“As a matter of fact, pa always wanted me to go into the shipping business. We could start with shipping and freight, and put our profits into real estate.” “Real estate? In California? Do you think we could make any money that way?”
“Some day somebody will. If we can just hang on long enough … it’s possible.”
Part 3—THE WAR
Before the War Between the States, the settlers trickled West by hundreds, after
it, they went by thousands. It was the Union that finally opened the West, a
free, united nation where all men were equal, where each had his right to his
own. The open land beckoned, offered the vastest empire man could desire,
providing the space and riches needed for the accomplishment of the nation’s
manifest destiny…
Chapter 12
Eve Rawlings stood on the wide veranda shading her eyes to look along the road toward town. A rig was coming, but it was still too far away to make out who it was, but these days every rig stirred fear within her. She glanced toward the field where Zeb was plowing, with Jeremiah following behind, planting corn. Her boys worked well together, and she was glad, for they were different in so many respects. Since the war began she had worried, not so much because of anything that had happened, but for fear of what might happen, and had happened in other families.
Right down the road a piece two boys had split, one going off to join the Union forces, the other south to join up with the Confederacy. Families all over Ohio, Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky had seen their sons and fathers go opposite ways, or brothers divide their allegiance.
The twenty years during which she and Linus had lived on the place had been happy ones. Looking at her boys plowing the field, she thought back to that terrible day when they landed after the calamity at the falls—her father and mother gone, Lilith lost somewhere upstream, and Sam wounded. It had seemed the utmost in despair, and yet from that moment her happiness had begun. True, she had lost her parents, and it was long before she recovered from that blow, but Lilith and Zeke had showed up. She would have known that Lilith, the strongest swimmer among them, would get to shore. And then to top it off, Linus had returned.
Now the rattle of the buggy lifted her eyes to the road again and she saw Peterson driving into the yard, wearing a uniform. The stab of fear was very sharp, and when she glanced toward the boys they had already tied up the team and were running across the furrows toward the yard. “Why, Mr. Peterson!” she said. “Whatever are you doing in uniform?” “Militia’s been sworn in, Mrs. Rawlings. I am Corporal Peterson now. ‘Fraid this is the last time you’ll see me for a spell … Letter here—all the way from Californy.”
“It must be from Lilith.” Quickly, she ripped open the letter. “Mr. Peterson … Corporal … can you wait just a minute? I may want to answer this one right away.”
“I was sort of hopin’ Zeb would come with us,” Peterson said. “He’s about the best shot around here—most as good as his pa.”
“His father went when the first bugle blew. Isn’t one Rawlings enough?” Zeb vaulted the split-rail fence and walked up to the porch, grinning at Peterson. “Say, now! You look mighty fittin’ in that uniform!” He picked up the gourd dipper and dipped it into the bucket standing in the coolness of the porch. The cold water dripped from the gourd into the bucket as he started to drink.
“Zeb,” Eve said, “your Aunt Lilith says there is no war in California, and they don’t believe there will be. Business is good, and there are a lot of opportunities for a young man.
“Listen to this: ‘There’s talk of building a railroad east, and with his business connections what they are, Cleve believes he will be in on the ground floor. We would welcome Zeb if he wishes to come—‘ “ “Ma,” Zeb asked suspiciously, “did you write to her about me? Did you?”
“Not exactly, but—“
“Did you?”
“I only told her you didn’t like farming any more than your pa did.” “Ma,” Zeb said persuasively, “you’ve got a wrong idea about this war. It ain’t goin’ to be so bad. And you know pa’s havin’ the time of his life—“ “Mrs. Rawlings,” Peterson interrupted, “I got it from the Captain himself—we won’t be gone any time at all. Them easterners had trouble at Bull Run, but when us westerners hit them Johnny Rebs they’ll run like rabbits.” “Why?” Eve asked coldly.
“It’s simple! Them eastern soldiers are all city boys, ribbon clerks and the like. Us westerners, we cut our eyeteeth on a gun barrel. We’ll give them Johnny Rebs what for, now don’t you worry!”
“Ma,” Zeb said, “pa left it up to you whether I joined up or not, but you know how he really felt.”
“Mrs. Rawlings,” Peterson argued, “there ain’t much glory trompin’ behind a plow. I’d sure hate to think I’d missed my chance. Think how it’s goin’ to be for the boy … everybody gone but him.”
It was no use. From the beginning she had known it was no use. When Linus had gone she had hoped that Zeb would be willing to stay on at home, but deep in her heart she knew such hope was wasted. It was in him to go, and go he would. She shared none of their optimism. She was nothing if not a realist, and she could see clearly, all too clearly what might lie ahead. She had listened to some of the southerners talk, and she knew their fierce pride, their certainty of victory. They were qualities not easily to be given up. “Thank you for waiting, Corporal, I guess there is no hurry about answering this letter. Thank you again.”
“You mean I can go?” Zeb asked excitedly.
“There will be things to do, Zeb. We’ve got to plan.”
Peterson winked at Zeb. “So long, Mrs. Rawlings. Be seein’ you, Zeb.”
Zeb turned quickly and hurried after his mother. “Ma?” “We’ll have to get your underwear washed and your socks darned. Do they give you a uniform?”
“I reckon.”
“But maybe they won’t give you any shirts. Take that one off and I’ll wash it.
The other two are clean but they ain’t ironed yet.”
“Mother—“
She turned quickly, her eyes wide. “Why did you call me that? It’s always been ma, before.”
“I don’t know,” he replied seriously; “seemed all of a sudden ma wasn’t enough, somehow.”
“You’ll be wanting to cast some bullets,” she said, fighting back the tears. “You an’ your pa always favored makin’ your own. You’d best cast a lot of them, Zeb—I don’t think those Johnny Rebs are any more inclined to run than you’d be. Don’t you forget that most of them were raised just like you and Jeremiah.
They’ll be good boys, and they’ll shoot straight.” She must keep busy. That had always been the answer. If she was busy enough she would not have time to think. After they had buried pa and ma down by the rock she had worked hard, worked so hard that Linus had to stop her a time or two, but the work proved a blessing.
She turned to the window and paused for a long minute, looking at the green hills, and up the fine meadow where the cattle grazed. Beyond it was the wood lot where the trees had never been touched. Right at the start Linus had set that piece to one side, so to speak, and would never let anybody touch a stick of it except to gather fallen branches after a storm. That was for wild game, a refuge where not even Linus himself would hunt, a full section of timberland left just as nature intended it, as wild as the first day a white man set foot on the land.
The neighbors thought him foolish, but he would have it so. “It’s for the game,” he would say; “they need a place in which to breed, a safe place. Besides,” he would add, “the country is fillin’ up with folks, and soon none of them will know how it was when we first saw it. I think we owe it to the land to keep this piece just like it was.”
Had she had the right to take Linus from the wild, free life he lived? And was not her sense of guilt impelling her to let Zeb go off to the wars? Was it not that she felt she had tied one man down to the land, and so must free the other? Linus had not been unhappy, she knew that, and yet how many times had she caught him looking off into distance with that strange, longing look in his eyes? How many times had he gone off into the wilderness among the wild things? And Zeb was like him.