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We passed wagons and wooden structures thrown up to provide the things a soldier might need on the road. There was a photographer, post office, women doing wash. Food tents, clothing tents, and places to worship. A small army had traveled to support the larger one, and like fans at a football game, this was the tailgating party.
A black man came to secure the horses, and it dawned on me that the soldiers had also brought their servants with them to the battlefield. Was that who Boon was? A slave to one of the soldiers? Was the seer a slave? My mind whirled. How would I find her in the hundreds of encampments around Gettysburg?
I dismounted, and Sam handed me a lantern.
“Wait here,” he said, and moved toward a group of men.
Men gathered in circles around campfires discussing the fighting from the day. I didn’t have time to waste resting, but the effects of the time travel were wearing thin on me.
Sam spoke with one of the privates lingering around a nearby campfire. He and the man looked over at me. The man scratched his beard and then pointed down an aisle of tents. Sam shook hands with the man and walked toward me.
“This way.” Sam motioned for me to follow him. “General Longstreet has a tent that’a way. His aid told me he’s not there, gone to speak with his staff. Should return in a few hours.”
I breathed out a sigh of relief. I still had a few hours before I had to meet with Longstreet and issue the message of Pickett’s move.
“There’s a tent not in use anymore we can use for the night,” Sam said.
I was afraid to ask why the accommodations were available. As we turned down a row of neatly aligned tents, I saw a figure move across the path. The swagger I recognized. The man stopped at a tent and spoke with a soldier.
As we passed, I held my lantern up as if lighting my path and caught a full glimpse of Brodie’s face. He glanced at me but didn’t break from his conversation with the soldier shaking his head in response to Brodie’s questions.
He was searching for Caiyan, and I needed to find him first. I considered it a positive sign. If Brodie was here, then Caiyan had to be close.
Sam found the tent, and I explained I was going to use the privy, wherever that was. I had no clue.
Sam eyed me skeptically and stretched out on a bedroll.
I made haste going from campfire to campfire in search of Caiyan, avoiding Brodie, and making small talk with the soldiers.
When the soldiers asked why I wasn’t in the hospital tending to their friends, I simply stated I had been assigned to tend the wounded from tomorrow’s battle and ordered to rest.
I wandered back to the tent and met Sam on the way.
“I thought you might like some food. There were rations in the tent, and I found the chuck wagon, but it don’t have much.”
He was holding two cups of hot coffee. I took the cup from him and the warm liquid calmed my empty stomach. It was a far cry from Starbucks, but it would do.
He smiled wide. “I found your soldier.”
I almost spat coffee on him. “What? Where?”
“He’s over yonder by our tent. I found him at the supply wagon. He needed a place to rest, seems he couldn’t find his regiment or his horse.”
I brushed off Sam’s curious stare and made a beeline for our tent. Caiyan sat leaning against a supply pack outside the small tent, legs stretched out in front of him, drinking coffee.
“We meet again, soldier,” I said as I joined him.
“Good to see you unharmed, doc,” Caiyan said. His slow, sexy drawl made my lady parts tingle.
Sam distributed hardtack and jerky to us. I gobbled down the jerky. It was the best I’d ever tasted, and I was a tried and true Slim Jim fan.
The men dipped their hardtack into the coffee. I copied them, but the small brick of a biscuit broke apart like a cake of chalk when I took a bite. Bits stuck to my mustache. Being a nineteenth century man was hard.
“Doc, you havin’ a time with the tack?” Sam chortled.
When I made a sour face at him, he threw back his head and gave a deep, hearty laugh. A contagious guffaw that made everyone chuckle.
Moments later a young soldier stopped to whump Sam on the back.
