Cain at Gettysburg Read Free Page B

me … we know better. Don’t we now? You and me, Quaker, we know what’s coming. Old Marse Robert didn’t march us all the way up just to let us live off the fat of the land and scare Dutch girls. No, sir, he didn’t. They just give us these pretty new uniforms to be buried in.”
    Blake looked at the little man. At God’s hideous excuse for a man. A nose eaten by sores topped a mouth whose last teeth ran black. Cobb’s new gray tunic was already stained by tobacco juice or worse. A leathery creature of unknown age, his only pleasing feature was thick black hair, but that crawled with lice. Now and then, the men tossed him into a creek, which Cobb accepted as part of his fate on earth. He was the only man in the company with whom no other soldier would share a blanket.
    â€œI didn’t know you had gypsy blood, Cobb,” Blake remarked.
    Finishing up his business, Cobb smiled again. “My ma was a McCaslin, she had the sight. Guess it passed on down to me, after all.” His smile widened, revealing a grim chasm. “Though it don’t take no second sight to see as how the colonel’s marked for death.” He laughed, a mean sound. “Anyhow, you know the McCaslins and what’s said about them. From your shopkeeping days.”
    Yes, he knew of the McCaslins. They were the only clan in the hills to whom no one would give credit, not even when they sent the children to town to beg. Other, worse things were said about them, too. But even the bony, sliver-faced McCaslins compared favorably with little Cobb.
    â€œI should charge you for a court-martial. For talking about Colonel Burgwyn that way.”
    Cobb cackled in delight. “You won’t, though, Quaker. No, sir, you won’t. ’Cause we understand each other, you and me, and you know that’s right. Goes all the way back to New Bern, when you and me were the only ones didn’t turn tail. You know you’ll need old Billy Cobb, sooner or later, when things get doing proper.” He laughed yet again. “Always wondered why you didn’t run off with the rest yourself. I mean, we all know why you joined up, Quaker. But I never could figure why you stood and fought like a man, when you didn’t need to. Now I know, though. Figured that out back at Culpeper Court House. And I expect I’m not the only one.”
    Blake didn’t want to hear any more. He marched from the glade, toward the busy encampment, passing a boy squatting at the edge of the bushes. The soldier looked up, embarrassed and quivering.
    â€œFor pity’s sake,” Blake told him, “go farther into the trees.”
    â€œI meant to, Sergeant,” the boy said in a pleading voice. He didn’t rise from his squat. Shivering all the while like a sick man. Although he had probably just eaten too many green plums.
    â€œBetter hide that pretty white bottom you got there,” Cobb told the lad. “Might some of the boys take a fancy to it.”
    Cobb was the most repellent man Blake had ever met.
    The morning sun had already turned mean. It looked to be another day of baking heat interrupted by sudden downpours. Blake was glad they weren’t marching, that this Sunday, at least, would be a day of rest. The men needed it. As he did himself. They had never marched longer and harder in his recollection. He needed to see about the hole in his right shoe, too. How thoughtlessly he once had arranged good, strong shoes on the bottom shelves of the store. Blake curled a rueful smile. Holes notwithstanding, at least he had shoes. Cobb and plenty of other soldiers didn’t. The 26th had the fine new uniforms the governor had sent as a gift to his former regiment, and the outfits made them the best-turned-out regiment in the Army of Northern Virginia. Until you looked down at their feet and saw that they were no better off than the rest.
    If only Governor Vance had sent them shoes, Blake thought for the