by Crowe (epub)
Johnny let out a cry of relief. He sniffed and wiped his nose with his sleeve. Tears streaked down his face, cutting trails through the mask of grime.
“I told you I’d come back,” he said, hugging Anna Lee. “You can be proud of me now.”
She squeezed him tight, steadying herself against the sobbing that racked her body. Anna Lee buried her head against his chest and Johnny felt her tears wash over his exposed skin. At length she regained control and looked up into his face.
“I always was proud of you, Johnny. You never had to prove your worth to me. You had to prove it to yourself.”
“Johnny Crowe?” the Reverend asked, free at last from the ropes. He walked over to the two lovers, rubbing his wrists where the ropes had chaffed his skin.
“Yes, sir.”
“I heard you went off to war.”
“He told us you was dead,” Anna Lee said, looking over Johnny’s shoulder and out the front door.
“Well, I ain’t.”
“No, you ain’t.” Anna Lee wrapped her arms around Johnny’s neck and pulled him toward her. She planted a long, passionate kiss on his lips.
Johnny returned her kiss, feeling the longing in her lips. They stayed that way for a solid minute before the Reverend cleared his throat. Johnny pulled back, embarrassed. From the look on her face, he didn’t think that Anna Lee was finished with him yet.
“I’m glad you came back when you did, son,” the Reverend said. He looked down at the canvas “War Department” bag hanging over Johnny’s shoulder. Something inside the bag was moving.
“What have you got there?”
Johnny had forgotten all about the bag. He removed it from his shoulder and handed it to Anna Lee. “It’s for you,” he said. “It’s always been yours.”
Anna Lee took the bag, puzzled. She started to lift the flap, but Johnny placed his hand on hers, stopping her from opening the bag.
“Maybe not right now,” he said.
The townsfolk worked hard to complete the needed repairs to their town before the cold weather set in. Johnny felt somewhat responsible for the damage, since it had occurred during his encounter with the Devil, so stayed busy from sunrise to sundown, lending a hand where he could. It was during those closing months of 1862 that two things happened that changed Johnny’s prospects for the future. For one, his hard work and diligence raised him in the esteem of many throughout the town. When the folks set out to begin the day’s work, they always found Johnny already hard at it with a smile on his face. He wasn’t much for introspection, but even Johnny found it funny that once he had stopped worrying about how others saw him that he at long last earned the respect of the town.
The second thing was an idea that occurred to Johnny one afternoon while working on Doc Lawson’s clinic. He and a few other volunteers were setting the final stairs that led up to the clinic door when the Doc stepped outside to appraise their handiwork. Satisfied, the Doc gave the men a begrudging word of thanks, then mentioned that he was headed home to prop his feet up by the stone fireplace. When the Doc had left, the other men snorted and chuckled that the Doc, who hadn’t lifted a finger to help them, ought to invite them over to put their feet up by his fire. Johnny, however, never heard a word they said. A thought was forming in his mind, rolling and tumbling around in his bronze head. Instead of hauling rocks down to market and trying to sell them there by ones and twos, what if he sold them in bulk as building materials? He had taken right away to carpentry; perhaps he could try his hand at masonry.
That evening, sitting on their hill and watching the cold stars twinkling in the night sky, Johnny ran it past Anna Lee. She thought it was a fine idea.
With the work in town completed, Johnny and Anna Lee were married as the first snowflakes of the year began to fall. Reverend Henderson presided over the ceremony and the whole town was invited to the reception in the town square. Footprints were crushed into the fine, white powder as men and women twirled and danced in the street. Irma even managed to drag the Reverend into the crowd of merrymakers. It was the first time that Anna Lee had seen him smile since the death of her mother.
Everyone had a grand time, except for the still single Susie Anderson, who sulked alone in the corner.
Most of the town’s resources had gone toward the repairs, but the townsfolk brought what they could to help the newlyweds make it through the coming winter. They brought canned fruits and vegetables from their pantries, folded linens and fabrics from their closets, and even Mrs. Ewing gifted the largest ham she had in her smokehouse to the couple. They piled their gifts inside an old trunk with the initials “J.C.” on the plate. Somehow, no matter how much they brought, the trunk was able to hold just a little bit more. In this way, everyone gave a little, which turned out to be a lot to the Crowes.
Even with the gifts of their friends and neighbors, times got tough again toward the end of the winter. Provisions had run low. Johnny and Anna Lee rationed what they had left, hoping to make it last until the spring market came. Anna Lee was boiling the hambone for stock and Johnny was rummaging around to see if they had any dried beans left when there came a knock at the door. The two exchanged a confused look. Who did they know that would brave the trek up the Knob in the cold to come calling?
Johnny opened the door. Bundled up against the cold stood a soldier in a heavy gray coat, a canvas bag with “War Department” stenciled on the side.
“Mr. Crowe,” the courier stammered.
“Yes,” Johnny said, helping the courier in out of the cold and closing the door behind him.
“Thank you,” the courier replied when Anna Lee brought him a cup of coffee.
“Sorry to have taken so long to reach you,” the courier said, both hands wrapped around the cup, sucking up its warmth. “I’m sure you know how hard it is to get a load over the mountains in the winter time.”
“What load?” Johnny asked.
The courier looked from Johnny to Anna Lee and back, confused. “The provisions.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“Oh.” A worried look spread over the courier’s face. “I hope I haven’t overstepped my authority, then. You see, I was tasked by the War Department out of Richmond with delivering you this.”
The courier reached into his bag, pulled out an envelope, and handed it to Johnny. Johnny stared at the envelope, his name written in script on the front. Anna Lee stood close and placed her arm around his waist.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Johnny ran his finger along the flap of the envelope. It was torn from where it had been opened before. He tipped the envelope and a handful of coins fell into his palm.
“Your payment, sir,” the courier said. “For your time in the army.”
Johnny looked at the money in his hand. It was more than he had ever seen at one time. Still, it felt a little light.
“There should be more.”
“Uh, yes, sir.” The courier shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stared at the floor. “That’s what I was saying earlier.”
The courier raised his eyes and Johnny knew right away what he was thinking.
“It’s all right,” Johnny said. “You can tell us.”
“Well, sir... you see, I was headed this way with your payment when I… I guess it was a dream. You see, I was asleep, then all at once I wasn’t. There was this mist in the air, then...”
“A ghost?” Johnny offered.
The courier’s eyes widened. “Yes, sir. A ghost. In a soldier’s uniform. He said to take your money and spend a chunk of it on provisions and stuff for the winter. He said that you spent the better part of the year fighting for the Confederacy and didn’t have much ready to get you through the winter. It was the damned thing I ever saw. I tried to convince myself it was some foolish dream, but it seeme
d so real.”
“Emmit?” Anna Lee asked. Of all the folks Johnny had told her about meeting on his adventures, Emmit seemed the most likely to do something like this.
“I reckon so,” Johnny replied.
“It just felt so real. So, I opened your envelope and rounded up a few things that the ghost told me you’d need. It took a while, and once winter set in... well, we’ve only just arrived.”
“We?” Johnny asked.
The courier set down his coffee and opened the door. Johnny and Anna Lee moved around so that they could see outside. Two carts rumbled up the path and stopped in front of the door. The drivers dismounted, saluted, and began unloading their goods inside the shack.
“He... that is, the ghost... he called it a wedding gift.”
That spring, Johnny converted the abandoned coach that had sat at Green Hill all winter into a rolling workbench. He counted it against the eight dollars that Mr. Samuels had taken from him. Masonry jobs came in from all over the South, which kept him busy all summer long. By the time the leaves began to change their color and drop from the trees, Johnny had hired on two additional helpers. That left him more time to spend at home and work on the house he was building next to the one room shack. The foundation and part of the stone walls were already in place. If the weather remained fair, Johnny hoped to have the house finished and to be moved in before the baby came. They would need the room.
Johnny still heard the Devil’s voice in his head on occasion. He made mistakes over the years, but he learned to live with them. In time, the Devil seemed to lose his voice, as Johnny almost never heard it anymore.
Almost never.
On the following Halloween nights, Reverend Henderson left the gate to the churchyard open just a crack. After dark, someone snuck in and placed a single red rose on the lone grave at the far corner of the cemetery. The tradition was continued by the next two reverends in the following decades. Once a second tombstone joined the first, the mysterious figure laid a single rose on both graves. Only when a third tombstone was erected did the tradition end.
Nowadays, folks strolling by don’t pay much attention to the cemetery anymore. The tombstones are weathered beyond being comprehensible. Still, one thing does tend to draw the eye. Growing in the far corner of the churchyard is the most beautiful rosebush in the entire Valley. When the sun sets, red and orange light spills over the rosebush, causing the flowers and buds to look as though they are ablaze.
