The Rock of Chickamauga: A Story of the Western Crisis, Joseph A. Altsheler [free children's ebooks online .txt] 📗

Dick, after eating the cold food which was served to him, sank into a state which was neither sleep nor stupor. It was a mystic region between the conscious and the unconscious, in which all things were out of proportion, and some abnormal.

He saw before him a vast stretch of dead blackness which he knew nevertheless was peopled by armed hosts ready to spring upon them at dawn. The darkness and silence were more oppressive than sound and light, even made by foes, would have been. It numbed him to think there was so little of stirring life, where nearly two hundred thousand men had fought.

Then a voice arose that made him shiver. But it was only the cold wind from the mountains whistling a dirge. Nevertheless it seemed human to Dick. It was at once a lament and a rebuke. He edged over a little and touched Warner.

“Is that you, Dick?” asked the Vermonter.

“What's left of me. I've one or two wounds, mere scratches, George, but I feel all pumped out. I'm like one of those empty wine-skins that you read about, empty, all dried up, and ready to be thrown away.”

“Something of the same feeling myself, Dick. I'm empty and dried up, too, but I'm not ready to be thrown away. Nor are you. We'll fill up in the night. Our hearts will pump all our veins full of blood again, and we'll be ready to go out in the morning, and try once more to get killed.”

“I don't see how you and Pennington and I, all three of us, came out of it alive to-day.”

“That question is bothering me, too, Dick. A million bullets were fired at each of us, not to count thousands of pieces of shell, shrapnel, canister, grape, and slashes of swords. Take any ratio of percentage you please and something should have got us. According to every rule of algebra, not more than one of us three should be alive now. Yet here we are.”

“Maybe your algebra is wrong?”

“Impossible. Algebra is the most exact of all sciences. It does not admit of error. Both by algebra and by the immutable law of averages at least two of us are dead.”

“But we don't know which two.”

“That's true. Nevertheless it's certain that those two, whoever they may be, are here on borrowed time. What do your wounds amount to, Dick?”

“Nothing, I had forgotten 'em. I've lost a little blood, but what does it amount to on a day like this, when blood is shed in rivers?”

“That's true. My own skin has been broken, but just barely, four times by bullets. I've a notion that those bullets were coming straight for some vital part of me, but seeing who it was, and knowing that such a noble character ought not to be slain, they turned aside as quickly as possible, but not so quickly that they could avoid grazing my skin.”

Dick and Pennington laughed. Warner's fooling amused them and relieved the painful tension of their minds.

“But, George,” said Pennington, “suppose one of the bullets failed to turn aside and killed you. What could we say then for you?”

“That it was a silly, ignorant bullet not knowing whence it came, or where it was going. Ah, there's light in the darkness! Look across the hill and see that shining flame!”

Dick rose and then the three walked to the brow of the hill, where Colonel Winchester stood, using his glasses as well as he could in the dusk.

“It's the pine forest on fire in places,” he said. “The shells did it, and it's been burning for some time, spreading until it has now come into our own sight.”

But they were detached fires, and they did not fuse into a general mass at any time. Clumps of trees burnt steadily like vast torches and sent up high flames. Bands of men from either side worked silently, removing as many of the wounded as they could. It was a spontaneous movement, as happened so often in this war, and Dick and his comrades took a part in it.

North and South met in friendliness in the darkness or by the light of the burning pines, and talked freely as they lifted up their wounded. Dick asked often about Colonel Kenton, meeting at last some Kentuckians, who told him that the colonel had gone through the day without a wound, and was with Buckner. Then Dick asked if any Mississippians were along the line.

“What do you want with 'em?” asked a long, lank man with a bilious yellow face.

“I've got a friend among 'em. Woodville is his name, and he's about my own age.”

“I've heard of the Woodvilles. Big an' rich family in Missip. 'Roun' Vicksburg and Jackson mostly. I'm from the Yazoo valley myself, an' if I hear of the young fellow I'll send him down this way. But I can't stay out long, 'cause it'll soon be time for me to have my chill. Comes every other night reg'lar. But I'll be all right for battle to-morrow, when we lick you Yankees out of the other boot, having licked you out of one to-day.”

“All right, old Yazoo,” laughed Dick. “Go on and have your chill, but if you see Woodville tell him Mason is waiting down here by the wood.”

“I'll shorely do it, if the chill don't git me fust,” said the yellow Mississippian as he strolled away, and Dick knew that he would keep his word.

The lad lingered at the spot where he had met the man, hoping that by some lucky chance Woodville might come, and fortune gave him his wish. A slender figure emerged from the dark, and a voice called softly: