16

Gideon straightened from setting up his tent and stared across the field. Snow. That really was snow spitting through the air and hitting him in the face. As if war by itself wasn’t bad enough, the weather had to continually find ways to add to his misery. So hot in the summer a man could die from lack of water. So cold in the winter that a chicken roosting house looked like a fine hotel. Plenty of houses around the city of Nashville, but Captain Hopkins ordered them to stay together and ready. An officer couldn’t be searching through a hundred houses looking for his men when it was time to go out against the enemy. The captain wasn’t one to mess with.

Gideon turned up the collar of his coat and pulled it tighter around him. He cast his eye about, to see if he could spot anything that might make a fire. Thousands of other soldiers settling into camp inside the city’s fortifications were no doubt doing the same.

The armies were gathering. Union tents blanketed the space around Gideon. Out beyond the fortifications, scouts reported the Confederates were massing troops on the hills around Nashville. Down the river, Confederate ships set up battlements to block the Union supply boats. The booms of that confrontation came to them like distant thunder, but here, closer to hand, there were no signs of imminent action. General Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, was in command of the troops, and Pap never got in a hurry. That was fine with Gideon. He wasn’t the least bit anxious to be lining up to fight except maybe to get it over with. The battle would have to be fought, but when was out of Gideon’s hands. He, along with the other soldiers, was settling in to wait for the officers to give the orders.

At least food was in plentiful supply. Most everything was in plentiful supply with Nashville full of profiteers ready to take a soldier’s army pay with temptations across the board. The place teemed with chances for trouble, but Captain Hopkins kept a tight rein on his men and ordered them to stay in camp. That was fine with Gideon. Better to stay away from temptation and remember his Heather Lou. He wasn’t about to squander his pay on gambling, drinking, or any kind of rabble-rousing. Not when he was about to be a father.

The snow blew past him, leaving hard crystals of white gathered in the tent folds. After he and some others pooled their wood to get a fire going, Gideon sat beside it to write Heather. Just thinking of her made the fire feel warmer. The other men started a game of dice, but he paid them little attention as he wrote.

My sweet Heather Lou. I’m missing you something awful, but I’ll be seeing you soon. Nothing can keep me away from you. We made camp on the outskirts of Nashville. The place puts me some in mind of Washington. Not as big, but with plenty of things going on that wouldn’t be fit for your ears or eyes. Some fellow staggered by here all glassy-eyed a while ago and said a man could find anything he wanted over in that town. I‘m thinking he might have wanted too much. He wasn’t one of our company and a good thing. The Captain would have give him what for. He let us all know we were to stay in camp. Said we were here to beat back Johnny Reb and not to be losing our pay, not to mention our honor, to them scoundrels what cheat at cards or try to entice a man into sinning with strong drink or painted ladies. You don’t have to be worrying none about me doing any of that, Heather Lou. You’re the only girl I want, but I sure am missing you. Old Jake just ain’t as good company in the middle of the night. Ha Ha.

Gideon squeezed the last line on the very bottom of the page. He looked at what he’d written. He hadn’t even told her he loved her. He turned the page around and began writing on the side edges.

It’s cold as anything here and my feet are wet. I need you praying for me. I’m not all that good at praying back for you, but I’ll give it a try. I remember how you used to tell me praying’s not hard. That the good Lord don’t need fancy words or even words spoke out loud. That he already knows a man’s heart. If he does, he knows I love you.

When he got all that written, he barely had room to squeeze in his initial at the bottom of the letter.

Jake, who’d been keeping the fire going, laughed when he glanced over and saw every inch of the page covered with writing. “You’re a man of many words.”

“I didn’t say it all.” With a sheepish grin, Gideon folded the letter. “But maybe I can write her again tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow the captain will have us marching in circles just to keep us out of trouble.”

“Might be a good thing. Leastways it might keep us warm.” He stuck the letter in his pocket and held both hands out toward the fire. “I thought we went south.”

“Winter must have trailed along with us,” Jake said. “But think of it, lad. If us northerners are suffering, think how much more those southern boys are feeling the cold. They’ll be sprouting icicles, but not us. We’ve seen plenty worse. A little spitting snow is hardly worth noticing. Now, is it?”

“But snow.” Gideon shivered. “And if that wind would just quit blowing.”

“Would be a blessing.” A distant boom made Jake raise his head and listen. “Sounds like they’re still going at it.”

Gideon looked to the west. “Sundown will quiet them down soon.”

“Never had any desire to do my fighting on a boat.” Jake looked back at the fire. “Prefer my feet on the ground.”

The Rebels had won the fight on the river the day before, but now Union ships had gone out to break through the barricade.

“At least they’re fighting and not just freezing their toes off for nothing.” Gideon pulled off one of his shoes and rubbed his toes. The sock was damp.

Jake frowned over at him. “You got to keep those feet dry, lad. Foot rot can ruin a man.”

“Don’t I know it.” Heather had kept him in dry socks while she’d been with him. Carried them inside her dress pressed against her bosom. But now Heather was gone and his every sock carried the damp chill of the day.

He held his foot out toward the fire as another boom sounded. If he was on those boats, he might have more to worry about than foot rot. At least so far on this day, nobody was shooting at him.

“I can still march.” He propped his shoe up by the fire. He thought it best to take off only one shoe at a time. A man could put one shoe on in a run, but not two.

“That’s a good thing, because they’ll be finding us a hill to charge up. Seems like we could fight on some nice flat ground with strong rock fences to take cover behind now and again.” Jake leaned forward to poke at the fire.

“Captain says the Rebs aren’t dummies. They take the high ground when they can, same as we would if we had the chance.” Gideon looked away to the south where the Confederate army was digging in on that high ground.

“I know. Always a hill a man has to charge up.”

“Maybe this one will have trees.” He could hope, Gideon thought.

“Could be.” Jake picked up a twig and chewed on the end. “Trouble is, even if there are trees, a man can’t stay behind them. Not and hang on to any honor.”

“Honor.” Gideon echoed. “A fine-sounding word.”

“That it is,” Jake agreed. “But it’s beginning to wear a wee bit thin for some of us that have marched behind it up too many hills.”

“We’ve gone up our share.” Gideon stared at the fire and wished night would fall so the booming would stop. Too soon he’d be hearing more of those cannon booms once General Thomas gave the order to move.

Jake threw his twig in the fire. The end he’d been chewing sizzled, then burned and was gone. “A man can lag behind and not be the first man up the hill when he’s got a baby he aims to see.”

“Sounds like something my Heather Lou would say.” Gideon leaned down and rubbed the toe of his sock. It felt a little drier. “She ask you to tell me that?”

“No, lad. I come up with the advice all on my own.” Jake stared at the fire a long minute before he pushed up from the block of wood he’d been sitting on. “And good advice it is. A man doesn’t always have to be the hero.”

“A soldier without honor doesn’t have much.”

Jake looked down at him. “You could be right, lad, but a dead man has even less.”

“Heather would tell you different. She’d say a man can always look to eternity.”

“That he can. And a fine place we’re promised it will be, but I’m thinking on dwelling here in this world a bit longer. If we can bear the weather.” Jake grinned as he grasped Gideon’s shoulder and gave it a little shake. “Keep that in mind when the time comes, lad, and stick with me. I’ll get you through.”

“You gonna get me through this weather?” Gideon asked.

“That could be a little harder.” Jake stared off toward the western horizon. “My bones tell me it’s going to be worse before it’s better. We’ll be fighting in the snow.”

But it wasn’t snow that fell on them a few days later while the generals were plotting their strategies. The snow changed to rain and then froze. The ice coated every surface and knocked down a fair number of tents. Captain Hopkins relented and let the men make their way across the ice-covered ground to barns, sheds, houses, any building with a roof to keep the ice from coating them the way it was everything else.

When daylight came the next morning, Gideon looked out at a glittering icy world and knew nobody would be fighting anybody but old man winter on this day. He didn’t know whether to be relieved or sorry. It might be good to just get it over with.