Free Sisters of Shiloh by Kathy Hepinstall Page A

said.
    “You are, huh? Well, what is your level of commitment?”
    “Come on, Lewis,” Wesley said. “They just got here. They don’t need your die-hard Rebel talk.”
    “All I want to know is, are the new boys here for the South, or are they here for adventure, or to impress some girl, or what have you?”
    “I would die for the Southern cause,” Libby said, “but I’d rather kill for it.”
    “All right,” Wesley said. “There’s your answer, Lewis. Did they give you boys your tin cups? Good. Hand ’em over. And sit down.”
    He walked away and returned a few minutes later and handed them their steaming cups.
    “Soup’s good tonight,” he said.
    Josephine blew on her soup cautiously. Libby took a sip and looked up, puzzled. Something wasn’t quite right. Her tongue turned to fire. Her face flushed. Tears ran out of her eyes.
    “Wesley,” Floyd said, “you didn’t pull that red pepper trick on the new boys, did you?”
    “Ah, I’m sorry,” said Wesley, handing Libby a cup of water. “It’s just something we do to welcome the new recruits.”
    Libby threw the water in his face.
    “Hey!” he said.
    Libby tackled him. He fell over backward, and she jumped on top of him and raised a fist to punch him in the face. She felt others rising to stop her, grasping at her arm, pulling her off him, but she struggled ferociously, a terrible rage just waiting for the right battle, the right insult, the right spice, to open the door.
     
    The camp had filled with quiet sounds, soldiers praying in whispers, ashes floating off old fires, quill pens scratching on palimpsest. The pickets fidgeted out in the woods.
    The sisters had removed their belts and coats, and now lay with their trousers rolled up at the cuffs. Their shirtsleeves were so long, they covered their hands.
    “These clothes don’t fit,” Josephine said.
    “Neither do mine. I’m going to steal the pants off the first Yankee I shoot on the battlefield.”
    Josephine didn’t answer. She had not told Libby yet that she would never kill an enemy soldier. She unbuttoned her shirt and pulled at the cotton binding. Some tiny varmint had gotten under the cloth and was biting the flesh of her breast.
    The shadow of a mosquito loomed against the cotton twilling. Perhaps it was the last mosquito left in the world, now that summer had ended. One last drink of blood to toast the others. Josephine wiggled her fingers at the little beast, whose hum died in response.
    “We did good tonight, didn’t we?” Libby asked.
    “You need to hold your temper.”
    “I wasn’t talking about that. I was talking about our disguises. No one suspected a thing.”
    Josephine hugged her chest and watched the winged shadow still dancing across the tent. “They looked right at me and didn’t see me at all.”
     
    When Libby first woke, several moments passed before the linen sheets of her old bed dissolved into the Spartan textures of her oilcloth and the bare ground. Other realities followed. She was in the army. She was a man. It was the middle of the night. And her bladder was full, aching in a way that wouldn’t wait for morning. She was fearful of the darkness and wanted to wake Josephine, but she was sleeping so soundly that Libby decided to go alone, despite her misgivings.
     
    The other soldiers of her company lay out in the open, near the low campfires, their breathing raspy and slow. They slept in pairs, sharing oil blankets under the cool skies.
    Wesley and Lewis were curled up together, their faces peaceful under starlight. Matthew and Floyd took less intimate positions on their backs and a foot apart. Floyd slept with a folded handkerchief over his chest, an eccentricity whose origins were unknown. Libby turned between two officers’ tents and crept past a pair of ambulance wagons into the field that bordered the woods.
    High grass brushed her legs and made a swooshing sound that evoked memories of the cornfield back home. She reached the edge of the