personalities, but Major Galloway was in no mood for evasions. 'You accused him of attempted rape?'
Adam wondered how Galloway knew, then decided that either Sergeant Huxtable or Corporal Kemp must have complained about Blythe. 'I didn't accuse Blythe of anything,' Adam said. 'I just stopped him from mistreating a woman, if that's what you mean.'
Galloway sucked on what was left of his rain-soaked cigar. He ducked under a low branch, then checked his horse so he could search the rain-soaked land ahead. 'Billy tells me the woman was merely offering herself because she wanted Northern dollars,' the Major said when he was satisfied that no rebel picket waited in the far trees, 'and because she wanted to save her house. Sergeant Kelley told me the same thing.'
'They're lying!' Adam said indignantly.
Galloway shrugged. 'Billy's a good enough fellow, Adam. I ain't saying he's the straightest man as was ever born, I mean he sure isn't no George Washington, but we're a troop of soldiers, not a passel of churchmen.'
'Does that justify rape?' Adam asked.
'Hell, that's your tale, Adam, not his,' Galloway said tiredly, 'and when it comes to telling tales, then you should know that Billy's telling a few on you too.' The Major was riding ahead of Adam on a waterlogged path that ran beside a wood. The rain had finally extinguished his cigar, which he tossed into a puddle. 'Blythe claims you're a Southern sympathizer, a gray wolf in blue clothing. In fact he says you're a spy.' Galloway held up a hand. 'Don't protest, Adam. I don't believe a word of it, but what else do you expect him to say about a man accusing him of rape?'
'Maybe he could tell the truth,' Adam proclaimed indignantly.
'The truth!' Galloway barked a laugh at the very thought of such a notion. 'The truth in war, Adam, is whatever the winner decides it is, and the best way for you to prove that Blythe is a liar is to make some rebel heads bleed tonight.'
'Major,' Adam said firmly, 'all my men saw that woman. She didn't tear her own clothes, Blythe did, and—'
'Adam! Adam!' There was a note of pleading in Galloway's voice. The Major was a decent and honest man who had a vision of how his irregular regiment of horse could shorten this war, and now that vision was being threatened by rancorous dissension within his ranks. Nor did Galloway really want to believe Adam's accusations, for the Major liked Blythe. Blythe made him laugh and enlivened his dull evenings, and for those reasons, as well as a desire to avoid confrontation, Galloway tried to find extenuating circumstances. 'Who's to say the woman didn't attack Billy when he tried to burn the barn? We don't know what happened, but I do know that we've got a battle to fight and a war to win and we're better employed fighting the enemy than each other. Now trust me. I'll keep an eye on Billy, that much I promise, but I want you to leave him to me. His behavior isn't your responsibility, Adam, but mine. You agree?'
Adam could hardly disagree with such a reasoned and earnest promise, and so he nodded. 'Yes, sir.'
'Good man,' Galloway said enthusiastically, then slowed his horse as the two men approached the crest of a shallow rise. Their blue uniforms were smothered by black oilcloth cloaks that hung down to their boots, but each knew their disguise would serve small purpose if they were intercepted by a rebel patrol.
Yet the weather seemed to have damped down all rebel watchfulness, for Galloway and Adam were able to spy out the positions of the Faulconer Brigade without any sentry or picket challenging their presence. They mapped the Legion's turf-covered bivouacs, which were studded with pyramids of stacked arms and sifted with the smoke of the few campfires that still struggled against the windblown rain, then noted the substantial farmhouse standing among the tents that Adam knew belonged to the Faulconer Brigade's headquarters. From time to time a soldier would run between the shelters or slouch dejectedly away from the farmhouse, but otherwise the encampment appeared deserted. Further south still was a meadow where the Brigade's supply wagons were parked and where picketed horses stood in disconsolate rows. Adam showed Galloway the white-painted ammunition carts, then trained his binoculars on some unfamiliar vehicles and saw that they belonged to an artillery battery that had camped alongside his father's Brigade. 'How many sentries would you expect on the wagons?' Galloway asked, peering through his own binoculars.
'There's usually a dozen men,' Adam said, 'but I can only
see one.
'There must be more.' 'Sheltering in the wagons?' Adam suggested. 'I guess so, which means the sumbitches won't see us coming.' Galloway sounded enthused at the prospect of fighting. He knew he could not seriously hurt Jackson's army—indeed, this night's attack would be but the feeblest of pinpricks—but Galloway was not trying to cause grievous damage. Instead he was hoping to inflict on the South the same kind of insult that Jeb Stuart had thrust on the North when he had led his cavalry clean about McClellan's army. Few men had died in that ride, but it had nevertheless made the North into the laughingstock of the whole world. Galloway now hoped to provide proof that Northern horsemen could ride as defiantly and effectively as any Southern cavalier.
Adam was fighting a different battle: a battle with his own conscience. He had obeyed that stern conscience when he had abandoned the South to fight for the North, but the logic of that choice meant not just fighting against fellow Southerners but against his own father, and a lifetime of love and filial obedience struggled against the inevitability of that logic. Yet, he asked himself as he followed Galloway further south along the woodland tracks, what else had he expected when he crossed the lines and pledged his allegiance to the United States? Adam had agonized for months about the war's moral choices, and at the end of all that worry and self-doubt he had reached a certainty that was weakened only by the duty he owed to his father. But this night, under a rain-lashed sky, Adam would cut that filial duty out of his life and so free himself to the higher duty of the nation's union.
Galloway stopped, dismounted, and again stared southward through his field glasses. Adam joined him and saw the Major was examining a half-dozen cabins, a plank-wall church, and a ramshackle two-story house that all stood around a small crossroads. ''McComb's Tavern,'' Galloway said, reading the sign that was painted in tar on the house wall. ''Good Licker, Clean Beds and Plenty Food.' But bad spelling. Do you see any troops there?'
'Not one.'
'Off limits, I'd guess,' Galloway said. He wiped the lenses of his field glasses, stared a few seconds longer at the tavern, then came back to where his horse was tethered and hauled himself into the saddle. 'Let's go.'
By early afternoon the wind had died and the rain had settled into a persistent and dispiriting drizzle. Galloway's men sat or lay under what small shelter they could find while their horses stood motionless between the trees. The pickets watched from the edges of the wood but saw no movement. In the late afternoon, when the light was fading to a sullen, leaden gloom, Galloway gave his last briefing, describing what the troopers would find when they attacked and stressing that their main target was the park of supply wagons. 'The rebels are always short of ammunition,' he said, 'and of rifles, so burn everything you can find.'
Galloway divided his force into three. Adam's troop would serve as a screen between the raiders and the bulk of the Faulconer Brigade while Galloway's troop, reinforced with half of Blythe's men, would attack the supply wagons. Billy Blythe would wait with the other half of his troop near McComb's Tavern, where they would serve as a rear guard to cover the raiders' withdrawal. 'It'll all be over quickly,' Galloway warned his men, 'only as long as it takes the sumbitches to get over their surprise.' He had his bugler imitate the sound of the call that would order the retreat. 'When you hear that played on a bugle, boys, you get the living hell out of there. Straight down the road to the crossroads where Captain Blythe will be waiting for us.'
'With a jigger of rebel whiskey for every last man jack of you,' Blythe added, and the nervous men laughed.
Galloway opened his watch. 'Be another two hours before we leave, boys, so just be patient.'
The day darkened toward evening. The troopers' clothes were clammy with a greasy, sweaty dampness. Galloway had forbidden fires so that the smoke would not betray their presence, and thus they simply had to endure the cloying dank as the minutes ticked by. Men prepared themselves obsessively for battle, believing that every small degree of painstaking care counted toward survival. They used cloaks and saddlecloths to keep the rain from their repeating rifles and revolvers as they loaded the weapons' chambers with powder, wadding, and miniй bullets. On top of each bullet they put a plug of grease that was intended to prevent the flame in the firing chamber communicating with the neighboring charges and so exploding the whole cylinder. They sharpened their sabers, the sound of the stones harsh on the curved steel. Those men whose blades rattled in their metal sheaths dented the scabbards so that the weapons were held tight and silent by the compressed metal. Corporal Harlan Kemp then led a score of men in prayer. He put one knee on the wet ground, one hand on the hilt of his sword, and raised his free hand toward God as he prayed that the Lord would bless this evening's work with a mighty success and keep His servants free from all harm from the enemy.
