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

“How will I live without the money from my trust?” Amanda asked Silver. “I’ve realized that the only realistic hope I have is to survive the war, but where might be the best place to do that? This might be a safer place to live now that the Union has gained control of it. Maybe they’ll run the Rebels out of here.”

“Do you really think that will happen?”

“Maybe,” Amanda said hopefully. “My preference would be to go to Mother’s. If I can go the back way, the way Jonathan and I went before the main road was built, I think I can make it. I’ll have to travel through some rugged terrain, but I think it will be safer than traveling the main road. Crocker says Burnside has already run the Rebels out of the northeastern counties where I will be traveling.”

“What does he know?” Silver said impatiently.

“I don’t like him much either, but he’s the only source of information I have. Silver, when did I become such a coward?”

“You are stronger than you know,” Silver said emphatically.

“That’s not true,” Amanda said. “I know myself better than you.”

“I am not sure you do. Your life has not been easy, and you are still here. When I first met you, I did not think you would last another year married to that man.”
“He wasn’t like that before I married him. He wrote me beautiful letters.”
“Words are easy. The day-to-day living is difficult. Love is easier when you do not have to prove it every day. Your father gave you a life, yes?”
“Yes,” Amanda said, a little puzzled.
“Jonathan gave you a life—that’s what he would call it.”
“Yes.”
“Now you must make your own life, as I have done here.”
“And where do I begin?”
“Only you can know.”

“Well, I know I can’t stay in that house alone anymore,” Amanda stated flatly. “I’m too scared to sleep. My food is almost gone. Somebody raided the garden again, dug the potatoes right out of the ground. Last night, they brought a wagon, and were loading everything they could get their hands on. Someone walked up onto the back porch. I huddled in the corner, hoping they wouldn’t come into the house. When I went out this morning, Jody was gone. They took my only horse, tackle and all.”

“You walked here today?” Silver asked.

“Yes,” Amanda said. “Wherever I go, I’ll have to go on foot.”

“That would be an arduous trip to Virginia.”

“I know, but I’m barely surviving on raw carrots and tomatoes, and green apples. And it’s killing my stomach.”

“I have food aplenty,” Silver said. “I will gladly share it with you.”

“I can’t take your food. You’ll need it for winter.”

“And I offer my home, if you will have it.”

“I’d go crazy out here, especially now that I know Judie Baker’s always lurking about.” Amanda sighed deeply. “Then, that’s it. I’ll go to Mother’s—if I can summon the courage. I have a thought—why don’t you move to Bluesmoke with me?”

“I will do almost anything for you, my sister, but I must live here,” Silver said, spreading her arms wide to include earth, woods, and sky. “I am not a social creature, and I am too old to change.”

“You’re barely ten years older than me.”

“Yes,” Silver said, nodding her head, “but my soul is very old.”

“How can you choose this over the warmth and protection of a house? I’ve often thought over the years that we would outlive Jonathan, and Luke would be off somewhere with his own family, and you and I would live out our days together at Bluesmoke. I sometimes wonder how we have remained friends for so long. We’re so different.”

“But in some ways, we are almost identical. We both need a strong sense of who we are and where our place is in the world.”

“I’m not so sure I know who I am anymore,” Amanda said, standing up and stretching her arms. “But I do know I can’t stay at Bluesmoke any longer.”
***
In the armoire in Charles’s bedroom, she found some old trousers that were large enough to shove a dress and petticoats into. And some boots that required only one sock stuffed into the toe to fit pretty well. Several old shirts were hanging on pegs inside the armoire. They would be sufficient to cover the bodice of her dress. Thus outfitted, she could change identities quickly. She made a bedroll with some old blankets and an oilcloth to keep the dampness away when she had to sleep on the ground, and made a sling so she could drape it across her shoulder.

She pinned her hair up high on her head, and shoved on top of it an old slouch hat, which she pulled down as far as possible. Its wide, flexible brim hid much of her face. Looking into the mirror, she decided she made a convincing-looking man, and walking through the forest for long distances would be much more comfortable than constantly getting her skirts caught up in brambles. Someone would have to get mighty close to see that she was a woman, and she didn’t plan to let anyone get that close.

She gathered the few valuables that were worth taking on her trip—the amethyst ring Father gave her on her sixteenth birthday, the marcasite brooch that Grandma Belle once wore, and a silver necklace. She packed them in an old canvas knapsack she found in the attic. She might find it necessary to trade those items for food or supplies. She added to the knapsack two extra shirts and two pairs of pants, carrots, apples, a few pieces of dried beef, and a biscuit made from the last scrapings of the flour barrel. It was three days old and so hard she could kill a chicken with it at twenty paces.

She went to sleep at dusk, and awoke shortly after midnight. Leaving under the cover of darkness, she believed, would attract the least attention. She would have to travel the main road to Greeneville, but soldiers should be encamped and asleep by that late hour. If pickets were posted to protect the troops from surprise attack, their campfires should be easily spotted from a distance.

Traveling at night might not have been such a good idea. It was the darkest night she had ever seen. A sliver of moon gave little light. The stars could be used to plot direction. Was that the North Star? She had no idea how to locate a single star.
She pulled Charles’s field coat around her. The air was cold, and a strong wind began to blow.

At Greeneville, she made her way to the eastern edge of town, where she would pick up the back road. When she took a shortcut across the lawn of a beautiful antebellum house, a large dog came running after her, barking viciously. She ran as fast as she could for at least a mile, before she realized the dog had stopped chasing her. She stopped for a moment and rested her hands on her knees, unable to breathe deeply for several minutes, and she had wet her pants.

After trying several streets, she finally located the one that connected to the old road, where she headed northeast. She remembered a few landmarks to watch for, and followed the old Indian trails she knew. She was relieved to have reached the outskirts of a village called Limestone Station before dawn. She found a dry ditch, which was concealed from view by the branches of a large oak, in which she bedded down for a few hours sleep.

The sun was still low in the east when she awoke. She tried to rest longer, but was awakened by the slightest sound, even the birds in the tree above her. Eating half of the biscuit and some of the dried beef reduced the growling in her stomach to a whimper.

She traveled through rough terrain that day. She attempted to keep the old road in sight to be sure that she was still traveling in the right direction. At times, she was unable to see it, and would have to find her way to it again. She skirted the edge of woods near the road wherever possible, which made her feel safer than walking out in the open. There was more traffic than she had expected on the old road, and twice she had to duck down and lie flat on the ground when she heard horses approaching. She suspected that they were cavalry patrols, though she didn’t raise her head to look at them.

Clear mountain streams were plentiful, and she drank the delicious liquid until she had her fill. Splashing her face with it kept her awake and moving when she thought she had no energy left. She was constantly hungry. When she found homesteads that looked deserted, she scrounged for any crumble of food, sometimes finding only a few ears of dry corn, but it kept her going.
* * *
She was looking for shelter at dusk. Her energy was totally depleted, and she was hoping to find a nice barn or some sort of dry warm place. Her body had ached all day from sleeping on the hard ground the previous night. The last light of evening was growing dim. She was traveling much too fast for safety, when she suddenly entered a clearing, and didn’t see the low fire until it was too late. She had happened upon a small band of Rebel soldiers.

She turned and ran back up the hill, but one of the men caught her before she reached the top. He grabbed her by the collar and pulled her back down the hill, dropping near the fire. She held her head up, but the flames singed her hair. She found her legs and sat up quickly.

“Looky what I found for you, sergeant” the soldier huffed.

“Them Union boys think they’re so clever,” said the sergeant. “They think we won’t suspect a woman, but I’m not so easily fooled. Put her in the wagon, boys. I think we’ve got ourselves a real-life Union spy. And tie her down. She looks like a slippery one.”

Before she could think of anything to say, they led her away. “Wait,” she cried, but no one listened. No one would believe that she was a Rebel in this neighborhood of Unionists.

A corporal, the most unpleasant-looking soldier, tied her hands behind her back and yanked her arm violently as he pulled her up into a covered wagon. The other one put his hands on her buttocks and pushed her hard. She fell on top of the soldier in the wagon.

“Oh, you want to play, huh?” he said crudely, fondling her breasts.

“You better hope I don’t live through this,” she said through clinched teeth, “because if I do, I’ll be back to take care of you, you ape.” She spat in his face as he bound her feet in front of her. He slapped her so hard her vision was temporarily impaired, and it took all the fight out of her.

He yanked her arm again as he tied her hands to the wooden post at the corner of the wagon. “You’d better watch your step, missy,” he whispered, his foul breath in her face.

He then jumped down from the wagon, leaving her alone.

All night she tried to free herself, but the rope around her wrists was too tight. Finally, so frightened she would do anything to get away, she began to rub the rope against the sharp edge of the wooden post, and over time the rope began to fray. Just before sunrise she managed to get her hands loose and untie her feet, but not before the soldiers were up and about. Their canteens clinked together as they filled them at the creek nearby.

She slumped forward and pretended to be asleep when the corporal looked in on her. He said not a word. She hoped they were preparing to leave and she could slip away. Before she had time to decide her next course of action, she heard the pounding of horses’ hooves entering the clearing. She soon realized that the Rebels were being attacked, probably by some of General Burnside’s men.

In the confusion of smoke and gunfire, she managed to escape, and ran into a deep dark wood. She laid out there all day, listening to the sounds of people and horses coming and going in the distance, too frightened to move. She would have run back home right then and locked herself inside—if she only knew how to get there.
* * *
Three roads converged where Amanda stood. She had been compelled to come out of hiding, and try to discover where she was. She thought she was still on the old road, headed for Virginia, but she couldn’t be sure. Thus far, no house or landmark had struck her as familiar. In the process of escaping from the Rebels and running through the woods, she had lost all sense of direction.

If not for a sharp curve in the road and the sound of loud voices up ahead, she would have walked directly in the midst of a small cavalry detachment, who had stopped to feed and water their horses. She climbed a steep embankment and hid out in a small grove of trees and shrubs, watching them and listening to them from a safe distance.

She had no idea if they were Union or Confederate. The only ones she could see from her hiding place were dressed in homespun clothing, which gave her no clue to their identity, but from listening to their speech, she was fairly certain they were Union men.

When they finally resumed their journey, they walked their horses for some time, allowing them to rest and digest the corn they had been fed. She followed along the embankment above them until the land flattened out in front of her, level with the road.

She had to decide quickly whether to trust them or to let them pass. The experience with the Confederates had left her badly shaken, but she knew she would have to trust someone in order to find her way again. She stayed hidden in the underbrush until she saw the portly Major’s blue Union coat, but when she stepped out of the bushes she was instantly met by six or eight guns, all pointed at her head.

“Don’t shoot,” she said nervously, holding up her hands, palms out. “My husband is a Union soldier-uh-Jonathan Armstrong. Do you know him?”

“It’s a woman,” one of the soldiers said.

“It don’t look like a woman,” another said.

“No,” said the major, rubbing his scruffy beard, “I don’t know anyone by that name.”

“I’m a Unionist from over in Greene County. My husband’s in the cavalry somewhere between here and Knoxville,” she stammered. She couldn’t remember the name. “Strawberry Plains,” she finally said, “that’s the place.”

The major took her aside and questioned her thoroughly about her loyalties, and what she was doing on this lonely mountain road alone.

“In the short time we’ve been here,” the major said kindly, “we’ve already learned that you can’t trust civilians around here. They’ll lie right to your face.”

“I’m trying to get to my mother’s,” Amanda said, “near Abingdon.”

“You’re not headed for Virginia, ma’am,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re going south, on the road to Knoxville.” He invited her to sit down on the grass and take a drink from his canteen, while he drew a crude map on the damp ground with a stick.

“Towards Virginia,” he said, “there’s Rebels everywhere. We’re headed back to our headquarters at Knoxville to report what we’ve found up here. Best thing you can do for yourself, ma’am, is to go back home. You’re safer there than you’ll be out here.”

“I’m beginning to realize that,” she said with a sigh. “Well—can you help me find my way home? It’s over east—yes, east of Greeneville. Can you take me there, or point me in the right direction?”

“Which way is Greeneville from here?” he asked.

“I’m so turned around I don’t know,” she said. She heard the fear in her voice.

“This way is north, more or less,” he said, pointing to the direction from which they had come.

“Then Greeneville has to be that way,” she said, pointing toward the southeast.

“Then you can’t go home neither,” the major explained. “We’re running the Rebs out of here as fast as we can, but they’re a feisty bunch, and don’t give up easily.”

A large Rebel encampment was now somewhere between there and Bluesmoke, the major said. They had met up with some of them the day before.

“I don’t know how many,” he continued, “but it’s more than a few, are holed up between here and your home.”

“What am I to do?” Her voice quivered. She was on the verge of tears.

“I can take you to Strawberry Plains,” he offered. “It’s not too far out of our way. Maybe your husband can help you from there.”

“I don’t know,” she said, her mind racing. She wasn’t anxious to see Jonathan, but he might be able to take her back home, or someplace safe, if any such place could be found.

“That’s all I can do for you, ma’am. I hear Knoxville is full of refugees from the Valley up here,” he said. “Maybe you can find work there, and support yourself until the war is over.”

“I pray so,” sighed Amanda. “Thank you, major.”
* * *
It was dusk when they reached the bridge near the town of Strawberry Plains. The major spoke to a soldier on duty and ascertained that Jonathan was encamped with the small garrison nearby.

The major pointed Amanda toward some tents near the other end of the bridge. “I have to get going before I’m court-martialed,” he said as he helped her down from the saddle.

“Good luck to you, ma’am.”

“God bless you, Major,” she said. He and his men took off in a flash of hooves.
The first soldier she encountered was still some distance from the bridge. She explained the purpose of her visit—which she had to repeat to several other soldiers before she actually reached the bridge. The soldier there called for his superior, to whom she explained again.

“You’re Armstrong’s wife?” he asked. He grinned sheepishly as he pointed out a tent that sat a short distance from the others. “Go on,” he snickered. “I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you.”

She walked across the long bridge as quickly as she could, and hurried to the tent, wanting to be away from the soldiers’ prying eyes. The anticipation of a good night’s sleep in warmth and shelter, even if it was with Jonathan, and maybe food as well—those were the only thoughts in her mind as she approached the tent.

She quickly pulled back the tent flap and stepped inside. A small desk in the center of the room partially obscured the far corner of the tent, from where she heard voices. She took one step forward and waited for her eyes to adjust to the light. She saw two bodies on a large mattress, barely discernible at first by the low flame of the oil lamp on the desk.

A woman, totally naked, was giggling and riding a man as if he were a bucking bronco. The man, Amanda soon realized, was her husband. A loud gasp drew attention that she didn’t want. She stepped out of the doorway, and tried to sneak away unnoticed, but Jonathan was calling to her, running after her, his drawers flapping, trying to get his pants on and his suspenders onto his shoulders. His pants soon tripped him up. She looked back and saw him fall face first in the dirt. Under other circumstances, it would have been a comical sight.

“Please, Amanda,” he called. “Wait.”

She stopped suddenly, and he almost ran into her.

“You should have posted a lookout,” she said without emotion.

“You should have announced yourself,” he said, flustered. He appeared to be tongue-tied, after running all that way to catch her. “What are you doing here?”

“There’s only one thing I want to know from you, Jonathan,” she said, a tremble in her voice. “Where is my money?”

“What money? “ he said, not at all convincingly. His face reddened. “Well, I had to have some traveling money, and I knew you’d be getting money from your trust.”

“The bank failed, Jonathan,” she said, seething. “I won’t be receiving any more money from the trust.”

“You and Luke have vegetables from the garden, if nothing more.”

“The garden’s been picked bare, and Luke is gone.”

“Gone? Where?”

“To war,” she said coldly. “To serve with General John Hunt Morgan.”

“How could you let that happen?” he asked angrily.

“You ruined any control I ever had over him, remember?”

Jonathan sighed heavily, but said nothing in rebuttal.

“Where did the money go, Jonathan? The money Charles left us.”

“How do you think I bought the precious flour and sugar that you couldn’t live without—on the black market for hundreds of dollars, that’s how.”

“How many hundreds went for the whiskey you and your cronies drank? And how many hundreds went uncollected for legal services rendered to those same men—who are, in case you have been able to delude yourself completely—a bunch of black-hearted Confederate sympathizers, who have now taken to the hills to hide from conscription agents. Too lazy and no-good to fight for their country.”

“That’s not true,” he sputtered. “You’re just being vindictive.”

“Oh, it’s true, all right. I always suspected it. Now everyone in Armstrong Crossroads knows it.”

“I don’t have to listen to this,” he said.

“No, you don’t,” she shouted. “And if God is kind to me, I will never have to look upon your sorry face again.”

“There is no money left,” he said. “I paid off Confederate conscription agents so I could stay at home and take care of you.”

“Then you turned around and left me anyway, when things didn’t go your way.”

“You threw me out.”

“No-no,” she stammered. “You have done exactly as you pleased your entire sorry life.
Now get away from me!” She began to run again.

“Where are you going?” Jonathan shouted.

She didn’t answer.

“Come back,” he called. “I’ll take you home.” That was the last thing she heard him say.

She ran ahead, hoping to catch the major.

But he was nowhere in sight.

Chapter 8 << – Index – >> Chapter 10