Ghost Soldier (16 page)

I couldn't even guess at anything else until the bottom of the paper—the right side was the clearest. I guessed that corner must have been wrapped closest to the locket.

                    L v
      
Lou se
    
Chamblee

                    Tw
    
St r
    
M rc
    
29th
    
186

Beside me, Rich whispered, “I can't make out anything but her name and the date.” His voice broke. “Except, perhaps, ‘My dear brother.'”

Chapter Fourteen

R
ICH'S
J
OURNAL

“I was too late,” said Rich numbly, following me out of the back room. “If I'd been able to open the box sooner, I could have read the message. Now I'll never know what happened to her. Suppose she hid the note and the Yankees—” he swallowed, “killed her?”

“So what did you find out?” Nicole asked me. She actually sounded faintly interested.

I shook my head. “Only what it says in the display—the name and the date.”

Ms. Edwards sighed. “It's so frustrating to know that history was right there waiting for you, and if someone had only found it earlier we'd know its secrets.”

Beside her Rich clenched one fist helplessly, and she shivered. “Is it cold in here?”

Nicole glanced at me, eyebrows raised.

“A little, I guess,” I said. “Thanks for letting me see the note, Ms. Edwards.”

She smiled. “You're quite welcome, Alexander. It's wonderful to see kids like you caring so much about history.”

“I care!” Carleton told her.

“Of course. You all make quite a team of historians,” she told him.

Nicole started for the door.

I took one last look at the portrait of Rich's mother in the locket. “Locket belonging to the Chamblee family, circa 1860.” I wondered why it didn't read 1865, and remembered that the year had been unclear in the date on Louise's note. Only the “186” came through, so they must have known it was left there sometime in that decade.

“Thanks again,” I told Ms. Edwards, and I bought a “Keep the Past Alive! Support Durham County History” T-shirt on our way out.

*   *   *

“You want to let me in on this thing you do with the cold?” Nicole asked as we waited for the bus to the mall.

I tugged at the ends of the braided lariat on my wrist. “I don't do anything.”

“Oh yeah? Well, that woman in the museum felt it today, and I sure felt it the other night. Carleton did, too, and I think even Mom and your dad noticed.”

Carleton looked up. “And the chimes keep ringing all of a sudden,” he said.

Nicole nodded. “Nothing like that ever happened before you showed up. So what gives?”

“Nothing like that ever happened back home in Indiana either,” I told her, which was true. “I think you've got a weird climate or something.”

Fortunately, the bus came just then, and I went straight to the back, leaving Nicole and Carleton near the front.

Rich sat beside me, shaking his head. “It was all for nothing,” he said bitterly. “All that fighting—we didn't win, and I didn't keep Louise safe. I should never have left Two Stirrups.”

He looked so miserable sitting there that I wished I could punch him on the arm like I'd do if a runner on the team lost a race he'd expected to win. But I couldn't. “I'm sorry,” I whispered instead, not caring if anybody on the bus thought I was talking to myself. But I could feel just how useless those words were.

I trailed after Nicole at the mall. Rich had said he'd wait at the bus stop, and I hoped he was okay. I wished I could have just sat there with him, instead of feeling lost in this maze of stores.

“I liked that museum,” Carleton said unexpectedly, as if he knew I felt down.

I managed a smile. “I did, too,” I told him.

“It had neat things, even if it didn't have a cannon.”

I nodded, and for once he seemed satisfied to walk along beside me, not asking questions.

Mrs. Hambrick couldn't believe Carleton and Nicole had gone to a museum.

“Two history places!” Carleton told her proudly.

“It was okay,” Nicole said, shrugging, and her mother looked stunned. “So—I can spend tomorrow with my friends?” She flashed me a grin when she got an okay.

I didn't ask Dad how the meeting had gone, and he didn't volunteer any information. I was afraid that meant they'd offered him a job. I didn't want to hear that he'd accepted it.

Rich sat out on the porch during supper. I heard him play his harmonica softly for a little while—a sad tune I didn't know. Then it got quiet. As soon as I helped clear the table, I went upstairs to get my recorder.

“Alexander,” Dad said as I came downstairs with it.

“I'm kind of tired, Dad,” I told him, before he got started. “I thought I'd just play my recorder a while and turn in.”

He looked disappointed, but nodded. Maybe he didn't really want to tell me about the job any more than I wanted to hear about it.

When I got out to the porch, Rich was sitting cross-legged with his journal open on his lap and his musket lying by his side.

“What were you playing?” I asked.

He smiled faintly in the twilight. “An old song, called ‘The Volunteer.'”

“I didn't recognize the melody.”

He picked up his harmonica and played it again. I put my recorder together and tried to follow along.

At the end, I asked, “What are the words?”

His voice was a strong, clear baritone that rang out in the quiet evening:

I leave my home and thee dear,

With sorrow in my heart.

It is my country's call, dear,

To aid her I depart.

And on the blood-red battle plain

We'll conquer or we'll die.

'Tis for our honor and our name,

We raise the battle cry.

Then weep not, dearest, weep not,

If in her cause I fall.

O, weep not sister, weep not,

It is my country's call.

The last note hung in the air. Then he picked up his harmonica, and I took my recorder, and we played it through together. I didn't think I'd forget this one, even without writing down the notes.

Rich said bitterly, “Much good it did, dying on the battlefield. What honor was there in leaving my sister to face Sherman's men alone? My home gone, my name gone, around here anyway—except for eleven hundred strangers scattered all the way to California.”

“That's not true,” I told him. “You said you had to enlist—for your country and for your family.”

He shook his head and picked up his journal. “I need to copy those names.”

I looked at the sheets of paper bound by those bolts. He'd carried it all these years—into battle and beyond.

“What kind of stuff did you write in your journal?” I asked.

Rich shrugged a little. “Just—I don't know. I'd see things and think about them and write down what I thought. Some poetry—not very good, I'm afraid—letters home I didn't send.”

“Why not?” I asked, surprised.

“Well … I wrote Louise all the time. But I didn't want to worry her. I'd joke with her about the friends I was making, and promise I was keeping the Yankees from reaching Richmond—single-handed!” His eyes lightened briefly. “I didn't tell her about the food and the rain and how many Yankees there were on the other side of the line. I had to tell someone, though, so I wrote in my journal like I was writing to her. I figured when I got home, I could tell her the truth and we could laugh about it then, when we were safe around the fire, with a good meal in our stomachs.” He looked down and took a deep breath. “I'm sorry to have dragged you with me on this wild-goose chase, Alexander.”

“We found the locket,” I pointed out.

“But Louise's message is lost.” He looked down at his journal bleakly. “If she somehow survived, she must have despaired of me.”

“She couldn't have!” My vehemence surprised me. “She must have realized what happened.”

“I thank you for that kindness. Now—if you could lay out the pages with the names of my perhaps-relations, I'll get back to copying.”

*   *   *

I found it hard to sleep, thinking of Rich outside bent over his journal, copying strangers' names in the hopes that one of them might know something about his sister from so long ago. Talk about a wild-goose chase! But the locket had told us so little. I lay there listening to Carleton's even breathing and reread the note in my mind. There was something about those word fragments.

I gave up on sleeping and got out of bed, pulled on my running clothes, and tiptoed downstairs. Rich was dozing on the porch. His journal floated just above the wood planks, where he had left it. I didn't want to wake him, so I reached down, not knowing what would happen. Would I be able to pick the journal up?

The pages felt cool and rough, like rippled slivers of ice. I couldn't hold the bound pages, but I found I could nudge the cold paper a little so the sheets fluttered, as if blown by a breeze. I sat down on the cool plank floor and read the spidery words that he hadn't gotten home to deliver.

Tired the men in grey.

Tired the men in blue.

Tired the folk at home,

Families split in two.

Glove of grey,

Glove of blue,

Are reaching out to shake.

Men in grey,

Men in blue,

Two neighbor lands to make.

It felt kind of strange to think of someone believing we'd be better off as two countries. We were one nation—families and nations should stay together, shouldn't they?

I nudged another page and felt the heat drain out of my fingers. I blew on my hand, then tucked it under my arm and read the letters Rich had never sent.

January 13

Dear Sister,

I have just mailed you a letter joking about playing in the mud puddles, the way we used to play when we were very small. I wish it were the same today. We stand in place behind the earthworks, our boots coming apart at the seams and the soles thin to the point of holes. We drill in the mornings, splashing through puddles, until our feet are cold as chunks of ice in the creek. My boots have frozen stiff so many times they have rubbed my heels until my socks tear and every step burns. I thought we'd be issued new boots with the rest of our equipment, but there was hardly any equipment to issue, except for a musket and a cartridge box. Across the lines, we can hear the Yankees talking about their new uniforms. I shiver in my old coat and wish I'd taken my warmest good coat, but I thought I'd be back after Johnston stopped Sherman. I never imagined my old coat wearing so thin so fast.

January 30

Dear Sister,

How empty the house must be with only you and Amalie knocking around like a couple of lonely marbles in a schoolboy's jacket pocket. I sent you a letter telling you how proud I am that Father has been called out with the Home Guard, but the truth is that I wish he had stayed in the house to keep you and Amalie safe. I know General Johnston will stop Sherman's raiders, but I fear Yankee deserters fleeing through the countryside. Well, you will never read this unless I make it home safely, so I will admit to you that I also fear sometimes that Sherman and Grant are unstoppable. They have too many men in the Union Army. We stand here, ready to do our duty, and no one gives the order to attack. I fear they doubt we could even beat the Yankees.

February 19

My dear Sister,

I would be very lonely here if it were not for Noah Langston. I have written you about him. He can never be so close a friend as you, but he is a good companion. I hope that you and Amalie have grown closer now that it is just the two of you at the farm. I will not mail this to you, because I can see Amalie turning up her nose at my advice on any subject! But I do not like to think of you alone. Perhaps she will tell you her secrets, now that it is just the two of you, and you can whisper them to me when I come home, and you and I will tease her, and she will roll her eyes and tell us what a pair of confounded nuisances we are.

March 3

Dearest Sister,

I am writing by firelight as Noah and the others speak of their memories of home. I have always looked ahead to the future but now, like them, I find myself thinking more of the past. Do you remember Christmases when we were small and Mother was still alive? I stare into the fire's embers and see the tree on Christmas morning, decorated with paper cornucopias filled with candies and draped with ribbons and cranberry chains, with bulging stockings at the fireplace. There were no full stockings last Christmas, but we were together. I hear a soft harmonica melody drift past from another campfire and recall those nights in the parlor, before the War. I can hear Amalie playing the piano and Father singing. Poor George was always so frustrated that he could not sing a note—do you remember? But I can still hear his clear voice reciting poetry. I will not send this letter, for the memories do not comfort me as they should, and I think they would not comfort you, either.

March 12

Dearest Sister,

I lie at night wrapped in my thin bedroll that does so little to keep out the cold, and I close my eyes and see us all together again around the table at supper: Father carving, Amalie serving, you kicking your chair legs until Father or Amalie tells you to stop, George discussing politics with Father, and Jefferson and I arguing about plowing our land around the hills rather than up them. I remember special evenings when you and Jefferson and I would entertain the family. Can you remember those skits and pantomimes we worked so hard to make up? Sometimes I see Mother smiling and clapping for us, and then I know I've fallen asleep and am dreaming. But the rest of the time it's a wish, the only wish I have as we get closer and closer to a day when we must fight or retreat—the wish to see you again and for all of us to be together at Two Stirrups.