The Christmas Trespassers

by Andrew J. Fenady

  * * *

  The wagon came in from the east.

  The driver, a painfully thin man whose left arm had been amputated above the elbow—with him a comely woman and two children, boys, ages seven and four—also aboard were the worldly possessions of the family.

  The wagon stopped in front of Inghram’s General Store. The livery was still closed.

  With some difficulty, the thin man got off the wagon then reached up to help his wife debark.

  “You boys can stretch your legs, but don’t stray.” Both boys eagerly jumped off.

  Sheriff Hinge passed by the group and entered the store.

  Pete Inghram sat at the rolltop desk working on the books. He looked up at the sheriff, then got up.

  “Morning, Elwood. What can I do you for?”

  “Outta coffee. Will you grind me up three, four pounds?”

  “Martha.” Mrs. Inghram was already coming through the curtains from the back room.

  “Morning, Sheriff.”

  “Morning.”

  “Martha, will you grind up . . .”

  “I heard him, Pete.” Martha Inghram went about the business of grinding up the coffee. Pete Inghram pointed the stub of a pencil toward a cigar box on the counter.

  “Sheriff, care for a fine ceegar while you wait?”

  “Thanks, no.” The sheriff pointed toward ajar of candy not far from the cigar box. “But I do have that powerful sweet tooth.”

  “Hep ’self.”

  The sheriff did.

  “Hummm . . . horehound.”

  The thin man and comely woman had entered and closed the door behind them. Pete Inghram came forward a couple of steps and greeted his new customers.

  “Howdy . . . and merry Christmas.”

  “Hello,” the man replied.

  “Merry Christmas.” The comely woman smiled.

  “Strangers, aren’t you?” Inghram, of course, knew that they were.

  “Around here.” The man also smiled. “But not in Virginia. Ben Warren . . . my wife, Esmeralda.”

  “Virginia! You come a distance. Pete Inghram . . . wife, Martha. And this here’s our sheriff, Elwood Hinge.”

  Elwood Hinge nodded and helped himself to another piece of horehound.

  “Settling here?” Pete asked.

  “Passing through,” Ben Warren answered. “Friend of ours settled here. Thought we’d stop by and see him. Shad Parker.”

  “He trades with us.” Pete glanced toward the sheriff. “Friend, huh?”

  “Best friend a man ever had. We were neighbors—until the war.”

  “He seems sorta . . . private.” Pete Inghram figured he was being diplomatic.

  “That man’s been through hell, Mr. Inghram,” Ben said.

  “Shad lost his wife,” Esmeralda explained, “two boys, his home . . . everything.”

  “Lost?”

  “Burned in the war.” Ben looked from Esmeralda to Inghram.

  “Sherman?” Pete asked.

  “Sheridan.” Ben Warren bit into the word.

  “That explains a lot,” Pete observed after a pause.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh . . . about his being so . . . private. He don’t talk much. Keeps to himself . . .”

  “Yeah, I guess he would. Can you tell us where to find him?”

  “Be glad to. Say, what part of Virginia you people from?”

  “Most beautiful valley in the world. Used to be. Shenandoah.”

  Chapter 18

  The Warren wagon rolled along the russet Texas countryside. Ben and Esmeralda had said next to nothing since getting directions at the store, but both were churning with memories, bittersweet.

  Tradition dictated in Irish families that the elder of two daughters was the first to be married. And so it was with Esmeralda and Molly. First Esmeralda and Ben were married, then ten minutes later, Molly and Shad, at the same church by the same priest. It wasn’t much of a ceremony, or ceremonies, because both were what the church termed “mixed marriages” and frowned upon. Many of the older priests refused to conduct such a service, but young Father Courtney didn’t frown much and agreed to say the necessary words so long as both bridegrooms agreed that all of the children would be baptized and reared properly. Both Ben and Shad signed the appropriate articles and Father Courtney conducted the “off the altar” ceremonies at tiny St. Brendan’s in Port Republic. The entire congregation didn’t consist of more than three score parishioners, including men, women, and mostly children. Father John Courtney reasoned that with each addition to the Warren and Parker families his parish would probably exceed or at least keep pace with the mortality rate of his congregation.

  Both Ben and Shad did their best not to disappoint Father Courtney. The Parkers were the first to bear and baptize. Sean Parker became part of St. Brendan’s congregation in March of the following year. Others followed with galloping regularity. All boys. Shad Parker kept hoping and trying for a girl.

  The Parkers and the Warrens were virtually one happy family as well as neighbors. The crops were abundant and so were the joys of life.

  “Shad, my friend,” Ben once said, and then repeated many times, “you and I are two of the luckiest buckos in God’s sweet world. We have our women and our work. Can’t wait to go out in the morning, can’t wait to come home at night. What did we ever do to deserve such good fortune?”

  “Well,” Shad Parker responded the first time Ben put forth the question, “to begin with, we licked Tub MacGrudder, that was the day it all started . . .”

  “Right you are,” Ben pounded on his friend’s back, “beat him to a fare-thee-well, we did! If we hadn’t, I would have been reluctant to introduce you to the O’Connell clan!”

  It seemed too good to last and it lasted until a tall shadow fell across the Shenandoah as well as the rest of the South, with the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

  Then, at Harper’s Ferry, the clash of ideas became the clash of arms. Both Shad Parker and Ben Warren resisted the call to arms but only as long as their love of family, home, and the Shenandoah Valley would permit. They both knew they had to answer that call and they answered it together.

  Both Shad Parker and Ben Warren joined General Thomas Jonathan Jackson’s brigade to defend the valley against, and defeat, the invaders.

  Defend and defeat they did, Parker and Warren together with Jackson at the First Battle of Bull Run and at Front Royal and Winchester, then later at the Second Battle of Bull Run and finally at Chancellorsville, where Stonewall Jackson died.

  After that both Shad and Ben managed to return home for a short time before being reassigned, this time to different outfits and campaigns. And during that short time at home, both of their homes had still so far been spared—Molly and Esmeralda became enceinte.

  Major Shad Parker joined up with General Jubal Early and Captain Ben Warren marched and fought with General Joseph E. Johnston at Manassas, Seven Pines, and finally with him against Sherman when Johnston was forced out of Dalton to Resaca, to Cassville and to Allatoona where a minié ball shattered Ben’s left arm and ended the war for him and him for the war.

  The last time Ben and Esmeralda had seen Shad Parker was at the gravesites of Molly and the two children after the war. He was a different man, in some ways not a man at all. A silent, brooding, bitter thing who stood staring at the stone that Ben had secured to mark their burial place.

  The next day Shad Parker left the valley without a word, a letter, or a look back.

  * * *

  “Sorry, boy,” Webb Davis said. “Got five sons of my own,” and added with less approbation, “and a daughter, to boot.” Davis stood on the porch of the ramshackle two-room farmhouse and looked at Austin Coats, who stood a few feet away. “Don’t need help. Need a son-in-law and you’re a few years short.”

  Austin nodded, turned, and started to walk away.

  “Just a minute, boy.”

  Austin turned back.

  “Where you headed?”
>
  Austin shrugged.

  “Don’t know, huh. Well, where’d you come from? Must know that.”

  Austin said nothing.

  “You’re right, boy. It’s none of my business . . .”

  “Webb.” Mrs. Davis appeared at the doorway. “Food’s on the table. We’re waitin’.”

  Webb Davis nodded at his wife.

  “Maybe,” Mrs. Davis said, “the boy’s hungry.”

  “Ever know a boy who wasn’t?” Davis smiled. “Hey, boy . . . come eat.”

  * * *

  “Would I consider sellin’?” Sam Allen chewed on the words and the tobacco, then spit. “What’d you say your names was?”

  “Keeshaw, Deek, and my brothers, Tom and Bart. Mr. Bush allowed as how you might consider sellin’ . . .”

  “Why? Because I’m gettin’ old?”

  “Well, no, Mr. Bush didn’t say that, he . . .”

  “That’s what he meant. Well, Mr. Bush don’t know wormwood from sarsaparilla. He’s just lookin’ for me to sell so’s he could slap a mortgage on this spread like he’s got on most every stick and stone in the county. But this one’s free and clear, tall and uncut, just like me and that’s the way it’s gonna stay.”

  “No mortgage involved, Mr. Allen. We’d pay cash money.”

  “You ain’t Texacans.” The way he said it was an accusation.

  “No, we ain’t, but we’re lookin’ to be.”

  “Why?” Sam Allen spit again.

  “Oh, I don’t know, just because it suits us, I guess.”

  “Well, Mr. Heeshaw, the . . .”

  “Keeshaw.”

  “. . . the question ain’t whether Texas suits you. It’s whether you suit Texas.”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “No, you don’t. You’re just sayin’ that ’cause you think I’m old like Amos Bush. Well, he couldn’t find his ass with a funnel.” Another spit.

  “Well, we’re sorry, Mr. Allen, we didn’t mean to . . .”

  “There you go again, bein’ too polite just because I’m old or you think so, like that Amos Bushwhacker. Where you from?”

  “Uh, Louisiana.”

  “Well, this here’s Texas, belongs to Texacans, and always has ever since we took it from the Mexicans so you might just as well head back east to Louisiana.”

  “Sorry to have troubled you and sorry if we was too polite. Didn’t mean to be.”

  “Hold on, you seem like good honest folk even if you ain’t Texacans. When I do get old come back and see me and we might do business. I’m a fair judge of character, you can bet on that, and bring cash.”

  “You can bet we will, Mr. Allen . . .”

  “Sam.”

  “You can bet we will, Sam.”

  “We was related you know.”

  “Who was?”

  “Why me and Sam Houston, of course. I was with him at San Jacinto, used to bounce Temple on this knee.”

  “Temple?”

  “Sam’s son, Temple, fine fella even if he growed to be a lawyer.” Allen spit again.

  “Merry Christmas . . . Sam.”

  * * *

  “That was funny.” Tom said after they rode away.

  “What was?” Deek asked.

  “Couldn’t find his ass with a funnel.”

  Chapter 19

  Shad Parker finished pouring water from the bucket into the trough of the hog pen. As he turned and took a step he saw the wagon.

  At first uncertain, and then less so, not wanting it to be, then knowing it was, a part of his past, a part he had been trying to bury in the deep unremembered recesses of his body and soul, not wanting it to be exhumed.

  But there it was.

  Shad put down the bucket and stood unmoving as the creaking wagon drew closer.

  Ben Warren smiled. Esmeralda waved. Shad stood silent, but screaming inside, trying to wipe out the words to the song they had sung together so many times—Ben, Esmeralda, Shad . . . and Molly O.

  Shenandoah, I hear you calling,

  Calling me across the wide Missouri.

  Oh, Shenandoah, I’m going to leave you.

  Away, you rolling river.

  Oh, Shenandoah, I’m going to leave you

  Away I’m bound

  Across the wide Missouri.

  The wagon groaned to a stop. This time it was Esmeralda who jumped off first, without assistance. She ran to Shad and embraced him, not trying to stanch her tears. The bonnet fell from her head as she placed her face against Shad’s shoulder.

  “Shad. Dear Shad. It’s so good to see you.”

  He did not respond. His body remained rigid, ungiving. Ben was off the wagon, approaching. The boys followed after him. Esmeralda let go of Shad and moved a step to the side.

  Ben looked at Shad for a moment, then extended his hand. After too long a pause Shad put forth his hand. As they shook, Ben nodded to the two boys.

  “Benjie, Todd, say hello to your uncle Shad.”

  Benjie and Todd nodded back uncertainly at the strange man whose expression remained stolid. Shad let loose of Ben’s hand.

  “They hardly remember,” Esmeralda said as she picked up the fallen bonnet. “So much has happened. . .” She paused awkwardly. “You look well, Shad.”

  “Why? Why did you come here?” Those were Shad Parker’s first words to them. “What do you want?”

  Ben and Esmeralda were deeply hurt. She tried to think of something to say, something to soothe the pain, but Ben spoke first, to Esmeralda and the boys as he turned toward the wagon.

  “Get back up there!”

  Benjie and Todd started to follow their father’s command, but Esmeralda did not move and Ben stopped as she spoke.

  “We’re on our way to Yuma. We just wanted to see you. Maybe stay the night. Wish you a . . . well, it’s near Christmas.” Her eyes moistened again. “That’s all, Shad.”

  “Es!” Ben motioned toward the wagon.

  “Hold on,” Shad said hoarsely, and bit his lip. “Ben . . . Es . . . stay the night.”

  Esmeralda looked at her husband. A look that pleaded. Ben’s face was a battlefield of hurt and pride and there was no denying the emotion.

  Finally he nodded and smiled.

  * * *

  A small, dirty pair of hands thrust out, but the sage hen escaped. Austin’s hands landed on the nest and one of the three eggs broke under the impact of the boy’s palm.

  Austin carefully picked up the two unbroken eggs. He would be back to the cave before dark.

  But back to what? How long could he expect Peg and Davy and even himself to go on running? They were tired and hungry and cold, but in spite of all that, in some ways they were lucky. None of them had gotten hurt or sick as had their mother and father.

  Alvin and Sara Coats had fled from bleeding Kansas south through the Oklahoma Indian Territory, across the Arkansas River, and farther south into Texas. They settled near Palestine with their young son and daughter, and eked out a meager existence and Davy was born. They held on, thinking that things would be better after the war ended. But the great blizzard of ’66 with high wind, driving snow, and freezing temperature made things even worse. Alvin tried to repair what was left of the homestead. First he fell with the fever, then as she tried to minister to him so did Sara, and became even worse. They died within hours of each other, Sarah then Alvin.

  Austin left Peg and little Davy with the bodies and walked seven miles to Palestine. There was no sense in bringing a doctor, so the undertaker came back in his wagon with Austin and took the bodies and the children back to Palestine, buried the bodies, then delivered the children to the Faith, Hope, and Charity Orphanage and Miss Stritch.

  The major inheritance Alvin and Sara left their children was having taught the older two to read and write. What little else was left went to pay debts and funeral expenses.

  * * *

  In the cabin Ben Warren sat in a chair near the table and awkwardly went about filling his pipe with tobacco from a pouch
, then lighting it.

  Shad looked back at Ben then removed a liquor bottle from the cabinet. Esmeralda cooked supper while the two boys set the table.

  Shad picked up a couple of glasses, walked over to where Ben sat, and poured stiff shots into the glasses. He lifted one of the glasses and handed it to Ben. But Ben had the pipe in his mouth and had to take it out and balance it on the table before accepting the drink.

  “Thanks, Shad.” He smiled.

  Shad nodded.

  “Remember what we used to say?” Ben held out the glass toward Shad. “How many times have we said it? A thousand? Ten thousand? Maybe more. But who kept count? Well, Shad, it’s good to see you. And one more time, ‘confusion to the enemy.’”

  They touched glasses and both drank about half the whiskey in each glass. Neither man spoke for the moment. Each drank more whiskey but just a sip the second time.

  “This stuff ’s been keeping good company, and speaking of good company . . .”

  Shad poured more whiskey from the bottle into the glasses.

  “Supper’ll be ready in just a few minutes,” Esmeralda said from the stove. “It sure will seem good eating with a roof over our heads again. And cooking on a real stove! I almost forgot what it’s like to sit around a dinner table with the fam . . . Todd, put the salt and pepper on the table. Benjie, fetch me the parcel.”

  Benjie and Todd both “yes, ma’am’d” their mother. Todd took the salt and pepper shakers from the stove and brought them over to the table. Benjie walked toward a pile of items the Warrens had carried into the house from the wagon before Shad had unhitched the team, led the animals into the barn, and fed them.

  Shad glanced at both of the youngsters. Benjie was born less than a month before Shad and Molly O’s second son, Shannon. Todd was the same age as the unborn son or daughter who died with Molly O.

  “It’s a nice place you have here, Shad.” Ben sipped his whiskey.

  Shad thought to himself that if he had passed Ben Warren on the street he might not have recognized the boy and man he grew up with. While Ben hadn’t been as tall and powerfully proportioned as Shad, he had always been the more energetic and carefree of the two. He was one for mischief and laughter, the instigator and troublemaker of the two. Not conceited, but confident, even more confident when Shad Parker was around to back his play. Not that Ben Warren wouldn’t tweak the devil’s nose on his own, but it just seemed to happen more often when Shad was there. But now Ben was almost skeletal and it even seemed a task for him to breathe.