Last of the Dixie Heroes (24 page)

Someone was knocking at the door. Roy went to answer, preparing remarks about something left in the oven. He was feeling better now, better with every heartbeat.

“Nothing to worry about,” he began as he opened the door.

It was Curtis.

Curtis in the early morning, or possibly early evening. Roy couldn’t help staring, staring at that suit, that tie, that shirt, all so perfect, like a princely costume from an exciting era he couldn’t quite place. Curtis was staring at him too. Roy straightened his kepi.

“Maybe this isn’t a good time,” Curtis said.

“For what?”

“I’ve been trying to reach you, Roy.”

“Phone problems,” Roy said. “Very bad.”

“I couldn’t get you on email, either.”

“Nope.”

“Are you all right, Roy? Looks like you lost some weight.”

“Fatty tissue,” Roy said. He was going to add something about fighting trim, but reconsidered.

“I can’t help wondering about what you’re wearing,” Curtis said.

“Mutual,” said Roy.

“Can I come in?” Curtis said. “I’d like to talk.”

Roy was on the point of saying no, citing oven problems, when he happened to notice all the trash on his lawn. It confused him. “Why not?” Roy said. “You’re a good talker.” He motioned Curtis inside.

Curtis didn’t move. His eyelid fluttered, the way it sometimes did. “What do you mean by that?”

“I always liked hearing you talk,” Roy said. It was true. Curtis made sense, and when he got rolling he sounded like a preacher. Roy wondered whether he knew “Milky White Way.”

“A bit messy,” Roy said as Curtis followed him inside. “Lacking a woman’s touch.”

“Everywhere’s like that nowadays,” Curtis said, “women or not.”

Roy understood perfectly. “That’s a Yankee thing,” he said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Nothing.”

They sat down at the kitchen table. Curtis sniffed the air.

“Overcooking problem,” Roy said.

“The reason I wanted to talk to you,” Curtis said, “one of the reasons, is I got a report that you haven’t taken advantage of the career counseling program.”

“You know about something like that?”

“I make it my business to.”

“That’s a kindness,” Roy said, adopting for the first time in his life one of his ma’s pet phrases. “But there’s no need to worry about me.”

“You’ve landed on your feet, then?” Curtis said.

“All set.”

“What as, Roy, if you don’t mind my asking?”

Roy sniffed the air. He too smelled smoke. “Be right back,” he said. He went down the hall, opened the living room doors, looked in. The smoke didn’t seem quite so thick now, but little fires flickered here and there, harmless. Roy stamped them out and went back to the kitchen. Curtis was looking through the diary of Roy Singleton Hill.

Roy didn’t like that. Roy plural.

“That’s the war diary of my ancestor, Roy Singleton Hill,” Roy said. “The writing is typical of the period.”

“Probably better than mine,” Curtis said.

“Yours?” Roy didn’t get that at all: Curtis was known for the quality of his memos.

“My ancestors’ writing,” Curtis said. “They were . . . on the scene too.”

“One of those facts of life,” Roy said.

“Definitely.”

They stared at each other across the table. Roy realized that if the conversation went a certain way they could come to blows. He knew himself now, knew the Roy inside: Curtis wouldn’t stand a chance. Too bad because Roy liked him, always had. But why was Curtis pushing him like this?

“Are you a reenactor now, Roy?” Curtis’s eyelid fluttered. “Like Gordo?”

“No.” He didn’t like the way Curtis said Gordo’s name.

“There are slave reenactors.”

“You mentioned that.”

“Big contingent going up to Chattanooga for the Lookout Mountain event.”

“And that,” said Roy. “You thinking of joining them?”

“I hadn’t seen the necessity.”

“What necessity?” Roy said.

“Of making sure the blanks get filled in.” Curtis turned to the end of the diary. “Did you notice how the last page is torn out?”

“Looks that way.”

“Did you do it, Roy?”

“This is my inheritance,” Roy said. “Why would I damage it?”

“Maybe you didn’t like what was written there,” Curtis said. “Have you read these final entries?”

“Scanned them,” Roy said.

“Scanned them?”

“Looked them over.”

Curtis nodded. “It’s history, a diary like this.”

“A part of it.”

“Living history—isn’t that what reenactors say they’re up to?”

“Don’t know about that.”

“Do you know about Fort Pillow?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“What have you heard?”

“What’s written in there. It was a Union fort on the Mississippi.”

Curtis read: “ ‘Twelve April, 1864, Fort Pillow. Best day of this . . .’ “ Curtis struggled to make out a word. “ ‘. . . conflict so far. Forrest asks for unconditional’—I think that’s what it says—’surrender but they refuse.’ “ Curtis read that part in his normal, educated voice. But as he went on, he began sounding more and more like a dumb cracker. “ ‘And thems tauntin’ us from over the walls. So’s we charge down from the east and Thunder takes a ball in the neck. I got my finger on the blood vessel and keeps ridin’ until Thunder goes down. We comin’ in over the walls shootin’ and hollerin’. Now theys thinkin’ twicet bout not surrenderin’ but we has our orders from Forrest and they was to—’ “ Curtis looked up. “Which is where the diary ends.”

“Correct.”

“What happened after that?”

“They took the fort. I don’t know the details.” Roy found himself gazing at Curtis’s dark hand on the last remaining page of the diary. “Do you?”

“I’m not an expert,” Curtis said. He closed the book. “And I didn’t come to talk about this.”

“You came about career counseling,” Roy said. “And I told you—I’m all set.”

“There’s one other thing, some potential good news that I’m not really authorized to discuss.”

“Then don’t.”

“Concerning new developments at Globax.”

Roy shrugged.

“I understand your being bitter, Roy, but it won’t help to—”

“I’m not bitter. Quite the opposite.”

Curtis put the diary on the table. “The plan is to spin off a few of the less profitable divisions in the next few months, perhaps involving employee ownership, but you can’t breathe a word.”

Spin-offs, Globax—these were nonsense words to Roy, scarcely words at all. “No problem,” he said. He just wanted Curtis to leave.

Curtis was looking at him, as though trying to convey some message. Whatever it was didn’t arrive. He pushed the diary away.

“Thanks for stopping by,” Roy said.

Curtis rose. A moment for handshaking came and went. Roy walked Curtis to the door, Curtis sniffing a couple of times on the way. “Stay in touch,” Curtis said.

“Bye,” said Roy. He noticed it was night again, or still.

Roy went into the living room, stamped out the fires. After that, knowing he must be tired, he lay down on his bed, that bed made for two. He thought about calling Lee again, now that he was in uniform, but did not. He wasn’t going to beg, was all through with begging or anything close. Did Roy Singleton Hill beg? No. Roy Singleton Hill yelled that rebel yell, fired the Sharps carbine, used his finger to plug the bullet hole in his horse while he rode on and on, attacking all the time.

So he wouldn’t beg, or anything close. That would be a disgrace to the uniform. This basic understanding settled him down a bit, but failed to bring sleep, no matter how tired he must have been. He tried putting on “Milky White Way,” but the player in the bedroom wouldn’t work. None of the players were working; in fact, there was no electricity in general. Roy packed up his Confederate kit—gun, diary, canteen—went into the tiny backyard, lay down under the stars.

Except there were no stars, and nothing that resembled the night sky in any way. The city made noises all around him, Yankee noises. The air above seethed with them. Plus those brown heads waited down below. Roy knew what Lee would say:
They occupied your dreams
.

Roy got up. He went out to the street, put his Confederate things in the trunk of the Altima, drove away. A tiny flame burned in the rearview mirror. Later there were distant sirens. Roy didn’t have to listen to them or any other bothersome sounds. “Milky White Way” still worked fine in the car.

TWENTY-FIVE

Roy came up through the high meadow, the Sharps carbine with
death
on the stock over one shoulder, word carved there by Roy Singleton Hill, and thus part of his inheritance, although the exact message was still unclear. Roy also wore the mule collar with everything he needed rolled up inside. From a long way off, but very clearly, his eyes working the way they worked when sighting through the V, he saw something new. Red background, blue bars, white stars: the flag now flew above the apple trees around the Mountain House.

Wasn’t a flag a signal, a code? This flag spoke to him and he understood every syllable:
Unconquered, unoccupied, waiting.
The sight of it fluttering in the breeze puffed Roy up inside his uniform. He felt strong, stronger than on his strongest day and much stronger than normal men, his lungs powerful, bathing every cell in his body with oxygen, clean and pure. He breathed that unspoiled air, felt the lovely wildflowers brush against his legs. Tennessee wildflowers: no need to pick these flowers, to take possession of them—weren’t they already his in every way that counted? He’d been born not far from here, had owned this land, this very corner of Tennessee, now lost; lost in a narrow sense because of Bragg’s failure to pursue after Chickamauga, lost in a broader sense because of broader things he probably wasn’t smart enough to understand. Lost, no doubt about that, but here he was anyway, still in uniform, still armed, still marching toward that flag, that flag still flying.

Three tents now stood on the flat ground between the Mountain House and the slave quarters. Over to one side, at the edge of the plateau where the downward slope resumed, Lee and Jesse were digging a trench, Jesse with his shirt off, that silver Star of David glistening on his chest, Lee buttoned up to the neck. They both looked up, both gazed at Roy. Lee gave him a nod, maybe even more distant than it had to be, went back to digging. Roy heard her little grunt—
his
little grunt, he corrected himself. It would have to be that way in camp, must have been that way then if no one knew until it came time for the dead and wounded. Jesse jumped out of the trench, hurried over, shook hands.

“I want to thank you, Roy.”

“What for?”

“Offering your place like this. We’re digging the latrines down there, right where the original ones must have been, judging by how thick the vegetation grows. Hope that’s all right.”

Roy took a quick glance at his hand, slightly soiled from the handshake. “It’s not really my place,” he said.

“Yours and Sonny’s,” Jesse said.

“Sonny’s here?”

“Gone down for a few things. He’ll be back soon.”

Roy glanced at the meadow. The wildflowers all bent suddenly in the same direction, blown by a gust that didn’t reach the plateau. “What kind of things?” Roy said.

“Sonny didn’t specify,” Jesse said. “He’s going to be a big help, your cousin.”

“At what?”

“All the things we can do now, Roy. We’re taking this to a whole new level and you’re a big part of it.”

“It’s not my land,” Roy said. “Not Sonny’s neither.” Did he say that:
Not Sonny’s neither?
Couldn’t have, wasn’t the way he talked. Did he even know anyone who talked like that?

“As far as I’m concerned,” Jesse was saying, “personally and as the ranking officer of this subgroup, it is your land.”

Roy looked up at the mountaintop, rising behind the slave quarters. He didn’t argue, didn’t say anything. He didn’t know how it would come out, him or this other voice.

“We’ve got the men,” Jesse said, rubbing his hands together in a way that reminded Roy of primitive people starting fires. “We’ve got the site. All we need now is a name.”

“A name?”

“Can’t call ourselves a subgroup,” Jesse said. “They didn’t talk like that.”

“How about the Irregulars?” Roy said.

“They talked like that.”

The name: Irregulars.

The site: Mountain House.

The soldiers (no civilians allowed in a hard-core camp): Jesse, lieutenant in command. Sergeant Dibrell, ranking noncommissioned officer. Lee, the corporal. And three privates, Roy, Sonny, and Gordo; Gordo with the chance to try it for the long weekend, Brenda helping with the new baby at her sister’s. Gordo mentioning
weekend
was how Roy found out what day it was.

Latrines dug, supplies stored under a shelter they’d built in a corner of the Mountain House, the Irregulars sat outside in the shade of a tree now past blooming, all but Sonny, still absent with leave. They drank the creek water from their canteens and gnawed on Slim Jims, which substituted for beef jerky.

“These are disgusting,” said Gordo. “I’ll be farting all night.”

“An authentic touch,” said Lee.

Gordo, looking right at Lee, let loose a big fart. Lee’s face reddened, but so slightly you had to be watching closely to see it. Roy was, and wanted to smack Gordo. He liked Gordo, they were friends, but Gordo wasn’t going to make it. Funny thought: make it through what?

“Food was bad,” Jesse was saying. “We don’t complain. What I thought we’d try, after it cools down some, is an assault on a higher position. If you’ve done any reading, you know they avoided these if possible, both sides. But assaults on higher positions happened—Little Roundtop being an obvious example, Lookout Mountain another. The commanders usually sent the men up with arms at right shoulder shift, ball loaded but musket uncapped. Any idea why?” Jesse looked around. Roy realized he could listen to Jesse talk all day. He had a thought, maybe not nice: If we’d had more Jews we’d have won.

“You a teacher, Jesse?” Gordo said.

“I’m a lieutenant in the CSA,” Jesse said. “And your membership here is probationary.”

“Hell,” said Gordo, “I’m a founding member of the Irregulars. Tell him, Roy.”

Roy said nothing. Joking around was for winners, not losers. Losers had to fight back and that was all. Not only that but it was the duty of the not-so-smart ones to listen to what the smart ones had to say. The odd thing was, even though he was one of the not-so-smart ones, he had the answer to Jesse’s question. Roy’s answer was based on a mental image, the kind of mental image he usually called a memory, impossible in this case, because what memories could he have of assaulting higher positions? In this nonmemory, he was toiling up a slope with hundreds of other men. Must have been imagining it, of course, although Roy knew he didn’t have much of an imagination, had never imagined any scene at all, and this one was so clear.

“Too slow,” he said.

“What’s that, Roy?” said Jesse.

They were all watching him. Roy didn’t like it—he’d never been the type to raise his hand in class. “Can’t stop to shoot,” he said.

“Why not?” Jesse said.

The answer was obvious to Roy, down on that slope with hundreds of other men. What could be more obvious than bullets buzzing by like bees, and how hands shake and fingers fumble trying to reload. “No time,” he said, hearing his voice change a little, slowing, broadening into that voice of someone else, not too different from his own. “They’re firing down and you’re firing up. Got to get there first.”

Jesse nodded. “Pretty much it,” he said. “Firing uphill you’re more likely to hit your own men in the back than anything else. Better to keep moving quick, fight on even terms.” He looked around again. “Any questions?”

Roy had the only one. “Why are we waiting till it cools down?”

They started up the mountain on a little ribbon of packed earth that led from the back of the slave quarters and soon disappeared in thickening undergrowth. Jesse went first, hacking with the blunt edges of his bayonet, Lee right behind him, then Gordo, Roy, and Dibrell last. The climb steepened almost right away, sometimes forcing them to their hands and knees, not easy with their weapons and gear. Roy heard Gordo’s labored breathing ahead of him, Dibrell’s, with a wheeze to it, behind. His own was silent. The space between Lee and Gordo grew until Lee was out of sight. Gordo leaned against a tree, pink blotches on his cheeks. Roy went past him, heard him say, “Are we having fun yet?”

And Dibrell reply: “I kind of wish I’d asked my PO about this.”

“PO?” said Gordo.

“Parole officer,” said Dibrell. “Need his permission to leave the state. Maybe he’d of said no.”

Roy came to a rocky shelf, caught his first sight of the summit, maybe two hundred feet above. Jesse and Lee were sitting on the edge of the shelf, dangling their feet in space. Roy sat beside them. He could see all the way to Lookout Mountain on the horizon—the big bend in the Tennessee River a faint gleam—even make out the tall buildings of downtown Chattanooga on the horizon; the only thing wrong with the view.

“What happened at Lookout Mountain?” Roy said.

“The Battle Above the Clouds,” said Jesse. “You’ve never seen pictures of the Yankees posing on that promontory up top?”

“Don’t want to,” Roy said.

When Dibrell and Gordo finally arrived, Jesse said, “From here, we split up. I’ll take Dibrell and Gordo up this side, you two find a way round the back. Always want to look more numerous than you are, Roy—one of Forrest’s favorite tricks.”

Roy was on his feet. “Let’s go.”

But Gordo and Dibrell wanted to sit down too, dangle their legs, start complaining about the heat, the bugs, the briars. Jesse let them. Roy didn’t understand that. It wasn’t the way to beat Yankees.

Lee and Roy started a minute or two ahead of the others, Lee first, Roy following. They made their way around to the other side of the mountain, crouched into the slope, sometimes pulling themselves along on roots and branches.

“What did Dibrell do?” Roy said.

“No talking.”

They climbed the rest of the way in silence. Just before the top, they went flat, wriggled on their bellies to the trunk of a fallen tree. Ahead lay the summit, a small clearing circled by forest. A small clearing, but not empty: in the middle stood an array of instruments surrounded by a barbed-wire-topped fence. A sign on the fence read: no trespassing. u.s. national weather service. violators will be prosecuted.

Lee frowned, looked more mannish frowning, but Roy’s heart was beating faster and he wasn’t really thinking about that, wasn’t really thinking. He propped the carbine on the tree trunk, cocked the hammer, checked to see that he was capped. He was. The instrument at the top, just above a small satellite dish, was one of those spinning things with cups on the end, Roy couldn’t think of the name. He raised his weapon, looked through the V, waited for one of those cups to come around, saw it with that hyperclarity, even the perforations inside, squeezed.

The crack of the gun, the flash, the kick, the smell of the smoke: all thrilling. And just as thrilling was what happened next. The spinning cup blew to bits. Sparks cracked at the end of the mechanical arm where it had been. Little sparks, but suddenly there was a huge one, like a thick rope of lightning, arcing all the way down to a box at the base of the array. Then came a flash and a boom, and a big ball of fire shot into the sky, blinding Roy.

When his vision returned he saw the instruments all blackened and twisted, flames licking here and there, and three men in gray on the other side of the clearing, openmouthed. Except for the occasional sound of metal popping, it was quiet, the birds and insects all silenced, nothing stirring in the woods.

“Did someone fire a live round over there?” Jesse called across the clearing.

“Is that wrong?” said Roy.

He started to get up, and as he did felt Lee’s hand on his crotch, giving him a squeeze, furtive, gentle, hidden from sight by the tree trunk. He glanced at her: face scratched by brambles, blackened by the explosion, something powerful in her eyes, the eyes of a woman beyond a doubt—how did the others miss that?—this powerful something perhaps not love, maybe closer to adoration.

“What are we going to do?” Dibrell said.

“About what?” said Gordo, a big smile spreading across his face. Roy knew why: he’d gotten his big bang at last.

“For fuck sake,” said Dibrell. “Open your eyes.”

“It was a lightning strike,” Jesse said. “We deny everything.”

“Why would anyone find out in the first place?” Lee said. “We’re way up here.”

That made Roy smile too.

Jesse began walking back and forth across the clearing, head down.

“What are you doing?” Gordo said.

“Can’t deny anything if they find a bullet.”

Jesse was one of the smart ones that the nonsmart ones should listen to, no doubt about that. At the same time, Roy didn’t care at all about finding the bullet. You fired bullets in battle, didn’t hunt around for them after. He helped search for it anyway out of duty—they all did except Lee, who lay on the log, eyes closed—and found nothing.

“Probably melted,” Gordo said. “No one else will find it either.”

“What about DNA?” Dibrell said. “We must of left DNA all over the place. That’s how they got me the last time.”

“For what?” said Gordo.

Dibrell shook his head. “Just a crazy chain of events.”

“Never heard of that crime,” said Gordo, still with that grin on his face.

Dibrell moved in front of him. “What’s that sposta mean?”

Jesse stepped between them. “Soldiers,” he said. “Form the squad.”

Nobody moved. Roy saw they weren’t going to do it. They were hot, tired, angry, confused; even Gordo, no longer smiling. Plus they weren’t soldiers, a strange observation for Roy to have, but he knew it was true. Dibrell had the makings of a soldier but was too fucked-up inside. Gordo would never be a soldier: he was a mama’s boy and Brenda was mama. Roy even thought he understood the anal sex thing, all part of Gordo’s childishness.

Roy said: “Yes, sir,” and took his place near Jesse, stood motionless with his gun across his chest. He didn’t say anything, but that voice inside him, the one with the broad accent and no self-doubt, was talking:
Form the goddamn squad.

They formed the squad.

Down below the land went hazy blue and slowly darkened, but the sun still shone on the Mountain House. The Irregulars sat outside their tents, eating Slim Jims and hardtack. Gordo sent a flask around, and so did Dibrell, but whatever they had wasn’t Old Grand-Dad. Roy took a sip of each and no more. He didn’t want it. Even food wasn’t a necessity. The water from the creek was all he needed. Hazy darkening blue rose up the mountain, but without any hurry. Watching evening come and breathing were enough for Roy. Not that he was tired, although he could see the others were. He himself felt as strong as he had in the morning, maybe stronger. Time stretched, sagged, formed the shape of a bowl, accommodated itself to him. A short life span didn’t mean life was short; a long life span didn’t mean it was long. Roy liked 1863. He took wonderful deep breaths of its air.