Confederates by Thomas Keneally Page B

according. Your aunt met the bill though. She likes Ephephtha – Mrs Bumpass.’
    â€˜You don’t mean my Aunt Sarrie gave you a record of her likes and dislikes?’
    Cate thought about this. There were a lot of cogitative flexings of his hollow jaws. ‘Well, she displayed what might be called suspicion at first. But we got to … well, respect each other.’
    â€˜How long was it my wife sat while you put the paint on?’
    â€˜Well, I would say it must have been eight days all told,’ said Cate, bunching his eyes up, calculating. ‘A portrait can’t be put together quick, Mr Bumpass. Oh, I know your average mean rural portraitist might do a likeness in two days. But the genuine article is not to be rushed.’
    â€˜I hope as sure as yesterday’s sun that there was none of that Union talk you come out with this day. I hope, and may I say, Decatur Cate, your goddam life hangs on it, that you never spoke your goddam black Republican thoughts to my bride.’
    â€˜Do I look like it, Private Bumpass? Do I look the species of man who’d tamper with the political fancies of a good woman?’
    In the dark under the oaks, Usaph trembled. But I won’t hit him yet, he thought. I’ll let the son-of-a-bitch come to a head.
    Cate heard Usaph’s grunting and fuming. ‘I am in a fix, Private Bumpass, sir. Nothing can I say that doesn’t hit you like an insult. And through no fault of mine. Am I guilty in carrying a letter from wife to husband? Are the mails of this Confederacy so prompt that I shouldn’t be used to carry a letter?’
    Usaph waited, still breathing noisily through his nose.
    â€˜You are,’ Cate went on more quietly, ‘a man I am not and may never be. You are a man beloved of a sublime woman, sir.’
    It seemed to be time to punish the conscript. Usaph pushed Cate against the trunk of a plantation oak. Because of the man’s excessive beanpole height, Usaph had to raise his elbow somewhat to trap the artist’s throat against the bark. He listened to the man gagging and it gave him an uncharacteristic pleasure.
    â€˜How’d you come to fetch up with this regiment of all regiments, you whoreson, you pig’s ass? How come this very company? How come?’
    He was surprised Cate could answer, had the calmness to answer straight.
    â€˜They told us,’ said Cate, coughing in a manner that sounded stagy to Usaph, ‘they told us in Staunton that we was natural enough meant as new blood for this Shenandoah regiment.’ Cate raised his eyes and there was still that sort of mockery in them, Usaph thought, but it still wasn’t the kind you could be sure about and all it did was key up your hollow anger. ‘I couldn’t believe my good fortune … since I meant to hand the letter in person. Then when the officer wrote me down for C Company, I swapped my place there with a boy … one who’d got written down for Guess’s Company and didn’t care either way.’
    â€˜Why? Why in hell’s name did you do that?’
    Cate stared straight at Usaph, in a dead level way for once, and the eyes were sort of bleak. ‘I knew no one else. Not a soul, Bumpass.’
    â€˜You know not me, you goddam scum!’
    Cate’s long head, imprisoned still by Usaph’s forearm, gave a little nod.
    â€˜I feel I might, Bumpass. That’s all. I feel I might know you, from your wife’s words.’
    Usaph released Cate, pulled away as if he weren’t fit to touch, then shaped to hit him but despaired of it doing any good.
    â€˜You might be funny, Cate, when you stand there talking with paints in your goddam hand. We’ll jest see how good you’ll make with the jolly jokes when your Republican friends in the army of the Union are pouring cannister at you.’
    Not knowing what else to do, Usaph turned and at first felt a little easier. But before he was fully back to