Hear the Wind Blow (20 page)

But for once my fears were wasted. Ranger stood where I'd left him, quietly cropping weeds. He raised his head when he heard me and pawed the ground. I thanked the Lord for keeping Ranger safe and hugged the horse tight.

A few minutes later I called to Avery, who seemed to be asleep in the grass. He sat up with effort and stared at me. "Where the devil did you get that horse, Haswell?"

"It's a long story," I said. "But he's a fine animal, isn't he? I call him Ranger, after Mosby's men."

With a boost from me, Avery tried to climb on Ranger's back. It was a real struggle for both of us. Avery was weak but taller than I was, and he seemed to have lost his coordination. His legs flopped, he slid this way and that, landing on the grass more than once. Ranger bore it well. Maybe he thought it was a new game.

When Avery was finally in place, too exhausted to say a word, I led the horse down the road at a slow pace. I didn't want Avery to fall off. We'd used up a lot of our strength getting him in the saddle.

Sometime in the afternoon, we saw two soldiers ahead, Confederates making their way home like us. When they stopped to rest, we caught up with them. One was named Sykes, a stretched-out, reedy fellow with a deathly pale face. The other's name was Phillips. He was as short and stout as his friend was tall and thin. They made an odd pair, limping along together.

Phillips eyed Ranger. "That's a mighty fine horse," he said.

"Yes, indeed he is," Sykes agreed. "You're fortunate to have him."

It always made me uneasy when people overly admired my horse. I drew closer to him and rested my hand lightly on his neck.

"Don't worry, son," Sykes said. "We don't aim to steal him. We're just two old soldiers hoping to get home afore we die."

"Keep us company for a while," Phillips suggested.

Soon the pair was telling Avery about their battles. "We fought at Cold Harbor," Sykes said.

Avery shuddered. "That's one I'm glad to have missed."

"Wish we'd missed it, too," said Phillips.

"Before that, we was at the Wilderness and Spotsylvania," Sykes told us. "Thought we'd seen bad fighting there, but Cold Harbor—" He broke off and coughed, a loose nasty sound that called Otis Hicks to mind.

"They just kept on coming," Phillips went on, "those crazy Feds, and we just kept shooting them. Waves and waves of them. The North must have a powerful lot of men to throw them away like that."

"Petersburg wasn't any picnic," Avery put in. "Nor was what came after."

"I hear you ate rats, bats, crows," Phillips said.

"You'd be surprised at what a person will eat when he's starving," Avery said.

"You heard Lee's orders?" Sykes asked.

"He surrendered," Avery said. "I know that much."

Sykes nodded. "He dismissed the army yesterday and told us to go to our homes and resume our occupations. He said we're to obey the law and become as good citizens as we were soldiers."

"From what I see," Phillips muttered, "there ain't no homes to return to, let alone occupations." For emphasis, he waved his arm at the burned farmhouse and unplanted fields to our left.

"I was told I was a good soldier for killing so many of the enemy." Sykes laughed. If a dead man could laugh he'd make the same sound. "You think Lee means I should go on shooting Yankees?"

"Fool." Phillips laughed and clapped his friend on the back, causing Sykes to start coughing again. "Ain't it great? With all he's been through, he ain't lost his sense of humor."

We walked on, conversing about the war. I was glad to see Avery sitting up straighter and taking notice, even talking a bit more than before.

By nightfall the four of us were fast friends. We built a campfire in the ruins of an old stone house and shared what little food we had. Dry cornbread, water, and a little chicory to make coffee. As usual, my belly felt emptier after I ate than before.

When the night turned chilly, we rolled up in our ratty old blankets. The men's talk turned to their homes, to wives and sweethearts and little children. Phillips was a married man, and he missed his wife and babies. Sykes had a pretty girl waiting for him down in Roanoke. Avery admitted he'd had his eye on a girl back home named Mary Alice Love, which was news to me, but he'd never had chance to do much courting. Just as he was working up the courage to kiss her, Papa had died, and he had run off to join the army.

"She'll be there when you get home," Sykes opined.

"Plenty of time for kissing then," Phillips put in with a laugh.

"With any luck a'tall, you'll find a preacher and a church still standing," Sykes added. "Why, this time next year you'll be a married man with a baby on the way."

I wanted to say something about Polly, but I was too bashful. Two kisses didn't count for much, I reckoned.

Gradually the men's voices faded. Sykes commenced to snore. Avery tossed and turned and muttered. Phillips ground his teeth. But I was too worried to sleep. I'd been counting on Avery for so long, and here he was lying beside me at last—a wreck of his former self, hollow-eyed, limping, too weak to work a farm. I truly hadn't expected him to be so changed.

The night turned colder. I curled up under my blanket in hope of finding warmth in my own breath, but the ground was cold and hard and damp. I couldn't find any comfort. Not in my body and not in my mind.

S
OMETIME BEFORE NOON
Sykes and Phillips left us to follow their own road home. Avery and I continued on toward Winchester. The roads were crowded with weary soldiers trudging home to farms and towns. Now and then we joined a group and traded stories. With some we shared campfires and food, sleeping together on the cold ground.

Once we stood on a muddy road in the rain waiting for a train full of Yankee troops to pass by. Most ignored us, but some leaned out the windows and jeered. We flung back insults as best we could, but they had the advantage of us. For one thing, they were dry. And they weren't walking to some far place like Indiana or Minnesota. No, the federal government was taking care of its own. We Southerners had to get home as best we could. For most of us that meant on foot.

One night when hunger kept Avery and me from sleeping, he asked me to tell him how Mama had died. It was hard telling that story, for I relived everything I spoke of. I saw the Yankees burst in upon us, and I watched Mama go upstairs with Captain Powell. I heard the pistol fire. I saw James Marshall's dead body hanging from the tree and heard the sound it made when I cut the rope and it fell to the ground. I went through Mama's sickness and death all over again.

"Mama killed a man?" Avery asked when I'd finished speaking. "Lord Almighty, Haswell, I can't imagine Mama with a gun in her hand, let alone pulling the trigger."

He began crying then, and I held him tight, doing my best to comfort him. Neither of us slept much that night.

Somehow we got ourselves up in the morning and kept going toward Winchester. By now most of the soldiers had taken different routes home and the roads weren't as crowded as they had been. Often folks would offer us eggs or bread or water. They always apologized for not having more. Then they'd ask if we'd seen their sons or husbands, their cousins, their friends.

"I'm hoping for word of my boy, Thomas Stone Noble," one might say. "He was in in the Army of Northern Virginia, Regiment B, Company Twelve. Tall, dark hair, real quiet but a good shot."

"You ain't run into Jefferson Tewkesbury, have you?" another might ask. "I ain't heard from him since Petersburg fell."

"My daddy was fighting with General Longstreet's men," a boy might tell us. "I'm hoping to see him come along any day now."

But there was never a name that Avery recognized. He'd sigh and shake his head.

"The Northern Virginia was a big army," he'd say. "I don't recall meeting a man by that name. But that doesn't mean anything. Just wait and pray. Some have a long journey home."

We'd go on our way, hoping their loved ones would soon return but knowing full well many of them were lying in shallow graves near the battlefields where they'd fallen.

As the days passed, I kept a close watch on Avery. He seemed to be recovering some of his strength, but he still complained of his head aching. He'd thrown his dirty bandage away, and I could see the saber's raw red line scoring his forehead from temple to temple. It looked as if the soldier wielding that saber had tried to slice the top of Avery's head off, the way you'd open a hard-boiled egg. It pained me to look at it.

Besides his head hurting, Avery was so stiff in the morning he needed me to help him stand up. He still asked for a boost onto Ranger's back, and he slept most of the day in the saddle, swaying back and forth like a drunkard.

Sometimes I'd catch him staring off into the distance, his eyes unfocused. I'd call his name and he wouldn't hear. It was as if his spirit had departed, leaving his body as slack as an empty grain sack. After giving him a shake, I could usually bring him back, but it worried me. What did he see? Where was he? If I asked him, he'd look at me blankly and shake his head. "What are you talking about, Haswell?"

That was as far as I could get with him.

On what must have been the ninth or tenth day, we came to a crossroads. The land looked familiar. The Blue Ridge Mountains were straight ahead, close enough now to see a green flush spreading across their slopes, softening the stark browns and grays of winter trees. Unplanted fields lay to the left and right.

I studied a weatherworn sign, tipped to one side but still standing. If we kept going straight, we'd be in Winchester by dark. I could scarcely believe we were so close to the end of our journey. With nothing but a sigh from Avery, I turned Ranger's head toward our uncle's home.

A
FTER A LONG, WEARY WHILE
Avery and I entered Winchester. It was dusk on a chilly May evening. The sky threatened rain. Some of the war damage was hidden by weeds, vines, and shrubs coming into leaf, but here and there fireplaces and chimneys rose from blackened ruins.

A pair of men in Yankee uniforms strolled around a corner three blocks away. They were talking and laughing, but they were armed with rifles. The sight of them froze me in my tracks.

Avery looked down at me from Ranger's back. "What's troubling you, Haswell? You act as if we'd never seen Yankees before."

I tightened my grip on Ranger's reins. "Maybe I'm still wanted for horse theft. They could arrest me, put me in jail, hang me."

Avery sighed. "They're turning the corner, Haswell. I don't believe they have the slightest interest in either one of us."

Filled with misgivings, I made myself go on toward Uncle Cornelius's house. We passed raggedy people huddled around campfires in the ruins of their homes. A baby cried loudly in its sister's arms. The girl was no older than Rachel and hadn't the slightest idea how to hush the poor thing. The more she rocked it, the harder it cried. It was almost as if that little baby knew it had picked a bad time to be born.

When we reached Uncle Cornelius's street, I peered through the gloom, praying the house was still there. Now that I was this close, I was seized with a fear my family would be gone, driven away by war or sickness or death. What if I never saw Rachel again?

But my fears were for naught. The lawn was in worse condition than before, sprouting weeds and nettles and puddled with muddy water, but the house looked much the same.

After I took Ranger to the stable, Avery and I climbed the sagging steps to the front door. I lifted the tarnished brass ring in the lion's mouth and let it fall with a loud thud.

While we waited for a response, I noticed the door showed new scars of war. Chips, dents, smears of mud, what might have been bullet marks.

After knocking three or four times, we finally heard faltering footsteps approaching. "Who's there?" a voice called.

"Aunt," I called, "it's Haswell. Please open the door."

"Haswell!" Rachel shouted and noisily undid several bolts before flinging the door wide. She rushed out ahead of the aunts, but instead of giving us a warm welcome, she stopped short and stared past me at Avery. "Who's that man, Haswell? Why is he with you?"

"Why, that's Avery," I said. "Don't you remember your own brother?"

Rachel looked at Avery and shook her head. "Don't lie to me, Haswell. That's not Avery."

Avery stepped forward so the light from the hall chandelier illuminated his face. "I am most certainly Avery. Don't you know me?"

Rachel drew closer to me. "He doesn't look a bit like Avery."

I took her shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Lord, Rachel, mind your manners. He's been in the war all this time, with nothing to eat, sleeping in mud, fighting."

"What's that big red mark on his forehead?" Rachel stared at Avery's wound, clearly fascinated. She hadn't heard a word I'd said.

"A Yankee slashed him with his sword," I told her.

"Almost killed him."

"It's true," Avery put in. "If I'd been any taller, he would have sliced my head clean off."

Rachel sucked in her breath and studied Avery more closely. He stood there patiently waiting for her to recognize him. At last she took a cautious step forward, then another. When he opened his arms, she ran into them. "Oh, Avery, Avery, of course it's you, of course it is." She hugged him so fiercely he tottered and grabbed the bannister to keep himself from falling.

The aunts rushed forward to hug Avery, too. While they exclaimed over his thinness, Rachel turned to me, her face flushed with anger. "It's about time you came back, Haswell Magruder. Why did you go off without me? It's been dreadful living here, just plain dreadful."

"I'm sorry, Rachel, truly I am." I gave her a hug, which I believe startled her, as I wasn't one to show much affection. "I missed you something terrible."

"You did?" Rachel had the look of a person struggling between belief and disbelief.

"Honest." I crossed my heart. It was more of an exaggeration than an outright lie, for I had missed Rachel, especially when I was alone or sick or scared. Other times I'd been too busy surviving to think of anyone else, including my family. But at the moment I was happier to see my sister than I'd believed possible in the old days.