“‘The hammer of Thor,’ huh?” I smirked.
“You betcha. I mean business.” He pinched my cheek. “Plus, I thought you’d be into the whole hooker thing! It’s super historically accurate!”
“Is it?” I frowned down at the scraps of fabric Dev was trying to pass off as a dress. “Then why do I bear such a strong resemblance to Megan Fox in Jonah Hex?”
“No, I meant prostitutes are super accurate, obvi,” he said, rolling his eyes. “The Civil War spurred the largest prostitution boom this country has ever known! Wherever the army went, prostitutes were sure to follow!”
“True, but—”
“I mean, if it were really eighteen-sixty-whatever and you were following the army, you probs would have been a prostitute,” he said with a shrug.
“No way!” I protested.
“A single, unemployed teenage girl following around a bunch of soldiers?” Dev arched an eyebrow. “Riiight …”
“Shut up!” I smacked him. “I’m a lady.” I looked down at my outfit. “Um, appearance to the contrary …”
“Let’s show you off,” he said, and held open the tent flap.
“I kind of hate you right now. A little bit.” I followed him out into the sun.
“Shut up, you love attention almost as much as me—you just won’t admit it.” Dev patted me fondly. “And you know you look insanely hot. And thusly, we will make that rat bastard curse the day he was born.”
“Thusly?” I smiled. “My, oh my.”
“It’s all part of the plan.” Dev pointed to his temple. “Crafty. Use your hotness to torture the man who done you wrong. It’s a classic maneuver. One I’m a master of.”
“I don’t know why I don’t fight you more.”
“Because you know I always win,” he answered smugly.
“Oh, wait,” I remembered suddenly. “Do you have the—”
“Yep,” Dev answered, shoving a small fabric package at me. I took it. “What are we doing today?”
“Moving on. To the Battle of Bentonville. Four Oaks, North Carolina, I think?” I said, squinting into the sun.
After the whole truck-stealing/boyfriend-cheating debacle, Dev and I had basically been hiding out in our tent as we camped out at Bennett Place. Dev was avoiding Beau, who had been placated but was still annoyed at our grand theft auto, and I was avoiding Garrett, because even thinking about seeing his face made me feel queasy. But another battle day had rolled around, and it was time to leave our sequestered tent. Not like we were going far—Bentonville was less than two hours south—but still. Out into the sun.
A soldier walking by whistled at me.
“That’s it, I’m changing.” I turned around.
“No, no, Libby, stop!” Dev grabbed my arm. “It takes too long to get you out of that. Think about how historically accurate you are! You know, the term ‘hooker’ even comes from the Civil War!”
“Actually, that’s a common misconception,” Beau said, as he strolled up to our tent. “General ‘Fighting Joe’ Hooker did have a sizable number of female camp followers, ladies of ill-repute, known as ‘Hooker’s women,’ or ‘Hookers,’ for short. So that would be a nice easy explanation, except the word ‘hooker’ showed up a bunch of times before the war. In the Dictionary of Americanisms of 1859, even back in a New York police report in 1835. It might come from Corlear’s Hook, a part of New York that used to be full of brothels, or an even older British slang term for thieves who used hooks to steal things. And, well, prostitutes use more of a metaphorical hook to lure in clients.”
“God you’re a font of useless information.” Dev shook his head.
Beau folded his arms and glared.
“I, mean, uh, fascinating,” Dev said, clearing his throat. “And on that note, I’m getting ‘coffee,’” he said, using air quotes.
Dev scuttled away hastily. Beau and I shuffled awkwardly in front of each other; he looped his thumbs through his suspenders as I tugged nervously at my bodice.
“Boys’ll be along any minute to take down the tent,” he said, and nodded.
“Thank you, I, um—I have an ‘I’m sorry’ gift. For you,” I blurted out.
“Is it the outfit?” A grin spread slowly across his face. “Because if it is, apology accepted.”
“Oh, God, no,” I said, blushing. “Blame Dev for this. He wanted to let people know I was ‘back on the market.’” I rolled my eyes.
“Are you?” he asked hesitantly.
“Oh, um, I—I don’t know,” I stammered. “Um, anyway, here.”
I shoved the parcel at him. He unwrapped it slowly, the buff-colored sash falling nearly to the floor.
“It’s an officer’s sash,” I explained. “You know, like Melanie gives Ashley in Gone with the Wind? Dev made it. We noticed you didn’t have one. And the handkerchief’s from me.” I pointed to the small white square that was left once he’d unwrapped the sash. “I’m not as good at sewing the big stuff as Dev is, but I’m pretty good with an embroidery needle. I did your initials and your rank and the regiment, see? All in gray.”
“I see.” Beau smiled, and it crinkled the freckles across his nose. I smiled too. “Thank you, Libby, they’re beautiful.” He tucked the handkerchief in his pants pocket and draped the sash over his arm.
“You can wear the sash at Bentonville. With your jacket,” I suggested.
“That, uh, might prove difficult,” he muttered blackly.
“Why?”
“I’ll show you later,” he said quickly, as if eager to change the subject. “Listen.” Beau took a step closer. “Dev told me about what happened with … you know, Garrett.”
“Oh. Um. Oh.” The color drained from my face. Argh, Dev! Why did he say anything?
“Yeah.” Beau shook his head. “The only reason I didn’t beat the crap outta him is Dev told me you prefer to take care of that kind of thing yourself.” A smile began to play across his lips. “I heard some crazy story ’bout you breakin’ some guy’s nose at a party last summer.”
“I didn’t break his nose!” I protested. “There was just a little blood.”
Beau’s eyebrows traveled up to his hairline, and his laugh rang out loud and clear across the field. With that sound, I felt some of the tension in my chest start to loosen.
“Total swill,” Dev commented as he returned, clutching a tin mug. “Near undrinkable. Let’s hit the bricks so we can meet some Yanks with real coffee.”
“I was thinkin’ the same thing.” Beau cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled across the field. The three Boy Scouts trooped up to dismantle our tent, as everywhere around us tents came down. Dev and I moved to the side, trying not to get in the way.
Cody looked like Christmas had come early. Randall alternated between staring at me slack jawed and looking extremely flustered. Dev chuckled into his coffee, clearly thrilled at the reaction my outfit was getting.
I was done with the ogling. As I marched out of the camp, Willie followed at my heels. Fine with me. He was the only boy I was really in the mood to spend time with.
Not long after, nothing remained of the camp but an empty field, and Beau and Dev joined me at the truck, ready to head on to Bentonville.
“As punishment,” Beau announced, “Willie’s sittin’ in the front with you. On your lap.”
“Fine.” Dev nodded. “Libby? You take him.”
“No, not Libby, you,” Beau said, as he hopped into the truck. “He’s all yours.”
“This is—this is inhumane,” Dev fussed, as we all piled into the car, with Willie snuggling happily on top of him.
“You wanted to be with him bad enough to kidnap him—he’s all yours,” Beau said smugly, as we pulled onto the road. Dev pouted into a mass of fur.
Something was under me on the seat. I hadn’t noticed at first, distracted by all the scarlet silk, but now I could definitely feel something under there. I wriggled around for a bit and pulled it out.
“What is this?” I asked, examining a shre
dded gray mass of fabric. It looked like fabric papier-mâché.
“Remember when I told you it might be hard for me to wear my jacket?” Beau said. “Well, that’s why.”
“Wait, this is a jacket?!” I turned it around, trying to make sense of it. I couldn’t find any cuffs or collars or anything. It just looked like a random pile of scraps.
“Was a jacket,” Beau clarified.
“Lemme see! Lemme see!” Dev stretched his arms out around Willie. “I can’t see anything but beast fur!”
“What happened to it?” I kept turning it over, looking at the thick, angry slash marks. “Did an animal get it or something? A raccoon, maybe?”
“Pffff!” Dev spat out a mouthful of fur and clawed his way out so that his head was visible. “That was no animal. Didn’t you learn anything from Twilight? Vampire!” he proclaimed. “Or in this case …”
“Ghost?” I supplied.
Beau swallowed but said nothing.
“You really think this was the ghost?” I continued. “Beau, this looks … violent.”
“Well, we all know this ghost ain’t exactly my biggest fan.” He laughed darkly.
“Have you told anyone?” I kept going.
“Naw, not yet—”
“Beau, you have to tell someone!” I interrupted. “Because this looks awful. Scary. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“By a ghost?” He laughed. “I ain’t too worried. I didn’t want to tell anyone, get everybody all worried again. I don’t wanna lose any more of the kids. We’re down to three! If whatever it is comes after me, I can handle it. A little wardrobe malfunction doesn’t scare me. I’ll get another jacket. It’s no big deal.”
“It is a big deal!” I countered. “What if whatever did this to your jacket tries to do this to you! Slash you up like that? You have to tell someone!”
“Who? The Ghostbusters?” Dev piped up archly.
“I understand if you don’t want to scare the boys, but shouldn’t you at least tell Captain Cauldwell? And—and the newspaper?” I stuttered.
“Aw, hell, Libby, is that what this is about?” Beau hit the steering wheel angrily. “You wanna help that asshole with his story? Really? Still? That bastard’s gotta be the biggest idiot alive, to screw things up with you! I don’t know what the hell’s wrong with him!”
“Me neither,” Dev agreed emphatically through a mouthful of dog fur.
“It’s not about that—it’s about … um … journalistic integrity,” I said weakly.
“It’s about a load of bull crap is what it’s about,” Beau muttered.
After that, the ride fell into an awkward silence. It was only about another hour to Bentonville, but it was a bleak hour, into a rural nothing that felt emptier than anything before. We turned off the highway by a gas station boasting PEA AND BUTTER BEAN SHELLING and PINE BALES—DISCOUNT PRICES! next to a sign that read BATTLEFIELD—17 MILES.
It was a long seventeen miles. Nothing but empty fields and modular homes, with a few enterprising businesses sprinkled in between.
“Libby, I think we’re actually on the road to Deliverance this time,” Dev whispered. “‘Lee’s Hill Welding’? What the hell is ‘hill welding’?”
“No, it’s … it’s cute,” I whispered. “Just look at the signs for the farm stand.”
There were wooden signs spaced all down the road, advertising produce at a farm stand. Bored, Dev read them out as we went past and turned them into a kind of song.
“Hoop cheese. Butter, corn, peas,” Dev sang tunelessly. “Cashews, peanuts, pecans, walnuts.”
Willie whined.
“Whatever,” Dev grunted.
We turned past a dilapidated chicken coop, where, according to the sign, Sherman had once camped. Four horse paddocks and one old man on a tractor later, we arrived at Bentonville. The parking lot was packed with cars, and soldiers swarmed about the old white farmhouse and the seemingly endless series of enormous fields. Tall scrubby pines and green clinging vines framed the empty expanses of stubbly fields slowly filling with soldiers.
Beau went to join the rest of the men in the business of setting up the tents. I had business of my own to attend to. Dev wandered off, presumably to scope out the hottie situation. I crossed the field behind the farmhouse and waded into a sea of blue.
Garrett was easy to find. He was sitting on the fence that separated the battlefield from the registration area by the farmhouse, texting furiously into his cell phone.
“You shouldn’t have that out, you know,” I said.
“I’m on the fence.” Garrett closed the phone and put it in his pocket. “It’s fine on this side.” He hopped off the fence, onto the side with the registration farmhouse.
“Still …” I shrugged. “You shouldn’t.”
“Finally decided to talk to me?” Garrett crossed his arms. “Or is this in your official capacity as historical accuracy police?”
“It’s official. But not about that,” I answered. “And you haven’t exactly tried to talk to me either,” I added in an undertone.
“Libby.” He ran his hands over his face. “What the hell is going on with us? I don’t understand why you keep avoiding me, why we’re always fighting, why you ran away from me at that stupid Squirrel bar …”
“You don’t understand?” My jaw fell open. “You are—you are unbelievable,” I said, shaking my head. Of all the nerve! How dare he cheat on me and keep acting like he had no idea what was going on! I mean, I knew Garrett was smart, but I had thought crafty maliciousness like this was beyond him. And I sure hadn’t known he was such a good actor.
“I just don’t get it—”
“Whatever,” I said, cutting him off. “I’ll just do what I came here to do, and then I’m gone. Here.” I shoved a fabric parcel at him.
“What the hell is this?” Garrett turned it over, squinting at it through his glasses.
“It was Corporal Anderson’s jacket. Someone—or something—destroyed it,” I said brusquely.
“Just because you like borrowing his clothes doesn’t mean I do,” Garrett muttered, and chucked the jacket into a patch of clinging vines.
“Hey!” I bent down to retrieve the jacket. “For your information—not that it even matters—Beau didn’t even want me to give this to you! I only brought it because I thought you’d need it. For your story. If you’re even working on the story anymore,” I added. “Are you?” I asked searchingly. “Or are you too busy ‘Skyping your editor’ to do any work?”
The color drained from his face.
“Libby,” he started. “I don’t know what you think you—”
“Are you taking any of this seriously?” I continued. The words kept pouring out, and I couldn’t stop them. “Why did you even come here, if you’re just going to make fun of this and completely disrespect what you’re supposed to be researching? You haven’t committed to anything. I mean, you’ve made the most minimal concession possible to period clothing; you have your cell phone out in public; you’re running off-site for coffee every five minutes—”
“Coffee? What?” he asked nervously.
“You’re making no effort whatsoever to catch this ghost!” I shouted over him. “You’re not spending any time in any of the places the ghost’s been seen. You’re not staking anything out. You didn’t start sleeping over by the Fifteenth Alabama, like you said you would!”
“I couldn’t!” Garrett exploded. “Libby, I couldn’t. I couldn’t spend time near him, with the way he so obviously likes you! And I’m not entirely sure you don’t feel the same way!” He ran his hands through his hair, pulling on it like he always did when he was agitated. “I mean, is this what’s going on? Would you rather be with him? Because … because I don’t like playing dress-up, and I don’t know who invented the teakettle, or whatever?”
“Really?” A strange, completely joyless laugh bubbled out of me. “Really? That’s what you think is going on? That I have some sort of … crush? I would never, Garrett, I would
never … Beau has nothing to do with this, nothing to do with us.”
“I get it,” he continued, still pulling at his hair. “Now I see what all this was about.”
“What all what was about?” I countered.
“You—the way you’ve been acting.”
“The way I’ve been acting?!” I said, shocked.
“Yeah, okay, Libby, you don’t want to be with me, fine. But at least have the decency to end things with me before starting up with Johnny Redneck, okay?”
“I can’t believe you—I can’t—This has nothing to do with me.” I took a deep breath. “Garrett, I know. I know. Why can’t you just tell me?”
“Tell you … what?” he asked, furrowing his brow.
“I can’t—I can’t even—I just can’t,” I sputtered, and let the torn jacket fall to the ground. I hopped over the fence and ran into the battlefield.
“Libby, come on!” Garrett yelled, as I disappeared into the field of blue soldiers, weaving through them and over to the gray side of the camp. “We need to talk about this! Whatever this is!” I kept on running, and once I was sure I’d lost Garrett, I doubled back around to Sutlers’ Row. I thought I spotted the now-familiar Dixie Acres tent, but that was the last thing I wanted to deal with right now.
“Runaway hooker!” Dev yelled, from inside our tent, which had been completely set up in my absence. “Are you trying to reenact some kind of Julia Roberts movie mash-up? Runaway Bride meets Pretty Woman?”
“No, I’m just trying to survive this hellhole,” I said.
“You okay?” Dev squeezed my arm.
“I’m fine. Garrett and I just had a fight.” I shook my head. “Let’s just move some merch.”
“That’s my girl!” Dev clapped.
“Here’s the last of it,” said a tall, auburn-haired boy who entered holding a hatbox.
“Thanks, Beau—no, wait.” I looked at him. He looked a lot like Beau, but it wasn’t him.
“Naw, ma’am, I’m not Beau,” he said, laughing as he set down the box. “I’m his cousin. Luke.”
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