Horrible Harvest

A child – a boy – no more than seven was brought to the captain. The lad could barely stand. He was with fever. He shook so violent, his teeth rattled. The boy didn’t do nothing but stare at the captain’s jackbooted feet.

“Your name, child.”

“Stanford.” The voice was set heavy with fear in a soft whisper.

The captain bent his ear towards him. “Speak up.”

“Stanford,” the response come, with just a touch more volume.

“You’re ill, boy?”

A nod.

“Fever?”

A shrug.

The captain turnt to me. “Water, corporal.”

I spotted a pale of well water on a table with a ladle hung over the edge. I quick brought it to the boy and held out a scoop of water for him. He lapped it up like he ain’t drank in a week.

“You are to be spared today – Stanford. Do you know what that means?”

The boy give a shake of the head.

“No harm will come to you.”

He wiped tears from his eyes. The captain was dumb as a frog taking a bite out of a snake if he thought harm ain’t already come to the boy.

“You are my town crier. You will speak of this to everyone you meet. You will tell them what comes of negroes who ally with Yankees. You will tell them what comes of southerners who give aid to Yankees. You will tell them the Confederacy will not abide traitors. Mercy toward none.” He leaned in closer to the boy. “Repeat that. Mercy toward none.”

The boy, mourn-soaked and weak from fever, said, “Mercy toward none.”

The captain rubbed the top of the negro boy’s head and smiled. “Fine – Smart boy. For now, you are to do nothing but wait for the bluebellies to return. Tell them Captain Docherty and the boys of Company K extend a hardy invitation to return home and tread no further into the south.”

The captain stood tall – Or short in his case. “We are done here, men. Corporal, take Mr. Jeffries and advance to the east. Get ahead of the Yankees and inform the lieutenant our mission is complete. They are to end the engagement and circle back to camp.”

I give pause. A fire’d been lit in me, and I wasn’t sure if I was done killing..

“Mr. Tennyson, double time. Find Lieutenant Duggars and direct him to end his engagement with the enemy – ”

“Yes, sir,” I said with a roar. I was a good fucking soldier, and I hated myself for it. I grabbed up Felix by the collar and yanked him along, pulling him through the door of the barn and dragging him a hundred feet or more before letting him go. We stood in the middle of the Union camp. We was both shook by what we just done. I wish I could say I was as shook as him, but I weren’t. I missed the days when these kinds of things took the bone out of me. Felix dropped to his knees, and I was jealous at how hard it all hit him.

“We ain’t got time – ”

He folded over and rested his forehead on the ground. The tall grass and mud give cover to a bulk of his screams.

“Mr. Jeffries,” I said, trying like all hell to sound like a corporal addressing a private. “We’ve gotta go. Now.”

Sobbing, he turnt his face up to me. “What did we do?”

“We didn’t do a goddamn thing,” I said. “On your feet.”

“They – They had nothing. No arms. No malice. We – The sick and the kindhearted – We – Slaughtered – All.”

“We didn’t do a goddamn thing,” I repeated. “Say it.”

“Say it?”

“Say, we didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

“But – We did – ”

I grabbed him up by the hair and forced him to look me in the eyes. “We didn’t do a goddamn thing. You wanna know how to get by in this pile of shit war, you gotta learn the things we do, we didn’t ever do. We didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

“I can’t – ”

“Do you choose to draw a breath?”

“What?”

“Do you choose to breathe? Do you make your own heart thump? Do you choose the sounds you hear? Things just are, Felix. They happen to us, for us, they happen whether we fucking want them to or not. We don’t do a goddamn thing to make them happen.

“We was given a goddamn order. In a goddamn war. Under a goddamn black flag. We didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

He said in a whisper, “We didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

I fought my own urge to collapse to the ground and throw a fit once I heard him repeat my lie.

“On your feet – ” I stopped at the telltale sound of the hammer of a musket being pulled back. I turnt to see the barrel of a rifle sticking out from behind a nearby tent.