Spake As a Dragon (47 page)

“
Wait,” said the Captain,
“go down two streets and turn right, the hospital is at the end of
the street. Good day to you also Sir.”

The sign on the corner of Main Street
reads Hospital Way, Luke and Nate turn right and head down the
street. A few hundred yards ahead is a large, white, three-story
building. As they ride closer, they can see the flag of the United
States on the right of the door and a large flag with the word
‘Hospital’ lettered on the left.

Hitching their mounts Luke walks
inside to find a Union Sergeant sitting at a desk in the narrow
hallway. Approaching Luke asks, “Sergeant, we have come from South
Carolina seeking information on my father. We were told it was
possible he was here sometime in the spring of last year, maybe
March or April. We are merely trying to find out what happened to
him.”

The Sergeant replaces the pen in the
inkwell, folds the paper he is working on, opens a drawer and files
away the slip of paper. “He a Reb or Union? From your looks and
accent, I’d say Reb.”

“
Yes Sergeant, he was a
Confederate. He had been a prisoner at Point Lookout. We are merely
trying to find out what happened to him. Does that make a
difference to you.”

“
Naw son, jest makes a
difference in which ledger I look in. What was your Pa’s
name?”

“
Sergeant Robert Steven
Scarburg, of the 48
^th
Alabama Infantry.”

“
P,’ ‘Q,’ ‘R,’ oh yes,
here we are the ‘S’s”, he uses his index finger and goes down the
list turning pages as he searches. Luke is beginning to think this
trip has all been in vain. He looks at Nate, rolls his eyes as
though his father’s name is not going to be found.

“
Ah, yeah, here he is:
‘Scarburg, R. S., Sergeant, 48
^th
Alabama. Stayed with us
up ‘till the fall or ’65, then he took the Oath of Allegiance to
the Union and was released to go home.”

“
Does that book say when
Sergeant?”

“
Sure does, he left here
on the 7
^th
day of September 1865. That’s all I got
boys.”

“
Where did he go
Sergeant?”

“
Don’t know men, home I
suppose, but once their butts pass that door, we ain’t got no more
responsibility for them.”

Standing outside next to the hitching
rails, “Nate, I noticed a saloon on Main Street before we came down
here. How about we go up there and getting us something to drink
and eat? I think we could use a good hot meal for a change. We
might even get a shave and a bath. Then maybe we can figure out
what our next move will be.”

‘
REBEL’S ROOST’

Once back on Main Street Luke can see
he missed a few saloons, in fact, it seems there are as many
drinking establishments as there are other stores. Then it hit him
City Point is a military town. Military towns have soldiers, and
soldiers have money, and they like to spend this money on drinking,
gambling and wild women. Most military towns aim to please and this
one is no different. Obviously this street is ‘

Luke notices one saloon with the name
‘Rebel’s Roost.’
“That might be the place for old Confed’s
to hang out, let’s try it,” Luke says to Nate.

Pushing open the two doors that keep
the wind out, Luke and Nate walk through a pair of swinging doors
into a large dimly lit room. The room was dark owing to the paint
on the front windows, the one on the left was painted green with
the word
“Saloon”
and the one on the right reads
“Free
Lunch.”
A big, black, pot-bellied stove stands in the far right
corner of the room. A candle lit chandelier, in the shape of a
large, wagon wheel, hangs from the center of the ceiling. A
handsome, shiny, mahogany bar occupies the back wall. The remainder
of the room is filled with green, felt covered, gambling tables.
The air in the room has a stifling aroma of tobacco and cigar
smoke, stale beer and a couple of other smells Luke really doesn’t
what to find out what they are.

Luke and Nate slowly walk toward the
bar. The silver spurs that Luke had taken off the outlaw a long
time ago jingles as he walks. He places his boot on the brass rail
running the bars entire length. The spur glistens like a new silver
dollar. He reaches for two glasses. The barkeep that had been
watching their every move since arriving is wiping down a glass
with the end of his apron, an apron that appears to need a good
cleaning itself. Holding the shot glass up to the light from the
chandelier as tho’ he were inspecting it for its cleanliness asks,
“What’ll you have?”

“
Well, we’d like you to
fill these two glasses with a couple shots of that Red Eye, then
baths, shaves and a couple of thick steaks. Cook ’em just enough
that we can still hear the bull’s bellow.”

“
I can fix you up with all
these things mister, but we ain’t gonna serve the likes of him,”
referring to Nate. “We don’t coddle to no darkies in
here.”

“
What you talking about
friend, this man ain’t no darkie he’s an Indian. Granted a dark
Indian, but an Indian no less, do you coddle to
Indians?”

“
Well yeah... Indians are
okay I reckon... if they can pay, but...”

“
No buts about it, get my
Indian friend and me those things I asked for,” Luke said pitching
a gold piece on the bar.

The metal clink of the gold coin is
still ringing when the barkeep asks, “You been a fighting man
Mister?”

“
Shore enough, fought with
General Bobby Lee. Got myself captured during Pickett’s Charge at
Gettysburg, was on the way to Point Lookout, Maryland and I
escaped. Hooked up with General John Hunt Morgan until his whole
outfit was captured then I ran off again. By then the War was about
over.”

“
Say you’s wuz at
Gettysburg huh? Can you prove it? What’s yer name and what wuz your
unit?”

“
Nah, the only thing I got
is this scar on my forehead where a Minnie-ball bounced off a rock
at the Hornet’s Nest and sliced me up pretty good. My name is Luke
Scarburg; I fought with the 48
^th
Alabama Infantry. They
captured me standing on that rock wall on top of Cemetery
Ridge.”

“
That ain’t no proof, yer
old woman could of hit you with a frying pan!”

“
Yeah, you’re right
barkeep, but I was there, done that, seen enough men, good men,
mangled and dead - don’t have to prove it to you or nobody,
understand,” Luke said bumping the shiny mahogany bar with the butt
of his .44. “Take my word or you can kiss my a....”

“
Let ’em be Bull,” a man
sitting at one of the tables in a location too dark to see the
man’s face. “This here is the one and only Luke Scarburg, and sure
enough he was with us at Gettysburg.”

The fellow stands up from the table
and begins to walk toward Luke.

“
Do I know you Mister?
Luke asks. “What’s your name? I can’t see you very
well.”

“
That’s okay Luke, I know
all about you. Actually I served at Gettysburg with your father
Sergeant Robert Scarburg. I heered him talk about you and that
brother of yours...what’s his name...?”

“
Matthew?”

“
Yeah, that’s it, Matthew,
like I said I’ve heered him talk so much about his family I got to
thinking I almost knew you myself. Bull get Luke and
his...his...Indian friend a couple of glasses and bring a bottle of
Red Eye over to my table. Reaching the table the stranger sticks
out his hand, “I’m C.J. Cox, me and your father was together at
Point Lookout.”

“
Howdy,” said Luke shaking
his hand, “this here is my friend Nate.”

Bull the barkeep is leaving the table
as Luke nervously asks, “C.J., is there anything you can tell me
about my father? He along with my brother Matthew and I all
enlisted back in the spring of ’62, but Mother has never received a
post from him. Was he injured too badly to write, I was with him at
Gettysburg the day he got stabbed by that Yankee bayonet. I
wouldn’t have thought that would have affected his writing arm
though.”

Sliding up close to the table C.J.
leaned over and explained, “Most of the fellers in this saloon are
Rebs, but one or two may not be, so with them Yanks winning the
War, us Rebs have to be careful what we say. Ye know history is
always writ in favor of the winning side.”

“
Go ahead C.J. tell me
what you know.”

Looking around from side to side as
though he though someone might be listening C.J. began, “Point
Lookout was a cesspool. The living conditions were terrible, the
food, what there was of it, wasn’t fit for the hogs. And the
Commandant, Adams was his name, was one of the worst. It was as
though he had a burr under his saddle. He was sadistic. If it
hadn’t been fer his grandpa being a President a while back, they’d
have hung him from the nearest oak tree. His second in charge
Sergeant Samuel O. Belue was just as bad. We had a name for the
Sergeant, we called him, not to his face of course, S.O.B., ‘cept
we used the real words. You see that was Blue’s initials, and about
yer Pa’s posting letters. He was sending them every week or so.
More since he got that job working with Blue – they had paper to
write on.”

“
Very ingenious with old
Belue’s initials, S.O.B., I like that.”

“
Not much to do in them
prisoner camps Luke must get some fun when we could. Now back to
Robert – he got picked to work with Blue in the Commandant’s office
‘cause Robert could read and write in a nice hand.

Well, one day Robert was telling Blue
if the burial gang had more food they could work harder. Robert had
Blue convinced, but that dastardly Commandant overheard them
talking and thought Blue and Robert was scheming up something.
Actually I heard the thing that set the Commandant off was Robert
saying to Blue that the Commandant could be court-martialed after
the War fer mistreatin’ us prisoners. Anyhow, Blue was transferred
to an infantry outfit and Robert was taken out of the Commandant’s
office and put on permanent burial detail.”

“
C.J., this is all real
interesting, but get to the part about what happened to my
father.”

“
I am Luke, I am. Well,
the food didn’t get any better, in fact, it got worse and poor old
Robert’s health kept droppin’ lower and lower. There fer a while he
couldn’t even git outta bed and go to the grub house. Ever now and
then I would slip him a morsel or so. He lasted until the
spring...”

“
Hold on C.J., are you
getting ready to tell me Father died!”

“
Heck no Luke, just you
wait. As I said, spring brought the end of the War. Me and Robert
got paroled at the same time. The talk in the prison was once you
got discharged a river steamer would take us down river to Norfolk,
Virginny, ‘cept when that discharge day come Robert was so sick
they sent him up the river to this hospital here in City Point. I
volunteered to come with him ‘cause he couldn’t even walk by his
self.”

“
T.J. I’m following you,
but Nate and I have just come from the hospital and the Sergeant at
the front desk said Father was let go back in September of last
year. What happened to him?”

“
Well, you see Luke,
Robert was laid up in that hospital for a pretty long spell, course
I would go check on him from time to time, and by-ned I couldn’t
hardly believe it – he begin to get better. Finally, one day I
visited and he got up and walked across the room. One of them
orderly’s told me Robert wuz suffering from
malmunition.”

“
Malmunition...? Huh, oh
malnutrition? Father was suffering from malnutrition?”

“
Yeah! Yeah, that’s the
word ‘malmunition.’ The hospital man said Robert didn’t have enough
to eat while he wuz in that stockade. Man, wuz that ever
true.”

“
Okay, C.J. go
on.”

“
Wells, it come that final
release day. Your father had to take that old Oath of Alliance or
whatever and then he walked out of that hospital. In the meantime I
had picked up a small job working in this here ‘
Rebels
Roost
,’ sweeping and cleaning up and all. Bull, the barkeep,
has a small room out back that he lets me stay in, I brought Robert
up here and hes been livin’ with me all these months.”

Jumping up from the table Luke grabs
C.J. by the arm, “Take me to him C.J., please I want to see
him.”

“
Be glad to,” answered
C.J., “but he ain’t here!”

“
What do you mean he ain’t
here, where is he?”

“
Hold yer horses, and I’ll
tell yer. Robert had picked up a few small jobs around town and
saved practically ever penny, well he got his self one of them
steamer boat tickets and sailed off down the river. He said he
never could get back to Alabama walking. He was aim to put in at
Norfolk catch another boat down to Charles Town, South Carolinny
and try to make his way over to his brother’s place at a town
called... Scars...Char...”

“
Scarlettsville?”

“
Yeah, that’s it. You jest
missed him – he’s been gone pertneer a week now. I sure am goin’ to
miss that old coot. Funny thing though...”

“
A week? Nate did you hear
that – a week! We missed him by just a week!”