Summer Rose

by Caroline Hartman

  Instead of responding, he disposed of her nightgown and ran his rough hands down her spine. “I love your skin. Why do you bother putting on a nightgown?”

  She sighed as she rolled against him. “Because I love when you take it off.” Her hands moved over his chest. “Fanny sews beautifully. She makes little nightshirts and dresses out of flannels and lace her grandmother sends from France, materials we can’t get here. Honestly, Daniel, she could sell them in expensive shops in New York or Philadelphia. They’re exquisite.”

  His big hands pulled her tight to him, making thinking difficult for both of them, but she felt she had to stand up for Fanny. “She does help in the kitchen. Her pie crusts are marvelous. Even Ezra said so, and you know how good Margie’s pies are.”

  “Hal seems more content,” he said, kissing her throat. “Having him content is important. Otherwise, he’ll—”

  She sat up with a jerk. “Here? They have brothels here? Are you joking?”

  He tugged her back down, holding her body tight. “Not every man has a wife like you.” He chuckled, tickling her neck with his breath. “I’ve heard some women don’t like when their husbands make love to them.” He kissed her hard and long. “Can you imagine?”

  She wrapped her legs tight around him and giggled. “Not every girl has you.”

  In the evenings, Daniel, Hal and the girls played bridge and discussed their plans. Fanny drew sketches of the valley and the compound as they imagined it, filling sheets with various renditions. They talked about the details of the houses they wanted to build. From little tidbits of conversation, Daniel and Summer understood that while Fanny felt the valley might be a nice place to spend the summers, she had no intention of living in the wilderness the entire year. Hal didn’t seem to mind her attitude. They both possessed a level of sophistication neither Daniel nor Summer desired.

  One evening Daniel said, “I could care less if I miss the opera season. When the cranes whoop across the lake is close enough to opera for me.” He winked at his wife. “Of course, every once in a while we’ll have to go to New York or Philadelphia to shop and let you get all gussied up and eat your fill of oysters. One opera and a play or two might be fun.”

  After Hal and Fanny went to bed, Daniel and Summer swam in the warm lake. When the weather moderated, they piled the tent and blankets into the canoe and spent nights on the island. After a while they just left the tent set up. Those few weeks, while the carpenters’ hammers rang through the valley and buttercups blanketed the ground around the lake, Summer Rose and Daniel found magic.

  Hal, in his own way, found happiness. He slept little, choosing to spend his nights devouring the crate of law books he’d brought along. He heard Daniel and Summer tiptoe out to the lake and suspected their intentions, but never said a word. During the day he accompanied Daniel to rallies or rode alone through the surrounding towns, introducing himself to mayors, judges, church leaders, people Jack had suggested they get to know. When Hal returned, whistling and looking smug, Daniel hoped his friend had stayed out of the bawdy houses. Every town seemed to have them, and Hal found them, but he also found tenants, all veterans, for the four new farms. He helped them get settled and decide on the crops to plant. Horses, scarce because of the war, were expensive, so he convinced them to share the draft horses for plowing and planting. He’d return often with a string of rabbits or a half dozen pheasants and always with a saddlebag of newspapers.

  Sword shaking filled the newspapers. The presidential election loomed in November and vast amounts of political venom made its way into the papers. Both sides threw ugly accusations at each other, the ugliest being that of ‘miscegenation’. The New York World, one of the papers backing the Democrat nominee, George McClellan, for president, coined the new word inside an anonymous pamphlet called, Miscegenation: The Theory of Blending the Races. The authors claimed the Republicans wanted to mix the races, and the campaign got uglier by the day. The President was referred to as the Widowmaker. The papers said Abraham Africanus the First, the Widowmaker, had killed a half-million white men, and now he promoted black men marrying white women.

  Three year enlistments of soldiers ended that spring, and enticements to reenlist filled the papers. Opinions about anything to do with the war, the drafts, the riots filled the editorial columns. As Jack had predicted, Grant was given command of the Army, and Generals Sheridan and Sherman were his rising stars. All of them read the editorials, applauding Grant’s tough attitude and criticizing his ruthless use of troops.

  March 21st, the day before the men were to leave, came all too quickly. While they spit-polished their leather and shined their brass, Summer brushed their uniforms and ironed their shirts. Fanny helped her fill their saddlebags with a two day supply of food.

  That night Summer Rose and Daniel took the canoe out to the island. They lay in each other’s arms, cushioned by distant thunder and the soft air coming off the mountains.

  “I want you to kiss me all night,” she whispered against his neck.

  “You keep doing what you’re doing, and I guarantee you’ll be kissed all night.”

  Naked, wrapped in quilts and wool blankets, they clung to each other, listening to the rain patter against the surface of the lake and the canvas walls of the tent. Thunder rumbled and the air smelled lush with spring. Heartbeats of lightning from beyond the mountains filled the interior of the tent with flashes of brilliant orange light, then counterpoints of blackness.

  His strong, rough hands massaged her back. “I love all of you, but I especially like the back of your neck. I always have.” He planted a kiss there, sending a shiver down her spine. As the storm moved nearer, the flashes of light increased their tempo, and the air crackled between them. “And your back is a deep valley.” He pressed slow, hot kisses down the cleft of her spine and pretended to bite her bottom. “I’d like to take your bottom with me as a pillow.”

  “Oh, Daniel, if you took me with you, you’d never get any soldiering done. I’d wear you out every night. Your general would send me away. Banish me.” She rolled over and held his face to her breasts, kissing his hair, his forehead. “The only consolation I have is that you’ll miss me as much as I miss you.”

  He gathered her against him, studying her face and tracing his fingers along the contours as if trying to memorize it by touch.

  “You have no idea what you are to me,” he murmured, his voice cracking slightly. “I don’t know if I could live without you. You keep all the blackness at bay. You’re my talisman, my anchor, my hope.”

  They delayed returning to the house until the small hours of the morning. “Leave the tent,” she said. “When it’s dry I’ll put it away, ready for when you come back.”

  She helped him saddle Chester and Dulcey then walked beside him, leading Dulcey with one hand, holding his hand in the other. He took the reins and tied the horses to the hitching post.

  As he dressed, she lay on the bed with her heart in her throat. Her entire body ached from holding back tears. The bed moved as he sat to put on his boots; she heard his spurs. Then it moved again when he stood, and her eyes opened as he pulled on his blue shirt. Its matching brass buttons marched in columns from his wide shoulders to his narrow waist. The belt, the yellow sash, the revolver, each had its place. He tucked his gloves in his belt. She stared at him, her handsome, powerful soldier, stunning in Union blue. As much as she admired him, when she saw him in the uniform, it made him suddenly vulnerable, filling her with dread.

  Holding hands, they moved into the living room, where Fanny and Hal were saying their own farewells. She smelled clean leather, damp wool, heard spurs and boots as her senses melded with the night noises and smells from the open window and the pines beyond.

  “If you could get a picture taken, one of those photographs, I’d love it,” Fanny said, glowing with adoration for Hal. “I’d like one of you both and one of just Hal.”

  Summer Rose wanted to ask for a photograph too, but she dared not speak. She feared i
f she let loose one fragment of fear, she’d melt into a puddle of emotion. If she let one tear escape, a torrent would follow. Her heart beat so fast it hurt. Daniel didn’t speak either. His big hands pulled her out to the porch where he held her for a long time. All the love, the fear, and the hope spoke in the pressure of their bodies against each other, then he kissed her one last time and rode away.

  She and Fanny stood on the porch with the sky just graying enough to see the lake and the outline of the trees. They held each other until they no longer could hear the horses’ hoof beats.

  Finally, in the lonely silence, Fanny yawned. “I’m going back to bed.”

  Summer took the lantern and walked the other way, toward the new greenhouse, with Nip and Tuck scampering alongside her. “Take care of him, Da,” she whispered. “He is my heart, my life.”

  She’d planned to start planting seeds, but stopped dead in her tracks as soon as she spotted the potting table. Daniel must have known she’d go there first, because he’d left her a letter. Just seeing the envelope waiting there for her, marked with his firm, round script, made her heart race. She set the lantern on the bench and dropped to the slate floor, the dogs curling alongside her. Her heart beat strong and hard as she tore the envelope open and read his words.

  My Beloved, I miss you already

  CHAPTER 34

  HARPER’S FERRY

  Daniel cleared his throat and Hal, standing beside him, shuffled then coughed. The colonel sighed deeply, moved a stack of papers to another section of his desk, and lifted his chin. Cropped gray hair, steel-rimmed glasses, tired blue eyes. Daniel estimated he was no more than forty. He didn’t bother to stand.

  Daniel surveyed the tent. A six foot board, suspended off the ground by bricks, spanned the back wall, its length filled with haphazard stacks of paper. Chairs held even more paper. Along an adjacent canvas wall leaned boxes and crates of ammunition, bandages, fuses, as well as a roll of wire. Daniel mused that if the colonel could find anything it would be a miracle. Beside him, he could sense the neat and orderly Hal cringing.

  The colonel eventually nodded. “Bill Banion. Got a letter about you two from a Major … somebody … McAllister. Here it is.” He studied the men as if they were sides of beef and Daniel fought back the urge to laugh. Now he understood his wife’s anger when men ogled her. “Which one of you is St. Clair?”

  “I am, Sir.”

  The colonel bellowed. “Sergeant Major Landon! Here’s your gift from God.” He turned back to Hal and laughed unexpectedly. “That’s what your major called you.” He snapped the paper with his finger. “We have a hundred and five warehouses spread from here to Winchester and Charleston, brim full. We need to know what’s in them.” He snapped the letter again. “This major says you’re good at organizing.”

  The sergeant major, a man of middle height, and built like a brick wall, walked into the office and gave a sharp salute.

  “Pleased to meet both of you.”

  To Daniel the sergeant said, “I like that horse you rode in on. General Sheridan is expecting you. Unfortunately, he’s away right now. Yesterday we received 4000 horses from Nebraska. They need to be evaluated, sorted, broken, and trained. He thought you might organize that.” He pointed uphill. “They’re corralled near Bolivar. If you’d follow me, gentlemen.”

  The three of them saluted Colonel Banion, who didn’t bother to return the salute. As they exited the tent, Daniel asked, “Where can we put our gear? We need to take care of our horses.”

  The sergeant led them to a tent beside the river, in the shadow of Maryland Heights. It was a little off by itself and close to a guard post.

  Sergeant Landon pointed to the towering cliffs on all sides of the town. “It’s a little like living in a well. Anyone controlling the heights controls Harper’s Ferry. We make sure our guns are up there.”

  Closer, he indicated the tent. “You’ll be getting regiments soon. Until then I have to put you here.”

  He motioned for an orderly to take their horses, but Daniel shook his head. “I take care of my own horse when we’re in a new place.” He ran his hand down the pale mane. “After they rest I’ll see to the new shipment. I’m sure I’ll find 4000 horses. They’d be difficult to hide.”

  One hundred and five warehouses and 4000 horses later, after countless rides along the steep trails of the Blue Ridge, and after much jiggling of the structure of the war machine, Daniel and Hal received regiments. Because of the warehouses and horses, they missed fighting in the Wilderness and at Cold Harbor, two horrors that had the North, even Mrs. Lincoln, calling Grant, “That Butcher.” In the Wilderness, the injured burned to death; at Cold Harbor both commanding generals refused to surrender for four days, allowing the wounded to scream and suffer among the rotting dead on the field.

  The evening Daniel and Hal received their commands, they stood to the rear of the command headquarters, near Winchester, twenty-five miles from Harpers Ferry. It was the same place where they had first encountered Generals Grant and Sheridan close up. Except for a determined squint in his clear blue eyes, Grant’s short, round-shouldered demeanor didn’t impress them at first. However, despite his dirty boots and dusty uniform, the more he talked, the more they listened. His sharp eyes appeared to miss nothing.

  Sheridan, bandy-legged with long arms, was even shorter than Grant. Daniel picked up the gossip that Lincoln described Sheridan as “that brown, chunky little chap, with a long body, short legs, not enough neck to hang him, and such long arms that if his ankles itch he can scratch them without stooping.”

  The rapport between Grant and Sheridan as they stood over their maps intrigued Daniel. They pointed and grunted, then nodded and grunted again. Sheridan’s finger drew a wide circle around Virginia, then stabbed at the place marked Richmond.

  “I’ll cut all his communication with his capital.”

  Two days later, they thundered south in the valley along with seven thousand troopers. Daniel wrote to Summer Rose from the field.

  My darling Rosie,

  I hope my letter finds you healthy. While I miss you more than you can imagine, I am enjoying commanding troops again. We’re working hard to shape up our regiments. I have three excellent sergeants who are teaching the green lieutenants which end of a horse to move forward, and I’m relieved to say most have gotten the gist of it. We rode out of Harper’s Ferry last week, and they’re learning fast.

  Virginia appears picked dry by vultures, both the feathered variety and the Yankees, rebels, and flimflam artists. The women and children are gaunt, and I feel sorry for them. The few cows we came across were pathetically thin. Their pastures are hardscrabble. The cows, however, fare well compared to the former slaves who stayed on the plantations. I’ve seen slave quarters before, but now you cannot imagine how deplorable they are. Our horses live better. So do your goats. Their clothing may as well be paper. What will happen to them in cold weather I cannot imagine. They tell us of whippings and the rape of girls as young as five. It’s good we’re fighting this war.

  However, our mission is to destroy Lee’s army and level Virginia. We crossed the North Anna and struck the Virginia Central Railroad, then tore up miles of the railway. We destroyed its rolling stock, 1,500,000 rations, and burned a railroad bridge over the Rapidan. At a salt lick in the middle of nowhere, we found 400 half-starved Union soldiers who had been captured by the rebels. We released them.

  We’re moving in a large circle around Richmond, destroying the railroad and any stores we find. Richmond, however, is too well fortified for cavalry to take.

  Have I told you yet in this letter how much I miss you? I long to have you next to me, though you probably wouldn’t want to be near me, just yet. I need a good soaping and a long swim in the lake.

  Yesterday rumor ripped through the camp that General J.E.B. Stuart had been killed. Few are ill-mannered enough to throw their hat in the air and whoop, but a lot of us are glad not to fight him again. You have read about his plumes and his exp
loits with the ladies, but he was, first of all, a tough fighter. His men would have ridden through hell for him and often did. Sheridan called for a moment of silence in memory of Stuart. They had both been at West Point at the same time.

  Hal and I have gotten to know Phil Sheridan. He is by far the finest commander I’ve ever served under. At first glance, he seems odd, even funny looking. I don’t think he’s as tall as you, but he’s tough, doesn’t miss a trick, and is one of the most intelligent officers I’ve ever met. And he’s only thirty-three. Also, despite his odd countenance, he has a dignity about him, always seems to know the right thing to say or do. You would like him.

  I miss you more than you can imagine. Hal and I put in for leave next weekend, though it’s just three days. I’m excited for Amelia and Harvey’s visit to Camelann, but most of all I long for a swim with you. With all my heart and my love,

  Daniel.

  Sheridan left for Washington to attend a conference with Grant. Hal and Daniel took their troops back to Harper’s Ferry; they left in the early hours, riding for Camelann.

  CHAPTER 35

  A WILDCAT

  Daniel and Summer gave Hal’s parents their room, only too happy to escape to the island. Fanny and Hal’s new house was under roof and their excitement was palpable as they walked Harvey and Amelia through the framed rooms. Summer’s hopes lifted, seeing how Amelia loved the valley. While the men took horses to survey the new properties, Summer led Amelia out for a swim, wearing the stylish swimsuits Amelia had brought with her. They were the latest in fashion: two piece bathing costumes consisting of a loose fitting, navy blue cotton jacket and trousers. As they neared the shore, Summer hauled herself onto the floating dock Ezra and his older boys had fashioned from scrap lumber and empty barrels, then helped Amelia onto the dock as Fanny brought the rowboat out.

  Fanny tied up to the floating dock and giggled. “The baby’s too big. I’ll save the swimming costume for next summer. You both are adorable. Grandmamma wrote and said the suits are the rage in England and France.”