“Thank you.” He put it back in the inside breastpocket of his jacket.
In the distance, the bugle called and both men looked at each other.
“Time to drill!” Francois prodded his buddy. Wiggins just snorted as he gathered his gear.
“Yeah. Time for you to act like ya know somethin’.”
Francois grimaced. During the winter break, the change in his status hadn’t bent Wiggin’s mood. They still were friends, as well as could be, Francois thought. But with the coming spring, as the whole countryside woke from her winter slumbers, he feared that would change.
Biting back a groan as he rose from seating, the echo of his ankle pain a constant reminder, he went to his horse and mounted. The war was coming. Why did that doctor, who hated him and the South, keep sneaking into his thoughts?
May 4, 1864
The sky was blue. The air buzzed with the awaking insects, though Francois consciously noted the volume was decreasing. What did the bugs know that the humans didn’t?
As the spring settled in, the anticipation of a battle increased daily. The cavalry mounted daily for reconnaissance and reported back with more and more frequency. Francois inhaled deeply, checking his supplies and the readiness of his gun.
“Francois! Did you hear?” Wiggins called. “They say the Yanks are on this side of the Rapidan River!”
“Uh huh,” he murmured, not facing his friend but stroking the neck of the mare in a vain attempt to calm her down when it was his own heart he needed to relax. His horse was tense, picking up his tremors of tension as well as the level raised in the camp. “Ole Bobbie Lee knows.”
“Well, First Sergeant Fontaine, what’s his plan?” His formal slant on Francois’s rank irritated Francois.
“I don’t rightly know.” He pulled the bridle strap through to attach to the buckle. “Lee rode out. Apparently, the Yanks got a new general. The general is trying to figure his next move.”
Wiggins spat to the ground. “Thinkin’ its going get ugly here, real soon.”
Reins in one hand that gripped the saddle and his other reaching for the back of the seat, Francois pulled himself up, grinding through the dull pain of his foot in the stirrup. Shifting into place on the leather seat, he glanced down at his friend.
“From what I’ve gathered, we’re going to stop them on Lee’s terms, his favorite system of outreaching the North by audacity and shock, so we’ll push through that wilderness to reach them. You watch after yourself. I won’t be far off.”
Wiggins nodded and turned to head back to the Tigers. Francois’s gaze held a twinge of black at the edge of his viewing field. It was an odd feeling, as if this dense forest of shrubs and trees that made up the wilderness not only gave the south the advantage to start the battle on their own terms, but also as if it was haunted by the men who’d died there in another battle a year prior. Ghosts who warned them to leave.
The sound of leaves rustling caught his attention, breaking the morbid thoughts and making him look to his left.
“Ah, Edward, you were here before I heard you,” Francois laughed. “This isn’t the place to act so quiet. No master here going to whoop ya for causing a noise.”
The tall, bald-headed slave snorted. “Some habits just ingrained, sir.” But his grin told Francois the man relished in surprising him.
“So, considering your stealth, what’d you gather up ahead?” Francois had been amazed. Edward, the slave Captain Anthony Knox had brought with him to the front to serve as his servant, had been more or less taken in by the command and served many, including Francois. Though, upon his return, after being exposed to the abolitionist Ada’s demands, doubts slowly began to eat at Francois’s soul on slavery and it irked him to no end.
Edward shuffled his feet, looking down, an annoying trait born of slavery. “Looks like those Yankees gonna come through that wilderness to get to us.”
Francois shifted on the saddle, fear knotting his stomach, knowing the man was right.
“You’re a good scout, Edward.” Francois tilted his chin upward. “Tell me, do you find it hard, being told what you can and can’t do?”
The man looked into the woods, on the side of that backed to the Rapidan. “I do what I need to do, the rest I try not to think much on.”
“So, how come you’re still with us and not hightailn’ it over to those Yanks to claim your freedom?”
This time, Edward turned to look at Francois and gave him a half-grin. “Sir, this is my homeland too. Yanks ain’t givin’ away land here, nor are they racing to let my type fight the real fight much. Here,” he patted the gun butt in his waistband. “I get to carry a gun and fight to save what is mine.”
The man was thin enough that Francois wondered how the gun hadn’t slid down his trousers, but said nothing. His argument was sound, but he knew that’d irritate those abolitionists further.
“Well, you best be careful with that. Don’t shoot that foot. I can tell you, that is a necessary piece of flesh to use now.”
“Rightly so, sir, rightly so. Massa Knox showed me how to use it.” He grinned, stroking the grip as he talked. “Why you be fightin’, sir? I heard the Fontaines had enough to buy out of this mess.”
Yes, why was he here? It was a question that loomed more and more until he switched it off. “For the country, Edward. For the land.” He twisted his mouth. “Tell me, Edward, do you wanna be free?”
“Yessir. Mighty bad, sir. But we got work to do first.” He nodded, tipping the corner of the hat he’d just jammed on his head and stepped away.
“You shouldn’t talk to them that way, Francois,” Wiggins whispered from the other side.
Startled his friend had returned, Francois twisted in the saddle. “Just an honest question, considering
