142
After leaving Fredericksburg, Charles wandered aimlessly for three days. Lay rigid each night, unable to sleep. Lost his temper without provocation and almost got knifed for it in another wayside tavern. Wanted to cry and could not.
In the scarred country above the Rapidan, he came to a four-way crossroads and dismounted. While the mule cropped grass, he took off his gypsy robe and lay down at the roadside. He hoped the mule kept eating for hours. He had no destination. No reason to go on.
Out of the bright north, three men approached on foot. All three wore filthy remnants of butternut uniforms. One, a towhead of eighteen or nineteen, hobbled on a handmade crutch. His right leg ended in a stump three inches above the road.
He was the one who greeted Charles with a wave and a smile. 'Howdy. You're one of our boys, aren't you?'
Charles took the cigar out of his mouth. 'I'm not one of anybody's boys anymore.'
Giving him surly stares, the soldiers muttered among themselves, swung to the other side of the road, and continued on south. To homes that probably don't exist any longer, Charles thought.
Down the road, he heard noises suggesting a vehicle. He turned on his left elbow, squinted, saw the soldiers pass a group coming the other way. The soldiers went by without speaking. The group consisted of four people: a man, a woman, and two small girls. Black.
When they came closer, he saw their clothes were clean but threadbare. The cart, which carried the girls and some possessions bundled in croker sacks, had solid wheels but otherwise looked flimsy, obviously built by someone not trained as a wheelwright.
Nor did the family own an animal. The father pulled the cart. The mother walked barefoot beside him.
Yet neither parent seemed unhappy. They smiled and sang right along with their children. The mother and two girls clapped the beat. Charles stared at them as they started to go by. The sight of him reclining in the grass made them tense. The singing softened. He could hear no words except one: '
A grimace twisted his mouth. The father took note of that and of Charles's gray shirt. He took a firmer grip on the handles of the cart, pulling it as quickly as he could through the crossroads and away down the northern road. The children looked back at Charles, but not the adults.
Too tired and despondent to move, he tethered the mule to a tree branch. He wriggled back against the trunk, intending to doze a few minutes. There was no hurry about anything. She was gone for good.
He woke with a start. The slant of the light told him it was late afternoon. Something hanging above him tickled his face.
Half the tether, still tied to a branch. It had been chewed apart. The mule was gone, saddle gear and all. Luckily he still had his army Colt in the holster.
From the crossroads, he walked about half a mile in each of four directions. The road to the west faded away around a bend; the western landscape blended into the backdrop of the Blue Ridge. He stared at the mountains a moment, recalling his fondness for Texas.
He trudged back to the crossroads. No sign of the mule anywhere. Damn.
The sun slanted lower, casting spears of light between thick trees at the southwest corner of the crossroads. Charles started suddenly. Out toward the Shenandoah, past the woodlands, he heard a wailing rebel yell —
He shook his head. It was only the whistle of a train speeding through the countryside. A Yankee-operated train, more than likely. They had so many of them. And so many guns. And so many men who had come out of mills and stockyards and barns and offices and saloons to make war as nobody had ever made war before.
He walked into the center of the empty crossroads and surveyed it, and then the dead, empty land. For one strange moment, he felt as if all of the might of the Union had been directed against him personally.
It had beaten him, too.
He stood at the crossroads in the lowering dusk, tired desperation in his eyes. He just wanted to lie down. Stop. For good.
But pictures kept intruding. The Bible salesman he had met in Goldsboro who said they wanted cavalrymen on the plains. He had the right experience. It would be a way to survive. Start over. Maybe find a scrap of hope someday.
Hope in a world like this? Stupid idea. He'd do better to lie down in the roadside grass and never get up.
But more pictures came. Men with whom he had served. Ab Woolner. Calbraith Butler. Wade Hampton. Lee — imagine how he must have felt, once the superintendent of West Point and the country's finest soldier, forced to ask a fellow Academy graduate for terms. They said Old Marse Bob had conducted himself with dignity, rebuffing a few hotheads who wanted to continue guerrilla war from the hills and woodlands.
Although the men Charles remembered had, in his opinion, fought for the wrong reasons, they weren't quitters. Gus wasn't a quitter either. He dwelled on her memory awhile. It summoned a detail he had forgotten. A name.
Brigadier Duncan.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Gus had unmistakably signaled that their love affair was over, but he could at least satisfy himself as to her whereabouts and her well-being. Duncan might be able to help, if Charles could locate him.
Only one place to start. Not the safest place, either. But he didn't worry too much, because suddenly recalling Duncan infused him with the kind of energy he hadn't felt in a long time. His head started to clear, and his chin came up. Still a lot of daylight left. He had time to walk awhile. He picked up the gypsy robe and left the crossroads, northbound.
In half an hour he caught up with the black family, resting at the roadside. The moment the adults recognized him, they looked alarmed. Stopping in the center of the road, Charles took off his hat and tried to smile. It came hard. It had nothing to do with who or what they were. It just came hard.
'Evening.'
'Evening,' the father said.
Less suspicious than her husband, the woman said, 'Are you going north?'
'Washington.'
'That's where we're going. Would you like to sit down and rest?'
'Yes, I would, thank you.' He did. One of the girls giggled and smiled at him. 'I lost my mule. I'm pretty tired.'
At last the father smiled. 'I was born tired, but lately I've been feeling better.'
Charles wished he could say the same. 'If you're willing, I'll be glad to help you pull that cart.'
'You're a soldier.' He didn't mean a Union soldier.
'Was,' Charles said. 'Was.'
143
Brigadier Jack Duncan, a stocky officer with crinkly gray hair, a drink-mottled nose, and a jaw like a short horizontal line, strode into the War Department, shoulders back, left hand resting on the hilt of his gleaming dress sword. When he emerged half an hour later, he was beaming.
He had enjoyed a brief but highly satisfactory chat with Mr. Stanton, who commended him for his performance of Washington staff work throughout the war and for his patience when repeated requests for field
