White Doves at Morning by James Lee Burke

a spoon, his thumb and index finger
all the way up the handle, scraping the food directly into his mouth.
    "What's your name?" Willie
asked.
    "Tige McGuffy," the boy said.
    "How old might you be, Tige?"
Willie asked.
    "Eleven, pert' near twelve,"
the boy said.
    "Well, we're mighty pleased to
meet you, Tige McGuffy," Willie said.
    "This mush with bacon is a
treat. I ain't never quite had it prepared like that," Tige said. "How
come you was puking out in the trees?"
    "Don't rightly know, Tige,"
Willie said, and for the first time that day he laughed.
    Out on the edge of the
firelight the musicians sang,
    "White
doves come at morning
Where my soldier sleeps in the
ground.
I placed my ring in his coffin,
The trees o'er his grave have
all turned brown."
    Jim stood up and flung a
pine cone at them.
    "Put a stop to that kind of
song!" he yelled.
    As the campfires died in the
clearing, Jim and Willie took their blankets out in the trees and drank
the half-pint of whiskey Jim had bought off a Tennessee rifleman.
    Jim made a pillow by wrapping
his shoes in his haversack, then lay back in his blankets, gazing up at
the sky.
    "A touch of the giant-killer
sure makes a fellow's prospects seem brighter, doesn't it?" he said.
    Willie drew his blanket up to
his shoulders and propped his head on his arm.
    "Wonder how a little fellow
like Tige ends up here," he said.
    "He'll get through it. We'll
all be fine. Those Yankees better be afraid of us, that's all I can
say," Jim said.
    "Think so?" Willie said.
    Jim drank the last
ounce in the whiskey bottle. "Absolutely," he
replied."Good night, Willie."
    "Good night, Jim."
    They went to sleep, their
bodies warm with alcohol, with dogwood and redbud trees in bloom at
their heads and feet, the black sky now dotted with stars.

Chapter Seven
    THEY woke the next morning to
sunlight that was like glass needles through the trees and the sounds
of men and horses running, wagons banging over the ruts out on the
Corinth Road, tin pots spilling out of the back of a mobile field
kitchen.
    They heard a single rifle shot
in the distance, then a spatter of small-arms fire that was like
strings of Chinese firecrackers exploding. They jumped from their
blankets and ran back to the clearing where they had cooked their food
and stacked their Enfields the previous night. The air was
cinnamon-colored with dust and leaves that had been powdered by running
feet. Their Enfields and haversacks lay abandoned on the ground.
    The men from the 6th
Mississippi were already moving northward through the trees, their
bayonets fixed. Tige McGuffy was strapping his drum around his neck,
his hands shaking.
    "What happened to the 18th
Lou'sana?" Jim said.
    "Them Frenchies you come in
with?" Tige said.
     "Yes, where did they
go?" Willie asked, his heart tripping.
     "West,
toward Owl Creek. A kunnel on horseback come in before dawn and moved
them out. Where'd y'all go to?" Tige replied.
    Willie and Jim looked at
each other.
    "I think we're seriously in the shitter," Jim said.
    "How far is this Owl Creek?"
Willie said.
    Before Tige could answer a
cannon shell arced out of the sky and exploded over the canopy. Pieces
of hot metal whistled through the leaves and lay smoking on the ground.
Tige hitched up his drum, a drumstick in each hand, and ran to join his
comrades.
    "Let's go, Jim. They're going
to put us down as deserters for sure," Willie said.
    Jim went back into the trees
and retrieved their blankets while Willie repacked their haversacks.
They started through the hardwoods in a westerly direction and ran
right into a platoon of Tennessee infantry, jogging by twos, their
rifle barrels canted at an upward angle, a redheaded, barrel-chested
sergeant, with sweat rings under his arms, wheezing for breath at their
side.
    "Where might you two fuckers
think you're going?" he said.
    "You sound like you're from
Erin, sir," Willie said.
    "Shut your 'ole and fall in
behind me," the sergeant said.
    "We're with the 18th
Lou'sana," Jim