American War(12)

Near the trailer’s front entrance, Martina spotted Eliza Polk. She stood waiting at the front steps as a couple of rebels moved her suitcases from the home to one of the boats docked nearby.

Polk saw Martina and called her over. As she approached the trailer, Martina could feel the eyes of the boys on her, cold and suspicious. But they said nothing.

Polk hugged her neighbor. “Oh, honey, honey,” she said. “It all happened so fast.”

“I thought you’d said it was just the commander coming.”

Polk shook her head. “The Blues are moving east from the Texas oil fields,” she said. “Our boys are going out to meet them. They say if they move fast enough they can keep them from getting any further into Louisiana.”

Martina looked around her for someone who fit the description of a field commander. “Is he here?” she asked.

“Yes, honey. But he’s busy. He won’t talk to no one but his men.”

“Point him out to me.”

“Just wait a while,” Polk pleaded. “Won’t do no good to try talking to him now.”

“Show me where he is.”

Reluctantly, Polk guided Martina to a man at the table in the garden. He was tall and skinny, perhaps five or six years younger than Martina. He wore a neatly trimmed beard that narrowed down to the upper tip of his sternum like an arrowhead. He was dressed in black, from his boots to his military cap. Around him, many of the fighters seemed to hover in elongated orbits, rushing to various parts of the temporary encampment to fulfill his orders before returning to be given a new assignment. He spoke softly enough that, until she was standing directly opposite him at the map table, Martina could not make out a word he said.

When he saw her, the field commander said nothing. He looked over at Polk.

“This is my neighbor I told you about,” Polk said. “The one whose husband was martyred.”

“He wasn’t martyred,” the man said. “He died.”

The field commander was silent once again. The men around him seemed to regard Martina with hostility, but in his eyes there was only stillness.

“I understand you keep a house near Vicksburg for the martyrs’ widows,” Martina said. “A safe place for the women and the children.”

The field commander did not respond.

“I have two little girls and a son, just babies the three of them,” Martina continued. “Their father’s dead and we got no means to support ourselves.” She turned to Polk. “Ms. Polk here’s our only neighbor, and her generosity’s kept us from starving, but she’s leaving now. All I ask is you let us go with her to Vicksburg, where no harm will come to my children. I don’t ask anything more.”

“Can’t be done,” the field commander responded.

“Why not? We can be packed in an hour. We can go right now, just the clothes on our back.”

“We keep a home for the kin of martyrs,” the field commander said. “Unless you got some other man died fighting for the cause, that ain’t you.”

He turned back to the maps on the table, and quickly around him the fighters resumed their orbit.

“C’mon honey,” Polk said, taking Martina by the arm. “Let’s leave them be for now. We’ll sort something out, I know we can.”

Martina pushed Polk’s hand away.

“Your men killed my husband,” she said to the field commander. “Your men killed one of their own and they have a responsibility to do right by his family.”

The field commander walked around the table and over to where Martina stood. Up close she could see he had beautiful green eyes. No movement in them, but beautiful.

“My men kill Northerners and traitors,” he said. “Which of those is your husband?”

Polk tugged at the field commander’s shirt sleeve, pleading with him to come talk to her alone inside the trailer. The two walked to the home, leaving Martina standing amidst the fighters, many of whom had stopped what they were doing to watch.

“You got some balls talking to him that way,” one of them said. “I’ve seen him shoot men for saying less.”

“I don’t care what you’ve seen,” Martina replied.

In a while the field commander and Polk emerged from the trailer. The man approached Martina.

“Tomorrow at dawn there’s a bus coming up the road along the east bank. It’s headed to Mississippi, up to Camp Patience. Because this lady here vouched for you and because of what her men gave to the cause, I’ll send word that if you and your children are there tomorrow, they’re to make room for you.”

“You’re telling me to take my kids to a refugee camp?”

“I’m telling you to do what suits you.”

The field commander turned back to the maps on the table. “Go on now,” he said. “Nothing more for you here.”

Martina looked around her at the assembled soldiers.

“Not one of you man enough to speak up? None of you got mothers, none of you got kids?”

The men continued to watch her, some of them cold, others snickering. None spoke.

Martina left them where they stood and marched back the way she came. At the edge of the sorghum field Polk caught up to her.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” she said. “I did the best I could.”