The Leave-Taking of Corporal Elijah Lacey

 By: Sarah Susanna Wood

1. Morning

        I’m awake this morning, feeling a little lifted off the cot. I keep looking down to be sure I am actually lying on the surface of it. It feels like I might float up in the direction of the ceiling. I think of the Germans, appearing out of nowhere, as if the Armistice is somehow just a trick, and they will burst in, pack me into a wagon and take me away. Everything is too bright: the white of the sheets and the curtains, and Marya’s uniform. I’ve waited all morning for her to arrive. She smells of lilacs. Bill has been moaning all night long, and I haven’t slept. Sometimes, he talks about Missouri and going back to Springfield. He is awake, but I don’t have the energy to speak. All I can think of is Marya bringing me soup for lunch; not that I could eat any, but I want to keep her sitting here, talking to me, her voice like velvet in my ear. I can’t feel myself. I am holding up my hand and rubbing my thumb and forefinger together to see if I can feel my fingers. I can’t. I want to tell Marya the story about me and Quinn, that time we were ice skating on the pond, and the coyotes surrounded us, just to keep her sitting with me, but I can’t really talk. She lets me touch her red hair. If I had known her in Archer or Hempstead, she would be the one. Her eyes are so blue, the blue of Heaven. You look at her, and you want to be around her all the time. I asked her once what she wanted to do when the war was over, and she said she didn’t know, but maybe she would live on a farm with some goats and have a few babies. I wish I had a ring for her. I keep thinking I want to give her a ring, and I don’t have one. I could make one from a bullet casing. You could use a spoon if you had some sandpaper or a brick, and you might need a candle or something. I don’t have anything to give her. 

        About my little sister Quinn. There’s a story I want to tell you.  It’s “The Coyote Story.” It was late February in Nebraska, and snow lay evenly on the fields like a blanket. Quinn was about six years old, and I was about ten. We had decided to go ice skating on the pond. We set out about 3:30 or 4:00 in the afternoon.  Bella and Mother had baked blueberry muffins for breakfast, and we were full of sausage, as well. We ate so much there had been no room for lunch. We drank hot apple cider all afternoon, and Pa had been smoking a pipe, taking the afternoon off, as it was a Sunday. We rode out on Bessie towards the pond, so we wouldn’t have to get our legs wet in the snow. We were talking about the things she was going to crochet for everyone for next Christmas. She was saying that she would make Mother a tea cozy and pot holders, and an afghan for Pa. When we got to the pond, I just looped Bessie’s reins over a branch, and we laced up our skates. My breath came out like clouds when I talked, and you could see smoke puffing out of our house on the horizon. It was like the steady breath of our lives together; our whole family was just this happy living thing. I hadn’t yet felt a tightening in my chest over my trouble with school, and Pa had not lost the farm and the herd of Durhams. We had all we needed and then some. Life seemed free of worries then. So, the sun began sinking around 5:00. Mother had told us not to miss supper. We had an oil lantern with us if we came back after dusk. We were still enjoying ourselves, and the pink and gold of the sky looked so pretty against the solid field as we did figure eights across the ice. The sound of the blades cutting the ice was the only sound you could hear. It was so muffled because of the snow that it was as if we were in this quiet world all to ourselves, just slightly magical and beautiful, so we wanted to stay. I guess time got away from us because when the next thing happened, I noticed the sky was that deep gray-blue color. We heard the sound of a coyote over the hill. Before we could think anything of it, we heard the call of another, and then another. Soon it was the sound of a pack of them getting louder. My heart skipped and I looked at Quinn, and she started to cry. I told her to shush a minute and that I knew what to do. I ran in my skates as fast as I could over to Bessie to grab the lantern. I had the matches in my pocket. I grabbed the lantern off the saddle horn just before she got scared, pulled the reins off the branch, and took off for the house. By this time, I could see them running, all those coyotes. They were spread out across the hill, loping along with their heads towards the ground. My hands shook as I crouched down and pulled the matches out of my pocket. Quinn was crying again. I told her to get out in the center of the pond and to stay there. I was running now as best I could, trying not to blow out the lantern. They weren’t that far behind. I got to the pond and started whooping and carrying on, skating in a circle at the edge of the ice. The sky was a sort of purplish color then, and the sight of that lantern swinging at them must have been doing some good.I said, “Everything is going to be alright. We’re going to be alright.” She  looked real scared and said, “I know it will.” “Do you remember the 23rd Psalm, like Mother told it to you? Why don’t you say it for me, Quinn?” and she began,“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want….” They were looking at the both of us, those coyotes. “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” They were all kind of crouched down and growling.”Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death….” But one of them got scared, I guess, with the sky getting darker and the light getting brighter, and he ran off, and soon the others followed… “for thou art with me….” We waited about fifteen minutes or so, I guess, till we could hear them in the direction of the Fletchers’ place. We walked home in the dark.

The Peach Orchard

        It was 1916 in Hempstead, Texas, where we had moved after Pa lost the Nebraska farm. My older sister, Bella, was going to marry Nesbett, who was a doctor. On that Sunday afternoon in May, I was standing in the orchard off the side of the house and was tossing a peach into the air when Quinn showed up, about 4:30. She just appeared, still dressed up from church. She looked a little flushed. “Is everything alright?” I asked. Quinn’s brows were knitted. She seemed on the verge of tears, but trying not to cry. She replied, “I just thought I would come and pick peaches with you before dinner is all.” “How was your drive to town?” I asked. “It was just fine,” she said haltingly. She started putting peaches in her basket, and I got quiet. “Well, it wasn’t really alright,” she added. “It was awful. I just can’t stand Nesbett Turner!” she cried. The sounds of the whippoorwill seemed to calm her down. “We decided to go into town for lunch, the three of us,” she began, “and we had just walked out to the Model T, and I told Bella to give me the keys, and Bella looked at Nesbett and Nesbett said, ‘I’ll drive, Quinn,’ and Bella handed him the keys instead of me. He took them and sat down in the driver’s seat and Bella got in beside him to the right. I was standing beside the driver’s door, and I was fit to be tied! Daddy always lets me drive and that was not Nesbett’s car. I told Nesbett that I wanted to drive. He said, ‘But I’m driving, Quinn,’ and I looked at Bella, and she just sat there stoney-faced and wouldn’t look me in the eye. ‘You are not!’ I shouted and before I knew it, I grabbed that bowler hat off of the top of his head and smashed it against the steering wheel. Bella just looked away and Nesbett got out and went around to the other side. Why would he think he could boss me, Eli?” “He thinks he’s the ‘King of Everything,’” I answered. Quinn’s face was streaming with tears by then. “Now Bella will tell Mother, and I’ll be in trouble,” Quinn went on. The sun had sunk a little lower then, and the sky was a deep golden color. Mother was always getting after her. Bella was so perfect, and Quinn felt like she could never catch up to her. “Bella won’t tell,” I said. “You know she will,” Quinn answered. And that was the truth.  “Now I will get an earful about how important it is to mind my manners and act like a lady!” Quinn continued. I sat down under the nearest tree and motioned for her to join me. Her hair was coming loose from the bun she wore, and she tucked some behind one ear, sat down, covering her petticoat with her skirt. I told her that Nesbett and Bella would be getting their own house after they married, and we wouldn’t be seeing that much of them anymore. “I just don’t like him at all, Elijah. I don’t want Bella to marry him,” she murmured. “I know,” I replied, “but she is going to marry him.” We sat there eating peaches for a little while, the sun sinking down and the sky turning a warm orange glow. I remember how I felt that afternoon. It seemed that life was changing fast. I knew Quinn was worried about me going away now that the U.S. had entered the war. “I will always let you drive, Quinn,” I whispered to her, and she smiled. I could tell how much Quinn needed me. That is the last time we really talked before I left for France. 

2. Quinn

        Let me tell you about my brother, Corporal Elijah Lacey. If I had known what was going to happen back in those days, I would not have stayed quiet at the dinner table. But nobody knew. It was in the fall. I sat buttering a biscuit, listening to Eli tell us that he had registered for military service and would be going that June to St. Louis to train for the National Guard. Mother said, “How is that possible when you are fifteen years old?” Her eyes were wide, and she put down her glass of tea, spilling some on the straw placemat.  Quietly, Eli said that he had signed up for the Texas National Guard. “They don’t accept fifteen-year-olds in the Guard. Did you tell them your age?” Pa asked. “No, sir, I did not,” Eli replied. “So, you lied, son,” Pa stated. “I suppose I did,” Eli answered fiercely. “Don’t raise your voice to me,” Pa insisted. 

        And so, Eli was allowed to go to training in St. Louis that summer. No one knew that that decision would mean that he was now in a river that led to the ocean of The Great War but that is how his life changed on that day. I suppose it was because he did so poorly in school and wasn’t serious the way Pa and Mother wanted him to be. It had become this horrible tug-of-war, trying to keep him away from his card-playing friends and focused on his studies. I don’t know if he tried very hard. I suppose he didn’t think there was much else for him to do if he wasn’t going to be a stockman like Pa. And that was, of course, what Pa wanted most in life, for Eli to raise herds of cattle.  That Eli had forsaken his way of life felt like a slap in the face to Pa. And so, this is how my big brother became a military man.

        After Eli got back from Missouri in the summer of 1910, he and Pa had another awful fight. Pa hadn’t given up on Eli going back to school. And I guess being around the older boys made Eli bold. This time it happened in the barn.

        Eli was whittling a hawthorn flower out of a piece of wood, sitting on a bale of hay. I didn’t know he was in there; he was so quiet. It was about time for lunch, and you could smell the fried chicken from the house. I was down by the stream with a washboard, some white shirts, and lye soap, and I was rinsing. Pa didn’t look up at me on his way to the barn, carrying Bessie’s pale. After a while, I could hear Pa shouting, “I told you to bring that mule fresh water!” “Bessie’s alright!” Eli yelled back. I’d never heard him shout back to Pa in all my life. “She’s not alright. She’s hot as Hades, and you’re up in the shade wasting the day away! If you aren’t going to pull your weight, son, you better get back to school come September.” “I’m not going to school,” Eli shouted. “Well, you’re sure as fire not lollygagging around my barn!” Pa got louder. I heard the sound of the pail hitting the pitchfork or vice-versa, and then Eli came running out. After a minute, I saw him heading down the road to town.  Pa was in the barn a while. Pa and I headed back to the house wordlessly. I remember for lunch Bella and I ate the chicken while Mother and Pa were talking in the front room. They came back to the table and by the time we got to the aspic, Pa announced, “That boy will not live under this roof one more night.” Ma stayed quiet, and we knew they had agreed. “Now, girls, don’t you fret,” Mother told us calmly. “Everyone has to learn to get along, some time.” I could hear the sound of a scissortail sitting on the fence post, calling “Ki-ki-ki.” 

3. The Supply Train (Motor Truck Company #6 -- Rainbow Division)

        I suppose you want to hear some of my thoughts on the war. Yes, there are so many times you have to worry about getting shot, if you are carrying things to the front lines, and you often are, or you have to worry about rough terrain, and mostly we use the horses if it is like that. But the worst part of it for me were those two times: one was the trip to Rolampant, and the other was on the way to St. Mihiel. 

        On the way to Rolampant, from my perspective, I had three terrible problems: my boots, the snow, and hunger. I could tell you how great Christmas dinner was, how it made me miss home, but that is easier to grasp than what that march was like. We had already walked from the train depot to Vancouleurs. Our boots were not in great shape to begin with, but at the end of the first day after ten miles, my boots had begun to pull apart at the toe, the left worse than the right. In addition, the hobnails that joined the sole to the leather upper were metal, and so my feet were frozen from those metal parts as well as from treading in 3-4 feet of snow. So, they were blistered, swollen, frozen and wet, after one day. It would be a 4-day march, and by the end there were bloody tracks, and some of the men were wearing rags around their feet. My boots barely made it. I did not have an overcoat, and the food supply was pitiful. We would sleep in barns and haystacks. The first night I really thought it might be possible to die then and there, in my sleep. I was so tired that I drifted off and couldn’t worry about it. There was a pack of wolves that were howling at the moon, and I wondered whether a surprise ambush might happen. That fear was impossible to keep up; I was just too exhausted to stay as ready as I told myself I ought to be. Then, also it dawned on me,that the army was not prepared to support us as we were led to believe it would. It gave me a bad feeling. My mind just made me think of horses, quietly, obediently, doing their jobs, all the horses I have known who work endlessly and settle down at night to their hay and their water or to a grassy field without complaint. This was going to be much harder than I had imagined. All this was coming clear. 

        Later in the year, before we got to the Meuse River and the Argonne Forest, in September there was St. Mihiel. Getting over there was, like the trip to Rolampant, one of the most challenging experiences of my life. It wasn’t snowing this time, but it was raining awfully hard. I felt most sorry for my horse, Angeline, pulling the wagon of rations. We were moving in the black of night. There was hardly any outline of the road you could see. The trucks were being sucked into the sodden ground, and I was guiding Angeline as best I could to the side of the traffic. I didn’t want to make her carry me, as well as the piles of food under the tarps, so I just walked along beside her and sang songs from home, songs I remember Mother singing. I could hear her breathing heavy through the rain. We had been going for hours. I sang “Swing Low” and “Scotland’s Burning.” My legs were drenched, and though I had an overcoat, it wasn’t any good. The water just got inside anyway. Every now and then, I would touch her nose to remind her I was there, telling her it would be a better day tomorrow. You could see by the lightning, but the sound of the thunder scared her. Now and then, someone would need to hook her up to pull a truck out of a hole, and I knew she was too tired to do it, but I couldn’t tell them no. I don’t think I ever felt as lonely as I did that night, maybe ever in my whole life. All I could think of was making sure she survived it. I really didn’t care about myself or anyone else so much. I just wanted to get my horse through the night. What with the potholes and the feeling of misery, it didn’t seem like the night would ever end. It felt like the whole war. Leaving her about killed me, after I got sick. It seemed like, once I was in the hospital, all I thought about is Angeline and memories of home. 

4. Dusk

        Now I can see the creek in Hempstead… just a little trickle at my feet, and I can hear it and see the water … coming down the hill from the Cottonwood grove. I … I … I … just want to go up the hill to the Cottonwoods … I haven’t felt Pa for a long time … I can see him in the barn, right now … whittling. He is working on that hawthorn flower … that one I was carving. He is sitting on a stack of hay next to Bessie … he looks so full of cares. Bessie sniffs his old brown boots ... I want to lie down beside them on a haystack and tell him things will be alright … I want to ease his mind. I can see Bella in the garden. She is picking daisies …. with …with … that big floppy hat and every hair in place under it … those … gloves … she is so steady, trying to make things right … I’m under the Cottonwoods … I hear someone singing “… she’ll be coming around the mountain, when she comes ….” It is more than one … it seems like it … from the stream … I can see a white horse … the trees, drinking out of the stream …beautiful Arabian … gray … yes, gray … around her eyes ... and nostrils flare … she catches the smell of me ... she looks at me … a question … I have … I put my hand on her neck … swing up … you know…say … it was good to meet you…

Sarah Susanna Wood grew up in Richardson, TX and received a B.A. in Plan II from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in English Literature from North Texas State University. She is an essayist, fiction writer, and poet living in The Woodlands, Tx. Her work has appeared in Book of Matches, Elizabeth Ellen’s Hobart, The Raven’s Perch, and Strophes quarterly newsletter, published by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.