Thieves Of Mercy

THIRTY-FOUR

In reply I have only to say that the civil authorities have no resources of defense, and by the force of circumstances the city is in your power.

JOHN P ARK, MAYOR OF MEMPHIS, TO FLAG OFFICER CHARLES H. DA VIS

Bowater slept fitfully and not long, lurching along on the heavy wagon. When he came awake with a gasp and looked around, they were rolling through open fields dotted with scrubby brush, little farms off in the distance. He could see birds and cows. It was as if the wagon had transported him to another country.

He swiveled around. The church spires of Memphis were still visible in the distance, peeking over the hills, the pall of battle smoke still hanging over the town.

For a long moment Bowater just stared. That cloud of smoke-the guns of the General Page had added to that cloud, he and his men had done their part in that orgy of riparian butchery. He pictured the wreckage of the General Page resting in the mud. He pictured the body of Mississippi Mike Sullivan floating around the engine room. In his mind he saw the currents animating Mike’s limbs so that even in death he was waving his arms in that frantic way of his.

“Hey, Captain…” The voice came from behind. Hieronymus Taylor. Bowater turned the other way.

“Chief. How are you doing?”

“Been better. Been a hell of a lot better. Fact, I can’t recall when I felt worse.” Taylor paused, looked around the countryside. “No, that ain’t true. Day after our brawl in the theater I felt worse. So I reckon things are lookin up.”

“Have you taken to brawling now?” Wendy Atkins asked.

Taylor ignored the question, looked at Bowater. “Now, Captain, if I ain’t very much mistaken, this young lady drivin the wagon is none other than Miss Wendy Atkins of Portsmouth, Virginia. Is that a fact?”

Bowater looked at Wendy, suddenly unsure of himself. Wendy swiveled around. “That is a fact, Chief Taylor,” she said.

Taylor nodded. “My guess is that there is one hell of a story attached to your bein here.”

“You guessed right, Chief,” Wendy said.

“Awright. Let’s hear her.”

“Where are we going, Captain Bowater?” Wendy asked.

Samuel had not really considered that, though it seemed an obvious question. He pictured the map in his mind, arrayed the Yankees where he knew them to be. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

“Well, it should take us some time to get there,” Wendy said. “I guess there’s time for my story. It started with the letter you sent, Captain, from Yazoo City…”

The tale spun out as the wagon rolled south, always south, deep into Confederate territory. There were more than a few times that Bowater and Taylor exchanged glances of strained credulity, more than a few times that Wendy said, “You two must think I am a wicked liar, but in faith this is really what happened…”

Forty-five minutes later the story ended with a gun thrust in the face of the poor unfortunate who owned the wagon on which they were riding. They rattled on for a mile or so in silence. The men did not know what to say.

“I was going to tell you what we’ve been up to,” Samuel said at last. “Two river battles, ship sunk under us, Sullivan killed. But frankly it seems pretty tame now.”

“So the mighty CSS Virginia’s gone, huh?” Taylor asked.

“Yup. Blown to the heavens. Molly and I were nearly killed when she fell back to earth.”

“She lived for four months and she changed the nature of sea-fighting forever,” Taylor said. “We won’t see the like of her again.” Bowater had never heard Taylor wax so sentimental, certainly not over any person.

They rolled on south, stopped in the town of White Haven because they were desperately hungry and thirsty. There was a store and an inn there, but between all the men crowded on the wagon they could come up with no more than a few Confederate dollars. That was when Ruffin Tanner suggested they open the little strongboxes, and they made the happy discovery of hoards of gleaming gold.

The innkeeper, who had regarded them with suspicion and fear, saw them in a quite different light when presented with actual specie, gold, the value of which only went up with the misfortunes of the Confederacy. The former General Pages ate well and were on the road again, because they all had the sense, unspoken, that they should get as much distance as they could between themselves and the Yankees.

They came at last to Commerce, Mississippi, though there seemed to be precious little commerce taking place. The sun was two hours set by the time they climbed wearily out of the wagon and stretched and groaned in front of the inn on the one main street. The inn was all but deserted, but still it was barely large enough to house all the men. They ate, another fine meal, and tumbled off to sleep, too exhausted to talk.

Samuel took a private room, as was fitting his status as captain, and saw of course that Wendy had a room to herself. In the dark he lay in his bed, staring up at the ceiling, a dull blue in the moonlight. Outside the windows the crickets and frogs were singing their opera, an ensemble cast of thousands.

The door creaked on its hinges and he did not startle, did not even ask who it was. He could see her in the muted light, her hair loose and hanging down her shoulders, a robe held tight around her. She paused and they looked at one another and neither spoke. Then Wendy slipped off the robe, slipped off her nightdress, and for a moment the light played over her naked body, her white skin. She stepped up to the bed, pulled back the cover, and slipped in next to Samuel.

Samuel put his arm out, wrapped it around her, pressed her tight. She lay her cheek on his chest and they seemed to melt together. They remained like that for some time, silent, serenaded by the crickets and frogs.

“God, I have missed you,” Wendy said at last.

“I have missed you too.” And he had, though he had not known until that moment just how much.

She propped herself up on her elbow, shuffled closer to him, kissed him on the lips. He ran his hands over her back, through that long thick hair he loved, cradled her face in his hands. They made love, as if they had been waiting their whole life for this and were not going to rush through it now.

Finally they lay side by side, their heads on the cool pillows, their bodies bright with sweat because it was June and it was hot and humid, even at two o’clock in the morning.

“What will we do?” Wendy asked finally.

“I don’t know,” Samuel answered, the only true answer, but he knew Wendy needed more than that and it was not kind to leave her without it. “We’ll have to get to some city, someplace where we can contact the Navy Department. I reckon-I imagine we can find a steamer, something to get us down to Vicksburg. That’s the last holdout on the river, and when that falls, the Confederacy is split in two.”

Wendy rolled over, flung an arm across his chest. “Will that end the war?” she asked. There was a note of resignation, a touch of hope. Win or lose, she was ready for it to be over.

“No. Not immediately. There’ll be plenty more war. The navy will have more work for me, of that I have no doubt.”

Wendy pressed tighter against him. “I don’t want you to go.”

And he did not want to go. For once in his life, it seemed, there was something better on shore than anything he could hope to find over the horizon. After years in the moribund United States Navy, where his coming or going was a matter of complete indifference to anyone, when he might have walked away at any point, he had at last found a reason to walk away, at the very moment he could no longer do so. Sometimes he thought God specialized in irony.

“The war will end someday,” he said, but the words did not sound as hopeful as he wanted them to. They had this day, and the next, and the next, and he would savor them and not think about the future. He knew how to cherish any given moment. It was one thing, at least, he had learned.