‘We want to help,’ Will says. ‘It’s better than what else we could be doing.’
She looks at us again. Lets out a short breath through her nose, like a sheep before it charges. ‘You.’ She points at Will. ‘You take both canteens and give water to those soldiers in the yard. They must be thirsty and there hasn’t been a spare moment for me to see to them. And you, you stay here. The wounded here need bandage changes and water. There’s water there.’ She points to a side table, pushed against the wall by the doorway. ‘I’ll leave my supplies,’ she adds, holding out the basket of bandages and lint.
From somewhere in the house, there is a sound worse than weeping and shrieking put together, and it keeps getting louder as the woman lifts her skirts and steps past us, grabbing a glass vial from her basket as she passes. ‘Sounds like the surgeon needs my aid,’ she says, whisking out the doorway.
‘You need anything, you come get me,’ Will says to me.
‘I can do this,’ I say, and give over my canteen, Jimmy’s old canteen, and go to work helping the boy in front of me. Anything to drown out the feeling.
WHEN WE ARE let to see Sully, he don’t look like Sully no more. He ain’t got no spark, either from sickness or hurt or his leg already being gone. He lies long and lean on his pallet, his eyes closed, the place where his leg used to be a flat space under the blanket. He won’t be crisscrossing the fields anymore, or flushing birds from bushes, or making side trips on every march.
‘Sully!’ I say. His eyelids flutter open as I sink to my knees.
‘Rosetta?’ he asks, his pupils big from whenever they last gave him laudanum.
‘Yes, but it’s Ross.’ I don’t look at Will. Sully’s forehead feels hot under my hand.
‘I remember,’ he says. ‘Ross now.’
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘We’re here now. Ross and Will. We’ve been looking for you.’
‘You took a mite too long,’ he says, coming round, a flicker of a smile on his face as his hand sweeps toward his missing leg.
‘Looks to be the truth,’ I say.
‘Got my adventure,’ he says. ‘Had to give the Rebs my leg for it. Still hurts.’
‘I can see,’ I say.
‘Where’s Jeremiah?’ Sully asks.
‘Just us,’ I choke out.
Sully looks at me, his eyes bright all of a sudden.
‘No,’ he says.
I nod, tears spilling.
‘The cornfield?’ he asks.
I nod again and he turns his face away. There is a long silence.
Will finally speaks. ‘You want to tell us what cost you the leg? We’ve been worried about you for days.’
‘You both know about that cornfield,’ Sully says, and we nod. ‘I was coming out of that corn, like everyone was, and all those Rebs were right in front of me. Seeing them made me think about Jimmy and I wanted to bring his revenge on them.’
He stops talking, his Adam’s apple still bobbing. His fingers scrabble across his sheet. He sucks in a breath and then he talks again. ‘I ran out of that corn shooting, but you know how it was. I almost couldn’t see what I was aiming at. But I know I got some Rebs.’
‘But how’d they get your leg?’ Will asks.
‘Well, I saw our flag waving and that deserter—Levi?—carrying it shot right down and our colors lying there. I knew it was for me to go and raise it. It don’t take long to get shot when you’ve got a flag waving over your head.’ Sully’s smile ain’t a happy one.
‘It hurt something awful,’ he says. ‘Burning and crushing and tearing all at once. It wasn’t good right from the start. I would have laid where I fell, but for the fighting all over the field. I dragged myself off, got in a ditch, and prayed the whole night for it to be over and for someone to find me, praying I wouldn’t die like a dog.’ Sully’s eyes close, tired from talking.
At least I spared Jeremiah that, at least he had me with him ’til the last.
Then Sully looks right at Will. ‘I thought a lot about salvation. I ain’t never asked forgiveness so many times in one night, but I got a clean soul now.’
‘Well, that’s one good thing,’ Will says. ‘There’s more adventures coming for you.’
‘You saying this hospital is an adventure?’ Sully asks. ‘Because I ain’t about to argue on that.’
We laugh even though it ain’t really funny. I reach for Sully’s hand. He holds tight but he is so weary, he don’t say a word or even move. When Will holds out the opium pills, Sully takes them, holding on to my hand until he dozes off, his soul clean and his leg festering.