Wilderness Run (12 page)

Laurence gagged, unable to tear his gaze away. The fetuses each had perfect, unhardened hooves and blank pink skin.

“Don't breathe through your nose,” Addison advised, still carving. Just then, guts came out, sliding across Laurence's knees, their weight slippery and hard at once. He swore and shoved them off.

“Why not be an officer, Lindsey?” Addison demanded, his voice ugly. “Can't watch 'em die?” He was cutting the fetal pigs away from their mother now, and they tumbled to the earth, still curled and breathing. Unwilling to answer, Laurence let the sow's ribs fall shut and wiped his hands against the pine needles. Red crescents curved under his fingernails. Nearby, a crow scraped its throat into call.

Standing up, Addison took his musket and gently began to crush the heads of the fetal pigs, one by one, letting the wet brains spill out. After a moment, Laurence joined him, pressing down until the small unfinished skulls popped and the trembling life exited the bodies. Above the quiet of their work, a metallic chorus of crickets commenced singing.

When the soldiers were finished, the fetuses no longer curled around one another, but splayed apart, like petals torn from a flower.

“We can toast these up for a first course,” Addison said, tossing them back inside the carcass. Laurence nodded dully. An intense weariness had replaced his nausea. He picked up his end of the sow and they began dragging her toward camp. Behind him, he heard the crow flap down to the steaming pile.

“You never answered my question,” Addison commented after a few minutes. Laurence regarded his friend's blood-spattered profile.

“Who'd want to be in charge of that bunch of fools?” he said with false levity.

“Those fools are going to be the best goddamn soldiers in the Army of the Potomac.” Addison turned on him, his face serious. “I didn't see one of them shirk at Bull Run. Not a one.”

Laurence thought of Woodard and Spider but said nothing. They dragged the pig in silence for a while. “It's not just that,” Laurence added hoarsely. “I'd be above the rest of you.”

“So? You always have been. Even with what happened to Pike. You're probably the only man in the company who can swim, and it was your knowing too much that got you in trouble. But as an officer, being different wouldn't hinder you like that,” Addison said, readjusting his hold on the hooves. “I told Davey so.”

“I'm not that different,” Laurence said, thinking of the ants in his bedroll, the dirt chucked in his face.

“What I mean is, you're just not our kind. We don't understand you so much as we understand each other. Gilbert, I would have known what he would do every day of his life, even if I just met him here in Virginia.” Addison looked up at the trees, giving a soft chuckle. “You're like a gentleman stranger.”

“Is that what I am?” Laurence tried to laugh, but the noise that emerged from his throat was more like a ragged sigh.

Reaching the rim of the forest just as the bugler began reveille, they scanned the camp. Gilbert was out on picket and Alfred Loomis sat alone in front of their fire, darning his socks, in what had become an almost-daily ritual. His feet were too big for the standard army footwear, and he refused to learn a proper stitch, making clumsy black loops that tore almost immediately.

Addison and Laurence pulled the sow toward their tent. The dusty ground flattened behind them, two furrows pushed up on either side. A slow parade of half-dressed soldiers rose from their fires and began to follow.

“Damn if it ain't a real porker,” said one of the drummer boys.

“Shot right through the forehead,” another soldier added admiringly.

Addison and Laurence ignored them both, their heads high.

“How'd you catch it?” Loomis asked as they reached the Sibley.

“Lindsey here just stared her down. I've never seen a hunter like him. The way he caught her was a caution. All eyes,” Addison finally pronounced for the soldiers pulling on their coats and boots. Laurence lowered his head, noticing a splash of brain on the butt end of his musket. He wiped it clean on the grass.

“That so,” Loomis said calmly, placing a few stones in the hollows of the campfire. “I don't suppose it was your idea to gut her, though, was it?”

Laurence shook his head.

“It wasn't your idea to destroy the tender flavor of this fine game by asking me to boil it hacked open like this?” Loomis went on, and then instructed two of the camp's drummer boys to fetch more water from the stream.

“I'll bet there's not a man here who would refuse this fine game, no matter how you ruin it with your cooking, Loomis,” said Addison, casting a proud glance around. The gathered soldiers cheered and laughed, and a few of them thumped Laurence on the back and congratulated him before they hurried off to roll call. In return for a good piece of meat, Woodard would make their excuse known to Davey.

“There's a surprise inside for you, Loomis,” said Laurence, getting into his role. He stood with one hand on his hip and grinned as Loomis pulled open the sow and found the fetal pigs inside.

“That almost makes up for it,” Loomis said with a twist of his lips, and tossed them on one side of the fire.

When the boys came back with the water, Loomis sent them off again to borrow another company's massive cooking pot. The morning grew hotter, and Laurence could hear the other soldiers answering at roll call. He had never missed it before, and he wondered what Captain Davey would say when he saw the hog, if he would believe Laurence was the one who had caught her.

The boys returned, dragging the black iron pot, which Loomis filled halfway with water. Then he took a pair of tongs and lifted the hot stones, dropping them in until a great steam billowed out. Somehow, the sow seemed lighter as Laurence helped Loomis carry her to the pot and ease her in. Watching the water rise, he asked Loomis if he thought the meat would be enough for the whole company.

“Enough,” Loomis repeated, looking hard at Laurence. “How much do you think they need?”

Laurence blushed and looked down. In the boiling water, the sow flesh whitened, and Loomis moved it slowly around with his tongs.

“Just catching it was enough,” Loomis said in his gentle bass. “Although, you know, Addison's been tracking that sow for weeks by himself.”

Surprised, Laurence turned to Addison, but the other man was halfway down the path to the stream, his shadow lengthening like a sail behind him.

“Don't tell him I said so,” Loomis added.

“No,” Laurence said, both grateful for the gift Addison had given him and relieved that he had passed his test. He breathed in as Loomis let another hot stone fall, hissing, into the water. The steam smelled like the dense air that filled the kitchen at Greenwood when Grete cooked up bones for soup. Laurence felt his empty stomach twinge with hunger and something deeper releasing itself with the white clouds rising.

“Smells like home,” he said, and breathed in again.

Chapter Fourteen

Emerging from his bedroll to the cold yellow air of the tent, Laurence coughed and rubbed his temples. Winter sickness had swept through the camp since November, leaving no one untouched except Addison, who remained singularly robust while the rest of the soldiers became as thin and rheumy as old men. Laurence counted himself lucky to be suffering from a mild cough. Measles had struck the Third Vermont, and today he was going to visit a recently recovered soldier, Morey Aldridge, an Allenton boy, the son of a shipbuilder, and the man his sister Lucia was engaged to marry.

Morey Aldridge. Laurence imagined him a male version of Lucia, bright and empty-headed, a dandy who polished his boots daily. Morey Aldridge would find Laurence too serious, no doubt, and write to his sister about how he intended to cheer her brother up. It would become a weekly ordeal, Sunday afternoons with Morey, so that they could get to know each other better, and become like real brothers.

Laurence glanced down at his mother's letter.
Please go meet Mr. Aldridge when you have the time,
she wrote.
He is so looking forward to making your acquaintance
. The letter was a month old, and Laurence had found one reason or another to put off the visit until today. He wondered why he dreaded meeting someone from his own society. Beside him, Addison and Gilbert snored loudly, and Loomis was curled into an awkward ball, only his beard poking from the blanket. These were his brothers, men who rarely read books or parted their hair in the latest fashion, but who understood him better than anyone.

Over the winter, their routine together had changed. Drills were shorter; nights in the tent stretched to a huddled eternity. They were always cold, always hungry, and they became domestic, bickering over the placement of their few possessions, developing an ever greater fixation with the intricacies of mealtime. Nights when rations were poor, they talked about catching another pig and building a smokehouse to make bacon and ham. This fantasy lasted through entire sodden meals of hardtack stew. Loomis and Gilbert could haggle for hours about the best wood for smoking or the correct temperature for the fire, then resume the conversation the next night as if nothing had been decided.

Laurence had a difficult time explaining such humble camaraderie to his family, so he stopped writing as many letters home. Even Bel's little sketches of frost, flowers, and other familiar household items seemed to belong to another time. But he collected them dutifully in the flaps of his torn-up book and carried them everywhere.

The bleating notes of reveille filled the air, and Addison bolted awake, his blue eyes landing on Laurence.

“Sunday, ain't it?” he asked.

Laurence nodded.

“Praise the Lord for this half day of drill,” said Addison. He threw off his covers and rose.

“I'm going to see my future brother-in-law today,” Laurence said. “Want to come?” Addison's easy way with people would make it more bearable.

“Can't,” Addison said, and lifted the flap of the tent, revealing a dull gray day. “Davey promised he'd let me take Furlough for a ride.”

When they woke, his other tent mates also declined the offer, so after drill, Laurence set out alone for the Third Vermont's quarters. A muddy path led him through pitted pastures and bare, silvery woods, ending at a small sea of Sibley tents, sunk into the ground like their own. He couldn't help thinking that the Third Vermont's camp looked shabbier than his regiment's, but the men were just as lively, and when he asked how to find Morey Aldridge, a young recruit immediately offered complicated and colorful directions, which sent him to the latrines first, then to the officers' quarters, and finally to the tent Morey Aldridge shared with two other soldiers.

The trio sat outside it around a low fire, playing a silent game of cards. Uncertain which was Aldridge, Laurence called out the name and waited. At first, there was no response; then the largest among them raised his head. His mountainous shoulders took a long time to twist in Laurence's direction.

“Looks like you got a visitor, Aldridge,” said one of his companions.

Morey Aldridge's gray eyes widened at the sight of Laurence, but he nodded slowly. “You must be Lucia's brother,” he said. “I can see the resemblance.”

His face was full of crags and shadows, his mouth a straight, severe line of red, as if someone had drawn it with a ruler. Measle scars dotted his neck and chin. Laurence hovered for a moment, staring, before he realized his rudeness. He introduced himself and was about to sit down among them, when Aldridge held up his hand.

“Let's take a walk together,” he suggested. “I've been sitting at this fire too long.”

Nodding again at men whose names he would never remember, Laurence allowed Aldridge to lead him silently out of the camp and into the woods beyond. As soon as they had entered the trees, the other soldier slowed and turned.

“You must think I'm impolite,” he said, the cold air making ghosts of his words. “But I wanted to speak with you alone, and I'm never alone in camp.”

“I'm glad to meet you finally,” Laurence said truthfully, relieved that Aldridge was nothing like the dandy he had expected.

“Likewise.” Aldridge inclined his head. “Although your sister told me so many stories about her dear Laurence, I felt like I already had.” He swiveled back around and strode deeper into the winter woods. Dead leaves crunched beneath their feet. “In fact, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you.”

There was no accusation in this statement, but still it surprised Laurence. “What do you mean?”

“Your sister wants to marry a hero like her brother,” said Aldridge, veering from the path they had been following, his gait heavy and purposeful.

“I'm hardly a hero,” said Laurence. “And anyway, my father would probably approve if you refused to fight. He never wanted me to enlist.”

“He's proud of you, too.”

“He must put up a good show, then,” Laurence said.

“Times have changed since you left,” said Aldridge. “With so many fellows gone off to war, it's all anyone talks about anymore. And that gives your father a lot to say.”

“You understand him well.” Laurence laughed, but Aldridge did not join in, guiding them toward a bower of pines, the green needles luminous in the dull light.

“I was planning to join the navy eventually, but Lucia begged me to go to Virginia and take down General Lee with my bare hands,” he said, raising one massive fist as they pushed through the soft wall of needles. “Anyway, there's something in here I wanted to show you.”

The smell of pitch filled Laurence's nostrils and made him miss his aunt's annual Twelfth Night party, when all of Greenwood was festooned in hemlock and spruce. He could imagine his father there, holding forth on the war, a respected authority because his son was at the front.

“Your father was a navy man, wasn't he?” he said, emerging from the pines into a small clearing.