“You think dey’s anything dose devils can do worse dan what’s been done. It’s too late for me. But you get dose people away and yourself too. Never mind de overseer. Dat evil jes keeps comin’ if you kill it.”
He ran a trembling hand across his lips and blinked slowly, as if his eyelids were made of iron.
“Dey’s always evil. You can’t kill it by killin’ one man. Den you be jes as bad. But you’re not a killer, John. Dat ain’t your way. You get dose people clear. Go on! I’ll get myself to my cabin. Dat overseer, he too busy now to bother about one old nigger. Go on now!”
So he gathered the men onto the main floor and explained that he would take them to safety. Running back to the attic, however, he found only four women; the other two had run off on their own. Now the sounds of the old house and the starting rain on the roof seemed to contain hoof beats and footfalls. He hastened to get the blacks outside.
The air still burned with the acrid chemical smoke of battle, but the rain brought a welcome freshness. John gulped several breaths down and surveyed the immediate area. No one appeared, so he set off, hoping for the one thing contrary to what he’d been focused on for so long: that Orlett would remain absent.
It took the rest of the day to reach the free black’s house and relieve himself of the responsibility for the men and women. His success strengthened his resolve; when he moved on, he was surprised to find how much his body had lightened.
Not until after midnight, however, did he reach the farm again, coming at it slowly. The house was dark and empty. Orlett had not returned. John moved on to Caleb’s cabin to take him what food he had managed to gather during the day’s travels. There had been bodies everywhere, the cries of wounded for water, wagons and men clustered around almost every building, which, he discovered, had been turned into hospitals. Soon, perhaps, this farm, too, would be used for a similar purpose.
He had not slept in a long while. The excitement of the morning’s battle and the tension of the aftermath suddenly weighed him down. He entered Caleb’s cabin heavily.
The old man was curled into himself in a corner, without even a covering blanket. John touched him gently on the shoulder, eager to tell him that he had succeeded in reaching the free black’s house. But when he turned him slightly, he knew that Caleb was dead. His eyes were half-closed, his face cold, but there was no mark of violence upon him save the whip marks scarred into his back.
John wrapped his arms around him and lay there on the bare floor. His tears flowed freely, but they were no relief. He felt them form the two letters on his cheek, and his cheek seemed to blaze, to become a beacon that the overseer could not fail to notice. But the cabin’s silence and his own great fatigue closed his eyes. Though there was no peace in the brief sleep he found pressed against Caleb’s cold body, he felt stronger when he woke. He lifted Caleb in his arms and carried him to the blacks’ graveyard and buried him, not even caring what attention he drew, hoping in fact that his grief would bring Orlett to him.
Afterwards, he found he could not sit and wait. There was much work to do. If Daney and Caleb were denied the benefits of freedom, many others would not be, but only if the Union won the war. He decided he could help the cause and look for the overseer at the same time. For there was no guarantee Orlett or Cray would return anytime soon or at all. Perhaps both were dead out there among all the other bodies. Perhaps he would come upon one or both of their corpses on the battlefield.
Daybreak approached as he skirted the dark woods and walked out among the groaning wounded. In the thick grey-black light, among the wreckage of knapsacks and overcoats, smashed limbers, discarded weapons, and smoking holes, he discovered a young soldier with blood caked on his eyelids and the bridge of his nose. He looked to be sleeping. John put his head to the soldier’s chest and thought he heard a faint beating. He picked the soldier up and gazed to the east; somewhere in that direction he expected to see activity, evidence of a hospital at work or a campsite of soldiers stirring with the dawn. Instead he saw a single black tree, its branches shattered but for one, the air a slightly fainter black around it. He moved on, the soldier’s head cradled in the crook of his arm. The white face, stained with blood and powder, moved him strangely. It was young enough to be one of Daney’s children.
A groan just off to the left broke his odd reverie. It came from a much older soldier, a middle-aged, rough-bearded man with a wound in his neck. He lay on his back, his eyes fluttering. John laid the young soldier down and, on his knees, took the older man onto his back and shoulders. Then, with as much care as possible, he clasped the lighter soldier to his waist, letting the feet drag along the ground. Hunched over, he proceeded slowly, stopping every minute to catch his breath.
More grey light spread over the field and sky. The one tree loomed on the horizon yet never seemed to come any closer. Already the air was poisonous with the gases of the dead. He kept going. Over the pounding of the blood in his temples and his laboured breathing, he heard little. Once, panicked, he thought he heard several quick retorts, like musket fire. He lifted his head and peered around him, but he could see nothing except the same shattered ground of dead horses and tipped-over wagons. Again he moved on.
At last he stopped, figuring that he must have come abreast of the tree because he could not see it. Suddenly he knew he was being watched. The idea that it was Orlett flashed into his mind, but he could not react quickly on account of the wounded he carried. He turned his head slowly, his muscles taut.
A man stood almost directly against the black tree. He wore a kind of smock covered in gore. His face, though mostly hidden under a thick beard, was kind and vaguely familiar, the eyes dark and wet. They were like Caleb’s eyes.
“Let me take the other man, soldier,” he said and stepped around John to tend to the body he had laid on the ground.
“Thank you, sir.”
“The hospital’s back there.” The man, who must have been a surgeon, pointed eastward. Then he tended to the young soldier, taking up one of his wrists, leaning to his chest, touching his eyelids. The man’s shoulders sagged. He looked up.
John recognized him now as one of the surgeons from the day of the battle. Comforted, he lowered the other soldier to the ground. The doctor probed the wound in the neck with his finger, then muttered something John did not catch.
“Sir?”
“Your name?” he said gently.
John touched the letters on his cheek. His name? When was the last time a white man had even asked him for it?
“John.”
“John? What’s the rest of it?”
Suddenly a voice cried, “Don’t move!”
His heart lurched. It was the cry he had dreaded hearing the whole way from South Carolina, the cry of recapture. He turned and saw two Union soldiers pointing their muskets at him.
The doctor said, “It’s all right, I’m a surgeon. We’re taking this wounded man to the hospital.”
The soldiers stepped closer. They stared at the doctor a while, then nodded and withdrew into the shreds of remaining dark.
John controlled his breathing. “Just the one man, sir?”
The doctor sighed.
“The other’s dead. A burial party will take care of him. Was he a comrade of yours?”
“No. But I reckoned he’d make it.” But what he wanted to say was, I couldn’t leave him, he’s just a child, his mother will be missing him. Because the doctor looked as if he’d understand, he looked as if he’d do anything to save a child’s life. Now he raised his face to the sky and scowled.
“Pick him up and follow me,” he said softly.