Crossing the Deadline Page 2

  Dutch nods, but he knows I’m telling a lie. “Okay,” he says. “Well, you be more careful with those horses.”

  “Will do,” I say. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  Dutch hands me the newspaper, and I turn to walk away, but he doesn’t let go. “You need to learn to read people as well as you read words,” he says.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I glance at the newspaper. “New York, Saturday, July 25, 1863” is printed across the top. A sketch of Major-General Ulysses S. Grant occupies the entire front page. “From a new photograph just received from Vicksburg” is written under his likeness.

  I turn the plump orange over in my hand several times as I stroll to the southwest corner of the room. With a big window on each wall and two soft chairs tucked below them, it’s the perfect spot for reading.

  I sit and scratch the skin of the orange with the tip of my thumbnail. Sunlight illuminates the mist of juice as it explodes from the rind. A tangy, sweet smell fills the air.

  From my spot in the corner, I can hear a group of older men chat at the hearth. One is a local fellow the kids in town call Possum Peckham. His real name is George Peckham, but his eyes sit too close beside an extremely long and narrow nose. Unless he looks directly at you, he appears to be crosseyed. Folks in Centerville talk about how he left for the war with a full head of dark hair and returned ten months later crippled and gray.

  Spinning yarns at the Mansion House is all Peckham can do since a rebel minié ball found his leg while he was down in Tennessee. He can’t take a labor job of any kind. He claims a wad of flesh the size of a biscuit was ripped from the side of his thigh. I’ve never seen it.

  Mom says the old fellow’s true job is testing Dutch’s ale for quality purposes. Occasionally, he drives a delivery wagon to Richmond, six miles east of Centerville. When pressed, he’ll take a longer haul up to Fountain City.

  Some of the men around the hearth sit backward in their chairs, chins resting on knuckles. Peckham’s war stories hold my attention better than the preacher’s sermon on Sundays.

  “I tell you what, pards,” Peckham says, “all them youngins who want to see the elephant, that’s well and good until they stare it square in the face.”

  “The South is using elephants?” a man blurts out.

  Peckham laughs. “‘Seeing the elephant’ means going into battle for the first time. When soldiers hear that beast bellow like they’ve never heard before, then they change their minds. When they see the elephant once, feel it, smell it, nobody cares to wrestle the monster again. Our division had five thousand four hundred men, not a man less when we started. Three hours later, our numbers had dwindled to five hundred. If it hadn’t been for the arrival of the Twenty-Third Missouri, every man would have been lost that day.”

  “Where was this?” someone asks.

  “Tennessee . . . a place called Shiloh,” I call out.

  “That’s right, Stephen,” Peckham says, looking over at me. “Almost smack on the Mississippi line.”

  Peckham stands and removes a cracked, leather-bound book resting on the mantel. “Is your brother, Robert, still serving with Grant?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say proudly while showing the general’s image spread across the front page of Harper’s Weekly. “His last letter said his group is attached to the Army of the Tennessee down in Vicksburg, but we haven’t heard from him lately.”

  He opens the book to reveal a tattered page of a newspaper pressed between the pages. “This here’s a drawing of the battle of Shiloh. Gotta give it to ’em. They got the battle drawn mostly right, too.”

  I’d seen Peckham share the same drawing many times.

  “And you were there? And saw it all?” a tall man asks, staring at the image. Peckham nods in silence and passes the picture to a man with a pipe hanging from his mouth. The man takes the picture, looks at it, shakes his head, and passes it to the man sitting to his left.

  I rise from my chair and approach. “Can I give it a look, sir?”

  He nods and hands the faded yellow paper to me.

  The picture shows two groups of men in a clearing, facing each other in rows. Their lines stretch across the open field. Those clustered near the bottom of the picture have fixed bayonets ready for hand-to-hand combat. Thick smoke billowing from cannons blocks much of the center of the scene. Two men carry a fallen comrade past a dead horse.

  Peckham continues. “There was one place where bullets flew so thick, we called it the Hornet’s Nest.” He leans forward and taps one man on the arm several times. “Imagine if you take a piece of hickory and whack a hundred wasp hives. Then try to fight off every last one of ’em with that stick.” He pauses for a couple seconds and in a low, serious voice adds, “That’s what it sounded like. Angry hornets. We thought it’d never end.” Peckham rubs the upper part of his right thigh. “That’s when Johnny Rebel’s minié ball found my leg.”

  The man with the pipe says, “Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable.”

  “There was a small pond near a peach orchard,” Peckham continues. “Not large at all, maybe as wide as from here to across the road out there. After the battle, when both sides were claiming their dead, the water in the pond looked like a pot of stewed tomatoes.”

  “At least it was another Union win,” a man with a red beard says. “That’s what counts.”

  “I don’t know ’bout that,” I correct him. “The Union had thirteen thousand men wounded, dead, or missing, while the Butternuts only lost eleven thousand.”

  “You’re pretty young to know so much about the war,” the man says.

  “That’s more than the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War put together in just two days of battle,” I say, looking again at the worn page from the newspaper. “A copy of Harper’s Weekly ’bout a year ago showed the eleven generals who were at Shiloh. Sherman, Buell, and there, square in the center of ’em all, was Ulysses S. Grant. ‘The Heroes of the Battle’ the paper called them.”

  Peckham nods. “Stephen’s right. Grant was there.”

  I hand the picture back to Peckham. “Thank you, sir, for letting me take a look at it.”

  “Your brother served at Shiloh when Peckham was there?” the man with the pipe asks.

  “No,” Peckham and I say at the same time.

  “He’s with General Grant now at Vicksburg. Last we heard.” As I walk back to my chair, all the talk about soldiers killed in the war reminds me how much I miss my brother. I remember how Robert teased me about girls and how, late at night, Mom yelled for us to “quiet down up there so you’ll be worth something to the world in the morning.” That only made us laugh harder.

  The paper called the generals “Heroes of the Battle,” and Grant gets his likeness put in papers all the time. But I know what a real hero is, and it’s not the generals. Robert’s a hero.

  CHAPTER THREE

  September 28, 1863

  The first frost of the year coated the ground last night, so it’s cold as I set out for the train depot. “On your way to play for the governor?” Miss Amanda Gates calls from her porch. She and Margaret Peckham are rocking and tying American flags onto thin cedar rods. “I see you have your horn.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I reply while pushing open her gate. “Mr. Wilson gave me a solo to play. We’ll see if all my practice pays off.”

  Margaret drops a flag into a large wicker basket as I place one foot onto the top step. “You’ll do fine, Stephen. I have no doubt,” she says. She pulls her quilt tighter around her waist. “Late September has brought a chill to the air.”

  “Yes, it has,” I reply. “That’s a lot of flags you’ve made for the recruitment rally.”

  “We’ve collected scraps for weeks,” Miss Gates says. She motions with her finger for me to come closer. I lean in, and with a hushed voice she says, “Even Mrs. Loggins, who’s meaner than a cottonmouth cornered in an outhouse, surrendered a swatch of white from a piece of bedding.”

  Mrs. Peckham laughs. “Not that
she gave up much. Looked like it hadn’t been washed in seven years.”

  “Margaret!” Miss Gates says.

  “I’m just tellin’ the truth, Amanda. I’m only tellin’ the truth.”

  “I’m sure everyone will love your flags,” I say.

  Miss Gates nods toward Margaret. “She made the stars. She wound white thread around her needle three or four times, held the knot in place, and pushed the needle back through the same hole it came from. White dots the size of tomato seeds.”

  I smile at Margaret. “Miss Betsy Ross herself would be proud.”

  “We don’t want the governor of Indiana to be embarrassed by his hometown,” Margaret replies.

  Miss Gates lays the fabric in her lap and shoots a sideways smile at her friend. “Horsefeathers, Margaret. How could Governor Oliver Morton not be proud of his own hometown? We’re family. When he sees these flags waving, he’ll have to be wallpapered not to be impressed.”

  Miss Gates holds up her latest creation. “Stephen, does this look crooked to you?”

  She’s fishing for a compliment. “What on earth are you talking about, ma’am?” I say. “The seams appear straight as rails. They’re expecting a couple hundred people to hear the governor. Do you think you have enough flags?”

  “They’ll go as far as they can go,” Miss Gates says.

  * * *

  Two hours later I see the ladies carrying their baskets through the crowd at the depot. Their hands retrieve one flag at a time as if they’re delicate dried flowers. They nod to each man and hand a flag to each lady. Sherry Ball stands next to me. She runs her fingers over a row of French knots.

  “Every single flag has exactly five rows of seven stars, Sherry,” Margaret assures her. “There’s no need to count ’em all. One star for each state. The thirty-fifth star is West Virginia’s. It was official on July fourth.”

  “Should only be twenty-four stars on your flags, ladies,” Richard Charman butts in. When the war started, Charman hung a flag from his front porch. But he cut one star out for every state that left the Union. “Seceshes’ stars should be taken off every Union flag,” he says with venom in his words.

  Margaret raises her voice. “You may call any state who seceded a Secesh, Richard Charman, or whatever else you like. But this is an American flag.” She stares him dead in the eyes, daring him to blink. “What you do with your flags, at your house, sir, is your business. These are my flags, and I worked hours to put every dadblamed star on ’em. I thank you very kindly to keep your comments to yourself.”

  “It’s a very beautiful flag, indeed, Mrs. Peckham,” I interrupt.

  “Thank you, Stephen,” she says, fighting back tears. She walks away, then stops. After taking several seconds to collect her thoughts, she turns and looks back. “Stephen, your brother, Robert, is fighting for all of this flag, every red and white stripe and all thirty-five stars. His efforts are not for a cut-up and tattered flag with some stars missing.”

  That brings a smile to my face and a lump to my throat.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A train whistle draws everybody’s attention west. I look down the tracks and see pillars of smoke swell from a locomotive’s engine. The train’s “welcome whistle” blows, and Mr. Wilson waves his hand to get the band members’ attention.

  Our director has taught music for twenty-five years in Centerville. A year ago he formed the Community Band with boys too young to enlist and men who returned from the war wounded. When the train whistles, he pushes his spectacles up the bridge of his nose and taps his baton against George Peckham’s tuba. There are no signs of Mother. But with the band sitting on chairs so close to the platform and the crowd so thick, I can only see past three or four people.

  Mr. Wilson says I know more about music than anybody he’s ever taught. “Stephen, you take to the bugle like a flame takes to a candle,” he said one day. More than anything in the world, I hope Mother’s here to hear me play my first solo.

  I refocus my gaze on Mr. Wilson. He puts one finger against his lips to indicate we are to begin softly. “We’ll build the music,” he said in practice. “We’ll whip the crowd into a frenzy.”

  We begin “Battle Cry of Freedom” on the downbeat. As the train nears the depot, Mr. Wilson keeps the beat with his right hand and motions with his left hand for the music to swell. As the train slows to a crawl near the depot’s platform, the music reaches a loud crescendo.

  When the train screeches to a stop, four porters pull boxes painted red with white stars from the side of the grandstand to create steps from the train.

  The doors open, and a hush falls over the crowd as if this all had been practiced a hundred times. A rotund man, dressed sharply in a dark suit, a watch fob hanging from one vest pocket, steps into the doorway. He grips the metal bar on the side of the train with one hand and waves to the crowd with a black walking cane tipped with a gold sphere. He waddles down the steps and onto the platform. Governor Morton receives a deafening roar of approval. He tugs on his goatee and bows his head to the crowd.

  The governor lifts both hands and says, “Thank you.” Nobody can hear his words above the ruckus. He strokes his thick black mustache and raises both hands again, calling for silence, but his gesture has the opposite effect. The cheers grow louder. Men remove their hats and wave them in tight circles over their heads. The words “thank you” are said again and again, paired with nods of his head. “Thank you. Thank you,” he says louder.

  When the crowd finally settles, George Peckham lowers his tuba and shouts, “Welcome home, Governor!”

  “It’s good to be home, George,” comes the answer. He strolls to a podium decorated with pressed bunting of red, white, and blue stripes.

  “The good folk of Centerville certainly know how to wake snakes,” he says.

  Another chorus of cheers erupts from the crowd.

  “Who’s that up there?” a shrill voice yells when it’s quiet enough for her to be heard. “All I see standing behind that podium is plain ol’ Oliver Hazard Perry Morton.” The comment brings a roar from the crowd.

  “Yes, Miss Amanda Gates, it’s just me,” the governor confesses.

  “Why, I remember when you had a full head of hair and were thin enough to hide behind a buggy whip,” she says. “What happened to you?”

  Governor Morton laughs politely at her comment. “Well, as you can see now, it’s reversed. My belly is full and my hair is thin. It would take an entire barrel of whips to hide me now. And”—he wags his finger—“I’m not leaving town until I’ve had a slice of your famous pumpkin pie.”

  Miss Gates shakes her finger back at the governor and says, “I thought so. I got two pies cooling right now. Just stop by and take a whole one home with you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As the laughter dies, Governor Morton pulls several notes from inside his coat pocket. “Friends, this war has taken too many of the Union’s finest; some from right here in Centerville. Many said it would be just a summer conflict. But here we are, three summers past. We will not rest, we will not bend, because our cause is the right cause.”

  Governor Morton points to a tall thin man leaning against the train, his arms folded against his chest. “Bill Robbins came to Centerville seven years ago and opened a hardware store. Bill, would you have worked as hard as you have to see all you’ve earned given away to somebody who did none of the work?”

  “Not in this lifetime,” Mr. Robbins says.

  “But that’s what slavery is. People working hard for no reward. That is wrong, and we can’t allow it to continue. Where is Dutch?” Governor Morton asks.

  Dutch is near the platform, hidden from view by the podium. He waves his hand in the air. “Down here, Governor.”

  “This gentleman traveled a long ways from Europe and built a business along Main Street. Does he give all his sweat so that one hundred percent of what he reaps will be handed over to others?”

  “No, sir!” Dutch yells. “I work hard for what I have.�
��

  “Exactly. You do the work.” The governor pauses. “And you reap the rewards. Slavery, folks, is unrewarded work.”

  “But we’re sick of this war!” a woman yells from the back of the crowd.

  A chill flashes up my spine, and the hairs rise on the back of my neck. Was that Mother? Did she come to the rally to challenge Governor Morton?

  Governor Morton nods in agreement. “I know you are.” He pauses several seconds and opens his mouth to talk, but stops.

  I turn to Sherry Ball. “Who said that?”

  “It’s Richard Charman’s wife,” she says.

  The governor pulls forward on his goatee with his left hand and taps the side of the podium with his right. “We’re all downright sick of the fighting,” he finally says in a lowered voice. “The separation from fathers, brothers, and sons is a pain we can’t put into words. But there is a larger call. That’s why I’m here today, in my own hometown of Centerville, Indiana, to remind you, my friends, that this war is a crusade, and we must continue to do our part to preserve the Union.

  “I see a time in the very near future when we will once again have one flag representing all of the United States of America.

  “Show me a man facing battle with fear and yet staring it smack in the face out of a sense of duty to his country. Then I’ll show you a hero.

  “I speak about two of our own bravest: Robert Gaston and John Robbins.” People turn to stare at me. I feel my face turn flush.

  “Those two boys did not leave Centerville, family, and friends to fight for glory. Robert’s mother, already a widow, has sacrificed in his absence while he is serving his country.

  “President Abraham Lincoln, who is a good friend of mine, said to both houses of Congress on July 4, 1861, ‘having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts.’