When Johnny Came Marching Home (16 page)

"I'm damn well near broken-down too," Abel said. "We fought like wild animals at Manassas and then beat a retreat back here ta Centreville. Then they sent us out ta Brawner's Farm ta see what them Rebs was up ta an' how close that new railroad was ta bein' ready. Now we got this. Well, damnit, I'm tired an' I'm soakin' wet. An' I'm also hungry as hell. I bet those cavalry horses got their oat buckets hangin' off their noses right now. So where the hell's
our
food?"

I agreed with everything Abel had said, but it didn't matter. My job was to shut them all up and get them moving. "You'll eat when we make camp," I said. "Now we gotta move, so stow the complaints and let's get on up and join the column."

Abel stared at me with a look of disbelief. "Damnit, Jubal, I liked it better when ya was jus' a private an' bitched along wit the rest of us."

I liked it better too, I thought, but kept it to myself. "Let's move!" I shouted.

Chapter Thirteen

Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

Walter Johnson, as church deacon, was conducting the Sunday service for Reverend Harris, who had taken his grieving wife to visit relatives in New Hampshire. The minister was due back at the end of the week, but as my father explained, it was likely his wife would remain with the comfort of her family.

I glanced across the aisle where Rebecca sat with her stepmother Mary. I knew Rebecca would prefer to be seated elsewhere, and had her father not been at the pulpit, she would be with her friends. But to have left her father's new wife alone in the pew would be taken as an insult by our neighbors­—an insult to her father as well as his new wife—and that was something Rebecca would never do.

Walter Johnson was a clumsy speaker and it was painful to listen to him, but he was wise enough to recognize his limitations and had kept his sermon short and given the bulk of the program over to the choir.

At the end of the service church members greeted each other in the aisles, sharing the gossip of the week, then moved outside to the front lawn. I found Rebecca and guided her to a spot under a shaded tree. All about us, younger children played games of tag, or keep-away with someone's cap, and it reminded me when she and I, together with Johnny and Abel, had done the same. It was not all that long ago, but to me it seemed a lifetime.

"I need your advice," I said at length.

Rebecca's eyes widened. "I'm shocked, but delighted. What can I do?"

"I need to speak to your father's wife about . . . well, about her relationship with Johnny, as well as anything she knows about Bobby Suggs."

"I thought she already told you she didn't know anything about Suggs."

I nodded slowly.

"You don't believe her," Rebecca said.

"No, I don't. Not if she was as involved with Johnny as you say. She would have asked him about Suggs, and I believe he would have told her something."

She licked her lips nervously. "Could you do it when my father isn't there? I don't want him hurt, and if he knew why you were talking to her, and what you were asking after, it would be more than he could bear."

"I can't promise you he'll never know. I can only promise that I'll do my best not to cause him pain."

Rebecca looked away, then turned back to me. "Did you see him in church today, Jubal? The way he would peek down at her while he was conducting the service, his eyes searching for her approval? He loves her so much. If he ever learned what she did with Johnny, it would break his heart."

"I'll be as discreet as possible," I said. "And I promise I'll do everything I can to keep him from finding out about their . . . relationship." I studied her face, noting the doubt I found there. "When would I find her alone?"

"Mondays are best," Rebecca said. "Every Monday morning my father takes the buckboard up to Richmond to meet the train and collect the store goods we've ordered. Then he does his banking and heads on home."

"So he'll be gone tomorrow?"

"Yes. He usually leaves right after breakfast. Mary runs the store while he's away. If you want, I'll be sure to be in the store tomorrow morning so she'll have no excuse not to step outside and speak to you."

"That would be a great help," I said. "I'll come to the store at eight."

 

* * *

 

My father and I left the church and headed for Billy Lucie's woodlot. It was eleven o'clock and the air was crisp and cool, and most of the leaves had lost their color and begun falling to the ground. Within the next few weeks winter would be upon us and moving about the countryside would become more difficult. When snow came the village would be isolated until teams of horses pushed wide, wooden wheels along the roads. The wheels were filled with water to give them weight and they compressed the snow into a hard-packed layer that allowed travelers to move about again in wagons and on horseback.

We turned onto the Gorge Road and off to our right the river began to pick up speed as it headed to the first series of waterfalls that would send it crashing down into the gorge.

"It's good to be home, to be back in the places I knew as a boy," I said.

My father smiled. "It's good ta have ya home. I have ta admit, it scared me pretty bad when I heard 'bout Abel. I jus' sat there an' wondered what had happened ta ya, if they'd be writin' ta me next. You'd tol' me in yer letters how ya all was in the same unit and was always together. I jus' had this awful feelin' 'bout it. Then when the letter come sayin' ya'd been wounded, I got Doc ta write our own letter tryin' ta get them to ship ya home ta the hospital in Burlington where Doc was workin'." He drew a long breath. "An army doctor wrote back ta Doc tellin' 'bout yer arm an' sayin' ya was too bad off ta be moved, an' that scared the hell outta me all over agin."

"It worked out. I'm back now."

We rode for a bit before my father spoke again. "Ya don' talk much 'bout the war. Sometimes I wanna ask ya 'bout it, but I don' wanna press ya."

Nearly a minute passed in silence. "I guess I don't really know what to say about it. It was a terrible thing to be part of, an ugly, senseless thing. Oh, I knew all the reasons we were fighting. I knew we had to preserve the Union and end slavery, all of it. But the thing was it was never about that during the battles we fought. It was about keeping the other side from overrunning us and killing us. When we were fighting in those battles I'd see a soldier from the other side and he looked like any boy or man I might have known here in Vermont. And he
was
the same. He wasn't shouting out things about keeping the Negroes in chains, or about ending the Union. He'd seen the same things I had. He'd seen his friends blown apart by artillery fire or dropped by minie balls or stabbed by a bayonet or saber, and the only thing he wanted was to stay alive and go home to his family just like me."

"Did ever'body feel that way?"

"Everybody I ever talked to; all the decent ones. There were some on both sides who wanted to kill every enemy soldier they could, just like there were some who wanted to raid every house they passed, kill any civilian who got in the way. But they would have been like that war or no war. Armies aren't too particular about who they hand a gun to."

"What about yer officers?" my father asked.

"The officers . . ." I paused to think about that. "I guess the lower-ranking ones were just like the rest of us. Those higher up, the ones who decided where and when we fought and with how many men, well, they kind of seemed to have their eyes on the history books. How history would view them, how the people would think of them, and how they'd be rewarded for what they did. And did they ever snipe at each other."

"How so?"

I told him about the confrontation I'd witnessed between Generals Pope and Williams just before the battle at Chantilly Plantation.

"Well, Pope lost his army after that battle. It was merged into the Army of the Potomac under General George McClellan, and Pope was shipped out west and pretty much forgotten."

"What'd ya think of General Pope?" he asked.

"I didn't see him but that one time," I answered. "But what I saw of him I didn't like."

 

* * *

 

We reached Billy Lucie's dooryard and dismounted. He came out on the porch and invited us in for coffee.

"The missus an' me din' go ta church this mornin'." He lowered his voice. "Ta be honest, the missus don' care much for it when Walter Johnson tries ta preach." He gave my father and me a wink. "I don' much care who it is, God help me, I jus' don' like any kinda preachin'."

My father laughed dutifully and told Billy we were there to talk to Bobby Suggs. He explained that we had found Suggs in the Harris barn the previous night, claiming he was looking for a satchel of clothing.

Billy just shook his head. "He shoulda stuck with findin' his clothes."

"Why is that?" I asked.

"Cause he dragged his sorry ass home jus' a coupla hours ago all beaten ta hell," Billy said. "After he left you folks he musta ridden up ta Sherman Hollow. He tol' me Rusty LeRoche caught him with his daughter Chantal, an' beat the tar outta him." Billy smiled. "Suggs said he woke up in Rusty's woodlot this mornin' an' dragged hisself to his horse. I guess Rusty jus' thumped him good an' proper an' left him out there fer the coyotes ta find. Maybe it'll teach him ta keep his britches buttoned, but I doubt it."

"Any point in us tryin' ta talk to him?" my father asked.

Billy shrugged. "Ya got plenty of time fer a cup of coffee. I don' think he's goin' anywhere fer a while. Probably up there layin' in his bunk."

 

* * *

 

We rode up to the bunkhouse an hour later and, as Billy had predicted, found Suggs snoring in his bed. My father had to lightly kick the sole of his foot three times before Bobby stirred enough to open one eye.

"Why ya kickin' me?" he asked. Slowly, he opened the other eye, then added: "Don't it look like I been kicked enough fer one day?"

"This happen after you left the Harris barn?" I asked.

"Tha's right." He drew a heavy breath. "Have some mercy an' lemme sleep."

"Who did this ta ya?" my father asked, letting Suggs know there would be no rest until our questions were answered.

"It was that crazy man, Rusty LeRoche."

"Whatcha do ta make him that mad?"

Suggs gave my father a contemptuous sneer. "I stopped by ta see his daughter. Las' time I was there she tol' me where her room was an' which window I could tap on ta git her ta come out. So I did it, an' sure enough she came out. But two minutes later so did her daddy, all pissed off an' comin' out the door, still pullin' on his britches an' growlin' like a damn bear."

"And he thumped you," I said.

Suggs glared at me. "I never even had no chance ta fight back. He came at me wit an axe handle and swung at both my elbows before I could even raise my hands. It hurt so bad I din' wanna do nothin' but lay down an' cover up my head."

From the look of his face Suggs had been equally unsuccessful at covering his head. The left side was a deep purple and swollen to twice its normal size.

"Sounds ta me that ya pretty much got whatcha deserved," my father said.

"So he jus' gits away with it, an' a war veteran like me . . ." He paused to glare at me. "A war veteran with medals as good as your'n jus' gits beat on anytime some backwoods trash feels like doin' it."

My father shook his head in disbelief. "My God, man, ya was on the man's property well after dark, tryin' ta get in his daughter's britches. Ya know that girl's only seventeen years ol'."

"Ol' enough where I comes from," Suggs said.

"Seems like Mr. LeRoche doesn't agree with you." It did my heart good seeing Suggs battered all to hell, but I fought to keep it out of my voice. "We looked for your satchel," I said, changing tack. "We didn't find it. Why do you think that is?"

"How the hell do I know?" he growled. "Maybe the reverend or his missus took it inta his house. Maybe Johnny did. I left it there afore he died."

I smiled down at him. "We'll check on that when the reverend gets back."

"Go right ahead. Go an' investigate where my satchel is. You'll find out I'm tellin' ya true." He did his best to glare at me again, but with his misshapen face it didn't quite come off. "You gonna investigate Rusty LeRoche?"

"Investigate him for what?" I asked.

"For beatin' the hell outta me!" he shouted.

"Seems ta me ya was trespassin' . . . jus like ya was at the Harris's barn," my father said.

"Maybe I'll take a ride up to Sherman Hollow and see if Mr. LeRoche wants to sign a trespass complaint," I said.

Suggs laid back and gave me an open-mouthed stare. "I don't believe this. This is bullshit, an' you is shovelin' it real heavy right on top a me."

"Sorry ya feel that way, son," my father said. "We got a little problem with a murder we're tryin' ta solve. So I guess you'll jus' haveta put up with us fer a spell. An' like we tol' ya afore, don' plan on goin' no place until we tell ya yer free ta travel."

 

* * *

 

Chantilly Plantation, Virginia, 1862

"I knows dat Chantilly Plantation," Jemma said. "So's I kin help ya. Dat's da place I'z at till I runs away." She had come to me when the column had camped for the night. She had climbed aboard one of the wagons before we left and had hidden herself away until we stopped. I looked at her now in disbelief, surprised she had followed. We were moving into unsecured territory. Should she be caught she'd at best be whipped and enslaved again. At worst she could be hobbled or even hung.

"Jemma, it's too dangerous for you to be here, but I don't know how to get you back to our main army. They may have even moved by now. If the Rebs catch you—"

"I'z hadda come, an' I'z knows I kin help ya, Massah Fosta."

I had told Jemma repeatedly not to call me master, but it was something she'd done her entire life with white men, a habit that was apparently too difficult to break.

She hesitated and bent in closer to me. "Dere's dis tunnel dat runs outta a root cellah da's back by da cabins da darkies lives in. It runs on back inna woods. Ya goes in back dere an' dat tunnel will bring ya right up close so's ya can see ever'thin da's goin' on in da big house." She hesitated a moment. "When ya dere you's kin do somfin' fer Jemma iffen ya wants."