When Johnny Came Marching Home Read online

  Abel and Johnny and I were holed up behind a fallen tree awaiting the command to again charge the Confederate line. But the fire had ended that. Now we just waited and listened as the wounded, Union and Rebels alike, screamed in horror as they burned to death in the raging brush fire.

  "Somebody's gotta go help them boys." Abel was staring at me as he spoke, his face covered with dirt and ash, his eyes wide with the terror of what he was proposing. He looked behind us. "Where the hell's all our officers? Why ain't they sendin' us out ta git 'em?"

  "They're keepin' their asses safe, jus' like always," Johnny snapped. "Jus' like all of us gotta do, else we'll be layin' out there gettin' burned up too."

  Another scream reached my ears as the fire reached another soldier. It was long and sustained and filled with terror, and it cut me to my gut. "We gotta go and get anybody we can," I said. I looked at Abel and saw the fear in his eyes, the same fear I felt myself. Abel gave a short, brusque nod and I knew he was ready to go with me. I turned to Johnny, who stared at me as though I were speaking in a foreign tongue. I kicked him in the thigh. "Come on, while there's still smoke to give us cover." I had been promoted to sergeant several months earlier, so I outranked them both, and I made it sound as much like an order as I could.

  Abel and I eased ourselves over the fallen tree and began to crawl forward. When we were halfway to the flaming brush I looked back and saw that Johnny had finally begun to follow.

  Miraculously, no one fired a shot in our direction. Maybe the thick smoke hid us from the Rebels; maybe they were just glad to see someone going to the dying men, hoping just like us that the screaming would stop.

  When we reached the fire we used our canteens to wet our bandannas and cover our noses and mouths. Even so the smoke pressed into our lungs and burned our eyes, and the heat from the burning brush made us feel like we were being roasted on a spit.

  Abel and I each grabbed a soldier by the collar. Their uniforms were covered in ash and soot and you couldn't tell if they wore blue or gray, or even where or how badly they were wounded. They were breathing and peering up at us with pleading, fear-filled eyes, and that was all that mattered.

  As I dragged my soldier back I passed Johnny. "Go get somebody. Nobody's shooting at us."

  "Nobody's shootin' at you," Johnny growled back. "They're waitin' to blow my ass ta hell an' back."

  We had made three trips to the fire before some officer saw us and ordered others to help, but by then the flames had overtaken the battlefield and the screams began to lessen and finally stop, and we knew there was no point in going out again, that there would be no one left to save.

  When the smoke cleared the shooting started again, each side taking potshots at the other, the mercy we had felt an hour earlier disappearing with the smoke. We stayed low behind the log and I looked back at the boys we had pulled to safety. There were nearly a dozen and I could tell now that at least two wore Rebel uniforms. One of the Rebs stared back at me, a mixture of gratitude and confusion in his eyes. He had a wound in his belly and I could see his intestines oozing out from a tear in his shirt, and I knew the man would die. But at least he hadn't burned to death.

  Johnny crawled up beside me and followed my gaze. "We sure wasted our time savin' him," he said.

  I turned back to the field. The smoke was largely gone now, and I could see the burned bodies still steaming from the fire, and the smell of charred meat floated back to me. I drew a long, weary breath and then regretted that I had.

  * * *

  Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1865

  My father came home the next morning. I explained what had happened, told him what I had done so far. He seemed satisfied, which pleased me, and we walked down the road to the Harris's barn so he could see where Johnny had been killed.

  Aside from my mutilated arm, I had grown into a fair-sized man, tall and rawboned with my father's broad shoulders. But I was still half a head and a good thirty pounds smaller than he. My father also had wide, heavy features, while mine were more delicate and pronounced and came, along with my curly brown hair and hazel eyes, from the mother I could barely remember. But there was no question we were father and son, and people often said that my movements and manner of walking mimicked his. I do not know if this was from heredity or by unconscious design.

  When we reached the parsonage my father went inside to speak with Reverend Harris and his wife. When I had left the Harris's yesterday I asked them to keep everyone away from the barn until I had searched it more thoroughly, and I went there now to make sure nothing had been disturbed.

  I was standing near the spot where I had first seen Johnny's body, and I stared down at the dirt floor and scattered straw still heavily stained by the blood that had poured from his body.

  My father came up beside me. "I take it this is where Josiah found him," he said. He paused. "Are ya sure he din' have nothin' more ta do with it?"

  "As sure as I can be," I said.

  He thought that over. "Well, ya went through four years a war wit the boy, so I figure ya know him better'n all of us." He turned to face me. "Ya got any ideas 'bout who mighta done it?"

  I shook my head slowly. "Johnny and I haven't stayed close since I got back home. But I've heard some things, stories about him making eyes at women he should have stayed away from. To be honest, I kind of ignored it."

  "Married women?" my father asked. "Who'd ya hear this from?"

  "It was just talk going around. You know how that is. Everybody knows everybody's business here. And with some, what they don't know they make up."

  He nodded. "Yeah, I heard some things too. But it was mostly cracker-barrel talk 'bout how the boy came back even wilder than afore he left. I just chalked it up ta the boy blowin' off steam he'd built up in that Rebel prison he ended up in."

  I thought about that, about Johnny's time in Andersonville Prison and all the horrors I'd heard about the place, the starving, malnourished prisoners, the rampant disease. But I also knew what Johnny had done before he was captured. I decided I'd keep that to myself for now.

  My father and I searched the barn to no avail. Whoever killed Johnny had obviously taken the weapon with him. As we prepared to leave he placed a hand on my shoulder. "I want ya ta follow up on what Johnny was doin' since he got back. You'll do better talkin' to the younger folks than I will. Ya find yourself dealin' with older folks who ain't talkin' too freely, or if ya think ya need my help on anything, ya just let me know." He glanced down at the pistol on my hip. "I'm glad ta see ya had the sense to strap that on. You keep wearin' it. Right now we don't know who killed that boy or what he's gonna do when we find out who he is. But ya kin be sure of one thing: he ain't gonna wanna be caught."

  * * *

  Johnny's open coffin lay in the Harris's sitting room. He had been dressed in his Union uniform, the two medals he'd earned pinned to his breast. They were simple unit citations, but his parents were obviously proud he had received them and someone had taken care to polish them until they shined brightly.

  It was early evening and the oil lamps were already lit, giving the sitting room a hazy glow. I stood quietly before the bier. Josiah Flood stood beside me. Josiah had been with the three of us throughout the war, assigned as a litter-bearer for the medical unit that followed our regiment into battle. It was one of the more dangerous jobs. Litter-bearers were lightly armed, usually carrying only a pistol, and of necessity they often performed their duties out in the open where they were easy targets for the Rebs. Many Union officers preferred to use Negroes because they considered them expendable.

  After expressing our condolences to the Harris's, Josiah and I bypassed the food that had been laid out for guests and moved to the wide veranda that ran along three sides of the parsonage.

  "Johnny sure is lookin' like a reg'ler hero in his uniform," Josiah said, his words laden with sarcasm.

  I nodded, but said nothing. The air was crisp and cold and, as with any change in weather, I could feel a tingling that s
eemed centered in my missing arm. The doctors told me to expect it, warning I would even feel pain or muscle spasms where none could possibly exist. When this happened I rubbed the stump and it usually went away, although that was something I refused to do when anyone else was present.

  "There's been some talk about Johnny acting wild since he got back home," I said. "I know you hear things that are being said. You hear anything about that?"

  Josiah smiled and looked out into the night. "Those two years ya spent at the college done made ya sly, ya know that, Jubal?"

  With Doc Pierce's help I had gotten a scholarship to the University of Vermont and had attended for two years before the war broke out. When I returned, despite my father's and Doc Pierce's urging, I found I had little interest in going back.

  "Sly or not, tell me what you've heard."

  Josiah stared at me for several moments. He had grown into a tall, thin, wiry man, with a broad nose and heavy lips that broke into an easy smile whenever something pleased him. He had carried me to safety after a mortar shell had blown me halfway across a Virginia meadow, and I knew without question that I owed him my life. He was also a Negro, and as such someone the good white people of Jerusalem's Landing spoke in front of as though he did not exist.

  "What I heard, or what I seen?" he asked.

  I inclined my head to the side, questioning his response.

  "Ya tellin' me ya ain't heard 'bout Johnny an' my sister Heddy?"

  "Not a word."

  Josiah smiled at me. It was not a warm smile. "Well, maybe ya ain't as sly as I was thinkin'."

  Josiah's sister Heddy was seventeen years old, a plain but pleasant young girl who earned a living doing domestic chores for some of the town's more prosperous families. She was slightly dull-witted and Josiah provided her a room in his small cabin in exchange for some basic cooking and cleaning.

  "Why don't you tell me what you're talking about?" I said.

  Josiah drew a long breath. "It was 'bout two months ago, durin' tha' week when it gots so hot."

  I nodded, urging him to continue.

  "Well, I quit work early, the heat was so bad, and when I got ta my cabin I found Johnny forcin' hisself on my sister."

  "Raping her?" I asked.

  He studied his shoes, then looked up and shook his head. "Ya know Heddy's a bit slow, that it don' take much ta talk her inta anythin'. Well, Johnny, he done talked her inta takin' off her shirt, an' when I gots there he had her up against the back a my ol' shed an' he was runnin' his hands all over her. Weren't no question where he wanted ta go, an' woulda iffen I din' come home early."

  "So what did you do?"

  A slow, unhappy smile formed on Josiah's face. "I throwed his ass offen my sister an' my land."

  "Did you two fight?"

  "Wasn't much of a fight," Josiah said. "I grabbed him an' pulled him off Heddy an' throwed him onna groun'." He paused, then continued, "An' maybe I kicked him a time or two."

  "That must of riled him up a bit," I said.

  "A bit, but there was an ol' pitchfork leanin' up against the shed an' I took hold of it, an' he moved off right smart . . . said he'd make me answer fer what I done later."

  "And did he?"

  "Never said another word ta me, an' whenever we came across each other he jus' looked right through me . . . like I wasn't even there."

  I thought over what Josiah had said. "Why'd you think I knew about this?" I asked.

  "I figured Johnny woulda tol' ya."

  "Why?"

  "Yer his frien' . . . his white frien'," he said.

  "Johnny and I haven't been friends since that time in Spotsylvania. You know that, Josiah."

  He looked at me and I could see regret in his eyes. "Truth is, there's times when I don't know nothin' 'bout white people," he said.

  * * *

  I remained on the veranda after Josiah left. Walter Johnson and his wife Mary arrived to pay their respects, although Rebecca was noticeably absent. I asked after her and was told she'd been delayed at the store and would be along presently. Rebecca arrived a short time later, nodded a greeting to me, and went inside. I decided to wait so I could speak to her about Johnny, about something she had said about him.

  While I waited I glanced in the window and noticed that Rebecca had chosen not to sit with her father and stepmother, but was quietly speaking to Reverend Harris and his wife.

  When she came outside I asked if I could have a moment of her time. The question brought an odd look to her face.

  "You're always welcome to my time, Jubal," she said. "I hope you will always remember that."

  I took her elbow and guided her to the far end of the veranda where we could find some privacy. Standing in the muted light that came from a nearby window I was again struck by Rebecca's beauty, the soft glow that seemed to radiate from her face, the gentleness that flowed from her emerald eyes, and I had to force myself to speak quickly or risk becoming mute and appearing like some lovesick schoolboy.

  "You said something the other day, something about Johnny," I began. "You said he left for the war as a pleasant boy and returned a cruel man." I paused, but she said nothing. "What happened to make you feel that way?"

  She stared at me with open curiosity. "Didn't you notice the change in him? You grew up with Johnny, we both did. He was mischievous, just as we all were. But none of us were cruel. When Johnny came home you could see the cruelty in him. It flowed out of his eyes when he looked at you. When you got home you must have seen that. Haven't you heard things about him since you got home?"

  I felt suddenly embarrassed. I had had one very brief, very violent confrontation with Johnny shortly after I returned home, and I had found little satisfaction in it. I had spent almost a year in a military hospital in Virginia, not only recovering from my wounds but also nursing the overwhelming pity I felt for myself. Since returning home, that pity had only grown and I hadn't paid much attention to anything but myself. Now that realization reached out and shook me.

  I studied my boots for a moment. "I guess I haven't noticed a lot of things. And I haven't paid attention to the things I've heard, especially things about Johnny. To be honest, I avoided Johnny, and everything about him, as much as I possibly could."

  "You've avoided everyone, Jubal." She touched the empty sleeve of my shirt, and it startled me and made me take a step back. She stared at me. "Just as you are now," she said, her voice becoming little more than a whisper. "Come back to us, Jubal. Come back to me. My brother never came home. You lost your arm, don't lose everything else because of it."

  I looked out into the night. "It's very hard, Rebecca."

  "Yes, I'm certain it is. But the war took Abel away from me. I don't want it to take you too."

  I turned back to her, but had difficulty meeting her eyes. "Tell me about the cruelty you saw in Johnny," I said.

  She shook her head, but I couldn't tell if it was about Johnny, or because I had avoided what she had said to me. I suspected it was the latter. She turned and now it was she who stared out into the dark night. "He came into the store quite often, especially over the last few months. It was the way he looked at people, Jubal, almost as if he had contempt for everyone he met, people he had known all his life. And it was also the things he said. We spoke about Abel right after he came home, and I asked him if he was with my brother when he died. He said he wasn't, but he knew what had happened. He said Abel died because he was a fool." She turned back to me, her eyes filled with tears. "Is that true, Jubal?"

  Rage built inside me. I had been with Abel, had seen him draw his final breath. I knew why he had died. But I could tell Rebecca none of it, not now . . . perhaps never.

  "No, it's not true," I said. "It was a stupid thing for him to say . . . stupid and cruel. Did he ever say that to your father?"

  "No, not that I ever heard." Her jaw had tightened when I mentioned her father.

  "Did he speak to your mother?"

  Again, her jaw tightened. "Yes, he did. He came home
two weeks before she drowned, and she went to him to ask him about Abel's grave. She was deeply, deeply wounded that her son's body was buried so far away. So she went to him looking for some comfort. But Johnny had nothing to offer except more pain, and my mother told me that he seemed to take great pleasure in the terrible things he told her, in the suffering it caused her." She lowered her eyes. "Two weeks later she was dead."

  "What exactly did he say?"

  "He said the boys who died at the Wilderness were all thrown into a pit together, Rebels and Union alike, and then covered over. It was a lie. I wrote to the army and they told me exactly where Abel is buried. They assured me it is a solitary, marked grave that our family can visit. But my mother was already dead by the time that letter arrived."

  My rage was still boiling, yet I could think of no way to comfort her. "I'm sorry," I said. It was all I could manage.

  Chapter Four

  Jerusalem's Landing, Vermont, 1855

  Edgar Billingsley plucked his banjo and Cory Jimmo sawed away at his country fiddle in a rousing rendition of "Oh! Susanna." They were seated on the bandstand on our small town green where more than three hundred townspeople had gathered, some slapping their thighs or stomping their feet to the music, others forming lines at tables tended by women from the Baptist church, each one laden with home-cooked food.

  My house was opposite the green and my father had set up picnic tables on the wide front porch so people could sit in the shade and eat their Fourth of July lunches. It was something he did every year, always winking at me and telling me it was "good politics."