The Last Full Measure Read online

  Sam was shoved back at us, but both Centipede and Ramrod were taken.

  I did speak then, not caring what David did to me. "Give me back my horse, you thieves!" I yelled after the Rebel soldiers. I screamed after them. I threw stones. Ramrod reared and cast a wild-eyed look, appealing to me to help her. I knew the look. She was begging.

  "Stop it. Can't you see you're only making it worse for her?" David scolded me.

  "Well, what am I to do?" I asked him.

  "Be quiet is what you do. Behave is what you do. Do as you're told. I'll get them both back. Take Ma inside the house."

  While we hadn't been paying mind, Jennie Wade had come over and pulled her brother, Sam, away toward home. "You're not working today," she'd told him. "Come with me."

  ***

  LATER THAT MORNING David went to Colonel White of the Thirty-fifth Virginia Battalion to secure the return of our horses. He failed.

  The colonel would not return them, not even after David told him that Ramrod was close to the heart of his little sister.

  Yes, David told him that. Mama said he did.

  What is more, White told David that he had been given the intelligence that we, the Strykers, were a "black abolitionist family." That our family had two sons in the Union army who had "taken much from the South," and so he was taking our horses.

  And, David told Mama, when he asked Colonel White where he had gotten his information, he replied that he had gotten it from Jennie Wade herself.

  Well, when Mama told me that, I near went out of my wits. "Jennie Wade? My friend?"

  "She's no friend of yours," David said. "I always said she was no good for you."

  We were at our noon meal. "I'm going over there this afternoon to have it out with her," I said.

  "You're not to leave the house without permission," David pronounced. "Especially with those Rebs hanging about. You do, and I'll give you worse than you got last night."

  "So give me permission, then."

  Mama came alert. She looked at me. "What happened last night?" she asked.

  But I just spooned my soup into my mouth and did not answer.

  So she persisted. "What happened between you two last night?"

  And when again I did not answer, she turned to David. "What did you do to her, David?"

  He bit into a muffin. "I whipped her," he said. "She left the house in the dark. Without permission. She went far into the woods. I had to go and fetch her home. I did what I had to do. I'll answer to Pa if you want. I did what I thought was right. I have to keep order around here." He went on eating.

  Mama ran her tongue along her lips, eyed her son for a moment, contemplated what he'd told her, and started to speak, then decided against it. Then she looked at me again. "Your brother is the head of the house when your pa is not here. You must obey him," she told me.

  "On second thought, I'll not only give permission," David was saying, "I'll accompany you to Jennie Wade's. So you can have your say."

  From the kitchen, where she was standing, I saw the look on Josie's face. She was frowning.

  "He still loves that Jennie Wade," Josie whispered to me before I left with David.

  "No, he doesn't," I promised her. "He doesn't. You must believe me."

  And so it was that David walked me over to Jennie Wade's house that afternoon, a walk he had not taken in about six years. He said not a word to me all the way. There was nothing we had to say to each other. Although it would have been nice if he thanked me for not being a tattletale and telling Mama he had whipped me, he didn't. It was something he expected of me, I suppose, some loyalty that harkened back to the old days when we protected each other, would have died for each other.

  Once at the Wade house he stayed a discreet distance from her front door, out on the dusty street, and said, "If I see any Rebs, I'll yell for you. If I do I expect you to come immediately."

  I agreed and knocked on Jennie's front door. She let me in.

  I did not waste time on pleasantries.

  "How could you have so betrayed our family to Colonel White as to tell him we are black abolitionists?" I demanded.

  "Well, aren't you?" She smirked.

  "But we never belonged to an abolitionist movement! Pa never belonged to the Underground Railroad! As a matter of fact, as a doctor, he is sworn to help everybody—Northerner or Southerner."

  "How sweet. And you don't have two brothers, then, fighting for the Union?"

  "Jennie, your betrothed is fighting for the Union! You just wanted to make things difficult for us is all. But why? What did we ever do to you?"

  She grimaced. "Truth to tell, I'm sick of you all looking down your uppity noses at me. You Strykers, with all your money, hiring my brother Sam to work for you because you feel sorry for us."

  "We thought you wanted Sam to work."

  "And I know David doesn't think I'm good enough for you to associate with. You think you're all too good for us."

  "So that's it, then. David. It gets back to David, after all."

  "Posh, David. A pox on him."

  "You still love him—is that it? And you'll never forgive him for turning you away."

  "Who does he think he is, with that twisted leg? Can't even fight in the army. Is that something to be proud of?"

  I felt myself go hot and prickly all over. "Well, that's enough, as far as I'm concerned, Jennie Wade. You can say all you want about me, but you can't bring low my brother for having a condition he had nothing to do with. We're finished from here on in. Goodbye."

  I started out the door.

  "Ha!" she called after me. "Heard what that wonderful brother did to you last night. Sam told me. He spanked you. And you, fourteen. And you defend him? You Strykers are all crazier than hooty owls, so there. Good riddance!"

  I left. All I could think of, going out the door, was that I was supposed to have been a bridesmaid in her wedding in September. I was supposed to wear pink. The devil with it. I did not like pink anyway.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ONCE HOME I ran into my room and flung myself onto my bed and cried and cried over my losses this day. The fight with Jennie had undone me. But the loss of Ramrod was deep and searing in my soul.

  How could she be gone? What right did the Rebs have to take her? There was no doubt which was the greater loss to me. Jennie would always be about, fighting and standing up for herself. But Ramrod was an innocent animal, taken from her own, unable to speak for herself, wondering why I did not come to rescue her.

  She was mine, had been since my brother Joel gave her to me for my eleventh birthday.

  We were dear friends, me and that horse. We practically read each other's thoughts, knew each other's needs. What would they do to her?

  Would they beat her? Starve her? Lead her into battle, where she would be shot to pieces? She was afraid of gunfire and I'd been careful to keep her clear of it.

  Oh, God in heaven, would I never see her again?

  The door of my room opened.

  "Tacy, come downstairs right now."

  David. Intruding on my mourning. "I'm never coming downstairs again."

  "You heard me. Ma needs you!"

  "I'm going to die up here."

  "Not without my permission."

  "Your permission be damned."

  "Watch your mouth, missy. Ma has some great lye soap that's perfect for washing out dirty little mouths. Anyhow, this is no time for personal pity. We haven't the luxury for it. Now if you don't come, I'm going to come over there and drag you down. Another battalion of Rebs has come into town."

  More Rebs! I forced myself up, wiped my face, and went downstairs with him.

  And there I beheld a miracle, even though I no longer believed in miracles.

  Pa was home! David had tricked me, lied to me! There were no Rebs. There was Pa.

  As sure as God made telegraph wires, there he was, my pa, like he'd never left. Sanity returned to us.

  He stood there, filling the parlor with his realness in t
hat Union uniform of his, which he hated but which he had to wear. It was full of dust. His hat was off. His gray hair was still full and in need of trimming. His face was tanned and weathered, and those blue eyes still sparkled.

  His presence was like a continued conversation.

  "Pa!" I shouted.

  "Daughter!"

  I ran to him, embraced him. He held me in his arms, and in that hug he created the world all over for me, chasing out everything bad that had happened.

  I smelled the tobacco on him, the man smells, the horse, the harsh soap, the rum, the medicine smell, the hope and the strength. "Pa"—I pulled back and searched his face—"are you all right?"

  There were tears brimming in his eyes. But they would not spill over. He would never let them spill over.

  "As right as God's rain, Tacy," he said. "And you?"

  "I'm fine, Pa."

  "Have you been behaving in my absence?"

  I did not answer. I lowered my eyes.

  He looked at David for confirmation. "Has she, son?"

  "Yes, sir," David lied.

  So, David would still protect me. As I had protected him. There was something left between us, then.

  Mama's face was wreathed in smiles. "Come," she said. "Josie has a repast laid out in the dining room."

  We sat 'round the dining room table for ham and cheese and soup and bread and leftover fish. Pa was starved. He drank four cups of coffee as well as two glasses of Madeira wine.

  And he told us what had happened when he came through town on his horse.

  "Rebel General Gordon's brigade of infantry was marching through town," he said. "All the citizens were running, frightened. Then General Early came upon our councilman David Kendlehart in front of his home across from the courthouse. A happenstance meeting, but a goodly one. The infantrymen were demanding things—foodstuffs, supplies, clothes, shoes. Early had a list. I was just passing by and Kendlehart bade me take part in the meeting as a witness. Well, what could I do?"

  He took a long sip of coffee. We waited.

  "Kendlehart said it was impossible for the town to meet the demands on the list. I foresaw break-ins, lootings, if we didn't, so I suggested we let the infantrymen examine the merchants' stores and see what they could find. I calculated that by now they'd have stashed away most of their goods."

  "A stroke of genius!" Mama clapped her hands.

  Pa raised his eyebrows. "Hardly. I just wanted to get home and see my family."

  Then we spoke of other things, how the cow was faring, how the Rebs had taken the horses, and Pa asked me if people still teased me about my name. I said no. Not lately. They had other things on their mind.

  Pa had named me Tacy, and I had taken a fair amount of teasing about it. Because it wasn't a short version of anything. It was just what it was, Tacy. He'd named me after a girl he'd once been in love with, when he was ten years old, back in school in Virginia. She'd died at ten of cholera. And, with Mama's permission, he'd named me after her.

  So here I was, Tacy, a name nobody had ever heard of before. And I kind of liked it. "It makes you different," David had once told me. That was when David and I had been friends.

  When I was excused from the table, I watched out the front window and saw infantrymen passing by, some with piles of hats on their heads. I saw one with a whole bolt of muslin. Did he really need that muslin to keep him warm?

  One had spurs attached to his bare feet and another wore a corset around his waist.

  Josie came to stand with me for a minute, and we giggled over the sight.

  "How did you leave it with Jennie?" she whispered.

  "We fought," I whispered back. "She said bad things about David. I stood up for him. We're not friends anymore. And you don't have to worry—he didn't go inside."

  At that moment there came a pounding at the kitchen door. She ran to answer it, but David grabbed his musket, stepped in front of her, and motioned her off. He opened it himself.

  Marvelous and her mother, Mary, stood there. "Oh, please, let us in," Mary begged.

  Mama got up. "Since when do you have to knock? Or ask to be let in?"

  David stepped outside to see if there was anyone else about, then ushered them in, locked the door, and shushed everybody. "What's wrong?" he asked Mary in a very low tone.

  "We should have left town, our kind. Some of us did. Those who didn't"—and she had to stop talking to choke back a sob—"were caught by the Rebs, just as we always feared would happen, and lined up early this morning on Chambersburg Street and marched away under guard."

  I looked at Marvelous. I could not believe it. She was not looking at me but clinging to her mother like a two-year-old.

  Quiet tears were coming down Mary's face. "To the South," she said, "to slavery. We were in that group. Me and Marvelous. My husband, he was at work."

  "How did you get away?" David asked.

  "The Lord was with us. We slipped away. We come here." Then she did a strange thing. She knelt on the floor. "Oh, please don't send us back. If they come looking for us, don't send us back."

  Pa came over then and raised Mary up. "Of course we won't," he said. "Of course we won't. Now come—sit and have a cup of coffee."

  "What will we do, Pa?" David asked.

  By the time Marvelous and her mother had had their biscuits and ham and coffee, Pa knew, just as he had known how the town would supply the Rebel infantrymen with clothes and supplies.

  "I've always thought," he said, slowly and quietly, "that the belfry of the Christ Lutheran Church would be a wonderful place to hide."

  It was agreed upon. And it was given to David and me to do the task. Mama hid Mary and Marvelous in our garret until darkness came, and then David and I spirited them away to Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg Street and all the way up to the belfry, which was commodious enough to accommodate them, especially with the pillows and blankets Mama had sent along.

  "For how long?" Marvelous asked.

  "Until this crisis should pass," David told her.

  He did not say what crisis. He did not know, nor did I. But I did know that I would come to see them, to keep them supplied with food. We left some with them now.

  "It's a heap better than slavery," her mother reminded Marvelous.

  I went to bed that night thinking of Marvelous in the belfry of Christ Lutheran Church, and I never thought of Ramrod at all.

  ***

  PEOPLE LIKE to say that while the Confederates were here they committed no devious acts on us.

  Didn't they move seventeen railroad cars a mile out of town during the night and burn them?

  Didn't they burn the railroad bridge over Rock Creek?

  Weren't the telegraph wires severed?

  Didn't they take at least forty darkies, who were free, back south and into slavery?

  Didn't they steal my darling horse, Ramrod, away from me?

  Didn't they cause a terrible fight between me and my best friend, Jennie Wade?

  No trains arrive in town now. No travelers come anymore.

  The last of the Rebels who committed no devious acts on us left on Saturday, June twenty-seventh. On Sunday, everyone rejoiced in Gettysburg, saying the town could finally have a peaceful Sabbath as we had always had.

  ***

  EARLY SUNDAY morning I went up to the belfry of Christ Lutheran Church with David to fetch down Marvelous and her mother, Mary. I had visited them twice, bringing them two meals.

  Mary refused to come down. "No, we stay here," she said.

  "But the Rebs are gone," David told her. "They left yesterday. All is peaceful now. Come down and have breakfast with us. Ma wants you to."

  Mary stood steadfast. "No. They come again. In two days."

  Mary sometimes knew things the rest of us did not. Mama said she had "the gift."

  "Look," David reasoned. "This morning these bells will ring. You'll be driven out of your head. Come to breakfast. After services you can come back if you wish."

  Mary
agreed to that.

  After services they went back to the belfry.

  ***

  ON MONDAY MORNING Pa left us, saying he was going to be needed. He had all his doctor's equipment, including his Physician's Handbook of Practice.

  Pa knew something was about to happen. He had intelligence he could not share. It was why he had come home. But he would not tell us a thing, except that the Union army had a thousand ambulances for duty. He kissed us all, said not to worry. He bade me to be good and to mind David. He said he would be back. Then he mounted his horse and was gone.

  On Tuesday, the thirtieth of June, mounted Confederate officers appeared on the crest of Seminary Ridge.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EARLY ON TUESDAY morning, the last day of June, Sam came bursting through the back door just as we were about to have breakfast.

  "Everyone's coming into the streets!" he told us. He set down the bucket of milk he had in hand. He had just milked our cow, Daisy.

  "You ain't listening to me. People all up and down the street are out of their houses," Sam persisted.

  "I heard you." David got up, took the milk pail, and set it on the side of the sink. "What for?"

  "You mean you don't know?" Sam looked at David as if my brother were the village idiot. "General John Buford's division is coming. Up Taneytown Road. Least six thousand of 'em! Yankees!" He turned to leave.

  "Just a minute there!" David's voice halted him.

  Sam stopped in his tracks. "Yessir?"

  "Where you going? I'm responsible for you while you're here. I can't just let you run off."

  I felt a glow of satisfaction, hearing my brother use on Sam the same tone he'd used on me.

  "But all the boys are in the streets," Sam protested, "to bring water for the Yankee horses. And the girls"—here he smirked at me—"are bringing the soldiers water, milk, beer, and cake."

  "I don't care what others are doing," David said sternly. "Did you finish your morning chores?"

  "Yessir."

  "Water our horses?"

  "You just got one now," Sam reminded him snottily.

  David frowned at him warningly. "Don't sass me, boy. I know I just have one. You sass me, I'll take a riding crop to you, and I don't give a tinker's damn what your sister says."