Kemp’s Landing, Virginia
Am I dead?
Zeke couldn’t shift the weight of his eyelids. Images of the battlefield crumbled and floated in incoherent, disjointed pieces in his head. Buried? He breathed in through his nose. A gentle hand found his wrist. Not dead was good. Not buried while still alive was even better. Reassured he drifted away in a gray tunnel of slumber.
“Jedidiah Smith, Obadiah Smith. These were great men. Statues in their communities…” The misused word felt like a jagged edge as he drifted in the sleepy dream of his Uncle Eleazar pontificating on his favorite subject. It tickled him how his father’s brother polished off the glory of the Smiths every chance he got. How his uncle got from Kemp’s Landing to Yorktown puzzled him, but it would have to wait. Zeke was too tired. Once more he meandered down a peaceful path to sleep.
When he surfaced next his eyes functioned properly, but he wasn’t sure his ears were. He lay in an upstairs room of his uncle’s house in Kemp’s Landing. His four remaining friends from the regiment stood in a semi-circle around old Doc Jones. His uncle swore that somewhere deep in his ancestry Doc Jones must really be a Smith. How else could he be so good at his job?
“Will he walk again, Doc?” Moses Woodbridge the youngest of their regiment remained the most outspoken. He was always asking uncomfortable questions like that out loud.
Zeke tensed. Who were they talking about? The mist parted, and he realized it was him. Of course, he would walk again. He remembered the battle, the smell of smoke in the briny air of the York River. The rumbling of the cannon. Shouts of the men. Bayonets grating on metal. Running toward the redoubt when he stopped a ball with his leg. People recovered from balls to the leg. Unless they didn’t and bled out on the battlefield. It was already pretty clear that he was not in the latter category.
He rolled to his right side. The pain from his right knee stabbed the breath right out of his lungs. He fell back to the bed hoping the pain would clear before they knew he was awake.
“How’re ye doing, son.” Doc Jones appeared at his bedside.
Zeke squinted one eye open.
“That’s what I thought.” Doc pulled up a chair. “No doubt ye heard yer friend’s question.” He sighed while bringing his hands to rest on his thighs. “The answer is that I don’t know how well ye will walk, but ye should, after a considerable time of healing, be able to walk.”
Zeke allowed his lungs to deflate.
“How long is considerable?”
“Always cut to the chase don’t ye, son?”
“I must attend to my business, such as it is, and I have plans.”
“Plans is it?” Doc smiled. Before Zeke could dispute Doc’s assumption the old man continued. “Young woman, I’d wager. Time to get on with things now Cornwallis has surrendered?”
“Surrendered?” Zeke nearly shouted struggling once again to sit up. His compatriots nodded their agreement. “It’s over?” Hallelujah. He slumped back into the bed.
“It will take some time for the formalities.” Isaac responded in the cool tone of command. “I watched Cornwallis’s aide surrender his sword to General Washington’s aide.”
“Sent an aide, did he.” The men in the room all grunted the same assessment. Coward.
Talk stopped when Doc stood and gathered his bag. “Give it while, Zeke. Some of these things take a year or more to heal up. I’ll be back to see ye tomorrow. Eat something.”
No trouble there. Zeke’s stomach gnawed on his ribs.
Doc opened the door. Zeke’s mother led his sister, Tirzah, into the room. She carried a tray with a large bowl and biscuits large enough for two men. The smell nearly sent him hopping.
Mama’s eyes filled when she saw him.
“I’m gonna be fine, Mama.”
“Doc says it will take a good while for ye to heal.” His friends shuffled to make room. Mose took the tray from Tirzah and set it on a side table. Tirzah smiled and set her eyes on Zeke.
“I know.”
“But yer here.” Mama smoothed the hair away from his forehead.
He took her hand in his and looked directly into eyes rimmed with red. “I am going to be all right, Mama.”
“I know. Doc says it’s time for ye to eat something, so I brought stew and biscuits. Don’t eat too much this first time. It’ll make ye sick. There’s plenty more in the kitchen.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’ll see to him, ma’am.” Isaac motioned to Gordon and Mose.
“Be careful,” Mama exclaimed as his friends took positions on either side of him.
With a quiet signal to each other they slid him up into a sitting position. The stabbing pain eased once they let him go.
“I will be all right, Mama.”
“If yer sure.”
“I am sure.” He smiled at her.
“He’ll be just fine, Mama. If the Lord was gonna take him, He’d a done it at Yorktown,” Tirzah added as she put her arm around their mother’s shoulders.
She wiped the tears that ran freely down her cheeks. “I will check in on ye shortly.” She passed her fingers once more across his hair. Then she joined Tirzah and slipped out of the room closing the door behind her. Zeke mouthed a thank ye to his sister.
“She will settle down,” Isaac offered.
Zeke chuckled. “Ye don’t know my Mama.”
