*~*Mikey's POV*~*
Bryar did start sending out groups of men to scout out Union soldiers, and making them food that would hopefully last them as long as they would be gone was harder than expected. The snow was really starting to fall, it was cold out and hard to find firewood. It was also hard to get fresh foods, or any type of food that didn't have mold on it. The food was progressively becoming worse and worse, and the complaints were inevitable.
Frank, Alex, and I were back to being a group again. Alex and Frank at least pretended to be able to stand the other's presence around me. The only time, I think, when they appreciated the other being there was at night when it was cold out and any extra heat was more than appreciated. I had convinced Jacky, who was less than excited about it, to let Frank help out, as long as he didn't become a problem. Jacky and Alex kept to themselves, while Frank and I would work together and finish faster than I could alone.
Bert and his posse left us alone, although Frank would occasionally stop to talk to Jeph when we passed him. Jeph as okay, he was nice at least. He smiled a lot and said Frank had talked about me a lot even though he was supposed to hate me. Frank blushed a lot when that happened.
On one particularly cold afternoon, Jeph came back to the camp with Bert and Quinn in tow, but no Branden in sight (I had finally learned their names after Frank bothered me enough about it). When Frank asked him about it later, he told us that Branden was taken by some Union soldiers when the ambush took a turn for the worst. He also told us Bryar had yelled at them for it, calling their move the worst mistake anyone could make, and the three of them couldn't go on a mission, which Bert obviously wasn't happy about. That man had become more violent than I had ever seen him after that.
Not even a week after that, a group of new soldiers came. It was a mix of drafted soldiers, some that enlisted, and some that were in the same situation as I was. I had been walking by them as they were pulled out of the snow covered carriage, and Bryar was giving the same speech he had given to us. There were a lot of them, though, more than the seven of us that had been there at my time. A few of them looked at me, some scared and some challenging me, and as soon as Bryar called my name I was regretting walking past this spot.
"Just the man I wanted to see," Bryar said with that grin of his that meant something good wasn't about ot happen. "Do you mind helping Private Armstrong with names today? He's been needing an assistant, and you know how this works." I could tell right off the bat it was more of a demand than anything, and I could hear the threats between his words if I refused.
"Yes sir," I said, doing a two fingered salute towards him. He didn't seem amused and went back to his little speech. Armstrong was a man I had come not to like whenever I had seen him. Whenever the little man would appear, something bad would follow in his wake. He handed me a board with a paper on it, and pointed at the back of the crudely made rows.
There was a moment of silence as Bryar finished and then Armstrong took his place to say what he was doing. I realized as I listened to him talk, I realized I didn't know any of the officer's first names since we weren't allowed to call them by those names.
I started wondering what Bryar's first name was when someone called out my name, and I started at the first person in line.
"Name and age," I said with as emotionless of a voice as I could, which wasn't too hard for me.
"Dan Whitesides, twenty-six," the man said. I looked up at him, he had long hair, longer than I had seen on a man, at least, and looked tough. I didn't want to mess with him.
As soon as I stepped away from him, a muscled soldier grabbed him from behind and started taking him to the tailor's tent to get a uniform. I moved to the next one and went down the line, frowning as the ages seemed to get younger and younger. Why were so many young people so willing to fight in the war?
Armstrong and I were eventually in the same row, and when we met in the middle, I handed him the paper. He grabbed it and stalked off without another word in the strange way that he always does. I started wondering what could upset him that way, considering he was Bryar's first man and had a say in anything, but then I thought that he was always like that, rude and inconsiderate.
I watched as the rest of the new soldiers were marched off towards the tailor's tent, watching how some of them looked lost, and others were already trying to assert themselves as some higher being. I started to wonder what had happened to the others that had come with us, I don't recall ever learning their names, or remembering what they looked like that for that matter.
There was a big gust of wind that sent an unpleasant chill down my spine. I shivered, wrapping my arms around me as I continued past the area, going to where I had planned before Bryar had called me over.
There was a tent down here, one that mailed letters. I never knew about the tent, I thought it was just there for the hell of it. When I asked Jacky about it, though, he replied and said it was a mailing tent. He told me that if I wrote a letter, I could mail it with his order. From the second he told me that, I was planning a letter to my parents in my head, to quickly write it down to tell them where I was and that I was okay if they had been worried. I felt the letter in my pocket, and I jogged the rest of the way over, opening the tent to a small, confused boy, couldn't have been much younger than Alex.
"Can I help you, sir?" he asked, and I nodded, taking a moment for my brain to work and reach into my pocket to reach the two letters.
"This one," I said, holding it out to him and he took it with gloved hands, "is an order for the kitchen. This one," I handed him the other one which had a crudely written address on it, "is a personal letter I would very much appreciate being mailed as soon as possible."
"No problem, sir, it'll be in the mail as soon as the roads are clear enough for me to ride."
"Thank you," I said, ducking out of the tent. I was shaking a little, the thought of having any form of communication with my parents was a blessing. I missed them, and I was hoping that they at least noticed I was gone, maybe even searched for me. The thought warmed my heart.
I walked back to the kitchen, passing some of the new soldiers. For once, I outranked them, at least for the time being, and that's all that mattered in my mind. I felt pride well up in me as I walked passed, but I didn't let it show. I stepped into the kitchen tent and explained what had taken me so long after Jacky was starting to scold me
As with what happened when we came, Jacky started cussing, and complaining about everything. "You took the order anyways? I have to remake the list with all these new soldiers!" Jacky stormed out of the tent, and I heard him cussing my name. I rolled my eyes, he was very dramatic when the time came.
Alex and Frank were both sitting on a bench that we had brought in to keep us from having to sit on the mushy ground. Neither of them were talking, but they looked up at me at the same time, like some creepy twin thing.
"What's wrong?" I asked, almost not wanting the answer.
The two of them looked at each other, and Alex sighed before he spoke. "Bryar wants to see us after dinner."