Corporal Will Faver, born in Oak River, Missouri, and a Union volunteer, survived. Grape shot had grazed his head, leaving a nasty gash, and a minie ball had taken a bite out of his left arm, but he was alive and still full of fight. Bandaged and determined, he rejoined Union forces on Cemetery Ridge, where they'd been driven backward to hold after fierce fighting.
The Rebs decided not to press the attack in the evening's waning light, so during that night the Yanks regrouped and waited. Reb troops were moving in from the north and west. Pickets were needed to take up position in those directions, well away from the main body of troops, to act as isolated lookouts and give warning of approaching Confederate forces. Dangerous assignments. Which was why Will Faver, wounded but not seriously, and mostly unknown by the men around him, was given picket duty. With a youth named Elliott Nance, a lean and sad-faced Pennsylvanian, Will was sent about half a mile north to take up position in a peach orchard.
There was a moon that night, and the two men were spotted near the orchard and had to break into a run when Confederate light artillery opened fire on them.
Will, who'd won many a picnic foot race in Oak River, simply put his head down and sprinted for the trees. Nance decided to weave to avoid the Rebel fire. Entering the cover of the orchard, Will heard the young trooper's shrill scream.
Will found himself alone in the orchard.
He moved farther into the shelter of the trees. It was June and they'd borne early fruit. The sweet scent of peaches rotting on the ground spooked him, reminding him of decay and death. His lost comrades in the First Corps… young Nance. Morose and afraid, he stumbled through the darkness beneath the tree cover, waiting for the artillery to be trained on the orchard. Will had seen wooded areas assaulted by artillery, leafless, blackened skeletal ruins where no life could survive. He hadn't much hope.
The ground dropped out from beneath him, and with a gasp of surprise he slid on his back into a dry creek bed. It would provide him some cover if the artillery decided to open up on the entire orchard. He scooted around to sit with his back braced against the slope of the hard dirt bank. And there he sat listening to his harsh, ragged breathing, living his fear, knowing his duty.
As he had so many times in danger, he slid his hand beneath his shirt and caressed the silver locket with Sharleen's curl of blonde hair tucked beneath its oval lid. The metal warmed to his touch and calmed him. His faith returned. He would survive this night, this war, and get back to Oak River and live out his life with his wife and the children they planned on having. He knew at that moment that Will and Sharleen Faver would grow old together.
Then his brother said, "Move a muscle, Yank, and I shoot you dead as a stump."
Terror froze Will so he couldn't have moved if he tried. Then through his cold panic seeped warm realization.
The Reb's voice! He couldn't mistake that voice!
"Luther?"
Luther Faver, Will's older brother, had taken sides in the war first, and joined the Tennessee Volunteers. He'd been in the tobacco business with partners in Memphis, and that was where his loyalties lay. Will was the brother who took over the family farm rather than let it lie fallow, married Sharleen, and sank his own roots deep and forever in Oak River.
"Luther? That you, Luther?"
The dark form of the Reb aiming his musket down at Will didn't move. Then slowly the long barrel of the gun dropped low and to the side.
"My God, it
is
you," Luther said, and scampered down into the gouge of the creek bed with Will. "How in the hell you been, boy?"
"Stayin' alive, I guess."
"Good thing we had orders to bring back prisoners if we could find 'em, or I'da surely opened fire on you when I saw you here." Luther, a tall man with a lean face and darker hair than his brother's, wiped the back of a hand across his forehead and took a swig from a canteen. He recapped the canteen and tossed it over to Will. "Seen Ma lately?"
And Will remembered that Luther wouldn't know their mother had died six months ago. Will had managed to return briefly to Oak River for her funeral. "Gone…," he said, and took a long pull of water from the canteen.
Luther didn't say anything, just stared up at the night sky beyond the peach tree branches. "How 'bout Sharleen?" he asked at last.
"Good. Seen her last six months ago. Me an' her been workin' the farm. She's keepin' it goin' till I come back for good."
"Why'd you ever leave her, Will. You didn't have to fight in this war."
"Neither did you," Will said.
Luther looked surprised. "Me? Why, I had financial considerations."
Will nodded, understanding. "I plumb forgot you were a businessman." He capped the canteen and tossed it back to his brother. "Thing is, Luther, what are we gonna do now."
"Now?"
"I mean, about this here situation."
"I still don't understand why you ever left Sharleen," Luther said.
Will was trying to think of a good answer when Luther shot him between the eyes.
* * *
Luther survived the rest of the war, sustaining only a slight gunshot wound in the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain the following year.
He returned to Oak River a hero. The Mason-Dixon Line ran close to the town, and veterans of both armies were welcomed home. People were eager for healing.
The second day home, Luther rode the aging horse he'd been allowed to keep the three miles out of town to the farm. It was where he'd grown up none too happily. He'd always been jealous of Will, who was the favorite and had gotten everything, from their parents' attention to… Sharleen.
Sharleen must have seen him from a window. She came out onto the porch as he approached the log house. The house itself didn't look bad, though it could use a little upkeep, some chinking between the logs and some paint on the shutters. And the porch roof sagged some.
Sharleen had aged better than the house. Though she looked older, she was still trim and beautiful, with her calm blue eyes, and her wonderful blonde hair pulled back now and tied in a swirl atop her head. She was wearing a faded flower-print skirt and a white blouse molded to her by the prairie breeze.
Luther reined in the horse a few feet in front of the porch and gave her back her smile. Then he stopped smiling. "I sure am sorry about Will."
Her smile left her face as if caught by the breeze. "So'm I, Luther. More'n you can know."
He dismounted and walked to stand at the base of the three wooden steps to the plank porch. "Place looks good, except for the fields for this time of summer."
"Frank Ames helps out some. Did some mending and painting last month."
Luther looked at her, fingering the brim of his hat held in front of him. "Ames survived the war?"
"He come back to Oak River six months ago. Lost him a leg at Gettysburg."
"Then he's lucky to be alive."
"He 'peers to think so," Sharleen said. She seemed to shake off her sadness and managed a bright smile that brought back memories to Luther. The smile had been there the night Sharleen had taken the walk with him among the cottonwoods in the moonlight, the times at the local dances when she whirled gaily to the music. The smile that was so uniquely hers was there when she'd won the turkey shoot one cold Thanksgiving, and when she filled in teaching at the schoolhouse, and when she and Will surprised everyone by saying they were getting married. The smile had been there on her wedding day. And no doubt on her wedding night…
"…my manners."
Luther realized she was speaking.
"Do come on into the house," she was saying. "Luther?"
"Sorry," he told her. "My mind was wandering."
"It's no wonder," she said solemnly, "after what all you been through." Over her shoulder, as she led him into the house, she said, "Least it was over and final for Will after Gettysburg. Some small comfort in that."
The inside of the house was neat and clean if sparsely furnished. Will sat in a wooden chair at a square oak table in the kitchen. Sharleen had been cooking. The scent of baked bread was in the air, along with that of brewed coffee.
He watched the sway of her hips beneath her skirt as she moved to the wood stove and poured coffee into a tin cup. She set the cup in front of him, then sat down across from him at the table.
"Gotta be a rough life here for a woman alone," Luther remarked.
"Oh, I'm not alone." Her glance slid to an open doorway.
Luther didn't understand at first. Then he stood up, walked over, and peered into the room. A small child was sleeping in a wooden crib.
"That's Samuel," Sharleen said, when Luther had sat down again at the table.
"Will's son," he said with a forced smile.
"The precious thing he left me," Sharleen said. "I got Samuel. And I got Frank Ames."
Luther took a deep breath. "Sharleen, is Ames…? I mean, are you and him…?"
She appeared surprised, touching the side of her neck lightly in a way he remembered she'd done long ago when she was embarrassed. "Oh, no! It's nothing like that, Luther."
"Maybe not to you, but what about to him?"
She seemed to think on the question. "I don't believe so, and a woman oughta know. I think it's just he's a kind man and he runs the bank and's in a position to help out now and again. I know I'm not the only one he's helped."
Luther raised his eyebrows. "Runs the bank, does he?"
"Surely does. You remember he worked there before leaving to fight. Well, old man Scopes retired and sold his interest to Frank. There's partners and a board, but Frank's president and makes the decisions."
"I'll talk to him," Luther said, and took a sip of coffee.
" 'bout what?"
"Getting a loan to run some irrigation to the fields, turn the soil, and put in some good seed for spring planting. That horse I got out there ain't worth much, but he surely can pull a plow."
He couldn't read the expression on Sharleen's face.
"Luther…"
"Remember," he said, "I was raised here on this land. It ain't that I see it as mine, but you and Samuel are family, and nothing can change that." He gave her a reassuring smile. "With what happened to Will and all… I mean, I feel duty bound to help."
She studied his face, then nodded, stood up, and poured him some more hot coffee. "It ain't as if we don't need it," she said.
"You done all right," Luther said.
"The Lord knows I tried." She lowered her head, almost as if she were going to pray, but she began to cry quietly.
Luther got up, strode around the table, and hugged her to him until her back stopped heaving and she wiped her nose and was calm.
He caressed her cheek with the backs of his knuckles and she turned her face away. He walked back to his chair and sat down.
"Coffee was something we could never get enough of during the war," he told her. "Towards the end, we'd make it outta most anything we could grind between two stones." He shook his head glumly. "There was lots of things we couldn't get enough of."
"I just bet there was," Sharleen said.
Luther went to see Frank Ames the next morning at the Oak River Bank. Ames was a small man with a jutting chin and bushy dark mustache. He looked startled to see Luther, then stood up behind his desk and shook hands with him. That he'd stood up surprised Luther, as Sharleen had said Ames lost a leg to the Yanks.
"I'm real glad to see you made it back here safe and sound," Luther said.
Ames smiled. Though his angular face hadn't changed much, his gray eyes were a lot older than when he and Luther had competed in the county games five years ago. "Safe, maybe. But I'm not exactly sound, Luther. Lost a leg."
"Wouldn't guess it."
"Got a wood one, foot and all," Ames said, and limped out from behind the desk. "Don't have to work my boot off and on it, anyway. Silver lining." He motioned for Luther to sit in a nearby chair, then went back to sit behind the desk. He ducked his head and looked strangely at Luther. "I heard you were dead, killed at Chickamauga."
Luther raised his eyebrows in surprise, then smiled. "Don't look that way, does it?"
"Nope. Don't have to touch you to know you're real and still among the living."
"War was hell," Luther said.
Ames nodded. "Damned Sherman." He made a pink steeple with the fingers of both hands. "This visit about business, Luther?"
"It is. I understand you been helping my sister-in-law Sharleen. We appreciate that, but now that I'm back, I want to do my duty to her. After all, she's my brother's widow. Family's all that's left after this war, and for lots of folks not even that."
