Valley of the Shadow: A Novel (50 page)

“Be it on my head, if this attack fails.”

“Damn you, Gordon, don’t be asinine. We get ourselves whipped, it won’t fall on your head. And you damned well know it.”

Hotchkiss stepped in. “General Early, Sheridan’s got his entire cavalry corps massed on his right. If we attack the way … the way we considered … we’d run right into them. Then the Sixth Corps would come right down on top of us.”

Slowly, bitterly, Early shook his head. “Sucking at the same teat as Gordon, are you?” He grunted. “Sandie Pendleton came back from the grave, I’d take a strap to his back for getting killed.”

“General Gordon’s asking for one day, sir. And I believe—”

“Oh, surely. ‘One day.’ And let the men eat shoe leather for dinner. Except they haven’t got any goddamned shoes.”

“It’s not as bad as that,” Gordon said.

“Not
yet
.” Early turned and stared at the fouled hearth. “God almighty, God almighty…” He wheeled again, ignoring Hotchkiss to shoot his scorn for all straight-backed, pomaded, woman-pleasing men in Gordon’s direction. “All right. All right, then,
General
Gordon. You take your day. Let it never be said I was unreasonable, let that never be said.” His spite overflowed toward Hotchkiss as well. “You take your goddamned day.”

He clomped out of his headquarters.

Gordon and Hotchkiss looked at each other.

“I’d almost describe that as pleasant,” Gordon said.

October 18, 6:30 a.m.

Fisher’s Hill

Dan Frawley fried up the rancid bacon, trying to burn the stink off it. The other men took turns tossing hardtack into the spitting grease. Nichols reckoned that none of them had figured when they signed up that the day would come when they’d be pleased to eat filth.

“Give my favorite hound for a cup of coffee,” Ive Summerlin said. “For half a cup.” In the unfixed light, he looked more like a Cherokee than ever.

“Doubt you own a hound worth a cup of coffee,” Corporal Holloway told him.

“Tell you, that’s how the Yankees been whipping us lately,” Tom Boyet offered. “They’re all rallied up on coffee. We got none.”

“Well, now,” Sergeant Alderman said, “maybe you should stroll over there for a visit, bring us some back.”

“I reckon that’s about what Old Jube’s thinking,” Dan Frawley put in. “Rations need to come from somewheres, men do have to eat. And Richmond ain’t no help.” He shuffled the bacon in the pan. It really did stink, no matter the frying inflicted. Still, it gave off enough bacon smell to madden a man.

Nichols knew he’d eat it, even if he puked it right back up.

Returned from a visit to the trees, Lem Davis said, “Surprised we haven’t gone over there already. Shows you what rumors are worth. Expected we’d take us a few Yankee haversacks, have a right full dinner.”

“I don’t mind staying put,” Ive admitted. “Not one little bit. I’m tired of getting whupped. Early’s played out.”

“Too late for Early.” Tom Boyet repeated the popular joke.

“Oh, we’ll attack,” Sergeant Alderman cautioned them all. “Only reason we’re sitting on Fisher’s Hill again. Early won’t try to defend it, not after last time. He means to attack, don’t you worry.”

“Place just makes my skin crawl,” Ive said.

“That’s your lice,” Holloway told him.

“I wager on chiggers,” Tom Boyet added. “Never had ’em worse than I did around here.”

“Hand over your plates,” Dan said. “Before this cooks to nothing.”

Careful not to nudge a comrade aside, the men accepted their portions, a mouthful apiece.

Being a town man, Tom Boyet gagged. “I can’t eat this,” he said.

But he ate it, after all.

The greased-over hardtack was fouler than the bacon, but every man chawed his to a pulp and swallowed it.

“Slick a man’s guts right through,” Lem Davis said.

“Know who I dreamed on last night?” Holloway asked. “Zib Collins. Poor Zib.”

“I dreamed about one of those big Pennsylvania gals,” Ive snapped. He and Zib had been close. “Man wouldn’t never sleep cold wrapped in that lard.”

They all had slept cold the night before. October had grown traitorous.

A leaf floated into the frying pan that Dan had laid aside.

“Quick, fry that up!” Ive told him. “Better than this ptomaine fatback, I bet.”

Dan picked the leaf from the pan and considered it. As if he really might take a bite.

Dreams.
Nichols did not want to think about dreams, not about Zib and not about big, fat Dutch girls. He’d rather eat slops.

His night-world had grown violent and grisly, haunting him into the light near every day. That night, he had dreamed that his home was burning down with his ma inside. Chained by the unholy laws of sleep, he had only been able to watch, immobile and helpless. Other dreams of late had been much worse.

In his dreams the dead were not angels. And twice he had met a living woman in sleep, an unclothed woman, whose body was riddled with snakes like a cheese with worms. He dreamed of being hunted, never of hunting. Even his fondest night thoughts brought him shame.

Despite sharing blankets with Ive, he had lain awake shivering after that dream of fire. With his ma burning in a Hell made by men with torches. He did not think he’d cried out, though. That was something. In the depths of the night, sleepers shouted as they struggled with their dreams. At times, you heard whimpers in voices that surprised you. Strong by day, men shrank in the dark, and outbursts that once would’ve made for a morning of ribbing passed without comment. At dawn, men met each other’s eyes less often and hands trembled over tin plates.

Rising, Tom Boyet declared, “’Fraid I’m coming down with the trots again.”

Seemed like just about everyone had the bloody runs on and off. Nichols had been fortunate so far. He ascribed his good luck to nearly dying back in that Danville hospital: Maybe once you had it really bad, it didn’t come back. Kind of like the measles.

“Lord, for a cup of coffee,” Ive lamented. “Wouldn’t care how fast it scoured my guts.”

Elder Woodfin appeared, lugging the big Bible he favored in camp. The chaplain had grown a touch softer of late, just on the rough side of pleasant. Lem believed he was jealous of General Evans, whose sermons raised a man’s spirits instead of whipping him into a corner and keeping him there. Elder Woodfin’s homilies were ferocious, hard enough to kill any Yankee in earshot, but they weren’t always a comfort.

The chaplain squatted close enough to the fire to borrow some warmth.

“I want you boys to recall Psalm One Forty-four today. I’ll speak it out, and you’re welcome to recite with me.” He looked sternly at Nichols, demanding allegiance.

Leaves charged over the knoll.

“Blessed be the Lord my strength,”
the chaplain began,
“which teacheth my hands to war,
and
my fingers to fight…”

Nichols recited along. He had his psalms near perfect.

Fueled by the Word, Elder Woodfin’s voice gained power
. “Bow thy heavens, O Lord, and come down; touch the mountains, and they shall smoke…”

Eager, Nichols plunged ahead:
“Cast forth lightning, and scatter them: shoot out thine arrows, and destroy them.”

Elder Woodfin smiled with big brown teeth. Dan and Lem kept up fair, forgetting bits but then rejoining the psalm as it rolled past the “hurtful sword” and on to the plea:
“Deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity…”

That stretch baffled Nichols every time: Weren’t children supposed to be innocent? Up to no good sometimes, even downright nasty, but why did children trouble David enough to nag his psalm? How could a warrior-king be frightened of brats? Couldn’t folks back then just take a strap to them?

Had “strange children” haunted David’s dreams?

Sun tore the haze. It would be another fine, God-given day. They would not fight.

Nichols decided to fix his mind on the last line of the psalm:
“Happy
is that
people whose God
is
the Lord.”

He and his brethren were the Lord’s people, weren’t they? Surely they would be happy when God was ready.

October 18, 10:00 a.m.

Bowman’s Ford

“Yankees are like to shoot us, they catch us in these duds,” Hotchkiss said cheerily.

Pausing to scrape the soil with his hoe, Gordon grinned and told him, “Not me, Jed. Generals only get shot on the battlefield. Otherwise, we’re protected by the gods and a certain etiquette.” He cleared his throat portentously. “But a lesser fellow now, one who might not possess such august rank … were such a one caught in civilian clothes, he’d have some explaining to do. I’d put in a word for you, though.”

“I’d take that kindly.”

Shifting his stance, Gordon caught a mighty whiff of the rags he wore. Vermin were a given. Surely this day would count among the sacrifices he’d offered up to the Cause.

“Let’s go on a ways,” he told the mapmaker.

Careful not to appear in a hurry, they puttered down the harvested field, stopping now and again to prod the soil, as if its condition demanded close inspection. Glimpsed through gaps down in the trees, the sun glinted off the Shenandoah’s brown waters.

Gordon halted sharply—more abruptly than he meant to.

Feigning interest in the earth again, he asked, “See them?”

“Two. Midstream.”

“Right. Water’s at least a foot below their stirrups.”

“Farmer wasn’t lying.”

“In my experience,” Gordon said, “the sons of Ceres don’t lie. But they do prevaricate upon occasion.”

“Don’t waste soap and water on their clothes, either,” Hotchkiss noted. “Won’t mind parting with this fancy dress.”

“Go on back up. Get your uniform on and head back to camp, catch up with Ramseur. But start off slow, they’re watching us.”

“What about you?”

“Just visiting that fork over by the tree line. Tug a branch across the far trail, block it. So we don’t stray off tonight. Things do get confusing in the darkness, and I can’t risk posting a guide this close to the ford.”

“I could do it for you,” Hotchkiss told him.

“You go on. I need to have another look at things.”

“Be careful, sir.”

Gordon smiled. “I don’t intend to frequent a Yankee prison, I assure you. Fanny’s reaction, I fear, would be intemperate.” He became very much the general again. “Go on back, I’ll catch up. And if I don’t, tell Early about the trail and about this ford. Ramseur will back you now, he saw enough. Convince him, Jed.” He gave his scalp a respite from the borrowed straw hat. “We can beat Sheridan bloody, smash his army. Early just has to have faith.”

October 18, 10:15 a.m.

Bowman’s Ford

“You’re a farmer,” the cavalry corporal told his companion.

The river streamed around their horses’ legs.

“Yup,” the cavalry private agreed.

“And I’m a farmer,” the corporal said.

“Yup.”

“Ever see farmers act like those two fellers?”

“Nope.”

“Can’t figure out what they’re doing.”

“Ain’t farming.” The private spit into the stream. “And them two ain’t no farmers.”

“That’s what I been trying to tell you, Amos.”

“Didn’t need telling.”

“Captain Heurich might need telling. Rebs might be up to something.”

“No good telling that bullheaded Dutchman anything,” the private said.

“We’re down here to ‘observe.’ And I’m observing.”

“That man won’t listen, though. He don’t listen no more than a widow’s mule. Afraid to stir things up.”

“Well, I reckon we’ll report and see what happens.”

The private shook his head, watching the pair in the high field go their separate ways.

“Them two ain’t no farmers,” he repeated.

October 18, 2:00 p.m.

Near Winchester

Sheridan cursed Halleck. The two engineers imposed on him, the fat colonel and the lean, may have been wonders at planning fortifications for Halleck’s fantasies, but neither man could ride a horse worth a damn. He watched them bounce in their saddles as he and his retinue waited for them to catch up.

Wary of any men on horseback, a string of darkies paused in their search for bodies. After a month, the battlefield still held secrets. And it stank.

“You boys!” Sheridan yelled. He pointed. “Get down in that ditch there and look. That’s where soldiers would be.”

The crew had collected a wheelbarrow-load of leathers, brass, and weapons. A decayed corpse in blue rags topped the load. Sheridan wondered briefly whether the coloreds put to such labor felt all that a white man would. He decided it didn’t matter.

The fatter engineer beat the lean one to Sheridan.

“This is simply marvelous!” he declared. “Seeing the battlefield like this, right at your side, sir! It’s all so complex, the defiant geometries … so different from the newspapers.”

“I expect so,” Sheridan said through gritted teeth. “How about my winter lines? Any recommendations?”

Joining them, the lean colonel struggled to master his horse. He had no idea how to manage the reins except by yanking them. Sheridan decided not to offer advice.

“Oh, we’ll have to consult the maps for that. Make calculations.”

“You could’ve consulted maps in Washington.”

“General Halleck thought—”

“I know what General Halleck thought.” Sheridan cut him off.

Sweating grandly, the portly colonel said, “These manly pursuits do tire one, do they not, sir? After a time, the eye doesn’t see so acutely.…”

You’ll see your dinner sharp enough, Sheridan figured. Recalling the old debt he owed Henry Halleck, though, he refrained from calling the engineers “worthless bastards.”

“You’ve got my attention,” Sheridan snapped. “I suggest you two make use of it. Tired or not. I can’t spare any more time after today, there’s an army to lead.”

Without further comment, he spurred Rienzi off across the fields, letting the others follow as best they could. The previous afternoon had been squandered on a slow ride from Martinsburg as the two engineers fought to stay in their saddles and pestered him with questions. Now this precious day had been wasted, too: By the time all this nonsense was done, it would be too late to ride down to Belle Grove and rejoin the army.