Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/116174
i r st Li gh t F By Mike Gaddis On this hallowed ground the enemy would mount a masterful counter of stealth and evasion in a life and death contest for which there was no retreat. I t was black dark and there was the disarming gush of the swollen, little stream, and I could only sense the rise of the earth above me. But I had done battle here before. I could feel it in my bones, as in the ghostly lines of Mary Fahl's "Going Home," from Gods and Generals: "I know in my bones, I've been here before . . . The land feels the same, but the ground's been torn." Cemetery Hill, consecrated by locale and deference as so many other lesser places of conflict throughout the Old South . . . where a handful of brave men met, fought and fell, died nonetheless . . . this one near the Federal side of the small, quaint burg of Paint Bank, Virginia. A tall, country meadow, steep and broad, topping to a slight bench that towers over a strategic swath of the Greenbrier Valley. You can greet Calvary from here. It's a lonely climb to the top, in the night. Evocative and eerie. So much of the past welded unforgettably to what poses as the present, and pretends for the future, while Fate ever decides the middle ground. So many mornings of my life I've spent like this, alone and humble in the dark, trodding sacred earth . . . en route to another poignant destination of my hunter or fisherman's heart. Some beckoning, bittersweet place that lies just over the dawn. For there are always those who have been before me. Including the other man I become when I go . . . me, myself and I. I find my watch long before the sun stirs. There are minutes to think, minutes to feel, minutes to wander again the unfathomable territory between heart and home. To traverse anew the places and things I love. I relish these wistful, unbridled minutes in the dark, before the first cardinal sings. Before the geese fly, and the day is to be done. First light breaks across the far Allegheny ridges, the color of the pale, gray smoke from damp and distant musket fire. A few minutes later, gilded with the faintest tinge of gold. The sun, yet in its bed, is still sleepy. Gathering itself to rise, to ascend the tall, timeless hills. When it finds its feet, it will light wispy curls of pink and apricot in the mists, which purl from the cool pant of Potts Creek at the valley floor. S P O R T I N G C S L P A OS RS TI IC NS G 21 C 21 L A S S I C S