"What about Colonel Bird?" a man asked.

"Pecker'll be back soon," Starbuck assured them. "And he'll have his old job back."

"And Captain Murphy?" another man called.

"Last I heard he was doing real well. He'll be back, too."

The company trudged on. "Are we still the Faulconer Legion?" a corporal asked.

"I reckon," Starbuck said. "Most of us come from there." The answer was an evasion, for given time Starbuck intended to change the regiment's name, just as Swynyard planned to change the Brigade's name.

"They going to make Tony Murphy a major? Like you?" That surly question came from a tall, scowling man called Abram Trent, who sounded deliberately unfriendly. Trent's question suggested that Starbuck's promotion had come too quickly and at the expense of men who were native to Faulconer County.

Starbuck met the question head-on. "Ain't my decision, Trent, but if you reckon I shouldn't be a major then I'll be real happy to discuss it with you just as soon as we stop walking. You and me together, no one else."

The men liked an officer who was ready to use his fists, and Starbuck's offer to fight made them respect him, while the reluctance of any man to take up the offer only increased that respect. Starbuck knew that men like Abram Trent were the centers of resistance to his new and fragile authority, and by facing them down he helped make their defiance impotent. He finished by telling Company G what little he knew about their destination. "Old Jack doesn't march us like dogs for the hell of it, boys. We're on our way to give the Yankees a whipping, so save your breath and keep marching." Battle, he thought, and specifically victory in battle, was the elixir that would restore the Legion's confidence.

But not every man was eager for battle. Late in the morning, when few men had any breath left for questions or answers, Captain Moxey caught up with Starbuck. Moxey had been riding his horse, but now he led the beast by its reins. "I can't go on," he said.

Starbuck gave the sallow Moxey an unfriendly glance. "You look fresh enough to me, Mox'."

"It ain't me, Starbuck, but the horse."

Starbuck edged the sling of his rifle away from the spot on his right shoulder that was being chafed to rawness, though he knew that within seconds the sling would work its way back to the sore spot again. "Your horse ain't in command of a company, Mox', you are."

"She's lame," Moxey insisted.

Starbuck looked at the mare, which was indeed limping slightly on her right rear leg. "So let her loose," he said.

"It ain't probably nothing more than a bad shoeing job," Moxey said, "so if you give me a pass, Starbuck, I'll find a blacksmith in a village near here and catch you up."

Starbuck shook his head. "Can't do that, Mox'. Old Jack's orders. No one's to leave the march."

"I won't be long!" Moxey insisted. "Hell, it's what we've always done on a march." He tried to sound offhand, but only succeeded in being petulant. His family had money, but, as Pecker Bird had always maintained, not quite enough money for its pretensions, just as Moxey did not possess quite enough grace to be a gentleman. There was a perpetual air of grievance in Moxey, as though he resented a world that had inexplicably denied his family the last few thousand dollars that would have made its existence free of all financial worry, while Moxey, the eldest son, lived in terror that one day he might have to work for a living.

Starbuck grimaced as he trod on a sharp-edged stone. He was marching barefoot, and for a pace or two the pain stopped him from speaking. Then the brief agony subsided. "So what is it, Mox'?" Starbuck asked. "You don't want to fight?"

Moxey bristled. "Are you accusing me of cowardice?"

"I'm asking you a goddamned question," Starbuck snapped.

Moxey immediately backed down. "My horse is lame! That's all!"

Starbuck shifted the rifle onto his left shoulder, though immediately the sore spot on that shoulder began to chafe. "The orders are clear, Mox'. If your horse can't keep up, then you're to leave it behind. Put her in a field where some farmer can find her."

"She's a valuable mare!" Moxey protested. "From Faulconer's stud."

"I don't care if she's a goddamned unicorn from the stables of the sun," Starbuck said coldly. "If she can't keep up then she stays behind."

Moxey's anger flared raw. "She ain't a Boston coal hauler's nag, Starbuck. She's real horseflesh. Worth near a thousand bucks."

Starbuck changed his rifle back to his right shoulder. "Just keep up with us, Mox', horse or no horse."

"You can boil your son of a bitch brains," Moxey said and turned angrily away.

Starbuck felt a sudden rush of fresh energy. He turned after Moxey, took him by his elbow, and steered the smaller man forcefully into some trees that grew beside the road. Starbuck made himself smile so that the watching men would not construe the scene as a fight between two officers, but as soon as he had Moxey and his horse safe out of the column's sight, he turned the smile off. "Now listen here, you son of a goddamned bitch. You may not like it, but I'm in charge of this goddamned regiment and you're nothing but a captain in it, and you're going to do what every other man in this regiment has to do. I don't care if you ride your damned horse till she's broke, and I don't care if you leave her here to starve, but I do care that you're leading Company B when we face the damned Yankees. So what are you going to do, Mox'? March or ride?"

Moxey had gone pale. "I ain't going to leave my horse. She's too valuable."

Starbuck pulled his revolver from its holster. "I tell you, Mox'," he said as he thumbed a percussion cap onto one of the cones, "they should have drowned you at birth and saved the rest of us a heap of trouble." He spun the cylinder so that the primed chamber would be the next under the hammer, then placed the revolver at the tired mare's drooping head with the muzzle just above her eyes. "What the hell..." Moxey began. Starbuck thumbed back the hammer as the mare stared at him with her soft brown eyes. "You're a leprous piece of ratshit, Mox'," Starbuck said in a calm voice, "but it just happens that I need you despite that, and if this here mare's the obstacle to you doing your job, why then, the mare'll just have to go to heaven." He tightened his finger on the trigger.

"No!" Moxey dragged the mare away from the revolver. "She'll make it!"

Starbuck lowered the hammer. "Just be sure you make it, too, Mox'."

"Goddamn it! You're mad!"

"And I'm your commanding officer too, Mox', and I reckon it's a wise thing not to upset commanding officers, especially mad commanding officers. Next time it'll be your brains, not the mare's." Starbuck lowered the revolver's hammer, then jerked his head toward the road. "Get back to your company."

Starbuck followed Moxey back to the road. Company H was just passing, and Truslow spat toward Moxey's disconsolate figure. "What was that about?" he asked Starbuck.

"Mox' and me were just looking at his horse. Deciding whether it could make the distance."

"It could go on forever," Truslow said scathingly, "so long as he takes the damn stone out of its hoof." "Is that all it is?"

"What the hell did you think it was?" Truslow seemed not to be affected by either the day's heat or the speed of the march. He was one of the oldest men in the Legion, but also the toughest. He did not much care for being made into an officer, because rank had always been a matter of indifference to Truslow, but he did care about Starbuck, whom he perceived as being a clever man and a cunning soldier. "You need to watch Moxey," he said.

"I guessed as much," Starbuck said. "I mean really watch him." Truslow moved a wad of chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other. "He's Faulconer's pet, and Faulconer won't want us to succeed." Starbuck shrugged. "What can Moxey do about that? He doesn't even want to be here, he just wants to run away."