Chapter 23

Be thou assured, if words be made of breath,

And breath be made of life, I have no life to breathe.

—Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 4)

 

The troop moved silently through the shadows as the sun continued its climb above the treetops. The distance to their destination was only about four miles, but the time, as far as Major Connelly was concerned, was an eternity. The day was raw and cloudy, and whether from the damp air or the deep gloom that surrounded him, he felt chilled to the bone. As he had predicted though, the trail off the road led to a large farmhouse that showed bountiful amounts of smoke pouring forth from the chimney. Before dismounting near a pine tree, Connelly ordered one of the men to knock, which brought an older woman and young girl to the door.

“Pardon the intrusion,” Connelly said, leaning forward in his saddle, and lifting his hat. “Could you spare a meal for Colonel Benton and his staff? There are but eight of us.”

The woman eyed Connelly suspiciously and then swept her gaze across the group, pausing as she watched Benton dismount wearily from his horse. “I suppose we can feed eight.” Her lips held no smile, but her offer seemed genuine. “There’s corn in the barn for the horses.”

“We’re mighty obliged.” Connelly replaced his hat and nodded toward the far corner of the yard. “I can see this must be a difficult time for you. Our condolences for your loss.”

The woman’s gaze darted nervously to the fresh mound of dirt and handmade cross near a small grove of trees. “She ain’t no one of ours really.” The little girl who sat swinging her legs in a chair from behind the woman spoke up. “Just some stranger we found.”

“Hush child!” the woman scolded, as she watched the men who had been unsaddling their horses seem to freeze in place.

“I-I-I beg your pardon?” Connelly said.

“My husband will be home shortly.” The woman turned to go into the house as if the conversation were over.

“But, ma’am,” Connelly said, dismounting and rushing up the steps with a great rattle of spurs, blocking her path back into the house. “What did she mean she was a stranger to you? Whose body lies yonder?”

The woman, obviously flustered now, looked up at the serious face of Connelly and then to the anxious and penetrating eyes of the rest of the group. “It’s just what she said. We don’t know her…anything about her. She was dead. It’s a terrible thing, but she was dead, and my husband buried her.”

The woman ended the conversation by going back inside the house. Connelly quickly turned to Benton, who had stopped unsaddling his horse and seemed to have forgotten what he was doing or how to do it. He leaned now upon his mount. It appeared that without the support, he would be unable to stand.

“Sir, Lieutenant Janney will tend to your horse,” Connelly offered.

Benton did not answer. Instead, he turned and stared over his shoulder at the mound of dirt as if it were coming in and out of focus. He looked dazed and incoherent, like a man just awakening from a terrible dream. His face, already pallid from weeks of anguish and grief, took on a shade of gray that deepened the ashen hue.

“Sir, your horse,” Connelly said, a little louder.

Again, Benton did not respond. Connelly could see he was breathing heavily and the reins in his hand were literally shaking. He continued to lean against Vince, apparently fighting for calm, and passed a hand over his eyes as if to shut out a vision he couldn’t bear to see. “Colonel, you are tired. Go in and get some refreshment.” Connelly pried the reins from his unresponsive hand. “I’ll take care of Vince.”

When Benton heaved with a deep sigh, Connelly studied his appearance. His face did not appear like Benton’s face had just a few months earlier. It was grim and set like marble. And when he spoke, his voice was strange like his face. “No, I…ah, I don’t think I’m hungry. You go on.”

Connelly felt sorry for Benton, but knew the colonel had to face letting go of a past that no longer existed—and face it alone. The vacancy she had left was not a thing tucked away in Benton’s subconscious, dormant and inactive. It was obviously a thing that controlled his every waking moment, and possessed and tormented him in sleeping ones. Connelly nodded in understanding, and motioned for the others to follow, leaving Benton standing alone in the yard.

* * *

 

When the men had disappeared into the house and barn, Benton walked hesitantly toward the mound of dirt, the very earth seeming to roil and roll beneath him. No sound reached his ears other than a loud, pulsing thump that he realized was his own heartbeat, pumping his body full of terrible, poisonous despair.

Staring at the cold unadorned pile of dirt, he shuddered as he recalled his last glimpse of her—the proud deportment, the defiant chin, the sad yet knowing eyes—all now crushed by the hand of death. “In the name of mercy,” he murmured as he sank to his knees, “turn back the hands of time.”

He choked as he tried to suppress the strangled hopeless feeling of grief and despair that consumed him. There were times over the past weeks when he had told himself that nothing mattered except that he had known her—hadn’t had to die without knowing there was a noble, gracious spirit such as hers in the world. And then came times when life seemed too painful and empty and meaningless to care to go on. Times like this, when he had to think of her as an angel, trailing forever a marble robe.

Tears began to fall, a mixture of sorrow and love mingling down to seep into the dust, causing him to fight the urge to creep into the ground beside her and die. He realized—too late—that of all the women he had known in his life, he had never known a love like this—an eternal love that knew no bounds.

Benton dug his fingers into the cold dirt as if he could pull her broken body from the arms of death. But he knew he was powerless to do so, and so he sat in silence with his hands flat upon the mound of dirt as if to feel her. Closing his eyes, he imagined her sleeping in that earthen bed, her spirit rising to be with her Heavenly Father. And then his mind drifted to what lay ahead—for painful as the present was to endure, the future now loomed still darker.

“The only battle I cared to win, I have lost,” he murmured, putting his hand on the rugged cross, as he thought ashamedly how he had once valued his own reputation and selfish needs. He swallowed hard and shook his head. This is not to be borne. I cannot go on.

“What’s the matter, mister?”

Benton looked over his shoulder at the young girl leaning against a tree with her head tilted to one side, studying him intently. He sighed deeply. “The one who sleeps here…was a friend of mine.”

“A friend?” the girl perked up. “You mean you didn’t try to kill her?”

Benton stood and faced the girl. “Of course not. Why would you think such a thing?”

“Well, ’cause, I reckin’ she was a spy or somethin’,” the girl said. “Grandpa says she musta been. Says that’s why they strung her up.” She walked over and stared at the mound of dirt. “But he don’t know which side done it. That’s why he—”

“Louisa! Louisa! Come here this instant!”

The girl’s grandmother stood on the porch with her hands on her hips. Benton followed the girl toward the house in a daze, but he paused once and looked back at the mound before continuing on. When he reached the porch, he removed his hat. “If you don’t mind, ma’am, we would like to take the body with us…for a proper burial and all.”

“No!”

Benton looked at the woman’s distressed look in confusion. “Is there a problem, ma’am?”

“I mean… um… that’s impossi— it’s just that my husband will be here later. I prefer you discuss it with him.”

Something suddenly struck Benton as odd, and then something else hit him like the wild kick of a horse. It might have been instinct, or it might have been impulse, but he got down on one knee and grabbed the girl’s arms before she started up the steps. “What did you mean try to kill her?” He shook her gently but firmly. “Is she not dead? Where is she?”

The girl’s grandmother came rushing down and grabbed Benton’s shoulder. “Take your hands off her! What are you doing?”

By now, some of the men who were just making their way to the house from the barn, rushed to the woman’s aid to help restrain Benton, afraid he had lost his mind. “Your husband found her.” Benton’s large frame shook them off as if he barely knew they were there. He did not ask a question so much as make a statement, and his tone was severe and measured.

The woman merely nodded. She appeared to have difficulty looking into his eyes.

“And she had been hanged.”

“Yes…well, uh…it appeared so.” The woman stood twisting the apron she wore with nervous hands.

“And so your husband dug that hole—”

“Yes, he dug the hole and buried her—it was the Christian thing to do. We don’t know her; she was nothing to us. Whatever she done…whatever law she broke…she was nothing to us.”

“You’re lying.” Benton yelled, lunging up the steps. “She’s still alive. I know she is!”

Men who had already entered the house came rushing out and tried again to restrain the colonel, while the woman retreated to the far side of the porch. “No…no,” she said, wringing her hands and looking at the questionings stares of the men around her. Her face had drained of its color. She looked as if she were about to faint.

Benton shrugged off the men who held his arms and stood just inches from the woman. He knew now with certainty. Far down in his soul where such things are divined…he knew. “Your husband dug that grave because he recognized whoever hung her would come back looking for the body.”

“No, please, you must wait for my husband. He’ll explain.” She began sobbing into her apron.

“Your husband wanted you to be able to point to that grave and tell them she was dead.” Benton could feel blood pulsing against his temples, yet his legs felt suddenly weak. “Is there a body in that grave? My men can have it open in ten minutes time.”

“Colonel! It is time to bury the past. Leave the grave closed.” Connelly put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“No, you musn’t.” The woman put her face in her hands as if to hide from the intensity of his gaze as she talked. “We were only trying to protect her…poor innocent thing.”

Benton reached out to grab the porch railing to steady himself. “She’s here then?” His voice was now hoarse and cracking.

“Yes,” she said, taking deep breaths as if trying to gain control. “We thought it best that any strangers we meet think she’s dead.” She looked up at him with pleading eyes. “It’s dangerous out here all alone, you know. We didn’t want no trouble for saving her.”

“Where is she?” Benton’s voice was low and barely audible.

“She’s upstairs. But I must warn you…”

Benton didn’t hear the rest. He was already halfway up the stairs. Breathing heavily, he pushed open the first door he saw and stared at the form sitting silently in a chair by a blazing fire. For a moment, he just blinked in the dim light, trying to let his mind catch up to the unfolding events.

“Sarah,” he finally said. The figure continued to stare straight ahead as if she had not heard him. “Sarah. It’s Douglas…Douglas Benton.” He walked in and knelt down, lightly touching her arm—more of a way to convince himself she was real than to get her attention.

She turned her head slowly, staring at him curiously as if to recapture some distant, lost memory that could not be brought forth. Although her face was partially in shadow, he could see she now possessed the wide-eyed look of a child rather than the wise and reserved appearance that had been so evident on her countenance before.

When he spoke her name yet again, it brought no sign of recognition or response. She continued to stare with unseeing eyes without the slightest evidence that she heard his voice or recognized her name.

Benton gazed into her eyes a few long moments, refusing to believe that the reconciliation that should have been joyful and renewing was not. “Sarah. I’m glad to see you.”

She nodded, but exhibited no indication that she understood what he had said. His gloomy eyes drifted to the black-and-blue ring that encircled her neck. Benton stood and turned to Mrs. Foster who had entered the room. “I cannot thank you enough for what you have done to protect her.” He swallowed hard at the thought that Sarah Duvall had been pulled back to earth by charitable hands, yet she did not appear to be aware of it—and perhaps did not even desire it. “I would like my surgeon to look at her.”

“Of course. We only wish to help her.”

Benton looked back and saw that Sarah still stared at the place where he had knelt beside her, and he wondered if she had actually gazed at him or only at the space he had occupied. In her eyes, he saw nothing of the life she once had lived—only the death she seemed to have already died.

Descending the stairs slowly, Benton avoided looking into the faces of his men. He did not speak, but he did not need to. The tears on his cheeks, mingled with the look of joy and anguish on his countenance, made commentary unnecessary.

Benton pushed through the door and out into the cool, morning air. She was alive, but was she really there? He choked back a sob at the thought of telling his men that the reunion was bittersweet. The one from whom they had parted, the one for whom they had offered up so many prayers, had come back—and yet perhaps really was gone for good.