I swallowed, and my tongue flicked over dry, cracked lips. My hand inched its way up until it stroked her cheek. “I—cannot die yet—because I want to get—to know—you—but sweet Rebekah—I am so very tired right now. I want to sleep. I only want to sleep.” I had slept little since my stepfather left, only in fits and spurts. The agony in my innards would not give me a reprieve. I had been awake much too long, forcing me to be painfully aware of everything.
Rebekah buried her face in the crook of my neck and held my hand. “Benjamin.” Her voice cracked. “Sleep, my heart. I will be here waiting when you wake. God willing, you will wake.”
I pressed her fingers with what little remaining strength I had left. “If … If I do not, Rebekah, please give my journal to my stepfather for safekeeping. Make sure it finds its way to my mother. Tell Mama … I loved her … more than anything on this earth. My mother—and Jacob.” And you. Her face was the last thing I saw before I went under.
***
I had no idea how many hours had passed when I opened my eyes. Judging by the dimness in the cabin, the sun was about to go down. My throat hurt, it was so dry, the ever-present headache throbbing with each beat of my heart. If I listened carefully, the slow beating rang in my ears. My head dropped to the side. Rebekah had fallen asleep beside me, clothed in her homespun nightgown from the night before. God bless her, she did not even take the time to change. I watched the easy rise and fall of her chest, let it hypnotize me. If I was going to die, now was the time, with this woman as the last thing I would look upon. I sighed, and my eyes drooped shut.
A bird whistle floated on the air. Neither of us moved. The door creaked open and shut. For the life of me, I could not lift a finger to save us if the British had arrived. Heavy footsteps crossed the room and I opened my eyes. Tom Sutton stood next to the bed, his face softening at the sight of us. His hand reached out and stroked Rebekah’s hair.
With a jerk, she gasped and sat up quickly. The only thing I could do was stare at him through half-closed eyes Even my eyelids were too heavy to lift. “Tom, did you bring me more medicine?”
He held her hand, wincing as his gaze took in my still form. I knew. I had wasted terribly and was only a shadow of the man I had been the day I arrived at her doorstep. “Rebekah, my dear. You are driving yourself past the point of no return for a lost cause.” The smuggler’s voice was hoarse, dropping down to a whisper. “You need to let him go.”
“NO!” She shouted, pressing her hands to her eyes. “No,” She said more quietly. “I lost my Rufus. I will not lose him, do you understand? I cannot do that to his father. I cannot do that to Benjamin. Thank you for what you have brought. Take an extra jug of bourbon for yourself and any food that you would like before you are on your way, Tom. Please. I must tend to him.” Her old friend kissed her cheek and left.
She returned to my side and sat down beside me. Her gentle fingers stroked my hair and my cheek before resting on my chest. She sent a shiver through me that was completely different from the fever that had rattled me for weeks. “You—you are an angel. How did I get so fortunate to be blessed by you?”
The blush in her cheeks intensified. “You are delirious. Look at me! In buckskin and homespun. My hair is probably a fright. Hardly an angel by any standards.”
I fingered the heavy braid of her hair. “Beautiful. Just beautiful. Besides,” My palm grazed her jaw, “it is the soul inside of you that counts. I am used to strong, unconventional women. My mother posed—as a soldier—at the end of the Revolution.” My words trailed off, my mind hazy. My speech and memories were becoming a jumble.
Rebekah wiped my face again and squeezed my shoulder, providing me with a compass to lead me back to awareness. “What is that about your mother “She could not…” I had to fish for the words as they plunged into the depths of my fevered mind. “She could not let her men go— to war—again. Could not sit home waiting. Mama—would rather die—then do nothing. She passed herself off—as a Patriot and watched my father die.”
Rebekah’s hand tightened on mine as she held my gaze. “Then you must go home to such a woman. I will make it so. Come hell or high water.”
21
15 August 1814
Benjamin Willson Cooper
Rebekah. She was my prayer. A light in the darkness of my fevered dreams as the fire rippling through my veins left behind a bone-deep aching. I could barely move. I could not eat. I could not sleep, yet she was there. Whenever I cried out. Whenever I fell. Whenever I was reduced to a shivering pile of bones. She stroked my hair, bathed my face in cool water, held on tight while I shook.
The more she tended to me, the more she called to mind my mother. Although she was dark to my mother’s fair hair with eyes of a green that glowed brightly enough to steal away what little breath I had left and bore no physical resemblance to that dear woman, she had my mother’s strength. Devotion. Faith. As the illness continued its rampage, Rebekah was the one thing that kept me alive.
I was lying on my side, my gut churning. I had been sick all morning even though Rebekah had given up on plying me with any more remedies. Her philosophy? Time would either be the great healer, or the end of me. Let nature take its course. Blood dribbled down my chin. My head was swimming. I stared at the flickering flames until my eyes slid shut. Darkness came for me. I welcomed it like an old friend. Perhaps this was the end.
***
BOOM! A cannon made the ground shake while musket fire crackled around me on what had been a quiet field of grass. I held the woman I loved more than life itself in my arms, the braid of her golden hair thrust in my pocket, the rest shorn just above her collar. I longed to bury myself in the strands like sun-kissed wheat, but there was no time. The thunder of the approaching army came on and they carried death in their hands.
I stared into her honey-gold gaze and memorized everything about her. I knew. I would not make it off this field alive, but she must. She and our child, tucked away safely in her womb. If I accomplished nothing else in this life, I would see my love and future for our nation safe.
I cupped her face in my hands and set my lips on hers. “Let me stamp your face on my heart. You give me more joy than I have ever known. Now please, Charlotte. I beg you. As the mother of my child, I need you to run now. Run and do not turn back. As soon as I can, I will come to you. Go now if you love me.”
One more fierce embrace and the woman I loved, in the guise of a Patriot, stumbled her way off the battlefield. Carrying my button. Carrying my child. I held her braid and pressed my fingers to the musket ball in my pocket, the ball that inadvertently brought me to my love, taking courage. She turned back once, giving me the priceless gift of seeing her face one last time before another musket ball tore my heart to shreds.
***
I awoke with a jolt as if someone had drenched me with cold water. The dream was so vivid, as if I lived it. As if I was wearing my father’s shoes. In a haze, I wondered if he was trying to send me a message from beyond the grave. Trying to make me understand what it was to love so completely and be so loved. It shook me to my core, like an autumn leaf losing its hold from the bare branch that tethered it to this world. I trembled, squeezing my eyes shut tightly. Trying to block out the images, but they were embedded in my mind. My life could not be snuffed so soon, blown out like a candle by the winds of time.
I must have shown my agitation in some way. Rebekah slid into bed beside me, bringing the scent of cool mint, the warmth of her buckskin, and the iron in her arms as she wrapped them tightly around me, waiting until the shaking finally stopped. “I dreamed—of my father. I have dreamed of him many times. I have watched him die—over and over—each time I set foot on the field where he died. Never before did I feel like—like it was me. Getting my heart torn from my chest—when my love had to leave—long before I was destroyed by a Redcoat’s musket ball on that terrible, lonely October afternoon decades ago. It seemed— as if it was yesterday.”
My angel pressed a kiss to my
forehead. Stroked my hair. Soothed me. An incredible woman. I thanked the Lord again I had been brought to her doorstep. Like your father was brought to your mother’s door all those years ago, felled by an injury, in desperate need of care. Was history destined to repeat itself?
“Perhaps it is your father’s love for you and your mother, burning so bright, that makes you experience his loss so keenly. Like the gaping hole that opened inside of me when I lost my Rufus. Like the pit that would swallow me whole if I lost you.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Perhaps your father is telling you that you must not surrender. You have a purpose on this earth. To carry out his legacy.”
Rebekah was a torch beside me, blazing bright, guiding me back to the land of the living. She would not let me go.
22
March 15, 2016
Charlotte
Beware the ides of March. I awoke abruptly from a fog of dreams surrounded by men with blood spatters marring their snowy togas, sharp blades dripping crimson, Et tu, Brute? echoing in my ears. Where did that come from? Julius Caesar definitely was not at the forefront of my mind. I was immersed in a much more recent, lesser known conflict in history, one that was personal.
I rolled over and tried to fall back to sleep when a jolt to the bed hit like an earthquake. I shot up out of the covers and turned to Ben. He was shaking, gasping for breath, his hand pressed to his chest. I grabbed hold of his shoulders. He was rigid, so much so that it was like holding granite. Just as hard. Just as cold. Fear pierced my heart, sending icy tendrils through my veins. “Ben, what is it? What’s wrong?”
He thrust his way out of an entanglement of sheets, rising on unsteady legs. “I can’t breathe. My chest—my chest is killing me.”
Ben staggered downstairs and outside into the brisk night air. We might be on the brink of spring, but winter wasn’t ready to let go yet. Neither one of us had put on shoes or worn a coat. Life-threatening emergencies tended to make one forget the amenities or necessities in life. My husband grabbed the post on the porch, unable to go further, wheezing as if he couldn’t fill his lungs.
I wrapped my arms around him and pressed myself to his back, offering him a strong dose of reality and the present. “You’re dreaming. You’re only dreaming. It’s all right now. You’re here. With me.” There is nothing wrong with him. There is nothing wrong with him! The words were stuck on a repeating track, over and over, wearing a groove in my mind. I willed them to be true. Could he be having a heart attack? He wasn’t old enough to have a heart attack!
Ben gripped the post, his body tight, eyes squeezed shut. Without warning he dropped to the floor. “Ben!”
I knelt beside him and shook him. His skin was cold and clammy, his breathing shallow. I dashed inside and checked on Jakey. He was sound asleep. I had the presence of mind to grab the monitor, my cell phone, a blanket, and a damp towel. I covered Ben and began to swab his face. My phone burned in my pocket. I would call 911 if I had to. I prayed I wouldn’t have to. He moaned, and his eyes fluttered open. His arm came up to shield them from view. Ben was closing himself off from me.
“Ben, what did you see?” I pressed his shoulder and waited, willing myself to be patient.”
“I saw— I saw the day that I died, on the battlefield, when you were running away. When I knew that I would die.”
I stroked his hair. “It’s the journal, bringing it all back again.” Not for the first time, I wondered if we should have left well enough alone, never opened the door to the memories that came with either of Benjamin Willson Cooper’s journals. What difference could it possibly make? We couldn’t change anything that happened. We had found each other. Shouldn’t that be enough?
He thrust himself to a sitting position, his hands threaded through his hair. “You don’t understand. It was as if —as if I was there. At the same time, it was as if Benjamin Willson Cooper was there too. I had double vision.”
“I’m sure that you are just too close to this story. I think we should stop, Ben. It isn’t healthy for you. You’re taking all of this to heart, blaming yourself for things that are completely beyond your control.”
He caught my hand, the tremors from the cold or the trauma of his dreams traveling from him to me, making me shake. “You need to understand something. When I was Benjamin Cooper, I thought of you as Charlotte, not my mother. I think … I think that Benjamin Willson came back the first time as Benjamin Cooper. I think that I was reborn … in our son … to have another chance to get it right.”
My mouth went dry, my heart fluttering so hard fainting was a possibility. “I think you need to come inside. These late nights, the dreams, all of it. They’re getting to you.”
“You think I’m crazy, that it was just a dream. You of all people should understand that we don’t simply dream. Our visions mean something.” His jaw was tight, his eyes flashing with anger. At least he’d forgotten his chest pain. As for breathing, Ben wasn’t having any difficulties. His chest was heaving, his cheeks brilliant in the light of the moon.
I took his hands in mine and forced myself to tone down my voice. “I would never call you crazy. If this is insanity, I share it with you. We have been on one wild ride since the very beginning and you must be stubborn as all get out, Ben Wilson. First, you survived a musket ball in the leg that would have killed most. You rescued the woman you love—me—and your unborn child during the Battle of Johnstown, ensuring we all had a future. You didn’t survive that battle, but you didn’t let death stop you from finding your way back to me. You promised you would, and over two hundred years later, you kept your word. Whether you are having true visions of the past or dreams spurred on by the flood of information that we’ve found, you have never given up.” Stricken, his face blanched of color, he fell against me. I whispered, “Neither will I.”
I sat down on his lap on the porch, gathering the blanket around both of us, heedless of the wind that tore at our hair and clothes, or the chill that was penetrating through the wooden floorboards to my bones. I snaked my arms around him, buried my head in his chest, and waited. The shivers slowly died down. He rested his forehead on mine. “I’m sorry. I just want answers and we may not get all of them.”
I replayed what he said about his dream, my forehead creasing in confusion. “Why would Benjamin come back so soon after his death? Charlotte was married to Jacob. I would think it would be unbearable for him to see her with another man, not to mention the fact that Benjamin Cooper was her son! Isn’t that creepy? For him to be reincarnated in their child?”
“Sorry, I can’t explain everything. I lost my reincarnation handbook.” Ben buried his face in my hair. “but I think I understand it. I would do anything … I have done anything … just to be close to you.” A shudder ran through him. “I don’t know how many more of these past lives I can take.” He straightened up and stared intently into my eyes, his hand coming up to graze my cheek. “What I don’t understand is why you only experienced that short period of time in the past that night you visited the Colonial Cemetery, from the day we ended up at the Ross Homestead until the day Benjamin Willson died.”
My palm rested on his cheek. I had come to realize that we did best when we were touching each other. When we were apart, it was akin to an amputation. “Maybe I was just waiting for you. Here in little old Johnstown, the place where it all began so you could find your way back to me. Where you belong. Home. With me.”
23
20 August 1814
Benjamin Willson Cooper
Lying in a shaft of sunlight, basking in its warmth, I could finally tolerate the brightness again. I craved it like a plant that had been locked away in the darkness. My angel uncovered the window and let the light wash over me. The dream about my father marked a turning point as my body slowly began to mend. Each day, I improved. At the pace of a snail, but I improved.
I closed my eyes and let myself float on the thin line between awareness and unconsciousness. I pondered when I first loved Rebekah.
I
believe it was in that moment when she caught me in her arms on the day that my stepfather and I arrived at her door. When I mistook her for Death only to discover she was my guardian angel and keeper of my heart. What was it about women coming to our rescue? My mother did the same for my father. When a musket ball intended for my grandfather landed in Benjamin Willson’s thigh, my mother’s father dug the ball out of his leg, brought him home, and placed him in my mother’s all-too-capable hands. Little did William Ross know that he was placing my father’s heart in his daughter’s palms.
I finally knew what it was between my mother and Benjamin Willson that bound them so tightly together, weaving their lives into one tapestry. Even death could not make it unravel. The same fire burned inside of Jacob for my mother, a hearth fire of love that could not be extinguished. In time, a torch inside of my mother answered my stepfather. Not the consuming bonfire for my father, not the blazing torch Jacob carried for her for anyone to see if they looked into his piercing gaze of blue, as endless as the sky above. Yet still, a fire continued to burn inside of her for the man who picked up the pieces of her broken heart, the man who remained by her side, steady and true.
I opened my eyes and watched my Rebekah, as I had every day, whether she knew it or not. Even when I was at my worst, I clung to the sight of her. I followed her with my gaze. Too weak to do more even though I was slowly healing. Thanks to her. I could finally be grateful for her efforts. At my worst, it would have been a mercy to die. I had nearly passed through the gates of hell, but Rebekah would not allow it. Now I could truly appreciate the gift of heaven. Here with her.
I was lost in her beauty. I had fallen under her spell from the instant I laid eyes on her. Buckskin. Homespun nightgown. Hair dangling down her back in a braid, swaying back and forth with every step or pulled into an untidy knot to keep it out of her way. It mattered not, although there were times that I wished she wore a dress like Mama.
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