December, 2013

Issue #51

A Promenade with the Devil
by Greg Camp

The hot June sun beat down on the stripped landscape of south Georgia, raising the humidity and wetting the lingering smell of decaying wood in the air. But clouds gathered from the south, and rain was coming. Henry Dowland, until recently a captain in the 1st Virginia Cavalry, sat his horse, swaying side to side with the mount's slow walk.

A rail line passed parallel to the cart track for a few hundred yards, but there would be no trains any time soon. The ties had been hacked and burned, and the rails were twisted in knots and stacked athwart the bed.

In the twenty miles he and his horse had covered since dawn, the road had been mostly clear. They had been made to ford one stream where the bridge had been destroyed and go around a dozen trees that Uncle Billy's boys had cut to no purpose other than wanton mischief.

After four years of fighting, the quiet emptiness of the land felt like the inside of a tomb. Two months ago, the Army of Northern Virginia was surrendered, but while Marse Robert may have felt compelled to yield, Dowland recognized no such force as applying to him. He'd folded his shell jacket and stuffed it into his pack, then slipped away, figuring himself to be thus at war with all flags and all peoples.

Except his sister and niece.

He gave not a damn for his parents near Williamsburg, Virginia, who had given him no blessing when he rode off to war, nor for that tomfool that his little Annie had married, but he would see about her welfare and meet Baby Clara – not a baby anymore, since her third birthday was nearing. It had been a year since the last letter from Savannah found him, but surely that was only because messages of peace did not find an easy road to a horseman on the trail of battle.

Not that he had any wish to read words or to speak any beyond the obligatory thanks to the households along the way who fed him when they could. He'd said not a word to another of his own kind since crossing into Georgia. Burned farms and razed houses had no need for another open mouth, and he couldn't feel right about taking food from people he'd been unable to save from the hell of war.

The road turned away from the remnants of the train tracks and around the skirts of a low rise to his right. Angry voices cut through the air. He slowed the horse to listen. This was the right sound for the world. He eyed the Colt's Dragoons in his saddle holsters and nudged his mount to a trot.

A pair of bluecoats stood on either side of an old man. The one to the left had three chevrons of pale blue on his darker uniform and a sneer on his face. The private to the right pressed the muzzle of his rifle into the old man's chest.

"Hallo, there!" Dowland shouted and rode in. He set his right hand on the butt of Alpha, one of the two Navy revolvers in his belt.

The private held still, but glanced at the sergeant, who stepped forward and raised his hand to challenge Dowland.

"What'll be your business here, rebel?"

"I was given to understand that the war is over," Dowland answered. "But however that may be, this gentleman can't be of concern to you two."

"We have orders to question everyone on this road. We were after being settled in our minds about this fellow, but sure, you look quite a prize. You'll have a parole pass, will you?" The sergeant's gaze darted to the Navys at Dowland's waist.

"A parole pass? I have no need for any man's permission to go my way, now this war is over."

"Sure, that'll be your thinking, but I'm the one who's telling you otherwise. Throw down those pistols of yours and dismount."

On the edge of Dowland's vision, the private swung his rifle over to point at him. Dowland drew Alpha and his o ther Navy, Omega. A thunderclap boomed, echoing on the rise to the right. His horse trembled, and the two Yankees fell.

He leapt out of the saddle as his mount slumped onto its side and settled, dead. A small line of blood trickled from a wound above the private's nose, but he didn't move. The sergeant was not so fortunate. He held his hands over his bowels and moaned.

A field of men, dead or dying by the Monocacy River, flashed before Dowland. He stepped over to kneel next to the sergeant. Blood oozed out from under the Yankee's hands, darkening his blue coat.

"You're in pain," Dowland commented.

The wounded man's eyes stared back, wide and glassy. A nauseous odor hovered over him, a spirit of death claiming its own.

"I can ease your passing." He cocked Alpha's hammer and touched the muzzle to the sergeant's head.

Blood foamed in the Yankee's breath, and his lips moved without making words.

Dowland stood and fired, then turned toward the old man, who stared back, as though he looked upon the second horseman of the Apocalypse.

"They were rude."

The elderly fellow backed away.

"Hold on there, Grandfather. I need your help here."

The man stopped.

"Let's start with your name, shall we? I'm Dowland, lately in the service of the First Virginia, but now I care only for one Ann Armstrong and her daughter."

"Your wife and child?"

"My sister and niece."

The old man scratched his head. "You don't mean the wife of William Randolph Armstrong?"

Dowland rushed forward and took him by the shoulders. "The very same. Do you have news of her?"

"No, but I know of them. In times of peace, their plantation is a day's ride to the south of Savannah."

A glimmer of hope touched Dowland, though the afternoon sky was losing its battle against the thunderheads.

"Will you help me?"

"Help you find her or help you with this?" The man pointed at the three bodies.

"With both, if I may impose upon you, sir."

"You did rescue me from their importunate attentions. To answer your earlier question, my name's Hollis. My father served with Francis Marion, and the General himself told me stories when I was a boy. I never thought to see a day when Americans killed Americans again."

Hollis helped Dowland carry the bodies away from the road and into the swamp land near the Savannah River to the east. The two dead soldiers sank into the black ooze amid the cypress trees and disappeared from human sight. Down, down they sank to join the many faces drifting through Dowland's conscience. Would a search party come looking for them? If so, his war might have one more battle and then release.

Hollis took up the private's Springfield rifle and the sergeant's Army revolver, along with their powder and shot. "Their fellows robbed me of mine last year," he explained.

"Be careful the Army doesn't find you with those."

"You heard me when I said I sat at the feet of old Swamp Fox, didn't you? I've earned my daily bread most of my life by getting things past the noses of people who have no business meddling."

Back at the road, the dead horse lay in the middle, bold as the midday sun.

"This will be a problem." Dowland removed his tack and bags and threw them over his shoulder. He carried his Sharps in his hands.

"It's a dead horse. Nothing we can do about it, either way.

"But don't let it worry you too much. We leave the road here." Hollis pointed across a field to a line of beech trees. "My land's a good way on the other side – at least it is till somebody comes around asking for it."

An overgrown field spread out away from the road, untouched in months. What new outrage was the old man hinting at?

"There's no work being done, what with Sherman's boys having set loose all our niggras – that, and all our men of fighting age off in parts north." Hollis led the way into the tall grass, disturbing crickets. The thick green smell of vegetable matter run riot choked the air. "But there's more. We've heard talk from the new governor about our land being divided up and given to the slaves, and I've watched a gaggle of northerners show up with nothing but their carpet bags, all set to take spoils."

The old man swatted a fly away from his face.

"Some black fellow from New Jersey named Campbell is right now handing out land on Ossabaw Island."

Of course, he was. He and many more like him would come south to pick through the bones of the Confederacy. The war was lost, and Lincoln was dead. Vengeance was all that would remain.

Dowland followed the man in silence toward the line of trees stretched out like soldiers of the earth herself. They stood on the parade ground, patient battalions awaiting the passing of this invasion of man on lands that would always remain the property of Mother Nature.

On the opposite side of the beeches stood Hollis's house, two stories of drab white with six matching columns across the front.

"We're a mite off the beaten path, so Billy's crews didn't come around here with their lucifers."

The image of a Georgian brick house came to Dowland, a home away in Virginia built upon the same tower of cards, the same gamble that some few could rest on the backs of many. The wild adventure of the last four years – the flashing swords, the flag-bearing staves, the coins thrown to rich men to buy yet another day's bread, and the host of broken hearts – swirled through his memory like so many leaflets in a hurricane.

"You're lost in thought, young sir."

"I am." The front door stood open with Hollis motioning to him to enter. He had crossed the knee-high lawn and stepped up to the porch without paying the passage any mind. "It's a long road I've travelled."

"Come inside. In days gone by, my house slave would have someone take your tack and show you to a room up the stairs, but the roof leaks, and Old Charlie's run off, anyway."

Dowland took off his hat and followed Hollis through the foyer into a hallway. The old man opened a door to the right.

"I hope you won't take offense at being put up on a fainting couch." He pointed to a red velvet piece with a high back at one end. "I have no one to clean sheets for me."

"It looks softer than the ground."

With a nod, Hollis tottered off down the hallway. Dowland set his belongings on the floor, lighted a candle and stood it on the writing desk, and sat. The stuffing under the crimson fabric sank beneath his weight. He cleaned his pistols, then holstered them and hung his gun belt from the woodwork along the couch's back. A flash of bluish light danced in the room. The storm released itself upon the world outside, its thunder shaking the house. He lay back, telling himself that he'd rest for only a moment.

The next morning, sunlight replaced the darkness and illuminated the humid haze above the ruined back garden taken over by weeds. Hollis sat by a boiling pot over a fire pit, stirring. It was either laundry or breakfast – better if the latter.

He made his way down the hall and out onto the back porch. Hollis and his pot were to the right in the yard, so Dowland slipped to the left and relieved himself.

The smell of hominy grits drew him back to the old man. Hollis filled a bowl and set a spoon in it. A silver spoon. What else might be hidden that the Yankees hadn't found?

"There's no salt and no butter."

"Nothing I'm not used to." Dowland took a taste. It was hot, and the metallic blandness offended his tongue in the manner of tin, but it was food.

"I wish I had bacon and eggs to offer you." Hollis ladled out a bowl for himself. He didn't meet Dowland's eye when he said this.

But what did the man's secrets matter? The war was over and obviously so when Dowland and his company dragged themselves out of Pennsylvania in '63. No purpose would have been served by taking more of his fellow Southerners into privation, and anything held back at this point was kept from the Northern invaders.

"I'm going into town today," Hollis continued. "I'll have to ask you to stay here, since the folks I'm going to talk to don't know you yet. But if you want to go look for your sister, you'll need their help, so I'll see about bringing them around in the afternoon."

Dowland nodded and finished his grits. The old man took the pot and disappeared into the house, and Dowland sat on the porch.

The sun climbed the sky, raising the dew into the air. The old man didn't come back, and the haze on the surrounding fields threatened to turn into the dense gunpowder clouds of memory. Dowland got up to make himself busy.

The walls of a shed away from the house were lined with tools. He picked out a pair of shears and set to imposing order on the garden. This would pay for his breakfast, if nothing else.

Hollis returned after three in the afternoon. He surveyed the pile of weeds and trimmings.

"Mr. Dowland, I've never seen white sweat do more than black before. You sure you weren't born to this work?"

A sneering quality danced about the edges of the question, but what would be the point of speaking to that? "I prefer to pay my own way."

"You've done that, to be sure." Hollis pointed toward the house. "But now you'll want to come with me. I've brought along one of the acquaintances I was telling you about."

The guest sat in a rocker on the front porch, a glass of whiskey in his hand. Despite the heat of the day, he wore a brocaded red vest under his topcoat. His hair and beard were iron grey, and the wrinkles on his face told of some sixty years of living. Hollis poured two more glasses from the decanter resting on the railing and handed one to Dowland. Three horses stood tied to trees in the lawn.

"I've told this gentleman about your purpose here. We'll do without the introductions, if you don't mind. Suffice it to say, he can help you."

The amber liquid in Dowland's hand caught a beam of light and glowed like an ember. He hadn't tasted strong drink in years.

"We don't have any ice." Hollis swept his hands toward the glass. "The shipments out of Massachusetts have been spotty of late." He chuckled. "But drink up."

Dowland took a swallow, the mellow flame heating his throat.

"You're the brother of Mrs. William Armstrong?" the dapper man asked.

"I am."

"A fine woman, married to a pillar of the community."

The man's glib tone concealed something. Hollis displayed his earlier reluctance to meet Dowland's eye. What did these two know?

"Where is she? And what about her daughter, Clara?" Whatever these two frauds were holding back had better come out soon.

"That's something that Armstrong should tell you."

Dowland forced himself to set his glass gently on the rail. He spun around to face the elegant man. "Then take me to him."

"We'll do that," Hollis said, drawing Dowland's glare, "but we have to wait till dark. Those two soldiers have been missed."

"We have already seen to the corpse of your horse. As you find yourself needing another one, I provided the the buckskin you see out there. You served your country and saved my friend here. It's the least we can do to help a gallant young man in return."

And to get him far away before he drew any attention to whatever these two were scheming. That thought didn't bear saying aloud. He picked up his glass and tossed back its contents.

"I'll be back here at dark," he declared to no one in particular and strode down the steps toward a stand of trees at the far end of the lawn.

Candlelight dotted the smoky interior of the tavern on the edge of the town. Dowland swept off his hat and followed Hollis and his friend to a table at the back. A man seated facing the table to the left turned and stared at him – his brother-in-law.

"Henry! I never knew you were coming to visit." The man stood and offered his hand.

"Armstrong," Dowland answered, his own hands at his sides. The popinjay never struck him as a worthy husband of his sister, and too many folks were keeping something from him.

"Come now, Henry. You're welcome here. You're family."

"That's what I've come to see about. Where's Annie? Where's Clara?"

Armstrong took his seat again and waved at an empty chair to his right. "You should sit down for this."

Dowland didn't move. Hollis and the dapper gentleman sat on either side of his brother-in-law.

"Very well. It goes like this. . . ." The man gazed at a spot on the sawdust-covered floor in front of him. "Uncle Billy's boys had the town surrounded."

"I've heard as much already." Dowland balled his fists.

"And they didn't stick at ravaging the countryside."

"You'd best just tell him," Hollis said to Armstrong's ear.

"It seems some of General Hazen's men surrounded our house and set fire to it. Annie and Clara were trapped inside.

The thunder of a thousand cannon pounded in Dowland's head. He clenched his jaw and fixed his gaze on Armstrong. "Where were you?"

"I, uh, I was in town, seeing to business."

Rage boiled over. Dowland held out his right hand, and his brother-in-law stood and came forward, extending his own hand. But instead of shaking, Dowland delivered a blow with his left fist to Armstrong's jaw. The man fell backward to the floor.

"You weren't there!" Dowland shouted, kicking Armstrong in the ribs. "You weren't in the fight, and you didn't save my sister." He kicked again and drew Alpha and cocked the hammer. "You weren't there."

The shaking man covered his head with his arms, and he gasped a faint cry.

Dowland eased the cylinder back around to the empty chamber and lowered the hammer. He spat on Armstrong's face.

"You're not worth a bullet. Live out your days as the coward you are."

He spun around. The crowd surrounding the scene parted to open a path to the door, and he stepped out and went for the stable.

Shuffling footsteps followed him. He stopped and held his pistol in the air.

"I won't feel bad about shooting someone trying to jump me."

"There's no need for that, Mr. Dowland." Hollis came forward.

"Then what is it you do want?" Dowland shoved his pistol back into its holster.

"We never liked that man."

"That's not what your acquaintance said. He called him a 'pillar of the community.'"

"That was keeping up appearances."

Dowland turned and glared at the old man. "I have no need for appearances. I've seen enough that was real in the last four years to satisfy any eye's hunger."

He walked on to the stable and set to untying the buckskin horse. Hollis pattered along with him.

"Mr. Dowland, I know how you feel –"

"You do? You've lived through your own wars, though they look to have passed you by, what with your decanters and silver spoons. How much did you hold back for yourself that could have fed those of us who fought for you? No, Mr. Hollis, you have no idea what I feel."

He led the horse outside. The old man followed.

"I'm leaving. There's nothing for me here anymore."

"I had thought you might stay –"

"And what? Do your bidding? You've lost one slave and need another one – is that it?"

Hollis looked away from Dowland's gaze.

"I had thought of travelling to Scotland. My mother's family, the Cochranes, have interests there. But I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean, and I think I'll see the Pacific before I die."

Dowland mounted his horse and walked it around the old man.

"Your home is in the hands of your enemies, Mr. Hollis, and your days are numbered."

Nudged the buckskin toward the empty road out of town, he turned his face to the heavens and cried for the stars to take him. But they gave no answer.

He faced the road again. It wasn't empty, after all. The faces of his fellow soldiers – some wearing blue coats and others a mixture of butternut and grey – rode alongside, and his sister and niece smiled before him, a ghostly company he knew was bound to him from that day forward.