I saw Walt Whitman walk the smoking ground, nursing the injured and kissing the lips of the soon-to-be-departed. I reckoned it was Jesus come, or John Brown. Those fathers of surrection. When he finally got to where I was lying, he knelt beside me and wiped the sweat from my brow.<\/p>\n
\u201cTake me home.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI am not at liberty.\u201d He doused his forceps with whiskey. \u201cBut I\u2019ll do what I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Couple weeks till I healed enough to limp. One morning they loaded us sick and partly lamed in a mule-cart and drove us east to a field, three-days sown. Walt Whitman was there waiting on us, beating birds from the dead with a bedsheet.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe come to oversee the reaping,\u201d said the boy beside me, thick yellow pus dripping slowly from his ear.<\/p>\n
The driver stopped the mule-cart and we cripples crawled out. In pairs of complementary impairment\u2014amputated hand with gimp leg, and so on\u2014we hefted bodies, loaded them in the cart. Walt Whitman roamed, beard flecked with blood, waving his white sheet. Something peaceful in the lifting, the counting. Could be logs for building, sacks of seed for planting. The sun climbed a cold blue horizon.<\/p>\n
That night I stood picket, alone, at the southern edge of camp. Near midnight, Walt Whitman stumbled out of the tree line holding a willowy light. He approached me, muttering.<\/p>\n
\u201cState your bona fides.\u201d I tried to sound ordained.<\/p>\n
\u201cWalt Whitman,\u201d Walt Whitman said. \u201cI belong to no army.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI reckoned you was Jesus come, or John Brown.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBetter men than me,\u201d Walt Whitman said. \u201cMore principled for certain. But even they would tear their beards. Spill some salt. If they could see what has become of this righteous cause they claimed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSpeak clear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ve dressed a wound with war, boy. And it has only grown septic. Lay down your muskets, break every chain, and the country will still reek of a vile infection. There is no such thing as free soil. Never was.\u201d He turned around and began walking back toward the tree line, holding his lantern chest high.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou wanted in the camp?\u201d<\/p>\n
He didn\u2019t answer. His light flickered with his gait. What he said would make any man question glory, but I\u2019d long quit that. Since I served twelve months and then was conscripted. Since I fired that musket ball into my own leg.<\/p>\n
I could still see Walt Whitman\u2019s lantern, flickering between the trees. I looked around to see if anyone was watching. Not a soul. I left my post and followed the fading light, limping still from my weakness. In the trees, owls spoke. Rats rustled in the leaves. I had to stop afterwhile and lean against a gum tree. I could no longer see the fires from the camp, or Walt Whitman\u2019s lantern in the distance. I caught my breath and gently rubbed the meat around my wound. Decided to go home, but realized quick I didn\u2019t know the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I saw Walt Whitman walk the smoking ground, nursing the injured and kissing the lips of the soon-to-be-departed. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-robert-maynor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15438"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15496,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15438\/revisions\/15496"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}