"Looked good, too," Robert said, "till he's almost to the tank and you see his legs go out in front of him like he's sitting down. Made a way bigger splash than any of yours. I believe his timing was off a speck, but he was cool to try it. Have to give him that."
Dennis said to Robert, "You're not gonna try it, are you?"
"Why would you ask me that?"
"Don't, okay?"
"No, man, I can admire it without feeling the need to do it. Listen, I told Jerry to look for you at the Federal camp. Where you going now?"
"Get my corporal stripes cut off," Dennis said. "Or Colonel Rau won't let me play war."
"What you do," Robert said, "stay close as you can to Hector and Tonto, you'll be okay. I told them to get up close to the woods on the north side, straight out there, and I'll give 'em the sign when to duck in."
"I'm not getting into anything over my head." "That's what I'm saying to you. They'll see you don't get in trouble."
Charlie said, "The hell are you talking about?" "I have to go," Robert said, and went off to join his Confederates.
Charlie watched him walk off and then turned to Dennis. "What's going on?"
"If I knew," Dennis said, "I'd tell you."
"Well, I gotta go study my script," Charlie said, and headed for the barn.
And now Dennis was on his way to visit the Naughty Child woman. See if she had a pair of scissors. It was strange, he could tell Loretta was younger than he was by a few years, and yet he thought of her as a woman and not a girl. Or as Arlen 's wife.
23
SHE WASN'T OUTSIDE. She could be in the tent. And Arlen could be in there with her, but he doubted it. Dennis stepped under the awning.
"Loretta?"
"Who is it?" Her voice close.
He said, "Dennis," not sure if that was enough.
The flap opened and there was her face, no makeup, her features clean-scrubbed, shiny. She didn't give him much of a smile, but her eyes were calm and didn't leave his face.
"I need to get my stripes cut off."
"For leaving your post last night, huh? And you didn't even get any pie."
"I wasn't thinking of pie. But listen, all I need is a pair of scissors." He heard his voice taking on a soft accent to match hers.
"Well, come on in, take your jacket off."
Dennis laid his rifle on the table and stood by the tent flap unbuttoning the shell, got it open and took off his kepi to place it next to the rifle.
"You coming?"
He said, "What're you doing?" opening the tent and stepping into light that had lost its brightness, filtered through the canvas. She was wearing nothing above her long skirt but a thin, flimsy bra he could see through and holding a washcloth in her hand. Loretta didn't act surprised or self-conscious; or seductive, for that matter. She made it seem natural for him to see her this way, soaping her arm.
"Going to fight the battle?"
"I could get shot right here," Dennis said.
It didn't make her smile. She said, "I'll cut off your stripes," and held the washcloth toward him, "if you'll wash my back." Still natural making the offer.
Dennis took the washcloth. He thought she would turn. When she didn't he stepped around her and she lowered her head and reached back with both hands to lift her hair out of the way. He wiped the cloth across her back, trying not to touch the bra straps, smelling the soap, moving the cloth lower now and under her raised arm, the tips of his fingers coming to the slight swell of her breast.
"You have a nice touch," Loretta said.
Dennis worked his way over to the hollow beneath her other arm.
"I can see why those girls look at you as a possible. You always this tender?"
He thought to say, Well, I'm not washing a car.
And scrapped it because he did feel tender moving his hand over her small bones, her white skin-though not as white as Vernice's, Vernice a lot rounder than Loretta, Loretta skin and bones by comparison, more athletic, that wiry type, sometimes a tiger in bed, though Vernice was active for her size.
"I said, are you always this tender?"
"I touched you," Dennis said, "and the tender feeling came with it. I'm having trouble, though, working around these straps."
"Why don't you unhook me?"
He did and she pulled the bra off in front of her. By the time he came around to her breasts, not near the size of Vernice's but a woman's breasts all the same, he could look over her shoulder and see them, Loretta pressing herself against him. They'd be on the cot anytime now and he had to think of what he'd take off. She lifted her skirt, gathering it above her hips, and turned to him bare underneath saying, "Don't take your clothes off. Let's do it right now."
Dennis said, "Just once?"
And Loretta said, "Oh, honey…"
They made love in the hot tent, Dennis in his wool uniform, pants around his knees, and it was like finding his match in a woman they were so natural with each other, playing, having fun, their eyes holding until first her eyes and then his squeezed closed. This time he did not think of Vernice.
She said, after, "You have a car?"
"Where do you want to go?"
She said, "Anywhere," and said, "I could announce your dives, do that cute patter about getting splashed."
It stopped him. "You saw my show?"
She said, "Honey, I watched you every night you dove."
The bivouac seemed more military than it did when he left: no clothes hanging from stacked rifles, not as much gear lying around, the Yankee reenactors taking down their tents, getting ready for battle. Dennis had slept in the open last night and shared the First Iowa soldier's breakfast this morning, fried salt pork and biscuits he'd brought from home soaked in the grease. With the coffee it went through Dennis like a fire hose.
The First Iowan said, "You missed the drill. We marched out there and showed our stuff. The colonel said we didn't look too bad."
Dennis, now a private, said, "I was getting my stripes cut off," and saw her face again close in that hot tent.
The First Iowan said, "General Grant showed up and the colonel wasn't too pleased to see him. The first sergeant says he was sore anyways 'cause of the truck still sitting in the bivouac. No keys and nobody'd come to pick it up. The colonel asked General Grant what kind of credentials he had. Who said it was okay for him to be commander in chief of the Union Army? The first sergeant said the general told him, `Abraham Lincoln, who the fuck do you think.' "
Jerry was sitting on the tailgate of the pickup smoking a cigar, Hector and Tonto with him, Hector holding Jerry's sword. Dennis, approaching them, had already made up his mind he wasn't going to salute or call him general. He saw them waiting for him, Jerry saying to him as he walked up, "Where you been?"
Dennis said, "Getting my stripes cut off," and again saw Loretta's face. Then saw her another time, somewhere else, Loretta saying, Feel like getting your stripes cut off?
"These guys were about to go find you," Jerry said. "Drag you here if they had to. You understand? You got nothing to say about it."
"He means we need you," Hector said, "as the bait."
"We get 'em where we want 'em," Jerry said, "you stay close. Try to run, one of us'll shoot you."
They were talking about setting up Arlen and his guys, but it didn't make sense. Dennis said, "You don't have bullets in your guns. Nobody does."
Hector said, "Robert didn't tell you, uh? We trade them in, man, for loaded pistols."
"How do we do that?"
"You see it happen."
"You're gonna shoot those guys," Dennis said, "and then what, take off?"
"Man, Robert didn't tell you shit," Hector said.
"All you got to know," Jerry said, "you run, you're dead. By any chance you get picked up 'cause you're stupid and the cops offer you a deal to give us up? You're fuckin dead. You're in it. You understand? You told Robert you're in all the way, right?"