Encounter at Cold Harbor

by Gilbert L. Morris

  Pete said, “I expect she didn’t calculate on no one-legged man. That might change things, don’t you think, Leah?”

  Knowing Pete could be the most terrible gossip in Kentucky, Leah refused to get into a discussion. “I don’t know, Pete. That’s their business. Now, let me have the letter, please!” She took the envelope as he reluctantly extended it, and began to walk away.

  Pete called out after her, “I’d be glad to hear what Jeff has to say, Leah.” When she paid him no attention, he kicked his heels against the mule and sighed. “Come on, Clementine, we can’t stand here all day! We got the mail to deliver!”

  Leah considered going to her own room to read the letter, but news was so precious that she thought it was only fair to share with the family. Her parents, Sarah, Morena, and Tom were seated around the table when she entered the dining room and held up the letter. “It’s from Jeff!”

  Tom Majors, sitting across the table from Sarah, looked up quickly. He was a tall young man, dark complected but still pale from the ordeal of losing his leg. He had the same dark hair and hazel eyes as his father and had a rather sad look about him. “What does he say, Leah? Are they all right?”

  “I haven’t read it yet. I thought you’d all want to hear it.” Leah opened the letter.

  They watched as she scanned the letter. Her father, Dan, was a thin, sickly looking man. Her mother, who had the same blonde hair and green eyes that one saw in Leah, was holding three-year-old Esther on her lap. Sarah had dark hair, dark blue eyes, and a beautiful complexion. From time to time her eyes went across to Tom. Leah’s sister Morena sat next to Sarah. Morena was a beautiful young girl—but one who had never developed mentally. She could do simple things such as dress herself, but she never spoke and was like a small child in her mind.

  “Well, what does he say?” Sarah asked. “Is he all right? Is Colonel Majors all right?”

  “Yes,” Leah said slowly, “but it’s not what I thought.” Looking around the table, she saw their anxiety and added quickly, “Oh, they’re both all right. Neither one of them has been wounded or anything like that, but Jeff says his father’s got a problem.”

  “Well, can you read it to us, or is it too private?” her father asked.

  Leah hesitated, then said, “March the twentieth is when it was written. I’ll read it out loud.” She began:

  Dear Leah,

  There’s something I want you to think about. You see, my pa and I miss Esther an awful lot. Pa is awful down in the mouth, Leah. You know how he’s always been real happy and able to handle anything, but he’s worried now and it’s about Esther. What it is, he thinks he’s letting Ma down by not having a hand in her raising. He thinks he ought to be doing more, and nothing I say makes him feel any better …

  The letter went on about how bad Nelson Majors felt being separated from his daughter.

  Finally Tom said abruptly, “I know he’s always felt bad. All of us feel bad about it!” Then he seemed to think about how that sounded, and he quickly glanced at Mr. and Mrs. Carter. “Not that we aren’t grateful for all you’ve done. Nobody could’ve done more, but—”

  “I know how it is,” Dan Carter said sympathetically. “A man wants to have his children around him. I know how I’d feel if one of my young ones was growing up and I couldn’t have nothin’ to do with ’em.”

  “That’s exactly right!” Mrs. Carter said. She shifted Esther around to where she could look into the child’s face and smiled gently, touching the rosy cheek with a forefinger. “And Esther needs to see her pa, too. Why, I bet she’d know him in no time!”

  “Well,” Leah said, “that’s exactly what Jeff says.” She continued reading:

  What I want to ask you to do, Leah, is to help me pray for some way to bring Esther to Richmond. There’s no chance at all that Pa or me can get back to Kentucky. I know there’s going to be another big battle soon, and I know it sounds impossible, but your pa always said that with God all things are possible. That was his favorite verse, I reckon. And now I’m asking for you to pray that somehow you can get Esther back here.

  Well, that’s all for right now. I miss you and look forward to the time when I’ll see you again.

  Your friend,

  Jeff Majors

  A moment of silence ran around the table, and Mrs. Carter reached over and stroked Morena’s hair. Then she said, “I’ll help you pray for that, Leah. I know Colonel Majors needs to see his little girl.”

  A frown crossed her father’s face. “Well, there ain’t no doubt that it would be a good thing, but I don’t see how in the world it could happen! With a war going on, just gettin’ to Richmond would be a chore. And to get a small child down there? Why, the trains ain’t runnin’ most of the time, and some of ’em not at all! I just don’t hardly see how it could be done.”

  “But with God all things are possible,” Leah said. “That’s what you always said, Pa.”

  Grinning, Dan Carter smoothed his thinning hair. “Well, if you’re gonna start throwin’ Scripture back at me, I ain’t got no answer for that. I guess we’ll all just have to pray for it.”

  “I could take her to Richmond,” Leah said abruptly.

  “All by yourself? Don’t be foolish, child!” Her mother shook her head sharply. “It would be no trip for a young girl like you to take!”

  “Ma, I’m almost grown!”

  “I could take her,” Sarah said, glancing at Tom.

  “No, you couldn’t!” he said. “Remember how you were warned to stay out of Richmond after they accused you of being a spy?”

  Sarah sniffed. “Why, they’ve forgotten all about that! It was all made up by that Confederate officer anyhow!”

  “No, I reckon Tom’s right, Sarah,” her father said. “It wouldn’t do for you to go back.” He toyed with his fork, making a design on the tablecloth. “We’ll all just have to pray that God will open up a way.”

  For the next few days, Dan Carter found himself the target of many pleas from Leah, which he steadfastly refused. She insisted she was old enough and mature enough to make the trip. He insisted that it would be too dangerous for her.

  “It would be dangerous for Esther too!” he said, as Leah for the tenth time asked for his permission. The two were sitting on the front porch as the sun went down. They had been admiring the sky’s red glow tinged with pink and orchid tones, and now the sun, a big yellow globe, seemed to be sinking into the side of the mountains to the west.

  Leah had used every argument she had. In desperation she said finally, “But, Pa, think about if it was you and you hadn’t seen me or Sarah or Morena. Wouldn’t you want Colonel Majors to send us to you if things were turned around that way?”

  “Of course, I would! But …” Her father teetered on the back two legs of his chair and whittled slowly on the long piece of red cedar in his hands. The razor edge of the knife sliced off a thin, curling piece of the fragrant wood, and it fell onto a small pile that lay at his feet. Looking up at Leah, he added, “I’d do it myself in a minute, but I’m not able to go. I wish I was. And your ma can’t go. There just ain’t no way—unless God does it Himself.”

  This was all Leah could get out of her father, and she reluctantly determined not to say anything more to him about it.

  Sarah thought Tom grew even more withdrawn after the news came that his father wanted Esther in Richmond. She watched him hobble around on his wooden leg, never complaining, although she knew it pained him at times.

  She figured he knew he’d behaved abominably about the leg. He’d sat around the farm for weeks, refusing to even speak, and would not listen to anything about an artificial leg. Only Ezra Payne’s persistence, along with hers and Leah’s, had persuaded him. Then he kept to himself, thinking dark thoughts, even after mastering use of the wooden limb.

  Sarah found him out beside the fence, watching the newest litter of pigs as they grunted at their mother’s side. It was hot, and she wore a cool dress made of cotton, which outlined her trim figure. Her
black hair caught the last rays of the red sun as it went behind the mountains. Stepping up beside Tom, she looked at the pigs. “You wouldn’t think pigs could be cute, would you?”

  “I guess anything’s cute when it’s little—even a pig.”

  The two stood talking for some time about unimportant things, then turned to go back to the house. When they were halfway there, Sarah caught his arm and pulled him around. “Tom,” she said with a question in her voice and in her eyes, “what’s going to happen to us?”

  “Happen to us? I reckon it’s already happened,” Tom said, and there was bitterness in his tone. “I don’t reckon that we’ve got any future, Sarah.”

  “Because you lost a leg? I thought we had all this settled. A man’s more than a leg.”

  “It’s all right for you to say that, but I’m the one who has to make the livin’. How can a one-legged man care for a wife and a family?”

  “Why, Tom Majors, I reckon you can do just about anything you set your mind to!”

  Tom stared at her briefly, stirred for the moment, it seemed, by her words. “I used to think that too, Sarah, but think how hard it’d be to be a farmer. I’ve tried to plow, and I just can’t keep up with Ezra.”

  “There’s more to farming than plowing. You can always hire a hand to do that!” Sarah said steadfastly. “I just thank God every day that it wasn’t worse. You could’ve been killed!”

  “Sometimes I wish I had been.”

  “Tom, don’t talk like that!” Sarah put her hand on his chest, then laid it on his cheek. Her touch was soft as a feather.

  Reaching up, he placed a hand over hers and held it. Finally he said in despair, “I’d like it if things were like they used to be, but they never will be, Sarah!”

  “I thought you wanted to marry me!”

  “That was when I was a whole man!”

  “We’ve talked about this! You are a whole man! A man is what he is in his heart and in his mind!”

  Tom stood there, perhaps trying to believe her words, but finally the depression that had been eating at him for some time seemed to overpower him. Heavily he said, “I’ve made up my mind. I’d never let you tie yourself to a cripple, Sarah.”

  He pulled away, and she watched him limp down the path toward the house. Tears rose to her eyes, and she almost called after him. But she realized that the Tom Majors she had known might have lost a leg but he had retained all the Majors stubbornness. Slowly she followed him to the house and went inside.

  Leah was sitting at the table with her father, studying arithmetic. Dan Carter had a fine grasp of the subject, and Leah was very poor at it. She could not keep her mind on numbers today, and from time to time she lifted her eyes to the homemade calendar that hung on the wall. She had made it herself, and every day she checked off the day before she went to bed. She got up to cross out April first. “I forgot to do that last night. Yesterday was April Fools’ Day, and you forgot it!”

  “I reckon I did,” her father said. He looked down at the figures and began explaining them again, but at that moment Tom came in. “Well, hello, Tom! You been out walkin’ again?”

  Tom stood by Dan Carter’s chair. “I been thinkin’ a lot, Mr. Carter,” he said. He sat down slowly and clasped his hands in front of him. “I think you’re right about Leah. She’s too young to go on that trip by herself.”

  “I am not!” Leah protested.

  “Yes, you are, daughter! Now, hush!” Dan Carter turned back to Tom. “Have you thought of something else?”

  “Well, I should’ve thought of it first off.” Tom moved in his chair and then straightened his back. “I’ll take Esther to Richmond. It’s time I was leaving here anyhow.”

  Dan Carter stared at his young friend. “Are you sure you could make it? Your leg’s going to be all right?”

  “I’ll be all right!” Tom said shortly. He never liked anyone to refer to his injury. “It’s time for me to go back. I need to get back where I belong.”

  “But you can’t go in the army!” Leah said, then wished she had not. “I mean—”

  “I know. I can’t march with one leg, but maybe Pa can find something for me to do. Maybe be a clerk in headquarters.” Bitterness came to his lips then, and he said, “I can’t do much, but I’ll do what I can.”

  Leah walked over and stood beside Tom. She put her hand on his shoulder, looking down at him, thinking how much he looked like Jeff. “Then, if you go, I’m going with you. You couldn’t take care of a three-year-old!”

  Tom looked up and found a smile. “Why—that would be good, if it’s all right with your Pa.”

  “Well, of course it’s all right with you along, Tom! Wouldn’t be good to ship the poor child off with just a man to take care of her. She needs a woman!”

  Leah smiled brilliantly. “I can do it, Pa! I’m going to tell Ma right now!”

  As soon as the girl left the room, Tom shook his head. “It still could be dangerous, Mr. Carter. You know what it’s like in wartime.”

  “I won’t worry about it a minute with you there, Tom. You Majorses have a way of doin’ what you set out to do.” He rose and slapped the young man on the shoulder. “I’m mighty glad you decided to do this. Your pa will be glad to see you, too—although we’ll miss you around here.”

  “I’ll miss you too, sir.”

  From that moment on, the house was in a flurry as everyone got things ready for the journey to Richmond.

  The Carter family stood waiting for the stagecoach to arrive. The stage would take Leah and Tom and Esther to the train in Lexington, and from there they would travel by rail to Richmond. Because so many of the railroads were out, the trip would take a long time.

  Sarah was sure Leah wasn’t thinking about that. Her sister was eagerly standing beside Tom, holding Esther in her arms, when the coach pulled up.

  Sarah and her father and mother and Morena each gave Leah a quick kiss. Her parents and Morena all shook hands with Tom.

  When it was Sarah’s turn to say good-bye to him, she looked up, expecting him to kiss her.

  Instead, he awkwardly extended his hand. “Goodbye, Sarah,” he said gruffly. He got into the coach with Leah and Esther, the driver cracked his whip, and the coach pulled out.

  Sarah stood watching them go, and sadness came over her. He didn’t even kiss me good-bye, she thought. She watched until the stagecoach disappeared in a cloud of dust down the road, then turned to go with her family back to the house. She knew it would be an empty house for her, but there was no other way.

  3

  Back in Richmond

  Leah dabbed the edge of her handkerchief in the cup of water that Tom brought her and ineffectively wiped Esther’s face. The passenger car swayed from side to side, almost violently. She had to hold tightly to the child to keep her from falling off her lap.

  “There,” she said finally, “that’s the best I can do.”

  “Here,” Tom said, “let me hold her a while, Leah.” He took Esther and seated himself on the hard, horsehide seat next to Leah. Studying the child, he grinned, saying, “I believe she’s a better traveler than either one of us. She even seems to like it.”

  As they had suspected, the railway systems were so disrupted by the war that they had to change trains innumerable times. However, Esther had made the trip well all the way from Kentucky. She had even flourished on the journey. Right now she struggled to get down to the floor, but Tom held her tightly.

  “No, you can’t get down,” he said. “Here, stand up beside me and look out the window.” He turned her toward the glass.

  This seemed to please Esther well. As the landscape flashed by, she chattered almost constantly.

  “It’s been a long trip,” Tom said. “I know you’re worn out, Leah.”

  “I’ll be glad to lie down on a bed again.” Leah groaned, straightening her back painfully. “It’s hard to sleep sitting up in one of these seats.”

  “Sure is!” Tom looked out the window and said abruptly, “Look
s like we’re pulling into Richmond. There’s the siding right over there.”

  “Won’t be too soon for me!” Leah brightened and brushed away some cinders that had come in through the open window. Her face was smeared with smut. “We look like we’ve come from a sideshow!”

  “I guess it beats walking.” Tom held onto Esther tightly. “Pa will sure be glad to see Esther again.”

  “He’ll be glad to see you too, Tom.”

  Tom did not answer for a while, and when he did he changed the subject. Turning to Leah, he said, “I guess you’ll be glad to see Jeff.”

  “I guess so.”

  “You guess so!” Tom jeered. “You two are thick as thieves. Always have been!”

  They talked about the time Leah and Jeff had gotten lost in the woods and Tom had to go find them. “You two always were close,” he said, holding tightly to Esther as the train clanked and rattled over the rails, swaying from side to side. “Must be nice to have a built-in sweetheart. You don’t have to make any decisions.”

  “Oh, don’t be foolish, Tom!”

  “Nothing foolish about that!” He watched the tall buildings as the train rolled into the outskirts of Richmond. “Most girls have an awful time courting, have all kinds of fellows, and can’t make up their minds.”

  He’d always liked to tease Leah, and now, she thought, he seemed to be light of spirit for a change.

  “But you and Jeff—why, you just grew up together.”

  Leah was watching the buildings of Richmond also. Finally she said quietly, “That’s just the trouble, Tom.”

  “What trouble?”

  “Jeff never thinks about me as a woman. He thinks about me as a little girl.” She touched her hair and, feeling the grittiness of it, made a face. “I guess he’ll always think of me as just the little girl he went hunting birds’ eggs with.”

  Tom studied her. “Well, you look a lot better than you did when you were eleven or twelve. You were all legs and arms then and gawky as a crane.” He laughed. “I think you used to cry about that every day!”

  “I did!” Leah admitted. “I thought I was too tall, and I still think so!”