Erin's Rebel

by Susan Macatee

  While he occupied himself with the colored bottles on the table, she rose and steadied herself as a wave of pain coursed through her. Her head spun, and she nearly plopped back down. But sheer determination pushed her forward. Edging toward the open tent flap, she peered outside. Until her vision refocused, everything appeared fuzzy.

  Where the hell am I?

  After glancing back to be sure he wouldn’t try to stop her, she eased through the canvas flaps. Rows of different sized tents surrounded her in the rosy glow of dawn. A large tarp overhead shielded the tent’s entryway. Two black cast iron grates sat a few feet beyond the tarp. Burnt logs nestled among cinders sent wafts of white smoke into the air, while cast iron skillets and pans sat atop one of the grates. The scent of wood smoke reminded her of nights spent beside a cozy fireplace at her grandmother’s house in Candor.

  Tents were lined up in a partially cleared area with a few trees standing among them. A handful of men dressed like Doc, in loose shirts and gray or tan trousers held up with suspenders, milled about. This had to be a reenactment. If one of them could drive her back to her car...but on second thought, the car would be in no condition to drive. She had to get hold of her mother.

  One man with straight, copper-colored hair touching his collar and a full beard crouched over a grate where flames crackled. The contents of his pan sizzled. The smell of bacon sent a wave of nausea through her. She doubled over, afraid she might retch.

  “Ma’am,” someone called, startling her. “I’m mighty pleased to see you’re up.”

  She turned in the direction of the deep voice. Am I dreaming? She licked her dry lips as she stared into the dark eyes that had haunted her dreams.

  “Ma’am? You look a might peaked.”

  As he moved closer, her knees turned to jelly. Strong, hard-muscled arms embraced her, offering support. Her head spun. She lifted a hand to stop the motion and encountered wool, a double row of metal buttons and a rock-hard chest. The enticing aroma of sandalwood mixed with a musky, masculine scent, plus a tinge of wood smoke invaded her senses. Had she hit her head harder than she’d thought?

  She gazed at his lightly tanned face. Firm lips tilted upward slightly at the corners surrounded by a thin chocolate-colored mustache curving into a neatly-trimmed beard covering only his chin. Thick, dark hair brushed his collar and curled from beneath a broad-brimmed black hat. Her pulse raced as she leaned against his long, solid frame. Night after night in her dreams she’d run her hands through those curls.

  “How can you be here?” she murmured.

  “Pardon me, ma’am?”

  “I don’t understand.” She tried to wrench from his grasp, but he gathered her close, lifting her into his arms. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you back where you belong.” He carried her to the tent entrance where Doc peered out.

  “Will, what the devil is going on?”

  “I assume you didn’t give Mrs. O’Connell permission to leave.”

  “I did not.” He scowled. “I told you to rest.”

  The dark-haired man carried her inside and laid her on the cot. She propped herself on an elbow to get a better view of the man Doc called Will. Broad shoulders tapered into a narrow waist accentuated by the cut of his gray frock coat trimmed in gold braid.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  “Pardon me, ma’am?”

  His gaze chilled her blood. He looked exactly like the man in the antique photo she’d found between the pages of her grandmother’s Bible. If he were the man in the photo, where was she? Maybe the crash had killed her, and she was now in the afterlife. And like the man who called himself Doc, this man had also called her Mrs. O’Connell. Grandma Rose’s great-aunt. Something wasn’t right.

  Unable to voice her fears, she stared open-mouthed at the man.

  “Will,” Doc said. “I think Mrs. O’Connell’s having trouble with her memory.”

  “Her memory?”

  “The fall from the horse,” Doc explained, “seems to have affected her memory—even her speech. Her nose was bleeding a bit, and she has a fair-sized lump on the back of her head.”

  Will frowned.

  Erin’s mind reeled. This couldn’t be the same man she’d researched.

  The men looked at her, waiting for a response.

  “How many times do I have to tell you?” she said. “I was never on a horse.” She squeezed her eyes shut as the pain increased, then blinked furiously so she could focus.

  Doc glanced at Will as if to confirm his diagnosis, then pressed a cool, damp towel against her forehead.

  “Ma’am.” Will removed his hat. “I would advise you to stay put until Doc says you can go back to your tent.”

  “I don’t have a tent,” she grated between clenched teeth.

  The men exchanged glances.

  “It’s worse than I thought,” Doc said.

  “You say the fall affected her speech?” Will scowled.

  “There’s no other way to explain it.”

  “What’s wrong with the way I talk?” she asked.

  “You’ve lost your lilting brogue, for one thing,” Will said, “unless that was an act.”

  She stretched out on the cot, as her stomach lurched again. “Look. All I want to do is go home.”

  “This is your home,” Will said, “since you signed on as camp laundress two weeks ago. Or have you forgotten that, too?”

  “No, you don’t understand—”

  “Are you having second thoughts, Mrs. O’Connell?”

  “I told you, I’m not—” She froze in mid-sentence. They would never believe she wasn’t Erin O’Connell.

  Despite the pain slicing through her head, she slowly sat up. “I need a mirror.”

  Doc glanced at Will.

  “A mirror!” she repeated. Her heart hammered in overdrive, and her head felt ready to explode. Doc rummaged among the contents on the table, producing a small, wood-framed hand mirror.

  Blinking back the blinding pain, she stared at her reflection. Her own eyes stared back, wide and bright blue. The face was hers, yet it wasn’t. The cheeks were a bit rounder. Her skin was pale. No make-up. Red-gold hair tumbled over her shoulders.

  Touching her neck, she noted the maroon-checked dress she wore was topped with a starched, white collar stained with blood. She fingered a small, ivory-stoned brooch at her throat.

  In the photo, her Civil War relative had worn her hair parted in the center and pulled back off her face, but otherwise, she was looking at a live portrait of her great-great-great-aunt. Erin O’Connell – Federal spy.

  Chapter Three

  Jake Wagner straddled his camp stool then lowered himself, perching a tin plate of bacon and runny eggs on his knees. His mug of chicory coffee sat at his feet. As he raised his fork to dig in, Charlie Ross lumbered up beside him, settling his bulky frame on a stool across from Jake.

  “Smells mighty good.” Charlie licked his lips and grinned, exposing a row of large, brown teeth nearly hidden in his long, wiry beard.

  Jake glanced sidelong at the big man whose thick, black hair stood out in disarray under his wide-brimmed, black felt hat. “And it’s all mine.” He waved his fork over the food. “It’s the last of my meat ration for the week.”

  Charlie chuckled. “I’m not here to beg. Jest wanted to sit for a spell and commune.”

  After stabbing his fork into his eggs, Jake shoved them into his mouth and chewed in earnest. Smoke from his fire pit drifted along the row of tents toward the wooded area that fringed camp. His gaze lifted to the couple picking their way around smoking grates.

  Erin O’Connell clasped the arm of Captain Montgomery. He covered her small hand with his as she nodded at something he said. Jake scowled.

  Following his gaze, Charlie said, “Reckon you best keep watch on that sweetheart of yours. Montgomery outranks you, and the ladies all say he’s mighty handsome.”

  “She’s not my sweetheart. That Irish woman’s nothing but a whore.�
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  The big man guffawed. “You’ve no cause to be jealous, then.”

  “Jealous? Why in tarnation would I be jealous?”

  “She is mighty pretty. And willing—so you say? How much does she cost?”

  Jake squinted at the couple’s backs as they angled toward the laundress’ tent.

  “I don’t pay her nuthin’,” he grumbled.

  “She gives it away for free?” Charlie’s eyes widened.

  “Not to the likes of you.” Jake glared at Erin’s retreating back. In truth, the woman hadn’t allowed him to as much as touch her. She’d just made vague promises of things to come. But he wasn’t about to admit that.

  He lifted his cup and gulped the brew that passed for coffee. Since the Yankee blockade, decent coffee no longer existed in the South.

  “Did you hear the ruckus last night?” Charlie pulled out a cigar, unwrapped it, and then struck a match against the heel of his brogan.

  “Ruckus?”

  Charlie lit the cigar, then took a puff before answering. “Dead drunk again, were you?”

  Jake tried to recall where he’d been last night. He did remember waking up with an empty bottle of whiskey in his bedroll.

  Charlie nodded. “I wager you finished off that bottle you wuz carryin’ around. That’s why you didn’t hear nuthin’.”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “Just tell me what the hell happened.”

  “That Irish washer woman fell off her horse in the dead of night. Woke up half the camp.”

  He frowned. Erin was on a horse? Had she been going out to meet her Federal contact?

  “What happened to her?”

  “She done blacked out. Captain Montgomery took her to the hospital tent. Reckon Doc fixed her up.”

  Jake inclined his head. Captain Montgomery and Erin O’Connell. An unlikely pair if he ever saw one. He’d have to scrounge up some laundry for washing today so he could find out what the hell was going on.

  ****

  After being deposited in what Captain Montgomery had said was her tent, Erin glanced at the interior of the A-shaped canvas structure. A cot with a thin, lumpy mattress topped with coarse, wool blankets and a worn patchwork quilt occupied a small space. In one corner of the tent, a small wooden table stood and held a wood-framed hand mirror, comb, brush, and hairpins. A heavy, gray cloak and cloth bonnet dangled from a peg screwed into the post supporting the tent. Looking homemade, a small, braided rug covered straw spread over the dirt floor. Home sweet home.

  Thinking back to the captain, she recalled his hard, muscular arm beneath the sleeve of his coat and shivered. Doc had called him Will. He had taken her hand and threaded it through the crook of his elbow as he’d escorted her to this tent. While they moved through the row of tents, Captain Montgomery took care to keep her skirts from brushing against smoking fires that rose from shallow dug-out pits along the way. He’d also sternly warned her to stay off horses. As if she’d even consider climbing onto one.

  Moving closer to the cot, her booted foot hit something hard beneath it and pulled her thoughts from the image and sandalwood and leather scent of Will Montgomery. Crouching, she found a ceramic, lidded pot and a large, brown trunk beneath the bed.

  “There should be something here to help me make sense of this,” she muttered. She gazed at the pole running across the top of the tent. “How the hell did this happen? Grandma Rose, are you responsible for sending me here?”

  Erin recalled the day Grandma Rose had died. She’d entered the bedroom and found her grandmother sleeping. Not wanting to disturb her, she eased herself out of the room, until a whispery voice called her back.

  “Erin—child—is that you?”

  “Yes, Grandma, it’s me.” She stepped back to the bed and took the old woman’s frail hand. Cool, dry skin covered her grandmother’s fragile bones.

  “There’s something I must show you,” Grandma Rose said.

  With a trembling hand, her grandmother pointed to a tin box resting on the bedside table.

  Erin opened the box and lifted out the silver-framed brooch containing dark woven hair and a photo of Erin O’Connell. She gasped as she’d stared at the old photograph. Except for the woman’s hair parted in the center with a knot in the back and plumper cheeks, the woman could have been her.

  Erin sank to the lumpy cot in her tent and raised a hand to her face. How had this happened? Everything was too real to be a dream. If only she could talk to Grandma Rose again. She’d always suspected Grandma was a mystic, although Mom had scoffed at such things.

  When Erin had been a child, Grandma told her she was a descendent of practitioners of a mysterious Celtic sect. But her mother had been far too pragmatic to entertain the old woman’s stories of the supernatural, telling Erin her grandmother liked to spin fanciful tales.

  Now, she wondered, could Grandma have some kind of influence on events beyond the grave? Maybe the trunk would shed light on the situation.

  Kneeling, she pulled the heavy chest out and opened it. A blue patterned dress sat neatly folded on top. She lifted it out and rifled through the other contents—long cotton slips with wide ruffles at the hem, a few aprons, a thick green and blue plaid shawl, and a corset. She held the white cotton garment, decorated with pale blue ribbons, and stretched it out before her.

  “All right, Grandma, just what did you get me into?”

  She laid the corset on the cot, then resumed her search. She pulled out several pairs of white cotton stockings, three white cotton, capped-sleeved shifts that looked like nightgowns, and two pairs of long, flat, stretchy white bands. What the hell are these? At the bottom of the trunk, her fingers brushed against something hard. Pulling the object from beneath mounds of clothing, she gasped in delight at the sight of a hardback book. Her fingers skimmed over the plain, deep blue leather cover. After opening it, she noted ragged edges where the first few pages had been torn out. The remaining pages had been penned with small, neat, cursive handwriting. Her hands stilled as she studied the script. The penmanship looked familiar. She could almost believe she’d written this, although she’d never before seen this journal.

  Her heart thudded, and she tried to focus on the words.

  “Hello, Miss Erin?”

  Startled, she shut the book and shoved it back under the cot.

  “Are you there?” A female voice with an Irish brogue preceded a round, cheerful face, peering into the tent. “Sorry to disturb you, but Doc told me you’d be needing help.”

  Erin closed the trunk and pushed it under the bunk to hide the book. She’d have to read it later when she had some privacy. She stood and pulled back the tent flap. A small, plump woman with light brown hair covered with a white cap resembling a handkerchief beamed at her.

  “Help with what?” Erin frowned.

  The woman brushed her hand over her apron. “Doc told me you had a bad fall last night and lost yer memory.”

  “Oh—ah—yes, I can’t remember a thing.” She eyed the woman, who nodded. “And you are?”

  “I’m Brigid Malone. Me husband’s Sergeant Thomas Malone. I do a great deal of the cooking in camp.”

  Erin glanced at the table and large wooden tub set up under the tarp outside her tent. “And what do I do?”

  Brigid gasped. “You poor dear. Why, yer one of the camp laundresses.” She clucked her tongue. “Then ’tis true. You really cannot recall a thing.”

  Erin shook her head, figuring she should just play along.

  “Well, then, I’ll help you start yer fire. We’ll brew some tea and cook breakfast—then we’ll boil the water for the laundry.”

  Erin nodded. She was hungry. And another thought—bathroom facilities.

  Brigid helped her locate her chamber pot and the paper put aside to use with it. She also showed her where to empty it. Erin recalled camping a few times when she’d been a teen, but most of those campgrounds had flush toilets. Except for one time they had to use an outhouse. She shuddered at the memory. This was even worse. She had
to go in a pot and clean up the best she could with no running water. And the paper provided was coarse and scratchy.

  How in the hell was she supposed to live like this? She wanted to go back to her city apartment, her job, her friends. This sucked!

  Before she left, Brigid stoked the fire pit with kindling and helped Erin locate her box of matches.

  Later, she sat under her tarp, chewing on the hoecakes the Irishwoman had helped her cook. The hot food fortified her body but did nothing for her spirits. Seeing no way out of this mess, she had to use her wits to stay on top of things.

  If she really was in the past, and after seeing Captain Montgomery she had no doubt of that, could there be a way to return home? Had the car accident brought her here, or had it been the brooch? As she recalled the ominous vibration, a chill went through her. Where was the brooch? Think, Erin, think. At the time of the accident, the jewelry had been pinned to her blazer. But she didn’t have her blazer. That meant the brooch was still in the future.

  Grandma, I need you. Her eyes stung with unshed tears, and a lump rose in her throat. She seldom cried but was on the verge now. She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to go home.

  Chapter Four

  When Captain Montgomery had escorted Erin O’Connell to her tent early in the morning, Jake took notice. But more important than that, he must confront her about where she had planned on going last night.

  After getting her the position of camp laundress two weeks before, he’d been feeding her information about officers and plans for troop movements. Although he’d joined the Confederate Army the second year of the war, he felt no allegiance to the State of Virginia or “The Cause.” After his pa had kicked him out, an Army recruiter convinced him army life would be a way to earn pay and keep a roof over his head—although that roof was made of canvas. He didn’t care. Memories of the leaky roof of the shack he’d grown up in outside Mason assured him he’d made the right decision.

  His mother had run off when he was three, leaving his pa with four boys to raise alone. And Pa’s way of dealing with boys was to use his fists or any other implement he could lay his hands on to beat some sense into his disobedient offspring.