1. What Should Have Been Farbay

Western Virginia
April, 1863

The way my cousin Anshel leaped onto the cart before Mr. B stopped the horses, I thought he would fall off and get run over. Black clouds were bursting around the sky like ink drops hitting water, and a catastrophe would have fit the mood of the moment.

“You need to get home, Mr. B," he was telling the old dairyman. "But if you don’t, if it rains, you come here, you stay with us–yes, Loydie?” He looked at me, adding a “y” after the “o” in my name, which was short for Elodie.

Mr. B took the milk can from Anshel and set it at my feet, squashing a smile. “You don’t worry about me and the weather, young man. There in’t a storm created that can kill me or scare me or otherwise stop me from gettin’ my cows’ good work to the folks that need it. What scares me is them soldiers catchin’ me and bringin’ me to town to feed their friends again. It in’t right. Not when they got their gen’ral with them, and people treatin’ him like he were God on earth.”

It must have been the dozenth time my cousin heard the story of how Mr. B’s milk was abducted by some of the less gallant members of our Confederate army. He nodded anyway, all patience. “Maybe they won’t steal from you again.”

Mr. B took a deep breath, dug his fists into his hips, and looked past his boots to the turf, which had frozen while it was still turning green. “No … no,” he said with weary determination. “They won’t take nothin’ from me again. They didn’t take from me the first time. They took from folks who needed somethin’ morer than they did.”

All at once, Mr. B jumped back on the cart and started handing down the three remaining cans to Anshel and me. “Here … We’ll keep these here, with you. I’ll drive around to the other customers and tell them to get their deliveries here. You think your ma will mind?”

“That’s smart … good … clever …” Anshel said without waiting to hear what I thought my mother would say.

Mr. B put the cans inside the barn, near the door. I thought he would be relieved at not having to worry over the fate of the milk, but as he sat on the cart and took up the reins, his mood was bleak.

“I shouldn’t tell you this, with your dad away fightin’ and all, Lodie, but I’m sick of this war business. That Gen’ral Jackson down at the Moss Neck plantation with his troops? Dammim, he’s a hero to the South, but he’s huntin’ down starvin’ men and boys who sneak away for a bite to eat and then shootin’ ‘em without a trial. He’s a desecration of the notion of a Christian man, he is. He don’t deserve our respect. And he sure as hell don’t deserve my cows’ milk.”

"I thought he was executing deserters--men running away from the army," I said.

"Don't matter the reason, Lodie. He's killin’ his own men. And if he's killin’ his own men, you know he's gonna start killin’ civilians–if he's not doin' it already. You know how to shoot, son?"

Anshel's eyes went the size of horseshoes. "Me?" The word was as good as "No."

"Then you come see me, and I'll teach you. You too, Lodie. You got to protect yourselves."

"Our own troops would really harm us?" I said, believing deep in my heart that nobody would murder people who had no part in the fighting.

Mr. B clucked, the horses stepped forward, and the milk cart began to lumber down the drive. "Either you ignore somethin’ or you're ignorant about somethin’. You can't do both," he called over his shoulder. "Now, I just told yas what's out there. You're not ignorant about it, so you'd better not ignore it!"

"But what do we do?" I shouted. The reply was an arm lifted in a wave of farewell.

"Never mind, Loydie,” Anshel said. “It's farbay–over. Gone. Done with. Let's get on with the day."

His deep gray eyes were raised to the clouds and glinted not with fear, but casual curiosity, as though he were glancing at a clock to check the time. He was almost eighteen; he sometimes acted twenty years older. "Aren't you worried?" I asked.

"We can always use a little rain."

"Not about the rain. The danger."

"Life is dangerous. That's good, yes? We'd be too comfortable. We'd forget why we're here."

"Well, you'd better hope the Confederate Army forgets we're here."

I hastened to the house. Anshel, I knew, was about to lecture me on how nothing in this world happens without a reason, and it was the best way I could tell him I had no interest without actually saying so and hurting his feelings.