Chapter 16: The Queen's Wounds

(Early July 1865, Columbus, Ohio)

The road to Columbus took us through country that looked almost untouched by the war. Rolling farmland, corn growing tall, cattle grazing in fields bordered by stone walls that had stood for generations. We passed farmhouses with washing hanging on lines, children playing in yards, dogs barking at our passing.

It was easy to forget, riding through all that peaceful plenty, that just a year ago armies had been marching through other fields just like these, turning crops to mud and barns to ash.

"Strange, isn't it?" William said, echoing my thoughts. "How the war touched some places and missed others completely."

"War's like that," Tiny said. "Destroys one town and leaves the next one standing. No logic to it."

We made good time, the horses rested from Pittsburgh, the weather holding fair. Stopped at farms to buy eggs and milk, at small towns to resupply and water the animals. People were cautious but not hostile—this deep in Ohio, Confederate veterans were rare enough to be curious rather than threatening.

On the fifth day out from Pittsburgh, we crested a hill and saw Columbus spread out in the valley below. It was bigger than I'd expected—a proper city with church steeples and commercial buildings, smoke from hundreds of chimneys, the gleam of a river cutting through the center.

"The Queen of the West," Joseph said, reading from a guidebook he'd bought back in New York. "Capital of Ohio. Population near twenty thousand before the war, likely more now."

But as we rode closer, I started to notice things that didn't fit the "queen" description. Buildings with windows boarded up. Whole blocks that looked half-deserted. And everywhere, more men than women, more idle workers than busy shops.

"Something's wrong here," I said quietly to Tiny.

He'd noticed it too. "City's hurting. Question is why."

We found out soon enough.

The livery we chose was run by a German immigrant named Schmidt who spoke English with an accent thick enough to cut. But his stable was clean and his prices fair, so we paid for a week and started asking questions.

"The war?" Schmidt shook his head sadly. "Ja, the war. Columbus, she was lucky—no battles here, no armies burning things. But the war, she took our men. So many men. Thousands went to fight, and..." He gestured vaguely. "Many did not return. Now we have widows, orphans, men with no legs, no arms. The factories, they closed when war ended. No more need for uniforms, for weapons. Now many have no work."

"What about the railroad?" William asked. "Surely that provides employment."

"Some, ja. But not enough. And the freedmen, they come now looking for work. This makes trouble. Some say they take jobs from white men. Others say they work for less money, make wages go down for everyone." Schmidt sighed. "Is complicated. Everyone is angry, everyone is afraid. Not a good time in Columbus."

He wasn't wrong. We spent that first afternoon just walking the streets, getting a sense of the place. What we saw was a city caught between past and future, not sure which direction to face.

The commercial district had grand buildings from before the war, but half the shops were closed, their windows dusty and dark. The residential streets had fine houses, but many showed signs of neglect—paint peeling, gardens overgrown, shutters hanging crooked.

And everywhere, tension. You could feel it in how people moved—quick, wary, not making eye contact. Could see it in the clusters of men standing on corners with nothing to do, their faces hard with bitterness. Could hear it in the voices that carried from taverns, angry and loud.

"This place feels like a powder keg," Joseph said as we walked back to find lodging. "One spark and it'll explode."

"Let's hope we're not here when it does," I said.

We found a boarding house run by a widow named Mrs. Hutchins—a thin woman with gray hair and eyes that had seen too much sorrow. She looked at our travel-worn appearance and Confederate remnants without much interest.

"Dollar a night, meals included. Payment in advance." Her voice was flat, emotionless. "Room's on the second floor. No drinking, no gambling, no women. You break rules, you leave."

We paid for three nights and followed her upstairs. The room was clean but spare—four cots, a washstand, a window looking out on a street where nothing moved.

"She seems cheerful," Joseph muttered once Mrs. Hutchins had left.

"Lost someone," Tiny said with certainty. "Seen that look before. It's what grief looks like when you've worn it so long it becomes your face."

At supper we met the other boarders—six men, all of them clearly down on their luck. A clerk who'd lost his position when his employer went bankrupt. Two factory workers idled when the uniform factory closed. A farmer who'd lost his farm to debt. A veteran with one arm and eyes that looked somewhere past you instead of at you. And a freedman named Isaiah who sat at the far end of the table, separate from the others in a way that wasn't enforced but just was.

The conversation was subdued, bitter. The clerk complained about immigrants taking jobs. The factory workers talked about wages being driven down. The farmer blamed the banks and the government and anyone else he could think of.

Through it all, Isaiah ate in silence, not engaging, not arguing, just eating his food with the careful attention of someone who'd learned not to draw notice.

We kept quiet too, not wanting to add fuel to whatever fires were smoldering here.

After supper, as we were leaving the dining room, Isaiah approached Tiny. Hesitated, then spoke quiet enough that the others wouldn't hear.

"You served?" he asked, looking at Tiny's worn Confederate gray.

"I did."

Isaiah nodded slowly. "Thought so. Saw something in how you carry yourself." He paused. "Saw something else too. In your face."

Tiny met his eyes steady. "And?"

"And nothing. Just wanted you to know—there's a community of freedmen on the east side. If you need anything, if there's trouble, you ask for Reverend Harris at the African Methodist Episcopal church. He helps folks who..." Isaiah searched for words. "Folks who don't fit in easy boxes."

"I appreciate that," Tiny said.

Isaiah nodded once more and left quickly, not wanting to be seen talking too long with us.

"That was kind of him," William said once we were upstairs.

"That was survival," Tiny corrected. "He's learned to recognize who might be sympathetic, who might need help. In a city like this, those connections matter."

The next morning I set out to find the post office, hoping to send another letter home. The building was easy to find—a solid structure near the center of town, one of the few that looked prosperous and well-maintained.

Inside, a clerk took my letter, looked at the Danville address, and sighed. "Mail service to the South is still irregular. Can't promise when—or if—this will arrive."

"I know. But I have to try."

He stamped it and dropped it in a sack with dozens of others, all heading south. Letters from soldiers trying to reach home, from families searching for missing relatives, from people trying to hold together connections the war had strained to breaking.

Outside, I stood on the post office steps and watched the city move around me. Wagons hauling goods, workers heading to whatever jobs still existed, women shopping at market stalls where prices were marked in chalk that kept being erased and rewritten higher.

And everywhere, the undercurrent of anger and fear.

A commotion drew my attention—raised voices from across the street where a white man was confronting a Black man who'd apparently bumped into him. The white man was shouting, face red, and a small crowd was gathering.

I started to turn away—not my fight, not my business—but then I saw Tiny moving through the crowd toward them, and cursed under my breath.

By the time I got there, Tiny had positioned himself between the two men. The white man was still shouting, but quieter now, made uncertain by Tiny's size.

"Apologize!" the white man demanded. "This n—" He stopped, seeing Tiny's expression.

"He already apologized," Tiny said, his voice carrying that dangerous calm. "I heard him. Three times. That ought to be enough for any reasonable man."

The white man looked Tiny up and down, trying to figure him out. "This your friend?"

"This is a man who made an honest mistake and tried to make it right. That's all anyone needs to know."

The crowd was growing, and I could feel it turning ugly. Some of them recognized what Tiny was—or thought they did—and that made things worse. A Black man defending another Black man was one thing. But Tiny was harder to categorize, and people who couldn't categorize something tended to get angry about it.

"Tiny," I said quietly, moving to his side. William flanked Tiny's other side, and I caught Joseph shifting position behind us, cutting off angles. We weren't starting a fight, but we weren't going to let Tiny stand alone either. "Can't," Tiny said. But his jaw was tight, knowing this could go bad fast. Four of us or not, a mob was a mob.

That's when a new voice cut through the tension. "What seems to be the problem here?"

A man in a clerical collar pushed through the crowd—older, Black, with the kind of authority that came from years of leading people through hard times. This had to be Reverend Harris, the one Isaiah had mentioned.

"No problem, Reverend," the white man said, suddenly less aggressive. "Just a misunderstanding."

"I see." Reverend Harris looked at the Black man who'd been accosted. "Brother Thomas, you alright?"

"Yes, Reverend. Just trying to get home."

"Then you go on home. I'll handle this." Harris waited until Thomas had hurried away, then turned to the white man. "I know your father, William. Good man, your father. Church deacon. He'd be disappointed to see you making a scene in the street over an accidental bump."

The white man's face went even redder, but with embarrassment now rather than anger. He muttered something and pushed through the crowd, his friends following.

The crowd dispersed slowly, the excitement over. Reverend Harris looked at Tiny, then at me, assessing.

"You're the travelers staying at Mrs. Hutchins's place," he said.

"Word travels fast," I said.

"In a community that has to watch out for itself, yes, it does." He smiled, but there was steel underneath. "Isaiah said you might be sympathetic to our cause. That true?"

"We're just passing through," I said carefully.

"Everyone's just passing through. Question is what you do while you're here." He looked at Tiny again. "You served in the Confederate Army."

"I did."

"That must have been... complicated."

"It was."

Harris nodded, understanding passing between them. "Walk with me a moment?"

We followed him away from the busy street to a small park where benches sat under oak trees. Harris settled onto one, gestured for us to sit.

"Columbus is a city on edge," he said without preamble. "The war ended, but it didn't solve anything. We have thousands of freedmen coming north looking for work and safety. We have white workers angry about competition for jobs. We have veterans who gave everything and came back to nothing. Mix that all together, add poverty and fear, and you get violence."

"What happened to Brother Thomas happens a lot?" I asked.

"Every day. Sometimes worse. Two weeks ago a freedman was beaten nearly to death for supposedly being too familiar with a white woman—he'd simply held a door open for her. The men who did it weren't even arrested." Harris's voice was calm, but his hands were clenched. "The authorities say they're maintaining order. What they're really doing is maintaining the old order, just under a new name."

"What do you want from us?" Tiny asked.

"Nothing. Just wanted you to understand what you walked into back there. That crowd was close to turning into a mob. If it had, you both could have been hurt." He looked at Tiny specifically. "You especially. Because they can't quite figure out what you are, and that makes them dangerous."

"I'm used to it," Tiny said.

"I'm sure you are. But Columbus isn't Tennessee or South Carolina. The rules are different here, more unpredictable. A man like you—part of one world, part of another—you're a puzzle people don't like. And when people don't like puzzles, they tend to smash them." Harris stood. "I'm not telling you to leave. But I am telling you to be careful. Very careful. The city's looking for someone to blame for everything that's gone wrong, and people who don't fit into neat categories make convenient targets."

He walked away, leaving us sitting under the oak trees with his warning hanging in the air.

"He's right," I said after a moment. "We should leave tomorrow. Columbus isn't safe."

"Nowhere's safe," Tiny said quietly. "Not for me. Hasn't been safe since I was born. I just learned to move through it careful." He looked at me. "But I appreciate you standing with me back there."

"You're my brother," I said simply. "You'd do the same."

"I would." He stood, stretched. "Let's get back to the boarding house. I'm suddenly feeling the need for walls and a locked door."

That night, lying in my cot listening to the city sounds outside—distant shouting, a dog barking, wagon wheels on cobblestones—I thought about what Reverend Harris had said. About cities on edge, about violence looking for targets, about the war ending but not solving anything.

I thought about Samuel, who'd believed the war was about something noble and worth dying for. Wondered what he'd make of these cities we were passing through, where the war had settled nothing and made everything more complicated.

I thought about Emma, waiting in Danville where her own city was probably just as tense, just as uncertain. About Ma and Pa trying to hold together a farm and a family when everything had been torn apart.

And I thought about the choice I'd made in New York—to go west for money instead of south for home. Every city we passed through made that choice feel heavier. Because the money was supposed to fix things, but these cities showed me that some things couldn't be fixed with gold. Some wounds went too deep.

I pulled out Emma's letter, the paper soft and thin from being read so many times. I will wait as long as there is breath in me.

But what if I took so long that there was nothing left to come home to? What if the delays and detours meant I arrived to find everything changed beyond recognition?

"Can't sleep?" Tiny's voice came quiet from his cot.

"Thinking too much."

"About home?"

"Always about home." I folded Emma's letter careful, tucked it back in the pouch with Samuel's things. "Harris was right. This city feels like it's about to explode. And here we are, walking through it like we don't have sense enough to run."

"We'll leave tomorrow," Tiny said. "Get to Indianapolis, then Iowa City, then Winter Quarters. One city at a time, one day at a time."

"And then?"

"And then we go home. You to Tennessee, me to..." He trailed off. "Wherever home is for someone like me. Haven't quite figured that part out yet."

"Could come to Tennessee," I offered. "Help me and Pa rebuild. You'd be welcome."

"That's kind. But Tennessee's your home, not mine. I need to find my own place. Somewhere I fit, or at least somewhere I can be useful without causing trouble just by existing."

I wanted to argue, to tell him he wouldn't cause trouble, that Ma and Pa would welcome him. But I thought about Danville, about the tensions there, about how people would look at a man who'd fought for the South but had Black blood in his veins. Thought about the complications it would bring, the questions, the suspicion.

Sometimes kindness wasn't enough. Sometimes the world just wouldn't let you do the right thing without making everyone suffer for it.

"We'll figure it out," I said finally. "When the time comes, we'll figure it out."

"Yeah," Tiny agreed, but he didn't sound convinced.

We left Columbus at first light, before the city fully woke. Mrs. Hutchins took our money without comment, asked no questions, offered no farewell. We collected our horses from Schmidt's livery, checked the loads on the pack mules, and rode west toward Indianapolis.

As we passed the last buildings and hit open country again, I felt the tension drain out of my shoulders. The air seemed cleaner here, the sky wider, the future less crowded with anger and fear.

"Goodbye, Columbus," Joseph said, looking back at the smoke rising from morning cook fires. "I hope you find your way through this."

"They will or they won't," Tiny said pragmatically. "Either way, it's not on us to fix."

But watching the city disappear behind us, I couldn't help but feel we were leaving something unfinished. Like we should have done more, said more, helped more.

Then again, maybe that's how everyone felt after the war—like they should have done more, been more, saved more. Like no amount of effort was ever enough to fix what had been broken.

I touched Samuel's pouch one more time, felt the familiar weight of it.

Is this worth it? I asked him. All this traveling, all these delays, all these cities full of people we can't help? Is the money really going to make going home this way worth the cost?

But Samuel was dead and couldn't answer. And the road stretched west toward Indianapolis, carrying four men who were learning that the war might be over but peace was proving a lot harder to find.

We rode in silence through farmland turning green and gold in the July sun, each of us carrying our own thoughts, our own doubts, our own reasons for going west when home lay south.

And somewhere behind us, Columbus woke to another day of struggling to figure out what it was supposed to be now that the war it had helped win had left it uncertain and afraid.

Some cities were like that. Some cities couldn't seem to find their way back from the war.

And some people couldn't either.