Blue and Gray

Chapter One – Two Valleys

Written by: minoan

From the bright sunny South to the war I was sent,
e’er the days of my boyhood I scarcely had spent.
From its cool shady forests and deep flowing streams,
ever fond in my memory and sweet in my dreams.

~ Alison Krauss and Union Station – Bright Sunny South

January 27, 1852
Blue Ridge Mountains, Tennessee

The feral wolf smiled in the particular way wolves do. He sat next to an icy creek and patiently waited for the first rays of sunlight to crest the hillside, heat his fur and warm his bones.

There was only silence in the valley.

He remained motionless. Around him the stillness and quiet of winter at twilight matched his tranquility. A heavy snow from the night before blanketed the clearing on the valley floor where he rested. It seemed as though the world itself had stopped turning for a brief moment in that valley, time frozen along with the landscape.

The hunter and his son, barely ten years old, were hidden from the feral wolf’s gaze in a blind no more than a hundred yards away. They’d been there for hours, waiting in the cold before the first brilliant beams of light breached the gap between the eastern Tennessee hills, waiting for this precise moment, this golden chance to rid their land of the scourge that had killed no fewer than three of the pigs on their farm in the past month.

“Now, boy,” the hunter whispered to his son. “Now! Right goddamn now, son! Ain’t gon’ set for long!”

Behind the barrel of the Kentucky long rifle that emerged from the blind, Flynn, the hunter’s son, trembled. He peered down the v-notch sight of gun towards the wolf sitting idle in the valley below. Flynn could feel tears beginning to well in his icy blue eyes as the notch in the gun’s sight danced and shook unpredictably over his target.

“For fuck’s sake boy shoot him,” Flynn’s father said, now urgent and in a tone far above a whisper.

The feral wolf’s ears pivoted. Its head turned. It was not alarmed, merely curious.

It looked directly at the blind containing the hunter and his son, head cocked, discerning the source of the tiny noise it heard, until the tranquility of the valley was shattered in a single instant as a gunshot rang out.

“God damn it boy what the fuck was that?! Where the fuck did you even shoot?! It weren’t anywhere close!” Flynn’s father yelled as the crack of the gunshot bounced and echoed and reverberated around the still valley.

Flynn could only watch as the feral wolf bolted away down the valley and into the woods. Tears began to stream down his face in earnest. That wolf was the thief that was picking off their dwindling winter food supply, he knew. And now he’d do it again. Flynn would go to bed hungry again. 

He’d tried to understand what his father was making him do, teaching him about. Killing that wolf to be done – this was kill or be killed. As his father had told him so many times, that’s just how the world is. Flynn was almost convinced he’d be able to do it, but when the moment finally came he’d failed. Whether he missed intentionally or flinched or his hands were just too unsteady with emotion to begin with, he couldn’t say. All he knew was that he wasn’t cut out for killing. He couldn’t even kill the chickens on the farm where he lived alone with his father, how could he ever do this? It was all too painful.

Maybe it just wasn’t in his blood. Flynn was a blue deer, a distinct subspecies uniquely native to the southern Appalachian mountains. Smaller than other deer species and with a distinctive fur pattern that retained the spots of their adolescence into adulthood,  they were known throughout most of the early settlement of the continent as a reclusive folk. But as times got more modern and the east coast kept expanding west, they were now mostly just another species living in a common society. It was still somewhat unusual to see them too far afield from their native homeland in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Appalachia, but by no means unheard of.

Flynn finally broke his tearful gaze from the valley floor to look up at his father, a child desperate for some kind of encouragement, any words of redemption or support from his father to blunt the weight of his failure.

“Shouldn’t ah brought you for this, you ain’t ready for it,” the hunter said coldly to his son as he stood up from the blind and began walking away, receding footsteps crunching in the snow, never making eye contact.

“You might never be.”

Alone in the blind, hands still clenched tightly around the cold steel of a rifle taller than he was, Flynn cried, and cried, and cried. It was the only sound in the valley.

- -

June 12, 1855
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

“I heard it again.”

“I didn’t, I don’t hear nothing. I think you’re hearing things.”

“Shh! Listen!”

The young gray wolf perked his ears, straining for the faint noise he’d heard coming from the woods near the farmhouse he lived in. He’d only lived there with his uncle and kid cousin Lizzie for the past year; his father had died in an accident at the Pine Grove Iron Works the previous summer.  He only had fleeting memories of his mother, taken by consumption or the pox or some other devil disease when he was very young.

Seconds passed as the adolescent wolf and his cousin continued listening.

“You got bugs in your ears Calvin,” Lizzie finally said.

“Maybe. Or maybe I don’t. I heard screaming and maybe there’s someone back there in trouble needing help. Come on, let’s go find out.”

Without hesitation, Calvin began walking towards the treeline. His mind was set. And Lizzie knew too well that once Calvin set his mind there was no changing it.

“Pa said not to go off into the woods by myself. Pa said it’s dangerous,” Lizzie chided.

Calvin stopped his stride towards the treeline and turned back to Lizzie.

“Your Pa might be right about it being dangerous. But there might be someone in danger who needs our help, you think of that? Besides, you aren’t going into the woods by yourself. You’ve got me!”

Lizzie thought on these words as Calvin gave her a wry look, as if he were skeptical that an opinion counter to his own could even exist given the flawless logic he’d outlined. He did make some good points though. It was true that Pa told Lizzie never to go into the woods alone, but he never said anything about going into the woods with Calvin. And Calvin was just about the biggest, strongest 12 year old wolf Lizzie knew of or had ever seen. He was already almost as big as Pa, and he wasn’t near finished growing. That had to count for something.

Lizzie tilted her head sideways and swished her tail as she weighed her options. She looked up at her cousin who, apart from his size, resembled most of the other gray wolves in the region. His fur pattern was fairly ordinary as far as gray wolves went – darker gray on his back and shoulders fading into a lighter gray tone and then to white on his face and the front of his body. He did, however, possess a few differentiating characteristics.

The first thing someone was likely to notice about Calvin was the fur pattern on the top of his snout and on his wrists. In both locations Calvin’s light gray fur was marked with much darker streaks that resembled chevrons. To Lizzie they always looked like they kind of insignia used in the military to show someone’s rank. They seemed to match his personality, she thought – always pointing forward, never back.

A more prominent chevron fur pattern was present on Calvin’s back, though few ever saw it. On his upper back, two dark chevrons pointed downward to the small of his back. A larger one started at each shoulder and connected near the middle of his back with a smaller one above it, tucked into it like a flower in a vase. Below that the light gray, near white fur of his chest and stomach wrapped around his back, dipping downward under the larger dark arrow above it. At the very lower portion of his back there was another small dark chevron pointing downward, positioned just below the lighter band and right above the base of his tail. The entire pattern resembled a ship traveling down his back, creating a wake as it made its way down the center ridge.

“Well,” Lizzie finally said after mulling over the available information, “I guess that’s true. If we go together we won’t be going alone. But if we see a bear you better not leave me behind!”

“You’ll be safe Lizzie, I promise. I won’t let anything happen to you. Now come on, someone might be in trouble!”

No sooner had they cleared the treeline than Calvin heard the noise again, but this time it was loud enough for both of them to hear. It was a high pitched, faint but undeniable bleating that came in intervals. Any inhibitions Lizzie had about continuing were removed when she heard it herself – as far as Lizzie was concerned they were on a proper adventure now.

Over fallen logs and under draping boughs they continued deeper into the forest, following no path but the ones their canine hearing led them on to discover the source of the sound. Calvin’s ears told him the noise must be coming from just on the other side of a slight ridge they were climbing. Lizzie picked up a large stick, a makeshift weapon for whatever foe they were about to face; Calvin chuckled to himself at the pup’s tenacity. Then, as they crawled over the edge of the ridge, they finally saw it.

A fawn, only months old, was caught in a snare tied up to an old-growth hemlock. It continued bleating intermittently.

Folks in town who could afford meat never resorted to trapping, but for sharecroppers like Lizzie’s father, trapped rabbits, squirrels and other small creatures added “vittles” to a diet that would otherwise be sorely lacking in protein. Larger animals sometimes wandered into these traps, and while catching a baby deer was never the intent for a trapper such occasions were often seen as fortunate accidents, affording a succulent cut of venison to their supper for days. This was a fact of life both Calvin and Lizzie were all too aware of.

Lizzie clutched the stick firmly in her hand. Meant for the monster they might meet in the dark woods, she now considered using it on the fawn. She knew she was going to be in trouble once they got back home, once Pa found out they went into the woods. But bringing home dinner? Pa couldn’t be too mad about that. She readied herself, but looked over at Calvin for her cue.

In the year since her cousin Calvin had been living with her and Pa she’d begun to think of him as a real brother. She couldn’t articulate it, but in truth she held Calvin and his advice in high esteem. He always seemed to know just what to do when she was confused. 

“Put that stick down Lizzie, that fawn never did anything to you,” Calvin said, standing up and beginning to walk toward the fawn. She let the stick slip out of her hand and inwardly cursed herself for making the wrong choice.

The fawn suddenly became aware that it was not alone. Worse, it saw before it that fearsome but instinctively familiar visage, that mortal enemy of its kind in these Pennsylvania woods since time immemorial: the wolf.

Scrambling to its feet, the fawn flailed its hooves on the fallen leaves before finally gaining traction. But as it began to run the snare around its hind leg cruelly, violently yanked it back to the shallow dirt patch against the hemlock tree the snare was secured to. It let out another bleat as the snare snapped taut, this one filled with pain and panic.

“Shhh, it’s okay baby deer, I’m not going to hurt you,” Calvin said as he approached the terrified fawn, still frantically trying to escape.

“Shh, Shh, Shhhhh… it’s okay, it’s okay,”

Whether in terror or resignation, the fawn froze as the wolf loomed over it.

Calvin looked into the eyes of the creature as it looked into his. The look on the young deer’s face, the look of distilled fear at the certainty of impending death, was one that sent Calvin’s heart straight into his stomach.

The deer’s face changed as Calvin untied the snare around its hind leg. It’s face turned confused, then docile after he carried it back to the farmhouse he shared with Lizzie and her Pa. It turned oblivious as he argued with his uncle about keeping it in the goat pen to nurse it back to health.

Eventually it turned to adoration when Calvin dutifully – every day for nearly a year, through the winter and into the spring of 1856 – made time between his chores to feed it, care for it, and ensure that it was making progress. And when Calvin’s work was done and the fawn had grown into a young doe, to Calvin it seemed that its face turned to gratitude and understanding after he let it go. The deer looked back at him briefly after it was free, standing at the treeline near where Calvin and Lizzie first heard its cries, before it darted back into the Pennsylvania woods.

But that look. That one, that first look in its eyes, the one of powerlessness and doom and mortal dread in a situation spun out of all measure of control – that was the look Calvin never forgot.

- -

July 19, 1857
French Broad River, Tennessee

Flynn woke up before the first rays of sunlight shone into the Appalachian hollow he called home. From the moment he awoke a broad smile was on his face. Normally he’d have to get out of bed right away to give himself enough time to finish his morning chores before going to the single-room schoolhouse where he spent the best part of the day. But not today. Today was Sunday.

Like just about everyone else in the hollow, Flynn’s father was deeply religious. That meant that every Sunday morning, without fail, Flynn found himself sitting in a front-row pew at the church house listening to the preacher tell him and everyone in attendance the innumerable ways they were destined for eternal hellfire.

This was not the part of the day that had Flynn beaming. Two things were on the young blue deer’s mind as he stretched lazily and happily in his bed that morning, his antlers scraping the bed board and hooves extending past the edge of the quilt.

The first was that one of the countless things the preacher said was a mortal sin was working on the sabbath, and since his father was a god-fearing man that meant Flynn could spend his day however he liked after church. For him, that meant spending the day swimming in the river. As far as Flynn was concerned, letting a sunny summer day slip away while lazing and playing in the French Broad River was as close to paradise as he could imagine.

The second thing was the scenery during the swim.

By the summer of 1857 Flynn had grown into young teenager, and like all young teenagers he had begun to feel certain urges and feelings towards others his age. But ever since he became aware of these feelings, Flynn knew that whatever it was he felt couldn’t possibly be what everyone else seemed to feel.

It had been a few years prior, a Sunday like the one he was now slowly greeting, when he first heard the word come from the preacher’s mouth during one of his firebrand sermons. Homosexual was the word he’d used. He drew it out, adding extra syllables, making it out to be one of the gravest of sins on the list, one that could send you down to the lowest level of the Pit fast as lightning.

For a long time Flynn denied it to himself. He couldn’t possibly be one of those sinners, could he? But he couldn’t deny what he felt, no matter how much he wished he didn’t. Now he’d tell himself that these were just feelings; he’d never done anything with anyone. How could a feeling be a sin? Why would God create him with those feelings in his heart if it was? It didn’t make any sense, Flynn thought. The preacher had to have it wrong.

More than anything he tried not to think about it. He just knew that on Sundays, after being forced to sit quietly on a pew for a few hours, he got to go down to the river to swim with all the other young blue bucks in the valley. And as much as he liked swimming for swimming’s sake, the best part of Sunday was that swimming in the French Broad River was done, by custom, without clothing. Beautiful scenery, Flynn thought.

“I thought your daddy was gonna pop you on the noggin’ square between your eyes when you started falling asleep,” Edward said to Flynn with a smile as they were leaving the church, quietly so as not to draw any more ire from Flynn’s father, who was still within earshot. “Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here and down to the river!”

Edward started running down the path that led down to the river, and Flynn was all too happy to follow him.

Flynn and Edward were the same age, and they had been best friends since either of them could remember. Although they were both blue deer like just about everyone else in the hollow, Edward had always been bigger than Flynn. Bigger, stronger, faster – and Flynn thought more handsome, though some would disagree.

There were a few other differences Flynn could think of between them as well. They had a markedly different antler branch pattern, though that goes without saying, as every blue deer has their own personal unique antler pattern. Edwards fur was overall a few shades darker than Flynn’s, which wasn’t unusual since Flynn’s fur was lighter tone than most examples of his species. Edward had a pink nose, while Flynn’s nose was black, and Edward’s brown eyes contrasted with Flynn’s blue. And of course, Edward had significantly more spots on the fur pattern of his butt than Flynn did, fourteen in total. Fourteen! Flynn only had six, which was much more common.

Of course, the specificity of that last detail would only be available to someone who took an especially long and hard look at Edward when he wasn’t wearing any clothes. And whenever they were swimming, Flynn just couldn’t help himself.

Flynn finally made it to the end of the three mile-long game trail that connected the churchyard to the river, long after Edward and some of the other boys from the village had already arrived and were playing in the water. There would be other stragglers behind him, but Flynn just wasn’t the athlete that Edward or some of the other boys were.

He stopped next to a large oak next to the river shore to try to catch his breath for just a moment.

“Rawr!”

Edward knew Flynn’s Sunday routine and jumped out from behind tree he’d known Flynn would stop next to in a halfhearted attempt to startle him.

“Again, Edward? Really? Did you think that would work? Didn’t work two weeks ago when you did the exact same thing, and you thought...” Flynn mischievously said to the nude deer, dripping with river water, that stood before him.

He took a deep breath before he finished his sentence, partly to recover from the run he’d just finished and partly to give him a moment to give Edward’s body a once-over with his eyes without making it too obvious.

“… thought it would work today for what reason, exactly?”

“’Cause you get spooked easier than anyone I know!” was Edward’s reply.

Well, there’s a little truth in that, Flynn thought. But the exact same trick? Edward really must be dense. But god if he wasn’t cute.

“Still, the same thing you tried last time...”

“Okay, okay, it was lame. Forget it, let’s go swimming!” Edward interrupted. “Lose the clothes and jump in! Just like this! Yee-ha!”

Edward leaped straight from where he was standing next to the oak tree into the river, giving Flynn a good view of his fourteen spots as he splashed in. Flynn, still dressed in his Sunday clothes from church, started undressing so that he could join Edward and the rest of the blue deer swimming in the river. He and his father were dirt poor, but Flynn always tried to wear the best clothes he could and keep them as clean and well-maintained as possible, so he looked around for a place where set his clothes without getting them dirty.

He’d finished undressing and was about to set down his clothes, neat and folded, on a relatively clean spot he’d found on a granite boulder when he was suddenly grabbed from behind.

“Ahh!” Flynn yelped, dropping his clothes on the ground.

“Gotcha! Spooked you for real this time… too easy,” Edward spoke tauntingly into his ear, strong arms wrapped around Flynn’s own arms and torso, body pressed against Flynn’s back, cervine sheath brushing against Flynn’s tail and nearly touching his butt. Flynn immediately forgot about his clothes and made no effort to escape once his initial shock wore off. He’d rather have pressed back into the stronger, taller buck behind him if he was honest. But before he had any real opportunity to weigh this decision, he found himself being lifted into the air.

“Gyahh, put me down! Edward!”

He didn’t really mean it. He was enjoying this as much as Edward was. He feigned a struggle to escape from Edward’s grasp while he was carried towards the edge of the river.

“Nope! We’re going in, hold your breath!”

Edward trundled to the riverbank and unceremoniously tipped himself and his best friend over. Together they fell into the river with a loud splash. Edward let go of Flynn as soon as they were submerged and they both swam to the water’s surface.

“Some joke! I was going for a swim anyway, you know,” Flynn said, grinning ear to ear as they tread water.

“Yeah but it takes you forever, you ease in like an old man getting into a bath!” Edward retorted teasingly.

“I do not!”

Flynn splashed Edward, Edward splashed back, and soon the two were wrestling playfully. They’d spend the entire afternoon frolicking in the water, swinging into the river from the hemp rope one of the other boys had attached to a centuries-old oak, skipping stones, seeing who could hold their breath longest, racing from log to sand bank to shore until the sun began to disappear behind the Appalachian mountains crowding around them.

Later in life, Flynn would often think back on these perfect summer afternoons he spent with Edward in the French Broad River. For spans of years before and after, these were the happiest moments in his life, but he’d never appreciated it in the moment. Maybe that was for the best though; magical moments are such a fragile thing that realizing they are occurring in real time might be enough to destroy them. Or maybe they were never magic – a trick of his memory and the framing of later hardships that made Flynn remember them as more idyllic than they were.

Flynn and Edward floated on their backs in the middle of the river and drifted west with the setting sun. In a few minutes they would have to swim once more for the shore, but for this tranquil moment the world was perfect.

- -

December 24, 1859
Carlisle, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

Calvin took another sip from the bottle of applejack before passing it over to J.R., his new friend.

“You ever had this stuff before, J.R.?”

The young donkey looked at the bottle Calvin handed him. It was a strong cider made from freeze-distilling the apples that grew abundantly in Pennsylvania, a real regional specialty of a drink that was nearly as alcoholic as straight whiskey.

“No, I haven’t! I mean, I’ve had the communion wine in church before. Only a tiny little bit. But it wasn’t this strong. And it didn’t taste nearly this good!”

Calvin and J.R. were sitting on a chaise in the parlor of the rectory adjacent to the Lutheran church where J.R.’s father served as the pastor. Since Calvin had moved in with his Uncle and cousin they’d made the trek east to the county seat, the town of Carlisle, every Christmas to spend the holiday with their extended family. On Christmas Eve they always attended the party at their denomination’s church, the biggest one in the area. In later generations Christmas celebrations would be more solemn and parties of this kind at churches would be replaced with Christmas Eve worship services, but for the time-being it was not at all unusual for churches to host parties with food, music and alcohol.

The gray wolf and the roan donkey were both 16 years old, too old to play children’s games at the party but too young to be allowed to drink with the adults. So, in their youthful exuberance, they decided to swipe one of the bottles of applejack being served, steal away to someplace quiet and drink on their own.

J.R. took a deep gulp from the bottle.

“Whoa now,” Calvin said, smiling, “you’re gonna get yourself sloppy before they even finish the song!”

The band at the church next door had started playing Lorena, a new song about a lost love that had quickly become popular throughout the nation.

“Pfft, isn’t that the point?” J.R. replied with a wink, passing the bottle back to Calvin.

Calvin took a swig himself. Both he and J.R. started feeling the warm tingle afforded by the strong liquor as they listened to the lyrics of the muffled music from the party next door.

The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the ground again.
And the sun's low down in the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleams where the flowers have been.

“You ever had a sweetheart, Calvin?”

Calvin was startled by the question, though it wasn’t at all improper given the circumstances and the song they were listening to. It was because this was a thorny subject for him, one he didn’t like talking about with anyone.

“What? No I… No, I haven’t...”

Calvin considered how he could change the subject. No, he’d never had a sweetheart, but not because of a lack of interest from the girls in town. He just wasn’t interested in them and never had been. For a while he thought that was the extent of it, but as he grew older he became aware that not only was he not interested in the girls, but he was interested in the boys. And it scared him. He’d heard it was indecent, that it was morally repugnant. He knew it was a crime. It was like a defect he had written on his heart, the consequences of which terrified him. It was his deep, dark secret.

Beyond that, Calvin also had another secret that was almost as scandalous. The prevailing social norm was that interspecies relations were an affront to god’s law, a desecration of the natural order of things. The wolf shall not lay with the lamb, his great-aunt liked to say. While attitudes in rural areas like southern Pennsylvania were slowly – ever so slowly – changing about interspecies relationships, most folks who weren’t outright repulsed by it thought that the species should at least be closely related. In urban areas, where people were generally more accepting of interspecies relationships, even the most progressive tended to think that both parties should either be predatory species or prey species. A wolf and a coyote might be accepted, a wolf and a lion was getting into questionable territory, but a wolf and a sheep, a donkey or a deer? That was a deep taboo, ingrained and enforced by thousands of years of religion and millions of years of evolution.

But Calvin’s defective heart led him to that kind of forbidden attraction, too. Other wolves didn’t do too much for him, almost as little as females, but the horses, rams and bucks that lived in town always caught his eye. The donkey sitting next to him did the same.

“Me neither,” J.R. said, derailing Calvin’s train of thought. “None of the girls at school seem to think too much of me. I always get tongue-tied when I try to talk to them, I never know what to say. I never even kissed a girl before, I have to admit. I don’t even think I’d know what to do if I had the chance.”

Calvin paused for moment, thinking how to reply as the music continued playing next door.

We loved each other then, Lorena,
Far more than we ever dared to tell.
And what we might have been, Lorena,
Had but our loving prospered well.

It was a foolish gambit, what Calvin was thinking. Maybe it was the applejack in his blood, or just the effect of sitting next to this beautiful young equine, alone in this house on Christmas Eve, sentimental music wafting into the parlor. He had to try it.

“Maybe we both just need some practice,” Calvin said to the donkey.

“With what, talking to girls?”

“No,” Calvin said, turning to J.R. “With kissing.”

J.R. turned towards Calvin, who had a sly grin on his wolfish face.

“Are you serious?” he asked Calvin.

“As serious as your heart wants,” Calvin replied, both coyly and carefully. “What does it want, J.R.?”

J.R., if he was honest with himself, had the same defective heart as Calvin. The thought of kissing the wolf staring back at him made it race. Whether Calvin was baring that same heart to him or whether Calvin was just that naive he couldn’t say, but he’d never before had an opportunity like this.

“I… it wants… that,” Billy replied, blushing.

“Mine does too,” Calvin said as he lifted himself up off the chaise, “So how about… I get just like this...”

Calvin straddled the young donkey still seated on the chaise, facing J.R. and wagging his tail slowly as he sat on his lap.

“Would that be okay with you?”

“Y-yeah… Yeah it would...” J.R. answered, his hands grabbing onto Calvin’s thighs without realizing it.

“Mmm, good...” Calvin whispered. “What about if I...”

He leaned forward and wrapped his arms behind J.R.’s shoulders. J.R. felt the wolf’s cold, wet nose brush against his. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

Calvin could taste the applejack on Billy’s tongue as they kissed passionately. The room, the music, the slight chill of the December air inside the parlor, it all faded away as both Calvin and Billy experienced the electricity of their first kiss. It confirmed in their defective hearts what they’d both known about themselves; a woman would never do for either of them. This was what they wanted.

Calvin wanted more.

He slid his hand down the donkey’s body. Plenty of times he’d seen the feral horses and donkeys on his uncle’s farm, and plenty of times he’d gotten a look at the sizable anatomy the males had. He had to know, was it the same for this young donkey he now straddled?

His hand roamed further south, down J.R.’s stomach. He felt it then, the bulge in the roan donkey’s pants. But it was more than a bulge; he traced it down one of J.R.’s pant legs. Oh yes, it was enormous, every bit as much as the feral equines he’d seen.

Abruptly, J.R. broke their kiss and forcefully pushed Calvin off his lap. He stood up quickly.

“What? What’s wrong?” Calvin asked, confused, looking up at J.R. from the floor.

“I’m sorry I just… I’m sorry Calvin, I can’t. We can’t! It’s wrong, I’m wrong, something’s wrong with me!”

J.R. stumbled towards the door, panic and confusion written on his face.

“J.R., wait!”

“It’s a sin, Calvin! It’s a mortal sin! I’ve sinned! I don’t want to go to hell, I’m sorry! I can’t! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

Calvin watched from the floor as the donkey threw open the door and ran out into the cold winter night. The icy wind blowing in from outside lashed Calvin’s face harshly as a rush of snowflakes billowed into the parlor.

The band at the party next door was just finishing their song as Calvin sat on the floor alone and crestfallen and scared.

It matters little now, Lorena,
The past is in the eternal past.
Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena,
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast.

- -

May 7, 1861
Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

Calvin hadn’t seen Lizzie all day. He was dressed in his pristine army uniform, clean brass belt buckle proudly stamped with the abbreviation US for United States, shiny brass buttons emblazoned with the number “27” trailing down the front of the blue woolen coat. Slung over his left shoulder was a military-issue knapsack filled with all the accoutrements the US Army deemed necessary for a soldier serving in the Pennsylvania 27th. Leaning on his right shoulder was a brand new Springfield Model 1861 rifled musket, also military issue.

He’d looked in the barn and in the field. He’d looked at the edge of the woods. He'd looked in every corner of his uncle’s farmhouse. But Lizzie was nowhere to be found.

The sun was rising higher. He only had until it reached its apex in the sky before it would be too late. Calvin had to be at the mustering field by noon to meet up with the rest of the men from Cumberland County who had enlisted in the newly formed 27th Pennsylvania regiment. They were marching east to New York for training, and from there they’d invariably be sent south, somewhere, to fight for the preservation of the Union in the great war that had just begun.

But this was his last chance to say goodbye to his cousin. Almost in a panic he went back from the field into the barn, stepping quickly as he scanned the interior. But there was no sign of her, just as there hadn’t been five minutes ago.

“Lizzie! Lizziiiie!” Calvin called from the barn doorway. It was almost time, he had to go. He couldn’t be late. “Lizzie, please!”

Calvin closed his eyes and hung his head in the doorway. Half an hour. He had half an hour, at most, before he absolutely had to turn his back on his uncle’s farm and leave to do his part in the war. When he would return – if he would return – he couldn’t say. It was impossible to know.

With these thoughts in his head, he heard a low whimpering. He perked his ears. It wasn’t coming from anywhere he could see, it was coming from...

Of course.

Calvin dropped his knapsack and his musket in the doorway and walked towards the ladder that lead up to the barn’s hay loft. As he ascended, rung by rung, the sound of the whimpering grew louder. When his chevron-furred snout crested the top of the ladder he saw Lizzie curled up, knees to her face, between hay bales hugging her own tail. She saw him peering over the edge of ladder but didn’t acknowledge him in any way.

“Hey kiddo. You okay?” Calvin asked. Lizzie didn’t reply. Instead, she only gripped her tail tighter and began crying in earnest.

“Hey, hey, shhh, it’s all right,” Calvin said as he resumed climbing up into the hay loft. He crawled to his cousin and sat down next to her. “It’ll be okay Lizzie.”

Lizzie reached over and hugged Calvin as tight as she could.

“Please Calvin, don’t leave,” she said to him through her tears, face buried against the brass buttons on Calvin’s Union Army coat. “Don’t leave, don’t leave, don’t leave!”

“Lizzie...” Calvin said with a sigh. “I have to. But you have to be brave for me until I get back, okay? Chin up. I won’t gone long, you know? They’re all saying it’ll be over in a month, I’ll probably still be in training when the war ends. Shh, shhhh...”

For several minutes Lizzie cried, just holding onto Calvin.

“Calvin promise...” she finally said, sniffling through tears, “promise me...”

“Promise you what, Lizzie?”

“Promise me, if you start getting shot at, if you are in danger, you’ll just stop fighting and run away.”

“Lizzie...” Calvin said with another sigh as he slowly stroked the fur on the top of her head, “I can’t promise you that. I’m a soldier now, I’ve got to fight for America. I have to fight. I’m no coward. Look at me...”

Lizzie turned her face up from where it was buried in his coat and looked at Calvin with tear-soaked eyes.

“Those boys in gray are gonna be the ones to drop their guns and run from me, you understand? They’ll be running all the way back to Alabama with their tails between their legs. I’m not gonna run from anybody.”

“Calvin...” Lizzie said, fresh tears once again welling in her eyes, “you don’t have to promise. Just remember. I won’t think you’re a coward, I won’t think you’re yellow, I won’t care. I won’t! If you’re in trouble just stop fighting, Calvin. Don’t be a hero, don’t die for it, please, please just stop fighting! Stop fighting and run away, Calvin! Please run away!”

She sank her face back into Calvin’s blue Union Army coat and cried, tears soaking into the woolen fabric. Calvin hugged her tightly. For a long while he was silent as she continued crying. He’d heard himself say that the war would be over in a month, that the Confederates would be running from him in fear, that they’d be retreating and defeated before he was finished training. But fear and doubt gnawed at him. This war could drag on. This war could be a catastrophe. This war could be the end of the United States. This war could be the end of his life.

“I’ll remember...” Calvin said. “I promise I’ll remember. That’s a promise I can make.”

A quarter of an hour. He had a quarter of an hour left before he absolutely had to leave for the mustering field, turning his back on this hay loft, on the only real friend he had, on his home, on his life.

Calvin closed his eyes and hugged Lizzie tighter.

- -

October 12, 1862
Blue Ridge Mountains, Tennessee

The preacher had delivered a particularly fiery sermon in the morning. There was work that needed to be done, but Flynn's father was strict in his observance of the Sabbath, so he instead did what he did almost every Sunday afternoon. He drank.

Flynn returned from swimming in the river late that afternoon, around the same time that the sky shifts from a fiery orange to a muted purple. As he walked into his dirt-floored home, he saw his father slouching in his rocking chair next to the hearth. On the table next to the doorway he saw a letter addressed to him, which was very unusual. It was from an address he didn’t recognize in the state capital of Nashville. He leaned closer to investigate but was interrupted by his father.

“Where ya been, boy,” his father slurred.

“Down at the river swimming,” Flynn said as he stood in the doorway and started to take off his coat. “Same as every Sunday.”

He’d worked extra chores and saved for months to buy the coat he was wearing, blued leather that was nicer than anything else he owned. His father thought it was an extravagance, a waste of money, but when he wore it Flynn felt like he was more than just the only son of a drunkard living in squalor. Besides, now that the weather was getting cooler and the river was almost too cold to swim in until the next year, it served a very practical purpose. He could already tell it kept the chill out better than anything he’d ever worn.

“Don’t sass me boy,” Flynn’s father said as he brought the bottle to his mouth and took another gulp. “Don’t you ever fucking sass me.”

Flynn was used to this kind of behavior from his father. He'd never been good enough in his father’s eyes, never lived up to what his father wanted him to be. He was too small, too weak, too optimistic, maybe even too happy. Flynn’s father wanted a son who was tough as nails and mean as hell, with a dour demeanor and a violent streak. Frankly, he wanted a little version of himself. That had to be what he wanted, Flynn always thought. He wanted a son who is the exact opposite of everything I am.

Flynn spent most of his youth trying to measure up to what his father wanted him to be, but sometime in the past few years he stopped trying. He’d resigned himself to the fact that his father would never accept him. With that resignation, he’d allowed himself to stop trying to be that person. He was himself; his father could accept that or not.

So their relationship had developed into a sort of bitter resentment. They lived under the same roof, but they both knew Flynn would be gone as soon as he could, and they were both fine with it.

“’Stead of swimming you shoulda been enlisting, boy,” Flynn’s father said without looking at him. “I can’t abide a coward living under my roof much longer. Folks is dying for this land while you’re settin’ here doin’ jack shit, swimmin’ and wearin’ fancy coats. Should be ‘shamed of yerself. ‘Shamed as I am of you.”

Flynn ignored this fresh tirade. Half the bucks in the valley enlisted the day they heard that shots had been fired on Fort Sumter and that a war was on. They seemed convinced by the preacher and people like his own father that it was their duty to fight against America or for God or for their homeland or for state’s rights or for, by Flynn’s estimation, whatever horse shit they were told this war was about.

In truth Flynn’s whole world up to this point in his life was in this little Tennessee valley. He didn’t know what this war was about, what it was really about, but he was smart enough to know that it wasn’t about all the things that preacher and his father said it was about. This war, as far as he could tell, was about rich men telling other rich men what to do by sending poor men to their deaths. Flynn didn’t have five dollars to his name, so why should he fight and die for that? No, he wasn’t going to enlist, not ever. He was going to sit this war out right here in the valley and leave as soon as it was over.

Flynn was struggling to remove his coat. Edward had grabbed him playfully while he was still wet from the river, and as the coat dried the sleeves had tightened slightly. No permanent damage done, Flynn knew, and for a naked Edward to wrap his arms around him it was more than worth it.

“Why you like swimming out in that cold river so much, boy?”

Flynn was glad his father’s line of questioning had shifted away from enlistment and the war.

“I dunno. It’s just fun I guess. Fun times with my friends.”

“So you say. So you been sayin’. For years, been sayin’. But I’m thinkin’ it’s a lie. Thinkin’ you’re a lie, boy. Thinkin’ I think I know the real why.”

Flynn was also used to this kind of banter when his father was drunk. He knew his father could be dangerous when he’d been drinking – he was as dumb as a bag of hammers and stubborn as a jack mule, but also stronger than an ox, which made him a special kind of dangerous. That said, Flynn was usually crafty enough to defuse his temper. Maybe it was his personality but he just couldn’t help himself from badgering.

“Sure you do, Pa. What’s the why? I'm dying to hear.”

“I think you’re a fuckin’ sodomite.”

Flynn had only removed one arm from the coat sleeve and was still working on the other, but he froze in place. His ears swiveled and pointed in his father’s direction.

His father had made oblique insinuations before, but they had been wrapped up in references to his diminutive size, or his friendly nature, or his love for clothing, or – for reasons that only made sense to his father – his tendency to sleep in late on Sundays. But this was a direct accusation of a mortal sin. This was dangerous.

Flynn opened his mouth trying to form a response but no words came out. He hadn’t ever had sex, hadn’t even kissed anyone, but he knew the feelings he had for Edward. He knew who he was. What he was. He didn’t believe any of the poison that spewed from the preacher during his sermons, sin and damnation and fornication and all that nonsense. But his father did. And right now, in the suddenly heavy, tense air of their tiny hovel, his father’s beliefs mattered.

“I seen’t the way you make eyes at them boys in town. Seen you get sweet on that Edward boy. Done seen it all the time. Think I’m blind?”

Flynn struggled to form a response. What his father was saying was true, undeniably. But it wasn’t a thing you could admit to, not in this god-fearing Appalachian valley, not in 1862.

“Pa, I...”

Flynn’s father stood up clumsily from his rocking chair, wobbling as he stared glass-eyed at his son, who he dwarfed.

As he stood Flynn took a step back, more an unconscious recognition of the situation he was in than anything else. With one coat sleeve on and one off, Flynn backed against the rough log wall until there was no room left to back up to. His father lurched towards him.

“I can’t abide no ho-muh-seck-shull living under my roof. You tell me right boy. Tell me right! Is you or ain’t you?”

“I’ve never...”

“Yeah boy ‘you’ve never.’ But you would. You want to. You’re hankerin’. Them boys in the river ain’t hankerin’ same as you, but you are, sure as hell! Tell me right!”

“Pa, please...”

“Please what, boy?!”

Flynn’s father pulled him by his shirt collar from the wall before shoving him forcefully back into it. Flynn winced in pain and the rough walls of the house creaked from the impact of his body.

“Please what?!”

“Please... don't ask me...”

Flynn’s father grabbed him by the collar once again, tightening it around his neck like a noose. He pulled Flynn from against the wall and looked him dead in the eye.

“Why...” his father replied, his voice changing from the loud shouts of a drunkard to a low, gravelly, accusatory growl. “Why shouldn’t I ask you...”

“Don’t ask...” Flynn squeaked, his father’s strong hand keeping the collar of his shirt tight around his throat. “So I don’t have to lie.”

Flynn’s father loosened his grip on his son’s shirt collar. His eyes grew as wide as silver dollars. A second passed, maybe two, before they changed, filling with rage and hatred at his only son.

Flynn was sent spinning as the back of his father’s hand slammed into his jaw. His body kicked up a cloud of dust as it landed limp on the hard dirt floor.

“You ain’t welcome in this house! Not never again!” Flynn’s father screamed at him. “You ain’t no son of mine!”

Flynn was vaguely aware of these words as he lay on the dirt floor, but they seemed dull and muffled. He sensed that his father left the room and slammed the door on the way out but his vision was too blurry to be sure. The world was spinning.

He’d never been hit so hard in his life. Not anything close. He’d heard about seeing stars or being punch-drunk when you took a hard lick, but he’d never experienced it before. Not until now. 

He closed his eyes. It felt like he had only closed them for a few minutes, but when he opened them again the room was almost totally dark, lit only by the moonlight filtering in from the paneless window and onto his body. The gray, shining face of the moon was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. 

Slowly Flynn regained his senses. It felt like he had cotton in his mouth, but he tasted a mix of dirt and his own blood. He heard the katydids singing outside but there was no sign of his father. Weakly, he rose to his feet, staggered to his room and collapsed on his bed.

- -

October 13, 1862
Blue Ridge Mountains, Tennessee

Penelope read the letter again from over Edward’s shoulder. Her arms were wrapped around him, providing what comfort she could in the face of the dreadful news the letter contained. Edward was sitting on a crude wooden bench in his family’s front room, letter unfurled in front of him. He read it again, as if rereading it would change the words.

“Provost Marshal's Office, 4 District, State of Tennessee;

TO: Edward Finch

Sir,

You are hereby notified that you were, on the 15 day of September, 1862, legally drafted into the service of the Confederate States of America for the period of 3 years, in accordance with the provisions of the Confederate States Congress, ‘for enrolling and calling out the national forces, and for other purposes,’ approved April 16, 1862. You will accordingly report, on or before January 12, 1863, at the place of rendezvous, Sevier County Courthouse, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, or be deemed a deserter, and be subject to the penalty prescribed therefore by the Rules and Articles of War.

Col. W.P. Dooley, Provost Marshal, 4 District, Tennessee"

Edward carefully refolded the letter and put it back in the envelope it came in. Such a light, delicate thing that would change the course of his life, he thought.

Penelope gently slid her arms from around Edward and sat down on the bench beside him. Like all the other inhabitants of the tiny Tennessee valley, she was a blue deer. She was a fine example of the female of the species, a petite frame that was alternately slender and buxom in all the right places. Her fur was lighter than Edwards and she had a white streak between her eyes that trailed up and to both her antlers. Both male and female blue deer had antlers, which did not molt year after year and did not grow after an individual reached adulthood.

There was a mythos around these permanent bony outcroppings, sayings and tropes about the number of horns an individual possessed and their shape. If an old deer was smart he was said to “still be sharp,” for example, because inevitably years took their toll on antlers for almost everyone, wearing down sharp points to dull knobs. It wasn’t uncommon to see elders with entire spurs broken off. Some elders had only nubs. “Winter trees” and “winter stumps,” these were called. There was no shame in it just as there was no shame in fur turning gray; it was just a natural part of aging.

Most of the young bucks in the valley had courted Penelope in her youth, but in the end it was Edward who had won her heart. They were engaged to be married in just a few months, but at she looked at the envelope on the table Penelope knew that those plans would be postponed indefinitely.

When the war started most of the bucks in the valley enlisted immediately. They’d been convinced of the tales of northern aggression, duped by the wealthy plantation owners and lured by the promise of adventure and glory that awaited them on the battlefield in the Confederate army. But Edward was never convinced. His home was in the valley and his family had never owned anything of value, so why should he risk his life for a cause he saw no purpose in? He faced ridicule by not enlisting. People he’d called friends his entire life now called him a coward, avoided him, even spat at him when they passed him on the street. The only people he ever talked to any more were Penelope and Flynn, who was in the same situation he was. But as he saw it, he had no reason to fight and every reason not to. His life, his fiance and his future were all in this valley. The war would pass, but there was no result would change his situation much. So why get involved?

But now it seemed he had no choice. Jefferson Davis and the Confederate Congress -- god damn them all to hell -- had instituted the draft. His choices now narrowed down to only two: become an outlaw or join the Confederate Army.

He’d thought seriously about the first option, but that would entail potentially years of running, hiding, and keeping one eye open at all times for the Confederate Home Guard. If he was caught he would be punished as a deserter, hung by the neck until he was dead. And if the Confederacy actually won the war he’d never be able to come home again. He might never see Penelope again.

The second option wasn’t any more appealing. He could show up at the courthouse and join the war, fighting far from home for a cause he didn’t believe in. Again, he might be gone for years. He would not be hung by the neck, but he could be killed in dozens of other ways. And again, he might never see Penelope again.

“What will I do Penelope, what will I do,” Edward said weakly as he lowered his forehead against the table.

Penelope bent her own head down next to Edward’s, her antlers scraping softly against his. She kissed him gently on his cheek.

“What will we do, Edward...” she replied. Though they were not yet married, she already viewed herself as Edward’s wife. They hadn’t exchanged vows in the church, but they had promised their hearts and their lives to each other in private. They couldn’t tell anyone lest it caused a scandal, but they had also already consummated their marriage. Many, many times.

“Tell me,” Edward said, turning to Penelope. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. If you want me to run, I'll run. I’ll run alone or I’ll run with you. If you want me to fight, I’ll fight. I’ll fight my way home to you.”

“Oh, Edward,” Penelope said as a tear fell down her cheek and onto the table.

She desperately wanted to flee with Edward, but there were so many unknowns. Where would they go? What if they were caught? For Christ’s sake, how would they even find food or a place to sleep? And to decide for him to flee while she stayed home, comfortable and warm, when he was scrounging and hiding and trembling... that was something Penelope couldn’t accept. If they were to flee, they would flee together.

Penelope was just about to open her mouth to say as much when the door to their tiny home swung open.

Standing in the doorway was their best friend Flynn. He had a black eye – he looked like he’d fought a bear and lost. His favorite coat was torn and he had a letter in his hand.