Tennessee Twilight: A Civil War Novel – Free Online Novel – Webnovel

By dawn the next morning, Amanda was on the verge of collapse. She had slept little, and that in short naps in her rocker by the sitting room fire, which she kept burning brightly through the night. Once, she awoke abruptly to the sound of horses’ hooves, but soon realized she had been dreaming.

The remainder of the night she paced around the sitting room, running to the window when the slightest noise broke the silence. She hadn’t seen Jonathan during the night. She sometimes heard his footsteps in the hall and the parlor. By midnight, his shuffling steps had stopped altogether.

When the first thready light of morning crept over the high ridge, she found Jonathan asleep in a high-backed chair he had pulled up to the front window in the parlor. She pressed her hand on his shoulder and shook it.

“I’m going to look for Luke. With you or without you,” she said in a voice made gruff by inhaling the smoke from the fireplace all night.

“I need coffee,” he said, pulling his stiff body out of the chair.

“We haven’t had coffee in months. Let’s go.”

They saddled their horses, Bean and Jody, and rode off. At the main road, Jonathan told Amanda to ride in the direction of Greeneville. He would head toward the Crossroads. But Amanda already knew where her first stop would be.

The path that led to Crocker’s cabin was almost directly across the Greeneville Road from the entrance to Bluesmoke, but it went on for what seemed like a mile before the house came into view.

Amanda slowed her horse to a walk, trying to approach undetected, but she was soon met by a passel of barking dogs. They nipped at Jody’s hooves and spooked her. Crocker slipped out the front door and hustled to meet her. A napkin was tucked into his shirt collar, its tattered edges stuffed behind his suspenders.

“Have you seen Luke?” she asked, watching his face for any evidence of deceit.

“Not since last night,” he said, that sick grin she hated so much on his face. There were biscuit crumbs in his beard.

Luke could be staring at her from that open window in the hayloft right then. Her eyes searched that opening, the barn door below, and the cabin’s windows for movement, but saw nothing.

“What time last night?” she asked.

“About ten, I suppose,” he said, scratching his head. “When I went to bed.”

“He left then?”

“Yeah,” he said noncommittally. “He left the house about that time.”

“Is he still here—somewhere?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Could I look around a bit?” she asked impatiently.

“We’re still having breakfast,” he said, fluttering his napkin toward her, in case she hadn’t noticed.

Her eyes burned, her head ached, and at that moment, she hated that old man more than she had ever thought herself capable of hating anyone. She suspected he was deliberately being vague.

“Will you tell him I’m looking for him?” she said angrily.

“If I see him,” the old codger said, so obviously enjoying watching her twisting in the wind. He went tripping back into the house, his napkin still flapping.

Amanda met Jonathan back at the barn at the appointed time: nine o’clock. He hadn’t found Luke. Nor had anyone seen him.

“I’m going back out to look,” she said, not bothering to dismount.

“Where? Do whatever you want,” Jonathan said, shaking his head. “I’m having breakfast.”

Reluctantly, she followed him to the house and ate breakfast with Barbé in the kitchen, what little she could keep down.

Later in the day, she rode to one of the high ridges behind the farm. As one of Jonathan’s manhood tests, Luke had built a lean-to, and had spent the night alone there a few times. She didn’t remember exactly where it was, but eventually found it. The fire ring, enclosed by a circle of stones, was cold. Nothing had been disturbed. Nothing indicated that anyone had been there for weeks.

Amanda was losing hope. A thought had nagged at her all day—that Luke might have gone off to find General John Hunt Morgan, who had been recently reported to be at Liberty, Tennessee, one hundred and fifty miles away. Was he angry enough with his father to undertake such a journey? She prayed not.

Another restless, sleepless night left Amanda almost helpless. The throbbing pain behind her eyes and forehead, the sick feeling in her heart, would be strong enough for any Southern lady to stay abed for the day, but she couldn’t be still.

Jonathan ate breakfast and went to his office, as if nothing was wrong.

Don’t you care at all that your son has been gone for two long, frightful nights? How did I ever come to avow my love and life to such a man as you?

Amanda saddled Jody and made a roundabout trip from Bluesmoke to the Crossroads. She traveled the old farm roads and Indian trails—anywhere she could think of that Luke might be. She stopped again at Crocker’s cabin. He was as noncommittal as he had been the day before, but again she had the strange feeling that Luke was nearby. And, if he was planning to run away to join the army, she desperately wanted to see him one last time.

“Still ain’t seen him,” Crocker said.

“Would you tell me if he was here?” she shouted.

“Course I would,” he muttered.

“Listen to me, old man,” she said vehemently, “if I ever find out that you’ve been harboring my son, I will put a bullet between your eyes!” She couldn’t believe such words had come from her lips, but she meant every word.

“You couldn’t find my eyes down the barrel of a cannon,” he said, with an evil grin.

“My father taught me to shoot when I was a girl,” she said coldly. “I abhor guns, but you’d be surprised what a good shot I am.”

For the first time since she had known Crocker, she saw a flash of fear in his eyes.

“I happen to know that one of your sons is in the Confederate army. I wonder how your Unionist friends will feel about that when I tell them,” she said hatefully.

“You wouldn’t tell such a lie,” he stammered.

“You keep my son from me, and you might be surprised at what I’ll do.”

“Your boy ain’t here,” he said in a strong voice. “Don’t come back.”
* * *
“If you could come to the table just once without complaining—” Amanda mumbled. She stopped scurrying. She took a deep breath.

“What did you say?” Jonathan asked, his voice full of contempt.

“Nothing,” she said, without looking at him, which always made him angry.

“Finish your statement, woman!” he bellowed.

She flung the clean napkin he had requested onto the table in front of him, and said, “I will never forgive you for hurting my son.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Luke ran away because you made a fool of him in front of the Andersons.”

“He did not,” Jonathan said.

“Then why has he been gone for two days?”
***
It was early. Not quite five-thirty. The rooster had yet to announce the coming dawn. This was the third day of Luke’s absence, and Amanda’s fear for his safety was almost more than she could bear. She had learned the previous day that, without breakfast, she had no energy. So she was hurrying to cook, eat, dress, and make the rounds again, looking for Luke. She didn’t know what else to do.

She and Barbé shuffled about the kitchen, doing their breakfast dance, which was so precisely choreographed they could have done it blindfolded. Thus, they were when they heard someone calling out their names from the dining room. The voice sounded like Luke’s. They ran to the dining room—it was Luke!

“Where have you been? Are you all right?” Amanda and Barbé were talking at once.
Amanda grabbed him and hugged him like she had never hugged him before.

“Get to the barn, boy,” Jonathan said, startling Amanda. She didn’t know he was standing behind her.

“Let him stay a minute,” Amanda begged. “He just got here.”

“Go on,” Jonathan said, roughly pushing Luke toward the back of the house.

“Jonathan!” Amanda said.

“Stay out of this!” he shouted.

Amanda and Barbé went back to the kitchen. A few minutes later, they heard a scream. They looked at each other, startled. When the second scream came, they left the kitchen as it was—food cooking on the stove, biscuits baking in the oven—and hurried outside.
“No! Please don’t!” they heard, and broke into a run.

Amanda reached the barn several yards ahead of Barbé. She ran inside, but saw nothing. Then came another plea for mercy. “Daddy, don’t,” Luke cried.

Amanda found Luke and Jonathan in a horse stall in the back of the barn. It was hard to see in the half-light of early morning, but her eyes soon adjusted to the darkness, and she looked upon a scene for which nothing could have prepared her.

“What’s going on here?” she asked nervously.

Luke lay on a pile of hay in the stall. His face was red, and it was beginning to swell. Jonathan stood over him, his fist raised to strike another blow. Amanda grabbed Jonathan’s arm but he threw her off as if she weighed nothing. She fell back heavily, striking her head on the stall door. She heard the thud when Jonathan’s fist struck Luke’s head. She lay there for a minute, waiting for the vertigo to pass.

In the meantime, Barbé arrived and discovered what was happening. She grabbed Jonathan’s right arm and pulled back on it with all of her weight. Even that didn’t keep his fist from striking Luke again, but it lessened the blow a little.

“Don’t, Daddy,” Luke continued to beg. “I’m sorry I ran away.”

Amanda finally regained her feet, but she had to lean against the post behind her to remain upright. Jonathan soon managed to fling Barbé off his arm, and she fell on her backside in front of Amanda.

Amanda had never seen a human face more frightening than Jonathan’s was at that moment. She went at him again, jumped up on his back, and locked her hands around his neck. As Jonathan leaned forward to hit Luke again, her feet left the ground and she hung helplessly on his back. She tried to lock her legs around his waist, but this only angered him more. He wrenched her hands apart and lunged backward. She fell on top of Barbé, who was still trying to get up.

Amanda helped Barbé to her feet, and they attacked him at the same time, one on each arm. Even this wasn’t enough to stop him. He grabbed the front of Luke’s shirt, and when the women finally managed to pull him out of the stall, he brought Luke with him. They held Jonathan’s arms back and tried to loosen his grip on Luke’s shirt, but they were no match for the adrenalin that was coursing through Jonathan’s body. He began to walk backward quickly, trying to shake them off, but they held on until he forced them into the wall of the barn. They cried out in pain, but continued to hold onto his arms.

Jonathan finally let go of Luke’s shirt, and he fell to the ground. Jonathan began to kick him, first in the back, then in the head. Luke lost consciousness, and flopped around on the ground like a rag doll as his father continued to kick him with the toe of his boot. Barbé and Amanda cried and begged Jonathan to stop, but he didn’t seem to hear them.

“That’ll teach you to stay away from home and worry your mother to death,” Jonathan shouted, “because when she’s worried, she makes my life hell!”

Jonathan’s right leg was in midair, prepared for another kick to Luke’s torso. Amanda and Barbé caught him off-balance, and they all went tumbling backward onto the hard-packed earth of the barn floor.

As if the fall jarred him to his senses, Jonathan sat up and looked at his bloody and swollen knuckles. “What have I done?” he whispered.

“What do you mean what have you done?” Amanda screamed. “You have beaten your own son like a dog, you bastard!”

“Somebody’s got to teach the boy a lesson,” Jonathan stammered.

Amanda rushed to Luke, who lay lifeless on the ground.

“Let me,” Jonathan said, reaching out.

“Don’t you dare touch him,” Amanda said in a voice as cold as stone.

Luke stirred, beginning to regain consciousness. Amanda helped him to his feet. Barbé reached in to help him stand; he leaned on her as he took his first faltering steps.

“I could kill you for this!” Amanda shouted. She grabbed a hoe that was hanging on the wall nearby, and swung it at Jonathan. His face again filled with rage.

“You want to fight?” he asked, taunting her.

“Get Luke out of here,” Amanda told Barbé.

“Then let’s make it a fair fight,” Jonathan said. He picked up the shovel they used to muck out the stalls. He came at her, swinging the shovel wildly. Just the sound it made as it sliced through the air frightened Amanda to her senses.

“Please, Jonathan,” she begged, “I don’t want to do this.”

“You should have thought of that before you swung that hoe at me.” He came closer. She raised the hoe in front of her face in self-defense. Time after time, he whacked it with the shovel. Then, with one sideways blow, he knocked it from her hands. She sidestepped his next blow, and ran after Barbé and Luke.

After they laid Luke on the bed in Barbe’s cabin, Amanda went barreling back through the door and stuck her fist in Jonathan’s face. “If you don’t want to die today, I’d suggest you get out of here,” she yelled. She began to cry, which only made her angrier.

“Get out!” she screamed with all her might.

“You can’t run me off,” he said hatefully. “This is my farm!”

“Barbé, get your gun,” Amanda said, her voice now calm.

Jonathan ran off toward the barn. Amanda heard his horse trot off a few minutes later.

After Barbé and Amanda cleaned Luke’s wounds, he finally fell into a fitful sleep.

“I must get Silver,” Amanda said. “She’ll know how to treat his wounds.”

Leaving Luke in Barbe’s care, Amanda and Jody sprinted toward the mountains that the Cherokee called Shaconage, “Place of Blue Smoke.” The place where their tribe had found game, medicinal plants, and all of life’s necessities, long before the white man came to this place.

She tethered Jody to a strong tree branch so he could roam about and nibble on the fresh new shoots of grass. She tried desperately to regain some control over her emotions. Silver didn’t handle tense situations well.

“What is it, my friend?” Silver asked, but Amanda was sobbing so hard she was unable to speak.

“I have never felt so lost,” Amanda sobbed. “My family is destroyed. I can’t live with this. I’m not strong enough.”

“You are stronger than you know,” Silver said. “You have made a good life in this unforgiving country, with a man I would have killed in his sleep long ago—if I were you.”

“Jonathan has beat Luke terribly,” she finally told Silver.

“I will kill him, and save you the trouble,” Silver seethed, running into the hut for her gun.

“No!” Amanda shouted, running after her. “No more violence,” she begged. “I couldn’t bear it.”

“Luke is like my own son,” Silver said, clutching her throat.

“I know,” Amanda nodded.

“How is he?” Silver asked as she paced about the clearing, her anger still fresh.

“He’s bruised from head to toe,” Amanda sobbed. “He desperately needs your help.”

“I hope the Creator will help me through this,” Silver whispered. Amanda had never seen her so shaken.

“Barbé and I cleaned his wounds as best we could,” Amanda said. “His chest and back are covered with bruises. Jonathan hit him so hard in places he broke the skin, and I think his collarbone is broken, maybe some ribs, too. His face is cut in several places. His lips are split and bleeding. Both eyes are swollen, the left one completely shut.”

“How could a man do such things to his son?” Silver shouted. “The Cherokee never strike their children.”

“Luke was gone from home for three days because he was angry at his father. I was scared near to death.” She began to cry again.

“You must focus your attention on helping your son now.”

“He looks so pitiful.”

“Come,” Silver said. “We must hurry.”

Luke was delirious when Amanda and Silver arrived at Barbe’s cabin. The swelling had increased. He cried and begged someone to end his pain. “Just let me go, Mama,” he pleaded. “I can’t take this like a man.”

“I don’t expect you to be a man, Luke,” she said softly, wiping away his tears. “You’re just a boy, and I think you’re incredibly brave.”

Barbé heated water at the fireplace while Amanda went to the house for a piece of fabric for bandages. She knew it should be free of dyes, which might infect the wounds. She could find nothing suitable.

The dress! The white linen dress Mrs. Bixby was making for her in 1861. It was to be trimmed with lace or embroidery of some kind, but once the war began, materials ordered to complete the dress never arrived.

She ran up the stairs and flung open the doors of her armoire. The skirt was wonderfully gored and hung fold upon fold, and would be large enough to wrap around Luke’s torso, to bind his open wounds with the pastes Silver would make from medicinal roots. She didn’t bother to remove the dress from the peg upon which it hung. With a few deft strokes of the scissors, she separated the skirt from the bodice—petticoat and all.

Silver had brewed an herbal tea and was helping Luke drink some of it when Amanda returned. His breathing soon slowed, and he closed his eyes. Silver was hoping the tea would help him sleep, for she knew the binding of his broken bones would be excruciatingly painful.

Silver was soaking roots and plants in hot water, which she then mashed and spread onto the fabric Amanda had brought, to make poultices for his open cuts. As Barbé cut wide strips of cloth, Silver bound Luke’s chest as tightly as he could stand, to help the broken bones heal as straight as possible. He cried out in pain and begged them to stop.

When they were finally finished, they hoped he would sleep, but he sat up suddenly in the bed, his eyes wild. “I have to leave here so he won’t hurt me again.”

“I promise you,” Amanda said calmly. “I’ll never let him hurt you again.”

He flailed his arms and tried to stand, but they held him down. Soon a blessed unconsciousness overtook him, and he slumped back onto the pillow.

They carried Luke to the house. Barbé had a fire going in the sitting room, and pulled a settee close to the fire. He didn’t groan or cry out at any time, which frightened Amanda.

“Be thankful he can sleep,” Silver said. “The more he sleeps, the less he will hurt, and the faster he will heal.”
* * *
Jonathan returned to the house the following day, eyes downcast, and asked sheepishly to speak to Amanda. Barbé went to the sitting room where Amanda was resting in her rocking chair. Amanda had a black eye and cuts and bruises on her face and arms.

Amanda thought she might as well face the confrontation that had to come sometime. As much as she wanted to tell Jonathan to get out and never come back, she had to be practical. How could she and Luke continue to live at Bluesmoke if Jonathan left?

Jonathan backed up several steps when she opened the front door. He gasped when he saw the condition of her face. She knew he was probably incapable of comprehending that her internal pain was far more hideous.

He seemed to be genuinely remorseful, but he would have done better to remain silent. Amanda was far from being ready for excuses.

“That’s the way I was raised,” he mumbled. “If I was bad, I could expect to be punished.”

“That wasn’t just punishment you gave Luke. You almost killed your own son.” She managed to keep from screaming. There was a cold restraint in her voice.

“I did not,” he said firmly. “That’s just exaggeration.”

“Do you want to see him—to look at what you did?”

“N-no,” he stammered.

“I didn’t think so.”

“It’s your fault I beat him!” he shouted suddenly.

“What?” she asked.

“Your endless complaints about him staying out late at night and running away. I just can’t take it,” he said, shaking his head.

Amanda was speechless.

“You told him yourself that his absences would no longer be tolerated,” Jonathan said.

“You told me to make sure it never happened again.”

“You do that with words, Jonathan,” she said, her voice getting louder. “Not with fists!”

“I should have beat you!” he screamed, his face reddening.

“I wish you had!” she cried, all control gone now. “I could not possibly suffer more than I am suffering right now. To see with my own eyes—to watch my husband beat my only child almost to death. To see the monster you have become.”
Jonathan opened his mouth to speak, but closed it quickly.

“All the times you were cold and inflexible, and overbearing. Your aloofness, your infidelity!”

Jonathan looked down at the ground.

“All of that pales compared to laying your fists on my son. Even I didn’t believe you were capable of such cruelty!” She leaned against one of the stone columns that supported the terrace roof. It was surprisingly cool against her cheek.

“I swore I’d be different,” Jonathan said forlornly, after several minutes had passed. “I never wanted to be like her.”

“Her?” Amanda turned to look at Jonathan’s face, to see the insincerity she expected to find there.

“Evalinda,” he whispered.

“Your mother beat you?”

He nodded slightly, eyes averted.

Amanda couldn’t stifle the laugh that came up in her throat. “Eva weighed all of a hundred pounds. What could she have done to you?”

“I was a little boy,” he said. “Anyone who’s ever been beat with a willow switch knows how bad it hurts.”

“Surely Charles would have stopped her.”

“She made sure he wasn’t around, and I was afraid to tell him.”

Amanda pressed her hand to her lips. “Even if that is true,” she said, calmer now, “it does not excuse your behavior. It makes your actions all the more despicable—if what you say is true.”

“It’s true,” he whispered. “I swear it.”

“But Eva didn’t beat you with her fists, did she, Jonathan?” Amanda said, her anger rising again.

“I was scared Luke would never come home again. That he’d been killed or kidnapped. When I saw that he wasn’t at all concerned that he had worried us so, I lost control.”

“That’s not all you’ve lost,” she said coldly.
* * *
The following Sunday, Jonathan was sitting in the family pew when Amanda entered the church. He had left just enough room for her to sit next to him, near the aisle. But she surprised him by passing in front of him and taking a seat at the opposite end of the pew. Heads turned. People whispered.

After the sermon, she stopped to talk to some of the congregation, hoping Jonathan would be gone when she exited the church. But he was waiting for her, holding Jody’s reins.

“I’m coming home,” he said nonchalantly.

“I don’t want you there,” she said, trying desperately not to raise her voice.

It was evident that his intention was to address her in the presence of others so she wouldn’t cause a scene. He didn’t realize that his actions of the past few days had irrevocably changed their relationship.

“It’s my house,” he whispered into her ear. “You can’t keep me away.”

“Maybe not,” she shrieked, “but I can sure make it hell for you while you’re there!”

Everyone in the churchyard turned to look.

Amanda climbed into the saddle, prepared to tell everyone what a bastard Jonathan Armstrong was, then ride away. She pulled on Jody’s reins, but Jonathan still held them tightly in his hand—which was fortuitous. It gave her a moment to realize that her son also bore the Armstrong name, and she should not besmirch it.

“Then, when can I come home?” he asked sheepishly. “You’ll have to forgive me eventually.”

“There is no forgiveness in my heart for you,” she said under her breath.

“Then I shall proceed as I have planned,” he said arrogantly.

“Planned?” she asked, wondering what he meant. “Planned what?”

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Just like Jonathan to leave her wondering.

She jerked the reins from his hand and rode away, but he couldn’t let well enough alone. He followed her to Bluesmoke, and accosted her at the barn when she dismounted.

“This is going to be settled right now!” he said, tightly gripping her arm. She wrenched it from his grasp and ran toward the house. He was right on her heels.

“You can’t do this to me,” he shouted, trying unsuccessfully to grab her arm again.

“Grab this arm, Jonathan,” she shouted, shoving her elbow in his face. “It doesn’t have as many bruises as the other.”

“What have I ever done to you to deserve such treatment?” he shouted. “Let’s leave Luke out of it for now. What have I done to you?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes, I do. Let’s get it all out in the open—for once and all.”

“It’s not just that you treat me like hired help, nor that I walk on tiptoe to avoid upsetting your delicate system, nor that your attention is taken up by everything in the world but your family.“

Her voice grew louder with every word, and she could do nothing to stop it.

“It’s all the little indignities you’ve shown me since I married you that have combined to form a lump in my throat that I can no longer swallow. I can’t live like this anymore, and if you feel the need to beat me for speaking so plainly to you, then go ahead!”
***
Jonathan again appeared at Bluesmoke. He sat on his horse in the front yard and called for Amanda to come out. Jedediah Palmer, Jonathan’s best friend since childhood, sat astride his horse at Jonathan’s side. Amanda had assumed that he had been staying with Jed the past few nights. Jed was a widower, and had no family.

“What’s going on?” she asked nervously.

“Jed and I are off to join the Union army,” Jonathan said. “I’m doing my civic duty.

We’ll ride for southern Kentucky, where there is a large Union camp and training area.
It’s said that General Ambrose Burnside is assembling an army there to invade East Tennessee.”

“You’re leaving me?” Amanda asked.

“It’s what you want,” Jonathan said.

“Well, you can’t take Bean,” Amanda stuttered, reaching for the horse’s reins.

“If I am to be a cavalryman, I must furnish my own mount.”

“You can’t join the army,” Amanda said, suddenly panicked. “I’ll never make it by myself.”

“Luke can take care of you.”

“Luke is barely able to take care of himself after what you did to him,” she said hatefully.
There was a long, dead silence.

Jed Palmer frowned. “What’s she talking about?” he whispered to Jonathan.

“Not your business, Jed,” Jonathan answered quickly. “Go to your mother’s,” he told Amanda. “I’m sure she’d be glad to have you.”

“How will I get there? You have to take me before you leave.”

“If I don’t go now, there’s a good chance I’ll be forced to serve as a Confederate, and I would sooner die.”

“Then how can I go to Virginia, with Rebels everywhere?”

Jed sat silently on his horse, staring out across the fields as if he had just stopped by to enjoy the view.

“I have taken care of you all these years, Amanda,” Jonathan stated flatly. “For once, you can take care of yourself.”

“What if the Rebels come after me?” she asked, frightened by that thought. “They know you’re a Unionist and will assume I am, too.”

Then suddenly came the thought that she would have to assume all the responsibilities—the house, the farm, income, everything. Her hands began to shake. She gritted her teeth, determined that the tears so close to the surface would not betray her.

“How will I live?” she asked.

Jonathan looked at her and calmly said, “You’ll survive.”

“Then I’ll not be here when you come back!” she shouted. “I won’t allow any man to cast me aside so easily.”

“Just stay in the house,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

“Then go!” she shouted, fumbling for her apron pocket. No handkerchief there.

She marched across the terrace and into the house, stomping like a child with every step. “You can burn in hell’s fire for all I care!” she shouted in farewell.

Chapter 6 << – Index – >> Chapter 8