by Christopher Chatterton

Created on: November 14, 2008

Beyond the Trees

"When we were boys, my brother and I were never allowed to go into the woods to play. Little did we know, eighteen years later we'd be fighting for our lives in those very same woods", said an old man sitting under a canvas bivouac.

Lieutenant Beales looked intently at the old mans face as he spoke, his right hand rubbing three-days worth of stubble, while his left hand grasped the reins of his horse. The mans eyes were a piercing blue yet they had a haunted look to them.

Beales noticed a shock of white hair on either side of the mans temples. Upon closer inspection he realised he was not 'old' at all; he couldn't have been more than forty years of age. The mans clothes were tattered and threadbare. It was all Beales could do not to recoil from the pungent smell emanating from the scruffy man, and the putrid vapour rising from his black broiling stove.

"Where are my manners? The name's Bert, Bert Schuster," grinned the old man gesturing his open palm forward to the Lieutenant.

"Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr Schuster," said Beales, wiping his white riding glove on the back of his breeches when Bert had turned away to fill his bowl with what looked like stew.

"If I might be so bold, Mr Schuster..."

"Call me Bert, son. All my friends call me, Bert", he said peering into his bowl; mixing the concoction every few seconds with a rusty spoon.

"Very well, Bert", sighed Beales with an inaudible exhalation of cold evening air. "If I might be so bold, could you tell me whether you have seen any men pass this way in the last hour or so? They're wearing parts of our uniforms and they are fugitives, they're killers."

"Killers you say? Think I might've noticed fellas like that!" chuckled the man, showing rows of strangely sharpened yellow teeth.

"Please think hard, Sir. They have killed two of my troopers, injured one of my sergeants and assaulted three women from the town."

"Town? I haven't lived in a town for years" blurted Bert, starring into the middle distance. "I come from Garfield, just up the road away", said Bert, gesticulating with a scrawny white finger toward the town on the otherside of the woods.

"That's very interesting, Sir, but if I may we are in rather a hurry, if you could just".

"Yep, I was born in Garfield", interrupted, Bert. "Fought at the battle of Pea Ridge, me and my brother both. Fought for the Confederacy, General Van Dorn and our Lord Jesus Christ."

Beales' face mellowed upon hearing of Bert's military service. "Sergeant-Major! Sergeant-Major

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