Harry Turtledove: The Guns of the South

He got back into his clothes reluctantly; no matter what a preacher might say, early summer was easier to take without them. He felt at peace with the whole world as he and Mollie kept walking slowly along the creekbank. But after a few paces, she said, “Reckon we can try what you said, Nate. I hope it works, I purely do. But if it don’t, I’ll be glad for the chance to pull stakes, and that’s a fact.”

“All right,” he answered, pleased and a trifle annoyed at the same time; he might have wished her to stay happy and distracted rather longer.

Before he could say anything (later, he thought that just as well), the two of them rounded a bend in the creek. On the far bank, by a thicket of water oaks, a gray-haired black man sat fishing. He waved with his left hand, called, “How do, Marse Nate, Miss Mollie?”

“Hello, Israel.” Nate looked over his shoulder. No, the Negro couldn’t have seen him and Mollie cavorting in the grass. Relieved, he turned back. “Catching anything?”

“Got me a couple catfish.” Israel held them up. Stony Creek was so narrow, he hardly needed to raise his voice to talk across it.

“How’s it feel, workin’ for the famous Colonel Pleasants?” Mollie asked.

“Now the fightin’s done, Marse Henry, he took off the uniform fast as can be,” Israel said. “The railroad he was workin’ for, they send a man out to the farm the other day, askin’ him to take back his old job at twice the money. He say they make it back by usin’ his name, an’ I expect he be right.”

“What did Henry tell him?” Caudell said, bumping into a new set of mixed emotions. He wanted his friend to do well, but he didn’t want him moving back down to Wilmington. As far as seeing him went, that would be almost as bad as if he went home to Pennsylvania.

Israel answered, “He tol’ that man to git off his land and never come back, that he had better things to do with his name than sell it to a railroad that hadn’t wanted the man who was wearin’ it. His very words, Marse Nate; I was there to hear ‘em.”

“Good,” Caudell said. Mollie nodded. So did Israel. Just then, the line the black man was holding gave a jerk. He pulled in a fat little sunfish, let it flop away its life on the bank. Nate added,” As long as that’s settled, I think I’ll call on Henry some time in the next few days.”

“Always glad to see you, Marse Henry and me too,” Israel said. As he spoke, he got another bite. “You come tomorrow, maybe some of this nice fish be left.”

“I wouldn’t mind if there was,” Caudell said agreeably. “I won’t be going up there just to eat it, though. I want to ask Henry if he’ll be my best man.”

Taken by surprise, Mollie gasped and clung to him. Israel smiled across the creek at the two. of them. “That’s fine,” he said. “Marse Henry, he always goin’ on about how happy you two be, so I know he be happy to do that for you.”

“Don’t tell him ahead of time,” Caudell warned. “I want to do it myself.”

“I won’ say a word,” Israel promised. “Miss Mollie, Marse Henry, he go on too about how much your brother or cousinI ain’t quite sure which—Melvin looks like you. He be at your weddin’?”

“I—don’t think so,” Mollie answered after a moment’s hesitation. “Now that the fighting’s done, I don’t think we’ll see Melvin much around these parts.”

“Travelin’ sort o’ man, is he?” Israel said. “Some folks is like that. Too bad he won’t be there to see you wed, though.”

“We’ll do fine without him.” Mollie leaned against Nate again. They started walking along the creek once more. Israel’s farewell wave was interrupted by yet another catch. Caudell knew mild envy; he’d never pulled so many fish out of Stony Creek so fast.

Mollie said something. His mind on fish, Caudell missed it. “I’m sorry?”

“I said, maybe it’ll work out all right after all. You start talkin’ about get tin’ a best man and things like that, it makes the wedding start to seem real.”

“It had better seem real.” He slipped his arm around her waist, pulled her close, kissed her. Israel was no doubt watching from the far bank. Caudell couldn’t have cared less.

The upstanding wings of Nate’s collar brushed against his beard and tickled. He felt slightly strangled; he wasn’t used to the tightness of his cravat. Even without the black silk tie, he suspected he would have had some trouble breathing: few men go calm to their wedding. The still, sultry air inside the Baptist church gave him an excuse for sweating.

As men will, he tried to tell himself he was being foolish—he’d marched into battle with fewer palpitations than he had right now. But the inside of his mouth stayed dry.

Ben Drake was well into the wedding service. The preacher’s big voice boomed, “If there be any who know of any reason this marriage should not take place, let him speak now or forever hold his peace.”

Caudell tensed. Preachers intoned those words at every wedding. But here—some of the men listening here knew who—and what—Mollie had been. He didn’t think anyone held that sort of grudge against him or her, but—The prescribed pause passed. No one spoke. The service went on. Caudell eased, a little.

Much too quickly, or so it seemed, Drake turned to him and said, “Do you, Nathaniel, take this woman Mollie to be your lawful wedded wife, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish, until death do you part?”

“I do.” Caudell was used to outshouting a room full of school children. Now he wondered if even Henry Pleasants beside him, resplendent in full colonel’s uniform—Confederate, though he had threatened to scandalize everyone by wearing blue—could hear. Pleasants beamed—he must have spoken out loud. He tried on a smile. It fit.

“Do you, Mollie, take this man Nathaniel to be your lawful wedded husband, to have and to hold, to love and to cherish and to obey, until death do you part?”

From behind her veil, Mollie’s words rang clear: “I do.”

“Then under the laws of God and those of the sovereign state of North Carolina, I pronounce you man and wife.” Ben Drake smiled. “Kiss your bride, Nate.”

Awkwardly, Caudell moved aside the filmy veil. The kiss was decorously chaste. In the third row of pews, Barbara Bissett started to sob. His landlady cried at any excuse, or none. This time, she was not alone. By the time Nate and Mollie walked up the aisle to the church door, half the women who’d watched the ceremony were dabbing at their eyes. Caudell wondered why they did that. Weddings were supposed to be happy times, but the little lace handkerchiefs always came out.

He and Mollie stood in the doorway while their friends filed past. As far as he could remember, he’d never shaken so many men’s hands, hugged so many women, in so short a time. “A beautiful wedding, just beautiful,” Barbara Bissett said, squeezing him against her ample bosom. Then she started crying again.

Dempsey Eure came up, his wife Lucy beside him. He slapped Caudell’s back, planted a loud smack of a kiss on MoIlie’s cheek. “Now all you two have to do is wait till the sun goes down,” he said, adding mischievously, “Fool thing to do, too, if you ask me, gettin’ married near the longest day—and the shortest night—of the year.”

The men who heard him guffawed; the women tittered and pretended they had no idea what he was talking about. Mollie said, “You’re terrible, Dempsey.”

“Oh, I’m not quite as bad as all that,” he answered, grinning.

Just for a moment, some of Nate’s joy leaked away. Dempsey had shared a winter cabin with him during the war. He’d also gone over to Mollie’s cabin then, a few times or more than a few. Was he reminding her of it now? She might have had a point when she said this wouldn’t be easy.