High Hearts (15 page)

Mars, cool and confident, didn’t push his mare. He didn’t turn his head to see Geneva, but he felt her on his left shoulder. The kid was tough.

The water jump loomed ahead, inviting and frightening. Many horses don’t like to jump water or even walk in it.
Gallant put his ears back as he approached. Geneva squeezed him, and he obeyed.

Tall grass didn’t slow her but it beat against Gallant’s flanks like thin whips. Horse and rider flew into the woods. Mars made this a complete test. If the kid wanted to be in the cavalry, then Mars would show him what cavalry conditions were like. Mars also figured he’d have lost Jimmy by the artillery jumps or he’d be so far ahead it wouldn’t matter. He also had the advantage since he had laid out the course.

Woods were difficult to gallop through, but neither rider could afford to slacken the pace. They hit the homestretch. A hedge jump of four feet awaited them. The animals would hit the ground on the other side, take two strides, then have to jump a timber of four feet. Gallant was as graceful as a ballet dancer. The noise of the soldiers drowned the sound of thundering hoofbeats, even though the animals were racing flat out now. Banjo jumped up. Nash’s knuckles were white, and he felt sick.

The last jump presented itself. An overturned supply wagon, traces and all, was the obstacle. It tested the courage of both horse and rider because it was high and wide and was the last jump on a rugged course. Neck and neck, Geneva and Mars glided over, and as they did, a volley of rifle fire blasted in their ears. That was Mars’s further contribution to make this steeplechase somewhat martial in effect. He neglected to inform Geneva of this.

Geneva didn’t flinch. She urged Gallant with everything she had. She had the gift of making an animal believe in itself. Mars couldn’t shake the gray. The two opponents blasted through the finish line in a dead heat.

Men shrieked with excitement. Banjo was hoarse from shouting.

As they slowly cantered to cool down their mounts, Mars called over, “You can ride, boy.”

“Thank you, sir. Now will you write my name?”

“No, I said you had to beat me. We finished in a dead heat.”

Geneva felt as if she’d been hit in the gut. “Then I’ll make you a second race, Major Vickers. Only this time we ride without reins.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Major. Without reins.”

Swallowing, he called back, “Well, I don’t see how I can refuse.”

Banjo skipped with pleasure up to Geneva. “I know’d you for a wonder! I am so proud of you, boy!” He reached up and patted her hand.

Nash reached up and shook her hand. How odd to shake her hand. He wanted to pull her off the saddle and kiss her.

She told them of the new wager.

“Don’t do it. Don’t risk yourself like that!” Nash said worriedly.

“Jimmy can do anything!” Banjo boasted.

Mars explained the situation to the officers on the platform. The officers spoke among themselves with excitement. Banjo ran up and down the lines and took new bets even as he collected on the first race. The bettors weren’t as cocky this time. Nearly half of the men had swung their allegiance to Geneva, and the chatter was loud and lively.

Geneva walked Gallant over to Mars. “Should we change horses?”

Mars replied, “No. If we were being pursued by the enemy, we couldn’t change horses.”

She turned her body toward him. “You could have warned me about the rifle fire at the last jump.”

“I could have.” He smiled.

Again they took their places. The reins were knotted and dropped on the horses’ necks. The crowd murmured. Few men there envied either rider.

Again the artillery officer raised his arm. Again the pistol signaled the start of the race.

This time Mars pulled ahead on the bay. He had legs of steel, but so did Geneva. Gallant fell in just behind the bay’s left hindquarters. Everything was fine until they came to the water jump. The path was slippery. The bay’s rear went out from under her as she attempted to gather herself for the jump. She went down with a thud and slipped into the water. Mars fell into the water, too, but he quickly got up and grabbed some mane. He hauled himself back on the saddle.

Geneva was now far ahead. She restrained the impulse to shout and holler and push her horse faster. Gallant already had a full day of it, so she dropped the pace to save him.

She took the last jump, the rifles fired again, and the crowd
went berserk. Three minutes later, a wet Mars Vickers gamely finished the last jump. As he crossed the finish line, he untied his reins and walked his mare over to Geneva. He stood up in his stirrups and called to the crowd, “Boys, I’d be a fool not to take him!”

The crowd roared approval. Mars dismounted and turned his soaked animal over to Riceland.

Geneva dismounted, and Banjo slapped her on the back repeatedly. “Jimmy, I never saw anything like you!”

Nash pulled him off.

Banjo’s eyes blazed. “What’s the matter with you?”

Nash stammered. “He must be dog-tired and ready to bite. I didn’t want you to knock him flat.”

Banjo squinted at this tepid explanation, then waved his hand to dismiss the subject forever. “You made me rich!” he said to Geneva.

“I’m glad.” She walked over to Mars. “Major Vickers, might I have another favor?”

“Ask me.”

She pointed to Banjo, collecting his winnings. “Might my man enlist—not as a servant but as a cavalryman? He can shoot the eye out of a turkey at one hundred yards, I swear it!”

“I think we’ve had enough demonstrations for today. You tell him to come on down to my tent, and I’ll put his name on the roll.”

“Thank you, Major, thank you.”

Geneva woke an hour before dawn. She had disappointed Nash last night because she was so exhausted she had fallen onto the cot still wearing her clothes. He rolled over as she snuck. out of bed, her feet hitting the cold earth.

Ground fog lay between rows of tents which looked like dropped handkerchiefs. Getting up before the others was a necessity for her. No latrines had been dug, but there was a tacit agreement about the area used to relieve oneself. She figured she’d become the world’s fastest evacuator.

She rummaged through her belongings and pulled out the church almanac. Geneva paged through her small, fat Bible to Judges, chapter 19. A Levite visits his wife’s father-in-law and tarries there. That was pretty boring. Then he and his wife begin his journey back to his dwelling place but the sun sets, so he lands in Gibeah. Gibeah belongs to the Benjamites and he can’t find a place to stay. A kindly old man gives him lodging. In the middle of supper a group of rowdies, sons of Belial, pound on the old man’s door and holler that they want the stranger brought forth. They said they wanted to know him, but Geneva suspected they wanted to bugger the fellow. So instead, the gallant Levite hands over his wife. The sons of Belial abuse and rape her the entire night. She crawls back to the old man’s house and drops with her hands on the threshold. Her husband hauls her up on an ass and takes her home. Once home he seizes a knife and divides her into twelve parts, bones and all, and sends one piece to each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Naturally, this offends his neighbors.

Geneva snapped the Bible shut. She failed to see what this gruesome story had to do with her spiritual life, and she couldn’t believe the husband was such a coward. Lutie would have a fit reading today’s lesson. Geneva turned to the New Testament lesson. Fortunately, it provided more hope. John said we’d all be forgiven. Geneva again closed the Bible, more respectfully this time. Forgiven for what? She didn’t know that she’d done anything. Maybe she wasn’t the most obedient daughter, but she never really did anything wrong—well, not too terribly wrong.

She was a good wife but she hadn’t been at it long enough to be otherwise. She was a good citizen; she was even willing to die for her country. She considered that again. She had come for love of her husband, but when she saw those thousands in uniform, amassed for the deliverance of their nation, she realized she was part of that great purpose. For the first time in her life, Geneva had a goal outside her own self. She felt magnified, important, useful.

“Rise and shine, my little morning glories,” Poist shouted,
just as the cannon fired. “Get up, lovelies. I’ve seen more action with stinkbugs in a pile of horseshit.” When he sauntered by Geneva, he stopped. “Some ridin’, boy. I misjudged you.”

After breakfast, the three hundred men under Major Mars Vickers assembled on a flat meadow, now called the parade ground. They were on foot. Geneva fell in, her husband on one side and Banjo on the other. Mars stood facing them.

“Drop!” Mars commanded.

The men fell flat on the ground. Geneva remained standing, then saw what was happening and quickly fell to the ground alongside Nash and Banjo.

Nash growled, “You’re going to be sorry. He’s flaming out of his mind.” He shut up because he needed his breath for push-ups.

Next came sit-ups, then special stretches and leg exercises which Mars had developed for cavalrymen. The most painful ones involved sitting on the ground facing a partner. Each man took turns placing his legs around his partner’s legs while his partner tried to open them.

Geneva took Nash. Both of them sweating, they pushed against one another. Geneva’s legs were stronger than her husband’s, although she couldn’t match his torso power. He grunted, his face red and sweating, and he glared at her for winning. After exercising, the men ran. Soldiers from other regiments tormented them as Vickers’s troops plodded along their three-mile jaunt.

“Thought you boys were horse soldiers!”

“Where’s the bridle?”

After this torture, the noon meal was a godsend. Geneva, Nash, and Banjo ate their boiled beef in silence. Major Vickers walked up.

“Banjo Cracker, I think you ought to skip riding this afternoon and go to Harper’s Ferry. Put that money you won in the bank.”

“Yes, sir, but I don’t trust banks, sir.” Banjo smiled his snaggletoothed grin.

“Then put it in gold or land. You hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mars walked off.

Nash jabbed at the beef. “He had no right to tell you what to do with your money.”

“He’s jes lookin’ out. What makes a man a true leader, I guess.” Banjo stiffly got up.

That afternoon Banjo purchased three thousand acres of rich land. A strong stream ran through it. Half of the acreage was in timber; the other half had already been cleared and the soil was rich. The family that owned it had slowly died off and no one was left to care for it. Banjo figured come hell or high water, and Harper’s Ferry knew both, he’d be able to make a living when this war was over.

Mars watched his troops ride in the afternoon sun. This was their first day wearing the pants with leather on the inseam. It made their legs sweat but even the loudest complainers could grip the saddle more tightly.

Divided into groups of ten, the best rider in each group took the inside position as the groups wheeled in circles. From the circle they rode in a line single file and then back to a circle again. They had to respond both to voice commands and to a bugle.

“Parade ground stuff,” Nash grumbled, within hearing of Mars. Mars was definitely beginning to form an opinion about this sandy-haired slender man, and it wasn’t a good one. On their first meeting, Nash had said, “Defend Rome by striking Carthage.” It galled Mars that a university boy thought it necessary to chop such pretentious talk into the conversation. Mars could read Latin as well as anybody, and this boy still had a thing or two to learn in real life.

“Drop your stirrups. Now drape them across your horse’s withers,” Mars directed. “Circle.”

Within minutes horses bumped into each other, and men cursed.

“You aren’t even at a trot. What are you going to do in the field if you lose your stirrups at a gallop while under fire?” His face darkened. “Leg! Leg! If we have to do this for fourteen hours a day, then that’s what we’ll do!”

A collective groan rose from the dust.

“Single file.” He squinted as they unfurled into a line again. “Reverse.” Jimmy Chatfield was the pivot man on his team often. Mars admired the boy’s even temper with horses. Occasionally Jimmy would call out to his group, and a rider would respond. Only Nash bitched at the boy. Why Jimmy wanted to stay in the same tent with that man mystified Mars. Why didn’t the boy pick Banjo for his tent mate?

“Circle. All right, drop your stirrups. Form three squares of one hundred men each. Chatfield, you ride first left on the first square; Benserade, first left, second square; I’ll take first left, third square.”

For another twenty minutes, they walked, trotted, and cantered in big squares. When the bugle sounded halt, both men and horses were relieved to head back to camp.

Geneva, Nash, Banjo, and Sam Wells, also from Albemarle County, rode to the makeshift stables. When Sam had left to attend the University of Pennsylvania, Geneva was still a little girl. Sam had remained in Philadelphia to pursue his business. He accepted that she was the younger Chatfield boy, although he only vaguely recollected the baby and thought he’d heard that the boy died. Well, whenever his mother supplied him with the news, her definition, gossip, his, he promptly forgot most of it.

Riceland, Mars’s man, brushed by her with Mars’s horse behind him. “ ’Scuse me, Jimmy.”

“I’m too worn out to get out of your way,” she said with a smile.

“You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Major Mars givin’ you the easy stuff. Don’t worry ’bout it. You’ll do fine. You’re the best rider I’ve ever seen. Never thought I’d see a better rider than Major Mars, but he’s complete. Knows everything there is to know about horses, and everything there is to know about men. Got no sense when it comes to women though.”

Geneva shrugged. “Bet the ladies worship the handsome Mars Vickers.”

“Yes, sir, that they do.” Riceland leaned closer. “But the major is poisoned by his wife. Sweet poison. The major is miserable sick with love. He commands everyone but her. She looks like a goddess. Be easier if she was ugly.”

“But if she was ugly, he probably wouldn’t be married to her.”