Gabriel's Journey by Alison Hart Page B

I’m sorely tempted to leap on him one night and gallop him in the moonlight. But I reckon that would get me kicked out of Camp Nelson for sure.
    â€œGabriel? Is that
you?”
a voice calls from the bottom of the ramp.
    I jerk my head from my arms. Annabelle’s staring up at me, her lips parted in astonishment. I scramble to my feet, slip on the manure-slick wood, and topple head over heels to the bottom of the ramp.
    â€œOh! Are you all right?” Annabelle’s all sympathy as she helps me to my feet. But then she wrinkles her nose and fans her face with her gloved hand. “Have you been bathing in horse droppings?”
    â€œAin’t been bathing at all,” I reply crossly, mortified that Annabelle found me a filthy stable boy instead of a proud soldier. Frowning, I pick up my kepi and whap it against my leg to shake off the dirt. “I thought you’d be long gone from here.”
    â€œWhy, no!” Annabelle exclaims. “Why would you think that?”
    I shrug, noticing that instead of being beaten down by scrubbing, she’s bright-eyed and sweet smelling. Her hair’s fashionably rolled in a bun and covered with netting; her faded calico’s draped with a comely shawl. Only her dingy gloves suggest she’s been working.
    â€œIndeed, I’m having the most exhilarating time!” she declares. Waltzing back and forth beside the wagon, she gushes on and on about the camp “being splendid,” as if we’re conversing in a parlor instead of a stable yard.
    â€œAnnabelle,” I interrupt, my voice low, “it ain’t proper for a lady to be sashaying around the stables unescorted.”
    â€œFor your information, I have
two
chaperones,” she huffs, pointing a gloved finger over my shoulder.
    I turn around. Pa and Ma are strolling beside the fence enclosing the horse paddocks, their arms linked as if they’re courting.
    â€œAnd your pa’s your superior, so you better mind your manners,” she teases, before switching the subject. “Have you met Reverend Fee? He’s been running Camp Nelson School for Colored Soldiers. He’s helping me establish a school in the tent city where your ma and I live.” Annabelle swings to face me, her eyes glowing. “Gabriel, every day I get to teach! Not in a real schoolhouse, mind you, but in a tent just for learning. Reverend Fee has provided benches, and he’s procuring books and tablets. Oh, he’s a man of unlimited ambition! He’s talking about building a government camp for the soldiers’ families, too. Reverend Fee has such heavenly ideas that I believe he may be a saint!”
    I fold my arms against my chest, listening with a doubtful and jealous heart.
    Annabelle keeps bragging on and on about Reverend Fee. Finally she stops pacing. She turns to me coquettishly. “And how have you fared the past five days? Your ma and I hoped you would visit us.”
    My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I’d love to lie and tell Annabelle I’m too busy fighting Rebels to have tea in her tent. But I’ve never been a liar, and I ain’t going to start now. ’Sides, Annabelle can clearly tell by my shabby britches—the same ones I was wearing when we arrived—that I ain’t no soldier.
    Still, I don’t have to let on that I’m nothing but a muckworm. Setting the kepi on my head, I adjust it at a rakish angle. “I’m the stable hand for Pa’s squad,” I tell her. “I help care for their horses, so I ain’t had time for social visits.” I want to puff myself up even more, but I’m too yellow.
    â€œMy, that sounds like a lot of responsibility.” Annabelle says, and I’m surprised there’s no mockery in her voice.
    â€œI can show you the stable,” I venture, doubting she’ll accept. I can count on one hand the number of times Annabelle visited the barn at Woodville Farm.
    She