Free The March by E.L. Doctorow Page B

that.
    The people had stopped singing and the women held the children to them tightly. The causeway was narrow and on both sides swamp water lay thick and still, with trees poking up every which way from the muck. The air was fetid, and wisps of fog blew across their path.
    When they came to the creek they were ordered to move aside along the bank while the soldiers trotted past them and crossed over on the pontoon bridge. Wilma looked around: more and more of the freed slaves were arriving to be kept waiting while the army moved through. From the far side, several officers on horses watched the maneuver. They sat astride their horses, unmoving. There was a general among them, because he wore a lot of gold braid such as the high and mighty affect. Wilma had a premonition. She had heard the stories. The Rebs were always behind them. They overran Negro stragglers and shot them or took them back into slavery.
    The creek was at high water and running fast. It was a whole army going across. Division after division ran and rode past them, pulling their gun carriages and whipping their mules. Daughter, the old man shouted, why ain’t we crossing! Wilma ran to the side of the causeway and stopped an officer. Mammy, he said, we are fighting a damn war for you. Alls we ask is you don’t get in the way.
    Some of the women and children were crying now. It was clear something had changed, as if with the sky, which had gotten darker. Fewer and fewer soldiers were coming along now, and finally the last of them were on the bridge. Wilma took the old man’s arm as the crowd surged forward. And then she couldn’t see over their heads, but a great wail went up among them: the ropes had been cut and the pontoon bridge swung away from the bank. Soldiers across the river were pulling it up behind them.
    People didn’t know what to do. Someone shouted that the Rebs were coming. Wilma tried to hold her ground but the old man was pulling her down the bank. Ise a free man! he shouted. Ise a free man! And then she couldn’t hold him any longer and he jumped into the stream. Around her people were screaming, praying, importuning God. They slid into the water and started swimming across. She saw on the other bank that some black pioneer soldiers were throwing logs and brush into the water for people to hold on to. But the old man couldn’t swim. He was waving his cane in the air and twisting around in the current and going under and coming up with the cane waving in the air.
    Women holding their babies over their heads tried to breast the current. Somehow the men tied a raft together out of some logs and strips of tarpaulin, and women’s skirts and blankets. The pioneers threw a line over, and a semblance of order set in as people were pulled across four and five at a time on the raft. But those huddled on the bank looked behind them with fear. They thought they heard Rebs coming down the causeway and couldn’t wait their turn. Holding their bundles and satchels, they jumped into the river.
    Wilma found herself on the raft. Almost across, it dipped under the current and capsized. She came up sputtering and felt a hand holding her by the arm. She was lifted onto the bank, water streaming from her. A strong black man had lifted her entirely out of the water with one hand. She sat on the ground shivering. Those who had gotten across were running after the army. And, back on the other shore, there were maybe a hundred or more folks still crowding the bank, afraid to move. Women and crying children. She heard gunshots and thought she saw some men on horses coming down the causeway.
    Here, missy, the man who had rescued her said. He put a blanket around her. Best not to linger. God will give those folks their freedom, jes not now is all. Come on. He was tall and wore a uniform tunic unbuttoned and ragged trousers and he was shoeless. He took Wilma’s hand and got her standing, and led her down the road. She kept turning, looking back, until she