98 Grey Tigers, Chapter One
Best not to start this until reading Fearless and True
Makes a great gift for Christmas!
https://www.amazon.com/Fearless-True-Wade-Bennett/dp/0998060380
Buck loved The Comet. Almost every morning when he started his day's work, he could hear it booming down the tracks miles from town. The real name for the old locomotive was The Vestibule. It was created south of Richmond on the Danville line after the war when that area was rebuilt. It is now served on the “Crescent Line” which runs as far as New Orleans to Atlanta sometimes daily. On other days it would go from Flomaton to Montgomery, or from the capital to Nashville and then get a little relief from Opelika to Columbus, GA. Buck had his own name for the old warhorse of a train. He called it The Comet after his friend George told him about smaller type planets that circled the planets and stars leaving a trail of white space dust behind them. The previous winter in December, George had told him that the very first picture had been taken of a comet and he desperately had wanted to see the photographs. After hearing the description one morning Buck had noticed the locomotive rolling down the line a few miles west of town hauling cotton up from New Orleans to the mills all along the railway. So many cotton fibers flew from the back of the train into the air Buck pictured what a comet must look like in the night sky. George loved the comparison and they both secretly nicknamed the train.
Trains crisscrossed across the South bringing everything from people, food, crops, cattle, horse and materials for all things to the towns along the Crescent Line. The comet never failed to deliver on time the necessities of modern life. The previous year The Comet had hauled a ragtag group of a team and half the town to Atlanta and back for one of the South’s very first football games. Now teams across the country hoped on trains weekly, travelling the country seeking opponents to play the now popular game. Buck had enjoyed the trip last year. Helping his friend Doc administer first aid to injured personnel playing the game. Doc would go on to tell people he was the one helping Doc administer the aid because Buck was such a gifted healer. He had been to the “big city” he had only seen one time before in ruins when it was evacuated when he was young man. It was no city then only a smoldering heap of shot out and charred rubble. George no longer coached the team, but Buck continues to help manage the students while helping Doc out as he had been hired as the official doctor for the university, football team and all athletics.
“So much history in those trains” he thought to himself “even brought me and this man here long ago” as he got to work. Off in the distance The Comet was coming to life booming down the tracks towards the sleepy hamlet not ready yet to wake this morning. It was a colder morning, and his help was not there yet and would not be for another hour. The first scoop was tough, but Buck was as strong and reliable as the locomotive coming towards town.
After about thirty minutes of work Buck had dug down a good foot and half perfectly in a 7 by 3-foot rectangle. In everything he did his work would always be steady and impeccable. Today would be no different. The sun was beginning to rise while the train grew closer and closer. It would not stop coming through this morning but would be back later in the afternoon with important cargo.
“Them trains seen everything” he said aloud before getting ready to make his next scoop.
“Yes, they have old friend” replied behind him. Buck froze in complete fear. No way there had been anyone sneaking up behind him in this dark Cemetary.
“Buck, you talking to the graves like the colonel these days?” the voice asked.
After taking a deep breath realizing that a spirit from the past had not roamed over to check his handy work, Buck turned and then noticed the man smiling behind him. Unable to sleep this morning, George had come over to meet his friend but was really seeking a little company. He knew he could always count on Buck to cheer him up, he could trust that anything he told him would be in confidence, and the “young general” had not been able to sleep the past few days after hearing of some terrible news. He also knew exactly where Buck would be that morning.
“No sir, Mr. George...not like the colonel” Buck said. “Just talking to myself. He uh, well, you know he talked to them folks on the other side while he was in here.”
“Yes, indeed” George said confidently. An educated man of the new south would normally not entertain such preposterous notions of “spirits, haints, hoo doo and haunts” but George had spent enough time around Colonel Paul while listening to his war horrors that privately he could acknowledge any possibility. “The imprints” he had come to call them. Both the best of times and worst of memories stayed with people while here so why would they not possibly carry after being gone? Just impossible in some instances to let go of. Beginning to fall into deep thought about the subject like he had done so many times before about anything that made him curious, George began to wonder in his mind about extra spirituality. A believer in Christ, he must put away his Germanic Science basing the education now at school for so many students and fully accept that a real man, a real live man had died and then risen from the grave. With that faithful reality, surely anything would be possible in this created universe.
After an awkward silence, Buck politely coughed to startle George from his wanderings. Good thing too. Had he not Dr. Petrie could have stayed in that same squatted position for hours concentrating on his thoughts.
“Yes, Buck...good morning” George embarrassingly said. “I guess I was about to wander off in my own thoughts, please excuse me.”
Nodding in agreement but approvingly Buck stated “It is ok Mr. George. It’s Ok. What can I do for you?”
“I could not sleep and needed a walk, some fresh air and thought I would come by” George replied.
Buck knew that was a convenient answer from George but did not say anything about it. He was upset. As the sun came up and the morning Auburn light began to shine, Buck could tell that he had been crying. The truth is, Buck had cried some too. Burying a friend is one of the hardest things he ever had to do. The city worked Buck in all kinds of jobs. Running a crew of younger men, Buck kept the town clean. Anything from taking care of grounds in town or at the university, to digging graves. Buck and his men had even fought fires. Never an easy job in grave digging, Buck came to Dis attach from the suffering of the families of the people they laid to rest. But sometimes, a child, family member or friend would shake him to the core. You would never know looking at his chiseled onyx frame, but inside he would be in tremendous pain.
A few of the helpers had walked up by now and Buck turned his tool over to them. He and George walked a little bit away from the grave site to speak. George went first “The Comet sounds in good spirits this morning, eh Buck?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir Mr. George. She shoos does” Buck replied. By now the train had engulfed the village and would be moving up the line towards a quick stop in Opelika or West Point for a mill there. Little white cotton fibers coming off her in the air like a tail.
“She’s not the same train that brought you here, Buck, but she is pretty close some say” George said. Buck nodded in agreement. “I had told the colonel about the picture of the comet in space. He did not believe me that something that far could be photographed but I reminded him that one time he told us an eagle showed him the way forward at Chickamauga” George happily stated. “Too bad he didn’t get to see it.”
“Oh, he sees it now, Mr. George” Buck interrupted. “He sees it all”.
George lowered his head and tears began to well up in his eyes. Nothing harder he thought than to bury someone you love. The shock never wears off completely. Sure, things get a little easier as time moves on but the irony for him is we forget about our loved ones several days when they are with us, but never forget them daily when they are gone.