When the West Wind Touches Your Shoulder

By Perry Chandler

After the Civil War, many disillusioned souls headed west in search of a new start. It was a grueling journey. Yet thousands, with their pioneering spirit, persevered to reach their goal.

Is this book a work of fact or fiction? Could there be, somewhere along the Truckee River near the foot of the Sierra, remnants of a camp that was called Yellow Moon? Perhaps a few slivers of wood from an old wagon or a scrap of gingham or a button under a sage bush? Were the Dweller brothers real people? Did Berna and Nah-leah exist? Or is this whole story just whisperings as the west wind touches your shoulder?

The author leaves it to the reader to decide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543475128

Book preview

Copyright © 2018 by Carolyn Ann Martin.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2017919462

ISBN:               Hardcover                         978-1-5434-7467-1

                         Softcover                         978-1-5434-7466-4

                          eBook                             978-1-5434-7512-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 12/28/2017

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Author’s Preface

Chapter 1 Andrew Dweller, the Traitor

Chapter 2 Home Is Where?

Chapter 3 Winter Makes No Promises

Chapter 4 Blessings from Strangers

Chapter 5 The Blue Bench

Chapter 6 See Me! See Me!

Chapter 7 Prisoner of War

Chapter 8 Far Away, My People

Chapter 9 Step Lively, Pilgrims

Chapter 10 I’ve Seen That Cloud Before

Chapter 11 Marooned in a Sea of Grass

Chapter 12 Why Me, Lord

Chapter 13 Just Follow the Ruts

Chapter 14 And Then There Were Mountains

Chapter 15 If Stars Could Speak

Chapter 16 Yellow Moon

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Carolyn A. Martin (Chandler) is the niece of author Perry W. Chandler. Carolyn is retired and lives with her husband John and their dog Nicky in Springfield, OR. Perry gifted his manuscript to Carolyn, giving her permission to copyright and/or publish at her discretion. Carolyn decided to have When The West Wind Touches Your Shoulder published for readers of all ages to enjoy. Carolyn says My uncle and I worked together diligently to get his story completed. It brings me great pleasure to be able to make his dream come true.

DEDICATION

When the West Wind Touches Your Shoulder is dedicated to all writers, young and old who feel compelled to tell a story. The hours, even years the undertaking demands seems like one day when the work is finished

Acknowledgments

Appreciation is not a depictive enough word to describe the debts I owe to so many friends who have stayed the course with me as I struggled to tell this story. Word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraphs and pages finally became my book.

Thanks to the following persons and those I may inadvertently omit.

To my niece, Carolyn Martin who never wavered in her belief I would get this done. To many members of my family. To my sister, Lois Schilders. To my cousins, Jimmie Ruth Coleman and Sue Rodrigues. To my niece and confidant, Darlean Cornell.

To friends who were there from the very beginning, including Michael Cole and Charlie Clendennin who will appear in the next book I am working on.

To my Reno friends: Jay Davis, (fellow author and advisor and personal friend through the years). To David Basso, (author and publisher, who was born in Old Dun Glen of a miner’s family) To Nancy Barnhart and Warren Bingham who consented to my borrowing their names to bring two characters alive in the story. To Edie Coats-Bergerin, ex-neighbor and first to read the whole story and find it viable.

To neighbors here in Seattle, Mary Anna Mohrmanand, Cookie Schulz and John McIntosh. To Betty Ryan and Shirley Rogers, artist and poet.

To Noel and Carol Schoneman who became a permanent part of my chosen family many years ago and to their friend Karen Sanders who read parts of the manuscript and offered valuable encouragement and suggestions.

To Win Permin, co-worker and close friend who shared a special time of healing at a remote fishing camp in Alaska when the story was beginning to take shape. To Megan and Sofia Maki who are working hard on a special book of their own.

To my church family at Emerald City Metropolitan Community Church Seattle, especially Reverend and Pastor, Michelle Carmody and her spouse, Carol Detrick.

If my readers ever happen to be in the Reno, Nevada area I encourage them to take a day and explore along the Truckee River west of the city as it meanders toward the foothills of the Sierra. Perhaps there you will hear voices from the past.

I have heard, and believe the theory that the very first voice on our planet still reverberates around the earth. If only we could find a way to capture it we might begin to understand the joys and the perils of the long history of peoples from the beginning of time in our solar system.

Meanwhile, you may choose to believe, as I do,…that the grasses of the Steppes, the tides of the Seven Seas, and, yes…the pines and cottonwoods along the Truckee whisper lost truths that writers continuously seek to reveal in words of books.

This book is an attempt to validate voices, and dreams, caught in a specific time and place. In this case, the voices and dreams of the emigrants who traveled on the Lohman-Gruen wagon train in 1866, especially of those who chose to leave that caravan when they reached the Truckee Meadows and found Yellow Moon Camp on the Truckee River.

Author’s Preface

As early as the 1840’s, thousands of wagon trains transported emigrants across America to new homes in the west. They went on the trails to California or Oregon to replace the dreams they had given up on or left behind.

After the War Between the States, the disenfranchised, the displaced, the heartsick, the broken and desperate fled from their homes. It was different from before when the pioneering spirit prevailed in enticing people to head west. There was now the necessity of getting away from devastation war always brings.

They were confused, restless and reckless. The trek, for most, was arduous and dangerous. It was nearly 2000 miles from Missouri to the West Coast. It was estimated it cost between $700 to $1500 dollars to outfit a family for the trip.

Most wagons were small. A few travelers made the trip on horseback but many walked alongside the wagons during the day. Herds of domestic livestock followed the trains. They traveled four months across the Plains to reach the Rockies. The whole trip took five to six months, longer if conditions were not ideal.

They subsisted on flour, pilot bread, bacon, dried fruit, coffee, sugar, salt and vinegar. At Ft. Laramie, 100 lbs of flour cost $15.00. $1.00 would buy two cups of sugar or two cups of coffee beans.

The first emigrant train made the trip in 1841. There were 69 people on that train. By 1845, 5000 people were on the trails. The peak year for travelers was 1850. 55,000 went west.

It has been estimated that seventeen out of every hundred perished along the way. Cholera and other communicable diseases as well as accidents waited on the trails.

In September, 1861, a detachment from Fort Churchill on the Carson River in Nevada was sent to rescue a party of emigrants that had traveled on foot from near Salt Lake. On August 8, the caravan was attacked by Indians led by white men.

Originally there was a total of 11 wagons with 74 emigrants. The commander of the train stated that they were robbed of all their possessions, including their animals and left with only what they had on their backs. Apparently they chose to continue on their way on foot. They were on the way almost a month. Passing caravans assisted them as they were able. The total survivors were 54…22 men, 13 women and 19 children.

The story of the Westward movement has been romanticized in books and movie films. The journals kept by the emigrants tell a somewhat different tale.

It was a grueling journey. Sickness and privation took its toll on humans and animals. Yet, thousands persevered to reach their goal. Many prospered in the new land they sought.

Often it is difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. Statistics can be cold and tell only part of the story. It is the spirit that has the final say. The heart continues its work through good times and bad.

Is this book a work of fact or fiction? Is there, somewhere along the Truckee River, near the foot of the Sierra, the remnants of a camp that was called Yellow Moon? Perhaps a few slivers of wood from an old wagon or a scrap of gingham or a button under a sage bush?

Were the Dweller Brothers real people? Did Berna and Nah-leah exist? Or is this whole story just whisperings as the West Wind touches your shoulders.

I will leave it to my readers to decide.

Perry Chandler

Reno, Nevada and Seattle, Washington

January 26, 2016

Chapter 1

Andrew Dweller, the Traitor

He must have collapsed and lost consciousness. He dimly remembered being dragged from the battlefield; manhandled away by other medical personnel. He recalled fighting them and screaming at them, insisting they must save his brother. Andrew Dweller, Surgeon’s Assistant in The Army of The Potomac, had reached the limit of his endurance.

When he came to, on a cot outside the surgery tent, he was clutching a harmonica, his fingers gripped rigidly around it as if to protect it from all harm. It was like a dry bone grafted into his palm.

When he became somewhat aware of his surroundings he was on a bed inside the tent. His left wrist was handcuffed to the bed frame.

There was very little light in the tent. One lone lantern swung from the center of the canvas overhead. It was lit but its rays were weak and when anyone passed under it spectral shadows were cast against the sides of the tent. The light wavered as hospital staff or guards moved about.

It was all surreal to Andrew, the tent enclosing like a trap, the light flickering fitfully as personnel came and went. Once, when his brothers had put him on a horse that did not like to be ridden, he had been thrown by the fractious animal. As soon as they saw he was not seriously injured they had laughed. But, for a few moments Andrew was disoriented. He could not think clearly. This is how he felt now.

His wrist burned and ached. He struggled against the strap but made no progress toward freeing himself from its grip. He was too groggy to wonder why he was restrained. He was so weary, so confused that nothing seemed to matter. Nothing seemed real.

There was a guard, constantly moving to and fro in the aisle between the cots. Once, when in his near delirium Andrew threw his free arm across his chest, the guard came to the cot and peered down at him, then moved on.

A male nurse came. He complained, I wish you would use the slop jar. It’s right here by the head of your bed. Then he saw the handcuffs and said, Oh. There was surprise in his eyes. I didn’t know you were one of the crazy ones.

I’m sorry. It was the only response he could manage.

The nurse continued, Well, you could at least call for a bedpan.

He could smell the chamber pot. He smelled vomit and supposed he must have thrown up but, if so, someone must have helped him lean off the bed. He wanted to throw up now but was afraid he would miss the pot and be scolded again, so he swallowed and managed to hold off until his throat relaxed.

There were other odors, foul and persistent in the tent, pervasive odors brought in from the battlefield: sweat and urine and old blood. How familiar he was with them all. He never got used to them, the smells of war. The smells of unwashed bodies and all too often, of death.

They brought food. Andrew knew this by the rattle of trays. He could not remember eating. They did not bring medicines.

A different guard came on shift. He was sullen and slovenly. His eyes were dismissive. His ears appeared crusty with scabs.

How long have I been here? Andrew asked him.

Battle was three days ago.

What is this tent for?

For nuts, and traitors like you. They’s even a few Johnny Reb prisoners. He jerked a thumb toward the far end of the tent. Though I can’t think why, the rude voice continued. They’ll just get them on their feet and send them to Fort Delaware and they’re not apt to come out of there alive unless they are among the lucky ones who manage to escape.

After the guard lumbered off, Andrew realized what he had said and winced. I’m a traitor? Then it came to him. He had tried to help Ben, leaving the Union casualties where they lay.

"I am a traitor." The truth hit him. He pounded his head on the mattress. He had shirked his duty. Not intentionally, but no matter. He had tried to help a Southerner first. He would be court-martialed.

Suddenly he remembered that he had not been able to help his brother, either. Ben was dead!

#     #     #

He remained in the tent for three days. For the most part he was left alone. In his dazed condition that did not bother him. He drifted in and out of consciousness. He seemed unable to rouse himself to think, other than to know he was there and that it was not a normal thing.

At times, when he was sufficiently alert enough to comprehend his surroundings, he did know he was not the only patient in the tent. He remembered the guard saying there were Rebel soldiers there. But, he only remembered bits of things, devoid of sequence. He could not decide if what came to his mind was factual.

When partially awake he knew there was constant movement in the aisles. Cots were brought in and others taken away. Moans and cries for help seldom stopped. Often, when they did, attendants would come, place a sheet over the body on the cot and take the cot away.

Sometimes he would think clearly enough to feel he should be up and about, helping with the wounded.

Once, they moved a cot next to his and lowered a man onto it. The man began to beg for a cigarette. An attendant lit one and placed it in the patient’s mouth. Andrew heard him sigh. The sigh could have been relief or resignation. Andrew didn’t know which.

The man coughed his way through the time it took to finish the cigarette. Andrew dozed off. When he woke later they had taken the cot away.

Once, the lantern at the top of the tent became a dancer. Light shifted around a figure in multi-colored attire, colors like that of a Saracen warrior or for a flamenco performance. Sometimes the figures seemed to be female, with a naked, gyrating midsection. Other times it appeared to be a male whose boots gleamed as they slashed out at an unseen opponent. Whether male or female it executed a fascinating and frightening dance routine with arms akimbo, clothing fluttering wildly.

The dancer had no head, only a torso whirling as if in torment. Suddenly the apparition disappeared for a moment as if light had abandoned it. Moments later the figure returned and it was not dancing now. It was shivering and pieces of its costume began to shred. The brilliant colors began to turn rust-red and seep through the now tattered costume, dripping slowly into the darkness beyond the frame of light, like clotting blood.

Next the creature began to shake, violently. It spread its cloak like an opening leaf. A face appeared; a pale flower-like petal, pale and clean with no blood visible. Quivering lips parted, displaying dazzling teeth. A voice that seemed to originate deep in the stem of the flower said, Curiosity is not worthy of answers. Only concern will ever suspect the truth.

Andrew woke in darkness. Then he saw two figures move toward him. One carried a lantern. The other said, I think he is coming around. With all the tossing around he was doing I think he was hallucinating.

For the most part he just wanted to sleep, sleep and forget and sleep he did, lying in a near comatose state, barely aware of anything going on around him. When he was awake he couldn’t stem the flood of anger and futility surrounding finding Ben mortally wounded.

He kept thinking again and again about the wrenching days of battle and what was expected of him as a surgeon’s assistant. It had been his duty…it so often seemed to end up being his assignment to go onto the battlefield and make the decisions of which wounded would be rushed to surgery and which must be left to die, or survive on their own. He hated this part of his work more than anything.

Much of what he was required to do, was recurring time after time. A battle ended. Medical teams rushed their wagons to the scene. Then they worked without a break, often through the night until the last wounded man was patched up, limbs amputated, or bodies tagged for the morgue carts. Time no longer existed. Time was not measure in hours, or even days.

Sometimes one skirmish led to another. Only a cessation of hostilities provided rest. Only surgeons and aides who could inoculate their very souls against the assault of time could remain in the business for long.

Andrew never learned this art, if an art it was. Years later he could confess to himself that he was not ‘cut out’ for this daily routine of warfare, this slaughter of bodies and spirit. While he was part of it, however, to entertain such a weakness would be terribly remiss, tantamount to betrayal of his oath as a doctor-to-be.

Over two years ago…it seemed much longer…recruiters came to the medical school in Albany, New York. Medical students, even ones in the first year of residence, were instructed to report for duty immediately. Andrew and his fellow students took the train to Baltimore to be inducted into the Army of the Potomac.

At first he wrote faithfully to his mother back in Albany. He recorded battles and details of a soldier’s life. He attempted to make light of his duties. He described Falmouth and Yorktown, Eltham’s Landing and Chantilly as well as those unnamed in which his unit took part as if that was routine and expected. He left out the horrors he was beginning to absorb.

Men fought in churchyards, in orchards and pasture. Men died in lonely, tree-lined lanes leading to abandoned mansions.

At one site, Andrew saw a slogan smeared on the side of a dairy barn: Enough of War! But, it was not yet enough and at that farm the owner’s home had been burned and the milk cows rounded up and slaughtered to feed the troops. The tired and confused owner of the farm told him this while leaning over a fence that now was a barrier to little but loss.

Again, much later when the intervening years gave him permission to think in depth, he knew he was never a warrior. At least by then the shame of it had waned.

After many letters he realized he was telling the same story over and over. He lost track of the number and the names of the encounters between Blue and Grey.

In 1862 the Union forces edged ever southward until now, in the spring of 1863, Andrew and his fellow students, labeled Surgeon’s Assistants, found themselves serving, first under McClelland and then General Hooker. The Union forces moved into position to challenge the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia.

#     #     #

The corn field skirmish where Benjamin Dweller died probably never acquired a name. And Andrew did not write home about it. He could not put his anguish into words. He didn’t want his mother to know.

Even as the carnage accelerated, life away from the battlefields was disturbed but not totally destroyed by the fighting.

The land, for the most part, appeared to reflect only the age old serenity of the valleys through which the Shenandoah River ran. Below the mountains sleepy towns drowsed in sunny days and nights where moons made their pale transit faithfully. Morning mists sifted along the smoke blue hills, enveloping the beautiful countryside.

Children, armed with cane poles and fishing line with bacon scraps for bait, hurried to the brooks after school to catch ‘crawdads’. The brooks whispered to the rocks over which they ran.

Horses and cattle grazed behind split rail fences. Birds tended their nests; their songs were not reminiscent of war. God’s good earth refused to succumb to the evils of a conflict plotted and pursued by mankind.

But, the people, civilian and military, slept fitfully, waiting for the next zing of a mini ball from the thickets or the rupture of cannon as an army approached.

Had he been on vacation, Andrew might have marveled at the beauty of the countryside not unlike where he lived as a boy in Maryland. But this was no vacation. His eyes knew mostly dread. He existed, disconsolate and fearful.

#     #     #

War, more than anything else, is a disruption. The factors leading to war may harbor reasons, things traceable and logical to those who are intent on seeing conflict as the answer to differences. Once the hostilities begin the combatants have little time for reflection on causes. The bloodletting, the privations, the loss of personal direction of their days…the paralysis of will and spirit…no author has ever described them succinctly…no one can. The subversion must be experienced. And, when wars end, the disruption continues. There is no season to alleviate the perversion of will. The altering of former hopes and dreams is complete.

As for Andrew, tied down like a dangerous criminal, the hours unchallenged by meaning, there was more than sufficient time to seek answers. But, his consternation hobbled his reasoning. The facts, ludicrous as they were, became more and more stark, and dire in substance. He was heading for a ‘peck of trouble’ as his mother used to say.

Andrew Dweller, a now desolate and disillusioned young man, much too young for what he had been called on to do…tried not to think of the madness that had dispossessed his logic. But his thoughts kept lapsing back to the horror in the corn field…not lucent but hauntingly real.

The day of the skirmish in the corn field he was again assigned the roll of ‘selector’. When the shooting stopped, he left the tent. He surveyed the open space that defined the field. He was relieved that casualties appeared minimal. Perhaps a dozen soldiers were down, all told. Three, in grey uniforms, lay at some distance across the stubbled fields. Around a crib meant for storing the harvest come autumn several figures in blue sat or leaned against the shed-like building. There were stretcher bearers there; two pair. He saw one of them light a cigarette and hand it to one of the soldiers on the ground.

Are those the Union wounded? he called.

He skirted the north edge of the field to get to where they were. Before he got very far, he stumbled over the outstretched legs of a fallen soldier. He lay crumpled in the mud where a stream of water ran toward a creek farther away. The man was holding a harmonica to his mouth and playing softly. This startled Andrew even more and he swayed and almost fell.

The soldier’s uniform was in tatters but it had once been grey before the grime and gore that now covered much of his person made it difficult to discern the original color.

He lay on his left side propped against a boulder.

There was too much dried blood on the right side of his face to tell if there was even part of his ear left there.

Bleeding, originating elsewhere, had not stopped, however. It had soaked his jacket and the torn legs of his trousers. It had turned the trail of water in which he lay a mottled pink.

It took a moment for Andrew to concede he was where he was and what he was seeing. One boot had come off the fallen man. The stench of a foot that had no doubt been encased in the boot for days attacked his nostrils.

The harmonica playing wavered and stopped. He heard the man’s voice, raspy but calm. Well, if it isn’t little Andy.

Andrew lurched forward and crouched by the man’s side.

What’s the matter? he heard. Don’t you recognize your old brother Ben?

Andrew began to yell, his cries reaching the attendants and the wounded by the crib. Figures detached themselves from the group and headed towards them on the run.

Still yelling incoherently, he turned his attention to his brother. Ben was grinning, a grin so familiar to Andrew from years past.

Fancy meeting you here. Ben slurred the words but Andrew could make them out. He continued, You came through, didn’t you? My good little brother Andy. Could always count on Andy. You got here a little late but you actually came.

Andrew was now yelling, No! No! No! He reached for the front of Ben’s jacket, where so much blood had soaked into the fabric but Ben brushed his hand away. Andrew began pounding the dirt by his brother with both fists.

Take it easy, Brother Andy. What’s all the fuss?

Ben’s voice, low but strangely steady was almost teasing and the grin remained in place. His words and the grin made the occasion all the more maddening for Andrew, who kept repeating, No! No! No!

Ben lay back. Andrew huddled beside him.

Take it easy, Ben coaxed and then, How’s your mother?

Seeing Andrew’s continued distress, he continued, his voice hoarse and faltering now, Now don’t you go and cry on me, Andy. Don’t. Not like you used to.

Andrew was sobbing now, in broken, hopeless gasps. He reached again for the front of Ben’s jacket and tried to pull it open.

No, Ben whispered.

The attendants had reached them. They stood over them, silent. They watched as Ben handed Andrew the harmonica. Take it, he mumbled. Here, take it. I never could play the cussed thing the way you could. Play it for me now and again.

For a brief moment Ben turned his face toward the sky above them, stared intently into a blue patch of sky between restive grey clouds. Then his head turned to the side. He heaved a sigh and slowly closed his eyes.

Rough hands reached to Andrew and yanked him to his feet. He fought them as they tried to lead him away. One said, Cut it out, Dweller. Don’t make me have to paste you one! In the struggle he had kept repeating, But he’s my brother! Can’t you see? We have to save my brother!

He had kept hearing, until he passed out, Ben’s voice saying, You actually found me. You really did.

Andrew, being hustled away by his comrades, did not know when the color of the trickle of water turned brown. The last vestiges of a man’s life mingled with the muddy flow of the stream until the flow reached the clear sanctity of pure water, leaving no trace of the time or place it occurred.

#     #     #

On that last day, before they led him away to the brig, he recalled Ben saying, How’s your mother? Not, How’s mother? or How’s our mother?

It was then that Andrew, in anguish, knew how terrible it had been for Ben when their mother left Maryland, taking him and Hazel to Albany with her, leaving Bryant Jr., Benjamin and Ardith behind with their father.

#     #     #

The days he spent in the brig were torturous but he was glad to be out of the medical tent. The odors and sounds of suffering, the disregard of his physical needs had become nearly intolerable. At least here, alone in his cell, he could give vent to his emotions unseen. The guards went about their duties as if he was merely another prisoner to bring food to. He did not try to strike up a conversation.

He was glad to be away from the surly guard on the night shift in the hospital tent, whose last words to him had been, Your goose is cooked. One of our boys died in that corn field while you were trying to save a Johnny Reb.

He waited, knowing they would be calling him out to face what he had done. It was inevitable. He mostly lay on his cot with his face turned to the wall and tried not to think of that day, that hour they would come for him.

Chapter 2

Home Is Where?

The train from Spotsylvania to Baltimore was a night run. There were mostly civilians in the passenger car. Occasionally a soldier would walk through the car as if checking for any possible trouble brewing. However, all was quiet along the route to Baltimore.

There were two wounded Union soldiers in the coach and one of them seemed eager to talk but Andrew closed his eyes and pretended to sleep before the train left the station.

He was not interested in their story. He had a story of his own; one he was not inclined to share with anyone. He did not want to hear any other soldiers’ stories about what battles they had been in or how they were injured or whether they were going home for good.

He wanted to sleep and shut out the voices of the other passengers.

The trip did not start out well. They were barely out of the station when he heard shuffling of shoes and opened his eyes. A boy of about ten stood in the aisle, peering at him.

When Andrew returned his stare he said, Are you all right? You don’t look so good. Are you going home on sick leave?

I’m going home. Andrew responded. He noticed a woman he presumed was the boy’s mother sitting across the aisle. She seemed worried and kept looking out the window as if she thought a horde of Confederate bad men might swoop down on the train and kill her.

Did you get wounded? I don’t see any blood or even a bandage.

Why was he answering this child? No, he mumbled. Then added, Yes. Yes, I did. He was amazed to hear himself say this but realized for the first time that what had happened was indeed a wound; a mental disaster.

The boy opened his mouth to say something else but Andrew raised a hand and stopped him. I’d like to sleep now. Please.

The woman across the aisle said, That’s enough, Edgar. Can’t you see the man is tired?

The boy sighed and slouched across the aisle and sat down hard, as if to express displeasure. I didn’t see any wounds, he said, sounding disappointed.

That will be quite enough, Edgar. Don’t make me have to tell you again. And stop pouting, his mother whispered.

He’s a funny one. That’s all I know.

Edgar!

Edgar crossed his arms over his chubby mid-section and fell silent. He was pouting, however.

Andrew turned and wedged his side against the window casing and tried to lie back but the headrest shook with every sway of the car on the track. He tried to make out the countryside through which they were traveling but night had turned the slopes, dotted with trees, into a black morass that could indeed harbor a host of enemies.

There were few passengers in the coach. Besides himself there was a couple of young women conversing in low tones, an elderly man who looked like an English Lord, in tweed and fine leather boots, the mother and her inquisitive son and the two wounded Union soldiers.

As much as he would have liked to sleep he knew he was too uptight. His emotions, unlike the pokey train he was on, were more that of a runaway engine; an escapee that may have already passed its destination but could not stop to investigate.

Knowing his emotions had dealt him a losing hand of late he began to think about how debilitating mental reactions can be. How the brain seems able to take over the rest of the body, dictating how a person responds in a crisis; especially a crisis as unexpected and haunting as when he found Ben mortally wounded after the battle in the field.

He believed now that emotions, how you feel about