Mississippi Sunrise

I yearned to write. Almost, it seemed, from the moment of my conception, the words formed in my tiny soul. A burning, a passion. It was born into my blood, this overwhelming urge to break loose of the silence that had prevailed for so long. Now I am free…free to tell in my own words, with my own ideas, with my own mind, the story, that for so long has been trapped inside. I am finally free.
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The valley had earned the nickname “Apple Pie Valley”; for if you surveyed it from the highest peak, it seemed to resemble, in some respects, the crisp, brown covering of a pie crust. Nestled in the midst of this valley was the small plantation I called home. Everything about the place sang of peace and comfort. Yet far our beyond our circle of comfort, trouble brewed, ready to unleash in all of its fury.
Coming from a large family, it was not uncommon for me, the only girl, to be pushed aside, like a forgotten toy, into some dark corner. I was considered a bother, someone not to be regarded by anyone of “higher status,” namely my brothers. Though I could never quite reason why, I felt a sort of mutual contempt from my older brothers. They were polite; through fear of my father I’m sure, yet equally distant. My younger brother Elijah used me as a target for all of his pranks, while my littlest brother Josiah seemed to idolize me.Then, there was Joshua. Most would say that the thirteen year gap between us could only hinder our friendship, though I would never call what we shared a friendship. You see, he was my protector—my only place of refuge from the evils of the world around me. My mother viewed me as a barefoot heathen, much too boyish for her liking, which would much rather clothe herself with a pair of her brother’s jeans than with all the crinoline and lace that “becomes a true Southern gentlewoman,” as momma would put it. The sun had to seen to it that I was, in my father’s words “darker than dirt.” And so I was, for that is what Joshua taught me to be. And I grew up, though not in momma’s opinion, knowing only what I believed to be the necessities of life—horses, guns, and nature. But soon, all the familiarity of life as we had always known it, was about to change, drastically.
“I’m goin’ to war, Momma,” he said it as casually as if he had just announced that he was going out to feed the horses.
Momma turned from where she was stooped over the fire, her face reddened from the heat. “Joshua.”
Black eyed from the shadows stared in fearful admiration of the bulky form blocking the bun bathed doorway. Joshua nodded in turn to each pair of eyes, then turned his attention back to the woman standing in front of him.
Momma dried her hands on a towel. “Joshua,” she repeated his name. A sigh from the pit of her soul escaped her lips, and she made a shooing motion with her delicate hands. She would say no more in front of the slaves, but the storm brewing in her dark eyes was bound to break later.
I flattened my oversized fifteen year old frame against the white washed clapboard just outside the kitchen door. He was serious this time. I could tell by the determined tone of his voice and the way his jaw was tightened when he came out the back door of the house.
“I’m goin’,” he repeated even more firmly.
I pressed my ear tightly against a small crack in the wall. There was silence for several tense moment, and Momma’s voice was soft and shaky when she finally spoke.
“Joshua, please, not here and not now,” she drew a deep breath. “We’ll talk later.”
“Momma, we don’t need to talk. My bags are packed. I’m goin’.”
“Josh,” Momma expelled all the air in her lungs with that one word.
I felt my splayed hand crush my chest, over my pounding heart. I swallowed hard. So that’s what he was doing this morning when he locked me out of this room. I scraped my bare toe against the brick door step. This couldn’t be happening. He had talked like this before, but that’s all it was, just talk. At least I thought so. Suddenly I was choking. He couldn’t leave. Why didn’t he tell me? What was he thinking?
“Mama, I’m not a child anymore. I’m a man. I can think for myself. My country needs me.” He spoke with such conviction, as if he had rehearsed the speech many times just to get the right feeling.
“Dat boy’s stubborn, yes he is,” another voice muttered. I could picture Mammy with her hands planted on her ample waist, looking my oldest brother up and down.
I smiled. If anyone could make Joshua stay it was Mammy. I silently cheered her on.
“Martha!” I heard my father’s voice from inside the Big House. He was back from town. I scooted around the corner of the building. Dropping to all fours in the soft dirt, I squeezed myself beneath the cookhouse floor. I leaned back against the brick supports, watching my father’s boots on the steps outside. “Martha, I need to talk to you, at the house.”
“I’m coming,” I heard my mother’s soft reply.
I breathed easier. At least my brother’s leaving was postponed for a few more hours. I watched my mother and father’s shoes fade into the distance.
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Darkness fell upon the plantation like a velvety blanket. I watched the slaves trudge from the cotton fields to the cabins just beyond the tree line. This was my usual, daily activity, watching the entire plantation bed down for the night from my perch in the old oak outside my bedroom window. Rosemarie waved to me, a tired wave, as she passed beneath my hiding spot. Rosie, as I called her, and I shared many secrets. Had he known, my father would have put a quick end to our subtle friendship. But he didn’t know, I smiled to myself as I returned her greeting. My father could be so cruel sometimes. I could barely make out his figure as he sat erect on his stallion, watching his “prize possessions” making their nightly parade to their shacks. Cotton, and the slaves that worked it, was my father’s livelihood, the essence of our well-being. I didn’t agree with my father’s harsh treatment of his “property.” Neither did Joshua, I suppose that’s why he was the one most set on joining the ever growing fray between the North and the South. But I didn’t agree with Joshua either. I remained largely neutral, believing that my fifteen year old mind need not concern itself with such adult issues, except when it involved losing my brother. I watched the procession, until it was swallowed up by the swiftly falling nightshades. Then, I left my hiding place and crawled back through the window into my room.
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Lying on my stomach on the cool hardwood floor, I pressed my ear against “the spot.” No one ever seemed to tell me anything, s I resorted to getting my information in other ways. I closed my eyes against the silvery shaft of moonlight streaming through the tiny window above my bed and concentrated on the faint voices from the floor below. Momma was crying.
“Don’t do this to me, Stephen,” Momma managed between sobs. I flattened myself against the floor to catch the barely distinguishable words.” First Joshua, now you, too.” Momma sounded near hysteria. She commenced to sobbing against, and I attempted to close my ears against the pitiful sound.
First Joshua, now you,too, I repeated Momma’s words in my minds. Did my father want to go to war as well?
“Martha, I am going to the good of our country, our home, and our family. I don’t know what that…that…boy went for!”
My father’s words sent a chill up my spine. I stood quickly and padded as quietly as I could manage across the hallway to Joshua’s room. It was just as I had suspected…empty. I sank to the floor, weakened and numbed by the sight. How could my brother, my best friend, do this to me? I had loved him, trusted him completely, and he had failed me, left without even saying goodbye. I hugged my knees to my chest. I had so many good memories of the times we spent together. He had raised me, even more so than my own mother and father. He had always been there to comfort me when I was hurting, to dry my tears, to just hold me in his arms, safe and protected. He was the one I had looked up to, learned from, went to whenever I needed something. Now he was gone, and even worse, he had left as though I never even existed. Not a hug or goodbye kiss. Not a single word. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, willing away the deep chasm of pain I was sinking into. I had so many unanswered questions. It was vain to even hope he would be back. I knew he was gone. I had heard him talk. He had betrayed his family, betrayed me…and for what? It was so cold. I lowered my forehead onto my knees and wept.
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My father spent the next day behind his closed office door with my next oldest brother Jonathan. From the snatches of conversation I heard, I pieced together the story. Daddy, too, was leaving for the war. He spent the day preparing Jonathan to take over the plantation.
Momma wondered around in something akin to a stupor, eyes reddened and swollen from crying. She and Mammy packed and repacked my father’s few belongings, and Momma hovered around the closed office door, waiting for the rare moments when my father would come out to show Jonathan something or to grab a bite to eat in the cook house. Momma would shadow him then until he disappeared into the office again.
I should have been bothered by Daddy’s departure, at least he had the sensitivity to offer a goodbye; yet it didn’t upset me. And the tears I shed as I hugged him were not for him, but for Joshua. I spent the rest of the day locked in my room, alternating between periods of crying and periods of numbness and questioning. I never realized until much later that night that it was my sixteenth birthday.
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“Where you goin’?” I spun around at my brother’s voice, still clutching the saddle in my hands. A twenty one, Jeremiah had already surpassed most of my brothers in height, and, in my opinion, in looks as well. He had the sandy blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes I envied; although that didn’t make him any less annoying.
“Is it any of your business?” I snapped, tossing the well-worn saddle onto Blaze’s back.
“Yes,” Jeremiah drew out the one syllable painfully long. “I made a promise, and I intend to keep it.”
I stopped with one leg over the saddle. “What kinds of promise?” I squinted a him in the bright sunlight streaming through the dusty barn window.
Jeremiah turned as if he wouldn’t answer my question. He paused at the barn door, though, finally answering with his back still turned to me. “I promised Josh I’d take care of you.”
“You knew?” I screamed at him. Blaze whinnied and shifted beneath me. I reached down to pat the chestnut stallion’s neck in a clumsy attempt to still him.
Jeremiah remained silent, angering me even more. “I don’t need your protection! I don’t need anybody! I can take care of myself!” Hot, angry tears stung my eyes.
Lifting his hands in a mock gesture of surrender, Jeremiah watched me ride from the barn without another word about his “promise.”
I rode wildly, driving the horse on and on. Blinded by tears, I lost all sense of direction. The cool metal of my pistol thudded against my stomach beneath my shirt. I was scared, scared and hurt. I knew pain as I had never known it before. I let Blaze pick his own way, too weak to control him. When he stopped in a small clearing, exhausted, sides heaving, I slumped over his neck and buried my face in his stiff mane. I cried for me and the life I had lost. And for the first time in my life, I knew I was alone.
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I don’t know how long I sat there. I cried until I had wasted my supply of tears. The day dipped into evening. The night drew close and cold, yet I noticed none of these things. The darkness in my soul prevailed against the darkness of the night. That may have been the reason why my mind never fully comprehended how I awoke to the newness of dawn in my own bed, comforted by the sun’s golden warmth. My heart was still raw, yet, as always, hope arrived with the day. Though whenever I passed his empty room, Joshua’s departure became a reality once again. I never again resisted Jeremiah’s protection, mainly because I was too emotionally weak to fight it.
Summer dragged on endlessly that year. As if revenging some past actions, it poured unrelenting oppression across the valley. I resented the extreme hear, for it often drove me to take refuge indoors away from the world I loved. Away from what seemed to be my only connection to Joshua.
Mark and Benjamin left. Our family was quickly dwindling. “The Cause” was stealing them away. Momma seemed more and more withdrawn as she consented, although against her will, for her family to be taken away. She spent more and more time alone in her upstairs room, emerging wasted from crying. If I was not so wrapped up in my own grief, I would have felt a measure of pity for her. But, as fate would have it, I was much too concerned with my own pain. And so life went on…until one fateful day.
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“He’s dead,” The words were void of all emotion. Momma’s pale hands shook as she held the letter in her hands. Her face had drained of color, and she seemed as a scared child, standing in the middle of the parlor floor.
“Who, Momma?” I dared to ask.
“Joshua,” she spoke in the same cold, hollow tone.
Someone screamed, and I never fully comprehended that it was my own voice. I fled from the room as if I could run from truth that easily. But truth followed me, piercing through my heart as I saddled Blaze.
“Help me escape, boy,” I whispered to the stallion. I dropped the reins, letting the horse follow his nose, while I questioned “why” a million times over. We rode up the ridge, across Cherry Creek, beyond the boundary of our property. We rode until all civilization faded away. There, miles away, I slid from Blaze’s back. Collapsing into the cool grass, I lay still, drowning in agony.
“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be neither death nor sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be anymore pain.” A voice from the distant past, presumably a funeral, broke through my sobs.
“Lord, take me there now,” I begged, tipping my face skyward. “Please take me out of this world.” And I lay, spilled on the ground, believing with my childish face that God would somehow answer my plea.
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“Psst. Jul, wake up!”
“Don’t call me that, Elijah!” I hissed, tugging the covers over my head.
“Okay, Julianna,” he stressed my full name. “Can I talk to you now?”
“It’s not even light yet, Elijah. Can’t it wait until morning?”
“Jul, I’m worried about Momma.”
I ignored his use of my pet name. “Since when did you become such a concerned person?”
“Come on, Jul, I’m being serious.”
“Okay, okay,” I rolled over and propped myself up on my elbow. “What’s wrong with Momma?”
“I don’t know! That’s why I came in here. I heard her go outside about a half an hour ago, and she hasn’t come back in yet.”
“Elijah,” I rolled my eyes at him, “she’s a grown woman. She can take care of herself.”
“Jul, please,”
I groaned. I guess Elijah felt the duty to take Daddy’s place and be the protector now that all of my older brothers were gone. I finally gave in. “I’ll go check on her.” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and tested the floor boards with my bare toes. “Will that make you happy?” Elijah just glared at me. I grabbed the robe I had tossed over a straight backed chair in the corner and wrapped it around me.
I found Momma in the hallway. “There you are. Elijah’s worried.” I jerked my head towards my room
Momma smiled weakly, peering over my shoulder through the open door. “Elijah was worried?” Her smile widened. She called to him that she was fine, then turned back to me. I felt her grasping my elbow as she pulled me into her room and nudged the door shut with her foot. Once she was settled back into bed, she spoke. “Come sit over here with me,” she patted the rumpled sheet beside her.
“Momma, are you okay?” Her skin was a pasty gray. I could tell it even in the dim room.
“Julianna, I have something I need to tell you.” She inhaled slowly. “I’m going to have another baby.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but she shushed me with a lifted hand. “I know I should have told you sooner, but with everything that has happened, it seemed to be of little importance.”
“Momma,” I breathed,” does Daddy know?” Now I realized all the tell-tale signs I had passed off before as results of the trauma of loss.
“No, honey, he doesn’t, and I’m not even sure where to send a letter to tell him, or even if he’d ever get it.” She paused, placing a shaking hand on her swelling abdomen. “I need your help, Julianna.”
I nodded, unable to speak. She couldn’t lose this baby, and if she kept her normal pace, the stress would eventually take her or the baby or both. I reached for her hand. “What can I do, Momma?”
She leaned into her pillows and squeezed my hand. “Be strong, Julianna, just be strong.” She closed her eyes and said no more.
Life changed after that day. I believe that both the sorrow of loss and the joy of new life knit our family together in an unusual way. We seemed closer than we ever had. Jonathan and Jeremiah took over the running of the plantation, and when Momma became bedfast, I accepted the task of ordering the entire household. The duty was taxing. Raising two boys, Jesse who was six and Josiah who was only two, and managing the household slaves was a bigger responsibility than I had ever realized. But Momma was looking better.
That’s why I dreaded taking the strangely postmarked letter to her.
“Good morning, Momma,” I greeted her, carrying a tray of breakfast food into her darkened room. I could have let Iris bring the tray up, but I enjoyed my times with Momma in the mornings. It gave me hope that I could carry all of my responsibilities.
“Julianna,” Momma returned my greeting with as cheerful of a smile as she could muster up. She shifted to make room for me on the bed.
Depositing the tray on the bedside table, I moved to take the spot next to her. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” she answered cheerfully, but I could see the smile was forced.
“A letter came for you today,” I took the envelope from the tray and handed it to her.
She took the envelope from my hands. I thought a saw a tiny sparkle of hope in her eyes, and I sincerely hoped she wasn’t disappointed.
“It’s from a general,” she quickly scanned the letter.” Some general…” Her voice trailed off, and I watched the color drain from her face.
“Lord, no!” The letter fell from her trembling hands. “Lord, I can’t take anymore!”
I snatched the crumpled paper, fearing in my mind what I already knew in my heart was true.