The Last Full Measure (8 page)

I hugged her. "Oh, I'm so glad you're here. Let's go upstairs for breakfast."

***

I
T WAS THE
second of July, and we did not know what to expect next. The terrible shelling had stopped, yes, but only because the Confederates did seem to have taken over the town.

We were prisoners in our own village, if you wanted to think of it that way.

Outside the sky was a clear blue and the sun was bright, and I thought, eating my eggs and bacon, how any other year this time we'd be making food for a Fourth of July picnic. But I said nothing. Maybe I was finally acquiring some of that sense David had accused me of not having.

We all ate quickly, in silence.

Except for David. He had already been out and about. He told us that the Confederates had erected barricades at the end of the streets and dismantled backyard fences. "Some Rebs have been in houses, demanding to be served breakfast," he said. "If they come in here, we've got to oblige them. Tacy, you stay out of the way. Marvelous, you stay out of sight. No arguments from anybody. Give them what they want and they'll go away. We've got whiskey. Two bottles of it in Pa's study. If they ask for whiskey, give it over. And whatever you do, don't sass them."

The subject was so solemn, so unreal, that nobody said anything.

"Now, I'll be here most of the day. I've just got to escort Josie home to see if her mother came through the night all of a piece. Somebody already told me they saw our cow, Daisy, in a field near the railroad. On the way home from dropping Josie off I'm going to try to bring Daisy home, if it is her. The whole business should take me just an hour. Mama and you girls should be fine until then."

He got up, took his musket and Josie, and they went out the back door. I stood watching. He mounted his horse and helped Josie up behind him. I minded how she put her arms around his waist, hugging him close, and they were off. It wasn't far to her house, but I knew how she would lean her head against his back, how she would enjoy that ride. I wondered,
Would he?

"It'll be all right," Mama told us. "You finish your breakfast. I'll start to clean up."

But before we finished, she was sitting down again. Turned out she had a terrible headache. "The shelling kept me awake all night," she said.

Marvelous and I brought her mattress and bedding upstairs to her bedroom and fixed things up proper-like for her, and in no time she was asleep. Then we crept down and finished cleaning up from breakfast.

Within ten minutes there was a knocking on the back door. Marvelous and I looked at each other. "Go hide," I told her.

"Likely it's my mama," she said. "She told me she might be by this morning if the shells didn't kill them all."

"No, go hide!" I insisted, as I ran to the door.

I opened it. Three Rebs stood there. Two privates and one lieutenant. "We need some breakfast, miss," the lieutenant said. "Can we come in?"

Well, you're in already
, I wanted to say. Then I minded what David had told us about not sassing them. I backed off and they stood in our kitchen, holding rifles. Their uniforms were dusty, buttons hanging off, sleeves ripped, pants ragged.

"Smells good in here," one of the privates said. "I smell bacon."

"Looks good, too," the other private added. He was eyeing me.

Then they sighted Marvelous standing a little aside near the corner window in the kitchen.

The private who said he smelled bacon stepped forward. "Well, well—what we got here? This the downstairs gal?"

"All right," said the lieutenant, "take off your hats and act like gentlemen."

They did so.

"I'm Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia," he introduced himself. "This is Private Joel Walker and Private John Calhoun."

They gave half bows, as if they were at a formal dance, then sat at the kitchen table. I started to make breakfast while Marvelous poured hot coffee and got out the cream. The two privates could not keep their eyes off her.

In no time at all I had eggs, bacon, bread, cheese, butter, and jelly in front of them. They ate ravenously. I had to make three portions of eggs.

In between bites, they asked me who else lived in the house. I told them.

"My mama. She's upstairs sleeping. The shelling kept her awake all last night. My brother David. He's off trying to get back our cow. Somebody stole her."

How old was David, they wanted to know. Then, why wasn't he in the army? And where was my father?

I answered all their questions. Were there any other menfolk in the family? I said yes, two other brothers who were with the Second Pennsylvania Cavalry.

"Ho," said Private Calhoun, "they have intense hostility toward us."

"Hush," Lieutenant Marshall said. "We wouldn't be at war if they didn't. Fine group of horsemen. I've seen them in action."

Then the privates asked about Marvelous. "She bound or free?" Private Calhoun questioned. "We heard there were a lot of free darkies in this town. That some of our soldiers captured a lot of 'em and took 'em south."

"She's free." I might have said it a little too sassily.

Calhoun looked at me, his eyes narrowing. "That so."

"Yes," I said, politely now. "That's so."

"Well, then," said Private Walker, "she's up for grabs, isn'tsh e?"

"What do you mean," I asked, "
up for grabs?
"

"What I mean," Walker explained patiently, "is that we have taken the town as of today, and you all are our prisoners. And that being the case, we can take this darkie girl here—what did you say her name was?"

"Marvelous," I told him. "Her name is Marvelous Biggs."

"Marvelous!" He near shouted it. "We can take her with us, because she is our prisoner now. Free no more, but ours. The spoils of war. And we can take her with us back down south. To slavery."

The room went silent. The coffee bubbled on the stove. I heard Marvelous draw in her breath. I looked at her briefly, then at Walker, who looked so self-satisfied, I wanted to throw a dish of eggs in his face. Then I glanced at Calhoun, who had the audacity to wink at me. If I had David's Colt .45 I would kill him on the spot, I decided. Never mind that I did not know how to use it. I would learn how to use it.

I looked at the lieutenant. He was sipping his coffee.

I kept right on looking at him.
Someone in this room had better take charge
, I thought.
And soon. Before I go plumb crazy
.

The lieutenant saw me eyeing him. I don't know what kind of look I had on my face, but he set his cup down in the saucer and smiled at me. "Great coffee," he said.

My eyes were bulging out of my head. I was waiting, and he knew it.

"Did you have something you wanted to say to me, Miss Tacy?" he asked gently.

"Lieutenant." I composed myself, though it took all the effort I had. Somehow I knew that this man would accept no less. "Lieutenant, please, sir, Marvelous is my friend. Don't let them take her away south and put her into slavery. Please, sir. She is a good person. And, she's my friend."

I wanted to say more. There was so much more I should say! A whole war was being fought out there and people were bleeding to death, and I could not even form the words to tell it.

I have failed! I have said nothing to save Marvelous. What good am I?

The lieutenant compressed his lips, nodded his head slightly, and folded his arms across his chest. "Do you think I could have more coffee?" he asked.

I started to move.

"No." He put up a hand. "Let Marvelous get it."

Oh my God
, I thought.
He's trying to tell me he sees her as nothing but a slave
.

Marvelous moved forward from her corner to fetch the coffeepot from the stove, brought it to the table, picked up the lieutenant's cup, and poured the coffee. Then she set the cup down carefully in front of him.

He looked up at her. "Thank you, darling," he said.

She nodded and moved away.

He took the sugar bowl and put two teaspoons of sugar into his cup and stirred it slowly and carefully. While stirring, he spoke. "This is a terrible war," he said, as if musing to himself. "Men are dying horrible deaths all around. And the reason, the very reason is being acted out right here in this kitchen."

He put the spoon into the saucer, poured some cream into the coffee, and considered the whole business as if the answer were in the cup. "If I could end it now, I'd end it. But I'm just an insignificant lieutenant. Nobody asks my opinion about important matters. But I'm being given the opportunity to give my opinion about an important matter now."

He looked up at his men, first one, then the other, then at me. "She's your friend," he said. "I lost two friends so far in this war. The girl stays."

I jumped up on my toes. I put my hands over my mouth so I would not scream.

"Call her over here," he said.

I did so. He gestured she should come to him. When she did, he said to her, "You are free, Marvelous. And you will stay here and stay free. You are not, and never will be, up for grabs."

Marvelous gave him a curtsy. "Thank you, sir." She ran around the table to me and we hugged.

Then Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia stood up and looked at his men. "Let's go," he ordered.

They got to their feet, looking rather shamefaced.

The lieutenant came over and extended his hand. Thinking he wanted to shake hands, I gave him mine. He bowed and kissed it. "Thank you for the excellent breakfast. We Southerners are not all savages. I don't want you to think of us all that way."

"I won't, sir."

He nodded to me, then went out.

"Oh, Marvelous," I said as we danced around the kitchen, "they're not all bad, after all. They aren't."

I don't know why it took something like this to make me realize that perhaps they weren't. To understand that perhaps they might be people just like the rest of us, dragged into this war without wanting to be. But I did know that I would remember Lieutenant Gregory Lewis Marshall of the Forty-fifth Georgia all of my life. I never knew if he survived the war. But I always hoped he did.

M
IRACULOUSLY, NONE OF
this had woken Mama. Marvelous and I cleaned up the kitchen and before another hour had passed, David came riding into the backyard, leading Daisy by a rope.

Across his saddle, in front of him, he had something. Something wounded. At first glance I thought it might be a human being. At second glance, a baby calf. And then, I saw it was a dog. A wounded and frightened dog. I looked at Marvelous and she at me, and I grabbed a towel and we both ran outside.

"What do you have there?" I demanded of my brother. I never demanded things of my brother, but this time the occasion warranted it.

He slid off his horse, grabbed the towel from me, and carefully wrapped the dog in it. It was medium-size, black and white, and it was bleeding from its side. But its eyes were open and it was whimpering.

"Where's Mama?" he asked.

"She's upstairs sleeping. She's got a bad headache."

"All right. Here, you take it." He handed the poor thing over to me as if it were a bag of potatoes. And of a sudden I had the weight of it in my arms. "Take it in the kitchen. Marvelous, help her. Get an old blanket and put it on the floor. I'll be right in. Got to take care of Daisy here first. Get her in the barn and feed her. Go on, do as I say."

"Is Daisy well?"

"Middling well. Go."

Marvelous and I managed to do as he said. The dog, bless her, was docile and, beyond a little whimpering, gave us no trouble. It was Marvelous who started cleaning her wound, who pronounced it just surface deep, who didn't mind the blood, so that by the time David came in to take over, all the blood was gone, not only from the wound but from the fur.

"If women could be doctors, I'd say you should go to medical school," David told her, and I was surprised to feel jealous.

We gave the dog some warm milk with bread in it and she soon fell asleep.

Then David bade me go upstairs and get him a clean shirt, and when I came down he grabbed a towel and a bar of soap and went outside.

He may have a twisted leg
, I thought, watching through the window,
but I know now why Josie is smitten with him
. She'd seen him many times like this, washing up at the pump in the yard, half naked. Often she'd made it her business to be there with him to hand him the towel. I'd thought nothing of it before. But now I did.

Now I saw why.

David lacked nothing in masculinity. He was broad shouldered, had muscles as well formed as Joel's and Brandon's, was browned and handsome. I wondered if he carried any feelings inside him for Josie.

Then, turning, I told Marvelous to put on a pot of fresh coffee, and went outside.

"David."

"Yes, Tacy?"

"Can we keep the dog?"

He finished washing, splashed water over his face, and reached for the towel. "I suppose so, if it's all right with Mama. Not much of a dog, though."

"I think she's right nice. And I'll take care of her. Can we give her a chance?"

"Everybody deserves a chance." He reached for the clean shirt, put it on, and started buttoning. "I'm about starved. Left Josie at her mama's for a while. Got anything to eat?"

"Sure. Got fresh coffee brewing, too. The Confederates drank all the other."

"Confederates?" He stopped in his tracks to stare at me. "They were
here?
And you didn't tell me?"

"Well, I
meant
to, David. First thing. But then with the dog and all, well, other things just got in the way."

"Yeah, I guess other things got in the way," he said.

"But I'll tell you all about it, soon's we get inside," I promised.

"Yeah," he said, eyeing me steadily, "soon's we get inside."

Thank heaven, Marvelous had his breakfast all ready for him, eggs and ham and reheated biscuits, coffee, and a few other things she had managed to resurrect and make like new again. The sight and smell of it becalmed and soothed him while I told the story of what had happened.