War; or, What happens when one loves one's enemy/Chapter 26

by John Luther Long

XXVI

TANKOO

WELL, I must leave you to imagine what my feelings were as I looked down, day after day, on that beautiful, bloody thing with my bullet in it. I can't tell you—it chokes me up now—unless a little story of Jon and me would do it.

I used to gun a good deal when I was young. Once, when I was out for rabbits I found a cunning young one just a couple of inches long, a regular little cotton-tail—with no parents about. I expect, maybe, that I had killed 'em. It was starving to death. I brung it home for Jon—about three or four year old then. Well, you never saw no better friends! Jon fed him like a mother and he took it. That little bunny would follow Jon about like they was brothers. He'd come to the table and sit at Jon's elbow and eat—sometimes out of the same dish.

Jon he made a little funny collar, out of some oyster pearls and a string for him. And he called him Tankoo, because he tried to say "Thank you" when I brung it for him. He growed so fast with all the feed Jon pushed into him that soon he was a large regular rabbit. But he never stopped those intimate acquaintances with Jon.

Then, one morning, in the gunning season, I looks out of the window and sees a rabbit running about in the Red Meadow. I grabs my gun and calls out to Jon to come and we'd "get him." I know now that when I said "get him" Jon didn't think I meant to kill him. He looked a little funny at my gun, but we were on the run to the pasture and he didn't have time to say anything. When we got to the meadow the bunny had disappeared But, in a minute he runs straight toward us from behind some bushes. I fires and he falls. When we gets to him it is Tankoo.

Little Jon says nothing, only looks at me, for a long time. I remember that look now. How pale his little face was! How his young blue eyes blazed accusation at me!

He took Tankoo in his arms, all bloody and ragged—not understanding—not understanding at all—and when he can't hold his little head up, only open and close his brown eyes, like he was tired and hurt, Jon holds him out to me and shrieks:

"Fix him! Holes in him! Oo done it!"

But there was no fixing Tankoo. He put his head under my little boy's arm and died.

And I don't like to remember his look when he drew the head of the animal forth and found the eyes steadily open but in them no sight.

When he understood he looked up at me. And I see that look often in the nights when I think cruel thoughts.

Betsy said, afterward, that when Tankoo found us both gone he ran about like crazy to find us. So she took him to the window stairs, where he could see, then let him go and he scampered off after us—just to love us, she said, and got shot for it.

In the most remote and beautiful part of the garden the little boy buried Tankoo. Then he made a small tablet for the grave on which he got Betsy to write:

TANKOO
KILLED BY DADDY
JUNE 10TH, 1859.

I have never killed an animal since. And only the war made me raise my gun against my own kind. But, I think I never saw a man fall in battle that that saying of little Jon's didn't come to me:

"Fix him! Holes in him! You done it!"

And then I would, often, see that little tablet Jon had placed at the bunny's grave:

TANKOO
KILLED BY DADDY

Only, instead of killed, the tablet I saw read "murdered".

And Jon has told me that the same thoughts have come to him amidst the dead and wounded on the battle-field.

No! I wouldn't kill an animal. But I would kill my own kind—in that thing of murder called War.

And that is what constantly came into my mind when I was with Evelyn:

"Fix her! Holes in her! You done it!"

Next day was uncomfortable for me. For, besides lying to all the rest, I had to look out that there was no change for the worse in Evelyn. But she was so happy—even happier than the night before—that I had shot her that she seemed to forget the wound. It was regular faith-cure.

"Why, I could get up, daddy," she laughs, "if you weren't working to make my hair-cut convincing."

In the afternoon I wanders up to the garret. There were two lamps near the window facing south, which I had never seen before. Nearly new. Stuffed behind the window-frame, like some one had done it hastily, was some fresh clean writing-paper with this on it:

And on the other side of the frame was another paper—ragged and old, with this on it.

I takes the things back to ask Evelyn what it meant.

"Well," she says after a while, "if you had promised to go to dinner at a friend's house and got shot—wouldn't you send your regrets?"

"Yes, I expect I would," says I, "if it wasn't dangerous."

"You may tear up that chart, daddy, dear, and put away the lamps. It's all over—like a nightmare. They're no more use. I want to forget it. You do, too. I wish we could make the trees grow again. It is all over. And, if they come for me—why, we'll fight, won't we?"

"Like an army," says I, "defending their last ditch!"

"Yes, daddy," she laughs and cries, all together, "I've fought, bled, and nearly died for my country and against my love, haven't I?"

"Yes," I says.

"And I've paid, haven't I?"

"Yes."

"And been foolish?"

"Very," says I.

"I'm just Evelyn, hereafter. Not a rebel—not a Union—not anything but Evelyn! Waiting to be wife to Dave. Nothing more. That's a woman's business. To be a wife—mother."

As you'll notice, she didn't tell me what it meant, and I was a little curious—like we all are—not? So I didn't tear up the diagram, but showed it to Jon, thinking he might know, telling him that I had found it near Crider's in my watch the night before.

"Why," says Jonthy, opening his eyes, "this is the signal chart of the Knights of the Golden Circle. They say you can spell out anything with a light. That's the Golden Circle. Why, the government will give anything for this!"

"Well," I says, "the government ain't going to get it. In a minute it'll be tore up."

"Yes, I guess that's better," nods Jon. "It might make more trouble."

"Spell this," I says, handing him the other paper.

Well, by the help of the chart he did it after a time.

"Mallory caught by Federals. Badly wounded. Will die," is what it read—as you can see for yourself.

Jon grabs my hand.

"I hate to kill things, daddy, and to gloat over others miseries. But I believe that I am glad Mallory is caught. Now we're shut of him!"

Poor old Jon! He wouldn't have been so glad if he had known who Mallory was.

That night I went to the garret again, to watch Ben Crider and a couple of others, at his garret window, making fools of themselves. And I thought how I could get even and have some to spare if I would just get one of the soldiers on duty to come up there with me. But, of course, that might have made trouble for Evelyn. It was so plain that I could read it, almost, myself. They were asking for reports—answers to earlier signals—and demanding daily reports. They were clean crazy. From the way they acted and talked, they didn't believe that Mallory was hurt. They wanted some proof of it. I had a great mind to try a little foolishness with the light myself, and had already struck a match to light one of the lamps, when I remembered, again, that it would be bad for Evelyn, and put the match out. But after that match their signals got furious.

The whole thing was well arranged. The trees cut down at our house and those from his made just about enough of an avenue to shine the lights through above the other trees. You had to be in line with 'em from the outside to see anything—and also high up above the trees in the valley—and this was almost impossible.

I decided to get away and let them alone or else I'd do something foolish and hurt Evelyn. I knew that she would do all that was necessary—if anything was—to shut it off.

But coming down-stairs, my candle glittered on something shining on the floor at the dark place where the garret stair took off from the stairs to the second story. I bent to look at it and found that it was a drop of dried blood. And then I found others—all the way down.

I went to Evelyn's room and said:

"Did you climb those stairs and send that message?"

"What message?" laughs she.

"Mallory caught by Federals. Badly wounded. Will die," repeated I.

"It wasn't quite true, was it, daddy, was it? Is that what you're cross about? I'm not going to die!"

"No, Evelyn, it's true," says I, "you didn't know but you were dying then. I tracked you by the blood."

"Are you satisfied, daddy?" she begs. "I did the best I could—to save us!"

"You did the best you could, God bless you, girl!" I says, and we both cried together. "You are a brave girl!"

"I really think, daddy," she sobs, "that I've saved us—don't you?"

"Yes," I says.

I had meant to tell her about those furious messages flying above, but she looked so piteous that I thought it might worry her, and so I didn't.