The Whistle Walk: A Civil War Novel (Ironwood Plantation Family Saga Book 1)

by Stephenia H. McGee

  Lydia wanted to deny it if only to calm Ruth’s fears, but she knew too much truth hung on the words.

  Oh, Charles. We need you.

  Lydia listened at the door, waiting to see if any of the men followed. Heavy footsteps in the hall. Near the door.

  Both women sucked in a breath and tensed. The footfalls came closer. Lydia glanced at Ruth. Would he knock?

  Silence.

  The footsteps retreated.

  “I’m going to get Betsy,” Lydia whispered.

  “What? No. She’ll be along soon. She always stays late in the kitchen.”

  “This isn’t the time for her to worry about having everything clean for the morning. I fear what may happen tonight. I want her in here with us.”

  Ruth pressed her lips together. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll go.”

  “No. They will hesitate to do anything to the married white woman whose house they occupy.” She stared into Ruth’s eyes. “But they won’t with you.”

  Ruth bristled.

  Lydia gave her arm a reassuring squeeze and slipped the bolts free. The hallway stood empty. “Keep everything locked. I’ll be right back,” she whispered.

  “Hurry.”

  Lydia slipped out into the hall on silent slippers, feeling like a criminal in her own house. The shadows in every corner took on an ominous feel. Where before there had been only peace and warmth, there now lurked danger and fear. She would forever blame the Yankees for destroying the sanctity of her home.

  Lydia slipped out onto the back porch and into the darkness unseen, turning to pull the door softly closed behind her. She turned to find a dark figure on the porch.

  She barely contained the scream that tried to rip from her throat.

  The figure stepped closer. “Mrs. Harper?”

  Betsy.

  Lydia gulped in air and grabbed the woman’s arm. “You nearly scared me to death creeping up on me like that.”

  “I ain’t creepin’.”

  “Never mind. Let’s go.”

  Lydia led Betsy through the dark house. Voices came from the dining room. She couldn’t be sure how many of them were still in there, but she didn’t want to come across any of the soldiers in the dark. With any luck, the rest would be upstairs.

  She tapped softly on the bedroom door.

  “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me, Ruth. Let us in,” Lydia whispered to the wood.

  Metal scraped on metal as she disengaged the locks and pulled the door open. Lydia slipped inside with Betsy on her heels. Ruth secured the door and turned to face them.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Betsy swung her gaze between Lydia and Ruth, wrinkles gathering in the center of her brow.

  “Them men’s done drank too much of Mr. Harper’s good wine and done forgot they sense.” Ruth stood rigid, her fists clenched at her sides.

  She’d been right. They were living in a bundle of tinder waiting for a spark. “Let’s get some rest. You girls head up to bed,” Lydia said.

  They exchanged glances but didn’t say another word. Ruth lit a single candle sitting on the bedside table and opened the narrow door in the rear corner that led to the small upstairs room that had been built to be a nursery. Lydia tried not to let the thought it would never hear infant cries undo her.

  They looked at her with worried eyes. Lydia forced a calm smile onto her lips. “Good night, girls.”

  The women ascended the narrow staircase, the last of the tiny light following them until only the faint glow of her single lantern remained. Ruth left the door open. Lydia briefly considered closing it, then decided against it.

  She removed her gown, hoops, and petticoat, leaving on everything else. If she needed to dress in a hurry, she’d be ready.

  Lydia sat on the bed and pulled her hair free of its pins, letting it fall in waves down her back. She shivered. The fire in the hearth already glowed low. It wouldn’t keep the chill out much longer.

  She pulled open the small drawer in the bedside table, removing an object she’d discovered upstairs in Charles’s study only that morning before hiding it away here. The pistol felt heavy in her hands, its cold steel hard. She turned it over and studied the mechanisms.

  A small vile of powder remained in the drawer along with five caps she’d found with the gun. She pointed the long barrel at the door.

  All she would have to do was pull the hammer back with her thumb. Then the trigger. One shot. It would have to be enough.

  She lowered the weapon, glad for the comfort it brought. She would defend them. Lydia slipped the cold steel under her pillow and pulled her knees to her chest.

  Sleep finally came in snatches, carrying with it dreams of creeping shadows and haunting laughter.

  October 15, 1862

  Thunder rumbled, rolling through the house and pulling Lydia from her dreams. She tossed in the bed and pulled the covers tighter around her to ward off the chill. Another boom.

  Lydia shot up in bed. Not thunder.

  She leapt from the mattress, the covers binding her feet and nearly causing her to fall on the floor. She yanked her foot free and threw on her gown, not bothering to put on her hoop or petticoats underneath it. She fumbled with the buttons behind her back, only getting half of them fastened.

  Another crash. The walls rattled. Forget the cursed buttons.

  She grabbed her slippers, pulling one on as she hopped across the floor. No time to fight with the buttons on her boots. “Ruth!”

  Betsy stumbled through the staircase door and into the room. “What’s happenin’?” she screeched.

  Gunshots. Too close to the house.

  “They’re fighting!”

  Ruth crashed into the room, her hair sticking up in all directions. Lydia flung open the curtains, but the slight tinge of pink in the pre-dawn sky did not illuminate the grounds enough to give her any clue as to what had happened in the yard.

  She pushed past the two women, not registering anything they said, and fumbled with the bolts on the door. Finally they came free, and she threw open the door. Cannon fire. The sound rattled the walls and reverberated in her ears.

  She flung open the front door. The shouts of men and screams of pain flooded over her. Where were the soldiers? A whistling sound proceeded a shadow that hurled across the yard, collided with the magnolia tree, and severed its trunk.

  Lydia gasped. Hands grabbed her shoulders and flung her backward. “Get out of my way!”

  Captain Thomas pushed past her and out onto the front steps, shouting curses to the sky. Lydia slammed the front door and secured the lock. Then she ran down the hall to the rear of the house before she could stop to consider the consequences of her actions.

  The back door stood wide open. How many of the Federals had run out? Cracks of bright light exploded in the space beyond the door. She should close it, barricade herself inside. But she could not control her urge to see what evil frolicked in her garden.

  The sight that greeted her on the rear porch filled her chest with raw fear. Men lay bleeding and screaming with their arms outstretched. Shouts carried on the wind like wounded birds, their calls meaningless. Grays and Blues swarmed together like angry hornets across the trampled mess that had been her roses.

  Gunshots cracked through the air, splintering the morning and bathing it in flashes of unnatural death. Lydia put a hand to her mouth, unable to tear her eyes from the horror unfolding before her. Surreal, as if a troop of actors had decided to surprise her with a private show. A man screamed, blood erupting from a hole that exploded in the front of his gray jacket. His mouth gaped open, and he fell to his knees and then, face first, into the dirt. Others stepped over him as if he were nothing more than a fallen log.

  Lydia’s blood ran cold. One step. Then two, three. Before she could stop herself, she’d left the cover of the porch and stepped into the nightmare. Screams from all directions. Some in agony, others in rage. Somewhere behind her, someone called her name. It floated to her ears like a storm-blown butterf
ly, muffled and shattered by the chaos around her.

  Something grabbed at her skirt. A man lay on the ground, his bloody hands smearing red streaks down the ruffles of her dress. He looked up at her with desperate eyes clouded with pain.

  “Margret! Oh, my Margret!”

  She shook her head, words lodged in her throat. He pulled at her, and she dropped to her knees beside him.

  “Hush now. You need a doctor.” Lydia scanned the area around her. Men ran for cover. Some were hiding behind the barn, muzzles of rifles poking around the corner and spitting fire. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she had to move. She could not stay out in the open. The man grabbed her hand.

  “Oh, Margret.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “I thought I’d never see you again. I needed to see you again….” His words dissolved into coughing, and he pulled at her, his frantic eyes lost to the vision only he saw.

  “Doctor!” Lydia screamed. “We need a doctor!”

  No one stopped. No one turned to her cries. The metallic smell of blood burned in her nostrils, and only then did she notice it seeped from the corner of the young man’s mouth. Her heart clenched. This boy couldn’t be more than sixteen years. His ashy blond hair hung across a smooth forehead that had yet to bear the wrinkles one earned from years of worry. She reached down and brushed it away from his face, ignoring the blood that smeared with it.

  “I’m so sorry, Margret. Please tell me you forgive me.” His eyes pleaded with her.

  Lydia placed her hand on his cheek. “Hush now. Of course I do. I forgive you. Don’t you worry now.”

  Relief flooded his face, and he dropped down flat on his back. Lydia knelt there beside him while the chaos raged around them.

  “Thank you, Margret. You were always… my girl.” He turned his head aside and coughed up blood. Tears filled Lydia’s eyes. “Always…my girl. I’m sorry I won’t be able to get you that little farmhouse like I promised.” He choked on the last word as blood bubbled up and garbled his words.

  Tears slipped down Lydia’s cheeks. She placed her hand on his chest and felt his labored breathing.

  “Miss Lydia!”

  She could hear Ruth’s screams, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away from this boy. His gaze was locked on her. “I love you, Margret.” He heaved a wretched cough. The tears clouded her eyes until she could no longer see the blurred face in front of her. His body shuddered beneath her hand and then lay still.

  Hands grasped her shoulders and pulled her to her feet. “Get up! You got to get up!”

  A cannon blast shook the ground and sent her ears ringing. Ruth yelled next to her, but she sounded more like she was underwater somewhere off in the distance. “Let’s go.”

  She spun Lydia around to face her, the whites of her eyes impossibly large in her caramel-colored face. Black smudges of soot darkened her cheeks and forehead. Why on earth had she smeared herself with soot?

  Ruth shook her. “Lydia! Gets a hold of yourself!”

  Lydia blinked rapidly and stared at Ruth. “What are you doing?”

  “We got to get into the house! Bar the doors!”

  “Why?”

  Ruth shook her again. “Look around you! Death’s done come for Ironwood.”

  Clarity hit her like a slap to the face. Battle. Here, on her land. She looked back at the scene around her. Bullets flew through the air, whistling their song of death. Cannon blasts from somewhere out in the fields tore the land asunder.

  She looked to the barn. Several men had positioned themselves behind it, shooting across the garden to those gathering by the kitchen. She didn’t take time to consider which men belonged to which side. It did not matter.

  She surveyed the scene with clear eyes. There. Dark faces huddled by the potato shed. More, looking through the window of the kitchen. She sprinted to the top step of the porch, hiking her skirts near to her knees to avoid the cumbersome fabric.

  “People of Ironwood!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. Would they hear her above the roar of rage around them? She waved her arms over her head.

  Ruth tugged on her arm. “We got to get you inside!”

  Smoke thickened the air, the sun finally making its slow appearance above the trees and casting hazy light onto the ruins of her garden. The people did not move from their spots. They did not hear her.

  “Lydia!” Ruth pulled on her again, and she snatched her arm free.

  “No!”

  Lydia darted down the steps her, skirts in her hand. She ducked her head low and ran for the kitchen, knowing it would be a miracle to reach it without a bullet lodged in her flesh. How she’d made it in the open so far she did not know. The hand of the Almighty must have been shielding her. She’d have to remember to thank Him.

  Her feet slipped on loose rocks, and she nearly tripped over a bloodied arm detached from its owner. Her stomach convulsed, but she did not allow it the luxury of emptying its contents. She flung open the kitchen door to find several people huddled on the floor.

  “Come with me. We must get to the house.”

  A woman with a wailing infant in her arms sobbed. “We won’t make it!”

  “Get up! All of you!” she screamed at them, grabbing the nearest child by his arm and hauling him to his feet. “We have to get to the house!”

  The woman with the baby stumbled to her feet. She looked weak, the infant in her arms too small. She was too soon after childbirth to be huddling here. A bullet blast through the wall and lodged in the center of Betsy’s chopping table. The people screamed and scrambled to their feet.

  Lydia pointed to the house. “Run! Keep your heads down and run to the house. Ruth will take you inside!” They scrambled past her with hunched shoulders. They plunged into a sea of madness, scurrying for their only hope of survival past the rain of bullets. Lydia watched several of them make it to the porch and Ruth usher them inside. Only the woman with the baby remained.

  She clutched the wailing child to her chest. “I ain’t gonna make it!”

  “Yes, you are!”

  Lydia pulled the child from her and tucked him in her arm, careful to cradle his head in the crook of her shoulder. She wrapped her other arm around the woman, ducked her head, and half-ran, half-dragged the struggling mother with her to the porch. Only when they reached the safety of the steps did she realize the buzzing of bullets had ceased.

  Lydia pressed the child back into his mother’s arms and gently nudged her into the house. Ruth looked at her with wild eyes.

  “Get all the people into the upstairs hallway. Sit them down and keep them away from any windows. They should be safe up there. Keep the doors locked and have some of the men barricade the front door. I’m going for the others.”

  Ruth pointed across the yard. Men in uniform scrambled to reload, a mighty gust of wind sending their powder flying free of their weapons before they could get them properly loaded. Lydia locked eyes with Tommy and gestured him to hurry across the yard. A line of people dashed out from the barn, leaping over fallen soldiers and dead shrubbery, diving into the house on frightened legs and with heaving lungs.

  Lydia pushed them all inside and bolted the door behind her. “Get them upstairs.”

  “All y’all come with me!” Ruth rounded up the fifteen or so frightened people and herded them up the staircase.

  Lydia turned to Tommy. “We need to get these doors barricaded.”

  He gave a grunt, and they each fetched a chair from the dining room. Lydia wedged one under the front door latch and motioned for Tommy to do the same at the rear door. There. That should keep them out for—

  A loud crash and the sickening sound of shattering glass dashed her hopes. Lydia ran for the parlor. Shards of glass littered her green dogwood rug and glistened in the morning light like tiny diamonds. Did nature not know this was a day of death? The cheery sunlight and mild warmth were out of place with the screams from the pit of Hades.

  A boot crashed through the broken window, crunching the diamonds under
its black soles. Above the boot, blue pants, and then a bloodied Union jacket. Her eyes drifted up farther, panic rising in her chest and stifling her intake of air.

  Blood dripped down Captain Thomas’s forehead from a nasty gash at his hairline. It snaked its way down and to the side of his nose. He wiped his sleeve across his lips, painting his mouth a gruesome red.

  “Thought to lock me out, did you?” He snarled.

  She took a step backward. “We are only trying to stay safe, we—”

  “Enough!” he bellowed. She fell silent. One small step backward. Another.

  “I’ve had enough of your trickery. Tell me, did you send word for the Rebels to come here?”

  “What?” He thought she had sent for them? How could she have done that? And why would she have brought this bloodshed to Ironwood? “I did not! I have been here with you the entire time.”

  He sneered at her. “You could have sent one of your slaves to send a message. Is that it?”

  She took another step backward, feeling behind her for the wall. If she could get out the door, she might have a chance to make it into the bedroom and lock the door. “I swear! I had nothing to do with it. I wanted to keep battle away from Ironwood. Not bring it here.”

  He crossed the room in three strides and reached her before she could turn and flee. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her up against the wall, pinning her with enough force to make her cry out.

  “I don’t believe you. You’re a cocky one. Got a little too much mouth on you.”

  She turned her face away from him. “Let me be. I wish only to protect my home.”

  His chuckle held no mirth. “And now you have brought its downfall. You thought you could bring those Rebels before dawn and slaughter my men while they slept.”

  “I swear. I did not. I had nothing to do with it.”

  He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. “I will burn this place to the ground.”

  Her eyes grew round.

  His gazed dropped to her mouth. She clamped it shut, her rapid breath coming hard through her nostrils.