Barry Hannah - Airships

We rode in. They were ready with the repeating rifles, and we were blown apart. I myself took a bullet through the throat. It didn’t take me off my mount, but I rode about a hundred yards out under a big shade tree and readied myself to die. I offered my prayers.

“Christ, I am dead. Comfort me in the valley of the shadow. Take me through it with honor. Don’t let me make the banshee noises I’ve heard so many times in the field. You and I know I am worth more than that.”

I heard the repeating rifles behind me and the shrieks, but my head was a calm green church. I was prepared to accept the big shadow. But I didn’t seem to be dying. I felt my neck. I thrust my forefinger in the hole. It was to the right of my windpipe and there was blood on the rear of my neck. The thing had passed clean through the muscle of my right neck. In truth, it didn’t even hurt

I had been thinking: Death does not especially hurt. Then I was merely asleep on the neck of my horse, a red-haired genius for me and a steady one. I’d named him Mount Auburn. We took him from a big farm outside Gettysburg. He wanted me as I wanted him. He was mine. He was the Confederacy.

As I slept on him, he was curious but stable as a rock. The great beast felt my need to lie against his neck and suffered me. He lay the neck out there for my comfort and stood his front heels.

A very old cavalryman in blue woke me up. He was touching me with a flagstaff. He didn’t even have a weapon out.

“Eh, boy, you’re a pretty dead one, ain’t you? Got your hoss’s head all bloody. Did you think Jeb was gonna surprise us forever?”

We were alone.

He was amazed when I stood up in the saddle. I could see beyond him through the hanging limbs. A few men in blue were picking things up. It was very quiet. Without a thought, I already had my pistol on his thin chest. I could not see him for a moment for the snout of my pistol.

He went to quivering, of course, the old fool. I saw he had a bardlike face.

What I began was half sport and half earnest.

“Say wise things to me or die, patriot,” I said.

“But but but but but but,” he said.

“Shhh!” I said. “Let nobody else hear. Only me. Tell the most exquisite truths you know.”

He paled and squirmed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

A stream of water came out the cuff of his pants.

I don’t laugh. I’ve seen pretty much all of it. Nothing a body does disgusts me. After you’ve seen them burst in the field in two days of sun, you are not surprised by much that the mortal torso can do.

“I’ve soiled myself, you gray motherfucker,” said the old guy.

“Get on with it. No profanity necessary,” I said.

“I believe in Jehovah, the Lord; in Jesus Christ, his son; and in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the Trinity of God’s bride, the church. To be honest. To be square with your neighbor. To be American and free,” he said.

“I asked for the truths, not beliefs,” I said.

“But I don’t understand what you mean,” said the shivering home guard. “Give me an example.”

“You’re thrice as old as I. You should give me the examples. For instance: Where is the angry machine of all of us? Why is God such a blurred magician? Why are you begging for your life if you believe those things? Prove to me that you’re better than the rabbits we ate last night.”

“I’m better because I know I’m better,” he said.

I said, “I’ve read Darwin and floundered in him. You give me aid, old man. Find your way out of this forest. Earn your life back for your trouble.”

“Don’t shoot me. They’ll hear the shot down there and come blow you over. All the boys got Winchester repeaters,” he said.

By this time he’d dropped the regiment flag into a steaming pile of turd from his horse. I noticed that his mount was scared too. The layman does not know how the currents of the rider affect that dumb beast he bestrides. I’ve seen a thoroughbred horse refuse to move at all under a man well known as an idiot with a plume. It happened in the early days in the streets of Richmond with Wailing Ott, a colonel too quick if I’ve ever seen one. His horse just wouldn’t move when Ott’s boys paraded out to Manassas. He screamed and there were guffaws. He even cut the beast with his saber. The horse sat right down on the ground like a deaf beggar of a darky. Later, in fact during the battle of Manassas, Colonel Ott, loaded with pistols, sabers and even a Prussian dagger, used a rotten outhouse and fell through the aperture (or split it by his outlandish weight in iron) and drowned head down in night soil. I saw his horse roaming. It took to me. I loved it and its name (I christened it afresh) was Black Answer, because a mare had just died under me and here this other beast ran into my arms. It ran for me. I had to rein Black Answer to keep him behind General Stuart himself. (Though Jeb was just another colonel then.) I am saying that a good animal knows his man. I was riding Black Answer on a bluff over the York when a puff went out of a little boat we were harassing with Pelham’s cannon from the shore. I said to Black Answer, “Look at McClellan’s little sailors playing war down there, boy.” The horse gave a sporty little snort in appreciation. He knew what I was saying .

It wasn’t a full fifteen minutes before a cannon ball took him right out from under me. I was standing on the ground and really not even stunned, my boots solid in the dust. But over to my right Black Answer was rolling up in the vines, broken in two . That moment is what raised my anger about the war. I recalled it as I held the pistol on the old makeshift soldier. I pulled back the hammer. I recalled the eyes of the horse were still bright when I went to comfort it. I picked up the great head of Black Answer and it came away from the body very easily. What a deliberate and pure expression Black Answer retained, even in death.

What a bog and labyrinth the human essence is, in comparison. We are all overbrained and overemotioned. No wonder my professor at the University of Virginia pointed out to us the horses of that great fantast Jonathan Swift and his Gulliver book. Compared with horses, we are all a dizzy and smelly farce. An old man cannot tell you the truth. An old man, even inspired by death, simply foams and is addled like a crab.

“Tell me,” I said, “do you hate me because I hold niggers in bondage? Because I do not hold niggers in bondage. I can’t afford it. You know what I’m fighting for? I asked you a question.”

“What’re you fighting for?”

“For the North to keep off.”

“But you’re here in Pennsylvania, boy. You attacked us . This time we were ready. I’m sorry it made you mad. I’m grievous sorry about your neck, son.”

“You never told me any truths. Not one. Look at that head. Look at all those gray hairs spilling out of your cap. Say something wise. I’m about to kill you,” I said.

“I have daughters and sons who look up to me,” he said.

“Say I am one of your sons. Why do I look up to you?” I said.

“Because I’ve tried to know the world and have tried to pass it on to the others.” He jumped off the horse right into the droppings. He looked as if he were venturing to run. “We’re not simple animals. There’s a god in every one of us, if we find him,” he said.

“Don’t try to run. I’d kill you before I even thought,” I said.

His horse ran away. It didn’t like him.

On the ground, below my big horse Mount Auburn, the old man was a little earthling in an overbig uniform. He kept chattering.

“I want a single important truth from you,” I said.

“My mouth can’t do it,” he said. “But there’s something here!” He struck his chest at the heart place. Then he started running back to the depot, slapping hanging limbs out of his way. I turned Mount Auburn and rode after. We hit the clearing and Mount Auburn was in an easy prance. The old man was about ten yards ahead, too breathless to warn the troops.