Last of the Dixie Heroes

SIX

It was still raining, or raining again, when Roy drove through the gates of the Girl Scout camp the next day. He parked in the lot beside a Porta Potti truck, put on a rain jacket, opened his umbrella, and walked toward a row of tree-sheltered cabins he could see in the distance. The cabins were padlocked, the windows boarded up. Roy kept going, beyond the cabins, up a path covered with pine needles, into deeper woods. He came to a three-pronged fork where signs on the trees pointed to nature walk, computer lab, and arts and crafts. Roy chose nature walk.

The nature walk path led up a gradual slope lined with pines and waxy-leafed trees whose name Roy didn’t know. The rain fell harder, making percussive sounds on the waxy leaves, still bright green and shiny new. Other than the rain, it was quiet. Roy slipped on a tree root, stepped in a puddle, got his foot wet. Had no one come? Had they canceled the event? Roy was slowing down, almost ready to turn back, when he heard a voice close by.

“No one’s worth that kind of money.”

Another voice: “Know what your problem is? You’re living in the past.”

“Bullshit.”

“No bullshit. Sports is entertainment now, pure and simple. Drive in a hundred and thirty runs, you write your own ticket, just like the movies, that faggy little actor, what’s his name.”

Roy looked around, saw no one. “Anybody here?” he called.

Silence. Then came the sound of metal clanking on rock.

“Hey!”

“Not ‘hey,’ for fuck sake.”

“Oh, yeah. Who goes there?”

Two men wearing uniforms like Gordo’s came scrambling out from behind a boulder ten or fifteen feet off the path, both of them now calling, “Who goes there?” They saw Roy. One stuck a flask in an inside pocket. The other said, “Stand and identify yourself.” A low-hanging branch knocked his hat off as he came closer.

“I am standing,” Roy said.

They didn’t seem to hear him. The one with the flask said, “Oops.”

“What do you mean-oops?” said the hatless one.

“We forgot the guns.”

“Muskets, for Christ sake. Or weapons. Never guns. Guns are cannon.”

“Whatever. Shouldn’t we get them?”

They looked back toward the rock. Roy saw that they’d built a shelter behind it-plastic trash bags stretched over muskets stuck in the ground, bayonet first.

“Probably.”

“But then we’d have to put the whole damn thing back up again.”

They turned to Roy, waiting under his umbrella. The hair of the hatless one was already soaked flat against his skull; the peak of the other one’s hat-kepi, was that what Gordo had called it? — was directing a tiny waterfall onto the tip of his nose.

“I’m looking for Gord Coker,” Roy said.

“Gordo?”

“Correct,” said Roy.

“He’s in camp.”

“In a tent, nice and dry.”

“Where is it?” Roy said.

“Lucky son of a bitch,” said the one with the flask.

“Third on the right,” said the other.

“Third is Jesse,” said the one with the flask. “Gordo’s one more down.” He turned to Roy. “Fourth tent on the right.”

“I meant the camp,” Roy said.

“The camp?”

“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.”

“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.”

Lee patted the horse’s neck; the horse stood still. “Enjoy your visit?” Lee said.

“Yeah,” Roy said. “Thanks.”

“What did you think?”

“It was nice.”

The horse snorted. Lee gazed down at Roy. “I mean truthfully,” he said. “I’d like to know.”

“What I really think?”

“No risk,” Lee said. “I’m a big boy.”

“It kind of reminded me of golf.”

“Golf?”

“Harmless fun in funny clothes.”

“That’s a good line,” Lee said. But he didn’t laugh, didn’t smile, showed no emotion of any kind. “Probably true given what you’ve seen. Being as it’s only the soft-core version.” Lee had the heaviest down-home accent Roy had heard in a long time.

“There’s another kind?” Roy said.

Now Lee smiled, a quick smile, a flashing display of white teeth, small and even, quickly gone. And then he was gone too, wheeling the horse around in one easy motion without a word of command, and galloping back into the woods. The mist closed around him.

Roy drove out of the lot and got back on the freeway.