Heads nodded. “Yes, sirs” sounded through the captive ranks.
“Maybe he’s not touched,” whispered a voice.
Later, with the rebs sequestered in a Union prisoner of war camp, Joseph remained with Siegel’s regiment. Standing before the colonel one year later, the new Captain fingered the double bars on his shoulder strap.
“Congratulations, Captain Scriven. Fine job. Terrible fine job.”
“Captain? My papers said private, and I’m digging privies. Next thing I know I’m an officer.”
“Rapid field advancements happen in these times of war.”
A wry smile crossed Joseph’s face. “I don’t think anyone has ever been promoted as fast as I was, sir.”
The colonel cocked his head to one side. “You are what you were needed to be, Scriven. Never forget that.”
“Sir, may I ask a question?”
The older man tweaked the ends of his moustache. “You may.”
“Do you believe in God?”
“As sure as the sun comes up in the morning.”
Joseph bit at his lip. “Do you believe it’s okay to fight and kill people? I don’t mean like murder them without reason. What I mean is…” What did he mean?
Leaning against his desk, the well-seasoned man continued to tweak his moustache. “Scriven, since you came under my command, something’s been fretting your mind. Time and place opened the door to opportunity. As to religious matters, I believe in God and know what’s right and wrong, but the battle details? I leave them to an officer of a higher authority.” While pointing heavenward, Siegel popped open his pocket watch.
On the inside of the watch, Joseph noticed the word MASTER emblazoned in gold.
Siegel closed the timepiece and returned it to his pocket. “Soon, and I pray to God it’s soon, we’ll all have fought the last battle.”
As wars always do in time and after the spilling of an ocean of blood, it ended. From back home in Kansas, Joseph posted letters to Miss Sarah Blessing, Old Cross Road, Paradise Springs, Missouri. Eventually the postmaster at nearby Chance Springs took pity and returned a stack of unopened envelopes along with a note indicating that the town of Paradise Springs had long been abandoned.
Heart aching, Joseph traveled east then south, arriving at the bottom edge of the burnt district of Missouri. At each settlement, discouragement plagued him. Unwilling to admit defeat, he rode his horse through a section of river he knew had to be where he’d hidden. But it had been fall then and now it was late spring. Trees in full leaf disguised that October’s death.
Giving his horse its own mind, aimlessly, Joseph ambled through the remains of a town. No name was posted, but it had to be Paradise Springs. The Blessing home should be just to the east. He traveled on. Occasionally, he felt as though someone trailed. At each look behind, only leaves fluttered in the faint breeze.
Presently, a knee-high field of untended wild corn reached sunward. Opposite, the blackened ruins of a home’s fireplace stood, a solitary sentinel.
After tossing the horse’s reins over a sprawling lilac bush, he meandered toward the stone foundation. Gone. Everyone. War had claimed this house and his heart.
His eyes roamed, leading his feet across the corn field, through the broken cemetery gate and to the stones that stood within. Drawn by a force he could not resist, he knelt and pulled the weeds from the words that were etched in white marble. Sarah Blessing 1837–1853, Beloved Daughter. He pulled the grass from the stone’s twin. Jonathan “Skeeter” Blessing 1841–1853, Beloved Son.
Joseph’s brain stopped, stuttered, and came to a halt.
“It’s a shame, damn shame to die so young, especially like they did. She was a pretty one too with all those brown curls.”
Joseph leapt to his feet, heart pounding, pulse racing through his veins. “Please, sir! I have only one life. Don’t scare it out of me.” Commanding his breath to slow, Joseph dropped to the ground and leaned against the paint-scrapped pickets. “Did you know the Blessings? The ones I knew couldn’t have died in 1853.”
“Them two died when that house yonder burned. The girl ran back to save her brother. He had the cutest freckles too and red hair. Neither ’un made it out. Whole town up and left soon after. The Indians call this the place where spirits never sleep. Been abandoned nigh onto a dozen years now.”
On his knees again, Joseph fingered the grooves in the headstones. “But…Sarah saved my life. I’m sure this was the place. This cannot be right.”
The stranger, as washed out as the paint on the worn fence, knelt beside the stones. “Some folks have so much to give, their spirits walk the earth searching for those in need. Others of us filch and plunder until we’ve stolen so much time won’t take us until we’ve given back seven fold.”
Joseph yanked the weeds from the earth, leaving a hole as deep as the empty one in his heart. His dreams…“She said she’d wait for me, that she’d be here forever.” Joseph stopped his furious pruning. “I guess she is here, forever. But the year? This can’t be my Sarah.” He blinked back a tear that threatened to run down his face for a love that could never be.
The wisp of a man grasped the younger man’s shoulder. “I believe this might be yours.” In a frail, ghostly white hand rested the knife Joseph had lost to the river.
Joseph gazed into the eyes of the stranger. The faded blue orbs held a weariness that emanated from the soul. They reminded him of the eyes of the man who’d died because of that knife.
The stranger stood. “You got a rattler on your tail. Yonder in that line of trees, past the old spring.”
“A what?” Joseph spun, scrutinizing the woods. “Where?”
Silence. Joseph turned back to the pale man. No one, not even a footprint remained of the stranger. Joseph hadn’t heard him approach, and he hadn’t heard him leave. But there in his hand was the knife.
What had the stranger said? About making amends, righting wrongs, returning that which had been stolen? Time refusing their souls?
Leaving the cemetery, Joseph kept to the trees that grew alongside the corn. With a jerk from behind, he snared the rattler by the collar. “Who are you, and why are you following me?”
“Ow! Lieutenant Scriven. You’re hurting me.”
Joseph turned loose of his game as a cascade of brown hair fell over his hand. He studied the girl. “It’s Captain Scriven. Who are you?”
The girl tamed her brown locks with a bright pink ribbon. “You once saved my brother’s life the day that big fever let loose of you. I never got to thank you.”
Remembering that terrible day, Joseph said, “There were no girls with those soldiers.” Joseph pursed his lips and eyed her. “What’s your brother’s name?”
“Jonathan, Reverend Jonathan Atherton. Local preacher and farmer over by Chance Springs. His back still aches when it turns cold, but he’s alive.”
The only person who fit Joseph’s memory was the man Sergeant Tiswell had whipped. “You were that ‘boy’ who stole the bread? How’d you get with the prisoners?”
Shrugging, she took his arm. “Long story. Let’s go to my brother’s home and have some lemonade. I know he’d like to thank you.”
He led her toward his horse. “You still haven’t told me who you are.”
“Sarah.”
Joseph started, caught his toe on a blackened brick, and stumbled. A deep ache twisted, reminding him of his broken leg. Glancing toward the charred remains of the house, he saw the hazy outline of a young redheaded boy and a girl, a girl with brown curls who would never grow old. Joseph could have sworn she smiled.
“You scared me almost to death screaming my name that day.” She knelt in front of him. “Are you all right, Captain?”
“Call me Joseph. War’s over.” On his feet again, he glanced back at the house but the only thing visible was the chimney, ever standing the lonely sentinel toward the heavens.
He boosted Sarah onto his horse then swung up.
She pinched his arm.
“I just wanted to see if you were real…This time. I’ve often dreamed of seeing you after the war, but never thought I would. Then I saw you ride into Paradise Springs. Nobody goes there anymore. Except me…sometimes.”
Riding double, they passed a well-tended field of corn that reminded him of the ear he’d sampled the day he and Sarah had danced. It’d been, March? April? Impossible! Corn didn’t ripen until late July early August, and he distinctly remembered the ear sugar sweet.
The rest of the date on the tombstone suddenly popped into his mind’s eye, August 1. Sarah and Skeeter had both perished when the corn would have been ripe. Or had they? Perhaps the impossible was as possible as morning itself. He and Reverend Atherton had much to discuss.
And time continued its endless journey.
Silent Hill
Larry D. Sweazy
I followed the trail, and the wind, into the town. My throat was raw, my nose filled with dust and dirt, and my chest heaved like my lungs were soaked in kerosene. Oddly, as winded as I was, I could not feel my heart beating in my chest.
I had no map, and after wandering for days, I was certain that I was lost. The town, no name posted on its perimeter, offered hope, a reprieve, a place to rest.
As is my custom when arriving in a new town, I headed straight for the saloon.
The barkeep waited for my two bits to appear out of my pocket before he offered to pour my whiskey. I obliged, though reluctantly. Lady Luck left my side a hundred miles ago, leaving my coffer, as well as my body, in a meager, unhealthy state.
“You look like you need more than a dose of whiskey.” A half-full glass slid toward me after the last of my coins disappeared in the barkeep’s massive hand. “If you’re lookin’ for a game, the players that matter won’t be in until the sun sets.”
The pomade had long since washed out of my hair, and my linen vest was covered with the same dust that filled my nose, but I imagine a barkeep knows a down-on-his-luck gambler when he sees one.
“Could be,” I said. “But I was hoping you could help me find a woman.”
I coughed, then fought it back so I would not alarm the few patrons in the back of the bar. My malady had yet to fully show itself, but I could feel it growing, eating away at my insides like a maggot gnawing on the flesh of a winterkill elk.
The barkeep’s eyes narrowed. His stomach was as big as a side of beef, his arms looked like hammers, and his apron was worn and tattered at the hems. Just like the saloon, the barkeep looked like he had seen better days.
“This ain’t a cat house, stranger.” He grabbed a broom.
“No, no. You misunderstand.” I reached into my pocket, not breaking eye contact with the barkeep. “My name’s Eddie. Edward, really. Edward Blackstone. Most folks call me Blackjack Eddie.”
Before I could pull out the neatly folded placard from my breast pocket, the barkeep took a hard swing at my head with the broom, and sent me sprawling to the floor.
The placard flew from my hand and skittered across the floor.
I have only two items in my possession that remain of the life I once lived, the placard and a small locket I wear around my neck. They both are more valuable to me than a bag full of gold.
The locket and placard are dear to me, for they are the only love I have known since my boyhood and the long, two-thousand mile train ride west. Without them, a long ago promise will remain unfulfilled, and I will be truly alone in this world…and, perhaps, the next.
My father arrived home, every day, promptly at 4:30 in the afternoon. He would usually have a fresh cut of meat in hand for our dinner, and the day’s newspaper for stories to regale afterward. He always had time for a warm and generous hug for my younger sister, Gillian, and me. Father did not play favorites, his affection was measured just like everything else in his life.
He worked as an accountant in a financial firm, Slade, Crothers, & Leiberman, a block from the new Chemical Bank. Everything was a bustle in New York City then, new construction, new people arriving every day. The city throbbed with vibrations of every sort—language, food, and music.
It was enough to overwhelm the senses, but as a child my environs just fed my taste buds and my ability to appreciate the most delicious aromas. All are just a memory now, evoked only in dreams and nightmares.
My mother taught piano to those who could afford it. Her reputation had followed her from her home country, England, and her wares floated out of our third-story apartment window like sweet cooing doves.
Every afternoon, our parlor was filled with the comings and goings of well-heeled girls, prim and proper, and a few reticent boys, as our mother took them through the paces of Bach, Beethoven, and Chopin.
Music was the heart of our home, but to me it was mostly the unstructured noise of tiresome beginners.
We were by no means wealthy, but we did not have to look far to know how lucky we were. My parents had prospered once they arrived in America, unlike so many others, left to the dingy streets of New York to fend for themselves, with little skills and no family.
I have seen coyotes show more manners than some people fresh off the boat.
I loved the city, loved the warmth of our apartment with the heavy mahogany furniture and thick wool carpets shipped across the ocean, and the wondrous taste of biscuits and cucumber sandwiches set upon silver plates with our afternoon tea.
But Gillian loved the city, and our life, even more than I. She was a prodigy on the piano. My mother’s best student. She could play “Chopsticks” and make us all cry—but she was beyond that, even at five.
Each note of Chopin’s Piano Concerto no. 2 in F Minor was so full of exuberance and emotion that you thought your eardrums were going to shatter and your heart was going to break.
People would gather on the street below to listen to the sweeping arpeggios and themes from various nocturnes.
Gillian was unaware of her gift, of the attention it brought to her. Her talent was not a surprise to anyone in our household, no more so than my growing skill of calculating large numbers off the top of my head—a game my father and I used to play as we walked the streets on an errand for my mother.
Our life was a dream come true.
Until the fire took it all away.
The barkeep’s foot rested heavily on my wrist. “I’ve seen way too many derringers appear out of nowhere, from the likes of you, to risk my life over a shot of whiskey.”
“I assure you, sir, I have no intention of drawing a weapon.” I struggled to pull my hand out from under the man’s buffalo-sized boot. My chest burned like it was on fire. Spittle seeped out of the corner of my mouth.
He pressed his boot down harder, eliciting a sharp groan from the depths of my gut. I feared my wrist was going to break, an injury that would surely be my last—for my body has chosen to rebel against itself.
“Liars are a dime a dozen. I have the scars to prove it,” the barkeep said.
“Let him go, Moses.”
It was a woman’s voice, strong and demanding, coming from behind me. The pressure on my wrist immediately ceased as the heavy man stepped away.
I sat up, my eyes scanning the floor for the placard and the physical presence of my rescuer.
My bones were intact, but what pride or hope I had left had almost escaped me entirely.
The woman was two heads shorter than the barkeep, Moses, I presumed, but her bulky frame was similar to his, as were her eyes, narrow and dark as a moonless night, void of pupil or emotion. She was no dancing queen, but she was attractive, in an odd sort of way, with flaming red hair, and dressed in a green satin dress that was perfectly fitted. Her frilly hat was made for Sundays and sashaying down the street of a finer city than the one I had found myself in. The brilliance of her colorful appearance was calming, like a rainbow after a fierce storm. She looked oddly out of place, and for a moment, I wasn’t sure she was real.
The woman unfolded the placar
d as I sat up, and was staring at me curiously. “Gillian?” she whispered softly.
I nodded. “Yes. You know of her?” I coughed again, deeper this time. I had found the placard posted outside a saloon five years before, my first clue that Gillian was still alive, playing piano professionally like I always knew she would.
She returned the gesture. “Pour the man a drink, Moses. A friend has joined us.”
The blow had weakened me, but the woman’s acknowledgment of Gillian’s presence gave me a boost of energy that I thought was long gone.
I was on my feet without any effort at all.
Moses scurried behind the bar, his head down.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother, Mr. Blackstone.”
“Edward. Eddie if you prefer.”
“Moses and I try to run a clean establishment, Edward. To many we are sinners, but that does not mean we cannot offer entertainment services to those who seek them. Though we do not profit off of the sale of feminine pleasures, we do profit off a fair bottle, an honest game of faro, and the best music to be found anywhere near or far. What remains of our clientele appreciates our efforts, but I fear our days here are numbered. This town is on its last breath, as is our establishment. The Devil has decided to claim our property and dreams. We are all on edge. Leery of strangers.”
“I didn’t intend to offend anyone,” I said.
“Moses is quick to react since his heart was broken by a woman of, how shall I say it? Nightly manners?”
“Gillian?” My own heart sank.
The woman laughed suddenly like I had said something funny. “Oh, no. I’m sorry to imply such a thing.” She extended her hand. “My name is Ruth Hathaway, or Miss Ruth, as your sister insisted on calling me on our first meeting. Please sit down, Edward. We have a lot to talk about.”
I led Gillian out of the blazing apartment building in the wee hours of the night, smoke roiling around our feet, wet shirts thrown over our heads. We both thought our mother and father were right behind us, for it was they who had roused us out of bed when the fire broke through to our apartment. But we got separated in the trample, in the chorus of screams, in the disorienting pleas for help from the floors above.
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