“It was Gettysburg that did it,” she continued softly. “Time always seems thin there, have you noticed?”
He nodded.
“Like time is a veil, and all you need do is push it back…”
“Yes. Yes, I’ve felt it too. Many times. So much happened there, so much death and emotion, it’s like a physical weight on the present. But Paige, we’ve been there dozens of times! Why now?”
“Because two days ago, when we packed our bags and said ‘goodbye’ to the Farnsworth House, that feeling didn’t go away. Something followed us. Something that should be dead and buried and safely filed away in the history books. I wouldn’t be scared, but… but…”
“But what?”
“But it’s inside of me.”
“What? What’s inside?”
Paige took a deep breath. “Ever since Gettysburg I’ve felt things I’ve never felt before. Seen things I’ve never seen before. When I opened my eyes just now, I didn’t see a paved highway… I saw a dirt road. And yesterday, when I woke up at the hotel in Antietam, I could have sworn it was a farmhouse, and that two horses stood waiting outside where our car should have been.”
“Nonsense! You’re just imagining things.”
“Am I? I’ve never had a very vivid imagination, Tyler, but when we stopped for gas in York an hour back, I didn’t see a service station, I saw a clapboard inn, and in front of that inn stood two dozen dusty Union Blues, dismounted, watering their horses. Three were wounded, bandages soaked with blood. And I could smell the horses, that sweet musky smell of hay and manure. I tell you, it wasn’t my imagination.”
Paige got out of the car. Tyler followed.
“And it’s more than that,” she continued, beginning to pace. “I’m not only seeing with someone else’s eyes, I’m feeling someone else’s feelings. Oh, the sorrow, Tyler. The heartache. We can never know what it was like to be a soldier then. Never. We think we can, and the feeling thrills us. But that’s all. Never have I felt such despair as I have felt since leaving Gettysburg. And it is not my own.”
She leaned against a rail fence a little way off the road and looked out on a field of golden wheat that stretched away into the distance.
“I don’t know if I’m looking at a field now, in 2007, or a hundred and forty-five years ago,” she murmured. “It’s all too much. Can you understand that? Too much.”
Tyler sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I brought this on.”
“How can you say that? It’s not your fault.”
“There’s a fine line between passion and obsession. We must have crossed that line somewhere along the way, and this is the result. All those reenactments. Those were my idea.”
Paige shook her head. “You didn’t force me to do anything. I’ve always loved this stuff.” She paused. “You do believe me, don’t you?”
“I believe you think you’re seeing these things,” Tyler said gently. “But they’re not really there.”
“But what about what I feel?” she demanded, voice rising.
“That’s real enough, but it’s not a ghost inside your head—”
“No,” she interrupted, “It’s a person from another time.”
“—It’s you,” he continued, “overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tragedy.”
She shook her head. “You don’t understand.”
Tyler raised his eyebrows. “Well, maybe not. But I think your idea is a good one. Let’s use the rest of our vacation and go somewhere different. How about a cruise? Hawaii was a great idea.”
* * * * *
Five days later, on the deck of a great ship plowing across the Pacific, Paige reclined in a chair and sipped a Cosmopolitan. The sun beat warm on her face. The breeze of the ocean cooled the warmth until everything felt just right.
“Three days until we reach Hawaii,” Tyler said beside her. “This was a good idea. This was a very good idea. For us, for now, the war is over.”
Paige nodded. The visions had almost ceased. Whoever it was that had traveled with her in her mind had all but packed his bags and left—headed, she hoped, back where he had come from.
Even so, something gnawed at her. Some other angle she hadn’t considered. It didn’t panic her like before, but nonetheless a small, distant worry remained.
“I wonder,” she said softly. But Tyler, not hearing, left to find a magazine.
“I wonder,” she continued to herself, “if what came with me from Gettysburg could look out of my eyes the way I could look through his? Time is thin there. And war divides some, yet brings others together. That’s what history teaches. What visions did I give to him—whoever he is?
“And what, oh what, would he think of what he saw?”
She made no effort to answer her own questions. Putting on her sunglasses, she forced her mind silent, and focused instead on the incessant gold and white rhythm of the sunlit waves as they met with the distant horizon.
* * * * *
The man awoke suddenly in the pale sunlit room. Distracted, bemused, he dressed, washed, and descended the stairs to assume the duties of the day.
The Executive Cabinet awaited him in the morning room, seated around a long table of polished oak.
“You look tired, Mr. President,” said Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
The man rubbed his brow. “Gentlemen, several times in the last four years, always before some important event or disaster, I have had the same dream. I had it before Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, and, lately, the surrender of Lee. I had this dream again last night.”
He took a seat at the table. His deep-set eyes looked careworn and haunted.
“In my dream,” he said slowly, “I stand upon the deck of a ship that is rushing on some vast and indistinct expanse…toward an unknown shore.” He looked up with a tired smile. “I take it as a good omen, that perhaps reconstruction will commence quickly, and all animosity be buried in the efforts to come.”
“Let us hope, sir,” someone said, breaking the silence in the suddenly-quiet room.
“Yes,” said the man. “But the dream does leave me tired. Well, tonight will bury that fatigue. Mrs. Lincoln and I will attend a performance at Ford’s Theatre. General and Mrs. Grant may be joining us.”
The cabinet then shifted to other matters, but all the rest of that day Abraham Lincoln appeared thoughtful, and sometimes raised his head—exactly, some reflected in the chaotic days that followed, as if looking toward a horizon he alone could see.
A Sense of Duty
The four men worked hard with handkerchiefs tied around their faces. The September floods had been very bad, the worst in a hundred years, and the graveyard by the woods outside town had paid the price. Now someone needed to clean up the mess.
“Ain’t no work for a man,” said one, shoveling clear a load of muck from the top of a disintegrating pine box.
“We volunteered, Hugh,” said another. “It don’t do no good to complain.”
“We didn’t volunteer for this, Carl,” Hugh insisted.
“Stop your whining and shovel,” Carl said, lifting the handles of a broke-down wheelbarrow full of bad earth and turning away with it. “Whining ain’t fitting a man, neither.”
“Carl’s right,” said the third. “Volunteer firemen are in for it, no matter the calamity. You signed up as a volunteer fireman, you volunteered for this. So here you are. It’s for the good of the town…’Course, it sure is nasty,” he added, peering into the dank hole before him… mostly empty, but not quite.
“I guess, but it strikes me this here’s a bit above and beyond the call of duty, or what have you,” said Hugh. “You’ll change your tune if you fall in there, Ted,” he said.
The fourth man, the groundskeeper, returned from his trip to the storage shed, pulling an empty cart behind him. “That was Mr. Wilbur Collins I just stored. Wiped off the name plate,” he said. “The newer boxes all have ‘em.”
“Never did like Old Man Collins,” said Hugh. “Shot me with rock salt
once for cutting across his north pasture.”
“How many we got in there now, Mike?” Carl asked.
Mike let go of the cart and wiped his brow with a gloved hand. “So far there’s eleven… and some spare… odds and ends. Phew! For late September it sure is hot.” He looked sick and pale.
“Eleven,” said Ted, turning away from the open grave only to face another. Carefully, he picked his way back to clear ground. “That means,” he continued once safe, “there’s a good…well…”
“The chart says ninety-two,” Mike said, rummaging in his overalls for a battered sheaf of papers. “Yep, ninety-two. But to be honest, this one hain’t been updated in some time. The new chart, I’m afraid it was warshed away. Can’t say as I can recollect all the names, seeing as I just took the post six months ago, but there’s probably a few dozen more than what we see here.”
“Jesus wept,” groaned Ted.
“With all the stones strewn about, we got our work cut out for us,” Mike agreed.
Hugh thumped Mike on the back, grinning. “Ain’t you glad you got the job when you did?”
“Pineville’s a small town, thank God for that,” said Carl. “It could’ve been worse.”
* * * * *
Around three they rested on a log at the far end of the cemetery, carefully checking before they sat to make sure there weren’t any surprises lying nearby.
“Looking at it from this vantage point, I think I’m gonna cry,” said Ted. “I don’t wanna go back there.”
From where they sat it became apparent just how little their day’s work had achieved. One corner of the yard was mostly clear, tombstones neatly stacked against the low stone wall, nothing else in sight but a long hole every now and again or a bulge in the matted grass signifying a risen coffin the waters hadn’t entirely freed.
The rest of the yard, sixteen square acres, was a charnel garden. Tombstones law strewn about, some face down, some face up, some cracked, some broken, some sticking in the earth by a corner after being tossed end over end by the current. Only a few of the heavier, expensive granite stones remained mounted and upright. In almost all cases the remains they memorialized were no longer where they belonged.
It was an old cemetery, some coffins planted so long ago there was nothing left to float, but Pineville had also been gifted with several generations of skilled casket makers who knew how to prolong disintegration and fit boards tight together; thus, many had risen when the waters called, only breaking open when those same waters currented them into trees, tombstones, rocks and each other. Scores of broken wood caskets littered the yard, along with their long-hidden contents that turned the stomach and watered the eyes…some still under lids, others strewn across the muck. Friends, family, and ancestors society had long ago accepted as lost had now returned, but they were not wanted.
“If only everything wasn’t so damp,” said Ted. “A little sun, a little heat—“
“Heat would only make it worse.” Carl sniffed.
“But at least it would make everything less… less dead. I hate autumn. Cold mists, colder rains, and never enough sun. It’s the sun I need more than anything. Besides, we won’t be able to rebury any of these folk until the ground dries. We should pray for sun.”
“Prayer is good, I won’t argue none with that, but we should pray for strength more than sun,” Mike said, “and hurry up and get on with our job before what strength we got left gives out.” He stood, stretched, and trudged slowly back to his cart.
The others, equally slowly, followed.
“What we should pray for is a miracle,” muttered Hugh, bringing up the rear. “Something involving me never having to see anything like this ever again.”
* * * * *
By sundown the shed, formerly used for storing shovels, spades, hoes, rakes, bags of peat and wheelbarrows, now stored three dozen occupied coffins and the remains of a dozen and a half Pineville citizens without, the latter securely tied up in burlap sacks. Outside, four stacks of tombstones lay in front of the shed, to be sorted through and restored to their proper places later.
“Another two days should do it for the gathering,” Carl said. “Then we can help Mike here with the sorting and put everybody back proper who can be put back.”
The night was clear but moonless, the wind gentle but cool. They slept in Mike’s cottage on the hill next to the shed, setting up two-hour shifts to guard the cemetery from animals that might worry the exposed remains. Mike lent out his rifle for the purpose, along with an oil lamp so no one would take any bad steps in the dark.
Carl picked the short straw and kept watch first. He walked the grounds carefully, handkerchief tied tight around his face, trying not to think. For two hours his only excitement was chasing a red fox away from what was left of Abigail Wilson. At two he gave Ted a kick in the leg and turned in.
Ted didn’t go through the graveyard, just circled around it. He didn’t want to stumble over any gaping holes in the dark, didn’t even want to risk it, so he kept to the perimeter, scaring off rats and raccoons, then stumbling over, not a hole, but a wooden coffin that gave way as his boot pressed down.
Forty-five minutes later, still wiping his heel on the grass, he shambled, muttering, back to the house and woke Hugh.
Hugh chose sitting rather than walking, and parked himself on Mike’s porch swing for guard duty. It was in pretty poor shape, the weather-worn wooden seat hanging from rusted chains which looked ready to break, but it felt good to sit, and everything held. In fact, it felt so good that after a while, probably not more than a couple of minutes, he drifted off into uneasy sleep.
He dreamt fitfully of mildewed linen, dank holes, and the sighing of fretting winds through dark tree boughs. The sound conjured images of waving doors that shouldn’t be open; clattering attic shutters in abandoned mansions; cold, wet-ashed chimney flues… and after a time it grew louder, more distinct and insistent, until with a start and a cry he awoke.
But the sound did not cease.
“What’s that?” he hissed, then clapped a hand over his mouth. “What is that?” he hissed again through white fingers. He looked back toward the front door and the black inside space beyond. Silence there, save for snores.
“Christ Almighty, that ain’t them, he said, and fumbled for the dark lantern. “Gonna see,” he said. “Gonna see what that goddamned sound is.”
But he couldn’t bring himself to strike a match.
The sound was like a tide, cries washing over voices, voices demanding answers. The sound was faint but resonated with the power of a multitude. Over the voices came the tread of feet on grass and leaves, the knocking of knuckles against wood, the ripping of fabric with fingernails.
“Lord a’ mercy.” The words could have been Hugh’s but were not. They came from behind him. He spun like a top, arms raised to fend off or strike.
Carl grabbed him. “Now, now, it’s just us.” Mike and Ted stood beside him in the dark, holding their breath.
Together they stood on the porch and listened.
“It’s coming from the bone yard,” Mike whispered.
“Some of the kids from town come back to cause trouble?” Ted whispered.
“Hell no,” Carl said. “No one would cause trouble with that.” His shadow nodded toward the cratered lawn.
Mike took a deep breath and said, “Come on now, let’s not get panicked. It’s my job to see this property’s residents are kept safe. I’m turning on a lamp.” He fumbled with a match. Yellow flame sprang up, touched an oiled rope. The lantern glowed.
Hugh gasped. Ted shut his eyes tight. Carl grabbed the rifle from Hugh’s hand.
Mike raised the lantern.
As though of the wind itself, the noise rose for a moment, then, protesting, faded quickly and completely away.
Nothing moved in the cemetery but rats and leaves.
Even so, no one caught a wink all the rest of that long night.
* * * * *
“Well, I’d say somet
hing looks different.”
Everyone looked at Mike, who was surveying the cemetery, hands on hips and nodding slowly. “It don’t look as messy today.”
“That’s cause we worked our behinds off yesterday,” said Hugh. “Now my first order of business is to get that damned pine tree to give up her goods. It just don’t look right, that thing all the way up in a tree.” Shouldering a coil of rope, he walked over to the spruce planted in the middle of the lot and looked up into its cover, where the glint of a brass handle betrayed the presence of a coffin lodged between two branches some eight feet off the ground.
“I’d better help him,” said Carl, following. “If the damn thing drops sudden it’ll probably land on his head.”
“Bag duty for me,” said Ted, holding up a pile of burlap sacks with a grimace. “Gonna go in the woods and search for strays. Feel free to trade whenever you feel inclined.”
“Gonna try and start matching pieces together, one stone to one coffin, one coffin to one body,” Mike said, and went off to the shed.
The sun was bright and warm, good for drying out the earth but bad for what needed to be re-interred beneath it. They found their cologne-soaked handkerchiefs, tied them in place, and the work went on. There was no talk about the previous night.
Not until noon did something happen to put everything else on hold for a time.
It was Ted, out in the woods, who picked up on it first, and when he did he came running out from among the trees, waving his arms and wringing his hands. Everyone stopped and stared, and when he got close he called out, “There’s a child in there! I can hear her crying!”
The search began immediately.
“No way anyone’s in here,” said Mike, turning to Ted as they picked their way among the trees. “You sure it wasn’t a barn owl? They sound kinda like tikes when they’re riled.”
“Hey now, I know what I heard,” Ted grumbled.
“It don’t make no sense. The nearest farm—“
Scaring the Crows Page 10
