War (7 page)

“S-s-sergeant, this is a big mistake,” Jake stammered.

“He didn’t betray me,” Samuelson said. “He saved my life.”

BOOOOM!

Stones and soil flew upward. Fifty yards away, a gap opened in the wall.

Closer, it’s getting closer, the next one’ll be here, time out, can we call a time-out
—

“SHOOT, BRANFORD!”

Edmonds shoved Jake on his stomach. Propped the musket in a gap between the stones.

Jake looked through the sight. At a line of Rebels on the ridge.

Like my journal. Like the gray line I mowed down and it felt so good, so CLEAN and so EASY and here I am looking at them and they want to kill me.

One of the Rebels was aiming at him.

The trigger.

SQUEEZE THE TRIGGER!

KA-BLAM!

“AAAAAAAAAGH!” Jake recoiled.

A body was falling. Over the ridge. Screaming. Leaving a trail of bright red.

Did I do that?

I did.

I KILLED HIM.

It didn’t feel good. Not at all. Jake wanted to throw up. The ground was whirling …

“I got him for you,” Samuelson said. “You have to pull the trigger harder, son.”

Suddenly Edmonds bellowed, “Cover the colonel!”

Steady.

Stay alive, Jake.

Breathe deep. See this through.

Jake glanced toward Colonel Weymouth’s tent.

A squadron emerged. In formation. A V-shape like a flock of geese, with one man at the front and the others fanning out in back.

Briskly they walked forward, their muskets trained on the enemy, bursts of smoke puffing up with each shot fired.

In the midst of the formation, huddled together, were Colonel Weymouth and Mrs. Stoughton.

“What are they doing?” Jake asked.

“Weymouth insisted!” Edmonds shouted. “He wants to save her, at all costs. Now. In case they surround us. In case we’re slaughtered. He thinks they won’t fire on a woman — “

“He crazy!” Orvis said.

“He figures she can escape through the ravine while we focus fire on the rebels.” Edmonds replied.

“What? He’s using the men as a shield!” Jake said.

Edmonds didn’t answer. But his eyes were a soldier’s: they said
I obey; I don’t question.

The formation was moving. Slowly. Toward the woods.

This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen.

Union shots echoed. Rebel bodies fell from the ridge.

But the men in the formation were untouched. Unfired upon. All of them.

Jake stared in total disbelief.

Then a sudden, unexpected motion. Mrs. Stoughton, stumbling over her dress.

Colonel Weymouth pulled her arm. Hard.

She lunged forward and fell. Her purse fell to the ground, spilling its contents.

Jake’s eyes fixed on one item.

A green piece of paper.

Quickly Weymouth stooped over. He picked up the paper.

For a moment he was exposed. An easy target.

But not one shot was fired near him.

Weymouth quickly stuffed the paper back into Mrs. Stoughton’s purse. And he fell into position again, protected by the V.

It can’t be.

They’re leaving the camp.

With the plan.

But why?

Where would she be taking it?

The answer hit Jake over the head.

Hard.

“She — she — ” Jake swallowed hard. “SHE HAS IT! SHE HAS THE PLAN!”

“What plan?” Edmonds shot back.

“Colonel Weymouth — didn’t he tell — Rademacher knows about it!”

“Rademacher’s dead! Someone shot him. In Weymouth’s tent.”

“What?”

“Sniper. The bullet must have gone right through the tent.”

No. That wasn’t it. The killer was inside.

“Who else was in there with him?” Jake asked.

“Just Colonel Weymouth and Mrs. Stoughton.”

Jake glanced back at the woods.

The men had reached the tree line. In moments they’d be out of sight.

He’s getting away with it.

The boy is on his own.

“S
TOP THEM!”
J
AKE SHOUTED
as loud as he could. “THEYRE THE SPIES! COLONEL WEYMOUTH AND MRS. STOUGHTON!”

“Whaaaat?” Samuelson said.

“That’s treason!” Edmonds shot back.

Pull it together, Jake.

Make sense.

“Listen to me!” Jake persisted. “The Rebels have gone around us. They’re squeezing us from two sides. I have a plan. We fight them off during the day and spread into the mountain passes at night. We counterattack. I wrote it all out. Rademacher took the plan to Colonel Weymouth. Then —
BAM
— he’s killed mysteriously and Mrs. Stoughton is carrying the plan with her into the woods.
And the Rebels aren’t shooting at them.
Put two and two together!”

“By god, it makes some kind of crazy sense,” Samuelson said.

Edmonds’s angry expression slackened.

“You have to believe me!” Jake insisted. “We can’t let them go!”

“Colonel Weymouth?” muttered Edmonds, shaking his head. “Of all people, I never thought — ”

“What do we do?” Samuelson asked.

“Follow them — now,” Jake insisted. “The Rebels won’t dare shoot at us for fear of killing the spies.”

Edmonds glanced out to the moving V. “But once those men get into the woods …”

“Weymouth’ll lead them into a trap,” Jake said. “Somewhere.”

Edmonds sprang upward and leaped over the stone wall. “ABANDON YOUR POSTS! FOLLOW THEM!”

“Jake, you’re a genius!” Samuelson said, leaping up.

“What are you doing?” Jake said. “You were shot!”

“Never felt better!” Samuelson grabbed Jake by the arm.

The two of them ran after Edmonds.

A shot rang out. The ground erupted inches in front of them.

The open field.

Suicide.

THINK.

DON’T DIE.

Take cover along the way. Anywhere.

Jake made a break for the supply cabin. “Come on!” he called over his shoulder.

“NO! NOT THERE!”

Samuelson grabbed Jake from behind, flung him to the ground, and dove on top of him.

BOOOOOM!

The cabin erupted in a ball of fire.

Jake scrambled away, staring aghast at the flames.

He hadn’t seen the cannonball.

Thank god Samuelson did.

“Come on!” Samuelson was yanking him upward.

He ran toward the V formation. Jake followed close behind.

Open field again.

“Go exactly where I go!” Samuelson cried out.

Jake didn’t question.

Zig left.

Clods of dirt shot up from the ground to the right.

Zag right.

To their left, bullets shredded an empty tent.

My flesh, that could have been my chest, my arm, my face
—

Some of Edmonds’s men were charging forward, running flat out, on foot and on horses, pausing only to shoot toward the ridge.

Where are the rest of them?

Jake glanced over his shoulder. Toward the stone wall.

There they were. Mutineers. Doubters.

WHAAAAAAM!

The wall burst upward in a sudden geyser of rock, dirt, and smoke.

No.

Jake’s heart skipped.

Dead.

All of them.

I would have been, too. And Samuelson. And Sergeant Edmonds.

If I hadn’t convinced them.

“MOVE, BRANFORD!” Edmonds shouted.

Jake turned toward the woods.

Just ahead of them now, the last of Weymouth’s V formation was climbing the hill.

Edmonds fired into the air. “Stop there!” he yelled.

Weymouth’s men turned, muskets at the ready.

Expecting Rebels.

Their faces registered surprise. Disbelief.

Weymouth locked eyes with Edmonds.

“THE COLONEL IS A TRAITOR!” Edmonds announced.

Weymouth’s face turned crimson. His upper lip curled back in anger. “Shoot to kill!” he commanded.

His soldiers gripped their guns. But no one fired.

“SHOOT, I SAY!” Weymouth roared.

Crrrack!

A flash of light.

The man to Jake’s left vaulted off the ground. He fell in a motionless heap, his chest a red, wet mass of shredded material.

Oh no oh no no no NO NO

“GET DOWN!” Edmonds yelled.

Hide.

Jake dived. Rolled behind a tree. Curled up.

CRRRACK!

A
body thumped to the ground beside him. Writhing. Kicking. Shrieking.

Edmonds.

“SERGEA-A-A-NT!” Jake cried.

“Chhh— gk — ” Edmonds was trying to say something. His eyes were desperate, pleading.

Stop STOP STOP— DIE. PLEASE.

With a sudden choking sound, Edmonds went still.

Eyes still open. Still staring at Jake.

Jake heaved and puked. Without feeling much of anything.

Run.

His body was acting on its own now. His brain was separating. Deadening. He was fleeing. Through the woods.

Past a man who was bent over a tree.

Past Mrs. Stoughton, who was firing a pistol.

Past Weymouth’s men fighting Edmonds’s. Weymouth’s fighting Weymouth’s. A civil war within a civil war within a civil war.

The smell of gunpowder seared his lungs. The splinters from bullet-riddled trees nested in his hair.

And none of it meant a thing.

His musket was long gone. Dropped somewhere by the destroyed supply cabin.

But he had no desire to use it.

Killing didn’t matter how.

Nothing mattered.

Nothing but his life.

There.

An opening.

He veered toward a clearing. A barely detectable path through the undergrowth.

“NO! NOT THAT WAY!” cried a voice behind him.

Don’t listen.

In the distance, maybe fifty yards away, an object.

A building.

Yes. Go. Hide.

“STOP THERE OR YOU’RE DEAD!”

It was Weymouth’s voice.

Right behind him.

Jake stopped.

And turned.

And froze.

Weymouth stood a few yards away. Glaring at Jake down the barrel of a musket. “We were so close to escape … so close.”

Over. Done. The end.

Jake put his hands in the air. “You win,” he said. “That’s how this ends. You escape and no one ever finds out about you. I know.”

Weymouth faltered a moment. Lowered the gun.

And in that moment, it all became clear to Jake. Weymouth the commander, Weymouth the powerful, was nothing. A blot in a history book, no more, no less.

“The funny thing is,” Jake went on, “in the end, the battle means nothing. The war ends, and guess what? Your side loses anyway, Colonel. So everything you’ve done — the stolen plan, the escape, the deaths you just caused — what was the point?”

“No, my boy.” Weymouth’s face flushed. His eyes narrowed. “No one would have died just now if you had shut your mouth. Tactical error, soldier. A fatal one.”

He raised the gun. Took aim.

“Wait,” Jake said, backing away. “WAIT!”

Weymouth cocked the gun.

And fired.

“A
AAAGH!

Jake hit the ground.

He coughed. The dirt was sour on his tongue, the root had scratched his cheek, and the smoke hung heavy and acrid in the air.

Taste. Touch. Smell.

I’m alive.

Run.

Don’t look back.

Jake scrambled to his feet and took off.

“HEY!”

Go.

He missed once. He won’t do it again.

He raced toward the clearing.

The building.

Visible now. Through the branches.

A hut. Like the one Jake had seen the day before at the ridge.

“NOT THERE!”

BLAMMMMM!

Jake dived again. Blindly.

“GO LEFT!”

Weymouth was right behind him.

Think.

Jake darted to the right.

“I SAID NOT THAT WAY!”

Motion.

Near the hut. A figure in the shadows.

Human.

Weymouth’s Confederate pals. Gathering for the ambush.

Forget the hut.

Only one direction remained.

Straight up the mountain.

Behind him, footsteps crashed through the underbrush. More than just Weymouth now.

“Stop!”

“You can’t go there!”

“Get him!”

Voices. Lots of them.

You’ll be in the crossfire.

GO!

Jake veered away.

Sprinted. Toward the base of the mountain.

Away from the voices. Away from the madness and the killing and the blood and the guilt —

Jake lurched downward.

Something was wrapped around his ankle.

He sprawled on the ground. Spun around. Sat up.

Reached down.

It wasn’t a root.

It was long and black. Plastic.

A cable.

What the — ?

No time to think.

He could see them out of the corner of his eye.

Advancing through the woods toward him.

Weymouth. Soldiers. Mrs. Stoughton.

Go!

Jake stood up and ran.

The ankle throbbed. But it wasn’t broken.

Ignore it.

Just. Go.

A voice was shouting something behind him.

Loud. Unnaturally loud. Magnified.

The echo of the mountain.

Jake began to climb. He planted his left foot and pulled himself upward on a branch. Then his right —

“OWWW!”

The ankle buckled. Jake fell.

He couldn’t move.

Pain shot through him. Sharp. Blinding.

They were coming nearer now.

Weymouth was running up the mountainside. Panting.

This is it.

Death.

A century and a quarter before your own birth.

And you can’t do a thing about it.

What was the point, Jake?

Was this what you wanted?

The fighting, the blood, the death
—
was this the feeling?