"This was writ at home 'bout six weeks ago! My mama's dyin', if —" he cleared his throat, his breath pluming "— if she ain't gone already." A pause. He watched his friend closely to gauge the impact of what he said next.
"I'm leavin'."
The announcement wasn't unexpected. But Charles's voice was as cold as the weather when he answered it.
"That's desertion."
"So what? There's nobody else to care for the young ones after Mama's gone. Nobody but me."
Charles shook his head. "It's your duty to stay."
"Don't talk about duty when half the army's already took to the southbound roads." Jim's mouth, chapped and raw, grew thinner. "Don't give me that stuff. I know shit when I smell it."
"Makes no difference," Charles said in a strange, dead voice. "You can't go."
"Makes no difference if I stay, either." Jim flung the last of his small ration in the fire; that should have warned Charles to be careful. "We're whipped, Gypsy. Done for! Jeff Davis knows it, Bob Lee knows it, General Hampton — everybody but you."
"Still —" Charles shrugged "— you can't go." He stared. "I won't allow it."
Jim rubbed the palms of his mittens on his stubbled face. Beyond the perimeter of firelight, Sport whickered in hunger. There was no decent forage; the animals were eating wastepaper and each other's tails again.
"Say that again, Gypsy."
"Simple enough. I won't permit you to desert."
Jim jumped to his feet. No longer burly, his body appeared shrunken and frail. "You damn —"
He stopped, swallowed, regained control. Great leafless boughs above him moaned. Scattered through the chasm of the night, other little fires flickered and flared in the wind. "Back off, Charlie. Please. You're my best friend, but I swear to Jesus — you try to stop me, I'll hurt you. I'll hurt you bad."
Feeling heavy and tired as he rested on his haunches, Charles continued to stare from beneath the dirty brim of his old wool hat. Jim Pickles meant it. He really meant it. Charles had his army Colt under the robe, but he didn't reach for it. He remained motionless, the robe's hem dragging in the light snow left from the afternoon's fall.
Sadly: "Somethin's made you crazy, Charlie. You better straighten yourself out 'fore you try workin' on the rest of us."
Charles stared.
Jim curled his mittened fingers against his palms in a tense way. "So long. Take care."
The breath plume vanished as he turned and shuffled away, his step slow and deliberate. In December the sole of his right boot had worn through, requiring him to stuff papers or rags into the bottom to keep out the mud and damp. These always came loose, though, and did so again now. Bits of paper were deposited in Jim's footprints. And red spots, Charles observed. Bright red spots in each print in the new snow.
He heard Jim's horse leave. He stayed crouched by the dying fire, using the tip of his tongue to clean the gooey residue of parched corn from his sore upper gum. Somethin's made you crazy. The list was not hard to compile. The war. Loving Gus.
And his final, calamitous, mistake.
Two days later, Charles and five other scouts, all wearing captured Yankee uniforms, rode out once again to observe the Union left, which they reached by passing the Confederate works in front of Hatcher's Run, near the point where the White Oak and Boydton plank roads intersected. In the half-light before dawn, with new snow falling, the scouts bore southeast in a wide arc, pushing toward the Weldon rail line. Presently the snow stopped and the sky cleared. They spread out in order to cover more ground, each man on his own, out of sight of the rest.
Charles gauged his position and headed Sport left, or northward, again, intending to scout the Union works built down to a point on Hatcher's Run. He was passing through a deserted stand of trees as the sun rose, bright and surprisingly warm despite the cloud cover. Great shafts of light descended between the thick trunks. In the silence, walking Sport forward with his shotgun resting across his thighs, Charles could almost imagine he had entered some fantastic white cathedral.
Screaming broke the illusion. The screaming of a man in agony. It reached him through thick ground haze directly ahead.
He held Sport back; the bony gelding had heard the outcry, too. Charles listened. No small-arms fire. Odd. He was sure he was near, perhaps even a bit east of, the last Union trenches on the left of the siege line. He had to discover who was doing the screaming — a second man's voice joined the first — but he must go carefully to avoid blundering into videttes.
He murmured a command. The gray started forward at a rapid walk. After about an eighth of a mile, Charles saw orange smudges in the haze. The source was further obscured by the brilliant, sharply defined shafts of sunlight. He heard piercing screams again and a loud crackling. He smelled smoke.
He edged Sport ahead more slowly, began to discern mounted men against a wash of firelight, some structure burning. But why the screams?
A little nearer, halted and partly hidden by a tree, he was able to count ten men, several in gray, the rest in butternut. He saw a white-topped wagon and six more men, in blue uniforms, standing next to it, menaced by the pistols, shotguns, and squirrel rifles of the others. One of the ten — the larger group had captured the smaller, plainly — turned his horse around in order to speak to someone. Charles saw an open officer's coat with gold frogging. Then he saw a clerical collar with geneva bands; a Protestant collar.
Something clicked. He knew of this band of local partisans.
Behind them, a partly demolished farmhouse burned brightly. Charles decided he had better make his presence known. But first he had to get out of the Union blouse and roll it up. That took a minute. He was still struggling with a sleeve when, mouth dropping open, he saw the rider in the clerical collar wave a gauntlet. Two of his men dismounted, strutted around the frightened Union soldiers, then yanked one from the group and shoved him forward at gunpoint. "Walk in there, Yank. Jus' like the other 'uns did."
The prisoner started screaming before the flames touched him. One of the partisans ran a bayonet into the back of both his legs, so that he fell facedown, engulfed by fire, whirling the smoke. His hair ignited; then the smoke hid him.
Shaken, swearing, Charles spurred Sport out of the trees, waving his shotgun. "Major Main, Hampton's Cavalry. Hold your fire!"
It was well that he shouted that last, because the partisans turned and leveled their weapons at the first sound of his coming. He reined up among the unwashed, mean-looking civilians, the kind of irregular unit whose depredations had become a scandal in the Confederacy. This bunch was led by the gaunt, graying rascal wearing the parson's collar, confiscated dress sword, and gray coat with dirty frogging.
"What in the name of hell is going on here?" Charles demanded, although the billowing smoke and the screams and a sickening smell something like that of burned meat told him.
"Colonel Follywell, sir," said the leader. "And just who are you to ask such a question of us, and so arrogantly?"
"Deacon Follywell," Charles said, suspicions confirmed. "I've heard of you. I told you who I am. Major Main. Scout for General Hampton."
"Have you the means to prove that?" Follywell shot back.
"I have my word. And this." Charles lifted his shotgun with his gloved hand. "Who are these prisoners?"
"Party of enemy engineers, according to their commanding officer." Charles didn't follow the deacon's pointing finger. "We came across them desecrating this abandoned property —"
"Taking the lumber, that's all, you murdering bastard," one of the prisoners yelled. A partisan on horseback clubbed him with the butt of a squirrel rifle. The Yank fell to his knees, clutching the spokes of a wagon wheel.