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"Tell me, Private, do you see anyone else around here cleaning fish besides yourself and Corporal Stubbefield?" he said.
"Absolutely not, sir," Willie replied.
"Did Corporal Stubbefield throw fish guts under my window?"
"Not while I was around," Willie said.
"Then that leaves only you, doesn't it?" Atkins said.
"There could be another explanation, sir," Willie said.
"What might that be?" Atkins asked.
"Perhaps there are no fish guts under your window," Willie said.
"Excuse me?" Atkins said.
"Could it be you still have a bit of Carrie LaRose's hot pillow house in your mustache, sir?" Willie said. Atkins' eyes blazed.
"Buck and gag him. The rag and stick. Five hours' worth of it," he said to the corporal.
"We're s'pposed to keep it at three, Cap," Hatcher said.
"Do you have wax in your ears?" Atkins said.
"Five sounds right as rain," Hatcher replied.
WILLIE remained in an upright ball by the lake's edge for three hours, his wrists tied to his ankles, a stick inserted between his forearms and the backs of his knees, a rag stuffed in his mouth. A stick protruded from each side of his mouth, the ends looped with leather thongs that were tied tightly behind his head.
Water ran from his tear ducts and he choked on his own saliva. The small of his back felt like a hot iron had been pressed against his spine. He watched the sun descend on the lake and tried to think of the fish swimming under the water, the wind blowing through the trees, the way the four-o'clocks rippled like a spray of purple and gold confetti in the grass.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Rufus Atkins mount his horse and ride out of the camp. The pain spread through Willie's shoulders and wrapped around his thighs, like the tentacles of a jellyfish.
Jim Stubbefield could not watch it any longer. He pulled aside the flap on the corporal's tent and went inside, closing the flap behind him. Hanging from Jim's belt was a bowie knife with a ten-inch blade that could divide a sheet of paper in half as cleanly as a barber's razor.
Hatcher was combing his hair in a mirror attached to the tent pole when Jim locked his arm under Hatcher's neck and simultaneously stuck the knife between his buttocks and wedged the blade upward into his genitals.
"You cut Willie loose and keep your mouth shut about it. If that's not acceptable, I'll be happy to slice off your package and hang it on your tent," Jim said.
Two minutes later Corporal Hatcher cut the ropes on Willie's wrists and ankles and the thong that held the stick in his mouth. Willie stumbled back to the tent he and Jim shared and fell on his cot. Jim sat
down next to him and gazed into his face.
"What's on your mind, you ole beanpole?" Willie said.
"You have to stop sassing them, Willie," Jim said.
"They cut bait, didn't they?" Willie said.
"What do you mean?" Jim asked.
"I outlasted them. They're blowhards and yellow-backs, Jim."
"I put a bowie to Hatcher and told him I'd make a regimental flag out of his manhood," Jim said.
"Go on with you?" Willie said, rising up on his elbows. "Hey, come back here. Tell me you didn't do that, Jim."
But Jim had already gone out the tent flap to relieve himself in the privy.
