Nor was the rider unarmed as Billy had first thought. There was a knife in one boot and a cane resting across the saddle that was thick enough to carry a blade within it. Billy thought there was probably a pistol under the rain cape. Hell, why not Billy concluded. A person alone on the road needed all the protection he could get. If this man wasn't a high-ranking officer, he sure might be one soon. Billy was convinced the stranger wasn't one of those fat and puffy congressmen who all looked like they'd rather die than be out in weather like this.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Billy said.

Nathan Hunter looked at the bedraggled private and smiled. “Afternoon yourself, Private. How'd you get the honor of guarding this forsaken place all by yourself?”

Billy grinned back. “Short straw, sir.” He didn't add that asshole Grimes didn't like him.

Nathan flipped him a small coin that Billy managed to catch without dropping his rifle. “Buy yourself something warm to drink, and next time stay out of trouble.”

“Thank you_: sir.”

Nathan had been impressed by the way the boy had shifted the rifle and caught the coin. Most people would have dropped one or the other. In the early days of the war, it would have been the rifle. “You know how to use that thing?”

“Yes, sir. Used it fine at Bull Run. There're a couple of rebs that won't fight again.”

Nathan was impressed. “You're a good shot?”

Billy pulled himself up proudly. He still wasn't that much taller than the rifle. “Sir, if I can see it I can shoot it.”

Nathan didn't laugh at the bravado. It was a time when young boys were becoming men through the simple act of firing a bullet through another man's brains. The young soldier had lost his innocence in a battle that didn't have to occur, and would never be a boy again. Nathan shivered, but not from the cold. He wished the boy well and rode on into Washington, DC.