The Nightingales Over The Orchards

I: The Texan’s Wife

The low, howling wind across the American plains, indistinguishable from the lonesome cry of the stray coyote, carries the scent of iron and blood rippling through the seas of tall grains. The storm clouds overhead, rolling and crashing thunderously into each other, fill the darkening plains skies with cracks of jagged purple lightning. Major Robert Stone sits on his speckled and scarred, half-blind horse and watches the storm roll east. He takes in the scent of the iron, a nearby battle has just ended and nothing fuels Stone more than the smell of death. He has much ground to travel if he is ever going to catch his bounty and heads off into the brewing, storm-filled night. The year is 1863. Look around you. You are here.

Robert Stone, called ‘Dogface’ behind his back by his personal cavalry (although they would have to have a death wish for themselves to tell him to his face), is the most feared Confederate in the American South. A founding member and eventual leader of the 2nd C.S. Grand Calvary Fighting Regiment, Stone had moved through the ranks with a fury against the North unmatched by his comrades, craving the rush he would get from trampling the heads of the enemy like a field of melons. Nothing was capable of standing in Stone’s way as he tracked down Union men, scared, scrambling from their ranks and the battlefield to press a shiny Remington against their temples. The deaths by the hands of Major Stone added up, eventually catching the attention of General Lee himself. Soon, Stone had found himself an invaluable asset to the Confederate cause; A bounty hunter, sent out on his own to bring swift and savory justice to any traitor of the South. One of his cavalry men had made a fool of him, running off naked into the night, carrying with him nothing but a Colt pistol and a prized bottle of mezcal gifted to Stone by General Lee. Stone, enraged, would have it seen that this traitor is brought to light.

Jack Reynolds didn’t think of himself as a traitor, but everyone in the world seemed so caught up in loyalties and attachments to countries. It made him sick to his core. This isn’t to say Jack didn’t believe in anything, of course; he hated bigots and judgmental men, oaths and violence, and most of all he hated the idea that anybody in this goddamned world was allowed to tell him what he could and couldn’t do. All of which he found during his time serving in the Confederate army. Not by personal choice, mind you. Jack was drafted into the war in November of 1862, and it was in May of 1863 that he found himself running off into the night with that bottle of mezcal in hand, loud long-range rifle shots firing wildly and blindly behind him. He hated every goddamn minute he spent in the calvary, and made sure Stone knew it, shooting listlessly and high over the heads of the Union men that were claimed to be his enemy. The only solace found anywhere near was in the comfort of the bottle, and Reynolds wasn’t alone in this. Jack had a miraculously low number of deaths on his hand, only truly killing one man during his time in the war by accident when his artillery saber fell out of its holster and pierced squarely through a fellow Confederate’s head. Stone would have discharged and shot Jack right then and there had it been that the South was in desperate need of men who could ride on horseback drunk, of which Jack was simply one of the best at. Jack spent the next few months traveling by train, no real destination in mind, sustaining himself through an unbelievable streak of luck in poker, but it seemed that everywhere he traveled, he couldn’t escape the war. A Texan in a bowler hat recounts the morning’s paper to his wife in the seat to Jack’s front.

“I read in the journal that Robert Stone is on the move again. Some reports of ‘im traveling north of the Mason-Dixon.”

“Gosh, that’s awful. I’d be scared half to death if I saw that ghastly skeletal horse running through our crops.”

“Tell you what, I’d be scared shitless if I was that lousy traitor ‘Mezcal’ Jack. God knows he’s going to be in for it when Stone finds ‘im.”

“That poor, poor boy.”

“What are ya’ taking the traitor’s side for?”

“I’m not. I simply just can’t bear all this death anymore.”

Jack leaves the train car. He knows what will happen if Stone finds him. He’ll find himself with that shiny Remington placed against his temple. He always knew it wouldn’t be long before his former Major would come after him, but where could he go? All over the country, war was going on. Men and women everywhere talked of their family members in the infantry and how many dead, whether Grant or Lee had the better facial hair and if there would be enough boys still on the farms to take in the fall harvests. Children made up cheerful songs about illnesses and ran throughout train cars shooting at each other with sticks and explosive mouth sounds. A loud whistle rings out through the cars signaling that the train has reached its stop. Jack exits the train, steals the first horse he can find and rides west, the only belongings to his name his C.S.-issued Colt and that same damned bottle of Mezcal, just to rub it in Stone’s face if he ever saw that son of a bitch again.

II. Lieutenant Colonel Stampton

It was just beginning to be nighttime when the outlaw found himself at the barrel end of someone else's gun. Bang! His horse flings itself downward with a piercing shrill whinny and Jack rolls forward onto the ground, finding himself surrounded by muskets, all with the same desire to fulfill their mass-produced purpose. A bulky man with a long scraggly beard, dressed in blue bearing a colonel’s insignia steps forward from the musket pack, stamping his dirtied but clearly professionally ranking boots down in the mud. He looks down at Jack and his face assumes that of a shadow.

“What business do you have in these woods?”

“I promise you. I’m not your enemy.”

“All anybody does these days is talk about having enemies.”

“Trust me, I have plenty of those myself. Everybody wants to put a gun in my face.”

The Colonel turns back to his men and relieves them. They begrudgingly place their muskets against their shoulder blades and march back to camp in soured moods.

“What’s your name?”

“Reynolds. Jack, sir.”

“Rank?”

“None.”

“A man your age with no rank? We’re in a war, for Christ’s sake.”

“I didn’t declare no war.”

Jack picks himself up from the mud.The Colonel introduces himself— Lieutenant Colonel Stampton of the 45th Union Infantry, son of the disgraced ex-MSG Stampton and very, very distant relative to Alexander the Great, a fact which Stampton tells everyone he meets and is never challenged on, although people rarely take his word for it. Stampton was one of the first men to join the North’s efforts as soon as war was declared, knowing he wouldn’t himself have to engage in combat if he were to move through the ranks early on. This strategy worked wonders for him, for he now found himself in the position of Lieutenant Colonel and in very good favor with General Grant, who had promoted him to Regiment Supervisor last camp visit. Stampton offers Reynolds a smoke, which Jack accepts, pulls a half-drunk bottle of imported Cuban rum out of his inner jacket pocket and promptly takes a pull while the two march back to Stampton’s encampment.

As they two walk through the muddied camp, Jack cannot help but stare at the sheer number of wounded men all around, bandaged and bruised every which way. All standing around like blind mice in a field, unsure of where they could possibly run to or what they should be running from. The sky opens up and begins drizzling as if to add insult to injury.

“It’s a shame. They look like a lot of fine young men.”

“They still are. All they really need is a good shooting arm. If they lose their right, they’ll learn to use their left. Losing the legs is another matter altogether, though. Take PFC Abernathy over there,” Stampton ushers his bottle in the direction of a soldier with a loose pant leg. “Abernathy lost his leg last week, shot and left to die fallen over in a river, had to be amputated cause we found ‘im too late. Fortunately, the rot hadn’t gone past his knee, so Doc saved what he could. Now, we’ve got him training on horseback, Private’s got just enough nub to ride.”

“You couldn’t have sent him home?”

“Not as long as he’s still a fine young man.”

“What about that poor guy?” Jack nods in the direction of a man with bloodied cloth covering his groin.

“That one there? That’s Dickless Joe.”

“Hell of a name for a guy. Why’s he called that?”

“He doesn’t got a dick. Blown clean into the wind last stand-off ‘gainst those goddamned greys.”

“Damn shame.”

“Yeah, but he sure as hell doesn’t get the itch like we all do. Been almost eight months out here without some, I’m losing it. We all are, ‘cept for Ol’ Dickless.”

“War really is hell, isn’t it.”

“Not for everyone. See that kid over there? The young one with the freckles and the bright red hair. Name’s Wattigan. Kid’s a mess, barely a Corporal and young too, pushing seventeen. Lied about his age thinking he’d find glory and girls. Corporal can’t even pull out a rifle without breaking into tears. Ha! I pulled him out of the ranks. All he wants to do is play baseball and drink like the rest of the guys so I let ‘im. Ain’t no harm in one of us having some fun ‘round here.”

Stampton takes another swig from his bottle as they trudge further along in the rain past the med tent. Uniformed men sit in a long, disease-ridden line through the mud. It seems as if the ground is swallowing them up as if to pull them down directly to the underworld.

“What’s going on? These men don’t look wounded.”

“Unit’s got the typhoid real bad. Some of them have got the fever, others got it coming out of both ends. It’s awful, abysmal really. Doc’s got it, too but he’s the only doc I got so he’s gotta keep working. I know this all looks bad, but trust me. The South’s got it worse. Looks like God is finally on our side for once.”

“And yet, your men have still got the typhoid.”

“Yes, but not as bad. That’s how we know God’s on our side.”

Stampton leads Jack back to his tent and offers Jack a drink. Jack accepts and takes a glass of deep red whiskey into his wet palms. Stampton leans back in his chair and nurses his glass of rye. Jack takes a sip and examines the harsh sting of his throat. Not the biggest fan of rye himself, but anything is better than the shitty swill ethanol that he drank on the other side of the front. The Colonel begins.

“Let me tell you, Reynolds. Things may be lookin’ bad ‘round here but trust me. Things are a helluva lot better up here than they are down south. Ol’ Davis barely has the pocketbook savings to send his guys more than stale shortbread and the raw grain for mixing in their homemade swills. This here? Some of the finest rye north of the Mason-Dixon. Grant’s got me in good favor since I’ve lost less men than any other regiment in the past months. Truthfully, that isn’t the truth, but nobody said anything about me having to actually report the men dead. I figure going to war is a death sentence in and of itself, families have got to assume their boys are dead ‘til the possibility they come stumbling home in some far-off future where the war is over, and the nightingales over the orchards sing blissfully again and aren’t scared off by the thunderous rap-tap tapping of gatling guns past the hills. I’ll make it out of this war alive, I swear to you. Hell, Lincoln might have to make up some new ranks for me if the war goes on long enough!”

“I’ll never be free if this war goes on long enough.”

“Who said anything about being free?”

“I did.”

“Only place freedom exists is out west.”

“Any tracks nearby?”

“There’s a train over in Fort Henry. It’s a bit behind Confederate lines but it’ll take you as far west as the tracks go.”

Jack leaves in the morning after falling asleep on the floor of Stampton’s tent, only waking up occasionally to the drunken ramblings of the lucid Colonel. Getting to the train station in Fort Henry had been a piece of cake and Jack slips into peaceful slumber on the train as the great American plains roll and blur from tobacco fields into the frantic gallop of roadrunners hustling past the cigar fogged window of a buffalo pelt lined car. He dreams of Stone tied up to the tracks of the oncoming locomotive, helplessly screaming and drowned out by the chug- chugging engine of dramatic justice.

III. The Confederate, Robert Stone

Jack is woken by the whistle. He groggily turns to a tapered man walking the aisles with a pocket watch in hand.

“Why’ve we stopped? Where are we?”

“Braughton. As far west as these tracks go.”

Jack walks off the train into a small, wooden settlement cast against the red rock of the Mojave. He looks around, confident he’s outran his nemesis and settles down into a tavern next to the tracks, buys himself a room for the night and finds a table to rest and celebrate his escape from the war. He places his bottle of mezcal on the table, asks the barkeep for a glass and pours himself a celebratory drink of Lee’s gift.

Clink! Another glass lands on the table, attached to a hand, attached to a horrid dog faced man in full grey attire.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t mind if I had a glass myself. After all, it is mine.”

Reynolds doesn’t answer, as if Stone cared anyway, as he pours himself a glass of mezcal and clinks the rim of his glass against Jack’s sitting on the table.

“You found me.”

“Wasn’t hard.” Stone takes a sip.

“What happens now?”

“I don’t think I need to tell you what happens now.”

Stone places a torn paper on the table in front of Jack. Across the top reads “ORDER TO ASSASSINATE: JACK REYNOLDS” and signed by what appears to be a clone stamp of Jefferson Davis’s John Hancock. Jack takes a sip of mezcal himself.

“Well, would you look at that? Signed and notarized and everything. This has gotta be the most official killing this whole damned war effort.”

“Don’t make a mockery of me, traitor.”

“How about we make things more interesting, Dogface?”

“How so?”

Jack places his pistol on the table and pulls a deck of cards out of his jacket pocket. Stone cracks a cocky, yellow-toothed grin at Jack underneath a taut cross-hatched stache.

“One game. You know what happens to the loser.”

“We’ll need a third.”

Stone looks creepily around the depressing bar and points out an Englishman in a three-piece suit. He looks largely out of place in such a rough and beat town.

“You there! The sonuvabitch in the suit!”

“Why, me?” The suited man turns around, beaming his bright yet skewed teeth behind his large dark beard. The man gladly accepts the invitation to play cards with a couple of real-life soldiers. His name is Charles Denning, on vacation from the alternate lands over the Atlantic to see the war effort. Charles loves the tourism of the Civil war and has enjoyed himself considerably over his now three-month long tour of the American South, setting up picnic blankets and having his afternoon tea during battles and traveling by train alongside the calvaries, all for the naive hope of catching the violent action of the front. There is no logical reasoning for Charles to be as far west as he currently is, sipping on a glass of unopened gin the barkeep had pulled up from the way back of a dusty cellar.

The three men sit down and throw coins into the pot. Reynolds sets his revolver on the table. Jack and Stone stare dead into each other’s unwavering eyes. Charles is beyond happy to be included and stares attentively at their revolvers, stunned by the fact that he is sitting between a real live outlaw and soldier. His drinking buddies back home will never believe him!

Charles deals, much to Stone’s dismay, as to not have any foul play in the shuffle. Jack holds his hand of cards against his holster, refusing to let Stone have any impression of what his hand might entail. Stone returns his stare. Jack sits to the dealer’s left and bets first.

“You know, you don’t know hardly who I am. All you know is that I was forced to sign some papers and ran off because I didn’t want to fight for your cause. You know I stole a bottle of fucking mezcal from you. The walls of this place are lined with all the mezcal you could ever drink! Now I deserve to die? The hell is that about? Ten.” Clink.

“Loyalty. That’s what it’s about, you goddamned bastard. You signed your papers. You broke every oath you signed your name to. You betrayed your country. That’s why you deserve to die, scoundrel. Match.” Clink.

“I do say, this is most entertaining! What fun! You fellas must have all sorts of wild stories. Daring adventures, vengeance against wicked aristocrats, beautiful women, the works! Match and raise five!” Clink.

Stone and Jack pay Charles no attention. His naivety won’t save him for much longer.

“Why does anybody have to die? What’s the difference between two men dead and thousands? The war could’ve been over after one battle, had everybody not been so stubborn. War isn’t finished over dead men, war is ended over the signing of papers by old men far away and the intentional forgetting of the human cost. Match, raise five again.” Clink.

“You call me stubborn? You refuse to play by the rules of your country, who’s the real stubborn one here? Freedom doesn’t exist, and war only exists to further prove that point. Whatever the hell you are chasing after is a whimsical fantasy of the opium pipe. You are a traitor, and you offer no purpose to us. That is why you deserve to die.” Clink.

“Guys, I’m not going to lie, I think this might be getting a bit too intense... Call.” Clink. Jack looks into Stone’s eyes. He can see deep into that torturous, malicious intent lingering behind his cruel stare and coolly snaps his cards face up onto the table.

“Full house.”

Stone flings his mismatched cards against the walls and grabs for his revolver. Jack flings

his arms upwards and throws the table forward, the two firearms flying through the air and sliding throughout the bar. Coins clatter indiscriminately every which way and the bottle of mezcal flies past Stone’s ears, smashing into a million luminescent glass shards and sending the agave alcohol running down the wall. Jack makes a run for it. Stone throws the table off of his torso and chases after him, catching himself from his pained crouch and pushing forward after his prize. Charles sits awe-struck, watching the men run out of the tavern, and shifting his attention toward a shiny new Remington keepsake, left perfectly just for him on the ground of the tavern.

Jack runs off into the desert, Stone not far behind.

“You fuckin’ bastard! Get back here!”

Jack turns his head back, a mistake. He trips on a rattlesnake and hurtles forward. He has barely hit the ground when Stone’s stiff fist pummels directly into his neck. They struggle, beating and fighting, blood and teeth staining the ground for future archaeologists to gaze in wonder at the power struggle that must’ve happened here long ago between two great warriors. Jack’s adrenaline pumps through every inch of his sore body. He will not die here, not to Robert Stone. BANG!

Stone stiffens in an instant and collapses on Jack, his eyes pale as milk. Stunned, Jack still flings his fists forward not realizing the Major has been relieved. He stops and pants, looks around, and sees a frightened Charles, standing pale and statue still and holding Stone’s revolver forward. A small plume of smoke drifts up from the barrel.

“I- I- I- Fuck, I... What have I done? I’m not a murderer!”

Charles drops the revolver and runs off, all the way back home to England. He never tells his drinking buddies about all the fun battles he saw and the times he cheered as calvaries trampled the heads of young men. All he offers is a defeated “War is hell.” when anyone asks.

Jack shoves the corpse of Robert Stone off of himself and stands up, brushing the dust and pebbles of the desert sand off his clothes. He is freed, freed from his oaths, freed from his country, freed from the war. Jack Reynolds walks back into Braughton a freed man. The tavern is emptied when he returns, yet he still cleans the mess and places Stone’s bets on the bar to settle up. He doesn’t spend the night, instead stealing a speckled and scarred horse at nightfall and riding off into the blue Mojave. All that can be heard is the distant howl of the coyote wandering the brush looking for a late-night snack and the dry crinkle of a cigarette being smoked from the rough jaw of the West’s newest lone ranger, The Freed Man, ‘Mezcal’ Jack Reynolds.

End.