Finding Hope in Texas (21 page)

Before I knew it, it was lunchtime, but
instead of cooking on the tiny gas grill, which was a big no-no for
some reason, we stood in line at a local food vendor’s trailer.
There was an assortment of greasy food to choose from and I was
having a hard time deciding between roasted sausage on a stick or a
foot long corny dog. My arteries tightened up a bit just thinking
about it.

“Hey, Jason, how was drill?” Lizzy said, much
to my surprise as I turned to see him.

“We’re a bit rusty, but it will all come back
for the battle.”

“What time did you get in last night?”

“About two. Worked late.”

I decided to thrust myself in the
conversation. “How are your buttons?” Lizzy gave me a strange look,
like I had lost it again, but Jason smiled with those pretty white
teeth of his, tapping his coat.

“They look good on here, don’t you think?” I
could only smile back, thinking that he could’ve been wearing a
potato sack and still look impressive, but I only gave him a nod.
Lizzy moved up in the line as we continued talking.

“So, did you drive your motorcycle all the
way down here?” He shook his head.

“Nah, it’s too cold for that. My grandfather
let me borrow his truck.”

“Well, I’ve heard that you take this
seriously, like you try to live as much like a real life soldier as
possible.” He gave an innocent nod. “So why are you standing in a
food vendor’s line? Shouldn’t you be eating tree bark or
something?” It was a snide comment, but I gave a quick grin letting
him know it was playful. His eyes darkened for a moment and I
thought he was mad, but he stepped forward and, putting a sturdy
hand around my waist, he turned me slowly so that I could see the
chalk menu again. I could feel him lean over my shoulder on one
side, gesturing up at the menu with his free hand.

“Turkey leg,” he explained with a whisper. I
looked back at him, his head ever so close to mine. “If they were
lucky enough, they might have gotten a wild turkey to eat.”

“Oh.” That’s all I could muster. I really
didn’t give a crap if he was eating McDonalds for lunch. The way he
felt draped over my shoulder, one hand on my hip, it was too much
to care about food for the moment. But he pulled away gently and
resumed his position in line, all of this happening without the
notice of Lizzy or anybody, for that matter. Another little passing
gesture between us; did it mean anything or was I just hoping it
did? A soft sigh left me as I stepped forward in line.
This is
what that pasty Twilight girl must have been feeling about the
all-too-white vampire boy
.

We ate our food with Jason under the large
circus-like tent, Lizzy noting that they would be having the dance
that evening. Both of us stayed mostly quiet as we sat listening to
her. I know I was nervous, but didn’t really know why. Was it the
strong, silent thing getting to me? He must have had a girlfriend,
with looks like that.
Jeez! I was starting to sound and think
like a teenager for the first time in my life.

It was about one in the afternoon when the
men in the unit formed up with all of their accoutrements to go
fight their fake battle. The few of us women there clapped as they
marched out of the camp. What for, I didn’t know. They were coming
back in a couple of hours. It wasn’t like we couldn’t just go out
and watch them do their little play. I guess it made it feel more
like the real thing with us cheering them on, but it just made me
feel like an idiot. Thank God this was three hours away from DFW,
not that everyone didn’t already know about my parade incident.

We waited around camp for the remaining hour
until the battle, playing with Archer, Julie, and a few other kids
on their rope swing that their dad had placed on a tree to give
them something to do. They had also brought their pretty, but
gigantic, German shepherd, Romo, who kept a watchful eye over the
kids while playing fetch with us. It was nearly two o’clock when
Lizzy pulled me away towards the battlefield.

As we reached the road, the sound of thunder
hit me in the chest like a sledgehammer. Another round ripped
through us and I gazed up at the overcast sky to see if it was
about to rain.

“The cannons are firing,” Lizzy explained,
still pulling me ahead.

“That was a cannon?” She smiled and nodded.
What the heck?
They are firing cannons at each other? We
quickly joined a large crowd that stood on one side of the rock
road. Smoke filled the air as the rampage of cannon fire continued
with me holding my hands over my ears most of the time. After a
while, blue and gray soldiers began to come onto the field from
each side and marched toward the approaching enemy, shooting their
rifles in ordered fashion. Horses galloped along the far side, each
group running at each other, shooting their revolvers and clanking
sabers as they passed, but no one ever falling off their horse. The
men on the ground closer to the crowd moved forward and backward,
shouting orders and shooting. Now and then, men would fall down,
but not as many as if they were really in combat. More men moved
into the fray, the long lines of infantry barreling down against
each other in fierce, phony combat.
Jeez, what a hobby.

I looked down at the gray, um, Confederate
side and noticed they carried the battle flag, flinging it back and
forth upon its staff. That emblem, the blue cross on a red banner,
to me had always been an emblem of hate, something carried by the
Ku Klux Klan to strike fear in every African American they could.
But there, they carried it with pride like it had not gone out of
style in 1865. All these men, they weren’t Klan members, were they?
They had to be doing this for historic reasons, right? I mean, that
would never have happened in New York without a few angry thugs
beating the crap out of the guys. I felt a chill run down my back.
It had been nearly one hundred-and-fifty years since the war and
the country was still divided in two through by the Mason-Dixon
Line.

Finally, the shooting stopped. Men lay
scattered here and there, some moving, some not. It was a sad
sight. A few men walked from each opposing side, stood out in the
middle of the carnage, shook hands, and the battle was over. I
guess there was a treaty to stop the fake war until tomorrow, maybe
so they could get cleaned up to go to the dance that evening. To
me, the whole thing looked silly, but before I knew it, all the
people watching started to clap and cheer, like they had seen the
greatest Broadway musical of their lives. I joined in the merriment
as well, feeling somewhat embarrassed.

“Come on,” Lizzy grabbed me again and we were
off. “You have to participate,” she said bluntly as we scampered
down the road to a tent at the end of the field with a large yellow
flag with a green H in the middle. “This is the hospital tent. It’s
one of my favorite parts of the reenactment. We are going to be
nurses.”

“Nurses?” I wasn’t able to keep my pet
hamster alive for more than a week when I was ten years old, what
did I know about being a nurse? Before I could protest, Lizzy
tossed me an already bloody apron.

“Put that on and do whatever Doc Harrison
tells you.” We looked over at the grizzled man wearing an apron
like ours, hands stained with what I could only hope was fake
blood, going over his surgical instruments.

“Lizzy, I can’t–”

“Come on, Hope. It’s just pretend blood. Just
give the guys some water when they get in. It’s cold out, but they
still need to drink.”

“Okay.” I shook my head, angered that I had
allowed Lizzy to pull another fast one on me. This girl was tricky,
but didn’t mean any harm in it. Maybe that is why Mr. Peet didn’t
know about her crush on Hunter? Or maybe he didn’t want to
know.

I did as Lizzy requested, filling up the
soldier’s canteens as they came in, some wearing their own homemade
bandages, some not. A few younger ones whined for their mothers as
Lizzy and another girl made their way around to them, giving them
the greatest of care that any fake field hospital could offer. It
wasn’t long before a crowd began to form around us, listening to
the dying men gurgle and groan. A couple of the doctor’s helpers,
both men, began to pull the wounded up to the table one by one,
doing the sinister task of play acting an amputation. Some of the
soldiers would fight and scream. Some would act like they died in
the middle of the arduous labor. It all looked dreadful to me and I
could feel heat form on the back of my neck and run down my
spine.

I took a deep breath and turned, right in
time to see Jason step through the crowd. His face was grimy, the
dirt and powder residue mixing with sweat to cause his once
handsome face to look aged and tarnished. A trickle of blood ran
down the corner of his mouth and his darting eyes were faded and
obscured by whatever he had just seen. It was only a shell of what
he looked like just two hours before, and without a word, he fell
face forward on his knees and then to the ground.

Shock ran through my system. I wasn’t just
seeing him anymore. Tyler’s face ran through my mind. My sweet
brother was lying there and I moved swiftly for him, the heat now
encompassing my whole body

“No, no, no!” I rolled him over, seeing his
eyes closed and mouth ajar. “Please, please don’t die. You can’t
leave me, not here, not like this.” I threw my arms over him,
pulling his head up into my lap. My little brother didn’t deserve
such a death, none of them did. “God, why did you do this? Why did
you let this happen?” I screamed as I began to fall apart, sobbing
loudly as I cradled his forehead against my chin, rocking him as if
he was a child. He was so limp against me, so cold, my body
convulsing with each hard pant that I gave to force air to get in
my lungs. Everything was gone in an instant by that foolish drunk
driver. Why wasn’t I in that car with them? I buried my face
against his, crying relentlessly. He was gone forever and I
couldn’t do a thing about it.

It felt like forever before I pulled away
from him, and it was a few more moments before I realized where I
was. Lizzy knelt down beside me, her hand on my back rubbing it, as
I held Jason there. I looked up to see so many eyes on me, many
full of tears just as mine where.

“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” Doc Harrison
stepped from around his blood saturated table, “this is where I am
supposed to tell you about the tragedies of the Civil War. But as
you can tell, most of you saw it with your own eyes of how a loved
one might react to the loss of another. Now I could sit up here and
tell you the facts about this whole war, but what you just
witnessed speaks louder than I ever will. Just know that
all
war is an ugly, messy piece of business and that the only people
that should be sent to them are the sorry SOB’s that start them in
the first place. Now give these young ladies a round of applause
for their help today.”

People were cheering for me, for my breakdown
in the middle of their reenactment. I looked over at Lizzy and she
too had tears in her eyes. Then I looked down at Jason, whose eyes
were fixed on mine. He wasn’t Tyler anymore; he wasn’t even dead
anymore. But his eyes burrowed deep within me, trying to find what
had set off such an episode.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as the applause
continued, but he said nothing. His facial expression didn’t
change, but his eyes continued their search.

I took a nap after the hospital scene,
getting back into my regular clothes and out of the camp dress.
When I awoke, the winter darkness had already set in and I wasn’t
sure what time it was until Lizzy broke through the canvas
doors.

“You going to sleep all evening?” she asked.
“You’re going to miss the meal and the dance.”

“I’m not hungry,”
I lied.

“Of course you are, now sit up and we’ll go
get the meal.” She fished out the ticket, which all reenactors
needed to eat for free. “They are having brisket and beans.” She
pulled me up to my feet and slapped my sneakers on, saying that all
the spectators were gone so I could dress more casual. I followed
her into a large line just behind the great tent where we had had
lunch.

“Well, if it isn’t Clara Barton,” I heard
from a person walking by, noticing that it was Mr. Peet,
accompanied by Mike and Hunter. “Heard you put on quite a show for
the audience today. Doc said half the people left in tears.” I
smiled but didn’t say anything. I’d never taken a performing arts
class in my life, everything that came out of me was naturally
insane. “After y’all get your meal, we will be eating inside the
tent here.” Mr. Peet and Mike strolled on, but Hunter stayed for a
moment longer.

“Are you going to the dance?” he asked Lizzy,
who smiled and nodded. “Well, would you like someone to take
you?”

“Are you asking me?” He returned the smile
and nod. “Well,” she gave a long pause, “okay.” They grinned at
each other like two canaries in a cage before Hunter followed the
men inside.

We joined them after grabbing our meals.
Everyone was still dressed in their 1860s clothing except me,
making me feel more distant and out of place. The conversation was
about the battle, the mistakes that were made and needed to be
fixed before tomorrow’s killing, the fun and excitement everyone
had, and just a kind atmosphere of being happy to be out again,
even in the cold weather. Of course, I had little to say, being the
fifth wheel to the four. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to come
to this thing after all. I didn’t know what these people saw in it.
Getting to know Jason had been my main goal, but he was busy being
a corporal or sergeant or something. And when I did finally see him
at the hospital, I literally fell apart on him. Yes, it might have
looked good to an unknowing crowd, but he probably thought I was
nuts, forever knowing me as the girl who fell too much and wept on
command.