The Winter Family (8 page)

Reggie had not moved. He stood stock-still, his hands in the air and his eyes wide.

Sevenkiller had his gun trained on Reggie’s head. He had watched the battle between Early and Winter with amazement. Now his gaze turned back to Reggie.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Sevenkiller said.

When Winter regained consciousness, he was tied to a chair in a dark barn. Dirt floor, thin gray wooden walls. The only light what leaked through the cracks between the boards. It smelled dank, like a place where things had died, and it was silent, except for Reggie whimpering and the intermittent spatter of rain against the wood.

“Auggie?” Reggie whispered.

Winter lifted his head and felt pain, as if there was a fork in his brain and someone had twisted it. He lowered his head and threw up between his feet.

“Auggie, be quiet!” Reggie said, his voice so high it was a wonder it didn’t break. “Auggie, please!”

Winter forced himself to lift his head in spite of the pain and looked at Reggie, who was tied to another chair about five feet away.

“You have to be quiet,” Reggie whispered.

“Why?” Winter said. “I don’t reckon they forgot they put us in here.”

“Shh!”

“Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Reggie whispered. “They took us over a bridge. Then we left the road and I got lost on the paths. I’m afraid they’re going to kill us.”

Winter didn’t say anything to this.

“Auggie, do you think they’ll kill us?”

“I don’t know.”

“We’re prisoners of war, aren’t we?” Reggie said. “They can’t just kill us.”

“They can do anything they like to us,” Winter said.

“No they can’t,” Reggie said. “There’s rules to war.”

“Yeah,” Winter replied. “And a lot of time they get broken.”

Reggie gave Winter a reproachful look, a beseeching look. But Winter turned away. There was no real comfort he could give.

Winter flared his nostrils. “Why does it smell like ice cream in here?”

Something stirred at the other side of the barn. Reggie let out a little cry.

“Who’s there?” Winter said.

“It’s Bill,” a voice said, sounding unsteady. “Who are you?”

Winter did not say anything.

A man came out of the darkness. A small Indian, young, shaking as if with fever, his shirt stained with vomit and reeking of vanilla.

“Who are you?” Bill said. “Are you Yankees?”

“Don’t say nothing,” Winter said to Reggie.

“It’s not me you have to worry about,” Bill said, wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “What is the matter with your eyes?”

The barn door swung inward. The sky was gray and the light was relatively dim but it was still blinding, and both Reggie and Winter squirmed in their chairs. Bill held up his hands to shield his eyes and stumbled, groaning, back into the darkness.

“Well fucking well,” Early said as he came inside. “Look who’s woken up.”

Captain Jackson followed behind, limping on his crutch.

“Thought you were real tough, didn’t you? Don’t feel so tough now, though, I’ll reckon.”

Reggie’s eyes were leaking, and he was making a lot of noise breathing, like he’d been running. Winter was not in much better shape. But there was something defiant in his manner, too, as if he had been in this barn before, and he was used to it, and he was bracing himself for something terrible but not unfamiliar.

“I asked you a question, boy!” Early shouted.

Both Reggie and Winter flinched but neither of them spoke.

Early’s belt slithered out from around his waist and the buckle snapped against Winter’s face. He gave a cry and turned away.

“You feel like biting me now, boy?”

Winter looked back at Early and his eyes were wide with fear but burning with hatred.

“Fuck you,” Winter said.

“You weren’t kidding,” Tom said. “You got yourself a kicker.”

“He’s a fucking baby,” Early said. “You think you’re tough ’cause you don’t know how bad it can get.”

At this, Winter actually smiled. It was not for show, but a real smile, a reflex. His lip had been smashed and his teeth were bloody. “Try me.”

Early stepped forward, went down on one knee, windmilled his arm, and punched Winter in the stomach. Winter released an explosion of air then retched.

“You’re sickening,” Early said. “You make me sick.”

“All right,” Tom said. “That’s enough for now.”

He came forward as Early reluctantly stepped back.

“I’m Captain Tom Jackson. I guess you boys are bummers with Sherman’s army. Is that right?”

Winter was still whooping and retching, so Tom looked at Reggie.

Reggie nodded.

“What are you doing all the way out here?” Tom asked.

“We’re foraging for the army,” Reggie said. “It’s allowed, according to the rules of war.”

“You fucking thieves,” Early said. “Looting and burning our
homes! Whyn’t you fight our soldiers if you’re so concerned about the rules of war?”

Reggie started to cry.

“I was just following orders,” he said.

“All right,” Tom said. “Where’s the army headed?”

Reggie hesitated and looked at Winter, who was only now recovering. Then he said, “Macon.”

“Bullshit,” Early said.

Tom put his hand to his sandy beard.

“You’re going to tell us the truth,” Early said, jabbing his finger at Reggie.

“That is the truth!” Reggie cried. “I swear.”

“It’s a fucking lie,” Early said. “You’re too far east.”

Reggie glanced at Winter.

“Don’t you say nothing, Reggie,” Winter said.

Early smacked Winter, hard, with the back of his hand, and Winter’s chair fell to the side and he hit his head. Winter let out another high cry of pain. When Early loomed over him he shrank in fear.

“All right,” Early said, “let’s get this over with.”

He trooped off to the far corner of the room and came back with a bucket sloshing full of water. Winter looked at the bucket, uncomprehending, until Early seized him by the hair, lifted him up together with the chair, and dunked his head into it. Winter struggled and made desperate noises. After about forty seconds Early pulled his head back out.

“Still don’t have anything to say?” Early demanded.

Winter gasped for air. Fear was clearly written on his face. But he said nothing, so Early jammed his head back into the bucket.

Tom stood with his arms folded across his chest.

Reggie was crying with his mouth open.

The dunking continued until it was interrupted by a voice:

“You’re doing it wrong.”

Tom and Early started.

Sevenkiller had come into the barn without making a sound. He was smiling and gripping a scarf between his hands.

“He’ll break,” Early said.

“No he won’t,” Sevenkiller replied. “You’re just taking away his
air. He knows you’ll give it back. You need to put him on his back, so you make his gorge rise. Go on. Put him on his back. I’ll show you.”

Early frowned but tilted Winter’s chair so it lay on its back. Winter stared at the ceiling and breathed, breathed, breathed while he still could.

“Put this over his face,” Sevenkiller said and handed Early the scarf.

Early pressed the scarf down on Winter’s nose and mouth.

“Now watch this,” Sevenkiller said. “It’s such a very little thing.”

A stream of water splashed down over Winter’s nose and mouth. Almost immediately his whole body went into convulsions. It was a sensation totally unlike being able to breathe. He had never felt anything like it.

“Oh my god,” Tom said.

“Hidee-lee, hidee-lee,” Sevenkiller hummed.

Winter strained against the ropes. It was like there was a pulsing, writhing thing inside his chest, like he was being turned inside out. He started to weep but he couldn’t breathe. His face turned brick red and his eyes popped out and everything else jerked and twitched. It went on and on.

From the darkness, forgotten by everyone, Bill watched without much emotion. He had seen worse: men blown apart and screaming for their mothers in absurd, high-pitched voices. Men weeping as their limbs were sawn off by doctors. Men turning waxy and yellow as they bled out through their guts. That was all much worse than this. It would not go on long. The boy would break. Everyone did. It was the hardest lesson of war: that men were their bodies, not their spirits, and there was much that the body could not bear, no matter how strong the spirit.

The flow of water stopped and the scarf was removed.

“You want to talk now, young man?” Sevenkiller said.

It was a narrow thing. It could have gone either way. Winter almost surrendered. Tears trickling down his cheeks, and he was scared. But he’d been prepared for this moment, this pain, this darkness. He was ready. All they were doing was baptizing him. Pushing him further and further into the man he was going to be.

“All right,” Sevenkiller said.

The rag pressed down over Winter’s mouth and the water came.

Winter made a howling noise of agony and thrashed from side to side, trying to escape. But his eyes locked onto Sevenkiller’s, and they were not growing more desperate. As the strain, the stress, the pain grew, those eyes became harder and harder, like coals being transformed into diamonds by pressure.

Sevenkiller, in spite of himself, felt uneasy.

The water stopped. The rag came off. Winter inhaled in a scream and let out a choked sob.

“Tell us!” Sevenkiller barked. “It’s never going to stop!”

Here it comes, thought Bill.

“Kill you,” Winter gasped.

The scarf came down again.

Winter bucked in the chair so desperately, with all of his muscles firing blindly, his limbs flailing in a reflexive attempt to escape, that his forearm snapped like a twig. The sound of it was clearly audible.

“Aw, fuck,” Tom said in disgust.

“Stop, stop!” Reggie sobbed. “Stop it! We’re going to Savannah! We’re going to Savannah!”

Early lifted the scarf and stood up. Reluctantly, Sevenkiller set the bucket down.

“Savannah?” Tom said.

Reggie wept unreservedly.

“Savannah?” Tom said again. “Not Macon? Or Augusta?”

“No,” Reggie said, still sniffling. “We’re going between ’em. All the way to the sea.”

“What kind of strategy is that?” Tom said. “You’re going to just bypass every military target in Georgia? Where are you going to get your supplies?”

Reggie didn’t say anything.

“Oh fuck,” Early said. “Captain.”

But now Jackson saw it. The Union troops were not going to bring their supplies with them. They were going to live off the land. An army of sixty thousand men cutting a path across Georgia, all the way from Atlanta to the sea. Confiscating food and supplies, burning towns, twisting up the railroads. A ribbon of destruction cutting the state in two.

“All our troops are down in Macon,” Early said, his voice panicked. “Sherman fooled us. There ain’t no one to stop him.”

“All right,” Tom said. “Let’s go make a plan.”

“Should we kill them?” Sevenkiller said.

Tom gave Sevenkiller a strange look.

“No, leave ’em.”

“What about just this one?” Sevenkiller said, motioning to Winter and drawing his revolver. “I’ll just shoot him now.”

“No,” Tom said. “Let him alone. That’s an order.” And then, seeing Bill, who had crept out of the shadows: “You too. Come on.”

Sevenkiller looked into Winter’s eyes. Pure hatred burned back at him. Sevenkiller felt briefly alarmed. But then he laughed and hummed “Hi-diddly-ho” and holstered his revolver and turned away.

Bill walked past the two Union soldiers. Slowly. He too looked into Winter’s eyes. He too saw the hatred burning out of them and an electric sensation ran up and down his spine. The boy had not broken. How was that possible? Bill could feel the strength of will, the sense of purpose, radiating off him like heat. Who was this boy? How could he be only a lowly private? Wouldn’t that kind of strength carve its own path in the world? What could contain it? It was so diametrically opposed to Bill’s perception of his own character that he could not help but pause, fascinated, before he headed out of the barn.

The door to the barn closed behind Bill. The only sound was Reggie weeping and Winter coughing up water and blood on the floor.

The Confederates assembled in Captain Jackson’s parlor. Sevenkiller entered through the back door. Bill’s hands were tied again and he sat a little apart from the others.

Tom told Stoga what Reggie had said, and after a pause, Stoga replied.

“I don’t think it can be true. I don’t think they can go so far without
a cracker line. I don’t see how Sherman can leave his wagon trains exposed to raiders from Macon.”

“He don’t need no goddamn wagon train,” Early said. “He’s going to eat up the goddamn country till he gets to the sea. Then he’s going to get his supplies over the water.”

“Hrmm,” Stoga said. “But our men are in Macon and Augusta.”

“That’s the point,” Tom said. “They don’t want to fight our soldiers. The Union forces are deliberately targeting our civilians. Do you understand?”

“I don’t think so,” Stoga said. “I don’t think that can be happening.”

Sevenkiller laughed. “Of course it can!” he said. “It happened before. Don’t you remember? It wasn’t so long ago.”

“What are you babbling about?” Early said.

“The Cherokee used to live here,” Sevenkiller said. “Not even thirty years ago. Their lands had been promised to them by the government, in treaty after treaty after treaty. But in 1838 they were sent west, to the Indian Territory, and four thousand of them died along the way. That’s how the good people who live here now got their land.”

“That ain’t the same thing at all,” Early said. “We’re civilized people.”

“Ah,” Sevenkiller said. “But so were they! They lived on farms and they had their own constitution and newspaper and a Bible in their own language and nice white-man names like John and Richard. And everything was stolen from them, except for a lucky few like my master.”

“It ain’t the same thing!” Early shouted. “What would a goddamn nigger Indian like you know about it?”