The Last Green Valley - Mark Sullivan (black female authors .txt) 📗

“Emil,” Adeline said again.

“I don’t know why I’m sweating, dear,” he said, trying to smile as he wiped the sweat from his face and adjusted his wool cap low enough to put his eyes in shadow and yet high enough not to provoke the SS officer’s ruthless attention.

When it came time, Emil turned his face slightly toward Captain Haussmann, his eyes darting from the man’s too-familiar face to the death-head emblem on his cap and the collar badge that indicated he’d been promoted to Sturmbannführer, a major now.

Sturmbannführer Haussmann snapped his arm to his right. Despite his self-assurances, Emil’s heart was slamming in his chest as he waved once, and then guided his horses past the bumper of the SS major’s truck.

Only when he was sure they were out of Haussmann’s sight did Emil allow himself to breathe deeply and to admit he felt weak and dizzy.

“Take the reins,” he choked.

Adeline grabbed them. “What’s the matter?”

“Gonna be sick,” he croaked, and vomited over the side.

“Awww,” Will said behind him as he retched.

“I hate that,” Walt said.

When he was done, Emil had Adeline keep the reins and sat in misery beside her. The closer they got to Dubossary, the more he kept telling himself he could get past the ravine, through the town, into Moldova, and westward without thinking about what had happened to him there. But that was Haussmann back there. There was no doubting it. He would remember that man’s face forever. In his mind, he heard people crying and saw Haussmann, enraged, shouting in his face.

What are the chances of Haussmann being here? Why am I being tortured like this?

It had been two and a half years since the trauma of that night in mid-September 1941. But Emil felt the impact as if it were yesterday, the hollow aloneness he’d suffered after witnessing what one man could do to another, and seeing his own weaknesses revealed as starkly as they could be, in the form of a fist shaking at the sky.

In the last few kilometers before they reached the town, Emil refused to look north toward the ravine. He kept his head focused on the wagon in front of him. But some of his inner turmoil must have been showing, because Adeline rubbed his back and said, “How are you feeling?”

He glanced at her, praying she wasn’t seeing the tears he felt about to well.

“Better,” he said hoarsely, and looked away. “Just thinking.”

“About what?”

Emil hesitated, swallowed, forced a smile. “That valley of yours.”

Adeline had hoped he’d open up about Dubossary, but she smiled at his answer.

“It’s your valley, too.”

“And mine,” Walt said from behind them.

“I’m going, too,” Will said.

“We all are going,” Adeline said.

“I think there will be lots of fish in the river,” Will said.

“Lots of them,” she said. “Everywhere you look, fish to catch and eat. Right, Papa? Hasn’t that always been your dream? To sit by a river and catch fat fish to fry?”

Despite believing that would never happen, Emil managed to laugh. “Just me and a fishing pole, sitting on the riverbank. Not a chore to do. Now that would be something!”

“What about you, Mama?” Walt asked. “What do you dream of having there?”

She thought about that. “A vegetable garden. A flower garden. A root cellar. And chickens for fresh eggs. And . . . well, no. You can’t ask for everything in life.”

“What?” Emil said.

“It’s silly.”

“Tell us,” Will said.

Adeline didn’t want to but finally replied, “I want a doll with a pretty dress.”

“A doll?” Emil said, surprised.

“I never had one growing up,” she said, raising her chin. “Is that too much to ask for?”

“No, Adella,” he said, and patted her thigh. “It’s not too much to ask for a doll.”

That made her happy, and she grinned for a moment before gesturing ahead and saying, “They’re splitting the trek ahead again.”

Emil looked up the road a hundred meters and saw another German officer on the hood of a truck, directing traffic. To his relief, it was not Haussmann but a captain he’d never seen before who waved them toward the center of Dubossary and the north bridge over the Dniester River.

The caravan slowed to fits and starts as they inched toward the crowded town center. When they got there, Emil could see the remainders of a high barbed-wire fence and empty buildings beyond.

Hearing the crying in his mind again, he kept his eyes on the livid scars on his horses’ haunches, wondering if his memories of this cursed town would ever leave him, if he’d ever be free of that night when—

He heard a whistling sound that grew louder before the town was rocked by a massive explosion just to the north, and then another.

“Emil!” Adeline shouted.

“They’re shelling the town!” he said, fighting to keep his horses under control.

Ahead of them in line, horses began to buck and rear up at the blasts. Others must have stampeded out of town and toward the bridge, because the trek moved much quicker.

Three more artillery rounds hit behind them as the Martels came free of the town proper, Emil urging his horses on at a trot and then a canter. Ahead, two other covered wagons had gone off the road and flipped. Four more were lurching away over the rough terrain, their horses spooked and galloping from the roar of the artillery.

“Papa!” Walt cried. “We’re going too fast!”

Emil was already pulling hard on the reins. Thor and Oden slowed and settled to puffing and snorting as they passed an SS soldier waving them toward the chaos at the mouth of the bridge. Wagons and German army vehicles already crowded the span over the river, all heading west. A long line of those who’d already crossed the Dniester snaked toward the southwestern horizon. Emil berated himself for not waking earlier, for not being on the bridge at dawn.

“There’s smoke and fire back there!” Walt said. “They hit something big, Papa!”

“Mama!” Will said in a whiny voice.

“Not