Deserter (2 page)

They walked well together, rifleman and spotter, with the easy, matched strides of a pair of men who'd gone many miles together on foot. Jake Sinclair, twenty-six, a few months older than Uriah, at an even six feet, three inches taller than Toole, was a hard-muscled Georgian dressed in a buckskin shirt, soiled and torn tan trousers, and boots. Toole wore a shirt of Confederate gray, but his pants and boots had been scavenged over the last year and a half. At this point in the war uniforms were rare and hard for anyone but ranking officers to come by. One item was abundantly available for some reason, however: leather belts with brass CSA buckles attached. Both Sinclair and Toole wore the belt and so did a high percentage of Pickett's troops. A sheath carrying a bowie-type knife with a foot-long blade hung at Jake's right side. At Uriah's, a converted Army Colt picked up from a dead Yankee at Antietam was holstered. Jake's hair, nut brown and shaggily shoulder length, flowed like a mane behind him as he walked, while Uriah's hair was cut raggedly—with Jake's knife—quite close to his head. Both men shaved—again using Jake's knife—when it was possible. Today both their faces were dark with the growth of four or five days.

The men had been partners for almost two years. They'd gotten drunk together, they'd killed together, and they'd watched friends die together. Their bond was strong, although unspoken. The only real dispute they'd ever had between them was over General Robert E. Lee.

“He spills Southern blood like it was no more important
than well water, Uriah—you know that. You've seen it at Manassas, at—”

“A general has got to send men into battle. That's his damn job. There ain't no war goin' to be won without some blood is shed. That's too bad an' all, but that's the way it is. Nobody loves the South or the Confederacy more than Bobby Lee.”

“President Davis does,” Sinclair argued. “And it won't be long before he comes to his senses and pulls Lee out of command. I just hope he does it while there's still some men left to fight the Yankees.”

Toole's words came faster, hotter, and his usually benign blue eyes had flames of anger behind them. “That's horseshit. Bobby—”

“Bobby, my ass,” Jake snapped.“It's because boys like you hero-worship that old fool that so many of you get killed. Maybe it's his fancy West Point education that taught him men's lives can be tossed away to gain some lousy piece of ground that doesn't mean a thing in the long run of the war. That's what I'm saying, Uriah—and you're too thickheaded to listen to reason.”

“General Lee's got better'n seventy-five thousand men standin' right behind him ready to—”

“Behind him? Lee hasn't even been close to a single battle! He
watches
the damned war, Uriah, he doesn't fight in it. He sits his ass down on that fancy horse and watches boys die through his binoculars, is what your General Robert E. Lee does.”

Neither one of them was quite sure how it happened, but suddenly they were standing, face-to-face, fists clenched, ready to swing, ready to end a military partnership and, more importantly, a burgeoning friendship. Their breaths rasped in their throats and
their eyes were locked together, fused by passion, livid with righteousness. The standoff lasted for a pair of minutes—perhaps the longest minutes Toole or Sinclair had ever passed.

As if the move were choreographed, each man took a step back, but their gazes held. Another eternity passed and then they both began to speak at once. The jumble of words brought quick smiles and the moment, the intensity, was gone.

“We can't talk about General Lee, I guess,” Uriah said quietly.

“I guess not.”

“Good thing we wasn't drinkin' when that started,” Uriah said, shaking his head as if in wonder. “Could have been a big mess.”

Jake extended his right hand. “Yeah. It could have,” he said. Uriah took his hand and they shook almost formally, as if they were sealing a business deal.

“You ain't heard a word of what I've been sayin', right?”

Jake pulled back to the present, realizing Uriah was correct. “Sure I have. I was just thinking a bit.”

“'Bout what?”

“Nothing real important, partner. Just kind of drifting. Sorry.”

Uriah sniffed the air and smiled. “Smell that? Somebody's cookin' up chicken. Reminds me I'm damn near starved.” He was silent for a few strides. “What I was sayin' was that it seems like the war is drawin' down to the end, 'specially if this Pennsylvania campaign keeps on goin' the way it has. Hell, we're knockin' on Lincoln's front door, Jake.” He paused again. “What're you gonna do when it's all done?”

“I'll go back home for a bit,” Jake said. “Sit around with my feet up and watch that cotton grow and go out target shooting and hunting with my pa. I'll eat good and sleep in a real bed and forget all about the goddamn War of Northern Aggression.”

“Ain't none of us goin' to ever forget this war, Jake,” Uriah said very seriously. “Thing is, I'm still thinkin' of us partnerin' up after all this. Maybe going into a business or taking some land out West and runnin' some beef an' maybe some horses for sale. There's always a call for good stock horses out there.”

A wave of pure emotion washed over Jake Sinclair. The differences between himself and Uriah Toole were profound, but in the final analysis, meaningless. Jake's two years at college and the multi-thousand-acre plantation he'd been raised on seemed far more grand than Uriah's family's hardscrabble West Texas and their local whiskey business. But those were economic differences and nothing more—the result of birth, not accomplishment. Could they partner after the war? Jake thought they could—and he realized that after twenty months with Uriah Toole, he'd learned more about life than he had in his previous twenty-six years. Uriah found pleasure—even joy—in a cup of good coffee or the smooth power of a fine horse at speed, while Jake worried about patching a hole in the sole of his boot or the outcome of a dicey campaign. Jake's fancy words and book learning served little purpose beyond impressing ladies at cotillions, while Uriah's sense of fairness and his homespun intelligence gave him a certain stature that wealth or birthright couldn't instill in a man.

“I can't see the pair of us in a mercantile selling ribbons
to women and cut plug to cowhands,” Jake said. “I like your idea about a ranch, though. I like it a lot. Flat racing is big in the West. I know some about breeding and we might could raise some good horses, make a nice living with them.”

“Maybe so.” Uriah nodded. “Maybe we could just do that. Be a good life.”

“That's assuming we both make it out of—” Jake began.

“Whoa, now!” Uriah interrupted. “They ain't made the Yankee bullet that'll end either one of us, Jake. I know this for sure. Some things a man just knows—and that's one of them.”

Sinclair had no response to that, and Uriah knew that he wouldn't. The two men continued on to the encampment.

Rumors—Lincoln is dead, Lee is dead, a wagonful of whores is on its way, the war is over—ran about in army camps like a plague, leaving no man untouched, whether he believed what he heard or not. The predominant topic—the one that caused battle-jaded eyes to widen and hands reaching for pieces of fried chicken to tremble—was the story of General Lee's plan for the next day.

“We'll soften them up with artillery till they're staggering, an' then we'll go right on up the chute—it ain't but a mile, give or take—an' we'll shoot their asses off when we're over that Cemetery Ridge,” a new sergeant told his men, pacing back and forth in front of where they sat and sprawled on the ground.

“Ain't but a mile, give or take,” a grizzled and bearded soldier with a soiled, bloody bandage wrapped around his right wrist mocked. “Shit! Might as
well be a hundred miles! There won't be a man left standing to engage the Yanks on the ridge.”

“But the artillery—there'll be a barrage like no other before that'll—”

“It's gonna be a damn slaughterhouse, nothin' less an' nothin' more,” the private argued. “I won't believe none of this till I hear it right from Bobby Lee's own mouth—an' even then I'd tell him he's pure crazy.”

“Lookit here,” the sergeant said. “Lemme say something. Tell me if it's not true that General Lee always done right by us, by the Confederacy. We're goin' through the Yankees like shit through a Christmas goose this campaign, ain't we? Answer me that. Go ahead an' tell me we ain't—if you can say it without God striking you dead for lyin'.” He glared into the group, knowing there could be no valid response that proved other than what he'd just stated. The grumbles, low, quick, anonymous, “. . . stupidest plan I ever heard,” “. . . impossible,” “. . . pure craziness,” died out.

“It ain't our place to question orders,” the sergeant said, pacing again. “General Lee tells us to march on an' take Cemetery Ridge, and that's what we'll do.”

“Or get our heads blowed off,” someone mumbled, “followin' a damn fool half-crazy order.”

Jake Sinclair ran a cleaning rod with an oiled cotton patch at its end through the barrel of his Sharps, inspecting the residue it removed in the flickering light of the cook fire. “It's another rumor.” He grinned. “I'd as soon believe Abe Lincoln's going to join up with us tomorrow.”

“Jake's right,” Uriah agreed. “All you boys seen that field, that slope up to the ridge.”

The dozen or so men around the fire, some still eating, some smoking pipes or building cigarettes, a few sucking at a canteen of whiskey that was being passed around surreptitiously, watched as Jake set his rifle aside and smoothed a square of dirt in front of the fire. Using a pebble he scribed a shaky line at the top of the area and another at the bottom. “Here's Seminary Ridge,” he said, pointing at the lower line. “Right behind it is where we are right now.” He pointed to the top line. “Here's Cemetery Ridge.” He swept his hand across the space between the two lines. “This is about a mile. It's wide open—no cover of any kind once Seminary Ridge is left behind. The Yanks”—he pointed again to the top line—“have perfect cover—the ridge itself—and their artillery has a clear and open field of fire. If we got into musket or rifle range, the Yanks would make mincemeat out of us. And look: Even if our artillery is placed here”—he punched a couple dozen holes at the sides of the cleared area and several more in front of the bottom line—“dropping canisters or balls over the ridge and onto the troops would be a problem. Plus, it's an uphill run all the way from where we are, which would slow us down, make us easier, better targets, tire us out quicker.” He looked around. “Anybody here fancy joggin' a mile uphill in the kind of heat we've had, through cannon and rifle fire, to a perfectly protected ridge with maybe twenty thousand Yankees behind it?” He sat back. “I sure as hell don't. And neither does General Pickett. He's not crazy. He wouldn't do something like that—wouldn't even think about it. He's too good of a soldier. Like I said, the whole silly thing's only another rumor.”

“Damn it, Jake, it isn't either!” One of the men stood
and faced Jake. “My cousin Horace, he was right there when Longstreet was tryin' to talk General Lee out of his plan. Horace even wrote down what Longstreet said.” He crouched close to the fire, its light illuminating the half page of paper he held. “Here's what Longstreet told General Lee—listen up, now: ‘It is my opinion that no fifteen thousand men ever arrayed for battle can take that position.' ” He carefully folded the paper and put it back into his shirt pocket. “Horace,” he added, “is a churchgoin'man. He wouldn't lie. He said Longstreet had tears runnin' down his face when he rode away from General Lee.”

Jake looked down at his diagram in the dirt. “I'm not calling your cousin a liar,” he said. “But I'd be willing to bet that he misunderstood what it was he heard. A man would have to have no more sense than a chicken to go into a battle like that.”

“You talkin' desertion, Jake? Disobeyin' a direct order?” a voice asked.

“No. I'm not. What I'm saying is that I don't believe Lee would concoct such a shit-for-brains battle plan, and I'm no big supporter of Lee. You boys know that.”

“It's true, men,” Lieutenant Xavier Lewis said, stepping from the darkness up close to the fire. “General Pickett will lead a major attack on the Union troops at Cemetery Ridge tomorrow afternoon. It's a well thought out plan that has the backing of General Lee and all of his officers. Our artillery will pound the Yankees as long as it takes to weaken them, and then our ground forces will sweep over them like a new broom. We will be successful. We will devastate the Army of the Potomac in their own backyard.” He emphasized the word “will” in both sentences.

Much the same words, delivered in much the same fashion, were being spoken by officers to men throughout the encampment. Here and there a ragged cheer erupted, but for the most part, the news was greeted with silence. Many Catholic soldiers made the sign of the cross; those of other denominations bowed their heads. Some men sat as if dazed, staring at nothing, picturing the impossibly long grassy slope that ran uphill to the crest of Cemetery Ridge.

Jake and Uriah stopped to allow a wagon loaded with cases of ammunition and kegs of gunpowder to pass in front of them. Sitting at the fire had become like being caged. Even aimless walking seemed better, if for no other reason than to escape the comments and projections of their fellow troops. The arguments were hot and strident and more than a few ended in fistfights. Those who were convinced that the charge would crush the Yankees punched, bit, and kicked those who were certain that they'd be dead within twenty-four hours—and were in turn battered and beaten by soldiers who saw the operation as a hideous and bloody mistake. The fights were short-lived. The men, ultimately, seemed to realize that they were comrades—and that they'd need one another the next day.