Alias Dragonfly by Jane Singer

him, I’m going on to Manassas. I hear they’ll be a fight.”
    “Praise God, yes,” the other soldier said. He looked nervous. I realized he was really young. His blue uniform looked brand new. “Go on over,” he said. “Sober up that smelly kid there. Get going before I change my mind.”
    Jake saluted them, and we started over the bridge.
    I was amazed at how Jake handled the pickets. And he called me Tommy! I couldn’t help but smile to myself. But I sure wasn’t going to praise him to his face.
    Right then, Jake ducked as a bullet sailed straight over his head and crashed into a tree. The horse reared up, nearly pitching over the carriage.
    “Damn, I missed!” a voice shouted from behind us.
    “Do you have a weapon?” I grabbed Jake’s arm.
    “No.” He slapped the reins, hard.
    The horse stumbled over a rock, nearly tipping us over again.
    I pulled out my gun. “I know how to use this, even if you don’t.”
    “Sure I do,” he answered in a wobbling voice, turning the color of ash. Did I mention that Jake Whitestone had really pale skin?
    A man with red, tangled hair, wearing a jacket striped green and yellow, galloped past, his revolver pointed straight at us.
    I aimed at the man. My God, could I shoot him if I had to?
    “Go, go!” Jake yelled at the horse.
    The man lowered his weapon and spat into the air. “Not worth it!” the man laughed. “Itty bitty pea fowl in that buggy. I got bigger to catch. I got to kill me some Yanks!” Cursing and laughing, he sped past us.
    I slumped back into the seat, my back sore, and my body weak with hunger.
    “Are you okay?” I asked.
    “Of course,” he answered, his voice a bit shaky. “Are you?”
    “Of course.” I wasn’t really okay at all, but darned if I was going to tell him.
    I kept dozing off, and jerking back awake as we passed through miles of beautiful farmlands. Horses and cows grazed in the green, tall grasses. Spring flowers dotted hillsides. Far back from the road sat wide-porched houses, with low-slung ramshackle buildings—shanties—scattered behind them. Negro men, women, and children, lines of them, trudged through the fields. The men were pushing plows. Even women with babies in slings were carrying heavy bags on their backs. Now and again a white man on a horse would appear wielding a whip. I saw a young Negro man down on the ground, his shirt in tatters, his back bloodied.
    “Welcome to Virginia,” Jake said.
    I was too stunned to answer. Sure I’d seen so many different, unsettling things in Washington City, but the sights, the truth of what people did to one another, made a deep furrow of pain in my heart. I will never forget those moments as long as I live.
    From afar, Centreville was a town of low-lying wooden buildings, clusters of soldiers milling about, some mounted, some not. Jake Whitestone veered off the road into a grove of tall oaks. We pushed further into a glade where the air dipped to coolness, and there was nary a sound except for the bubble and rush of a stream.
    “We’ll camp here and follow the regiment as soon as they move,” Jake said, unhitching the horse.
    “Thanks for the ride,” I answered, heading away. He really muddled me. I was really muddled myself. But I had to get to my father. So I just ran. I was so tired and clumsy in the stupid old boots, I stumbled as I scrambled over some rocks and fallen tree limbs.
    He caught up to me.
    “Let me go!” I pushed him away. “Unless you want a fight.”
    “Go then, you damn fool! They’re in camp now, not moving. If you even spot your father, he’ll send you back! Is that what you want? Or are you really crazy enough to think you can pass as a soldier?”
    “Yes!”
    “How?”
    “I don’t know, yet. I’ll figure it out!”
    “Crazy, and dangerous, and . . . forget it.” He wheeled around and limped off.
    I sat down on a tree stump. Okay, I thought, what the heck do I do now? He’s got the horse and buggy. I’d keep my distance from