As soon as I finished at the guardhouse, I took my cart, but instead of wheeling on back to the kitchen, I kept right on going. Whatever life I’d have as a civilian surely couldn’t be any worse than what Vikers and his men had planned for me.
A mile or so outside the post, a pack of freedmen, women, and children were huddled up next to the road. They swarmed about me, thrusting victuals my way. One woman had a basket of roast sweet taters, two for a penny. An old man, eyes so filmed over they were solid gray, held out a trembling hand with a palm’s worth of ground corn. A bold little fellow had a single egg, “stole fresh that morning,” that he hounded me to buy off him for a nickel. I told him he ought to be selling brass as he had a mite too much of it.
I was trudging down the road toward St. Louie, when the very distinctly military sound of iron halters and bits jingling, tack creaking, and hooves drumming along smartly up ahead caused me to jump off the road and hide myself behind the cane grass growing there. Five riders approached. One of them carried a swallow-tail guidon that snapped in the wind above their heads.
As they came within sight, my eyes went first to the men’s rank insignia. It had become second nature to check that even before looking at a face: a first sergeant flanked by four corporals. Each one was spit-and-polished to such a high gleam that they looked to have been punched out at the Perfect Soldier factory.
Before I could even make out the first sergeant, I knew who he was from the way he sat his horse. I stepped back into the road, my hand frozen in a salute would have done the Kaiser of Prussia proud.
The Sergeant reined up, returned my salute, and asked, “Private, could you direct me to Carlisle Barracks? I need to meet my new unit and begin training as quickly as possible.”
I gave First Sergeant Levi Allbright directions, turned my barrow around, and wheeled back to post.