The Patrol

 

They were sitting on a back porch looking over the lake. It had become a nightly ritual, watching the sun go down across the lake as the breeze, and currents switched directions. The lake wasn’t wide. Just a backwash from the river that lay around the back of a strip of land. It was said that General Grant took shelter there when he took fire from a nearby hillside fort. If it were true or not didn’t matter. The tourists believed it. 

 

As the shadows lengthened and darkness fell the conversation turned to the Civil War. The peaceful subset belied the years before. The idea of General Grant hiding just below, receiving enemy fire made the war seem real. 

 

This sleepy little hamlet hosted a real live Civil War battle with control of the river being in jeopardy in 1863. The Union army stood up in righteous indignation to extinguish the resistance of a contingent of rebels one February day, thereby saving the Union for prosperity and securing the rights of Jack Daniel’s Whiskey for the Japanese. Oh, and freed three or four slaves. 

 

Now, as the two sat sipping said whiskey on the back porch there was no evidence of mayhem as students from Vanderbilt headed for shore after a long day of hunting two legged deer. But the spirit of Dixie still remained. 

 

As darkness overtook the waters a single light appeared on yon shore. Not unusual. Could be someone walking along with a flashlight, or perhaps a motorcycle. But the light was different. Somehow quainter as it swayed to and fro with each step of the carrier. 

 

One of the men said, “Watch!”

 

The other man strained his eyes. “What am I looking at?”

 

“That light.”

 

A few moments passed before the man staring said, “So?”

 

About that time the walker stopped, turned, and began to walk toward them from the far shore. The lake lay between them, but the mysterious walker didn’t stop, but proceeded to take a few steps more. It would appear that he would soon be stepping into the lake but he did not! Instead he took about five steps on the surface of the lake! 

 

“Optical illusion,” the viewer said. 

 

The other man took a sip, lit a cigarette and said, “No.”

 

“Inversion. Seen it in the desert. Water in the distance where there’s only sand.”

 

“But that’s not sand. Distance ain’t right, and this is February in Tennessee.”

 

“Ok. What is it?”

 

“It’s a soldier.”

 

At this point his friend strained his eyes to focus on the figure. Hazy, small and grey. He could now able to just make out the form of a boy! A boy carrying not a flashlight but a lantern. A lantern with its flickering light just illuminating the face of a beardless boy. A boy now standing respectfully from about two hundred yards waiting for their response. 

 

The first man set his drink on the table. “He comes around now and then. He’s on patrol in case the Yankees come back. The dam put in by the TVA backed the water up and made this lake. He’s standing on the dry land of his day. Watch!”

 

At that the speaker stood, and smartly saluted to the figure across the lake who swung his lantern in return. 

 

“He has to finish his patrol.  He had to make sure we were ok, and the Yankees hadn’t come back.

 

The second man slowly stood and saluted. And, as the two Vietnam veterans stood in attention the young soldier disappeared back into the woods to continue his patrol.