by Andy Kutler
He wore a pair of charcoal trousers—his belt cinched to its last hole—and a red flannel shirt that Ethan had provided. Both articles hung loosely, his malnourished body having shed nearly twenty pounds in a few short months. He was hatless now, with Ethan insisting they put a match to his beloved, insect-infested slouch hat.
Ethan held up his mug of beer. “To old friends, no longer with us.”
Cal nodded, having been caught up by Ethan on the fate of so many of their former comrades. He touched his mug to Ethan’s and took a long swallow. He could see the sadness in Ethan’s vacant eyes, knew who he was thinking of.
“How did your old man take it?”
“Not well. He wrote me a couple of letters, wanting TJ’s personal effects, things like that. Blamed me for not sending the body home to Wisconsin. Hell, Cal, what was left of his body wasn’t worth sending back. He’s buried in those Pennsylvania hills.”
“The loss of a son would break up any father.”
“It’s more than that, Cal. My father pinned every hope and ambition of his on TJ. West Point, political office, his business empire. The man had a stroke last month, can barely get out of bed.” Ethan threw back the last of his drink. “And now all he’s got is me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. But a colonel of one of the finest regiments in the entire Army of the Potomac? He could do worse, Ethan.”
“It is indeed a fine regiment, but we’ve taken quite a licking in this war. There are barely two dozen of the old New Mexico men left.”
“But who would have guessed it,” Ethan mused, “both of us colonels now, regimental commanders, sitting here in the middle of Nowhere, New Jersey.”
“Well, your command is a mite larger than mine at the moment.”
Ethan leaned in. “So, what about Emily?”
Cal sighed. “Haven’t seen her in two years. I got occasional letters before I was captured.”
“Gaylord said he tried to write her in Norfolk to let her know about that, make sure she knew you were okay, but doesn’t sound like much mail is getting through the lines. Must have been unbearable, locked up in that place, knowing she was out there.”
“Actually, it’s what kept me going.”
Ethan nodded his understanding. “So, New Mexico—what the hell happened to you, Cal?”
Cal sat up, grateful for the opportunity to tell his story. “Not sure how much you remember about that day. We had two—”
“Cal, I remember everything about that day.”
“Yeah, me too. Okay, you know one of the Georgia men, Dukes, had jumped the picket line, right? Bruer and I rode out to bring him back—and yes, I know I should have told you. Anyway, we got stopped by a squad of Mexicans. Irregulars. They shot Bruer and dragged me back to Mexico. A local official there made things right. Offered me a deal. If I agreed to stay out of the Southwest, and not report the incident, he would get me passage to Virginia. When I got home, I wrote to you but I’m guessing that never got through.”
“It might have. I got shipped out of New Mexico shortly after all that. But this is what I can’t understand. Travers told me you were both killed by Apaches. He saw it.”
Cal raised an eyebrow. “Apaches?”
“Yep. I sent him out after you, and he said he saw both you and Bruer killed, at a distance. He said they cut you into pieces and there was no point going back for you.”
Cal contemplated this. “There’s a reason he told you that.”
And Cal filled Ethan in what Peter Kirch had told him four years ago about Travers, and how Cal had confronted Travers about it prior to that last patrol.
“My God,” muttered Ethan. “You should have told me.”
“Yes, I should have. I thought I was protecting the boy by handling it myself. Where is Travers now?”
“I have no idea. Transferred west in sixty-two, after Antietam. Thatch—remember him? He got himself a regiment in Grant’s army and had Travers sent to Tennessee to join him. After Custer showed me that note you wrote, I told Gaylord, hoping he could help me find you. Oh, did he have some choice words about Sergeant Hiram Travers. He’s tried to have him detained, even managed to send a provost to Georgia. But then he hit a wall. Thatch, if you can believe this, made Travers an officer.”
“An officer?” asked Cal. He shook his head in disbelief. “This is one hell of a war. Even Thatch doesn’t deserve a man like that. With any luck, he caught a bullet somewhere.”
Ethan was struck by the coldness of the words. That wasn’t the man he knew back in New Mexico. Of course, neither was he.
Ethan reached into his saddlebag. “Got something for you.” He pulled out an envelope and handed it to Cal.
Cal removed a folded paper and read aloud. “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”
He looked up at Ethan questioningly.
“President Lincoln said that. He had his inauguration last week and I read that in the newspaper.”
“The man sure has a way with words. Bind up the nation’s wounds. I like that.”
Cal carefully folded the paper, returned it to the envelope, and placed it in his pocket. “What’s next here, Ethan?”
“You’ve been paroled under my authority. We’ve got train vouchers to Washington, and then we’ll find us some good mounts to get us to your lines. You’ll need to sign this pledge first, which I then need to leave with the warden.”
Cal took the document and read it over.
“It’s standard,” said Ethan, but he looked pensive.
Cal noticed. “What?”
“I know you, and how you value your word. But most of Virginia is in our hands now. From what I’ve heard, it’s rough down there. You may have a danged time keeping that pledge and getting to Emily.”
“Ethan, do you think I’m in the mood to shoot a Union soldier? Put that piece of paper in front of me. I guarantee it will be the easiest promise I’ve ever had to keep. The first thing I’m going to do is find Em. The second thing will be to get us as far away from this war as I can. I don’t want to see another uniform for a long, long time. I don’t care if it’s blue, butternut, or purple polka dots.”
Ethan raised his mug. “Well, then, let’s get you to Virginia.”
CHAPTER 25
March, 1865
Near Harrisonburg,Virginia
“Looks like a twister ripped through here and clobbered everything but the house,” grumbled Caldwell, spitting tobacco juice from his seat on the wagon bench.
The man had stopped the wagon some fifty yards away from the home. Emily pushed back her bonnet and surveyed the landscape that held so many memories. She knew Caldwell’s eyes weren’t what they once were, but she couldn’t disagree with the older man’s assessment. As she absorbed the extent of damage to the estate—the barn and stables had been all but leveled—she felt the anger stirring within her.
Caldwell gave a short whistle and Hannah, her father’s prized mare that Caldwell had kept well hidden outside Richmond, lurched forward, pulling the wagon down the final stretch of the mile-long gravel path her grandfather had put in a generation ago. The wagon eased in front of the main house and Caldwell set the brake. The two sat in silence, each remembering when the buildings and grounds had been so pristine and manicured; the pride of the township. Laughter and celebration and the telltale sounds of a working farm once carried across the hills. Now, everything was in wretched condition. The only audible noise was the creaking of a broken gate swinging on a rusty hinge and the brisk wind whistling through the leafless trees lining the gravel path. A flock of birds circled overhead, eyeing the human visitors with curiosity.
It had been just four years since Emily was last here, yet the
place looked wholly foreign to her. Structurally, the main house had been mostly spared. Aesthetically, it looked as if it had been battered relentlessly by both man and nature. The majestic porch that fronted the house and extended to the west side remained intact but was pockmarked with blood stains and animal waste. The bench swing that she remembered fondly from her childhood was missing, the chains hanging down ominously from the porch overhang.
The yard was a shambles. A blood-stained door, perhaps used as a surgical table, lay amid a pocket of dead rose bushes. The burnt remains of a smashed wagon rested on its side atop her mother’s garden that once burst with fresh vegetables. The grounds were littered with debris and skeletal remains. Mounds of dirt with grave markers made from sticks and abandoned muskets could be seen just behind the house. Spent cartridges glinted everywhere in the sun.
“What happened here?” she said softly.
Gus Caldwell tipped his hat back and squinted. “According to Jed Smythe, the Yankees. Lots of fighting in these parts last year and the year before. Jed said they used the house as a headquarters and winter quarters for some generals. Then the fighting came right here. You saw what they did to the stone wall out by the road. What happened to the barn and stables, I have no idea. I can see the old slave quarters over that rise are gone too.”
He paused. “I know it looks a mess, but that house is fine, Mrs. Garrity. She’ll pretty up with a little paint and some new windows. Your grandfather built her to last, and I promise you the framing and roof are as sturdy as could be.”
Caldwell would know. He was the first overseer her grandfather had hired. After William Moore Peyton’s death nearly a decade ago, the estate passed to her father. But Elias Peyton was a builder, not a planter. He leased out much of the land and the house became mostly a summer home when the family needed to trade the Norfolk humidity for the cooler valley air.
Emily turned her attention from the house to Caldwell. She had known him most of her life, though she knew little about the man personally. His face was tan and leathery from exposure, and though he was now in his sixties, Emily knew not to be fooled by his age. He had always been a formidable presence with his stocky build and muscled forearms. They were alone, and she knew the entire Federal Army could be somewhere in those rolling hills, yet she felt safe here with Caldwell. Just as if Cal were nearby.
A pair of rifle shots in the distance broke through the silence, the sharp cracks carrying in the wind that swept across the valley.
Emily looked up in alarm and then quickly glanced in the back of the wagon. All remained well there.
She turned again to Caldwell, who seemed unconcerned.
“Soldiers?”
“Likely just a couple of hunters. We’re a good ways behind the Yankee lines now. Won’t expect this part of the valley will see much more fightin’.” He paused for a moment, gripping the reins tightly as he continued to absorb the damage.
“Stupid god-damned politicians,” the man growled through stained teeth.
The feeling in his voice surprised her. Emily could only recall a hard, emotionless man, aloof from the children and when possible, the adults as well. From what she saw as a young girl, he managed her grandfather’s land with quiet efficiency and the slaves with a firm hand. He was a demanding man.
That was the man she remembered from her youth. She learned much more about him later in life, remembering the conversation she had with her grandfather about a year before his passing. There was apparently much more to the rough overseer than met the eye.
For years, the Peyton land had been mostly used for tobacco planting, degrading the soil over time and jeopardizing future crops. That would change, her grandfather informed her, as he had found a tenant willing to plant new crops. This surprised her. Even as a young girl she knew how lucrative and burgeoning the tobacco market was. What shocked her, however, was her grandfather’s reason for doing so. He was aiming to shut down his tobacco production and free the slaves in his estate. It was astonishing to her, even more so when he said the idea had come from, of all people, Gus Caldwell.
Caldwell, she came to learn, was a complicated man with a complicated ethos. He was a man who doled out punishment without bias, taking the switch to colored and white children alike when deserved. He worked the slaves from sunup to sundown, but always made sure they were well-clothed, well-fed and received medical care when they needed it. Turns out the man had moral convictions, her grandfather said, putting him at odds with most other white laborers in the South.
Her grandfather had sworn her to secrecy about all of this as Caldwell was an intensely private man. And to this day, she had never said a word to another soul about it, including Caldwell himself. Caldwell took a plug of tobacco from his shirt and cut himself a new chaw.
She placed a hand on his forearm. “You don’t need to stay here with me, Gus. I’ll be fine.”
He looked at her. Caldwell had known her since she was big enough to climb into his lap and pull on his beard. He knew she was as capable as any man he had ever employed. And she was determined to stay here and rebuild this place. But they were still in the middle of a war and civilians were getting killed every day. This was no place for a woman, particularly with a vengeful army—full of men away from their wives and sweethearts—occupying most of the state.
“I’m hardly alone,” she countered, reading his thoughts. “The Gatewoods live no more than half a mile down the turnpike. The Smythes are still here. And we’ll tell the county sheriff I’m here, right?”
“I don’t know what kind of man the sheriff is. Devrey was a good man, but he was killed at Sharpsburg. I don’t know who took his job. I don’t even know if there is a sheriff.”
She knew their discussion was mere theater. She needed him and he would insist on staying, at least to get her settled. But she would argue the point anyway. It was her way.
“Look, Gus, I won’t be alone. There are others nearby and—”
She was interrupted by a familiar sound, one they hadn’t heard in nearly an hour. The youngster had been lying in the back of the wagon, nested on a pile of blankets, lulled to sleep by the earlier jostling of the wagon. Perhaps the distant gunfire had awakened him. More likely the growling in his stomach. He was fifteen months old now and managed to pull himself to his feet on unsteady legs, hanging to the back of the wagon seat. Emily reached behind and pulled him into her arms.
The boy settled into her lap with a final yawn, his hand closed tightly around her index finger. She never tired of watching him, the boy’s dimpled chin and wide eyebrows giving him a strong resemblance to his father. She loved his curious eyes and the color of his hair, but most of all she cherished the memories of the night he was conceived. The last night she had spent with Cal.
She kissed the little boy on the cheek, sensing Caldwell was eyeing the two of them carefully.
“No, ma’am,” he said, breaking the silence. “You won’t be alone, will you? And I guess that ends this discussion.”
A year ago, she would have held out longer. Perhaps even prevailed. Her words would have had more steel and her plucky determination would have carried the day. She had broken down a legion of souls through the years with the force of her convictions and uncanny persuasiveness. Notches on her apron, her mother used to say. But she would argue with Caldwell no more.
Emily Garrity wasn’t the same person she was a year ago.
***
Nine Months Earlier
Richmond, Virginia
Emily walked between the large marble columns and passed through the grand entrance of the Virginia Capitol, home to the Confederate government for nearly three years now. Armed sentries were posted in the corridor, one of whom politely provided directions to the administrative offices on the third floor. She made her way there and approached a harried receiving clerk, seated behind a desk piled high with papers, his hands nearly covered in ink stains.
The man barely looked up at her. “Can I help you, miss?”
“Yes, I’m here to see Major Saunders. Alex Saunders. He is an attaché to President Davis. I do not have an appointment but—”
The man looked up. “Colonel Saunders is dead, miss.”
No! “Dead?”
“He was killed up at Spotsylvania last month.”
Her heart sank. She could still hardly believe that she had fallen to a point where she would seek any sort of favor from that wicked man, especially after her cross words with him at that dinner two years ago. But their fathers had been close friends once, and it was the elder Saunders, a wealthy South Carolina landowner who she’d heard taken refuge from Sherman’s army in Richmond, whom she hoped to reach. Yet she had no address or contacts for him, only the son.
She felt tears in her eyes; it had been a desperate ploy and her only remaining option. Now she had nothing.
The clerk, an older man whose spectacles rested on the bags under his eyes, had seen nearly everything in this war, but was still moved by the despair on her face. “Wait one minute, miss.” He stood and marched into an inner office, returning a minute later with a young, heavyset officer in tow.
He gave a short bow. “Ma’am, I am Major Shannon. Ben Shannon. I replaced Saunders down here a week ago. Can I be of assistance?”
She nervously surveyed their surroundings. The office was chaotic, with clerks rushing in every direction and raucous constituents, angrily shaking their fists as they registered complaints on every imaginable subject.
He noticed her discomfort and touched her elbow, guiding her into a hallway that led to a large, noiseless balcony overlooking Broad Street.
The man sighed wearily. “A hundred thousand people, hungry, scared, and near panic. Perhaps a conversation will be easier out here. Was Saunders a friend?”