The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 1): First Time (38 page)

They thanked him for his time and set out to follow his directions. It wasn't easy as many of the older streets had been narrow affairs and not laid out with any sort of regularity or forethought. On the other hand, some of the oldest streets were the widest as they had been designed to allow a horse drawn wagon to make a U-turn. As they entered an older section of town, scanning street signs for the one that would lead them to the cemetery, Garison suddenly said, "Stop the car, please."

Heather shrugged but pulled the car to a stop. Garison got out and began to look up and down the cross street. Heather turned off the motor and got out. "What's up?" she asked.

"I believe this is the street I used to live on," he replied. "I can't be sure, though. There were no other houses near, and there was only a dirt track leading up to our house, but I believe this street follows that same path, roughly. I can't even tell you how I know this. I believe you would call it intuition that tells me this."

"Are any of these houses yours?" Heather asked anxiously.

"No. They are larger, even though my house was one of the largest in town, for its day. These look as if they were built in the late nineteenth century, judging by the architecture." He smiled at her, "That's your Garison remembering that. They probably razed my house to build one of these." Perking up, he added, "Maybe one of my kids lived in one of these, though. Or, my grandkids, more likely."

He set off down the street and Heather hastily locked the car and caught up with him. Just when she was about to ask what he was doing, he stopped in front of an enormous oak tree and looked up into the branches. He smiled and took a deep breath of the air. Exhaling, he repeated the action.

"What is it?" she asked, surprised because the air didn't seem all that fresh to her. Especially not to someone accustomed to clean, mountain air. There was a hint of ozone that carried a promise of rain, but beyond that she just smelled the nearby city of Alexandria.

"I planted a tree in just about this spot," he said with a note of awe in his voice. Reaching across the fence to put his hand on the trunk, he wondered if this were the same tree.

"You did?" she asked with great interest.

"Yes. I planted it on the day Helen was born. It would be," he thought a moment, "Two hundred and sixty-two years ago now." After a pause, he added, "I guess that means so would she. I-I...that's hard to accept."

"That's wonderful," was all she could manage in the face of his revelation. "I mean, about the tree." She stared up at the enormous tree and marveled that something so obviously old could have been planted by the man she stood next to. "I don't know my trees that well, but this one certainly looks old. Wouldn't it be amazing if this were the tree you planted?"

"Do you believe in ghosts?" he asked abruptly.

"No. Not really."

"Neither do I," he replied. "But, when I see a tree like this, or even an old building, I feel as if I am in contact with an ancient time. It is nothing really mystical, but it's just the idea of all the people who have made use of an old building or a tree's shade. I see an old hospital and I think of all the excited parents who have had children there, and all the sadness as people passed away. An old baseball field makes me think of all the games won and lost there; all the skinned knees and mammoth home runs." He paused, then asked, "What if this is the tree I planted? I can imagine Helen playing under this tree, and Justin and Henry. Perhaps my grandkids played under this tree. And Sarah...maybe in her old age, Sarah sat in the shade of this tree in one of the rocking chairs I had made and watched our grandchildren and great-grandchildren play beneath its boughs."

"Where was the house?" Heather asked.

He looked across the lawn and said, "About where that house is now. Of course, there were no neighbors nearby. I owned eleven acres here. I even had a little grove of plum trees in the back. It was just about a dozen trees-not a very big orchard." He smiled and told her, "I had an idea I might could use the prune juice to make my own Dr Pepper. Never worked. Tasted like spoiled medicine. The house was nice, though. I built it sort of after the pattern of a house I had seen in Galveston when I went on that tour of Texas. If you opened up the right windows, especially on hot summer days, an updraft was created through the entire house. Didn't always make things cool, but it did keep the air circulating.

"I imagine when Sarah died, much of the land was sold off so that more houses could be built. I hope she was well taken care of after I left."

"I'm sure she was," Heather said, putting her arm around him. Just as she realized what she had done and thought she should take her arm back, he put his arm around her.

She looked at him, almost apprehensively, and he smiled, "It's OK. I...I'm glad you're here to share this moment with me, Heather. It...is it all right for a man to cry in this day?"

"Yeah," she replied. She noticed that a little trickle of a tear had already made its way down his cheek. She put her arms around him and held him tightly as they watched the branches swaying in the barely noticeable breeze.

He started to squeeze her tightly in return, then quickly stopped. She said softly, "It's OK. I won't break."

He looked at her in surprise, then realized it was something anyone might have said. Still, not just anyone had said it to him before.

A woman came out of the house just then, looking at them curiously. She was a black woman in her mid-fifties, well-dressed and quite attractive. She came cautiously up to the fence, but kept a safe distance.

"Could I help you?" she asked a little warily.

"No, not really," Garison replied, wiping the tears away with embarrassment. "It's just that I pl—I think maybe an ancestor of mine planted this tree. We were just standing here and—um—imagining what things around here must have been like in his day."

"I have often wondered how old this tree is," the woman remarked. "What year did your ancestor plant this tree? Do you know? We had a man from over at the college come and guess at its age and he thought it was probably about two hundred and fifty to three hundred years old."

"If it's the tree I remem—I've heard about," Garison replied, "The story says he planted it in 1743, on the day his daughter Helen was born." Looking around, Garison mused, "He also planted trees for his two sons around here, but I guess they haven't made it."

"What an interesting story!" the woman told him excitedly. "I'm quite a history buff—especially as it concerns the colonial days. What was the man's name—the one who planted the tree?"

After a moment's hesitation, he replied, "Garison Fitch, um—same name as me."

"Hmmm," the woman mused with interest.

"What was that?" Garison asked, curious about her obvious interest in the name. What stories might lurk in the town even two and a half centuries later? he wondered. "Does that name mean something to you?"

"Oh, I was just wondering if this street were named after him."

"This street?" Heather asked.

Garison mumbled, "They called it 'Fitch Street' when I—when he lived here, but only as a joke—they say. There weren't enough houses out this way to justify giving it a name."

Not hearing him, the woman replied to Heather's question, "Oh, didn't you notice? This is Fitch Street you're on."

"No kidding?" Heather and Garison asked, almost in unison. They turned to look at the street sign, but it was too far away and partially obscured by a large maple.

"Oh yes, you must be awfully proud of your family, if you're related to the Fitchs I'm thinking of. There is a building downtown named after a man called—let me think...Harold Fitch. That's it: Harold Fitch. I believe the building says it was built in 1852, or somewhere around then. Was he an ancestor of yours, too? I know a little of him because he was a very active abolitionist and I studied some of his speaches in college. I believe his father was, as well, but the name escapes me at the moment."

"I haven't heard of him," Garison said, then eyed Heather strangely, and mouthed the question, "Grandson?"

Heather shrugged, then told the woman, "Well, we don't want to bother you. We were going to go down to the cemetery and look around. They say that's a good place to look when tracing a family tree."

"Oh yes," the woman said. "There are a lot of Fitchs down there." She explained, not noticing that her statement had made Garison cringe slightly, "You see, like I said, I am somewhat of a history buff, myself. History was my major in college and I even taught history at the high school level for a few years. Since moving here with my husband's job—he works for Senator Cromwell—I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the history of this town—and of New England in general. There certainly is a lot of history in this neighborhood, what with Washingtons and Fitchs and all. I've been down to the cemetery many times, researching different ideas of mine, and I've seen several Fitchs. If you know much about your family—if the Fitches here are indeed your ancestors—I would love to hear about it."

"If I get a chance, I'll stop by sometime."

The woman said, "Wait a minute. I'll give you my card. Call, or write if you can."

"I'll do that," Garison nodded. When he had the card in hand, he smiled, "I'd be interested to know what you've found, too."

"I would love to get together with you now, but I need to go to a function with my husband. Just call me."

They thanked her for the talk and went back to the car. As they got in, Heather said, "Looks like you must have some exciting ancestors."

"Descendants," Garison corrected. "Remember, these are my children we are talking about. My ancestors were—someone else."

"That's so weird," Heather mused. "Did you ever meet any of your ancestors? When you were in the past, I mean?"

"No. I always hoped I might. But I never met anyone else named Fitch. Maybe my ancestors hadn't immigrated to the Americas, yet."

"Or maybe they had a different name when they first came over."

"That's exactly the thought I had!" he was surprised, though he wasn't sure why, to find himself thinking like Heather. “And, of course, any maternal ancestors would have had a different last name. I could have met several of my ancestors and not known it.”

“You almost think you would know, right? If you ran into an ancestor, it seems like you ought to feel a tingling on the back of your neck or something.”

“Or a really bad headache,” Garison mumbled, wondering.

The cemetery was an old one, obviously, but well kept. Some of the tombstones where broken and cracked, but that was to be expected of something that sat out in the New England elements year after year—and century after century. It did seem to have been surprisingly well protected from vandals, Heather noticed, thinking back to what the man at the gas station had said. Some stones' graves appeared to be fairly new, but these were in the minority as the cemetery appeared to be running out of room. Garison was able to recognize the area, meaning the cemetery had been there when he first came to Mount Vernon, although it had been greatly expanded and now covered an area that would have encompassed the yards of a few people he had known. After a moment to get his bearings, he was convinced that it was the community cemetery he remembered—though much expanded. He wondered what Sharif Purdy would think to know his house had been torn down or moved to make more room for the graveyard.

As they walked through the front gate, Heather remembered how their friend, Bat Garrett—formerly of Dallas and now of Flagstaff, Arizona—had contended that cemeteries were the biggest waste of space man had ever invented. He proposed several alternatives to the gross waste of land, but knew he was beating his fists against the wind. But then, Bat seemed to have many strange ideas that would never come to fruition (if the world were lucky), Heather laughed to herself.

"Where do we start?" Heather asked, hoping she hadn't laughed out loud.

"Look for the oldest stones," he replied. "My family's going to be some of the first buried here. When I left, anyway, there were only a couple dozen people buried here, maybe less. Even cemeteries have to start somewhere, I guess. There, over by those trees. Trees of that age indicate they were planted there long ago. Perhaps my family is near those."

He took two steps, then paused with an odd look on his face, "It's strange, though, to think that—as old as these trees are—I was here before most of them. And to think that there are people here who were born, lived a long life, and died who came after me. And I was here less than a week ago. Makes me feel...I don't know, creepy."

She took his hand and mumbled, "Me, too." He didn't react to her taking his hand, but neither did he pull away. Heather took that as a good sign. "No whistling past this graveyard," she mumbled.

As they walked along, he did see names he recognized, including an area of Monroes. The last of the Monroes seemed to have passed away in the early 1800s, and most of the names were people Garison had known of, if not known personally. The first grave to really make him pause, though, was that of his friend Sharif Purdy. According to the tombstone, he died as a "Patriot" in 1777. Garison realized Purdy must have been an old man when he died and wondered if it were from old age or if he had fought in the war of independence. The epitaph made him think Purdy had probably gone out fighting. That was a little hard to picture as Purdy had been such a calming figure in town. Suddenly, he had a strange vision of Purdy following George Washington into battle and it seemed so real he could almost smell the gunpowder.

They came to the oldest trees and began to wander through them and Garison began to see more and more names he recognized. He mentioned some of their deeds to Heather and she marveled that her husband was speaking of people who had been dead for two and a half centuries as if they were current friends. Of course, it had only been a matter of days since he had been with many of them.

It was a surreal experience for Garison, too. What struck him most, though, was when he saw the tombstone of a person he hadn't cared for. He stopped and looked for a moment, realizing that the person was long-since decayed and the animosity seemed unrealistically petty. "I'm really sorry," he whispered as he walked on past the stone.