Ragtime, the March, and Homer & Langley by E.L. Doctorow

Author:E.L. Doctorow [Doctorow, E. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8575-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-10-29T00:00:00+00:00

Arly and Will rode now in a commissary wagon filled with sacks of flour. Can’t get more comfortable than with your back against this, Arly said, punching a sack into shape to suit him like it was a pillow. A whitish haze filled the air.

Where is this, where we going? Will said.

Well, we’re back with Gen’ral Sherman, Arly said. You knew that.

It’s dark, Will said after a moment.

Well sure, it’s nighttime.

I b’lieve I’m dying, Will said.

Aw now, that’s the way you talk with the least little hurt.

No, it don’t hurt no more, Will said, so it must be so.

Arly could hear him breathe.

I’m thirsty.

Shit, Arly said. He crawled to the front of the wagon and negotiated a canteen from the driver.

The water made Will perkier. At least they can’t execute a dead man, he said, and gave a weak chuckle that ended in a cough.

That’s so, Arly said. He was beginning to wonder if Will truly was dying. The boy seemed so much older all of a sudden. Like he had managed to bypass Arly in age and get on to where men were old and wise and giving instructions.

Can you remember Coley’s Mill? Will said.

Say what?

Where I’m from. Coley’s Mill, up by Asheville.

Is that right? You know, I’m from over the Smokies there in Gatlinburg.

More’n a few Kirklands in town, Will said. But ours is the biggest place. You tell them, O.K.?

Who?

My momma and daddy. Be best if you catch Daddy sober. Tell ’em Will fought an died for the C.S. of A. Can you do that for me?

Well, sure, if it comes to that, but it won’t, you know. Besides, if you die how you going to see your sweetheart Miz Thompson and make your case. I mean, when we find them she will be the one to nurse you along, won’t she? So it wouldn’t pay you to die just now and miss her smiling at you and putting her soft hand behind your neck and lifting your head for a drink of good brandy, or, even better, some laudanum or other sop’rific to ease your mind. See as how even I have picked up on the nomenclature? I should consider after all of this to try medical college for myself. I mean, I have always been good with my hands. Except it is prob’ly not God’s plan because it is not a secure enough thought in my mind to be his thought. And it sure ain’t God putting your dying thoughts into your mind. It is some Devil pretender just to make your ride in the wagon a little bumpier. Hell, there ain’t nothing wrong with you that Miz Thompson can’t fix up with a smile.

Will was silent.

I didn’t tell you before, son Will, but though God has given me his signs, he’s always meant ’em for the both of us, as we have been together since the morning they put you into the penitentiary across from me. That was God’s doing too, as you must know.

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