The guide ate a corner off a square of eating chaw. “You musta fought a damn funny battle. This is the rebel ridge, the Union one is over there.”
Gramp smiled and handed the guide a cigar. “I mean it was Union when we took it after the battle. Well, let's move on and find lodgings for the night. California. here we come!”
I never did find out if Gramp had mistaken the ridges, and Mama said I mustn't ask Gramp about it again as old soldiers have a way of fading away into dreamlike states and not always remembering the facts. Gramp didn't talk about the Civil War for a week. And we both worked over the map in the journal and figured we only had a few more thousand miles to California. The map is old and torn now but still marked on it in Gramp's handwriting arc the words: “Booneville, bought a genuine signature of Geo. Washington for ten dollars.”
I still have that, too. A Los Angeles City College professor told me it's the rarest of all Washington signatures, being the only one signed to a paper bearing the 1903 watermark …
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