The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  A River between Us

  by Jocelyn Green

  Chapter One

  Roswell, Georgia

  July 6, 1864

  Water roared over the dam behind her, an echo of the blood rushing in her ears. Dropping to her knees, Cora Mae Stewart plunged her spade into the earth. The Yankees were coming. Everyone knew it, since the Southern army had burned the bridge over the Chattahoochee River yesterday and retreated south. The few valuables she and her mother possessed she would not see into their pillaging hands.

  In dawn’s watery light, Cora Mae carved away enough soil to make room for a cigar box wrapped in oiled paper. Inside the box nestled some dented silverware, jewelry, and tintypes of her father and brother in their Confederate uniforms.

  Heart thundering, she tucked the box down deep and refilled the hole. Spray from the waterfall beaded on her pinned-up hair. Rising, she made a passing attempt to brush the dirt off her apron. Her bare feet, however, were hopelessly coated with mud.

  Movement flickered in the corner of her eye. She whirled toward it, her spade thrust out. Poor defense against a Yankee marauder, indeed. “Hello?”

  A man stepped from between the trees and doffed his hat.

  Relief rushed through her at the sight of her father’s friend. “Why, Mr. Ferguson!”

  “I do wish you’d call me Horace.” But at forty years old, he was twice her age, and a loom boss.

  “I was just—”

  “I saw. Getting ready for the bluebellies, that so?”

  She began walking toward the cotton mill just beyond the dam that powered it. “I aim to get to work on time.” She persuaded a steadiness into her voice. “Mama’s feeling poorly today, but she’ll be back just as soon as she can.”

  He matched her stride. “Sorry to hear it. That’s the second time in two weeks, ain’t it?”

  It was. More than twenty years of inhaling cotton dust and lint took its toll. Her gaze scaled the red bricks of the four-story factory as she approached.

  “Hate to say it, but Matilda may lose her spot at the mill. She don’t have much work left in her, God bless her. I’m sorry about it, and I’m sorry you lost your pap and brother in this danged war. You’ve gone from four wage earners in the family to just you.”

  Pausing in front of the factory, Cora Mae wiped her hands on the apron that covered her hoopless, homespun dress. “Then I best not be late.”

  “Being on time won’t answer your troubles.” Mr. Ferguson touched her elbow and beckoned her to the side of the building until they were half in shadows again. As other mill girls filed into the building, they stared and whispered behind their hands. “I told your pap I’d look out for you and Matilda. This here’s the best way I know how. Do you have an answer for me yet?”

  She curled her toes beneath the fraying hem of her skirt. Words stuck in her chest like dry corn bread.

  “I checked with the company storekeeper, Cora Mae. You’re deeper in debt than your pap ever was, God rest him. If you marry me, we’ll combine our wages, and we can all live in my cottage on Mill Street together. Me and you, Matilda, and June.”

  Cora Mae had forgotten about June. The little girl had started working at the mill the day her mother, Mavis, had married Mr. Ferguson last year.

  “Since June’s mother died a few months back, she’s as lost as can be. She needs a new mother, truth be told, and you surely do need a man’s wages on your account.”

  The bell tower in the mill yard sounded, and she bolted toward the door.

  “Won’t you answer me?” he called after her.

  “I will.” The bell chimed again.

  “Today!”

  She was inside the mill, dashing up the stairs as the bell finished calling out the hour. For now, she had to concentrate on her work or risk an accident. In the weaving room, she hurried to her place at the table where she drew patterns for Confederate uniforms on the special gray cloth.

  As she worked, the millhouse rattled and boomed with its own kind of battle noise. Up on the fourth floor, spinning girls spun thread from raw cotton. Their machines whirred so loudly that bobbin girls like June had to watch for hand signals alerting them it was time to deliver another empty bobbin or take away a full one. Brass-tipped shuttles fired across looms to weave the dyed thread into cloth, and of course the mill wheel on Vickery Creek chugged with the power of a locomotive.

  The floor shook beneath Cora Mae’s bare feet as she worked, and the table trembled beneath the cloth she drew and cut. Her limbs thrummed with the reverberations. Her stooped back ached, but the Confederacy needed the uniforms, tents, and rope the Roswell mill produced. Their instructions were to stay and work until Yankee soldiers drove them out.

  By half past six, the sun had lifted its bright head in the sky. Thirty minutes later, the bell rang for the breakfast break, and with a lurch, the mill shut down. She fell in line with the other girls trickling outside and then hurried back up to her apartment on Factory Hill.

  With a sharp tug, the back door unstuck from its frame, and she entered their kitchen. Mama was already at the table with a glass of milk and a plate of corn bread. As Cora Mae sat, Mama coughed into her handkerchief, staining the unbleached linen brown. Her smile seemed brave. “Grace, please.”

  The two bowed their heads, and Cora Mae thanked God for the daily corn bread in her own Southern rendition of the Lord’s Prayer. “Amen.”

  Mama broke off a small piece of bread and ate it. “You look troubled.”

  Wind blew under the door and ruffled Cora Mae’s skirt over her feet. “Mr. Ferguson talked to me again this morning.”

  “Faithful Mr. Ferguson.” Mama smiled. “Remember the corn and sowbelly he left on our doorstep when we most needed it?”

  Cora Mae nodded. “He’s asking me to marry him. Says we can both move in with him and his stepdaughter on Mill Street.”

  Blanching, Mama stopped chewing for a moment. Her fingertips rippled over the persimmon seed buttons on her bodice, the way they always did when she was surprised. The irregular shapes spotted the unevenly black fabric Mama had dyed for mourning Pap and Wade. “My land. How very fine.”

  Cora Mae lost her appetite. “Yes, ma’am, it’s very fine.”

  Mama cleared her throat. “You ain’t pleased.”

  “Pleased enough, I reckon.” She dredged up something akin to a smile and prayed her mother had forgotten everything Cora Mae had ever said about wanting to quit the mill and move away. “We sorely need the help, Mama. Just as Pap knew we would.” Maybe in time she would grow fond of Mr. Ferguson, the way a wife should. But at the moment, she barely felt anything at all, excepting the grit between her toes.

  “Oh, darlin’.” Mama placed one hand on the side of Cora Mae’s face. Her blue eyes crinkled at the edges. “Before Pap left for the war, he told me that if he should die, I should let Mr. Ferguson—still a bachelor at the time—head our home. It’s what he wanted.”

  Tears stung Cora Mae’s throat as she clasped Mama’s hand and leaned into it. “It solves our worries.” Refusing the offer would be foolhardy.

  Mama nodded. “I’ll see to the dishes.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Her chest constricting, Cora Mae rose and pressed a kiss to the top of Mama’s silvery-blond hair.

  When she returned to the mill, she was not surprised to find Mr. Ferguson waiting for her at the front gate. This time, June was with him, dressed in brown plaid homespun. Her hair, pulled into a bun high on her head, glinted in the sun like a dark copper kettle. Cora Mae smiled down at her.

  “Why, you’re quite the little Junebug, aren’t you?”

  The girl’s molasses-brown eyes rounded in heart-shaped face. “That’s what my ma calls—called me. Did you know?”

  Cora Mae tilted her head. “No, but I can see why she did. I’ll bet you miss her at least as much as I miss my own pap and brother.”

  June’s brow furrowed. “You lost them?”

  “In the war.”

  Her little
hand slipped into Cora Mae’s. “You gonna come live with us, then?”

  Cora Mae glanced at Mr. Ferguson in time to see him swipe the straw hat from his head and smooth his thinning black hair. “Here, step away a bit.” He led her and June away from the gate, where mill girls were streaming back from breakfast. He stopped near the dam on Vickery Creek, within sight of the small mound she’d made at the foot of a tree that dawn.

  “Well?” Mr. Ferguson half shouted over the roaring creek. “What do you say?”

  Water tumbled down thirty feet before crashing into the creek below. The spray misted her face, and she licked it off her lips. “Yes,” she called out.

  His eyes brightened. He laid one rough hand against her cheek. “It’s for the best. For all of us.”

  She simply nodded. It was the right thing to do.

  “Let’s marry today, after work. I’ll find a preacher. You can wear Mavis’s wedding dress.”

  Cora Mae reeled. “Tonight!” she gasped. Over the rushing water, the mill bell echoed the alarm in her spirit.

  But he had already turned back toward the mill, pulling her behind him over the water-slicked, rocky path. She grasped June’s hand as they both struggled to keep from slipping.

  Chapter Two

  Back at her post at the drawing table, the reverberations of the mill seemed to shake Cora Mae from the inside out. She couldn’t stop her hands from trembling. The fact that Horace had been a friend to the Stewarts did nothing to dispel the dread knotting her middle at the thought of the night ahead.

  Suddenly, the mill heaved then stopped. Straightening, she turned toward the door to the stairs just as a blue-uniformed officer came striding through it. “Everybody out.”

  All around her, wide-eyed mill girls looked askance before following the order. Fear cycled up and down Cora Mae’s spine as she progressed down the stairs.

  Once outside, she stood in the dappled sunshine and listened to the eerie silence of a factory stilled during work hours. The sound of the rushing water pulsed in her ears as she watched the rest of the four hundred workers stream outside. When June appeared, she waved to her, and the little girl scurried over to hold her hand.

  Two Yankees fled from the nearby storehouse with cans of oil in their hands then turned back to watch. Crackling flames sounded from the top floor, their fiery-orange tongues lashing out the windows. Timber creaked then crashed as the top floor fell into the one below it.

  A woman next to Cora Mae swiped tears from her cheeks, while one behind her laughed bitterly, cursing the well-to-do patriarchs of the city who had fled Roswell weeks ago. Another set of soldiers had gone into the cotton mill building, and from the smell of smoke billowing from those windows, it would soon be up in flames as well.

  Instinctively, Cora Mae wrapped her arms around June. The entire world shifted then collapsed right before their eyes.

  Yankee soldiers, some mounted on sleek black horses, began filtering in and among the mill hands. “Clear on out of here,” one called out. “Every last one of you is to come to the town square within the hour for further instructions.”

  Half the girls broke into a run as smoke and soot blackened the sky. Yankees followed them, making it clear they were under guard even now. Cora Mae stood rooted into place, craning her neck to find Horace as his stepdaughter fairly melted into her skirt.

  He lunged through the crowd to reach them. “You’ll not see me again for a spell.”

  “What?”

  A fierceness took hold of his eyes. “I heard talk of treason. I’m not sticking around to be arrested. I’ll send for you when I’ve got a new home somewhere safe.” He knelt before June. “Stay with Miss Stewart. She’s your new mama now. Or right close to it.”

  “Horace! How will you—” An idea sparked. “When you’re ready, send word through the preacher if you can’t get back yourself. We’ll find a way. I’ll get June back to you, I promise.”

  Rising, Horace kissed her on the cheek and June on the forehead, as if they were both his daughters. He blended back into the current of mill hands flowing from the mill yard, past the tannery, past the picking and dyeing buildings, out the front gate, and toward their homes.

  The row of apartments on Factory Hill swarmed with Yankees and panicked mill workers by the time Cora Mae and June arrived. In and out of slamming doors, the Union soldiers marched, their faces tanned and their sky-blue trousers freckled with fine red dust. They carried bolts of gray cloth with “CSA” stamped into the weave.

  Holding fast to June’s hand, she pushed past some soldiers and entered her home to find it already occupied by the enemy.

  “You live here?” she heard one of the soldiers say.

  Ignoring him, she hoisted the hem of her skirts and bounded up the stairs. “Mama?”

  June followed Cora Mae into the bedroom where Mama sat, white faced, in her rocker, her fingers clutching its arms. “Yankees?” Mama whispered. “In my house?”

  Cora Mae nodded. June whimpered. “June, this is my mama. Mama, this here is June, and she’s going to be with us from now on.”

  “You all just came from the mill?” The soldier from downstairs entered the room.

  Trouble pressed in around Cora Mae until she thought it would squeeze the air right out of her. She glanced at Mama. “She didn’t.”

  “Then she can stay.”

  “What are you doing in my home?” Mama’s breathing rattled in her chest before she coughed something fierce into her handkerchief.

  The soldier’s face softened. “This row of apartments is a Union hospital now. You two mill girls are to report to the town square.”

  “What will you do with them?”

  “I’m just following orders, ma’am. If you give me any trouble, I’ve got orders to deal with that, too.”

  Cora Mae’s gaze settled on the pistol at his hip.

  “Now say your good-byes.” He left.

  She swept to Mama’s side and knelt by the rocker. “We’ll come back just as soon’s we can.”

  Mama’s smile wavered. “You hold on to hope, child.” She cleared her throat. “June, I’m real sorry to not have more time with you just yet. I’ll be praying you both home, you hear?”

  Cora Mae embraced Mama, inhaling the chinaberry soap scent of her hair, and turned to go.

  “Cora Mae.” Mama’s voice was stern now. “I know you’re powerful scared. Don’t let it turn into hate. The good Lord says we are to love our enemies and pray for those who bring us pain.”

  “I recall that, Mama. Come on, June. We best scoot.”

  Her feet felt leaden on the short walk to the square. A ring of bluecoats parted to let her and June slip inside the already packed area. The noonday sun beat down, and her scalp burned where she’d parted her hair.

  “Let’s find a spot to sit,” she said to June.

  “Right in the dirt?”

  “If they’re going to pen us in like hogs, we may as well act like hogs to keep cool.”

  June managed to giggle at that as they claimed a small patch of the square.

  Whimpers and cries mingled in the air with fool-headed, girlish nonsense. Cora Mae couldn’t decide if those girls thought they’d fare better by flirting with their captors, or if they really didn’t understand that they were being held hostage by the enemy that had killed so many of their fathers, brothers, and husbands.

  Time seeped by at the pace of cold molasses, while smoke from torched buildings choked the air. Some folk in the square fainted from the heat, and so did a few of the soldiers standing guard. Those who needed to use the privy did so with a Yankee escort, who yelled at them to hurry up. Some sorely mistaken girls shouted that brave Confederate soldiers would come rescue them at any moment. If the Roswell Battalion had stayed to defend them instead of skedaddling right after burning the bridge, they’d buckle against this force. Cora Mae couldn’t count them all, but she’d heard there were some three thousand men here, with their horses.

  “Ain’t we gon
na go home before bed?” June asked.

  Cora Mae licked her dry lips, tasting smoke. “At this point, I don’t reckon we will.”

  Twilight faded into an ashy gray night. Northern accents barbed her from all sides. “Next stop, Atlanta!” one of the soldiers hooted. “But did you ever see so many girls all in one place before than this? Think I might see about keeping one or two of ’em warm!”

  The bright notes of a harmonica rose up under Yankees singing:

  “Right down upon the ranks of rebels,

  Tramp them underfoot like pebbles,

  March away! March away! Away! Victory’s band!”

  Lying flat in the dirt, with nothing but insults to cover them, Cora Mae let a tear slip free. Listening to mothers hush their crying children, she wondered how Mama fared. Beside her, June sniffed, and she recalled she was standing in for the little girl’s mother, near strangers though they were.

  “Junebug,” she whispered. “I’m glad you’re keeping me company. You’re right courageous.”

  “Well, I’m eight years old now.”

  Cora Mae smiled at the girl’s solemn nod. “And just as brave as you ever could be.” She stretched out her arm, and June nestled into it, curling into her side.

  The next day, everyone in the square was damp with dew, sore, and hungry, though the soldiers did pass around corn bread. But when one Yankee made an announcement later that day, Cora Mae wished she’d left her stomach empty.

  “By order of General Sherman,” he hollered, “commanding officer of the United States Army, you are all under arrest for making cloth and rope for the Confederacy. Aiding the rebels with this wartime manufacturing is treason, making each of you traitors to your rightful government. You will all be deported to Indiana, where you can no longer assist the Rebellion!”