Last of the Dixie Heroes

TWENTY-NINE

By the time night fell, the Irregulars were safe in Sonny Junior’s barn, patching themselves up. Roy had a bad, bad feeling that he wouldn’t see his son again. He also had a feeling that he would never return to the Mountain House.

They drank water, not the heavenly water from the creek, but rusty water from the pump in the yard. They ate hardtack, the Slim Jims all gone. The sun set, but left an orange glow on the windowpanes; inside, two or three candles spread golden holes in the murk, not quite reaching the tilted tractor, Sonny’s drum kit, the demolition derby car. High up on the walls, ember-colored tints showed here and there on a scythe, a rake, the ball and chain.

Dibrell took off his uniform, torn and bloody, put on jeans and a T-shirt.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Sonny.

“I’m out of here,” said Dibrell.

“Say again?” said Roy.

“Can’t be here when the cops come,” Dibrell said. “You know my situation.”

“But not the crime that got you into it,” Gordo said; he had purpling rings around both eyes, one puffier than the other.

“All a misunderstanding,” said Dibrell, “meaning they could misunderstand again, easy.”

“What makes you think the cops are coming?” Lee said.

“The lieutenant says we’re gonna call them.”

“I said we’d discuss it,” Jesse said.

They all looked at Jesse. His face wasn’t too bad but his left shoulder seemed to be hanging lower than the right; he hunched forward on a stool, pushing up on his left elbow with his free hand.

“Discuss what?” said Sonny Junior.

“Calling the cops to get Rhett back,” Jesse said.

“Are you out of your mind?” Sonny said. He turned on Dibrell. “Put that uniform back on.”

Dibrell shook his head, inched toward the big barn doors.

Roy rose. He was all right, seeing just one of whatever there was supposed to be one of, even though everything trembled at the edges. Roy had never been a leader, hadn’t really known what it was a leader did. Now he put his hand on Dibrell’s biceps. “You can go,” he said. “But your uniform stays here.”

Dibrell shook himself free, or tried to. “You’re out of line, Private.”

Roy gave Dibrell’s muscle a little squeeze, just to show him what was what. “One or the other,” Roy said.

Dibrell looked to Jesse. Jesse said nothing. “That uniform cost me three hundred bucks,” Dibrell said.

Roy released Dibrell. “Doesn’t make it yours,” he said.

Dibrell was a big man, almost Sonny’s size. He deflated under Roy’s gaze, turned and walked out of the barn, leaving the uniform behind.

“Cops,” Sonny Junior said.

“We’ll talk about it, that’s all,” said Jesse.

“No harm in talking,” Gordo said. “Don’t guess there’d be such a thing as an ice pack around here?”

“What do you mean, no harm in talking?” said Sonny.

Gordo licked his lips a couple times. “How are we supposed to find him by ourselves?”

Sonny frowned, didn’t answer.

“Good question,” said Jesse.

“Is it?” Roy said.

“I don’t get you,” said Jesse.

“I think you do, Lieutenant,” Roy said.

Lee came over, stood behind him, put her hands on his shoulders. They all saw, but only Gordo raised his eyebrows, meaning Sonny and Jesse knew.

“Go on,” Jesse said.

“The Yankees are on a campaign, said so themselves,” Roy said. “Only one campaign it can be.”

“What’s that?” said Jesse.

“The Chickamauga campaign,” Roy said. “All we need to know is what happens next.”

“After the battle of Chickamauga?” Jesse said.

Roy nodded. That brought a bit of pain, a bit of dizziness, but he was learning big things, and very fast. Learning to lead, that was one. Learning that the battle of Chickamauga was the turning point of his life, 1863 the most important year, those were others. Been no year like it, before or since. Who had told him that? Earl? Earl. He glanced at Jesse. Was it possible they’d have been better off under Earl’s command?

“Bragg failed to pursue, as you know,” said Jesse. “And quite possibly the right decision considering his losses. The Yankees retreated to Chattanooga, ended up taking Lookout Mountain in the Battle Above the Clouds. Sherman used Chattanooga as his base for the march to the sea.”

“So Bragg was wrong,” Roy said.

“It’s more complicated than that,” said Jesse.

“Don’t know what all this bullshit’s about,” said Sonny, “ ’cept it seems like they got Rhett up on Lookout Mountain. That it, cuz?”

“Yeah,” Roy said. “I’m just wondering if the lieutenant was going to tell us, if we hadn’t figured it out for ourselves.”

“Isn’t there a big event going on up there?” Gordo said.

“Just one more reason to bring in the authorities,” Jesse said.

“What did you say?” Roy said.

“Because of the reenactment, Lookout Mountain now being a suburb of Chattanooga, for God’s sake, we should bring in the police.”

“No,” Roy said. “That word.”

Lee’s hand tightened on his shoulder.

“Authorities?” said Jesse.

“Don’t like that word,” Roy said.

“Fuckin’ right,” said Sonny.

“So are you in or out?” Roy said.

“That’s not a question you can ask the ranking officer,” Jesse said.

“Irregulars do things a little different,” Roy said. “I’ll ask one last time.”

Jesse’s gaze went from Roy to Sonny, past Gordo, settled on Lee. “What do you think, Corporal?” he said.

Lee looked him in the eye. “Are we men or not?” she said.

Silence. Then Sonny laughed. “The little guy, girl, whatever the hell she is, got more balls than the rest of us put together.”

They all started laughing after that. It made them hurt, but they laughed anyway.

“So it’s settled then,” Roy said.

No one said it wasn’t.

The windows went from the orange to black, the scythe, rake, ball and chain high up on the wall lost their ember-colored highlights, vanished from sight, the candles guttered and went out. The Irregulars bedded down for the night: Sonny Junior on the seat of the demolition derby car, Jesse and Gordo on straw behind the drum kit, Roy and Lee on the bare mattress back in the cantilevered section.

They heard Jesse groan, later a higher-pitched sound, almost like a child whimpering in the night, must have been Gordo, after that Sonny’s snoring, and finally silence. Roy whispered in Lee’s ear.

“You all right?”

“Don’t worry about me.”

They weren’t touching. Then they were, Lee making the first move. They held each other. Roy didn’t want more than that. Lee did. That didn’t make him feel any different, not at first. She was starting to do something about that, and Roy could see it all going very shabby, when one of her fingers snagged in the little hole on the left side of his jacket. Everything changed. What if he died in the Battle Above the Clouds, what if he lost Rhett up there too? Those apple trees, blossoming year after year for generations, the water flowing from the spring, almost holy: Roy went deep inside her, as deep as he could, maybe even a bit brutally.

“That was the best,” she said after, in a low voice, but not whispering. For some reason he liked that not-whispering part most of all.

They breathed together, softer and softer. Roy listened for the beating of heavy wings, didn’t hear them. She could name him, the baby, anything she liked.

Roy opened his eyes. Still night, the night before the battle. Bragg’s failure to pursue: they wouldn’t make that mistake again. Roy had arrived at his destination on the journey through time, had found the exact moment when he could make things right at last, undo the mistake of Chickamauga. Forces were on the loose, as Ezekiel had said. And not only Ezekiel: Roy suddenly remembered Curtis using that very phrase, after they fired Gordo. Did black people sense those forces first? If so, why?

Roy couldn’t get back to sleep. He thought of all the rebels who had lain awake the night before the battle, thought: Help me, father. That didn’t mean his biological father, or any sort of supernatural one, but his real father, the hero with many greats before his name, Roy Singleton Hill. Lying on the bare mattress in the cantilevered part of Sonny’s barn, Lee’s hand limp on his side, Roy remembered the diary page. He felt in his pocket: still there.

Roy got up. He slipped out of the cantilevered section, a shadow as quiet as all the others in the barn. The big doors hung slightly open, framing a narrow column of stars. Roy went outside.

It was cool, almost cold. The sudden temperature drop surprised him; so did the flickering yellow light he took at first for a firefly from the far side of the well. Roy walked around it, found Jesse sitting with his back to the rough stone wellhead, a candle stub burning in the ground. Roy sat be-side him.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jesse said.

“Shoulder?”

“I’m fine.”

“Won’t affect your shooting none?” Roy said.

“Not for firing blanks.”

Roy smiled. “Was it you took away my bullets?” he said. “I had one in the chamber, a few more in my pouch.”

“It was me.”

“Why?”

“You’re asking why I don’t want you firing live rounds?”

“You hadn’t done that, we’d have won up there, and I’d still have Rhett.”

“Can’t be sure.”

“We can,” Roy said. “I’m deadly.”

“I know that, Roy. I’m sorry for that part, about Rhett.”

“Don’t worry yourself. Things’ll be different tomorrow.”

“They will?”

“Lee’s got bullets-unless you took them too.”

“I didn’t,” Jesse said. “Wasn’t aware.” He glanced at the barn, a massive shadow in the night, opened his mouth to say more, stopped himself.

“Then we’ll be fine,” Roy said. “You’re a good officer.”

“We’ll see.”

They sat by the well, the night quiet, the sky full of stars. Roy tried to find the Milky Way, failed. After a while, he took the diary page from his pocket. “What went on at Fort Pillow?”

“Why do you ask?”

Roy pictured Curtis’s dark hand on the last page in the diary: Now theys thinkin twicet bout not surrenderin but we has our orders from Forrest and they was to- “Just tell me,” Roy said.

“It’s not so easy,” Jesse said. “Forrest took the fort. There were about six hundred Union troops inside, half of them black. It was a slaughter, but so were a lot of battles. There’s controversy whether killing continued after the surrender, controversy whether the black soldiers were singled out. The evidence is inconclusive. Does it matter?”

Roy held the paper close to the candle. kill the last God damn one of em. Was what Forrest says. Theys runnin down the bluff in thur uniferms, throwin down thar guns hands in the air, fallin on thar knees. Too late. We stood em back up and shot em back down. I shot some swimmin away in the rivr too, one at a rainge of for hunnert yard, mebbe more, the nigger in his uniferm. An Zeke I had to shoot Zeke too for desertin in batle.

There was more, but Roy didn’t read it. He held the paper over Jesse’s candle. It browned, curled, blazed up, burned away. Roy ground the ashes under his heel.

“What’s that all about?” Jesse said.

“You were right,” Roy said, getting up. “It doesn’t matter.”

He went back into the barn, lay down beside Lee. He kept telling himself it didn’t matter. But it had mattered to someone, maybe some black Hill, mattered enough to pass that casket down the generations. Maybe Ezekiel was right all along: maybe the casket had held the ashes of Roy Singleton Hill. And that line from the bio Jesse had sent him, about his one son. What was the wording? Who may have died in infancy. Something like that. Roy wondered where the line between the white Hills and the black Hills was drawn.

“Milky White Way” started up in his mind at last, took him down, his last thought of sons dying in infancy.