Last of the Dixie Heroes

NINETEEN

”This here’s for taking off arms and legs, amputations and the like,” said a Southern voice.

”Got an edge to it, I’ll grant you that,” said a Northern voice.

“Sharper the edge, sooner it’s over,” said the Southerner.

Roy opened his eyes. It was dark, a gas lantern hanging from the shadows above shedding flickering, smoky light on the walls of a tent and two men, one in blue, one in gray, standing with their backs to him. Roy’s vision wasn’t good, everything fuzzy as though some knob needed adjusting, but he could make out the yellow serpents on their sleeves, and the shiny instrument they were examining under the lantern. The shininess hurt his eyes. He closed them.

“Any anesthetics in the kit?” said the Northerner.

“Chloroform, long as it lasts,” said the Southerner. “Whiskey after that, less’n someone’s got into it.”

Roy opened his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my arms and legs,” he said.

They turned to him.

“So put that thing away.”

“I think he’s awake,” said the Northerner.

“Are you awake?” said the Southerner.

Roy sat up. That made the pain in his eyes spread through his head but he stayed sitting up, even considered standing.

“Whoa, there,” said the Northerner. “What’s his name, again?”

“Roy,” said the Southerner. “He’s a new recruit.”

“Why don’t you just lie back down, Roy,” said the Northerner.

“I’m fine like this,” Roy said.

“The major wants to examine you,” said the Southerner. He patted Roy gently on the shoulder. “Heard a lot about you, Roy. I’m the surgeon with the Twelfth Georgia-everybody calls me Doc.”

“You haven’t put that thing away, Doc,” Roy said.

The lantern shone yellow on the pointed teeth of the instrument. Doc laid it in a wooden box at his feet, giving Roy a quick glimpse of other sharp things inside. “I was just showing the major some of my things, Roy-he’s a doctor with the Second Connecticut.”

“Lie back down, son,” said the major. “This won’t take a moment.”

“No need,” Roy said, standing up instead, but the lantern light got unsteady right away, and Roy sat back down, maybe with some help from Doc.

“Easy, Roy,” he said. “You got dinged pretty good there.”

Roy raised his hand, felt the bandages around his head. His first thought was a weird one: Sonny Junior. Then he smelled piss. Then it started coming back to him.

“Might have a slight concussion,” said Doc.

“You a doctor?” Roy said.

“How do you mean?” said Doc.

“How do I mean? I mean a real doctor.”

“Real in the sense of…?”

“What you do for a living-that sense.”

“When I’m not with the regiment?”

Roy nodded. It hurt.

“I’m currently between jobs,” Doc said. “But I used to be a bartender at the downtown Ritz.”

“So what makes you think I have a concussion?”

“The major said so.”

Roy turned to the major. “You’re the maitre d’?” he said.

The major laughed. No way he was the maitre d’. Younger than Doc, who was kind of distinguished looking, with those wings of silvery swept-back hair long-ago movie stars had, the major was scruffy; unshaven, with acne scars and a blackhead on the tip of his nose. “I’m a neurologist at Columbia-Presbyterian,” he said.

“Where’s that?”

“New York.”

Roy sensed some kind of conspiracy. “You know Dr. Nordman?”

“Who’s he?”

“Grant Nordman. Another doctor from New York.”

The major shook his head. “There are thousands of doctors in New York.”

“This one beat you to the punch,” Roy said.

“I’m sorry?” said the major.

“Never mind,” Roy said. But that wasn’t strong enough, and besides, his eyes hurt and his head hurt. He revised it to: “Never fucking mind.” He gave the major a look.

“Maybe you should lie back down for a minute or two,” the major said.

“How stupid do you think I am?” Roy said.

“I don’t think you’re stupid at all,” the major said.

“Then why would I trust a Yankee doctor?”

The major and Doc exchanged a glance. “Think he’s still in character?” said the major, lowering his voice.

“Because of the blow to his head?” said Doc, lowering his even more.

“Exactly.”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” said Doc. “Like a whole movie, right there.”

“I think it’s been done,” the major said. They gazed down at Roy. “Ever play football?” the major asked Roy in a normal voice.

“Tight end,” said Roy. “I had a touchdown against LSU but they called it back.”

“LSU?” said Doc. “Who did you-”

“Ever get your bell rung?” said the major.

“Yeah.”

“How many times?”

“One or two.”

“Three or four, maybe?”

“I refuse to answer any more questions,” Roy said.

He lay back. The lantern began to swing slightly. Or maybe not: maybe it was just the shadows of Doc and the major sliding back and forth on the canvas walls. Or maybe something else. Roy closed his eyes. He saw black clouds in an orange sky. Smoke and fire. Atlanta.

Silence, except for the faint sound of the burning wick, like shredding cloth, far away. Then an owl hooted, very near. When had he last heard an owl? Roy couldn’t remember-possibly never, except on TV. He listened hard, hoping to hear it again. That effort, of listening hard, led him to imagine some connection between the owl and him, as if they were in this together, and the owl knew it too. He felt one of those strange new moments of almost being at peace coming over him.

“He’ll be all right,” said the major. “Time for the pig roast.”

“Dinty Moore for us,” Doc said. “More authentic.”

“Dinty Moore?”

“Authentic looking anyway.”

“Like that lantern’s authentic?” the major said.

“They had lamp oil,” said Doc.

“Not in the field. Much too heavy for the sutlers to cart in. But they did have pigs.”

“Maybe you,” Doc said. “We were starving.”

The wick made its shredding sound.

When the major spoke again, his tone was gentler. “Sorry about Vandam,” he said. “He pulled a stunt like this last summer at Antietam.”

“What’s his problem?”

“He and a few of the hard-core guys overdo it sometimes. They spend the winters getting all worked up at a bar he’s got in Hoboken.”

“What’s that like?”

“Hoboken? Kind of happening now, in parts.”

“I wonder if he’s hiring,” Doc said.

The owl hooted, a long, drawn-out sound that ended in a coo. Roy thought he heard owl breath after that. Then silence.

He felt something cool on his forehead. He pictured a hand, a cool hand: his mother’s when he was home sick.

“Roy? Are you awake?”

A woman’s voice: Marcia? Oh, that would be nice. But it wasn’t Marcia, wasn’t a woman he knew.

“No,” Roy said.

“I thought I heard you singing,” she said. “Something about the Milky Way.”

“Not me,” Roy said, and opened his eyes. He realized at once that he’d been dreaming this whole exchange, because no one had a hand on his forehead, and there was no woman in the tent, just Lee, sitting on a stool beside him, lantern light glowing in his eyes.

“Are you in pain?” Lee said.

“I’m fine.”

“We all feel bad.”

“Accidents happen.”

The shape of Lee’s nose changed for a moment, the nostrils widening, the bridge sharpening: he looked almost fierce. “That’s what I was thinking.” Lee drew something shiny from his belt; for a moment, his vision still fuzzy, Roy took it for one of Doc’s instruments, and not the fat-bladed knife it was.

“No bayonets on a carbine?” Roy said.

“Course not,” said Lee. “Carbines are for cavalry.”

“Now I know.”

Lee laid a sharpening stone in his lap. “Earl’s writing a strongly worded letter,” he said, “but I’m with you.”

“You are?”

“Accidents happen.” Lee worked the edges of the knife over the stone, back and forth.

Roy didn’t get what Lee was driving at, just watched: the stone, the knife, Lee’s small, symmetrical hand-all without defects, all performing perfectly, pressure, speed, and angle perfect. He could almost feel the sharpness of the blade against the ball of his own thumb.

“You’re going to miss the barbecue,” Roy said.

“Barbecue? That was hours ago, Roy. It’s two in the morning.”

Roy looked around. “Where’s Jesse?”

“Asleep. This is the medical tent.”

“Why aren’t you asleep too?”

“Couldn’t.”

“How come?”

Lee rose, slid the knife in his belt. “Want anything before I go?”

“Where are you going?”

“You must be thirsty.”

He was. Lee handed him a canteen. Roy drank. Good water: cool, with just the right amount of dustiness, flint, and metal in the taste. Was this the water of 1863, how water was before everything got fucked up? Roy didn’t ask, didn’t want to hear that it was Poland Spring or whatever was in the convenience store cooler on the drive up from the city. By the time he’d slaked his thirst and was done thinking all those thoughts, Lee was gone. The tent flap made a few wavy motions, went still.

Roy got up. He was a little wobbly, his vision fuzzy, the air in the tent smoky from the lantern. This was a moment for air supply problems, and Roy got ready for them. But nothing happened. He raised the flap and went outside.

A full moon shone down on the camp. Then two moons, which Roy worked down to a moon and a half and finally back to one. The tents stretched in silver rows toward the woods, like a nighttime convoy under sail. There wasn’t a sound, and nothing stirred except a shadow beyond the farthest tent, almost in the woods. Roy followed.

The shadow merged with the trees and Roy lost it almost at once. He kept going; not only going, but going fast, soon among the trees himself. That was strange-he was no tracker, no woodsman, plus his head hurt and he wasn’t seeing well-but he sped along through the forest as though on a path he’d been taking all his life. Not only that, but speeding along in silence. He listened for sounds of himself, heard none-not his feet on the twigs, needles, and leaves of the forest floor, not the swishing of his woolen uniform, not his breathing. He did hear a tiny crunch, like a hard clod of earth disintegrating beneath a heel, somewhere ahead, and caught a figure in a little pool of moonlight between trees, almost flowing, then disappearing in darkness. Lee, for sure: the size, the way he moved, and the silver flash of the fat-bladed knife on his belt.

Roy was flowing too, no doubt about it, an easy mover, all of a sudden, in the night. He knew, absolutely knew, that the owl, his owl, was hovering over him, just above the trees, and he also knew that his owl was the descendant of the owls of 1863, owls that had gazed down with their huge eyes on Roy Singleton Hill. He was ready, despite a little bit of dizziness in his head, a little bit of fuzziness around the edges of his vision, for anything.

Ready, for example, for that campfire in a tiny clearing in the middle distance. He didn’t creep up on it, just walked to the edge of the trees, invisible. Two men sat by the fire, both with blankets over their shoulders, but Roy could see that one wore blue, the other gray. The man in gray drank from a silver flask. The man in blue said, “Fifteen two, fifteen four, and a pair is six.”

“You’re the luckiest son of a bitch I ever met,” said the man in gray, a little drunk-Roy could hear it. The man in gray a little drunk, while the man in blue sounded sober: it pissed him off.

Roy could also hear popping sounds from the fire and a much fainter crackle that he took to be incinerating pine needles, heard too the shuffling of cards as he circled the clearing and entered enemy territory; and yes, heard the beating of heavy wings, high above. He got the idea that this was the way Roy Singleton Hill had heard, so clearly, so precisely, and felt a bit chilly. But it was a chilly night, had to be: why else would the pickets have covered themselves with blankets?

Roy came out of the woods. Ahead lay the Yankee camp, a second convoy in the moonlight, bigger by a row or two than his own. Roy passed right by the tents, within feet of them, the light so strong he could read the words stitched on a regimental flag: Wilderness, Antietam, Stone’s River, Chancellorsville, Bull Run, Gettysburg, Chickamauga. He was awake and in their sleeping camp. It was thrilling: had he ever been thrilled like this in his life? Had Roy Singleton Hill? Many times, for sure: many, many, riding with Forrest on nights just like this. A little breeze sprang up and the flag came to life, brushing against his arm. Roy moved on.

He picked up that silver flash from the far end of camp, saw Lee gliding toward the outermost tent. Moon, tent, guy ropes, knife-all silver, all connected in a way that made sense, so he knew what was going to happen before it did, very unusual, maybe unique, for him. Lee stepped up to the nearest guy rope of the outermost tent, slashed it through in a single motion, then scrambled around the tent very fast, slashing, slashing. The tent subsided, sank to the ground, revealing the Porta Potti eight or ten yards beyond. A voice rose from inside the fallen tent, a boy’s voice, disoriented, scared. Lee paused, perhaps surprised, his back to the Porta Potti. And out from behind the Porta Potti stepped Sergeant Vandam in his underwear, the moon shining on his round white belly, his navel like a crater.

Roy knew just what to do: raise his gun and shoot Sergeant Vandam; the instructions, he realized, his instructions, were carved into the wood of the stock. But he hadn’t brought his gun, and there were no bullets, just blank cartridges. Roy did the next best thing, did it without thinking: he clapped his hands, just once, like a gunshot but softer.

That got their attention: first Vandam, whose eyes were on him right away, then Lee, not quite as quick, who looked first at Roy, then spun around and saw Vandam. Vandam was already moving, but Roy had seen the way Lee could run and knew Vandam would never catch him. At that moment, the boy’s voice came from inside the collapsed tent again: “Dad! Dad!” And Lee, half turning, about to take that first running step in Roy’s direction, froze instead.

Froze: because this was all pretend, all make-believe, and Lee hadn’t known there’d be a boy in that tent. It was just a prank. Roy understood what was going on in Lee’s mind, and also learned something about Lee: he didn’t quite have it.

Vandam hit Lee from behind-airborne, fully laid out, his shoulder ramming the middle of Lee’s spine. Lee bent backward, doubling in the wrong direction like a contortionist, his butternut jacket ripping open in front from the force of the blow. The knife spun in the moonlight. Lee went down hard, Vandam on top of him. By that time, Roy was right there, although he had no recollection of how. He spoke, a rough, raw voice that wasn’t his: “Let him go.” But actually: “Le’ ’im go,” closer to backwoods than he’d ever spoken.

“I’ll get to you,” Vandam said, barely glancing at him, and drew back his fist a foot above Lee’s ear. Roy grabbed Vandam’s wrist, hauled him off. Just that easy, the way an actor handles a suitcase from the prop department. Vandam didn’t like it. He aimed the punch he’d prepared for Lee at Roy instead, a punch that landed in Roy’s middle, made him feel sick. But it could have been worse, could have been to the head, and Roy was landing one of his own at the same time, the first punch he’d thrown since childhood.

Vandam’s nose made a crunching sound, or maybe Roy just felt the crunch in his hand. Then came blood, black in the moonlight, and Vandam staggered back.

“Enemy in camp,” he called. “Enemy in camp.”

Roy snatched Lee off the ground, flung him over his shoulder, took off for the woods. A man with muttonchop sideburns-Captain Peterschmidt-stepped out of a tent, in Roy’s path.

“What the hell’s going on?” he said, fumbling a set of earphones off his head.

“Isn’t this on the schedule?” Roy said, and went right by him, past the tents, across the open field, into the trees, stronger than he’d ever been, dizziness gone, head pain gone, vision restored to its new hyperclarity.

“I’m okay,” Lee said when they were safely in the woods, his lips close to Roy’s ear. “You can put me down.”

“Sure?”

“Sure.”

Roy put Lee down. The crowns of the trees blocked the moonlight. There was no sound of anyone following them, no sound at all but the very soft one of fingertip ridges on rough wool. Roy knew what that had to be: Lee buttoning up his jacket. That brought back to Roy’s mind an image he’d seen for only an instant, an image his mind might not have registered, what with all the commotion. What had he seen when Vandam’s tackle from behind had popped open Lee’s jacket? Only a moonlit glimpse, but the memory was clear in Roy’s mind, he had it now: breasts; soft, pale, unmistakable.

Was Lee waiting for him to say something? He said nothing. There was no more talk. Roy and Lee walked in single file through the woods, Roy leading. They rounded the campfire, now dying, the two pickets asleep side by side, wrapped in their blankets, just touching. Roy heard the beating of heavy wings overhead.