Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

“Not thirsty,” Gordo said.

“Drink,” Lee said.

Gordo stopped shaking his head. “Is that an order, Corporal?”

“Yes.”

Gordo drank, but the green tinge on his cheeks and upper lip didn’t go away.

“Where’s my canteen?” he said. He felt along his belt, patting frantically with both hands. “Lost my canteen.” He started to cry.

“Canteen’s in the car,” Lee said. “All your gear’s in your car, right outside.”

“Think I care about that goddamn car?” He turned to Roy. “Know my plan for that piece of shit?”

“No,” Roy said.

Gordo wiped away tears with the back of his sleeve, muddying his face. “Think of China,” he said.

“China?”

“Boom,” said Gordo.

“What does that mean?”

“If you don’t know, who does? Big bang, good buddy.”

“He wants to blow up his car?” Lee said.

Gordo put his lips to Roy’s ear again. “Ammonium nitrate in the trunk, in the back, under the hood, everywhere. Sublevel five. Boom.” The words buzzed through Roy’s auditory tubes and into his brain.

He got up, moved away. “Better sleep it off, Gordo.”

“I might lie down,” said Gordo, lying down, “but you can forget about the sleeping part. Think I trust anybody now and forevermore?” His eyes closed. “Boom,” he said, and then went silent.

Roy and Lee gazed down at him. He twitched once or twice. The corners of his lips curved down. Can you look unhappy, anxious, troubled with your eyes closed, and drunk? Gordo did.

“Hope you’re not angry,” Lee said.

“About what?”

“Bringing him here. He didn’t want to go home. He wanted to be here.”

“What about Brenda?”

“I called her.”

“And?”

Lee glanced at Roy. Roy couldn’t tell how old he was. From the face alone, the skin poreless, the features small and precise, Roy would have guessed about nineteen or twenty. But the eyes were at least ten years older than that, and so was the way he talked, the way he carried himself.

“She’s upset. Didn’t really want him home-”

“Until he sobered up.” Roy finished the sentence for him. Not something he usually did, if ever, but he’d known what Lee was going to say and it had just popped out.

Their eyes met. “Which could be some time,” Lee said.

Gordo twitched suddenly, as though he knew they were discussing him and didn’t like it. They both gazed down at him.

“Lucky you were there,” Roy said.

“Where?”

“At that camp of yours.”

“I wasn’t. Satchmo boards close by.”

Satchmo? Roy didn’t get it at first. Then images from the dream of the smudged-faced horseman came streaming back to him, as clear as when he’d dreamed them.

“They’ve got stables out there?” Roy said.

Lee nodded. “I saw Gordo’s car in the lot on my way up.”

Gordo groaned.

“So you need a drive back?” Roy said.

“It’s not necessary.”

“Going to saddle up instead?”

Lee smiled. “Would if I could.”

They got in Gordo’s Altima, just like Roy’s but newer and smelling of booze. Lee drove, Roy sat in the passenger seat. He heard empty beer cans rattling in the back as they turned onto Virginia, headed for the highway.

“Hope we don’t get stopped,” he said.

“I never do.”

But Roy didn’t know why. Once they were up on the connector, Lee drove fast, weaving in and out of the passing lane, hitting eighty-five, ninety, more. The funny thing was it didn’t feel like going fast. It felt just right, smooth, effortless, safe. Lee’s hands-not big, but strong looking and finely shaped-held the wheel in proper ten-to-two position, relaxed; his eyes gazed straight ahead in that steady way of his, without concern. Roy even wondered if he was thinking of something else. They blew past a Corvette, hit ninety-five.

“You’ve done some driving,” Roy said.

“A little.”

“I meant the competitive kind.”

Lee nodded, or made a slight motion that might have been a nod. “The guys are pretty jacked about you,” he said.

“I don’t understand.”

“What with this connection. It’s like you’re history, walking and talking.”

“Because I have the same name as this great-great whatever he was?”

“That,” said Lee, “and the fact that he was in the regiment, and”-Lee shot him a quick glance; Roy’s foot stomped a brake that wasn’t there-“you look the part.”

Roy remembered what Gordo had said, but also remembered the touch of Lee’s hand again, felt a little uncomfortable. Lee’s eyes were back on the road.

“What did you think of the bio?” he said.

“Bio?”

“I thought Jesse put together a bio.”

“I haven’t had a chance to read it yet,” Roy said, not even sure where it was.

“Did you get my message about black powder shooting?”

“I haven’t had much time lately.”

“Work.”

“Yeah.”

“Poor Gordo.”

Twenty, the perimeter, Bankhead: record time. As they crossed the river, Roy had an idea. “What about Earl?”

“What about him?” said Lee, suddenly decelerating. A few seconds later they cruised lawfully past a patrol car hidden by trees at the side of the road. Roy checked to see whether Gordo had installed a radar detector; he had not.

“I hear he’s got a lot of things going. Maybe there’d be a job for Gordo.”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Lee said. “Or business in general.” He sped up without a glance back in the mirror. Traffic was lighter now, the night darker. The needle touched one hundred. “There was heavy skirmishing right around here,” Lee said.

“You’re talking about the Civil War?”

Lee smiled; a quick flash lit by the dashboard gauges. “Is that a surprise?” he said. One of his hands left the wheel, made a broad arc. “Sherman razed all of this, down to the ground.”

Roy looked out, saw the suburbs.

“Too bad he can’t come back and do it again,” Lee said, “now when it might do some good.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just take a look,” Lee said. “Couldn’t be a better demonstration of what we lost.”

“You really think of it as we?”

Lee turned up the road to the camp, slowed down. “The very fact you can ask that shows how total the conquest was.”

“How so?”

“They’ve occupied your mind.”

Roy laughed.

“What’s funny?”

“You make it sound like one of those alien possession movies.”

“That’s a good way of putting it.”

They pulled into the parking lot. The headlights swept over the empty pavement, shone on the lone vehicle, a motorcycle leaning on its stand near the beginning of the path. Lee stopped beside it.

“When I say occupied your mind, I’m not talking about your soul. That’s a different issue.”

“Are you a college professor, something like that?” Roy said.

“No.”

“What do you do?”

“This,” Lee said. “The regiment.”

“I didn’t know it was a paying job.”

“It’s not.” Lee turned to him, shifting easily, even gracefully, on the seat. “This mind and soul dichotomy-I’ve done some thinking about it, in reference to Gordo.”

“Yeah?” Roy hadn’t dwelled much on either aspect of Gordo, not in any analytical way.

“It’s the cause of all the problems he’s having. He can’t succeed at that place of yours-what’s it called?”

“Globax.”

“There we go,” said Lee. “A Yankee thing. They’ve imposed their way of life on us, even fooled us into believing it’s our way of life too. That’s the mental part. But we can never do it properly, never really compete, never be happy. That’s the soul part.”