Horrible Harvest

Most soldiers at this point in the war was more bone than meat, and tall as I was, I was more bone than most. Once I settled into my opium smoking habit, eating what little I was give out didn’t mean all that much to me. I got skinnier by the day.

Captain Doc become so concerned, he ordered me to take his horse and visit Lawrence County, Tennessee, where a doctor was said to have lived. He know’d I’ld’ve been given short shrift by military doctors and such because they’d come to treat the smallest of injuries with sledgehammers. I was tickled at the free time such a trip would give me to devote to my pipe.

While rounding the bend leading to a set of buildings on either side of an oft-traveled road, I sucked on my pipe and settled into a soothing soak of what I’d come to call o-bacco. I felt a hot streak of wind pass by my left ear, and while dancing toward a mind-muddled state, I heard the shriek of a woman, although at the time, in my unsavory condition, I come to believe it was a coyote, so I paid little to no attention to it. My eyes took a tilt back into my head as the screaming grew nearer, and the wind blazed a searing trail by my ear again. A clamor of near-total agony grew louder the closer I got to the buildings.

I worked like the devil to make right my eyes as I come up on the building to my left. That’s when I learned the coyote wasn’t a fucking coyote at all. It was a woman, and she was huddled over a thing I couldn’t make out at first, but the more I worked my eyes back into focus, I come to realize it was the body of a small boy she was bent over. She wailed. Bitter. Frantic. Lost.  I leaned forward in my saddle to get a better view of the child and fount a giggling fit I couldn’t catch control of when I noticed a hole the size of a .58 caliber Minié ball just to the left of his nose. The laugh come at me unawares. My brain triggered the wrong response, and I couldn’t reel it back. I heard a crack and looked up in time to see splinters fly from the doorframe that arched over the woman and boy.

“Rocks,” I said. “Slings and arrows.” I grunted out a hardier laugh.

The woman looked up. “Yankees.”

I peered at her with slits for eyes. “Nothing to worry yourself over. They ain’t got but rocks and the like.”

“They killed my boy.”

“Bullshit. They ain’t killers. They’re at play.” I spoke these words, but they ain’t what I thought. I can’t say what I thought at the time, but most likely, there weren’t a single beginning of thought in that opium-drenched brain of mine.

A Minié ball grazed the hindquarters of the captain’s horse. He whinnied with alarm and jostled wildly to the right.

“You’re crazy,” the woman said, as I struggled mightily to quiet the horse and keep him from rearing up on his back legs.

Eventually, I calmed my mount and turnt towards the gunfire. “They play too goddamn rough. Rouse your boy, ma’am. I’ll tear hide from these Yankee dogs and make’em give ya’ their apologies.”

I seen the bursts of flames from the muskets as I approached the tree line where the bluebellies held their positions. Shots come from four guns, one after the other – Every fifteen seconds or so. I felt the stinging wind and heard the whistling of the bullets as they occupied the air around me.

When I was but four feet from the first man, he screamed, leapt to his feet, and ran like a scattered dear deep into the woods, yelling some nonsense about the devil of Lawrence County.

“Hello, fellas,” I said, without thought of raising my weapon.

One of the men stood, shaking like a leaf. “How – How’re you doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Dodging our bullets.”

I give him a scolding look. “Bullets?”

“We’ve sent a swarm of them your way – ”

“Why in the holy hell’re you shooting at me?”

“Wha-choo mean, why? You’re Confed.”

Another man stood with his musket trained straight at me. “I got you in my sit – point-blank.”

The third soldier stood. “We’re taking you prisoner, boy.”

“Why?”

They all shared a look ‘fore one of them said, “What ain’t you getting, boy? You’re Confed. We’re Union. We either kill ya’ or take ya’ prisoner.”

“I ain’t broken no laws –not today, anyhow – Far as I know. Can’t hold a fella guilty for what he done yesterday or the day before. If you can, I got a mess of sins that’ll bury me – ”

“What are you talking about?” the second man asked.

“He’s crazy,” the third man said.

“We’re at war, boy. You rebel pigs have desecrated the Union. Gone against your own country. You’re going to jail for treason.”

“But I’m atop a horse.”

Again, they shared a look ‘fore the third man said, “You’re just plumb dumb.”

I laughed. “Plumb dumb.” The woman’s sobbing caught my attention, and I turnt toward her. “Oh, yeah, the boy.” Turning back to them. “I pert near forgot. You boys gotta come with me to – Over there – That woman – one of you fellas – Struck her boy, and she ain’t taking it well – He’s bound to get up and get on with his days doing boyish things, but for now, he’s got her worried with his present condition.”

“Struck him?” the second man said, sounding panicked.

“He’s a wee-spot of a boy, and he took one of your rocks to the cheek.”

“Rocks?”

“He’ll be fine. He surely will, but ya’ll need to do the gentlemen -thing and apologize for your poor aim.” I turnt the horse and started my return to the distraught woman and dead boy.

“Wait,” the third man said. “Where’re you going?”

“To the child – Didn’t I just say? I swear I give explanation, but I ain’t exactly thinking clear.”

They mumbled to one another ‘fore deciding to trail me on my horse.

The woman’s cries got louder and louder as time ticked by.

“I’ve found the scoundrels, ma’am,” I said. “They’ve come to – ” I wobbled in the saddle and felt myself lose the light of the day for a split second. “I – I – What – I’m – ” I lost bits of memory. The woman was new to me, even though I’d seen her just moments before. It was as if I was seeing her and the dead boy for the first time, and I understood in a flash that he’d been murdered by a stray bullet.

I turnt  to the three bluebellies. “You kilt him.”

They looked fittingly horrified.

One of them said, “We give you orders to halt, but you kept on riding. We had rights to shoot you. You were escaping.”

“It was you who put the boy in the line of fire.”

“I’m riding to see a doctor – I’m not escaping.”

“Call it what you want. You’re a Reb. We got to do one thing or another with you. rof corpse.”

“I still don’t know how you done it,” the third soldier said. “By all rights, you should have been struck a half dozen times, but you wasn’t hit once. That just ain’t possible. You are the devil.”

I give his claim some thought. “Maybe. Could be something different altogether.”

“Meaning?”

“Hold out your hand.”

“Hold out my hand? Look here, you’re the prisoner. We tell you what to do. Now get off that horse.”

“Hold out your hand. You wanna know how I dodged your bullets? Hold out your hand.”

He looked to the others ‘fore he done what I asked. His hands were shaking something terrible.

“I didn’t dodge nothing. You ain’t got a stable bone in ya’. You didn’t fire true.”

The second soldier brought his rifle to his shoulder and took aim at me. “I ain’t gonna miss this time. I’ll shoot you through for what you done to this boy – ”

“I ain’t fired a shot – ”

“You wouldn’t stop. You rode yourself in front of the boy and put him in the line of fire.”

A pop sound come from a good distance, and I turnt in the direction it come.  Smoke come out the barrel of a gun held by a fella kneeling in the middle of the road. The Yankee who had his weapon trained on me cried out and slumped over – A chunk of his hip blown from his body.

Another shot took out one of the other soldiers and the third one fled, reaching the tree line before he too was gunned down.

Felix stood from his kneeling position at the bend in the road, waving as if I’d just returned from a trip. I noticed two other fellas, Evers and Yates, kneeling on either side of him. They all fount their feet and started to march toward me.

I watched them, not knowing if they was real or not.