I Shall Be Near to You (23 page)

We stop at the top of a hill with a little creek cutting across the base of it. Beyond is noise and men and horses and smoke covering most of those meadows. The earth shakes with the bang of our artillery and the Rebs’ answer. In the space between are sounds like screaming and moaning and yelling and that is when I really see the field below us. What I first took to be shadows in the grass are Union boys. Scattered all across the spread of the land. Most of them lie still, but if I watch some long enough, parts of them move: arms, legs, bodies, more than I can even count.

‘I can’t stay sitting here,’ I say to Jeremiah.

‘You can’t go home now,’ he says, and his arm comes around my shoulder. ‘We can’t.’

‘I ain’t talking about going home. I’m talking about those hurt boys out there. We’ve got to do something for them,’ I say, my voice loud to be heard over the noise. I catch Will’s eyes darting away from me.

‘Like what? You can’t go out there. We’ve got orders to wait.’

‘Maybe there’s other things I could do, if I’ve a mind to,’ I tell him.

‘It don’t matter what you’ve got a mind to do. We’ve got orders.’

I stand up and say, ‘Waiting here and seeing that down there don’t sit right with me. I’m going to ask Sergeant to let me go help those boys.’

Jeremiah doesn’t move.

‘You coming?’ I ask.

He doesn’t say anything at first and then he says, ‘I don’t know a thing about nursing.’

Jennie Chalmers’ pale face flashes in my mind before I say, ‘It ain’t difficult and you’re more than able. You don’t want to, that’s another thing altogether.’

I memorize the high set of his cheekbones and the straight line of his nose, the blue of his eyes, the shock of hair falling across his forehead, thinking on if it was him out there in that tall grass. He must see something in my stare because he says, ‘You get your answer from Sergeant and come back here.’

I work my way through the resting boys under the trees, nodding to Thomas and Ambrose. Edward is dozing and Hiram is busy carving on something with his bayonet. Near our Regimental flag, Sergeant Ames rests with Sergeant Fitzpatrick from Company G. When he sees me coming, he excuses himself and stands, and I wish Jeremiah were here beside me doing the talking.

‘Private Stone,’ he says.

‘Sir, I know we got orders to stay put, but I’d like to take water to those wounded boys on the field.’

Sergeant Ames has got a kind face but that ain’t why he got voted Sergeant. What got him voted is how he listens and stops to think on it, and then tells me the truth even when it ain’t what I want to hear.

‘Soon as night settles,’ he says. ‘Come dusk, soon as the shooting stops, you can go out to those soldiers. It’s a good thing you want to do, but it isn’t the time now. You’ve got to get some rest while you can.’

Then he points North, up the road to a two-story box of a house, all rust-red fieldstone against the gold-tipped green fields. ‘You see that stone house there?’

I nod.

‘That house is serving as hospital, and Pope’s headquarters are off behind it. We’ll want to get the wounded there.’

After Sergeant tells me the countersign for crossing through the picket line, I come back to Jeremiah. He has already dozed off so I just settle in quiet next to him, our backs against a tree trunk, our sides pressed against each other, the rest of our Company spread out to either side. He murmurs something, his arm shifting behind me and reaching around to hold me. I get to wondering what someone watching, Will maybe, would see between me and Jeremiah, what seeing two men like that might make him think, how Will has been thinking it all this time. But it don’t matter if anyone sees me and Jeremiah, not when we’ve got battle all around us and the screams of the shells and the dying mixing together. I’ve got to have this moment here with my man and anybody thinks it strange, I am past caring.

W
HEN THE SHADOWS
get long, Jeremiah and I take our rifles and canteens. We go careful through the trees to a branch of what must be the same creek running at the bottom of the hill. It’s nothing more than two or three steps across, running in a slow trickle behind the line of our boys along the road, this branch maybe flowing to water one of the farms near here, the boggy grass at its edges a deeper green. Jeremiah crouches at the bank, pushing both our canteens down into the water, careful so he don’t stir up any silt. Once they are full, he holds on to them. Both of them.

‘I don’t want you going out on that field. It ain’t safe,’ Jeremiah says, staring into the creek.

‘It ain’t dangerous now,’ I say, ignoring the sounds of battle way off to our West.

‘It’s a battlefield, Rosetta,’ he says. ‘Ain’t nothing safe about a battlefield.’

‘I’ve just got to, that’s all. I’ve got to do something good. I’d feel better, having you with me.’ I touch his shoulder, smiling like Jennie does, like I’ve seen Mama do. ‘You could do those men a kindness,’ I add, even though giving water ain’t going to help, not really.

‘I ain’t got that much kindness in me, Rosetta.’

‘That ain’t true. You’ve got plenty.’

Jeremiah scoops both hands under the water and splashes his face. I squat next to him and do the same, washing the road grime and sweat stick off my face, the cool water running down into my collar. When I open my eyes, he is watching me.

‘That may be, but we ain’t here to do kindnesses,’ he says. ‘It ain’t going to help us when the fighting comes. I want brave ideas in my head tomorrow.’ He looks quickly back from where we came and then turns to me again, steadying himself with a hand on my knee before kissing me.

‘You shouldn’t go,’ he says. ‘It’s what I’ve decided.’

‘It’s what you’ve decided? You want to be the kind of man that bosses his wife? You want me to always be asking your permission for everything I do?’

‘Why can’t you do what I say, one time? Just once!’

‘Maybe when you stop asking me to go against what’s in my heart. Maybe when you stop treating me like I can’t do the things I want!’

‘When have I ever—? Ain’t you here? You think any other man would let his wife—?’ He shoves both canteens at me. Then he stands up and stalks his way through the trees. I sling the canteens across my chest and then my rifle, watching his back, the slouch of his shoulders showing a tiredness he didn’t use to have even though his steps are quick and angry. A sorry feeling drips through me slow. But I ain’t asking for anything more than what Jeremiah might.

‘Anybody want to come with me, give water to those boys out there?’ I ask when I get up amid the boys, acting like there ain’t a thing wrong between me and Jeremiah. He don’t even look at me, his face closed off.

Jimmy opens his mouth to talk, but Henry pinches his elbow and says, ‘We ain’t rested yet,’ and that closes Jimmy’s mouth right up.

Sully says, ‘That ain’t the kind of action I want.’

Will stands up and slings his rifle across his back. ‘I’ll go,’ he says, and I can’t help but wonder why. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t know what there is to say. To him or Jeremiah.

‘Look who ain’t no parlor soldier,’ Sully says, but Will don’t pay him any mind.

‘Let’s go,’ he says.

‘You got water?’ I ask, and Will nods.

‘We’ll be back,’ I say, mostly for Jeremiah, daring him to put a hand out to stop me. He stands, and I get ready.

‘I’m coming,’ he says. ‘But I ain’t doing no nursing.’

T
HE THREE OF
us make our way through the trees along the creek. There ain’t no animal sounds, no crickets, no owls. We are silent too, the three of us walking single file, Jeremiah in back and Will in front. There is just our boots squishing in the mud, the trickling water, the moans and cries of the wounded floating over everything.

The weight of it all drags me forward, keeps me from turning back.

‘I’ll stay here,’ Jeremiah says, nodding to the small fires off in the distance, Rebel campfires. Hiding in the gloom there are soldiers living and dying, maybe sharpshooters waiting to pick us off.

‘Be quick about it, Ross. That shooting ain’t far off.’

‘You ain’t got to worry. We won’t be long,’ I say, and that’s the most tenderness I can muster. I open my mouth but no words come that might make things right with Jeremiah. Not when he is always acting like he don’t trust me to do this, like he don’t think I can.

I catch up to Will and for a minute I am glad I ain’t added the truth of what’s passed between me and Will to Jeremiah’s tally against me. Will’s face is shadowed as he parts the tall grass, but his steps beside me don’t falter. The silence between us feels like a sheet of window glass and it ain’t something I know how to break. And I’m too tired to fix it if I do.

We pass swollen bellies of horses sprawling out, looking big and pregnant when they ain’t. The moans and cries of the wounded get louder, telling us where to go, worse than any crying my Mama ever did losing her babies, worse than any of the mamas who struggled to birth these men lying out on this field. My heart breaks just to hear it, and I give myself
over to the soldiers splayed out before me. Nothing in that hospital made me hard enough to see the boys lying on that field, boys long past saving. I can’t help thinking about it being Jeremiah lying there, about a wife waiting at home, like Mrs. Waite carrying her soldier’s baby, or Jennie Chalmers. It makes me want to do what little I can.

We pick our way around those boys. There ain’t a thing to be scared of with a body, it’s the ones still living to be worried about. Near a young boy, my foot slides in something. I fall to my knees and it is all I can do not to lose my whole stomach, sickness rippling through me to see the curdled blood I am kneeling in. That Bible story about how Abel’s blood soaked into the ground ain’t right.

Will reaches down to help me; his hand is cool and moist, and I am surprised by his grip. He peers at me.

‘I won’t tell anyone, if you’ll do the same,’ Will says.

‘I ain’t breathing a word about it. We can still go on being friends,’ I tell him. ‘To my way of thinking, you ain’t any different now than you ever was.’

Will gives me something like a smile and then he hauls me up out of the wet.

I turn to Jeremiah, just the dark shape of him, holding his rifle ready. I don’t know why I’ve always got to push so hard. I raise my hand to show him I ain’t hurt, hoping it is enough.

T
HE FIRST BOY
I bend low over don’t move but a wheezing comes from him. Crouching down, I make believe his chest ain’t all caved in, and that those are something besides ribs glistening in what little light there is. I can’t think of a thing to say and I don’t know if it is right to lay a hand on a boy so hurt as this.

‘Kill me, please,’ his hoarse voice comes.

‘You ain’t dying.’

‘You’ve got to kill me. I can’t stand it!’

‘You’ve got to stand it. There’s stretcher bearers coming,’ I say, but I
don’t know a thing about it being true. ‘You’ve got to stand it a bit longer. I’ve got water if you want it.’

‘Want to die!’ He forces the words out. ‘Please!’

There ain’t a thing to do for that boy, not a thing but what he is asking. I look for Jeremiah, but he is back where the line of bodies begins, his rifle raised and pointed at those Rebel fires. I don’t know what words a man ought to say before dying, and Will is swallowed up in the night. My musket is cold in my hands and it is good it is already loaded because my hands go to shaking.

‘You’ve got your soul right with God?’ I ask, but that boy just keeps saying ‘Please!’ over and over.

I see Papa putting his rifle in my hands and saying, ‘It’s loaded. You aim right here,’ and tapping the cow’s broad forehead.

I lower the barrel, right to the boy’s temple, telling myself it’s a mercy and still he begs and moans like he don’t even see what I’ve done. There’s the rattle of shots off in the distance. Answering this boy’s prayers will bring those Rebels’ attention this way, closer to me, to Jeremiah. I can’t do that. I can’t do even this one thing for that boy lying there; all I can do is give him water that won’t help none. I thought my heart had already broken, but now it is gone to pieces.

‘I’ll be back,’ I say, tears running down my face. ‘There’s stretchers coming.’

I’ve got to move on, is what I’m thinking. I’ve got to do something more than standing there and saying no to the only thing that boy wants. The wounded and dead lie all around in rows like they are still in line of battle, making it easy to see how the fighting went across the field. There ain’t one stretcher but there are other shapes down the line, bending over the bodies, and I hope they are helping. I move away, trying not to hear the man behind me go to shrieking, ‘Please please kill me’ over and over, trying not to think what the greater kindness would be.

There’s so many more boys, all of them gone, no rising of a chest or anything telling me there’s still a soul there. Maybe all the boys with lives to be saved are already gone, taken by their Companies or dragged off by
themselves. There’s nothing to be done for these boys, not in truth, but a voice calls for water, so I keep moving ’til I find a man old enough to be my Papa. With my hand under his head, I lift him up a bit before fumbling with my canteen and pouring a sip for him.

‘More,’ he says, so I give it to him and then he don’t say anything else. There’s a warm stickiness on my hand and a wetness seeping through the knees of my trousers. He’s bleeding in slow pulses from his side, his breath gasping.

The minutes are long before there ain’t no life left. I sit with him, with his body, waiting for his spirit to go. That is the least I can do for this stranger, the smallest thing he is owed. It takes a long time, watching the last life go, the little tremors and tics, making sure. I think on Papa and if I will ever meet him again.

This man has still got a haversack slung across his chest. It ain’t much inside, a cracker and some salt pork, and I feel like a thief, but with boys hungry behind our lines there’s no use in leaving good rations on the field so I put what’s there into my pockets.