Chapter 17: The Crossroads

(Mid-July 1865, Indianapolis)

The road from Columbus to Indianapolis took us through the heart of Indiana—flat farmland broken by occasional stands of timber, small towns that looked prosperous compared to what we'd left behind. The war had touched this place lighter, or maybe it had just recovered faster.

We made the hundred-fifty-mile journey in six days, taking our time, letting the horses graze on good grass, sleeping under stars that were finally visible without smoke obscuring them. It felt good to be out of cities for a while, away from the tension and the watching eyes and the constant calculation of risk.

On the sixth day we saw Indianapolis rising from the prairie—a city of church steeples and commercial buildings laid out in a perfect grid, streets radiating from a central circle like spokes on a wheel. It looked planned, intentional, a city that knew what it wanted to be.

"The Crossroads of America," William read from his guidebook. "So called because of its central location and numerous rail connections. Population near twenty thousand."

"Let's hope it's friendlier than Columbus," Joseph said.

"Let's hope we don't stay long enough to find out," I countered.

But we needed supplies before the final push to Iowa, and Indianapolis was the last major city between here and the frontier. So we rode in, four dusty travelers on tired horses, just trying to pass through without incident.

We found a livery near the rail yards, run by a young man who'd lost his left hand at Vicksburg. He looked at our Confederate remnants but didn't comment, just quoted fair prices and showed us to clean stalls.

"You boys heading west?" he asked as we unsaddled.

"Utah Territory," William said.

"Long way. Dangerous way, too, once you hit the prairie proper." He stroked Rusty's neck with his good hand. "You got weapons?"

"We're armed," I said.

"Good. Indians are mostly peaceful if you treat them right, but there's outlaws working the trails. Deserters from both armies, men who don't want to go back to civilization. They prey on travelers." He gestured at his missing hand. "War might be over, but it ain't done making victims."

We paid him for a week and asked about lodging. He directed us to a boarding house run by a woman named Mrs. Patterson, saying she was fair and didn't ask too many questions.

Mrs. Patterson turned out to be a brisk, businesslike woman in her forties who sized us up in about three seconds and quoted a price that was reasonable. We paid for three nights, figuring that was enough time to resupply and rest before pushing on.

That evening we explored the city. Indianapolis was bigger than Columbus, busier, with an energy that felt forward-looking rather than backward-grieving. The commercial district hummed with activity—shops open and doing business, restaurants full, people on the streets who walked with purpose rather than aimless bitterness.

But underneath the prosperity, we could feel the same tensions we'd felt everywhere else. The freedmen walking careful, watching for trouble. The white workers eyeing the competition. The veterans begging on corners, their empty sleeves and crutches drawing both pity and resentment.

"It's better than Columbus," Joseph observed as we walked back to the boarding house. "But the same fault lines are there. Just covered over with money and motion."

"Money and motion can cover a lot," William said. "Until they can't."

The next morning brought news that changed everything.

We were eating breakfast in the boarding house dining room—eggs and bacon, fresh bread, coffee that actually tasted like coffee—when one of the other boarders came in waving a newspaper.

"Lincoln's killer!" he shouted. "They caught him! Says here John Wilkes Booth was shot and killed trying to escape. And they've rounded up the conspirators. Hanging them all!"

The room erupted in conversation. Some celebrating the justice, others arguing it was too quick, that there should have been a proper trial. Mrs. Patterson had to bang a spoon on a pot to get everyone to quiet down enough to finish eating.

But the news hung in the air all day. We heard it everywhere we went—on street corners, in shops, from newspaper boys shouting headlines. Lincoln's assassination had been two months ago, but the capture and execution of the conspirators was fresh, and it reopened all the wounds.

That night we found ourselves in a crowded tavern, pushed there by the rain that had started falling around supper time. The place was packed—workers from the rail yards, shopkeepers, a few men in suits who looked like they might be lawyers or businessmen. And the subject on everyone's lips was Lincoln, Booth, and what it all meant.

"Justice is served," a railroad worker declared, slamming his mug on the bar. "Hang them all, I say. Hang anyone who supported the Confederacy. They brought this on themselves."

"Lincoln wanted reconciliation," a quieter voice countered—an older man, scholarly looking. "Wanted to bind up the nation's wounds. Hanging people in vengeance goes against everything he stood for."

"Easy for you to say," someone else shouted. "You didn't lose two sons at Gettysburg!"

The argument grew louder, more heated. I caught Tiny's eye, gestured toward the door. We didn't need to be here for this. Didn't need to get drawn into a fight that had no winning side.

But as we stood to leave, a man blocked our path. He was drunk, face flushed, eyes red with something that might have been grief or rage or both. Joseph moved up beside me, and I could feel William's presence at my back. The four of us had learned to move as a unit without discussing it—army training for Tiny and me, something else for the Francoms. Whatever they'd learned in South Africa, it worked.

"You," he said, pointing at me. "I know Confederate gray when I see it, even worn thin as that is. You fought for the South."

"The war's over," I said carefully.

"The war's never over!" He was shouting now, drawing attention. "My brother died at Chickamauga because of you people! And now Lincoln's dead because of you! When does it end? When do we get justice?"

"Your brother got justice the day Lee surrendered," Tiny said, his voice calm but carrying a warning. "Same as everyone else who fought. Now let us pass."

The drunk man looked at Tiny, squinting in the dim tavern light. "What are you? You some kind of—"

He didn't finish because Tiny grabbed him by the shirt, not rough but firm, and moved him aside like he weighed nothing. Joseph had his hand on the man's friend, holding him back without seeming to, the kind of grip that came from working forge hammers. William spoke to the third man, quiet words I couldn't hear but that made him step back quick.

"We're leaving," Tiny said to the drunk. "You should too. Go home, sleep it off, remember your brother better tomorrow."

For a moment it could have gone either way—violence or sense. Then the man's friends pulled him back, apologizing, saying he'd had too much to drink, too much grief, too many memories stirred up by the news.

We left quick, stepping out into the rain that was coming down steadier now. Walked back to the boarding house in silence, the rain soaking us through but feeling clean after the close, angry air of the tavern.

"This is going to be bad," Joseph said once we were in our room, peeling off wet clothes. "The executions—they're going to stir everything up again. Make people who'd started to move on go right back to hating."

"Can't help that," I said. "Can't fix the whole country. We just need to get through it and keep moving west."

"Is that what we're doing?" William asked quietly. "Just getting through? Just surviving?"

It was a fair question. We'd been on the road for near a month now, and what had we accomplished besides putting miles between us and our starting point? We hadn't healed any wounds, hadn't brought any reconciliation, hadn't made anything better.

"We're surviving," Tiny said with certainty. "Sometimes that's all you can do. Survive and hope that by surviving, you prove something. That life goes on. That not everyone has to keep fighting."

The next day I went to the post office to send another letter home. The clerk barely looked at the Danville address anymore—he'd seen so many letters heading south, so many people trying to reconnect with homes and families.

I stood outside afterward, watching the city move around me. Indianapolis was prosperous, busy, forward-looking. But it was also angry, uncertain, still trying to figure out what peace meant and whether they'd actually achieved it.

A group of freedmen stood on a corner, clearly newly arrived, looking lost. They had the clothes-in-a-bundle, nowhere-to-go appearance of people who'd walked away from one life without knowing where the next one would be.

I thought about Isaiah in Columbus, about Reverend Harris and his warnings. About Tiny's mother Sally, who'd been a house servant, and his father Captain Tanner who'd loved her anyway. About all the complications that love and war and slavery had created, complications that couldn't be solved by simply saying the war was over.

One of the freedmen saw me watching and met my eyes. There was a question in his look—help or harm? Friend or threat?

I nodded to him, not much but something. He nodded back. Then they moved on, still looking lost, still searching for whatever freedom was supposed to look like when you actually found it.

I walked back to the boarding house thinking about Samuel. He'd died believing the war was about something noble. But what if it was just about survival? What if all these high principles and grand causes were just ways of dressing up the simple fact that people fought because they didn't know what else to do?

That night I pulled out Emma's letter again, read it by candlelight while the others slept.

I will wait as long as there is breath in me. If you come home missing an arm or a leg, I will still be here. The war has changed everything, but it cannot change what I feel for you. Come home, Virgil. However you can, whenever you can, just come home.

I'd written her from Philadelphia and Columbus. Told her I was working, making money, coming home soon. But "soon" was starting to feel like a word without meaning. We were heading to Winter Quarters—still three weeks away if all went well. Then Salt Lake—another six or seven weeks beyond that. And then back home—God knew how long that would take.

It could be October before I saw Tennessee again. Maybe November. Half a year gone, and for what? Gold that was supposed to make everything better, but probably wouldn't fix anything that really mattered.

"You're thinking too much again," Tiny said from his cot.

"Can't seem to stop."

"What's eating at you?"

I folded Emma's letter, held it in my hands. "Feel like I'm making the wrong choice. Every day we go west is a day away from where I should be. Every city we pass through shows me people suffering, and I can't help any of them. Can't even help myself. Just keep moving, keep delaying, keep putting off the thing I'm supposed to do."

Tiny was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "You know what my father told me, right before Franklin? He said, 'Son, sometimes the right path looks like the wrong one. Sometimes doing the smart thing feels like cowardice, and doing the brave thing is actually foolishness. You got to trust that if your heart's pointed home, you'll get there eventually, even if the road bends.'"

"Did you believe him?"

"I wanted to. He died three hours later, so I didn't get to ask him if it was true." Tiny shifted in his cot. "But I think it was. I think he was telling me that survival isn't shameful. That going home ready to help is better than going home broke. That the long way around might be the only way that works."

"Or it might just be an excuse," I said. "A way to avoid facing what we're afraid to face."

"Maybe. But we're still going, aren't we? Still heading west, still planning to come back. That's something. That's not giving up, just taking the long road."

I wanted to believe him. Wanted to believe that this choice—west for money, then home—would prove right in the end. But lying there in a rented room in Indianapolis, halfway between the war I'd left and the home I couldn't reach, I felt more lost than I'd felt in prison.

At least in prison the goal was simple: survive, get out, go home. Now the goal was muddier: survive, make money, go home, somehow fix things that might be beyond fixing.

Sometimes the right path looked like the wrong one. I had to trust that.

Had to.

We left Indianapolis on the third morning, riding west toward the frontier. The city disappeared behind us, replaced by farms and then prairie, grass rippling in waves that stretched to the horizon.

"This is it," William said, gesturing at the vast openness ahead. "The real journey starts now. No more cities until Winter Quarters. Just us, the horses, and whatever we find out there."

"Indians," Joseph said, reading from his guidebook. "Buffalo. Storms. Rivers to cross. It says here that many travelers don't make it through."

"We'll make it," Tiny said with certainty. "Come too far to fail now."

I looked back once at Indianapolis, already just a smudge of smoke on the horizon. Thought about all the cities we'd passed through—Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, Indianapolis. Each one wounded in its own way, each one struggling to figure out what came next.

Just like us.

I touched Samuel's pouch, felt the familiar weight of his watch and Emma's lavender. Thought about my promise to bring him home, my promise to return to her.

I'm still coming, I told them both. Taking the long way, but still coming. Have to believe this will be worth it in the end.

The prairie stretched ahead, vast and indifferent. Somewhere beyond it lay the Missouri River, Winter Quarters, the Mormon Trail to Salt Lake. And beyond that, eventually, home.

We rode west into a future we couldn't see, carrying pasts we couldn't forget, hoping that somewhere in all those miles was the answer to why we were doing this instead of turning south and going home broke but honest.

Tiny was right—sometimes the right path looked like the wrong one.

I just hoped we'd know the difference when we reached the end.