Velda Brotherton

Hard Way Home
Jacob lifted the stub of a pencil from his leather bound journal and leaned against a fallen log. Around him men snored or cried out in their sleep, tortured by memories of the day’s battle. In the flickering firelight he read the scrawled words, nodded and wrapped the book and pencil in oilcloth before stowing them in his knapsack.
The night settled uneasily around his shoulders. A horn of a golden moon peeked through a scud of autumn clouds to cast dappled shadows on the ground. Leaves fell in the wake of a gentle wind, rustling in whispers around the exhausted troop. Sounded near peaceful. Hard to believe a war raged.
"Writing to your woman?" Major Ames asked.
The man’s silent approach sent a shudder through Jacob. Could have been some damn Yank, come to shoot his head clean off, and him not hearing till it was too late. The major’s gauntness, touched by the play of light and darkness, made him out to be more a ghost than a man. Like the rest of them, he looked and smelled as if he hadn’t bathed in months. Course, he hadn’t.
"Don’t reckon letter writing’d do much good," Jacob said, too shy to tell the major he was keeping a journal of this war.
"You’re from Arkansas, ain’t you?" The major squatted next to Jacob and rested his Colt carbine across the nearby log.
"Yes, sir. Fayetteville, sir."
"A far piece from Richmond."
He was silent a moment and Jacob offered nothing. Loneliness needed no words between men who had marched this land killing each other and praying it would be over soon.