Grandpa and Fred
When we stop for the night, Grandpa creeps off into the brush, and I hear a shot. Fresh game for supper. He clears a place for our fire and gathers wood, while I pick up pine straw to start the flames.
A rabbit cooks on a spit, and my stomach pines to eat, while Grandpa pitches our tent. He digs a shallow trench around it to catch runoff if it rains.
He brushes dirt from his small shovel. “Sky’s clear, but safe’s better’n sorry.” He removes the shovel’s short handle and puts both pieces in his pack. “Durin’ the war, Fred al’ys made me dig the trenches.”
“Tell me more about you and Fred,” I say.
Grandpa minds the fire and turns the meat as he talks. “When Fred was twenty, he went ta Lexington, Virginia. I was a sprout’a fourteen and Fred’s Shadow, so I tagged along. I didn’t realize having me in tow was a hindrance.”
“A hindrance?”
Grandpa chuckles. “Fred was aimin’ ta find hisself a wife, but he didn’t find one. All we found was a peck’a trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?” I’d much rather hear about Fred looking for a wife than me looking for a husband. And any talk from Grandpa beats the hound out of his silence.
“There we was, the two rawest turnips ever come out’a the hills. Fred walked right up ta ladies and introduced hisself. Didn’t know it weren’t proper. Got his ears word-lashed. Even got his face smacked once.”
Grandpa throws a log on the fire. “Then he spoke ta the wrongest lady he could’a. But she didn’t act like t’others done. Seemed kind’a took with the rough cob Fred was. Til her brother come by. Didn’t cotton one bit ta her payin’ mind ta Fred. Him and his friends was fancied up in soldier uniforms, circlin’ us, fists doubled, fixin’ ta beat the stuffin’ out’a both of us. The one snatched his sister aside, and the circle tightened.”
I lean forward, my hunger for the story rivaling my want of food. “What happened?”
Grandpa drops the tale like a crochet stitch while he forks meat onto our plates.
My pining for supper eases, as he picks up where he left off. “I heared myself a-prayin’ right out loud. Them fellers laughed, and one of ‘em clubbed me in the ear. Fred was on ‘im quicker’n a hawk on a woodrat. Could hold his own in a fair fight, Fred could. But three of ‘em jumped ‘im, and two others held me down.” Grandpa stops to chew and swallow.
“Then I heared a cough, and a throat bein’ cleared, and the circle backed off. This weird duck of a man just stood there. Them boys, cadets they was, sirred the man, helped Fred ta ‘is feet, brushed off ‘is suit, and lit out quicker’n dew in hot sun. Turnt out he was one’a their teachers. Major Thomas Jackson.”
“Stonewall,” I say with proper reverence.
“Afore he was called Stonewall.” Grandpa licks his fingers and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Took us home with ‘im. His wife cleaned the blood off Fred, fed us, and put us up fer the night. Fred didn’t find no wife, but he found a hero.”
“Then you and Fred went to war?”
“Weren’t no war yet. Us Kents was never much for fightin’. But war was a-comin’. Folks talked of it. Some talked one side, some t’other. Our house favored the Confederate side, mostly on account’a the federal government give our kin nothing but trouble years back.”
He stands up soldier-straight. “And we was Virginians. Ya know there weren’t no West Virginia back then. Just Virginia.
“So you wanted to fight for Virginia?”
“Not right off. It started when me and Fred met Jackson in Lexington. All the way home, over hills and through hollers, Fred talked Major Jackson this and Major Jackson that.”
He runs his fingers through his rough, gray beard. “A year or so later, war was takin’ shape. Slew’a men joined up, but us Kents was still just talkin’. Til Fred heared Jackson was trainin’ militia at Harpers Ferry, gittin’ em ready ta fight. Signing up was like a fever with Fred, the yearnin’ ta be one’a Jackson’s men. I was just sixteen, but the Shadow al’ys went with Fred. So we kissed Ma goodbye and trekked off ta Harpers Ferry.”
I could listen to Grandpa’s stories all night, but I’m so tuckered my mouth gives up a yawn.
“Time ta git some sleep,” he says. “I’ll clean the dishes.”
Crawling in the tent and stretching out on the ground, I give thought to home and my mattress filled with feathers.
I know wild night critters roam and hunt in the dark, but we have a fire. I feel safer here with Grandpa than I did in that second-floor hotel room with lighted windows all around and an oak wedge under the door.
