Last of the Dixie Heroes (5 page)

“Tumbled emeralds, sir, unfaceted, graduated, really rather special. I assume this is a gift.”

“Yes.”

“For someone who appreciates quality, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“And would take pleasure in wearing something that I might say is a cut or two above?”

“Yes.”

Roy put down a deposit—$2,000—maxing out his credit cards. The remaining $6,000 he could cover by topping out the home equity loan in the morning. What did it matter now? Seventy-two seven, plus bonuses.

He went home happy. No one there, of course, too quiet, too lonely, but tonight it didn’t bother him. He was on his way down to the cellar to work on Rhett’s shelves when the phone rang.

Gordo. “You didn’t tell me he was some kind of hero.”

“Who?”

“Roy Singleton Hill.”

“I don’t know much about him.”

“The colonel does.”

“What colonel?”

“My colonel. In the regiment. He wants to meet you, Roy. He’s invited you up for the weekend.”

“Up where?”

“We’ve got the Girl Scout camp, out seventy-eight.”

“Saturday’s my day with Rhett.”

“Sunday, then.”

Roy thought about that goddamn ammonium nitrate. The goddamn ammonium nitrate and the job Gordo believed was his. How could he say no?

FIVE

Ma said things like
Don’t you go ruinin’ that smile on me now
and
Don’t you be gettin’ ahead of yourself
and
Will you look at that sky, Roy—blue as your eyes and not a cloud in it!
When Roy was three or four, after her marriage broke up, the two of them had come down from Tennessee, staying first with a cousin or acquaintance of some kind—Roy had almost no memories of this period—and then in places of their own. Neither did Roy remember all the jobs his mother had worked—in a Hardee’s kitchen, then a bakery in Five Points, a flower shop, receptionist in a doctor’s office, assistant manager of another flower shop, a few other things, then back at reception for Dr. Moore again, a good thing because he looked after her care personally when she got sick. First they’d thought it was one thing, then another; it had ended up being a combination.

Roy had expected to bury her back in Tennessee, but in her will she specified Atlanta, didn’t matter what cemetery long as it was Atlanta. She lay under a small white stone in the Oakland cemetery, about fifteen minutes from Roy’s house. He’d visited once or twice the first few years, but whatever calming spiritual thing that was supposed to happen hadn’t happened for him. Saturday, driving north to Buckhead to pick up Rhett, he’d thought of paying another visit.
Seventy-two seven.
To tell her that—not for his pleasure, for hers. He’d say,
Before bonuses, Ma,
and she’d start laughing and repeat it a few times, stressing the different syllables in
bonuses
.
Bonuses, Roy
. Like it was the most outlandish concept in the world. And the look on her face. Roy actually tried to imagine it. He was able to visualize several different looks: on the breathing machine at the end, scared eyes trying to tell him something, but what?; home after spending all day on her feet at one of the flower shops, sitting on her velveteen couch, trying to keep her eyes open; and years and years earlier, picking up the phone to hear his father on the other end, the only time Roy remembered him calling, and how all sorts of strange lines appeared in her forehead, lines he didn’t see again until a few months before the end. Roy could picture all those looks on her face, but how would she have looked when he told her seventy-two seven before bonuses? That he couldn’t see at all.

Roy walked up to Marcia’s door. A red flower torn from one of the planters lay on the welcome mat, roots and all. Roy bent down to pick it up, and was still straightening when the door opened. He recalled how things had gone with Barry the last time, wished he wasn’t holding the flower.

But it was Marcia who looked out, not Barry. Her eyes went to him, the flower, back to him. “Why, Roy,” she said.

“Saturday,” he said, interpreting the expression on her face as puzzlement. “Collecting Rhett.”

“Come on in,” Marcia said, turning to call, “Rhett. Your daddy’s here.”

Roy stepped into the big square entrance hall. It was empty, as before, except for the chandelier still tilted in one corner of the floor, in a little sea of broken crystals. Then he saw something new, a red stain on the creamy wall. Alarming, until he realized it was the purple red of wine, not the bright red of blood.

“What have you got there?” Marcia said.

The flower. An explanation formed in his mind about how he hadn’t brought it for her, simply found it on the step, but all he ended up doing was making some kind of sound and handing it over, a tiny clod of earth coming loose from the roots and falling on the polished oak floor. That was when Rhett appeared—at the moment Roy and Marcia were facing each other, both with a hand on the flower—Rhett, walking in through the door that led to the living room, picking his nose.

There was a silence. Roy imagined he could feel all sorts of forces in the room, invisible but physical, tugging here and there. He and Marcia backed a little away from each other; she held on to the flower.

“All set?” Roy said.

Rhett took his finger out of his nose, nodded. His eye looked a lot better, swelling all gone, the discoloration now the muted shades of Easter.

“What are you guys going to do?” Marcia said. She’d never asked that before, seldom even appeared on changeover day. “If I’m not being too nosy,” she added.

“I joined this new gym near my— in the Highlands,” Roy said. “Thought Rhett and I would have a workout, sit in the whirlpool, then get some lunch, maybe see a movie if it keeps raining like this. How’s that sound?”

“Workout?” Rhett said. They’d never had a workout before. Roy’d been thinking a little physical training might help the boy the next time he ran into a bully; he also felt like a workout himself, a feeling he hadn’t had in some time.

“Why not?” Roy said.

“Sounds good.” Which is what he’d hoped to hear, except it was Marcia saying it, not Rhett.

“Then get your stuff,” Roy said. Which is what he would have said to Rhett, except his eyes were on Marcia when he said it.

“Yes, sir,” said Marcia, turning and leaving the room. Rhett stood there with his mouth open. His gaze met Roy’s. Roy came very close to shooting him a wink.

They got in Roy’s car—the Altima, with 103,000 miles on it, dust on the dashboard, empty coffee cups here and there, nothing to be done about it—Roy and Marcia in front, Rhett in the back. Roy turned the key. Music came blasting out of the speakers:
Yes I’m going to walk that milky white way, oh Lord, some of these days
. “Milky White Way,” one of Roy’s favorites. He snapped it off.

“What was that?” Marcia said.

“Uh,” Roy said.

“Sounded like gospel.” Marcia popped the CD out of the slot, examined the label. “You going religious on me, Roy?” she said.

“No.”

“But?”

“It’s music.”

“Just music, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“What’re you guys talking about?” said Rhett from the backseat.

“Big ears,” Marcia said.

Roy laughed. He felt good: loose, natural, at ease. And in his pocket—in his pocket because he’d never owned an object so valuable that didn’t come with a steering wheel and he was afraid to leave it behind—was the emerald necklace, like an ace in the hole.

They went to Roy’s gym. Roy paid two guest fees. “Depending on how much you all are going to use this, you might consider a family membership,” the girl behind the counter told Roy, handing out towels.

They did ten minutes on the stationary bikes, Marcia on one side, leafing through a magazine, Rhett in the middle, watching VH1, and Roy on the other side, sweating almost at once and trying not to huff and puff. Trying not to huff and puff interfered with his air supply. He huffed and puffed, glanced furtively at himself in the mirror from time to time, seeing how out of shape he was, making resolutions. Once Marcia’s eyes met his in the mirror. She smiled at him. Because of the mirror—that was the only reason Roy could think of—it was like a stranger smiling, a fit stranger in a leotard and tank top, and very exciting.
Isn’t this the craziest thing? Like an affair, or something.

In the weight room, Marcia did squats, not with a lot of iron on her shoulders, but real squats with good form. When had she learned that? And her form: good in both senses of the word.

“Let’s see those push-ups,” Rhett said.

“What push-ups?” said Marcia.

“Dad said he could do twenty.”

“Fifteen,” Roy said.

“Twenty,” Rhett said.

“All right,” Roy said. “But you first.”

Rhett got down on the floor, started doing push-ups.

“Back straight,” Roy said, and: “You going to count that one?”

Rhett did nine; seven real ones. “Now you.”

Marcia lowered her bar back onto the rack. Roy said: “Who’s getting hungry?”

“He’s chickening out, Mom. Don’t let him chicken out.”

Marcia raised her eyebrows at Roy, made a clucking sound like a chicken asking a question. She was fun: what with how she looked, and how things had been in bed, and how he’d like to be there right now, he’d let that slip his mind, the fun part.

He got down on the floor. Fifteen? Twenty? Who was he kidding? Rhett stood over him. “One, two, three, back straight, four, five, you going to count that one?”

Six, seven, what the hell had happened to him? Had there really been a time he’d been able to do a hundred, win free beer at parties? Hard to believe. At eleven, he’d had enough, was about to stop, just flop down there on the mat and make some light remark, although he didn’t know what, when he thought: How many could Barry do?

Roy did twenty-nine.

“Dad!” said Rhett.

“Let’s feel that muscle,” said Marcia, or something like that, the words fuzzy with Roy feeling a little faint the way he did. But Marcia’s hand squeezing his biceps—no doubt about that.

They sat in the whirlpool together, Marcia’s foot touching Roy’s once underwater, maybe by accident, then showered, changed, went to lunch. “I’ve never been this hungry in my life,” Marcia said. She ordered barbecue, Rhett a burger and fries, Roy a tuna sandwich even though the barbecue looked pretty good. The three of them ate lunch in almost complete silence, their heads quite close together over the table. Rain ran down the windows of the café.

The waitress brought a newspaper from the bar. They opened it to the movie page. “Oh, let’s see this,” said Marcia, pointing to an ad. “Barry’s friends with one of the producers.”

That changed the mood a little bit.

“More of a business associate,” Marcia said.

Barry’s business associate’s movie was about a nun given a month to live; she leaves the convent and winds up at a Club Med. Marcia laughed a lot. Rhett ate a jumbo popcorn and drank a jumbo Coke. Roy couldn’t get into it, passed the time watching little things in the background of the scenes and wondering about Barry.

“Enjoy it?” Roy said, as they walked back to the car.

“Pretty cool,” Rhett said. “Do a lot of nuns have tattoos like that?”

Roy parked in front of Marcia’s house. Rhett got out, walked to the door without waiting for Marcia, as though leaving them alone on purpose. Marcia turned to Roy.

“Thanks for a very nice day.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow what?”

“We could do something.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.”

“So?”

“Don’t, Roy.”

“Don’t what?”

“Let’s just take our time, that’s all.”

“Take our time for what? Getting to know each other?”

“In a way,” Marcia said. She laid her hand on his. Her skin was cold. “You’re a good man, Roy. Even I can see that.”

“But?”

“No buts.”

In the rearview mirror, Roy saw the Mercedes coming up the street. “Was it the truth, Marcia? When you said you’d made a mistake about Barry.”

“Oh, yes,” said Marcia. “I made a mistake about Barry. A doozie.”

That was that. What else was there to know? Roy couldn’t imagine any other impediment he couldn’t handle. He reached into his pocket. “Here,” he said.

“What’s this?”

“For you.”

“These are beautiful.”

“A kind of emerald.”

“I know that, Roy. But I just couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“I couldn’t, that’s all.” She rolled the emeralds gently in her fingers.

“Just try it out for a few days. It can always go back.”

“I couldn’t.”

The Mercedes turned into the driveway. Barry got out, glanced at them—he didn’t look good, unshaven, shirttail hanging beneath the hem of his jacket—and hurried toward the house, carrying an armful of papers. Barry had a little trouble with the front door, dropped two or three sheets without knowing it. A rainy gust of wind whisked them away. The emeralds made a soft clicking sound.

“It can go back?” said Marcia as the door closed behind Barry.

“Why not?”

“In that case.” She slipped the necklace in her purse.

Later that night, Rhett called Roy. “Can I get a dog?”

Roy laughed at that, laughed again when he was brushing his teeth, once more getting into bed. He slept like a baby.

SIX

It was still raining, or raining again, when Roy drove through the gates of the Girl Scout camp the next day. He parked in the lot beside a Porta Potti truck, put on a rain jacket, opened his umbrella, and walked toward a row of tree-sheltered cabins he could see in the distance. The cabins were padlocked, the windows boarded up. Roy kept going, beyond the cabins, up a path covered with pine needles, into deeper woods. He came to a three-pronged fork where signs on the trees pointed to nature walk, computer lab, and arts and crafts. Roy chose nature walk.

The nature walk path led up a gradual slope lined with pines and waxy-leafed trees whose name Roy didn’t know. The rain fell harder, making percussive sounds on the waxy leaves, still bright green and shiny new. Other than the rain, it was quiet. Roy slipped on a tree root, stepped in a puddle, got his foot wet. Had no one come? Had they canceled the event? Roy was slowing down, almost ready to turn back, when he heard a voice close by.

“No one’s worth that kind of money.”

Another voice: “Know what your problem is? You’re living in the past.”

“Bullshit.”

“No bullshit. Sports is entertainment now, pure and simple. Drive in a hundred and thirty runs, you write your own ticket, just like the movies, that faggy little actor, what’s his name.”

Roy looked around, saw no one. “Anybody here?” he called.

Silence. Then came the sound of metal clanking on rock.

“Hey!”

“Not ‘hey,’ for fuck sake.”

“Oh, yeah. Who goes there?”

Two men wearing uniforms like Gordo’s came scrambling out from behind a boulder ten or fifteen feet off the path, both of them now calling, “Who goes there?” They saw Roy. One stuck a flask in an inside pocket. The other said, “Stand and identify yourself.” A low-hanging branch knocked his hat off as he came closer.

“I am standing,” Roy said.

They didn’t seem to hear him. The one with the flask said, “Oops.”

“What do you mean—oops?” said the hatless one.

“We forgot the guns.”

“Muskets, for Christ sake. Or weapons. Never guns. Guns are cannon.”

“Whatever. Shouldn’t we get them?”

They looked back toward the rock. Roy saw that they’d built a shelter behind it—plastic trash bags stretched over muskets stuck in the ground, bayonet first.

“Probably.”

“But then we’d have to put the whole damn thing back up again.”

They turned to Roy, waiting under his umbrella. The hair of the hatless one was already soaked flat against his skull; the peak of the other one’s hat—kepi, was that what Gordo had called it?—was directing a tiny waterfall onto the tip of his nose.

“I’m looking for Gord Coker,” Roy said.

“Gordo?”

“Correct,” said Roy.

“He’s in camp.”

“In a tent, nice and dry.”

“Where is it?” Roy said.

“Lucky son of a bitch,” said the one with the flask.

“Third on the right,” said the other.

“Third is Jesse,” said the one with the flask. “Gordo’s one more down.” He turned to Roy. “Fourth tent on the right.”

“I meant the camp,” Roy said.

“The camp?”

“I’m sure I can find the tent on my own.”

“Huh?”

“After I get to the camp.”

“You asking where the camp is?” said the hatless one.

“I am.”

“Thataway, quarter mile or so.”

“Thanks.”

Roy started down the path. He heard one of them saying, “Isn’t one of us supposed to accompany any stranger into camp?”

And the other: “Stranger? You heard him—he’s here to see Gordo.”

Pause. “We should have asked him to send someone back with those BLTs.”

Roy passed a tree labeled sweetgum, another labeled american sycamore, and a third, resembling the waxy-leafed one, although he wasn’t sure if it was the same species, labeled post oak. He came to a grassy clearing. There were about a dozen white tents in the clearing, arranged in two rows on either side of a black cannon. It was quiet and still: nothing to hear but rain on canvas, nothing stirring but the rebel flag on a pole above the first tent on the right. Roy paused outside.

“Anybody home?”

“Roy? That you?” The flap opened. Gordo appeared in his uniform, the butternut jacket, gray trousers, yellow suspenders, black half boots that conformed to no current fashion. He actually looked pretty good. “Come on in.”

Roy folded his umbrella. Another uniformed man came up behind Gordo, peered out. “Where’s the picket?” he said.

“What’s that?” said Roy.

“Like a sentry,” Gordo said.

“Supposed to be a picket escorting every visitor,” said the other man. “Standing orders.”

“They need BLTs,” Roy said, ducking into the tent.

“Now you know why we lost the war,” the man said; a man of about Roy’s height, but thinner, slightly stooped, balding. He reminded Roy of an English teacher he’d had in high school.

“Roy,” said Gordo, “Jesse Moses, second lieutenant, Seventh Tennessee. Jesse, Roy Hill I was telling you about. Roy Singleton Hill.”

They shook hands. “Gordo’s been telling me about you,” said Jesse Moses. “Welcome to the Seventh Tennessee.”

“I’m just visiting,” Roy said.

“Glad to have you. I’ll fetch the colonel.” He threw a gray cape over his shoulders and left the tent.

Roy looked around, saw a rough wooden table, the kind of thing you might find at a flea market. A candle burned on the table, illuminating a map that looked yellowed with age in the dim light.

“There were Jews in the Civil War,” Gordo said in a low voice. “Both sides.”

“So?”

“So it’s authentic.”

“What is?”

“For Christ sake, Roy. Jesse Moses is Jewish. We’ve got a Jew for second lieutenant.”

“But it’s kosher.”

Gordo gave him a look. “That’s not a reenactment kind of word.”

“What about
putz
?” Roy said.

The tent flap opened and Jesse Moses returned. He glanced at Roy, then Gordo, back to Roy, and seemed about to say something—
Who said putz?,
Roy was sure of it—when a short round man came in behind him. His uniform bore lots of gold braid and culminated in a green plume poking up from his broad-brimmed hat.

“Colonel,” Jesse Moses said, “Roy Hill. Roy, this is our colonel, Earl Sippens.”

“Earl Sippens?” Roy said, shaking his hand, a small hand and damp, but that might have been the rain. “Not the Suzuki guy?”

“Isuzu,” said Earl.

“Isuzu,” Roy said. “Sorry.” Sippens Isuzu was one of the biggest car dealerships in Cobb County, regular sponsor of late-night movies.

“No biggie,” said Earl. “I sold Suzukis at one time. Hell, I sold them all. Remember the DeLorean?”

“No.”

“Course not—too goddamn young.” Earl Sippens looked Roy up and down. “Roy Singleton Hill. I get a chill, now I really do. What was he—your great-great-grandpappy or one more greater than that?”

“I don’t know,” Roy said.

Earl didn’t seem to hear that. “Roy Singleton Hill,” he said, putting his hand on Roy’s back and propelling him toward the table. “This calls for a drink.”

They sat on overturned crates. “Ah,” said Earl, glancing at the map, “Chickamauga.”

“Jesse and I were just going over it,” Gordo said, setting down tin cups, pouring from an earthenware jug.

“Chickamauga,” said the colonel. “What might have been, eh, boys?”

“That’s debatable,” Jesse Moses said.

“How so?” said Earl, his eyes getting small real quick. Roy smelled whiskey, a strong smell. All the smells—damp wool of the uniforms, canvas, grass, melting candle wax, whiskey—were suddenly strong.

“If you’re talking about Bragg’s so-called failure to pursue,” said Jesse Moses, the candle wavering for a moment, sending a brief shadow across his face, “remember there’s a difference between winning the field and winning the battle.”

“Maybe I’m not bright enough to see it,” said Earl. “Bragg chases them down the night of September twenty, smashes them up”—he set his tin cup on the map, hard enough to slop a little whiskey over the side—“then there’s no Lookout Mountain come November. No Lookout Mountain means no march through Georgia, no Atlanta goin’ up in flames. What we call a turning point, like fucking Little Roundtop, curse the name.”

“That’s debatable too,” said Jesse Moses.

Earl’s voice rose. “You saying we take Little Roundtop we still don’t win that fight?”

Jesse nodded. “It was unwinnable. Lee should have decamped the night of the first.”

Earl sat back, folded his arms across his chest. “And gone where, you don’t mind my asking?”

“Where he ended up going anyway, back over the Blue Ridge—but before they’d jammed his tail between his legs,” said Jesse.

“And how’re you supposed to win a war like that, always runnin’?”

“Ask Ho Chi Minh,” Jesse said.

“Don’t start that shit.”

Jesse gave Earl an unfriendly look. Earl gave one back. Then he blinked, turned to Roy. “Sorry, Roy, things get a little heated sometimes. The nature of war, you might say.”

“No problem,” Roy said; they’d lost him from the start.

“Wouldn’t mind hearing your opinion,” Earl said.

“About what?”

“Chickamauga,” said Earl. “Meaning specifically Bragg’s failure to pursue the Army of the Cumberland after Longstreet’s breakthrough at the Brotherton Cabin.”

“I know nothing about it,” Roy said.

“No?” said Earl. He raised his cup; the others did the same, Roy too, to be polite. “Victory,” said Earl, emptying his cup in one gulp. Gordo and Jesse did the same. Roy drank a lot less, not even half, but it went to his head anyway. “Refill, Private Coker, if you please,” Earl said.

Gordo refilled the cups. Actually looked all right in his uniform, and what was more, seemed to move in a different way, almost with a swagger. Gordo caught Roy’s glance, gave him a wink. Regional supervisor, area manager: Gordo thought the job was his. “Tennessee sipping whiskey, Roy, twelve years old,” Gordo said. “Authentic.”

“Except for the twelve-year-old part,” said Jesse. “The boys drank rotgut.”

“Beauregard as a for instance?” said Earl. “You saying Beauregard drank rotgut?”

“Beauregard was hardly one of the boys.”

Earl and Jesse exchanged another unpleasant look. Roy wasn’t sure what they were arguing about, was also confused by all the names—who was real and who was not, or rather who was living and who was dead.

Earl took out a thin cigar, slightly bent, bit off the end, lit a wooden match with a flick of his thumbnail. The smell of smoke drifted through the other smells, rich, concentrated, like a bonfire in a tobacco field, packed tight. Earl smiled at Roy, wisps of smoke trailing from the corners of his lips. “Strikes me as pretty funny,” he said, “you not having an opinion on Chickamauga.”

“Why’s that?” said Roy.

“Because,” Earl said, “right there”—he jabbed at the map—“was your grandpappy. Reed’s Bridge, eighteen September.”

“Not my grandfather,” Roy said. “I told you—it was much more distant than that.”

Earl drained his cup again. “Practically the first skirmish of the whole goddamn battle. Bet he had an opinion. Bet I could even tell you what it was.”

Roy took another sip of whiskey, gazed down at the map—saw markings that made no sense to him, names he didn’t know, like Thomas, Crittenden, Polk, Wheeler, blue rectangles here and there, mostly on the left, gray rectangles mostly on the right, a winding stream or river farther to the right. He didn’t see anything that looked like a bridge. “What year are we talking about?”

Earl put down his cup. “You’re asking what year was Chickamauga?”

“Yeah.”

The uniformed men all looked at each other. “Eighteen sixty-three, Roy,” said Gordo. “You must have learned that in school.”

“With the quality of education in this state?” said Earl. “Don’t count on nothin’.” He spat out a shred of tobacco leaf.

Jesse took the jug, poured whiskey in Roy’s cup. “Look, Roy,” he said, leaning over the map. “Reed’s Bridge.” He pointed with his index finger: a long, delicate finger; Roy couldn’t help thinking of all those Jewish pianists and violinists, stereotypical or not. “And right here,” said Jesse, “where it says ‘Forrest’? That’s Nathan Bedford Forrest. Roy Singleton Hill—your ancestor—rode with him, that’s clear from the muster rolls and from when he was mentioned in dispatches, which is how we know he must have been there, September eighteen, 1863.”

“This is about history,” Earl said. “We’re historians. Historians in action.”

“And 1863 is our year,” Jesse said.

“What do you mean?” Roy said.

“It’s always 1863 in the reenactment world,” Jesse said. “By general agreement, North and South.”

“Why?”

“That was the year,” Earl said. “Been no year like it, before or since.”

Or maybe he said
’fore or since
. Roy wasn’t sure: not with the whiskey going to his head, and the smells, and the rain on the tent, and the hiss of dripping wax, and the creaking of the leather belts when Earl, Jesse, or Gordo shifted on the wooden crates; not with the flickering candlelight, and how it made that blue creek or river seem to move, just a little. All at once, Roy was out of air, but completely. He got up, mumbled something, stepped outside.

Still raining, but not as hard. Roy stood near the cannon, took deep breaths. He checked his watch, gave it a close look, in fact, much longer than normal. A commonplace, utilitarian watch of no great value: but digital. He felt a little better.

The rain stopped, the breeze died, but a mist thickened almost at once between the trees and down the line towardthe most distant tents. A soldier—a reenactor, Roy reminded himself—appeared out of the mist, walking briskly forward, an object under his arm.

The man nodded as he went by Roy. The nod was curtailed, military, the man young and smooth-faced with two stripes on his sleeve and a single earring in one ear. He carried a long curved sword in its scabbard.

“Colonel?” he said, standing outside the tent. “Light’s perfect.”

Earl came out of the tent, took the sword. He had trouble buckling it on. The man helped him, spinning him around once like a top, which was roughly Earl’s body shape, and getting all the belts—Earl was now wearing three—in order. The soldier wasn’t tall—perhaps not even as tall as Earl—but lean, trim, the most soldierly looking reenactor Roy had seen so far.