Crossing the Deadline (8 page)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Henry Dorman and I walk toward a group of five men gathered near the edge of the ravine. They're thin, dirty, disheveled, and inadequately dressed for a northern winter. They encircle a small fire, keeping their backs to anybody approaching. “Soldiers, I'm looking for men from the Army of Kentucky,” I announce.

Without lifting his head, a tall man with sharp fingers motions toward the stream. He says in a frail voice, “Kentucky men are on the other side.” The man wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

The two of us make our way to the bottom of the ravine, weaving past groups of men clustered around fires, some with their palms out, catching elusive warmth. We step across a thin stream of filthy water and climb the other bank. We
pass men sitting frozen like carved figurines. Their empty stares reveal their bodies are in Indianapolis, but their minds are elsewhere. Henry skims their faces and asks, “This is what we'll be fighting down South? They look near death.”

“Dorman, I doubt they mustered in looking like this.”

“My God, this is what prison did to them?” he asks.

Prisoners had constructed clotheslines at the top of the west bank and draped blankets across much of the lines. Just beyond the blankets, five wooden barracks resembling horse stables stand end to end.

“Which one we going in?” Henry asks.

“One's just as good as the next,” I reply.

After opening the door, we step into almost total darkness. The air is thick with moisture. It smells like rotting cattle and manure. I gag so hard, I feel my stomach trying to come up into my throat. I hear Henry do the same. I use the collar of my coat to cover my nose from the stench and wait for my eyes to adjust.

Along each side wall, a row of beds stacked four bunks high reach from the ground to the eaves. The bottom bunks are inches off a bare earthen floor. Rags stuffed between planks of wood in the wall keep out some of the wind. Men press so close around an object in the middle of the room that
it's hidden from view. A pipe leads from the center of the men to the roof. A stove.

If the meager fire warms the men standing by it, it does little to heat the ends of the building. Too many rags have fallen out, allowing the cold to sweep inside. It's as frigid where Henry and I stand as it is outside. A moan to the left draws our attention. Although dimly lit, the shape of men huddling under blankets in a bed catches our eyes.

“Look how they're lying together, trying to keep warm,” Henry whispers. “There's five or six men under a couple of blankets.”

I walk over to the men on the bunk. “Where you soldiers from?” I ask.

One man raises his head to see who's asking. “Alabama,” he says.

I kneel down beside his head and see it's crusted with layers of filth and dirt. “I'm looking for soldiers from Kentucky,' I say.

The man lifts one finger and points outside. “Tents,” he says.

“The tall tents outside?” I ask.

He nods and lies back down.

* * *

Henry and I rush outside and shut the door behind us. It's a relief to be leaning against the outside wall, and we take deep breaths to clear our lungs of the stench.

“That was horrific,” Henry says. “My eyes are watering.”

“My uncle Clem's livery was cleaner,” I tell him. “Even when it needed to be mucked, it smelled better than that.”

I pull open the flap to the first tent we come to. Again, beds line both sides of the canvas walls, creating a pathway down the middle. There's barely enough room for two people to pass. I walk slowly down the aisle, looking from left to right. I pass each bed slowly, gazing at the men.

Many prisoners shiver beneath blankets, some violently. I lift my nose into the air and flare my nostrils. Henry tilts his head too. “What do you smell?” he asks, almost in a whisper.

“There's a sweet smell in the air,” I say, remembering the overpowering smell of gardenias as Dad died.

“I don't smell anything sweet,” he answers. “It's foul in here, too.” Henry tilts his head down and pulls his coat over his nose.

“There's a sweet smell mingled in,” I insist. “Concentrate. Can you smell it?”

Henry lifts his head and sniffs several times. “No. The only smells I'm getting make me want to vomit.”

“I can tell by the scent, Henry,” I tell him. “Death is here. Somebody's dying here, right now.”

Henry hits me hard on the shoulder. “Stop it right now, Stephen. You're scaring me.”

“No, it's true.” I say.

“You're lying again.”

“No, I'm not lying this time. When my father died of consumption, I smelled this exact smell. Nobody else in the room mentioned it then. But this is the same smell I noticed just as Dad passed.”

I look at a man lying on a bed to my left, then bend over him, our faces inches apart. “You from Kentucky?” I ask.

The man doesn't open his eyes or raise his head. He nods slightly.

* * *

I stare at the man, nose to nose, unable to take my eyes off him. I wonder:
Was he the one who pulled the trigger?
Did he take Robert from us? Is he the one putting Mother through unbearable agony? I wait for hatred to come to the surface, like waiting for water to boil, but it doesn't. I want every ounce of my pain to turn to joy in seeing him suffer in
squalor, thinking of him dying a slow painful death. I want it more than I've ever wanted anything in my life. But neither hatred nor joy appears, so I stand up.

“This has to be the worst way to die, a slow death like this,” Henry whispers. “Can you imagine the pain? When I go, I want it to be fast.”

I walk past Henry and lay my arm against a set of empty bunks. I lean my head against my arm and cry.

“What's wrong?” Henry asks.

“These boys killed Robert, and they are going to meet him again real soon. I thought I'd feel better about seeing them suffer. But I don't.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

January 21, 1864

Dearest Mother,

I'm sorry for leaving a note instead of speaking to you in person when I left, but good-byes are too difficult. With Dad and Robert gone, I feel I should make my way in the world. Uncle Clem took us in, so I don't worry about you having a place to live. That's comfort far more than I can express.

Several months ago I heard a lady say we must all have a reason for living. I know what she meant. We can't go on living like we are with Uncle Clem. I have found my reason for living, and it's to get us out from under his roof.

The truth is, I'm not in Ohio. I've joined the Union Cavalry as a bugler. The one time I mentioned mustering in, you asked, “Do you think Robert and your dad need your company in the
graveyard?” I pray God agrees they do not, but that remains His decision. Perhaps I'll learn a trade along the way. I'm not proud of how I left, but what's done is done, and I can't take it back.

I thought I could send more money home, but things come up. I make a little extra from soldiers. Many of them never learned to read and write. A couple of them pay two cents a letter if I write home for them. It's easy spotting fellows writing home to girlfriends. They cover their letters and don't let anybody peek over their shoulders. I'll send what I can from my pay but will have expenses to meet. Don't expect much.

Time is different at training camp, Mother. When we drill, time creeps as slowly as a slug. The first thing we do in the morning is drill. When we finish that, we have a short time when we drill. Once our drilling is done, it's time to drill. When there is no drilling to be done, we drill some more. Sometimes, we drill between drillings.

We call the bugle instructor Chief because he's in charge of the rest of us. He rotates us through the calls while soldiers walk through the motions. We do the calls over and over so that one day they will be a part of us, like a leg or a hand.

“It should be natural. Like breathin',” Chief says. “You don't think about breathin', do you?” he yells at us.

I know most calls clean now and only have a hard time with a few of 'em. Chief picked me to play taps for the entire camp the first week I was here. When I play that song, everybody has to extinguish their lights and go to sleep. Guess I'm further along than most. One bugler couldn't play a note when he arrived, so he and I leave camp and go to a nearby cemetery for extra practice. Nobody there complains when he sounds bad.

When we play, Chief says to sing words in our head. It helps make sense of what we're playing.

We sound reveille at six every morning to wake the soldiers. The Chief taught us to sing in our heads:

You got to get up, you got to get up, You got to get up this morning.

You got to get up, you got to get up, Get up with the bugler's call.

The Major told the Captain, The Captain told the Sergeant, The Sergeant told the bugler, The bugler told us all.

You got to get up, you got to get up, You got to get up this morning.

You got to get up, you got to get up, Get up with the bugler's call.

We've been here for weeks and haven't trained with horses. We were told we won't get them for a long time. Not enough to go around. We head south in a couple months, with or without mounts.

I read
David Copperfield
when I'm not plum tired. I see why President Lincoln likes it so much. It's not about America, but in a way it is. The powerful have control over the poor. I think of slaves as the poor people in
David Copperfield.
Southern slaves are slaves, not from flaws in their minds like some think, but because of unfairness toward them. Did you know some slaves speak French? You can't be dumb and do that, I don't think.

Send my love to friends. Save a share for yourself,

Stephen

PART TWO

THE SOUTH

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Friday, September 23, 1864, 2:30 p.m.

When the officers declared we were ready, we boarded trains in Indianapolis and headed south. Three days later we arrived in Nashville, a large southern city firmly under Union control and heavily fortified. We cooled our heels there in May, June, and July. We fought a lot but not against Johnny Reb. Instead, we battled mosquitoes and the heat all summer. The air felt thick, and my uniform was constantly soaked with sweat. The only rebs we saw were on trains headed north to prison camps. While we waited, Henry Dorman's bugle playing improved, and our supply of horses trickled in. We didn't get enough for every company in the Indiana 9th, but several were completely covered.

Major Lilly let me pick my mount. I chose a nice smoky black gelding and named him Texas. His back is shoulder
height and he leads with a strong, steady head. His short ears pivot fast as a wink. I'm sure he can hear a fly land on a log twenty feet away. And I swear I can read his eyes and know what he's thinking. His sleek muscles run from his knees up through his shoulders and along his neck.

Now it's September, and we've been assigned to guard the railroads in a southern Tennessee town called Pulaski. After lunch, some of the soldiers request a song. I ask, “Does anybody know the tune ‘Can I Go, Dearest Mother?'”

Sergeant Joseph Survant, a soft-spoken fellow from my company says in a deep voice, “I do.”

I begin the first few notes of the song, and soon his voice blends in sweet as sugar added to coffee:

       
I am young and slender, Mother, they would call me yet a boy, But I know the land I live in, and the blessings I enjoy;

       
I am old enough,
my mother, to be loyal, proud, and true

       
To be faithful to my country I have ever learned from you.

Men who were lying on their backs sit up and take notice.

       
But the faithful must not falter, and shall I be wanting? No!

       
Bid me go, my dearest mother! Tell me, Mother, can I go?

Out of the corner of my eye I catch William Peacock lowering his head between his knees and wiping his eyes with his sleeves. I don't look back at him again because if I do, I won't be able to finish the song. It's not my playing that's reaching his heart; it's the words and Sergeant's beautiful voice. I look up at the sky and at the trees and think of the next notes I have to play. Major Lilly's standing beneath one of the trees, watching the men listening to the tune.

After the song, Henry taps me on the knee and points. Major Lilly's walking toward us, purpose in his stride. He isn't coming for pleasantries. We stand as he approaches.

“Sir,” we say together.

“Dorman, call assembly in fifteen minutes . . .,” he begins. “General Starkweather has ordered some of us to head south this evening. Pack your gear; we may not be back for a long time. We ride at dusk.”

“Sir, you said, ‘Dorman, call assembly.' Did you mean to say Gaston?” Dorman asks.

“No, I said what I meant. I want you to do it. I rely enough on Private Gaston, and you're sounding better on that piece of tin every day.”

“Thank you, Major,” he says, smiling.

“Who's going, sir?” I ask.

“Only mounts from the Ninth and Tenth,” he answers. “We're headed to the Elk River Bridge on the Alabama-Tennessee line.”

“Alabama?” I say joyfully. I don't mean for excitement to spill into my words, but at the thought of getting closer to a fight, it bubbles out.

“Alabama,” Major Lilly repeats. “Forrest is wreaking havoc on the rails in northern Alabama. We need those rails to move troops and supplies. It's our assignment to protect them.”

We'd heard reports of General Forrest's exploits ever since we got to Nashville in May. He entered the war as a lowly private. He captured a Union battery at Fort Donelson and fought at Shiloh. By the summer of '62 he was a general. Moving south increases our chances of seeing him, and, maybe, capturing him will help end the war.

As the major walks away I call after him, “Sir, do you think he's in the area?”

“General Forrest?” Major Lilly asks.

“Nathan Bedford Forrest,” I say.

Major Lilly walks back to us. “When Colonel Spalding came into camp on Tuesday, he brought five prisoners with him.”

“Forrest's men?”

“Exactly. Recent reports from spies put him in Alabama. Last week he struck a railroad four miles south of Athens. The telegraphs went dead between there and a railroad bridge called Sulphur Branch Trestle. Reports say his brother, Colonel Jesse Forrest, is around too. So my best guess is yes, he's close. We're taking the five hundred men with mounts. The other seventeen hundred stay here. Dorman, blow assembly in fifteen minutes.”