On the Brink of Love and War

After a lifetime of raising the stakes, two men volunteer for the riskiest position in their regiment during the American Civil War.

Here’s a short story I wrote last winter, enjoy!

On the Brink of Love and War

by Meghan Robins

            Water curled down the Mississippi. Kids muddied their feet. “If you really liked me, Elias Miller, you'd throw a stone so far it’d skip ten times before sinking.” Clara Dupont had set her challenge. Although she taunted Elias directly, every boy within earshot scoured the shoreline for skipping stones. Gerard picked a brilliant one: smooth and triangled, it skimmed the surface seven, eight, nine times—the most from any boy that day. And just like that, Clara’s sights were set anew.

            Elias dropped his handful of rocks. “That was dumb luck, Gerard. I bet you can’t swim as far as you throw.”

            Gerard looked across to the nearest river island. “I’m happy to womp you twice in one day.”

            “First one there and back wins.” Elias was already taking off his boots.

            Gerard stretched his pale skinny arms. “Wins what?”

            “This.” Clara held a black ringlet of hair to her rosy cheek. And just like that, two boys who had once been friends became adversaries.

            Two years later, Clara was twelve, declaring that whoever brought her the most beautiful feather could accompany her to the spring festival. Tate Anderson won that honor. He gifted her a wild turkey feather that gleamed with reddish-brown hues offering a depth of color no eagle or hawk’s tail could claim. Elias, Gerard, and half a dozen other boys threw theirs to the ground in disappointment.

            Over the years, the intensity of Clara’s challenges increased, and her pool of suiters declined. She found it intoxicating, the power she held over these boys. Soon only Gerard and Elias were foolish enough to risk bodily injury to gain her favor. Soon, they no longer needed her suggestions to challenge each other daily.

            Once, Elias returned from the woods with a bouquet of feathers he’d twined together into a corsage. Gerard, the tawny-skinned son of a mercantile who was also surprising Clara with a gift of purple ribbon pilfered from his mother’s drawer, stepped onto the path.

            “I won’t be compared to you,” Elias said. “Not in this.”

            “You’d best turn around then,” Gerard said.

            Words turned to blows and they rolled on the ground, dusty and unkempt. Somehow Gerald got hold of Elias’s forefinger, twisting it back till his skin gleamed white.

            “You’ll break it!” Elias yelled, pinned and vulnerable.

            “I intend to,” Gerard said. His face was too close to Elias’s.

            Until now, their confrontations had been fierce but decent. Tests of strength and virtue, wits and whimsy. Challenges where the winner departed with self-inflicted bruises and a worn ego. When Gerard heard the crack of Elias’s finger, he knew he’d gone too far. Elias’s scream tore a hole through their unsalvageable relationship.

            Gerard scrambled to his feet, leaving Elias writhing on the ground. From the dust he lifted the small bouquet of feathers and, as he walked, fastened his purple silk ribbon around its base. This was the most precious gift Clara had ever received.

            The following week, Gerard found his dog shot between the eyes, muddied in a pile behind the mercantile.

            The week after that, Elias’s family hog went missing, butchered by Elias’s own felling ax.

            “Enough,” said their fathers, who’d watched their boys become enemies for far too long. Even Clara was furious, for she understood that their rivalry no longer revolved around her. And if she were not the prize, then what was?

            On Clara’s sixteenth birthday, the war between the North and the South finally reached them. Confederate troops had invaded nearby Columbus, claiming a critical access point to the Mississippi River in hopes of preventing Union trade from floating down. Till that moment, the border state of Kentucky had officially refused to choose sides, claiming neutrality without seceding like their southern neighbors nor declaring pro-Union ideals. An invasion in their own county, however, was intolerable.

            It was Clara Dupont’s father who rallied for federal support. “We must drive these aggressors out,” he said. Clara stood in the town square with everyone else, purple ribbons in her hair, and listened to her father talk about things other than her birthday. “Gracen County must stand. We must assemble. Any man willing to fight should join the Union and together we’ll take back our land!”

            Some men cheered. Others grumbled. Half the town backed her father, eager to fight for the reunification of a divided country. Others sided with the Confederacy, believing each state should maintain their rights to choose their own industrial future. Most, however, ended up fighting their own wars, battling against neighbors, delinquent business partners, future wives’ ex-lovers, using the war as an excuse to roust old grudges then refusing to back down. Elias and Gerard were two such men.

            Like all moral nationalistic causes, the Civil War revealed people’s true colors, including the dangerously ambiguous opinions of Clara Dupont. Far above the moralities of capitalism, what mattered most to Clara was climbing the ranks. She would marry a man who’d fought for the winning side. She foresaw the rise and downfall of certain families, how aligning herself wisely might prove advantageous, might pull her out of this backwash town into a society more fitting her inner nobility. Her opinions about warfare were those of a sixteen-year-old girl—she would seek a decorated hero, who looked smart in his uniform and who would rise through the ranks into positions of political power. Even she knew how war worked.

            When Elias approached Clara sitting on her porch embroidering white daisies onto scraps of her green silken skirt, she gestured to the purple ribbons taken from her hair. “For your flag,” she said.

            “Not my flag.” Elias stood on the grass, brushing sawdust from his hat.

            Clara paused her needlework. “You won’t be joining my father?”

            “Some of us are thinking better of it.” Elias glanced around the yard.

            “He’s not here.”

            Elias busied his hands, calloused and tan, encircling the brim of his hat. “I don’t want any part in this war. But I suppose I’ll be fighting it one way or another.”

            Clara stood. Her skirts rustled leaves across the floorboards. “My father volunteered me to sew his regiment’s flag, so the men from Gracen County remember what they’re fighting for.” She descended two steps until they stood eye to eye. “What will you be fighting for, Elias Miller?”

            Elias held up a feather, tiny and gold. “Same thing I’ve been fighting for my whole life, Miss Clara Dupont.”

            Volunteers signed their names with Sergeant Dupont at a borrowed school desk in the middle of town square. He stood with Clara beside him. “Gentlemen, my daughter has finished our colors.” He unfurled a beautiful patchwork of silks and lace, white embroidered daisies on roiling green fields, the words ‘Men of Gracen’ scribed in purple ribbon delicately stitched. “It is not just our country we are fighting for,” he said. “It is our wives, our children, land and freedom! The women of Gracen will be proud, for we shall return as better men. And now, my daughter would like to say a few words.”

            Clara searched the crowd of eager-eyed boys and wary men. “To be the color-bearer is a great honor. Who among you is brave enough? Who will fight tenaciously and honorably? Who will promise to bring our colors home?”

            To Clara and her father’s delight, every hand was raised.

            Assignments were given and the men began to organize. Sergeant Dupont elected young Elias as flag-bearer, “to join him to the cause” and because he knew that boys who marched into wars unarmed were unlikely to return. He was not foolish enough to let his daughter fall for the son of a woodsman.

            “Miss Dupont,” Elias said. “I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Knowing that you personally stitched every last thread fills me with tremendous pride. I vow to never let it touch the ground.” He bowed stiffly and the whole town cheered.

            Against Gerard’s better judgement, he found himself scribbling secrets onto a paper and threatening a farm boy to deliver it to Columbus where Confederate troops were stationed, trying to engineer a mile-long chain across the river. His note implied that Elias was of great value, a spy, the son of someone important. He didn’t explain who, just emphasized the obvious and valuable target. His plan felt clever, conspiratorial. He wrote that the flag-bearer must die.

            Union support arrived and parked their carts in town, passing out muskets, carbines, revolvers. Most were used, collected and shined from previous battles. The war had been raging since April. Uniforms were untorn but stained. Gerard spotted Clara purchasing bread. He dipped out of line and took her by the arm.

            “Miss Dupont,” he said.

            Clara laughed. “Gerard, why so formal? Haven’t we known each other since childhood?”

            “That’s exactly it, Miss Dupont. I no longer see you as a child. Nor should you see me as such. When I return, I’d like to see you. That is, I would like to call on you.”

            Just then Elias walked around the corner, carrying his folded blue uniform.

            “Going to war is a serious thing,” Clara said. “A man can make something of himself, or he can fail.”

            “I agree,” said Gerard. “We’ll be fighting for the safety and sanctity of our home. Confederates have invaded our region. They will change the way we live, bringing slavery with them. We cannot do nothing. Our livelihoods depend on ensuring the right side wins.”

            “Then you’d best not fail in your efforts.” Clara glanced at Elias. “Bring my colors back to me and perhaps we can continue this conversation.”

            Gerald bent at the waist. She allowed his lips to graze her laced fingertips, a gesture she enjoyed tremendously. Then he bent to one knee. “I have already asked your father, and he’s agreed.”

            Elias dropped his uniform. “Clara, no.”

            “Stay out of it.” Gerard barely turned his head.

            “Wait until we return,” Elias pleaded.

            Gerard stood and faced him. “Only one of us will.”

            “You don’t want to marry him, Clara. He’s vile and a traitor.” Elias held up a wrinkled note.

            Gerard stood. “Where did you get that?”

            “I intercepted a boy in the woods. I’m heading to Sergeant Dupont’s now.”

            “I’ll rip your tongue out first.”

            “Just try.” Elias raised his fists, one finger still deformed. “I’ll tell her what you did, everything you’ve ever done.”

            Gerard peeled off his jacket. “Let’s settle this once and for all.” Before the words fell out of Gerard’s mouth, Elias’s fist collided with his jaw.

            They punched and tumbled until Clara yelled, “Stop!” Then with an eerie calm, she said, “Save it for the war. I’ve watched this go on long enough, pushing each other to the most dangerous situations. Winning my affection is no longer about me. You’ve twisted it into something ugly, something personal. You’ve forgotten about the prize. So let me make it simple. Go to war, fight for my father. The man who brings back my flag, whether it’s you or you or Thomas Desmond, is the man I shall marry. I’ve had enough. I intend to marry a war hero, someone who will climb the ranks and take me far away from here. You are right, Gerard. This war will change everything. And I intend that change to be for the better.”

            Gerard lamented while polishing his Union-issued Henry repeater. All he could think about was how to get that flag. Why had Elias been chosen? Was he colluding with Clara’s father? All week Elias carried new airs about him, hooking Clara’s arm and parading around town, laughing as though being flag-bearer meant something. Didn’t he know they were marching to war? That flag-bearers marched without weapons? Just a pole dangling silks and the pride of their county. What a fool Elias was—a fool worth envying.

            When their regiment assembled, Gerard approached Sergeant Dupont. “I volunteer as flag guard, sir. It would be my honor to protect Elias as he carries our colors into battle.”

            “Very well.” Sergeant Dupont nodded. “You’ll be with Thomas. Say goodbye to your loved ones, gentlemen. Tomorrow we march.”

            The following morning, farmhands and woodsman, store clerks and blacksmiths, friends and enemies marched side by side. Gerard and Thomas flanked Elias, proudly guiding their colors to an open field where four more Union regiments camped. The morning fog hid the number of southern infantrymen positioned across the valley.

            Sergeant Dupont sounded the order. “Forward!” And the men marched on.

            The first shot fired hit Thomas between the eyes. Four more men fell nearby. Elias ducked. A bullet slugged his leg and he fell. Someone leapt forward, catching the flagstaff, saving them from the dishonor of letting their flag touch the ground. Gerard fell behind, tripped by the swampy mud they were fighting in. The battle raged on. Both Elias and Gerard had sunken with their heads down, weathering the onslaught, struggling to stay near the flag. When the next color-bearer fell, Gerard lunged for his prize. An iron ball pierced his shoulder, throwing him backwards, off balance. The flag wavered. Already, three other men had held it before him. Elias was nowhere to be seen. He could not let it fall. Gerard wedged the staff into the mud, angling their colors high. Eventually, the bullets stopped, the yelling quieted. Both sides had lost good men and were retreating.

            Through the smoke and dust a silhouette approached. Gerard knew that stride, hobbled as it was. He would know it anywhere. Elias marched forward. His leg was badly cut, bleeding from the thigh. He stopped and stood over Gerard.

            “Why did we let it come to this?” Gerard cowered in the mud.

            Hatred poured off Elias like rain. “You refused to see reason,” he said. “You refused to back down. This is your doing. All of it.” He ripped the flag off its pole and held it to his chest.

            Gerard lunged forward reaching for the Elias but only slipped deeper into the mud.

            “She will know what you did,” Elias said. “I will make sure of it.”

            Gerard dragged himself up by the flagless pole. Clara’s silken colors, sewn by her very hands to protect him, his promise to come home to her was gone. All of it was gone. Gerard felt the life spilling out his shoulder, his legs, the cuts on his arms and neck. A man without colors was a man without home. And what home did he have to return to if not Clara.

            “Was this for me or Clara?” he asked. “Is this love or revenge?” But Elias was gone, already starting the long walk home, limping back to Clara.