part 1 chapter

19

s hrieks curdle within my skull until i double over with hands to my ears. but that

doesn’t help; the sound doesn’t ease any. at first, it’s far away, but then it sneaks up, keening

and howling. stumbling about, i search for a place where i might escape from its ear-splitting

sound. then i have a startling realization: this ungodly noise is coming from me. it swirls

around and around, while i slip into a bottomless hole. the opening at the top is reduced to a

pinprick of light. and there’s a foul vapor, like that from a rotting deer abandoned by vultures.

breathe. draw the calming stream of air into my lungs. forget today, when the man with a

crowbar tore at the plaster in the kitchen and left ragged wooden lathes and beams exposed

naked in the room, the cupboards in a broken heap on the floor. breathe and remember

something soothing. sit in the porch rocker and listen to the music of leaves rustling and yellow

flickers gathering to head south. after all, nature’s sounds bring a man closer to the contents of

his heart. this is what i tell myself.

i do recall another a time when nature was a balm. it began one june morning in virginia near

culpeper as beards and i lounged on the packed earth near our tents while we gnawed on our

breakfast hardtack biscuits. he regarded the tooth-snapping material in his hand with disgust,

and asked if i’d seen how many blackberry bushes we had passed yesterday on the march to the

new camp.

“let’s go get some of those berries. do you recall when we used to play for hours around the

bushes along the farm fence? we stuffed our mouths until our chins and fingers ran purple.” i

then fell silent, allowing the pleasant memory of the summer berry hunt to replace, for at least a

few minutes, the nightmarish images of recent days.

“maybe tayloe hupp wants to go, and the three of us can share with the other fellows.”

beards wiped hardtack crumbs from his mouth, stood up, and headed over to roust tayloe from

his tent. it didn’t take much persuasion, and the three of us were off.

anticipation of the berries’ plump sweetness after the meager dry rations of the past weeks

boosted our spirits, and we joked as we hiked away from the tents. no matter how far i

wandered along the hillside above, waves of noise washed over me from the twenty thousand

men bivouacked in camp. strains of song, shouts of laughter, jesting, games of toss, arguing,

horses’ whinnying and stamping of hooves, clanking of moving carts and cannons, clacking of

rifle butts, and general conversation filled my ears with a singular clamor. the steep hills, the

forests at their crowns, and the cloudless sky were alive with it.

from this high vantage, my eye was drawn to a band of enslaved men at the edge of the

encampment. some sawed trees and others split logs for firewood. but the deep release i’d felt

as my feet strode away from camp made me think about them down there. they might be doing

the same work we foot soldiers did, but they labored with armed guards standing over them. joy

at my temporary freedom curdled. these men could never set off on a berry hunt. they could

never dream of furloughs or a safe and a comfortable home far from the battlefield, could never

be visited by family bringing food, clothing, or news. i averted my eyes and stumbled downhill,

shame and sadness slowing my steps.

the berry bushes closest to the encampment had been denuded. the three of us had to travel

several more miles along side roads to find any that were fully laden with fruit. tayloe lagged

behind, slowed down by a mending ankle twisted while charging through a cornrow. we

discovered shrubs sprawled along former fence lines, their prickly branches arched over the

grass, heavy with blackberries at the perfect moment of sweetness. beards, tayloe, and i spread

out and wordlessly plucked from bush to bush, filling our knapsacks and eating an occasional

stray. initially, i picked in view of the others, but as i moved down the row and then along the

edge of the dirt road, they were gone. i gathered fruit until i had an ample quantity and gingerly

hoisted my rucksack to my shoulders so the berries wouldn’t crush under their own weight.

i lost track of how far i’d journeyed from camp. rye grass and wheat-covered hills rolled like

waves down the valley. fence posts had not yet been yanked up for firewood, and maple and

oak trees clamped their roots into the earth as if they would be there forever. the camp sounds

were only a faint drone in the background. the fellows yelled my name once or twice in the

distance, but i kept walking. i longed to find a point when the babble and rankness of men no

longer filled my senses. striding ever more quickly, taking one hill and then another, i sought

respite in the rapid movement of my feet from the bitter taste of summer battle. i cursed myself

for not bringing a canteen. i could’ve dowsed my head and wet my throat. but then a peculiar

thing happened. as the rumble of humanity diminished, another sound filled the space. it

swelled to a high hum just where the other began to shrink. my ears weren’t sharp enough to

catch the precise second when the loss of old occurred and there was the gain of the new.

creature noise inescapably enfolds you in the hills of summertime virginia. crickets in the

grass with their high-pitched leg-rubbing, synchronized like group breathing—into my hearing,

out of my hearing. cicadas’ scritch, scritch, scritching in the oak, cedar, locust, and walnut trees.

all together in one place—it drifted out, then lifted altogether in another. at first it came in

clumps, but i listened more carefully and detected the millions of dancing sounds separately.

the cawing of sleek, ebony crows was a staccato in the orchestral buzz. above it all was the

melancholy cooing of the carolina mourning dove—whoooo–who-who-who. i reckoned i might

dissolve into a world of notes ever dividing. from time to time a cow lowed or a horse

whinnied. but the insects were a constant—a mass that broadcast the same cry out into the

universe. or did it just seem that way from my limited human viewpoint?

the shade of a wide oak was irresistible, and after carefully situating my juicy sack against

the trunk, i collapsed upon the soft moss and ferns at its roots. with legs outstretched, i crooked

my arms beneath my head and looked up. a mammoth luna moth spanned his wings on a branch

just above my head. perhaps he’d just burst from his cocoon and waited for his lime green

mantle to harden in the sunshine so that he could float off to find his love. or he could have been

wistfully peering at me, envying my longevity seconds before his life ended. after hours of

memorizing the pages of dr. finch’s insect book with mary, i knew the luna moth lives most of

its seven weeks as a caterpillar or in a cocoon. it is most glorious for only its last seven days on

earth. the large, green wrinkled wings unfurl across a triangular body soft with the white fur of

a persian cat. as the insect pumps fluids into them, they are forced out to their full four-inch

span. the moth then flies off to mate with a fury before death comes. because it has no mouth, it

must live on past experience, consuming itself. a luna moth can’t eat.

i pondered the moth’s fate. for him, a clock ticks down, and an alarm has already sounded.

but for now, there’s maybe the joy of sailing on the currents and the intoxication of living to

mate. the eyes are huge and soulful. the head is flamboyantly adorned with two brilliant yellow

stalks like ostrich ferns. does it know it’s doomed, and does this awareness deepen its desire to

leave a legacy? the wings encompass four miraculous windows, false eyes to fool predators, but

they are perfect transparent circles through which the world beyond is visible.

i wondered if, like the magnificent luna moth, all the tiny carapaced members of the insect

orchestra filled the steamy afternoon with searching, yearning desire. could any of these sounds

be answered inquiries, invitations to assignations, offerings of tantalizing insect delights to

come?

i lazed in the grass and watched the sun dip lower. with all of this thought of insect sex, i

recalled infrequent glimpses of pearly bosoms just visible above dress bodices. oh, how i

missed the fairer gender. but i yanked my thoughts back to the immediate ocean of humming.

were the lives of men like those of the insects? if a man could hover far enough above the earth,

would war, peace, and other human endeavors appear only as an indistinguishable mass of

activity? was this god’s vantage point if he was, indeed, in a heaven above us? was it, in the

end, just about reproduction of the species—an act of immense vanity if we are indeed made in

his image? had my mother known my mind at that moment, she would rightly fear for my soul.

i sank back into the insect songs and remained there without thought until the sun fell to the tops

of the trees.

satisfied that i had enough berries to share with the boys, i carefully laid my haversack

across my shoulders and covered the miles back to camp.