{Excerpted from SCARRED A Civil War Novel of Redemption wherein our protagonist, Zach, comes face-to-face with the wife and child of the man he shot.}
Near Milledgeville, Georgia, 1864
The farmhouse was nestled in a copse of cottonwoods midway between the road and the river. The river shimmered in the sunlight, flowing south. A light breeze rattled the leaves and smoke rose from the chimney into the cool, September morning air. The space between the two dusty wheel tracks that led to the barn had grown over with weeds. The barn was sturdy, but the paint was faded. Zach saw a semicircle scraped in the dirt in front of the barn and deduced the door hinge was loose. Standing just outside the large barn doors, he saw a black man driving out the cotter pin of a broken wagon wheel. His face and arms glistening with sweat. The wheel was nearly as big as he was. Some of the shingles on an adjacent shed were loose, breaking the neat, parallel lines of the roof. A garden next to the shed contained tomatoes, beans, and squash, all plump and ready for the table.
Two monarch butterflies hovered over bee balm flowers in a pot hanging from the front porch eave as Zach approached the house. Zach’s chest heaved with anticipation as he stepped up on the small porch.
A young woman opened the wooden door wide, but remained standing inside the screen door, her brown eyes quickly appraising the stranger in front of her. Her long brunette hair was swept back off her face with two silver barrettes just behind her ears. She wore a gingham dress, full on the bottom, covered by an apron tied at the waist. The bodice of her dress swept just low enough to hint at a lovely figure. Her rounded brows yielded to a high forehead, two tiny curls tickling her cheekbones, leading to her perfectly-rounded jaw and chin, and framing her pert nose. Her face was flushed from working in the kitchen. When she saw Zach, her hands went to her hair as if searching for something out of place.
After a slight pause, she said, “Yes?” Her voice was soft but firm. Her accent heavy.
“I was at Chancellorsville,” Zach said.
“Oh. Oh, my. Why, please come in,” she said, pushing the screen door open and inviting Zach into her parlor, where she motioned him to sit. As he sat, he looked self-consciously at his shoes, covered in red dust, and his britches, which hadn’t been washed in weeks. She sat on a small bench nearby facing him, and put her hands together and rested them on her knees. She waited for him to speak, knowing it was about her dead husband, Jack.
Zach ran his fingers over the upholstery tacks in the chair’s arms, searching for the right words. The small parlor looked infrequently used. A full sized grandfather clock ticked in the corner. The broad-planked floor was covered with rag rugs. On one end of the room was a roll-top desk. A framed picture of Jack in full uniform sat atop it. Jack with his rifle, a beautiful, scoped Whitworth. Zach had never seen him before he shot him, and the image of the man’s living face startled him.
Zack took the logbook from his pocket and handed it to her without saying a word. She opened it slowly. Her picture fell to the floor, and as she read the first few entries, tears welled and flowed down her cheeks. She flipped to the last entry, which read: March 3: …Two more days and I’m on two week leave. Seems like an eternity since I’ve seen her… She closed the book, put her hands over her face, and wept.
“Mommy? W-w-what’s wrong?” A little boy ran into the room and to his mother’s side. She put her arm around him, held him tight, and continued to sob. The boy looked over at Zach as if angry he had caused his mother to cry.
Composing herself, Martha said, “Tommy, this man knew your father. He brought us his diary. Introduce yourself.”
The little boy strode directly over to Zach, stuck out his hand, and said, “I-I-I’m Tom Kavandish. Were you in the w-w-war with my d-d-dad?”
Zach shook his hand and told him his name then reached over and mussed up his black hair. “You must be the man of the house,” he said. The boy went back to his mother, put his arm around her, looked back at Zach, and nodded.
“I don’t recall Jack ever mentioning your name, Mister Harkin. Were you in his unit?” she asked.
“Not exactly, ma’am, but I was the first to see him after he was… I cannot tell you how sorry I am.” Having no idea what to say or do next, Zach stood and said, “I’d best be going, ma’am.”
“Please, call me Martha,” she said. “How on earth did you find us?”
“Wasn’t easy,” he said, and he told her about the crowded trains out of Atlanta and his visit with Susan McGowan and how she had given him directions to the farm. He told her the news about Hood vacating the city, and the expectation that Sherman would burn the entire area. She watched him closely, absorbing every word. He found himself repeating some of the things he had already told her, but in more detail.
Zach had sat back down when the hissing sound of a pot boiling over came from the kitchen. “Oh, my. The stew!” Martha ran into the kitchen, leaving Tommy and Zach alone.
Zach looked around the room. “Looks like you’re doing a good job seeing after things, Tommy,” he said.
“M-my daddy h-had to go t-to the war,” he said. His matter of fact expression showed no sadness, but rather a sense of pride. He had his mother’s large brown eyes and her skin, but his father’s black hair. He seemed frustrated when he could not pronounce words clearly, so he tried to force them, compounding the problem.
On a table beside his chair was a toy wagon and a building block set. The wagon was mounted on four wheels and had a pull string. Zach took the wagon and sat on the floor, “Bet you can build a barn like yours.”
Tommie squatted down in front of Zach and started to build. He laid the foundation, and left an open section for the large door, but was puzzled as to how to construct the hip roof. Zach pointed at a piece that might help and the boy quickly grabbed it and continued.
Martha came in from the kitchen and hesitated, seeing the two on the floor, “Mister Harkin, you’ve come all this way, would you have some stew with us before you go?”
The kitchen was the biggest room in the house. Just inside the backdoor was a bench with jackets and hats hanging above it. Boots covered with red dust were lined up under the bench. One large pair sat alone. A square, cast iron stove sat against the outside wall with a kettle on top. A nearly empty wood box sat next to a copper boiler full of water. The smell of the rich stew mixed with wood smoke made Zach realize how hungry he was. A table in the middle of the kitchen had three chairs around it and three place settings. Martha indicated to Zach to sit in the middle and she ladled stew into each bowl.
Martha talked about the farm.
Heavy spring rains had caused the river to flood, covering the fields between the river and the farmhouse. Rains continued, and the river did not recede for ten days, ruining her corn crop. The peanut crop in front of the house, however, had thrived, and was near harvest. Her team of horses had been confiscated by the government, and all she had left was her mule, Jake. Most slaves in her area had been impressed into service, but, her slave, Levon, was considered too small, and they let her keep him.
“Levon and Jake are all I have to run this place,” Martha said. “And of course, Tommy. Tommy is a big help.” She smiled at her son. “He keeps the wood box full, the stove fire goin’, and all sorts of things. Don’t you, Tommy?”
“I saw Levon on the way in. Looks like a hard worker,” Zach said.
“Gracious, me. I’ve been talking about me all this time. What about you, Mister Harkin?”
Zach avoided the question, and instead talked about the probable fall of Atlanta and the subsequent fall of the Confederacy. Tommie got up to put a piece of wood in the stove. The fire crackled, sending a hollow noise up the flue. The sun sank below the level of the cottonwoods and shone through the back door onto the wood-planked floor. The screen door had a typical wad of cotton attached at the center. Zach had always wondered why.
“Mister Harkin, I can see you don’t like to talk about yourself much. Could I show you around our place?”
Zach ducked through the back door as they went outside into the cool evening. They walked toward the river, their feet sinking into the rich, loamy bottomland in the rear of the farm. The field toward the river, where Martha’s corn crop had stood, was fallow and weedy. The field on the other side of the farmhouse was higher, and had a healthy crop of corn with large, succulent ears nearly ready for harvest. Zach had little actual experience farming, but he knew a farmer’s work was difficult, and carried many risks.
They walked a loop through the backfield and headed toward the barn. Martha explained the various operations of the farm, and Zach realized her knowledge was limited. She had an optimistic outlook, but seemed not to grasp that she needed a lot more help than just Levon. With the 1864 Confederate call for any able-bodied male to conscript into the army, even old men weren’t available to help with the hard work. Of course, most able-bodied slaves had been impressed by the government, so Martha could not even pay a neighbor for a borrowed slave’s labor. Her farm had almost no chance of providing for the two of them, and Zach felt that burden resting squarely on his shoulders….
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