Falling for the Enemy

The Enemy is Here

                                                                                      Henry        

            In my mind I repeat what happened again and again; I can still see their faces as we come upon them. Terror and fear spread across their faces. They are just as surprised as we are.  We didn’t mean to stumble upon a group of confederate soldiers that had been separated from their division, it was a complete accident.   The other three men and I were simply out on a scouting mission.  Our General, who sent us, was sure that the area around Goldsboro had been cleared of any Rebel soldiers after we had won the battle for the bridge two days ago, but the four of us soon discovered we were wrong.  I remember it in flashes.  We were outnumbered; four of us and at least 10 of them.  

    The man next to me quickly raises his rifle, aims, and fires.  There are gunshots and screams all around me and then I feel the pain in my left leg.  Hurriedly I find a tree to seek shelter behind, ripping a piece of cloth from my sash; I quickly tie it around my leg without thinking; knowing that I must stop the bleeding.  There is so much blood.  I then pull out my rifle and begin shooting, I am aiming for anything that is the color gray.  When it grows silent, I find that I am alone.  The other men from my division are gone or dead and I am alone.  I am too far from base camp to make it back, but I vaguely remember the lieutenant speaking of a plantation home that is being used as a hospital that is less than a mile away.  

    When I arrive at the home it is empty of any signs of United soldiers.  If this home was being used as a hospital it no longer is.  I can hear talking as I move towards the door.  Swiftly and quietly I stumble towards the barn and that is where I have remained for the last three days.  I now know that the home is inhabited by three white individuals.  Two of which are young white females and one elderly disabled white male.  The older white male seems to be sick and is often coughing into a handkerchief and uses a cane to get around.  I have also noticed a family of slaves living with them.  One of the n*****s is a young boy and his mother seems to be around the age of 29.  The two older slaves tend to things inside the home with the smaller of the two white females.  The two individuals that I see the most are the taller white female with her dark brown hair braided down her back and the younger black female.  The two women come and go throughout the day without stopping.  Each morning the white female with the braid comes out and tends to the few animals that are in the barn below me.  She meticulously cleans out each animal’s stall, waters, and feeds them.  She then moves on milking the cow and collecting any eggs available from the chickens.  She then grabs her rifle and walks out into the forest each and every day and does not return until evening.  She does this each day like clockwork. On my third night in the barn, the girl with the braid returned from the woods covered in blood, looking the happiest I have seen her since I climbed into her family’s barn loft.  I thought for sure she had been involved in some type of murder or m******e by the amount of blood that was soaked into her clothes. 

I could hear her frantically talking to the black girl just outside the barn and soon they both went off into the dark woods together. I don’t know how long they were gone but when they returned they were dragging a bloodied carcass behind them.  They both looked like death had been to visit their door on more than one occasion during their walk back to the barn.   How the girls managed to drag the carcass back to the barn was a mystery to me.  Both of the girl's weights put together couldn’t equal that of the deer they were dragging behind them.  Slowly the girls dragged the carcass into the barn below me and that was when the real show began.  Neither girl knew how to gut the deer that the white girl had killed.  I watched them through the cracks in the floorboards silently laughing to myself as they butcher the poor animal.  By the time they were finished skinning the animal, they had wasted at least 10 pounds of meat. But neither girl seemed to care or realize their mistake.  Each of them was covered from head to toe with deer blood but the joy in both of their faces hid that fact. It was around that time that I realized that the girls must be the sole providers for this tiny strange family.  

    Looking around I saw plots of land that were used for farming but in the cold December winter nothing was growing and even if it weren’t the dead of winter I doubt either girl would have much skill with planting and farming.  Hell, I was surprised that either of the females even knew how to use a rifle.  After the girls leave the barn, I close my eyelids and begin thinking about home.  I joined this war to keep the country of Rotta intact but as I heard more stories about the freed slaves it became more than just keeping the nation together.  It was inhumane for people to treat other humans like possessions.   Drifting off to sleep I know this may be my last night alive and without ammo, I am a sitting duck.   I know I am getting weaker, but I am unsure of what to do.  I am a united soldier in the heart of the south.  I am stuck in the barn of a Rebel family and they will surely shoot me on sight and I am alone, with this thought I give into my heavy eyelids.

            I can feel a sharp pain in my side, which is unusual because all my pain starts in my leg where I was shot.  Rolling over to protect my side, blinking I open my eyelids to find what is causing me so much pain.  She is here.  The girl with the braid is standing in front of me holding a pitchfork and prodding me in the side with it.  Groaning I grab a hold of the pitchfork and shove it away.  

“You know that hurts when you do that” I mumble trying to sit up.  

“Stay where you are or I will kill you... you… you…  United filth.”  Slowly moving to a sitting position I place my hands in the air.  

“I am unarmed and injured.  You clearly have the upper hand here” I say smirking slightly at the girl.  

She is not amused.  Obviously, my tactics that worked on northern girls do not have the same effect on the southern belles of South Rotta.  The girl again pokes me with the pitchfork.  

“Would you please stop doing that?  I am not going to hurt you.  I am alone and unarmed.  I was shot and needed shelter and medical attention.  I only came here because I thought your plantation was being used as a union hospital.”  With the mention of the hospital, the girl’s face twists with disgust.  

“Yes, your United friends were here and they destroyed my home and took everything that we had.” 

This girl genuinely hates me and not just because of the war but because my comrades have raided and destroyed her home.  I definitely picked the wrong barn to bunk in. Trying to stand up I stumble back into the barn wall.  

“Don’t move” she screams at me.  

“I was just leaving. Just let me pass by and I will be on my way.”  

She is thinking about it, I can see it in her eyes.  She doesn’t want to kill an unarmed man but she is angry and she’s a woman, so I know how unstable they can be.  Again I place my hands in the air letting go of the wall.  I slowly limp towards the ladder to climb out of the loft.  As I move the girl steps to the side to allow me to pass.  Looking in her eyes I slowly begin climbing down the ladder.  I maintain eye contact with her so she knows that I am not planning anything.  Suddenly there is a sharp intense pain that shoots through my wounded leg, which causes me to lose my balance and I find myself falling from the ladder. My whole body aches, as I lay on the cold barn floor.  Standing above me in the loft is the girl with the braided hair staring at me with a hint of amusement in her eyes.