Kindred Spirits

by Julianne Lee

  Her eyes lit up. "Come right over here.” She drew Shelby back toward the Civil War shelves. “What towns are you looking for? We’ve got plenty of local history here. Lots and lots of action hereabouts, what with the Cumberland River being the line between Union and Confederate territory throughout most of the war."

  Shelby knew all that; the publisher she worked for had produced a great many books on the subject. She was hoping for something very specific. More specific than any of the projects she’d worked on, for those were all commercial trade and far too general to help her. “I’m looking to find information on units recruited out of Sumner County.” She peered at the rows of book spines, as if to find what she needed by x-ray vision.

  “Gallatin?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, and Hendersonville. Especially Hendersonville.”

  The librarian reached back into memory and her voice took on a distracted distance as she also perused the spines. “Morgan’s Raiders did their business all up and down there for most of the war, you know.” Shelby did know, but just nodded. The woman continued as Shelby followed her to what she hoped would be books on the local recruits. Finally the librarian stopped and gestured to a shelf. "Here you go. Here's what we have specifically on middle Tennessee." She began pulling books from the shelf and showing them to her. "Here's about Nashville during the occupation, and here's one about just Sumner County during that period."

  Another librarian walked up, an older, blonde lady in bifocals. "What is it she needs?"

  The first one said, "Hendersonville during the Civil War."

  A sour look crossed the other woman’s face. "Well, it was such a tiny place back then."

  The second one turned to the shelves and pulled out a book. "Well, there's one with some stories in it. Morgan and Harper rode through the county a bit, I think. And here's another you might like." She began handing over books.

  A goodly pile of them ended up in Shelby’s arms, surely more information than she could possibly scan during lunch. But she thanked the ladies and went looking for a place to study. She settled at a long wooden table and kicked back in a wide chair upholstered in red leather. Cold winter sunshine streamed through the bank of tall windows overlooking the courtyard outside.

  Most of the books were little help, even to enlighten her on the war, for they were too broad of scope and told her nothing she didn’t know already. One was only an alphabetical list of the volunteers enlisted from Sumner County; not much help if she didn’t have a name. But from one she learned things about the outlying counties she’d never known before. As the first librarian had implied, Hendersonville and the rest of Sumner County, along with Nashville and Davidson County, had fallen to Union occupation early in the war. The area had never been completely liberated by the Confederacy in spite of the highly active cavalry units making raids from across the river. But though there was material here about Gallatin, Hartsville and Nashville, the books about the occupation spoke mostly of the state politics of the times, and had little to do with the tiny, unimportant village of Hendersonville.

  Shelby read of skirmishes involving the infamous Morgan's Raiders in Gallatin and Hartsville, and she read of the Union Army's struggle all through the war to keep open the railroad between Louisville and Nashville—the very tracks that ran past her house. Torn up first by Morgan's men, then by local un-mustered marauders and bushwhackers, the railroad had spent about as much time during the war obstructed as it spent functional.

  There was a volume here of anecdotes, filled with photos and stories. A small, privately published bit of local oral history and poorly documented odds and ends. Like a trip through time, it took her back in pictures and words. It told of soldiers being fed by locals, of refugees fleeing burned-out homes, of bravery on the battlefield, of shortages and loss and grief.

  She turned a page to a large portrait, and a cold sweat broke out. Her chest tightened so she could hardly breathe. There he was. The tall man. Posing for the photographer with all the serene dignity of a Southern gentleman. His black hair was trimmed and his sideburns short according to the fashion of the day. The dark gray uniform was new, its buttons all shiny and present. His eyes had that translucence the daguerreotype photos always seemed to give blue eyes, but beneath that Shelby could see the conviction of a man about to defend his home from Yankee intruders. A man who was proud to do so.

  The caption below the photo read:

  Another Sumner volunteer—Captain Lucas Robert Brosnahan of the 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry Regiment, also known as "Bate's Brigade."

  Shelby shivered. This was too real. The man had lived. He really had existed! She rummaged through the pile of books and found again the one with the enlistment records. Heart pounding, she flipped through pages for the 2nd Tennessee Infantry. Found it. Her stomach flopped. She ran her finger down the list. Brosnahan...Brosnahan...Brosnahan, Lucas R. There he was! This felt creepy, like spying, but she had to know about this man who was sharing her home.

  Brosnahan, Lucas R.—enlisted April 25, 1861. 2nd Lt., 1st Lt., Capt. Apr. 8, 1862, replacing Capt. Harcourt. Wounded at Shiloh, was the only surviving officer in his company. Died at Chickamauga, Ga. Sept. 20, 1863. 28 yr. old.

  Shelby shuddered. Died. The man had been dead for a hundred and forty years. He'd died violently, only a year older than she was now, in battle at Chickamauga, near Chattanooga.

  But Shelby had a deep conviction the loss of his life was not the source of his yearning. Something else—something that rent his soul—had happened to him before he died, and that was what she’d felt the night before.

  She returned her pile of books to the librarians for re-shelving, then checked out the one containing her ghost’s photo. As she returned to her office, she felt quivery inside, as if she’d done something she knew she shouldn’t have.

  When Shelby returned home that evening, as she approached the house her pulse began to quicken. So strange, to know the name of the spirit awaiting her. When she pulled into her driveway, she found the porch light on. The power was back.

  She got out of the car and looked up at the bedroom windows. Captain Lucas Brosnahan was in there. Inside that house he yet lived, in an unknowable form, trapped by his own loneliness. The wind picked up, and the first snow of the year began to drift past her face, bright white in the glow of the porch light.

  The weather was worsening quickly. Shelby brought wood from the pile as she hurried inside, definitely in the mood for a fire in the bedroom. In a haze of thought, images of the grieving Captain Brosnahan tumbled in her mind over and over. Haunted eyes. Ragged clothing. Trembling hands and voice. How could there be so little information about the life of a man like him? He was a war hero—a man who'd marched off to defend his country and had given his life for it. Surely there must be descendants.

  Well, no, perhaps he’d never married. And as near as she could tell, this house hadn’t belonged to anyone named Brosnahan in a very long time. In the foyer, she picked up the phone book to look up the name. Nope, no Brosnahans. None in Hendersonville, nor Gallatin, Madison, Goodlettsville or White House. It didn’t mean there were no descendants, but it was telling.

  Against the cold she knew would be severe by morning, she stacked wood in the fireplace and stuffed kindling and tinder in to light from the butane igniter she kept on the mantel. The wind picked up to a howl outside, and there was the sound of sleet against the windows. Even with the baseboard heaters on full blast, the cold crept around the corners of the room, held at bay by the fire in the hearth.

  As she worked, unable to let go of the ghost, she continued to dwell on him. For even though Lucas Brosnahan may not have had descendants, he still had not been a poor, faceless grunt. A Captain, and therefore at least somewhat respected or he would never have been elected to the position, he had to have been more than just another guy with a gun. His life should have been better documented than what she’d found. Somebody should have preserved some sort of record of his life, but there was alm
ost nothing. Only whisperings among schoolchildren who were afraid of him, and who didn’t even know his name.

  Paper lit the kindling. Soon the logs caught, and yellow-white flames danced on them.

  She turned to undress, tossing rolled-up clothing across the room to the laundry basket inside the closet, with just enough spin so the wads bounced off the closet door and made direct hits on her target. The growing fire warmed her skin and the cold air from the room drifted about her body and chilled her nose.

  So who was he, really? A photograph and an entry in a list of names. A vague memory handed down by people more interested in frightening each other than in the life of a soldier of an increasingly distant war in which hundreds of thousands of them died. A statistic among the wounded in one battle and the dead of another. A bit of anonymous dust under an enormous statuary-strewn battlefield in Georgia.

  Why was his spirit here, then, and not near his grave?

  She looked around, wishing for someone to ask, but nevertheless knowing the answer. The house was his home. Above all else, this house was home. That had been plain from the first moment she’d walked through the door. The sense of coming home had been so strong she might have tasted it.

  Her nightgown was flannel, and warmer than any of her lightweight pajamas. She pulled it on over her head, then stood to warm the fabric by the fire. Her hands reached toward the flames to rid her of the aching cold, and she continued deep in thought. The realization crept over her that she must be the only person alive who really knew anything at all about Lucas. Nobody knew any more, nor cared, what he'd been like. The casual reader coming across that photograph wouldn’t know he'd smoked cigars. It was impossible to tell by it how he’d felt about that Mary Beth person, and certainly the children telling tales in schoolyards had no idea how consumed he was by a longing even she couldn’t explain.

  What else had been true about him? Had he a sense of humor? Had he liked animals? Had he been an honorable man? A smile touched her lips as she wondered whether he’d ever gotten rid of those chiggers before he died.

  She padded across the floor, in a hurry to slip between the covers and warm the sheets. As she leaned over to turn out the lamp on her night stand, there was a light snore from the bed next to her.

  Startled, Shelby leapt away and across the room, then turned with a hand to her chest to still her racing, skipping heart as she saw with a wave of relief it was only Lucas Brosnahan, asleep. His dark head lay on one of her pillows. Here was another little factoid about Lucas: he snored.

  It was impossible to help a smile at the wonder of a sleeping ghost. He lay on his back under her blankets, and the snore was actually more like steady, slightly nasal breathing. She approached the bed for a better look, and carefully slipped onto the mattress beside him. Feet tucked in cross-legged, facing the headboard, she leaned over to examine his sleeping face.

  Tonight he seemed innocent. There was no sign of the war anywhere in his countenance. No dirt. No grief. She was glad for his spirit to have this moment of peace. One hand lay relaxed over his chest, and she took it to hold in her lap, between her own hands. It was warm, and that surprised her. As if she’d expected him to feel like a corpse, which seemed silly now that she thought about it. His corpse, or the dusty remnant of it, lay hundreds of miles away. Lucas snuffled and rolled toward her a little, almost onto his side. She held her breath, afraid he would awaken, but he remained asleep and settled once more into his near-snore.

  She felt of his hand. It was big, with large knuckles and long, slender fingers. And calluses. Lucas's palm and fingers were hard and covered with calluses. He worked with them, undoubtedly outdoors, by the tan on his face and forearms. More than likely, he was a farmer. All the men Shelby had ever known had hands that had always been pale and soft and perfectly groomed. These hands gave the impression of physical competence that was hard to find these days. Her fingers felt of his wrist and found a pulse. Gentle surging, perfectly mimicking life. If she hadn’t seen him disappear twice already, she wouldn’t be able to tell he wasn’t a physical being.

  A day’s growth of beard shaded his ruddy face, around his slightly open mouth that gave resonance to the snores. She tried to imagine the woman he’d spoken of before. Mary Beth. Who had she been to him? Obviously someone very important. His wife? What had happened to cause him so much grief over her? For one ridiculous moment she felt a pang of jealousy, then shook it off. Bad enough to envy the living; it was absurd to envy the dead.

  There was a faint scent of horse leather and tobacco on him. Shelby liked it, for it was earthy. Salty. Warm. She felt Lucas's arm through his dingy white longjohns and found muscles that, even in sleep, were hard. Strong.

  With greatest care, she tugged that sleeve back until she could see the white scar on his right forearm. Close up, she could now tell it had been something sharp that had cut him. It was a clean, straight scar. A long knife, perhaps, for it had plainly cut him deep.

  The top two buttons of his longjohns were open, and a covering of straight, black hair showed on his chest. Curiosity perked, and she couldn’t resist reaching out to see if more buttons might be encouraged to slip from their holes. The old, stretched-out buttonholes didn't hold very well, and it took very little to coax them open. The cotton fell open as it was freed, exposing a solid body with a smooth covering of hair that ended at his sternum and trailed off into a thin line that went to his navel. Lucas's chest rose and fell in deep, even breaths. His tan line was a circle around the base of his neck; he was a man who kept his shirt on at all times, though he might roll up his sleeves occasionally, as could be seen by the darkened forearms.

  She held her breath and laid one palm against his belly. No washboard—he wasn't a body builder—but the muscles were solid under his smooth skin scattered with sparse hair, tough like the flesh of his arms. His body pressed against her hand as he breathed, and the slow rhythm was hypnotic. Suggestive. Her heart raced and her cheeks flamed. All she could think was, How beautiful! She wished to dare look farther into the longjohns, beneath the blankets, but didn’t. Couldn’t. She wouldn’t, were he alive, and he seemed so alive. The notion came over her to kiss him awake, as if to awaken him in that manner would break the spell of death and he would become a living man. But she didn’t dare.

  His eyelids fluttered. He stirred and his breaths stalled a moment. Shelby sat up and let go of his hand as a sleepy moan rumbled from his chest, and his eyes opened. Though he looked straight at her, he didn’t seem to see her. Instead his gaze went to the pillow next to him and he uttered a small grunt of bleary disappointment. He went up on one elbow, and noticed his longjohns were open. With one hand he refastened them, gazing sleepy-eyed around the room but still not seeing her. There was something in that gaze. A faraway look that spoke of the loneliness she’d felt the last time she’d seen him. With a desolate sigh, he sank back into the pillow and covered his eyes with his hand. She wondered what he’d been dreaming that had him so disappointed in waking. What was it his soul longed for so desperately?

  Wanting to see his face again, she reached out to take his hand away from his face. But when she touched him, he took a sharp breath and grabbed her wrist, his eyes flew open, and he disappeared in an instant. The covers floated down onto the bed and mist swirled from under them.

  Shelby sighed and reached out to the floating whiteness as it dispersed. "I’m sorry." Then she slipped between the sheets, and found the place he'd lain was very warm. She shut out the bedside lamp, curled up in that spot, and thought how, wherever he was now, his misery must have returned. Her heart ached. "Poor baby." She closed her eyes for her own sleep, floating among thoughts of Lucas.

  Chapter 4

  The next morning when Shelby awoke, the power was off yet again. Shivering inside her heavy terry cloth robe she peeked out a window, but could hardly see for the ice built up on the pane. And in the spots where she could see through, it was nearly impossible to distinguish the ice on the window from the ice co
vering everything else. All was blanketed in white. Two lines of wet tire tracks were the only indication of where the road lay. No going to work in this mess. Icy roads were bad enough, but the real danger was other drivers who were not accustomed to weather like this and who might slide out of control to bang into other cars—namely hers. It was safest to stay home with the manuscript she’d brought last night.

  After making a call to the electric company regarding the outage, she took a candle into the kitchen to see about some breakfast. Now she really wished for a gas stove, for the electric stove was doing her no good at all. Even a wood burning one would have been of better use today, and would have heated the room to boot. Bundled up and sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the bedroom hearth, she ate cold cereal instead of the eggs and toast she would have preferred. Maybe it would be worthwhile to invest in a camping coffee pot she could set over a fire. She’d have to look into it.

  After breakfast, she settled into a chair next to the fire to work. With no television to keep her company, and no music to push back the silence, thick, white snow deadening all sounds, it seemed the world outside retreated and she was surrounded by a thickening wall of quiet. Even the occasional swish of tires on the wet road seemed farther and farther away as she worked, replaced by the snap and crackle of the wood fire next to her. It was peaceful. Manuscript resting on her knees, pencil in hand, Shelby drifted away from her work and found herself lost in the feel of the house around her, idly sorting through all the eddies of thought and emotion swirling here and there. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling, for her sense of Lucas’s love for this house was strong.

  Loud, hurrying, spectral footsteps pounded across the floor in front of her, and she looked up from the papers in her lap. The closet to her left slammed shut with an echoing bang. But when she looked, the door was still open. Nothing had actually moved.