Mississippi Brides

by Diane T. Ashley,Aaron McCarver

  “I was thinking of what you told me last night. If there’s one thing I learned in my years of living with Luke’s grandfather, it’s that a married couple should never let an argument fester. The longer you allow differences to separate you, the harder it will be to bridge the gap. You and Luke have an additional challenge since you are physically separated by his army duty.”

  Caroline looked at Luke’s grandmother with new eyes. The woman had surprised her last night when she’d been so kind and supportive. Now she was talking about the weaknesses in her own marriage. Making herself more vulnerable than Caroline would have ever dreamed possible. “He was so angry—” Her voice broke on the last word. Clenching her hands, she took a deep breath. “I—I don’t know when he’ll come home.”

  Grandma Darby dabbed at her mouth with one of the linen napkins. “That’s why we need to go to him.”

  Go to Vicksburg? Caroline’s tears dried up. “But we can’t travel alone.”

  “Humbug.” Grandma Darby threw her napkin on the table with force, raising her eyebrows in a defiant gesture. “Why not?”

  Where should she begin? The dangers of traveling were always high, especially for two women without a male escort. But now those dangers had multiplied. What if they had met the group of fleeing slaves while on their journey? She shuddered. “I can think of many reasons we should not attempt such a journey.”

  “Start with the first few.”

  Caroline took a deep breath. “Deserters, escaping slaves, renegade Yankees, and we could find ourselves in the middle of a battle.”

  “I see.” Grandma Darby’s put her hands on the table and pushed herself up. “I’m starting to believe you don’t think your marriage is worth the risk.”

  “That’s not true.”

  The look Luke’s grandmother tossed at her was a challenge. “I can be packed in an hour. How long will it take you?”

  Caroline took a bite out of her toast. Madness. Could they even make it to Vicksburg before nightfall?

  Grandma Darby exited the dining room as Caroline considered the possibility. The idea tempted her. But what would Luke say when they arrived? Would he listen to her after letting a few hours pass? Or would he still cling to his anger?

  An even worse possibility crept into her mind: what if he had turned to Marianna Lister for comfort? What if he was even now telling the avid young woman all about their argument? What if he was kissing—

  She broke off the thought before it could take root in her mind. She didn’t need to torture herself with implausible scenarios. Luke was an honorable man. He would never break his marriage vows. But like an insidious weed, the image popped back into her head. Caroline pushed her plate away and stood up. Perhaps she could eradicate it by concentrating on readying herself for the trip.

  At least her stomach had settled after her breakfast. She moved slowly up the stairs to her bedroom and pulled the cord to summon Dinah. She would have to remember to ask for fresh bread. Otherwise it would be an uncomfortable trip for all of them.

  “I still don’t quite see why we had to come back to Vicksburg in such an almighty hurry.” Hezekiah’s face wore a confused frown. “I thought we was going to stay at Shady Oaks overnight.”

  “I changed my mind. A good thing, too, since I received orders this morning to report to the main headquarters.”

  Even though the sun was shining down on them, a fog seemed to surround Luke. Was he wrong? Should he have been more gentle with Caroline? He hadn’t meant to make her run from him. But he had a duty to stop her from making foolish mistakes. A good husband protected his wife, even if it was from her own self.

  What about Marianna Lister? The accusing words made him cringe inside. Well, he was man enough to admit he should not have said anything about Miss Lister.

  Luke knew he had lost control. It was one of the reasons he had decided to leave immediately after confronting his wife. He’d been angry, and he had lashed out at her in the harshest way possible, determined to make her as unhappy as he was. Her devastated expression haunted him, but he could do little about it. Perhaps he would pen a note of apology to her this evening. If General Pemberton agreed, he might even be able to take off a few days next week and spend them with her and Grandma.

  They entered the main headquarters, Hezekiah falling two paces behind. After looking around for a minute, Luke spotted a group of men studying a large map that had been nailed to the wall. He joined them and listened to the discussion.

  “Our cannons will keep the city safe from a river assault.” The man speaking was General Pemberton. He nodded to Luke but continued talking to the officers around him. “And we’re well fortified here, here, and here.” He pointed to several spots north, south, and east of the city. “But those are only a precaution. The Union has never been able to get a toehold on this side of the river, thanks to men like Captain Talbot here.”

  Caught off guard by the use of his name, Luke saluted. “It hasn’t been without cost, sir.”

  “Yes, that’s true.” Pemberton turned his attention back to the map. “We all hope and pray the lives lost will not be in vain.” He continued outlining the defense preparations of Vicksburg, patiently answering questions and listening to suggestions.

  “Our spies tell us Grant is on the march.” Pemberton pointed to the far side of the Mississippi River, tracing an inland route to the south. “But he has no way to get his troops across the river because his boats are all bottled up to our north. Unless he has a way to spirit them past my cannons, he will fail to get the support he needs to launch another attack against Vicksburg.”

  “Perhaps he plans to march to New Orleans.” The suggestion came from one of the officers standing next to Luke.

  Pemberton frowned. “It is possible, but unlikely. Some of you were here when two boats sailed past our cannons in the middle of the night. I think it is more likely he will try to accomplish a second nighttime run with more of his ships. So we need men over in Louisiana who can set signal fires to backlight any boats that try to get past us.” He looked at Luke. “I want you to take a few men across the river. Your mission will be to set up bonfires that can be lit at a moment’s notice. As soon as the boats are in sight, you’ll have to set the signal fires and sneak back across the river to avoid being targets yourselves.”

  Luke’s chest expanded. He saluted. “Yes, sir.” Pemberton would only assign such a mission to someone he trusted. The shadow of his actions in Knoxville had finally lifted. He was accepted as a valuable member of the Confederate army.

  If only Caroline would value him as others did…

  Chapter 15

  Wake up, Caroline.” A gentle hand shook her shoulder. “We’re in Vicksburg.”

  Caroline opened her eyes to see Grandma Darby smiling. She sat up and looked out the carriage window, surprised to see that dusk had fallen. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  “I imagine you didn’t sleep very well last night. But now that we are going to face the problem headfirst, you were able to relax and catch up on what you missed.”

  She hoped Grandma Darby’s analysis was correct. It was true she’d felt very foggy this morning, but her mind didn’t feel much clearer even after her hours-long nap. The very thought of facing Luke’s anger once again made her stomach clench. Could she do it?

  The nausea she’d felt back at Shady Oaks returned with suddenness. Choking it down, she watched the older lady gather her things. Something in her behavior seemed odd, as though Grandma Darby was nervous. “What’s wrong?”

  “I—I don’t know how to broach the subject of our accommodations with you.”

  Dread flitted into her disgruntled stomach, its dark wings spreading fear. In all the months she’d observed Luke’s grandmother, she had never heard her stutter. What could be that wrong?

  “All of the hotels in town are filled to overflowing. There’s no room for us at all tonight.”

  This was bad news indeed. “What are we going to do?”

&
nbsp; “I’ve sent some of our slaves to make inquiries, but we will have to stay with friends this evening. Unfortunately, many of my friends have fled the city because of the rumors of an impending attack.” Grandma Darby stopped talking and pulled at a loose thread on her glove. “Fortunately, I have discovered one family who is still here and has opened their home to us.”

  “Who?” The single word hung in the thick air of the carriage. Caroline put a hand to her chest in an attempt to quell her heart’s flutter.

  “Timothy and Georgia Lister. Now before…”

  Caroline’s heart stopped. She could feel her blood congealing, and she missed something Grandma Darby said. With a thump, her heart started again, and she sucked in a deep breath.

  “I know this is the last place you want to spend a night, but it simply cannot be helped.” Grandma Darby grimaced. “If you are the woman I think you are, you will overcome this hurdle. And tomorrow, as soon as a place has been found, we will take our leave. And we can send a message to Luke at headquarters. He’ll likely come right over, and the two of you can reconcile.”

  Caroline could imagine the scene. Luke would sit on one end of the couch, and she would sit on the other. Marianna would either sit inside the parlor with them or lean against the door so she could hear every word. She shook her head. “Maybe I should visit Luke instead.”

  If she had not been so heartsick, Caroline would have laughed at the shock on Grandma Darby’s face. “At the garrison? That would never do. Your reputation would be irredeemable.”

  A sigh of resignation filled her as she watched Grandma Darby alight from the coach. She sent up a prayer for strength to survive the evening before following her husband’s relative, the one who had once advised him to not marry her.

  The front of the Lister house was formidable. It stood three stories high and spread outward from the central entrance like a European castle. If she had not lived for the past months at an even larger, more imposing home, Caroline would have turned and run in the opposite direction. But she had spent time at Shady Oaks, so she lifted her skirts and entered the Lister home with her head held high.

  Vicksburg’s high bluffs cast deep shadows, and the sky overhead seemed to pull a black cloak over its expanse. The river drifted away to the south, unconcerned with the battles being fought along its length.

  Sweat trickled into Luke’s eyes as he pushed hard on the pole and silently moved his pirogue, the flat-bottomed boat popular on both sides of the Mississippi, through the swampy reeds lining the riverbank. They were patrolling the water as ordered, looking for any sign the Yankees had decided to test the Confederate cannons tonight.

  “Watch that branch.” Hezekiah whispered a warning.

  Luke ducked and felt the pointed needles of a cypress tree brush the back of his head. “Thanks, that was close.” He glanced back at his companion, noticing how Hezekiah’s hands clung to both sides of the boat. “Are you worried the river is going to reach up and drag you in?”

  Hezekiah’s eyes widened. “Don’t you tease me, Master Luke. You know how scared I am of the water. I don’t want to fall in and drown.”

  “It’ll be okay. We won’t be getting out of the boat unless we have to light the signal fires.”

  Water lapped against the side of the boat, rocking it slightly. Luke strained his eyes, looking for what had caused the wavelets. “Look, what is that?”

  “I can’t see…No, wait. I see it. Something’s out there, but I can’t tell exactly what it is. It don’t look much like a boat to me.”

  “It must be the Yankees.”

  “What do we do now?” The fear in Hezekiah’s voice was much clearer than the outline of the boat trying to slip past.

  “We’ve got to get to the other side of the river and get those signals lit.”

  “But we can’t go now. Not with all them Yankees just waiting to shoot us out of the water. We’ll get run down for sure.”

  “This would be a good time for you to pray,” suggested Luke. He took a moment to send his own request toward heaven, just in case God was listening.

  With a grunt, he pushed away from the bank. Earlier he and Hezekiah had wrapped their oars in cloth to muffle the sound they made. Now they dipped the oars slowly to further disguise any telltale noise.

  The river rushed around them, trying to push their little boat south toward the Gulf of Mexico. Darkness provided cover for the pirogue as it made slow but steady progress across to the Louisiana side of the river. No moon brightened the sky, a fact that had no doubt influenced the Yankees to choose tonight to move their fleet.

  Luke and Hezekiah made it across without incident and landed on the little beach Luke had scouted earlier in the day. “I guess your prayers worked,” Luke whispered as they stowed the pirogue. “I sure am glad you and God are so close.”

  Hezekiah nodded and smiled, his teeth white against the dark skin of his face.

  The two men made their way silently along the soft bank until they reached the first pile of firewood and dry brush. Luke withdrew a lucifer from his pocket and started the blaze before moving to the next pile of wood. Five piles, five fires. The two men stood back and watched as the blackness was penetrated by the blazes, providing a backdrop to highlight the positions of the ships on the water. Almost immediately, cannons on the opposite shore began their bombardment.

  Luke wiped his grimy hands on his pants. “Let’s get back to the pirogue. We’re easy targets ourselves as long as we stand in front of this fire.”

  “Will we be safe down there?”

  “I would think so. The Yanks aren’t going to be interested in this side of the river. Those cannons will probably sink a great many of them. And the ones that are left will be concentrating their attention on the east shore. I imagine General Grant will think twice before he sends his boats this far south again. He’ll probably move them back to Memphis and try to figure out what to do next.”

  “He’s gonna be mighty surprised when his boats don’t show up.”

  Luke nodded. “If we can keep him on this side of the river until General Johnson’s troops get here to reinforce Vicksburg, I think everything will be okay. This has to work. We have to keep control of Vicksburg. If we lose Vicksburg, we lose the whole river and probably the war.”

  The two men returned to the riverbank, not bothering to hide their progress this time because of the uproar on the water. The Yanks were returning fire, but their bullets could not reach the Confederate cannons located on the high bluffs on the eastern side of the river. And they were taking a pounding because the Confederate soldiers could see them so clearly against the fiery sky. Luke could hear the explosions as cannonballs struck the decks of the ironclads.

  As they reached their boat, he winced at the cries of wounded and dying soldiers. He climbed into the front of the boat and turned to face Hezekiah. “There’s a creek I noticed just south of here when we came over this afternoon. Do you remember it?”

  The slave shook his head. “I wasn’t looking at much except all that water underneath us.”

  Luke allowed his mouth to relax into a smile. “You really are frightened of the water, aren’t you?”

  A nod answered him.

  “The creek you missed looked like it might offer some protection. Maybe we can even find a cave to keep us safe until the morning. There’s not much we can do from here, and I don’t have the stomach for shooting any of the men who make it to the shore.”

  “Me neither, Master Luke. That seems like something the good Lord would frown on.”

  “I agree.” Luke untied the rope tethering their boat to the shore and stood up to push them out into the channel. An odd sound, not unlike the buzz of a hornet, filled his ears. An instant later he felt a fire light in his leg.

  “Master Luke!”

  He heard the scream as if from a distance. Then the oddest thing happened. The river rose up and slapped him in the face. For an instant, the cold water brought him back to clarity. I’ve been shot. H
e tried to swim to safety, but the powerful currents dragged him away from the bank. As the inky waters closed over his head, Luke heard an ominous splash behind him. He wondered if being eaten by an alligator would be a more unpleasant way to die than drowning.

  Chapter 16

  Caroline tossed her quilt back and rose from the unfamiliar bed. What had awakened her? The question was answered as the sky outside her bedroom window lit up. A firefight was being waged somewhere nearby. Her hand went to her throat as another volley of cannon fire boomed. Was the city being attacked?

  She pulled back the curtains. The street behind the Lister home was quiet, but some distance away she could see people out on the street, carrying torches. Were they Yankee soldiers? Had the city fallen? Caroline closed her eyes and prayed for safety for those in the Lister home, for the soldiers fighting on both sides, and especially for her husband.

  Noises in the hallway indicated she was not the only one who had been awakened by the commotion outside. Grabbing her wrapper and pulling it on, Caroline opened the door.

  “There’s no need to be scared.” Marianna was speaking to her younger siblings. The candle she held cast a glow on her face. She looked beautiful even when pulled from her bed in the middle of the night. Combined with her jet-black hair and large eyes, her image put Caroline in mind of paintings of the Madonna.

  Marianna’s parents appeared at the same time as Grandma Darby, each having the presence of mind to light a candle.

  “All of you women stay up here while I go see what is going on.” Mr. Lister’s dark brows were drawn together in a frown. He had taken time to pull on a pair of trousers, but his nightshirt still hung down to his knees.

  Another volley of cannon fire made the younger girls scream and run to their mother. Marianna ran to the balustrade and looked over.

  Caroline would have joined her to see what was going on downstairs, but Grandma Darby was looking quite shaken so she walked to her instead. “Are you okay?” Her worried gaze searched the older woman’s face.