The Buffalo Soldier

The Buffalo Soldier Plot Summary

Introduction

# Rivers Between Us: Currents of Loss and Redemption The Gale River had been running quiet for two years, but Terry Sheldon still couldn't drive past the bridge without seeing his daughters' faces beneath the water. Hillary and Megan, nine years old and identical in death if not in life, had been swept away when the spring floods turned their sleepy Vermont town into a disaster zone. Now the house on the hill sat heavy with silence, Laura moving through rooms like a ghost tending to other ghosts, while Terry wore his state trooper uniform like armor against a world that had already taken everything. Then Alfred arrived with two garbage bags and a lifetime of careful distance, a ten-year-old Black boy whose mother had vanished to Jamaica, leaving him to navigate the foster system's revolving doors. He slept in Megan's old room, ate dinner at a table set for the living and the dead, and watched this broken family with the sharp eyes of a survivor. Across the street, retired professor Paul Hebert saw something familiar in the boy's guarded stance and decided to buy a horse. None of them knew that salvation sometimes comes wearing work boots and smelling of hay, or that the courage to love again might arrive in the form of a child who had learned to expect nothing and a mare who understood the weight of carrying broken things toward something better.

Chapter 1: After the Deluge: A House Haunted by Silence

Alfred stepped off the social worker's car into a landscape painted in shades of grief. The Sheldon house perched on its hill like a monument to loss, its windows reflecting nothing but empty sky. Laura waited on the porch steps, her hands twisted in her sweater, trying to remember how to welcome a child. Behind her, Terry emerged in his state trooper uniform, the badge and gun making Alfred's shoulders tense with practiced wariness. The boy had learned to read houses the way sailors read weather, and this one spoke of careful distances and swallowed words. Laura showed him to his room, freshly painted yellow over whatever flowery pink had come before, and Alfred understood immediately whose space he was inheriting. The closet still held the faint scent of a little girl's shampoo. The window looked out over a yard where swing sets had been removed, leaving only rectangular patches of newer grass. At dinner, they moved around each other like strangers sharing a hotel dining room. Terry discussed weather patterns and road conditions. Laura asked about homework and whether Alfred needed anything from town. The boy answered in careful monosyllables, measuring each word like precious currency. Two empty chairs seemed to grow larger with each passing meal, their absence more present than any living thing in the room. Alfred began his preparations that first night, slipping crackers from the kitchen into his backpack, building a small fortress of provisions in his bedroom closet. He had lived in enough temporary homes to know the signs of impending collapse, and this house carried the particular weight of people who had loved too much and lost too completely. The silence here wasn't peaceful—it was the silence of held breath, of words swallowed before they could wound. Laura found her refuge among the abandoned animals at the shelter, creatures who understood abandonment in ways that humans, mercifully, rarely do. Terry patrolled the county roads, his cruiser a sanctuary from the weight of memory that waited at home. They were learning to live with absence, but they had not yet learned to live again. The boy watched from the margins, already calculating how quickly he could pack his few possessions when the inevitable explosion came.

Chapter 2: The Buffalo Soldier: Finding Courage in Heritage

Paul Hebert arrived like salvation wearing work boots and carrying stories. The retired professor had spent his career studying the forgotten corners of American history, and in Alfred he recognized a kindred spirit to the buffalo soldiers he had long admired. The gift came wrapped in brown paper—a worn cavalry cap bearing the insignia of the Tenth Regiment and a book filled with photographs of Black cavalrymen who had served with distinction in a hostile land. Alfred traced the faded images with reverent fingers, finding heroes who looked like him in a world that rarely acknowledged their existence. Sergeant George Rowe stared back from the pages, his rules for survival becoming Alfred's commandments: Think before you act. Stand tall. Look white soldiers in the eye. Take care of your horse above all else. The boy memorized every story, every battle, every moment of courage in the face of impossible odds. When Paul brought home Mesa, everything changed. The Morgan mare stood sixteen hands high, her coat the color of burnished copper, and she watched Alfred with ancient patience that spoke of understanding. Paul, recognizing something kindred in the boy's careful approach, began teaching him the fundamentals of horsemanship. Every afternoon after school, Alfred crossed the street to the Heberts' barn, learning to curry Mesa's coat until it gleamed, to pick stones from her hooves, to read the subtle language of her ears and eyes. The work was hard and sometimes frightening. Mesa weighed over a thousand pounds, and her hooves could crush bone without effort. But Alfred approached each task with the methodical precision of a soldier, earning four dollars a day and something far more valuable—a sense of purpose. For the first time in years, he had somewhere to be, something that depended on him. Laura watched from her kitchen window as the boy transformed. His shoulders straightened. His voice grew stronger when he talked about Mesa's training or shared fragments of buffalo soldier history. The breakthrough came on a December afternoon when Alfred finally climbed into Mesa's saddle. Paul held the lead rope as horse and rider found their balance, and for a moment, the boy sat tall as any cavalry trooper who ever rode the plains. The smile that spread across his face was the first genuine joy Laura had witnessed in their home since the flood.

Chapter 3: Broken Promises: When Trust Crumbles

Terry sat in the roadside bar nursing whiskey and self-pity, the anniversary of his daughters' death looming like a storm front. The woman who slid onto the stool beside him worked at the general store near deer camp—Phoebe, with dark hair and knowing eyes and a laugh that came without reservation. She was nothing like Laura, which was perhaps exactly what Terry needed. They talked about everything and nothing, her hand occasionally brushing his arm in comfort. When she asked about his family, the words spilled out before he could stop them. He told her about Hillary and Megan, about the flood that had torn his life in half, about the foster boy who now slept in his daughter's bed. In her trailer that night, Terry allowed himself to forget who he was, what he'd lost, and what he owed to the woman waiting at home. The guilt followed him back to Cornish like a shadow. He threw himself into being a better husband, a more patient foster father, but the damage ran deeper than good intentions could heal. Alfred sensed the tension immediately, his survival instincts finely tuned to the subtle shifts in household dynamics. The boy began hoarding food again, preparing for the inevitable collapse he'd witnessed too many times before. When Phoebe called in December with news that would shatter everything, Terry's world tilted off its axis. She was pregnant. The words hit him like a physical blow, and suddenly the careful reconstruction of his marriage felt as fragile as tissue paper in a hurricane. At a coffee shop in Montpelier, they sat across from each other like co-conspirators planning a crime. Phoebe's decision was already made—she would keep the baby, with or without him. The affair continued through the winter, a series of clandestine meetings that felt both inevitable and impossible to stop. Terry told himself he was trying to do the right thing, to be responsible for the child he'd helped create. But in the quiet moments between their encounters, he knew he was simply a coward, unable to choose between the life he'd built and the escape Phoebe represented. Laura sensed the change without understanding its source, and Alfred watched from the margins, already calculating his next move when the inevitable explosion came.

Chapter 4: Rising Waters: The Test of Character

The confrontation arrived with the force of a winter storm. Terry discovered Alfred's carefully hoarded supplies spread across his bedroom floor—crackers, canned fruit, plastic utensils—and saw only theft and betrayal. His rage, fueled by months of guilt and self-loathing, erupted with volcanic intensity. He accused the boy of stealing, of planning to run away, his voice carrying the weight of every failure he couldn't bear to acknowledge. Alfred stood silent under the verbal assault, his face a mask of careful neutrality learned through years of similar scenes. He didn't defend himself, didn't explain that the food represented security, not theft. In Terry's twisted logic, the boy's silence became admission of guilt, confirmation of every suspicion about foster children and their damaged souls. Laura discovered the truth through Louise, Alfred's caseworker, who arrived for a routine visit and found herself mediating a crisis she never saw coming. The boy's confession spilled out in fragments—Terry's accusations, his own desperate need to be prepared for the next inevitable move, the crushing weight of trying to be perfect in a house built on broken foundations. When Laura confronted Terry at a restaurant, the careful walls they'd built around their marriage finally collapsed. His admission of the affair landed like a physical assault, and Laura's response was swift and devastating. She dumped his lunch in his lap and walked away, leaving him sitting in gravy and shame while other diners stared in fascination at the state trooper brought low by his own choices. That night, Laura told Terry to leave. The words came quietly, without drama, but they carried the finality of a judge's sentence. As his truck disappeared down the hill, Laura found Alfred in the barn with Mesa, his arms wrapped around the horse's neck like an anchor in a storm. She didn't offer false reassurances or empty promises. Instead, she simply stood beside him, two survivors clinging to whatever solid ground they could find in a world that seemed determined to wash everything away.

Chapter 5: From Rescue to Redemption: Choosing Family

The January thaw arrived with biblical fury, turning Vermont's winter wonderland into a landscape of destruction. Rain pounded the frozen earth, and rivers swelled beyond their banks, carving new channels through roads and fields. Alfred watched from his classroom as the Gale River rose, its voice growing from whisper to roar, carrying with it the ghosts of two little girls who died in similar waters. Unable to bear the waiting in an empty house, Alfred saddled Mesa and rode toward the village. The bridge was gone, swept away like a child's toy, but something pulled him west along the River Road. He guided Mesa through the woods, around obstacles that would stop any vehicle, driven by an instinct he couldn't name but dared not ignore. In a ravine carved by the raging water, he found Terry's cruiser upside down, its headlights pointing toward heaven like prayers. The water rose steadily around the vehicle, and inside, Terry waited for death with the patience of a man who'd already lost everything that mattered. Their eyes met through the fogged glass, and in that moment, all their conflicts dissolved into simple human need. Alfred didn't hesitate. He climbed down into the rising water, forced open the passenger door, and began the impossible task of extracting a man twice his size from a death trap. Terry's arms were broken, his body a collection of fractures and torn flesh, but the boy's determination burned brighter than fear. Together, they climbed from the wreckage as the water claimed the cruiser completely. They reached Mesa, and somehow—through sheer will and the horse's patient strength—they began the journey back to safety. The rescue made headlines, but Alfred paid no attention to the cameras or reporters. He tended to Mesa with his usual methodical care, checking her legs for injury, ensuring she had fresh water and hay. Paul Hebert found him there hours later, still brushing the horse's coat as if the repetitive motion could somehow restore order to a world gone mad.

Chapter 6: New Foundations: A Family Reborn

In the hospital, surrounded by the antiseptic smell of healing and the steady beep of monitors, Terry faced the wreckage of his choices. His arms were immobilized, his body a roadmap of surgical scars, but the deepest wounds were invisible. When Phoebe arrived to say goodbye, her decision already made to start fresh in New Mexico, Terry understood that some bridges, once burned, can never be rebuilt. The case review arrived like a final exam for their fractured family. Louise sat across from Laura and Terry, her clipboard filled with assessments and recommendations, while Alfred waited in the hallway, his future hanging in the balance of adult decisions and bureaucratic procedures. But Laura had already made her choice. She looked at Terry with eyes that had seen too much loss to tolerate any more uncertainty. The words came simply, without drama: she would adopt Alfred, with or without Terry's participation. The boy had become her son in every way that mattered, and she would not lose another child to circumstances beyond her control. Terry's response surprised everyone, perhaps even himself. He looked at Alfred through the conference room window and saw not the troubled foster child he'd failed to understand, but the boy who risked everything to save his life. The adoption papers were signed on a spring morning when the Gale River ran clear and gentle between its banks. Alfred took the Sheldon name with the same quiet dignity he'd brought to every challenge, but the real celebration came later, in the Heberts' paddock, where he sat astride Mesa with the confidence of a born horseman. At the county fair that summer, Alfred competed in his first horse show. He wore a proper riding jacket and carried his old buffalo soldier cap as a talisman, the faded cloth a bridge between the boy he was and the young man he was becoming. Laura and Terry stood at the rail with Paul and Emily, their hands intertwined, watching their son clear jump after jump with the grace of someone who had learned that falling is not the end of the story.

Summary

In the end, salvation came not through grand gestures but through the accumulation of small acts of faith. Laura learned that love is not diminished by loss but deepened by it, that opening her heart to Alfred didn't diminish her love for Hillary and Megan but honored their memory. Terry discovered that redemption requires not just acknowledgment of failure but the daily choice to do better, to be worthy of the second chances he'd been given. Alfred found what every child seeks—a place where he belongs not despite his scars but because of them. In the Sheldon house, his careful preparations and hard-won wisdom were not signs of damage but of resilience. The boy who once hoarded crackers now saved his money for riding lessons, his future stretching ahead like an open field where anything was possible. The river still ran past their door, carrying its eternal reminder of nature's power to destroy and renew. But the family that gathered for dinner each night had learned to live with uncertainty, to build their happiness on the solid ground of choice rather than the shifting sands of circumstance. They had become what they were always meant to be—not perfect, but complete, bound together by the strongest force in the universe: the decision to love despite the risk, to hope despite the odds, to believe that some things, once broken, can indeed be made whole again.

About Author

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Chris Bohjalian

Bohjalian investigates human resilience and moral dilemmas through his diverse array of literary fiction, historical fiction, thrillers, and ghost stories. His commitment to addressing complex social issues such as domestic violence, mental illness, and climate change is evident in his narratives, which often weave these themes into the lives of relatable characters. This multi-genre approach enables readers to explore a wide spectrum of human emotions and societal problems, thereby engaging with his work on multiple levels. In "The Sandcastle Girls", for example, Bohjalian delves into the Armenian genocide with both historical insight and emotional depth, showcasing his talent for tackling intricate topics with empathy and narrative skill.\n\nThe author’s extensive body of work, comprising over 25 books, including the bestseller "Midwives", demonstrates his versatility and dedication to storytelling that defies repetition. His book "The Flight Attendant", adapted into a successful TV series, underscores his impact on both literary and visual media, expanding his audience reach. Readers gain a deeper understanding of contemporary social controversies through Bohjalian’s books, which not only entertain but also educate. His ability to adapt stories into other formats speaks to the universal appeal and adaptability of his themes.\n\nRecognition for Bohjalian's literary contributions includes several prestigious awards, such as the ANCA Freedom Award and the New England Society Book Award. These accolades highlight the author’s influence in both literary circles and broader social discussions. His writing, characterized by psychological complexity and thematic richness, makes his bio a compelling study of an author who continuously pushes the boundaries of genre to offer fresh perspectives and thought-provoking narratives. Through his storytelling, Bohjalian invites readers to reflect on their own values and the world around them, ensuring his work resonates well beyond the final page.

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