Redly, triumphantly, the sun rose over the green covered mountains that crept up softly from the grass of the meadows. It shone over a tiny town with a tall-spired white church, over a little brook with a picturesque rustic bridge. It shone over a small fluttering bit of a woman who stood with her head on a man's blue cloth shoulder; and it flickered rainbow-like on the tear drops that fringed her heavy black lashes.
The man in blue patted the curly head clumsily with a heavy, droopy fist, and winked hard as he saw the clinging hands on his arm.
"Don't cry, little girl," he begged her with a tremble in his husky voice, "It's only for a little time--a few months at best. Lincoln has called for us--but they'll be tired of fighting soon."
Wearily the little woman raised her head from his shoulder and looked with dazed, frightened eyes at the face bending above her own. Quaveringly she spoke.
"They won't," she denied flatly--"they won't. When I was at school there was a southern girl in my class. We loved her, but--one day she was bad and she was sent up to her room until she apologized. She stayed there for a week and when she came down she hadn't--" suddenly her memory-filled mind came back to the present, "they won't!" she sobbed, "Oh! my dear!"
Up from the valley came a sound of mellow notes falling into the music of a call. The man started.
"It's the bugle," he told her sharply--"it means go!" suddenly his brown face paled--"it means," he moaned, "leaving home," his glance took the sweetness of the sunny garden place before him, the little cottage with its half opened door; and wandered back to her face--"It means leaving--you!" he finished.
The woman covered her face with her hands, and in the silence the man sobbed wildly, terribly.
"It means goodbye,' he said, "my wife." But suddenly through the morning sunlight, out of the swinging-open door there came a sound that cut his words off, the shrill cry of a baby. And as he heard it the man turned and ran back to the gate. Eagerly he grasped the woman's hand.
"I can't go!" he almost screamed at her, "I can't. I'm not brave, I'm not a soldier, I can't fight! I'll stay on the farm with you and baby."
The little woman straightened her slim shoulders. Miraculously her tearful eyes grew dry.
"And be a coward?" she whispered.
"Yes, a coward," answered the man fiercely, "a--a anything. I can't go!"
"You can," gulped the little woman, "you must! You'll go now."
"I may die," protested the man weakly, "then Junior--he'll be without a father."
"But he'll have a decent memory of one--" protested the little woman.
The man straightened proudly--he turned.
"I'll go," he told her, "now." And he stalked stiffly, with never a look backward, down the road. The little woman watched him go, with pale quiet face. Suddenly she raised her hands to her mouth.
"Your grandfather," she shrilled, "fought under Washington," and then as he turned the bend in the road she dropped her head on the rickety gate.
"I've sent him," she choked, "to his death. I've sent him--he won't come back! I've sent him."
Out of the door came the baby's cry, fretful, querulous, and the little woman hurried toward the cottage, drying her eyes on a bit of handkerchief.
"He's gone," she sobbed.
Foolishly the sunbeams played in her hair--just as half a mile away they were frolicking over brass buttons, and muskets, and coats of blue. Somewhere in the distance a bugle sounded--calling.
The boy lay face downward in the dirt and kicked with his toes. All about him stretched a weary, hostile land--a land covered with rugged treacherous hills, a land of snakes and lizards and queer birds, a land of dusty mesquite bushes and prickly, worn-looking cactus. The sun, an afternoon sun, set in a grey, troubled sky, shone down blisteringly on his thinly shirted back. But the boy did not seem conscious of his uncomfortable place. His eyes, worried speculative eyes, sprang from one low bush to another, from one stone to the next. His imagination saw the sun glint on shining rifle barrels, his mind saw paper headlines--saw "sharpshooter" blazed in red letters against the sky. Nervously he dug his fingers into the hard, dry ground.
"Oh! God," he prayed, "it isn't that I'm scared to die--it's the uncertainty of it.... If I knew that there were millions of Greasers lying ready to shoot my head off, I wouldn't mind so much. It's the perhaps that wears me out: if--"
"There, there, Billy," quite unnoticed an older man had crawled toward him through the loose sand, "don't take on so. You're not goin' to be killed yet awhile."
"I'm not frightened," the boy quavered, "I'm not."
"O' course," the older man mopped the water from his dripping forehead, "o' course I know that. When yer mother was dyin' didn't she tell me, 'I'm proud o' my boy!' Didn't she?"
"Yes," the boy's voice was a bit clearer now, a bit more assured, "Mother said she was proud of me."
"'Member how y' father uster tell stories?" persisted the older man, "'bout y' grandfather that died at Bull Run? 'Bout the war--'Member? How you uster say, 'I'll be a soldier too?'"
"Yes," the voice was very strong now, "Dad often told me about Grandfather. I remember."
"An' now you are one," the older man persisted softly--"an' I'm fightin' agin'. Perhaps the place is filled with," his hand pointed cautiously to the mesquite bushes that loomed up bulgy, misshapen in the distance, "with guns pointin' at us. P'raps ef you move one little mite you'll get shot--who knows?"
"I don't care," the boy's voice rose up bravely, "I"m not scared, I don't care."
"Know what day it is," the man's steady drawl grew very tender, "up in God's country--Know what day it is, Billy?"
The boy thought a moment, slowly, carefully.
"It's the last part of May," he pondered--"no, it's the first of June. Perhaps," he smiled childishly, "say, pal, I can't remember the date. I get all balled up--down here."
The man grinned quickly, sympathetically, at the youth of his companion, then:
"It's the thirtieth o' May," he informed grandly. "it's Decoration Day, up home."
"Is it?" asked the boy listlessly. His eyes followed the slanting sun rays as they crawled earthward. "So it's the thirtieth of May."
"They're singin' songs," droned the man softly with his eyes closed, "the kiddies, I mean. An' up in the church the parson's preachin', that all men should be brothers, maybe."
The boy rested his head comfortably on his hands, and glued his eyes on the farthest scrubby hill.
"Yes?" he prompted drowsily.
"The little girls 'r' dressed in white," went on the man, "an' the ladies have on their best silks that they wear of a Sunday. The men're in their shirt sleeves restin'." His eyes followed the sweep of the plain thoughtfully.
"The G.A.R.'ll be drivin' around town," he mused, "in one carriage, pulled by one horse. They'll go to the cemetery, an' they'll put flowers all over the graves, and flags, and potted plants. An' the old men'll stumble over the path an' say: 'That's Jim's grave--he was shot at Gettysburg,' or ''member Hamilton Reed? How he most got court-martialed fer callin' on that girl?' I can hear 'em now."
"Yes," the boy was paying little attention to the words, "Yes, go on."
Quickly the man glanced at his friend--
"Yer grandfather's buried there," he said softly, "an' p'raps somebody'll put the spicy pinks from yer garden by his stone. He always set great store by 'em--they say."
The boy's glance strayed back to the man at his side.
"Grandmother told me--" he began eagerly--
There was a rustle in the dusty cactus bush behind them and the man glanced around nervously to meet the eyes of a young fellow in khaki who crawled rapidly in their direction. The boy stared off into the distance with a set, dull expression on his childish face.
"The captain has a new wrinkle," the latest arrival told them, quickly, "I hope it means sumpin' to do--I'm sick o' layin' in the sun. He wants you both t' come in."
"So--" drawled the man, "'bout face, Billy," he added to the boy at his side; and hastily, quietly, they crept back some two hundred yards to a small circle of men who lay quiet in the midst of a patch of mesquite.
"Oh, you're back," it was the commander of the little squad who saw them first. He was nervously biting at a short scrubby moustache.
"Say, we're here t' scout, aren't we?" he asked abruptly.
"Unless it's t' bake," put the older man with entire lack of respect, "what's up, Cap?"
"This," the captain clipped his sentences short, "we've got t' do something--not stay here for a month. We've got to report to the rest whether there's anything up around here--haven't we?"
"Yes," said somebody quickly, "we've got to."
"What's there?" jerked the captain, pointing out over the sandy plain, "what's there, Bill?" he turned to the boy.
"Hills," answered the boy gravely, "and sand, and dirt, and mesquite bushes, and big stones."
"Anything else," the captain still eyed the boy questioningly--"anything else?"
"Sharp-shooters perhaps," admitted the boy shudderingly "scouts perhaps, nearly an army perhaps."
"Exactly," by way of emphasis the captain kicked his feet deep into the greyness of the sand. "Exactly. There's almost anything--perhaps. It's up to us to find out what's there for sure."
"Go on," the older man prompted breathlessly, "y' got sum'in' on yer mind. We got yer, Cap!"
The captain looked around the circle questioningly.
"If one of us stepped out, and walked across the plain," he spoke firmly, "if one of us stepped out--he might get shot--but we'd know what was in the hills."
"Yes," the older man spoke again, dryly. The captain moistened his dry lips with his tongue.
"There are eight of us here," he said slowly, "and I have eight slips of paper, here. One has a cross on it.... There may not be anything in front."
The eight grew white, slowly--painfully. Then the restive young man in khaki spoke.
"Pass 'em," he said simply, "we're game."
Carefully the captain drew eight papers from his pocket. Carefully he dropped them into his broad felt hat, and then with a gasping breath he thrust the had at the boy.
"Draw," he said huskily.
There was a breathless moment. Eight faces grew still and white, eight hearts thumped riotously while the boy unfolded his paper. Marvelously the tan faded from his cheeks.
"You--needn't go on," he quavered.
"Billy," it was the older man who spoke. All the languid drawl had gone out of his voice. "You don't mean--"
"I've got it," rasped the boy.
"I'm sorry, Bill," the captain spoke gruffly to cover his real feeling, "that it was you. You're younger than we are, and better educated. But it was fair."
Cautiously the boy looked over his shoulder at the angry hills, at the gloomy, evil mesquite bushes. Suddenly he burst into a torrent of tears.
"I can't do it," he sobbed brokenly, "I can't! There's a girl at home--waiting. There's money, and happiness, and love--waiting.... I can't walk out there, I may be killed," he screamed.
"Let me go, Cap," it was the older man talking. "Let me go--please. I ain't got a thing--t' lose."
Stubbornly the captain shook his head.
"It was perfectly fair," he growled, "I'm sorry. Don't be a coward, Bill."
"I can't help it," wearily the boy raised his head, "I am a coward. I want to go home!"
The older man coughed nervously. Then he laid his hand persuasively on the boy's arm.
"Back home," he said softly, "They're puttin' flowers on yer grandfather's grave--'cause he was a hero!"
"Back home," chokingly the boy spoke, "back home, everything's waiting."
And then the older man threw an arm over the shaking shoulders, while he pointed skyward with his other hand.
"See that cloud," he asked softly, "that dirty, grey-colored cloud? Well behind that--God's waiting."
The boy looked at the faces crowded around him--looked with an eternal farewell in his glance. Stumbling with fright he climbed to his feet.
"I was a coward, I was yellow," he said brokenly, "but don't think too badly of me. I'm going--now." With a sudden glow of courage he threw back his head, and stepped out slowly into the dustiness of the plain. "I'm going!" he said.
The men watched him as he strolled carelessly along, with straight shoulders, across the clear spaces of grey sand. The captain's lips trembled in prayer.... There was a puff of smoke somewhere in the distance, a sharp crack, and a whirl of dust. Limply the boy crumpled up, and fell, a heap of dull garments against the duller ground. The older man sobbed.
Far off in the distance the sun sank redly, triumphantly over the highest hill.
More Margaret Elizabeth Sangster Short Stories
