own. The Kiowa was a hell of a fighting man. He enjoyed fighting. What he didn’t enjoy was the work that went into making sure you stayed alive in between fights.
“Hey, Joe,” Reggie called, “you got any secret Indian tricks for keeping the mosquitoes and things off you?”
“You got to do two things,” the Kiowa answered. His long face was serious to the point of being somber. All the white men in earshot leaned forward to hear his words of wisdom. Seeing that he had everybody’s attention, he gave a dramatic pause as good as anything on a vaudeville stage, then went on, “You got to slap like hell, and you got to scratch like hell.”
“And
“Damnyankees wouldn’t treat me this way,” Mopope said. He did start entrenching, although without much enthusiasm. “Maybe I should have stayed in town and let them come along.”
“Oh, yeah.” Hairston’s nod was venomously sarcastic. “That would have been really great, Joe. The CSA’s let you Indians do pretty much like you please up here in Sequoyah. Ain’t been like that in the USA. After we licked ’em in the War of Secession, they took out after the Sioux, and they been takin’ out after their redskins ever since. They purely don’t fancy your kind of people, and I don’t reckon they’d give you a big kiss now.”
Joe Mopope exhaled through his nose: not quite a snort, but close. “Oh, yeah. The president in Richmond treats us halfway decent ’cause he likes us. Come on. It’s ’cause he can use us against the Yankees, and everybody knows it.”
Hairston stared at him. So did Reggie Bartlett. Little by little, the Kiowa was making him realize a red skin didn’t mean the fellow wearing it was stupid. Reggie glanced over at Nap Dibble, who was still working away like a machine. A white skin didn’t turn somebody into a college professor all by itself, either.
Maybe, if he’d had the chance to think about it, he would have wondered what having a black skin meant. He might even have wondered if it meant anything more than a red one or a white one. But, at that moment, rifle fire broke out to the north: U.S. troops, prodding at the Confederate position. He stuck his entrenching tool in his belt, grabbed his Tredegar off his shoulder, and squatted down on the damp ground to see how bad it would get.
The soldiers in green-gray didn’t come swarming and rampaging toward him. Only mosquitoes swarmed hereabouts. Machine guns started hammering. Reggie watched the Yankees who were on their feet go flat, some wounded, some prudent enough to try to make sure they wouldn’t be. He fired a couple of rounds, but had no idea whether he hit anyone.
One of the U.S. field guns opened up. The shells tore up the swampy bottom country, but not so badly as they would have had the ground been harder and drier. And much of their explosive force went down into the muck or straight up, rather than out in all directions.
All the things that made Reggie glad when the U.S. troops were shelling the Confederates made him sorry when his own gunners returned the fire. They didn’t hurt the damnyankees nearly so much as he thought they should.
But the U.S. soldiers did not press the attack. Instead, they began to dig in where they lay. Maybe that was all they’d intended to do: push their own lines a little farther forward with this attack so they could try pushing the Confederates back with the next one or the one after that.
“If they had a lot of artillery, they’d ruin us or drive us down into Texas,” Pete Hairston said gloomily. “They’d shoot up all the river crossings so we couldn’t move supplies into Sequoyah any more, and that’d be that. But they haven’t got much more in the way of supplies than we do, so we’ll hang on a while longer. Damned if I know how to push ’em back, though.”
“Mebbe they’ll all drown in the mud an’ never be seen no more, Sarge,” Nap Dibble suggested.
Had anyone else said it, it would have been a joke, and everyone would have laughed. The trouble was, Nap meant it, and that was painfully plain to his comrades. In a more gentle voice than he would have used to speak to most of his soldiers, Hairston said, “Only trouble with that is, Nap, we’re down here in the mud with ’em, and we’d likely drown first.”
“Oh, that’s right, Sarge.” Dibble nodded brightly. “I wonder how come I didn’t think of that.”
“Funny thing about that, ain’t it?” Hairston said. He wasn’t mocking Dibble, not in the least. He got the most he could from a man who was willing without being very bright. Reggie Bartlett admired the way the sergeant handled Nap. He doubted he would have had the patience to match it.
Lieutenant Nicoll came by, inspecting the part of the line his company was digging. He nodded. “This is how you do it, men. Dig in well and the Yankees can never dislodge you.”
“Dig in well, men,” Reggie echoed after Nicoll had gone on his way. “Dig in well and they can’t drive you out of Waurika. Dig in well and they can’t drive you out of Ryan. Dig in well and you’ll have your own grave all nice and ready for those damnyankee sons of bitches to plant you in it.”
Joe Mopope’s grunt was evidently intended for a laugh. “You face this the way one of my people would,” he said. “What will be, will be. Whatever it is, you move toward it. You cannot help moving toward it. It is there. It waits for you. You cannot escape it.”
“I joined up as soon as the war started,” Bartlett answered. “I’ve spent too damn much time in the trenches since. A lot of time when I wasn’t in the trenches, I was in a damnyankee prison camp because the bastards nabbed me when I was up at the front. I’ve seen enough now that nothing I see from here on out is going to surprise me a whole hell of a lot.”
The other soldiers nodded. They were grimy and unshaven and tired and wet and full of bites. Pete Hairston said, “Whatever happens, I reckon I’m ready for it.” The soldiers nodded again.
Joe Mopope studied them. “You are warriors, all of you,” he said at last. “You are not just soldiers. You are warriors.”
“Whatever the hell we are, it isn’t worth gettin’ into an uproar about it,” Bartlett said. More nods. He fished through his pockets and found a scrap of paper that had stayed dry. More fishing revealed a tobacco pouch, but it was empty. “Anybody have some makings? I’m plumb out.”
“I got some,” Sergeant Hairston said. Reggie held out his hand with the paper in it. Hairston poured tobacco onto the paper. Nodding his thanks, Reggie rolled the cigarette. After a couple of drags, he felt better.
Sergeant Chester Martin envied U.S. Army engineers. They always seemed to know exactly what they were doing. He knew that wasn’t always so, but it was so often enough to leave him impressed. His own part in the war, he strongly felt, he was making up as he went along.
He also envied the engineers because they were cleaner than he was. A lot of them wore boots that almost reached their knees-cavalry boots-which kept their trousers from getting as filthy as his. They worked now with fussy precision, laying out lengths of white tape from one stick to another.
“What’s all this about?” David Hamburger asked. “They laying out the route for the Remembrance Day parade?”
“Couple days too early for May Day,” Martin said with a grin, needling the private with a Socialist congresswoman for a sister. “Besides, if it was for that, the tape’d be red, and then you’d get up and march along it and get yourself shot.”
“Funny, Sarge,” the Hamburger kid said. “Funny like a crutch.” But he was grinning, even laughing a little. He hadn’t seen much action-things had been quiet since Martin crossed the Potomac to join B Company of the 91st-but he fit in as well as if he’d been wearing green-gray since 1914.
Tilden Russell said, “If he was paradin’ for May Day, the Rebs wouldn’t shoot at him, not with all the colored troops they’ve got in their trenches. Those smokes are better true-blue Reds than any Socialist from outta New York City, even if he does have his sister in Congress tellin’ Teddy Roosevelt how to run things.”
“I don’t know why you expect Roosevelt to listen to Flora,” David Hamburger said. “He hasn’t listened to anybody else since he got elected.”
Martin laughed. Corporal Reinholdt, on the other hand, scowled. “Shut up,” he said in a flat, hostile voice. “Nobody’s gonna make fun of the president of the United States while I’m here to kick his ass.”
“Hey, take it easy, Bob,” Martin said. “Nobody’s getting in an uproar about this.”
“Oh, now you’re gonna undercut me, are you, Sarge?” Reinholdt growled. “Must be another goddamn Red yourself.”
Had he left off the adjective and smiled, he might have got by with it. As things were, Martin couldn’t ignore
