Songs of the Shenandoah (28 page)

A doctor sitting at the side of one of the patients waved him over and stood to offer his chair. His face was grim and exhausted, but he seemed to try to infuse some fervency in his voice. “Chaplain Hanley. The private here has been expecting you.”

“Is he here? Is the pastor here?” The weak sound came from the patient's mouth, whose eyes were wrapped in cloth stained with spatters of blood.

Out of sight of the boy, the doctor shook his head. Seamus had witnessed this silent language so many times before. It meant the young man would not be alive much longer. Probably wouldn't make it through the night.

Seamus put his hand on the exhausted doctor's shoulder and the man moved on to care for other patients.

“It's me, son.” Seamus sat on the stool and clasped the soldier's hand. “What do they call you?”

The boy's lips curled into a smile. “Ah, I am so glad you came.”

“Of course I came. What's your name, son?”

“Dawson. My name is Dawson, Reverend Hanley.”

“Well, I'm here now. What shall we talk about?” Was he really here? The words shared by Scripps were boring wormholes into his faith.
Am I a fraud in wearing this collar?

“I ain't never done it before.” There was a wheezing in the boy's voice, the familiar rattle of encroaching death.

“What, son?”

“Pray. I mean. Sure I say words while others listen and watch me. But it wasn't even as if I was speaking to no one. Just words, you know.”

Seamus did know. “What would you like to pray about? I'll pray with you.”

The boy adjusted in his bed and winced. “That's what they say.”

“Who? What do they say?”

“That you talk to God.”

The boy's hand grew weaker in his grasp. “I do speak with God, it's true enough. That's all prayer is, son. I talk with Him all of the time. It's the listening I have a stumble with. That's the other part of prayer I'm still working on.”

“What does He say?”

“God?” Seamus began to wonder who was ministering to whom. He tried to hide back the laugh the boy might not understand. “Well. Just a little while ago, He told me I need to write my wife.”

“He did?” Dawson coughed, and it sounded like gurgling. “My mama. I ain't write Mama none neither. Why is that?”

Was he wrestling with God himself? “I don't know. I suppose it's our way of trying to protect them from all of this. Maybe it's because we don't know how to explain this war. These battles. Even to ourselves.”

“Reverend Hanley?” The tone was now soft and fading.

“Son. Let's pray. Now.” He was losing the boy.

“Mama?”

“What should I tell her, Dawson?” He squeezed the boy's hand.

“Tell her.” He smiled dimly. “Tell Mama you learned me how to talk to God.”

“Doctor.” Seamus nodded the man toward the bed. He crossed Dawson's hands on his chest.

The doctor reached over and pressed his finger on Dawson's neck. It won't be long, he mouthed the words. Seamus held the boy's hand as he fell to sleep.

“Seamus.”

Turning around, Seamus saw Scripps leaning inside, curling a finger at him. Was he drunk?

In a moment, Seamus was outside again in the crisp air, and the smell of wood burning filled his nostrils. “What is it? I've still got more boys to visit.”

“You've been summoned . . . by . . . the general.”

“What general?”

“
The
general.”

“General Lee?”

“Not that general. You aren't that important. No. It's Stonewall.”

Seamus's heart jumped. “General Jackson?”

“Yes.” Scripps seemed agitated. “That one.”

“What could he want with the likes of me?” Seamus had spent time with many of the officers of the camp, but General Jackson had an inner circle of which Seamus had never been included.

Scripps gripped him by the arm and walked him away from the tent. He still had alcohol on his breath, but this news seemed to have sobered him up. “Captain Ross was the one who brought the news. When I pressed him on it, he said he didn't know but noticed that the request came right after he was visited by Colonel . . . what's his name?”

Seamus's shoulders sunk. “Colonel Percy Barlow.”

“Yes. Isn't he the one—?”

“It is. The one I got in a scuffle with.”

“But that was so long ago. If he was going to say something about that, it would have been many months back. Besides, I'll tell them myself he had it coming.”

Could it have been about that? No. Seamus knew this day was coming. When his past would catch up with him. He knew his role as a defector in the Mexican War would haunt him. Up to now, no one had ever called him on it. No one even seemed to care. But Percy had this on him all along. “When am I required to show?”

“The captain said in an hour. General Jackson was meeting with General Lee and wanted to see you next.”

“Which means I have about forty minutes or so left.”

“What are you going to do? Do you need a map?”

Seamus laughed. “I am not going to run away. Not this time.”

“They'll hang you. Or shoot you. Or just to save bullets, they may just run you through.”

“They aren't going to be hanging me.” As he said this, Seamus was trying to convince himself of this as well. Percy had tried before to see him hung. Seamus was convinced now that the man would never stop until he was successful in tightening the rope around Seamus's neck.

“Well then, if you aren't going to run, you better start preparing what you're going to say. You got to think through all of it. We've got to think through all of it. I mean, you're all I have left to remind me of why I'm here. I can't lose you.”

“You're right.”

“I am?”

“Yes,” Seamus said. “I need time to think. Alone, my friend.”

“Oh.” Scripps nodded. Then for a moment, he became the mentor again. “You're a fine man, Seamus. A fine man of God. It will be all right. I know it will. And I'll be praying.”

“That would most welcome.” He held out a hand to shake, but Scripps pulled him in with both arms and hugged him tightly. Would this be the last time Seamus saw the man?

They parted and Seamus hurried to his tent. There was little more than a half hour remaining, and he was desperate to seek counsel through prayer. With his pulse rising, he hurried over to the edge of camp, beside a boulder on the banks of the Rappahannock. While they had been camped here, this was the place he had chosen for early morning visits.

He sat for a few moments and listened to the music of the river's currents, which blended with the night chorus of crickets.

Seamus gazed off in the distance, and there were flickering lights as well on the other side of the river. The evening dalliances of the enemy. But to him, they were not to be feared or hated. They were just men in different uniforms.

He pulled out his Bible from his inner coat pocket and gripped it between his fingers. Even with the moon at full light, it was too dark for him to read, but Seamus sought out words of consolation nonetheless.

“For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.”

Yes. The words will come. But that wasn't it. There was something else. What passage could he share? Stonewall Jackson was a man of God, a passionate reader of the Bible. What better language could he use to defend himself?

Seamus felt pressed. Surely he needed to get going. He certainly couldn't be late for a meeting with one of the most powerful men of the South.

He thought back to his time on the mountain with Pastor Asa. Yes. There was something the man had spoken while they were high above. From Joshua. He had read it many times. Seamus smiled and a sense of peace came over him.

Then he saw Ashlyn's face. He fumbled for his pocket and pulled out the photograph, the one that had long since faded. He couldn't see it well in full daylight, and he certainly couldn't see much now. But it didn't matter. She was with him.

He brought her picture to his lips. In all of his ministry to others, all of his good works on the battlefield, he had neglected his most important assignment. He was reminded of how desperate he was to find Ashlyn when he first saw her face in this photo, which he discovered in a letter among the wreckage of a stagecoach crash. He traveled more than a thousand miles across impossible terrain to meet her for the first time.

He dreamed of calling her his wife. And now what? Had he taken the gift she was from God for granted? What was holding him back now? Why hadn't he written but a few times? Why hadn't he insisted on taking a leave as others had?

There was an answer to this question. But he just didn't know what it was.

And now he was out of time. Would he see her again? Would this be his last day?

Seamus was unable to walk through the camp without getting a wave or handshake and tonight was not an exception. But he was worried others would see the grimness of his expression. He had endured dodging artillery fire, exploding ordnance, and whistling musket balls and bullets.

Yet he hadn't been this uneasy since the beginning of his service. What was he so afraid of? Maybe it was because he respected the man with whom he was about to speak. This was a man he didn't want to let down.

But now what would happen once he visited General Jackson? After all Seamus had gone through in surviving disasters, what a way for it all to end. Maybe this was the proper response to decisions he made long ago. Maybe it was merely what he deserved.

As he approached the officers' tents, which were peppered with guards and much more serious-minded soldiers, there was a palpable sense of anxiety in the air. Seamus had recognized this before. It was the smell of the air just before the rain. He knew what this meant.

They were about to go to battle.

“Who goes there?” A cavalry officer tending to his horse looked up with alarm. But before Seamus could answer, his demeanor shifted. “The general was asking for you, Chaplain. He just returned from his meeting and he'll be pleased you showed up early.”

It was unnerving for Seamus to be noticed. He was used to it with the noncommissioned soldiers, and even the younger officers, but he didn't know many of the senior leaders personally. Had they all been talking about him? Did they all know of his past?

The captain tied his horse to a post and then motioned with a gloved hand for Seamus to follow. They wove their way past several of the administrative tents and exchanged salutes with several officers until they came to what Seamus recognized as General Jackson's tent.

“Wait here.” The captain turned. “General?” There was a sound from inside, and then he entered and Seamus heard muffled voices.

Did he even want to hear what was being said? He took off his hat and rocked on heels to try to reduce some of the wobbling in his knees. He glanced around and noticed a scurrying of activity even though it was getting late in the evening.

Orders were being delivered. No doubt even the soldiers in the camp would know of their impending plans by the time Seamus had returned. If he was returning.

Don't think that way.
He started to pray but stopped when he sensed someone staring at him. He tried to glance around without appearing startled, but it was difficult to see too much with only the light offered by lanterns.

Then he saw him. Just a hint of the man. But then as a shadow, the officer turned and disappeared in the darkness between two of the tents.

“Percy,” Seamus whispered.

“The general will see you now.”

The captain's voice returned him to his present danger. He was holding the flap of the door open.

“Oh. Yes. Thank you, Captain.” Seamus gave him a nod, then straightened his hair with a brush of his hand.

He went inside, prepared to accept his fate.

Chapter 31

Stonewall

If it was under any other circumstance, this would have been an opportunity Seamus would have cherished.

The inside of the general's tent was stark but well kept. Just a small bed, a table with two chairs, a trunk, and a desk where he was sitting reading under candlelight.

“General.” Seamus breathed out slowly.

The general pulled back a ribbon to mark his page and then closed the book, on which were inscribed the letters
Holy Bible
. He stood and was still dressed in his uniform, although his sword and hilt were resting against the wall. The top buttons of his jacket were unfastened, and his long beard nearly reached down to his shirt.

Seamus didn't know what the protocol was between a chaplain and a general of such high rank, but he clicked his heels and gave a firm salute nonetheless.

The general tucked his hands behind his back and examined Seamus with eyes that were both intense and kind. He turned, lifted his candle, and set it on the edge of the table. The general rolled up a map, tied a leather cord around it, and held it up to Seamus.