THOMAS, AMBROSE, AND Will sit on the ground, eating fast and silent. Will watches me. Thomas too. I make myself swallow bits of sowbelly whole, swigging water to wash it down. It makes me gag, but I keep at it until even water makes me retch.
After breakfast, our duty is to look for anything we can still use to fight those Rebels, anything we don’t want them getting. The whole Company, those that ain’t on picket, walks in clumps down the ridge, boys spattering the slope, seeping across the hill, no lines or rows now. I keep with these three.
We trample through the grass, trouser hems damp with the dew. Up on the ridge, at camp, things don’t look so bad, the land still grows. From there, the pretty farm below looks white and clean, like it might be running. But when the ground flattens, we pass that farm and its cluster of outbuildings and I can’t look. I can’t think about anything. I just move my feet.
Ambrose tells us, ‘That house is being used as a hospital now.’
Will says, ‘Sully might be there, or maybe they need help nursing.’
We move into the woods, shaded and cool. And then we are out of the trees and into the sun. The sickly sweet smell gets stronger. Things lie about. Hats. Haversacks. Buckles. Buttons. All laid out before us, sprawling across the last low hill before the plowed fields and the fields that used to be corn. Ten horses lay scattered. Pieces of a rifle carriage. Our legs slow and then our feet stop. We stand there, silent, looking.
‘Union battery must’ve been here,’ Ambrose says. ‘Firing over our heads. Trying to help.’
The horses lay there, dropped out of their teams, harnesses tight around swollen bodies, looking like they just lay down for a nap in the sun. Some with thick legs twisted and torn, some with legs stiff and straight. To the far right is a broken-down caisson. One wheel splintered, three horses still harnessed to it, piled almost on each other, the ground torn up in front of them. The smell of rotting is everywhere. I retch before I get smart and hold my breath. Will has got his arm across face, covering his nose.
‘Waste of good plow horses,’ Thomas says.
No one has a thing different to say.
It’s all a waste, I want to say, my life, this whole war, this country too, but I keep my mouth shut.
‘We won’t find what we want here,’ Ambrose says. ‘There won’t be any muskets, not with the artillery.’
He starts walking again. They all do. I follow down the hill. We move closer to the woods, beyond the bare land where the cornfield was, to where Jeremiah is. Everything in my body pulls my feet to him but I only let my eyes go, looking for his tree. There it is, stretching out above the others. I take a sharp breath and hold it or else I will go to making noise. It’s near enough and I’ve got a job. I make myself do it.
We walk through the same fields we marched on only three days ago, the same fields Will and I passed through this morning. This time, I make myself see, I don’t have no choice. Jeremiah’s tree off in the distance. This whole valley bound by woods and low mountains the color of Mama’s lavender sachets. The ground ripples and rolls down to the town of Sharpsburg, land meant to be harvested, land I would have been proud to farm, if it could be had, before all this. Across the valley, near the trees, thin trails of camp smoke rise into the air. In the open fields, thick dark smoke rises from fires burning more than just sticks and kindling. The smell of singeing hair and roasting meat comes on the breeze. Burning carcasses.
Everywhere there are scattered clothes blown like laundry from the line, so soiled there’s no reason to gather it back up. And then there are the Rebel dead, their pockets turned out, their faces turned black from the sun, like tomatoes left too long. Touch them and they burst. I can’t stop myself from thinking of Jeremiah’s blue eyes. The freckles across his cheeks. How pale he looked.
‘You okay?’ Will’s voice, his head turned over his shoulder. Ambrose and Thomas spread apart, casting about.
‘Fine,’ I say. But I ain’t. I feel so sick, like sitting down on that field and never picking myself back up, like crying and tearing at my own clothes or the ground or anything. But I can’t. I make my legs, legs that don’t even feel like mine anymore, keep moving.
Ambrose bumps me with his elbow.
‘Want some?’ he asks, holds out his flask to me. ‘It’s a powerful help.’
My voice ain’t trustworthy so I shake my head. He lifts that flask to his mouth, taking a long pull.
‘You sure? Ever since my wife—It’s the only thing that makes it easier.’
And then I am not sure. I reach for that flask, its metal warm from Ambrose’s hand. He watches me take a swig. It tastes awful, like being back in Doc Cuck’s surgery, but there is something good about the heat down my throat.
When I take my mouth away, Ambrose says, ‘Have another,’ and I do.
It don’t make a thing better, but I say, ‘Thank you,’ and get out in front of Thomas and Will so I don’t have to see their faces. So none of them can see my feelings. So Will don’t look at me like I’ve done something bad, taking Ambrose’s drink.