When Johnny Came Marching Home (20 page)

I looked back toward McClellan's field headquarters and saw that the general and his staff were gathered next to the president as a photographer prepared to take their portrait.

That picture will be in the history books one day, I thought. Then I thought about the paper the president planned to sign tomorrow, a paper that would make all Negroes free men. It was a good thing, but it would sure raise hell in the South.

Chapter Sixteen

Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

It was shortly after suppertime the following Friday when I saw Bobby Suggs ride up to the parsonage. I was standing outside the Johnsons' store talking with Rebecca. I had avoided her most of the week, not wanting to face the questions I knew she would ask about my conversation with Mary Johnson. Tonight I had gone to the store to pick up my father's weekly ration of pipe tobacco and she had followed me outside.

"Jubal, I need to know what Mary told you," she began.

It was just then that Suggs pulled up in front of the parsonage and dismounted.

"I'm gonna have to talk to him," I said, raising my chin toward Suggs.

"That's fine," she responded. "Then you can come right back here and take me for a walk. Unless you're going to reject me because I'm brazen enough to ask you to."

I smiled at her. I couldn't help myself. "I've known you since you were a little girl and you were brazen then. Why would I expect anything different from you now that you're a grown-up woman?"

Rebecca glanced down at her shoes, and when her head came up again she too was smiling. "And don't you forget it," she said.

Suggs came out of the parsonage carrying his carpetbag and began securing it to his horse.

"Got what you came for, eh?" I said as I approached behind him.

He cast a disdainful look over his shoulder and continued with his task. "I hear ya been ridin' up ta Lucie's woodlot durin' the week jus' ta make sure I'z still there," he said after a while.

"Maybe I just wanted to make sure you hadn't died from that thumping Rusty LeRoche gave you." I had run into several loggers while I was at Billy Lucie's house and knew the word would get back to Suggs. It was fine with me; I wanted him to know I was watching him and would be on his trail if he tried to leave.

"Didn't know ya worried after me like that," Suggs said. He finished his task and turned to me. "Ya really think I had somethin' ta do with Johnny gettin' kilt?"

"The thought has crossed my mind."

"Maybe ya oughtta be lookin' in the mirror, ya wanna find yerself a killer." He sneered at me and held my eyes.

"So you think I killed Johnny?"

"Coulda been you. Johnny tol' me how ya threatened him when ya came home. Tol' me ya put yer pistol right under his chin."

"Johnny had a good imagination," I said.

"Oh, ya denyin' it?"

I stepped in close, wishing I had two good hands I could use on him. "I don't need to deny anything to you, Suggs. But I do want to know what
you
were threatening Johnny about."

He gave my words a derisive snort. "I guess I'm jus' like you, Constable Foster. If somebody done tol' ya that, well, I'm sayin' they's got a good imagination too."

"Well, I sure am hearing it. Seems Johnny told his lady friends all about you, about how you were bothering him. You want to tell me what it was about?"

Suggs threw back his head and laughed. "Johnny'd tell a woman anythin' he thought she wanted ta hear," he said. "Anythin' that'd get her ta spread her legs."

I took him by his shirtfront and drove him back against his horse. "You should be careful what you say about the women of this town," I whispered. Then I drove my knee up into his crotch and felt a great rush of foul breath exit his lungs.

I let Suggs go and watched him crumple to the ground. "Have a nice ride back to Billy Lucie's place," I said as I turned and crossed the road to the Johnsons' store.

 

* * *

 

"What did you do to that man?" Rebecca whispered.

"I gave him a lesson in manners." I took her arm and started down the road, heading for the bridge that crossed the river.

"Why?"

"He made some disparaging comments about the women of this town."

"Who in particular?"

"Just the women in general."

She turned back and watched Suggs struggle to mount his horse. "Then you should go back and kick him again," she said.

I laughed and took her elbow as we continued down the road. "One kick a day is enough."

"And what if he'd said it specifically about me?" she asked.

I fought the smile but couldn't keep it down. "Well, then I'd still be kicking him."

We crossed the bridge and followed the river until we found a flat rock. I removed my jacket and spread it out to protect her pale blue dress and then sat beside her. Below us the heavy rush of water assured me our voices would not carry.

"You want to know what Mary told me?" I said matter-of-factly.

"Yes, I do." Her voice sounded slightly nervous, but there was an edge of determination as well.

"It wasn't much more than what you already told me," I said. "But I promised her I would do my best to keep it secret."

"She admitted her relationship with Johnny?" Rebecca's eyes were filled with anger over this confirmation of her father's betrayal.

"She acknowledged their relationship was more than it should have been. I didn't ask for details and she didn't offer them." I looked down at my hand, suddenly wondering where my other hand had gone. It was something that happened at the oddest of times and it always made me feel foolish.

"What were you asking her, then?"

"I wanted to know what Johnny told her, anything he said about being afraid of anyone, afraid someone might try to harm him."

"Did he mention this man you just . . . kicked?"

"His name is Bobby Suggs, and yes, Johnny mentioned him, at least according to your father's wife." I had consciously avoided referring to Mary Johnson as her stepmother ever since she had become so angry when I had.

"Do you think he killed Johnny?"

"I don't know. But I know he's capable of it."

"From the war?"

I nodded. "Some of our men did things there that were pretty monstrous. Suggs was one of them."

"Was Johnny another?"

"Yes, he was."

She hesitated, almost as if she were afraid to ask her next question. "Did Abel ever do anything like that?"

I stared at her, shocked that she would even ask. "No. Never," I said.

She let out her breath, relieved to hear me say it aloud. She looked down in her lap and then back at me. "I wouldn't have believed you if you said he had."

She reached over and placed her hand on my cheek, then leaned up and kissed my lips softly. "I love you, Jubal." She leaned back and stared into my eyes. "Do you love me?"

"Yes," I said. "I think I always have . . . but . . ."

She raised her hand to my lips and stopped me from saying more. "Will you walk me home?" she asked.

 

* * *

 

As we approached the store a wagon came toward us down the main road, spewing up a column of dust. I stared at it, hardly believing what I saw. Josiah was behind the reigns and seated next to him were Jemma and her sister Alva. Josiah pulled to a stop beside us.

"Jemma, Alva, what a pleasant surprise," I said.

"We jus' come onna train, Massah Jubal," Jemma said.

"It was wunnerful," Alva added.

"Josiah done sended us tickets. We gonna live here wit y'all," Jemma said.

Josiah sat there with a broad smile spread across his face.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

"I wasn't sure she'd come," Josiah said.

Jemma leaned her head against his shoulder.

I gestured toward Rebecca. "This is Rebecca. She's Abel's sister."

"How do, Miz Rebecca?" Jemma said. "I'z so sorry 'bout yer brudder. He was da one dat save my sista, him an' Massah Jubal an' Massah Johnny."

"Thank you for your sympathy," Rebecca said. "Abel wrote me all about you." She turned to Alva. "Especially you, Alva. You're just as beautiful as he said. Welcome to Jerusalem's Landing."

"We gots ta git goin'," Josiah said.

"Come back down later, so I can introduce the ladies to my father." I looked at Jemma and Alva in turn. "But you both have to stop callin' people massah," I added.

"And come to the store too," Rebecca said. "My brother wrote my father about you both and I know he'd like to meet you."

"I tanks ya fer da welcome, Miz Rebecca," Jemma said.

"Just call me Rebecca, please."

"We be back down," Josiah said. "Maybe t'nite, but fer sure tomorra."

As the wagon pulled away, Rebecca commented, "That little girl, she's lovely, just like Abel said."

I nodded. "He loved that little girl. He told me he was going to bring her home for your mother to spoil."

"And now she's here," Rebecca said. "Now
I
can spoil her."

 

* * *

 

Centreville, Virginia, 1862

We were part of a detachment sent off to guard the final construction of the Centreville Military Railroad. Our unit was now under the command of General Ambrose Burnside, who had replaced General McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac. According to the newspapers, President Lincoln had been displeased by McClellan's "lack of initiative" in pursuing the Confederate Army following Lee's defeat at Sharpsburg. Instead, McClellan had chosen to regroup and replenish his supplies, allowing Lee's battered army to escape to the south.

Now, as far as I could tell, Burnside was doing the same thing, but it was fine with my men and me. We were encamped on a high hill that overlooked the entire valley, with a clear view of any advancing enemy forces. To this point there had been none, and we contented ourselves with quiet patrols of the town and the surrounding countryside and with warm campfires at night to take the chill off the November evenings.

We had just finished breakfast when Bobby Suggs came into our camp looking for Johnny, quickly pulling him aside and jabbering at him. When he walked back to our campfire Johnny's face was filled with consternation. "Bobby says the talk is that we'll all be headin' south in a week or so. He says we're gonna join up with the rest of the Army of the Potomac fer a big push on ta Richmond, an' that Lee is massing his troops at Fredericksburg to stop us."

We were sitting about twenty-five miles west of Washington. Fredericksburg was another fifty miles south, and Richmond another fifty miles beyond that. The railroad we were guarding could easily be connected with another rail line that would bring our supplies straight in behind us to support an assault on Fredericksburg.

"What Bobby's saying makes sense," I noted. "The newspapers say that Mr. Lincoln wants us to give 'em hell."

Johnny's shoulders slumped. "Yeah, well, let Mr. Lincoln give 'em hell. I thought we'd get this railroad duty longer'n that," he said.

Abel let out a loud belch and grinned. "You know what they say, Johnny. If the officers see ya gettin' comfortable, they gonna change what yer doin'."

Johnny shook his head. He was clearly depressed over the news. He inclined his head toward Suggs, who was still standing off to one side. "Bobby's goin' on a patrol aroun' some of the farms. He asked me to go with him. That okay with you?"

Bobby had been made a corporal for reasons that mystified me and now had charge of a group of men who looked about as trustworthy as he did. But Johnny seemed to need a diversion. "That's all right with me," I said. "We're going on patrol in the town about two hours from now. Try and join up with us."

Johnny nodded. "Shouldn't be a problem ta git back by then, less we run into some trouble."

"Watch yourself," I said.

When Johnny had left, Abel brought me a cup of coffee. "Ya think Suggs knows what he's talkin' about?" he asked.

I shrugged. "It makes sense, given what I've read in the papers. The papers claim that Mr. Lincoln replaced McClellan because he thought he was too cautious."

Abel snorted. "Hell, at Antietam they sez there was 2,000 Union boys killed and 9,500 wounded. That sure don't sound very cautious ta me. Far as I'm concerned they kin get a helluva lot more cautious than they was."

I sat sipping my coffee and thinking about all the Union bodies we had carried off for individual burials, and the mass graves that had been dug for the Rebel dead. The Reb casualties had been only half of our own, despite the fact that their forces had been greatly outnumbered. But the worst thing for me had been the wounded—Reb and Union alike. The field hospitals were like charnel houses, the screams of agony filling the surgical tents as men's limbs were cut from their bodies without benefit of anything more than a shot of whiskey to ease the pain. I'd come to hate each time I had to bring a wounded soldier there, its dirt floors always slick with blood, the air rife with the stench of open wounds and burst bowels, and when I was finally sent away from our main encampment and its field hospital, I had left with a sense of relief, as though I had escaped from that one small part of the horrors we lived with day after day, week after week.

 

* * *

 

Abel and I and the remainder of my squad began our patrol at noon. We had been given a section of town that ran along the main road and included the church and most of the stores. The road itself was narrow and made of well-packed, heat-hardened dirt. The Rebs had fortified the area the previous year, and again during the spring, using the existing railroad to supply its troops. Now it was in Union hands and we were doing essentially the same thing, the only difference being that we were doing it under the hate-filled eyes of die-hard Virginians.

I kept my men spread out as we walked through the town, half on one side of the street, the other half on the other, with a good five paces between each man, each rifle brandishing a bayonet. The men knew to keep their eyes on the windows, especially those on a second floor or attic, but there had been only a few instances of sniping, each of which had ended with a Reb soldier or sympathizer being captured or killed.