by Laura Briggs
He kicked a clod of dirt, watched it crumble at the base of the mound. Beside him, Wray stuck the spade in the ground, easing down beside it as he said, “Catch your breath a minute. There’s nothing worth taking from the camp—seems they were as bad off as we are.”
Arthur had heard that Union forces fared better in supplies, with plenty of coffee beans and other luxuries off limits to the South. This group had clearly not been so lucky. Their lack of any supplies made him wonder if they had gotten lost from their troop—a common enough event with men who’d never ventured past their birth place suddenly having to navigate miles of unfamiliar countryside.
Passing him a battered canteen, Wray said, “There’s a spring back by the pine grove. Not big enough for bathing, but it’ll do for everything else.”
Arthur gulped the water down, grateful for the cool taste after their labor. He wiped a sleeve across his mouth, remarking, “It is not as fresh-tasting as the one in Crooked Wood. This wilderness does put me in mind of that place, though. It has the same towering oaks and sycamores; the rocks so big a fellow’s arms can hardly span them.”
“Remember stacking those stones for a barn’s foundation?” Wray pushed his kepi hat back, bronze-colored hair stuck to his forehead in damp locks. “We’d help roll ‘em in place then slap the mortar all around.”
“The blacksmith took the flat ones for making headstones,” Arthur recalled. “He would carve a few anytime the signs pointed to a wet winter.”
He looked at the earth they had just mounded, guilt traveling over him like a shiver. He’d played no part in their demise, yet it brought to mind times he’d felled men on the battlefield. No smoke to veil their faces as he ran full charge, pulling a saber from his belt to plunge into their flesh.
“How scared we were to pass the old cemetery,” he said, scarce believing how foolish it seemed now. “The Stroud boys would hold their breath for fear of swallowing spirits—we all did. Except you.” He glanced to his friend, a puzzled smile tugging his lips. “You would have spent the night there, if any dared you to.”
Wray shrugged, sampling the canteen. “Guess I knew that spirits could never bring as much trouble as the living,” he said. A joke, if not for the way his jaw tightened. Did he think of the stone that bore his father’s name? Planted in the northern part of the cemetery, a place often reserved for those who died in shame. In Mitchell Camden’s case, being stabbed in a drunken brawl with a man he claimed had cheated him in a livestock sale.
Cold and hard in his ways—that was how Arthur remembered his friend’s father, the years failing to soften that boyhood impression. At just thirteen, Wray had shouldered the weight of running a farm, his mother’s sole supporter in a place still untamed compared to much of Alabama. No wonder, really, that such a youth would find little to fear in made-up stories of otherworldly spirits.
“You learned everything before I did,” Arthur said. “Four months between us, yet it might have been four years.”
“Think you’ll ever catch up?” The cocky tone held a good-natured challenge.
One that Arthur met with a shake of the head. “How could I? You were first at everything. First to ride a horse and shoot a gun; first to venture past the borders of our birth town. The first to kiss a girl, even.”
“Ada Girvin.” A smile cracked the weary features. “She had sneaked a piece of hard candy from my desk. Now, every time I taste peppermint, I think of her.” Glancing sideways, he noted, “You could have stolen a kiss from Nell Darrow any day.”
The words surprised him, as did the need to deny them. “Nell is a good friend,” he said, picturing the blacksmith’s daughter as he last saw her: tanned skin and plain pinafore, carrying a handful of violets she’d picked from the woods. She had given him one of these in good-bye, lacing it through the button hole of his jacket. Later, he tucked it in his pocket, where he carried it for weeks after it had turned to dust. “She’s a sister to me in every way but blood,” he said, smiling fondly at the memory of warm brown eyes that met his across the rows of school desks. Unlike most of their friends, he saw no plainness in the girl’s features, only the shy nature of a bird afraid to show its colors.
“You’re hardly her idea of a brother,” Wray said with a smirk for the notion. “Leastways, she never heaped such praise on Henry those years we were growing up.”
This might be true, but he could take no pride in it. To hurt anyone so kind and caring as Nell seemed nothing short of sin. “There is much to connect us,” he admitted. “A similar way of thinking, perhaps. But I can make no claim to her heart. “
“Yours already belongs elsewhere,” his friend guessed.
He didn’t have to answer; they both knew the letters he received from the Darrow house were not written by Nell. It was another, more elegant hand that penned the lines of heartfelt devotion he waited so eagerly to read each time the mail was delivered to camp.
Others would tease him for the rate those letters came, another arriving sometimes before he could answer the last. He would merely smile, since none of them had met the doctor before, and could never understand the reason he wrote to her and no other female of his acquaintance. To them, she was an oddity, the first of her kind in a place where healers and quack remedies were more respected than any certificate from a clinic.
“We better head back,” Wray decided. “Might be those Yanks have someone looking for them. We’ll need to report it along with the spring I found.”
As he talked, he pulled the spade from the ground, tying it to his pack. With a glance over his shoulder, he added, “That makes one thing you beat me to—losing your heart to somebody. She must be something, this Mariah.”
“She is,” Arthur said. Climbing to his feet, he lost hold of the canteen. It bounced into the weeds, and he stooped to dig it out, where he found something unexpected beside it. A cluster of violets, the deep hue of purple he knew from fields back home.
It must have been the talk of old times, the memory of the neighbor girl that made him pluck one from the weeds where it grew. He turned it over, studying the petals as a sad smile formed on his lips. Then, he released it to the breeze, a movement that carried it below to the unmarked graves.
Arthur carried a Bible inside his haversack, the pages worn from previous generations seeking comfort in their trials. At times, he doubted any of these could have rivaled the wretched existence of a Rebel camp. The loss of food and comfort was nothing to the loss of friends, an event made frequent between the spreading of disease and the battles they fought in the woods and fields of the rural South.
When summer came, so did the storms, lightening and hail, the rain coming down in sheets to flood the tents where soldiers slept on the ground. They marched in the rain, fought in it, too, when the circumstances called for it.
Through all of this, Arthur continued to search for answers in the faded Bible. On Sunday mornings, he gathered with others from his company to hear the chaplain speak of a love powerful enough to heal the nation’s deepest wounds. Some would nod their heads; others murmured “amen.” Arthur waited quietly for a sign that such a feat was still possible in the land that grew more bloodied and broken every day.
Last night, we came through a town where a deserter had just been caught from the regiment camped near Bowling Green. He was flogged nearly fifty times, crying as he said that his children were starving back home. Afterward, they locked him up to face more penance when the news should reach his company’s commander.
They could have done worse by him, I know, for such a crime. Still, my heart did fill with sympathy to see one so clearly in distress for his loved ones’ well-being. The many times I have thought about the risk that would be worth it to see you again, dear love, cannot be named in the space I have left to write.
He didn’t dare express such feelings to any but Mariah. His parents would say it was foolhardy, a dangerous emotion in need of dampening. Only the girl who shared his intense yearning co
uld understand, and to her was sent the bulk of the stationary he could rarely buy.
The letters mailed in return bore details that sometimes mirrored his experiences. Mariah spent her days trekking through rough terrain along the town’s outlying homesteads, a heavy satchel strung across her shoulder. She bandaged the hurt and doctored the aged, her services meeting with little or nothing in return.
She too had witnessed death in its many cruel forms, starting with that of her mother. It was this which had turned her from God while just a girl of six. Age and experience had not changed her mind on the subject, and it seemed love would not, either.
“How can you share my heart but not my faith?” Arthur pleaded on one occasion, overcome at the thought of losing her to their differences.
“Would you change for me?” had been her reply.
The look on his face had been answer enough, the doctor turning coolly away. Were she to ask him again, would he give the same reply? It bothered him that he didn’t know, his heart refusing to answer either way.
“Give us, Lord, the strength to face adversity,” the chaplain prayed, head bowed along with those of men who came to worship. Arthur glanced around, seeing eyes that were closed and hands clasped in earnest plea. Some were missing their fingers; others were plagued by the yellowed skin and rotting teeth of the dreaded scurvy.
Strapping boys wasting into scarecrows, their clothes just as badly torn. His friend Wray still had the robust frame of youth but with feet that were constantly bruised from marching sixteen miles a day without boots. Still, no supplies came, their rations down to cornmeal and canned peas as October brought the first frost to those who lost their tents in the summer storms.
Arthur covered his face, begging silently, Take from us these burdens we carry. Reach out Your hand and pull us up from the depths of hopelessness before it swallows us whole.
16
November 6th 1862
A camp near Bridgeport
Dearest Mariah,
Your eyes are not mistaken: the address I write from tonight is, indeed, within a hundred miles of where you are.
Marching orders have taken us back to home territory, our regiment sent in pursuit of Union raiders who plague the local farmers. It is a simple mission, as far as they go, and I expect surrender will be swift, since we greatly outnumber them and come unexpected. Already, some have begun to celebrate as if we stormed the camp, with prisoners taken and not a single shot.
The sun burned low as Arthur tucked the letter inside his haversack, envelope unsealed for finishing later. He would fill the paper’s remaining space with details of tomorrow’s raid, where they planned to surprise the enemy still at breakfast, or asleep even, if they could ferret out their hiding place in time.
This, combined with the fact they were back in home territory at long last, had brightened the mood of more than a few in the camp. Songs were raised from a smattering of instruments, shouts, and cheers accompanying the anthem “Dixie” and bittersweet chorus of “Home! Sweet Home!”
Arthur joined in now and then, his baritone fading when the hymns of praise began, lips stumbling over words he’d known since boyhood, a twinge of conscience rising inside him for the lack of enthusiasm. Given the circumstances, he should feel closer to God and not as if he were obliged to One whose debt he didn’t care to pay.
Across from him, Wray dozed on a blanket stuffed with straw. In his frocked coat and bare feet, a cap tilted over his face, he looked every bit the Johnny Reb from the newspaper drawings. He stirred as the song broke, the words to Amazing Grace fading with the last of the twilight. “Wish I hadn’t woke up,” he said, propping himself on one elbow, eyes heavy from sleep. “I dreamed Hattie Cray met me by the spring for Saturday night courting. She used to put her feet in the water, just to feel the cold—said it made her feel twice as alive.”
Arthur caught the wistful edge in his voice and wondered if it was for the girl or the simple memory of a time and place better than this. He was about to ask when another soldier joined them at the fire, younger in appearance, with tawny hair and freckled features that brought another face to mind.
“What will it be, then?” Henry Darrow questioned, fingers poised on the tin whistle as he glanced cheerfully around. “A love song for the girl back home?” He sent a wink in Arthur’s direction.
Arthur shook his head while others nearby laughed. “Something other than music,” he suggested, sending Henry digging in his pocket for an envelope that bore a woman’s handwriting.
“A letter from home,” Henry said, holding it up to the cheers of the other men, some of whom had never even been to Sylvan Spring. So deep ran the hunger for news of any kind, that it mattered little who or where it came from.
“My sister, Nell,” he continued, unfolding the stationary. “With a detailed account of the doings on Mischief Night.”
“Knobbly Nell?” cried a boy from the next campfire. One of the Stroud brothers, his recollection of the girl’s long ago nickname drawing snorts from their classmates who were close enough to hear.
Feeling protective of his childhood friend, Arthur interrupted. “Henry, your sister had a clever way of writing, I remember, from our days at school. Go ahead and read us her news.”
His compliment proved true, the letter’s narrative painting scenes from a world he’d almost forgotten, so altered was his notion of what it meant to celebrate. He saw again the lanterns carved from gourds, their fiendish grins alight with a candle’s flame. A bonfire made from broken furnishings; four scared faces as young Wray struck the match to light a trail of snuff before a woodland shack.
Afterward, he found his face was damp, an emotion that escaped the others’ notice in the firelight. He was not the only one who was in this state, but Henry and his friends were already drifting to another spot nearer the fire, where a soldier in a tattered coat sawed the chorus to a homesick tune on a violin.
Only Wray had remained, stretched over his blanket with his hands clasped behind his head. In a voice somewhat hoarse, he wondered, “Think we’ll winter over here?”
“Hope so,” Arthur replied. Inside, he was thinking of how Wray’s face had changed with the letter’s mention of his father. Mitchell Camden was furious that night they stole his snuff for the childhood prank. His anger had left a mark on Wray’s jaw, still visible in the form of a small white scar. He could see it when his friend turned towards the fire, eyes clear of the tears that must haunt his own.
“They might give us leave of absence for Christmas,” Arthur said, speaking aloud the hope he nurtured in spite of himself. “We could see our families again—”
“And you could see Mariah,” the other man finished, a half-smile forming on the usually stoic face. When Arthur didn’t reply, he propped himself on one arm, seeking his face in the firelight. “She didn’t break it off,” he said. “Did she?”
“There is nothing to break,” he admitted. “No promise except to write each other. There is an obstacle…a disagreement I refused to compromise the last time we talked. She refused as well,” he added, to make it fair. “We couldn’t see a way to make such opposite ideas live equally between us.” He swallowed, frustrated at the tug from his conscience. A stand-in for his waning faith, he envisioned bitterly. “I have wondered lately if it matters as much as I thought. If it is worth driving a wedge between us,” he said.
The violin was wrapping up its tune, the last sad note trailing off in a hum of strings. Wray said nothing for so long Arthur wondered if had drifted off. Finally he did speak. “Seems to me you owe her something more. For saving your life—if that is what she did.”
“It was.” He shoved another log on the fire, orange flames licking the bark. “She still does, in some ways. To read her sweet words is all that keeps me sane at times. That and the picture I carry in my mind of amber hair and shining eyes.” He lost himself in the image once more, her face easier to picture in the dark when nothing else could block it out. “You should write to Ha
ttie,” he said, remembering the dream his friend had mentioned earlier. “For your sake, if nothing else. To hear from one who feels for you the way I do for Mariah.”
This time, no response came. The crackle of wood and coals was all he heard before sleep stole his thoughts.
17
Campfire smoke had been spotted drifting from a stretch of woods known as Crow’s Hollow. The farmers who kept crops within its eight mile border were certain that blue coats were the ones foraging their winter fruits and kale. Arthur’s detachment believed it too, tracking the enemy’s location through a series of fields and foot paths in the hours before dawn.
“Think we’ll take them without a fight?” Henry wondered, voice hopeful despite the lag in his step. Last night’s revelry had worn off, the face beneath his cap pale-looking in the first traces of dawn.
“If we don’t,” Arthur said, “then it is nothing we haven’t done before.”
The boy nodded, a frown creasing his brow.
Sometimes Arthur forgot how much younger Henry was than most of the soldiers in their group, and that he would still have been studying at a school desk if the war hadn’t broken out. He stood his ground with the oldest and bravest among them, his uniform battered with the same experience and regret as the rest.
“Your sister’s letter was heartening,” Arthur told him, thinking a subject change would distract them both from the morning’s impending danger. “She will make a fine teacher if that is how she chooses to use her talent.”
Henry shrugged. “She has no choice, I reckon. Unless one of our neighbors takes a shine to her,” he added, somewhat doubtfully.
Blunt words that Arthur supposed were true in their own way. He imagined the girl had little choice in her future while his destiny lay between equally rocky paths. One of these found him devoted to God and his earthly parents; the other to a woman who defied both of them in her core beliefs and actions. “I envy Nell her strong faith,” he said, realizing afterward how strange that must sound. “She always had a devout heart, I remember. One that kept her anchored through life’s uncertainties.”
