January Dawn (8 page)

Without losing a beat, Gammon came from around his desk and stood in front of a visibly trembling Mr. Stephens, practically standing on his toes, forcing him to take a step backwards into an equally aggravated Drill Sergeant Elroy. “It’s spineless creatures like you who make this world the way it is. I’m going to make you regret ever coming to my office. For the rest of your days you’ll lament everything you did to this boy. Drill Sergeant Elroy, get this garbage out of my face.”

Elroy manhandled Mr. Stephens out the door and into the arms of a pair of military police officers before he could make any sort of protest.

When the door slammed shut, I realized I had been unintentionally holding my breath. The weight was too much. I fought the urge to cry as I drew in a couple deep breaths to calm myself. I thought I had left that life behind for good. Mr. Stephens had found me. Worst of all, he admitted to killing Mr. Jeffries. And now General Gammon and Sergeant Elroy know that I was once a slave.

“Jesus! How did you live with that repulsive creature?” Gammon asked, still in his ranting voice, but upon seeing how visibly shaken I was from the encounter, he motioned to the chair and gingerly bid me to sit down.

I steadied my shakes and tried to regain my composure, feeling a bit ashamed of my show of weakness. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“If there’s anyone that should be apologizing it should be me. I’m sorry I put you through that.” There was a bit of solace in the fact that I did enjoy Gammon outright humiliating Mr. Stephens. “You don’t have to worry about that man every again. I’ll place him in the deepest, darkest hole I can find. His very existence will be forgotten.”

“Thank you, sir. I…” I sniffled. “Permission to leave, sir?” I couldn’t look Gammon in the eye. Gammon looked back at me with a muddled expression of pity, intrigue, amazement, and concern.

“Granted,” he said after a long pause.

I sprang to my feet, exited the office and quick stepped down the hall behind Drill Sergeant Elroy. As we got to the exit I said, “Please don’t tell anyone about my past Drill Sergeant.”

Elroy looked back at me with the same pitiful stupefaction that Gammon did moments earlier. He acknowledged me with a quick nod, before we exited the building to rejoin the platoon.

I was in such a state of disbelief the rest of the day, I refused to talk to anyone, including Alex. It was a mental battle that had to be fought by me and me alone. I tortured myself with the belief that I had let my guard down.

I didn’t keep my head down, my mouth shut and my ears open. Mr. Jeffries told me to trust nobody, but here I am getting too close with other recruits.
I lost Mr. Jeffries because of my thoughtless actions. If I keep being friends with Alex and the others, I’ll eventually put them in harm’s way too. That isn’t fair to them. They don’t deserve that.

This burden, this curse of loneliness I seemed destined to possess would not claim any more lives under my watch. I vowed to not let that happen, even if that meant staying away from my friends.

Alex didn’t take kindly to the fact that I was secluding myself and not talking to anybody. Granted, I never really talked much to begin with, but Alex knew me better than most and when I was battling something in my head, he knew it without asking. It was his sixth sense. I could safely say, I thoroughly angered him that evening with my cold shoulder.

“Talk to me, Colton,” he said to me as I lay in bed. “What the hell happened in Gammon’s office?” I closed my eyes. “Dammit, Colton, talk to me. This isn’t you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“I do.”
You don’t.

Alex went to bed that evening flustered. I felt his eyes staring up at me from the bottom bunk. A tinge of guilt poked at my brain.
I wish I could find a way to tell him
.

For hours I lay awake thinking about the words to tell him what was going on in my head. That just led to more frustration as my lack of education and poor vocabulary had me feeling like my voice was being held back with heavy chains.

The same thoughts kept running through my head.

I shouldn’t have thrown that brick. I should have let Mr. Stephens burn in that house. Why didn’t I force Mr. Jeffries to come with me? Why did he have to stay? Why…why…why…why? Gammon said, what you do defines who you are. I’m a first class coward. Mr. Jeffries would still be alive if I just had the guts to let that son of a bitch burn. I allowed myself to get all caught up in this snobbish military life. This wasn’t me. I’m not supposed to be here. Shut up, Colton. This was the only choice you had. Yeah, well, are you going to let your new friends die because of your inability to do what is necessary?

Somewhat naïvely, a part of me still clung to the smallest hope that I’d somehow see Mr. Jeffries again. I told myself he was out there, starting his new life, and that maybe, just maybe, we could reunite after this war was over with.

That day was a soul crushing punch right into the center of my chest. Mr. Jeffries had stood in for me as my father when I needed him the most. I wanted to return that favor and become the man he knew I could be.

May your spirit rest in peace.

Finally, after a long day of heavy mental anxiety and physical exhaustion my body began to shut down and my eye lids slowly, but heavily closed shut.

Since that emotional day in Gammon’s office, I had kept true to my word when I told myself to stay away from Alex and others. Alex and I talked, but not like we did before. Our conversations only extended as far as a “good morning” or a simple “hey.”

The day after the incident in Gammon’s office, I was lying in bed when Alex stood up and calmly told me, “When you’re ready to talk, I’m right here.” From then on he let me be and kept his distance. It ate me up inside knowing that I was hurting my friends with my silence, but in the end, I always convinced myself it was for their own good.

Beauregard and Hayes treated my icy silence with their usual comedic bantering, but they too, none the less, didn’t approve of the way I was keeping them at arm’s length. Carrigan hardly noticed my change of demeanor. She was still reeling from her encounter with Teague. She was quieter now, and skittish. It took a lot of guts for her to go to sleep every night knowing her attacker was living in the very same room. We all kept one eye on her at all times. Not that we needed to. She stayed close to us anyway.

Teague was a constant presence and thorn in her side. The bastard should have been rotting in the stockade. Two days after the attack, a fight almost broke out in the barracks when Teague purposefully bumped into Carrigan as she was coming out of the showers. He winked and licked his lips at her half-naked body. Alex saw the whole thing and would have kicked Teague’s teeth in right then and there if Shannon and Beauregard hadn’t held him back. Alex was the platoon leader, he couldn’t be doing things like that.

It was a cool, sunny afternoon on base and Drill Sergeant Elroy had us out practicing hand-to-hand combat and personal defense tactics in the sand pits. I was excited to be learning something new. Elroy had me paired up with a kid named Jacobson, a nerdy, frail boy from Texas.

We had been on the field over three hours and Jacobson still struggled to perfect the exercises. Elroy caught me going easy on the kid and gave me a good verbal thrashing, telling me to go hard or not at all. I started throwing Jacobson down to the ground with all my might. I gave him as many pointers as I could to try and correct his form but the kid just wasn’t a fighter.

The next exercise we worked on was a process of disarming and immobilizing a gunman from the front. Jacobson stood in front of me holding a rubber pistol a few feet from my face. I quickly struck out for his wrist with my left hand and reached for the gun with my right as I took a step forward, rotated my hip into him and flipped him over my shoulder. Within three seconds, I had Jacobson laying on his back and his gun in my hands. Jacobson let out a painful grunt.

“I’m sorry,” I said, offering him a hand.

“It’s okay.”

The rest of the platoon was doing the same exercise. I looked down the line and could see recruits in different stages of being flipped through the air. Alex was down on the end opposite of me. He had just finished flipping a guy named Simms when Elroy approached him. They were too far away for me to hear what they were saying.

“Colton, you ready?” Jacobson asked.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead with a scratchy, sandy hand. “Yeah.”

Jacobson stood up straight, put his arms to his side and waited for me. I leveled the rubber pistol. Jacobson struck out with his hand, striking my wrist. The pistol went flying through the air. Jacobson didn’t rotate his hip toward me enough and struggled to fling my weight over his shoulder. He didn’t have enough leverage on me, so I fought back, wrapping my arms around him and bringing him to the ground in a headlock.

“Dammit. What am I doing wrong?” He asked.

“Grab my wrist, don’t hit it. Then make sure you move in close enough to pull me over your shoulder. It doesn’t matter that you’re smaller than me. Use my weight against me, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s try it again.”

I picked the pistol off the ground and looked over to see how Alex was doing. There were at least twenty or more guys huddled around his pit. It was impossible to see what was going on inside the circle.
It must be Elroy teaching a lesson. He does like to get his hands dirty every once and awhile. Anyway, get back to Jacobson.

“Alright, ready?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

I leveled the pistol and before I knew it the world turned upside down, the sky replaced the earth and I found myself in the dirt. Jacobson’s face blotted out the sun.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

“I’m fine.” He helped me to my feet. “Nicely done. I didn’t see that coming.”

A smile crept across Jacobson’s face as I patted him on the back.

“Let’s do it again,” I said.

The crowd that had been forming on the practice line grew even bigger as more and more of the platoon made their way over to watch. The drill instructors stood off to one side with blank expressions on their face and their arms crossed, occasionally exchanging a few words with each other.
Odd.
Elroy was among them. Something felt very wrong. I looked for Alex, but couldn’t see him anywhere in the crowd.

“What do you think is going on?” Jacobson asked.

“I don’t know.”

As I said that, a hole in the crowd opened up and two men entangled in each other’s arms came stumbling out of the circle. The duo crashed to the ground in a flurry of dust.

I recognized Teague immediately. He had an ugly sneer on his face as he sat on the other guy’s chest, pounding his face with his fists. The guy on the ground reached up, wrapped his arms around Teague’s neck, rolled over and ended up on top. It was Alex. And this was no practice skirmish. He had blood running down his face.

I took off at a dead sprint. Teague jabbed three left punches into Alex’s side, sending him reeling off in pain. Before he could wiggle away, Teague sprang to his feet and slammed his boot into Alex’s chest. He picked his leg up to stomp again, but his foot never came down. I speared Teague center mass, hooked my arm underneath his leg and carried him several yards before slamming him to the ground.

I didn’t want to fight Teague. I only wanted him off of Alex, nothing more. Thinking it all to be over, I left Teague dazed on the ground. Hayes and Beauregard had Alex sitting up. He clenched his chest and was grimacing in pain. The blood in his mouth dyed his teeth a pinkish white.

Hayes pointed at me and yelled something. I saw his mouth move, but I heard no words. The only thing I was conscious of was the gong-like thumping of my own heart. Finally, I understood, “look behind you.”

Teague hit me from behind. My neck jerked violently from the hit as I fell to the ground with him already on my back. He had his hand on the back of my head shoving my face in the dirt. The sand felt gritty in my teeth.

This was getting out of control and the drill instructors still were doing nothing about it. I didn’t understand why they were letting Teague loose like this.

He grabbed a tuft of my hair, turned my head and spoke into my ear.

“You little shit. I’ll destroy you. I’ll crush your skull right here in front of your little self-righteous boyfriend.”

From where he had me pinned, I could see Alex a few yards away and the drill instructors a few more beyond him. Elroy stood there with his arms crossed. He looked right into my eyes. Then I understood. He wasn’t letting Teague loose, he was giving
us
free reign to lash out
.

The rest of the platoon stood around us in a school yard circle, hooting and hollering and calling for blood. I could feel the rage inside of me begin to heat up and the blood in my veins pump faster. My temples throbbed violently as the thoughts in my head cleared and my focus narrowed to block out everything around me. Everything but Teague.

I thrust my elbow backwards, striking Teague in the chin. I planted my hands firmly on the ground, pushed up with all my strength and managed to get one leg underneath me, which gave me enough power to launch myself upward and backwards. We landed with a thud, my full weight landing squarely on top of his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. I heard the sickly sound of two of his ribs cracking.

Before he could recover, I rolled, placed myself on top of him and pounded my fist into his face. He put his arms up to defend himself, but I kept delivering blows relentlessly, blow after blow.

This is for being an asshole.

This is for what you did to Carrigan.

This is for hitting Alex.

This is for Mr. Jeffries’ death.

This is for Mr. Stephens.

This is for my parents who gave me up.

This is for eighteen years of slavery.

I stopped. My arm ached and I struggled to catch my breath. I looked down at my hand.
What did I do?
My knuckles were scraped and bloody and bruised.

Teague’s face was drenched in blood. He coughed and gurgled a blood bubble.
Who am I? This is not me. I’m not an animal.

Just when I thought Teague had had enough, he grabbed me by the shirt, brought his knee up into my backside and sent me rolling head over heels. I lurched to my feet and faced him, ready to continue fighting. That’s when I realized how silent everyone was. The entire platoon stood frozen, their mouths hanging open.

Teague got to his feet, blood dripping from his face and my shirt firmly clasped in his clenched fist.
My shirt!

What a sight I must have been, standing there with my scarred back visible for all to see, my hands covered in Teague’s blood, my chest heaving in and out with my panting breaths and the hard look of wrath in my eyes.

They all stood there, staring at me like I was some kind of monster or circus freak.
Maybe I am
.

This was exactly what I feared would happen. I was living my nightmare.

Teague spat out a clot of blood and took a step toward me. He wanted more. He wanted me dead. Before he could take any more steps, a few men broke from the crowd to restrain him. He tried pushing through them, but they were determined to hold him back, for his sake. Maybe they saw something in my eyes that told them that I wouldn’t stop, that no level of pain inflicted upon me would have made me stop fighting. They would have been right.

“I’ll murder you,” he said, finally walking off after heeding his friends’ advice. “If it’s the last thing I do, I will kill you.”

I stood there, panting, as the whole platoon gawked at me like a caged animal. Their muffled murmuring sounded to me as deadly as a snake’s hiss.

“Colton.” Alex stepped out from the crowd.

He stopped a few feet away from me, the look of utter confusion on his face. I could tell he didn’t know what to do or say. He stood frozen in shock like the rest.

There was nothing I could say to soften this humiliation, so I walked away, and the only way out of this embarrassing scene was through the crowd. I walked the walk that felt like a three-mile gauntlet. The stares and the judgment emanating from their faces berated me with every step I took. Endless. Agonizing. Mind numbing.

I was a slave.

Yeah…I WAS a slave.

Was.

Now I’m not.

And there’s nothing that can stand in my way.

*

That night Elroy had Alex and me on firewatch duty. It was our punishment for what happened on the practice field that day. He allowed us to administer a little social justice to Teague, but it came at a cost, and if firewatch was the only price we had to pay then I’d gladly do it over again. I didn’t mind, I never slept much at night anyway, not since I left the plantation.

Alex and I would split the night shift. I’d sleep first and then take over at 0130.

Elroy announced lights out and everyone hit the rack. I lay there with my hands folded on my chest. I couldn’t sleep. All their faces were stuck in my mind.

The way they looked at me. It was like they were scared of me. And Alex…he had the same look.

I got up out of bed, quietly, and shuffled across the ice cold floor to the front entrance of the barracks. Alex wasn’t there.
He must be outside
.

I stepped out the door and a beam of white light flashed my eyes.

“Geez-us. You scared me, Colton,” Alex said.

“Sorry.”

Alex checked his wristwatch. “What are you doing up? It’s not your watch yet.” He turned the flashlight off and resumed his patrol around the barracks. I followed alongside.

“I know. Couldn’t sleep.”

“You never do.”

“How are you feeling?” I asked, thinking about today’s episode.

“Alright. My chest hurts a little though,” he said, lifting up his shirt, exposing a boot-sized purplish bruise. “Could have been worse.”

We walked in silence for a while, silently enjoying each other’s company. It was a nice night, but a little chilly. The moon would occasionally peek through the fast moving evening clouds and cast its bluish gloom on the earth. I tucked my hands up underneath my armpits to keep warm. It didn’t help that I wasn’t wearing shoes. My feet prodded the cool moist soil.