Sisters of Shiloh (3 page)

“I’m sorry,” she told him. “We have no sugar. And we have no peanuts.”

The horse seemed to understand, then kicked the stall door.

“Blame the Yankees,” Libby said.

Josephine made her bed and then paused to watch her sister reading Arden’s letter in the backyard. At twenty years old, her cheekbones had hollowed and her freckles had begun to fade. She felt ready for courtship at last. But the men were gone.

At least the war had swept Arden away, and she had Libby to herself—except when the letters came, and her sister withdrew to a world of stark good and evil, where Arden lived and fought. Another letter had arrived. Sunlight came through the window. Josephine squinted and shaded her eyes. Outside, Libby paused by the bare spot in the lawn where the Yankee was buried. Her disgust was evident in the language of her body. Once, during a hot day the previous June, Josephine had seen Libby gargle lemonade and then spit it on the grave.

Just a few weeks ago, she had nearly attacked Julia Caldwell, a young woman from a pro-Union family, accusing her of spying for the Yankees. Josephine had the sense that Libby’s increasingly virulent pro-Southern views were not hers at all, really, but something directly appropriated from those of her husband. Josephine had to strain to remember a time when Libby had her own opinions and her own dreams. She wondered if, one night as she slept, Arden’s favorite color had leapt into her, replacing her own, and if that pattern repeated on subsequent nights—his preferential horse breed, spices, season, hymns, and faith.

What Arden had done to Libby’s God made her resent him most. That deity, shaped and formed under the tutelage of her gentle father, was a fair, benevolent God whose strict expectations regarding the Ten Commandments were tempered by an all-consuming adoration of all His children. Arden had darkened and narrowed the eyes of this God, added rage to His purpose and gave Him a taste for Yankee blood. His God—now her God—was unloving and out for revenge.

When Josephine had heard Arden was finally off to fight, her first thought—so insistent and so piercing she could not dismiss it—was the possibility that Arden could be killed and removed from their lives forever. She banished this thought sternly, but over the passing months it returned in different forms. Lately she had taken to forcing herself to pray for Arden, though through gritted teeth, her knees on the floor, her elbows on the bed, and her hands clasped together so hard that her fingernails bit into the flesh below her knuckles.

She glanced out the window again. Libby was walking away from the barn, the horse stretching his head out of his stall watching her.

“Josephine!”

She jumped. Her father was calling her from downstairs.

“Come here. I need you.”

She glanced out at Libby one more time before leaving the bedroom and starting downstairs. She barely remembered when her father’s dental office had served as the family parlor. Years ago he had pulled all the rosewood furniture out of the room and taken down the gilded paintings of men rowing boats. He had dragged the Malaysian rug to another room and given the settee to a neighbor. Only the wallpaper remained, a French frosted-grape pattern that reminded Josephine of an easier time, when people had money and weren’t reduced to scraping the floors of their smokehouses for salt. Dr. Beale worked in this room, a wingback chair for the patient and a stool for himself, as arthritis had affected his hips to the extent that he could not stand for very long periods of time. He also had a table to hold his instruments and the zinc tub he used to clean them. When he needed anesthetic, he bought laudanum from a neighbor who cultivated poppies.

When Josephine entered the office, she saw a towheaded boy who had backed into a far corner. His eyes were wild, and one cheek was puffed out as though full of taffy. He wore a pair of old pants and carpet shoes. His shirt was too small for him.

“What’s the matter?” Josephine asked her father.

“I’ve got to pull his tooth. It’s impacted.”

The boy shook his head. “It doesn’t hurt anymore. I want to go home.”

Dr. Beale looked annoyed. “Come on, son. This won’t hurt so bad. You can be brave, can’t you? Think of all those brave soldiers out there. Isn’t your brother riding with General Stuart? Don’t you want to be like him?”

The boy’s eyes changed as though he’d been nudged by his brother’s spur. He moved a few feet from the corner and then stopped.

“Where’s his mother?” asked Josephine.

“At the Taylor Hotel, passing out bandages.”

“He’s scared.”

“Hold his hand.”

The boy began to tremble as Josephine approached him. A tear ran down his face, and he quickly wiped it away. Josephine knelt beside him, the floor cold against her knees. She took his moist hand.

“It won’t be so bad,” she said. “We’ll feel it together.”

Dr. Beale gave the boy a spoonful of laudanum and waited until his pupils began to expand. Josephine felt his small hand slacken and warm. Dr. Beale opened the boy’s mouth. He inserted a tooth key and began twisting the ivory handle. Josephine grimaced but could not look away.

The little boy’s eyelids fluttered.

Josephine held her breath.

The boy screamed.

A tooth with black roots hit the wall.

Blood filled up the hole it left.

A rumor drifted around Winchester, tentative and wispy in the morning, turning darker by noon. The enemy was gathering in Maryland, a day’s hard ride to the north. As the rumor traveled from house to house, no one could be sure whether to believe it or not. The local newspaper had stopped operating, as had the telegraph that once ran along the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, leaving only word of mouth and the
Baltimore Sun,
neither of which could be trusted.

The youngest member of the Beale family, Stephen, had heard the rumor in the afternoon and was riding home through the empty out-lots, the hooves of his horse thundering against the ground, gnats rising out of the goldenrod. His father had told him to fix the roof of the stable, but instead he had taken one of the horses and left to investigate the ruins of Fort Garibaldi, a Union stronghold destroyed by its own army in early September. An officer had gone back to check on the fuse of the powder magazine and had been blown into bits, much to the excitement of the local boys. The remains were gathered onto a sheet and buried, but Stephen’s friends insisted that one foot had been overlooked and still lay on the ground. Stephen had an insatiable streak of morbid curiosity, and he felt compelled to see the grisly sight for himself. Although he searched the ruins of the fort all afternoon, he found no such foot, only a brass button and the blade of a pocketknife. On his way back to town, he passed the tollhouse on Strothers Lane. An old man waved him down and told him the news.

“That can’t be true!” Stephen had said when he heard the number of Union soldiers.

“It’s true, all right.” The old man turned and looked in the direction of Sharpsburg. “General Longstreet ordered the Pipers off their farm. There’s gonna be a hell of a fight, boy. A hell of a fight. That is, if it hasn’t started already.”

Stephen urged his horse on with pressure from his heels. That old man must be crazy. He couldn’t even imagine so many Yankees in one place. A sea of blue, salted with gunpowder. The number terrified him and brought him guilty joy. Nothing made a boy seem older than the exclusive possession of news of the war. The wind was warm but goose bumps ran down his arms. He was carrying the rumor home, bound for the people innocent of it. He bent low down and urged the horse on, his shirttail pulling out a little further. Down through the out-lots they flew, the rumor pressing on his back, as he outrode it like a storm—his heart pounding, his face red, the heat leaving the earth slowly, the grass cooling. The terrifying number he’d heard multiplied in his head. He caught sight of his house in the distance and shouted encouragement to his horse. His shirttail had finally pulled loose from his trousers, allowing a winged insect to gain access to his bare back and sting him along his spine. He reached around with one hand and tried to squash the maddening insect, but he almost lost his balance and gave up, reduced to imagining his revenge once he got off that horse.

“Go, boy!” he shouted. “Go, go!”

Violet Beale had a meeting at the Methodist church that evening, and so dinner came early. The family sat at a gate-leg table eating pork and cabbage when the door burst open and Stephen ran into the living room, panting, his face bright red.

Dr. Beale looked up. “Stephen, what is it?”

In his exhaustion, Stephen pointed west instead of north. “Big battle coming! The Stonewall Brigade is headed to Sharpsburg, and so are a hundred and fifty thousand Yankees.”

“A hundred and fifty thousand? That’s impossible.”

Stephen wiped the sweat from his face.

“That’s what the old man in the tollhouse said.”

“Arden is in the Stonewall Brigade,” Libby said.

Stephen sat down and took off his hat. A dead mosquito fell on his father’s plate.

“Arden will be fine,” Josephine told Libby. “He is brave, and I imagine a very good shot.”

Libby gave her a withering look. “You don’t understand. Arden’s gun is warped. But, then, you’ve always hated him. You probably hope he dies.”

“Libby!” Mrs. Beale sat up straight. “There will be no talk like that in this house.”

“I must go to him,” Libby said. “Sharpsburg is not very far.”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Dr. Beale said.

But Josephine had noticed the look on Libby’s face. And she knew once Libby had that look, no one could stop her. The family could pretend they had the authority, but they would fail.

“I have something for you,” Libby whispered to Ralph, the bay stallion.

The sun had almost set, and the sky had turned the gray color of a storeroom. Libby had a cedar canteen, a confession, and a bribe.

“Ralph, I lied to you when I claimed to have no peanut brittle. Yesterday, a soldier sitting on the steps of the Taylor Hotel gave me a piece, because he said I was pretty, and it had been so long since he’d seen a pretty girl. I was going to send it to Arden. You understand, don’t you? But now I’m going to give it to you, because I love you so much, and because you are going to be a really good boy and not buck me off when I try to ride you.”

The horse gave her a look that said he made no deals. She took the peanut brittle out of her pocket, and his ears straightened. His big teeth nearly took off her fingers as he snatched the treat from her hand. Little pieces of it fell to the ground as he chewed it. After he finished, he pressed his muzzle against her, a gesture she took as a sign of gratefulness until she realized he was nosing her pocket in search of more candy.

“You greedy boy,” she said. Her voice was calm, although her heart raced. She slipped the bridle over his muzzle and led him out the gate. She was just about to climb onto his back when she heard footsteps in the grass. She didn’t bother to turn around. She knew who it was.

“Go away, Josephine.”

“You can’t do this. You can’t just ride into a battle. It’s crazy.”

Libby hoisted herself onto Ralph’s broad back and patted his neck. “You don’t understand. You have never been in love.”

Libby gathered the reins.

Josephine sighed. She didn’t like riding horses. And she didn’t want to ride toward 150,000 Yankees. But someone had to protect her crazy sister.

“I’m going with you.”

“No, you’ll stay here.” She turned the horse to go.

“I’ll scream for Mother and Father, right this minute,” Josephine said calmly. “And you have heard my scream before. They will be out here in an instant.”

Libby looked thoughtful, and Josephine knew she was judging the distance to the front gate, wondering if she could make her escape if Josephine were, in fact, to scream. Libby sighed, defeated. “I suppose you can go. But I don’t know why. You hate Arden.”

“I’m not going for Arden.”

They rode up the Martinsburg Pike, Libby on the bay stallion and Josephine following on a sweet-tempered chestnut. As the sun set, the horses lengthened their pace. Not a soul passed them on the road. The landscape had been stripped clean of living things. The stars came out in a stunning pattern that stretched the universe over. They passed a series of farms, and some Mennonite wood lots. Josephine’s thighs began to hurt from taking a man’s position instead of riding sidesaddle, but the girls had no choice—sidesaddle was an easier, slower gait.

Hoofbeats and breath. The world so still and silent, it was hard to believe a new sun would soon rile it into motion. She wondered if her parents had already discovered them gone, and if they were frantic with worry. Her back ached. Her hand was cramped from holding the reins. She found it hard to believe the number of Union soldiers rumored to be in Sharpsburg. Tall tales like that one had flown through Winchester since the start of the war. And yet she rode on, her legs rubbing raw, knowing she must protect her younger sister.

Josephine wished she could hate the enemy with the fervor of her sister, but although she resented, of course, their repeated occupations of Winchester, she had to claim a guilty love for the music of their regimental band and for the festive colors of the Zouave regiment, who had stolen their May cherries. She couldn’t help but think of those young men with their strange accents and wonder if perhaps among them might be a man who would notice her.

The wounded Yankees in the Beale house had suffered terribly. The most handsome of them, the one who died, would tell her stories. His wounded stump frothed with gangrene and ruined his true scent and best laughter, but she found herself drawn to him nonetheless. One night she dreamed he was whole again and stood facing her in a patch of neutral ground. No bullets. No sorrow. No infection. Just the brief touching of their lips. A few days later the Yankee won an imaginary chess match and died. All summer, Josephine had stolen out in the dead of night to tend his grave. Love for a Yankee, hatred for the man her sister loved.