Section Three- The Predator
The Union soldiers had been advancing the field for the greater part
of the day. By nightfall, they had pushed the Confederate army back thirty
feet. That amount of land wasn’t great, but, considering that the men of
the South had fought, bled and died for that land, it was heartbreaking to
see the Northern aggressors take it over.
The overall tone of the Southern army, a band of brothers if ever
there was one, was bleak. Most assumed that the war was almost over. Lincoln
had issued the Proclamation, and the tide had swung shortly after. Rumblings
had started around the campfires weeks ago, and become more prevalent
nightly, that the war was over and the men would be wise to flee to their
homes and avoid capture and possible execution.
But, Private Enson Brigade didn’t feel that way, not at all. In
him, the fight was never over. Unlike most of the soldiers that volunteer to
die for the southern way of life, Enson didn’t own slaves, never had and
never wanted to. He didn’t believe in it. But, he did believe in each
state governing themselves and he definitely believed that if the south lost
their best workers, or slaves, they would surely fall into a depression and
forever be inferior to the north. Everyone in the South knew that slavery
was a luxury of the past, a forgotten era, but nobody was willing to give up
their land, plantations and lives so that they could become second tier
citizens to a more industrious northern half of the country.
Enson walked by the campfires of the despondent soldiers and felt the
same feeling deep in the darkest crevice of his heart that he had felt for
too many months to remember. That feeling was uselessness. He had joined the
Southern army because he wanted to belong to something. As a young man in
Mississippi, there were so numerous ways to lose your morals in society.
There were brothels on every dusty corner, bars on every street, and a shady
criminal with shadier intentions, everywhere. But, Enson had stayed away
from that, mostly. He had been with three girls, two of them he had dated,
one he had to pay for, but that was far below the average of the other
nineteen-year old men of his era. In the future, when he settled down to a
plantation, wife and family, he would try to forget about the woman he payed
for, try to forget that he had payed for a woman’s affection. It
wouldn’t be difficult to forget, then, but it was difficult to forget,
now.
In front of the warm and blazing campfire, Enson warmed his frozen
fingers and thought about Amber. She had hair like black satin, long as the
winter and as shiny as a lake at sunrise. She had a smile that could take
the evil out of the Devil, and the laugh that could make an old man smile.
Her eyes, a light green that sparkled as hypnotically during the day as the
night, could hold Enson’s attention for as long as time. It was those eyes
he thought of on those cold and miserable nights. It was those eyes he
thought of looking at when he passed his front gate and went to his home,
finally.
Tomorrow. Sometime tomorrow,
during the day or night, I will leave this army and go home to my wife. The
war is over, it’s been over for a long time, we just haven’t surrendered,
yet. They won’t miss me, much. Tomorrow, I will leave tomorrow!
As the fire blazed, and Enson drifted off into a fantasy about
locking his arms around his wife’s hips and touching her face, her neck
and her, everywhere, a lone figure walked through the dark night, cutting
the blackened serenity like a sharp knife through a soft tomato. The figure
was Colonel Rykirk, a man as cowardly as a sheep and as witless as a
retarded horse. How he had ever risen so high in the ranks of the southern
armies was a complete and baffling mystery to Enson. He could think of a
dozen men he had met during his three years of service that would be better
suited to lead. Too many men similar to Rykirk were the main reason that the
Northern aggressors were winning, and going to win the war. Even now, Rykirk
was the recipient of dirty stares and hateful glances from the dozens of
soldiers that sought refuge from the cold. Unwilling to admit his hatred
from the troops, and as unwilling to admit the fact that he should have
surrendered his army a month ago, he still concocted ridiculous schemes
aimed at changing the tide of the war. His best ideas, the best of the
worst, centered around finding good soldiers, brave and able young men, to
prance through the night like children at recess, trying to kill the enemy
leaders when the army slept. These schemes always ended in death for the
soldier sent. Either they died getting to the other army, or they died
getting back, shot by their brothers in the darkness that gave them the
appearance of the enemy. Twelve soldiers had dies in fourteen weeks by these
orders of assassination, and tonight, Enson had been volunteered to be the
thirteenth.
“Private Enson, stand and salute your Colonel.”
Enson stood and gave a half-hearted and discourteous salute to a man
of no character. He had despised the Colonel since the day he first served
him. They had been a prosperous and optimistic army, before Rykirk took over
and proceeded to lose every encounter with the enemy. The moral of the
soldiers had sunk and the number of dead brothers had risen. But, Rykirk
continued to lead like he was the new Napoleon. He even walked through the
camps with a red scarf tied to the brim of his hat. Most of the soldiers
believed that Rykirk thought the scarf made him look dashing and it was what
he would be remembered for when the war was over, but all of the soldiers
thought it made him look like the kind of man that enjoyed looking at men.
The Colonel grimaced at the sight of his volunteer’s rotten salute,
but needed to hide the depths of his contempt because the mission was not
required as much as requested.
“I’ve got a little chore for you to do, Brigade. You feel up to
helping us win the war?”
Enson laughed, but bit back anything more than a smile. Win the war? This man really is a fool. This war is over.
“How can I help, sir?”
The Colonel led Enson by the arm, away from the warm fire, towards
the center, and least populated area of the camp. He explained, in
dangerously scant detail, how he needed Enson to cross the battlefield under
the cover of darkness and locate General Erilus, the Northern leader, and a
much better one at that, and put a bullet into his head. Then, Enson was to
sneak back into camp and never tell a soul what he had done.
“I can’t do that.”
The Colonel looked over the private with a sour look of contempt. He
had the look in his eyes that said, oh,
you can do it, and you will do it! But, the Colonel sensed that Enson
wasn’t the typical southern farm boy, with little education and sense of
things other than farming and daily labor. He was intelligent, cunning and
quick thinking. It would take more than a stern look and a silly order from
a Colonel, especially one as dumb as Rykirk, to entice Enson to assassinate
another human being. But the Colonel had an ace up his sleeve, so to speak.
“I understand that you have a young wife?”
“I do.”
“Kill the General, bring me his stripes, and you can go to her.”
Enson studied Rykirk’s face for a long moment, trying to judge his
sincerity. It was hard to judge anything about Rykirk. His eyes were
impossible to read. They were small and beady, never really looking straight
at the person to which he was speaking. But, Rykirk unburdened the
investigation by simplifying the persuasion tactic greatly.
“Tomorrow, you can leave immediately after I have his stripes. Full
discharge, with continued pay.”
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