Horrible Harvest

“Where the hell you been?” Evers called out.

I give his question some thought. I was both confused by it and by the state of the world I’d smoked myself into. “Didn’t the captain tell you? He sent me to see a doctor.”

“Yeah,” Evers said. “But that was near three day ago.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I ain’t been gone but half the day.”

“Nah,” Yates said. “It’s been pert near three days, like Evers said.”

I shook my head. “Y’all are off in the head.”

“Well, that’s true enough,” Yates said. “But the doc said he give you a look over and give you a meal to perk you up two days ago.”

“What doc?”

“The doc the captain sent you to see.”

“I didn’t see no doctor.”

Felix chimed in, near as confused as me. “Says he saw you. Described you down to the horse you rode in on. Says he gave you an old herbal concoction for nervousness and whatnot.”

“I ain’t got no concoction. He give me nothing because I never seen no doctor,” I said, patting at my pockets to prove I didn’t have any such thing on me, only to stop sudden when I felt something hard. I reached inside the jacket and pulled out a small, unmarked bottle full of an amber liquid.

“Any more Yanks?” Evers asked.

“I don’t understand,” I said.

“The boy dead?” Yates asked, steering his eyes around me to get a view of the heartbroken mother hovering over her boy.

“It ain’t fucking possible. I didn’t pay visit to no goddamn doctor – ”

“I ain’t a fan of just standing around out here,” Evers said. “Three Yanks just ain’t found out on their own. Gotta be more nearby – more than what I’m comfortable with – ”

“That boy is sure enough dead.”

“You feeling out of sorts, corporal, sir – Augustus?” Felix asked.

I looked to him. “I didn’t see no doctor.”

“Well, you got his elixir in your hand. He gave a good description of you, and he commented on the good nature of your horse.”

“You are playing at me – Making a joke.”

“We’ve been looking for you for two days. If it’s a joke, it’s come back around on us to make our lives extra-hard,” Evers said.

“Should we help with the boy – I mean digging a hole and such – ”

The woman screamed at Yate’s suggestion.

“We don’t need to be doing nothing but meeting up with the captain,” Evers said.

“This just don’t make any sense – ”

“Look, Augustus – Or corporal – Or whatever the hell it is I’m to call you – Sense or not, it is what it is. You’ve been roaming here and there in Yankee territory for three days. Doc met up with you. He give you your herbals and sent you on your way. Why it is that slipped from your thoughts is puzzling, but ain’t no use on trying to piece together what you forgot. We gotta get moving – One, two, three.”

I was struck pure dumb by the missing time, but Evers was right. Weren’t no sense in trying to unravel the mystery with blue bellies nearby. I give him a nod and turnt to the woman.

“Ma’am, more soldiers will be headed this way – Union soldiers. You ain’t safe –”

One of the wounded blue bellies set to wheezing. It was a wet, crunchy sound that come from deep down in his lungs. Heard it a hundred times before from a hundred fellas dead soon after. From my mount, I called out to Felix, “Tend to that man.”

He looked to me with a furrowed brow. “Tend to him?”

“He’s near gone. Tend to him.”

Felix give my order some thought and then knelt next to the man. “How can I help, fella?”

“No,” I said. “Fix your bayonet. Tend to him.”

“What?”

“Run him through, private. Underneath there, at the sternum, then thrust up. Quick as a cat.”

“But you said others were coming. They could give him aid –”

“They’ll give him the same aid I’m telling you to give him. He’s well gone. This day ain’t gonna end with him alive. He dies now without a heap of suffering, or we leave him to it, and let him feel every miserable second of it.”

“But I can’t just – That’s not right – ”

“Evers,” I said.

Evers give it no thought at all. He fixed his bayonet and rammed the blade under the Yank’s sternum and straight into his heart.

“Mercy’s the only thing fellas like you and me can afford, Felix. It’s hard to serve, but if this world’s got balance, we pay it out, so it’ll come back to us when we need it.”

Evers shrugged. “Weren’t that hard.”

We heard a voice shout out from deep in the woods.

“They’s coming,” Yates said.

“Ma’am,” I said. “You should come with us.”

She didn’t answer.

“We need to get up on our go and skedaddle,” Evers said. “Sounds like a whole entire regiment is on their way.”

“Ma’am – ”

“Leave,” she barked. Her face flush and her eyes turnt violent red. “I lie dead here already. The Union army entire cannot take any more from me than what’s been taken from me this hour. What you took from me – Your war – You men at play – My boy – There’ s no need for me to draw in more air or cast one more shadow – ”

“Corporal, we either find our retreat or we take up firing positions. This little chit-chat is just an invitation to be fitted for shallow graves.”

I frowned and ordered the others to enter the woods to the south of us. As we entered the tree line, I turnt on my mount to get a look at of the approaching blue bellies. My eyes shifted to the woman as she pried a rifle from one of the dead soldier’s hands and slowly walked toward the oncoming Yanks stomping through the underbrush.

I heard a single laugh, then a whole chorus of laughs. A black soldier was pushed out past the treeline, and I heard the command to fire growled out by a man still hidden by the tangle of trees and shrubbery. The soldier give pause but then placed his weapon to his shoulder and pulled the trigger. The sun blazed overhead, and the shadow the woman said she had no need to cast stretched out like a wave as she fell to the ground.

The man who shot her fell to his knees and vomited. His fellow blue bellies laughed at his uncalloused heart.

I had me a small urge to turn my mount around and ride into their lines, firing off a shot – Not to avenge the woman’s death or the boys, but to end their fucking laughter – Their joy at giving what was most likely a fresh recruit his first kill.

The urge passed when I realized I’d come to find peace in killing – Not peace in that it give me a sense of calm, but peace in that it give me a sense of accomplishment. That I’d done what was needed to finish out the work of war. They wasn’t laughing for joy. They was laughing because they’d led another to the same such work of war, and God help us, he’d find peace in it soon enough, too.