The Mockingbird's Ballad

The sun was bright and high in the sky. The air was warm. A faint breeze moved the green-brown leaves of the big yellow poplar. Bess stood munching the lush bahalia grass ten feet behind Lou. The hillside graves had patchy growths of wild grasses. The new head stones read: Wm Norman Fields August 3, 1822 - Sept. 3, 1863 and John Ross Fields June 14, 1983 - Sept. 3, 1863 A space separated the graves - a place for Lou's mother.

Lou had removed her hat. She held it to her side. She patted it slowly against her the side of her thigh. With her left hand she rubbed her tearing eyes.

"I'm back," she said quietly and went silent for several long moments, then, "It is done." With that she looked up past the old tree to the ridge crest, shadowed tree line.

Swiping her face with her big bandana, she blew her nose. She turned and went to Bess, reached her hands around the big scruffy mule's neck, hugged it hard and sobbed heavily into her musty, animal smelling gray-black coat.

===

Grandfather John L. was busting ten-inch wide, foot long hickory sections with his razor sharp double-edged ax. The crack of the wood resonated crisp and clean. Lou came around the house toward the big woodpile. In mid-swing, her 65 year-old grandfather saw her.

"Praise the Lord, and serve the wine," he hollered as he popped his ax into the chopping block and was with five long steps at Lou. He grabbed her shoulders in his hands, caressing and squeezing her. Tears rolled down his red cheeks and over his chin.

"Lone Cedar! Sarah!" he called as if trying to be heard in the next hollow.

"They're back. Sarah, they're back," he exclaimed with a smile that crunched up his eyes. The back door of the house slammed open and closed as Mama Bear came bounding down the back steps.

"Yes, yes," she said with assurance and joy.

"Where's Alex, J. N.? They tending the stock?" John L. asked as he visually searched toward the house and the corner where Lou had appeared. Lou's eyes went down to her grandfather's shuffled, worn brogans.

"What, Lou? What? They hurt, girl?" John L.'s joy evaporated and he was filled with foreboding. "Dead!?"

"No, no, they're fine, Granddaddy, fine," she assured her grandfather. "They are with General Joe in Athens. We came up nearly a week ago from Dalton to make a mess of Sherman's supply line," Lou reported.

"Lord in Heaven, they ain't with you? You all got within fifty miles of home and they didn't come? I swear." Totally flustered, he swung his axe like a hickory switch, the axe head embedding three inches into his busting block.