The sun shone through the trees. Tim was chilled to the bone. He wished
he had an overcoat.
Red gave no sign of waking. Tim thought, Today is Friday. He unbuttoned
his blouse and pulled out a little black book marked DIARY 1863. It was
closed with a tab that slipped through a loop. He pulled out the tab
and riffled through the pages. The first half of the book was filled
with entries, but the period of imprisonment was almost blank. On some
of the pages he had penciled “Letter from Kate” or “News of home,” but
he’d long since neglected the daily entries. It had made him unhappy to
count the endless chain of wasted days.
He found the page and the date, Friday, December 11, and he took out
his pencil and wrote:
“First day of freedom since last July. How long will it last?” He
flicked through the pages ahead and came across Friday, December 25. He
thought, with a smile, just three more weeks to buy a present for Kate.
Tim heard a crackling of twigs and a rustling of leaves behind the
trees at a little distance. He lay perfectly still. At first there was
no sound, then the crackling resumed, a little nearer. It seemed as
though someone, knowing they were there, was approaching with caution.
Tim shook Red’s shoulder gently. Red turned, sighed sleepily and
opened one eye. Tim pressed his finger to his lips, and Red jerked his
head off the ground and listened. Again there was no sound. Then the
crackling came again, this time slightly farther off.
Red’s eyes had a haunted look, as if he were dreaming a very bad dream.
He whispered, “I can’t go back to jail again. Let’s make a run for it.”
Tim shook his head. They lay still for what must have been a quarter of
an hour.
Tim pointed out a gray-clad soldier behind some undergrowth, but
as they looked the soldier seemed to dissolve. “We’re having
hallucinations,” he said. “The noise I heard could have been any one of
a thousand things.”
They folded their blankets and rolled them.
Tim set about repacking his haversack. He picked it up, pulled out his
extra underclothes and socks and turned the pack upside down. A bright
little object fell to the ground and Tim leaned over and picked it up.
“Devil put in a compass,” he said.
“The man’s been good to us.” Red took a deep breath. “Let’s take a
chance and move by day, at least till we see some signs of life.”
There was no water, so they took their cornmeal dry. Tim ran his tongue
around his teeth. “My mother used to call this stuff ‘rokeeg.’ I
remember we didn’t like it much.”
“Tastes change.”
They moved briskly through the woods.
They came to a stream and knelt to drink. Tim filled the empty canteen.
They moved on, crossing streams and small swamps and skirting a couple
of little farms.
About noon they came to a cultivated field with some cornstalks still
standing around the edges. They found five ears and kept them for
cooking when they found a chance to build a fire.
They walked along the edge of the field until they saw a house, then
moved to the shelter of a thinly wooded plain.
They had to go slowly so that they wouldn’t be seen. By now Captain
Senn would have spread the alarm.
Tim noticed that Red walked with spirit again. Rest and food had made
the difference.
Shortly after noon they reached another stretch of open land. They
faced a field of tall grass.
At a distance of half a mile or so, against a forest of dark pines,
stood the white frame houses of a little town. Tim hooked his thumbs
over his belt. “Unless we make a wide circuit we can’t get through here
at this time of day. There must be farms all around the town.”
“Let’s settle down a while.”
They studied the town. A rider moved across the field at quite a
distance, his figure showing above the tips of the grass. They heard
the barking of distant dogs. Tim said, “I’m thinking we better travel
at night till we get to North Carolina.”
Off to the right, with the trees at its back, was a pile of wood,
probably left there years before when the land had been cleared. The
men took off their haversacks and settled in the grass, leaning against
the stack of wood. Mud wasps had made their home in one of the logs and
they circled overhead.
Red looked at his watch. “Three thirty.” He wound the watch and put
it into his pocket again, his chin dropped to his chest and he slept.
Tim tried to sleep but found he couldn’t, so he looked at the sky and
consoled himself with the thought that one of them should act as a
sentry, anyway.
He was reminded of the summer before he had joined the Army when
he’d worked at Quigley’s farm. He remembered clearing the north
pasture, hauling off stones on the old stone boat and shouting to the
shaggy-hoofed horses as they reached the wall at the edge of the wood
lot.
When he said good-bye to Mr. Quigley the old man had shown a streak of
sentiment that Tim had never known he had. “You’ve been a good worker,”
he’d said. “I’ll miss you like the mischief, but I know you’ll do your
country proud.”
Tim watched a pair of crows settle in the field close by. They set up a
terrible squawking, probably over a bit of corn or a dead field mouse.
He turned his hands palms up and laced his fingers together. He made a
church steeple with his forefingers, as his father had taught him to do
when he was a boy. He remembered the poem that went with the action of
his hands:
Here is the church
And here is the steeple.
Open the doors
And see all the people.
The squawking and jabbering of the crows grew dim in his ears. The
shadow of the woodpile wove a pattern in the trees.
* * * * *
Tim’s head snapped up. He must have been sleeping for several hours.
The sky was quite dark. He was sure he had been wakened by a noise,
but now he couldn’t hear a sound. Red was very still, but Tim noticed
that his eyes were wide open. Tim looked to see what had caught Red’s
eye. Not more than fifty feet from them a man sat, rigid as stone, on
a good-sized horse. He appeared to be a farmer and he carried a musket
across his saddle.
Red’s arm was resting by his side. Tim stealthily gripped his wrist
to let him know he was awake and wouldn’t make a noise. The horseman
scanned the field; the horse dipped his head and jingled his bridle.
The man kicked the horse’s flank and rode away, keeping close to the
edge of the field, looking both ways, as if he were on a tour of
inspection.
Tim watched as he disappeared, and Red said, “That was a very close
call.”
“Do you suppose he was looking for us?”
“Lord knows.”
They gathered up their packs and walked west toward the railroad. The
lights of the town were squares of yellow among the trees. The track
ran toward the edge of town, and they decided they would follow it
until they were close to the houses, then cut into the woods to avoid
the town. If this was Alston, they would cross the west branch of the
railroad soon.
Shortly after they left the track they faced a bog and saw what
appeared to be a tremendous fire flickering behind a thin screen of
trees. They edged toward the light. Now they heard voices raised above
the sound of the blaze. They watched for a moment. Tim said, “Appears
to be a tar kiln or a coalpit of some kind.”
“Whatever it is, it’s no place for us.”
They cut deeper into the woods at the left, going close to the river
to make a circuit of the kiln. Every step on the dead-dry forest floor
sounded like a pistol shot to their uneasy ears.
They lived a nightmare of lost direction and doubt and phantom houses
loomed suddenly in their path. They were afraid to light a match, and
they couldn’t read the compass in the dark. They stumbled over jagged
rock and fallen trees and came to a swiftly running stream that cut
across their path. They tried to find a place to cross where they could
stay dry, but there was no such place and they waded in, stepping as
best they could from stone to stone. Tim’s right foot slipped in the
deepest part and his leg went in, wetting his trousers to the knee.
By the time they gained the other side their boots were filled with
chilly water. They emptied them and stood on the other side, numbness
creeping up their legs.
Tim had moved the matches to a trousers pocket. He drew them out.
“Let’s chance a look at the compass.” He held the little instrument
close to his chest, and the glow of the match showed the needle dancing
back and forth. “I wonder if it works at all.”
“It’s against a button on your blouse.”
“So it is.”
Tim held the compass away from himself and the needle settled down.
By now they must have passed the town. They decided to head straight
north.
They crossed the west branch of the railroad and found the track that
would take them closest to the North Carolina line.
Tim struck another match and they looked at the map. There were
very few towns along their route between Alston and a place called
Unionville forty miles or so to the north.
They walked along the track for two or three miles, and as the land
began to rise Tim said, “Let’s take a chance and roast a couple of ears
of corn.”
Their fire kindled well. Red gazed into the flames. “At least we aren’t
in jail.”
“The people in the country we have to cross must all know about us by
now. And most of them are hunters. They’d just as soon track a man as a
coon.”
They took off their boots and rested their feet on a dry log. They held
the boots near the fire as they waited for the flames to flicker low.
Tim looked at the compass and studied the map.
They talked for a while, looking into the fire, and when the flames had
died they put the corn in the embers.
When the corn was roasted Red kicked aside the embers and picked out
the ears. They shucked them, working fast so as not to be burned. The
kernels were orange gold and charred in places. Red said, “What a
feast.”
“Maybe if we’re lucky we’ll find some more along the way. There was
nothing like this in jail.”
Red held his watch to the glow of the fire. “It’s quarter to eleven.
Let’s push on.”