Read Online The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks - Free Book Online Page A

and then began making their way around the hill to the right. It was slow going. Eli kept insisting on using Ab’s new spyglass to observe the people gathered on top of the hill. The crack in the lens cut everyone in half and made their heads gigantic and their legs tiny like a midget’s. Eli giggled at them. They were like elves up there on that hill, strange little monsters.
    After a half hour of wiggling around through the weeds, Eli and Ab found a position on the front of the hill, down from its crest and out of sight of the picnickers. What they saw in front of them was breathtaking and so foreign they just lay there without speaking.
    Directly in front of them, and spreading out a mile each way, stood the army. The long gray line snaked on and on in each direction. They tried to count, but after a while they could swear they were seeing the same men over and over again, as if they were all the same man. They nibbled on their biscuits and took turns with the spyglass. The boys watched the Confederates spread themselves out along the line, some men mincing along on tender feet, others striding along like nothing had ever hurt them in their entire lives. One man stopped to relieve himself in the bushes at the bottom of the hill, and when the wind kicked up, Eli swore he could smell the wet odor of chicory and maybe a little coffee. There were flags of all sorts whipping in the wind and tangling around the guidons. The flags were mere decorations, but the men looked like the whole world.
    Ab was the first to break the silence. He shook his head a couple of times like he was going to say something and then thought better of it. He picked up the spyglass and looked for something he could understand.
    “Look at that skinny man right over there. He looks like he’s about to burn up and float away. Cooked up in that uniform of his. Like a sausage.”
    Ab pointed to a weedy, gangly private lost in his oversize uniform, barefoot and sweating. He was fiddling with a long rifle and trying to get his shirt off at the same time. Ab thought he saw a button go flying off into the grass.
    “What kind of gun you reckon that is?”
    Eli took the glass and looked at the thin man. He had bags under his eyes that seemed to jiggle some, and he looked a little scared. Eli felt sorry for him. He didn’t know anything about the man’s rifle, but he made something up.
    “That right there is a Robert E. Lee rifle with special deluxe hawkeye sights. Kill a man at two miles. That soldier right there must be a right good shot. They don’t give them rifles out to but a few. I bet he’s one of the best shooters in the army.”
    “Never heard of that gun. Two miles? Damn.”
    “Shoots a thousand bullets without even getting a little warm, you know.
And
it’s got a timbering attachment that cuts down trees big around as you. And you know that’s big.”
    “Damn.”
    They were silent again. Eli watched the skinny soldier waddle off to get on line, and he let his mind wander. He wondered if Cotton, the only Confederate soldier he’d ever seen up close, was somewhere on that field.
I wish Becky were here to see this,
Eli thought.
Then maybe she’d understand.
    Ab trained the spyglass away from the Confederate lines forming in front of them and noticed that over on another hill, a mile or so distant and east of town, a Yankee artillery battery was limbering up. Men in blue were shoring up the trails of their three-inch rifled guns, others were piling up hundreds of shells for action. Still others were busy aiming the black, glistening, wrought-iron weapons toward the bottom of Winstead Hill. It all seemed so distant, so separate from his world, as if he were watching a fabulously intricate play.
    The first shot from the artillery battery was long. The shot went into the air, and it began to whistle and wail as it descended in the last part of its ballistic arc. That sound finally made things clear for Ab. He had just enough time to throw