The jangle of metal, the creaking of leather, and the patter of horses’ hooves was on the air as Bob Lee “Reb” Jackson rode down the dusty road. The horse under him was a good strong chestnut, and he was surrounded by riders all in gray. Reb had no eyes for the other cavalrymen, however, for he was watching General Jeb Stuart, who led the troop.
Jeb Stuart was the finest cavalry commander in the Confederacy—many claimed the finest who had ever lived. He rode a coal-black stallion and wore a theatrical uniform. It was ash-gray with a cape lined in scarlet and a black slouch hat that had an ostrich plume stuck into the top. He had very light blue eyes and a full, curly auburn beard.
Reb took pride in the battle that they had just fought. He had been in the charge that had broken the enemy’s ranks, and he could still feel the thrill as the horse under him strained to keep up with General Stuart. His hand had grown painfully stiff from gripping the hilt of his saber so hard. His throat was raw from the screams that he had uttered along with the others of the troop—the famed Confederate battle cry.
The troop thundered into camp, and Stuart cried, “Dismount!” He threw himself off his horse and tossed the reins to an aide. Reb dismounted and was shocked when General Stuart stepped up and said, “Young man, what’s your name?”
“Bob Lee Jackson, sir.”
Stuart laughed. “I like to know my new recruits. Those are good names you got. Robert E. Lee and then Stonewall Jackson. Sounds like they all got into your name.”
“Yes, sir, they did. I’m proud of those names, General Stuart.”
“Well, you did a fine job. I’m gonna expect great things of you, my boy. We’ve got a hard fight ahead of us, every step of the way, but with men like you I know the Confederacy can win.”
Reb felt his legs tremble, for praise from the great Stuart was more than he had anticipated. His fellow cavalrymen pounded him on the shoulders. One of them whispered, “Your first raid, and it looks like you done made your first step toward being a general.”
Laughter went around, and Reb blushed. “I don’t think I’m quite ready for that, but it was some battle, wasn’t it?”
They took care of their horses, and then Reb joined a group that he had grown fond of. He found someone had started a fire, and someone else had found a pig, and soon the smell of roasted meat was sharp on the air.
He sat and listened as older men talked of the great Stuart and the raids he had led them on. One said, “Why, I was there when me and General Stuart rode around the whole Union Army. General McClellan never knowed where we was. That was a fine day for the general.”
Reb took his share of the food, ate it hungrily, and washed it down with water from the creek that curled around the section of camp they were in. He finally lay down, hearing the sound of horses stomping and pawing the turf and neighing softly at one another. He knew that guards were posted, and that it was safe to sleep, though the enemy was near. So he closed his eyes, pulled his soft felt hat down over his face, and was instantly asleep.
Something—he never knew what—awaked him sometime during the night. He sensed that it was very late. At first he thought one of his fellow troopers had awakened him, but glancing around he saw that they were all still under their blankets. And the guard had moved to the other end of his post.
Then a figure came out of the darkness and seemed to be searching for something—or someone.
Why, it’s a blasted spy! Reb thought at once. Throwing his blanket off, he leaped to his feet and reached out to grab the man. He was shocked to see, however, that is was no more than a boy. Pulling him to the fire, he saw that it was a black boy.
“You been stealin’ food, boy?” he demanded sharply, holding the boy’s thin arms.
“No, I didn’t come to steal anything.”
“Well, what are you doing sneaking around here then?”
“I came lookin’ to be some help to you.”
Well, you got nerve, Reb thought. “Here you come, sneakin’ into camp offering to help me. Why, you don’t even know me.”
“Your name’s Bob Lee Jackson, but some call you Reb, don’t they?”
Reb blinked with surprise. Indeed, he had been called that more than once. “But they call all of us Reb,” he said. Then he released the boy. “You get on out of here, boy. You’re liable to get hurt.”
“Don’t some of your men sometimes take their body servants with them when they join the army?”
“Some of the rich men do. They have body servants, but not me. I never had a slave. Don’t want one either.”
“Never had any slaves? Not any of your family?”
“None of us never had no slaves. We’re not fighting this war over slavery. It’s over states’ rights. We got a right to leave the Union if we want to. Just like we had a right to join it if we wanted to. But I don’t want to stand here and argue politics. Now, you get a-movin’. We’re going to be pulling out early in the morning.”
“Take me with you, please,” the black boy said. “I can wash your clothes, and cook your food, and polish your boots, and sharpen your sword. I can do all them things for you. I don’t want nothin’—just maybe something to eat.”
Reb stared at him. He had, as a matter of fact, a spare horse, which most of the troopers did not. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Well, now, I don’t know,” he said doubtfully. “Fellows might think I’m kind of stuck-up.”
“It don’t matter what they think.”
“I guess you’re right,” Reb said with some surprise. “I’ll tell you what. You can go along for a while, but when I tell you to go, you got to go. All right?”
“Sure, that’s all right. I’ll take care of you real good, Mr. Bob Lee Jackson!”
Reb was troubled by the young black boy, Wash, who had come two weeks earlier. At first it had been rather entertaining to have a servant. He had endured a great deal of teasing from his fellow troopers, but he had laughed at them, saying, “You’re just jealous ’cause I’ve got somebody to wait on me.”
But as time had gone by, somehow the boy made him nervous. This was difficult to do, for Reb was not a nervous type. He had enough nerve for ten men, as his lieutenant soon found out. He passed the word along to General Stuart.
“If we had five hundred men like that young Jackson, we could take Washington tonight,” Stuart had bragged to some of his staff officers. Word had gotten back about this to Reb, and he was proud of it.
Still, there was something about the black boy that troubled him. He questioned Wash many times about where he came from, but “Oh, I come from a long way off, Mr. Bob Lee Jackson” was the only answer that he could get out of him.
The thing that really bothered Reb was that he knew he had seen that black boy before. But where? That he could not pin down. He would ask Wash. “Was you ever in Georgia?”
“No, sir.”
“How about Alabama?”
“Nope, never in Alabama.”
“Mississippi, then. I guess I seen you down in Mississippi. I spent some time down there breakin’ some horses for a fella.”
“Nope, never was in Mississippi,” Wash said.
“Well, I’ve seen you somewhere.”
“I think maybe you have, but it’ll have to come to you ’cause I can’t say right now.”
“Why can’t you say?”
“You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”
“I probably wouldn’t. All you body servants are notorious liars,” Reb said half angrily.
They had gone on two more raids. Wash had been left behind, of course, with the cooks and the supply wagons. Reb survived both actions and found himself strangely glad to see the quiet face of the black boy when he got back.
“I thought you might have left while I was gone,” he said after the second raid.
“No—waiting for you. You figured out where you seen me yet?”
Reb stared at him. “No, I haven’t. I guess I was wrong.”
“No, you weren’t wrong,” Wash said quietly. “It’ll come to you.”
For days this went on. Reb slept poorly. Dreams came to him—strange dreams about things that he knew could not possibly have happened. He did not share them with anyone, but one day Wash, who was making biscuits, said, “Have you been dreaming about me, Mr. Bob Lee Jackson?”
“How’d you know that?” The sentence was out before Reb could catch it. He stared at the boy with astonishment. “How did you know I dreamed about you?”
“There’s lots of things in this world that we can’t understand,” Wash said. “Ain’t that so?”
“Why, I reckon it is. So what about it?”
“I mean, look up at those stars. Look at ’em. There’s millions of ’em, and they’re always in the same place. What holds them there? Why don’t they all fall down? And you know those ducks that came over. How do they know to leave and go south? How do they know to do that?”
“I don’t know. They just know, I reckon.”
“You know that’s not so. Something made ’em that way. This whole world is working, and nobody understands it. But we know that there’s something behind it—somebody made it. A lot of this world is mighty strange. And those dreams of yours—you don’t understand them, do you?”
“No, I don’t!” Reb said angrily. “And why would I dream about you? I dreamed once I was all dressed up in a tin suit. I had some kind of a long spear, and you was ridin’ a horse behind me. Crazy dream.”
Wash went ahead to tell other experiences the two had had in Camelot.
Reb stared at him, his mouth open.
“You don’t know how I know about that dream?”
“No, I don’t. Are you a witch of some kind?”
“No, I’m not no witch, no sorcerer, and no magician either. But you see, Reb, those dreams that you keep having—they weren’t dreams. They were real.”
Reb laughed, at first. “You’re as nutty as a pecan orchard!” he said and stalked away.
But time after time Reb would come back and say, “Tell me some more about my dreams.” And as Wash told him experiences from life in Nuworld, Reb would grow almost fearful. “There’s something wrong with all this,” he muttered. “Something real bad about it. I don’t know what it is.”
One day General Stuart appeared at his tent and said, “We’re going into action. Get every man mounted.”
Reb said, “I’m glad to get away from you, Wash. You’re just driving me crazy. I still think you’re some kind of a spook or something.”
Wash stood looking after him. “That is one stubborn fellow,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever get him to go back to Nuworld. He always loved the South, especially the Confederate Army, even though he never saw it. I guess he’s getting his dream, and he ain’t going to leave it.”
All day he listened to the cannons and the gunfire. The battle was not more than a mile away, and for a long time it seemed unsettled as to who would win.
Finally General Stuart led his men back. Wash saw Lieutenant Smith, but he could not find Reb. Going to the lieutenant, he said, “Lieutenant Smith, where’s Bob Lee Jackson?”
“I’m afraid he got hit. It was bad, Wash. I’m sorry, but he didn’t make it.”
Wash stared at him and then shook his head. “He made it. I’m going after him.” He saddled Reb’s spare horse and left the camp, despite Lieutenant Smith’s calling, “Come back! Some of those Yankees are still out there.”
Wash was not an expert rider, but the horse was not a spirited one. He guided him as best he could, and soon he began to see the dead lying beside the road. Some were in blue uniforms and some in gray. “He can’t be dead,” he muttered. “He’s got to be alive.”
Wash got off and checked a body from time to time. Most of them were dead; a few were wounded and struggling to retain life. He saw no signs of Union troops. And then, as he was scurrying around, he heard a voice saying, “Wash . . .”
“Reb!” Wash ran to him.
Reb was lying on his back, struggling to sit up. His right shoulder was bloody and his right side as well.
“Take it easy, Reb,” Wash whispered.
“I guess I’m done for,” Reb gasped.
“No, you ain’t done for. Let me get that horse. We’re going to get you to the doctor.”
Wash struggled and finally got Reb into the saddle. It was all he could do, for Reb could help very little. “Just hang on, Reb, while I get on behind you. Then I’ll hold you on.”
They got back to camp with Wash holding the bloody boy in front of him. He slipped off the horse, and troopers came to take Reb’s limp body.
“Surgery is right over here. Doctors will get him the best help there is.”
General Stuart came. He looked down on the wounded body and shook his head. “Poor boy! Poor boy!”
Reb regained consciousness, then slipped away, many times. For a time he never knew whether he was awake or asleep. He did know that he kept having dreams about dinosaurs, about living under the sea, about men that flew, strange wild dreams, and always, in every dream, the small black boy called Wash was by his side.
Finally, he did awake and saw Wash’s face. He licked his lips, and Wash immediately brought water.
“Here now,” he said, “hold your head up and sip some of this—not too much now. You can have all you want, but not all at once.”
“Where am I?” Reb whispered. His shoulder and side hurt, but he did not allow it to show on his face. “You brought me back?”
“Yes, I did. You’re going to be all right, Reb.”
Reb reached out, as if he could not believe what he saw, and touched the black face above him. “Wash—”
“Yeah, Reb?”
“You was telling me the truth, wasn’t you? About all them things I dream about?”
“Sure was, and I’m going to tell you some more, as you get better.”
That was the beginning. It took several days, and Reb listened for long periods without saying a word. It was more than he could understand, but finally the day came when he believed.
“That was real about Camelot. I always wanted to go back there. I remember that now.”
“You’re going back some day, Reb. It’s what you wanted to do more than anything. You were a knight, and there was a lady there that was mighty fond of you.”
“I remember,” Reb whispered. He looked at the wounded soldiers around him and said, “This isn’t real, is it?”
“No, it’s just a dream, Reb. Are you ready to go back?”
“I reckon I am. Just tell me how. We better get home, Wash.”