Wilderness Run by Maria Hummel Page A

man on the other side. Laurence’s shot went too high, above the heads of the rebels. Fumbling for another bullet, he loaded again, the musket burning his fingers.
    â€œFire!” Davey’s voice rang out.
    When his second shot spun into the clouds. Laurence turned to Addison, embarrassed, but his friend was dodging back and forth along the line, rallying the others. He heard a woman shriek once more and realized the sound was coming from the house on the hill.
    â€œThere’s a woman in there!” he yelled, sitting up, casting about for someone to listen.
    Captain Davey did not look at him, absorbed in loading his gun. His squat body pillowed up from the earth. A few rods away, Lyman Woodard turned and blinked, uncomprehending. He lay on his stomach, his hands folded over his head, his gun beside him.
    â€œThere’s a woman in there!” Laurence yelled again. A blast of grape sailed over the hill and crashed down between him and Woodard, who whimpered and scooted backward on his elbows, leaving the gun behind in the grass.
    Davey lifted his gun. “Fire!” he ordered.
    A long swath of shingles slid from the roof. Laurence watched it sway on the air, tossed like a maple leaf in autumn. Halfway to the ground, it got caught in the crossfire and split into shards that stabbed the grass below. The woman wailed again, her voice ancient, his mother weeping on winter nights when his father was away, his sisters crying in the next room as they woke from nightmares, a startled lament, one that cannot believe its own origin in sadness and terror, one that will not be comforted. Smoke stung his eyes as he loaded again, tearing the packet of cartridge powder with his teeth, tasting its peppery ash.
    He raised his gun, aiming this time at a stocky, wide-hipped secesh with sandy hair and two canteens slung over his shoulder.
    â€œFire!” Davey sounded distant now.
    When Laurence’s bullet hit the secesher in the shoulder, the man staggered back, flapping, spinning on his toes as if he thought he might take flight before he fell, face-first, into the torn green pasture.
    *   *   *
    Later, by the river, Laurence stumbled alone, searching for a place to cross. The captain had yelled to retreat and he had obeyed, moving clumsily back from the firing line and down the hill to the water. His breath came in ragged gasps. He could see his shadow flicker over a body before he registered the body itself, tossed like driftwood onto the shore of weeds.
    The boy’s legs were splayed, and one arm lay across the barely breathing chest, the other pointing north. Laurence recognized the streaks of berry juice on the small white hands before he recognized the face. He fell to his knees, the impact making his teeth clack together.
    Pike’s throat had been gashed open by a shell and the long red wing of exposed flesh fluttered lightly when he breathed. Beneath him, the grass was blood black and matted. It reeked of metal, vinegar, and ash. Laurence began to retch, hearing his own voice reciting poetry to the boy in the days before: I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven.
    When he could sit upright again, Laurence stared at the body, hoping someone else would arrive and tell him what to do. Pike had the half-shut eyes of a man playing the piano or singing alone, transfixed by some inner music. The last time Laurence had seen him, he’d been lying a few feet back from Gilbert, loading and firing. How he had gotten here alone, Laurence could not guess, unless Pike had followed him as he retreated, leaving his brother behind to fight. Laurence would not have seen him. Soon after he began to run, the seceshers had opened up with every last chunk of their artillery, and there was no looking back.
    Daylight shuddered on the nearby river. The sounds of the battle receded to a dull thrum. Pike was still breathing, his breath a soft, intermittent rattle. Out