from his hair well Ridgeway’s face did be as plain as any fellow’s as you did see yourself neither handsome nor ugly but normal though it was different from a regular soldier’s mug for you could spy the innocence in it or in his blue eyes maybe.
Of course innocence to a soldier is oft like a red rag to a bull as you know Sir but such was the picture maker’s manner that when he became better known to the boys of our Company well the boys did scarcely rag or ruse him at all & were altogether fond of him & considerate of his needs as a maker of photographic pictures & fine gentleman to have around the fire. This was the case until the end when the boys did catch him speaking to you & your terrible Jew. They did shun him then as an informer. I heard they did though I was not there to see it & I do not blame you Sir for this but only blame myself who should of done better by him & Tom who—
Well I will write no more of this now but will do it later God Help Me.
But that first evening Ridgeway set his camp up fair near C Company bivouack he surely must of heard our laughing at his expense & he did finally look over to us seeing with his own eyes the sight of Sandy Abe making a show of riding young Gianni Naps or Napoli John as we did call him. Well Ridgeway saw all this & surely did know it was he inspired it but did he curse us or wave his angry fist at the implication that because he had such a handsome head of locks he must be some queer kind of fore & after? No he did not & this does show his innocence for he only stood up & smiled & waved Howdy. He was pure innocent I tell you & it is them who life creases first & not the rum b______ the blaggards & hardshaws & jackanape f______ from the front of the saloon. No for God in his wisdom sees fit to take from us the kind & good & the makers of beautiful things instead of the bad articles. He takes boys like Ridgeway who seek to show the world a prettier place than it is in truth. God takes them as if there is not enough of them in Heaven already.
I tell you Sir it would be better we shunned him like a leper & he might still be walking the Earth & fabricating his pictures of mountains & old tame Indians & serious soldier Bills who think for the time it takes to expose a picture that they are Grant or Sherman for the day instead of some worthless body sent to die in the wilds of the Dakotas with no hair on his head nor nuts tween his legs. It shames me that we did not shun him when we could of but how could we know then what we know now? Only God Himself could know it & in His wisdom He did nothing to stop what was coming.
So we did not shun him when he took to riding with us the next morning Ridgeway afraid maybe his mules would again give up the ghost & leave him adrift & sucking the dust of the march in Sioux country though I never once heard him say one word agin the savages from the 1st day we met. It was trotting beside us that we came to know the boy & over time brung him tight into our fold. He came to be like a member of C Company which is a thing hard to do for a civilian lad & he did it in no time at all.
It is strange & wonderful how we came to speak to him as we rode the parched trail along the banks of the North Platte. There was 103 degrees of heat & dust upon us with him following close by us all morning stopping when we stopped & riding when we rode & I did say in Gaelic to Tom, “That fellow with his mules is like little Eoin Tom God Rest Him. Do you remember Tom? How he was ever following in our wake little Eoin?”
Says Tom, “Bound to make a priest that boy.”
Just low chat like that in the language of home low