Old Jack

The Tennessee air was hot and humid in the afternoon sun, the chorus of buzzing insects and chirping birds and other wildlife sang throughout the damp, wooded lands near the river water as it crept steadily northwards. In the shade sat an old man against the trunk of a majestic oak tree that rose into a whispering, green canopy. A gentle gust rattled the foliage and a couple of rebellious leaves came loose and floated away, down the sheer drop of a cliff that overlooked the river bend, but he paid them no mind. His thoughts were consumed with the grey cloud that protruded from the forest some distance away; a steamboat was out there somewhere, crawling its way against the current in its magnificently slow fashion.

A faded brown leather coat draped over a pair of long legs dressed in trousers of rough, grey cotton. A black, cowboy style hat concealed the upper half of his face and a long stemmed, wooden pipe smoldered as he took a long inhale. Smoke curled out of the corner of his hard lined lips and the old man raised a pair of slate grey eyes to peer at the glistening, muddy brown surface of the river. Judging from the plume of steam and smoke, the boat had a little less than an hour before it was in his range, at the wide turn of the river just beneath him. “Soon now, old girl…” the old man’s gravelly voice spoke against the noises of the forest as he placed his hand on a long and dark, .50 caliber rifle. With one more look at the smoke signal in the distance, he tipped the brim of his hat to once more cover the intensity of his eyes and he settled in against the rough bark. His mind wandered to a terrible place…

A group of blue adorned soldiers marched underneath a tall wooden gate. A wrought iron sign that read “BUBBLING SPRINGS” creaked in a warm, summer breeze as their boots trotted over the dry, dirt road; kicking up clouds of dust in their wake. The soldiers looked around at groups of negroes going about their business, none of them dared to stop and look at the Union soldiers as they marched towards the veranda of a large, white house.

A young woman in a long sleeved, sky blue and white striped dress swung open the front door and ran up to meet the soldiers. She stopped in front of a tall man in a dark blue uniform with the epaulettes of a lieutenant, a pair of golden bars, sewn into the straps on his shoulders. “May I help you, sirs?” She asked tentatively.

The officer peered down at her for a moment before asking, “Is a mister Jack Hinson currently on the grounds of this plantation?”

“I am right here,” a strong, commanding voice called out from the doorway of the house. There stood old man Jack, confidently leaning against the wooden frame. “May I ask what Union troops are doing on civilian property?”

The officer chuckled while looking around at the seemingly oblivious slaves. “Civilian, right. My name is Lieutenant Jones and despite the fact that we should raze this place to the ground and free these poor men, we have something that may interest you.”

Jack Hinson raised an eyebrow, “And what might that be?”

The officer gestured with a sharp, backwards nod at his troops. The men fumbled with something, the clinking of chains jingled through the tense air and they dragged a pair of bound and beaten forms from the back of the formation to throw them at the foot of their lieutenant. “Do you know who these lads are?”

Jack, wide eyed, crossed the distance in a few long strides, nudged the young woman out of his way and fell to his hands and knees. “John? Joseph!?” Jack looked up at the lieutenant with eyes full of rage. “What in the hell is going on here?”

“This pair was caught near our camp with hunting rifles.” The lieutenant watched Hinson pull the gags from their bloodied mouths with eyes of disdain. “This is war and we do not tolerate spies, mister Hinson.”

“I swear we ain't done it, pa!” One of the boys professed.

“We were just outside of town hunting for rabbits,” the other wept into the dirt at his father’s feet.

“Don’t worry, boys,” Jack stood to look the officer dead in his pale blue eyes. He looked back at the young woman, whose eyes were wide and whose hands covered her mouth in shock, “Go inside, Jessie. Tell the others to stay inside as well, I’ll straighten this out.” She looked away from the poor young men and hurried back into the shade of the house.

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Jones said as his thin lips curled into a malicious smile.

“I have friends in the North and the South!” Hinson stepped towards the lieutenant angrily; the troops nearest him raised their guns and stepped in closer to the two men. Hinson looked around the gleaming tips of their bayonets with seething rage. He spat at the soldiers feet, “I couldn’t give two shits about your god damned war! This whole thing is nonsense!”

“Secession is not a light matter,” Jones said from between the armed teeth of his men. “We of the North are creating a more perfect union. Through our blood, sweat, and tears, we will blaze the trail of future generations, where all men are free and justice is equal.”

Jack balled a fist and threw his other hand to gesture at the beaten forms of his sons, writing in the dirt against their shackles. “Like I told you, you sumbitch, we don’t care for your war here. My boys are good boys, you think they’d be fool enough to try and ambush a squad of your soldiers with just the two of them??”

“Probably not,” Jones admitted. “Espionage, on the other hand…”

Jack was screaming now, “They’re not SPIES!! They were hunting rabbits for Christ’s sake!! This is what you call JUSTICE??!!”

“I grow tired of this scenery,” Jones said, almost bored, before looking around at the men beside him and telling them, “let’s teach this man a lesson about fighting a war he can’t win.” On that cue, the soldiers advanced from the lieutenant’s sides and prodded Jack Hinson back with their bayonets. Hinson grabbed the muzzle of the nearest rifle and slammed the butt into the soldier’s face and swung it around to the next nearest soldier. It clicked but didn’t go off, so Jack threw it on the ground but by that time, a few more soldiers were already on him. Jack managed to punch one in the jaw but another threw his arms around him and yet another slammed a gloved fist into Jack’s teeth and again into his nose and again and again until it didn’t even matter.

“Don’t beat him too badly now, fellas,” Jones voice pierced through the pounding of Jack’s blood, red hot in his ears. “I want him to be conscious.”

A rough hand grabbed Jack by the chin and forced his face towards the lieutenant, who stood imperiously over the struggling, weeping boys. “Please, don’t do this…” Jack said weakly over the blood that pooled in his mouth. He tried to free himself from the arms of his captors, but the Union troops hung on tight.

“Hold this one up for me first,” there was nothing he could do as another pair of blue soldiers forced the younger of his sons to his knees. “Make peace with your god, son.” The boys and their father pleaded as the lieutenant drew his sword. It slid from the scabbard with a horrible ring, sounding like a sigh from the god of death, terrible and final. Through watery eyes, Jack watched, struggling to free his arms, as the lieutenant raised the blade slowly and brought it down swiftly and conclusively. Jack screamed at the top of his lungs as his boy’s head fell from its body and the corpse fell limply to the ground. The other boy’s wailing was even more deafening as the same pair of soldiers held him, kicking and screaming, for their officer to behead. Once the act was done and his son’s blood pooled around their lifeless bodies, the soldiers released Jack to fall to his knees and stare into his hands blankly. In one more cruel act, Lieutenant Jones personally picked up the decapitated heads and shoved them roughly down onto the fence posts on either side of the gate, mouths open in an unending scream. “Lovely. Alright, boys, lets pack it in.”

They left Old Jack Hinson to stare at his hands as they returned down the dirt road towards town. “That’ll teach you to mess with the North,” one lagging soldier said cruelly to the traumatized father before slamming the butt of his rifle into the side of Jack’s face. Honestly, he welcomed the sleep, though it was far from restful.

The next few weeks were a haze of anger for Old Jack Hinson. After the awful burial of his prematurely taken sons, he freed his slaves and moved the remainder of his family out west. He commissioned a state of the art, .50 caliber sniper rifle which he affectionately named “His Girl” and vowed to take as many blue lives as he possibly could. He spent the rest of the war picking off officer after officer, hoping to run into the bastard who tore that gaping hole in his heart.

“And here we are…” Old Jack removed his hat, letting the sweaty mess of silvery-grey hair cool against his forehead in the breeze. The plume of the steamboat was close now; the craft would be visible in just a few moments. He laid his belly down and wormed his way as close to the edge of the cliff as he could without revealing the barrel of the rifle to the shining sun. True to form, the steamboat inched its way into view around the lazy curve of the river; it was a Union gunboat as he knew it would be. His powerful eyes scanned the deck of the boat, searching for the dark blue uniform of whatever commanding officer was unlucky enough to be aboard. He found the target with ease and took aim, even with His Girl; a headshot from this range would be next to impossible. Sometimes, he was lucky enough, and the bullet blew away not just a head, but the neck and even part of the shoulders depending on the angle; but unless he was a little closer, a torso hit was good enough and still a confirmed kill. So he aimed for the space where the man’s heart would be and let His Girl scream in his ears.

The bullet pierced the target, and he fell from the rail of the boat with his legs crumbled beneath him. Blood splatter was everywhere; even more began to pool from the cavernous hole in his chest almost immediately and spilled down the rust spotted side of the gunboat. The crew panicked and ran around like headless chickens. The smart ones got behind cover and a few brave souls shot their rifles out into the wilderness on the banks of the river. Jack smiled a wicked smile as he finished reloading his gun, and took the life of another unlucky blue. This one was a headshot, lovely, and the body stumbled back a couple of steps almost as if it was still aware before collapsing a few meters away from the lifeless officer.

A bullet hit the face of the cliff uncomfortably close to his position, so Old Jack rolled over and stood, picked up His Girl and engraved a pair of bright slashes into the muzzle of his gun in memoriam of the two more lives snuffed out at his hands. He smiled at the dozens of other such marks before slinging her over his shoulder and slinking back into the woods where he left his horse, the frightened shouts of the sailors were eventually swallowed up by the trees. At first, he didn’t care about this war, but now, it was everything. Whether his sons were innocent or not, whether the South wins or not, the day that the Union took his boys was the day that they made an eternal enemy of Old Jack Hinson. Even if he never gets to watch the life bleed out of that bastard Jones’s eyes, as long as there is a fight, and probably even after, he will kill every damned person who dons that uniform that he possibly can. And they won’t even have time to make peace with their god.