When Johnny Came Marching Home (12 page)

I motioned Abel up beside me. "There's a sentry sound asleep twenty yards ahead of us."

Abel squinted in the dark. "Yeah, I see him."

"I'm gonna crawl on up and take him out. That'll give us a hundred yards between the next two sentries, which should be enough cover to get inside their camp. We need a good look at what kind of armaments they have."

I crawled through the brush, Abel and the other men about ten yards behind me. The sentry had taken a position behind a large rock, and when I came within fifteen feet of it I could hear the faint sound of snoring. I held up my hand, ordering my men to stop, then rose to a crouch and slipped quickly behind the rock.

The sentry awoke as I moved in on him and started to reach for the rifle that lay beside him. But he never reached it. I slammed the butt of my Spencer into the side of his head, once, twice. The first blow hit with a cracking sound, the second much softer, and when I looked at the side of his head I could see blood and brain matter seeping out from under his gray cap.

I waved the others up and handed the Reb's rifle to Abel. "Drag the body out of here and find a good place to hide it. Cover it up with thick brush so nobody finds him till long after we're gone. Then wait there for us. We'll come out the same way we went in, so it should be easy for you to join up with us. But if you hear shooting, just head on back and meet up with Lacey and the rest of the squad."

"I ain't gonna leave ya behind, Jubal."

I took hold of Abel's sleeve. "It's just better not to waste time lookin' for each other in the dark. We'll meet back where the squad split up."

He reached down and grabbed the sentry's collar. "Damn," he whispered, "he don't look much older'n sixteen."

I had tried not to look at the sentry's face, just as I'd tried not to look at the faces of the other men I'd killed. After my first battle at Hoke's Run, a sergeant had warned me against it. To do so, he claimed, would invite those men into your dreams for years to come.

I looked into Abel's eyes and saw the deep sadness that resided there. I suddenly wished that I felt that sadness myself, but I no longer did, and I wondered which was worse: dreaming about the men you'd killed, or not caring that you had.

I left the sentry post with three men and we crawled quietly to the edge of the Rebel camp. The campfires were low now, the embers popping and crackling. We skirted the area and moved to the rear. There must have been a thousand men sleeping, most of them in bedrolls, some—officers, I supposed—in tents. We reached a corral where the horses were bedded down. They were not cavalry mounts, but horses used to pull artillery and supply wagons. Moving behind the corral we located the artillery pieces. There were siege cannons, mostly twelve-pound howitzers with a few three-inch ordnance and ten-pound Parrott rifles mixed in. Beside them were the wagons carrying their shells. None of the wagons were guarded.

I looked through two wagons before I located a box of dynamite and a coil of fuse. The men were staring at me as though I'd lost my mind.

"We're gonna blow these wagons," I whispered. "We'll set the fuse long enough to give us time to work our way back the way we came. We'll go nice and slow, so we don't wake anybody up. When it blows there'll be so much confusion and panic with all these canisters of grapeshot going off, nobody will think to come after us."

One of the men glanced at me nervously. "The sergeant said not to engage the Rebs," he whispered back. "Now you plannin' to blow up his camp."

"We didn't know we were going to find an unguarded gift like this, and we're sure as hell not gonna pass it up."

We rigged the explosives and returned to the edge of the camp and slowly began to work our way out. I wanted to go back through the empty sentry post and I urged the men to crawl as quickly as they could without making any noise. When the wagons began to explode we'd get up and run full-out for cover. I only hoped that Lacey and his men wouldn't find themselves in the middle of it.

The first explosion lit up the sky, and as grapeshot began to rain down on the sleeping Rebs I could hear shouts of pain and fear. I got to my feet and urged the men forward and we ran as fast as we could. A few shots rang out from the sentry positions to our right and left but there was little hope of hitting men running full speed in the dark. Ahead, I saw Abel rise from behind a fallen tree and he waved us forward wildly, then joined us as we raced past him, toward the position where our squad had split in two.

"I hid the body real good," he said as we ran.

"Doesn't matter," I answered. "They know we were here."

He started to laugh. "Yeah, they sure do, don't they?"

We both looked back over our shoulders and saw another plume of fire belch into the air.

"It's like the Fourth of July," Abel said, laughing as he ran on.

 

* * *

 

Lacey was waiting with the others when we got there, panting and out of breath.

"Jesus, what in hell's name did you boys do?" he asked.

"The Rebs left us a present of some unguarded ammunition wagons," I said, still struggling to regain my breath. "There were siege guns and what other artillery they did have doesn't really matter. There's no ammunition left."

He shook his head and now he too started to laugh. "You boys earned yourselves a medal for this one. And I'm gonna see that you get it."

Chapter Ten

Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

My father and I were in Billy Lucie's dooryard a good half hour before sunrise. Mrs. Lucie invited us in for a steaming cup of coffee and both husband and wife listened quietly as my father explained why we were there.

"Oh Lord, I sure hope it don't turn out that I hired the man who kilt the poor reverend's son," Billy said. He shook his head and turned to me. "I figured it was somethin' serious when you axed me what time the men started up work in the morning. But I didn't wanna push ya fer yer reasons. Figured ya'd tell me when ya was ready."

I knew Lucie harbored some concern that I hadn't trusted him the previous day, which wasn't the case. The Lucies were members of Reverend Harris's church, and I had been concerned that Billy might demand some answers from Suggs if I told him about my suspicions. Sitting in his kitchen now I decided not to tell him that part of it. I simply explained that I had wanted to keep Suggs as calm as possible and not send him fleeing in the night.

"Oh, he ain't gone no place," Lucie said. "Not unless he went on foot. All the boys keep their horses in my barn, and when I went out to give 'em oats this mornin' his was in its stall like always. God, I hope he din' have nothin' ta do with that killin'. I don' think I'd be able ta face the reverend agin iffen he did."

"Well let's go on up an' talk ta him, see what he has ta say fer himself," my father proposed.

"I'll go on up with you," Billy said.

 

* * *

 

The men were just rousing themselves when we reached the bunkhouse and Billy went on inside to give them their work orders as he did each morning. Coffee was brewing on a fire outside and the men began making their way to it, tin mugs in hand.

When Bobby Suggs stumbled out he immediately saw my father and me seated on our horses.

"You always was a persistent sumbitch, Jubal Foster," he said. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. "Mind if I git some coffee afore I gotta listen ta ya?"

"Get it, and bring it over here so we can talk."

He did as he was told, then looked up at me and at my father. "Who's this here fella?" he asked.

"He's my father, and he's the town constable."

"Howdy do," Bobby said.

"We got some questions fer ya, son," my father began. "First of all, why'd you run off when Jubal was up cheer yesterday?"

Bobby snorted. "Din' wanna talk ta him. Knew him durin' the war and din' much like him." A smile exposed badly decayed teeth. "Or maybe I thought he was plannin' on kickin' me agin cause he thought I was havin' some sport with some nigger whore."

My father dismounted his horse, walked over, and took Suggs by the arm, leading him away from the others. He glanced up at me. "Follow along, Jubal, but stay up on yer horse in case you gotta run this fella down."

"I ain't runnin' no place. I ain't got no reason ta." Suggs tried to pull his arm free, but it was useless. My father's hand was like a large vice and when he wanted to hold onto someone, he held on. I'd seen him do it many a time.

"You tell us 'bout Johnny Harris, an' ya tell us true," my father said. "I even think yer lyin' ta me, yer ass is gonna be locked up in the sheriff's jail up ta Richmond."

"Johnny was my frien'," Suggs whined. "I come here ta Vermont ta visit him. I sure had no call ta do him harm."

"He was such a friend, why weren't you at his funeral?" I asked.

"He was buried afore I even knew he was dead," Suggs answered. "I was movin' aroun' lookin' fer work in the loggin' camps hereabouts, an' I was sleepin' out at night cause I din' have no extra money fer a room."

"Why din' Johnny put you up?" my father asked. "Even if his folks din' want you in the house, there woulda been room fer ya in the barn. An' I never heard of Reverend Harris turnin' anybody away."

"Din' wanna impose on 'em," Suggs said.

I laughed at the comment, couldn't help myself.

Suggs glared at me. "It's true, Foster, whether ya wants ta believe it or not."

I climbed down off my horse and walked up to him. "You're a goddamn liar," I snapped. "You were a liar ever' day I knew you during the war, and you're still a liar."

"You better be careful what yer sayin', cause I don't care iffen you's a one-arm cripple or not. An' I sure don' care iffen yer some half-cooked lawman. Ya call me a liar one more time we gonna have at it."

My father jerked Suggs around so hard his feet almost left the ground. "Ya lemme hear any more of that cripple talk, there ain't gonna be enough left of ya ta have at it with nobody. Ya understan' me, son?"

"All right, all right. I jus' had enough a yer boy durin' the war. I ain't needin' any more of it now." The whine was back in Suggs's voice.

"Ya jus' answer our questions," my father growled. "Ya kin start with tellin' us what the hell brought ya up ta Vermont."

"I was lookin' fer work," Suggs stammered.

"You live in goddamn Pennsylvania, Suggs," I countered. "It's a long way to come to look for a job choppin' down trees."

"There ain't no work in Pennsylvania." Some of the color left Suggs's cheeks, as though he'd suddenly realized he was heading for more trouble than he'd thought. "Look, all us boys come home from the war all at once, an' there jus' wasn't enough work fer ever'body. Then I remembered Johnny tellin' me what a great place he was from. How nobody was rich, but ever'body lived good in this here valley he grew up in. But all I could remember was that it was up near the Canadian border an' had some kinda name from the Bible. So I headed up this way, an' when I axed about a town with a Bible name they sent me ta this place called Jericho, but that weren't it. Then some folks tol' me about a place in the mountains called Jerusalem's Landing, so I come here. An' sure enough, this was the place Johnny'd been talkin' 'bout."

"Abel Johnson's father saw you talking to Johnny outside his store. Said you seemed to be mad about something and that Johnny just laughed at you. What was that about?"

A sly look came to Suggs's eyes, as though he'd found something he could use to deflect our attention. "We was talkin' about a man named Rusty LeRoche," he said. "I was up there lookin' fer work on his woodlot, an' he was ready ta take me on. Then he axed me what brought me up ta the mountains, and I mentioned I was a frien' of the minister's son from back in the war and I'd come up ta visit him. Hell, I thought that'd stand me in good stead, minister's son an' all that good shit. Well, it sure don't. LeRoche hears that an' he tells me Johnny's nothin' but a no-account sumbitch, minister's son or not, and iffen I'm his friend I must be a no-account too, an' he throws me offen his land without so much as a mind you be, sir."

My father had let go of Suggs, who was now just standing there, shuffling his feet.

Billy Lucie walked over and joined us. "Everythin' all right cheer?" he asked.

My father nodded. "Yer man here is tellin' us what brought him up to these mountains. Ain't found no reason not ta believe him . . . yet." He let the last word hang and turned back to Suggs. "But I'm tellin' ya this, son. Afore ya leave this here town, ya better come in an' let us know. Ya try ta slip away," he raised his chin toward Lucie, "an' Billy here will come and let us know. Ain't that right, Billy?"

"Right as can be," Billy said.

My father placed a heavy hand on Bobby Suggs's shoulder. "I hear that ya left without stoppin' by, I promise ya every lawman in Vermont will be lookin' fer ya. An' Jubal here an' me is gonna be ridin' up yer tail till we find ya."

Suggs glanced at Billy and me, and then back at my father. "I ain't goin' no place," he said. "Leastways, not till the loggin' season's finished."

 

* * *

 

My father and I thanked Billy and headed back down the mountain single file.

"Ya think he's lyin'?" my father asked when we reached the road below.

"Bobby Suggs couldn't tell the truth even if it would help him," I said.

"What was all that about ya kickin' him?" he asked.

I told him about the incident in camp, about young Jemma and Bobby trying to rape her.

"Ya did good ta stop him. Iffen ya shot him he woulda deserved it, goin' after a helpless child like that. Sounds like Rusty LeRoche was a smart'n ta throw him offen his land."

I had told my father about Johnny's trouble with Rusty, so Bobby's tale about Rusty had not surprised him.

"Looks ta me like Rusty's still our strongest suspect," he added.

"There's something about why Bobby Suggs is here that he's not telling us," I said. "Until I know what that is, I'm not ready to put him aside."

My father nodded. "Ya always had good instincts, Jubal. Ya follow up on whatcha feel in yer gut. Rusty'll still be here iffen this Suggs fella proves not ta be our man."