Everlasting Light - A Civil War Romance Novella (3 page)

“Yes, but—”

“Alaina, you are a McKenna as much as I am, and you belong here. Obviously you’re inflicting unnecessary guilt upon yourself. Stop it at once.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mama McKenna reached across the scarred plank table and gently patted her hand. “There now, dear, these are lean times for every Southerner.” She sat up straight in her chair once more, looking dignified despite her worn woolen dress and plain brown apron. “How is your mother doing, by the way?”

“As well as can be expected.” Sorrow filled Alaina’s heart. “Mama told me she wishes she would have died of the influenza rather than Papa and Rebecca.”

Mama McKenna shook her head ruefully. “Such a tragedy.”

An errant tear slipped out and ran down Alaina’s cheek. She brushed it aside and another took its place.

“Do you feel you need to go to her? Is that what this is all about?”

“No. David can take care of Mama. He’s all Mama has since William fell.”

“Then it’s settled. You’ll stay here where you belong.”

Alaina wiped away her tears. “Do you really mean that, Mama McKenna?”

“Of course!” She forced a smile through all the anguish that she too had suffered. “We’ll persevere together.”

******

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into bringing you here,” Michael said the following Sunday afternoon. “Braeden would have my hide if he ever found out.”

Alaina curled her lips into a small grin. “I’d have talked Braeden into bringing me … if he were here.”

“Bet you wouldn’t,” Michael teased her, using his one arm to rein in the sorry-looking mule. All humor evaporated as the wagon stopped in front of the remains of the Stokes’ plantation.

“Oh, Michael,” Alaina despaired. “Just look what’s become of this place.”

“I knew we shouldn’t have come,” he muttered, wagging his dark head in concern.

“No. I needed to come … again.”

Before Michael could help her alight from the wagon, she jumped down on her own. She walked through the warped, wrought-iron gate beneath the charred oak trees. Looking ahead, she saw that only two chimneys stood erect. The rest of the mansion had been burned beyond repair.

Heavy-hearted, Alaina tramped through the overgrown brown brush that had once been part of a lovely flower garden. Just beyond it lay a small cemetery with three wooden crosses.

“Oh, Jennifer Marie …” She leaned over the forlorn, white picket fence that squared off the graves. “I’m glad you can’t see what those hateful soldiers did to your home. At least you’re with Jesus, strolling along the streets of gold.”

“Lain?” Michael came up behind her and set his hand on her shoulder. “Why are you doing this?”

“I miss my friend. I miss her so very much.” She whirled around to face him. “This surely is the end of the world, isn’t it? Just like something out of the Book of Revelation.”

“We should be so lucky.”

Ignoring the quip, Alaina turned back to the cemetery. She’d come to pay her respects. Somebody had to, after all, and Jennifer Marie was family.

She had died from smallpox a year ago today—just weeks before Christmas, just months before Sherman’s army burned Columbia. Jennifer Marie’s mother had died of the same deadly disease a month later, and her father was killed by Yankees when he resisted attack on their home.

“It’s time to go, Lain.” Michael took her arm.

“I don’t even have any flowers to place at their graves.”

“Come spring, there’ll be flowers again.” Michael leaned close to her. “You’ll see.”

“This surely is the end of the world,” she repeated.

“No, Lain. It’s just the beginning.” Michael forced her to turn and look at him. “We can rebuild our homes … and our lives.”

Alaina recognized the ardor darkening his brown eyes and tried to take a step backward, but it was no use. She was standing with her heels against the fence. “Michael …” She put her palms against his chest to forestall him.

“Admit it, Lain, you’re as lonely as I am.” His eyes bore into hers.

She swallowed hard. “All right. I’ll admit it.”

“Then marry me.” His tone softened. “I might be maimed physically, but I’m still a whole man emotionally and spiritually. I’ll make you happy, I swear I will.”

“But—”

“Braeden is dead,” he said as if divining her thoughts. “You need to accept that.”

“Oh, Michael.” She choked out the reply. Was it true? Could he be right? Had her hopes and prayers for Braeden’s return been sheer fantasy?

“I know it’s hard for you.” He lifted his hand and caressed her cheek. “But I’ve got enough love in my heart for the both of us. That, and time, will heal all our wounds.”

He dipped his head, his lips lowering toward hers. Alaina closed her eyes in bittersweet anticipation.

Alaina.

Her eyes opened wide. Was that Braeden calling her name?

She drew back, her gaze searching the little cemetery and then the yard. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Michael’s brows drew inward as he glanced around. “All I hear is the wind. What did you hear?”

“I heard—” She closed her mouth, shutting off the rest of her reply. If she admitted to hearing Braeden whisper her name, Michael would think she’d lost her mind. Perhaps she had. “It’s nothing.” Alaina shrugged the matter off. Still, the voice sounded so real. Perhaps it was this ghostly place.

“Come on, Lain.” Resignation edged Michael’s tone. He took her hand. “You’ve had a long day. Let’s go home.”

She allowed him to lead her back to the wagon and help her board. Michael climbed up to his perch without a word and seemed pensive all the way to the farm, but she didn’t mind. She was busy with her own troubled thoughts. Was she going crazy or was she enveloped in so much darkness, she couldn’t see the light?

Oh, Lord,
where are you?

Alaina recalled what her father-in-law had said several nights ago. “I don’t know what I believe anymore.” Somehow the comment seemed to encompass more than just Braeden’s whereabouts. Were they all losing their faith?

Chapter 4

The sunshine warmed Alaina’s cheeks as she hung bedding out to air on this exceptionally pleasant December day. Not far off in the distance, she heard the sounds of her father-in-law’s ax
chop-chop-chopping
as he felled the last of the dead trees on the McKenna property. To her far left, remains of miscellaneous farm equipment stood in a great heap, looking like a pile of twisted, metal bones. But Alaina refused to so much as glance in that direction this bright morning and, instead, found comfort in the thud of another burned-out tree trunk as it hit the ground. It meant she wouldn’t have to see the charred orchard. Scarred as it was, the farmland showed signs of recovery.

“Lain! Lain!”

Hearing the excitement in Michael’s voice, she dropped the quilt back into the basket and ran to meet him.

“What is it?” She hoped he had news about Braeden.

“You’re not going to believe it! It’s a miracle.”

“What? Tell me.”

“I shot a buck this morning!”

Alaina’s heart sank. “A buck, you say?” She forced enthusiasm into her voice.

“Yes.” Michael threw his head back and laughed heartily. “I didn’t think there was a wild animal alive this side of the Mississippi. But there he was this morning, standing proud as you please just a few feet away from where I’ve been working on the house. I grabbed my gun and shot him dead with a single bullet. Me! With only one arm!”

“How wonderful.” Alaina fought back the tears of disappointment. For a fraction of a moment, she’d been certain Michael was bringing her news about Braeden, that he was alive and well and on his way home to her. She swallowed the sudden lump of emotion. “I’ll fetch Papa McKenna. He’ll help you skin it.”

“No, that’s all right. I can fetch him myself. Where is he?”

“Over yonder, by the peach trees … what used to be the orchard anyway.”

Michael gave her a parting grin before turning on his heel. Once he was on his way, Alaina returned to hanging out the bedding. She tamped down the urge to weep and forced herself to look at the bright side. A buck was definitely a blessing. Why couldn’t she be happy for Michael? Surely he’d share the meat and they would all eat well for the next couple of weeks. As if in line with her musings, her father-in-law strode up the path toward the house, shouting his exuberance.

“Ellie! Ellie! It’s too good to be true!”

Mama McKenna walked out onto the back porch and stood with hands on her slim hips. “I declare, Jonathan, you’ll wake the dead with all this commotion!”

“Get out your best kettle, woman!” A grin split across his face. “Michael killed a buck this morning, and I suddenly have a taste for venison stew.”

“Hmph. Is that all?” Mama McKenna lifted her chin indignantly, but Alaina could tell the older woman was just as anxious to cook a hearty meal as the men were to eat one.

“Now, Ellie …”

She smiled. “I shouldn’t jest. This is a blessing, to be sure.”

Giving her an affirming nod, Papa McKenna and Michael set out across the barren pasture, heading for the Wheeler place. Before the war, there were four strapping, young Wheeler brothers and their widowed father on the neighboring farm, but Michael’s siblings were killed, one by one, in various battles. Michael’s father died of a broken heart, according to Mama McKenna, and Alaina figured the diagnosis was probably accurate. She understood how broken-heartedness could be fatal.

With the bedding on the line, she wandered around the house to the front porch. Every ounce of energy she possessed evaporated. Sitting down on the steps which were badly in need of paint, she thought about Michael’s marriage proposal. True, he was kind, handsome, and a hard worker.

But he wasn’t Braeden.

She leaned her cheek against the wooden railing and stared off into the distance. The twittering of a tiny bird in a surviving palmetto tree reached her ears, and then she heard something else.

Singing.

Alaina strained to hear, only to realize the low, smooth-sounding voice crooning “Dixie’s Land” was getting closer by the moment.

“O’ I wish I was in da land o’ cotton, ol’ times dar am not forgotten, look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie’s Land.”

Alaina stood and ran down the walkway to the road. She peered to her left and saw the gleaming, dark face of a man in a white shirt and bedraggled, gray pants supported by suspenders. As he neared the house, she got a clear view of his battered, gray cap and the blue kerchief tied to a long stick that he carried over his shoulder.

“Ezekiel,” she breathed in recognition. Reality set in. “Zeke!” With renewed spirit, she ran to greet him. “Zeke, is that really you?”

“Miz Laina!” He flashed his infamous wide grin. “It shore is me. And you’s a sight for sore eyes!”

For the first time in months, Alaina laughed. “Where have you been?”

“Been ever’where, I reckon.” A look of sadness suddenly filled his eyes. “I been ever’where and nowhere, but now I’m home.”

“I’m so glad to see you.” She squeezed his bear-like hand before falling into step alongside him all the way up to the house. By then she’d worked up the courage to form the supreme question. “Have you seen Braeden?”

They stopped at the front porch.

“You mean he ain’t home?”

Alaina shook her head and the familiar sadness plumed inside of her.

Zeke’s broad shoulders sagged. “Last I saw him it was nigh onto a year ago. He got hisself shot at the railroad station in Virginia. Looked pretty bad, but he weren’t dead when I seen ’im. I stopped to help, but Braeden tole me to keep goin’. He said, ‘Git outa here, Zeke, afore you git your fool head blowed off.’ I tole him I wouldn’t leave him. I pulled ’im over to the brush near the tracks an’ I lays down beside him like I’s dead.” A sad smile crossed the black man’s face. “Well, the war done went on ’round us, and by some miracle o’ God, we didn’t git ourselves kilt. Come nightfall, it looked like the Yankees won that fight. Them mean ol’ Blue-bellies come walkin’ down the tracks like they owned ’em, kickin’ bodies to see if’n they’s really dead. They come to us, and they give Mistah Braeden a kick. He yelped like a hound, so the soldiers done took him ’way and put ’im in a wagon. An’ that’s the last I seen ’im.”

“Braeden got captured?”

“I reckon so.”

The flicker of hope inside of Alaina dwindled. “We should have been notified. We should have been told.”

“Shouldda is right. But in this war, nothin’s like it should be.”

Heavy-hearted, Alaina sagged onto the porch steps.

“I shore is sorry to tell you.”

“I know you are.” She barely eked out the words.

The front door opened and Mama McKenna stepped from the house. “I thought I heard voices … Zeke!” Unfamiliar delight filled her voice. “You’re home!”

“I shore am, Miz Ellie. I shore am!”

******

By evening, the tantalizing aroma of venison stew drifted from the cookhouse and seemed to permeate every corner of the farm. Alaina and Mama McKenna had worked most of the day, butchering and curing the deer meat. They wrapped up portions for Pastor Pritchard and his family, along with Braeden’s sister, Suzanna, and her clan. Then Michael and Zeke delivered the goods, but they made quick work of it and returned by suppertime.

“My, but this looks like a feast!” Michael declared after Alaina set his plate down before him. “God truly sees after our needs.”

“Amen!” Zeke exclaimed, and Alaina dished up a plate for him too. When she handed it to him, he said, “Thank yo’, Miz Laina, and now I’ll just be goin’ to eat out on the back po’ch.”

He got as far as the door before Papa McKenna halted him. “Wait! I want you to eat with us here at the table.”

Zeke turned, his dark eyes wide with disbelief. “But Mistah Jonathan, that ain’t fittin’. No Negro oughta eat with whites at the suppah table!”

Papa McKenna expelled a weary-sounding sigh. “You went off to war with my sons, Zeke. Sure, I know that you were first employed with the cavalry as a servant, but it wasn’t long before they put a gun in your hand too. Your blood’s the same color as theirs—as mine.”