“I’m sure I can find the tent on my own.”
“Huh?”
“After I get to the camp.”
“You asking where the camp is?” said the hatless one.
“I am.”
“Thataway, quarter mile or so.”
“Thanks.”
Roy started down the path. He heard one of them saying, “Isn’t one of us supposed to accompany any stranger into camp?”
And the other: “Stranger? You heard him-he’s here to see Gordo.”
Pause. “We should have asked him to send someone back with those BLTs.”
Roy passed a tree labeled sweetgum, another labeled american sycamore, and a third, resembling the waxy- leafed one, although he wasn’t sure if it was the same species, labeled post oak. He came to a grassy clearing. There were about a dozen white tents in the clearing, arranged in two rows on either side of a black cannon. It was quiet and still: nothing to hear but rain on canvas, nothing stirring but the rebel flag on a pole above the first tent on the right. Roy paused outside.
“Anybody home?”
“Roy? That you?” The flap opened. Gordo appeared in his uniform, the butternut jacket, gray trousers, yellow suspenders, black half boots that conformed to no current fashion. He actually looked pretty good. “Come on in.”
Roy folded his umbrella. Another uniformed man came up behind Gordo, peered out. “Where’s the picket?” he said.
“What’s that?” said Roy.
“Like a sentry,” Gordo said.
“Supposed to be a picket escorting every visitor,” said the other man. “Standing orders.”
“They need BLTs,” Roy said, ducking into the tent.
“Now you know why we lost the war,” the man said; a man of about Roy’s height, but thinner, slightly stooped, balding. He reminded Roy of an English teacher he’d had in high school.
“Roy,” said Gordo, “Jesse Moses, second lieutenant, Seventh Tennessee. Jesse, Roy Hill I was telling you about. Roy Singleton Hill.”
They shook hands. “Gordo’s been telling me about you,” said Jesse Moses. “Welcome to the Seventh Tennessee.”
“I’m just visiting,” Roy said.
“Glad to have you. I’ll fetch the colonel.” He threw a gray cape over his shoulders and left the tent.
Roy looked around, saw a rough wooden table, the kind of thing you might find at a flea market. A candle burned on the table, illuminating a map that looked yellowed with age in the dim light.
“There were Jews in the Civil War,” Gordo said in a low voice. “Both sides.”
“So?”
“So it’s authentic.”
“What is?”
“For Christ sake, Roy. Jesse Moses is Jewish. We’ve got a Jew for second lieutenant.”
“But it’s kosher.”
Gordo gave him a look. “That’s not a reenactment kind of word.”
“What about putz?” Roy said.
The tent flap opened and Jesse Moses returned. He glanced at Roy, then Gordo, back to Roy, and seemed about to say something- Who said putz? Roy was sure of it-when a short round man came in behind him. His uniform bore lots of gold braid and culminated in a green plume poking up from his broad-brimmed hat.
“Colonel,” Jesse Moses said, “Roy Hill. Roy, this is our colonel, Earl Sippens.”
“Earl Sippens?” Roy said, shaking his hand, a small hand and damp, but that might have been the rain. “Not the Suzuki guy?”
“Isuzu,” said Earl.
“Isuzu,” Roy said. “Sorry.” Sippens Isuzu was one of the biggest car dealerships in Cobb County, regular sponsor of late-night movies.
“No biggie,” said Earl. “I sold Suzukis at one time. Hell, I sold them all. Remember the DeLorean?”
“No.”
“Course not-too goddamn young.” Earl Sippens looked Roy up and down. “Roy Singleton Hill. I get a chill, now I really do. What was he-your great-great-grandpappy or one more greater than that?”
“I don’t know,” Roy said.
Earl didn’t seem to hear that. “Roy Singleton Hill,” he said, putting his hand on Roy’s back and propelling him toward the table. “This calls for a drink.”
They sat on overturned crates. “Ah,” said Earl, glancing at the map, “Chickamauga.”
“Jesse and I were just going over it,” Gordo said, setting down tin cups, pouring from an earthenware jug.
“Chickamauga,” said the colonel. “What might have been, eh, boys?”
“That’s debatable,” Jesse Moses said.
“How so?” said Earl, his eyes getting small real quick. Roy smelled whiskey, a strong smell. All the smells- damp wool of the uniforms, canvas, grass, melting candle wax, whiskey-were suddenly strong.
“If you’re talking about Bragg’s so-called failure to pursue,” said Jesse Moses, the candle wavering for a moment, sending a brief shadow across his face, “remember there’s a difference between winning the field and winning the battle.”
“Maybe I’m not bright enough to see it,” said Earl. “Bragg chases them down the night of September twenty, smashes them up”-he set his tin cup on the map, hard enough to slop a little whiskey over the side-“then there’s no Lookout Mountain come November. No Lookout Mountain means no march through Georgia, no Atlanta goin’ up in flames. What we call a turning point, like fucking Little Roundtop, curse the name.”
“That’s debatable too,” said Jesse Moses.
Earl’s voice rose. “You saying we take Little Roundtop we still don’t win that fight?”
Jesse nodded. “It was unwinnable. Lee should have decamped the night of the first.”
Earl sat back, folded his arms across his chest. “And gone where, you don’t mind my asking?”
“Where he ended up going anyway, back over the Blue Ridge-but before they’d jammed his tail between his legs,” said Jesse.
“And how’re you supposed to win a war like that, always runnin’?”
“Ask Ho Chi Minh,” Jesse said.
“Don’t start that shit.”
Jesse gave Earl an unfriendly look. Earl gave one back. Then he blinked, turned to Roy. “Sorry, Roy, things get a little heated sometimes. The nature of war, you might say.”
“No problem,” Roy said; they’d lost him from the start.
“Wouldn’t mind hearing your opinion,” Earl said.
“About what?”
“Chickamauga,” said Earl. “Meaning specifically Bragg’s failure to pursue the Army of the Cumberland after Longstreet’s breakthrough at the Brotherton Cabin.”
“I know nothing about it,” Roy said.
“No?” said Earl. He raised his cup; the others did the same, Roy too, to be polite. “Victory,” said Earl, emptying his cup in one gulp. Gordo and Jesse did the same. Roy drank a lot less, not even half, but it went to his head anyway. “Refill, Private Coker, if you please,” Earl said.
Gordo refilled the cups. Actually looked all right in his uniform, and what was more, seemed to move in a different way, almost with a swagger. Gordo caught Roy’s glance, gave him a wink. Regional supervisor, area manager: Gordo thought the job was his. “Tennessee sipping whiskey, Roy, twelve years old,” Gordo said. “Authentic.”
“Except for the twelve-year-old part,” said Jesse. “The boys drank rotgut.”
