Divided We Fall Read online

  “I’m gonna call the dog off, mister,” I told him. “But don’t you try anything, or he’ll bite you again.”

  I pulled Dash off the man, and there was a big red spot where he’d ripped up the uniform and bit clear into the man’s shoulder. Dash sat at my heel and looked up at me, tail wagging, panting with the excitement of it all. I patted his head.

  He just wanted to know if he’d done good, and I guess he had. My first capture. I should’ve felt proud. Why’d I feel so rotten?

  “Thought we’d lost you, Andrew.” Winslow’s round shadow blotted out the sun through the doorway and cast his dark shape across my prisoner. Winslow puffed and wheezed from running, and the eyes of the deserter on the floor went wide with fear. I didn’t blame him much for that. Winslow’s shadow against the sun looked like Cerberus, the three-headed dog from Greek myths who guards the gates of the underworld.

  The sight gave me a start too. His shadow had two heads poking out from beside his proper head. I had to turn to see the two men standing on tiptoes to peer over Winslow’s shoulders. The heads belonged to Rufus and his cousin Wade, and they jostled to get a view because this was their first deserter too, and they was anxious to see what he looked like. I could see their disappointment that he looked just like any other man, maybe a little more bedraggled and bloody, but he weren’t no snake and he weren’t no monster. Just a man.

  Winslow looked him up and down and shook his head. “You’re a sorry-looking rascal and an insult to the uniform of the great Army of Mississippi.”

  “Least I wore the uniform,” the man on the ground snarled back. “Least I went to war. You Home Guard boys ain’t nothing but draft dodgers and criminals, threatening folks and chasing down men who gave more in blood than you can ever imagine. I won’t be judged by you, by none of you! Cowards, every one!”

  In a blur, Winslow’s hand came up with his Colt revolver and the gray steel flashed fire. Dash howled at the sudden blast, and my ears rang. A smoke smell tickled my nose. On the ground, the deserter from the Confederate Army still had his eyes open, wide with surprise, but his chest had been blown open, a shot right through the heart, and his blood sank into the earth floor, making the dirt black.

  Rufus and Wade whooped and hollered, and I just stood with my mouth hanging open, staring at the dead man on the ground who’d been alive just a moment before.

  “He woulda been hung as a deserter anyhow,” said Winslow. “I just saved the judge some time.” He turned and left the cabin, and I followed him out into the light.

  “You’re bleeding,” he told me.

  I nodded. I still couldn’t find the words to speak.

  “See?” Winslow said. “That man was dangerous…. Now let’s get you home. You and Dash done good work for the cause today.”

  He stomped off through the woods.

  Dash looked up at me, real confused. The dog was used to hunting, and when the gun went off, we usually came back with meat. He heard the gun, but we was empty-handed. Dash whined, and I had to scratch him behind his big floppy ears.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I told him. “You done good. We got what we came for.”

  Winslow whistled while he led the way, but I didn’t feel like whistling. Dash trotted beside me and I thought, no, hunting down a man ain’t like hunting down a raccoon at all.

  Ma made a big fuss when I crossed the fence and trudged the long way up to our house. She took one look at my torn trousers and the bloody shreds of my shirt, and she about dragged me across the grass by the ear while Dash found his way under the porch for his afternoon nap. I swear, I could hear him snoring straightaway, even over Ma’s shouting.

  “I just knew it wasn’t right for a boy your age to go off with those —”

  “Don’t say it, Jennie,” Pa hushed her as he hobbled onto the porch on his crutch. “The Home Guard ain’t to be trifled with.”

  “Andrew knows that what’s said here at home is private,” Ma told him, and she gave me a stern look, lest I disagree.

  Pa snorted, and then he waved across the property to where Winslow, Rufus, and Wade stood. They knew they weren’t welcome to cross the fence onto Pa’s property. His hospitality didn’t run in their direction.

  We lived outside of town a ways. Pa had two acres boxed in with a fence, and there was a few good shade trees on the farm. Patches of grass grew here and there, some tall as my waist, and other places, the dirt was just as bare as Pa’s head. There were rain barrels along the side of the house, and the windows were all glassed nicely, though there was a broken shutter I was supposed to fix, since Julius went off and Pa wasn’t in no condition to take care of it. A few chickens pecked around here and there, always keeping their beady eyes alert on Dash, in case the dog got it in his head to give ’em a scare. Them chickens were lucky that most of the time, Dash got so tired, he couldn’t be bothered to mess with ’em.

  Ma held me at arm’s length and clucked at me just like the chickens. She shook her head sadly. “It’s just too dangerous, going after all that rabble,” she said, leading me inside to bandage me up.

  She served me some milk from our cow, Molly, and gave me a biscuit smeared thick with bacon grease, and she stared across the table at me with worry carved deep in her forehead. Her eyes were wet, and I knew she wasn’t just worried about me, but also Julius and my Pa, on account of his bad back and his twisted leg. My poor Ma had no end of worries.

  I decided it was best not to tell her exactly how I got hurt, or else she’d forbid me from going out with the Home Guard ever again, but while she looked me over, I felt a tug in my stomach, like all I wanted to do was tell her just exactly what had happened, about the chase and the no-good deserter and all the stuff he said about battle and fear and how he came at me with the knife and how they shot him dead right there where I could see it and how I didn’t want to go back out hunting down men with the Home Guard.

  I knew it was coward’s thinking, so I shoved that biscuit in my mouth and chewed and chewed just to keep myself from talking. I’d said it myself: A hero don’t shirk his duties just ’cause he’s afraid. Me and Dash would keep doing our duty until the cause was won and those Yankees marched themselves back up north and let us good folks be. If Julius could do his part, then so could I.

  Ma sighed. “At least you haven’t lost your appetite.”

  “Boy’s growing,” Pa said. “I bet he grew a yard and half just last night and another this afternoon.” He smiled wide at me, and though it weren’t true, I liked it when he joked like that. I was growing, growing so fast my bones ached, and I was looking forward to the day I might just be taller than Julius, who stood a good head taller than Pa. If I grew fast enough, maybe Julius would have to wear my old clothes, instead of the other way around.

  “You ready for your lessons?” Pa asked me.

  My brain was buzzing like a hive of bees from all that happened that afternoon, but Pa insisted I read with him every day. He said a life of the mind was more important than anything. A man is never free of tyranny unless his mind is filled with wisdom, he liked to say. We were reading some old poem about a great war in ancient times, the Trojans in their city under siege by the Greeks. There were gods and generals and soldiers and their wives, all kinds of heroics in the story, and I liked it well enough, but he made me memorize whole passages and recite them back at him, and I would have much rather just read the book without being tested all the time on how much of it I could remember. Seemed to me like all his questions just drained the fun right out of the story, but he said we was training my mind, and that kind of thing wasn’t supposed to be fun.

  “Oh do give the boy a rest,” Ma said. “He’s had an ordeal today.”

  “Even more reason to study!” Pa objected, but Ma shook her head and clucked at him this time and, well, Pa never could argue with Ma’s clucking. Like a good general, he knew how to pick his battles, and this was one he couldn’t win.

  He sighed and looked back at me. “Andrew, your Ma says you ne
ed a rest. That true, boy?”

  I nodded, filling my mouth with the last bite of biscuit and licking the greasy crumbs from my fingers with loud smacking sounds. The biscuit and the glass of milk had restored my strength and calmed my thoughts. I didn’t worry no more about that nasty deserter or the horrible things he said. He got what he deserved, and that was that. I knew Pa wouldn’t see it that way, so I didn’t tell him neither. They’d hear about my heroics soon enough, next time Ma went to market or Pa hobbled into town to get feed. I knew Winslow and Rufus and Wade would be at the saloons, drinking and bragging already, and maybe me and Dash would come up, our heroics talked about by grown men and old soldiers, like we were them ancient warriors Pa was so fond of. I smiled at the thought of it, and if my spirits were nudging upward, they started to soar at what Pa said next.

  “I hope you’re not too tired to read your brother’s letter.” He smirked an’ held up a piece of paper with my name on it. It was folded over and sealed in wax.

  Julius had written to me — my very own letter! Ma and Pa got one too, I was sure, but this letter was mine, and I almost jumped up and snatched it from Pa’s hand.

  “No, sir,” I said. “I ain’t too tired to read from Julius!”

  My father chuckled. “I didn’t think so.” I took the letter with a thank-you and asked to be excused. I went to the little room where my bed was, and I shut the door and lay down. My back stung where I lay on it from the cut that deserter had given me, but the pain wasn’t too fearsome bad, and I slid my finger under the wax and cracked the seal open, little red crumbles falling onto my stomach. I held the paper up to the window, and there was Julius’s curling handwriting, all squiggly and cursive. He’d filled two whole pages, just for me.

  Dear Brother Andrew, he began. I have seen the elephant, as they say.

  Outside, I could hear Dash under the porch, burbling and whining as he chased down a raccoon in his dreams.

  Dear Brother Andrew,

  I have seen the elephant, as they say. We met up with the Yanks two days back, and this is the first chance I’ve had to set it down on paper. How I wish I could tell you these tales in person, lying under the shade of the willow tree, Dash snoring by my side, but the war goes on and neither North nor South seems ready to let up until all the killing’s done. I begin to fear there is no way out but total annihilation for either side, for one side cannot win but the other shall lose totally. Many are losing heart. Just yesterday, I heard that twenty men from one regiment deserted, and we lose more every day. The roar of war deafens more than a man’s ear. I fear the soul is lost somewhere in the din as well.

  I have seen a man along the picket line before the battle so wracked with fear of the advancing blue uniforms across the misty field that he turned his musket on his self. He stood right beside me, and that one shot, aimed into his own brains, was the first shot of war I ever heard.

  The sound was enough to call out others, and from his tragic blast, the fight began. Men screamed and charged, stepping over the man’s body as we ran to meet the enemy. All around me, muskets blazed and cannons roared. The smoke was so thick on the field, only the orange flame of musket fire could be seen. The best I could do was stay low in my ditch and fire when I saw a blue uniform through the haze. I do not think I hit anything, man or beast. I do not wish to know. I saw one boy from our side, a boy no older than you, running in a brave charge ahead, when a chain fired from a Yankee cannon sliced him in half. The poor boy’s legs kept running even as the top half of him flopped on the ground like a fish. I do not mean to sicken you, brother. Just to tell how I saw beside me in one hour’s time enough death and terror for an entire lifetime. I am unhurt, in body, without in fact a scratch on me, save a minor powder burn from my own hot musket.

  My thoughts, however, are awash in blood. I wonder why Pa’s books of heroes never tell of the dreams these heroes have when they close their eyes at night to sleep, or of the sleepless nights that heroes must endure. Perhaps they do not suffer these afflictions. Perhaps it is only I who am no hero.

  I do hope you are looking after Dash, keeping his nose on the hunt, and his spirits high while I’m away. I raised that dog from a whelp, and for some reason, of which its mysteries are beyond me, I find my thoughts go to missing him more often than I care to say. Ma and Pa and You and Home itself all seem in my memory tied up in a bundle with that hound dog, so that the thought of his bark or his fur or his cool snout nuzzling me is enough to send me soaring over the miles and settling back down at our house. I admit to weeping at the mere thought of it. Do not think less of me for this, Andrew. I find since these last several days, when my feet are sore and blistered and the smell of gunpowder still lingers in my nose, that I am brought to tears at the most inopportune times. I pass most of my waking hours alone now, away from the others in camp, so as to avoid the shame that salty tears can bring. While our cause is Just, I fear that hot lead and the cold steel of a bayonet care not. The hero and the coward meet the same violent ends. I can only hope to conduct myself with Honor if my time should come.

  The last and most important question I have to ask you, brother, is this: Have you received word from the lovely, kindhearted Mary Ward? I know, before I left, her family moved to the city, for fear their abolitionist ideas would place them in danger in our countryside. I know my heart should not call out to a girl with such Union sympathies, but love is like the wind … it blows wild where it will. My wind blows in whatever direction Mary’s family has gone. Perhaps you are too young to understand. Has she sent word to ask about me? I must know. I feel I could bear all the horrors of the battles gone and battles yet to come, if only I knew that I remained in Mary’s heart! Do you know what hope is like, brother? It is the flame that lights even the blackest night. Without it, there is only darkness. Please, brother, send word to me if you know these things I ask. I could cut through a thousand thousand Yanks to reach her window, if only with the hope to hear her sigh my name.

  With affection and a heavy heart, your brother,

  Julius

  * * *

  I set the letter down on the bed beside me, and I gazed out the window to think on what my brother had written. He wrote real fine, just like Pa taught us, and it was like I could see the things he’d written in my mind. I almost wished I had gone to study ancient war with Pa instead of reading these words from Julius on the present war for Southern independence.

  I was all kinds of mixed up from the day. The deserter in the morning and the troublesome letter from Julius in the afternoon left me feeling all hollowed out and dried up, and I didn’t know what to think. Julius wrote that they had twenty men desert from just one regiment, which made me mighty afraid they’d all come my way. Dash was sure up for it, but I didn’t feel certain that I was.

  I thought about writing Julius a letter in reply, but I didn’t know what news to tell him. We hadn’t heard from his girl, Mary, since her family packed up out of Meridian. They were sympathetic to the Union, and they were abolitionists too, which Pa said was no great fault of theirs. Slavery weren’t no good, he said, but worse was the force the North used to enslave all the South. Pa could abide abolitionists, but Union men, like Mary’s father, he could not abide. A lot of folks felt that way.

  Julius had always kept his love of Mary secret, though I knew all about it. Until he left for war, we slept not a foot from each other our whole lives. He even carved her name in the side of the bed frame where he thought no one would notice.

  When Mary left town, Julius got heartsick, and that was the week he joined the army. He figured, the sooner he could end the war, the sooner Mary could come back to him. But the war went on and on, and Mary hadn’t sent any letters at all.

  Dear Julius, I wrote him. Dash is doing fine. We hunt almost every day. Food is scarce and Pa’s back is acting up worse than ever, but we get by. Don’t worry about us. When we ain’t out hunting, me and Dash Dash and I help out catching deserters. We’re real good at it, and just today we ca
ught one and …

  I couldn’t bring myself to finish the letter.

  I went to sleep that night trying to think what things I could tell him to ease his mind, but it wasn’t an easy time, and I had my own worryin’ to do.

  The air got cooler, the leaves changed colors, and the war went on. We got word from Julius from time to time, asking about this and that, talking about a skirmish here and a battle there, and every letter filled me with sadness to read about his own sadness. Ma and Pa wrote him back, but I couldn’t find the words. He kept asking about Mary Ward, but she hadn’t written to inquire about him, and I feared it’d break his heart to tell him so.

  The Union soldiers were all around to the west of us, and everyone was mighty nervous for when they’d come to sack Meridian. Our home was right in their path, but Ma and Pa told me not to worry. From what they heard when Vicksburg fell to the Yanks, if you didn’t own no slaves and if you treated the Yankee soldiers respectful, they’d let you be.

  I didn’t know how I’d treat them respectful if they came, especially on account of my work with the Home Guard, but so far, things was calm and quiet. Most days, I took Dash around with Winslow, checking up on folks and chasing down rumors. We hadn’t found another deserter yet, but we heard tell of a lot of them.

  Men kept coming as refugees to town, and we couldn’t tell who was truthful and who had fled the army. I guess most deserters steered clear of Meridian because of what we done to the man that tried to knife me. I liked to think it was me and Dash keeping ’em scared away, but it was more than likely Winslow and his Colt revolver and the guerilla fighters that moved in and out of town.

  Winslow spent most of his days with Wade and Rufus, going door to door to tax folks for the support of the Home Guard. Folks was hungry and he was too, and he got food from everybody here and there. I didn’t feel so good about it. Pa always said that taxes were another kind of government devilry, and he had no use for ’em.