Et tu Brute?
Tuesday - 4:30 PM
Rivington, North Carolina
Partly Cloudy
His uniform was ragged and dirty. He'd spent the recent months in the earthworks of North Carolina, outside of Bealeton. He was discharged from the Army of Northern Carolina hours ago. His rifle was still on his shoulder, and his pay in gold was in his pocket. Children from a nearby house ran down the dirt road.
They stopped and their mouths gaped. One ran up to the dirty soldier and tugged on his ragged uniform. "Hey mister, who's side you on?" The soldier looked down and smiled. "I ain't on no side. Now, scatter." The child frowned and ran off. The soldier's gaze returned upright. The train was late, of course he knew that.
Confederate rails were in horrible condition, it would be faster to walk to Rocky Mount. "Ya'll come back now, ya'here!" The old man behind the ticket booth crackled with laughter, slapping his knee and showing his three front teeth. "Yeehaw, soul'ja boy!" the ragged soldier walked off the the train-station and stepped off into the knee-high grass.
Wednesday - 8:30 AM
Marigold Plantation, North Carolina
Sunny
He was sweating when he reached the plantation. A black work-gang was the first to spot him, they called out to him and he wiped the dirty sweat off his brow. His tattered uniform swayed in the breeze as he walked up the steps of the large white mansion. A black servant greeted him at the door. "Hello sah, you look like you could use a good washin'. Let me tell mister Callburn you've up 'n arrived." The dirty soldier tipped his ragged cap and waited on the stoop.
The screen-door opened again, this time an older white Coastian answered. Mister Callburn. I have a message for you." the old man's rugged features softened, "From who?" The soldier smiled, he began to laugh. "Death." at point blank range, the pistol shattered skin, bones and organs. The old man clutched his gut and gurgled something inaudible. He toppled over onto the porch and spat blood. "G-God s-save you."
/|/|
Saturday - 2:00 AM
Chloride, Arizona
Partly Cloudy - Full Moon
The Stagecoach skidded to a halt in the moonlit city. The neighs from the horses voiced their protest in the sudden tightening of the reins. The Negro driver swatted the horses backsides and spoke in a heavily Louisiana accent. The old soldier swung out of the cab and started walking. "Wait here." He heard the Negro call out to him, but ignored it as he turned a corner and found himself on Main Street.
How pitiful. The so called "boom-town" of Chloride, Arizona was far from anything the soldier had seen in the West. He clicked his tongue between his teeth and spat into the dirty road beneath his old army issue boots. Damn near a miracle they were still intact. He shook his head at the total disregard for any sort of cleanliness and order in general. Drunks lay all about the sides of the roads, legs sprawled out, head hanging low and a dark glass bottle clutched in their hands or nearby. Prostitutes too. Cheap to expensive they sang to the men walking back and forth like sirens. Luring them was easy, and taking their money, even easier.
On the far end was a run-down single floor brick building with a low-hanging sign that said in worn white letters: SHERIFF'S OFFICE. He found it unlikely any officer of the law inhabited the ramshackle building. He pulled off his brown colored felt forage cap and brushed back his greasy dirty-blond hair. He replaced his cap and straightened out his ragged smorgasbord of butternut uniform and black cloth scraps. His old soldier eyes picked out a Saloon nearby what looked like a doctor's office. He found it utterly revolting. It reminded him of Bealeton, of the horrors of the field aid station, the piles of arms and legs just under the window. His head hurt. A piercing pain shot through his cranium. He took a knee and removed a small bottle from an inner pocket. He popped a white pill out and threw it down his throat.
He stood back up, dusted his knee off and replaced the bottle, no one noticed him kneeling in the street, assuming him as a drunk who just might of had his fair share of fire water. With his head now clear of pain he adjusted his forage cap and stepped onto the rotting wood deck of the Saloon. Thunderous music, whistles and applause emanated from inside the large two story wooden building. The soldier peered through a broken window and recoiled in shock.
Prostitutes danced topless -Some even completely nude!- On a stage surrounded by a metal bar, most likely electrocuted to keep them safe from rowdy customers. Behind the bar the bartender cleaned shot glasses one-by-one laughing at the roars caused by the beautiful ladies dancing, flaunting their body without even a single thought. They were sinners, everyone. Every single person in this jubilant atmosphere has disgraced Him and all His glory. The soldier was instructed to remove them, for it was God's will.
The mirror in the back of the bar would easily announce to the bartender any hostile actions showing on the soldier's body. He went in quietly and with a blank face. He took an empty seat at the far end of the bar, near the cash register. The large gold and silver machine was certainly a marvel on the frontier. He wondered absent-minded how much money was inside. He must have said it aloud, the bartender answered with a cough and the mostly hidden barrel of a double-barreled shotgun.
"Need some'in, pard'ner? Or'in you here for a hell of a show?" His faced shifted into a frown at the mention of hell. The soldier leaned forward, closer to the bartender. "You speak as if you have no respect for Almighty God," He stuck a finger into the bartender's chest and the man began to shake his head. "You allow these women to flaunt what God gave them, when they should be serving a husband from the kitchen of a respectable household."
The Bartender slammed a hand onto the bar table. "See here, Mister, ya'll come 'ere, my establishment," -- the bartender showed how little education he had received in his life almost immediately. -- "Deesgracin' my girls, you 'bout lost your mind boy. Now buy a drink or git out." by now a few patrons had turned their attention to the confrontation near the bar. None came close enough to hear much, to drunk or to stupid to care much. "Tonight I will pray to Almighty God that when you reach His Gates to Heaven, they remain locked." The soldier stepped off the bar-stool and made his way towards the doors.
The bartender was still shaking his head when the soldier did a crisp about-turn holding two revolvers in his callous covered hands. The dancers on stage shrieked in horror and crowded together while their watcher reached for their own pieces. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
The revolvers kicked upwards with every well aimed shot that left its cold, steel barrel. A nude dancer on stand was stuck through the breast, it went straight through her slim body. With a blood curdling shriek she fell off the ruined stage and square onto the electrified bars made to protect her. The last moments of her life sapped out of her and into the nauseating smell of burned flesh. One-by-one a patron fell, even the fastest gun didn't have time to aim, return fire hit helplessly overhead of the soldier near the door. Three bullets, center mass crashed into the ribs of the man, the shot glass he held shattered across the blood-stained floor.
More screams and gurgles erupted from all around the bar. Click. Click. Click. the revolvers were spent. Every bullet had hit whatever mark it was pointed towards. A graze from a ricochet had ripped a hole in his left sleeve. He crossed himself and prayed for several moments. He slipped out of the saloon as a crowd pooled into the entrance of the building. Shouting and crying whirled in a motley crew of emotions.
Bodies lay sprawled in obscure and horrible positions, naked women lay across the stage, their once beautiful bodies now blown into a red pulp. The smell of burning flesh began to fill the saloon further, the dead woman hanging over it black from burns and bloody. The Negro on the stagecoach had stayed where he was supposed to and beckoned the soldier into the cab with urgency. "Marse Soul'ja, you see what happ'n in town?" A smirk crossed the veteran's cold face as he slid into the cab. "Yes."