He breathed easier, relieved that it was not the mulatto. A flurry of boot steps. He crouched on the stairs and watched men carry in stretchers of wounded. There were a great many stretchers. Doctors in stained gowns hurried about, shouting instructions. Many of the wounded wore grey uniforms. Had the enemy not left the field after all? But then he saw a number of blue-uniformed wounded and realized that the Union doctors were tending to both sides. As the moans and cries of the wounded filled the house and the strong smells of decaying flesh and chloroform floated up to him, he decided that it was safe to descend. His uniform, torn as it was, protected him, and in any case the doctors and soldiers were too preoccupied setting up the hospital to take much notice of him.
Without difficulty, he made his way outside. Just beside the back door lay the dog; it had been shot in the side. Flies crawled in the wound and along the muzzle. He could not take his eyes off its mouth, the bared teeth, the too-familiar human grin. But he looked away at last. The sun hung just above the tree lines to the east, the sky was pale blue. Out in the fields the troops moved, heading away from him. Closer, a single black wagon, pulled by a horse, bounced among the shell holes and rotting bodies. Closer still, a group of blacks with spades over their shoulders walked slowly across the battlefield. Other lone figures dotted the landscape. It was quiet except for the constant low buzzing of flies rising off the dog’s bloodied fur.
He tried to let the daylight clear his mind. Too much had happened too quickly. He needed to think. The overseer had ridden off, likely with the sack of money on his person. The mulatto would come back. But to find what? With such a wound, Orlett would not have survived long unless he’d found help. Where? At a hospital. John looked to the north where the overseer had gone. It was the same direction in which lay the hospital where he had helped the doctor.
He began to walk to the north, but then stopped, frozen by the sound of a horse’s hooves. From the other side of the barnyard approached a single rider. John did not need a closer look to know it was the mulatto. Now, more than ever, the doctor’s sanctuary beckoned. He increased his pace, every second feeling Cray’s hands around his throat; the mulatto would not hesitate in his vengeance. Every heartbeat became a pursuing hoof beat. He expected even the dead dog to rise up and sink its jaws into his flesh. He began to run, tripped and sprawled face down in the dirt. He got up and ran faster, the black of the woods a bobbing blur as he crossed the torn field, his blood thrashing in his throat and temples and his destination seeming to slip away each time he looked down to secure his footing on the blasted earth. At last, after ten minutes, he arrived gasping at the hospital.
The doctor stood at the operating table. No part of his smock was unstained. His beard and face were flecked with blood and pus. John approached. The doctor blinked at him, then smiled broadly. It seemed to take all of his energy.
“Ah, John,” he said. “Come to lend a hand again? Good man.”
And they resumed their work of the night before, and little had changed except perhaps his blood. Orlett had said he was white. Like this doctor. Could it be true? John put his finger on an artery and stared at the red blood flooding over his hand. It didn’t matter. He had been a slave but now he was free. But freedom required more; it required a future. And that, he understood, would be possible only with money. If there was a chance of recovering that sack, he would do so. And then he would somehow put the mulatto and his own memories and Maryland itself behind him forever.
When the doctor clutched his stomach and said he needed to go into the field a moment, John slipped away. The sun was well up. It was already hot. His face dripped sweat. The battlefield became a buzzing blur as he searched among the fallen. The bodies had begun to bloat and turn black. He gagged on the putrid air as he looked into the dead faces and as he negotiated the shell holes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a thin man in a clean suit approaching gingerly, a white cloth held over his mouth and nose. His hands were white-gloved and he wore a bowler. John stood motionless as the man stopped a few feet in front of him and lowered the cloth.
“You’re searching for a comrade?” He sighed. His lips were wet and pink and he seemed to hold his breath as he spoke. “A sad duty. Very sad.” He dabbed the cloth to his shining brow. Little beads of sweat hung off the ends of his elegant moustache. “But perhaps,” he said almost shyly, “you’d be willing to ease the suffering of others even as you carry out your duty?”
When John did not respond, the man removed a small white card from his breast pocket and offered it.
“This is a coupon. If, in your searches today, you should find any soldiers with this card on their persons, you can earn a considerable sum by transporting the soldiers to that tent, just there.”
He pointed to a small, dark encampment in the near distance.
“My employer, Mr. Horace Greaver, is a respected surgeon of the embalming arts.”
John blinked, his hands twitched at his sides. The man, who had lifted the cloth to his nose again, lowered it and winked.
“A soldier must always think of his family at home. I’m sure you are no different. Wouldn’t you like to be able to send more money to your beloved parents? Or, perhaps”—he smiled and the pink tip of his tongue emerged from between his pink lips—“your sweetheart? Listen.”
He stepped closer. His voice was hushed.
“I tell you this in confidence. The work’s more than I can handle alone. There are so many valiant dead. Such a sad day.” He bowed his head briefly. “But why should a soldier not benefit from it? The sadness is a fact. But so is life. And life requires industry and imagination. I can tell at a glance that you are intelligent. I tell you this in strict confidence.” He leaned forward, his chin seemed to be propped on the air of decayed flesh. “Officers. My employer will pay handsomely for officers. North or South. If you transport them to that tent. And tell him that Tomkins sent you.”
John did not fully understand, but the thought of the money appealed to him. If it turned out that he could not find the overseer’s body or that the sack of money was not on it, he would be happy for the… a sudden thought stopped the others.
“Are many bodies being taken to that tent?” he said.
“Oh, yes, there are others doing this work. It is a competitive venture indeed. But you are not, I can tell, a young man to shrink from competition.”
John considered. Perhaps the overseer’s body was at the tent? He turned away from the man without a word and headed south, his eyes scanning the ground for the overseer just in case. Within five minutes, he came upon an elderly Confederate soldier lying on his back. His face was fine-boned, and powder burns had darkened the neatly trimmed white moustache. His large, brown eyes fluttered. As John bent closer, the soldier’s lips moved, struggling to form words.
“Are you a soldier?”
“Yes, sir.”
The mouth opened again without sound. The eyes closed, opened.
“A federal?”
“Sir?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not if you’re a soldier.” The old man’s eyes remained open. “You’ll understand. I won’t recover from this fight. I do not wish to survive if I cannot fight. Please.” His lips hardly moved. His blackened skin ran in rivulets of sweat. A fly crawled along one eyebrow. “Please.” A tear formed in his open eye.
John looked around. No one was within a hundred yards. He could do this. This was not the same as what he’d faced with the overseer. This was more like the feeling he had standing beside the doctor. But as he moved his hands toward the old man’s throat, the horrifying image of Orlett’s doglike grin appeared on the face. Nigger. Goddamn ignorant. John hesitated. He watched the old man’s eyes close and not open. Then he knelt, gently pushed his arms under the old man’s back and legs, and lifted. The corpse was light, easy to carry in a cradled position. He hurried toward the embalmer’s tent.