Confederates Don't Wear Couture

by Stephanie Kate Strohm

  “Well, that took long enough,” Dev said, as he collapsed his telescope. “Back to business.”

  Dev practically dragged me away up to our tent on Sutlers’ Row, the Rodeo Drive of the reenactment, where we continued to custom-fit couture for the masses. Except for a quick dinner break when I went to buy us some delicious, if not particularly historically accurate, hot dogs, we were busy right up until the end of the business day, when everyone took off to watch the Chirping Chicken Chase. I was all set to chase the chickens, but Dev insisted we itemize receipts instead. Which was probably a smart idea, but I kind of wanted to see the chickens.

  Between finishing the business day, packing up everything, and getting ready for the ball, we were busy until eight o’clock, because Dev’s idea of “casual” ball wear involved a greenish-blue shot-silk gown for me and a white suit with matching shot-silk waistcoat for him.

  As Dev had predicted, we were the best-dressed ones there. It was really beautiful under the tent. It definitely wasn’t fancy, with rough wooden benches at the edges of the muslin tent stretching down the length of the field, but beautiful nonetheless, lanterns twinkling from the crossbeams of the sloping ceiling. A band played merrily in one corner, and in front of them, a dancing master called out the steps. It sounded like a square dance: “Right hand around, left hand around, forward and back, ladies curtsy.” Two long rows of couples stood facing each other, skipping and twirling around in sync.

  “Punch bowl, punch bowl, punch bowl,” Dev muttered distractedly. “Bingo!”

  “Wait a minute.” I grabbed his arm as he started off. “Don’t just leave me here—I don’t know anyone.”

  “Sure you do.”

  I turned. Beau was standing behind me.

  “You’re alive!” I cried, and flung my arms around his middle.

  “Hell yeah, I’m alive. I never miss a reel,” he said, and chuckled.

  “Speaking of reels, I’m gonna try to reel me in a man in uniform.” Dev pointed toward the punch bowl, where a boy in blue with ridiculously long eyelashes was sipping a glass, looking around the dance floor. “I’ll let you two joyously reunite. Toodles.”

  He scooted off, sidling through the rows of couples.

  “So here you are, back from the dead,” I said, as the band finished a song and the rows of couples clapped.

  “Alive and kickin’.” Beau nodded. “An’ speakin’ of kickin’, how ’bout a dance?”

  “Oh, I don’t know any of these dances,” I hemmed and hawed.

  “Libby, there’s a man out front callin’ out the steps. You don’t have to know anythin’. They tell you what to do.”

  “Well, true.” That was a good point. But was it okay to dance with him? I mean, I had a boyfriend. Probably Garrett wouldn’t mind. It was just a dance. But it’s not like Beau was Dev. Beau was single, straight, and had said I was pretty …

  “Fine, you want to do this the right way?” Beau held out his hand. “Accordin’ to Beadle’s Dime Book of Practical Etiquette, the words ‘Will you honor me with your hand?’ are used more nowadays. Nowadays 1860, that is.” The band started tuning up for the next song. “So, Libby, will you honor me with your hand?” He looked down at me, expectantly, and I looked at his hand. “Sounds like a reel.” He cocked his head toward the band. “Real easy. Bad pun intended.” He smiled.

  I took his hand. His grin widened, and he led me onto the floor, where we joined the line of couples. Beau was right; it turned out to be not that hard to follow. I mean, the dance master told you exactly what to do. I only went the wrong way, like, twice.

  “You’re such a good dancer!” I exclaimed, surprised. He really was.

  “Well, I’ve been doin’ this forever. Most reenactments have dances,” Beau said. He spun me effortlessly as we changed partners. I mean, I was following along okay, but I certainly wasn’t good. Beau, however, steered me safely through the line and almost managed to make me look like I knew what I was doing.

  It was more fun than I’d had in a long time. I could have reeled and quadrilled all night long, and time flew by.

  “And now,” the dancing master said, interrupting the proceedings after we’d been dancing for some time. “I know much of small-town America is scandalized by these new, modern ‘round dances,’ but here in Tuscaloosa, we’re a little more forward-thinking.”

  Everyone chuckled. Someone yelled out, “Keep that trash for the romping female animals of Yankee land! Our real Southern ladies won’t do it!”

  “Like hell we won’t!” a woman yelled back, causing a raucous outburst of laughter.

  “‘Round dances’?” I whispered.

  “Waltz, polka. Things like that where the couples dance close together, not all in a line. People were still scandalized by that down here durin’ the war, even though it was already old news back in Europe and in the bigger cities up north,” Beau explained.

  “The ladies have spoken!” the dancing master shouted out. “Gents, choose your ladies for the waltz.”

  Beau held out his hand.

  “Oh, um, I don’t know how to waltz. And I’m pretty sure the dancing master won’t tell us how to do it.”

  “You don’t know how to waltz?” He furrowed his brow. “How is that possible?”

  “There’s not a lot of waltzing going on in St. Paul,” I said, shrugging.

  “Well, I’ll have to teach you before the big ball of the season, up at this old restored plantation in a few weeks.” His hand was still out. “But for now, just try to follow along.”

  “I’m really not that coordinated, and I don’t know how, and I don’t think I can—”

  Beau ignored my protests and pulled me into him, so we were standing in a waltz position. It was funny—by modern dancing standards, we weren’t close at all, but he felt so uncomfortably near that my heart was starting to pound.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

  A bloodcurdling shriek ripped through the party, causing the tuning fiddle to break off abruptly. A little drummer boy, probably about ten years old and screaming bloody murder, ran straight into my skirts, hiding his face.

  “I wanna g-go home,” he sobbed, hiccupping. “I wanna go home!”

  “Hey,” I said, as I knelt down. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  “Jackie?” Beau asked. “Is that you?”

  Everyone at the ball had stopped whatever they were doing and was staring at us.

  “G-g-ghost,” he stuttered. “I saw her. Oh, I wanna go home,” he wailed.

  “Okay, who are you here with?” I asked, rubbing his back soothingly. “I’ll help you find your family, okay?”

  “I’m with the Fif-fifteenth Alabama.” He hiccupped again. Ah, that explained it—he must have run straight for the nearest thing to a mom in the Fifteenth Alabama. And as I was the only girl, that would be me. “You’re Cody’s girlfriend, right?”

  I shot Beau a look.

  “This is Jackson.” Beau knelt down next to us. “He’s with the Boy Scout troop that’s marching with us.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Jackson shrieked, shoving Beau away and trying to burrow into my neck. “She’s coming for you!”

  “Who’s coming? What’s going on?” I was so completely lost.

  “Jackson.” Captain Cauldwell had pushed his way over to join us. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on, son? Wanna show me what scared you?”

  Jackson straightened and nodded, silent tears still glistening on his cheeks. He took my hand, and together we led Captain Cauldwell out of the tent. Beau grabbed a lantern and trailed a few paces behind. Most of the dancers had left the ball and were following us.

  Jackson led us deeper into the woods. He bypassed an oddly rustling bush.

  “OMG, do you think they heard us?” Dev popped out of the bush, holding hands with the Union soldier with beautiful giraffe eyelashes. I shook my head and motioned for him to follow. They did, swelling the strange lantern-bearing mob of Civil War dancers by two mo
re.

  Jackson stopped in a clearing and pointed to a dirty, tattered muslin tarp. I gasped and covered his eyes. Something was written on it, in dripping, red-brown letters, and from the dead chicken lying nearby, I feared it was written in blood. I turned Jackson away from the Chirping Chicken Chase casualty and tried not to shake.

  “What does it say?” I whispered.

  From behind me, Beau held up his lantern and read, in the flickering shadows, “Anderson.”

  four

  I’d insisted that Beau leave Willie stationed outside Jackson’s tent, but he’d done a terrible job as a guard dog—Jackson and his tentmate had seen the shadow of the ghost again during the night and were now both insisting on leaving immediately. Willie was still sleeping soundly when I crept past him the next morning to sneak into the woods so I could call Garrett. He wasn’t going to believe this.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” I heard a voice speaking low in the woods. Sounded like someone had already beaten me to the secret cell phone spot. “Just the one s.”

  Cody was standing in the woods, furtively covering his cell phone with his hand.

  “What are you doing, young man?” I marched straight up to him, like I was a hall monitor or something, about to confiscate his phone.

  “Yeah, that’s right. Gotta go, man, bye.” He hurriedly finished and snapped the phone shut, then stuffed it into the back pocket of his brown wool pants.

  “Mmm-hmmm?” I folded my arms as he looked guiltily up at me. “So?” I tapped my foot.

  “What?” He folded his arms too. “What do you want from me? And what all were you doin’ out here, anyway?” he added suspiciously.

  “I was, uh, on a walk,” I said defensively. “I came out for some fresh air.”

  “You live in a tent. It doesn’t have walls. Don’t tell me that’s not enough fresh air for you.”

  I glared. “Seriously. Who were you talking to? What are you doing?” It was weird the way he’d been covering up his phone. It seemed fishy.

  “Just … just tellin’ my friends at home. About the ghost.”

  I arched an eyebrow.

  “Well, I had to tell them about somethin’. I’m havin’ about the lamest summer ever, so at least this is sorta interestin’.” He kicked a rock with the sole of his boot.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, genuinely surprised. “This summer is awesome! You must be having lots of fun. I know I am.”

  “Um, no.” We started making our way back to camp. “Being a Boy Scout is lame as crap already; then add to that all these weirdo history freaks, and it’s even worse. Normal people don’t spend their summers runnin’ around in itchy wool pants in a hundred-degree heat, pretendin’ to shoot at each other and fallin’ over, fakin’ dead. It’s weird.”

  “Well, sure, it’s unusual, but doing stuff that’s different is cool. Who wants to be normal, anyway, right? That’s kind of lame in its own way, you know. Just following the pack.” Maybe I could still win him over, somehow get him to see that history, contrary to popular disgruntled teen belief, was actually awesome.

  “I’d never be here if my stupid mom didn’t make me, so she could spend the summer with her new boyfriend,” he complained. “All my friends are back home in Montgomery, hangin’ out at the mall, doing cool shit at the skate park, drinkin’ Slurpees. Apparently it’s so hot there, Melissa Cooper’s been wearin’ shorts so short you can see part of her butt,” he added wistfully. “And she was a runner-up in Miss Alabama’s Outstanding Teen Pageant. And believe you me, she is outstanding.”

  “Um, as fun as that sounds,” I said, swallowing uncomfortably, “you’re having the kind of experience here that so few people have. You’re really lucky. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and—”

  “And I’m stuck here all summer”—Cody continued talking over me—“and the only decent-looking girl is a stuck-up, frigid Yankee prude!”

  “What!” I gasped. “I am not a prude! Or frigid. Or stuck-up. And there’s nothing wrong with Yankees!”

  “Prove it.” Cody stopped in his tracks.

  “What?”

  “Yeah. Prove it. Show me how much fun you are.” He closed his eyes and puckered his lips. This was getting ridiculous.

  “Cody.” I clapped my hands in front of his face, and, startled, he opened his eyes. “Stop. You have to stop. Seriously. I will have you … court-martialed if you keep this up.” I mean, I didn’t really know if I could court-martial him, but it sounded like an appropriate military threat.

  “Why?” he mumbled mutinously.

  “One, you’re way too young for me; two, with this kind of attitude, I wouldn’t date you even if you were nineteen; and, three, I have a boyfriend.”

  “Aw, not Corporal Lame-ass Anderson?” He shoved his hands in his pockets and continued shuffling back toward camp. “Even after I warned you that boy was cursed? Even now that you’ve seen, firsthand, the kind of seriously evil shit he’s drawin’ down on all of us? You can’t still wanna get mixed up with that crazy, dark voodoo-zombie shit.”

  “What? No,” I said, surprised. “Corporal Anderson and I aren’t involved. At all. I have a boyfriend in Boston. And I don’t believe in ‘crazy, dark voodoo-zombie shit,’ anyway.”

  “What, you got a boyfriend way back up north?” He shook his head. “That don’t even count. Those kinds of things don’t hold up across state lines or time zones. It’s part of international law,” he said seriously. “Don’t even think about that. Think about what’s here. Alabama is for lovers, baby.”

  “That’s Virginia,” I said, grabbing him by the ear.

  “Ow, Libby, ow!” he yelled.

  “We’re done here.” I dragged Cody back to camp by his ear, listening to him shriek all the way. I deposited him roughly outside the tent where Randall was marshaling up the Boy Scouts. “Keep track of this,” I said, nodding to Randall, who fixed Cody with an especially pinch-faced look, narrowing his eyes until they resembled snake-like slits. Randall’s troops were now down to only six, as Jackson and his tentmate were waiting in the parking lot for their moms to pick them up. The rest of them would be continuing on with us to Georgia, on the Atlanta campaign, but it felt somewhat ominous to have our number reduced by two.

  Captain Cauldwell ordered the men to break down camp and to table any discussion of the “situation” until we made camp in Georgia. Dev and I, helpful as always, waited in the parking lot until the deserting Boy Scouts had been dispatched, the tents broken down, and Beau was ready to drive us to Georgia.

  “I feel terrible,” Beau murmured once we were on our way.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said. “Don’t you dare feel bad. It wasn’t your fault! You had nothing to do with this.”

  “I know, but still … I feel terrible.” He shook his head. “It was my name written in blood on that sheet. I can’t help but feel partly responsible. Those poor kids, bein’ so scared that they left for home, callin’ their mamas, cryin’ … I just feel awful.”

  “How do you think I feel?” Dev demanded. “I just bid adieu to the love of my life!”

  “Oh, the Union soldier?” I asked. He nodded and looked tragically out the window, like he was on a soap opera. Dev typically fell in love twenty times a month, so I was well versed in how to help him get over it quickly.

  “‘Once upon a time, I was falling in love,’” I sang softly.

  “‘Now I’m only falling apart,’” Dev whispered dramatically.

  “‘There’s nothing I can do,’” I sang, and then he joined me for “‘a total eclipse of the heart.’”

  Thankfully, Beau chose to ignore us instead of asking if we were crazy. Sometimes the best way to help Dev deal with his current drama was just to let him wallow in it for a bit.

  After a brief but much-appreciated visit to a truck stop shower, where I discovered that trucker showers were not gross at all, we hit the road. Beau was uncharacteristically glum, and we sat in a morose silence punctuated only by the lig
ht rustle of Dev’s breathing as he snored softly and the raspy sound of Willie panting.

  Since no one in the truck seemed predisposed to entertain me, I unfolded the Dixie Acres brochure I’d set aside while packing up last night. I grimaced slightly at the glossy picture of a mini Tara framed by magnolia blossoms, before opening the brochure and reading:

  Own your very own piece of history! Luxury gated communities and upscale condominiums located in the heart of Dixie … on actual Civil War battlefields!

  Wait a minute. That couldn’t be right. You couldn’t build anything on a battlefield … could you?

  “Hey, Beau?” I asked tentatively. “Are Civil War battlefields protected? Like by the National Register of Historic Places or something?”

  “Some are, but some aren’t, unfortunately,” he answered. “The big ones—Gettysburg, Antietam, et cetera—they’re all fine. But the smaller ones, if they don’t have any kind of protection program or public ownership, can be in danger from modern construction. Especially if they haven’t been included in historic resource inventories, which if the local government thinks it just looks like a field, they usually aren’t. So you lose some of the smaller ones. Hell, the Confederate trenches at Port Hudson got turned into a landfill, a highway runs through Kennesaw, and Prairie Grove is covered in poultry sheds. There was almost a shopping mall built on Manassas, for chrissakes.” Beau fell silent again, looking even unhappier than before.

  Wow. I felt almost sick to my stomach. So it was possible that Dixie Acres could turn some of these historic sites into housing developments. I frowned at the picture inside, which showed a blond woman serving iced tea to a group of children on a small front porch, and read on:

  Coming soon to a southern-fried state near you—Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and the Carolinas. Meet you under the magnolia blossoms!

  Had they already purchased the land? In five different states? How had no one stopped them? Everywhere I went there were hundreds of Civil War buffs who you’d think would be desperate to stop this—to raise money to protect the battlefields, to do something. I resolved to show the brochure to Beau when he was in a better mood. And maybe to Captain Cauldwell, too.