My Vicksburg (9 page)

"I must get dressed. Chip, you accompany me. Easter, you stay with the children and Robert. Keep them safe."

"Yes, ma'am," Easter said.

"The whole street," Chip was saying, "from Brown and Johnston to Crutcher's store be burnin'. Captain Beggs tryin' to get as many people as he can to put it out."

"Well, when we get there you can help, after you help me find Landon," Mama said.

I slipped into Robert's room while she was dressing in hers. "Robert," I whispered, "I'm thinking that now,
this very hour,
would be the time to spirit you out of here. With all the confusion nobody would know the difference."

He nodded. "I was thinking the same thing. But how do we make our exit?"

"Claire Louise?" Mama called. "Where are you?"

I stepped out into the hall. "I was talking to Robert, Mama. He thinks that during all this confusion is when people do a lot of looting. He says that Andy and Clothilda will likely go to the fire and answer Captain Beggs's call. Robert says he is well enough to go to our house and hold off any intruders."

Mama was lacing up her blouse in front. She came to the doorway of Robert's room. "Are you sure you're up to it, Robert? My son would never forgive me if you fainted on the way there."

"Claire Louise can accompany me, ma'am," he said. "But yes, I'm up to it. I've got my sidearm. And the house will be looted if someone isn't there to protect it."

God bless him. God bless you, Robert.

"Well, don't just stand there," Mama snapped at me, "get yourself dressed, young lady. Since when do you prance about in your nightclothes in front of a man if he isn't your brother?"

"Mama, why is everybody yelling so? They waked me up."

James now. Mama knelt down and told him about the fire and how Easter was going to stay with him here until she came right back with Landon and, if he was good, Easter might even tell him stories. Would he like that?

"I want to hear about Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox," he said.

"Claire Louise, go in the kitchen and make me up a basket of food to bring for Landon. He hasn't had any supper."

I got worried then. Things were falling into place too easily for me. I went into the kitchen and made up a basket of food for Landon and one for Robert, too, which I wrapped in a small tablecloth.

We drew the night around us as we began the walk to our house. In the west where the town was on fire, the sky was streaked with a fearful red. We were downwind from it and so we breathed in smoke and ashes floated in front of our eyes.

Robert said something to me but I don't know what. People were rushing past us, everyone going the other way. No one paid us mind. My brain was working furiously.
But Andy said his horse could never make the trip. His front leg is all bandaged. Landon attended to it. What will you do?

"Your house looks deserted," Robert said.

There it loomed, ahead of us. Its familiar form like a comforting shape ready to enfold us. But there was no one about, so we went straight to the barn. And then Robert embraced Jeffrey. The horse whinnied his hello and Robert saw the foreleg.

"What happened?" he asked.

"My brother says he'll be all right with time. Andy says he was prancing about in the field back there and stepped into a hole. But Andy also says he won't be all right for the trip."

"Then what are we doing here?" he asked.

Yes, what? But I knew. In places inside me where I hadn't gone yet, I knew.

"You'll take Jewel," I told him. And even as I said the words I felt as if I were cutting little pieces out of myself and giving them away. But there was no stopping now that I'd set my course. You can't take back words like that. The angels have already got them and have taken them away.

Then I saw the look on Robert's face and I didn't want to.

After all, we weren't playing a game here. He had to get away. Run away. There was the whole thing in a nutshell. If he didn't do it tonight, most likely he'd never have the chance again. We'd been given this chance, and if we were too dense to take it, well it was nobody's fault but our own.

I felt that if we didn't take it now, my brother might turn Robert in tomorrow. Or the day after. He soon had to report to Milliken's Bend. He didn't have too many tomorrows left, either.

None of us did.

Landon would be angry at me, of course, when he found out I'd helped Robert skedaddle. It would be, in Landon's eyes, a capital offense. The trick was not to let him know I'd helped. Lie. He'd go back to the army never knowing, perhaps to be transferred again. The army seemed obsessed with this transferring stuff.

"Do you want Jewel to take this saddle?" Robert was asking.

"Yes, and the blanket. Everything."

He smiled. "I'll lead her on foot so's you can walk next to me. People will think we're going to see the fire."

"No they won't, because we're not going in that direction. We're going by way of the stream. From there, it's a straight path to the other back paths that will take you to Jackson. Nobody but wounded and sick like you will you meet. Soldiers who have had enough and are going home."

"I'll know the way. I've ridden up there to Vicksburg before."

I gave him a half smile, but there were tears in my eyes. He smiled back as he checked the cinch of the saddle. Then he secured the bundle of food and gave Jewel a carrot.

We both noticed, at the same time then, that the shelling had stopped. The churches' bells in Vicksburg were tolling. Robert cleared his throat. "The Yankees have the decency, at least, not to shell our people when they're trying to put a fire out."

"Yes."

We looked at each other for a moment. And then we left.

We were nowhere near Washington Street, yet people continued to rush past us, carrying blankets and driving wagons and even food for those who'd been hurt in the fire. I wondered where Mama had ended up, what Lan-don was doing. Had Mrs. Rappaport had her baby?

Would Landon be back to our house in a little while to open the surgery to treat people hurt in the fire? We
must be gone from here then. I told Robert and we hurried away from the vicinity of home.

We walked down toward the stream where I'd picked blackberries. I thought of the many mornings I'd come here with Pa, the gentler times. I thought of what he'd say about all of this. It was a clear night, with stars in their appropriate places, and we walked unhurriedly now to our destination. Nobody looked at us as we passed them on the street. There were no words of friendliness. I saw two of Pa's women patients, laden with a basket of food, the father of one carrying blankets, but none even nodded at me.

We were suddenly in a world full of strangers.

"It's too bad you couldn't have taken the railroad," I said to Robert.

He grunted. "Too many officers of both armies traveling. You need identification. They'd have me in a minute."

Robert was right. He was better off staying to himself, out of sight.

"You'll take care of Jewel for me, won't you?" I tried to keep the tears out of my voice.

"Word of honor," he said. Then he gave a short, bitter laugh. "If it matters any coming from a person the whole Confederate army is looking for."

"I still think you'd be better off in civilian clothes. I could have gotten you some of Landon's back at the house."

"Thanks again, Claire Louise, but if I hang, I'd rather it not be as a spy."

We came to the ravine where the stream was. Jewel
whinnied, smelling water. Carefully we made our way down and let her drink.

I pointed out the path on the other side of the ravine that he should take, bypassing the town and all the activity around it. I gave him the directions that I'd written down. They would keep him away from the public road, on the edge of the woods, yet parallel with the Vicksburg and Jackson railroad tracks.

He looked down at me. "You're going to be quite a woman, Claire Louise," he said. "'S'matter of fact, you already are. You've grown up heaps since I've been here. Just this here act of giving me your horse is a sure sign of it. There're lots of grown-ups who wouldn't do a thing like this."

I felt myself blushing.

"After the war, whether I live through all this or not, I'd like you to make a visit to Charltonsville and come see us. That's the name of our plantation."

It also,
I thought to myself,
is your papas name, isn't it? Charlton.

"I'm going to tell my folks all about you. They'll know who you are. And they'll take good care of Jewel."

"You think you'll be caught, Robert?"

"I may have to move away," he said.

It was all getting to be too much for me. I threw my arms around Jewel's neck and said good-bye to her. She knew. Darned horse, she knew we were parting. "You're going on a mission for me," I whispered to her. "You do
good now, you all hear?" I patted her velvet nose. I kissed her. She whinnied again.

Now I didn't care about the tears in my eyes, or if Robert saw them.

He held me by the shoulders for a minute, steadying me, and then he leaned down and kissed me.

It was not a brotherly kiss as Landon would give. How can I describe what it was? It was gentle, yet intrusive. Chaste yet knowing. When he finished, he looked down at me. "You better get back," he said.

I knew I should protest. I knew if my brother were here that kiss would be sufficient for Landon to call him out. I knew I should probably slap him for being bold.

But I did nothing. I said nothing. This was good-bye.

"Claire Louise, I could love you," he said. Then he turned away. "I'll take care of Jewel," he said. "Don't worry your pretty little head about that."

And while I stood there like a jackass in the rain, he walked Jewel up the other side of the ravine and was about to disappear into the woods when he stopped again. "Thank you for this," he said. "I'll try, somehow, to get her back to you."

The last I saw of them was Jewel's white tail swishing on her golden body.

So there I was, alone in the ravine, like I was at the bottom of the world, with all the quiet in the world above me.
Quiet is nice,
I thought. I looked up for the stars, but there was only smoke, and that made me pull myself out of my reverie and decide what to do next.

I could go back to the cave. Or I could go back to the house.

I decided on the house, because I'd promised Mama that Robert and I would guard it against looters. I went up the side of the ravine and got my bearings and started home, wondering what I would do if the house was already looted. I walked home, making up lies along the way. Without Jewel I felt like I was missing my right arm. I wondered what she thought, taking Robert home. Horses think, I knew that. There were plenty of instances when I had proof that Jewel was thinking.

The house, when I got to it, was dark, no candles in the windows, no lanterns anywhere. It was downright creepy going in that front door, into the center hall. Of course I knew everything so well I could have walked
through the place blindfolded, but that wasn't the point. The point was nobody was home! And this was my home! And right now it was full of ghosts, and I wanted my family to be here like they'd been before that fool Grant and his army attacked us.

I pulled myself together. "You can allow yourself only two minutes of self-pity," Pa had said. "Then you must get on with it."

Pa. He was ailing. Ma had had a letter from him just this past week, telling her he was on his way home. No, he hadn't lost any arms or legs. He was all of a piece, but he had what they were calling camp fever, and they were sending him on home to recuperate.

Pa with camp fever! He'd never been sick a day in his life. Oh, my whole world was falling apart.

I found my way down the hall and out back to the kitchen, where I groped around for a lantern. Beside it Clothilda always kept some of Landon's matches. I managed to strike one and light the lantern. It sent a warm glow through the place. Now all I needed was one of Pa's Colt Navy revolvers.

Into Pa's study and to his gun case. There he kept his guns, not many, an old hunting rifle, a few Colt Navy handguns. As I thought it would be, the glass-enclosed case was locked.

Where was the key? Likely Mama had it hidden away somewhere. If I wanted a handgun, I'd have to break the glass. Well, if Robert and I were guarding the house, as I'd
promised we were going to do, we'd have to break the glass, wouldn't we?

I turned to Pa's desk, found a paperweight, and hit the glass with it. The sound of splintering glass is never pleasant, but in the dark, empty house it sounded sickening. I reached my left hand in for the Colt Navy, secured it, and on pulling it out, cut my hand, right above the thumb.

"Peabrain," I called myself. I set the revolver down on Pa's desk and grabbed the hem of my dress to douse the blood, but it wouldn't be doused.

I picked up the revolver again, went back into the kitchen, took up a small towel, and wrapped my hand in it. There. I'd learned something helping Landon in Pa's surgery, hadn't I?

Then I went into the front parlor, just off the main hall, and sat in a chair, the revolver in my lap, holding my throbbing hand and watching the shadows on the walls from the pine-knot torches people carried as they passed the house. And I promptly fell into a disturbed sleep.

In back of my mind I heard Mama's grandfather clock at the foot of the stairway in the hall chime out the hour. Twelve midnight. I was jerked awake. Where was I? Then I remembered and fell asleep again.

The next time I was jerked awake some people were standing over me. "Claire Louise, where's Robert?" from Landon.

"And what did you do to your hand?" from Mama.

It took me only a moment to adjust my mind to what was going on around me. I looked down at my hand. Blood had soaked through the towel and part of my skirt was red.

"Come along with me," Landon was saying.

"I'll get a clean skirt and petticoat," I heard Mama say.

"Where are we going?" I asked shakily.

"To Pa's surgery. To stitch up that hand."