could.
Jacob looked away, “We’ll get your dress sowed up, then go; I got sowing thread in my bag.” He reached for his kit bag, and pulled out needle, and thread, “Here, hold it closed while I sew it shut.”
He sewed the dress closed the best he could, “There now, we best be going to take care of your ma. This here is Toby.” He said, introducing the boy who still said nothing.
The three walked a half mile up the wagon track, up around a bend before they came to the girl's house beside the road.
Jacob pushed the door open to see the carnage inside the house, the woman lying on the floor, her legs crooked under her, and blood had run into the cracks in the floor. His heart sank at the sight. The woman had a bullet hole through her head, and blood spattered the walls.
The girl came through the door behind him, and screamed again when she saw her mother. Toby stood in the doorway crying at the sight. The girl started forward, and Jacob grabbed her, “Me and Toby will bury her, why don’t you wait out there by the well? Toby, take her out by the well, then come back, and help me.”
Toby walked the near limp girl outside, then came back to help Jacob haul her mother out to the garden. Jacob found a spade, and they took turns shoveling the soft soil, until they had the grave about three feet deep.
They laid the body into the shallow grave, and filled it in with the loose dirt, then they walked over to the girl, “You going to stay here?” Jacob asked.
“What will I do?” The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes, that made Toby cry again. The both of them stood sniffling, and looking to Jacob.
Jacob felt the load, a load he did not want, but there just the same, “You could come with us; I got a farm over to Arkansas. You could come live with Toby, and me if you want. If my ma is still well, she wouldn’t mind.”
The girl looked at the both of them, “How far is Arkansas? I reckon I would go with you.”
“I don’t know how far it is, but my sergeant gave me this compass to show the way. See?” He drew the little brass compass out of his pocket, and showed it to the girl.
“That can tell you which way to go to Arkansas?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Why girl, you just look at that little arrow, and those notches, and follow it.”
“Oh.”
“I guess we better be goin’ but first we need to get some food out of the house.”
“I ain’t goin’ back into no death house!” Toby looked at the both of them with fear in his eyes, his eyes rolled back, and fourth, the whites shining.
“I’ll go, you and Mary Lou stay here, and I’ll be back in a minute.”
He walked back to the house with Toby, and the girl looking on. He returned in a few minutes with a sack slung over his shoulder, “All I could find was some jars of turnip greens, and a little smoked bacon.”
“I hate turnip greens.” Mary Lou declared.
“I’ll eat’em.” Toby returned.
The three walked down the road arguing over the merits of turnip greens.
They walked for several days, camping by streams at night, and eating mostly squirrels, rabbits, and wild onions that grew profusely along the streams until Jacob caught sight of Sugar Loaf mountain. There was no mistaking the formation of that mountain, and Jacob knew he was nearing home. They came to the Red River, and camped at the wagon ford that led to Bialy Hollow. The next morning they rounded the bend, and the old farmhouse came into view.
The house was quiet as they walked across the yard, and up to the porch. Jacob opened the door, and there was his mother; his brother, and sister huddled into a corner. She had heard them talking as they came up to the house. His mothers eyes went wide when she recognized her son, and she flew to him holding him tight amid the tears of joy. His little sister, and brother clung to him, and wouldn’t let go.
That night they sat around the table eating, and telling of what had happened to them in the year that Jacob had been taken.
“I noticed that mule made it home, I seen him down at the barn when we come up.”
“Yes. His mother looked at him strangely, “He was near dead, by the time he came limping home, we nursed him until he is about as good as he ever was, I thought you were dead when that mule came home without you Jacob.”
“Well…since he is healthy, I think I’ll turn that ground, I was wanting to plant corn in. It's too late in the year to plant corn, but it’ll be ready come spring.”
His mother looked at the young man who had left a boy in the year that God had taken Jacob where he did not want to go. Jacob had added to the Banning family, his heart remaining generous, his nights sometimes haunted.
The end
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