‘I ain’t working for your Papa for money. I’ve got other ideas.’
My cheeks went hot and I couldn’t say a thing so I washed off the dirt and leaves sticking to my feet, dunking my toes into the water before standing on one leg, trying to get that clean foot back into my shoe.
‘Here,’ Jeremiah said, walking to the edge of the water and holding out his arm. I grabbed hold to steady myself, planning on saying thank you or else asking what other ideas he has got, but those words stopped in my throat. I didn’t move as he bent closer, his arm reaching across my back, his mouth pressing to mine, and it was hot and wet and my arms went right around him.
When he drew away from me, I didn’t want him to quit. My eyes opened onto his blue ones and I couldn’t remember closing them. I looked at his jaw and the stubble growing there. He bent to me again, but before his lips touched mine he said, ‘You still want that farm too?’ and I didn’t have to say yes, I just let him kiss me.
I WAKE UNDER a bare-limbed tree at first light, my head resting on my pack, my blanket tucked up to my chin, my back aching from the cold or all the walking. Off in the distance there’s the rumble and creak of a wagon, and that gets me up. When it comes close, the old man sitting on the bench nods all friendly while his skinny bay horse draws him past.
I jog after that wagon until the farmer says ‘Whoa,’ milking the reins until the gelding stops.
‘’Scuse me,’ I say, my voice catching in my throat.
The old man leans a bit closer. Maybe I should have let him keep driving.
‘You heading to Herkimer?’
‘No,’ he says.
‘You know how much farther it is?’
‘Most of a day’s ride, I expect,’ the man says.
It makes me want to kick rocks or throw sticks after walking so hard yesterday and I ain’t barely halfway there.
‘You mind giving me a ride?’
‘I’m only going up the road a little piece,’ he says, ‘but it’ll save you a bit of walking.’
I croak out, ‘Thank you,’ and haul myself up onto the wagon. I have only just sat when he clucks and slaps the reins on the bay’s back, making the horse lurch into the trot.
‘What’s your business in Herkimer?’ the man asks over the sound of the horse’s hooves. ‘You looking for work?’
‘I aim to enlist.’
‘Well, now!’ He turns to give me a quick look. ‘Ain’t you awful young for a soldier?’
Before I can think what to say to that, he pulls up his pant leg, showing me the long, jagged scar running from his knee down into his boot. ‘Got this in Mexico. I was luckier than most. Got to keep the leg and never got yellow fever or the pox or none of it. Fared better than most everyone I knew, that’s for damn sure.’
When my silence gets too long he says, ‘You’re mighty brave, going it all alone.’
‘I’ve got a cousin I’m meeting.’
‘The friend I joined up with never even made it as far as Texas. The bloody flux is what got him.’ He looks me over again. ‘But you look healthy enough.’
And then he is stopping at a lane and saying, ‘I guess I can’t convince you to help unload this timber then, can I?’
‘No, Sir,’ I say, and clamber down fast.
‘My wife will have a hot supper on …’
‘I thank you kindly, but I’m already late getting there.’
‘Best of luck to you then. The march ahead of you ain’t nothing a good soldier can’t manage in a day. You’ll know you’re getting close when you start smelling the tannery. Damned if it don’t make me think of Texas every time …’
I look back the way I’ve come. Papa’s always saying there’s work enough on the farm for a dozen farmhands and how I ain’t got to be married if I don’t want. If I’d asked, he would have sent Isaac Lewis on his way and let me be his farmhand again.
But then there is that farmer, putting his hand up to wave as he turns down the lane. I can almost see Jeremiah in him, driving home to his farm, to his wife, and the life I want.
I look up the road. All those miles between me and Jeremiah.
CAMP
MOHAWK VALLEY, NEW YORK:
FEBRUARY–MARCH 1862
‘I’ll tie back my hair, men’s clothing I’ll
put on, I’ll pass as your comrade,
as we march along. I’ll pass as your
comrade, no one will ever know. Won’t
you let me go with you? No, my love, no.’
—‘The Cruel War’
CHAPTER
7
HERKIMER, NEW YORK: FEBRUARY 22, 1862