Retreat from Gettysburg

Kathleen Ernst

Preview

Winner of 2001 Arthur Tofte
Juvenile Fiction Book Award

The night after the wagon train of wounded Rebels arrived back from Gettysburg I dreamed of Ma and her fiddle.  She was playing a lively jig.  Egan and Patrick and Liam were all clapping their hands and hooting, grinning, very alive.  Pa shouted, "Saw that thing, Maureen!" and began stomping one booted foot on the floor in time with the beat.  But too soon the fiddle music faded, and all I could hear was Pa stomping….

I jerked awake and realized the stomping was, after all, someone pounding on our front door.  The first gray light of a new morn was creeping across the moldy floorboards.  Ma crouched beside the pallet of blankets on the floor where I slept, and shook my shoulder.  "Chig, get up. Trouble."  She was dressed, but her hair hung down her back in a loose braid.

"What is it?"  I jumped to my feet, quick pulled on my trousers, and fastened the suspenders-all that held them up, these days.

"I don't know.  See to the door."

My heart was pounding like the fist of whoever was beyond the door.  In the seconds it took to open the door I wondered if my brothers would have been scared, if they were still alive.  I didn't think so.  They'd all screwed up the courage to enlist in the Union Army, after all…especially Patrick and Liam, who knew when they left that wars were not about fun and glory after all.

I found three Rebels on the front step.  The man in front had gray hair, and dark pouches under blood-shot eyes, and looked unsteady on his feet.  He was either a drinker or plum exhausted.  "I'm Surgeon Hatfield," he said.  "I've a wagon full of wounded men to find shelter for.  How many can you take in?"

Take in?  A surge of hatred inside burned away my fear.  "None!"

"This is a Union house," Ma added behind me, in a tone that would have sent any O'Malley male running for cover.

But the doctor didn't care a whit for an Irish woman's ire.  "Good Lord, madam," he snapped, "I've got men dying here!"  He shoved me aside and motioned behind him.  "Sergeant Krick!  Bring Captain Tallard in."

One of the soldiers behind him was supporting the other, Tallard.  The hurt man's head wobbled toward his chest.  He wasn't wearing a jacket, just a dirty old homespun blouse with a bloodstain off to one side.  Then I noticed he only had one arm.  His left arm ended just above the elbow.

Surgeon Hatfield pointed at my mother's bed in the corner.  "Put him there."

My hands balled into fists.  "You can't - "

"Hush your trap, boy, 'fore I hush it for you," Sergeant Krick grunted.  He was a big man, with black hair and a fierce bruise on one cheek and a toothbrush dangling from a buttonhole.  It seemed the oddest thing, seeing that toothbrush hanging against the muddy rags of his uniform.

He eased Tallard down on the blankets.  "There you be, George," he said, his voice suddenly softer.  He took a moment to push a pillow beneath the bandaged stump where Tallard's arm had been.  "You'll be able to dry out here.  Get some rest.  I'll come see to you when I can."

The surgeon was stalking around the room, looking in all the corners.  A moment later he was in the kitchen, opening drawers, banging cupboard doors.

"You're going to rob us even as you leave one of your own in this house?" Ma demanded.  She had backed against a wall, arms hugged across her chest.

"No," he said shortly.  And to Krick, "Fetch them in a sack of flour, and some coffee and sugar.  There isn't food to feed a mouse."

Krick nodded.  "Is it just the captain, then?  Or should I get another man from the wagon?"

"There's no room in here for more."  Surgeon Hatfield took off his grimy hat and ran a hand through his hair.  It splayed out in odd points, stiff and dirty, until he slapped his hat back on.  "Is there a decent stable outside? Corn crib?  Pig pen, even?  We've got to get those men out of the rain!"

Krick shook his head.  "Roof's falling in on the stable, and there's nothing else."

"We've no man left to tend the place," Ma put in, cold as January ice.  "You Rebels have killed them all."

I drew a deep breath, working at one of the punky places in the floor with a toe.  I was the man of the place…wasn't I?  That's what Ma said all the time, when she begged me not to go off like the others.

"I'm sorry for your troubles," Hatfield said, sounding weary. "But I can't help you."  He pointed at the crucifix on the wall.  "This is a Christian house? Well, do your Christian duty.  Tend this man, best you can.  I'll stop back when I can to check on him.  Keep the stump elevated. Let him have water or a bit of bread if he'll take it.  Wine would be better, if you have some hidden away."

After they left, Krick came back with a sack of provisions and dumped them on the floor.  "You folks can share, but make sure our man gets what he needs."  He fixed me with a look that silenced my protest.  "Boy, I'll be back this way.  If I find you didn't tend that man well, I'll blow your head off."

Ma's hand landed on my shoulder as Krick left, her fingers biting like talons.  "Don't make trouble, Chig.  You're all I have left."

I stood for a moment, watching several scarecrow Rebels working to get the ambulance wagon out front moving again.  It had sunk hub-deep in the ooze, and two men were wrestling planks under the wheels to give purchase while another whipped the skinny mules hitched in front, cursing like the devil.  I wished the earth would swallow the wagon whole, with the wounded inside, all sucked down to the fiery pits of Hell where they belonged.

Then I slammed the door.  And the three of us were alone: me, Ma, and the Rebel.

Ma stared for a moment, then stalked into the kitchen.  She looked like an angry crow in the rusty black dress of mourning she'd been wearing day-in day-out for two years.  I followed her and watched as she leaned against the wall, as far from the door into the main room as she could be.  Then all the anger seemed to sag from her body, and her fight with it.  I bolted forward as her knees buckled and she slid slowly down in a heap.  "Ma! Are you faint?"

"No. I just…I can't bear the sight of that murdering Rebel.  In my own house!  In my own bed! All my boys were born in that bed, Chig.  My boys - " Her voice broke and she buried her face in her hands.

I didn't know what to do.  I touched her shoulder, but she didn't move.  I'm all the protection she has left, I thought, and wished I knew what in the blazes I could do for her.  Would the arrival of this Rebel crush the last spark of light out of her?  Would she finally just give up, slip away from me for good?

I padded back into the main room and sidled toward the bed, staring at Tallard.  I'd seen Rebels, many times.  The sight always brought out a civil war within me of hatred and fear.  But this one was wounded, weak as a new-born pup by the looks of it.  He couldn't hurt me.

But I could hurt him.

The thought hooked on my brain like a catfish on bait.  I took another step toward the bed.