by Andy Kutler
Sarah had picked the boy up and was holding him on the top of the porch steps. Emily retreated to the kitchen and removed a pan of boiling water from the stove top. She fished out the pieces of carrot and began mashing them with a wooden spoon into a paste, throwing in small pieces of dried meat. If you could call it that. Between the remnants of Lee’s army, the Yankee juggernaut that had passed through here, and the local population, virtually every four-legged creature in the valley had been hunted down long ago. Caldwell’s snares allowed them to feast on an occasional rabbit or squirrel.
The crying grew louder and she hurried out to the front porch, seating herself on the top step next to Sarah. “I’ll take him now,” she said, lifting the toddler and easing him into her lap. She pinched some of the food between her fingers and placed it in his mouth. The crying subsided and she gave him a spoonful. He grabbed the spoon, insisting on feeding himself as some of the paste smeared around his mouth. Charlie looked at her, a crooked smile on his messy face, and she beamed back at him.
“You are a charmer, just like your father,” she said softly, wiping his face with a cloth. “And just as stubborn!”
“He’s a strong boy, Miss Emily,” Sarah said, fanning herself with her hand.
“That he is, Sarah.”
The bowl emptied quickly. “I’m sorry, Charlie, that’s all there is,” she whispered in his ear.
A few months ago he would have cried for more, but the child was growing accustomed to these small meals. He snuggled into her lap and began to close his eyes. A nap sounded good to her as well as she let her eyelids fall. It had been stifling hot lately, compelling them to work in the mornings and late afternoons when the sun was lower in the sky.
“Someone coming, Miss.”
Emily blinked her eyes open. She looked down the gravel path and noticed a lone figure moving slowly toward the house. He was still a couple of hundred yards away. She wasn’t alarmed; Caldwell was out there, and she hadn’t heard any gunfire. Still…
Emily stood and handed Charlie back to Sarah. “Put him down for a nap please, and I suggest you join him. You look as worn out as I feel.”
Sarah complied, taking the boy and moving inside the house. Emily reached into the small toolbox by the door, removing the Remington pistol. She checked the load and stood on the top step, the gun resting heavily in both her hands.
She recalled how terrified she and Sarah had once been of visitors. But it happened so often now she had become used to it. Yankees would show up from time to time, and despite the food they had previously supplied, you never knew what you would get with that lot. It made her appreciate Caldwell even more, as she was certain his presence had dissuaded the Union men from trying anything inappropriate.
The defeated Southern soldiers were a different story. They were exhausted and dispirited, most nursing wounds or returning from Union prisons. Few had weapons. An occasional sidearm, but mostly old sabers or small pocket knives. Scarecrows all of them, and while their physical condition saddened her, she knew they had nothing to spare. Charlie’s survival depended on steering them away.
The visitor, tall and lean, stopped about fifty yards away. He stood motionless, watching the house. Watching her. She couldn’t see his face, his hat was pulled down low over his eyes. She felt the unease building within her as the man continued to gaze at her from under the brim of his hat.
Finally he called out. To her. Her name.
There was a catch in his voice and her heart skipped a beat. The man reached up slowly and removed his hat. As his body shifted, she could now see the empty sleeve pinned to his coat. Another common sight. But as she looked from his missing arm to his face, they locked eyes for the first time and Emily felt her stomach tighten. She grew faint, falling to her knees, dropping the revolver harmlessly to the floor boards. Her husband ran toward her.
By the time he reached her, she was crying uncontrollably. Cal kneeled down beside her and pulled her to him. She threw her arms around him, burying her damp face in his neck as the two held their embrace. Emily finally managed to stop crying and her breathing slowed. At last, the two separated and she stared into his eyes, which were moist as well.
“This is the second time you have done this to me.”
He smiled. “I know.”
She looked at his empty sleeve and gently placed a hand on his side near his rib cage. “Oh, Cal. What have they done to you?”
“I’m fine, Em. Luckier than most.”
“When did this happen?”
“Gettysburg, two years ago. Like I said, I got lucky. A Yankee general got me to a good surgeon. I take it you didn’t receive my letters?”
“No, not one. I was informed you had been taken prisoner, but I had no idea you had been wounded and I didn’t know where they had taken you. I prayed and prayed for your safety.”
“Well, then it was your prayers that kept me well. And some of that must have reached Ethan. He got me out.” He stepped back and looked at the house and surrounding property. “You’ll have to fill me in on what I missed. I saw Caldwell. He said there’s a colored girl here too.”
Emily took his hand. “We do have much to catch you up on. And, minding our manners, we need to begin with some introductions,” she said, leading him to the house.
They walked inside and Sarah rose from the rocking chair. “Cal, this is Sarah. She’s our first employee.”
Cal gave the girl a slight nod and then shot Emily a questioning look. “Employee?”
“She is also a fine nanny.”
Cal’s face clouded with confusion. “Nanny?”
Emily gave him a broad smile and took his hand again, leading him to the bedroom.
“What do you mean—”
“Shh!” she said, putting a finger to her lips. She opened the door quietly and pulled Cal into the room.
Cal stopped as he stared at the bed. The boy was sound asleep, his chest rising and falling rhythmically under the thin blanket he was covered with. Cal knelt down beside the bed and gently placed his palm on the boy’s cheek. A tear rolled down his face as he looked up at Emily, who was wiping her own cheeks.
“His name is Charlie.”
Cal turned back toward the boy. “Charlie,” he repeated, under his breath.
“Charles Ethan Garrity.”
“He’s so beautiful,” whispered Cal, still teary-eyed as he stroked the boy’s thin blond hair. “He looks just like you.”
“No, Cal, he looks just like you. He just went to sleep. Do you wish me to wake him?”
Cal shook his head. “No, let him sleep. I’d like to make a good first impression on my boy.” He dried his eyes with his sleeve and turned to Emily with a grin. “Do you have a bathtub?”
***
“You must be freezing,” Emily said.
She was sitting on one of the larger rocks lining the creek. Cal was standing nearby, stripped naked and scoured clean, a frayed towel wrapped around his waist. He placed the mug of soap and his father’s ivory-handled shaving brush on a flat stone jutting out of the creek. As Emily held one of her small mirrors for him, he began shaving off the remaining stubble, leaving the same trim mustache he had at the war’s start.
“I am, but I could not care less. You have no idea how good this water feels. I haven’t felt this clean in years.”
She laughed. “I just hope none of our neighbors come by.”
The humor was forced, though she hoped Cal hadn’t noticed. Emily’s nerves were a bundle of knots. She had been overwhelmed with his arrival, just as she was four years ago when he returned from Mexico. Emily had always told herself that he would come back to her again, alive, but until she saw him standing on that gravel path, so pallid and withered, she had not realized just how much doubt had penetrated her heart. When they had embraced tightly, she was aghast that she could feel his bones underneath his uniform. Cal was such a good man and had already suffered so much. Her guilt weighed heavily on her, surpassed only by the anxiety she felt,
knowing what she had to reveal to him.
He finished shaving and rinsed his face in the water. “I’m afraid I’ve used up all of your soap,” he said, gesturing toward the remaining sliver resting on the flat stone.
“Finally!” she declared. She rose from where she was sitting and kicked off her shoes, peeling off her stockings and throwing them to the bank.
He looked up at her, water still dripping from his face. “Finally, what?”
Emily didn’t answer as she waded into the creek, holding her dress up so the hem skimmed across the water surface. She finally reached him, throwing her arms around Cal as their lips met. They held each other for nearly a full minute, kissing passionately, until Cal, naked and still dripping wet, began to tremble involuntarily. They both smiled and gently released each other.
“I’ve been waiting to do that for two years,” she breathed, still caught up in the moment.
“I’ve been thinking about that for two years,” he said. “There were times those thoughts kept me alive. And that is no exaggeration.”
Emily retrieved another towel for him and he began to dry off with his only arm. She knew better than to offer any assistance. She gently touched the side of his shoulder, a mass of ugly scar tissue around the stump that extended halfway to where his elbow had once been.
“Does it hurt?”
“Nah. Some days it aches, other days I forget I’m missing anything.” He paused, smiling. “Until I have an itch on my nose or have to use the privy.”
She didn’t smile. “Tell me how it happened.”
He sighed, slipping into one of Caldwell’s clean shirts. “Em, that’s not a story you—”
“Tell me, Cal.”
He looked away, wanting to spare her the grisly details. But he had never kept anything from her, and knew he would not start now. He took her hand and led them back to the boulder where they sat beside each other.
“I’m no coward, Em, and I’m no pacifist. But man wasn’t meant to go through anything like that. That wasn’t a hospital, it was a butcher shop.” He swallowed hard. “After they were done with me, they had me on a stretcher on the ground, and I watched man after man—hell, most of ’em were boys—laid bare on that table. They had anesthetics for a while, but those men still screamed. They knew what was coming. Then they ran out of anesthetic and the screams got worse. Much worse. I closed my eyes, but those screams, Em. Screaming for their mommas, screaming to just let them die.”
He turned to her. “Still, I don’t have much right to complain. I had a first-rate surgeon and at least it was my left arm. I can still write, use a fork—hell, I can even hold my son.”
She moved closer to him, using her thumb to wipe away the tear running down his cheek. “It’s over now, Cal.”
“That it is. The fighting, at least. This country has a lot of healing to go through. Bind its wounds, as Abe Lincoln said.” He paused. “These will be difficult times.”
“We’ll survive, Cal. You, me, Charlie, Caldwell, Sarah. We have a house of lost souls that managed to find each other in all this insanity. We’ll survive.”
He held her tightly in his arms and spoke softly. “There were plenty of times in the last year I questioned that, Em. Whether we would survive. But not anymore.”
***
They sat at the kitchen table, a single candle flickering in the darkness. Sarah was asleep on the thin mattress in the corner and Charlie, congested, was lightly snoring in his makeshift crib. Caldwell continued to bunk in the barn he had nearly finished.
Cal took a sip of his tea. “Exactly how many acres do you have here?”
“We, Mr. Garrity, have one hundred and twenty-four acres. Most of it hasn’t been tilled for planting in decades. And as you’ve seen, we would need to clear it of trees and rocks before it could be plowed. We have another sixty acres to the east that the Smythes had been renting. But that land and this house are in arrears and the Department of Revenue intends to sell it unless we come up with the back taxes.”
“How much?”
“Two thousand two hundred dollars.”
Cal gave a low whistle. “Who around here has that kind of money? Is there anything we can do?”
She shook her head. “Caldwell warned me about this when we first came up here. He hopes the state government in Richmond is still in such chaos that this might fall through the cracks, give us time to raise the capital.”
“But the remaining acreage is in the clear?”
“Yes. It is on a separate deed and my father had taken care of it before he lost everything. No taxes due for two more years.”
“So we could lose this house any day?”
“Yes, and the land the Smythes are on as well.”
Cal thought for a moment. “Em, what about that parcel to the southeast? Behind the line of spruces? I walked out there yesterday. That land looks like it can be planted right now. This season.”
“Yes, Caldwell says it can.”
“So why not give it to the Smythes? Let them make use of the land and give them a place to build a new home.”
“That’s a lot for the Smythes to take on, Cal. It’s just the two of them now, they’ve lost both their sons in the war.”
“Then I’ll help them.”
Emily laughed. “You? A farmer? Do you even know one end of a plow from the other?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I think the blade goes in the ground. Look, I know my own shortcomings—”
“They’re not shortcomings.”
“But the Smythes know how to farm. And that land is just sitting there unused. It needs to be cultivated. The South is starving, and we will be too if we don’t figure out a long-term plan.”
“What is our long-term plan?”
He grinned at her, and she nodded, understanding. Cal never changed, and neither did his aspirations.
She smiled. “Horses.”
“Horses. Virginia will need horses again, and lots of them. That’s our future. The profits from our new crops will get us horses. And, by the way, we’ll have all the pasture we’ll need, but we’re going to need the Smythes to plant some feed crops. Oats and alfalfa mostly. Beyond that, we’ll have plenty of forage of our own.”
“You’ve given this some thought.”
He took her hand and held it tightly. “I had nothing but time to think. What we talked about on your father’s porch two years ago? I realize now, that is what I was meant to do. I want to build something, something with our own hands. Not on the backs of other men. I’ve come to realize now, that has always been a blight on Virginia. It’s not right, and I know you, Em, you believe that too. We lost this war, but damn it, we can make things right. Starting with you and me, and this land. I want to be a part of the rebuilding of this state, something Virginians for generations can be proud of. Something Charlie can be proud of. This will be his land someday.”
She stared at him, overcome with emotion. This was the man she had fallen in love with when they were so young. He had such conviction and passion, a gift for looking into his future, and grasping where he was headed and when that was not where he wanted to be. He had so much goodness in him, deserved so much more than what he had endured the last few years. And what he was still unaware of.
She stared at the candle. “Cal, we haven’t really had the chance to talk much about what happened while you were away.”
“I know, it’s my fault, I—”
“No, it’s not anyone’s fault. But things have changed quite a bit here. There is much…desperation. And it can change people, turn them into someone you would never recognize.”
“Thieves?”
“Yes, and sometimes worse.”
Cal studied her closely. She wasn’t being philosophical.
“What happened, Emily?”
“In Richmond…” Emily hesitated, taking a sip of her tea to buy her a few seconds of thought while she looked away. She had to tell him the truth, she owed him that much.
“What happe
ned in Richmond?”
He deserves to know. Her heart was racing.
“Emily.”
She met his eyes. “I was robbed, at gunpoint.”
Cal exhaled, relieved at first, then angry. “Were you hurt?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Did you report it to someone?”
“Yes, the city was under martial law, so I told the Army. They looked like deserters to me.”
“Did they fire any shots? Did they hurt anyone?”
“No, I don’t even know if their guns were loaded. They took most of my jewelry. That was when Caldwell brought us out here. For our safety.”
“Thank God for that man. Well, all things considered, you were lucky. Lots of ruthless men out there, Em. I saw many of them on the road down here. This war, the effect it has on men. I had a captain serving under me, a lawyer from Alexandria. He was educated, refined, a gentleman. But when we were fighting, he had this look. He liked to kill, Em. Had a habit, I heard from many, of shooting unarmed men and captured prisoners. That look. I can’t describe it, but I swear, Em, that look will haunt me forever.”
Emily looked at her tea. Yes, she knew about hauntings. Too well. At least Cal had the courage to talk about his. Her cheeks colored, her inability to be truthful with her husband shaming her beyond words.
CHAPTER 27
April, 1865
Camp Thaylor
Outside Stafford, Virginia
It was over, and the reports were rippling across the Virginia countryside. Lee had finally capitulated, surrendering the shattered and wearied remnants of his once-proud army at a courthouse in a small town called Appomattox. The fighting would soon cease across the continent, and the Union had been preserved.
Just as Kelsey knew it would be.
He felt no different than he had an hour an ago, when the ghost of Paul Revere had galloped through the ocean of tents, shrieking news that they had all waited so long for. He supposed he should have felt some measure of relief, possibly even joined the euphoria that swept across the camp.