The soldier kneeling in the wet gully has ceased his rocking and sobbing, though the claw-pronged limb reaching over him keeps trembling in the breeze, its shadow shaking. It’s an oak branch, and its wet-gold leaves are among the first to burnish with the season. The man is grime-faced and hatless, no more beard than a peach, his eyes gray and stunned nearly silver. His blue tunic is soiled and torn at the shoulder, where Du Pre’s saber kissed him in the fray. We have watched over this New Yorker since last night, and a weary-faced Garland says the man’s collarbone is broken. He’s a buck private green as creek moss who just followed orders, factory-like, but he is one of Kilpatrick’s new Shadows. His saddle-mates have killed too many of our friends, and he knows the musketoon poised at his ear is cocked, the trigger finger eager to be finished with all this.