He survived! He lived! And sergeant too! He was only a private at Bull Run! This is great! He—
“‘ . . . when he at last succumbed to his injuries and perished. ’ ”
My head swims and my gut feels like it’s been hit. Hard. “Perished?”
Dad gives me another strange look. “Stonewall, you okay?”
“Yes,” I say, trying to keep my eyes from tearing up. “I’d just have liked to have known him.”
My parents glance at each other. Just as quickly they turn back to the road, like looking too long may break whatever spell I’m apparently under. But the grin on my father’s face lets me know they are proud of me.
We drive in silence for a while, and slowly my sadness becomes something else. Something like contentment. Thanks to me, Cyrus lived one more year and got to die a hero at Antietam. Beats a legacy of simply being shot in the butt.
I think about telling my parents what happened. But they might not be proud of that. They would probably make me go see that counselor again. And up my Ritalin prescription.
“Stonewall, I really appreciate your change in attitude,” my dad says a few minutes later. “I tell you what. Your mom and I have been talking. You’re old enough to stay by yourself. In September when we go to the Antietam reenactment, you don’t have to come.”
The Battle of Antietam. The bloodiest day of the Civil War. The bloodiest day in American history.
The day Cyrus dies.
I reach inside my pack and feel the cool metal of the bugle.
Stonewall’s bugle.
“Oh, that’s okay,” I say. “I’ll go.”
Stonewall Hinkleman and the Battle of Bull Run Page 14