Crossing (43 page)

Surprised, he drew her close to him. For a short moment some shadow, perhaps of recognition, perhaps of remembrance, passed through his mind. But it was like a vapor, a mist that disappears once the light touches it.

Again he kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Don’t cry, Rena. I’d rather remember you saying good-bye with a smile.”

She drew back from him, scrubbed her eyes with her apron, and then determinedly gave him a smile. “Ride fast, fight hard, and hurry back. I’ll wait for you.”

Again Yancy had that odd flash of almost-recognition. But this was a hard day, and he had a hard ride ahead of him to enter back into a grim and harsh war. Returning her smile, he gave her a mock bow, turned, and hurried down the walk.

Lorena watched until he mounted Midnight, spurred him, and galloped up the quiet street.

In his heart, he knew she was crying and told himself it was just because she was worried about his returning to the war, but something he couldn’t quite latch on to whispered that it was much more.

Y
ancy left Richmond at dawn on September 2. On September 3, just before dawn, he stood at the entrance to General Stonewall Jackson’s headquarters tent. He had ridden about one hundred ten miles in twenty-four hours.

The tent flap was open, and Yancy could see the general inside, sitting at his camp desk, reading the Bible by the light of a single guttering candle. He looked exactly as Yancy had pictured him so often in the past two months—dusty, wrinkled, shabby, but still with that indefinable aura of strength and authority that Jackson emanated without effort.

“Sir?” Yancy called softly. “Permission to enter?”

Jackson looked up, squinting slightly, then rose and came forward without hesitation. Yancy stood at strict attention, but Jackson held out his hand and Yancy gladly shook it. “So, Sergeant Tremayne, I see you’re still alive. Glad to see it.”

“Thank you, sir. I am, too.”

Jackson turned and motioned for Yancy to follow him and sit on the camp stool opposite his desk. “I’ll have to write Anna; she’s been after me for news of you. I did hear at Chimborazo that Dr. Hayden took you home to care for you. Sounded like good news to me, though I never had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Hayden.

Friends of yours, the Haydens?”

“Yes, sir. Very good friends.”

“Good, good. Looks like they took fine care of you.”

“They did, sir. I’m ready to rejoin. I’m sorry I was away for so long. I wanted to come back as soon as I could.”

Jackson’s startling blue eyes twinkled slightly. “Missed us, did you?”

“I did, sir. It’s hard to explain. I just know I belong here.”

“That’s explanation enough for me, Sergeant. We’re glad you’re back, and I’m especially glad Midnight is back. He runs circles around even General Lee’s couriers,” Jackson said with evident relish. “I would have conscripted him while you were out, but it wouldn’t have done any good since he won’t let anyone but you ride him.”

“Sir?” Yancy said, puzzled.

“You didn’t know?” Jackson asked in surprise. “Contrary horse threw half of my aides before we figured out that he wasn’t having any rider fumbling around on his back except for you. Even Sergeant Stevens couldn’t ride him.”

Yancy’s eyes grew wide. “Midnight threw Peyton?” he blurted out; then, recovering himself somewhat, he added, “Sir?”

“Sure did. Tossed him onto a caisson and bruised his collarbone. Stevens came back to headquarters riding his own horse with Midnight tethered behind him. Said it made him nervous, that stubborn horse behind him. Felt like Midnight was planning to attack him again, from the rear, at any time. So we went ahead and sent him on to you.”

Yancy was amazed at this speech coming from the terse Stonewall Jackson. He didn’t think he’d ever heard the general say so many sentences in a row. And then he astonished Yancy again, for he threw his head back and laughed aloud in a creaky, rusty manner. Yancy couldn’t help but grin.

Stonewall seemed to have amused himself mightily, for he laughed on and on, and finally Yancy started laughing, since it was contagious. Yancy thought,
This is crazy, me and the great Stonewall Jackson sitting here laughing like the village idiot. Maybe I really did lose my mind when I got shot in the head
.

Finally, though, the madness came to an end, and with a finalchuckle, Stonewall rose. Yancy snapped to attention as Jackson said, “You look tired, Sergeant. I happen to know that Stevens’s tent is the second one down the lane there, on the right, though I don’t know how anyone could mistake it. It’s bigger than mine and usually sounds like there’s a rowdy party going on there. Go get some rest.”

“Yes, sir!” Yancy saluted then turned to leave.

But behind him he heard General Jackson say softly, “Sergeant Tremayne?”

Yancy turned back. “Yes, sir?”

“You are feeling well, are you not?”

“Yes, sir. Very well, sir. I’m ready.”

“Good, good,” he murmured his familiar refrain. He resumed his seat and put on his spectacles. “You’re going to need to be. We’re all going to need to be. Dismissed.”

Yancy gave Midnight to one of the “cubs,” very young soldiers of thirteen and fourteen that General Jackson had adamantly refused to put in the line of battle. He always had three or four of them ostensibly on his staff as “assistants.” Mostly they helped Jim with fetching and carrying and took care of the staff’s horses.

One of Yancy’s favorites, Willy Harper, was feeding apple quarters to Midnight, caressing his nose and murmuring nonsense to him. Willy reminded Yancy of Seth Glick, the young boy who had tailed after Yancy so much when he had first arrived in the community. Like Seth, Willy had red hair and freckles and a friendly grin. He was short and had a small frame. He looked even younger than his thirteen years.

As Yancy approached, Willy came to attention and saluted, and he looked like a little boy playing dress-up in a soldier’s costume. Yancy had to stifle a grin, because in Willy’s saluting hand was the last quarter of the apple. “At ease there, Private Harper.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m glad you’re back, Sergeant Tremayne. Did you get hurt bad?”

“Naw, just addled my brains a little bit,” Yancy answered, brushing one finger against the scar on his forehead. “I think they’re all back in order now. You going to take care of Midnight for me? We’ve had a long, hard ride. He needs to be brushed good, andthen I’d appreciate it if you’d wash him down, Willy. We both got pretty muddy on the road.” Yancy looked down at his new thigh-high cavalry boots regretfully. They were splattered with gloppy red mud up to the knees.

“I’ll take really good care of Midnight,” Willy promised. “And—and then, if you want me to, I’ll report to your tent and clean your boots, sir.”

Yancy started to say a stern no—after all, Willy wasn’t his body servant—but then he realized, perhaps with a wisdom beyond his years, that the boy sort of hero-worshipped him, and probably Peyton Stevens, too, and this was Willy’s way of being included with them. So Yancy answered, “That’s nice of you, Private. I am tired and I would appreciate it if you’d take care of that chore for me. And bring me an apple, too, if you’ve got an extra one.”

“Yes, sir!” Willy said, saluting.

“Carry on,” Yancy ordered.

Like the young boy that he was, Willy led Midnight off, talking a mile a minute to the horse and grinning his goofy smile.

Yancy hurried to Peyton’s tent, which indeed was unmistakable. The tent flap was open. Inside Chuckins was stirring a big pot on the camp stove; a delicious scent of stewed beef floated out of the tent. Peyton lazed on his padded cot, reading a novel with a lurid cover. Sandy Owens dozed on another cot.

“Smells good, Chuckins,” Yancy said, strolling into the tent. “Daddy come through again, Peyton?”

They all hurried to him and clapped him on the back so many times that Yancy thought he’d be sore tomorrow. After their greetings they settled down to catch up on the last two months.

“First we heard that you got shot in the head,” Chuckins said soberly. “We were sure you were dead. But then General Jackson got word about one of the doctors at Chimborazo taking you to his house to take care of you and that you’d been shot twice but not mortally.”

Yancy nodded. “True. Bullet grazed my head”—he lifted up the heavy locks of his hair to show them the scar—”and fractured my skull. Another bullet got me in the arm, but it wasn’t too bad. I’m friends with the Hayden family, and Dr. Hayden was one of the doctors working at the hospital after the battle. He decided to take me home. I must’ve been real lucky. I heard there were about fifteen thousand wounded after the Seven Days battle.”

This launched a highly detailed, technical description of the battles Yancy had missed. After several minutes of Peyton and Sandy trying to describe the fields and order of battle, the four of them sat down on the floor of the tent and began to draw in the dirt. Chuckins produced some dried beans, and they were arranged to show the different units and their placement in the battles. They started talking about the top-secret march of the Army of the Valley to flank Pope as the Army of Northern Virginia began to march north to meet him.

Peyton told Yancy, “You missed the fireworks then, boyo. Stonewall kept the march so secret he wouldn’t even tell the division chiefs where we were going. I was given one fat envelope in my courier’s bag and told to go three miles north to the first crossroads I came to and wait there. Didn’t know how long, didn’t know what for. I found out later that Stonewall told the commanders, ‘March up this road. You’ll come to a crossroads and there’ll be a courier there with orders telling you which way to go. At the next crossroads, the same.’”

Peyton grinned mischievously. “So there I sat, me and Senator, in the middle of nowhere at these unnamed crossroads. Finally, after about six hours, I heard marching and saw a cloud of red dust, and out of it came Colonel B. W. Ripley of the 35
^th
South Carolina, riding like thunder and fury. I mounted up in a hurry to meet him in the dead center of the crossroads. He came up, horse snorting and stamping, and him glaring at me with an evil eye. I handed him the dispatch. He tore it open, looked up at me, and commenced to cussing fit to turn the air blue. His command finally drew up, and he turned in the saddle and yelled, ‘That way!’ and pointed to the left-hand road. They started marching that way. The whole time they passed by he sat there and cussed me up, down, sideways, and back again.”

Through his laughter Yancy asked, “What did you do? Weren’t you mad?”

“Not really,” Peyton carelessly replied. “It was, you know, impersonal. Like watching a force of nature. I was kinda fascinated, to tell the truth. He ended it when the last troops turned up the road. It was like capping a boiling pot.
Thump
. Silence. He rode off. Kinda hated to see him go.”

Another one of the couriers, Smithson “Smitty” Gaines, suddenly stuck his head in the tent. “Oh, hi, Yancy. Glad you’re back. Y’all won’t ever guess.”

Yancy sighed. “We’re marching.”

Smitty nodded. “Yep. Cook up three days’ rations, strike the tents, and pack up tonight. We’re leaving at dawn tomorrow.” He popped out of view as abruptly as he had appeared.

“I knew it,” Yancy muttered.

“You always do, but I didn’t think even you could read Stonewall’s mind from Richmond,” Peyton said with no inkling of how close to the truth his words seemed to Yancy. “You know what, Yance? You’re looking pretty rough. Why don’t you eat some of that stew and take a rest.”

“Sounds good,” Yancy admitted. He stood up, took off his boots, and plopped down on his cot. “Except I think I’ll eat when I wake up. I’m pretty tired.”

The other three tiptoed out and pulled the tent flap shut, but Yancy could still hear his friends talking.

“I’m glad he’s back,” Sandy Owens said quietly, and Peyton agreed.

Chuckins said happily, “Me, too. I think it’s a good sign. Stonewall’s Boys are back again.”

Yancy grinned as he closed his eyes, and in just a few moments he was asleep.

If he could have, General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson would have kept their destination secret from everyone in the Army of Northern Virginia except for himself and General Lee and General Longstreet, and he had his doubts about Longstreet. But of course this was not possible. It was known to everyone in the South that on September 4, 1862, General Lee led his 40,000 battle-hardened men toward Maryland.

The first leg of the march was from the army’s headquarters in Chantilly to a small Virginia town on the Potomac, Leesburg. Yancy and Peyton were, as usual, riding with the other couriers just behind Jackson’s staff, who followed him. The staff officers kept a very loose formation behind the general. Yancy and Peyton had become favorites of the staff, as they were also obviously favorites of their general, so they often let them slowly ride up until they, too, were just behind Jackson.

As they passed through the small village, a woman standing in a doorway suddenly stiffened with recognition when she saw Jackson, her eyes wide. She ran fast, dashed into the road, and threw her scarf down in front of Jackson’s horse.