Faith

by Lyn Cote

  One of his men, who was evidently trying not to look shocked, led the older horse forward. “This is the mount the colonel chose for you, miss. His name is Horace.”

  Faith approached the horse’s head and spoke to the animal, spending a few moments letting the horse sense her and accept her. “I think we’re ready.”

  Dev kept his mouth tightly closed, not voicing his disapproval of a female riding astride. He moved to stand beside her horse, bent and linked his hands together.

  Faith fit her small boot into this cradle and then swung onto the saddle. Dev adjusted the saddle girth for her.

  “Now don’t worry, Honoree,” Faith said, calmly making herself comfortable in the saddle. “The colonel and these men will take good care of me.”

  “I wish I could go, but I know it’s not safe for me,” Honoree conceded. “Godspeed.”

  Once mounted, Dev lifted a hand in farewell, but he could not look at Honoree without thinking of Armstrong. From what Dev had heard, Armstrong was training to be an artilleryman, preparing to kill and be killed.

  Dev led a company of his best men through the camp. The artillery barrage for the day blasted to life. He nearly reached for Faith’s reins in case the sound spooked Horace. But after the horse shied slightly, he walked on. Even the horses were becoming accustomed to the daily barrage.

  Dev tried his best to ignore the curious glances they received. A woman riding astride was not the usual way, but then women nurses in the midst of a war also fell outside the normal social proprieties.

  Finally they put the army and the bombardment behind them. The surrounding land showed the marks of war—old cabins and shacks raised up off the ground on wood blocks were abandoned or in ruins. A few were still inhabited, but the residents just stared at them from the windows or open doors. Their looks emanated animosity.

  “It’s sad, isn’t it?” Faith said, riding beside him.

  “They chose to secede,” Dev replied.

  “Yes, but humans often make poor decisions.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. In his opinion this venture was one of them. And his decision not to keep faith with Armstrong had been another.

  Faith rode beside Dev through the devastated countryside, Dev following the map he’d sketched from the information Faith had received from runaways in the contraband camp. She tried to keep her anticipation strictly under control, but the hope bobbed up continually that today, after five long years, she might see Shiloh again.

  Finally, after several miles, they crossed a low creek, and on a knoll ahead she saw a white-columned house, not very large but imposing. A white sign with the name Annerdale Plantation told them they had reached their destination. She gripped the reins and tried not to let a sudden trembling unsettle her horse.

  The colonel led her and the men up the curved drive to the house. There, with a command for his men to remain in their saddles, he dismounted and so did she. With a gesture, he forestalled her from going forward.

  “Hello the house!” he called, a traditional summons when approaching a stranger’s house.

  A woman, very thin, wearing a blue print dress that had been washed too many times, appeared in the double doorway, followed by a servant—obviously her butler. “What do you want, Yankees?” Her voice vibrated with disdain as she walked to the edge of the porch. “You’ve left us nothing else to steal.”

  Ignoring Dev’s admonition to stay put, Faith stepped past him to speak with the woman. “Good day. I have come looking for a friend who might be on this plantation or near here.”

  “I have no Yankee friends. Get off my land.”

  Faith chose not to respond to the woman’s lack of welcome. “My friend was a free woman of color kidnapped before the war and sold south.”

  “Your friend?”

  “Yes, my friend. Her name is Shiloh. She’s light-skinned and has green eyes just like mine. Does thee know of her or has thee seen her?”

  “Your friend?” the woman repeated as if not comprehending.

  “Yes. Does thee know of a woman fitting that description?”

  “No. Now get away from here.” The woman glared at them, tight-lipped.

  Faith didn’t know if she had lied or told the truth.

  “Thank you for your trouble, ma’am,” the colonel said, hooking Faith’s elbow and drawing her back.

  Though glancing repeatedly over her shoulder, Faith finally let him help her back onto her horse.

  When they were out of earshot of the woman, who remained watchful on her porch, Dev murmured, “I watched the butler’s face for a reaction to your question, but he gave nothing away. So we’ll ride off, and then I’ll double back from the rear and question a servant or two. We’ve come so far. I want to be sure we have all the information and that it’s right.”

  Faith agreed solemnly as she rode beside the colonel. She tried hard not to let her disappointment and defeat come out in tears. She was a nurse, a steadfast woman; she could not break down here in front of these men who faced battle and death with a stoicism that regularly broke her heart.

  Dev could tell that Faith was struggling to deal with this setback. He wished he could have spared her this disappointment, which he had seen as inevitable. But he must leave no Confederate stone unturned. He would follow this lead to the end so she would accept that Honoree’s sister was not to be found here. After their company rode out of sight of the main house, Dev led them in circling around from behind, through a grove of trees, and toward the slave cabins. He left his men in the grove, and only he and Faith approached the humble dwellings, a small garden behind each.

  As though she’d heard them coming, a wiry old woman with a cane made her way onto the small porch. “What you come here for?” she challenged them.

  Dev couldn’t blame the woman for her anger. Both armies regularly commandeered supplies from master and slave.

  Faith held up a hand to him. “I will speak to her, Colonel.” With that Faith slipped from her saddle. “Good day. I am Faith Cathwell. What is thy name?”

  The older woman eyed her with suspicion. “You a Quaker?”

  “Yes, I am, and my family has helped hundreds of slaves to freedom.”

  The woman nodded slowly. “I’m Clary. And I’m too old for freedom. Too old for anythin’ but sittin’.”

  Faith smiled and approached her. “Hello, Clary.” She offered the woman her hand.

  Dev slid from his saddle and moved to hold the reins of both horses in the shade of a tupelo tree. Once more he was struck by the Quakeress’s easy ways with people.

  “Won’t thee sit, Clary?” Faith waved toward the lone chair on the porch. “I am young and can stand.”

  The old woman, who looked to have lost most of her teeth, stumped her way to the chair and sat. “What you come for?”

  “Please look at my eyes, Clary.”

  The old woman did. “You got pretty eyes.”

  Dev had noticed this himself.

  Faith smiled. “I am looking for a freeborn friend who has the same green eyes. She was taken from us, kidnapped and sold south before the war. Her name is Shiloh. One of the women in the contraband camp with Grant’s army told me that she’d been here.”

  The woman studied Faith. “You say she a friend and she got the same green eyes as you?”

  “Yes, she’s very light-skinned with golden-brown hair and my green eyes. She’s more than a friend, really. We are blood relations.”

  This last sentence punched Dev. What was she saying?

  The old woman held her cane in front of her and leaned her chin on her hands. “I never hear no white person claim a colored as blood before. I never thought I live to hear that.”

  I didn’t either. Dev recalled that Faith’s mother had left a plantation in Maryland. Was that the source of the connection? If so, it meant that Honoree was far more than Faith’s friend. He drew back from this thought, one he should not even entertain.

  Faith rested a hand on the woman’s. “Please,
has Shiloh been here? Her sister and I have come south to find her.”

  “I saw her, but she wa’n’t here long. Two slavers come through here ’fore the war. They had lef’ the river to deliver a runaway slave here and claim the bounty.”

  Faith nodded encouragingly.

  The old woman seemed to be having trouble breathing. She paused to catch her breath, then continued, “The master saw Shiloh with the others and tried to buy her, but he couldn’t come up with the high price the slavers wanted. They said they’d get much more down in New Orleans at the slave auction.”

  Faith gasped and stepped closer to the old woman. “Thee saw her?”

  “Just a glimpse, but there was talk about her. She really be a beauty.”

  Faith nodded, wiping her cheek. She must have been weeping. “Yes, she is.”

  “That be a curse to a colored woman,” Clary commented.

  What the woman was referring to was a topic never spoken of, especially not to a lady, and it rankled Dev. But he held his silence.

  “I’m sorry for your losin’ her,” Clary said. “I didn’t know she been kidnapped. That’s evil, just evil.”

  “It is. That’s why I must take her home.”

  The old woman gazed up at Faith. “I pray you find her.”

  “I thank thee, Clary, for telling me of Shiloh and for thy prayers.”

  “I thank your family for helping our people. I never met a Quaker ’fore, but I hear about what you people do for slaves.” Clary grasped Faith’s hand tightly. “And now Mr. Lincoln say I free, but it come too late for me.” Tears dripped from the old eyes.

  Hearing the sudden passion in the woman’s words, Dev thought of Armstrong. All those years, had Armstrong longed for his freedom? Would he have left me if I’d given him the choice? Or stayed? He’d never thought about it before. I should have.

  Faith leaned over and kissed the woman’s forehead. “Thee will be truly free before I. I will see thee in heaven.”

  The old woman’s tears turned into laughter. “I be there to greet you, Miss Faith. We dance in heaven together.”

  “Good day, Clary, and again I thank thee.” Faith reached in her pocket and gave the woman a cloth packet of what appeared to be sugar, a scarce commodity. Then she descended the one step.

  Dev led the horses over to her and helped her mount, and they rode back to his men and away. The old woman’s talk and Faith’s revelation left him stirred up, disgruntled.

  The ride back to camp passed somberly. The question of Faith’s family tie to Shiloh begged—no, clamored—to be asked, but he resisted. He would not speak of it.

  As his party approached a wide, deep creek lined with spreading oaks, Dev motioned for his men to go ahead and water their horses. Another hot day had left them all depleted. He slid off his own horse and passed the reins to the nearest soldier while trying to come up with any other topic to speak about with Faith but the one uppermost in his mind.

  He helped Faith down and handed her reins to another man. He drew her under the shade of one of the nearby oak trees and they drank warm water from their canteens.

  Nearby, his men talked and laughed. Some waded in the water or lifted filled hats onto their heads. The large oak with its low green boughs shielded Dev and Faith from the others.

  “I thought I’d feel better if I discovered word of Shiloh, but I feel worse somehow.” Faith sighed and inched deeper into the shade of the oak tree as if further removing herself from him. “New Orleans may be in Union hands, but until Vicksburg surrenders and then Port Hudson south of here, I can’t follow this lead any further. It’s disheartening.” She leaned back against the gnarled bark of the old tree.

  He stepped closer, unable to keep his distance. “I wish I could say something, anything that would make this easier for you.”

  “I wish for the same to say to thee,” she murmured. “Don’t I see how losing Armstrong, thy friend, has wounded thee?”

  He stiffened. Since Armstrong had left, he’d felt hollowed out inside, but he would not discuss it. “Today isn’t about me.”

  “No, but I can’t see thee hurting and not wish I could help.” Her gentle tone removed the sting from the words.

  Yet he resisted the sympathy she offered. “I can’t think about that now.”

  “I know. We can’t let ourselves feel things as we would if we weren’t here in this dreadful war.”

  Dev nearly gave in and folded her into his arms, just to comfort her or take comfort himself. His arms ached with wanting to feel her soft form next to him.

  She straightened up from the tree. “I must be strong too. I still have to tell Honoree of Shiloh being taken to the New Orleans slave auction, one of the most notorious. And that we can’t continue following this lead yet. We will not stop looking, but this news is a hope and a setback at the same time.”

  Then Dev couldn’t stop himself. Faith’s mention of Honoree had broken the dike preventing him from speaking of Armstrong. “Couldn’t Honoree have reasoned with Armstrong? Doesn’t his enlisting worry her too?”

  She raised her gloved hand as if to stop him from saying more. “We cannot protect the ones we love from harm—none of us can. Does thee think my family wanted me to become a nurse in the midst of a war?”

  “No,” he said, now also unable to hold back the words he’d thought many times. “I wouldn’t think so. Why didn’t they forbid you?”

  “Because in our family an adult is allowed to make his or her own decisions. I know my parents and family and the Friends at our meeting are all praying for me. And in spite of their faith in the all-sufficiency of God, they do worry about me. But this is the work I felt the Inner Light, the Holy Spirit, leading me to do.”

  “So they just let a defenseless girl go straight into a war?” He was vexed beyond courtesy.

  “Did thy decision to join the military make thy mother spring up and rejoice?” She lifted an eyebrow at him.

  “That is completely different.”

  “Because thee is a man and I am a … defenseless girl?”

  “Yes.” His reply was curt because he didn’t want to say more, to be as rude as he felt like being. He still thought her father ought to be horsewhipped for not refusing to let her come here.

  “We cannot trap our dearest ones within our love, safe from all harm,” she continued. “Not in this world. What if my parents had insisted I stay safe at home but a tornado came? While they watched, I could have died there under their own roof.”

  He tried to interrupt, but she kept talking. “When my twin sister was sick with that fatal fever, I held her hand, but I could not keep her … from leaving me.” She bowed her head as if hiding her face.

  Then he did fold her into his arms. She was only a few inches shorter than he, so his lips came nearest her forehead. He kissed it and tightened his hold on her.

  She accepted his embrace for but a moment before drawing away and moving to their safe, neutral topic of choice. “When thee goes home to Baltimore, does thee know which books thee will be looking for in that favorite bookshop of yours?”

  He recognized her intent. Both of them needed to step back from the here and now, the overwhelming and unhappy and unsettling here and now. He tugged his reluctant mouth into a smile. “I thought I might depart from the classics and choose some poetry for a change.”

  The men were bringing the horses up out of the creek, so he led her from the shady oak to meet them.

  “What poet?”

  “I was considering Wordsworth.”

  “‘I wandered lonely as a cloud,’” she quoted, “‘that floats on high o’er vales and hills.’” She looked to him.

  He continued the poem. “‘When all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils.’”

  “Now that would be lovely, but wait just a moment.” She moved away from him and bent and picked some plants growing near the creek. “No daffodils here today. I will have to consult my herbal dictionary, but this looks like a different strain
of bee balm.”

  Her knowledge impressed him once again. She tucked the herbs into her pocket.

  His men paused with their horses, and he swung her up onto her saddle and mounted his own horse. They rode toward the Union camp.

  As they finally reached the outskirts, Dev halted and rose up in his stirrups. Ahead men were everywhere, talking animatedly in small groups. “Something’s happened.” He motioned for his company to follow him into camp. As they made their way toward the horse corral, the change in mood became more and more palpable.

  “A white flag ahead!” one of their fellow cavalrymen shouted to them. “The generals are conferring over terms! Vicksburg is surrendering!”

  DEV NOTICED that the daily artillery barrage was indeed absent. Surrender had come at last. He felt suddenly as if a great weight were sliding off his shoulders. He sucked in a deep breath and gripped the reins more tightly.

  The men around him sent up a cheer, but he remained silent. He looked over and Faith was gazing at him. She did not appear jubilant but rather perplexed. He leaned closer to her. “What’s the matter?”

  “We’ve waited for this so long, but …” Falling silent, she shook her head and pressed her lips together. “Please help me down. I must find Honoree and tell her the news, the bad news.” She closed her eyes for a moment as if controlling herself.

  He had a hard time understanding her reaction. “Does this hard-won surrender mean nothing to you?”

  She tilted her head to one side. “I am happy that it means there will be no more killing here. But with Port Hudson between Vicksburg and New Orleans, how can I go to that city to discover whether Shiloh has been sold there at auction? And if she was sold, to whom?”

  He understood a little now. One more battle won, but how many more lay ahead of them? And even if they could go to New Orleans, where the girl might have been sold, this lead was so slim as to be barely usable. For all they knew, the catchers could have sold her to someone else before they reached New Orleans and the famous slave auction there. But he held his peace, unwilling to discourage Faith now, when she looked so downhearted.