Land of the Brave and the Free (Journals of Corrie Belle Hollister Book 7)

by Michael Phillips

  “Father,” I said, “we thank you for this provision, and for loving us like you do. But we ask especially right now for your protection and your hand to be upon your son Christopher Braxton. Wherever he is, and in whatever circumstance, Lord, we ask for you to—”

  I never finished. The prayer had been answered even before I’d begun to pray it.

  There was a sound at the door.

  The next instant I was on my feet, running across the floor.

  Without even realizing what I was doing, I threw my arms around him and held on to him as tight as I could.

  “Christopher!” I cried, then broke down sobbing for joy.

  What’s all this!” laughed Christopher as he entered, with more hugs and handshakes and slaps on the back following mine.

  “We’re just mighty happy to see you back in one piece, sir,” said Captain Dyles. “I am Geoffrey Dyles. We didn’t exactly have time for an introduction two days ago!”

  “Happy to meet you, Dyles! And you must be Crabtree,” he added to Jacob.

  “Jacob Crabtree in your service, Mr. Braxton,” said Jacob, taking Christopher’s right hand in both of his and giving it a vigorous shake. “The captain and me’s in your debt. Whatever we can do—”

  “Forget it. Corrie was plenty fond of the two of you and seemed to have an idea it was her fault you both wound up in the pickle you did. This whole scheme was her idea!”

  “You never told us that, Miss Corrie,” said Jacob.

  “It’s only half true,” I said, laughing. “I told him all that happened and that I wished there was something we could do. But it was Christopher who thought up the plot to get you out of that prison.”

  “Well, however it came about, we’re more grateful than you can know,” said Captain Dyles. “You’ve both got more guts than half the Union army.”

  “The dinner’s getting cold!” called out Mrs. Timms.

  “Dinner? What dinner?” said Christopher.

  “You’re just in time, Mr. Braxton,” said Mrs. Timms. “I made extra of everything because I knew you’d be back today!”

  “I do have to admit . . . I am famished.”

  We all resumed our seats, though I scooted around to sit beside Mrs. Timms so Christopher could sit at the head of the table. Suddenly, spirits in the small farmhouse were noticeably brighter.

  I had hardly taken a single bite before I could no longer contain my curiosity.

  “Please, Christopher,” I said, “aren’t you going to tell us what happened?”

  “Don’t you want me to get some nourishment in my starving body first?”

  “But I’m dying to know!”

  “All right, all right. But you’ll have to let me eat as I go, because I truly am hungry enough to eat two of Mrs. Timms’ huge Sunday meals!”

  He swallowed two mouthfuls of hot potatoes, then began. “Well, I walked toward General Lee.”

  “It was Robert Lee,” I interrupted. “I was sure.”

  “The general and some of his top aides, all right. Believe it or not, they had just received word, after all this time, of your capture, Captain,” he said, turning toward Mr. Dyles. “Hearing that you were part of General Grant’s unit, I think he was planning to interrogate you.”

  “Lucky for us! You got us out just in time!”

  “I am not a believer in luck, Captain, if you’ll pardon my disagreement. You were being watched over, as were we all. Luck had nothing to do with it.”

  “Watched over? I don’t understand . . . by whom?”

  “By your Father of course, Captain. He is always watching over you.”

  “You mean . . . God?”

  “Who else?”

  “And do you mean to tell me God was watching over us even when we were in that foul, stinking prison?”

  “Then more than ever.”

  “Bah, I don’t believe a word of it.”

  Christopher smiled knowingly and patiently. “Tell me, Captain,” he said, “was it so bad that you ever prayed when you didn’t think you could stand it another minute?”

  “Of course. Everybody prays like that.”

  “How about you, Jacob?”

  “I prayed a heap, I can tell you! More’n I ever prayed in my whole life.”

  The captain looked over at his black friend.

  “You never told me you were praying,” he said.

  “Ain’t the kind of thing folks always goes around telling other people. Prayin’s kind of a private thing. But I was prayin’ all right. ’Sides, you didn’t tell me you was praying neither.”

  “But don’t you see,” Christopher went on, “both of you did pray, and your Father was watching over you and answering your prayers in ways you could have had no idea of, watching over you the whole time in preparation for what happened two days ago. Why, he kept Corrie alive when some young women who weren’t as strong would have died from a wound like hers. He sent me along just at the right moment to find her. He brought her memory back. He showed her the article in the paper by her friend. And Gregory just happened to be at the Star office when we went looking for him. He just happened to know someone who just happened to know where the two of you were. And then we just happened along an hour before Robert Lee was coming after you, and just happened to manage to get you out of that place.”

  He paused and looked at both Jacob and Captain Dyles seriously but with such a look of love and deep concern as I don’t think I’d ever seen on a man’s face toward another man. It was the same look he’d given Derrick Gregory.

  “Don’t you see it, men?” he said, with such entreaty and earnestness and conviction. “None of it just happened! It was all part of a divine plan. Every tiniest piece was a divine appointment—” and as he said the words he glanced at me with a smile. “There are no chance encounters for God’s people,” he went on. “I venture to say there are probably no chance encounters for anyone. But you see, we are God’s people, Corrie and Mrs. Timms and I. And the two of you prayed prayers to your Father in heaven. And God, who is the Father of us all, was watching, and he listened and heard and was making provision for answers far beyond the scope of what we can even grasp. You were praying in the prison, and I was praying for Corrie as she lay in bed, and I know Mrs. Timms was praying for me, faithful lady that she is, because she knew of the hurts and doubts my heart was struggling with. Now here we all are, together, and God has answered all our prayers as he weaves a tapestry together. Each one of us is but one thread. But he is all the time interweaving the threads together to form a beautiful pattern that only he can see.”

  All of us around the table fell silent.

  “Once you have eyes to see it, Captain, I would say there were probably twenty or thirty, or even a hundred different little pieces of what most people would call chance but I would call the sovereign hand of God, fitting events and circumstances together in such a way as led to your walking out of that prison two days ago—and you were unaware of it all. So yes, I say again, God was indeed watching over you far more carefully than you had any idea.”

  “I heard him ask you how you had authority to take them from the prison,” I said, “and then you said that you’d been sent. That was the last thing I heard. Did you tell them Jefferson Davis sent you?”

  Christopher smiled.

  “No, I said nothing about Mr. Davis. By that time I was mostly praying myself.”

  He paused, and a look of deep thoughtfulness came over his face, like he was reliving the whole thing.

  “From the very start such a conviction had come over me that the Lord was with us, that we were doing what he purposed for us to do, and that we would all be kept safe because we were in his hands, that I just felt no fear. That’s not something I often feel. Actually, I don’t consider myself a particularly courageous man at all. Sometimes the smallest things can frighten me. But on that day there was none of it. Even when I saw General Lee and the five other officers, I knew all was in God’s hands.

  “I should not s
ay I felt nothing. My heart did skip a beat or two, but only for the safety of the rest of you, not for myself. Strange to say, that’s what I felt. And so as I was praying silently in my heart throughout the whole thing, there was such a sense of asking exactly what God had purposed to do. Therefore, there was no doubt that he was going to answer everything I prayed, and I just acted accordingly. It’s always a good thing to pray, of course. And prayer in the midst of our doubts is essential. Yet the kind of prayer that moves mountains, it seems to me, is prayer that lines up exactly with what God intends to do, and our only responsibility is to fall in line with his purpose.

  “But anyway, to get back to what happened. After telling you to keep going, Corrie—”

  “I’ve never heard your voice so commanding,” I said. “You made me more afraid of disobeying you than I was of being captured!”

  Christopher laughed. “I wanted to make sure you did as I said! I knew you would come to no harm. But I knew you didn’t know it!”

  “I did obey, but I hated it,” I said. “I was so worried about you!”

  “You needn’t have been. I was in good hands. The moment I turned from you and began walking back toward the general, I began praying fervently that God would blind their eyes just enough from what was happening that they would focus their attention on me and pay none to you. ‘Blind their sight, Lord,’ I said under my breath as I approached. ‘Give them eyes to see only me.’ I walked straight toward General Lee, looked him firmly in the eye with a pleasant smile, for in all honesty even then I felt no antagonism toward the man, and continued to pray, ‘Bring all of the weight of what is in these men’s hearts to do—bring it all upon me, Father, and not upon whom I call my friends. Let the price of this war fall on my head, not theirs. Protect them, and protect me, Father, and keep us all in your care.’

  “I was praying all that, over and over, on the inside, while outside I walked forward, smiled, and told them I was the man they wanted. By then they were off their horses and questioning me all at once, and before long you were all out of sight and safely on your way back here.”

  “But what did you say?” I insisted.

  “Not much,” chuckled Christopher. “Actually, that was the thing that drove the poor men more crazy than anything, that I was so pleasant and cooperative and unresistant, but wouldn’t tell them anything. They literally barraged me with questions, and I kept praying that they would be distracted from seeing the rest of your complicity in the matter.”

  “You must have said something.”

  “When they asked about you, I simply said I had been sent on an errand of mercy, which was altogether true. I didn’t go into it much more than that, and they didn’t persist. The poor men were just very confused. I didn’t behave anything like an enemy. My southern accent and my clerical collar verified to them that I was who I said I was. I made no attempt to hide my identity, and it turned out one of the men had heard of me and knew I was a minister. Fortunately, he wasn’t aware of the stand I’d taken on the war! I kept praying, and when questioned about you and the incident, I continued to say that I had been sent and that my mission was one of compassion and that I was about the Father’s business. I think I perhaps sounded like a kook to them. But I don’t think they really wanted to punish or harm me, even though they couldn’t get out of me what they were after. The Lord, I am convinced, sent a spirit of bewilderment upon them in answer to my prayers, and they simply didn’t know what to do with me.”

  “So . . . what happened?” I asked.

  “Finally, in frustration, General Lee left and one of his subordinates told them to throw me in the prison. The whole thing was extraordinary. They could have shot or hanged me. But within an hour or two, all the officers were gone, and there I was alone inside Libby Prison.”

  “I’m sorry you had to go through that for us, Rev. Braxton,” said Jacob.

  “It wasn’t so bad, Jacob. I spoke with many of the men, prayed with those who would let me, gave comfort where I could. Actually, it was the most useful I’ve felt in the kingdom for a long time. I was there all that night, though I didn’t get much sleep.”

  “The first nights are the worst,” put in Captain Dyles. “The moans, the rats!”

  “It was anything but pleasant. I sang a few hymns, and it seemed to bring a calm to the room where they’d put me. I think a lot of the men were able to sleep a little better for it. Then the next morning—that would have been yesterday . . . it’s amazing, already it seems like such a long time ago—two men came back to question me again. I’m not sure if they were the same men or not, though I may have recognized one of them. They bombarded me with question after question. But now that I was in prison and you were all safe, there was no need for me to defend myself. Finally one of them nearly exploded at me, ‘Don’t you realize that we have the power to take your life?’ ‘Only one has that power,’ I answered him. ‘You’re right there, Reverend, and his name is General Robert E. Lee!’ I didn’t answer him. ‘Still you’ve got nothing to say? You want me to turn you over to the firing squad for treason!’ I felt sorry for the poor man. He just wasn’t able to recognize the work of redemption that was going on right under his nose.”

  Again we all grew silent, each of us considering the implications of what Christopher had said for ourselves personally. Mrs. Timms made one more attempt to pass the platters of food around, but we had all eaten enough and were satisfied.

  “After a while they threw their hands up in the air and just didn’t know what to do with me. The rest of the day passed much like the first, and the night too.

  “Then this morning, the lieutenant who had been on guard when we’d first arrived came to find me and said simply, ‘Come with me, Reverend.’ I stood and followed him out of the room and toward the entrance.

  “The large door stood open wide even before I reached it.

  “ ‘You’re free to go,’ said the lieutenant.

  “I thanked him, shook his hand, and told him his Father in heaven cared for him, then turned and walked through the door into the bright sunlight of the morning. I so desperately longed to be able to bring all your fellow captives out with me. But I knew God himself would have to end this war in order to make that miracle possible.”

  “How did you get here?” I asked.

  “I walked,” replied Christopher with a laugh. “How else could I get home? You’d taken my team and wagon!”

  “All the way from Richmond!”

  “It took me only the morning. And after being in that prison for two days . . . I needed the exercise.”

  It didn’t take long before Captain Dyles and Jacob began to get jittery. Within a day or two their strength had revived considerably, and with Christopher now back, they were hardly necessary for chores or anything.

  And of course the root of everything was the simple fact that Captain Dyles was a soldier and there was a war on. It was more than clear he was anxious to get back to his unit.

  They asked Christopher a lot of questions about the war, but once it was clear that very little had changed in three months, the captain said the best plan seemed to be to just attempt to return the way the three of us had come in October, and make their way around to the south to where the Union army under General Grant was still laying siege to Petersburg.

  “You got a couple a horses we could buy or have for the sake of the Union, Braxton?” the captain asked after they’d discussed what to do.

  “I’ve only got the two,” Christopher replied, “and I can’t hardly part with them.”

  “We’d need three anyway,” I put in. “You seem to have forgotten all about me, Captain Dyles.”

  “I never thought of it, Miss Hollister,” he said. “I just figured—”

  “Figured what? That I’d become a southern belle so soon? I gotta get back just as much as you do. I gotta get back to Washington.”

  “What’s in Washington?”

  His question caught me off guard.

  “I . . . uh
. . . well, the President,” I said. “That’s the capital of our country . . . everything I was doing is there—my work, the Sanitary Commission, writing for the President . . . Mr. Hay . . . I have to tell them I’m all right and find out what I should do now.”

  Everything kind of spilled out of my mouth at once. It made me realize that I hadn’t really stopped to consider what I would do next.

  “I don’t belong here,” I added. “I’m no Southerner.”

  Christopher was real quiet. I didn’t realize it right then or I’d have apologized. I must have offended him by making it sound like an awful thing to be a Southerner. That wasn’t exactly what I’d meant. But he didn’t say anything for a while, and that must have been what he thought.

  “We’ll share you between me and Jacob,” said Captain Dyles. “That is, we could if we had horses.”

  “I’ll take you where you want to go,” said Christopher, breaking the brief silence that followed.

  “You’ve done enough for us already, Braxton,” said the captain. “I don’t want to see you getting yourself in any more danger. As it is, I’m going to put it to General Grant for you to receive a medal for bravery once this blamed war is over.”

  “I need no medal, Captain,” laughed Christopher, his cheerful countenance returning once more. “Remember, I’ve been sent, just like I told them at the prison. That means I go and do whatever my Father puts before me. Besides, Captain, after what we went through at the prison, how difficult could it be to get you back to General Grant’s army if we swing far enough to the south? We’re surely not likely to run into Robert E. Lee down there!”

  “I reckon you’re right, Braxton. We’re much obliged for everything. It’s only that I don’t like to put another man in danger for me.”

  So it was that three days later, the three men and I loaded into the wagon again.

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Timms,” I said. “How can I thank you for everything you have done? I owe you my life.”