crack_van | Footfalls Echo in the Memory, by Julia Verinder (PG-17)

Fandom: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN
Pairing: none
Author on LJ: unknown
Author Website: Julia Verinder's Fan Fiction
Why this must be read:

Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.
from ‘Burnt Norton’ in Four Quartets by T S Eliot:

'Footfalls' tells a haunting, contemplative story of choices, consequences, and responsibility. Brutally raped and left for dead, a young deaf girl is the only survivor of a stagecoach robbery. Vin and Nathan become Grace's lifelines during her recovery, but relationships are strained when the specter of pregnancy arises.

Julia tackles controversial subject matter with unflinching honesty and humanity. Whatever your own opinions, I think you will finish this story with more compassion for the personal impact of difficult decisions. But don't read it for philosophy or politics. Read it for a harrowing story well-told and insight into the hearts and histories of Vin and Nathan.

Try Footfalls Echo in the Memory

He didn't often dwell on his life in slavery, but now, tending this damaged young thing, every assault and unjust punishment he'd ever witnessed flooded back in images so vivid that he could have been watching the events unfold. He saw his old master beating the human beings he believed he owned and then reading prayers in front of them of a Sunday, his sanctimonious self-righteousness hanging over them like a cloud while it was all they could do to stay on their feet without passing out. Nathan hadn't actually seen the women in the household raped - that happened behind closed doors. All he saw were unexplained tears, knowing looks and young girls nursed by old women. He wasn't sure when he first knew what happened to them but he had no doubt when he first truly understood, and he now shuddered at the memory.
After escaping from his master during the war, he worked for the Union army under a commander who believed in utilizing whatever resources came his way and who had no intention of returning runaways to their masters as some did. Nathan's first months with the troops were as hard and degrading as his years in slavery, filled with the filthiest cleaning details and anything that even the lowliest white man did not expect to do. Only after the Battle of Sabine Pass did he discover his talent for healing and, for once, Lady Luck smiled on him. His efforts were spotted by a medical officer and, finally, life held more promise. The work was still filthy and soul-destroying - they lost more badly injured men than they saved - but Nathan had found his vocation.
Then came the attack on the port of Galveston. Nathan understood the principle of interrupting supply and communication links to the Confederacy, but the undeniable logic did nothing to salve his conscience at the army's pillage of the city and the hardship that thrust upon local people. And of course, once troops were unleashed on the path of destruction, there was no stopping them. Most men stole and many went further.
It was in Galveston that Nathan first saw a woman raped and, although it wasn't the last time, it was the scene that had remained etched in his memory over the years. He was tending casualties at the edge of a burned-out street. People had been drifting out of town for days. A woman walked by, a pathetic bundle of possessions in her right hand and a small boy desperately clutching her left. She might only have been in her twenties but she looked older. Displaced and desolate, she wore the pain in which the Southern states were by then steeped. He watched her pass and returned to his own wretched work. Perhaps twenty minutes later he glanced after her, expecting to see her wending her way up the long rise beyond the end of the street. She was indeed partway up the rise but she wasn't walking. Instead, she was flat on her back, a man in a dark blue uniform - unmistakable even through the dust - kneeling over her head and another between her legs.
Nathan stared in disbelief. A third soldier was holding the little boy by a handful of hair, and it was only when the tiny captive resumed his kicking and struggling that Nathan came to himself with a start. He scrambled to his feet and began to run towards the grisly tableau, but he hadn't covered even a quarter of the distance when the two men stood and buttoned their pants. The other two either did not want any or had taken it already because the fourth man, who had been standing to one side, drew his gun and shot twice. Once into the woman at his feet, once into the boy. Then all four walked calmly away, without so much as a backward glance.
Nathan had stopped dead when the man pulled the gun and the quartet was out of sight before he recovered his senses. He started running again, hoping he could help, all the while knowing he could not. He stood over the bodies for what seemed like an eternity, trying to understand what sort of man committed such a vile act. Doubtless having lost her husband and probably most of her family to the war, the woman had no home or future. Now soldiers supposedly on the side of good had taken first her dignity and then not only her life, but her son's as well.

Footfalls Echo in the Memory

Footfalls Echo in the Memory, by Julia Verinder (PG-17)

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