Gabriel's Journey by Alison Hart Page A

experience. Devil here and me get along fine as long as I carry an ax handle and don’t turn my back on him.”
    â€œYou worked with horses before?”
    â€œYep. I’m a teamster. The Yankees impressed me into labor when Camp Nelson was first built, and I drove many a wagon to Tennessee. I got tired of looking at the backside of a horse, so I enlisted as soon as President Lincoln made it law.”
    Hooking my fingers through the bars, I study Champion. I can read a horse like Annabelle reads a book. There’s a glint of fear in Champion’s eyes that tells me his story: he’s been whipped too many times. Now his gnashing teeth and flat ears say, “Stay away. I don’t want to be hurt no more.”
    The horse don’t need an ax handle. What he needs is a soft touch.
    â€œI’d like to be Champion’s groom,” I say.
    Private Black shrugs. “Far as I’m concerned, he’s all yours. I’d rather be on the field drilling with my squad than tussling with that crazy animal. Only it ain’t up to me.”
    We walk outside, where he shows me the wheelbarrow and manure wagon. A wooden ramp slants from the ground to the wagon’s end gate. “Don’t fill your barrow too full or you won’t get it up that ramp. Now, I got one more order.” He stoops to whisper in my ear. “There’s a plate of syrup-soaked cornbread hidden on top of a trunk in the saddle room, so eat up. Soldier works harder on a full belly.” He winks. “Just don’t tell your pa.”
    Private Black will be a good friend,
I think when he leaves. As I pick up those wheelbarrow handles, I hear shouting on the other side of the barn. A number of saddled horses are walking two by two in the fenced area in the center of the four stables. A soldier holds the reins of each horse. I see Corporal Vaughn standing slightly apart. Pa’s in the front of the arena, mounted on a handsome chestnut. I immediately recognize Hero, Mister Giles’s Kentucky Saddler that he gave to Pa in thanks for saving his Thoroughbreds.
    â€œAttention!” Pa shouts. “Stand to horse!”
    Instantly, the soldiers line those horses into rows. They stand smart on the left side, right hands holding both reins below the horses’ muzzles, and stare straight ahead.
    All because of a command from my pa.
    Pride fills my heart. I lower the wheelbarrow. Raising one stiff hand to my forehead, I salute him.

Chapter Six
    F ive days later finds me still mucking stalls. It’s evening, and the horses are in the lots. The stable’s quiet as I run the last wheelbarrow full of manure up the ramp as fast as I can. It wobbles unsteadily, tips, and despite my straining, the wheelbarrow pitches into the wagon bed, along with the manure.
    I curse the wheelbarrow, curse the army, curse the maggoty bread and rotten salt pork they give us to eat, and most of all, I curse the dirty stalls.
    Worn out, I slump on the top of the ramp and bury my head in my arms. Pa ain’t let up. Sixteen stalls a day for five days adds up to . . . ? I search my mind, but can’t find the sum. To think, it wasn’t so long ago that Annabelle and me were counting up my purse winnings—over two hundred dollars, which Mister Giles put in a bank for me.
    Thoughts of Annabelle make me wonder what she’s doing. I ain’t seen her or Ma since I left them that first day. Every night I’m so weary I drop like a feed sack into my straw bed. Perhaps a few days of washing dirty linens sent her scurrying back to Woodville Farm without a goodbye, and I won’t ever see her again.
    Sorry burns my eyes. The only high point these past days has been grooming Champion. The stallion should be winning races, not locked in a stall day and night. I don’t officially have permission, but when I’m alone in the barn late, I slip into his stall. Humming, I brush that horse until his coat shines.