Good Time Coming Read online

  I’d watched Mahalia wring the necks of more chickens than I could remember. But, somehow, killing this glorious wild bird seemed different, even if I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why. It had something to do with his pride, and his beauty, and the treachery with which we had lured him to his death. It just didn’t seem right for us to be boasting of his size or crowing over his killing. And while I knew it was being silly to mourn the death of a simple bird when our soldiers were dying horribly every day, I felt myself fill with a deep and powerful sadness that it would take me a long time to understand.

  It rained the morning we buried the two soldiers from the Battle of Baton Rouge; a warm misty rain so soft it made not a sound on the leaves of the surrounding oaks or on the dark brown earth shoveled onto the crude pine boxes of the dead.

  A number of the townspeople turned out, grim-faced in the defused light of the overcast day. Reverend Lewis’s voice rolled over us, intoning the funeral prayer. None of us had known either of these men, but their deaths troubled me in a way I could not define. I kept my eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if somehow by concentrating on the rain and the thud of falling dirt and the reverend’s time-hallowed words I could ease the tragedy of their deaths or lighten the burden of those unknown mothers and fathers who didn’t yet know they had a reason to grieve. Yet I couldn’t shake the suspicion that I was really there to make myself feel better, to fool myself into thinking that I was doing something when there was actually nothing anyone could do. The men were dead, and somewhere two mothers’ lives would never be the same again.

  My own mother left after the service, but I lingered, wandering between the simple wooden markers and moss-covered limestone monuments. Mama thought I’d stayed because I wanted to visit Simon’s grave, and I did. But after that I found myself drawn to the bare mound of earth covering the three Federal soldiers whose own officers had simply tossed their bodies into the muddy waters of the Mississippi. Surely, somewhere, their mothers also grieved. Yet because their uniforms were blue and not gray, the tragedy of their deaths had not touched me – not in this way, not personally. I tried to let it touch me now. But when I closed my eyes all I could see was the smile on the face of the golden-haired infantry captain as he yanked my cross from around my neck.

  I opened my eyes, and my gaze fell on a small bunch of soft pink rosebuds that lay against the plain, unmarked wooden cross, their delicate petals muddied by the rain that had now almost ceased. I stared at it a moment, confused by its appearance. Who had left it here, I wondered? Some secret Unionist? Or was it simply a quiet tribute to the unknown dead, left by someone whose heart had a greater capacity for compassion than my own, and a more profound sense of the implications of our shared humanity?

  I was still staring at those tattered flowers when I heard a peculiar, high-pitched whistle that was like a loud, unnatural shriek. I lifted my head, my gaze turning toward the river at the base of the bluff as a thunderous explosion shook the ground beneath me.

  The war had just come to us in a new and more horrible way.

  Nineteen

  A strange, loud hissing rent the air, followed by another explosion, then another.

  I threw myself flat beside the Yankees’ grave, as if that low mound of loose earth could somehow protect me from the hot, tearing rounds of shot and shell exploding in the distance. My breath was coming so hard and fast I was shaking, my mouth dry, my hands clenched into tingling fists as I wrapped my arms over my ducked head. I could hear screams and shouts from below, smell the bitter stench of burnt gunpowder carried on the river breeze.

  Then, as suddenly as it had begun, the firing ceased.

  For the longest time, I didn’t dare move. Finally, when I was pretty sure it was all over, I pushed to my knees. My pinafore was covered with dirt, crushed dry leaves, and bits of grass, and I brushed at it absently as I rose to my feet. I could see Reverend Lewis standing on the front porch of his rectory, an open book held absently in one hand, his spectacles pushed down to the end of his nose, as if he’d been interrupted in his reading by noisy children and stepped outside to discover the source of the commotion.

  ‘What is it?’ I called over to him. ‘Can you see?’

  He squinted down the hill to the river. ‘From the looks of things, a Federal gunboat and troop transport simply dropped anchor off Bayou Sara and started shelling. Perhaps an opening artillery barrage has become their preferred version of a calling card?’ He pushed his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. ‘Now it looks as if they may be intending to land. You’d best head home, Amrie.’

  I meant to go home. Only, first I thought I’d take a peak at what was going on down below.

  I crept across the graveyard to the edge of the bluff, my breath catching at the sight of an ironclad ram tying up at Bayou Sara’s wharves. It was the Essex, big and ugly and resembling nothing so much as a giant, malevolent water beetle bristling with death. Beside her, an old paddle-wheeled steamboat turned troop transport was disgorging a landing force of blue-coated men who poured onto the wharf the way ants swarm out of a nest when you poke at it with a stick.

  As far as I could see, none of the houses or buildings down below had been hit; either the Essex’s gunners were lousy shots or they’d been more intent on scaring people than hitting anything.

  In that, they’d succeeded. A throng of frantic, wild-eyed women, children, and aging men surged up the hill toward me, most bareheaded in the sun, their faces frozen masks of sweat-slicked terror as they slipped and slid helplessly in the mud. A half-grown boy in shirtsleeves and suspenders mounted bareback on a big roan thundered past me, a white-haired old woman clinging behind him on the horse’s rump, the hem of her dress rucked up to show a froth of petticoats and bare, twisted feet.

  The street that cut down the face of the bluff to the river was so steep that a heavily loaded wagon had to take the long way around; but in their panic, most people were coming straight up. I saw a woman trying to climb the slope with both a tiny infant and a two-year-old clutched in her arms, a slightly older child screamed as it clung frantically to her skirts. Behind her, a white-haired man staggered beneath the weight of a sick child wrapped in a blanket. Some carried bundles of their belongings, silverware and precious letters and photographs hastily tossed into everything from pillowcases to tablecloths, their contents spilling out to be crushed into the mud by the feet of those fleeing behind them.

  I spotted Mr Bernard Henshaw laboring up the slope, his hat gone, his lank, graying hair plastered to his head with sweat, his mouth slack as he fought to suck in air. He caught sight of me and his eyes widened, his throat working as he sought to wet his mouth enough to speak. ‘Amrie!’ he said, his breath wheezing. ‘They’re sending out gangs to impress slaves and set them to loading the contents of the warehouses onto their boats. Does your mother still have that wounded soldier in your house?’

  My heart squeezed in my chest with a new fear. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then run, girl! Run!’

  I ran.

  By the time I turned in our gate, my breath was coming in long, painful gasps, the sweat stinging my eyes so I could barely see. I started hollering halfway up the drive. ‘Mama? Mama!’

  She’d been sitting in a rocker on the gallery, Corporal Price’s worn gray uniform in her lap as she tried to darn the stained rent in the leg. At the sight of me, she rose, her sewing gripped in her hands. Sprawled at her feet, Checkers lifted his head and stared at me.

  ‘Amrie? What is it? I heard what sounded like—’

  ‘Yankees!’ I drew up at the base of the steps and hunched over with my hands braced against my knees as I fought to draw wind. ‘They done shelled Bayou Sara and now they’re fixin’ to send out press gangs. We gotta hide Avery and Corporal Price.’

  For once, she didn’t correct my grammar. While Mahalia and Mama bustled around throwing bloody bandages into a water-filled, covered enameled pail and making the corporal’s bed, a grim-faced, silent Priebus and Avery and I
hustled Corporal Price and his uniform up into the attic. The movement busted open his wound and it was hot enough up there to cure a ham, but there wasn’t anything else we could do with him. We left him and Avery with some water, hidden behind a pile of broken chairs and dusty old trunks. But we all knew that if the Federals took it into their heads to search the attic, they’d be found in an instant.

  Mama wanted Priebus to hide up there, too, but he said there weren’t no Yankee dumb enough to think he was worth much of anything, apart from which he figured they’d be less likely to search the place for able-bodied men if they saw him. So he took his hoe out into the garden and was chopping at weeds when a score or so soldiers led by a tall, ramrod-straight lieutenant turned in our gate.

  Mama said to me, her voice low and strained, ‘Amrie, take Checkers inside and stay there.’

  I knew better than to try to argue with her, although I only went as far as the central hall, then ducked behind the open door. By peeking around the heavy panels, I could see my mother standing at the top of the front steps, her face tight but calm. The hand that smoothed her apron didn’t even quiver.

  I was shaking so hard it’s a wonder the door wasn’t rattling on its hinges.

  The lieutenant drew up at the base of the steps. ‘Sergeant,’ he said to the lanky man beside him, ‘tell the men to fall out under the trees.’

  The men were all wearing dark-blue kersey wool frock coats and sky blue wool trousers, and sweating something fierce as a hot golden sun burnt away the last of the clouds and the wet earth steamed. I watched them flop down in the shade under our oaks and hoped they were lying on anthills.

  The lieutenant himself looked about my mother’s age or maybe a little younger, with a clean-shaven face and short-cropped dark hair and nice, clear gray eyes. But I barely noticed any of that. I was too busy staring at his corps badge.

  CO. M, 4TH REG, WISC. VOL.

  For a moment, all I could hear was the sound of my own ragged breathing. Only gradually did the Federal’s voice begin to penetrate.

  ‘… Lieutenant Lucas Beckham,’ he was saying. ‘We have orders from General Butler, requisitioning any hale young Negro men in your possession.’

  My mother stared down at him, her voice dripping with scorn. ‘So you’re requisitioning human beings now, too, are you? The same way you requisition mules and corn and the family silver?’

  I watched the lieutenant’s jaw tighten, his nostrils flaring. But at the same time, a faint color showed on his cheeks. And I thought, He knows what he’s doing is wrong and he doesn’t like it.

  ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry if you have suffered any previous injury. But you can either hand over any strong male slaves in your possession willingly, or my men will search for them and seize them. The choice is yours.’

  Everyone knew that when soldiers ‘searched’ for anything or anyone, the results were usually heartbreaking.

  My mother said, ‘I possess none of my fellow men, Lieutenant. You will find no slaves here.’

  The lieutenant squinted off across the yard to where Priebus had paused to lean on his hoe and was watching us, as if grateful for an opportunity to rest. ‘What do you call him?’ He nodded toward Mahalia, who stood a little ways behind my mother and off to one side. ‘Or her?’

  Mahalia took a hasty step forward, her upper lip curling with disdain. ‘I’s a free woman, thank you very much. And I got the papers to prove it!’

  The Federal officer stared at her a moment, then brought his gaze back to my mother. ‘You would have me believe you run this plantation with free labor?’

  ‘This isn’t a plantation. It’s a small farm. My husband is a doctor.’

  He gave her a faint smile that crinkled the skin beside his eyes. ‘Off fighting with the rebs, is he?’

  My mother locked her hands around her bent elbows and kept silent. The homes and possessions of the families of men fighting for the Confederacy were subject to confiscation.

  The lieutenant readjusted his wide-brimmed, black felt campaign hat, his gaze drifting around our jumbled collection of outbuildings. ‘Seems a strange thing to do – for someone with strong abolitionist beliefs to fight for the South in this war.’

  ‘Robert E. Lee owns no slaves; can your own generals Grant and Sherman say the same?’

  The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed. ‘General Grant freed his personal slave before the war started; those that remain belong to his wife.’

  ‘Ah. That makes a difference, does it? You’re suggesting he does not benefit from their labor—’

  ‘And that’s not true, what they say about Sherman.’

  A contemptuous smile twisted my mother’s lips. I’d never seen her looking so haughty or disdainful. ‘You’re certain of that?’

  I watched a bead of sweat roll from beneath the officer’s hat to leave a wet line down the side of his lean, sun-darkened cheek. He stared at my mother, and she glared back at him, and it occurred to me, watching them, that they might have been the only two people present.

  The sergeant said, ‘Should I take some men and search the house, sir?’

  Without even looking at him, the lieutenant said, ‘No. I’ll take her at her word.’ He tilted his head and brought one hand to his hat in a kind of salute. ‘Good day to you, ma’am.’

  He turned to his sergeant. ‘Have the men fall in. We’ll try the next place up the road.’

  My mother stood where she was and watched the Federals march away, their rifles gleaming in the hot sun, their feet tramping on the hard-packed mud. I could hear a mockingbird singing from the top of a nearby live oak, his notes clear and melodious and heartbreakingly familiar, part of a simpler, safer time that should have no part in this sinister scene.

  I crept from behind the door to go stand at my mother’s side, one hand still holding Checkers.

  After a moment, I said, ‘How long do we need to leave Corporal Price in the attic?’

  ‘At least until we see them heading back toward town again with their “requisitioned” laborers.’

  ‘It’s gotta be awful hot up there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You reckon they’re gonna go to Bon Silence next?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Miss Rowena won’t like that.’

  ‘If I know Rowena Walford, she’ll smile and bat her eyelashes and ply the Federals with lemonade and peaches, and somehow convince them they only want half as many men as they’d planned to take.’

  I went to wrap one arm around the post beside the steps, my gaze on the soldiers disappearing up the lane. ‘Those men … They were from the Fourth Wisconsin Volunteers.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the regiment they’re saying killed their own general at Baton Rouge.’

  ‘Yes.’

  We’d been hearing increasingly disturbing tales about the Fourth Wisconsin. How they’d ‘savaged’ a woman in Kennertown – we all knew what that meant – and how General Williams had threatened to shoot a few of them if they didn’t stop plundering houses in Baton Rouge. Of all the units under ‘Spoons’ Butler’s command, they were generally acknowledged to be the worst. Which was really saying something.

  I said, ‘You reckon Corporal Price is fit enough to send up to Natchez yet?’

  We’d talked about it, before – about moving him home in the buggy, with Avery driving.

  She shook her head. ‘Not quite yet. Perhaps in a couple of days – that is, if this afternoon in the attic doesn’t kill him.’

  The corporal descended from the attic weak and shaky, but alive. Hearing the Federals in the yard right below his hiding place had spooked him, and he was all for setting out right then and there for Mississippi. My mother told him not to be a fool and helped him back to bed.

  But she changed her mind later that evening, when Mayor James Marks himself came out to tell us that the Federals had steamed away with the promise they’d be back.

  ‘They claim they put into Bayou Sara looking for coal,’ he said
, easing himself into a worn armchair beside the empty parlor hearth. ‘But then they saw the five hundred hogsheads of sugar and other stores in our warehouses, and I guess they got distracted.’

  My mother poured Mr Marks a cup of coffee and handed it to him. It wasn’t real coffee, of course; no one I knew had seen that for six months or more. Mama had tried a slew of recommended substitutes, from parched corn to roasted acorns, and finally settled on roasted okra seeds.

  Mr Marks sipped his coffee without even a grimace. ‘The captain of the Essex – Porter is his name – sent two of his men to haul me aboard. You should have seen him, sitting there behind his desk with his feet propped up on the blotter and the air of some mighty eastern potentate. He kept an unlit cigar clenched between his molars and looked me square in the eye while delivering all sorts of grandiose pronouncements about guaranteeing the safety of our inhabitants and respecting private property – except of course for the coal, which was being seized as contraband of war. I said, “And the sugar? Since when is sugar contraband of war?” But he just bit down harder on the butt of his cigar and said, “The sugar is for General Butler’s brother.”’

  We all knew about General ‘Spoons’ Butler’s brother, Andrew. Everything from capriciously confiscated merchandise to vast plantations worked by ‘forced contract’ black labor found their way into Andrew Butler’s possession. Thanks to official passes provided by his brother the general, Andrew even shipped goods back and forth through enemy lines, banking huge profits. In just a few months, the two brothers had become millionaires many times over.

  Mr Marks ran a shaky hand through his thinning hair. ‘And then, while I’m still standing there and Porter is pontificating on about how grateful we should be that they’re magnanimously guaranteeing our lives and property, I see them hauling Devon Gantry and Sean Gallagher aboard, too – in chains! Now, there’s lots of folks in town has heard rumors about Gallagher being one of General Ruggles’s observing officers, but what I want to know is, how the blazes did the Federals hear that?’