Turner said nothing to Charlotte after his return from town, but when a patrol of soldiers—a sergeant and four nervous-looking recruits—showed up outside their door one morning a week later, she guessed he had something to do with it. They stepped into the yard to speak to them.
“Are you Harper Webb?” the sergeant said. None of the men got down from their horses.
“No,” said Turner.
“You know Harper Webb?”
“Yes. He lives in that house.” The five men turned their heads as if pulled by a magnet in the direction of Turner’s nod.
“We have a report says he may be involved with the rebels around here. You know anything about that?”
“I wouldn’t know anything about any rebel activity around here, Harp Webb or anyone else,” Turner said coolly. The sergeant eyed him with suspicion.
“That’s what everybody says. You know if this Webb keeps any weapons?”
“He has an old long rifle, a muzzle-loader,” Turner said. “Beyond that I don’t know.”
“Good news, boys,” the sergeant said. “He’ll only have time to shoot one of us before we get to him.”
“Oh, he’s a quick fellow,” Charlotte said. “I’ll bet he could shoot two or three of you.”
“Well, ain’t she a saucy thing!” the sergeant exclaimed. “Ain’t you never taught your wife about manners, plowboy?”
“You can keep your opinions to yourself where my wife is concerned, mister,” Turner said.
“That’s ‘sir’ to you, plowboy,” the sergeant said. He snatched his quirt from its holder on his saddle and swung at Turner, but Turner leaned back a little and the blow missed. “I’d say both of you could use a lesson in manners.”
“You can step down from that horse, mister, and we’ll find out who gets called ‘sir.’“ Turner watched his face and waited to dodge another swing of the quirt. He felt unaccountably angry. Perhaps the war sentiment had infected him too.
“By God! I’ve half a mind to do it. This whole county is a nest of rebels as far as I’m concerned, and we’re better off without the lot of you.” But the sergeant stayed on his horse. “Well, enough of this. I have orders to bring in one person, not two, and if I got down off this horse I’d have to bring in two. But watch yourself, mister. I ain’t got patience for smart alecks.” He turned his horse. “You two ride past, you two stay behind, and I’ll knock at the door,” he said to his soldiers. With a last glare at Turner, he rode away.
They watched as the men positioned themselves. Harp had been watching too, for as soon as the soldiers surrounded the house he stepped onto his porch, barefoot and wearing a cotton shirt and pants.
“Are you Harper Webb?” the sergeant said. Webb just nodded. “We have orders to take you in. You are suspected of helping the rebels.”
“What rebels?” Harp said. “Ain’t no rebels around here.”
“Very funny. You and your neighbor up there ought to join a minstrel show. Boys, search his house. You other two, search the barn.”
“What are we looking for, sir?” said one of the men.
“Anything suspicious, you ignorant clods,” the sergeant said. “If you don’t know what it is, bring it out here and I’ll look at it. And saddle up his horse while you’re there.”
The men scattered, and the sergeant stepped onto the porch with a piece of rope. “Hold out your hands, I gotta tie you up.”
“Let me put my shoes on first.”
“All right,” the sergeant said. He called in the house. “Bring out a pair of shoes.”
“The ones by the back door,” Harp called.
“You’re a calm one,” the sergeant said.
“What, you want me to cry?” Harp said. “Go to hell.”
The sergeant made as if to strike him, but stopped. Harp didn’t flinch.
“You’re in the mood to hit everybody today, ain’t you?” he said. “You forgot the lady back there. Or were you planning on hitting her on your way back?”
This time the sergeant didn’t restrain himself. He slapped Harp across the face with the back of his hand and braced himself to strike him again with his fist; but Harp didn’t swing. “I ain’t going to make your job easy for you,” he said. “You want to shoot me, I ain’t going to help you.”
By now the two soldiers from the house had appeared on the porch. One held a pair of brogans in his hand.
“Give him his goddam shoes,” the sergeant said. “Whole valley full of smart alecks. This is the United States Government you are dealing with, sonny boy, and you had better learn that right now.” He turned to the soldiers. “Find anything?”
“No, sir,” said one. “It’s just a house.”
The other two came in from the barn, one leading Harp’s horse. “Anything?” the sergeant asked.
“About forty gallons of whiskey out in the barn,” one said. “Whiskey maker, are you?” the sergeant said.
“Be careful with that,” Harp said to the soldier. “Some of them crocks is what I use to piss in when I don’t feel like getting up.”
The soldier wiped his mouth reflexively and then put his hand down again just as fast. “Got me there,” he said with a grin.
“This ain’t a joke,” the sergeant said. “Mount up and let’s go.”
Harp climbed on his horse, and the sergeant gestured for him to hold out his hands. “You don’t have to tie me up,” Harp said. “I ain’t going nowhere.”
“I know you ain’t. But I’m doing it anyway.”
He tied Harp’s hands together at the wrist and looped the rope around the saddle horn. “Say goodbye to your friends there,” he said as they passed.
“Oh, they ain’t my friends,” Harp said. “I can guarantee you that.”
Charlotte and Turner watched until the men had ridden out of sight, crossing the ford toward town. Then they went inside.
“Well,” Charlotte said. She was thinking over the implications. The ease with which Turner lied to the soldiers bothered her, but not nearly so much as his not telling her in the first place about informing on Harp. “Is that what this war is about?”
“You know full well—”
“Yes. Harp was going to take our land. I know that. But I think I would have liked to have fought him in court instead.”
“And would that have been more fair?”
She knew it would not have been, except that Harp would have been the one taking unfair advantage. She looked at Turner and knew she did not have to say it.
“It’s just … strange. It feels strange. It feels calculated. And you’ve never been a calculating person. Lord knows I can’t stand Harp Webb, but to see him led off like that, trussed up like a pig—”
“I know what you mean.”
“I guess we might as well get used to it,” she said.
Turner took his hat off its peg and got ready to go to the fields, but Charlotte took his sleeve. “James,” she said. “We must not let this war change us. Promise me that you will not let this war change you.”
“I can promise you that I will try,” he said. “God knows what lies ahead.”
“Perhaps we should go ahead and clear out of here. There have to be safer places.”
He stopped at the door. “If you really believe so, you should bring that up at the next community meeting. You’re the president. That’s too big a question to be decided by just you and me.”
Turner walked out, took his hoe from where he had left it resting against the wall of the house, and headed for the fields. As he walked away, Charlotte watched his figure diminish against the mountain, which was rich in deep summer green. Other men were walking out of their houses, joining him in the fields, and she could see them greeting each other as they met. She knew it was just her fear talking, but couldn’t help longing to be back in New York, far from this turmoil. At the same time, as she watched the men begin their labors, and saw the women come out of their houses to sweep the steps, mind their children, shake their rugs, she knew that this community was no longer an experiment to her. It was her home, one that she had chosen just as surely as she had chosen Turner, and one she would never willingly leave. On the side of the distant mountain she could see the gravestones. They had buried loved ones here. They were no longer just visiting—or playing, as Harp had accused them. They were bound to this place now, war or no war.
The news from outside was sporadic and confusing. Charlotte’s father wrote that he had begun training a new class at the Point, but had almost immediately been rushed south to help throw up earthworks around Washington. The Army of the Potomac had suffered a disaster, and the rebels were expected at the gates of the capital within days. There was a silence for several weeks. Then the mail brought two letters at once, although they had been written a week and a half apart. Charlotte opened them in order.
The first said that the rebs had unaccountably failed to follow up their victory at Bull Run with a march to Washington, and that their days of frantic trenching had been for nothing—a turn of events he was perfectly satisfied with, as they had not had enough time to put up more than the simplest of breastworks, and if it had come to a fight, he had little doubt but that they would have been overwhelmed. As it was, they spent their days drilling recruits and their evenings at leisure; he had already seen two plays and a concert. Charlotte opened the second letter and read:
My darling daughter,
Since last I wrote, much has happened, and I regret that, carried like a leaf on the river of events that rushes us all to our destinations, I have failed to write you as often as my heart impels. I am well, and pray you are the same.
I am no longer in Washington, although fear of this letter’s interception prevents me from stating my whereabouts with greater exactness. I am now a colonel, in charge of a regiment, that lost its previous commander to the fortunes of war; but having no superstition in that regard, I have no concern for my personal safety beyond what I feel for all of my men. The identity of my regiment must also be obscured, but I assure you, they are good, stout boys, and you would smile to recognize the names of some of my junior officers. I am told that Caroline’s husband has been recalled from the West, and has acquitted himself well in several engagements.
My recall to the field of arms has given rise to thoughts of larger scope, of this world and the next, so I hope you will permit a father a few moments of reflection. Great forces are at work in the world, but I cannot comprehend them. We are down to the four of us now, you, me, and your husband and son, and it is from that foundation that all our calculations must begin. The woodchuck in its den, the swallow in its cliff crevice, sleep in their beds while storms rage around them, but for better or worse we are not animals or birds. We strive, we aspire, we seek something greater while forgetting what we have. But in these times you must think like the woodchuck. Dig so deep that the storm overhead is but a faint rattle. Decide what matters, and grip it to you. Everything else, no matter how sweet, familiar, noble, or comforting, is expendable, and you must be ready to let go of it. Please remember that.
I am, and will always remain, your devoted and loving
Father
Charlotte held the letter carefully in both hands, as if it were made of fine bone china. She did not want to fold it up and lose sight of the words. For the first time since the war began, her heart overflowed with the fragility of everything in her life, how every letter from her father could very well be his last words to her. After a while, she did fold up the letter. She tucked it into her apron pocket, but reconsidered and placed it in the crack between her new window frame and the wall, where she knew it would be safe.
The local reports were no clearer. The Union Army had been beaten badly near Springfield, its general killed, and it had retreated to St. Louis. But the rebels had not followed. They had retreated too, down into Arkansas or somewhere. And in the empty space that opened up, groups of men began appearing.
At first they rode by urgently, as if on their way to somewhere, or from somewhere. But then the groups rode more slowly, watchfully. Instead of staying on the main road, they would ride through the cutoff to Daybreak, walking their horses and peering into house windows as they passed. They rarely wore uniforms, or what uniforms they had were a nondescript half-colored garb. And in the slanting light of near-dusk over the mountaintop, no one could have told anyway whether the uniforms were blue or gray or something in between. The men in the fields warily watched them go by.
Four of them rode up and stopped one afternoon in the late summer. One of them, a man with a wide hat and a gold tooth, dismounted and came to the door. Charlotte met him on the step.
“Can we trouble you for a dipper of water?” he asked, tipping his hat.
Charlotte fetched the dipper and bucket from the barrel in back. The man was standing in the doorway, and she could tell that he was studying the contents of the house.
“We hear there’s a man makes whiskey around here,” he said as he walked back to the horses and passed the bucket. “This the place?”
“You passed it,” she told him. “It’s that house there.”
“Think he might sell us a jug or two?”
“Hard to say,” she said. “He’s in jail up in Fredericktown.”
“I’ve heard about that,” the man said, mounting his horse. “Thirty or forty of our boys locked up there, and another bunch over in Ironton. Trumped-up charges of one sort or another.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” Charlotte said. “We don’t get much news out here.”
The man handed back the bucket and tipped his hat with a flourish, smiling broadly, his gold tooth glinting. “Well, thank you, ma’am. And God bless Jefferson Davis!”
When Charlotte didn’t respond, he looked at her suspiciously. “What’s the matter, ma’am, don’t you support the cause?”
“I just gave you a bucket of spring water, didn’t I?”
“That you did.” He smiled again. “This settlement up ahead, is it friendly?”
“Friendly as any, I suppose.”
“What I mean is, is it a rebel town?”
She looked at the man’s face. “It’s like every town. Some think one way, some think another. We try to work together and not let politics divide us.”
“This ain’t politics any more, ma’am. It’s war now, and there’s no splitting the pie.” He looked out over the village. “Prosperous looking little place. Strange, don’t see no cattle though.”
“A bunch of men came by and took them last week,” she said, surprised at how easy it was to lie. “Milk cows and all. They were dressed about like you, but they didn’t say what side they were on.”
“No hogs either.”
“Where did you grow up, man? The hogs are in the woods this time of year.”
That seemed to satisfy him. He backed his horse out of the yard. “Thanks for the water. I was just testing you with that Jeff Davis remark. Point of fact, we’re scouts for Plummer’s regiment. God bless Old Abraham!” He squinted at Charlotte, waiting for a response.
“God bless us all,” she said, “and grant us a speedy end to this conflict.”
“They told me you hill folk were a crafty lot. Let’s go, boys.” The men rode through the village fast, pausing at no more houses.
About sunset two more men came through behind them. One was a large man riding a big Belgian that looked more suited for plowing than road travel; the other was a little one-armed man on a nervous black gelding that he had trouble controlling. The horse was bridle-shy and kept pitching its head. Turner was in back of the house, washing up, and Charlotte was watching Newton out front.
“Did four men come by here earlier today?” the one-armed man called from his horse. “Strangers?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Ha!” the little man said. He turned to the big one. “I told you those shit-birds would take this road instead of the other one.” He turned back to Charlotte. “How long ago?”
“Couple of hours!” the large man said to his companion. “We’ll never catch up to ‘em.”
“Oh yes we will,” the little man said. “They’ll stop and make camp. We’ll come up on ‘em in three hours or so. Ma’am, they say anything else?”
“They said they were scouts for someone named Plummer, but that’s it.”
The large man lifted his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. “Who’s Plummer?” he asked.
“How the hell should I know?” the one-armed man said impatiently. “It ain’t one of our people, I know that much.”
“I don’t know,” the big man said. “If they stop and camp, won’t they put a man out?”
“These bastards ain’t smart enough to put a man out. Besides, we’ll see their fire a mile off.” He jerked the reins of his horse, which bucked up and nearly threw him, and yanked it toward the north. The two men rode off at a trot.
Turner had never come out front, which seemed strange to Charlotte, since he usually took pleasure in greeting passers. But as soon as the hoofbeats of the horses died away, he emerged around the corner. His face was grave. He sat down on the doorstone, took a knife out of his pocket, and began to whittle a stick with shaking hands.
“That’s them,” he said in answer to her unspoken question. “That’s the men who killed Lysander Smith. I never saw their faces, but I’ll never forget that voice.”