I Shall Be Near to You: A Novel

WARRENTON TURNPIKE: AUGUST 28, 1862

 

We march past a hayfield, bigger than any of Papa’s, fine-stemmed grass pushing up new seed heads and rolling away from us toward the trees, where a white clapboard farmhouse stands. The sweet smell of curing hay comes to us on the breeze, the first cutting most likely done not even a month ago. It makes me wish for home, to hear Mama singing hymns to the horses from where she sits up in the hayrick, me and Papa a mirror image dance of scooping forks, twisting trunks, and throwing arms to get that hay put up. For a moment I pretend Sully yelling at us to hurry as he jogs ahead is Papa hollering, ‘Step up, gleaning girl!’ to Betsy raking the least little bits behind us.

 

But it ain’t Papa marching up ahead. It’s Thomas, the circles under his eyes getting darker every day and his griping to old John Morgan getting louder too.

 

‘My wife is asking every letter when I am coming home,’ he says, looking out over the hayfield. ‘Says she and the girls ain’t up to the task of harvest on their own.’

 

‘I bet all those ladies need is a good poking,’ Hiram says, and that gets Thomas’ Adam’s apple bobbing, but no one wants to say a thing where Hiram is concerned.

 

John acts like he ain’t heard and says, ‘At this rate you and me and Frank and half the Army will need furloughs just to keep our farms going.’

 

‘Maybe Pope means to march us to death,’ Henry says, and something about the way we all feel it stops Hiram’s laugh cold.

 

‘At least we’ll see the countryside before we die,’ Jeremiah says with a bitterness I ain’t never heard out of him. It scares me more than anything, seeing his face hard and closed.

 

‘We’ll be fighting for sure,’ Sully says, all breathless from weaving up and down the column to get what particulars he can from Sergeant. ‘Lee has got Jackson on the move! Maybe twenty thousand men! The Pennsylvania Regiment up there is seeing Rebel pickets ahead guarding at least a Brigade of Rebels.’

 

‘We don’t want to meet Stonewall Jackson if we can help it,’ Thomas says. ‘He made that name for himself right around here. My brother-in-law saw firsthand at Bull Run how Jackson don’t back down.’

 

But Sully just keeps on running his mouth, ‘Those damn Seceshes got our supply trains at Manassas Junction and they broke up the rail line. We ain’t getting even a taste of those crackers and candy and oranges that were on that train.’

 

‘This fool Army!’ Henry says. ‘We ain’t doing a thing out here but marching ourselves into the ground!’

 

‘It’s no use thinking on what we ain’t getting,’ Jeremiah says, but I still feel myself getting saucy too, my legs aching and my stomach warbling at the thought of candy and oranges.

 

‘Maybe the Rebels needed it more than we do,’ Will says, all quiet-like.

 

‘What?’ Sully says. ‘Chaplain, you’ve got to be kidding! You feel sorry for those Rebs?’

 

Will don’t flinch or back down like I think he might. He just says, ‘Those boys used to be our countrymen. Maybe they needed it more than we do. “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” That’s in Romans.’

 

Sully comes to a full stop and dams up the middle of the road, making Henry bump into him and blocking the rest of us. The soldiers drawing up behind us have to split to get around.

 

Hiram turns, pulling Edward around with him, and says, ‘We got a fucking Rebel lover here?’

 

Sully stares at Will, and Henry takes up a spot next to him. Jimmy and I look back and forth between them.

 

‘Will just wants those Rebels fed up good so no one can say it ain’t a fair fight, ain’t that right, Will?’ I say, and then Jeremiah slaps Will on the back, making him stumble.

 

‘You’ve got the most grave face, Chaplain, I almost believed you was serious!’ Jeremiah says, and then he laughs and pushes Will forward so we are all moving again.

 

It ain’t Jeremiah’s real laugh, it don’t roll out of him, but the other boys get to chuckling. It don’t make me chuckle seeing the boys’ bad tempers, or having to protect Will and keep us all getting along, me and Jeremiah taking a stand for the right thing without anybody knowing we’re doing it. I wish I could fold his hand into mine without getting noticed, but that is when the call to arms comes echoing.

 

 

I SHOULDER MY rifle like I ought, but then I have to step out of our line to heave up mostly nothing into the yellow yarrow along the edge of the turnpike, cursing my nerves. Jeremiah stops too, waiting for me. He don’t say a thing, not until we get back into the column winding its way down the road. Then he puts his hand on my shoulder as we walk, like a butterfly landing on a bluebell.

 

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