Last of the Dixie Heroes (29 page)

THIRTY

Sonny Junior shook him awake just before dawn. The visual world was starting to materialize, but Roy knew who it was just from the strength.

“Got a problem, cuz.”

Roy sat up. Sonny stood by the mattress. He had hold of Jesse by his bad arm.

“Caught him down at his car, Roy, going for the phone.”

“Can’t have you firing real rounds,” Jesse said.

“Real rounds, hell,” said Sonny. “I’m takin’ the AK.”

Lee stirred in her sleep. Roy rose. “Let him go,” he said. Sonny released Jesse’s arm. They went into the main part of the barn, stood near a window. The light was getting stronger now, but Roy couldn’t even make out the house; the temperature drop had brought fog, as thick as any Roy had seen.

“Who were you calling, Jesse?” he said.

“Chattanooga police.”

“Did you get through?”

Jesse shook his head.

“You lying to me now?”

“Why would I? If anything, I’d lie the other way to stop you.”

Roy thought that over. Was it a trick? He wasn’t clever enough to know, never would be. It didn’t mean he couldn’t lead.

Roy called Lee over.

“How many rounds have we got?”

“Three.”

“Don’t forget the AK,” said Sonny. “Plus I got a shitload of other guns, comes to that.”

“Corporal,” Roy said, “get your weapon and take the lieutenant outside. Keep an eye on him. Sonny and I have to talk.”

“Why should I keep an eye on him?” said Lee.

“The lieutenant is going on leave.”

Lee took Jesse outside. Roy and Sonny stood by the window. “Gonna have to shoot him, Roy?”

“Where’s his phone?”

“Taken care of.”

Roy gazed at his cousin. His lip was puffy, but healing already, the blood around his ear all dried up and scaly: he didn’t look too bad, even somewhat rested. The chopped-off hair effect was going to take getting used to, the way it made Sonny resemble a huge version of his father. Roy wondered whether his father’s eyes had looked like that, red flecks in the blue.

“The AK stays behind,” Roy said.

The red flecks seemed to get brighter, like they had some separate connection to a source of power. “You tellin’ me what to do now, cuz?”

Sonny seemed to come a little closer, although he might not have moved at all. Behind him, a strange pattern of knots on the barnwood wall came into focus, like a sun with two moons. The sight didn’t bring everything back, but enough. It had happened by this window, two little boys rassling, but Sonny bigger and much stronger, holding him down while Roy screamed to get up. There was also something about a corn cob, lost to memory. Didn’t matter: he wasn’t afraid of Sonny, wasn’t afraid of anyone now.

“You’ll do what I say or you don’t come,” Roy said.

Their eyes met. Roy knew how Sonny would go for him, right for the throat, also knew how he would counter, how he’d lay Sonny out. He had no fear at all. At that moment, something came into view from above: a black spider descending on its thread, a delicate black spider, quite small, coming between them. Sonny jumped back with a little cry.

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “I can’t stand when that happens.”

Roy took the spider in his hand, opened the window, let it out. He turned back to Sonny; the red flecks were almost gone.

“There’s always the Glock with the pump action—” Sonny began.

“None of it,” Roy said. “We got there, Sonny. Now we have to do it right.”

“Got where?” said Sonny.

“Where we want to be.”

Sonny nodded. “Makes sense. Mighty happy to have a cousin deep as you, Roy. I feel a little bad about taking the farm and all. It wasn’t quite as clear-cut as maybe I made it out to be, tellin’ you before, the Cheetos and all.”

“I couldn’t care less,” Roy said.

They went outside. Sonny looked around. “Where’s Gordo?”

No Gordo. They found his uniform near the drum kit, neatly folded.

“So we shoot the lieutenant and hit the road?” Sonny said.

“Very funny,” said Roy.

They left Jesse sitting comfortably in the barn, as comfortable as he could be with his shoulder the way it was and his leg attached to the ball and chain, a spike driven through one of the links deep into the floor. He had a big pail of water in reach and all the hardtack that was left.

“See you tonight,” Roy said.

Jesse said nothing, gave Roy a look that Roy told himself had no effect at all.

They hit the road in Sonny’s pickup, rolling through a narrow tunnel of fog, seeing almost nothing. Down on the highway to Chattanooga, they did catch a glimpse of two cars coming the other way, Tennessee State Police first, Georgia State Police right behind. A woman’s face in the back of the second car seemed familiar to Roy. After a few miles, he realized it was Marcia.

* * *

Signs at Lookout Mountain read battle above the clouds, pointed blue one way, gray the other, but you had to be close to see them on account of the fog, everything off the road—houses, garages, cars in the driveways—invisible. Soldiers were on the march, hundreds of them, maybe thousands, blue and gray, slipping in and out of the mist as the Irregulars drove up. They parked in a Confederate lot partway up the mountain, finding a space between two tailgate parties. Lee portioned out the ammunition, one round each. Roy loaded his carbine.

They got out of the car. A general with a lot of gold on his hat glanced up from his wicker picnic hamper.

“You guys look great,” he said. “Who are you with?”

“We’re irregulars,” Roy said.

“The Irregulars,” said Sonny. “I’m the sergeant.”

“I see that,” said the general. “Great, just great. You hard-cores really show us how it’s done. Be honored to have you march with us. We’re shaping up over at the Craven House, assault on the summit scheduled for eleven, special NPS dispensation.”

“They’re on the summit already?” Lee said.

“The Park Service?” said the general.

“The Yankees,” said Lee.

“Oh, right, the Yankees. I see where you’re coming from. We’re doing things a little in reverse, Corporal, a kind of what-if-there’d-been-a-rebel-counterattack scenario.”

“Exactly right,” said Roy.

“You can say that again,” said the general. “With this fog and all—who could ask for more?” It thickened even as he spoke, dissolving the general’s image. A cork popped in the mist.

The rebel brigades trod in double file along the path that wound up Lookout Mountain from the Craven House. A huge force, but Roy could see only a few soldiers in front and behind, all the rest hidden in the fog. Perhaps that was why he took no comfort in their numbers, even felt strangely alone.

Roy heard labored breathing all around him, but it was an easy climb for him, ambling along inside a cloud, the carbine almost weightless on his shoulder. Feeling those letters carved into the stock made him impatient, made him want to run up to the summit full speed, which he knew he could have done almost effortlessly, what with how strong he’d become.

A hiker with a fanny pack stepped out from behind a tree, said, “Cheese,” and snapped their picture. Lee, marching at Roy’s side, turned away.

“Go shoot us some bluebellies, now,” said the hiker.

Sonny Junior, just in front, turned for a longer look at her bare legs.

The rebels rounded a switchback bend, climbed a long diagonal, crisscrossing higher up the wooded slope. The fog turned golden all around them, like childhood heaven. Then from up ahead came the crack of a musket, and another.

“Yankee snipers,” someone yelled.

Not far up the line, a rebel grunted and fell, rolling to the side of the trail. “I’m hit,” he moaned, “I’m hit. Tell my darling wife . . .”

Roy spotted one of the snipers, somehow knew where to find him right away: a green-clad figure on a low tree branch, almost lost in the golden haze. He pointed him out to Sonny. Sonny raised his musket, took aim.

“For God’s sake,” Roy said, jerking the barrel down.

“Huh?” said Sonny.

“Not now,” Roy said.

Sonny nodded, shouldered his weapon.

“You don’t want him, I do,” said someone behind them. Then came a musket blast, and the sniper cried out, slid carefully down out of the tree, and lay still.

The gray column marched past the dying rebel, beyond the writhing stage now and preparing to meet his maker.

“Croak now and you’ll miss all the fun up top,” someone told him.

His eyes opened. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Then I’m not hit either,” called the sniper, sitting up in the woods.

More musket fire up ahead now, at first sporadic, then almost steady. The fog grew more golden, the men marched faster and faster, at the double-quick now, although Roy hadn’t heard a command, just did what all around him were doing, and suddenly he stepped into sunshine, dazzled above the clouds. Roy could no longer hold himself back, started running in daylight so bright it hurt his eyes. He crested the summit, Sonny on one side, Lee on the other. The Yankees had beaten the shit out of him just yesterday, and look at him now. Rebel yells rose all around. The long roll started playing, didn’t stop.

The Union army waited on the battlefield: a strange battlefield, more like a park, with gravel walkways, benches, information plaques, even a tall monument in the center. None of that added up for Roy, but there was no time to figure it out. The Yankees were ready, a vast blue army in perfect order, ranks square, muskets all pointed at the same angle, a single blue machine of countless parts. The rebel army didn’t look like that. The men straggled breathlessly up from the trail in twos and threes, glancing around in the sudden glare, distracted by things Roy hadn’t seen until he followed their gazes: spectators sitting on bleachers lining the field, photographers in cherry pickers high above, pushcarts selling ice cream, hot dogs, tacos.

Roy saw all that now, but it didn’t really penetrate. He found a place in the front line, scanned the Yankee ranks, could easily distinguish individual faces, recognized none.

Help me, father.

The Confederates formed ranks. The musket firing, somewhere down the slope, died out. The drumming ceased. The armies faced each other in silence. Generals rode up and down, waving their splendid hats, the horses’ hooves the only sound, an earthly heartbeat. Then Roy heard a voice.

“Massah.”

He looked down the line, saw a man, woman, and child approaching. Barefoot, all of them, and in tatters. The man carried a pole over his shoulders, two big tin buckets on either end, heavy enough to bend the pole, bend the man. The woman bore another bucket on her head. The child, not much more than a toddler, held a tin dipper.

“Thirsty, massah?”

They came closer, doling out water every ten yards or so, the man lowering the buckets to the ground, the child handing over the dipper, the man struggling to get the weight back up without spilling after the soldiers had drunk. Roy realized he was thirsty. He reached back for his canteen. Not there. He thought back, remembered last having it in the Mountain House, filled to the brim with water from the creek. Would he never taste that water again? His thirst rose very fast, as though some dam for holding back dryness had burst inside him.

“Water, massah?”

Now they were directly in front of him, the man and woman sweating under their burdens, the child’s eyes wide with fear.

Afraid of me? I wouldn’t hurt you.

The man’s gaze met Roy’s. “Water, massah? For your thirst?”

The torn clothes, the meekness, the weariness, the abjection: Roy almost didn’t recognize him. It was Curtis. Roy shook his head, even violently. Curtis’s eyelid fluttered. They both looked away. The slaves moved on.

A gun boomed, off to Roy’s left. The generals—there were four in gray, and a few more than that on the other side—raised their swords.

“Ready.”

“What’s the scenario?” said someone in the ranks. “I got stuck in traffic.”

Sonny Junior glanced at Roy. “What the fuck kind of army is this?”

“Language, please,” said someone else. “This is a family event.”

“Aim.”

The generals brought down their swords, not quite in unison, but each with a nice flourish. The front rows fired. Some shouted command was lost in the deafening crash. The two armies started marching on each other, reloading, firing, reloading, and firing again. The Irregulars held their guns in the aim position, advancing with the others but not shooting. Some men fell around them, died spectacularly; others were immortal. Smoke hung in the still air, grew thicker and thicker. The smell went right to Roy’s brain, the drug for him.

A wave of rebels flowed in from Roy’s right, some maneuver he didn’t understand. It drove him to the left, toward the cannon that had fired to start the battle, a cannon now surrounded by Yankees. Beyond it, Roy could see the green H flag flying over the infirmary tents. Between the tents, he glimpsed a tall figure, a very tall figure, dressed in a black frock coat and wearing a stovepipe hat. The tall figure was leaning down and possibly speaking to a much smaller figure standing before him. This small figure wore gray.

Roy broke ranks and ran, tried to run, toward that small figure, but his way was blocked by a column of his own men marching across his path. Roy pushed through them, elbowing, maybe knocking one or two of them down. Someone swore at him. A musket went off near his ear. A red-faced sergeant with a shaving cut on his chin appeared, screamed at him, the cords standing out on his neck, but Roy didn’t hear a word, not even a sound from his mouth. He shoved the sergeant aside, kept going.

The Yankees around the cannon saw him coming, raised their muskets, fired a volley. Roy charged. A Yankee officer pointed a pistol at him, fired.

“Hey, hero, you’re dead.”

Roy ran on. More Yankees came up, took aim.

“Cease fire. He’s inside the limit.”

Roy went past them.

“You’re the kind that ruins it for all the others.”

Past the cannon, Lee suddenly beside him now, and Sonny pulling ahead, his face savage; bowling through a slow-motion mob of blue and gray in gentle hand-to-hand combat; into a cloud of musket fire and out; past the infirmary tents; and there on a promontory stood a sort of stockade, little more than knee high. Yankees were herding Confederates inside, unarmed rebels with their hands held high. The tall man in the stovepipe hat spoke to the prisoners, offered his hand to each one. He turned to say something to the people sitting on lawn chairs just outside the stockade, and there, right behind him, was Rhett. Rhett saw Roy coming, ran to the fence, a fence he could easily leap but did not.