Spake As a Dragon

by Larry Edward Hunt

  “Hold on Mister, I remember that outfit, the 69th Pennsylvania. I remember because we had to write down the names of all the soldiers that were alive and wounded and it was the 69th that assembled all the notes when we were through.”

  “Oh, that’s great!” Said Malinda, “you mean at one time you had a list of the wounded?”

  “Yes ’em we sure did, but them Pennsylvania soldier boys took the ledger with them when they left.”

  “How close we came, if we only had that list,” Malinda looked at the girl, “I’m sorry Miss, I know it is not your fault, but if you could have just seen his golden hair, blue eyes and that broad smile of his I’m sure you would have remembered.”

  “I almost forgot,” Luke said. “That man from the 69th said he saw a boy picked up near here wearing a cap with a black ostrich plume in it. He thinks he wasn’t dead only wounded.”

  “Hold it Mister! You say a black feather? Heck you’re looking for Matt Scarburg, ain’t you? He’s got blonde hair and blue eyes! Them Yanks couldn’t get him into one of their wagons without his black feather.”

  Malinda almost fainted, “You know him?”

  “Know him? Know him, you say? I sure do, he’s married to my sister Kimberly.”

  “Married? Your sister? Luke, Luke, find me a place to sit down, I don’t believe I can stand any longer.”

  The girl began to explain. She said her name was Kelly Holmes and her sister was Kimberly. Matthew was shot in the left leg almost at the spot where Malinda was now sitting. The litter bearers placed him in a wagon and brought him into town. She explained the Army doctors left with the rest of the Army when it pulled out, and there was only one doctor in all of Gettysburg. He had so many wounded to care of her and her sister did not think he would ever get to Matt, so they carried him home to see if they might help him. She explained her father Mark Holmes was a clockmaker, but he had worked almost twenty-four hours a day since the two Armies started the fight doctoring the boys the best he could in the amputation tent.

  He had been on his feet almost constantly since the first day of the battle on the 3rd of July, on the final day, Saturday he staggered into his house exhausted. He fell asleep at the table while their mother tried to fix him something to eat. She said Matt was lying in her father’s bed bleeding to death. She hated to, but she awoke her father and told him she and Kim had picked up a wounded Southern boy and tried as best they could to stop the bleeding in his leg wound. Everything they tried had failed. She said she told her father if something wasn’t done, and soon, the soldier was going to die.

  Her father had them bring Matt into the kitchen and put him on the kitchen table. Her father examined the wound and agreed to its severity. He said the bone was shattered and the only hope, and that was slim, was amputation, but all the Army doctors had already left when the Army pulled out. Kelly said Kim, her sister, begged her father to save Matt’s life. She said her father was hesitant repeating he was no doctor, he was only a clockmaker, but he finally relented explaining for the past two days he had helped the doctors in the Army tents whack off arms and legs, he guessed he could do as good a job of butchery as they did.

  Using one of his crafting saws from his toolbox, he cut Matt’s leg off. Malinda looked faint. “Shall I go on,” she asks? Continuing she explained how her father did the amputation and how he and her sister sewed the stump of the leg back together. “Father then turns to me and says, “Now he’s in God’s hands.”

  “For the first week or so, we didn’t know whether Matt was going to live or die. Well obviously, he didn’t die as we now know.”

  “Where is he? I must see him.”

  “Of course Mrs. Scarburg, I will take you to him immediately. He is working with my father in the clock shop.”

  Malinda opens the door of the Holmes Clock Shop and quietly walks in. Matt has his back turned to the door and does not see her enter. He is on a lathe turning metal parts.

  “Matthew,” Malinda says softly. He does not turn. “Matthew Scarburg,” she says louder.

  Matt turns and drops the piece he is holding, “Mother! Is it really you?”

  She rushes across the room and hugs her son, but she notices Matt has walked a couple of steps from the lathe. Astonished, “Matt, you walked! Kelly told us you lost one of your legs in the battle, how are you walking?”

  Pulling up his pant leg, Matt shows his mother and Luke his artificial leg. “What!” Said Luke, “What is that?”

  The leg is shiny and made entirely of metal. Luke kneels down to examine it closer, “It’s a metal leg Mother! Who made this Matt?”

  “Mark Holmes, Kimberley’s father, but, I would think you all would be excited to see ME not my fancy leg!”

  “Brother Matt, I am more than excited I’m ecstatic that you are alive. I thought you bought it at the rail fence. I’m real sorry Matthew that I couldn’t stay with you. I couldn’t get back to you; I was captured at the rock wall on Cemetery Ridge. Right before Pickett’s Charge you had said you last saw Father at the boulder in Devil’s Den, did you ever hear anything more of him?”

  “Luke, please do not feel guilty or sorry for leaving me at the fence. Remember, I was there too I know you had orders to leave. As far as checking on Father, a couple of weeks after I had recuperated enough to come to my senses I sent Kelly and Kim down to the Letterman Hospital. The hospital stayed here about a month after the battle before moving on. All they found out was Father was alive and had been moved to a prisoner-of-war camp, but they could not find out where.”

  “Later did you seek more information on your father,” asks Malinda?”

  “I did Mother, Mark and I have fitted injured soldiers with Mark’s artificial limbs every since the battle. I have made it a point to question every soldier to see if they knew anything. My best estimate, from talking with all these amputees, is Father was probably sent to a prisoner-of-war camp, somewhere up north, maybe to Chicago or to Maryland. That’s all I have been able to find out.”

  “Matthew explain to me about these...these...”

  “Artificial legs? Mark was a clock-maker and has worked with springs, gears and pulleys all his life. He designed a movable knee joint, and with a series of gears, wires and pulleys build inside, one can walk. Its gears also allow the foot to move also. With a little practice, an amputee can practically walk normally.”

  “Matt, did you ever go down to Devil’s Den where Father was injured?”

  “I did Luke, and I know what your question is. You want to know what those letters and numbers mean that Father scratched on the rock, right? I believe they were: 2K168. Luke, do these mean anything to you?”

  “Nothing Matt, that day right before you arrived, Father spoke to me, but you know with the noise of the fighting, I barely understood what he was saying. He might have said something about the letters, but all I could hear was something about the Bible. I assumed he thought he was dying and wanted one. If you recollect I asked if you had a Bible, you said you didn’t have one and neither did I. Immediately I got a bullet wound to my head and left to find medical help for myself and Father. You were still with Father when I left, did he say anything to you?”

  “Not a thing Luke, he was unconscious. I only stayed a minute or so after you left when an officer ordered us to retreat. Oh yeah, remember right before Pickett’s Charge I told you about that hospital orderly by the name of Charles Babb. He was with Father when I left, but that’s all I know.”

  “Matthew, what about graves? Is it possible Father died and was buried here on the battlefield? Did that Letterman Hospital have its own burial plot?”

  “Luke, there were tens of thousands killed those three days in July 1863, you were here you know, but only a few hundred graves have names. The majority of those killed are buried in common graves without any names listed whatsoever. The town’s folks buried most of the dead and I still remember for weeks after the battle the stench was so bad we had to wear rags over our noses. It is said that you could s
mell Gettysburg’s dead bodies and dead horses that lay rotting in the hot July sun for forty miles. It was a miserable time, to say the least.

  “In November President Lincoln came here and dedicated a national cemetery. It only has roughly six thousand graves and almost half of them are un-identified. Most all the ones identified are Yankees. We have checked Father’s name is not among them.

  “Luke, I said all this to point out the enormity of finding Father’s final resting place – assuming, that is, he actually died here. Many of the men died days later and were simply buried by the side of the road. If buried at all.”

  Malinda had been listening closely to every word Matthew spoke. “Thank you son, I forced Luke to bring me here hoping I could find out what happened to you and your father, I feel better, at least I found you.”

  “Mother, I must ask, why did you not answer my posts? I wrote you dozens of letters during the past years, but never a response. Kim and I would have left Pennsylvania and journeyed to Alabama, but I figured you all had left, were dead or for some reason my posts were not being delivered. I could not ride with one bad leg all the way to Alabama without the assurance you would be there to greet me.”

  “Son, you and Luke had the same postal experience. Luke, also said he has written for years and never received an answer from me. I’m wondering what has been going on – I guess possibly your Father experienced the same?”

  Luke and Malinda spent the next couple of days as guests at the Holmes house. The time was totally consumed by the swapping of stories between Matt and Luke.

  “So,” said Matt, “Mother lost the farm in Alabama? Scarlett is burned to the ground? Uncle Jed and Jefferson were killed? Father never returned? Did you not have any good news to bring?”

  “Oh yes, the most important good news I saved for last – I am married! I met and married a girl by the name of Catherine Babb. We met on her farm in Kentucky while I was escaping the Yankees and trying to get back home. She is living at Scarlett now.”

  As always all good things must come to an end, “Luke,” said Malinda, “I believe we must get started back to South Carolina if we’re going to get there before Christmas. Let’s head back Monday morning – if that’s all right with you? There is nothing more we can find here.”

  “Matthew,” said Luke, “why don’t you and Kim come with us and celebrate Christmas with the rest of the family?”

  “Luke, there is nothing more I would like, but these artificial legs Mark and I make for the wounded soldiers are more important at the moment. Without Mark’s artificial legs, these fellows will be invalids the rest of their lives. Mark can give them at least some type of a normal live. I hope you understand Mother?”

  “Oh, Matt, hush son...what you two are doing is of greater importance. There will be more Christmas’ to come, but these soldiers to whom you fit legs are only going to get one chance for you to help them. Christmas is just one day, your artificial legs will help them the rest of their lives.”

  “I know Mother, but we cannot furnish everyone with artificial legs, we do not have money enough to buy supplies to make them. If it weren’t for donations, we could not even make the ones we are able to produce. Mark’s family and mine are barely surviving; every penny we get goes to the soldiers. Mother, we just need money and a lot of it!”

  “I’m sorry son, you know if I had any money I would give it to you gladly, but I just do not have any, I wish I did.”

  A PLAN

  Sitting around the campfire a few days out of Gettysburg, Malinda asks, “Luke, I sure wish there was something we could do to help Matthew and the Holmes families. I am so proud of Matthew; the work he and Mark are doing is a gift from God. We must find some way to help them.”

  Luke had also been thinking about Matthew’s situation and the good deeds they are doing for the injured soldiers. Thinking of his, Catherine and Sam’s gold mine, he said to her that he had an inkling of a plan to help get Matt and Mark money for their work, but would let her know more when they returned to South Carolina.

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  THE GOLD MAP

  The trip from Gettysburg back to Scarlett consumed the better part of two weeks but was accomplished without incident; however, they made one same detour to check on the Anthony family. Mister and Missus Antony were fine, but Susan had returned to work with Lucy Stone on the women’s suffrage initiative.

  After returning home, Malinda and Luke told of finding Matthew, his marriage to Kimberly Holmes and the good work he and his father-in-law Mark were doing making the artificial legs for crippled and disfigured soldiers. She explained that Matthew had lost one of his legs and was using one of their artificial ones to walk around.

  Sary said she had saved a few dollars and if it would help Malinda could send it to Matthew. With tears in her eyes, Malinda thanked her old friend for her generosity, but explained to proceed with the work Matt is doing is going to need quite a bit of money – more money than all of them have, and besides they have to begin work on Scarlett.

  Luke inquired as to the situation at the Mill. Sam answered by saying at the current time the Mill wasn’t making money, but he thought by summer they should have it running at full capacity then maybe they should begin making a profit.

  “Well,” said Malinda, “At least we got back in time for Christmas. For a while there I thought Luke and I were going to be on the road the day of our Savior’s birthday, but we made it. I just wish Matthew and his wife Kim and of course, Robert were here to celebrate this season with us. I suppose I must accept the facts, the War has been over for seven months now, Robert is not ever coming home!”

  “Don’t despair Mother, you said the same about Matthew, remember?”

  “Malinda,” said Ora Lee trying to change the subject and lighten the mood said, “Ever since you and Luke left to go to Gettysburg, Sary has been fattening a big old gobbler turkey. It is just a couple of days to Christmas and I believe he is about ready for the roasting pan.”

  “Hmm,” said Luke, “I can almost taste him already. It’s been a long time since we’ve had turkey for Christmas. It fact, it’s been a long time since I’ve had anything good to eat at Christmas.”

  “Now, you hold on there Luke! You done forgot ‘bout last Christmas in that there cave up in Kentuck, ain’t you? Wouldn’t that a fine Christmas with that mail rider Kay Mann.” Interjects Nate.

  Catherine jumps in, “What! Who the blazes is Kay Mann? You all spent Christmas in a cave in Kentuck with a woman? And this within spittin’ distance of my house?”

  “Well, if you call thirty miles spittin’ distance – yeah, but Kay wasn’t a woman, Kay was the mail-rider, but I must admit Nate, that was some Christmas – wait Nate, you have just given me an idea. Remember Old Bill?”

  “Shore Luke, never would not recomember him. Done got hisself kilt throwing that stick of dynamite on them robber’s fire.”

  “Hold on Nate, back up, I believe the whole family needs to hear about this Kay Mann, Old Bill and the dynamite. We haven’t heard that story. Especially Catherine, I believe she is interested in the Kay Mann part,” Malinda said smiling as she looks at Catherine.

  For the next hour or so the family sits around the fireplace and lets Luke and Nate tell of their exploits in the mountains of the Cumberland. Luke ends up with them on the farm with Catherine’s father Samuel Babb. He doesn’t go into all the details about the suicide, he kind of skips over that part, but he does tell of the time he and Sam went into the mountains deer hunting. He told about the cabin, the outlaws and THE BEAR. All of the children, especially Mattie Ann and Lizzie were sitting on the edge of their chairs as Luke described being trapped in the cabin with nothing between the door and safety for him and Sam but this monster of a bear. Of course, he told how brave Sam was, and how he looked that beast right in the eye and said, “You’ll never gonna take us Mr. Bear, and Sam blew a hole in the bear’s head killing it stone cold dead at our feet.” Luke embellished the story a little f
or effect!

  Everyone was laughing and slapping Sam on the back congratulating him on killing the bear when Luke said to Sam, “Sam you remember why you went into the cabin in the first place?”

  “Yeah Luke, you know I do – that one man was beating that other man to death, you know the one tied in the chair.”

  “Sam, I sure do, but what was the outlaw after? You remember?”

  “Sure, the map.”

  “Map?” Asked Malinda, “No one has said anything about a map. What kind of map was it Sam?”

  “It was a map to a GOLD strike on our land behind the farm up in the mountains.”

  “Right you are Sam, the Gold Map...Old Bill gave the map to me and I gave it to you. Here’s my thought, after Christmas lets you, me and Nate head back up to your farm in Kentucky and find that creek of gold. That should be enough to help Matthew make those artificial legs and we might have some left to begin working on Scarlett, what do you say?”

  “Hold on there Luke Scarburg, you’re not going anywhere without me,” said Catherine.

  “Oh, all right! You can come, but we must be back home before time for spring planting in March or April.”

  “Luke,” said Sam. “I’ve studied Old Bill’s map and I believe I know exactly where that creek bottom is.” At this time, Sam reaches into his pocket and pulls out a gold nugget and holds it up for all to see. The firelight glints off it like the piece is on fire. The family cannot believe its size. “If that creek has more like this one, we should be able to pan up a sizeable amount of gold in a day or two and get up to Pennsylvania and help out Matthew and Mr. Holmes. I’m ready to go right now! The quicker we get that gold the fastest they can outfit the soldiers with their new legs.”

  “Hold your horses Sam, tomorrow is Christmas Eve, Thursday will be Christmas. I don’t see why we couldn’t be on our way by Monday – is that fine with everyone?”