In the evening, the northern army stopped attacking, and the guns gradually became silent. Thousands of dead or dying soldiers were lying on the hillside of the stone wall. It was dark and fashionable to move. The dead bodies had been stacked up to make bunkers. At night, the dark red light was flickering in the middle of the sky, and the Chinese image was regarded as a sign by the soldiers in the position. They scrambled to see who could say the meaning most wrongly. A small piano played sadness somewhere. Lorina was injured in the frozen battlefield. The soldiers of the northern army groaned through their teeth and cried out the names of their loved ones.
With all this ringing, those in Inman’s team who had no good shoes to wear climbed over the wall to pick up the boots of the dead. Inman had good boots. He took part in this night attack because he wanted to see the dead bodies of the North Army everywhere in the battlefield. There were piles of bloody bodies and mutilated limbs with different shapes. He didn’t walk beside Inman and looked around. He said that he would let Potomac have the final say and witness the enemy’s misery. Inman’s thought was to go home. Some bodies and clothes were pinned with cards to write their identities. Inman saw a man crouching down to take off a dead body’s boots. He lifted a leg and pulled the supine body. He suddenly sat up and said something. His Irish accent was too strong to hear a word shit.
It’s been several hours since midnight. Inman came to the battlefield. The gable door in front of a house was shooting light from the inside. An unkempt old lady sat at the door and looked dull. The table next to her was burning with a piece of wax. Several bodies fell on the threshold. Others were lying in the corpse house as if they were dying. The woman looked frantically across the door and looked at Xu Inman through the room. She walked through the back door and saw a group of seriously injured Union soldiers being hammered and slaughtered. The wounded soldiers were all lined up in the same direction. The man briskly walked along the front row. Cranial movement devotedly hit a hammer to solve a clean problem. Does his face look angry? It’s like finishing a job. He moves from one head to another mouth and whistles in a low voice. Cora Allen was caught by a straight officer. He was probably shot, but he was tired and hoped to kill more enemies without danger. Inman will never forget that moment. When the man walked to one end and killed the last soldier, his face was so good that he ushered in the first light.
Blind has been sitting there quietly listening to Inman’s story. When Inman finished, he said that you need to forget all this.
I think so, too, Inman said
But Inman didn’t tell the blind that no matter how hard he worked, it was always in vain. The battlefield night didn’t go far, but turned into a dream. During those days when he was hospitalized, it came again and again. In the dream, the red mans burned overnight, and the limbs were scattered on the ground. The arms, heads, legs and trunks slowly gathered together to form a new weird human body. They staggered from time to time in the shadow battlefield and threw themselves down like blind drunkards. They staggered and cracked their heads in dizziness. They collided with each other. They waved and randomly matched their arms. Few pairs of arms seemed to belong to the same person
One of them was scarred and looked more like a pile of flesh and blood than a human body. He struggled to get up, but he couldn’t move any more. His head could still turn. He lay on the ground, stretched his neck and stared at Inman, calling his name in a low voice. Inman woke up from this dream every day, and his mood was as dark as the darkest crow.
Inman went back to the ward and walked. He felt very tired. barris sat in a dark room with goggles and continued with a quill pen. On the paper, Inman lay in bed and wanted to take a nap to get rid of the rest of the afternoon, but his mood was calm and good. This is the third volume of bartram’s travel notes. Inman donated a box of pictures from the ladies in the capital. They were not only more enthusiastic about the recovery of their heart patients, but their thoughts were obviously donated because the cover was missing. Inman tore off the back cover and tied it into a roll because of symmetry.
This is not a need to read page by page from the beginning to the end. In those nights when he was hospitalized, Inman always flipped through it until he could sleep peacefully. Because his backpack was always full of plants, he devoted all his efforts to wild life, thus winning the title of flower picker among Cherokee people. When he described it, Inman could relax. Inman turned to a special paragraph that afternoon. The first sentence came into view.
I continued to climb until I reached the top of a towering stone mountain. In front of me, there was a canyon sandwiched between even higher peaks. I continued to walk through the rugged mountain road in the canyon, next to a winding and fast-flowing stream. At last, it turned left, plunged a steep cliff and rushed through the dark jungle and towering forest, sending the land full of richness and joy.
The description in the next few pages of this picture is equally delightful for Inman. bartram came to Cowie Valley in the depths of the mountains. He was so intoxicated that he almost never stopped to describe the cliffs that disappeared in the distance. He took pains to count the names of plants he observed all the way to Qingshan. But after a while, Inman’s thoughts seemed to be reciting the formula of a strong medicine, but his mind was wandering from it and he recalled his hometown. Cold mountains, hills, gullies, pigeons, rivers, small rivers, small forks and deep valleys in Sohler. He recited these familiar names verbally as if they were spells that could drive away the deepest fears.
A few days later, Inman walked from the hospital to the city, and his neck ached like a burning tendon from his neck to his phalanx. Every step he took made his legs tense, and his strength was restored, which added a hidden worry to him. Once he was strong enough to fight, they would immediately get him back to Virginia, but after all, he had to be careful not to be too energetic in front of doctors.
Some money was sent home, and the army also paid some unpaid wages. Inman wanted to walk around and buy something. The shops in the street were all red brick houses or white board houses. In a tailor’s shop, he took a fancy to a black worsted wool sweater, which was tailored for another person, but the man died before the clothes were ready. The tailor sold Inman a new dress on the spot at a low price and went to the door to wear it. He also went to a grocery store to buy a stiff indigo denim trousers, a milky white shirt, a pair of socks, a pocketknife, a small pot of cups and returned his pistol to the store. All the gunpowder boxes in the bag were swept away, and all these things were wrapped in kraft paper and tied with a rope in a cross. Inman walked outside the shop with one finger hooked. Then Inman bought a black hat in a hat shop with a circle of gray hat bands and went back to the street. He picked up the old hat full of dirt and threw it into a bean field in front of a house. Maybe they could send a field to use it as a scarecrow hat. He put the new hat on his head and walked into a shoemaker’s shop. He saw a pair of strong leather boots just fit, and the old boots were thrown aside. He went to the stationery store and bought a gold pen dejectedly.
Inman, a pub next to the dome-shaped state capitol building, was tired, so he chose a table under the big tree and sat down. According to the boss, he ordered a cup of coffee and brought it in through the blockade line. However, judging from the residue at the bottom of the cup, it was mainly chicory root’s coffee partner. There was a circle of orange peel on the top of the coffee table, which looked like rust. Inman had to be careful when he put the cup back on the coffee plate, for fear of rubbing his new sleeves. He was sitting a little stiff, and people might think that he was not cautious when looking at the shade from the road. It’s a little awkward. His back is straight, his hands are clenched on his thighs, and he wears a new black neck wrapped in bandages. It looks like he is wearing a white scarf tightly. This appearance may be mistaken for a person who is sitting still while taking a silver photo and waiting for the long exposure to end. People have become dizzy and confused. As time goes by, he slowly sucks in his image and takes away part of his soul forever.
Inman is thinking about blindness. Recently, every morning, he bought a standard newspaper from the blind, and today he also bought a copy. Knowing how he was blind, Inman felt pity, because since he was born, no one hated and no enemy, what was the price? Who else could he punish if he wanted revenge?
Inman drank the coffee to the bottom of the cup, then picked up the newspaper, hoping to find something that would attract him to read and divert his attention. However, he couldn’t read an article about the bad situation outside Petersburg, and it wouldn’t be anything against this topic. He didn’t know the new news. Turning to the third page, he saw a notice issued by the state government against deserters and their families. These people will be arrested, and their names will be blacklisted. Every county militia will patrol day and night for strict investigation, and then they can’t afford a page in the newspaper. Inman saw a news in the western mountainous border area of the state that the northern army of Thomas he Cherokee troops repeatedly accused them of cutting the enemy’s scalp. The newspaper commented that this act may be barbaric, but it is also a severe warning that the invasion will pay the price of blood.
Inman put out a newspaper and thought about scalping Cherokee boys. From a certain point of view, it was humorous. Those pale mill workers stole land in the south ambitiously but lost their scalps in the jungle. Inman knew many Cherokee people who might be in Thomas’ hand-to-hand combat age. I wonder if they would know how to swim among them. That summer, they were all 16 years old. The family arranged a very pleasant job for him to graze some heifers on the high hill of Bassam Mountain and let them eat the last summer grass. A pack horse mountain with cooking utensils, bacon, dry food, fishing gear and a shotgun was also set up. It was estimated that when I lived alone for a while, I arrived at the top of the mountain only to find that more than a dozen people had come to Catarucci first. Men camped on the top of the mountain and enjoyed the cool air in the highlands and stayed away from home. They had been here for a week or more. It was really a pleasant place, and the views on both sides of the east and west were unusually wide. It was an excellent mountain pasture, and Inman joined them. For several days in a row, they had a big feast, frying tortillas and trout and stewing their prey in a pile of high bonfires that didn’t go off day and night. They often sent food with corn wine and brandy and thick honey wine, and many people were drunk for a day and a night.
A few days later, a small group of Cherokee people in Kafr Creek drove their skinny cows from the other side of the hillside to camp not far away. Then they cut down tall pine trees and cut them into goals, and they brutally crossed the border to swim in the game. A strange boy with big hands and long eyes came to Catarucci to participate in the game, and slightly threatened that people would die during this game. Inman and others accepted the challenge. They split small trees and tied shoelaces to make their own bats.
The two teams camped shoulder to shoulder for two weeks, and the young day was a big bet to win or lose. There was no time limit and no rules for this kind of game. Both sides ran fiercely, slammed the bat, chopped and chopped it like a group fight with a stick. They played ball most of the day until one side won the prescribed score. The way to score was to hit the goal post of the other side. In the evening, everyone sat around the campfire, drinking, telling stories, eating lots and lots of fried small spotted trout without even spitting up their bones.
In most highlands, the sky is clear and the air is clearer than the flat ground, and the vision can be limited to extend over the blue hills. Their colors gradually fade until they finally blend into the horizon. It seems that the whole world is made up of these undulating mountains. During a competition, I stopped swimming and looked at the winding mountains. I said that he believed that the cold mountain was the largest mountain in the world. Inman asked him how he could be sure that the swimmer waved his hand to the horizon and pointed to the cold mountain. Have you ever seen it bigger?
In the morning, the air at the top of the mountain is very refreshing, and the fog lurks in the valley. The isolated peaks rise from it like steep green islands scattered in a white ocean. Usually Inman wakes up in the morning and swims in a small river with a little drunkenness to catch fish for an hour or two, and then he goes back to play ball. They sit by the fast-flowing stream and hook up with nereis or floating bait. They will swim while fishing and talk in a low voice. He tells animal stories about what they will be like now. What will opossum tail be naked squirrel tail hair? What’s the velvet antler? Puma has sharp teeth and claws. The snake has fangs with colorful rings. He tells stories about the world, and swims to help people realize their wishes. He tells Inman how to spell misfortune, disease and death, how to exorcise fire and revenge, and how to protect oneself by walking alone at night. Swimming knows several kinds of spells to kill the enemy’s soul, and there are many ways to protect one’s soul. His spell soul is extremely fragile and constantly suffers from various attacks and often dies in the body. Yu Yingman finds this concept really frustrating because sermons and hymns have always been instilled to believe in the immortality of the soul.
Inman patiently listened to him tell these stories, and the spell watched the water impact the fishing line to form grooves, and the voice was endless. When people were relaxed and caught a bag of small trout, they would stop and go back, and then they would push each other, collide with each other, hit each other and even get full of old fists.
Many days later, it rained continuously, but the bad weather came at the right time because both sides were exhausted and drunk for too long, and their clothes were out of shape. People broke their fingers and broke their noses, and the flesh wound was beyond count. People were bruised from ankles to buttocks by bats. The Cataluzzi lost all the unnecessary things to the Indians and some necessary things. Inman had lost a cow. He wondered how to explain to his father that the cow was piece by piece. When he loses a point, he will say a ball. I bet that the fillet of that heifer or the ribs on the left side of that heifer say that we will win. When the two teams go their separate ways, Inman heifer is still alive, but all parts of her body belong to different Cherokee names.
Compensation memorial swimming gave Inman a good walnut bat squirrel skin strap with a bat beard wrapped inside. Swimming said it could bring bat speed. Smart bat decorated with swallow goshawk heron feathers. According to the swimming explanation, these animal characteristics will also be handed to Inman, who will hover, dive and concentrate absolutely. These words have not been fulfilled. Inman hopes to swim, but lives in his bark house, where gurgling streams pass by.
From the pub, Sogeum tunes the strings, fiddles with the bow, tries to tap the strings, and then slowly and unfamiliar plays Ola Lee. Every few notes, she will jump or be sharp or hoarse, but poor playing skills will damage the beautiful and familiar melody. It sounds so sad that there seems to be no room for imagining a cloudy, chaotic and hopeless future.
He raised the coffee cup to his lips and put it down again. It was cold and almost cold. He stared into the cup and watched the black residue sink in the liquid with a quarter of an inch left. The black particles swirled and sank to the bottom of the cup according to a certain law. He remembered divination. It seemed that the pattern of things could reveal important information from the shape of coffee residue, tea root and pig dirty clouds. After a while, he shook a broken glass and looked down the street. Behind a row of small trees, a large stone dome-shaped parliament building stood tall. Its color was slightly darker than that of high school clouds, and it was too west. The sun hides behind the clouds like a gray disc. In the dense fog, it seems that the Parliament Building is incredibly high and huge, which is no less than being besieged in a dream. The curtains of medieval castles floated from the open windows of the office in the breeze, swinging the dome, and a group of black vultures circled in the gray day. The oval wings were scattered and the feathers were faintly discernible. Inman looked at the vultures in the middle, but they gradually rose through the air until they became black spots.
In my mind, Inman compares the flying trajectory of vultures in his cup with the sinking of coffee grounds according to a certain pattern. It is not difficult for anyone to make fortune-telling according to these randomly generated permutations and combinations. It is not difficult for you to firmly believe that the future is doomed to be worse than the past, and the road leads to unfathomable fear. In Inman’s view, Fort fredericks can be regarded as a coordinate, so according to the current development trend, people will eat each other alive in a few years.
In the same way, Inman wants to swim, and those sorceries are also unreasonable. People’s souls can be deprived and die, but their bodies continue to live. Inman himself is a case, perhaps not a special case. Others are still alive, but his soul has almost burned out. It feels like a black rubber tree heart, and it is also a strange feeling. Recent experience has made him worry that Henry’s rifle and mortar alone will be out of date when the soul talks about horses. He is worried that his soul has vanished in the gunfire and become indifferent to everything around him. A sad old heron stands alone by a pond without frogs, staring at the mud beach in front of him. The only way to avoid the fear of death is to be insensitive. It seems that it is a very uneconomical deal to treat everything as if it were already dead.
Inman sat there meditating and thinking about his loss. At this moment, I was swimming by the stream and telling a story. Suddenly, it flashed in my mind. It was urgent and attractive. Swimming said that in the blue sky, there was a forest where immortals lived. Ordinary people could not live and live there, but their souls died in that high sky. Swimming described it as an unreachable place, but he said that the gloomy peaks of the highest mountains would be inserted into the lower bound, and some signs or miracles would indeed come to our world from there from time to time. Swimming says that animals are the most important thing in heaven. Inman told the swimmer that he had climbed to the top of Cold Mountain and climbed Mount Pisgah and Stirling Mountain, and the mountains would not be much higher than them, but Inman did not notice the signs of heaven at their peaks.
Whether it is climbing swimming or not is the answer. Inman can’t remember whether swimming has told him what else to do to reach the healing country, but the cold mountain suddenly rises from his heart, where he will dissipate his strength and reunite. Inman denies that he is a superstitious person, but he does believe in a world that we can’t see. He no longer believes that the world is heaven and that it is where we will go after death. The previous education has long since vanished, but he still can’t accept a world that he witnessed, especially that it is so filthy and dirty. He firmly holds on to the idea of a better place in another world.
Inman took off his new clothes and put them on the back of the chair. The letter was written for a long time. Afternoon passed slowly. He drank a few more cups of coffee. The back of several pages were covered with ink. He found himself talking about things that he didn’t want to talk about in the war. He wrote
The earth was washed away by blood, and we saw blood reaching the stone trunk with many bloody handprints.
At this point, he stopped writing, rolled up the first few pages and re-wrote them on a new page.
I don’t know what will happen to us when I am going home. At first, I intend to write about what I have seen and done in this letter, so you can judge me before I go back, but I believe that those things can only be finished with writing paper as wide as the blue sky, and I have neither the will nor the energy. Remember the night before Christmas four years ago? I held you in my lap by the kitchen stove, and you told me that you would always be willing to sit with your head resting on my shoulder like this. Now it pains me. I believe you know that I have experienced everything and will never sit in my arms again.