Here and Again Read online

  “I tried to call you,” Osbee said, a wide smile growing across her face as she reached up and touched Ginger’s hair. “Love the headband.”

  “Your hair is beautiful!” Lorena said.

  “Thanks. Sorry I didn’t call. I wasn’t thinking.”

  She smiled at her neighbors, who smiled reticently back. She could tell they were concerned and wanted to say something to her but Ginger wasn’t allowed to stop. Ed pulled her into the sunroom and only then let go of her hand. He pointed to her boots.

  “What are we doing?” Ginger asked, obediently slipping out of her shoes.

  “We’ve got people finishing the fence around where your garden beds will go. I’ve got people clearing out the barn, several others tidying up in the summer house, and a couple more building a chicken coop.”

  “Chickens?” Ginger declared, sliding into her left boot.

  “One of our neighbors donated his flock,” Lorena explained through the sunroom door. “It was causing trouble with the neighbors.”

  “Not yet.” Mr. Rogers motioned his wife to silence.

  Ginger stood straight up. “Why? What’s wrong with the chickens?” she asked, her eyes narrowing.

  “Nothing. You’ll need eggs,” he replied. “Come on. I need you to harness the horses.”

  “The horses?”

  “We’ve got a lot of help today, so time to learn to plant while everyone’s doing everything else.”

  There was a loud scream from the direction of the barn.

  Ginger tripped forward in the sunroom, her right boot barely on. As Mr. Rogers opened the door, four people raced with terrified eyes in his direction. On the heels of the last person was Bubba, head down and at a run.

  “Look out!” the woman in the front yelled as she flew up the stairs.

  She nearly knocked Ginger over as she cleared the door. Balancing herself on the windowsill, Ginger watched the three young men behind her skip the bottom three steps of the sunroom stairs and achieve the slate floor in one great leap. The last one grabbed Mr. Rogers by the arm, pulled him inside, and slammed the door. There was a clickety-clickety clicketing up the stairs outside and then BAM! The door shuddered, squeaking a little in pain. So did everyone in the sunroom—everyone, that is, but Mr. Rogers.

  “What are y’all doing?” he inquired, his voice steady and stone like his face. Instinctively, everyone straightened to attention, more or less—even Ginger.

  “That goat’s possessed!” The man talking was of Asian descent with short black hair and a square jaw. His wild and wide eyes looked past the colonel. Ginger swallowed at the thought that the goat had scared even him. He didn’t look like he could be scared.

  “It is a goat,” Mr. Rogers said, and quick as the flash in the field he opened the door.

  Ginger saw the goat reel and jump back, landing effortlessly on its feet a yard to the right of the stair steps. “Neeeeeahhhh,” it said, looking for all as if it were laughing. With a little clickety jump, it turned, let out a small bluster from its nose, and sauntered away in the direction of the covered bridge.

  Ginger shivered as she watched it go and then her eyes caught a gleam of red paint peeking from around the corner of the house.

  “Is that Henry’s Child?” Ginger asked, bobbing her head up and down like a hungry chicken as she tried to see more of it. Ed’s rough hand slipped into her palm.

  “Had to move it to make room in the barn,” he said.

  “Room?” Ginger was pulled reluctantly out of the sunroom and down the steps. She couldn’t see where Bubba had gone.

  “We’ve got equipment. Let’s move.”

  There was a pop somewhere behind the barn and an engine engaged.

  “Wh-what’s that?”

  “I brought a small tractor an—”

  “I don’t need a tract—”

  “It’s not for fieldwork. It’s for power. They’re getting hay up into the top level of the barn.”

  “I—I have no ha . . . Who?” Ginger and Mr. Rogers entered the barn.

  “We’ve got help, like I said. And I brought hay. You’ll need it until you get your crop in.”

  “Ah!” Ginger brightened. “Solomon Schaaf says I have winter wheat in the field. Time to plant the alfalfa.” She filled with a little bubble of pride for knowing something that was going on and needed to be done.

  “That’s just the beginning.”

  Her bubble popped. She frowned a bit, thinking Mr. Rogers had taken some pride himself at poking her and listening to her deflate.

  “Mrs. Martin?” She found Jacob standing next to Christian’s stall door. Henry was yet at his side.

  “I told him to go in,” her son said quickly.

  “Why aren’t you in bed? You’re still recovering.” Ginger scowled.

  “You can’t horse farm your acreage,” Jacob said, ignoring her. “This is very hard and you’ve only got yourself and three kids.”

  “It is what she wants to do,” Mr. Rogers said.

  “She’s never done it, though,” Jacob replied, his eyes firm as he gazed at Ed Rogers’s stone face.

  Ginger looked between the men. A standoff. Jacob was young and lean with a kind face and a gentle manner. Ed Rogers was older. No less kind but he was a forceful presence. It was like looking at the two sides of humanity. There were similarities here—discipline, neatness, order, duty. But when push came to shove, Ed’s side of humanity would push and shove and Jacob’s would yield and yield and yield again.

  She placed her hand upon her heart, for before her stood the two sides of her own marriage, with its conflicts and comforts. What was true above all else, to Ginger’s mind but not to Jesse’s, was that Jacob’s way was the correct one. There could be no contention between two people if one side would not contend. Most of their marital arguments arose from this simple point and it was from this point love had to overrule reason in order for there to be any peace. That overriding love had killed her husband in a far and distant land not so long ago.

  “Help comes,” Henry said, breaking the silence.

  Both men started.

  “It does come, Henry,” Ginger agreed. “Have to hold still and wait.”

  Henry grinned. “And we rise together,” he added.

  Mother and son beamed at each other. Then Ginger took a deep breath and turned to Jacob. “You know about all this stuff?” She motioned to all the yokes and harnesses that now hung neatly on fresh pegs in the back of the barn where Henry’s Child used to sit.

  “I do.”

  “So I have two teachers,” Ginger said, smiling.

  Jacob pinched his lips together and gazed down to Henry.

  “And we have two students,” Jacob said quietly.

  “Nah,” Henry said. “Bea and I made a deal. I first learn how to take care of the cow. She’s in the field. Wait here.”

  Henry trotted toward his mother. She grabbed his hand as he passed and gave it a little squeeze. He smiled and then headed out of the barn with a yell. “Bea!”

  “You get the horses out,” Ed instructed. “I’ll get the mules.”

  “Let me get the yokes,” Jacob said.

  “No,” Ginger replied adamantly. “Is Mr. Wheldon still here?”

  “Yeah,” Jacob said, cocking his head. “If he wasn’t, neither would I be.”

  Ginger shrugged and opened Penny’s stall door. She found Beau seated toward the far right corner with Regard curled up anxiously behind him.

  “Can you go ask him to help with the yokes, please? I won’t have you lifting heavy things and ripping your stitches out,” she said over her shoulder. “Hello, Penny.”

  The horse came forward and placed its muzzle on Ginger’s shoulder. Penny nickered softly and Ginger closed her eyes, breathing in. Horses smelled of earth, and Ginger brushed Penny’s cheek gently, a
slow peace filling her in the midst of the chaos she had found greeting her upon her return from town.

  A loud whinny startled her from her moment. “For the love of Pete, Christian, I’m coming,” she said as she grabbed Penny’s leader rope. “Too many weird people doing too many weird things. Huh, guys?”

  Beau lowered himself to the ground as Regard cowered behind him.

  “You’re a good friend, Beau. Don’t know what you see in that goat, though.” She attached the leader rope to Penny’s bridle. Opening the back door of the stall, Ginger led the horse out toward the corral.

  To her right, she found a small tractor puttering away at the end of the barn. Where rubber wheels should have been, it had instead metal ones, which at the moment were lifted from the ground. Around the left wheel, the one that faced Ginger, a large belt was wound and as the wheel turned the belt moved. Following its trajectory, Ginger found its other end wound around a wheel that was attached to what looked to be a luggage ramp—the kind that moved suitcases onto an airplane. But instead of suitcases, rectangular cubes of hay were being tossed from within a large trailer by a couple of strangers. At the top of the ramp, a young man stood in the upper barn door, grabbing the hay and then disappearing inside. At that moment, Dijan Little’s head poked out of the door and grabbed the next oncoming bale.

  “Elevator.” Ginger gazed down and found Bea standing next to her.

  “Doesn’t look like an elevator,” Ginger said.

  “For hay,” Bea continued. “We’ll need to take it into the back door of the barn and through the upper floor with the next delivery. Don’t need to move the bales so far across the upper floor that way.”

  Ginger stared at her daughter. “Really,” was her only reply.

  “That’s what Samuel said. He really liked it.”

  “Ah! You’ve seen him!” Ginger declared.

  “He’s around.”

  Christian screamed and kicked his stall door.

  “I’m coming!” Ginger yelled back. She handed the rope to Bea.

  “Take Penny—” She stopped. Where was she supposed to take Penny?

  “I’ll follow Mr. Rogers and the mules,” Bea said and veered left out the stall door.

  Christian kicked the door again.

  “Hang on! Pushy, Christian. You just wait to see what’s in store for you now,” Ginger said as she lifted the stall’s handle. Opening the door, she found the horse’s head on top of hers, pushing his way out of his stall. “You just wait!” she said through gritted teeth as she grabbed his halter with her left hand. With her right, she lifted his leader rope from its hook by the door. Forcefully, Ginger pushed Christian’s chin down into his chest and with a stubborn reluctance he backed up into his stall. “Some Christian you are,” she hissed, attaching the lead to his harness.

  “Virginia Moon?”

  Ginger turned around and found Samuel leaning against the wall. When he saw her, he jumped to attention.

  “There you are!” she declared. “I saw you today in town.”

  He stared at her, his eyes wide and turning moist.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Slowly he stepped forward, motioning with his hand around his own head.

  “Oh.” She giggled. “Yeah, I cut my mood hair. Hey, I saw you in Woodstock today. Couldn’t you see me? I was right there. I called your name.”

  He stopped in place, his jaw moving, mouthing her name over and over. Ginger thought if a ghost could grow pale, Samuel had done so.

  “What’s wrong?” she repeated. The hay elevator’s noise grew distant, as did the rustling above her head from Dijan Little and his buddy’s efforts. The blue skylight beyond the door dissipated into white as if a great fog had spread like a blanket over heaven. Even Christian’s earthy scent faded away.

  “Ginger moon,” he whispered. A tear ran down his cheek.

  “Yes?” Ginger shrugged, shaking her head. What had gotten into the man?

  Stepping forward, he reached for her face, passing his hand an inch over her right cheek and following his index finger over the single curl that rested upon her neck. Ginger Moon, he mouthed, his eyes moving around her face as if he were memorizing every small wrinkle, every tiny curve.

  “Samuel?” Ginger whispered.

  He recoiled, pulling back suddenly.

  “Oh,” he said and then he disappeared.

  July 11, 1862

  Upon the Shenandoah

  My love, Juliette,

  I cannot write. I cannot think. I can only look in wonder at my photograph. My entire understanding of God’s creation has slipped beneath me like—like mercury beneath my finger. I cannot breathe.

  I was granted a short leave and a horse last Friday. Peter, my sister Ann’s husband, has been always of weak constitution. I received a pressing letter from Ann that he is bedridden with a fever. Their baby, Ezra, is but a month old and has been sent to the Reverend’s house for care lest he contract his father’s illness. My father endeavors to keep the crops and cows and Ann reports he, too, is coughing even as he works. She worries for him, for Peter, for herself.

  So I rode hard and entered Woodstock on Saturday, hoping to reach home and see my father, leaving time enough reserved for a visit with you in Strasburg. I stopped and thought to have my photograph taken—a gift to you upon my arrival and a remembrance when I leave again from your side. I sat for the photographer and what emerged has sent me lost, uprooted from my purpose and duty and blowing around the valley like a wind with no direction.

  The photographer was in awe, seeking to explain the picture away with reason. He thought perhaps the plate had been used before. But he admitted he never before photographed the like and he knew his plate was clear prior to my sitting.

  Juliette, I sat, deciding whether to hold my musket or not, when I heard the call of my name—Samuel? It was a question—like the question in the fog. I held still—Samuel? The question once more, yet louder, imperative. I whispered, Yes? And again. Samuel? Yes, said I. And then, Samuel, it is me.

  The flash, smoke, and silence. But as the photograph was given to me the next morning, there, standing behind me, was a woman—a spectral being with her left hand resting upon my right shoulder. She is a spirit seen through the lens of a machine, caught by the eye of man. It is no less an omen and I have been unable to continue home, lest she follow me there.

  I send the picture to you, Juliette. See you her dress? It is loose with arms bare. The hair, held by a ribbon, has let loose a single curl upon her neck. She appears to me from another time, as if from my grandmother’s days. I have seen the like of ladies painted in the days of Edwardian England or even those of Napoleon’s court, with ancient Greece as the measure of fashion and beauty. But how is she in my photograph—now?

  So here I sit, dangling my feet in the tiny creek which trickles into the slow flowing Shenandoah on this hot summer’s eve. I rest my back upon this large, misplaced boulder and the moon rises before me, orange and full and round; I see it as the moon of October—the moon of harvest. The moon, the boulder, and I are out of place and I have now come to believe, as I scratch this letter, there is a purpose unknown to me here and I cannot understand what it portends. I shall not be returning to Laurel Creek. Ann and my father shall do as they can. I must return to the Valley of Death, to war, for only at its end will we have our future. The ghost calls my name, whistles to me as I fight but I seek not to understand her. My farm, my children, my love—this is my future.

  I see thee, my love, with my Child’s Eye. In the ginger light of this full moon, your eyes seek for me even now. They pour a warm glow into my heart, my soul, and rest as full and soft upon me even as the ginger moon rests upon the horizon. You are here with me, Juliette. You await me just over the horizon. You are my love, my Ginger Moon, and I shall meet you over the river. Please keep this photograph and let me ride—ride
to release this spirit from me.

  Your devoted,

  Samuel

  Chapter 19

  The Chickens Come Home to Rooster

  Christian threw his head, lifting Ginger off her feet. If her attention had been distracted before, it was now fully present in the stall with Christian. She jerked the lead, growling as she shoved his chin into his breast. The horse whinnied in protest, his eyes wide and focused on the open stall door. If given half a chance, Christian would force his will upon whoever held his tether or rode his back if an open gate or door was within sight. At this moment, the door was more than within sight. It was within six inches.

  “There are no bloody apples, you nasty horse,” Ginger yelled. “It’s March!”

  “Problems?”

  Christian stopped all movement and in his sudden stillness Ginger was tossed forward by the motion of her own effort. She hit the doorpost with her shoulder. Looking at Ed Rogers standing just beyond the stall, she winced as she gained her balance and realized the man had the same effect on beasts as he did on people.

  “Now you know why you need the mules,” he stated.

  “He just wants the apples.”

  “There are no apples. It’s March.”

  Just for a second, she saw the fixed demeanor of his eyes change. They narrowed a little and brightened a lot. Then they were fixed again and focused on Christian’s large, round eyeballs above her head.

  “Yes, thank you for that,” Ginger replied with a harrumph and dragged Christian reluctantly out of his stall and toward Ed Rogers.

  “The harnesses and collars are set up out in the corral.”

  “Are they?”

  “They are and Bea is already finished brushing down Penny and is working on Agrippa. You need to move. We don’t have all day.”

  She could see only his profile, but his left eye was bright again.

  “All day is exactly what we have,” she replied.