was willing to bet that had been Gran’s advice. He looked great. The dominant line of the arch of his eyebrow, the curve of his bold nose, the chiseled lips, the white hands with their long fingers and carefully trimmed nails . . . He was having an exchange with the president, and she was charmed out of her support hose by Bill’s close-lipped smile.
I didn’t know if Bill was casting a glamor over the whole room, or if these people were just predisposed to be interested, but the whole group hushed expectantly.
Then Bill saw me. I swear his eyebrows twitched. He gave me a little bow, and I nodded back, finding no smile in me to give him. Even in the crowd, I stood at the edge of the deep pool of his silence.
Mrs. Fortenberry introduced Bill, but I don’t remember what she said or how she skirted the fact that Bill was a different kind of creature.
Then Bill began speaking. He had notes, I saw with some surprise. Beside me, Sam leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Bill’s face.
“. . . we didn’t have any blankets and very little food,” Bill was saying calmly. “There were many deserters.”
That was not a favorite fact of the Descendants, but a few of them were nodding in agreement. This account must match what they’d learned in their studies.
An ancient man in the first row raised his hand.
“Sir, did you by chance know my great-grandfather, Tolliver Humphries?”
“Yes,” Bill said, after a moment. His face was unreadable. “Tolliver was my friend.”
And just for a moment, there was something so tragic in his voice that I had to close my eyes.
“What was he like?” quavered the old man.
“Well, he was foolhardy, which led to his death,” said Bill with a wry smile. “He was brave. He never made a cent in his life that he didn’t waste.”
“How did he die? Were you there?”
“Yes, I was there,” said Bill wearily. “I saw him get shot by a Northern sniper in the woods about twenty miles from here. He was slow because he was starved. We all were. About the middle of the morning, a cold morning, Tolliver saw a boy in our troop get shot as he lay in poor cover in the middle of a field. The boy was not dead, but painfully wounded. But he could call to us, and he did, all morning. He called to us to help him. He knew he would die if someone didn’t.”
The whole room had grown so silent you could hear a pin drop.
“He screamed and he moaned. I almost shot him myself, to shut him up, because I knew to venture out to rescue him was suicide. But I could not quite bring myself to kill him. That would be murder, not war, I told myself. But later I wished I had shot him, for Tolliver was less able than I to withstand the boy’s pleading. After two hours of it, he told me he planned to try to rescue the boy. I argued with him. But Tolliver told me that God wanted him to attempt it. He had been praying as we lay in the woods.
“Though I told Tolliver that God did not wish him to waste his life foolishly—that he had a wife and children praying for his safe return at home—Tolliver asked me to divert the enemy while he attempted the boy’s rescue. He ran out into the field like it was a spring day and he was well rested. And he got as far as the wounded boy. But then a shot rang out, and Tolliver fell dead. And, after a time, the boy began screaming for help again.”
“What happened to him?” asked Mrs. Fortenberry, her voice as quiet as she could manage to make it.
“He lived,” Bill said, and there was tone to his voice that sent shivers down my spine. “He survived the day, and we were able to retrieve him that night.”
Somehow those people had come alive again as Bill spoke, and for the old man in the front row there was a memory to cherish, a memory that said much about his ancestor’s character.
I don’t think anyone who’d come to the meeting that night was prepared for the impact of hearing about the Civil War from a survivor. They were enthralled; they were shattered.
When Bill had answered the last question, there was thunderous applause, or at least it was as thunderous as forty people could make it.