by Ward, Marsha
“You aged a right smart bit, Albert. Been doing most all the chores, I reckon.”
“You left ‘em to do.”
Carl nodded. “I figured you three boys could handle the farm. When Peter died, I felt obliged to take his place in the fight.”
“I reckon.” Albert looked at the ground and kicked the mud.
“I didn’t know James would go, too.”
“They drafted him.”
Julia moved forward and pulled on Carl’s arm. “Come in and set, boy. Doubtless you’re weary, riding all day. I’ll finish the pone we’re having for supper while you tell your pa what shape the Valley’s in down south of here. He’s been asking after news of the state of things since he got home.”
“Now Julie, the boy’s just got here. I can quiz him later while he eats.” Rod turned to his youngest son. “Albert, take your brother’s horse out back and put him in the pen behind the barn. See if you can find some grain. That animal’s come far with your brother.”
“Yes, Pa.” Albert took the reins and led Sherando around the corner of the house.
~~~
After knocking the mud from his boots, Carl entered the house, shrugged out of his wet coat, and hung it on a peg inside the door. He pulled his shirt together the best he could and glanced around the room, savoring its warmth and cheerfulness. Then he took the stool his father indicated and moved it close to the fire before sitting.
“What happened to your buttons, boy?” Rod asked. “Were you obliged to sell them for food?” He also sat, and crossed one leg over the other.
“Naw. Some fat Yankee sergeant down the road a ways cut them off me. Said I was in uniform and didn’t have the right.”
“That’s where you got the cuts and bruises and the mud, Carl?” his mother asked.
“I reckon, but they didn’t hurt me none.” He eased his rib cage from side to side to be sure.
Rod slapped his thigh in anger. “Yankees,” he spit out.
Carl looked up, feeling a similar heat. “They ain’t mannerly, that’s for sure, but I came out lucky anyhow. Didn’t lose nothing but my buttons. I hid my horse back in the willows along the creek, and they were too drunk to spot him, so they missed the rifle I snuck off the Yankee weapon pile after I got my parole.”
“Drunk, you say? That sounds like the same Yankee bunch that’s been back and forth through this part of the Valley, teasing and tormenting the folks.”
“Could be them.” Carl shrugged, then looked around the room once more. “Ma, where’s Marie and the little girl? Ain’t they supposed to help you?”
Julia smiled. “Your little sister is nigh on to twelve years old, boy. We kept having birthdays while you were away. You’ve had a couple yourself. Ain’t you about nineteen now?”
“Closer to twenty, Ma. I ain’t a young’un no more.”
Julia looked at Carl’s bearded face. “I see you been over the mountain, son.” She paused to form a corn cake. “I sent the girls in to Mount Jackson to Rulon’s place. Mary’s not feeling well, and she’s got Rulon to tend to, so they’re helping out with young Roddy. You heard Rulon got hurt bad?”
Carl nodded.
“There’s also more food in town,” Rod explained. “Your ma has her wits scraped down to a nubbin to find us enough to eat since Sheridan paid his call.”
“Clay went in with the girls,” Julia added. “He’s got a job at the livery, so there’s just Pa and James and Albert to fix for.”
“And Benjamin,” Carl reminded her.
He watched his mother’s body stiffen, and saw his father take a protecting step toward her. Silence hung in the room like a curtain made of combed cotton fibers, thick and heavy and oppressive. Then Rod spoke, his words muffled and measured.
“Benjamin fell at Waynesboro. I had no way to get word home. Your ma only found out when I got here.”
The words bucked into Carl with the kick of a mule. He sagged on the stool and his head dropped against his hands. First, Peter had fallen at the Second Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, as the Yankees called it. Then Rulon, the eldest, was sorely wounded in the siege of Petersburg last October. Now Benjamin was gone. Carl felt his ears ringing hollow, filling his skull with a soft buzzing.
He rose to his feet and faced his parents. “I’m powerful sorry,” he said, holding himself still. “Benjamin was always such a lucky cuss, full of life, and all. It don’t seem right he’d be gone.”
Carl bowed his head, took a deep breath, and began again. “Ma, I know he was your favorite son, and I don’t hold it against him. He was the favorite of everybody.”
He took a step toward his mother, watching her white, crumpling face. With another step he had her in his arms, patting her head and shoulders. “There, Ma, you cry. It’ll do you good.”
Rod’s arms went around the pair. “The boy talks sense, Julia. You ain’t cried since you got the news. Let the tears wash out the grief you been carrying around.” He continued gruffly, “I reckon I already done my sorrowing.”
The men waited, suspended, as Julia’s sobs tore the air. After a long time, she quieted, wiped the tears from her cheeks with her apron, and stepped out of the men’s arms. Her face was changed, resigned. “I reckon that’ll have to do for Benjamin, ‘cause the living need their daily bread.” She went back to the table, wiped her hands, and continued to fix supper.
Rod approached his chair and sagged into it, while Carl returned to his stool. Both men sat slumped for a time, saying nothing as the pain sat upon their shoulders. After a time, Rod threw back his head.
“Your ma’s kept the family going whilst we were gone, son, and she’s the one saw to it that we didn’t starve when we returned. I got a leave to come home in December, on account of our mounts were starving for lack of forage, and I’ll be switched if she hadn’t outsmarted that cocky Phil Sheridan. She saved most of the corn by tying the sacks on the backs of the stock, and sending Clay and Albert to the hills with the animals. She saved the crop and the herd, both. I’m mighty proud of her.”
“Ma, that was right canny thinking. I’d like to see Sheridan’s face should he find out you outfoxed him.”
Julia shook her head and continued with the meal.
“We ain’t tooting our horn about the food we got, Carl,” Rod said. “It’s mighty little for our needs, and even so, we had to send the girls into town.”
“How serious was Rulon hurt, Pa?”
“Well, he had a right smart mess of holes in him. The surgeon sent him home to die, but there ain’t no quit in Rulon. That little wife of his nursed him along real well, too. He’s mostly out of bed now, finally on the mend.” Rod rose to his feet. “Say, come out and help me milk, son. That brindle cow the Yankees stole last fall wandered up to the fence today, bawling and kicking and carrying on to be let in the gate, but she’s still half wild. There’s a calf trailing her, so she must have milk.”
Carl nodded. “Sure, Pa. I reckon a body don’t forget how to do the chores.”
As the men stepped out the back door, Carl glanced around at what was left of the yard behind the house, and took in a rasping breath. The vegetable garden was a sea of mud, while out yonder, wreckage marked where the barn had been. All that remained were the burned beams and blackened supports that had fallen onto the floor. Two mounds of gray ashes, scattered by wind and rain, showed where the hay had been stacked. The animal pens were in ruins, poles broken and strewn about. Someone had piled brush in the gaps until new poles were cut.
Carl waved an arm at the view. “Was it like this when you got home, Pa?”
“Pretty near. The boys and I ain’t had a lot of time to clean up much.”
The brindle cow tied in the pen rolled her eyes and lowed in fright at the men’s approach. Rod expelled his breath. “She always was skittish, Carl. I reckon she got away from Sheridan’s soldiers and wintered back in the oak groves. She had her calf, then got lonely for home.”
Carl stepped around behind the cow. “Mind that hoo
f.” Rod spoke sharply as the brindle kicked out at the young man.
Carl dodged away and snorted. “She must be a Yankee lover. Welcome home to you too, cow.” He patted her flank.
“Grab the pail and set to work, son. She wants milking.”
Just then the hungry calf tied behind the remains of the barn began to bawl. Brindle pulled her head backward, and Rod reached for the rope to snub her on a shorter line. Lacking a stool, Carl squatted on his heels and began to milk.
The cow sidestepped, nearly catching Carl’s foot. He avoided her hoof, and then she whipped her tail against his face. He turned away, saving his eyes from the coarse hair. Then she lifted her hoof and banged it hard against the pail, but Carl snatched it away in time to save the contents from spilling.
“Whoa, cow!” he yelled, as she swung her hindquarters against him. “You’re right, Pa. She’s gone wild.” He scrambled out of the way, bringing the pail with him. “I call the job done. Let that calf come over here.”
Rod grinned, went for the bawling creature, and untied the tether rope. “We’re all out of practice of milking, son,” he called. “I reckon I’d druther fight Yankees than get stepped on by a wild cow. I know James feels the same, after milking the white-face cow.”
“Is he in one piece?” Carl asked, looking sidelong at his pa.
Rod turned the calf loose, and it ran to its mother. He grinned again as it began to suckle. Then his face went somber. “He got a flesh wound at Five Forks, outside Richmond, but it’s healing clean. He can swing an ax, so I sent him up by the mountain to cut wood. Likely he’ll be home tomorrow night with a load of fence poles.”
“It’ll be good to see him.” Relief softened Carl’s voice.
The two men headed for the house as the sun dropped toward the horizon. The rain earlier in the day had left the air cool and sweet, and a light breeze was blowing the final clouds away. Carl handed the milk pail to his father at the door.
“I’m all covered with mud, Pa. Best I wash up before I eat.”
“You’ll have to use the crick, son. The Yankees knocked the top of the well apart and dumped it into the shaft. I ain’t got it cleaned out yet.”
“Then I’ll bring back some water.”
Carl took two pails from the back stoop and slogged his way through the muck of the yard to the creek path. He felt like a small boy again, recalling the times he’d walked this path before the well was dug.
Carl came up to the creek, knelt, and dipped the pails into the deepest part of the water. After he set them high on the bank, he removed his shirt, tossed it aside, and plunged his arms into the water. Gasping with the impact of the cold, he splashed it onto his head and chest.
Once his face was clean, he wiped off his boots and rubbed most of the mud from his pants, then rinsed his shirt in the stream and wrung it out several times. He shook out the shirt and put it on, shivering when the cold, wet cloth made contact with his flesh.
Twilight took away most of the daylight as Carl paused to look into the water of the creek where it pooled below him. He saw a distorted reflection of the outline of his form in the dim light. Nineteen years had built his body well and tall, but the last four, with the privations of war, had hardened the muscles of his frame and made his features gaunt. His hair was too long, and the week’s growth of sandy red beard itched. He’d have to hunt up scissors and a razor as well as a comb.
As night fell, Carl shrugged his shoulders to rearrange the damp shirt, picked up the pails, and headed back to the house, guided by the lamplight from the kitchen window. Breeze on the shirt chilled him, and he walked a little faster. At the steps he re-scraped his boots, then opened the door and went inside.
“We’re just fixing to eat,” Julia called. She turned and saw the water buckets. “Thank you, son. You saved me a trip.”
Carl pulled up a chair to the table and joined Rod and Albert.
“It ain’t much, Carl, but it’ll keep you from blowing away.” Julia waved her hand toward the food. “We’re lucky to have greens. They popped up down by the crick, and I picked them late this afternoon. ‘Course, there’s corn pone, and we have milk, but there ain’t no real coffee, just roasted chicory.” She sighed as she sat at her place. “We’ll have real food again once we get a crop up.”
“That’s something we need to do some talking about,” Rod declared. “First, let’s give thanks for Carl’s safe return, and for this food we got.”
At the end of the grace, Carl glanced across the table at his father. There’d been something in his voice that foretold serious business. Rod must have felt his stare, for he looked up, his beard wrinkling as he chewed.
Rod swallowed. “Tell me how it looks south of here, son. What did Sheridan leave for the folks in the south end of the Valley? You came from Staunton, I reckon?” Rod took a bite of greens.
“He burnt or pulled down homes, barns, crops, orchards, ‘most everything, all the way to Staunton and beyond. It’s a famine time. A crow flying by would have to bring his own rations.” He paused to chew a piece of pone. “Ma, it’s a wonder to me the Yankees left our house alone when they came back through.”
“I had my good Sharps rifle, and I set right there in the doorway and wouldn’t budge none. After a while they left me be and went out back to burn the barn.”
“Marie could-a been killed,” Albert said, frowning. “Them dirty Yankees didn’t wait ‘til she was out of the barn to set it afire.” Albert’s eyes looked dark and fierce. “I wish I’d a been down here shooting me some Yankees instead of up in the hills with Clay and all them cows!”
“Likely they’d have shot you, Albert,” Carl said. “Praise God you was up there!”
Rod’s mouth tightened. “What about livestock, son? What did you see?”
“I reckon we’ve got more cattle than any five stock men down the Valley, Pa. Maybe five pigs, thin stuff; not more’n ten hens anywhere. I reckon Grant didn’t want no more supplies coming out of the Shenandoah. He meant for little Phil Sheridan to clean us out, and he did the job.”
“Lucky I was warned some,” Julia said, “or I wouldn’t have had time to send the boys off up the hill.”
Rod chewed his food slowly, his face looking thoughtful. “I reckon we’re eating about as well as Rand Hilbrands. The Yankees missed burning the store in Mount Jackson, so he still has food to put on his table.”
“What happened over to Chester Bates’ place, Pa?”
“He lost his barn, and the house is gutted out. They burned his fields bare. The Bates family is about wiped off the face of the earth, I’d say.”
“Are they all dead?”
“They’ve got their lives and little else.”
“That’s sure a pity.” Carl wiped his mouth with his hand. “They had the prettiest stone house I believe I’ve ever seen. Where are they living now?”
“Right on the place, in the old tool shed.”
“Hush, that’s a shame. There’s no finer man than Chester Bates, ‘cept for you and John Mosby, Pa.”
“Andy Campbell says his pa’s so mad about his place being wrecked, he wants to clear out and go someplace else,” Albert reported.
Rod Owen cleared his throat. “That’s just what I aim to do.”
Chapter 2
Rod’s words seemed to echo in the room, fading into silence. Stunned, no one moved or spoke for several seconds, then the air was split with the clamor of the family reacting to his declaration.
Julia raised her chin a bit as she stared down the length of the table. “This has been my home since we wed.”
“Pa, I took an oath I’d come home and wait to be exchanged proper. I don’t reckon the Yankees will let me leave.” Carl shifted in his chair, sitting up straight.
Albert jumped to his feet. “But Pa, I was born right here in this house.”
Rod waved away the arguments and held up his hand for silence. “I’ve decided to sell the farm and go to the Colorado Territory. You ma’s brother Jonathan is o
ut there somewhere, and we’ll find him. There’s gold and silver to be mined, but I been contemplating.” Rod paused to lift his cup and try the chicory. He made a face, then drank some more before setting down the cup.
“There’s no future for us here in the Valley. Since we’re going to cross the country to make a new start, why not start a cattle ranch?” Rod looked around at his family. “We have good cattle here that we can sell as beef to the miners,” he said. “There’s a sight of folks out there that like to eat. I reckon raising cattle is as good a way to earn a living as digging in the ground for metal.”
“I took an oath, Pa.” Carl leaned forward. “I’m bound to stay here until my papers come.”
“Carl, an Owen’s oath is sacred word, but you saw the way of things out there. Since the Yankees paid their call, if we stay here our only choice is to starve. I reckon your oath is null and void.”
Carl slouched against the back of his chair. “Who’ll buy a burned-out farm? Nobody around here has any federal cash to give you.”
“There was a feller here last week from New York State, looking for farmland. His brother was one of Sheridan’s torch men, and told him all about the fine crops he set fire to. Well, the man offered a good price, and I took it.”
“But Pa,” Albert burst out, “he’s a damned Yankee!”
“Watch your tongue, young’un. Yes, he’s a Yankee, but he has good Yankee currency and coin to give me. Now that you’re home, Carl, I aim to leave in two weeks.”
“Two weeks!” Julia echoed. “We can’t be ready by then.”
“How long did it take you to send the boys off up the mountain with the corn?”
Julia stared at her plate.
“We’ll be ready in two weeks, because Mr. Avery will take possession then. He’ll be back from Washington next week with the money, then he’s off to get his family to move them here.” Rod slapped the table and stood up.
“You really sold the place?” Julia got to her feet. “You never thought to ask me?”
“We’re bound for Colorado. That’s all.” His words were sharp, final.