I Shall Be Near to You: A Novel

I have been Drilling and cooking for Jeremiah and the Flat Creek boys before now. We had Prison Duty and what do you think I saw there but a Lady Spy who is called Rebel Rose. She is a handsome figure and most of the boys don’t think she can be a Spy, but I know better.

 

I can get plenty of money for myself so whatever I send, I want you should keep it. When All this is through I hope to come see You, if you will have me. My future is with Jeremiah and after we visit we will be gone to take care of ourselves out West, where no one cares how I dress or what I do.

 

If you write, You can direct it the same as Before, but to Virginia.

 

Good-bye for this Time,

 

Rosetta

 

 

 

I have only just sealed the cover when a loud cheer goes up from the boys down the way. I know in my bones that it is our orders to battle and drop down on my stump, wondering how long ’til we know for sure where we’re going, if I should open that letter back up and tell my folks the whole of it. Jeremiah stands to look down the aisle, his head cocked.

 

Edward calls over to us as he saunters up to his tent, ‘You heard the news about the lady spy?’

 

Jeremiah shakes his head, and the gallows at Old Capitol Prison come up in my mind.

 

‘They deported her back to Rebel country. Guess you got lucky guarding her, Little Soldier,’ Edward says. ‘They say she’s been spying the whole damn time she’s been in prison!’

 

‘And they sent her home?’ Jeremiah asks.

 

‘Yep. Right to Richmond. Guess they figure she can’t do much harm there.’

 

I can’t help but be glad she’s been sent home safe, away from the likes of Hiram, even after being caught passing messages, even if she was doing it right on my watch, like I thought. It almost serves the Army right, if they ain’t taken her serious, sending her back to her own folks to live like she really is only some silly gossiping widow. Jennie Chalmers said that making slaves free will help women, but I don’t know how she can be right when there’s still most men who can’t see the things a woman does, even when she’s doing them right under his nose.

 

Sully comes back, all full of smiles. ‘Well, it ain’t a battle victory, but getting rid of a Rebel traitor is something to celebrate! We ought to go for a swim, wash ourselves clean of that Rebel filth, and get the laundry done at the same time!’

 

None of it seems right, not Rebel Rose going free, not celebrating it like a victory, but the idea of swimming being the same as doing laundry makes me snort. Course, it ain’t surprising seeing how most these boys think licking their mess plate is the same as washing it.

 

‘No one’s going anywhere ’til this coffee gets drunk,’ I say.

 

Jeremiah and Sully are already done gulping their coffee when Will comes from down the aisle, his hands behind his back, his hair wet and fresh combed.

 

‘Where you been so early?’ Sully asks. ‘You heard the news?’

 

‘I heard,’ Will says, and comes over to me at the fire. From behind his back he holds out a big cup with a lid and a handle on it.

 

‘You want coffee?’ I ask.

 

‘No,’ he says. ‘I found this mucket at the sutler’s. Might be better than what you have there. You want it?’

 

‘That’s all right,’ I say, looking at my mess plate. ‘This works.’

 

‘I don’t have much use for it,’ Will says. ‘And you’re always cooking for me …’

 

‘If you don’t want it,’ I shrug, wondering why he bought a mucket from the sutler in the first place, but it has a nice handle for hanging over the fire so I ain’t asking any more about it.

 

‘Here,’ he says. ‘You can keep it.’

 

I look at him sideways. ‘You just trying to lighten your pack? Give me the heavy stuff?’

 

‘Jeremiah!’ Sully hollers. ‘I think Will here is sweet on your cousin!’

 

The color comes up in Will’s cheeks. ‘I thought maybe you could use it.’ And then he ducks his head and scurries back to his tent before I can even say a word of thanks, but not before Jeremiah gives me a sharp look and it dawns on me that Will bought that mucket as a gift.

 

 

IT IS JUST past noon when we head to the river, Jeremiah, Henry, Jimmy, Sully, and me. The four of them are like a family of skunks weaving in and out and around each other as they make their way down the hill away from our rows of tents, and I am remembering burning Summer days picking ripening seed heads from the hayfields walking to the creek with the four of them, getting our swimming and fishing in before the harvest. I rub my fingers down from my temple and the dust and sweat pills up under my fingers, almost black. I ain’t ever felt so dirty in my whole life.

 

We have only just gotten to the path worn into the grass, when Sully slaps his knee and says, ‘Damn it all! I’ve got to go back to camp—’

 

‘You forget all that laundry you was aiming to do?’ I ask him.

 

‘Something like that. You all go on ahead—I’ll be right back.’

 

Jeremiah shrugs. ‘We won’t go far from the trail.’

 

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