Fever: Chapter 2 (Ed)

2

    There’s something about the roll-up shade on the window over your bed.  It’s made of some opaque material, probably shoddy.  Funny how quickly after the cotton boycott that stuff became synonymous with anything poorly made.  It’s fraying at the edges, and letting in increasingly bright morning light.  It’s just a big dark rectangle, surrounded by a halo of golden-white dawn.
    You’re aware of it before you’re even truly awake, and it’s slowly easing you back into consciousness.  Then, like the snapping of fingers, you’re bright and alert.  Saying you’re up again isn’t quite the right way to describe it.  Your mind feels much better than your body.  When you pull away your blanket, you see just how close you were to losing your life.  Your ribs are sticking out through your skin alarmingly.  So, for that matter, are your hips.  As if on cue, your stomach wakes up as well and grumbles angrily.  Your mouth salivates, and you’re practically shaking in anticipation for somebody to come by to bring you some food.  Even rancid bacon and hardtack sound good to you now.
    You’re also eager for your roommates to wake up.  You’d like to tell them about the dream you had last night.  No, it was more than a dream, it was some kind of vision.  The image of the black angel who spoke to you last night is still as clear as crystal in your head.  It must have meant something profound.
    It comes as a bit of a shock, then, when you see her coming in.  She’s one of the hospital’s first employees to arrive in the morning, and she’s pushing a broom past your bed.
    “Stay,” it’s the only thing you can think to say.  “Talk to me.”
    “Later,” she flashes that smile, and instinctively looks around to see who has noticed you speaking, and who hasn’t.  Then she’s gone again.
    The sounds from your stomach are growing louder, but the wait for Zecora to return is more anxious to you than the wait for food.  A doctor comes by and he pokes and prods you.  The gunshot wound on your shoulder has scabbed over and looks a lot less red and angry than the last time you took a good look at it.  The doctor takes a glance at it, then shrugs dismissively.  “You’re lucky to be alive,” he tells you, “it was the fever that almost killed you, not the war.”  Then he orders you to “get fat again, so you can get out of that bed.  We’ll be needing it for others.”  You feel a little guilty for getting shot and getting sick in the first place, but you don’t need any orders from the doctor in order to eat.
    Nurses bring breakfast by a little later.  Bacon and hardtack, just like you’d guessed.  Later in the day you get bread and rice, a donation from a local church.  The bread is stale, but it sure beats the hardtack.  You talk to a nurse that comes by.  She’s a great, tall, imposing woman.  Very pale skin and shockingly red hair.  Later you’ll find out she’s the head nurse of the whole hospital, and runs the place straight as an arrow.  Redheart is her name.  For now you only want to learn about Zecora.
    “Alice, you mean,” she tries to correct you.  “She’s in another ward, on the other side of the hospital.”  Then she asks you why you want to know.  “Has she taken any of your belongings?”
    It’s only then you realize you’ve got any belongings at all.  Somebody’s shipped them down for you and they’re stuffed under your bunk.  No, you tell the nurse, nothing like that.  So she keeps pressing you on why you’re so curious.  You do your best, being slimy and evasive, trying to worm your way out from under her questioning.  You never give her a real answer though.  Finally, she raises an eyebrow, so sharp it could cut like a knife, and departs without another word.  A head nurse, you realize, can be more intimidating than a sergeant during a drill going badly.
    You bend over your bed to look through your stuff, and just that little act takes what little strength is left in your body.  It looks like everything’s here.  The Henry repeater you bought with your reenlistment bonuses.  Your uniform, washed but with a hole in the shoulder.  What’s left of your shoes.  There’s your rucksack with your personal stuff, like that picture of you and your old friends in those ridiculous old Zouave uniforms, and all your letters from home.  There’s a new one on top.
    It’s from your father.  You read over it a half dozen times before doing anything else.  All he’s talking about is the farm, and how it’s doing.  Spring hadn’t really come before he wrote it.  He probably doesn’t even know you'd been shot, let alone the fever.  You ask for some paper and something to write with, a common request in this place, and you get to work right away.  You write a letter to your father.  And another to your mother.  And to your brothers and sisters.  Several more to neighbors and friends.  It seems like for everything you write, you only get a response once in a blue moon.  You wish that weren’t the case, but there’s nothing you can do about it.
    Halfway through the first letter, after telling your father what’s become of you but that he shouldn’t worry, you realize you don’t know what’s happened to the army since you became sick.  So you ask your roommates.
    Pemberton’s holed up like a badger in Vicksburg, they excitedly tell you.  Grant’s got the whole city invested, and he’s pounding the hell out of them.  Soon as it falls, the entire Mississippi will be in Union hands again.  The Confederacy will be sliced in half, and soon to die.  The war will be as good as won.
    Spirits lift all around the ward at the discussion, especially yours.  Everyone just wants to go home again.  You wonder if Zecora has heard the good news, if not you’ll tell her when she returns.
    It’s not even noon and you’re already bored.  You read the new letter, and all the others, over again.  The fellow next to you is a sailor with some nasty steam burns.  You’d think he’d have some stories to tell, but he’s not very talkative.  Lunch comes.  The nurses make their rounds.  The doctor comes by, but he only stops at the really sick patients and passes you by.  You suppose that’s probably a pretty good sign.
    Zecora said she’d stop by tonight and tell you her story.  The longer it takes for the day to pass by, the more eager you get.  It itches, worse even than the wound in your shoulder that’s slowly knitting itself shut.  You see her a few more times as she goes about her errands for the day.  She pretends to ignore your requests for her to stop as she goes by.  You can tell that she’s listening though.
    Supper comes.  There’s a little pork, mostly beans.  You wolf all of it down and they give you more.  The sky out the window begins to dim.  Somebody down at the end of the hall has a banjo, and he begins to play.  Later everybody winds up singing together.  It all ends with one big rendition of Home Sweet Home, just like it always does back in the camps.  Then, as if on cue, Nurse Redheart comes in and tells everybody that it’s lights out, time to go to sleep.
    The snoring starts almost immediately.  First it’s from one cot, then another, then another.  You can count off as each of the patients falls asleep, except for the quiet ones, and after awhile you’re pretty sure they’re asleep as well.  Now the waiting turns into a struggle.  There’s nothing to look at.  There’s nothing to listen to but slow, steady breathing.  Your own breathing slows to match it.  Your eyelids grow heavy.
    There’s light.  Somebody with a lantern coming in.  You almost sit straight up.  It’s just another nurse.  She checks one of the particularly wounded patients, then leaves again.  You resume waiting.  Nobody comes.  Zecora’s not coming.  It’s no big deal.  It was a silly idea anyway, the idea you had at the back of your brain.  Your eyes close.
    She’s touching your hand.
    You wake with a start, gasping for air.  You hadn’t realized you had drifted off and had almost missed her.
    “I didn’t know if I should wake you,” she says.  “You should probably get your rest.”
    “I don’t need any more rest,” you say, blinking the sleep from your eyes.  “I’ve done nothing but lie in bed all day.  And who knows how many days before that.  I’ve been thinking about you all day.”
    She opens her mouth to say something, but she closes it again.  Instead, her hand returns to the bowl she has on her lap.  You hadn’t noticed it before, given you just woke up.  It’s a big wide thing, looks to be made out of half a dried gourd. There’s a wooden spoon in it. “I’ve brought my supper,” she says, “I hope you don’t mind.”
    “No, that’s fine,” you say.  “As long as you’re here.”  She sips a spoonful.  It smells wonderful, whatever it is.  “What kind of soup is that?” you ask.
    “Chicken,” she says.  “Would you like a bit?”
    “Sure,” you say, and she spoons some up for you.  You were expecting chicken soup.  You weren’t expecting this explosion of flavors in your mouth.  You’ve heard that people in this part of the country like spicy foods, but you’ve never tasted anything like this.  It almost hurts, but it tastes so good.  There’s cayenne pepper, it’s got to be that.  But there are spices in there that you can’t even name.  And peanuts.  Peanuts?  They must be chopped up real small, because you can taste them, but you can’t crunch them.  It is chicken stock after all, you guess, but this sure isn’t like any chicken soup you’ve ever had before.  You’ve been in the army for two years now, and this is by far the best thing you’ve had since, maybe ever.  “Spicy,” is the only word you manage to mumble.
    “Hmm,” Zecora says, sipping another spoonful for herself.  “The spices are better from Zanzibar.”
    You almost choke on your second spoonful of soup.  “You’re from Zanzibar?” you ask.
    “No,” she says, smiling, but weakly and thoughtfully.  “No, but I’ve been there.  It’s as good a place as any to start my story, if you still want to hear it.”
    You nod, not wanting to interrupt her.  At first she gives you a spoonful then takes one herself, back and forth.  As the story goes on, you don’t even realize it when she only feeds the soup to you.
    “We traded with the people of Zanzibar.  Ivory and pelts, mostly, for their spices and other things.  You should have seen their spice markets.  Great piles of many colors drying in the sun.  My father did most of the trading.  He was the chief of our tribe.”
    “Chief?” you ask.  “Tribe?  Like the Indians?”
    “Something like that,” she says.  “I always wanted to see Zanzibar.  Well, for the ocean mostly.  I was finally old enough to go, and my father humored me.  It was so much fun, riding on that boat.  Our trading went very well.  We made much profit.  My father bought me a big golden necklace.”  Her hand moves to her neck, as if she could hold it again.  “And a bracelet.”  The same at her wrist.
    You whistle softly, “Your father must have been rich.”
    “There were no banks in Africa, you see.  There is no place to store your money, except by having gold and jewels, and those you keep very close to yourself, so they don’t get lost or stolen.”
    “That makes sense.”
    “We were there for several weeks.  The buildings were bigger than any I had seen, and they were red, being built of coral.  My father got to meet the Sultan, he was very honored.  Then it was time to take the boat back home, and for the long walk inland.
    “Our people were very excited to see us again.  Not just for our return, but a messenger had come from very far with a very important message, and he was waiting there to see us.  He had been sent by my father’s sister, Zecora.  My namesake.  You see, my father had not seen my aunt since he had been a very young boy.  She had been sent far away, married into a tribe far to the west.  It was so far away that nobody in our tribe had known anything about her, or what had become of her.  Now after all those long years, we had finally heard from her again.
    “You can understand that my father was very excited.  He asked the messenger a million questions.  Much had happened over the years.  My aunt’s husband, my uncle, lost all of his older brothers and become the chief himself.  Their tribe grew large and rich, growing into a powerful kingdom because my uncle ruled wisely.  When my uncle died, my aunt’s son took his place.  He was wise too.  There had just been a great war, and their kingdom had been victorious.  That was why the king had sent a messenger, to find his mother’s people and tell them of the wonderful news.
    “We had only just gotten back home and already my father was planning another trip.  He would be going himself, of course, leaving my eldest brother in charge back home.  He was more than old enough.  My father would be sending gifts.  A gift for my aunt’s marriage.  A gift to honor my uncle’s coronation.  A gift to honor his death.  A gift to honor the birth of my cousin.  A gift to honor his coronation...  I think most of all he simply wanted to see his sister again.  I’m sure he must have loved her very much.
    “Naturally, I wanted to go.”
    “Naturally,” you say.
    “At first he said no.”
    “At first?” you ask.
    “I can be very strong-willed.”
    “I can imagine.”
    “So in the end I went.  Along with a few dozen of our best men, warriors and hunters.  One of my brothers went, the messenger was our guide, and there were a few others.”
    “I thought the trip to Zanzibar had been long. This... was much longer, by far.  It was more dangerous as well.  Some of the people we met were people we had never met before.  Some of them were unfriendly.  Maybe we brought too many warriors and they thought that we were the ones who were dangerous.  The messenger hadn’t had such problems on his way east.  They asked for tributes for permission to walk through their lands.  Sometimes we had to give them the gifts intended for my aunt.  Some of them wanted my necklace.  My father said no.”
    “Good for him,” you say, now completely invested in her story.  The quality of her voice sucks you in.  She can speak low enough that it’s just above a whisper.  It won’t wake the other men, but you can hear her perfectly well.
    “There were other problems as well.  One man was bitten by a snake.  His leg was swollen worse than any of the patients I’ve seen here.  He died the next morning.  Another man stepped into a hole and badly broke his ankle.  We thought we had come too far to take him back to our people, so we had to carry him.  We didn’t even know that we weren’t even halfway yet.  It became a true ordeal.
    “We passed over mountains.  We passed into a jungle.  Our guide became happy with this, because it meant we were getting closer.  In time we came to a deep, wide river.  It was very brown and the guide assured us we were almost there.  I did not know it at the time, but it is called the Congo.”
    “The Congo,” you whisper.  All these names you had only read of in books, she had actually been there.
    “It took us several days, but our guide showed us how to make good rafts to float down river with.  So I got another ride on a boat, if you can call it that.  Our guide became very happy the further downstream we went.  Then he started to become more worried, I noticed.  He was watching the shore for people, you see.  We were near the borders of his kingdom, there should have been people to see.
    “Everything went truly wrong when we came to the first village.  It’s impossible to nap on a raft of that sort, you’re practically sitting in river water, but I must have been sleepy and starting to doze.  All of a sudden everybody started shouting.  There was smoke rising around the bend.  When we got there, the village had been destroyed.  Recently too, for the homes were still burning.  There was nobody there, nothing except for a few dogs, chickens, and pigs.
    “My father thought it might have been an act of revenge, for the war my cousin had won.  But it made little sense, since they wouldn’t have taken the people and left the food.  When my father turned to ask the messenger what he thought, the messenger was gone.  We couldn’t find him.”
    “He ran off?” you ask.
     “That’s what we thought at the time,” Zecora says.  “But now I’m not so sure.  We returned to the rafts.  Everyone was very nervous and frightened.  Even my father, which frightened me more.  With our guide gone, we were almost completely lost.  The only thing we knew was how to get back home.”
    “What did you do?” you ask.
    “We went down the river,” she says.  “We did not know if it was this one village, or all of them.  If my aunt’s people were at war, my father promised to help them.  So did all our warriors.  The only thing was... it wasn’t just that one village.  The next one was the same, and the next one after that, and so on.  We didn’t know which village was which, or where we might have found my father’s sister and her son.  So we just kept going.
    “After several days, we met some people at a village left intact.  Talking was difficult without our guide.  We tried to ask them about my aunt and her people.  They recognized their names.
    “‘Downstream,’ they kept saying.  ‘You must go downstream.  Keep going.  There are falls, you must go past those and keep going downstream.’
    “We found the falls and it took us a long time to port our rafts down.  We met more people, but not the people we were looking for.  ‘Keep going,’ they told us, so we went.
    “At last we came to a village, larger than the last.  There were... very strange boats on the bank.  We had never seen their like.  We told the people who we were looking for, and they seemed very happy to meet us.  Too happy, they were laughing.  ‘Come ashore,’ they said.  ‘We can help you.  Just walk down this path...’  I think my father sensed an ambush.  Maybe we all did.  We walked into it anyway though.  You... you probably already know who ambushed us...”
    You hadn’t really thought about it until now, but now that you venture a guess, it’s painfully obvious.  “Slavers,” you say.
    “I think they may have been Belgians,” she says.  “I’m not sure.  This was before I had learned any of the white men’s languages, and there was a lot of shouting anyway, and laughing.  Some of the guards put up a fight, and they were killed on the spot.  With guns.  The last thing I saw before I was pulled away was my father being beaten.  They... they took my gold.  That was the first thing they did to me.”  Zecora rubs her neck and wrist vigorously now.
    Through none of this does Zecora’s voice waver or break.  She must be a very strong woman, you realize.  Your own voice would probably break if you had to tell that story.  Still, you have no less sympathy for her because of it.
    “They put me on one of those strange boats.  They shut me in a room with no windows and two other women, I could not speak with them, I did not speak their language.  I never learned what happened to my father or anybody else in our group.  They took me downstream, again.  This time all the way to the ocean.
    “They put me in a great stone prison, as if I had committed some crime.  I was there for weeks, and they never let me, or any of us, out.  I thought they might never let us out.  They gave me another necklace, and bracelets.  These were iron, and they had chains.”  Now when she rubs her neck she looks pained.
    “Then, all of a sudden, they were taking us out.  Not by the same way we went in, though.  There was this long stone hall, very dark except for a bright light at the very end of it.  I guess I was almost excited.  Not glad, but relieved to be out of a prison.  I could hear the ocean, and it reminded me of Zanzibar.  I could smell the fresh air.  Then we passed through that exit, and I saw what was on the other side.
    “They put me on another boat.”
    You don’t know much about the wide world.  Zecora has obviously been through more of it than you.  But you know enough of the world to know what happened next.  “What was it like?” you ask, almost frightened to learn.
    Zecora takes awhile to think about this before answering.  She looks around the ward.  “Do you see this ward?” she asks.  “It is so long, and so wide?  The ceiling is so high?  It gets so dark without any light?  The men here... some are very badly injured.  Some are very, very sick.  Sometimes they are in terrible pain, and cry out.  Sometimes they die.”
    “Yes.”
    “It is like this,” she says.  “Only with another three or four hundred people packed inside.  Packed on top of each other.  Men, women, and children.  Chained down.  This is a ship, so it is rolling on the waves.  For weeks on the end.  There are no nurses.  Nobody to empty chamber pots, there are none.  The food is poured down in buckets.  When people die, they are left there to rot.  It was like that.”
    You don’t have any way to reply to that.  Even an acknowledgment that you heard and understand, a response like “oh,” wouldn’t cut it.  You try to shift the subject in another direction.  “I thought they had outlawed that,” you say, “the international trade, I mean.  I remember the abolitionists talking about it.”
    Zecora thinks this over for a moment.  “When you signed up for the army, did you sign up to free the slaves?”
    You’d like to be able to lie to her.  You’d like to be able to say that yes, you did.  You think she’d know that was a lie, and you don’t even want to lie to her.  “No,” you say.  “I always thought they had a good cause.  I mean the abolitionists.  But I didn’t think it was a cause worth killing and dying for.  Ain’t killing people worse n’ making them slaves?  Traitors committing treason though, that’s something else.  That’s why I signed up.  It’s not right just letting the country fall apart without a fight.”
    She looks into your eyes, and you think she can tell you’re telling the truth.  You hope its enough.  “Yes,” she says.  “Your Union outlawed importation of slaves many years ago.  Though it’s not worth the paper it was written on.  The slave trade went on as always.  The slave merchants became pirates, but it didn’t stop them.  This was especially true outside of the U.S.  The Caribbean Islands, for instance.
    “That’s where they took me, although I didn’t know it at the time.  Odd, to this day I still don’t know what island I was on.  They put me to work on a sugar plantation.  I was only there a few months before I escaped.”
    “You’re a runaway?” you ask, excited.  For years the papers had been filled with all sorts of exciting stories about runaway slaves that endured all sorts of trials and tribulations.  As tragic as Zecora’s story is, the sense of adventure she’s been through is palpable, and you’re eager to hear more.
    “Many times over, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  I played the good slave all those months, all the time devising a way to escape.  In the end, it became obvious that I was going to need help.  I had to approach somebody, so I went to the people I thought I could trust, people who I thought might want to escape themselves.  They were furious when I approached them.”
    “Why?” you ask.
    “Because they had been planning an escape far longer than I had.  I was new.  They thought I was a spy, an informant, working for the plantation.  It took me a long time to convince them that I wanted to get away too.  I wish I could have convinced them to go with my plan.  It was a better plan.  They weren’t just planning an escape, but a whole insurrection.  Bigger, but sloppier.  I had to abandon my plans to help them.”
    “It worked, to a degree.  The night of the insurrection was pure chaos.  I just ran for it as soon as I had a chance, into the forest.  I’ll admit, I took some pleasure in turning around awhile later and seeing the flames of the manor house going up between the trees.  I just ran in a random direction.  So did everybody else.  I don’t know if anybody knew where they were going.  I suppose many got caught.
    “I was lucky.  I made it to the coast.  The next day I found a boat.  Just a little single mast thing, half dozen crew.  I was nervous at first, as the captain was a white man.  But I realized fast he sure was no ‘gentleman farmer.’  They were smugglers, you see.  They had heard about the insurrection, and didn’t care a whit in helping a runaway off that island.”
    “Where did you go then?” you ask.
    “I had nowhere to go.  They couldn’t take me back to Africa.  So they gave me a berth and I signed on with the crew.”
    “You telling me, you started out as some kind of Indian princess... wound up a slave... then escaped and became some kind of pirate?”
    “Ha!  Only a smuggler.  The slavers are the real pirates, remember.  We smuggled rum, opium, all kinds of things.  I did well because my arms are strong, see?”  She flexes her muscles, and grins a wide smile.  “I learned every kind of knot there is.”
    “Is that where you learned English?” you ask.
    “No, French.”
    “You speak French?”
    “Oui.  Est-ce que tu parles français?”
    “Uh...”
    “I learned English a little later.  I spent a better part of the year on that boat, learning ropes, learning how to navigate.  I started coming up with a plan to commandeer it and sail back to Africa myself.  I didn’t know what hurricanes were.  I learned later.  We got caught in one off the east coast.  We foundered.  Barely managed to beach it.  It was the first time I had set foot on land since leaving that island.  When I touched ground again it was in South Carolina.”
    “Things happened pretty fast after that.  We were all caught.  Separated again.  I ended up on the auction block.”
    “That easy for them, huh?”
    “There was a lawyer involved.  Nothing ever came of it though.  They were all a bunch of pirates if you ask me.  I was quickly sold.  This time to a tobacco plantation.  Took me two weeks to escape from that place.”  You can’t help but snicker.  “I didn’t know about the bloodhounds.  They didn’t have them on the sugar plantation.  So they brought me back and whipped me.  So the next time I only stayed one week.”  You don’t snicker now.  “I made it further.  Into Virginia.  The hounds couldn’t catch me that time because I was ready for them, but somebody spotted me, and I can’t outrun men on horseback.
    “So they took me back.  This time instead of whipping me, the master puts me back on the auction block.  He said he was through with me, and that was fine enough for me.  I was in irons at the auction house for a good long time before I was bought again.  This master was the worst yet.  I’m not going to tell you why he took me back to the auction house and sold me at a terrible loss a month later.  Last time I saw him, he sure looked pale even for a white man though, I’ll tell you that.
    “Thing is, word gets around.  They put me up for a pretty cheap price, but there weren’t any takers.  You know how they say outlaws out west take pride in the high rewards they fetch.  I guess I was kind of like that, but turned around.  Nobody wanted to deal with me.  I had a reputation.”
    Zecora tells you about the start of the war.  She was in Charleston, in earshot when they started firing on Fort Sumter.  They never sold her again.  With the war going on, with the boycott going on, there was a surplus of cotton and nobody to sell it to.  There was no need for farmers to buy new slaves, but plenty of need for labor in the war effort.  They put Zecora to work down by the docks.
    And here’s where her story starts to become familiar, as if you read about it somewhere in the papers.  As incredible as Zecora’s story has been, it’s leading up to something bigger, and you can feel it coming as she tells it.  Zecora tells you how she knew another slave.  She tells you his name, but you don’t catch it.
    The Confederacy made the mistake of making him a slave pilot of one of their steamboats.  A troop transport, a couple of guns.  She tells you how late at night the white officers on the ship leave for drinks or some such, leaving the boat empty.  This slave, though, was ready for it.  He sneaks back onto the boat, dressed in the white officer’s uniform, and a big straw hat, just in case somebody looks his way at three in the morning.  A few of the other negro crew sneak on with him.
    They slip off the ropes and push away from the docks, firing up the steam engine when they’re a little further away.  They stop at another dock downstream.  Here the wives and the family of the crew are waiting for them, and they all rush on board as quietly and fast as they can.  Zecora slips on too, as she was helping their escape.
    Now the pilot, knowing all the calls and all the passwords, and knowing those waters like the back of his hand, managed to slip out of Charleston Harbor.  He steamed right past Fort Sumter itself, and the rebels never had a clue.  As soon as they made it out of range, the pilot raised a full steam, then a white flag, and headed straight for the Union blockade.
    Zecora said that was the most frightening part for her, perhaps since she had first been captured along the Congo.  She was so close to freedom, but she couldn’t know for sure.  She was terrified those ships might open up with their guns and kill them all.
    The Union ships saw the white flag though, moments before firing it was later said.  As soon as Union sailors set foot on deck, the pilot asked them to raise the US flag.  That pilot, a former slave of two hours ago, now a hero of the war, had just surrendered the ship he had just commandeered, along with its two guns, the four heavy field artillery pieces in the cargo, a large supply of powder and ammunition, and last but not least, detailed secret maps of all of the mines and defenses in Charleston Harbor.
    Now you recognize the story.  That really was in all the papers.  You’d be honored to meet Zecora for being a part of that miracle, even if you hadn’t been enthralled with her since that night she broke your fever and saved your life.  “What happened to him?” you ask.  “What happened to you?”
    “He joined the Navy,” she said.  “There was plenty of room for him, even if he was a negro.  They were probably glad to have him, given how well he knew those waters and could handle a boat.  I assume he’s doing well.  The rest of the crew joined the Navy as well.  As for their families, the Navy found a place where they’d be safe.”
    “They didn’t know what to do with me.  I asked if I could join the Navy too, given I had plenty of sailing experience.  They said they didn’t take women.  When they put me on land, I asked if I could join the Army.  No women there either.  And no negros.
    “There was a hospital.  I asked if I could be a nurse, and they said no negroes.  They could use a maid, though.  So that’s how I eventually wound up here.  I think I’ll be fine if I never ride a boat again.”
    Zecora’s story seems to end abruptly.  And inconclusively, like there should be more to it, but there isn’t.  She seems content that it’s over.  The bottom of her bowl has long since been scraped clean.  Your belly is still full.  “Thank you,” you say.
    “For the soup?” she asks.
    “For the story,” you answer.  “And for the soup too.  It was delicious.  I really liked your story though.”
    “I should thank you for listening.  You know, nobody has actually asked to hear my story before.  Nobody has cared,”  Zecora says.
    “Can’t hardly believe that.  It was all my pleasure.  If there’s anything I can do for you, just...”
    “How about your story?” she asks.
    “Come again?”
    “You must have a story.  You listened to mine.  I’d like to hear yours.”
    “Oh, you don’t want that,” you say.  “I’m just a simple farm boy from Ohio.  I ain’t never done nothing interesting like you.”
    “I think you’re being modest,” she says.
    “Why do you think that?”
    “You’re from Ohio.  But here you are in New Orleans.  Not just for a visit, but you’re in a hospital.  In an Army hospital.  And you’ve got a bullet hole in your shoulder.”
    “Oh, that,” you chuckle, a bit embarrassed.  “I guess I could tell you about being in the Army, if that’s what you’re interested in.  I guess I could tell you about Pea Ridge.”
    “What is Pea Ridge?” Zecora asks.
    “Pea Ridge is a hill up in Arkansas.  See, we were driving south.  Chasing the rebels.  I was with Curtis at the time.  Then we got wind that Van Dorn and his men were coming up north to get us instead, and he outnumbered us.  So we ended up high-tailing it back to our rears, trying to find a defensive position.  We got one behind a creek.  Little Sugar, but it weren’t sweet at all.  Van Dorn, though, he was smart enough not to attack.  He ended up trying to go around us, to the west.
    “He ended up splitting his men into two groups.  The first was under General McCulloch and General McIntosh.  See, they had been recruiting Indians.  There was Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole... you name it.  People talk about how scary the rebel yell can be, but it ain’t got nothing on a genuine Indian yell.  They hit us hard, and we fall back.  They hit us again, and we fall back further.  I figure we’re almost done for.  But then I see, with my own actual eyes, their General McIntosh.  He gets shot through a whole lot of times all at once, killed and shot clean off the saddle on his pony.  After that, all the fight seemed to go out of them.  It was like they melted away and we’d been saved.
    “Then we find out that Van Dorn had led the rest of his men up north, and all the way around Pea Ridge to try to attack us in our rear.  That would have been on our left, or I guess what had been our left, when we were digging.  Heaviest fighting was up there, by that tavern.  Van Dorn’s men had gone too far though, just gone too far.  We ended up winning that day.  The next morning  we see them up on the ridge.  So Sigel and his Germans start laying down down artillery fire just clean and perfect.  I’ve never read one of them books the officers read at the academy, but I can’t imagine it looking prettier than that.  We charged up that hill, and the rebs just fell away, rolled up just like a bedroll.  It wasn’t my first fight, but it sure sticks in my craw.  Yeah, I could tell you that story.”
    “I’d like to hear it,” Zecora says with a grin.
    “I could tell you about Donelson.  Or Henry.  Hey, there was Belmont.  First time I fought with Grant.  We licked the rebels good, but then when we were marching back to the transports they counterattacked.  There was some pretty heavy cannon fire coming in, so we ended up double-timing it back to the boats.  We get back on, but the word goes out that there’s some missing regiment still on shore.
    “I’ll never forget that sight, Zecora.  Shells coming in.  Rebels getting close.  The last man on the shore was Grant himself.  He’s still on horseback, and there’s this great steep bank on the river.  But he rides that horse, he practically dances that horse down that bank, then goes trotting right up that little narrow gangplank onto the boat as we’re still pushing off.  Trotted up to the sound of our hurrahs.  That was a sight to see.”
    “He sounds like a very good leader.”
    “Oh, hey, I could tell you about that fight on the Tennessee River.  We were camped, oh, maybe a few miles south of Pittsburgh Landing?  And it was sort of like camp, you know?  When you’re a kid?  Just a big thick forest.  A campfire, and nothing to do.  We were there awhile.  Then one morning the rebels attacked.  This wasn’t a demonstration.  This was a full assault, whole divisions under Johnston, could have been the whole rebel army.  We fell back, and back, and back.
    “There was... you see.. there was this stand... we ended up calling it the ‘Hornets’ Nest.’  And we... well... there was this big fight... and... and...”
    It comes back to you in a big flash.  It’s like the flashpan of an old flintlock going off.  There’s this bright light, and your whole body jerks.  It’s not just that, you can actually smell the powder.  That choking sulfur-y smell that stinks the whole battlefield at any fight.  You hear the screams too, the screams of the men, dead and dying.  You can even feel the warm spring sun that you felt in those awful woods.
    “I... I don’t think I want to tell that story,” you say.
    “You don’t have to,” Zecora says, now concerned.  She’s seen that look on veterans before.  There’s no need to go on.  “We’ve probably done enough storytelling for one night.”
    “I... guess you’re right,” you say.
    “It’s very late.  This has gone on longer than I expected.  You should probably get to sleep.”
    “Yeah.  Yeah, I think you’re right.”  You hadn’t realized how tired you were until Zecora mentions the subject.  It feels like you’ve been up for a hundred years straight.  You can almost feel the bags under your eyes.  You lie back in bed.  It’s funny, but you were sitting straight up.  You don’t remember having sat straight up, but you were.  Your heart was racing too, for some funny reason.
    “There you go,” Zecora says.  She’s pulling your blankets up to your neck, and for some reason, it feels better than if you had done it yourself.  “Are you going to sleep well?”
    “Uh huh,” you say.  Now she’s tucking the blankets around you.  You can feel the sleep closing in around you, as if you’re receding down a dark tunnel.
    “No nightmares tonight?” she asks, fluffing the sides of your pillow.
    “No, not tonight,” you say.
    “Good, then sleep well.” She bends down and kisses you on the forehead.
    Suddenly you’re wide awake again.  She’s just as alert.  She pulls back, and her eyes are as wide as saucers.  That wasn’t supposed to happen, ever.  A negro woman kissing a white man.  It just doesn’t happen.  You see her eyes dart left to right, checking to see if anyone was awake, and had seen what just happened.  Her hands descend to the little lantern she carried into the ward.  She turns it off.
    The whole ward grows pitch black.  “Good night,” you hear her whisper.  You hear footfalls as she leaves the ward.  The door squeaks as it swings open.
    Then Zecora is gone.

    The next day is harder than the last, having to wait for Zecora to sit by your bed and talk to you again.  It’s the kiss that makes it harder.  There’s a sensation in the skin and all those little muscles and wrinkles in your forehead, as if you can feel her lips still pressed there.  It feels stronger than the bones sticking out through your skin, or the wound in your shoulder.
    She comes the next night.  She’s got another bowl of soup.  Your mouth waters in anticipation of that spicy peanut chicken stuff.  This time it’s potato soup though, not that you complain.  There’s bacon in there, and somehow she got a hold of some cheese.  Most of it winds up in your belly again, rather than hers, but once the conversation starts you don’t notice a thing.  That night you tell her about Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson.  Then a few amusing anecdotes from camp.  Before you know it, it’s very late again, and time for her to leave.
    She comes every night.  There’s always something to talk about.  When you both run out of stories, there’s still the hospital to talk about.  You mention, off hand, how intimidating that nurse Redheart can be.  Zecora laughs and tells you she knows exactly what you mean, that woman is a terror among the hospital staff.  That’s part of the job of being a head nurse and running a good hospital, sure, but Redheart must be very, very good at her job and you both laugh at that.  She starts talking about all the  gossip, and you end up feeling closer, sharing a common adversary.
    Strength slowly returns to you, day after day.  You can feel the pounds gradually coming back.  Your bones don’t look so pronounced anymore.  You can walk from one end of the ward to the other without too much effort.  You’re still too skinny to be at camp, but soon you’ll be too strong to be in a hospital.
    One day you start worrying about how you’re going to say goodbye to Zecora.  That night there’s something you want to tell her, because you know she’ll listen, and maybe she’s the only one who ever will.  You tell her about that one fight you were in, the only fight you hadn’t told her about yet.  It’s the one in the woods near the Tennessee.  The one with the Hornets’ Nest.  The one by that little ramshackle church called Shiloh.
    It’s not a good story.  It’s a horrible, ugly, disgusting story.  It’s a nightmare.  There’s no reason on earth anybody should tell it, or anybody should listen to it.  Yet you have to get it off your chest.  She never stops you, or interrupts you, or shows any sign that she doesn’t want to listen.  When you’re done, you realize she’s been holding your hand through the whole ordeal.  Your body is covered in cold sweat.
    It’s over, though, you’re through it.  It’s also later than any other night that you’ve stayed up.  You’re falling back into the bed, feeling more tired than you ever had in your life.  The ward isn’t filled with the loud sound of snoring, like it usually is.  Maybe they’re awake.  Maybe they were listening. You don’t care.  Everyone here has the same story to tell, even if their story is different.
    Zecora is tucking you in again.  She hasn’t done this since that night she kissed you on the forehead.  She won’t be doing that this time.  It’s not supposed to happen.  The men might see.  Then her hand reaches down and turns off her lantern.  The ward is swallowed in pitch blackness.  Then her lips are pressed against yours.  They’re sweet.  They’re beautiful.  They’re wanted more than anything you’ve ever wanted before.  Then they’re gone.
    You hear her feet retreating down the ward.  You don’t hear the squeaking door, you’re already asleep.  It’s a deep, restful sleep, without nightmares of battle to trouble you.  There are dreams in that sleep, down deep where you’ll never remember them on waking.  They’re dreams of her.

    You sleep in late.  The nurses don’t wake you to give you breakfast.  They’ll just give you double portions of lunch later.  It’s a sudden awakening then, to the sound of cannon fire.  All the men are sitting up and alert, listening to it.
    “Maybe it’s thunder,” a nurse suggests.  There have been plenty of lightning storms this time of year.  It’s not.  You recognize that sound and can tell the difference.  Then the news comes in.  You’re not sure who brought the news in, but it goes down the line of beds as fast as lightning.  Vicksburg has fallen.  The whole of the Mississippi is in Union hands again.  And all this on the Fourth of July no less.
    The cannons fall silent one by one as they finish their salute.  The celebrations in the hospital are just getting started.  Every man capable of walking, including you, heads out the door into the open lawn.  It feels good to have cool grass beneath your bare feet again.  The officers beat you there, having come out their own ward when they first got the news.  They’ve brought their pistols out, and begin firing into the air themselves.
    Nurse Redheart is absolutely livid.  There isn’t supposed to be shooting at a hospital, especially by sick and injured patients.  The officers ignore her completely.  You decide to go back and get your rifle to fire off a couple rounds yourself.  Only a couple though, ammo isn’t cheap or easy to come by.  The doctors are out here too, and they only laugh at her frustration.
    The officers don’t just bring guns, but whiskey.  They pass the bottles around, generously sharing it with the men.  Redheart just gives up, seeing as how the doctors take a few swigs themselves.
    You catch a glimpse of Zecora.  She waves, from the distance.  She doesn’t join the celebrations.
    Later that night you both talk about current events.  You talk about the war, about politics, about what will happen to the country and its people.  You’ve got a home to go back to after it’s all over.  Zecora doesn’t, and you don’t know what will happen to her.  Neither does she.
    The next day you’re in for a surprise.  An officer comes by, not because he’s injured, but because he’s here to gather men.  He’s just a young buck lieutenant, can’t be more than sixteen years old.  That might be why they sent him here.  He’s full of news from the front.  The army’s going to be on the move again, on the offensive, but where exactly he can’t say.
    The war won’t be much longer now, he tells all of you, as you listen very carefully.  It’s not just Vicksburg.  The Army of the Potomac just licked Lee’s army pretty good when they tried to march into Pennsylvania.
    “Where about Pennsylvania?” you ask.  “I’ve got some family there.”
    “Some town called Gettysburg?  On the Baltimore Pike?”  You shake your head, having never heard of it.  “Anyway, Lee’s running yellow all the way back to Richmond.”  Somebody calls for three cheers, and you cheer as loud as the rest.  This really does sound like it’s going to be the end after all.
    So the Lieutenant says he’s under orders to bring every able bodied man back up river to Vicksburg.  Grant’s going to finish this fight once and for all.  The Lieutenant says that Uncle Abe has his eyes on East Tennessee, so if he had to guess, that might be where they’re headed next.
    You want to go.  You feel it's your duty.  So does every other man in earshot.  The men call for the doctors, and the doctors come, giving everybody an impromptu exam.  Some are clearly unfit to go, and they look disappointed when the doctor says they have to stay.  A doctor looks you up and down, then simply nods.  You’re still too skinny, but you’ll have to finish fattening up back in camp.
    You grab all your stuff from under your cot.  It feels good to be in uniform again, even though it fits loosely.  Your shoes are barely holding together, but there are soldiers with less.  Throwing your ruck sack over your shoulder, you almost double over, but then you manage to stand up straight again.  It seems heavier than it used to be, but you’ll manage.  The last thing you grab is your rifle.
    Then you pause.  You’re leaving.  All of a sudden you’re leaving.  This was unexpected.  It seems too fast and informal.  You weren’t sure what you were expecting exactly, obviously you’d have to leave sometime, but this is too abrupt.  Zecora isn’t here, but you’ve got to go.  Now you don’t want to leave.
    There are whistles out on the lawn.  You want to cheer when you see the men forming ranks.  You’re all going to be marching down the short distance to the river to board the transports.  There’s no reason to bother, except purely for military pride.  Even the men still on crutches are going to be marching.
    You rush out of the hospital as fast as you can, and form up with them.  A sergeant who lost two fingers on his left hand barks an order, and you all step forward at the same time.  The precision is just a little wobbly, but you’re all hardened veterans now, and as deadly and determined a group of men as ever.  There’s laughter and cheers and high spirits all among the men.  You look over your shoulder, back at the hospital.  You feel glad to be out, but your spirits aren’t as high as the rest of the men.
    You’re not there to see Zecora running out of the ward.  She’s only just found out that you’re leaving.  You don’t get to see her defying Nurse Redheart’s commands in running after you.  You don’t see her stopping at the end of the hospital grounds, when she realizes she won’t catch up to you, and may likely never see you again.
    She never got to say goodbye.  She never got to tell you to stay safe.