House Divided (161 page)

Rangers were searching the woods, and he saw more than one of them stop to kill a wounded Yankee. They left no living man behind; but when the troop was reassembled, Faunt discovered an unharmed prisoner among them. Hard rage still on him, he spoke to Captain Chapman.

“The orders were no quarter, sir.”

Chapman hesitated, but two or three men muttered in stern agreement, and the Captain swore. “Damn them, house-burners, abusing women, yes! Take him into the woods!”

Faunt and three others, their pistols drawn, rode with the prisoner a little off the road. Faunt asked: “Are you ready?”

The young man smiled faintly. “Why, I'd like a moment.”

Faunt nodded, and the Yankee swung to the ground. He knelt with his back toward them, as serenely as though he were alone, and he bowed his head for a time that seemed long. Then he rose, and turned to face them, holding his coat open, baring his breast. Faunt shot him through the heart.

 

Next day they rejoined Colonel Mosby, and Faunt heard Captain Chapman's report. “Thirty horses, no prisoners.”

Mosby made no comment, but that evening he called Faunt to him. “Mr. Currain,” he said gravely, “our operations have taken on a new character. General Grant has given orders to hang our men whenever they are captured.” Faunt's lips set; but Mosby added: “However, that may only be meant to frighten us. I can't yet believe General Grant means what he says. We will wait and see. In the meantime, I wish you to take some dispatches to General Lee.”

“I can be useful here.”

Mosby smiled faintly. “This is a time to walk softly, to avoid excess,” he suggested. “Since March, with a loss of only about twenty men, we have killed or wounded or captured twelve hundred Yankees, plus sixteen hundred horses and mules and a lot of beef cattle. We have done all this, till yesterday, within the rules and customs of war. Now they threaten to hang us as guerrillas. My opinion is that if they carry out the threat, we must retaliate, teach them a little decency; but first I wish to report to General Lee and have his orders. Come back to me with his reply.”

So Faunt, the dispatches buttoned inside his coat, began the journey to Richmond. Since there were everywhere in his way scattered detachments of the enemy, he spent the daylight hours in secret places, travelled at night. He had found that his health was better if he slept in the open air, taking shelter only from snow or rain; and since that first severe hemorrhage he had had no serious ill turn. Hard riding wearied him, or any sustained exertion; so he saved himself for the hot moments of combat and the headlong chase.

Lee would surely be near Petersburg, but Richmond was on Faunt's road, and Nell, and it was long since he had seen her. He waited till nightfall to ride into the city, submitted to the picket's challenge,
showed Colonel Mosby's pass. The officer commanding, when he read that pass, cried:

“Are you one of Mosby's men?”

“I am, as you see.”

“Does he want recruits?”

Faunt said drily: “I suppose any officer wants men.”

“Then take me back with you! I'll serve in the ranks anywhere.”

Faunt recognized the greed in the other's tone. “I'm not recruiting,” he said coldly. “I've dispatches for General Lee. May I pass?”

 

He went directly to Nell's house. Except for occasional hours with Burr or Brett while Lee's army wintered around Orange Court House, he had not seen any of his family for months; nor did he now wish to do so. Since that day when he met Anne and Julian and mocked at Julian's crutches, the boy must hate him. Good enough! Anne was Julian's wife now. Brett said she had a baby. Good again! If he himself had played a fine and honorable part that day he taunted Julian, no one need ever know. Certainly it was the last credit entry on the ledger of his life. Now he was an outcast, coming back to one as base as he. To Nell.

But though when he was away from her he despised Mrs. Albion, that feeling vanished when they were together. If she was what respectable folk called a fallen woman, she was no lower than he, whose father's vices had let Abraham Lincoln loose upon the world. But also, she was gentle and wise and full of understanding. She gave him much more than tenderness, much more than physical content, much more than empty caresses. Tonight when Milly answered his ring Nell was at the stair head in the darkness; and when she heard his voice she came swooping like an angel to embrace him.

“Oh, Faunt, Faunt, when I heard the bell I knew! Faunt, my darling, how did I know it was you?”

He laughed teasingly, already released from loneliness. “Who else would ring your bell at such an hour?”

“Who else, to be sure,” she agreed. “So I wasn't so clever, was I? Yet I was asleep; and even in my sleep I knew!” Milly would rouse Rufus to put his horse away. Let him rid himself of travel stains, while she found a wrapper. In the pleasant upper room he knew so
well, they talked till dawn. He had to tell her of that great stroke at Berryville.

“It was a near thing to a failure,” he confessed, able to laugh now as he had not laughed at the time. “We'd divided our force, planned to hit all at once; and three shots from our howitzer were to be the signal. But they unlimbered the gun right on top of a nest of yellow jackets, and the yellow jackets fairly captured the gun, drove the men away. There we were, three squadrons waiting for the signal and no gun to signal with, and the Yankee train in plain sight on the pike. The men would have faced a swarm of Yankees readily enough, but there wasn't a man willing to face those yellow jackets, till Sergeant Babcock risked the stings and dragged the gun far enough down hill so the gunners could get at it.”

“And then you hit them?”

“Three hundred of us, against a whole brigade of them; and we got safely away with all we could drive or lead or carry.”

She asked wonderingly: “Is Colonel Mosby really as successful as the stories we hear?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, perhaps more so. In these last few months, he's taken three or four hundred beef cattle and about sixteen hundred horses and mules, and hundreds of prisoners—not counting those we've killed and wounded—and Heaven knows how much miscellaneous plunder; and he's lost only twenty men.” He added, a laughing pride in his voice: “Last month at Point of Rocks he scattered a Federal battalion with only a hundred and fifty men; and a day or two later with ninety men he smashed a hundred and fifty Yankees.”

“How does he do it?”

Faunt chuckled. “Why, that day they blazed away at us with their new Spencer repeating rifles, and that frightened their horses; so they tried to dismount and fight on foot, and while they were shifting their formation we charged them. We broke them and chased them five miles and killed and wounded and captured seventy of them; and we lost one man killed and six wounded.”

“I know it's true,” she said wonderingly, “but I still don't understand it.”

“Well, it's partly that we're better horsemen,” he said. “When we charge, their horses wheel and run; and when you're chasing a man
whose horse is running away with him, he's helpless. Then another thing, they use their sabres, but we use pistols. One man with pistols can beat half a dozen men with sabres, if he's a steady shot.” He added: “And of course we usually catch them off guard, surprise them.”

“How can Colonel Mosby keep so many men together, up there with Yankees all around him?”

“Oh, he doesn't. After a raid we scatter. Then when he decides where to hit next, he sends out word. There are always men at headquarters to act as messengers.”

“Does he actually have headquarters?”

Faunt smiled. “Oh, certainly. Chief Blackwell's farm near Piedmont.”

She said happily how well he was. “I've worried so, but you do seem well, darling. Are you?”

“Fine,” he said. “I cough a little, but I haven't had a bit of trouble since I was last here.” She in her turn must answer questions. “How do Richmond people feel about the war?”

She hesitated. “A dispatch came tonight,” she said soberly. “General Hood's given up Atlanta.”

The news was shocking, but he was a Virginian, Atlanta far away. “They can't beat us till they beat Lee.”

“Virginia's the head,” she admitted. “But a head can't fight on without a body.” She spoke in grave tones. “And the army is falling apart, Faunt. There are more deserters outside the army than there are soldiers in it.”

“I met two deserters recently in Baltimore,” he told her. “A man named Sam Arnold and an Irishman named O'Laughlin. Marylanders. They served with us for a while and then went back North and took the oath.”

“Faunt! Baltimore? Again?” Her tone accused him. He said in light reassurance:

“Oh, I take a ride that way now and then; yes, even into Washington. Washington's full of our friends, and Baltimore, too. They send drugs south to our hospitals. I've brought some useful parcels home.” He said: “You know, Nell, I expect some of those deserters you talk about are riding with Mosby now. The hope of loot attracts them.”

“A few perhaps,” she assented. “But thousands have deserted, Faunt. Some say a hundred thousand, some say more. It keeps whole regiments busy trying to catch them. The states won't help. North Carolina and Georgia and even Virginia protect them.” She added: “And in Mississippi and Alabama, people are too busy making money by selling their cotton to the Yankees to care about fighting to beat the North.”

Faunt nodded. “Mosby's men would kill a lot more Yankees if they didn't stop to search the dead ones for watches and money.” He added contemptuously: “Yankee money, at that!”

“No one would bother to steal our money,” she reminded him. “It's almost worthless.”

“I believe you think we're beaten.”

“I think we're beating ourselves,” she admitted. “General Johnston might have held Atlanta. He fought Sherman as skilfully as Lee fought Grant. But President Davis put Sam Hood in his place, and Hood divided his forces and let them be beaten in sections, and he's lost Atlanta. People here in Richmond won't know that till tomorrow; but when they do they'll lose all faith in President Davis. And sooner or later our lines from here to Petersburg will stretch too thin. When General Lee loses a man, killed or wounded or deserting, that man can't be replaced.”

He asked curiously: “How do you happen to know about Atlanta before the rest of Richmond knows?”

“Men tell me things,” she reminded him.

“I suppose you still see a great many men.” His tone was dry.

She smiled at him, her head on one side; and she tapped her teeth with her fingernail, making a little ticking sound. “Why yes, to be sure,” she said. “I always have, you know. They like to come here, because when they want to talk I listen to them. Most men enjoy being listened to. But that doesn't mean they want a mistress!” She smiled. “Probably no one, much less you, would believe how rarely anyone tries to—make love to me. They come to talk, to pay little compliments, to spend an hour with a handsome and intelligent woman who enjoys their company and lets them see it.” She nodded, teasing him fondly. “Yes, my dear, I'd never be lonely—if I didn't miss you so sorely.”

He smiled, relaxed and at ease. “Do these talkative callers of yours feel as you do about the war?”

She nodded, grave again. “Yes, Faunt. Oh, if you were here, you would see for yourself. President Davis is bombarded with angry letters: people who demanded that he remove General Johnston and now blame him for doing so, speculators wanting licenses to export cotton and tobacco, Governor Vance threatening to call home his soldiers, Governor Brown threatening to arrest the impressment officers, South Carolina planters furious because their slaves are impressed to work on fortifications, people damning Colonel Northrop or General Bragg. Everyone's thinking of himself; his profits, or his rights, or how he can avoid going into the army. Even Vice President Stephens wants to take Georgia out of the Confederacy. The South is falling apart.” She broke out in a sudden pleading urgency: “Oh, Faunt, how long will you go on fighting in this hopeless struggle?”

“Till I die,” he said in a low tone. She bit her lip, and her eyes filled; and he felt her love like a warm cloak enfolding him, and asked more gently: “What would you have me do?”

She shook her head, smiling again. “You know, ordinarily I'm a sensible woman, Faunt; but not when I'm with you. With you, having you here with me, I think how wonderful it would be if you and I could be always together, could put everything behind us but each other.” She shook her head. “Of course I know it's impossible. I'm as silly as any other woman in love, you see.”

So for a while they spoke no more of great affairs, but of themselves.

 

He stayed with her till Monday morning. Sunday afternoon, when they had been a while silent together, she asked: “Faunt, why don't you go to see your kinfolks?” And since he did not speak, she said: “You could be proud of them. Your sister, Mrs. Streean, does more than anyone outside the hospitals to help not only the wounded men but the poor people. Richmond's full of hungry women and children, ladies from Loudoun and Fauquier and all the northern counties who have had to leave their homes and have lost everything. They live in attics and in damp cellars and in broken-down railroad cars along the tracks.

“But I don't mean them. Their friends help them. It's the ones who were always poor, and whose friends have nothing, who suffer most. The Council has voted thousands of dollars to keep them from starving. Mrs. Streean was one of the ladies who organized the Soup Association. She's a fine woman, Faunt. You should be proud of her.”

“I was always a little sorry for Tilda,” he admitted in slow surprise. “But it never occurred to me to be proud of her.”