as did several other men
in this company. We all saw the aftermath on the way to Cedar
Creek. It was a goddamned smoking holocaust.”

Drew hesitates for a second, then gasps out, “No,
Ian. I—I was never part of that, though I saw it happen. It—it was
terrible. I’m very sorry about your aunt.”

I hear him gulp more whiskey. The hand that returns
the flask to me is shaking.

“All right. I’ll choose to believe you, just because
having to take care of someone who had been a part of that is too
abominable for me to stomach. I think that’s enough talk anyway. Do
you think you can sleep?”

“Yep, Reb, yep,” Drew mutters. “I think my
exhaustion, with the help of your good whiskey, is overpowering my
pain.”

Drew’s words trail off. Soon I can hear his breathing
shift into sleep. I roll over, curling deep into the sound of his
snore and the purl of the creek, and close my eyes against the
dark.

_

CHAPTER TEN

_

My slumber’s fragmented. The prisoner mumbles and
thrashes on and off all night. His shackles clatter as he tosses
and turns. Bad dreams, I assume; they afflict many a soldier. I
would comfort him if he weren’t an enemy.

Finally come dawn and reveille’s bugle. I snuggle
deeper in my blankets, happy to be excused from morning muster. In
the pale light, only feet away he’s sleeping soundly on his side,
facing me, my prisoner, my charge. I listen to him breathe. Beneath
my uniform, I’m hard with morning, as usual. This uncomfortable
situation isn’t helped when I fetch my spectacles, the better to
study Drew’s face. I want to feel and taste that swollen lip, that
beard stubble like scythed wheat. Against my better judgment I try
to imagine him naked, as I tend to do with handsome men. If it
weren’t for my Cherokee aunt, Alicia, as well as certain poetry
I’ve read, I’d believe what Presbyterians like Sarge say about such
desire: hell-sent, demonic, banned by Leviticus, et cetera, ad
nauseum. As it is, I simply keep my feelings to myself and hope
someone with similar longings might come along.

Someone big and beautiful like Drew. But not a
Yankee, not a prisoner. Still, I can’t resist imagining it: doing
with Drew what I did with Thom in the barn one rainy night, that
autumn before the war began, Thom bent over the hay bale gasping as
I took him from behind. I stroke myself for a while, remembering
Thom, then visualizing Drew’s bare chest and the honey fur
spreading there, how his muscles bulged as he fought the rope he
hung from, the way his teeth bit down on the gag, how our eyes
locked and held during his whipping, the way his round cheeks
glistened with tears. And then suddenly I go limp, remembering how
I locked that metal collar around his neck as if it were his
predecessors’ fate, knowing that big farm boy’s hairy body is one I
will soon enough be digging a grave for, not making love to. No way
for him to escape the same doom of those boys before. I might as
well be lusting after a cadaver.

As if my morbid thoughts serve as a warning cornet,
Drew’s eyes flicker open. He stares at me staring at him, gives me
a bleak smile, and mutters, “Morning, Rebel. You going to let me
loose today?”

My smile is no doubt equally dismal. “Not today, no.”
Rising, I leave the tent to fetch stale biscuit and a cup of bitter
campfire coffee. Beneath a dripping tree, Sarge is leading morning
prayers, an event I’m usually expected to attend and am glad to be
missing. Returning, I find my prisoner sitting on the cot’s edge
and tugging at the collar around his neck.

“What’s this for? I ain’t your damn slave. This is no
way to treat a prisoner of war.”

“Sarge’s orders,” I say, standing over him.

“You not going to untie me?” Drew says, twisting his
thick wrists around in the rope.

“No,” I say.

“How’m I going to eat then?” His frown’s sour as
unripe crabapple.

“Open up,” I say, holding a crumbly bite of biscuit
to his mouth.

“I ain’t a child,” he snorts. “Don’t you feel like a
damn fool feeding a full-grown man as if he were—”

“I’ve done this before. It’s necessary. Be quiet and
do what I tell you, boy, or you don’t eat,” I say sternly. Sarge
would be proud, plus I have to admit I enjoy ordering around a man
of considerably greater size and strength. I also enjoy feeding
such a man: it underlines for both of us how defenseless he is, how
dependent on me.

“Goddamn you,” Drew mutters, then parts his lips to
take the biscuit.

I sit by him. We eat in silence, chewing biscuit and
sipping from the shared cup, without the interruption of further
protest. I get out the dried apples the slave girl in Waynesboro
gave me and we have a few of those too. When we’re done, I order
Drew onto his belly on the cot. He obeys, leg irons clinking. I
remove the bandages from his back to soothe his wounds with more of
Aunt Alicia’s herbal salve. He winces, curses, grinds his teeth,
then thanks me as the medication, seeping in, gives his pain some
relief. I rebandage him and am about to cover him with the blanket,
when he sits up, pale face flushed. Hanging his head, he mutters,
“I need your help, Reb. I’ve got to, uh, relieve myself.”

_

CHAPTER ELEVEN

_

He’s tethered again, with a rope attached to his
collar, just in case he’s fool enough to try to run despite the
chain hobbling his ankles. I grip both the tether and his arm,
leading him through the gray morning, my pistol loose in its
holster just in case. Beside me, Drew, bare-chested, shivers in the
cold and shuffles in his shackles as we move slowly past a group of
my jeering compatriots, buddies of mine who would gladly beat Drew
to death if they weren’t so fond of me and so afraid of Sarge. Drew
keeps his head high till we leave the camp, but then my big proud
prisoner’s head is drooping again and his quiet pleas have turned
to downright begging.

“Please, Reb, just untie my hands and let me get
behind a bush. I promise I won’t try anything. You have the gun;
you have me shackled. What can I do?”

“My name’s Ian, remember?” I say. “Ian Campbell.”
From here I can smell the creek.

“Yes, Ian, right. Please don’t make me do this, Ian.
Don’t shame me this way. A man shouldn’t have to be seen
while—”

“If you shut up, Yankee, I’ll lead you a bit upstream
where none of my company-mates will see you. If you don’t shut up,
we can go back and have you give the camp a show.”

I might as well have stuffed another rag in his
mouth, as quiet as he abruptly gets. No sounds but the chinking of
the leg irons, a cardinal’s cry, the creek’s purl.

A good ways from camp now, a grove of winter-bare
willows, limbs sagging over the stream. “Behave, all right?” I say,
touching my holster. Drew nods. Eyes blank, he gazes over my
shoulder as, standing before him, I unbutton his uniform pants and
drawers and tug them down to his knees, exposing thick thighs—more
pale skin coated with fine golden fur—and his sex, small with
humiliation and the March chill, hiding in its sleeve of loose
foreskin. I want to take it in my hand, but my prisoner’s
frightened enough, so I say “Go ahead” and step aside to allow him
that small independence. Holding his member in one bound hand, he
pisses into the creek, steam rising off his relief.

When he’s done, blushing furiously he mutters, “Now I
need—” Nodding, I push his clothing on down to his ankles and help
steady him on the wet stones as he squats into bodily necessity.
His calves tremble; he swallows hard; he leans on me. For a second
I think he’s going to burst into tears, but then he’s done. “Stand
up and bend over,” I say. He does. There, in March’s silvery light,
are his bare buttocks, even paler than the rest of him, and, like
the rest of him, coated with fine blond hair growing thicker and
darker in the cleft. Another sight I want time to study, but to
spare his feelings I move fast, wiping him clean with a cloth I’ve
brought for the purpose, then dropping it into the flow of the
creek.

I’ve buttoned him up and we’re turning back to camp
when he says, “Thanks for not letting your camp-mates watch. I’m
sorry you had to, to clean me. It’s got to be nasty to—”

I cut him off, feeling shame roll off him like
campfire smoke and so trying to be casual. It’s out before I
realize what I’m saying. “Forget it. I’ve done it before with
others Sarge has kept.”

Drew stops in his tracks and looks down at me.
“Others?” he asks. “Does your sergeant regularly treat prisoners
this way? Whipped, bound, and collared like slaves? What others?
Where are they?”

The man has a right to know. If I can wipe his ass, I
can tell him the truth. “Follow me,” I say. Tugging on the tether,
I lead Drew to a mossy rock by the stream. He’s shivering again,
his big nipples erect with the cold, so I push him down into a
patch of sun before I sit beside him and start to explain.

_

CHAPTER TWELVE

_

“Four. There have been four of them. In the last six
months.” I can feel Drew’s gaze, but I don’t meet his eyes. I look
instead at pewter-gray light riding the creek.