Blue Skies

Blue Skies

The rolling hills, dressed in a blanket of white, stretched for miles in every direction. They had no end, except where they met the Periwinkle sky and the rising sun. Light reflected off the snow, blinding an onlooker who stood alone, staring down into the valley.

A breeze passed, biting against the exposed skin of his cheeks and nose. He hardly noticed. The cold felt distant, just like the light of the sun, just like everything else before him. It all belonged in a dream. A dream he wanted so desperately to wake from.

He squinted against the bright light reflecting off the snow, forcing himself to look. Forcing himself to search for what he didn’t want to find. Outlines lay across the field, stiff and frozen. Around many of them, stark red bled into the white.

Snow crunched beneath his boots as he traipsed forward, one agonizing step at a time.

The first body he came to was dressed in a crisp navy blue uniform, a shade darker than the deep Periwinkle of the sky. Many of the fallen here wore blue.

He walked past them, keeping his head forward, as he didn’t want to see the faces of the enemy. Especially when so many were young. Too young.

As much as he tried, his eyes wandered, finding the face of a boy who couldn’t have been older than fourteen. The kid’s grey eyes stared unblinking, upwards towards the heavens. His mouth stretched open in a silent scream. His right hand lay across his breast, covered in sticky blood that had a brownish hue. Beside his left hand, a musket lay half buried in the powder.

How long had that soldier lay there wounded before he died? Had there been too much chaos during the battle for someone to aid him? Had someone tried?

He tore his eyes away and pressed on. A few feet further, a body dressed in a shabbier tawny fabric lay on its stomach, face pressed against the ground. A gash ran across the corpse’s back, cutting through the clothes.

The man’s heart hammered, feeling as though it was being squeezed into a jar much too small for it. He took a shaking breath. It wasn’t the soldier he was searching for. No- Oscar had blonde hair, not brown. He was smaller in frame, and his boots were newer, with better tread on the bottom.

The man didn’t roll the body over. It wasn’t Oscar, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t recognize the soldier’s face. He knew most of the boys in this company, had played cards and ate with them.

Faces haunted his mind’s eye at the thought of Oscar’s buddies. Huston, a tall man with a charming grin and bright blue eyes. Thomas, who was always talking about his mother’s cooking. And Issac, who would give you the shirt off his back, after he won yours in a poker game.

Odds were, all of them were on this field somewhere.

He blinked back the stinging in his eyes. There had to be some chance, however slim, that his brother had made it. Maybe Oscar realized they were losing and fled. Desertion was ostensibly punishable by death, though most soldiers were either dishonorably discharged or branded. Some were even pardoned if they came back and agreed to resume serving.

At that moment it didn’t matter. If Oscar was alive, they could deal with whatever consequences followed. But he had to be alive. Nothing would be right if he wasn’t alive.

The man took a few more steps, and froze.

There at the bottom of the hill lay more bodies dressed in brown. Pale skin, a roman nose, curly brown hair matted with blood, and one empty, russet eye stood out. Issac’s face was recognizable even from where the man stood above.

He didn’t remember how he made it the rest of the way down the hill. He found himself at Issac’s side, kneeling in the snow.

Issac was dead. That didn’t stop the man from reaching for the body’s wrist. The arm was stiff and heavy, and the skin felt as though it was wrapped around a smooth block of ice instead of muscle. He felt for a pulse, pleading with God to find one, refusing to believe it wasn’t there.

Then his eyes caught a shimmer of gold in the sunlight. Disorderly blonde hair stuck out from the cap of another body lying on its side, its back to him. One leg was bent, and he could see the bottom of a new boot.

He knew even before he rolled the soldier onto his back. Oscar’s face was smooth and pale. He didn’t look like he was sleeping, as some claim the dead often did. Oscar had always been so full of life, even while asleep. His cheeks always had a rosy color and his lips nearly always turned up into a slight grin. While awake, his blue eyes were vivid and warm. Oscar was the kind of person who could bring joy to a funeral.

Now he was ghostly white, his face drained of color and his half-opened eyes empty. Whatever it was that had made Oscar Oscar was gone.

The reality staring him down felt impossible. Oscar was the one who was supposed to make it out of this war. He yearned to reach past the wall that separated the living and the dead, to shatter it and drag Oscar back. He would take his brother’s place in the beat of a heart if only he could bring Oscar back.

He collapsed over the corpse, loathing how stiff and cold it was. His chest felt like someone was shoving a bayonet through it. There was something so terribly wrong about death.

Numbness reached through his fingers and up his arms to his core. How could this be real when it felt impossible? How could his brother have been laughing only days ago, the night before his company set out to meet the enemy’s advancing army?

Now he would lay there, his soul discharged under the cursed blue sky. A part of him wanted to lay there too, to follow Oscar to whatever waited for them beyond this life.

Beneath the snow the ground was frozen. There would be no burying the dead. Yet he couldn’t bear the thought of walking away, leaving his brother alone. Instead, he pulled the shell of Oscar closer.

A sound shifted on the wind, so quiet he thought he was hearing things. But it came again.

“Lew…Lewis.”

He sat up, staring down. But his brother’s face remained unchanged.

“Lewis.” A dry voice croaked.

Hair rose up on the back of his neck and he scanned the area. A pair of eyes locked onto his. They were the same periwinkle blue as the sky, which made them stand out against the white and red of the world below.

The man stared for a second, not trusting what he saw.

Then the eyes blinked, slow and weary, before finding his again.

“Huston!” The man let go of his brother and crawled to the soldier’s side. Huston’s mouth was open, taking in short gasps of air. His hands clasped at a wound under his armpit. “Easy Huston. I got you,” he said, pulling off his jacket and using it to staunch blood still flowing from the wound.

“I’m… sorry,” Huston gasped. “Oscar. I tried… I tried…”

“Save your strength.”

He wrapped his coat tightly around the wound, wondering how much more blood Huston could spare.

He considered his options. Camp was nearly half a mile away. He could either try hauling Huston there himself, or he could leave and bring back help.

“Focus on breathing, Huston. I’m going for help,” he said, rising to his feet. He would bring a medic and soldiers to help carry him. That had to be better than dragging a wounded man on his own.

Huston grunted in acknowledgment, his periwinkle eyes closing, though his chest continued to rise and fall in short, strained breaths.

The man gave Oscar one last look before sprinting his way back up the hill. He couldn’t save his brother. But he would do whatever it took to save those who were still alive. As he struggled through the snow, he understood one thing without needing to think; he no longer cared who won this war. It didn’t matter if everyone he loved died fighting it.

At the top he was met with rolling white hills, which only seemed to end where they touched the Periwinkle of the sky.