Monday, August 10, 2015

Petersburg, Antietam, Chancellorsville




"It was not well to drive men into final corners; at these moments they could all develop teeth and claws."    Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage 

As a boy he had been afraid of the dark. When his mother sent him out to get more firewood he ran across the yard on stumble feet.  Some nights he couldn’t fall asleep until the grey morning arrived. War vanquishes your childhood fears; there is no room for them in war. No real room for any feelings. You wait, you kill, you starve, you scream and then you wait again.

Last night had been cold, nail cracking cold but he had been lucky to find a barn filled with hay. He slept surrounded by summer scent. In the night he dreamt of Elizabeth. She stood before him in her blue dress, her red hair luminous in the sun and bare feet.  “Marcus, my love,” she whispered into his ear. He put his hands around her waist. Followed the curve of her hip, put his mouth on her neck and she craned her neck to give space for his lips. She smelled of vanilla, blood and the Earth herself.  Her strong, willful hands were in his hair. He laid her down on the soft green grass under the oak tree dome.  A blackbird sang somewhere and she lifted her hips to meet him.

In the beginning he often dreamt of her but the dreams had disappeared and eventually he didn’t dream at all. Sleep turned scarce in the same way as food.  If you got any you ravished it too fast to enjoy. But as he had gotten closer to home the dreams had come back. And when the dreams came back his longing woke. His longing pushed him to walk harder for every day.
“Get out of the way old Dan Tucker. You’re too late to git your supper.”  He had hoped to be home by Christmas but that wish had drowned in a hard, long fall rain a couple of weeks ago. The roads had been flooded, mudslides and washed out bridges had forced him to stay put in a town for a week. But now he was close, the campfire song keeping him company.  “Supper’s gone and dinner cookin’. Old Dan Tucker’s just standin’ there lookin’. “

Darkness would soon fill in the spare gaps between the trees. The moon and the new fallen snow would help him along the way. Help him find his way home again. Four years is a long time in any man’s life. Four years at war is longer than anyone can imagine. Four  years when you can’t watch your children grow, four years when you can’t hold your woman, four years when the days are thousand hours each.


The creek was there faster than he remembered, someone had cleared the bushes away so he could see the field where the sun was about to set.  He stopped for a moment and looked at the black water moving in between the snow covered banks. On a spring day twelve years ago he had come walking on the same trail, on his way to his first teaching position.  A girl sat by the creek and washed her muddy feet. As she scrubbed them she muttered something angry. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair unruly. Marcus stood quietly on the trail and watched her. When she stood up and saw him, her blue eyes flashed with fury. “And what are you staring at?” she asked as she wiped her hands on her dress. “Do you need help with something?” he asked.  She huffed as she climbed up the bank. “Have you seen a mare? Black with a white star.” He shook his head. “The stupid horse threw me off.”

As he helped her search for the boisterous mare they talked. About how he would teach her younger sisters in school. That both of them loved Edgar Allan Poe and “The Sketch Book”. She grabbed hold of his arm, dug her nails into his skin and lowered her voice. “We have our own monster. Some say it is a bear. Some say it is a gigantic wolf. Others say it is a man who transforms when the moon is full.” Her burning voice and the hard grip around his arm made him shiver.  “We don’t walk in the woods in the dark. Do you understand?” He nodded and she put her head to the side and looked at him intently. “Your eyes are an impressive shade of brown,” she said and smiled.

A year later they married and when he laid her down in their bed in the small house he was renting he thought about his father’s voice. “Marcus, what is the most important thing about being a man?” His father sat in front of him after he had hit his younger sister. “Being kind and gentle,” Marcus had said and hung his head. Their first child was born a year later and then another boy two years after the first.

The war started and he was spared, he was a teacher, he was a father, he was needed where he was. Justice and fairness were things he had always believed in and eventually he signed up himself. Elizabeth punched him in the chest when he told her. She was pregnant for the third time and had just started to show. “No,” she yelled. “No! No!” Slowly, deliberately, carefully he explained to her.  She punched him again when he stopped speaking. Then she walked out the door into the summer afternoon. He sat on the porch with their boys playing at his feet and waited for her to come back. As the summer sun hung low in the sky and their youngest had fallen asleep in his lap, she came back. He could tell she had been crying.  She grabbed hold of his arm, dug her nails into his skin and lowered her voice.  “I will never forgive you if you don’t come back.”

Now the winter sun was a faint glow behind the tall spruces, the shadows grew and darkness came. For a few moments the dark was opaque. Then the moon rose and the forest turned to silver. The snow crunched under his feet as he rushed down the trail. Suddenly he heard something behind him or were his ears playing tricks on him? He stopped and listened. Something moved in the woods. Something heavy. Branches snapped under ungentle feet. “We don’t walk in the woods in the dark.” Elizabeth’s voice was as clear and close as it had been twelve years ago.
He saw a movement in the moonlight. A black, hunched over shape against the luminous snow. He was so near home. If he closed his eyes he could see the house. Smell Elizabeth’s hair. Hear the boys’ voices. He had never even seen his daughter. And now she was four years old. Red haired like her mother with his brown eyes.

The shape rose and grew taller. Tilted its head backwards and wailed towards the moon. Marcus started to walk. “I will pretend you don’t exist. I will walk here and pretend I didn’t see you. I will go home now.” He tried to proceed in a leisurely way but suddenly his feet got heavy and he stumbled. He heard the creature behind him but he kept moving. “I will pretend you don’t exist.” The sound grew louder; he walked faster and faster until he was running.

He passed the blackberry bushes; his heart was pounding so hard now he didn’t hear anything else.  And then he saw the house. In the kitchen window a candle was burning. He ran a little faster and then he slipped.  Fell head first into the snow, scraped his cheek, bit his lip. Everything was silent for a second or two.  Then he heard heavy, limping feet walking towards him. He closed his eyes. “I will pretend you don’t exist.”

The smell was so strong, of dog and forest and battlefield. Fear and loneliness and pinecones. He kept his eyes shut. The feet limped around him, then they stopped and he could feel warm breath on his face. “I won’t die now,” he said out loud. “I have killed. I have suffered. I have grieved. I have starved. I just want to come home.”

The warm breath grew fainter and the footsteps moved away from him. He opened his eyes, got up on his knees, then his feet and slowly walked towards the house. When he stepped up on the porch the door opened. Elizabeth stood before him. Thinner, older, still the same.  He fell into her arms. He took a deep breath in. She smelled of vanilla, blood and the Earth herself.


No comments:

Post a Comment