She didn’t give herself time for wonder that her younger brother offered not even a word of argument once she explained what was needed, but popped right up and plunged into the task.
Their guests, so to speak, were ready in a matter of minutes. They’d little enough to prepare, after all, and she supposed that after a couple of years’ service on the march in all conditions, they were well enough used to packing on a moment’s notice.
“If I were to somehow make it back …”
She’d not think about that either. Because even if he managed to avoid being captured again, or killed, there was no guarantee he’d return. And she wasn’t sure what was worse—the possibility that he never would, or the hope that he could, and would, and all that might mean—
They were ready now, with far less clink and clatter than she expected, though she was sure a couple of times that Jeremiah would rouse and come investigate. While the rest of the men went out to the well to fill their canteens, Clem lingered on the porch with Pearl. “So, Jeremiah giving an oath of allegiance and all his talk about the Confederacy being done—what does that mean for us, Pearl?”
She shook her head. “I don’t rightly know. I just can’t send these men to their deaths, if I can help it—not after caring for them these past weeks.” She hugged him tightly for a moment, and he surprised her by leaning into the embrace. “You also take care, you hear? Come back in one piece.”
He nodded stiffly and, after a quick kiss to her cheek, trotted out into the yard, where the others waited.
That was it, then. But suddenly Josh was there again, hovering at the bottom step, his face a pale blur beneath the brim of his Hardee hat.
There was nothing more either could say, nor any need for more kisses or embracing. But when Josh tugged her close one last time, she leaned in, fingers curling into that dark blue wool she’d once hated. Savored the warm pressure of his mouth on hers, one last time.
“God be with you, Rebel girl,” he murmured, releasing her.
With that, he tramped away across the yard.
A long while after the sound of their passing had faded, she turned and reentered the house. The sitting room lay empty, oddly echoing her footsteps. She stopped in the middle of the floor.
Agony beat where her heart once had been. How was she to go on, not knowing what was to come, whether Josh was marching to his own death or whether, please God, those steps would bring him back to her?
She sank to her knees in the middle of the room as the first sob took her.
And she, a proud, proper daughter of the Confederacy—what shame that she’d fallen in love with a Yankee. A Federal soldier sworn to fight and die for the Union cause. Not just accepted his kiss but wantonly sought it and, at the last, clung to him like she herself were dying.
Because, yes, she would welcome him back. A hundred times over.
Facedown she went, right there on the floor, face pillowed on her arms.
“Oh Lord God,” she wept. “Please, Lord, protect him. Keep him safe. And if it be possible, bring him back to me.”
They’d marched for less than an hour before voices, and firelight from a camp, drew them up short and drove them to shelter among a tangle of boulders, in what remained of a thicket. Grateful enough for the break, Josh sipped at the water in his canteen and peered into the gloom.
“I just … don’t know.” Clem crouched next to Josh, shaking his head. “That picket ain’t where I thought it was. Or at least, where it was a few days ago. I think Bragg must have everyone on the move again.”
Josh snorted, but quietly. “Still out ranging, aren’t you?”
Clem held his silence for a moment. “Y’all didn’t seem to need me so much, lately.”
“No,” Josh owned.
Beside him, Bernie Thorsson held his silence, looking pale in the darkness.
“Gonna make it?” Josh asked him.
The Norwegian nodded tightly.
Tattersall crawled closer. “So kid, you still think you can lead us through?”
“Do you want to go back?” Clem retorted.
Josh wished he could say yes.
Tattersall sucked his teeth a moment. “Naw, of course not.”
“Well then.” Clem nodded briskly. “There is another way, but y’all need to keep quiet.”
He led them back up over the rise and roughly parallel to the camp and picket line, as they could see it. The distant firelight gave the fog an eerie glow but lent just enough illumination to keep them from stumbling overmuch. At some point, Josh realized it wasn’t just fog, but snow falling around them.
Thorsson huffed and stumbled. Without a word, Josh came up beside him and, sliding a shoulder beneath his arm, helped him keep moving.
The ground beneath their boots turned wet and squishy. Clem hushed them, but there was no mistaking the sound of marching through swamp. The youth turned them, and presently they were at the banks of a creek. Motioning them on, Clem descended into the middle of the stream and turned yet again.
The water closed about Josh’s feet and legs, bitterly cold. He gritted his teeth and suppressed a moan. Thorsson’s intake of breath, and the muted groans from others, betrayed a similar shock at having to take to the creek.
“Not far now,” Clem whispered, and they trudged on slowly, navigating submerged rocks and sudden drop-outs in the creek bottom. Tattersall fell but regained his footing quickly enough with the help of another, a low stream of muttered curses his only apparent concession to the inconvenience.
Just when Josh was sure he’d never feel his legs again, and his arm was beginning to burn from supporting Thorsson, Clem sloshed out upon a sandbar edging the bank and scampered up the incline. The rest of them followed suit, trying not to breathe too hard or give vent to more than soft grumblings at having to keep walking while soaked through. At least the water had never risen above their hips.
The Confederate campfires were more distant here, but Clem warned that this was the trickiest part—creeping through a break in the picket still surrounding Chattanooga. And reduced to creeping, they were, crawling in a line through what felt like blackberry bramble. Josh sent Thorsson ahead of him and went last.
Every beat of his heart hurt, and more so the farther they got from the MacFarlane place. The fire that had kindled in him at holding Pearl had long since faded—though each time she returned to mind, which was nearly continuously, the spark was there, ready to return to life.
“It is a hard thing, to walk away from one’s sweetheart,” Thorsson had whispered to him shortly after embarking on their journey. “But it is because of our sweethearts that we fight this fight, yes?”
Josh supposed that was so, even when that sweetheart stood on the other side of a long war. Either way, at this point the only way back to Pearl lay ahead. And he’d gladly crawl miles through the blackberries if it meant even a shred of hope he’d hold her in his arms again.
Please, gracious God, let there be a way for me to return to her.
He didn’t realize that, ahead of him, Thorsson had stopped until Josh ran into the soles of his boots. He waited then gave one foot a shake.
“I—cannot,” came Thorsson’s weary, ragged whisper.
Josh shook the man’s foot again, more vigorously. “Your sweetheart,” he murmured back. “Remember—her. Find strength—for her.”
It was all he could think to say.
Remember—Pearl. Find strength—for her.
The sweet fire of her kiss. The softness of her cheek, against his.
The Norwegian expelled a heavy sigh then began to move again. Slowly, but it was movement nevertheless.
And then, after what might have been either half the night or half an eternity, with a rustle and scuffling, fresh air blew in Josh’s face, and he emerged into open night. Torch and firelight lay before him, illuminating a breastworks, behind which he glimpsed the silhouette of a series of buildings.
Josh edged closer to Clem, as he and the rest of his company
huddled at the edge of the blackberry thicket. “Have you ever been this far before?”
“I have not.” The not-too-distant torchlight outlined the fear rimming Clem’s eyes.
Josh sat, surveying the breastwork stretching away into darkness, on the other side of an empty field, with the Confederate entrenchment just as clear, a mile or more off to their left at the foot of Missionary Ridge. To be caught in the open like this, with the likelihood of being fired at by either side, but most likely by the Federals—
He sucked in a long, steadying breath, held it, and let it out, slowly.
God … holy, gracious God. Have mercy on us.
“I think,” he murmured to Clem at last, “that we’ve no choice but to make a run for it.”
A tiny gurgle came from Clem’s throat.
“What is it?” Josh asked, very low.
The boy shook his head, slowly. “I’m a good Confederate. I shouldn’t be doing this.” His gaze met Josh’s. “You understand why I did, though, right?”
“I do. And we’re most indebted to you for it.” He hesitated. “You aren’t thinking of going the rest of the way with us, are you?”
Under their layer of grime, the boy’s cheeks were even more pale than they had been. “Did you know my brother took an oath of allegiance?” he choked.
“I do,” Josh answered evenly.
Clem shot him a shocked glance. “What am I supposed to do with that?”
“You go home and help take care of your sister and pa. Just as you were before.”
The boy’s jaw set stubbornly.
“Listen. You might think you want to see the elephant, so to speak. We all did. It turned out to be not what we thought it would be. I’m obligated here, but you aren’t. What do you think you’ll do if you go along with us?”
His mouth worked, but no words came this time, only a slow wag of his head. Josh gave his shoulder a companionable shake.
“Go home, Clem. We can make it the rest of the way without you.”
Even in the dark, he could see the boy’s expression harden. Those were entirely the wrong words to use, apparently. “I want,” Clem said very quietly, “to come along.”
Josh let out a long sigh. “You have to stay with me. And not say a word.”
“I can do that.”
“You’d better.”
Scanning the field again, Josh chose the darkest area, and then after signaling the others, he led the dash across.
They were not quite halfway when the first bullets whizzed past them. In desperation, Josh cried out, “Hold your fire! We are not the enemy!”
Of course, that left it to the hearers to sort out exactly who they were, but the brief lull was all they needed to cross that field and throw themselves into the trench on the other side. The shooting started again just as they reached it, and all of them tumbled into the man-made ditch.
Josh lay there, just breathing for a moment. A pair of faces peered over the embankment above them. “Be you friend or foe?” one man asked, his accent very northern—likely Pennsylvania.
“Sergeant Joshua Wheeler of the First Ohio,” Josh panted.
The others called out their names, ranks, and regiments as well.
“We are all convalescents who have been held at a local house,” Josh supplied.
What an utterly unsatisfactory way to describe these past two months …
“Glory be,” the guard exclaimed. “Come on down to the east a bit, and we’ll get you through.”
They all moved, but Thorsson. Josh crawled to his side. “I—I am hit,” he gasped.
Lord, no! But the Almighty would take who He would. “Come on,” Josh coaxed him. “We’re nearly there. I’ll help you.”
He hauled the Norwegian up by sheer force of will and, with more bullets zinging about, ran huddled after the others.
They were ushered through an opening in the embankment, where once again they recited ranks and regiments, and Josh informed the sentry of Thorsson’s wound. Now that they’d gotten this far, weariness dragged at his limbs and dulled his thoughts, so that he could scarce believe they’d truly done it.
“And what about that one?” the sentry asked, peering at Clem, who lingered behind Josh, doing his best to imitate a shadow while examining everything within sight.
“That one I’ll take responsibility for,” Josh said. “He and his family have extended us hospitality beyond the ordinary, and he guided us here.”
The sentry looked at them all in frank disbelief. “Why on earth would you come here and not just head north and keep on going?”
“ ’Cause that one got himself a sweetheart behind Rebel lines,” Tattersall sniggered.
Josh kept his expression stern, though prickling heat coursed across his skin.
The sentry snorted. “Definitely shouldn’t have come back, then.”
In this moment, Josh was inclined to agree. “My companion here is wounded,” he reminded the sentry. “Could you kindly show us to the nearest doctor?”
The sentry considered Thorsson’s drooping form and waxen complexion and nodded. “I ’spect, being convalescent, you should all get looked at. Then—if you be well enough, maybe they’ll let you out to the field to join the fun today.”
“And what sort of fun do they have planned?” Tattersall asked.
The sentry grinned. “Why, after yesterday’s demonstration on Orchard Knob, they’s planning on taking Lookout today.”
Josh cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the mountain looming across the river as it looped beyond the buildings that comprised Chattanooga. Scattered campfires and torches lit the craggy slopes, swathed in fog.
Grant really was weary of waiting, it seemed.
While leading them through the maze of entrenchments and breastworks, the sentry kept up a running narrative. “Chattanooga might be the most well-fortified town in the country.”
Josh could well believe it.
They turned a corner of the street and drew up beside what looked to be a hotel, but emanating such odor that Josh knew it had to be a hospital, and probably for the entirety of the occupation.
Before long, they’d found someone moderately in charge, explained their situation, and were in the process of having Thorsson’s wound tended and their former wounds examined. With Clem still beside him, Josh took his blanket and stretched out on the floor near Thorsson. He was so weary, the room seemed to swim around him, but he took one last, long look around. A pair of nurses worked nearby, one bending over a man who cried out in his sleep, the other helping with Thorsson. Their sober gowns, well-used aprons, and plain white haircloths somehow reminded him of Pearl, if only by contrast.
She seemed so far away, and the past weeks, so long ago.
Pearl hardly slept. After finding herself dozing while still lying facedown in the sitting room in prayer, she retired upstairs, but curling up in her bed led only to more thoughts of the mostly empty house below, and more tears than she thought herself capable of shedding after all that had befallen them.
’Long about daybreak, the sound of guns came rolling from over across Missionary Ridge. Pearl bolted out of bed and opened one of the attic windows, then simply stood there for a long time, listening and praying.
She hadn’t known she had so many prayers stored up inside, either.
“Pearl!”
The bellow fairly shook the floorboards, and startled the children awake. Running across the room, Pearl shushed them then flung open the door to downstairs.
Jeremiah stood at the bottom of the steps, wild eyed and wild haired, fists on his hips. “Where is everyone?”
“Doggone it, Jer, you woke the babies.” Pearl came down the stairs, more slowly.
Behind her brother, Lydia emerged from the bedroom, hair in a mussed braid, a blanket about her shoulders. Her gaze swept the empty sitting room, and she pushed past Jeremiah. “I’ll tend ’em.”
Pearl let her by then descended the rest of the way. Jeremiah’s gaze lingered on
her face, no doubt noting her reddened and shadowed eyes.
“They left, didn’t they?” he said quietly.
She could only nod.
He swore bitterly, surveying the room again. “Clem go too?”
“Yes.”
Another string of invectives. “Well,” he said at last, “I suppose Lydia and I won’t be departing this morning, after all.”
“Thank you,” she murmured.
He shot her another sharp glance. “I’m not so unfeeling as to leave you to fend for yourself, with fighting going on just over the ridge.” He twitched his head in that general direction. “Or contend with Pa being as he is.”
So weary she was, she could only stand there, hands knotted in her skirts, and breathe out her gratitude in silent prayer.
The cold fog and the sound of guns like distant thunder lingered all day. Pearl slept much of the morning and woke to the smell of johnnycakes and bacon. Lydia had obviously dipped into the secret stores.
Downstairs, Pa sat at the table, his hair and beard not quite as tidy as she might have gotten them, but dressed and offering her a slight smile. Beside him, Jeremiah looked less than welcoming. Pearl guessed that Pa had given him a fit, getting him that way.
Head aching, Pearl accepted the cup of chicory Lydia handed her and sat across the table from Pa and Jeremiah. She sipped—the brew was too weak, but what had not been these past months, and the aroma still comforted—and eyed her brother.
She’d never noticed how much he looked like Pa. “I still can’t believe you’re really here.”
Little Sally came scampering from the other side of the room and climbed up in Pearl’s lap. “Mornin’, Auntie Pearl,” she lisped.
Pearl snugged her close. “Mornin’, sweetie.”
Jem also hugged her, then trotted around the table and climbed up on Jeremiah. The boy likewise looked the perfect combination of her brother and Lydia.
“Clem isn’t back yet?” Pearl asked. “Nor Portius?”
Both Lydia and Jeremiah shook their heads, looking grim. “I don’t rightly expect him to,” Jeremiah said, “not with all that going on out there.”
The Rebel Bride Page 21