Chapter 27
Evangeline Wolf was a spry-looking woman in her sixties with cocoa brown skin and a short natural that had turned completely white over the years. Her dark eyes were keenly intuitive, and her soft face was etched with strength and character.
Although she was a Wolf by marriage, not birth, she was the relative that everyone flocked to at family reunions, weddings and funerals. She was the benevolent matriarch that everyone sought out for recipes, or a remedy for various ailments, or advice on everything from disciplining children to forgiving wayward husbands. She was the keeper of the family’s history and genealogy. If anyone wanted to trace the large clan’s ancestral origins back to West Africa, Evangeline was the one to consult.
She’d survived the death of her husband, and then the tragic death of her only son Michael Josiah, for whom Michael and Manning had been christened—Michael claiming their grandfather’s first name, Manning his middle name.
After Sterling and Stan lost their parents, Evangeline had locked up her Savannah home and moved to Atlanta to take care of her orphaned grandchildren until they both graduated from high school. They owed her their lives, though she wouldn’t hear of such a thing, insisting that she’d only done “what needed to be done.”
But her protestations fell on deaf ears, because they all knew that Evangeline was the cornerstone of the Wolf Pack, adored and revered by everyone from the eldest to the youngest member of the family.
Before Stan and Prissy left for the airport on Tuesday morning, the boys had begged to accompany them to pick up Mama Wolf. But Stan and Prissy had made them stay behind and clean up their rooms to make their great-grandmother proud. Subconsciously, Stan had wanted an opportunity to speak privately to Mama Wolf before they returned home. Because he’d known, even before she stepped off the plane, that he’d end up baring his soul to her, as he’d done last night with Prissy.
Sure enough, Evangeline had taken one look into his eyes, cupped his face between her hands and gently clucked her tongue. “Something’s troubling your soul, precious. What is it?”
So on the way home from the airport, Stan told her about the nightmares he’d been having, and the devastating toll they’d taken on his psyche and his marriage. Mama Wolf listened quietly and compassionately, interrupting once or twice to ask for clarification, sometimes patting his cheek consolingly or reaching into the backseat to squeeze Prissy’s hand when Stan grimly described the fiasco with Dr. Gilliard.
When they arrived home, Mama Wolf received nothing short of a hero’s welcome from her great-grandsons, who erupted from the house and had her surrounded before she’d even stepped one foot out of the truck. Michael and Marcus, who saw her more frequently—especially since the divorce—greeted her just as ecstatically as the others. Stan and Prissy could only laugh and shake their heads as the boys ushered their beaming great-grandmother into the house, chattering excitedly at her the whole time.
After Mama Wolf generously doled out gifts—she always brought them gifts—and visited with them for a while, she told them that she needed to have grownup time with Stan and Prissy. After the boys dutifully made themselves scarce, Evangeline summoned the adults into the living room, where she awaited them on the silk-upholstered armchair with a small box resting on her lap.
As Stan and Prissy sat together on the sofa and joined hands, he had a pleasant flashback to the premarital counseling sessions Mama Wolf had given them, which had always been filled with an abundance of warm laughter.
“Precious heart,” Evangeline addressed Stan now, “thank you for telling me what you’ve been going through these past several months. I wish you’d confided in me when the nightmares first began so we could have had this talk much sooner, but I know you and your brother have always needed to work things out in your own time.”
Stan nodded, pushing out a long, deep breath. “Believe me, Mama, I regret keeping this bottled up inside me for so long, but I honestly didn’t want to worry any of you, especially Prissy and the kids.”
When his wife gently squeezed his fingers, he paused and brought her hand to his mouth, tenderly kissing her knuckles as he gazed into her misty eyes. “I’ve been so terrified that these nightmares were a bad omen about the future. I just couldn’t bear the thought of not being in your lives anymore.” He looked at his grandmother. “All of you.”
Evangeline’s expression gentled with compassion. “I truly wish I had a simple explanation for you, baby. Only God knows why some folks are more susceptible to having dreams than others. How is it that two people can experience the same traumatic event, but only one ends up suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder? No one knows the answer to that question. But what I will tell you is that those nightmares are not prophetic, so you can just lay those fears to rest right now.”
Easier said than done, Stan thought grimly.
As if she’d read his mind, Evangeline said, “I know that the dreams are terrifying, and they seem so realistic that it’s easy to believe you’re witnessing the future. But I don’t believe it works that way, Stanton.” She paused, pursing her lips for a moment. “You say that the nightmares began about five months ago. I think we can all make the connection to Manning’s birthday.”
Stan and Prissy nodded, staring at each other. “We talked about that last night,” Prissy said quietly.
Evangeline nodded. “The nightmares were likely triggered by your son turning fourteen, which is the same age Stanton was when his beloved parents died.”
“That’s right,” Stan murmured, wondering why he and Dr. Gilliard had never explored this line of reasoning, which now seemed so obvious to him. “Ever since Manny turned fourteen, I’ve been subconsciously fearing that history will repeat itself. I know it seems irrational….”
“Not for someone who’s suffering from PTSD,” Prissy gently interjected. “I’m no psychologist, but I’m sure we can all agree that when it comes to trigger mechanisms, we can pretty much throw out our definitions of rational versus irrational.”
“That’s very true,” Evangeline concurred. “And speaking of trigger mechanisms, Stanton, that reminds me of something else I’ve been thinking. The frequency of your nightmares, and where you are when you have them. Do you remember whether you were at home or at the fire station the first time you had one of the dreams?”
Stan didn’t have to think long. “I was at the firehouse,” he said grimly. “I remember, because I woke up my crew when I called out in my sleep.”
“Had you had an eventful night?” Evangeline probed.
“Not that particular shift,” Stan answered. “But some other nights when we’d put down fires or responded to other stressful emergencies, I’d have nightmares afterward.” He frowned, beginning to understand where this line of questioning was headed. “Are you suggesting that my job is not only physically dangerous, but it’s also hazardous to my psyche?”
When Evangeline and Prissy shared an uneasy glance, his frown deepened.
“When was the last time you had one of the nightmares at home?” Evangeline gently prodded.
“About three weeks ago.” Struck by a sudden realization, Stan stared at Prissy. “When you were out of town.”
She squeezed his hand, then looked askance at Evangeline, who nodded as if she’d just had her theory confirmed.
“I believe that home is your safe haven, Stanton,” she stated. “It’s where you feel most at peace. And you have more control over your home environment than your work environment. You can’t predict when and where a fire is going to take place, but you’ve established a comfortable routine at home. So you know when you’re going to have dinner together as a family, you know when you’ll be needed to help the kids with their homework, and you know when it’s time for you to relax and unwind with Prissy. Anything that upsets that balance—”
“Like me going out of town,” Prissy interjected, playfully bumping Stan’s shoulder.
Evangeline chuckled. “Exactly. Your absence from his safe haven throws him off.”
Stan grinned at Prissy. “Didn’t I tell you that you can’t go on any more business trips, woman?”
“Um, I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Everyone laughed.
Sobering after several moments, Evangeline asked Stan, “How often do you have the nightmares at home?”
“Not often,” he admitted. Come to think of it, he could probably count on one hand the number of times he’d actually awakened from a nightmare under his own roof.
“But you slept on the sofa just to be sure,” Prissy surmised.
“Yeah,” he said grimly. “The nightmares are so damn unpredictable. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“And now you know that was the wrong solution,” Evangeline gently admonished. “When a husband and wife begin sleeping apart, you open the door to temptation. Satan was using that woman—Dr. Gilliard—to prey on your vulnerable state of mind in order to lure you away from your wife. If you’d been a different type of man, Stanton, we might have been having an entirely different conversation right now.”
When Stan and Prissy scowled at the reminder of his therapist’s thwarted seduction attempt, Evangeline laughed and shook her head. “Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when my Prissy burst into that room. I know what you saw must have been a terrible shock to you, baby, but you handled yourself admirably. May all my great-grandsons be fortunate enough to find such strong, feisty women who know how to stay and fight for their men instead of assuming the worst.”
“Amen,” Stan agreed, smiling affectionately at his firecracker of a wife.
Evangeline watched them with a quiet smile of satisfaction. After Celeste’s devastating defection from the family, her heart couldn’t have handled losing another beloved granddaughter, or watching any more of her babies suffer.
She sighed, the sound drawing the young couple’s gaze back to her. She smiled at them. “So now that we’ve analyzed the nightmares—or at least attempted to—I’d like to share the contents of this box that I brought from home.”
Stan chuckled softly. “I’ve been wondering what’s inside that box on your lap.”
“Me, too,” Prissy admitted.
Evangeline’s smile deepened. “Well, for the past year, I’ve been working on a book that chronicles the life and military service of your ancestor Bishop Wolf, who, as you both know, proudly served our country as a Buffalo Soldier in the Tenth Cavalry.”
Stan and Prissy stared at her in surprise. “You’re writing a book, Mama Wolf?” they exclaimed.
“I am.”
“That’s wonderful!”
“Yes, it is.” Evangeline’s dark eyes glowed with pride. “I couldn’t have been more thrilled when Montana called to tell me that he was writing a book report on Bishop Wolf. I told him about my own project and swore him to secrecy because I wanted to surprise all of you once the book is published next fall. But in light of everything you’ve shared with me today, I now understand why the Lord led me to bring these letters on my trip this week.”
Stan and Prissy eyed her curiously. “What letters?”
“Letters from Bishop Wolf to his wife Sadie.” Evangeline opened the small box on her lap and carefully removed a stack of envelopes that were yellowed with age and bundled with frayed ribbons. She smiled tenderly at Stan. “I think it’s time for me to share these with you.”
Stan swallowed hard, then sat forward and reverently accepted the stack of letters from his grandmother. When he looked down at the bold, masculine handwriting scrawled across the stamped envelope on top of the pile, he was almost afraid to handle the fragile bundle a second longer.
He and Prissy exchanged awestruck looks, then stared at Evangeline. “Shouldn’t these letters be preserved in a museum somewhere?” Stan asked wonderingly.
Evangeline smiled. “They will be soon enough. During Black History Month in February, the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah will be featuring Lieutenant Bishop Wolf and the Tenth Cavalry in an exhibit on Buffalo Soldiers. After that, a selection of Bishop’s letters and other artifacts will be permanently on display at the Georgia Museum of Natural History.”
“Wow,” Stan whispered, thoroughly awed and humbled to be holding such an important piece of his family’s history. His legacy. A key to the past.
“As I’ve explained to all of you over the years, Bishop Wolf was an educated man who’d gained his freedom long before he enlisted in the army. So he already knew how to read and write. And he wrote exceptionally well, as you will see for yourself.” Evangeline paused. “But what I never shared with you is that he was tormented by nightmares of dying on the battlefield.”
Stunned, Stan stared at her. “Really?”
Evangeline nodded. “He was convinced that he wouldn’t make it back home to his family. Which is understandable, since many of his fellow troopers didn’t return home. As the nightmares increased over time, he became more and more consumed with the growing certainty that he was going to lose his life in battle.”
Stan frowned. “But…he didn’t.”
“That’s right. He didn’t.” Evangeline smiled, her eyes gleaming with the preternatural wisdom of an ancient sage—though, of course, she was anything but ancient. “Despite the terrible nightmares that plagued him as a soldier, Bishop Wolf lived to the ripe old age of ninety-three and fathered seven children.”
Just then a shiver passed through Stan, as if he’d briefly encountered a spirit from beyond the grave.
Evangeline quietly observed his reaction. “Like you, Bishop was a lieutenant. A leader of men. And like you with firefighting, he knew the risks involved when he enlisted in the army, but that didn’t stop him from wanting to serve. And though he was tormented by visions of his own death, he fought bravely and heroically in every battle.”
Stan swallowed tightly as he stared down at the stack of letters in his hands, unable to dismiss the uncanny parallels between himself and his distant forefather.
“I can’t tell you when your nightmares are going to end, precious heart,” Evangeline continued with tender solemnity. “But I believe that reading your ancestor’s letters will bring you some peace and comfort, and show you that sometimes history repeating itself can be a blessing in disguise.”
***
Over the next two hours, Stan and Prissy sequestered themselves in their room, cuddled in bed and read Bishop Wolf’s letters together.
Although his black regiment had fought in a surprising number of battles—including the famous 1898 battle on San Juan Heights, Cuba, for which he’d earned the Medal of Honor—Bishop Wolf didn’t dwell on the fury and bloodshed of warfare, nor did he share many details of the nightmares that plagued him.
But when he did speak of dying on the battlefield, Stan felt his fear and despair as acutely as if they were his own. Because he could relate all too well.
As he read his ancestor’s letters aloud, it was like being transported back in time. The prose was so aesthetically powerful that Stan could almost smell the smoke rising from the soldiers’ campfire, could almost taste the cold hash and beans they’d consumed for dinner.
Curled against Stan with her head resting on his chest, Prissy listened raptly as he read from one of Bishop’s early letters to his wife Sadie.
On tomorrow we continue advancing to the West. We have been making slow progress because many of the horses we were given are sickly and crippled. Negro regiments are not deemed worthy enough to receive the finest mounts. But the troopers are learning to take good care of the horses, some even better than they care for themselves. And speaking of my men, you may be amused to know that they have taken to calling themselves the Wolf Pack—
Stan paused to share a delighted grin with Prissy.
“So the nickname goes back even that far,” she marveled.
“Long live the Wolf Pack,” Stan proudly declared before he continued reading, picking up right where he’d left off.
—and the younger ones like to howl at the moon until they have to be hushed. You see, when long stretches of time pass with no other signs of civilization, some of the men tend to let their guard down, which none of us can afford to do. Because the Indians are stealth as wraiths, and they have been known to lie in wait to ambush an unsuspecting cavalry.
My dearest Sadie, I would never wish to burden your serene spirit with dire predictions of my own demise, but as we march deeper into enemy territory, I feel it is my solemn duty as your husband to share with you a matter that has weighed heavy on my heart and soul. For nearly a year now, I have been besieged by the most horrific dreams of my death, the details of which I will spare you. As it is I fear that I have already written too much, and if these revelations should cause you even a moment’s pain and suffering, please know that this was the very outcome I most wished to avoid.
Whenever I awaken from these night terrors, I immediately reach for your photograph and hold it up to the moonlight. I stare at your beautiful image, and I long for the day that we will be reunited.
If I should fall at the hands of the enemy, I will remain forever grateful for the time we had together. In a world that has been more cruel than kind to our people, you have always been my refuge. Thank you for the precious gift of your love. And thank you for raising our beloved young sons to walk tall and proud, and to hold their heads high as free men should.
Until we meet again I am,
Eternally yours,
Lt. Bishop M. Wolf
10th Cavalry Reg.
By the time Stan finished reading the letter, his vision was blurred by tears. Meeting Prissy’s luminous gaze, he saw that she, too, had been deeply affected by his ancestor’s poignantly moving words.
“Oh, Stanton,” she whispered as he carefully returned the letter to the envelope. “That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.”
Stan nodded in agreement and swallowed hard, then swallowed again when the knot in his throat wouldn’t dissolve.
Prissy smiled softly through her tears. “Sometimes I forgot that the letters weren’t addressed to me. He called Sadie his ‘refuge.’ You called me the same thing during your acceptance speech at the fireman’s ball. Do you remember?”
Stan nodded. “It’s true,” he murmured, gently brushing her hair off her forehead. “You are my refuge.”
“Oh, baby.” Prissy gazed wonderingly at him. “I don’t know what I’d ever do without you.”
“I’m hoping you’ll never have to find out,” Stan told her quietly.
Prissy searched his face intently. “Mama Wolf thought the letters would make you feel better. Do you?”
Stan nodded. “I do. Since opening up to you yesterday, I’ve felt like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. And then talking to Mama Wolf today and reading these incredible letters with you…” He shook his head slowly. “Call me crazy, but right now I’m feeling pretty damn lucky.”
As Prissy’s expression softened, she reached up and lovingly cradled his cheek in her hand. “He would have been so proud of you.”
“Think so?”
“I know so.”
Stan smiled quietly. “I’m proud to have descended from such a great man. I look forward to reading Mama Wolf’s book and learning even more about him.”
Prissy smiled. “Me, too.”
Stan gently stroked her hair. “I love you, sweetheart.”
“Don’t ever stop,” she whispered.
“I won’t.” He shook his head at her. “I couldn’t even if I tried.”
As their lips met in a tender kiss, Stan remembered that Mama Wolf had prayed over him and Prissy earlier, humbly petitioning the Lord to heal Stan’s troubled spirit and deliver him from the traumatic nightmares.
Stan felt confident that God had been listening.