Death Rattle

by Sean Lynch

  “Lieutenant Gabel,” the colonel said as he resumed his seat. “Put these youngsters in uniform and assign them to burial detail. When all the graves are dug, assign them to the mess. Give them no access to weapons and ensure they are fully informed about what happens around here to deserters.”

  “Yes, sir,” the lieutenant acknowledged with another salute.

  “What about our horses?” Ditch said.

  “Your horses are now the property of the Confederate States of America,” the colonel said. “They will be assigned to cavalrymen who will know how to use them. Dismissed.”

  “You’ve got no right!” Ditch protested.

  “Get moving,” Lieutenant Gabel ordered. The soldiers prodded Ditch and Pritchard from the tent with bayonets and herded them across the camp. They passed the mess tent without being offered food, and were handed shovels by an ancient corporal with a filthy beard and no teeth. A dozen or so disheveled Union prisoners bearing shovels, also being steered by a squad of bayonet-bearing graycoats, joined them.

  “They called us liars,” Ditch said aloud, elbowing Pritchard, “and took our horses, guns, and property. Now they’re going to make us dig graves. You sure this ain’t the Union army?”

  Chapter 14

  Pritchard and Ditch waited in line for food with the rest of the prisoners. It was noon, overcast, chilly, and the gray reb tunics they wore offered far less protection against the Arkansas November than their coats, which had been confiscated.

  They were marched back out to the meadow of dead horses and men they crossed on the way into camp and ordered to find Confederate uniform shirts and caps that fit them from among the scattered corpses. Ditch had no problem locating a reasonably clean tunic in his size, but Pritchard had to examine more than a score of bodies before he found a fit, and even then, he was barely able to wriggle into it. Both of their tunics were damp from being in the field, were adorned with ball holes, and were liberally splattered with dried blood.

  They spent their morning working alongside Union prisoners. Instead of digging individual graves, they dug a large trench. The work detail was guarded by a dozen Confederate regulars and supervised by a tall, burly sergeant with two Remington revolvers in his belt and a bullwhip in his meaty fist.

  “I don’t know about you,” Ditch whispered as they dug, “but I didn’t leave Missouri just to dig holes in Arkansas. First chance I get, I’m bustin’ Snake outa that corral, grabbin’ my rifle, and getting the hell out of here.”

  “I’m with you,” Pritchard said. “But haven’t you forgotten what that uppity lieutenant told us they do around here to deserters? He said first sign of us skedaddling, we’d catch a ball. I’ve been shot once already, Ditch. It ain’t no fun.”

  “You’ve gotta be in the army to desert,” Ditch said. “We ain’t exactly Confederate soldiers. We’re wearing dead men’s coats and digging holes at gunpoint alongside Union prisoners. Far as I’m concerned, it ain’t desertion; it’s escape.”

  “Did you see that map in the colonel’s tent?” Pritchard asked.

  “I did,” Ditch said, “but I didn’t pay it any mind.”

  “There were little pins with flags stuck in them,” Pritchard explained. “The flags represented different Confederate and Union units. There was a big gray one with a star on it, which I took to represent where we are, north of Fort Smith. The good news is, Shelby’s Fifth looks to be in southern Arkansas, near someplace called Washington.”

  “The bad news?” Ditch said.

  “There’s a helluva lot of blue pins surrounding the big gray pin with the star.”

  “All we have to do,” Ditch said, “is get out of here and get down to Washington, wherever that is.”

  “Easier said than done.”

  They dug silently for an hour before Ditch spoke again. “What’s with the alias? Joe Atherton?”

  “Samuel Pritchard is no more. Far as anybody knows, he was headshot and buried down by the river a mile outside of Atherton. Nobody’s going to hunt for somebody who’s already dead and buried.”

  “I see your point.”

  There was a loud crack, and a bolt of agony, like a knife cut, flashed across Pritchard’s broad back. He twitched so hard he dropped his shovel and fell to all fours in the trench. A diagonal tear appeared along the length of his tunic, and a line of blood began to form beneath it on his skin.

  “More digging,” the sergeant said, coiling his whip, “and less talk. Unless you want another taste of the lash.”

  Pritchard cursed and started to rise. A dozen soldiers lowered their rifles, their bayonets pointing at him. Ditch raised his hands and stepped in front of them.

  “Don’t,” Ditch said to his friend. “They’re lookin’ for a reason.”

  “You’re brave as hell with my back turned and a squad of guns behind you,” Pritchard said to the sergeant. “Wonder how tough you are without ’em?”

  “Get back to work,” the sergeant ordered, “or you’ll find out.”

  Ditch helped Pritchard stand and handed him his shovel. The husky sergeant laughed and motioned for his men to return their rifles to port arms.

  “That’s a nasty gash,” Ditch said, examining Pritchard’s back.

  “It hurts worse than it looks,” Pritchard said.

  The duo dug until noon, when they were ordered to cease. They were then marched, behind the Union prisoners, back through the picket lines to the camp where they lined up for chow at the mess tent. It was clear that all the others within the camp had already been fed. The midday meal looked to be cornmeal, bacon, molasses, and hoecake. There was a boiling pan of coffee on the field stove, as well.

  Ditch, Pritchard, and the Union prisoners were ushered past the appetizing buffet to an iron cauldron suspended over a small fire. There, they were handed tin bowls with no utensils. It was only when a scoop of gruel, composed of cornmeal and water, was plopped into their bowl, that they discovered they weren’t getting what the regular soldiers ate.

  “What’s the matter, boys?” the sergeant asked when he saw the dismayed expressions on Pritchard and Ditch’s faces. “Don’t like the cuisine?”

  “Horses get fed better,” Pritchard said.

  “Best eat up,” the sergeant chuckled. “You’ll need your strength for digging this afternoon.”

  “No, thanks,” Pritchard said, tossing his gruel to the ground. “I’d rather go hungry.”

  “Pick that up,” the sergeant said, his laughter twisting into a scowl, “and eat it. Right now.”

  “Eat it yourself,” Pritchard said. The crowd of soldiers finishing their meal and loitering near the mess tent suddenly quieted. Everyone nearby, including the prisoners and their guards, gave ground to the big sergeant and the much bigger gravedigger.

  “I gave you an order,” the sergeant said, unlimbering his bullwhip. “Pick it up, boy. You’d best obey.”

  “I ain’t your boy,” Pritchard said, his voice cold and flat. “And you’d best not try to smack me again with that whip. This time, I don’t have my back turned.”

  Ditch, nervously watching his friend confront the sergeant, once again saw a curtain of darkness overcome Pritchard’s face. The last time he’d seen that look in Pritchard’s eyes was in a Missouri cropper’s shack, a split second before he gunned down two armed men.

  If ever imminent death could be captured and held within the glint in a man’s gaze, Ditch thought, Samuel Pritchard, now Joe Atherton, was that man. He realized, with some alarm, that Pritchard hadn’t displayed the lethal glare when he was carving up Glenn Bedgley for killing his pa. Pritchard’s shadow, as he’d come to think of it, had shown itself only since he’d emerged from the grave.

  Ditch wasn’t a particularly religious sort, nor superstitious, but he couldn’t help thinking his friend Samuel, whom he’d known as a friend and brother his entire life, had changed. It was as if he’d brought something back with him when he returned from the dead. Whatever it was, it was now on display for all to see.<
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  “Don’t,” Ditch cautioned Pritchard. “Let it go.”

  “I’ll not be grained like a horse,” Pritchard said, his voice monotone, “nor whipped like a dog.”

  “I decide,” the sergeant smirked, “who gets a taste of my lash. And, boy, you’ve earned one.”

  The sergeant cracked the whip, aiming for Pritchard’s face. Had the metal tip struck its intended target, he would have lost an eye.

  Moving faster than Ditch thought he could, Pritchard snatched the tail of the whip. With one powerful jerk of his massive shoulders, he pulled the startled, and now off-balance, sergeant stumbling toward him. Then he threw as hard a right as he’d ever thrown. Pritchard’s huge fist struck the noncommissioned officer squarely in the center of his face.

  The sergeant’s head snapped violently back. He flew rearward, instantly unconscious. On the way to the ground his head struck the iron cauldron, resulting in a sharp crunching sound. Once down, he began to convulse.

  As the sergeant jerked and trembled, and blood trickled from his ears and nose, he emitted a gurgling, coughing noise from deep within his throat. Ditch had heard the sound once before.

  Pritchard tossed the bullwhip away. No one else moved, or said anything, until a corporal knelt and examined the sergeant.

  “He’s in a bad way,” the corporal announced.

  “Sarge is dying,” a soldier exclaimed. “He’s done for, sure as hell. That sound he’s making? That’s the death rattle.” Others murmured their assent. They’d heard it before, too.

  “I warned him,” Pritchard said.

  “You son of a bitch,” exclaimed another soldier, turning on Pritchard. He drew a revolver from a flap holster, cocked it, and was leveling the weapon to fire when Ditch seized the pan of boiling coffee from the stove and hurled it into the gunman’s face.

  The soldier shrieked in agony. When he instinctively brought both of his hands to his blistered face, with his cocked revolver still in his grasp, it discharged, searing his face yet again with the side blast from the weapon’s cylinder gap. He fell to his knees, next to the dying sergeant, bloodied, blinded, and howling in pain.

  “What’s going on here?” Lieutenant Gabel demanded. He pushed his way through the crowd, as Pritchard and Ditch were swarmed and held by a mob of Confederate troops. The burned soldier continued to writhe and holler.

  “This man attacked Sergeant Stein,” the corporal declared, pointing to Pritchard. “His friend attacked Private DeSaltier.”

  “He’s got it the other way around,” Ditch said.

  “Get the injured men to the surgeon’s tent,” Gabel ordered. “And for God’s sake, tie those two prisoners up.” The soldiers scrambled to comply.

  “I reckon we ain’t guests anymore,” Pritchard said to Ditch.

  The lieutenant approached Pritchard and Ditch, once they were restrained. “You two certainly didn’t waste any time causing mayhem,” he said.

  “We were just returning the hospitality,” Pritchard said.

  “You realize, of course, you’ll both be shot for this.”

  “Beats diggin’ graves,” Ditch said. He spit at the lieutenant’s feet.

  “Been shot before,” Pritchard shrugged.

  “Get these men out of my sight,” Lieutenant Gabel said.

  “Looks like that’s another one I owe you,” Pritchard said to Ditch, as they were dragged away. “Thanks for saving me. Again.”

  “Gettin’ to be a habit,” Ditch grumbled. “And you’re welcome.”

  Chapter 15

  “Evidently,” Ditch said to Pritchard as they were marched past the mess tent, “they ain’t givin’ us a last meal.”

  “Sure they are,” Pritchard countered. “They’re gonna feed us lead.”

  The pair spent the remainder of the day under guard, chained to one of the corral posts. At sunset they were once more offered corn gruel, which Pritchard again refused to eat, and given blankets.

  “Wouldn’t want you two to freeze to death before you’re properly shot,” the guard issuing the blankets remarked.

  “That’d be a shame,” Pritchard said, pouring out his gruel and tossing the tin bowl at the guard’s feet.

  Later that evening, Lieutenant Gabel returned. With him was an old man wearing a clerical collar and carrying a Bible. Pritchard and Ditch looked up at them.

  “There’s an officer present,” a guard said, prodding them with his boot. “On your feet.”

  “Or what?” Ditch said. “You’re gonna shoot us?”

  The guards started to prod the seated men with their bayonets, but Gabel halted them with a wave of his hand. “You may remain seated.”

  “Thank you kindly,” Pritchard said sarcastically.

  “I’ve just come from your court-martial,” Lieutenant Gabel began.

  “Too bad we weren’t invited,” Ditch said.

  “Your presence would have made no difference,” Gabel said. “Sergeant Stein died less than an hour after you attacked him. Private DeSaltier is now blind in one eye.”

  “I didn’t attack Sergeant Stein,” Pritchard said. “He attacked me. I gave him fair warning to leave me be.”

  “Don’t expect me to express regret over the private’s lost eye, neither,” Ditch said. “One less eye will make it harder for him to back-shoot unarmed men.”

  “I’m not interested in your excuses. I came here to inform you that you’ve been lawfully tried and duly sentenced under military law. You’ve both been sentenced to death.”

  “What a surprise,” Pritchard said.

  “Astounding,” Ditch said with a grunt.

  “The sentence will be carried out tomorrow at dawn,” Gabel said. “This is Pastor McKinley. He’s here to minister to your souls. He’ll unburden you of your sins, if either of you have a mind to repent.”

  “If we repent,” Ditch grinned, “will we get a reprieve?”

  “Of course not,” Lieutenant Gabel said.

  “Then what’s the point?” Ditch asked.

  “What sins have we committed?” Pritchard asked.

  “The only sin we’re guilty of,” Ditch answered, “is being foolish enough to think this horse-stealing bunch of pecker woods pretending to be Confederate soldiers were honorable men.”

  “Are you refusing the ministrations of God?” Gabel asked.

  “If this is my last night on earth,” Pritchard said, “I’ll not spend it listening to an old gasbag lecture me about my wicked ways, when all I ever did was do unto others, like the Good Book says. I only did harm to those who harmed me first. You and that Bible-thumper can both go straight to hell.”

  “And you, Mr. Clemson?”

  “Joe speaks for me, too.”

  Lieutenant Gabel nodded to the pastor, who took his leave. “I’d be lying,” he said, with a satisfied smile, “if I told you I wasn’t looking forward to commanding tomorrow’s firing squad. I will see you gentlemen at sunrise. Pleasant dreams.”

  It was cold that night, dipping below freezing. Pritchard and Ditch huddled under their blankets and shivered, getting little sleep. Their only consolation was Ditch could see Snake and Rusty in the corral among the other horses. Their saddles, and even the Hawken rifle, were visible in a pile of tack stacked along the fence line.

  Just before dawn, Pritchard and Ditch were roused from their frigid slumber by Lieutenant Gabel and six sleepy-eyed soldiers. The soldiers unchained them from the corral, leg-ironed them to each other, and marched them across camp. They were forced to walk in step with each other, due to the irons. Soldiers making their morning toilet stopped their tasks and stared at the condemned men as they were paraded to the sentry line.

  Once clear of the camp, Pritchard and Ditch were prodded over the meadow of dead soldiers and horses where they’d spent the previous day digging the burial trench. It was bitterly cold, and the mountain fog was even thicker than it had been the morning before.

  Pritchard and Ditch were placed with their backs to the edge of the trench, wh
ich was now filled with dozens of bodies, both rebel and Union. Lieutenant Gabel marked off ten paces and arranged the six soldiers in a line.

  “Looks like we dug our own grave,” Ditch commented, glancing over his shoulder into the trench.

  “Somebody else dug my last one,” Pritchard replied.

  “Detail,” the lieutenant said in his deepest command voice. He raised his saber. “Prepare to fire!”

  “Excuse me,” one of the soldiers said. “Begging your pardon, sir, but I can barely see them two boys through all this fog. With your permission, could we move a little closer?”

  “For your information, Private,” Lieutenant Gabel said, lowering his saber, “regulations clearly state the prescribed distance for a military firing squad is ten paces.” He made no attempt to conceal his irritation at being interrupted.

  “I’m sure they do,” the private said, “but I’m guessin’ whoever wrote them regulations never had to conduct a firing squad in the Ozark Mountains in November. This pea soup is so thick, I can barely see the front sight of my own rifle. Iffen I don’t get closer, the only thing I’m gonna be shootin’ is Arkansas mist.” The other members of the firing squad nodded in agreement.

  “Very well,” Gabel relented. “Detail,” he loudly commanded, again raising his saber, “move forward five paces on my command!” He waited several seconds for effect. “Move!” The line advanced five steps. Pritchard and Ditch were now vaguely in view.

  “He surely likes the sound of his own voice,” Pritchard remarked.

  “Probably got a future in politics,” Ditch said.

  “Sir.” The same private spoke up again, this time in a hushed tone. “With all due respect,” he glanced nervously about, “we’re way out ahead of our lines, and this area is crawlin’ with Union troops. A feller can’t see five feet in front of his nose in this fog, but he can hear just fine. Would the lieutenant mind keepin’ his voice down?”

  “Proper military protocols will be observed,” Lieutenant Gabel said, making no effort to lower the volume of his speech. “Get back in line, Private.”

  The private complied, muttering under his breath.