Read Gabriel's Journey for Free Online Page B

deft hand with the horses has earned him a promotion.” She sighs. “His sergeant’s stripes were a high moment for us. But oh, Gabriel, I wish you’d stayed at Woodville Farm and stuck with the racing. Life here, well, it ain’t pretty.”
    â€œYes ma’am.” There’s no use arguing. I nod goodbye to the womenfolk and take my leave. After traveling day and night with Annabelle, I feel empty without her. But the lane between the tents is bustling with colored women stoking fires and ladling food from pots, so I grab my bundle and hurry off before their curiosity is roused.
    I jog in the direction of the men’s tents. The sun is finally peeking over the horizon, and the dew on the grass glitters like tiny jewels. On a cool summer morning like this, I’d normally be up early working Aristo. The colt would be prancing and hopping and mouthing the bit, eager to gallop.
    My heart aches at the thought of never riding him again. But I know this is where I belong.
    Stopping to catch my breath, I look west. I can see the Soldiers Home—where I bunked one night with Pa on my first visit—across the pike. A ways behind it are the main stables. A whinny rings across the camp and my heart catches.
Pa can wait just a bit longer to see me,
I decide as I head for the horses.
    It’s a hike to the four long barns, arranged in a square like the sides of a box. In the center is an arena for drills and dirt paddocks where they turn out the horses. Camp Nelson supplies food, weapons, mules, and horses for the Union troops fighting in Tennessee. When Pa first mustered in, he worked with worn-out or wounded horses called remounts. His job was to get them fit so they could return to the battlefield.
    When I reach the stables, I stride through the wide doors of the closest building. A horse pokes its head over the first stall door, and I scratch between its eyes. When I pull my hand away, it’s covered with dirty tufts of hair.
    I glance into the second stall. This horse ain’t so sociable. Its head is tucked in the farthest corner. Talking softly, I unlatch the door. My bare toes squish in the wet straw. I stroke his neck and down his chest. The horse looks as if he was once handsome and muscular. Now my fingertips ripple across every rib. His near hind leg is wrapped with gauze, and I smell the festering wound.
    The war’s tough on soldiers,
Pa had told me,
but it’s hell on horses.
    The wound needs washing and fresh wrap. The horse needs sweet grass and grooming. And the stalls need a good mucking.
    A sense of purpose fills me.
    Now I know why I’ve been drawn to Camp Nelson. Ma and Pa need me. But so do the horses.
    The tapping of drums and the trumpeting of bugles snap my attention away from the horse. I better hurry, or I’ll miss Pa.
    Holding my bundle under one arm, I latch the door and run from the barn. Colored soldiers are walking down the lane toward me, heading for the mess hall. As I trot past, one of them teases, “Where you goin,’ boy? A Rebel after you with a whip?”
    â€œNah, just my ma,” I josh as I scan the squad for Pa, but he ain’t with this bunch. Cutting off on the lane to the right, I take a shortcut to the colored barracks, down a path behind the Soldiers Home. Next to it, farther down, is the hospital.
    Across the pike, a company of soldiers is drilling in the field beside the colored barracks. The men move in a wave of blue as a lone voice rings out, “Left . . . left. Left, right, left.” On the pike, two mounted soldiers patrol the road, stopping stragglers and checking passes. My steps falter. All I have is the telegraph from Captain Waite.
    I turn tail, but not before one of the mounted guards sees me. “Halt!” he hollers, and I hear the dance of hooves.
    I race for the hospital. It’s a distance, but if I reach it, I can lose myself among its many wards and outbuildings. I round the back