I Shall Be Near to You (28 page)

‘That’s a pretty name,’ Will says. ‘So pretty …’

‘I ain’t the only one that’s got secrets,’ I tell Jeremiah.

I
N THE MORNING
, I can’t even finish washing myself. I stand up and stride back to the fort, past our tent. There’s a few boys stirring, all of them looking sick as dogs. I nod to Thomas Stakely working on a fire, Ambrose sitting next to it, holding his head, but I don’t stop as I go past on my way straight for Captain’s tent and the company of Jennie Chalmers.

She is there, bending low feeding kindling to the fire, a kettle hanging over the flames. I don’t say a thing, just stand there watching. When she straightens and turns, she lets out a little yip. I look around, making sure there ain’t a body around who might see me talking to the Captain’s wife.

‘I apologize,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t meaning to scare you.’

‘Ross! I’m so glad you’ve come! I thought I saw you dancing last night, but then I wasn’t sure …’ She smiles, but there is a new narrowness to her face.

‘Are you well?’ she asks, coming closer and touching my elbow.

‘Mostly.’ It is true, seeing as how I am still living. ‘And you?’ I ask.

‘Likewise. But how have you been?’ she asks, her voice dipping down low, searching my face.

There’s things I can’t tell anyone, so I say what’s easiest. ‘I’ve been fine,’ I say, and then I can’t stop myself from adding, ‘One of the boys from home, he ain’t come back with us, and another one passed on.’

‘Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Jennie says.

‘You’ve been visiting the hospital?’

‘I go every day. There’s so many—’ She shakes her head. ‘Were you thinking of coming?’

‘No, I don’t think I can now,’ I say. ‘I tried nursing some at Bull Run, but I—’

‘My husband says you were an excellent battlefield nurse.’ Jennie checks her kettle and then moves to add more kindling to the fire. ‘Would you like coffee?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve got something that needs asking. Is Captain …?’

‘He’s gone to a meeting. Would you care to sit?’

I nod and we move to the folding wooden chairs by the table. I don’t know how else but to come right out with it.

‘You ever heard of a woman missing her time and not having a child on her?’ I ask.

Jennie’s hands fly to her mouth, making a little prayer-tent shape there in front of her lips. Finally she takes her hands away.

‘You think you’re with child?’ she whispers.

‘Not really. Just ain’t had my time since before we went marching,’ I say, thinking how my belly don’t feel any different when I lay my hands across it, how if anything, it is smaller.

‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I could ask one of the ladies, or maybe the surgeon—’

‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t want no one else knowing. And it can’t look right, you asking a thing like that.’

‘What are you going to do?’ she asks.

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘This ain’t what I planned.’

She reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. ‘You have to keep safe,’ she says. ‘In case. Have you thought about going home?’

‘I don’t want to go home,’ I say, my voice edging above the whisper we been keeping ourselves to. ‘Not without Jeremiah. A baby needs a father.’

I look at her hard to see if telling is crossing her mind, but there’s not a thing except worry in her eyes.

‘Of course,’ she says, and it is honey to hear her agree with me.

There is a long silence. I can’t think of a thing to say.

‘Oh! That reminds me!’ Jennie jumps up from her seat and goes to a large chest that must be serving as Captain’s desk. She takes a canvas bag from inside and rummages about. ‘Here it is!’ she finally says, holding up an envelope. ‘I’ve been holding on to this for safekeeping. It was waiting here when I got back from Virginia.’

She holds the letter out to me, and I know it is from Papa before I even see his writing on the front, just from the way he’s folded the paper so neat and square.

I slide it right into my pocket, trying not to think on what Papa might have written. When I am done she is peering at me.

‘You really think you’re expecting? Do you feel like you are?’

‘I don’t feel much different,’ I say. ‘Except on the march, I couldn’t keep a thing down.’

It don’t matter that she don’t have answers and she can’t help me, that her only advice is going home. It just feels good to tell my worries to her and put those thoughts with someone else for a bit.

I
STOP NEAR
the parade ground where I can be alone and take Papa’s letter out, peel it open carefully, unfold it slowly. I let my eyes relax, let the sparse words blur for just a moment. Then I steady myself to see what Papa has written.

August 3, 1862

Dear Rosetta
,

We are always Glad of Word from you—there is almost no News otherwise, with you Gone so Far
.

As you must know, it has been Busy here with haying. The Wheat is good this year, and what Potatoes the gophers haven’t got. That spotted calf you asked after is weaned and sold to Nilsson as we cannot take on more now
.

We Hope to see you before Too Long. Your Mother says to tell you Come Home and we’ll not speak of it again
.

We Pray for you
,

Your Father, Charles Edwards

I crumple that letter, stuff it in my pocket. It don’t go so hard this time, feeling their shame, but even if she was right, Mama never did know the words to make me do what she wanted.

E
VEN FEELING SICK
as they do, the boys still spend the morning passing rumors we might be leaving any day, telling each other they can’t wait to be marching on those Rebels. I’m thinking on my own worries, about how it don’t seem right, Jennie Chalmers knowing something Jeremiah don’t, when Will sits himself down beside me.

‘I wanted to thank you for what you did last night,’ he says.

‘It ain’t nothing,’ I shrug. ‘Anybody would’ve done the same.’

‘That isn’t so,’ he says, and then he leaves me to wonder if I were a noble wife like Jeremiah said, if I ought to talk to him before we get to marching again.

I
WAIT
’
TIL
night, ’til we are lying under our tent, Jeremiah’s body curled around mine, his arm over my shoulder, his hand in mine.

‘I’ve got to talk to you.’ It comes out quiet.

Jeremiah’s body goes still as a deer listening to the wind.

‘Okay,’ he says, and turns so he’s flat on his back. I can just make out his face. It looks blank so I know I ain’t kept my voice calm.

Under my hand his heart beats faster as he waits for me to talk. Everybody is sleeping in their tents and someone’s snoring mixes in with the frogs and the lonely screech of an owl hunting. I reach across and pull him close, sliding my hand down his side, bumping along his ribs. He’s dropped weight from marching with no rations.

‘What’s this about?’ he asks, his fingers closing on my hand. ‘You’ve got a seriousness to you I ain’t—’

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My Mama has announced a thing like this more than once, but there ain’t a way for me to say it all warm with love. There ain’t nothing but fear gripping my belly.

‘It ain’t nothing,’ I say. ‘It’s just I’ve been thinking if there’ll be more fighting for us to do.’

‘Seems likely.’

‘You think we can stand it?’

‘Ain’t got a choice, unless you’re wanting to go on home.’

‘Not without you,’ I say, tears pricking my eyes.

I turn my back on him, my heart pounding.

He don’t say anything for a good long minute. I let those hot tears run. He slides back down next to me and puts his arm around me.

‘Rosetta,’ he whispers. ‘I’m sorry. I thought this war would be over quick. I thought we’d have our farm and be wintering over somewhere while we waited to get our house built and put in our own crops. Lord knows I’m glad you came—but if you’re scared, you ain’t got to stay on my account—I can find a way to stand you being gone home if I know you’re safe.’

I let those words sink through me. Neither of us says a thing. I want to be here with Jeremiah, and I want to be living that life we dreamed. Instead
I kiss his hand, where the bullet graze is fresh healed. I tell him something for both ways.

‘I’m safest where you are,’ I say, and hope it is true.

I
T IS LATE
in the day when Jennie comes to our fire, her chin up even as she’s casting about like a spooky horse.

‘I came to talk to Private Stone,’ she says from where she stands at the aisle’s edge. ‘Alone.’

From across the way Edward lets out a low whistle, and she wraps her arms tighter across her chest.

I jump up from where I am sitting, following her down the row, her swirling skirt drawing the attention of every boy we pass, even when they all saw so much more the night before.

‘What are you doing?’ I ask when we get clear to the parade ground.

She stops and looks around before meeting my eye.

‘I found someone for you,’ she says, and leans close. ‘A woman. It isn’t cheap, but she—she knows the herbs to—she says she can purge your womb.’

My mouth drops right open. ‘Oh.’

Jennie presses a slip of paper into my hand. ‘The address is there. If you want to go—I can ask Captain for an escort to the hospital again.’

‘I don’t know—I’ve got to think—’

‘Of course,’ she nods. ‘You let me know if—’ And she turns on her heel, her calico skirt billowing like sheets on the line as she moves away through the gathering twilight.

I walk slow back to our tent.

‘Oooh, boy!’ Hiram stands and claps as I go by. ‘You got balls to be diddling with the Captain’s wife!’

The boys have all got questions on their faces when I move into their circle around the fire.

‘News from the hospital,’ I say. ‘One of the soldiers I saw there—he’s gone.’

No one bothers with me after that. The smoke twists into the night just like when Papa’s burning sheets, my Mama sobbing behind her closed door. I look across at Jeremiah, picturing Papa’s hands cradling Betsy, and then I open my hand, letting that slip of paper flutter down into the flames.

CHAPTER
25

MARYLAND: SEPTEMBER 9–16, 1862

It turns out McClellan ain’t so slow as Hiram says, and it is only a few days before orders come for us to march into Maryland. I push my worries out of my mind, and the first town we march through makes it easier to think I am doing the right thing. It is a sight to see. Stretched along the road, the whole town, all their women and children, is out to meet us. The young girls wave white kerchiefs and some of the children have brought flags too. At a brick storefront, a girl looking to be Betsy’s age stands, a glass jug of lemonade resting on the railing beside her. Sully stops right there in front of her, and she lowers a dipperful down to him. He tips his kepi all gentleman-like when he is done, and a smile lights that girl’s face. At the upper end of the street, two young ladies run out to meet us. They come alongside Will and the older one, a plain girl with a long straight nose, asks, ‘Would you care to join us for a hot supper?’

Will’s face goes red but he says, ‘I would be pleased to some other time, but we have to keep moving.’

The other girl, chestnut-haired and scrawny, smiles, looking up at me through her lashes. When I nod, she blushes, like the only thing she sees is a soldier belonging to this Army, but she don’t even think about the things I might’ve done. I thought only Jeremiah would ever look at me like I was something worth wanting, but now those girls even get me feeling brave and handsome, like I really am part of this Army. It’s enough to make anybody feel like Independence Day, but it is a strange thing to think she wouldn’t be so admiring if she knew everything I am hiding.

The two girls stay standing in the street, and when Edward passes he calls out to them, ‘We’ll be back, Miss! You save some of that sweet, hot supper for me!’

Hiram steps out of line, saying, ‘We have need of a good cook here in this Army and I would be pleased to take both of you ladies on my staff!’ and then he thrusts his hips at them.

Those girls’ mouths drop, making Hiram laugh and every boy around him too, and then he shoves Will, saying, ‘I have got to take you for a good diddling when we get back to the fort so you won’t be so fucking shy when your chance comes.’

Will don’t join in the laughing, but his face turns an even deeper red.

After we leave that town, we still pass houses here and there flying Union flags, and then the drums and fifes and even the bugles start blaring marches. It gets us stirred up and cheering and almost forgetting what it is we’re going to do. Sometimes the noise brings children running from the houses, some with little offerings. A red-haired boy comes bursting from a plain clapboard house, his mother running after him. He comes right to us, holding out two slices of thick wheat bread, and I thank the Lord I ain’t so sick or nervous now that I can’t stomach the tidbits, that maybe my worries are nothing more.