Govan shrugged, refusing to answer, his head bowed just enough that the water streamed from his hat brim.
Butler glanced off to the west, trying to see past the tree-clad hills, on beyond the Tennessee River, beyond the Mississippi, the lower White, and the far distant Ozarks.
Are you all right, Maw? Is Sarah? And Billy? Surely, like here in Tennessee, the armies will just pass and leave you to your own devices.
But now when he looked at the huddled refugees beside the road, at the forlorn farms they passed, the dark and empty windows seemed to mock him.
14
March 7, 1862
On that frozen March morning Sarah had just filled two buckets at the springhouse. She stepped out, turned to latch the door, and heard it: the faint crackling and popping sound was barely audible on the cold, clear air. It might have been twigs snapping beneath a heavy boot. A lot of twigs. Under a lot of boots.
She sniffed the air, watched her frosted breath rise, and started for the house. A curl of blue smoke trailed off to the southeast from the chimney top, hinting of the warmth inside the tight plank-sided house.
The crackling was louder now.
Sarah was sure of it: the sound came from the direction of Elkhorn Tavern, no more than eight miles away as the crow flew. For the last three days, she and Maw had known that the Federals were up on Pea Ridge. Not only had they seen small parties of armed horsemen cantering down the Huntsville Road, but Elias Hatt, their neighbor downriver, had dropped by with the news the evening before.
She glanced up at the forested slope on the eastern side of the valley, hoping desperately that Billy had enough sense to stay away. It would be just like him to let curiosity get the best of him.
Hollow booms—louder and deeper than the crackling—could now be heard. The sound didn’t reverberate the way thunder did with that low rolling; instead the booms seemed to bounce off the land.
Sarah stopped on the porch, her heart leaping. Through some trick of the ear the crackle seemed louder now, only to fade.
She rushed in, sloshing water, turning toward the kitchen. “Maw! There’s gunfire! I think the Yankees and Ben McCulloch are fighting!”
Maw wiped the grease from her hands, her face pinching as she followed Sarah to the door and out onto the chill-cold porch.
The distant crackling continued to rise and fall, sort of like devilish bacon frying.
“Where’s your brother?”
“He took off just before dawn. I reckon … I pray that he’s headed up to the trapper’s cabin to look for deer.” She swallowed hard, throat suddenly dry. “If that’s a battle, surely he’d have more sense than to head over that way.”
Maw narrowed her eyes; a series of louder bangs shivered the clear, cold morning. “God knows, girl, just this one time I hope he uses that head of his for something besides holding up his hat.”
Maw cast a worried glance up the slope, only to stop and squint. “Wait. That’s him.” She extended her arm.
Sarah followed her mother’s finger and detected movement among the trees. Something dark crossed the snow on the shadowed slope.
Moments later, Billy burst from the woods, coming at a run. Halfway across the yard, he called, “You hear that?”
“It’s a battle!” Sarah shouted back.
Billy, chest heaving, bobbed his way across the frozen ruts in the yard, his old rifle cradled in wool mittens. His face beneath his black slouch hat was red and flushed, eyes glittering with excitement. Puffing for breath, he led the way to the edge of the porch where they all looked to the northwest. There was more of it now, like a loud tearing of some brittle cloth.
For long minutes they stood, the three of them, heads cocked, listening.
Sarah’s heart had begun to race. That was war up there. Men shooting and dying. She’d heard enough stories of Oak Hill, up on Wilson’s Creek, where so many of their friends had been killed.
“Will it come here?” she asked, a sense of dread rising.
“Hope not,” Billy mumbled. “But I bet the Fords, Cox, Fosters, and all them folks up by the tavern are having a lively old morning wishing they was somewhere else.”
Maw turned. “It’s still far off, but Sarah, you get the hens. Billy, take the horses, lead them way up the creek path. Reckon we can’t do anything with the pigs but turn them loose and hope we can catch them again when this is all over.”
“Why, Maw?” Sarah asked, suddenly perplexed. “The battle’s up on Pea Ridge.”
Maw fixed on Sarah, her blue eyes like cold marbles. “Maybe it will stay up there. Let’s hope so. But what happens afterward, girl? That’s what worries me.”
She turned to Billy. “Son, you keep yourself and them horses out of sight. You so much as catch sight of soldiers, you take to the thickets.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Billy’s eyes narrowed. “What about you and sis?”
“We’ll be all right. They won’t bother us. After that battle yonder is over, you wait a couple of days. You don’t come back until after dark.” Maw looked around. “There’s that bucket. If it’s a-sitting on the corner of the porch, you’ll find the back door unlatched. And you pay attention here, Billy. If that bucket isn’t sitting out, you stay away because it isn’t safe, you hear?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Billy sucked at his lips, gaze fixing on the house and yard.
To Sarah it seemed as if he were trying to memorize it, to keep it all in his mind.
“It’s all right, Billy. They can fight all they want up there. Nobody’s gonna bother us clear down here on the river.”
As if to accent her words, something detonated in the distance. The sound echoed off down the valley like the clap of doomsday.
15
March 8, 1862
Spring, at least for the day, had come to northern Mississippi. As Doc stepped out from the Corinth post office, his heart was joyous. He had come
