Blue and Gray

Chapter Three – Rubicon

Written by: minoan

Lay your weapon down, boy, lay your weapon down.
You don’t know the weight of what you do.
Take a look around you, boy, take a look around.
Wait ‘til someone’s aiming back at you.

~ Tim Miser – Lay Your Weapon Down

Calvin had seen a steam hammer once when he was a pup. He’d see it at the Pine Grove Iron Works where his father worked and, ultimately, where his father died. It was as tall as a barn and brought down 25 tons of force with each blow. Calvin watched mesmerized as each time its piston fell on the enormous iron ingot beneath its elephantine frame, an eruption of orange hot shards sprayed across the foundry floor. It was a sight.

The violence and trauma the steam hammer wrought on the iron ingot lasted only minutes before the ingot was sent on its way. Slowly the ingot cooled, losing malleability and locking in place forever the scars that the hammer inflicted on it in so short a time. It could sit for a thousand years, but those marks would never shift, could never be diminished unless it was once again subjected to the blast furnace’s hellfire and brutally pounded into a new form.

By 1863, Calvin knew he would never be the same wolf he was the day he enlisted with the 27th Pennsylvania Militia just two years before. He’d seen too much – too many friends in agony after a Minié ball shattered bone, too many vultures feasting on bloated bodies in fallow fields. What he’d thought about war was a lie. The truth was that there was no glory, no grand adventure to be found. There was only pain. This terrible war had dropped its hammer on him too many times and with far too much force for him to ever be the same as he was before it began. In time the wrought iron ingot would cool from glowing red to dull gray, but the scars would remain forever.

On a cool spring morning in April of that year Calvin had killed a man. He may have killed others in one of many of the battles he’ fought in, a Minié ball shot at a group of Confederates from a few hundred yards away, but he couldn’t know for sure. This was different.

He’d been serving as a scout for the Pennsylvania militia for just a few days when it happened. Early in the war he’d fought far afield, but now the war had come to him in Cumberland County, and high command had deemed his knowledge of the area sufficient for him to be a regimental scout.

He rode out early in the morning, before the sun rose, to try to get into a position to spy on troop movements from afar. He knew this country like an old friend; there wasn’t a stream crossing or a deer path he hadn’t trod. He’d ridden out of camp heading for a bluff he knew he could see a huge swath of land from. He’d been there many times in his youth. It was a place he thought only he knew about.

Something felt wrong to him before he got close. It’s a uniquely uneasy feeling one can get if they’ve been walking in the woods for hours, confident that they are alone, when there is a sudden inexplicable twinge of doubt. It’s a feeling that seems to come from nowhere discernible, but it’s usually right.

Calvin felt the fur on his neck bristle and stand on end as the doubt struck him. He stopped his horse dead in its tracks and harnessed it to a tree. He pulled his rifle from the saddle-holster before he continued, quietly, on foot. The bluff was only a few hundred yards away, up and over a small hillock and past a slight clearing.

At the edge of the clearing Calvin saw another horse tied to a tree. Sitting not far away, at the exact spot Calvin planned to spend the day watching for troop movement, was a man. By his distinctive black and white fur pattern Calvin could tell he was a badger. He was wearing a gray coat.

Calvin crept towards the badger in the gray coat. Not long ago – not long ago at all – Calvin would have called to the stranger, offered him a cool drink of water and a bite of food. They’d just be two strangers out for an afternoon hike in the woods, wanting nothing more than to see the beauty and majesty of creation from a scenic vantage. In another time, in another circumstance, they could have been fast friends. They could have been more.

‘You found my favorite spot! Quite the view isn’t it!’ he would have said to the badger in that former life, starting that game of double meanings, veiled innuendos and coy glances that gay men were forced to play to find others like themselves in the middle of the 19th century – testing, prodding, but always able to keep plausible deniability. Maybe he was that way, or maybe not and nothing would come of it, but either way he’d able to enjoy a nice spring picnic with a new friend. 

He looked comfortable sitting there, Calvin thought as he crept closer. The badger’s arms splayed behind him so he was in a semi-reclining position. He wasn’t looking down at the valley at all. He was looking up at the clouds with a smile on his face, soaking in the beautiful spring morning.

He turned around quickly as Calvin stepped on a twig, snapping it loudly. His face changed from comfortable serenity to abject fear as their eyes met. It was a face Calvin had seen before.

Calvin’s memory of the event was foggy about what happened after that moment. He could recall that the badger jumped to his feet and started running for his horse. Calvin had raised his rifle and tracked him as he ran to escape. He’d pulled the trigger.

He had clear and vivid memories of only a few disjointed seconds after that, like a series of tintypes burned into his brain. The badger laying on his back, one hand clutching for dirt and leaves on the ground as he raised and lowered one knee, dragging his heel in the earth. His other hand on his shattered chest, covered in blood along with his entire torso.  The grotesque gurgling noises he’d made as frothy blood poured from his mouth and ran down his face, staining his black and white fur a deep red.

Calvin had a fragmented recollection that he’d untied the Confederate scout’s horse so it could run away and wouldn’t be trapped and alone, snared to a tree. By that time the badger had stopped moving.

Calvin had trouble sleeping since it happened. Almost every night he’d see the badger’s frightened face in his dreams and relive the event all over again.

You shot me in the back like a coward. What did I do to deserve this?

The badger spoke to Calvin in dreams, blood flowing freely from his nose and mouth as he lay dying. 

Murder. What you did is murder. You are a murderer.

Calvin couldn’t move. His feet were planted in the ground like the roots of a hemlock. He was forced to watch the badger die again and again, knowing that he’d brought this evil into the world.

What you did is unforgivable, Calvin Riley.

In later generations and in later wars there would be different names for what Calvin was experiencing. Seventy years hence, during the Great War of 1914, they would call it “shell shock.” Later it would have several other names including “combat neurosis” and “battle fatigue syndrome.” Eventually the medical professionals of the world would settle on referring to it as post-traumatic stress disorder, abbreviated PTSD.

During the American Civil War this affliction was known – without a shred of irony – as “Nostalgia.”

- -

June 30, 1863
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

It was still dark when Calvin awoke with a yelp and a spasm. He’d had another nightmare.

He dressed and ate a quick breakfast of hardtack, bacon and coffee with the other early-risers. Coffee was a luxury that the Confederates did not have due to the naval blockade, and it was a comfort Calvin was glad to enjoy. Once he finished, he checked in with command for his daily orders.

Harrisburg was heavily fortified against any attack the Confederates might launch, but it was becoming increasingly clear to the garrison stationed there that the generals were shifting their focus south. There would be a battle, and it would be calamitous, but if it was going to happen it was better for it to occur in a nameless field far away from a major industrial center like Harrisburg.

Calvin’s task for the morning was to travel to the same overlook he visited the day prior and observe any troop movements that might occur. He was to report back that afternoon. The Union Army employed scouts throughout the countryside in this way, and by this method their generals were able to have, at all times, a fairly complete and current overview of enemy troop movements.

Yesterday afternoon Calvin had seen a large detachment of Confederates move into Carlisle. They’d seen him, too; a small group had even fired at him from the valley below. But they were much too far away to do anything but make a show, and Calvin continued to observe them until he knew where they were going.

He’d reported this to command when he returned to Harrisburg later that afternoon, and on this information a series of ambushes were planned for several likely locations the Confederates might move to the next day. Now, on the morning Calvin set out for the same overlook, the traps were set.

He made his way to the overlook through the forest, avoiding the main roads. He arrived there just as the morning fog was beginning to clear. For several hours he remained there, watching for any troop movements. 

Calvin had been having intrusive thoughts since the incident with the badger. Several times during his watch, he walked to the edge of the overlook and peered down. The drop was several hundred feet, and at the base of the overlook was a granite ledge that trailed into the forest floor.

“That’d do it,” he’d said out loud as he looked over the edge. One little hop and he’d be done with this war. “That’d certainly do it.”

But these intrusive thoughts were only that: thoughts. By noon he had seen no Confederates and began his return to Harrisburg. He took the same secret path through the woods for most of the journey, but towards the end he got back on a main road that led to the city.

One of the traps he’d ridden by that morning had clearly been sprung. It was the one near Sporting Hill, where it was rightly supposed that the Confederates might send a contingent to reconnoiter.

By the looks of it the conflict must have occurred several hours prior. Several dead Confederates, including a captain – definitely a feline, possibly a lion, but he was too mutilated to tell for sure and half buried under a dead horse – were on the road. A few more dead were near the entrance to a large ruined barn, its roof collapsed, and a scattering of dead were in an adjacent field.

The scene told Calvin the entire story of what happened here. A full volley would have been fired to start the ambush, and many of the Confederates would be killed outright. They would either return fire or flee, but either way the artillery would be able to range them in soon enough. The ambush must have been a total success. Calvin saw not one dead Union soldier.

Neither did he see anyone living. Even after all that he had seen in this war, the experience of riding alone past a field of dead bodies still felt surreal, otherwordly. What would he have thought if, before the war, he’d found a dead body laying in the road? What an event it would have been – the sheriff and the coroner and maybe a few dozen curious townsfolk would show up once word went around. He’d have told the story for years. Now he rode past dozens as if they were just another part of the landscape. Melting into it.

Calvin felt the fur on the back of his neck bristle.

From the corner of his eye he saw movement. He stopped his horse and turned his head. One of the Confederate soldiers lying in the field was not dead after all; with the butt of his rifle planted in the earth he was slowly, arduously pulling himself upright. Calvin, at least, reckoned it was a Confederate soldier, though he wasn’t wearing a gray coat. One of his pant legs was soaked with blood.

It was a sad spectacle. Calvin knew that this soldier’s compatriots had long since retreated, likely even past Carlisle. From the amount of blood staining his pants and the difficulty he had standing it was clear he was badly wounded. Traveling, hiding from scouts, locating his unit and rejoining it – that was a task that would have been nearly impossible from where they were now even if he were perfectly healthy. In the state he was in there was absolutely no chance of that happening. His best chance now, his only real option, was to surrender.

The Confederate turned and looked at Calvin. Calvin could see clearly now who this soldier was. A blue deer – only seen a few of them in my life, Calvin thought. Long way from home. He knew they were native to the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee, but they tended to stay in that area and he’d never actually spoken to one before. Even from this distance Calvin could tell that this deer was a rather small specimen; he couldn’t be more than 5’6”, maybe even shorter. Damn, the Confederates must be getting desperate if they are sending men like this to the front lines.

Calvin dismounted his horse and began walking towards the Confederate soldier. He was just about to give a holler to the Confederate, tell him to lay down his weapon and surrender. He planned to explain the situation as he got closer. He could take him back to Harrisburg and drop him off with regimental command, they’d send him for medical treatment and he’d be transferred to a prison camp somewhere up north. The odds would still be against him – he’d almost certainly lose that leg, he would probably die from infection – but it was still the best option this blue deer really had. Wounded as he was there were no good options, truly, only bad ones and worse ones.

But as Calvin opened his mouth to yell, the blue deer did something Calvin was not expecting. Something foolish. Something reckless. Precariously balancing on one hoof, on the leg that wasn’t covered in blood, the blue deer raised his rifle at Calvin.

Calvin stopped in his tracks. With the blue deer shakily aiming down the sights at him, a thousand things went through his mind.

If you kill me, what do you think will happen to you? You’ll still be grievously wounded in enemy territory. Where do you think you’ll go?

What will happen when another Union soldier sees you? Plenty would have killed you outright, or left you to suffer. I was going to try to help you.

What if he hits me with this shot? Maybe this is justice. Maybe it’s the ghost of the badger I murdered, mustering whatever supernatural energy a murdered man has to animate the body of a dead Confederate in this field. Maybe I deserve this.

What if he misses? What will I do? I don’t want to kill him, but I’ll have to.

Please god, please. Please if he shoots, let him hit me. Let me die here. I don’t want to kill any more. I don’t. I don’t…

Calvin heard the Minié ball whizzing through the sky far over his head before he heard the gunshot. It wouldn’t have hit him if he were an elephant.

On reflex he raised his own rifle at the Confederate who’d shot at him, unthinking, and as the smoke from the blue deer’s shot cleared Calvin had him perfectly framed in his own sights. But a fraction of a second before he pulled the trigger, the face of the dying badger flashed through his memory. Another face too, a face from long ago, a face deep in his memory from his own childhood. Calvin shut his eyes tight and flinched as the gun discharged.

As the smoke from his own shot cleared, Calvin saw the blue deer was again lying on the ground.

Murder. What you did is murder. You are a murderer, Calvin Riley.

But the deer was still not dead. Calvin watched transfixed, horrified, as the blue deer reached his hands up to his own face. What he’d done now was worse than killing him outright, Calvin thought. I’ve flinched at the critical moment, I’ve wounded him again. Oh god, what have I done now? It’s worse than if I had killed him. Now he’ll suffer in this field for hours until he dies.

Calvin didn’t want him to suffer.

Calvin reached for the bayonet on his belt loop and began affixing it to the socket at the end of his rifle. But when he looked up, he saw that the blue deer had risen once again to his feet and was limping away.

Whether it was his training as a soldier or adrenaline or solely his predatory instinct as a wolf, Calvin couldn’t say. He began running after the deer, sprinting as fast as he could. His legs pumped mechanically as he sped across the Pennsylvania field, kicking up clods of dirt behind him. The deer tripped and fell before looking back at him, his face contorted into an expression of pure terror. He tried to scramble to his hooves again, but Calvin had reached him before he was able. The blue deer fell on his back.

“No!! Please, no!!!” the blue deer screamed as Calvin raised the rifle, preparing to drive the bayonet into his beating heart.

But he paused. He’d looked into the deer’s blue eyes, and in doing so his memory was flooded with the recollection of where he’d seen those eyes before, that face. Powerlessness. Doom. Mortal dread in a situation spun out of control. It was the face of the deer he and Lizzie had saved from the hunter’s snare.

It was an emotion that Calvin was not expecting, not at this moment. He was primed to do what he thought was necessary as a soldier, not what was right as a man. His soldier’s mind rebelled against it, wanted to chase away this ghost from his past, the memory of the good and kind and decent wolf that he was. With this storm raging in his mind, Calvin spun his rifle and slammed the back end of it down on the deer’s face.

- - - - -

There was calmness and quiet in the fallow field. Calvin was profoundly alone.

His vision focused on the tip of the bayonet, now pointed at himself after he’d used the butt of the rifle against the deer. I could just fall on it, he thought. I could just lean forward and this will all be over.

He looked past the rifle at the deer. Calvin stood over his lifeless body, knocked unconscious or worse by the hammer blow he’d just delivered. He could see that his shot must have shattered the deer’s left antler, splintered fragments of it were scattered around. A trickle of blood was beginning to flow from the deer’s nose.

Calvin immediately regretted what he had done. It had all happened so fast that he hadn’t had time to think, but looking down at the deer now he was deeply ashamed. He’d done this to the deer, this horrible, unforgivable thing. Calvin felt tears beginning to well in his eyes.

It was all too much. In a flood of emotion Calvin wrapped his hand around the stock of his rifle and threw it like a javelin as hard as he could. It sailed far through the air before landing, impaling the ground dozens of yards away, bayonet buried deeply in the earth of the field.

Calvin fell to his knees next to the unconscious deer and began sobbing uncontrollably. He hadn’t cried in years, hadn’t broken down in this way since he was a child, but the emotions he’d kept bottled up since the war started came pouring out.

“This isn’t me!!” Calvin screamed to the unhearing clouds as he knelt over the unconscious blue deer. He knelt further down as he wept like a child, wrapping his arms around the deer’s back and burying his snout in the deer’s chest.

“It’s not me! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he yelled into the deer’s chest, words muffled. 

For several minutes Calvin cried uncontrollably. His tears soaked into the deer’s thin cotton shirt until he ran out of tears entirely. Eventually his weeping tapered off and Calvin was left clutching the deer, shame and regret and disgrace filling him for what he had just done and what he had done months ago to the badger. He wanted to run away from this war, away from his actions and the hurt he’d caused, away from himself and what he’d become. But he knew that was something he could never do; only the future was in his control.

Now all was quiet, the storm had passed within Calvin but he remained with his head pressed into the deer’s chest. He felt it rise and fall slowly, rhythmically, as the deer breathed.

As the deer breathed.

The realization hit Calvin suddenly: he is breathing. He’s not dead. I haven’t killed him. I haven’t murdered again.

It’s not too late to save him.

Calvin pulled his snout away from the deer and looked at him – really looked at him – for the first time. So many of the people he knew seemed to regard Southerners as something fundamentally different from themselves, something contemptible. Maybe their government was, and certainly their politics were; what the Confederacy stood for was irredeemable. It was evil. But how many of the young men they sent up here to Pennsylvania to die believed in that? How many took part in it? How many believed in the cause, and how many were forced to fight by the cruel hand of fate?

Calvin didn’t know the answer to that question, but the shabby clothing and poor equipment he’d seen on these soldiers told him they certainly weren’t rich men’s sons. This deer was no exception.

He looked up at the blue deer’s face. It was bruised and bloodied, and one of his antlers was shot off, but Calvin could see that underneath it all he was certainly a handsome young buck. Some part of him acknowledged that this blue deer was everything he’d had always found physically attractive, almost perfectly.

But that didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was that this was a life that he had almost destroyed. He thought he had destroyed it, but now that he knew the deer was still alive he only saw one option.

Was it an atonement for what he had done to the badger, the thought that even if he died he could still save a life? Maybe. Or maybe by this point he was just selfishly looking for an excuse, any excuse, to stop fighting and to run. Maybe he just wanted to keep the promise he’d made to Lizzie. He couldn’t say. But in that moment his mind was set, there was no changing it. He had to stop fighting, he had to run, and somehow, some way, he had to save this deer.

- -

Calvin easily lifted the unconscious blue deer from the ground and slung him on his shoulder. He knew they were a species that tended towards the smaller side, but the particular example that he carried had to be small even by their standards, for he must have been a good hundred pounds lighter than Calvin and about a foot shorter. Calvin jogged to where his horse was still patiently waiting on the road. He draped the deer on the horse’s flank behind the saddle before stepping into the stirrup and hoisting himself on top of the horse.

If he took this deer back to Harrisburg he would likely die, he knew that. The officers that would decide his fate weren’t monsters, but there was a war on and they were pragmatists. If he were conscious they’d give him rudimentary medical treatment. He’d lose that leg, the one with the bullet wound, but that was as much care as they would be able to afford a captured enemy soldier. They had their own wounded to take care of, that was reality. That was war. But unconscious, they were likely to write him off as dead as soon as they saw him. He’d receive no medical treatment, the wound would almost certainly become infected and fester, and he would die.

Calvin saw the best option for the deer’s survival to be transporting him back into Confederate territory and leaving him with his compatriots, who would at least find what medical service they could for him. As a scout he had plenty of experience sneaking behind enemy lines, but for that task the goal was to remain unseen. For this operation he’d have to somehow bring the dying deer to the attention of Confederate soldiers without getting himself shot.

An idea came to him as he was just about to spin the horse around and head west. All around him on the road were Confederate dead, most of whom had been struck down in the first volley fired during the ambush. His clean blue coat would give him away instantly if he was seen by a Confederate, but if he were to wear one of these shabby gray coats…

Yes, Calvin thought. I can pretend to be a Confederate just long enough to give them the wounded deer and make sure he’s receiving treatment if I have to, then escape.

Calvin hopped down from his horse. Most of the dead were too small, had clothes that wouldn’t fit, but there one that might work. Calvin approached the dead man, an ox, who was laying face down in the middle of the road. Calvin pursed his lips and scrunched his nose as he grabbed the dead man’s arms, which were lying underneath him. They were stiff and hard to straighten. Rigor mortis.

After some unpleasant effort Calvin was able to remove the large gray coat. Calvin took off his Union army coat, buttons gleaming, and dropped it to the ground, replacing it with a dead man’s uniform. Even more unpleasantly he removed the dead man’s gray pants, facing the same resistance from rigor mortis. What he was doing disgusted him but it had to be done; best to not think about it too hard and just do it as quickly as possible. As fast as he could he unbuckled his belt buckle and dropped his own pants, then immediately put on the Confederate replacement. He refastened his belt buckle, transferred the cigar case he used to carry the money he’d earned in the army for the past two years and got back on his horse. He rode west.

He’d ridden almost to Carlisle in a hard gallop before he realized he was completely unarmed. He was at his destination, though; this was where they Confederates had camped the night before. With any luck they were still there and he could think of a way to drop off the deer and escape back north. He could pluck his rifle out of the field it was stuck in on the way back.

But as the town of Carlisle came into view it was apparent that the Confederates had left it some time ago. Did this mean they weren’t going to lay siege to Harrisburg after all? Calvin couldn’t know, but he did know that if they retreated they would be heading southwest, and it was more likely than not that they’d be heading towards Chambersburg.

God damn it, Calvin thought. Chambersburg was 40 miles away and it was already getting late in the afternoon. It would be past nightfall if he rode all the way there.

He looked behind him, down at the unconscious deer slung over the horse’s haunch, his blue tail bobbing with the strides of the horse. I can’t stop now, Calvin thought. I don’t know who he is, or where he’s from, or what he believes, but I did this to him. The fear in his eyes was real. His screams were real. I can’t abandon him now. I can’t undo what I did, but I can still fix it. I can still make this right. I have to.

Calvin veered off the main road knowing that it would be traveled by the bulwark of the Confederate army. If the plan was to slip in and out with as little interaction as possible, it would be best to avoid the army in transit. With any luck he’d get to Chambersburg around the same time as the army, or slightly after.

For several hours Calvin traversed the back roads, valleys, woods and stream beds of Pennsylvania, carving his own Appalachian trail. He followed ancient synclines on a meandering path towards Chambersburg, cautious but confident that he was unseen. The Confederates would never know these woods like he did, he knew. Every few minutes he’d look back at his passenger, and more than a few times he checked to make sure the deer was still breathing. He was.

The sun set when Calvin was still a good 15 miles out from Chambersburg. By good fortune the moon was nearly full and the sky had cleared without a cloud to be seen. His pace was slowed significantly and his horse was nervous, but he was able to see enough by the moonlight to make his way the rest of the distance to Chambersburg.

It was near midnight when Calvin joined back onto the main road less than a mile from town. The time for skulking and hiding was over. Now he had to present himself to the sentries that were surely on duty and convince them he was a Confederate, that he had a good reason for showing up like this, that he had a wounded compatriot… it all seemed so far-fetched. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to pull this off. But he had to try.

He saw the torches of the sentries almost immediately after joining back onto the road. He needed to make his presence known quickly or else risk being shot by an overzealous watchman.

This was the point of no return. He could still turn back, there was still time to abandon this plan that he knew, realistically, would end with his death. He could be found out as an impostor by the Confederates and hung, that was a very real possibility. Even if he fooled them, what he was about to do would brand him a traitor to the Union Army. He was aiding and abetting an enemy soldier, returning him to enemy ranks. He’d face the firing squad if his commanding officers found out what he did.

Calvin reached back and put his hand on the deer’s back. He was still breathing. Even if I die, Calvin thought, if I can make this right it will be worth it. I’m a murderer, I deserve to die. I know I do. But if I can save a life before I do, maybe the badger will forgive me. Maybe god can, if he exists. Maybe the deer will too. I can roll that die. I will cast it.

“Hail!” Calvin yelled as loud as he could.

No response.

“Hail!” he yelled again.

Calvin could see that several figures near the torches had risen to their feet. He’d evidently caught them by surprise. Maybe he could have even snuck his way into town without anyone noticing, he thought. But it was too late now. He’d committed to this plan.

“Who goes?” One of the men yelled at him. They were still a good quarter of a mile away, but in the stillness of the night their voices carried easily.

“Calvin Riley!” Calvin yelled, seeing no need to give a fake name. “Scout! Alabama 43rd! I have a wounded man in tow! Need a surgeon!”

Calvin did not know if there was an Alabama 43rd regiment anywhere nearby, or if it existed at all, but if he was going with the lie that he was a Confederate scout he had to provide something. 

“Stay there!” One of the men yelled. “We’ll come to you! Hands in the air!”

Calvin pulled on the reins to stop his horse and dutifully raised his hands skyward. He could feel his heart thumping in his throat as the figures holding the torches came closer and closer. Eventually he could make them out; a river otter who looked cautious, a leopard who looked ready for a fight, and in front a beagle who looked angry and annoyed.

“What in jack blazes are you doing?” The beagle asked when he got close enough for conversation. None of them had their rifles raised at Calvin, but they all – especially the jaguar – looked ready if Calvin made any kind of move.

“We were ambushed up at Sporting Hill, east of Carlisle. Most of us were wiped out,” Calvin told them with his hands still in the air. He thought it best to include as much truth in his story as possible, leaving out the part about him being a Union soldier.

The trio stared at him blankly for an awkward moment. Calvin continued.

“My good buddy back here,” Calvin said as he nodded backwards at the blue deer with his snout, “took one to the leg. He’s in bad shape. I grabbed him and high-tailed it to Carlisle, but everyone had left. So I kept riding.”

The otter made his way to the side of the horse Calvin was sitting on. It was as if he were inspecting, looking for something.

“Where’s your musket?” the beagle asked in an accusatory tone.

“I dropped it when I grabbed him. There wasn’t time.”

The beagle spit on the ground. He was in no hurry. The otter made his way to the other side of the horse while the jaguar stayed in place, ready to raise and fire his rifle in an instant if necessary.

“What’s his name?” the beagle asked.

“John,” Calvin replied after a brief moment. That was a piece of information he didn’t want to have to commit to, but he didn’t feel like he had a choice. Maybe he’d even get lucky and the deer would be named John.

There was another brief silence. The three Confederates were studying him.

“For god’s sake he needs a surgeon, he’s dying! Please!” Calvin yelled urgently.

“He’s in a damn bad way, Will,” the otter said, presumably to the beagle, as he examined the blue deer. “We should rouse Dr. Russell.”

“Yeah, all right. Cleve, run and wake him up.”

The jaguar gave a quick salute before sprinting towards town.

“Calvin, was it? I’m Will. Sergeant William T. Thayer, but I’m called Will,” the beagle said as he extended his hand. “You can put your hands down now.” 

Calvin leaned down and shook his hand.

“Nice to meet you Will.”

“Likewise. Get down off that horse, we’ll walk her in.”

Calvin swung one leg over the saddle and dismounted. Will asked him several more probing questions as they walked into town, forcing Calvin to make several more lies about who he was and what he was doing. This wasn’t a game Calvin had much experience with, and he was sure that if it continued he’d eventually trip up and get caught in one of his lies.

As they got closer to town, Calvin was surprised that there were so few Confederate soldiers. He expected there to be thousands of troops massed and ready to move east.

“Where is everybody anyway? Where’s the army? I thought they’d be here,” Calvin asked, both in an attempt to derail the beagle’s interrogation and out of genuine curiosity.

“Oh! Didn’t you hear?” the river otter replied excitedly. “They headed east this afternoon. Left just a handful of us here as rearguard, but the rumor is that there’s gonna be a damn big fight near Gettysburg soon. Can you believe our damn rotten luck? We’re gonna miss out on all the damn action! I thought marching all the way up here to Pennsylvania was gonna be my chance to finally kill me a damn Yankee. So much for that! These damn generals, keeping us back here while everyone else gets their glory, it ain’t fair!”

He hasn’t seen it, Calvin knew. He hasn’t been in it. He doesn’t know what war is.

Dr. Russell came as briskly as his aged legs would allow down the town’s main dirt thoroughfare as Calvin and the Confederates who were escorting him passed a picket fence that roughly defined the edge of the town. He was a thin and elderly raccoon who, if Calvin had to estimate, was likely nearing on 80 years of age.

“Where was he hit?” the doctor said breathlessly as he approached the group, giving no introduction but focusing immediately on the patient. He was surprisingly spry for his age.

“Left leg,” Calvin replied. “He got up after it happened so I think it missed bone.”

“Good, good, good,” the doctor said as he made his way to the side of the horse. He looked at the blue deer and briefly examined his wound. “Let’s get him inside so I can see what we’ve got.”

A house that the Confederates had commandeered for use as a kind of field hospital was nearby, and in just a few minutes the three Confederates, the doctor and Calvin had brought the blue deer into the drawing room of the house and onto a cot. There were several other wounded Confederate soldiers laying on cots in the room.

Once the deer had been laid on the cot, the three Confederates left the room, presumably to go back to their post. Calvin remained standing next to the blue deer and the cot while the doctor fetched his medical bag. As he placed it on the floor, Calvin saw that it contained some of the more common doctoring implements he’d seen before, but it also contained a bonesaw.

“Help me get his pants off,” the doctor said to Calvin when he returned. It wasn’t something Calvin had considered, but given that the deer’s wound was high on his thigh it made sense that the doctor would need to remove his pants to get a better look at it and operate, if necessary.

Calvin swallowed as he untied the deer’s blood-stained trousers, which he and the doctor were able to easily slide off his hips. The doctor dropped them on the floor as they slid past the deer’s hooves.

The doctor then quickly and unceremoniously removed the deer’s underwear. It took Calvin completely off guard, and for a moment he could only stare, dumbstruck, at what the deer had kept hidden in his pants – a sheath not totally dissimilar from his own but longer and thinner, and below it two large, furry balls. They were as big as Calvin’s even though even though he was much larger than the deer.

“He's a lucky one, I think,” the doctor said.

“I wasn’t... he what?” Calvin answered, looking away at the deer suddenly as overcompensation, thinking he’d been caught staring at his genitals.

“Missed his bone, missed artery, looks clean,” the doctor said, eyes staying on the deer’s bullet wound.

Calvin felt silly and blushed slightly under his gray fur. Of course he’d been talking about the wound and not his endowment, Calvin thought. He’s a doctor, he’s a professional, he’s seen this all a thousand times before.

“Here, stand here and hold this for me,” Dr. Russell said as he handed the oil lantern in his hand to Calvin.

Calvin took it and stood next to the doctor, shining the light on the bullet wound as well as he could. Still, his eyes kept darting to the deer’s sheath and balls. He felt guilty for doing it but he couldn’t help it.

Dr. Russell lifted the deer’s leg to get a better look at the exit wound. As he did, the deer’s balls heaved heavily. Calvin watched entranced and felt the beginnings of his own arousal swelling in his pants.

Deeply embarrassed and ashamed, Calvin averted his gaze away from the deer entirely. He noticed a portrait on one of the walls of a younger raccoon who bore a resemblance to the doctor. The figure was flanked by what Calvin could presume was his wife and their children. He realized that the doctor was not a Confederate field surgeon as he had initially assumed but was simply a local town doctor that the Confederates had pressed into service to treat their wounded.

“Yes, yes, it’s a clean wound, very clean. Very good. Straight in and out. I’m glad to see it. Yes, very glad. If it doesn’t take to infection, he’ll keep this leg. And...” the doctor said as he dug into his bag, “there’s something we can do to prevent that from happening.”

He pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. To Calvin it looked like water.

“What's that?” he asked the doctor.

“Moonshine! The strongest available!”

“He can’t drink that, he’s...”

“It’s not for drinking!”

The doctor then reached into another pocket of the bag and pulled out a clean white cloth. He soaked it in the alcohol and squeezed it out on the deer’s wound. He then pressed the alcohol-soaked cloth into the wounds on both sides.

“Good for him he’s knocked out. If he were awake he’d be screaming,” the doctor said.

Calvin had never seen or heard of a doctor using alcohol to treat a wound. Typically doctors would just sew up a wound and wrap it in cloth. No one knew what caused infections or how to prevent them.

“What is this for?” Calvin asked.

“Prevents infection. That and what we’re about to do.”

“How do you know?”

“Son, I’ve been doctoring in this town for over 40 years. I can’t always tell you why or how, but I know what works and what doesn’t. And this is the best way to treat a wound to prevent infection. Well, after we do this extra thing.”

The doctor again rifled through his medical bag, eventually producing a metal spoon.

“Hold that lamp still so I can heat this up,” the doctor said to Calvin. “It’s gotta be glowing hot.”

Calvin was again confused, but he knew nothing about medicine and decided it best to defer to the doctor’s judgment on the matter. As the spoon began to glow, Calvin was reminded of a memory he held deep in his past, of iron ingots he’d seen being forged in the iron works his father worked at when he was a child.

“Good, good, that's good. It’s ready now.”

He didn’t know what he was expecting, but Calvin certainly wasn’t expecting the doctor to do what he did next. In a quick motion he pressed the back of the glowing hot spoon to the deer's wound. He held it there for a second or two, searing the flesh.

“What are you doing to him!” Calvin yelped, the smell of singed fur filling his nostrils.

“Preventing infection! You have to trust me, young man! Now heat it again, we’ll do the other side.”

Calvin’s mouth was agape in confusion and shock, but he did as he was told. Another glowing spoon and a few seconds of sizzling flesh later and it was done. Once it was, the doctor again poured alcohol on both the wounds, which were now sealed shut. He then pulled out another length of pristine white bandages from the side pocket of his medical bag and began wrapping them around the deer’s leg.

Once he’d finished wrapping the leg, the doctor pulled a blanket over the blue deer to cover his body before putting his finger to the deer’s neck.

“Pulse is weak, very weak, not good. He must have lost a lot of blood. When he wakes up – if he wakes up – make sure he eats and drinks, even if he doesn’t want to. There is food in the pantry, give him whatever he wants, he needs it. And you can get fresh water from the well behind the house.” the doctor said as he began placing tools bag in his bag. “I’ve done everything I can. It’s in God’s hands now.”

“Why are you doing this for him,” Calvin said as the doctor began to walk away. “That portrait on the wall... you’re not a Confederate. They turned your house into a field hospital. Why are you helping them?”

Dr. Russell stopped and turned back to Calvin, setting down his bag.

“If you’re real lucky you’ll live to be as old as me one day, son. And if you don’t let your heart turn to stone and don’t let yourself get set in your ways, you’ll learn that all this division doesn’t mean anything when it’s just you and another person. He’s a Confederate, so are you, I’m not. But you’re people. We have that in common. I'm not helping a Confederate; I’m healing a person.”

He paused and sighed.

“If I didn’t do what I just did, and if he wakes up, your Confederate field surgeon would have sawed off your friend’s leg in a few days when it got infected, which it would have. He’d cut above the wound, right up next to his hip. He’d have lost his whole leg. Truth to tell, there’s not much chance he would have even survived an amputation like that so high up on his thigh. Not much chance at all. But if he did, if he did, he’d still have to live with being a cripple for the rest of his life.”

He paused again, looking down at the deer. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts.

“I fought in the 1812 war, son. I saw a lot of people die who didn’t have to die. A lot of friends. I think about it all the time… it’s been 50 years but I still think about them almost every day. What kind of men they would have been, what kind of lives they would have had. We were just boys back then.”

Dr. Russell turned to Calvin and looked him in the eye.

“If your friend’s life lasts as long as mine has, no one will remember which side he fought on. When he’s old, the young folks won’t even know what this war was about. They won’t care. They won’t remember. Ancient history. The cold, dead past. But he’d still have to wake up every morning for the rest of his life with only one leg.”

Dr. Russell broke eye contact with Calvin, picked up his doctor’s bag again and turned to leave the room.

“Whatever happens, I’m going to save as many lives and as many limbs as I can while I still have breath in my lungs. The colors of the uniforms don’t matter to me any more. I’m too old to care about that.”

Calvin was still crouching next to the unconscious blue deer as the doctor turned and left the room. He turned down to him looked at his face. He seemed so serene, so peaceful. Calvin placed his hand on the deer’s head, thumb below the antler he’d shot off earlier that day. He watched as the deer’s chest gently rose and fell. Calvin smiled slightly, knowing he’d done everything he could.

Before he heard Dr. Russell’s words he still had doubts about his decision. Treason, desertion, traitorously offering aid and comfort to the enemy, these were just a few of the things he could be hanged for if he returned to Harrisburg. And that was assuming that the Confederates didn’t discover his ruse first; for all they knew he was a spy.

He’d have to think of something tomorrow, somewhere to go. He’d heard before that deserters headed west until they got past civilization, but he didn’t really know what that meant or what it entailed. But if that’s what he had to do he’d do it. He’d survive for long enough to wait out the war. And then he’d figure something else out. One step at a time.

Tomorrow will likely be as busy as today, he thought. As unpredictable. But if the Confederates caught him tomorrow he’d die knowing he’d saved a life. Just one. Maybe the deer could forgive him for what he’d done. Maybe the badger could too.

Calvin yawned heavily. It was past 2 a.m. and he’d been awake nearly a full day. He realized how tired he was now that his self-imposed mission was completed. There was a chaise next to the wall just a few feet from the blue deer’s cot. It was too small for Calvin and his feet hung over the armrest when he laid down on it, but he was too tired to care or notice. He fell asleep almost instantly.

- -

“Major Stokes, sir, sorry to disturb you so late sir, but I felt it was important, and you told me that if I saw anything unusual to tell you right away even if you were asleep sir, and...”

“No that’s fine Sergeant Thayer. At ease, you can stop saluting. Come on in,” The major said to Will as he wiped the sleep from his eyes. “Have a seat.”

Will followed Major Stokes into the kitchen of the large house the Confederate command had commandeered as their temporary headquarters in Chambersburg. He sat across the table from Stokes, a rather diminutive Scottish Terrier whose long black fur flowed on his snout like a kind of long beard. The fur on his eyebrows was just as long, giving him the look of someone who was much older than his actual age. 

“What news do you bring me?”

“Sir! A scout, a gray wolf with a wounded in tow surrendered himself to our watch less than an hour ago.”

“And?”

“Sir, I have reason to believe he’s not who he says he is.”

“Enough with the ‘sirs’, Will, talk to me like I’m a friend of yours and not your commanding officer.”

As he spoke, Major Stokes pulled a cheroot from a case he held in his hand and lit it with a match.

“Want a smoke?” He asked Will.

“No si--  no thanks, I’m fine.”

“Suit yourself. Now, what makes you think this scout isn’t who he says he is?”

“Well, sir, the first thing was just how he presented. He rode in around midnight and said he got detached from his regiment. I just thought that was odd.”

“Odd, sure. But that’s all. You better have more than that Will.”

“Yes sir! The first thing I noticed was the saddle he had on the horse. It wasn’t Confederate issue. In fact, it looked like a Union army saddle, I believe it was.”

“Maybe he stole the horse from a Yankee? Or found it wandering lost after its master was killed? Did you ask him?”

“No sir… No, I should have sir. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Major Stokes said before taking a long drag from the cheroot. He turned sideways and blew the smoke from the side of his mouth, away from Will and into the still air of the room. “What else?”

“Two big things. First, he said he was from the Alabama 43rd. Sir, you know I’m from Alabama, right? Port of Mobile, born and raised. Well, the Alabama 43rd was formed in Mobile, good friends of mine are in it. And I’m telling you sir, from his voice, his accent, he ain’t from Alabama. He sure as hell ain’t from Mobile, if he is I’ll eat my hat.”

Major Stokes had thought Will Thayer to be extremely obsequious, and he was used to Thayer coming to him with schemes, ideas or theories like this. Stokes knew he meant well, but this had happened enough that he’d resigned himself to politely entertaining him and then brushing him off. But he also knew that even the boy who cries wolf will sometimes actually see one.

What Thayer had just said to him about the Alabama 43rd grabbed his attention. Thayer may not have known, but the Major was privy to battle plans and troop movement information, and he knew that the Alabama 43rd was not involved in this campaign whatsoever – there was no reason anyone from that regiment should be within five-hundred miles of Chambersburg. Major Stokes was listening now.

“Hmm. And the other big thing?” Major Stokes asked.

“It was his coat, sir. There was a bullet hole in it. Either he’s a ghost or he took it off a dead man.”

“Hmm, interesting. Interesting. And you said he had a wounded in tow?”

“Yes sir. A blue deer. That’s confusing to me ‘cause he really was shot up and in a bad way. Whatever scheme the wolf has, his wounded was a genuine article.”

Major Stokes took another long drag from the cheroot and blew more smoke from the side of his mouth. He paused for moment before replying again.

“Will, I think your hunch may be right on this one. I really do.”

Will’s eyes lit up. This was higher praise than he usually got from the Major.

“Yes sir! Thank you sir!”

“Listen, tomorrow I’m out on rearguard maneuvers north of town, I’ve been ordered to hold the road to Harrisburg until the morning of the 2nd. I should be back early that morning, day after tomorrow. So what I want you to do is to find out whatever you can about this gray wolf tomorrow while I am gone. Eavesdrop, directly question him, whatever you think is appropriate to get more information. Thursday morning when I get back, come by directly and tell me what you’ve found out. I’m inclined to believe your hunch is right, but I need something concrete, something actionable.”

“Absolutely sir, Thank you, sir! I won’t let you down!”

“One more thing, Will. If he is a spy, he’s dangerous. Keep that in mind. Don’t go near him unarmed.”

“Yes sir!”

Will Thayer stood up from the kitchen table and saluted the Major. His heart was beating out of his chest with excitement as he left the house. He had discovered a Union spy, he was sure of it. Tomorrow he would ensnare him.