Bernard Cornwell - Rebel

The Colonel accompanied Starbuck for the first part of his journey, ever encouraging him to sit his horse better. ‘Heels down, Nate! Heels down! Back straight!’ The Colonel took amusement from Starbuck’s riding, which was admittedly atrocious, while the Colonel himself was a superb horseman. He was riding his favorite stallion and, in his new uniform and mounted on the glossy horse, he looked marvelously impressive as he led Starbuck through the town of Faulconer Court House, past the water mill and the livery stable, the inn and the courthouse, the Baptist and the Episcopal churches, past Greeley’s Tavern and the smithy, the bank and the town gaol. A girl in a faded bonnet smiled at the Colonel from the school house porch. The Colonel waved to her, but did not stop to talk. ‘Priscilla Bowen,’ he told Nate, who had no idea how he was supposed to remember the flood of names that was being unleashed on him. ‘She’s a pretty enough thing if you like them plump, but only nineteen, and the silly girl intends to marry Pecker. My God, but she could do better than him! I told her so too. I didn’t mince my words either, but it hasn’t done a blind bit of good. Pecker’s double her age, double! I mean it’s one thing to bed them, Nate, but you don’t have to marry them! Have I offended you?’

‘No, sir.’

‘I keep forgetting your strict beliefs.’ The Colonel laughed happily. They had passed through the town, which had struck Starbuck as a contented, comfortable community and much larger than he had expected. The Legion itself was encamped to the west of the town, while Faulconer’s house was to the north. ‘Doctor Danson reckoned that the sound of military activity would be bad for Miriam,’ Faulconer explained. ‘She’s delicate, you understand.’

‘So Anna was telling me, sir.’

‘I was thinking of sending her to Germany once Anna’s safely married. They say the doctors there are marvelous.’

‘So I’ve heard, sir.’

‘Anna could accompany her. She’s delicate too, you know. Danson says she needs iron. God knows what he means. But they can both go if the war’s done by fall. Here we are, Nate!’ The Colonel gestured toward a meadow where four rows of tents sloped down toward a stream. This was the Legion’s encampment, crowned by the three-banded, seven-starred flag of the new Confederacy. Thick woods rose on the stream’s far bank, the town lay behind, and the whole encampment somehow had the jaunty appearance of a traveling circus. A baseball diamond had already been worn into the flattest part of the meadow, while the officers had made a steeplechase course along the bank of the stream. Girls from the town were perched along a steep bank that formed the meadow’s eastern boundary, while the presence of carriages parked alongside the road showed how the gentry from the nearby countryside were making the encampment into the object of an excursion. There was no great air of purpose about the men who lounged or played or strolled around the campground, which indolence, as Starbuck well knew, resulted from Colonel Faulconer’s military philosophy, which declared that too much drill simply dulled a good man’s appetite for battle. Now, in sight of his good Southerners, the Colonel became markedly more cheerful. ‘We just need two or three hundred more men, Nate, and the Legion will be unbeatable. Bringing me Truslow will be a good beginning.’

‘I’ll do my best, sir,’ Starbuck said, and wondered why he had ever agreed to face the demon Truslow. His apprehensions were sharpened because Ethan Ridley, mounted on a spirited chestnut horse, had suddenly appeared at the encampment’s main entrance. Starbuck remembered Anna Faulconer’s confident assertion that Ridley had not even dared face Truslow, and that only made him all the more nervous. Ridley was in uniform, though his gray woolen tunic looked very drab beside the Colonel’s brand-new finery.

‘So what do you think of Shaffer’s tailoring, Ethan?’ the Colonel demanded of his future son-in-law.

‘You look superb, sir,’ Ridley responded dutifully, then nodded a greeting to Starbuck, whose mare edged to the side of the road and lowered her head to crop at the grass while Washington Faulconer and Ridley talked. The Colonel was saying how he had discovered two cannon that might be bought, and was wondering if Ridley would mind going to Richmond to make the purchase and to ferret out some ammunition. The Richmond visit would mean that Ridley could not ride on the raid against the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, and the Colonel was apologizing for denying his future son-in-law the enjoyment of that expedition, but Ridley seemed not to mind. In fact his dark, neatly bearded face even looked cheerful at the thought of returning to Richmond.

‘In the meantime Nate’s off to look for Truslow.’ The Colonel brought Starbuck back into the conversation.

Ridley’s expression changed instantly to wariness. ‘You’re wasting your time, Reverend. The man’s off stealing horses.’

‘Maybe he just avoided you, Ethan?’ Faulconer suggested.

‘Maybe,’ Ridley sounded grudging, ‘but I’ll still wager that Starbuck’s wasting his time. Truslow can’t stand Yankees. He blames a Yankee for his wife’s death. He’ll tear you limb from limb, Starbuck.’

Faulconer, evidently affected by Ridley’s pessimism, frowned at Starbuck. ‘It’s your choice, Nate.’

‘Of course I’ll go, sir.’

Ridley scowled. ‘You’re wasting your time, Reverend,’ he said again, with just a hint of too much force.

‘Twenty bucks says I’m not,’ Starbuck heard himself saying, and immediately regretted the challenge as a stupid display of bravado. It was worse than stupid, he thought, but a sin too. Starbuck had been taught that all wagering was sinful in the sight of God, yet he did not know how to withdraw the impulsive offer.

Nor was he sure that he wanted to withdraw because Ridley had hesitated, and that hesitation seemed to confirm Anna’s suspicion that her fiancé might indeed have evaded looking for the fearful Truslow.

‘Sounds a fair offer to me,’ the Colonel intervened happily.

Ridley stared at Starbuck, and the younger man thought he detected a hint of fear in Ridley’s gaze. Was he frightened that Starbuck would reveal his lie? Or just frightened of losing twenty dollars? ‘He’ll kill you, Reverend.’

‘Twenty dollars says I’ll have him here before the month’s end,’ Starbuck said.

‘By the week’s end,’ Ridley challenged, seeing a way out of the wager.

‘Fifty bucks?’ Starbuck recklessly raised the wager.

Washington Faulconer laughed. Fifty dollars was nothing to him, but it was a fortune to penniless young men like Ridley and Starbuck. Fifty dollars was a month’s wages to a good man, the price of a decent carriage horse, the cost of a fine revolver. Fifty dollars turned Anna’s quixotic quest into a harsh ordeal. Ethan Ridley hesitated, then seemed to feel he demeaned himself by that hesitation and so held out a gloved hand. ‘You’ve got till Saturday, Reverend, not a moment more.’

‘Done,’ Starbuck said, and shook Ridley’s hand.

‘Fifty bucks!’ Faulconer exclaimed with delight when Ridley had ridden away. ‘I do hope you’re feeling lucky, Nate.’

‘I’ll do my best, sir.’

‘Don’t let Truslow bully you. Stand up to him, you hear me?’

‘I will, sir.’

‘Good luck, Nate. And heels down! Heels down!’

Starbuck rode west toward the blue-shadowed mountains. It was a lovely day under an almost cloudless sky. Starbuck’s fresh horse, a strong mare named Pocahontas, trotted tirelessly along the grass verge of the dirt road, which climbed steadily away from the small town, past orchards and fenced meadows, going into a hilly country of small farms, lush grass and quick streams. These Virginia foothills were not good for tobacco, less good still for the famous Southern staples of indigo, rice and cotton, but they grew good walnuts and fine apples, and sustained fat cattle and plentiful corn. The farms, though small, looked finely kept. There were big barns and plump meadows and fat herds of cows whose bells sounded pleasantly languorous in the midday warmth. As the road climbed higher the farms became smaller until some were little more than corn patches hacked out of the encroaching woods. Farm dogs slept beside the road, waking to snap at the horse’s heels as Starbuck rode by.