Our eternal curse II

by Simon Rumney

  Julii was formulating the right words to explain her Robert's predicament when the fat brown woman called Nanny returned with a man holding a brown hide bag. The man holding the bag looked like he had been pulled away from butchering a deer because he had blood on the front of his white shirt.

  The man with the bag knelt down beside Robert's father and took charge of the situation by touching Robert's father's wrist, then his neck. Then the man with the hide bag opened Robert's father's shirt and placed a tiny shiny bowl over the place where Julii knew his heart would be.

  The tiny bowl connected to the man with the hide bag's ears by magical, soft, flexible, red colored hides. Everyone stood in complete silence as the man with the hide bag listened to something inside Robert's father.

  She watched the man with the hide bag remove the tiny bowl from Robert's father's chest. Looking around, he spoke in a warm friendly voice of authority. "Get the Mayor onto the lounge please, Lieutenant."

  Julii did not fully understood what the man with the hide bag was saying, but the man called Lieutenant seemed to. It occurred to her that she had so many new words to learn. And the thought of learning more words gave her a tiny, but happy, little boost of energy.

  The man called Lieutenant looked at the man called Sergeant John and said: "Sergeant."

  Julii watched the man called Lieutenant and the man called Sergeant John lift Robert's father and carry him through an internal opening into another part of the house. Once there, the two men placed Robert's father on a cloth-covered thing suspended on legs above the red floor covering.

  Julii understood that things must have been improving when the man with the hide bag looked at Robert's mother, and Robert's mother gave an audible sigh of relief.

  At that moment, a tall man in a gray uniform entered with complete authority. This man had the yellow collar like Robert's but the decorations on the yellow cloth were far more elaborate. Three bright gold stars were embroidered within a fancy gold braid surround. It made him look very important.

  The new man took immediate control with his booming voice. "What in God's name is going on here, Lieutenant?"

  He was suddenly and completely in control of everything. He was clearly used to being obeyed, and the man called Lieutenant and the man called Sergeant John both snapped upright in that strange ridged way.

  Julii had never seen two human beings move in such rapid unison before. Their eyes stared at something on the upright partition thing that separated one part of the house from the other.

  Julii followed the lieutenant and the sergeant called John's eyes to the wall. She could see something interesting hanging there; it was surrounded by a wooden thing similar to the wooden frame she stretched deer hide on to scrape and dry.

  In the middle of the wooden thing was a face, not a real face, not a person, but the representation of a person's face. It was a very beautiful representation of a woman's face. It was very pleasing to look at, but Julii wondered why the two men were staring so hard at this particular moment. The beautiful representation of a woman's face did not appear in any way relevant to what was going on around them.

  "Your orders, General." The lieutenant wasn't shouting exactly but his words were loud and crisp and his eyes never left the representation of the woman's face.

  The last man to enter the house used his tone to maintain his complete authority. "Exactly! My orders, man! And the use of discretion is implicit within those orders! You do not just walk into the Mayor of Atlanta's home and arrest his son in front of his mother and father! Do you understand me, Lieutenant?"

  "Yes, General!"

  Julii now understood that the man with all the authority was called General. She could see that the man called General's disapproving words made the one called Lieutenant very scared.

  The man called General looked close into the man called Sergeant John's eyes and spoke in a loud whisper. "Get these irons off of the Mayor's son, Sergeant!"

  The man called Lieutenant and the man called Sergeant both panicked as they left their rigid state and tried to remove the heavy clanking thing from Robert's wrists. The heavy clanking thing fell from Robert and made a thud on the red floor covering.

  "Now, get outside!"

  The man called General was shouting.

  The two men made a mess of picking up the heavy clanking thing. They ran out into the street and resumed their strange rigid pose.

  The man called General then turned to look at Julii. She had been unimportant and unnoticed during the extraordinary events and she liked the anonymity, but now she was the focus of the most powerful man in the room's attention.

  The man called General's eyes seemed to penetrate her body and he, like all of the other people she had seen this day, did not like her.

  The General’s probing eyes were followed by Robert's mother's eyes and his troubled father's eyes. Even the man in the bloody shirt turned to look at Julii, and she felt as though this was not the first time these people had disapproved of her. It felt as though all of these resentful eyes had condemned her somewhere before in another time and another place. It made no sense because she could never have seen any of these people before, but something in this scene felt so incredibly familiar and terrifying and important and devastating.

  Since meeting her Robert, Julii had experienced many new strange and unknown things but this one felt as though she was reliving a critical event. 'What was happening to her?' 'Was she losing her mind?'

  The brief moment of recognition was broken when the general looked away from Julii to smile at Robert. His words sounded sympathetic. "You understand how serious these charges are, Captain Calhoun?"

  Robert adopted the impossibly rigid stance as he gave his very formal sounding reply. "Yes, General. Of course, General."

  The man called General glanced at the two men standing outside the house and said: "Despite their bull in a china shop approach, these men have to bring you in. You understand why this is important, Captain Calhoun?”

  Julii felt proud of Robert as he gave his stoic reply. "At times of war, examples must be made, General."

  And in that moment, Julii understood that her Robert was clearly a 'brave' among his people.

  Julii heard the man called General's tone change to one of deep respect as he added: "You do understand that my actions are for the good of the Confederacy, don't you, Robert?"

  "I do, General!"

  Julii saw Robert's father try to stand and protect his son but he failed. Instinct told her to help the suffering man, but fear left her motionless.

  Robert's father spoke through exhausted breaths. "My son will remain here until the trial. You have my word as a gentleman, General."

  Robert answered boldly before the General could speak. "No father. I must be treated the same as any man in the Confederate army."

  Julii was so proud of her Robert. After all the terrible things that had just happened, he still sounded strong. It occurred to her that she had never seen her Robert in a subordinate role before today. Since their first conversation, Robert had always assumed authority. He had always considered himself better than anyone he had met but now, as the lieutenant and the sergeant called John took him away, she could see he was a little scared, a little human, a little boy.

  In all of this life-threatening confusion, his desperate parting words were not for himself or his parents or his nanny but for her. She felt pride welling up inside as her Robert shouted over his shoulder: "Take care of Julii! She saved my life! We all have an obligation! A debt of honor!"

  Watching her only caring connection with the white man's world being taken away was terrifying. Julii tried to follow, but the sergeant called John pushed her to the ground. All she could do now was watch and wonder what would come next.

  Court martial

  Julii had spent the last seven uncomfortable days and nights living in a tiny space called “Nanny's room”.

  It was at the very back of Robert's parents' home and it was dark and
dingy. Nanny deeply resented having her modest living space invaded by a “red nigger Injun”.

  Julii understood Nanny's bitterness. There was a whole house of empty things called “rooms” that she could have stayed in. Many of the rooms had things called “beds” and “sofas” and “settees” that would have been comfortable to sleep on, but Robert's parents insisted she sleep on a thing called a “rug” on the cold wooden floor in Nanny's little room at the back of the house.

  Nanny's little room did not have any of the brightly colored things she now knew to be called “paintings” on her wall. Neither did she have the things called “ornaments” on the little “table” or the thing called “carpet” on the floor. Nanny's room had something called “floorboards” and they were even harder to sleep on than the compacted mud of Julii's family’s tipi.

  Julii had never minded sleeping on the floor before; she had been sleeping on the floor for the whole of her life. But in this situation, she realized sleeping on the floor was not simply sleep, it was a sign of status. It stung Julii to know that sleeping on the bare floorboards was an insult directed at her personally.

  Robert's mother and father had not spoken to Julii on any of the days she had been in their house. In truth, she had not even seen them because she had been confined to Nanny's room and the room called “kitchen”. Robert's parents never ever entered either room.

  Being stuck in the room called “kitchen” was not such a bad thing. It had a small waterhole in the corner called “sink” that brought water forth with just the lifting of a thing called “handle” on the thing called “pump”.

  The room called “kitchen” also had an overwhelming supply of food; more food on an average day than Julii had ever seen at a joining celebration or a feast to the sky spirits during the annual festival. Passing the time with ample food and water without the need for fetching or hunting had been a wonderful novelty, but that novelty had worn well and truly off by the time Robert's “court martial” got started.

  On the morning of the big day, Julii was unceremoniously collected from the rear of Robert's house by two anonymous gray men who walked her silently to the wooden room that the white people called “courtroom”.

  The courtroom had an impossibly high “ceiling”. It was even higher than the white sky inside the front of Robert's parents' house, but this one was bare wood not white.

  It was while looking up at the intricate craftsmanship of the joined timbers above her that Julii realized she was feeling a completely new sensation. She felt resentment for the people who had the sensitivity to make something so beautiful, so wonderful, while treating her so poorly.

  This was a surprising new feeling that caused hurt inside her. She had never in her life felt such negativity before and it made her feel trapped. She felt bitter about how she had been treated and that bitterness was changing her. It was wearing her down.

  Julii also felt pain and humiliation. Like a wounded animal, she just wanted to curl up and lick her wounds for a while, but this place with the high ceiling did not feel safe enough to do so.

  Julii felt a charge of energy as Robert entered from a door at the side of the room. She tried to stand as he was escorted by the same two anonymous gray men who had fetched her earlier. The man sitting next to her pulled Julii roughly back down to her seat as Robert was taken to a wooden structure where he sat with the anonymous gray men on either side of him.

  Robert smiled at her and it felt good to feel his strength, even if it was from across the room. Moving rapidly to escape the person who held her back, Julii stood again and tried to walk directly to Robert, but one of the anonymous gray men stood up and stopped her. He held her away from Robert and made her walk backwards to her seat without speaking or touching her Robert.

  'This was unbearable.' 'Her Robert was right there in front of her.' 'Why was she not allowed to touch her Robert?'

  The word "Attention!" was shouted by an unseen man and everyone in the room suddenly stood.

  The noise made by scraping chairs and black moccasins, 'boots', sounded deafening to Julii, but no one else even seemed to notice the din. Julii even looked around at all the faces, but not one of them seemed shocked by the noise. Then the noise was repeated as they all sat back down. Julii was stunned to see that, once again, no one cared about the noise.

  "This court martial will come to order. Lieutenant General William Joseph Hardy presiding." This had been said by the same man who had shouted “attention”; Julii could see him now. He was standing in front of her, dressed in gray, like so many of the men in the room. Then another, more familiar, voice filled the room with calm authority.

  "The proceedings of this court martial will come to order."

  Julii could feel the mood in the room change. It was the voice of the man called General and he was taking control of things just as he had on the day her Robert was taken away.

  He was sitting, looking out at all the people, and he was speaking in his very clear voice. Julii wondered how he had appeared without her noticing.

  Before the awful noise of scraping chairs, the seat had been empty, she was very sure of that. 'Had he appeared from thin air?' 'Was he a medicine man?'

  The man called General spoke again and filled the room with his magical voice. "The purpose of this court martial is to determine whether Robert Calhoun did, on April 6th of this year, desert his post during the battle at Pittsburgh Landing, Hardin County Tennessee. The battle now known as Shiloh."

  Julii believed she heard a sympathetic tone in the man called General's voice as he said Robert's full name. 'Did she imagine it?'

  She felt so sorry for Robert sitting in his wooden 'box' thing. It was not really a box, as she had learned the word box from her Robert. It was more like the holding pen she had built from branches to keep a young deer from running away but far better built and much stronger.

  Robert's holding pen sat between a row of very serious gray men and the man called General. Like the man called General, the row of gray men had all sorts of fancy decorations around their 'collars'.

  Theirs were not simply yellow like Robert's; one of them had a red collar with ornate gold bars, one had a blue collar with bright yellow stars, and one even had a gray collar with three glowing yellow stars.

  All of the serious gray men had very large gray hats siting on the table in front of them. One of the hats had a long fluffy feather stuck in the side; it was from a bird that Julii had never seen, but she knew it must have been a very big bird.

  Too afraid to look at the unfriendly gray men, Julii kept her eyes on her Robert. She saw his sad expression as he listened to the General talking about him.

  Her Robert was the center of everyone's attention and he looked so exposed. She wanted to go and sit next to him. She wanted to give him a hug and a kiss. 'Why could she not sit next to him?' 'The two anonymous gray men were sitting next to him.' 'Why couldn't she?'

  Julii stood and moved towards her Robert, but the gray man next to her caught her arm and roughly returned her to the hard seat. She tried to explain: "Robert needs me."

  The man who had pulled her down spoke to Julii in an angry whisper. "You want to mess up Calhoun's defense? Just shut your goddamn mouth and stay sat down!"

  The General finished his opening words with: "And we will hear evidence from those who survived the battle and the witness in this courtroom."

  All eyes turned to Julii and she had no idea why; she felt even more exposed. This added even more to her discomfort and feelings of bitter frustration as the thing called “court martial” got underway.

  The day dragged on and Julii understood very little of the proceedings. From time to time, she watched men in gray walk to the front of the room and sit in another wooden pen near Robert's pen.

  These gray men all placed their left hand, it had to be their left hand, on a strange thing that had white and black leaves pressed between two deer hide-covered flat things.

  Each man looked at the strange
oblong box thing with great reverence, held up their right hands, and said “I do” when the man who shouted “attention” asked. "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

  Each man told a story about the day a battle had taken place. Each man told the same story but from a different viewpoint. Each man spoke of her Robert's violent actions during the battle. Each man told the court martial how none of them had seen her Robert after a certain point on the day of the battle.

  It was after hearing a number of these stories that Julii realized she had the answers to their questions. She knew what had happened to her Robert after the time none of the men could remember seeing him again.

  She alone understood that her Robert must have been attacked during the battle and his horse had taken him away from the field while he was unconscious. Julii was excited. 'She would save her Robert and they could be together once more.'

  When it came time for Julii to walk to the little pen near Robert's little pen, she did it with great confidence. Julii touched the thing with pressed white leaves with her left hand, held up her right hand, and looked very serious just as she had seen all of the other people called “witness” do.

  She stared the man who shouted “attention” confidently in the eye as he asked: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"

  Julii replied confidently, "I do."

  Settling down in the hard wooden seat with arms, Julii was ready for the first question. Before it could even be asked, a completely new voice shouted: "How can a godless savage swear to our civilized God? Can anyone here tell me that?"

  Julii turned to see who was shouting. It was one of the serious looking men with the fancy red collars and, for some reason, he was very angry at her.