The Rest of their Days

Ezekiel Hammond rose from the comfortable chair in the sitting room. Martha glanced at the grandfather clock as she rocked baby James, wondering who might be calling. She heard her husband open the door, then a voice she’d not heard for a long time… one she had hoped to never hear again. The man’s voice filled her with dread.

“Good evening, sir,” he said, Martha overhearing from the sitting room, “I have come to speak with Martha Clay.” She could hear the intensity in his voice, the intensity his voice always carried.

“What business do you have with my wife?” Ezekiel responded. Martha had seen her husband in many situations over the last year, during their brief courtship, engagement and then matrimony. His voice carried an iciness that she’d not heard before.

“The business is for her, not you. Kindly step aside.”

“She is rocking our son,” Zeke responded. She heard the implied tone in his voice. “I shall not disturb her. I’ll bid you good evening.”

There was a thump as the Ashley Jonas, the man Martha had thought she was destined to spend her life with, barred the door against closing. “You have affronted my honor, Mr. Hammond, and I demand satisfaction.”

Martha began to feel faint. She couldn’t imagine that she’d heard the words that he just said. Ashley had always been a passionate man, but what he’d just demanded was beyond her.

***

Teresa Wilkes Hammond sat in the enclosed carriage, holding a shivering Martha. The sun was peeking up over the hills on the eastern edge of the valley. Three days before, Ashely had arrived at the door of their home in Gallipolis, but now they were on the edge of a field behind the family farm.

“I don’t know what to do,” Martha told her sister-in-law. “I have begged and pleaded with Zeke not to go through with this, but he has ignored me. Perhaps, if he allowed, I could talk Ashley out of this, but thus far he has not granted me that opportunity.”

She hadn’t told her that Ashley was her first love, and she had long thought they would marry. But he’d disappeared for a while after the war, and she hadn’t known he was alive, much less where he’d been the last six years. And her heart was bursting that in just a few minutes, he could truly be dead… at the hands of her husband.

“God will protect Ezekiel,” Teresa said, trying to calm the other woman. Teresa watched her for a moment, “Or is that what you are afraid of?”

“I don’t want anyone to die,” Martha said. “I love Zeke. I love him with all my heart. He’s the father of our child, but more than that, I know how much he loves me. But once upon a time, I loved Ashley, too. Not the same way as Zeke, but it was love at the time.”

Outside, each man’s second stood at a hastily set up table. Upon the table were two dueling pistols, a matched pair that Ashley had brought with him.

“Mr. McPherson, is there any way we can talk Mr. Jonas out of this?” Elijah Hammond offered. “My son is a dead shot. He’s hunted this valley with me from the time he could walk a carry his own rifle. I fear for your friend’s life.”

“As do I, Mr. Hammond. I’ve spent the last weeks trying to calm his passions. He refuses to be sated. If there were another way… He feels wronged, though, and no apology will quell his anger. Even the very affections of which he feels robbed wouldn’t appease him now.”

The two men shook hands. Elijah Hammond picked up one of the old flintlock pistols. He checked it over, then packed it with powder and ball. He then walked back over to where his son was standing alone. He gingerly handed the younger man the weapon.

A moment later, Martha burst from the closed carriage. She ran stumbling across the field to her husband and clutched him. “Please, Zeke, don’t do this. There must be another way.”

“Martha, if only there were. I would listen.”

“Let me talk with him, my love. Perhaps I can assuage him. I beg of you.”

“For your sake, I’ll allow it. But only for a moment. The sun will break from the hills in a few minutes.”

Martha ran the distance between the men, stopping a few feet short of Ashley as she saw the fire in his eyes and the rage that burned behind them. Unlike Ezekiel, who exuded calm, Ashley burned with passion. At time she had missed his passion, but not now. Now it filled her with dread.

One of these men that I love will die today.

“Ashley, I beseech you. Don’t do this. Go back home. Go back to your life.”

“I can’t do that, dearest Martha. It’s too late. My honor stands on the line.”

“We are wed. We have a child. If you carry this through, in just a few minutes either I will be a widow or the wife of a murderer. But regardless, it will be you that has caused this.”

“No, it was you. You were to wait for me. I went in search of our future. I was gone so that we could be together. Are you to force me to lose again?”

“Lose again? Ashley, I love Ezekiel. He is my husband, and my place is by his side. I have borne him a son, and even if you are victorious today, I shall not be your prize.”

“So be it. I shall not yield.”

Martha cast her eyes to the ground as she turned and walked back to her husband. She kissed him as passionately as she had ever kissed him, and certainly with more fire than she’d ever dared show in public.

“Ezekiel,” she whispered as their lips parted. “Come back to me. I know I can’t stop this, and you must do what you must.”

“I’m sorry, my love.”

As Martha pulled her eyes away from her husband, the man she’d pledged herself to love forever, she saw the bull standing protectively in the pasture just beyond. She knew the bull. He was as gentle as a calf, until his herd was threatened, then he would be satisfied by nothing less than the end of its enemy. She shook her head and walked back to the carriage, Teresa wrapping her arms around her.

The count started, fifteen paces. She heard the call for their turn. Then to fire.

The report of the two flintlocks echoed through the valley. Martha buried her face in Teresa’s shoulder, unable to turn to look.

“I have to go help,” Teresa said, letting Martha go as she collapsed in the grass next to the carriage. “Both men are injured.”

As they turned, Zeke saw the fury in the eyes of the other man. He was shaking with rage. He burned white hot. Zeke leveled the pistol, his arm outstretched, his body turned to minimize the profile.

His shot was clean, but a moment after the other man’s. As the powder exploded, blinding him for a second, he felt the fire of the ball from the other gun as it ripped through his shirt. Then he saw the other man crumple to the ground, his second rushing to his side, even as his own father rushed toward him.

“It’s ok, father. I think it’s a graze,” Ezekiel said, wavering on his feet. Elijah caught his son as he collapsed.

Martha skidded to the ground on her knees and grasped her husband. She cleaved him to her and held him, Teresa a step behind with medical supplies she’d secreted in the carriage.

Elijah ripped away Zeke’s shirt, exposing the damage done to his midsection. The ball fired from the flintlock was large and blunt, tearing flesh and pounding its way into its target. Teresa pressed a cloth into his side where the damage was the worst.

Ezekiel’s father looked across the field and saw Ashley Jonas’s second stand up next to his friend. He looked over to Elijah and shook his head, then slowly walked toward the older man.

“Mr. MacPherson,” Elijah said, “I’m saddened by the loss of your friend. I wish there had been another way.” He looked down, shaking his head at the tragedy unfolding in front of them.

“Mr. Hammond, I do not lay blame for this upon you or your son. Truly, not even Ashley. It just is. Does it look grave for your son?”

“My daughter, Teresa, is a skilled nurse. She served as a field nurse during the war, so if he is to recover, she will make it so. I take it there was no chance for Mr. Jonas?”

“His life escaped him before he hit the ground. The ball entered the pit of his arm and blew through him like canon shot. Had his arm been down, he might have only lost the limb, but his shot pulled him up.”

“We’ll see that he makes it home for his final trip if that is your wish, Mr. MacPherson. But ‘tis a shame.”

One of the Hammond’s hands from across the road ran out into the field, having heard the shots. At Elijah’s beckoning, he fetched a horse to run to Gallipolis to fetch the doctor for Ezekiel. He also notified the undertaker.

“Can we get a cart for Zeke, Father?” Teresa said. She wiped her bloodied hands on the rag she carried.

“Is he?” the father started to say.

“I think he shall recover, but we need to get him to a better rest.”

Both men were loaded in the same cart, one next to the other. One would be the winner of the day but would carry the scars for the rest of his life. The other had lived the remainder of his days in that field. As the farm came to life around them, the only reminder of the events that had unfolded at sunrise were the bloodstains on the ground where each man fell, one for the last time.

Ezekiel recovered, albeit slowly, Martha not leaving his side. The nightmares still plagued her, though. In the dark she saw over and over many things that happened, and sometimes those things that didn’t. Her most persistent nightmare became that Ezekiel dropped do the ground, his life forfeit.

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Next in the series is "Dancing in the Sky."