The Killer Angels - Michael Shaara [23]
He sat watching the lights come on in Gettysburg. The soldiers bordered the town along the west and the north in two long fire-speckled fences—a lovely sight in the gathering dusk. The last light of June burned in the west. He had one marvelous smoke—a dreamy cigar. Tomorrow he will come, old Bob Lee himself, down that western road, on a gray horse. And with him will come about seventy thousand men.
One of the lieutenants was reading a newspaper. Buford saw rippled black headlines: CITIZENS OF PENNSYLVANIA: PREPARE TO DEFEND YOUR HOMES! A call for militia. He smiled. Militia would not stop old Bobby Lee. We have good old George Meade.
Now now. Have faith. He might be very good.
The hell he is.
Buford peered quickly around, not knowing if he had said that out loud. Damned bad habit. But the lieutenants were chatting. Buford looked past them to the silent town. Pretty country. But too neat, too tidy. No feel of space, of size, a great starry roof overhead, a great wind blowing. Well. You are not a natural easterner, that’s for sure. Extraordinary to think of war here. Not the country for it. Too neat. Not enough room. He saw again the white angel. He thought: Damn good ground.
He sat on a rail fence, watching the night come over Gettysburg. There was no word from the patrols. He went around reading the gravestones, many Dutch names, ghostly sentinels, tipped his hat in respect, thought of his own death, tested his body, still sound, still trustable through a long night, but weaker, noticeably weaker, the heart uneven, the breath failing. But there was at least one good fight left. Perhaps I’ll make it here. His mind wandered. He wondered what it would be like to lose the war. Could you ever travel in the South again? Probably not for a while. But they had great fishing there. Black bass rising in flat black water: ah. Shame to go there again, to foreign ground. Strange sense of enormous loss. Buford did not hate. He was a professional. The only ones who even irritated him were the cavaliers, the high-bred, feathery, courtly ones who spoke like Englishmen and treated a man like dirt. But they were mostly damn fools, not men enough to hate. But it would be a great shame if you could never go south any more, for the fishing, for the warmth in winter. Thought once of retiring there. If I get that old.
Out of the dark: Devin.
“Sir, the scouts are in. You were right, sir. Lee’s coming this way all right.”
Buford focused. “What have you got?”
“Those troops we ran into today were A. P. Hill. His whole corps is back up the road between here and Cashtown. Longstreet’s Corps is right behind him. Ewell’s Corps is coming down from the north. They were right in front of Harrisburg but they’ve turned back. They’re concentrating in this direction.”
Buford nodded. He said absently, “Lee’s trying to get around us, get between us and Washington. And won’t that charm the Senate?”
He sat down to write the message to Reynolds, on a gravestone, by lantern light. His hand stopped of itself. His brain sent nothing. He sat motionless, pencil poised, staring at blank paper.
He had held good ground before and sent off appeals, and help never came. He was very low on faith. It was a kind of gray sickness; it weakened the hands. He stood up and walked to the stone fence. It wasn’t the dying. He had seen men die all his life, and death was the luck of the chance, the price you eventually paid. What was worse was the stupidity. The appalling sick stupidity that was so bad you thought sometimes you would go suddenly, violently, completely insane just having to watch it. It was a deadly thing to be thinking on. Job to be done here. And all of it turns on faith.
The faces were staring at him, all the bright apple faces. He shuddered with vague anger. If Reynolds says he will come, Reynolds will come. An honorable man. I hope