When Johnny Came Marching Home (7 page)

Up ahead, Johnny stopped and raised a hand, then pointed up the slope to his left. It was late autumn and the leaves were off the trees, but there had not been any snow yet. I scanned the area he had pointed to and it took me almost a minute to spot a well-hidden deer standing behind a pile of brush.

Abel and Josiah came up beside me and I whispered: "About seventy, seventy-five yards up on the left, standing behind that pile of brush. Johnny's an eagle eye."

"I see it," Abel said, "but I can't tell if it's a buck or a doe."

"Too far," Josiah said. "Need us a long glass."

"I'd shoot it anyway," Abel said. "We don't eat the horns at my house."

"Shoot some little deer's momma would ya," I teased. "I'd tell Rebecca and she'd fix your fat ass, fer sure."

"She sure would," Abel said. "She raises hell with Pa and me even when we bring a buck home. But it ain't never stopped her from eatin' the venison."

"Ain't never gonna unnerstan' how ya white folks think," Josiah said, shaking his head. "My peoples believe if it runs on four legs ya better eat it afore it eats ya instead, 'cept if it's a dog or cat, or maybe a skunk."

Abel and I laughed and the sound spooked the deer we'd been watching. As it bolted away we could see it was a doe.

Johnny came down the hill and joined us. He was grinning. "You boys ain't exactly Davy Crockett when it comes ta huntin'," he said. "I hope ya ain't gonna be whoopin' it up when we got our rifles with us."

"Don't you worry, Johnny boy," I said. "You just be ready to help me drag my buck home."

Johnny's grin widened. "Okay, Mr. Crockett. Ya make sure ya git yerself a coonskin hat an' I'll bring the rope."

"You better bring another one fer me too," Abel said. "I ain't missin' out this year."

We continued on up the hill until we reached our blind. It was laid out to Johnny's plan and could hold two of us comfortably. The blind was set up facing a wide draw between two outcroppings of rock, and the tracks we'd found made clear it was a regular path the deer followed.

Johnny pointed to each of the outcroppings. "I figure the deer also run along those small ridges, so I think we need ta have somebody on each one. We can split up the time in the blind. Two here in the mornings starting at sun-up, two on the ridges, then switch in the afternoon until sundown."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "We better find us places to sit on both of them."

"Tha's what I was thinkin'," Johnny agreed. He pointed to the westerly ridge. "Abel, why don't ya take Josiah an' check that ridge, an' me an' Jubal will check the other."

"Tha's where I wanna be," Abel said. "It'll be an easy drag pullin' a big buck off that steep slope."

Johnny and I climbed the easterly outcropping. It was a difficult climb and we had to traverse in several places to work our way up. Near the top we split up to check for signs, finally joining together again and choosing a spot behind a deadfall that overlooked a heavily traveled deer trail.

"It's a good place," I said. "Hell to get to, but worth the climb."

Johnny pointed to the deer trail some twenty yards below us. "Should be a nice easy shot. Oughta be able ta see 'em comin' a good fifty yards off. I'll be surprised we don't get us a nice fat buck right here. Let's get back on down. It's gettin' close ta suppertime."

We started down the outcropping and had gone about halfway when my foot caught a tree root hidden by some leaves, and it pitched me forward, twisting my leg. I called out in pain, then scrabbled with my hands to keep from sliding down the ridge.

Johnny was there in a second to grab hold of me. When I looked behind me I saw that he had stopped me from sliding over a ridge and into a sixty-foot drop to the rocks below. I struggled to my feet and winced in pain as I tried to put pressure on my leg.

"You're gonna make me carry your sad ol' ass, ain't ya?" Johnny said. With that he dipped his shoulder and hoisted me onto his back. "Jus' hang on. This is gonna be a little tricky."

Abel and Josiah had seen Johnny hauling me down and they were waiting at the base of the outcropping when we got there.

"What happened?" Abel asked.

"Jubal jammed up his leg so's he could get an easy ride down," Johnny said. He eased me off his shoulder. "Abel, you and me gotta put him between us and walk him down. He's too damn heavy ta carry all the way." He glanced at me, grinning. "What's yer daddy feedin' ya, Jubal? Whatever it is, it's turnin' ya inta a regular ol' horse."

Chapter Six

Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

Across the road people had begun filing into the church. Rebecca was waiting for me outside the store. She was wearing a pale gray dress with a matching bonnet, a gray shawl draped over her shoulders. I had put on the one suit I owned, a dark gray tweed my father bought me when I went off to the University of Vermont. It was six years old now and a little tight through the shoulders. The last time I'd worn it the left sleeve had not been pinned up.

Rebecca smiled at me. "You look very handsome in your suit, Jubal," she said. "You look like a young businessman."

We were standing outside the store. Walter Johnson and his wife Mary had already left for the church and had hung a
Closed
sign on the front door. I wanted to ask Rebecca about the argument she and her stepmother had the previous day, but decided it would be better to wait until after the services. As we stood there the church bell tolled, indicating that Johnny's funeral was about to start.

"We better go," Rebecca said.

 

* * *

 

Johnny's open coffin had been placed on a bier just below the pulpit. The church was close to overflowing and Rebecca and I were forced to sit in the rear, which suited me fine, but even from there you could tell that Johnny had begun to go a bit gray and needed to be put under the ground.

During the war I had seen enough bodies that had been left out on the battlefield, or laid out at field hospitals, and the stench that came off them was something that grew upon them quickly and one I would never forget.

The choir finished a hymn I did not recognize and Reverend Harris stepped up to the pulpit and began the service with the Lord's Prayer. When he had finished he looked out over the congregation, smiling weakly or nodding recognition at various members of his flock.

"Thank you for coming on this sad occasion. But it is only sad for my wife and me, and for Johnny's many friends." He extended an arm toward the coffin. "For my son it is a day of peace and happiness, a day that finds him sitting before the throne of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, basking in all His glory . . ."

 

* * *

 

Spotsylvania County, Virginia, 1864

Abel and Josiah and I moved out into the open meadow, heading away from the small farm we'd just been driven from, seeking cover from the Rebs we knew were still in the area.

Abel's face was boiling with anger, and he stopped and peered back at the farm, at the blue uniforms clustered in the front yard.

"That sumbitch, that goddamn sumbitch." He turned again. "You'll pay fer this, Johnny Harris!" he shouted. "Sure as there's a God in heaven, you'll pay fer it."

The first shell hit the meadow some fifty feet away from us and we all dove for the ground, fearful of any grapeshot that might be coming our way.

"Forget about Johnny," I hissed. "Just get yourselves to cover." I pointed across the meadow toward the thick woods of the Wilderness. "We gotta get into those trees or these shells are gonna cut us to pieces."

"We should still be at that goddamned farmhouse," Abel said. "We had all the cover we needed there. Johnny and his bastard friends had no right ta drive us off jus' so they could—"

"Stop it," I shouted. "We'll take care of Johnny and his friends later. Let's just get our asses over to those trees."

Another shell exploded, and then another.

 

* * *

 

Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

The choir was singing "Amazing Grace" with the congregation joining in. I held a hymnbook and sang in a barely audible voice, my eyes blindly staring at the long-familiar verses. Rebecca sang at my side, her voice high and sweet, and I thought it sad that she had not been able to sing a hymn or say a prayer at her own brother's funeral.

I had visited his grave in Spotsylvania County before I'd headed home. The war was over then, although it was hard to tell in the still-ravaged Virginia towns I passed through.

I rode my horse into areas where we had fought, passing places where men I had known so well had died. It was all I had left of them, remembrances of their deaths, and as I rode I thought I could still smell the stench of the battlefields and forests where their lives had ended.

Abel's grave was in a small Union cemetery near Chancellorsville and I thought one day I would like to take Rebecca there, let her see with certainty that her brother's body had not been thrown into a pit with dozens of others, let her kneel before his grave as I had to weep over his loss.

 

* * *

 

My father was among the men who carried Johnny's body from the church, placing the coffin on a flatbed wagon for the short drive to the town cemetery. The mourners followed on foot, led by Reverend Harris and his wife. Rebecca and I walked at the rear of the line, where we were joined by Josiah.

"I didn't see you in church," I said.

"Tha's cause I wasn't there," he said. "I don' mind seein' him put inna ground. Fact is I kinda like the idea. But I din' have no need ta pray over him."

Rebecca stared at Josiah, but said nothing. I wondered what she thought, hearing the bitterness in his voice, knowing he had been with Johnny throughout the war, remembering how different it had been as we all grew up together.

"What happened to us?" she finally asked, almost as if she had read my mind.

Neither Josiah nor I answered her.

 

* * *

 

It was not a military burial, just a simple ceremony of townspeople burying a man who had lived among them for most of his life.

Reverend Harris prayed over his son's body, tears running down his cheeks. His wife fell to her knees and sobbed into clasped hands. Others wept openly, perhaps recalling the boy they had known for so many years.

Rebecca leaned into my arm. "Oh Jubal, I wish Abel could have been buried this way, surrounded by people who loved him."

 

* * *

 

Doc Pierce and I stood in the yard at the sawmill as he examined a cant hook. "This blade looks a bit thick to me," he said, "but I believe these tools come in different sizes." He turned it in his hand and studied it further. "Yes, a smaller one or one with a thinner blade could have been the murder weapon, I suppose. But we really won't know unless we come up with the actual tool and find traces of human blood on it." He looked me in the eye. "You got somebody particular in mind?"

"Rusty LeRoche had a squabble with Johnny, and he does a bit of logging."

Doc nodded, thinking this over. "Yes, Rusty's a hard one, that's for sure. But I heard something today that you and your father need to know. Edgar Billingsley told me that a fella stopped by his farm about a week back, asking directions to Johnny's house. Said this fella told him that he and Johnny had fought together in the war, and had both been captured and sent to Andersonville Prison. Ed said he'd just heard about Johnny when he came to town, and he asked me if I thought he should tell your daddy about it. I told him I'd pass it on, and that somebody would likely be out to see him."

"Why the hell didn't he just come to us?"

Doc chuckled. "He came into my office this morning to have me lance a boil on his backside, and had to hurry on home to tend to his cows, least that's what he said. But you know how folks are hereabouts. They don't want to cause trouble for people without good reason."

"Did he tell you the man's name?"

"He did. The man told him his name was Bobby Suggs."

I stiffened at the sound of the name. The last time I had seen Bobby Suggs he was standing behind the barrel of a Navy Colt that was leveled at my head.

"Looks like you know the name," Doc said.

"Yes, I sure do know it. And he's somebody I'll need to talk to."

 

* * *

 

I found Rebecca down by the river, close to the place where her mother had drowned. I had brought her home from the cemetery, telling her that there was someone I needed to see, but that I would like to talk to her later. She had said she was going for a walk and told me where she would likely be.

"Do you come here often?" I asked as I came up beside her.

She was staring into the river and didn't look at me. "No, not often. Being at Johnny's funeral made me think of my mother and how she died."

I asked why.

"Because Johnny was responsible for her death." She turned to face me. "I don't mean that he pushed her into the river." She stared into the water again. "You see, I accept the fact that my mother took her own life. But Johnny drove her to it. That cruel lie he told her about Abel being thrown into a pit with dozens of others was more than she could bear, more than she should have had to bear." Her jaw tightened. "Oh Jubal, I'm so glad he's dead, so very, very glad. And I know how terrible it is to feel that way."

I took her arm and led her away from the river. We were halfway back to the store before I brought up the subject I had wanted to talk to her about.

"The other day, after I finished speaking to your father out in the barn, I came back into the store and interrupted what seemed like an angry conversation between you and your stepmother—"

"Please don't call her my stepmother," Rebecca cut in. "Just call her by her name."

"All right." I stopped and waited until she met my eyes again. "As I was saying, when I came back into the store, I had the feeling I was interrupting an argument, and that it had something to do with me coming to the store to question her about Johnny."

Rebecca hesitated, then let out a long breath that had the feel of surrender to it. "You were right, she was upset about that. She knew I told you that Johnny had spent a lot of time at the store the past few weeks, and she said it was wrong of me to let on about that. She said it couldn't do anything but cause trouble for her and my father."