End of the Road (13 page)

The panic only grew as did
the crowds gathering around the great tree. The people were broken
into sections with some carrying religious signs while others
partied and performed lewd acts. But the largest crowd was gathered
around the base of Methuselah. From there could be heard a resonant
chanting of "
Ohhhhm,
ohhhhm.
"

Within days the trucks which fed our
obsession for “everything easy” had stopped running, the drivers no
doubt heading to their own homes to care for their own families.
Store shelves were empty, gas stations deserted, businesses and
schools were closed. The only people on the streets were those in
search of food or those in search of chaos.

Soon the word came of home invasions. The
National Guard had been deployed in every city and town, but their
numbers were not sufficient to keep the evil-doers at bay. Fires
burned nightly in many a once-quiet neighborhood. I huddled with my
family and did my best to calm my children's fears. Our wonderful,
civilized world was coming apart at the seams.

The dregs of society had come out to
celebrate and were robbing, raping and pillaging at every
opportunity. The world's governments were breaking down as soldiers
and policemen abandoned their posts to be with their families. It
was as if civilization itself had abandoned all hope.

Then all were quiet and watched intently as
the first wisps of smoke appeared from the great tree. Within
minutes the entire crowd was witness to the grand great Methuselah
beginning to smolder heavily. The weeping of those nearest the tree
began and the anguish spread outward through the crowd as ripples
in a still pond. Wailing was heard as the first flames appeared in
the top of the tree.

Everyone stood in silence, watching, waiting
and wondering what would happen next. As night fell Methuselah
burned brightly with a bright orange flame. Within hours,
Methuselah was in full blaze. The stark faces of the onlookers
showed only disbelieve and sorrow.

This was the final tree. The oldest living
thing. The crowd watched silently as the end neared. By morning the
smoke from the tree swirled upward into a gloomy overcast sky as
its blackened embers continued to burn. The crowd surrounding the
great tree had swelled to more than five hundred thousand
souls.

The great tree gave its last breath as it
finally collapsed in a smoldering heap. A single charred cone fell
to the ground and rolled up in front of the old Paiute woman. She
stretched out her hand and retrieved the fallen fruit. As she
inspected the cone a single seed petal split open revealing to her
a tiny seed of the Great Basin Bristlecone Pine.

She looked intently at the
seed and then back at the other Sentinels. She then stood; looked
at the crowd and proclaimed as she held up the tiny seed
"t
he cycle of Nature is
renewed!
"

The old woman then placed the seed gently
into a tiny purse that was strung around her neck. Followed by the
other Sentinels, she turned and walked carefully through the now
stunned and confused crowd. The on-lookers stood in silence as the
Sentinels walked away.

Those who had come to the Gathering
eventually returned to their homes as did the rest of the world.
Many things had been done that could never be undone. For months
the people of the world threw accusations and pointed fingers. For
months the unrest continued.

But as all things with Man have an end, so
did the burning of the trees. Schools and businesses reopened,
workers returned to their jobs and as the drudgery of daily life
returned, the wounds slowly healed. My family came through the
tragedy and chaos largely unscathed, but the image of it all would
forever be burned into our hearts. We would always carry with us...
The Death of the Senator.

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Copyright 2012-2013 Stephen Arseneault, All
Rights Reserved

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Chapter 12

The Long Road Home

By Jeanette Raleigh

-1862 in a Federal camp, along the Tennessee
River-

John Summers closed his eyes and pulled the
blanket over his shoulders, his wife's letter on his pillow while
he breathed the scent of her perfume. The stench from the latrines
choked the air and the offal brought flies by the hundreds. Rebecca
stood between him and the abyss. He felt this truth somewhere deep
in his soul.

As the light faded, he could no longer see
the picture of her and so he tucked it into his jacket, but the
letter he always slept with, a talisman against nightmares. His
wife's scent sometimes brought good dreams.

Drifting off to sleep, John felt longing and
homesickness, a world-weary exhaustion born from boredom and fear.
Late in the night, long after John's loneliness had dissolved into
dreams, hell descended on camp in all its fury.

The sound of gunfire shocked John awake with
the shouts, “We're under attack.”

The men in his tent stumbled in the dark,
grabbing their guns. After pulling on his boots, John followed Ted
out and saw him point to flashes and smoke in the trees. “Over
there.”

Swarming out of the tents half-dressed, the
men scrambled to take positions on the line where the pickets held.
John was running toward the flashes where shots were exchanged when
one of the shadows holding firm with a rifle at his shoulder
dropped with a cry. The soldier must have been one of the heroic
ones, the men who stood firm and fought with a fury, because the
instant he fell, the rest of the men scattered. He hoped it wasn't
the lieutenant. Suddenly the scouts were running past him. “Fall
back. Fall back.”

John turned, carried along with the running
men into the trees while the enemy pursued. It was then that he
remembered Rebecca's letter. He had two other letters from his
wife, but this one was special.

While the men took positions on the far side
of camp, John stared at the dark outline of the tent where the
letter still lay on his pillow. The moans of the wounded carried
across the field.

One of the men nearest whispered and asked
about the enemy, “You think they're still out there?”

“
Yes,” John edged back.
They waited with guns poised, watching for movement in the damp
cold, grateful for the clouds that cloaked moon and stars and left
pockets of midnight in which to hide.

Creeping out of the shadows, the rebel war
cry rose into the night and John shivered while the same man said,
“They're coming now.”

The shadows separated from the trees as the
enemy moved forward into camp. Confederate soldiers laid fire into
the woods. His companion edged forward and fired on the encroaching
shadows.

When a minie ball blasted the bark of a tree
just over John's ear, exploding bits of detritus across his hair,
John hit the dirt, slinking back on all fours and looking into the
dark for the man who shot at him. Shouts and gunfire and screaming
horses echoed in the night. Belly-crawling through the dirt he
worked his way deeper into the darkness. In the moment of quiet
between volleys, he listened for a voice he could recognize. A
voice cried out, “Hold the line!”

He heard gunfire and a desperate scream.

The whoops of the confederates chilled John
with their proximity. He lay in the cold mud with a stone pressed
to his cheek and waited in silence. Each breath seemed to stretch
between eternities. He thought of the letter, replaying every word
while the rebel yells of confederate soldiers surrounded him and
bullets crashed into the trees and the few men brave enough to
stand.

Every word gave him hope.
Every sentence gave him courage.
My Dearest
John,
I hope this finds you well.
Not so well, really. The rock was cutting into his
cheek and the wet earth chilled his skin and he trembled. He was
alone in the dark, surrounded by enemy troops. And I lost your
letter, Rebecca. It’s gone. He took a deep shuddering breath and
realized that he could get it back, what with all the confusion and
the dark. He had time, how much he didn't know, a few minutes, an
hour until daylight. Maybe he'd be captured and sent to a dank
prison, but he'd have the letter.

Somewhere far to his right flank, exchanges
of gunfire crackled. John squirmed through the cold, wet slime inch
by inch trying to work his way around the camp perimeter, back to
the tent.

An hour later and John was close, so close.
But a new line had formed near the very tent he was trying to reach
and bullets ripped through the air. As he slowly inched his way
forward, he heard a voice say, “John, is that you?”

Lieutenant Ralph Barrister, in command of
the thirty men who had formed the picket, spoke from the shadows,
startling John who had crawled by in the dark. “Yes sir.”

“
Why are you coming this
way? Most of the company has already fallen back.” The voice in the
dark was a hoarse whisper, spoken between bouts of gunfire and
shouting.

“
My wife's letter. I left
it on my pillow. If those bastards get hold of it...” John knew how
desperately foolish he sounded. He had slithered by his superior
through muck to get a damn memento. How does one confess to that?
“Sir, I have to get the letter back. I know how foolish it
sounds.”

“
We're already overrun. You
can't think to go out there and survive. Not without
help”

Ralph lifted his gun and fired. John saw the
flash and blinked. Not enough light to see his face or even body.
Ralph's shadow separated from the tree, moving forward. A brave
fool. The lieutenant made a target of himself. John whispered to
him to get down. He was surprised when Ralph ducked back.

John could see the shape of the tent now
just a few yards away. He whispered to Ralph who had gone down on
one knee next into the shadow of the tree. “It's so close. I'm sure
I can make it.”

“We'll do it together. Henderson. Smith.
With me.” He hadn't sensed or seen them until the two men joined
Ralph. The smell of smoke and sulfur drifted across the camp. The
night seemed lighter, and John wondered how long they had until
daylight.

Willing himself to stillness, John thought
of the moment just last afternoon when he fingered Rebecca's
letter, the parchment crackling to his touch.

“
Reading that letter from
your missus, again, eh?” Theodore Jarvis handed John a chunk of
dried beef and took a bite of his own with relish.

John nodded, wanting to be alone. He should
be grateful for the food taken from a dead enemy's pack. Instead he
felt a faint queasiness.

“
Read me the part about the
flowers.” Theodore didn't have a wife of his own. He was old
enough, not a child like the drummers or even a young swain looking
for romance. A few gray hairs edged his beard, though he laughed
and said they popped out after the first battle.

John cleared his throat,
“
You would like the daisies, peeping shyly
out from mama's hedge. Whenever I see them I think about the
evening we walked through Mama’s garden, and the moment you first
said you loved me. It seems so long ago now.”

Theodore crossed his arms, “Bet it seems
longer to you, huh?”

John nodded. An eternity. Forever since he'd
held Rebecca's hand under the stars the night after they were
married and declared his love for the rest of his days. He folded
the letter.

“
You always stop there. Why
don't you keep reading?”

“
It's personal.”

John waited until Theodore wandered away to
bother some other poor fellow reading a letter from home. Then he
settled onto his make-shift chair in the mist to think about the
rest of the letter.

John stared into the darkness. He had to
find that letter. After a long wait in the cold dark, Ralph made
the first move, taking point with a quick step, step, crouch and
search. He stepped with a smooth efficiency that John envied. His
men shared the same skill. John had slithered and crawled through
the woods taking an hour to cover as much ground as Ralph did in
five minutes. He slowly lifted himself from the ground. There was
something wrong with trusting the air. He wanted to sink back into
the mud but if the lieutenant was willing to help, John could at
least keep up.

By the time John crawled his way through the
trees, Ralph was hunkered at the far side of the tent, scanning the
camp and listening to the sounds of the night. John was lucky his
tent was still in the part of camp being fought over. Across the
clearing, the enemy waited to pick off anyone coming out of the
tents. In the darkness it seemed a great distance, but it wasn't
really, not if they moved forward.

While Ralph kept watch, John snuck along the
side of the canvas wishing for a sharper knife. It would have been
easier to cut a hole in the back. Ralph's men started their
diversion with a sudden volley that had everyone looking away from
the tent where Rebecca's letter waited.

John swept into the tent and wiping his
hands on his sleeve, picked up the letter and tucked it back where
it belonged with the thin paper photograph of his wife, a carte de
vista purchased for a nickel before he shipped out.

“
Hold.”

From outside the tent, Ralph's voice gave
the command that told John to stay put. A sudden volley across the
field and the sound of horses startled John. Even with his pants
soaked through and the chill midnight air, he felt sweat bead along
his forehead. He itched to pull the flap back and take his chances
with the whooping and hollering men pouring into camp. He heard the
laughter across the field and the sound of objects thrown. The
looting had already begun. John didn't dare call for Ralph, but
what if he'd been shot? How would John know to leave?