"I'm cold," Douglas, the youngest said, rubbing his hands together and wiping his nose.

"'What yuh git fer runnin' off tih be uh hero," his brother Buck, the eldest said, lying on their stomachs, peering down at the river.

"This here's it, ain't it, Buck..." Frederick, the middle one said, coming to terms with an eternity he suspected was this forest rinning down off this ridge.

Buck leaned to Douglas and smiled, pulling his brother's cap, then to Frederick.

"Damn straight, little brother. 'Gonna' bring these Yankees hell in a water bucket, right this fine mornin'."

"I'm scared," Douglas said, sniffling.

"Ain't nothin' to be scared'uv, little brother." Buck said. "Yeh jist got tuh git home and tell Ma to kill us a chicken and fix a fine lunch. Frederick 'n' me's gonna' be home in time to eat," and he winked, tapping his rifle, "with biscuits and gravy and everything all around. Our feet'll be beatin' the porch rails 'fore you ken' ring thuh' dinner bell. Ain't that right Frederick..." He plied his fingers into a thing like a pistol and aimed it at his brother.

Frederick didn't say anything.

They'd been run up onto this ridge-top when the Union Army swept in from the west yesterday. That was sleepy Shockenaw down there, bent and wrinkled and torn up by the invaders, Americans too, most not older than them, Cranston's Blue Brigadiers, ferrying over, half already on this side. Divided so, it was attack now or wait for their full rejoined forces to march up through the woods and slaughter them one by one or take the chance they could kill enough to drive them back and away for good.

The boys hunted quail up here with their father.

"Closest you can get to God in the whole county," is what he used to say, those warm summer days seeming as if they would last forever.

Amos Withers had gone to fight the Blues that summer before and was killed in three bloody days of Gettysburg fighting. No one knew on which he'd died, so his gravestone here, minus his body, read 'Amos Withers, husband of Dottie, father of Buck, Frederick, and Douglas. Good father, good husband, good farmer, good soldier.' It had taken Buck and entire afternoon to carve. Then he laid down his whittling knife and he and his brother took up arms in rage and in defense of that rage. They'd come with force to find their father's revenge, running yesterday to live and fight here on this ridge today, closest to God anywhere around.

Against his mother's wishes, Buck'd stolen his brothers away yesterday under the guise of hunt, just boys, their revenge and courage skewed. Buck had four notches on his sniper's gun, Douglas, two, the second, he'd wounded, a boy some age between him and his older brother, hole right through him, begging for water, crying, saying he wanted to go home to his mother. Buck spit a chew wad right in the chest hole and they left him lying.

Douglas had closed his eyes when he fired, chucking up tree bark a few times, but it felt good and he couldn't say why.

"Ain't you'ns comin' too..." Douglas said.

"We got business with these Yankees then Frederick 'n' me'll be home faster than a cricket runs from a broomstick's switch. You get goin' naw," Buck said. "G'awn and jus' get runnin' on the ridge 'til yuh come to Barker Trail and take that down. 'You get outta' these woods, you take that jacket and hat off, cut yourself a switch, and just mosie through the fields like you was a good little shepherd boy, ya' hear, a good little shepherd singin' Nearer My God 'Tuh Thee, this good little shepherd hardly ten.

"What about them snipers..." he said.

"You know all our calls 'n' most of their names. Run for tent seconds then stop and give a call. You'll be alright, now go," and Buck shoved him to get him going.

Douglas picked up his rifle.

"C'mon, Rabbit," he said, but Rabbit just flinched and shot a glance at Buck. More than the family's, he was Buck's dog, and Rabbit knew it.

"Rabbit's gonna' bite a Yankee on th' ass and tear him some flesh. We'll bring it home in a handkerchief for Ma. Stick it in a drawer and you can scare all your girlfriends."

"Maybe Ma'll make a stew with it," Douglas said, laughing like a tree branch scratching the wind. He tried to smile but his jaw was set and he looked like that scarecrow their mother had put out to keep away the birds. Some Yankee'd tramped it down.

Everybody and everything in this nation was angry about everything and at everybody else for nothing these days. Lincoln was worried and Davis had a lot on his mind.

"Why'iz zis' 'bout slaves..." Frederick said. "Pa never owned nobody fer nuthin."

"Ain't about slavers," Buck said. "'Is about side-burned tailcoats tellin' folks to give up ever'theen' fer dirt." He leveled his long rifle down to the river. "And it's fer Pa," pretending to fire, mimicking the kick in his shoulder.

Douglas stood frozen, passing into something unearthly, something not lived for until now none could explain no matter how many times or how long it'd gone on. Angels were on the ridge today, hovering and singing, mixed with the sound of long guns that'd started.

"Drop your weapon soldier. 'Can't run fast draggin' no rifle," Buck said. Douglas laid his gun on the ground.

'Tell Ma we love 'er, and we'll see 'er." Frederick said.

"Go," Buck said, and Douglas cut into the brush and was gone. Frederick and Buck looked at the spot of green he'd disappeared into in a second of all this hell and shelling.

"He'll be okay..." Frederick asked.

"Better 'en runnin' inta' the devil world we're gonna'."

"We ain't no regular soldiers, Buck. We done a little snipin'. I ain't never killed a man I could see him up close. Snipin' ain't a real soldiers deal, sittin' 'hind a rock, killin' a man where you can't hear the flesh thud."

"We're a'gonna' swoop down there 'n' bite a man's ear off 'n' spit it in his face. Then we gonna' smile with a mouth full of blood."

"I don't know," Frederick said, running his hands up and down his rifle.

"Don't need to know, little brother. Just got to do," Buck said, checking he had a ball in the chamber. "Just below Heaven." Rabbit whimpered, a shell landing in front of them.

Frederick lay back down again, next to his older brother. Rabbit sidled between them.

"Looks like stars on the water, don't it, Buck..." the fires on the ferries splotching twinkles in the early darkness.

"In between stars and Heaven's where we're at; little brother," putting his hand on Rabbit's head and rubbing like Rabbit was a magic lamp. Fate came in two commands.

"Ready weapons," the brothers exhaling the same breath. Buck put his hand on the back of his brother's neck. Frederick looked down and then into Buck's eyes.

"See you at the bottom, soldier," Buck said, Frederick's mouth trying to mold into a jagged grin, his eyes smoky and dark, like what neither could no longer put into words. Talking time come and gone, they slipped out of manhood before they had a chance to pass into it. They were up among the angels, singing and hovering like they could hear their father's voice telling them.

The second command was a simple word shouted by their company sergeant, a young man from another county Buck didn't like "cause 'a his mousy look and that stupid way he grunts orders like he's got a sack of black powder in his belly."

They stood and pushed over the short embankment, their souls leaving their bodies and gone to join their father's here on Sugarsweet Ridge above their hometown of Shockenaw, "Where angels get a start to heaven," he'd told them.

Frederick tripped, or fell behind; Buck couldn't see him anymore, every man bellowing like a banshee and the musket fire echoing off everything all around, thudding and splatting bark and flesh and soft brown earth. Rabbit ran step for step with Buck and when the ball ripped through his master's chest Rabbit caught Buck's look of astonishment and Buck, loose now like his mother's laundry in a spring line breeze, could have sworn he saw his father's twinkle in Rabbit's dead-on stare.

Buck was thrown forward and slammed into a tree, his body a haggard lump. A rebel coming down from behind gave Rabbit a tail-up kick and Rabbit ran right down to the river, howling all of earth's inhumanity. There'd be chicken in his bowl if he could keep his head down and find his way home alone.

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