Gods and Generals - Jeff Shaara [58]
They both heard the sharp noise from the small brass bell at the front door. Anna stood in the kitchen, heard the bell ring again, heard the urgency, the strain on the thin metal. She could not go, could not answer the door. There could be nothing good about a caller this early on Sunday morning.
Jackson hurried down the stairs, opened the door and saw: a cadet.
The boy snapped to attention, said with crispness, unsmiling, “Good morning, Major. This just arrived for you.”
Jackson took the envelope, saw the wax seal, thought he should wait and send the boy away, but he could not stop himself from opening it. He felt his hands shake, looked up at the boy, embarrassed, but the cadet was staring straight ahead, was not seeing, the good discipline of the soldier.
The paper slid out into Jackson’s hands, clean and white, and there were only a few lines, the beauty of the skilled pen. Jackson read the message silently, looked back behind him, looked for Anna, and she was not there, had not come out, and he knew she had expected this, had seen it coming sooner than he had, already knew what it said.
Jackson turned back to the boy, said, “Cadet, return to the institute. Give Colonel Smith my compliments, and inform him that I will be at his office within the half hour.”
The boy saluted, said simply, “Sir,” and in one quick motion was down the steps and gone.
Jackson looked again at the message, the neatly scribed words:
You are ordered to report immediately with the Corps of Cadets to Camp Instruction, Richmond, to begin the formal training and organization of the Provisional Army, for the defense of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
He turned, did not look for Anna, ran up the stairs to find his uniform.
Anna stayed in the back of the house, the kitchen, prepared a small meal for herself, knew he would not eat now. Then she heard him, the heavy boots on the old stairs. He called out, said something, she couldn’t hear it all, and then he was gone.
She walked out to the back, down the porch steps, looked across the yard, the new furrows in the clean brown soil, the bed of the new spring garden, waiting for the seeding, the new crop, and she knew he would not be planting it, that he would not be working his beloved field outside of town. She looked up to the porch, saw the cloth bags, the seeds. She had just bought them this week, had hoped to sit with him, to poke small fingers into waiting dirt, the beginnings of the new life, and she thought of him, the look of pure joy, sitting in the dirt, part of it, brown smudges all over his clothes and face; thick, caked dirt on his hands. He loved it, would ask her to sit with him, share the feeling, the good work with God’s earth.
She stood in the yard for a long while, lost track of time. She could hear noises drifting over the town from the big hill to the north, where the cadets were preparing. She could hear drumming, the hollow sounds echoing through the streets, and the townspeople, excited voices. She went back to the porch, sat on the steps. Looking up, she saw the spring birds flying past, circling, landing on the freshly turned soil, then away in a flutter, spooked by the noises from the street, and then she heard him, calling out in his playful Spanish from the front of the house, and she stood, hurried up the steps