Evergreen Memory

Renata rested her hands on her knees and breathed as Jared settled to a stop next to her. He looked winded as well, but not as much as Renata. She’d always thought it unfair that boys seemed more fit for this kind of stuff than girls.

The storm winds rushed through the woods, pushing her in the direction that they had been running. They prompted her to keep going, but she couldn’t. She needed to rest. Her parents were right, she should have let Jared go it alone. He was faster than she was; he’d laboriously worked the fields while she’d washed clothes and made dinner. It was tedious work, but she didn’t gain endurance because of it.

Renata settled on the ground and wrapped her arms around her legs. She couldn’t be bothered by the state of her gown, ripped, wet, and splattered with mud. An impatient gust of wind whipped her hair into her mouth, and she spit out the grimy strands.

“Do you think we’ll make it on time?” she asked her brother.

Jared walked over to a tree sapling that had been shaped like a “Y” when they came across it on their way into the woods, but now had been molded to resemble a lowercase “h.” Jared had latched the longer limb to a fallen log facing in the direction of their family’s property.

For direction, he’d said on their way into the woods from their parent’s home. Don’t want to get lost in this storm.

“I hope so,” he said as he untied the sapling and then bent it in the direction of the cabin they’d raced off into the woods to find. It had once been the house where their family had lived when they’d first settled in Georgia a long time ago.

Renata gestured at the tree. “How did you know to do that?”

She had finally begun to catch her breath. She hadn’t asked about the tree as they’d searched their way through the woods. She’d been too preoccupied with the brewing storm and the ominous words the town messenger had spread through her tiny town. The British were coming, and they weren’t going to take kindly to a family of revolutionaries. They needed to get back to their parents and younger siblings, to evacuate them to the cabin in the woods.

“Remember Father’s friend? He took him out in the woods once and showed him his ways. Father told me about it. This was one of the things he showed him.”

Father’s friend was a Cherokee. She remembered a kind face and a gentle smile. He’d known a lot about the woods, more than Renata had ever hoped to understand. He was dead now, taken by illness.

“There are plenty more trees like this all over these woods, pointing to water and food sources. We shouldn’t get confused. Our tree is new.”

Renata wanted to ask more, but they didn’t have the time. The storm was pushing through the woods, and their family waited for them. The messenger didn’t tell them when the British army would be in their town to take requisition, but it couldn’t be long.

“Come on,” Jared said. He began his run back to their home.

Renata let out a deep breath and followed.

***

Smoke gathered beneath the leaves, searching for a way out into the clear night sky. The firelight reflecting off the trunk left the soldiers gathered around their cooking meal bathed in a warm glow. They were on some fool’s property, not that it mattered in a time of war.

Private Moore gripped his rifled musket as he eyed the darkness around them. A bead of sweat slid down the side of his face and dripped off his chin, landing on the lapel of his blue uniform.

“Would ya loosen up, man?” Officer Harlan said, ladling broth with bits of squirrel into his tin bowl. He pointed the ladle at Moore. “We’ve cleared this area. Ain’t no one around to ambush us.”

He was a portly man, and Moore often wondered how he managed to keep his figure when their unit spent most of the day walking, surviving on nothing but adrenaline and cigarettes. And squirrel meat. Still, he respected him. Harlan was the one who had helped him with his panic after his first experience with battle.

“Just trying to stay alert, Sir,” Moore said, glancing back behind him into the darkness. Was that a rustle he heard?

It really could have been anything. These thick and buggy Georgia woods liked to keep things hidden until they were right on you. It was a far cry from the mossy greenery of his hometown in Maine.

His friend, Private Jones­­—Jonesy, people called him­—pushed Moore’s shoulder. “Take it easy, Moore. You can’t stay on edge all day and expect to stay sharp. That’s why we have guard shifts.”

Moore glanced at their guards, who were sitting around a fallen log next to the tree playing cards. He gripped his gun tighter and looked back at the fire. He hadn’t always been this paranoid, but they were in Confederate territory, and the Southerners were nothing if not devious. Battle had made his nerves frayed and the last thing he wanted was to be snuck up on.

The tree his section of his company had settled under was quite rememberable. One of its thick limbs shot off the main trunk and dipped towards the ground, then sprung back up in the air. It created an archway that Moore could walk under if he ducked his head. There had once been an old and fraying rope that attached the limb to the fallen log beside it, but Officer Harlan had cut it. Men had rested their sweaty coats on the limb and laid their guns against the trunk. If Moore had been a kid and this his family’s property, he would have spent all afternoon climbing the thing.

His grip loosened on his musket, fingers throbbing from holding it so tightly. There was a familiarity that came with the tree. It reminded him of home.

There was a sharp crack, and a chunk of wood exploded off the side of the tree. Men dove to the ground and fumbled for their weapons. Moore, close to the tree, grabbed Jonesy by the sleeve and pulled him until they both had their backs pressed against the trunk.

“Holy hell!” Jonesy yelled as bullets hit behind them. Moore could feel the impact against the bark. If their ambushers had been on their side of the tree, they’d both be dead.

Their company was getting their bearings now. Half of them lay bleeding, but Moore could only focus on Officer Harlan who laid face down by the fire. Blood made his uniform turn black.

Jonesy had managed to grab his musket and held it close to his chest like a lifeline. “What do we do?”

Moore sat frozen; brain too panicked to think. This wasn’t the first battle he’d been in, but it was the first time he watched an officer die in front of him.

Jonesy looked at him, eyes wide and watering. “Moore?”

Why are you asking me? Moore thought. He hardly had anymore experience than Jonesy, and he was sure that Jonesy was older than Moore by a couple of years.

The tree stood tall and strong, taking the damage for them. It made him feel safe, even though they were in a very unsafe place. It reminded him of a time when his mother held him when he was young, huddled under their bed as a massive storm worked over their town. Deep inside, Moore knew his mother’s embrace couldn’t protect him, but he’d held onto her anyway, because her closeness provided far more than the illusion safety.

Moore didn’t know how much of the enemy surrounded them, but he loaded his musket. Jonesy followed his actions with trembling fingers.

Moore gripped his shoulder. “You’ve been a good friend, Jonesy.”

Jonesy nodded. “You too.”

Moore took a couple of deep breaths and then swung around the tree and fired into the night.

He didn’t know how long he lasted. He didn’t feel the bullet that killed him.

***

“There it is,” Elijah said, pointing at a distinctive tree a few yards ahead of them. It stood in its own clearing, canopy as wide as a living room.

Annie smiled at Elijah as she climbed off her horse, and he met her gaze briefly before looking away. He’d been shuffling his feet and scratching the back of his head all day. It made Annie nervous, but she tried not to think about it.

They were just outside of his father’s land, straying into the neighbors, but Elijah had informed her that he spent much of his childhood exploring these woods. So much so, that his father made a deal with the neighbors to clear out a portion of the underbrush and shrubbery. Her mother hadn’t wanted her only son to get lost. Or bitten by snakes. With Elijah’s nephews around, his family had kept up the tradition. That is, until Elijah’s father had been drafted to the war overseas.

The tree had become a landmark on the property. It was even rumored that a Civil War battle had taken place here.

She approached the tree and rested her hand on the trunk as Elijah followed with a picnic basket in his hands. The bark was thick and gnarled, and sap leaked out of the crevices. It smelled sweet and earthy.

She looked upward as Elijah laid a hand on her back. About three feet above her head one of the limbs splayed to the left and arced over the ground, pointing downwards and then back up.

It was odd-looking, and Annie felt the sudden need to climb it. With a burst of spontaneity, she grabbed the bent limb and pulled herself upwards. The limb was about three feet above her head, but she’d been on the gymnastics team in school, so it was hardly a bother.

Elijah looked at her with a smile. Annie had never known him to act embarrassed when she did something not quite lady-like, whether they were in public or not. It was one of the main reasons she liked him so much. Still, there was something behind his eyes that made her on edge; a heaviness that hadn’t been there yesterday, a tension that put the nagging thought in her mind that something could be wrong.

She ignored it. Elijah was an open and emotional man. He would eventually tell her about whatever was weighing him down. She gestured at him, and he sighed dramatically. He pulled himself onto the limb and settled on the hump while Annie rested her back against the trunk.

“This isn’t very comfortable,” Elijah said, shifting his weight.

Annie rested her hands behind her head. “It is for me.”

Elijah gave her a smile that sent a shiver down her spine. In another burst of impulsiveness, she grabbed the front of Elijah’s shirt and pulled him close for a kiss. His brown eyes widened, and he slipped down the dip in the wood that led to the trunk. He rested his hand beside Annie’s head to keep himself from falling onto her. She wouldn’t have minded that.

They broke apart, smiling with flushed cheeks.

Elijah swung his legs a little bit on either side of the limb. “Okay, maybe it is pretty comfortable.”

Annie laughed. She didn’t know what had gotten into her. She usually wasn’t this forward, but she couldn’t get rid of the feeling that she needed to grab onto Elijah and never let go. It didn’t help that Elijah looked away from her then, smile slipping away. The passionate rush they had felt had left as quickly as it came.

Annie gazed at the leaves surrounding them and tried to bask in the warm sun that glimmered through the canopy. It was a beautiful day, too bad it was hard to enjoy.

Something glinted in the wood between them. She leaned down and rubbed it with her finger. “Is this what I think it is?”

Elijah looked down and raised his eyebrows.

A bullet was lodged in the bark, stuck horizontally, like a submarine breaching the surface of choppy brown water.

“I think,” Elijah said, pulling out his pocketknife, “this is from the War Between the States.”

“Really? I assumed your father had put one over on me when he told me about the battle that had supposedly happened here.”

Elijah pried the bullet out of the tree and handed it to her. “No, it really happened. A small company of Union soldiers were ambushed. None of them survived.”

“That’s horrible,” she said. She held the bullet in her hand cherishingly. It disturbed her, thinking about what humans would do to each other to get what they wanted.

She could see Elijah watching her, and she braced herself, knowing that the time had come for Elijah to confess whatever it was that was holding him hostage. Annie turned the bullet over in her fingers. Deep down, Annie couldn’t kid herself any longer. She knew what he was going to say.

“I’ve been drafted, Annie.”

She squeezed her hand shut around the bullet and then tossed it to the ground. The words hit her like a train even though she knew they were coming. She didn’t brace for impact, because she wanted to believe in her heart that his words weren’t real.

“When do you leave?”

She loved him. She came to the realization the moment those dreaded words left his mouth. She loved him, and now he was being taken away.

“Two weeks,” he said. His eyes were watering.

Annie stared at him, and felt a tear fall down her cheek. Elijah lifted his hand and wiped it away.

He rested his palm on her cheek. “Will you marry me?”

Annie looked into his eyes. The stability of the tree behind her gave her more support than she would have thought possible. She shouldn’t have been as sure as she felt. This had to be one of the most unsure moments she would face in her life.

She was calm as she gave her answer.

“Yes,” she said.

He leaned forward and pulled her into a kiss.

Later, they both leaned at the base of the tree, enjoying their picnic. Annie knew that times would become hard, but she couldn’t feel anything but joy as Elijah grasped her hand in his, fingers intertwining. She lifted her left hand up and traced the grooves on the bark between them, where Elijah had carved a heart with their names.

Elijah Mathews

&

Annabel Harris

1917

She didn’t know what was going to happen, but she did know that here their mark would stay. Forever and always.