Land of the Brave and the Free

by Michael Phillips

  I sat staring into the face in front of me, my eyes wide open yet blank, still not able to take in the meaning of it all. Where was I . . . who was this man . . . was I still dreaming. . . ?

  Slowly a recognition began to filter into my consciousness. The eyes of pale blue, the thick crop of light brown hair, the tanned cheeks, the wide expressive lips, the voice that spoke so gently and softly yet with command . . . gradually a feeling of knowing returned.

  There he sat, patiently looking into my face with eyes of care and compassion. And then the day of my waking came into my memory, and I recalled opening my eyes, knowing I was lying in bed, to see this same man sitting at the bedside next to me.

  The two moments blended into one. I blinked a few times and came to myself just as I had two months before in bed. I had not known him then, nor where I was.

  But now I knew. Gradually the continuous stream of events fit into an order and made sense—the day in Richmond . . . being wounded . . . falling . . . waking up. At last I remembered everything that had happened since I had been with Christopher . . . the farm . . . Mrs. Timms . . . Christmas dinner . . . and the ride up to this very ridge where we now sat.

  The weight of relief was too overwhelming. I could not contain it. Tears filled my eyes as if a dam had been holding them back, and I began sobbing as I hadn’t for years.

  I hardly even realized it, but Christopher’s strong arms encircled me. Careful of my wound, he pulled me close and then held me tight. Feeling it as natural as if it had been Almeda’s bosom, I laid my head against his large chest, abandoning myself to my tears, and wept freely.

  How much time thus passed while I cried in Christopher’s arms, I have no idea. My sensations were so confused and mixed up, it could have been ten minutes since we had arrived on top of the ridge . . . or ten hours!

  At last the reservoir of tears dried and I began coming to myself. I was half lying in Christopher’s arms, my hair strewn about, my face drenched with tears. My first thought was embarrassment, yet he was so altogether sensitive and understanding that I felt no embarrassment in his presence again after those first few seconds.

  I gave a little start and began to straighten up. He instantly released me, sat back a foot or two, then gave me a big smile.

  “Hello!” he said.

  “Hello,” I said back, laughing sheepishly.

  “I have the feeling you are fully awake at last.”

  “I think so,” I replied. “I was a mite confused for a while.”

  “I know. I think I could read more or less what was going through that mind of yours just from watching your eyes, forehead, and mouth.”

  “Am I that transparent?” I said.

  “Not always, but sometimes. You should be glad. It’s a good quality, sadly lacking in most people these days.”

  “I’d never thought about it.”

  “Besides, I have made it my business to study people and to know what they are thinking and feeling.”

  “Oh yes, the ministry!” I said. “I’d forgotten for a minute.”

  “The former ministry,” he reminded me. “But,” he added, “before we go any further, now that memories are clear and the past is one straight line, don’t you think we ought to formalize our introductions? You are Corrie Hollister, I take it? I have been correct all this time, have I not?”

  “Yes, you have. Corrie Belle Hollister, that’s me,” I said with a smile.

  “And I, for the record, remain your servant Christopher Braxton, itinerant farm laborer, minister of soiled reputation, but perhaps physician of sufficient note to have kept you alive.”

  I laughed and took Christopher’s outstretched hand of renewed introduction and greeting. It was a large hand, made rough from work, but it closed around mine with a firm tenderness that felt strong and safe. He shook my hand, then released it. We both laughed again.

  “You did more than just ‘keep’ me alive,” I said. “You saved my life!”

  “Well, our Father is the only one who can do that, but I do consider myself honored that he used my hands to accomplish his work.”

  “You may be honored, but I am just grateful,” I said, “to both of you!”

  “Now I will give you your gift again,” he said, pulling from behind him the book he had picked up from where it had fallen.

  Again I took it in my hands. Suddenly it meant so much more!

  “How can I ever thank you?” I said. “How could you possibly have known?”

  “It was just a feeling I had.”

  “I’ve kept a journal ever since I was fifteen. I think by now I’ve got eight books filled.”

  “I suppose one who keeps a journal, as I do, can recognize that same instinct for communication in someone else. At least I was pretty sure I recognized it in you even though I didn’t know much about you—which, by the way, I still don’t! And now that you remember, I want to know everything about you! I want to find out about this young lady who has been my patient for nine weeks!”

  “There’s not that much special about me that you’d be needing to know,” I said.

  “Somehow I very much doubt that! And regardless of whether you think it special or interesting, I will. It has long been my conviction that within every human soul lie stories and dramas and adventures untold if only we could unlock them. I love people, Corrie—and that includes you!—people made in the image of our heavenly Father!”

  I glanced through the journal again.

  “I’m glad you wrote in it,” I said. “It will make it all the more special for me.”

  “To be honest with you, I didn’t know when your memory would return, or how it would, or whether when it did, perhaps all these weeks with me would instantly be blotted out in exchange for the return of the former. But if you were a writer, as I was fairly confident you were, then I knew one day you would want to know what had become of you during this time after your fall. And I thought having a journal of your own just might spark your brain back into action. So I wrote down what I thought you might like to know about these weeks, in case you didn’t remember them well enough to write about it yourself.”

  “Thank you. Maybe sometime you’d let me read your journal of this same time. I’d like to know what you were thinking and feeling, too, while you were taking care of me.”

  Christopher laughed. “Why would you want to know that?”

  “Because I am interested in people too! I just might want to write a newspaper story about you someday, you know! I don’t want to know only what we did for these nine weeks. I think I can remember that well enough now. But what another person thinks and feels—those are the real treasures. That’s why I love to write and find out about people . . . and why I keep a journal.”

  “Well, I shall think about it, Corrie. No one’s ever read any of my journal before.”

  “I might even like to put some of it into mine,” I said. “You know, to quote you. If there’s anything that’s true about these last nine weeks—it’s that your life and mine were bound up together. So I want to know what you were thinking about it all.”

  He laughed again. “As I told you,” he said, “I’ll think about it. Opening myself up like that to the public gaze—even if it’s just one person—is a new thought for me.”

  I was so happy to know who I was and where I’d come from and what I was doing in a farmhouse outside of Richmond, Virginia, that I hardly stopped to feel lonely about not being with my family on Christmas.

  That evening I did think of them, but my thoughts were only happy ones. Later, after the three of us had enjoyed more of Mrs. Timms’ apple pie, I sat down and began a long letter back to Miracle Springs. When I was done with that, I had plenty of catching up to do in my new journal!

  I wrote until past midnight!

  When I woke up the next morning, it was like waking from a long, long dream—yet a dream that had been real and that had actually happened. I felt like Rip Van Winkle!

  I had not been up for long, howe
ver, when all my questions began to bang against my head. The main one was: What should I do now? This place wasn’t my home. In fact, I suddenly felt very strange being in the South, remembering about the war, and how much I thought of Mr. Lincoln, and realizing that the Confederacy had set out to destroy him.

  But where was my home now? With the election past, would Mr. Lincoln or Mr. Hay have any more use for me and my writing? Should I go see Mr. Hay? What about the war itself?

  I thought of Clara Barton and all the other people I had known during the fighting. Might they still need my help?

  Then my thoughts suddenly returned to Sister Janette and the other sisters, and I remembered how much I had wanted to be part of their lives. It had grown so distant, and now all at once my time at the convent came close again and seemed like only yesterday. Maybe I ought to go back there for a while to rekindle my friendships with the sisters and use the time to pray for direction about what I was supposed to do.

  Oh, there were so many questions!

  Then in the very midst of them, two faces rose up in my mind’s eye. How could I have forgotten? If it hadn’t been for the captain and his quick thinking, I would probably not have gotten away.

  Captain Dyles and Jacob Crabtree! What had happened to them after I had galloped away from the check station?

  They must have been captured, or . . .

  I couldn’t even force myself to think of anything worse!

  If General Grant was still alive, had they gotten word to him? That could hardly be—they had been surrounded by Confederate soldiers. How might Cal have been further involved? And now that I was recalling the events of that day so clearly, why hadn’t Surratt found me where I lay beside the road and finished the job? Why was I alone when Christopher happened along?

  I might never know the answers to everything. Not unless I saw Cal again, and even if that were possible, I didn’t know if I’d ever want to see him again!

  Only one thing seemed clear: The captain and his huge black friend had probably been captured. And behind the Confederate lines like we were, I might be the only one who could help them.

  Should I try to get back to the Union encampment, wherever that might be by now? Or should I see what I might be able to find out while I was still here, on the Confederate side of Richmond?

  Even before I had finished asking myself the question, the answer was clear. How could I do anything other than see if there was some way to help them? It was my coming to General Grant with the plot against him that had gotten them into this fix. I felt responsible. I wasn’t wearing the dark blue uniform of the Union. No one would suspect me. There must surely be a way for me to find out what had become of them!

  I went out for a long walk while Christopher was tending to the animals. It was such an odd feeling! I’d walked around Mrs. Timms’ farm before, and taken walks and rides in the wagon with Christopher. But now that my mind was mine again and working in all the ways it was supposed to, it was like seeing everything all over again for the first time. Suddenly I felt like I did when I used to take walks to think and pray.

  What a funny sensation, to have been awake all this time, but now to feel like I’d been asleep! So when I walked out through the field that morning and toward the small wood at the far end, it felt so good just to think again, and to talk to God again, and to know that I was . . . that I was me!

  “Lord, I’m so glad you didn’t forget me!” I said. “What would I have done? What would have become of me?”

  But even as the words were out of my mouth, I felt as if God answered me right back. You can trust me, Corrie. I wouldn’t leave you alone and unprotected. Have you forgotten so soon that one of my sons happened by just after you fell? I take care of my people, Corrie, especially my daughters.

  “I was so alone,” I said to myself.

  You were as much in my thoughts as ever, he answered. And when you are in my thoughts, Corrie, it is impossible for you to be alone. You are completely surrounded by my presence. My thinking about you brings you into the very center of my heart. There is no place in all the universe where you could be less alone.

  “But . . . but what if . . . what if I hadn’t remembered?”

  There are no what ifs for my children, Corrie. Haven’t you learned by now that I use everything that happens to you—every encounter, every conversation, every event, every tiniest thing, every turn of what some people might call fate—to bring you closer toward my heart? Nothing happens by chance, Corrie. My hand is busy everywhere. There is no such thing as chance throughout the entire universe of my creation.

  “I’m sorry, Lord. I guess I’ve forgotten some things about you too.

  I would not let you truly forget. I was at work even when you were asleep. Christopher is my son too, and the ministry of his hands and voice and gentle spirit was my chosen way to bring life back to you.

  “Oh, Lord, thank you! You are so good to me!”

  Then, overcome with the joy of the moment, I set out running. It felt so good. My arm and shoulder were so nearly well I could even swing them freely without pain.

  When I stopped I sat down on the grass, leaned down onto my back, and stared up into the blue sky. “Lord, what am I to do now?” I whispered. “I can remember again, but it seems as if everything that happened up until two months ago is from years back, another whole lifetime ago. It seems that everything has changed. I can’t just . . . just stay here. I don’t belong here, do I, Lord? But then I’m not sure where I belong? What am I supposed to do?”

  All at once a sermon came into my mind that Rev. Rutledge had preached once. He’d said that the will of God for our lives was like a big thick book. He said that our natural tendency was always to want to grab the book and read the whole thing, especially to find out the ending of the story. But God, he said, isn’t in such a hurry as we are. He lets us see only one page at a time. Then he turns the pages when he’s ready, and never lets us go on to the next page until we have learned the lesson of the previous one. “Our heavenly Father is never in a hurry,” he said. “He doesn’t mind if it takes us a year to learn what he’s written for us on a single page. He won’t move on until the time is right for us to move on, because he’s in no hurry to get to the end of the book. He wants to make sure we learn every lesson he’s put in the book for us, and doesn’t want us to skip a single one.”

  I breathed in deeply of the chilly air, letting many thoughts about the minister’s words tumble through my brain. At last I felt I knew what the Lord had wanted to show me by bringing that sermon back into my memory.

  “All right, Lord,” I said, “perhaps it isn’t best for me that you show me everything. What, then, do you want me to do now? I won’t even try to think about the next page of your lesson book. But what is on the one you’ve opened before me today?”

  Almost immediately I remembered something. It had happened just yesterday, on Christmas morning. It already seemed weeks ago!

  Suddenly my body jolted up into a sitting position and my mouth and eyes opened wide in shock and amazement and surprise all at once. It had to be him, I thought! On its heels was the conviction that maybe he could help me find out what had happened to Jacob and the captain. Unless he had changed more than I expected, he would have all kinds of contacts and sources of information!

  The next instant I was on my feet and running back toward the farmhouse.

  I ran inside just as Christopher was coming from the barn.

  “What is it?” he exclaimed.

  “Where’s the paper?” I asked out of breath.

  “What paper?”

  “The newspaper . . . you were showing it to me yesterday.”

  “Oh,” he said, leading the way into the other room. “That’s right, you had been looking at it as if you were trying to remember something.”

  “I think I just did,” I said. “But I’ve got to make sure.”

  “It’s still over here on the desk,” he said, walking toward it.

  Hurr
iedly I ran past him. I grabbed up the paper and immediately started fumbling through it.

  “What page was it on?” I asked.

  “If you’ll just tell me what you’re looking for—”

  “The article I was looking at.”

  “It was on page two.”

  I tore back the first sheet and my eyes frantically scanned over the page.

  There it was! I had seen it. I could hardly believe my eyes . . . but there the words were in plain sight.

  Derrick Gregory! Reporter and correspondent for the Confederacy, read the byline under his name.

  I sat down on the couch, slumped back, and let the paper fall to my lap. I must have had a glazed look in my eyes, and my mouth must have been hanging open, because Christopher walked toward me with a worried expression on his face.

  “What is it, Corrie?” he asked.

  Then I found myself unexpectedly starting to chuckle. It grew and grew, and pretty soon I was laughing outright. I couldn’t stop! It was such a surprise, and yet in a way not a surprise at all, to see his name there staring back at me from the newspaper. Something about it hit me so humorously! I suppose it felt good, like running out in the field had, to let some of my emotions loose that had been trapped inside me for so long. I don’t know what it was, but I laughed harder than I remember doing for a long time.

  Finally I calmed down and took in two or three deep breaths. Christopher was still looking at me with a puzzled expression.

  “He’s somebody I knew briefly—a long time ago.”

  “How long . . . when?” he asked.

  “Hmm . . . let me see,” I thought. “What year is this?”

  “Come now! You’re supposed to be remembering these things now,” said Christopher with a grin. “It’s 1864.”

  “Oh yes, of course. Then, hmm . . . it was when John Fremont was running for president. That’s eight years ago . . . 1856.”

  “And where did you know him?”

  “Derrick was in California, trying to dig up some dirt on Mr. Fremont to keep him from being elected. I was on the trail of a story for my paper and tried to stop him. He was going to print lies.”