“Where is it?” Zach asked. He sat in the back seat, behind Maddy. Her grandfather Pete turned at the corner of Drake and Westmain, heading towards his cabin. 

“Not far," Pete said. "Fifteen minutes from here. Ain’t much of anything. Just a rickety shed on ten acres stuck between some fields and a swamp. But like I said, it’s a good place to rough it like a true pioneer.” 

“Rough is right,” Maddy said. “The last time I was there, I was six. And it scared me silly at night. No lights. No toilets. Animals scuffling around outside. Yuuch!” 

Pete stopped for a light, drummed his thumbs on the steering wheel. 

“Okay. So, we’re going to make a movie about the Drake House, right? Let’s see what we’ve got to work with so far – a carved heart, a knife blade, a uniform button and a tea cup handle. Okay, that’s a start,” Pete said, nodding his head. “I think I remember reading that one of the daughters Mary or Maria took over the farm.”  

“Let’s call her Mariah,” Zach said. 

“Okay, let me think about it a bit,” Pete said. 

Pete parked in a spot barely bigger than the car. Zach stared out the window at a narrow path that disappeared into a tangle of leaves and vines and trees. 

“Like I said,” Pete called over his shoulder as they trooped single file along the overgrown trail, “a man needs a place to get away, to live simple once in a while. Get rid of all the noise.” 

Zach eye-balled the towering trees. Vines thick as his arm climbed, hung, and climbed again, over groaning limbs. Tarzan would have felt at home. “Sometimes I come in and cut some of these vines. Sometimes I decide to just let them hang around.” Pete chuckled at his own joke. 

“What’s that?” Zach asked, pointing to a pile of stones. 

“Cairn. It’s called a cairn,” Pete explained. “Years ago people built them to tell directions, like sign posts. That and blazes – notches cut in trees to mark a trail.” 

“Were these here when you bought the place? Like from pioneer days?”  

Pete laughed, “Naw. I built ‘em myself. Whenever I find a few boulders lying around, I get a hankerin’ to pile them into a sculpture.” 

“I never understood how you can call a pile of rocks a sculpture,” Maddy remarked. 

“That’s just what it is,” Zach said. “It’s a work of art. See that rock that looks like a giant green pumpkin? Look how it’s balanced on top of the smaller rocks. It should be on the bottom. Instead it’s on the top looking like it wants to topple any second. And the one little rock on the edge that looks like it’s going to tip the whole thing over…that’s dramatic tension is what it is. Didn’t you ever see those Westerns where the stagecoach rides next to a tall needle rock with a boulder balanced on top? Makes you hold your breath waiting to see what happens next.” 

“What can happen to a pile of rocks?” Maddy asked. 

Two cairns and ten minutes of hiking later they stood in front of Pete’s cabin. Covered in black tar paper, a smoke stack hooking out the side wall, the cabin was as small as a grass-cutter shed. Inside, Zach sat on the narrow camp cot and panned the room. There was a cast-iron stove the size of a gym bag. A bird’s nest lay next to a small pile of twigs. Kindling, Zach thought. A wood crate nailed on the wall held a frying pan, a box of matches, a spoon, fork and knife. No windows. Spider webs in the corner. The blanket on the cot smelled like a cottage that’s been shut up all winter – dusty, stale and needing fresh air. 

Next to the door, a small shelf held six arrowheads. Zach leaned out and called, “Where did you get these? From around here?” 

“You bet. From that farm field we passed on the way in.”  

“Can I keep one?” Zach asked 

“Sure, there’s lots more where those came from.” 

“Me too?” Maddy asked. “Can I have this long slender one all white and sharp with tiny little chips marks? I love it. In fact, they’re all beautiful. Can I take them home and put them on a board, Grampa, like for a class project?” 

“Sure thing,” Pete said. “But I thought you were a vegetarian. Those arrowheads were mostly used to kill animals.” 

Maddy frowned. “Well, they’re still pretty. And just think, someone spent hours chipping off all these tiny flakes of stone.” 

Zach circled the cabin. A maroon car hood leaned against the back wall. There was a yellow rope looped through two holes in its front edge. Behind the hood were a shovel, pry bar and pick.  

“What’s the hood for?” Zach called. “Wait. Wait. I know. You flip the hood upside down and then use it to slide rocks to your cairns. I bet you always find things to do around here.” 

Pete smiled. Shrugged. “It’s not the only reason I come here. Sometimes I come for the quiet time. When I get myself away from people noise, I sit still and listen to all the sounds around me. One by one. Birds. Bugs. The wind. Pretty soon the only sounds I haven’t heard come from me – my own thoughts and feelings. And that’s when the real surprises begin. I remember happy times, like when Maddy was little and cute. Not like now, when…” 

“Cut it out, Grandpa.” Nodding toward Zach. “Not in public.” 

He chuckled. “And when I’m quiet inside, well then, stories come together, gardens get planted and I see my granddaughter making great saves in goal.” 

“Grampa, I’m tired and don’t feel so good. Can we go now?”  

Pete was silent all the way back to the car, thinking. 

At the first stop sign Pete looked back at Zach and began. 

“Okay,” Pete said. “Here’s the opening scene of your movie… 

“An old lady rocks on the front porch of the Drake House. She looks to her right. There’s a shopping mall. She looks to her left at the student housing apartments and a retirement home. Then she looks straight ahead. Twisted sugar maple trees stand like old soldiers on each side of a lane that ends at Drake road. The old lady says, in a crackly voice, ‘My great grandfather started all this. Drake was his name. Benjamin Drake.’  

“So that’s the opening. Then the screen fades back to the 1850’s. Here’s where the carved heart comes in. Let’s say that the NH in the heart stands for Nathaniel Hoffman. And he gets married to MD, Mariah Drake, in the Drake House in 1861, just at the beginning of the Civil War.”  

“What about the knife and the–” 

“Be patient, Zach” Pete said, “and I’ll tell you.” 

“It’s the morning after their wedding,” Pete continues. “Mariah is sitting at the desk in her bedroom. She slides a Bowie knife out of its leather sheath. Nathaniel sits up in bed. Yawns. 

“Nathaniel say, ‘Good morning, my darling. I’ll always want to remember you the way you are this moment – so radiant in the early morning light.’”  

Zach rolled his eyes at Pete. “That’s laying it on pretty thick. How about he says something like, ‘Hey. What’s up?’” 

“You can tell it your way later. Right now I’ll tell it my way.”  

“Fair enough,” Zach muttered. 

Pete continued. “Mariah smiles at her new husband. ‘Isn’t this a beautiful knife?’ she says.  

“‘Yeah,’ says Nathaniel. ‘My dad had it made special by a blacksmith in Three Rivers.’ 

“Mariah picks up a tea cup and saucer. ‘I love this tea set my mother gave me. She got it from her mother. It came all the way from England. It’s the first thing we’ll put in the china cabinet as soon as I start teaching and we build our house in Kalamazoo.’ 

“‘Uhm,’ Nathaniel says slowly. ‘I was thinking that it might be a while…before we do all that…’ 

“‘A while? How long?’ asks Mariah. 

“’Don’t rightly know – could be a spell.’ 

“‘What are you saying?’ Mariah asks Nathaniel. 

“‘Well, it might be better if you planned on staying here with your folks.’ 

“’ You make it sound like you plan on going somewhere and leaving me behind just when it looked like I could quit being a little girl and get away from this farm and be in charge of my own house and make my own family. Well, are you? Are you planning on going somewhere, Nathaniel?’ 

“‘Uhm…yeah. You could say that. I enlisted…’ 

“‘You’re going to be a soldier and fight in the war! AARGH!’ She slams the cup down. The handle breaks off in her hand. ‘Now look what you made me do!’ 

“She cries quietly for a moment, carefully placing the broken cup onto the saucer. Then her face gets red and she turns toward Nathaniel. ‘I never would have married you if I knew you planned to run off and play soldier as soon as we got married. I’d rather be an old maid than a war widow.’ 

“‘Don’t say that Mariah. I have to do my duty to save the Union.’  

“‘You just think it will be parades and uniforms and glory,’ says Mariah angrily. ‘But I’ll be stuck here smelling cow poop and plucking chickens…’” 

Pete looked across at Maddy, who appeared to be sleeping. Then he looked into the rear view mirror and winked at Zach. “Good thing Maddy isn’t interested in this story,” Pete fake whispered. “She wouldn’t like the ‘killing chickens’ part. She’d have Mariah picking up eggs and milking cows.” 

“I don’t think she likes made-up stories, period,” Zach added. 

“You got that right,” Pete allowed. “When she was three she pulled the beard off a mall Santa and didn’t believe in him or the tooth fairy since. Never could get her to tell a story.” 

“Ha!” Maddy barked without opening her eyes. “Could if I wanted to.”  

Pete chuckled and then continued. “So, back to where I was before I so rudely interrupted myself… 

“‘I’ll be left here shearing sheep and butchering hogs and worrying about you getting torn to pieces and I’ll still be little Mariah instead of Mrs. Hoffman,’ Mariah fumes. 

“‘Now don’t carry on so–’ 

“‘Mariah flings the sheathed knife toward Nathaniel and storms out of the room.” 

Pete pulled to the curb by the Drake House. 

“That was great!” Zach said. “So, then what?” 

“I don’t know,” Pete replied. “I’ll have to think about it. Why don’t you put your mind to it, too?”  

The following Saturday Zach came up beside Pete on the sideline. 

“Hey, Zach,” Pete said. “Maddy’s doing great. She made three stops already. They’re ahead 3 to 2 and five minutes to play.” 

“Cool.” 

“So, have you come up with any more ideas for your script?”  

“Some,” Zach said, his face glowing with excitement. 

“Good. You can tell me about it on the ride over to the Drake place.” 

“Hey, Maddy. Good game,” Zach said as they climbed into Pete’s car. 

Maddy moaned. “Grampa, I’m sore. I need a hot bath.” 

“Sure, honey. I’ll get you to my place right away.” 

As soon as they pulled away from the curb, Zach began. “Here’s what I’ve got so far. This next scene is played with just music and sound effects. It like, explains where Nathaniel is and what’s happening to him.  

“Union soldiers sit around a camp fire. One whittles a stick. Another one taps his foot. Another one cleans his rifle. They are tense and nervous. One guy trips over another guy’s foot. They almost start to fight. Nathaniel slowly sharpens his wedding knife, over and over.  

“Finally a sergeant says something to Nathaniel. He goes into his tent and comes out with a banjo. He sits down on a log and begins to strum slowly. Soldiers come from other tents, hunker down around the fire. They mellow out. 

“Next scene,” Zach said professionally. “Imagine deafening sounds of cannons and rifles and shouting and screaming. Nathaniel staggers out of a cloud of smoke. He looks lost. A group of Yankee soldiers come running at him, turn him around, sweep him along as they charge screaming and yelling into the smoky woods.” 

“That’s great,” Pete said. 

“Yeah, but I don’t know where to go from here.” 

Pete thought for a moment. “Okay, here you go… 

“Bark splinters off trees. Soldiers twist and jump and fall wounded and dead. Nathaniel stumbles. Lies face down on the ground. Bullets and shrapnel rain all around him. It’s like being in a red thunderstorm. You can’t go anywhere without getting wet with blood.  

He buries his face in the earth. He panics. He pictures Mariah. He has to stay alive for her. He grabs his knife and starts digging. He chops at roots. He stabs a rock. The tip of the knife breaks off. He scratches and pulls dirt until he has dug a shallow trench. He wiggles as hard as he can, as deep as he can, trying to make himself small.” 

“I know. I know,” Zach jumped in… 

“A soldier falls on top of him forcing his face into the soft dirt. He can’t breathe. He reaches a hand up to push the soldier off. Something slaps his hand. The soldier rolls off. The first two fingers from Nathaniel’s left hand are gone. He stares in disbelief. No pain yet.  

“Suddenly the cannons stop shooting. From deep in the woods ahead of him he hears, ‘CHARGE!’ From behind and to his right he hears a bugle. A booming voice shouts, ‘CHARGE!’ Nathaniel shoves his knife in his sheath, grabs his rifle and runs forward with a wall of other blue coated soldiers.” 

“You guys, please stop,” Maddy pleaded. “My head hurts.” 

“When can I hear the next part of your script, Zach?” Pete asked. 

“Don’t know.” 

“How about online?” Pete asked. “You could e-mail us both your script.” Maddy groaned. 

* * *

From: PoorBoy2 

To: Mad Dee, Peetster 

Subject: Nathaniel in the Civil War 

Now here’s where I want this to be like that documentary on the Civil War where people read letters and diaries. So Nathaniel’s going to write to Mariah and she’s going to write to him. Only I don’t know what she should say. We left her all mad at him. Any ideas? 

Let me know, 

--Zach 

From: Mad Dee 

To: PoorBoy2 

Subject: Your script 

They probably shipped Nathaniel’s stuff home after he died. Right? So this is like a year or more later only Mariah doesn’t know he died. And she’s still sending him letters but they get lost. 

Wait a minute. Why are you asking me? I got enough to worry about. I’m playing goalie at practice. Neela is still out. Coach is talking about starting me on Saturday just because I made a good stop on a breakaway during scrimmage. He says I see the flow of the game real well and know how to position myself and how to tell others where to go. Is he saying I’m bossy? 

And then he says I should think of going to goalie camp this summer. As if I like any part of this game and want to spend any more time on it than I have to. But it is nice to hear my team cheer when I make a good stop. So, anyway, about your script…I don’t do stories, remember?  

--Maddy 

From: PoorBoy2 

To: Mad Dee; Peetster 

Subject: Bloodthirsty vegetarian 

Man, for someone who doesn’t like killing, you sure got rid of Nathaniel fast. He only lost two fingers. He survives. Only now he’s in the hospital behind the lines and he finally got a letter from Mariah. 

But you’re getting good at goalie stuff gives me an idea about her. I think what should happen with Mariah is that things change once she’s married. And maybe her mom and dad don’t think of her like a little girl anymore and her dad lets her get involved in horse breeding. And maybe she tries some new things that don’t involve killing animals like starting bee hives and making honey. And little by little, she finds she really does like staying on a farm and might be bored in the city. And then here’s what we hear from Nathaniel: 

Nathaniel is propped up in a hospital bed. His left hand is in a sling. He’s writing a letter. A voice reads it for the audience.  

My Dearest Mariah, 

I’m writing to let you know I’m alive after a terrible battle here in Shiloh. In your last letter, you told me about your bee hives. Well, I was in a kind of bee hive myself. Everybody called that part of the woods the hornet’s nest. I’m lucky to have survived but you shouldn’t have to worry from now on. I’ll be driving ambulance wagons and won’t be on the front lines anymore. And I promise you when I get home and we have a son, I’ll teach him to play the banjo even if I can’t anymore. 

Your loving husband, 

Nathaniel Hoffman 

How’s that? This is as far as I got till I dig up more clues. And, if you don’t mind, Maddy, and if you ever do go to soccer camp, maybe you could email me once or twice. Or even if you don’t go.  

--Zach 

From: Mad Dee 

To: PoorBoy2 

Subject: Don’t ask… 

When I do tell you something for your story, you don’t like it, so just leave me out of your story telling. Okay? And if I ever did decide to go to soccer camp how would I have time to e-mail you or IM or anything?  

--Maddy 

From: Peetster 

To: PoorBoy2 

Subject: The last installment 

Nice, Zach. I can’t wait to hear the rest of the story. Maybe I can help you dig up clues next Saturday.  

--Pete