American Gothic Read Online Free

saw nothing to do with bite marks, sir, not that I looked any harder than I needed to be sure those poor people were dead.”
    The saloon keeper came to the end of the bar where Peregrine and O’Rourke were standing, bringing two glasses and a bottle.
    “ ’Tis a salutary thing, a glass of whiskey,” O’Rourke said, raising his glass after the bartender had turned away. “It gives strength to the weak, sight to the blind, and comfort to the afflicted, the perfect medicine.”
    O’Rourke touched his glass to Peregrine’s and they both drank. Whiskey would take some of the edge off the sickness rising in Peregrine’s belly.
    “I haven’t thanked you,” Peregrine said into his glass.
    “Not to mention it, sir. As concerns to your safety, it was your interview today with old Spoons that had me worried.”
    “General Butler was most accommodating.”
    “You deserve accommodations, sir.”
    “No, but that doesn’t matter. It isn’t expedient for Butler to cashier me. God save the United States Army from politicians.”
    “They have their place, sir.”
    “I asked General Butler again to transfer me to Virginia. He said he’d think about it, but he isn’t going to help me. I’m more useful to him if he keeps me around as a symbol of Union fighting spirit.”
    “The men do look up to you, sir. If we had more general officers like you, we’d win more fights.”
    Peregrine took another swallow and shrugged.
    “You’re a hero, sir, like it or not.”
    “The only difference between me and any other soldier is that I have learned how pointless it is to fear the inevitable. The things you know about and can see—like some Alabama sharecropper in homespun gray pointing a squirrel rifle at you—aren’t the worst things that can happen to you. The things we ought to be afraid of are the things we never think about until it’s too late.” Peregrine reached for the bottle. “We’re all as good as dead anyway. The sooner it happens, the sooner it’s finished.”
    “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
    “Don’t insult me with that kind of question, Seamus.”
    “I wouldn’t have taken you for a cynic. It’s unbecoming of an officer.”
    “I don’t give a damn.”
    “You sound as if you’ve given up.”
    “Maybe I have.”
    “Then maybe you aren’t that man I thought you were. Not if you’re going to talk like a coward.”
    “Careful, Seamus.”
    “You said I could speak plainly.”
    “Just be careful.”
    O’Rourke grinned at his commander. “I can handle meself with my own two fists.”
    “So can I.”
    “That’s more like it, sir,” O’Rourke said, and laughed. “Let’s have another drink.”
    “Let’s.”
    O’Rourke freshened their glasses.
    “To tell you the truth, General, I’m concerned. Your grief is eating you alive.”
    “I’d rather not discuss personal affairs, if it’s all the same to you.”
    “Sometimes it helps to talk, sir.”
    “It never helps me.”
    “Well, then I’ll do the talking, if it’s all the same.”
    Peregrine didn’t look up from his glass.
    “The good Lord created us for noble purposes, sir, not to be broken beneath the weight of sorrows. I saw my share of troubles before coming to America. Three brothers put in early graves and many a friend, too. It was hard to leave home, the hardest thing I’d ever have to do, but there was nothing left for me in Erin but the gallows and an English rope.”
    “But you didn’t forget.”
    “No, sir, forgetting is the one thing I could never do. But time has taken away the sting. We have to move on or our past destroys us. I will never forget, but still I’ve managed to move on.”
    “Leave it be, Seamus.”
    Peregrine poured another glass. The whiskey made it easier to forget some things, but not the important ones.
    “So you saw no wounds in the neck of the woman I was with last night?” he asked, giving it one last try. “Just here,” he said, pointing with two fingers. “You’ve got to