The Warriors (16 page)

“What’s wrong, Serena?”

“Just wait a minute.”

“But I thought—”

“Wait
a minute!”

Fury then: “Damn it, I thought you wanted—”

“’Course I do! I want it as badly as you! Just calm down a little! I noticed the sky all at once—” She struggled to sit up. “What time is it?”

Still frustrated, he growled, “How should I know? I don’t own a watch.”

“Look over there. The sun’s down but the sky’s all red.”

He jumped up, realizing what it might mean.

He ran to the west edge of the clearing. He could see little through the pines except the seepage of scarlet light that encompassed almost half of the hidden horizon.

Jolted back to his senses, he swallowed. “Serena—” He wiped his face. “That’s not sun—that’s fire.”

“Dear God!”

She scrambled to her feet, knocking bits of weed from her skirt and raking two burrs from her red hair.

“Is it the soldiers?”

“I don’t know. We’d better hurry back.”

He was angry about the interruption. She sensed it, and raised her head to give him an almost chaste kiss on the lips.

“Yes, we’d better. I’m sorry. There’ll be times later—”

“Will there?”

“If you want it.”

No, I don’t! There’s something tangled and wrong about
—

The loveliness of her face overwhelmed him. “I do.”

He slipped his arms around her waist for one more fierce kiss. Then they set to unhitching Bess and Fred, hurriedly tying them on long tethers and forking out fodder. Finally, shoving and straining, they rolled the wagon tongue first into the brush.

They couldn’t conceal all of it. The back still jutted into the clearing. Jeremiah pulled out his knife and whacked off pine boughs to cover most of it. He smelted smoke now, drifting out of the west.

He checked the lean-to where the household items had been stored, then caught Serena’s hand and raced toward the track. They ran through the dark of the pines, stumbling in weedy patches, their faces lashed by branches not seen soon enough.

The smell of smoke grew stronger. The red glare in the night sky brightened.

As they hurried up the lane between the slave cottages, he breathed hard, pain stabbing his chest because of the long run. His bandaged leg ached. Serena clung to his arm, barely keeping pace.

He grew aware of a stir and buzz on the porches of the cottages. An infant bawled. He heard a palm strike. The baby shrieked louder. He groped for Serena’s hand and practically dragged her toward the house.

Probably not one buck, woman, or youngster was sleeping tonight. He sensed rather than saw them sitting or standing in small groups in the darkness—whispering and pointing at the glow in the west.

Twice he heard laughter. Some of the nigras weren’t frightened at all. The red sky was a signal.
Jubilee!

When he and Serena started across the rear piazza, a figure bolted from the shadows and ran at them. Serena screamed.

Jeremiah whirled her behind him—then breathed easier, recognizing Leon’s hulking shoulders.

“Marse Jeremiah?”

“Not now, Leon.”

“Yes, you got to listen! Price—he’s gone.”

“What?”

“That’s right. Nobody seen him since just after you drove off in the wagon. He must of run away when he heard the Yanks was so close.”

“We’re better off rid of him.” Serena declared.

Jeremiah gestured her silent. “Did you tell Mrs. Rose?”

Leon shook his head. “Didn’t want to upset her. Things bad enough already.”

He grimaced. “If we’re lucky, Price is on his way to the blessed freedom of Linkum land.”

“Marse Jeremiah, we ain’t that lucky. I bet he’s hidin’ out in the pines, plottin’ mischief.”

A shudder rippled across Jeremiah’s back. He tried to sound unworried. “Thank you for warning us, Leon. Come on, Serena. Hurry!”

They ran straight through the house and out to the drive, where he’d heard voices and glimpsed a spill of lamplight.

Holding the light, Maum Isabella looked surprisingly composed. So did Catherine. The same couldn’t be said for the wispy woman in faded bombazine who was seated in the hooded chaise.

The women swayed from side to side, sweaty faced and fanning herself with a kerchief. Jeremiah would have chuckled at the woman’s expression, except that he knew she was fearfully frightened.

Next to her sat a haggard Judge Claypool. Two scruffy nigras, each lugging an old portmanteau, stood immediately behind the chaise. As Jeremiah and Serena approached, Claypool exclaimed, “—not staying a moment longer!”

“Where are you going?” Catherine asked.

“Savannah. Nell has a sister there. If you have any brains, you’ll get out too.”

For a moment Catherine Rose didn’t reply. She turned slightly, acknowledging the presence of Jeremiah and her stepdaughter. Her gray, fatigue-shadowed eyes remained calm until she noticed Serena’s mussed shawl, dusty skirt, and tangled hair.

Catherine said nothing. But she gave Serena a steady, knowing look. Her face seemed to sadden, then firm again as she returned her attention to the judge. “No, Theodore. We’ll stay.”

“I swear to God, Catherine”—the old man snatched his wife’s kerchief and swabbed the perspiration glistening in the white stubble on his chin; the abrupt movement shifted his coat, revealing the holstered horse pistol—“you have no idea of how many there are. Hundreds. Thousands! All around Louisville. On foot. On horseback. In wagons—the damn wagons are loaded with stolen furniture! Why the hell does an army need furniture? I saw soldiers carrying chicken coops, others leading livestock. They’re taking everything! And some of the stragglers—why, you’ve never laid eyes on such scum!”

“Theodore,” she broke in, “this is my home, I’d rather try to defend it than leave.”

“Same thing that witless Clive Jesperson said ten minutes ago!”

“Clive Jesperson is right. If we leave, everything will be gone for certain.”

“Well, it’s your decision. But you’d better get rid of any wines and spiritous liquors because I hear the Yanks want alcohol almost as much as they want food.”

“I’ll take your advice, thank you.”

“Ought to take all of it and
get out!”

Claypool noticed Jeremiah watching him with disapproval. He blurted, “Nell’s heart isn’t strong. I’d stay, but I don’t feel it’s fair to risk—”

“We understand perfectly,” Catherine put in, saving him from humiliation. She turned to the ragged blacks. “Floyd—Andrew—you look after Judge Claypool and his wife. Go on now, Theodore. We’ll be fine.”

Finally, Mrs. Claypool spoke. “You’re foolish, Catherine. Foolish! God be merciful over your mistake.”

Claypool was almost incoherent with frustration. “Isn’t the Almighty she needs to beg for mercy—it’s General Sherman!
Giddap!”

He lashed the reins over the back of his horse, nearly tumbling his panicked wife into the drive as the chaise lurched forward and took the curve with its right wheels lifting off the fine-crushed stone. A moment later the chaise was rattling down the lane toward the highway, the two blacks with the portmanteaus running and puffing behind.

Jeremiah heard the gate open. Someone disturbed the bell rope. The bell tolled once. The mournful echo was a long time dying.

Slowly, the carriage noise faded in the broad band of darkness lying on the land. At the upper edge—treetop level—the darkness shaded from maroon to vivid scarlet. The light shifted constantly, glimmering feebly in one quarter of the sky, intensifying in another. Smoke blew, blurring the distant trees. The wind carried the stench. It came most strongly from the left, from heavy woodlands through which the highway curved torturously before breaking into the open in front of Rosewood.

“It’s the Jesperson place,” Catherine whispered. “That’s where the smoke is. Oh, poor Mr. Jesperson! He’s worked all his life to build that little patch into a decent farm.”

Jeremiah hardly heard. He was most concerned about the darkness. Unseen, the Yanks were approaching through it. Unseen, Price might be lurking in it.

With that damn gun!
he thought, feeling for one ghastly moment just as terrified as he had when he’d first climbed toward Union marksmen at Chickamauga.

O
N THE MONDAY MORNING
following Thanksgiving, hundreds of miles to the north, Gideon Kent sat cross-legged among the all but silent Confederate officers who formed a ring around the single small stove in the barracks.

During the night the weather had changed. Severe winds out of the northwest had brought snowflakes whirling down on the island the local residents called Pea Patch. The wind speared through dozens of ill-fitting joints in the boards of the shedlike structure.

The barracks had been Gideon’s home for six months. The sergeant in charge of this particular pen had lit the stove about half an hour earlier—nine thirty—after tossing in a handful of wood chips. One handful. And he’d done it smiling that unctuous smile Gideon had come to loathe.

“There, boys. Don’t say Father Abraham doesn’t care about your welfare. You’ll be cozy all day and all night too.”

A couple of officers had muttered obscene replies. But not loudly. By now, most of the inmates were well acquainted with the temperamental idiosyncrasies of Sergeant Oliver Tillotson. Staying safe in the state that passed for living was just slightly preferable to risking Tillotson’s wrath.

The sergeant was always cheerful when he dispensed items necessary for mere survival. A few stove chips or the morning’s ration of three hardtacks were presented as though he expected the prisoners to be grateful for his generosity, and by extension, that of the commandant, Brigadier General Schoepf.

Tillotson dealt harshly with complaints. Some said he patterned his behavior after the officer who controlled the island. This Gideon couldn’t verify. He’d only seen Schoepf once, from a distance, as the commandant was entering the little Gothic chapel built, ironically enough, by the so-called chain gang: murderers, thieves, and deserters from the Union army who were kept at Fort Delaware along with the Confederate prisoners. Unfortunately he saw Tillotson every day except the Sabbath.

The stove’s iron door stood wide open. Yet the heat did almost nothing to dispel the chill in the shed. Gideon’s teeth started to chatter. He clenched them. It helped a little.

He’d wakened well before daylight, vainly struggling to find warmth by readjusting his one small, worn blanket. The blanket was folded so half of it cushioned his feet and calves and the other half covered them. But the blanket, now draped over his shoulders, and the grimy overcoat and the filthy clothing beneath, couldn’t begin to restore heat to his emaciated body; not even with Tillotson’s largesse blazing inside the stove.

The thin paperbound book he was attempting to read slipped from his stiffening hands. Around him he heard the Confederate officers speaking in quiet, resigned voices. Discussing what they always discussed.

How long the war would last.

How they were unlucky enough to be captured and sent to the most feared prison in all the North.

Their loved ones.

And escape. That was a truly laughable subject.

Ridiculous rumors circulated on the island at least once a week. Most sprang from the occasional issues of
The Palmetto Flag,
a pro-Southern newspaper published up the river in Philadelphia.
The Flag
was not permissible reading for the prisoners. But they heard from certain guards that it hinted more than once that the twelve thousand Confederate inmates might break out and seize the whole river corridor.

Which twelve thousand?
Gideon usually asked himself when he heard the latest story.
Last month’s? Or this month’s?
The population of the island in the Delaware River was constantly changing. New prisoners arrived; former ones who hadn’t survived the dirt and foul food and sporadic physical abuse were flung into pits in Salem County, over on the Jersey shore. When the air was clear, a man allowed up on the dikes could look out and see gravediggers preparing new pits. The work never stopped.

In Gideon’s opinion, if the sponsors and writers of
The Palmetto Flag
wanted an insurrection, they’d have to plan and conduct it themselves. The prison population contained few men strong enough to fight anyone for longer than fifteen or twenty seconds; it required all of a man’s depleted strength and mental stability just to endure from day to day.

Growing colder, Gideon gave up trying to read. He let his eyes drift around the circle. Did the other men feel as dispirited and miserable as he?

Most looked as if they did, though there were exceptions. Two officers on the opposite side of the ring, for example. Hughes and Chatsworth. They were disliked by the rest of the inmates of the pen because both had come to Fort Delaware with an ample, and unexplained, supply of Yankee currency. No doubt they had wealthy and influential relatives in the North. In any case, the two had quickly formed an alliance.

With their money Hughes and Chatsworth could solicit extra favors from Tillotson. They bought slivers of soap they refused to share. At the moment they were playing checkers with pebbles. Their board was a section of siding marked off with charcoal. They’d paid Tillotson fifteen dollars for the piece of lumber, and made no secret of it.

The two officers sometimes rented the board to others. But the price was high. Part of the day’s rations of each man who wanted an hour’s game. There weren’t many takers—nor much cordiality toward the profiteers. Hughes and Chatsworth took turns sleeping with the board so it wouldn’t be stolen.

Near Gideon were four men much better liked. John Hunt Morgan’s brothers, one, a captain and one a colonel, were playing euchre with Cicero Coleman, late of the Eighth Kentucky Cavalry, and Hart Gibson, who’d been assistant adjutant general on John Morgan’s staff.

John Hunt Morgan was dead now; they’d heard that in October. The audacious cavalryman had raided into the North, been captured, then escaped from a prison in Columbus, Ohio, only to be shot down in a minor skirmish near Greeneville, Tennessee. Another loss of an able man that was creating a disastrous pattern for the South.