Tomorrow the Glory

by Heather Graham

  “And what’re you going to do, Captain?” Charlie inquired dryly. “Ask all the Johnny Rebs to please raise their hands?”

  “No, I was planning to use the same tactic we employed in Jacksonville. But this time I’ll go in alone.”

  “Your chance,” Red Fox interrupted firmly, “is the sea.”

  Brent glanced at the Indian sitting in his open chickee where the three had gathered to talk as the sun rose high into the sky.

  Red Fox spoke again. “You may walk into the city, my friend, but what good will that do? Unless you blow up the fort—and again, you will do yourself little good, for Kendall will be inside it. Patience, Night Hawk, must be her salvation. Now she will be kept under lock and key. Well watched. But in time the bluecoat husband will leave again. And the guard will grow lax. It is possible that she will sail with the Yankees once more. That will be your chance.”

  “We can’t sit staring at Fort Taylor!” Charlie protested. “There’s a war going on! We’re supposed to be patrolling the west coast, then picking up a cotton shipment to take to London to buy arms!”

  “I can go for her,” Red Fox said quietly.

  “No,” Brent replied flatly. “Not you again, Red Fox. There is already a hollow in my heart that will remain there all my days—”

  “It is unnecessary!” Red Fox snapped, irritably rising and striding across the floor of the open chickee. “I have told you—my choices are my own. And I seek to avenge myself upon these men with more right than you, Night Hawk. I am the man wronged.”

  “You’re an Indian! It is a white war!”

  “I have made it my war!”

  Brent stared at Red Fox, his temper rising. It appeared as if the two would collide in an explosion of tension and rage.

  Brent exhaled slowly, regaining control of his anger.

  “Red Fox, they will be expecting an Indian attack. I’m willing to bet they’ll be watching for your rigs with a hell of a lot more care than they do the blockade runners for the time being.”

  Charlie interjected nervously, “A red man would be dead in Yankee waters, and we can’t go waving the Stars and Bars. So where does that leave us?”

  “With a Yankee . . .” Brent said softly.

  “What?” Charlie and Red Fox demanded in unison.

  “A Yankee. Name of Travis. Jimmy Emathla spoke of him right before he died.”

  Brent suddenly snapped his fingers and faced Charlie—the captain in command again. “Charlie, we’ve got to get to the mouth of the river and find Harold Armstrong. See what he knows, and see what he might have picked up off the telegraph. The Yanks have Cedar Key, but Harold should know what’s going on anyway. We have to find out just who this Travis fellow is. And get Harold to give us a contact on the island of Key West so we can find out when John Moore embarks on one of his sailing trips. We are going to pull your tactic, Red Fox. We’ll exercise patience.” He paused, clenching his jaw. Patience. When the Yank could be killing her, might have killed her already? No. Moore wasn’t going to harm her. Not in the sense of breaking bones. She was some kind of a prize to him, like a trophy.

  Brent swallowed and kept talking. “Red Fox, if you choose, you will sail with us. We’re going to gamble on a Yankee called Travis.”

  * * *

  The full moon rose high in the indigo sky. A dark silhouette appeared on the shore.

  The call of a mockingbird broke the stillness of the night.

  Still the men were quiet as they slipped from the trees and convened on the shore. Not until Harold Armstrong laughed out loud and boisterously shook Brent’s hand and patted him enthusiastically on the shoulder did they relax.

  “You slippery scoundrel!” Harold declared. “Feels like a month of Sundays since I’ve seen you, Captain McClain. But things have been moving like clockwork here. I haven’t wanted for a thing, nor have any of the other settlers down here. The Indians have kept things coming just fine. But come on up to the cabin, boys. I’ll fill you in on the latest while I fill you up with some fine beef and homemade cider!”

  “Sounds fine, Harry,” Brent agreed. “We need to know what’s happening. Especially at Fort Taylor.”

  “I’ll do my best. Now tell your troops to be careful here. Ain’t too many rattlers on the high ground here, but I found a few coral snakes nesting a mite too close to the cabin the other night. Come on, now.”

  Brent motioned to his crew. They all fell into step behind him.

  He followed Harold’s graying head through a thick pine forest to the small settlement of heartily loyal Confederates eking out a living along the bay. On the river, not too far away, Union soldiers were holding a small fort that had once been used in the Indian wars. But there weren’t more than a handful of whites in this virgin region of the state—nothing worth bothering about. The Union soldiers left the people alone, unaware that the rugged men and women who had hewn homes along the sea on the edge of a savage swamp were the stuff of which victory was made.

  Not much later Brent and Red Fox and Charlie McPherson were grouped together again around Armstrong’s table, listening avidly as Harold spoke while feeding them fine hunks of fresh beef his wife Amy had prepared before leaving the men to their talk.

  “It’s going to go on getting tighter and tighter, yes sir. ’Specially on the seas. Ever since they sailed that ironclad outta Virginia t’other day—”

  “The what?” Charlie McPherson demanded.

  “Ironclad, sailor—ironclad. The Rebs raised the old Merrimack from the harbor where the Yanks had sunk her. Plated her all up in iron and renamed her the Virginia.” Harold’s light eyes misted with envy. “Wish I could have seen her. Seems she plowed right into the Feds! Sank a score of them. And not a shell could harm her. Cannonballs bounced right off.”

  “Damnation!” Charlie exclaimed, his face glowing. “I knew we’d get them damn Yanks on the sea!”

  “Whoa, boys,” Harold warned them, shaking his head sorrowfully as he poured tin mugs of cider. “The victory didn’t last long. The Yanks had their own ironclad ready to meet her the next day. They battled it out for hours and hours, the biggest damn naval battle a man could hope to see! The Monitor and the Virginia both backed out at last. You have been out of touch! The entire world will hear about it soon. I’m telling you, boys, warfare will never be the same again. Those two ships proved that everything we’ve got has been outmoded!”

  Brent should have cared. He should have been fascinated by the genius of the Rebel shipbuilders.

  He could only care about one thing.

  “You got any good contacts on Key West, Harry?” he asked. “I need to find out a few things going on at Fort Taylor.”

  “Sure, I got contacts on Key West! What kind of an intelligence man do you think I am, Captain McClain?”

  Brent grinned at the rebuke from the grizzled old man. “A damned good one, Harry.”

  Harry pulled out a chair and sat, watching Brent curiously. “Well sure, but I’m telling you, Captain, you can’t get into Fort Taylor. That Yank lieutenant was mad as all hell about the Indians making off with his wife. Got her back now, I hear.”

  “We know that, Harry.”

  “Oh, yeah.” Harold Armstrong gazed curiously at Red Fox, but Brent offered no further information.

  “What do you know about Lieutenant Moore, Harry?”

  “He’s like a cat on the prowl, spends half his life hoping to catch up with you, Captain, from what I hear.”

  “Can you find out when he sails again?”

  “Sure.”

  “And I need to find out whatever I can about a Union officer name of Travis something-or-other.”

  “Deland,” Harold supplied quickly.

  Brent glanced at him with surprise, and Armstrong hastily continued. “United States Navy Commander Travis Deland. He’s right beneath the captain they got stationed there.”

  “Has he got any kind of a reputation around here?”

  Harold shrugged. “Yeah, seems he gets
along good enough with the folks in Key West. Real gentlemanly sort. Firm, but nice and polite. Why?”

  “Because I’m going to try to talk to him.” Brent stood up and stretched and gave Charlie McPherson an impatient pat on the back. “Get the crew back together. We’re going out tonight.”

  “Ah, hell!” Charlie muttered, draining the last of his cider and pushing back his chair. “Chris and Lloyd found themselves a couple of pretty girls in this backwoods hellhole, and now you’re asking me to tell them fellers we’re pulling out!”

  Harold Armstrong laughed. “Good thing you’re going to pull them young fellows out! You must be talking about the Beler girls. Their pa’s the preacher here—and a mean man with a shotgun. He’s got himself a passel of daughters, from age three on up, and he’s just as protective of those girls as a big old watch dog might be! Now, I’m certain your boys are with the older girls, and that the older girls are just as happy as punch, but it’s a darn good thing you’re pulling out! Beler has raised them girls to be real little ladies, he has. He wouldn’t take to any young sailors trifling with their affections, if you do take to my meaning.”

  “Hell!” Charlie muttered again.

  And that was that.

  * * *

  An hour later, the Jenni-Lyn was pulling from the river to the open sea.

  If Brent had started out just minutes later—or if a black-puffed thundercloud hadn’t covered the moon at just that time—the crew might not have missed the small, battered dinghy that sidled past them, precariously close.

  But as it was, the Jenni-Lyn was far out into the bay when Harold—watching from a sandy shore—saw the dinghy and warily hobbled down to investigate.

  He was amazed to see a set of long delicate fingers curl over the gunwale, then slide weakly away. He trained a lamp within the dinghy and exhaled a long whistle.

  There was a girl in the dinghy. Her face was as pale as the moon, yet as beautiful as its ethereal light, and framed in a cloak of golden hair that spilled about her where she lay on the baseboards. As he stared at her, her eyes flickered open, and he wasn’t sure if their color was black, or so blue that they became the indigo of the night sea. She tried to dampen parched lips and speak. She failed; then tried again. To hear her, Harold bent low beside her, awed by the beautiful woman who had appeared from the sea.

  “What is it, girl?” he demanded gently.

  Her hand rose again, reaching toward him. It fell back to her side. She hadn’t the strength to hold it up.

  “Help me,” she mouthed at first, and then her voice found substance and a parched whisper sounded in the night. “Help me. Oh, please, help me.”

  “Now, now! of course old Harry Armstrong is going to help you, girl. Don’t you fret. Just take it easy. I’m going to take you to my cabin and feed you and set you before a fire.”

  “Harry?” she queried urgently. “Harold Armstrong?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Harry Armstrong, at your service.”

  “Thank God. My name is Kendall Moore. Brent . . . Captain McClain said I should come . . . to you. You will help me? You’ll keep me from the Yanks?”

  “Ain’t no Yanks going to find my cabin, ma’am. And there ain’t no friend of Brent McClain’s going to suffer none near me. You just hang on, ma’am. You’re all right now. You’re safe.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you . . .”

  Her whisper faded away. Her eyes fell shut.

  The comfort of relief had taken away her fragile grasp on consciousness and allowed her to sink into welcome oblivion.

  Harold looked at the girl—no, woman—more closely, then scratched his head and stared out to the sea.

  She had to be the wife of the Yank. The woman the Indians had stolen. The reason Captain McClain was sailing for Key West right now . . .

  The captain had just missed her, Harold thought sorrowfully. Missed her by a matter of moments . . .

  Harry reached into the dinghy and lifted her slender body into his arms. He started back past the sand and the pines and set up the trail that led to his cabin, his mind plagued with confusion.

  What had happened with the Indians, Captain McClain, and this Yank’s wife who spoke like a southern magnolia? And how in hell and tarnation had she gotten here? All the way up here from Key West in a beaten old dinghy. A sea-rotten rowboat?

  Chapter Eleven

  Her sleep was clouded with nightmares, and in her dream world she heard the voices again and again. Her voice. Shrill and strident. And then Travis’s . . . gentle, calming, pleading.

  “I swear to you, Kendall, I’ll think of something. Listen, John has been assigned to the Mississippi area. He’s not coming back again for a long time.”

  “I can’t stay here, Travis, I can’t! Not after what happened.”

  “Kendall, I cannot let you walk out of here. I know John hurt you; that’s why I came. But if you give me time, I’ll come up with something. Give me time to work on Brannen. Right now he believes he’s harboring a Confederate spy in his midst.”

  “I am a Confederate! I’ve never denied it! And it’s not what happened to me that upsets me, Travis. It was the Indians. He ordered that slaughter! Oh, Travis, I’ll never be able to forget what happened! Never, as long as I live. And I’ll hate the Yankees—”

  “Kendall?” Very quietly. “Kendall, I’m a Yankee. Do you hate me?”

  “Oh, Travis, no! of course not. You know I care for you! But please, Travis, understand. I can’t help being what I am and I’ll never forget what John did in the name of the Union.”

  “That isn’t fair, Kendall.”

  “And the men here, Travis! They all act as if I should be hanged! I can’t bear it.”

  “Kendall, we’re at war! They know you were with one of the greatest enemies the Union Navy will ever know. Oh, Kendall! I do understand. My men didn’t behave like that. You have more friends than you know, Kendall. You just won’t give them a chance.”

  “I can’t give them a chance. John thinks he’s getting well. And I couldn’t stand it, Travis! I would always feel as if he touched me with blood on his hands, I would hear the screams . . .”

  Kendall tossed in her sleep because the dream was so real, so vivid. She could see Travis, all his love and care and concern in his eyes, holding her close. “Kendall, give me time to find a way to get you out. And to find a place where you’ll be safe.”

  That was when she had stared at the open door beyond him. And as he had gently whispered promises, she had grasped the heavy blue water pitcher on the bedside table and cracked it over his head with all her strength.

  Forgive me, Travis!

  Kendall moaned softly and thrashed about. Something cool was placed on her forehead, and she was no longer in the barracks, but in a small fishing shack on the western shore of the island.

  “God go with you, young lady. God go with you.”

  The woman who spoke looked old, but she wasn’t so very old. She had lost her oldest son at the First Battle of Manassas. And she had lost her second son at Second Manassas. They had chosen different sides. One died in blue; one in gray. The woman was forty, she told Kendall. She looked sixty.

  But the journey had been harder than Kendall had expected it to be. So quickly she ran out of water! And the heat of the day, and the water chill at night. Things had begun to blur . . .

  Kendall woke up with a start, amazed to awaken in such soft comfort. She lay on cool sheets, and her throat no longer felt parched and dry.

  She opened her eyes to see that she faced a window with the shutters thrown wide open. Dazzling sunlight streamed in on her. Glorious green vines curled around the frame of the window, and just outside she could see beautiful purple flowers. Orchids.

  “Back with us, are you, dearie?”

  Kendall turned to see a buxom woman with iron-gray hair twisted into a neat chignon and bright blue eyes that twinkled like diamonds sitting in an upright chair beside the bed. She was dressed quite simply in homespun cotton, but she sat
straight like a perfect lady, and her voice was soft and cultured. Kendall smiled shyly, confusion riddling her mind.

  “I’m Amy Armstrong, young lady. You washed up on shore last night. Harry says you’re Kendall Moore, a friend of Brent’s.”

  Kendall nodded. Her nightmare had been a reality past. Past. It was over. She had escaped. She had found a safe harbor. Harold Armstrong really and truly existed, and as Brent had told her, she had been able to come to him for help . . .

  “I did find the right place, then,” Kendall murmured with a sigh.

  “That you did, young lady!” Amy Armstrong said cheerfully, rising from her chair to plump Kendall’s pillow and straighten the sheets about her. “Now you just sit tight, and I’ll bring you something to eat. You must be half starved. How you survived in that dinghy I’ll never know, much less how you managed to navigate. You must be quite a competent sailor, Kendall Moore!”

  Was she? Kendall wondered. She had tried to follow the islands and then the sun, and then the stars. Travis had taught her so much about the sea. And then Red Fox had taught her to read the skies and the breezes.

  But she had barely made it. If she hadn’t reached the river when she had, and if Harry Armstrong hadn’t been there, she would have died.

  “I’m not a great sailor, Mrs. Armstrong,” she said softly. “I was just very desperate.” She bit her lip and then offered the friendly matron a strong smile. “I want to thank you, Mrs. Armstrong. You and your husband, of course. I don’t know anything about you—I’m not even sure exactly where I am—but I bless you for helping me, and I don’t want you getting me anything. I’ll get up and help you with whatever I can.”

  “Don’t be silly now, girl!” Amy Armstrong protested, her buxom body moving crisply toward the door. “You stay right there in bed! You suffered some severe exposure. You may not want to admit it, but believe me, missy, your body is weak. Any friend of Brent’s—”