Peter Abrahams - Last of the Dixie Heroes

“Huh?” said Sonny.

Roy drove his elbow down into Sonny’s shoulder, right where it meets the neck. Sonny made some bellowing noise, let him go. Then Tonya or Tyla spilled her beer, glass shattered, the bartender straightened behind the bar, a ball bat in his hands. Sonny tilted his head back a little, the angle somehow murderous. Did Roy look the same? He knew it was possible. What wasn’t, now?

Lee stepped between them.

“That’s enough.”

Roy and Sonny looked down at Lee. Sonny was the first to find it amusing. As he started to laugh, Lee put a hand on each of their chests and pushed them apart. Sonny took a few exaggerated steps backward.

“No offense, tough guy,” said Sonny.

“None taken,” said Lee.

“I just didn’t like the way you copped a feel of Tyla’s tit back then.”

“It was Tonya’s tit,” Lee said.

“I didn’t mind, Sonny, honest,” said Tonya.

“That’s not the way we cop a feel around these parts,” Sonny said.

Lee gazed up at him. “My apologies.”

“It was a nice way of copping a feel,” Tonya said. “Why doesn’t anybody understand me?”

Lee dropped a few bills on the table, took Roy by the arm, walked him outside.

The moon was up, not quite full. And two moons, again, which Roy had to work down to one and a half, and one.

“That’s the second time you’ve rescued me,” Lee said. “I’ve decided I don’t like it.”

“It won’t happen again,” Roy said; and knew at that moment that despite the copping of feels and the breaking up of fights, his eyes hadn’t deceived him at Chickamauga: no man would have said that.

“Did I mention we’ve got a little group inside the regiment?” Lee said. “More hard-core?”

“Something about it,” Roy said.

“Interested?”

“What’s it about?”

“Tacticals. Behind the lines kind of stuff. Basically live in 1863.”

“When the water was good,” Roy said.

Lee looked up at him. “Was it, Roy?”

“I can prove it,” Roy said.

Two cars with New Jersey plates turned into the lot as Roy and Lee pulled out.

Roy drove up to where the last dirt lane petered out, Lee following on the bike. Lee kicked down the stand, glanced inside the Altima, saw the uniform.

“Why not put that on, Roy?”

Roy nodded.

“Mine’s in the saddlebag,” Lee said.

A cloud shaped like a slender bird slid over the moon. They changed into their uniforms in darkness.

“Got your weapon?” Lee said.

“In the trunk.”

“Bring it.”

Roy heard a muffled clink, knew it was the sound of bullets, heavy bullets, dropping into Lee’s cartridge pouch. Then the moon came out and there was Lee, the most natural sight in the world, in full uniform with an Enfield muzzleloader like Gordo’s, much longer than Roy’s carbine, held over one shoulder in marching position, a mule collar supply roll over the other. Roy got the carbine out of the trunk and started up the mountain. Behind him, Lee moved so quietly Roy had to glance back in the moonlit patches-the sunny patches of daytime-to see if they were still together. They were every time.

The ridge appeared, a black bulge in the night that seemed to be falling slowly toward them. Roy heard water bubbling up above, the source of Crystal Creek, climbed toward it. The ridge stopped falling, now backed away, retreating with every step. This sudden elasticity of the physical world could have been unsettling, but wasn’t, might even have led to air supply problems, but didn’t. Roy kept going, almost as quickly as he had by day, breathing evenly. He listened for the sound of Lee breathing, heard nothing. They were good. This was the way to move behind enemy lines, to enter their camp by night, spike the guns, run off the horses, blow up the powder. He rounded the head of the ridge; the moonlight caught the water pouring from the rocks-the sound was frothing water but the sight was diamonds spraying from the earth.

They knelt by the stream and drank. Then something strange happened: without a word, and as one, they dipped their faces in the water. Pure, cold, savage water: it went right through Roy’s skin, into his blood, readied him for anything. He opened his eyes underwater, watched the diamonds flowing by. He turned his head and saw Lee’s eyes open too-silver ovals black at the core.

They climbed around the ridge, up through the sloping meadow, the moon bright enough to bring out colors now, the silver-green of the tall grass, gray-green of the flower stalks, charcoal-gray of the white petals, beet-red of the red ones. Only the distant trees remained black, and even they flashed silver in their crowns when a breeze passed by. Lee came up beside him. Roy smelled fresh sweat and hot wool, in no way unpleasant.

To the top of the meadow, into the apple trees on the plateau, and didn’t the moon, lower now, shine through that same rough stone rectangle that had once been a window, turning the complex spiderweb silver? The web trembled slightly, like a tiny trampoline under a tiny athlete. Roy heard Lee take a deep breath.

“The Mountain House of Roy Singleton Hill,” he said.

Lee went inside, looked around, then leaned the Enfield against the wall, took off the mule collar roll, laid it on the ground.

“Hungry?”

“A little.”

Lee reached in the roll, handed Roy a small, dense square.

“What’s this?”

“Hardtack.”

Roy bit into it. “Is it food?”

“You can live on it indefinitely.”

“I like your muffins better.”

They stood in the Mountain House, moonlight on the metal of their weapons and buckles, the spiderweb, Lee’s eyes. “The muffins aren’t authentic,” Lee said.

Lee bent down, spread the roll on the ground: a wool blanket with hardtack inside, a canteen, a candle, and a few smaller things Roy couldn’t identify.

“The blanket’s authentic,” Lee said, “but not as authentic as no blanket at all.”

Lee pushed the hardtack, the canteen, the candle, the other things to the side, lay down on the blanket, gazing up at Roy.

“We’re sleeping here?” Roy said.

“Got a better idea?”

Roy shook his head. “But I don’t have a blanket of my own.”

“That’s authentic too.”

Roy sat down on Lee’s blanket. He smelled wool, fresh sweat, and mint. The air was rich with mint. He filled his lungs with it, glanced over at Lee. Lee’s eyes were closed. Roy lay down on the far side of the blanket.

The moon sank below the treetops, and in a way that made no sense the air got colder, as though there was some kind of celestial confusion. Stars popped out all over the sky, more than Roy had ever seen, and not just white, but blue, red, yellow. This was reality, Roy realized, all those stars were present all the time, blazed away all the time, didn’t go anywhere. The daytime part was false.

Lying on his back, watching that distant reality, Roy cooled down from the climb. For a while he felt just right. But his sweat soaked into the wool uniform, kept him from drying off completely, and he started to shiver. Had Roy Singleton Hill shivered too, in this uniform, on this mountain, in 1863? Roy doubted only the shivering part.

“Is there a blanket for on top?” he said, not sure Lee was awake.

“Almost never happened,” Lee said, from closer than he thought. “They spooned on cold nights.”

“Spooned?” said Roy.

“Roll over,” Lee said.

Roy rolled on his side. From there he could see the spiderweb, no longer moonlit, just a faint pattern in the night, still trembling. He felt Lee slide in against him, adapting to his shape, front to back.

“Nothing more authentic than this,” Lee said, voice close to Roy’s ear. Roy shivered, maybe because of the cold, maybe because of the voice in his ear. He smelled Lee’s breath, the same minty smell of the night, shivered more.