January Dawn Read online

  I had taken one step out the door when I realized I had forgotten my flag under the mattress. I took a second to grab it and say a curt goodbye to the old shack before I crept outside to where Mr. Jeffries was waiting.

  “You know what to do. We’ve gone over this a million times. You got two minutes.”

  “Yes sir.”

  We split up. We had different jobs to do before we could leave. Mine was to fill up our water jugs from the spigot. I did exactly that. Then, according to the plan, I was supposed to meet Mr. Jeffries up front in the driveway, but I had to ignore that plan for a minute. I had something else I had to do first.

  I snuck over to the storage shed, a locked room on the outside of the barn, where I slipped the keys out of my pocket, unlocked the door and made my way inside. The storage shed was where Mr. Stephens stored all his most valuable stuff, all the tools and things he wouldn’t let us use. It’s also where he stored all his alcohol.

  Navigating by moonlight, I groped anything and everything until I found what I was looking for. Bingo. Hiding in the corner underneath a blue tarp was a full five-gallon can of gasoline. My going-away present for you, Mr. Stephens.

  I grabbed a box of matches off the work bench and skulked my way across the open patch of dirt that lead to the back porch of the house. Keeping as quiet as possible, I unscrewed the cap from the gasoline drum. I emptied all five gallons of the gasoline around the base of the house, splashing as high as I could.

  This has to be done.

  Striking the match against the box and feeling the heat of the heartless flame flickering in the evening breeze engrossed me with a feeling I’d never felt before. Independence. Self-determination. Free will. Whatever you want to call it, I felt it. Like a bolt of lightning it surged through my body, straightened my back and filled me with an iron will. It was utter satisfaction.

  A lifetime of mistreatment. No more.

  This evil man deserved what was coming to him…and more. I hung the matchbox over the flame. Once it caught, I tossed it onto the porch.

  The gasoline instantly flared up, sending a river of yellow fire racing around the house. With the fire glistening in my eyes, I dare say, a smile crept across my face. I had waited so long to get revenge. I wanted to take from him what he took from me all those years.

  But something didn’t feel right. Something inside of me held back the long overdue joy of vengeance. It was my nature. Mr. Jeffries had taught me too well. My sense of righteousness overruled my evil doing, but at the same time, didn’t quite condemn it either. The farmer had a price to pay, nobody would say different, but his life wasn’t it. Perhaps, I was too weak to do what was necessary.

  I pulled a loose brick from one of the foundation posts that held up the house, and went around front to get a view of the upstairs bedroom window. As much as I wanted not to throw it, I wouldn’t allow blood on my hands tonight. Mr. Jeffries wouldn’t allow it and he certainly wouldn’t allow himself to do it, so I chucked that brick with all my might at the window. It shattered as the towering arms of the firestorm reached its ugly hands up to the base of the window sill.

  A fit of coughing and cussing could be heard coming from the window as I backed my way down the dirt driveway. Mr. Jeffries was there waiting, his face illuminated with the orange glow of the fire.

  “What did you go and do now?” He said, shoving my makeshift blanket knapsack into my arms.

  “I changed the plan a bit.”

  I started walking down the dirt road, and knowing that Mr. Jeffries wasn’t pleased with that answer, I tried to change the subject. “Did you slash the tires on the truck?”

  “I did.”

  I noticed that he wasn’t following me. “What’s wrong?”

  “I aint going with you.”

  I retraced my steps. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I aint going with you.” With tears forming in the corner of his eyes, he put his hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me now, Colt. I aint going with you, cause I can’t go with you. There aint nothin out there for me. I’m just a worn out old man. You young and you smart. A handsome white boy like you would get along just fine out there in the world, but me…”

  No…no…this can’t be happening. He can’t be leaving me. Not now. Not ever. Silent tears rolled down my face.

  “Save your tears,” he said, wiping them from my face with his long, leathery fingers. “Save your tears for those moments in life that make you so happy that you cry tears of joy. There is a purpose for you out there. You just gotta find it. And at that moment, when you realize you finally found it, your heart will feel so weightless. Every pain you’ve ever had will disappear…and it’s that blissful moment that will bring you to tears.”

  “Mr. Jeffries, please.”

  “Colton, you’re like a son to me. I’ve raised you since you were a boy. I’m givin you a fightin chance here, don’t you see? When you get out there keep your mouth shut and your eyes open. It’s been a long time since I’ve been out there. God only knows how the world has changed since then. It’s a dangerous place. The ugliness won’t stop when you leave here neither. For every one Mr. Stephens, there are ten worse out there. So, don’t trust no one but yourself. Now please, turn around, walk down that road and forget me, forget all this, start a new life for yourself.”

  My lifelong friend was leaving me.

  “What about you?”

  He drew in a deep breath, stood tall and said, “I got somethin’ I got to do.”

  I wrapped my arms around the old man in a final embrace.

  “You go on now.” Mr. Jeffries’ usual calm, unwavering voice faltered under a wave of emotion.

  I dried the tears from my face, turned and walked down the dark road with my head hung low. I glanced back hoping to catch a final glimpse of my friend, but he was already gone. There was only a mountain of flame kicking up from the earth and licking up at the sky.

  The dirt road ended about a quarter mile away. The longest quarter mile I had ever walked. The burning house silently glimmered in the distance. Suddenly, two sharp echoes pierced the calm night’s slumber. Gunshots?

  I thought about running back down the road to see if Mr. Jeffries was okay, but thought better of it. He wouldn’t have wanted me to do that. So, I took one giant step onto the asphalt road and followed it east into the darkness.

  My future may have been unknown to me, but I knew one thing, my life was beginning anew and I would fight for it.

  Chapter 2

  February 1

  A week had passed since I walked off the plantation for the first time a free man. Now, I sat on a bus full of strangers crossing the Alabama-Georgia line. Most of the other passengers were around my age, some were clearly older.

  I could easily tell which ones were more nervous than the rest by how they drummed their fingers on their knees while looking out the window at every passing object, thinking it might be the last time they see something like that. The rest chatted away with their neighbor, laughing and looking forward to arriving at our destination.

  I didn’t speak a word the entire bus ride. Like Mr. Jeffries told me, keep your mouth shut and your eyes open.

  The kid in the seat next to me fell asleep as soon as the bus started rolling, so I leaned my head up against the window and got lost in thought as I traveled farther and farther away from the only world I ever knew.

  The night of the fire, I walked in the pitch dark for several hours before I reached town. I was constantly looking back over my shoulder in case Mr. Stephens came running down the road with his shotgun in hand, but he never did.

  I found a nice cozy spot beside a dumpster on the edge of town and settled in. In my bed roll I found half a loaf of bread and a crumpled brown paper bag that had twenty seven dollars and thirty seven cents in change in it. It was all the money we had collected over the years. Mr. Jeffries must have slipped it in when I wasn’t looking.

  I covered up with my blanket and sat in the dark, cold and sca
red. The only light I could see was the dull orange glow of a street lamp on the corner.

  I didn’t sleep a wink. I was scared if I fell asleep, Mr. Stephens would find me. My anxiety worsened when something in the dumpster started rustling around. I could hear it shuffling through the trash. I was about to move and find another place to stay when the culprit showed himself. It was a little black cat, not too much older than a kitten. He was so skinny I could count his ribs, even in the scanty light.

  He nearly jumped out of his fur when I said hello to him. He bolted off the dumpster and disappeared. Curiosity got the best of him when he poked his little head around the corner of the building watching me, his yellow eyes almost glowing in the dark. I broke off a piece of my bread and threw it to him. He gobbled it up. I drew him in closer, tempting him with food. He gained an ounce of courage, walked right up to me, snatched the bread from my hands and trotted off to eat it. Poor thing.

  Morning came an hour or two later. I munched on bread for breakfast and left a little piece for my feline friend as a parting gift. Good luck my friend.

  In town, I found what I was looking for on the main street. The front of the shop was livened with flags and posters of glorious looking soldiers. It was the Armed Forces recruiting station. Thankfully, I signed up without too many questions asked. All it took was a couple quick scribbles that I passed off as my signature.

  Happy Birthday Cotlon Tennpenny.

  This had been our plan for years. Wait until my eighteenth birthday when I was legally an adult, sneak away under the cover of night and sign up for the military. Burning down the plantation was a last minute addition. Once I was enlisted, there would be no way for Mr. Stephens to take me back. I would belong to the Confederate Armed Forces.

  When the recruiter shook my hand, I felt like I won the prize of a lifetime. I’ve been dreaming about this moment for a long time.

  But the next bus out wasn’t until later that week, so I had to spend a few more cold nights out on the street. When the day came, I arrived at the bus station six hours early. I sat with my ticket clenched in my hand until the bus arrived.

  I was on the verge of participating in an intensive eight week basic training that would mold a warrior out of me. At least, that’s what the recruiter had told me.

  There was a whole new world out here that I’d never experienced. Every road we drove down there was a new sight to see. I saw big cities like Birmingham and Montgomery. Fast food restaurants. Football stadiums. Apartment buildings. Gas stations. They looked every bit like how Mr. Jeffries described them and how I imagined them in my dreams.

  I was elated to see all these new things, but at the same time I suddenly felt small and insignificant. I didn’t realize how big the world really was. This world is going to swallow me up.

  Six hours and four stops later we finally arrived at our destination.

  The bus stopped in front of a parade ground where several drill sergeants dressed in the traditional Confederate gray stood at attention with hands clasped behind their backs. Each one was unrecognizable from the next, with their wide-brimmed hats hanging low, masking their eyes.

  Without hesitation, one of the drill instructors stormed onto the bus belting out inaudible profanities and instructions. All of us recruits exchanged glances. Nobody knew what to do. Eventually a few words were understood by everyone: get off the bus.

  Even with all the pushing and shoving going on we didn’t get off the bus fast enough for the drill instructors’ liking.

  “Drop down and give me fifty, dirtbags,” yelled the drill sergeant nearest me. Several of us dropped down on our hands and started cranking out push-ups.

  This is going to be a long day.

  The show of force by the drill instructors was exactly that, a show of force. Their bulging eyeballs and sharp, coarse curses put fear into us all.

  After a few hours of marching around aimlessly, they filed us into an administrative building where they distributed uniforms, performed physical exams, shaved our heads and gave us inoculations. I wasn’t a big fan of the last part. By the end of the process, every recruit looked the same. Shaved heads. Darting eyes. Shaking legs. And the beautiful Confederate gray camouflage. I endured all of this with an uncertain fascination.

  After every recruit had passed through the reception process, the drill instructors marched us to the company staging area where they siphoned us off into four platoons of fifty men each. I was placed in First Platoon. They dismissed us to our barracks when they finished roll call.

  Inside First Platoon barracks, there were bunk beds on each side going down the length of the room. Two doors at the end led to the shower room and the restroom, which had twelve toilets without divides in-between. That’s going to take some getting used to.

  I was one of the last recruits to enter the barracks, so I had slim pickings for my bunk. I found one near the far end. I’ve never slept on a bunk bed before.

  “Recruits! Fall in,” snarled the salt and pepper haired drill instructor standing by the entrance with his hands clasped behind his back. He had a frown on his face that looked about as dreadful as the jagged scar that edged its way down the left side of his face. We all jostled to stand-to at the foot of their beds.

  When all was quiet, the drill instructors paced the center aisle.

  “Welcome to Ft. Benning, Home of the Infantry. I am Senior Drill Sergeant Elroy, this here behind me is Drill Sergeant Quinn and Drill Sergeant Hamilton. We have you for eight long weeks. In that time, we will break you down and rebuild you into killing machines.” Elroy stopped every now and then to size up a recruit. He looked less than pleased. “There is a war going on right now. We need every able-bodied man we can muster. So, you can forget whatever hickville town you shit crickets came from. You belong to me now. But don’t go believing you’re soldiers just yet.”

  A war? I didn’t know anything about a war.

  Elroy stepped in front of me and looked me up and down.

  “At this point in time you are nothing. You are the property of the Confederate States of America. You will do what we say and when we say it. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  That got his attention.

  “Do I look like a sir to you? When I ask you something you reply with ‘Yes Drill Sergeant.’ Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Drill Sergeant.”

  “Speak louder! I can’t hear you, Private Tennpenny.”

  “YES DRILL SERGEANT!” I bellowed, finally getting the point. I’d spent my entire life getting beat if I didn’t say sir, but now I was getting yelled at for saying it. I’m going to wash out real quick, I thought.

  Elroy backed off when he heard some recruit down the hall snicker. Just in time too, my legs were beginning to shake.

  “Did I give you permission to laugh?” The veins in his neck bulged black and blue against his muscle taut skin. “You recruits know nothing of military life. I was fighting Uncle Sam in the suburbs of Richmond last year, while you were still finger banging your high school sweetheart under the bleachers during Friday night football games. This is the second year of my second war. I’ve seen good men die in the line of duty. I’ve had friends bleed out in my arms, hell, I’ve had enemy soldiers die in my arms. So, if you think for one damn second that something is funny and you laugh in my presence again, you’re going to find my boot up your ass. Is that clear?”

  This time it was the whole platoon’s turn.

  “Yes Drill Sergeant!”

  “Glad to hear it. Now, during the next eight weeks you will endure the most physically and emotionally exhausting training you have ever experienced. There will be days where you will fall down gasping for air, crying out for your momma to come get you. Well, your momma isn’t here. So, if your stupid ass falls down, you better pray to God that one of these other cow turds is nice enough to pick you up, because I won’t. You’ll come to learn real quickly that your best friend in this world is the soldier standing next to you.
He’s the one you have to trust with watching your six. The Army is a brotherhood. We live together, we fight together, and we die together. You all will be attached at the hip from here on out. If you are assigned latrine duty, then your buddies will be right there with you. If you take a shit, your buddies will be there to wipe your ass. So make friends now, for when you get sent into combat and you don’t trust the man beside you, you’ll get dead real quick.”

  I realized that I hadn’t even acknowledged any of the other recruits, let alone my bunkmate. He was standing next to me, but I didn’t dare break from attention to glance over at him. The last thing I needed was Drill Instructor Elroy yelling in my face again.

  “Our enemy is cunning and strong and they exist only for one purpose. The total destruction of our beloved Confederacy. The Yankees have invaded our lands and violated our culture. They won’t stop at anything until we are completely eradicated. Only you can say otherwise. Together we will stop the Yankee masses and turn the tide of war. Your journey begins today.”

  Drill Sergeant Elroy stood silent to let it all sink in.

  “Now, I want the whole platoon outside in full PT gear in one minute.”

  First Platoon’s first day of actual training was spent introducing us to drill and ceremony, walking in formation, perfecting cadence and exhausting us with physical exercise. I had no issue with the physical training part. I could knock out fifty push-ups without breaking a sweat.

  It was learning how to drill that confused me. All the fifteen-inch steps, thirty-inch steps, half-steps, quick times, double times, right-faces, left-faces, about-faces, none of it made sense to me at first. I made a fool of myself out there. I kept stepping on the heels of the guy in front of me. He didn’t like it too much. After tripping him up a dozen times, he turned around shoved me to the ground. The drill sergeant didn’t see him push me, but he did see me on the ground. I got a good chewing out for that.

  After the long day, we dawdled back into the barracks with sore legs and stiff backs, thinking only of one thing…bed. Some recruits plopped down on their beds hoping tomorrow would never come. Others, like me, decided to grab some clean clothes and head to the showers.