Wild, Beautiful, and Free(87)

I sensed people around me. I was sure Mother B. was one of them. She consulted with a male voice—one of the doctors. They seemed to be concerned with time—how long I’d been sick, what would happen if I stayed this way too long.

One night I sensed a chill deep within me. The same chill moved about the room above my head. It swirled to the ceiling and seemed to come down to rest beside me. I was deeply afraid. But then the moment blossomed into a tiny flower of familiarity so palpable that my fingers moved to grasp it in my hand.

This is death, I thought.

I’d felt it before in Papa’s room, and it had been over Fanny right before she’d died. It was like a thin veil that someone had tossed into the air, and now it was floating down to land over me. But it didn’t fall entirely. It was suspended just above me, and a gentle hand held it aside, like holding a curtain open.

There was a question—I didn’t hear words, but I felt a question. It was like a tingling from the top of my head to the tip of my toes. The question was suspended over me, just like the veil. I had to answer. A presence was insisting I answer.

“No,” I whispered. “Not now.”

I think I slept then. All that I had sensed before, the veil, the flower, was gone. I wasn’t conscious again until I opened my eyes to see the pink stain of sunrise spreading through the sky outside my window. My forehead was damp with sweat, and I was thirsty.

“Oh, Jeannette!”

I heard Mother B. rush into the room. I realized then I must have been in some danger, because she had never called me anything but Miss Bébinn. I’d crossed a bridge.

“Water,” I whispered.

She quickly poured a cup from the pitcher and helped me raise my head to drink.

“We were so worried, dear,” she said. “Your fever’s broken, thank God.”

“How long have I been sick?”

“About a week, my dear. It’s the end of June.”

There was something different in the room that I couldn’t place. The change confused me.

“Where am I?”

“In your room upstairs at the hospital.” My room? Couldn’t be.

“No,” I said. “Something . . . missing. Gone.”

“You’re just weak. You’ve been sick a long time.”

Her voice was so clear. Then it came to me. The strangeness was the quiet. There was no artillery thundering overhead. No shells exploding and tearing walls apart.

“Is the siege over?”

She nodded. “Yes, thank God. It ended sometime yesterday. General Grant is negotiating the terms of surrender.”

By the end of the day I was able to take some soup. The following day I had a small meal and felt strong enough to get dressed and sit near a window, where I overheard details of the forthcoming surrender. From the raised voices I gathered it wasn’t going well. General Grant wanted an unconditional surrender. The rebel commander, a man named Pemberton, seemed to think he could get better terms or go on fighting. He didn’t care that it would mean more killing. He declared more Yankees would die before he would allow them to enter Vicksburg. He seemed to me like a bold fool. I knew how we were suffering on our side, and we were well supplied. From the rebel wounded brought to our hospital, it was easy to see it was the opposite with them. Their bodies were thin and racked with scurvy.

It took a few days, but the two sides finally came to an agreement that they signed on July 4. The soldiers were going into the city for it, and I was determined to go, too, against Mother B.’s wishes. I wanted to see for myself what forty-seven days of shelling and artillery fire had wrought. When I insisted, she agreed to accompany me. We rode in a cart driven by Union men.

The destruction broke my heart. I had expected to see a city. Instead I saw buildings torn apart; sidewalks crushed into pieces; houses whose fences and gardens had been trampled. Dogs and cats whined with hunger. The dogs ran to our wagon and leaped at the wheels. One of the soldiers aimed a rifle at them, but Mother B. stopped him from firing.

The rebel soldiers were to be paroled, and they walked into the city from their posts to get the papers saying they were free to go. Many of them had no shoes, and their uniforms were tattered with holes. Their arms and necks were spotted with red welts that I guessed were insect bites. As we rode on, I saw that the city’s residents had built caves, like the shelters we had beneath Shirley House, to protect themselves from the shelling. Women and children, rail thin, with pale white faces and eerie hollow eyes, stared out at us as we passed.

“Who will feed them?” I asked Mother B.

“I’m sure the general will arrange it,” she said.

One woman stepped forward from a cave and asked for food for her girl. The child’s yellow curls beneath her small, dirty bonnet made her look so much like Calista I thought I would cry. I made the soldier driving the wagon stop, and I handed the woman some bread.

I decided, as the wagon moved on, that I wouldn’t wait anymore. It was time to make my way home to Catalpa Valley.

That night I lay awake. The litany of Papa’s land was on my mind and soon came to my lips.

Belle Neuve

Baton Bleu

Siana Grove

Chance Voir

Belle Verde

Mont Devreau

Petite Bébinn

I didn’t know how I would make my way home, but the litany felt like a magnet drawing me on. If I just started walking, I figured, I would make my way there. I could take the jerry-rigged road the soldiers had built through Louisiana. By God’s grace, I could make it. I got on my knees on the bed and prayed, but really it seemed all my thoughts, all my being, were already bent on this one prayer. I opened the drawer in my cupboard and took out my pistol. I cleaned it by candlelight and loaded it. I would have it with me from now on.