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                                 'Fighting for Air- the Unknown Adventures of Young Doc Holliday'

                                                                                   by

                                                                           Jack Kincade  

                          

         “I found him a loyal friend and good company. Doc was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean, ash-blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a gun that I ever knew.”

Wyatt Earp  

  

Some say it all happened just like this…

Part I

~The South~

 

             CHAPTER 1

 

Creeping along the edge of a gloomy Georgia swamp, a barefoot boy of nine carefully stalked his imaginary prey with a homemade spear when suddenly the sound of a big bullfrog's croak erupted from somewhere just up ahead of him in the moss shrouded distance.  

     Surprised, the boy stopped immediately, his head turning quickly toward the sound of the great amphibian’s bellow, his still hovering foot instinctively settling back down silently into the murky water. Listening even more intently, all of his senses were now on full alert. That wasn't just a small croak from some ordinary sized bullfrog up ahead but a large bellowing, belly rumble of a croak. After a moment he heard it again. Closer still and huge.

      There you are, he thought as a sly smile spread across his handsome young face.

      Quietly and with great stealth the young boy now redirected his make-believe stalk towards the real monster. Each barefoot step of his was executed with a natural, practiced grace as he quietly plunged his naked feet down into the deep stagnant pools of leech brown water and onward toward the pompous croaks.

      He gripped his homemade frog-gigger even more firmly with both small fists now, ready to strikeout like a water moccasin and kill within the space of a bullfrog's short heartbeat. The boy crept forward slowly, following the sporadic bursts of croaking coming from somewhere just up ahead.

      This young hunter was on the trail of a living legend the locals hereabouts called ‘Big Wart’.  Seems this great frog had been around these parts forever to hear town and country folk alike, talk about it. Most of the locals had only heard the deep, hideous croaks late, late at night with very few of ‘em really ever catching even a sight of his huge ugly hide throughout the tumble of all the years.  And so, with all the mystery, came all the stories and the legends began to grow.  Until finally the bullshit simply outgrew the bullfrog.

      "Fourteen pounds!" some would say; "Twenty one and a half!” another would chime in; "Twenty years old!" some would add; "Forty! Fifty!”; "A hunnert if ‘en a day, my granddaddy swears!” others would yell in over the top of ’em all.  It seemed that everyone down here in Griffin, Georgia gnawed on these lively old country myths like family soup-bones.  People pulled at the sweet marrow of the stories, reshaping them with all of their jawin’, transforming them at every telling until eventually everyone had left some of their own wet, teeth marks imbedded deep in them.

     But none of that really mattered this day as the giant bullfrog, the mighty legendary ‘Big Wart’, was sitting somewhere just up ahead of him and the boy knew he was finally getting close to the reality of the monster and not just the legend any longer. 

     He couldn't see the great beast as yet but he could sure hear it...

      Smell it even, the boy smiled. Everything about this place is soggy and musty, just like you ‘Big Wart’, the boy thought. 

     Every rancid odor here seemed to hang off the thick, unmoving air like the foul stench on the fur of a wet dog. But it simply smelled like home to this happy child.  He almost didn't even notice the noxious smell anymore. Almost.

                        A magpie cried out a sudden alarm above him and the young boy looked up through the enormous canopy of moss-covered trees overhead. He noticed that even the sharp blades of bright sunlight that eventually sliced their way down through the thick canopy of trees overhead seemed damp and wet by the time any of it finally spilled out onto the ground below in dappled pools of misty light.

               But this lad didn't care about any of that. This place was his. Special. Magical even, if you just gave it a good squint.

               Following the croaks, the boy crept out of the shallower, tea colored water and onto a small beach and suddenly there he was, just sitting there in a speckled patch of sunlight.  ‘Big Wart’!  In all of his spectacular massive glory.

               The huge, legendary bullfrog now leaped just yards ahead of him in the wet, red Georgia clay.  And what a sight he made.  And what a giant plop exploded when he landed.  It appeared that everything that everyone had ever said about this legend's size and appearance were utterly true.

               This thing could swallow a possum! 

   ‘Big Wart’ had to be the biggest, oldest, ugliest bullfrog in all of Georgia, hell, maybe all the world.  

   "I'm here ta' get ya' ‘Big Wart’. Your time is up for sure old- timer,” the young boy taunted the ancient, green monster with a raspy, excited whisper as he continued to stalk. 

               Then something somewhere else moved.

   Suddenly a huge flock of white herons exploded into the sky above the boy's head shrieking down their alarm and instinctively the young boy startled back.

               In that instant ‘Big Wart’ saw his only chance for escape and with one gigantic leap, he was gone.  Gone so fast it was as if he had never even existed.

               The entire swamp around the boy continued to react as one in their shared shrieks of alarm when mysteriously everything quieted just as quickly. Every living thing suddenly fell deadly silent almost simultaneously.  Only the sound of the thick clouds of white-fly and skeeters that buzzed around the boy's face in the heavy, damp air could be heard now.

               Something is very wrong. Something else is here.  

               All of the boy's senses went immediately onto higher alert than ever before. He swore to himself that he could even smell the unfamiliar acidic, copper-charged odor of danger coursing through the musty swamp air now, as well.

               Just like I smell the stink of this big old bullfrog.  Did something just move over there on the edge of the tree line where the moss dips down into the deep water?  What is that slithering under the clinging mist?

               The young boy suddenly noticed that a large, single dark ripple now radiated out across the placid, black surface of the swamp where none had existed just a second before.

               ‘Big Wart’?  Water moccasin? Or ‘gator? he sorted through the familiar threats to his personal claim on this Secret Place. Hadn't seen either one up here in, what was it...two years now?

               He watched the ring grow menacingly toward him and then sensed something even closer, sudden movement off to his left now.

                Something is here?!  What is it?  his young mind panicked.

               The young boy's sudden electric jolt of fear demanded immediate flight but its harsh intensity paralyzed and froze him in place instead, momentarily immobilizing and confusing him and his bare feet.

               And the stalking dark shape took full advantage of his complete stillness and moved in ever closer from behind.

               Suddenly all of the young boy’s electrically charged survival instincts arced and fired at once and he instantly found his feet moving intuitively under him as he sprinted out of the swamp like a bolt of human lightning.  He ran just as fast as his nine-year-old legs could possibly carry him and he raced out of the clutches of the dark finger swamp's clinging shadows and out into a wide-open sun drenched field of wild flowers. 

               The little boy finally found the guts to shoot a quick glance back over his shoulder and see what was running him to ground so fast. And that's when he saw that it wasn't some dark swamp beast chasing him at all.  No.  Worse.  It was a man that was chasing him.  But not just a man. A soldier. And he wore grey.

               "No!" the young boy screamed as he tried to run away from the pursuing soldier faster than ever before, somehow finding even more speed somewhere in his new fear.

                          Just then a gunshot rang out and all of the birds in the swamp panicked and they all took flight once more, instantly filling the sky overhead with their prehistoric screaming alarms, frightening the entire swamp into hiding for miles around.

               And nine-year-old John Henry Holliday suddenly dropped to the ground, dead among the daisies.  His small eyes fluttered and closed and were completely still as hundreds of terrified swamp birds flying overhead painted his small, helpless body below with their dark shadows.  The beautiful flowers that surrounded the boy were now splayed out all around him in a final halo of color.

               The pursuing soldier finally slowed his chase and moved carefully through the towering grasses and fiery blossoms like a tall grey ghost, cautiously advancing on the dead boy's position. He reholstered his nickel-plated Colt as he approached the colorful depression in the flowers and then stopped abruptly as he drew his sword out of its finely carved ivory scabbard.  The razor sharp blade glinted in the sunlight as he raised it up overhead, he took a deep breath in, his arms drew back a few more inches and tensed to swing down on the boy's position with full fury when without warning, young John unexpectedly rolled out of hiding behind him and started shooting at the soldier with both of his out-stretched index fingers, pointing at him like guns.

               "Bang, bida-bang, bang, bang!!" the boy gleefully yelled.

               The ambushed soldier suddenly staggered with a grunt, dropping his sword to the ground with a soft clang. He instantly clasped both his hands to his chest, pitched over ever so dramatically with a deep wet gargle of the throat and then fell down to the ground with such a wonderful, hammy, thud that the flower petals exploded into the air all around him in sudden ovation.

               As the confetti of multicolored petals continued to rain down gently around him, small John advanced carefully through the tall forest of wild flowers towards the sprawled out body of the now dead soldier that lay just in front of him. 

               Taking no chances, the boy still pointed both of his tiny fingers down, gun-style, at the obviously dead rebel officer’s body as he approached.

               In fact the soldier looked so hilariously dead, with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, that young John Holliday was having a very hard time trying to swallow his own giggles as he walked up to him. Ever so gently the sound of the most beautiful piano music started drifting in from somewhere nearby on a soft warm breeze. 

               The music was so lovely and the melody so enchanting that it seemed to define and resonate with the very heart and soul of this place and of this time on this delicate amber afternoon.

               "That's my mother!” young John giggled pridefully.

               And in that split second of distraction, the prone soldier's leg swept the boy's feet right out from under him, sending him crashing down onto his butt, landing on a cushion of wild flowers.

   "Ah ha! I got you!” the suddenly very-much-alive soldier laughed. “You young sir, just got caught by your own trick!  Just a variation on the same kind of subterfuge. Never trust your enemy to give you a break, Johnny boy, he won't. Nor you he.  Strike to kill every single time and never, I mean never let the bastards get...back...up," he scolded gently.

               Young John giggled as he stood back up next to his Uncle Thomas McKey and saluted.

               "Yes sir Uncle Captain Thomas, Thomas Uncle Captain!" John said mock seriously and then he playfully punched his prone Uncle's arm just as hard as he could. The good-naturedly suffering soldier tried to get back up to his feet, but young John began to wrestle with him again. 

               "Then get back down you, bandit!" John shrieked out in innocent glee, shoving his Uncle back onto his ass.

               "Alright John, alright! The time for play is over," Thomas' mood began to quickly shift and change, as the rambunctious nine-year-old simply wouldn't let it end.

               "Never let'em back up!”  John echoed back with a giggle.

               The soldier suddenly grabbed the boy's shoulders firmly, momentarily jarring the boy's mood into his.  John almost thought he saw tears in his Uncle's eyes and it scared him. 

                           I never wanted to hurt my favorite Uncle, his mind raced.  I wasn't even trying to....

               "Now I mean it John," his Uncle snapped as he regained his balance along with his composure and kneeled beside the boy.

               "Mean what?  You said never let'em..." suddenly John quieted at his uncle's somber expression.

               "The time for play is over for all of us, son. This bears on your immediate future and your Mother's," Uncle Thomas steeled himself again trying to find the words and a way to strengthen this child. "There's some awful tough times ahead of ya' boy," he finally sighed.   

               Young John was confused.  This was his Uncle Thomas.  The man who always came running whenever there was trouble of any kind, big or small. He had never seen his Uncle act afraid before.

               "You're scaring me.  You taught me to hunt and shoot Uncle Thomas.  You taught me fine. We'll eat. I'll see ta' that," John half grinned, practically raised by this beloved uncle in his father's many absences.

               What's so different this time?

               Uncle Thomas could only beam back at his small, brave nephew with deep pride and affection.

               "I did teach you fine, didn't I my boy?" he reaffirmed with a sad, proud smile and a solid pat on the boy's back. "You're the only nine-year-old boy that I know that if you can see it, you sure as spit can hit it! You're becoming a crack shot, that's for sure," Uncle Thomas' face suddenly darkened. "No, I...I know you'll eat, John... I only pray to God there'll be enough game left around for you to all keep yer'selves fed, 'cause if it’s on hoof or wing, I know you'll hit it.  But I'm not talking about hunting game here...blast-it son, I wish your father was here to explain...why do I always....?" but Thomas didn't get to finish that sentence as John quickly cut him off.

                        "You're the one who's always been here Uncle Thomas," John smiled. "Always."

                        His Uncle smiled back proudly but then he proceeded in soft, dark, quiet tones. "But I'm not going to be around...anymore...not for a...long, long while now, son.  Neither's yer Daddy.  You'll have George and some of the other men slaves to help look after ya'll, but you can't count on even them, I fear.  What I'm trying to tell you John...I'm talking about killing men, son.  There's just no way to honey-coat it for ya'," he paused. "You could...no…you will...be seeing it all around you. Death is going to be hovering darkly everywhere, shortly.  And for quite awhile, I figure. There's going to be a lot of killing going on before this thing is finally settled.  That...and even worse..." Uncle Thomas wiped his face and regathered his resolve to tell the boy the truth.

               "We're about to enter into a very dangerous, dark time, my boy. You're going to have to suck it all down and become a man way before you're due, and leave the toys and the games behind. It’s war. Your childhood, everyone's childhood is over. Cancelled. From now on you will be counted on to act as a grown man in the family, defending your homestead and the homeland.  And above all else you must be prepared to defend your mother as you would your country. With honor."

               John's young face darkened and he looked even more confused and concerned than before.

                          "Here?  Naaw?  Well, I won't have to do any of that?  Will I? You and Daddy will ‘whip their butts and send them runnin' back north!’ just like you always said," John reminded his Uncle. 

               Why was Uncle Thomas trying to scare him? Just weeks ago at the picnic he was laughing about the war with the others.

               Uncle Thomas dropped his eyes momentarily from John's tender, fearful gaze, embarrassed now at the cursed bravado of foolish men full of drink, bragging in front of young children. "Sure. That we'll do, boy...that we'll surely do...but just in case God's not on our side, I want you to have something very special to me."

               With a fast spin Uncle Thomas swiftly drew the nickel-plated revolver out of his holster and then solemnly, trying to impart the sheer gravity of the gift, he presented it to the young boy very slowly and gently.

               "Me?" is all that stumbled out of John's stunned open mouth.

               This was no simple passing on of a special family heirloom. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse were riding toward Georgia. It was only a matter of time before they arrived and everyone knew it.  This gun would never protect this small boy and his genteel young mother from the monsters that were already unknowingly swooping down upon them both. The Colt was no more than symbolic rubbish; merely a temporary poultice placed upon a terminal cancer to assuage some of his own deep seeded guilt about leaving the helpless child and all of his loved ones behind to fend for themselves against the advancing dark fates alone. A trained Calvary officer, young John’s Uncle Thomas knew only too well what was really in store for them all.

               But there was simply nothing else he could think to do about it. He had to go. Duty called and everyone had their own ‘burdens to bear’ in the coming months.

          Years even, if one were to be brutally honest about it, he thought.

               But still, Uncle Thomas couldn't have felt more culpable and it showed down deep into his guilty soul as he looked into the blameless, poignant eyes of his small nephew as he handed him the gun.  "I want you to have this. It’s part of a matching set, ivory handled, nickel-plated, forty-four caliber Navy Colt, 1860, newest model, very special, awarded to me by my men."

               Thomas spun his other matching Colt up out of the other side of his holster. "I'll keep ta'other. You'll know best what to do with it when the time comes, boy. You’re a natural.  It shoots true, always keep her clean and she'll never let ya' down. I left all the ammo you'll ever need in the shed for ya'. Find a good place to stash it where only you know where it is. Understand?" Thomas finished proudly.

    John nodded his head but he was still completely dumbstruck. He could barely find the words. "Mine?" he finally croaked out like ‘Big Wart’.

   Thomas tussled the small boy's sandy blonde hair. "Yes my favorite nephew."

   "Your only nephew," John smiled up at him with great affection.

   "I'll be back to collect it...shortly,” Thomas said as he gently shoved his small nephew away with a sad smile and John noticed that his favorite Uncle still looked so very worried. “It is a matching set, after all," Thomas tried to nervously promise his own return as much to himself as to young John.

   The sudden sharp crack and roll of a distant thundering snare drum made them snap their heads around so fast it was as if they had both been struck by the same bullet. From somewhere far off down the country road, the sound of fife and drum slowly began to lilt and rumble their way into existence from the distant tree line. 

   The briskly invading martial music, made up of all sharp, jagged slashes of military precision was in stark counterpoint to the exquisite protective piano music that still hovered lovingly in the air here, lingering like a beautiful fragrance that enveloped this entire valley in its serene perfume.

   "Daddy?" John squeaked in hushed surprise.

   "I told you he'd be by.  He just happens to be bringing the entire Confederate Army with him son, that's all. Just like your daddy to make a bigger show of things than need be, don't ya' know.  Being Quartermaster helps to persuade Generals I guess," Thomas grinned with some real disdain for his brother-in-law, his words dipped in acidic tones were matched by an icy-glare, all unseen and unnoticed by innocent young John.

   "Daddy!" John cried out in sheer joy as he suddenly sprinted out of the field of wild flowers, away from his beloved Uncle and down the sloping hill, tucking his new gun into the back of his pants as he ran.

   "Mother!  Mother!!  It’s Daddy, Mother! Daddy's coming,” John continued to yell as he ran down the hill, across the family farm and past its few slaves as they worked in the fields.

   "Watch it boy!" an older slave and field hand barked as John stumbled across the freshly furrowed rows of corn. "I just plowed this up in’here, you lil'rascal!" he scolded.

   "Daddy's comin', Angus!  My daddy’s comin'!" John yelled back happily over his shoulder as he ran past the field-slaves.

   "Well. La di dah. Ain't we all soooo lucky? Massa done home again. Not for so long, me thinks.  No sir, no sir. Not dis war. Maybe Massa don't come home from dis Waaar a'tall dis time!  La di dah, indeed," Angus said louder than normal, bravely laughing out loud and winking proudly to another slave next to him, who laughed quietly under his own calloused hand, still afraid to be heard by anyone but family.

             “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the comin’ of da’lord,” Angus sing-songed for the others to chuckle at.

    But John couldn’t hear anything in his ears but the sound of his father's fife and drums getting closer, dancing around formerly in the air with the melody of his mother's beautiful, timeless music. He ran out of the rolling fields and sprinted straight through the vegetable garden at the back of the fine house and smack dab through the fresh mud of the newly watered garden in a single, squealing, gleeful dash by...

   "John Henry Holliday!” the young house-slave Sophie Walton screamed at John as he bolted right by her, almost knocking her over. "You know better than that!  Look at these radishes now!! Your mother is going to have a conniption..."

   "Sorry!  Sorry Sophie!! It’s Daddy, my Daddy Sophie!  Daddy's coming!" John yelled as he ran through the small formal Tea Garden and up into the lovely house.

   "Mother, Mother!!" John screamed as he ran inside, trailing a thick muddy trail behind him into the tiny solarium where his mother, Alice Jane Holliday, sat regally at her grand piano still serenely playing her beautifully enchanted music.  As yet undisturbed, she was still lost in her own rhapsody as she sat there dressed formally in silky blue satin and intricate white lace when...

               "Mother!  Mother!  Daddy!  Daddy's here!" the tornado named John yelled as he swirled past her at full speed, and in one big swish of satin and petticoats his mother suddenly became airborne, snatched right off her protesting piano bench by her son.

               "Oh! John Henry!...I declare!" his tiny mother shrieked at him as she landed daintily in her bare feet, her shoes left behind under the Grand.  Protesting she was instantly pulled out of the Music Solarium by John in one continuous swoop-by of infectious enthusiasm.

                           "It’s Daddy, Mother!  Daddy!” he finally made her understand as he pulled his giggling mother now willingly along in his wake.  They both ran out the front door, down the steps of the big porch and up the flowered pathway to the frontage road at full speed. Mother and son got to the front gate just as the majestic cannons mounted on their thundering caissons started rolling by.  The next regiment of smartly dressed soldiers in grey marched past their front gate with a seemingly limitless amount of young men and new equipment trailing far off behind them, undulating along like the slinking body of the great serpent of war itself.

               Unseen by his wife and young son as yet, Captain Henry Burroughs Holliday, young John’s father and Alice’s dear husband, rode up alongside the boundary fence to his own small farm beside the endless line of marching foot soldiers. 

               He sat proudly atop his great, grey spotted Appaloosa.                                                             “Same linage as General Lee's famous Traveler," he'd endlessly boast to his men about his noble horse's bloodlines. "Same sire, same dam!  But a better year at Blue Sulfur Springs according to Mr. Johnson, the breeder himself,” he always made sure to add. 

               Pompous ass, they all thought of him as they marched by. He heard the whispers in the camp and he knew that they ridiculed him under their breaths as they rode by his warehouse while in training. 

               “Nothing wrong with a little envy,” he always concluded in his own tent, alone at night. “Aren't all great men always envied by their inferiors on their climb to the top?” he confidently soothed his bruised ego for sleep.

               But on that very day when he saw his beloved wife and son running out to meet him, frantically searching for him in the endless river of men passing by, there in that gentle moment of time all sense of pompousness and self-promotion drained right out of the always ambitious Captain Henry Burroughs Holliday's soul.  His heart swelled with nothing but love and regret as he saw them, just the two of them, so small and delicate, huddled together against the brutal backdrop of war.  The two most precious souls on earth to him were standing there together, barefoot and so innocent and waiting only for him to march by.

               How was it even possible that any individual man deserved this amount of love in any one single lifetime when love seemed to be in such short supply in the world presently? he thought to himself both incredibly grateful and yet profoundly sad. 

               The only thing he could think or feel at that surging emotional moment was the enormity of the great loss to come for himself and his dear family.  But it was even more than that he finally realized.  For the first time the true reality of the scale and the depth of the immense sacrifice being asked of every single young man that passed him by, hit him full force on in a massive black tidal wave of conflicting emotions.

          I have seen war before God knows! Two in fact! None of these brave boys have.

          Before anyone could see saw how badly shaken he was, Henry quickly stabbed at his damp eyes with the back of his finely gloved hand, attempting to rein in his emotions and suppress the sobs that were suddenly trying to escape his throat. His Adam’s-apple hitched and danced against the grey flannel of his immaculate tunic's neck as he tried to choke it back down out of sight. He surely didn't want his men to see him like this, let alone his darling wife and young son, before regaining some kind of control over his raw emotions. For if he couldn't find the restraint, well, he would explode into tears right in front of them all, and then everything would be lost.  He would simply melt there...at the feet of his family.  It was imperative to show very little emotion if they were all going to get through this 'great wrenching apart'. Somehow Henry had to find the guts and fortitude for everyone's sake to finally ride off down that road. 

                Probably for a very long time. Maybe forever.

               "My God," he spoke to heaven in a whisper. "Just look at them both. So innocent. How do we leave them behind, dear Lord?  How can you ask that much of any of us?"

               The Captain took a deep breath and steeled himself.  Regaining his composure, he spurred his great Appaloosa across the river of marching grey and rode quickly over to the other side of the road where his lovely wife and son still searched for any sign of him. Alice hadn't spotted him as yet and he smiled as he doffed his hat and covered his grateful heart with it, sneaking up on them both astride his exquisite Appaloosa. 

                           Then Alice turned at just the right instant to catch a quick glimpse of her handsome, dashing husband as he cleared the obstructing tree line. There was no sneaking up on her now.  Alice let out a shriek of such pure unbridled joy that she startled some of the green troops marching closest to her right out of their formation. The young cadets quickly recovered their wits and fell back into their marching positions, badly embarrassed now and continuously razzed and pounded with hazing insults for the next fifty miles, by their more seasoned comrades. 

                           Mother and son both ran laughing toward the smiling Henry. "My family," yelled the Captain as they ran up to Henry's side, with Alice now pulling a cheering John behind her for a change.

               "Ally girl, if you aren't a beautiful sight after so many horrible weeks of training.  And you as well my son.  I swear, look how you’ve grown in such a short time.  I'm afraid to even dismount Ally girl, for fear I'll never mount again," he honestly sighed.

               Alice leaned in and hugged her husband's leg in the stirrup.

               "I know my darling. If you stepped down, I am positively sure I would never let you go again.  Not ever.  Now, how would that look to everyone?” she asked, not wanting or waiting for a real answer. "Because I know, deep down in my heart, if given a second chance, every single mother and sweetheart of every one of these heroic young boys would do the exact same thing and stop them all from marching off on this...brave but foolish quest, if only...we all just could..." she couldn't continue.  Alice forced herself to smile, suppressing her tears but not the sadness as she gestured to all the doomed young men marching by.

               Uncle Thomas had mounted by now and rode over to Alice and her family on his tall, dark Chestnut.

               "Goodbye to you dear sister. Write often. Persevere. You will survive this. Now that's an order! Hey John?  Understand that order?" Thomas beamed down at his nephew, who saluted smartly back up to him on his tall horse.

               "Yes sir...survive!" John snapped back militarily.

               "Endure!" fired off Thomas as his final command.

               "Endure!" John ricocheted back.

               Alice frowned down at her young future soldier and the shiny new nickel-plated pistol she spotted tucked away into the back of young John's trousers.  She looked up angrily at her brother Thomas but then he blew her a loving kiss from atop his horse and smiled and any small blush of anger instantly melted away. 

               "We shall all do our duty.  It is the Holliday tradition," she stated bravely.

               "And the McKeys," Thomas added.

               "And the McKeys," Alice answered back proudly and with great emotions suddenly flooding over her. "The two noblest of Southern families!" These men mounted before her were the two most important men in her life, except for her young son, and they were both riding away into an uncertain future. Into the madness of war.  Worse.  Into the madness of a civil war.

               Captain Henry leaned down from his saddle to caress his wife's lovely face with his bare hand, trying to soothe her pain and just to touch her one last time. 

"Life has never been fair about keeping us together, has it my love?" he asked sweetly, softly.

               "Come home soon," she pleaded softly as she continued to embrace his leg, squeezing it even tighter in the stirrup.

               "There is no home without you, darling," the Captain said wistfully, then he leaned even further down out of his creaking saddle and set his jaw firmly to talk to this young son of his, a boy he loved dearly but nevertheless a boy who had almost always been a stranger to him somehow.  Henry Holliday, you see, always wanted a little version of himself to raise and rambunctious little John was anything but that.  No mirror image he.

               "This is it, son. You are the Master of the manor now," his father sternly intoned. "Earn your place in this world and defend your station with honor, young sir!"

               Henry could see the small boy's bottom lip begin to tremble but this was no time to give in to his own emotions. He steeled himself again. "I know...it’s not fair for all this to fall on one so young and innocent, but we are not alone in our sacrifices.  It is war!  We must all sacrifice.  Every damn one of us! Every damn day!  No changin' it now, not any of it. Study the classics, study hard, boy.  And think five moves ahead in everything you do, not just in chess. And above all else, dear son, protect your priceless mother, here.  Protect her even...with your very own life if need be.  Honor is... everything."

               "Yes sir," John answered solemnly. His head was spinning.  It was as if God himself had fallen out of heaven and onto horseback to deliver this Sermon on the Mount. Small John was very scared and his young mother could see it. 

               "Now stop it," Alice demanded softly. "All of you. No protecting is going to be needed here. If you men folk can't get on with other men folk in this world, then so be it.  Ride on now and end it and end it to our favor and end it quickly," she pleaded. "But you two listen to me and you listen good.  You both are coming back down that road.  Do you hear me?" she froze each man with her deep soulful eyes. "No matter what happens in this damnable war, you're both coming back down that road....to cheers.  I swear. Do you hear me Henry Holliday and Thomas McKey?  Both of you!" 

               Alice had worked herself into such a tizzy that she suddenly was very angry, her face flushed red, her pulse racing.

               Both men shared a knowing smile with each other. They knew and loved Alice's temper and wonderful inner strength, each in their own way.  One as husband, one as brother.  Same strong woman. With a conspiratorial nod between them, the dashing southern officers suddenly wheeled their horses around to face Alice formally. 

               They respectfully doffed their hats and then with just a tap of the spur both, men's well-trained mounts simultaneously and chivalrously swung their heads down with a graceful bow to the lady.

                "Yes ma'am!!" they answered back gallantly in unison, and with that they both reined their elegant horses back up.

               "Endure!" Thomas commanded one last time to all.

               With final waves and fistfuls of blown kisses, Henry and Thomas stoically galloped away from their family only to be quickly absorbed into the endless grey torrent of men and supplies that flowed away from the Holliday's plantation, moving north on the long dusty road, looking for a war to fight.

               Finally losing sight of her husband and brother, Alice couldn't hold back her tears any longer and she began to sob at the sheer enormity of it all.  She was suddenly overcome and terrified.  She dropped her son's hand as she ran back towards the house. But she could only make it as far as the front gate where she fell down against it, her flowing tears blinding her in their intensity.

               Young John waited quietly for several minutes, watching the soldiers march by, before he finally walked over, knelt down and reached out to take his sobbing mother's hand.  John had never noticed how small and delicate her hands really were until now, compared to his own dirty paws.  He was growing up everyday. It seemed he could almost feel himself stretching out, becoming more daily. 

               The thoughtful little boy looked deeply into his scared mother's sad, lost eyes and knew right then and there what he had to do and what he had to say.  It all finally made sense to him in that first instant of adult clarity in his young life. In that unambiguous moment nine-year old John Henry Holliday became a young man way before his years should have allowed.  Life was fair to no one, he would soon learn, but right now, his place in the world was finally as clear as a diamond to him,

               "Don't worry Mama," Young John said with a newfound inner courage. "I know that God will be awful busy protecting Daddy and Uncle Thomas in this war. So while he's busy doing that...I'll protect you. I swear."