For the Want of a Musket by Jerry Sciortino

Author:Jerry Sciortino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: civil war history and fantasy
Publisher: Jerry Sciortino

Chapter Seventeen

Toward Reunion: 1885

Time Heals All Things? The joker who coined that phrase didn’t know what the hell he was talking about!

Hunt finished the incised carving and silver wire inlays on the fancy rifle stock. He hung it up until the well-heeled customer paid what was still owed; and that would be the end of it.

He laid the burnishing tool down on the workbench and looked through the window at the rolling countryside. He would leave the business in the competent and willing hands of his partner. He hadn’t told Lonnie yet, but the shop and all would be his for whatever terms he and Sally could manage.

Hunt didn’t have the heart to go on working in the shop any longer. Every tool he picked up; every nick and mark on the work benches, could bring back memories of Will Parker, his friend and surrogate father. As always, when he cleaned and sharpened the tools or tidied the shop, his mind would escape into the Past

Sometimes, he could swear that he heard Amy’s voice or, the swish of her dress as she walked through a doorway. His eyes turned again to the scene beyond the open window. For a moment, he saw their little son and daughter, running and playing along the gravel path whenever Amy brought her men their lunch . . . so many years ago.

The trees turned their new green leaves toward the sun and dozens of birds chirped and warbled as they collected nesting material. A young couple walked hand-in-hand along that same winding path.

Spring, a time of renewal and rebirth; yeah . . . don’t I just wish!

Their children were gone now. His daughter left home after her eighteenth birthday to train as a nurse. Her brother married and now, he and his wife were heading West with other young people to settle lands far from Winchester.

It was my fault then and it is still my fault that our children left me as soon as they could. Maybe some twentieth century shrink might have diagnosed the problem before I caused irreparable damage, but there were none in the 1870’s.

Lonnie walked into the shop carrying his two-year old son, squirming to be set down and play in his fenced-in sandbox. Sally waved to Hunt from the seat of her buckboard and rode off. The toddler ran to the box and was soon shoveling sand into a bucket. Hunt had built it to keep the little fellow safe while Sally ran her errands and Lonnie worked.

During the first year or so after Appomattox, Lonnie had been content enough, learning a trade and developing the social skills required of a person who wishes to do well in a city environment. He succeeded and enjoyed a degree of popularity among people of his age group. But, something of his cheerful spirit had been drained from him; he became irascible and listless.

Hunt suspected what the problem might be, so he prompted Lonnie to write to Sally, the pretty nurse who had tended him before Antietam.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.