Laszlo said after I was like a machine when I up and opened the winder. I dont hardly recollect one way or the other. All I remember is them eyes. In my head I heered that voice again Give me your neck it was sayin. amp; I twisted my chin to one side like a shote which dont know its about to be slaughtered.

Then its like there was a scream only it werent a noise at all only in between my ears. Laszlo had sprang out from where he was hidin amp; landed the hant a smart one with his crucifix. We didnt know what that would do neither him or me but we found out right quick. They was a thump a real one this time amp; insted of the bat at my neck there was Zoltan on the floor naked as the day he was bom only I reckon he werent bom at all when you think about it.

He was still part hant tho. I had thunk his teeth was long before well now he had a set the bobcat we ketched last winter would of been proud of. He was smilin like a wild crechur amp; I got to tell you them eyes still dragged at me somethin fierce.

Not at Laszlo. I reckon the cross saved him. Maybe them Catholics is not as rong as we think. Anyways he hauls out a railroad spike amp; slams it into Zoltan’s chest. I heard that shreek again in my mind amp; I reckon in Laszlo’s too on account of his hands was shakin but he did not let go. He shoved that spike in harder amp; deeper.

Zoltan’s mouth was open so wide I thot itd go clean round to the back of his head. I was moving like a man in a dream still but when Laszlo cussed at me I done the last thing we planned out which was fling a whole garlic down his I mean Zoltan’s trap. I dont know if that shifted him or the spike but then he give a last riggle amp; his eyes well if they was lamps youd say they was blowed out. All a sudden I was alrite again.

Laszlo and me the both of us yelled then on account of it wasnt no little boy on the spike any more but a bat the same size Zoltan had been amp; just as dead too. amp; then the bat melted away like snow in a thaw amp; there was nothin on the rug excepting the spike which Laszlo had dropped and the garlic.

So its done I reckon. I wish I eld sleep for a week but we got a game tomorrow. I bet we whup em too.

Your Brother safe amp; sound,

Rip

Detroit

September 15, 191-

Dear Willie,

Well whup em we didnt I am afraid. The Tigers they is a good team amp; that Ty runs amp; hits like a madman amp; you cant pitch around him either or Sam or Bobby will kill you if he dont. So we lost again.

But the boys which was most bloodsucked are looking better amp; so I have no douts things will get better soon. amp; heres a funny thing. Nobody remembers nothin about Zoltan amp; what he was doing to em but for me and Lazslo.

Come to that nobody remember nothin about Zoltan at all. Laszlo amp; me we run into Gyula at breakfast amp; was not sure what to say or nothin. Finally Lazslo asks him Hows your son amp; he looks at my roomie like he was off his head amp; says I aint got no son nor never did. Lazslo amp; me look at each other amp; press it no farther I can tell you.

amp; you remember how Zoltan was in the dugout with us and all? Well his little uniform is plumb disappeared amp; nobody knows where it has gone nor misses it neither. When I asks the mgr What become o the batboy he gives me the same look Gyula done gave Lazslo amp; says This team aint never had no batboy.

Thats what you think I says But dont worry he done flied out for the last time. amp; I laughs amp; laughs even tho hes reamin me up one side amp; down the other. Sometime there aint no point in tellin people things anyhow is all I can say.

Your loving Brother,

Rip

This story sprang from the research that produced the novel The Guns of the South. Indeed, Captain Thorpe briefly appears in the novel. He truly was captain of Company A of the Forty-seventh North Carolina and did write its regimental history. He was, in fact, still alive in the 1920s, when he did more historical work on the regiment He may even have attended the Confederate reunion at Richmond in 1932.

The train pulled to a stop. “Richmond!” the conductor shouted. “All out for Richmond!” The man in the long gray coat with the brass buttons slowly got to his feet, made his way down the aisle. A porter walked behind him with his bags. People waited respectfully until he had passed, then began filing out after him.

The conductor touched a finger to the brim of his cap in salute. “Watch your step as you get out, General. Let me give you a hand, suh.”

John Houston Thorpe waved away the offered assistance. “If I can’t manage a couple of steps, young fellow, you may as well bury me. And I’m no general. I’m proud I was a captain, and I’ve never claimed anything more.”

Taking some of his weight on his stick, he descended from the passenger car without difficulty. Richmond in June was warm and muggy, but so was Rocky Mount, North Carolina, from which he’d come. The weather was not what made his shoulders sag for a moment; it was the weight of the past.

He’d come through Richmond in 1863 with the rest of the Forty-seventh North Carolina, hot and eager to join Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia in the great invasion of the North that would set the Confederacy free forever. He’d been dapper and handsome, with slicked-down black hair and a thin little mustache of which he’d been inordinately proud.

Now-how had sixty-nine years slid by? Inside, he felt like a dashing youth still. The body that moved only slowly, the thick spectacles, the gnarled hand he often cupped behind one ear-

were they truly his? Surely it was the world that had changed, not himself.

A flashbulb exploded in front of his face, filling his vision with purple spots. No flashbulbs when he’d been here before; in those days, having a photograph taken meant standing solemn and statue-still until the long exposure ended. He nodded. Yes, it was the world that had changed.

“Welcome to Richmond, General!” the fellow behind the flash camera shouted. “Have you come here other times since the end of the war?”

“Never once,” Thorpe answered with a sort of pride. “But now, I thought, if I don’t come now-when shall I have another chance?”

“What do you think of the city, General?” the man asked.

As his eyes cleared, Thorpe saw the fellow had a press tag tucked into his hatband-a reporter, then. “I’m no general,” he repeated, a bit testily: a reporter was supposed to know such things. “What do I think of Richmond? I’ve not seen much yet, but it strikes me as a big city. Of course, it did that a while ago, too.”

The laugh that once rang musically was now a rusty croak, but he loosed it all the same. When he’d first come north to Richmond, not a town in North Carolina had held as many as five thousand inhabitants; no wonder the Confederate capital, then near forty thousand, seemed to him a metropolis swollen past belief. These days Rocky Mount was on its way to being a city of the size Richmond had been then. He wondered why he failed to find it large. Perhaps because he and Rocky Mount had grown together. But his town had grown up, while he… somehow he had just grown old.

From behind him, the porter said, “You come on with me, suh. I’ll take you to the cab stand.” The colored man picked up his suitcases again and raised his voice: “Make way fo’ the general here! Make way, folks!”

And people did clear a path. Following in the porter’s wake, Thorpe reflected that the illegitimate promotion people insisted on foisting on him was worth something, at any rate, if it got him through the crowded train station so easily. He laughed again.

“What’s funny, suh?” the porter asked. “When I was a soldier here, I doubt the people would have moved aside so readily for any real general, save maybe Robert E. Lee, as they do now for me. I led no great armies, only a ragtag company. My only claim to notice is my span of years.”