by Greg Hunt
“Doesn’t seem much risk of that, General. I’d say this bunch is whipped for proper.”
“We’ve still got Willard somewhere to the west of us to worry about. His other regiments are still more or less intact, and his skills in war craft are miles better than whatever fool put together this stand.”
Mel could tell by their fading voices that the two men were moving away. And by the growing commotion on all sides, he understood that this new army was quickly settling in. It was a brand new mess, right on the heels of the one just ended.
He stayed in the wreckage of the cabin for the rest of the day, making as little noise as possible, hearing but not able to see the activity around him, berating himself for getting trapped in a spot like this. He should have hightailed it into the woods as soon as he came down from the mulberry tree, or better yet stayed down in the cane thicket this morning after he’d settled up with that piss-ant lieutenant. But how could he have known that as soon as one army was run off the sad wreckage of his farm, another one would settle right down in the same place?
He had never thought of this spot as anything special, but these men sure seemed to hold it dear, and worth the wasting of many, many men. It was because it controlled both the post road, and the broad open valley to the north, Major Elliott had explained to him. And what was so special about the road and the valley? Armies needed roads and flat open spaces to move, especially in country like this where the hills were steep and the woods were dense.
Mel never got around to asking Elliott the next logical question, which was why one army was hell-bent to move down this particular rocky, rutted mountain road, and why another army was headstrong to make sure they didn’t.
To Mel it was all just circles and bloody, destructive nonsense. If it was his call, he would tell them to go around another way.
Not long after dark the noise and activity outside began to lessen. This was an army exhausted by long days of fighting, and though they had won, the battle had taken its toll on them as well.
Hunkered down in the cabin, Mel was so thirsty he felt like he had swallowed dirt. There was nothing in the cabin to drink except the whiskey, which could only satisfy an entirely different kind of thirst, and hardly seemed appealing when his body was crying out for water.
He crawled to the front of the house and took a look out through the jagged hole the cannonball had torn there. The moon was up, the scattered bodies of the dead and wounded were taken away, and the scene was much like it had been when the other army was bivouacked here.
The main difference was the ring of bonfires out in the middle of the cornfield where the prisoners were now guarded by another ring of armed men. The captured men, some clearly wounded, huddled in clusters in the light of the blazing fires, awaiting the dawn and an uncertain future behind enemy lines. Even if a man made it through the fighting all in a whole piece, it still was no Sunday buggy ride being a soldier.
But no one was in sight close around the front of the cabin, and the pump a few yards down the hill called to him like the promise of a sweetheart’s kiss. There wouldn’t be any better time than this, Mel decided, easing his way out onto a surviving slab of front porch. He stretched his stiff, painful legs and sucked in a great chest full of the fresh night air, feeling better out in the open air again despite the risk. He slithered down off the porch like a snake, then began crawling cautiously down the hill.
The water was sweet and cool, with that faint, familiar taste of metal that the ground put into well water hereabouts. Mel drank his fill, then splashed some on his face and neck to refresh himself and wash away some of the grime. It had been four or five days—he was losing count—since he had been able to wash up properly, or even put on a clean shirt. He could hardly stand his own stink, and the itching in his drawers made him wonder if he was the only creature living in these clothes.
He tried to stay calm when he heard the footsteps approaching from behind. The question ran through his mind whether the truth or some lie would serve him best. As he turned to face the new arrival, he saw the man lower the muzzle of his rifle toward him. He stopped several feet away, clearly suspicious. The bayonet at the end of the barrel looked four feet long from that angle.
“Just sit tight and let’s have ourselves a little talk,” the man said. The man’s face was shadowy with the moon at his back, but his tone of voice was warning enough.
“I’m with graves detail,” Mel said. “I came up here to cool down and get away from the stink for a spell. I’m headed back down there now.”
“Why ain’t you in uniform?”
“Burying’s a messy business. I took it off so I wouldn’t get dirt and blood all over it, and then have to live with the stink and filth for Lord knows how long. I took these duds off a dead man.”
“What’s your outfit?”
“C Company.” It was a blind shot in the dark.
“Just one problem. The rebs are doing our burying for us,” the man said. “Which means you’re one of them escaped up to here, or you’re a lyin’ sack of shit. Which one are you, mister?” There was a new edge to the man’s voice and stance that Mel didn’t at all like.
“The lying sack of shit one, I s’pose,” Mel said, “if I only get two choices. I didn’t think you’d believe the truth if I told you.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” the soldier said, taking a decisive step forward. “But I’ll let somebody else worry about it.”
Fortunately for Mel, the sentry decided to use the steel butt plate of the rifle to deal with the situation instead of the long deadly blade at the other end. But Mel didn’t feel so lucky when the rifle butt clipped him high on the cheekbone and sprawled him back. He didn’t pass out right away, but he was stunned beyond thought or movement, and his head was clogged with pain. The world swirled dark, blurry and confusing above him, and then went away.
The horizon to the east was beginning to glow red and yellow to announce the coming of day when Mel began to reclaim his senses. He was flat on the ground with his arms and legs splayed out awkwardly, his first sensations those of feeling cold and stiff and miserable in the damp predawn. His brain was a fuzzy, painful mess, and he had trouble putting any sensible thoughts together about what had happened to him or where he was. Somewhere nearby men were talking, their voices low and guarded. He smelled wood smoke and meat frying and coffee boiling. The empty, gnawing hunger in his belly did more to bring him back to his senses than anything else.
As he struggled up clumsily onto one elbow, thunder and lightning exploded inside his head. He raised one hand to soothe the pain and discovered a swollen tender wound there, caked with dirt and drying blood.
Some of it started coming back. The big man with the rifle, his stupid ruse, and the payoff for his clumsy lies. But it probably wouldn’t have happened much differently for him if he had tried to tell the truth.
He sat up, waiting for the swimming in his head to let up before trying to move again. First he’d find out where that coffee was boiling and try to talk somebody out of a cup. After that . . . well, maybe the coffee was plan enough for now.
There were men all around, some still asleep on the bare ground, and others starting to stir around in the growing light of morning. In his muddled state, it took Mel a while to realize that none of them wore blue uniforms, and not a single man was armed. Then he understood that he was in with the prisoners captured during the fighting the day before. As he had feared, they thought he was part of the army up from Arkansas.
His eyes fell on a man squatting a dozen feet away, watching him with something like a satisfied look on his face.
“Glad to see you’re still amongst us,” the man said. “You looked pretty bunged up when they drug you in last night.”
“I feel like I’ve been mule kicked in the head,” Mel admitted.
“Well at least you woke up this morning, which is a lot more than I can say for some of these fellows, who won’t be waking up today or any other day.” His a
rm swept the scattered bodies around them, and some of them did indeed look dead. “A fellow was about to take your boots when they brung you last night,” the man said, “but when he saw you was still breathing, he let you alone.”
“I’m grateful to him for that, but I feel most near dead right now.”
Mel was beginning to get his bearings. They were in his lower field near the earthen berm the other army had thrown up. The ring of fires he had seen last night were burned down to smoking ashes now, but the ring of blue-uniformed guards, with a ring of wagons behind them, were still there. Nothing remained of the thriving cornfield that had been here a few days before. After all the tromping and digging and fighting and dying, not one of the young corn shoots that he had been so proud of appeared to have survived.
“I’d offer to help you tend that bang on the side of your head, but they haven’t give us water but once since noon yesterday, and not enough then.”
“It’s fine for now,” Mel said, struggling to his feet. He was surprised by his own unsteadiness. It was like a Sunday morning after hitting the jug too hard on a Saturday night. “I’ve got to straighten something out with these bluecoats. I don’t belong here. I’m not in this fight.”
“Ain’t none of us in it no more, seems like.”
“I never was, though. This is my land. I live here. Your side understood that and let me be, so they should too.”
“So you’re the one, huh? I never seed you myself, but I heard a couple of fellows, hardscrabble farmers theirselves, talking about what a shame it was what we were doing to your place.”
“I didn’t think it could get no worse,” Mel agreed. “But now it has.”
As Mel started away, the man called a piece of advice after him. “Don’t cross past that circle of fires from last night. Learn that lesson from some other fellows that tried and caught a bullet for their boldness.”
As Mel neared the edge of the circle, two of the guards noticed his approach and casually swung their rifle muzzles in his direction. They shared a chuckle about something, and Mel wondered if they were joking about who got to shoot him, or maybe what button to aim for, if he came too close. He stopped a pace short of no-man’s-land and said, “I need to talk to somebody. A mistake’s been made.”
“Yeah, and you boys made it, thinking you could hold your line against the likes of us.”
“That’s none of my affair. I shouldn’t be out here. Can you fetch somebody I can talk to? An officer, maybe?”
“Sure, we’ll fetch the colonel for you so you and him can have a nice chat. Or maybe you’d rather talk to the general himself,” one of the men said. “Why don’t you step on over here and hold these rifles for us till we come back.”
“You can even put in a little target practice while we’re gone,” the other soldier laughed. “You can shoot any sonofabitch out there, and tell the sergeant that he said he didn’t belong here, neither.”
Mel held back what he really wanted to say, and tried one last time. “I’m not a soldier. This is my farm. I just got caught up in this thing.”
One of the guards swept the hillside and the surrounding area with his gaze, then turned back to Mel. “You say there was a farm here? I don’t see much sign of it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The prisoners languished in the open field through the endless hot morning as the sun topped the tree line to the east and crawled upward in the sky. Here and there a few more men died, and each time there was a scuffle for his shoes and clothes if anything was worth taking. At another time he might despise the ragged scroungers, but right here, right now, survival was all that mattered. Later they might spend years trying to come to terms with the guilt and shame of what they’d done. But at least they’d be alive to feel the regret.
And who was he to judge anybody? Right now he’d gladly fight any man in the place for a few swallows of water taken off a dead man. But there wasn’t any water to fight over.
As morning inched into a sweltering afternoon in the open relentless sunlight, the suffering of the prisoners increased. The scattered rumblings of discontent grew in volume, and groups of men began to collect at the borders of their invisible prison. More guards were added to the ones already on duty, and then more after that. The prisoners pleaded for water, food, and care for their wounded. They taunted the guards openly, and even the shots fired over their heads pushed them back only a few paces.
Mel stayed back away from the ruckus. Nothing could come of this rioting, he thought, except more blood spilled for no gain. But desperate men did desperate things. These were men just one day past being soldiers themselves, ready to fight and die for one cause or another. They hadn’t yet been stomped and worn down into dull submission, not like the convicts in the chain gang the county brought through here every year or so to drag and level the post road.
Maybe they had decided it would be better to die right here than away off in whatever prison their enemies sent them to. And maybe they were right. But it was different for Mel. A drink of water wasn’t worth dying for. At least not yet.
Some of the captive officers managed to gain control of the situation, possibly stopping a pointless slaughter. Using the powers of command they’d lost a day before, they herded the sullen prisoners back toward the center of the field, then approached the guards to talk. After about ten minutes of negotiation, a deal seemed to be struck.
Before long, two heavily guarded wagons drove into the edge of the prisoner area. From the first wagon buckets of water were filled from large oak barrels and passed down to the prisoners. At the second wagon, each prisoner was given a hunk of dried bread and a dollop of cornmeal mush in a tin cup. It was poor fare and not enough to fill a man’s belly, but no one turned it down. There were tiny dark chunks in the grits that Mel thought could be meat, but was more likely bugs. Daddy had told him that eating insects wouldn’t hurt a body, and that a man could even live on them unless it was something nasty like spiders or cockroaches, but it was the idea of the thing. Still he ate it, dark bits and all, and scoured the bottom of the cup with his finger to lick off the last dabble.
The empty barrels were carried down to the creek and refilled, then brought back and put on the ground at the edge of the prisoner area so everyone could get what they needed. Now, unexpectedly, there was an abundance of the stuff that the prisoners had nearly been willing to die for an hour before. It didn’t make a whit of sense to Mel, but he was glad to quench his thirst nonetheless.
Later he used some of the water to clean the dried blood and dirt from his face. A stranger offered to help, and produced a needle and thread to close the two-inch gash on his cheek. Mel could hardly see out of the eye on that side, and the man who had helped him said he looked like he had a hog jowl stuck to the side of his head.
Those were hardly encouraging words, but the gash was closed and the eye worked at least a little, so he knew he was better off than some of the others. Hardly a man there was unscathed, and some had festering, painful, fly-covered wounds that did not bode well for them. Hour by hour, the line of bodies waiting for burial grew longer.
Mel wandered the area of confinement, looking for any possibility of escape, but it seemed useless. There was too much open ground on all sides, and too many armed men ready to cut down any reckless soul who made a run for it.
He remembered following old Doc over this very ground not so long ago, a man alone turning the middles, passing the long hours thinking about a girl. It seemed now like a snippet out of somebody else’s life.
Plowing was work for the body, not the mind. It left countless hours for a man’s thoughts to wander in any direction he chose, and sometimes they explored down unexpected pathways he’d never picked at all. Other times his thoughts were entirely predictable, especially for a young man whose sap was rising, with most of his best years still ahead.
There were times when it took no more than a whiff of honeysuckle on the wind, or a cloud shaped a particular way, or the trickle of the
brook that sounded almost like laughter, to bring women to mind. And once there, they settled in and stayed for a while.
Before Rochelle Adderly, he had let his mind stray with a number of local belles. There was the mayor’s daughter down in Palestine, a spirited young redhead whose irresistible smile and quick, challenging laughter easily compensated for her smugness and saucy tongue. There was the gypsy woman, seen only once but never forgotten, who danced a harlot’s dance with her flailing skirts, and promised many wicked pleasures with a single glance of her ebony eyes. There had been others as well.
But Rochelle, who was real and available, had somehow managed to crowd all the others out of Mel’s thoughts, plans, and imaginings. It was easy to recall words that had actually been said, and things that had really happened. Some of the things he remembered would have set a stiff-necked old goose like her father, Ezekiel Adderly, reaching for his twelve-gauge. Mel had last seen Rochelle over a month ago at a dance at the schoolhouse over at Bright’s Crossing, and what happened that night sealed the deal for him.
He made no claim to understand women. But he had received a revelation that night, with a clumsy male sense of wonder, that there was no real telling what a young woman would do when the moon was up, and she was hot and close in a man’s arms, too far from the watchful eyes of parents to think about consequences. On a Saturday night like that, all the Sunday morning rules and prohibitions could dissolve away like sugar in water.
That’s what he had been remembering last week, the day before this lot arrived, while he turned the middles on this very same plot of ground—hot, damp kisses tasting of apple punch and corn liquor, forbidden fumbling explorations, gasps and pants and sighs, and finally, tears of guilt and wonder.
That night they hadn’t talked about marriage, or even love. But what else was there for them after what they did? It all seemed clear to Mel during the long ride home after the dance.
But in the solitary days that followed, all kinds of doubts and hesitations flooded his mind. What if Ezekiel Adderly wouldn’t give his daughter up to an unchurched heathen like Mel? Or worse, what would Ezekiel do if he found out what Mel and his daughter had been up to in that soft patch of fescue out behind the schoolhouse stable?