The Mockingbird's Ballad

"Long" Charlie Maddox was full of himself and that was quite a full package. At just 5' 3" his nickname "Long" was a joke he'd been given when he was 12. Now he weighed at least 200 and had a waddle on his fat neck the size of one of Mama Bear's good sausages. His arms were exceptionally long and hard as hickory wood. His relatively good mood this morning was because the major had assigned him a green hand recruit - a willing and talented "gofer". Charlie was just shy of 50 years old and fond of good sour mash whisky, fast horses, tall skinny women for hire, sugar cured ham and yeast rolls. "Long" Charlie was outwardly gruff, short tempered, and foul mouthed. His near toothless jaw clinched a beat-up cob pipe all his waking hours. Rumors among his skittish headquarters' farrier section was that he had been a popular and successful jockey twenty-five years ago in Richmond and courted a big planter's baby daughter - a sweet strawberry blond. When he got over saturated with rotgut he told the story.

Her daddy hated him, ordered him not to see her and when Maddox ignored his demands, the girl's father had Maddox horse-whipped and thrown unconscious into the hole of a French freight ship out Norfolk. The busted up jockey somehow made it to New Orleans after several years in France. He said he'd showed those fancy French how to ride a winner. He was in New Orleans when the volunteers came through in '46. He joined up and was with Taylor in Texas when he tangled with the Mexicans across the northern Mexico. Charlie had joined up with a Tennessee unit routed through New Orleans. He served with the major, then a corporal in Taylor's infantry throughout the war. Seems he was assigned to a farrier section after the fighting stopped and those two young soldiers a long way from their homes sweated through the idle occupation in northern Mexico. He and Major Stevenson had been friends since the war and they had served off and on at different forts in the old army out west since then.

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Lou had been working for farrier Sergeant, Charles F. Maddox for three days from before dawn to well after sunset. Maddox had eased up on her only because of darkness. Lou was dog-tired but she didn't let up. The farriers had been covered up doctoring and shoeing beaten up, tired out, and near broke down stock. They'd been bent over shoeing horse after horse. Every other mount needed cuts tended and some even needed stitches. Lou knew how to sew up cuts and she reeked of the foul salve they used on them. It was a blessing for these poor animals that North Alabama's corn and hay crop had been good that summer. Folks brought in wagonload after wagonload of animal and human provisions. The stock was beginning to look like they might just do for the next spell with the Yankees. The men looked like human beings, mostly. The expansive Jones plantation, Caladonia, near Courtland, Alabama had full food larders and the troops had shared in some real tasty food cooked up by accomplished black slave cooks. Sweet potatoes were Lou's favorite. Alex ate his weight in warm buttered corn bread. J. N. was fond of the rich thick spring chilled buttermilk.