Traces of Mercy (2 page)

His mind slowly came awake with tumbling, confusing thoughts as the familiar drawl of voices around him rose and fell against the monotonous creak of wheels in motion. The sniper opened his eyes and knew immediately that he was in trouble. He was lying on his back in a prairie schooner crammed with other miserable-looking Confederate soldiers. Turning slightly to the left, the sniper could see the blue coats of the Union soldiers on the buckboard as they drove the horses. The thought of his own horse’s fate made him jerk around to look out the back of the wagon. Bars dashed any hope of escape, but he felt a measure of relief when he saw his bay traipsing in a line with other horses behind the wagon. He struggled to sit up, stopping for a moment to wait for the world to quit spinning.

He tried to focus on the soldier across from him. When he spoke, the sniper’s voice came out scratchy and hoarse. “Where are we going?”

“Gratiot.” The soldier shrugged. “Rumor says we’ll be dead inside a month. The green-apple quickstep runs rampant through that place. And if that don’t getcha, then the shakes do. Thought I’d die from a bullet—not from diarrhea in a Yankee prison.”

The sniper vomited, and the men around him barely noticed.

As one day folded into the next, the sniper couldn’t decide which was worse: the misery of the wagon ride under the unseasonably hot sun, or the dread of what was to come once they reached Gratiot Street Prison. The throbbing in his head had gone from pounding to almost tolerable, though he had yet to stomach his daily ration of food without getting sick. He looked around at the grimy faces of the soldiers in the wagon and wondered how many of them would survive the Yankee prison. Not for the first time, he wished that blow to his head had killed him. The thought of being locked up with thousands of men who were doing nothing but marking time was almost more than he could stand.

“Hey, buddy?”

The sniper cut his gaze to a scraggly soldier sitting opposite him.

“You gonna eat that or not?”

The sniper looked down at the piece of salt pork in his hand, briefly pondered how long it would take to starve to death, then tossed the pork to the soldier. The man grunted his thanks before stuffing it into his mouth. A guard walking alongside the wagon issued a sound of disgust. “Typical reb,” he said. “Taking something that rightly belongs to another man.”

A few eyes went to the guard who, for days, had been purposefully picking at the soldier chewing the salt pork. The sniper had heard rumors that the two were related through marriage, but that ideology and geography had put them on opposite sides of the war. Hate came off them in waves.

The rebel soldier turned and glared at the guard. “I expect that ol’ skeleton y’all call president would know a thing or two ’bout that, seein’ as he’s taking our homes and our land.”

The guard drew his pistol from a side holster and brandished it toward the wagon. “You speak more respectful of Mr. Lincoln, or you’ll be eating dirt instead of pork.”

“Says the yellow-bellied Yank holdin’ a gun on a man who ain’t armed,” the rebel said.

“Once we stop, it could be a mighty long walk between the back of this wagon and the front door of Gratiot.”

“If you’re thinkin’ that a bullet in my back would be a surprise, then think again. It’s what I’d expect from you.”

Though the threats and insults had become commonplace between the two men, the vitriol had escalated. Tired of the whole thing, the sniper closed his eyes and willed his thoughts to another place and time. He let memories parade through his mind and, for the time being, found solace in the fact that he’d once been very happy.

A burst of loud bugling filled the air the next day. The incongruent sound burrowed into the sniper’s subconscious and roused him from sleep. He looked toward the noise and saw an American flag streaming proudly from the staff on the lead horse of a group of Union soldiers riding up fast upon the wagons. The soldiers reined in their panting animals.

“The war’s over!” shouted a Union captain. “Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox yesterday! It’s over, gentlemen. As God is my witness, it’s over!”

While the Union soldiers cheered their victory, the sniper felt palpable shock at the words. The South had fallen. Everything he had fought to preserve would be gone forever. He felt tears sting his eyes as loss overwhelmed him. Looking around, he saw the same emotion on the faces of his Southern brothers.

“What about the prisoners?” a Union guard asked.

“Turn ’em loose.”

In mere moments, everything changed. The same faces that had been etched in defeat, now conveyed relief. Confederate prisoners of war would be released to go back to their lives as farmers, teachers, storekeepers.

The sniper felt his numb feet hit the dirt, and he had a moment of panic that his legs wouldn’t work at all. He looked around and could see that others were having the same problem as men started to disperse in all directions but the one they had been heading. The sniper had one thing to do before he’d join them. He made his way through the confusion of soldiers—blue uniforms, gray uniforms, men who wept and men who cheered.

The horse danced in place at his master’s appearance. The sniper ran his hand down the length of the bay’s nose.

“Time to go home, boy,” he whispered.

“Leave the horse.”

The sniper turned to the guard behind him—the same pistol-brandishing guard who seemed to hate rebs more than all the other guards combined.

“He’s mine.” The sniper’s voice was low. He had to work to keep it steady. “I’m taking him.”

The guard cocked his revolver. “I don’t think so, Secesh.”

Before the sniper had time to react, his wagonmate came from nowhere and bowled over his Union rival. The men scrabbled on the ground, fists finding purchase, hate finding relief. All around him, similar skirmishes were breaking out.

A gunshot split the air. Then another. Men started yelling. Some of the former prisoners hadn’t turned to leave at all—some would rather die here than go home defeated. The short-lived calm of surrender had become thick with the tension of war once again. In the sniper’s line of sight, he watched two boys in gray fall and a blue coat stagger back from an attacking rebel. The sniper wished for a gun but wouldn’t take the time to try to find one. Instead, he worked frantically to free his horse from the tethered line. But he didn’t have time before an onslaught of Union men rushed toward him.

The sniper was left with no choice. Willing his half-starved, wounded body into action, he turned to run away from the chaos and smoking guns. He felt a sharp sting in the back of his calf and nearly fell face-first, but somehow recovered his balance. Somewhere in his brain he registered the warm blood gushing down his leg, but in mere seconds he had a new worry: a rumbling tremble underground seemed to be nipping at his heels. He glanced back to see two horses still tethered to a wagon careening straight for him. He kept running with the hot breath of the horses on his neck, then felt the power of the animals as they charged past, tangling him in the harness rigging. In moments, he was ripped from the ground as the horses became airborne. He heard wood splintering, the terrified noises of the horses as they fell; the world tumbled past in bits and pieces of grass, rock, and dirt. The face of the Union captain who’d given him the chain around his neck flashed before him just before his head slammed into a boulder.
I think he knew this thing would kill me!

It was well past midnight when Dr. Abe Johnson yanked open his clinic door and scowled at the two middle-aged men standing outside. In the dark it was hard to make out anything about them, other than the fact that one of them had a slight man wearing a brown shirt and green pants thrown over his shoulder.

“We found this fella ’bout five miles outside a’ town.”

“Bring him in.” The doctor stepped back from the door, and the two men entered the clinic. Doc pointed at a table. “Put him right down there.”

They did as the doctor asked and stepped back a couple of feet. Dr. Johnson lit a lamp and moved it closer to the table to peer down at the man.

“Tell me what happened,” Doc said. He lifted each of the man’s eyelids and then turned his face from side to side to examine it.

“It’s a miracle we saw him at all,” one of the men said. “We pulled our wagon over because Tom there had to relieve himself.”

The man called Tom picked up the story. “I got myself off the road a ways and remember thinking I needed to be quick about it, on account of Dan gets testy when we stop.”

“Seems like we gotta stop every hour fer that peanut of a bladder you got.”

“
Anyways
, I was just finishing my, uh, business, when I heard something in the dark. Something below me. Turns out I was standing on the edge of a ridge.”

“Dang lucky you didn’t step off into nothing and kill yourself, Tom.”

“I called over to Dan so we could both listen, and that’s when we figured out we was hearing horses that had somehow wound up at the bottom of the hill,” Tom said. “We could tell they was hurting pretty bad.”

“We made it down to them in pretty good time and saw right away that there was no saving ’em. Never seen animals beg to be shot before—but those two surely were.” Dan shook his head. “I sure hate to hear an animal suffer.”

“We was just about to start climbing back up when we saw … him,” Tom said, directing his gaze at the injured man. “He was stuck under the rigging—must have gotten tangled up in the wagon as it went over.”

“He wasn’t moving, but he was breathing,” Dan said. “We hauled him back up the hill.”

“He been awake at all since you found him?” Doc asked.

Both men shook their heads.

“No,” Tom said.

The doctor continued to run his hands along the man’s arms, then his shoulders.

“You think he’ll live?” Tom asked.

Dr. Johnson began unbuttoning the man’s shirt. “I don’t know how badly he’s hurt yet. There could be internal bleeding, broken ribs.”

“I think he’s about starved to death too. He’s light as a feather,” Dan offered.

The doctor peeled back the material, and the three stared at a thick binding wrapped around the man’s chest.

“Let’s get him up so I can undo the binding,” Doc said.

They pulled the man into a sitting position. The doctor slowly began to unwind the binding. As the last of the cloth came off, Dr. Johnson cleared his throat. “Well, that explains the ‘light as a feather,’” he said. The three men stared in stunned silence.

“Gentlemen,” Dr. Johnson said quietly, “it seems we have been mistaken about the gender of the patient.”

“Mistaken about the sex, too,” Tom said. “That there is a full-fledged woman.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

She opened her eyes and found herself in an unfamiliar room, looking at the back of an unfamiliar man, who was whistling. She must have shifted, moved, made some kind of noise herself, because he turned and looked at her, his lips still pursed in midwhistle. The sound died on his lips as he started across the small room toward her. He was older, with an average height and build. His shirt and trousers looked rumpled—as if he’d been sleeping in his clothes.