This piece was written in 2015 from the prompt to write a short story inspired by the above painting (“LaGrange vs. LaGrange” by Mort Kunstler).

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“They’re coming!”

A small boy ran barefoot up the steps to where the women were clustered, their wide skirts sweeping to the edges of the veranda. Priscilla’s throat went dry, and her fingers pressed tightly around the barrel of the rifle she held. She looked around with a sense of unreality at the others beside her. There was Sara Crosby who had never had occasion to touch a gun in her life before—Priscilla only hoped she would remember to hold it the right way up—there was Mrs. Eythe, who knew how to load and fire a rifle as well as either of her sons, now somewhere up north with General Lee. The firearms they held were a motley collection, mostly old flintlocks and fowling-pieces, but Catherine Moore had a nearly-new Enfield that had belonged to her husband.

The sound of trotting horses was heard round the bend now, and a puff of dust drifted ahead of it as a herald. The women filed down from the veranda, catching their skirts up from the dust by habit, and grouped themselves at the spot where the road narrowed to pass the house. In a moment the cavalry came in sight: dark-blue coats filmed with dust, faces carved hard with weariness and fighting, brown and bay horses snorting and sweating. Just behind the captain a sergeant and some men drove two prisoners in Confederate gray on foot—their hands tied, stumbling stiffly as if their feet were dead.

The captain reined in his horse and lifted a gauntleted hand, and the strung-out troop gradually jingled and rattled to a halt, piling up against itself in closer ranks. He lowered his hand and stared for a moment at the women with rifles, stared as if he thought his eyes were deceiving him—or as if he hoped they did. Priscilla’s eyes ran along the front rank of horsemen, across a seemingly innumerable amount of glinting sabers and holstered sidearms. The metal of her rifle-barrel was warm now from her fingers clutching it—her stomach roiled and there was a sour taste in her mouth. None of the women moved—their leveled rifles made a ragged fringe barely extending beyond their hooped skirts. Behind them, the leaves rustled gently in the stately old trees over the village green…where Catherine Moore’s husband had been hanged by a Union cavalry patrol two weeks before.

There was a determined calm among them, through Priscilla knew that more hearts beside her own must have been beating swiftly. They were old and young, many of them relations in some way, all of them neighbors. There were some who never spoke to each other more than they could help, but they were entirely in agreement on what was to be done today. They were united to prevent the repetition of a tragedy, this time at the expense of a frail white-haired little woman who sat by an open window in a small house on the far side of the green, unaware of what was taking place.

It was Catherine Moore who spoke, her voice firm and cool and bold. “Captain, we would that you turn over those two prisoners to us.”

The captain touched his wide-brimmed hat, bending slightly in stiff courtesy, but he did not remove it. “Madam, that I do not have the authority to do.”

“Neither do you have the authority to hang them. These men are not spies nor criminals, nor are they even deserters from their own army. They are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war.”

Priscilla’s hands trembled for the first time as she allowed herself to look toward the prisoners. She saw Jeff Prentiss, lean and ragged, his fair hair rough and grayed with dust, looking too dulled by exhaustion to know what was going on—his eyes blankly scanned the group of women; he stared straight at her for a second and Priscilla thought he did not recognize her.

The captain raised his voice slightly. “Ladies, I will ask you to remove from the road.”

There was not a flicker, not a word, not a hesitation among them. The motley rifles did not waver.

A sort of charged amusement ran through the ranks of cavalrymen, a murmur that spread back down the lines. A smart-looking lieutenant in blue said something about the monstrous regiment of women that it was just as well the captain did not hear. The second prisoner, a gaunt bearded man who was a stranger to the women, seemed to be almost enjoying the situation.

At last the captain sighed harshly. He lifted his hand palm upwards in resignation. “Madam, as a gentleman I have no other recourse. I will not turn these men over to you. But I will give you my word of honor that they will be safely delivered as prisoners of war.”

Catherine Moore’s gaze remained steadily fixed on him for a moment, as if she were trying to read something in his face. Then she raised the Enfield slightly, so it no longer aimed at the deep blue of the captain’s coat, but at the fairer blue of the sky. She said, “And may the curse of a just Heaven and a bereaved mother be upon you if you should break it.”

Priscilla saw one…two…several more heads in the front ranks of horsemen turn to look speculatively at their commander. He was not the only gentleman in the troop…and their silent scrutiny would bind him to his word if ever he should be tempted to break it. The captain gave an order, and the column of cavalry began with a jingling and rattling to turn itself about. Priscilla pressed forward suddenly, bumping the stock of her rifle against her neighbor’s elbow, trying to get a glimpse of Jeff Prentiss before the blue ranks closed about him. One more glimpse, for it was the last she would see of him for a long time…

A horse moved in front of him, and the cavalry was on its way—picking up its regular trot again. On the other side of the village green the breeze would bring the sound of the hoofbeats to old Mrs. Prentiss’s open window, and she would wonder what the sound was from.

As the last of the troopers disappeared round the bend the women broke ranks, their tongues loosed at last, skirts swishing as they crowded warmly round Catherine Moore. But Catherine stood like a stone, looking after the retreating soldiers, her husband’s Enfield in her hands.

Priscilla drew a deep shaky breath. She let her rifle slide through rather weak hands and rested the stock gently on the ground.