I could blame it all on Ken Burns and his award-winning documentary of the American Civil War, which got me interested enough to read Bruce Catton’s book, This Hallowed Ground.
I had been dabbling in writing at the time, and had a few short stories under my belt. And I had a couple of ideas . . .
One idea was to have two soldiers from opposing sides who keep crossing paths in odd ways. Would a sort of relationship develop? At first an antagonistic relationship. Then, eventually, maybe, each soldier would look for the other in the midst of battle. Each soldier, at not seeing the other for a period of time, would wonder if the other had perhaps met death.
At the end of this tale, the wounded soldier only feels anger and a sense of wanting revenge. But suppose, over a period of time, he starts to become puzzled as to why the other man hadn’t killed him. What kind of a man wouldn’t take the opportunity to finish off his enemy in wartime? This wounded soldier would, of course, still be on the lookout for this man. The image of the man will perhaps haunt him. He would still be intent on revenge, but in the end, would he follow through? Perhaps, becoming so intent in his search, he becomes obsessed enough to turn over every body on the field after a battle to check for this face that he had only vaguely seen.
This tale is only a surreal few-minutes in the life of a soldier on a sunbaked afternoon in 1863.
I could work on this and make something more of it. The rustling in the woods could become anything at all, something that might be a threat to both men . . .
The Trade
There is a soldier on a hill somewhere. He is alone. He looks around and sees only trees and more hills in the distance. There is a clear blue sky filled with billowy clouds. He sets his knapsack on the ground and rests his rifle against it. He stands. He shifts his shoulders in a rolling motion. There’s got to be a stream somewhere close by, he thinks. He hopes. He tries to lick his parched and cracked lips. His tongue is barely moist. It is too late when he hears the shot. A minné ball grazes his head. He spins away. His knees crumple. He falls to the ground. He rolls onto his back. He stretches his leg out, moving it from beneath him, from the awkward position it had been in when he hit the ground. There is pain running through his left arm from where he had landed on it. But mainly there is pain in his head, his left temple. His vision is blurred. After a minute or so, he blinks his eyes. There is a searing, sharp pain, and confusion. He blinks again. The pain is receding. It comes again and then ebbs. He blinks a third, and then a fourth time. Watery tears form in his eyes with the sharpness of the pain. A drop rolls from the corner of his eye and runs quickly down and into his ear. He can see through his eyelashes, a blurred vision of a hawk flying overhead. He can see the tops of the trees swaying gently in the distance. He turns his head to the side and can smell the ground, the disturbed dirt. He can see clumps of weeds, and blades of grass standing straight up like tiny green swords, and more weeds in the distance. He moves his head back again to face upward. The billowy clouds are moving slowly across the sky. His eyelids flutter again in rapid succession and then stop. The sun is shining. He lies still. The enemy is close. After another minute or so, a shadow moves across him. Someone is standing over him. His eyes hadn’t been open very wide, just enough to observe the moving shadow through his lashes. He eases his eyes completely closed and lies still, waiting. He sees a redness behind his eyelids, just the brightness of the sun pushing down against the lids from the other side. The redness is irritating, but not as irritating as the man standing over him. Should he kick out and catch the man’s legs, knocking him to the ground? Perhaps he could wrest the man’s rifle loose in the struggle. He does nothing, however. He waits. He knows the end of the standing man’s piece is only inches from his chest. He waits to be shot by the enemy soldier.
There is a distant, soft, crashing sound. The sound is coming from the nearby woods, a brushing of leaves, branches moving. The soldier opens his eyes just enough to get a murky vision of the man standing over him. The man is looking in the direction from which the sound had come. Now, he thinks, now is his chance. But perhaps the sound is simply more enemy soldiers emerging from the woods. He waits. The sound passes. He eases his eyes shut again as he senses the standing man’s gaze shifting back to him. He imagines a deer in the woods. That’s all it was. But he has missed his opportunity. He can feel the enemy’s gaze upon him. He senses the man lean down.
The man crouches and starts going through the prone soldier’s knapsack. The soldier lies still, waiting. The man stands again. After another minute the soldier feels something plop against his chest. He waits. He hears the man move away. After a minute or so, all becomes silence. There’s only the afternoon sounds of wildlife.
After a few more minutes the soldier opens his eyes. The sun is bright. His vision has cleared now. The blurriness is fading, almost completely gone. He reaches and feels for whatever had patted against his chest. He sits up as he reaches for whatever it is. His efforts aren’t coordinated; he grasps for whatever is on his chest, but misses. A chaw of tobacco brushes past his fingers and rolls off his chest. The tobacco plops into his lap and then rolls off into the dirt. The afternoon heat is shimmering before his eyes. His vision blurs again, and sweat rolls down his temple. Or is it blood? His head throbs. Perhaps he sat up too quickly. He stares at the tobacco for a minute and then looks around. No one, just sunshine and silence. He looks toward the edge of the woods. No deer. He looks over to his knapsack. He groans as he leans over and reaches to drag it close. He feels inside. What’s missing? He didn’t have much, just a bundle of letters and a small book, a worn extra shirt, and a handkerchief with a little bit of hardtack rolled inside, and a small tin cup. The hardtack is gone. The handkerchief is loose and empty. But maybe the hardtack just fell out and is in the bottom of the knapsack. He feels around. Nothing. He glances again at the tobacco resting in the dirt. A trade, he thought. Tobacco for hardtack.
The soldier conjures up the murky image of the enemy; the image of the man as the man had stood looking toward the woods. He sees the tight cord of muscle in the man’s neck as the head turned. There is the peak of a haphazardly shaven cheek, a nose that is fairly straight and aquiline. He can see the soft lashes of the man’s eye. He can distinctly sense again the man’s intent gaze as the man stared toward the woods. Would he know that image if he saw it again? Would he see that image the next day or the day after? Would that image be firing at him from across another field during battle? If the man is looking at him straight-on, probably not. But if that man turns his head ever so slightly, and if the sun is shining just right, perhaps. If the cord of the man’s neck tightens and bulges just so, just shifts slightly, just enough to trigger recognition . . .
The soldier reaches up and feels the side of his head. He feels the stinging, burning sensation as his fingers touch his temple, his wound. His vision blurs with the pain. He pulls his fingers away. He rubs the tips of his fingers together, feeling the moisture. He looks at his fingers. Mostly sweat, clear and salty, but there is a pinkness to it, some blood. He feels more moisture pool up and run down his temple. Tobacco for hardtack, he thinks. Hmm. But things aren’t quite even. There would have to be a second trade, if and when he sees the image again. He owes the man a minné ball.