Walking Home to Georgia II – Fiction

A small cabin slightly off the path caught Jim’s eye. It was the first human structure Jim had seen in a while. Ten foot long and perhaps the same in width. The front door was hardly able to be properly latched if there had been a latch to begin with. Jim stopped on the path.

“Hello?” Jim called out.

It was mid-afternoon and the sun had been blaring all day. Jim felt the strength of the heat on his back. No one responded immediately to Jim’s greeting. Jim stepped onto the foot path leading to the cabin. Trees surrounded the shelter in a twenty-foot “yard” around it. Stumps were still visible all around. Those trees had been used to build the cabin. 

“Is there anyone here?” Jim asked the cabin.

Jim approached the door wearily. He had the sense someone was there. Many times, this same sense had saved his life. On picket duty at Chickamauga, he felt himself being watched. Federal pickets were close, for sure. Jim left his post and found a tree thirty feet back. Ten minutes later, two Yankee soldiers lept on either side of his former post, bayonets ready. Jim shot one of them and the other ran off like a frightened rat.

Now, Jim pushed open the door. It squeaked in its wooden hinges. Jim saw the briefest movement and dove to the ground before a shotgun blast tore off half the door. Jim crawled away in time for the second blast to drill a hole in the ground where he had been.

“Why you shootin’ me?” Jim asks.

“Why are you entering without permission?” A woman’s voice replies.

“Well, that’s fair enough, Miss.”

“That’s Missus, sir. My husband shall be home soon from Virginia.”

“Alright, my apologies, ma’am. Do you know where I can find some water?”

“Keep on this path a quarter mile. Go left for a few dozen paces. You’ll find a small but strong stream in the woods. Go on, now!”

“Thank you. Sorry for the fright,” Jim stood up carefully and returned to his path. He patted himself down. I thought I was done being shot at. He turned one last time to see the woman reloading buckshot in her shotgun. He tipped his hat and headed for the stream. Jim let his feet do their walking and his brain do the thinking. He pondered heavily on his vision of Turner’s Gap. That’s what he’d been calling it for the day: a vision. So many of his comrades, his friends, had died. He wondered if his God-given task was to get back and help.

His vision had been one of great despair. No one was recognizable and most of the town was burnt. Sherman be damned! Jim briefly thought what he would do to the man if he ever saw him. Around this time, Jim turned towards the stream. The sun was already setting, as it does in the middle of April. Why had the woman not answered initially? Was her husband alive? Was he a Yankee? Jim was asking more questions than thinking of answers. But he was grateful to find the stream precisely where the lady mentioned.

Jim removed the cork from his tin canteen and waited for it to fill from the water. He watched the bubbles. They came up to the surface like blood in a chest wound. Jim thought he heard ragged breathing and spurts of coughing. But there wasn’t anyone nearby. It’s just me here. But it definitely felt like someone else was near. When the canteen had filled, Jim returned to the road.

He’d walked a week since the war ended. But no matter how much further he walked away from the battlefields of Virginia, he could still see the ravages. There were burnt down farms, lifeless cities, and other soldiers on the roads. All of them were aimless it seemed. There were no longer columns of four marching in unison. The drums were gone. The guns were gone. Everything was gone. Jim had passed Greensboro, North Carolina a few days prior.

The city was quiet with the news of peace. Stunned may be a better word. The folks here felt betrayed. Not just by General Lee, but by President Davis too. They had lost and buried too many sons and husbands to have lost the war.  Yankee President Johnson sent a new marshall to help with law and order. He did not receive a warm welcome from the citizens of Greensboro. 

Jim was shocked to hear of Lincoln’s assassination while in Greensboro. He had no love for the man, but he knew Lincoln would have been better for the South than Johnson. For now, Jim settled on walking. He got into a good pace, his flaying brogans flopping with each step. But that was a comfortable tune. He wanted to reach Charlotte, North Carolina, and grab a train that would take him closer to Turner’s Gap – perhaps Greenville, South Carolina.

Jim anticipated he’d reach Charlotte in the morning. The train would save him a week of walking. He’d soon be home, Jim thought. He noticed he felt more nervous than excited. Had God given him a vision of his destroyed town? Or were his nerves simply played out? Thunderstorms felt different now. They had often given him solace and respect for God’s signs. But the last storm scared him.

“I’ll see what home is left for me when I get there,” Jim said aloud. 

And he trudged on, stopping only to refill his canteen and pee. There was more traffic on this route as he closed on Charlotte. Jim was beginning to see men on horseback or a pair of women driving a cart. He found that last one peculiar. The war had caused a lot of peculiarities, women doing men’s work was one of them. He expected to see more of it in the future. Jim was just reaching the outskirts of the city, passing several houses and farms. He kept moving towards his objective.