The Warriors (7 page)

“No, sir, I mustered in a month afterward.”

Another voice, suspicious: “Didn’t your regiment lose a flag at Gettysburg?”

“Not to my recollection.” He’d heard enough of the history of both Virginia units that had been transferred to the west to recognize the trap. “I think it was the other bunch in the Army of Tennessee. The Fifty-fourth. When I joined up, my regiment belonged to the Second Brigade, Department of Western Virginia. But we were put on the cars along with the Fifty-fourth and—”

“You detached from service?” the captain interrupted.

Jeremiah’s hands grew colder. He struggled to keep his voice level. “Yes, sir. I was invalided out at Palmetto, after General Hood left for Tennessee.”

He lifted his leg to show the bloodied bandage, even though the pain grew ferocious when he bent his knee. But maybe they’d be less suspicious than the farmer. Blood was blood. They couldn’t tell he’d gotten the wound from another of those damned old country boys who didn’t want soldiers,
any
soldiers, prowling around their property.

The last of the turkey meat had run out when he was near Milledgeville. On the outskirts of Atlanta he’d slipped into a chicken house after dark. In spite of his efforts to keep quiet, he’d roused the flock. Wakened by the squawking, the poultryman had come charging from his house. He hadn’t even issued a challenge or asked a question, just blasted away with a shotgun as Jeremiah dashed off. Once out of danger, he’d cut four buckshot out of his leg with a sheath knife he kept in his right boot. Then he’d cleaned the wound as best he could and bandaged it with his torn-up underdrawers.

The captain wanted to know more about the wound. “In what action were you hit?”

“Jonesboro,” Jeremiah said promptly. “Afternoon of the last day of August.”

The dismounted man holding the Enfield said, “Well, I know Steve Lee was there, all right.”

The captain: “Last day of August, you say. Sure as hell taking a long time for that to heal, isn’t it?”

“Infection set in. For a while the doctors thought I might lose the leg altogether. Got knocked down with dysentery at the same time. Actually I had two wounds. The one in my shoulder’s come along just fine. This one, though—doesn’t seem to want to mend right.”

While the captain digested the information, Jeremiah decided he’d better tell as much as he dared. These men sounded more persuadable than the farmer. He might be able to outwit them. But not if he seemed reluctant to talk.

“My commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Rose, he came out of the Thirty-sixth Georgia in Cummings’ brigade. After Chickamauga he was assigned to division staff for a while. I was picked to be his orderly and courier. He got shot at Jonesboro too. Died the same night. Before he passed on, he ordered me to go to his plantation if I got out. He said only his wife and daughter were left to run it.” He added an invention he thought sounded logical, and might divert their suspicion even more.

“The colonel told me his nigras were getting fractious because of Old Abe’s proclamation—”

“Yep, that’s sure as hell happening,” someone agreed. “All over.”

“Where’s this plantation?” the captain asked him.

Jeremiah began to feel a little less tense; maybe the issue of desertion wouldn’t come up at all if he kept trying to convince them he was doing what he thought to be his duty.

“Near Louisville, across the Ogeechee River in Jefferson County. Seems like I’ve been walking for days to get to it.”

“Well, you have thirty or forty miles still to go,” the captain informed him. “More or less due east.” A hand scratched at the pox scars. “I gather you felt this personal business more important than returning to your unit?”

Jeremiah scowled. To help them see his anger, he yanked off his forage cap. The sudden movement shied a couple of the horses.

The moon struck his dark eyes and matted hair as he straightened to his full height. In the light, the white streak showed plainly, starting at the hairline above his left brow and tapering to a point at the back of his head.

Honesty had failed him with the farmer; he didn’t intend to repeat the mistake. “Sir, I told you—I was invalided out! It was either head home for Virginia—too blasted far away—or stay in Georgia and do what the colonel asked of me while he was dying. My unit had already moved out north again. I felt I owed the colonel’s womenfolk some protection—’specially since the colonel saved my life at Jonesboro.”

“Oh?” The captain cocked his head. “How’d he do that?”

Jeremiah told him the story.

“You have any proof to support what you’re saying?” the captain asked.

Jeremiah almost reached for the oilskin pouch. He held back; the contents of the letter were still unknown to him. What if Rose had written his wife saying he intended to urge his orderly to desert?

“No, sir, I’m sorry. I have nothing.”

“What’s the name of this here plantation?” the dismounted man with the Enfield said.

“It’s called Rosewood. After the colonel’s people.”

“I’ve heard of it,” the captain told him. “I come from near Savannah. My papa was a cotton broker before he died. I believe he did business with the Rose family at one time—” All at once he sounded more tolerant. “If your unit’s gone to Tennessee and you were pronounced unfit to serve, I suppose you made the best choice.”

Jeremiah breathed a bit easier. The captain went on. “And those women you mentioned—they’re liable to need all the protection they can get. All of Georgia’s liable to need it, matter of fact.”

“What do you mean, sir?”

Hunching forward, the captain said, “Corporal, do you have any notion as to who we are?”

Jeremiah tried to smile. “I know you’re on the right side. And those yellow facings say you’re cavalry.”

“My name’s Dilsey. Captain Robert Dilsey. We’re with General Joe Wheeler. Scouting Sherman.”

“Sherman!
But he’s back near Atlanta!”

Dilsey shook his head. “Not anymore. Fact is, we’re about all that stands between that son of a bitch and the seacoast. Excepting of course, the Home Guard that Governor Brown’s trying to turn out.” One of Dilsey’s troopers snickered contemptuously. “But old men carrying rakes and hoes aren’t going to be worth a hoot against Billy Sherman.”

Thunderstruck, Jeremiah gasped, “You mean he’s on the move?”

Dilsey sighed and nodded. “Started last Wednesday. Marched out in two columns, sixty thousand strong. Slocum has two infantry corps on the left wing, Howard two more on the right. And that Kilpatrick’s riding along with them.”

“Where’s Sherman going?”

A shrug. “Appears he’s headed straight across the state to the ocean. Looks like he’s just said to hell with maintaining supply lines and is poling off in this direction to do any damage he can.”

Another caustic voice: “Mebbe he’s tired of fightin’ men. Mebbe he wants to fight females and young’uns for a change.”

The captain didn’t take it as a joke. “Certainly possible. He’s got a reputation for being half crazy sometimes. A move in this direction violates every sound principle of strategy. But he’s coming—along with that blasted butcher, Kilpatrick. You know what they call Little Kil’s riders, Corporal? The Kill-cavalry. We’re moving southeast to stay ahead of them. Trying to find out for certain where they’re actually going. Harass them, if we can.”

The announcement of the sudden advance by the general who’d captured and burned Atlanta still sounded unbelievable. Jeremiah groped for words. “But—but I don’t think there are any troops left to fight in this part of the state!”

The man with the Enfield said, “Well, there’s you.”

He puzzled over the laughter the remark produced as Dilsey said, “There
is
plenty of food in Georgia for a change. Finest crop in years, I’m told. And Bob Lee’s army still depends on what comes out of this breadbasket. So if you look at Sherman’s move in that light, if makes more sense. I’d guess he’s after the food, though he may be after Savannah as well.”

“That’s crazy!” Jeremiah cried.

“Any man who burns damn near a whole city doesn’t fight like a gentleman, Corporal—or by the book. You’d better keep on toward Jefferson County and tell the Rose ladies Old Billy’s probably coming their way.”

The man with the Enfield spat. “Goddamn soon.”

Despite the stunning news, Jeremiah felt oddly elated. He’d convinced Dilsey of the authenticity of his story, done it just right, too. The word desertion hadn’t even been uttered.

One of the cavalrymen spoke. “Captain, we ought to be movin’.”

“Agree,” Dilsey said. “Kent, we’d fill your canteen if you had one. We’ve fetched along some goobers to eat. Hand him some, Mullins.”

Jeremiah raised his arm to accept the handful just as Dilsey uttered a hard, peculiar chuckle that chilled him. Again Dilsey scratched his face.

“You’re lucky to be alive, Corporal, you know that? We stopped at a farm a few miles back. Watered our horses from the well. We heard about you.”

Jeremiah closed his fist on the goobers, almost dropped them slipping them into his pocket. What a fool he’d been. What a damn fool. He hadn’t tricked Dilsey for one minute.

The captain pointed at Jeremiah’s leg.

“That injury may hurt. But as the old farmer said, lots of boys shot up worse than you are still with their regiments. So I don’t expect you were invalided out. I expect you up and left. As for the rest—I’m willing to accept it. Strikes me it has too many warts to be an outright lie. I don’t know what persuaded you to tell me the truth—or ninety percent of it, anyway. You didn’t tell the farmer. But as I say—you’re lucky you changed your mind. If you’d just handed me that tale about going home—”

Dilsey rammed his carbine in the scabbard. He reached down and snatched the Enfield from the dismounted trooper, then aimed it at Jeremiah’s chest, his smile humorless. “I’d have used your own weapon on you. Killed you where you stand.”

He flung the Enfield. Jeremiah barely managed to catch it. Dilsey laughed at him, a hollow, unfriendly laugh.

“As things worked out, however, you’re going to find yourself smack back in the war. Why, you may turn out to be the only young man within forty miles of that plantation. Commander of the whole resistance! Hope you can handle that. After running away, seems fitting you should be required to try.”

Seething, Jeremiah watched Captain Dilsey and his men reorder themselves into a column of twos. Moonlight spilled across the officer’s back; his face was hidden. When he spoke, he sounded cheerful and cruel at the same time.

“Good luck to you, Corporal. I hereby promote you to general in command of Jefferson County.”

He wheeled his mount with a ferocious yank of the rein and galloped off along the country road, his men right behind. Their passing left another phosphorescent dust cloud that soon hid them from sight.

Sixty thousand,
Jeremiah thought, the barrel of the rifled musket shaking in his hand.
Sixty thousand led by the wickedest soldiers in the whole damn Union army!

By letting him go on to Rosewood alone, Dilsey had punished him. He too had failed to understand Jeremiah’s sense of duty and loyalty—

How that soft-spoken man must have been laughing to himself all during Jeremiah’s babble about Colonel Rose. For a moment the humiliating anger was almost beyond bearing.

It began to pass when he reminded himself that he
was
still alive. And Sherman’s coming would indeed give him a chance to fight again. All in all, despite thinking he’d fooled Dilsey and the shock of Dilsey’s announcement that he hadn’t, he concluded that things could have been a devil of a lot worse. The hand clasping the Enfield grew steadier.

Jeremiah laid the weapon down, shelled and swallowed four of the goobers given him by the cavalrymen. They settled hard in his stomach, producing almost instantaneous pain. He was forced to sit down on the shoulder of the road, clutching his middle, praying for the pain to ease.

It didn’t.

A bird shrilled in the plum orchard. But miserable as he felt, he still believed his luck had taken a better turn. One Enfield would make no difference in Tennessee. It could make a lot of difference in Georgia.

Under the black and silver sky, he jammed the butt of the Enfield into the grass and literally climbed hand over hand to get to his feet. He still felt shaky and frightened. Tortured by spasms of pain, he stepped onto the road, hurrying—

He went only a quarter of a mile before he began to stagger. The goobers came up in a retching heave. He was forced to unfasten and drop his trousers and crouch dizzily awhile.

Covered with cold sweat and aching from his breastbone to his groin, he eventually managed to start walking again. He passed another ramshackle farmhouse. A cow lowed in the vast dark. Pushing himself with every bit of his remaining strength, he kept trudging on.

Toward Jefferson County.

Toward two women he’d never met.

Toward a chance to fight honorably again—

Sixty thousand strong,
he kept thinking.
Jesus Almighty!

Yet in spite of the terrifying numbers and his physical agony, his spirit wouldn’t break. Mentally, he felt stronger and more determined than he had in weeks.

I
’
ll get there.

I’ll get there before Billy Sherman
—
if I have to crawl every foot of the way.

T
HE FIRST SENSATION WAS
heat: stifling heat, too intense for November.

An insect whined at the back of his neck. With his eyes still closed, he tried to raise his right hand to swat it. He couldn’t seem to summon enough strength to draw his hand from what felt like mud.

The insect landed on his havelock, then on exposed skin. He clawed his hand out of the mud as the insect bit—a faint, nearly painless sting. The whine diminished.

Panicky, he tried to recall where he was. That is, where he’d been when he sprawled on the ground at twilight on—

Tuesday. Yesterday had been Tuesday.

Late in the day he’d forded the Ogeechee River, bypassed the little town of Louisville, and tried to follow directions given him by a farmer’s boy. Somehow he’d taken a wrong turn at a crossroad. The road he was walking had petered out in brambles at the edge of a bare cotton field near the river.