Caudell laughed. He found himself liking this cheerfully defiant Northerner. “Tell you what, Yank—suppose I buy you a drink and we can argue about what’s good and what’s bad?”
“For a drink, Mr. First Sergeant Nate Caudell, sir, I’ll argue or not, just as you please. Where shall we go?”
Caudell thought about asking the sour stationmaster, decided not to bother. “We’ll find a place.” His confidence was soon rewarded. Of the three or four rebuilt buildings by the station, two proved to be taverns. He waved his new friend toward the cleaner-looking one.
Pleasants glanced back toward the train, which did not seem likely to go anywhere any time soon. He ran a hand through his hair. “Damned if I see. how you people ever managed to get from here to there. I’ve been on three different gauges of track since I set out from Andersonville, your locomotives are all fixing to die, and your tracks and beds are wearing out even though they’re on flat, easy ground. Disgraceful, if you ask me.”
“We manage,” Caudell said shortly. He eyed the Northern man. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about.”
“Damn well ought to.” It was amazing how well Pleasants could preen in such a shabby uniform. “I was a railroad engineer for years before I went into mining instead. But to hell with that. Are we going to stand out here gabbing all afternoon, or will you buy me that drink?”
When Caudell set his two silver dimes in front of the taverner, they bought him a quart jug. One drink turned into several. The whiskey hit Caudell hard; he’d stayed mostly sober in the army. He stared owlishly across the rickety table at Pleasants. “Why the devil do you want to go back North at all, Henry? You Yankees, you have engineers of this and engineers of that coming out of your ears. You stay down here, you could write your own ticket. Not much mining in this part of the state, but the railroads are crying for somebody who knows what he’s doing.”
Pleasants stared back for a little while before he answered; he was feeling his load, too. “You know, Nate, that’s tempting, it truly is. But I have me a train to catch.” He got up and wobbled toward the door. Caudell followed. They took a couple of steps in the direction of the station before they noticed the train was gone—possibly long gone, by the way the sun had become a sullen red ball just above the horizon. “It’s an omen, that’s what it is,” Pleasants declared. “Here I’m meant to be.” He struck a pose, staggered, and reeled into Caudell. They both laughed, then went back to the tavern.
The fellow who ran the place admitted he had rooms above the bar. For a gold dollar, Caudell got use of one of those rooms, a promise of breakfast, his two dimes back, and ten dollars in Confederate paper. He also got a thin tallow candle, hardly more than a taper, in a pewter holder to light his way up the stairs.
The room had only one bed, and that none too wide. Neither man cared. Caudell set the candle on the window while they undressed, then blew it out. Straw hissed and whispered as he and Pleasants lay down. Next thing he knew, it was morning.
He used the chamber pot, splashed water from the nightstand pitcher on his face and hands. Pleasants, who was still in bed, looked up at him accusingly. “You, sir, snore.”
“Sorry.” Caudell splashed himself again. The water was pleasantly cool, and took the edge off the ache behind his eyes. If Pleasants was similarly afflicted, a night spent with a bed companion who snored must have been grim. “Sorry,” he repeated, more sincerely this time.
A big plate of ham and grits and corn bread and honey further eased their pain. Pleasants was whistling as he went outside. He pointed back to the train station. “This miserable excuse for a railroad is the Wilmington and Weldon, am I right?” By his tone, he knew perfectly well he was right.
Caudell started to be offended. The Wilmington and Weldon, and its continuation up to Petersburg, had been a Confederate lifeline, carrying supplies from the blockade-runners at the port up to the Army of Northern Virginia—and sending rifles, ammunition, and desiccated meals from Rivington as well. From necessity, it had received such care as the South could give. Then he remembered his one short trip down to Manassas Junction on a line recently Northern. By Pleasants’s standards, this was a miserable excuse for a railroad.
Pleasants went on, “Then I suppose I have to I make my way to Wilmington to hire on, That would be—hmm—a hundred miles, maybe a hundred ten.” He seemed to have consulted a map he kept in his head.
“Here.” Caudell gave him the change from the night before. “This will help you get there, Henry. The South needs more men like you than it has.”
Pleasants took the money: “The South needs more men like you, too, Nate,” he said soberly. “I’ll pay you back every cent of this, I promise.” He clapped him on the shoulder.
“Don’t fret over it,” Caudell said, his voice gruff with embarrassment.
“I shall fret over it. By what you said, you’ll be in these parts for a while, in Nashville or—what was the name of the other town?—Castalia, that was it. I expect the postmaster will be able to track you down. You’ll hear from me, sir.” He started for the station.
Caudell went with him. Not long after Pleasants bought his ticket, a southbound train chugged into the station. More discharged Confederate soldiers got off, but none from Caudell’s company. Some stared at the warm good-bye one of their kind gave an obvious Yankee, but no one said anything about it.
Caudell decided to walk to Nashville after all. He had only the pair of one-ounce gold coins from Rivington in his pockets, and doubted a stage driver would be able to make change for his passage. Almost easier, he thought, to be honestly poor.
The walk, at his own speed instead of to the tap of a drum, was pleasant enough. Tobacco alternated with corn in the fields by the side of the road, along with forests of pine and maple. Squirrels wearing Confederate gray chattered in the branches of the trees. Caudell closed his eyes, stopped in the middle of the road. He had gone faraway, done things dark and terrible, things he’d never imagined when he set out for Raleigh to be a soldier; seen the marvels—and behind the marvels—of two nations’ capitals. Now he was home, and safe. The realization soaked into him, Warm as the sun that beat down on his head. He never wanted to leave Nash County again.
He walked on. After another mile or so, he passed a gang of blacks weeding in a tobacco field. They did not notice him; Their heads were down, intent on the work. Hoes rose and fell, rose and fell, not quickly but at a steady pace that would finish the job soon enough to keep the overseer contented—the eternal pace of the silver.
He’d grown used to faster rhythms. He also remembered, from his dealings with the Rivington men and from what he’d seen in Rivington itself, that slaves could be made to work to those rhythms. But why bother? Things got done, either way. Slowing down was part of coming home, too.
And as for slowing down, he would have screamed at the Castalia Invincibles for ambling along as he was doing. He did not get to Nashville until late afternoon. Maples and myrtles lined and shaded the road, which took the name First Street for its short journey through the town. Though born and raised in Castalia, Caudell had spent most of his adult life here: the county seat and the surrounding farms boasted enough children to keep a teacher busy.
But how small the place looked, now that he was seeing it with his traveled eyes! A well-thrown stone would fly from one end of Nashville to the other. Not even a hoteclass="underline" what point to one, since the railroad had passed the town by. Old Raeford Liles ran the post office as part of his general store on the corner of First and Washington. The post office…Caudell remembered a promise he had made. He walked in. A bell above the door jingled.