‘Read the Bible?’ Jeremiah says. ‘You didn’t drop that, now did you, Chaplain Eberhart?’
That strikes all those boys as funny and they laugh so hard Will don’t have a chance to answer. Seeing them gets me laughing too, even though Will’s face turns red, even though there’s artillery banging off in the distance.
WE MAKE A bivouac under the trees hanging over the road, hoping the shade will help, but it don’t much. My clothes are wet with sweat and stuck to my skin.
‘Ross, please tell me you didn’t throw out your map like Chaplain over there,’ Sully says, about the time Will maybe got to thinking those boys had forgotten what he’s done with his cards. All the boys get to laughing again, even though Will’s cheeks blaze.
‘Heck, no,’ I say, and feel bad for laughing when I know what it is to be teased.
‘Well then, have you got any idea how far it is to that gap?’ Sully asks.
I pull out my map, stare at the turnpike taking us away from Richmond.
‘If that last town really was Warrenton,’ I say, picturing the white church steeple, stabbing at the clouds with its spire and the unfriendly feeling coming off the deserted streets, ‘the closest gap is something like thirty miles. Maybe more,’ I tell him.
‘We ain’t ever going to stop those Rebs at this rate!’ Sully says, and flops onto his back.
My stomach rumbles and complains. I lean over to Jeremiah.
‘You got any rations left?’ I ask.
‘No. I ate my crumbs for breakfast.’
‘I ain’t tried that,’ I say, and I turn my haversack upside down over my palm. Only a few stale bits of cracker fall out.
Jimmy overhears me and says, ‘I got some salt pork, if you want it. But it’s gone funny, made me sick to eat it.’
‘I don’t need anything else making my stomach upset,’ I say.
Turns out not a one of us has got any rations left to speak of, but Sully and Henry and Edward and Hiram have energy enough to start chanting, ‘Crackers! Crackers!’
Soon the whole Regiment is chanting, even Chaplain Will. That is when Captain finds it in himself to let Sergeant Ames give us some of the rations left in the wagons that ain’t broken down, that we ain’t had to burn.
‘I see how these crackers got the name teethdullers,’ Henry says as he smashes his against a rock with his rifle butt. I try the same and break my cracker into four pieces, washing them down with water.
Henry sits himself right down beside Jimmy, and it don’t take but a minute before he droops over onto Jimmy’s shoulder, his mouth hanging open. He is the only one of us who can sleep and Jimmy never shoves him off. He just sits there quiet and lets Henry doze.
Jeremiah pokes me. ‘You want a fancy place like that house back there?’ he asks, and I know just which one he means, the white one with sprawling lawns and fancy flowers planted everywhere.
‘It don’t got no farm around it,’ I say. ‘All those flowers are just taking up good soil a kitchen garden could grow in. And, you ask me, fancy buildings don’t make up for the feeling of a place.’
‘You ain’t ever seen a town you liked, have you?’ Jeremiah lies back on the grass.
‘I ain’t got use for a town. But I bet there’s good planting to be done around here.’
Jeremiah closes his eyes, leaving me with thoughts of Nebraska, and if it really is good farming, and how soon we might get ourselves clear of this Army. But then Joseph’s face comes up in my mind, how pale he was against that hospital pillow. There are things it would be fitting for Jeremiah to read if it comes to that, so I sit with my back to an ash tree right near Jeremiah and let my thoughts spread like the branches shading me.
August 26, 1862
My Dear Jeremiah,
I don’t want to sit and write these Words to you. I have been thinking on Us living through this War. I have been feeling it to be True, this fact of Us together. But now I have tasted War. I see how Dreaming on a thing don’t make it so. It has got me thinking on things I would have you know.
I’m not sorry for this Thing we’ve done. You did Right by letting me stay. There ain’t a thing to make me take back These Days with You. You gave me friendship and then Love and Freedom to live a different Life. There ain’t a person else in this World who gave me More, and you should know it. I know I never wanted the things I should or been a proper Wife, but you don’t ever make me Feel it too much.
If we see this War to its End, if we can live Free on our own Place, the two of Us, I want you should know I will give you all that is left of my Life. It is all I want to work that Land with you and see those crops come up and if God is Willing, what children we may raise up alongside the farm we build. It will make this all Worth it if we can have our Place.
And that is what I would Give to you. I would Give you my Love. I would give you our Dream. Even if I am only watching from the Other side, I give you these things.
Your wife,
Rosetta
CHAPTER
19