I Shall Be Near to You (35 page)

I can’t help but think how things would be different if I’d got Jeremiah here in time. I wonder if Sully, still worn out from what that surgeon done to him, will ever be healed.

She steeples her hands and bows her head. Her lips barely move, the words coming in a whisper. So sudden, my tears spill. I bow my head to hide. I ain’t even thought to say those words for Jeremiah. The tears come faster.

She finishes those last rites for the head-bandage boy. It is silent like she has moved to another patient, but she is watching me, finding something in me. I look back at her.

I ask, ‘You got kin fighting here?’

‘Every man fighting here is my brother,’ she says.

‘You ever been a teacher?’

A small smile curves her lips.

‘You’ve got that way about you,’ I say.

‘I suppose we all get marked by what we’ve done,’ she says. She gives
me a measured look before moving on to another patient, leaving me thinking how I’ve been marked.

S
ULLY SLEEPS
.
I make rounds, change bandages, offer water to the other boys, try to forget everything.

Near dusk Sully twists and curls on his thin bed of blankets, the coming dark making the hurt greater. My sorrow ain’t much different than those boys’ wounds, all of us needing more distraction from our pains.

When I find the woman, I ask, ‘You ain’t got kin here, how’d you get the Army to let you come?’

‘It irritates me to be told how things have always been done,’ she says, ‘so I would not accept their refusal. Or they finally had enough need, they’d take even my aid,’ she smiles. ‘Maybe I shamed them enough. Or they saw I could do what I said.’

‘You got a name?’

‘Miss Clara Barton,’ she says. ‘And you?’

‘Private Ross Stone.’

‘I see,’ she says, and gives me one of those teacher looks.

I go still but my heart don’t go to jumping. I ain’t nervous if she sees what I am.

I say, ‘I don’t have to stay here now, but I ain’t sure what else to do. This Army is the only thing I ever belonged to, but I’ve got other things to think on now. Other people.’

‘Is soldiering the thing you want to do?’ she asks. ‘Is it your best service to offer?’

‘There ain’t a place else I want to go,’ I say, and it is the truth, even now.

CHAPTER
36

The next morning the air has got an Autumn bite to it, but still Captain don’t bring no orders. Those sick boys out in the chill, alone, need nursing and cleaning and water. They can’t all have stayed living through the night.

Even so, when Will and I walk into that dooryard there are more soldiers than before, men with the flux and camp fever. As we pick our way among the boys, stopping now and then to give water or else a kind word, I get to fearing for how Sully fares, with this sickness catching, and me carrying Jeremiah’s baby.

‘We’ve got to get Sully out of doors, if he seems like himself,’ I say to Will’s back.

Will nods, but he don’t talk until we are in the parlor where Sully lies right where we left him. He is wrapped in a blanket and I think of cocoons and wonder how he can stand it. His chest rises and falls, deep and slow.

‘We oughtn’t wake him,’ I whisper.

Sully’s eyes pop open. ‘I ain’t sleeping,’ he says. ‘Just waiting for you to tell me you heard.’

‘Heard what?’ I ask.

‘The news about that nurse, Miss Barton,’ Sully says.

‘What about her?’ I ask. ‘We ain’t seen her.’

‘She worked herself ’til she dropped. The surgeon’s making her leave first thing tomorrow, said we’re getting supply wagons from Washington now, and he’s sending her back on the next wagon.’

‘How’d you find this out?’ I ask, my mind working.

‘I got ways,’ he says, and smiles real sweet, pointing across the hall, to where a woman in charcoal-gray skirts bends over a soldier, a neighbor woman, or someone’s kin, come to be of help.

‘You get any other news with that smile of yours?’ I ask.

‘Nope. It’s tough gathering information when you only got one leg.’

‘Speaking of that, we’ve got to change your bandage,’ Will says, pulling back Sully’s blanket and starting to unwrap that leg. ‘Then we’ll see about getting you some air.’

Sully’s leg don’t look good. The red stump oozes with bubbling blood and thick yellow pus, and the stain of the iodine I painted Sully’s stump with is gone. Sully reads what is on my face and there ain’t a thing to tell him that’ll make things better.

With Miss Barton leaving, there is only one way for Sully to get good nursing. And that is when a path opens before me.

‘W
E NEED TO
get Sully on that wagon with Miss Barton,’ I tell Will when we leave the hospital, the sun low and golden across the ground, dancing in patches under the trees. It could almost be pretty, except for the dead stench hanging over the whole place.

‘What do you mean?’ he asks.

‘That’s the only way he’ll get well,’ I say. ‘He can’t stay here without good nursing and what if we get orders? He’s got to get back to the Capital, to a real hospital.’

Will is quiet, thinking.

‘But what if he won’t hold up for the journey? It’s more than sixty miles—and Miss Barton isn’t fit to nurse him all that way.’

‘I’m going with him,’ I say.

‘But—’

‘But nothing. I’ve got to get away from this place.’ There is no other way about it, I’ve got to tell him the whole of it. ‘Jeremiah got a baby on me,’ I say.

He stops where he is, the color going out of his face. ‘We ought to tell Sergeant—’

‘No! I’m getting on that wagon a soldier. I ain’t about to get myself drummed out of the Regiment and clapped in jail for not doing according to regulation.’

Will says, ‘You aren’t in any condition—’

‘There ain’t anything wrong with me,’ I say.

‘I’m going with you,’ Will says.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘To ask Sergeant. I’m going with you.’

‘There ain’t no need,’ I say.

‘There is a need,’ is all he says, his eyes on my belly, his mouth set in a line. ‘All you have got to do is tell the truth and Sergeant’ll let—’

‘Until I get paid, I ain’t leaving this Army any way but honorably. I aim to get the money that’s owed me,’ I say. ‘You give me your word. Promise you ain’t going to tell Sergeant. We both got secrets ain’t no reason to go telling.’

Will sighs. ‘I promise I won’t get you pushed out of this Company, if it can be helped.’

I don’t think, I just put my hand out.

The air is still around us, the sun lighting up his hair, making it bright. He looks at my face and then at my hand before taking it. I close my fingers tight, holding him there until our eyes meet again, and I know I’ve got to say this right so there ain’t broken feelings between us.

‘It is a kindness, what you’re doing, and I thank you. But Sergeant won’t say no,’ I tell him.

He nods and then shakes my hand hard, like he is trying to prove he is still more of a man than I’ll ever be, like our hands clasping is a test and he aims to pass it.

W
E MARCH THROUGH
the rows of tents, popped up like mushrooms on a dung pile. Boys sit in little clumps, getting fires going, the rising and falling sounds of talking too far off to make out any words.

Sergeant sits on a stump outside his own tent, scraping his razor across days’ worth of whiskers, a mirror in his left hand. When he sees us, he nods. We stand silent, watching while he finishes and goes into his tent.

‘You won’t say one thing?’ I ask Will under my breath. He don’t answer and I don’t press.

When Sergeant throws the tent flap back and comes out dressed in his jacket, I talk before Will even has a chance.

‘Sir, I got worries that need discussing, if you’re of a mind.’

Sergeant waves his hand at the stumps around his campfire, nothing more than a few embers giving off heat. ‘Let’s sit,’ he says.

I’d rather stand but I sit across the fire from Sergeant. Will sits next to me.

‘What is it, then?’ Sergeant asks once we are settled.

‘Sullivan Cameron, Sir. He’s in that hospital down the way, where we’ve been guarding.’

‘How does he?’ Sergeant asks.

‘That’s just it, Sir. He’s only got the one leg now, and what’s left of the other don’t look too good.’

Sergeant nods so I keep talking.

‘There’s a good nursing lady there, but she’s worked herself sick and come tomorrow she’ll be on a wagon headed for the Capital.’

‘You’re worried for Private Cameron’s life, I take it?’

I nod. ‘There ain’t proper nursing here. If he could get to the Capital, maybe he could get better doctoring.’

‘You said there’s already a wagon going that way?’ Sergeant asks.

‘That’s right. You think there might be some way for Sully to be on that wagon?’

Sergeant don’t even have to think on it long. ‘I can’t see the harm in sending him back. If you think he can make the journey?’

‘Sir, I can’t see as how he will, if he don’t have a proper nurse.’

‘Well, then. What do you propose?’

‘I’m asking permission to go along, Sir.’

Sergeant don’t say a thing, looks from me to Will. That is when I see Will’s lips are moving. Maybe he ain’t as calm as he looks.

‘Just to see him settled in the hospital there,’ I say.

But Sergeant is shaking his head. ‘We’ll be moving soon,’ he says. ‘I can’t spare another soldier. Perhaps Private Cameron would be better staying put. Captain has sent for his wife and she’s due any time now. She’s as fair a nurse as any.’

That almost stops me cold. But Jennie being here don’t stop me from needing to leave this place.

‘Sir, I don’t doubt Mrs. Chalmers is a good nurse, but Sully needs good
doctoring
. I only aim to stay long enough to get him in a hospital bed. Surely there’s time enough before we move?’

He don’t answer, so I try something else.

‘Every other boy who joined up from Flat Creek is gone.’ My throat closing around the word. ‘Except Sully. He’s got to make it home.’

Sergeant stands up and says, ‘Excuse me a moment.’

That is when Will sees fit to talk.

‘Sergeant, it isn’t only Sully—Private Stone has something more pressing—’

But Sergeant just disappears into his tent like he don’t even hear.

I grab Will’s arm. ‘Don’t you dare.’

But Will shakes his head, facing straight ahead until Sergeant comes back.

When he does, he is holding a slip of paper.

‘I can’t send you to the Capital,’ Sergeant says, holding out a slip of paper. ‘This is a pass for Private Cameron. If you think he needs to be on that wagon, you see to it.’

‘But, Sir! I can be back in a week or two at the most,’ I lie.

‘Not now,’ Sergeant says as he turns to go back into his tent. ‘I can’t spare any more soldiers.’

CHAPTER
37

I can’t even move. Sergeant turns tail and disappears into his tent. I keep sitting there, waiting for him to come back and say he was wrong. Only he don’t.

Will leads me away. ‘Ross, you’ve got to go to Captain—’

I march myself off across the ridge, to where Jeremiah and I looked over the valley. To where I can watch Jeremiah’s tree fade as the sun sets. I ain’t got another plan.

‘I’ll tell him, if you don’t want to,’ Will says. ‘I bet he won’t make a big to-do about it—’

‘This ain’t for you to decide,’ I say. ‘You just leave me be—’

Only he don’t.

‘If you tell him, what’s to stop you going home?’ he asks. ‘They must care for you there. I’ve seen you get mail.’

‘I told you—I ain’t going any way but honorably. I’ve got to at least get my back pay. I won’t be no charity case.’

‘Even if you tell Captain, there’s still widow’s benefits—’

Just hearing that word, just the thought of going home as Jeremiah’s widow, makes me want to fold into myself. I don’t want those benefits. I don’t want anything except Jeremiah.

‘I don’t want to go home, not without Jeremiah,’ I tell Will. ‘What is there for me in that place? My Mama will make me dress in mourning, and Jeremiah’s Ma will try to make me a proper farm widow the whole rest of my life. Every friend I ever had in that place is gone, save Sully.’ And then there’s Eli. But he must’ve joined up himself by now, and even if he comes back alive, his gripes don’t carry importance for me no more, and maybe he can’t scare me now I know I can do just as much as any man.

‘It can’t be all bad,’ Will says, looking down at his hands and swallowing. ‘But maybe I’ve got a place, if you don’t want to go home.’

‘I told you, I don’t want to be nobody’s burden.’

‘That’s not it. I’m asking—I’m offering you something,’ Will says, watching the sun. ‘I’ve been praying and I want to do right, but—’

He don’t say anything more, looking at everything but me. I stare at him, watching his mouth working, waiting for more words to come tumbling out.

‘I can give you a place to go,’ he says, and his gaze flits away. ‘So you don’t have to be alone.’

He looks around, and then he speaks in a low voice, even though the tents are still far enough off. ‘You can be my wife. I’ve got family, a place you can go to. It’s not much’—his eyes meet mine—‘but it’s not a hospital or battlefield neither.’