THREE MUSKETS HANG across my back, but there are more sad things than I can count. Bodies twisted out of any shape. Hands puffed so big the skin pulls tight away from the bones. Soldiers killed so young they look like schoolboys curled up to sleep. Men killed so slow they took out pictures of sweethearts and wives, of children too young to remember their fathers. All these boys, all these men, they are something to someone. There are people back home, waiting on them and the waiting ain’t never going to end now. For the rest of my life I am waiting too.
I search the grass, letting my tears fall as I walk.
I blink. There at my feet is a small leather book, not much bigger than my palm, its cover an engraved spiderweb. There ain’t a single body anywhere near.
It is sodden, its binding cracked and worn. I can’t bring myself to touch the metal clasp that closes it. I straighten and turn, the book still in my hand.
‘Will!’ I call. He is twenty paces behind me and off to my left, but his head pops right up, his face drawn and tight. ‘Come here!’
He jogs, his forehead creased with worry. ‘What is it?’
I hold it out to him.
He says, ‘Oh,’ and a ghost of a smile crosses his face. ‘A Bible.’
‘We can’t leave it here,’ I say. ‘Ain’t right.’
‘May I?’ Will asks, and puts his hand out.
I set the Bible in his hand. He looks at it. Turns it over. Flips open the clasp.
‘It’s got a name in it,’ he says, real quiet, and there on the first page, in someone’s fine handwriting, is the name Benjamin Harlin and underneath 32nd Virginia.
He turns the thin paper, looks to see if there is anything else written in that Bible. He flips ahead and the book falls open right in Psalms: Blessed be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. And flattened between the pages are two four-leaf clovers.
‘You keep it,’ I say.
‘No,’ Will says, and looks at me. ‘It should go back to his people.’
CHAPTER
34
The dark creeps from the mountains toward the valley and the fields where all our dead are buried. I hug my knees and sit next to the pit fire Will is tending, the cold air at my back. Loud singing and laughing drifts down the ridge, the glare of campfires lighting the tents like lanterns. Shadows swallow up the tents scattered at the edges of the battlefield until all that’s left is the bright spots of flames flickering in the night.
I am working at keeping my mind swept bare when Will asks me, ‘You going to write Jeremiah’s folks? Send them that letter of his?’
Every feeling comes rushing over me. I just shake my head.
‘You’ve got to send it. At least his letter,’ Will says.
‘Don’t want to.’
Will looks at me like that is the worst thing. ‘What do you mean?’
I can’t explain it right. How all I’ve got left is two letters. How I can’t send any more of him away.
‘Long as I don’t send that letter, he’s still living to them,’ I say.
That stops Will right as he’s poking one of the logs with a stick. ‘They’ll be hearing news of the battle,’ he says real quiet. ‘And it won’t be long before they see the casualty list. They’ll be starting to think if they haven’t heard word …’
Will is right. I know he is.
‘You want me to write them?’ he asks.
It is a kind offering, but it is wrong. ‘No,’ I say. ‘I’ve got to do it.’
Will nods. After that we are silent. Nothing passes between us but the cracking and popping of the logs in the fire. The flames work their way through the biggest log so that it glows orange behind the black bark.
Will shifts and stands, saying, ‘I’m going on over to find Thomas. He’s been wanting to read the Bible.’
He looks at me so if I weren’t sure before, I know now what he is doing.
‘I’ll be back in a bit.’ He hands me the stick he’s been using to work our fire and digs that tattered Bible, the one from the battlefield, out of his knapsack.
He steps away from the small circle of light the fire casts, a dim shape moving along the ridge back to camp, to where the rest of the boys are.
I take Jeremiah’s letters out, the cold air chilling my breast before I can get my jacket buttoned again. How did he ever think I could send the last of him home to his family, that I could do these things without him, that I could push everything aside, and live with only memories of him?
I drag my knapsack to me, telling myself I am going to do what is right, but that don’t help one bit because I start crying.