Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

I walked past cars and pickups, reading vanity license plates that indicated regiment allegiances or some tie to reenacting. Confederate flags hung across rear windows of pickup trucks along with bumper stickers for the NRA or the Stars and Bars with the slogan “If this flag offends, then study American history.”

A breeze carried the scent of wood smoke and a mockingbird sang nearby. I followed a path of newly matted-down grass along the creek bank. Cattails grew by the water, and elsewhere I noticed clumps of daisy fleabane, lacy white yarrow, and pokeweed, bent heavy under the weight of its eggplant-colored berries.

I didn’t see the massed clusters of low-slung white tents until I crossed the bridge and turned left at a sign with an arrow and “CS Camp” painted in black. The sign for the Union troops—“US of A Camp”—was farther down the path, indicating a campsite in the woods. The Confederates obviously got the preferred real estate since they were in the open field.

Though it was early, the entire Confederate camp seemed to be awake, caught up in the morning routine of dressing, washing up, and cooking breakfast over campfires that blazed next to open-air dining tents. Everywhere I looked men in patched or tattered jackets and trousers, kepis, and rough-looking shoes seemed purposeful and energized in spite of a night camped out in a downpour. The variety of uniforms was striking, but the impoverished South had been too poor to provide clothing and equipment as the war dragged on, so its troops wore homemade versions of the official uniform in a drab rainbow of colors that ran from gray to butternut brown.

There were fewer women and children than men, but they, too, were dressed in period clothing. The boys wore coarse cotton pants and flannel shirts; the women and girls were graceful and feminine in long hoop-skirted dresses or high-necked white blouses and calico skirts with aprons, hair tucked under bonnets or straw hats with flowing ribbons.

A man in a red flannel shirt, gray trousers, and khaki suspenders directed me to B.J.’s regiment, the 8th Virginia, which had set up their campsite at the far end of the field. I spotted Virginia’s deep blue flag, with its warrior woman subjugating a fallen man symbolizing tyranny, next to a faded Confederate flag.

Half a dozen soldiers sat around a pine table under a dining fly talking quietly and drinking coffee.

I greeted them and asked for B.J.

“Behind the tents,” someone said. “With his missus.”

I found B.J. and his wife, Emma, sitting in a pair of low Adirondack chairs. He was in the middle of reading aloud to Emma from a dog-eared pamphlet as she knit something lacy in pale blue and cream.

Emma saw me first and smiled, setting her knitting in her lap. She wore a brown-and-white sprigged cotton dress and a crocheted hairnet over her white-gold hair.

“Why, Lucie,” she said, straightening a lace shawl around her shoulders, “how nice to see you, dear. Come join us. Barnaby, pull up a chair for the child.”

I’d forgotten that B.J.’s first name was Barnaby. He caught my eye and grinned. “Glad you could make it.”

“How was camping last night?” I sat down in another Adirondack chair.

Emma shook her head. “We’re getting too old for this. We brought cots and a porta potty for our tent. No more sleeping on the ground. Or latrines.”

“Emma! You’re supposed to let her think we’re roughing it.” B.J. winked at me.

“Why don’t you get Lucie a glass of lemonade or a cup of coffee, dear?”

B.J. seemed not to mind being ordered around by his wife. “What’ll it be?” he asked. “Lemonade’s fresh made from real lemons.”

I took the lemonade.

“Are you going to be ready when the gates open?” I asked.

“Don’t you worry,” he said. “We got all kinds of things planned, besides the usual drilling and some practice on the firing range. I’ll be giving a talk at noon on the battle.”

“The Black Widow is here,” Emma said. “She’s always a treat.”

“The who?”

B.J. chuckled. “A woman who dresses completely in black. Didn’t you see her when you walked through camp? She’s got a knock-your-socks-off exhibit on death and mourning during the Civil War. What she doesn’t know about burials and grieving a hundred and fifty years ago isn’t worth knowing.”

“Occupational curiosity for a funeral director?” I drank some lemonade.

He grinned. “You ought to pay her a visit, missy. You might learn a thing or two.”

“You should hear her talk about the body watchers,” Emma said. “It’s like listening to a ghost story.”

“The who?”

“People who sat vigil to make sure the dead person had truly passed.” B.J. shook his head. “Course it doesn’t happen anymore, but those were the days before embalming when they’d put the body on ice. Every so often one of ’em would sit up and scare the bejesus out of folks.”

He put his thumb and forefinger together so there was no light between them. “Sometimes they’d come that close to burying someone alive.”

“Barnaby,” Emma said. “Lucie’s gone all pale. Get her some more lemonade, will you?”

B.J. jumped up and took my tin cup. “Didn’t mean to upset you, honey.”

“It’s all right.”

“I never should have brought that up with what you’ve just been through. I’m sorry, dear. It was thoughtless.” Emma picked up her knitting. “How are you coping, by the way? I saw the articles in the paper. One of the tellers at the bank told me the sheriff’s department has decided to close the case. I guess that must be a relief.”

“Not the way it turned out,” I said. “Especially if everyone in town’s talking about it.”

“Folks are always going to talk, Lucie,” Emma said. “But they soon forget and life goes on.”

The sound of a fife floated through the air, followed by the martial beat of a drum. Emma cocked her head to listen as B.J. pulled a cigar out of his pocket and lit up.

“I always like the music on these weekends,” he said. “Kind of haunts me.”

We listened to “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.”

When it had finished I said, “I guess I should be going.”

The music changed to a sweet, mournful tune I didn’t recognize.

“I’ll walk with you.” B.J. stood up. “I need to check on Tyler. Make sure he’s okay.”

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Making his ammunition for tomorrow.”

“You make your own ammunition?”

“It’s not hard. Can of gunpowder and a brass loader. It’s basic math. We’re only making blanks, of course. No live ammo.”

“How can you be sure it’s not live?” I asked.

“We do safety checks. Don’t worry. There are hardly ever accidents at these events.”

“BJ. says you might be coming by for the dance tonight with that winemaker of yours,” Emma said. “I know you can’t participate since you won’t be in period clothes, but I think you might enjoy the music.”

I turned red. That winemaker of mine and I were barely speaking.

“I’ll try to come, but I don’t know about Quinn. He’s, uh, rather busy in the barrel room at the moment.”

The music shifted to “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Great timing.

“Nonsense,” B.J. said. “Bring him. It’ll do him good.”

“I hope we’ll see you,” Emma said. “Don’t stay away.”

Her eyes were bright, but there was something different in the way she looked at me. Was it curiosity? Or pity? Maybe it was both.

B.J. and Emma knew my parents. I knew what had changed. Everyone in town thought my father was a murderer.

Quinn called after lunch when I was back at the villa checking on how Frankie and the waitresses from the Goose Creek Inn were coping with the crowds.