Deserter

by Paul Bagdon

  The horse’s movements helped Sinclair refocus. He inspected the animal with the unconscious scrutiny of a horseman, taking in the smooth lines of its body, the broadness of its chest, the lithe musculature of its legs. Not a bad mount, he thought. I need a horse real bad and it’s a sure bet the owner of this one won’t come after me for horse theft.

  A mare, he noticed, when the horse swung her rear end toward him and her tail swept a fly away, revealing her gender. A gelding might be better—but a beggar can’t be a chooser.

  There was a furrow of raw flesh across the mare’s hip, and flies plagued it, keeping her full tail in almost constant motion, flicking the insects away.

  Jake pushed himself to a sitting position, ignoring the jolt of pain to his head the move precipitated. The horse turned toward him, inspected him for a long moment, and then lowered her head to continue grazing.

  Good. Not too spooky.

  The mare tore up a mouthful of grass, snorted, and focused her eyes on Sinclair, as if asking him where her morning ration of grain was—why it was so late today.

  Jake struggled to his feet and stood with his boots well spread, balancing himself. Red spots danced in front of his eyes for a moment and then were gone. The mist was rapidly dissipating and he immediately noticed the difference in temperature between the ground and where his head was now. The July sun was beginning its onslaught for the day. It was already heavy, stifling.

  Jake stood motionless, watching the horse, wondering if one of his clumsy steps would send her skittering away from him. He wet his lips and whistled a quiet note. The mare’s eyes pinned him for a pair of seconds before looking away. He whistled again and took a half step toward the mare, placing his boots carefully, moving slowly. She continued calmly cropping grass, although the pointing of her ears at him clearly indicated that she was aware of every move he made.

  Jake took another step—a full one this time. He paused and when the horse did nothing, took another step, and then another. When he was close enough to smell the dried sweat on her coat and the fresh scent of the grass she was crushing with her teeth, he stopped.

  “Hey, mare,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m glad you got through the shit storm yesterday.”

  He reached out his right hand and grasped the one-piece rein that was tangled into the mare’s mane. He tugged her head gently upward and moved in front of her, rein secure in his hand. Her eyes, the deep, shiny brown of a fresh autumn chestnut, met Jake’s, assessing him, taking his measure. He leaned forward and exhaled gently into her nostrils. The horse lowered her head to his chest level and snorted but didn’t back away, apparently satisfied with Jake’s introduction.

  Sinclair stepped to the mare’s left side. The stirrups were about right: The horse’s rider had been about Jake’s height. The military saddle was deeply stained across the seat and down onto the fender facing Jake, the blood partially dried but still sticky, its metallic scent mixing with that of the polished leather. He raised his left boot and eased it into the stirrup, his left hand gripping rein and mane, and swung onto the horse’s back. He was dizzy for a moment, and the thirst returned as he settled into the saddle. It felt good to be mounted again. At home, horses had been a part of his life, not only for transportation but for the glory of the animals, their terrific speed and strength and the sensation of invincibility they gave him as he raced them against those of his friends, and as he bred and raised them, improving his stable with each pairing of stallion and mare and each birth. A sharpshooter in the Army of Northern Virginia didn’t rate a horse—and actually didn’t require one for what he did. He and Uriah had slogged along with the foot soldiers, accepted by them but always viewed a bit askance, in the same way men perceived undertakers. It was a necessary job, the soldiers admitted, but still . . .

  Jake nudged the mare lightly with his heels and moved out, checking the sun for directions. It was then—at that very moment—that he decided to take the news of Uriah’s death to his family in Drumlin, Texas. It was, of course, a long, long haul to West Texas from Pennsylvania. Going to take some time, he thought. That makes it all the better. The truth is, I have nowhere to go, nowhere I want to be. Drumlin’s as good as anywhere else, and Uriah’s people deserve to know what happened to him. I’ll tell them . . . hell, I don’t know what I’ll tell them. But when I leave them, they’ll believe that Uriah died a full man, with all his parts still attached. No family should have to know their boy died like Uriah did.

  From behind him, back toward the encampment, military-type sounds reached Jake: the whinnying of horses, the creak of dry axles as wagons and carts were moved, shouted orders softened by the distance. Lee and his army had nowhere else to go but back South now. That’s where the remnants of the army would head.

  Jake figured due west as well as he was able from the sun and began his journey, the mare moving smoothly under him, picking her way through the trees and brush, her hooves quiet on the ancient blanket of leaves and pine needles.

  Much of the day passed with Jake half aware of his surroundings. Other than checking the mare occasionally when she wandered off course, he slumped in the saddle like a sack of grain, only his years of riding experience and his innate horseman’s sense keeping him aboard. When a pheasant flushed directly in their path, exploding from a hackberry bush, wings thundering, the startled horse skittered to one side and attempted to spin away from the threat. Jake’s body moved with his mount and his legs and hands brought her back into control easily, without actual awareness of doing so on his part.

  It was the scent of water that made Sinclair acutely aware of his parched throat and the thick, arid, dryness of his mouth. The mare, too, smelled water and she was as parched as her rider. Jake straightened in the saddle, reined in, and looked around. He’d been following a deer trail simply to avoid plowing through heavier brush. It wasn’t as much an actual decision as it was selecting the way of least resistance.

  He tried to generate saliva as he sniffed the air. The cool perfume of water seemed to be all around him, coming from no particular direction. The mare snorted and scraped impatiently at the dirt of the game trail with a front hoof. Jake gave her all of the rein and for a moment she stood stock-still, realizing she was no longer controlled—restrained—by her rider. Then she snorted loudly and cut off the trail, her gait cautious yet hurried as she jogged through brambles and scrub growth, small saplings, and stepped over or jumped fallen trees. Branches slapped meanly at Jake’s body and head as the mare plunged onward, head held high, drawing in the scent she followed. A bough swept the length of the left side of Sinclair’s head and he cringed, cursing, but didn’t slow his mount.

  Before long he could hear it—the tinkling, mellifluous sweetness of water moving over rocks and sand, splashing lightly, causing his throat to constrict painfully, as if he were struggling to swallow a mouthful of dry gravel. The mare, too, heard the water. She increased her gait, ignoring the thorns and branches that drew blood from her chest and front legs and lashed at her sides, clumsy now, her breath punching from her dilated nostrils in sharp snorting exhalations.

  There was no transition. One moment they were bushwhacking through dense, clinging growth and the next they stood on a sort of sandy apron a couple of yards from a quick-moving stream. The mare lurched forward, rushed into the stream until the water reached her belly, and then droped her head, sucking noisily. Jake slid down the horse’s side, even in his thirst clutching the rein, crouched, and pushed his face under the sun-sparkling surface. The water was the most wonderful thing Jake Sinclair had ever tasted—would ever taste. There was the muskiness of minerals and moss to it, and it was arctically cold. He swallowed huge mouthfuls, barely stopping to breathe, until the keenest edge of his thirst was dulled. Then he stood and muscled and hauled the reluctant horse out of the stream and onto the shore. Allowing her too much cold water too fast could lead to founder, he knew, and founder caused the inner structures of the hooves to swell, rendering the hors
e lame, unable to carry weight—and useless. He was able to interest the mare in the tall, lush grass that grew at the periphery of the sandy apron. As she grazed he released the cinch buckle and the horse took a grateful breath, shook her body, and resumed tugging grass. Fifteen or so minutes later Jake led the mare back into the stream. She drank again, but less hungrily, far less frantically. When he pulled her back to the grass she followed him without an argument. After another ten minutes and another trip to the water, she was sated and content to graze. Jake fashioned rough hobbles from his belt and slipped them around her front legs. Obviously used to hobbles, the mare made no protest.

  Jake sat on the sand in the shade of an oak branch above him. Now that his thirst was satisfied he realized that he hadn’t eaten in more than twenty-four hours. His stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him of that fact. And, he realized, he stank. The heavy reek of fear-sweat and dried blood permeated his clothing. The armpits of his shirt were wet and foul and his pants were still damp with piss released either during the battle or afterward, when he fell. He touched the palm of his hand to his head wounds and then sniffed carefully at his hand. There was none of the sickly odor of infection. Good ol’ Pennsylvania whiskey.

  Jake stood and moved in a slow circle, peering into the forest around him. There wasn’t a sound beyond birds and the quiet ruffling of leaves when a breath of air touched them—no military sounds, no human sounds at all. He sat back down and wrestled his boots off, setting them aside, leaving the gold eagle he’d placed in each of them the day he left home to sign on with General Lee. He put his knife and sheath in a boot, then stood again, shucked off his shirt and pants, bundled them up, and walked into the stream. In the center the water was about a yard deep—perfect for bathing and clothes washing. He scoured his body with handfuls of sand and, avoiding his wounds, squeezed water and sand through his hair and let the impatient flow of the current rinse his body and head.

  Back onshore, clothes a dripping mess in his hands, Sinclair checked the sky. He had maybe three hours of sun left for the day—more than enough to dry his pants and shirt. He draped them over a bush, sleeves of the shirt extended to the sides, the legs of the pants as far apart as he could spread them. The mare, sloppy hobbles properly in place, had moved a few feet to another patch of grass and was grazing happily. Jake returned to the spot under the branch of the oak and sat on the sand. His hunger prodded at him, but he did his best to dismiss it, at least for now. If he had his rifle, or even a pistol, he could take a rabbit or a pheasant . . .

  And if I were a cow I’d have tits and then I could draw a glass of milk. Or if I could find someone to butcher me, I could have a nice beefsteak.

  He looked more closely at the shore where it met the edge of the stream. His own boot tracks and those of the mare’s hooves were the most prominent, but there was a map of others: the marks of small claws, the skittery trails of birds, some pug-marks of a bobcat, and the distinctive footprint of a bear—a small one, from the size of the tracks. Jake got up, fetched his boots, and brought them into the shade with him. He took his knife from inside one and removed it from its sheath. He tested the edge with his thumb from habit: He knew full well the bowie was sharp enough to shave with. He sat back down to wait. It’d been a while since he’d last thrown at a target, but he recalled winning a few dollars—prewar Yankee currency—in a contest with a young fellow back home who’d gotten handy with a nicely made Mexican blade. Jake hefted his knife, flipped it in a half circle, and grabbed it just behind the point between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. He let the length and weight of the knife rest along the line of the side of his hand and wrist, the haft well up his forearm. Then he waited.

  For what seemed like a long time, the only sound Sinclair heard was the movement of the water over and past the rocks that poked up here and there in the current like the heads of watching sentinels. Then the sounds of the forest returned, the calls and songs of birds, the chittering arguments of chipmunks, the breathy swaying of branches as squirrels leaped to them and launched from them. The shifting movements and the occasional quiet snort of the mare melded with the natural order of the woods—she offered no threat to any of its creatures. A hognose snake—a big one, perhaps a five-footer, slid past Jake’s feet, inches away, unafraid, its bright red tongue testing the air as it moved. Only Jake’s eyes moved, following the reptile. The rest of his body was as still as a gravestone.

  I hope I don’t regret letting that boy go by. He’d have been an easy throw and snake isn’t half bad when it’s cooked right. Thing is, making a fire’d take forever and I’m hungry right now. Still, empty as my gut is, the idea of raw hognose snake makes me want to upchuck. What I need is a nice fat rabbit to stop by for a drink. And that’ll happen—that’s what those tracks tell me.

  After an interminable hour and a half of waiting, Jake’s eyelids grew impossibly heavy. Twice he snapped them open, fetching himself back from sleep. The third time he drifted into a doze, still sitting statue-still, right forearm and hand resting in his lap, knife in place and ready, chin on his chest, shoulders slumped forward.

  “The toughest part of hunting—especially for a young boy—”his father told him, smiling,“is to remain motionless. That’s damn near impossible for a kid with ants in his drawers.” They were in a tree stand, high above a deer trail, on an autumn morning. The early, tentative sunlight was diffused into speckles of gold as it peeked through the branches, the air sweet and cool. Jake’s first rifle was across his lap, muzzle pointing safely away from his father and himself. He felt grown, if not in manhood quite yet, then certainly coming close to it, and the fact that it was the first time his father had taken him out for deer added to the glory of the day. “Let’s start practicing that right now, Jake. It’s coming full light—the deer’ll be moving. Don’t you shift an inch until you raise that new rifle of yours to your shoulder, hear, son?” The buck that stepped into view was a ten-pointer and every detail of his body, of his majestic rack of antlers, seemed to sparkle with a radiance, a diamond brilliance, in Jake’s mind. His hands, suddenly wet with sweat, eased his 44.40 into position, butt snug to his shoulder. The buck’s natural instinct told him that something was amiss. He stopped, and the does behind him stopped too, watching him for the cue to go on or to bolt back into the thick woods. Jake swallowed and eased his finger around the trigger, placing the front sight on the chest of the buck, beginning to squeeze—not jerk—the trigger . . .

  It was no longer a deer in Jake’s sights. It was now a man in a blue uniform, a saber at his side, a dull black telescope raised to his eye. Jake’s sights were on his head, nose high. Jake heard the oiled click as his trigger touched home and the hammer of his rifle snapped forward—and he saw that the man in the uniform was Uriah Toole and it was too late to stop the bullet he’d fired—

  “Looks like I got me a nekkid run-off here,” a voice that was neither Jake’s father’s nor Uriah’s rasped. Jake’s eyes opened. A massive figure stood in front of Sinclair with his back to the stream. Even in the murky, cloud-obscured light of night it was easy enough to see that he held a rifle in his hands, pointed at Jake’s chest. “Don’t think about movin’,” the voice said. “You do an’ you’re dead.”

  Jake straightened his back but otherwise remained motionless. The big man spat to the side, and the earthy smell of cut plug tobacco reached Jake, mixed with the after-scent of whiskey.

  “No reason to hold that rifle on me,” Jake said. The man took a step closer as a string of clouds moved away from the full moon’s face. A thin shaft of light that penetrated the leaves of the oak showed Jake the size of the man, his full, unkempt beard that reached halfway down his abdomen, the profusion of dark hair on his bare chest and arms, and the bush of greasy hair that surrounded his head. He looked like a bear and stood like a grizzly, feet apart, body leaning slightly forward, head upright.

  “Like I said,” Jake repeated, “you have no reason to hold that rifle on me. I don’t have anyt
hing worth taking.”

  “That horse back there is worth taking—a hell of a lot better than the crow bait I been ridin’.” After a moment he added, “You ain’t gonna be needin’ no horse.”

  Jake squinted, making sure of the distance between them. His right arm had tensed. He forced it to relax until the muscle of his forearm was no longer tight, until it would move smoothly when he needed it to.

  The bear spit again, this time directing the stream of saliva and bits of tobacco next to Jake. “You Reb or Union?”

  Jake didn’t answer. He took in a breath and held it.

  “Don’t much matter to me,” the bear said. “Either one, you’re dead. I never had no use for a soljer—wearin’ blue or gray. An’ a coward what would run off ain’t hardly worth the bullet it takes to kill him.”

  The click as the bear drew back the hammer of his rifle was as loud as a thunderclap. Jake made his move. His arm flashed out as if he were pitching a ball, and at the same time he threw his body to his left. The jagged white flame that erupted from the barrel of the rifle lit the scene for half of a heartbeat, the bullet slamming into the ground behind Jake. The bear gurgled wetly, dropped his rifle, and clutched at his neck with both hands. Blood that appeared as black and glistening as oil pumped from around the six inches of blade that pierced his throat. He gurgled again, fell to his knees, and dragged the knife free. He may have cost himself a few seconds of life; the flow of blood increased until it gushed several inches in front of him, spattering to the ground. His eyes, Jake saw, glowed hotly for a part of a second and then that light was gone and the bear fell forward, the top of his shaggy head inches from Jake’s feet, a river of blood flowing toward him over the sand. Jake shoved himself back and got to his feet.

  Behind him and off to the side the mare reared, startled by the gunshot and now the scent of spilled blood. The belt-hobbles held and she stood breathing fast and hard, the whites of her eyes exposed in the moonlight. Jake walked to her, hand extended.