John Wray - Canaan's Tongue

“The army,” the Colonel answers. “Back when there wasn’t but one. I served under General Sterling Price.”

“Price,” says the man. “What you messing in Confederate business for, then, uncle?”

“This here is private puh! — puh! — parpetty, corn-pone,” Kennedy says in a friendly way. “You mistook yourself if you thought of it as otherwise. You must of missed the postings on the trees that said ‘Corn Pone Disinvited.’ You must of been looking down the fly-hole of your puh! — puh! — puh!—”

“Mr. Kennedy!” the Colonel barks out. “The man before you is a sergeant in the Confederate Army. As such he is doing his fighting best to preserve the prerogatives of our Trade—”

“What damn trade?” the man says, looking round.

“What’s your name, corn-pone?” Kennedy says.

The man makes a face at him. “Ain’t sayin’.”

“I apologize for this gentleman’s rudeness to you, son,” the Colonel says. “I profoundly regret it. I would, however, counsel you to answer him in full.”

The man curses at them both—: queer, butternut-sounding curses I’ve never heard the like of. Now he sees Virgil tucked away in the corner. Virgil smiles and waves hello.

“Get him talking, Kennedy,” Virgil says.

Kennedy looks at Virgil and lifts his eye-brows. “Right! I’ll just go and fetch my works,” he says. He goes off happy as an eel.

“There’s no cause to set up walls between us, Sergeant,” the Colonel says. “We are in no way your natural enemies—”

“Ain’t nothing natural about you, far as I can tell,” the man mutters.

I laugh at this—; I can’t help it. The man looks at me. He shakes his head once, then again, as if to clear it. Then he looks past me at Oliver.

“You! Boy!” the man calls out. “Maybe you can explain to your masters here. I’m a representative of the Twenty-seventh Tennessee and Mississippi—”

Out in the corridor Kennedy sniggers. Oliver makes a little sound. An instant later he’s crouched low beside the man with his knuckles twitching on the floor.

“I’ll explain something to you, friend,” he says. “We here are the gang off of Island 37. And you’re going to spend the rest of the war at the bottom of a barrel.”

The man’s eyes go round and starting and I’d be telling a lie to say it didn’t tickle me to see it. “ Murel’s gang,” he stammers.

“Just tell us your name and placement, Sergeant,” the Colonel says softly.

The man looks round the parlor, blinking. Then he breaks into a buck-toothed grin.

“Ha, ha!” he says.

“You going to tell us?” says Oliver, rolling back his sleeves. But the mention of the gang has struck the man right dumb. He googles all around him like a fish.

Kennedy comes back now, cradling a satchel. It clanks and rattles as though it were full of cutlery. “Ain’t he talking yet?” he says. He says it like a hosanna.

The man’s face goes soft. “Eukah David Foster,” he says. His eyes go to Virgil. “You the chief? I thought Murel was a old midget.”

Virgil’s mouth opens.

Kennedy shows his teeth. “Shall I start in?”

“Let’s have your company and regiment, Foster,” Virgil says. “Let’s have it quick.”

“Sartoris Company,” Foster says. He rubs his nose between his fingers. “No regiment to speak of. We just barn-burners now. Lines done moved to Tennessee.”

“Tennessee, eh?” the Colonel says. “What’s the latest?”

Oliver jerks his chin at Foster. “You won’t get much out of this one, Colonel. He’s one of those that fell through the cracks and liked it.”

“That’s true enough, I reckon,” Foster says. He grins. “That what you all hoping to do?”

No-one says anything to that.

“How many of you buh! — buh! — barn-burners you say there was?” Kennedy says, coming up to the settee.

Foster looks down at the satchel. “Twenty-eight,” he mumbles.

“They cuh! — cuh! — coming up behind?”

Foster shakes his head. “No, sir. It’s only me.”

Kennedy looks at Virgil. Virgil looks at the Colonel. All of us know Foster won’t be leaving on his feet.

“Where’d you find him?” the Colonel asks Kennedy.

“This side of the shanty-town,” Kennedy says. “But only just.” He sets the satchel down. “Round where Virgil and his muh! — muh! — mulatto picked off that scout.”

“That was past the shanty-town,” Virgil says.

“Were that a few day back? That were our boys, all right,” Foster says. “Didn’t none of us cross that creek till yesterday, account of whether it be Yankees.”

“Those were Union men,” Oliver says loudly.

Foster shows us his buck-teeth. “Nope. Those boys were ourn.”

The Colonel looks pained. “What can you tell us, Sergeant, about the Union strength up and down the river?”

“Take what you see and reckon it times four,” Foster says. He spreads his arms wide. “They more Yankees in the woods than maggots in a pie. Mostly down at Wayte’s River, account of the junction there.” He sticks his chin out. “That why we come down here—: that rail-way line. We mean to bust it.”

“Jesus Muh! — Muh! — Mary, ” Kennedy groans.

Virgil shakes his head. He turns his face toward mine and I see the worry on it plain as cake. Wayte’s River Junction is less than three miles from this house.

“Why hit the rail line here, of all places?” the Colonel says.

Foster shrugs. “Hit’s the only one we can get at, uncle.”

“A peach, this Fuh! — Fuh! — Foster! ” Kennedy mutters.

Virgil looks hard at Foster. “How do you boys manage to keep clear, with all those Federals in the woods?”

Foster shrugs again. “They plenty of Yankees hereabouts. That’s all I can tell you.”

“I think you can tell us more than that,” says Virgil. “A very great deal more.”

Foster looks ruffled. “Look here, now. If you all are really part of Thaddeus Murel’s—”

“Ssshh!” says Oliver. Kennedy puts his hands over his ears.

“We don’t speak that name aloud, Sergeant,” the Colonel whispers.

Foster blinks at him. “Why the hell not?”

“Superstition, child—; no more than that,” Parson says, gliding into the room like a dress-maker’s bust on wheels.

Foster stops and gapes. He makes a creaking sound behind his teeth. “Who is that ?” he says in a small blanched voice.

Parson looks from one of us to the next. We stare down at the floor.

“Why did no-one wake me?” Parson says.

The Colonel squirms a little. “I sent Dodds up to fetch you, Parson. Heaven knows where that blasted nigger—”

“So you’ve poached yourselves a Yankee,” Parson says, cutting him short. “And now you’re having trouble with him.”

“No, no, Parson!” the Colonel says. “This man is a member of the Sartoris Company—: a Dixie man. One of our own. He tells me—”

“Oh! I think I’d know a Yankee,” Parson says. He winks at Foster. “If the wind was blowing right.”

Foster’s face goes softer still.

Nobody says anything for a good long while.

“Well, dip me in bread-crumbs!” Kennedy says at last, throwing the satchel open with a laugh.

“Why not leave Mr. Foster in my care, gentlemen?” Parson says.

The Colonel shakes his head at this but no-one minds him. Kennedy stops short, looks down at his works, and spits.

“Parson!” the Colonel says. “Please, Parson. This — this boy—”

“Shut your mouth, Colonel,” Parson says. The Colonel shuts it.

“Leave us for a bit,” Parson says, smiling at Foster. “All of you.”