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[Continuing chapter seven, which is a long one and will continue all this week]
“What’s the matter, Cleburne?” Patton asked. He’d contrived to place his horse beside the Irishman’s as they followed the column up a small hill. They were about two dozen all told, and, save for himself and Cleburne, a less soldierly bunch Patton had never seen. In fact, the men with whom he rode looked a lot like the mob that was pursuing them. There was one crucial difference, though: this two dozen men rode in a semblance of formation, and had the stolid, contemplative silence about them that Patton remembered Stewart telling him about sensing at Harpers Ferry. They’d had some training, that was clear. He trusted that what they’d had would be enough to give them the advantage over their pursuers.
Cleburne worried him, though. The man’s demeanor hadn’t improved on meeting their new company commander, and the expression on his face suggested that at the least he was chastising himself for having taken this journey.
“I’m surprised that you can ask that question, boyo,” Cleburne said. “You who’ve been trained to command even if you haven’t yet seen fighting. Hasn’t it occurred to you yet to wonder about the men leading this ‘army’?” He spoke the latter word in an exaggerated imitation of Walker’s Tennessee drawl, and Patton felt himself flush; the insult to Walker was indirectly an insult to Patton, since Patton had in essence begged to be allowed to accompany the expedition.
“I admit that Pickett’s no soldier,” Patton began.
“No soldier? The man’s worse than those bar-room bunglers we killed in New Orleans. I’ll bet you a lifetime’s supply of laudanum he runs the minute the balls start flying.”
“Damn it,” Patton said. “I didn’t force you to come along, you know. Why are you behaving as though this were all my fault?” Has it been my fault? He asked himself how much he’d let his desire to see battle cloud his judgment. He tried to compare Colonel Walker with Professor—now General—Jackson at the Institute, but in the confusion of emotion and tension all he could grasp in his mind was that both men were eccentric in the extreme and yet somehow had a way about them that made their orders impossible not to follow. Cleburne would probably despise General Jackson too, Patton thought sourly.
“I don’t at all blame you,” Cleburne said. “I guess I’m taking it out on you rather than chastise myself. I should have known better than to go out for soldiering again. And I should have known better than to think I’d be treated any better here than I was in the British army.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Forgive me, but you couldn’t. You don’t have ears attuned to hearing the condescension your Colonel Walker feels toward the Irish. One of the best things about you, Patton, is that you don’t seem to cherish that particular form of prejudice, or even to recognize it in others. But I see it all the time, and I’m definitely seeing it in Mister Walker. ‘My Irish have done well so far.’ Ha! It’s as if he can scarcely contain himself for waiting for one of us to betray him to the Mexicans or eat a baby or some such.”
“Don’t you think you’re over-reacting? You’ve only just met the man.”
Cleburne smiled wearily, and Patton realized that there was a whole history to Cleburne that he didn’t know, had never even thought to ask about. “I’ll be apologizing to you the rest of my life if I’ve misjudged this man and this situation,” Cleburne said. “But somehow I feel that’s not going to happen. You’re right about one thing, though. I shouldn’t be letting this distract me right now. Our lives probably depend on our concentrating on nothing but those Texans.” He made his smile a slightly more cheerful thing. “And I should never take my anger out on those who only mean me well. Sorry, Patton.”
The apology just made Patton feel worse, because instead of suggesting that Cleburne had been wrong, it had the perverse effect of making him instead seem more firmly in the right.
A disturbing thought occurred to him. Could it be that Cleburne was afraid? It was true that he had behaved commendably in the bar-room fight in New Orleans, and he had definitely saved Patton from McConnell. But neither of those incidents could even remotely be considered in the same context as the kind of fight they’d be encountering, if not today, then soon. I’ve only had his word that he’s seen much fighting, Patton thought. What if he was lying? How much can I really trust Cleburne?
Patton was spared further introspection because a movement caught his eye. He looked up to see the man on his right turning his horse around; looking over his shoulder, he saw one of Pickett’s scouts riding at a gallop toward them. “Looks as though Wheat wasn’t able to stop them,” he said, turning his horse around.
“My guess is he couldn’t find them,” Cleburne said. “Captain Wheat strikes me as a pretty solid soldier. These men may not be much as soldiers, but they’re a damned sight better-looking than that mob in the woods. If Wheat had met them, they wouldn’t have gotten past him.”
“Let’s go find out,” Patton said, nudging his horse toward the small group that had clustered around Pickett.
“They’re coming,” the scout shouted as he reined his horse to a stop before the group. “I count about twenty,” he said. He turned to Patton. “That’s not all of them, is it? Didn’t you say you counted three dozen back in the woods? They’ve split up.”
“That’s not smart,” Patton murmured. “Splitting up a force that small?”
“And from what we heard,” Cleburne said, “they don’t know how many we are.” He shook his head.
“What do we do?” one of the men asked. His voice was tight, a little high-pitched.
Patton turned to look at Pickett, their leader. The man’s face was flushed, and he seemed unable to look any of his charges in the eye. After a moment’s pause, Pickett straightened in the saddle and pulled his horse’s reins tight. “We go get ‘em!” he said. “Come on, boys!” He spurred his horse into motion—but he didn’t ride back the way the scout had come. Instead, he set off more or less perpendicular to that man’s path, toward a small grove of trees that Patton estimated was about two hundred yards north of their position.
“We’ll hit ‘em from the side!” Pickett shouted over his shoulder, and on hearing that two of the men set out after him. A moment later a third was gone. The others stayed where they were, having guessed what was Pickett’s true intent or simply because they suddenly found themselves unable to act. They looked uneasily at one another, and soon all eyes were on Patton and Cleburne.
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
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