Evermore: A Saga of Slavery and Deliverance (The Plantation Series Book 3) (30 page)

If the boy called out to him, maybe hurt, maybe lost in the
thick, smothering cane, he wouldn’t be able to hear him.

“Valentine!”

The boy tapped him on the shoulder. “I’m here, I said.”

The good ear received a muffled confusion of sound. Val’s
words were indistinct, as if the boy spoke through water.

“Thank God.” Marcel hugged the boy tight. “You still have
your horse?” he said, his voice over-loud.

“Yes, sir.”

“Then let’s get out of here.”

Captain McKee rode the bayou with Weitzel as the general surveyed
the battle’s aftermath. Throughout the action, Finn had supervised the runners
with reports from up and down the bayou, sending flag signals across and down
the stream. Now it was over, he was not so battle-worn as the front-line
infantry, but the heat, the noise, the bullets whizzing past his head left him
feeling flat. Empty. As if he’d swum the length of the bayou pulling three
horses behind him.

The Confederates had killed sixty-eight Union soldiers, damn
them. What a goddamned waste. But Finn took no satisfaction at the scores of
Rebel bodies littering the ground. More than two hundred, he estimated. A
fearful toll for this small battle on a back bayou.

Gall rose in his throat. Damn all of them. Hard-headed, mis-guided, greedy scoundrels, leading men into rebellion,
into death. A goddamned waste.

At the back of the line, the green flag flew over the
surgeon’s tent. Already the groans of men who’d been under the knife rent the
smoky air. Finn had not a scratch on him. Only days ago, he’d have expected
mighty relief at surviving a battle intact. But that had been when he thought
Nicolette would be waiting for his return.

At their campfire the night before, Finn’s fitful, gloomy
mood had provoked Hursh. “She’s a fine woman, and you’re a damn fool.”

“Yes. I am.”

He’d walked off into the dark to punish himself some more
for his idiocy. After the performance at the St. Charles hotel, he’d spent a
few hours feeling put upon. How could she have not told him?

By the time he had to board the troop carrier at dawn, he’d
come to his senses. Why would she tell him? He’d have looked like the idiot ass
he was if she’d tried to explain a fact that everyone else in Louisiana found
self-evident. If he could relive that night, he wouldn’t run away from her like
some wounded, ghostly imbecile sneaking away from her foggy courtyard. He’d
bang on the door until she came out and explained herself. What did cannot
mean?

He put it away. There was work to do. The bayou ran in a
straight line from Labadieville to Thibodeaux, and all that was needed were
line-of-sight stations to have wig-wag communications in place. Finn got his
men to work building signal towers.

Through the remaining daylight hours, Negro men and women,
some carrying children, some supporting frail grandmothers, emerged from the
plantations. Like ghosts, Finn thought, they moved slowly, their eyes wide,
their voices stilled. All along the length of the bayou, they sat down on the
banks, waiting and watching.

With the protection of the victorious Union, they would no
longer listen for the sound of the overseer’s bell nor dread the zing of his
whip. They had little idea where to go or what to do next, but the people along
Bayou Lafourche were through with slavery.

At Brashear City, west of the Lafourche, Marcel and the
other Confederates regrouped.

Everywhere, the survivors walked like men half dead with
fatigue, their faces blackened by gunpowder and smoke, dirt in their hair and
ground into their palms. Some of them had yet to wash the blood from their
wounds. Those who’d sustained serious injuries lay in rows around the surgeon’s
tent, enduring sun and wind and flies.

The surgeon made quick work of bandaging a gash on Marcel’s
arm. He peered into the injured ear and announced he would likely never hear
from it again. The doctor had no time for sympathy. He was on to the next man.

Marcel tossed his torn coat over the saddle of his new
mount. His ruined ear felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool, and he felt oddly
lopsided and unsteady. Walking his horse through camp, he kept a hand on its
mane to steady him. The dizziness would pass, the doc had said.

Nearby, a mule trembled, a low moan rumbling through its
belly. A soldier stroked it’s neck, unashamed of the tears on his cheeks.

“You going to put him down?” Marcel asked.

“Yeah.” The soldier wiped his face on his sleeve. “Ol’
Jack’s been this way two days now. Shell shocked, I guess.”

When Hercule, the bravest of horses, had been ripped into by
hot, tearing shrapnel, he had shrieked a high-pitched scream of terror Marcel
would never forget. “I lost my horse,” Marcel offered in sympathy, and walked
on.

They’d done all they could in their retreat, Marcel and the
others, cutting the wires, blowing up bridges. They’d even, here or there, set
fire to the cane to keep it out of Union hands.

Everywhere, the displaced Negroes milled in confused
uncertainty. They had no money, no tools, no food. They’d soon be the Union
Army’s problem, Marcel figured. When he and Mouton’s Confederates moved off in
the morning, they’d leave these poor people behind for the pursuing Federals to
deal with.

Mouton would need months to regroup after this, and Marcel
was as close to New Orleans as he was likely to get for the next half year. He
should take leave, see about things at home. Lucinda must be sick over Deborah
Ann showing up on her street. And Deborah Ann? He’d be as gentle as he could
with her, but she had to be made to understand she did not own a husband. He
would love her, provide for her, and honor her as the mother of the children
they would have together, but he would not allow her to frighten Lucinda. Nor
dictate his habits.

He knocked on the pole of Col. Vincent’s tent. When he left,
he had permission to see to his wife in town and rejoin his unit in Opelousas
in ten days. He sent Val over to Alistair, then met with his men and delegated
duties for the coming march.

He traded for a pair of patched trousers and a threadbare
shirt. He sent his boots on with Val and put on a pair of worn brogans, the
insole split, one heel gone. Mid-morning, General Mouton moved his forces out.
Marcel stayed behind.

The run-away slaves took shade among a stand of pine near
the railway. Marcel pulled an old straw hat down low over his face and settled
his back against a tree away from the others. He’d never in his life had a pain
like the ache in his ear, as if a thousand crawdads were in there pinching and
scratching.

Late in the day, the train arrived with a contingent of
Yanks to move the refugees to a camp outside New Orleans where Butler had the
resources to feed them. The people gathered their little ones, a bundle of dry
corn pone, maybe a few sticks of jerky. The soldiers herded them to one side of
the cars to begin loading them aboard.

Marcel felt as conspicuous as if he’d worn the Rebel flag
draped over his shoulders. He wore rough clothes and a floppy hat, but he
couldn’t disguise his hands, nor his features. If a soldier spied him among the
slaves, he’d be cried out immediately.

He slipped out of the crowd, under a railway car, and
climbed in from the other side where no one watched, no one worried that
someone might sneak aboard. Judging from the smell and the floor’s dark stains
the size of cow pies, the car had once hauled beeves to market. He moved to a
corner of the dim interior where he could lean against the wall, away from the
open doorway where the soldiers directed people to board.

Men, women, and children climbed into the car, claiming
patches of floor for themselves. Their feet, mostly bare, stirred up dust and
the smell of unwashed bodies. Marcel counted himself as dirty as everyone else
and tried to ignore the stench.

A family surrounded Marcel in his corner. Glints of light
through the wall slats revealed a large man, his massive biceps and forearms
marking him as a blacksmith. The wife had a babe and a toddler clinging to her
spare form. A grandmother, a shriveled little woman, completed the family.

With a sharp screeching of metal on metal and great huffs
from the steam engine, the train began to roll. Soon the wheels clacked over
the rough rails, the swaying from left to right overlaying the trembling of the
undercarriage. The people quieted and slept.

Marcel woke to daylight and the fretful cry of the smith’s
baby. The throbbing in his ear reverberated through his head and confused the
sounds of children and train tracks and engine. In the close and humid air, he
put the back of his hand to his nose against the muggy smell of babies and
bodies and the open bucket in the center of the car.

Without thinking, he pushed his hat off his forehead and
opened his eyes.

The big man, not three feet away, was staring at him.

He’d been stupid with fatigue the day before. All he’d
thought about was slipping aboard without the Yanks catching him. This slave,
the slaves all around him, could call him out, or worse.

He glanced over the huddled forms, then looked back at the
blacksmith. He had his pistol stuck in the back of his waistband, but it would
do him no good if there were trouble. Children all around, and far more men
than he had bullets. And he didn’t want to shoot this man. He didn’t want to
shoot anyone. He just wanted to go home.

The man’s wife looked him over. “You a Cadian?”

Lots of Cadians in this part of the state didn’t want any
part of the war, neither side’s cause having anything to do with them. “
Oui
.”

The big man snorted. “You ain’t no Cadian. You a runaway
soldier, ain’t you?”

“I don’t mean you any harm. My wife is sick. I’m going
home.”

The woman put her hand on her husband’s arm. “Let him be,
Joseph.”

The man eyed him for a moment. “You got any tobacco?”

Marcel’s face split in a grin. “I do.” He dug into his pants
pocket and produced a twist. He handed it over with his pocket knife.

The morning wore on with interminable waits while the
soldiers did what they had to to get the train
through. The baby cried. “Ear ache,” his mama said, and Marcel felt for the
little tyke.

The smith, still nursing the chaw of tobacco, tried to
entertain the boy. His wife, the babe at her breast, gazed at her man like he
was the promised one, delivering them out of bondage. And Marcel supposed he
was. It took guts to walk away from all you’d ever known. Even as a slave, the
man had privilege and status as the blacksmith. But he’d thrown it away for
this, a crowded train bound for a crowded camp. No guarantees there’d be work
for him, food for his babies, clothes and shoes for the coming winter.

They crossed over a rough patch of track, the car swaying
back and forth and up and down. The grandmother pressed her hand over her
mouth, then spewed forth her stomach’s sour contents all over Marcel’s boots.

“Come here, mammy,” he told her, and helped her climb over
him to put her face to the cracks where the air blew in.

The toddler grew tired of crawling over his father’s lap and
launched himself at Marcel as if he were a favorite uncle. The little boy
wrapped his arms around Marcel’s neck and planted a sloppy open-mouthed kiss on
his cheek. Marcel’s heart swelled in his chest. Charles Armand used to do that,
before he got to be such a big boy.

“Don’t bother the man, Sammy,” the mother said. She opened
her bundle and portioned out her four strips of jerky, handing one to Marcel.

Marcel’s mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten since yesterday
morning. “Thank you, ma’am.” He settled Sammy in his lap and bit into the dried
beef.

By the time the train pulled into the station at Algiers,
Sammy lay across Marcel’s lap sound asleep.

What did high-sounding ideals like states’ rights mean to a
family like this? What difference did it make to them whether the economy would
collapse without slavery, whether rich men lost their fortunes? He rubbed his
hand on little Sammy’s back. So like Charles Armand, bright as a pip, full of
energy and the joy of being alive.

The train slowed and they began to see buildings and wagons
through the slats.

“I been thinking how you gone get off without the soldiers
seeing you. You take Sammy, there, and stick close to us. Keep you hat down. We see can we get you through.”

Marcel looked at the man, at his wife. “Why would you do
that for me?”

“You sitting here in this stink just like Joseph and me,”
the woman said. “Got to live best you can, just like us.”

The list of Union casualties came in the day after the
battle at Lafourche. Before she sent the list on to the new captain, Nicolette
scanned for Finn’s name. She swallowed back tears. No McKees
listed.

Finn was safe, but she haunted the kiosk where Confederate
casualties would be listed. Days went by, the bulletin board bare and empty.
With the rainy spell, at least the radical orators were not inflaming the
citizens against people like her.

Cleo and Pierre returned to New Orleans. After another day
with no news about Marcel, about Alistair, Nicolette set aside her tatting. The
rain made her want to curl up in bed with a candle and a book. “I’m going to
bed, Maman. Good night, Pierre.”

At the sound of crunching glass, Nicolette seized the arms
of her chair. Cleo turned out the lamp, and Pierre reached for the club leaning
in the corner. Nicolette grabbed her pistol.

At three raps on the door, Cleo hissed, “What kind of
brigand knocks?”

“Cleo?”

“Who’s there?”

“It’s Marcel.”

Cleo heaved the heavy bar and threw the door open. Marcel
stood before them in tattered rags and split-toed, disintegrating boots. His
beard was untrimmed and his eyes were hollow. The oiled canvas bag on his
shoulder dripped a rivulet of water.