by Marsha Ward
“Ma, I’m home.” He grabbed her—rifle and all—and swung her into the air.
She caught sight of the wince that he tried to cover and the dried blood on his face, and immediately began to worry over his health.
Setting her on her feet, Carl brushed at the mud he had transferred to her dress. “I’m sorry about the mud, Ma. I had a little trouble with some fellers down the road a piece, and we wrasseled around a bit. Here, let me put that rifle aside. I reckon you don’t want to put a ball into me.”
“You ain’t been hurt? What’s that blood?” She followed him to the front of the house, where he leaned the rifle against the stone wall. “Here, let me look at you.” Julia grabbed his arm, moistened the corner of her apron with her tongue, and dabbed at his face.
“Ma!” he protested. “It’s just a little cut.”
“And it needs tending to,” she insisted, then hugged him again.
~~~
Roderick Owen came around the corner of the house, puzzled by the sounds in the front yard, but ready for Albert’s Yankee invasion. He stopped short at the sight of a tall, very grubby man embracing his wife, and Albert bumped into his father from behind.
“Look here,” Rod threatened, stepping forward.
Carl turned to meet him. “Have I changed so much, Pa?” He grinned under his smeared camouflage.
“Rod, it’s Carl. He’s home at last.” Julia wiped the mud from her face with the apron.
Without a word, Rod enveloped his son in his arms. After a long embrace, he held him off to look at him, and shook his head. “By gum, you sure get your growth dashing around with Mosby. We thought you were dead, boy, not hearing from you, nor seeing you home yet.”
“I took the long road home, Pa. The Colonel disbanded the Rangers about three weeks into April, but me and some thirty others wouldn’t leave him, so he took us south to join up with General Johnston in the Carolinas. The General gave up before we got there, so Mosby cut us loose and made us go in to get paroled.” He paused a moment, scratching his nose. “They won’t give him a parole, Pa. There’s a price on his head!”
“I reckon there’s mighty little justice around now, son. Your colonel won’t get fair treatment since Booth shot the President. There’s rumors Mosby had a hand in it.”
“Somebody shot Jeff Davis?”
“The other president, Abe Lincoln.”
“Is he dead?”
Rod set his jaw, turned his back on his son, and walked toward Carl’s horse, his hand worrying the mud at the front of his shirt and pants. He picked up the horse’s trailing reins and approached his son. “Yes, and it brings hard times upon us. There’s no mercy in the boys running the country now.”
“Mosby had no part in it. I rode with him day and night for over two years. He done no such a thing.”
“I reckon.”
“He didn’t. That’s all.” Carl’s stomach growled aloud, and he looked at his mother. “Is there anything to eat? It sure don’t look like Phil Sheridan left much. We heard about his orders to burn out the Valley, Pa, but we laughed. Not one of us believed he could do it with you and Jeb Early’s troops on home ground.”
“They sent in two and three times our number, son. All we could do was pester them around the edges some.”
“Well, I’m home now, and this ground will grow food—if we can get seed.” Carl looked about the yard. Albert stood in the shadow at the corner of the house.
“Who’s that young’un? I don’t recollect leaving anybody that big at home when I left.”
“It’s me, Albert. I growed a mite.”
“Can’t be. You were just a little bitty sprout.”
Albert came out of the shadow and stood where Carl could see him. “I ain’t a sprout now." His voice was a touch heated. "I’ll be fourteen nigh on to Christmas time.”
“You aged a right smart bit, Albert. Been doing most all the chores, I reckon.”
“You left ‘em to do.”
Carl nodded. “I figured you three boys could handle the farm. When Peter died, I felt obliged to take his place in the fight.”
“I reckon.” Albert looked at the ground and kicked the mud.
“I didn’t know James would go, too.”
“They drafted him.”
Julia moved forward and pulled on Carl’s arm. “Come in and set, boy. Doubtless you’re weary, riding all day. I’ll finish the pone we’re having for supper while you tell your pa what shape the Valley’s in down south of here. He’s been asking after news of the state of things since he got home.”
“Now Julie, the boy’s just got here. I can quiz him later while he eats.” Rod turned to his youngest son. “Albert, take your brother’s horse out back and put him in the pen behind the barn. See if you can find some grain. That animal’s come far with your brother.”
“Yes, Pa.” Albert took the reins and led Sherando around the corner of the house.
~~~
After knocking the mud from his boots, Carl entered the house, shrugged out of his wet coat, and hung it on a peg inside the door. He pulled his shirt together the best he could and glanced around the room, savoring its warmth and cheerfulness. Then he took the stool his father indicated and moved it close to the fire before sitting.
“What happened to your buttons, boy?” Rod asked. “Were you obliged to sell them for food?” He also sat, and crossed one leg over the other.
“Naw. Some fat Yankee sergeant down the road a ways cut them off me. Said I was in uniform and didn’t have the right.”
“That’s where you got the cuts and bruises and the mud, Carl?” his mother asked.
“I reckon, but they didn’t hurt me none.” He eased his rib cage from side to side to be sure.
Rod slapped his thigh in anger. “Yankees,” he spit out.
Carl looked up, feeling a similar heat. “They ain’t mannerly, that’s for sure, but I came out lucky anyhow. Didn’t lose nothing but my buttons. I hid my horse back in the willows along the creek, and they were too drunk to spot him, so they missed the rifle I snuck off the Yankee weapon pile after I got my parole.”
“Drunk, you say? That sounds like the same Yankee bunch that’s been back and forth through this part of the Valley, teasing and tormenting the folks.”
“Could be them.” Carl shrugged, then looked around the room once more. “Ma, where’s Marie and the little girl? Ain’t they supposed to help you?”
Julia smiled. “Your little sister is nigh on to twelve years old, boy. We kept having birthdays while you were away. You’ve had a couple yourself. Ain’t you about nineteen now?”
“Closer to twenty, Ma. I ain’t a young’un no more.”
Julia looked at Carl’s bearded face. “I see you been over the mountain, son.” She paused to form a corn cake. “I sent the girls in to Mount Jackson to Rulon’s place. Mary’s not feeling well, and she’s got Rulon to tend to, so they’re helping out with young Roddy. You heard Rulon got hurt bad?”
Carl nodded.
“There’s also more food in town,” Rod explained. “Your ma has her wits scraped down to a nubbin to find us enough to eat since Sheridan paid his call.”
“Clay went in with the girls,” Julia added. “He’s got a job at the livery, so there’s just Pa and James and Albert to fix for.”
“And Benjamin,” Carl reminded her.
He watched his mother’s body stiffen, and saw his father take a protecting step toward her. Silence hung in the room like a curtain made of combed cotton fibers, thick and heavy and oppressive. Then Rod spoke, his words muffled and measured.
“Benjamin fell at Waynesboro. I had no way to get word home. Your ma only found out when I got here.”
The words bucked into Carl with the kick of a mule. He sagged on the stool and his head dropped against his hands. First, Peter had fallen at the Second Battle of Manassas, or Bull Run, as the Yankees called it. Then Rulon, the eldest, was sorely wounded in the siege of Petersburg last October. Now Benjamin was gone. Carl felt his ears ri
nging hollow, filling his skull with a soft buzzing.
He rose to his feet and faced his parents. “I’m powerful sorry,” he said, holding himself still. “Benjamin was always such a lucky cuss, full of life, and all. It don’t seem right he’d be gone.”
Carl bowed his head, took a deep breath, and began again. “Ma, I know he was your favorite son, and I don’t hold it against him. He was the favorite of everybody.”
He took a step toward his mother, watching her white, crumpling face. With another step he had her in his arms, patting her head and shoulders. “There, Ma, you cry. It’ll do you good.”
Rod’s arms went around the pair. “The boy talks sense, Julia. You ain’t cried since you got the news. Let the tears wash out the grief you been carrying around.” He continued gruffly, “I reckon I already done my sorrowing.”
The men waited, suspended, as Julia’s sobs tore the air. After a long time, she quieted, wiped the tears from her cheeks with her apron, and stepped out of the men’s arms. Her face was changed, resigned. “I reckon that’ll have to do for Benjamin, ‘cause the living need their daily bread.” She went back to the table, wiped her hands, and continued to fix supper.
Rod approached his chair and sagged into it, while Carl returned to his stool. Both men sat slumped for a time, saying nothing as the pain sat upon their shoulders. After a time, Rod threw back his head.
“Your ma’s kept the family going whilst we were gone, son, and she’s the one saw to it that we didn’t starve when we returned. I got a leave to come home in December, on account of our mounts were starving for lack of forage, and I’ll be switched if she hadn’t outsmarted that cocky Phil Sheridan. She saved most of the corn by tying the sacks on the backs of the stock, and sending Clay and Albert to the hills with the animals. She saved the crop and the herd, both. I’m mighty proud of her.”
“Ma, that was right canny thinking. I’d like to see Sheridan’s face should he find out you outfoxed him.”
Julia shook her head and continued with the meal.
“We ain’t tooting our horn about the food we got, Carl,” Rod said. “It’s mighty little for our needs, and even so, we had to send the girls into town.”
“How serious was Rulon hurt, Pa?”
“Well, he had a right smart mess of holes in him. The surgeon sent him home to die, but there ain’t no quit in Rulon. That little wife of his nursed him along real well, too. He’s mostly out of bed now, finally on the mend.” Rod rose to his feet. “Say, come out and help me milk, son. That brindle cow the Yankees stole last fall wandered up to the fence today, bawling and kicking and carrying on to be let in the gate, but she’s still half wild. There’s a calf trailing her, so she must have milk.”
Carl nodded. “Sure, Pa. I reckon a body don’t forget how to do the chores.”
As the men stepped out the back door, Carl glanced around at what was left of the yard behind the house, and took in a rasping breath. The vegetable garden was a sea of mud, while out yonder, wreckage marked where the barn had been. All that remained were the burned beams and blackened supports that had fallen onto the floor. Two mounds of gray ashes, scattered by wind and rain, showed where the hay had been stacked. The animal pens were in ruins, poles broken and strewn about. Someone had piled brush in the gaps until new poles were cut.
Carl waved an arm at the view. “Was it like this when you got home, Pa?”
“Pretty near. The boys and I ain’t had a lot of time to clean up much.”
The brindle cow tied in the pen rolled her eyes and lowed in fright at the men’s approach. Rod expelled his breath. “She always was skittish, Carl. I reckon she got away from Sheridan’s soldiers and wintered back in the oak groves. She had her calf, then got lonely for home.”
Carl stepped around behind the cow. “Mind that hoof.” Rod spoke sharply as the brindle kicked out at the young man.
Carl dodged away and snorted. “She must be a Yankee lover. Welcome home to you too, cow.” He patted her flank.
“Grab the pail and set to work, son. She wants milking.”
Just then the hungry calf tied behind the remains of the barn began to bawl. Brindle pulled her head backward, and Rod reached for the rope to snub her on a shorter line. Lacking a stool, Carl squatted on his heels and began to milk.
The cow sidestepped, nearly catching Carl’s foot. He avoided her hoof, and then she whipped her tail against his face. He turned away, saving his eyes from the coarse hair. Then she lifted her hoof and banged it hard against the pail, but Carl snatched it away in time to save the contents from spilling.
“Whoa, cow!” he yelled, as she swung her hindquarters against him. “You’re right, Pa. She’s gone wild.” He scrambled out of the way, bringing the pail with him. “I call the job done. Let that calf come over here.”
Rod grinned, went for the bawling creature, and untied the tether rope. “We’re all out of practice of milking, son,” he called. “I reckon I’d druther fight Yankees than get stepped on by a wild cow. I know James feels the same, after milking the white-face cow.”
“Is he in one piece?” Carl asked, looking sidelong at his pa.
Rod turned the calf loose, and it ran to its mother. He grinned again as it began to suckle. Then his face went somber. “He got a flesh wound at Five Forks, outside Richmond, but it’s healing clean. He can swing an ax, so I sent him up by the mountain to cut wood. Likely he’ll be home tomorrow night with a load of fence poles.”
“It’ll be good to see him.” Relief softened Carl’s voice.
The two men headed for the house as the sun dropped toward the horizon. The rain earlier in the day had left the air cool and sweet, and a light breeze was blowing the final clouds away. Carl handed the milk pail to his father at the door.
“I’m all covered with mud, Pa. Best I wash up before I eat.”
“You’ll have to use the crick, son. The Yankees knocked the top of the well apart and dumped it into the shaft. I ain’t got it cleaned out yet.”
“Then I’ll bring back some water.”
Carl took two pails from the back stoop and slogged his way through the muck of the yard to the creek path. He felt like a small boy again, recalling the times he’d walked this path before the well was dug.
Carl came up to the creek, knelt, and dipped the pails into the deepest part of the water. After he set them high on the bank, he removed his shirt, tossed it aside, and plunged his arms into the water. Gasping with the impact of the cold, he splashed it onto his head and chest.
Once his face was clean, he wiped off his boots and rubbed most of the mud from his pants, then rinsed his shirt in the stream and wrung it out several times. He shook out the shirt and put it on, shivering when the cold, wet cloth made contact with his flesh.
Twilight took away most of the daylight as Carl paused to look into the water of the creek where it pooled below him. He saw a distorted reflection of the outline of his form in the dim light. Nineteen years had built his body well and tall, but the last four, with the privations of war, had hardened the muscles of his frame and made his features gaunt. His hair was too long, and the week’s growth of sandy red beard itched. He’d have to hunt up scissors and a razor as well as a comb.
As night fell, Carl shrugged his shoulders to rearrange the damp shirt, picked up the pails, and headed back to the house, guided by the lamplight from the kitchen window. Breeze on the shirt chilled him, and he walked a little faster. At the steps he re-scraped his boots, then opened the door and went inside.
