Blackwater Creek

Liza Derry hates her life of caring for the home and children of her father. Since her mother's death of the 'fever' she has had to step in to fulfill all her mother's duties, save one. Each day is another in a long line of miserable sameness. In a rare moment of free time, as she walks along the banks of Blackwater Creek she prays for something to change her bleak life. Suddenly she hears someone moaning, and discovers a mortally wounded Yankee soldier. Her first instinct is to flee and leave him there to die, but his eyes catch hers and the warmth and pleading in them quickly changed her mind and she knew she could not, would not leave him. She helps him to an abandoned shack where she begins nursing him back to health and sneaks him some of their scant food. They are discovered by her father and Liza pleads with him to spare Billy's life. Her father reluctantly agrees after Billy and Liza declare their love for each other. Instead of murdering the Yank, her father helps her sneak Billy in to Union headquarters in town where he will be safe and get professional medical care. As they say Goodbye, BIlly vows on all that's sacred that he will come back for her after the war.
A year passes with no word from Billy and Liza gives up hope of ever seeing him again. On Thanksgiving day her father and brother go hunting for meat for their meal. Instead of finding game, they become the prey and her father is shot in an ambush by drunken, scoundrels. Her father never regains consciousness and with her fingers pressed deep into the profusely bleeding wound in his neck, Liza falls weeping on his blood soaked body, telling him she loves him for the last time. In all the hubub no one notices a tall, thin stranger standing in the doorway waiting patiently. Although she has not heard his voice for over a year, when she hears the soft pleading as he sweetly calls her name, she immediately recognizes the voice of her beloved Billy. He kept his promise! He came back for her just as he said he would. She flies to his arms and within hours, after walking the sandy road into town, they are married by the judge. Just as Darcy stepped into her mother's role on her death, Billy steps up to become the man of the house with her father's murder. He promises her orphaned siblings that they will all be a family now, and he will care for them as long as they need him. Spring arrives and he must be getting back to the family farm where he is needed. He begs Liza to go back to Pennsylvania with him to a good life and to his family who he promises will love her but she is in a quandry what to do about the children. She knows her place is with her husband, and it is the only place she wants to be, but she can't leave them here alone and feels it would be cruel to force more changes on them in light of all they have suffered. So, they propose the plan to the children and since all they once held dear is gone there is nothing to hold them here in bayou country. All the children heartily agree to head north with Liza and Billy. He promises them a great adventure in a new land and a new life as a new family unit. He tells them of opportunities they would never have deep here, and something they had never dreamed possible...a white Christmas. Months of marriage had produced no offspring and Liza was beginning to seriously worry. However, as they prepare to go to their new home, she is preparing Billy's first Christmas gift from her, their first child.