Gabriel crawled through the woodbin out into the cold of the winter’s night. He waited down the road and watched as the captain mounted and walked his horse over the crushed stone of the roadway, the hooves clopping in the steadiest four-beat rhythm he’d ever heard. The captain came upon him and halted, the two stared at each other, and after a long moment the captain spoke.
“You’re the reverend’s boy.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why do you hide about the shelves?”
“I come to listen.”
“About what?”
“War.”
“Strange vocation for a reverend’s son.”
“My father says each man to his own path.”
“I don’t reckon the path I trod is the one he’d see fit for his kin.”
“I heard in town you bought the old Fletcher’s place. Fletcher never had much luck bringing anything out of the ground on that rocky patch.”
“I live on my pension, it’s enough. Anyhow, I reckon if I had any knack for farming I’d have set a different course than the one you hear me tell. What do you want, son?”
“I can bring you food. We always get plates from the womenfolk. My mama don’t know what to do with it half the time. There’s bottles too from menfolk that the reverend don’t never touch. It stays stacked in the cellar; there’s crates of it down there dusting up.”
“Why would you do that for me?”
“I can’t ride or shoot worth a shit, sir. If I bring you food and bottles, will you promise to teach me? I got two shooters my uncle left me ’fore he run off. I got them hid, and he left me with thirty ball and some powder, said I was not to tell the reverend. I’ll barter with you for the knowledge.”
“You come tomorrow and we’ll start. Oh, Gabriel, that’s your name, ain’t it? Leave the ball and powder at home for the time being, as I ain’t fixing yet to leave this world, but bring a bottle, the dustier the better.”
“If I keep my end of it, you’ll teach me to ride and shoot?”
“If you keep your end of it, you got my word.”
Six years later, Gabriel stood below the pyre. Gabriel had sworn a blood oath to him that the morning he found the aged man dead he was to take his body deep into the bog country and there he was to build a raised platform of dried wood. He was to wrap Uriah in a shroud, and Uriah gave him two ancient gold coins to place over his eyes and upon the pyre he was to burn Uriah until God could take nothing but the ashes.
Gabriel never lost his lust for war from the fall of Vicksburg to the end. His specialty was raids behind the lines. The taking of prisoners was not practical, so killing became the only way. He rose in rank until he commanded a flying squadron. A certain type of horseman was attracted to him, and his ranks swelled with the remorseless. They rode deep and surprised many. Gabriel had gunned down more men with their hands in the air than he cared to remember. To him, if a man wore blue, he had bartered his own deal; he asked for no quarter and gave none. The worst of it was dealt to any black found helping the North. He ordered them cut down with the sword. He would drive his horse into their ranks and hack at them in a furious rage, the exertion causing froth to spittle from his mouth.
The Union papers discovered he was a reverend’s son and tried to belittle him, referring to him as the preacher’s boy. But on a clear day in late July 1863, the squadron rode to New Bethlehem to attack the railhead deep behind Yankee lines and storm the garrison. It was defended by green and unskilled quartermaster troops. The entire unit bolted into the nearby woods at the sight of charging cavalry. The flying squadron looted the rail cars and then set them aflame. They piled the goods on any flatbed wagon they could find and pushed back south when they came upon a hundred blacks fleeing with their women and children. The blacks ran to the sanctuary of a church. A black soldier fired at the cavalry as it rode toward them, dropping a southern horseman in the road. The Confederates caught him and dragged him to the church and ordered every male inside to come out. The minister came out and pleaded with Gabriel to spare them and was shot through the head for his effort. Gabriel had the church doors and windows nailed shut and he bade his men to burn it to the ground. The cavalry surrounded the church as the flames licked up the sides and waited until the roof collapsed in a great wrenching moan. Those not killed by the roof broke windowpanes and began jumping to escape the flames only to be shot down by the horsemen. The terror did not end until the church was a smoldering ruin and there was no sign of life.
After New Bethlehem, the northern papers knew he could not be stopped and the insults about him being a preacher’s boy grew hollow. The enemy papers began to refer to him as simply the “preacher,” and to his unit as the devil’s horsemen. With each month of southern defeat that brought the end nearer, he grew stronger. The defeat meant nothing to him except that it meant the end of war. It was not until two years after Appomattox that he returned home. Late one spring night he rode through the mists of the old town’s deserted streets. It had been looted, and many buildings had been burned by the invader. The only building left untouched by the war was his father’s house. The Union knew he had been an abolitionist. The reverend had died that winter.
Gabriel entered the house, and its small size unnerved him. He recalled memories of his father’s large presence filling the main room. He sat slowly down in his father’s chair and stared into the embers still alight in the fireplace. The act of sitting in the chair was the first time his father’s death was a reality to him though he had known for months. He could smell the scent of his father’s pipe in the weave of the blanket that lay draped over the arm of the chair, and it brought no emotion, merely the recollection of things past.
His mother came in from the back door, carrying wood to the fireplace. Neither spoke. She placed thin kindling on the hot embers and stoked the embers until the kindling caught and then placed larger sticks of wood until a good flame started. She placed two well-seasoned logs on the fire that caught, and the small hearth was soon engulfed in flames. Gabriel knew she had fallen asleep in the chair and had let the fire go out.
She rose and walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder and said, “I didn’t reckon to see you in this life. Appomattox was two years ago, where have you been, son?”
“West, Missouri mostly.”
She said softly, questioningly, “Luke and Eli?”
He could feel the tremble in her hand and responded, “They’re in the hills west of here, three days’ ride, waiting for us.” He could feel the tension leave her as if a great load had been lifted from her shoulders.
She looked down at his face and saw that it was furrowed with dark lines and thick crow’s feet. The last time she had seen him he had had the complexion of a boy. She said, “Every week, he read the notices in the newspaper and looked for your names. He would pray and thank the Lord each time it were thought you still lived. He would say ‘the war will end before it is too late.’ But then the papers started talking about you. The Atlanta papers said you were a hero. I think that is when he started praying for your death.”
Gabriel stared into the fire, and she moved her hand to his face, saying, “A Yankee colonel came to the house about a year back. He brought with him Yankee newspapers. They told a different story. The Yankee said you were a butcher that killed anything that had the misfortune to cross your path. He said you were responsible for the massacre at New Bethlehem. He told Father that if you showed, that the reverend should send a message to him. He said the end of the war meant nothing when it came to what’s coming to you. The North had already found you guilty and condemned you to death by a jury ‘in absentia’ he called it, I think he called it that. He was a congenial Yankee, said in all honesty, his men weren’t exactly in any hurry to catch up with you, anyhow.”
Gabriel said, “It weren’t right for him to bring that talk here.”
“Oh, I think it was his way of getting at you. He didn’t want to run into you so he found another way to punish you.
After his visit, father started to fade. Most nights he would sit in this chair and stare at that fire like you’re doing. One night sitting here I heard him cry out as if in a dream that you would taste the vinegar.”
Gabriel rose from the chair and stoked the fire. He returned to the chair and sat down again and watched the fire grow in the hearth. It was here before this fire his father had read him the Old Testament. Before the flames, the reverend would practice his sermons, invoking hellfire and thunder, teaching the Book the only way he knew how: through the scars of its warriors, of Goliath and the Philistines, of Aaron and Jericho, Joshua and Gideon. He would stride with book in hand, fulminating at the king of the ten tribes, his whore, and the prophecies of Elijah—dogs licking the blood of warriors false to God. Before this hearth the shape of his soul had been forged and now he learned that the craftsman had cursed his creation.
His mother moved close to him and moved her hand under his thick black hair; she felt the path of the knotty scar that ran across the top of his skull.
Gabriel said, “There’s nothing left for us here. There is a place far west where we can go.”
“Your father asked you to leave once, and you told him this was your home and you were willing to fight and die for it.”
“That doesn’t matter now. I rode with a Colonel Walker in Missouri. He tells of good land for horses that lay out past the edge of this world. Open, and none of it claimed. The war is chasing him too.”
“Son, you know land is never free. Who’s on that land?”
Gabriel shrugged. “There were Shawnee here when Granddaddy come through. He cut his first row through graves he filled first with their sons. We’ll build again, we done it before—there’s nothing left here for any McCallum.”
She stroked his hair and then held a fistful of it in her powerful hand and whispered, “You done seen to that, son, you done seen to that.”
CHAPTER EIGHT:
LIEUTENANT’S HOMECOMING
* * *
The train took a last turn before its long straight run to the station. Colonel Walker stood rigid, almost at attention in a fine suit. He wore his long frock coat and thick slacks despite the heat. Molly had on her best dress and wore a hat the brim of which stretched out to the edges of her shoulders, the sisters in bonnets. The Walkers looked like respectability frozen in time, townfolk milling about to admire the landed gentry that was gracing them with their presence.
A handful of townies and their ladies had turned out for Wesley’s return, the first from the county to graduate the Academy. Wesley hadn’t been home in seven years. Two years before his appointment to West Point, Mother insisted he be sent east to spend time in Chattanooga with her kin to learn manners and perfect his studies before entering into the rigorous curriculum at West Point. In those two years, Wesley had summered in Europe. He had traveled from Sweden to Egypt since graduation. He had spent time in Rome and took extended vacations with distant English cousins in a country house outside London, or at least that’s what his letters home said he was doing.
Toby sat there fidgeting in his collar, scraping and pulling at it and rocking from one leg to the other as the wait for the train to complete the last stretch seemed to last an eternity. The last time he had seen his brother he was eight, and he didn’t recall feeling sad when Wesley left. He also didn’t remember his being all that sad each time Wesley’s planned returns home fell through as some new and exciting opportunity would present itself—a chance to travel to New York or Boston. Each time it happened, when Wesley wired for more money, he could sense the sting for his father. His son was being raised by people he didn’t know and with whom he had no blood ties. Each planned return home, Molly’s relatives would find something new and more wonderful for him to do. I guess that was the way of it, though, to any child, it was the mother’s family that got their hooks in.
Walker never protested, each time he wired the money for travel and appropriate new clothes. Wesley’s letters with each year contained less and less information and became nothing more than cries to mother to increase his allowance. Wesley would play to her sympathies, warning her that her cousins from Chattanooga were going to Philadelphia, and every male was going to the tailors for formal wear. She always saw to it that the expenses were wired.
Now, here he was, graduating at the top of his class, the new lieutenant of artillery. Before reporting to Oklahoma, he was given leave to return home. The train was crawling now, its mammoth engine breathing in and out in great gasps of power. The train’s brakes whined under its weight. Toby could hear the engine’s pipes rumbling, like a giant beast perpetually out of breath, the great steel sides appearing to expand and contract with each breath of smoke from the stack. Young townie boys ran the last hundred yards waving at the conductors and trying to keep up, the conductors rewarding their efforts with pulls on the shrieking whistle that drowned out Maggie and Peg’s chatter.
The engineer hung over the side watching the small crowd as it entered the station. Toby never understood why he watched because he couldn’t stop that thing short if he wanted to. Like all engineers, he had that look of pride. The train coming this far southwest was new and the entire train crew preened like martinet missionaries bringing the word to heathens. In a year or two the train would be old hat, and the next new station down the line would suffer the condescension.
Wesley didn’t waste any time, he stood out from the rail car on the short ladder. His uniform was still a shiny blue, and each button and epaulet glinted from the sun. He held the guardrail with one hand and waved his cap with great sweeps in the other. Toby swore there was a look of disappointment on his face when he realized the townie boys were there for the train and didn’t give a hoot about him.
Mother was beaming and his sisters were enthralled. The girls had hoped he’d brought friends, other new officers to visit, or cousins from back east, but he was alone.
Toby thought he had dandy hair because it was parted not exactly on the side but more toward the center. The same way the dandies wore it in the Roebuck catalogue. Wesley’s expression was one of bored amusement, using it to press his perfect white teeth out from his lips. The train rolled to a squealing stop and the half-dozen boys stared out of breath at the lieutenant. Wesley leapt to the platform like a stage actor. He approached the colonel and gave him a salute with a mock flourish, then they shook hands with his father saying, “Welcome home.”
He embraced Mother and Maggie and Peg, remarking in vague terms about their growth and how promising and healthy they looked compared to the dowdies back east. The two gushed with pride. It was undeniable that he was a good-looking dandy and he acted the part of an army officer. He reminded Toby of that painting that took up nearly a whole wall in the courthouse. It was of some long-ago battle in the Old World. Wesley looked just like the dandy officer in that painting standing amid the smoke and chaos holding a sword, the same sharp features and piercing blue eyes.
Toby dreaded his brother’s approach: “Well, well, look at this fine young cavalryman. When I left, you stood maybe two hands; now look at you, but still in knickers. I bet you can ride like the dickens, can’t you?” Before Toby could respond, Wesley spun on his heel, and said, “I’m famished.”
The family strolled to the hotel. The family would eat dinner and stay for the night. Two liverymen struggled with Wesley’s trunks and heaved them onto a flatbed wagon. Their groans telegraphed the weight.
As the family walked, Toby caught snatches of Wesley speaking with his father. Wesley said: “Father, as a lieutenant, I require a minimum of three mounts. Some of the Yankees are going with six . . . I understand that, Colonel, but the salary is at best subsistence, I’ll need dress uniforms and winter fittings . . .”
It went on with his mother’s occasional—“Of course, and if you take a wife, they’ll be expectations . . .”
Colonel Walker kept nodding his head, and Toby knew his father was preoccupied in his thoughts about the b
urned barn and wasn’t listening. Toby feared that Wesley would take Ulysses.
They ate at the hotel and Wesley demonstrated for the ladies the proper etiquette presently being observed in the East and he prattled off the nuanced differences between the use of spoons in Paris and London. He would drop French occasionally. The girls jittered at his stories.
Toby knew the day he rode off on Ulysses, he wouldn’t even say thank you. At that moment, Toby felt his father’s gaze and it felt like his father was reading his thoughts. Toby looked down at his plate.
As Wesley sipped his coffee, he said: “Colonel, to the extent the horses aren’t all available at the ranch, perhaps we could trade with McCallum or that Raif, if he’s still alive, for a suitable horse.”
The colonel raised his pipe and began packing it in that methodical way pipe-smokers use. He tapped the pipe seven times and as he finished lighting the tobacco he said: “I’ve already got the six in mind for you. We’ve got a dozen older ones roaming and twenty that are newly broke. Toby knows the good ones. We’ll select the right ones for you, won’t we, Toby?”
Wesley said, “Colonel, no slight to the workhorses and no slight to little brother’s judgment, but I’ve learned a little about what an officer requires with respect to his mounts. I’ll need at least one to stud.”
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