Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War (33 page)

Rope, cuff, hogtie, gag. As much as I love to see my
sweet Yank restrained, I’m so sick of Sarge’s repetitive orders,
his continual cruelties, his unending threats. It takes all my
strength to lift my gaze and meet his. Surely he can read in my
face the fear and hatred I’m feeling? The plans for escape I’ve
been making? But no. His gray eyes are as confident as usual; his
gray moustache tops another crooked smile. From his pocket he pulls
out a flask. He takes a swig and passes it to me. I take a swig and
pass it back.

“I know the Yank’s been a good bit of trouble, Ian,
but you’ll be free of him soon enough. Nelson’s company should be
here in about two days. When they arrive, we’ll march into
Lynchburg together, then, with any luck, on to Petersburg to harry
us some Yankees. Rid us of this pig before then. Nelson’s soft on
prisoners. He might object to how we’ve been keeping this boy. As
far as he needs to know, the Yankee tried to escape and had to be
shot. When our scouts inform us of Nelson’s approach, take that as
my order to lead him into the woods and end him.”

Sarge doesn’t wait for my usual show of acquiescence.
He turns and strides off, giving Drew a kick in the ribs on his
way. Drew gasps and shudders in his nest of leaves, gazing up at
me, his eyebrows pain-knit. Another few seconds, and he’s passed
out yet again.

Night’s falling. The breeze that’s patted our cheeks
all day picks up, scented with distant rain. A few petals shiver
off the sarvis and drift to the earth in a long, slow slant. The
grass beneath the tree is green. I pitch my tent between the little
sarvis and the wind. If Drew must spend the night bound outside,
the least I can do is shelter him from what elements I can.
Tomorrow night or the next, we’ll either be dead or as far from
here as luck and our weary legs will carry us.

Campfire smoke, scents of bean soup. Drew’s
unconscious, and so he remains while I free him from the unwieldy
log, while I unwrap his bloodstained feet, then wash, salve, and
bandage them. I do the same to his broad back, rubbing ointment
over the scabbed furrows and swellings. Still no sign of festering,
thank God. These scars, I know, he’ll bear the rest of his life.
Long years yet, if I have my way, long years together, night after
night sleeping side by side, my fingers stroking his scars’
tracery, remembering in heaven the hell in which we met.

If I have my way. If. Enough dreaming. Done with the
bandaging, I cuff his hands before him, shackle his ankles, and
cover him with the same damned damp wool blanket that’s been
warming him since he was captured. Leaving him curled in the
leaves, I head out. Time to begin implementing my plans for
achieving that distant heaven.

Everyone’s by the fire now, ravenous after the long
day, and so I take advantage of their bellies’ focus and the dense
dark to visit the supply tents. No extra pistols, muskets, or
knives—our supplies have never been sparser. How we’ll win this war
I don’t know—everything necessary running lower and lower, heaped
higher the losses and the lacks, our efforts shaved thinner and
thinner, like soft wood on a lathe—but I guess now I don’t care how
or if the South wins. I have a war of my own to fight and a poke to
fill. Here, cornmeal and hardtack. Here, bacon. Here, ammunition
for my pistol. Here, cartridges. Here, Minié balls for my rifle, to
supplement Mrs. Trent’s collection still hidden in my haversack.
This is duty of a deeper sort.

_

CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

_

“I
 
hear the Yank’s liable to
stay here. Going to feed the roots of Purgatory’s trees?”

George stinks. Drew’s sweat is intoxicating, George’s
nauseating. Perhaps the smell’s telltale; perhaps evil’s a chemical
compound scientists could isolate. Plus the smell of tobacco is
always there; he leaves a wake of it the way a slug does slime.

“You’re rank. Get away from me,” I snarl, dipping
bean soup into a cup.

“Dinner for your prisoner, I’m guessing? Yep, give
him a few fine last suppers. Nelson’s due here soon, I hear tell.
If you aren’t man enough to blow that boy’s brains out, I’d be glad
to lend a prayer and a hand. Or a shovel.”

I straighten up, toasting him with the steaming cup.
“You’re such a fucking cur. I’d throw this in your face, but it’d
be a damned waste of good beans. How about instead I break your
jaw? I didn’t quite finish the job before. Any rearrangement of
your face is bound to be an improvement.” How did I get so strong
and confident? What a cowering pup I used to be. Sarge would be
proud, if the context for my courage were different.

George’s jagged smile vanishes beneath a sour pursing
of lips. “Don’t try anything tonight, Ian. As sweet on the Yank as
you’ve been, I wouldn’t put it past you to plan some last-ditch
foolishness to spare him. I’ll be watching you. Sarge has given me
leave to pitch my tent near yours.”

George pours a full cup of coffee. The smile’s back.
“This is good and strong. I won’t be sleeping much tonight.” With a
wink, he strolls off.

“And neither will I,” I mutter. Coffee in one hand,
soup in the other, I return to my campsite. Clouds have covered the
stars. Thunder rumbles in the west. Drew eats greedily,
cross-legged in the leaves. When he begs for more, I fetch him
another cup of soup. Before I leave the fire, Rufus has sneaked me
a crumbly biscuit with a smear of lard and Jeremiah has pressed his
flask into my hand. Seems like everyone’s heard Drew’s doom is
near.

Other than a few sips, I leave the whiskey to Drew. I
figure it might dull the many ways his body must be hurting. And so
my bandaged boy’s belly-full and very drunk by the time I help him
to his feet. I uncuff him. I take his swollen hands in mine,
massaging the ragged flesh that days of constant restraint have
left about his wrists, rubbing blood and warmth back into him. I
lead him to the latrine-trench, then to the sarvis. He staggers
through the dark, shackles clanking. Heavily he sits at the base of
the tree, leaning forward and with some difficulty clasping his
hands behind the trunk. When I lock the metal around his wrists, he
groans. The muscles of his shoulders and arms bunch with the
strain. He leans back against the trunk and sighs.

“You got to gag me now, I guess. Uncle’s orders,
right?” Drew looks up at me, mustering a drunken grin. So calm,
helpless, and handsome, his pale face in the darkness like a wild
magnolia blossom.

“Yep,” I say. “He ordered rag and rope this time.” I
don’t need to add, after all our frank talks, that I relish how
Drew looks—downright heroic-glorious, like a conquered warrior—when
he’s half-naked, with his hands bound behind his back and a length
of rope knotted between his teeth.

“Yeah, I know. You like me like this.” He’s reading
my mind again, the clever shit. “And, uncomfortable as I am, I’m
glad to give you pleasure. But, Ian?” The grin fades. He licks his
lips, grimaces, and shifts against the tree, trying to get more
comfortable. “Can we talk first?”

The pleading in his voice floods me with aching, an
aching I can finally name. “Sure, buddy. For a while. Yes, we do
need to talk.” My throat tightens; my temples throb. What’s inside
me is like the sarvis my boy’s bound to: something deep-rooted,
nourished by black earth, rising into something high and light,
hundreds of buds bursting into white petals inside my skull.

“I didn’t torch that man’s house. I never led men. I
never got this far up the Valley, I swear. That bastard George was
lying. And what I did last fall, under Sheridan…I never led! I just
did what I was told. Do you believe me? Please believe me.”

I cup his cheek in my hand and nod. “Yes, I believe
you. Jeremiah and I laughed at George this morning when the mule
bit him. It was just his way of hurting me: to hurt you more. As
usual.”

Drew sighs. “Thank you. It means so much that you
believe me. But, Ian? I heard some of what your uncle said when he
was here before, when I was half-out on the ground. Am I gonna die
tomorrow?”

I drop to my knees beside him. There’s wet on my
cheeks suddenly. Tears, yes, but also rain. A thin rain has come to
Purgatory, sweeping out of the western hills where home and kin
wait for my return.

“Am I, Ian? Your uncle said when Nelson came…he said…
Shit, are you gonna shoot me in the woods?” Drew’s voice slurs and
cracks. “Are you…are you gonna bury me here, beneath this little
tree?”

I look around, checking for witnesses. There’s
George’s tent, only a few yards on the other side of the tree, but
the tent-flap seems to be closed, and there’s no candle glow. The
bastard’s probably back by the fire, talking nasty with his
cronies. As dark as it is, no one’s likely to see us. And so I
stroke Drew’s bushy cheek in the slow rainfall.

“If you die, I die, Drew. Let the bastards bury us
together. Listen, I’ve been stealing some supplies, and I’m going
to steal some more. I’m almost ready to get us out of here, if I
can only find a way, an opening. And I’ve studied Sarge’s maps. If
I can help you escape, will you come home with me? I think I know
how to get back home. Will you come with me? Will you let me hide
you till the war’s over?”

“You would do that?” My lips are brushing Drew’s as
he speaks; his whiskey-sweet breath spills over my face.

“Yes, buddy. I love you. I want to take you home.
You’re dressed in gray now; local folks who might see us passing
through will think you’re a Rebel too. They won’t hinder us; they
might even help us. Or, if you aren’t willing to do that, we
could—if we could find some of your Federals, I guess I could
surrender to them, and—”

“No. Then you’d be a prisoner, and they’d send you
off to a camp up north. I hear those prison camps are terrible! I
don’t want us separated. I don’t, I don’t.” Drew’s words are a blur
of intoxication and exhaustion. His lips nibble my chin, then my
cheeks. “Ian, I don’t want to die. Please save me if you can. Lead
me away from here. Take me home. Your home, my home, it don’t
matter. Just somewhere safe. I’m tired of being starved, beaten,
tied, spit and pissed on. I’m tired of being terrified. I’ll gladly
go where you lead. I’ll gladly do what you say. Just tell me what
to do. Just tell me what to do.”

In answer, I press my mouth against his. The kiss
lasts for a long time, postponing further speech. He sobs a little
against me; our tongues wrestle gently. Within the rain-moist
meadow of Drew’s body-pelt, my fingers find his nipples, his navel,
the prominent parallels of his ribs. Then I lift my lips from his
and rest my hands on his shoulders. Bound as he is, they’re taut
with tension beneath my touch. His big frame is trembling. His
skin’s filmed with cold drizzle. “Drew, just endure. All right?
Take whatever comes tomorrow—whatever pain, whatever abuse. Close
your eyes, bite down on your gag, and take it. I can’t promise you
much, other than this: soon we’ll either be leaving together or
dying together. I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure it’s the
former.”

“Just in case, will you write a letter to my family
for me? Tomorrow? Please, Ian?” Drew leans against me. “Just in
case, I need to say goodbye.”

“You bet, buddy. You speak it, I’ll write it.”

Drew’s acquiescent as usual as I stuff his mouth with
the rag and thread rough rope between his lips and around and
around his head.

“Not hurting you?” I say, finishing up with a knot in
the back.

Drew shakes his head. His long-uncut hair is
shoulder-length now. Heavy with rain, it falls over his face like a
pale veil.

“I’m leaving my tent flaps open, buddy. I’ll be
watching out for you.”

“Huhhh,” Drew grunts. Digging cloth-wrapped feet into
the dirt, he pushes himself back against the tree to take some of
the pressure off his cuffed wrists.

“You’re so beautiful,” I say, running my palm over
one gag-distended cheek. “God gave us to one another for a reason.
Do you believe me?”

“Uhhh huh.” Drew nods emphatically, then bows his
head. The rain descends in hard drops. Taking a handful of his
hair, gently I pull his head back and kiss his brow. “I love you,”
I say. Drew groans and nods. His head drops from my grasp, lolling
drunkenly. I leave him there cuffed to the sarvis, rain pounding
over his naked skin. Stretching out on the dry floor of my tent, I
keep watch, sipping coffee and fighting sleep for a long while.
He’s a pale silhouette, motionless now, sagging in his bonds, the
gleam of his face hidden behind his hair. I’m sleepy already,
already half-submerged in dream, it appears, for the slant of black
rain seems to be shifting into specks the palest of gray, drifting
around him like late snow, crystals that fleck his hair and arms,
refusing to melt. Like me, I guess: too damn ornery to let go.

_

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

_

I
 
wake with a start. Rolling
over, I grab my Bowie knife. My glasses have slipped off, so
everything’s a blur. I grope about, find them, push them on, and
peer out into the night.

No one’s there. No one’s hurting Drew. He’s asleep,
looks like, head still hanging forward, face still concealed behind
a curtain of hair. His legs are bent, spread as wide as the
shackle-chain permits, his heels dug into dirt. His lower back’s
pushed up against the sarvis trunk, his torso bent forward, his
arms angled uncomfortably, unnaturally, behind the tree.

Coffee’s woken me up, sloshing in my head and in my
bladder. I crawl out, get to my feet, step off a ways, and piss.
Sky’s cloudy still—no stars—but at least the rain has ceased.
Finished, I peer at my pocket watch. Two a.m. I check George’s
nearby tent: empty. I walk softly toward the campfire—through the
tents, past the hunched forms of company-mates snoring on the
ground beneath their blankets. There’s George, who, despite all his
previous threats, his promise to keep an eye on me, has passed out
before the fire like the drunken swine he is. I can see the drool
from here, dangling off his lip.