”The husband, by God, is an undertaker.’” He rode mournfully off. The sound of music began to drift up the hill from Gettysburg. A preacher from the Seminary began a low, insistent, theological argument with a young lieutenant, back and forth, back and forth, the staff listening with admiration at the lovely words. The staff began to bed down for the night. It was near midnight when the buck-toothed boy came back from Reynolds, panting down from a lathered horse. Buford read: General Buford: Hold your ground. I will come in the morning as early as possible. John Reynolds.
Buford nodded. All right. If you say so. The officers were up and gathering. Buford said to the buck-toothed boy, “Did he say anything else?”
”No sir. He was very busy.”
”How far back is he?”
”Not ten miles, sir, I don’t think.”
”Well,” Buford said. He faced the staff: the eager, the wary. “We’re going to hold here in the morning.” He paused, still fuzzy-brained. “We’ll try to hold long enough for General Reynolds to come up with some infantry. I want to save the high ground, if we can.”
There was a breathy silence, some toothy grins, as if he had announced a party.
”I think they’ll be attacking us at dawn. We ought to be able to stop them for a couple of hours.”
At Thorofare Gap we held for six. But that was better ground.
Devin was glowing. “Hell, General, we can hold them all the long damned day, as the feller says.”
Buford frowned. He said slowly, “I don’t know how long will be necessary. It may be a long time. We can force them to deploy, anyway, and that will take up time. Also, that’s a narrow road Lee’s coming down, and if we stack them up back there they’ll be a while getting untracked. But the point is to hold long enough for the infantry. If we hang onto these hills, we have a good chance to win the fight that’s coming. Understood?”
He had excited them. They were young enough to be eager for this. He felt a certain breathless quality himself.
He ordered a good feed for the night, no point now in saving food. They moved out to give their orders. Buford rode out once more, in the dark, to the picket line.
He posted the lead pickets himself, not far from the Rebel line. There were four men along the bridge: New York and Illinois, two of them very young. They were popeyed to be so near the Rebs. Closer than anybody in the whole dang army.
Buford said, “They should come in just at about first light. Keep a clear eye. Stay in there long enough to get a good look, then shoot and run. Give us a good warning, but fire only a few rounds. Don’t wait too long before you pull out.”
A corporal said stiffly, “Yes, sir. General, sir.” He broke into a giggle. Buford heard a boy say, “Now aint you glad you jined the calvry?”
Buford rode back to the Seminary. He made his headquarters there. In the morning he would have a good view from the cupola. He dismounted and sat down to rest. It was very quiet. He closed his eyes and he could see fields of snow, miles and miles of Wyoming snow, and white mountains in the distance, all clean and incredibly still, and no man anywhere and no motion.
4. LONGSTREET.
In Longstreet’s camp, they were teaching the Englishman to play poker. They had spread a blanket near a fire and hung a lantern on a tree and they sat around the blanket slapping bugs in the dark, surrounded by campfires, laughter and music. The Englishman was a naturally funny man. He was very thin and perpetually astonished and somewhat gap-toothed, and his manner of talking alone was enough to convulse them, and he enjoyed it. His name was Fremantle-Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Lyon Fremantle- late of Her Majesty’s Coldstream Guards, observing for the Queen. There were several other foreigners in the group and they followed Longstreet’s headquarters like a small shoal of colorful fish. They were gathered around the blanket now, watching Fremantle perform, and everyone was laughing except the Prussian, Scheiber, a stocky man in a stained white suit, who was annoyed that no one could speak German.
Longstreet sat with his back against a tree, waiting. His fame as a poker player was legendary but he had not played in a long time, not since the deaths of his children, and he did not feel like it now; but he liked to sit in the darkness and watch, passing the time silently, a small distance away, a member of it all warmed by the fire but still not involved in it, not having to talk.
What bothered him most was the blindness. Jeb Stuart had not returned. The army had moved all day in enemy country and they had not even known what was around the next bend. Harrison ’s news was growing old: the Union Army was on the move. Longstreet had sent the spy back into Gettysburg to see what he could find, but Gettysburg was almost thirty miles away and he had not yet returned.
Longstreet dreamed, storing up energy, knowing the fight was coming and resting deliberately, relaxing the muscles, feeling himself loose upon the earth and filling with strength slowly, as the lungs fill with clean air. He was a patient man; he could outwait the dawn. He saw a star falclass="underline" a pale cold spark in the eastern sky. Lovely sight. He remembered, counting stars at midnight in a pasture: a girl. The girl thought they were messages from God. Longstreet grinned: she loves me, she loves me not.
”Sir?”
He looked up-a slender, haughty face: G. Moxley Sorrel, Longstreet’s chief of staff. Longstreet said, “Major.”
”I’m just back from General Lee’s headquarters, sir. The General has retired for the night. Everything going nicely, sir. General Lee says we should all be concentrated around Gettysburg tomorrow evening.”
”Nothing from Stuart?”
”No, sir. But some of General Hill’s troops went into Gettysburg this afternoon and claim they saw Union cavalry there.”
Longstreet looked up sharply. Sorrel went on: “They had orders not to engage, so they withdrew. General Hill thinks they were mistaken. He says it must be militia. He’s going back in force in the morning.”
”Who saw cavalry? What officer?”
”Ah, Johnston Pettigrew, I believe, sir.”
”The scholar? Fella from North Carolina?”
”Ah, yes, sir. I think so, sir.”
”Blue cavalry?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Why doesn’t Hill believe him? Does Hill have other information?”
”No, sir. Ah, I would say, sir, judging from what I heard, that General Hill thinks that, ah, Pettigrew is not a professional and tends to be overexcited and perhaps to exaggerate a bit.”
”Urn.” Longstreet rubbed his face. If there was infantry coming, as Harrison had said, there would be cavalry in front of it.
”What does General Lee say?”
”The General, ah, defers to General Hill’s judgment, I believe.”
Longstreet grimaced. He thought: we have other cavalry.
Why doesn’t the old man send for a look? Tell you why: he can’t believe Stuart would let him down.
”Have you any orders, sir?” Sorrel was gazing longingly toward the poker game.
”No.”
”The men are anxious to have you join the game, sir. As you once did.”
”Not tonight. Major.”
Sorrel bowed. “Yes, sir. Oh, by the way, sir, General Pickett sends his compliments and states that he will be dropping by later this evening for a chat.”
Longstreet nodded. There’ll be a complaint from old George. But good to see him. Sorrel moved off into a burst of laughter, a cloud of lovely tobacco. Longstreet sat brooding.
There was an odor of trouble, an indefinable wrong. It was like playing chess and making a bad move and not knowing why but knowing instinctively that it was a bad move. The instincts were yelling. As they used to do long ago at night in Indian country. He gazed out into the black.
The stars were obscured. It was the blindness that bothered him. Cavalry in Gettysburg? Harrison would know.