I Shall Be Near to You: A Novel

‘It ain’t a lie,’ I say. ‘This is who I am. There ain’t a thing different about me.’

 

 

‘You’re not a man! That’s a real big thing, from my way of looking. Knowing, it changes—I shouldn’t be here with you. This is unseemly,’ he says, and walks away.

 

‘I ain’t no different. It don’t have to change a thing—’ I’m saying when suddenly I am back home, seeing Horace Greaves mourning at Albert Nofrey’s grave. I think on the two of them living on that farm together all those years, old bachelors ’til the last, and how after Albert died it wasn’t long before Horace was buried right beside him. I clap my hand over my mouth and let Will stomp off through the trees.

 

 

I CAN’T QUIT worrying over Will. I can’t even look at him. Not once I am back along the road, resting with Jeremiah. Not when Sergeant gets our lines moving again. Not an hour later when we stop at a white clapboard church. I can’t think what to even tell Jeremiah, not after he was right about Will taking an interest in me. I keep seeing Will leaning toward me and the surprise on his face when I told him Jeremiah was my husband, when he said I’d been lying. I keep thinking of all the nice things he’s ever done for me and seeing each of them different, how Sully called him out for being sweet on me.

 

But Sergeant is before us saying, ‘Men, we’ll leave our knapsacks here. You can trust we will return to get them once we beat back those Rebels.’

 

Those words get me thinking on worse things than Will or being found out. I shrug free from my pack, thinking how my load is heavier now than it ever was, and Will lightened his load too soon.

 

 

WE HIDE AMONG the craggy mountains, slabs of rock thrown every which way, a scattering of gray-green pitch pines looking like the lace edging of Mama’s church-best petticoat against the blue of the sky, land that ain’t good for a thing except getting through it. Beyond we can see the skinny Gap, barely wide enough for the train tracks and the turnpike.

 

On either side of us, the slope rises steep and if those Confederates are up on the mountainsides we ain’t got a chance of getting them out.

 

Will quotes Scripture from where he marches with Thomas, saying, ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me …’

 

I pull my rifle to the front, my hands wrapped tight around the stock, telling myself I ain’t afraid of battle, feeling how there ain’t no Rebel bullet meant for me yet. Behind us, the artillery Brigade sets those cannons to work before the horses have even been moved away.

 

‘Been thinking,’ Jeremiah says, leaning over to me.

 

‘Uh-oh,’ I tease.

 

‘Stop it,’ he says, but he smiles, even here he is smiling. ‘A man can think sometimes, can’t he?’

 

‘Oh, I suppose he can any time he wants,’ I say, and wonder if I should say a thing to him about Will.

 

He starts again all quiet. ‘When we get out of this war we ought to get ourselves a place with a piece of nice woods like this.’

 

‘Woods? What do we need to be hiding from on our own place? After this war is done I don’t ever want to hide again.’

 

‘Not for hiding.’ He chuckles. ‘Well, maybe for hiding. For when you get your dander up. Or for when we want to be alone, away from the children.’

 

Just for a moment I see myself holding Jeremiah’s baby, laying that child in a crib Jeremiah made, like our papas before him.

 

‘You’ve been aiming to have a farm that don’t got any trees? Or you just like the looks of these rocks now that you’re standing on them?’ I look around, making sure no one’s listening. Only Will is close enough and it don’t matter what he hears now.

 

‘No,’ he goes on, ‘but they’re nice for admiring.’

 

‘You mean I married a man ain’t never thought on having a woodlot on his farm before now? And now that he does think on it, he only wants trees for admiring instead of building and burning? You want some boulders for admiring too?’

 

‘Just woods.’ Jeremiah says. ‘No rocks. They ain’t good for much besides fireplaces. Trees, now they’re good for lots of things. Hiding …’ he says, but he don’t finish because we finally catch sight of what we’ve been waiting for. Coming down the slope of the mountain to the East, there’s flashes of gray through the trees, quick enough I almost ain’t sure what I’m seeing, but the buzz going through the boys is answer enough.

 

Down the line from us, Hiram yells, ‘Secesh sons of bitches! Goddamned traitors!’

 

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