Varina

  —Do you want to handle this or let me? V said all irritable.

  Ellen said, You sit. I’ll go see whether a spanking’s what they really need right now.

  She stepped over beyond the campfire to the marble ring and broke up the fight and marched the boys to a fallen log. Ellen sat first and then thumped Jeffy down on one side, Billy and Jimmie on the other. She began asking questions, and they all answered at the same time, and soon their chins quivered and parallel tear tracks ran down their dusty cheeks. V watched close but couldn’t hear much of what any of them said.

  Before long, the boys stood, and Ellen nudged them underhanded on their way. They ran to the edge of the woods and started a new game that involved throwing big pinecones at tree trunks and then at one another.

  When Ellen came back to the fire, V said, What’s your secret?

  —I’m not telling. But I will say, wading in slapping is not the only answer.

  GEORGIA’S A TALL STATE when you aim to go top to bottom in wagons with a bunch of children. For a week the journey became a nightmare of repetition, every day the same routine, the same landscape—nothing changing but the weather. The fugitives probably hadn’t advanced more than forty miles after meeting the marauders when two boys about fifteen or sixteen rode up from behind, one astride a mule and another on a halfway good dun gelding, its legs striped as a zebra and a black streak running from its forelock and mane down its back through its tail.

  The mule rider was a tall black-headed goose of a boy and the other one middle-size and blondish. As they came alongside, they looked the fugitive group over good, and when they reached the ambulance and saw V sitting beside the driver, the tall one said, Afternoon, Mrs. Davis. He reached up and touched the brim of his hat about like greeting an acquaintance on the street.

  Delrey immediately pulled up the mules and moved his right hand near the short double-barrel shotgun he kept by his leg. Burton rode between the boys and the ambulance. The canvas of the ambulance had been raised a foot above the sideboards for air, and four curious faces peeped out. Ellen held Winnie in one arm and eased the others back and rolled down the fabric.

  —Where are you coming from? Burton said.

  The tall boy, real caustic, said, Well greetings to you too. We’re down from Richmond. Back in Washington, Georgia, Jeff Davis gave all us cadets back pay—or at least a fraction of what they owed us—and told us to go home.

  —President Davis, Burton said.

  —Not anymore he’s not, the boy said.

  —Did you come looking for us? Burton said.

  —It’s on our way home.

  —You’re navy cadets? Burton said.

  —Yes, sir, the smaller boy said.

  —Were you still there when Richmond fell? Burton said.

  —Yes, sir.

  —Y’all got names? Delrey said.

  The tall one said he was Ryland and the smaller blond was Bristol.

  Ryland said, We left town on the train the president escaped on. Like fleeing hell.

  Bristol said, We’ve mostly been under General Duke since Greensboro, after the rail bridges got blown up and we had to travel by horse and wagon and afoot.

  —Is Basil all right? V asked.

  —Yes, ma’am, Bristol said. Last I saw of him, General Duke had a metal mirror tacked to a tree and was shaving and looked like he was going to a ball.

  —And Judah?

  —Mister Benjamin was telling jokes and smoking big Cuban cigars, Ryland said.

  —And reciting poems, Bristol said. Especially “The Death of Wellington.”

  Ryland said, I heard him say that one so many times I remember a line that goes, Hush, the Dead March wails in the people’s ears. And then something about sobs and tears and black earth yawning. The way Mr. Benjamin said that rhyme—ears and tears—was pretty funny.

  —I expect it was, V said. And Mister Davis?

  Ryland said, He didn’t look good at all for a while. Then after Charlotte when things went really bad and it was clear the war was lost, he got sort of happy seeming and rode along talking about horse bits and bird dogs and books he read a long time ago. Except probably he wasn’t figuring he’d soon have a fat bounty on his head.

  —Bounty? V said.

  —For conspiring to kill Lincoln. And—goes without saying—for treason.

  —Lincoln’s been killed?

  —Yes, ma’am. And by a Southerner. The big money reward’s on your husband, a hundred thousand. But they claimed pretty much anybody close to him or high in the government aided and abetted and conspired, so they’ve got a price on them too. Clay, Stephens, everybody big. You too, Mister Harrison. Twenty-five thousand apiece.

  —That’s nothing but rumors along the road, Delrey said.

  —Not exactly, Bristol said. We read it for ourselves. General Duke showed us a newspaper before they paid us and cut us loose.

  Burton stepped his horse over to the ambulance. He and Delrey and V mumbled about the boys, the requirements to get in the academy, and the training the cadets would have gotten. Not to mention the family connections they would have needed in the first place. And since the fugitive party had dwindled to such a small hard core, they could use help.

  Burton circled his horse back to the boys and said, You wouldn’t mind riding with us for a few days, would you? If what you say is true, we could travel faster if we had help making fires and washing pots and pans and dishes, taking care of the horses and that sort of thing? Doing whatever comes up? If you’re willing, we’ll be making camp in a couple of hours, and we’ll put you right to work.

  —Happy to be of service, Bristol said.

  —We can’t pay much at all, Burton said.

  Ryland laughed and said, That also goes without saying.

  V said, Maybe later you can tell us about that last day in Richmond. We haven’t gotten reliable news for a long time. Third- or fourth-hand at best.

  THEY STOPPED EARLY to camp and cook supper and feed the horses and mules, and to let the children run around before dark. Also to plan how to deal with the latest threat, how to avoid people, how to become invisible. They made camp a good way off the road in pinewoods by an abandoned hayfield greening up after winter. Ellen cooked and the navy boys untacked and fed horses and mules and took them in pairs on lead lines to graze.

  The children played in the new grass at the edge of the field, happy to be free from the wagon-bed. They chased each other, and Maggie spun with her arms out until she fell over dizzy and stared at the sky until the world stopped whirling. And then the boys all did it too. They cartwheeled and tried to walk on their hands and tumbled like circus acrobats. Jimmie showed them how to pluck a wide blade of fresh grass and hold it just right between the joints of their thumbs and blow across it and work their mouths to make high-pitched buzzing music.

  V sat on the trunk of a big deadfall shortleaf pine and watched them and looked across the hayfield, its perspective flowing away in an hourglass shape, the borders and pinched waist delineated by dark tall incursions of pinewood. The sun fell low, and the light in the sky above the far end of the field stained upward from apricot to indigo. Tree shadows stretched across the new grass. How wonderful if that could be sufficient to our needs, a vision of static beauty without motion or change.

  Burton and Delrey came and sat on either side of her, and she cupped their wrists with her hands and gripped them tight. Ellen came and stood with her arms crossed, holding her elbows

  V said, That can’t be true, what they said about Lincoln and the bounties?

  —Exaggeration probably, Delrey said. But, smoke and fire. There’ll be truth somewhere in it.

  Tears welling in her eyes, she said, We’re all lost now. They will punish us for the war, fair enough. But Lincoln would have let us up easy. Now, they’ll hunt us all down. Even the friends who helped us in Abbeville will face charges. The Burts and Mary Chesnut arrested for aiding and abetting. Every preacher where we slept in a chapel to get out of the
rain, that farm where the widow let us sleep in her dry barn.

  Delrey said, Ma’am, we don’t know what’s coming behind us. Worry about staying in motion, going forward. They don’t catch us, they can’t hurt us. We make it to Florida and find a boat running south down the Gulf, nothing they can do. We’ll be sailing blue water, eating fried grouper instead of moldy old bacon and musty grits. Skip down through the Keys and cross the Florida Straits to Havana. After that, Yankees can call us whatever brand of criminal they care to. We start over again without reference to their opinions. I ain’t scared. I’ve lost everything I had two times already and built it back. I’m not so old I can’t live through it one more time, and I’m the oldest one among us by at least ten years.

  —It’s not just me, V said. There’s family to consider. Even if we make it out, reunion would be hard.

  —Not harder than if we’re all in prison.

  Burton said, Delrey, no need to be alarming. Worst case, even if these stories are true and we’re caught, the Federals won’t charge either of you with treason or conspiracy. They’ll try to make you think they will, but they won’t. And I know I didn’t conspire, and neither did Mr. Davis.

  Delrey said, They’ll sure charge you and try to hang you, no matter what the truth is.

  V thought a minute and then said to Burton, So, Havana? You’ll come with me?

  —Yes, Burton said. Of course.

  Ellen hadn’t said anything. She’d mostly looked down the field. So when the men were gone, V stood beside her and asked what she was thinking.

  —I’m trying to figure that out. When we left Richmond, Cuba never entered my mind.

  —I don’t know what to say. If we make it to Florida and find a boat, I want you to come. But only if you want to.

  —I could get down there and not be able to get back, Ellen said.

  —That’s possible, V said.

  —I’ll have to study on it.

  AFTER SUPPER—children settled in the wagon-bed for the night—the fugitives sat around a campfire burning low, and the navy boys started talking, and they mostly told their story over the top of each other. Bristol started by saying, That last day was terrible. No doubt about it. Everybody had to own that we were beat.

  The boys went on to describe the fall of Richmond. How everybody in the city, to some degree, seemed blistered from the loss of a long war and the failure of a shaky made-up government created to represent the worst features of a culture. Leaders busy packing to run. Food scarce, money worthless. Roads clogged with scared refugees knowing the Federal army rode hard just hours away. And after nightfall, the city began to go up in flames. But, on the other hand, Bristol and Ryland were sixteen and armed. Chaos thrilled like a great adventure.

  That night, eight cadets, four to a skiff, were given big casks of black powder and cans of coal oil and told to row out to the CSS Patrick Henry on the James River and blow her up and burn her down, preferably in such a way as to impede water traffic for the Federals. Sad, yes. She had been their training ship and mostly their home for over a year. But blowing things up—especially when they’re large and important—thrills at any age, and especially at sixteen.

  On board they gathered all the stray weapons and ammunition they could find quickly and heaped them into the skiffs and then lit the fuses and hustled to row away. They were almost to the riverbank when the powder blew. And then the oil cans caught with such a great sucking combustion and eruption of yellow flame that they stopped rowing and cheered in pure anarchic joy. Flames lit the water like sheets of crumpled gold leaf under sunlight, and then waves broke around them and bucked the skiffs until the boys gripped the gunnels to keep from being thrown into the river.

  Ryland looked at the burning ship and said, We’ve sure hell done it now.

  Soon as they reached dry ground, the eight heroes who sank the mighty PH stood at the riverbank and watched irreverently and in awe as their ship burned toward the waterline. Then they looked around for fellow cadets to praise them and for officers to tell them what to do next. But officers were not to be found. Important business elsewhere, no doubt. Back toward the city, undersides of clouds shone amber and red and yellow with buildings afire.

  Ryland said, Appears like we’ll call our own orders from here on.

  Nobody agreed with him aloud. Some of those boys weren’t more than fourteen and didn’t know what to say. Ryland, though, had decided he never intended to trust rulers again. No bosses and generals and presidents no matter what government they came from. He felt entirely able to judge every man above him in the chain of command all the way to Wood and Lee and Davis.

  Bristol said, Let’s go see what’s happening in town before we commit too far.

  Ryland rattled through the weapons and ammunition they had claimed from the ship and came up with an ugly sawed-off twelve-gauge.

  He held it up to the boys and said, See this scattergun? Soon as I get the material, I’m gonna pack me some shells with shot big as sweet peas. Nobody’s gonna cross me then.

  With nowhere else to go, they distributed the rest of the weaponry and walked toward the train station for lines running toward Danville and points south. The direction of home.

  The city whirled all crazy. Little impromptu squads of people rushed around looting houses and stores and warehouses. People ran down the middle of the street carrying blanket bundles of clinking valuables slung over their shoulders—silverware and crystal and china. People cradled precious breakables in their arms like babies. One woman strode along with six or seven fancy hats stacked on her head, holding her arms straight out and palms up for balance. A man hauled an awkward purple velvet tête-à-tête love seat by himself with just the aid of a muslin tumpline running from the hind legs across his forehead. A man and woman dragged a great crystal chandelier the size of a cabriolet behind them, leaving a trail of broken faceted glass sparkling in the firelight.

  City officials unwisely ordered bars and hotels to break open their barrels of whiskey and beer and pour them into the gutters. Therefore, many folks sat on curbstones dipping drinks with looted china cups and crystal goblets or just supping primitive from their two hands. Flames jumped gaps from building to building and the fire built minute by minute. Smoke and the crackle of burning wood and booms of exploded munitions filled the air.

  Along the way the boys heard rumors spreading that the entire treasury—a million dollars in gold and silver bars from the several mints and also canvas bags packed heavy with floor sweepings, fingernail parings of silver and gold—waited on the platform to be loaded onto a railcar. And that the president and his cabinet were fleeing south with the treasure, leaving the capital looted and burned out so that the Yankees and also the inhabitants would be left with nothing. Other people claimed the president’s wife had already left with most of the treasure days ago.

  BY THE TIME THE CADETS rolled into the train station, they found a mob ruling the platform, dark-minded and globbing together in cohorts, talking loud and vicious. Two trunks sat by the rail lines and treasure hunters beat open the locks with their pistol butts and pulled out suits of men’s clothes and some big underpants and socks. The cadets had been dipping from the gutters themselves and had just blown up a goddamn full-size side-wheel steamship, and they were heavily armed. So they had achieved a certain mood, under which the opinions of their elders factored small.

  Firelight from burning buildings lit everything around the station lurid. Brick walls stood bloody red, washed over with black shadows and flashing yellow from explosions rising in the sky over toward Tredegar ironworks. The train waited at the platform. It stubbed off short—only a black locomotive and a wood car and two passenger cars and a stock car and one blue boxcar at the end. Men loaded half a dozen horses into the stock car, and they clattered up the ramp with their ears back and yanking against their lead lines.

  The train appeared to be waiting on something or somebody, either the treasure, if it wasn’t already gone, or the officials
of the government, or both. Pressure built up in the boiler and then periodically whooshed away in clouds of steam that broke white against all the hell colors lighting that particular instant in history.

  Ryland said, I believe if I was hiding treasure, I’d put it in the stock car. Let robbers fight the horses to find it.

  Bristol said, I’d put it at the bottom of the wood car.

  About then, carriages pulled up. Four or five of them. All in a hurry, the president climbed out, looking sick and skinny, his face the color of ham fat. He went without a hat, and for a man his age, his hair flowed admirably back from his temples. He visored his bad eye with a hand and looked around at the fires and the torches. He lifted his nose and whiffed smoke in the air. He looked tragic and also like he might toss off an impromptu speech about sacrifice and the holy Constitutions—ours and theirs—both documents identical except for a paragraph or two having to do with slaves. Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, balding, plump, and almost jolly, followed him with a fat stub of cigar between his teeth. A few elder cabinet members hustled from carriage to car, looking stunned as fish just pulled out of water into sunshine and air. Davis looked at the mob and at the cadets in what appeared to be confusion.

  Jeers broke out. Hecklers sang improvised songs with repetitious thumping rhythms suitable for drunks. Such as the tune to “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” but chanting about how they’ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree instead of the business about John Brown’s mouldering body. Hard to say which version claimed worse lyrics.

  The world fell apart. Fire blazed everywhere and walls tumbled down. And yet, to a degree, the night felt a lot like a party. Ryland reached Bristol a full bottle of Cuban rum he had confiscated along the way, and they traded swigs.

  Davis hurriedly climbed the stairs to the passenger car, and Bristol noticed as he lifted his foot to the first step what a pretty pair of low boots he wore.

  A remnant delegation of slaves—three men and a woman lugging a baby on her hip—shifted bags from the carriage to the passenger car and then went to the boxcar and threw their own carpetbags inside and climbed in behind them.