After their swim, Amelia and Summer helped each other wash their hair with water from the rain barrel, then they changed into clean chemises and sat on a blanket in the shade by the shoreline with Fanny, letting their hair hang loose to dry in the breeze. Amelia and Summer pitted sour cherries for pies. Fanny was surprised at how adept Amelia was at seeding the cherries and told her so.
Amelia laughed, sending the sound of tinkling bells over the lake. “Who do you think cooked for my brothers and sisters when my mother ran off with a drummer?”
Fanny’s eyes grew huge. “Your mother left her children?”
Amelia laughed her silvery laugh. “My mother produced seven children in twelve years. Even as a child I thought she birthed them painlessly. But she didn’t enjoy the day to day demands of children. She said it was like being pecked to death by ducklings.” Amelia shrugged. “She just didn’t have the temperament.” She smiled brightly. “I, on the other hand, loved caring for children.” She eyed Fanny’s swollen belly. “I’d love to help with the baby. I’ll bring Becca, too.” She winked at Summer. “When you start a family, I’ll come help you, too.”
Summer swallowed hard, battling the tears which lurked right behind her eyelids. Being with Amelia had stirred up bittersweet memories of her mother. Amelia had become a mother to them both, though stronger toward Fanny because of the baby. A pang of jealousy dug its teeth into Summer Rose. They’d been married since November, making it seven months, and still no baby.
Amelia must have sensed her sadness, for she reached over and hugged Summer. “In good time, sweetie. There’s no hurry. Many would say you’re lucky to have this time together, alone with Daniel.”
Summer stood and lifted the heavy yellow bowl of cherries. “I’ll sugar these up and put them in the pie shells, then pop them in the oven. We’d better get dressed. The men should be back soon.”
After sliding the pies into the oven, she took her fresh clothes into the kitchen to give Amelia privacy, and was just slipping on a clean chemise when Daniel and Hal walked into the kitchen. She turned quickly and Hal did too, but he couldn’t avoid getting an eyeful of lovely female form and flesh.
Daniel frowned but attempted a joke. “Familiarity breeds contempt.”
“… and children,” Hal muttered as he left the kitchen.
Daniel walked over and picked up her corset, helping her with the laces. “I’m usually undoing these. This isn’t nearly as much fun. I’ll be very glad when their house is finished and I can have you all to myself.” He kissed the back of her neck.
She giggled. “I love our island, though.” She slipped on her blouse and stepped into her skirt. “Did you have a good day?”
He hitched up the hooks at the back of her waist. “Profitable. Harvey suggested we buy the Feed and Seed store in Morgan’s Corner and advised us to expand the store to include machinery and tools. Harvey knows what’s developing at the Patent Office. Hal already has tenants for the farms. How were the swimsuits?”
“Not as good as birthday suits, but I love Amelia. Having her around is so comfortable. We took a long swim and sat under the trees and pitted cherries. She helped prepare dinner.”
“You have no idea how wonderful it is to be here.” He kissed her then lifted his head and sniffed the air. “Is that sour cherry pie?”
She nodded, and he nibbled her lip. The lines around his eyes crinkled. “I’m starved and I don’t mean just for pie.”
The soldiers left Sunday evening.
Just after midnight, a bloodcurdling screech had Summer sitting straight up in bed. The sound came from right above Fanny’s bedroom window, and Summer’s heart thundered. Last week two hens had disappeared. Summer sprang to the kitchen, grabbed the rifle, and flew out the front door. The starlight provided just enough light for her to site the mountain lion midway up the tree. She made two quick shots, a third, then the big cat plummeted to the ground. At the sound, Amelia, Harvey, and Fanny materialized on the front porch.
Harvey let out a huge Indian war whoop. “My God, girl, Grant should enlist you as a sharpshooter. Excellent shooting! Just look at the size of that cat! He’s huge.”
Summer walked over to the still animal and gazed sadly at it. She knelt and petted the gorgeous tawny coat. “I don’t like killing them. They’re so beautiful. But I can’t allow him to get so close to the house. He was after my goats, and he’d kill them in no time. He could hurt Fanny or the dogs. I just can’t let that happen.”
She decided, rather than risk ruining Harvey’s lovely red slippers, to wait until the workman came in the morning to dispose of the body. She snapped her fingers, and the dogs went back to the porch. “I hope you can all go back to sleep.”
Fanny wrote to Hal and told him what Harvey had said about Summer’s shooting skills, and Hal told their fellow officers about Daniel’s wife, the sharpshooter. Word even got to Sheridan, then to Grant. Daniel took a great deal of teasing and pretended to be upset, but secretly he was proud of her. Just wait until these laughing cavalrymen get an eyeful of her. They won’t think at all about how she shoots a gun.”
Amelia and Harvey returned to sweltering Philadelphia. After a week of the heat, Amelia took Emily and Abbey to Cape May. Two weeks later, facing out over the sea from the porch of Mrs. Joshua Hamilton’s Guest House in Cape May, she received the telegram that Fanny had produced Amelia’s first grandchild, a beautiful baby boy she’d named Henry Andover St. Clair. She’d already nicknamed him Hank. Six days behind the telegram came Summer Rose’s letter.
Dear Amelia,
You must come and see your fat and happy new grandson. Surprisingly, Fanny had an easy labor. I expected her to have trouble since she is so tiny, but apparently she’s built for motherhood. Everything happened so quickly. I sent one of the workmen for old Doc Kent, but he didn’t get here until after Ezra had delivered the baby. Thankfully, we made a good team. Ezra was here, working on the new house, and he knew exactly what to do.
Your grandson is absolutely beautiful and healthy. He howls loudly and is growing. Hal made a whirlwind trip here yesterday to see his son and little Hank stole his daddy’s heart. Hal is pleased as Punch. Daniel didn’t accompany Hal because General Sheridan took him to a strategy session with Grant at the Executive Mansion. Can you imagine? He’s meeting with Mr. Lincoln and General Grant. Hal said I should be proud of him. He’s done very well. I think Hal is afraid Daniel will get a star before he does. You know how competitive they are. Hal is crowing about being a father before Daniel.
Come as soon as you can.
Love, Summer Rose
P.S. I want a baby just like your grandson!
Amelia was unable to come for another three months, because Emily came down with typhoid.
In August Daniel wrote his wife:
My darling Summer Rose,
I hope this finds you well. I traveled to City Point with General Sheridan in early August. Grant gave him exact instructions. “Push up the valley. It is desirable that nothing should be left to invite the enemy to return. Take all provisions, all forage, and stock wanted for use in your command. Such as cannot be consumed, destroy. Bear in mind, the object is to drive the enemy south, and to do this you want to keep him always in sight. Be guided in your course by the course he takes.”
On the surface, Rosie, Grant’s orders appear easy. March up the Shenandoah Valley, take what you need for your army and destroy everything else. Make it so a vulture flying over the valley needs to pack a lunch. However, darling, nothing about Grant’s orders will be easy.
The valley is bordered by thick mountains which shelter the raiders. (We call them raiders; the renegade soldiers like to be called rangers.) Northerners consider raiders outlaws; southerners think their rangers are heroes. The raiding parties are not large, maybe up to 100 men and boys. Most are a few men causing havoc. After all, they’re farmers about to have their crops and barns burnt, their animals confiscated or destroyed. Their motivation to stop the Union Army comes from a
powerful source. These farms are not only their livelihood, they are the legacy of their fathers, the future of their children. These Raiders farm by day and raid by night.
One of the worst is Mosby. Ten years ago he was expelled from the University of Virginia and jailed for shooting a classmate. He studied law in prison, received a pardon, and set up a practice of law. At the beginning of the war, he’d served as a scout for Jeb Stuart, then he raised a guerilla company with the Confederate Government’s blessing. Around March of last year—you may remember it—he became famous by grabbing Union General George Crook and his subordinate General Kelley, right out of their beds in a Cumberland, Maryland hotel room. They tied the generals to their waiting horses and whisked them through our lines to Libby Prison in Richmond. They eventually were freed, but there were a lot of red-faced Yankees, and the stage was set for hard tactics on both sides. Sheridan, hearing these stories, asked Grant for permission to deal harshly with the partisans. Grant said, “When any of Mosby’s men are caught, hang them without trial.”
I, personally, don’t agree. Feelings of hatred and revenge run raw and rampant on both sides. I would not want to see any of my men hanged. I did put in my two cents, but Sheridan sent word to his subordinates, and Custer, you know how hot under the collar he can get (I know I should not throw stones), caught six of Mosby’s men. He shot three. Another, a seventeen year old, was dragged through the streets until someone shot him. Then he hanged another two and placed a placard around one neck: “This is The Fate of Mosby and All His Men.” Two weeks later another of Mosby’s men was similarly captured, hanged, and placarded, this time by Bill Powell, another hot head.
I live for your letters. I carry them all tied up with a blue ribbon in my saddle bag, and reread them when I can. Stay well, my love. We ride south and west tomorrow toward Front Royal. I’m tired. I need a bath. I need you.
Love, Daniel.
CHAPTER 36
A PRIVATE WAR
The last of the sunlight slanted at an angle, and Daniel could make out the dust and bugs, the lavender light. No noise except their own horses snorting and flapping their ears, and the air didn’t seem to move at all. Daniel knew the raiders were out there, just on the other side of the gully. He sensed them. He knew, too, they were Mosby’s men. Mosby hadn’t been nicknamed the Ghost without reason.
He waited, listening, his arm raised. Just as the last of the sun dropped behind the mountains, they came over the rise at a gallop. They dipped into the gully then shot up and out, whipping their mounts, screaming their god-awful rebel yell. Daniel kept his arm raised, kept looking directly at Mosby, who thundered toward him, silhouetted against the dying light like the devil himself.
Daniel had met the Ghost on the battlefield many times. Mosby didn’t like him any more than Daniel liked Mosby. Beneath him, Chester strained, anxious to charge. He nodded toward the bugler just as he cut the air with his arm and pulled his LeMat, nine-shot pistol from its holster. The bugle blared and Chester leapt into action. Daniel’s men gave their own Yankee yell and roared forward. Some fired their revolvers, some used carbines, others liked short-barreled shotguns. His men were a formidable force. The battle, a hacking, bloody brawl, raged for a good twenty minutes.
Just as they were about to rout the rebels, a horse shoved into Chester. Daniel’s faithful warhorse slipped in an odd patch of gravel and lost his footing, spilling them both downhill. Daniel rolled clear and Chester seemed okay, so he swung himself back into the saddle, but two rebels appeared out of nowhere. One grabbed the horse’s bridle while the other expertly lassoed and dragged him off Chester while the first rebel took his prized LeMat revolver and clobbered him with it.
When he awoke, he was confused, blindfolded, shoeless, his shirt in tatters, with his hands bound behind his back. He assumed he was on the way to a prison camp. In the trees behind him, he heard Chester snorting and pawing the ground. No stranger would ever ride him. He was a one man horse. Because of this, Chester more than likely would end up butchered and served to the troops.
Daniel leaned against the ancient oak and searched beneath him for a rough edge. The aroma of coffee—he suspected it had come from his own saddlebags—drifted toward him. While they enjoyed his coffee, Daniel found the sharp edge of a root. He whittled and scraped at the cheap twine binding his wrists. When he freed them, he took a chance and used one hand to slip the blindfold slightly askew. A half-dozen rebels, lean, rough men, rested around the fire. Chester lowered his big head and pressed his velvet muzzle on the side of Daniel’s neck. He could see someone had already confiscated his saddle.
He kept his hands behind his back and slumped against the tree. Sentries exchanged positions. From the small window below his blindfold, he studied the rebels as they lowered themselves around the fire.
Just before light, he stood and backed into the woods, taking Chester with him. Free of the other horses, he vaulted onto Chester’s back. Someone shouted and Daniel pressed Chester to a full gallop, plastering his body along Chester’s spine. Just as he thought he’d made it, the lash of a lariat again slapped against him. The sound of two sets of hooves pounded close behind him. Knowing he had little chance of escape, Daniel leaned forward and slipped the bridle from Chester’s head just as the rope knotted around his shoulders and yanked him violently through the air.
He awoke in what he thought might be an old schoolhouse. Stars peeked through the roof. His hands were tied, as were his feet. In the dim light, he could make out the meaty, filthy guards. They had hung a noose over the beam along with the placard made by Custer’s men: THIS IS THE FATE OF MOSBY AND ALL HIS MEN. Daniel counted twenty-five or so Yankees sprawled on the rough floor.
One of the guards noticed he was awake. He tapped the sign. “Guess what we have in mind for you, big boy? Eye for an eye.”
Mosby had captured over seven hundred Union soldiers. He sent all except these twenty-seven south to Libby Prison in Richmond. These men were Custer’s men, or so it was rumored. “Let their names leak out to the Yankees,” he told his men. “I’m doing this in the name of justice, not revenge. An Eye for an Eye. For the seven Custer executed.”
On Friday, the three guards stood them against the wall and sliced the ropes binding their hands. As Daniel worked the numbness from his fingers, he noticed one guard filling a well-worn kepi hat with folded pieces of paper. The big guard, the one with a dirty beard dipping toward his belly, hollered in a deep Mississippi accent, “Y’all, each take one of these here slips of paper.”
The skinny, choirboy-faced guard passed the kepi. “Open ‘em up. If you got a mark on your paper, stand over here.”
Six men and the drummer boy moved to the front of the room. The young rebel snorted, looking nothing like a choirboy now, and pointed to the smooth-cheeked drummer boy. “You’ll take a long time to croak.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped at the thought of the kid hanging. Custer’s men had shot a seventeen-year-old, a brutal and senseless killing. Mosby must have felt a pang of moral rectitude, for another lottery was held among the remaining twenty. Daniel received the unlucky lot and stepped into the drummer boy’s place.
Rumors leaked across the picket lines. A rebel picket told a Yankee picket that Daniel was being held at Front Royal. Four hours later, another picket said Daniel and six other men had been hanged by Mosby. Chester, his mane and tail matted and full of briars, thundered into Sheridan’s camp. Sergeant Major Landon spotted him and cleaned the horse himself. A patrol from the area around Front Royal found his diary, a packet of letters, and a picture of Summer Rose. A smart sergeant delivered them directly to General Sheridan’s headquarters and the telegraph wires sang. When Hal came in from patrol, his sergeant told him.
Hal rode straight to Sheridan’s headquarters and barged up the porch steps. In the distance, by the waiting locomotive, he saw Tom West, a correspondent for the Washington Chronicle, talking to Sheridan.
“Keep those goddamn correspondents away from the telegra
phs,” he roared at Sergeant Boyle. “God forbid she reads it in the papers, and I don’t want her to hear from anyone else, either.”
His eyes dropped to the corner of the sergeant’s desk where someone had left Daniel’s diary, Summer Rose’s letters, and her picture on top of a stack of mail. Nausea gripped Hal and he doubled over. His legs suddenly lost all strength, and for a moment he couldn’t breathe. Only the desk held him up. To lose Daniel was to lose an enormous part of himself.
“Sir?” asked the sergeant.
Hal, with difficulty, straightened. He slid the packet of letters and the diary into his tunic. “I’ll give these to his … I have a seven hour ride. Do you understand the importance of this not making the headlines? Tell the general. He’ll understand.”
Twilight had just snuck under the pines when Summer heard hooves pounding over the bridge. All ready for bed in her nightgown and robe, she was about to dash for the rifle when she heard Dulcey’s whinny. Her heart sank. How could Hal know already? Fanny had just left this morning.
Summer sat back in the chair and snuggled Hank tight to her chest. Fanny had left her bottles with nipples, and Hal’s son seemed to be doing okay on goat’s milk. But how Fanny could just leave her three-month-old baby, Summer didn’t know.
She’d used every argument she knew in an attempt to convince Fanny to stay, but Fanny was adamant. “You don’t know everything, Summer. Hal and I aren’t like you and Daniel. He’s never loved me. Not like Daniel loves you. I even suspect he sees …” Fanny burst into tears. “I can’t talk about it.”
She heard footsteps run across the porch and hugged the baby closer. Hal burst into the room and Summer lifted her eyes to the mantle. Hal, his skin a horrid, moldy clay color, leaned against the wall and Summer pointed sadly to the mantle.
Summer Rose Page 19