Xander patted him on the back and stood. He picked up the kepi and handed it to David, then tugged down the gray coat.
“You’re going as the Confederate?” David said.
“I can’t make you do it again, can I?” He slipped into the uniform.
“How are we going to play it this time?” David said. “The soldier-prisoner thing worked the best.”
“For about ten minutes,” Xander said. “It’s like Jesse said, the people in the times we go into sense that we don’t belong.
They don’t like us no matter what side we’re on.”
David stood and shrugged out of his coat. “Trade with me,” he said, holding it up for Xander.
“No, I—”
“If we’re going as soldier and prisoner, you’d be more believable as a soldier. They might try to take the rifle away from
me
.”
Xander peeled off the gray coat. “Let’s hope we touch down close to the encampment, like last time.”
They didn’t.
Before David’s feet hit the ground, an explosion tore up the earth forty feet away. He tumbled and came to rest on his stomach. His broken arm was under him. Both it and the ribs it was pressing into began throbbing, as though the pulse of a racing heart was the soundtrack this world demanded. Dirt rained down on him.
A plume of smoke engulfed him, so thick and gray he lost sight of the ground directly under his face. It filled his nostrils like burrs, painful and suffocating. He inhaled through his mouth and felt the pain in his lungs. He coughed and wiped his eyes on the backs of his hands. They kept leaking, and he blinked, blinked.
“Xander!” he yelled. “Where are you?”
Rifle fire, cannon fire, shouts, and screams whisked away his words like sand tossed into a hurricane.
He crawled forward, hoping to get out of the smoke. He found a body.
“Xander?”
He patted his hands over a thigh, a hip . . . a gaping wet hole. The blood was warm, fresh. He screamed and pulled his hand away. Then reached back, feeling farther up: an arm, bent unnaturally . . . shoulders . . .
“Xander?” The word not much more than a croak.
A breeze blew past, clearing the smoke. A face stared at him, eyes and mouth stretched in a wide expression of terror.
Mud and blood were streaked over the forehead and cheeks, but David saw it wasn’t Xander and dropped his head to the ground.
He lifted his gaze to examine his hand. Drenched in glistening crimson, with bits of grass and dirt stuck to it. He focused past his fingers to the corpse. A Union soldier. The man’s knees were bent under him, as though he had dropped on the very spot he had stood. Shards had been blown into him, opening up his lower chest. Then David realized his mistake: they weren’t shards that had penetrated; they were ribs that had broken and canted out.
He pushed away, retching. His stomach heaved.
He felt hands slapping his body, as he had the dead soldier’s. He screamed and swatted at the hands.
“Dae! Dae! It’s me!” Xander crawled beside him, dragging the rifle on the ground, and collapsed. “You okay? You hurt?”
David covered his mouth, closed his eyes. He willed himself not to throw up. When he thought he had control over his stomach, he nodded. “I’m okay.”
“We’re in the heat of it, Dae,” Xander said. “We can’t just walk out of this, a soldier and his prisoner.”
“I don’t want to walk,” David said. “I want to
run
.”
Xander put his arm over David’s back. “We’re right on the front line, but I saw Union soldiers ahead of us. We’re on Union ground . . . just barely.”
Remembering the last time they were in this position, David said, “They’re going to try to kill me. Doesn’t matter if I’m a kid or you got me covered with the rifle. This close to the battle, they’ll shoot anything gray.”
“Then take it off,” Xander said.
Little clouds and wisps of smoke drifted past.
David lifted his upper body, and Xander got the left side of the coat out from under him. He pulled his arm out of the sleeve.
Xander rolled it into a ball and threw it.
“Xander!” David said. “We need it to find the portal.”
“I have enough things. Just stay with me.”
David reached for his kepi, but it was already gone.
Another explosion erupted twenty feet away. Both of them covered their heads. Clumps of earth dropped down on them.
Xander pulled his arm off David. “Take off your shirt,” he said.
“My . . . why?”
“It’s a yellow T-shirt,” Xander said. “One, it catches the eye.
We don’t want that. Two, if it looks like you lost your uniform, they’ll accept that better than if it looks like you never had one. I think our jeans will pass for blue uniform pants.”
A bullet kicked up a divot of dirt an arm’s-length from David’s head. Another one slammed into the ground on the other side. One whistled over them.
“I can’t believe you talked me into this,” Xander said. “It’s the same thing all over again!”
David gave his brother a push. “It’s not the same, Xander!
This time we know why we’re here. This time”—he pulled off his shirt, tossed it away—“we have a
purpose
.”
Xander rolled his eyes.
“If you feel that way,” David said, “why did you come?”
“I’m your big brother, Dae. It’s my job to protect you.
Anybody who says different hasn’t ever been in a position to do it.”
“Thank you.” David forced a smile. “So, what are we going to do?”
“Just what you said: run.”
Rifle fire rippled around them. A bullet zinged past. They dropped their heads.
Keeping the side of his face pressed in the dirt, David said, “Won’t they think we’re running from the battle? Shoot us as deserters?”
Xander thought about it. “Not if we’re wounded. Two injured soldiers trying to make it back to camp.”
“What, we limp?”
“Limp, lean on each other, and . . .” Xander scooted closer to the dead Union soldier. He reached toward the wound.
“Xander,
no
!”
“His blood or ours,” Xander said. “If you were dead, wouldn’t you want your blood to save the lives of two innocent kids?”
“Kind of like being an organ donor, I guess,” David said weakly. His stomach felt full of acid.
“Right,” Xander said. He reached again.
David grabbed his arm. “Just blood,” he said. “Don’t be gross.”
“Just blood,” Xander agreed. “That’s gross enough.”
David closed his eyes. Xander moved around beside him. He felt his brother’s hand on his face. Wet stickiness. A coppery smell. He moaned through tight lips.
“Just a second, David,” Xander said. He moved again, reaching. Then his hand pressed against David’s temple and ear. “One more touch,” Xander said, moving again. “Tilt up on your side.” When he did, Xander’s hand rubbed over his ribs. “Okay,” Xander said. “Stay like that.”
He stretched toward the soldier again, and David knew he was giving himself wounds.
“What about my cast?” David said.
“It’s pretty much covered by the Ace bandage,” Xander said. “Looks like it could have been wrapped here.”
A thick drop of liquid ran down David’s cheek, heading for the corner of his mouth. He smeared it away. He moaned again and said, “Xander, I can’t do this!”
“You can, Dae! Open your eyes.”
Xander was staring straight at him, his eyes blazing. A thick coat of blood ran down one side of his face from hairline to jaw.
David bit his lip.
“We’re going to get out of this,” Xander said. “If you have to think about the blood, this is what you think: that man is saving our lives.”
David nodded.
Smoke billowed over them. Gunshots, cannons, explosions continued—had never stopped.
Xander said, “Let’s go!” With that, he rose, slung the rifle over his shoulder, and reached down for David.
Arm in arm, leaning on each other, David and Xander fell into a hobbling, quick-paced gait. The Union soldiers heading for the front stared at them, more fearful than sympathetic. More than one bayed like a dog at them. David thought it was an army or regiment thing, something like the modern-day marines’ “Oorah!”
They crested a hill and saw the camp. Same one they’d visited before: two long rows of large tents, separated by a wide central aisle. Soldiers either stood in small groups in the aisle and on this side of the encampment, or streamed toward the boys.
“Do we act wounded now?” David asked.
Xander released his hold on David to walk a little straighter.
He maintained a limp, though it was less pronounced. “Let’s be a little
less
wounded,” he said, wiping away some of the blood on his face. “If we look like we’ve already been beat up pretty bad, maybe they’ll leave us alone.”
As they approached, a few soldiers broke out of their groups to meet them.
Xander held up his hand. “We’re fine.” He groaned, just to let them know they weren’t
too
fine. To David he whispered, “I don’t know if they used terms like
okay
or
all right.
”
“
Fine’s
fine,” David said. “I think.”
Two soldiers ran up to them. One grabbed David by the arm. The other snatched the rifle off Xander’s back.
“Hey,” Xander said.
“Just holding it for you, boy,” the soldier said. He hooked an arm around Xander’s back.
The one gripping David’s arm eased up. “Sorry,” he said.
“Thought you were going to fall.” He shifted his hands, carefully trying to find a way of supporting David without injuring him further. He leaned forward to get a better glimpse at his wounds.
“Have you been shot?” he asked.
“I don’t know what happened,” David answered. “I was playing my drum, then—
this
.”
“Cannon, most probable,” the soldier said. He released David long enough to grab a blanket from the ground and throw it over David’s shoulders. It was about as soft as tree bark and itched his skin.
Passing the first of the tents, the man yelled out, “Doctor! We need a doctor!”
“No, no,” Xander said. “We are not as injured as others. See after them first. Please, just set us down near one of the hospital tents.”
The soldiers looked across David and Xander at each other. They helped them to a series of stones arranged outside a tent. The stones were the size of half watermelons, and David realized this was the Civil War version of a waiting room. He and Xander moaned and groaned appropriately as the soldiers eased them down.
“Thank you,” Xander said, and David nodded.
The soldier who helped Xander stood and hitched up his pants. He pulled the rifle off his back and extended it to Xander, then pulled it back. He hefted it, moved it in his hands, as though something about it puzzled him. He eyed it, stock to barrel, frowning.
“Sir,” Xander said, holding out his hand.
The soldier handed him the rifle. He said, “Have I seen you boys before?”
David lowered his head, pretending to be weak from his injuries. If anyone recognized them from their previous visits, they would be in big trouble. Each time, they had run away, guns blasting at them.
“Maybe,” Xander said, also turning his face away—he had opted to become suddenly interested in a glob of blood on his thigh. “Don’t know.”
“Hmm . . .” the soldier said. He walked away without another word. His compatriot, who had helped David, fell in beside him. Their heads leaned toward each other, indicating that they were sharing their thoughts about the wounded young men.
“Something I said, or suspicion because we don’t belong?”
Xander said.
“The rifle, maybe. Is it pulling toward the portal?”
Xander balanced it across both palms. The gun shifted suddenly, and he closed his fingers around it. “Yeah,” he said, “a little.”
David stood. He adjusted the blanket over his shoulders and gripped the edges over his chest. He glanced toward the soldiers. Two more had joined them, and they were watching the boys.
He pretended to help Xander stand. “Let’s find the doctor and get out of here.”
“Try this one.” Xander pointed his thumb at the tent with the waiting room stones.
David flipped open the flap. Four soldiers sat or lay on tables. One of them was getting his arm stitched. A nurse tugged at the thread. She stopped to address David. “Life threatening?”
“No, sorry.” He backed out. “Come on,” he told Xander. He went to the next tent and peeked in. A man was sitting on a cot, slipping a leg into a pair of pants. David said, “Excuse me.”
From outside the next tent in line, he heard a man screaming. He turned to Xander, who was watching the soldiers at the head of the camp. “This is it!”