by Marc Graham
OF ASHES AND DUST
OF ASHES AND DUST
MARC GRAHAM
FIVE STAR
A part of Gale, Cengage Learning
Copyright © 2017 by Marc Graham
All scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the King James Bible.
Five Star™ Publishing, a part of Cengage Learning, Inc.
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This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Graham, Marc, 1969– author.
Title: Of ashes and dust / Marc Graham.
Description: Waterville, Maine : Five Star Publishing, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016041823 (print) | LCCN 2017000972 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432833930 (hardback) | ISBN 1432833936 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781432836917 (ebook) | ISBN 1432836919 (ebook) | ISBN 9781432833893 (ebook) | ISBN 1432833898 (ebook)
eISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3389-3 eISBN-10: 1-43283389-8
Subjects: LCSH: Accident victims—Fiction. | Life change events—Fiction. | Self-realization—Fiction. | Mortality—Fiction. | United States—History—Civil War, 1861-1865—Fiction. | West (U.S.)—History—19th century—Fiction. | Railroads—Australia—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Bildungsromans. | Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3607.R3445 O4 2017 (print) | LCC PS3607.R3445 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016041823
First Edition. First Printing: March 2017
This title is available as an e-book.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4328-3389-3 ISBN-10: 1-43283389-8
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Visit our website— http://www.gale.cengage.com/fivestar/
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Printed in the United States of America
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 21 20 19 18 17
He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
—Job 30:19 (NKJV)
For my father, Lou Graham, who always had a story to share, and who never missed an opportunity to tell his family he loved them.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing is chiefly a solitary activity, but the refining and editing of a story are best done as a team sport—albeit one that sometimes feels like full contact. Many lovely souls and sharp minds have contributed to the inception and improvement of this novel, and I’m grateful to each of them. Any remaining deficiencies are entirely my own.
Dee Lynch facilitated my introduction to this story and reinvigorated my passion for writing.
Len Douglas and Dr. Andrew May provided insight into the history and development of the Transcontinental and Western Australia Railroads.
Pamela King Cable, Golda Fried, Dena Harris, and Edmund Schubert comprised my first literary critique group and helped me to learn what I didn’t know about writing.
Melissa Fike and Rob Payo are dear friends who slogged through a hefty first draft and helped me to find the kernel of the story.
No writer should journey into the dread realm of publication without experienced guides. There are many trailblazers, and they are to be found among writers groups. Of profound help to me have been Backspace Writers, Historical Novel Society, Pikes Peak Writers, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers.
My partners in Highlands Ranch Fiction Writers are Lynn Bisesi, Deirdre Byerly, Claire Fishback, Nicole Greene, Michael Haspil, Chloe Hawker, L. S. Hawker, Laura Main, Vicki Pierce, and Chris Scena. Their collective spirit and insight make a sometimes daunting journey one to be savored and treasured, and they make me a better writer. Because magic.
Tracy Laird, Sharon Kendrew, and Jeanette Schneider are beautiful and brilliant co-conspirators in our scheme for literary world domination. See you at Arno’s!
In the course of developing my writing career, I’ve had the privilege of meeting and interacting with a host of great authors who have been beyond generous with their time and insights. Among the many are Tracy Brogan, Stephen Coonts, Bernard Cornwell, Margaret George, C. W. Gortner, Kevin Hearne, Brad Meltzer, and Boyd Morrison. For class and talent, they set high bars, and I’m indebted to them.
Tiffany Schofield, Alice Duncan, and Erin Bealmear guided me into the world of publication with grace and wit. My eternal gratitude goes to them and to the entire Five Star family.
Finally, my bride, Laura. She is my first reader, toughest critic, loudest cheerleader, wittiest brainstormer, and greatest love. She makes the journey possible and worth making. ILYWATIA.
PROLOGUE
So this is what it is to die.
Sunlight drenches the earth and washes the clouds from the sky, all but drowning a stubborn half moon that peeks through the midday glare. I stand on a rocky hilltop and stare at the valley floor a half mile away, where a bluish glow flows from the lugs of a detonator into its attached cable. Part of my mind insists this can’t be real, that the detonation should happen in a fraction of a second.
Heedless of that fact, the radiance traces the cable up the slope, around scrub brush, over small outcroppings and loose stones, to the summit of the pass. The glow splits where the terminals splice into the cable and follows the several branches, one of which passes between my feet. I try to turn, to follow the path of the glow, but I can’t move, not even to rub at a bit of dust that tickles my nose.
Nearly forty years of striving, scratching, clawing out an existence in a world indifferent, and it all comes down to this: to die alone on a barren pass on the underbelly of the earth. Did any of it matter? Did I make a difference? Without pausing to answer, the radiance continues along each branch to its end. Like a drove of rabbits, the glows dive into the mouths of the boreholes that dot the hilltop.
I’ll be damned.
But nothing happens. Hope flickers in my breast and all my senses fire. Salty air teases my tongue, and my skin twitches under sweat-stiffened muslin and denim. Life is a dust devil dancing, swirling about me.
Then the ground moves.
Ripples stir from the boreholes as from pebbles tossed in a pond. The waves grow and merge, their energies focused on me. Like a hammer blow, the shock wave pounds into me, followed by the roar of a hundred cannon, surrounding me, penetrating me.
Then I am weightless, soaring high above the bleak landscape. The ground rushes up to greet me, and my world is ringed about by a horizon of pain.
CHAPTER ONE
Crawford County, Arkansas—May 1846
The pain faded as quickly as it began, and I rubbed my backside.
“You know it hurts me to do that.” Mama hung the switch on its peg by the fireplace and smoothed the folds of her skirt. She wiped a tear on her sleeve before turning to face me.
“Yes’m,” I said, my eyes cast down, my chin tucked.
“You’re a good boy, Jimmy. You just need to act like it.”
“Yes’m,” I repeated with a catch in my throat.
I couldn’t quite remember what I’d done
to get this whipping, which was maybe why I got so many of them. But I kept my head down and looked sorry all the same.
Mama knelt and pulled me to her, the hug made clumsy by her swollen belly. She shuddered with a sob, and snuffled in my ear.
“Now you run along with your chores,” she said, “while I clean this up.”
“Yes’m,” I said yet again.
I turned and saw the muddy floor, then remembered Mama always telling me to take my boots off before I came inside. I felt a little sorry then, seeing the mess I’d made. Not quite six years old, I made plenty of messes. I never meant to be bad, though. It just . . . Well, it just happened. I limped and rubbed my backside again as I trudged toward the door, then lifted the latch, stepped outside and pulled the door shut behind me.
Then I ran.
Ran with abandon, my arms stretched wide as the cool breeze brushed my cheeks and swept through my hair. I breathed deeply and tasted fresh rain and sweet clover on the spring air. Winter had dragged on and on, and it wasn’t my fault the rains had come just when it was warm enough to play outside.
I ran through the fallow field behind our cottage until the slope of the land hid the house from view. Thoughts of wood to be stacked and eggs to be gathered flew away like the crows that flapped up ahead of me. The birds cawed at me and I squawked at them, still running, until I reached the woods at the far side of the field.
In the refuge of the trees, I slowed and caught my breath. Fog skimmed the ground and danced about the bases of the trees. I picked my way through the underbrush, following game trails when I could find them, until I came to the edge of May’s Branch. The usually quiet stream ran fat with rain and snowmelt and babbled away as it raced toward the Arkansas River.
I followed the bank upstream, the wind in my face. Moving as quietly as possible, I was rewarded by the sight of a doe and her twin fawns grazing on water grasses and drinking from the creek. The little family drank their fill, then retreated into the woods. I thought of following them, but was distracted by a raccoon that scrabbled up from the bank in front of me and disappeared in the brush.
I chased after the masked bandit, not caring how much noise I made now. After a few minutes of crashing through the trees, I stumbled into a mossy clearing with a fairy ring at its center. I walked around the ring of toadstools, remembering the stories I’d heard from Zeke, a slave boy from the neighboring farm.
“Take you to the fairy world, you step in one,” he’d told me. “That, or make you a twin, so’s you can be two places at once.”
He hadn’t said how the things worked, but my waiting chores made a twin sound pretty good. I stood at the edge of the circle, closed my eyes and jumped in.
Nothing.
I stepped back out and tried again, this time thinking of the wood shed as I jumped. Still nothing. I ran sunwise about the circle, then the other way. I tried spinning around until I was dizzy, walking on my hands, jumping in backwards. Nothing worked, but I kept trying until my growling belly reminded me that breakfast was long since past.
I kicked at one of the worthless toadstools, then hightailed it home, splashing in every puddle on the way. As I came to the rise in the field, I saw a figure running toward our cottage from the road. By the dark skin and easy gait, I knew it was Zeke. I set off across the field to beat him to the door.
“Miz Robbins, Miz Robbins,” he shouted as he reached the porch ten strides ahead of me. He bent over to catch his breath, hands on his knees.
“Beatcha,” I said as I leapt over the step and onto the porch.
My muddy boots slid across boards still slick from the morning’s rain, and the door opened just as I would have crashed into it. I skidded into Mama and almost pulled her off her feet.
“James Douglas Robbins.”
I was JD to most folks, Jade to the slaves, and Jimmy to Mama—usually. When she called me by my full name, I knew I’d soon hear the whistle of the switch. Mama’s face flushed as she grabbed my wrist, set me on my feet, and shook clay and mud from her blue calico dress.
“Miz Robbins,” Zeke said again, delaying my punishment.
Mama turned toward him, her hand still tight about my wrist.
“It’s Marse Robbins, ma’am,” Zeke said. “He hurt, and Marse Barnes say to come fetch you right quick.”
Fear of the switch turned to something else as a cold hand squeezed my belly. The blood drained from Mama’s face. She let go of my wrist, hitched up her skirts and set off toward the Barnes farm. Zeke and I chased after her but, even with her pregnant belly, she outpaced us on the mile-long run.
We reached the farmyard to find slaves milling about the porch. Mister Barnes—sleeves rolled up and hat pushed high on his head—stepped through the crowd of black faces, took Mama by the elbow and helped her up the steps.
“Keep him back, Zeke,” he said.
“Yes, suh,” Zeke said. He put his hands on my shoulders and steered me away from the porch.
“I wanna see him,” I said.
“Ain’t nothing for a child to look on,” he said, assuming the air of an adult—never mind that he was just a few years older than I. “Nor grown folk, for that matter. Your pappy gonna be fine, but he don’t need you gawking at him right now.”
Zeke led me toward the back of the big white house while, behind us, harnesses jangled and clamshells crunched. Just before we turned the corner, I caught a glimpse of Doc Aubry’s buckboard racing up the drive, followed on horseback by Bull, Mister Barnes’s chief slave.
“Oh, Marse Jade.” Belle, Bull’s wife, waddled down the back steps and picked me up, muddy boots and all.
My fear drained away as she squeezed me against her full bosom and carried me to the kitchen porch where lemonade and fresh cookies waited.
“He’s a mess,” Angelina Barnes said as Belle set me down. The girl was just eight but seemed in an all-fired hurry to be grown up.
“Hush, child,” Belle said.
I reached for a cookie, but Angelina snatched it up and spun away. Her fiery red hair fanned out behind her as she yanked open the screen door and let it slam shut behind her.
“Aw, don’t mind her,” Matty Barnes said around a mouthful of oatmeal cookie.
We were the same age, and best friends. The chubby boy had red hair like his sister. Where hers flowed long and wavy, though, his sprawled about in bushy curls.
“How’d you get so muddy, anyway?” he asked. “You fall down?”
I shook my head and bit into a ginger snap.
“Your pa fell down,” he said as he wiped lemonade from his chin onto his sleeve, “right under a barrel of tobacco.”
“Did you see it?” I asked.
“Nah, but I heard it. Bam.” He clapped his hands together, forgetting about the glass he held. Lemonade splashed into his face and down his shirtfront. “Oh, Belle,” he whined.
“Hush now, Marse Matty,” Belle said as she wiped away tears and lemonade with her apron. “You run on up and change ’fore your mammy see you, y’hear?”
Matty rubbed his eyes with pudgy fists and nodded. He took another cookie from the tray, grabbed my hand with lemonade-sticky fingers and led me inside.
“C’mon, JD,” he said. “I wanna show you my new soldier.”
I wiped my feet as best I could before being dragged across the threshold. I followed Matty into the kitchen where Ketty, Belle’s daughter, sat on the floor humming to herself and polishing silver. Matty pulled me through the kitchen, down an echoing hallway, up the stairs and across the landing to his bedroom. The Barnes house always made me uneasy, and I walked on tiptoes, stuffed my hands in my pockets, even held my breath lest I somehow soil the place.
The room seemed big enough to hold our whole cottage, and I wandered to the open window while Matty rummaged through a pile of toys. The sheers rustled and swayed on a light breeze that carried a murmur of voices from the front porch below. Worries for Pa niggled at me, and I strained my ears to make out the words, but Matty’s excitement
dashed my efforts.
“Papa bought it off the Jew,” he said, holding up a tin cavalryman suspended by a string through its campaign hat. “It moves, see?” Matty bounced horse and rider on the string, and the charger’s legs moved in a parade gait. “Take that, you dirty Messicans,” he shouted, swinging an imaginary saber. “You wanna try?”
“Sure,” I said.
I took the toy and bounced it through a few paces before Matty snatched it back.
“Charge,” he shouted.
Matty skipped around the room, smacking his hind end as he followed Rough-and-Ready Taylor into battle. I didn’t have much stomach for taking on the invisible Mexican army, so I ducked through the window and crawled out on the balcony.
“. . . should be able to save it,” I heard Doc Aubry say as I crept to a knothole Matty and I had discovered. I put my eye to the hole and looked down on the porch.
Mama knelt beside Pa, holding his hand. If she was pale, he was paler still, his face covered with sweat that plastered thin, brown hair to his forehead. His jaw muscles bulged and flexed as he clenched his teeth together.
“I have to reset the leg,” Doc Aubry continued. “Ben, Bull— hold him steady.”
Master and slave moved to either side of Pa and placed strong hands on his shoulders. My throat tightened as Mister Barnes moved and revealed a white spur of bone that stuck through Pa’s right shin.
“Drink this, Jim,” Doc said as he pulled a bottle from his bag, unstopped it and held it to Pa’s lips.
Pa took a small sip, then spat out the medicine.
“What is it?” Mama asked.
“Laudanum,” Doc said. “It’ll dull the pain and keep him still so I can set his leg proper.”
Mama stroked Pa’s hair and whispered to him. He started to argue, but gave in and let her put the bottle to his mouth. After a few pulls, his eyes glazed over, his jaw went slack and his shoulders sagged under the hands that held him.
