Sweetsmoke (48 page)

    Cassius
watched them march, young men in fresh blue uniforms with clean, cream-colored
boot guards. Cassius knew from their demeanor that they were not so much Blue
as green, climbing the rise in splendor; what a magnificent way to walk into a
massacre. Once over the crest they would be so close to the Gray position that
the protected Confederates could not miss those young men in their new uniforms
with their cream-colored boot guards who were so obligingly lined up shoulder
to shoulder. And so they came and so they crested and so they died. They died in
rows, and a second group crested behind them and stepped over them and they
died. The few left standing turned and ran down the rise on the far side. They
tried to warn a third contingent of soldiers just approaching, but these
soldiers were veterans. They did not have clean uniforms or fresh faces, they
were war-hardened, and they stopped on the far side of the crest, using it as
cover, and they stood to fire, then ducked back down, giving it back to the
Confederates crouching in the lane. The Confederates were three deep, the men
in back loading and passing muskets to the better shots in front, but it wasn't
like picking off those first green troops. Artillery hit the lane, and more
Blues came from new angles, and they charged and were repelled, then others
charged and were repelled, and the sameness of the killing left Cassius numb.
Almost an hour passed, and the killing was constant and many of the attacks
were pointless and wasteful, but Federals kept coming and made progress, and
after a while fewer Confederate muskets fired back.

    Cassius
had watched the hat in the sunken road for some time before he became fully
conscious that it was familiar. He emerged from his daze to try to identify the
face of the small man on which rested the tan slouch hat with the brim turned
up in front. Now and then the man lifted his head or turned to call to someone
behind him, and Cassius thought he wore a beard with no mustache. If it was
indeed him, how had he come to this place? He later thought that the man might
have been delivering ammunition from the supply wagons and had found himself in
the middle of it when the attack began. Cassius imagined him thrilled to be
forced into action; an opportunity, as glory would speed his promotion.

    Something
happened then. Federals charged and broke through at the arrow point, firing
down the road in enfilading fire. An order was given and Confederates
retreated, trying to go up the south bank, Federals shooting them down as well
as slaughtering the men still lined up on their bellies, filling the road with
corpses and blood. Cassius watched the tan slouch hat escape into the
cornfield, and now Cassius moved with purpose, sideways to see if he could keep
track of the hat in the corn, and here and there through the rows he saw it. He
ran at an angle, finally entering the corn himself, anticipating its
destination from the last place he had seen the hat. His hands and arms
separated stalks making a path, head swiveling to see every runner, catching
the occasional hatless retreater to search his face in case the man had lost
his, throwing him aside when it wasn't the man he sought, hearing sounds of
others crashing through the corn over the sounds of distant gunfire and
artillery. Then, without warning, the short man in the tan slouch hat with the
upturned brim was there, and Cassius grabbed him by the upper arms, his full
rage gathering. Whitacre's face was stretched long, mouth shaped into an oval
soundless scream, eyes aghast, warped to unrecognizable by terror. His eyes met
Cassius's eyes and where Whitacre recognized nothing, Cassius saw the enormity
of the man's hell, where his broken spirit unhinged his sanity.

    He
had him in his hands. Whitacre struggled to escape, but Cassius held him,
examining his uncomprehending eyes. His fingers dug into Whitacre's shoulders,
one hand moving to his throat. But Whitacre did not understand what was
happening. Artillery exploded and fragments cut horizontally across the corn,
shearing down stalks a row away. Whitacre flinched, ducking, shrieking,
shitting his trousers, but Cassius did not let go. He further studied the man's
eyes, and they were the eyes of a feral animal, not of a sentient human being.

    Emoline,
said Cassius. Emoline Justice.

    He
raised his voice to be heard over gunfire and artillery, but received no
response. A cornered fox would have understood more. Cassius was about to
repeat her name again; even in Whitacre's mental absence he was willing to try
him for his crime, right here, right now, in the corn, but he saw he would be
trying and killing a man out of his mind, a man who did not know what he had
done, a man who would not know his own name.

    He
let go and Whitacre bounded away, as if he had never been stopped.

    Without
giving chase Cassius watched Whitacre vanish in the corn, running alone with no
weapon in his hands to slow him down.

    The
afternoon aged. Battles continued around him, one concerning a bridge that
spanned Antietam Creek somewhere to the south. But Cassius had chosen his
position wisely and was not obliged to move. As night came on, the fighting
diminished. The sun set before him on his expansive view of the battlefield,
the ground shockingly littered with objects that had once been men and horses,
until they vanished into the complete blackness of night. He listened to their
gruesome screaming and weeping as they slowly died in the dark. He watched
pinpoints of light creep across the battlefield, moving, stopping, then moving
again, the lanterns of looters, as bodies were stripped of their possessions.
He slept finally, and when he awoke the following morning, the bodies remained
but the moaning and weeping had grown feeble, and Cassius was glad he did not
have to listen to it. He instead heard a peculiar silence, even as the two armies
remained interlocked like oddly shaped puzzle pieces. Cassius waited for the
artillery to begin. It did not.

    He
wandered the battlefield. The Federals controlled most of the territory over
which they had so desperately fought, and they carted their dead and wounded
from the field while Confederate dead were left behind. Over every rise,
gathered in every swale, Cassius discovered more of the same.

    He
found his way back to the sunken road and looked around what was left of the
nearby cornfield, the last place he had seen Whitacre. He walked in the
direction where he had watched Whitacre run. He passed a civilian who was
meticulously picking through the belongings of dead men. The civilian reared up
in surprise when one of the dead men moved and looked at him, and the civilian
grunted as he backed away, "I'll come back later."

    Cassius
stopped at the edge of the open space behind the cornfield, bordered on its
south end by an east-west turnpike, and surveyed the area. He watched for a
time a group of Federals as they piled Confederate bodies, one on top of
another, preparing to inter them in a mass grave. He looked away, and saw that
he was not the only one watching this activity. Standing off to the side of the
Federals was another interested party, a woman. Women were not an unusual
sight, now that the battle was done, but this was a black woman and she was
strikingly familiar. He continued to look at her with skeptical eyes, finding
it odd and unlikely to have come across her, although it was not in the least
bit impossible, as he had earlier seen her master. She did not dissipate like
fog, so he walked toward her.

    Maryanne
sensed someone coming directly for her and she turned to see Cassius approach.
She looked at him as if he were someone she knew but could not remember if he
had lived in her dream or was simply a shade come to life.

    Maryanne,
said Cassius. Her entire body shuddered in surprise, thinking the shade had
spoken. You remember me?

    She
leaned forward and looked him hard in the face and her expression changed. A
new wonder came over her, and she laughed, as if she found this moment to be
ridiculous and hilarious.

    What're
you doing here? said Cassius.

    I go
where my master go. That always the way it be, I follow ol' Cap'n Solomon, said
Maryanne.

    Well
I've been looking for him.

    You
done found him, said Maryanne.

    That
was yesterday, but I've spent all morning—

    She
nodded her head to the pile of Confederate bodies. He turned and saw, among the
corpses and the gray uniforms, among the kepis and the haversacks and the
canteens, a tan slouch hat with an upturned brim.

    An
odd sensation flowed through him, as if his muscles had become liquid. He
walked directly to the bodies, took hold of a dead man's arm, and pulled on it
to drag him off another, thus revealing Whitacre's calm face. A Federal
corporal came on the double.

    "Son
of a bitch, what the hell you think you're doing there? Just because they're
Rebs don't mean you can desecrate their bodies, these were
men!'"

    Looking
for a family member, said Cassius.

    "Family
member? But these are
white
men."

    So it
seems.

    The
corporal looked at Cassius, trying to understand if he was being made the object
of derision, but Cassius did not smile. Cassius looked back eye to eye with the
corporal, and something there made the corporal pause. He had more than enough
work ahead of him on this day, so he retreated.

    Cassius
now turned his gaze to Whitacre and viewed the man's empty face with a deep and
penetrating sadness. Here was her murderer, slain himself in a senseless
battle. And yet the pit of rage, one he had kept close concerning the murder of
one woman, one woman in the face of the excessive slaughter of multiple
battlefields, still burned fiercely and would not be quenched. His journey was
at an end, and still he ached.

    He
approached the provisional line that separated Federal from Confederate.
Pockets of opposing soldiers swapped food, swapped stories, and he found it
curious that one day they were butchering one another and the next exchanging
pleasantries. He looked back at one point and noticed that Maryanne had followed
him onto Confederate—held ground. She had also found no difficulty traveling
from one army to the other. He did not know why she shadowed him, but he was
frankly unconcerned, as he walked with purpose.

    Soldiers
in butternut treated him no differently than had the soldiers in blue. He stayed
away from men in groups, approaching individuals to ask after Major Jacob
Howard. Some of the soldiers looked at him as if at a wooden door or a porch
swing. Others seemed not to hear him. One soldier had never heard of Major
Howard, but knew a Corporal Holland.

    Cassius
reconsidered his approach. The next man he came to, he asked after the 7th
Virginia Cavalry.

    "Seventh
Virginia? Think they's somewheres round the West Woods."

    Which
is the West Woods? said Cassius.

    The
man pointed toward the Dunker church. "Back side of the church."

    Cassius
went in that direction. Once near the church, he asked again. After a few rude
responses, he came upon a captain inspecting the fetlock on the right rear leg
of his horse. The horse would not put weight on that leg, and the captain's
hand came away cupped with blood.

    Cassius
asked for the 7th Virginia Cavalry. The captain did not look at him, just
pointed beyond the West Woods, and said, "Nicodemus Heights." The
captain brought out his sidearm, put it to the horse's head, and pulled the
trigger. The sound shocked Cassius, as it was the only battle sound he had
heard that day. The horse went down in an instant and briefly twitched. The
captain turned away with tears flowing freely down his cheeks.

    Cassius
walked along Hagerstown Turnpike, and passed the Dunker church. He glanced back
and Maryanne continued to trail behind him. He did not care. He cut through the
woods and walked up a hill to high ground that had more than a dozen guns, many
of them still operational. They had been hit hard by Union artillery on the
previous day. Behind the guns were cavalry units, and Cassius walked
unchallenged between the batteries. He picked his way around tents and
campfires, but this time he did not ask for Major Howard. If Jacob was alive,
he did not want him to be warned of Cassius's approach.

    He
saw a horse that had the distinctive markings of Jacob's mount. He was unsure,
as this horse was appreciably thinner, but then Cassius recognized Jacob's saddle.
He went to the horse, which shied nervously away. He laid his hand easily on
its neck and the horse calmed as if it recognized him.

    "Ho
there, boy, what you doing to my horse?" said a voice behind him.

    Cassius
turned. He thought that if this stranger was the horse's owner, then Jacob was
dead. He took his hand from the horse's neck and felt an unexpected sadness
that his old master would not be coming home. Then he started. He cocked his
head, looking beyond the heavy beard and mustache and the gaunt face that was
ten years older than Jacob had been ten months ago when he had left Sweetsmoke.