Owen looked for an outlet

Owen looked for an outlet. He was a stone’s throw from the bronze marker commemorating Lew Wallace’s choice of this area for the Indiana State Fairgrounds. He smelled the rank odor of broken silver maple twigs. His electric chainsaw would make the work go quick. He found an outlet at the corner of a faded Victorian. The painted lady rested where dirt floor exhibit halls and horse stables once stood in long rows. Owen slipped a leaf of gum out of its foil wrapper and popped it in his mouth.

Owen was unaware of the halls and stables, their re-use as a civil war recruiting and training center, or their re-purpose as a prison camp for captured confederates - just by placing a fence around the outside. He did not know that Camp Morton was one of the more uncomfortable and unhealthy civil war prison camps. Owen was not here to learn about its bad water, of its one heating stove for every two hundred fifty prisoners, or of the deaths of nearly two thousand prisoners during the three years it was open. He stood unsquinting where once a pleasant facade belied a grim inside.

Owen was happy to work in this beautiful autumn day. He glanced over at a mound of overgrown buckthorn. It masked a canopy of canvas arranged with sheet plastic and paired with cardboard. The shelter was tethered by speaker wire and blue spiraled cloth cord. Owen talked loudly outside the nest. To no one, Owen said that neighbors had seen the shanty in the brush. He announced that he would leave and then return to destroy it.

At sunrise, every man able to walk at Camp Morton would fall in line for roll call. The Yankee sergeants seldom had kind words. Many welded heavy sticks to strike starving prisoners. Tunnels were the most common means of escape from Camp Morton.

Buckthorn grew well here due to the alluvial soils. 16,000 years ago, a massive ice sheet surged southward from Canada to Indianapolis. Over many centuries it melted, leaving large deposits of glacial drift. Rich soils of rotted organics, wood and grasses then rose above the drift.

Owen returned. He approached the nest and kicked away several empty cans. He first made low cuts at the perimeter brush. His deeper cuts reached the tree trunks. The pungent maple failed to mask the odor of urine.

At Camp Morton, prisoners were packed in bunks like sardines in spoon fashion. Prisoners would pick up thrown out potato peelings, roll them up, and eat them with a relish. Crawfish from stagnant ditches were used for soups. Back then, buckthorn bark and fruit were used as a purgative. It had violent action and side effects.

Owen dragged off the canopy revealing ample quarters. He spotted a sleeping bag, a ruck sack, several blankets, shoes, socks, baggies of food and deodorant. Owen left the gear. He took the remnants of the canopy to a nearby dumpster. He tied the brush onto his trailer, coiled the electrical cord and cleaned the chain saw.

One bitter cold morning a pistol shot was heard while prisoners were standing in line stamping the earth. Cries wafted. For stepping out of line at roll call, a prisoner was shot.

A young couple leaving an apartment pulled up in their truck. They joked that everyone here should pay rent. They thanked Owen for his work. Owen drifted northward back home again.