“Yeah,” the ranger agreed, happy to be off on a fond and obscure subject. “In fact, a lot of people don’t know this, but the practice of embalming as a science really took off in this country for exactly that reason. They didn’t use formaldehyde back then, though. They pumped the bodies full of arsenic. But the point is, most of them who died here, stayed here. ”
“Oh. ”
“And out here, it was especially bad. After the fighting it took over a month for anyone to come this way for cleanup. ”
Pete winced. “Cleanup?”
“Burying everybody. It took ’em that long to get out here and get working. That’s why we really prefer that visitors stay on the trails or on the paved roads. There are places in this park where you’ll bust an ankle wandering around off the beaten path. The old graves collapse in on themselves after a while, and it leaves the terrain all messed up. It’s especially bad out between the trees, because fallen leaves hide how uneven the ground is. People think it’s all right, so they maybe wander back to see one of those smaller monuments hidden in the woods…and then, oh, no. Twisted ankles. Scraped-up palms. Trouble for everybody. ”
“Wow. ”
“Yeah. Wow. So you’ve got family who died out here?”
“Yes ma’am. And I’ve got these letters here. I’ve got copies of them, I mean. They belonged to my mother before she died, and I heard that the originals went to your museum here some years ago. ”
“Let me see those,” she offered, fluttering her hands at him in a gentle grasping way.
Pete pulled the letters out and handed them forward. “Do these read familiar to you?”
She examined them, holding them up so close that they touched the tips of her voluminous hair. “I couldn’t say for sure,” she eventually said. “We get a lot of stuff like this in the collection. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in leaving them here for a couple of days and letting me poke around some?”
He shuffled his feet and scratched at the back of his neck. “I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you. They were my mother’s, and she died not long ago. I could make you copies, though. Could I leave you some copies of these?”
“Sure you can. That would be great. And you know where else you may want to check? Go out to the university in Chattanooga. Their library has a collection of letters and things like these, and they bought out a few of our items a couple years ago. Check with them, and see if your papers ended up in the school library. ”
“I’ll do that, ma’am. Thank you for your help. ” Before he left, he stopped himself and turned around for one more question. “While I’m here, though, could you point me at Dyer’s field?”
“Yes I can, sweetheart. You just follow this road out here—right out front, you see it? Follow that up about a mile or three, and you’ll see the Dyer’s cabin on the left. It’s not much, but it’s still there. ”
“What does it look like?”
“It looks like a little brown cabin. You can’t miss it. ”
“Got it. Thank you, ma’am. ”
Pete folded up the pamphlets and stuffed the lot of them into his back pocket, where they bulged like a wallet. He went back out to his car and pumped on the gas and twisted the key until the engine gargled to life, then pulled out onto the smoothly paved road that ran alongside the visitors’ center.
Every so often, a smaller road would split off into a half circle, offering a place to park or picnic. Pete found one such turnoff across from Dyer’s field and hauled his vehicle away from the main thoroughfare.
With a slam and a kick, he closed the car door behind him and squinted across the field.
It wasn’t remarkable. The field was just a big rectangular stretch of bright green grass flanked on three sides by trees. All in all, the field was maybe half a mile square by Pete’s best estimate.
At the far end of the field was a small brown cabin, exactly as it had been described. The backside of the house was only a few yards away from the tree line. Pete began walking towards it, figuring it would get bigger as he neared it. He was mistaken.
Up close and personal, the cabin was about the size of his living room.
The door was barred off, but left open so visitors could climb up on a stair and peek inside. A few period-appropriate pieces of furniture adorned the thing, but it was basically empty.
Pete was underwhelmed.
He climbed down off the stair and checked out the field surrounding it. Contrary to the park ranger’s suggestion, he didn’t see any dips for old graves, or uneven turf. Maybe the grass needed to be mowed closer.
He wished he’d thought to bring the letters with him from the car, but he didn’t want to walk all the way back across the road, so he decided to trust his memory. The message from the soldier had said Andrew died in the woods behind the cabin—Pete was pretty sure of that. But there were a lot of woods behind the cabin.
Back behind the little old shack he poked his head between the trees and saw a shiny hunk of granite next to a pyramid of cannonballs. He didn’t see any signs telling him not to trespass or to stay on the trails, so he decided to take his ch
ances and get a closer look.