Valley of the Shadow: A Novel (15 page)

“Keep your alignment, men.”

Up ahead, nothing good. Across a dreadful stretch of fields, flat enough for volleys to sweep them clean, the Yankees waited, hunkered down, no doubt licking their lips. In between, fences challenged the advance, with haystacks scattered about, as if the blue-bellies had set out a steeplechase course.

In dead air, flags hung limp. Along the lines the 61st Georgia’s officers called out encouragement. Excepting Colonel Lamar and Lieutenant Colonel Valkenburg, every one of the officers walked, not because they’d dismounted to spare themselves, but because there were no horses to be had, at least not for the money printed in Richmond. It was a poor time, a hard time, for rich and poor alike among his people, with gentry afoot who had ridden all their lives. Determined they all were, though, every one of them. Nichols felt that sure as Revelation.

So far still to go, a small eternity. Fresh sweat popped. Insects rose, clouds of them. He had turned up the front brim of his hat, the way he always did, the better to look along the sights when the time came, and blackflies teased his eyes. He blinked and blinked again but kept both hands on his rifle. Wasn’t no right-shoulder-shift this day, just rifles held at port, the way General Gordon liked things.

Just seemed a mean, long way across those fields. He couldn’t figure why the Yankees hadn’t let loose with artillery. Unless their guns were already primed with canister, a terrible thing, wrathful.

He fixed his eyes on that first fence. Didn’t want to look beyond it.

The day was hot in the nose, hot in the mouth. Field dust, hay dust, peppered his nostrils, so different from the chalk-cake dust of roads. Breathing almost required an act of will. But his leg had stopped hurting, he barely felt it. He wondered why that was?

A man was a riddle, but the Lord God was a mystery.

Officers pointed the way with their swords and it almost seemed the blades tugged them along. Nichols was glad to bear a rifle, to feel its weight and solidity. Above all, he was glad to feel the smell-close press of his fellow soldiers around him, the presence of others that braved a man up and kept him from shaming himself; glad, too, to see familiar backs in the first line up ahead, to know men not just by their faces, but by their shoulders and signifying movements. Beside him, on his left, marched hard Ive Summerlin, who took every fight personal. To the right, Lem Davis panted, beard alone enough to fright the Yankees, the beard of a Methuselah, though Lem was not so old.

His friends, his kind, his war-kin.

Step forward, step again. Brittle soil crumbled underfoot. A butterfly, confused, fluttered about. His mother said that butterflies brought good luck.

He wanted to be brave inside and out. But he knew that he only could go forward like this, across these endless fields, with his brethren close. He felt himself quiver like a fevered child, the way he was ever inclined to in the moments before he could lose himself in doing.

Men killed hogs kinder than they killed each other.

That fence. A soldier learned to hate fences. Unless they were there for burning when things were quiet.

Them Yanks all tucked in. Waiting. Bits of blue speckled the distance, signs enough for a man to imagine their line, how it would explode.

At that fence. That’s where it would start. They’d wait till then.

A part of him wanted to run, a shameful part. His heart raged to burst right out of his chest, to escape his flesh and run off by its own self. Sweat sheathed him.

“Get over that fence!” Colonel Lamar roared. “Company C, open a gap!”

Men rushed from the forward line, ripping at the boards and clubbing the planks with their rifle butts. One fool fellow had cocked his rifle and it shot into the air, a stunning sound that tore right through the day.

As soon as the first rank mounted the fence, the Yankees opened fire. Men splayed their arms and fell—backward, forward—dropping their weapons, casting them off, hats flying, bodies crumpling, some caught halfway, folded over the top rail, rumps in the air, as if awaiting a spanking.

Other men climbed the slats or leapt over. Some paused to help their friends. More and more of the fence simply gave way.

“Come on, boys, come on! Re-form. Re-form and keep moving.”

It was hard doings. The first line had become a ragged thing, blundering amid haystacks. It still went forward, though.

“Hold your fire, don’t fire. Our time’s a-coming. Re-form, and hold your fire!”

Yanks weren’t holding theirs. Men dropped.

Nichols crowded through a gap in the broke-down fence, brushing past witch-finger splinters.

Lieutenant Colonel Valkenburg rode through another gap and cantered along the line, calling, “Fill up the first ranks. Sergeants, do your duty!”

“I don’t need no sergeant pushing me,” Ive Summerlin declared. He trotted forward, toward a hole the Yankees had made in the gray line.

Nichols followed after. Hadn’t wanted to, hadn’t decided to. Just did. As if Ive pulled him along on a hidden rope.

Lem Davis came after. Big and breathing like a run-out steer.

The Yankees fired as fast as they reloaded.

A few men, very few, paused behind the haystacks, malingering, gripped by fear. Most just stepped along, though, like they couldn’t do anything else, and that was that. Both lines were jumbled now.

“Keep going, keep on going!”

Some of the junior officers and sergeants continued to holler about re-forming, but it was as if they did it just to feel better, to keep themselves occupied.

Everyone moved quickly now. Not running, not quite. Forming back up in their accustomed, imperfect way, anxious to get out of the shocks and stacks, craving order as much as they craved safety, needing their comrades stink-close again and ranked up, so a man’s chances evened out.

Just as Nichols spotted him again, rounding a haystack, Lieutenant Colonel Valkenburg fell sideward from his horse. As if shoved hard.

“Just keep moving, Georgie,” Lem said. “You just look straight ahead.”

Wasn’t right. It wasn’t right. Of all people.

Nichols felt himself tempted by awful words, Satan just a-begging him to utter them.

Men fell on every side.

That second fence. Men couldn’t wait, could not just march toward it. One dashed forward, then another. All of them. Amid the wild racket of Yankee volleys.

“Georgia! Georgia!”

Again, men tumbled as they topped the fence, splendid targets for the Yankees now. Nichols spotted Zib Collins, who was supposed to be on stretcher duty and safe, bearing a rifle and fumbling over the obstacle. Then Zib held stone still. For one queer instant. As if at the behest of a man with a camera.

Zib’s head just burst, brains splashing everywhere. As if his skull had been struck with a railroad hammer.

“Georgia! Forward!”

Yanks had easy shooting now. But as soon as the bulk of the men were past the fence, Colonel Lamar halted them, cursing those who failed to obey promptly, employing lusty profanity, although the colonel, once a noteworthy sinner, had found his way to Jesus the past winter.

“Form up! Form up, Lord God almighty! Hurry up, boys, hurry!” Nichols shut his ears to the other words blazing by.

They formed back up, right fast. But Lem was on his left now, Ive a few spaces distant on the right.

Eyes hunting the flanks, Lem said, “Seems like we’re aiming to take on the Yankees just us’n.”

But they were back in solid ranks, instilled again—only the Lord knew how—with order and a refreshed, deepened confidence, going forward as one.

Yanks were little more than a hundred yards off now, not so thick a line, after all.

“At the double-quick … forward!”

“Georgia! Georgia!”

“Charge!”

The blue-bellies didn’t wait. It was only a bullied-up skirmish line. They fled. Yet, all the dead, the wounded this much had cost …

One man shrieked like a woman, a rare thing.

Colonel Lamar steered his horse ahead of the colors. The flags were carried by different soldiers now. The colonel paused just beyond the dip where the skirmish line had lurked.

“Halt and re-form. Halt, boys. Re-form.”

“Sure now. Jest let them Yankees have another free shot,” Ive said bitterly, for the hearing of those around him.

But these were dutiful men, ferocious and resigned, and they formed yet again after their brief charge, and they went forward again, and the second Yankee line exploded, so many rifles in play that after two volleys you couldn’t see the blue-bellies, just the smoke.

“Forward! Georgia!”

The colors tumbled, the battle flag. New hands reached out. The torn cloth lofted again.

Suddenly, unreasonably, they all began to howl, Nichols and his brethren. It felt wonderful to be a part of this sudden burst of power, to lunge forward again, hallooing, as if their war cry itself must slay the Yankees.

Hundreds of points of light blinked through the smoke. There were bodies underfoot now, from earlier struggles, their own kind, in cavalry jackets and rags.

Another man he knew from home, James Hendrix, clutched his belly and dropped to his knees.

“Onward! Georgia!”

The firing grew so fierce, it felt like walking into a storm wind. Men crouched as they went forward, as if assaulted by a driving rain.

They were close, so close. The racket of the Yankee volleys was ear-busting.

Another man groaned and dropped but paces from Nichols. It was a bewildering thing how any man could stand without being hit.

“Realign. Align on the colors!” Colonel Lamar bellowed. But even as he spoke, the colors fell again. Only to rise a fourth time or a fifth.

The colonel’s voice broke off. Men fell. Blood spattered. Nichols found his own face wet without knowing whose blood he wore. His hat was gone.

Another voice called, “Halt. Volley fire. By company. Company officers—”

Then that voice, too, fell away. But the men halted and did as ordered, standing at the edge of the expanding cloud, firing into it on command, then independently, as the smoke engulfed them, too.

A voice reported that Colonel Lamar was dead.

The regiment, the entire brigade, hardly seemed to exist. Nichols was faintly aware that he was shaking. But he dutifully reloaded, fired, and reloaded again, blasting into the smoke, aiming in the direction of those muzzle flames, unwilling to go back one inch.

They crowded together, toward the regimental colors. Before he knew it, Nichols was but a plank length from the single flag remaining. He fought madly, jamming home his ramrod, barely getting the stock back against his shoulder before pulling the trigger again, hating. Nobody was going to take those colors, nobody.

The flag toppled. This time, Lieutenant Mincy dashed forward to raise the staff, only to buckle and drop flat on his face.

The Yankees had been killing all the officers, concentrating on the officers, purposeful and cruel. The revelation made perfect sense to Nichols, but still came as a shock.

He filled up with a hatred less than Christian.

The Yankees didn’t come forward, and the remains of the Georgia Brigade would not move back.

The smoke became choking thick.

“Kerenhappuch!” Nichols said. Then he shouted,
“Kerenhappuch!”

Lem turned. “What the—”

“Job’s third daughter! Kerenhappuch!” Nichols began to laugh as he felt for a cartridge.

“Best fix on matters to hand,” Lem advised.

They fired into the man-made fog, spotting rough forms now, Yankees no more than thirty yards away. Closer.

“Stand your ground, Georgia!” a grand voice called. “Georgia, hold fast, you’re licking them!”

“Well, that’s a damned lie,” someone said.

“Georgia, stand your ground!”

“That’s General Gordon!” The sound of the man’s voice, the sense it evoked, the image of the general remembered, filled Nichols with a determination he had not known he could muster. He wanted to rush forward, to go at the Yankees bare-handed. But he stood and fired, obeying the last order he had received, regular as a machine.

Moments later, word passed along the shrinking line that Gordon had been shot.

4:00 p.m.

Thomas farm

Gordon sat up, chasing breath, head hammering and puke dizzy. It had happened fast, the way it always did. Two rounds, maybe three, had struck his horse in a brace of seconds. The animal had reared, throwing him clean, but he’d landed hard.

He tested himself anxiously, checking bones. His vision wouldn’t settle and the noise was terrible, terrible. Hands gripped him. He slapped them away.

“I’m all right, damn it,” he said. “Give a man his space.”

He remembered, looked about. Faces. An aide. “Is York up?”

“Yes, sir. Louisiana’s in the fight.”

“Tigers,” Gordon muttered, meaning to speak firmly.

“Yes, sir. They’re right tigers.”

“I’ve got to … help me up.”

Hands, too many hands, assisted him. “General Evans. I need a report from Evans.”

“General Evans has been shot, sir. Your brother has taken temporary command. Until—”

“Colonel Lamar is to command it.”

“He’s dead, sir.”

Gordon bellowed. One wordless howl. Johnny Lamar. Old friend.

The moment of rage cleared his head.

“A horse…”

My kingdom for a horse … my brigade, my kingdom. Clem Evans, Johnny Lamar …

“Take my horse, sir. I’ll ride Sergeant Cook’s.”

“Just give me Cook’s horse.” He tried to smile toward the sergeant, unsure if he managed it. Then he told all of them: “Georgia must hold its ground. Can’t retreat.” He looked at the aide. His vision was sharp again. “You said General Evans has been shot. Wounded?”

“Yes, sir. In the side.”

“How bad?”

The captain shook his head. “Can’t say, sir. Heard he was conscious, though.”

“Find my brother. As soon as he can locate a ranking officer, he’s to relinquish command. Then find General York. Tell him to keep pressing them, not a step back. Only forward.” He tried to find the stirrup with his left boot, but failed twice. Still dizzy, after all.