Christine

NTT short story

This is a short story for Kevin’s No Theme Thursday for 1/16/2025.

I trudged through the growing drifts, holding my infant daughter in one arm and the reins of the mule in the other hand. Christine sat in the saddle, slumped forward, arms around the mule’s neck.

The biting wind that blinded me with snow showed no sign of abating; rather, it seemed to be increasing, a pitiless howl.

All around me was darkness.

I lifted up my eyes and shouted above the noise at the unseen sky. I hoped God was listening.

After the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, we were dismissed to go back to our homes…or whatever remained of them. Yet we were the lucky ones; 250,000 confederates killed in action. Even more on the Union side. Hundreds of thousands…a million, some say…died of disease.

On my long walk home to my farm in North Carolina, I tried to exorcise the ghosts that haunted me. The nightmares, the scenes, friends dying in my arms. I could still hear the gunfire, the screams, the bugles sounding the charge as the sun dried the dew on the morning grass.

I wasn’t in a rush. I fished and hunted and slept out under the stars in meadows with the sound of whip-poor-wills. I tried to avoid people, just me and my little campfire and God. It took me three months to walk the 250 miles to my farm just west of Hickory.

I didn’t know what kind of homecoming to expect; after the surrender, I had written Christine and told her I was OK and coming home. I didn’t tell her it would take me from Spring to July.

But I needn’t have worried; Christine caught sight of me from the living room, and came flying down our long driveway, her long dress flapping, arms outstretched, crying, laughing. I hugged her so tight I thought I might break something. I put my nose in her hair and inhaled her sweet, familiar scent. I kissed her; a drowning man given air.

A year went by. The next spring, we welcomed our baby daughter, Rachel. She looked exactly like Christine; it was amazing.

But Rachel was the only bright spot in my life. The farming life, after all I’d been through, seemed stifling, pointless. Plowing, seeding, watering, harvesting…plus all the other irksome chores that never seemed to end…what did it all matter? I’d seen how fragile life was, how quickly it could be snuffed out. Dreams could die quickly; that “someday” could become “no day” with a snap of the fingers.

Gold had been discovered in California twelve years before the war. Sitting around a smoky campfire during the war, talking with the guys in my outfit, the stories crept in. Almost everybody knew somebody who had been successful, either modestly or spectacularly. But that was almost 20 years ago. Was there any left?

One afternoon, I was behind the barn, sitting on a hay bale, chewing on a tall piece of prairie grass. The mule…dubbed Cletus by Christine… was still patiently standing in the middle of the field, hooked up to the plow. I should have been out there plowing; but after my break, I just couldn’t make myself get up. What’s the point?

I heard a soft footfall and Christine slid in next to me.

“What’s wrong, Jesse?” she asked. She put her arm through mine. She looked out at Cletus for a long while, then me. “You’ve been different ever since you came home. You’re a million miles away. You used to love this farm. Now it seems you’re bored with it.”

My throat tightened for a second as I realized how much Christine loved and understood me. When I spoke, it was really the first time I’d explained what I’d experienced, what I had thought about walking home…the fragility, the brevity of life.

I told her about my dream of living and prospecting in the mountains of California.

She didn’t answer for several minutes. She stared past Cletus, past the trees, to the low rolling foothills of the Appalachians, fifty miles away. The afternoon sun showed the red in her hair and lashes, and also the beginning of some sun wrinkles. I’d known her since we were six. Finally, she spoke, still looking into the setting sun.

“Well,” she said simply, “if that’s your dream, I’m with you. As it says in the Good Book, “whither thou goest, I will go.” She stood up, smiled, and held her hand out to help me up. “Ruth 1:16. Just so you don’t think I’m making it up.”

We left in May, with a wagon, Cletus, and everything we’d need to set up camp. We planned to reach the gold fields just east of Sacramento by October at the latest. We were hoping by September, or maybe even August, if luck was with us. 

It was not. Everything that could go wrong, did. The wagon broke an axle in Idaho and we had to leave everything but the essentials. I built a sled for them, which Cletus dragged for hundreds of miles.

By October, we were in the high desert of Nevada, and still had the Sierra Nevada range to cross. As we climbed, it got colder and snow flurries began.

About a third of the way through the Sierras,  Christine said she wasn’t feeling well. She had a sore throat and a fever. The next day, she developed a headache and was sick several times. 

On the fourth day, we were almost to the halfway point when the north wind picked up and ominous dark clouds appeared. Christine complained she was itchy and when we looked at her, we were horrified by the red rash all over her body. Scarlet fever. Oh dear God.

It began to snow around sunrise and we trudged on. By sunset, we were in the blizzard, and I was shouting up to God above the howling wind.

By divine grace, about an hour later, I noticed a glow ahead. It was a few people with wagons. I walked to the edge of their camp and shouted introductions above the wind. They invited me in to warm my shivering body by their fire. By luck, they were headed to San Francisco, where Christine had kin.

The next day, the blizzard gave way to brilliant blue skies, but it was bitterly cold; way below zero. I touched Christine’s shoulder. “Wake up, honey,” I said gently. “We’ll get some breakfast.”

She didn’t move.

I shook her harder but she still didn’t move. I rolled her over on to her back. Her eyes were closed but I couldn’t see her breathing.

“Christine!” I shouted, shaking her. “Christine! Wake up!” I tried to feel for a pulse but my hands were so cold, I couldn’t feel anything.

In a panic, I ran out of our tent shouting. My stocking-covered feet crunched in the fresh snow. “Help!” I shouted. “Somebody help!”

Several people ran over. I was gently led aside as a man and a woman stuck their heads in our tent. When they emerged, their faces said it all.

They wrapped Christine in blankets to take her and Rachel to the relatives in San Francisco. They barely had room, as they moved all the stuff out of one wagon and used it to carry only Christine for fear of scarlet fever. But there was no room for me.

I hugged Rachel and kissed Christine on the forehead. I took a final look at my wife, caressed her jaw, felt her hair, desperately tried to memorize her face. Then they were off; I was alone with Cletus.

Days passed and I wandered through the pine forest with Cletus; it was just like coming home from the war, but now there was nothing waiting for me. My thoughts accused me. If I hadn’t dragged her up here, she’d be smiling at me the way she did when we made love.

I thought about what I should do. By now, Christine would be buried and I couldn’t take care of Rachel. I thought it was probably best for her to be raised by Christine’s family in San Francisco. Living out in the woods was no life for an infant. 

In retrospect, it was the worst decision I ever made.

I spent the next three years panning for gold up in the Sierras. I got a lot of flakes and almost two dozen good-size nuggets. It wasn’t a bonanza, but it wasn’t chicken scratch, either. I finally decided to go to San Francisco to see Rachel and her relatives.

Dressed in my new suit, I knocked on the leaded glass door of a large Victorian house at the edge of town. A well-dressed lady answered and I handed her some flowers. 

I removed my hat. “Hello,” I said. “I’m Jesse. Christine’s husband. Rachel’s dad.” She look startled. 

“Im sorry…who did you say you were?” she asked, obviously confused. 

“I’m Jesse Miller,” I said. “I’m Christine’s husband. Well, I was that is….until.. you know…” my voice trailed off miserably. Stupid selfish bastard.

She looked confused. “…until what?”

I swallowed uncomfortably. “Well, until she passed from Scarlet Fever.”

She looked at me seriously. “I think you better come in and sit down. Let me get you a cup of tea.”

I followed her into the parlor and while she was making the tea, I looked around. There were dishes and bric-a-brac and photographs of people. I got up and looked at the pictures, trying to see if anybody resembled my poor dead wife. I came to one on the wall and my heart stopped. Christine. With a toddler by her side.

The lady reappeared as I turned in slow motion. I pointed at the picture wordlessly.

She stared at me. “I’m sorry, I haven’t even introduced myself. I’m Cynthia…Christine’s aunt. Please sit down, there’s so much I need to tell you.”

The afternoon of the day the wagons left, one of the ladies riding in the front of Christine’s wagon heard a low moan coming from the back. She looked wide-eyed at her husband. They stopped, opened the gate and found Christine very much alive. It had just been so cold that no one could detect a pulse. Being wrapped in the warm blankets revived her, and her eyes were open. She weakly asked for a drink of water. 

She steadily got better on the way to San Francisco and by the time they arrived, her fever had broken and she was over the worst of it.

Cynthia hurriedly organized a search party to find me. But by this time, Cletus and I were miles away, clumping through the snow in abject misery. They never found me.

My head spun; I felt light headed, like I was going to pass out. When I felt better, I spoke. “Well is she here? Can I see her? Where is Rachel?”

Cynthia looked down at her tea with a strange expression. She didn’t meet my gaze. “Jesse,” said gently. “We all thought you were dead. When we heard nothing for almost three years, Christine remarried.”

The fainting feeling came on again, but I held it together. “Married! Well where does she live? Can I go see her and Rachel?”

Cynthia finally looked up. “I’m so sorry, Jesse. They’ve moved to a small town up in Alaska somewhere. Fort Something. I’ve got the name written down somewhere. They left three months ago.”

I fell into a funk. I lived for a year in a San Francisco flophouse. I spent most of my money on booze and gambling. I’d go to bed drunk, wake up with a hangover, and immediately have a few drinks to take the edge off. My flakes and nuggets were being used up at an alarming rate.

But nothing dulled the pain of losing my wife and child. I was so bitter, angry, dismayed that being drunk was the only way I could get through the day. When I was sober, I saw Catherine’s face in the wagon and Rachel curled up next to her. And now she was married to another man, living 3,000 miles away in some little town in Alaska. My soul was dark with self-hatred. 

One day I woke up with a hangover, but didn’t reach for the bottle. I toughed it out, got dressed respectably, and headed for Cynthia’s house.

She was surprised to see me. I could see her appraising me: my rumpled suit that was now several sizes too big; my sunken, dull eyes; my gaunt face. I’m sure she smelled the whiskey.

“Look,” I said. “You said you had the name of the town where she lived. Could you please get it?”

I used almost all of the rest of my money to book passage on a ship that was headed for Anchorage. It was not a pleasant voyage. Two miserable weeks of gray skies, towering waves, and frigid spray the few times I ventured out on the deck. The food was awful and I was seasick most of the time.

In Anchorage, I bought maps and asked about Christine’s town, Fort Weld. They said it was a ten-day hike if the weather held. They outfit me with everything I needed, including a massive .54 caliber Hawken Rifle in case I ran into any aggressive bull moose.

As I walked it occurred to me how much of my life I’d spent outdoors. As soon as I’d been old enough to carry a pail of water, I worked outdoors on the farm. When I inherited it, I was outdoors sunup to sundown. During the war, I lived outside for three years. My long walk back home. Walking across the United States. Three years prospecting in the Sierra Nevada. And now walking through this no-man’s land of Alaska.

It also gave me time to think about what I was going to say to Christine. How I’d callously let them take her away. How I missed the search party. Why it took me three years to even make it to San Francisco, and then another year spent in a drunken stupor. 

On the eleventh day of my hike, I climbed a small hill. Off in the distance lay Fort Weld.

The first resident of Fort Weld I met was a trapper. He carried over his shoulder at least ten jangly steel traps of varying sizes. As we met in the hushed silence of the snowy landscape, he looked at me suspiciously. “You lost?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m looking for two people. Here’s a picture. Do you know them?”

He squinted at the picture then back at me. “Sure I know them. That’s Christine and her little girl Rachel. They’re the wife and daughter of Charles Winston. Whaddya want with them?” The suspicious look returned. I mumbled something unintelligible and continued on. 

As I got to the edge of town, I began to run into more people. I stopped a guy carrying an axe. “Excuse me,” I said. “Can you tell me where the Winston’s live?” 

He also gave me a suspicious look. Apparently, Fort Weld looked after its own. He pointed. “It’s the cabin three away from the general store. It’s got the red door. See it?” 

I looked and nodded. As I drew closer to what was sure to be a complete disaster, my stomach contracted into a knot and I began to sweat. 

I didn’t give myself time to think. I went up to the red door and knocked. 

A burly man opened the door. He was wearing a tattered undershirt and suspenders. He stunk of sweat and whiskey. “Yeah?” he shouted. “Who’re you? Whaddya want?” 

I was taken aback. I hadn’t expected this. 

“I- uh… I’m looking for a woman—“ 

“A woman?” he shouted. “What woman? You mean you’re looking for that whore that I’m married to? Wait here!”

I could hear things banging around inside and shouted curses. I heard a woman scream, then cry. The man returned to the door and thrust a woman by the neck into my face. “Is this the one?”

Christine.

Her eyes were bruised and red and she had an angry welt on her face. Her hair was stringy and matted and she was painfully thin. She looked at me without comprehension as she was being shaken like a rag doll. When he stopped, her eyes were opened. Her face became radiant.

“Jesse?” she screamed. “JESSE?? Oh my God! Jesse!!” She broke Winston’s grip and leaped into my arms. She hugged me so tight, I couldn’t breathe. She showered my face, my neck, my forehead with kisses. She wept and shuddered. “Oh Jesse,” she cried. “I thought you were dead! I never tho—“

She was interrupted as Winston placed a bear-like hand on her and tore her off me. He threw her inside where she sprawled on the floor. A little girl about four or five ran over to her. “Mommy!” she cried. She consoled Christine by stroking her hair gently. My throat grew tight as I realized they both knew the drill.

“So?” Winston shouted. He poked me in the chest. “There she is. Now get the hell outta here before I beat the two of you to shit.” He turned to go back inside.

There were times during the war when I was presented with something so beyond me, so utterly foreign, that it didn’t even register until later that something had happened. My mind went blank; I don’t know, maybe it was a self-preservation thing. It was lost time. Like if the call to charge was issued, and I ran uphill towards a fence where guys in blue uniforms were crouched and everywhere were bright lights and puffs of smoke and guys on both sides of me fell screaming. I wasn’t even aware until later what had happened.

This was like that.

I don’t remember much, only that a white-hot bolt of fury went through me and that lost time thing showed up after all these years. I dimly recall people shouting as from a great distance and somebody under me and I was moving very fast; but it wasn’t until three guys pulled me off Winston that time resumed.

My chest was heaving and my arms felt like lead. Charles Winston lay in the snowy road on his back. His face was a bloody pulp and he choked and snorted as he tried to breathe through his ruined nose.

“Damn, mister.” one of the guys who pulled me off said. “You almost killed him. What the hell did he do?” The other two, as well as a dozen curious spectators, looked at me.

I didn’t answer. I walked over to Charles and pointed in his face. “This is my wife,” I ground out. “Your days of using her as a punching bag are over. You stupid piece of shit.” I kicked him between the legs so hard I’m pretty sure I ruptured something. He curled into a fetal position, screaming.

Three months later, I sat with Christine and Cynthia in her parlor having tea. Rachel sat in my lap; since that day in Fort Weld, she was never more than a few feet from me. She stared at me with a mixture of fascination, intrigue, and affection. 

Cynthia added a sugar cube to her cup and stirred it with her spoon. “So,” she asked, gently dinging the spoon on the rim of the cup. “What do you think you’ll do now?”

I looked at Christine. She was smiling at me and it was the smile I’d seen behind the barn that afternoon long ago. A kind smile, a warm smile. A few more wrinkles, a few gray hairs here and there, but I loved her all the more for it. 

I needn’t have worried about making things right; it was so Christine simply to be happy that we were a family again and to let the dead bury the dead, as the Good Lord said.

Christine answered as Rachel squeezed my nose. “We thought we’d start a ranch out in the valley. Nothing big, just a few horses. We both miss our country life back in North Carolina.”

Cynthia nodded and sipped her tea.

“And besides,” Christine added, patting her stomach. “Now that Rachel’s going to have a baby brother or sister, we want to give them room to grow. A place to be outdoors.”

She took my hand and squeezed it. A view of the High Sierras from a few acres sounded like heaven; and my prospecting days were over.

I’d already hit the motherlode.

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