Synbat by Bob Mayer

Author:Bob Mayer [Mayer, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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*Chapter 11* _Land Between the Lakes_ _2:30 P.M._ "Look at them damn rebels," Jeremiah muttered. "I thought they was supposed to be setting up yonder along the holler." "It don't start till tomorrow, Jer." Louis, the elder of the Sattler brothers, locked the brake on the tractor trailer truck and turned off the engine. "I guess they're setting up here for tonight and are leaving their trailers and such in the parking lot for the duration. I'm sure they'll be gone tomorrow." "I don't want to be spending no night this close to rebels." Jeremiah spit a large wad of tobacco out the window on his side, then opened the door and followed it out. Louis exited his door and met his brother in front of their rig. Four men on horses splattered by in the rain and tipped their hats. Louis returned the gesture while his brother pointedly ignored the riders. The men wore the light gray and butternut of southern cavalry. Jeremiah noted the insignia on their belt buckles -- 3d Georgia Cavalry. Jeremiah and his brother were dressed in the dark blue coats and light blue pants of Union soldiers. Their insignia designated them as members of the 7th Cavalry -- the Garry Owen Regiment. Louis was wearing the rank of a lieutenant; Jeremiah, only fifteen years young, was a private. "There's the colonel. Let's see where we picket the horses." The two brothers had just driven seven hours from the regiment's hometown of Waukegan, Illinois, a moderate-sized city on the north side of Chicago. A truck driver in his other life, Louis hauled the trailer containing eight of the regiment's horses whenever the unit traveled to a reenactment. The rest of the men should be arriving later in the day and on into the evening in several cars. The long weekend's festivities would start this evening with a formal mustering of the Confederate and Union forces on the large open field three miles to the south of the LBL Wrangler Camp. Then the two groups would separate and conduct mock battle for the two days before heading home Sunday evening. Louis was looking forward to this camp. It was predicted that there would be units from almost every state east of the Mississippi. A visitor wandering through the area would have felt transported a hundred and thirty years to an era of citizen-soldiers who waged the bloodiest war the world had seen up until that point. Every detail was painstakingly exact, from the horses' rigs to the wire-rim glasses the men wore. No modern tents were pitched in the campground; rather there were canvas tarps stretched between trees, and men cooking "sloosh" on their ramrods over open fires. At every reenactment, Louis felt himself sent back to a time when he should have been born. In his heart he was a cavalryman in the 7th Cavalry. His other existence as a truck driver for Red Ball Lines was just to provide him the means to explore his real life on these weekend trips.

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