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The red circle clicked on and waggled wildly on the ground at our feet as we ran, back over the railroad tracks and back down the street towards the warmly glowing bonfire behind the mobile home. Behind us I could have sworn I heard another shot, and an indistinct commotion came fast on its heels.
“Are we being chased?” Jamie panted.
I checked over my shoulder and saw nothing at all. “I don’t think so. ”
“Maybe we shouldn’t run, then. ” He stumbled to a slower jog, and Benny and I both outpaced him within seconds.
“You’re on crack,” Benny swore.
We tore around the dirt driveway and skidded back to Ted’s place. If anyone noticed we’d been missing for twenty minutes, no one said anything, but the gunshots had been heard over the festivities, and there was much discussion.
“Hunters?” Very Drunk Mike suggested, but no one bothered to agree. Not on federal property, and not in suburbia.
“Maybe we should call it a night,” someone else suggested, and many heads nodded.
“Somebody help me put out this fire, then. ” Ted walked over to an outdoor faucet and turned it on. He grabbed the end of a hose as it began to sputter, and pointed out a pair of shovels leaning against the building. “Anyone want to take those and start throwing dirt?”
Burly Brian and Chris from the Pickle Barrel volunteered, and together the three of them began an assault on the enormous fire.
In the distance we heard sirens. The prospect of police prompted a few of the drinkers to slink out while the slinking was good. I knew at
least two of them weren’t of age, so I couldn’t say I blamed them, but I hoped they weren’t driving.
Things seemed to be breaking up, despite the early hour for a weekend. I thought we ought to do the same. The guys agreed, so after thanking Ted for hosting us, we split.
9
Brother Against…
SAND MOUNTAIN, ALABAMA, SEVEN WEEKS EARLIER
“It was supposed to be a legacy, and an insurance policy. It was supposed to help and protect those of us who had been most loyal and most trustworthy. Jefferson Davis gave us more than a mission—it was a trust. ”
Rudy began to pace back and forth. He never paced unless he was talking about something important, and since he rarely bothered discussing anything more important than sports scores or the rising price of cigarettes, Pete had never seen it before.
Back and forth he went, from the kitchen door to the table past the television and back again. He rubbed the back of his head, thumbing the thinning hair against his collar. He punctuated his sentences with pauses and twists of his bony hips that brought him to face his nephew.
Pete was transfixed.
“People make fun of our name now, because of what they’ve seen on TV and how they think we talk and what they think we’re like. But Buford is a damn fine name, and it’s one to be proud of. You’ve heard that before. But maybe you didn’t know it. Not really. Not if no one ever told you, and if your mother didn’t and I haven’t up till now, then I guess nobody ever did. ”
“Go on, then,” Pete said, more for conversational contribution than out of impatience.
“Well, I will. Back in the war, two of the Bufords—brothers, not cousins—were promoted high for good service. And one of them, Andrew, was a bank man. He worked with money somehow. He was good with numbers that way. Went to school somewhere out east and north, but I don’t know where.
“Anyway, Andrew and his brother William were recruited by the Confederacy, and they both worked as spies. It was easiest for Andrew, since he’d gone to school up north; so William went west. ”
“Why?” Pete asked. “What was going on out west?”
Rudy flapped his hand dismissively. “All kinds of things, but that’s not what the story’s about. Where our part of the story really picks up is, unfortunately, when the South began to go down. ” He stopped by the television and leaned on it with one hand, causing the bench it sat on to creak.
“Everyone knew. Some of them pretended they didn’t, or acted like they couldn’t see it coming, but after a while, it was clear as day. We couldn’t win. There were just too damn many of them. They were siphoning them out of the slums in the big cities—throwing them into the army and sending them to shoot us even as they got off the boats, trying to immigrate. Lots of Italians and Irish. Lots of others too, who didn’t have much choice, or didn’t know they did. They threw them at us. Those bastards like Sherman, they didn’t care how many men died because they knew there were always more poor back where they had come from. And there were more coming in every day.
“It wasn’t the same for us. We couldn’t compete with that. But we knew it before Appomattox. And we started making plans. ”
“Plans?” Pete asked without as much enthusiasm as his uncle might have expected. But Pete didn’t like plans. Plans had gotten him into all the trouble he’d ever known.
“Plans—with men like Andrew and William. They took men they knew they could trust, men who understood the way the world worked…and they starting doing the only thing they could. ”
