No Spot of Ground (10 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“I would take advantage of that pause, General Poe. I would like to send a division to the Valley on this railroad you have saved us, to defeat the invaders there and strike at Washington. I would like to say, sir, that I am considering you for the command.”

An independent Shenandoah Valley command, thought Poe. A chance for glory. The same command had been the making of Stonewall.

“My division is destroyed,” Poe said. “I can’t commit them to battle.”

“Your division,” gently, “is General Pickett’s. When he recovers his health, he will return to command it. I refer to a new division, assembled with an eye to the Valley adventure.”

“I see.” Poe walked in silence for a moment, and stopped suddenly as his boots thudded against a wooden surface. He looked at it and realized it was the Starker girl’s coffin, lying alone in the rutted cornfield. Apparently it had been bounced out of the wagon during the retreat.

Glory, he thought.

The Cause was lost. He couldn’t believe in it anymore. That afternoon he’d told Moses one should fight for something noble, even if its time was gone. Now he no longer believed it. None of this was worth it.

He should have died, he thought savagely. He should have died on that last spree in Baltimore. It would have spared him all this. And perhaps spared his men, too.

If he hadn’t anticipated Grant’s maneuver, all this savagery might have been avoided. And the war would be over all that much sooner. The one chance he had to change things, to become the great man, and all he’d done was prolong the nation’s agony. Put more good men in their graves.

He thought of the lines of wounded and dying men, lying in the cornfield waiting for the morning, and he felt his heart crack. One fought for them, or nothing.

He straightened, took a breath. “I must decline the command, sir,” he said. “My health and spirits are too poor.”

Lee looked at him somberly. “You may wish to reconsider, General. It’s been a hard day.”

“I want to stay with my men, sir,” Poe said.

Lee was silent for a long time. “I will speak to you again on this matter, General Poe,” he said. He began walking back toward the raven standard. Poe followed.

“Your divison shall be spared further fighting,” Lee said. “Your men will be assigned to bury the dead.”

For some reason this made Poe want to laugh. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“I thank you for your part today.”

Poe saluted. “Sir.”

Walter Taylor snapped the reins, and Lee’s buggy trotted away into the darkness.

He has left me in command of the dead, Poe thought. Sexton-general in charge of dead hopes, dead causes, dead ravens, dead verse, dead girls.

He looked at his officers, gathered under the standard for his instructions. Poe stepped to the perch and picked up Hugin’s body.

“About fifty yards out there,” he said, pointing, “there’s a dead girl in a coffin. Find some men, find a wagon, and deliver her to the graveyard in New Market.” He held out the dead raven. “Bury this poor bird with her,” he said.

“Yes, sir.”

He pulled his black cloak around him. He could hear the moans and muttering of the wounded. They were his responsibility when alive; now they were his, too, when they were in the grave.

In a quiet voice, he gave his instructions.

Above him the raven mourned, and said nothing.

The End