Her cheeks flamed red.
He cleared his throat. “You understand. This war—it won’t last forever. When all this is over with, would it be so bad to have a partner in this world, someone who truly understands you? Dare to imagine a different life than the one you got used to expecting. I know you can.” Dream, Cora Mae.
The train whistle shrieked, and Cora Mae jolted. She started to turn toward the sound, but Ethan caught her against him. “Don’t do it. Let it go without you.”
She didn’t pull away. “Sergeant Howard, I—”
He was losing her. Without thinking, he bent his head to hers, his hands on the back of her neck and the hollow of her waist, and took her lips in the kiss he’d been dreaming of. Her body stiffened then relaxed against his.
Cora Mae should have pushed him away. But heaven help her, she didn’t. For one urgent, fleeting moment, she forgot he was a Yankee and she a Rebel, forgot to blame him for following Sherman’s orders just as her own menfolk had followed Johnston’s. For the span of a few racing heartbeats, Ethan Howard was just a man, and she was just the woman in his arms.
“Mama?”
And then she remembered everything.
Jumping back, she pressed her hands to her cheeks and looked from June to Sergeant Howard.
Shock registered in his eyes. His chest rose and fell with deep breaths. “I’ve missed something. ‘Mama’?”
“Close enough,” piped up June. “She’s gonna marry my step-pa, Mr. Ferguson!”
“You’re engaged?” Sergeant Howard’s tanned complexion flushed scarlet, and she read regret in the fine lines framing his eyes and mouth.
“She’s going to be my mama,” June said. “So I reckon that makes us kin enough already.”
Cora Mae placed her hand over her wildly beating heart, as if to keep it in its cage. She could barely think, let alone speak. Her feet grew roots into the ground, but time marched relentlessly on.
“All aboard!” a conductor called above the humming crowd. Steel-gray locomotive steam rose under wool-gray clouds, the sky having lost all color.
Sergeant Howard cleared his throat. Kneeling, he chucked June’s chin. “Don’t you worry. I’m not about to take her from you. You keep each other safe until you get back to Mr. Ferguson, all right?” Rising, he grasped the hilt of the sword at his hip. “If you can get to Cannelton, Indiana, there’s a cotton mill there. Godspeed.” After quickly tipping his hat, he disappeared in the teeming rail yard.
Cora Mae touched her fingertips to her lips, where his kiss still burned. Wind scented with the coming rain sighed over her as she climbed the ladder into the boxcar, accepted a bag with nine days’ rations in it, and squeezed onto a bench in the steamy, foul-smelling car.
“Did I speak out of turn?” June asked, looking repentant.
Cora Mae gathered her onto her lap. “You were right. I’m engaged to Mr. Ferguson, who we will find just as soon as…” Her voice trailed away. As soon as what? There was no timetable for her return to Roswell, or for his. Still…“You and I belong together. That much I know is true.” She would not abandon June, come what may.
“But what did the sergeant mean about not finding work? You’re a good worker. Mr. Ferguson said so. So am I. Why wouldn’t we get jobs?”
More mill hands loaded into the boxcar. Some of them sat cross-legged on the straw-covered floor. Soon the air became almost too thick to breathe, and this was only one car. The entire train was just as full. There was a second train, too, devoted entirely to mill hands.
“So many,” Cora Mae whispered.
“So many what?”
“So many of us.” Fear trickled through her. “The sergeant was saying there are so many of us, from three different mill towns, he doesn’t see how we’ll all find work in factories once we get across the river.” She scanned the hungry faces around her, her pulse quickening. Once they came to the end of the journey, these girls would no longer be fellow sojourners. They’d be competitors for a decent wage.
The train whistle screamed again, clawing at her ears. Cora Mae’s stomach turned. The locomotive belched sooty black smoke right before the Yankee in her boxcar slid the door closed almost all the way.
“Next stop, Chattanooga,” he said.
“It’s not going to work,” she said under her breath. She couldn’t marry that reckless Yankee, but he was right. She was a fool to think they’d survive the North with nothing but a Yankee general’s order to be exiled from the South.
“Get up,” she said to June, who slipped off her lap. “Stop the train!” She squeezed past gaping girls and to the guard at the door.
“Ain’t no way.” The Yankee laughed at her.
“We’re getting off. General Dodge ordered the chief surgeon to hire some of us as nurses, didn’t he?”
“What of it?”
“I’m going to do it. We’re going to do it.” She wrapped her arm around June’s shoulders.
“Traitors!” a woman cried out from the shadows.
“Yankee-lovin’ cowards!” Another voice, a slap against her ears.
The wheels chugged beneath the floorboards. Through the narrowly open door, she watched the tracks begin to move slowly by.
The guard yawned. “Too late.”
Stooping down, Cora Mae hissed into June’s ear. The girl’s eyes rounded, but she nodded.
“Oh, Billy Yank,” a mill hand called from the corner. “There’s a seat by me if you get tired of standin’.” Her singsong voice was an invitation, and he took it.
As soon as the Yankee was out of reach, Cora Mae threw her weight against the rusty door to shove it farther open. Before the train picked up any more speed, she scrambled to sit at the edge, pulling June to sit beside her. In one breath, Cora Mae told her, “I’ll help you down, be ready.” Skirts bunched in one hand, she jumped to the dusty platform below.
Ignoring the pain in her ankle, she whirled back to the boxcar and hurried alongside it to catch up to June. The little girl leaned forward, and Cora Mae reached under her outstretched arms. “I’ve got you!” she cried and, with a great heave, pulled a screaming June off the train.
Chapter Six
Stumbling under June’s weight, Cora Mae fell back onto bags of feed corn stacked on the platform. Ankle throbbing and heart racing, she kissed the top of June’s copper hair. “Anything broken?”
June stood, waving her hands in the air and walking in place. “Not a thing!” Behind her, hundreds of factory workers who hadn’t fit on the train still milled about the yard.
Hot waves of coal-flavored air blew over Cora Mae as the train rolled by. A gust of wind swirled dirt and dust into her eyes. Blinking furiously, she rose and shook straw from her skirt as an older man approached. Her eyes watered, and she wiped her cheeks with trembling hands.
“Found yourselves on the wrong train, did you?” The twinkle in his blue eyes disarmed her, despite the Union blue of his coat. White whiskers fluffed about his cheeks and jaw like cotton.
“We’ve got no cause to go north, you see.” The damp wind strengthened, whipping her dress about her legs.
“I’m afraid General Sherman says otherwise, my dears.” He bent on one knee and offered his hand to June. “I’m Theodore Littleton, a chaplain.”
“I’m June.” She shook his hand. “A Georgian.”
Chuckling, he rose stiffly and shook Cora Mae’s hand as well.
“Cora Mae Stewart, sir. And we aim to stay. The surgeon still needs nurses, I reckon.”
Chaplain Littleton eyed her. “I haven’t heard anything at all about using mill hands to fill those slots. There are plenty of convalescent nurses doing the job.”
A second train screeched onto the still-warm tracks. They could still be thrown onto this one. “Please, sir.” She raised her voice to be heard over the officers calling for order. “It was General Dodge who said we could. We need to stay here in Georgia.” She craned her neck to see if she could spot Sergeant Howard. Surely he would confirm thi
s. But all she saw beneath the glowering sky were strained faces of women and children and the backs of Yankees she didn’t know. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Chaplain. Please. Don’t put us on that train.”
Chaplain Littleton squinted at her, lips tight in thought. “I’ll take you to the provost marshal.”
Pebbles pressing the soles of Cora Mae’s feet, she and June followed him through the rail yard to the Fletcher House as the first drops of rain splashed her face. Crates of Union army supplies stacked up just outside the double doors of the hotel, smelling of damp leather and wool and gunpowder. Just inside in the high-ceilinged lobby, they waited while Chaplain Littleton, with a slight hitch in his gait, climbed a broad staircase of polished cherrywood. The sweet scent of tobacco puddled in the heavy air.
Rain drummed against many-paned windows, streaming down in braided rivulets. Beneath the ragged hem of her skirt, Cora Mae curled her dusty toes into the plush red carpet, wishing she could hide her bare feet. June’s brown eyes widened as she took in the sconces on the papered walls. Opposite the staircase, Yankees lounged in crimson armchairs between doily-topped tables. Deep voices mingled behind newspapers that rattled open and shut. Two soldiers burst through the front door, rain spilling from the brims of their hats. Scabbards swinging at their lean hips, they trudged up the stairs.
“Think they’re going to meet with Gen’ral Sherman?” June whispered, face paling above her soot-streaked brown dress. “Think they’re planning new devilment for Georgia?”
“Hush, now.” If they were going to stay here, they best not give cause for reprimand.
“I just wondered if Mr. Ferguson might have found that safe place he was talking of.” Her voice quavered. “Or if maybe there’s no safe place left.”
A sigh feathered Cora Mae’s lips. “I wonder, too.”
In the next moment, the chaplain came down the stairs with another man in Yankee uniform. “Miss Stewart, this is the provost marshal.”
“How do you do.” She dropped a curtsy, though it galled her. “This is June. She’s a hard worker. She can carry water or boil it, or whatever the patients need. I want to nurse.”
“So I’ve heard.” He peered over his spectacles at her. “You understand these are Union patients.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I understand you and your town have suffered, from your perspective, under Union hands.”
She held her tongue and gave June a silencing look as well. It would do no good to reveal their feelings now. “Sir, the suffering on both sides need care.”
The provost marshal’s eyes were hard as he stared at her. “We need that in writing. From both of you. You need to sign the oath so we know we can trust your loyalty.” He produced two slips of paper and a pen and motioned for them to follow him to the reception desk.
Thunder rumbled outside. June stood on tiptoe, her hands on the brass handrail encircling the desk. “I get to make my mark, too? I know my first name. Will that do?”
“Fine. But first, raise your right hands. The both of you. You will repeat after me. ‘I do solemnly swear, in the presence of almighty God…that I will henceforth faithfully support and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States….”
Cora Mae’s right hand shook with the weight of the moment. Her pulse quickened as she repeated the words with faltering voice. Outside, the train hissed and shrieked, drowning out the provost marshal, but she did her best to follow along and move her lips after he did. Then it was over. He lowered his right hand, and they did the same.
June took the pen first. The tip of her tongue poked out from between her lips, and her brow furrowed in evident concentration. Then she smiled at the large, uneven letters of her name.
“Now, Miss Stewart, if you please.” He slid a small piece of paper toward her, inked the pen for her, and gave it to her.
She licked her lips as she took it. “I sign this, and I’ll be paid, and given rations, isn’t that right?”
“If you work, you’ll surely be paid.”
She hesitated before slowly, awkwardly writing her name on the blank line. Exhaling, she looked at the rest of the writing all swirled together on the page. Her letters didn’t look anything like those fancy loops and dips.
The provost added his name to the document and waved it in the air to dry the ink.
“What was all that other writing?” she asked.
“The text of the oath you just took,” Chaplain Littleton said.
June grasped the brass railing and leaned back as far as she could go. “I didn’t understand a lick of all that.”
“Stand up straight,” Cora Mae hissed.
“It was the Oath of Allegiance, young lady.” The provost marshal tucked both their papers into a folder. “It means you’re a true and loyal citizen of the Union. You’re not a Confederate anymore.”
June’s chin quivered, and her eyes grew glossy. “What?”
Cora Mae squeezed her shoulder. “It means we can stay and nurse.” But her voice quaked as she said it, and a tear trickled accusingly down her cheek. “We’re still here, still together. That’s what matters.”
July 19, Georgia Railroad Line near Decatur, Georgia
Already roasting inside his wool jacket, Ethan stared into the flames crackling from the wooden cross ties and felt an intimate sympathy for the iron rails laid over the top. He still burned with embarrassment for playing the fool at the Marietta depot with Cora Mae. He shook his head at his own recklessness. She was gone now, God help her, and he had a job to do.
General Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 37 instructed General Garrard’s cavalry units to destroy the Georgia Railroad. The rails were to be heated in the middle then bent or twisted so they couldn’t be used again without being hauled away, melted down again, and reforged, which the Confederacy was in no position to do. With the railroad destroyed, Lee wouldn’t be able to send reinforcements for the battle that would soon come to Atlanta, now that the Confederates’ beloved General Johnston had been replaced by General Hood. The one-legged general was a fighting man, and likely ready to brawl. The fall of Atlanta would mean a huge loss to the South in manufacturing power and transportation, and Hood wouldn’t easily give it up.
Ethan and his fellow cavalrymen started several fires along this stretch of track, at fifteen-minute intervals. Stepping away from the black smoke and the undulating heat, Ethan scanned the open land surrounding them. Picketed away from the bonfires, cavalry horses swished their tails against the flies while they waited for their riders to need them. On one side of the tracks, a sparse thicket of pines screened a frame house and its outbuildings. In the distance, Stone Mountain rose up from the landscape, as bald as Garrard, who remained mounted, trotting up and down the railroad line with a spyglass. If he heard or saw anything that hinted of battle, the cavalrymen would drop their special mission and gallop to reinforce McPherson’s army.
Ambling back to the fires, Ethan counted heads and came up two short. “Where are Riley and Weston?”
Someone pointed, and he followed the direction with his gaze until it landed on two figures sneaking away into the woods toward private property.
“Riley! Weston! Get back here. We need every man!”
“He got us! It’s all over!” Riley shouted. Childishly they feigned being shot and dropped to the ground before popping up again, laughing maniacally. When they were close enough for Ethan to box their ears, he could smell corn liquor on their breath.
“Drunk? In the middle of the day. While on duty.” Ethan’s blood boiled. “I realize your enlistments are almost up, but that’s no excuse for this behavior.”
“A feller gets thirsty, Sergeant.” Weston’s sloppy grin and watery eyes held no respect for authority. As far as Ethan was concerned, the sooner the two men left the unit, the better.
“Rail’s hot!” Dooley called.
General Garrard trotted closer to the fire. “All right, men. Five to each end of the rail.”
“Every other man facing opposite directions. On the count of three. One, two, three!”
With a heave, the ten men lifted the thirty-foot-long, five-hundred-pound rail.
“Walk it!” Garrard called, and the men obeyed.
Dust rose in clay-colored clouds as the men shuffled along the ground and over to a dead pine tree. As soon as the red-hot center of the rail was positioned against the trunk, the men walked their ends toward each other until the rail was bent completely in half.
“Cross the ends!” Garrard shouted.
The dry, dead wood of the pine smoked and flared where the rail looped around it. The iron was already beginning to cool. Sweat spilled between Ethan’s shoulder blades as he strained to push one end of the rail over the top of the other then pull the opposite end back toward him. When the ends of the rail had been pulled as tight as they could, the men dropped it to the ground.
With a brief reprieve to wipe the sweat from their palms and stretch their backs, the men went back for the rail’s twin and repeated the process.
Afterward, Ethan walked over to Reckless while the next bonfire was still heating its rails. He rubbed the horse on his nose then took a swig from his canteen.
“Howard!”
Ethan turned at the sound of Garrard’s voice. “Sir?”
“Get those men in line!” he growled, pointing after Weston and Riley. The two delinquents were running back into the woods. This time, they had their rifles and satchels, which Ethan could only imagine they meant to fill with plunder.
“Yes, sir.” Blood simmering, he grabbed his rifle. It was little wonder so many Southern women were terrified of Yankees. Fools like these two gave them reason.
Pinecones crunched beneath his boots as he followed them through the woods. Sunlight fell in narrow slanting shafts through the trees. “Weston! Riley!” he shouted. “Do not trespass that private property!” He double-timed his march and emerged into a clearing a short distance from the house in time to see them slip inside the front door.
The Message in a Bottle Romance Collection Page 36