Varina(45)

The pale man looked at V and said, We’ve met.

He talked whispery, from his throat, with a hiss of air from the part of his mouth that failed to close because his lips on that side were gone.

V looked at Burton, and then before she could catch herself, she glanced off to the woods where Ellen and the children and Delrey hid.

—Forgive me, V said, but I don’t recall when that would have been.

—Richmond.

V said, Yes?

—Libby Prison Hospital. I’d been cut up by canister. Lost a deal of blood. And the first part of this happened then.

He raised a hand and patted it against the left side of his face, netted with scars like a sheet of caul fat.

He said, Richmond doctors told me I ought to get square with my Maker. You came in and acted like the smell of wounds didn’t sicken you. Fed me cookies and tea and held my hand. You kissed me on the head and said you were sorry.

—What’s your name? V said.

—Jens.

—Well, I’m still sorry, and I’m glad you made it, Jens.

He puffed out air from the broken side of his mouth. Made it? he said. I can’t go home. I’d have to wear a mask to walk down the street.

—But you’re still the same person inside.

—That right there is bullshit, Jens said. And you say it to me knowing that I know it’s bullshit. Good God, nothing’s left of me.

—Go home and see. People might be better than you think.

—I always wondered why you were there, Jens said. One minute your people are ripping me apart. The next minute, kisses and cookies. Better for you if you went to the Rebel hospitals.

—I did that too.

—Boo-hoo, the bearded man said. A couple of months from now, after all this gets settled, maybe we’ll start robbing banks and trains and we’ll all be wearing masks.

Jens said to the bearded man, Let her be. We’re done here.

He stood and looked at V and said, I’m calling us even.

He walked to his horse and mounted and rode off. The other two looked at each other and shrugged and walked to their horses.

Before they rode away, Red said, Must be your lucky day, folks.


ONE AFTERNOON BEFORE SUPPER, the boys had been hunkering on their knees, knuckled down at a marble ring they’d scratched in the dirt with a stick. But Jeffy’s taw was a big, shiny steel ball bearing, and Jimmie and Billy had only glass shooters. Jeffy had run the table two or three times, and his jacket pockets bulged full of marbles he’d won. The younger boys claimed Jeffy was cheating, and all of a sudden they were wallowing in the red dirt, bashing at each other with their little soft fists.

—Do you want to handle this or let me? V said all irritable.

Ellen said, You sit. I’ll go see whether a spanking’s what they really need right now.

She stepped over beyond the campfire to the marble ring and broke up the fight and marched the boys to a fallen log. Ellen sat first and then thumped Jeffy down on one side, Billy and Jimmie on the other. She began asking questions, and they all answered at the same time, and soon their chins quivered and parallel tear tracks ran down their dusty cheeks. V watched close but couldn’t hear much of what any of them said.

Before long, the boys stood, and Ellen nudged them underhanded on their way. They ran to the edge of the woods and started a new game that involved throwing big pinecones at tree trunks and then at one another.

When Ellen came back to the fire, V said, What’s your secret?

—I’m not telling. But I will say, wading in slapping is not the only answer.


GEORGIA’S A TALL STATE when you aim to go top to bottom in wagons with a bunch of children. For a week the journey became a nightmare of repetition, every day the same routine, the same landscape—nothing changing but the weather. The fugitives probably hadn’t advanced more than forty miles after meeting the marauders when two boys about fifteen or sixteen rode up from behind, one astride a mule and another on a halfway good dun gelding, its legs striped as a zebra and a black streak running from its forelock and mane down its back through its tail.

The mule rider was a tall black-headed goose of a boy and the other one middle-size and blondish. As they came alongside, they looked the fugitive group over good, and when they reached the ambulance and saw V sitting beside the driver, the tall one said, Afternoon, Mrs. Davis. He reached up and touched the brim of his hat about like greeting an acquaintance on the street.

Delrey immediately pulled up the mules and moved his right hand near the short double-barrel shotgun he kept by his leg. Burton rode between the boys and the ambulance. The canvas of the ambulance had been raised a foot above the sideboards for air, and four curious faces peeped out. Ellen held Winnie in one arm and eased the others back and rolled down the fabric.

—Where are you coming from? Burton said.

The tall boy, real caustic, said, Well greetings to you too. We’re down from Richmond. Back in Washington, Georgia, Jeff Davis gave all us cadets back pay—or at least a fraction of what they owed us—and told us to go home.

—President Davis, Burton said.

—Not anymore he’s not, the boy said.

—Did you come looking for us? Burton said.

—It’s on our way home.

—You’re navy cadets? Burton said.

—Yes, sir, the smaller boy said.