Lieutenant Hopkins was sky-lined on the top of the hill. He stood for a moment surveying the valley before him. It was green, quiet, untouched by war. He breathed deep of the clean air and began to descend heavy-footed through the grass.
He’d been walking for days. He felt annoyed that he’d had to relinquish his horse. It was the army brand that had done it. But the terms of the surrender had been clearly spelled out: only men who owned their own mounts would be allowed to keep them. A gesture of goodwill by General Grant, so that farm boys could get back to their farming. So, no horse; and he’d even lost his hat in the last skirmish. Jeez, if he could have kept that fiery-eyed sorrel he would have come out of this damn war with something. And his feet wouldn’t be so goddamn sore; nor his legs ache.
There was a stand of trees at the bottom of the valley. He would rest in the shade for a piece. God, he was hungry. He dropped to the ground under the branches of the first tree he came to and went to sleep almost as soon as his eyelids closed.
It was the crackling of twigs underfoot that woke him. He started, saw a shape loom against the sun; and moved for his gun.
‘Hey, hold on there. Ain’t no need for that no more.’ The accent was of the northeastern seaboard. The man before him stepped back a pace. ‘The war’s over,’
Hopkins relaxed his hand and sat up. ‘Sorry. Instinct.’
The standing man wore a uniform, too. At a glance grey like his own, but in fact a faded blue. Like it had been in the field a long time. The man was Union, a private. He had the same gauntness of feature that men of both sides shared. Not yet twenty, he guessed, like himself.
The northerner hunkered down in front of him. ‘Saw you sky-lined fifteen minutes back. Looked like we was heading the same way. So I came over. Must admit I was a mite apprehensive. You being a Confederate an’ all. Then I told myself different colored uniforms ain’t important no more.’ He stepped forward again. ‘Lordsakes, you must be tired the speed you went to sleep.’
Hopkins nodded. ‘Walking since dawn.’
The Union man held out his hand. ‘Nathan Smith, Second Maine.’
He took the offered hand. ‘Thomas Hopkins. Lieutenant, late of the Army of Virginia.’
Nathan lay on the grass, parallel with him, resting his head on his hand. ‘You going home, Reb?’
‘Yeah. You?’
‘You bet.’ Nathan nodded to the slope of grass beyond the stand of trees. ‘Reckon I spied some jack-rabbits yonder. Hungry?’
Thomas grunted. ‘That’s not the word for it. Ran out of hardtack yesterday.’ He indicated his pistol. ‘But I’ve only got this. Ain’t the best weapon for hunting small critters at a distance.’ Another of Grant’s concessions: surrendering officers could keep sidearms, provided they gave their parole not to take up arms against the Union.
Nathan patted his rifle. ‘Pay no never-mind. I used to hunt a mite back home. That’s if you don’t mind KP––campfire duty––I mean you being an officer an’ all, me being a bottom-ranker.’
‘No.’
‘OK, Reb. Set it up but don’t light it till you hear me call. We’re downwind all right, but you never can tell with smoke. God’s critters seem able to nose it no matter which way the wind’s a-blowing.’
Thomas began scratching around for kindle. Nathan moved cautiously along the line of trees and sat down, back against a tree-trunk, eyes on the green slope. He cradled his rifle on his knees and became quite still, as his pa had taught him. ‘The only thing you gotta concentrate on once you’re downwind is keeping still,’ his pa would say.
‘You keep as still as a tree. It’s movement the critters see. You don’t move and your prey don’t know you’re there.’ Slowly he raised his rifle.
Meanwhile Thomas stacked the wood, humming to himself, in a way he hadn’t done for a long time. He put some stones on either side and cut a thin branch which he began smoothing to complete the spit.
There was a shot. He looked up. His heart quickened. It had been many days since he’d heard gunfire. Then a pause, the length of time it takes to reload. Then another shot, and a yell. Could have been a Rebel yell, if he hadn’t have known it was coming from Yankee lips.
The fire was crackling by the time the private returned triumphant, his rifle horizontal across his neck and shoulders, his hands over the ends, a jack-rabbit hanging by the ears from each.
They skinned the small animals and sat in silence savoring to the point of ecstasy the smell of fresh meat cooking.
‘Your uniform’s faded,’ Thomas observed later as they picked meat from bones.
Nathan evaded the implication. ‘It’s seen a lotta rain.’
Thomas asked more directly. ‘You been wearing it a long time?’
‘Eighteen months or more.’
‘In war, that’s a life-time.’
They talked about their families, their hometowns. Then Thomas wiped his mouth and asked, ‘You killed a lotta men?’
‘Can’t say.’ Nathan was reluctant to admit it even to himself. Then he added, ‘A few men dropped after I’d sighted ‘em and pulled the trigger. But can’t say whether it was my ball that put ‘em down or somebody else’s Or whether they was killed or wounded. I ain’t one for checking things like that.’
There was silence. Then Nathan threw a well-cleaned bone away and went on, ‘I don’t cotton to me having taken somebody’s life. I tell myself they’re in some army hospital. Or maybe up and walking about.’ He paused. ‘That way I can live with myself.’
The officer in Thomas prompted him to justify the actions, even though they were of the enemy. ‘In war, you fire because you have to, because you’ve been ordered.’
‘I used to see it that way. Joined up when the Union army came marching through town. Flag-waving, drums a-going. Listened to the big talk. Had to do my bit. Then suddenly, all hell breaks loose. You’re in uniform, there’s smoke and noise. You got a gun in your hands and you’re trying to kill fellow human beings, fellow Americans. That stuff about following orders, that’s an excuse. It was me that volunteered. I know it was me pulling the trigger.’
Nathan’s voice was low. He didn’t like talking about it. That’s why he didn’t ask Thomas how many men he’d killed. Thomas didn’t know what he would have said if Nathan had asked him. The truth was he’d killed nobody. But he was an officer, a Confederate officer, from a staunch military family. Could he admit he had been to war and not been bloodied? He didn’t know.
Nathan took a drink from his canteen and then offered it to the other, ‘You’re heading east then?’
‘For a spell.’
‘Feel like walking now?’
‘Yeah. Every step’s a step nearer home.’
It was some time after noon and the sun was hot when they topped a rise and saw a pool before them. With the hum of insects in the air, it looked cold and inviting. Giving a ‘Yippee’ Nathan ran down the slope. At the water’s edge he shucked his kit and started taking off his clothes. He’d been in the water some minutes before the weary Thomas joined him. Discarded blues and grays lay in crumpled piles side by side. Two teenage boys, old before their time, regained some of their youth as they splashed and laughed.
Nathan, now clothed and pleasantly exhausted, lay on the bank watching the other pull on his uniform. ‘You got lieutenant’s markings,’ he said. ‘Bet we’re close in years. You must have been a good soldier to earn promotion at your age.’
Thomas shook his head as he buckled his belt. ‘No, there’s no distinction about my service. It was my pa bought me my commission. Old military family. Pa was too old to join when war broke out. It was up to me to uphold the family tradition. Anyways, that’s what he drilled into me.’ He came and sat beside his former enemy. Nathan crooked his arms and laid his head back on his hands. ‘My folks ain’t got much. Farmers. Make a bitty surplus, but the mortgage eats up most of it.’
‘Oh, don’t get me wrong,’ Thomas countered. ‘My family ain’t rich. Reckon pa had to scrape the bottom of the cracker-barrel to get the money for my commission. But he got it together. Family honor comes above everything else. Huh, couldn’t even afford a horse. God, that was humiliating. The only officer in the regiment without his own mount:’
Nathan didn’t understand such things. In the ranks everybody was equal, that’s all there was to it. He sucked on a piece of grass. ‘You married, Thomas?’
‘No,’
‘Got a girl?’
‘In a way, yes. In a way, no,’
‘I don’t get your meaning,’
‘Back home in Virginia there’s a family close by. Own the neighboring estate. Their daughter and me, the two families have kinda pushed us together since we were young. Taken for granted we’ll wed an’ all,’
‘What’s the matter? Don’t you like her?’
‘The other way around. Marybelle, she’s always talking about other fellers. You know, how handsome they look in their uniforms how daring their exploits were in the field. Always taking opportunity to ridicule me.’
‘I’m sorry, Tom.’
‘Keeps talking ‘bout boys coming back with medals. Don’t think I measure up,’ He lay back and closed his eyes. ‘And what about you? You got a girl?’
‘Yeah. Got engaged on my last leave. She’s a real beauty, Thomas, you wouldn’t believe it. I been thinking ‘bout her a lot lately.
‘Can’t believe it’s me she loves. We’re gonna start our own homestead when I get back. We ain’t got much by way of money, but we’ll manage. I know it’s a corny saying, but I really believe love conquers all.’ He sighed as he thought about his future. ‘You got that––nothing else matters.’
He suddenly realized he was stressing his own happiness to a man without it. He felt guilty and changed the subject. His voice became lower. ‘You know Abe Lincoln’s been killed?’
Thomas nodded. ‘Yes. They told us when we were being discharged,’ He pondered. Then, ‘It wasn’t one of ours that did it.’
‘No, I know,’ Nathan sniffed. ‘Just another crazy happening, in a world gone mad. Let’s hope, after what we’ve been through, brother, some sanity comes back into affairs.’ He picked up his knapsack.
‘Where exactly you live, Tom?’
Thomas told him. Nathan produced a map from his knapsack. Red stains on it had dried and were already turning brown. ‘Picked this off a friend. He didn’t need it no more.’
‘Was he––?’
‘Yes. Didn’t need no map to show where he was going. Poor bastard’ He laid it out on the grass and moved his forefinger over it. ‘There, at the river. That’s where you turn south. I turn north and join that turnpike a mile further on. Till then we can stay together, eight miles or so. That okay with you?’
‘Sure,’
Their pace slowed with the miles. They talked of childhoods; of blissful, innocent summers of schooldays. Then, like the ‘vets’ they had now become, they talked of army coffee; of sparse, moldy rations; of fallen comrades.
Suddenly the river was there, lazing its centuries-old way under basswood trees, unaffected by the wars of men.
‘This is it, Reb,’
They stood on a sandy bar, studying the currents, each with his own thoughts. With neither knowing what to say, it was an awkward parting. Nathan backed away upstream. He raised a hand in a gesture of silent farewell to the still unmoving Thomas, then turned.
After a few seconds, Nathan suddenly stopped in his tracks. ‘Hey, Reb:’ He retraced a few steps. ‘Catch:’ He threw his rifle. Thomas caught it in both hands,
‘Don’t need that anymore,’ Nathan explained. ‘I meet the turnpike in couple of miles. There’s bound to be folks en route glad to feed a returning hero. According to the map it’s uninhabited a-piece downstream. You might be able to bag yourself another jack-rabbit with it.’ He turned a last time and headed north, his knapsack dangling at his side.
The Confederate watched him. Then he checked the musket was loaded, raised it and fired.
Nathan took the ball between the shoulder blades. He spun round, face incredulous, then crumpled in the moist sand,
Now Lieutenant Thomas Hopkins could return home proud––and truthfully claim he’d shot a Yankee.