Fire by Night Page 10

  “Well, lookee here, Joe,” Luke Bailey said to his brother. “The little fella’s got some liquor he ain’t sharing with us.”

  “Hey, that’s my tonic!” Ted said, making a grab for it. “Give it back!”

  The Baileys were a beefy, bullnecked pair with a reputation for fighting dirty. Luke Bailey elbowed Ted in the gut, then pulled the cork out of the bottle. “Smells like booze to me.” He took a long swig and let out a hoot. “Tastes like a rusty nail melted down and put in a bottle.”

  “Does it have a kick to it?” his brother asked.

  “Oh yeah! And he’s got more of them bottles in his pack.”

  “Toss me one of them,” Joe said. “I’m thinking I could use some medicine.”

  Luke plugged the cork back in and threw the bottle to Joe. Ted tried to defend his belongings, but he was still winded and hurting from the jab to his stomach. Luke stomped his instep and snatched the knapsack from him.

  “Give that back!” Phoebe shouted as she hurried over. The bullies had closed in on Ted so quickly that she felt like she was moving through waist-deep mud as she raced to help him.

  “You stay out of this,” Luke warned her. “Ain’t none of your business.”

  “And that ain’t your bottle or your knapsack. Give them back to him.”

  “You gonna make me, big fella?” Luke took a threatening step toward Phoebe, his chin lifted in the air. He was shorter than she was but thickset and muscular. She didn’t like it that his brawny older brother was behind her, where she couldn’t see him.

  “Look, I don’t want a fight,” she said.

  “Aw, he don’t want a fight,” Luke said, mimicking her.

  “We’re on the same side in this war, remember?”

  “What war is that?” Luke said. “You seen a war yet, Joe?” The brothers laughed as if she’d told a hilarious joke.

  “It ain’t right to go pawing through someone else’s things.” She wished her voice didn’t sound so high-pitched.

  “You scared of a fight, big fella?”

  “No, but I—”

  “Okay, come here and get it, then.” Luke slowly backed away from her, taunting her, dangling the pack by its strap.

  As she took a step, Phoebe heard Ted shout, “Ike, look out!”

  The warning came too late. Joe Bailey tackled her from behind, slamming her to the ground and knocking the wind out of her. She heard both Baileys laughing as Joe rolled off her and sprang to his feet.

  “You know what they say, ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”’

  Phoebe spit dirt from her mouth. Now she was mad. She scrambled up and charged into Luke, butting her head into his ribs like a bull. Surprised, he stumbled backward and fell on his rump, dropping the knapsack. Then she went after Joe with both fists flying. She landed two good blows before taking a punch to her own jaw that made her teeth rattle. That made her furious. If these roughnecks knocked her teeth out she’d be labeled 4-F and she never would get into the war.

  Phoebe kept on swinging. She was going to ache all over tomorrow, but she would show these guys. She’d fought against bigger louts—her own brothers. And she’d also taken on all the boys at school who’d called her names and told her she was ugly. After she’d whipped them good they’d grown to fear her.

  She gave it back to the Bailey brothers as good as she got it. But she was very surprised when Ted joined in, tackling the younger brother, Luke, slugging and punching him for all he was worth. Phoebe was vaguely aware that a circle of men had gathered around, watching and cheering, glad for a new diversion.

  Phoebe heard someone shout, “I’ll bet a greenback on the big yellow-haired guy and his friend.”

  “You mean Ike and the little runt?” someone challenged in disbelief. “Never happen. My money’s on the Baileys.”

  “I’ll take that bet.”

  “Put me down for two bucks on the Bailey brothers.”

  “Five on Bigelow.”

  She was tiring, but so was Joe Bailey. They pulled back and circled each other, panting. Phoebe waited until he threw a punch, ducked it, then went in fast and scored two punches to his gut that doubled him over. As he clutched his stomach, groaning, she showed no mercy, hitting him in the jaw as hard as she could.

  Phoebe’s fists ached. Her knuckles were bleeding from where she’d split them open on Joe’s buttons. Her hand would be swollen tomorrow for sure. She charged forward to slug him again, but he’d had enough. He held up his hands in surrender.

  She whirled around to look for his brother and saw him locked in a struggle with Ted. She grabbed Luke by the back of his shirt, peeled him off Ted, and wrestled him to the ground. A few minutes later, it was over. Phoebe had Luke facedown in the dirt with her knee in his back, bending his arm behind him the way her brother Junior had always pinned her.

  “You gonna mess with other people’s things?” she asked, panting for breath.

  “I reckon not,” he grunted.

  She let him up. There was a chorus of groans and cheers from the crowd as money was collected and lost. Phoebe turned to Ted.

  “Look at you!” she moaned. The front of his shirt was torn, and blood ran down his chin from a cut in his lip. His right eye was starting to swell, and he would have a shiner tomorrow for sure, but he grinned at Phoebe like he’d just whipped a whole trainload of Rebels. She was relieved to see that his teeth were still all there.

  “Hey, that was fun, wasn’t it, Ike?” he said, wheezing. “I never won a fight in my whole life. We make a great team, don’t we?”

  Truth was, the Baileys would have beat the pulp out of Ted if she hadn’t helped. But he hadn’t turned tail and run. Ted had jumped right into the thick of things, fighting seasoned brawlers who were a lot bigger than he was, so he had a right to be proud.

  “Yeah,” she said with a smile that hurt her own swollen lip. “We make a great team.” Ted looked like he might fall over any minute, so she draped her arm around him to prop him up. They were still congratulating each other when she saw the company captain walking toward them. He was looking right at her.

  “Can I talk to you, Bigelow?”

  Phoebe suddenly felt more frightened than she had when fighting the Bailey brothers. In defending Ted she had drawn attention to herself—something she’d worked very hard never to do. She stared at the captain, too scared to speak.

  “The Baileys started it,” Ted said. “We have witnesses.”

  The captain didn’t reply. He motioned for Phoebe to follow him and turned to walk away from all the onlookers. She followed, her knees as weak and wobbly as a newborn calf ’s. When they’d gone a short way, he stopped.

  “I was watching you just now, Bigelow. … ”

  He knows! He knows I’m a girl!

  “You did some mighty fine fighting. You ever do any competitive boxing before?”

  “You—you mean a real match?”

  He nodded.

  “No, sir. Just messing around with my brothers and the kids at school.”

  “I’d like you to consider becoming our company champion.”

  Phoebe was dumbfounded. She had watched some of the boxing matches the different regiments held for entertainment. The men fought with their chests bared, wearing only trousers.

  “Our company has never had a decent competitor to sponsor before. But I really think you have the makings of a champion. It would be great for company morale …and it might even earn you a promotion.”

  “I won’t run from a fight, sir. But I don’t get any fun out of it.”

  “I can give you a few pointers, help you improve. You’re quick on your feet and strong. You don’t weigh as much as some of the other boxers, but you’re taller and you know how to think on your feet.”

  “To be honest, sir, I only got into it tonight because they were bullies. They were picking on someone smaller than themselves.”

  “That’s very noble. But wouldn’t it be even more rewarding if there was money involved? Yo
u could always use some extra money, couldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. … Why don’t you ask the Bailey brothers? They like to fight.”

  “The Baileys lost. To you. Will you at least think about it?”

  Phoebe didn’t know how to say no to her commanding officer without making him mad—but she knew that she had to refuse. “I’m really sorry, sir. But I don’t want to fight fellas that are on my side of the war. I want to save all my fighting for the Rebels.”

  “All right, Bigelow,” he said with a sigh. “But I think it’s a shame. I think you could be a first-rate champion.”

  The ground felt harder and lumpier that night when Phoebe lay in her tent with a bunch of new aches and pains. But whenever she pictured Luke Bailey pawing through Ted’s stuff and the helpless look on Ted’s face, she knew she would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

  She stuck close to Ted after that—not that the Bailey brothers would be fool enough to take her on again. But because …well, Phoebe didn’t quite understand the reason why. She thought about Ted all through the day and after lights-out at night in their tent full of snoring men. She wanted to eat all her meals with him and march beside him during drill and sit beside the campfire with him at night, listening to him talk about his family back home in Pennsylvania.

  But when he asked her to go to Sunday services with him one spring morning, she stopped dead in her tracks. She sure didn’t like being away from Ted for very long, but the thought of going to church made Phoebe very uneasy, even if services were held in the open air.

  “Some say the reason we lost Bull Run was because we fought on a Sunday,” Ted told her. “Now they’re giving us a day of rest, setting up chapels and such. Come with me, Ike. Everybody’s going.”

  “Um …no thanks.” She picked up her tin cup and quickly gulped her coffee.

  “Why not? You go to church back home, don’t you?”

  “Well …not too much.”

  Ted dropped his spoon onto his tin plate. “You’re not a believer?You never heard the Gospel?”

  “Yeah, I heard it. We had Christmas programs at school with the baby Jesus and all the animals.” She quickly forked food into her mouth, hoping Ted would do the same and forget about all this. He didn’t.

  “What about Easter? We’ll be celebrating that pretty soon. You know about Easter, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know about Easter. I ain’t a heathen. It’s just …I don’t know.”

  “Hey, you have to go to church, Ike. It says so in the Bible and everything.”

  Phoebe stared down at her plate, idly tearing her bread into pieces and feeling just as torn. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was make Ted mad at her. But she had a bad feeling that God was already pretty mad at her, and she didn’t want to risk finding out by showing up at His church service. Phoebe knew she wasn’t supposed to tell a lie, yet she was lying every day when she pretended to be a man. Even if nobody else guessed her secret, she figured God knew. But how could she explain this to Ted?

  “It was a long way into town from our farm,” she finally said. “And I never liked to go to church because I’d have to wear a—” Phoebe had almost said dress but stopped herself in time. “Uh …shoes …you know. Can’t go to church barefoot, can you? Everybody back home always wore nice Sunday clothes, and I didn’t have any.”

  “You’ve got yourself a nice uniform and shoes now. Come with me, Ike. Please? Some fellow from the Christian Commission is preaching today, and I hear they’re giving out care packages afterward.”

  Ted kept after her all the way through breakfast, slowly wearing Phoebe down with his nagging until she ran out of excuses. Before she even knew how it had happened, she was walking across the camp with him toward the outdoor chapel. Her uneasiness grew with every step she took.

  “Let me ask you something, Ted,” she finally said. “You think it’s true that God reads folks’ minds and knows all their secrets?”

  “Sure. And not just their minds, He sees what’s in their hearts, too.”

  Phoebe froze.

  “Hey, come on. What are you stopping for?” Ted pulled on her sleeve, tugging her forward. “Don’t you want to get a good seat?”

  “The preacher back home was always saying ‘God told me this and that.’ Do you think it’s true? Would God tell the preacher all our secrets?”

  Ted punched her arm playfully. “Why? You got a secret you’re worried about, Ike?”

  Phoebe felt all the blood rush to her face. How had she ever gotten herself into this mess? Now the only way out was to tell more lies. And on a Sunday, no less.

  “Naw, I ain’t got any secrets. Back home in Bone Hollow, the town was so small that everybody always knew everybody’s business. There was no such thing as keeping secrets. But sometimes I wondered if God was in on it. Maybe He was telling the preacher stuff about everybody.”

  Ted laughed. “You sure get some funny notions. Come on.” He prodded her forward again.

  Up ahead, Phoebe saw a little brush arbor with a rustic wooden cross and rows of benches. Beside the chapel was a tent with a sign on it—United States Christian Commission. Three men in civilian clothes were helping the preacher set up a pulpit made out of logs. The spring day was cool and breezy, but Phoebe felt trickles of sweat running down her neck. She halted.

  “Now what?” Ted asked with a sigh.

  “I’m too tall for them benches. Ain’t no place for my legs to go, and I just know they’re gonna start cramping on me before the time’s up. You go on. I’ll listen from here.”

  Ted studied her for a moment. “You’re going to sneak on back to our tent when I’m not looking, aren’t you?” When she didn’t answer he said, “I’m worried about your eternal soul, Ike. You can’t go to heaven unless you know Jesus. Don’t you want to go to heaven?”

  “Not until I’m dead. And I’m planning on staying alive for a while.”

  Ted’s innocent, boyish expression creased into a frown. Phoebe wanted to take his face in her hands and smooth all the lines away and make him smile again. He had such a nice smile.

  “I promise I’ll stand right here and listen to every single word,” she said. But her stomach made a nervous flip as she said it. Ted gave a reluctant nod, and Phoebe watched him saunter forward and sit down. He turned around once to see if she was still there and she gave a little wave.

  Phoebe’s mind was a thousand miles away as the service started, and in spite of her promise, she didn’t hear a word the preacher said. She also didn’t notice that one of the men in civilian clothes had ambled up beside her, until he spoke.

  “Don’t you want to join all the others, son?” Phoebe nearly jumped out of her skin. “I’m sorry,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “That’s okay. No, I don’t need to sit. I’m fine where I’m at.”

  “I’m Nathaniel Greene,” the stranger said, extending his hand. It had freckles all over it. She looked up at his face and saw freckles there, too. It was a handsome, youthful face—one that every girl back home would probably sigh over. Then she noticed his collar.

  “Are you a preacher?”

  “I’m an ordained minister, yes.”

  Phoebe didn’t like preachers. The one in Bone Hollow had taken her aside after school one day and hollered at her for getting into fistfights with the boys. She’d tried to tell him all the awful things they’d said to make her mad, but he didn’t listen. He’d told her that God had rules she needed to follow, like the rules in school. Then he’d admitted that he was in cahoots with Widow Garlock to get Phoebe out of overalls and into a dress.

  Nathaniel Greene must have seen a change in Phoebe’s expression because he quickly added, “But I’m not here to preach. I’m here as a volunteer for the Christian Commission. What’s your name?”

  “Ike Bigelow.”

  “I just like to talk to people, Ike. Answer any questions they might have about God.”

  “Well, I hav
e a question.” Her heart galloped with fear but she needed to know if this man was going to give her away. “Does God ever tell preachers things—secret things—about us?”

  “I’m not sure I understand. But if you mean does God talk to me the way you and I are talking, then no. The only way I can learn people’s secrets is if they tell me.”

  The preacher probably saw her relief and could figure out that she had a real big secret, but Phoebe didn’t care. At least she could attend services with Ted from now on without worrying too much.

  “I don’t hear ‘confession,”’ he continued. “I’m not a priest. But if you need someone to talk to, I’ll gladly listen and keep it confidential.” When she didn’t reply he asked, “Are you Catholic, by any chance? Because there is a priest—”

  “I don’t belong to any church. I do believe in God, though,” she added quickly. “I just feel funny in church, that’s all. I don’t belong there.”

  “Where do you like to go to be with God?”

  Phoebe looked at him in surprise. His expression was kind, his voice gentle. How had he known that she had a special place?

  “Well …there was this spot in the woods back home,” she said slowly. “I always used to go there when I felt bad. It was so pretty with the trees and the creek and all. And after a while I’d start to feel …I don’t know …like I wasn’t all alone. I mean, sure there’s animals and bugs and things, but not just them. Someone bigger than them. It was almost like the person who’d made it all was looking at it with me and enjoying all the pretty things He’d made.”

  Greene smiled. “It was God.”

  Phoebe shook her head. “Naw, the preacher told me that God lives in a church. That’s His house. He said there’s rules we need to follow or God gets real mad. But I don’t belong in a church. And folks in town didn’t much like me being there.”

  “Jesus came down to earth for all the people who feel like they don’t belong anywhere,” the preacher said. “In fact, many of the church members of Jesus’ day refused to believe in Him. But He came to help all the outcasts.”