Saturday, April 25, 2015

Conflict in The Zion Trail: Sample Saturday

Conflict plays a big role in today's tidbit from The Zion Trail. Lije confronts his sister.
~~~


Conflict in The Zion Trail WIP
By the time the household awoke the next day, I hadn't yet cornered Sarah, so I made it my business to do so before breakfast. Milking the cow could wait half an hour. Finding out if my sister had conspired to injure or kill our father could not.

I came down the ladder from the dim loft room I shared with John and peered into the kitchen. The edge of a brown skirt slid through the closing outside door. My sister must be going to gather eggs.

I caught up in the muddy dooryard and stopped her with a hand on her elbow. She made a little squeaking sound, as though I had startled her, and whirled around, dropping her egg basket.

"Lije
" she started to say, her face going white.

"Look here," I cut her off, feeling my anger rise. "Pa's going to be laid up for a week or more. What part did you play?"

She shook her head. "None."

"But you know who did it. I can see you do."

She kept shaking her head, her eyebrows drawn together so tightly that her normally smooth forehead looked like a freshly cultivated garden patch. "No," she moaned. "I didn't know
"

"Didn't know what?" I was so angry at having to drag the story out of her that I wanted to strike her. She must have seen my gathering storm, for she shrank away from me, making herself as small as possible.

"Please, Lije. I didn't think he would do anything. He only wanted to know about the baptism."

"Hans?"

She nodded.

"Anyone else?"

"I don't know. We were alone when we talked."

"Were you kissing him?"

I don't know where the question came from. That was none of my business. Only the attack on Pa mattered now.

Her face turned from white to red, and I knew I had crossed the line of propriety. I put up my hands in a gesture of surrender. "Was he angry as you spoke?" I asked, trying to turn away her wrath.

Sarah took a long breath and let it out slowly. "He was not," she answered. "He was . . . courtly."

So she probably was kissing Hans, judging from the encounter I had spied upon recently. I restrained my impulse to make a fitting retort and wondered how I was to proceed. She denied any ill intention on her part.

"Has he threatened anyone? You? Pa?"

"He didn't like the Mormon men." Her voice barely rose above a whisper. "He didn't want me to join with them."

I knew that from the conversation I'd overheard. "Did Hans speak ill of Pa for deciding we would take the baptism?"
~~~


Thank you for visiting. I hope you enjoyed this sample showing conflict. If you did, you'll probably want to sign up for my quarterly newsletter, "Marsha's Musings." Subscribers are among the first to learn of developments in my writing and publishing schedule. You also learn about sales and discounts, too. Click here for the subscription form. See you next Saturday!

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Sample Saturday - Into the Kitchen

Welcome to Sample Saturday. In today's tidbit from The Zion Trail, Lije finally gets his father to the house.
~~~


Ma gave a cry as I stumbled through the kitchen door with my burden. She swept the top of the work table free with one arm. As a bowl of rising bread and various tools clattered onto the floor, she demanded that I lay Pa down.

I put him atop the flour-dusted surface and stepped back to let my mother move to his side. Mud from the field flaked off his clothing. Dried blood thickened his hair.

"Sarah!" she screamed for my sister, but I moved to block the door when she rushed from the parlor in answer to our mother's call. I didn't want her anywhere near Pa before I could determine if she was complicit in the attack.

"I'll do this," I said to Sarah, and loudly enough for Ma's benefit, too.

Sarah frowned and tried to peer around me, but I put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at me. Upon seeing the fierce scowl I bent her way, she shrank back, taking in a quick breath.

"You stay away," I muttered at her. She backed up, looked at me again, and turned into the room, huddling into herself.

I closed the door, leaned against it for an instant, then pushed myself toward the table upon which lay my father. "What do you need, Ma?"
~~~


Thank you for visiting. I put out a quarterly newsletter, entitled "Marsha's Musings." I'd love for you to sign up, because subscribers are among the first to learn of developments in my writing and publishing schedule. You also learn about sales and discounts, too. Click here for the subscription form. See you next week!

Saturday, April 11, 2015

Sample Saturday, April 11, 2015

Welcome to Sample Saturday. Today's tidbit from The Zion Trail continues to explore Lije Marshall's relationship with his wounded father, who had just asked him to help him up from where he lies, beaten, in a cornfield.
~~~



That, I could do. "Pa, what happened?" I asked first, trying to discover how I might manage to raise him without giving him further injury.

"Two," he managed to get out. "Masked."

"Did you know their voices?" I wondered if I could lift and carry him all the way to the house. I didn't want to risk pushing a broken rib into a lung.

"Young men," he said. "Didn't know them."

From the way he mumbled, I wondered if his jaw was whole. "Where are you hurt the worst?" I asked, pretty sure I knew the attackers now.

"Head. Hit me. Club. From behind." He paused to get his breath. "Punched my face."

I saw bruises on his forearms where his shirt sleeves were folded up. He'd probably tried to cover his head with them, and taken cracks from weapons wielded by Hans and his follower.

"Didn't break my ribs."

Still, he wheezed. He'd taken plenty of punishment, but if he said his ribs were whole, I could lift him.

I set about gathering him into my arms, striving to be gentle, although my blood boiled to see how my father had been beaten. I staggered under his weight as I got one foot under me and pushed up until I had the second unbent as well and could stand. Pa was not a frail-built man, but I was young, and my anger gave me sufficient strength to carry him back to the house.

~~~

Thank you for visiting. I put out a quarterly newsletter, entitled "Marsha's Musings." I'd love for you to sign up, because subscribers are among the first to learn of developments in my writing and publishing schedule. You also learn about sales and discounts, too. Click here for the subscription form. See you next week!

Thursday, April 09, 2015

It was Sunday . . .

. . . on this day one hundred fifty years ago, Palm Sunday, as it happened. The man wearing a fine gray dress uniform knew there wasn't much he could do about that. For Marse Robert and his army, the end had come.

He and his meager staff trotted their horses toward a brick house at a small village called Appomattox Court House. The place, ironically, belonged to a man named Wilmer McLean, who had moved his family there to get away from war, fleeing the two armies that had overrun his former abode, a farm  on the banks of a rill know as Bull Run, near the railroad junction at Manassas, the place where the conflict had begun.

On this day, one hundred fifty years ago, General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Lieutenant General U. S. Grant.

Lee had been struggling to make an escape with his troops to Tennessee or beyond, but matters had become desperate, and his way had been blocked. Two days before, he received the following message from Grant:
               Headquarters Armies of the United States,
               April 7, 1865 - 5 p.m.

General R. E. Lee,
Commanding C. S. Army.
General: The results of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the C. S. Army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.
Very respectfully, your obedient servant,
               U. S. Grant, Lieutenant General,
               Commanding Armies of the United States.
General Lee read the note when he got it after 10 pm, and replied:
                         7th Apl '65
Genl
   I have recd your note of this date. Though not entertaining the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of N. Va. I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, & therefore before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.
                         Very respy your obt Svt
                         R. E. Lee, Genl
Lt Genl U. S. Grant,
Commd Armies of the U States
Thus began an exchange of messages over the next two days, often delayed by the lack of even the most rudimentary technology of the day, where Grant and Lee played chess with the fortunes of war in Southern Virginia.

Even on Sunday morning, messages went back and forth under flags of truce--an uneasy truce not tolerated well by Generals Sheridan and Meade--until a meeting was agreed to, and took place that afternoon in the aforementioned brick house in Appomattox Court House.

Lee arrived first, about 1 pm, and waited a full half hour in McLean's parlor before Grant arrived, wearing a rumpled and muddy uniform because his baggage train had gone astray.

Grant immediately got down to business, reviewing the terms he had previously set out to Lee in his correspondence. Lee suggested that Grant write them out so that the two generals could formally act on the terms, and Grant agreed. After Grant wrote them out in his order book, Lee examined them. When he had finished reading the document, he looked at Grant and said, This will have a very happy effect on my army."

Grant asked if Lee had any suggestions about the offer, and they discussed the matter of the Confederate men and officers owning their own horses, unlike the case in the United States Army. Grant decline to add a modification to the terms, but knowing the Southerners would need their livestock for plowing ground for crops, he said he would instruct the officers he would appoint to receive the paroles of all the men to let all the men who claimed a horse or mule to take the animals home with them.

Lee Surrenders to Grant at Appomattox

Much relieved, Lee agreed, and Grant passed the document to a staff member to make a "fair copy," that is, an official rendering of the document. As this was done, Lee looked over a draft of his acceptance that his military secretary, Lt. Colonel Charles Marshall, had completed, made corrections, and waited for both documents to be finished.

Grant came over to apologize for his rumpled clothes and lack of side arms, saying, "I thought you would rather receive me as I was than be detained." Lee replied that he was much obliged.

By this time, both the surrender terms and the letter of acceptance were completed, and Lee signed the letter, which Marshall sealed and handed to Grant's adjutant, and received in turn the signed and sealed terms of surrender.

Lee broke open the envelope and read again the terms, but Grant did not read the letter of acceptance. He later explained that Lee's spoken word was enough for him.

By 4 o'clock, the ceremonial protocol had been performed, and General Robert E. Lee was free to leave. He shook hand with General U. S. Grant, bowed to the others in the room, and left.

Thus began the ultimate surrender of all the armies of the Confederacy, ending a terrible war that cost upwards of 600,000 lives.

For my take on the American Civil War, read the Whitney Award Finalist novel Gone for a Soldier. You can find purchase links to a variety of online vendors here. Thank you for visiting. Please come back on Saturday for a peek at a scene from the novel I am writing, The Zion Trail.

I put out a quarterly newsletter, entitled "Marsha's Musings." I'd love for you to sign up, because subscribers are among the first to learn of developments in my writing and publishing schedule. You also learn about sales and discounts, too. Click here for the subscription form. See you on Saturday!

Sunday, April 05, 2015

Sample Saturday, um, Sunday!

I apologize that this sample was delayed due to my local power outage. We continue in the corn field with Elijah Marshall, the main character of the forthcoming novel, The Zion Trail.
~~~



I followed footprints in the mud that led through the cornfield. When the trail began to include parallel drag marks, my heart froze. Someone held my father captive. I had no idea of his condition. Was he alive? Injured? I halted. Was he dead?

As soon as that notion came into my mind, I began to run, heedless of the corn stalks my flailing arms may have knocked down. The path drew me onward. I followed it to the edge of the field, then saw that it turned down the line of the fence toward the house. I stared in horror, my chest heaving, to see a crumpled heap in the corner of the field, a crumpled heap that had no business being there. Stunned, nauseated, I nevertheless made my feet carry me toward the object that lay so still.

As I drew near, it became clear that the bundle of clothing near the fence was indeed my father. "Pa!" I cried out, and continued toward him. My heart caught as he stirred, weakly moving an arm.

I knelt at his side and bent over his form. One cheek bore a swelling purple bruise. The opposite eye wouldn't open again today, I figured. His lip was split, and blood trickled through his hair above one ear. His limbs seemed unbroken, but I wouldn't know that for sure until I investigated further. Even in view of his obvious need for examination, I was reticent to lay hands on my father's body.

He caught me about the wrist with one hand, whispering, "Lije. Help me up."

~~~

Thank you for visiting. I put out a quarterly newsletter, entitled "Marsha's Musings." I'd love for you to sign up, because subscribers are among the first to learn of developments in my writing and publishing schedule. You also learn about sales and discounts, too. Click here for the subscription form. See you next Saturday!

Saturday, April 04, 2015

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