Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (9 page)

I lower the belt. “I’m sorry, sir. I believe I’m too
drunk.”

“Ian. Remember all his kind has done. To our nation.
To our family.”

“Truly sorry, sir.” I sway there, trying to meet
Sarge’s glare and failing. “Just can’t.”

“Oh, for God’s sake.” Before I can slip the belt back
into my trouser loops, Sarge snatches it from me. “Give me that,
nephew. I’ll do it then. Stand back.” Doubling over the leather, he
snaps it, then brings it down hard across the helpless Yank’s
beautifully bare ass.

_

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

_

After another hour of drinking, I can hardly stand.
Sarge pushes me down into a sling chair. The belt’s wiped off, snug
again around my waist. I stroke the leather and focus on the fire.
About me men stretch out, drinking and talking in the welcome
warmth. Logs crumble; sparks spit and shoot up into the sky. A few
stars glint like cold eyes between running racks of cloud.

“One more?” says Sarge, holding up the flask.

“N-no, sir, think I’ve had enough.” The men, trees,
and tents appear in duplicate. Drew I can’t see. They’ve dragged
the sawhorse back out into the night, somewhere behind me. A single
Drew is enough to split my heart. A double Drew I couldn’t
bear.

He didn’t scream this time, only grunted and gasped,
no matter how hard Sarge beat him. Part of me loved the way he
jerked under the blows and his muscles bulged in their bonds. There
was something beautiful about how his buttocks’ whiteness reddened
and bled. I wanted to kiss every wound my uncle inflicted. Did that
Roman soldier feel the same confusion, flogging Christ?

“Sarge sure tore that poor Yankee up,” Rufus says.
He’s whittling in the firelight, a wooden bird with folded
wings.

“Shit, yes,” George says. “He sure frailed that
fucker good. Made him bleed, just like he deserves. I can see his
big white ass from here.”

When George is sober, he’s all pious, even helping
Sarge to lead morning prayers and occasional prayer meetings, and
he’s a fine horseman, but his mouth gets real nasty when he drinks.
Like most of our men from the Valley who lost their homes and barns
in Yankee raids, he’s exceptionally savage to Federal
prisoners.

“Except his ass ain’t so white now.” George sniggers,
pointing over my shoulder. “Looks like pokeberry-stained paper, all
those bruises coming up.”

The smoke keeps drifting this way, pinching my eyes
wet. From a woozy distance I hear Sarge’s orders.

“Leave the prisoner out there till morning, Ian.
You’ve coddled him too much. And tomorrow, I don’t care how he’s
hurting, he walks on a tether beside or behind your cart, he
doesn’t ride in it, understand? No food tomorrow either. Time we
started breaking him down.”

“Yes, sir,” I mumble, sagging back in the sling chair
and closing my eyes.

“Yeah, big ole ass gleaming out there in the woods,”
says George. In between slurps on his flask, he fingers a loose
tooth. “Boy’s hairy as a goddamn bear. Needs hurt some more. Sarge,
lemme beat him next. Fuck, think I’ll poke him. That’d make him
cry. You couldn’t make him cry, Sarge. Bet I could. Just ram him
like a woman. That’d—”

The resounding sound of a slap opens my eyes. Dizzy,
I sit up. Sarge is standing over George; George is cradling his
cheek in his hand.

“You will not be ‘poking him,’ George. What kind of
Christian are you? Disgusting! God hates sodomites; you should know
that. What you’re suggesting is an abomination. I will be beating
him next, not you. Get out of my sight.”

Murmuring apologies, Weasel-Teeth rolls onto his
hands and knees, thinks twice about further verticality, and crawls
off.

“What good is my insistence on morning prayers with a
man like that?” Sarge sighs. “Good night, Ian. Remember what I
said. No more coddling foes.” Fetching a blanket off the ground,
Sarge covers me with it.

“Yes sir. Thank you, sir,” I slur, staring up at the
stars. When I close my eyes again, the sling chair rocks like a
rowboat. I’d vomit if I had the energy.

_

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

_

I
 
wake to my own shivering.
The fire’s low; my company-mates have dispersed to their tents or
lie snoring by the embers. It’s night’s core, the cove completely
silent. I stand unsteadily, still a good bit drunk, wrap the
blanket around my shoulders, and stumble off.

“Need to check on the prisoner,” I say to the shadow
of a passing sentry.

“Sure, Ian.” It’s messmate Jeremiah. Nodding, he
moves on.

Dark as it is, I can make out my Yankee only dimly.
He’s as he was, bound to the sawhorse, pants still around his
ankles. He’s facing the forest, back to the camp and my approach.
The footsteps he hears across dead leaves could be anybody’s, Sarge
with a whip, George with a stick.

“It’s Ian. Don’t be afraid.” Drunk as I am, my
caution and my self-control are reduced, so my cold hand does what
it pleases, stroking his cold hip. Even in the dark, I can make out
the bruises. “Are you awake?”

Drew lifts his head and nods. I can tell by the odor
that he’s pissed himself after so many immobile hours across the
sawhorse. Beneath my hand he quakes violently. Fear or cold?
Probably both.

Poke him, that’s what George said. Yes, God. Poke
him. But only if he wanted it. Like I rode Thom back home in the
barn. Maybe I could make him want it. Abomination, no. Fuck the
preachers. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve known.

I sway a little closer, then cup his right buttock in
my hand. Drew jerks and mumbles. Skittish mount. “Easy, easy, buddy
boy.” Shit, I’m still slurring. “I’m not going to hurt you. Just
checking your wounds.” I run my palm over one buttock, then the
other. Gentle, gentle. Hard welts, proud flesh, dried blood. The
hair, so soft across each swollen cheek. And here, in his cleft,
thick tangle I finger. Sweat-moist, even in this cold.
Terror-sweat. I want to cherish him, rape him, save him, break
him.

Drew jerks again, hard enough to rock the sawhorse.
He shakes his head and mumbles another muffled plea. Can’t make out
the words but sure comprehend the abject tone.

“No need to be scared. I ain’t gonna—. Here,
here
, buddy boy, see what I brought you.”
Unshouldering my blanket, I spread it over his nakedness.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry Sarge beat you again.”
Hunkering down, I touch his face. The stubble’s becoming a
beard.

Drew doesn’t resist. In fact, he leans his cheek
against my hand. Tenderness of any kind must feel like God’s grace
when you’re tied bare-assed to a sawhorse, beaten with a belt, and
left to suffer in the cold mountain night. “I just want to take
care of you,” I say, stroking his lips and the rope layered between
his teeth. “I won’t do anything you don’t want. I just want to
t-touch you for a while. C-can I touch you for a while?”

Drew nods, slumped over the wood, no protests left. I
sit cross-legged on the earth and fondle his beard. I caress the
hairy nests in his armpits and the muscles of his arms. I take his
bound hands in mine and squeeze. When he squeezes back, I start to
cry. He joins me. For a long time we snuffle softly together, two
weeping farm boys far from home, holding hands in the dark. Then
footsteps sound nearby, a sentry’s. I strip the blanket off Drew,
pat his shoulder, and return to my tent.

_

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

_

Hard going, these half-frozen switchback mountain
roads. From this ridge-top, we can see for miles. A big Federal
troop is heading in our direction, so say the scouts. The Yanks
have had control of the Shenandoah Valley since last fall, so we’re
avoiding the Valley Pike as much as possible as we move south,
crossing a few low western ridges to get out of their way, men who
would want to rescue Drew and shoot a Southern boy like me through
the head. It’s even colder up here in the foothills: rotten snow
banks beneath the hemlocks, rocky streams iced along the edges, a
few flurries lashing our faces.

As ordered, Drew’s trudging beside the buckboard,
still shirtless, his bloodstained wrists tethered to the frame. I
look over every now and then to check on him as he stumbles stiffly
along, face set in a bearded frown. I’ve convinced Sarge to remove
the foot-shackles that might slow our prisoner and thus the entire
company’s pace, so Drew manages to keep up, despite the pain of his
wounds. There was no time this morning to salve and bandage his
ass, just enough time to unrope him from the sawhorse, remove the
gag, and tether him to the cart. We have a long way to go, a long
steep way, and as I guide the mares over ruts and around curves, I
find myself praying hard, praying that Drew makes it, even if
survival simply means more suffering.

Sarge has stood firm—no food for the Yankee today—but
when we take a break, I’m allowed to give Drew water. I lead my
tethered captive off the road, to a cliff-jut of rock overlooking
the blue-gray valley, so he won’t have to see men around him
eating. He wants to stand or kneel, considering the savaged state
of his buttocks, but I lay down a doubled-over oilcloth, since
Sarge and his objections are nowhere in sight, and Drew eases his
behind, with many a flinch, onto the makeshift pillow. The wind’s
strong at this height, so I sit to the windward side of him to
shelter him what little I can. We sip water from the canteen till
we’ve had enough. I’ll eat my own lunch ration later, when we’re on
the move, so he won’t see me. Maybe some hardtack will ease this
whiskey-aftermath pounding in my head. Maybe I can sneak him food
tonight.

“You were pretty drunk last night,” Drew says,
staring down the valley at a distant plume of smoke. His face is
drawn and tired, but he smiles anyway, a crooked smile, wry,
sheepish.

“I needed the whiskey to…”

“To get up the guts to beat me?” The smile’s sad
now.

“Yep. I’ve never beaten anyone. Sarge has always done
it. I figured he always would, as much as he enjoys it. Don’t know
why he wanted me to do it. Guess he sees a softness inside me he
wants to drive out. Guess he sees I don’t hate you like he does.”
My hands’ will and mine are beginning to diverge again—the coppery
fur on Drew’s forearms is gleaming in a sudden sunbeam and I want
to stroke it—so, as substitute, I snatch up a dead stick at my feet
and methodically peel off its husky bark. “I’d ask you to forgive
me, but I don’t deserve it.”

Drew’s laugh is low. “Forgive you for tying me down
so I’d be easy to beat or for stroking my ass like you love
me?”

I break the stick in half and toss it over the
cliff-edge. I stand up. “Sometimes, when I’m drunk, I get confused.
So I apologize for both. Come on, Yankee, let’s go back.” I lift
the tether and tug.

Drew tugs back, tipping me off balance. “Sit down,
Rebel boy, Rebel Ian. I’ve got something to say.” For once I’m the
one who obeys, settling back on the stone.

Now it’s Drew’s turn to fiddle. He retrieves a dry
leaf from the ground and picks at it with thumb and forefinger. “It
wasn’t so awful being beaten. I could feel you there, sharing my
suffering somehow. I knew you…don’t hate me. It hurt bad, surely.
But even as that very belt you wear split my skin and bloodied me,
even as I could feel how much your uncle despised me, I could also
sense your concern and caring, Reb. I could feel your kindness
almost as much as his cruelty. If I had any doubt of that kindness,
that doubt was banished later on, when you covered me with the
blanket—that felt damned good after all those hours of being
exposed to the cold. And when you touched me, that felt good too.
At first I thought, the way you were fingering my behind, that you
were planning to…and I was surely scared. But I was wrong. And, if
you want to know,” Drew says, crumbling the leaf into tiny
particles and letting them drift off on the wind, “here’s the
skull-bald truth. Your touch was of some comfort to me in the cold
and the dark.”

Stunned, I’m spared the attempt at an answer, for
there’s Rufus bounding over to announce our departure. “Git up,
Yankee,” I growl for Rufus’ benefit, rising and tether-tugging Drew
to his feet. Wordlessly he follows me to the wagon. I knot his
tether to the frame, and we’re off again, following the windy
ridge, the two of us one story among many in the company’s slow
gray column.

_

CHAPTER NINETEEN

_

“This stick’ll do,” says Sarge, taking his Bowie
knife to a straight section of low-hanging white oak branch. “Bark
needs to be left on. I want it rough. Get a little blood
going.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, hiding my heartsick queasiness.
After Brandon, Greg, Mike, and Chris, I know what’s next on the
agenda for Drew.

The company’s settled in a hill cove much like the
last, a day’s march south of Staunton, a day’s march north of
Lexington. The weather’s taken a turn for the worse, though: the
intermittent flurries have turned to light, gusty snow. Now that
the camp’s set up, the men are busy getting fires going, digging
out rations, making bean soup and coffee. After a long day of
travel, with little but water and hardtack, those simple smells are
downright delectable.

Torture, though, for Drew, to smell meals denied him.
He’s kneeling in the slowly whitening grass, hands still tied in
front of him, ankles once again shackled. After hours of walking up
and down slopes with no refreshment but cold water, he’s looking
pretty whipped and weak. With his big arms, he hugs his bare chest
in the thickening snowfall. I’ve seen this before: after a few days
of bondage, torture, exposure, and starvation, the prisoner’s anger
and defiance crumble like stream banks in flood. Hanging his head,
Drew waits for what pain Sarge might have in mind and what small
mercies I might be able to arrange.