Horrible Harvest

The new arrival stomped across the threshold of the front door, knocking grime and dust from his boots with intent, and I was pleased to see it was my brother by half, Douglas. I didn’t hold no sentiment toward him, but I did see me some opportunity. I’d get to kill him on this night, too. He entered the dining hall, dressed, fresh and crisp, hat in hand. He looked pert near dignified, much as a piece of shit can, anyhow.

“Ah,” Mr. Miller said. “My Colonel and his aide have arrived. Douglas, you know our prisoner.”

Douglas turned eyes on me. Confused all to hell, he said, “Prisoner?”

“Where is Mr. Stockton?”

Douglas looked at the group gathered around the table and was knocked even further off kilter. “What’s going on here?”

“We are having dinner – ”

Gunfire come from upstairs, and Douglas drew his weapon.

“Relax, boy,” Mr. Miller said. “Charles is seeing to the situation upstairs. Where is your Colonel?”

His eyes turnt upward, Douglas said, “The Colonel, sir?

“Yes, where is he?”

“Ain’t he here?”

“Here? Terrance said he had gone on a raid. Something about a house in Murfreesboro.”

“I don’t know a thing about no raid.”

I done a half turn in Tate’s direction. “The time for thinking is done.”

Tate held firm. His eyes shifted from one guard to the next, and then the next.

“What do you mean?” Mr. Miller asked.

“I mean, the Colonel never said a thing about no raid to me.”

Mr. Miller cocked an eyebrow. “How can that be?”

“It can’t,” Douglas answered. “The colonel didn’t go on no raid. I was to meet up with him here. It was decided this morning.”

Tate squeezed my shoulder, and I quickly broke free from my bondage, yanked the revolver from the front of his britches and aimed the weapon at Mr. Miller. Tate turned his gun on the guard, who was near on our flank.

Douglas cocked his weapon and pointed it at me. The remaining guards was struck dumb. They was fixed on my gun but didn’t make no effort to draw their weapons.

“What in the hell on high is going on here?” Douglas asked. “There’s fellas in dresses. Gunfire from above, and weapons drawn at the supper table.”

“Don’t kill your brother,” Mr. Miller barked. “I’ve plans for him. Wound him if you must, but do not kill him.”

“He ain’t but half a brother, and I ain’t wounding shit until I get my bearings.”

“Your brother is my would-be assassin, and it appears Tate is his accomplice. I should have known. Tate come to your senses, or Douglas will take you both into custody.”

“I done told you he’s a brother by half, and I ain’t in the business of taking orders from you. I only take orders from Mr. Stockton – The Colonel.”

“I am your General.”

“You’re a rich-fella that had himself a uniform made up – ”

One of the guards decided to draw his revolver and took aim at me. Douglas shot the fool before he could cock the hammer of his weapon.

Mr. Miller snarled in response. “Well certainly don’t kill members of our own brigade, you brainless buffoon.”

“Somebody tell me what the devil is going on now,” Douglas insisted.

“Your General has gone mad,” I said.

“That’s yesterday’s news, boy.”

“You will all swing from the gallows for this. Tate if you have any interest in saving yourself, you will turn your gun on Augustus and secure him until his trial in the morning.”

Tate let out a small chuckle at first, but it quickly built into a belly laugh.

The guard who Tate held at gunpoint made the fool mistake of going for his weapon. The bullet entered his skull before he could pull his gun from his holster. Tate held a breath. It’s the first man he’d kilt by gun, and the power of it rocked him. It was near effortless, but in that lack of effort, it give him the notion he held supreme control over his heartless masters. It was plane to see he felt like he’d made a new discovery. One that give him a joy he didn’t want to possess. Slicing a man’s throat ain’t a thing you wanna repeat, but killing a man without effort can make a body think it ain’t but just another thing one does during his day-to-days.

Mr. Miller stood in a rage. “How dare you? I demand you control the prisoner – ”

“Jesus Christ,” Douglas yelled. “What ain’t you understanding? The nigger ain’t on your side in this.”

“Silence,” Mr. Miller barked back. “Tate serves me. He is mine. He just – He’s not thinking straight – His kind is easily confused and – He is too simple for the work of a soldier – Here – ” Mr. Miller held out his hand. “Hand me your weapon, boy. You’re not suited to possess it.”

Tate looked at him with a scowl, and calm-like said, “Shut up, Master Miller.”

Mr. Miller placed his hands on his hips and leaned back. “What did you say?”

“I said shut. Up.”

Mr. Miller couldn’t grasp a single solitary ounce of Tate’s defiance. “Are you really against me, Tate? After all that I’ve done for you – ”

Charles stumbled-ass down the staircase, blood gushing from a gash to his head, and his gun dangled from his weakened grip. Three steps from the floor, the howl of a woman could be heard before she bounded down the stairs like a boulder careening down a hillside. Charles stalled to make sense of the noise behind him, only to find himself crashing to the floor when Bailey, drenched entire in blood, hurled herself onto his back and wailed away at his head with the leg of a chair that’d been demolished in her rampage.

The men of Company K stood and two of them quick-like took hold of the third guard, relieving him of his weapon. Another snatched up Mr. Miller’s weapon that he’d placed on the table.

Mr. Miller raged, “Goddamn it, Tate! I will not tolerate this insubordination! How dare you defy me – ”

Douglas stepped to Charles, who was still taking a steady beating from Bailey, although her steam was running low.

Tate fired his weapon over my brother by half’s head. “Leave her be.”

“Stop,” Mr. Miller shouted. “I demand you stop, boy! You have let loose of all your faculties.”

Douglas turned his gun on Tate. “I’ve had my fill of you, nigger.”

“You’ll have your fill of my foot up your ass if you touch that girl.”

“Tate, can you not hear me! I said stop!”

Tate fired above Mr. Miller’s head. Why he didn’t kill him right then and there, I can’t say to this day, but he didn’t, and I wish to hell he had. “I told you to shut up.”

Douglas made another step to help Charles, but this time I fired a shot above his head, but only by a fraction. The bullet passed so close it blew his hair straight up.

“She’s beating my brother to near death.”

“Half-brother,” I said, before quick-like stepping to the staircase and grabbing Bailey’s arm mid-swing. “That’ll be enough.”

Bailey’s eyes went wide. Her breathing was rabbit-quick. “Ain’t nearly. I got more for him. I got more for every one of these white devils.”

“Not this fella,” I said. “He’s mine to send to hell.”

She stood, her stomach pushing in and out with each breath. “You ain’t killed master yet?”

“Not yet, but it’s coming to that.”

“No, it ain’t. He’s mine.” She looked past me and pointed at Mr. Miller with her club. “You remember what you said about my baby? What you said you done to him? You remember?”

“Somebody put this whore down,” Mr. Miller said.

“Do you remember? Answer me.”

“Girl, you do not make demands of me – ” Mr. Miller stumbled forward as he felt a sudden and sharp pain to the back of his head. He placed his hand over the area and turned to see Kenneth swinging a coffee kettle down on him. He pulled back enough so’s it only delivered a passing second blow to his ear. “What are you doing, boy?”

Kenneth raised the coffee kettle for another strike. “Answer her question.”

“How dare you – ”

“ANSWER HER QUESTION!”

“What question – What was her question – I don’t understand – ”

“You told me you cooked my baby. Fed it to clay eaters.”

The old fiddle-playing woman gasped at Bailey’s claim.

Rubbing his head, Mr. Miller turned back to her. “I told you what?”

“You said you cooked my baby like a roast. It was a lie. I know’d it, but I wanna hear final and true from you. Tell me it was a lie.”

“I told you – I don’t recall – Which one are you?”

She looked at him with horror. “Which one am I?”

“I cannot keep track of – You file in and out of here – One is like the next – ”

“We is the restless dead because of you – And you can’t even tell one from another – You don’t have the manners to keep track of who we is – Who you’s torturing and killing – You can’t even do that much?”

“All of this is so tiresome. We cooked no babies. We aren’t monsters.”

“But you told me you did.”

“It’s a common jest. It was just a harmless joke. I am the leader of great and noble warriors. I must provide them levity at times to reduce the stress of war. I was simply trying to brighten their day by eliciting a reaction from you. It was to give my men joy. Nothing more.”

“Joy?”

“I am growing tired of this.”

“You truly don’t remember? What you done to me?”

“It was a common hoax. All in good fun. You’re upset about nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“How thick are you, girl? It was nothing, and I insist you control yourself and remember your place.”

She give pause before saying, “Ima cook you – Master Miller. Like a roast.”

He scowled. “What did you say?”

“I said Ima cook you up. I’m trained up in the kitchen. Good. Know how to butcher up any carcass you bring me. I’ll cu’cha up into two halves. Don’t nothing go to waste when I get a hold of side of steer or pig or whitetail. I make use of it all. I’ll even fry up your jimmies and chew on them. Ima get big and plump with every ounce of muscle and fat and marrow and organ meat you got in you. Then Ima shit you out. Let the ground soak you up. Worms will get to you then. You know what they’ll do? They’ll get big and plump on you all over again, and then they’s gonna shit you out. Don’t know what comes after that. Maybe that’s when the Devil himself will take hold of you, and you know what he’s gonna say to you – He’s gonna say ‘Don’t be mad at ol’ Bailey. She didn’t mean nothing by eting you up. It was just a joke.’”

Mr. Miller’s face turnt fire red. “Why is this nigger still alive?”

With that, the sound of a revolver’s hammer being pulled back was followed quick-like by the sound of the weapon being fired. Bailey’s head snapped back, and she groaned before falling to her knees. Panic come across her eyes. She turnt frantic. She couldn’t come to a single thought that made a lick of sense to her in that moment. She didn’t know she’d been shot.

The fiddler cried out. She’d found kinship with the slave woman, in her nakedness and loss. Choice wasn’t something neither ever had, not on this plantation, not in this war, not in this world.

Charles stood. Smoke rising from the barrel of his gun. Blood dripped off his brow, causing him to hold his left eye shut. He was unsteady on his feet, and his hand struggled to keep grip on the revolver.

“At last.” Mr. Miller smiled. “Shoot her again. I want her well-dead.”

Tate fired at Charles but missed.

Douglas returned fire on Tate and grazed his shoulder.

As the report from the gunshots died down, a voice come from outside the house.