Incident on a Georgia Bridge

1

Three hours earlier, in a gentle but steady afternoon rain that came straight down, the Union captain dropped a coil of rough sisal rope on a nearby railroad tie, issued an assignment, and curtly said, “See to it, gentlemen.” Then he turned and walked crisply off the railroad bridge to join the rest of the company in the wooden shack nestled next to the rails.

As the captain walked away, Sergeant Reno and Private Casey called after him that it was a minor assignment, and a simple one. They would handle it forthwith. It would be among the easiest task they’d ever accomplished. And furthermore it would be easy.

But when the door of the shack closed behind the captain, the boasting fell away.

Sergeant Reno pulled the makings for a roll-your-own cigarette out of the breast pocket of his blue uniform jacket. As he tapped tobacco out of the pouch onto the paper, he glanced up at Private Casey from underneath the narrow brim of his service cap. “You heard the man. See to it.”

2

When the captain issued the order, the day was bright, save for the single dark raincloud hovering over the bridge. There was no breeze. A thin silver ever-present fog rose from the Sitahatchee river flowing below.

Three hours later, the breeze was still absent. As the sun dipped below the pulpwood pine-covered hill to the west, the quiet glow of a lantern sparked to life through a small window in the wall of the shack. The fog had turned pink, and was dimly illuminated in the faltering light.

During all that time, Sergeant Reno and Private Casey had engaged in seemingly idle chitchat regarding the task at hand. For all their bravado and blustering during their captain’s departure, neither of them had a clue how to go about hanging a man. As they hunched their shoulders against the light rain pattering all around them, they were lost in that on-again, off-again discussion, as they had been for three hours.

Finally, rain dripping off the narrow brim of his cap, Private Casey balefully eyed the condemned McCutcheon for the ninth or tenth time.

He’s a cap’n too, at least to hear him tell it. He has the right braid on the collar of that grey uniform coat. An’ me, I’m only a private.

That gave Casey an idea. It would be the trump card in his final hand.

3

Captain McCutcheon, CSA, stood nearby, his hands tied behind his back and lashed to the loop loosely tied around his boots. He calmly regarded the two men as they engaged in their morbid discussion, let it lapse, then reengaged.

The hint of a smile graced his face. A fragment of a shadow, then another, had slipped from one tree to another low on the hill above the shack. And neither Sergeant Reno, who was facing the shack, nor Private Casey, who was facing McCutcheon, paid the slightest attention.

Shifting only his gaze, he regarded Reno and Casey again. The men were entertaining to say the least. He was glad they were on the wrong side, if they had to be on a side at all.

His shoulders remained square in his coat. Rain was only rain. It came and it went.

Dignity was something else, however. Upright was neither a matter of degree nor something to be dictated by weather.

He’d lost his service cap, and a thick smudge of blood had dried across the left side of his forehead, the remnant of a near miss, below a shock of thick red hair.

4

Casey regarded McCutcheon. He had heard somewhere, he thought, that the noose was supposed to be tied with a certain number of wraps. It was also supposed to be positioned at a particular place behind the victim’s head. And for that matter, the victim was supposed to drop a certain number of feet for every pound of his weight. So that much was certain.

But he couldn’t remember exactly how many wraps he should take with the rope and in which direction, if that even mattered. And he couldn’t remember exactly where to position the knot relative to the man’s head. Nor did he know McCutcheon’s weight and therefore how many feet the man should drop. He spat to one side, then eyed McCutcheon again and frowned. Still eyeing the prisoner, he whispered to Reno, “How the hell am I s’posed to know how much the damn guy weighs?”

His rifle dangling from his shoulder, Sergeant Reno ran the tip of his tongue over the edge of the paper for his roll-your-own, then shrugged. He mumbled. “Ask’im.” He put the cigarette between his lips, then fished in the pocket of his mud-streaked blue trousers for a match. He found one, crouched, and struck the match on the rail, then straightened again as he took a drag and flipped the spent match into the river below.

Casey jerked his head around and glared at Reno. “What’s‘at, Sarge?”

Reno clamped the roll-your-own between his index and middle fingers, took another drag, and pulled his lips away from his uneven, yellowed teeth in a grin. He eyed McCutcheon momentarily, then looked at Casey again and gestured toward McCutcheon with his chin. “I said why’n’t’cha ask him?”

Casey frowned. “Ask him what?”

Reno gestured with the cigarette as he let go a stream of blue-white smoke. “Like you said, how much he weighs. Then you’ll know far he’s gotta drop. That’s what’chu was wonderin’ wasn’t it?” He gestured toward McCutcheon again, this time with a nod. “He’d know for sure, him bein’ a cap’n an’ all.” He glared over his shoulder at McCutcheon and replaced his grin with a scowl. “You’d know, wouldn’cha, Reb? Go on an’ say it.”

McCutcheon smiled and nodded. Then, for the umpteenth time, he said, “McCutcheon, Earl R. Captain. 270682.”

Reno turned around, shook his head, spat hard at the rail to his left, then glared at the captain again. “You ain’t shit to me, you know that?”

Again McCutcheon only smiled and nodded.

5

Sometime late in the fourth hour after the captain had walked off the bridge, the light of the sun had long-since faded. The sky was speckled with stars except where they were blocked by the cloud. And above the hill behind McCutcheon, a calm glow promised the imminent rise of a full moon. He glanced at the track to the west. No shadow yet.

The rain continued to fall straight down. Still no breeze had made an appearance. Private Casey and Sergeant Reno had shifted from discussing the finer points of hanging McCutcheon to the matter of who should do it.

McCutcheon only looked on, admiring the argument for the advantage it gave him.

Private Casey frowned. “Like the man said, and like you an’ me both know, he’s a cap’n. So by rights, our cap’n should’a hung him himself.”

Sergeant Reno only shook his head. “Mebbe. Only he didn’t. He said you an’ me gotta do it. That’s called delegatin’.”

“That’s called bein’ a chickenshit.”

Reno grinned. Past the rain dripping off his cap, he said, “Naw, now, he’s the cap’n. He’s got a right to delegate if he wants to.”

“Well, either way, it don’t take two men to hang another’n. And bein’s your closer to bein’ a cap’n than I am, you’re the one ought’a do it.”

Sergeant Reno chuckled and gestured toward McCutcheon with his chin. “An’ what? You figger he’s got a preference? You figger he cares about what rank hangs’im as long as he gets hung?”

“I just figger it’s more respectable, that’s all. Rank for rank, I mean.”

“An’ I figger just like the cap’n delegated this hand to you an’ me—”

“Don’chu say it, Sarge!” Private Casey raised a stiff fist and extended the index finger toward Reno. “Don’chu say it!”

Reno grinned. “I figger I can pass my cards to you. I hereby fold, Private Casey. You win the whole pot.”

“Damn it!”

“It’s getting’ chilly out here. Like the cap’n said, get on with it an’ let’s go warm up in that cabin.”

As Reno stepped past Casey and started toward the shack, McCutcheon’s moonlit shadow flashed past him on the railroad ties and stretched away to a point.

Somewhere behind McCutcheon, a stick lightly snapped.

6

As McCutcheon collapsed straight down, he bellowed, “Now!”

The shack disappeared in a deafening explosion of wood, splinters, and body parts. The lantern sailed almost all the way to Sergeant Reno before crashing onto the railroad ties.

Sergeant Reno stopped, stared, then jerked around on rubber legs. “Casey! Ru—”

A dark spot appeared on his forehead. He jerked hard, his head snapped back toward the shack, and he fell to his back.

Private Casey, frowning, his head turned to see what had exploded behind him, caught a slug at the top of his right jawline, stumbled to the left left and fell off the bridge. A long few seconds later, he splashed into the Sitahatchee.

A moment after that, Captain McCutcheon raised himself to his knees, grinning.

As men rushed past him to the west, two of them stopped. One stood before him, grinned, and grabbed his shoulders. “It’s good to see you in one piece, Cap.” The other man worked to untied the captain’s wrists.

McCutcheon grinned back at him. “You too, Sergeant Crowley. Maybe before too much longer, we’ll all be able to go home to our wives and babies.”

“Yes sir. I reckon that’d be a done deal if all the Yanks were like this bunch. But from what I heard—” He stopped and glanced at the soldier behind the captain, then shrugged.

As the soldier behind the captain dropped the rope on the tracks, then raced away to the west to join the others, McCutcheon frowned. He clapped the sergeant on the shoulder with his recently freed left hand. “What is it, James?”

Crowley quieted his voice. “Sorry, Cap. I haven’t told the men yet.”

“What is it? What did you hear?”

Crowley nodded. “Word is, Mr. Lincoln’s sending General Sherman south.”

“Ah.” The captain bowed his head, then looked up again and forced a smile. “Well, we can only do what we can do.”

*******