The Horse Keeper Page 7

  Wayne reflected how the General could not conceal his enthusiasm and pride in his boys as he glided around with Lee and all of the other Generals. That enthusiasm would slowly die as he saw more and more boys left dead on battlefields, whose names were to become synonymous with death and wholesale slaughter.

  The twenty-two who all marched away in carefree abandon to join the western armies were now all dead, some buried, some never even identified in death. Wyatt and Ty were amongst the first to die. Wayne had constructed a perfect picture of their deaths from long and detailed letters from Pat. They had been killed in a peach orchard near an obscure place called Shiloh. Nobody knew the reason why General Albert Sidney Johnston had ordered the attack, after quarrelling with General Beauregard. But it was becoming very clear that after the unknown General Grant had captured Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in quick succession, swallowing up two confederate armies whole, that a big counterpunch and become a dire necessity.

  General Johnston had very nearly pulled off a spectacular victory against Grant, but the unforeseen had happened and had seriously impeded the surprise attack. A sunken road that was held by federal troops, which had been deemed as not much more than a picket line, had been the scene of desperate fighting. The two lines of massed confederates could not dislodge the Federals, so they had to sweep around them. An unknown irregular General named Benjamin Prentiss had probably given Grant enough time to reorganise and rally his routed and fleeing brigades, as Prentiss and his men held the sunken road.

  Wyatt and Ty had been on the right flank as they swept around the road, driving the panic stricken Federals before them. Victory had been so close, but Grant had finally managed to check the balance, despite his entire army nearly being pushed into the Tennessee River. Wyatt’s brigade had finally been stopped in a peach orchard, very close to Shiloh church. Federal artillery had been mustered by the banks of the Tennessee and was laying on a heavy fire directly into the peach orchard. Heavy bombs from the Federal gun ships Tyler and Lexington that were anchored in the river were also wreaking havoc in the orchard. Peach blossom had been flying in the air like confetti as canister and shot ripped into the peach trees. When General Johnston was shot close by, the attack slowly ground to a halt. But by now the peach orchard was nothing more than a conglomeration of bloody, battered bodies, broken trees and pink peach blossom, cascading around as if it had come to celebrate a macabre wedding.

  After the battle Wyatt had been found dead. He appeared to be only sleeping, face up, under a blanket of peach blossom. Only his face had been visible, shrouded by a veil of peach blossom. His waif-like body had been completely intact compared to the other boys, including Ty, who had been mutilated and decapitated beyond any recognition.

  All but four of the twenty-two had died at Shiloh. Wade had been killed later on while trying to carry Snodgrass hill, at the battle of Chickamauga.

  He had been one of the first to die, as Nathan Bedford Forrest and James Longstreet failed to dislodge the cool and unflappable General George Thomas and profane General Gordon Granger. The other three had been killed at Stone’s river, including John Boucher, who had held the rank of Colonel at the time of his death. The only one who was still alive, apart from Wayne was Tom Boucher. He had fled to California at the beginning of the war declaring – ‘That this war by comparison was tantamount to an irate husband setting fire to himself in protest, when he found out that his wife was being unfaithful.’

  After four long years of war Pat and Ben Boucher had at least one thing in common, and that was that they were both broken and disenfranchised men.

  CHAPTER 7

  Wayne was suddenly brought back to reality by the call of the camp rooster. He had been awake for hours, pondering past and present. And as the sun began to peep through the slats of the stables he reminded himself that he had been ordered to see the General at nine o’clock sharp.

  The General was already waiting for him as Wayne approached, stroking the horse, which Wayne had trained especially for him. The old man seemed delighted to see him.

  “Ah private Rawlins, just wanted to congratulate you on this fine beast that you chose for me. Must say I’ve never handled such a clever and obedient horse. He’s even better than my last one, who suffered such a terrible fate. By the way, why did you name him Jubal?”

  Wayne had to hide his own amusement as he answered the General.

  “After General Early Sir…I had to get the feel of him, coz he could have one furious temper if he was riled, or handled badly.”

  “Ah ha, Jubal Early, furious temper, now I see, just like my good friend General Early. Must say though, I’ve found him to be almost human in his temperament.”

  “That’s coz he likes you Sir and you’re handling him well. Otherwise he would of thrown you sky high by now Sir. A hoss ain’t no dumb beast Sir, it has feelings, just like us. They can sense folk that understand and care about them.”

  “Well that’s good to know private Rawlins, I wish you’d told me that when you brought him over. Sure don’t wanna find myself providing a rodeo show for the boys.”

  “There’s not one bad hoss in the batch, it’s just gonna take some time to train ‘em Sir.”

  “Well just keep at it private Rawlins, would like to know regular reports on their progress. Oh yes, I’ve got somethin’ for you, come into my office.”

  As they walked into the office Wayne noticed the full bottle of whisky on the General’s desk. The old man picked it up and handed it to Wayne and said, “That’s for you, please take a seat brave boy.”

  Wayne sat down and wondered if the General was going to go into one of his long, elaborate speeches. He was right, but Wayne soon realised that the General needed somebody to talk to. Wayne really did not want to talk, instead he just listened, as the General produced a large tumbler and poured himself a shot of whisky from a hip flask.

  “Would you like some?” asked the General casually.

  “No thanks Sir, it’s a bit too early for me.”

  “What do you think brave boy? How long do you think we’re gonna last now? Lee is trapped in front of Petersburg, with his thin lines stretched to the limit. And the Federals are piling on every resource to break through. The railway lines feeding Petersburg have been destroyed. Federal cavalry is probing well behind our lines, causing havoc. Schofield has destroyed half of Hood’s army at Franklin. Thomas has completely destroyed the rest of it at Nashville. Sherman is rampaging up through, and ransacking the whole of Georgia and is about to do the same in South Carolina. Joe Johnston is trying to muster the remnants of several smashed armies just to try and stop Sherman. How long do you think we can hold on?”

  Wayne did not have to contemplate his thoughts and his answer was very clear.

  “Well Sir, the only hope in hell we got is if General Lee can break away from Petersburg, join up with General Johnston, beat General Sherman, then turn on General Grant. But then, I doubt if even General Lee could turn things round now.”

  “Quite right, quite right, I never thought that it would last this long though. Every time you think it’s only a matter of time for us, Lee pulls off some brilliant counterstroke and completely throws Federal strategy. But not this time, not this time.”

  Wayne quietly observed the General’s manner and countenance and noticed the marked contrast in that manner after four years of hard war.

  The old man went on,

  “I’ve seen my best officers killed, I’ve killed fine officers that were friends at West point. And I was damn well told many years before that it would happen, but I never thought in my worst nightmares that it would be anything like this.”

  He then went into deep thought and spoke as if he was reflecting on a profound secret.

  “It would have been in the summer of eighteen fifty. I was up in Ohio visiting my wife’s uncle, the good Reverend Leopold Blunt. We were sitting at the front of his house, in his well-kept gardens. It was a warm summer evening, with young children running
barefoot through the meadows, next to his beloved gardens. Some of the children were swinging on the branches of his trees that were hanging over the fence. He had noticed this himself, but he had said nothing, which was unusual because he was famously cantankerous towards all children. Even when one of the branches broke off from one of his trees, he didn’t seem angry, he just stared over to the children blankly. I was thinking that his heart condition was nullifying his reactions, because his normal reaction, knowing his character, would have been one of uncontrollable anger. Trying to gauge the feel of his mood I remarked that it reminded me of my home down in old Virginia, with young children prancing about barefoot through meadows and gardens, without a care in the world. He just looked at me, with his eyes boring into me and said, ‘Let them play, let them play, because they will be the innocent victims of our sins, in perhaps ten years time. I asked him what on earth he was talking about, because he was well aware of my opinions on theology and religion. He repeated his words, let them play, let them play. Whether it be here, in Virginia or Washington, wherever. Because most of the boys will be buried in far off lands and most of the girls, brides waiting for ghost husbands, in just a few years time. I asked him what had inspired such pessimistic thoughts. His reply was, the same gut feeling that made him join the church, far off insights and being conscious of the devil that lurks in the hearts of guilty men.

  A black cloud is looming over this country and when it sweeps down and descends upon us, it will bring death and disaster beyond belief. I told him to cheer up, as things were by no means certain, thankfully we are living in a democracy. His reply was cold and calculated. Remember my words Ambrose, this country is about to be visited by a war so horrible, so vile, that the men who unleash it will quickly lose control of it, as it takes on a monstrous life of its own. I took stock of his words, but did not ponder them unduly. He told me that he sincerely did not want to be alive to bear witness to it, and he got his wish. Because ten years later, on the day war was declared, I went up to Ohio, to his church to say goodbye. I found the old swine dead, dead in his pulpit, standing up. On his face was not the grimace of a death mask, but a grin, yes a grin, as if to say, ‘I told you so Ambrose, I told you so.’ His words have haunted me during every battle, every gruelling march and every time I bear witness to young men strewn over blood soaked fields. I was standing next to General Lee when the morning mist cleared at Fredericksburg when he said, ‘It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it,’ as the Federals were massacred by General Jackson in the fields before the stone wall. And in the same breath he said to Jubal Early, ‘Now it’s your turn, my bad old man.’ And that bad old man just laughed and drove his troops down from the heights, driving the Federals before him. I’ve been with General Longstreet as he has herded his troops like a pig farmer into the Federal lines, with the Federal Generals bobbing about like buoys on a blue sea; only to be blown to pieces by cannon fire. And through all of this the words of the good Reverend Leopold Blunt have come back to haunt me like a cantankerous ghost, ‘I told you so Ambrose’.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Luke was not measuring up and Wayne had been losing his temper with him. Luke was intimidated by Wayne’s constant chastising had his stutter was becoming worse. Wayne could indeed be intimidating to anybody, in particular to a shy boy of sixteen.

  After years of living off salt pork, hard tack and dirty water; eating the camp food had filled out Wayne’s frame with lean, hard muscle. His corn blond hair and fresh complexion was aglow from drinking copious amounts of fresh water from the well and mountain stream. It was not that he disliked Luke, he was just becoming frustrated by Luke not digesting and learning from his instructions.

  Unknown to both of them, somebody had quietly been listening and watching Wayne’s antics from a thick glade of trees that rose up at the far end of the stables. That person had become quite amused by the way that Wayne would shout.

  “Don’t be afraid of him Luke, he can see and sense you’re afraid of him. Yah gotta show him who’s boss. You’ll never tame hosses if they know you’re scared of ‘em!”

  The part that would amuse the unseen observer in particular was when Wayne would speak soothingly and almost apologetically to the poor boy, after he had finally carried out Wayne’s instructions properly. This blond haired, savage looking man had been slowly lapping at the shores of somebody’s subconscious, like slow moving waves probing a lonely beach. Belinda had noticed Wayne, even before he had even seen her.

  Belinda could have easily gone down and told the ferocious looking white man, that it was actually him frightening the boy more than the horses were. But she had checked herself by thinking that a man might not take too kindly to a woman telling him what the problem was, in particular a black woman. However Wayne’s scolding and verbal abuse became less frequent, as Luke finally began to overcome his fear of Wayne and the horses.

  Belinda had begun to observe with guarded interest a more tender side to Wayne’s exterior, tough countenance, especially as Luke’s confidence grew in skips and bounds. She would notice Wayne cheering and laughing with abandon, as Luke was being bucked and jostled by a semi wild horse, until the horse was finally brought to bear. Something was stirring and waking up deep inside of her, but she did not know what it was. She had originally found solace up in the glade every afternoon, after she had finished working with the other women. She had very little time for pointless chatter and trivial gossip that the other dispossessed slave women indulged in, so she would take her father’s bible, or another book and wile away her spare time reading. The glade was a perfect spot for somebody seeking solitude, with the sound of the flowing river far below on one side and the stables and pens on the other. It had not even occurred to her that an obscure ulterior motive had crept in through the back doors of her heart. But it had begun to grow more apparent to her when she slowly realised that she was spending more time watching the blond, athletic and very mobile man, than studying her bible. What had fascinated her about him in particular was the marked contrast of barbarian and a peculiar trait of kindness. This trait would rise to the surface when he was handling the horses, or when he appeared to feel guilty, after giving the boy a very hard day’s lesson in horse handling. This trait in a man she had only ever seen in her father and very rarely in her former master’s son, Joshua.

  She could show Luke a thing or two about horses herself, which she had learnt as a child from her father and Joshua. She could empathise with Luke, because she had feared horses, or rather the sheer size of them herself. But long excursions through the savannahs below South Carolina with her father and Joshua, where she would spend hours in the saddle, had completely quelled that fear. Yet even in her father and Joshua she had not seen this deep love and understanding of horses that this man had.

  Unfortunately Belinda’s first close encounter with Wayne would be under ugly and violent circumstances.

  And although Wayne had still not noticed her when those circumstances had erupted, her own emotions would jump from ones which were like by comparison, waves that were gently lapping at the distant shores of her subconscious, to waves crashing on the immediate beach of her conscious.

  Wayne and Luke had taken some horses down to the river for watering. Further up the river where the water passed through some stony shallows, they could hear some of the former slave women chattering and laughing as they tended to their washing. Neither Wayne nor Luke had been paying much attention as the horses drank, when suddenly the women started screaming with fear. They tethered the horses to some trees and went to see what all of the commotion was about. As they approached they saw a scrawny old timer, with a big black patch over his left eye, trying in vain to wrestle a long whip from a big, fat brawny man called Clayton. Clayton shoved the old timer away, but he came back and grabbed hold of Clayton’s arm again. This time Clayton punched him and the old man fell heavily to the ground. Clayton had obviously been terrorising the women with the whip and was about
to proceed, when the whip was pulled from his hand and thrown far out into the river. Although Clayton was facing the other way, the sheer force of the wrench warned him that it was not the old timer apprehending him this time. He turned to face Wayne and met cold blue eyes boring into his own. The old timer although still concussed, leapt between Wayne and Clayton and was joined by a startled Luke. The old man spoke with the bile of hatred.

  “You never change Clayton, you never change…Treating the Yankee prisoners badly ain’t good enough for yah, you can’t even leave these poor women alone yah bastard.”

  Clayton ignored the old man and kept his whole attention on Wayne. Wayne did not speak, his eyes told Clayton everything he needed to know.

  “Well, well horse boy, don’t yah like to see some slave women being whipped? Got no stomach for it. Better stick to yah hosses then, coz yah may get whipped yah self.”

  Wayne remained cold and impassive, but the killer in him had been quickly awoken.

  “I’ve seen too much whippin’ in ma life, but it takes a real bad son of a bitch to whip helpless women, a real mother fuckin’ son of a bitch.”

  “Yah think I’m afraid of yah horse boy. Maybe I should whip yah too, horse boy.”

  Wayne was winning the war on nerves, his tone remained cold and impassive and Clayton had already sampled Wayne’s rapier speed and strength.