Crossing the Deadline (7 page)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

December 21,1864

As we pull into the station, my stomach rumbles as much as the train. A shield of dull gray hangs above the city, and a foggy haze sits on everything. It looks like snow will fall from the sky at any moment, but the promise holds off. The smell of thick smoke and steam ambushes us as we step down from the train.

A man wearing a dark blue overcoat is waiting on the station's platform. His mustache is cut short to end above the corners of his lips. His chin and neck are shaven clean. Charcoal-colored hair hangs below the edges of his cap. He's thin and walks parallel to the train in measured, crisp steps, almost in a strut. He points through the smoke toward a double gate nestled into a two-story-high wall and yells, at no one in particular, “When you get inside the
camp, go past the tents on the right. There's a platform nearby. Gather there.”

As I pass, the man grabs my shirt collar. “Hold on, young man,” he says, pulling me back to his side. “Kinda young-looking to fight a man's war, aren't you?” he asks.

Golden oak leaves sit on his shoulder straps. Major, I think. I wonder if he's Major Eli Lilly.

“Well . . . actually . . .” I catch my answer before it slips out. Robert wrote home of some boys, as young as twelve, trying to muster in the army. Many wrote the number eighteen on a piece of paper and tucked it into the heel of their boots. When enlistment officers asked, “Are you over eighteen?” young recruits could honestly say, “Yes, sir, it's a fact. I'm over eighteen and that's no lie.”

I recognize I have paused too long and need to say something. “Save it,” the major says. “I bet you're ‘Over eighteen'! Right?”

“Yes, sir,” August Smith answers for me. “We're over eighteen, and the Ninth is gonna help end this dadblamed war,” he assures the major. “As soon as we're trained, the Ninth's gonna end this fight in double-quick time.”

The major eyes me up and down, points his chin toward the gate, and says, “Get inside.”

As we walk away, August looks back over his shoulder. “Pleasant fellow,” he says. “Stephen, if you wait until you're eighteen, the war will be over.”

Large wooden gates open to reveal a city within the city bustling with activity. Immediately off to the left of the entrance, a man is yelling. “You're going to be shot five times before you can get your powder in the barrel.” He snatches the musket from a soldier and continues his rant. “You should be able to fire three rounds per minute. Whoever loads faster, you or Johnny Reb, determines who will live. Watch the steps as I go through them again.”

The instructor reaches into a black container strapped to his waist and pulls out an object the size of his thumb. “Retrieve cartridge from box and tear the paper with your teeth. Pour the powder and minié ball in.” He demonstrates.

“Ram the powder and ball into the barrel, and replace the ramrod.”

He reaches into another container. “Prime the weapon with a percussion cap, and you're now ready to cock, aim, and fire.”

Beyond the men learning to shoot, in a field large enough for all of Centerville to fit in, men ride horses. The riders all
make their horses gallop on command then stop suddenly. They trot and walk in patterns.

With so many people, the training camp must have a larger population than most towns in Indiana.

August nudges my shoulder and points to a building opposite the main entrance. “I can hear my stomach growling. Maybe we can get something to eat there.” Along the far wall, smoke pours from several chimneys attached to a long building. “It's gotta be the dining facility.”

“The major said we're to gather around the platform,” I remind him, pointing to a wooden stage.

“Don't worry. I'll be back in time,” he says, heading in the direction of the mess hall.

A series of buildings that appear to be barracks run along the edge of two walls. Men, their hands planted in their armpits, dash in from the cold. White tents, too many to count, sit just yards from the barracks and stretch beyond, past what I can see.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Men stroll along, carrying bags and an occasional bugle case. All my worldly possessions are stored in one sack: the clothes I packed, a blanket, a copy of
David Copperfield,
ten pages of writing papers, envelopes, a pencil, stamps, a Bible, and my bugle.

A towheaded man sits under a walnut tree, polishing a bugle. He looks to be about my brother's age, maybe twenty. “Cold, huh?” I ask.

“Not bad,” he replies.

“I'm from Centerville.”

“Rushville,” he replies.

“I'm Stephen Gaston. What's your name?”

“Henry.”

“Just Henry?” I ask.

“Dorman,” he adds.

“Are you a bugler?”

“Company K.”

“Hey, me too,” I say. Getting him to say more than a word or two is as tough as using pull-offs on a horseshoe. He wipes his horn with a cloth.

I sit and lean against the tree. “Excited?” I ask. “About going into battle and about seeing the elephant for the first time?”

“Naw,” he says, shaking his head. He lowers his voice and leans closer to me. “I can't play it,” he whispers.

“What do you mean you can't play it?”

Dorman shrugs.

“You mean you can't play very well.”

He hands the bugle to me. “It sounds like a goose when I blow it.”

“How'd you join as a musician?” I ask.

“I lied,” he says. He tucks his lower lip between his teeth and clamps down. “I told 'em I could play, and they never asked to hear me blow a single note. I need work to feed my wife, Sarah, and my son. I saw they needed buglers, and I don't want to get shot. I figure this is the safest place to be in the army.”

“Yeah,” I agree. “Back with officers, sounding their orders.”

A light breeze lifts a tuft of his thin hair, and he reminds me the world of Dutch.

“I'll teach you to play,” I promise.

“Is it hard?”

“Naw, as long as you practice, you'll do fine. And make thirteen dollars a month as you learn,” I say.

“I've got to send every penny home to the wife and new son. He's three months old.”

“Yeah. I know what you mean. It's just me and my mother, so she needs every penny I can send her.”

Taking Dorman's bugle and turning it over in my hand reveals it's covered with scratches and dents.

“I stole it from a cousin,” he says quickly. “I figured if the recruitment officer saw I owned a horn, they'd believe I could play it.”

“I bet it sounds beautiful. You'll pick it up fast,” I assure him. “We won't head south for a while. There's lots of time to learn to play between now and then.”

“I just hope we're safe with these,” he says, gesturing to our bugles.

“Hey, fellows,” August says, coming around the tree. “Did you know prisoners are being kept three blocks north of here at Camp Morton?”

“That close?” I ask.

“Yeah, three thousand prisoners from places like Lexington and Fort Donelson. I'd give anything to get a good look at 'em.”

“Hold on,” I interrupt. I can't believe what I'm hearing. Lexington is where Robert was killed. “Did you say prisoners from Lexington are three blocks away?”

“Yeah, Gaston. Clean out your ears.”

A bugle sounds, and the recruits who were on the train with me rush to an open section of the field near the center of the camp. The major I had met earlier climbs the steps to a shoulder-high platform. He strides to the front edge and waits for silence.

“Men, my name is Major Eli Lilly of the United States Union Army. The two hundred of you who arrived today join eight hundred men already in camp to form the Ninth Indiana Cavalry. As of now, you are the eyes of the army. It's our job to keep commanders informed about enemy movements. That's not an easy assignment.”

“We're up to it, Major!” August yells.

A whoop erupts from the crowd as men remove their hats and wave them in the air.

“We'll see,” Major Lilly says. “It takes two years to properly
train cavalrymen. From looking at you, it'll take three. Hell, the war may be over by then, and we want to get in there and do our part. I can tell that you're a sorry lot, but we are going to get this training done in four or five months. By early summer we'll head out of Indianapolis.”

Five months? That seems so far away. Yet, at the same time, too soon.

“Where are my musicians?” Major Lilly asks.

Henry Dorman, August, and I raise our hands. Two other hands go up nearby.

Major Lilly points to a building off to his left. “Report to Private Alfred M. Thornburgh inside the building with the smokestacks. He's Indiana Ninth's chief bugler, and he's waiting for you there. You'll be under his care for the next few weeks. Buglers only, dismissed!” he shouts.

I gather my belongings and head to the far side of the camp with August and Henry.

* * *

Private Alfred M. Thornburgh, nearly as wide as he is tall, greets us in a well-heated room. He's so round that if he lost his balance at the top of a hill, he'd roll all the way to
the bottom before stopping. “When I call your company, say your name so I'll know you're here,” he instructs. “Company A?”

“Charles Evans, sir.”

“I'm not a ‘sir,' Evans,” Private Thornburgh says. “Call me Chief. Who's the second bugler with Company A?”

“William Peacock, sir. . . . I mean . . . William Peacock,

Chief.”

Thornburg glares at Peacock. “Company B?”

“John W. Sherill!” a man yells.

“August Smith.”

* * *

I study the faces of the men around me and wonder how many will return home alive. William Peacock is strapping strong and looks like he could handle himself real well, even in hand-to-hand action. His shoulders are square, and his chin looks strong enough to be on a statue. Most of the men have full bushy beards. Although I'm tall, I feel naked without scruff on my face; I haven't shaved yet.

“Company K?”

Henry Dorman elbows me in the side.

“Who is the second bugler from Company K?” Chief yells.

“Stephen M. Gaston,” I say, coming out of my daydream.

After calling roll, Thornburgh points to a cabinet off to the side. “If you brought your horn, use it. If not, get one from that cabinet.”

Several men retrieve horns and return to the group. “Men, you have all the power in the army. You wake soldiers in the morning, tell them when to eat, how fast to march, when to drill, and how to drill. Bugles are a camp's timepiece. . . .”

For the rest of Thornburgh's talk my mind drifts from bugling to Camp Morton and the prisoners there. I begin thinking of a reason to make my way to the prison and see those responsible for taking Robert's life in Kentucky. I want to look them in the eye and tell them what they did to my family. I want them to know that they are the reason I have to go off to war so Mother has a room to sleep in and food to eat.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

December 22, 1864

Buglers from the same company are assigned to sleep in the same tent. Late the next afternoon, Dorman and I are settling into our two-man tent. I take a pair of documents from between the pages of
David Copperfield
and lay them side by side on the ground. Then I tap Dorman's leg and ask, “What do you think? Take a look at these.”

He turns and crouches to study the letters, his eyes darting back and forth between the two pieces of paper. “What do you mean what do I think? They're two letters from the governor is what I think. What are you doing with them?”

“Do the signatures look the same to you?” I ask.

“Yeah, exactly the same. Why?”

I shake my head, afraid to tell him that I forged one of the documents this morning. The bogus letter states that
at the governor's request I am to speak to a hometown prisoner who left Centerville to fight for the Confederacy. I hope it gets us into Camp Morton, but the less Dorman knows right now, the better. “Hurry up. It'll be dark in an hour,” I plead.

“I'm almost done,” he says while pushing a button through the last hole in his shirt. Where are we going anyways?”

“You'll see. Just hurry,” I insist. “It's my rotation, so I have to be back in time to play taps.”

Henry tucks his shirt into his pants.

“Stop frettin' with your gall-darn shirttail, Henry, and put on your coat. We're not going far.”

We walk briskly out the gate, turn north, and cover the three blocks in silence. We approach a stern-looking man at a gate. A sign, in three-inch-high letters above the gate reads, CAMP MORTON.

“Let me do the talking,” I say in a low voice.

A man with a dimpled chin raises his hand to stop us. The two gold stripes on the side of his arm represent the rank of corporal. “Where do you two think you're going in such a hurry?”

“Yes, good afternoon . . .” I begin. The words sound awkward, over-rehearsed. I may not have planned this out enough.
“Governor Morton sent us to talk to . . . talk to . . . a prisoner. . . .” My voice trails off. I reach in my pocket and pull out the forged piece of paper. “John Williams,” I say, looking at the forgery. “Yes, that's who we need to see.”

“Governor Morton sent the two of you to talk to one of the prisoners here?”

“Exactly,” I say, handing the paper to the guard. I think of Uncle Clem and hope he has taught me how to lie well enough to get inside.

The guard scratches his dimple with his finger as he studies the paper. “The governor sent the two of you?”

I nod.

Henry stands beside me, wide-eyed.

The guard reviews the paper and turns it over in his hand to look at the back. “Why would the governor send you two to speak to Mr. Williams?”

I glance at Henry, who looks as lost as a goose in a snowstorm. His vacant stare tells me I'm on my own. “He sent us . . . because Williams . . . uhh . . . the name on that paper, is a no-good Secesh.” I spit on the ground.

“He's a copperhead,” Henry chimes in, and spits on the same spot.

“Williams is from Centerville, where the governor,
my pard here, and I live,” I say. Now Henry knows something is up, because he's from Rushville. I hate to drag him into the lie without him knowing, but there is no way I'm going into a prison camp alone. And I know he never would have come along if I had told him earlier. “Williams lived in Centerville and ended up fighting for the South down in Tennessee. The governor wants me to ask him something.”

The guard raises both eyebrows. “Ask him what?”

“I am not at liberty to tell you that,” I say. “I'm just doing what I'm told to do. What the governor asked me to find out is between Governor Morton, John Williams, my pard, and me.”

There's a moment of silence as the guard looks down at the paper again. I reach over the edge. “That's the governor's signature right there,” I say, tapping at the bottom.

“I know what the governor's signature looks like,” the guard growls. “I've seen it hundreds of times.” He shouts over his shoulder to a man talking to a lady near the street. “Sergeant Whitson!”

“And that's his signature,” I say, tapping the paper again.

“The governor sent you?” the guard asks Henry, whose eyes are now the size of silver dollars.

“Ahhh, yes, sir. He sent me, indeed. I mean . . .” He looks at me.
“The governor, that is, sent the two of us. He sent the two of us to find, ahhh, Williams.”

“Why did he send you?” the guard asks.

I have to bail Henry out. “I told you. Because I know John Williams. . . . Well . . . I know of him. He's a tad bit older than me, and we went to school together . . . well . . . at the same time. . . . Him being older than me, I don't really know him. Look, I don't have time to explain all this to you. It's right there on the paper, and it's an order from the governor for me to come here to find Williams and ask him one simple question. And it's almost dark,” I insist.

“And you know Williams?” the guard asks Henry.

“Ahhhh, no, sir, I don't know him at all. Never laid eyes on him . . . ever,” Henry answers.

“
I
kinda know Williams,” I say, stressing the word “I.” “
We
went to school together. Look, nobody likes him on account that he's a no-good copperhead.” I spit on the ground. “The whole family's a bunch of copperheads.” I spit again.

Henry shakes his head quickly. “No-good copperheads,” he repeats, and spits, appearing a bit more confident, too.

“Actually, I know the governor better than I know Williams. Governor Morton invited me to his house back in
Centerville to give me a gift,” I add for dramatic effect. “Lovely house he and Mrs. Lucinda have.”

While the guard looks down to examine the paper, Henry taps me on the shoulder and points to a sergeant approaching.

“I'd hate to be in your boots if I don't see Williams and get his answer back to the governor before dark,” I say in a rush.

The guard folds the paper, hands it back to me, and waves off the sergeant. “I've got it taken care of, Sarge.”

“When you walk in, don't stop before crossing the deadline,” he warns.

I look at Henry, then back to the guard. “Deadline?”

“There's a line on the ground twenty feet from the wall,” he says. “You'll know it when you see it. Anytime somebody is between the wall and the deadline, the guards have authority to shoot. They may give a warning shot . . . but odds are they won't. It doesn't matter if you're a prisoner or Governor Morton himself—you're liable to wake up dead.”

“Wake up dead. That's funny,” I say to the guard. “I like that.”

The guard does not react. “When I open the gate, walk quickly into the compound. Don't stop until you've crossed the deadline.”

“Crossed the deadline,” Henry repeats, nodding.

The guard walks back a few steps to the wooden gate. He raises the latch, and we walk into Camp Morton.

* * *

Once inside, we take twenty quick paces before stopping just past a white line on the ground.

“You never said we were going inside a prison camp,” Henry says sternly.

“So, what are you 'fraid of?”

“Afraid of?” he says in disbelief. “Stephen, we're inside a prison.”

The enclosure is surrounded by a plank wall as tall as a house. Nearby, a long line of crude buildings that look like they were built as sheds extends away from us. A small ravine, narrow enough to throw a rock across, slopes down and ends at a shallow stream. The slope rises on the other side to another row of buildings. The wooden structures and a few randomly placed tents keep us from seeing how far the prison goes beyond that.

Henry stares out at the sea of people. “We'll never find what's-his-name. There's got to be a couple thousand men in here.”

“Don't worry, Henry,” I say. “There is no John Williams.”

“What do you mean?”

I shake my head. “There's no John Williams.”

“Are you crazy? What about the paper you showed the guard?”

“It's a forgery. I made all that up.”

“Did the governor sign the paper?”

“No. Governor Morton doesn't know we're here.”

“How did his signature get on the paper?”

“He signed a book for me. A gift. I studied his hand. It's not exact, but close enough, I guess. It fooled you and the guard.”

Henry stares at me and shakes his head slowly.

“What?” I ask.

“I can't tell when you're lying or telling the truth,” he

confesses. “What are we doing here, then?” “Gotta see somebody.”

“But not Williams,” he says, catching on. “Who?”

I clench my fist and furrow my brow. “The men who killed my brother.”