Nostalgia by Dennis McFarland Page B

wrong.”
    “Well, I guess they have to make decisions,” Hayes said. “Regardless of what they know or don’t know.”
    “I understand that,” Leggett said. “It’s hard to sit up tall on a horse with a saber on your belt and a plume in your cap and just scratch your head and shrug your shoulders. But there’s another problem that’s less comprehensible.”
    “What’s that?”
    “How slow they are to learn from experience,” said Leggett. He pulled his cap down over his face. “Very slow to learn from their mistakes,” he added.
    Later on, long after dark and after they’d eaten, Billy Swift stopped by and, a few minutes after that, Rosamel. They had only a small fire, since the night was unpleasantly warm. Somewhere off in the distance, they could hear music—Swift told them a group of contrabands was putting on an amusement—and, farther away still, the occasional pop of a picket’s gun. Their own muskets were stacked in a pyramid near the tent. Once Rosamel had taken a corner of Hayes’s blanket and sat down with the three other men—and, like the three others, removed his shoes—Billy Swift said, “Rosamel, you’re not cutting your usual dashing figure. I don’t think I’ve ever see you looking so bedraggled.”
    “I have never been so … what is this word?”
    “
Débraillé
, I think,” said Hayes.
    “Ah, yes, I have never been so bedraggled,” said Rosamel, taking off his red fez and holding it in his lap. “And I cannot feel my feet. They are numb.”
    “You’re lucky,” said Swift. “I wish my feet was numb.”
    “I wish they didn’t stink quite so much,” said Hayes. “Maybe you ought to think about washing them every now and then.”
    “I washed them this afternoon,” said Swift, pulling one foot up to his nose and sniffing.
    This antic from the half-pint Swift made Hayes think of a monkey. “Swift,” he said, “I’m kidding.”
    Swift found a pinecone on the ground and threw it across the fire at Hayes, who caught it with one hand right in front of his face. Hayes considered throwing it back but only tossed it into the fire.
    “I do not like this forest,” said Rosamel, “this Wilderness. It is inhabited with the remains of dead men. There are bones … pieces of rotting uniforms … even the skeletons of horses.”
    “Leggett doesn’t much care for it either,” said Hayes, glancing at Leggett, who only continued staring into the fire.
    “I noticed he was awful quiet,” said Swift. “Uncharacteristic, I’d say. Do you reckon he’s feeling his age, after marching twenty-odd miles?”
    Leggett looked at Billy Swift as if he’d not noticed him till now. He scrutinized the boy for a few seconds, then said, “And I reckon I prefer the company of my thoughts and memories to the likes of you.”
    “Oh, come on, Leggett,” said Swift, undeterred, not in the least offended. “I don’t recollect any previous time when we weren’t compatible with your thoughts and memories. I’d say they’ve been our good friends.”
    Leggett appeared to consider what Billy Swift had said, for it was undoubtedly true. “Well, if you don’t mind,” said Leggett, “I’ll just keep them to myself tonight.”
    “It is this forest,” said Rosamel. “It makes a man pensive.”
    “Tell us about the fellow who was shot dead sitting on the fence rail,” said Swift, but Leggett only cast him another scrutinizing glare.
    Evidently determined to get some kind of rise out of Leggett, Swift said, “Tell us the long long story about the private who set off the bomb the rebels had buried—”
    Just then, they heard hushed laughter from the surrounding darkness, and Swift fell silent. Another foursome of soldiers emerged into the firelight, and one of the young privates sent a skull from the tip of his bayonet clattering across the ground into their circle, right toward Hayes. “Take a look, boys,” said the soldier who’d loosed it, “that’s where we’re headed