Copperhead Page #4

Didn't move.

Crept over to him.

My hand to his shoulder.

And then I seen a big hole

where his eye used to be.

I got away after a while...

...hooked up with a Michigan regiment...

...but I lost track of the boys.

Don't know what became of Jeff or Byron,

Elijah or Anson.

Maybe they died in the cornfield.

Maybe they got captured. Maybe they ran.

I don't...

I don't know.

I just do not know.

Treason.

It was treason, I tell you.

Treachery and treason.

We had the rebels right where we wanted

them, but those traitors in Washington...

...they let them cross over the Potomac

in their own sweet time.

McClellan.

He ain't good enough

to hang from the sourest crab apple tree.

- Go, Jee, give them hell.

- Huh?

- Hanging's too good for them.

- Too good indeed. McClellan...

...and those infernal Union generals

ought to be cast...

...into the eternal fire.

Burn them all.

Burn them.

Did you pay for those

raisins, Mr. Abolition?

Or do you intend to emancipate them

from our store...

...the way you'd emancipate the slaves?

Oh, Mrs. Watkins.

What do you care about the poor bondsman?

You and your Susan B. Anthony.

Rights for women?

Women.

That's nothing more than strumpets preaching

the heretical doctrine of free love.

I don't know if Mrs. Watkins holds

with free love, Hagadorn.

But she sure don't believe in a free lunch.

A little rain.

What do I do with him, Lord?

What do I do with him?

You winning the argument

with yourself, Pa?

Why weren't you there, boy? At Watkins?

Huh?

Political rumble-bumble don't interest me.

The liberty of mankind don't interest you?

The fate of the republic

don't interest you?

Traitors like McClellan don't interest you?

Copperhead vipers in our own backyard

don't interest you?

I thought the copperhead

was a Southern serpent.

- I ain't never seen one in York state.

- Then you ain't looking.

"Crush the serpent's head."

Eh?

We got a serpent in our own backyard here.

Abner Beech is a copperhead...

...and a copperhead is a snake.

Yup, the copperhead is a snake.

Abner Beech is a man.

Maybe he don't share your notions,

maybe he's wrong, but he's a man.

My own boy can't tell the difference

between a man and a snake.

Read Genesis, Ni.

I have, Pa.

Guess I'm too much like Adam.

I bite the apple every time.

Oh.

Even a Beech heard the call to arms.

It shames me...

...to see you loafing around the Corners...

...when others are doing the Lord's work.

I didn't know the Lord's work was killing.

There's a time for everything, Ni.

And now is the time for carrying the sword.

There's too many folks carrying swords.

Not enough pulling plows.

I'm no fighter, Pa. You know that.

You're a sore disappointment to me, boy.

A sore disappointment.

Go on.

So Mr. Lincoln emancipated the slaves.

If that's what he wants to call it.

Emancipating slaves by enslaving free men.

Hey, Abner,

what's wrong with freeing the slaves?

I mean, ain't they human too?

The president don't have any

right to do that on his own.

It ain't in the Constitution.

Mr. Jefferson wrote

that all men are created equal.

Those slaves are men, ain't they?

They are.

They surely are.

But there are cures worse

than the disease.

And war...

War ain't a cure for this.

Slavery ain't right.

Jimmy, not by my lights,

not by our lights, not by...

...nobody's lights, save the redhots

down by the cotton states thereabouts.

But killing people...

...destroying whole cities and towns...

...and turning the government in Washington

into God's almighty army...

...that ain't right either.

Only make things worse, as I see it.

It'll only make for a lot of...

A lot of dead boys.

Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa!

The latest crop.

The ones that could be identified.

Ray Hare's on top. Killed at Antietam.

We're returning him home to his kin

for proper burial.

Hmph. What's left of him.

He sure was a fine singer.

That he was.

I am the resurrection

and the light, sayeth the Lord.

He that believeth in me, though

he were dead, yet shall he live.

Whosoever liveth and believeth in me

shall never die.

I know that my redeemer liveth...

...and that he shall stand at

the latter day upon the earth.

And though after my skin worms

destroy this body...

...yet in my flesh I shall see God,

whom I shall see for myself...

...and mine eyes shall behold,

and not another.

We brought nothing into this world...

...and it is certain we carry nothing out.

The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Abner at home?

He's around here somewheres.

You heard something fresh?

No, nothing.

Only want to talk it

over with Abner is all.

He'll boot you off the place if you try.

No, me and Abner is all right.

Hello, Abner.

Ni.

You seen Warner Pitts since he got back?

Hardly recognize him now.

Think he'd never hoofed it over plowed land

in all his life.

He's got his boots blacked

and his hair slicked.

And he's wearing shoulder straps

and a sword.

And he's the envy of many a gal

including Till.

Holding court at the Corners

like he owns the damn place.

Warner Pitts can go to the devil.

And take his sword with him.

Well, that's what I say too, Abner.

What beats me is how a fool like that can get

to be an officer right from the word "go."

Him being the poorest

shot in the whole lot.

I mean, I could understand Byron Truax

as an officer, or your own Jeff...

Whoa! Whoa!

That's enough, Ni.

Giddap!

Inside.

Up. Keep going.

- Up.

- Abner, what's the use of getting mad for?

Let me have my say. When I'm done,

you don't like it, no one's the worse off.

Ain't giving you your apple back, though.

- Ain't none of your business, Ni.

- Maybe so, maybe no.

Such a thing as being neighborly.

Taking things kindly, as they're meant.

Neighbors.

I've summered them and I've wintered them.

And the Lord could take the caboodle

of them tomorrow and I wouldn't care.

They've lied about me and taken from me.

Taken from me things

no man had ought to lose.

It takes all sorts of people

to make a world, Abner.

- You've got nothing particularly against me.

- No, but your breed.

Breed? That don't count.

What does a breed amount to?

You're the last one who should lug that.

You've up and soured on your own breed,

your own son, Jeff.

You're a cheeky cuss, aren't you?

Who put you up into coming

and talking to me this way?

Nobody.

It's all my own idea. Hope to die.

Riled me to see you moping up here

not knowing what's become of Jeff...

...and acting like you don't care

when you do care.

Jeff sowed.

Now he must reap.

You'd feel easier in your mind

if you knew where he was...

- ...and so would M'rye.

- He snuck out behind our backs...

...to join Lincoln's gang and levy war against

countrymen of his never done him no harm.

Now, I'm not one to lug scripture

into an argument, like some I know.

But my feeling is:

Who so taketh up the sword

shall perish by the sword.

- Guess I'll talk with M'rye about all this.

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