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Willie moved the spyglass over the river bottoms but could see no movement inside the trees. The train tracks shimmered in the heat and he could smell the hot odor of creosote in the ties. He focused the glass far down the line on an observation balloon captured from the Federals. It was silver, as bright as tin, tethered to the earth by a rope that must have been two hundred feet long. A bearded man in a wicker basket was looking back in Willie's direction with a spyglass similar to his own.
Willie got down on one knee and gestured for Sergeant Clay Hatcher to do the same. The sudden movement made his head swim and his eyes momentarily go out of focus. He spread a map on the ground and tapped on it with his finger.
"That woods yonder is probably a couple of miles deep. Their officers are dead, so my guess is they're bunched up," he said.
Hatcher nodded as though he understood. But in reality he didn't. He carried a Henry repeater he had taken off the body of a Federal soldier. He was unshaved and sweaty, his kepi crimped wetly into his hair.
"Take two men and get around behind them. When you do I want you to make life very uncomfortable for them."
"I can do that," he said.
"I don't think you follow me, Hatch."
Hatcher looked at him, his eyes uncertain.
"I want them to unlimber that field piece. You'll be on the receiving end of it. You up for that?" Willie said.
"As good as the next," Hatcher said.
"Better get moving, then," Willie said.
Hatcher kept his gaze on the map without seeming to see it.
"You want prisoners?" he asked.
"If they surrender," Willie said.
"The rumor is there ain't a great need for them in the rear."
"Well, you hear this. If I catch you operating under a black flag, I'll take you before a provost and you'll be off to your heavenly reward before the sun sets."
Hatcher nodded, his eyes looking at nothing, a lump of cartilage flexing in his jaw. "One of these days all this will be over," he said.
"Yes?"
"That's all. It'll be over and my stripes and those acorns on your hat won't mean very much."
"I look forward to the day, Hatch."
Willie watched Hatcher crunch across the floor of the woods toward the train track, his spine slightly bent, his clothes stiff with salt and dirt, his Henry repeater cupped in a horizontal position, like a prehistoric creature carrying a spear. Two other men joined him, both of them dressed in tattered butternut, and the three of them crossed the railway embankment and disappeared into the trees on the far side.
Willie wondered when Hatcher would eventually muster up the nerve to frame Willie's back in his rifle sights.
Someone touched him on the shoulder.
"Major is asking for you, Lieutenant," a soldier said. He could not have been over sixteen. There were no buttons on his shirt and the cloth was held against his chest by the crossed straps of his haversack and a bullet pouch. He wore a domed, round-brimmed straw hat that sat on his head like a cake bowl.
"How is he?" Willie asked.
"He falls asleep and says funny things," the boy answered.
Willie walked back through the woods to a bayou that was spangled with sunlight and draped with air vines that hung from the trees. The major lay on a blanket in the leaves, his head propped on a haversack stuffed with his rubber coat.
Back in the shade, under a mulberry tree clattering with bluejays, the feet of four dead soldiers stuck out from the gum blankets that had been pulled over their bodies. Their shoes had been taken and the blankets that covered them were spotted with the white droppings of birds.
Both of the major's arms were broken and hung uselessly at his sides. A bandage with a scarlet circle the size of a half dollar in the center was tied just below his heart. His muttonchop sideburns looked as thick as hemp on his jowls.
"I had a dream about snow. Everything was white and a red dog was barking inside some trees," the major said.
