Horrible Harvest

Swindlers and fucking profiteers. That’s what come to mind at Felix’s funeral. I hated the piss out of myself for letting my mind go there, but we was tied to the Bunning brothers who conned the plantation swill out of cash and dignity, though they had little of the latter to lose, and Captain Doc was ‘fore that. He used his god and military code to scam the honor out of the men under his command.

Then there was Cameron Miller. He was ‘fore Felix. He was ‘fore the army. He hooked into my life when I was but cricket high. I had hate for him close to right off, but it weren’t until the war that I aimed to kill him before I was done with this world. He died long ago, but my hate for him lives on. It will outlive me

Back ‘fore the black flag days, Company K was run ragged from this post to that. We was give a series of special operations meant to drive the bluebellies crazy. Quick hits and raids on encampments meant to be more worrisome than deadly. Our command wanted their command to think we was everywhere all at once. We was just meant to fuck with them and make their lives hell all through the night. A tired Yankie is a Yankie that wants to go home.

There come a day when we was called on to deal with a problem within our own ranks. A brigade of Confeds had gone rogue, and they was making hell for the rest of us. Battle plans and surprise attacks was getting mucked up because of this gaggle of salty grey backs. Getting them inline and under control fell on us for one simple reason. We had former Miller Men in our company and the rogue brigade was under the command of one Brigadier General Cameron Miller. The thought was we could talk sense to him. Reel him in and turn him into an asset for the Confederacy instead of an unintentional secret weapon for the bluebellies. Short of that, we was given authority to arrest him and his top aide, the advance man himself, now known as Colonel Stockton.

Miller’s rank and men was bought and paid for out of his own pocket, and they was all low in character and brains, including my brother Charles and brother by half Douglas. The lot of them had raided and pillaged every hamlet and farm they come across. Taking whatever treasure they could find. Killing near everyone who so much as whispered a complaint about their doings, and raping whoever or whatever couldn’t outrun them. Bad as they was, the Confederate chicken guts didn’t want them dealt with like the demons and criminals they were. They wanted them recommitted to other brigades. They was bad seeds all, but they could fire a gun, and they had body’s that could occupy minnie balls in battle. Jailing them would be a waste of half-ass soldiers good enough for dying in their goddamn war.

The morning of our march to the Miller brigade encampment outside a little shit town called Tullahoma, we was called to muster just as the dawn split the sky open with a haze of colors picked from the arch of a rainbow and stretched out wide over the treetops to our east.

I was knocked a little on the wobbly side when I seen him on horseback next to Captain Doc. It’d been near a year since I last seen him and seeing him without warning give me such a shock to the system that it nearly set my teeth to sweating.

Kenneth Miller was a curly topped nurse who’d been committed to the medical corps in Charleston about two minutes after South Carolina fired on Fort Sumter. His father arranged for the post at the petitioning of his wife. She didn’t want her boy dying in a war meant to keep her rich. That was the station of beggars and farmers, not her boy. Not her prince.

He was absent the calculating nature of his daddy, nor did he possess the sense of privilege that uglied up his ma. I can’t say he was saintly because he and I shared misdeeds and monkeyshines that showed he had as much devil in him as me. No sir, I can’t. A fella ain’t perfect if he don’t do up the bad in life with the same grace he does up the good. You taste it all and choose your favorite flavors. That’s the only way to know good from bad.

The truth on it is he was a creature of kindness that hid under a veil of quiet that other’s mistook as a princely piety. They took his shy, still nature as a coldness meant to make them feel small and unseen. He saw everything. He ached for the less fortunate and prayed for those met with misfortune. He was good. In all measures and forms. The time I spent with him as a boy and teenager forced into manhood are the pictures I visit in my mind to set me free from misery. He was that kind of good. Ever-present. Evermore. And yet born of the Devil. Same as me. Might be why we come together like we did.

Since the war, I’d seen him here and there. I was the kind of soldier in need of patching on the regular. Not just patching, but if a fever come into camp, I caught it. Wherever there was a cot for convalescing nearby, I’d most likely serve time on it. I found myself in the Relief hospital in Charleston near half a dozen times. It was my favorite for one reason. It’s where Kenneth served as a steward and surgical assistant. He’d become my personal attendant whenever I spent time in recovery.  It’s the only part of the war that give me a warm heart.

We shared a nod that morning before he turned his mount in tandem with the captain and Liddle as they led the company in formation on a ten-mile trek, stopping just a stone’s throw from what the locals called Dossett Point. Can’t say what it was the point of or what it pointed to, other than a whole lot of nothing, but it’s where the Miller brigade made camp. We come to a halt to its east. From there we got us favorable view of the sea of bivvies set up with little care by the rogue brigade. They was more marauders than engineers. Shelter weren’t their expertise, and it showed.

They knew we was coming. They’d been told to expect a special envoy sent by Davis himself, but Captain Doc felt a whole lot better if we come up on them unawares. He had a notion he’d be in control of the situation if we showed up unannounced. You don’t have control of shit when it come to a man like Cameron Miller. The captain would have an easier time catching a greased pig.

I was called forward after he and the others dismounted. As I approached, Kenneth held me in a stare for a beat before casting his eyes on his boots.

Captain Doc spoke. “Mr. Miller here says you know his daddy. Says he took a shine to you. That true?”

“A shine, sir? I can’t speak to that. I know him. That’s true enough.”

“From what I understand, he paid special attention to you at that school of his.”

“He paid special attention to all the boys in his charge, sir.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but your brothers are part of his leadership, are they not?”

“They are, sir.”

“That tells me he finds favor with you Tennyson boys.”

“I ain’t my brothers, sir. He don’t find no favor with me. That’s sure as a snake crawls on its belly.”

A smile. “Can’t tell if you’re lying or being modest, but I suppose it doesn’t matter. You’re with me. The other so-called Miller men, too. Gather them and let’s talk sense to your former mentor.”

I didn’t move.

“There a problem, corporal?”

“Yes, sir. Two.”

“Go on. Let’s hear your objections.”

“Well, sir. Mr. Miller? He weren’t never a mentor to me. He was a whip, and I weren’t nothing but a draft horse he beat on. I got no affection for him.”

“Understood. Problem number two, what is it?”

“The only sensible thing to do is to wait for the sun to fall and wake the sumbitch out of a dead sleep and slap shackles on him.”

“And you don’t think that reckless? I’m of the mind his men would not be at all happy by such an outcome. Remember, they are 2,000 strong, and we don’t even have 100 men. That is what the army calls a tactical disadvantage, Mr. Tennyson.”

“All respect, sir, there ain’t much advantage for us whatever which way we go. This day will end with guns drawn on us no matter what we do. Best we draw first. That’s my thoughts.”

“Noted. Gather the others. We will engage General Miller as a fellow Confederate American not a Yankee dog. How he chooses to respond will inform our actions thereafter. Understood?”

I hesitated before giving a biting, “Understood” in response.

Ten minutes later me, Evers, Yates, and three others joined up with the captain, Sargeant Hicks, and Kenneth. We was give orders to maintain decorum and discipline no matter what shit was flung our way, and then Captain Doc give Liddle orders to form a perimeter with the remaining men on the western side of the camp. If he didn’t get word from us by nightfall, the right side of the perimeter was to carry out a hit and run ten men strong, wait for the brigade to form ranks in response and then give a hail of gunfire from their rear, hopefully resulting in a retreat or surrender. If neither come, we was all fucked and whatever happened after that didn’t matter in the grand setting of a war anyhow. We was paid to kill or die either way.

Before we set off, Kenneth and I found a moment to speak.

“How’s your shoulder?” he asked. In ’61, I’d taken shrapnel during the Battle of Port Royal, and Kenneth tended to me. As far as wounds go, it was next to nothing, but he always asked me about it whenever we’d meet up.

“As good as shoulders get. How’s the nursing business?”

“Booming. Unfortunately.”

I shrugged the shoulder he asked about. “Bound to be the case these days.”

He nodded. “He requested I come.”

“Who? Captain Doc?”

“My father.”

“You shouldn’t have.”

“Had to.”

“Nah, you didn’t. It’s foolish. You know him as good as me. This ain’t gonna go well.”

“But coming here was my chance to see you.”

“That ain’t no reason to get yourself killed.”

“Reason enough in an unreasonable world.”

“Ain’t a thing about you being here that ain’t dangerous.”

“I’ve been protected from danger for too long. I figured this is as good a place as any to face it.”

“Yeah, well if things get turned belly-up, you get yourself behind me, and I’ll do what I can to get you oughta here without much of a scratch.”

“Augustus.” He give pause before saying, “There’s something you should know.”

“What?”

He couldn’t bring himself to tell me.

“Either I gotta know or I don’t.”

“The letter is gone.”

“The letter?”

We locked eyes.

“You weren’t to save it. I said straight out to burn it once you read it.”

“I know, but I didn’t. I couldn’t.”

“But I said…”

“I know what you said, but it meant everything to me. I needed to hold onto it. Whenever I fell into a dark mood, that letter saved me.”

I give thought to where I was and who we was about to confront. “You think he’s got it? You think that’s why you’re here?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that one day it was in my footlocker, and the next day it wasn’t there. It didn’t just walk off. Somebody took it.”

“You should have burnt the goddamn thing.”

“I told you I couldn’t.”

“Well, there ain’t but one thing to do now. You tell Captain Doc you’re staying behind. You ain’t going with us. In fact, just get on your horse and ride yourself back to Charleston.”

“And what’s my reason. What do I tell your captain? That I’m a coward?”

“You tell him I ain’t letting you be a fool today.”

“And you have the rank to override his command, do you?”

“I got sense to know we’re walking ourselves into an ambush is what I got.”

“You don’t know that. We don’t know he has the letter. We don’t even know if he knows it exists.”

“Then why’d you bring it up?”

He give thought to my question. “Because luck hasn’t committed much favor to me as of late. I just felt like you should know. Just in case it decides to lean bad again.”

Sargeant Hicks let out a whistle. “Toes and heels, you band of muggins. The sooner we get to this soldiering business, the sooner we get to pop skull and good times.”

Forward we marched in a loose formation. Our weapons weren’t drawn, but each of us had a mind to take aim and fire at the first sign of trouble. Raiding a Yankee encampment was less aggravating on my gut than walking towards a brigade of fellow Confederates under Cameron Miller’s command.