Blue Shadows Farm: A Novel

1. Ambush—March 1865

9 March 1865 Somewhere in Mississippi Private Silas Starkweather rode with his head drooping, fighting to keep awake as the hot Mississippi sun bore down on his heavy, woolen, blue Union uniform. The reins hung slack in his hands as his horse plodded along, each step turning up a little puff of reddishbrown dust. He rode just far enough behind the mule team and wagon to stay out of the dust the heavy wheels stirred up as the team pulled the high-wheeled vehicle with but one locked wooden chest as cargo. Silas had quit thinking about what was in the chest; it was none of his business. The corporal riding a couple hundred yards in front of the wagon told him as much when he first asked. “Just keep your eyes and ears open and your weapon at the ready, Starkweather. That’s all you need to worry about. What’s in that chest is none of your business. All we gotta do is make sure it gets to New Orleans in one piece.” “Yes, sir,” Silas had answered as he climbed on his horse and checked his rifle to make sure it was loaded. 1 Ambush Now, as both temperature and humidity rose, Silas wished he hadn’t volunteered to accompany this mysterious shipment. At the time he held up his hand, he thought anything would be better than sitting in camp, doing nothing and wishing he was on the other end of the country, where the fighting was taking place. Or wishing he was back home in Watertown, New York, working in his father’s harness shop. He’d be sewing leather now, hard work to be sure, but at least it was better than just sitting, which was what he’d been doing for almost a month. Until today. At age twenty, Silas was tall and thin; gaunt might be a word to describe him. Since he joined the army he had grown a droopy brown mustache that curled down both sides of his mouth. His deep-set gray eyes stared from underneath the blue woolen cap that, with the rest of his uniform, was coated with reddish dust. The road twisted through the pine woods like a big brown snake moving lazily along on a hot summer day. Most of the time Silas couldn’t see the corporal, as he was always somewhere around the next corner. So Silas didn’t see his leader fall from his horse when a minié ball tore off half his head, but the rifle’s report caused both Silas and his horse to jump. He heard the muleskinner, Private Atkins , yell “Ha!” at the mules before he slumped over on the seat and fell to the ground, a minié ball passing clean through his chest. Almost simultaneously, Private Caldwell, who was riding shotgun on the wagon seat, fell to the ground, a hole in his head just above his right eye. His loaded weapon, without a shot fired, skidded into the weeds alongside the road. The mules took off at a gallop, the wagon with its light load clattering behind. Silas looked around and saw nothing, no movement, no sign of where the shots had come from. The last thing he remembered was a burning sensation in his head before he lost consciousness and tumbled off his horse into the dust. His horse stood near him, the reins touching the ground. 10 Ambush—March 1865 11 Ambush—March 1865 Four horsemen, wearing gray uniforms, emerged from the trees where they had waited since dawn. One rode after the mule team, stopping it a few hundred yards down the road. Another gathered up the corporal’s and Silas’s horses, but not before inspecting each of the Union soldiers to make sure he was dead. “These Yankees ain’t gonna do no more damage,” the first soldier in gray said. He spat a stream of tobacco juice that splattered on the uniform of the dead corporal. “Like shootin’ fish in a barrel,” the second soldier said. “Wonder what they’s carryin’ in that chest?” the third soldier asked. “What say we have ourselves a look?” the first soldier, the apparent leader of the ambush party, said. The soldiers pried off the lock on the chest, which was about four feet square, and stuffed what they found in their saddlebags. “Best we be on our way,” the...