Wilderness Run by Maria Hummel Read Free Book Online Page B

aisle.
    â€œMaybe.” Laurence hesitated, hoping to prolong the boy’s sudden interest. “I don’t know.”
    Gilbert reached over and clapped his brother’s mouth shut. “We have to whip the seceshers first, Pike,” he threatened, his black hair falling in his eyes.
    â€œThat won’t take long.” Pike slid back into his old slot beside his brother. “I told Pa I’d be back for harvest.”
    â€œTold mine I’d be back for supper,” John Addison said, and grinned. His neighbors broke into obliging laughter.
    Laurence, looking down at his hands, did not join in. He was thinking of his father’s assessment of the rebellion. War , George Lindsey wrote to his son after the firing on Fort Sumter, is just a peculiar kind of commerce, one where men’s lives are spent for land or ideals. It will take a long time for the rebels to spend every penny they have. I had hoped my boy was going to make an intelligent businessman, and would not be seduced from duty by all those buncombe speeches. There are plenty of other lives less precious or ready to serve for the love of serving .
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Lindsey?” asked Addison.
    â€œI don’t think they’ll give up so easily.” Laurence did not look up. A trickle of sweat ran down his temple, and he swabbed it with his sleeve.
    â€œWhy’s that?” The question was not asked, but nailed on the air with a soft squeal of Addison’s accordion. Laurence felt a hundred eyes on him. No one had ever talked of losing the war, of even losing a single battle.
    â€œThey’re defending,” he explained patiently. “It’s always easier to defend. Look at us against the British. Look at Troy. It only fell when they took the horse inside its walls.”
    â€œâ€™S true.” Addison lifted his cap and let it settle slightly more askew, as if a branch had knocked it in passing. The train rumbled and clacked. They were far away from their own hills now and the blue sky drowned the flattening land.
    Noting the serious gazes of his companions, Laurence continued: “And you know what the horse is.” In his mind, he saw the lake and the runaway slave he and his cousin had failed to save.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNegro regiments,” he said triumphantly, but the soldiers’ faces hardened and he had to look away, out the window to the green fringe of trees beyond the pastures. Only Woodard nodded vigorously, his long nose stirring circles in the air.
    â€œIf we listen to the schoolmarm, we might as well just toss our muskets into enemy territory and be done with it,” said Gilbert Rhodes, whose most prominent feature was his nose, broken in so many places that it no longer had the look of a single organ, but a composite, several jigsaw pieces glued together.
    â€œThat’s not what I’m saying,” Laurence said to the trees.
    â€œHe means we should train them to fight alongside our regiments,” Woodard said, interrupting for the second time. His high, reedy voice did little to persuade the others.
    â€œWhat’s to say they don’t start firing at us, too?” Gilbert countered.
    â€œWho?” Laurence turned to him.
    â€œYour regiments of niggers.”
    Laurence shook his head and bent over to search his bag for the book of poems. Wrenching it out, he cracked it open, hoping the lines would swim through his mind and replace the ugly indifference of the men. Lives less precious , his father’s voice intruded. Ready to serve for the love of serving . George Lindsey had begged his son to train with the officers, but Laurence had refused.
    â€œThey wouldn’t fire,” John Addison offered after a strained minute, “but they might not fight so good, either. I’m ready to try myself, though.” This seemed to settle the matter, and the soldier began to play “Lorena,” a ballad about a soldier and his lost love.