In the Shadow of the Moon

by Karen White

  I thought of the red velvet dress with the low neckline I had brought with me. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that, Pamela. I haven’t a clue how to be a seductress.”

  “Then you had better start practicing. But I do not think you will have to do much; men seem to flock toward you regardless.” I saw a dark shape against the whiteness of the wall, like a shadow in a nightmare, and realized she was also sitting up in bed, looking directly at me. “I will arrange for you and the general to be alone, to get to know each other. You will suggest a secret rendezvous and your complete discretion. When he meets with you, I want you to blow his head off.”

  She’s insane. The thought struck me again as an owl hooted in a tree not far from our window, and I suddenly wanted to climb up the tree with him and watch all of this from a safe distance. Instead, I found myself an actress in the middle of this macabre play, with only one way off the stage. I placed my hand on my heart and felt it fluttering rapidly. I willed it to slow by taking deep breaths. What if I succeeded in killing General Sherman? Would the war continue longer and the blood of thousands be on my hands? It was immeasurable, unfathomable, and certainly unpredictable. Then I thought of Sarah, scared and alone, her fate now an unknown, and knew I didn’t have a choice.

  I lay back down on the cool cotton sheets, and eventually fell asleep in the early hours of the morning.

  We left the rooming house before dawn, sneaking down the back stairs and out the door without detection, and headed north through the woods. I shivered in the dark air, trying to make out the moonlit-backed shapes in front of me. My long skirts caught on brambles and dead twigs, so I eventually hoisted them up over my knees, exposing stockings with more holes than fabric. After a couple of hours, I stopped from near weariness, cool prickles of sweat beading my forehead. I dropped my carpetbag, opening hands that had been clutching the handle and the skirts, and painfully stretched the small bones and muscles. The bloodred sun appeared low in the sky, bleeding light into the dark forest.

  “Do you have any idea where you’re going, Pamela?”

  She stopped about ten yards ahead of me. “Of course. I have studied this terrain for years. Now pick up your bag and keep going. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

  I stayed where I was, swaying with exhaustion, tiny gnats flitting about my face. “How many miles from Dalton to Chattanooga?”

  “About thirty. But do not worry—we will commandeer a horse as soon as we see one.”

  I grabbed my bag and hurried up behind her. “You want us to steal a horse?”

  She didn’t answer, and we plowed on. We followed closely to the railroad tracks of the Western & Atlantic, trying to stay out of sight of the tracks while using it to direct us. A few miles west of town, we had to walk on the tracks through a narrow gap in two facing rock walls, which Pamela called Rocky Face Ridge. I said a silent prayer that no trains would come, as there would be no room for us to escape.

  By midmorning we reached a clearing. Pamela motioned me back, and I peered from behind her to see a wooden rail fence enclosing a large pasture. The morning breeze carried the pungent aroma of horse manure, and I knew we had reached the right place. A saddleless horse stood on the far side of the pasture, its head buried in the tall grass. I looked past the horse to the farmhouse with fading whitewash, where a woman stood next to a wood pile, her ax raised before she drove it into a log. Two little boys ran around barefoot in the dirt, causing the mother to stop her chopping and bark at them, with little to no effect.

  A husband was nowhere in sight—a familiar occurrence in these times. I worried about her vulnerability, perched as she was between two opposing armies. My eyes traveled down the side of the house until I saw her only protection, a long rifle leaning against the brick chimney.

  “We can’t take this woman’s horse,” I said. “It looks like it’s the only piece of livestock she’s got left.”

  Pamela snorted. “If we do not take it, the Yankee Army will. Probably kill it, too, just to prevent the rebels from getting it. It is well past its prime, but it will do.”

  “But she’s got a gun.”

  Pamela patted her pocket. “So do we.”

  I turned to see if she was bluffing, but could tell from the glint in her eye that she wasn’t.

  “Follow me to the other side of the fence to the gate.”

  She led me to the edge of the woods before ordering me to crawl. I longed for my jeans. Maneuvering in long skirts on this journey had been the hardest part so far. We reached the other side without incident and stopped by the rail fence, not ten feet away from the horse. It regarded us with lazy eyes and resumed munching.

  “What now?” I whispered.

  “Give me your bag.”

  I complied, not sure what my other options were. She reached inside and pulled out a carrot, one of several we had taken from a root cellar earlier in the morning, and handed it to me.

  “Go show this to the horse and make him come to the fence so we can mount him.”

  I still hated horses, even though I had eventually learned how to get along with Endy. But even mild-mannered horses like this one made me jittery. I knew it was hopeless to argue, so I took the carrot and entered the fenced-in area.

  The horse showed only mild curiosity as I approached, but at least raised his head from the grass. I showed him the orange vegetable and he began walking toward me. The reverberating thwacks in the distance told me the woman was still chopping wood and hadn’t noticed that her only form of transportation and plow pulling was being stolen right from under her nose.

  I backed up, the carrot raised in front of me, until I felt the fence at my back. Pamela had climbed to the top rail and easily slid her leg over the back of the horse. I flattened my hand, as Stuart had shown me, and gave the entire carrot to the horse. While he busily munched, I handed up the carpetbags, climbed the fence, and settled in front of Pamela.

  It was then I noticed that the chopping sounds had ceased. We both turned in time to see the woman race toward the side of the house and grab the rifle.

  I dug my heels into the sides of the horse just as I felt a ripple of air to my right and the resounding report of a gun behind me. The horse lurched forward, nearly toppling both of us off his back, and then began what passed for a gallop. Luckily, the horse wore a halter, which gave me more of a grip. I leaned forward over the neck, Pamela clinging tightly to my middle, the carpetbags tucked securely between us. I felt us listing to the right but maintained a tenacious hold as I heard another shot fired from the house. I threw one last look behind me and saw the woman standing in the middle of the pasture, her arms loose at her sides, staring forlornly at us as we disappeared with her horse into the woods.

  We slowed our pace once we were within the shadow of the woods. We found a well-worn dirt road through the forest and headed north. Soon after, we heard hoofbeats in front of us. Quickly guiding the horse off the road, we hid among the tall trees and underbrush as a detachment of Yankee soldiers rode by, their navy blue uniforms a marked contrast to the well-worn and varying uniforms of the Confederate soldiers we had seen in the previous days. As the last soldier passed us, Pamela whispered, “We are almost there. Be prepared to be stopped by the Yankee’s advanced guard. Do not protest—they will shoot.”

  We pulled back on the road and resumed our ambling pace, the old horse frothing slightly at the mouth. I felt sorry for it, and tried hard not to shift my weight too much.

  I swiped my forehead with my sleeve. “How did you come here to this time?”

  “The same way all of us marked as Shadow Warriors travel. Wrapped in the atmosphere of a comet intensified by a lunar eclipse.” The droning of a fly interrupted her and she swatted it away with her hand. “Every comet has a set orbital time period. For instance, Halley’s Comet reappears every seventy-six years. It has been doing this since the beginning of time and will
continue until the end of time. And a Shadow Warrior, being in the right place and the right time, can be swept up in the tail of the comet and moved within the comet’s orbital time period.” She took a deep breath. “With practice, one can navigate within any orbital time period.”

  “What do you mean, ‘navigate’?”

  I glanced back at her, and she gave me a look with the exaggerated patience of a teacher talking to a slow student. “If I want to travel back two hundred years, I do not necessarily need to find a comet with a two-hundred-year orbit—just one in which the time period between now and then is divisible into two hundred. Like a fifty-year comet. One would just need to navigate to arrive in the correct time.”

  “But how does one learn to navigate?” I asked, more confused than ever.

  She touched my forehead with a long, pale finger. “You use parts of your mind that are usually ignored.” A thin smile appeared on her lips. “But sometimes it happens accidentally. Just like you and Sarah with Genetti’s Comet.”

  The name startled me. “How did you know about Genetti’s Comet?”

  She laughed, a dry and brittle sound. “I know the orbits of every comet that have been and will be. And I also know the places where the powers are strongest. Moon Mountain is one of only three.”

  My heart beat faster. Finding the answers to my questions would allow me to control my own future—assuming I had one. “One of three? How did you learn about this phenomenon? It’s not exactly science-textbook material.”

  She pulled out a handkerchief and wiped her face, then placed it back in her skirt pocket. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “For centuries the Cherokees and other native people around the world have passed down legends. As a history major at Vanderbilt, I became fascinated, obsessed almost. And when I found a picture of an ancient Cherokee carving that matched my birthmark, I knew there had to be some truth to the stories. The legend of the dragons on Moon Mountain that would mysteriously appear and disappear certainly fascinated me. There seemed to be a void or a warp there that would trap ancient, or perhaps future, creatures in this place. But they were always hunted down and killed. As were the people who were caught traveling through time. They were an aberration of nature and needed to be destroyed.” She shrugged. “The one thing I have not been able to ascertain is how many there are of us. I suspect the number is quite small—perhaps one every generation—otherwise we would not be alone.”

  I shifted, her words making me uncomfortable. “Don’t you miss your family, your friends? Aren’t they worrying about you?”

  She snorted. “People disappear every day. My disappearance certainly would not be beyond the usual. Besides, there was no one to miss me. I made sure of that.”

  I thought of my parents and my friends, my coworkers and students, and wondered if they were still looking for me and how long they would continue searching before they gave up. And then I thought of Stuart, and I knew in my heart that he would search for me forever.

  The plodding pace soothed me, each step lulling me closer to sleep until I felt myself fall over the horse’s neck. Pamela yanked me up by the back of my dress. It was then I noticed that the sounds around us had changed. The birds had stopped twittering in the trees; even the sound of chirping crickets had ceased. I looked up through the thick canopy of trees and saw clouds creeping over the sun and casting us in shadow. But there were no storm clouds; nothing to cause the rippling of flesh up my spine.

  I stifled a scream as a man in a dark blue uniform stepped out of the trees in front of us, his rifle pointing at my chest.

  “Halt!”

  Leaves above us rustled and I craned my neck to see another soldier roosting on a branch, his weapon trained on a spot near my head. I pulled on the horse’s mane, assuming it would know to stop. A speckled yellow leaf drifted down on my lap as the tree climber swept down to stand in front of us. He was at least a head shorter than the other soldier, with light blond fuzz covering his cheeks. He looked no more than nineteen.

  The taller soldier walked over to us. “What have we got here, Johnny? A couple of rebs, if you ask me.”

  Johnny took his hat off. “Looks like a couple of women, Corporal.” His rifle wavered but remained fixed on us.

  Without lowering his gun, the tall corporal asked, “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

  Pamela shifted the carpetbags, which seemed to have made a permanent wedge in my back, and reached for her pocket.

  “Stop!” The corporal approached the side of the horse and, without apology, stuck his hand in Pamela’s pocket. I forced myself to remain calm and reminded myself that Pamela was smart enough to have removed her gun.

  My heart sank as he pulled out a folded letter. I stole a glance at Pamela, but her eyes were on the soldier, staring at him expectantly. “Open it.”

  He did, and then looked back at Pamela, while Johnny reached for the letter. “Are you Mrs. Pamela Broderick?”

  She nodded, her eyelids downcast in mock servitude.

  He indicated me with his rifle. “And who is this?”

  “This is Laura Elliott, William Elliott’s sister-in-law.”

  “And you are Captain Elliott’s mother-in-law?”

  Again she nodded.

  “Is he expecting you?”

  She shook her head. “No. But I am carrying important information for him to pass on to our General Sherman. Once I obtained it, it was too late to notify Captain Elliott—and far too dangerous. The information I am carrying is much too sensitive for it to fall into enemy hands.”

  I peered down at the letter in his hand. I recognized the handwriting from an old letter from William that Julia had shown me.

  “Why is this young lady with you?” The shorter soldier spoke to Pamela but stared at me.

  “I needed her for protection. I am an old lady—not as strong as I used to be.”

  The boy raised his eyebrows and looked at me. “Are you armed?”

  Pamela answered, “No, but she is a lot stronger than she looks.”

  I sat quietly on the horse, my hands clenched tightly in front of me.

  The older soldier ordered us to dismount, taking a step backward as I reached the ground. His gaze traveled up and down me while he spoke. “Ladies, we will escort you to our sergeant. He will bring you to the provost marshal, who will decide if you will see General Sherman.” He turned his head slightly and spit a long stream of dark brown juice out of the side of his mouth, then wiped the remaining bits clinging to his lip with his sleeve. “And if you ain’t who you say you are, Uncle Billy will probably string you up, women or not.”

  The younger soldier led the way and we followed him down the path. I saw more shadows in the woods and knew we were being watched by other soldiers on picket duty. Our two guards no longer pointed their rifles at us but still held them where they could easily be aimed and fired. The taller one led the horse by his halter.

  “Why do you call General Sherman Uncle Billy?” I asked.

  Johnny answered with a shy smile, “On account of him being one of us. Real personable. Me and the corporal been with him since Shiloh—and there just ain’t a better soldier.” He paused for a moment. “But he don’t much like women, preachers, or newspaper people in his camp, that’s for sure. I recommend telling him what you need to and then getting out of the way.”

  For the first time in this odyssey, I was nervous. I remembered pictures I’d seen of the sour-faced Sherman, and his reputation in Georgia as being the Nero of the nineteenth century. This was the man I was supposed to seduce. Being shot sounded like a fine alternative.

  We walked in silence, our footsteps punctuated by the occasional wet slap of tobacco juice and spittle against dead leaves. We crested a ridge, and I felt a tightening in my chest. Below me lay the South’s destruction. White canvas tents, filled with men in blue uniforms, covered the green slopes and
hills. I sighed into the breeze as I eyed the show of strength before me. Soldiers filled the ground between tents like ants at a picnic, scurrying from one place to another. Horses and artillery crowded the far rise, and I sucked in my breath, imagining the force behind these placid pieces. History said that all the pride and patriotism of Johnston’s Southern army would be laid low in the deep grass of Georgia’s hills, bowed down in the face of the awesome power of lead and the sheer numbers that lay before me. But the ink in the history books was apparently not indelible.

  Our procession attracted stares and downright leers as we were led deeper into the encampment. Campfires littered the ground, and the smells of bacon fat and burning coffee made my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten since dinner the previous evening. I was acutely aware of my status as a female in a sea of males who were prepared to die. I gathered my skirts closely around me and hugged the carpetbag over my chest.

  Our horse had been left on the outskirts of the camp. I wanted to ask someone to take it back to the woman we had stolen it from, but thought again that perhaps the woman wouldn’t welcome the soldiers on her isolated farm with only her single rifle to protect herself.

  It was late afternoon before we found our way into Chattanooga. We had been given horses to ride and escorted from the encampment by four soldiers from 7th Independent Company, Ohio Sharpshooters. I could feel my hair springing loose from its pins and straggling against my neck. My skirt had a jagged tear up to the knee, exposing my ripped petticoat and holes from my two days of walking through the forest, and I was sure dark circles of exhaustion ringed my eyes. I hoped my brother-in-law would have pity and take us in without question.

  We entered a large house at 110 East First Street. I was told that the house had been commandeered from the wealthy Lattner family, who had fled from the city when the Yankees had first captured it in 1863.

  Rich carvings accented the tall ceilings, and crystal chandeliers glittered light into the rooms. Our feet tapped on the black-and-white marble floors, heralding our arrival. We were shown into the parlor and left alone to wait for my brother-in-law.