“He refused to help me.”
He grunted, and I wasn’t sure if it was laughter or pain. “Talk to me,” he demanded.
“Sir? If I am talking, I can’t listen.” I expected company around every bend, and we had miles to go before we reached friendly territory.
“The horse is listening.” His voice was strained and his grip on the pommel had become desperate. I tightened my arms. I doubted, in his current state, that he would notice anything at all. “My head is swimming. I cannot tell the ground from the sky,” he confessed.
“Close your eyes,” I directed. “If the horse can listen, he can also see.”
“Talk to me,” he insisted again.
“Um. Do you like Shakespeare, sir?”
He grunted. It sounded like an assent.
“King Lear, Much Ado about Nothing, Romeo and Juliet?”
“I never cared for the latter.”
“No. Neither do I. I have never been able to understand the appeal.”
“Not a romantic, Shurtliff?”
“No, sir. I prefer Hamlet. The Merchant of Venice. Othello.”
“Why?” He was doing his damnedest to hold up his end of the conversation.
“I understand the Moor. His need to prove himself. I didn’t much care for the way he treated the woman in his life, but that too was understandable.”
“It is the curse of manhood.”
“What is, sir?”
“The need to prove oneself.”
I grunted but did not disagree. I considered it a trait shared by the sexes, but thought better of arguing that point.
“I always knew what my father wanted,” the general continued. “I knew exactly what was expected of me. Virtue. Strength. Integrity. The things he wanted for me became things I wanted for myself.
“He wanted me to go to school. He wanted me to study the law. To care for my mother and sisters and to have a family of my own. God, family, country. That was his motto, though country did not mean to him . . . what it means to me. I often wonder what he would think of our cause.”
“He was a military man?” I knew that he was.
“Yes. His service took him away. Just like mine has done.”
“Away where, sir?”
“He died in Cuba of yellow fever when I was eighteen.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“He was a good man. At least . . . I think he was. I hope he was.”
“What is a good man?” I asked, trying to keep him talking.
“My father told me once that valiance is the defining quality of true greatness. Not talent. Not power. Valiance. That has been my goal. Some days, my only goal. I fear my lack of personal ambition was a great disappointment to Elizabeth.”
He was almost muttering, but the conversation had taken a surprising turn. I desperately wanted him to continue.
“I will not be the kind of man history remembers. At this juncture . . . my own children will not remember me.”
“The war has been hardest on the women,” I said. “History won’t remember them at all.”
“Such an odd fellow you are, Shurtliff.” He sighed. “A wise old soul in a boy’s body.”
My laugh was almost a sob. “I was born old, sir.”
“Yes. I think you were. Tell me about your father.”
“I did not know my father.”
“And your mother?”
“She sent me to live with family after my father was gone.” I chose my words carefully. “I have not seen her more than a handful of times since I was five years old.”
“When this is over, I’ll go home to Lenox, Massachusetts. Where will you go?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t think that far ahead,” I said. I did not let myself think that far ahead.
“No. I don’t believe that. You are always thinking.”
“Yes, sir. But not about the future. I find the present taxing enough.”
I ground my forehead into his back, trying to prop him up without toppling him over. I could feel the moments he teetered on the edge of consciousness. Maybe it was exhaustion, but he swayed in intervals, and that we had managed to stay in the saddle for the last hour was nothing short of a miracle.
“Sir, if we are set upon, we are done for,” I panted.
“Keep talking, Shurtliff. If you don’t, then I am done for.”
“I do not know what to say, sir.”
“Tell me about yourself.”
“I have not allowed myself to want anything too much.”
He swayed, and I shook him, afraid.