The Lost Lives of Nathan Hale

Be careful what you lament.

by Kevin Ahearn

In the kingdom of the Almighty Creator, there are the near-gods, wise-fools who play with the fates of mortals. Not to destroy or to despoil, but to recut and add color to the fabric of the universe — to stir up the natural order.

As cruel and chaotic as these immortal tricksters might seem, there is a method to their madness: to teach us lessons we’d have never learned otherwise.

On the night of September 21st 1776, in the young metropolis of New York, revolution was in the air and the wind had yet to belong to either side. Could the upstart Colonies possibly defeat the mighty British Empire? A little breeze one way or the other might decide the outcome.

High above the budding skyline, a pair of pranksters watched from the stars. Coyote, the senior trickster, had staked out the entire continent before any man, white, black, red or yellow ever set foot on it. At his side was his cosmic comrade, Raven. Even with a full five millennia under his wings, he was still much the junior partner. Both possessed a keen eye for mischief.

“Behold the prisoner yonder, a patriot among the pansies,” said Raven. “I foresee a game to play.”

“Your instincts have sharpened with age, my young friend,” said Coyote. “A legend is about to bloom.”

The greenhouse of the Beekman Mansion Estate was serving as a temporary stockade for a condemned spy.

The young man, barely twenty-one, was led from the fauna to his destiny. Caught the night before with damning evidence on his person, he refused to divulge no more than his name and rank in the Colonial Army.

“Note the firmness of his gait, the conviction in his eyes,” said Coyote. “Here is a hero who will live long beyond his years.”

“For failing in his mission?” asked Raven. “He deserves more than a rope to swing from?”

“So we shall see,” said Coyote.

On the brink of death and historic oblivion, the young man stood tall under an apple tree as a noose was put around his neck.

“Would you care to make a dying speech and confession?” asked the British commander.

“I only regret,” said Nathan Hale, “that I have but one life to lose for my country.”

And then it was over.

“But what if he didn’t?” said Coyote. “How many lives would it take till...?

“Oh, no!” said Raven. “You wouldn’t...”

And then it began.

Nathan Hale was born again, a new American citizen, in 1790. At eighteen he enlisted in the Army under the command of Andrew Jackson. He fought bravely in the War of 1812. On December 24th, the United States and British commissioners met in Ghent, Belgium and signed a peace treaty.

“The war is over,” said Raven. “And Nathan Hale survived. He doesn’t have to go on losing his life for his country.”

“Not quite,” said Coyote.

Word did not reach New Orleans in time. On the foggy morning of January 8th, 1814, in a battle of chaos and confusion, Andrew Jackson and his army won a great victory. The British suffered more than 2,000 casualties. Fewer than 75 Americans were killed. Nathan Hale was one of them.

“He died for nothing!” said Raven.

“Did he?” asked Coyote. “Every year that battle is celebrated. Songs are sung and heroes remembered. The war might have been forgotten if that final round had never been fought.”

“Then it’s never going to change?” said Raven. “He’ll go on forever losing his life for his country.”

“Patience,” said Coyote. “Life goes on anew.”

Born again in 1842. Nathan went to war to preserve the Union and free all Americans. On the 3rd of July, 1863, more than 50,000 soldiers lay dead at Gettysburg, including a Union soldier, Nathan Hale.

“Is there never a war without wholesale slaughter?” asked Coyote. “Must this nation forever feud to find itself?”

“When will he?” said Raven. “Will there ever come a time when his heart will not be in the fight?”

Nathan Hale was born again in 1866. Ten years later, after Colonel Custer had been wiped out at Little Big Horn, the beginning of the end of the Indian Wars was at hand.

On the morning of December 28th 1890, at Wounded Knee Creek, Nathan Hale, a private in the Army, was ordered to search and disarm a band of Lakota, mostly old men, women and children, being escorted to the reservation. The Native Americans obeyed, stacking their guns in the center of the camp. But the battalion commander was not satisfied. The soldiers went from tent to tent, removing knifes, axes and other tools and throwing them into the pile. Then they began searching individual warriors.

“No,” cried one of the Lakota. “I traded too much for my new rifle. It belongs to me!”

The soldiers grabbed him. From somewhere a shot rang out. The whole battalion opened up. Cannon from the high ground fired into the camp.

“Cease fire!” yelled Nathan only once before he was cut down. When it was over, more than 300 Sioux had been killed and 25 soldiers lay dead.

“Poor innocent fool. Tried to stop the fighting and shot by his own countrymen,” said Raven. “Surely now he will see the error of his pledge.”

“Will he?” said Coyote. “Would I choose a man who would so quickly break his word?”

Nathan Hale was born again in 1895. In 1914, he enlisted to fight in The War to End All Wars. Finally there would be peace when this one was over. A doughboy in the trenches, caked with mud and soaking wet, Hale is ignored by his superiors and dies of pneumonia. With his dying breath, he blesses his country.

“An inglorious end to whom might have been a hero yet again,” said Raven. “Shouldn’t we have given him at least a fighting chance?”

“But he was there. And he had no regrets,” said Coyote. “Life and death is so often the luck of the draw, but in drawing his last pitiful breath, he refused to curse his country. He’s as much a hero as any of them.”

“Will he ever get another chance?” asked Raven.

“Opportunities are endless,” said Coyote.

Born in 1923, Hale is one of the first to die on Omaha Beach in the D-Day invasion of World War II.

“Couldn’t he have fired a shot before dying? Couldn’t we have allowed him to fight and kill the enemy instead of just wasting his life?” said Raven.

“He had to die, here and now,” said Coyote. “Because somebody had to. Good men by the thousands die anonymous deaths. War isn’t personal. Losing your life for your country is.”

“We’re not judges, are we?” said Raven.

“We don’t have to be,” said Coyote.

“Yet another war on the horizon?” asks Raven.

“Isn’t there always?”

“The big, long one on the other side of the world?” said Raven. “When his country loses, what difference will his life make then?”

“Have you gotten it yet?” said Coyote. “It was never his life that made any difference, but his death.”

“Yet another war far away?“

“No. A more important fight. And much closer to home.”

The next Nathan was born the 1945 in Harlem. Raised to believe that ‘all men were created equal,’ he soon found out differently and decided to do something about it. On the night of September 22nd, 1968, Nathan was pulled off an Alabama road, bound and gagged and thrown in the back of a car. Driven to a mass gathering, the driver and his two henchmen then put on their white robes.

“We got us a Civil Rights Yankee!” boasted the leader of the trio as the other two dragged Nathan to the center of the Klu Klux Klan assembly.

The ceremony began. A cross was ignited and it burned brightly in the field. A noose was fashioned and passed hand to hand as if it were a sacred thing.

If there were terror and hated within Nathan, he refused to show either.

“I am so sorry ’bout one thing,” announced the Grand Dragon as he tightened the rope around Nathan’s neck. “I only regret I that have but one nigger to lynch for my country.”

“Prankster most fowl,” said Raven. “Did he have to die like that?”

“And be found that way,” said Coyote. “His funeral will be the biggest in the state’s history. People will make all kinds of speeches about change and truth.”

“Then the country gained by Nathan losing his life?”

“That’s his eternal legacy. But all those people, deep down, did not regret Nathan losing his life for his country any more than he did. Because if not Nathan, who? One of them or one of their mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters or sons or daughters? Let it be Nathan. He knows what dying is for.”

Born again in 1971, Nathan commanded a tank in 1991’s Desert Storm.

At the front, attacking an Iraqi convoy, his struck an enemy mine. “Disregarding his own personal safety, Corporal Hale saved the lives of two of his crewman,” later read the Silver Star citation.

As Nathan comforted his wounded comrades, an enemy sniper took aim. Four American soldiers would fall victim before the sniper was killed. Nathan Hale would not be one of them. The bullet meant for him missed by less than an inch.

“At long last, he gets to live out his life,” said Raven. “He certainly deserves it. No, don’t tell me. I’ve spoken too soon?”

“Ah, at long last, it is you who are learning.”

Victory achieved, Hale was honorably discharged in 1994. He returned home, finished college, got married and started a family. He was teaching high school when the letter came.

“I’ve been called back in,” he said to his wife.

“No, Nathan, no,” she cried, pregnant with their third child. “You’ve served your time. We can fight this.”

“Honey, I fight for my country, never against it,” said Nathan.

Two weeks later Nathan was back in uniform. He returned home for a short leave before going overseas.

“I have to do this,” he said as he kissed his wife good-bye. “It’s who and what we are.”

Nathan never saw his family again.

“Coyote, you are the dog of the universe!” said Raven.

“Not at all. Nathan will return yet again and he will not be alone. Men and women, by the hundreds, thousands, millions, must be willing, without regret, to lose their lives for their countries... or there would be no countries, leaving us so little to play with.”