Blood Moon (Ella Wood, 2)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  “No, dear. He’s waiting for you on the front porch. He’s colored.”

  Emily frowned. What young colored man would seek her out with an urgent message?

  A dusty horse waited in the street, jangling reins that had been looped haphazardly over the porch rail. Beside it stood an equally dusty man facing away with his hands clasped behind his back. Emily cleared her throat. “I’m Emily Preston. May I help you?”

  He turned slowly, solemnly. Her hands lifted to cover her mouth.

  “Hello, Miss Emily,” Jeremiah greeted. “Mister Jack sent me. He’s been hurt bad.”

  17

  Fear laced tight fingers around Emily’s chest. “Where is he?”

  “In a hospital near Winchester. He took a bullet in the leg at Antietam. Threatened to crawl all the way to Baltimore himself if I didn’t come find you.”

  “At least he feels well enough to make a nuisance of himself.”

  Jeremiah shook his head sorrowfully. “He’s hurt bad, miss. Mister Jovie’s with him. He’s the one who told me how to find you.”

  Emily clutched his arm. “Jovie’s hurt, too?”

  “No, miss. He’s fine. But Mister Jack, he’s calling for you urgent like. We don’t have much time.”

  Relief and dread mingled in Emily’s gut. “Take me to him.”

  “It may not be safe,” he warned. “We’ll be crossing the front—though both armies are preoccupied licking their wounds.”

  She wasn’t about to let a little risk keep her away. “You made it.”

  He nodded once. “You’ll need a horse. The Union army has closed the railroads.”

  “Give me half an hour.”

  Emily packed light. Just a blanket, a change of clothing, and a parcel of food hastily assembled by Mrs. Calkins. With animals at a premium, she spent more than she could afford procuring a decent livery mount. Even so, it took four days to reach Winchester.

  Emily’s apprehension grew as they neared the Potomac and passed burned-out buildings and abandoned farms that marked earlier conflicts, but her greater alarm was for her brother. What was the extend of his injury? Was he truly dying, or could the doctors be mistaken? Would his attitude toward her be positive or negative when she arrived? And how on earth did Jeremiah figure in? Though she pestered the man for answers, he remained closed-lipped, insisting that Jack be the one to answer her questions.

  Jeremiah did prove an able guide, and they arrived without incident. But by the time they found the hospital, located in a Methodist church, the hard ride, damp nights, and her own worries had taxed her strength to the limit. A harried nurse confirmed that Jack still lived and directed them to his bed. Emily hesitated, suddenly nervous. After one hundred miles of preparation, she had no idea what she could possibly say to her brother. They hadn’t spoken in months. And lately, their affection hadn’t run very deep.

  “Go ahead, Miss Emily. He’s waiting for you,” Jeremiah said, giving her a nudge. “I’ll be outside tending the horses.”

  Gathering her courage, Emily entered the stifling sanctuary.

  A hundred men were laid out in neat rows. The familiar sounds of misery and pervasive odors of sweat, rot, and illness were exactly as she remembered from Charleston. Breathing through her mouth, she approached the bed the nurse had indicated and recognized Jovie dozing in a chair pulled close to its foot. She touched his shoulder.

  “Emily!” he whispered, jumping to his feet. “You made it.”

  “How is he?” The gravity of their situation trumped any awkwardness that might have arisen from their last parting. She swept him with her eyes. His uniform was in tatters. And if it were possible, he’d grown even leaner, with haggard lines etched around his eyes. Jovie looked anything but well.

  “He’s dying, Emily. The bullet shattered his femur. Necrosis set in after amputation and has already spread across his torso.” His words pinched together. “You arrived none too soon.”

  Emily glanced down at the empty space beneath the blanket where her brother’s left leg should have been. She’d seen the sight so many times that her examination almost felt clinical—until she raised her eyes to a face slick with sweat and red with fever. Jack’s face. The same face that lately had scowled and spouted cruel words. But it used to laugh. It used to joke. He had cried beside her over deceased pets and lightened the hours spent with their tutor. Jack was family, her flesh and blood.

  She caught the putrid odor of gangrene, and her throat cinched tight. “How long?”

  “Days. The doctors have been keeping him sedated.”

  Emily knelt beside the cot and brushed her hand across her brother’s brow. He looked so peaceful. Far too young to be a casualty of war.

  His eyes flickered open. “Emily?” he murmured.

  “I’m here.”

  He stirred, and his features contorted against the pain of waking.

  “Shall I fetch the doctor?” Jovie asked.

  Jack gasped. “I’ll be all right.” He lay for a long moment trembling on his cot before the spasms subsided and his breathing grew even. “May I have some water?”

  Emily found a pitcher and filled a tin cup while Jovie eased Jack upright. He took five or six gulps before the pain seized him again.

  “Are you sure you don’t want more laudanum?” Jovie asked, laying him prone again. “I can fetch a nurse.”

  “No.” Jack’s knuckles whitened around his blanket. “I need to speak with my sister. Alone please.”

  Jovie looked from one sibling to the other and laid a hand against Emily’s back. “I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  Jack closed his eyes and shuddered. “Emily,” he whispered.

  She sank to her knees and gripped his hand in hers. “I’m right here, Jack.”

  He breathed in sharply and let it out in an easy sigh. “You must think I’m the most horrible person in the world.”

  “Of course I don’t.”

  “The insults, the drunkenness, the gambling... I’ve been downright hateful.”

  She bit her lip, remembering their last few encounters. He had been awful. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “It matters far more than you know.” He opened his eyes and sought her gaze. “It’s all been an act. For years, it’s been nothing but a horrible act. A part I had to play.”

  She squinted, trying to discern his meaning. “What are you saying?”

  “Jeremiah brought you here, correct?”

  She nodded.

  “Did he tell you anything?”

  During their four days on the road, the man had hardly spoken a word. “Nothing. He met every question I asked with, ‘Jack needs to answer that.’”

  Jack chuckled then grimaced. “Have you figured out why he’s here?”

  “You must have repurchased him.” The question had plagued her for days, and this was the only logical answer. “But why? Why sell him in the first place if you meant to buy him back?” And why bring her all this way just to clear up a mystery that hardly mattered anymore?

  “I didn’t sell Jeremiah, Emily. I set him free.”

  “But you…” She paused, letting the implications of his answer fall into place. “Right under Father’s nose?”

  “Right under Father’s nose. And he’s not the first Negro I’ve helped to freedom.”

  The thought grew larger and larger, and Emily’s eyes widened in proportion. “Zeke,” she guessed.

  He nodded. “When I was eleven years old, I was hunting near the river when I heard screaming and splashing—an alligator attack. I sprinted forward and found a man in the water struggling for his life. Zeke and a black boy were clubbing the gator for all they were worth. I killed it with my rifle and we helped the man ashore, but he was in a bad way. I didn’t realize it right away, but I’d stumbled onto Zeke’s slave-smuggling operation.”

  She glanced sharply at the beds on either side, but Jack’s whisper was so low that the secrets he revealed couldn’t possibly carry. “You didn’t turn them i
n?”

  “I almost did. For a week we kept the man and his son hidden and tried to nurse him back to health. I went back and forth in my mind about what we were doing, but the longer I wavered, the more invested I became. By that time I’d also befriended the boy. When his father died, I helped Zeke move the boy downriver. He was the first of many.”

  Emily could only stare at her brother in wonder.

  Jack closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath. He continued, his eyes still closed, his words laborious. “There was an undercut bank in the river. Still is. Zeke had dug it out and fortified it with timbers. He kept it stocked with waxed canvas, blankets, and tins of food. It was marked with an oddly shaped log so runaways could identify it from the river. The dogs never found it. We moved a score of people downriver to Charleston, but all we could do was send them on. I decided to change that. Do you remember when I wrecked the schooner?”

  She nodded. “You ran it aground.”

  He paused to rest. Emily watched his chest rise and fall, hitching occasionally over some invisible affliction. “I was thirteen. Father was teaching me the business, and he always indulged my whim to steer the boat. I began thinking how useful it would be to have a secret place we could hide slaves and sail them to Charleston ourselves. Or farther.”

  “You wrecked the schooner on purpose?” she asked incredulously.

  He opened his eyes and grinned. “Zeke and Clasey were in on the plan. Clasey knows the river better than anyone. He chose the location, but I ran it aground. To protect him from Father’s anger.”

  “Did Coffey know?” Apprenticed to his father, Coffey would be the next captain.

  “Sure. So did Jupiter. He’s the one who made repairs and designed the space between decks.” He cut his eyes toward her. “Where Ketch hid.”

  She sucked in a quick breath. “You know about that?”

  “It’s one of the reasons I’m sharing this with you.”

  “Zeke told you?”

  He nodded, and a rivulet of sweat trickled onto his pillow. Emily fetched a cloth and a basin of water and wiped his brow. “I never would have guessed any of this. You were the perfect wastrel.”

  “I had to be. You’ve seen the reaction the moment someone breathes a word against slavery. But to actively sabotage the system? The people I interacted with every day wouldn’t hesitate to lynch me. I could have brought danger on our whole family had I been found out. I needed a cover that would deflect suspicion, so I perfected the role of a wealthy dandy.”

  He paused again to rest, his breaths quick and shallow. Emily mulled the information in silence, trying to wrangle so many new ideas into something that made sense. “Do you, by chance, know Uncle Isaac?”

  Jack smirked. “Who do you think put the bug in Mother’s ear to send you to Detroit?”

  “You?” She gaped at him.

  “I’ve met Isaac a few times. When I could see you becoming the very thing I pretended to be, I figured you could use a new perspective. But you played the game just as well as I did. I didn’t know Isaac had been able to win you over until Zeke told me about Lizzie.”

  “He didn’t,” Emily admitted. “Malachi did.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind.”

  She rubbed her temples, too focused on his words to notice the way his hands clenched around his blanket, growing whiter and more unsteady. So many details still didn’t line up with her brother’s revelation. “But what about your friendship with Cage Northrup? You used to run his dogs with him.”

  “Think about it, Emily.” He shifted and grimaced. “I was watching him, learning where he went, how he worked when he tracked, doing everything I could to steer him wrong. I played cards with every lowlife slave catcher in Charleston for the same reason. It’s why I chose the College of Charleston instead of studying abroad. I was a spy of sorts.”

  Emily sat up straighter. “Jack, the time I found you in the woods early in the morning, when you said you’d been hunting and rode home with me on Chantilly, were you…?”

  Jack nodded. “Zeke had gotten wind of a family of four. They never showed up, and I knew Cage was out, so I went looking for them.” Jack’s strength was ebbing, his pauses growing longer between words. “I found them near Jacobsen’s swamp. Cage nearly caught me. I sent them ahead on Jolly and fabricated the hunting story. It was one of my closer calls.”

  The realization of what her brother was, what he had done, sobered Emily. “Forgive me, Jack. All this time I thought the only allegiance you held was to yourself.”

  She became aware of how he was trembling, his jaw clenching and unclenching. She tenderly swabbed his face. “You should rest now. I can get the nurse.”

  “There’s more,” he ground out. “I—” Suddenly his back arched, and the veins on his neck swelled into turgid ropes. A groan ripped from his chest.

  She jumped up in alarm. “Nurse!”

  Jack grabbed her skirt, stopping her with an iron grip. “Emily.” His voice was faint, his breathing shallow and rapid, like the soft panting of a dog. Unable to move, she waved the nurse over frantically.

  “Emily!” he said, more forcefully. “You need to know—”

  The nurse arrived and measured a dose of opiate into his tin cup. With practiced ease, she tipped his head back and poured it into his mouth. “He’ll ease up in a few minutes,” she assured Emily. “Next time, catch someone’s attention before he gets this bad.”

  Emily sank to her brother’s side, tears flowing down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Jack. I’m so sorry.” His breath was still laborious, his face florid. He watched her intently even as his muscles contracted beneath waves of pain. She sponged his brow again, helpless to do anything else.

  Gradually, the spasms subsided. His breaths grew even and his body relaxed. But before he succumbed to the drug, he struggled again to speak. She lowered her head to catch the faint whisper. “Jeremiah…”

  She waited while he licked his lips. His eyes rolled back into his head. “Do you want me to get Jeremiah?” she prompted.

  He blinked and struggled to focus on her face, but it was a losing fight. With an exhalation as light as butterfly wings, he floated into sleep.

  Emily lowered her face to the mattress, rank with the odor of illness, and loosed the tears that pooled in her eyes, marveling at the way emptiness could be so filling. Jack wasn’t the brother she always thought she’d had; he was the brother she always wished she’d had. Now, before that realization had time to flower into appreciation, he was being snatched away from her. Would he even awaken?

  Images of Jack flitted behind her eyes—drunken and arrogant at her sixteenth birthday party, bloodied and beaten outside Mulligan’s Tavern, and hateful and smug the rest of the time. She’d had no idea he was living a double life. That he’d been saving lives.

  Jack was a hero.

  A gentle hand touched her shoulder. “Are you all right?” Jovie asked.

  She lifted her head and nodded, fixing her eyes on her brother’s peaceful face.

  “Is he…?”

  “Sleeping.” She wiped her face on the filthy skirt of her riding habit and rose to her feet. “He’s been medicated.”

  Jovie’s sigh was almost inaudible. “He’ll be out for hours. Let me help you find something to eat.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You need to eat and find someplace to spend the night.”

  “I’ve been sleeping on the ground for days. I’m fine right here.”

  “They won’t let you stay overnight in the hospital, and you’re not sleeping outside three miles from an army camp.” He took her arm. “Come on. I’ve got four hours before I’m due for picket duty.”

  Emily allowed herself to be led outside and around a corner to a hotel dining room where Jovie ordered two roast beef sandwiches and two dill pickles. He ate his with gusto. Emily took a small bite and set her sandwich on the plate. “I’m going to miss him, Jovie. I didn’t think I would, but—” Tears fil
led her eyes again. “I was wrong about him.”

  Jovie tried to comfort her. “I’m sure he understands. Siblings squabble. I can’t think of any who don’t.”

  “No, I’ve completely misjudged him.” She wondered if Jovie knew the things Jack had revealed to her. Not likely. The Cutler family owned slaves, too.

  “He can be a real lout sometimes,” Jovie said softly, “but he has a charitable heart. And he’s a brilliant soldier—charismatic and so intelligent. The men follow him. He made captain, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “He deserved it. And it’s probably the reason he isn’t in a prisoner of war camp right now. Three of his men risked everything to drag him to safety.” He blinked rapidly and cleared his throat, and she wondered if he’d been one of them.

  She felt a sudden kinship with Jovie. He was suffering all the ache and sorrow of Jack’s passing just as she was. The boys had played together as children, roomed together in college, and upheld each other through a full year of war. She slid her hand across the table and laid it on his arm. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  He met her eyes, and for one brief moment grief and longing, gratitude and regret flowed freely between them. Jack had given them a powerful connection.

  Jovie nodded, and Emily removed her hand. But the comfort of that bond lingered.

  “It hardly seems fair that he’d die now.” She stabbed a finger at her bread. “After living through the battle, a bullet, and a surgery.”

  “Infection claims more lives than bullets.” A muscle jumped in Jovie’s jaw, and she knew this wasn’t his first loss. “The surgeons do the best they can, but the sheer numbers...” He shook his head. “You can’t even imagine what it’s like out there, Emily. The thousands of men awaiting attention. The blood. The gaping wounds. The severed limbs. Then when it’s over, after you’ve patched up the living, you still lose so many.”

  He grabbed the sides of the table, his green eyes burning into hers. “This is what I want to study, Emily. Someday, when this is all over, I want to find out why infection kills a healthy man. Why disease sweeps through a camp like wildfire. And I want to stop it.”