Miss Katie's Rosewood (4 page)

When Robert finally returned, few realized that they had not seen him since the incident.

W
ATCH

4

T
HE FOLLOWING MORNING, AFTER MAKING SURE HIS
mother and older sister were in the care of several church ladies, and after a visit to his father in the hospital, Robert returned to the Confederate camp. He had not yet told his father what was in his mind to do. He would have to tell him eventually, but just not yet. His father needed to heal too.

His wits and emotions were a little more in control after some sleep. It had been a tearful night, but he had managed to get a few hours' rest when exhaustion overpowered his grief. By the time he awoke, his determination to find his sister's killer was slowly settling into a plan to search the camp methodically. When he visited the camp again, he took the officer's advice and kept his grandfather's Colt concealed in the large pocket of an oversized coat.

A pall of devastation hung over the parsonage all week. Parishioners came and went, doing what they could to comfort and offer support and help with daily needs. The minister returned home the next day, arm in a sling and still under the doctor's close observation. His wife remained in bed, though she was now talking and eating, ministered to by older daughter Rachel, an aunt, and more church women than it
was comfortable to have around.

Within two days the police were able to confirm that a Sergeant Damon Teague was indeed registered with the Confederate Army. Initial leads placed him in Mississippi. Robert was convinced that he was closer than that, and remained determined to locate him. Not wanting to worry his father about his activities, he confided his plan with the policeman in charge, a detective named Heyes. The policeman didn't seem to think much of it.

“Look, young man, I know you mean well,” he said. “But you're just a kid and you're still in an emotional state. You just lost your sister and we all feel bad for you. But you've got to let us do our job and not interfere with your wild schemes and theories.”

“But I'm sure he's there, Mr. Heyes.”

“
Sure
. . . how?”

“I don't know . . . a hunch.”

The policeman could not help smiling.

“Believe me,” he said, “hunches are overrated in this business. It's persistent detective work that always pays off in the end. If the guy's a soldier, we'll track him down through channels. He'll turn up.”

“Why couldn't we just go to the regimental commander and ask if Damon Teague is in his unit?”

“Because we might spook him and he'd make a break for it.”

“Then we could go after him, Mr. Heyes.”

The policeman laughed. “This isn't the Wild West, son. We don't do things with posses and lynch mobs. That's the stuff of dime novels. We do our police work slowly and carefully until all the pieces fit into place.”

“But, sir,” insisted the minister's son, “surely if he is in this regiment here, we could find out.”

“And we will find out. But the army protects its own. If we start asking questions, the commander will go to him and
ask him if he was involved. He'd deny it, then the army would back him up and we'd never get to him. They would protect him behind a wall of military secrecy. I've dealt with the army before. If your man's there, the only way to root him out is by going through proper channels and not upset the apple cart too soon.”

But Robert was not to be deterred. He continued to haunt the camp, now taking with him a large notepad and sketching pencils. He was enough of an amateur artist to make it convincing that he was using the camp as a setting for a series of drawings about soldiering life. As he wandered about the camp, with sketch pad, easel, and pencils, gradually the soldiers began to recognize him and talk to him, some even offering to pose while he drew them. He became known as “the artist”—none suspecting his identity or real motives.

Six days after the shooting, the funeral was held. His mother recovered. His father's sling was removed. Gradually the family began to return to a normalcy that would never truly be normal again. No family who has lost one of its precious ones, from whatever cause, can ever be completely whole again in this life, until that place in the next where all is healed, rejoined, and where all that has been lost is restored.

“What are you up to, young man?” asked the same officer he had seen before. “Are you the artist I've been hearing about, doing some sketches of the men?”

It was three or four days after the funeral and Robert was spending several hours a day at the army camp.

“I see . . . uh, that you're feeling better than that first day I saw you last week.”

“Yes, sir,” said Robert, forcing a smile.

“And you're not carrying that gun around anymore. You had me a little worried.”

Robert added a few strokes to the paper in front of him but did not reply.

“Mind if I have a look?” asked the officer.

“No . . . go ahead,” answered Robert.

The officer walked over and stood behind him.

“Hmm . . . not bad,” he said.

“How much longer are you going to be here, sir, if you don't mind my asking?” said Robert.

“You're not a Union spy, are you, son?” said the officer with a smile.

“No, sir,” replied Robert, also smiling.

“To tell you the truth, we don't know. We're waiting for orders from General Lee and General Early. My guess is another week or two at the most.”

Robert watched the man go. When he was out of sight, the boy picked up his things and moved on. Without drawing attention to himself, and under the cover provided by his sketch pad and easel, he was trying to systematically make his way through the camp in such a way as to be able to look over every tent and every group of soldiers within each tent. The fact that they came and went freely and drilled and had other duties throughout the day made it difficult. He knew there was no guarantee of success and that in the end he had to get lucky. But he had often heard his father say from the pulpit that luck was the opposite side of the coin of hard work. So maybe if he put in the hard work, he would eventually be rewarded with being in the right place at the right time. His father said that's how life worked—the harder you worked the more “luck” came your way.

In the middle of his sketch pad, on a page never on top nor seen by any of the soldiers who came and went looking at his work, was a sketch of the layout of the camp. It showed every tent, every temporary barricade, all the corrals and equipment and mess wagons. On it he kept track of his own thoughts and observations. He referred to it many times a day and marked out his own movements accordingly.

As he went about he watched . . . and listened . . . and waited.

B
Y THE
S
TREAM
B
ANK

5

M
IDWAY THROUGH HIS FIFTH DAY PRETENDING TO
be an artist, young Robert's patience at last paid off. He was a little ways away from the camp, sketching a man trying to train a horse—which wasn't easy since they kept moving—when suddenly behind him he heard the words,

“All I've got to say is, long live Corporeal Jacob's beef stew!”

Then followed the sound of two or three men laughing.

“You're right, Sergeant,” said another. “The last unit I was with had an old boy as cook who must have been seventy and didn't know the difference between a chicken leg and a mutton chop.”

“You think that's bad . . . down in Mississippi we had a fellow who put the leftover oatmeal in the bottom of the coffeepot—said it added character!”

But the listener hardly heard any of this. The words
long live
had gone off in his ears like a gong. They had an eerily familiar ring. It was not only the words . . . he was sure he also recognized the voice!

Quivering, he hurriedly glanced behind him. But he was only in time to see the backs of three men as they walked into
a tent forty or fifty feet away. He had not been able to get a look at any of their faces.

He crept toward the tent as the three men disappeared inside. But little was visible through the open flap.

He couldn't afford to look too conspicuous or call attention to himself. He backed away, returned to his easel, flipped up the pages to his drawing of the camp, and marked the tent.

Too agitated to make a convincing appearance of trying to concentrate on his work, he picked up his things and started wandering about, thinking what to do next.

He glanced back every few seconds, keeping the tent in view from a distance.

Several minutes later one of the three soldiers reemerged. He wore a hat, the shadow from the small bill in the late afternoon's sun partially obscuring his face.

He had a feeling it was the man he had heard with his
long live the stew
comment. But he couldn't tell.

Maybe it was the hat that was throwing him. He had not thought about it until this moment. But as he recalled that day in the church, at the first sounds of commotion as the man had stormed in, he had turned around in the pew where he sat with the rest of his family . . . yes, the memory was suddenly clear—the man who had run in
hadn't
been wearing an army hat. His hair was waving about as he ran.

No wonder he hadn't been able to spot him yet. It was impossible to separate the face he had seen from the long hair.

Nothing eventful happened the rest of the day. It was late. Dusk had already begun to fall. He went home eagerly anticipating the next morning and already trying to scheme a way to get close enough to see the man's face clearly, hopefully
without
his hat.

He arrived early, hoping to catch the men in the process of washing and getting dressed in the informality of early morning.

He wandered about, eyeing the man's tent in the distance.
He hoped that no one would notice that he seemed to be doing more staring than drawing. But he was so near the end of his search, he couldn't stop now.

The smell of coffee and bacon was in the air. Several men in his vicinity headed toward the nearby stream in their undershirts. Unfortunately they were all wearing their hats. He followed from a safe distance. The men reached the stream. Others slowly joined them. Some drank, some doused their faces and heads, others took off their hats and shirts and doused their entire heads and shoulders and torsos and made a mini-bath of the occasion.

As he stood watching, while most of the men's backs were turned, a voice spoke beside him.

“Not much of a scene for a painting, I wouldn't think.”

Robert turned to see the same officer he had run into several times before.

He laughed, though a little uneasily. The man had startled him.

“No, sir!” he said. “But it's all part of camp life, I suppose.”

“It hardly seems it would interest a civilian.”

“I, uh . . . thought I would try to capture some daily life like this. I've just been thinking of a few ideas to see what might be best to work with.”

“Ah, right . . . I see. But your pad is still under your arm.”

“I only got here a minute ago. I hadn't decided what kind of scene to do.”

The captain eyed him a moment longer, a hint of suspicion apparently brewing under the surface whether this young so-called artist was telling him everything. But he did not pursue it and continued to stand at his side watching the men wash.

The man was certainly inquisitive!

One of the men along the row at the stream bank took off
his hat, bent low, and completely dunked his head into the chilly water, then rose up with a wild exclamation of delight. Shaking his wet hair, he reached for the towel at his waist. Then he walked up away from the stream, eyes wide and sparkling from the exhilaration of his cold dunking.

An audible gasp escaped the lips of the minister's son.

It was him!

“What's that?” asked the man at his side.