I Shall Be Near to You (13 page)

Soon, there ain’t a single boy who ain’t working. Sully and Will have practically got their whole tent up, while Henry is still spreading out the canvas pieces just so, looking over each one, and Jimmy pounding in the stakes laid out neat around the edges. Henry looks at our tent barely up and me doing nothing and shakes his head. Once even Will looks at me, standing there like he can’t figure me out somehow.

I
SIT ON
the wooden crate our tent came out of, feeling easier. Jeremiah sits on the ground beside me, poking at the fire with a stick. I want to curl up next to him and trace the new beard that’s clinging to his jaw and flatten myself against him. I want to feel like we are home, just the two of us in our Little House with the woods around it and the smell of earth plowed up for growing things. But instead there is the golden light of the fire bright on Jeremiah’s cheeks and no nice supper coming and no big bed. Instead there is the yelling and laughing and singing of the men all around us.

Jeremiah stands up and says, ‘I’m going to check on Sully and the O’Malleys, maybe see if we can find some more wood for cooking supper.’

‘That’s fine,’ I nod. ‘I’ve got a letter to write.’

‘To your folks?’

‘That’s right. Figure I ought to tell them where I’ve gone.’

‘Might be good they hear it from you.’

I watch him go down our aisle and then I sit down to tell my folks all the nice parts.

March 14, 1862

Dear Mama, Papa and Betsy
,

I am writing to tell you I am Gone with Jeremiah, and Safe. I am sorry for not writing you sooner, or telling you my plans, but I could not see him go to fight this War and stay Home. I am cleaving to my husband, as the Bible says I ought. I aim to help as Best I can and Earn what money I may, even if it means soldiering. I will send what I can Home for you and for the Farm and will write to tell you where we have got to
.

Don’t you worry none about me, I am Happy here with Friends all around, as you can see in the likeness I am sending. That Boy you don’t know is named Will. We are doing nothing but Drilling and learning to Shoot and building up the fort, and I am Pleased to say I can do All of it as Well as any man here
.

For Betsy I am sending this Ribbon. Don’t you think it is a pretty Blue? You would be Amazed to see the Ribbons and Fine Things the ladies in Washington or even over in Utica wear
.

When you write, you can direct letters to Pvt. Ross Stone, 97th Regiment, NYSV, Company H in care of Captain Chalmers via Washington D.C. The word all around camp is that we will be moving Soon now we shoot and march straight—maybe off into Virginia
.

I am still
,

Your Rosetta

Once I have got that letter written nice, I tuck it with the map inside my coat pocket. Putting it in Sergeant’s mailbag will have to wait for morning because there is Jeremiah coming back down the aisle with an armful of wood and the rest of the boys and it is a sure thing they are all hungry.

I
NSIDE OUR TENT
, while Jeremiah does up the ties on the flap, I sit on my blankets and wonder how it is we are supposed to be husband and wife here where we still ain’t got real walls. Since leaving home I ain’t slept outside of my clothes even once, ain’t even washed, really. Not with Mama’s lavender water like I sometimes used to. But then Jeremiah turns to me.

‘We ain’t had time like this since we were back home,’ he whispers.

‘You think it’s okay here?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’ Jeremiah asks.

All the nights we shared a tent with the O’Malleys, sometimes after Henry would get to snoring and Jimmy would start up with grinding his teeth, Jeremiah’s hands would find me, would find their way to places, sometimes I would find my way to him, our mouths bearing down on each other’s to keep from making sound.

‘If anybody hears …’ I say, wishing for our Little House away in the woods. ‘Or if there was action and we had to get up and we weren’t—’ It’s like we are sneaking and worrying, like before we were married.

‘You think too much,’ Jeremiah says, and as he sinks down in front of me, I know he is right.

He reaches to touch my hair and I remember rinsing it in vinegar to be nice for him.

‘I miss this,’ he says.

‘It’ll grow back. When we’re done soldiering.’

‘Mrs. Wakefield,’ Jeremiah whispers.

‘Yes,’ I say, thinking how he ain’t had occasion to call me that since we were back home.

‘It is nice being with you,’ he says. ‘Just you.’

I kiss him then, and I don’t care about the O’Malleys or Sully and Will in the tents next to ours or what they might hear. In the dark, I tear at Jeremiah’s shirt and his hands work at mine. His skin is smooth under that shirt, not like the roughness of his hands that are working to unwrap my binding and I will never get myself bound up in time if the bugles or drums call us, but then he has got the binding free and he lowers me onto our scratchy woolen blankets. I wish for our soft bed and covers to lie in, until our chests press together, so warm. Then we are pulling and kicking our way out of our trousers, our breath coming fast, and trying to keep quiet as we lie like man and wife, but I can’t help myself and I call Jeremiah to me, whispering his name, whispering ‘Mr. Wakefield’ so I can hear him call me my rightful name again.

A
FTER WHAT SEEMS
like hours at morning inspection, Sergeant Ames finally dismisses our work teams. We march through the palisade gate, and I shift my knapsack again, trying to ease my back. Only now there is a tightness rippling across my belly too. Relief washes over me that the aching ain’t got a thing to do with the pack I’m carrying, but then a wave of worry comes. I’ve got to get myself a moment alone in the stand of trees we’ve been cutting down so the Army can keep this fort up. Much longer and there won’t be a way to keep the secret of what I am.

I scurry down the rough dirt road next to Jeremiah. We ain’t but a few steps when Edward pulls something out of his pocket.

‘My brother sent me a carte de visite I bet you’d all pay money to see,’ he says, and holds the card out on the palm of his hand. Hiram is closest and as soon as he bends over to take a look, he gets to hooting. That makes the other boys, Henry and Jimmy and young Frank Morgan, crowd around. Ambrose is the only one who keeps walking.

Frank is saying, ‘I wouldn’t mind poking a girl like that!’ as I try to elbow my way through the clump of bodies, Jeremiah slowing in front of me.

There, in the palm of Edward’s meaty hand, is a picture of a lady with no clothes on, lying on a couch for anyone to see. I’ve never seen such a thing.

‘Oh,’ I say, just before Jeremiah pushes me back out of the way. I catch Will’s eyes and he drops them right to the ground.

Thomas says, ‘I don’t want to look at a woman of low virtue. And none of you ought to either.’

It makes the boys break up their circle and get back to walking, even though Hiram tells Thomas, ‘Your wife ain’t anywhere near but you are still the stodgiest man I ever fucking met!’

‘Some people call it fidelity,’ Thomas snaps.

I touch Jeremiah’s elbow. He slows down until all our party is gone up ahead.

‘Rosetta, I didn’t even really look at what was on that—And anyway, while you’re here you’re going to have to get used to—’

‘I don’t care about the picture. We ain’t having a baby and I’ve got to get myself some time away,’ I whisper. Jeremiah cocks his head, confused, and I ain’t ever thought I’d have to explain it to someone else. ‘It’s my woman’s time … my monthlies?’

‘I see,’ Jeremiah nods, and his smile should make me happy but it don’t.

When we reach the woodlot, he and I go far enough so the sound of the boys talking and Henry swearing every time his and Jimmy’s saw snags don’t hardly reach us. I push my way into the low darkness of a thicket, crouching to dig through my knapsack and find the flannel strips shoved to the bottom, where anyone would have to go searching for them. I fashion
a thick wad, hoping it can last, wondering about once I don’t need it no more, once it is soiled.

Through the trees Jeremiah stands guard, his back to me, his weight resting on one leg.

‘My Papa was always so pleased when he got a baby on my Mama, like he forgot all my brothers on the hill,’ I say as I push through the brush. It is safe enough I put my arms around him.

‘I can’t see how he’d forget a burden like that,’ Jeremiah says, ‘with all the bad luck your Mama had.’

‘I don’t know what he was so pleased about. I ain’t ever found one special thing about a baby, not even Betsy, unless more laundry and mending and coddling when there’s work to be done has got something to it that I don’t understand.’

‘Well, there ain’t no farm that don’t have babies a part of it,’ Jeremiah says. ‘And seeing my brothers with their babies—seems the trouble might be worth it.’

We ain’t ever talked about children before. For the first time I see a picture of that farm that ain’t only me and Jeremiah, and hired hands come harvest. There is Jeremiah in a red barn with a dark-haired child on his shoulders, telling what makes a good cow, and the two of them poking their fingers in the dirt, sowing seeds.

‘It ain’t our time yet.’ Jeremiah squeezes me real quick. ‘But your Mama’s troubles ain’t got to be yours.’

CHAPTER
13

FORT CORCORAN, VIRGINIA: APRIL 1862

We’re at mail call, and Mrs. Chalmers is there. She stands at the front of our lines, smiling at men, her skirt clean. She uses that smile of hers, gets those men’s attention. I watch Jeremiah close to see if her soft skin and pretty mouth draw him too, but if they do he don’t let himself get caught looking.

Instead, he leans over and says, ‘Now that Captain’s wife sure is a pretty thing. A nice proper wife any man would like to have. Looks nice in that dress of hers too.’

‘Well, she ain’t your wife and you ain’t any man, seeing how you picked a different sort.’ I glare back at him.

He grabs me round the neck, pulls my head toward his belly button, the sort of thing I’ve seen the boys do a hundred times. The sort of touching won’t attract no notice.

‘I got a fighting wife, that’s a fact,’ he says, rubbing his knuckles across my scalp, knocking my kepi off.

I push him, but he just laughs.

‘Don’t you think if Ross here put on a calico dress, he’d look almost as pretty as Mrs. Chalmers?’ Henry says loud enough for everyone around us to hear. Jeremiah stiffens. His hand on my elbow is the only thing that keeps me from turning on Henry.

It stings when Edward laughs, saying, ‘I think it’d be a damn sight harder for Ross to look as sweet as that honey,’ and it is a good thing Mrs. Chalmers calls his name right then to come collect a letter. He throws a wink over his shoulder at us as he goes to her, his face bright, looking like he might bend over at the waist and bow down like trampled wheat.

Edward is handsome in the way of a good workhorse, but Mrs. Chalmers don’t seem to take special notice of him. I wonder what that’s like, for a woman to do that to a man who ain’t hers, if a plain girl like me could do that as easy as Mrs. Chalmers does if I tried. There ain’t much strength in a woman who is only good at smiling, but I wonder if that is the kind of wife most men see for themselves. Still, if she knew about the dirty pictures Edward gets in his mail, I bet she wouldn’t be so keen on giving him smiles or anything else neither.

When Edward has turned back, I almost jump out of my skin to hear Mrs. Chalmers read my name. I thread through the other men waiting, trying not to look at her. Still, I can’t help staring as I take the square of paper from her hand, her skin silk like she’s never done a bit of real work. My skin ain’t never been that tender, not since I was a baby.

Mrs. Chalmers catches me staring and smiles before ducking her head. I turn away fast, snatching the thin packet out of her hand, blushing at how she must think I’m looking on her like the other men do.

P
APA
’
S THICK WRITING
is on the face of that envelope, so firm it’s gone and pressed the letters into the paper and I am so hungry to read it, I almost can’t wait ’til I am safe from prying eyes.

The letter is short and all in Papa’s hand.

March 29, 1862

Dear Rosetta
,

The Farm misses you. There is work aplenty with Planting coming on but you know Isaac Lewis is hired to help do the work and he is a good worker and strong. The North field will be in wheat this year, and I think to plant potatoes in the rest. There’s 3 new calfs just this week, one spotted
.

We first thought it a Relief to get word, but the news of Your letter goes Hard with Mama and Betsy and adds to our Worries. I see how you try to do Right, but they are feeling the Stain of it on their heads, Seeing how Most Everyone here has been talking of you being gone. We wish you had Spoken to us of those plans on your last visit
.