'Alas, no.'
'I'm sure he'll turn up in his own good time,' Galloway said wanly, then turned in his saddle and called on Adam to bring one of the spare horses for the preacher's convenience. 'We were on our way to the farm,' Galloway told the Reverend, 'and after that we're ordered to search the country north of the Bull Run.'
'I was hoping to go north,' the preacher announced. 'I have to reach Washington.'
'I'm not sure you've much hope of doing that today, sir,' Galloway said respectfully. 'There's some evidence that Jackson took his troops north. Maybe they're planning to attack the Centreville defenses? He might have vanished, but he's certainly not far away.' The Major peered round the empty landscape as though he half expected the rebels to appear like stage villains springing from a trapdoor.
'I can't tarry here!' the preacher protested vigorously. 'I have a church to administer, responsibilities I cannot escape!'
'You'll certainly be safer here, sir,' Galloway suggested calmly, 'seeing as how General Pope's here now and the rest of his army is on its way.' He leaned out of his saddle to hold the spare horse while the preacher clambered into its saddle. The rebel flag almost fell from the Reverend Starbuck's grip, but he managed to hold on to the bundled silk as he settled himself on the horse's back. A trooper handed up the preacher's stick, then gave him the reins. 'In fact if you do stay here, sir,' Major Galloway went on, 'I reckon you might even see a scrap of history being made.'
'History! I have been promised nothing but history all month, Major! I was promised a pulpit in Richmond, but for all those fine promises I might just as well have planned on preaching God's word in Japan!'
'But the rebels have blundered now, sir,' Galloway explained patiently, 'leastwise, General Pope reckons they have. Jackson's stranded here, sir, miles from his own lines, and General Pope plans to cut him off and destroy him. That's why Pope's here, sir. We're going to finish Jackson once and for all.'
'You really think Pope can do that, Major?' The preacher's question was caustic.
Galloway's reply was emollient. 'I reckon General Pope means to try, sir, and none of us really know just what the General can do in battle. I mean he was pretty successful in the west, sir, but he ain't fought here, and that was why he was brought to Virginia, so I guess he might astonish us all yet. Yes, sir, I reckon we might see a fair battle before the day's out, and I even reckon we might win it, too.'
The prospect tempted the Reverend Starbuck. He had come to Virginia with such high hopes and had seen those hopes crumble to nothing, but now it seemed there was a chance of victory after all. Besides, it was now Thursday morning, and he knew he could never reach Boston in time for Sunday worship, which meant he might just as well stay here and see the North's nemesis beaten in battle. And what a fine subject for a sermon that would make, he thought. Like Satan plunging into the abyss, Jackson would be brought low, and the Reverend Starbuck would be a witness to the demon's shattering fall. He nodded assent. He would stay and fight.
All day long Jackson's troops waited in the woods. Most slept like the dead, so that Starbuck, setting his sentries just inside the tree line, could hear the murmur of the sleeping army like a swarm of bees. Twenty-four thousand rebel soldiers were snoring not six miles from Manassas, yet the Northern army was oblivious of their presence.
Lucifer brought Starbuck an early dinner of cold pork, apples, and walnuts. 'Still eating off the Yankees,' he explained the luxury foodstuffs; then he squatted beside Starbuck and stared down the hill toward the empty turnpike in search of Yankees. There were none in sight. 'So where are the black folks' friends?' Lucifer asked.
'God knows. Let's hope they don't find us.' The sun was low in the sky, and with any luck night would fall before the enemy found Jackson's hiding place.
'You don't want to fight?' Lucifer asked sarcastically.
'I don't want to die.'
'You won't die. You were born under a lucky star. Like me. I can tell.'
Starbuck scoffed at the boy's confidence. 'And I tell you, Lucifer, that just about every poor son of a bitch who's died in this war thought he was too lucky to get killed.'
'But I really am lucky,' Lucifer insisted, 'and you'd better be just as lucky as me, because you know what I was hearing back there among the other humble servant folk? That there are men in this regiment who don't like you.'
'I know that,' Starbuck said. The pork was tender and the apples fresh. He wondered how long it would be before he was back on hardtack and salted offal.
'But did you know they've written a letter about you?' Lucifer offered a sly sideways glance, then lit himself one of the cigars he had acquired for Starbuck. 'The bald fellow wrote the letter, you know? The man you made me give his watch to, Meddlesome, is that his name? And I hear some three or four officers have signed it, and at least forty or fifty soldiers, and they're sending the letter to a congressman. They say you're too young and that you should be sent down the river just as fast as the army can get itself rid of you.' The boy grinned, then drew his finger across his throat. 'They got nothing but trouble for you, Major.'
Starbuck told Lucifer what the letter writers could do with their damned letter. 'No one's sending me down the river,' he added, 'not if I win battles.'
'But suppose they don't let you win?' Lucifer asked.
Starbuck acknowledged the question with a deprecating shrug, then stole the boy's cigar. 'You know what I've learned about soldiering?'
'To take another man's smoke away?'
'That the worst enemy is never the fellow in the other uniform, that's what.' He paused with the cigar halfway to his lips because a sudden fusillade had sounded in the west. The shots were from far away, but they ripped and crackled angrily in the late afternoon. 'Here we go again,' Starbuck said and sucked on the cigar as his heart lurched. He wondered if fear ever decreased, or whether it got worse and worse until a man could no longer make himself stand upright in battle.
Men woke among the trees and listened uneasily to the sound of firing. All but the newest conscript had learned to judge a fight's intensity from the sound of its guns, and this fight was hard and furious, and so they expected orders that would send them to join in, but no such orders came. The fight continued into the dusk, and no one knew who was fighting or who was winning, only that a skim of powder smoke showed white above the tree line in the west.
Colonel Swynyard finally brought the Legion news. It seemed that a column of Yankee troops had been marching on the turnpike and that Jackson had ordered his own Stonewall Brigade to intercept and destroy the column. 'Except the Yankees are too stubborn to run,' Swynyard said. 'They're standing toe-to-toe and fighting like demons.'
'I thought we were supposed to be hiding from the Yankees?' Starbuck said.
'I guess we've hid long enough. Maybe Old Mad Jack reckons it's time to draw the Yankees on to us,' Swynyard suggested. He looked up at the darkening sky and grimaced. 'Not that they'll come tonight, but tomorrow?' He glanced over at Lucifer, who was crouched beside Starbuck's few possessions. 'How's your darkie?' the Colonel asked gruffly.
'He seems willing enough.'
'He looks a sly one to me. He's got soft hands, Starbuck, which like as not means he's been someone's house pet. And those pants he was wearing when you found him, the long-pocket ones, they ain't the pants of an honest man. If you want a good slave get yourself a bone-brained field hand who ain't afraid of a bit of work, but your boy looks more like the dangerous type of slave to me.'
'What is the dangerous type?'
'The clever type. Not all the darkies have brains like mules, you know. Some of them are real sharp, and my father always reckoned it was the clever ones who needed breaking first. Whip 'em bloody, he'd say, then work them to death because if there's trouble among the people then you can be sure it's the clever ones who started it, so get rid of the clever ones and that way you'll have no trouble. That's the first and last rule of keeping slaves, Starbuck, and you're probably breaking it. I don't suppose it's Christian to beat a darkie without cause, so I won't suggest you do it, but I'd still advise you to send the boy away.'
'I won't do that. I like Lucifer,' Starbuck said.
'Lucifer? Is that what he calls himself? Dear Lord,' Swynyard said, shocked by the name's impiety. 'Find out what he's really called, Starbuck. Don't put up with that kind of nonsense! And have him cut his hair off. You don't want a black dandy. And for the Lord's sake take that gun off him! For a start it's illegal, but more important if you
