The fellow whose farmhouse had been picked as the location for today’s signing, he’d surely fallen afoul of luck. Rumor had it, his first farm got caught ambushed by First Bull Run up near Washington. So he’d upped and sold his bullet-riddled barns, moved deep into the sleepiest available Virginia. To Appomattox.
Willie studied captured bees. He’d stayed at least this much a kid. Numb, he held the clear jar up against sky, he played like these bugs had chose to stay (renters) in this particular plug of blue. How they battered, trying to work free. Nearby, another Reb sat whittling one little spread-eagled woman from a forked branch. She was mostly open white thighs. “Bessie,” the man held up his masterpiece. “Bessie, spread ‘em, pride of my pride, because here Poppa comes.” Others laughed but sounded a tad spiritless. This runt had been carving open homecoming thighs since two weeks after Sumter.
The platoon’s orator stood off behind some pokeberry shrubs, talking to hisself and trying hand gestures. “Sir? Saint and Genius, our sacrificial … something … genius.” His words drifted as he checked over his shoulder, guilty. The speaker hoped to stir both Lee and these beloved hungry comrades, the kids and louts he’d fought beside these many years. Almost forever, it seemed. That was the weird part. These fellows might’ve been sired in these ranks, birthed in foxholes—literally sons of guns.
Fires won’t needed in April but many burned along this road. Fires and horses, they, at least, would never have to know we lost.
“Where is he?” Sal stood, craned over the heads of thousands milling near the road that led to one farm outside Appomattox Court House. In the distance, one trace of dust lifted. Nearer, a few pallets’ ends were being hoisted onto ditchside stones. “You know he’s punctual as any man on earth. If anything, he’ll get there earlier’n Grant, you watch.” Sal, cooling his face with a fan of playing cards, resettled and said, “Oh, fighting dirty? Well, I’ll see you and raise you, you sly dog.” Poker won’t being played for money now. None around. Unshaved recruits used fistfuls of promissory pay chits. Each slip said this’d definitely be made good by our Confederate Treasury. There won’t one, but men used chits anyhow. Made your poker seem to matter more. All a game anyway—the whole four years’ worth, somebody had to win, somebody had to … the other.
Sal kept checking on little Marsden, slouchy upon the crest of the low hill. Marsden sat cross-legged. In one hand, a jar of bugs, in the other a fine gold pocket watch he kept opening to hear chime. Boy’s eyes were closed as he cupped the metal timepiece to his left ear, as he pressed mason jar to his right. Will looked browned or grayed, no longer plump and shrimp-tender but—from living in the open—parchmenty like some old-timer. Quietly, the boy was crying in a hapless kind of way. It bothered those gents that noticed. Cardplayers sometimes checked in Will’s direction. Some glances seemed to say, “Grow the hell up.” Others, like Sal’s, hinted, “Me, too, mostly.”
Will kept naming bees, kept losing track of which he’d named so far. Before burying his musket, he had used its detached bayonet to jab nice air holes in a jar’s tin lid. Careful, he now undid the thing, he slipped in clover for bees’ comfort, their civilian furniture.
“Something’s coming,” one sergeant called.
Others yet half listened for the old sounds: cannon rumble, thunder man-made. Instead, birds kept singing from the thicket close by. Where had loud birds been these last four years? Hiding in vacation trees of border states? Now they sure let rip, songs sent straight up—almost taunting, like they approved the Bluebelly Sapsuckers carrying off top prize. Cardinals, mockingbirds, turncoats.
“Somebody pretty big-brass bound our way from the look of what the crowd’s doing.”
Fellows stood and stretched, like waking. The whittler had just peeled dark-bark knickers off yet another innocent forked branch. “Sister to Bessie—she’ll wrap them pudding thighs around you, squeeze you half to death, and you’ll feel Sherman’s fire but where you’ll love it, hotshots. Melt your miniés! Look at the size of the thighs on this ’un.” Nobody looked. Somebody said, “Grow up, loser.” It was noon. You felt sick from hunger, numbness, and the dullness of these mortal un-winners you had fought alongside too long. How perfect daylight looked. Paint. Nothing else bad could ever happen again to the person, could it? A fellow just wanted to go hide inside a smooth wallpapered room and then look out some clean window when he woke. First a man might sleep one solid year, then the smell of homemade flapjacks floating in pooled clover honey, that’d wake him, plus the sound of some live tolerable not-half-bad-looking woman humming a hymn or ditty down the hall, the smell of maintained linen—the lady’s personally, and this bed’s—that’d cocoon you in hard-earned middle-class delights. Surely that won’t much to ask, plus some bacon cooking maybe? Could the losing side expect so much? Would the losers’ women cut them off love-wise for losing it so bad? Would home let you back in?
Sal, dealing a last hand, watched Will not even know that Will was crying. Will probably considered it just Confederate thinking.
Some wag climbed (and ruined) a young maple as he hollered, “Dust getting nearer, might be Lee. Best get ready, just in case. Wouldn’t want to get caught playing cards and miss this, would you?” The whole poker match rose then, stepped closer to the place, claimed certain choicer spots. You saw how others from other platoons were also lining up with a certain fuss. Men on crutches now crossed the road, but in that shy quick way people jaywalk between floats in a parade.
Those on pallets complained about the many legs now blocking their view. The wood carver set the twin thighs upon a mat of leaves like some kid putting dolls to bed, “Don’t go noplace now. I thigh for you.” Nobody laughed. They’d heard it. They’d heard everything before. In the grove, clearing his throat, the orator went, “On behalf of myself and others, sir, perhaps a few remarks are in order, sir, considering the momentous …”
Willie turned his back on such commotion. It was him here and the clover and the bee wings fraying their rare film against the glass. Plus a ticking from one excellent German watch. Boy closed his eyes. He’d pretty much had it. The jar’s cool side he rolled against his forehead, he forgot to wipe his streaming eyes and nose. Too tired to feel ashamed, he sat face-up toward a peaceable sun. We lost it. I cannot be seen. I will have to live hid the rest of my whole life and I’m not all that old yet, numbers-wise.
On the road below, Southern voices churred like bees’ wings eager to get loose, to go hive on home. Will should want that, too. Shouldn’t he be missing something? Somebody, maybe? Squeeze that trigger like it’s everything you love. You do—as a gentleman—love something, right? Food. Food maybe? With food’s help, he’d aim due south, he’d ask directions on the way. He knew who probably waited—the widowed Momma, that ninety-pound overload of silk and charm. Maybe with Castalia taking care of Momma yet. He knew who did not wait—most of Momma’s sixty-one slaves, including all their babies.
“Will? Come here, saved a excellent spot for you. Lee, boy, Lee coming.”
Will sure had slept on the ground of many states lately. Some days it rained all day but that changed nothing. You still fought. They still came at you. His voice had lately dropped in fits and peeps while, underneath gray worsted, other unasked-for changes started threatening. To kill a person (several) before you’ve even got a sprig of pubic hair, and to be praised to Heaven for doing that! Yikes.
“Will? Is Lee, I’m told. Best get your young butt in motion and on down here. He’s no more’n a eighth of a mile off, look alive.—Will? ‘Why does the ocean stay so mad?’ Little joke, boy, why?”
Now, listening to his bees like for smart gypsy advice, holding the cool watch closer like some pet, Will heard hoofbeats gathering and couldn’t for the life of him remember the answer to Sal’s corny riddle, or just why he’d gone and shot three whole other fellows. The “how” part stayed way too clear, every inch and droplet of it did. But the “why,” way less.
Maybe Lee could tell him. As if Lee had a
human moment for any soldier shy of colonel!
Sal was sounding seriously miffed. “I got to come up there and drag you down here and lose both our spots? Or what? It’s important, it’s our commander. All over but the shouting, so come shout some. One last Rebel yell while we’re still called Rebs.”
Will would have no part of Lee. Lee seemed too fine to ever feel such sloppy stuff as now rocked his enlisted losers. Lee had always been too handsome to live, Lee too noble to ever need a real bath or to long for a snack or to break wind, even whilst imperially alone.
Little Marsden—secret-like—had come to flat out hate this Christian gent and others’ slavish praise of him. The hungrier Wee Willie felt, the more he longed to call Marse Rob aside and ask, “Look, where’s a certain fellow’s dinner, fellow soldier, hunh? Not to whine, mind you … even so … no shoes, this wet out here, to lack all miniés for my musket, and then starve on top of that. There are, sir, limits, sir. You invite people into your war, there’s a Southern hospitality thing you should remember.”
But Lee was made of platinum, not blood like us. Lee must eat communion wafers for breakfast and sleep with crowns of thorns under his pillow. Lee could’ve led the side that would win today. Yanks invited him to. But, no, Lee rode over the Potomac’s bridge. From Move #1, a genius at martyrdom. Will had just one question for Lee: When can I leave here and leave you, sir? Lee = Leave.
Marsden opened eyes again, saw soldiers drawing to attention. Some slapped dust from uniforms or whipped hats cleaner against uplifted knees. The orator waited, front and center, hands clasped before him, about to pounce into his solo moment. Hoofbeats. Some fellows tilted forward, a few stooping lower to spare others their big heads.
Will had never told any soul his irreverent views of Lee, not even Sal still beckoning the lad downhill. Sal called: “Last chance … saw Traveler’s ears just now. Miss this, and your momma’ll wear your rump out with a switch and she’d be right to too, Willie mine. Come on. It’s history, son. If I hated officers less, I’d give you a direct order, Will,” and Smith smiled uphill, offering his snaggled loveless lovely smile. Finally he asked others to save two places and Sal ran uphill graceful as some makeshift goat. “You even in there, Will? People are so goddam disappointing. What is eating you?”
Marsden then whispered up at the friend who’d saved his leg that would sure make the long walk home much easier. “Can we yet, Sal?”
“Can we what, son?”
“Leave.”
“Leave … what?”
“Leave here. Leave it.”
“Leave me, us?”
“Leave. Because, see, Sal, we lost it. You lose, they make you leave, right?”
“First, you come and watch this—I’m not ordering, I’m begging.” His Adam’s apple bobbed from nerves as he kept checking over one shoulder. Sal explained: Willie’s army had been outspent, outnumbered, but never outclassed. And all thanks to one dude forty feet away. Sal gave Will the sternest, most fatherly of looks. Then he bolted, calling, “Suit yourself, ingrate.”
Because Marsden set up on the clovered culvert, because he twisted his head about three inches to the right, he could see it—right through the clear glass jar he held—defense. He could see it better than most soldiers by the road. The Boss was already upon them. Men along either ditch bank made the straightest two lines possible while men were quite this tired. Some even left viewing gaps for the wounded on the ground. Will saw hurt ones—pathetic in full sun—salute straight up at sky and for the longest time before Lee even got to them.
Downhill, the raggedest-looking bunch since children walked their crusade to the Holy Land. Men held each other up. The wood carver tossed a blanket over sweet-tempered letter-writing Lieutenant Hester, shot last night and already putting off a stifling sweetish smell beyond the ditch. Soldiers didn’t want Lee to note one extra bad thing. God knows, he’d seen enough. They all had. Every platoon’s Cicero stood, face full of his planned long speech, but even from up here, Will could see: Nothing ceremonial was going as planned. Of the worst-hurt side, all too typical.
Here came Lee all right. No bodyguard. A squad of mounted officers followed one quarter mile behind. Will used his jar to keep from witnessing this straight. But, through glass, he knew Lee—even with distortions—you knew Lee from engravings, and from that one time with Ned. But now Will had a reason for studying Marse Rob. Hadn’t this man once sniffed a Ned Smythe doused with girl’s perfume? Hadn’t Lee heard one of Ned’s last “Last Rose of Summer”s? Lee’d become of interest and Will watched, lens of bees lowering.
Sal saw Willie notice now and stand. Sal clapped once and turned with relish toward the great man. Now Sal could watch.
Slow and stately, hushed, here Lee came. He first seemed calm in the confusion that his calm set off. No speechmaker could say word-one of the planned talks. The woodcarver held up Bessie’s thighs over assembled heads. Lee, high on horseback, moved along his muddied troops, a sweep of whisper spread before him. When fellows saw him setting straight on Traveler, the pearl-gray horse near famous as Lee, men’s plans changed. Not one person hip-hoorayed. No arm waved. You instead heard low and manly moans—hundreds of questioning groans told you—the Chief was here with us. Seeing him, that made you know we’d lost.
Even his proud horse advanced with a gait gloomy and half-broken. Maybe our horses did know. Seemed Traveler understood on behalf of all pack mules, Rebel Arab chargers, and enlisted quarter horses. He too was bound now to surrender, like their representative, and Traveler sure hated doing so.
Everybody’d taken off their hats. Down came gents’ broad-brimmed planter’s ones—if stained, off with rake’s dusty caps. Hats got mashed to chest, the way you do for a passing lady or some stranger’s funeral. Someway you knew Lee’s face better than your own after these years away from household mirrors. Lee’s uniform looked brand-new. It’d been sewn special for a Victory ceremony—kept back for that.
Men expected to be noisy, expected to toss hats aloft like the graduates at West Point, where Lee’d been second in his class and then the school’s head honcho before Sumter. But Will heard only stilted greetings spoken up to Lee, little grunts, questions, some male kind of keening. As the General drew nearer—fellows went stoop-shouldered, losing ramrod posture that’d cost them a good deal. They acted ashamed—like, by losing, they’d let their Lee down. And, to judge from studying him, proud as ever but stunned-seeming in raw sunshine—you saw Lee felt responsible. He seemed to bodily apologize toward men staring up, memorizing his every silver inch.
Then Will understood that something had gone really wrong, with Lee.
“No,” Will heard the voice of Salvador Cortez Drake Magellan Smith, a bleat: “You know not, no.” First it disappointed Willie: seeing emotion leak out of this general amongst generals—right unseemly. Lee was a man over six feet tall. Here even in the saddle that showed. Plus, his horse was huge. Lee’s chest didn’t buck a bit. His chin was raised in a way that might appear vain in a gent ten years younger or one whit less religious. First Will noticed how some hurt soldier, in trying to touch the General, had left a whole red handprint on the horse’s shank. Then, slow, Will understood why every-body’d flinched. Imagine the headline: “Lee Weeps Here.” Unbelievable, him doing it. Water moved—orderly stripes—from either eye into the beard. Only later would Private Marsden figure: The General never undertook anything by accident. A gentleman is never unintentionally rude. Lee had chose to let hisself. It showed such manly strength. Was probably the kindest gift the Great One could still offer his men. Don’t you see?—His crying let them.
Standing troops now dragged nearer, stood facing one another, men flattened hats tighter over hearts. The closest fellows did what those miles earlier had done. Happened like they’d practiced this for years. Soldiers lifted tattered hats, soldiers held these at arm’s length. And through this double line of outheld floppy caps and hats, Traveler moved.
When the horse breasted parallel w
ith your spot, you made darn sure your own hat’s soft brim reached, eased first along the creature’s potent foremost withers, then slid back across a crying person’s stirruped legs and over the shiny boots of Marse Rob hisself. Next your hat whisked against the animal’s smooth flanks again toward its silver tail—until your hat and hand moved once again into free civilian air—so lonely! Till finally your headgear dropped forward and touched the hat and hand of that enlisted man just opposite you.
Warriors all did this so gentle, the great horse never onct spooked. Lee’d passed. His stiff back, you saw now. Men in the roadway twisted sharply right face. They stood, not feature to feature now, but shoulder pressing another’s shoulder. They shifted two by two. Lee moved off from them for good to sign the cause away. Had to. Fact.
Bye, Lee. We have, sir, attempted honoring you. We sure tried. Pleasure to work for you.
Marsden noticed Volunteers already turning aside, fondling their old hats’ crowns. Surely men would show these stained felt scraps to waiting families. Everybody would try stroking a sweat-marked brim containing traces of the famous general and his almost just as famous horse. Who says magic don’t exist, child? History can make any greasy hat go heirloom.
The crowd commenced to settling, now melancholy as you’d imagine.
Marsden walked downhill, and not unjaunty. He felt ready. It showed. Will tucked the treasured pocket watch into its case. Boy lowered his jar—its ticklish bugs striking and restriking curved glass. He tied a rope around the jar’s notched lid, bound rope around his waist, where glass sometimes clanked against the butt of his sword’s handle.
Sal, still looking after Lee’s dust, turned toward Willie, face haunted. “Did you see, boy? If Christ had got to live to be fifty-some, I bet you any amount of Northern cash Christ’d look just like that, nearbout that good. My girls are going to want to hear this part over and over, plus my twin boys—I still sometime forget my boys. You see him?”