The next day, we were all jumpy, waiting for the order sending us out after Chewing Bones to come down. Tired of listening to the rumors and guesses, I went to the stable to hide out with Bunny. I plucked a few carrots from Mrs. Drewbott’s garden and fed chunks to Bunny while I munched on one myself. Her whiskery lips were brushing across my flat palm, herding a nice orange chunk into her mouth, when I caught sight of Major Carter and his pal Captain Grundy coming in. I ducked down in the stall with Bunny as I had little regard for either one.
“Hello!” Carter called out. I watched them from between a gap in the stall boards.
“Anybody here?” Grundy asked. When they were sure no one was about, they set to doing what they’d sought out this secluded spot to do and that was gossiping like a pair of old ladies rocking on a porch.
“So it’s true?” Grundy asked. “We’re finally moving out?”
“Drewbott told me to pass the order tomorrow at assembly. Sheridan himself telegrammed. And Grundy, I’m telling you, that wire…” Carter whistled long and low. “It scorched my eyes to read it. I can’t believe Drewbott left it out on his desk.”
“Man’s a mental defective,” Grundy said. “Doesn’t have the sense God gave a turnip. What did Little Phil say?”
“He said, and I quote, ‘I will come down there myself and rip the eagles off your shoulders and replace them with chicken feathers if you do not get up off your hindquarters and bring the renegades in.’”
Grundy chuckled. “That’s old Smash ’em Up for you. I guess we’ll see now if Colonel Yellow Belly is more scared of Chewing Bones or Sheridan.”
“You know who he’s most scared of?” Carter asked.
“His own shadow,” Grundy answered.
Carter snorted a laugh, then turned serious and said, “The darkies.”
Grundy sounded surprised when he asked, “The darkies? Why?”
“Guilty conscience is my guess. Drewbott being from the South and all. He knows what was done to them down there. Knows he’d kill the man who’d ever treated him as the slaves were treated.”
“Doesn’t make sense,” Grundy said. “Aside from the usual rowdies and drunks, the darkies are the most docile, biddable group of soldiers I’ve ever come across. The white outfits are the ones to be scared of. They’re full of killers and thieves, dipsomaniacs and deserters. You read the report, didn’t you?”
“I had a look at it.”
“The colored regiments have the lowest rate of desertion and highest rate of compliance of any west of the Mississippi. And Company J leads them all.”
I swelled up with pride and could hardly wait to slip out and give the Sergeant this news.
Of course, leave it to Carter to take the shine off of anything sparkly. He came right back with, “Biddable, indeed. Like children, aren’t they? The darkies. Happy all the time. You ever pass by the barracks at night, they’ll be singing and laughing and capering about. Too dumb to even realize that this is the ass end of all assignments.”
“Well, really,” Grundy said, “what else have they got? It’s not as if they could go back where they came from. Johnson acts like we fought the war just to clear out the slaveholders and let this new bunch he’s in cahoots with take over. The Clue Clucks something or other. The ones terrorizing the ex-slaves. Riding around in bedsheets and dunce caps.”
“Yes, they’re a dim bunch,” Carter agreed. “But the darkies, they’re children, I tell you. Someone’s got to keep them in line.”
Grundy sighed. “I suppose so.”
Carter leaned in close. “I’ll tell you this much, if Drewbott really does get off his hind end and go after Chewing Bones, you better believe he’ll have at least two officers between himself and the darkies. He’ll have someone guarding his back at all times. Someone white.”
“You know who should keep a guard at his back?”
Carter gave that nasty little laugh of his and answered, “Allbright. Lord, Drewbott does hate that uppity coon, doesn’t he? He put in to have him transferred a month ago. Mark my words, if that request is denied, Drewbott will find some other way to have him removed.”
As they left the stables, Carter’s words drifted back to me. “No, it wouldn’t surprise me one little bit if Sergeant Allbright meets an untimely end on this mission.”