One day Tom lay in the field of battle with his brother Garrett. After the smoke cleared a white dove flew overhead. “That, Brother, is a sign,” Garrett said. “Peace will come.”
Garrett fell at Chickamauga. Tom lost the heart for going home. When he mustered out he went to work in a brickyard planning to save for a rig to go west. A man could lose himself under the big sky.
But his father came for him. His ma…she had already lost her firstborn.
So Tom came home one last time. Soon as harvest was in, he would go.
Then one day he was working in the field and a boy came. There was trouble. The boy’s ma…she killed a drifter. But not before he murdered the boy’s pa.
And the woman, the one who killed…well the baby was coming.
