Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (8 page)

“Sarge—he’s really a captain, but everybody calls him
Sarge—he’s always had a mean streak, but ever since his wife was
killed, ever since the Feds burned the Valley last September and
torched his farm, he’s been downright vicious. If he gets hold of a
Yankee soldier, once in a rare while he keeps him. Especially if
he’s, uh, as f-finely built and handsome as you.” I clear my
throat, feeling suddenly foolish. Picking up a stone, I rub it
between my fingers and then lob it into the water.

Drew laughs softly. “Thanks for the kind words,
Private Campbell. Go on.”

“Sarge has his fun for two or three weeks, till the
prisoner dies on him after such steady abuse, or till Sarge gets
bored and murders him. I’m in charge of them while they last. I
keep them tied, I feed them, I mend them as best I can for Sarge to
beat on and break down again. And eventually I bury them.”

“What were their names?” Drew’s voice is steady.

“Brandon was first. Irish boy from Boston. Blue eyes,
auburn goatee. Big and hairy like you. Like I said, the ones Sarge
chooses are all good-looking and strong.”

“How did he go?”

I stand up, take a willow branch between my fingers,
and stroke the buds. Just a trace of the coming green. “Sarge
strangled him with his bare hands. Made me watch. Poor Brandon was
pretty weak by then. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“The others?”

“Gregory from New York. Michael from New Hampshire.
Christopher from Maine.”

“How did they go?”

“Haven’t you heard enough?” Finally I look at Drew.
He’s sitting with his elbows on his knees and his face in his
hands. A shaft of sunlight falls across his bandaged back. He’s so
beautiful. How I wish we both were free and happy, naked together
in my bed back home.

“Tell me. Please.” He gazes at the ground now, as if
he’s addressing his request to the earth.

“Sarge pistol-whipped Greg. He lingered for a day,
then died. Mike wasn’t around long. Sarge gave him to the men; he’d
been real smart-mouthed, so they beat him to death. And Chris just
wasted away from daily floggings, exposure, and starvation.”

Drew glares up at me. “And you watched all this?
Didn’t try to stop it?”

“Sarge is my uncle!” I shout. “My aunt was murdered!
You all are enemies and invaders. And if I objected, well, I
have
objected, and…”

“And?”

“What do you think? I grew real fond of Brandon, the
first one. He was sweet-tempered and so, so scared. We got to be
friends. I begged Sarge not to whip and starve him. I tried to
sneak him food. Sarge told me I’d be strung up with Brandon and
flogged if I didn’t shut up and do what I was told. So with the
others I was too afraid to—”

“Couldn’t you help them escape?”

“I’d have to have run off with them. I was in charge
of them. If they got away, I’d have been blamed. I know Sarge is my
kin, but if I disobeyed him like that, he’d—”

Drew’s face falls into his bound hands again. “So you
can’t help me? So I’m going to end up like them because you don’t
have the courage to help me? I’ve never done anything to you, Rebel
Ian. After talking last night, we already know how much we have in
common. I’m just a farm boy like you who wants to make it
home.”

My eyes are wet. I wipe them dry with the back of my
hand. There is no rejoinder to what he says. He’s right.

Drew spits into a pile of dead leaves at his feet.
“When will your uncle be entertaining me again?”

“Today, most probably. I’ll try to get more food into
you before then. I have some cheese back in the tent. To endure all
he no doubt has in mind, you’re going to have to keep your strength
up.”

“Let’s go then.” Drew stands up, looming over me.
“I’m damned fond of cheese.” His breath clouds the air. The patch
of sun’s long gone. “Please take me back to the tent; I’m really
cold.” Rubbing his bare chest with one roped hand, he shudders. His
big nipples are still chill-stiff, and goose pimples scatter his
arms. I want to take his hand, try to comfort him, and promise to
save him, but instead I take up the tether and lead his chained-up
shuffle back to camp.

_

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

_

Cheese, stale biscuit, blankets. In camp life, simple
pleasures mean a lot. Drew doesn’t make a fuss this time when I
hand-feed him; now that he’s heard about his likely fate, I think
he’s just thankful for kindness in any form it might come. Leaving
my half-naked prisoner to warm up in my cot, I scrounge us coffee
by the fire, plus a couple pieces of hardtack from the little hoard
our cavalry stole from a Yankee camp a few weeks back. It’s getting
colder. The sky’s a churning gray. A few flurry flakes skim the
rising wind. Rufus tells me there’s word the company might be
moving soon, heading higher up the mountain.

Drew and I have barely finished the lukewarm cup and
I’m feeding him the last of the hardtack when Sarge parts the tent
flap and shoulders inside. I stand at attention, half-chewed
cracker in my hand. Drew sits up stiffly on the cot, eyes wide with
fear. Sarge smiles at him—I know that smile all too well—then turns
to me.

“Don’t you all look cozy? You two could be
schoolmates…or morphodites.”

“S-s-sir,” I start, hating that habitual stutter that
takes over when I’m scared, “I’m just f-f—. You told me to keep him
alive, sir.”

“Yes, yes.” Sarge waves a dismissive, shut-up-now
hand. “Coddling him, looks like, giving over your cot. How’s he
healing, Ian? Using your Injun salve?”

Drew breaks in. “Sir, please. Please observe the
proper—”

Sarge looks at him as if he were an earthworm that
had just uttered a blasphemy. His eyes go hard, but then he smiles
and turns to me again. From his pocket he pulls a rag and a long
length of rope.

“Ian, please be sure to keep this pig mannerly. I
want him gagged whenever he’s in my presence. I never want to hear
him speak again.”

I take the rag and rope from him. I turn to Drew.
Apology in my eyes; humiliation and pleading in his.

“Go ahead, Ian. You know what to do.”

I need to give Sarge a show of firmness. If he
realizes how much I pity Drew, he’ll remember how fond I grew of
Brandon and how weak that made me. So I pull my pistol and press
the barrel against Drew’s ear.

“Open your mouth, boy, or I’ll open your skull.”

Drew closes his eyes and obeys. Sarge chuckles.
Holstering my gun, I stuff the rag in. I tie it in place, centering
the rope’s length between Drew’s lips, wrapping it around his head
till his mouth’s stretched wide and cord-covered, then pulling the
rope ends tight and knotting them behind. When I’m done, Drew
swallows hard and hangs his head, entirely stifled.

“Just right,” says Sarge. “Very pretty. That’ll keep
him quiet. Keep him that way for a while. We’re going to be on the
move tomorrow. Today, though…the men need a little fun. I think
this Yankee can give it to them.”

_

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

_

Brandon, Greg, Mike, Chris, now Drew. I’ve had lots
of practice tying a man so well he can barely move, no matter how
big a frame he sports. Drew groans, straining against his
restraints, but, under Sarge’s watchful eye, I’ve given the hapless
farm boy little leeway.

The flurries have stopped for now; there’s a weak sun
by late afternoon. We’ve been packing up the camp for most of the
day; we’re due to head up the mountain in the morning. Now it’s
suppertime. I’m picking mold from a cold hoecake and smearing it
with a little lard borrowed from Sarge’s store. In between bites,
I’m savoring swigs of the whiskey that Sarge has kindly shared. I
want to feed Drew, but Sarge has ordered me not to. Rations are too
low to waste on pigs, he said.

While I eat, I watch Drew struggle and fall limp,
struggle and fall limp. The rag-and-rope gag’s still in place;
probably a good thing, since he’ll need something to bite down on
when whatever pain Sarge has planned begins. His hands are still
bound together; his feet are still shackled. But now he’s bent
belly-down over the camp sawhorse, face nearly in the dirt, round
blue-flannelled ass in the air. I’ve run through a lot of rope
getting him tied down to the heavy wooden frame in a manner tight
and thorough enough for Sarge’s satisfaction: cords interlace his
arms, encircle his chest, waist, and bandaged back. He can do no
more than wiggle a few inches in any direction, thanks to me. So he
stares at the ground and waits for whatever’s to come. Sarge’s
whip, no doubt.

During the six hours Drew’s endured this, my buddies
have taunted him with regularity and marked him with many a slimy
gob of spittle. During that time, when he’s not been staring at the
earth, probably wondering how soon he’ll be beneath it, my Yankee’s
been craning his neck to look for me. Since I’ve been as kind as I
can, despite my military duty to the South and my familial
allegiance to Sarge, I guess I’m Drew’s anchor now, the one
sympathetic face in camp. I’ve tried to stay away, to focus on
packing, because it hurts me to see him publicly shamed, but here I
am again, sitting where he can see me, a camp chair a few yards in
front of him, where, if he lifts his head, our eyes can meet.

What was I thinking, ever regarding him as an enemy?
He’s just a boy who’s suffering, whose agony I’m abetting. I felt
this same unwelcome warmth for Brandon, feelings I think Sarge
sensed, which is why he took such pleasure in throttling Brandon
and forcing me to watch. It’s so much easier to think the way Sarge
thinks, especially with Sarge in charge. Yankees are pigs; Yankees
are scum. Ever since I saw big sweet Brandon die, I’ve tried hard
to believe that. But now, when I look at Drew’s bandaged back, the
futile ripple of his biceps against his bonds, the rope I’ve tied
across his pretty mouth, the blue pleading in his eyes…hell, his
helplessness haunts me, and his body’s a lodestone drawing my eyes.
He’s this camp’s Christ. Sarge is always talking about Christ,
insisting on group prayer every morning, preaching compassion and
cussing fleshly desire. Can’t he see he’s doing it all over again,
crucifying an innocent?

Fuck this. My big bound blond Yankee needs a friend.
No one’s looking now; it’s meal time, so most of the camp’s chewing
the literal fat around the fire. I stroll over to the sawhorse
casually. Drew looks up at me and groans. Pain furrows his face.
The rope’s cutting the corners of his mouth, tinging the stubble on
his chin red-gold.

“Don’t look at me,” I whisper. “Just look at the
ground. I don’t want anyone to know I’m speaking to you. All
right?” Bending over, I pretend to check the tightness of his
bonds.

Drew gives a slight nod.

“Don’t nod. Someone might see. Just clench your hands
for Yes, let them go limp for No. You holding up?”

Drew’s hands clench.

“Good boy. You hurting pretty bad?”

Drew’s hands clench.

“I’m truly sorry. You hate my Rebel guts?”

Drew’s hands clench and fall limp several times.

I chuckle. “Yes, no, yes, no? Yep, I understand.
You’re one conflicted Yankee giant. Now listen. I’m not going to
help you escape. If I do, I won’t make it home. Sarge would whip
and probably hang me for a traitor, nephew or no. But I’m going to
make your time here as easy as I can. If I treat you rough in front
of others, it’s because I’m afraid Sarge will think I’m weak and
assign you a much more brutal keeper. But when the two of us are
alone, however often that might be, I’ll take care of you. I
promise. Understand?”

Clench.

“In other words, when I’m cruel to you, I’m not only
trying to save my own skin. I’m also trying to spare you worse
cruelty at another’s hands.”

Clench.

“You know I don’t hate you. If we’d met in another
time, we could have been…”

Clench.

My messmate Rufus is strolling curiously over with a
steaming cup. “All right, good and tight,” I say loudly, tugging at
the rope around Drew’s waist.

“Want some soup?” says Rufus, proffering me the
cup.

“Yep,” say I, giving the sawhorse a sound kick before
heading over to the campfire to spend time with my buddies, my camp
mates, whose intense love for their land and their families has
made equally intense their hate for this battered stranger bound to
a sawhorse in the falling dark.

_

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

_

“Not me this time. This time, you’re going to do it,”
Sarge says again, gripping my shoulder. “Show me you’re strong. You
need to be strong to scourge evil.”

Several men have dragged the sawhorse and its
trussed-up burden from the black edge of the woods into the
campfire’s circle of light. Packing’s done for the day; now it’s
time for the fun Sarge spoke of. These men want something different
tonight. They’re tired of fiddle music.

“First time for everything, Ian. Let’s see how much
you hate these Northern bastards. Remember what they did last fall.
How they burnt the Valley.” Sarge smiles at me, offering me another
swig of whiskey.

I take that swig, then another, and then another.
With a frame my size, it doesn’t take much liquor to hit me
hard.

Now I unbutton Drew’s pants and drawers and pull them
down to his ankles, just as I did by the creek bank this morning. I
mutter, “I don’t have a choice. Understand?” In answer, Drew
clenches his fists. I take in the sight of his round ass, firelight
glistening on the golden fur there, and his trembling thighs. The
campfire smoke stings my eyes. Then I pull my belt from its loops.
Around me, the men’s jollity falls quiet. Sarge pats my arm and
steps back.

I double over the belt and lift it. I’m about to
bring it down when I remember the Yank’s tear-wet eyes, how wild
and frantic they grew as Sarge whipped him. As if in answer, Drew
lifts his head and releases a sharp sob.