He snatched the pocket pistol from inside his coat. "Who's there?"
"Cain't see me, Mist' Cooper. But I can see you good."
Recognizing the voice brought shock to Cooper's face. Some distance back from the left side of the road, palmetto fronds rattled.
"Cuffey? Is that you?"
There was no denial, so he knew he was right. Unseen crows sent their raucous cries up and down the empty road. Then the voice again. Having gotten over his surprise, Cooper could hear the rage in it.
"They said you was back. Want to tell you som'pin. Bottom fence rail gonna be on top pretty soon."
"If you're a man, Cuffey, show yourself." Silence. "Cuffey?"
CuffeyCuffeyCuffeyCuffey — the shout rolled away into the gloomy distances. The horse shied; Cooper reined him sharply.
"Bottom rail's gonna be on top, and ol' top rail's gonna be broke up. Chopped up. Burned. Gone for good. You count on it —" Word by word, the unseen voice faded till nothing was left but an echo and a final rattle of the fronds.
Sweating, Cooper whirled the pistol muzzle left, then right. There was no target except a bulge-headed blue skink darting across the road in front of the spooked horse. Cooper stared at the pistol he had brandished with abandon. Revulsion on his face, he shoved it back in his pocket with such violence the lining tore.
He forced the nag to gallop up the river road. The salt crows screamed. Why did it sound so much like laughter?
118
Gray wolves slunk into the trenches of the Petersburg line that autumn. Clawed a den in the mud and turned, growling, to wait for their tormentors.
Gray wolves, they lived on burned corn but wanted most of all another drink or two of blood. Cubs of twenty, they had the eyes of predators grown aged from a hundred seasons of killing.
Colder weather bleached many of the faces. Others remained sun-red from the summer. Whether white or red, they looked mean, they looked deadly.
Toting a tin cup, blanket, cartridge box, gun, they had tramped and straggled and fought across the map of the state — plantation boys, farm boys, town boys, feared out of all proportion to their numbers. They had marched to the last rampart on the thickened skin of bare feet, in scarecrow garments, their bellies making wet complaint, their bowels noisy as pipes in a hotel. They crouched in the trenches with nothing left but their nerve and the reputation that was bigger than all of them. Bigger than five times all of them. So big it would outlast all the slogans and speeches and rallying cries they no longer remembered; outlast those who sent them here in an unjust cause; outlast their very bones.
Gray wolves, they were already passed into legend as the first snow fell. They were the Army of Northern Virginia.
The sound came from the right of the ruined plank road, gone before Orry could make sense of it. He reined in. So did the two orderlies, young and inexperienced Virginians from Montague's provisional brigade. The orderlies rode one behind the other on the same horse; because of the scarcity of mounts, doubling up was a common sight on the Petersburg lines.
The road lay east of Richmond. After fronting north of the James, the division had been shifted even farther from Petersburg, to the extreme left of the defense line. They were presently in position from Battery Dantzler, named for a fellow South Carolinian who had fallen, to Swift Creek. It was nine in the morning, Friday, the day before Christmas.
The horses, peculiarly nervous in the thick fog, snorted and refused to stand still. Orry's almost stepped into a gap left by a rotted board; there were many such on the half-demolished road. The woodlands on both sides had an evil look, all black tree trunks, leafless limbs, dark clumps of dormant brush between. The white fog muffled sound and slipped through every tiny space.
"Did you hear that?" Orry asked. His hand rested on the hilt of the Solingen sword. He and the two orderlies were returning from First Corps headquarters when the sound, loud enough to be heard above that made by the animals, brought them to a halt.
Wary eyes shifting from tree to tree, both orderlies nodded. "A holler for help, sir," one said. "Least, I think I heard the word help."
"Want us to look, sir?" asked the other.
Orry's instinct said no. They were late, held at headquarters too long, and the fog afforded perfect concealment. One man might be lying out there — or a dozen, armed for an ambush. He tried to recreate the sound in his mind. Like the orderlies, he did believe there was pain in it.
"I'll lead the way," he said.
The orderlies stepped their horse off the half-demolished planking and walked it to the side so Orry could pass. They drew their revolvers; Orry reached beneath his overcoat and drew his. He nudged his horse forward through the trees at a walk, peering left and ahead and right, then repeating the pattern.
The atmosphere of the morning depressed him. So did the prospect of Christmas without Madeline. Well, he would surely be back at Mont Royal, reunited with her, this time next year. Sherman was advancing to the ocean in Georgia. The next target of the Union Navy was certain to be Fort Fisher, and when that fell, so would the last open port. Bob Lee, stooped and gray and, it was said, atypically grumpy of late, had only sixty-five thousand hungry, worn-out men to defend a line stretching thirty-five miles from the Williamsburg Road here down to Hatcher's Run southwest of Petersburg. No one spoke seriously of winning anymore, only of holding on and ending the sad business without dishonor.
Orry drew a deep, slow breath. Strangely, eerily, the fogbound forest seemed filled with the fragrance of the sweet olive, a scent he associated with South Carolina, and going home.
A sudden whinny alarmed his mount. He controlled the animal, cocked his revolver, circled the next large tree, and saw a fallen cavalry gelding with a great bleeding tear in its side. It raised its head and thrashed its legs feebly. Orry studied the gear and the saddle. A Union horse, no doubt of that.
"Where are you?" he called into the fog.
Silence. Trees dripping moisture. The horse of the orderlies crackling the brush.
Then: "Here."
Orry again walked his mount forward. Over his shoulder he said, "The horse is done for. One of you shoot it." There was murmured acknowledgment, then the cannon-loud boom of a handgun, the echoes rolling away over the noise of the gelding's last great thrash.
Stillness again.
Passing another tree, Orry saw him, blue leg with yellow stripe stuck forward, left leg folded beneath the other to help brace him against the wet bark of the trunk.
Eyes met Orry's. They were full of pain, yet cautious, even cold. The trooper was a heavy-browed, stubble-faced young man, a tough-looking sort. His right hand was wedged near his extended right leg. His left rested on a bloodied rip at the waist of his dark blue coat. A bandage stained brown and yellow encircled his upper left arm. So far as Orry could tell, the Yank had no weapon but his sheathed saber.
"Found him," Orry said without turning. The orderlies rode up. The semiconscious Yank watched them with sullen eyes. "One of you take his sword."
The orderly riding behind dismounted and stepped forward, shifting his revolver to his left hand. The saber slid out with a steely sound. The orderly coughed. "My God, he's dirty. Pus and lice and Lord knows what else." He faced Orry. "Bad wound, Colonel. Belly wound, looks like."
"What's your name and unit, Billy Yank?" the other orderly demanded. The Yank licked his lips while Orry held up his hand.
"Time for that later."
The second orderly registered displeasure as he got down from the saddle. "Might as well shoot him, too, wouldn't you say, sir? Wounded that way, what chance has he got?'"