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Hellpath 1859
Violence sweeps up an antebellum youth, carrying him through thirty hellish years odyssey ending at Wounded Knee Creek.
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Excerpt
The boy finds himself shouting, "Lieutenant, that's enough. He is knocked out."
Only Redfellow will not stop beating the old man. A manic energy controls the moment, and the boy, caught up in it, slams the Lieutenant's temple with the butt of his musket, knocking him unconscious across John Brown. In the pandemonium, only the raiders and the three Marines witnessed the blow he inflicted upon Redfellow. The reality of what he has done strikes the boy. The officer who befriended him lies at his feet unconscious. He watches the injured old man stare at him from his stupor. The raiders study him, puzzled over his rescue of their leader. The boy sees that his fellow Marines, standing motionless, grasp the ramifications of an enlisted man willfully knocking an officer unconscious. For a few seconds, the boy is frantic and cannot reason. He steadies his racing mind and address the problem at hand:
"Boys, some say this old man is crazy. Some say he is Moses come to earth. For sure, he ain't harmless, and for sure he don't need to die needlessly." The boy searches the faces of his fellow Marines who still point their bayonets at the surrendered raiders. Two youngsters, his age, he partially knows from training exercises, seem receptive to his words; the career Marine who made PFC after recruit training looks doubtful. He is desperate to convince the Marines not to report him to the Colonel.
"This old man is more like me than them that is trying to kill him. I learned a while back there are them and there are us. Them being the people who live like aristocrats and us being the ones who do their bidding. The Sergeant did the Colonel's bidding and he is dead. The Corporal and another man did the officers' bidding, and they are dead. Some who carried the ladder are badly shot up for their trouble.
"The Colonel and the Captain outside are privileged Virginians and will surely hang me right here on the spot for what I done to one of them. Hang me for hitting an officer, no ifs and ands about it-if you say what I done here. That is their rule, and I or you have no say in the making of it. You give me up today, someone will give you up tomorrow. We are closer in our low births than we are to them officers. This Lieutenant ain't coming to for awhile, and I need the time to escape the hanging rope. What do you say, boys?"
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