Tim BaumannCivil War Story Ending

Red“The Art of Killing”

He knew that as he fired his pistol that he had made the worst shot of his life. He didn’t even bother to watch to see what happened, and he cursed violently under his breath, heard the sound of bullet hitting the roof, and sat back. A Minie ball hit the chimney he was hiding behind and he sighed. His shield would not last long and the parapet was all but destroyed. But then the shooting stopped as soon as it had come; the Yankee apparently didn’t want to waste ammunition, or maybe he just didn’t know how weak the chimney was. Still, the boy contemplated surrender just to save him the agonizing wait leading up to his imminent death, but the thought of his father kicked that idea out of his head.

“You come home a hero or in a box,” he told him. “Otherwise, don’t come home at all.” His father was a gruff farmer, hardened by life, a cynic, a man who did not believe in the Lord. He often wondered how his father and mother had come to marry each other, for his mother was a devout Christian, a woman who did nothing without first consulting the Almighty. As he rested his head against the dark red chimney in a worn spot, he realized what a stereotype his family was.

“But must you go?” his mother had asked tearfully. “There are other boys that can enlist, other young boys to fight for Mr. Davis down there in Richmond.”

“Ma,” the boy had replied. “Listen to me. All my friends are gone. This is something I’ve got to do. And…” he paused. This was important. How could he say it? “Ma, you’ve gotta go there to come back.” That was close enough to what he felt.

He had left that day, musket on his shoulder, pistol in his pocket, and the cries of a mother and the apathy of a father behind him, and now he was here, in some nameless northern town where he would die.

The boy was tired, for he had been in a firefight all night with the Billy Yank over there on the other roof. That soldier over there was probably camping out with a piece of hardtack in his hand, he thought. Nibbling at it methodically, waiting for him to come out, and waiting for a few more men to come so he could get down. He’d go back to his camp, and thump his chest bragging about the fight he had with Johnny Reb that night, and his glorious victory. Yeah, the boy thought. That’s it right there.

Shaking his head, the boy felt the throbbing in his right arm again, and his blue eyes closed into a deep sleep.

Two hours after he had drifted off, a loud voice called to him from below the house.

“Hey! Hey you up there, Johnny Reb!”

“Eh?” he said sleepily, not daring to look. Maybe they were just waiting for him to lean over so they could put a bullet through his head.

“What is it y’all want down there?” he asked, shaking blonde hair out of his eyes.

“We want ya to come down from there. We ain’t gonna hurt ya unless ya fire. We can take you peaceful-like—

“Or you can kill me,” the boy replied morosely.

“Yeah,” said the soldier in a voice that would have suggested shrugging his shoulders and a sad look.

The boy didn’t answer. What was there for him to say? He was either going to die in a Yankee prison, or die from being shot too many times by some patrol. Or maybe…

“Ya hear me up there, Johnny?” the voice called. “Don’t have all day for you to decide.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” the boy muttered darkly. He jumped off the roof and fired as he fell at the Yankees below before he hit the cobblestone road on the back of his head with a sickening crunch. He moaned at the incredible pain, and knew that he was dying now. He gasped few words at the patrol, all of them unscathed from his sudden attack.

“See you…in hell…Billy…Yank,” he whispered.

The Union soldier, a lieutenant of the Second Corps if his coat was to be trusted, grasped his hand firmly and replied as he was supposed to. “See you in hell, Johnny Reb.”

Johnny Reb couldn’t hear him anymore. The back of his head had been smashed open, and blood and his brain oozed slowly out of the wound.

The lieutenant and his company buried him beneath the sugar maple outside of town, and one of them said muttered something under his breath as the others left him, moving on to another God-forsaken battle, one poignant moment after another waiting for them.