by Andy Kutler
“For God’s sake, why are you telling me this?”
“Just before you ended Mr. Edmund’s life, he was pointing a weapon at one of your men. Do you remember that?”
Kelsey closed his eyes, picturing the scene again. He saw the Confederate’s arm rise up, his thumb pulling back the hammer on his revolver. “McBride.”
“Corporal Ryan McBride. McBride will survive the war. He’ll go back to being a music teacher in Princeton, New Jersey. He will marry his fiancée and have four children. He won’t live to meet his great grandson, Sidney Tanner. But Sidney will become an obstetrician, and he’ll deliver some thirteen hundred babies in his lifetime. When he retires, he’ll open a practice in Zimbabwe, offering his services to populations who had never been exposed to vaccinations, inoculations, and other wonders of modern medicine. He’ll spend the last ten years of his life there, literally saving thousands of lives.”
“So what are you telling me, Leavitt? That this is all part of God’s plan? That we all live and die for a specific reason? That bashing in a man’s skull with a rock had a purpose? So that a bunch of Africans could get flu shots? That my daughter’s death…had a purpose?”
“No, son, I’m not telling you that. But understand, no one has predetermined your life. You have made, and will continue to make, your own choices. No one made you slam that rock down on the skull of Leonard Edmunds, and no one made you shoot over the head of Hiram Travers.”
They sat in silence for a minute. Finally, Kelsey turned to the other man.
“Who are you? I mean, I know who you are, and I guess I know what this place is. But it isn’t like what I thought it would be.”
“Commander, we don’t discuss such…” Leavitt paused, contemplating something in his own mind. After a few moments, he gave Kelsey a broad smile. “Well, we seem to be breaking quite a bit of new ground in your case. Perhaps we should dip our toes in these waters a bit more, eh? You know me, you say. I presume you had me figured out the day you stepped on that train. So who am I, Commander?”
“My parents were Methodists. They weren’t the church-going type, but they taught me enough.”
“Ah, I see. Well, I do meet quite a few Methodists here. Of course, you understand I only have North America. But I see my share of Christians, Catholics, Jews and other denominations. It’s quite an Old Testament crowd, really. So here we are, Commander, at the Gates of Heaven, correct?”
“Is it something else?”
“I have a colleague, a dear friend, Señor Mateo. South American Section. Mateo tells me that the ancient Incas believed that when you died, you became what they called camaquen, the spirit of the dead. But you were just a spirit. To actually arrive in the afterworld, in body, the camaquen would have to travel down a long road, in complete darkness. Their only hope was for a black dog to appear and guide them down the correct path. Not a white cat, mind you. Or a pink goat. It had to be a black dog.”
Leavitt continued. “The ancient Greeks, they believed in Hades, the overlord of an underworld full of souls, both good and cursed.” He stamped his feet on the ground. “Can anyone hear me down there?” Leavitt looked up at Kelsey. “Don’t look at me like that, Commander, there are millions of souls underneath this grass. Laughable, eh? Primitive, perhaps. Consider that right now, this very moment, there are more than eight thousand Hindus processing through here. They come from a time that is far more advanced than your own. Among them there are scientists, technologists, engineers and scholars. Yet they all believe, every man, woman and child, that their souls are immortal, that this is the place where they will discard their previous bodies and inherit new ones. That here is—”
“I get your point, Leavitt. But you’re saying all of us, the Incas, the Hindus, the Methodists, we’re all wrong?”
“No, Commander, I’m saying you’re all right. Those beliefs are part of a culture. A culture that evolved over the course of hundreds if not thousands of years. Every culture developed its own morals and values to help mature, survive and grow. Who are we here to pass judgment on those cultures? Who are we to pass judgment on anyone’s personal faith? No, there aren’t any gates here. And we are no gatekeepers.”
“Then this isn’t the afterlife?”
Leavitt smiled. “I have always enjoyed that word. No, this is not the afterlife. Consider where we are, the other side of life.”
“The other side? So that leaves, what, death?”
“I said other, not opposite.” He stood. “Come, I need to stretch my legs a bit more. Good for the ticker.”
They resumed their walk. Leavitt led them off the trail and to the grass, cutting through the park as a pack of small children raced by in a game of tag.
“So I won’t be seeing my daughter again?” He could hear the voice of Cal Garrity, from what seemed so long ago. A statement, not a question.
“I am afraid not.”
“You must make exceptions.”
“No,” Leavitt said with finality. “There has never been a single exception.”
“Than what am I?”
”You are an anomaly, Commander. And I know that is no comfort to you. I do not know why this is the case, but I will tell you what I believe. You spoke earlier of a person’s death serving a purpose. I told you that wasn’t so, and it isn’t. But in life, we do serve a purpose. My role, your presence, all of it serves a purpose. Your continued memory must have a purpose. What that is right now is as much a riddle to me as it is to you. I suspect that if you remain on your current path we will both find out.”
“My current path—Gettysburg?”
“It will be your choice. The Council surely will ask you. Assuming they do, what will you say? What do you wish to do?”
Kelsey contemplated this for the next minute.
“When you asked me two years ago what I wanted to do, you promised me that choosing this alternative path would make me forget everything. My memory, you said, would be wiped clean.”
“I have already explained—”
Kelsey held up a hand. “Do you know what my first thought was when you told me that? Freedom. I wanted to be free from all those memories of Lucy. How about that for a human being, Leavitt? I wanted to forget my own daughter. I just…I couldn’t live with it anymore.
“Of course, I have lived with it. Those memories. And you know what? They saved me. What I’ve seen, Leavitt, it’s…unimaginable. Inhuman. I’ve done inhuman things. I couldn’t deal with it at first. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I wanted to just walk away. But I couldn’t. I had to deal with it. And each time, when it was over, instead of sleeping, I’d sit off by myself somewhere and think about Lucy. Susanna and I, in our own way, we were pretty lousy people. But somehow we made this extraordinary little girl. And when I thought about Lucy, I could see her face, feel her touch. Her smell, her laugh, it was like she was right there. As much as I miss her, I don’t want to let that go. I want to remember when she filled my slippers with pancake batter. I want to remember the look on her face every time I came back from a deployment. I want to remember all of it. Because, as fucked up as it sounds, it’s the only thing that has kept me from losing my mind.”
They walked in silence for another minute until Kelsey stopped and turned toward the other man.
“You asked what I wanted to do. I don’t want to lose anyone else. I don’t want to kill anyone else. I want peace, Leavitt. Just peace. For God’s sake, why did you send me to a war? You couldn’t have given me a job at a department store or driving a bus?”
Leavitt didn’t respond, just resumed his walk.
Kelsey followed, knowing he had his answer.
“So what now? Time to face this Council?”
“I’m in no hurry, if you’ll indulge a couple of questions first?”
Kelsey felt drained, but the old man was difficult to turn down. “It’s your nickel.”
“Two years ago, when you entered this path, your memory was intact. So there were things you knew about the coming wa
r.”
“I wasn’t much of a history student.”
“I’m aware. But perhaps there were things you did know. The rout of the Union Army at Bull Run. Gettysburg, of course. The Emancipation Proclamation that freed the slaves. Ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment that ended the practice. Not to mention the most obvious—the fate of President Lincoln.”
“That hasn’t happened yet.”
“But it will, and you know it. And yet you’ve said nothing about these matters.”
“To who? Major Royston? No one would have believed me.”
“Is that the only reason?”
Kelsey sighed. “What would be the point?”
“The point?”
“Look, are you kidding me? You don’t think the thought crossed my mind that I could actually save Abraham Lincoln? I had a half-baked plan, if you can believe that.”
“Do tell, Commander.”
“I didn’t say it was a good one. Just figured I could bluff my way into that theater. If Booth could get near enough for a pistol shot, then I could get in there too.”
“Plausible.”
“And maybe I save the man’s life. But why stop there? I know something about engines; why not spend my time designing the first automobile or airplane? I could have industrialized America decades earlier.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No, I didn’t. Because…what would be the point? You said you don’t alter the past here, or the future. I understand that. And I understand that I have the power to cause one tiny ripple that can change everything I know about my lifetime—the lifetime I left behind. But I want my cleats to be clean, Leavitt.”
Leavitt raised an eyebrow. “Come again?”
“When I was at UCLA, we had a lot of pitchers in our conference who doctored the ball. Greaseballs, cut balls, you name it. Our pitchers asked if they could do the same. Coach Greene told us we weren’t kids anymore, that baseball was a game that you played between the lines, but if you want to win you’d better have chalk on your cleats. I realize now, my entire life, I walked around with chalk on my cleats. But the day I woke up in that barracks in New Mexico, my slate was clean. And you know what’s really nuts? In two years of fighting, all of those men I killed, I still felt like I was on the straight and narrow. I hated those battlefields, but in everything I saw and did, I never felt like I had stepped out of bounds. I played by the rules. Thinking about men like Chief Middleton from the Nevada, or Nathan Gaylord the way Ethan talks about him, or—”
“Gunnery Sergeant Ray Kelsey?”
Kelsey smiled. “Yeah, Gunny Kelsey too. I felt a hell of a lot more like those men than the Mac Kelsey from 1941. I always felt like I was playing by the rules.”
Leavitt was quiet, both men reflecting.
“I know,” Kelsey said, “it’s crazy talk. You had a second question?”
“Yes. Earlier in your naval career, you were a junior watch officer, and you learned that one of your senior enlisted men was spending off-duty hours teaching another man how to be a radio operator.”
Kelsey was no longer surprised that Leavitt had such information. “Petty Officer Whitehurst. His first name was actually Dent. The USS Swann. My second destroyer.”
“Yes. You disciplined Whitehurst for that incident, but not the other man. Dixon, I believe.”
“Seaman Leroy Dixon. That’s right. He was a ship’s cook, a mess steward. Whitehurst had no business teaching him how to operate a radio.”
“Was there harm in it?”
“It wasn’t authorized, Leavitt.”
“Why not?”
“Because Dixon was a Negro. Negroes can’t be signal operators.”
Kelsey heard the sharp edge to his tone and cursed himself for it. He had no reason to be so defensive. It wasn’t the role of a mid-grade officer in 1936 to question established regulations. True, Dixon was more than capable. Kelsey had learned that the man had an aptitude for mathematics, not to mention the Hemingway and Steinbeck novels he borrowed regularly from the ship’s library. He also knew that Dixon had learned how to fire the ship’s anti-aircraft guns even though he was prohibited from doing so.
“So why didn’t you discipline Dixon?”
“Not his responsibility. Whitehurst should have known better.”
“And now here you are fighting in the Union Army. Setting the Negroes free. Does that bother you?”
“Hell, no.”
“So you willingly join an army fighting for Negros in the nineteenth century, but you stand by and enforce such a regulation in the twentieth century?”
“Different circumstances,” replied Kelsey. “You can’t compare slavery to—”
“Negroes should be free men, just not signal operators.”
“It wasn’t regulation.”
“So why not try and make Seaman Dixon an exception?”
Kelsey sighed. “Obviously, you know I did.”
“Indeed. You wrote letters to your captain, an admiral, even your congressman. Talked about how skillful and bright he was, an excellent reflection on the Navy who could contribute so much more to his ship and shipmates. But you never once questioned the regulation.”
“All I cared about was the waste of a capable sailor left to serve eggs and hash in the ward room. What is your point?”
“No point, Commander. No point at all. You have satisfied my curiosity.”
“So what’s next for me?”
“The Council. And the choice you are likely to be presented with. Returning to Pearl Harbor or that field hospital in Pennsylvania.”
“That’s a hell of a choice, Leavitt. There wasn’t room for me on the Titanic?”
“Commander, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you have a sense of humor.”
“But whichever I choose, I will remember who I am?”
“I’m a little hesitant now to answer that question. We shall ask the Council. If you do have your memory, you are being afforded an extraordinary trust. I would hope that you would honor that trust.”
Leavitt was perspiring again, and this time Kelsey led them to another bench. They both sat down, with Kelsey bending over and placing his forearms on his knees.
“There’s no one for me back in Hawaii. Or the States for that matter. The only people I care about, what’s left of them at least, are in Pennsylvania right now. So what if I go back to Gettysburg and I survive this war? If I lived another fifty years, I could make my way to Bakersfield, California, find Doc Meyer’s office, and watch myself being born.”
“It’s quite the paradox. And the truth is, if you stretched your mind a bit, you could imagine quite a few more. We’ll bridge those waters at the appropriate time. Together. Right now, we have a hearing to attend.”
Kelsey stood. “Let’s go meet with this Council. I have a few things I’d like to say.”
“Very well.” They rose from the bench and began the long walk back to the building they had emerged from.
Leavitt abruptly stopped and turned to Kelsey. “This, I’m okay to share with you.”
“What?”
“Seaman Dixon. He was a fireman on the USS California. On Battleship Row, December seventh, just like you. He saved the lives of four men. Ran into a lower deck machine shop that was flooding to save more. He never came out.” Leavitt eyed him carefully. “Who knew he had that in him?”
Kelsey stared straight ahead, seemingly no longer affected by death. “Yeah, who knew?”
Leavitt turned and began walking again as Kelsey fell in behind him.
The older man quietly tried to process everything he had learned, realizing he was left with one simple truth. After the meeting with the High Council, it was time for some ice cream.
CHAPTER 22
December, 1863
Camp Holt, Union Army Prison
Near Mendham Township, New Jersey
“Prisoner, halt!”
Cal stopped, as did the two guards flanking him. One of the guards opened a door and motioned
the prisoner inside. Cal hesitated, and immediately regretted it as he absorbed the sharp blow of a rifle butt smashing into the small of his back.
He staggered forward, wincing in pain. Regaining his balance, Cal stood up straight and leveled a glare at the guard.
“I don’t like that look on your face,” the guard snarled, tightening his grip on the rifle.
The man was several inches shorter than Cal and quite a bit heavier. Tobacco juice dripped down his beard and from his chin. Without that rifle, even in a weakened condition and missing an arm, Cal knew he could kill the man. But that was the game. Each understood they would then both be dead men.
“You got something to say, Dixie boy?”
“Let it go, Billy. He ain’t worth it.”
The shorter guard stepped toward Cal until he was inches from his face.
“No, you Rebel trash. You ain’t worth it.” His face broke into a goading smile as he spat a stream of juice at Cal’s feet. The two guards cackled out loud.
Cal clenched his only fist, averting his eyes from the man. The guard was baiting him, common sport between the jailers and the jailed. Striking a guard was the worst infraction here, but then there was nothing like a good flogging to bring cheer to the garrison. Cal would not give the man his satisfaction. Instead, he ignored the pain and moved around his antagonist and into the room.
The two guards closed the door, snickering at Cal as they left him in solitude in the large office. Cal remained standing at ease as the minutes ticked away, but no one else joined him.
He hardly minded. He could have stood there for hours, basking in the warmth from the wood burning stove in the center of the room. There were two leather chairs facing the stove, and a large mahogany desk in the corner covered in clumps of papers and reports.
He knew this office, though he hadn’t set foot in here since the day he arrived at Camp Holt. It belonged to the warden.
Colonel Childers, a Kentucky artilleryman, had died last month, succumbing to pneumonia, leaving Cal as the senior officer among the prisoners. Being summoned to the warden’s office, as he had been minutes ago, would not be considered unusual under most circumstances. But this was not most circumstances, and the warden was anything but conventional.