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Chapter 1 The blanket of brown fallen leaves
crunched beneath Trevor’s feet. He pulled his leather jacket closed
and zipped it to the top in an effort to block out the cold morning
breeze. His dark auburn curly hair hung in locks to his neck, but was
cropped short along the sides exposing his ears which had grown pink in
the morning chill. He shoved his hands into his pocket and stepped over
a fallen pine tree trunk. His dark green eyes gazed up examining the
damage caused by the Southern pine beetles which had taken their toll on
acres of park forest. Pulling a white strip of cloth from a
burlap sack hung on his belt, he approached a tree which once stood
majestically among its peers, but now would need to be chopped down. He
wrapped the cloth around the tree trunk and tied it securely in place
marking it to be cut down by the lumbermen who would descend on the
forest in the next few days.
In his last ten years with the
forestry service, Trevor hadn’t seen anything as devastating as the
decimation caused by the Southern pine beetles on the He saw nothing unusual, just scraggly
tree roots, dirt and blackness. Just as he was about to lose interest
and move on, a metallic glimmer caught his eye. He flashed his light
back into the hole and reached toward the shimmering object. It jutted
out from the right side of the hole, tightly caught in the packed red
clay. Trevor scratched and brushed away the dirt from around the object,
grabbed it and tried to pry it lose, but it was caught too tightly. He
dug at the dirt around the object further with his bare hands then
clutched something that felt like a small chain. He tugged it gently and
additional chain followed until it stopped. As he examined the chain
with his flashlight, he could tell that it was a pocket watch caught in
the dirt. He put his wrist through the chain and wrapped it around so
that if the watch fell as he pried it lose it wouldn’t fall deeper
into the chasm. After several minutes of digging at
the dirt around the timepiece, he finally lifted it from the hole. He
gently brushed the red clay away from the golden ornate watch which
appeared to be over a hundred years old. He opened it to examine the
watch face and his heart stopped as he beheld a tin type mounted in the
lid. It was the most beautiful young woman he’d ever seen. Her hair
flowed in curly blond ringlets framing her round young face. Her eyes
seemed to peer into his soul from the photograph until finally he
realized he was holding his breath. He inhaled deeply the scent of the
decaying leaves around him and sighed. His heart plummeted with a sick
feeling in the pit of his stomach when he realized that he would be
forced to relinquish the treasure to the park service. It was a federal
crime to take anything from a National Park. For a fleeting moment,
Trevor considered putting the watch in his pocket and carrying it home
with him, but if anyone ever found out, it would mean his job. Sure, he
could find other employment. He was young – only twenty eight – but
losing a job he dearly loved would be the least of what would happen to
him. The last thing he wanted was to face prosecution over something as
silly as an old watch. He closed the facing and slid the
timepiece into his pocket and put a red ribbon around the tree next to
the hole. Park management would want to search the area further. While
most of the artifacts from the Civil War had been found in the
Chickamauga Battlefield, occasionally new ones surfaced. Because
soldiers were buried in groups in unmarked graves, Trevor assumed that
this pocket watch had belonged to one such soldier who met a tragic end
in the very hole into which Trevor had stepped. As Trevor proceeded about his work
that morning, he periodically pulled the watch from his pocket and
studied the young woman’s face. She seemed to call out to him. Who was she? Why did she affect him so profoundly? Who was she to the
soldier who carried her photograph inside his watch? Questions
darted through Trevor’s mind as he marked trees. He wondered if the
soldier who owned the watch had been as irresistibly drawn to the
beautiful face as he was. Trevor unlocked his office door
within the park visitor’s center and flipped on the light as he
stepped inside. He’d been assigned a temporary office within the
facilities during the duration of his stay in Trevor pulled a bottle of metal
cleaner from a cabinet drawer along with paper towels and cleaned the
outside of the watch thoroughly. Then he opened the lid to his flatbed
scanner and placed the watch unopened on the glass. He scanned the
front, back and the inside of the timepiece and saved the graphics to
his computer’s hard drive. Then, he opened each photograph in a
graphics program, enlarging them and printing them for closer
examination. He also printed a single sheet with each photograph of the
watch lined up in a columnar strip. He cut away the excess paper and
slid the strip of photographs into the bill area of his wallet and
placed his wallet back into his back pocket. Having enlarged the photograph of
the back of the watch, he noticed a name engraved there. It read
“Bradley Lawson.” Trevor turned to his computer and opened an
internet connection to the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors system. He put
the name Bradley Lawson into the search box and held his breath as he clicked
the search button. Sure enough, listed in the directory was Bradley
Lawson a Confederate infantryman from Trevor stared at the pedigree
chart of Bradley and Elise Lawson, his mouse hovering over the email
address for a woman named Alia, the individual who had submitted the
record to the archive. He imagined a little white haired lady sitting
behind her computer screen submitting the information to the directory.
He clicked the link and began a brief email. Dear
Alia, My name is Trevor Grayson and I am
a botanist with the Kind regards, Trevor Grayson Trevor clicked the send button and then picked up
the enlarged photograph of what could only be Elise Lawson, the wife of
Bradley Lawson. He stacked the photographs together and slid them into
his drawer and locked it. Then he rose from his seat, carrying the watch
in his hands. He walked to the main office and set the watch down
on the park ranger’s desk. “Sir, I believe you’ll want to see this. I fell
in a hole over by Jay’s Mill and found this watch. I did a little
research and it appears to belong to an infantry soldier named Bradley
Lawson. His name’s engraved on the back and he served in the 25th
Regiment of the Tennessee Infantry.” Trevor watched as Howard Banks, a gray-headed man
in his late fifties, lifted the watch, examining it closely. Trevor was
surprised that as the park ranger studied the watch interior that his
eyes registered no particular interest in the photograph. “Where did you find this again?” the park
ranger lifted his brown eyes toward Trevor’s face and scratched his
gray head. “Over on Jay’s Mill – lots of damage to the
trees over there. I was walking along and my right leg plunged into a
hole, when I searched the hole, this was lodged into the dirt along the
inside. I marked a tree nearby with a red flag so that we could go back
and look for more artifacts.” “Good, good,” the park ranger shook his head
and looked back at the watch. “Amazing that this held up so well over
all these years!” “I know – especially the tin type inside.
Pretty young woman, don’t you think?” Howard Banks nodded slightly, “Yeah, I suppose
so.” He clamped the watch shut and stood. “Will make a nice addition
to our artifact display case.” Trevor followed him as he paced to the
door and strolled down the corridor to the main lobby. Howard pulled a
set of keys from his pocket and unlocked a display case which held
various Civil War artifacts including musket balls, pistols, and belt
buckles. He opened the watch to display the tin type of Elise Lawson,
set it inside and locked the display case. Trevor lagged behind momentarily staring at the
young woman and imagined how she must have felt being left a young widow
with a toddler to raise alone in the war-torn South. “You comin’, Trevor?” Howard looked back over
his shoulder. “Uh, yeah,” Trevor pulled himself from his
thoughts and followed the park ranger back to his office. “Let’s get some shovels and go check out the
site where you found the watch,” Howard suggested as he pulled on his
green jacket and set his ranger hat on his head. He unlocked a service
closet and pulled out two shovels, a bag of archaeological gear, and an
empty burlap sack. Handing Trevor one of the shovels, he started for the
back door to the employee parking lot. Trevor climbed into the cab of the truck next to
Howard who started the engine and drove down Reed’s “It’s right up here on the left,” Trevor
pointed for Howard to park the truck in a parking spot next to a plaque
commemorating Wood’s Brigade – the Union division that fought there. Howard pulled over, turned off the engine and
stepped around to the back to retrieve the shovels and gear. Trevor
opened his car door and received a shovel from Howard. Howard followed
him as he cut through the forest, stepping over fallen tree branches and
trunks until he came to the tree he had marked with a red ribbon. “Here it is, there’s the hole,” Trevor
pointed down. “I’ll dig first if you want,” Trevor offered. “Sure, go ahead,” Howard nodded. “I’ll sift
through what you shovel.” Howard sat down on an old stump and opened
the bag of archaeological gear. “Just put it right here at my feet.” “K” Trevor agreed and pushed the shovel into
the earth with his foot. He started by making the hole wider so that
they could find other artifacts that may be lodged in the area around
the hole, but scooped the shovel away from the hole so that nothing
would fall down into it. After Trevor had shoveled for nearly twenty
minutes, Howard announced excitedly, “Wait, I’ve found something
here.” Howard pulled something metallic from the mound of earth and
swept away the dirt with a brush. “Looks like a belt buckle,” Trevor observed. “Confederate,” Howard announced. “Reckon it’s our man’s?” Trevor asked. “Could be… could be,” Howard nodded and
handed the buckle to Trevor. Trevor examined it thoroughly and placed it
into the burlap sack, and then returned to his digging. After some time he’d dug a two-foot shelf
surrounding the hole which was approximately two feet deep. He was just
about down to where he’d found the watch. As Howard shook a pile of dirt in a sifter, he
pulled out a metal key, “Look at this, Trevor.” He held up an old
silver key between his fingers. “Hmm… can I see it?” Trevor held out his hand
to receive it from Howard’s outstretched hand. Trevor leaned his left
arm on the shovel and held the key in his right hand studying it when
the earth beneath him began to give way. Thinking quickly, Trevor shoved
the key into his pocket in an effort to hang onto it as his feet began
slipping beneath him. Before he could get a sturdy hold, both feet slid
into the hole and he felt himself falling. Howard lunged forward
attempting to grasp Trevor’s arm but it was too late. Trevor slid down
the hole in one flashing burst of light. Howard knelt over the hole in shock unable to
believe his eyes. Trevor was nowhere in sight and Howard felt certain he
had just seen a brilliant light which seemed to envelop Trevor’s body
and close up behind him. He clenched his eyes shut, rubbing them and
opening them again, staring incredulously into the hole unable to
comprehend what had just happened. “Trevor! Are you down there? Trevor?” Howard
yelled into the hole, but only heard his own voice echoing back at him. After calling for some time with no answer from
Trevor, Howard left his gear and jogged back to the truck for a long
rope. He carried the rope back to the hole, tied it to a tree and let it
down its full length into the opening. “Grab the rope, Trevor!” Howard held a
flashlight into the chasm, but could see no sign of Trevor. “This is
insane!” he muttered to himself. “How could he just disappear like
that?” Howard packed up all the gear and carried it back to the truck,
determined to go for help. Join the Clean Romance Club to Read the Full Story
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