January Dawn (10 page)

Sure enough, there was Hayes’ mother in the front row, a damp handkerchief in one hand and the other desperately waving in the air trying to get Hayes’ attention.

Seeing the stands full of all these families filled me with a wave of sad, self-deprecating depression.
All those people up there looking for their loved ones.

In a moment of blank minded naivety, I searched for any sign of Mr. Jeffries in the stands. I had hoped in vain that somehow he had made it here to see me graduate. It was wishful thinking. All of the proud looks, all of the tears, and all of the love of those in the stands were meant for all the other boys and girls standing beside me on the field.

Finally, General Gammon approached the microphone. A sharp static emanated from the speakers as he cleared his throat. He wore his best looking dress uniform, with rows of brightly colored ribbons and medals speckled across his chest, evidence of his long, sacrificing service to the Confederate Army in battles and engagements of wars long passed. I never envied someone as much as I did at that moment.

Gammon had not even spoken a word yet. He didn’t have to. Just standing there, composing his thoughts, sincere in every movement, he was the man that I wanted to be. Everything about him I wanted for myself. The strength. The passion. The selflessness. He had sacrificed who knows what for the pure love of his country and his people.

I decided right then and there that I would be standing at that same podium someday, dictating a speech to a host of brand new army inductees as he was about to do. He was everything I wanted to be.
Everything I will be.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he addressed the crowd, “I give to you…our future. The next line of heroes that we will read about in the newspapers for days to come.” The crowd erupted with applause. “Their names will often go untold, but their deeds will speak volumes. History has taught us that wars are fought by nameless, faceless soldiers. That is the greatest tragedy of our time. These soldiers are the heart and soul of our country. We need to champion their names. There isn’t a single tree or blade of grass in this nation that hasn’t grown strong off of the blood and sweat of our soldiers. They hold up the very ground we walk upon, so hold them close to your hearts, lest you ever forget that.”

That was all he had to say to the audience of civilians.

“Men.” A pause. “We are at war. Our great nation is being battered by belligerent foreign enemies by land, by sea and by the air. Our northern states are in a state of emergency. Entire cities have been evacuated. Millions of our own countrymen are fleeing south. Our streets have become avenues for deadly street by street fighting. Our hills and forests have been flattened by the steel treads of their war machines and set ablaze by their artillery and airstrikes. And our streams and rivers have churned red with the blood of our neighbors.” Gammon didn’t sugarcoat anything. “As soldiers it is our duty to run toward the sound of gunfire. While everyone else’s first instinct is to run from danger, it is ours to seek it out and squash it with our boot.”

With his hands firmly gripping the edges of the podium, Gammon blinked rapidly and hung his head low for a few seconds before resuming with a more subdued tone. “A young boy once asked me why I wear this uniform. At the time I didn’t know why. Embarrassed, I walked away. I didn’t see the boy again for another eight months. When he saw me again, he asked me the same question. And once again, I ignored him. But after many years of reflection, I can finally answer that question. And to that little boy I say: because I had the freedom to choose to wear this uniform. It’s only with the freedom of choice can we become what we have always dreamed we could be. In a world where such liberties are becoming rarer, I continue to wear this uniform so that future generations may have that very same freedom.”

“You all come from different walks of life, but now your paths have converged. Together you will march into battle. Together you will face the enemy. And together you will come home. Depend on each other. Trust each other. Love each other. For when the bullets start flying, the soldier next to you is the only sense of security you will have. Go forth from here, charge forward and keep the Southern Cross flying high.”

With a quick nod, Gammon turned and sat to a sonata of applause. Some officer approached the podium and announced, “Graduating class two-zero-nine. Dismissed.”

And just like that nearly all of the two hundred recruits sprang from their statue like stance with a loud chorus of celebratory hurrahs and tossed their berets into the air. Handshakes and hugs were exchanged with comradely affection. It was done. The families rushed the field, merging with their loved ones in uniform.

Everyone moved but me. I stood there observing the symphony of affection that occurred with the collision of parents and their children they had not seen in two months.

There was Carrigan, happy and ecstatic with her accomplishment, being swept up in the arms of what looked like her brother and father.

I watched as Hayes’ mother charged through the crowd, screaming for her baby. Hayes found her in the throng of people and threw his arms around her neck. With a hearty laugh, she squeezed him back. When I saw them together, I could see where Hayes got his contagious smile from.

I saw Shannon wandering aimlessly through the crowd, wondering if he too had nobody to come watch him graduate, but before long a tall man stopped a few feet from him. Shannon looked surprised. They both stared as if contemplating the authenticity of the moment, until Shannon’s father finally made a move to approach him and they embraced. A cute little girl wearing a pink polka-dot dress and pink shoes hung quietly to the back of the man’s leg. Shannon bent down and opened his arms wide. The little girl smiled shyly and ran to her big brother.

It was the same scene everywhere I looked. Smiles and tears and hugs and kisses. I saw Pike with his brothers and sisters and Beauregard with his parents and young brother. Even General Gammon stepped down from the stage to give his son a stiff, congratulatory handshake.

And then there was Alex, surrounded by his parents and five siblings. He had the biggest grin on his face as he went around the circle hugging them. The littlest brother clung tight to his neck. Alex held him tightly.
What a beautiful family
.

Alex was my best friend and I couldn’t be happier for him. I considered going over to him, but thought better of it. This was his moment, he didn’t need me intruding. Instead, I took a deep breath, looked up to the sky, whispered a silent thank you to Mr. Jeffries and made my way through the crowd and back to the barracks where I found some quiet solitude.

*

The barracks was unbelievably quiet. Every recruit had packed up their belongings in a duffel bag before marching to graduation. Now the gray sacks waited lifelessly on each recruit’s bunk, a noiseless reminder of changing tides and of an unknown future.

I got out my miniature flag that I had stashed away deep in my duffel bag and sat down on Alex’s bed. The flag lay unfurled in my fingers, old and worn, but radiant as ever.

I made it.
This country has given me this wonderful opportunity. Now it’s time to begin my journey as a soldier.

Every recruit was given a one week furlough to be used immediately following graduation, but I decided to forgo that, and to jump on the next train ride to Savannah to check into my unit at Fort Hampton. If I had to go to war, I wanted to get it over with sooner rather than later.

For the moment, though, I sat there staring at the deep hues of red, white and blue printed on the rough fabric. The blue seemed soothing and the white appeared hopeful, but the dark red tinge felt ominous. It reminded me of blood. That same foreboding depression from earlier hit me once more.

Mr. Jeffries was dead, Mr. Stephens was gone forever and here I was living my dream. I had the freedom I had always wanted.
I wish you were here to see this Mr. Jeffries. You’d get a kick out of my uniform. And my friends. Mr. Jeffries you’d love my friends. They…

When the realization finally hit me, the depression in my turbulent conscience dissipated and gave way to warm understanding. Mr. Jeffries spent the last eighteen years building me into the man I am today. He cried that night not out of sadness, but of joy. His entire purpose for the last years of his life was raising me. He had no one else. I was it. He raised me to be my own man. When he told me to not to trust anyone but myself, he wasn’t telling me not to trust anyone, he was telling me that my judgment is what mattered. By trusting myself I could go beyond just existing in this world, and instead, actually live in this world.

Mr. Jeffries passed on with marrow deep belief in me. He paved the road for my existence, knowing full well that his journey would end when mine began.
I understand now Mr. Jeffries.

I heard the loud click and echo of dress shoes entering the barracks.

Probably one of the guys coming to get his duffel bag
.

“Hey buddy, what’re you doing?” Alex asked sitting down next to me.

“Nothing,” I said, rolling up the flag. “Why aren’t you with your family?”

“I was. I wanted to introduce you to them, but when I turned around you were gone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Listen man, my family and I would love for you to join us at our home. I’ve told them all about you…well not everything…and they’re dying to meet you. Come on, come home with me.”

“Thanks, but I don’t want to impose on you and your family.”

“You wouldn’t be imposing. You are my family, Colton,” he said. “We may have started out rough, but in the end we had each other’s backs. Not only that, but you saved me from myself. I would have quit all of this weeks ago if it wasn’t for you. You’re like a brother to me, and brothers take care of each other.”

I looked into Alex’s soul deep eyes and saw how passionate he was. His words, rife with sympathy and sensitivity, struck me a deep blow.

“I’ve struggled my entire life to understand why I was born into this world. To hear you say that I’m like a brother to you makes me feel like I have a purpose.”

Alex gripped my shoulder with a reassuring squeeze, ruffled my hair as he stood and held out a hand as an invitation. “There’s a whole new world out there, Colt. I want to show it to you. What do you say?”

Alex and I caught the seven p.m. train to Atlanta that night. Why Atlanta, I asked. He answered by saying he wanted to show me something I had never seen before.

When we pulled into downtown, it was like star gazing on a cloudless winter night. There were so many lights. And buildings so tall, they looked like they touched the sky. Big, hulking structures crisscrossed with yellow and white lights. In some of them you could see the tiny silhouettes of people moving in the windows ten, twenty, thirty stories off the ground. It was a concrete jungle, exotic and new.

And the people! I had never seen so many people in one place before. Men and women moseyed down the sidewalks talking with each other and exchanging pleasant greetings with strangers as they passed by. Hundreds and thousands of them. They were not just on foot either, they drove in the hundreds of cars that littered the streets, zipping around each other so casually, honking their horns and spewing clouds of fumes from their tailpipes. These were nice looking cars, nothing like the beat-up pickup truck we had on the plantation.

“Welcome to Atlanta,” Alex exclaimed with his arms spread outward displaying the downtown skyline above him, “The pride and glory of the Confederacy.”

I studied the faces of the people we passed. Everyone moved about leisurely, without a care in the world. A group of women walked by dressed in low-cut dresses and high heels. They carried bags stuffed with newly purchased merchandise. Down on the corner there was a policeman leaning up against his car, sipping on a cup of coffee and puffing on a cigarette, while he struck up a conversation with a man in a wheelchair.

It was strange. Besides the occasional man in military uniform, you would never have guessed there was a war going on.

The city was delightful, but it was what was behind the bright lights, fancy cars and oblivious people that troubled me. In nearly every alleyway that we passed, there were men, and in some cases women and children, loitering in the darkness, digging in dumpsters, snuggling up in cardboard boxes, and huddling around fires. It wasn’t only a few either, there were a dozen or two in nearly every alley. Alex told me they were refugees. The war forced them from their homes, fleeing south with nothing but their lives. No belongings, no pets, and no money. The cities offered the best opportunities, but they were quickly surpassing capacity. There was no way to sustain so many thousands of refugees in one city, he said.

I witnessed a curious incident that involved one such family of refugees. A family of three, a mother, and her two young children were milling about on the edge of the sidewalk. The two children sat at the base of the building between two trash cans while the mother zigzagged the moving mass of people begging for help. She asked for money. “Just a little change,” she said. “Or a job. I can work. I’ll do anything.” Nobody even looked at her. They would huff and move around her like they would a muddy puddle.

I didn’t know if being at war had desensitized their minds or if they just refused to see these sorrowful faces, but the people of Atlanta continued about their normal lives without the slightest glance toward the misfortunes of those living in the shadows only a feet away. The war was hundreds of miles away, but to these people it might as well have been across the globe.

Alex and I ate a late dinner at a Chinese takeout stand and then walked three blocks down to some sort of department store.
Mr. Jeffries told me about these before
. Walking in through a pair of magical, sliding doors, Alex led me through the fluorescent lit aisles to the men’s section of the store.

“We can’t have you wearing your dress uniform every day, so start looking, pick out what you like. I’m buying,” Alex said.

I looked down at my uniform and realized that he was right, I had forgotten that I didn’t have any other clothes besides my dress uniform, my PT clothes and the ragged clothing I showed up for Basic Training in. So, I shopped for the first time ever.

It wasn’t until an employee came and told us that the store was closing that we finally stopped. Alex paid for everything. I was mighty thankful and I walked out of that store with two large bags full of clothes.

At the train station we waited alongside a few other nocturnal travelers for the arrival of the one a.m. train to Savannah. When it arrived we were ushered into one of the first three cars, the only cars designated for civilian traffic. The rest of the cars were loaded with military supply.

As the train pulled away I watched as the lights of the Atlanta skyline disappeared in the distance. It was a unique experience for me, but the city left a sour taste in my mouth. I was ready to leave.

Six hours and three stops later we arrived in Savannah. A city even more beautiful than Atlanta. There were no exceptionally large skyscrapers here, only timeworn brick buildings and ancient oak trees. It had a more cultural feel to it as opposed to Atlanta’s steely modernity. The people here were friendlier than those in Atlanta too. They spoke with a slower, more deliberate drawl than what I was used to hearing, but I got along fine. I didn’t see any evidence of refugees in the city, but we did encounter a lot more military personnel.

Alex walked me to a little corner diner for a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. The kindly old man that took our order was a friend of Alex’s family. He gave us our meal for free even after we insisted on paying. From there, we hailed a taxi that took us out of the city toward the coast where the Redman family home was.

We drove down country roads for a few minutes, crossing through both open marshes and swampy forests, before taking a right hand turn down a dirt road. After passing by a few expensive looking coastal estates, the taxi came to a halt in front of a fifteen foot high rod iron grate. Attached on both sides of the gate was a brick wall. The mildew and moss covered wall ran quite a distance before disappearing in the underbrush of the surrounding woods.

The gate itself was simple but elegant. A series of vertical bars traversed the length of the gate with a horizontal strip that accentuated the look with a myriad of loops and curls bounded in by two thick bars. In the center, a large cursive “R” made it clear that it was the Redman plantation.

After punching in a code on a number pad sticking up out of the ground, Alex hopped back in the car. The rusted hinges squeaked in agony as the gate creaked open. The taxi driver eased the car down the road. A thick, swampy forest of oak, and pine and palmetto ran up to the edge of the road. We continued down the dirt path underneath the heavy staleness of the thick woods for a couple hundred yards. After rounding a slight curve, the woods cleared up.

The last quarter mile of the driveway was a straight shot down an avenue of shady oak trees, limbs beautifully fashioned by nature in a quaint overhead canopy. Beyond the oak trees on the right, an open field of knee-high grass swept the land all the way to the distant tree line. On the left, half a dozen horses lounged idly in a pasture boxed in by a neglected wood fence.

As the last of the oak branches cleared away I could see the Redman home open up before me. It was a massive three story home, painted with a lethargic white hue. A set of small, welcoming steps led up to a veranda that encompassed the entire first floor of the house. The morning breeze lapped happily at the three Confederate flags that jutted out off the front of the house. Those flags never looked as beautiful as they did then. The gallant Blood-Stained Banner, the fearsome Southern Cross, and the beautiful Bonnie Blue.

The taxi driver swung the car around in the large, rectangular dirt lot at the end of the driveway. We got out of the taxi, but I was too dazzled by the stately nature of the home to catch the entirety of the friendly argument Alex had with the cab driver, an older gentleman with a few strands of gray hair left over his ears.

“Don’t worry about paying,” the man said.

“Sir, please it’s a big fare. I’d feel bad if I didn’t,” Alex said, holding out a wad of cash.

“Son, you put that money away. That uniform is enough.”

Alex relented. “Thank you, sir.”

The cab driver pulled around and drove away.

The house and the lot were separated by a three foot high slate rock wall that funneled you to a cobblestone path leading up to the front of the house.

Alex led the way up the stairs and waltzed inside, happy to be home. A faint, clean linen scent welcomed me as I stepped inside the foyer, closing the heavy door behind me. Alex had already rushed off deep into the bowels of the house leaving me to absorb the majestic enormity of what was presented before me. I had never seen anything of the like.

Directly in front of me, a brown staircase with white trimming dissected a wide hallway that separated the house in two. To the left was a living room, elegantly arranged with several white and black striped chairs, a similar couch, and a rectangular glass coffee table, all resting on a light brown patterned rug. A rustic stone fireplace centered the outside wall with an array of family photos resting on a shelf directly above it.

To the right was the dining room, with a long, mahogany dining table and a spectacular golden chandelier hanging overhead. Beautiful, black curtains hung among the half dozen windows that let in the bright morning sunlight.

Alex came jogging down the hall.

“My dad’s truck is out front, but it doesn’t seem like anybody’s home,” he said.

“Alex, you live here?” I asked, awestruck.

“I grew up here. My family has owned this land for a hundred and fifty years. One hundred and fifty acres of prime Georgia real estate.”

“This is unbelievable.”

“Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be staying,” he said, leading me to the stairs, where you could hear the
thud
thud thud
of someone descending the wooden steps.

“Welcome home,” the man said, wiping his hands on a dirty rag as he descended down into the foyer. He had on blue jeans and a red button down shirt rolled up to the elbows. Alex and his father embraced.

“I didn’t think anyone was home,” Alex said.

“I was up in the attic, moving a few odds and ends.” Alex’s father turned toward me and extended his hand. “You must be Colton.”
Here he was, finally. The legend that I heard so much about in Basic
.
Brigadier
General Silas Redman
.

“Colton Tennpenny, sir.”

“Very nice to meet you, Colton. I’m Silas Redman.”

His father was tall and slender and he stood with impeccable posture. I locked hands with him in a solid grip and looked up into his grizzled face. He had deep eyes like Alex’s and a head full of salt and pepper hair neatly combed to the side. To be standing in the presence of such an icon was intimidating to say the least.

“You make yourself at home here, Colton. If you need anything, you need only ask,” Silas said.

“Where is everyone, Dad? I want to introduce them to Colton.”

“It’s Friday, they’re at school. Your mother’s picking them up after work. You two look tired. I put your duffels up in your rooms. You should hit the rack for a few hours, but don’t change, because your mother and I are throwing a party for you gentlemen tonight.”

“A party?” Alex asked.

“Yes. There’ll be a few other distinguished guests, so look sharp.” Silas patted Alex on the shoulder and started moving away. “I have a few things to finish up. Welcome home.”

You could definitely sense the old officer in him.

First, I trained under the great General Gammon and now I’m staying in the house of the famous General Redman
.
It can’t get any better than this.

I followed Alex up to the second story, where he led me to the corner room overlooking the backside of the property. He swung the door open and said, “This is where you’ll be staying. Make yourself at home.”

Inside the room, budded up against the wall, was a king sized bed with an oak bed frame. There were matching bed stands on either side with a lamp on each. Directly across from the foot of the bed was a black dresser with a beach painting hanging off the wall above it. All of the earthen colors of the walls and the hardwood floors gave the house a very charming appeal.

I ran my hand along the hard surface of the bed frame at the foot of the bed, my eyes seeing, but not believing.

“Alex, this is…”

“Awesome, right?” He stood there in the doorway with his hands shoved in his pockets, watching me grovel over the luxuriousness of the room. “This is all yours, buddy. If you need me, I’m up the stairs, first door on your right.”

He shut the door behind him as he left, leaving me alone in the massive room.

“This is incredible,” I said to myself as I continued exploring the room.

In the far corner there was a door that led to a bathroom that was equally magnificent. The sink was what looked like a makeshift steel bucket sunk into a marble countertop. Next to that was the toilet.

A toilet just for myself?

I had gotten too used to barracks life.

I opened the hefty glass door that led into the walk-in shower. A triangular bench was nestled in the corner with an assortment of shampoos and soaps. It was all very impressive.