I Shall Be Near to You (11 page)

‘Private Binhimer,’ Captain says, ‘your OUTBURST is UNWELCOME!’

‘Captain, Sir. Are we shooting blanks?’

Captain marches along our left flank until he comes to Hiram’s row. When he stops in front of Hiram, I am surprised to see Captain is taller.

‘You think we have Minie balls to WASTE so the LIKES of YOU can LEARN TO SHOOT?’ Captain yells into Hiram’s face, and I wonder if Captain has been paying mind to Hiram and his big talk.

Hiram don’t even move. ‘Sir, no, Sir.’

When Captain snaps himself around and struts off, I try pouring powder into the barrel of my rifle the way Sergeant Ames looks to have done. Only I can’t even see the top or the hole I’m pouring into and as soon as Captain is back to the front, the orders keep coming. ‘Draw Rammer!’ ‘Ram Cartridge!’ ‘Return Rammer!’ All around is the metal scraping sound of knife sharpening and sword drawing as we pull our ramrods from their holders, shove them down the barrels, and sheathe them again.

‘Prime Cartridge!’ he yells.

I am still fumbling with my cap box while there’s men all around me hoisting their rifles and the murdering ratchet of hammers being half cocked, and behind me Henry says, ‘This ain’t no place for a woman!’

I wonder why Jeremiah don’t say anything, if he is ever going to say one word on my account again. His eyes are narrow like all he is seeing is Rebels, and if anyone is going to show Henry he’s wrong it has got to be me.

Captain orders the first row of soldiers forward. The noise is a sharp
crack and rumbling echo and then there is just the smoke from the guns drifting up and away in the wind.

Then we step forward, Jeremiah to my left and Jimmy to my right, like we’ve practiced. I feel the guns next to me go off before I hear them, and I pull my trigger, the rifle kicking back into my shoulder hard enough for bruising, before I turn and run to keep with Jeremiah, my ears ringing.

‘Ain’t no different than shooting game,’ Henry says when we get back into line. ‘Like we all done before. Except for maybe Ross.’

‘Oh, I’m tougher than any Rebel,’ I say, raising my eyebrow at Henry. ‘And I shot a cow on our farm real clean once.’ But Sully and Henry laugh and Jeremiah says, ‘Shooting livestock ain’t the same thing.’

‘I’ve never done much shooting at home either, but I expect I’ll learn quick,’ Will says, and I could almost hug him.

Henry slaps me on the back and says, ‘You got one more shot off than I thought you would, Roset—I mean Ross.’

Jeremiah turns away like he ain’t even heard a thing.

A
FTER WE
’
VE BEEN
practicing skirmishing and loading for what seems like hours, Captain stops us near his big tent and says, ‘It’s time you boys learned some real shooting.’

Jeremiah turns to Sully and Jimmy and Henry, the corners of his mouth turned up, and punches Sully in the shoulder like he ain’t got a care in this world, like he ain’t even noticed me sleeping with my back to him and not saying one word.

The first ten soldiers, Sully one of them, take their places facing ten straw bales with paper targets, and the rest of us line ourselves up behind, our rifles at our sides. Sully shifts his weight from one foot to the other, like he might not wait for orders.

Captain dangles his stopwatch from its fob and shouts, ‘Fire and Load at Will!’

The air goes to humming with cartridge boxes opening, boys muttering, cartridges tearing, and ramrods ramming. The shots ring out like
popping corn in Mama’s skillet, first a few bursts and then a whole volley of so much noise it hurts. Mrs. Chalmers stands outside Captain’s big tent, her hands over her ears, watching.

When Captain yells, ‘One minute!’ most the boys have shot twice. Only a few stand back from the line, Sully being one, their smug faces showing they’ve made the standard with their three shots.

Captain marches to inspect the targets of the men who’ve shot three rounds. When he turns to face the Company, he don’t look best pleased.

‘I would rather see you fire one carefully aimed shot in ten minutes than ten poor shots in one minute,’ he says, and his words wipe the smile right off Sully’s face. ‘Next up!’

This time, most the boys at the front take their aim slow, even with Captain holding that watch. Jimmy fires his musket once and starts loading a second time, but then his face goes red as his hair and he steps back. Captain is down the line, standing at Jimmy’s side, and soon as those rifles lower, he is yelling.

‘Soldiers! Every one of you is a fresh fish, but Private O’Malley here has made a mistake I hope none of you will ever make again. What is that mistake, O’Malley?’

Jimmy slumps, his mouth moving, saying something nobody can hear.

‘O’Malley,’ Captain bellows, ‘for those of you who can’t hear, has LOST his rammer, has fired it down the field. Without your rammer, soldiers, you cannot fire. If you cannot fire, you are of NO USE to this Army and of no help to yourself. O’Malley, retrieve your rammer from the field!’

Jimmy tacks across that field, like a cowed dog hunting for scent. He searches for so long, sweeping wider and wider, until Sergeant Ames sends out four other boys to help.

‘I got the blasted fucker!’ Hiram Binhimer finally shouts, holding it over his head.

Jimmy snatches that rammer like he ain’t the one who lost it and when he comes to our line, no one goes to joking or teasing. Instead, Henry steps out of line and comes at me fast. He grabs my arm.

‘You go next,’ he says.

Jeremiah says, ‘Yeah, let’s see if Ross can do it!’ making everyone look
at me. It stings to hear his doubt, like how he used to bet against me every time I joined a spitting contest.

I walk to the front of our line, making myself taller as I set my rifle in front of me, thinking of the steps,
load charge ram prime aim fire, load charge ram prime aim fire, load charge ram prime aim fire
, until I get the rhythm of it, like my body is doing things and my mind don’t have to tell it. After my minute is up, there are only two holes at the edges of my target but Captain says, ‘You’ve done some fine shooting,’ as he walks past.

I don’t know who he means, me or Ambrose Clark to my right, but I hear my Papa’s warm, proud voice after I shot our hurt cow dead, saying, ‘You done it clean on the first try, Rosetta.’

I smile right at Henry when I walk past and say, ‘Let’s see if you can do better.’

W
ILL SURPRISES EVERYBODY
after we’re done shooting and have eaten supper by pulling out a deck of cards. He’s always reading his Bible and talking about missing church on the Sabbath, so I can’t think how he’s come to have that deck.

He says, ‘This game is five card stud, last card in the hole.’ Them other four settle themselves right down in front of our tent, near enough to the fire to keep the chill off, Sully’s lantern in the middle casting flickers on their faces.

I stay put on my tree stump, watching the cards move across the overturned crate, looking up at the inky sky and the stars, until the boys forget about me, until the wind changes and the tangy wood smoke starts stinging.

After a while Sully hollers, ‘Hell yeah!’

Jeremiah’s eyes flick over to me, a question there. It is nice, him taking an interest in me, even if he’s telling me that a boy not playing cards is something queer.

‘My Mama don’t hold to gambling,’ I call over to them, ‘so I ain’t learned before now. But if you boys don’t mind teaching me, I aim to try my luck this game.’

Henry smirks like a wicked devil and says, ‘There ain’t no better way to
entertain myself and make money at the same time as teaching a kid-glove soldier like yourself.’

‘Well then, how can I trust you to teach me straight?’ I drag my stump over to their circle, pushing between Jeremiah and Will. ‘You’ve all got money riding on it.’

‘You’re going to lose your money whether we teach you straight or not,’ Will says from across the circle and then blushes when all the boys laugh.

‘To buy into this game,’ Will adds, ‘the cost is five dollars.’

‘Five dollars! That’s almost half a month’s pay! And I ain’t got paid yet,’ I say. ‘None of you has.’

‘IOUs. What’s good enough for Ole Abe is good enough for us,’ Sully says. He passes me a pencil and a scrap of paper looks like it came off an envelope.

Once I push my paper signed
Ross Stone, March 4, 1862
, into the center of their little circle, right next to the lantern, Will doles out twenty matchsticks.

After the last hand, Sully’s got himself a bigger pile of matchsticks than anyone else, and he is even more puffed up than usual.

‘Okay. Now, we’re each going to get two cards,’ Will says to me, and he starts dealing cards to his left. ‘One up and one down. You look at your cards and what everyone else is showing and then you make up your mind.’

‘Make my mind up to what?’ I ask, and Henry sighs.

None of them has touched their cards yet, but I am itching to see mine.

Sully says, ‘You’re deciding if you want to bet.’

‘Well, how am I to know that?’

‘Ain’t you been watching?’ Henry growls. ‘This is why we oughtn’t be letting no womanish paleface play.’

Jimmy elbows Henry, but that don’t stop me from saying, ‘You can just shut your trap, Henry O’Malley. It ain’t my fault I never played before!’

Jeremiah says, ‘Why don’t we play a hand for practice?’ but Henry snorts and Sully shakes his head.

‘Highest upcard bets first,’ Will says, and picks up his card.

I slide mine across the slats and peer at it. There’s a two of spades in my hand and a jack of hearts for all to see.

Jeremiah has got a ten of spades on his knee. He gives me a small smile but that don’t make me feel one bit better, not when Jimmy with his five of diamonds has to stick up for me and throw elbows instead of my husband.

Will announces, ‘Queen bets.’

Sully tosses one matchstick to the center, where it lands next to the pile of scrap paper. Henry pushes his cards facedown to the center.

‘Fold,’ he says, and makes a sound like growling in the back of his throat before adding, ‘I can’t get nothing.’

‘That ain’t a surprise,’ I say under my breath.

Now it is my turn. I throw my free hand up. ‘How do I know I should bet? It ain’t teaching me if no one says a word.’

They start cawing all at once.

Jeremiah is first, saying, ‘If you got a pair, like two twos, you should bet—’

Then Will: ‘The higher your pair, the better. If you’ve got cards in a row, then you’re betting for a straight …’

‘Course, nothing beats a royal flush. A royal flush is a straight flush to the ace …’

Nothing in my hand matches, but I want to get the most practice. I set my matchstick in the middle and they all look at me.

‘You’ve got to say whether you’re seeing or raising,’ Jeremiah says low.

‘What’s seeing mean?’

‘That you’re betting what we all bet.’

‘Well, ain’t it plain if I put out the same thing as the rest of you?’

Jeremiah says, ‘You’ve just got to say it. Maybe you ain’t done betting yet. If you don’t say it we don’t know.’

‘Fine then,’ I say too loud, ‘I see you all.’

Jeremiah being nice now don’t make up for him never setting Henry straight. Will raises his eyebrows at me. I stare back.

Finally Will blinks and says, ‘I’m out.’ Then he deals the next card up.

Sully grins himself silly and throws out three matchsticks.

Jimmy sighs and folds, Henry muttering something about Irish luck. Jeremiah gives Sully a slow grin and drops three matchsticks of his own. I think hard. I ain’t got a card that matches and nothing in a row and I can’t see my way around losing three more matchsticks.

Jeremiah leans close. ‘What you got showing ain’t no good.’ I know he’s talking about the cards, but I reach up to the back of my neck, where my short hair bristles, and wonder what he sees when he’s looking at me, if there’s anything he likes the look of.

‘I fold.’

CHAPTER
11

UTICA, NEW YORK: MARCH 1862

In the morning, I leave Will cooking sowbelly and wait at the end of our tent row.

‘I got something to say to you,’ I tell Jeremiah when he comes back from the latrine.

He checks over his shoulder, but there ain’t nobody close around, and those boys nearest are busy with breakfast.

‘You come with me,’ I say, and walk into the trees, heading back to where we were last together alone.

‘Where we going?’ Jeremiah asks, coming up next to me.

‘Just off a ways,’ I say. ‘Into the woods.’

After that there is only the sound of us tripping through the underbrush and breathing cloud puffs in the cold air.

In a little clearing under a maple tree I stop to look at Jeremiah. ‘You embarrassed about me?’

‘What?’ he says.

‘Don’t you care for me no more? Maybe you don’t like my hair short?’

Jeremiah shakes his head. ‘Rosetta, what are you talking about?’

‘You’re all the time acting like you don’t love me, or like you don’t even see how nasty Henry is to me. You never even touch me no more.’

‘What do you mean?’ he asks.

‘When Henry called me womanish last night you didn’t even say one word to him! And when I was getting ready to shoot, you made all the boys watch me, saying what you did, and acting like you didn’t even think I could do it neither, same as when you bet against me in spitting contests. That ain’t right!’

‘I ain’t treating you any different than any of the other boys,’ he says, his face bland. ‘This is what you wanted!’

‘That’s just it!’ I say, stomping my foot at him throwing my words back in my face. ‘You’ve got to treat me different sometimes! You’ve got to treat me like I’m still your wife sometimes.’

‘How can I? How can I touch you? You ain’t here like Mrs. Chalmers is. You ain’t here as my wife. You’re here as a soldier.’

‘I’m still your wife. That’s the only reason I’m here! Ain’t I still doing your cooking?’

‘Didn’t you think maybe we wouldn’t be like at home?’ he says. ‘Didn’t you think maybe it’d have to be different?’