1.
“Aim to maim.” The slogan of our company. Spitter, our captain, shouted it every time we opened fire. Then he always calmly stuffed his mouth full of chewing tobacco again. He’d cut off a hefty chunk from a pack with his knife. Whoever signaled also got a coarse piece. We had more tobacco than food, so he could chew and hand out as much as he wanted. Meanwhile he’d walk upright along our line, as if he were strolling along a boulevard. None of us ever ran. Why be afraid if the captain himself didn’t even think it necessary to duck once when lead came our way?

If the enemy was too far away to hit, we lay on our backs behind the breastwork and watched him. The captain reminded us of the romantic moments of the beginning. Three years ago, when the war still had something of a medieval joust, exciting and not overly dangerous. He was the only one in our company still wearing a completely gray uniform. Complete with blue sleeves to indicate he served in the infantry. Entirely correct standard issue. You only saw such uniforms in the first year. The ones across the line had cut us off from the sea, from pretty much everything a man needs to look halfway presentable. We’d long since been wearing brown uniforms. Brown rags really, with blue trousers stolen from the enemy. The worse a man’s clothes, the farther from home he was. Our mothers and sisters made our uniforms themselves and sent them on. If your mother and sisters were behind the battle lines, then you had to wait until the head of someone your size was blown off. But we deliberately never shot heads.

Aim to maim. That’s what we did. Kneecaps. We knew what that meant for the victim. Splintered bone. Amputation. All thanks to that new invention: the Minié ball. A projectile that at insane speed tore through human flesh. The captain’s reasoning: a wounded man requires three to four to care for him. That’s three to four fewer in the battle line. After his amputation he also frightens potential volunteers away from the meat grinder back home. A living pamphlet against the war.

Blackfoot and I had another reason to avoid the tops of the blue dots before us. Hitting a head was an economic risk. Damaging the goods. We had renamed Pete to Blackfoot for two reasons. He really always had black feet. The only one of us who had still been able to buy a new pair of shoes, he preferred not to. He was stingy, and “at the pace we march, you can buy a new pair every month.” He was so used to going barefoot that he preferred to sell the shoes of dead enemies rather than keep a pair for himself. And of course we also named him so because of his specialty: scalping.

It was May 1864, and he was getting plenty of practice. The ones across had a new commander. General Grant. Stubborn. The butcher, they called him. Even his own side’s newspapers. He could think of nothing better than to ram our lines until not one of us was left. He had more pawns, so how many he lost himself didn’t matter much.

We were outnumbered, but we also had advantages. We dug in wherever we could and we had home advantage, we knew every path through every forest. If Grant’s pawns wanted his plan to succeed, they had to keep attacking and bleeding. On foreign soil, far from home. And the way we mowed them down in heaps, they couldn’t be overly optimistic. The quality of what they threw at us was also declining. The bravest fell first, of course. Or the dumbest. Courage and stupidity we considered a debatable theme.

For me the war could go on a while longer. There was unexpectedly much money in this calamity. As Blackfoot’s business partner, I was prospering financially. Pure coincidence, really. I didn’t have such a talent for scalping. If I didn’t think of the money, I mostly considered it desecration of corpses. I preferred to leave that ungodly business to Blackfoot, but my youngest sister worked in the most expensive hair salon of Richmond, our capital. So he needed me to sell the scalps at the best price. The loot was picked up by Jethro, our last family slave. Black as pitch, but his hair as gray as our captain’s uniform. At the start of the war, my father had given him to me as a personal assistant, to carry my things during the marches. But that simple soul made a fool of me. At the slightest spat of blood he fainted. But well, by now we’d found a much better task for him. We did have to be careful to wrap up our loot properly, otherwise he’d still faint from the smell alone. My parents were attached to him, I would have sold him without hesitation, old or not.

Normally he came once a month for new loot, on an old nag of father’s. All alone. Not a hair on his gray head thought of running off to the bluebellies for freedom. Not at his age. Since Grant hammered our lines daily, he came every three days. Always we had a whole sack full.

That sack went straight to my sister’s salon. The proud aristocracy of Richmond could not afford to go through life bald. They paid in gold for wigs. In gold. Not with our worthless money. And not even with the enemy’s money. No, real gold. Our nation was fighting for its life and still there were rich bastards with gold to spare for luxury products. I can’t put figures on it, but it seemed to me that the elite were only getting richer during the war.

2.
Blackfoot and I sometimes had discussions. I said: “Shouldn’t we hold the scalps until after the war? At this rate we’ll crash wig prices. Supply and demand, you know.”

“Look,” he said, “just because you worked for those northern peddlers and swindlers for years doesn’t mean you’re the only one who knows business. You really think I’m staying in this line after the war? First thing I do when we win is buy a load of slaves. Slave prices will soar. When we’ve finally won. Then no one will doubt the economic and social health of our ‘peculiar institution.’”

There was something to his reasoning, but still: “We could stockpile the scalps until right after the war. Then sell gradually, keep prices stable, and only then invest in slaves?”

“Oh no,” said Blackfoot. “See, that’s what those northern charlatans never taught you. Reputation, man. I don’t want to be known as a scalp hunter after the war. I want to be a respectable slave trader. With my service record as a soldier to give me status. Nobody must wave our scalp trade under my nose then. Before you know it you’ve got the reputation of a cruel man who mistreats his goods, and then customers refuse to buy from you. Unless your prices are low enough. No, after the war I wash my hands of this business. And the first one who still calls me Blackfoot, I’ll challenge to a duel. In respectable business, reputation is everything, man.”

Around June our lines stabilized. We dug in. They dug in. As if we were camping together by the river of death — that strip of no man’s land between our trenches. They no longer charged our lines; they stayed put. So it became harder to get scalps. Our trade had to keep running, so sometimes we went out at night, crawling on our bellies, spades sharpened like knives. In the tight space of a trench, a spade was far more efficient than a musket and made no noise. But such a night excursion was risky; the ones across weren’t always asleep. And even if we cut one’s throat, we never had the time to scalp him properly.

On one such night we crawled flat over no man’s land. “Do you feel that?” I asked.

“What?” asked Blackfoot, taking his Bowie knife from between his lips to speak.

“As if someone’s digging,” I said.

“Coward,” he said.

“No, really,” I said, pressing my ear to the ground. “Listen. I hear pickaxes.”

Blackfoot snorted. “Boy, you’re hallucinating. You worked too long in those northern coal mines. Leaves its mark. That’s no job for whites.”

“I mean it, Blackfoot. Just listen.”

With a sigh he pressed his ear to the ground. “If Spitter hears you’re hearing voices, he’ll have you carried off right away. Then I’ll split the profit with your sister alone.”

“Shut up and listen.” I wasn’t crazy. I heard digging.

“How do you do that?” asked Blackfoot.

“I’m not doing anything,” I hissed. “They’re digging under us.”

“Who? Trolls?”

“No, fool. The bluebellies.”

I recalled we were facing boys from Michigan. Plenty of miners there, like I’d once been before the war.

“They’re not doing this for nothing,” I said.

“Really?” Blackfoot said, shoving his face close to mine with wide eyes. I smelled rancid bacon on his breath. “Don’t you think life in trenches turned them into moles, digging for the sake of it?”

“Don’t be stupid. We have to report to the captain what we’ve heard. They’re tunneling behind our lines to attack us from the rear.”

“Report? To who? How will you explain to Spitter what we were doing in no man’s land in the middle of the night? Taking a stroll? Deserting but lost our way back? Sleepwalking? If he knows what we’re really doing, we’ll rot in the stockade.”

“Come on,” I said. “In the end we’re doing our duty if we kill a few of them.”

“Fine, but scalping them won’t go over well with the top. Remember Quantrill? He massacred those black soldiers after they’d surrendered. The government immediately refused to recognize him or his men as legitimate soldiers. Is that what you want? Outlaws, branded for cruelty, even if it’s against the enemy? And if they know what we earn, Spitter will beat us rotten till we hand over every ounce of gold.”

“Spitter’s too much a patriot to enrich himself in such business.”

“Yeah, and so what? He’ll confiscate it anyway, if only to gift it to our government. Think, man.”

“Look, we don’t have to mention our trade. We just say we couldn’t stand sitting idle in those rabbit holes and our hands itched to grab a few.”

“They’ll never believe it. Nobody’s that eager.”

“Oh come on, they’ll be so glad we discovered it in time they’ll reward us with double rations.”

“Great, twice starving. Why do we even need to report this?”

“Think, Blackfoot. You want us to win this war, don’t you? If we lose, forget your slave trade. If you even survive their prisons.”

Blackfoot cursed.

“Not so loud,” I hissed. “If we can hear them, they can hear us.”

“Couldn’t we kill a few first? Since we’re so dug in, our trade’s dried up.”

“If we report, there’ll be fireworks, and our business will pick up again.”

Blackfoot despised the northerners’ nose for business, but he understood only the argument of the dollar. We returned. Half an hour later we had Spitter woken. He immediately sent a courier to our colonel, who would tell the brigade general, who’d tell the division commander, who’d tell the corps commander, who’d tell our revered leader Lee. He looked like God the Father, and some worshipped him as such. Not me. If he really was God the Father, we’d have won two years ago and not be stuck in the mud now.

Spitter saluted the courier and sent him off. Then he belted on his revolver and said:

“And now you two. What the hell were you doing in no man’s land in the middle of the night?”

To me: “Do you want so badly to go back to your mines?”

No matter how much burden I bore for the South, there was always some resentment, because I’d worked in the North before the war.

“Well, out with it. What were you up to? Didn’t know you were such patriots you’d launch nightly reconnaissance on your own initiative. Do you do that often?”

We said nothing.

“You two go back now, and until sunrise you keep track of those merry diggers. Got it? If this turns out well, I’ll ask no further questions. Understood?”

We went back.

“Goddammit,” cursed Blackfoot, “I told you to keep our mouths shut.”

“Come on, Blackfoot, we’re helping win the war.”

“It’ll be won without extra effort from us. Those shop clerks and factory boys across can’t win wars. They don’t even know what they’re fighting for.”

“To keep North and South together, of course. And some for the freedom of our slaves.”

“Come on, what’s it to them? They just want to get back to their factories and their stinking pig farms.”

“They’re good shots underground. I don’t hear them anymore.”

We crawled back on our bellies, listening for the picks.

“Don’t tell me we lost the trail,” said Blackfoot. “Spitter will put us on heavy labor for the rest of the war.”

“Ssshh.”

“Sun’ll rise soon. If we’re still here, we’ve got three seconds before a bullet in the brain.”

“Ssshh,” I said again. “We’ll never hear them otherwise.”

“How can they dig so damn fast?”

“What do you expect? They’re miners.”

“You dig that fast too?”

“I know how to brace tunnels. That makes work go fast.”

“Don’t say that to Spitter or you’ll be digging tunnels the other way.”

“Ssshh. I hear them again.”

“Can’t we collapse it?” asked Blackfoot.

“How? Those boys know what they’re doing. It won’t cave easily.”

“Listening to your admiration for them, I wonder why you’re with us at all.”

“No admiration. Know your enemy. At this pace they’ll be at our lines by tomorrow noon, behind us by tomorrow night. We know enough, let’s get back.”

Behind our sector Lee massed extra troops. We didn’t know what the northerners planned with their tunnel, but we braced for a fierce attack. If we beat it back too, maybe they’d finally give up. In a month Grant had lost more than 50,000 men. At Cold Harbor alone 7,000 in less than half an hour. That’s a lot, even for the populous North.

Another hundred scalps and I’d have enough for a claim out west, over the Mississippi. My own gold mine. The profit would dwarf slave trading. Besides, too many officers had said slavery was doomed, win or lose. Too many blacks had fled and tasted freedom.

3.
I lay in the trench, calculating how much I needed for a good claim, how much for tools, how much for a young slave to help me set it up. But I jumped up when I felt the ground tremble. “They’re blowing us up!” I shouted. I scrambled back through the communication trenches. Too late. I got only a few yards before the earth under me rose like a sea wave. After a long fall I was buried, unable to move. Smothered, I’d suffocate.

Then hands pulled at my arms. Bit by bit I was freed. I lay gasping on the churned earth, digging mud from my nostrils. “Find a gun. They’re coming,” said Spitter. A huge crater gaped in our lines. The northerners had blown a mine under us. Now they attacked through the chaos.

“They dug their own grave,” someone shouted. Men laughed hysterically, wild with joy. I found no gun, so I looked down. Where a battery had stood, there was only crater. The northerners had stupidly rushed into it, instead of around. We shot them like trapped insects, trampling each other. The scalp harvest would be phenomenal.

But where was Blackfoot? He’d lain beside me before the blast. “A spade! Give me a spade!” I screamed. No one answered, all too busy spearing bluebellies with bayonets hurled into the crater. Faster than loading and firing.

I found no spade, only a bayonet. Better than nothing. I dug where I’d been pulled out. In my haste I cut myself. The sergeant saw me and kicked me. “Too late. Avenge your buddy on those sneaky bastards.” I shoved him away and dug on. Finally my bayonet struck something. Blood. I dug carefully with my hands. A head. I wiped it off. It was Blackfoot. Dead. His mouth full of earth. A gash across his forehead into his eyelid, where I’d struck him.

Still I dragged him out, slapped his cheeks. Shouted: “Come on, you’re missing the best harvest of the war!” But he didn’t stir.

In fury I rushed to the crater, jumped in, and rammed my bayonet into a bearded bluecoat’s chest. Then the butt of a musket smashed my head. Nothing more.

4.
The war has been over for years. Lost. I have my claim. Not as big as I dreamed, but I have it. No young black slave. I could never have paid for one anyway; I lacked the scalps. And our defeat made it impossible regardless. Slavery went under with the South.

The only help I have is old Jethro. He’s free now. But where could he go? An old man, without family, without children. He’s terrified of the free world. At first I forbade him to call me master, but it’s hopeless.

I’m glad for his help. In the last year of war they ruined me badly. With one arm I can do nothing. The claim yields almost nothing. Some dust, now and then. I barely try anymore. So I lie hidden among the rocks, rifle on Jethro’s shoulder so I can aim. If the prey don’t believe in God, the cruelty is only half ungodly. Anyway, if God truly existed, He’d have let the South win. Well, God takes and God gives. Thanks to that damn war I at least learned a trade.

Now and then Navajo Indians stop by, returning from the village to the reservation. They’re worth more than any gold my claim can give.

My sister still works in the wig shop, and old Jethro is blind now. But at least he no longer faints at the sight of blood.