Slow John Read online

  Slow john

  C.J. Petit

  PROLOGUE

  July 7, 1861

  New enlistee John Michael Flynn stood in line with dozens of other new soldiers all dressed in identical, ill-fitting dark blue, plain uniforms. Captain O’Rourke, the company commander, stood before them as they braced at attention.

  “Men, you have volunteered to form the First Battalion Nebraska Volunteer Infantry. It will be our job to relieve the regular Army troops guarding our home territory, so they may face the Confederate rebels. Now, before we prepare to leave, there are some things we must need to do.”

  He took a breath and shouted, “Céim ar aghaidh le bheith ina sáirsint!”

  There was mass confusion in the ranks, despite the continued rigidity required of being at attention.

  Private Flynn, on hearing the Gaelic, Step forward to be sergeant, stepped forward.

  The captain grinned, walked to Flynn, took some sergeant stripes from his pocket and handed them to him, saying, “Congratulations, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” newly-christened Sergeant Flynn replied, and snapped as good a salute as one would expect for one having been in the United States Army for five days.

  The other soldiers all wondered what had just happened.

  _____

  Two weeks later, the men were marched to the railroad depot and boarded a train. The locomotive belched giant clouds of black smoke from its stack and rolled east across the Missouri River bridge, through Iowa and then joined General Grant’s Army of the West for battles against the Confederates.

  The Department of the Army had changed their collective minds. They still removed the regular Army troops from the Nebraska and Dakota Territories, but decided that the need for the battalion in Tennessee was greater than the need to keep the promise they had made to the Territorial governor and legislature.

  _____

  May 21, 1862

  Mary Flynn was sitting in her favorite chair knitting a baby hat for her future grandchild expected in November. She had only been told of the upcoming blessed event three weeks earlier and had already amassed two hats, two pairs of booties, and a sweater, all in blue.

  “Mama,” said Dennis, the father of the still-in-the-womb grandchild, “you don’t even know if it’s going to be a boy.”

  She held her knitting needles in place momentarily and glanced at her son.

  “I haven’t seen a Flynn girl yet, Dennis.”

  He laughed, knowing it was true. His wife, Martha, simply smiled and rubbed her swollen tummy. She thought it was going to be a boy, too.

  The paterfamilias, Michael, wisely said nothing and just puffed on his pipe while he read his two-day-old Omaha Bee.

  They all turned their attention to the sudden sound of footsteps on the porch followed shortly by a rapping on the door.

  “I’ll get it, Mom.” said Dennis.

  Dennis stood and trotted to the door, and when he opened it, saw the rather somber face of Henry Drew. He held a telegram in his hand.

  “I have a telegram for your father, Mr. Flynn.”

  “I’ll take it, Henry.” he replied, pulling a nickel out of his pocket and holding it out to him.

  Henry surprised Dennis when he shook his head, then just turned and almost ran down the stairs, climbed on board his mule and rode away. Dennis watched him hurry off and wondered what was going on. He turned down a tip?

  He shrugged, and walked over to his father.

  “Papa, you have a telegram.” he said as he handed the yellow sheet to his father, who set the paper down across his lap as he accepted the page.

  “Now who would be sending me a telegram?” he asked rhetorically.

  Michael Flynn opened the sheet and quickly read it, turning white as a sheet as he did.

  Mary saw his reaction and asked hurriedly, “Michael, what is it?”

  Michael’s eyes were filling with tears as he said in a shaking voice, “It’s Slow John, Mary. He was killed in a battle in Tennessee.”

  Mary just shook her head, her knitting falling to her feet, the needles bouncing away.

  “No, No! It can’t be! Not Slow John! It can’t be!”

  He leaned across the gap between them and handed her the telegram.

  She read:

  When she finished reading it a third time, she let the paper slip from her fingers and float to the floor.

  “And I was so angry with him when he left. I never even wrote to him. I’m so ashamed.” she said before breaking down into a sobbing, shaking mess.

  Michael walked to her and sat on the edge of her chair and tried to comfort her. He couldn’t say how much the news had hurt him. Slow John was his firstborn and his favorite son. He had never written to him either, but solely because he couldn’t read or write.

  And now, Slow John was gone.

  _____

  June 1, 1865

  Kate Walsh watched the campfire in the distance. She could barely make out her family among all the other families from the wagon train. She should be back with her sisters and just enjoying being with them, but she just couldn’t seem to blend in anymore.

  She lowered her head and thought about how happy she had been to be reunited with her sisters and parents just a few months earlier, only to discover that she would have to join them on this trek to God knows where. She felt so alone.

  Just as she lifted her head, she felt a sharp point touch her back, followed by a voice.

  “You’re coming with me, Kate. You make any noise and this knife goes right through you.”

  Kate knew the voice and was shocked, but she complied. He pulled her backwards even further from the fire, his left hand gripping her arm, keeping the knife against her back.

  When he had pulled her far enough, he marched her quickly toward the river. She knew what he was going to do. The only question was whether he would let her live afterward.

  He finally walked her down the river bank almost a mile away and suddenly ripped her dress open. She knew that screaming would only get her killed, but when he threw her to the ground, she still fought, but he seemed to like it when she did. The more she squirmed and hit him, the bigger his smile grew. Finally, almost exhausted, he took her.

  When he finished, he stood over her and with a look of satisfaction, said, “Kate, I really enjoyed that, even more than you did, I think.”

  He laughed while she stood, trying to get her dress back to some semblance of decency. Kate thought he was distracted, and suddenly turned to race up the river bank, but he grabbed her again and as she struggled for her life, everything went black.

  _____

  Kate lifted her aching head and tried to focus on her surroundings in total confusion. Initially, she didn’t even know how she had gotten where she was. How had she fallen into the river?

  Then, as her mind cleared, the horror of the previous night exploded into consciousness. She pulled herself up from the muddy bank of the river and quickly began trying to reassemble her torn dress. That bastard had raped her and then tried to kill her!

  She felt the large bump on her head and was grateful that he hadn’t used the business end of the knife he had wielded. She drank some of the silty water and tried to get to her feet, failed and then waited until her head cleared some more. She wanted to find the wagon train and tell them all what he had done, and after another half an hour, finally managed to stand, and slowly walk from the bank, trying to orient herself but didn’t see any wagons anywhere. Where had they gone?

  She finally began walking, thinking they couldn’t have gone far. After two hours, she finally found wagon tracks and turned west walking in the middle of the twin furrows.

  For five more hours, she plodded along, not seeing any signs of human presence. She found a stream and drank a
gain, before she finally just curled up and slept.

  The next morning, she continued her search, walking westward, her stomach protesting as she put one foot before the other. Now, Kate was afraid after facing the stark realization that she was alone and knew nothing about staying alive in this empty land. She fought back tears and the terror in the knowledge that she would soon be dead.

  Just when Kate thought she was ready to succumb to the lure of dying, she blinked as she looked to her left. It looked like a house about a mile away, so she shifted her direction to the south and walked as fast as her weakened muscle would allow.

  Twenty minutes later, she was almost to the house when she saw two people, a man and a woman, leaving the house for a nearby field. She waved, but couldn’t shout. But the woman had seen her, and the couple began to run towards her. She began to cry in her relief. She wasn’t going to die, not today.

  CHAPTER 1

  July 12, 1866

  “Where you headed, John. The rest of us are heading over to the temporary officer’s club, are you coming?”

  “No, Edward, I’m going to go and see my family. I haven’t heard from them in five years, and it’s time I go and mend some fences.”

  “Good luck then.”

  John waved and walked to the makeshift stable, saddled his horse and rode south, knowing the route well, just not having any idea of the reception he would get at the end.

  1Lt. John Michael Flynn, United States Army, trotted his horse along the road to the family farm just eight miles southwest of Omaha. As he had told 2Lt Edward Baker, it would be the first time in five years he’d see his parents and three brothers again. He knew there would be a lot of changes, that was to be expected. He knew he’d undergone massive changes himself in both his mind and his body over that time, and knew his brothers would be almost unrecognizable.

  When he had gone to volunteer five years earlier, his mother had railed against his leaving the family farm. It wasn’t because the farm needed his labor any longer. Between his father and his three younger brothers, there was plenty of help. It was simply that she, like millions of other mothers around the country simply feared for her son’s life.

  John had pointed out that he wasn’t going east to fight the Rebels; he would be staying in Nebraska Territory to protect everyone from the Indians. It hadn’t mattered to Mary. She let her Irish temper take over and had sworn that if he did this, she would never write to him, and if he wrote to her, she would burn his letters.

  He still recalled the fire in her eyes when she had confronted him the last time as he prepared to leave with his rucksack of personal belongings. He knew that she meant every word as well, so it would do no good to write. But, he thought, because he was going to be stationed in Nebraska Territory, he’d be able to stop by sometime soon and try to get her to change her mind.

  But John had gone, and her stubbornness refused to let her apologize or to write to him. So, for five years, John had no contact with his family, and soon, he would discover if his mother, whom he still cherished, had forgiven him the mortal sin of disobedience to her orders, even though he was nineteen at the time.

  Soon, he would know. So, John Flynn was filled with a trepidation bordering on dread as he kept his horse trotting southwest.

  John finally spotted the family farmhouse in the distance. It wasn’t the biggest farm in the area, only forty acres, but it had been prosperous and had supported the family well. It helped that they never had to hire help after John reached the age of ten, and was quickly followed by his three younger brothers.

  His heart was racing as he turned to the entrance road and trotted his horse to the door. He stepped down, tied off his horse at the hitching rail, took a deep breath and walked up the steps to the porch.

  He hadn’t quite reached the door when it swung open and John found himself staring at a man he just didn’t know. He had expected changes, but this was beyond his ability to resolve.

  His brain tried to fit his father’s last image into the man standing before him and it just wouldn’t work no matter how hard he tried. His father surely didn’t grow six inches and replace his red hair with dark brown.

  “What do you want?” the man asked in a decidedly unfriendly tone as he stared at the young officer.

  John was beyond flummoxed.

  “Where is my father, Michael?” he finally managed to ask.

  “What are you talkin’ about? Michael who?”

  “Michael Flynn, my father. I used to live here.”

  The man’s face relaxed, finally understanding.

  “Oh, him. We bought the farm from the Flynns over a year ago. They went out west to homestead, but I don’t have a clue where they ended up.”

  “They sold the farm and left?” John asked, still in disbelief.

  “That’s the truth of it. We moved in on May 2nd of ’65.”

  John finally let the shock sink in, nodded, then unconsciously executed an about face, walked back down the steps, climbed up into the saddle and wheeled his mount back to the road.

  The man just shook his head and went back inside to tell his wife of the unusual experience.

  Once on the road, John had a lot to digest and even more mysteries to unravel. Why had they just pulled up roots without telling him? It was as if they didn’t want him to know where they were. Were they all that angry with him for going into the army?

  He still had two weeks before he mustered out, so he’d try and find out more information from some folks in town that hadn’t just vanished.

  As he rode east, he had a hard time adjusting to the new situation. For years, just like all soldiers had done for centuries, he had envisioned his homecoming, but nothing could have readied him for this. Even if his mother was still upset, at least he would have been able to talk to everyone and witness the expected changes that had surely happened over the years.

  He didn’t anticipate any great change in his parents, Michael and Mary, but his younger brothers should be men now. His three brothers, Dennis, Patrick, and Jack looked like brothers, only John himself looked like an outsider. He was taller and heavier by a noticeable amount, and not just because he was older. His face was more rounded, and he had sandy brown hair, like his mother, whereas his brothers had dark red hair. His personality was different as well. He was quieter and more in control. Dennis and Patrick were just good kids that occasionally indulged in harmless boy mischief, but the youngest, Jack, pushed those limits by doing some things that weren’t harmless.

  By the time he left, Dennis and Patrick were both good-natured and accepted responsibility, but Jack was still a bit of a rogue, still trying to cut corners and always getting into mischief. He usually begged out of any serious punishment, though. Maybe it was because he was the youngest or had a quick tongue and puppy-dog eyes, but most likely it was a combination of the two. Maybe Jack had made the biggest change as he was only fourteen when John left home.

  He wondered if any of his brothers were as big as he was now, but doubted it. He really wanted to see them again. His only concern was how his precious mother would greet him. If she was still angry at him after five years, and it was very possible with her stubborn temper, it would be devastating.

  He suddenly brought his horse to a stop as a devastating thought flashed through his mind like a forked bolt of lightning. What if one of his parents had died? He had always assumed that they would always be there, which was unrealistic at best. His father would be forty-six and his mother forty-five now. It wasn’t ancient, but a lot of things began to happen when you hit that age. The idea of not seeing his father or mother again gave him the willies, so he just shook the idea out of his mind and started the horse moving again. He decided to never think that again.

  Instead of turning north to Omaha and his brigade that was quartered awaiting mustering out, he continued east to Bellevue to get more information. Bellevue was the closest town to the farm, and it was where he had attended school and the family did their shopping. O
bviously, the strangers who occupied his old home didn’t know anything about his family’s whereabouts, but he knew that some of the people in town should be able to help.

  He’d want to start with the Blakes for more than one reason. Melissa Blake was his last girlfriend before he’d gone, and naturally, he’d spent some time with her at her father’s hardware store, so she or her father should know something. His family probably bought a lot of building supplies from him just before they left, too.

  Ten minutes later, he arrived in town and headed for Blake’s Hardware on Mission Avenue. He stopped at the store and stepped down, just flipping the horse’s reins over the hitching rail and crossing the boardwalk into the open door.

  He had expected to see the bald head of Hector Blake behind the counter, but instead glimpsed Melissa’s dark brown hair, and watched as she turned her big brown eyes and looked in his direction. But she just smiled and looked at him as just a someone entering the store without showing a hint of recognition.

  Melissa was flushed seeing the tall, handsome young officer. With the war over, and all those ex-army type flooding the area looking for jobs with the railroad, seeing young men in uniform wasn’t unusual, but the one standing in the doorway was something special. But there was something about him; something familiar.

  John blew out a breath and walked to the counter, with Melissa still staring at him, her welcoming smile replaced by a face filled with curiosity, her eyes almost squinting as if she was trying to figure match his face with a memory.

  He smiled and said, “Melissa, how are…” but never completed his question, as Melissa Blake’s eyes widened, rolled back in her head as she collapsed to the floor with a loud thump, followed by the scattering of metal as she took a box of nails to the floor with her.

  John was stunned for a moment, then raced around the counter and crouched down beside Melissa, the brim of his hat covering his face as he tried to revive Melissa.

  He had just reached her when her father, who must have been in the storeroom behind the counter came trotting outside at the noise and found an army lieutenant hovering over his supine daughter. Naturally, he assumed the worst.