Unsettled Graves: A Crossroads of Kings Mill Novel (The Crossroads of Kings Mill Book 3) (10 page)

“Upstairs. I made them dinner and they’re playing checkers. Vickie said they were starting to get restless. She’s not sure how much more they’ll be able to contain themselves with something to do that’s not going to have them learn the truth about our history.”

“I figured. Jared has shown Joshua how to whittle every woodland creature into wood. I’m waiting for the wooden headboards on the beds to be carved into totem poles.”

“So what was your conclusion?” Tonya asked.

“Oh yeah.” He took a breath not sure if she would comprehend. “I found a note written by General Kershaw in one of the books. He sent Corporal Jared Evansworth and Corporal Henry Wright to scout out the Union troops at the exact time we were there.”

“Okay…so? I think we’ve come to a similar conclusion already.”

“Yes, but what if
you
were the cause of him not being there?”

“What?” The confused look on her face appeared ridiculous, her nose all scrunched up, her lips pursed like a ducks. Camden wanted to laugh if the situation wasn’t so dire. “I wasn’t there during the battle—“

Recognition hit and he swore she was about to pass out.

“Oh my God…Oh my God…I was there! Oh shit…shit…shit!” She shook her head, not wanting to believe it. “No! Impossible. I wasn’t there.”

“I found another note…this one from Corporal Henry Wright.” He took out his phone and brought up the picture gallery on his phone. “Don’t worry, I didn’t use flash…” He used his thumb and finger to enlarge the picture so it was legible.

“…we arrived at the peach grove over across the field. Evansworth was a few feet ahead of me when the girl appeared. Barely clothed with hair the color of golden wheat all down about her shoulders and a halo of light…she held out her hand, her voice soft…she must’ve been an angel from God Almighty. As soon as Evansworth touched her hand, they disappeared…I never believed in the Almighty until that moment, knowing HE sent an angel. No one will ever believe me…I am dying now…looking for God to send me the angel now that I lie here waiting for my eternal rest. Knowing the agony of my pain will be gone as I take her hand…”

Tonya covered her mouth as a sob broke forth. “Oh dear God…what have I done?”

“Okay. Okay. Tonya, you are getting all worked up. Now stop.” Vickie took a deep cleansing sigh. “We need to approach this situation cautiously. If, and I do mean
if
you were actually there, no one else knows about it except for this Corporal Wright who, of course, died on that battlefield. Anyone who might’ve read the note could have just thought it was the fragmented mind of a dying man. So all is good.” The older woman paced. “But yes, we do need to focus on how to get Mr. Evansworth back to his proper place in time. So we know he didn’t desert, that’s good, for his moral at least. But knowing you took him before the battle he was in actually took place…anything could happen. We don’t know his outcome. He could survive and we’ll just have to figure out the consequences when that happens.”

              “Could it alter the history we know?” Camden asked.

              “Hard to say, but there is the possibility.”

              “But the records still show him as being listed a deserter,” Tonya rallied. “I don’t want to be the cause of that.”

              “Of course not, dear heart.” Dorothy patted her hand comfortingly. “Victoria, you are not helping Tonya with your indecisiveness.”

              “Dottie, I’m not going to put her in rose-colored glasses. I understand the girl didn’t mean to do this on purpose, but she has to account for the actions she’s made. And we all must learn from them in fortitude and mentoring others.”

              “My concern is how to help her take Jared back to the proper time and place.” Virginia said, trying to bring calm to the whole situation.

              Tonya was still beside herself. Every day they delayed in getting Jared back to the past worried her that it was another day spent altering History. But Vickie was right. She didn’t need to be coddled. She needed to move forth with purpose and energy to decide how to fix her own mess. But how did you get a man from the past, back to the past? It wasn’t like the past repeated itself? Or did it?

              “Wait! The Battle of Gettysburg!”

              “Yes. An important battle during the Civil War…we know that,” Camden said sarcastically.

              She waved him away. “No…yes…I mean not the real battle…the reenactment!”

              “Oh yes!” Dorothy clapped her hands together in excitement. “I love the reenactment! Doesn’t Andrew and John participate every year?” she asked her daughter.

              Virginia paused in thought. “Yes. And I believe they are both part of Longfellow’s Brigade, if memory serves me. When we used to watch them
perform the march across the wheatfield.
It was very close to the Peach Orchard.”

              “Wait. What are you proposing?” Camden asked in all the excitement.

              Tonya stood up. She needed to take charge of her mistake, but she still needed the guidance of the Wilton Women to help her perform her gift. “If we could get Jared to enter the reenactment as basically himself…he could scout out the area and continue on as if I wasn’t there.”

              “But would that be enough?” Vickie asked. “Simply acting the part won’t do anything.”

              “Perhaps. But I disrupted his time, took him out of what he knew, and brought him into the unknown. Maybe if we put him back into a familiar situation with familiar surroundings…it may trigger the portal for him to cross back over.”

              “I don’t know. We are talking exact coordinates, times, people who he would know. These reenactors are not the real men he called brothers in arms.”

              “But they are the closet thing we have to work with. Dottie, can you talk with your friends and see if they might be able to help us out?” Tonya found the prospect of the idea her best bet.

              “John and Andrew? Oh sure, honey. They’d be delighted.”

              Camden stood up. “We can’t just have people help us out of the blue. They would want to know specifics. How do you tell them you’re trying to send a man from the past back from the future?”

              “Oh with John and Andrew, it’s no problem. Trust me, they understand.”

              “What? Are they part of your psychic group?” Camden asked.

              “Andrew and John?” Virginia scoffed to answer for her mother. “No, they’re actually ghosts from the Battle of Gettysburg.”

              Camden wiped his hands down his face in mock frustration. “Of course they are.”

              Tonya couldn’t help but laugh as her angst had now turned into giddy excitement. So much for him being a non-believer now.

#

              “So your mother and I are coming up to visit you for the Fourth of July weekend. We want to see how you’re doing. You need to start gearing up for football season. Training starts the end of July.”

              Camden knew his father was bound and determined to get him back out on the gridiron. Didn’t he know or understand why Camden wanted no part of football anymore? Couldn’t he even have an iota of remorse for what he’d done to the half back from Duke? He dislocated the guy’s shoulder as they’d slammed into each other. His knee was so bad that even with the new kneecap it just wasn’t the same.

             
You hurt your knee, not your throwing arm, son.
That’s what his father always said. Like having a fake kneecap was no big deal.

              Camden pinched the bridge of his nose. “Dad, I’m not going out for football this year. I’m trying for the history scholarship, remember?”

              “My son is not some desk jockey. You’re pro bowl material. I’ve been talking to Coach Webb and he thinks you’ll make possible Heisman rankings either this season or next. With that, you can sign your own paycheck into the NFL. I just want fifty yard seats at your first Super Bowl.”

              “Dad, will you knock it off? There are thousands of college league players in the same rankings as I could be. The odds—”

              “The odds are in your favor if you keep practicing and listening to your coaches. You’re pissing away your opportunity for something great by wasting away behind some dusty books you probably don’t even know what they’re about. Who is interested in the past anyway? You need to start focusing on your
future
and that is
football
.”

              God his old man was hard-headed. What did it take for him to get out from under his way of thinking? Camden just wanted out from his controlling…no, domineering, father.

              “We’re coming up on the thirtieth of June and staying at the Old Town Tavern and Inn. Your mother wants to experience the place that every bed and breakfast magazine is talking about. I figured I would indulge her whim to make her happy.”

              Great. He’d warn Millie and company of their arrival…way in advance.

              “I’ll see you and Mom then, Dad.”

              “Take care, Cam, and make sure you keep working out. Love you, son.”

              “You too, Dad.”

              Hanging up from the call, he knew what purgatory felt like…it was arriving in less than two weeks. And they were going to be here during the reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg. God help him, he was in desperate need of an angel. But Tonya was at Vickie’s tonight.

#

              “The boy is done tuckered out.” Jared softly closed the guest bedroom door on the sleeping Joshua. “The hike up that trail… What did you call it?”

              Tonya forgot how many sites she was accustomed to were not even around during Jared’s time. “The Appalachian Trail. We actually didn’t hike all of it. The trail runs from Georgia all the way up to Maine. We only did a day hike.”

              “Well, all I know is that it wore poor Josh plum out.”

              “He’ll sleep well. All that fresh air really helps a person relax.” Tonya settled in to her paperwork. Trying to find time between entertaining the boys and work, she had to focus on making time for her paper. Camden had finally gotten his time to help Kenneth out at the Mill, being one of the historical reenactors. Without knowing what to do with the boys on such a beautiful Saturday, she’d taken them over to Washington County and hiked a section of the famous trail.

              “So’s what are you learnin’?” Jared asked as he sat down at the table next to her, taking a sip on his of sweet tea.

              His rough grasp of English grammar grated on her nerves at times. Never correcting him, she couldn’t influence him no matter how much his words were like fingernails on a chalkboard. It might affect the time line when they get him back.

              “I’m trying to figure out a way to honor an extinct tribe of people who were indigenous to this part of Maryland.”

              “You talkin’ about Injun tribes?”

              “Yes, the Native Americans.”

              Jared wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Savages…heathens…”

              “People misunderstood.”

              “Taking our land, burning crops…heck, no different than those damn Yanks.”

              “It was their land before the white man came and took their land from them. And history has taught us since the beginning of time that man in general is savage. Wars, battles for land and freedoms every race on Earth has learned to fight for their survival, for their rights, their lands, their families, and their nation.”

              “So’s you’re telling me, ‘Don’t judge, lest you be judged’?” He shook his head and grinned. “You sound so much like my Sweet Molly.”

              “Molly?”

              “My girl back home. We married shortly before I left last year. Tiny little thing but full of fire when she gets her dander up. Heck, she took on her daddy when he refused to give us his blessing. Said I was no good. Wouldn’t amount to nothing. She told him she was marrying me no matter what and that he could figure it out when he wanted to see her again.”

              Wow. That was something. Tonya didn’t think women back then had backbone to stand up for their wants and desires.

              “So he agreed?”

              “Nah, not really. She told him I was the man whose baby she was going to have.” Jared blushed and rubbed at his neck. “He took it wrong and thought she was already in the family way. He walked me up the aisle with his flintlock at his side. By the time he realized she was talking about having my baby in the future, it was too late because we was hitched.”

              Tonya laughed. It sounded like his Molly was a good con. “Does she always get her way?”

              “With me? Yes. I can’t resist her sweet ways or her fiery temper. That’s where her daddy and I are alike. But she’s also smart and takes a stand for others. Her little brother was always getting teased at school by this bully and one day she went up and punched the kid in the nose when he laughed at her trying to stick up for Jimmy.”

              “Did the bully leave Jimmy alone afterwards?”

              “Sure did. My nose bled for a long time. Molly has a mean right punch. I think that was when I fell in love with her.”

              Tonya laughed and shook her head. She wished she knew Molly. They would get along so well.

              “You remind me of her. The way you’re like a dog with a bone…never giving up on something until the job is done. Never taking ‘no’ for an answer. You’re nose wrinkles the same way when you smile.”

              Self-consciously she rubbed at her nose. Jared winked at her. Well, so much for her theory of them being an item. He was in love with Molly. But it gave them a new approach for research. If there wasn’t anything on Jared Evansworth in the history records, but maybe they could find something on Molly that would give them some insight.

#

              “I don’t know what your big issue with your family coming to visit is, but you are really freaking out?” Tonya asked as she noticed Camden’s agitation as the days got closer to his folks arrival.

              “Trust me. You haven’t met my dad.” Camden scoffed as he wrote more notes down.

              The only thing keeping him focused was the research into Jared’s past and the preparations the Wilton Women were giving them into the weekend reenactment of Gettysburg. Andrew and John had agreed to help them out…according to Dorothy but he was taking all of that with a grain of salt. They were ghosts. How predictable could they be? Parts of him wasn’t sure how predictable the Wilton Women could be either.

              “So did you find anything on Molly Evansworth?” Tonya asked.

              “I actually did. Not much, but it’s something.” Camden handed her the papers he’d copied. A birth certificate and her death certificate.

              Molly Ann Wilde had been born in a small town in South Carolina and yet she’d died in 1912 in Kansas City, Kansas, Molly Ann Wilde-Evansworth at the age of sixty-seven. There were no records of marriage or occupation, just the two certificates of having existed.

              “Well, we know they were married. She took his name with her, at least.” Tonya clicked her pen a few times, habitually. “But it begs to question, why did she leave South Carolina to go west? Who did she go with? We’re talking about a time when proper women weren’t allowed to travel unescorted.”