“A T, fit for a traitor,” August says, and the other boys howl.
The iron glows so hot that he can sense it over his entire body. Not a searing pain, but like a drop of wax, slowly spread wide by a single finger until it covers him whole. Caleb feels August pull his shirt up, his hands brushing against his back, and he can only grit his teeth as the iron descends upon him, and it is then, right then, he wakes up, so bothered, so perversely excited, that he has no option but to evacuate the energy within him in the most repugnant of manners, the remnants of the dream sloughed away as they’re drained from his being. He must go and retrieve a rag from downstairs. Clean himself of his embarrassment. Which was how he felt now, as he walked back toward Ray Bittle’s: repulsed by his own actions, by ever thinking it had been a good idea to come find August, or to come home from the war in the first place, for that matter. Perhaps Prentiss and Landry had the proper idea. Go north. Escape Old Ox for good. Ridley was in sight now, and he had half a mind to ride away on him and leave town forever.
A familiar voice called out his name. He carried on toward Ridley as if he’d heard nothing but the cawing crows settled on Ray Bittle’s home. But he couldn’t ignore the pull on his shoulder, the fingernails digging into his shirt.
Caleb recoiled at the touch. He spun around and caught August off guard.
“Don’t,” Caleb said. “Leave it alone.”
He had reached the donkey and began to untie the reins but August would not budge from beside him.
“He ribs you seeking this very reaction,” August said.
“Well, he should consider himself successful. You can write that down on your little notepad and report back to him.”
August stretched out his hand and grabbed the reins from Caleb.
“Do you think I enjoy such things?” August said. “To see you suffer like that?”
“Considering I haven’t heard a word from you in weeks, I’d imagine you’re indifferent to how I feel.”
“You cannot seriously be this sensitive. This has little to do with you. It’s that the wedding is next Tuesday and the planning of it goes on from the moment I’m relieved of work until the sun goes down.”
“Please. As if anything ever stopped you before. We both know your father is behind this. Just as he was no doubt behind the decision to uninvite me and my family from the wedding.”
And wasn’t it so much like the Weblers to plan a wedding for a Tuesday, to rob the town of a good day’s work and force them to come and pay their respects to the prince and his new princess bride?
Their backs were to town, with Ridley shielding them from the main thoroughfare, and before them sat Ray Bittle, still fast asleep on his porch. They were very much alone. It was difficult to bear August’s gaze, for the blue of his eyes was as piercing and as suddenly felt as the center of a lit match before one’s face.
“You have no idea,” August said. “I must live with him, Caleb. Endure him. At least until I get my own home, which I don’t look forward to. My God, the prospect of living with Natasha. When I see her it’s with the same boredom I feel when I read the reports on my desk every morning. It is a troublesome affair, weddings and women and work, and I had far more clarity in the war than I do here. I mean that, too. I’d much rather dig graves in the most hardened ground than marry Natasha and work for my father and listen to a Union general debase himself for a few dollars.”
“You think I don’t feel that way? I work in the field all day, playing with soil, and at night my father has me reading books on agriculture. As if I have the slightest interest in knowing whether grass clippings or straw work better than mulch. The only reprieve would be our times together, which you’ve denied us for no reason I can tell.”
“Must I make it plain to you?” said August, struggling to keep his voice down. “Because I will. If that’s what you need.”
Caleb shrugged with deliberate nonchalance, yet his heart beat so rapidly that he felt it reverberating beneath his feet like a ground tremor.
“He knows,” August said. “He has always known. How we feel for one another. He makes it his goal to ridicule. He calls you the little girl, and any mention I make of you is met with derision at your being a coward. Even at socials he cites you as an example of everything wrong with the Southern cause, the lack of spirit that allowed us to lose so much.”
Caleb tried to reclaim the reins from his friend’s hands, but August would not relinquish them—would not stop talking.