* * * * *
The following day around mid-morning Nate questions Luke, “Yer smell that?”
“Yeah, that’s a smell we’ve smelled many times before, right Nate?”
“We shore have! Dead folks! And from the strong smell there must be plenty of ‘em.”
Luke and Nate are south of Petersburg, Virginia. Luke is going to skirt around the east side and travel on to Richmond. Neither Luke nor Nate knew General Ulysses S. Grant Union forces had lay siege to General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for over a year at Petersburg. When the fighting was over more than 11,000 men both Union and Confederates lay dead and dying in the trenches that the Rebels had dug around the entire city. Lee slipped out of the siege and retreated westward toward a small settlement known forever in the pages of history as the meeting place where General Lee surrendered to General Grant – Appomattox Courthouse.
As Luke and Nate slowly walk their horse and mule through the seemingly never ending battlefield of trenches and destroyed equipment both grimace as they approach a skeletal hand sticking out of the dirt, almost as if it is pointing a gnarled finger at them. Here and there lay the busted skulls of the fallen and a little farther on they see whole remains of skeletons that haven’t even been given the decency of simple graves. Their bones picked clean by the vultures and bleached white in the hot sun. The stench is almost unbearable, even to seasoned veterans such as Luke and Nate. Both wrap wet neckerchiefs about their faces in a feeble attempt to better endure the ghastly smell of rotting flesh.
Nate catches the glint of something lying on the ground. He pulls the reins and stops Sassy, his mule. Stepping from the saddle he walks to the scant remains of a Yankee soldier. He stands for a moment looking down at the bones of this dead young man. He bends down and removes a gold watch from the skeleton’s hand, and snaps open the cover. Silently he reads the inscription written inside. Staring at the watch, he says to Luke still mounted, “Luke whats you thank happens to the dead once theys dead?”
“Nate, I don’t know for sure. They’re just dead I suppose. Mother says the Bible tells us the soul goes to heaven. I guess I’ll have to agree with her.”
“You know what’s I thank Luke, as long as someone ‘members them, the dead they don’t never die.” He reads the inscription aloud, ‘To Thomas Our Beautiful Boy, You Remain in our Heart Always, Love Mother and Father.’ Luke this young feller is still alive in them folk’s heart.” Luke takes a longing look at the boy, replaces the watch in his boney, dead hand and mounts ole Sassy.
Neither speaks the remainder of the day as they make their way around the outside edge of the city of Petersburg. It is almost nightfall when the two riders finally find themselves traveling away from the field of battle. Thankfully, a fresh wind from the north is blowing the stench away from them.
“Nate, pick us a spot, and we’ll make camp for the night.”
“If it’s all right with you Luke, I jest soon we keep on ridin’ fer another few miles or so. I don’t believe I could get much sleep this near that field of death. Lord have mercy, and I knows I can’t eat a bite of supper!”
Luke does not look at Nate as they keep riding, “Amen to that!”
GOLD HUNTIN’
“Okay, sleepy head,” Sam says punching William. “Get yer rump outta that bed! Today we’re goin’ gold huntin’. Up and at ’em William.”
Within the hour, the boys begin walking up the mountain into the Cumberlands. Sam knows in a few miles they will reach the snow line and the snowshoes slung over their shoulders will become a necessity.
A few hours later Sam’s prediction comes true. Emerging from a grove of pines they begin to walk in ankle deep snow. An hour later Sam stops, “It’s time William.”
“Time for what Sam?”
“Them thangs hangin’ off your back - time to put’em on.”
Sitting on a fallen tree log Sam quickly laces his snowshoes to his boots, but William, that is another story. He turns them one-way, then another, “Shucks Sam, how does a feller put these galldurn things on?”
Just as Sam had laughed the first time he watched Luke trying to walk in the contraptions tied to his feet, so it is now with William. William would take a step, or rather, attempt to take a step and both his feet would become entangled, and he would fall face down onto the snow.
“No William, I’m telling you walk as tho’ you got a potato stuck up your butt, keep your feet apart. Forget about regular walking, this is a whole new game for you, this is snow walking. Come on try again.”
It took William a while, but he finally gets the hang of the things. In fact, Sam was impressed that he caught on so quickly.
“All right now Sam,” said William proudly marching around and around Sam, “which way to the gold?”
Sam pulls the map from his pocket and carefully studies it again. He explains Old Bill wasn’t much of a mapmaker, but he believes he knows about where the gold creek is located. William stops his walking practice and turns to Sam, “What! You know ‘about’ where the creek is located! ‘About!’ Sam there are hundreds and hundreds of square miles and dozens and dozens of creeks up here, you told me I would only have to walk in these darn thingamajigs for a few miles. Now you saying we might have to hike over these mountains for God only knows how far?”
“Hold on William, it ain’t quite that bad. See here,” Sam said pointing to a place on the map, “this here is what’s called Twin Peaks, I think, and this thing here has got to be Chimney Rock. The creek should be on the other side. William I know exactly where them peaks and that rock are.”
“All right! Let’s get going, I guess you know what you are doin’, at least I hope you do.”
“Right William, but you know I have noticed something strange since we arrived at the snow line.”
This statement catches William’s attention. He wants to know what Sam sees that is so peculiar. Sam reaches down and scoops up a handful of snow and shapes it intoin to a snowball.
“See that,” says Sam?”
“Yeah, a snowball, so?”
Sam explains that too much water squeezed out as he made the snowball. It is too warm for this time of the year. The snow is melting! He said he has even noticed Kentucky Lead’s paws, which usually walk on the frozen top of the snow, are now beginning to sink into the snow as he runs across the snowfields.
“Okay, Sam so the snow is melting. That’s good right?”
“No, the snow pack farther up in the mountains where we are headed may be melting too.”
“You mean, its gonna make walking in these snow things worse?”
“No, but William if the pack is melting early the creeks will be full of running water, maybe even overflowing their banks. I am hoping the ice in the streams will slow the water so we can dig up enough gold for Matthew.”
“Come on then, there ain’t but one way to find out,” William said as he maneuvered his feet one feeble step at a time up the side of the mountain. “Let’s go Sam, we’re burning daylight, and Sam you sure you know where we’re goin’?
“William, I reason the creek on this map of Old Bills is Indian Creek. This creek runs into the Cumberland River. I’ve only been there once with Pa; he used to trap beaver up that way.”
“How far you reckon Sam?”
“Day after tomorrow we should be close, right now it’s getting’ nigh on sundown. William we must find us a place to hole up ‘till mornin’, and I know just the place.”
Two hours later Sam is leading William down a narrow path to a bluff shelter on the side of the mountain. “Them Cherokee has been camping in these rock overhangs for hundreds of years William. Look at the ceiling.”
Looking up at the top of the semi-cave all William can see is blackened rocks that have accumulated soot, as Sam said, over hundreds of years. In a short while, they have a nice warm fire burning and a pot of hot coffee brewing. Leaning back against the back wall William asks, “Sam, what are you gonna do
with all the money this gold will bring when we find it?”
Sam sits there for a minute, pondering the question without saying a word; he pitches a small stone or two into the fire and watches the sparks drift toward the ceiling. “You know William, there ain’t nothing I want for myself, but I sure would like to help rebuild Scarlett down in Carolina. And of course, we need to keep Matthew and Mark working on them artificial legs for the soldiers, then...”
“Then? Come on Sam what else?”
“I would like to help folks with my money. I think if this gold strike amounts to anything I want to take a journey to that Dr. Mayo’s home in Minnesota. You know the doctor that helped your Pa in the prisoner camp, and maybe help him start a hospital or perhaps even a clinic up there. In that letter, he sent to your Mama he sounded like a decent feller. For some reason, I just figure he’s gonna do something great with his life, and I’d like to be a part of it.”
“Well said Sam, can I just say here and now, sitting in this hole in the side of the mountain, Sam Barr it is a pleasure to be your friend.”
“Ah, hush up! Let’s get some sleep we have a busy day ahead tomorrow, ‘nite William.”
“Good night Sam.”