I Shall Be Near to You: A Novel

Those girls’ mouths drop, making Hiram laugh and every boy around him too, and then he shoves Will, saying, ‘I have got to take you for a good diddling when we get back to the fort so you won’t be so fucking shy when your chance comes.’

 

 

Will don’t join in the laughing, but his face turns an even deeper red.

 

After we leave that town, we still pass houses here and there flying Union flags, and then the drums and fifes and even the bugles start blaring marches. It gets us stirred up and cheering and almost forgetting what it is we’re going to do. Sometimes the noise brings children running from the houses, some with little offerings. A red-haired boy comes bursting from a plain clapboard house, his mother running after him. He comes right to us, holding out two slices of thick wheat bread, and I thank the Lord I ain’t so sick or nervous now that I can’t stomach the tidbits, that maybe my worries are nothing more.

 

Jeremiah kneels to take the fresh bread, his face gentled by the niceness of the offering. That boy smiles so wide when Jeremiah says, ‘Why thank you, Sir,’ and it is tender seeing how he might look on his own child.

 

 

 

 

WE WAKE TO the crack of gunfire and the roar of artillery echoing through steep ravines growing oaks and pines and tangles of mountain laurel. From my map I know we are marching on the National Road, heading for a place called Turner’s Gap.

 

The louder that artillery gets, the closer Jeremiah stays to my heel. When I catch him watching me one too many times, I give him a sharp look.

 

‘You stop worrying,’ I say, for both of us really, but Jeremiah starts taking slower, smaller steps like that is enough to keep us safe. A look passes between Jeremiah and Sully, and then Sully starts to the front.

 

‘You feeling all right?’ Jeremiah asks.

 

‘Just fine,’ I say.

 

‘You been sleeping more than I’ve ever known you to,’ he says. ‘Can’t even stay awake to eat half the time.’

 

‘I’m just getting what rest I can. Besides, hardtack ain’t worth staying awake for anyway.’ I don’t tell him how the sight of it, especially when there’s weevils making tunnels through it, gets my whole stomach wanting to empty itself, not when he’s already finding things to ask questions about, when I can’t stop the tiredness from just overtaking me.

 

Sully shakes his head at Jeremiah when he gets back, saying, ‘There’s no word.’ We know from the sound it ain’t peace. Down at the road, the lead Regiment lets out a loud cheer that ripples through the five Regiments ahead of us, far off at first but getting louder and louder as we march. And then all the boys and Sully and Jeremiah beside me join the noise.

 

There, sitting on the blackest horse I ever saw, overlooking the road and the mountain, is General McClellan. He is something spectacular, like a king, his mustache trimmed and a straw-colored sash about his waist with his sword hanging from it. As the men keep cheering, wave after wave, McClellan flings his arm toward the top of the mountain we’re climbing, pointing to where a crown of smoke rests above the trees. He don’t say a word, only moves his arm to point again, and everyone cheers again.

 

Our enemy is coming closer all the time, and there ain’t no way to escape the fighting if they keep bringing it North to us, maybe not even if I were back home. That’s what I tell myself. Our Army ought to be winning, that’s what everyone says, and if those Rebels keep beating us, we’ll end up with nothing. Thinking that gets me to yelling too, and just for a bit I don’t even feel the weight of the rifle on my shoulder or the heaviness in my belly.

 

 

IT IS LATE afternoon when we turn off the National Road and follow a little farm road to a pasture filled with smoke and noise and crawling with soldiers. Sergeant yells, ‘Get down!’ and we kneel, our rifles ready, our breath coming in gasps that don’t allow for talking. Before us is a rough zigzag fence and a small, scraggly cornfield cleared of trees and scratched out from rock, the work of farming land like that barely even worth the harvest. Union men from another Regiment mash themselves against the near side of those rails, hunkering down and keeping their heads low because there are lines of Rebels, maybe a whole Brigade of them, snaking through that cornfield. The fence must give more shelter than I’d guess because the soldiers there are pushing those Rebels back, leaving the silent dead and hollering wounded, Union and Rebel, so close the men at the fence line could reach through and stab them quiet or haul them to safety without leaving their post.

 

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