Chapter 5 - The Red Clay Road
Three months later.
The November frost had turned the grass along Highway 27 into silver needles that crinkled underfoot as I walked down the slope behind my mother’s house toward the Little River bridge.
I was wearing my Army Service Uniform—the dark indigo coat with the gold piping, the two silver eagles of a full Colonel pinned to my epaulets, and the three rows of ribbons across my left breast that included the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star with two oak leaf clusters.
I had come down for the dedication.
The county had changed since August.
The old sign at the township line that read WELCOME TO HARNETT COUNTY—HOME OF OPPORTUNITY had been taken down. In its place stood a plain wooden marker erected by the state historical commission.
The Sheriff's Department had a new commander—a former State Highway Patrol captain named Vance who had spent twelve years running drug interdiction along Interstate 95. Half the old staff was gone, replaced by young deputies who didn't know Wade Cain’s name and didn't take their meals at the back table of the county garage.
Wade Cain had pled guilty three weeks earlier in federal court to twenty-two counts of wire fraud and conspiracy.
He was sixty-eight years old; his sentence was thirty-two years at the Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina. He wouldn't see the outside of a wire fence again.
Travis Cain took a plea deal—twelve years for extortion and assault, with five years of mandatory supervised release.
Cain Land Holdings LLC was liquidated by the federal bankruptcy court.
The three hundred acres surrounding my mother’s two-acre parcel were bought by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and turned into a permanent timber reserve—a green belt where no commercial bypass, no gas stations, and no gravel pits could ever be built.
I reached the bridge.
The old wooden railings had been replaced by concrete barriers, but the dry stone abutments my father had built with his own hands in ninety-two were still there, covered in grey lichen and green moss.
A small bronze plaque was mounted to the center stone.
It read:
THOMAS E. TURNER MEMORIAL BRIDGE SERGEANT, 82ND AIRBORNE DIVISION "A MAN WHO STOOD HIS GROUND"
I stood by the railing for ten minutes, listening to the dark water of the Little River rush over the granite rocks twenty feet below. The air was cold, sharp, smelling of wet oak leaves and woodsmoke from the chimney of my mother’s house up the hill.
"Nicole," a voice called from the road.
I turned around.
General Bradley was walking down the dirt lane, wearing his dark green wool overcoat over his dress uniform, his hands tucked into his pockets.
He stopped beside me, looking down at the bronze plaque.
"Nice work on the lettering," Bradley said.
"My mother chose the quote," I said.
"She’s a tough woman, Nicole," Bradley said, offering a small, thin smile. "She spent two hours this morning telling the post housing officer that the grease traps at Fort Bragg’s mess hall were three inches too shallow."
I laughed—a real, deep laugh that felt good in the cold air.
"She’s eighty percent back on her shoulder," I said. "Dr. Chen says she’ll be throwing pie pans by Christmas."
Bradley nodded, his eyes looking up toward the ridge where the new timber reserve stretched five miles north toward Sanford.
"The Chief of Staff reviewed your assignment file yesterday," Bradley said, shifting his weight against the concrete railing. "The 3rd Brigade Commander position at Fort Campbell opens in March. They want a senior officer with logistics experience and... let's say, proven administrative resolve."
He looked at me, his grey eyes steady beneath the brim of his officer’s cap.
"It’s a General’s track, Nicole," he said quietly. "If you take Campbell, you’re on the board for one-star by twenty-eight."
I looked up the hill.
Through the trees, I could see the yellow light glowing through the front windows of Turner’s Diner.
The neon sign was working again—TURNER’S—FOOD & PIE—the red glass tubing throwing a warm, cheerful pink glare across the clean gravel apron where six pickup trucks were parked in a neat row.
Old man Miller’s blue Ford was there. Carol’s small red sedan was there. And near the front steps stood my mother’s old white station wagon, its chrome bumper gleaming in the twilight.
I could see her through the window—wearing her faded white apron, holding a fresh cherry pie in two gloved hands as she carried it toward the middle booth where three local farmers sat talking with the new deputy sheriff.
"I’ll take the brigade, General," I said softly.
May you like
Bradley smiled, reaching out to shake my hand with a firm, dry grip.
"Good," he said. "The Army needs officers who know where their fence line is."
