Mississippi DEAD (8 page)
Authors: Shawn Weaver
She turned around and saw Allen standing in the threshold, his feet glued to the floor. His usually calm face now showed grief. Then it dawned on her. Stepping quickly to the door, she pushed Allen back into the hall with one hand, and closed the door with the other.
Hugging Allen tightly, she said, “Baby, I’m sorry. I totally forgot.”
Reaching up with one hand, Allen hugged Gina close, and swallowed hard, “It’s alright.”
Letting go, Gina started to walk down the hall. Not hearing Allen’s footsteps, she stopped and turned to see him facing the door.
Slowly Allen took hold of the doorknob. Hesitating a moment, he turned the brass knob and pushed the door open. Looking into the room, he could hear Gina walk towards him.
Taking a step into the room, Allen could not take his eyes off of the replica that had been such a large part of his young childhood. The only clear memories he still had of his father were right here, working on this replica his grandfather had started so many years ago.
“He died here,” Allen said, more to
himself than to Gina who stood in the doorway.
“Mom found him on a Sunday morning. He had a heart attack while we were at church.”
Leaning her head against the doorframe, Gina listened, letting Allen get the pain out. He never talked about his father. And she knew that moving back here would bring up some of the pain he had buried down so deep he had forgotten it was there.
“Thirty years old and he died of a heart attack,” Allen spit out, looking at Gina. She could see tears well up in his eyes as his hands clenched.
“I was six. I can still see him working on it. Always changing things around as buildings came and went. The last thing I remember was I got to glue trees over here.” Allen pointed towards a clump of evergreens at the back of the table.
Gina stepped into the room and took Allen’s hand. He responded by gripping it tightly.
“Your grandpa died here, too?” Gina asked, even though she knew the truth. She had heard stories from Allen’s mother before the big move.
Allen nodded but did not have time to respond as the kids came charging down the hallway. Stinker followed along, sniffing at every door. Stopping at the threshold, he sat down, not entering.
“Cool,” Kaylee said, looking at the small town before her. “Mom, there’s our house,” she continued in an excited voice, pointing up the hill towards the replica.
Gina bent down to Kaylee’s height. “Yes, it is. Your grandpa made it.”
“Can we play with it?” Paulie asked, eager to start.
Gina looked up at Allen, who nodded. Smiling, she replied, “I guess. But be careful.”
Stepping up to the table, Paulie spied a scaled down version of a 1950s black sedan hearse near the center of the one-road town. He started to roll it down the blacktopped street, slowing at a stop sign. Not coming to a full stop, he rolled on through. Kaylee showed up with a state trooper car and rolled it toward Paulie’s car, making a high pitched siren sound.
“Busted,” Allen said, as his son got pulled over.
“You want to keep it?” Gina asked Allen, knowing that he had nothing of his father except for a few old photos.
“I don’t know,” Allen replied, not sure what to do with the miniature of the valley.
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Wolves in Springfield
CHAPTER ONE
Johnathan Burrows looked up through the trees at the moon that still hung full in the daylight sky. Its large, light grey shape gave him a chilling feeling that sunk deeper into his bones than the cold water currently filling his boots. And though it had been morning for hours,
the bright sun did not give off the much needed heat that the shivering band of ragged men needed as they sloshed through the sunken stream between two overgrown hills.
“Hold up,” Corporal Mathew Talls said from the front of the line. Motioning for the troop to stop, he bent an arm outward at the elbow, and closed his fist tight.
The remaining few of the Twenty Third Illinois regiment, widely known in the Union as the Irish Brigade, gladly did so. The last weeks had been hard on the men with spoiled food, mosquitoes and dysentery running rampant with them.
May fourth, after the battle of Chancellorsville, found the men confused, tired and lost. The regiment had been shattered, its men scattered along Bank’s Ford, Virginia after the onslaught of the Confederates. In their retreat, Johnathan Burrows and six other men found themselves lost behind enemy lines.
By now all of them were reported missing and, more than likely, presumed dead by their commanders. But none of them wanted to see that end. They all had families back in Illinois and every one of them wanted nothing more than to break through the Confederate lines and get back to the lives they had left behind before the war began.
Johnathan's feet hurt like hell from the hole worn though the sole of his left boot, letting in everything from the stream to every thorn on God’s green earth. Fortunately the Lord had blessed him with only that. He hadn’t gotten the runs, and his meager rations were still edible for the most part, though the few pieces of hardtack he had left were just that — hard. Even soaking them did no good.
Since separating from the rest of their division, the small band had run into nothing but trouble. Skirmishes had sprouted up here and there. Even the local people of Northern Virginia were a dangerous commodity. Families protecting their homes and what little they had left had made it difficult. Johnathan couldn’t blame any of them. They all had their beliefs, and who wouldn’t take a shot at armed strangers who trespassed on their property?
Not admitting at any time that they were lost, Corporal Talls led the men on. Raised in the woods around Springfield, Corporal Talls thought he knew his directions by the position of the sun and the moss growing on the trees. And even if they were going in the wrong direction, the small band moved at a quick pace.
“Sir,” Johnathan Burrows said, pulling his boot out of sucking black mud.
“Yes, Private?”
“How much longer, sir?”
Corporal Talls looked up the hills and into the trees. He caught a waft of smoke floating on the air just a few hundred yards away.
“Not long. I see smoke up ahead.”
“Do you think it's our camp?” Smitty O’Donnell asked from his place at the back of the line.
“I doubt it,” Isaiah Williams added, “We're still too far into Confederate territory. It’s either a scouting unit or another homestead.”
Nodding, Private Burrows agreed. He hoped it was neither, though if he had a choice, it would be for a scouting unit. The homesteaders were fanatical about protecting their homes.
Looking over his shoulder, Corporal Talls motioned for the men to stay put. Striding to his right, he pushed through the stream and started to climb the bank. Grabbing the jutting roots of the overgrown trees, he pulled himself upward. And, as quietly as he could, he sneaked over the edge of the bank.
Shivering, Johnathan would have rather done the scouting. It was not so much that he was a better scout than the corporal, but he would have a chance to get the gallon of water and mud out of his boot. Like a good soldier, he obeyed his orders and stayed in place. He was just one of the thousands fighting in this war, not just for the rights and freedom of the Negroes, but for President Lincoln. The man had a vision of a better America, and Johnathan wanted nothing less for his family. His father had come over from Ireland looking for religious freedom, and to be able to raise a family on land that he owned.
As Corporal Talls disappeared over the rim of the hill, seconds seemed to tick slowly by. Then shots rang out. Ducking, the men heard hot lead cut through the trees and ricochet off of the dirt on the banks.
Johnathan heard the sickening thud of flesh giving way as Martin Willows, just turned eighteen yesterday, had his life cut short. A bullet entered his head, splattering his brains over the two men behind him. Crumpling lifeless, Martin fell into the stream, blood gushing from his gaping wound, turning the muddy water red.
Not wanting to be sitting ducks, the other five men ran up the bank. No more than five yards into the overgrowth, they fell to the ground to be as small of targets as possible.
Looking into the clearing a few yards in front of them, Johnathan saw the body of Corporal Talls lying askew in the high grasses, cut down before he even had a chance to fire his rifle.
A small one story house made from roughhewn timbers sat alone across a high grassed field, its stone chimney on the right side and a series of windows spaced intermittently along the walls. On the left, a few yards away, a squat barn sat. Unlike the house, it was not made from rough timbers. It seemed to Johnathan that the owners had taken their time with building the barn, making sure that their livelihood continued.
Shots rang out from the left. Johnathan ducked down, pressing his body as far into the dirt as he could. Peering up, he spotted three rifle barrels poking out from behind a row of rotting hay bales.
With every muzzle flash Johnathan knew it was now up to him to make sure his men stayed alive.
“William,” he said, not taking his eyes off of the hay bales.
“Yeah?" William answered from behind, his voice sounding tired.
“Slip around the back of the barn and see what you can do.”
"Sure."
For a second Johnathan could have sworn that William sounded happy at the chance for action. He did not hear William slip away, but he knew the solider was now in his element. Unlike the others who fought side-by-side, William was a loner, and enjoyed being able to fight on his own.
“My powder's wet,” Johnathan heard Smitty say from his position behind a tree, just as another volley of lead came too close.
Johnathan knew that most of the men were in the same situation. Everything they had was wet. Down to his last few shots, he had no idea how much ammo their attackers had, but he did know they had the upper hand. Hopefully, if William held true to his actions, he would eliminate the opposition before they realized that he was there.
The rifle fire died down, and crickets started to chirp from their hidden spots in the thick undergrowth. Johnathan saw the rifles pull back from the hay bales. He guessed that the attackers could not see them, but only knew their general location. He doubted that the Rebs would slink off and hide. The war had come down to that. Every man fought hard. Everyone knew that the war was coming to a close, which made the Confederates desperate for another win. They had taken the advantage at Chancellorsville and wanted to continue their roll across the states.
A frog croaked from the edge of the stream as Johnathan counted the silent seconds. Another shot rang out, going wide. Then silence once again.
A hundred heartbeats later, a twig snapped to his left and Johnathan rolled over, swinging his rifle upwards. At that moment he wished he had kept his bayonet, but he, like thousands of his brothers-in-arms, had left the heavy weapon behind almost immediately after being requisitioned.
Finger on the trigger, Johnathan instinctively pulled it. The hammer came down and nothing happened as the firing cap was struck. Then he noticed that it was not a Confederate who had snuck up.
“William,” Johnathan swore. “Good lord, man. I almost plugged you.”
“Sorry,” William choked out, looking down the barrel of Johnathan’s rifle.
Knowing he was lucky that Johnathan’s powder was wet, William dropped to the ground. Heart pounding in his chest, he let out a long breath and felt his empty stomach rumble.
“Job’s done,” he said as Johnathan lowered his rifle.
“You kill ’em?” Johnathan signaled for the other men to move forward.
Nodding, William responded, “Yeah, I think.”
“You think!” Johnathan repeated as William looked tiredly at the ground. “Abel, get up here.”
In his ungainly way, Abel McCurdy made his way over, his pack rocking on his back, threatening to fall off.
"What?"
“Go with William and make sure that the job's done.”
Abel saw his friend cringe at having to go back. He knew that the man had had his fill of killing. Dropping his rifle next to Johnathan, Abel shucked his pack and then drew a long bowie knife from its sheath at his waist.
With William leading the way, the pair headed back toward the house. As the insects buzzed around them, a few minutes passed until Johnathan saw Abel and William appear between the house and barn.
Standing, Johnathan took off his cap and watched the men cross the field and return. Wiping his brow with his sleeve, he asked Abel, “Done?”
“All but one,” Abel replied, chewing on the shaft of a long piece of grass.
