It was a calm I remembered from the War. I was a telegrapher; I never fired a gun at a Reb, or had one fired at me. But I worked the wire at Gettysburg, and many of the men in my camp seemed to feel the same helpless calm, before that battle—a resigned calm, for things had gone too far, and there was no stopping the roll of the earth that would bring first the light of morning and then the darkness of death to many thousands. The armies, those great geologic forces, would crash together like continents; we men could only await our fate.

The situations didn’t compare, of course; now we were only a few men in a gully on the llano; at Gettysburg there had been more men in and out of my office in an hour than would be in this whole fight, if there was a fight.

Yet, though the scale was different, the calm was the same; it made a kind of coat to my fear, and I passed the night tranquilly.

Toward morning the wind blew itself out and the stars shone brightly. The cabin was not roomy—Simp Dixon was stretched out practically underneath Joe Lovelady’s horse.

I was nodding a little myself by then, but my most distinct and lingering memory of that night is seeing Simp Dixon sit up, strike a match, look briefly at a big pocket watch he pulled out of his vest, and then smile up at Joe Lovelady’s horse before returning to his slumbers.

His smile was so wide and happy that I’ve remembered it always, and have often wondered if Simp could have been dreaming of home, or of a woman, and merely misdirected the smile at Joe Lovelady’s horse.

Of course it may be that he just liked the horse—poor Simp was aptly named.

La Tulipe told me later that Simp had once kept a frog as a pet; it sat on a rock in an empty molasses bottle and lived on the moths and flies Simp caught for it.

A man who could befriend a frog might well smile at a nicely behaved horse; but it was to be Simp Dixon’s last smile, and I’ve often wished I had inquired as to what pleased him so, before he went back to sleep.

18.

I finally slept for an hour, lying flat on the floor. I remember waking up in the gray morning just as Barbecue Campbell stepped over me to go to the door and relieve himself. One hand was at his pants button, and with the other he gave Joe Lovelady’s horse a light shove, for the horse’s rear end was partially blocking the door.