Someone stole my whiskey and cigars! These, my two dearest companions, alcohol and tobacco, now ripped from their safe hiding place in the back of my wagon. All this right under my very nose while I was arguing with the Colonel. My first reaction was to yell at the soldiers but that wouldn't help so I bit my tongue and waited to see just how mad I should get.
This was not the first robbery of my goods when less than a week before someone got away with my supply of mustard. I can barely stand to eat the corned beef and other rancid meat even with the mustard but without any makes me want the whiskey and cigars all the more again. That mustard came all the way from New Orleans and there won't be another batch in stock any time soon.
I couldn’t decide which I missed most, the whiskey, the cigars or the mustard. I had to go a few days with no whiskey or cigars the last time the military blocked our tracks and that was when I first started stocking it away at the depots. Going without drink and smoke can be irritating but going without my favorite food can be downright painful.
So I set a trap for my tormentor and sure enough on the fourth night he came again while I was hiding under a blanket behind the door. As soon as he crawled past me in the dark I pulled the hammer back on my pistol and lit a match at the same time both within inches of his head before he had time to gasp.
He was dressed in dirty brown canvas from his floppy hat clear to his shoes all the same material and condition. He didn't look like any soldier I had ever seen him before but I had the drop on him this time and figured I should let him have it and finally get my first kill.
In the last three days I had seen two cases of senseless killing that had transformed a murderer into a hero and I had assumed I could benefit by joining their club but now that the chance was here I couldn't remember why I felt that way.
I suddenly remembered killing my first deer with a gun at the age of 8 and how I missed my first shot but not my second. My hand was shaking now just as it had back then and I was starting to wonder if I would need two shots again when the culprit turned his head my way.
His eyes were looking back at me and I had a instant feeling as if I knew him. I didn't know his name and I had never seen his face before but I knew he was just like me had once killed his first deer and was now wondering if I would miss my first shot again.
That moment of hesitation turned into forever as I sat frozen watching him slowly back his way out of the wagon as he disappeared into the night. I argued with myself why I couldn’t kill and I argued back to myself that I work for the B&O Railroad and I am no soldier and it's OK that I can't kill. I had expected to brag and benefit from the proof of my killing prowess but instead I never did mention the episode to anyone.
Later on at Chancellorsville that same gun would have no trouble sending a fatal bullet that would find the Colonel without error and I would look back and wonder why it would not kill tonight.
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