The Gettysburg Zone Part 5

Her eyes were red and swollen. She was exhausted but sleep wouldn't come for Marjorie Hampton. She was on a mission. She kept thinking about the trooper's suggestion. She'd never searched her daughter's room. She had no reason to. She trusted Karen. As she opened the door, she was hoping...no...praying that she would find some proof that Karen had run away. The day after she disappeared, the police again showed up at the Hampton residence. She was so thankful that Richard was at the church! The memory of what the clear evidence bags contained haunted her every moment. The blood splattered bra. Yes, bras were virtually impossible to positively single out. But Marjorie still washed Karen's clothes from time to time. She felt nausea well up when she spied the bent clasp that she was always forgetting to fix. Perhaps even more disturbing was the bloody napkin...the one that tested positive for semen!
Karen's room wasn't spotless, but it was orderly. She could easily spot something out of place or missing. Nothing. She took a deep breath and steeled herself for the unpleasant task ahead. No drugs in the jewelry box, she quipped to herself to calm her nerves. She opened a drawer. It was filled with shirts folded with crisp precision. The lingerie drawer was next. She felt around, relieved to find nothing from Frederick's of Hollywood. But the relief was short lived when she found a stack of round, plastic containers. She knew in her heart what they were but she pulled one out just to prove herself wrong. When she read the label she had to lean against the dresser to avert a collapse. "Oh, Karen! What have you done?"
"Isn't it obvious, Marjorie?"
She turned quickly to find Richard leaning against the doorway. "Now, Richard...these are used to regulate an irregular period or severe menstrual cramping," she explained. She saw the rage in his eyes. She could understand disappointment, but rage?
His voice was deadly calm. "And Karen has this...disorder?"
"I don't think so...but she's very private."
"The police evidence says that she's a drunken fornicator. She abandoned her God, her parents, her pledge and her faith to be cast into the fire!"
Marjorie threw the half used packet of pills at him. "Has it occured to you that our beautiful daughter, the child I carried inside of me might be lying dead somewhere? That you might never again hear her sweet voice or look into her eyes? You might never walk her down the aisle or hold a grandchild from her! And all you can do in sit in judgment of her? Who are you? When did you become God?"
Reverend Hampton recoiled as if slapped. "I do not sit in judgment."
"The hell you don't! And Karen isn't here to defend herself! You say her name like it's a four letter word! When did you become so self-righteous? So omnipotent?" She remembered a conversation she had had with Karen only the week before and tears spilled over her eyes. "I'm thirty eight years old, Richard! With Karen soon heading to college, I thought it was time to try for that son you always wanted. I'd even been to the doctor. It wouldn't be easy but it could be done. I needed someone to talk to. And Karen is so easy to talk to so I went to her. She listened...really listened! Most kids would freak out over that, but she said she'd support any decision I made."
He started toward her but she brushed past him. "Marjorie, I..."
"Well, you made my decision for me. Father, forgive me! I want no part of a male child who could grow up to be a man like you!" She left him there. It wasn't the last fight they'd have. She was certain of that.




Robin and Traci found Karen pacing the room like a caged animal but she stopped pacing at the sight of them in nineteenth century dresses. Her smile faded when they handed her a blue gingham number with all the accessories. Traci laughed. "Angus says ladies don't wear britches."
Both respectfully turned around so she could dress, neither thinking she could possibly manage by herself. But when they turned back to her, her fingers were busy buttoning the tiny buttons like she'd been doing it all her life. She brushed off their amazement with a flick of the wrist. "I am...well...was a member of the Daughters of the Confederacy in Richmond. This is a piece of cake."
"I thought we'd be wearing hoop skirts," Traci said finally.
Karen shook her head. "Ball gowns and public wear. These are simple house dresses." She followed Robin's gaze to the bed. "No, I didn't forget it. I'd sooner wear nothing at all and really piss Angus off than be laced into a corset."
When she descended those stairs, everyone looked, Paul thought. She had a grace and elegance far beyond her eighteen years. Yes, she had a black eye but on her it was an accessory! He'd always assumed that makeup made a girl... or a woman... but they were one hundred and thirty one years in the past. She never carried a purse...none of the girls did...so he knew she didn't have even a tube of lip gloss with her. Yet she was still radiant. Paul felt something foreign course through him but he shrugged it off. Then it creeped into his brain. He was jealous! No girl had ever awoken the green eyed monster in him. Why should she be different? Sure, he'd originally thought of her as a conquest. But she was adoring and gentle natured and she fed his ego. Then he learned about her father and some of how she'd been raised and he just couldn't put that star in his imaginary black book. But what else did he know about her? What was her favorite color? Her favorite film? She liked country music and Big Macs. She only drank iced tea or Coke. She had the longest legs of any woman he'd ever seen. Had she learned to use those beautiful legs by watching a porno in secret in her room or did she buy Penthouse Magazine from 7/11 for pointers? She didn't touch herself but she was all too willing to unfold her most private parts to him for the asking..Getting her off for the first time made him feel like a real man. But, even though she revelled in that at the time, she couldn't bring herself to use the word orgasm. She was a contradiction in terms. He saw Angus glare at him and he looked down at the button fly crotch of the pant's he was wearing. That was as good a time as any to chop wood. Hetook a lingering look at her before slipping away unnoticed by the Mistress of the House.
Angus waited until all the travellers had gone to their respective jobs. Karen was the last from the room and grabbed her arm. When she turned he handed her an old tin type. Karen opened the the clasp and unfolded the picture frame. She recognized the smiling eyes of the young man on the left. But when her gaze drifted to the the other side, she froze. It was like looking in a mirror! He led her to the divan and sat next to her on it. He explained how he had brought his bride from Glasgow in 1840. America promised so much and his brother had bought him a couple of acres in Gettysburg to get him started. Annabelle was a delicate blonde but willing to follow him anywhere. In 1843 he decided that he needed a son to help him. He was so busy with trying to fit into his new home that he never noticed that she had already miscarried once. But she conceived again and carried the child to term. The delivery was grueling and long. Annabelle was too narrow in the hips. By the time she managed to deliver, she was very weak. She took a look at their son, told Angus that she would love him through the ages. As he held the son he thought he needed so badly, Annabelle quietly passed away from blood loss. The lad, Angus Jr., followed his mother to the grave a day later. Everything he thought he needed was gone, and the person he'd loved more than his own life had died trying to give it to him. The farm had become his son and the scotch his lover.
She brushed tears from his cheek. "Angus, I'm so sorry."
He kissed her hand. "When he carried ye in and I saw the breeches...lass, this not be the time for modesty!" He met her eyes. "Ye not be built to bear children!"
She stroked his cheek over his coarse red beard and smiled. "Angus, I'm not going to have children soon and certainly not without a husband."
Angus prided himself on being loyal to his adopted country and the Union. But the beauty and vulnerability of the young southron woman had brought warmth back a soul long cold. "Then it's barren you be?"
"No!"
"Then marry the young scoundrel. It's plain to see...you love him, lass."
Karen looked at the floor, absently toying with her skirt. When she looked back up at him the rims of her big, blue eyes were moist. She managed a smile at the kindly man who'd taken her into his home and his heart. Her voice cracked. "Yes, Angus, I do love Paul. But..."
"But?"
"Paul doesn't love me." She got to her feet. "I accept that and I would appreciate it if you would, too." Without another word, she left the house and headed outside.
The leaves rustled softly in the June breeze. A buckboard wagon sat between the house and the barn, resting on 3 wheels. A spring hung loosely. With every strong breeze , it would emit an eerie screech. As Karen walked to the barn she was startled by a rabbit running from the garden. It was being chased by the biggest, scruffiest black and white cat she'd ever seen. The cat looked after the rabbit and up at Karen. Finnally, after some serious consideration, the cat abandoned the rabbit and decided to follow Karen. The Hampton's siamese, Jingles, would give anyone who crossed his path a dirty look and keep on going. She reached down and scratched his ear. He purred and rubbed against her skirts. Well, she thought. I'm about to lose one friend. This balances the scales. She was sure that Paul would never speak to her again. He was already distrustful of her. When she told him what she knew she had to tell him, their relationship would be over. The realization hurt so bad, it took her breath away.
"Karen?"
The sound of her name brought her back fron her dazed state. George had called her from the water pump. Angus and George were almost the same height and breadth, so the hand-me-downs that George wore fit fairly well. He was filling basins with cool, fresh water. She flashed him a smile. "You look like you've adjusted."
George looked up and down to survey his "owner's" attire. "So do you, Mistress Karen.
"Stop it!"
George sensed that she could really use some good news and he knew how she felt about Chris Connors. "I'se a house nigga!"
"George! This isn't funny!"
His strong hands grabbed her arms and he met her gaze. He knew in his heart that she seemed to carry the guilt of slavery on her shoulders because of an an accident of birth. Would she have felt that same guilt had she been born in New York or New Hampshire? George knew U.S. history, too. An ex-slave in the North hardly made Man of the Year. If Karen had told Angus that Lincoln cared nothing for the slaves, she would've been branded a traitor for sure. He knew that Lincoln's ultimate plan was to ship his black brothers and sisters back to Liberia in Africa. And what if some idiot like Chris Connors took it upon himself to stop Boothe at Ford's Theater? George shuddered at the thought. "You told me to play along and follow your lead no matter what. I'm doin' just that.. So get with the program and act like you own my black ass....for both of our sakes!"
Karen walked to the barn and ducked in through the main doors. The sweet smell of hay reminded Karen of her grandmother's farm in Leesburg, Virginia. Karen couldn't get the image of Annabelle MacTavish out of her head. Did that mean that she had ancestors from Scotland? Not as far as she knew. She did know that she had an ancestor killed before the battle while on a forage run. No one knew exactly how he died but they knew that someone had sent the traditional notice of death and buried the body until it could be reinterred in the family plot in New Orleans. Her mother was from Metairie, Louisiana and actually had one quarter Cajun blood which meant that Karen had a little less. But it certainly explained the hair trigger and hot temper in mother and daughter. Now, as far as the Hampton side, she did know that she was descended from the Hamptons of South Carolina. Wade Hampton was an officer in the Army of Northern Virginia. She couldn't remember his rank but she knew that he had distinguished himself on many occasions and many battles. He was even mentioned in Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With The Wind". All she knew is that her dad's branch of the family has settled around Richmond, Virginia. She knew that no matter how many campaigns he'd won and medals he'd received, he came home from his service to the Glorious Cause to nothing. Most of the major players in the War Between The States lost land, slaves, crops, family and citizenship! The cursed pledge to reaffirm allegiance to the Union made a lot of veterans look like traitors because they were turning their back on the very people and lands that they'd sworn to defend when theyd suited up in gray or butternut! No, she couldn't put her finger on how she could look so much like Annabelle McDougal MacTavish. They'd always said that everyone had a twin. She wondered who "they" were. The Germans even had a word for it. What did they call it? Ah, yeah...a doppelganger. She didn't think that they expected their twins to be so far apart in years.
Paul hung down from the second story where all the hay was kept. "You wanna come up here? It's awful private." He giggled and tossed a rope ladder over the edge to her. She wasn't good on anything that wiggled under her feet. So she flicked her right forefinger at him, telling him to come down to her level. All he did was swing down like Tarzan and stand in front of her. "So, can you get close to being a southern belle?"
She smiled and sidestepped him. "I already am." She pulled her skirt up just a fraction of an inch to wiggle her bare toes at him. "But I have bigger feet than the slippers that Angus provided. Long legs...big feet.."
He picked her up by her waist and swung her into a hay pile and joined her. "Ticklish feet and ribs?"
She sat up and picked the loose hay from her hair. "I plead the fifth." He looked at her with a devilish smile. "Paul, we need to talk."
His smile was still there. "Hey, quit worryin' about Angus. All he's worried about is you gettin' pregnant."
"That's what we need to talk about."
"Yep...modern medicine is a wonderful thing."
"Paul! There is no modern medicine! I don't have my pills here."
"You what? You're kiddin', right? How could you not carry the damned things with you?!?!" He couldn't keep the panic out of his voice.
She watched him pace in front of her. "I expected a hot date. I never thought I'd be zapped into the last century!" She tried to touch his hand but he jerked back like she was snake. "Would you relax?"
"Relax? How long are you protected?"
She shrugged. "I don't know. A week, maybe less. It's not a big deal."
He glared at her. "Not a big deal? You give me the sweetest taste of honey...and then yank it out from under me! I've been cuckolded!"
She wondered where he'd picked up that word and then remembered. Angus! "There are ways available in this time. In New Orleans, women used sponges. I guess I could try that."
He was still pacing but his voice sounded hopeful. "How do you use that? Where would you put it?"
She stared up at him, disbelieving of what he'd said. "In my ear. Where do you think I'd put it? It's not a hundred percent accurate."
\ "Maybe you don't do it, but it looks like I'm gonna be doin' the five knuckle shuffle for a long time to come."
She took a deep breath. It looked like her gut instinct had been right after all. She would have been much happier being wrong. "We'll find a way. Just give it some time."
He looked straight at her and she didn't like what she saw in his eyes. "You can find a way. I'm not gonna be a father!"
She could feel the beginning of a massive headache as she got to her feet. "And you think I want to be a mother? In a time without hospitals and painkillers? They do have condoms in this century. I think they're called French Letters but I'm not sure."
"Lady, I ride bareback."
She felt that remark like an invisible slap in the face. It hurt like hell but she wouldn't let him see her cry. "Then I guess you won't be riding me!" Without another world she ran back to the house, leaving him standing there, open mouthed with shock.