Another bullet whistled by his ear and he dropped back to the ground, smacking his head on a rock.
Silas closed his eyes to stop the dizziness. Vaguely, he could hear the footsteps of two men running toward him. Their voices were muffled. He heard them grunt as they carried the wounded out of the ambulance. And then they were gone.
They will come back for the rest.
But they did not come back for him. Darkness fell between Silas and Holloway Farm. He was still alone in the field, bleeding into the grass. Rejected and forgotten by North and South alike.
Like a lamb walking into a pack of wolves, Bella returned to the Holloway Farm hospital and prayed God would help her. Relief washed over her when she saw Liberty smile at her in welcome.
“I’m so glad you’ve come back,” Liberty said.
Before Bella could reply, two men in grey carried a new patient over to a barn door on barrels.
“Miss Holloway.” A man with a stethoscope around his neck bellowed as he stormed by. “I need light, and I need it now.”
Liberty scampered after him, pulled matches and a tallow candle from her apron pocket. She lit the candle, and held it over the mangled form. “We have no more kerosene.”
“So we have a single flame?” The doctor growled. “That’s not enough light to cut a steak, let alone a man.”
Bella swallowed the acid in her mouth and stepped forward. “Is there another candle? I can hold it for you.” Lord, help me. “If you’ll allow it.”
The doctor looked her up and down and grunted. He did not turn her away.
Harrison Caldwell approached and offered to hold one, as well.
“Still here?” Bella asked Harrison, her tone low.
He nodded. “Fighting’s over for the day anyway. I’ve been interviewing these men about the battles in which they fought. Helps me get the overall view of things.” His voice was steady, but his color paled in the candlelight.
Bella turned her attention back to the table, where the doctor was tipping some brandy into the patient’s mouth.
“Soldier, can you tell me your name?”
He swallowed and licked his cracked lips. “Pierce Butler Holmes.”
No.
No no no no no.
Pierce Butler Holmes?
Here?
The name seemed to slither around her throat like a snake, tightening, slowly.
“Oglethorpe’s Light Infantry. Eighth Georgia.”
Her throat squeezed. She knew him. Lord have mercy, he was the son of the plantation’s physician, and the godson of Master Pierce Butler himself! He lives in Darien—or at least, he lived there before the Union troops burned the town. My husband’s troops.
“Pierce Butler Holmes, you say?” Harrison leaned in closer to the patient. “Are you a relation of my fellow Philadelphian, Pierce Butler, the former slave owner? Ex-husband of Fanny Kemble?”
Holmes blinked. “He’s my … godfather. Good as … family. My father … was the doctor … for his slaves.”
Harrison raised his eyebrows, but mercifully prodded no further.
This can’t be happening. Bella stepped back.
“Light, woman! Bring it close!” the doctor snarled, then looked back at the patient. “Can you tell me when you were wounded, man? Was it today?”
When Holmes nodded, the doctor dripped some clear liquid into a small metal device and held it in Holmes’s nose. Harrison leaned over and whispered to Bella the reason for the doctor’s question. “If it’s been more than twenty-fours since the wound, they can’t use anesthesia. Might not come out of the sleep, you see.”
Bella quelled the instinct to run. So he was going to sleep in a moment. Fine. All right. She could hold on a moment longer, and soon it would not matter who he was. He would just be one more patient, lying on the table, helpless under the knife and saw. He would not be able to harm her.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open and flashed with fire. Bella’s breath caught in her throat as he clamped a hand around Liberty’s wrist and pulled her close to his face. Her candle dripped hot wax on his face, but he did not flinch. Or even blink. “Why, you’re the very likeness of Roswell King Junior!”
Bella’s candle shook, her knees buckled.
“It’s the chloroform,” Harrison said. “It makes them crazy before they drop to sleep.”
He wasn’t crazy.
“That’s a good man, now let the young lady go.” The doctor pried his white-knuckled fingers off Liberty’s wrist, but Holmes twisted and writhed until he was up on elbows, staring at Bella.
She could not breathe. She could not move.
He pointed at her and laughed maniacally. “So are you! You’re twins! That is, except for your skin color …”
“He is mad with the drug,” said the doctor.
Holmes spoke again, his voice eerily high-pitched. “I would know a King anywhere, even away from Darien. But how did you escape? You all have the same—eyes, I think. No, lips. Nose and lips, that’s it.”
Liberty looked at Bella, unspoken questions written in the lines on her brow. Bella shook her head, as if to say, “He is only mad. Pay him no mind.” But no words formed.
He knew her secret.
And Liberty’s.
Only when he fell back, unconscious, upon the table, did Bella realize she was covering her face with one hand, and leaning against Harrison. The nosy reporter who had seen it all.
After the tenth amputation since Harrison had been at the table, Dr. Stephens dropped in a dead faint from exhaustion.
Finally, the morbid candlelight vigil came to a close. At least for now.
He let out a breath and noticed his stomach cramping. His supply of licorice Necco wafers depleted, Harrison reached into his knapsack and pulled out some hardtack and vegetables. Desecrated vegetables, as the soldiers called them. Army fare wasn’t particularly appetizing, but it was portable, and it took the edge off his hunger. If it was good enough for the Union army, it was good enough for him. In small doses.
“Excuse me, Mr. Caldwell.” Liberty’s eyes looked hollow in the sputtering glow of her candle. It would surely be out soon. “Is that—food?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. Tasteless hardtack, and a cake of dried vegetables.” He held up the squares.
She stared at them, and her stomach growled.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to try one?”
She grabbed the vegetables from his outstretched hand and ate it a little faster than was generally considered polite. Wiping her mouth, she turned toward a mass of men begging for water. “I need to go. Bella, there is enough for both of us to do—there is enough for a dozen of us.” She sighed. “But I will not require it of you. Do as you please.” She walked away, her steps heavier than they had been when he first met her hours ago.
Indecision etched on Bella’s face, and Harrison seized upon her hesitation.
“Mrs. Jamison, I couldn’t help but notice you seemed quite upset by Lieutenant Holmes’s outburst. While the chloroform was taking hold.”
She looked down at her fingers, twisting in the folds of her apron.
“Why were you so shaken?”
“I wasn’t—I was—it was just—I’ve never stood so near an amputation before.”
Harrison frowned. “No, no, this was before Dr. Stephens brought a knife to the skin. It was something Holmes said that bothered you.”
Her chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths.
“Mrs. Jamison, where is your husband now?”
Her eyes narrowed, she flattened her lips.
“He’s a soldier.”
“In training?” Just last week, colored troops had begun training at Camp William Penn, eight miles north of Philadelphia.
“Active.”
The only active duty colored troops were the 54th Massachusetts and the 2nd South Carolina Volunteers. Being from Pennsylvania, he would be in the free black troops of Massachusetts. The South Carolina regiment was made up of contraba
nds—former slaves. But they had recently joined together for a controversial action in—
“Darien, Georgia. Yes? The home of Pierce Butler Holmes?” Harrison casually broke off a piece of hardtack and popped it in his mouth, gauging her reaction.
The sparks in her eyes flared brighter.
“Yes. My husband is in the 54th, which recently burned down the lieutenant’s hometown. If he knew, I don’t know what he would do. Wouldn’t he want to retaliate? Wouldn’t I be the perfect target?”
Harrison swallowed. “Good news, Mrs. Jamison. You must have read only the earliest report of the Darien raid.”
“Our telegraph has been out.”
“Allow me to put your mind at ease. Further reports have shown that it was Captain Montgomery of the 2nd South Carolina who gave the orders to torch the town. Not Colonel Shaw. In fact, more than one of Shaw’s letters to his superiors have since been published in the papers, expressing his disagreement with Montgomery’s methods. It’s widely known now, that if the 54th had any involvement in that raid at all, it was minor, and only because Montgomery forced it upon them. Your husband, Mrs. Jamison, has done nothing wrong, I am quite sure of it. You need not fear revenge on his behalf.”
The night was deepening, and Harrison could barely see her face anymore, but a flash of white teeth told him she had understood.
“Thank you, Mr. Harrison. I am much relieved to hear it.”
“My pleasure. It’s not every day I get to bring glad tidings.”
She nodded. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will go help Liberty bring the men water.”
“You have nothing to fear.”
But as she walked away, her shoulders still sagged.
Harrison bit into a cake of dried vegetables and mulled over her curious behavior.
Aha! Roswell King Junior. Those were the words that sent Bella backward until she leaned on Harrison for support. He had grabbed Liberty, and said—she looked like him. That couldn’t be right. He had also said Liberty and Bella were twins, and that obviously was wrong, too. Still, there was something there.
He chewed another piece of hardtack, and hoped he wouldn’t break a tooth on it. Roswell King Jr. was Pierce Butler’s overseer on the Georgia plantations. Butler prized him for his efficiency.
But according to Fanny Kemble in her Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation, he did more than manage the property. He personally populated the estate with new slaves.
Harrison reached into the bottom of his haversack and drew out the neglected journal, cringing at the curled corners and water stain from where moisture had seeped into the bag from the muddy ground. Though the moon shone brightly, it was not enough light to read a book, so he lit another candle and buried the end of it in the ground beside him until it stood steady on its own.
Hungry for clues, he began flipping through the book. As was the style, Kemble did not always print full names in her accounts, using only initials instead. But from the context, it was clear enough that “Mr. K—” or “Mr. R— K—” referred to Mr. Roswell King, Jr. “Old Mr. K—” referred to his father.
References to the son were abundant. Betty, the wife of headman Frank, had at least one son by King, with “straight features and diluted color.” Another young man who bore a striking resemblance to King was born of a Negress named Minda.
A little more than halfway through the journal, Harrison had bracketed a particularly chilling account:
Sophy said she had never had any husband, that she had had two children by a white man of the name of Walker, who was employed at the mill on the rice island; she was in the hospital after the birth of the second child she bore this man, and at the same time two women, Judy and Scylla, of whose children Mr. K— was the father, were recovering from their confinements. It was not a month since any of them had been delivered, when Mrs. K— came to the hospital, had them all three severely flogged, a process which she personally superintended, and then sent them to Five Pound—the swamp Botany Bay of the plantation, of which I have told you—with further orders to the drivers to flog them every day for a week.
Harrison closed the book. He had never met Roswell King Jr., but he assumed that Lt. Holmes had. They shared a hometown, after all, and Holmes’s father was the plantation physician. Would not Holmes have accompanied his father on his calls?
Holmes had said Liberty bore King’s resemblance. So did Bella. Was he saying they were both King’s illegitimate daughters? Were they half-sisters? Bella had called Liberty her employer, but had not mentioned any family relationship between them. But would she?
Bella’s insistence on getting back to Liberty during the fighting replayed in his mind. Strange, that she had said nothing about her own home. Her only desire was to get here. To Liberty. And even after she had seen it was full of Rebel soldiers, she had come back. To help Liberty.
Harrison chewed the end of his pencil before jotting some notes in his pad. They had to be related, even if Bella wanted to keep that hidden. Besides, even if only one of them were related to King, it would be remarkable. This could be the story he had been looking for. A sequel to the Weeping Time story, but penned under his real name.
Imagine! A former slave, the daughter of the Butler plantation overseer, now helping Rebel wounded at the battle of Gettysburg. And her husband had watched the burning of Darien! He may have even helped torch it. How poetic!
But so far, all was conjecture. He needed proof—facts and testimony—or his story would be mere speculation, a gossip column. The last thing he wanted. He needed Bella and Liberty to be straightforward with him. He had to win their confidence.
“Exactly who is Bella Jamison?” he said aloud to no one but the crickets. “Who is Liberty Holloway?”
“Now that, young man, is a very good question!”
Harrison jumped to his feet. He had been so lost in thought he hadn’t noticed the inky outline of another person standing beside him. He bent and picked up his candle so he could see her face.
“I’m sorry to startle you. I’m Amelia Sanger, Liberty’s mother.”
Harrison narrowed his eyes. “I was told she was an orphan.”
“Oh, that. Technically, yes. I’m her mother-in-law. But I might as well be her mother. We’re very close.”
His face knotted in confusion. “I thought she was a widow.”
“Fine! My son—her husband—was killed two years ago! But you probably already knew that too, Mr.—”
“Harrison Caldwell, Philadelphia Inquirer.”
“Oh, a reporter! Well keep digging, newsman. There’s a story here.”
“Is that so?”
She nodded. “How does this strike you: ‘Union Widow Shamelessly Supports Late Husband’s Killers.’” She jiggled her eyebrows at him. “Well? Have you seen her with these Rebel hooligans?”
“Some. Have you?”
“I’ve seen plenty. From right up there.” She nodded toward a window on the second floor of the farmhouse.
“Ah. So you’ve locked yourself in your bedroom ever since they arrived?”
“Liberty’s bedroom. They took mine as an operating room first thing. Imagine!”
“So let me make sure I’ve got the facts straight. You’ve been sleeping in Miss Holloway’s bed while she has been out here, feeding and watering the men, wetting their bandages, assisting with amputations.”
Amelia glowered. “And why shouldn’t I shut myself away? If your own mother were here, wouldn’t you rather she stayed out of it as well as she could?”
“Quite.” He raked a hand through his hair. “So, what brings you out of your sanctuary this fine evening?”
“Mind your own beeswax.”
His gaze dropped to the chamber pot she held in her hands. “I do beg your pardon.”
“Now if you’ll excuse me.” She began to saunter away, but turned back. “You keep digging, newsman, and you’ll find a story surrounding Liberty Holloway, that much is certain!”
He had a feeling
she was right.
Holloway Farm, outside Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
Friday, July 3, 1863
Liberty’s stomach revolted at the smell of flesh spoiling in the broiling sun. The air was thick with it, and it was terrible for the morale of the patients.
“Dr. Stephens.” Liberty approached the doctor as he was probing for a bullet in someone’s shoulder. His movements were slow, lethargic. Surely he needed sleep. “I really must insist we do something about that pile of limbs outside the summer kitchen. Do you really plan to let them stay there forever? When the wind blows from that direction, the smell alone is enough to make the men sick.”
He looked up at her, eyes red and glazed. “Do sssomethin’ yerself.”
Her brows knitted together. “Are you quite well?”
The doctor wagged his head, wincing as if the movement pained him. “I’ve gotta sssplittin’ headache.” He wiped his nose with a handkerchief. “Ssplittin’. And close to a thousand patienz to see. So go fix yer own problems. Oh see there, Collins is taking careofit. Now lemme be.”
Astonishment filled Liberty as she watched a one-armed patient pulling a wheelbarrow backwards toward the pile. Does he mean to move those limbs himself? Why, he will meet his own arm again!
Liberty hurried over to him at once. “Mr. Collins, what on earth can you be doing?”
“You’re right, Miss Holloway. This pile must be taken care of. And since my arm is in there somewhere, I figured I would help put it away. Didn’t your mother teach you to put away your own things when you were done with them?”
He smiled, and Libbie’s eyes widened. “Are you quite sure you want to do this?”
“Quite sure.”
“At least let me tie a handkerchief around your face.” But she had no more handkerchiefs. “Excuse me a moment.” She went to the other side of the summer kitchen, lifted her skirt and tore a wide section of fabric from her red petticoat. Tearing that in half, she had two cloths that would serve the purpose. Her conscience needled her as she returned to Collins with the handkerchiefs.
Widow of Gettysburg (Heroines Behind the Lines) Page 15