Horrible Harvest

“In the dirt,” an unseen bluebelly begged.

The voice was familiar to me, but I couldn’t place it right off.

“Face down. I got no aim to shoot, but I will.”

“You alone?” I asked.

“On the ground. Hands out.”

“You alone?”

“I didn’t direct you to ask me no questions. I directed you to get on the ground.”

“I’ll get on my knees, but I’m not putting my face in that there ground. Place smells of shit and such.”

The voice responded. “Fair enough. Keep yer feet. Just put yer hands out wide.”

I spread my arms out wide and told Felix to do the same.

“Where’s the rest of you – the others?”

“You got river in your voice. You sound more like a homegrown cracker than Yankee.”

“I grew up on the river. Could be why I sound the way I do.”

“I hear a little haughty plantation in your voice.”

“S’pose a thing like that is unavoidable.” He stepped past the tent. He was a skinny black fella in a Union uniform three sizes too big for him. I give him a look-over with the slim-lit sky giving no help. I couldn’t shake the notion that there was something wholly recognizable about him.

“Do I know you?”

“I know a lot of white devils like you, so a thing like that – it is possible.”

“You ever down Charleston-way?”

He didn’t respond right away. “Charleston? South Carolina? That where you’re from?”

“It is.”

He stepped closer and trained his weapon direct on me. “Had a lot of bad times in Charleston.”

“Me, too.”

He stepped a tick closer, and I got a clear view of his face. I couldn’t believe my eyes. “Davidson?”

He lowered his gun just a hair. “What – How is it you know my name?”

“Davidson – Holy shit – It’s you – ”

“We know who I am. Who are you? How do you know my name?”

“It’s me – It’s Augustus.”

He give me a cock-eyed look. “Augustus who?”

“Tennyson. It’s me. Augustus Tennyson.”

He lowered his gun a little more. “Augustus – You’re not – He ain’t but a boy – Augustus?”

“It’s me. I swear.”

He shook his head. “No – You a lie – ”

“You traveled through daddy’s farm all the time – On business for your master, Mr. Stephens.”

He dropped the barrel of the gun, pointing it toward the ground. “Jesus Lord, boy. You done sprung up giant size.”

I felt my my chest warm with delight. “Davidson – I can’t believe – It’s you.”

He sniffled and wiped a trail of snot running from his nose onto the sleeve of his oversized jacket. “Augustus, Augustus, Augustus – I give a lot of thought to you over the years – I did. The good-hearted son of a rice farmer – Meanest man I ever met, your daddy.”

I bowed my head. Shame run me over. “I ain’t – That. Not no more.”

“That? A rice farmer?”

“Good-hearted.”

“Well – You did pick the wrong side of things. I can say that much, but the heart of a man don’t change – What you was as boy, you is as a man. Minds change. Hearts don’t.”

“You should shoot us,” Felix said.

Davidson lifted the barrel of his gun but didn’t take no particular aim. “I got no intention to shoot you. I’ll do you like I done all the others. Just scoot on by and be on your way.”

“What others?” I asked.

“Runners – De-serters – Come across a dozen or so of you boys in just the last three months.”

“We’re not deserters,” Felix said.

“You ain’t?”

“Why didn’t you go with the rest of the regiment?”

“Go?”

“The skirmish. They’re in pursuit of some of our men – ”

“Your men?” He set his aim on Felix. “You ain’t deserters?”

“Why aren’t you with the regiment?” I asked.

“I’m not – I ain’t official in. They just give me the coat. You’re with the fellas who fired on us?”

“You should shut up now and shoot us,” Felix said.

“You need to stop putting ideas in my head. Why aren’t you with the rest of your men?”

Out of nowheres, Felix set to laughing like a fucking lunatic.

“He’s not altogether well,” I said. I give my mind a tick to catch up. “Was it you – That I seen today?”

“Seen where?”

“On the road – The woman – ”

“It wasn’t – I didn’t shoot no woman – I mean if that’s what you’re getting at – I didn’t – She had a gun – They was barking out this order and that – I didn’t shoot no woman – I told you. I ain’t official joined up. They just take me out on raids and such – She come at us like she had some fool-notion – They said ‘fire’ – I only did what – I want to do my part in the fighting – I didn’t shoot no woman – I want that to be true – I do –” He give pause and stared at me a good long while before asking, “How do I make that true?”

“We didn’t do a goddamn thing,” Felix said.

I heard the bustle of the rest of the strike force coming out the barn and making their way to the woods. They was conducting themselves in conversation and strolling away as if they was leaving church.

“Who – ” Davidson stepped back. “Oh, Lord – You Rebs come up around the back of us.”

“They’re leaving.”

“Please,” Felix said, standing. “Shoot us.”

“Down, boy.”

“Get down, private.”

“But this is – We did it – I can’t tell myself different. We did it – All of them – ”

“What’d you do?”

“Mercy toward none.”

“What’re you saying?”

“He ain’t saying nothing – His mind is blasted away – The war – Soldiering – Being gone from home – It’s just getting to him.”

“We killed them all.”

“Killed who? What all?”

“He ain’t well, Davidson.”

Felix did a half-turn to the barn and pointed at it. “That all. Them. We killed them.”

Davidson eyed Felix and then settled his stare on me. “What’s he saying?”

I stood. “No – Davidson, no – We didn’t do a goddamn thing.”

“We killed them – ”

“Shut up, Felix.”

“They’s sick folks, is all – ”

“Mercy toward none.”

“I’m telling you, Davidson – We didn’t do a goddamn thing – ”

“He’s lying.”

“Felix.”

Davidson raised his weapon to his shoulder.

Felix held his arms out and smiled.

“If you fire your rifle, the others – them men back there – They’ll be on you quick as lightning.”

“We killed them all.”

“Mercy toward none,” a child’s voice said from behind us.

Stanford strolled up on us in a haze. He repeated the phrase, “Mercy toward none,” over and over again.

“Child?” Davidson said.

The boy kept walking.

Davidson looked at me. “It’s true, ain’t it?”

I tried to work up the energy to lie, but I was tired. “How do I make that not true?”

He choked out, “They was just poor sick folks.”

“They were traitors,” Felix said. “Executed as such.”

“They didn’t do nothing.”

“You are a traitor.”

“Felix, if you don’t shut your mouth, I will cut your tongue out.”

“I ain’t a traitor. I’m a free man. My president says so. The folks in that barn – They were free. Every last one of them – You killed them – Augustus?”

I give a long pause before I nodded.

He struggled to keep his gun trained on us as he begun to bawl. “Help me understand?”

“I am the devil. Heart didn’t change. World just plucked it from my chest.”

He gripped and re-gripped his left hand on the barrel of the rifle before he lowered the gun. “I can’t.”

I locked him in a cold stare before saying, “We sent blades across their throats – Your poor sick folks. They was defenseless – Worse than. They needed care, and we give ‘em more suffering. We ain’t men, Davidson. We’s death.”

“This ain’t you, Augustus. I know you – You was the boy who wept over that pitiable little drowned girl – Virginia was her name – ”

“Don’t say her fucking name – I don’t want to hear it – I don’t give shit one about her – ”

“That ain’t true.”

“She was just another dead nigger – ” I fell to my knees and dug my fingers into the shit-loaded ground. “I don’t give a care about her. I don’t – Goddamn it. I swear I don’t.” The sobs come out of me like a storm cut loose from a gathering of black clouds. My brain was on fire. “I didn’t do anything – I just let her become nothing. She is unmissed in this world. I let that happen. They are all unmissed – ”

“I miss them -All.”

“Then shoot me,” I said with all the rage in the world entire.

I looked to him through the darkness and seen a hand cover his mouth and then another run the blade of a knife across his neck.

His large, friendly eyes locked on me in a state of shock. I could feel him calling out to me for help. I could feel him asking the boy with the kind heart to save him from whatever hell had hold of him, but I froze.

He fell boneless to the ground, gagging, sputtering out spittle and blood from his twisted mouth. Seconds passed, and he didn’t move no more.

Standing over him, still clutching to his knife, his teeth bared in a snarl, was Captain Docherty. He give a chuckle and said, “I had given up hope we’d find the shooter. The balance of justice is restored, gentlemen. Nice work.”