"We had a lot of that in South Carolina," Charles said. "Folks call it puttin' on ol' massa."
"Can't understand it," the farmer said, staring right through him. "I fed 'em. Didn't whip 'em but three or four times. I fixed up presents for 'em ever' Christmas — cakes, little jams and jellies, things like that —"
"Come on, Ab," Charles said wearily, while the old man continued to condemn the ingratitude. Charles mounted, and scratched the inside of his left leg. His case of camp itch was worsening. At least the rash wasn't as bad as the clap that several scouts had caught from camp followers who dignified themselves with the title laundress.
Bound back toward Brandy Station, Charles pictured the foolish farmer with dismay, then disgust. More and more lately, he saw the peculiar institution for what it was and always had been. The reality of it — from the point of view of those enslaved, anyway — could be nothing less than fear and rage behind a deceptive mask. The kind of mask that had to be worn if the slave meant to survive.
Gus would understand his feelings about slavery, though he dared not express them to Ab or anyone else with whom he served. He was beginning to think that whereas he was fighting for his home, the politicians in charge of things were fighting for slogans, rhetoric, a "cause." A wrong one, at that.
No ladies attended the review on Monday; it was a less pleasant event for that reason. Less pleasant, too, because some idiot invited John Hood, and he brought his entire infantry division. The cavlarymen growled threats of what they would do if a foot soldier dared to taunt them with the familiar, "Mister, where's your mule?"
As Charles feared, the review exhausted everyone — and they were supposed to be ready to advance Tuesday morning. He and Ab rode directly from the review field, where they had glimpsed Bob Lee, handsome as ever but graying rapidly, to Hampton's encampment. Charles's sleep was restless, and he woke abruptly, jerking his head off the saddle and rolling out of his blanket to bugling and the drummers pounding out the long roll.
It was just daybreak. The camp was in turmoil. Ab ran up, swirling the fog that had settled during the night. He carried their coffeepot in such a way that Charles knew he hadn't had a chance to heat it.
"Off your ass, Charlie. General Stuart paid too damn much attention to the ladies an' not enough to the bluebellies. A whole cavalry division's across the river at Beverly Ford."
"Whose?"
"They say it's Buford's. He's got infantry an' God knows what else. They may be crossin' at Kelly's, too. Nobody's sure."
The bugler sounded boots and saddles with several sour notes. "They's thousands of 'em," Ab said, dropping the enameled pot. "They come out of the fog an' took the pickets clean by surprise. We're s'posed to go along with Butler to scout an' guard the rear."
Whips cracked. Great ships in a sea of soft gray mist, Stuart's headquarters wagons loomed at the edge of the camp, bound for safety at Culpeper. Damn, Charles thought. Caught napping. But it wouldn't have happened with Hampton in charge. He grabbed his shotgun and blanket, flung his saddle on his other shoulder, and ran like hell after Ab Woolner.
Charles knew Ab must have had a hard night. First he yelled at some hospital rats scurrying to the surgeons with imaginary complaints, a familiar sight whenever cannonading began. Ab cursed a blue storm when he saw two perfectly good boots lying in weeds. Unshod men, like unshod horses, couldn't fight and weren't expected to — and some fucking yellow dog, as Ab characterized him, had shed his boots to escape what looked like a very bad day.
Riding hard in thinning fog, Charles and Ab soon pulled away from the detachment of Butler's sent to screen the southern approaches to Fleetwood Hill, where Stuart's headquarters on high ground was the obvious target of enemy artillery banging away from the southeast. In a small grove of pines above Stevensburg, Charles reined in suddenly. Beyond the trees, half a dozen Union troopers were approaching on a dirt track beside a field of ripening wheat. Alarmingly, Charles saw no sign of the famous mountains of gear the Southern cavalry scornfully termed "Yankee fortifications." The enemy riders carried weapons, nothing else.
"Let's dodge around them, Ab. We'll get to Stevensburg faster."
Haggard, not to say hostile, Ab stared at him. "Let's kill us some Yanks. Then we'll get to Stevensburg for sure."
"Listen, we're only supposed to take a look and see whether —"
"What's wrong with you, Charlie? Lost your nerve 'cause of that gal?"
"You son of a bitch —"
But Ab was already galloping from the pines, double-barrel shotgun booming.
Any Southerner caught with one of those weapons was subject to hanging, the Yankees said. But the two Ab blew from their saddles would never report him. Dry-mouthed, Charles kneed Sport forward.
Bullets buzzed by. As soon as he got in range he gave the Yanks both barrels. That disposed of four. The last two wheeled right and plunged into the wheat to escape. Ab pounded toward Stevensburg without a backward glance. Charles hated his friend because he had stated the truth.
On sunny Fleetwood Hill that afternoon, Jeb Stuart's cavalry waged a new kind of war. They fought Union troopers who swung sabers and handled their mounts as expertly as any Southern boy raised to hunt and spear the hanging rings on lance point. The Yanks drove Stuart off the hill, and by the time Charles and Ab returned from Stevensburg, every available trooper was being pressed into the fight to regain it. Hampton was back from Beverly Ford, where he had been rushed for the unsuccessful attempt to stop Buford. Two more divisions of Union horse had forced Kelly's. No wonder; the untalented Robertson commanded that sector.
Stevensburg, too, had been a disaster. Near there, Frank Hampton had been sabered, then shot to death. Calbraith Butler held his position against the charging Yankees, but at the cost of having a flying shell fragment strike his right foot, nearly blowing it off. The fine troopers of the Fourth Virginia had been routed — a disastrous, confused, angry gallop to the rear — and Charles and Ab had been caught in that for a time.
At Fleetwood, the squadrons rallied, and Stuart shouted, "Give them the saber, boys!" and the buglers blew Trot and Gallop and finally Charge. Up the slopes they went, in sunshine that quickly dimmed behind smoke and dust.
Though Charles couldn't see him, he knew Ab was riding somewhere close by. They had exchanged no words except essential ones since the incident in the pine grove. Charles knew his friend had blurted the accusation because he was tired and tense. But that made it no less telling.
Sport galloped as he always did when riding to the sound of guns — head up, alert and eager. Charles could feel the gray's nervousness — it was his own. Horse and rider fused, centaurlike, in a way old cavalry hands took for granted after they had ridden one animal a long time. Old legion sword raised, Charles screamed the rebel yell, along with thousands around him.
Then they were onto the heights of Fleetwood. Artillery wheeling. Sabers ringing. Pistols flashing. Horses and men tangling. Formations dissolving. Charles fought with a fury he'd never had before. It was necessary to redeem himself in Ab's eyes. It was necessary because the enemy was a new kind of enemy.
Blood drops accumulated in his beard. He gave up the sword for the shotgun, the shotgun for the revolver, then went back to the weapon of last resort when he had no time to reload.
He came upon a dismounted man in gray, reached down to help him. The man struck at him with a rammer staff, nearly took his head off before Charles backed away and thrust his sword into the Yank's chest. Thick dust was graying many a blue uniform that afternoon. A man could die being a moment late to discern the color.