Horrible Harvest

Kenneth waited for me to save him. I know’d it. I felt it deep in my gut. He held faith in me until the last drop of water stuffed his lungs so heavy they near busted his ribcage from the inside out. I failed him, and I didn’t give a goddamn about what was to come of me after that.

Charles waded through the water and stomped up the shore. Somewheres along the way, he pulled his knife free of its sheath. “You ain’t gonna kill me, li’ brother. You ain’t gonna do nothing but die today.”

Hearing the words come out his mouth, I grabbed onto a care. I damn sure was gonna kill him, and nothing in the world entire could stop me.

“Major, back away from the prisoner,” Mr. Miller said, standing. “His sentence has been decided. He will remain constrained. In full view of the consequence of his decisions, until such time he is consumed by hunger – ”

Mr. Miller stopped when he saw his wife appear on the path just a few feet away.

“Dear, you have arrived.”

She give her husband a mournful glare, but not a thing more. Her stride didn’t break pace as she headed to the shoreline.

“This is military business, my love,” Mr. Miller said.

Without pause nor interruption in her step, she waded into the water to her son’s body, now floating closer to the shore. When she stood in the murk waist-high, she reached out, gently placed her hand to the back of Kenneth’s head and closed her eyes.

“Dear, he is unclean. Touching him is not wise. I see your motherly instincts on display, and I am moved, but that is nothing more than the Devil’s contraband. I have done the Lord’s bidding today – For us and for our country. He is an infection snuffed out.”

Mrs. Miller lifted her hand from her son’s head, turnt, and marched toward the shore. If she’d been crying, her face didn’t show nary any evidence of it.

On land, she turnt her gaze to me, and with some getup in her pace, she approached me.

Charles stepped aside and give her room.

“You remember, Augustus, dear. He has committed the highest sin of all, I’m afraid. He has squandered every drop of potential that once held him in promise. He is what no man should be, a disappointment. This thing that floats in the water – He and Augustus were – Collaborators in vile, lewd behavior.”

I tried to stiffen up and hold a stern look, but I couldn’t hold back the tears. I was wrecked entire by grief.

Mrs. Miller reached up and gentle-like placed the palm of her hand on my cheek. We locked eyes. Not a word was said. The tears coming rolling out my eyes like a stream running downhill. The flood wrapped around her hand, and she shifted her gaze to watch the salty discharge soak her fingers. Looking back into my eyes, she frowned before spitting in my face.

She removed her hand, stepped around me, and headed back to the woods.

“Well delivered, dear,” Mr. Miller said. He watched after her as she stepped onto an animal path to find her way out the woods. “It is time to move on, men. We’ve property to capture and a Colonel to save.”

“Someone should stay to guard the prisoner,” Charles said.

“Why? He’s well-constrained.”

“Someone could come along and let him loose.”

Mr. Miller give his point some thought. “I suppose that is possible.”

“I’ll stay behind.”

“No, you won’t. You cannot be trusted to let his sentence be carried out as I’ve commanded. You are a good soldier, but you’ve an interest in taking a blade to your brother. The temptation is too much for you to resist, I’m afraid.”

Douglas appeared from somewheres outside my field of vision. “I’ll guard him.”

“No. You have the same interest as your brother.”

“I have an interest in seeing the sumbitch suffer. That is your sentence, ain’t it?”

Mr. Miller mulled the question over and responded, “Fine. Douglas, you remain here. Keep watch over the prisoner until the Devil takes him.”

“What about Kenneth?” Douglas asked.

“That matter has been resolved,” Mr. Miller said.

“What of the body, I mean? What’s to be done with it?”

Mr. Miller shrugged. “The fish need to eat. Let them dine.” With that, he headed back towards the animal path that’d carried his wife away.

Charles stared at me for a long while before turning to Douglas. “I want every detail of how he dies.”

“That a request or an order? ‘Cause you and me – orders don’t flow that way. I don’t care what costume they dressed you up in.”

“I want to know he suffered. I want to know his soul was broken in two before the Devil hauled it away.”

“How come he’s my brother by a half, and I ain’t got as much hate for him as his brother by a whole? You two used to be thick as thieves.”

“Things went bad between us, that’s all. He thinks he’s better than us. He thinks he knows more.”

“I got news for you, Charles – I hate the two of you the same. Wouldn’t give a fat mistress penny for neither one of you, so I can tell you without a smidge of uncertainty that Augustus is better than you. Smarter, stronger, more interesting – He’s just a goddamn better person than you. I hate the little shit, and even I can see that. My hope is that one day, I’ll get the pleasure of watching you die, too, and while I’ll get some enjoyment out of watching Augustus pass, I’ma enjoy the shit out of the day you leave this earthly plain even more.”

“You and me gonna have a problem?”

“What the hell kinda question is that? You see – That’s why Augustus is better than you. He wouldn’t have to ask a fool question like that. Of course, we’re gonna have a problem. I’m flat out telling you that I got it in my heart to slit your throat when the time is right. The only reason you’re still standing is because the time ain’t right.”

“Says who?”

“Says time. I got it in me to find Mr. Stockton first and fix his predicament. When that’s off my mind, you and me will have our ‘get at it’ moment. The best man is gonna come out on top, and you can be sure you ain’t that best man.”

I could see that Charles give thought to shooting Douglas right between his demon eyes, but in a rare moment of restraint, he simply smiled and followed after Mr. Miller.

Douglas watched him until he stepped through a thick curtain of forest and disappeared from view. “Never seen a body so dumb and so full of himself all at once.”

He turnt his attention to me and said, “Not gonna lie. I’ve had it in my mind for a long time now that you and me would come to this. ‘Cept, I wasn’t exactly sure which one of us would be strung up and which one of us would watch the other die. It took a while, but it looks like luck finally picked my side.”

I didn’t reply. I was fixed on the spectacle of Kenneth’s body floating in the now calm waters. The biggest chunk of good in my life lay face down in a lake in the backwoods of Tennessee, and I couldn’t look away.

“Ain’t got nothing to say?”

I didn’t give him the tiniest bit of attention.

Douglas turnt to Kenneth’s body. “Old man Miller, he went on a good bit the last month or so about that letter of yours. Never read it my own self – Ain’t much of a reader, but I got a good idea what was in it.”

I was barely aware that Douglas was even talking.

“I don’t get how a thing like that works, to be honest. Never made sense to me – I ain’t talking about the two fellas part. I don’t get that neither, but that ain’t as lost on me as the whole loving someone in the first-place  – Woman or man. It just don’t line up to make sense in my mind. People ain’t worth loving. That’s the one thing I’ve learned in this life of mine. How does someone as smart as you end up wasting feeling something like that for someone else? It ain’t nothing but a path to ruin. Look at you. You’ll be dead soon. All ‘cause you loved that there skin bag of muscle, organs and bones when it could walk and talk. Tell me how that makes sense. Especially when I never heard Kenneth utter a goddamn word worth remembering.

“Now, I get the urge to lie with another. I do enjoy a good jump around with a lady, and I can even see how getting your satisfieds from another fella ain’t that far off from doing the same with some old gal, but I don’t see the urge to carrying on with all that sweetheart mess. It ain’t a real thing, love. It’s a trick your mind plays on you to give up your seed for the next crop of humans who ain’t worth loving. And that there is where your love for Kenneth makes the slightest bit more sense to me. At least you two wouldn’t pollute the world with young’uns.”

Douglas stepped in front of me and stared at me for a long while before saying, “How long you reckon it will take you to die?”

I still didn’t give him no response. I was tuned into him now, but I didn’t have no interest in spending any words on him.

“A day? Two? You’re a Tennyson, so I’ll wager it’ll take longer than if you were just a regular old jackass chained to a tree.”

I finally give him a response, but it weren’t nothing but a snarled lip.

“There you is. Finally, caught wind of me talking. Didn’t like what you heard, did you? Something didn’t sit right – I know what it was. You don’t like being reminded that you’re a Tennyson. It’s not the name as much as the shit that comes with it. That was just a punch to the gut, weren’t it?” He laughed. “Don’t blame you one bit for that.”

I still pocketed my words.

“All right, then, I’ll shut up. This is the way you wanna die – Not saying your piece – I ain’t gonna interfere with it. You die staring at your honey. Think about how it didn’t make sense at all to spend a heartbeat on something that leaves this world so easily.”

Douglas walked to the stump that Mr. Miller’d been sitting on and tried to find comfort on its splintered and rotted surface. It’d be his throne until such time I expired.