The Storm Before Atlanta (28 page)

“That’s enough of that, Jack,” said Nicholas.

“He’s a spy! Shoot him already!” someone called from behind Jeremy.

“Remember the Hell-Hole!”

“But what was he doing?” Jeremy demanded.

Across from him, Nicholas looked at Jeremy. He pursed his lips and shook his head, once. Jeremy understood. Don’t say anything, that was what he understood. Charlie was going to be shot, and Nicholas was not going to tell anybody that Jeremy knew Charlie. None of Jeremy’s messmates were going to tell, except possibly Jack. Charlie himself wasn’t going to tell. He’d pretended not to see Jeremy. Jack actually hadn’t seen Jeremy yet.

Jeremy shut his mouth as tightly as Nicholas across from him was demonstrating.

But Jeremy had spoken, and so Jack looked at him now. He gave Jeremy the kind of smile that he reserved for times of special cruelty. “I think he was sneaking into the camp to visit somebody, Jeremy. Durned if I know who.”

“If we’re going to shoot him let’s do it already,” said Dave loudly. Nicholas glared at him and Dave looked at the ground, ashamed. He’d said it to save Jeremy from Jack, Jeremy realized. And earned Nicholas’s displeasure, which for Dave had to be about the worst thing in the world.

“Maybe we should ask him who he was coming to visit,” said Jack, still smiling.

“I wasn’t coming to visit anybody. I was coming to surrender. I do surrender,” said Charlie. “Do you kill men who are surrendering?”

“Why not? The Rebs do,” said a voice somewhere behind Jeremy.

“We kill
spies
,” said someone else.

“Enough already! Somebody shoot him!”

There were cries of agreement.

Jeremy gulped. Nearly everyone around him was armed. In a minute or so somebody was going to shoot Charlie. Maybe sooner. Maybe several people. The crowd was pressed tight all around, and it was likely Charlie wouldn’t be the only person killed once the firing started.

Jeremy took a deep breath.

“He was coming to see me,” he said.

Dave gasped. Nicholas winced. Charlie looked at Jeremy, and then away, quickly.

Well, he’d done it. And now he was probably going to die. But he couldn’t let his friend be shot right here in front of him no matter what side he was on. Not without saying anything. That wasn’t being a hero—the Drummer Boy of Shiloh wouldn’t have understood it. If he had ever existed. But there it was.

“He was coming to visit me because he’s my friend,” said Jeremy. “Not because he’s a spy. He isn’t. He’s been my friend since before Resaca. Since we came into Georgia.”

Dave put his hand to his head in despair.

Nicholas said, “Shut up, Jeremy.”

“Anyway, everybody else does it,” said Jeremy. He looked at Nicholas as he said it. Nicholas shook his head and scowled. Not because he didn’t want Jeremy to give him away. Because he didn’t want Jeremy to give
himself
away. But it was too late to stop now.

“His name’s Charlie,” said Jeremy. “Or at least I think it is. Charlie Jackson.” He looked at Charlie. “Why do you call yourself Charlie Jackson?”

He bit his tongue as soon as he said it. He hadn’t meant to admit in front of this hostile crowd that Charlie was lying about his name. Probably. Maybe.

Charlie smiled at him. “What are you going on about, young fella? I don’t know you from Adam.”

“Yes, you do,” said Jeremy.

Jack was grinning as if he’d never expected to see such a good show.

“Your name’s Charlie Jackson and you were at a military school and they brought military-school boys in to be drill sergeants to train rebel troops and then you wouldn’t go back to school and then you …” Jeremy trailed off. According to Dave’s story, Charlie Jackson had died at Shiloh.

“And then I what?” said Charlie.

“I don’t know,” said Jeremy. The Charlie standing in front of him was clearly not dead. Yet.

An odd thing had happened to the shape of the crowd. Jeremy had somehow ended up in the middle of it, next to Charlie and Jack, and angry men surrounded all three of
them now. Angry men and one girl. Dulcie had worked her way to the center ring of the crowd.

“That Reb hasn’t been to any military school,” said Dulcie.

“How do you know?” said Charlie, still sounding amused. Jeremy wondered if Charlie was as terrified underneath as Jeremy was.

“Because military schools are for the better sort,” said Dulcie. “All schools are for the better sort. And you’re not the better sort.”

“The better sort!” someone in the crowd laughed. “As if any Reb could be the better sort.”

“I’ve studied white folks since I was this high,” said Dulcie, holding her hand about waist level. “Didn’t have any choice. And I know what you are.”

Jeremy turned to look at Charlie, who had turned brick red. Why should he care about not being the better sort? Especially at a moment like this? Jeremy wasn’t the better sort, and he’d never cared about it.

“Sounds like the little colored girl knows you too, Reb,” said Jack maliciously. “You comin’ to visit her?”

Nicholas reached over and grabbed Dulcie by the back of her dress. “You get out of here now. Nobody asked your opinion.” Then he grabbed Jeremy by the collar. “You too.” He raised his voice. “This boy does nothing but lie! I’m tired of it!”

Jeremy turned angrily to retort, but Nicholas gave him a shove that sent him into the crowd, and people stepped
aside to let him land sprawling in the mud. Before he could get up someone had grabbed him again, and he was hauled to his feet and rushed struggling and protesting through the crowd, away from Charlie and whatever was about to happen to him.

When they got clear of the crowd he saw that it was Dave, who was clutching Jeremy in one hand and Dulcie in the other and marching them both along so fast that their feet got tangled up and they would both have fallen if Dave hadn’t been holding them up.

“I hate Nicholas!” said Jeremy.

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Dave. “He’s savin’ your life.”

BLAM-BLAM. A shot, then another, so close after it they almost sounded like one.

Dave stopped in his tracks and stared back through the rain at the crowd.

Jeremy felt the shot echo through him. His legs trembled and he almost fell. The shot had not hit
him
. He almost wished it had.

He turned to run back through the rain. Dave and Dulcie each grabbed one of his arms, and he couldn’t shake or punch or kick them off. They wouldn’t let go no matter how Jeremy pulled and struggled. Through the rain he heard shouts and angry cries—he thought he heard Nicholas’s voice among the fray.

“Charlie!” Jeremy cried.

TWENTY-FOUR

T
HE TENT SMELLED OF MILDEW
. T
HE RAIN HADN
’
T
stopped for days. They were running out of morphine. Dulcie told Jeremy that Seth was stealing it. Jeremy couldn’t decide if he hated Nicholas or not. He knew that what Dave said was perfectly true and that Nicholas had only been trying to save him.

People were complicated. If there were a hundred sides to every story, there had to be a thousand sides to every person. And Jeremy needed to find a different side of Dulcie.

Only two shots had been fired from the crowd around Charlie, probably because of the rain. No one knew who had fired them. Two people had decided at once that it was time to shoot Charlie. It could have been much worse, in that tightly packed crowd. But it could have been better—Nicholas might say that not one bullet in a hundred hit a person, but both these bullets had. One had hit Jack, and both had hit Charlie.

One bullet passed through Jack’s left hand to hit Charlie in the left arm. The other had hit Charlie in the left shoulder.

“Shot in the hand, that’s nothing,” Jeremy had said.

“One of the soldiers that was shot in the hand at the Hell-Hole died,” said Dulcie.

Jeremy had only said it because Jack was making such a fuss, as if no one had ever been injured before, and just because his hand was infected now. It was
supposed
to be infected. Dulcie and Dr. Flood and Seth had all told him so.

Charlie’s wounds, oddly, were not infected. Jeremy worried about this. They were much deeper than Jack’s, especially the one in his shoulder, which still had the bullet in it, buried deep inside somewhere. Nobody had tried to take it out. Dulcie said this was because they were afraid the bullet might be too close to his heart.

“I figure they’re just waitin’ on me to die,” said Charlie, with his customary sardonic smile.

Jeremy had just finished writing a letter for Jack, who was having trouble holding a pen even in his unshot hand, for some reason. Jack and Charlie were side by side in one of the tents that had been brought for the injured. Usually the wounded were moved to the rear, but Jack wasn’t considered badly enough wounded and Charlie, of course, was a prisoner. He would have to be sent back under guard.

“Destination Elmira, I reckon,” said Charlie. “Think the prison’s as bad as they say?”

“Nah,” said Jeremy, thinking it probably was.

“You do me a favor and send me some of that hardtack, will you? I heard they don’t feed the prisoners overmuch up there.”

“All right,” said Jeremy. This was the first time he’d talked to Charlie since he’d been captured, and that was three days ago. Jeremy had been busy caring for other patients, with Seth and Dulcie. Two of the orderlies had deserted after the Hell-Hole, including one named Bill who Dulcie had apparently not liked much. There were a lot of people coming down with sickness from the constant rain.

“Send me a blanket, too. I hear us southern boys keep dyin’ from the cold up there.”

“What name should I send it to?” said Jeremy.

Charlie grinned. “Charlie Jackson’ll do fine.”

“What’s your real name?”

“Charlie Jackson.”

“Then who’s the boy who died at Shiloh?”

“Can’t two people be named Charlie Jackson?”

Jeremy didn’t answer this. He had thought that Charlie was his friend and that he could trust him. Now he didn’t know what to think.

“I’m supposed to change your bandages,” he said instead.

Beside them Jack groaned in his sleep and muttered something Jeremy didn’t catch.

“Where’d you get them bandages from?” said Charlie,
trying to see the rags Jeremy was holding without moving his head too much, because that would mean moving his shoulder, which Jeremy could tell hurt him a lot.

“Off a stiff ’un that died yesterday. Don’t worry, Dulcie rinsed ’em out.”

“No thanks. I’ll scream bloody murder if you touch me.”

“That’s what you did yesterday, Seth said.”

“Yup. It’s what I’ll do tomorrow, too. Ain’t nobody changin’ no bandages on me.”

Jeremy looked at the gray mass of bandages reaching from Charlie’s shoulder around his chest and down his left arm to the wrist. They were crusted brown with dried blood. Jeremy waved his hand at the flies that crept all over them, and the flies buzzed off and immediately landed again. “You can’t expect to get better without no doctorin’,” he said, a little too heartily because he knew people weren’t expecting Charlie to get better at all.

“Had less doctorin’ than Friend there,” said Charlie, through clenched teeth. “And look at him.” He meant Jack, who was still asleep but had gone a hot red color. Jeremy reached out and put his hand on Jack’s forehead. It felt much too warm. Jack had a high fever. Jeremy wasn’t sure if that was supposed to be part of healing, like the infection, or not.

He turned back to Charlie. “There’s nothing wrong with two fellas being named Charlie Jackson,” he said. “But you’re tellin’ me there was two military-school boys
at Shiloh, both named Charlie Jackson. And that they was both brought out of school to act as drill sergeants and wouldn’t go back.” Jeremy pursed his lips and shook his head to let Charlie know he didn’t believe a word of it.

There was silence between them for a moment, broken only by the rattle of rain on the tent and the rasp of Jack’s breathing.

“Seemed like Charlie Jackson didn’t need his name no more after Shiloh, so I took it,” said Charlie.

“Why?”

“Don’t recall now.”

This was so plainly a lie that Jeremy would have liked to call Charlie a liar right to his face, but that was a fightin’ word back in the Northwoods and Charlie was in no condition to fight. It wouldn’t be fair. Jeremy noticed there were tears in the corners of Charlie’s eyes. “I’ll get you more morphine,” he said.