The Black Country (21 page)

A
NDERSONVILLE
P
RISON
,
C
ONFEDERATE
G
EORGIA
, 1865

T
he dead wagon rolled out through the high gates of the Andersonville stockade. Calvin Campbell was in the bed of the wagon, jostled about along with four other prisoners. Cal was the only one of them still breathing. Shallow breaths through his mouth because the dead men had begun to ripen in the hot Georgia sun. One of the men had open sores on his arms and his throat, and Cal watched maggots writhe in and out of the wounds, slimed pink with blood over their pearly whiteness. He gagged and closed his eyes, concentrated on keeping his gorge down.

After what seemed to Cal like most of the day, but couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes or so, the wagon stopped and the bodies were pulled out, one at a time. He listened to them thunk into the ground like so much meat. The man next to him, the maggot farm, was second to last out of the wagon. Some of the larvae were left behind, wriggling blindly on the bare planks. They would burn to a crisp in the sun and be buried under the day’s bread rations before long.

Cal felt a hand close over his ankle, and then he was being dragged the length of the wagon’s bed. He braced himself for impact with the ground, but another hand grabbed his other ankle, and then someone had his wrists and he was being hoisted through the air. He risked opening an eye and looked up. One of the men carrying him was Richard Devine, a friendly fellow who had taken Cal’s shebang and his tattered clothing in trade for helping him hide in the wagon that morning. Devine saw him looking and gave him a slight curt nod. Cal glanced at the second man, but didn’t know him. A friend of Devine’s, he supposed. They carried him to the trench, the same trench where Joe and Duane rested, and they heaved him up and through the air. He felt himself start to tense and forced his naked body to go limp. His arms and legs flopped and he clenched his jaw despite himself, anticipating the coming impact. His shoulder hit the side of the trench and he bounced away, landed solidly atop a mound of skin and bone and mud. He was glad the trench was nearly full and he wasn’t one of the first to be thrown in a grave. A new trench would be much deeper, and the fall might actually kill him. His shoulder felt bruised, but nothing seemed to be broken.

He laid still and listened, and after a few minutes he heard the wagon roll away. Far in the distance, he could hear soldiers laughing and birds calling. He heard a cricket chirping somewhere close by. He realized he was holding his breath and he let it out all at once. He had made it. He was outside the walls and he hadn’t been discovered.

He took a fresh breath and immediately vomited into his beard. He felt the warm liquid run across his chest and down his arm.

The trench was full of a week’s worth of dead bodies. Hundreds of them. And he would have to wait here among them until dark. At least ten hours. Once the sun went down, he would need to climb out of this hole and make it to the river without being seen. He tried to vomit again, but there was nothing left in his stomach. He hoped he would get used to the stench, but it seemed unlikely. The air was so thick he could see it, like a poisonous fog that crept across the top of the trench, thick wet tendrils, searching him out. Cal took another shallow breath through his mouth and passed out.

—

Grey Eyes dropped his cigar and ground it under his boot heel. He listened to the night: the river burbling below him, crickets chirping nearby, and a bat squeaking somewhere in the woods ten yards away from him. He squinted at the dark tree line and then up at the moon. It was a sliver, barely enough to light the way down to the water.

He rested the barrel of his rifle against a river birch and unbuttoned the fly of his standard-issue grey uniform trousers. A moment later he felt the release of pressure in his bladder and he sighed.

Four feet to his left the water erupted, and Grey Eyes turned as something huge, a dark shape against the darker sky, moved toward him up the riverbank. He let go of himself, letting urine stream down his leg as he reached for his rifle, but the shape was on him too fast and he felt rough hands grab him and spin him off balance. The other man—it was clearly a man—pulled Grey Eyes backward toward him, one hand against the guard’s forehead, pinning the back of his head against the other man’s chest. Grey Eyes reached across his body for the knife on his belt, but the other man already had it.

Dry lips rasped against Grey Eyes’s ear, and a low voice whispered, “This is for Joe Poole, you cold-eyed bastard.”

Before Grey Eyes could call out, he felt the tip of the knife puncture the thin flesh of his right cheek. He felt warm liquid flow down his jaw and he grabbed for the other man’s arm as the knife was dragged across his face. There was a split second of resistance and a slight pop and his lower lip fell free and slapped against his chin. There was a flash of blinding pain and Grey Eyes saw bright pinpricks of light. The other man let go of him, and Grey Eyes sank to his knees and toppled forward into the river with a splash. He heard footsteps in the grass, someone running for the tree line, and he wondered whether his attacker had kept his knife. It had been a gift from his father when Grey Eyes had joined the Confederate Army two years ago. It occurred to him that he might never see his father again. Darkness washed over him and he began to sink into it, but then he felt cold river water flowing over and through the wound in his cheek and the pain abated enough that he regained his senses. He rose slowly, fighting the pull of the current, and crawled up onto the bank. The pain in his cheek returned, but he used the pain to help him focus. A prisoner had escaped, had meant to slit his throat, but had missed. Had the knife gone in two or three inches lower, Grey Eyes knew he would be dead.

He moved forward, one hand held out in front of him, until he found the river birch. His rifle was still there. The other man hadn’t seen it in the dark. Grey Eyes smiled and nearly passed out from the pain. He would have to remember not to smile again until his cheek healed. He rose to his feet, dripping river water and blood, picked up his rifle, and walked to the tree line.

He paused there and looked back at Andersonville. Once he stepped into the trees, Grey Eyes knew that he would be counted AWOL. The army didn’t have the men to pursue him, but it went against his grain to abandon his post. It was a matter of honor. His father hadn’t raised a quitter. That was one more thing his unseen attacker would have to answer for when Grey Eyes found him.

The thing to do would be to go back to camp and raise the alarm, muster a force to search the woods. But that would take time, and the man in the dark might get away.

Grey Eyes shouldered his rifle and slipped quietly into the woods. He would find that other man, even if it took him the rest of the night.

Hell, even if it took the rest of his life.

W
EST
B
ROMWICH
, T
HE
M
IDLANDS
, 1871

The girl could not have been older than seventeen, and so Cal tried to ignore her. But she had come to the pub every night for the past week, and every night he had been there, too, at the same table in the corner, nursing his whiskey. It was evident that he had caught her eye because she had passed by his table several times every evening, and each time she passed, she lingered a bit longer in front of him, swirled her skirts a bit higher, and batted her long lashes in his direction. He supposed he stood out as a stranger in the village, something new and perhaps even exotic, and he felt certain it was time to move on. She was a pretty girl, but he preferred to keep to himself. She was too young for him and likely to want something lasting, besides.

Cal Campbell had not stayed in the same place for longer than a month in the last six years. He had struck out north from Andersonville, begging and borrowing food and clothing, stealing when he had to, and had booked passage on a British supply freighter as a deckhand.

He had landed in Liverpool and made his way to Maidenkirk, staying long enough to assure his family that he was alive and reasonably well. His father had given him a purse containing two hundred pounds and suggested that Cal move on. He understood. He was practically an American now, an embarrassment to his father.

At the train depot in Dumfries he had seen a man from a distance. The man’s teeth had been visible through his cheek, and there was something familiar about him. He wanted to get close enough to see that man’s eyes, to see the color of them, and when he realized that he expected them to be grey, he knew he had been followed.

Grey Eyes, the terrible guard from Andersonville, was alive. He was alive and he had followed Cal all the way from America.

Cal had hopped the first train going south and had changed trains three times that first day. He had been careful not to leave a trail and had watched behind him at every station. Grey Eyes was conspicuous and Cal didn’t think the guard could surprise him, but if he had followed him this far he would not easily give up. Still, Cal could lead him on a merry chase.

By the time Cal arrived in West Bromwich, he had lost track of the number of cities he’d lived in. The Black Country village was just another stop in the peripatetic life he now led. He planned to stay there for a week, perhaps two, then move on again. He wouldn’t stay anywhere long enough to give the grey-eyed American a chance to find him.

But the girl was interesting.

On the third night the girl made a play for his attention, he smiled at her. He hadn’t meant to. He couldn’t help himself. He immediately stood and left the pub, but he returned the next night.

And the next night.

Tonight he pretended not to notice the girl, but he saw her smile, trying to catch his attention, and he knew she was the only reason he was still in that village. He thought of Joe Poole and his friend’s ready smile and finally he began to understand that he was lonely. He had worked so hard to avoid human connections, to avoid anything that might make him weak or vulnerable, that he had neglected the small part of himself that still craved the company of others.

He knew he should move on, leave West Bromwich and never look back.

Instead, he stood and went to the girl and bowed.

“My name,” he said, “is Calvin.”

“It’s good to meet you, Calvin,” she said. “My name is Hester.”

W
hat did he say?” Campbell said. “I can’t hear him.”

“He said he’s found the boy,” Hammersmith said.

“Oliver? He’s found Oliver down there?” The Scotsman looked stricken. He was panting, still out of breath after emerging from the midst of the blizzard just seconds earlier. There was a small gathering of men around the well. The blizzard had caused the seam to be shut down for the day, and some of the miners and their families had come out to see why one of the strangers was shouting down into the village well. Word had apparently spread, despite the storm, and the throng was growing. Hammersmith had said very little to any of them, but as more people were drawn to the spectacle, the first arrivals filled them in on the situation. Aside from these short murmured conversations, the villagers had been silent, riveted to the sound of Day’s distant voice. Hammersmith saw one of the miners reach out to pat Campbell on the back, as if comforting him.

“He’s mistaken,” Campbell said. “He must be. It’s dark down there. He doesn’t know what he’s found.”

“I hope you’re right,” Hammersmith said. Several of the other men mumbled in agreement. Nobody wanted Oliver Price to be at the bottom of the well. “Quiet,” Hammersmith said. “He’s talking.”

The crowd went silent and Hammersmith leaned far over the well’s lip, listening. He felt Campbell take hold of the back of his overcoat, steadying him, and Hammersmith grabbed the posts on either side of the well as insurance in case the bird-watcher intended to push him in.

“I didn’t hear you!” Hammersmith turned his head so that his right ear was out of the wind and concentrated on Day’s answering voice. The inspector sounded so far away that he might have been in the next village over. Hammersmith felt Campbell shift his weight behind him.

“Did he say anything more?” Campbell said. “What’s he saying?”

“He can’t climb back up,” Hammersmith said. “He’s hurt his shoulder and can’t carry the boy back up here.”

“Tell him to sit on the bucket and loop the rope around his waist. We’ll pull him up,” Campbell said.

“That’s not very steady. If he falls off the bucket, the rope could slip upward and strangle him,” Hammersmith said.

Campbell shook his head. He seemed impatient, less interested in Day’s safety than in what he’d found down there. “Then tell him to make a noose, a big loop of some kind, and get it up under his arms.”

“Sir!” Hammersmith bellowed into the darkness. “Tie the rope around you! Somehow! Do it so that you’re comfortable and so it will bear your weight!”

Hammersmith waited. He straightened up and looked around him. There were perhaps twenty villagers around the well now. Most of them men, but there were three women. Hammersmith guessed that their children had all been left safe and warm inside their homes. Everyone looked grim and anxious. And cold. Campbell was shivering. He was the only person there who wasn’t wearing a coat or a hat, or even a jacket. He must have come out in a hurry.

Hammersmith heard a faint echo and leaned back over the top of the well. He listened for a moment and then grabbed the rope and began to pull at the knot. He shouted over his shoulder, “He’s ready! Let’s pull him up!”

Campbell stepped forward and gently moved Hammersmith back out of the way, then took the length of rope from him. The other villagers stayed where they were, watching the giant Scotsman. Campbell loosened the bowline knot that Hammersmith had tied earlier and pulled the rope through the wooden pulley block until it was taut. Then he hauled the line up, hand over hand, more quickly than any three men could have moved together, the muscles in his massive arms and shoulders rippling with the effort. Hammersmith could hear the rope zinging through the pulley and could see steam from the friction rising in the cold air. It had taken Inspector Day a half an hour to get to the bottom of the well, with gravity on his side. It took Campbell five minutes to bring him back up.

Day was dripping wet, the back of his overcoat in tatters and his gloves hanging torn and useless from his wrists. Calvin Campbell took one look at what Day was holding in his arms and turned and disappeared into the storm. Hammersmith heard his muffled footsteps in the snow, running fast back toward the church. Hammersmith briefly considered following him, but instead he went to Day and helped his inspector back to solid ground where two village women were ready with a blanket for him.

Nobody looked at Oliver Price and nobody spoke a word, but the third woman of the group took the tiny body from Day and carried it away into the storm.