Last of the Dixie Heroes (26 page)

“Somebody else, maybe?” Ezekiel said.

“Like who?” Roy said.

Ezekiel thought that over. “Then what’s in my box, handed down from one generation to the next?”

“Your real great-great-grandfather,” Roy said.

Ezekiel was silent for a moment or two. “Truth is,” he said, “I never looked with my own eyes.”

“What are you saying?”

“I never opened the box.”

“Then how do you know there are ashes inside?”

“Oral traditions,” Ezekiel said.

“Why not open it now?”

“No key,” Ezekiel said. “Wouldn’t be right to break in with violence, would it?”

Roy didn’t say anything.

“You disagree about the violence part?” Ezekiel said.

But it wasn’t that. Roy walked back to Ezekiel’s truck. The little casket lay on the center console, Roy’s gun on the shelf behind the seats. He opened the filigreed patch box in the butt of the gun, took out the brass key. Much too big to fit in the keyhole of Ezekiel’s little casket, nothing to worry about on that score.

But the key did fit, fit perfectly, slid in like the box got opened every day. Roy glanced over at Ezekiel, still by the open grave, maybe working up the nerve to actually pick up the skull. Roy turned the key, felt the lock give, snapped open the lid.

No ashes, nothing in the box but a single brittle sheet of paper, the left edge torn and jagged. Roy recognized the writing on the page, stuffed it in his pocket, closed the box.

“What you got there?” said Ezekiel, suddenly beside the truck.

“Your box.” Roy handed it to Ezekiel.

“Any harm in breaking in with violence now?” Ezekiel said. “Yes or no?”

“No.”

Ezekiel put the box on the hood of the truck, struck the lid with the edge of his hand. It split apart, popped open. There was nothing inside.

Ezekiel stared into the box for a long time. He even picked it up, turned it upside down, shook it. Nothing fell out.

“I don’t get this kind of joke,” Ezekiel said. His eyes were damp, maybe on account of all the dust they’d raised.

They reburied the remains of Roy Singleton Hill and stood the gravestone back in its place, left everything just as they’d found it.

Roy Singleton Hill

1831–1865

Hero

TWENTY-SEVEN

Ezekiel knew an old logging trail up the back side of the mountain that would leave Roy with a shorter climb to the Mountain House. The old logging trail—just wide enough for the pickup, the forest scratching away at the paintwork like fingernails all the last part—ended in a small clearing. Ezekiel’s headlights swept past three cars already parked there, two with New Jersey plates, one from Connecticut.

“Tourists,” said Ezekiel, “come to hike up an’ down the beautiful state of Tennessee, keepin’ the economy strong.”

He offered Roy his hand; an arm-wrestling-style shake, exactly like Sonny Junior’s. That was one thing. Then their hands, Ezekiel’s and Roy’s, so similar—that was another. “Still a lot of mystery in my mind,” Ezekiel said, “but that could be sidewash from my hobby. You been straight up with me, Roy. Many thanks. You always got a friend on this here mountain.”

Roy felt Ezekiel’s headlights on his back as he walked across the clearing, up into the woods, trees closing around him. Ahead, his shadow—head, body, arms, legs, gun—got longer and longer, and finally glided off into darkness, Roy following. In darkness, in the woods at night and invisible: but Roy felt Ezekiel’s headlights on his back for a long, long time.

Roy climbed the back side of the mountain, as steep or steeper than the front, the trees as thick or thicker, but he knew the way, knew it without having to think or even pay much attention. He knew when he’d be having to go down on all fours to keep his feet from losing their grip, knew when he’d be coming to an open spot and seeing the stars, knew when the slope would level out and bring him into Ezekiel’s marijuana patch. He even knew that his owl was flying overhead, long before he heard the beating of its heavy wings, like carpet thumping, high above. It was only for the weekend, or a little longer. Everything was going to be all right. Apple trees grew on the mountain, fat brown fish swam in the creek, deer roamed the forest; there was hardtack, Slim Jims, the water itself, heavenly: a person—especially a strong person, and now he was that, stronger than he’d ever been, even stronger than he’d have been if everything in his life had been golden all the way—could live here forever.

The owl hooted. “Don’t have to do that,” Roy said. “I know you’re there.” It hooted again, louder, sounding a little displeased, even angry, maybe at not being included in Roy’s mental list of the mountain’s bounty. But of course the owl, descendant of the owls of 1863, was included. Roy looked up, tried to find its outline against the night sky. But even with his new hyperclear vision, he couldn’t, and besides, the night sky was gone all of a sudden and with it the stars and the Milky Way. Through the leaves above, still black, Roy saw that the sky was no color at all, just a faint canopy of untinted light, but growing more intense, as though someone was slowly turning up a dial. He listened for the owl, its beating wings, its call, and heard nothing.

Roy made his way through Ezekiel’s marijuana patch, took his first steps down the slope that led to the back of the plateau. “Milky White Way” started up in his head. He was happy, so happy, except for one nagging thing. What was it? The brittle page in his pocket, last page of the diary of Roy Singleton Hill. Enough light for reading now, no excuse not to; or he could just rip it up and scatter the shreds unread, without an excuse, to silence that nagging. Roy paused on the wooded hill over the plateau, his hand in his pocket, fingertips rubbing the old paper, feeling for some premonition. At that moment, while he was trying to come to a decision, something lying by the side of the trail, partially hidden by a tree root, caught his eye.

Roy went over, picked it up: a kepi, one of the common styles of Civil War soldier hats, the same style he wore, but with the silver horn on top denoting infantry. Otherwise the same in every way, except this one was blue.

Roy tried to get things straight in his mind: was there a battle here, up on his mountain? Did the Yankees pass this way on the retreat from Chickamauga to Chattanooga? Or had Sherman later come marching through from the other direction? Did it have anything to do with the copper pits, not far away, source of the percussion caps for practically the whole South? Were the copper pits in danger? He would do his duty.

Roy put the inside of the hat to his face. He smelled sweat; sweat and the strawberry aroma of Aussie Mega Shampoo, familiar because he used it himself. He got confused.

Roy walked down the path, the blue kepi in his hand, rounded a bend and came to an opening in the trees. A beautiful sight unfolded in the east, must have been east because the horizon was a band of fire, the dome of the sky turning mother-of-pearl as he watched. Down below lay the beautiful state of Tennessee, just as Ezekiel had said, soft as Eden. A pink mist was rising from the upper meadow, flowing over onto the plateau, several hundred feet below him. The mist blurred the ruination of the Mountain House, made it rosy, made everything right. Roy gazed down on the sleeping camp, the tents still and pink-edged, the flag drooped comfortably on its pole, and came close to tears. This was earthly glory, the end of a journey through time to make things right.
Stop here.
Time stopped, stopped at this red-banded sunrise on a day in the spring of 1863. Roy knew it for a fact. He felt no need to breathe. Poised on the trail above the plateau, his gun at his side, Roy felt inner peace at last. There was no need for the clock to tick one more second.

The moment Roy had that thought, time started up again. First came movement down in the slave quarters, hard for Roy to make out because the treetops blocked his view. But human movement, he was sure of that, and blue: he was sure of the blue part too. Roy flung the blue kepi aside and set off down the slope, each step quicker and more careless than the one before, as he thought, so late and stupid: License plates, kepi, blue. The woods blocked his view at every turn.

But sounds got through, muffled, urgent, rising off the plateau. Running, grunting, crashing: now Roy was running too, and might have been making all the sounds himself. He was wondering about that, wondering how much was imagining, how much of what he thought of as his life he had imagined, back and back to two little boys in that cantilevered barn, when he slipped on a tree root. Roy fell hard on his back, slid, tumbled down a steep rise, cracked his head, rolled to a stop under a cloud of rising dust. As it cleared slowly in the still air, he found himself on a ledge fifty or sixty feet above the plateau. The peaceful scene below was gone, replaced by something close to its opposite, hard for a civilian to take in.

But Roy wasn’t a civilian, and it all came together in his mind in a crisp and military way: an attack by a superior force on a sleeping camp. Roy counted ten figures in blue—didn’t have to count, the number coming automatically—some active in the Mountain House, the rest running crouched toward the tents. Then metal flashed in the hands of some of them, and the tents all started collapsing, forms struggling under the canvas. The Yankees laughed, the sound rising almost undetectable up to Roy, but their laughing posture very clear. He hated that laughing. It stopped abruptly; the postures all stiffened. Roy followed the Yankees’ gaze to a lone gray-clad figure popping free from a pile of canvas, springing to his feet, long hair wild and whipping in the first rays of the sun: Sonny Junior.

Some of the Yankees raised their hands as though in explanation, which Roy didn’t get at all, this being war. Sonny Junior didn’t wait to hear. The next moment, he had something in his hand too, not metal, not a knife or bayonet, but a long wooden pole—a tent pole. He swung it, faster than Roy would have thought possible, and a Yankee went down. Then another, on the backhand side, still falling when Sonny lowered the pole, jabbed it into someone’s gut—cry of pain rising clear up to Roy, like it came from right beside him—and wheeled to get at someone else. That wheeling was why Sonny didn’t see a big man—bearded, sergeant’s stripes, Vandam—coming from behind. Vandam raised his musket like a club, cracked it down on Sonny’s head, just as he’d done to Roy. But Sonny didn’t go down. He staggered a little, recovered, started to turn, the tent pole still in his grip. Vandam hit him again, same place.

That dropped Sonny, but only to his knees. Somehow he still had the pole, somehow was thrusting it at Vandam. Vandam stepped back—Roy caught the flash of his teeth in the middle of all that beard—stepped back, but right into the path of another reb diving at his legs like—like a linebacker. Vandam fell. The second reb was on him right away. Vandam threw him off easily—the second reb was very small—and was starting to rise when Sonny Junior, still on his knees, caught him a good one under the ribs. Vandam fell again. Sonny rose, rose slowly, blood all over, but rose and stood over Vandam, raising the pole like a pile driver. A Yankee captain—Peterschmidt, with the muttonchop whiskers—ran up from behind, brought the butt of his pistol down on Sonny’s head, and a second time, real quick, as Sonny subsided. Roy was so sure that Peterschmidt wouldn’t do something like that that he missed what came next.

Something to do with another small reb, just a little bigger than the first. A blue circle was closing around them, blocking them from Roy’s view. Roy scrambled up, searched frantically for his carbine, found it wedged against a tree trunk a few yards higher up. He hurried back down the outcrop, opening the breech, checking to see if he was loaded—yes—closing up, raising the gun, looking through that V at the scene down below.

Down below and far away. Roy had no idea of the gun’s range. In the V, he saw the blue circle part and Peterschmidt advance on the littlest reb, now lying on the ground, curled into a ball. The second reb got in between them, tried to push Peterschmidt away. Another Yankee knocked him—her, Roy knew that—to the ground.

Now. If it could be done, Roy could do it. He was deadly, that was certain. He got Peterschmidt’s head in the center of the V, saw him clear, could even make out the cigar in his mouth, right down to the glowing end. The cigar enraged Roy. He drew a bead on Peterschmidt’s near-side eye, started to squeeze.

“Now do you see why we keep a force in reserve?” said someone behind him.

Roy whirled. Two Yankees stood above him on the slope, a lieutenant with a pistol and a private with a musket, both pointed at him.

“Yes, sir,” said the private. “Very wise.”

“Throw down your gun,” said the lieutenant. “We’re taking you prisoner.”

Roy had had enough.

“Fixin’ to die?” he said.

“That’s very good,” said the lieutenant.

Roy didn’t need to hear that: he knew it was good—that was how they talked, his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather, his great-great-grandfather; and him.

“In terms of authenticity?” said the private.

“Did you say something, soldier?” said the lieutenant.

“Sir. In terms of authenticity, sir, what he said being very good.”

“More like it,” said the lieutenant. “Yes, this reb is particularly authentic. So he must know that the right response here is to throw down that gun. Meaning just lay it down gently—I know what these things cost.”

“Out of my way,” Roy said.

“What you forget,” said the lieutenant, “is that you’ve got one shot to our two. That’s what makes the decision easy, weapons dictating tactics.”

“Even easy enough for a dumb reb,” said the private, adding, “sir.”

A cry rose up from the plateau, very faint, but Roy knew whose it was. “Last chance,” he said.

“Is this a hearing problem?” the lieutenant said. “Or ADD?”

Roy shot him between the eyes.

No doubt about it: Roy was deadly and how could he miss from that range? The lieutenant said, “Ow,” as the paper wad smacked his forehead with a noise like a book sharply closed.

Paper wad? Ow? What was this? It took Roy a moment or two to realize he’d fired a blank. But how? He knew he’d had a live round in that chamber. Roy flipped open his cartridge pouch: blanks, all blanks, where live rounds had been before. He’d been betrayed. The war was lost.

“Jesus Christ,” the lieutenant was saying. He felt his forehead—red welt already rising—said, “Ow,” again.

“Could of taken out his eye,” said the private. “Don’t you know the rules?”

“And I’m a photography teacher, you asshole,” said the lieutenant, turning on Roy, “which your lawyer won’t be happy about, not one damn bit.”

These Yankees were all red-faced and furious, but about what Roy wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter: whack, whack, and they were both on the ground, Roy racing down the slope to the plateau.

And yes, the rebel yell, so huge it could have been the voice of the mountain itself.