Edward Lee - Header 2

“It were a camp, son, where Yankees from all over could come and git thereselfs a piece’a ass. A blammed rape camp’s what is was! The Yankee general was a black-hearted cad the name’a Hildreth—it’s him was the one who order this big camp put up, and by the hunnerts, the Yankee soldiers’d come to git their willies up in our gals and fill ’em with their evil Yankee peckersnot, and General Hildreth, what he done is he charged each soldier a five-cent piece fer each nut they git in the camp, making profit on his crimes against our gals!” Helton’s rancor echoed through the woods. He had to recompose himself. “And, see, bein’ that the gals was forced ta live in this camp fer over a month, they’se all wound up pregnant, and General Hildreth, he like that a whole lot, he did, ’cos even after his Yankees left, these poor gals’d pop out kids they’d have to raise, just bringin’ more’n more hardship on ’em. And worser than that even was that whiles the gals was in the camp, they weren’t givin’ nothin’ to eat, so’s one’a the gals—name’a Constance McKinney, it was—she were kind’a the speaker fer all the poor gals. What she do is she say to General Hildreth, ‘Please, general, ya gots to give my gals some food ever so often, else we all starve to death! ’ So ya know what General Hildreth did? He give each gal a tin cup and then he laugh back ta Constance’n said, ‘Each time one of my men gets his nut up your dirty Rebel pussies, you just stand up and put this cup between your legs and let my mens’ jism dribble in the cup…’cos that’s all you’re ever gonna get ta eat while you’re here! Ain’t no way I’m wasting a single morsel of food on Rebel bitches!’”

“God dang, Unc Helton!” Micky-Mack wailed. He and Dumar were clearly unsettled. “Shorely only the most evilest’a men’d make gals live on cum! ”

The shadow of Helton’s nodding head loomed huge in the forest behind them. “Oh, they was evil, all right, boy, evil as if they was the sons’a Lucifer hisself. Our poor gals got fucked or sodder-mized probably a thousand times each by these dag-blasted Yanks. Eventually, though, they moved on, leavin’ our towns burnt and dester-toot. See, the Yanks et all the livestock theirselfs, but what was left they kilt’n left ta rot so’s no one else could have it, and they burnt all the fields too. That blammed Hildreth even sent his men inta the woods to kill every animal they could see; he didn’t want nothin’ left for the folks here to eat. And, a’course, all them poor gals was knocked up and their bellies full’a Yankee bastards…”

Dumar and Micky-Mack shivered, not from the chill air but from the macabre suspense being conveyed by the fire.

“Weren’t long after, the War ended, and the town’s men that didn’t get kilt or die in Yankee prison camps, they come back home, but imagine their horror when they did. Town in ashes, fields destroyed, folks livin’ on roots’n head-lice’n tree bark’n worms, their wives rack-skinny’n traumer-tized’n with a Yankee baby on their tit. It’s said that a good many’a our boys hanged theirselves in despair when they seed that.” Helton eyed the two young men. “But there were a pair’a Rebel soldiers who come back, and they didn’t kill theirselfs, no sir! They decided to do somethin’ ’bout it!”

“What, Paw? What?” Dumar pleaded.

“They hunt down them evil Yankees’n kill ’em, Unc?”

Helton raised a silencing finger. “Listen ta me now, ’cos this is important. These two men I’m speakin’ of? One was a fella named Clyde Martin —”

“Hey!” Micky-Mack exclaimed. “That’s my last name!”

“Dang straight it is, boy, ’cos this soldier, Clyde Martin, is yer direct ancestor, and the other fella, he was Lemuel Tuckton— ”

“So, Paw,” Dumar calculated, “You’n me, we’se related to him?”

“Yes, we is. He’s my great, great grandfather, son. It’s the blood’a these two men—these heroes —that all of us gots runnin’ in our veins. When they see what General Hildreth did to the town, they got all in a swivet, they did. And they decided to go after him.”

“Please, Paw! Tell us they kilt Hildreth in a bad way!”

Did Helton smile in the crackling firelight? “After the War, Hildreth, he go back to someplace calt Filler-delfia, became mayor. Lived in a big mansion with pillars out front, had a beautiful wife and couple’a children, and his two best officers from the War, he hired ’em ta run his estate. See, Hildreth, he were pig-shit rich from all’a his war crimes over the years. So what Clyde Martin and Lemuel Tuckton do one night is after ridin’ on horseback all the way to Filler-delfia, they snatch them two’a Hildreth’s officers…”

Micky-Mack and Dumar stared.

“Their bodies was found the next day, both dead as dead could be. Had their heads busted open, they did…but it weren’t no ordinary head wound, no sir. Hildreth ain’t never seen anything like it, so’s he called the family doctor to inspect the bodies. Both the tops’a their skulls was busted open—a ballpeen hammer, probably, the doc said—and ya could see their raw brains still sittin’ inside’a their skulls. But the doc look close at them brains with a magnifyin’ glass, and ya know what he saw?”

“What, Unc Helton! What?”

Helton nodded. “He seed what look like a single knife-slit in each brain, then he took a whiff ’a them brains—”

“He smelt the dead fellas’ brains? ” questioned Micky-Mack in utter puzzlement.

“He smelt ’em, all right,” Helton assured, and it appeared by his demeanor that something joyous deep inside was just itching to get out. “And he rekka- nized the smell, and then he stick his finger inta each slit and felt somethin’ slimy, like snot… ”

Dumar’s brow furrowed. “Paw, ain’t no way snot could wind up in a fella’s brain. ”

“It weren’t snot, son. It was cum— ”

“Cum!” Mick-Mack yelled.

“Dick-loogie, Paw? Pecker snot? That what you’se talkin’ ’bout?”

“It shore is, Dumar! Man-batter! Joy juice! Cock-hock!” Helton affirmed, rising to his feet as the frenzy of the tale he told began to unwind like a spring. “What Clyde Martin’n Lem Tuckton did is they cracked them two officers hard on the top’a their skulls, picked out the pieces’a bone, and stuck a knife in each brain ta make a slit fer their dicks, and then—then”—Helton began to shake —“and then they fucked their brains! ”

Micky-Mack almost fell off the log. “They fucked their brains, Unc Helton?”

“Holy sheeeeeeeee-IT, Paw!”

“They fucked their evil Yankee brains, and I’se mean they fucked ’em hard, and they each got theirself a nut, boys!” Helton was reeling. “Then they done the same to all’a Hildreth’s housemaids’n servants, snatchin’ ’em two at a time and humpin’ their heads!”—the frenzy rose, veins bulging in Helton’s forehead, eyes wide and gleaming in vengeful delirium—“then they snatched Hildreth’s children—his children!— and they fucked their heads, and then they done the same to his wife! And then, then, they snatched Hildreth himself and they fucked his head ta kingdom come! They fucked that head three times apiece, boys, comin’ each time’n blowin’ their load right inta the middle’a Hildreth’s twisted brain, they did, till his head was full up with their cum, and that, boys”—Helton stomped the ground—“ that… is what’cha call a header! ”