The Allotment

The old woman’s prophecy came true only after he’d forgotten it.

It was grim January. The sun was retreating from the frosted earth, moving crablike in its backwards shuffle. The dim light filtered through cotton-dense clouds, gray as a feline mood.

The three of them stood ringed around a facedown corpse they had spotted from afar. Abbot alongside Baker, who stood alongside Shropshire.

The man seemed at peace. If not for the bruising and ripped slashes in his overcoat, he might have just fallen asleep there on the hillside.

Eyeing the cadaver, Abbot closed his hand around the laudanum he had stolen from the medic's tent. This war was eating him. If a few states wanted to leave the Union, he reckoned, then let 'em go. Why such violence over a thing like that? Why not just redraw the map and get on with things?

A minor wash of guilt moved through him, like water at low tide. Laudanum was supposed to be for the injured, those with gut shots and blasted limbs. He only ever took a few drops for sleep. Not even a nip, really.

In any case, it wasn’t like he’d taken the entire supply. It was just the one bottle. He was the only one using it, and he knew not to overdo it. He knew the death it could bring.

“Something got this fellow good,” Shropshire muttered as he kicked lazily at a stiffened leg. The man gazed out over the forested valley. Coils of smoke from Confederate campfires snaked upwards through the timber line. Now and again the faraway call of a soldier came bounding through the air, the words impossible to distinguish.

“Wonder who it was,” Baker said, misgiving in his voice.

“How should I know?” Shropshire asked. “Don’t like it one bit, though. Not much of a way to start out a recon.”

“Looks like a bear got after him,” Baker volunteered. “Just kind of like come up behind him and cut him clean through.”

Let’s find out who he is,” Shropshire said.

“Cup it, you two,” Abbot snapped, remembering his rank as captain and role of commander here.

Are you two Pennsylvania men or not?” he asked the pair of them.

“Pennsylvania, sir!” Baker answered.

“Then act it. Fan out and cover the hillside,” he ordered. “I’ll deal with this matter here.”

As the two of them moved off, Abbot struggled to roll the body onto its back. It was an arduous labor, requiring much in the way of effort. Eventually, though, he managed to use the man’s shoulder as a fulcrum, gaining leverage as he pushed.

Purposefully avoiding his dead stare, Abbot stood astraddle the corpse, leaning in to undo the coat buttons. Running his hands along the lengths of the torso, he gave the body a quick inspection.

“Huh, he grunted as his hand made a whumping sound against a hidden bundle. Reaching in, he dug around an inner pocket and brought out a compact messenger pouch. It was made of cloth and had a certain heft to it, about the weight of a six-shooter, give or take.

Undoing the fastener, Abbot peered inside and found a paper envelope keeping company with a black leather journal. Both sat easily in the hand. The volume was about the size of a pocket Bible, he’d have said.

He thumbed the pages, reading name after name, each one appended with payment entries. According to the tallies, these people were getting sizable sums. Five hundred dollars to this one. Four hundred to that one. A thousand more to someone else.

Abbot snapped the notebook shut. “A spymaster,” he reckoned. He thought a moment. “That means this envelope . . .” He opened it and commenced counting through a wad of bills, sending up silent gratitude Baker and Shropshire weren't here.

He tallied the notes several times over, repeatedly, then once more, then once again, just to be certain.

Twenty thousand dollars.

Not twenty thousand useless Confederate dollars, either, but pure Union greenbacks. Honest to goodness treasury issues, still stiff in their freshness, giving off that distinct smell of new ink. The bills clicked noisily as he ran his thumb along them, admiring their artistry, the fine-line etchings of portraiture in profile.

Abbott let out a low whistle. A body could build a factory with this amount. Become an industrialist. Hire workers. He might also enjoy a quiet retirement. Build a stately home. Live in perpetual ease. Both notions beckoned him in equal measure.

It was in this reverie that Abbot suddenly recalled the old woman. A chill ran through him and he shivered it out.

“I see an unusual war for you,” the soothsayer had told him. “Be prepared. You will come across an unexpected fortune.”

There were certainly things to doubt in this life, but the visions of the old woman were not among them. Hadn’t she warned the itinerant pastor to beware falling trees only days before he had been crushed beneath a toppling pine? Hadn’t she told the yeoman Tuck Campbell where to find his stolen mules?

And that business with the Arnold girl. Knowing the precise spot where she lay buried and the name of him who had lain her there. “You’ll find the implement of her killing shoved beneath the hog trough out back of his place. It’s a razor, I believe.” And so they had, and so it was.

Now this. Didn’t she say a great fortune would be his, that great wealth would find its way to him?

Yes, yes. Those had been her exact words - or very near to them. They rang in his head as clearly now as when she had intoned them.

She had frightened him with her raw frailty, her clicking joints, her collection of bones, her feral cats. Stench rose off her the way heat comes off smoking tar. She slept on the cold riverbank and wore the leather rags of ancient natives. What she ate was a mystery, and he preferred it stay that way.

Whatever the source of her power, Abbot knew this entire sum was meant for him alone.

That left the matter of Baker and Shropshire. It appeared their run of days was at an end. A shame, really, but he couldn’t have them coming back with him. It was unthinkable. They would talk about the body. There would be questions. “Who was it?” his commander would ask. “Why didn’t you report it?” Eventually the whole tale would be out. He’d be discovered and probably hanged.

The laudanum. That was the answer. Give it to them in cups of warm coffee. A drop or two would put a fellow to sleep, but a full vial might fell a regiment. In any case, he could steal more for himself later on.

Reaching into his bag, Abbot retrieved his tin kettle and drinking cup. Next he gathered dried grasses from the ground about him and used his flint to catch a spark. Blowing on the orange glow while shielding it from the cross winds, he soon had a modest flame. To this he added whatever kindling lay nearby.

Filling the kettle from his canteen, he slowly stirred in chicory grounds from a canister. Soon the brew was bubbling, so he poured himself a serving first. He would want to be sipping at it when they finally appeared. It would appear more natural that way.

Now for the laudanum. Opening the bottle, he began adding it to the mixture, stirring slowly to keep it even.

It was an ugly business, but that was the nature of war. There were difficult decisions to make, and it would be best if those two never came back. As the old woman had seen, he would take the twenty thousand, head back to camp, and report them captured.

Maybe he would do something for their families, a token of remembrance, perhaps. But this twenty thousand – it was his allotment.

Presently he heard a shuffling and rose from his crouched position, cup still in hand, and saw the two men cresting the ridge before him.

“All clear?” Abbot asked.

“All clear,” answered Shropshire.

“Perfect. You boys must be cold.”

“Frozen solid.” This, too, came from Shropshire.

Not wanting to appear overly deliberate, Abbot merely motioned to the kettle and stepped to the side.

“See anything?” he asked.

“Nary,” said Shropshire.

Suddenly Baker was beside him. Reaching into his haversack, the man produced a segment of branch, which he swiftly used to strike Abbot across the back of the head. The wood was solid. It met Abbot’s skull with the force of a mule’s kick. Starburst displays of red and blue exploded before his eyes. Then he buckled and fell to his side, curled up like a newborn fawn.

“Beg pardon, Captain, sir,” Baker leaned in and whispered. “You’re a fine fellow and all. It’s nothing personal. But Tommy and me, well, we circled back and watched you from behind through our field glasses. Saw you count all them treasury notes, sir, and figured on how you aimed to keep ‘em without tellin’ us about it. But you see, Captain, sir, we reckon we need them bills a great deal more’n you do, us being enlisted men and all. Now come on. Get over here, Tommy, and help me with this.”

Then the both of them were there, landing blows on him with their makeshift cudgels. For a time, he felt the weight of the wood, heard bones crack, sensed himself caving in. Then all feeling subsided and he fell into a twilight.

“I think that done him,” he heard one of them finally say, though he couldn’t match the voice to a name anymore. He lay there still as sunlight, not even his chest moving.

“I reckon so,” said the other. Buried within his darkness, he felt a pair of hands travel the expanse of his torso, just as his own hands had done not long before.

The bundle was extracted and a lull followed in which the two men labored to divide their sudden bounty. “No. Yes. No, no. Okay, that’s fair. Now let’s get.”

“Hold up,” said one of them. “I’d like a helping of this coffee. Why let it go to waste?”

“I reckon that’s sensible,” said the other. “This does call for a toast, I’d say.”

As Abbot inched towards eternity, he listened to their low voices go back and forth across the flame. He heard them speculate on a future filled with grand wealth and realized ambitions. There would be women and stately houses, adventures in exotic lands.

Then there was a spluttering and a commencement of commotion, he could not see what exactly, as one of them announced, “I don’t rightly feel well.”

The other concurred. “This chicory’s got me dizzy.”

Coughing ensued, then hacking and retching. Before long the sounds got worse.

Then he heard them flailing and kicking for a spell, flopping about in the manner of landed fish. He listened absently as their breathing went shallow and finally bottomed out.

Then all was at peace on the hillside. A pleasant whiff of campfire smoke edged at his senses.

At last, death came for him too, closing in with diligent deliberation. “Now someone will happen along and find four cadavers,” it occurred to him. “This is cursed ground now.”

Then a heartless cross wind commenced and he heard the bills ruffling as they fluttered out with the breeze. He felt one land against his face, hanging there momentarily before changing course and moving on. His final thought came as a cruel realization. The old woman had surely spoken true. He had come across a great fortune. But she’d never said he’d keep it.