Elmore Leonard - Tishomingo Blues

"I'm surprised," Dennis said, "Jerry came out."

"He might not last. I told him, `Man, you have to be seen, so people will think you're all the way into the gig.' That's his cover, being out front, serious, loving it."

"Who're the new guys?"

"The tall one, Groove, came out of Young Boys about when I did, known him all my life. Groove's gonna stay here and do the buying. On the side he'll see to making Ecstasy for the lovers, the E-tards, and find somebody knows how to make speed without blowing himself up. Cedric I found in my travels to Virginia. Knows the business, did his apprentice work under a man sold weed out of a church in Cincinnati called Temple of the Cool and Beautiful J.C. A skinhead Nazi come along and blew it up with a rocket gun. You imagine? I lined Cedric up, he's gonna deliver a chronic type of dojo weed once we set up."

Dennis said, "Tonto and Hector?"

"Old pros. They stay close to Jerry for the time being, their Colt guns capped and loaded. Case

Arlen pulls any sneaky shit in the night."

"So Arlen thinks Jerry's the boss."

He could see Robert caught what he meant. "Yes, he does."

"If he can scare off Jerry you and your guys will go with him."

"He calls Jerry Caesar. I told him like in Julius." "Why'd you antagonize Arlen's guy, call him an asshole?"

" 'Cause that's what he is. 'Cause I had a big fuckin sword in my hand."

"Come on-"

"I want him coming after me once we in the woods. Get him riled. You gonna be with us?"

"Is that part of the deal?"

"Noooo, man, do what you want is cool. Hang out with the county fair people, learn the period dances. You notice what I told you, everybody being so serious? Hey, maybe they'll let you judge the pie-making contest."

"I met a woman was making one," Dennis said, "rolling out the dough… Only she doesn't know what she's doing here."

It caused Robert to pause, looking at Dennis to catch on to what he meant. "What kind of pie?"

"Naughty Child."

"You're kidding me. They call it that?"

"Has green tomatoes in it." Robert paused again.

"You gonna have a piece?"

"I might."

DENNIS CROSSED THE SLOPEwhere the spectators would sit to watch the battle, no one else out here yet. He reached the pasture, headed for the thicket over to the left, and saw he'd have to watch his step as he moved through the coarse grass, the ground underneath broken and rutted, years of grazing cows leaving their marks. Man, but it was hot in the wool uniform, the sun still high. There was a crackling sound and a voice over the PA system.

"Four score and seven years ago… Wait a minute, somebody gave me the wrong speech."

There was no mistaking Charlie Hoke. Dennis continued toward the edge of the field as Charlie said, "Here we go. Hi, I'm Charlie Hoke, the old left-hander, welcoming you to the First Annual Tunica, Mississippi, Civil War Muster. What it reminds me of, folks, is opening day at the old ballpark. Any park, there's nothing like opening day." He said, "What?" His voice sounding faint then, away from the mike, and Dennis heard him say, "I'm coming to it." Charlie's full voice returned to say, "You all are taking part in a living history, commemorating a period of our heritage that united us once and for all as Americans."

And a Union soldier stepped out of the thicket in front of Dennis, a young guy no more than eighteen, holding his rifle at port arms. He said, "Identify yourself, name and regiment." Dennis told him, and the sentry said, "Pass." Man, dead serious.

Dennis walked by him into the thicket, the ground sandy now. He could still hear Charlie's voice as he made his way through the growth. About fifty yards into it he came to the camp: twoman tents in a clearing, stacked rifles, Union soldiers in and out of uniform, most of them with their shell jackets off, but all wearing their forage caps, a look of seasoned campaigners, a couple of them smoking pipes. He heard Charlie's voice saying they were reliving the past today in the present, and it was what Dennis felt and knew he would remember, passing through the scrub to find himself 140 years back in time.

Except for the pickup truck.

An old one, but not nearly old enough.

A group of twenty or more soldiers, apart from the ones he saw first, were looking up at John Rau, who stood in full uniform on the tailgate of the pickup, the truck bed loaded with cardboard cartons, a 55-gallon wooden barrel and what looked like a pile of shelter halves and bedrolls.

John Rau was saying, "I'm not going to make an issue of authenticity, criticize trifles, the way your uniform happens to be made. Point out that the top stitching on the fly of someone's trousers is too wide."

Sounding like he was making a speech, all the soldiers in front of him looking up, paying attention.

"Take it too far," John Rau said, "the ultrahardcores will next be insisting we use real bullets and hope that some of us take actual hits, or at least come down with dysentery. Obviously in a reenactment we will never experience the sheer terror of actual combat. We won't see our pards drilled by minie balls and blown to pieces by canister. So let's not make too much of authenticity. But, I do not want to see evidence of candy-bar wrappers or empty soda-pop cans lying around this bivouac. That's the one thing I insist on."

Dennis moved in to stand closer to the group and John Rau spotted him, Colonel John Rau looking cool, right out of the book in his cavalry officer's uniform, the brim of his hat pinned up on one side. Dennis, about to nod and say hi, stopped as John Rau said, "Soldier, where's your rifle?" No sign of recognition there.

Robert had the guns. Dennis almost said he forgot to get it, but changed it quick to, "I haven't picked it up yet."

Colonel Rau said, "Do you mean, `Sir, I haven't picked it up yet?' "

Dennis said, "Yes, sir."

"Why haven't you?"

Jesus, he was serious. Dennis said, "I was anxious to report to the camp. Sir."

"This is a bivouac, soldier, not a camp."

"Yes sir."

"The next time I see you, you will have your rifle. I will never see you again without your rifle. Unless of course it's stacked, as it should be."

Dennis said it again, "Yes sir," getting a feeling for it, like watching a war movie he was in.

John Rau turned to his audience, looking over his troopers before saying, "My first sergeant will see to the issue of rations for two days, courtesy of the Tishomingo Lodge and Casino. I'm sure it's their hope that once we stand down, you'll go over there and lay your money on the gaming tables. Do any of you know what the pay of a private in the Union Army was during the Civil War?"

A voice from the troops said, "Sir, thirteen dollars a month, sir ."

Dennis wondered if the guy was overdoing it. "That's correct," John Rau said. "Now then, I want this truck off-loaded so we can get it out of here and settle into a proper bivouac. We have extra shelter halves here and bedrolls consisting of a gum blanket and a wool blanket, all any soldier needs on a summer campaign. It won't be nearly cool enough for any spooning, so I don't expect to see any evidence of it, as I might get the wrong idea."

John Rau smiled and it got a laugh, but Dennis didn't know why.

"Your food rations, here in these boxes, are the authentic fare: hardtack, coffee and salt horse. Also potatoes, cornmeal if you want it-mixed into a gruel and fried can be very tasty-and dried fruit. What's commonly referred to as salt horse is, more often than not, salt pork-though fresh horse meat would have been a gourmet treat to a man in the field during the war. Nor am I referring to the salt pork you buy in the market, a hunk of bacon. That wouldn't hold up even for a reenactment weekend."