by Julianne Lee
Word came down from Gallatin that a couple hundred Union soldiers had died in a wreck when a train came upon one such necktie north of town and had been unable to stop in time. Most of those who survived had been riding on top of the cars, and jumped free when they saw the ruined track ahead. When Shelby heard stories like this, she was at a loss to feel anything but despair for the entire country. Ruth and Dad Brosnahan had the luxury of holding out hope for Confederate success, but Shelby was burdened with the awful truth. She alone of all those involved knew what the outcome would be, and she knew what the cost would be in terms of the decimation of an entire generation of men, destruction of millions of dollars worth of property, and bone-deep hatred that would echo through the centuries.
The provisions Shelby had hidden were all that kept the family from going hungry that winter, for there were no rations from the occupying army and no help from neighbors who were barely able to live themselves. The military governor of the county was relentless in his persecution of families of Confederate soldiers, and many more folks lost their land, forced to move in with relatives or become homeless refugees. One story was told by several who had seen it happen, of a baby thrown onto a fire because its father was in the Confederate Army. The child lived, rescued by its mother, but had been horribly burned and scarred for life. Shelby held Matthew, and wept for the children.
Spring staggered in after winter, then stumbled into summer. News of heavy fighting everywhere became a daily occurrence. Each trip into town, each visit from a neighbor or relative, brought rumors from travelers and newspaper reports gathered in Nashville. Shelby thought her heart couldn’t stand to hear any more of Lucas’s unit moving closer and closer to Chattanooga and Chickamauga Creek, and the battlefield where he was to die. She wanted to scream for it to stop. That it should all stop, and everyone should simply drop their guns and go home. That Lucas should come home and be with herself and Matthew, and never ever leave again. Each day that brought her closer to September 20 made her want to just scream until everyone would listen.
The hot weather of summer was gaining momentum in mid-August. A rider arrived at the house through the trees, and kicked his horse to a trot as he came into the clear. Shelby started to turn from the window to get the gun, but she hesitated as she recognized the roan mare.
“Ruth! Come quickly! It’s Amos!” She went to the porch to meet him, and as he rode up she was shocked at the sickly pale of his face.
Ruth burst through the door behind her, picked up her skirts and ran down the steps to meet her husband. He dismounted, seeming barely able to stand, and held her close for a long time before speaking. He said, “Where’s Martha?”
Shelby couldn’t recall Amos ever giving much of a damn what Martha was up to at any given moment, and that frightened her. “What’s wrong, Amos? Where’s Gar?”
He turned in her direction, but didn’t look straight at her. “Gar ain’t coming home. I’ve got to tell Martha.”
The flat simplicity of the statement was like smacking into a plain, cinderblock wall. Gar wasn’t coming home, and that meant he was dead. Shelby had expected it, but the news was shocking nevertheless. And she had some news of her own. She could barely speak it.
“No need, Amos. She’s with Gar.”
That took a moment to sink in, for Amos was obviously exhausted and hungry and not thinking clearly. He was gaunt and bent, and he appeared to have aged a decade since last summer. When he finally comprehended, he seemed to deflate in a long sigh. Ruth helped him into the house, for he couldn’t put weight on his right leg. His knee was so swollen as to strain at his trouser leg. “I think it’s broken,” he muttered as he hopped and hobbled at his wife’s side. Shelby came to lend support, for he was not a small man.
Amos sat at the dining table to eat, his bad leg stuck out to the side. All through supper he didn’t speak, but only chewed his food slowly and stared into the middle distance. Neither Shelby nor Ruth wished to push him for details of what had happened, and Amos’s father filled the otherwise empty air with the story of how Martha had died. Though he hadn’t witnessed the shooting, having been fast asleep on his cot at the time, he made up for his lack of first hand knowledge by telling the story with complete confidence and authority.
After a time, though, there was nothing left to say about Martha and the room fell silent. Dad Brosnahan began to fidget, the way Lucas used to, his fingers playing with an unused spoon on the table. Amos sat back with a sigh, and it was plain neither of them wanted him to tell the story they all knew he must.
Then Amos spoke, slowly and with a couple of throat-clearings as he began. “General Morgan and some others were captured.” Ruth gasped, but Shelby was not surprised, for history had well recorded the Ohio raid that ended John Morgan’s career. Amos went on, “It was in Ohio. A bunch of men had been killed and captured with him. The rest of us had to retreat and make our way back across Kentucky as best we could. We scattered. I figured we’d join up with some units south of Nashville.” He paused to watch the spoon in his father’s fingers for a moment, flashing in the candle light, then continued in a vacant voice. “We were crossing Green River, I think. Trying to make it to Bowling Green for provisions. We’d found a ford, but it was a deep one and our horses were fairly swimming across it. There were maybe ten of us. I got across, and Gar was right behind me. While I was climbing the bank, there was a shot. I turned, and Gar’s horse was there, lunging, panicking, but Gar was gone.” Amos’s voice faltered, but he continued, “Then I saw him. Floating downstream on his back. There were more shots, and his body jerked in the water. He was dead, but the devils were still shooting at him. Our boys returned fire, ’cause now they could see by the gun smoke where the Yankees were hiding. But I don’t think they hit anything.”
“Did you get his body? Did you bury him?”
Amos ducked his head. “No, Daddy. Two more of our boys were shot, and the rest were running for cover. By the time I could get dismounted and down by the water, he was off in the rapids and gone.”
Shelby asked, “How did you break your leg?” She figured she could guess.
He shrugged. “I dove in anyway and followed him down the rapids a ways. Cracked my knee good on a boulder, so bad I saw stars for about a day. I think the knee bone is busted.” He laid a tender hand on the bulge in his trouser leg, and Shelby felt a chill of sympathetic pain. “I made it to the bank so I wouldn’t drown, but couldn’t follow Gar any farther.”
Amos’s father had stopped fiddling with his spoon, and now only stared into the bowl of it. The room was silent, and even Shelby couldn’t think of anything to say that would make the pain easier to take. Finally the old man said, “You tried, son.”
Then Shelby realized Amos was weeping. Tears filled his eyes and began dropping to his cheeks. Though he tried to discreetly wipe them away, he couldn’t keep up with them and he finally laid his face in one hand and let go. His shoulders shook in silence.
The old man struggled to his feet with the aid of his cane, hobbled to his cot, and lay down. Not much else was said for the rest of the evening.
Amos’s plan was to stay there until his knee healed, then, if he healed well enough to walk again even at a limp, rejoin the Confederate Army wherever he could find a unit. Though Ruth cried and pleaded with him to take a discharge for his injury, he refused to discuss the matter with her. As soon as he could walk, he would be headed out to fight.
But he wasn’t there even that long. Three days after his arrival, a detail of Yankees rode up from the road at a canter, raising dust and riding two abreast. Ten of them. Shelby saw them from the window in the upstairs hallway, and hurried to Amos’s bedroom door. “Amos!” Her brother-in-law was stretched out on his bed, reading a book. “Amos, it’s Yankees. You got to hide!”
With a muttered curse, he struggled to his one good foot and reached for the cane he’d borrowed from his father. “Go down and stall them. I’ll duck into the basement and out the kitchen tunnel then i
nto the woods. Come get me—”
“No. The tunnel is blocked. It’s where we’ve hidden our food.”
A look of despair dulled his eyes, and she knew he figured he was a dead man. Then he said with little conviction, “Stall them anyway. I’ll make a run for the woods from the side door.”
Shelby hurried downstairs to comply, but as she reached the front door the soldiers kicked it open. It flew wide with a crash of glass, and banged against the basement door. The wood cracked where the door knob hit. Men bowled her over, shouting and cursing, and one grabbed her by the arm.
“Leave my house this instant!” Shelby’s words went unheeded, and more than likely unheard. A scurry of blue uniforms filled the foyer and one of them hauled open the basement door just as the hobbling figure of Amos emerged from upstairs. A shout went up from the soldiers. Amos made a hopeless dash for the side door, but was smashed against it by three Yankees. There was a single cry of pain, the cane went clattering to the floor, then he was silent as they yanked his arms behind him and put his wrists in shackles. Shelby followed as they dragged him, kicking and struggling, outside to the porch. Samuel Clarence was there, a thin, ugly smile on his face.
“Hello, Amos.”
“Craven traitor.”
Shelby said to Samuel, “Do you have a warrant? You’ve broken into my home; you’ll need a warrant.”
Samuel’s eyes flashed with rage and he said with theatrically strained patience, “Mary Beth, you know you have no rights. Your beloved husband took them with him when he went off with the rebel army.” His voice raised to nearly a shout, the false patience left his voice, and a flush rose to his face. “Also, you whore, I do have a warrant, obtained after Amos was seen traveling the Nashville Pike four days ago not far from Gallatin.” He pulled a paper from the front pocket of his tunic and brandished it like a bludgeon. “A warrant for the death of Amos Brosnahan, known rebel and subversive whose crimes are too many to enumerate here.”
Ruth whispered, “Oh...God.”
Death. Panic rose, and Shelby swallowed a scream. Death? “What are you saying, Samuel? Amos has been condemned without a trial?”
“As I said, rebels have forfeited their Constitutional rights and we are all under martial law. General Paine has no love for traitors to the Union.”
“Neither does he seem to have any love for the laws of that Union.”
“I’m not here to argue. I’m here to hang this man.”
Amos yanked and struggled, but the three Yankees held him solid. One of them shackled his hands behind his back.
Samuel Clarence ordered the three to set him on one of the horses. “Find a likely tree and take him there.” He looked around and spotted one near the tracks. “That’ll do.” Struggling mightily, Amos was mounted on one of the Yankee horses and the hanging party moved to the tree. Ruth ran up behind and pounded, panicked, on a soldier’s back as she cried and pleaded for her husband’s life. She went ignored, except for Amos who shouted at her to get away lest they kill her, too. He tried to throw a leg over, but a rifle was thrust upside his head and he finally sat still.
Shelby ran to restrain Ruth, and struggled with her. She shouted, “Samuel Clarence, don’t do this!”
Daley ignored her, except to press his lips together and stare with dull, unimpressed eyes.
The horse was positioned under the heaviest fork of the oak tree by the tracks, and a rope thrown over a high branch. The loop was not a traditional hangman’s noose, but Shelby figured it would be as deadly for execution. One of the soldiers rode aside Amos and lifted the loop over his head, then pulled the knot snug against his neck.
“This is murder, Daley.” Amos’s voice sounded calm, but his eyes were wide with terror and his skin a sickly pale. Samuel Clarence proceeded to read the death warrant signed by General Paine, quickly and carelessly, words running into each other and stumbling in such confusion as to make them unintelligible.
In the midst of this, Shelby’s shocked mind landed on a thought that at once seemed appallingly inappropriate, yet also fortuitous. She turned to Clyde, who stood watching by the corner of the house, slack-jawed and teary-eyed. Poor Clyde didn’t need to be watching this in any case, so she went to him and whispered, “Clyde. Go get Mr. Brosnahan’s horse from the stable and take her into the woods. Don’t let anyone see you.”
It took him a moment to comprehend, but then he gave her a bleary nod and went to do as he was told.
Shelby turned back toward the tree just as the reading was finished, and witnessed the slapped horse bolt from under Amos. Ruth screamed, and began to wail with grief. Shelby took the woman into her arms and pressed her face to her shoulder so Ruth couldn’t watch. Shelby was the one who saw Amos swing and kick, his neck intact and his body struggling for air. Ruth, sobbing, tried to look, but Shelby held her tight and wouldn’t let her. Amos flopped like a fish on a line, interminably it seemed, until he finally began to weaken then went unconscious. The executioners let him dangle some more, to be certain he was dead. When Shelby finally let go, Ruth ran to him, irrationally trying to lift his weight from the rope, all the while sobbing and with tears streaming down her face.
Samuel Clarence turned to one of his men and said, “Search the stable and the other outbuildings for his horse. Check the kitchen, too.”
“He had no horse.” Shelby’s eyes stung, and she was going to lose control soon if these devils didn’t get away from her.
“He had one in Gallatin.”
“I doubt it, and in any case when he arrived here he was on foot.” She hoped nobody had noticed Amos’s reluctance to walk wasn’t just because he didn’t want to go with the blue-coated men.
Daley told his men to search the stable anyway, then came to stand nose-to-nose with her. “Listen, bitch. You’d best have a care from now on. Let this be a lesson to you. This family lives...” he nodded in the direction of Amos’s corpse, “...or dies by my mercy. I can be pleasant or I can be ugly.” His voice lowered to a soft intimacy that gave her the creeps. “It’s entirely up to you.”
Her throat tightened, but she forced it to steadiness against her despair. “What did I ever do to you, Samuel?”
Rage glittered in his eyes, and his lips pressed together. Without reply, he turned and went to his horse. When the men were finished searching the outbuildings and hadn’t found Amos’s horse, they left the Brosnahans to cut the body down from the tree and clean Ruth’s husband for burial.
That night, Shelby lay in her bed, thinking, listening to the weeping coming from the next room, where Amos was laid out on the bed and Ruth sat up with the body. Shelby’s mind sifted through all the deaths, all the losses. Martha, Gar, Amos. The horses and hound dogs Lucas had loved so well. The things that had made this house their home were dwindling, and soon Lucas would also be among the dead. Sometime in October or November she would receive a letter from someone in his unit, and that would be the end of Dad Brosnahan’s sons. More than half the family would be gone, and she couldn’t see the old man lasting much longer once that happened. It would kill him to hear that news. The family was diminishing, and soon it might be gone entirely, for they were all at risk. The horrible aloneness cut through her like cold. She rolled toward Lucas’s side of the bed, and laid her arm across the empty space, wishing it weren’t.
History had to change. As the realization formed, resolve steeled her. Like a warmth of sunrise, the revelation grew. History had to change, even if it was for just one man, and she was the only one who could accomplish that. She sat up in bed. She was the wild card, and she would be the instrument of change.
Her heart began to race. It was the end of August. Three weeks before the Battle of Chickamauga, just south of Chattanooga. It was a long way—nearly three hours by car and weeks on horseback—but she figured she could make it. With luck, she might be able to find Lucas’s unit before they reached the battlefield. Then she could convince him to come home. Surely he would see the family needed him more than the Confe
deracy did. He had to. She could go there, and bring him home. Her heart skipped with excitement and hope, and she lay back down but slept fitfully.
“Mary Beth, you can’t.”
“Ruth, I must.” Shelby was gathering things to take with her. An old saddle bag belonging to Lucas lay on the dining table, and she set out things to take: knife, food, a few coins, blanket, rope, slicker, flint and striker, and most especially the gun and its ammunition. She rolled up the blanket, then wrapped that in the slicker before tying it with the rope, in a loop so she could sling the roll over her shoulder. The small items, cash, and food went into the bags.
“It’s too dangerous to travel so far without an escort! All those bushwhackers out there!” Ruth cut in front of her as she tried to leave the room, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “Mary Beth, you mustn’t put yourself in such danger! What if you encounter someone who would do to you what that other man would have?”
“Then I’ll kill him, same as I did the other man.” Shelby was firm, having decided her course and knowing she wouldn’t be swayed. “I’m not afraid, and I won’t let anyone keep me from Lucas.” It was a lie. She was afraid, and abhorred the thought of killing anyone else, but there was no choice but to stick with her decision. The alternative was to do nothing and let Lucas die.
“You won’t ever reach him. They’ll kill you. They’ll chase you down, violate you, and then they’ll kill you.” For Ruth to speak so frankly was alarming in itself. Shelby had a moment of doubt, but then realized what she must do.
“Come, then, Ruth. Upstairs. Help me with something for a moment.” She took her sister-in-law by the hand and drew her along upstairs.