Valley of the Shadow: A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

world, Captain Hotchkiss, a madcap world. I do have days when I believe I should have stayed home in Rocky Mount with a barrel of good whiskey.” He turned his head toward the house, feeling the stiffness of age. He shouted: “Colonel Pendleton? Any damned body?”
    In moments, Sandie Pendleton appeared. He, too, had recently married, despite Early’s remonstrance. His bride was a woman of irksome vivacity, pregnant as a sow.
    Early fished in his pocket for another chaw. “Orders for General Breckinridge. Get him started toward Frederick. His division and Gordon’s, his whole wing. After dark, when it’s cool.”
    “It’s hardly cool even then, sir. But I take your point.”
    “Then get orders out to everybody else. This army converges on Frederick. Sweep away any damned militia, I’ve had enough of Johnson’s pussyfooting. And let me read those orders for his pony-boys.”
    “Yes, sir. Anything else?”
    Down in the street, a last, lone soldier limped along, more dust than man, rifle athwart his shoulders. He showed no interest in the occupants of the high porch, his only concern putting one foot down, then the other.
    “Anything else, sir?” Pendleton repeated.
    “See if there’s any more of that lemonade.”
    July 7, 3:45 p.m.
    Monocacy Junction
    Lew Wallace watched as his men worked the ropes to lower the big brass gun into position. The twenty-four-pounder was the only powerful piece of artillery he had, and he’d ordered the construction of a demi-lunette, all done by the book, that would let it range the far fields across the river. Red-faced, with gritted teeth, the artillerymen did the work of a half dozen mules, yet beyond the normal condemnations of various deities, ancestors, and hypothetical females, the men seemed willing enough. He only hoped they would be as willing once the shooting began.
    Watching his soldiers strain, Wallace felt a democratic, midwestern urge to strip off his blouse and help them. But generals had to remain aloof, he had learned, so the men would not realize how mortal and slight they were.
    He listened for a renewal of the fighting west of Frederick, along the Hagerstown road. But the skirmishing and occasional clashes had calmed around noon and the fields remained still across the heavy hours. It had given him time to push support to Clendenin, whose men had fired up their carbine ammunition, and he had dispatched Ras Tyler to take overall command and to get what service he could out of his Potomac Home Brigade’s Sunday-soldiers. It was a patchwork force, at best, but they might hold, if the Rebs didn’t press too hard. Wallace purposed to keep the Confederates out of Frederick City through the night, then to read the situation again in the morning. Every delay was of inestimable value. But the real fight would be here, on the river line; that wouldn’t change. Tomorrow or the next day would bring the bloodletting.
    Below the grunting soldiers on the ropes—barked at by a sergeant with an impressive command of metaphor—the station telegrapher stumped his way up the side of the bluff. The fellow was as important as any colonel now, maintaining Wallace’s lifeline to the world, a single wire. Odd for him to stray out in the heat, though. Corpulent, the telegrapher had not been subsisting on military rations. This had to be something important, Wallace realized.
    One hoped it was not more bad news.
    “Max,” Wallace said to his aide, “see what that poor devil’s got for us, before he collapses and we’re all in the sink.”
    Captain Woodhull hastened down the slope, breaking into a trot, only to slow again where the bluff dropped off. Dry grass remained bowed where the captain passed.
    The gun settled into place with a thud. The men sighed and loosed the ropes, although the sergeant’s profanities continued.
    Wallace turned back to the lesser spectacle of his aide and the heaving telegrapher. Woodhull was reading the message the man had carried.
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