Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel
Read Marching As to War: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel Online
Authors: Justin Watson
Marching As to War
Justin Watson
Text copyright ©2013
Justin Watson
All Rights Reserved
The girl walked out of the darkness into the light of our
fire. Wet and cold after a long patrol in the rain, we sat close to the flames.
None of us said much.
Too much effort to talk.
That
was when we saw the girl.
It took a moment to realize she was not a man. She didn’t
dress as our mountain girls did in those days, with unshorn hair and a long
skirt. Instead, her hair was chopped short, and she wore a man’s hat, coat,
shirt, and britches. She also carried a rifle. It lay cradled in the crook of
her left arm like a sleeping child.
We all rose to our feet. I don’t know why. Perhaps even then
we sensed a power in her. She said nothing. An old man came up and stood behind
her, just visible in the light of the fire. He asked for the commanding
officer. No one answered. Finally, I pointed up the hill and said, “Captain’s
up yonder.”
The man thanked me and began to walk that way. He moved
slowly with a bad limp. But the girl stood and looked at me. The fire reflected
in her eyes. She nodded to me and then moved into the dark, toward the
Captain’s tent.
That is how I met the girl. I didn’t know anything had
changed even though everything had. I only felt uneasy.
I’m telling this story because I’m the only one who can. I’m
the only one left. Many of our people think they know all about her and the war
against the Government. But they weren’t there at the beginning. I was. And
they weren’t there at the end. I was.
You may not like, or even believe, what I have to say. So be
it. All I ask is you hear me out before you decide.
The next morning I had the dream, the bad one. Like always,
I came awake and sat bolt upright, breathing hard, full of anger, fear, and
shame.
The dream was of the first man I ever killed. It was on a
real foggy day. My squad stumbled across some raiders--just ran into them where
two trails crossed. One of them jumped on me before I could get my rifle up. He
and I rolled around wrestling, gouging, and biting, each trying to get a knee
in the other’s balls. I remember he had sharp blue eyes, a neatly trimmed
graying mustache, and a missing tooth in front.
It went on and on until I reached some place beyond rage and
got my hands around his throat. I beat his head against a rock. I didn’t stop
when he went limp.
Did not stop until his head cracked.
I would always wake from the dream at the crack. The dream
was bad, but the real thing had been worse. I lay with my face in the dirt,
coughing and gasping for air. My heart was beating so hard I was afraid
something might tear loose. It took me a long time to stop shaking. Then I had
to go through his pockets for anything useful--food, a knife, bullets--but they
were empty. I pulled off his boots but gave them away.
Too
big.
So all I got from him was the dream. Awake, I never thought of him,
but the blue-eyed man came almost every time I slept.
I got up and got busy with chores--airing my bedroll,
relieving myself, gathering some wood, getting some tea and bread. After that,
I felt better, but I had time on my hands, nothing to do until our patrol went
out late in the afternoon. So I sat at the fire with the rest of my squad.
Stokes was cleaning his rifle. Harris was sewing a patch on
his coat. We called him “the boy,” because he had only been in the militia a
few weeks. Riley was still asleep, snoring softly. Weber had gone to his
sister’s wedding more than a week before. We expected him back soon, but it
would be no surprise if he stayed up home. Sad to say, lots of us were doing
that--deserting--in those days.
I got out a pencil stub and some paper I found in an
abandoned house. The paper was yellow with age, but I was glad to have it.
Since the Plague, of course, anything for writing had become rare. I planned to
write a letter. In those days, we would send a letter along with a traveler,
who would carry it as far as he might and then pass it along to someone going
closer. This worked better than you would expect so long as you weren’t in a
hurry.
The letter was to Maggie. She and I were to be married next
spring when my time in the militia was over. Maggie had been my older brother’s
wife, but when he had taken sick and died last year, a duty to marry her had
passed to me. The Bible says in the twenty-fifth chapter of Deuteronomy,
If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and
have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger:
her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him and to wife,
and perform the duty of
an
husband’s brother unto her.
Now I didn’t expect I would find a better wife than Maggie,
not living where we did. Maggie was a good Christian--but not preachy or
Jesusy, like a lot of girls. She was strong enough to bear many children and
could even read and write.
A rare thing among mountain girls.
Everyone thought she was pretty. But I didn’t know what she thought of me. She
and my older brother had chosen one another. Now she was supposed to marry me.
So it was hard to know what to say to her.
I had managed to put down “Dear Maggie,” when Weber came
walking up carrying his rifle and bedroll, a big grin on his face. He had come
back after all.
“You boys miss me?” he said
“Hell no,” Stokes said. “We
was
enjoying the peace and quiet.”
“Glad to hear it,” Weber said, dropping his things and
sitting by the fire.
“How was the wedding?” I said.
Weber grinned and started telling us what a fine time he had
had. He told us about all the eating, dancing, and whiskey drinking he had
done. Weber tended to stretch the truth a little, but I still enjoyed hearing
it.
When Weber was done, Harris said, “Did you hear anything . .
. you know . . . news?”
In those days, the only news you got was what a traveler
heard from other travelers.
Weber’s grin went away. “Yeah, I heard something. A feller
at the wedding, name of
Baines,
told me a story. My
Uncle Earl found him, sick and near starved, took him in. Baines said he was from
up in the Shenandoah. The Government’s
army come
to
his town last year. And yeah, they had machine guns and the trucks like we
heard about.”
“Damn,” Stokes said. “How many soldiers
was
there?”
Weber shrugged. “Baines didn’t say, but there was enough so
that nobody tried fighting. The soldiers just rode in one day and took over. He
said the head officer got everybody together and made a speech about how they
was
part of the Restored United States of America now. The
soldiers put up the old flag, and the officer said everybody had to swear an
oath to obey the Government. But one man refused.”
“Why?” Harris said.
“Don’t know,” Weber said. “Anyway, some soldiers grabbed
him, beat him up some, and dragged him over to the officer. And when the man
still refused to swear, the officer took out a pistol and shot him in the
head.”
We all were silent until Harris said, “You’re shitting me.”
Weber shook his head. “Baines said after that everybody
swore and was damn quick about it. Then the soldiers started going in the
houses and taking any guns--”
“Took their guns?” Harris said. “How they expect people to
put meat on the table? Protect
themselves
?”
“Reckon they didn’t much care,” Weber said. “Anyway, Baines
said the soldiers also closed down the churches, said they had to apply for a
license from the Government. When some folks commenced having church at home,
the soldiers took them off in trucks. And they--
“And they never came back?” I said.
Weber nodded. “Baines heard a rumor the soldiers were going
to put all the young men in the Army. So he decided to sneak away and go to
some kin he had down here. Couldn’t use the roads
cause
he didn’t have no government pass. Had to go cross-country and he got lost,
real bad lost. That’s when Uncle Earl found him.”
“How you know this Baines was telling the truth?” Harris
said.
“Don’t know. Not for a fact,” Weber said. “But he sure
looked scared talking about it. I didn’t take him for
no
liar.”
“I don’t know,” Stokes said. “People tell stories. Take a
little thing and make it big.”
“I believe it,” I said. “What the soldiers did only makes
sense.”
“Sense?”
Stokes said. “Sounds just
plain crazy mean to me.”
“No,” I said. “It makes sense because it’s crazy mean. They
want to keep people scared. Keep them from fighting back.” I could have told
them things I read in old history books about what some governments used to do.
But the boys always thought I was just showing off with book talk. They got my
meaning. No need to say more.
“Yeah,” Harris said, “but my Grandpa told me the old Government
couldn’t do things like that. And it’s the same government, the United
States, ain’t it?”
“No,” I said.
“Just men with guns telling
other folks what to do.
They call it Restored United States, so we’ll
think it’s the same. The old flag is just a bright rag now. Don’t mean a thing,
boys.”
“Here’s what I want to know,” Stokes said. “What’s Winslow’s
boy gonna do about all this?”
In those days, “Winslow’s boy,” or “Little Charlie,” was
what we called Charles Winslow. When Reverend David Winslow died, the Council
of Elders elected his son, Charles, as our leader.
Pretty much everything we had--everything good anyway--was
David Winslow’s doing. We thought about him like the Israelites must have
thought of Moses. With that big beard of his, he even looked like one of the
prophets in the old Bibles that had pictures.
At the time of the Plague, David Winslow was a preacher. But
when he was young, he had been in the old Government’s army. So he knew about
fighting and he had organized our militia with ranks and discipline. But most
important, he showed us how to live godly in an ungodly world. We followed the
Commandments God laid down for His people in the Bible. Without God’s law,
Winslow always said, the law of darkness in men’s hearts would destroy the world.
And folks believed him because they had seen the Plague and what came after.
They had seen that darkness with their own eyes. It was as real to them as the
earth beneath their feet.
When I first joined the militia, David Winslow was still
alive, and I heard him preach. Winslow’s preaching wasn’t windy like the
sermons I had heard up home. He said things straight and plain, just the way
Jesus did in the Bible. Not a wasted word. He would look out at us with those
hard dark eyes of his and dare us to believe as much as he did. Then he would
say a prayer, pick up his rifle, and go out on patrol with us.
But the son was not the father. From what we had heard,
Charles Winslow stayed at the headquarters, what we called Central Camp, and
was always having meetings. He never went out on patrol and always slept in a
bed. It seemed he just left us to drift. And we drifted. I had seen the change
in our men. More deserted or shirked their duty.
More whiskey
drinking.
More sneaking away to go with whores in the
towns.
“What do you expect Little Charlie to do?” Harris said. “Get
us new rifles? Machine guns and trucks like the damn government soldiers? He
can’t.”
“I know that,” Stokes said.
“Then what can he do?” Harris said.
Stokes shrugged. “I just want him to tell us the truth. We
hear these stories about the Government and all, but we don’t hear a goddamn
thing from him.”
“Yeah,” Weber said, “Charles Winslow’s acting like he can’t
smell the shit in the outhouse.”
After that, we all got quiet. Maybe there was some way to
stop the Government, even with their machine guns and trucks. Yet we wouldn’t
even try unless someone would lead us, someone who could make us believe again.
I was tired of being afraid. I just wished David Winslow were still alive.
We all sat staring at fire until Weber said, “So what’s been
happening around here?”
I thought of the strange girl who had come into camp. But
something in me didn’t want to talk about her.
“Well,” Harris said, “there was that girl.”
“A girl?
What girl?” Weber fancied
himself a man of romantic charm. So talk of a girl in camp got his interest.
“Don’t know,” Stokes said, “Last night, she just walked up
to our fire. An old man with her asked for the Captain.”
Weber grinned. “
What’s she look
like? Pretty?”
Harris and Stokes started laughing. I didn’t.
“What’s so damn funny?” Weber said.
“Yeah, she was real pretty.” Harris said. Then he and Stokes
laughed some more.
Weber scowled, getting angry. Stokes saw this and said,
“She’s dressed like a man.”
Weber leaned forward. “Like a man?”
“Yep, in britches and boots like any of us,” Harris said.
“And her hair was all chopped off,” Stokes said.
“Had a rifle too,” Harris said.
“How come?”
Weber said. “What’s she
doing here?”
Stokes let out a little snort of laughter and said, “Maybe
she’s come to join the militia.”
We all busted out laughing.
Even me.
In those days, we couldn’t imagine a girl doing anything other than keeping
house and raising children. Of course, I knew from old books that before the
Plague women had done all sorts of men’s work--even soldiering. Some folks said
this was part of the wickedness of that time because it was against God’s law.
Some folks said this, but I didn’t know what to believe. I just knew there had
never been girls in our militia, and it seemed foolish to think that would ever
change.
After we had stopped laughing, Weber rolled out his bedroll
and stretched out, hoping for a little sleep. The rest of us drifted back to
what we had been doing before. I picked up my letter and read the words, “Dear
Maggie.” I was chewing on my pencil stub, trying to think of something to
write, when someone tapped me on the shoulder.
I looked up and saw Price, our squad leader. “Captain wants
you,” he said.
“Me?” I said. The other men looked at us, curious. When the
Captain asked for a man, it usually meant trouble. But I hadn’t done anything.
Nothing I could think of anyway.
“Yeah, you.”
“What for?”
He shrugged.
Price didn’t know or didn’t care to tell me. So I put away
the paper and pencil, got my rifle, and went up the hill.
The Captain was sitting outside his tent on an old stump,
holding a pipe, and looking out over the valley to the endless ridges of
mountains beyond. They were beautiful in the rising light of the day. It was
that time in the spring when I was still surprised how everything had turned so
green so quick. I could look at those mountain ridges until my eyes gave out,
but I would never see it all. The Captain looked tired, like he had been up for
days. It took a moment for him to notice me.
“Sir,” I said, “you wanted me?”
He puffed on his pipe a little before answering. “You’re
gonna take our guest to Central Camp.” He nodded toward the tent, where I could
see the girl and the old man studying a map. The Captain handed me a piece of
paper, my written orders to present at the camp, and then a sealed letter. He
told me to give the letter to the officer on duty when I arrived. I put them in
my coat.