Someone's Son, Someone's Brother

It was April the fifth, 1863, a day that belonged to March. The puddles along the muddy street of Minsi that had steamed in the March heat bore fringes of brittle ice. The thin veneer snapped and crashed like panes of glass when touched by foot or wheel. The clefts of the mountain ridges and the overhanging river banks still bore crusts of dirty snow packed like permafrost, and leaking icy rills. A hurricane force west wind with arctic cold had driven in the day before and in its zeal had toppled trees across the roads to Minsi. Two great trees had crashed near the churches, breaking some windows and hurling their new leafed arms over the walk, steps, and doorways. Some parishioners had been obliged to take axes to cut their way to Sunday service. They had begun services on time, and the voices of the Reformed Church were being spent in hymn as Rock of Ages thundered down the empty street. Before the echoes were comfortably faded over the river, a single soprano voice quavering Mary at Your Feet I'm Kneeling drifted from the other end of town, where the Catholic Mass was in progress. The street was empty except for the sounds of the waiting horses and the creak of wagons.

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Through the pall of smoke the small valley at the base of the hill was alive with fire, cannon thumping and black powder charges covering the field with choking white and blue clouds. Men were engaged in deadly point blank exchanges and thrusting bayonets drawn red with gore as men went screaming, or sullenly to groans. Then there came a strange lull; the little slope was littered with dead and wounded. One man stood slatting blood from a three-finger hand; another with his musket for a crutch was starting back up the hill; others staggered over the rocks clutching wounds or holding insides in place.  Still others were lying among the rocks limp or calling for aid, as the blood literally puddled over the stones. The Rebs were regrouped, and with a great yell and volley they were counter-charging the hill. Flame swept the slope again.

"Come on, Kavy, let’s get on up!" In the din of the fight they had drifted down the hill.

"They're coming again, Dolf.”

“We’ll take position farther up. We've got to find Moran."

They regained the distance to the breastwork and found Moran sitting holding Morganstern, gently rocking him, and grasping shut the great red rips in his tunic, oblivious to the flying missiles and the sound of conflict. He looked dumbly at Kavanaugh, then to Dolf.

"Crowley's dead. They shot him in the eye," he said, blankly.

Dolf strained to see where Crowley lay, then looked at Morganstern, still faintly breathing.

"Let's see where he's hurt, Donal," he said softly.

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As the early light dimly illuminated the road below him he saw a familiar scene. A number of people had clustered together for warmth against the April cold. He made out three men and two women on the road, strangely silent in the growing light. Cautiously he slipped down the bank and bent down beside them. They were all dead. Their cheekbones were like bridges beneath their hollow dark rimmed eyes and their mouths hung limply open. Their wrists and ankles appeared as ungainly bulges looking large against the shrunken flesh about their bony arms and legs. They had a ragged blanket spread over them and there was not a pair of shoes among them. A woman had been walking in her socks which dangled grotesquely from her feet and she had a ragged shawl hung over her wasted shoulders. Another woman lay over the berm of the road. He started as a large rat slid from beneath her; he made a lunge at it as it glided past him but it escaped into the wall across the road. Padric sat down wearily, a great well of despair rising within him.

“What will I do?" he said to himself. "All by myself in this misery. Oh, God. Oh, God, why all this misery?"

He turned his eyes toward the woman in the ditch. He heard a faint moan and suddenly her arm shot up; clutched in her hand, a rosary hung serpentinely about her wrist. The crucifix caught the morning sun and winked brightly, intensely, like a large diamond pendant. Kavanaugh flinched at the bright object. The arm made a weak gesture, beckoning him.

He slid down the bank beside her. She had rolled to her side and was weakly burbling some green-black vomitus over her exposed and withered breast. She had been eating grass and her lips and mouth were coated with a green stain. She gripped Kavanaugh's sleeve and tugged at him with unexpected strength.

He bent toward her. "Easy now, easy," he reassured.

"The baby, the baby," she whispered.

"There's no baby here, missus.”

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Billy was in a black mood and roundly cursed Dolf beneath his breath. As he jarred to the edge of the road, Billy thought, I'll ride down past Hope's house and hide thepot and tray, and wait awhile and come back. That Goddamn bastard! Who the hell does he think he is? Further disciplinary action! I hope he doesn't do that shit, and put me back for starting west. I wonder where Hope went, she was on the road. The big mule approached the edge of the road half way to the house. Billy glanced over his shoulder and saw they had already dropped off a rail and were sliding off the second. He glanced up towards Hope's house, searching the road.

"Come on girl," he touched her lightly with his heels and she picked up the pace of her walk. As he dropped h