The green spring grass of the hills was stained crimson. A mourning dove flew silently over the flowering fruit trees in the orchard that were splintered and reduced to stumps. Bodies lay among the fallen apple blossoms. The guns of war had fallen silent and so had thousands of men who fired them. Brother had fought brother and in the end, the mothers had truly lost. Capt. Jeremiah Eckles was lying on the battlefield, watching the blurry rings around the rising sun. He had fallen on Friday. And now, on Sunday morning, an angel was standing before him.
“Am I dead?”
The angel, glowing whiter than the early spring sun, said nothing. Two mockingbirds and a crow called in the distance. Otherwise, silence covered the tomb-like battlefield like a blanket.
The battle had been chaos. One minute the Captain had been eating breakfast and writing his wife and then next — well, it was hard to describe the hell that had broken out. The sound of the Rebel yell was horrifying. Minie Balls flew the air like lead hailstones. A cannonball took his aide’s head off, spattering blood all over the tent. Bayonets were fixed and body parts flew. His men scattered and ran. But he didn’t. He rounded up a few stragglers and helped launch the counterattack.
He was hit repeatedly. First in the hand. Then in the arm. His lower leg look a shell fragment. But he kept fighting. Hate propelled him forward. Hate and fear. And then the color drained out of the world. The sound became muted. And then everything went black.
The angel crossed his arms and shook his head. And yet, he still said nothing.
“I said, ‘Am I dead?'” the Captain repeated, this time with a tone that was disrespectful. Especially toward an angel.
He looked around the battlefield and saw the carnage. Horses, men, equipment — all laid in broken heaps. No one had cleaned up man’s savagery toward fellow man yet. Even Mother Nature was a casualty. Deer, hogs and fowl lay dead, too. The beautiful fragrance of spring had been replaced by the smell of rotting, bloating flesh.
“Who won?” the Captain said? He had been out for a while and had no idea what day it was.
But the answer was obvious. Death had won. Or had it?
The angel reached down and touched the Captain’s wounds. He felt an unusual warmth and was shocked as he looked at where the metal had pieced his skin. His wounds were instantly clean. His pain vanished. He reached into his uniform pocket and pulled out the photograph of his wife and child. They were in Dayton, Ohio, probably receiving word of the terrible battle and of his death. The politicians could define the war with words and slogans, but his wife would know the real cost of it. He closed his eyes and imagined her crying over his casket.
“Am I dead?” the Captain asked again, this time more respectfully.
The angel grabbed the Captain by the hand and lifted him off the blood-stained Earth and softly said, “No.”
Or had he spoken? The Captain had heard the words clearly in his mind. But the battlefield was still silent. Swollen corpses don’t speak.
“But why?” The Captain asked. Why had he been spared in this horrific sea of death? Why had he been chosen to live?
The angel pointed at the burned out church in the distance. It was white, with holes in its side and had shattered stained-glass windows. The angel began to slowly speak without moving his mouth:
“Your work on this Earth is just beginning. You’ve tasted death and now appreciate life in a way a normal man could never. You now realize every breath is more precious than gold. You must go forth and do God’s work. It’s time for you to rise and shine.”
Captain Jeremiah Eckles looked into the angel’s eyes and felt a peace like he had never before. All that he had been worried about before the battle released into the wind. He dusted off his uniform and looked toward the river. The angel nodded as he pointed in that direction. That was where the blood-soaked Captain would find his new life. Where he would go and change other’s lives for the good.
The Captain took his sword off the ground and broke it over his knee. His new journey had begun.
It was Easter morning and on that death-covered battlefield, Capt. Jeremiah Eckles had risen. Life had cheated death — Just like it had in Jerusalem so many years ago.
