Butterfly Crossing

This is a story I first wrote in high school.  It has evolved since then, and has sat for a long time.  Recently, I was thinking about it, so I dusted it off, revised it, and decided to go ahead and publish it here.  I’m also including it as a PDF because I think it looks nicer that way.  So open it up and view it, or just read it below:  Butterfly Crossing (PDF)

Butterfly Crossing
It was inevitable that my grandchildren should hear the story, or rather
some corruption thereof, for the ignorant are most enamored of prolix, and
romanticized speculation will serve for the fires of experience in the ears of
those eager to be associated with “Great Events.” But they could not feel
the same knowing shiver that touched my spine at the mere sight of that
fertile, verdant hollow, for it was not their blood that had stained it red,
though theirs was derivative thereof. And those who told them knew not
whereof they spoke.
The valley was called by some of the locals—before they fled—the Butterfly
Crossing. I had run there myself as a boy, having been enlisted by a
friend who had heard of the glorious sight. We had arrived exhausted and
cast ourselves panting upon the grass. The autumnal colors had just begun
to kiss the tips of the leaves, and I sat for several minutes in dumb awe at
the majesty of nature.
Presently I heard a light rumble; hardly a thunderclap, but distracting
nonetheless. I glanced at my friend, who was now snoring. He had curled
up on his side and promptly fallen asleep. I let him be. He was sure to be
scolded for running off while there were fires to tend, and in any case, his
rest was well-deserved.
I turned my attention back to the sky and watched until finally I was
rewarded with a chorus of wispy flutters. Then a great wave of monarchs
crested the tree line, filling the sky with bursting color and my youthful
heart with grand visions. For a moment, I felt utterly transformed, as if
I no longer belonged to the world; for I beheld what was no product of
this fallen sphere. It was then that I saw them in vision, not as they were,
but as they had been. Mere days before, these glorious creatures had been
vile, ugly pests, groveling along the decaying leaves they would devour,
worshiping no god but their carnal yearnings for food, entertaining no other
scheme than of gorging themselves. But then they had woven for themselves
those strange sarcophagi of their own hardened flesh. And now they had
cast it off, emerged, been reborn, changed both in form and function. Now
they were unified in purpose, migrating as a great body, drawn inexorably
by hidden wells of knowledge toward an ancestral home of safety from the
deathly cold.
But those boyhood musings were long in the past as I sat again contemplating
the same valley. I sat in cold, damp soil, surrounded by dampened
spirits. An oppressive mist enshrouded us and whispered dark forebodings.
The valley of the Butterfly Crossing was now infested with vermin of a
whole other breed. They had swarmed around our homes like locusts, and
had barely left defiling our women before they had defiled our sanctuaries.
Our Captain—they called him the Hammer of God—had defied them and
had slain them with his own hands by the score. They despised him with
the fear and loathing of the damned when pierced by the light of righteous
indignation. And he was, after all, mortal. They had resolved to prove the
point. There was no bounty pledged for him in shackles and fetters. He was
to be killed, surely and swiftly, and his uprising with him, to serve as an
example to any others who might think of defying the heathens and their
dumb gods.
* * * * * * * * * *
The spy’s horse bolted into camp like lightning, barely pausing to answer
the sentry’s challenge, and the thunder soon rumbled in our eager ears. They
had encamped in the valley. They had been reinforced and now they totaled
on the order of 20,000, including 2,000 mounted officers. Our little band of
patriots, in contrast, we enumerated at less than 1,000. The odds were none
at all. If we met them, death was certain.
But the Hammer rallied us in a body and spoke with a fire that kindled
in many of our own hearts. “We will not cower in our camp like children,
waiting for them to beg favors of their abominations. We will assault them
in their own camp like men and we will overthrow their idols! We will strike
in the confusion of dusk. Many in that camp have seen their burning god
dance across the sky for the last time!”
Some cheered vigorously. But a quiet murmur of dissent arose from
others. Emboldened by their numbers, they became more vocal. Finally,
the Hammer pointed his sword accusingly at a murmurer. “You will speak
for your fellows,” he said coldly.
The man shrunk beneath the glance of that still sword, but he spoke his
mind. “This is madness. It may be that some in that camp have beheld
their last rising sun, but if we attack, it is certain that we have—to the last
man.”
“But not you,” the Hammer replied venomously. Then he addressed us
with vigor. “Up! Arise!” he called. “Prepare yourselves. Take food and
drink. Write despairing letters to your wives if you will.” He again pierced
the murmurer with his coal-black eyes. “There will be plenty of hands to
deliver them.”
I wrote to my wife, to be sure. I hardly need recount what I said
to her, for I suspect that all men so situated—with a fate so surely sealed—
would speak the same tender words of love and affection laced with platitudes
about duty and honor. Indeed, I suspect my letter to my wife was
interchangeable with many of my fellows’. As for property, there was no
need to dispose of it. Real property I had none, and what chattels I had
had already been delivered to my wife.
My son, though, I had hardly seen, for he had been born only shortly
before I had joined with the patriots. I addressed a few lines to him, commending
his mother to his care, speaking of duty and liberty and the Greater
Good, and utterly failing to explain to him why I must pursue this charge
he would surely, I thought, resent in coming years. Then, as he toiled to
sustain his widowed mother, he would speak of things like freedom only in
the abstract.
By the time the sun lowered with his red fury in the east, we numbered
only 324. The Hammer gave not a thought to numbers; indeed, I hardly
think he counted. He mustered us, commended us to God, and then set
off on his march at our head. We moved quietly, for surprise was the sole
advantage we had, and a tenuous one at that. There would be guards at the
crest of the hill, and we must cut them down swiftly and silently. We would
not engage the rabble directly; we would fall on the heart—the mounted
officers. Those who could would cast down the idols of stone. Beyond that,
the only strategy was to catch them at their dinners, and strike while they
were in confusion.
But lo! Heaven was with us! For as we approached the valley, great
black storm clouds gathered, and a deluge reigned on the earth. We were
within sight of the valley by then, and we saw a thousand fires snuffed out
in an instant. At that moment, the Hammer gave his signal and we fell
immediately on the guards, now invisible to their fellows. Then we rushed
headlong, with a great cry, into their camp.
I struck furiously, crying alternately the name of my wife, my son, my
God, and my country with each stroke. Their plumed helms, still occupied,
were cast at our feet. We were awash in blood and water. The angry torrent
beat the earth furiously, drowning all cries, so that we could not hear each
other. But I could see my brethren, plowing their swords manfully, smiting
the foe. And falling. All around me, one by one, I saw them fall at the hand
of the heathens.
Did our courage waver? Could we have been mortals and answer nay?
For the officers alone outnumbered us some six or seven times, and already
our blood flowed and ran cold in the valley. But in a glorious moment, I
caught sight of the Hammer. He had plunged through to the very core,
and had found their captain. In that great moment, lost to our historians
but never to us, terrible fires lit the sky. Behold! Their broken idols lay
scattered at his feet! Then his mighty stroke fell, cleaving the helm of the
heathen captain. A great cry, audible over even the din of the torrent, rang
out from our desperate hearts. With renewed vigor, we smote, felling them
on the right and on the left. Truly, this was a moment for the ages!
But the end was, after all, written from the beginning. All tallied, we
prevailed by as many as five to one, and worked particular mischief on their
officers’ corps. But eventually the rabble rallied, saw their commanders’
peril, and managed a confused counter-strike. The response, though uninspired,
was so numerically superior as to inevitably overcome the flesh, if
not the spirit. Finally, the vermin, satisfied with their victory as they supposed,
withdrew to the slopes as the river swelled, consumed her banks and
flooded the valley. Throughout the night, the fires lit the skies, paying tribute
to the small band of patriots who with valor had daunted the heathens,
spilling blood that the Earth now cleansed from herself with the flood. The
Hammer, not sparing himself the fate of his brethren, cut a valiant and fearful
figure, even in death. Let it not be said, though, that he and his band
sacrificed in vain. For the vile heathens were daunted indeed; frustrated
and leaderless. They cast about foolishly, awaiting new direction, and the
rabble fought among themselves for primacy. In the meantime, a new band
of patriots rallied beneath our fallen banners, and when they joined battle,
their cry was “Remember,” until the heathens quailed in fear at even the
ghost of the fallen Hammer.
The morning after, the vermin would have lit their fires again, but their
wood was soaked and useless, and the carnage in the valley chilled their
blood. The river had strewn bodies throughout the muddy dell, crafting a
ghastly down of rough barrows. The heathens were struck with terror and
abandoned the valley.
Soon after, the butterflies crossed again, canvassing the sky with their
brilliant colors, taking no account of the change.

(c)2008 Sweetisthepeace.

http://sweetisthepeace.wordpress.com

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