No Way Home

No Way Home

by

Velda Brotherton

Jacob lifted the stub of a pencil from his leather bound journal and leaned against a fallen log. Around him men snored or cried out in their sleep, tortured by memories of the day’s battle. In the flickering firelight he read the scrawled words, nodded and wrapped the book and pencil in oilcloth before stowing them in his knapsack.

The night settled uneasily around his shoulders. A horn of a golden moon peeked through a scud of autumn clouds to cast dappled shadows on the ground. Leaves fell in the wake of a gentle wind, rustling in whispers around the exhausted troop. Sounded near peaceful. Hard to believe a war raged.

"Writing to your woman?" Major Ames asked.

The man’s silent approach sent a shudder through Jacob. Could have been some damn Yank, come to shoot his head clean off, and him not hearing till it was too late. The major’s gauntness, touched by the play of light and darkness, made him out to be more a ghost than a man. Like the rest of them, he looked and smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in months. Course, he hadn’t.

"Don’t reckon letter writing’d do much good," Jacob said, too shy to tell the major he was keeping a journal of this war.

"You’re from Arkansas, ain’t you?" The major squatted next to Jacob and rested his Colt carbine across the nearby log.

"Yes, sir. Fayetteville, sir."

"A far piece from Richmond."

He was silent a moment and Jacob offered nothing. Loneliness needed no words between men who had marched this land killing each other and praying it would be over soon.

The major went on. "Hear tell the Yanks burned that part of Arkansas."

"Not the Yanks. Our own men done it to keep the bloody Yanks from getting everything when they took over."

"Don’t make much sense, does it? Burning our own towns. Ain’t it enough the Yanks are destroying the south, we gotta help?

Staring up at the night sky, Jacob thought of his wife Mary and their four children. His good, decent family abandoned so he could fight this senseless war. One whose cause he wasn't even sure of. Why would a man who did not own slaves take up arms to defend anyone's right to do so? But he knew it wasn't that simple. If it were, the war would have ended before it began. Besides, when the Union attacked, the retreating Confederates burned Fayetteville and he might not have a home to return to.

Jacob stirred and tried not to imagine what his family was enduring, if indeed they still lived. He shuddered. With no word from Mary in months, he feared she and the children weren't safe. There were worse things than death for a pretty woman and her babes.

He wanted to pray, but what to request for his family. Life or death?

The major studied the sky, then spat. "Reckon it’s about over, don’t you?"

"If it ain’t, it oughta be. Sure enough of us killed on both sides to satisfy any quota for a blamed war. All I want is to go home to my wife and family." Eyes burning and heart so lonely he could hardly stand it, Jacob scratched at a bug skittering through his beard.

Beautiful Mary with her shiny dark hair, like finely polished walnut. A tiny waist he could span with both hands. Such stubborn resolve that too often set fire to his temper. She was a woman who could handle anything life handed her. Dear God, he prayed that be true, and that’s all he could think of to ask. One had to be careful in requests to The Almighty, who had a sense of irony about Him.

He cleared his throat. "How’s a man supposed to protect his own when he’s dragged off to some God forsaken place a thousand miles from home?"

"Sometimes a man can’t," the major said, his voice breaking. He stood and touched Jacob’s shoulder before fetching his rifle.

"You been a good soldier, and that’s all a man can do in these times. You’ll be home soon. At least you got loved ones to go home to. Back in Charlotte, my Becky died in childbirth, my folks is dead. Nothing waiting for me there or anywheres, I don’t reckon."

Before Jacob could reply, the major drifted off into the darkness. His shadow disappeared as if he'd been an apparition, leaving Jacob feeling a mite ashamed. At least he had a life waiting for him.

Many nights he awoke with such a deep yearning that he’d see Mary lying beside him, black hair spread over the ground. And he’d touch her shoulder with trembling fingers, take her warm, sweet sleeping body in his arms and stretch his limbs along hers. Make sweet love to her in the early morning sunlight splashed like liquid gold over the mountains.

Then he’d awake and feel the ever-present hunger gnawing at his gut, squirm under the biting bugs feasting on his stinking flesh, smell the lingering odor of gunpowder that clung to his hair and clothes. He was not home, but in some faraway place, waiting to be struck down by flying lead. Sometimes he wondered if he would ever wash off the scent of war.

God, he was homesick for his ancient Ozark Mountains.

If he were allowed to choose one thing to remember of his former life, what would it be? The first time he saw Mary, skipping home from school in her blue dress, a matching ribbon holding back her dark curls; their wedding night lying in each other’s arms when he discovered the meaning of true bliss; or perhaps the long, dark winter’s night when Mary’d held their newborn child up to him like proof of her value. It was the first time Jacob the man had ever cried.

Dear God, he feared he han’t seen the last of his weeping.

The battle of Richmond, and Jacob lay among the fallen, the thunder of gunfire and roar of cannon echoing in his ears. Beside him the major’s twisted form, lifeless eyes staring at him as if they were saying goodbye.

Or perhaps, "No sense me going home. You go on without me."

Gazing at himself through those dead eyes, he saw a bearded, filthy man whose ragged butternuts hung on him like loose flesh, whose shoes had worn to nothing, whose heart held only dread. Who was covered in the blood of his fallen comrades.

Why had he survived and these others scattered about hadn’t? Might as well ask why God chose the color blue for the sky and not brown or green.

He heard a groan from nearby and scrambled over stiffening bodies until he glimpsed movement. Fingers spread in a claw, protruding from out of the corpses.

A young man, a private no older than sixteen or seventeen. He touched the cold hand, felt an unexpected grip.

He couldn’t remember the boy’s name. Wished he could so he could call it out now, let him know that someone knew him.

"It’s okay, son, hang on to me. We’ll go home. Soon, now, we’ll all go home."

"Mama? Are you there?"

Jacob’s throat burned until he could scarcely swallow. "Here, son. She’s here. Feel her holding your hand."

"I meant to make it . . . keep my promise . . . I . . . I truly did, Mama. I’m sorry . . ."

His last breath whispered like a breeze through the falling dusk.

"Go easy, son. Go easy to your god." Jacob whispered.

The woods grew dark around him, and still he sat, holding the boy’s lifeless hand. Two lonely men, one dead and one nearly so, sitting together far from home, waiting for the end to come. Richmond behind them, the final battles all failures.

What was the name of this place? This last battle ground? He wanted to know, but guessed it didn’t matter. As soon as he could rise from this graveyard, he was going home. If the war wasn’t over, it might as well be. They’d fought to no avail. Marched most of three days to get to this killing field. And whatever for?

Pursued by the stench of death, laced with the stink of black powder, horse manure and his own fear, he crawled up the slope and into the eerie darkness among a stand of gigantic trees. There he spent the night. With the pale rays of morning sun, he rose, gazed down the incline for a long, dreadful moment. Impossible to force his feet to move. Leave behind the bodies of men he’d served with for most of this war.

Would Mary forgive him if he never came home? Was she even alive? Or worse yet, driven insane by what had been done to her and the children?

Off in the distance a bird trilled a sweet hymn to those who’d died in this horrible nowhere place. He stared at the pearling sky, a gunmetal-lavender gleam that backlit the piles of horses and men, scrambled together like some grotesque painting from the mind of a madman.

This blood-soaked ground would one day nourish crops. It was the way of things that death begat life. A ray of sunlight trickled through the trees and kissed his cheeks, and Jacob raised his eyes toward heaven, having found a prayer.

"Dear God, see me home, see me home and help me to handle whatever I find."

As he trudged west, Jacob refused to count the days. So he had no idea how long he walked before he followed a well-traveled road into the town of Greensboro, North Carolina.

Weary, but lonely for another human voice, he found himself caught up in conversation with a group of men gathered in the square discussing this turn of events. He learned what he’d already guessed. The war was over. What he hadn’t figured on shocked him. The Yankee president was dead from a shot to the head.

Nate, a long jawed man who still wore his butternuts, as did Jacob, scratched at his matted black hair. "Reckon I don’t wish no man death, but I can’t summon up much sympathy for the man, seeing as how he plumb killed the south. Reckon it were meant to be."

All around nodded somberly. In agreement, but perhaps sorry for any man’s death.

"What’d you do . . . I mean before?" Nate asked.

"I and my daddy was . . . are merchants. Set up one of the finest mercantiles in the county. My family be well provided for."

A man with his feet wrapped in rags grunted. "If they didn’t burn it all to the ground. The south is gone, mister. They ain’t none well provided for no more. We’ll be lucky if we don’t all starve."

Longing to be on his way drove Jacob from the companionship. He traded his Springfield rifle for food to fill his knapsack and left Greensboro as dawn silvered the sky.

Every night, as he slept, he saw Mary’s face. When his poor supply of cornmeal and chicory for coffee ran out, he scrounged fresh greens growing alongside the road. Without the rifle, he couldn’t hunt game, but since the war it was scarce anyway. One morning after a rain, he came upon some hickory chickens growing under a fallen log and ate the tasty wild mushrooms raw.

He did his best to ignore the ache in his stomach, the cramps in his gut. All he wanted was to get home to Mary. Once again trod up and down those seven hills where Fayetteville nestled. Hurry down the lane to the house he had built when Mary accepted his proposal of marriage. Step once more across the threshold over which he’d carried his young wife. Sit on the edge of their marriage bed and run his fingers through her silken hair, breathe in the fragrance of her sweet self.

Once there, his life would be as it always had been.

Dear God, just get him home. His one prayer, the only prayer left to him.

And at last came the morning when he crossed the White River and followed the road that wound into Fayetteville. Just before dusk he trudged past the burned-out remains of the old courthouse. Nothing much left of the square, Uncle Dan Jobe’s wagon shop plumb flattened. The home of David Walker burned to the ground and many others as well. But he was too anxious to see Mary to linger and take a count. It could all be rebuilt, including his family’s store, a pile of ashes and rubble. He turned right and saw to his surprise the Tebbetts fine two-storied home still standing. Horses waited at the hitching rails, the USA brand shouting at him from their rumps. Two blue bellies came out the front door and walked down the path, sparing him a brief glance.

Turning his eyes forward, he plodded on. So weary now that had Mary not been waiting for him, he would have fallen down beside the road and slept.

The town was quiet, as if no one lived here anymore. A wagon rattled by, but he didn’t look up.

Nearing the lane to his own home, he suppressed the desire to shout at the top of his lungs. Let Mary know he was home, summon the children, who would all have grown so much he might not know them, gather them in his arms.

Home at last. His heart could scarcely hold the joy. Forgotten was his hunger, his weariness, the terrible memories of war.

A small brown and white dog ran down the lane toward him, tail wagging and tongue lolling.

Through the trees he caught first sight of the house, the upstairs windows, like great eyes flashing in the setting sun. It had survived, this place he’d built with his own two hands. Everything would be all right as soon as he stepped across the threshold and embraced his family.

He started up the steps even as the door swung open. A tall man outlined there, a man he did not know. A greeting died on his lips. Was this some damn Yankee taken over his home? He’d kill him with his bare hands.

"Yes, sir. What can I do for you?" the man inquired with a tight smile.

Anger swelled in his chest threatening to burst from his flesh. "Where’s Mary, where’s my family? What have you done with them?"

From inside, a woman called, the sweetest voice he’d ever known. "Who is it, Simon? What’s . . ." She broke off and stepped through the door.

"Mary?" Jacob whispered. "Mary?" he shouted, held open his arms.

Instead of flying into his embrace, she peered for a moment before recognition colored her fine features. Bony, she was, and a bit haggard, the lovely hair he remembered stringy and lackluster. But this was his Mary, the woman he’d expected to take in his arms.

She clasped reddened fingers over her mouth to stifle the speaking of his name. Tears welled in her eyes, spilled over. She lurched toward him, past the man who continued to glare from her to Jacob.

"Oh, my God, Jacob, I thought you were dead. So long and nothing . . . so long."

The man grabbed her arm to keep her from dragging this husband back from the dead. Explained what Jacob had begun to figure out.

"She needed someone to protect her and the young’uns when the damn Yanks came. You were gone . . . dead for all we knew. I took care of her. We’re married legal and proper."

His heart might as well have stopped. Words he could scarcely speak fell from cracked lips. "It ain’t legal and proper in any way. I’m her husband."

Despite his weakened condition, Jacob faced off the bigger man, fists clenched before his chest. "You git . . . you git out of here. Off my property and away from my wife."

Filled with rage, he turned once again to Mary. "Where are my children? I want to see them. Now."

She laid a thin hand on his arm. "Jacob, please. I didn’t, I don’t . . ." In desperation, she turned to her new husband.

Jacob grabbed the man’s shirt, fisted up the linsey woolsey and shook him like a cur dog.

"I said git off my property, Now."

"No, Jacob, please."

Furious, he whirled on his wife. "You telling me you prefer him to me? If that be true, then you git off too."

The words boiled out of his throat, hot and furious, staggering her backward into the man she called Simon.

A petite blonde girl in a ragged dress pushed out the doorway. "Mama, what’s wrong?"

"Lillian Rose?" Jacob whispered.

The girls blue eyes darted toward her mother.

"I’m Lillian Rose," came a voice within the house. A larger girl moved to join her sister.

"Becky? Rebecca June?" Jacob asked of the younger. "Oh my, so big."

"Papa?" Lillian Rose asked.

"Papa," squealed Rebecca.

Both burst from the house and threw themselves at him, weeping and hugging.

An older and a younger boy sidled into the doorway "What’s all the ruckus?" the bigger one asked.

That’d be his firstborn, Jake, who appeared to have grown a foot since Jacob left home, and the baby, Jarrel, who’d been barely walking back then. Three years sure made difference. A world of difference. Turned his wife to another man.

Confusion overpowered the joy he’d carried up the lane, and filled him with so much fury he could scarcely look at his wife.

"It’s Papa," the girls shouted in unison. "He’s come back from the dead."

Jacob buried his face within the embrace of his four children, his heart breaking even as he celebrated his return home.

How could this have happened, and why?

God had granted his prayer, brought him home. But he hadn’t asked for the right things, after all.

From inside the house came the cry of a baby, and Mary slipped through the doorway.

Wooden, disbelieving, Jacob glared at the man called Simon. "Yours?"

Simon nodded, lifted his shoulders in a shrug and disappeared into the house as well, leaving Jacob on the porch with his children.

"I told you to git off my place," he shouted toward the slamming screen door, then hugged his children some more, not knowing what to do.

Some time later they sat around the supper table in uneasy silence.

Simon lifted a fork. "I’ll admit, I don’t know what I’d do if I was in your shoes. I might’ve shot me."

Everyone but Jacob turned their eyes down toward their plates.

"You taken care of my wife and children, I give you that." Jacob reached deep within himself to dredge up the hate he knew he should feel. It just wasn’t there. Despair, heartbreak, disbelief, all wrapped around his soul, but not hate. He’d had enough of that for a lifetime. All he wanted now was peace.

"Jacob?" Mary asked.

"Not yet, woman. I ain’t yet ready to converse with you. I will think on this and decide what is to be done."

"I should have a say."

Jacob slammed his fork down. "Well, you don’t. Seems to me you’ve had all the say necessary in this situation."

"We could—“

"I said no." Jacob picked up his fork and dug into poke greens and buttered cornbread.

Everywhere in this defeated land, folks were barely hanging on. He’d have to work hard to change things, to provide for his family. But first this had to be settled. He could not spend the night in this place with Mary and this man, even though he did like the man. Couldn’t help it, could he?

"I’ve slept on the ground all I’m a gonna do," he announced. The two of you and your youngun can make do somewhere’s else till this is settled. I want my own bed tonight. God knows I expected to go to it with my Mary, but I can see that ain’t to be."

"Jacob . . . I’m so sorry."

He held up a hand. "Hsst, woman. Sorry ain’t gonna get us anywhere. Soon as you clean up the kitchen, you gather your babe and your man and get out. Come back tomorrow and I’ll say what’s to be done. I’m too blamed tired to go over it tonight."

"What about the others?"

"The others is mine, by God," he shouted, kicked away from the table and stomped up the stairs.

"Children, come on up. It’s bed time." He didn’t wait for them to obey.

In the bedroom where he and his Mary had spent their wedding night, he jerked the worn, patched bedding off into the floor, leaving a bare cornshuck mattress. Though he could scarcely stand to lie in the bed where his wife had made a child with another man, he fell down in exhaustion and there shed the tears he had held back too long.

All he had lived for through more than three dreadful years had been taken from him. He’d lost his dear Mary to a man too cowardly to fight in the war. All he could do now was start over.

He had his children. AT least he had them. He fell asleep to the sound of their chatter in the next room.

The day dawned bright, with a promise of heat to come. It must be June, perhaps July. He had no notion how long it’d taken him to come home, and he hoped there were crops in the fields to see them through the winter. If the war had left them seed. But first things first.

He went downstairs and found all four children in the kitchen, the two girls fixing breakfast.

They were quiet as they went about their morning chores, eyes sliding this way and that. He knew they were wondering what would happen. Damned if he knew, sure couldn’t figure out how he would tell them what he had decided.

The solution was firm in his mind this morning. There was no other way. Mary and Simon would return to learn their fate and he would tell them all at once.

"Lillian Rose, how are your grandpa and grandma doing?"

"They’re okay, Papa. Grandpa and Uncle Hosea have ordered lumber from the sawmill out on Clear Creek. They want to rebuild the store soon as they can."

"Uncle Hosea and Aunt Mildred went to Texas for the war, and they come back with horses and some cattle. Said some was for us, to get us started again. Brought us a milk cow too."

As if to back up what his sister said, Jake came in the back door with a bucket of creamy milk.

Unable to contain himself, Jacob dipped his cup into the warm foam and drank it down with relish. His stomach almost revolted at the richness, but he dipped up another cup full and sipped at it leisurely.

"I haven’t tasted milk since I left here. What’s that I smell?"

"Biscuits, Papa, and I’ll make some gravy too. Uncle Hosea says we’ll soon have chickens. He’s ordering some from St. Louis, and then we’ll have eggs."

Gazing at his daughters, Jacob’s eyes filled. What a glorious time this could be, should be...by God, would be. The war was over. Everything would be okay again, soon. Everything except . . .

The front door squeaked open, interrupting his thoughts. He looked up to see Mary, carrying the baby that should have been his, followed by the man who had stolen his life.

Anger threatened to overwhelm speech, but he managed to issue the curt order he’d rehearsed over and over.

"Sit. We’ll talk, then you can get out."

Mary blanched and dropped into a chair at the table, clutching the child. Simon stood behind her, hands on her shoulders.

Jacob squelched the urge to hit him, to demand he take his hands off her. Instead he stared at the baby, who had Mary’s eyes, big and blue and steadily fixed on Jacob.

Tight-lipped, he sat on the opposite side of the table.

"Children, would you leave the room?" Mary said, mouth trembling.

Jacob hammered his fist on the table. "They stay. This is their life, too. They need to hear what’s going to be."

Mary didn’t argue, but kissed the top of her baby’s head and stared at Jacob. The love he remembered shining from those eyes was gone and only a harsh glint remained, as if she blamed him somehow for not being dead. He steeled himself against feeling pity for her.

"I’ve made up my mind," he told her.

She nodded, cleared her throat. Continued to gaze at him.

Simon’s fingers tightened on her shoulders.

"I understand we have some horses. And these four children. This is what you will do. I’ll give you your choice of one of the kids and a horse. Then I want you all on your way. Out of this town, out of this county. I don’t want to ever be reminded of what you’ve done to me. I don’t want to ever lay eyes on you or yours ever again."

Mary gasped and covered her mouth. The four children gathered together, hugging one another, crying out, "No, Papa, please no."

Jacob set his hard heart against their pleas.

"Choose and get out so I can eat my breakfast." He rose from the table and went out on the porch to stare off into the distance.