Free The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks Page B

And if you harm that mule, there will be consequences, my rebel friend.”
    John let the insult pass by. He was overcome with remorse, the illogical feeling that he had betrayed old Zack and the conviction that every moment Zack suffered was a rebuke to John personally. He might not be roused to defend his honor before men, but the dumb beast had become his most eloquent accuser. He went to the tool bag hanging from the saddle and removed the sledgehammer he had used on the fence. He swung it a few times in a slow arc, trying to get it balanced perfectly.
    The scout spit a stream of tobacco juice at John’s feet.
    “Think about what you’re about to do, my friend. That there is government property.”
    He said this only halfheartedly. He and the other scouts appeared more interested in watching John than in stopping him. John toed some dirt over the pool of tobacco juice, crushed it to mud under his boot heel, and strode toward Zack.
    The animal lay his head back and kept his eye on his master. He stopped trembling, as if he knew what was coming. John tried to decide on the best place to land the blow. On the forehead or the back of the head? On the ear? He wondered whether Zack felt lonely, then cringed and shook his head at the thought. When had he become so sentimental and stupid? He stood over Zack and tried to be as calm and reassuring as it was possible to be with a sledgehammer. The scouts grew silent, and Theopolis pulled back into the woods. John decided that Zack’s temple held the most promise. He drew the hammer behind him and then raised it above his head. Zack exhaled and seemed to be trying to close his rheumy eyes.
    When, after it was over, John turned back to his tormentor, the fat little scout had his repeater trained on him.
    “You are now a criminal, besides being a coward and a reb. And you ain’t much with a sledgehammer.”
    John felt certain he would be shot, and the prospect was not as frightening as he thought it would be. His stomach clenched and roiled, his heart raced, and the blood ran to his face. He clenched his teeth and frowned. He was ready.
    But the little scout shrugged his shoulders as if bored, and then turned his horse back toward the opening in the tree line, back toward the field. His other scouts crashed about in the brush and dead tree limbs until they were lined up again, two by two. The little scout steered his horse to the side and waved the rest on through, ordering them to head south by the Columbia road. He turned back to John and tipped his hat.
    “The fellow at your house, whom your nigger here has seen, is the bloody General Nathan Forrest. I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s surely no gentleman, like you and me,
sir
. While you were out here playing in the woods, a battle has been convening all around this place. I’ll wager you didn’t even hear it coming. If I were you, I’d leave the mule for the crows and make for the house as quickly as you can. Good day,
sir
.”
    When the Federals had vanished from sight, John and Theopolis mounted up and took the man’s advice.

9
    T HE G RIFFIN H OMESTEAD
    B ecky knew that Cotton was on that battlefield. She knew it like she had known he would come for her and that he would leave her and that he would die.
    “‘Cotton’? What kind of man would let himself be called Cotton?” Eli would ask. It wasn’t a Christian name, that was certain.
    Becky wouldn’t tell Eli who Cotton was. She never let Cotton meet her father or let her father even see them together, and they never went courting in the open like proper folks.
    Cotton brought Eli gifts—fresh apples, puzzles, drawings of generals cut from the newspaper—and he must have won him over, for Eli conspired with them to keep their relationship secret.
    After Cotton had enlisted, she would steal away to her bedroom to write letters—hundreds of letters, by her reckoning. He fought at Chattanooga, he had been captured by the Yankees, he had escaped at great risk