Most people regarded her with a fearful kind of tolerance. They didn’t like her origins and they feared her gift even though they relied upon it. No one seemed to see that she had a tender heart, a wicked sense of humor and a cheerful disposition. Certainly no one knew that she was stubborn and impatient. Her other neighbors never enjoyed the rewards of Sarah’s excellent cooking or her prolific garden. They never gave her the opportunity to be their friend.
Emma and Caleb stayed through the afternoon. Caleb played with the old dog until she laid down in the shade and refused to move. He lay down with his head on her side and they napped in the soft breeze of late spring.
While they visited, Emma watched Hixson and Sarah closely. More than anything, she hoped that love would find her young friend. She wanted Sarah to have the life that her mother should have had. Thinking back to the year before Sarah’s mother died, Emma still felt the stab of grief and anger. That Sarah had been an angel in every way. Always kind, she laughed easily and sang beautifully. Some brute had come into her home one day taken laughter and the music from her. She was afraid to go outside after that and cried often.
Two months after the attack, when she realized she was pregnant, her spirits lifted somewhat. Until the townspeople found out and accused her of being a harlot. She loved her unborn daughter completely, even so. Emma knew that, had she lived, that Sarah would have been the best mother in the world to this Sarah.
When they decided to head home, the sun had dropped below the tree tops. Sarah told Towzer to go with them. Towzer loved Caleb almost as much as she loved Sarah and would protect him and Emma against anything. Emma’s place was only a little way down the path, but Sarah sent the dog anyway.
They said their farewells, and walked away. In half an hour Towzer was home again. She went inside, lay down in her place and started snoring.
May 20th, 1864--Spotsylvania County, Virginia
The last of the cornmeal was gone. Sarah was also out of flour, salt and tea. She doubted there would be any such provisions to be had in town, but she hoped she could at least obtain flour or cornmeal. Either one.
Hixson offered to go to town for her; he was anxious to get out and look around. She reluctantly agreed, asking him to please stop by Emma’s and have Caleb go with him. “Don’t do much talking, Hixson. They might figure out who you are.”
Hixson agreed to collect Caleb so she gave him directions to Emma’s house. Sarah watched him walk away, feeling the anxiety set in. It would not go well for him if people found out he was a Yankee soldier. But he was a grown man and entitled to take his own chances.
As Hixson and Caleb walked to the little town of Oak Hollow, they talked pleasantly. Caleb was full of boyish questions about war and being a soldier. Hixson painted the darkest picture possible, hating the idea of the red-headed boy ever facing such a thing. As soon as he gracefully could, Hixson turned the subject to lighter topics.
Oak Hollow was very quiet. There was only one street in town with shops, and few shops at that. There was a blacksmith who also ran a livery, a general store, a tiny bakery, an undertaker and a tailor. There were fewer than a dozen people to be seen.
Caleb ran into the general store for the few groceries on Sarah’s list. Now that he was here, Hixson realized he’d done a foolish thing. He couldn’t talk to anyone; his Northern accent would give him away. He couldn’t buy anything. Union currency was accepted in the south, but coming from a stranger in town it was apt to raise questions. As soon as Caleb had the groceries, they left town.
Hixson took the packages from Caleb, who had insisted on carrying them, when they came to Caleb’s house. Emma yoo-hooed from the front door, holding up a fresh loaf of bread. “Sarah is right fond of my potato bread, Hixson. Could you be bringing a loaf along to her?”
“Your famous potato bread, Emma? What makes you think it will make it as far as Sarah’s? I might eat the whole loaf myself on the way!” Hixson couldn’t help but smile at Emma’s singsong Irish speech using Southern phrases.
Emma couldn’t help but smile at praise for her baking. Hixson gladly accepted the warm bread and strolled off toward Sarah’s cabin. As Hixson broke out of the trees and into the clearing where the cabin stood, he was immediately alarmed.
The cabin stood quiet, as always, but it was surrounded in a fog of darkness. It was baffling—and frightening. The sun was shining as usual, the grassy clearing bright green. Yet the cabin seemed to be covered in a strange black cloud that clung closely to the cabin itself.
He ran for the cabin! Throwing open the door, he looked around in fear, imagining the worst.
Sarah was kneeling on the floor, her hands on Towzer’s head. Hixson saw her golden hair, lit and floating, as she laid her hands of light on her dog. She didn’t seem to have put as much of herself into the healing this time, for soon she was sitting on the floor, silent.
“Are you alright? Sarah? Sarah??” Hixson had rushed to her side.
Sarah slowly turned her face to him, realizing finally that she was being addressed. “I’m alright. I think Towzer will be better now.” She still seemed dazed.
“You took a chance like this on a dog?” Hixson was beside himself. The dog looked fine to him, sleeping now, and he was afraid of what could happen to Sarah after one of her healings.
Sarah could barely understand what he was saying. She certainly could not understand why Hixson was speaking so sharply. “The mare kicked her. It wasn’t a bad kick, more of a warning, but Towzer was panting and the kick snapped her mouth shut. She darn near bit her tongue in half. Poor dog.”
Hixson didn’t know what to do. He had no right to scold her for anything and was embarrassed for presuming to do so. But he couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt—especially not with the story of her mother’s assault so fresh in his mind. He sat there, torn between apologizing and lecturing, and so remained quiet.
Sarah started to stand, a bit wobbly, so Hixson helped her to her feet. Once she was safely seated at the table, Hixson went back outside to retrieve the groceries he’d dropped in his rush to the cabin.
He brought them in, set everything on the table, sat down and struggled to explain himself. “I didn’t mean to scold; I apologize. I know I have no right. But when I came to the cabin and saw the darkness around it, I was very…well, scared.” Admitting fear was no easy thing.
“What do you mean, ‘the darkness around it’?” Sarah asked.
“That black fog, or whatever it is. I didn’t know what that was at first.”
“Hixson, I don’t understand. What black fog?”
“Around the cabin? Haven’t you ever seen it? No, of course you haven’t. No one ever told you?” Hixson couldn’t quite believe she didn’t know about it.
“No one ever told me. What does it look like?” There was something important about what Hixson was saying. The key point, whatever it was, floated just out of her reach.
“Well, it looked like a cloud of black smoke, but thicker, I guess. I don’t know, it’s hard to explain.” Hixson struggled to put into words what he had seen.
“That is what I see all around when someone is hurt. Everything else but them-- looks like that.” Sarah said. She looked at Hixson with new eyes. For the first time, he was as mysterious to her as she was to him.
May 21st, 1864-- Spotsylvania County, Virginia
In the two weeks Hixson had been recovering, he had improved so much that he knew he couldn’t stay on much longer. A jumble of conflicting emotions turned his decisive mind into a quagmire of doubt and confusion. He didn’t know where his regiment was, but the army’s whereabouts was always something people talked about.
He wasn’t sure how far it was to home, but he did know he was near the center of Virginia. He would have to make his way across half the state plus a distance into the next without getting caught. If he could do that, he would be safely north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
Should he just go home? Should he find his regiment? His longing for his own home told
him one thing, his duty to his country another.
Thrown in for an added layer of confusion was his heart, aching to stay with Sarah. He had never met anyone that mystified him the way she did. She was beautiful and strong, and vulnerable too. Indecision made him restless. He felt well enough to work or fight, but this was not his farm to work and the fight was somewhere else.
Even the very idea of fighting was starting to take on new meaning for him. Every destroyed home he had passed by in his tour of duty, and certainly every one he had helped to destroy, Hixson now saw in a new light.
The livestock he had killed had belonged to someone like Sarah: someone who, in other circumstances, might have been kind to him. Or needed him. It had once been a simple matter of “us” and “them”. Now “them” was a lovely, intriguing woman who had saved his life.
Hixson reflected on stories he had heard around bivouac fires of things done to Rebel women, caught alone. He had always condemned such behavior; now the image in his mind of what those women suffered was even more disturbing.
Caleb strolled into the clearing with a couple of good-sized fish on a stringer. “I caught you some supper, if you like fish.” He announced.
“Fish would be just the thing! I’m much obliged, Caleb.” Sarah smiled her thanks and took the fish inside.
Caleb sat down on the porch step and looked over at