Cross Pull

"Grandpa, while you were away today, a mister Jones came by with his son Alfrado. They were headed for Austin and didn’t have time to wait for your return. He told me he would stop by to see you on his way back home,” Grace said.

“Great,” Daniel said. For a moment, his eyes were once again lost in the firelight. “Grace, that was Tanner Jones. You may have heard a little about my old friend Tanner. He probably influenced my life more than any one man ever has. Sit with me, and I will tell you of when I first heard of him.” In anticipation, Grace curled up on the couch beside the fireplace and pulled a quilt over her legs.

Daniel chuckled, and his easy manner made her feel at home. “I can’t think of a better place to be when the snow falls than right here in front of this fireplace. I better start at the beginning, so you will know all about this family you’ve married into!” Daniel said with a smile.

Daniel moved around in his old chair. His eyes strayed to a picture above the fireplace. On the mantle, a large picture frame held a picture of several men dressed in tattered Confederate uniforms. Oddly enough, there stood with them a tall black soldier dressed in the uniform of a Union soldier. They all stood behind a frail woman and a small boy. It was apparent they all had suffered from the bitter years of war. In the photo, their arms were linked together, and each face held a smile.

Grace saw him looking at the picture above the mantle and quickly moved to pick it up. “Grandpa, who are all these soldiers, and how did they come to have their picture taken with a black man that fought for the other side?” she asked.

Daniel grinned as he took the picture from her, and his mind seemed far away as he passed his hand over the glass-covered picture frame and said, “I always thought the smiles in this picture seemed out of place for people in such an emaciated state. When the war ended, I headed home from Virginia. With me were my surgical nurse of four years and several wounded soldiers. We were traveling in a military ambulance pulled by a team of mules.”

Gray uniforms filled the streets of New Orleans. Bearded men were wandering aimlessly about or waiting at the ferry landing to cross the mighty Mississippi. On every corner, Union soldiers stood about watching the crowds. Along the river, the sounds of boat whistles heralded their arrival. Their decks, once loaded with bales of cotton, now ferried men of all ages headed home. Some moved aimlessly about with no apparent future plans. New Orleans had become a destination point from which men deployed in all directions. The sound of riverboat whistles echoed through the streets of the French Quarter. The splash of stern wheelers churning the river sent excitement coursing through Daniel’s body. His heart quickened as he thought that Emma might be somewhere in these crowded streets.

Maneuvering the wagon through the French Quarter, Daniel came to the building where his medical practice had been before the war. He had run a noted practice that had flourished. People from near and far came to be treated by Dr. Daniel Black and his staff. Stopping the wagon in front of the building, he could not believe his eyes. Not a vestige of the past remained. Four years before, he had stepped through those doors in expensive suits. He was admired by those who knew him. Now the doors opened into a saloon, and the course notes of a saloon piano spilled onto the cobblestone streets. Daniel Black had left New Orleans with all the honors men could bestow, for he was going to war as a savior for the wounded. Today, he had returned to New Orleans as a middle-aged man who no one would recognize.

Suddenly, he saw the streets of New Orleans filled with happy, well-dressed men donning top hats and carrying diamond-studded canes. The women dressed in colorful dresses and bonnets with the always present fold fan and parasol in hand as they strolled through the French Quarter. Shaking his head as if to clear the cobwebs from his mind, Daniel saw the scene change back to reality...haggard, battle-worn men standing about in the streets. Top Hats and studded canes had been replaced with worn uniforms, and branches of trees used for crutches for the maimed. The sound of ferryboats moving to and fro across the river, carrying men across the mighty Mississippi, was the only thing that remained the same. “Giddy up!” he yelled at the mules, wanting to hurry from this dismal scene.