“Beauregard as a for instance?” said Earl. “You saying Beauregard drank rotgut?”
“Beauregard was hardly one of the boys.”
Earl and Jesse exchanged another unpleasant look. Roy wasn’t sure what they were arguing about, was also confused by all the names-who was real and who was not, or rather who was living and who was dead.
Earl took out a thin cigar, slightly bent, bit off the end, lit a wooden match with a flick of his thumbnail. The smell of smoke drifted through the other smells, rich, concentrated, like a bonfire in a tobacco field, packed tight. Earl smiled at Roy, wisps of smoke trailing from the corners of his lips. “Strikes me as pretty funny,” he said, “you not having an opinion on Chickamauga.”
“Why’s that?” said Roy.
“Because,” Earl said, “right there”-he jabbed at the map-“was your grandpappy. Reed’s Bridge, eighteen September.”
“Not my grandfather,” Roy said. “I told you-it was much more distant than that.”
Earl drained his cup again. “Practically the first skirmish of the whole goddamn battle. Bet he had an opinion. Bet I could even tell you what it was.”
Roy took another sip of whiskey, gazed down at the map-saw markings that made no sense to him, names he didn’t know, like Thomas, Crittenden, Polk, Wheeler, blue rectangles here and there, mostly on the left, gray rectangles mostly on the right, a winding stream or river farther to the right. He didn’t see anything that looked like a bridge. “What year are we talking about?”
Earl put down his cup. “You’re asking what year was Chickamauga?”
“Yeah.”
The uniformed men all looked at each other. “Eighteen sixty-three, Roy,” said Gordo. “You must have learned that in school.”
“With the quality of education in this state?” said Earl. “Don’t count on nothin’.” He spat out a shred of tobacco leaf.
Jesse took the jug, poured whiskey in Roy’s cup. “Look, Roy,” he said, leaning over the map. “Reed’s Bridge.” He pointed with his index finger: a long, delicate finger; Roy couldn’t help thinking of all those Jewish pianists and violinists, stereotypical or not. “And right here,” said Jesse, “where it says ‘Forrest’? That’s Nathan Bedford Forrest. Roy Singleton Hill-your ancestor-rode with him, that’s clear from the muster rolls and from when he was mentioned in dispatches,
which is how we know he must have been there, September eighteen, 1863.”
“This is about history,” Earl said. “We’re historians. Historians in action.”
“And 1863 is our year,” Jesse said.
“What do you mean?” Roy said.
“It’s always 1863 in the reenactment world,” Jesse said. “By general agreement, North and South.”
“Why?”
“That was the year,” Earl said. “Been no year like it, before or since.”
Or maybe he said ’fore or since. Roy wasn’t sure: not with the whiskey going to his head, and the smells, and the rain on the tent, and the hiss of dripping wax, and the creaking of the leather belts when Earl, Jesse, or Gordo shifted on the wooden crates; not with the flickering candlelight, and how it made that blue creek or river seem to move, just a little. All at once, Roy was out of air, but completely. He got up, mumbled something, stepped outside.
Still raining, but not as hard. Roy stood near the cannon, took deep breaths. He checked his watch, gave it a close look, in fact, much longer than normal. A commonplace, utilitarian watch of no great value: but digital. He felt a little better.
The rain stopped, the breeze died, but a mist thickened almost at once between the trees and down the line towardthe most distant tents. A soldier-a reenactor, Roy reminded himself-appeared out of the mist, walking briskly forward, an object under his arm.
The man nodded as he went by Roy. The nod was curtailed, military, the man young and smooth-faced with two stripes on his sleeve and a single earring in one ear. He carried a long curved sword in its scabbard.
“Colonel?” he said, standing outside the tent. “Light’s perfect.”
Earl came out of the tent, took the sword. He had trouble buckling it on. The man helped him, spinning him around once like a top, which was roughly Earl’s body shape, and getting all the belts-Earl was now wearing three- in order. The soldier wasn’t tall-perhaps not even as tall as Earl-but lean, trim, the most soldierly looking reenactor Roy had seen so far.
“Met Roy yet?” Earl said. “Roy Singleton Hill, like I was mentioning at the meeting. Roy, shake hands with Corporal Bridges. Sorry, Mr. Bridges, what with you transferring in so recently, your Christian name momentarily escapes me.”
“Lee,” said the corporal, shaking Roy’s hand. Lee’s hand was small, smaller than Earl’s, but dry, and the grip was strong.
Earl moved toward the cannon. A man dressed in jeans and a yellow slicker backed out of a tent, hunched over a camera on a tripod. Earl got ready in front of the cannon, one hand on the hilt of his sword, the other inside his shirt, like Napoleon.
“Nice,” said the photographer.
Lee stood beside Roy, watching. “He does a digital thing to make his pictures come out just like Matthew Brady’s,” Lee said.
Roy was about to ask, Who’s that? when Earl said: “How about getting Roy in the picture?”
Roy got in the picture, wearing Gordo’s hat and jacket, standing so the cannon obscured the rest of him.
“Nice,” said the photographer. “Now why don’t we try just you two?”
“Me?” said Lee.
“And this gentleman,” said the photographer, nodding at Roy.
“Don’t want me there?” said Earl. “I could stand in the middle, like this.”
“How about we try that next?”
Earl stepped out of the shot, Lee stepped in, posing with Roy behind the cannon.
“They often put their arms over each other’s shoulders,” the photographer said.
Roy put his arm over Lee’s shoulder; Lee put his arm behind Roy’s back. Roy felt Lee’s hand, a small hand, on his spine.
“Yeah, just like that,” said the photographer. “Nice. Very.”
Roy gave Gordo back his hat and jacket. “Say hi to Brenda before you go?” Gordo said.
“Sure.”
Roy followed Gordo to the fifth tent on the left-both sentries had got it wrong-followed Gordo inside.
“Get your ass in here this minute, Johnny Reb,” Brenda said.
And then, from her position on some sort of low camp bed on the tent floor, she saw Roy. “Oh my God,” she said, pulling the covers up over her breasts; the rough border of the gray wool blanket snagged for an instant on one nipple.
Things get pretty hot in those tents. Some kind of transformation takes place.
A strawberry-colored nipple. Her face was the same. “Ever heard of knocking?” she said.
“Sorry,” Roy said.
“Not you, Roy. I’m talking to the oaf here.”
“How do you knock on a tent?” Gordo said.
“I’ll show myself out,” Roy said, and stepped back through the opening, lowering the flap behind him. As he walked away, he realized that Brenda had looked good, probably better than he’d ever seen her. He’d never felt a twitch of desire for Brenda, until right now. He heard her laughter through the canvas.
Roy walked back down the nature trail, past the silent sentry post-he could see the trash bag shelter still in place-and into the parking lot. The sight of his car was jarring for some reason, the sight of the Porta Potti truck even more so. Roy was opening the car door when he heard a light, muffled drumming, looked back up the path, saw a horse in full gallop, coming his way. The horse, big and black, bore down right at him, closer and closer, the rider reining in just a few feet away.
“Easy, boy,” he said. It was Lee. He handed the umbrella down to Roy. “You forgot this.”
“Thanks.”
