Hear the Wind Blow (3 page)

I reached into his coat pockets reluctantly. Even though he'd told me to do it, it seemed like stealing somehow. I pulled out a dirty, ragged envelope and held it up so he could see. "Is this it?"

James Marshall nodded and held out his hand for the letter. He studied it and gave it back. "I guess the postman will be able to read my handwriting."

He watched me slide the envelope into my pants pocket. I thought he might want to sleep, but when I headed for the door, he stopped me. "Sit down, Haswell. You never did finish telling me about your father."

It seemed I hadn't distracted James Marshall after all. I settled on the quilt and tugged at that same old feather. "Papa died in Richmond while he was on guard duty. They sent his unit there after Chancellorsville—you know, to give them a rest." I paused and added, "After all the fighting he saw, he went and died of dysentery."

"Now that's a shame." James Marshall shook his head. "Your poor mama. She's got you and your sister to take care of. And a farm as well. Can't be easy for her."

"When the war's over, my brother, Avery, will come home and help me with the farm. He ran off to join the war not long after Papa died."

"Do you know where is he now?"

"He's been at Petersburg since last summer when the siege began. Every now and then he manages to send us a letter."

"From what I hear, that's a bad place to be and mighty hard to get out of. Folks there have come to eating dogs, cats, rats, just about anything."

"Avery says they eat what they can get," I muttered. "The Yankees have cut off everything. Nothing goes in, nothing goes out."

"It's a cruel war." James Marshall glanced at me. "How old is your brother?"

"Avery's sixteen, just three years older than I am."

"That's how old I was when I left home to fight with Mosby's men."

"You're with Mosby?" I stared at him with awe. John Singleton Mosby was the smartest man in Virginia, and the boldest. There was nothing he couldn't get away with. Horses, food, ammunition. Why, that man could walk right into a Northern camp and leave with whatever he fancied, and none the wiser till he was safely away.

James Marshall smiled. "Everything you hear about that wily fox is true. That's why I joined his Rangers."

"Best not tell Mama who you ride with," I said. "The Yankees hate Mosby. She's already scared of what they'll do to us if they find you here."

He nodded as if he understood. For a while we sat together quietly, listening to the wind. "The truth is, Mama doesn't care which side wins anymore," I said. "I heard her say so herself. She just wants the killing to stop. And Avery to come home safe."

James Marshall frowned. "The South is worth fighting for. Even dying for. We can't have Yankees telling us what to do. Doesn't your mama understand that?"

"Well, you know how ladies are. They don't appreciate the art of war." I pulled so hard at the feather it came out of the quilt. Mama would have slapped my hand if she'd seen what I'd done. Good thing she was still rattling pans in the kitchen and fussing at Rachel.

"Least that's what Papa said," I went on. "He tried and tried to explain old-time heroes like Achilles and Alexander the Great and Horatio, but Mama wasn't interested in their deeds. She said the world doesn't need any more heroes. According to her, we'd all be better off if men stayed home and minded their own patch."

James Marshall smiled at that and so did I, for it was funny to picture the heroes of history plowing fields or hoeing gardens, living to be old and gray. A man didn't win fame and glory that way.

"Do you know your Homer?" James Marshall asked.

I nodded. "Papa was a scholarly man. He read the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
to Avery and me. Then when I got smarter, I read them myself. Avery, too. In fact, the two of us used to act out battle scenes. Avery always got to be Achilles because he was older and his name started with
A.
I had to be Hector.
H
for Hector, you know. Avery got to kill me every single time."

James Marshall coughed to clear his throat. "Do you recall what Achilles said before he went into battle?"

I nodded. "He knew he'd die if he fought; it was his destiny. But he decided he'd rather die a hero in battle than live out his life and die safe in his bed."

James Marshall nodded. "Heroes' names are remembered forever," he added, "but an old man's name is soon forgotten."

Mama had come upstairs while we were talking. James Marshall didn't see her, but I did. From the look on her face, I knew she hated what we were saying.

"If you aim to have a long life, you should be resting, James Marshall," Mama said sternly. "Not talking your fool head off."

"Now, now, Mrs. Magruder, I was paraphrasing Homer himself, a man we all esteem."

"Try reading your Bible instead," Mama said. "Ecclesiastes, for instance. 'For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.'"

Before James Marshall could come up with a rejoinder, Mama stuck a spoonful of her medicine into his mouth. That silenced him from giving his opinion of dead lions and living dogs. But I knew he didn't agree with Ecclesiastes. Or Mama, either.

As for myself, I wasn't sure. I wanted to believe in the glory of war, but so far all I'd seen was soldiers burning farms and stealing food from folks who needed it just as badly as they did. Maybe you had to be in the actual fighting to see what Homer saw. Papa hadn't said much about his experiences, but I was certain Avery would have plenty to tell me.

"Don't just stand there dreaming, Haswell," Mama said. "Go on downstairs and do something useful. Shovel a path to the barn." She didn't sound cross. Just firm. But as I left the room, I heard her mutter, "Damn Homer and his foolishness."

I'd never heard Mama say damn anything so I figured she must be angrier than I'd realized.

***

The wind had dropped and the snow lay thick and white over the fields, carved into banks and drifts and hollows. The sun stood at the top of the blue sky, shining so bright it dazzled my eyes. Lord, it was a pretty sight. But it didn't make the shoveling any easier.

When I went into the barn to tend the cow and Warrior, I could scarcely see. Snow-blind, I guessed. The horse raised his head and whinnied, as if to say he wanted his oats and he wanted them now. I fed him and visited with him a while.

"Don't worry. Your master's on the mend already," I told him. "He'll be down to see you in no time."

Warrior seemed to understand every word I spoke. I'd never known a horse to look so intelligent. I reckoned he was the equal of Alexander the Great's noble steed Bucephalus in looks as well as brains.

By the time I returned to the house with a bucket of milk, Mama was busy kneading bread and Rachel was drawing pictures on the steamy kitchen windows. The air smelled as sweet as a field of mown wheat on a hot summer day.

I stamped my feet to warm them and rubbed my hands together. "How's James Marshall?"

"Sleeping," Mama said. "His wound is healing nicely. Wasn't near as bad as it looked. His fever's down, too. I believe what he needed most was warmth and nourishment and sleep."

That was good news. I had half a mind to sneak up and take a peek at him. If he was awake, I planned to ask him what getting shot was like, and had he been scared, and did he ever have a chance to sit down next to Mosby and talk to him close up. But the second I put my foot on the step, Mama shook her head.

"Leave the poor boy alone, Haswell. Didn't I just say rest is what he needs?"

"Yes, ma'am." I headed for the parlor to find a book to read, but Rachel got there first.

"Read to me, Haswell." She thrust
Great Expectations
at me. Papa was very fond of Mr. Dickens and had acquired most of his books, including this one, the very latest. He'd managed to find a copy in Richmond and brought it home for Christmas. He'd read the entire book to us, sitting by the fire on cold winter nights.

It was simpler to read to Rachel than argue with her, so I took the book and began at the beginning, even though we both knew the story almost by heart. Pip's meeting with the convict in the foggy graveyard always gave me the shivers. Sometimes I lay awake wondering what I'd do if I ever experienced a moment like that.

"'Hold your noise!'" I read. "'Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!'"

I did my best to speak with expression the way Papa did, but I couldn't make the convict's voice sound as gruff as he could.

"A fearful man," I read on, "all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.

"'O! Don't cut my throat, sir,' I pleaded in terror."

Now I pitched my voice higher, imitating poor scared Pip. Beside me, Rachel listened hard. You'd think she'd never heard the story before.

"The convict sounds like a Yankee," she whispered. "They'd just as soon cut our throats as not."

"That would hush a person, wouldn't it?"

Rachel didn't catch my meaning. "What will we do if they come here searching for James Marshall, Haswell?"

"They won't."

"But what if they do?"

"Do you want to hear Mr. Dickens or fret about Yankees?"

Rachel leaned up against me. "Read, Haswell."

So the afternoon passed. While we followed Pip's adventures, the sky darkened slowly. Soon it was time to feed Warrior and milk the cow.

When my chores were done, I took a bowl of soup to James Marshall. He was sitting up in bed looking a world better, but his eyes had dark shadows and his skin was still white as milk that's had the cream skimmed off.

"Tell me about getting shot in the raid," I said.

He shrugged. "Not much to tell, Haswell." He spooned soup into his mouth.

"That's all right," I said. "Tell it anyway. Papa never would say a thing about fighting."

"Maybe he had cause not to." James Marshall glanced at me and went on eating the soup.

"But is it like Homer tells it? Full of blood and noise and heads rolling on the ground?"

"Yes, I guess it is."

"And glory? And heroes?"

James Marshall put his soup spoon down and stared at me. "Haswell, I didn't see much glory. Plenty of blood, plenty of noise, plenty of heads rolling on the ground. But not much glory."

"But heroes? There were heroes?"

"Yes, I did see heroes." He stirred his soup slowly, lifting the spoon and watching the liquid slop back into the bowl. "But most of them died."

I sighed. "Like Achilles."

"Yes," James Marshall agreed. "Short lives full of bravery."

"But you still haven't told me how you got wounded," I reminded him.

"We raided a Yankee camp and stole some horses. Just as we were leaving, three Yankees came riding up. We pretended to be Yankees ourselves and called out friendly greetings. We would have fooled them entirely if that poor fool Peter Jenks hadn't lost his nerve and fired off a shot. Next thing, they were shooting and we were shooting. They killed Peter and wounded William Pickens and me. I don't know what happened to William. I rode one way, and he must have gone another."

"I wish I could go with you when you leave here," I blurted out. "I'm thirteen—that's old enough to ride with you."

"Take my word for it, Haswell, a boy your age is better off at home." James Marshall finished the last of his soup and handed me the empty bowl. "Your mama needs you more than Mosby does."

It wasn't the answer I'd hoped to hear, but James Marshall was through talking. He lay back and closed his eyes.

I sat and watched him sleep. Sometimes he looked agitated, as if he were dreaming something bad. He ground his teeth, which made an awful noise. Once in a while he'd moan or groan. Then he'd thrash around, as if he were trying to escape from something. I wondered if he was getting any rest at all.

***

When I went to bed that night, I lit my candle and studied James Marshall's envelope. It was addressed to Mr. Cecil Montgomery Marshall, River View, Harrisonburg, Virginia. I wanted to open it and read the letter, but I knew that would be wrong. I put it back into my pants pocket and prayed the Lord would spare James Marshall's life so I would not have to send the letter to his father.

A
WEEK PASSED
. By the end of it, James Marshall was up on his feet and tottering around the house, growing stronger every day. Mama fussed over him as if he were her son. She wanted him to stay till spring, and in truth he seemed in no hurry to depart. For one thing, the weather was still bad. Snow and sleet and ice storms made the roads almost impassable. No news came our way, no letters, no visits. Mosby could have been lying low in the Blue Ridge or stealing supplies from Yankee trains toward the East. It didn't make sense for James Marshall to ride off in search of the Rangers. They didn't call John Singleton Mosby the Gray Ghost for nothing.

During those dreary winter days and nights, James Marshall did his best to amuse. He teased Mama and made her laugh, something she hadn't done since Avery departed to win glory in battle. He pulled Rachel's braids and got away with it. That amazed me, for Rachel was not one to tolerate pranks. I suppose he won her heart by reading to her whenever she asked. He obliged me by telling amazing stories of Mosby's exploits. Soon we all looked upon him as a member of our family, a long-lost cousin who'd come to stay with us.

One stormy night, we were huddled around the stove listening to James Marshall tell of the time Mosby kidnapped a Yankee general out of his bed with Federals all over the place. They took a bunch of soldiers prisoner, stole fifty-eight horses as well, and got away without losing a single Ranger. He told the story so well Mama laughed, which gladdened my heart.

"How about a song, Mrs. Magruder?" James Marshall asked.