Widow of Gettysburg

by Jocelyn Green

  “Now hear me.” His eyes shimmered with his own defense. “I am a Confederate surgeon, and my obligation is to Confederate wounded. There are dozens of patients here whose wounds are not healing properly, upon whom I may need to amputate further. After I’m satisfied that I have cared for all my own patients to the best of my ability, then, and only then, will I look after the enemy.”

  “If he’s wounded, if he’s on the brink of death, he can’t fight anymore, so he’s no longer the enemy, is he? He’s a patient. And you’re a doctor.” She looked at Dr. Stephens expectantly but he did not move.

  “Fine.” Liberty twisted her loose curls back up under her pins, then wiped her hands on her thread-bare apron. “I’ll look after him myself.”

  “Be advised, you’ll have very little to work with. Our supplies are all but gone.”

  “The captured Union supplies, you mean. The ones intended for the care and relief of Union wounded. The ones we used on fifteen hundred Rebels. Those supplies?”

  “Careful, Miss Holloway.” Dr. Stephens’ eyes were red, his cheeks hollow. “We’ve been over this before.”

  Words netted in her chest, fluttered madly, as if to escape. Until, “What is left for my Northern boy?”

  Dr. Stephens extended a hand into the downpour just beyond the shelter of the porch, letting it stream through his fingers and slide down his arm, soaking his filthy, rolled-up sleeve. “Water.”

  “No brandy?”

  “Water.”

  “What of opium?”

  “It’s not for him.”

  “Laudanum? Morphia?”

  “No.”

  “Bandages and lint!”

  “No!”

  Liberty snapped her attention to Bella. “You will please go into my bedroom and strip the sheets into bandages, and I don’t care what Amelia says. Then take a razor to my flannel wrapper and scrape all the lint you can. If it isn’t much, which I fear may be the case, please cut small squares of cotton from my dresses, and we’ll use them as pads. Please bring a supply to the barn as quickly as you can.”

  “Yes, Miss Liberty.” Bella ducked back into the house.

  Still brimming with frustration, Liberty plunged down the steps, mud sucking at her ankles, rain-wrapped wind licking her skin, determined to save the one Union soldier on her farm.

  The barn creaked in the wind while rain sprayed through the open doorway like shrapnel. Pale grey light and streams of water trickled through weathered planks. Sodden skirts tangling around her legs, Liberty threaded her way through the greybacks until she found a soldier in blue.

  There.

  With both compassion and dread swelling in her chest, she hastened to his side, sloshing water over the sides of her pails as she did so. She had brought one for washing, and one for drinking. His face was layered in mud, shadowed by stubble. Kneeling, she slid her calloused palm into his. It radiated with fever. Libbie breathed a silent prayer of thanks that he was still alive.

  “Hello, soldier.” She kept her voice low, relieved that her gag reflex had worn out by now. From the smell and looks of his body, he had been injured and left in the field more than a day ago. His Union jacket was encrusted with blood on the midsection, but the fabric of the uniform remained whole. Someone else’s blood?

  She edged a little closer to his face. Turning up her skirt at the hem, Liberty ripped off another strip of her tattered petticoat. She wet it, then wiped his burning forehead with slow, gentle strokes. His eyes fluttered open for a moment, then closed again.

  Green eyes. The color of moss.

  She inhaled, sharply, as shock rippled through her. “Johnny? Jonathan?”

  His eyes became green slits, and his lips twitched in a failed attempt to smile. “I know, I know.” His voice was hoarse. “I don’t look like a Rebel.”

  She swallowed the tears gathering thickly in her throat. “It doesn’t matter what you look like.”

  “I was hoping I’d see you again.” He paused for breath, taking shallow sips of air. “Just not like this.”

  “Please, say no more. Will you drink?” She cradled his head on her lap, then brought a dipper of water to his lips. Some escaped his mouth, trickled into his beard. She hazarded a glance at his leg once more. “We’ll fix you up in no time.”

  He gave her a crooked smile, obviously reading the truth on her face. Fixing meant cutting. He was going to lose his leg. Without anesthesia. “I know.”

  Liberty tipped more water into his mouth before laying him back down to rest. What she wouldn’t give for fresh straw to cushion his broken body right now.

  The doorway darkened, and Liberty looked up to see Bella and Amelia blowing in, with Major between them. When the dog spotted Liberty, he picked his way to her and then wedged himself beside Johnny, putting his wet head on his chest. Johnny didn’t respond.

  “Here.” Bella held a tray of freshly rolled bandages, wads of lint, and calico pads. But they both knew what was really needed was not on the tray. They needed Dr. Stephens to amputate.

  “Oof! What is that awful smell, I knew I was right to hide away in my room all this time.” Amelia pinched her nose as if the stench of the field hospital had not pervaded the entire property.

  Liberty glared at the woman. “My room. You’re still a guest, Amelia, and you are free to leave at any time.” In fact, Liberty had half a mind to show her the door right now. “Just what is it that has brought you out in the rain?”

  Amelia looked down her nose. “I’ve been waiting all day to give you your birthday present. But as you seem to have no intention whatever of coming in until after I retire, I have come to you.”

  “Surely not a cake.” Liberty stood, her mouth nearly watering over the word. She would have been happy with more desiccated vegetables, in fact. Anything for the aching void in her middle, and for something to feed the men.

  Amelia pressed something cool and smooth into Liberty’s hand, while Bella watched silently. It was a brooch about half the size of her palm. The small design within the seed pearl-edged border was of a weeping willow over a tombstone.

  “It’s Levi’s hair!” Amelia announced.

  A few yards distant, a cheeky one-armed soldier named Fitz shouted, “Where? Where’s his hair? Why don’t Levi have his own hair?”

  But Liberty was not laughing. “You didn’t.”

  “No, I don’t do hair work myself. Far too tedious and intricate for my fingers. I sent two locks of his hair out to be done through a mail order catalog. I had one made for you, and a matching one for me.” Her bosom swelled with pride, and Libbie spotted the hair brooch pinned to her dress.

  Liberty dropped the brooch into her apron pocket and forced a smile. “Thank you.”

  “Will you not wear it?”

  “No.” Liberty cocked her head. “But you’ve brought up quite an excellent point, Amelia.”

  “Oh?” She smiled, blinking rainwater out of her eyes.

  “Indeed. Levi’s things. There is a box of his clothing under the bed in my room, doing nothing useful at all. Bella, would you please bring down one of his shirts? This soldier desperately needs a change of clothing.”

  Southern voices piped up all over the barn—“I want one! I’m dirty too! Change me!”

  Amelia’s jaw dropped. “You would scatter your late husband’s garments amongst the enemy?”

  Liberty shook her head. “No, I’m not quite ready for that. But a neglected Union man about to undergo amputation? Yes. I will.” To Bella, she added, “Please bring the quilt off my bed, as well.”

  “Absolutely indecent.” The older woman huffed. “Do you dare believe that playing dress-up by putting Levi’s clothes on this man makes him worthy of your attention?”

  No. He already is. “You may as well get used to the fact that I won’t be confined by my losses. It’s time to rise above them, and go forth.” Liberty caught Bella’s smiling eyes and nodded.

  “You heard the lady,” Bella said to Amelia. “Go forth.” She moti
oned toward the open door. Liberty stifled her laughter as Bella shooed Amelia out of the barn like a clucking hen, and into the rain once more.

  The swirling sky darkening, Liberty knelt once more by Johnny’s side. With circular motions, she tenderly wiped the grime and sweat from his face and neck, and the furrows in his brow relaxed.

  “I must tell you something …” He trailed away, and her pulse throbbed.

  “It will keep. Save your breath, just rest for now.” She dipped her rag in the washing pail, then took his hand in her lap and wiped the dirt and blood from between his fingers. She wondered if he had fallen asleep until, when his hand was clean, he closed it over hers, squeezed, and whispered, “Happy birthday.”

  She smiled, even as her heart cracked open.

  When Bella returned with the quilt and blue denim pullover shirt, Liberty insisted Bella be the one to help Johnny into it, if need be. Liberty had grown accustomed to washing strange men during the past four days. But Johnny was no stranger, and washing his face and hands had felt intimate enough. She turned her back and let Bella take over.

  “There’s something in here.” Bella joined her just inside the doorway to the barn and opened the dirty Union jacket. Pinned to the inside was a foolscap page, folded into thirds. “A letter.” She unpinned it and gave it to Liberty, her face knotted in confusion.

  It was addressed to Liberty, who froze as soon as she read her name.

  “Miss Liberty, I know this is none of my never mind, but if you would you care to explain to me why your name is on that letter, I would be more than happy to hear it.”

  A nod, barely perceptible. Who else could she tell but Bella, anyway?

  Bella tossed a glance back at Johnny and the rest of the patients. “Come, your work here is done for now.”

  Back through the rain, they returned to the porch. Amelia was holed up in the bedroom, and this was not a story Liberty wanted to share in her presence.

  She needed no prompting. Bella’s eyes bore into Liberty’s as the story gushed out of her, beginning with the first letter Jonathan Welch had written her after Levi’s death. They continued writing sporadically, but when he mentioned wanting to meet her, she had ignored the idea. Eventually, she stopped responding to his letters altogether, afraid of trespassing on Levi’s memory and honor. “Then he came.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The stranger that came that morning when you and the horses hid—it was Jonathan. But he didn’t tell me it was him.”

  She then told Bella the rest of the story—his prophetic words before the battle, his intervention during the raid, his filling the “vacant chair” Amelia had intended for Levi.

  “And now he’s filling Levi’s clothes.” Bella raised her eyebrows, and rain splattered the silence between them. “Well, aren’t you going to read the letter?”

  “I can’t make it out in this light,” Liberty hedged.

  Bella pulled a match and candle from her apron pocket and lit it. Carefully, Liberty opened the letter and scanned the slanted grey script until she came to his signature: “Please say yes. Jonathan.” The words blinked at her in the flicker of candlelight as if begging for response. She pressed it against the staccato beat of her heart and looked at Bella.

  “He said … he—that is, if he lives beyond the battle, he—wants to marry me.”

  Bella sucked in her breath, reminding Liberty to take one. Johnny’s face surged before her then, as he had appeared the first time she saw him. Handsome, insistent, and slightly mysterious—but she knew the secret now. To think, I took him for the enemy at first!

  “Will you?” Bella faced her squarely. “Will you take a husband?”

  Liberty cleared the shock from her voice. “He said if he survives the battle. We don’t know what that verdict is quite yet. I’m sure you saw his leg.”

  “A man can live with one leg. Will you marry him if he survives? He will want to know.”

  “No. It’s you who wants to know.” Liberty laughed nervously.

  “I’m serious. You must decide.”

  “How can I marry him? We’ve only met on a few occasions!”

  “But you’ve known him for two years.”

  Liberty sighed, exasperated. “Well, I’d hardly call it a courtship. I can’t possibly love him yet. Such a hasty proposal!” Her cheeks warmed at the thought of the letter. The thought of him.

  “Love is only one reason to marry.” Bella held Liberty’s gaze. “Security is another. Marriage can be and should be a safe place, protection, provision. Life is hard for an unmarried woman.”

  “Life is going to be hard for Johnny. He’ll lose his leg tomorrow, if nothing else.”

  “I’m not talking just about him, although if you were to marry him, I’m sure he’d find a way to provide for and protect you. I’m saying if you aim to marry, you ought not wait for cupid’s arrow if a reasonable opportunity presents itself.” She took a breath. “I don’t know how you’ll recover from this alone.”

  Liberty wiped her forehead with the ragged hem of her sleeve, hoping to hide the tears pooling in her eyes. Recovery would be a long road for everyone.

  “Forgive me. I do run on.” Bella twisted her fingers in her apron.

  “Yes, you do.” Liberty’s lips curved up. “Then may I ask—don’t you love Abraham?”

  “I love him plenty. Now.” A smile softened Bella’s face. “Real life love isn’t like the romance love in your novels. Love can grow out of companionship as well as it can from—well, anything else. Love is a commitment, and Abraham and I committed to each other when we married. The warm feelings followed. But at the time, I was more interested in the practicality of the arrangement.”

  Libbie tilted her head and studied the woman before her. There was so much about Bella she didn’t know. But, “Dr. Stephens said amputees can often die of secondary hemorrhage. What if he dies right after I marry him, and I become a widow all over again?” She pressed her fingers to her throbbing temples. “Am I doomed to be the Widow of Gettysburg forever?”

  “He isn’t dead. We don’t know the number of days appointed for any of us. You could marry any man in Pennsylvania, and the Lord might take him up the next day. Carriage accident. The fever. Could be anything, not just war. You can’t refuse to marry again just because the man might die. Didn’t I just hear you say to Amelia that you weren’t confined by your losses anymore? That it’s time to rise above them and go forth?”

  “Yes.”

  “So go forth. I’m not saying you have to marry him, I’m just saying it would be folly to let your past dictate the rest of your life. Forgive me for speaking so freely. But you make the decision. No one else—living or dead—gets to do that for you.”

  Liberty’s thoughts churned as laboriously as wagon wheels through the mud. Her muscles ached beneath her sodden dress as she folded the letter and tucked it into her pocket. She would make her decision.

  But not tonight.

  Holloway Farm

  Sunday, July 5, 1863

  Though dawn had lifted night’s curtain, a grey veil of rain still hid the risen sun. Liberty’s hands quavered slightly with the buttons and ties on her tired-looking dress. After four days without food, she could not control the tremors.

  A knock sounded on her bedroom door. “Liberty! Liberty!”

  She opened it with a frown, her hair still in a braid down her back. “You may call me Miss Holloway, Isaac.” It was high time he realized he had curried no favors with her.

  “It’s Dr. Stephens. Something’s wrong with Dr. Stephens.” His lisp contorted his message, but Liberty dashed out after him just the same.

  “If this is a trick to get me alone with you, Isaac, I will knock out your other teeth.”

  “No. No trick. Just see.” His charm vanished, raw fear gaped open in its place. Liberty’s heart thundered as they approached the doctor, convulsing in the corner of the great hall. “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know!”

&nbs
p; “Tell me something, Isaac. Anything. When did you find him like this?”

  “Just now. He was saying all kinds of crazy stuff all night long. I bet he didn’t sleep more than an hour, which meant I didn’t sleep more than an hour. About half an hour ago, he started hallucinating.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He was hugging the air, talking out loud some nonsense like, ‘Oh my boy, my boy, you’ve come back to me.’ Then he started mumbling about a leg, and apologizing, and crying all over himself like some milksop.”

  Chills rippled over Liberty’s skin. “Then what happened?”

  “I couldn’t stand to see him weeping like that, and he didn’t answer me when I asked what the blazes was going on. So I left. Went outside to use the trench—which is full of water I’ll have you know, about two feet, just right in there, with all manner of floating—”

  “Enough! The doctor. Focus.”

  “I’m just saying if the trench floods we’re going to have a whole lot of mess we didn’t count on. But anyway. When I came back in, the doctor was curled up on the floor like this.”

  Liberty watched as the doctor’s body finally relaxed, his eyes rolled back into his head.

  “Dr. Stephens?” She knelt by his side. His lips and fingertips were blue. With her fingers against his neck, she barely detected his pulse.

  “What happens if he dies?” Isaac asked.

  “He won’t die.”

  “Come on, Lib—Miss Holloway, he looks near gone already. What’ll we do with all these patients? He’s the only one—”

  “Isaac! Honestly!” What would they do without a doctor indeed? Fear churned in her belly. What would happen to Jonathan?

  She knew the answer. His body burned with poison-induced fever last night. Today he would only be worse. If the leg did not come off, and soon, he would die.