Sharon Poppen (32 page)

Elizabeth reminded him that those cabins belonged to the field hands who had worked her plantation.  It was possible they would come back now that the war was over. The captain sneered at her remark and advised her that the cabin was his best and only offer.

They moved into the cabin farthest away from the main house. Elizabeth made sure the boys stayed away from the Yankees and she did the same. She prayed daily for the occupation force to leave and that until they did, they would forget about her little family and let them live in peace.

The Yankees had drafted Ahab into a multi-faceted job from acting as a stable boy for the officer’s horses to cleaning the latrine. Ahab had suffered the indignity of being demoted from foreman to gofer in the hopes, much like Elizabeth’s, that eventually things would get back to the way they had been before the war. But one night, Ahab, after apologizing for his desertion, took Mattie and left. Elizabeth knew he had to go. Mattie was a beautiful young black woman and these particular Yankee soldiers had not acted like the saviors that they would have people believe.

Finally, when the really hot and muggy part of the summer came, the soldiers left. Their parting gesture had been to burn the house to the ground.

Elizabeth smelled smoke in the early hours just before dawn. She stole quietly from the cabin so as not to wake the boys and watched about twenty of them ride off. In the full moonlight, she caught sight of their repulsive Yankee flag being carried away down the tree-lined drive and out of sight. When she had seen them loading wagons the previous day, she desolately noted that they were carting off everything of value. Why would they do this? Were they punishing them because of James and the boys having served the Confederacy? What madness!

Again the smell of smoke drew her attention. She started toward the main house. Her quick steps became long strides and soon she was in a full run. By the time she got to the house, the entire veranda was ablaze. Flames were already eating at the second story rafters. She could do nothing.  She stood mesmerized, watching the fire consume her home.

She jumped as the upstairs veranda collapsed and stepped back as the heat of the blaze swept across her body. Having bumped into something solid, she turned to see that three soldiers had snuck up and were blocking her escape.

The middle one grabbed her mane of silky, black hair. Before she knew what was happening, they tore her tattered nightdress from her body and threw her to the ground. They were within fifty feet of the fire as they took her one by one.

Her mind reeled and floated between reality and a dream state as she saw fiends with wild Medusa-like hair towering above her amidst the flames. The fiends, with blue upper bodies and hairy, pasty lower bodies pounded forcefully and cruelly into the depths of her body. The last fiend to violate her finally stood, kicked her aside, pulled his blue army issue pants up and strode over to where the other fiends were already mounted.

They rode off laughing. They never looked back as she ran toward the cabin. The lavender dawn sky was splaying fingers of light through the tree branches and gave witness to the dirt and bruises on her thin arms and legs. 

The distraught and terrified woman made it back to the cabin to find her boys still asleep. She wrapped a blanket about herself, went back outside and drew icy cold water from the depths of the well to cleanse the Yankee sex from her body. Only then, did she allow herself to sit on the ground and lean against the cold bricks and cry. She allowed herself few tears. She knew she had to pull herself together before facing her sons.

After forcing herself to choke back her tears, she rose and surveyed her land. Everything was gone now. She was alone. She had no idea if her husband and two other sons had made it through the war. She'd had no word for over two years. She had to continue to be strong for her two babies. She couldn't let what had just happened control her. She had to put the incident behind her as best she could. Oh God, how could she do that she silently prayed.

“Ma? What’re you doing out in the yard in just a blanket?” It was Michael.

“I smelled smoke and hurried to check on it.”

In spite of everything, apparently God was answering her prayer for guidance. She had the boys to take care of. She had to feed them, clothe them, perhaps raise them alone.
No!
  She had to believe the others had survived and would be back. She would stay here on their land so James and her sons would be able to find them. She had to believe that they were coming home!  That belief became the glue that held her together.

They continued to live in the slave cabin. Elizabeth managed to survive by selling off old trees in the dense forest area along the river where she and the boys had hid during the war. She also sold off land acre by acre to carpetbaggers who had arrived in the area to partake of the spoils of war. A disgusting lot to deal with, but they were the only people around with money.

Joe, who was only sixteen, arrived home around the first of October. Dusty, skinny and hungry, he walked up the drive about noon one day. He had no idea where Pa and Jim were. Uninjured and avoiding capture by the Yankees, he had been in Texas at the end of the war.  He had walked and worked his way back home. His trek across the devastated Southern states was both an exciting adventure that his two little brothers pressed him to relate over and over and a cause for additional worry for Elizabeth about the plight of her husband and oldest son.

James limped up the driveway leading a woe-be-gone mule the Monday before Thanksgiving. He had taken a shot in the leg in the last days of the war. His unit had left him in the care of a couple up in the West Virginia hills. Almost lost his leg but for the care given to him by an old German woman and her husband. They had lost three sons in the early days of the war. They had given James their only mule for his ride home when they felt he could make the trip. The woman said they had no use for it. The old man rarely moved out of the rocker on the porch. Without his sons, he wouldn’t farm again. The woman had told James that as soon as he left she was going to take the old man and move in with her daughter in Wheeling, so he shouldn’t feel guilty about the mule.

James brought bad news about Jim. He had run into a confederate who had been with Jim in Virginia. The man was sure Jim had been captured by the Yankees. Jim was only eighteen.

James was a changed man and bitter about everything. It pained Elizabeth to remember the tall, quiet man he had been before the war, always ready with a smile and a kiss for her and any excuse to take his sons hunting or fishing. Elizabeth worried about what Michael and Danny now thought of this long awaited father who did nothing but sit and brood, never smiling.

The cabin was only one room and provided no privacy. Elizabeth worried about what her sons were hearing from their parents as they talked out in the yard, or whispered in their bed. It seemed all they did these days was argue. The exchanges were usually brief, with Pa sighing resignedly, “Whatever you want Elizabeth. I just don’t care anymore.”

              After each argument, something was sold, some trees or an acre of land. The land had been in the family for three generations. Selling it off acre-by-acre was hard for James. Each sale took him deeper and deeper into himself and increased his bitterness. He took no interest in the lumbering or the land sales. Elizabeth was doing it alone. She knew she wasn't getting what the lumber or the land was worth, but at least they were eating. Which was more than many of their neighbors were doing.

James was disappearing for a couple of days at a time, spending more and more time along the river by himself. Occasionally, he would bring fresh catfish home for dinner, but he never took Michael or Danny. Occasionally the small boys tried to talk to him, but he brushed them aside and said he needed to be alone to think.

A couple of times, Elizabeth had seen Michael watching his father staring at her as she worked in the garden or doing some other chore. James’ fists had been clenched and on several occasions silent tears had made their way down his face before he would walk off into the woods. Michael had been scared the first time he had seen it. She’d gathered Michael into her arms and urged him to think kindly of his Papa and to give him time to get over the war. He asked if Papa scared her too. “Oh no,” she assured him with a hug and told him not to worry. She said Papa was just sad about the loss of the house and was worried about Jim. Nevertheless, she noticed that Michael kept a close eye on her. She suspected that Michael didn’t really believe that this dour man was completely harmless and that both boys were somewhat frightened by their strange father.

Christmas Eve was far from a joyous occasion that year. Elizabeth tried desperately to bring some cheer into the poor little cabin and those in it. But, she was tired and as usual wasn't getting help from her husband.

They were sitting around the table with some warm milk and some homemade suet pudding covered in hard sauce. Elizabeth was reading the bible story of the birth of Jesus, when a male voice began singing her favorite carol. The words, “All is calm, all is bright," filled the drab little cabin.

They looked to the door and there stood Jim. Danny and Michael let out loud yells and ran to him wrapping their arms around his emaciated body. James and Joe joined in to hug a son, a brother. Elizabeth remained frozen in her chair with tears streaming from closed eyes and hands clutching the bible.

Jim walked to her, knelt and put his hands over hers. When he spoke, it was almost a whisper. "I'm home and I'm fine, Ma".

Elizabeth didn’t say a word. She pulled her first-born into her arms and hugged him tightly to her breast for a very long time.

Jim gained his release from her embrace by managing to say, “What smells so good? I’m starving!”

Over a re-heated bowl of turkey stew, Jim related his saga.  He had been in a Yankee prison. He had been taken to New York right before the end of the war. Some sort of bureaucratic mess-up had held them there until early fall. Right after roll call, early one morning, the prisoners were told to stay in ranks.

The prison commander rode up and informed them that they had been released. All twenty-five of them were to be loaded into wagons and taken out past the city limits.  They were told to head south. If they headed back toward the city, they would be shot on sight. They were given no money, no provisions, no fresh clothes, just their freedom. It was enough!

They had stayed together and kept walking south. The healthier ones helped their weaker comrades. They stayed off main roads and trudged through the woods and prairies. Their food consisted of fish they caught, game they trapped and wild berries and vegetables they’d managed to gather. Often when they’d encounter Yankees, things turned ugly and sometimes dangerous. Things got better after passing through Washington D.C. Once they crossed into Virginia, folks began to help them.

*****

The light snoring of his brothers brought Michael’s thoughts back into this strange Mexican adobe.  His brothers were soundly sleeping in the next room. Michael wished sleep would come to him. He yawned and thought about his brothers, especially Jim. He remembered what a relief it had been to everyone when Jim arrived home safe and sound that Christmas Eve. It had cheered everyone except Pa, who continued to brood. Michael yawned and stretched out in his bedroll as the memory of the fight between Pa and Ma that changed all their lives came to mind.

*****

He and Dan had been sleeping when the yelling began. They sat up and saw Pa, Ma, Jim and Joe at the table. Ma was saying, "It won't make things right. We have our boys back now. With hard work, we can make things better. Our neighbors are experiencing the same hardships as we are. In fact, we're probably better off than a lot of folks".

"They stole everything we had." Pa snapped at her. "My father and grandfather worked hard to make this place what it was. I owe it to them to restore it. To get back what they took. Those cows and horses were direct descendents of the cattle they brought from Ireland. The confiscated jewelry and silver pieces are priceless family treasures. It's not right for those Yankees to be using them in their homes".

"You'll get yourself and the boys killed". She was pleading and seemed on the verge of tears.

"That could happen. But at least we'll be doing something about it. I couldn't face my ancestors when I die if I didn't try.” His voice softened. “Elizabeth, I'm not afraid of hard work, you know that. But I can't, I won't become a sharecropper with my family living day to day in hard labor with no guarantee of food, a roof over our heads or clothes for tomorrow. I don't care about the black folks. Our family hadn't bought or sold slaves since my grandfather’s time. I always thought of our black workers as family. So, they had a right to leave and I can only wish them well.” His voice was becoming louder and angrier. “But the money, the livestock, the jewels and the silver. I want them back!  They belong to our sons. Those damn Yankees forced you and our sons to live in the marsh in hiding. Then they made you live in a slave cabin. No!  I can't rest until I get back what is ours!"

"James, please listen to reason. The war changed everything. It can't be like it was."

Pa turned his attention to Jim and Joe. "What do you two think? Do you like the looks of this place now? Do you like the thought of your mother and brothers living in hiding in the marshes or in a slave cabin? What do you think of Yankees using Grandpa Hugh's watch or Grandma Kate's silver?"