Look Away

Neck deep in the grave, Sam Watkins paused at the clatter of an approaching supply wagon. Covered with sweat and caked with red Tennessee soil, he had dug without a break for most of the late August morning. He leaned the spade in a corner of the rectangular hole and scratched his dark beard, listening to the sounds of the world above. He wanted a chew from his knapsack, but decided he couldn't afford the moisture it took to spit.

The sprawling oak in whose shade Sam worked grew on a small hummock, the only tree in the middle of a wide field. Over the edge of the grave, Sam could see a whitewashed farmhouse gleaming in the sun a quarter mile away beside a field of tall corn. If civilians were about, they had wisely made themselves and their livestock scarce.

The sergeant leaning against the oak’s massive trunk drained his canteen as a two-horse supply rig appeared around the bend, a good musket shot up the tree- lined road to Shelbyville. No single horses, so no officers. Sam left his straw hat and gray coat hanging from the low branch overhead. He wiped sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his filthy gingham shirt, nodded toward the sergeant, and looked up the road.

Silhouetted against the plume of brown dust trailing their wagon, three men bounced toward the lone oak on the hill. Two sat straight-spined on the bench, one with the reins, the other holding an Enfield musket. A third man rode in the back, sitting on his own pine box and grasping the wagon sides for balance. That would be the dead man.

Sam hadn’t met Private Elias Wright, though everybody in the brigade knew who he was. Wright rode facing forward, a big fellow seated on a pine coffin. He looked over the scene like a General come to review the troops.

"That hole ain't fixing to dig itself," said the sergeant in charge of the detail. He cocked his head at Sam. "Didn't you bring you no water?"

"Done run out." Sam puffed out a breath and picked up the spade. "It's all right. I'm about done."

"There’ll be some on that wagon." The sergeant looked toward the two men planting a twelve-foot wooden post in the ground twenty yards downhill and hollered for them to get the lead out of their britches. Sam reminded himself to be grateful he got to work in the shade, surrounded by cool dirt. He bent again to the task, swearing softly at a root as big around as his wrist running lengthwise across the bottom of the grave. He'd dug too many graves over the past year, seen too many men shot.

We do just fine at thinning our own ranks without Yankee help.

The gentle face of a court-martialed private in Virginia intruded on his mind. The boy had been caught dead asleep at his post on a cold winter morning. He’d been tall for his age, and his sky blue eyes wide as dinner plates before the blindfold went on. Sam's calloused hands tightened on the spade. He squared his feet, bared his teeth, and attacked the unyielding root. Digging was digging, be it earthworks or graves.

It's when the digging stops that hell breaks loose.

He liked the chuff of the spade biting into the soft, aromatic soil. Stab, lift, toss. The sergeant said digging graves made for good bayonet training, that a man used the same muscles. Sam didn't know if that were true because his muscles felt like lead all the time.

The loamy earth smell conjured the old Watkins home place in Maury County with its fields of corn and cotton, and sweet Jennie nearby when the work was done each day. She’d let him steal a kiss sometimes. His lips tingled at the memory. He remembered the warmth of her hands and a strand of copper hair catching the sunlight across her cheek, but when he tried to recall her face he saw the pale blue eyes of the dead Virginia boy staring into oblivion. The boy had jerked violently at the noise and impact, and when the blindfold fell off, his eyes had been gaping into death’s maw. Sam had to fit that boy’s ruined body into a pine box six inches too short.

He dropped the spade and massaged his temples with the gritty heels of his hands until his breathing slowed and his heart quit pounding against his sternum.

It's because I'm standing in a grave that I can’t remember Jennie’s face. Just as well--this ain't no place for her.

Sam had managed to keep off shooting details by volunteering to dig graves. Battles were enough of a horror. He couldn’t bring himself to shoot another countryman bound to a wooden post, but as long as men tried to run home from the war, there would be graves to dig.

He waved at the dust as the wagon rolled past and spied a water barrel and a tin cup hanging behind the bench, clanking in time to the bumps in the road. The driver pulled the horses to a stop in the shade near where the sergeant stood.

Sam’s tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth, and the damned hole was deep enough. He climbed out, squinting at a pair of fine looking draft animals. Only the 'USA' brand at the shoulder marred their appearance. He saw horseflesh at a distance these days, always under the well-fed asses of officers.

The smell of animal sweat reminded him again of home. Like so many others, his enlistment had expired months ago. He should be home now, courting his girl and preparing to bring in the harvest.

The men in the front of the wagon were fellow privates, though no one would mistake them for infantrymen. Their coats were new and clean, shoes shined under a coating of dust. Each sported a gray kepi like the one Sam had lost back at Shiloh. A young man held the reins, the other, a crusty graybeard, gripped a musket, bayonet fixed.

In the back, seated on his own coffin, Elias Wright doffed his slouch hat and stared at the tree line, calm as you please. The prisoner wore no shackles. Sam craned his neck at that, and saw no restraints of any kind. "Who's in the box?" he deadpanned.

The coffin was makeshift, an old cannon box. The driver motioned for Wright to stand, then climbed in the back and pushed the box off the wagon by himself. The thin planks rattled when it hit the ground. Well, all would surely be revealed in due time. Sam put his arm over the sideboards and knocked on the water barrel. "Happy to see y'all carried up some--"

"Who's in charge here, boy?" The oldster with the musket glared down at him. Sam’s face went dark. He moved toward the armed man, thinking to snatch him off the wagon and drop him in the fresh grave, but the look of sudden apprehension in the guard's eyes satisfied him. Yellow-dog.

Ain't never seen a fight. Wouldn't know a Yankee if one spit on his shiny shoes.

Sam took three slow steps toward the horses. "Look how fat and slick and shiny." "This is no time for idle talk, sir," said the driver, stamping a heel on the

floorboards. "We are here to deliver this prisoner." The gangly young man had soft cheeks and dark fuzz over his lip.

"Sir?" Sam raised his eyebrows and swiveled his head in search of phantom officers. “I don't smell no cigar smoke."

The boy snorted and turned away. The driver had neglected to engage the brake and lost his smirk along with his balance when Sam tapped the horse’s rump and the rig shifted forward. The two seated men swayed like sailors, and the driver stumbled over the knee-high water barrel, catching himself just in time to resume his place behind the reins. Sam stuffed his hands into his pockets and raised an eyebrow at Wright.

Down the gentle green slope several yards away, one of the soldiers on shooting post detail whistled repeatedly, as though calling a dog, the standard greeting for staff officers, couriers, and other non-combatants. Wright barked a staccato laugh from his perch on the pine box, then looked into the open grave and forgot to close his mouth.

"Take him down by the post, you coffee coolers," the sergeant barked. "He ain't shot yet."

The shooting post, now securely planted in the ground, consisted of a four-by- four inch piece of new pine lumber with a black iron ring driven into it at shoulder level.

Sam gestured toward the cup. "Say, how about letting me--"

"Heah!" The driver shouted, snapping the reins, and the Union horses pulled away. Wright put his hat back on and watched Sam from under its brim as the wagon rolled forward.

The common infantryman’s enthusiasm for the Cause had mostly run out along with his original enlistment contract. Since the 'reorganizing' back at Corinth, Mississippi, and the harsh discipline that followed, soldiers were sick of war and the Southern Confederacy. After shooting men by the score for desertion, no wonder the army needed reorganizing.

A breath of wind ruffled Sam’s collar, and he inhaled the fresh scent of distant rain. The close terrain hid all but the most immediate weather from a man in this rolling country with its tall hickories and pines. The trees rustled and sighed now in anticipation of a summer storm.

Like so many others, Sam had enlisted for twelve months, and had done his duty faithfully. But once the Confederate Congress had passed the Conscript Act, a soldier became nothing more than a slave, forced to march, dig, load, shoot, fight, march, et cetera, with death or dismemberment the only hope of release.

Sam looked skyward at the prospect of a cool shower but saw only the dark silhouettes of turkey vultures turning and turning in a widening gyre against the blue sky. He gathered his weapon and gear, and followed the wagon.

The law that dealt the most damage to morale, passed on the heels of the

Conscript Act, said that any man who owned twenty Negroes could go home.

The saying, "rich man's war, poor man's fight" echoed around every campfire. All the original First Tennessee Regiment officers from Maury County had resigned, because they could.  For the conscript soldier, the Glory of the South, the Cause, and the pride of volunteers had lost all their charm.

Yesterday Private Elias Wright, nephew of the brigade commander, General Marcus J. Wright, had taken it upon himself to make a point, or so the story was told. Purportedly, he emerged from his dog tent first thing in the morning announcing to all within earshot that his enlistment was up, and he intended to start his journey home that very day to Purdy, Tennessee. Everyone in camp laughed and went about fixing his bacon and Johnnycake.

The wagon driver had set up the water barrel on the back of the wagon, and the sergeant waited his turn while the shooting post men drank. Sam tossed the spade into the wagon beside where Private Wright remained seated and got in line. The condemned man hid beneath his hat, picking at his fingers.

Sam had heard that Wright was a connected man who could have had a lieutenant's commission, but enlisted instead to rise up the ranks on his own merit. Fair-haired, handsome, and educated, Wright had to be a fool, but it made for good telling around the campfire.

Story was Wright had started walking after breakfast yesterday while the rest of the outfit pulled up stakes and prepared to march. Nobody but the General’s nephew could have made it out of camp. A couple of picket sentries arrested Wright and returned him to brigade headquarters before the breakfast grease had set in the skillets.

This was all a by-play, of course. There would be a pardon. The execution would be faked, their four-man detail sworn to secrecy. Wright wore no shackles. No Home Guard hovered about overseeing the detail. A man could afford to act the fool with a silver spoon sticking out of his mouth like that. Maybe the General would send Elias Wright down to Old Mexico to wait out the war. The way things were going for the southern states he wouldn't be down there long enough to learn the lingo.

The strengthening breeze carried fine droplets of rain that cooled the soldiers' skin. It was starting to look like they might see some real rain. Sam scanned the sky and listened for thunder. He was suddenly conscious of being the tallest man toting a steel-barreled musket in an open field.

Sam stepped up to take his turn at the water barrel. The guard's musket sat propped against the wagon bench, and the graybeard hopped down to take up the cup himself. The guard drew water, and Sam prepared to break his teeth with the cup if he brought it to his lips, but the oldster offered it to Sam.

"Bygones," the guard said.

After a second Sam nodded, drained the cup, and passed it to the sergeant. Sam said a quiet prayer of thanks for the water, the breeze, and the overcast sky.

"Y'all give me your canteens and I’ll fill them up for you," said the guard, fiddling with the barrel's brass spigot. His woolen uniform was dark with sweat.

That oldster is too long in the tooth to be up front exchanging lead with Billy Yank anyhow. Must be the heat making me so ill tempered.

Sam opened his knapsack to bring out an oilcloth parcel, which he opened on the wagon bed. One of the kindest men he had ever met had given him a five-pound plug of fine Virginia tobacco during the Army of Tennessee’s recent campaign in that state. Sam had about half of it remaining.

A rich, sweet aroma rose from the parcel, and heads turned his direction. He cut off seven portions and passed out six. It was several hours before supper back at camp, and there was nothing he knew better for staving off fierce hunger than a good Virginia chew. The supply men thanked him politely, and Wright nodded and accepted the plug with fingertips that looked like the paws of some wild animal, nails bitten to the quick.

The sergeant had the men wrap and stow their cartridge cases in their knapsacks in case the sky opened up on them. He constantly preached the separation of powder and water as a matter of survival. The supply men hung their gear from metal hooks set under the wagon bottom. Sam had never seen anyone do that and admitted to himself it was a pretty good idea.

After securing for weather, there was nothing to do but wait for orders. Since it was nearing noon, each man produced whatever food he had on hand, and the trading commenced. Everyone offered Sam something in trade for more tobacco, and he silently thanked his Virginian friend again. Tobacco was better than money these days, and Sam came into a handful of dried blackberries and five hardtack squares of indeterminate age. The Yankees called the palm-sized flour tiles 'tooth dullers' and 'sheet iron,' but unlike cornbread the stuff kept forever. He'd heard tell of it stopping minié balls.

The driver provided Wright a chunk of cornbread wrapped in an old page from the Southern Illustrated News. Wright huddled in the middle of the wagon bed, nibbled at the bread, and drank a little water. All but Sam had sought a rare moment of solitude. Wright stared unblinking as Sam used the butt of his Bowie knife to break a piece of hardtack, then set his battered tin cup on the edge of the wagon, dropped the desiccated shards of bread inside with the blackberries, and covered the contents with canteen water.

"Say, Wright?" Sam leaned on the wagon and watched his meal drink up the water in the cup. "Did you really walk out of that bivouac in broad daylight?"

Wright raised his chin and brushed crumbs from the reddish whiskers there. "Yes, I did."

"Sam Watkins." Sam offered his right hand. "Elias Wright." Elias had a good

handshake.

Sam generally made it a point not to get acquainted with dead men, but a question burned in him. "Way I hear it, you did it to make a point, protest-like, because you're the only conscript can get away with it."

"Is that what people say?" Elias’ laugh sounded like the bark of a small dog. "That would be a coup, wouldn't it?"

Sam scooped some bread and berries out of the cup with the broad blade of the knife and put the still-crunchy stuff in his mouth. The berries made it taste less like wet sawdust.

"Do you want to know what it was?” Elias grabbed the sides of the wagon and looked at the gathering clouds. "I was fed up."

"Hellfire, man. We're all plumb fed up with--"

"Fed up with marching and starving and filth and lice and diarrhea. Existing like an animal. It is no way for civilized men to live." Wright shifted to his knees and spoke in a low voice. "I considered taking my own life, but I reckon I have too much fear of God after all."

Sam stood up straight and stopped chewing. "Why are you still sitting in that wagon?" He lowered his voice and motioned with the Bowie toward the tree line. “Any fool can see your uncle aims to give you time to get gone."

Elias smiled. "And go where? Be who? Besides, what if old Uncle Marcus intends to pardon me? He can't very well do that if I'm a fugitive."

"They're going to kill you if you stay."

Elias slowly folded his arms and held a shrug. "I know it."

Sam wiggled the point of his knife at the forest shadows across the field. "You could head west where there ain’t nobody but Spaniards and Indians." He scowled at his own foolishness, for having divulged his own childhood dream.

They kept silent company for several minutes, watching the vultures settle in the tall hickories at the edge of the empty field.

"I felt like an impostor in uniform from the start," Elias said at last. "Can you imagine what it’s like, pretending morning to night?" He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "No more, Sam. I am done play-acting."

“Well, I’d sure run. Ain’t you never run from nothing before?”

Elias looked up at the sound of a crow calling from the oak on the hill.

Gray clouds came over the treetops, the sky flashed, and rain fell so heavily the air was solid white all around, like glass in motion. Dust became mud and ran down the wagon ruts in twin streams. Sam stood in the deluge, pelted from above like an object of general derision but grateful for the day's heat being drawn from his body. It went on for nearly an hour, and the men watched water sluice off one another until it quit. Sam wished for a piece of soap.

A lone horseman approached along the Shelbyville road as the rain slacked. He was a courier, armed with a pistol at his side and a saber on his saddle. The man's hat sagged with rainwater, lying against his head like dog ears. He rode a high-stepping Morgan breed whose iron-shod hooves sprayed mud in all directions.

The rider spotted the sergeant's three yellow chevrons and went to him, producing a limp document from a leather case dark with moisture. The sergeant read and acknowledged with a nod. The courier wheeled and sped back up the road, spattering the infantryman with fresh mud.

Elias sat in the wagon with the dripping brim of his hat pulled down over his eyes, picking at his fingers. His head rose at the sound of the sergeant's voice.

"The brigade is fixing to form up here. Let's get this site squared away." The sergeant produced a new hemp rope from his knapsack and threaded it through the iron ring in the shooting post while the other men cleaned up the remains of their meals. Sam went up the rise and looked into the open grave. It hadn't caved in, but held rainwater a foot deep. Fat earthworms wriggled half-exposed among the jagged stumps of protruding roots, and several floated at the bottom.

A big palomino splashed up the road at a leisurely walk. A trim officer rode easy in the saddle, and his long white beard stood out against his dark gray coat. That would be the chaplain. From a distance, his mount looked remarkably like Jennie’s palomino mare, a broad-backed Texas quarter horse named Annie. Jennie would ride bareback and barefoot down the road past the Watkins place and wave at Sam, who would always stop his work in the field to watch her go by.

I think her daddy was catching on.

Sam hadn’t seen her for three years. He bowed his head and closed his eyes.

Oh, Lord. Let me remember her face. I just need that to hold on to.

Though he made a point not to keep a count, Sam was certain that he had seen over twenty executions. Each began with the arrival of a chaplain. That preacher would be here in a few minutes, and once the first officer put his boot on the ground, there would be no looking the other way while Elias took to his heels. Sam hurried down to the wagon, took a deep breath, and placed his hands on the side like a neighbor at a fence.

"For God's sake, man,” Sam said, inclining his head toward the chaplain’s unhurried advance. “Why not get while the getting is good?"

"This hardly seems the right time to be running from a man of God." Wright stretched his mouth into something like a smile, but he was as pale as a peeled potato.

"Look here. Dying? That's easy as pie. Finding something to live for? Now that takes some doing. You got to give yourself a chance. Anything’s better than getting put under the clay."

Elias swallowed hard. "I am not going to run away again."

"Listen. I'll distract that old guard. His musket load is bound to be wet anyway." Elias gave him a sardonic twist of the lips and climbed out of the wagon without

another word. He folded his hands and waited for the chaplain. Sam backed away a respectful distance and tore off another chew from his knapsack. The sergeant stalked up to him wearing the disappointed father look that so annoyed Sam, since they were the same age.

"Private Watkins."

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Now you know better than to fraternize with a prisoner.”

"Yes, Sergeant."

"Recollect to me why that is, if you please."

"Because it might—“Sam took a deep breath. “Because it has a detrimental effect on order, discipline, and the performance of our duties."

"Exactly right. I done looked the other way this time. Don't make me regret it."

"Yes, Sergeant."

“Now tear me off another chew.”

The chaplain had tied his horse to the wagon and spoke in low tones to Elias, who held his hat in front of him and studied the ground. Though Sam couldn't understand his words, the aristocratic rhythm of the old man's speech carried across the short distance.

A metallic glint drew Sam’s attention a second before the sounds of a thousand marching troops reached his ears. Wright's Brigade had just appeared at the bend in the road. Elias lifted his head at the rumble of footfalls, clanking metal, shouted commands, and the deadly glitter of bayonets. Elias stood with clenched fists and trembling knees, but he stood.

Somewhere in that flowing gray mass, slogging up the road alongside Elias' friends, marched the firing squad that would kill him today unless the fool took off for the woods in the next couple of minutes.

"Elias." Sam shouted, hands cupped around his mouth. Elias looked his way, and he shouted again, jerking his head toward the woods. "Get, brother! Why don't you run?"

The sergeant's face fell, and he said loud enough for only Sam’s ears, "Mind your tongue, lest you want to be next against the goddamned post."

The chaplain stood stock-still, immaculate in his gray uniform. Either he was deaf as a cannonball or he chose to pretend he hadn’t heard the gravedigger’s shouting. The gold braid on his hat gleamed like the streets of Glory as he bowed his head to pray with the prisoner.

The brigade produced a sobering clamor as it closed on the execution site, like some monstrous, predatory machine. There was none of the singing or gallows- humor banter apparent in the formation that went on during routine movements. They marched silent and grim as if to battle.

"Post detail, secure the prisoner," the sergeant called.

They bound Elias' hands in front of him with the rope in the iron ring, and he rested his forehead against the post. Harsh voices carried over the clanging din of the brigade's three battalions as they maneuvered into a three-sided square around the post and made a quagmire of the soggy field. Sam moved behind the troops to stand with the sergeant and the supply men.

"Well, there ain’t nothing for it then," Sam said. God's unfathomable will exasperated him. How can a man like Elias end up like this, raised with all life’s advantages only to meet his end with nothing and nobody to care about, nothing to tie him to this world? Elias seemed to have gone limp, like a rabbit resigned to its fate in the jaws of a fox.

Am I any different? Am I fooling myself into carrying on each day? The horror of a moment when he, Sam Watkins, might cease to struggle covered him with prickly chills.

The chaplain knelt, despite his age and fine uniform, on one knee in a patch of wet grass facing Elias and lifted a voice that might have belonged to a great stage actor. "Almighty God, our Heavenly Father who of His great mercy hath promised forgiveness--"

Sam ceased to listen. He was a man of faith, though not a religious one.

That's it, Chaplain. Talk of forgiveness, and then see a good man shot dead. The South is going to run out of good men at this rate.

"--And bring you to everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen." The old man stood and led the brigade in a ghastly hymn. Their tuneless chanting sounded like a dirge from the underworld, interspersed with brutal encouragement from the flat of their leaders’ sword blades. The sun reappeared during the song, and its heat reasserted itself on the damp formation.

As the men sang, the sergeant major appeared at the shooting post shouting at the post detail men. The two privates in question leapt forward, untied Elias, and turned him around with his back to the post and his arms secured behind him so he couldn't quite stand up straight. Elias faced the brigade and watched the forced singing with very wide eyes.

The hymn faded and perished, allowing Sam to hear General Wright and his staff splashing up the road. The sergeant major's voice boomed over the field. "Brigade!"

The hubbub of so many in close quarters ceased. "Attention!"

A single great stomp of boots, shoes, and bare feet reverberated through the ground. The sun seared the back of Sam’s neck. Sweat rolled down his face into his beard, dripped from his nose. The downpour had been welcome, but they would spend the rest of the afternoon steaming.

General Wright dismounted and entered what had become a human amphitheater, with the post, the knoll, and the oak at its center. Alone, the General approached his nephew.

"This is where the Old Man pardons the boy," the sergeant mumbled, perhaps to himself, perhaps not. "See if I ain't right."

Elias stood hunched over, and his lean shoulders jutted from the unnatural angle of his pinioned arms. The chaplain saluted and went to collect his horse. General Wright stopped an arm's length from Elias and removed his pale leather gauntlets. He spoke quietly and privately to the condemned man while the brigade sweltered at attention.

It appeared that General Wright would have Elias die with more dignity than the usual humiliating spectacle afforded. There would be no milling about, no men perched in trees for a better view. Sam realized there was no honorable way for General Wright to pardon his nephew. Had the General been surprised to learn that Elias hadn't run?

As the heat resumed, wisps of steam ascended from a thousand stinking, rain soaked soldiers. The brigade created its own weather, a swirling humidity evaporating into the sky. No trace of a cloud remained in the blue dome overhead.

The General placed his right hand on Elias' shoulder. Elias nodded once, lips drawn up tight. At this, the General turned on his heel and spoke.

"Men, it is the solemn duty of those burdened with the mantle of command to enforce discipline in the ranks. Private Elias Wright, who I count among my own kin, has been convicted of desertion in the presence of the enemy.” He paused, perhaps distracted by the cawing of a gaggle of crows in the oak behind him. “And will be shot to death by musketry." Scanning the troops, he pulled his heavy gloves back on and shouted over the heckling birds. "He assures me he has made peace with Our Lord and stands prepared to meet his maker. God forbid any should choose to abandon his country and duty, but let the sentence carried out here today serve as a warning to those who may harbor similar thoughts. Sergeant Major, proceed."

The commander rode back toward Shelbyville with his staff, no doubt to enjoy a somber supper that Sam was certain would include roasted meat. Once General Wright was gone, it all proceeded quickly.

The sergeant major called up the shooting detail, and a young corporal marched eight precise men up from behind the center battalion. Elias gawked at the soldiers as they lined up before him. Sam didn't recognize any of them. No blindfold appeared. Perhaps that had been part of Elias' final conversation with his uncle.

"Ready," said the detail sergeant, not loud but clear against the babble of the crows.

"Oh," Elias said. His shoulders jerked once, spasmodically. A tremor coursed through him, and he pressed his feet and knees tightly together.

"Aim."

"Oh, God!"

"Fire."

Eight muskets split the afternoon. Fifteen, maybe twenty fat crows erupted from the tree in a confusion of black wings, and the wet smack of minié balls striking vital flesh followed in the wake of the weapons' roar. The shooting detail vanished in a cloud of black powder smoke that hung in the still air. Elias’ knees buckled, and he collapsed like a sack of corn before the echoes had faded.

"Jennie," Sam breathed. He squeezed his eyes shut and saw her freckled smile and round hazel eyes, plain as day.