“All that matters is that we’re both alive, Gerald. I’ll take you to my shelter and we’ll dig it out bigger for the three of us. This young man beside me, this is Tim Sibly. He’s from Ohio. We share a shelter. We’ll get you through this, Gerald, you’ll see.”
“I’ll help him up, Major,” Tim offered. “You’re hurt.” The boy handed Will the canteens, then slid an arm under Gerald’s shoulders and helped him to his feet. “Come on, sir. From the looks of your uniform, you’re a captain, huh? Looks like I’m runnin’ in good company.”
Will studied his brother, his own pain inconsequential compared to what had happened to Gerald. Apparently he had been shot in the face and had lost an eye. God only knew what was under those bandages, something the man didn’t want Agatha ever to see. How was he going to help him? How was he going to keep in his brother the will to live and go home to his family?
So, this was where honor had brought them. This was their reward for trying to preserve the Union. He had no doubt the North would ultimately win this war, but it was obvious the ugliness and hatred would fester for a long time. He watched his brother—a man once handsome and robust, who could win any logging contest, a man who had shared Will’s dream to build an empire in California—limp away, hanging on to Tim.
Will held his ribs with one hand and the canteens in the other, walking quickly to catch up with them. “We’ll make it, Gerald,” he said. “We’re together now. We’ll make it home and get Lassater Mills back on its feet. We’ll be with Aggie and Santana again, and—”
Gerald stopped walking and turned to him. “Just…hold me, Will.” The tragedy in his voice, on his face, tore at Will’s heart. He dropped the canteens and put his arms around his brother, and both men wept.
Santana held her father’s hand, her heart aching at the way he gasped for breath. April had brought such beautiful weather, and it had also brought the hope that soon the war would be over. Will had been gone for three and a half years, and she had not received a letter since around Christmas of ’63, the one she still carried with her everywhere. Sixteen months of nothing. There was only one way to know now if her husband was alive, and that was for the war to end so that he could come home.
If only that would happen soon, for her father’s sake, but even a few days now was too long to wait. Anyone could see that Dominic Chavez Alcala was dying, and in spite of the birds singing outside and the smell of roses that wafted through the window, her whole world seemed bleak. Surely God would not take both her father and her husband. It was too cruel.
“How is he?” Agatha asked as she walked into the bedroom. Santana had brought her father up to her own home so that she could be with him around the clock.
She looked up at Agatha and shook her head. “Sometimes he does not even know who I am.”
Agatha sighed in sympathy. “Hernando and Teresa are here. Why don’t you let them come and sit with him for a while, Santana?”
Santana looked back at her father, then leaned over to kiss his cheek.
“Mi hija,” he mumbled.
“Si, padre, it is Santana.” She stroked his thick white hair away from his forehead. “Hernando is here. He and Teresa will come and sit with you for a while.”
Dominic studied her, his eyes showing a little more life and sparkle than they had for the last few days. “Hernando?” He frowned. “Ah, si, my son. Is there…a problem? Did our…prize mare…drop her foal yet?”
Santana smiled. Dancer had given birth to a colt weeks ago, but he had forgotten. There was no use in explaining. “Si, padre. It was a fine, healthy colt. There are no problems. Hernando just wants to visit with you.”
Dominic reached up and touched her cheek. “When Will…gets home from the mill…you tell him to come and see me. It has been too long…since I spoke with my son-in-law, no? He…works too hard. You get him away from the mill…tell him to come home.”
Santana’s eyes teared at this further evidence that her father’s mind was going. If only Will really were up at the mill. If only it were that simple. Maybe it was best that Dominic thought that was where he was, rather than die thinking Will might also be dead, killed in a hideous, useless war. “Si, padre, I will tell him.”
She rose and turned away. Hernando stood in the doorway, and she hurried over to him. “Oh, Hernando, sometimes he does not even know who I am. And just now, he told me to have Will come and see him when he gets home from the mill.”
Hernando embraced her. “Dr. Enders said it might be like this. We can only accept it, Santana.” He kissed her hair. “I just wish Will were here to help you through this.”
She pulled away. “I keep telling myself it will be any day now, and yet part of me fears it will never happen.” She wiped away her tears and left the room, walking into the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea.
“I wish I could do more to help,” Agatha said.
Santana turned to see the woman had followed her. She knew trying to be there for her helped Agatha deal with her own sorrow over missing Gerald. “I know,” she answered. “Sit down at the table, Aggie. Would you like some tea?”
“Yes, that sounds good.”
“The cook and the maid are both outside with Louisa playing with the children, so I will make it. Where are your children?”
“They’re up at the house with James. I can hardly believe he’s seventeen now. He’s so anxious for Gerald to come home so he can go to work at the mill. Sometimes he rides up there on his own, works with Noel. He knows that’s what Gerald would want, for him to take over if…”
Agatha could say no more. She put her head in her hands. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand this waiting.”
Santana stoked the coals inside the cookstove, then added a few more chunks of coal. After setting a kettle of water on top of the stove, she sat down across from Agatha. “It is the same for me,” she said. “It is strange to realize that in one way my father’s illness is almost a blessing. Having him here has kept me busy, and has helped keep my mind off Will and what might have happened to him. According to the papers, every day we are closer to the war being over. We will know soon, Aggie, I am sure.”
Aggie sighed, blinking back tears. “Santana, don’t you ever get angry about it all? I mean, in spite of how much we love them, and how much we respect their decision, sometimes I get so angry that Gerald did this to me. I feel so abandoned. Maybe I feel that way because I’m not in Maine with my family.”
“Being near my own family does not make the pain of Will’s absence any easier. Si, I do get angry, and then I feel so guilty for it. He could be hurt, perhaps even dead, and yet some nights I lie awake hating him for going away, telling myself that whatever has happened to him, it is his fault.”
Agatha toyed with the pepper shaker. “I had a dream last night that unnerved me. I dreamed about Gerald. He was running toward me, and yet he was going nowhere. He called my name and reached out for me, but try as I might, I couldn’t reach him. I ran toward him, but you know how it is in dreams. You’re trying to run, yet your legs won’t move. Gerald kept moving farther and farther away, even though he was trying to move toward me. Finally I couldn’t see him anymore. When I woke up I was drenched in sweat and I had the most awful sick feeling in my stomach. I can’t shake it.”
Santana reached out and touched her hand. “It was only a dream, Aggie. We are too close to the end of the war to lose hope now. Why don’t you come to the chapel and pray with me? It helps my heart so much when I light another candle for Will and Gerald and my father, when I give all my fears over to the Mother Mary and—”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.” Agatha withdrew her hand. “I do my praying at home.”
Santana refused to be offended. “Aggie, I am your friend, and our God is the same God. He will not mind if you pray in a Catholic chapel with a Catholic priest. Father Lorenzo is a sweet old man who loves everyone and who will gladly listen to your troubles. Sometimes it helps just to talk to someone, let someone el
se join in your prayers so that they have more power. He would understand if you do not believe in praying through the Mother Mary. You can pray to God however you please, and Father Lorenzo will add his prayers to yours. Just being there will make you feel better. You will feel God’s presence. I could not have kept my faith and sanity all this time without going there. I am going to have one of the men take me tomorrow morning. I will take the children also, so that they can pray for their father. Please come with me.”
Agatha sniffled. “Perhaps I will, but I—I can’t pray with beads or anything like that.”
“You don’t have to. Just sit there and feel God’s comfort. We can—”
“It’s over!” they heard someone shout outside. “The war’s over! Word came by wire in San Francisco two days ago! Hey, everybody inside! The war’s over!”
Santana and Agatha both rushed outside, where a stranger sat perched on his horse. He was answering questions already from some of the help, who had reached him first. Louisa, Anna, Ester, and the children came running from the backyard, and Hernando and Teresa came out of the house behind Santana and Agatha.
“What is this?” Santana called, running up to the man, her heart pounding with anticipation. “Are you sure? Who are you?”
“Name’s Jasper Hogan, ma’am. Me and a bunch of others, we appointed ourselves official messengers, to ride into the hills and gold camps and such and let people know that the war is over. General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Grant at a place called Appomattox Courthouse. I’m on my way up to the lumber mill just north of here. Is there a road that goes right to it?”
“It belongs to my husband, Will Lassater, and his brother, Gerald,” Santana answered, smiling with excitement. “I will have one of my men take you there. The man in charge is Noel Gray. He will be so happy to hear this! My husband and brother-in-law both went off to fight for the Union. Perhaps now they will be home soon.”
“Yes, ma’am. Shouldn’t be long now.”
Did she dare truly hope that this was real? That the war was finally over? If that was true, it surely wouldn’t be more than a month before Will made it back home…if he was still alive. She turned to Agatha, and they embraced and wept. Soon they would know. Everyone around them talked excitedly, and the children were asking questions about their father, wanting to know how soon he would be there. Santana wished she could answer that. She turned to Hernando, hugging him tightly.
“I hope he will come home soon, Santana,” Hernando said. “But I’m afraid it will not be soon enough to see Father again. I think we should send for Father Lorenzo to come here and be prepared to deliver the last rites.”
Santana drew away, looking up at her brother. “Oh, Hernando—”
“You know it could be any day, any moment. The priest should be here.”
She closed her eyes and nodded. “I was going to the chapel tomorrow to pray, and I was going to take Agatha with me. Let me do that first. We will bring Father Lorenzo back with us.”
He squeezed her hands. “Good. Teresa and I will stay here with Father until you return.”
One of the ranch hands was already mounted, and she watched as he rode off with Jasper Hogan to spread the news up at the mill. The mill…Will’s dream. Soon he and Gerald would both come home and pick up where they had left off, rebuild Lassater Mills into the empire it was becoming before they left. She had to believe that. The war was over…over. When her father died, she would need Will more than ever. He would come home. He would hold her again, and everything would be the way it was before he left. A little part of her told her that things could never be the same, but she would not listen.
Twenty-One
“I’m not going back, not like this.”
Will leaned against the dirt wall of the hole he had shared with Tim for nearly a year now, and with Gerald for the last seven months. But this was not the Gerald he had known all his life. This man was a stranger, totally destroyed physically and emotionally. Will could hardly blame him. He felt half-crazy himself sometimes, from nightmares about the battles and horrendous suffering he had seen, and from the agony of trying to survive in this prison camp. What had sent Gerald over the edge was his wound. Shrapnel had shattered the entire left side of his face and put out his left eye. One piece had been driven all the way across his face, under his nose and into his right cheek, leaving the ugly scar there.
When he was first wounded, he had been captured and treated at a Confederate hospital, and it had been poor treatment indeed. The left side of his face was caved in and badly scarred, the eye socket sewn shut. The wound on his right cheek where the shrapnel had protruded hadn’t been stitched right, resulting in the wide, puffy scar. Will knew in his own heart that if he were scarred the way Gerald was, he probably wouldn’t want to go back either. How could he face Santana that way? Yet shouldn’t she be given the right to see him again, to know he was alive? Wouldn’t he still be responsible to take care of her and his children?
He didn’t know what to say to Gerald. He had given all those arguments, but nothing worked, and he feared for his brother’s mental state. It had taken weeks just for the pain of Gerald’s wounds to subside, but he still suffered agonizing headaches. Although he had said nothing about suicide, Will feared that was just what his brother often contemplated.
“You have to go back, Gerald,” he repeated for what seemed the thousandth time. They had had this conversation over and over, especially since the most recent newcomers all had said that the war was close to finished. In fact, there had not been any new arrivals for two weeks, a good sign.
“You know that I can’t.” Gerald’s voice broke. “My God, why did I do this? I want to see Aggie again…see my children. James is seventeen now. Seventeen!” He covered his face with his hands. “Promise me…you’ll take care of my family for me, Will.”
The two men sat alone in the hole, and Will’s agony was twofold. Tim had taken ill with what they figured was pneumonia. He had gotten so feverish and weak, he could no longer climb out of the hole, and guards had taken him to Andersonville’s excuse of a hospital. That had been three days ago, and Will couldn’t find out how he was doing. The boy had given Will the name and address of his family in Ohio, asking him to write them if he died, and begging him not to tell them how and where it had happened. He wanted Will to make something up that might help their sorrow, tell them he’d died in some glorious battle and had an honorable burial. “It would kill my mother to know I was buried in a common grave with a hundred other men,” he’d told Will.
Will could only pray the boy would pull through and be able to go home. In his own weakened condition, he was having trouble keeping his own faith, especially when he looked at his beloved brother. He thanked God their parents were not alive to know about this.
“You’ll be able to take care of them yourself,” he said to Gerald. “When we get back, we’ll find specialists who can do some repair work to your face, and when you’re able to eat right and get your strength back, you’ll feel better about all of this.”
Gerald shook his head. “You know damn well no doctor can fix what’s happened to me. I can’t work, either. Mill work is dangerous enough with two good eyes. I can’t do any logging or mill work with one eye.”
“You can handle the book work, meet with buyers—”
“With this face? They’d be so repulsed, they wouldn’t hear a thing I had to say. They’d just stare and wonder.” Gerald ran a dirty hand through his hair. “The only reason I’ve hung on this long is because we’re here in this miserable piece of hell on earth, and I figured as long as we’d found each other I’d hang on, for you, so you wouldn’t have to suffer here alone. But if we’re freed…”
Will’s heart tightened at the words, words he had used before and never finished. “If we’re freed, then what?” he asked. “What do you think you’re going to do, Gerald? Go live like a hermit somewhere?”
“Maybe.”
“And what am I supposed to
tell Aggie? That you’re dead? What if she finds another man and wants to remarry? It would be illegal.”
“Nobody would ever know.”
“Except me. I’d have to live with the lie the rest of my life. Worse than that, I’d know my brother is alive and alone. You’re my brother, Gerald! I love you. We’ve always been close. I can’t go on with life as though everything were normal and wonderful while my once-vital, intelligent, loving brother is alone and abandoned somewhere, with no one to care for him. Hell, Gerald, you might be surprised at how you’re accepted by Aggie. Just to have you back will mean so much to her.”
“Stop it! I’m not going to stand there and see the look on her face when she sees me for the first time. She’s better off to think I’m dead, and you damn well know it. If you really love me, Will, you’ll do this for me. I—I could let you know where I am. You could send me money.” His voice broke again. “Please, Will. Don’t ever…tell Aggie the truth. Promise me.”
His heart aching, Will studied the shell of a man who had once been his brother. To imagine him living alone, a broken man with no one to hold him, love him…yet he knew what this meant to him. To love him was to let it be this way. He moved closer, put his arms around him. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do,” he said calmly.
Gerald wept against his shoulder. “I know I’m asking a lot. I don’t know where I’ll go…what I’ll do. I don’t know…I don’t know. I’m sorry to do this to you, Will. However you look at it…my existence is going to make someone miserable. I can’t bear for it to be Aggie and the kids.”
“I know.”
Will’s words were almost drowned out by a sudden uproar from the thousands of men aboveground. The air was filled with shouts, whistles, even laughter, something Will had not heard in a long time. He patted Gerald’s shoulder. “Stay here. I’m going to see what’s happening.” He hoisted himself out of the hole to see men hugging one another, giving out war whoops. He grabbed one man’s arm. “What’s happening?”
The Forever Tree Page 28