Along the Red Dirt Road by Jane Yearout

Author:Jane Yearout
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jane Yearout
Published: 2020-04-22T00:00:00+00:00

DAYS PASSED AS NOAH traveled unknown territory, always on the lookout for soldiers of either army. He avoided civilization. Without map or compass, his reliance on the sun's position led him in roundabout directions on cloudy days. Noah came across a road and followed it, eyes and ears vigilant for signs of troops. Rations held out for several days because he was careful in his consumption.

At one point, he abandoned the road he had been traveling after he heard horses’ hooves and rolling wagons in the distance behind him. Fearful of detection, he raced into a thicket and remained hidden as the procession approached.

Soldiers in blue stopped for relief near where he lay among rocks, and he overheard them theorizing another detachment was several miles behind, advancing as this bunch was toward Winchester. An hour's long respite enabled the troops to start back up again, refreshed. When they had passed, Noah retreated farther into the woods, attempting to keep the road in sight, but he could not. In spots, woods gave way to farm fields, so he ended up several miles west, dodging open pasture, tended crops, barking dogs, and people. He followed deer paths through the most rugged terrain and cut his way through vines and thickets with the knife given him by the boy who transported him across the river.

It was as he advanced toward yet another open region one morning at sunrise, he encountered a Federal picket post of a dozen soldiers. The soldiers spotted Noah at the same time he saw them and dashed after him firing and calling out for him to name himself. He plunged into a dense thicket of sumac bushes. Bullets whizzed by, slicing through foliage, and as he thrashed through the thicket, one bullet found its mark, slicing into the back of his left shoulder, shooting into his chest. Noah fell and lay still trying not to writhe in pain, create movement in the bushes, or cry out, which could reveal his location to his pursuers. No attempts to enter the thicket occurred, and the soldiers stopped firing. Noah heard someone call out, “Save yer powder! He's dead!”

Annie's hand flew to her mouth in horror. Tears streamed along her cheeks as she realized he was relating to her the facts of his own death. As she wiped her eyes on her sleeve, she looked over at him and saw his face was expressionless.

In an emotionless tone, he responded to her tears by explaining he did not die there in the sumac thicket. “It was later, Annie, and I have more to tell you. I know what occurred here. I was here.”

Noah continued. “The soldiers left. The sun became disagreeably hot, and I spied a stand of trees across the field at the bottom of a ledge with a stone wall at the top. This wall. I determined the trees offered shade. Feeble from exposure, hunger, and loss of blood, I could not walk, so I dragged myself across the field to the trees.

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