The Warriors (21 page)

“You mean you’re going to tear up the highway?”

“No, this road is adequate. However—”

“Roadwork isn’t all you’re doing!” Catherine exclaimed, pointing to the cornfield. “You’re stealing livestock from civilians too!”

Poppel acknowledged guilt with a blush and bob of his head. The sharp-chinned lieutenant turned to her, eyes flinty. “What we do is our business.”

Poppel held up a hand. “Lieutenant Stock means we are under orders to forage according to our requirements.”

The lieutenant refused to be silenced. “This your property, woman?”

“Would I be down here if it weren’t?”

“Show a little more respect, if you please,” the lieutenant snapped, taking two swift strides to the fence. He reached across, caught Catherine’s upraised arm—her hand was still on the bell rope—and jerked it down against the top rail of the fence.

The rope danced. The bell pealed. The lieutenant levered Catherine’s arm down harder. “Else we’ll teach you how.”

“Stock!” Poppel exclaimed as Catherine’s body twisted. She was in pain, but she didn’t cry out.

Captain Poppel moved too slowly to get between his lieutenant and Catherine.
So this is what we’re going to be up against?
Jeremiah thought bitterly, bending down fast to reach the top of his boot. He hadn’t forgiven Catherine for her remarks about Serena. But she was still a woman.

“Secesh there—he’s got a knife!” the sergeant cried.

The lantern began to swing wildly as the man retreated. Jeremiah’s hand streaked up, the knife flashing light from pitted steel. Two long steps and he was at the fence.

His left hand shot out like a hook to catch the startled lieutenant by the back of the neck. The lieutenant’s grip broke. Catherine scrambled away.

Jeremiah jerked the lieutenant forward. Off balance, the man fell, the side of his head slamming the rail. Jeremiah held the man’s head against the rail with one hand, and with the other slid the edge of the knife against Stock’s throat.

“You’ve mauled Mrs. Rose the first and last time.” His voice was soft, but his mouth had set in that thin, cruel line.

Bent at the waist, the lieutenant tried to free his revolver with his right hand.

“Go on, get the gun!” Jeremiah whispered. He dug the knife-edge deeper.
“What’s holding you?”

A thread of blood began to trickle toward Lieutenant Stock’s collar. There were alarmed exclamations from the ranks. Jeremiah was aware of a blue barrel aimed at his head. Then a dozen more.

“They fire,” he warned Poppel, “your man’s done.”

Stock and the captain realized he meant it. Stock’s hand dropped away from his holster. His eyes watered.

“Madam,” Poppel exclaimed to Catherine, “beg your son not to provoke this kind of trouble!”

“He’s not my son—” she began.

“Shoot the fucking Secesh!” a soldier shouted. Other men yelled agreement.

Sweating, Jeremiah held the knife steady against Stock’s quivering throat. “Yes, feel free,” he told Poppel. “I guarantee you’ll lose one engineer. It’s up to you.”

“
NO FIRING!” POPPEL EXCLAIMED
, facing the road. “That is an order!” He spun to Jeremiah. “Let him go.”

“So your boys can pick me off? No, thank you.”

Poppel swabbed his face with his sleeve. “What do you want?”

“Your promise,” Jeremiah answered. “Not to touch this woman again. Not to harm this property or anyone on it.”

“We intend to camp on your land tonight—” Poppel began.

“Inside the gate,” Jeremiah said with a jerk of his head. “Under the trees. Nowhere else.”

“Captain,” Stock panted, “don’t take orders from a goddamn
boy!”

“This is my responsibility—not yours,” Poppel replied. A nervous flick of his eyes toward Jeremiah. His tongue crept over his perspiring upper lip. Then he nodded.

“All right. Stock should not have mistreated her. I agree to the terms. We will camp on your land but will not intrude on your privacy. In the morning we will move on. We’ll require provisions, however. Corn. Pigs.”

“We’re supposed to surrender our food just because you say so?” Catherine blazed.

Captain Poppel pointed at the ranks of men. Jeremiah saw the blue muzzles still poised. Saw hostile faces behind them. A nervous finger could blow him away—

“These are hungry men. We take nothing our orders prohibit us from taking. I will make certain no property is harmed. But I insist on provisions. And,” he added to Jeremiah, “that knife.”

Suddenly the strain wrenched his face. “Trust me! Else one of those men is liable to shoot you down.”

“Can I rely on your word?” Jeremiah asked, searching the captain’s face.

“On my word, and on this.”

Poppel drew his own revolver. To his soldiers, he said, “After the young man gives me the knife, the first one who moves against him or the woman, I shoot. Now put the rifles down.”

Grumbles, low cursing.

“Put them down!”

Slowly, the blue muzzles lowered. Jeremiah studied Poppel again, trying to assess the man’s honesty. He thought he could trust him. It was a risk, but the alternative was far less attractive. Wounded or killed, he’d be no use to Catherine and Serena.

“Now let him go,” Poppel said.

Jeremiah released the lieutenant’s head and pulled the edge of the knife away from his bleeding throat.

The lieutenant’s eyes were murderous. But before his fingers reached the butt of his revolver, Poppel cocked his.

“Hands down, Stock. We struck a bargain.”

Stock fumed. Poppel extended his other hand.

“The knife now, young man.”

He wanted to believe Poppel was decent, not lying. Catherine’s expression seemed to urge him to cooperate. “I promise you will not be harmed!” Poppel cried.

“We”—Catherine’s voice sounded unsteady—“we’ll rely on this officer’s word, Jeremiah. Give him the knife.”

He dropped the blade into Poppel’s palm and stepped back. The captain exhaled loudly, relieved. His gun remained centered on a button on Lieutenant Stock’s blouse.

“Very good. Form up the men, Stock.” When the lieutenant hesitated, Poppel roared,
“Go!”

Stock swabbed his neck with a bandana, pivoted, and stalked toward the grumbling soldiers.

“You wait till we leave!” a soldier shouted at Jeremiah and Catherine. “You’ll be rooting around in ashes!”

Red-faced, Poppel whirled. “Be quiet! We do not burn private property.”

“Then”—Catherine pointed shakily toward the heavy forest to the left—“who fired the Jesperson farm?”

“Not my soldiers,” Poppel replied. “With one or two exceptions, these are decent men. They have wives. Families. Homes of their own. I personally guarantee their good conduct. Unfortunately I cannot guarantee the manner in which this entire campaign is being waged. There
are
some units that act without restraint. However, mine is not one. Now may we come onto your land?”

Catherine sighed. “All right.”

Poppel bobbed his head again, crisply. “We will camp under those trees. No one will enter the house except myself and my sergeant. I am required to search the premises for concealed arms and ammunition.”

Out by the men, Stock shouted, “If that Secesh boy says different, we’ll blow his damned head off.”

The statement was meant more for the troops than Jeremiah. Shouts of agreement in German greeted it. Poppel whirled again, angry. The noise faded while Jeremiah stood with his hands clenched, hoping he hadn’t gambled wrongly.

Catherine’s eyes begged him for restraint. He decided threats couldn’t really hurt him. What mattered was the captain’s ability to exert his authority and enforce his pledge; there seemed no lack of such ability. The Dutchmen were all avoiding Poppel’s fierce eyes.

Catherine stood back from the gate.

“Open it for them, Jeremiah.”

Some of Jeremiah’s tension drained away. In reply to Catherine’s instruction, the captain murmured, “Thank you, madam.”

Jeremiah reached for the pin. Despite Judge Claypool’s reports of devastation and Poppel’s remarks about disorderly troops, perhaps a little hope was justified after all. If men like Poppel proved to be in the majority, maybe the Yank march across Georgia might not be so savage and disgraceful as rumor said it was.

He and Catherine stood back while a still-fuming Lieutenant Stock led the first soldiers into the lane.

Others followed quickly, spreading out beneath the oaks on either side. Poppel still had his revolver drawn as he waited beside Catherine and Jeremiah, alert to any signs of disobedience. There were sullen looks, angry remarks in German. But no attempted violence. Poppel’s assertiveness and decency had taken the heat out of the situation. Under the trees, some of the soldiers were actually laughing.

The last of the men in blue passed. The noisy blacks started to follow. Catherine whirled to the officer.

“I insist you keep the nigras off the property!”

Poppel shook his head. “I can’t do that, madam. They are free to go with us wherever they choose. However, I’ll order them not to approach the house.”

Flushed, Catherine watched the blacks going by. All at once her eyes opened wide. She recognized the yellow-skinned girl in the orange gown.

“Nanny? Nanny, why aren’t you with Mrs. Hodding in town?”

“’Cause I don’t belong to Miz Hodding no more,” the girl spat. “I belong to
me!
Linkum and Uncle Billy both say so!”

“You ran away?”

“Walked
away! I’m free now.”

“But Mrs. Hodding has no one to care for her. No one except you.”

A shrug. “Too bad.”

“Is she all right?”

The girl grinned. “Mighty fine. Last I seen her, she was sittin’ in a chair in her parlor with a nice little round hole in her forehead.”

Catherine swayed. “Oh, my God. Why?”

“She got bumptious with some of the sojers in town. Somebody took a gun an’ fixed her. Wasn’t me, but I wish it had been. Miz Hodding laid a rod on me plenty of times. She sold off my little baby boy when he only five! Wouldn’t even let me name him Franciscus like I wanted. Made me call him Robert Rhett, same as some old Secesh up in Carolina she admired. She had it comin’ to her.” The grin reappeared. “You better be careful too.”

Linking her arm with that of a laughing young buck, Nanny hurried on up the lane. Captain Poppel looked embarrassed. “There
have
been regrettable incidents.”

“Do you really regret them?” Jeremiah shot back.

“Believe it or not, young man, I do. Admittedly, some on our side don’t. Sometimes war becomes a handy excuse for behavior that otherwise would never be tolerated. Stock’s a prime example. But I doubt every man in Confederate gray is above reproach either. However, I have given my word that no such incidents will take place here. Of course, you must continue to cooperate—”

“What choice do we have?” Catherine responded in a bitter voice as the wagon creaked into the lane and the soldiers flung themselves down among the trees, yawning and chattering in their foreign tongue.

By midnight the grass under the live oaks glimmered with dozens of small lights. The Union soldiers had speared their bayonets into the ground and stuck stubs of candles in the rings.

Catherine had permitted three of Poppel’s men to take a pair of hogs from the pen, shoot them, and haul them down the lane. The dead animals had been hacked up by two of the Germans who knew something about butchering. The hogs were roasting now, on spits improvised from bayonets and branches.

The smell of roasting pork drifted up to the piazza. A couple of dozen of the plantation blacks had gathered in the driveway, awed by the sight of some of their own kind mingling freely with the Yanks. But Maum Isabella’s presence kept the watchers in line. Several times, a stern warning prevented one or two from running down to join the visitors.

Catherine had returned to her chair. Jeremiah stood nearby, tense and tired. Just as he was wondering where Serena had disappeared to, Captain Poppel and his burly sergeant approached. The sergeant waited in the drive, eyeing a couple of the black women, while Poppel moved down through the shadows cast by the lattices.

“Madam?”

“My name is Mrs. Rose. You can at least be civil enough to use it.”

“Of course. My apologies. I must trouble you for your keys.”

“Keys?”

“Yes, I’m instructed to open any locked rooms, chests, cupboards, and the like. To conduct a search for those arms I mentioned.”

“You took my knife,” Jeremiah said. “We didn’t have anything else.”

Fatigue edged Poppel’s voice with irritation. “You will permit me to make that determination.”

Catherine stood up. “I’ll get the keys for you.” She vanished inside the house.

Captain Poppel tried to be cordial to Jeremiah. “What’s your last name, young man?”

“Kent.”

“A Georgian, are you?”

“Virginian.”

“Then how is it that you’re on this plantation?”

“Mrs. Rose’s husband was my commanding officer. He was killed. When I was invalided out, I came to Rosewood to look after things.”

“Praiseworthy,” Poppel murmured. “Most men would have fled to wherever they could find safety. Where were you when you were hit?”

“Jonesboro.”

“Come now, it’s not necessary to be so curt. This is a dirty business, and I don’t like it any better than you. I did not leave my own farm to wage war on civilians. Are you the only man on the place?”

“The only white man,” Jeremiah responded, less testily.

“Well, it’s good you are here. Some of the units following us—I did not care to be explicit in front of Mrs. Rose—they are totally out of control. Men are constantly breaking ranks. Running off to loot and—and other things. Stock would do so if I permitted it. May I ask whether there are any white women besides Mrs. Rose present?”

“Her stepdaughter.”

“Is she attractive?”

“What the hell difference does that make?”

“Answer me, if you please!” Poppel erupted. “I am worn-out and not in good humor. You caused me a considerable amount of trouble down at the gate—” He drew a deep breath. “I was merely asking the question to be of help. If the young woman is good looking, and other units stop here, there could be—difficulties.”