The Judas Field

by Bahr, Howard;

  “Well,” replied Lucifer, “one day some officers come to the orphantage and culled out thirteen of us boys, said we was ablebodied and must go to the army. I was glad of it at the time.”

  “I expect you were,” said Cass. “How do you feel about it now?”

  “Well, I have been in a battle, and got hit with a ax handle, and burnt down a house, and walked two hundred mile, seems like—I am having a bully time so far.”

  “Hmmm,” said Cass. “Well, let’s go see the ole Massa.”

  Colonel David Sansing’s headquarters were under a precarious woodshed that was nailed to a big gum tree. Cass and Lucifer found the colonel in residence, together with Adjutant Perry Sansing and the regimental clerk, a man named Moses Teasdale who was famous for a book he penned before the war, Is Freemasonry a Threat? or, The Libertines of the Lodge. The work sold widely, but since then Teasdale had suspended his prejudices, or at least their utterance, against the brothers, of whom many were in the regiment. He was said to be at work on a book damning the Catholics, of whom, in the regiment, there were none at all. In any event, Teasdale was now bent over a rickety folding desk with the regimental muster roll spread out before him.

  “Now, then,” said Colonel Sansing when Cass presented his charge. “What is your name, my lad?”

  “Lucifer,” said the boy.

  Teasdale looked up in astonishment, and Perry laughed. Colonel Sansing glared at Cass. “Is this a joke, sir?”

  “No, Colonel. It is the name they gave him at the orphanage.”

  “Why, God damn,” said the colonel. “He can’t have a name like that around here! The boys would light up the woods with him!”

  “Why not call him Lucian?” said Perry. “That’s a good name.”

  “First-rate suggestion,” said the colonel. “Write ‘Lucian’ down there, Mose.” The clerk scratched with his pen, and the colonel looked at the boy. “What’s your other name, if I dare to ask?”

  “I don’t have one,” said the boy.

  “Don’t have one?” said the colonel. “Mighty irregular.”

  “It’s Wakefield,” said Cass. The boy looked up at him in surprise.

  “Hmm,” said the colonel, regarding Cass with suspicion. “Kin of yours?”

  The boy scowled at Cass. He said, “I ain’t kin to nobody.”

  “Well, nevertheless, Wakefield it is,” said the colonel. “Put it down that way, Mose.” The clerk nodded and scratched with his pen.

  “Now then,” said the colonel, “how old are you, about?”

  “Eighteen year,” said the boy.

  Cass thought, Ah, you lying little shit.

  Colonel Sansing stepped out from behind his clerk and gathered the boy’s shirtfront in his hands. He knelt among the soggy wood chips and dragged the boy down with him. “Now, look here,” he said. “First off, you call me ‘sir.’ Second off, you lie to me again about how old you are, I will slice you open and count the rings. You understand me?'

  “Well, you said about,” muttered the boy. “I’m six … I mean, forteen. Goin’ on fourteen. Sir. Colonel.”

  “Great God,” said the officer, and released the boy, and rose to his feet, joints creaking. “Well, there’s younger’n you out here, I expect. In any event, you’ll have to do.” He looked at Cass. “Take him back to the trains, see if the quartermaster is sober enough to find him a rifle and a blanket.”

  “Yes, Colonel,” said Cass, and saluted, which drew a snort from the adjutant. They had gone a little way from the woodshed when the colonel called Cass back. “A word with you,” he said.

  The four soldiers stood under the lean-to a moment and watched the boy throw sweetgum balls at a cat.

  “That whelp is no Christian,” said Teasdale. “He may be a papist. Have to be watched ever minute, or—”

  “Shut up, Mose,” said the colonel. He put a fatherly hand on Cass’s shoulder. “Now, Cass, I am depending on you to watch after this infant. He—”

  “Aw, Colonel,” said Cass, “I already got Roger. Can’t you—”

  “Roger is pretty well brung up. You can wean this one now and keep him out of hot places. I am counting on you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Cass.

  The officer rubbed his nose. “One more thing, by the way,” he said. “There was a woman waylaid me back on the road a while ago. Cass, did you and those other boys burn down a house in Decatur?”

  Cass pursed his lips. “Well, it was an accident,” he said.

  “She was not of that opinion, sir,” said the colonel.

  “Well, she must of been hysterical,” said Cass.

  “Goddammit, sir,” said the colonel, “I will hear of no more hysterical accidents, you understand me?”

  “Yes, Colonel,” said Cass, and saluted again, and stole away.

  As they made their way back to the trains, the boy said, “How come you did that?”

  “Did what?”

  “Give me your name.”

  “Well, I wasn’t using it at the moment,” said Cass.

  “Well, all right,” said the boy. “But, say, how come they didn’t like ‘Lucifer’? It does mean ‘light,’ don’t it? Joanna told me it did.”

  “Who’s that?”

  The boy reddened. “Was a teacher down there.”

  “Ah,” said Cass. As they walked along, he explained about Lucifer being a fallen angel. “The story goes, it was a big battle up in heaven. It was Satan and Lucifer on one side, the Lord God and Jesus on t’other. They had armies of angels, hosts of ’em, and lightning bolts for artillery. Guess who beat?”

  “I haven’t any idy,” said the boy.

  “Well, who’s in charge now?”

  Lucian thought a moment. “God?” he said at last.

  “There you have it,” said Cass.

  “Huh,” said the boy. “What become of Lucifer and them?”

  “Well, they were cast into perdition—that’s hell, of course—and there they remain, stirring up trouble for everbody.”

  “Well, if God’s in charge, how come He don’t just put ’em out of business? Then there wouldn’t be no more trouble.”

  “It is only a story,” said Cass. “It is”—Cass searched for the word—“it is … an allegory! We must make of it what we will.” The fact was, Cass didn’t know what to make of it himself.

  “Well, I am not surprised,” said Lucian. “What I know about God, He spends all His time hatin’ niggers and yankees and infidels, and casting people into hell left and right.”

  Cass was shocked. “Where you hear such a thing?”

  “Reverend Pelt, the old chaplain down yonder,” said the boy, stopping to scratch his ankle. “That’s all he studied. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why God keeps Lucifer and them around. Way old Pelt went on, I bet they’s a thousand people in hell by now. Somebody’s got to look after ’em.”

  “You may be right,” Cass said.

  The boy said, “Did Lucifer cause this mess we’re in?”

  “No,” said Cass, “that was Abe Lincoln.”

  “Hah!” said the boy. “I am not surprised. Reverend Pelt always said old Abe—”

  “God damn your Reverend Pelt to hell,” said Cass. “I don’t see him out here anywhere!”

  “You won’t, neither,” said the boy, and laughed.

  They walked on, down a lane bordered by fences and trees. After a while, they arrived at a scattering of broken-down spring wagons, mules, patched harness, and bewhiskered teamsters, white and black, most of them drunk. This was the brigade trains. The quartermaster—a pale, slender man who, in another life, might have been a woman, and probably ought to be a woman in this one—took Cass’s order for a musket. He disappeared into the maw of a wagon, under a mildewed canvas top with U.S. stenciled on it. There came a great deal of banging and tumbling around, and presently articles of astonishing variety began to fly out the back of the wagon: a coffeepot, a cane-bottom chair, a dictionary, some ice tongs, a plaster parrot, a pair of long
drawers, a lap desk, several blood-stiffened blankets. Finally, the man himself emerged with a rifle. “It’s a Springfield,” he said. “It’ll take the five-seven-seven ball, though it might wobble a little on the outbound trip.”

  “Ain’t you got any old two-banded guns laying around?” said Cass. “This one is taller than he is.”

  “Well, sir,” said the officer, “this is not the Crystal Palace.” The remark made no sense to Cass, but the quartermaster thought it hilarious. He only quit laughing when Cass snatched the musket from his hand.

  Cass picked up the cleanest of the blankets and the dictionary. Lucian wanted the parrot, but Cass reminded him that they were on the march. “The quartermaster will keep it for you,” he said. They collected some caps and ammunition, which the boy stuffed in his pockets, then ambled down to a creek that wound its way among sycamores and oaks. Cass showed the boy how to load and prime, then let him shoot a round at the creek bank. The boy could hardly lift the musket, and the recoil knocked him flat.

  “You got to tuck it into your shoulder and lean against it,” said Cass, careful not to laugh at the boy spraddled in the mud of the creek bank. “And open your eyes, for God’s sake. You can’t hit what you can’t see. Now, that rock yonder—that’s your mark.”

  A big heron sailed over them and lit on a mud bar a little way distant. The bird lifted one foot and glared at the water.

  “How about I shoot him?” said the boy.

  “Why, no,” said Cass. “Just shoot at that rock.”

  When the boy shot, the heron flew away squawking. The boy shot three more times and was fairly true to the mark. His next round sent the rock spinning into the air. The boy grinned and rubbed his shoulder. It was the first time Cass had seen him smile since they burned the house down. The boy said, “Now, that’s somethin’ like!”

  “Well, we’ll see how you like it after you’ve carried it a few years,” said Cass. “Anyhow, we better quit using up the government’s powder and ball.”

  “What else can you show me?” asked the boy.

  “Well,” said Cass, “there’s the School of the Soldier—but never mind all that. You just watch what the other fellows do, and you’ll—what’s the matter?”

  The boy’s face was turned away, the smile gone. His hands were jammed in his breeches pockets. “You ain’t goin’ to show me that?” he said.

  So Cass went through the manual of arms, and the Load-in-Nine-Times, and the facing movements. They spent half an hour on it while the sun fell behind the trees and the air grew cool. When the time was over, the boy could do the drill as well as any in the ranks, and better than some.

  “Well, you are a quick study,” said Cass finally. “Let’s go to camp, see what there is to eat.”

  “Can I carry the gun?”

  “It’s yours forever,” said Cass.

  After they had gone a little way, the boy asked, “You reckon we’ll leave in the mornin’?”

  “We always leave in the mornin’,” said Cass. “If not by dead of night.”

  “Huh,” said the boy. “Say, can I get a jacket like you got?”

  “We’ll get you one,” said Cass.

  They walked back through the chill early twilight, Cass with the dictionary under his arm, Lucian carrying his rifle and the blanket Cass had showed him how to roll. Cass had told him, “Get shut of that citizen’s carpetbag. You don’t want anybody to mistake you for a congressman.”

  That night, the boy bedded down between Cass and Roger under a white oak tree. There was no moon, and the camp was dark when the fires burned down. Now and then, a picket let loose at something. Cass was almost asleep when Lucian poked him. “Say, did you know a possum’s got two peckers?”

  “I did not know that,” said Cass.

  After a moment, the boy said, “Say, are you married?”

  “Yeah. You?”

  “Naw,” snorted the boy. After a moment, he said, “I bet you got folks, too.”

  “Some,” said Cass. “Most of ’em’s in the ground, but some are still quick.”

  “Is your wife comely?” asked the boy.

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” said Cass. “She is an ornament.”

  The boy was quiet for a moment. He said, “I bet these fellows won’t like me.”

  Cass raised on one elbow and peered into the dark. “That’s up to you,” he said.

  The boy shifted in his blanket. Cass could see the pale oval of his face. “I bet I get kilt right off,” said the boy.

  “Now, that’s four subjects,” said Cass. “Pick one and stay with it, or go to sleep.”

  “I reckon I’ll go to sleep,” said the boy. “I always feel better afterward.”

  Great God, thought Cass.

  After a moment, the boy poked Cass again. He said, “Say, what is a allergory, anyhow?”

  Roger grunted. “That makes five,” he said.

  The next day, Cass took Lucian foraging. Along the way, they practiced marching and doing the manual of arms at the common step, and the Frenchy bayonet drill, which Cass had always enjoyed. They traveled north of the army, toward the river where houses might be. They were gone two hours, had collected nothing but a brace of rabbits, when they happened on a farmstead where recent violence had been done. Buzzards and crows flapped away at their approach, settling in the trees nearby, and a bony cur slunk away through the broomsage. The farmhouse and outbuildings were still smoldering, the grass all burned. A dead hog lay in the cinders, skin black and blistered. Cass read the signs easily enough. “A cavalry fight,” he said. “This mornin’, I guess.”

  “Well, how can you tell it was cav’ry?” asked Lucian, his voice gone quiet.

  “Well, lad,” said Cass patiently, “I see the prints of shod horses, I observe a great scattering of horse shit, I see a dead horse there, and one over there—and that pitiful thing yonder is a dead yankee cavalryman, the like of which you will not see many, believe me. Taken all together, these things point to an engagement of our mounted brethren-in-arms.”

  The boy looked at the dead man, a blue, swollen shape barely visible in the broomsage. “Can you tell who beat?” he whispered.

  Cass found himself whispering too. “I would say our side, since the others left their dead behind. Thing is, the cavaliers are only interested in fighting. Win or lose, it don’t matter much to them; whatever they gain, they don’t get to keep it long.”

  In truth, Cass didn’t want to talk about it. He was bothered by the scene, which actually suggested a serious combat—house and buildings all burned, and more dead than the horsemen usually suffered in their brief clashes. There were plenty of boot and shoe tracks, too, so they must have fought dismounted. They had got in one another’s faces, these bold cavaliers. Cass did not feel it necessary to point out the other corpses he saw. There were too many to bury, and the birds, already restless in the trees, would pick at them. The dog would get his share and the bugs the rest.

  Cass said to the boy, “Go look behind the barn. See is there anything we can use.”

  Lucian was still looking at the dead man. “Oh,” he said. He turned his face to Cass, and there was a shadow in it. Cass knew the look well. The boy said, “I’d just as soon stay with you.”

  Cass put his hand on the boy’s head. “You have come out soldiering,” he said, “and you must act like a soldier. These fellows won’t hurt you. They are past hurting anybody.”

  Lucian thought a moment. “This is worse than being in the fight t’other day,” he said. “It is way too quiet.”

  “I know,” said Cass, “but you must get used to it. Now, go on, do like I said.”

  Lucian nodded, then turned and went off around the smoldering skeleton of the barn. Cass watched him trudge away, the musket tilted over his thin shoulder. “Lucian?” he said, but the boy didn’t hear. Cass almost called him back but didn’t. There was no really no reason to send the lad on such a scout, but the practice wouldn’t hurt him, Cass supposed.

  He knelt and exa
mined the hog carcass. It was too far gone and blown with flies to scavenge. “A waste for everybody,” he said aloud. He thought how the boys would have shouted Glory if he and Lucian had come into camp leading such a prize on the hoof. “God damn the cavalier sons of bitches for killing this hog,” Cass said.

  Kneeling, his musket across his thighs, Cass pushed his hat back and looked around him. Somebody lived here once, milked a cow, fed this hog, planted cotton. Frolicked, maybe, and fished in the river. Now they were gone, and only God knew where. These yankees, around their breakfast fire that morning, had dawdled and joked and complained, proud to be soldiers, though they would never admit it to one another. Now they were humiliated and dead, removed from the earth in the space of a morning’s ride. No room in the chronicle for such a little fight; only a mention in dispatches, a brief notation in some junior officer’s hand. The officer would remember them when he wrote the names, Cass thought, but beyond that, beyond the closed circle of the company, the regiment, the families who would not know for a while yet—beyond that, history would not mark these boys. Cass took no joy in the knowledge that they were enemies; it was a waste, and all for nothing.

  Over all hung the peculiar silence of a recently abandoned field. The restive squabbling of the birds, the wind, the sudden leap of a flame, the creak of a limb—these things had no voice in the quiet. It was a vacuum all to itself where time had no meaning, where men were made to whisper and walk soft lest they waken something they did not want to imagine. Too much was done in such a place, and it didn’t pass easily. He had told Lucian he must get used to it, but that was only something a man said. The lad would have to learn for himself that he never would.

  A light touch on his shoulder. “Jesus!” Cass cried, and leaped to his feet. It was Lucian. “Dammit, boy,” said Cass sharply. “Don’t ever—”

  Then he stopped. The boy held his musket by the barrel, and behind him was a long furrow in the mud where he had dragged it. He looked at Cass and made to speak, but no sound came. In his face was more than shadow now, more than fear, more even than knowledge. Cass knew that look, too.