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Introduction: In between writing various stories for malespank.net readers, the author enjoys playing a bit of his Playstation 3. His newest PS3 title, "Call To Juarez, Bound In Blood," is a rare first person shooter for two reasons. First, it is set in the year 1864 around Atlanta, Georgia, about the time of the destruction of Atlanta by superior Union forces one year before the end of the American Civil War in the spring of 1865.
Secondly, it depicts the struggles of not the winning Northern Union forces, but of the eventually defeated Southern Confederate forces, specifically of the travails of three Confederate brothers, the McCall brothers. The boys are all in their early or late twenties, but lose both parents and their beloved home in the conflict and are forced to desert their regiment towards the end of the conflict just to survive. In the end, strong family ties overcome any other consideration in their decision to defy conventional law and head West to start new lives.
During gameplay, one is reminded that during that awful nationalistic conflict, whole families on both sides were either completely wiped out or so decimated in numbers as to have made continuing family ties and rejoining original clans back together quite impossible.
It is easy to imagine that orphans, adults and children alike, may have joined up in their mutual sorrows, not only from the same sides of the former conflict, but from opposite sides as well and formed new families and later on, moved out to the wild American West to forget war time horrors and start new lives and new family associations. This story is a fiction.
Spring 1883, a homesteaded ranch near the Smokey Hill River of Salina, Kansas …
The boot wearing foot of its fourteen year old sullen owner kicked at the ground, sending up a plume of dust that quickly settled back into the rain moistened soil, his young voice mumbling coarse words at himself for being caught, yet again, trying to catch fish from the lush running Smokey Hill instead of doing his chores.
He had been warned, but it was spring, a boy should be fishing, not slaving away doing work meant for older boys and men and besides, three other boys were out there too! How come he was the only one marching to his family barn for a good hard strapping!?
"Other boys still out there fishing you know!" Thomas Reed said turning as his father, Morgan, was quickly pacing his steps closely behind Thomas and towards the same barn door opening.
Morgan shook his head and wanted to smile in sympathy, but work had to come first before pleasure on the ranch.
"You let those other boys to their own fates boy, not get into that barn and strip-off!"
Thomas pinched up his face into a scowl, mostly for his own foolishness, turned and ran the rest of the way ahead of his father and inside the barn towards the old saw horse. He never got away with anything anymore!
Yes, Morgan Reed could have let his beloved son off the hook, but that would only get his wife Velma to complaining that boys Thomas' age need to be working, not whiling away work hours doing "useless activities." Trying to convince that strong minded frontier women of anything she didn't wish to be convinced of was, well, impossible.
But at the barn door, Morgan stopped and watched his only son disrobe and put himself over the saw horse. Thomas was generally a good boy and probably deserved to be fishing, but working a homestead only a few years old was still taking all they could each do as a family of merely five to keep the place going until their crops and animals finally made the family prosperous.
Velma was pregnant again and there were two daughters, five and seven, but no real help there for men's work. They had strong male help from neighbors, but taking help meant giving help back, so that spring planting time meant weeks and weeks of continuous work for any able bodied man or boy in the district and the Reeds would only be two strong in that department for a long time to come.
Morgan sighed. He hated whipping Thomas and Thomas hated his whippings, but the boy had to learn and the boy knew it too. Having to strip off boots and clothes to nakedness in the humid and sweet hay smelling barn air was always the wake-up call and especially when he had to bend forward over the saw horse and bare his young buttocks up for his father's well-oiled strapping leather.
Right then, Thomas would greatly regret having been tempted by Joseph and Eli to sneak out to the river for a few hours of fishing and skinny dipping. Surely he would not be missed from the hard work, but it never was the case and now he was paying the price for his latest little fishing expedition.
Morgan only glanced at his son's naked form as he walked to the barn post and fetched down the well cared for leather. He handled it respectfully and looked at it. This leather was important, it had history, a hard history in fact, one that never ceased to bring his emotions up to the surface to be examined and studied, admired and then set aside so that the leather could do its proper work.
Thomas saw his father coming out of the corner of his eye, the brown leather strap dangling from the man's strong hands. Thomas knew all about the leather. That leather had given lots of punishment to his father in his day as a boy and in a way, it was a prideful thing for Thomas to be punished by it as his father had, especially because Thomas knew all about those times between his father Morgan and Morgan's step-father years before Thomas was born.
Morgan stepped forward to Thomas' side, looked at his son's perfectly positioned naked body and swung the leather from high over his right shoulder and down, hard. It connected to Thomas' young buttocks with its usual loud cracking-snap sound and Thomas' face would wince. The whipping would be mechanical, it had to be.
Morgan did not think during the whippings, he stuck to a set number, thirty, ten more at age fourteen than the twenty he had given Thomas at age thirteen and as the years would progress, he would up the number, just as his step-father had done in his time, ten per year of age.
There would be no tears, no yelling or yelping, strong boys did not do those things. It would hurt like holy hell and tempt a boy to such emotional displays, but hard pain was what taught a boy and would go away in due time. Thomas counted through the awful stinging pain to thirty, then knew the whipping would be over and it was.
"Get up boy, get dressed," Morgan said sighing after the last cut. Ordinarily, Morgan would pace over to the hook and hang the leather up, but for some reason, this time he didn't. Instead, Morgan Reed went to the nearest bale of hay and sat, laying the leather across his knees.
Thomas stood there a moment, his buttocks freshly throbbing then slowly got dressed, carefully pulling his denim garments over his sore buttock cheeks, not even having bothered to look at them or feel them. His father seldom would do this, stop his whipping and sit and not hang the leather up. Thomas walked over and carefully sat his sore bottom by his father, right next to him, looked down at the leather, then up at his father's face. Morgan seemed lost in thought.
"I'm sorry Pa, I won't fish again when there's work to be done," Thomas said solemnly, thinking that Morgan was still angry or upset with him for fishing during work time.
Thomas awoke from his reverie and put his arm around his son, "No, I know that Thomas. You don't have to apologize, I understand. You took your whipping well as usual, your wrong deed is cleansed. It's just … well, you're as old now as I was, in the Spring … " Morgan said, one hand smoothing over the warmed leather strap, the other gently rubbing Thomas' upper back.
"You thinking of grandpa again?" Thomas asked gently, knowing the subject was a tender one for his father and not minding that his father was touching him as he was.
Morgan nodded, "Yes, " Morgan simply replied, his eye staring blankly down at the strap.
How could he not, Henry Reed, a Sergeant in the Massachusetts 14th Regiment, Army of the Potomac, now deceased, four years previous.
The look in his father's eye was always mournful still, even all these years later when he thought about his step-father who, in Morgan and Thomas' eye, was a real _ Civil War hero … _
April 1, 1865, a small farm near Concord, Virginia, only a few miles from Appomattox, Virginia …
"Sergeant Reed, take some men and comb these farms for Confederate scum and take them as prisoners!"
Henry Reed saluted the horse-mounted Major Oliver, "Yes Sir Major," and the battle-worn, physically and emotionally spent veteran mustered a dozen men and set off.
The regiment was billeted near the small Virginian town of Concord, fairly safely out of the reach of General Lee's remaining Confederate troops. The feeling all around was that the awful four year conflict was finally in its last stages, only a few days likely remaining.
Rumors held that General Lee might try and join up with a straggling force of Confederate fighters from North Carolina for a last stand, but likely that would not materialize as General Sherman had mustered up far more infantry to outflank and cut General Lee off than the proud Southern gentleman and officer could have anticipated. Still, the conflict had not officially ended and though many Confederate soldiers were surrendering, deathly tired of the war, some might still lurk for last moment revenge.
An hour into their search, the group of thirteen happened upon a group of small farms, mostly abandoned. Sergeant Reed sent his men in two groups of four and he headed up the third group and they came upon a farm that looked deserted.
"You men search the house and the barn, I'll check that shed over there, keep sharp!" and Henry Reed carefully made his way to the shed, his side arm drawn. It was late morning. He looked at the shed, it looked harmless, but then he heard something that sounded like a muffled sneeze and crouched down. Later, he would never be able to figure out why he decided not to alert any of his men to help, but he didn't.
Carefully, Henry opened the door. It was dark inside. He rushed inside, closing the door, crouched down. He swiveled around and saw the whites of two eyes and a side arm pointed at his head, but the pistol was shaking with a bad tremor. Henry immediately recognized that it was the hand of a young teenage boy holding the pistol; it was somewhat oversized for the hand.
"Just give me the pistol boy, you're outnumbered. I can call for my men and they'll be there in two seconds, just give it to me, nice and slow,"
"Please don't hurt me!" the boy said in a soft Southern accent, his voice tremulous, the pistol lowering and coming forward. Henry did not panic, but took the pistol and saw a young man, filthy, barefoot, undernourished and wearing the tattered and stringy remnants of what used to be a proud Confederate uniform.
"What's your name soldier?" Henry asked, his heart starting to come up into his throat, afraid of what he was about to discover.
"Morgan, Morgan Tillstrom, Georgia 50th Volunteers from around Fulton. I … I deserted from my company, three days ago. Sherman was killing us all. I got afraid and ran and found this abandoned farm. If they find me, they'll hang me."
"How old are you boy?" Henry asked.
"Fourteen Sir," Morgan said, his voice dry and hallow, obviously hungry and thirsty.
"Fourteen?! That's outrageous!" Henry hissed in the darkness, "Where's your family Tillstrom ?"
"Ain't got any. Brothers all dead. Mother and father, dead. Two uncles and aunts died in Atlanta. I'm … alone … " and tears started to course down the young man's face.
Henry had been squatting, now he holstered his side arm and sat fully down, feeling a bit overwhelmed and emotionally stunned. Had the war been worth all this bloodshed and horror? All he could think of at the moment were of his own two sons, Zachary and Paul, killed in action about a year before on May 15, 1864 on the first day of the Battle Of New Market in the Shenandoah Valley.
That was still intolerable to his memory, he missed them painfully so; but to fill out the pain even more, his beloved wife of over twenty years, Maggie, had died of typhus fever six months after. How much pain could a man take in his life, and now this boy?!
"Where would you go if I let you go free?" Henry asked with a raspy voice, a lump in his throat.
"I don't know! I don't rightly know! I'm an orphan!" the boy said, sniffing back snot and tears.
"You and me both!" Henry said with more bitterness in his soul than he had ever known, then it came to him,
"Is there food in the house?" Henry asked.
"I, I think so, I'm just afraid of moving from this shed to find out," Morgan replied.
"You stay here. I'll get my men and leave and if you stay, I'll come back for you, keep you safe so you're not a prisoner. You kill any Union soldiers?"
Morgan then took a calculated risk. If he told Henry the truth, the kind Union officer might be obligated to turn him in as a prisoner and he might be imprisoned or worse.
"No, I can't shoot for shit," Morgan said.
The way the boy had answered, somehow led Henry to believe otherwise, but he was in no mood to be rough on a boy who should not be fighting in any war on either side.
"OK, you keep out of sight, try to find that food after we leave. This could take up to a week. I think the war is about over and your General Lee is about to see the sense in surrender, OK?"
Morgan nodded, "Yes Sir, I'll stay and wait for you."
Henry left the shed just as three of his men approached, one of which said, "Thought you feel asleep in there Sergeant, anything in there?"
"Nope, just a bunch of useless rusted out tools, you men find anything in the house?"
"No Sir," the man answered which worried Henry, but there was nothing more he could do. Likely, the boy would not stay on the property long enough for him to return and that would be that. Still, letting the boy free gave Henry a feeling that he had done some good in all the tragedy around him.
The war waged on eight more days until the unofficial final Civil War conflict , the Battle of Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, after which General Robert E. Lee surrendered his troops to the Union commander, General Ulysses S. Grant.
The ceremony was held in the town of Appomattox in the home of Wilmer McLean and judged to not only be civil, but grand in the honor and dignity exchanged between all gathered, Union and Confederate …
Shortly after the ceremony, Sergeant Henry Reed mounted a horse with supplies, and telling nobody where he was headed, went back to that farm just outside of Concord, Virginia, about seven miles from Appomattox where he had left young Morgan Tillstrom. Henry honestly did not think the boy would still be there, but he was!
There had been no real food and the boy was on starvation's doorstep, but Henry had arrived in time and after a few hours of feeding Morgan, had the boy mount up and rode back to Appomattox, but not back to his outfit.
Instead, he rode to an outlying farm a bit away from the town of Appomattox proper to a war widower there by the name of Emily Conroy and asked her to hide the boy and nurse him back to health while he sorted out the details of keeping the boy safe from any judicial or military proceedings.
Luck or Providence would have that Sergeant Henry Reed would gain an audience with General Grant himself and gain permission from General Grant to take young Morgan into his own care and fatherhood, adopted and out from the category of Confederate soldier.
"I'd have you as my adopted son Morgan, that is if you want it too, "Henry would ask the boy later.
Well, it was quite unnecessary to ask, it was what Morgan wanted as well of the man who saved him from a slow death in a war that that done nothing but rob him of his entire family in Georgia. Not only that, deprived of his first wife, Henry asked Emily Conroy for her hand in marriage and the three of them started a new life, three orphans if you will, right there just outside of Appomattox, Virginia.
* * * * * * * * * *
War is an awful thing. It demands too much of humans but then again, human kind is resilient and especially so, women folk. Emily was strong and took little time to integrate her new men folk into her life and emotions. Morgan and Henry were having problems, however. They were tip-toeing about each other's "tender men-folk feelings" as she would say to Henry, which only made him very defensive.
Naturally, Morgan missed his family, his mother, but especially his father. Henry missed his wife, but especially so his precious lost sons. But it was more than that and Emily could only have to wait until boy and man worked things out.
Morgan was calling Henry "Pa" or "father" but he was just saying it, mouthing the words that seemed not to have any meaning in them at all and Henry was doing the same, calling Morgan his "son," but it felt empty. It felt like the war would never really be over for them.
Ironically, it would have to be young Morgan who finally had to say what seemed to be on both of their minds since meeting in the small shed at the end of the war. They were working in back of the small barn, chopping and stacking wood for the fuel they would need in winter time. Morgan stopped working and Henry looked at him, something was different.
Morgan looked at Henry, "I lied. I killed a Yank, six months before you found me. I was afraid to tell you about it. Afraid you'd have to turn me in."
Emotion rushed up into Henry's throat and his heart instantly filled out for the boy. He swallowed hard, "It was war. You were taught to kill, ain't nothing more to say about it," and then started to chop wood again, feeling so glad that his new son had lied about the killing.
Morgan just stared at Henry, his heart also changing and filling out for his new father, "Still, it's wrong to lie. I could have got you in serious trouble and none of this would have happened."
Henry stopped chopping, "Can't argue with fate boy, now keep on working," but suddenly Morgan found his voice, the one from his heart that is,
"Still wrong to lie to your father. If I'd lied to mine back in Georgia, he'd taken the strap to me."
Henry sighed and stopped working again. He had strapped his boys, his sons in their time, "That a fact?!"
"He'd a made me strip in the barn, used that ol' leather of his and tan my hide. He didn't take to lying."
Henry had done the same with his sons. Henry swung his axe into a thick piece of wood just to keep it safe and stood there a moment, hands on hips, regarding Morgan, then spoke,
"I suppose I ought to be proper then and tell you to get to the barn and strip off. Lying is a sin, no matter what it's about sometimes."
"I suppose," Morgan replied.
"Then get to it. We've a lot of work left to do." And Morgan just nodded and walked inside the barn. Henry walked in behind him and fetched a piece of old leather tack that was not being used for horses and inspecting several, found a good piece for strapping, though it needed oiling.
Morgan stripped off naked as he used to for his natural father and spying a saw horse like the one his natural father used to use, set it in a space large enough to get the job done. Then, without being asked, he bent over the horse and put his naked buttocks far up for Henry, his new father.
Satisfied with the leather, Henry stepped over to Morgan's side and regarded the brave ex-Confederate soldier; only now, in Henry's eyes, Morgan was no longer Confederate, nor a soldier, he was a son, his son, a Reed as well.
Morgan had always hated his whippings and he hated this one as well, but just the same, each stinging and searing cut of that old leather brought him closer to the fact that maybe life could be normal now; boys getting into mischief, then getting troubled by their fathers. Maybe now the war could be over for both of them.
Morgan took his licks without saying a word. Henry approved of Morgan's effort, greatly. Morgan approved of Henry's just as much. When it was all done and the work as well that day, they walked towards their farm house, side by side, thirsty and hungry for their efforts that day.
Emily had pretty much heard what went on in the barn that day. A tear coursed down her face as she now watched a father walking towards her, his son by his side. She knew things would be fine now, they were a family.
* * * * * * * * * *
"Time to go back to work now, I suppose," Thomas said hopping off the bale of hay that was irritating his sore bottom anyways.
Morgan sighed, "I suppose," and got up from sitting and went over and hung the strapping leather back up on its hook. Thomas watched him do it, then looked at his father,
"Mind if I take to keeping that leather oiled from now on Pa?" Thomas asked.
Morgan's face showed the slightest smile and nodded, "No, I don't mind," then they walked out of the barn together.
Morgan stopped and looked back inside the barn door, then at Thomas, "Come on Thomas, son, follow me. Work will always be there, pretty much forever."
Velma looked out of the small kitchen window and huffed to herself, "Men! They have nearly no sense about them!" and then just sighed and watched as father and son walked off towards the Smokey Hill River to waste time fishing.
© Copyright PJ Franklin July 12, 2009
Your comments are appreciated. pjfranklinboy2@earthlink.net
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Main Story PageLast updated: July 12, 2009