Chapter 20: Song of the South

Lou was never really sure when she decided she would kill the man with her bare hands if he didn't release her son at once, but she had a feeling he knew when the thought crossed her mind.

After a banshee-like sound erupted from her lips, she leapt forward.

When the man easily dodged her outstretched hands and retained his hold on James, Lou's voice was shrill, and not as threatening as she hoped, "Give me my son! Don't hurt him!"

At her shrieking, James had realized fully he had no recollection of the man holding him and started screaming in terror, a sound that drove like a fist into Lou's stomach.

"Give him to me!" She screamed in a panic, blinded by tears with her arms outstretched, "Give me my son! I'll kill you if you harm him! Give him to me now!"

She leapt for him again, and this time succeeded in wrenching the tiny figure from his hands. James still screamed as Lou pulled his trembling form to her body, holding him so tightly that he squirmed in discomfort.

Looking into her eyes, the man seemed to think better of advancing on her, and instead stood rooted by the cradle.

A lioness, he thought, protecting her cub. He found himself looking into her flaming, suddenly dry eyes. She seemed to draw strength from the boy in her arms, and drew herself up, more in possession of herself under his bold stare.

"Who the Hell are you!" She demanded angrily, inching toward the door, and turning sideways to put herself between her son and the stranger, her eyes however-those sharp, furious eyes-never left him.

"Who the Hell are you?" He returned, with equal outrage.

"Get out!" Lou suddenly growled, "Get out of this house right now!"

"You wait a damn minute," He shook his head and took a step toward her, brow furrowed in anger when Kid burst through the door. In a split second he observed his pale wife, clinging to their trembling son, and the man that had moved toward her, and stood between her and the cradle. He did not ask for explanations.

The man didn't really have time to react as Kid rushed him and tackled him hard, sending him falling backwards onto the cradle, and crushing it under his considerable weight.

"Who are you? Did you hurt my son?" Kid's voice was thick with fury as he swung at the man underneath him.

Catherine instantly went to Lou, after a shocked look at the booted feet protruding from under Kid's berserk form, and tried to lead her from the room, but she shook her head softly.

The baby was still screaming, and so Catherine at least tried to take him from Lou's grasp, but she snapped, "No!" and Catherine helplessly dropped her hands to her sides, and watched the scuffle in the middle of the cheerful yellow room.

Teaspoon and Buck were slowly succeeding in pulling Kid off of the form that was only now gaining enough sense to try and fight back in rage. Jonathan arrived last, having searched the house for more intruders, and went to help Teaspoon and Buck.

"Stop!" his authoritative voice had an effect on Kid that the hands of Teaspoon and Buck had not, and he paused in his swinging, as did the man below him, and turned to look at Jonathan in irritation for stopping him.

"Hello Johnny," the man below Kid finally croaked out, "I'd shake your hand, but as you can see, it's pinned beneath me."

"You know him?" Lou asked incredulously.

"I suppose so," Jonathan said dryly, glancing at Lou and truly sorry for the scare she'd had, "This is Gabriel Monroe. My brother."

Lou heard Catherine's sharp intake of breath as she moved forward to get a better look.

Kid sat astride the man he'd just attacked in shock, then suddenly scrambled off, too confused to comment.

"Why did he attack my son?" Kid finally asked.

"Attack?" Gabriel said outrageously, wiping at his bloody lip, "I'm not the one to talk to about attacking!"

"I heard my wife scream, I know you had the baby!"

"I was just holding him!" Gabriel returned.

"Then why wouldn't you give him back?" Lou demanded.

"You should have seen yourself, Ma'am. You looked like you belonged in an asylum. Sounded like it too. I thought this might be my nephew, and I wasn't about to turn him over to a lunatic."

Jonathan sighed, looked at Catherine and shook his head, "I suppose we can make room for one more?"

Catherine went to her brother and flung her arms around his neck, laughing and crying with joy.

"Quite a homecoming you had, isn't it?"

"If this is the welcome I get after two years away, I suppose it's good I went ahead and got leave now."

Lou blushed when his eyes fell on her. She felt foolish now. The family resemblance was very obvious. Gabriel had the bright green eyes of both his siblings and many of his ancestors, and the sharp cheekbones and prominent nose as well. Although the lower half of his face was covered in a scraggly beard, she should have realized sooner that he was unmistakably a Monroe. A blush stained her cheeks when she thought of demanding the identity of one of the owners of the house she was only a guest in.

Gabriel finally smiled, revealing teeth that were white and straight, and much more civilized than the rest of his appearance.

"Don't trouble yourself, Ma'am. You did what any mother would have done thinking her child was endangered." He glanced at Kid and muttered, "And you too, I suppose. Didn't have to hit so hard though, did you?"

The wry humor was unmistakably Monroe. He looked at Teaspoon and Buck. "So when in the bloody hell is someone going to tell me who these people are? And you Johnny? Why aren't you off being a damn Yankee, like you do best?"

Jonathan laughed and smiled at his brother, shaking his head in slight disapproval at his foul mouth after years in the army.

"It's a long story," He sighed, and introductions were made.

After the initial wariness had passed, Lou found herself slowly adjusting to Gabriel Monroe. He was big, and his manners were somewhat crude, but he was full of life and tales, and laughter, despite all he'd seen. He reminded her of the boys...before the war.

When asked about the war, his face grew solemn, "Only a matter of time," was all he'd say, and when Catherine spoke out in defense of the South, he'd turned weary eyes on her.

"Cathy, my dear, I'm afraid it's lost. Ah, if only you women would have fought the war, then perhaps we could hold out long enough to win it. The men, however, are too tired. We need our peace now."

"Even if that peace is at the price of our land?" She charged him.

Gabriel nodded his head, "Yes. Even so. We just can't go on much longer."

Lou gazed at Kid, who was bouncing Jamie on his knee, but his expression was unfathomable. She wondered if he truly had severed all ties with his cause, if he was as indifferent about the war as he let her think he was. Surely it pained him to know his beloved South was dying slowly, but he didn't ever want to discuss it, insisting it didn't matter when Lou broached the subject with him.

Lou jumped and noticed Gabriel was watching her closely, with that green gaze that she was beginning to know well.

She raised her eyebrows in question to his stare.

"I was just wondering, Mrs. McCloud, where your sympathies lie? You are awfully quiet. It's my opinion that women are seldom quiet because they have nothing to say."

"You don't have to worry about me keeping quiet when I have something to say, Mr. Monroe," Lou said with a smile to cover the barb, "I support the Union, if you must know. Although these days, I mostly just support the war being over."

"Ah," His gaze darted to Kid with interest, since he knew him to be an ex-Confederate soldier, "So that's how it is? Made you give it up, eh? See who wears the pants in the family!"

The room got very quiet as Kid looked up sharply, and James gurgled with disappointment when the bouncing stopped.

"He was injured!" Lou spat out in defense of her husband, "and spent months in a prison! He couldn't fight!"

"He could now," Gabriel reasoned, "He's healthy enough. Healthier than most of my company."

"He'd be a fool to fight, Gabe," Catherine jumped in, trying to stop her brother's sometimes maddening persistence, "He served, then almost died in prison. He's got Louise and James to think of."

"Seems to me a man would want to fight so as to see that his wife and family had something worth living for," Gabriel commented, swallowing a shot of whiskey and looking over the rim of the upturned glass.

"Seems to me that a man's family should be more important than his cause," Lou returned sharply.

Gabriel chuckled at her, "You're a feisty one, eh? No wonder you convinced him to stay out of it."

"Enough!" Jonathan said abruptly, and turned a poignant glare on his brother, "It's not your affair."

He nodded and lifted his glass, "True enough."

But, when Kid got up and left the room a few minutes later, wordlessly giving Jamie to Lou, it was all too clear that the damage had been done.

With her cheeks burning in embarrassment for Kid, whose manhood had been so belittled, Lou excused herself and Jamie, and slowly climbed the stairs to their room.

She found him where she thought she might, standing in the darkened room, looking out the window. Laying a drowsy Jamie on the bed, she walked over behind him, and laced her arms around him from behind, laying her cheek against the cool linen covering his back.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?" Kid asked uncomfortably, shifting restlessly under Lou's touch.

"For what Gabriel said," Lou answered.

"You didn't tell him to say it did you?" Kid half-snapped in irritation and stepped away from her touch, bewildering Lou.

Kid turned to glance at her, and instantly looked back out the window, resuming his neutral tone. "Never mind. It isn't important."

Lou thought she realized what this was all about: the angry comments, the avoidance of her eyes, the sudden tenseness.

"You resent me, don't you? You resent me and James because you gave up fighting for us? You resent me for not being a quiet woman who had less to say on such matters?"

"No, Damn it, Lou. I resent myself for being a goddamned coward!" The words exploded out of him as his fist drove into the wall by the window.

Startled, Lou stood and watched him wide-eyed for a moment as the aftershocks of his revelation reverberated around the room. Finally she wondered, "What are you talking about Kid?"

"I'm talking about me being scared to death to go back to war, Lou. I'm talking about me losing the nerve and the stomach for it."

"You think the fact you don't want to kill any more men makes you a coward?"

"That and the fact I hid behind you so I didn't have to face the fact I couldn't go back. Even led you to think I resented you for it, I guess."

"Kid, I want to understand, but you ain't makin' a lot of sense to me right now," Lou murmured helplessly, lifting her hands.

"You know how many boys in blue I killed Lou?"

Surprised that he might let her in on what caused the shadows in his eyes, even when he was happy these days, she whispered, "how many?"

"I don't know, Lou. How the Hell did I get to a place where I lost count? I got so good at killing blue. So damn good that I had to shut out the fact that it was boys just like me under it. Only now...now all the things I didn't wonder about those boys...now it haunts me, Lou."

"Kid...it is war. It ain't your fault."

"Yeah, well it was my bullets. I'm a good shot Lou. I hit more than I missed. And when I almost lost you, I thought it was God's punishment for what I had done. I couldn't understand why I had been spared and rescued, given a chance to live. And all I could think when I thought you were going to die was that maybe it was all so I would feel what it was like to grieve, 'cause I had caused so much grief myself."

"Kid, I don't think that's how God works. And if you have caused grief, Lord knows you've felt your fair share too."

"Caused you plenty too," Kid observed.

"And I you. Kid, we've both hurt each other. I'm sure we will again before it's all said and done. I think that's just human nature and maybe the way of marriage. It's why we come with such capacity to forgive, I guess. You've taught me a lot about forgiveness this year, Kid."

"Lou...it ain't just that I don't want to go back to the fighting. Everything in me shrinks in dread from the idea of it. My blood run colds. My hands sweat. Lou, you ain't got a cowardly bone in your body. You don't deserve to be shackled to me, feeling like I do now."

"Kid, I ain't been nothing but afraid since the damn war started!"

"Lou, sometimes, my mind...I think I'm back there on that battlefield. And it's him or me, and I hate myself for always choosing him. Sometimes I can hear the guns and the canons, I can taste the dirt in my teeth and the adrenaline on my tongue, feel the smoke burning my eyes...and I can't tell if I'm in bed or on a battlefield. Sometimes it's the prison yard I get trapped in. It's like I'm fighting my own mind, like I'm losing sometimes. I can't shake the sense that it is real, that I'm there. I can't stop seeing all the things I want to forget I saw. That I caused, even."

"I saw a lot of that in the hospital, before the house was burned down, Kid. I saw it all the time among the boys I cared for. I even understood firsthand what was happening. Look, I don't think I ever told anyone this, Kid. After Wicks...after Wicks did what he did to me, I'd wake up feeling like he was above me. Happened all the time the first few months in the bunkhouse. Lucky for me, Buck was the only one who was a light enough sleeper to notice, and he never asked questions. Night after night, I'd sit straight up, heart in my throat, and hands clenched into fists, ready to fight air. What would you say if someone called me a coward, knowing that?"

Kid looked at her for the first time, his brow furrowed in pain. His own, she knew, but also for her because he knew what Wicks had done to her, and what it cost her to speak of him. "Wouldn't say nothing...let my fists do the talking," he said sheepishly.

She gave him a level look. "How's what is happening to you any different?"

Kid lifted his scarred shoulder uneasily, a gesture she recognized he'd adopted when he was uncomfortable. "Lou, I don't know when I'll trust myself to share your bed again."

She nodded. "I know, Kid. I ain't trying to rush you, even though I trust you to share my bed again. For now, I'm happy enough having you visit it from time to time. And it ain't no one else's business what goes on in our bedroom. Especially not Gabriel Monroe's."

"When did they stop? The nightmares about Wicks?"

Lou shrugged. "You know, every once in really long while, I still have one. But they started happening less and less the safer I felt with you boys. With you. I think you just need time. Time and for the killing to stop all around you."

Kid nodded, turned back to the window.

"Kid, the night that you had the nightmare in our bed...the one where you attacked me. What were you dreaming about? I always wondered."

"The guards at Point Lookout. They'd hold us under the water when we drank sometimes. A few times, I thought I might drown. In that nightmare, I turned the tables. Was dreaming I was holding a guard under. And I didn't intend to let him up again."

A shudder simultaneously ran over both Kid's and Lou's shoulders. Kid at the memory of what he'd done to Lou, and Lou with this small revelation of what she was certain was only one of a countless stream of cruelties visited on her husband in the prison.

"Maybe...maybe you could tell me about some of this, instead of holding it all in, Kid? That was a big part of me getting over Wicks. Or mostly getting over him," Lou suggested. "If you think I'm as strong as you say you do, then surely you know I can handle it."

"Maybe," Kid murmured, then looked into her eyes and gave her something like a nod to seal the promise. "I'll try, Lou. I promise I'll try."

This time when Lou came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his stomach, he let her.

Lou was glad he couldn't see the tears that escaped from her as she thought of her husband's gentle mind, torturing him constantly with images of the monster he thought he'd become during the war, the monster he was so scared he'd turn into again if he ever went back to fight.

"Thank you, Lou."

She wasn't sure if he was thanking her for the hug, the comfort, or for keeping him out of the war, but she found it didn't matter. She hadn't done it for thanks. She'd done it because she loved him.

Peace was restored to Monroe Hall when Gabriel had to go back to his regiment, and although Jonathan loved him, he was glad for the tension that left the house with him. No more had been said about Kid's not fighting, but there was bad blood between the two after that first night in the sitting room.

Teaspoon and Buck announced in May their intention to travel back to Rock Creek. When Catherine protested, Teaspoon hugged her tightly and informed her, "Miss Monroe, you've been more gracious than we could have dared hope anyone to be, but we've taken advantage of your hospitality and resources too long. We've got business back in Rock Creek, and people there that have looked after our affairs for over a year. We have to go."

Lou had also wondered about the danger of passing through the lines, but Teaspoon shook his head, "The fighting is mostly to the South now. We'll go North, and travel to Chicago, and ride from there."

And with the plans made, it seemed to be no time at all until Jonathan, Catherine, Lou, Kid, and James prepared to bid Buck and Teaspoon goodbye.

Teaspoon held James up, and Jamie laughed and reached to pat his cheeks and then give him a dozen open mouthed kisses on his stubbled face. Teaspoon was very fond of the boy, and the boy him, and Lou could see the traces of tears in the older man's eyes when he gave the baby back to his father.

"Maybe it won't be too long till we see you out West," He said gruffly as he embraced Kid.

Lou cried bitterly as she stepped into Buck's arms. He held her tightly for a long time, reassuring her that the war would be over soon and they could come back. Lou's sobbing grew louder when Teaspoon took her into his embrace.

They were the last pieces of home outside of each other that Kid and Lou had, and already being horribly homesick, it broke Lou's heart to watch them go.

She stepped back and brought herself under control, gladly taking James, who Kid knew would comfort her.

Teaspoon and Buck mounted to ride away before Lou stepped forward, looking up at them with a tumultuous smile.

"Thank you both…so much, for all you've done. I'm so sorry I drug you so far away, for so long," she had to pause when her voice began trembling.

Teaspoon reached down to lay a hand against her cheek, "We don't regret it for a minute," His gaze flicked to Kid, then back to Lou, "You were right. And you were brave. And we would have followed you anywhere, no matter how far away it was, and no matter how long we'd be gone. And if we had to do it again, we would in a heartbeat."

Lou nodded and turned to kiss his hand. She reached for Buck's as he rode away and kissed it as well.

"Ride Safe," Kid and Lou cried in unison, before they were out of earshot.

"Always do," Buck cried back, "We'll keep the home fires burning for you!"

With additional shouts and well wishes from Jonathan, Lou, Kid, and Catherine, Teaspoon and Buck disappeared down the drive.

Lou felt a slow panic working it's way into her stomach to be alone here, just her and Kid in the middle of a war that could go on indefinitely. They could have really gone home, but had discussed it at length, and decided with the unpredictable path of two armies between them and home, and a baby, they dared not risk it.

Kid wrapped his arms around Lou and James and squeezed hard, "It won't be long before the war is over."

By most standards, Kid was wrong in his prediction that it would not be long before the war was over. The summer and fall of 1864 drug by, as did the winter of 1865. Sherman devastated Georgia in his March to the Sea as the Union plunged further and further into the heart of the South. Blockade runners had been choked out by the Union, and there was not enough of anything, including food anywhere in the South. Only James ate well enough at Monroe Hall that winter, and he grew rapidly, as babies do. Several antique chairs were chopped to bits for kindling, and the adults of the plantation were noticeably thinner come spring.

Lou and Catherine were sitting in the kitchen doing some of the endless mending required of the plantation one rainy April afternoon when they both heard a horse coming down the drive fast. They exchanged a look of alarm, experience having taught them that trouble usually rode down the drive quickly.

"What now?" Catherine growled, tossing the shirt back on the table and standing up.

They met Kid and Jamie on the porch, and watched silently as Jonathan thundered up on his nag.

"It's over!" He shouted long before he pulled the horse up in front of the stairs, "It's over!"

Repeatedly, the words left his mouth, dazing the others, who dared to wonder if he could possibly mean the war.

When he leapt off the horse, rushed up the stairs and picked his sister up, twirling her until she demanded he put her down, then did the same to Lou herself, Lou allowed herself to believe him.

"The war?" Lou said dumbly, "is over?"

Jonathan beamed at her, "Yes. Lee surrendered yesterday at Appomattox. Remember the summer we went there, Catherine?"

"So, it's over," Catherine said dully, her eyebrows drawn together in pain.

"Yes!" Jonathan exclaimed.

"What were the conditions of the surrender? What will become of the Confederates?" Kid asked tensely. While he didn't think the rest of the Southern army would be hung or imprisoned as traitors, it was possible.

"The Rebels were discharged from the army and told to go home. They were allowed to keep their guns and their horses, the few that had them. Lee made a good show. Arrived in his best finery to meet Grant, and was a perfect gentleman. Damn fine man, Lee."

"Damn fine man," Catherine echoed, then turned and leaned her face against the large column of her home, suddenly sobbing.

"Catherine! Surely this is good news!" Lou murmured, trying to put her arms around the girl, but she was violently shrugged off.

"Catherine…" Jonathan began, "You knew the South wouldn't win long ago."

Catherine shrugged, "I thought I did, but I guess I had the hope deep down that we'd rise again, that we could hold out a little longer. And now…now it's all for nothing. Robert's death, the years of nearly starving, all those boys…gone, for nothing."

Kid watched Catherine, and in his own mind, the list continued: the burning of our home, all those men who died in prison, Ben Raymond, the Captain, Marty and Barney Weathers, the child I never knew, Noah. On and on the tragedies continued in his memory, and the futility of war struck home as it never had before.

He reached out to Lou suddenly, and she quickly came to him, wrapping her arms around his neck as he clung to her tightly, their eyes dry with shock.

A few days later the Monroes and the McClouds stood on a rise, looking down at the road below as the columns of navy blue filed past, on the way to subdue the Confederate capital of Richmond.

"Hail the Conquering Heroes," Catherine muttered bitterly, as they came on in an unending and undulating line.

Lou glanced at Kid, who for the past four days had been unusually withdrawn, his eyes too dry and his lips pressed grimly together. Now, however, they burned with tears, although he didn't shed them.

The company below had a lively band to accompany their victory march, even though the soldier's footsteps were weary, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home," "Yankee Doodle," and "Oh Susannah" rang out cheerfully, getting louder as the band approached.

The musicians stopped when they spotted the four adults and one child on the hill, staring down at them. Lou realized that she, Kid, Catherine and Jonathan, all looked to be Southerners, with her dressed in a borrowed hoop skirt like the one Catherine wore, and with Kid and Jonathan clad in planter's wardrobe. Lou took in her breath sharply, wondering what they could possibly want with them. Surely they wouldn't attack, with the war over and them the victors?

The answer was clear soon enough. Standing straight and tall below them, the musicians began the strands of Dixie, playing it slowly and sweetly.

Chills rose on Lou's arms at the gesture, and she glanced to see tears finally spilling freely down Kid's cheeks at the theme song of his beloved homeland. His lips moved slightly to the music as he silently formed the words to the song:

"Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton, Old times there are not forgotten, Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland."

When the last note had died on the air, the band saluted them sharply and bowed deeply. There was no mocking involved, only an attempt to convey respect and regret to their worthy, but defeated, adversaries.

Kid and Jonathan returned the salute, and the band marched on, to Richmond.

Finally, Kid wiped his eyes, and did what the song of the South told him to do. He looked away. Looked away from the road and the uncertain future the men marching down it promised and instead looked to Jamie, who was toddling in the grass, the soil beneath his son's feet the same soil that held his first steps in its keeping. Old times there are not forgotten, he thought to himself as new tears misted his eyes when he thought of the land he so loved.

The memories would be with him always.

"Let's go home," were his simple words to Lou as he swooped Jamie into a high arc that made the boy belly laugh.

Lou didn't have to ask where he meant. Virginia, conquered, was no longer his home, and never would be again. Gone were the sticky warm days of rolling green fields and lazy plow mules named Jeremiah.

From now on, Home was West. A land still unchanged by the hand of man, where the blood of a country divided had not soaked the fields. Home was a fast horse and a grassy plain and the great mountains stitched across the horizon, holding the sky aloft on their massive shoulders.

He looked at his wife, sunlight and tears in her warm amber eyes, tears for him because she knew he ached with loss and that which hurt him brought her sorrow.

Home was a strong woman who had ridden thousands of miles and united a family behind her, against all odds. Home was Lou.

Author's Note: Just an epilogue left to go. Sorry for the delay on this chapter. I reworked it, but the conversation between Lou and Kid about going back to the war was hard for me to get my head around. Still is. I changed it pretty significantly from my original story...what I had there before didn't feel right. Thanks for sticking with me through this monster if you are still reading!