“You’ve told me many stories about how Howard settled Rumsey Valley, but not much about his brother.”
“Well, maybe there’s something to be learned from what happened to them.” Jack reached for the coffeepot and refilled his tin cup before going on.
“In 1828, my great-great grandfather, Tomas Rumsey, was still living in Connecticut, where his family had been for nearly two centuries. He had a scrap with his father about marrying the Hawkins girl, so he took his new bride and moved down to South Carolina, where he eventually bought a small parcel of land and took up tobacco farming.
“In 1830 they had a baby girl, and then in ’33, they had the twins, Howard and Frank. When the boys were nineteen, they both got an appointment to West Point and graduated together in 1856. By 1860, they were both captains, with Howard stationed in Washington and Frank down in Tennessee. Well, you know what happened in ’61. The boys met at the homestead in Carolina to decide their futures. Their dad, Tomas, was in poor health by then, and they came home only in time to bury him. Immediately after the funeral, the two brothers argued bitterly. South Carolina troops had fired on Fort Sumter, and Carolina had pulled out of the Union. Frank ended up resigning his Army commission and taking a confederate commission with a South Carolina regiment.
“Howard stayed with the Union, went back to Washington, and was later assigned to Meade’s staff. General Meade assumed command of the army of the Potomac in ’63, two days before Gettysburg, and Howard went with him. He was in the bulwarks on Cemetery Ridge when Pickett’s boys, including a South Carolina regiment, came so gallantly across that field. It wasn’t Frank’s outfit, but Howard had no way of knowing if his brother was there or not. After it was all over, Howard wrote a poem about it. In it, he said the Southern troops were the bravest men he’d ever seen.”
Dan sat quietly, enthralled by this new story, potentially a significant addition to his novel. “Jack, I really thought I’d heard them all over the years. Why haven’t you ever told me about this?”
“Kind of a family secret, I guess. Usually the story just jumps forward to Howard Rumsey’s trek west. He was a colonel by the end of the war. The brothers got together once again for a brief time at the Carolina homestead after the rebels surrendered. Their mother had died during the war, and their older sister had married. Howard got home first, and when Frank came back from two years in a Yankee prison camp, he was minus one arm-lost at Chickamauga. As the
“But that’s not the
“Nope,” the old man replied, pausing to drink his coffee.
Dan sat quietly, smiling inwardly at Jack’s habit of dragging out things other people wanted to know. After several long moments, Jack smiled in return, and Dan knew his grandfather was wise to him.
“So, anyway, I found out some years back-from a distant cousin on Frank’s side of the family-that this family reunion in South Carolina wasn’t entirely peaceful. It makes sense that after the war there were hard feelings against the local boys who’d served with the Yankees. With the twins’ parents gone and their sister married off to some farmer from fifty miles away, it was just the boys on the farm. That lasted about three weeks. Then Frank told Howard he wasn’t welcome anymore and to get out.”
“Weren’t they both owners-the father’s will or something?”
“Don’t know. But Frank laid it out for his brother-‘don’t want you here.’”
“What convinced him to leave?”
Jack stood and stretched his back, turning to look out over the lake and the sliver of moonlight reflecting off the water. Finally he turned back toward Dan.
“The hangings.”
“
“Maybe a half-dozen returned Yankees from that part of South Carolina. It seems the local boys didn’t take kindly to them deserting their state during the war, and although the sheet-head boys were just starting up, the night riders went after who they called ‘the traitors’ before they did the freed slaves.”
“And so Frank warned Howard to leave before he-”
“That’s the way it was told to me. It sounds right, although Howard never told my granddaddy anything about it. Leastwise, nothing I ever heard about.”
Dan considered this new information, new thoughts about his family running through his head. “So, you’re telling me that if this California secession issue comes to a head-considering what just happened to McFarland-we’ll probably see more of the same.”
“Men do strange things when they get an idea stuck in their craw and think they’re heaven’s choice for being right. Those choices aren’t easy, and ‘family blood’ doesn’t always count.” Jack turned to look at Dan. “You decided where you’re going to stand, if it comes to it?”
“You know my commission as a captain in the guard makes me a federal officer.”
Jack nodded slowly. “That’s the shame of it, isn’t it? So were the twins.”
“And Kenny Bailey was in the brigade, before he was killed,” Dan added, surprised that his thoughts had turned to his brother-in-law.
“Never did like that kid,” Jack said, “but it’s a shame he had to die that way. I told you, son-don’t underestimate these brigade boys. They’ve gotten a smell of their personal brand of freedom now, and they aren’t gonna turn loose easily.”
Dan was quiet for a few moments, staring into the fire. “People always seem to think that the lessons of history aren’t relevant to our time. But time and again, we repeat the process, don’t we?”
“It’s human nature. Man has got to stretch his wings, and we foolishly think that the people back then just got it wrong and we can do it right. We never learn.” Jack yawned, picking up his sleeping bag and shaking it out. “Well, young’un, this mountaineer’s gonna get some shut-eye.”
Dan sat quietly for a long while after Jack had curled up in his sleeping bag. The younger man studied the dying fire, breathing in the fresh aroma of the forest and enjoying the setting and a sky brilliant with stars. He turned to look as Jack shifted in his bed and listened as his grandfather’s breathing became deeper and more rhythmic.
Considering that he might actually have to choose between his American citizenship and the affection he had for his California heritage-particularly the tie he felt to his forebears and Rumsey Valley-he experienced a sudden foreboding and was surprised that tears welled up in his eyes. It occurred to him that the twins likely struggled with similar emotions as they were forced to choose opposite sides in the great American conflict of their day.
He looked again at the still figure, wrapped up in his bedroll, and thought of the mentor his grandfather had been to him as he was growing into manhood. “I love this valley, Jack,” he murmured softly to the night sky, “and all you’ve made of it.”
For eighty years the old man had been plowing fields, planting trees, hauling irrigation pipe, knocking almonds, and hunting and fishing in these mountains. Jack’s father and mother, grandparents, and Colonel Howard Rumsey, his great-granddad Civil War veteran and original valley settler, were buried not ten miles from where Jack now slept. And Ellen, Jack’s beloved wife of sixty-two years. And soon, Dan knew, Jack would join them. But the voices weren’t lost.
It seemed as if he had just laid his head on his makeshift pillow when a sound startled Dan awake. The light was barely sufficient to see, but the rustling in the bushes and the stomping on the ground grew louder, bringing Dan to full consciousness. He sat up in his sleeping bag and looked around just as three men in various components of military field uniform emerged from the forest and entered the clearing. Dan quickly rose, shedding his sleeping bag. He glanced quickly at Jack’s bag, but his grandfather was not there.
“Morning,” Dan said as he sat on a log, rapidly pulling on and lacing up his boots. “Early maneuvers?”
“Who are you?” one of the men asked. All three were young, and Dan didn’t recognize any of them.
“Dan Rawlings,” he replied.
“I said ‘
“Camping,” Dan said.
The man who had been asking the questions grinned at his companions and laughed. “Don’t know much,
