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Chris/Vin, Vin/OMC
Implied slash; deathfic
Notes at end of story.
A sad tuneless sound from a harmonica hovers over the land mixing with the desert air. Its late April in southern New Mexico, which means temperatures run to the 70s, the breezes have some cooling air in them, and the evenings are almost chilly. Perfect weather for working on corrals, mending fences, just being outdoors in general.
The long haired man in dusty brown leathers blowing through the harmonica is sitting on the steps of a porch looking at the sun setting through a tree break. The sky is just at the point where color is bleeding into the cloudless robin's egg blue and the trees are darkening but still green. His favorite time is when the tree line becomes a perfect black against a multicolored sky like a black silhouette sitting on mother of pearl. Like on a man's ring.
Before that thought can take him places he tries never to go, a hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes – strong, friendly, a shade possessive. The act almost makes him start and blow a discordant noise but his body has been well schooled for over a decade to reveal nothing and his breathing holds until he's steady again.
“Appreciate all the work you've put in Pard. This place is starting to look like a real horse ranch.”
“Yup. Lookin' right nice.”
The older man dressed in equally dusty black pulls out a cheroot as he folds his long legs onto the step next to the harmonica player. Moving slowly, clearly savoring this peaceful time spent with his best friend and lover, he bites off the end of the smoke and lights it with a sigh, “Noticed your sound is always a little sadder this time of year.”
The younger man lowers his head slightly as his mouth makes a shadow of a wry smile and thinks to himself, “The man does have an eye for details. Specially details about me. Ain't no one paid that kinda attention since ma died. Well, no one except...” At the start of another unwanted thought the man looks skyward, setting his mind on judging how much longer the light would hold.
The man in black stretches out his legs and quietly starts talking, his cheroot now poking out of the side of his mouth. “You know I was with Sherman in Georgia. After he'd made it to Savannah and Grant sent him on to the Carolinas he split some of us off to handle the rest of Georgia. That's how I ended up being among the first to find Andersonville.”
Knowing it is an illusion both men still feel the earth getting a little colder and quieter at the sound of that name.
“Things I saw there.... No man should see much less have to live through. Living skeletons... didn't know a man could have that little meat on him and still be alive. And the smell – you know that place was wrapped around swampland that was their outhouse. A lake of shit in the center of hell!”
The other man had risen slowly from the steps at the beginning of his companion's story. Leaning on the porch rail as he pockets the harmonica, his head turning away towards the sky, he murmurs, “I'd heard.”
“I was young … a lot younger than you. I mean, I'd seen, heard, and smelt all the years of the war. Fields of men dead and dying. Piles of arms and legs outside the medical tents. Horses screaming. But this, this was different. A slow, mean, ugly, living death that left the living envying the dead. I wasn't ready for it.”
“Maybe no one is or should be ready for that, Cowboy," his friend offers.
“Yeah,” he responds with a half laugh, “thanks for that. But you know me, I took it in and let it eat me. Made me crazy. Couldn't sleep for the sight and smell. Started drinking then. And learned what a mean ass drunk I could be.”
“Seen that,” the other huffs.
“No! Bad as I been, nothing I've done in the last 4 years or the 3 before you and I hooked up comes near to touching the mean ass drunk I was back then. I just wrapped myself in hate and ugly. The more I drank the uglier I was gonna do to any Johnny Reb I could get my hands on. That's the thing about war. Don't matter why you joined up -- saving the union; ending slavery; whatever. By the end it's all about you and them. Rebs wasn't people. Wasn't human. They was just them – the enemy. And after seeing Andersonville....”
“So why you tellin' me this now?” The man looking at the sky again and finding that he wants this confession to move faster.
“Well, it was bout this time in April me and some of my men caught up with a couple Rebs. We'd been on leave about 4 days and shitfaced … damn more than shitfaced … don't know how we managed to stayed mounted,” grunting an ironic laugh as he shakes his head. At the same time the other man slowly straightens and moves away from the porch keeping a watch on the speaker and his back to the setting sun.
“So we found 'em alone, away from their camp, over by some blasted out church, really by accident. Two of 'em. Youngun' still in his teens and an officer maybe my age. We was stupid drunk. We'd all been there opening up Andersonville. We saw Rebs and went crazy. What we did next wasn't right but that's why it happened..
“We roughed 'em both up. Then we strung up the officer on the arch of the church – real Christian of us – and then we . . . I, ok it was my idea . . . I had 'em tie up the youngun, had him kneel under his friend so's the man was standing on the kid's shoulders with the rope on his neck real short... so when the kid keeled over finally from bein so beatup he'd hang his friend.
“I'd seen how the two had touched their foreheads together just fore we started in on 'em. So just cause the devil was in me, I shoved a harmonica into the boy's mouth after we put 'em together and told him to play for his lover. Then we watched and laughed as he struggled to stay put all the time noises comin' out of the mouth organ. Laughed right to the moment when the guy kicked the kid out from under him and hung himself so's the boy wouldn't suffer no more.
“We rode off then – left the guy swinging and the kid still all tied up rollin in the dust, moanin into that harmonica … makin the dirt muddy with his tears.
“When I'd sobered up, I did try to find 'em but it was a few days later and it'd all been cleaned up. I didn't know I could get that mean. Tried to make myself believe they'd deserved it for being Rebs. But even I'm not that much of a liar. So I just let myself get stupider, started runnin' with other crazies like Ella and tried to forget. Then I met my wife. Thought when Sarah said she'd marry me, the Lord was forgiving me. But seein' as how Ella murdered her and my son – guess the Lord was really just settin' me up for some real punishment. Guilt for what I done and guilt for what it lead to. The Lord maybe ain't that mysterious in his ways.”
Ending his confession with a bitter laugh, there is a moment of quiet before turning his face away from his companion, he pleads, “I don't expect nothin but hell for what I done – so why did you let me love you?”
Nothing but the sound of slightly heavier breathing was the young man's response.
Another harsh laugh as he turns to face him,“Ok, I ain't stupid – I know the why, You found me more dead then alive. Just wanderin around breathin', dead inside. Hadda be sure I wanted to live so's there'd be a good pain to my dying.”
“Somethin' like that Cowboy.”
The man in black squints up to where the other man, now only a black shape, stands with the sunset to his back. He unfolds himself to standing position. Hands always at ready by the guns he never takes off. While he can't make out the details, he knows the other man has his mare's leg skinned and cocked at his side. Ready. Knows the man depends on accuracy not speed for his kills.
“The harmonica, I'd brought it with me from Indiana and carried it all through the war so's I wouldn't forget why I was fighting. That there was somethin' more than war out there. Had a dent on one side where it saved me from a piece of shrapnel. Kinda hard to not know it.”
“Pondered on that.”
“I must love you. I chose you to kill me.”
By unspoken consensus, the two men draw at the word “me.” The man in black is fast but the cut-off Winchester wins with a shot to the gut.
The man in brown, face hard, puts the harmonica into the dying man's mouth, “Gonna be a long time dying. Play for yourself.” He leaves him sprawled in the dust gasping discordant sounds into the April night.
Feedback to: colombeleland@yahoo.com
Notes:
More information on Andersonville:
A tip of the hat to the films Once Upon a Time in the West, Sometimes in April, and Prick Up Your Ears.