“I will tell him but promise nothing to you. The brother does what he wants & there is few who will tell him otherwise,” says I wanting to be away from him altogether but not wanting to show fear to him neither.
The dusk took on a fierce chill then & the horses moved away from the muleskinner straining at the ends of their ropes. They bunched together their eyes balled & vexed making a clear wide space about us there in the prairie grass.
“You just tell him,” says the skinner before he turned & lost himself in the lowering darkness & the horses again shifted & tugged on their ropes to be as far away from him as ever they could be when he passed.
“Whisht now,” says I to the horses my mouth gone dry & stone weariness upon me of a sudden. “Whisht now my pets he is gone away Thank God.”
WELL I WOULD OF WAGERED agin it but Tom took my message from the muleskinner in grand stead. He did not rage or give voice to what he would do to such a buck who dared tell such a terrifying man as himself what he could or could not do lest he be an officer in the great Army of the United States & even then he might better be a good one. No I would of lost my money betting on Tom. More than once in this sad life I would of.
We were sat about the embers of the cook fire sipping coffee after relief from picket duty the sky fierce sparked with stars like spilt salt on mourning cloth I tell you with our brothers in C Company asleep in their rolls around us the prairie nights cool & dry with no need of dog tents at all. They slept the sleep God intended for us under His heavens with the low licking flames of a warm fire beside them & the laughing yips of Coyotes off in the darkness. Outside the faint light from the fire all was in darkness & though there was many hundreds of folks & hundreds more of beasts that made up Carrington’s Overland Circus Parade it seemed that night that Tom & myself were alone to ourselves there on the prairie & this made me feel close to Tom closer than I felt in a long while.
I said to him, “So you will abide by it Tom & not be calling on the whores til we get where we are heading? Or til we are paid out Tom til then at least?”
My brother was quiet for a moment puffing his pipe & staring into the embers before he says to me, “I will heed your message Michael but only as she did tell me herself she did. Not to come back nor to bring no more gifts. She says my gifts will sow trouble for her with the other girls. And the muleskinner may whip her.”
He spoke this last part with a smile around his pipe as if the thought of the muleteer putting his whip to the poor girl was a fine sort of joke altogether. As if the fellow would dare put a finger to her knowing what bitter tribulations would befall him in the shape of Tom should he try it.
“Well,” says I & said nothing more because betimes with Tom there is nothing more to say.
Tom gave a nod & then removed his boots lacing them tightly up again for to keep the rattlers from making a bed of them. He took off his stockings next hanging them beside the other stockings from the yoke erected above the fire like all the old soldiers among us knowing that clean stockings be best but dry were near as good & that bad stockings make for bad feet & bad feet for bad marching. (Though we were mounted as mock Dragoons we did this out of habits we learnt the hard way in the War for in the Army there is no telling when a body might be marching.)
I did too lace my boots tight & set them beside Tom’s. “No snakes back home,” says I in the Gaelic just to be saying something. “Please God none here will find my bed roll warm while I am in it.”
Tom lay out his own bed roll bunching his tunic for a pillow. He pulled his blanket up to his chin & lay