Tishomingo Blues

20

"JERRY WON'T EAT OUTSIDE," Robert said, "and Anne says it's too hot in the tent, so Tonto and Hector ran them back to the hotel."

"Get to do whatever they want," Dennis said. "Like Mel Brooks said, `It's good to be the king.' "

Dennis said, "I bet they never stand in line."

"For what?"

"Anything."

"Same as I'm offering you, man. Never having to stand in line again in your life."

"They coming back?"

"I told Jerry he has to spend the night out here at his command post. I want to see if Arlen's got the nerve to slip over here and fuck with him."

"What's Jerry say about that?"

"I only tell him he has to sleep here, not he's the bait. Anne, I told her to stay at the hotel."

"So you'll be going back there tonight."

Robert didn't say yes or no, he told Dennis to come on, have something to eat, and got him seated under the tent awning with a plate of crawfish etouffee and a cold beer. Robert, his checkered shirt hanging open, popped one for himself. He asked Dennis how was the crawfish and Dennis said it took him home. He told Robert then:

"Charlie says Arlen and his guys always get smashed they come to one of these. They're probably drinking right now."

"So either it jacks 'em up to become active," Robert said, "or they get shitfaced and don't even think of it."

"The next day they're hungover. Charlie says they take hits early in the battle and sleep till it's over. He says they're really good at taking hits."

Robert started to smile. "Come on, what're you telling me?"

"The way they go down. They practice getting shot."

Robert said, "I don't believe you," smiling just a little. "They practice? Go out in their yard and fall down? Sounds like a bunch of redneck Monty Pythons. Well, you know these dudes can be funny they with each other. What I'm saying, they can't all be stupid. See, you forget these Dixie Mafia people are mean motherfuckers. I started thinking, after I showed Arlen the picture of the lynching? Shit, I could be putting ideas in the man's head. Next thing he wants is to hang my ass from a tree."

"Tell me the truth," Dennis said, "where'd you get the picture?"

"I told you, was from a postcard old Broom Taylor gave me."

"But it's not your great-grandfather hanging from the bridge."

"It's somebody's."

"How many times have you used it?"

"Only since I'm here. See, I'm being truthful, 'cause I want you to trust me you come to make up your mind."

"I've already decided."

"No, you haven't, so don't tell me nothing yet."

"What I came to get is a rifle."

It turned on Robert's smile. "You want to be there tomorrow, don't you? In the woods."

Dennis didn't answer, but he said, "Colonel John

Rau doesn't want to see me again without a rifle."

Robert turned his head to the tent next door, to his left. "Groove? Fix this man up with an Enfield. The cartridge box, the pouch, all the shit goes withit." He said to Dennis, "Or what happens, he puts you on KP, makes you peel potatoes?"

"You cook your own meals. We don't have to cure the salt pork, but he told us how, in case we want to fix it at home."

"Dry it out good, lot of salt, some molasses and a tangy hot sauce."

"Colonel Rau likes brown sugar."

"I have to think of what to do with him," Robert said. He looked up and then rose from the chair. "Here's your gun. You know how to shoot?"

Dennis said, "You pull the trigger, don't you?"

Groove came with the Enfield, Groove wearing shades with the uniform pants, but no shirt covering his slim build.

Robert said, "He needs to know how to load it."

Groove held the rifle upright against him, the muzzle at his chest. He showed Dennis a white paper cartridge about the size of his thumb, raised it to his mouth and tore off one end.

"You don't have teeth," Robert said, "you can't shoot. Now he pours the Elephant black powder down the barrel. See, the minie ball, the bullet's in there too, in the paper. You drop it down the muzzle and take your ramrod-see where it's attached Groove pulls it out and runs it down the barrel to tamp the ball in there good. Now he picks the gun up, opens the breech. Now he takes a percussion cap-you know what I'm saying? The thing makes it explode, and puts it on the nipple there. Groove, tell him how straight this gun shoots."

"Good up to nine hundred yards," Groove said. "What the man said taught me all this shit. You hit your enemy up to that distance with the fifty-eight slug? The motherfucker is dead."

Robert said, "We gonna keep this rifle and give you another one you load how Groove showed you only without the bullet. So you don't shoot somebody during the reenacting part." Robert said, "Don't move." He went in the tent and came out with a joint and a drugstore lighter he placed next to Dennis' plate.

"I'm on picket duty tonight."

"Then you got what you need. You want, I could bring you a cold beer later on."

"I don't know where I'll be. I might as well sleep out there when I get off, in the camp."

"Don't let nobody spoon on you."

"Rau said something about spooning. I didn't know what he was talking about."

"It's what it sounds like. What they use to do. Cold night, a bunch of 'em would sleep fitting against each other on their sides. Nobody's washed or brushed their teeth in a month. Imagine the stinky smell. Like swamp gas hanging over you. Imagine some dude's bone sticking in your back all night."

Dennis said, "You're going back to the hotel, aren't you?"

"I may as well," Robert said, "I don't plan to see General Kirkbride-" He stopped and said, "Hey, shit, I forgot to mention, he came by here a while ago on his horse. Jerry was gone by then. He wants to know where I'm at. Groove and Cedric tell him they haven't seen me. Walter says, `Soon as you do, send him down to my camp. I finish my ride, I want him to rub down my horse.'"

"Where were you?"

"In the tent having a smoke. But then later I'm thinking: he didn't come to get his horse rubbed down, that was his excuse to get next to me. The man's nervous from the bug I put in his ear and wants to talk."

"What'd you tell him?"

"Was out here, the day before this got going. I told him I knew he was in the drug business. See, then I put the bug to him. `Where you want to be when Arlen goes down?' The man's the only one we met isn't all the way stupid."

"John Rau isn't either," Dennis said, "and he'll be there when you pull your stunt."

"That's what I said before, I have to think about."

Dennis said, "Why don't you take him prisoner?"

Robert's smile took a few moments coming, and when it did it wasn't much of a smile, just enough to let Dennis know he was looking at the idea. He said, "Out in front of everybody." He said, "Yeah, I wonder could that be done."

The bivouac area looked more lived in when Dennis got back with his rifle, a cartridge box, cap pouch, canteen and bayonet hanging from his belt and a sling over his shoulder. There was smoke from cook fires, more gear lying around, clothes hanging from stacked rifles, and civilians roaming through the camp, people in shorts and T-shirts among the blue uniforms, though not much visiting going on.

The first sergeant, giving Dennis a couple of blankets and his rations in a paper sack, did not hold with spectators hanging around a military camp. "God almighty, people walking by with Confederate flags on their T-shirts. It disturbs the mood. Makes it hard to maintain the right attitude of being in the field."

Dennis said, "Colonel Rau's over there telling a group how to cure salt pork."

"He's a detail man," the first sergeant said. "He means well, and he's a dandy battalion commander in the field, but he tries too hard to be helpful. Like the tents. We were out on an actual campaign, you wouldn't see any tents. You wanted some cover you built yourself a shebang. You know what I mean by shebang?" Dennis shook his head. "Like a lean-to, the weather side made of brush. I been out with old-timers all you saw in camp were shebangs, most of the boys sleeping in the open, the way they actually did. You think we had tents at Brice's Cross Roads? Hell, we're on the line, the supply wagons are still a day's haul to the rear. There'd been a lot of rain all week and it was slow going through the mud, engineers laying down timber all the way. No sir, you traveled light in that war, threw away everything but your musket and a blanket."

Dennis said, "You ever spoon?"

"If we're going by the book and are told not to keep the fires stoked? Hell yes. Hell, Virginia one time in May, you spooned or you froze." He said to Dennis, "You don't need a tent. You want shelter, go on over to that fella with the First Iowa. He's looking for a pard."

The fella with the First Iowa, in limp and graying longjohns, told Dennis sure, he could bunk with him.

Dennis said, "You don't spoon, do you?"

The First Iowan said, "Not in this weather." He said, "I don't snore or let farts either, if I can help it."

Dennis said he'd leave his gear, but was thinking of sleeping outside.

He'd done it enough times between gigs, always a sleeping bag in the setup truck, the last time on his way to Panama City and the Miracle Strip amusement park. That hot sun all day long and not much to do but go to movies. The nights weren't bad. Put on his show and then hang with people who liked to party. It could get old, but then he'd move on and look for the same people at the next stop. There were the good-time girls who loved daredevils, and there were more serious ones, divorced, trying to get by with a couple of little kids, young girls in their thirties starting to fade, not having the time to be themselves. They would invite him to dinner. They would put on makeup and music and open the door in their coolest outfit and sit across from him in candlelight and there it was, a chance to fall in love, and every once in a while he was tempted. But what would happen to the daredevil?

The First Iowa fella said, "I brought beans I cooked with the salt pork and some molasses you're welcome to."

Dennis had a plate and another scoop of beans with a cup of coffee, but couldn't eat the hardtack; it had no taste. He stretched out on the ground to rest, using his blanket rolled up for a pillow: the daredevil camped out with a bunch of guys playing soldier as they played cards, swore a lot, told jokes, talked about guns, deer hunting, battles, reenactments of Franklin, Chickamauga, Cold Harbor, generals good and bad, sang with a harmonica about rallying 'round the flag, boys… and Dennis dozed off.

A brogan nudged his ribs and he looked up to see the first sergeant standing over him. Dennis sat up right away. It was dark, the camp quiet, it had to be later than eight. He said, "What time is it?" getting to his feet. The sergeant told him it was going on ten.

"We got more people than duty time, so the colonel's cut the watches in half. You're on perimeter ten to twelve."

"Where's my post?"

"I'll take you. Pick up your rifle."

He asked the first sergeant what he was supposed to do here. The sergeant said watch for Rebs sneaking up in the night to attack the camp or take prisoners. He said they liked to snatch pickets who weren't alert and ship them off to Andersonville to die of dysentery.

Dennis stood at the edge of the scrub looking across the pasture, way over to the dark mass of trees, seeing flickering pinpoints of light in there. Confederate campfires. And the music coming from the barn up on the slope might be the military ball, though the squeaky fiddles sounded more like bluegrass.

He had told the First Iowa soldier he had picket duty and the man said, "Good." Imagine you're at Brice's and you can feel the Johnny Rebs close by, you can smell 'em. You see something move out there, put your rifle on it. Get your mind to believe what you're doing, else why're you here. He didn't tell the soldier he didn't want to be here. The man would ask, then why was he.

Standing here in the scrub swinging his free hand at insects buzzing around him. He took the joint from his pocket and lit it, sucked on it hard to get a good draw and blew smoke at the bugs, hoping to send them off stoned. He wondered if Civil War soldiers smoked weed, the way they did in Vietnam. He wondered if they said "this fucking war" like soldiers in war movies, more saying it in Vietnam war movies than World War Two flicks. He would have to ask Robert. Robert probably wouldn't know but would have an answer. Robert was the most in-control person he had ever met in his life. Like the way, in front of Arlen staring at him, he laid the gun on the kitchen table without looking at it. Just something that happened to be in his briefcase. The weed had his mind flashing on Robert highlights. Robert with Walter Kirkbride, wanting to be one of his colored fellas. Robert making whatever he did look easy. Robert taking his time, days, to build toward the crossroads, what it meant, before making his offer. Robert saying, "No way could you ever be indicted on a drug charge, you'd be hidden from view. Your Dive-ORama accountant ever got picked up? You'd be shocked." Robert saying, "Man, if a daredevil couldn't handle that…"

The daredevil standing in the dark holding a ten-pound replica of a Civil War rifle. Not anywhere near an edge.

He walked off with the rifle toward faint lights showing in the civilian camp.