Just an Old Cabin

This story is by Laurence Keith Loftin III and was part of our 2024 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.

Just an Old Cabin

 

The sky went black and we were instantly drenched.

The door to the cabin was stuck and as we worked on it, lightning flashed and the following crash of thunder scared us so badly that we frantically splashed back to the truck.

As I sat in the cab, miserable and dripping, I thought back on how we had gotten here, following an old logging trail into the dark, clenched Ragged Mountains of Virginia to take down this old log cabin. It was just the two of us – Elmond, a big, bald, black man and I, a skinny white man with white hair. We made quite a pair, but we worked well together and enjoyed each other’s company – most of the time.

We had finally been stopped by a great tree fallen across the trail. On the other side of the trunk a short wooden footbridge crossing a narrow stream and we could see the cabin just beyond.

We got out and threaded our way through the forest, crossed the bridge and came out into grey sunlight which barely illuminated the log structure sleeping quietly in gathering age.

“Look at that!,” Elmond said with more excitement that he usually exhibited.

We walked up to it and Elmond examined the door frame closely. “There are initials carved here,” he said, and his voice was choked.

We tried the door, and after that, the bottom fell out of the clouds, lightening flashed and thunder hammered at us. Now, from the safety of the truck cab, I stared at the cabin in the clearing and the hair on the back of my neck stirred – the cabin seemed like a survivor from some mythic realm into our pragmatic age.

Elmond turned to me, “I know this place.”

“We’ve never been here before,” I protested.

“I recognized the initials on the doorpost.”

“What are you talking about?”

Elmond pursed his lips and ran his hands over the steering wheel, then finally said, “I have a story I have to tell you.”

“Now?”

“Yes, the history I am ‘bout to tell you has been passed down through the generations of my family. My grandfather was … was … ” Elmond faltered a moment. “Well, he was owned by a Virginia aristocrat by the name of Worthington Winchester, who had a large estate outside Charlottesville.”

I looked at Elmond. “You never told me.”

“You never asked.” Elmond said. “Here’s the story … ”

–

My ancestor was called Elmond as well – Elmond Tiberius Winchester III. His mother, Eustice, my great-grandmother was a beautiful slave woman and Worthington took her as a mistress. And I think he actually loved her because he kept her by his side for most of his life.

This Elmond was the third son to be born to Eustice and Worthington, hence the royal ‘III’ after his name, but Worthington always called him Tiberius.  He was kept as a house slave from very young, learning to do household chores, serving as a kind of butler to Worthington. Finally, he was given the responsibility of general overseer of the entire plantation.

He and his now elderly father became quite close, developing a rare friendship so that when a platoon of Union soldiers approached the plantation and the house, Tiberius was the first to take up arms against them.

The Yankees surrounded the house and this would all have ended badly, except for the unexpected intervention of the infamous ‘Peck’ and his Irregulars. These men descended upon the Yankees like avenging ghosts, attacking here and there, melting into the forest and attacking again where least expected. Meanwhile, Tiberius armed the men servants with muskets and sabers and attacked the Yankees with blades flashing and guns blazing.

They battled all afternoon.

Night fell. The Yankees laboriously set up camp just at the forest edge while Tiberius and the house staff retreated into the house. Peck and his irregulars were nowhere to be seen.

That night Tiberius could not sleep. Then a desperate idea for resolving the situation came to him. He took a lantern, dressed in his best white linen suit, and walked out onto the porch. He waved his lantern back and forth and shouted, “Hullo there!”

A voice called back out of the darkness, “Hullo yourself – What do you want?”

“I am unarmed. I wish to come to your camp and speak with your Captain.”

There was a short silence.

“C’mon then, but hold your hands up.”

Tiberius raised the lantern in his right hand, lifted his left, and walked across the lawn to the Yankee camp. As he got close to the forest edge he was told to halt.

“I’m not armed,” he called out again.

“So you say,” the unseen guard answered.

A grizzled man materialized out of the darkness, pointing the muzzle of his musket at Elmond. He looked Elmond up and down, and ushered him to the campfire.

A young, well-built, white man stood up.

“Good evening,” the man said gravely. He had open smiling eyes above a carefully trimmed beard and mustache.

“Good evening to you,” Elmond answered politely.

“I am Major General John Sedgwick.”

“My Pleasure.”

“And you are …?”

“I am Elmond Tiberius Winchester the Third, Manager of the Worthington Winchester Estate,” He paused, “At your service.”

The Major General smiled, “That’s quite a name and quite a title, but from the way you fought today I must assume you are not at my service.”

“A figure of polite address,” Tiberius said.

The man smiled again.

“We need not fight tomorrow,” Tiberius said, “I will bring you the house silver if you agree to just leave the house and those of us who remain alone and go about fighting soldiers, not slaves and women.”

“Ah, a proposition.”

“A very handsome one for you and your men.”

Sedgwick considered.

Suddenly, a volley of musket fire came out of the shadows. The sitting men screamed, fell and writhed. Sedgwick whirled around, cried out, and fell forward into the fire, clutching his head. He screamed again and rolled out of the fire, dead. Tiberius stood his ground, trembling and terrified as the soldiers died around him and finally lay still.

All was quiet.

A man, dressed in grey, wearing a broad-brimmed hat with the brim tied up on the right side moved silently into the clearing and looked at Tiberius curiously.

“You’re not a Yankee,” he said simply.

“No,” Tiberius answered, “And you need not have done that,” Tiberius chided, “I was negotiating with the Major General when your men fired.”

“You can’t negotiate with Yankees,” the man said bitterly, you can only kill them.”

“I almost had a deal.”

“Well, we gave’em a better deal from my perspective. They won’t burn, loot and rape again.”

“You are a hard man.”

“No, a practical man.”

“And who, in fact, might you be, sir?” Tiberius asked formally.

“I’m Peck,” the man said pointing his thumb at his chest.

My grandfather didn’t want to go through his whole name again. He said simply, “I’m Tiberius.”

“HA!” the man slapped his knee.

“Go to hell!” shouted a strangled voice from the darkness.

There was the sound of a revolver cocking.

My great-grandfather stood at the very crossroads of destiny that night and he knew it. He made a decision – he impetuously threw himself against Peck, knocking him out of the line of fire. Two shots rang out, and there was a cry from the shadows and one from Tiberius. Peck holstered his revolver and went to Tiberius who was shot through the shoulder and out cold.

Tiberius had saved Peck’s life.

Peck himself took Tiberius up on his own horse and carried him away to their cabin hidden deep in the Ragged Mountains where he was nursed back to health.

Elmond became a member of Peck’s Irregulars and fought with them for the remainder of the war, only returning to the plantation in late Spring of 1865, to find that his father had died of pneumonia the previous winter.

Tiberius founded a small community not far from the original manor house, called Pecksville, after his fabled Confederate leader, and helped the former slaves adjust to their new freedom, finally becoming the Mayor of this small town.

–

Elmond paused, “So …  that log cabin is actually the long lost hideout for Peck’s irregulars.”

“Oh come on,” I said, “That’s really a stretch.”

“No it’s not,” Elmond said emphatically,” I found my grandfather’s initials engraved on the edge of the doorframe – ‘ETW III.’

–

So, we didn’t demolish the cabin.

Elmond tried to get a National Historical Landmark designation, and I tried to buy the place, but the owners sold it to another company.

They did take it down, but not before Elmond pried away the board with his grandfather’s initials. We put it up in our office as a tribute Elmond’s history and its hanging there today.