I Shall Be Near to You (7 page)

I said, ‘I want to cool off a bit,’ and undid the laces of my boots, rolled down my stockings, slipped them off.

Holding my skirt out so it wouldn’t get wet, I squished the silt between my toes, the water cool enough to almost make me forget the sweat-damp dress sticking to my back. Dipping my free hand into the creek, I skimmed it along the back of my neck. Jeremiah stood rooted.

Just to make him stop staring, I said, ‘You remember the last time we were here, just us? You remember how you said you wanted your own farm?’

‘Course,’ he said.

‘You still want that?’ I asked, standing so quiet a fingerling fish brushed up against my ankle.

‘I do,’ he said, ‘I’ve been keeping those ideas in my head. But the war—’

‘You still thinking on Nebraska?’

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve been thinking on that. Could get a whole farm, a hundred sixty acres, for maybe two hundred dollars.’

I don’t know what made me do it but when I stepped out of the creek, I brushed against him as I headed for my shoes. He turned to watch me, that look coming back.

‘How you going to get that kind of money?’ I asked, stooping to get my things. ‘My Papa can’t pay you none.’

‘I ain’t working for your Papa for money. I’ve got other ideas.’

My cheeks went hot and I couldn’t say a thing so I washed off the dirt and leaves sticking to my feet, dunking my toes into the water before standing on one leg, trying to get that clean foot back into my shoe.

‘Here,’ Jeremiah said, walking to the edge of the water and holding out his arm. I grabbed hold to steady myself, planning on saying thank you or else asking what other ideas he has got, but those words stopped in my throat. I didn’t move as he bent closer, his arm reaching across my back, his mouth pressing to mine, and it was hot and wet and my arms went right around him.

When he drew away from me, I didn’t want him to quit. My eyes opened onto his blue ones and I couldn’t remember closing them. I looked at his jaw and the stubble growing there. He bent to me again, but before his lips touched mine he said, ‘You still want that farm too?’ and I didn’t have to say yes, I just let him kiss me.

I
WAKE UNDER
a bare-limbed tree at first light, my head resting on my pack, my blanket tucked up to my chin, my back aching from the cold or all the walking. Off in the distance there’s the rumble and creak of a wagon, and that gets me up. When it comes close, the old man sitting on the bench nods all friendly while his skinny bay horse draws him past.

I jog after that wagon until the farmer says ‘Whoa,’ milking the reins until the gelding stops.

‘’Scuse me,’ I say, my voice catching in my throat.

The old man leans a bit closer. Maybe I should have let him keep driving.

‘You heading to Herkimer?’

‘No,’ he says.

‘You know how much farther it is?’

‘Most of a day’s ride, I expect,’ the man says.

It makes me want to kick rocks or throw sticks after walking so hard yesterday and I ain’t barely halfway there.

‘You mind giving me a ride?’

‘I’m only going up the road a little piece,’ he says, ‘but it’ll save you a bit of walking.’

I croak out, ‘Thank you,’ and haul myself up onto the wagon. I have only just sat when he clucks and slaps the reins on the bay’s back, making the horse lurch into the trot.

‘What’s your business in Herkimer?’ the man asks over the sound of the horse’s hooves. ‘You looking for work?’

‘I aim to enlist.’

‘Well, now!’ He turns to give me a quick look. ‘Ain’t you awful young for a soldier?’

Before I can think what to say to that, he pulls up his pant leg, showing me the long, jagged scar running from his knee down into his boot. ‘Got this in Mexico. I was luckier than most. Got to keep the leg and never got yellow fever or the pox or none of it. Fared better than most everyone I knew, that’s for damn sure.’

When my silence gets too long he says, ‘You’re mighty brave, going it all alone.’

‘I’ve got a cousin I’m meeting.’

‘The friend I joined up with never even made it as far as Texas. The bloody flux is what got him.’ He looks me over again. ‘But you look healthy enough.’

And then he is stopping at a lane and saying, ‘I guess I can’t convince you to help unload this timber then, can I?’

‘No, Sir,’ I say, and clamber down fast.

‘My wife will have a hot supper on …’

‘I thank you kindly, but I’m already late getting there.’

‘Best of luck to you then. The march ahead of you ain’t nothing a good soldier can’t manage in a day. You’ll know you’re getting close when you start smelling the tannery. Damned if it don’t make me think of Texas every time …’

I look back the way I’ve come. Papa’s always saying there’s work enough on the farm for a dozen farmhands and how I ain’t got to be married if I
don’t want. If I’d asked, he would have sent Isaac Lewis on his way and let me be his farmhand again.

But then there is that farmer, putting his hand up to wave as he turns down the lane. I can almost see Jeremiah in him, driving home to his farm, to his wife, and the life I want.

I look up the road. All those miles between me and Jeremiah.

C
AMP

MOHAWK VALLEY, NEW YORK:
FEBRUARY–MARCH 1862

‘I’ll tie back my hair, men’s clothing I’ll
put on, I’ll pass as your comrade,
as we march along. I’ll pass as your
comrade, no one will ever know. Won’t
you let me go with you? No, my love, no.’

—‘The Cruel War’

CHAPTER
7

HERKIMER, NEW YORK: FEBRUARY 22, 1862

It is my shivering that wakes me early the second morning and I walk fast along the wide river. Already the houses are closer together and then there is the rotting stink of the tannery and then a real town, with a jail and a courthouse and a newspaper and four hotels, one saying
Herkimer
on it.

Being in that town not even five minutes makes me feel like a simpleton. There’s ladies in silk and satin dresses with ruffles and flounces and not one made from calico, dresses Betsy’d be happy just to touch. There’s so many wagons and carriages all together, more than are ever parked outside Flat Creek Church, even on Independence Day. The only thing that reminds me of home is the mud and smell of the horses, only the smell here is worse than a closed-up barn in Winter. There is too much to look at, windows with signs saying
Arrow’s Iron Tonic
, and
Carter’s Little Liver Pills
, and
Lilly’s Washing Machine Sold on its Merits
, and a door saying
Tintypes and Daguerreotypes
.

Someone knocks into me. It is only a little boy, skipping past, holding on to his mama’s hand, but as I turn, I catch sight of a poster on the wall.
RECRUITS WANTED
!
PRESERVE THE UNION
! it says so big even blind old Miss Weiss couldn’t help but see. 97
TH NY VOLUNTEERS
!
GET YOUR BOUNTY
! $152! W
EDNESDAY FEBRUARY
19
AT THE COURTHOUSE IN THE TOWN OF HERKIMER
.

I am three days late. Jeremiah is gone already, probably on a train bound to New York City or maybe even Washington, D.C. I will have to go home alone, walking back all the way I’ve come. I will have to listen to people whisper about my hair and where I’ve gone to for the rest of my days. I will have to face Eli again. I almost die of shame right there.

I can’t make myself turn for home, not yet, so I start down the street, only my way is blocked.

‘I want to show Dada at supper!’ the little boy yells, hopping up and down.

‘Dada’s in Utica, remember I told you?’ his mama says as he drags on her arm. ‘He’s a soldier for the Army now, and soldiers can’t come home for supper.’

I don’t hear anything else the little boy says because I am turning back to that enlistment poster to see what I missed before, the words
NOW ENCAMPED AT UTICA
stamped in smaller letters at the bottom.

There is still hope for it; maybe Jeremiah is there with those men in Utica. I pull out Jeremiah’s map, trace the route. Utica is fifteen miles more on the Mohawk River, the Erie Canal going right through it, same as in Herkimer. The canal is mostly drained for Winter and all iced over, but if I follow the tow path I can’t help but get there. If I just keep walking, I will find what I am looking for.

‘A
RE YOU THINKING
about joining up?’

I jump out of my skin and almost fall off the boulder I’m sitting on. There, standing on the road behind me, is a girl maybe my age, a shawl wrapped around her shoulders, a book in her hands.

‘Me?’ I say before I remember myself and what it is I am supposed to
do. After four hours’ walking, my food gone and the water in my canteen so cold that drinking it sets my teeth on edge, I’ve been resting, watching the field beyond where a small herd of men marches in columns and rows, waiting ’til something tells me the time is right. ‘Afternoon, Miss,’ I say, and tip my hat.

‘Good afternoon,’ she says, her voice light and quiet. She is a willowy thing, her skin pale, her eyes hazel and her auburn hair swept up in twists too fancy for living in the white tents set back from the road a piece. Even in her shawl and plain brown wool, she can’t hide being other than a town girl.

‘You guessed right,’ I say, working to keep my voice low. ‘I’m after enlisting.’

‘Oh, then you should speak to my husband, Captain Chalmers. I can take you to him,’ she says.

‘No need to trouble yourself. You can just point the way.’

‘It’d be nice to walk,’ she says. ‘It’ll keep me warm. Come with me.’

Mrs. Chalmers sweeps in front of me, down the packed-mud path leading away from the road, her skirt skimming the ground. I don’t like having one more person witnessing me getting myself enlisted, especially not a woman who will see the detail of a thing more than any man.

Outside the biggest tent, where the Stars and Stripes flag is flying with a small blue banner underneath it, Mrs. Chalmers says, ‘Why don’t you wait here,’ and ducks to go in.

I don’t know what I’m going to say to her husband, but it’s easier than figuring what I’m going to tell mine. I pull my cap down low and run my hands down my front, checking all my buttons. And then I try and see inside that tent, listening hard to hear Mrs. Chalmers say, ‘There’s a young man outside who wants to enlist,’ but it don’t ease the feeling that I’ve got bees buzzing inside me. Isaac Lewis got sent home for having bad eyes, and if a doctor’s exam don’t smash my plan all to bits I don’t know what would.

When Mrs. Chalmers comes back, there is a man following behind her, older than I thought her husband would be and her so young. He looks at me long enough I count the seven buttons on his blue coat.

‘My wife says you’d like to enlist?’

‘That’s right.’ I stand taller. ‘I’m hoping you’ve still got some numbers to fill.’

‘What’s your name?’ Captain Chalmers says, passing the black-bound ledger in his hand to his wife.

‘Ross,’ I say, ‘Ross Stone.’ It ain’t what I planned, but there it is. I aimed to be Ross Wakefield, Jeremiah Wakefield’s cousin, but my head has gone soft. ‘I’ve got a cousin, I think joined up a few days ago in Herkimer. Jeremiah Wakefield?’

Captain Chalmers looks at his wife. She nods and says, ‘That’s right,’ and then his smile cracks his beard open like a nut. ‘Family affair?’ he says.

‘Uh-huh.’

‘What county you born in?’ he asks.

‘Montgomery,’ I tell him, and watch Mrs. Chalmers write it in the ledger.

‘Age?’ the man says.

‘Eighteen,’ I say.

‘Occupation?’

‘Farmer.’

‘Height?’

‘Five foot two,’ I say, standing straighter so maybe it will be true. He looks up for a second like he’s got rulers for eyes.

‘Health?’ he says, still measuring.

‘Good. Strong.’

‘Run for me, along there.’ He points to the path Mrs. Chalmers and I walked to get here.

‘Run?’ I ask, my throat closing.

‘Yes’—he waves his hand—‘to that tent and back.’

‘All right.’

I turn around and when my boots land on that path, I pretend it is just my toes hitting the spitting line, Sully saying, ‘Let’s see if Rosetta can spit like she talks,’ and me working up a ball of it, my back arched and ready to strike when Mama’s voice comes from around the church corner, yelling,
‘Rosetta Florence Edwards! It’s bad enough you’re always with the boys but now you’re acting like one, too!’

I take long fast steps, turn right back around and run as fast as I can to where Captain Chalmers and his wife are standing. He looks at me with his head cocked, listening to me breathe for a good long minute, long enough I start sweating under my binding.

When he sticks his hand out, I grab it firm and shake like I’ve seen Papa do. The man nods and says, ‘Pass,’ while his wife writes. I can’t read as good upside down, but I see she puts
Good health
. Then she turns the book to me and pushes the pen and says, ‘Make your mark.’

I let out the breath I’ve been holding and sign my new name.

‘Welcome to Company H of the Ninety-seventh Volunteers, Private Stone,’ the Captain says.

CHAPTER
8

UTICA, NEW YORK: FEBRUARY 22, 1862

Captain don’t waste any time. He leaves his wife and takes me straight away to where the Regiment is drilling across the muddy parade ground, the men shoulder to shoulder in rows of ten, moving across that field like plow horses at harvest time. With no uniforms or rifles they look more like a town militia than the Federal Army, and now I am bound to join them. My stomach knots itself to think of hiding in all these men, but then I remind myself of why I have come all this way.

Jeremiah. I can’t get a good look at any of the men because from somewhere in the ranks, a man orders, ‘Company, Right Flank!’ and they all turn away. The same voice yells, ‘Company, Extend to the Left!’ and the men fan out into long lines stretched wide across the field. He calls, ‘Company, Close March!’ and they move back together into a bunch, their backs still to us.