Chastising.
Your husband is dead and you’re swinging.
She abruptly stopped the swing. She wasn’t a child anymore. She was a widow. A widow who had never been a wife.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered. “The way you used to wait for me. Where are you?”
The anger had gone out of her, and she gave a wavering sigh.
Every sigh is a prayer.
Who had told her that? Her aunt? Rorie? No. It was Thomas Henry’s mother. How strong her faith had been, and how accepting she was of whatever happened—her illness, her son going into harm’s way, her widowhood. Sayer wished Mrs. Garth was still here. Her prayers were always so meaningful and eloquent, the kind God listened to. Mrs. Garth—the true Mrs. Garth—had never prayed in snippets and fragments and sighs the way Sayer did.
Sayer realized suddenly that she wasn’t alone.
“It’s me,” Jeremiah said, before she could become alarmed. She had forgotten that he might be in the barn—or had he been sleeping on the porch as Rorie had suggested?
She didn’t say anything, expecting that once he had identified himself, he would walk away from her as he had earlier. But he sat down on the bench under the tree instead. She could barely make out his features in the semidarkness.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to ask you if you’re all right.”
She didn’t ask him to explain what he meant, but he continued as if she had.
“I’m afraid Rorie will hear me and turn me wrong side out.”
“Very wise, then,” she said. “Though I don’t know why she would object.”
“I believe she thinks it’s not a sensible question for anyone to be asking—me, in particular. And she’s right. A question like that doesn’t do anybody any good. I expect the answer is always...unreliable, especially among strangers.”
Sayer thought about this for a moment. “People who don’t have things well in hand don’t like to be asked how they are, strangers or not,” she concluded.
“No, they don’t,” he agreed. “At least not in my experience.”
She wondered on what occasions he might not have had things well in hand, but she didn’t ask for fear that one of them might involve the circumstances surrounding Thomas Henry’s death.
“I...don’t know what we would have done without Rorie,” she said, not because she wanted to encourage the conversation to continue, but because it was a truth that needed to be stated.
“She’s very fond of all of you.”
“She...mentioned that she forced you to bring her here.”
“It was an interesting trip,” he said, and Sayer felt the smile more than saw it. She thought that he didn’t smile often, though she couldn’t have said why she had come to that conclusion. She supposed it was because of the reason for his being here. Bringing bad news to someone, even a stranger, didn’t encourage smiling.
He didn’t say anything more. He just sat there, looking at her, she thought, and perhaps waiting. It occurred to her that he might finally be willing to tell her about Thomas Henry.
“Where did he die?” she asked quietly, surprised by how calm her voice sounded. He had been right after all. She hadn’t been ready to talk about Thomas Henry before.
He took his time in answering, but she didn’t sense any reluctance on his part. It was more that he was trying to get things straight in his mind before he said anything.
“Virginia,” he said when he was ready. “We weren’t close to any towns—it was wilderness mostly and some unplowed farmland. Fields that should have already been planted but weren’t—because of us. Armies either trample a crop into the ground or steal it. There were no landmarks so I don’t really know where it was. It was one of those times when we just...”
“Just what?” she prompted when he didn’t continue.
She could hear him take a breath, and she realized suddenly that telling her about Thomas Henry was going to be hard for him, that the incident was perhaps more to him than just an accumulation of facts he was obliged to recount.
The wind was picking up; the storm was coming closer. She could hear the thunder rumbling across the ridges and down the mountainsides, smell the rain in the air.
“Just run into each other,” he said. “There’s no planned military strategy or anything like that. It starts out small. Our skirmishers find their skirmishers or vice versa. Sometimes it doesn’t amount to much—just bloodying each other’s noses and moving on. And then sometimes...it’s a battle royal. Either way, though, when a minié ball finds you, it is just as deadly...” His voice trailed away.
“He was shot?” she asked after a moment.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I’m...not sure. It was dark when I found him.”
“Like it is now?” she asked, urgently needing to know what must seem to him a meaningless detail.
“After sundown. Not just before dawn.”
“Could you not have...done something?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure—if you didn’t know where he was wounded?”
“I’m sure,” he said, his voice flat and emotionless.
After a moment she found that she believed him despite his unwillingness to convince her.
“When did it happen?” she asked next.
“A day or two af—” He abruptly stopped.
“When?” she asked again because she wanted—needed—him to answer the question.
“It was in April,” he said.
“Oh,” she said softly. “Oh...”
April. The war ended in April.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “It won’t do you any good to start grabbing on to the ‘if onlys.’ Every soldier dead on the battlefield has got a big pile of those. It’s done. You can’t change what happened—are you listening to me?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m listening,” she said, but she wasn’t, not really. She was thinking how different things might have been if only the skirmishers had “just happened upon each other” later, after Lee had surrendered.
She looked at him. “He’s dead. Thomas Henry has been dead all this time. How could I not—?” She didn’t finish the thought. It was painful to think that he had died months ago and she hadn’t sensed it, hadn’t felt his absence in the world, her world, and she should have. He was everything to her. He had saved her from living with people who didn’t want her. He had given her the promise of a new life, of somewhere to belong and a family of her own.
“Did he suffer?” she asked abruptly.
“No,” he said.
The answer came too quickly.
“That’s not the truth, I think. One cannot be mortally shot and not be in pain.”
“Yes, Mrs. Garth, they can,” he said. “Sometimes emotions are running so high it’s a long time before a wounded man feels it.”
“Emotions from the battle, you mean?”
“Yes. The battle. Danger...concern for comrades.”
“Do they ever speak of their families?”
“That comes...later.”
“When they know they are dying.”
“When they are afraid.”
“Did Thomas Henry know he was...?”
“He did. He wanted me to tell you that and that he wasn’t afraid to die. He said he knew how hard you had prayed for him—”
“It didn’t help, though, did it?”
“It did where it mattered. He said he knew you’d prayed for him to be ready if he fell, and he was. It was...important to him, I think, for you to know that.”
“Did you know him a long time?” she asked, because it suddenly mattered to her whether or not Thomas Henry had died with a close comrade at his side.
&
nbsp; “No. It was more that I was...there.”
“Not friends, then.”
“There is always a bond between soldiers, ma’am. The strength of it isn’t measured by time.”
Tears were running down her cheeks now; she sat with her head bowed, as if she thought he could see them in the darkness.
“He wanted me to tell you what happened to him. He was afraid you wouldn’t know otherwise. Information gets lost in the confusion of battle. Men get lost from their companies. It can take a long time to get it straightened out, if ever.
“He said to tell you not to grieve and to tell Beatrice and Amity they weren’t to cry. He didn’t want that, the three of you being sad. The one thing, the only thing, I think he truly regretted was not being able to see you again in this life.”
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“Was he buried there? Where he fell?”
“Yes.”
“Could you find the place again?”
“No,” he said.
No.
A sob escaped her lips, but he didn’t try to intervene. He made no attempt to soothe her. He offered no words of comfort. He simply let her weep.
“What—else?” she managed to ask.
“He wanted me to give you some letters. He said he hadn’t been able to mail them. I brought his personal belongings, as well. There’s not much, but I have them in my haversack—we need to get out from under this tree,” he said abruptly.
He gave her no chance to object. He pulled her to her feet and hurried her to the shelter of the lean-to just as a loud crack of thunder rumbled across the sky overhead and the rain began to fall. She stood next to him out of the downpour, not looking at him as the wind whipped her hair about her face. She kept wiping at the tears with the back of her hand.
“You need to go inside,” he said, and she shook her head.
“I don’t want to wake them—Beatrice and Amity. I can’t...” she said. She didn’t try to elaborate on whatever she had intended to say. She took a deep breath and asked the one question on which her acceptance of all he had told her hinged.
“Who buried him?”
“I did,” he said, and with that remark he took away her last hope that it still might have been some kind of mistake.
She needed to sit down suddenly, and she moved to a small stool she had used for milking when they still had a cow. She sat down on it, her arms folded tightly over her breasts as if there was no one to comfort her but herself.
“I’ll go now,” he said. “Leave you to your private thoughts.”
She nearly asked him to stay. She didn’t want to be alone, and that was the only explanation she had for even thinking such an inappropriate thing. She knew that except for handing over the letters and Thomas Henry’s personal belongings, he had accomplished the charge that had been given him. She knew that he was free now to go on his way and she shouldn’t want to cling to him. He was a stranger—but he was as close to Thomas Henry as she could ever be again.
He hesitated, then left the lean-to. She could hear his splashing retreat to the barn. She didn’t have to struggle to stay ahead of the tears now. The grief she felt, despite Thomas Henry’s wishes, was overwhelming. Incredibly she felt a sudden flash of anger, as well. How could he not know that his death would be devastating to her? To all of them? Grief was the only thing she had left, and it was hers to endure as best she could. He had gone off to war and died for a cause she didn’t begin to understand. He had no right to try to deny her the need to mourn him. How else could she learn to endure the terrible loss she felt if she didn’t cry?
She leaned forward, her hands covering her face, and finally let go, rocking back and forth as the storm raged around her. She didn’t know how long she cried. It was nearly sunup and no longer raining when she finally lifted her head and wiped her face on the sleeve of her dress. She felt too unsteady to stand, but stood anyway.
Remarkably, Jeremiah was nearby, sitting on an upside-down barrel, his back to her, she supposed because he didn’t want to intrude. She looked at him, at the resigned set of his shoulders and the back of his hair. Rorie had told her that his hands sometimes trembled, the way her own nephew’s had after Gettysburg.
“What terrible things you must have seen,” she said, not realizing until he abruptly turned toward her that she’d spoken out loud. He looked so stricken for a moment that she very nearly reached out to him.
“It’s what war is, ma’am.”
She nodded and took a deep breath. It was time now to do the most difficult thing she had ever done.
I need Your help...please...
The back door opened suddenly, and Rorie stepped outside. Sayer didn’t avert her face. There was no hiding the fact that she’d been crying for what must have been hours from anyone as astute as Rorie Conley.
“I reckon you better come on in now,” Rorie said to her.
“Yes. Are the girls awake?” she asked.
“Awake and eating that there cracker pudding they’re so fond of,” Rorie said. “You best splash a little water on your face before you come in. Crying ain’t becoming to no woman no matter what causes it.”
Rorie went back inside, and Sayer scooped water from the rain barrel at the corner of the cabin and splashed it on her face. She didn’t know that it helped her appearance, but she felt somewhat better afterward. She looked up to find Jeremiah watching her.
“If you’ll wait, I’ll get the letters,” he said.
She nodded and stood under the lean-to until he returned with what was left of her life with Thomas Henry Garth. He placed the objects into her hands—the tobacco pouch and clay pipe bowl that had belonged to Mr. Garth Senior; the letters she had written with the cedar pencil, all tied up with the ribbon Thomas Henry had taken from her hair on their wedding day; his letters that had never been mailed; and what she recognized was her mother’s Bible. She clutched everything hard against her chest. She could feel the tears sliding down her face again, and she bowed her head, struggling hard for control.
“We—thank you—Mr. Murphy,” she said, looking up at him again. “Thomas Henry—and I.”
Chapter Six
“I reckon people will be coming up here today,” Rorie said.
“Why? No one knows about Thomas Henry yet,” Jack said.
“It ain’t Thomas Henry they’ll be interested in. It’s who’s staying up here with Sayer while he’s gone. That’s what they’ll be wanting to know about. It’s for sure Halbert’s got the word spread around by now. Probably made some big announcement at the crossroads general store and left out the part about me being here. I reckon we all better get ready for it, and by that I mean you ought not be underfoot when they get here.”
He gave her a look, but he didn’t say anything.
“They’ll be wanting your whole life story,” she said by way of explanation. “And I’ve done had the feeling for some time now, you ain’t all that inclined to tell it. I can tell you right now, people around here ain’t a bit shy about asking whatever they want to know.”
“Yes, I know all about that,” he said pointedly.
“Well, yes, I reckon you do, Jeremiah. But I was thinking you could go on over and see about my place today, if you was of a mind. Unless you’re moving on now that you’ve done told Sayer about her man.”
“I thought I’d stay on and finish plowing under that cornfield stubble and do the haying,” he said. “And there’s some other work that ought to be done.”
“Noticed that, did you?”
“Now, don’t start up with me. I’m not simple-headed all the time,” he assured her.
Rorie continued talking, giving him the list of things she wanted him to bring back from her place and where to find them. Jack was only half listening.
&nb
sp; “What exactly is a step-husband?” he asked abruptly when Rorie handed him an empty sack to take with him.
“Why in this world are you asking me that?”
“Because Halbert all but called me one. I may not know what the precise meaning is, but I know an insult when I hear it.”
“How come you don’t know what that is?”
“Because I don’t. I’m not from around here. How would I know?”
“I reckon because you are one—ain’t that why you’re on the run?”
“I’m not—” He stopped, remembering her aversion to lies just when he was about to tell a rather large and complicated one. He’d done enough lying—especially if Father Bartholomew was right and omissions were the same thing as untruths.
“So what is it?” he persisted.
“It’s when the lawful husband leaves and another man comes to the house as soon as he sees he’s gone. Husband steps out. Somebody else steps in. He’s the—”
“Step-husband,” Jack finished for her. All in all, it was a more precise term than he would have thought. “It’s a good thing for Halbert I didn’t understand.”
“Why? Ain’t that what you are?” Rorie asked bluntly. “That woman trouble I’m thinking you got yourself into,” she elaborated in case he’d forgotten his own missteps in the past few seconds.
“Not...exactly,” Jack said, persuading his mount to exhale so he could tighten the saddle cinch. He might have stepped in when he was reasonably sure Elrissa’s lawful husband had stepped out, but he’d had no designs on her other than to salvage some remnant of his pride. He gave a quiet sigh. But he might as well have had, considering the outcome.
“I do declare, Jeremiah Murphy, if you don’t get more interesting by the minute. ‘Not exactly.’ One of these days I’m going to make you tell me what that means. Now you better get going before you get caught in the cross fire.”
“Is Sayer telling the girls?”
“She’s done told them. She was ready to do it. No need to put it off.”
“Are they—?”
“She’s reading them parts of them letters you gave her. I reckon it’s going to help all three of them, especially now that they got that likeness of Thomas Henry you brought. Maybe it’ll help you, too.”
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