The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection

by Joanne Bischof

  Stunned silence. Then a wail rose up from the crowd that made June cover her ears. Cora Mae felt as if she was going to be sick. Indiana? How would she ever get back home now?

  “You’ll be taken by wagon to Marietta and continue your journey from there.”

  If he said anything else after that, Cora Mae didn’t hear it. Dropping to her knees, she clutched June to her and felt the girl’s arms wrap around her neck. “We’ll stick together. We’ll hold on to hope.” But on the inside, she felt herself unraveling.

  Chapter Three

  The wagons didn’t come that day, or for the next three, but more Yankees did. Cora Mae and June and close to four hundred others spent the rest of that week in the town square, shading their heads with aprons and forcing themselves to eat the rations. On Saturday evening, a few army wagons came to carry off some mill hands toward Marietta, but neither Cora Mae nor June were on them.

  That night, a thunderstorm soaked everyone to their bones. By morning, the square was a quagmire of red clay with barely any grass left underfoot, and the damp clothes steamed in the fresh heat of a new day. The limbo was unbearable.

  Then, on Sunday, a Yankee general congratulated his troops with whiskey, and new devilment wormed into the square. Unclaimed rations were quickly guzzled by those who’d already had their fill. Cora Mae shuddered as she watched the demon alcohol do its work. Guards previously content with ogling the mill girls now came in among them, all hands.

  “I can do what I want with you, spoils of war!” One soldier reached for a girl a yard from Cora Mae. The girl stomped on his foot and tried running off, and he stumbled after her.

  Drunken Yankees hooted and hollered as if they were watching a greased pig chase before joining in. Cora Mae hunched her shoulders, trying to be less visible. Cupping June’s shoulders to keep her close, she backed away from the space where the bluecoats mixed with drab and dusty homespun.

  “Oof!” She bumped into something solid and turned to find a bearded soldier with red-veined eyes leering down at her.

  “Well, make it easy on me, Secesh!” His chortle reeked of whiskey. The top buttons of his coat were unfastened, his undershirt plastered to his sweating chest.

  Cora Mae’s heart jumped into her throat. She turned around and pulled June away with her.

  “Well, looky what we have here!” He tramped after June. “Ain’t she a beauty!”

  “Don’t touch her.” Her voice was a growl, her heartbeat a drum against her ribs. In a flash, her hand slipped into her apron pocket and grasped the handle of the trowel that had been there since she’d buried her box by the dam. When the soldier moved closer, she whipped it out and pointed it at his gut.

  “Who do you think you are?” He lunged for her, and she darted from him. June slipped away, out of sight, out of reach.

  “June!” she cried out. “June!” Her head yanked back, her hair pulling at her scalp. Some soldier had gripped the knot of her bound-up hair and clasped her around the middle. His breath was hot in her ear, but the alcohol slurred his words to an unrecognizable mess. The fury of a wildcat flooded her then, and she jammed her elbows into his ribs to push away. “Let me go!” she shouted and heard the same refrain echoing from all over the square. Lord, have mercy!

  Galloping thundered in the distance. More Yankees? She groaned aloud at the thought. But when the cavalry came crashing into the square, they whipped their sharp tones not at the mill hands, but at the drunken soldiers among them. Scabbards and bridles jangled amid the pounding hoofbeats, and in the commotion, she broke away from her pursuer. Wildly, she spun around, calling for June, but she could barely hear her own voice.

  Then she saw the little girl, rising up out of the crowd. A mounted soldier had pulled her up onto his dark bay horse, seating her in front of him.

  The spade dropped from her grip. “June!” Cora Mae screamed, frantically elbowing against panic-stricken girls and intoxicated Yankees. “June! June!” All was confusion as the red-haired soldier began carrying her away. All over the square, mill hands were being swept up on horses.

  “Take my hand.” The baritone voice turned Cora Mae’s head. His speech didn’t have the same edge as the other Yankees. “My name is Sergeant Ethan Howard, Seventy-Second Indiana Mounted Infantry. I’m here to take care of you. Come on.” Green eyes pierced hers. Sun flashed on the gold crossed sabers above the brim of his black forage cap.

  She grabbed his forearm. He gripped under her elbow. Almost before she knew what was happening, she was straddling a dapple gray horse, tucking her skirts around her legs with one hand while she wrapped her other arm around his midsection.

  “Hiyah!” The horse lunged forward, and she flung her other arm around Sergeant Howard, clutching the leather cross belt over his chest to keep from falling off the backside. Through his blue wool uniform, heat radiated from his body and into hers.

  Pulse throbbing against her skull, she looked around. June bounced in the saddle, terror in her eyes. “June!” Cora Mae chanced to let go and wave before clasping her hands above her soldier’s belt buckle once again. “Hang on tight! It’s all right!”

  But it wasn’t. Heading west, every step took her farther from everything she knew. As they rode past the white-columned homes of Roswell’s wealthy families, Cora Mae bristled. Those residents had all gone somewhere safe weeks ago, and they could all come back when they chose to. But when, and how, would she ever get home now?

  On the rust-colored dirt road outside of town, the horses slowed and formed two columns. Close to two hundred of them, by her estimate, carried Roswell girls along with their Yankee riders. The air was thick with dust and hoofbeats. She released her hold on Sergeant Howard and gripped the back of his saddle instead. All around her, bedraggled girls cried or scolded or moaned, while others simply stared blankly. On the other side of the road, riding parallel to her, June slumped in front of her Yankee, the one with shoulder-length, fiery hair.

  Sergeant Howard nodded toward the pair. “Ease your mind about the girl. Lieutenant Dooley’s a good man. He’ll not see harm come to her.”

  She eyed the soldier who had taken June, and he saluted her. Beneath the brim of his hat, his blue eyes sparkled, and boyishly round cheeks flushed almost as bright as his wild hair. His stirrups stretched lower than most to accommodate his tall frame.

  “Where are you taking us?” Cora Mae asked.

  Sergeant Howard coughed then turned his head to the side to speak. “Marietta.” He smelled of coffee and leather and balsam. “Where you should have been taken as soon as the order was given.”

  “The order should not have been given at all.” She braced herself for a speech about her treasonous activity.

  “This is the army. We have to follow orders, even the ones we dislike.” A muscle bunched in his jaw.

  “Even when it hurts women and children?”

  Sergeant Howard faced forward once again. “Even then.”

  She strained to hear him over the din of two hundred distraught mill hands. Dust rose in great clouds from the road, fading the green of the trees, the blue of the sky. “You and Lieutenant Dooley turn around and take us home.” Before and behind her, other girls on horseback echoed Cora Mae, pleading with their captors to be free.

  “You know I can’t do that, Miss—”

  “Stewart. I know you won’t do it. That’s not the same as can’t.”

  He twisted in his saddle to look her in the eyes. “The mills are gone. The Yankees are encamped all over the place, and not all of them as well behaved as yours truly. So tell me, what would you do?”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “We’d see to my sick mother. Instead of a daughter bringing her comfort in her illness, she has an enemy under her roof. The same enemy as killed her husband and son.”

  Ethan trapped a curse for Sherman in his throat. He shook his head, searched for something to say. But with Miss Stewart staring at him, a fire lit behind those hazel eyes, words dropped into his belly like hardtack. H
e knew what it was to care for an ailing parent, to watch a loved one suffocate right before his eyes. He could only imagine what it must feel like for Miss Stewart to be absent when her mother needed her most.

  “As you say, the mills are gone.” Venom flavored her tone. “What harm could we possibly bring you Yankees by staying with our families?”

  Ethan caught Lt. Seamus Dooley’s eye, but the Irishman only shrugged and glanced at the small charge astride his Morgan horse, clearly at a loss, as well. Looking ahead once again, Ethan shifted the reins in his hands. “I’m real sorry about your parents and brother.” He coughed again, the dust in the air irritating the coal dust still in his lungs.

  Swinging his leg over the pommel in front of him so as not to kick Miss Stewart, he dismounted and patted the saddle. “Have a seat.” He looked the opposite direction while she maneuvered herself onto the saddle. “We’ve got sixteen miles to put behind us before we get to Marietta. Just thought I’d give Reckless here a break.” Up and down the mounted infantry columns, other soldiers did the same.

  Lifting her chin, Miss Stewart straightened her spine, though her walnut-brown hair hung in an unkempt braid down her back, and mud caked her dress and apron. Dangling above the stirrups, her bare feet, too, were stained red with the land she might never see again. The ache in her eyes knotted his chest.

  She didn’t deserve this. She was only doing her job for the company that kept her family alive. Fumbling a bit, Ethan drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wet it with water from his canteen.

  “Truce?” He offered it up to her, a soggy white flag, and the mill workers in line ahead of him whipped around to glare at him. One of them cursed at him with as much skill as any soldier he’d met.

  Miss Stewart gasped. “For shame, Cynthia!” She glanced at Ethan with a quick, disapproving shake of her head, surprising him far more than the cussing.

  “Yankee lover!” the girl spat. “I reckon this is a real dream come true for you, Cora Mae. You finally get to leave Roswell.” She turned back around in a huff.

  Miss Stewart reddened beneath Ethan’s curious gaze. After a moment’s hesitation, she took his handkerchief and wiped her face and neck then used the other side to wipe her hands and her arms before laying it over the pommel to dry. “Doesn’t make us friends.”

  “Noted.” He cleared his throat. “Care to explain that very interesting remark? You wanted to leave Roswell?”

  “Not like this.” She motioned to the columns of homespun-clad mill workers and Union soldiers curving around the road ahead in ribbons of brown and blue.

  Ethan let the matter drop. Between sweat-lathered horses, heat from the midafternoon sun undulated in waves off the road. He felt as though he were baking inside his scratchy wool uniform. Unslinging his canteen from over his shoulder, he held it up. “Thirsty?”

  With a whisper of thanks, she drank. After handing it back to him, she cast another glance toward June, who he could only guess was her sister. Cora Mae and June. If their parents had another daughter, Ethan wondered if they’d name her

  April.

  Guilt coated him like a paste of dust and sweat. These were no frivolous planter’s daughters, waited on by slaves. Sunburn bloomed on Miss Stewart’s skin, but other mill hands who’d brought sunbonnets had sickly pale complexions, bearing witness to long hours of indoor work. Before the war, his skin was just as untouched by the sun as theirs, his world just as limited.

  Pine trees scrubbed the sky. A mile passed, maybe two. All around them, shrill complaints jabbed the humid air and lower-pitched voices barked after them, yet Ethan’s mind drifted. “I lost my brothers, too.” He didn’t know why he said it, for he didn’t expect her to care. He and his two brothers had survived a decade of coal mining together and three years of war. At twenty-five years old now, Ethan went from being the oldest brother to the only one left.

  Reins in his right hand, he rubbed the heel of his left over his stinging eyes. “I’m not saying I know how you feel.” He hazarded a glance at Miss Stewart.

  She nodded. “Your loss is still loss.” She could have praised the Rebels that killed his brothers. Yet she didn’t.

  Reckless slowed his pace. Across the road, Dooley took notice and matched Toledo’s gait to keep June near Miss Stewart. The horses had reason to be worn out, and as they were in no hurry to get back to Marietta, Ethan let other mounted infantrymen and their charges pass ahead of them. When Reckless began limping, however, he halted completely.

  “What’s wrong?” Miss Stewart asked.

  “We’ll see. But come on down first.” He reached up for her.

  Careful to keep her hoopless skirts tucked modestly around her legs, she leaned down and let him help her to the ground.

  “Mind holding the reins?” Ethan handed them to her then laid his buckskin gloves across the saddle. Facing the rear, he slid his hand down Reckless’s front leg, pinching the back tendon. “Pick up your hoof.” Reckless bent his knee. His shoe was clogged with mud that had dried into rock-hard dirt. One hand cradling the hoof, Ethan drew his jackknife from his pocket, opened it, and picked out the mud from beneath the shoe. A loose nail would need to be fixed at Marietta. When he came to a rock wedged near the frog, he knew he’d found the source of the horse’s limping. He dislodged it and let Reckless place his hoof back down.

  “Dooley,” he called over Reckless’s back. “Check Toledo’s shoes, just in case.”

  “Aye,” Dooley grunted. “Already doing it.”

  For good measure, Ethan cleaned the rest of Reckless’s hooves and shoes. “That should do it.” He patted the horse’s powerful haunch and put his gloves back on, and then he took the reins from Miss Stewart.

  She scanned the road. “We’re at the rear of the line.”

  “So we are. But we’ll catch up. Reckless is in good shape now.” He offered his hand to help her back up into the saddle.

  She didn’t take it. Instead, she walked around the front of Reckless, over to June, and took her hand. “If you won’t take us home, just let us go. No one will notice.”

  Ethan tossed his reins to Dooley, who stood between the two horses. In three strides, he stood before Miss Stewart and her sister. “I can’t let you go.”

  The two mill workers backed away from him, putting distance between themselves and the horses. “What does it matter to you?” Miss Stewart asked.

  He approached as he would a skittish horse, calm, but firm, searching for words likely to persuade. This entire matter left a rotten taste in his mouth, but it was out of his hands completely. “I told you. Orders are orders.” Elegant speech, Howard, he chided himself.

  “My mother needs me!” Wind ruffled Miss Stewart’s skirt about her legs and her hair around her face. She backed farther down the road, one slow step at a time, with wide-eyed June at her side. She had to know that if they ran, he’d catch them both.

  “Come on!” June yanked on Miss Stewart’s hand, pulling her off balance. In trying to catch herself, the woman’s bare foot came down hard on the side of a wagon wheel rut, twisting that ankle. Sucking in a breath, she winced and hopped on the other foot.

  “I’m sorry!” June covered her mouth. “Oh no, I didn’t mean to!”

  Miss Stewart paled. “I know you didn’t.” She tried some weight on it, muffled a groan, and stood on one leg.

  “Well. That’s that, then.” Ethan slipped one arm around her willow-reed waist and the other beneath her knees and scooped her up. “It doesn’t seem quite right, does it, for all these horses to have four shoes each, when you mill hands have none.”

  June pointed at Reckless’s legs. “He even has four white socks!”

  “Aye, so he does, lassie.” Chuckling, Dooley swept her back up into his saddle then rubbed the white strip on Toledo’s nose.

  Ethan helped Miss Stewart mount Reckless once again, confident the Thoroughbred-Arab mix would not tire from her thistledown weight. With long strides, he led Reckless to close the gap between them and t
he rest of the cavalry.

  Dooley traveled next to him with Toledo and June.

  Shuttering the sunlight, the pines spiced the air with their sap. The journey that should have taken four hours stretched into five, and they still weren’t in sight of Marietta.

  As shadows lengthened, Ethan glanced up to find Miss Stewart dozing, listing to one side in the saddle. He considered waking her before she fell then stopped himself. She’d been sleeping on the ground for four nights, and there’d be no feather bed awaiting her in Marietta. If she could sleep sitting up, she should.

  With an apology to Reckless for the extra weight, Ethan stepped into the stirrup and mounted the horse, reins still in hand. Sitting behind the saddle, he reached around Miss Stewart, guarding her from toppling over the side. She swayed then nestled back against him. Unbidden, a protective instinct flared within his chest.

  Chapter Four

  Marietta, Georgia

  July 10, 1864

  With a start, Cora Mae awoke to find herself braced between Sergeant Howard’s arms. Embarrassed, she sat bolt upright, and he dismounted to walk alongside her. A few yards from her, Dooley walked Toledo, with June quietly in the saddle.

  They passed through Yankee guards to enter Marietta. It didn’t suit. She’d heard this was a charming resort town, with natural springs and fancy hotels. The homes along the road they traveled had Greek-style pillars on breezy porches, or gingerbread trim and picket fences. She could easily imagine Southern belles who lived there, dressed in frothy dresses over wide hoops to dance with cadets from the nearby Georgia Military Institute.

  But as the street broadened, and they approached the center of town, all she saw and heard was Yankees. Sidewalks crowded with crates of ammunition, hardtack, and blue uniforms. The smell of manure and sweat-soaked wool overpowered her. Soldiers and horses tramped through the street, some of them pausing in the shade of maple and oak trees to stare at the Roswell girls now among them.