Stirling smiled. “No, he looks like me. I’m the older.”
He was pleased to see a smile curve her lips. She was truly beautiful.
Stirling cleared his throat. “Major Randall has been talking to me about you. He’s mighty worried about you, ma’am. We . . . uh . . . we all are. I guess I’m just trying to talk some sense into you. The major says you’ve hardly eaten in a week. He says it’s as if you’re hoping to die. Don’t do that, Kendall. One way or another, this war will end. There will be people to help you. And . . . well, Kendall, my brother loves you very much.”
“I haven’t seen your brother in almost a year,” Kendall said quietly.
“That doesn’t change anything, Kendall. I know Brent.”
Did she truly know him? Kendall wondered. Despair settled over her again. What did it matter? She would never see him again . . . but she tried to smile for Stirling McClain. “Please don’t worry about me. I’ll . . . I’ll be fine. I haven’t had much of an appetite, that’s all.” She tried to laugh, but the sound was more like a croak. “You must admit that the meals are hardly appetizing!”
“Keep up your strength,” Stirling insisted earnestly. “None of us ever knows what the future—”
His words suddenly broke off. Curiously Kendall looked at his strained features. Puzzlement knitted his brow as he stared at the center of the yard. Then amazement lightened the tension in his gaunt face. He stood and began to walk across the yard, limping slightly. Then he wasn’t walking, but running, his limp becoming more pronounced.
Kendall watched him for a moment, then shrugged as she saw that he had merely raced away to greet another prisoner. The August sun was in her eyes, so all she saw was another body in tattered gray. Despondency settled over her again, and she stared sightlessly at the dirt.
A moment later, a shadow fell across the sunlight. A pair of feet were before her again. These wore boots. Her heart quickened as she feared that the Yanks had come to tell her that John . . .
Her fear died as her eyes followed the boots upward to gray trouser legs. This prisoner was obviously new. Far healthier than most. Still composed of sinew and muscle and—
“Oh, God!” She began to tremble.
Gray eyes were staring down at her. Steel-gray with no hint of blue. Her incredulous gaze fell on a face as familiar to her as the sun, and as powerful, as full of heated, radiating strength. Brent . . . She blinked, but he was real, flesh and blood, standing before her, as ruggedly handsome and assured as ever.
How many endless nights had she longed for him, ached for just a glimpse of him? And now he was here . . .
And she looked like death. Gaunt, pinched, and filthy. There were hollows above her breasts, her figure was skeletal. Her hair was a mass of snarled, tangled knots; her flesh was deathly pale.
“Brent?” she whispered aloud. “No . . . oh, no!”
Kendall struggled to her feet, bracing herself against the barracks wall. She covered her face with her hands as tears rose to her eyes and sobs rose in her throat. “No!” she cried in horror again, and her limbs found sudden flight as she tried to run past him.
He caught her arm and swung her back around, pulling her to his chest. “Kendall . . .” he murmured. He didn’t see the dirt smudges on her face, nor did he care that the golden sheen was gone from her hair. He didn’t notice that her gown was ragged and filthy, or that she was gaunt and thin. He saw only the woman he loved . . . and had almost lost.
“Kendall . . .” he repeated, cherishing her with his reverent touch, cradling her head to his shoulder, caressing the nape of her neck.
“Forgive me, my love,” he whispered. “Forgive me.”
A shrill whistle sounded. Their brief exercise period was over. Brent pulled away from her and anxiously searched out her eyes. “We’re going to get out of here,” he promised.
“How? And how did you get here? Oh, Brent, it’s impossible.”
“Trust me. I haven’t time to tell you now. I’m in with the Florida Cavalry. Just be ready to move. Understand me?”
Kendall nodded. “I love you, Brent.”
“I know,” he told her, his lips curling in a semblance of a rakish grin. “I love you. Now go—before they see us together.”
He gave her a little shove toward the Georgia Regulars’ barracks, then turned abruptly and hurriedly joined the Floridians who listlessly shuffled toward their own building.
Kendall seemed unable to move. She vaguely saw Beau coming toward her, felt his hand on her arm as he gripped it. Beau led her along. Her feet moved with his, but her eyes remained riveted on Brent. She watched him until he disappeared behind the other door. Then she allowed Beau to lead her into the barracks. She heard Beau’s excited words.
“He came! And he’s got a hell of a plan, Kendall. We’re all going to get out of here!”
“All?” Kendall murmured. She was elated—and yet she felt drugged. Stunned, unable to function or think.
“Well, the Florida Cavalry and us, at least. Dear God in heaven, the Night Hawk has come. His name is the password Kendall—Night Hawk. Keep your ears sharp. Keep listening.”
She smiled distantly. She would keep listening for the Night Hawk, keep waiting. Always . . .
Chapter Nineteen
“Night Hawk!”
The whispered words were one of the Yankee guards, who had come into the room and closed the door behind him.
Kendall had been dozing. One of the benefits of malnutrition was that sleep came easily to weak and worn bodies no matter what the excitement or turmoil of the mind. But she heard the words so quietly stated.
Kendall hopped tensely to her feet, her eyes flashing from the Yank to Beau.
“You’ve got to give me a good crack over the head,” the Yankee said. “I don’t want to be court-martialed or shot.” He handed Beau an army-issue revolver as he spoke.
Beau nodded. “I’ll see that you’re sound out. Is everything all set?”
The Yankee nodded. “Just move quietly in the courtyard. They’ve already got more’n half the guards knocked out and trussed up in the old storage bin. The man on the gate has been well paid, but the rest of us won’t get the other half of our gold until you’re clear of the place. Go out one by one—and watch for signs of activity. If the wrong parties are alerted, we’ll all be in trouble. Now move, Major.”
Kendall watched wide-eyed as Beau nodded. Then he swiftly swung his arm and brought the butt of the pistol down hard on the Yank’s head. The man sank to the floor without a sound.
Beau looked about at the grim, gaunt faces staring his way. “Kendall goes first. Then the rest of you will line up. Y’all heard the Yankee—move quiet.”
“Where do we go?” Kendall asked as she stared at Beau.
“Out to west field beyond the exercise yard. To the coffins.”
“To the—?” Kendall began, but Beau pulled open the door, shoved her out, and pulled it closed once more. Kendall swallowed the rising panic that clamped her throat. She had to be calm, had to act quickly and quietly . . .
Kendall looked about for a guard who might try to stop her. There was none. She hurried through the dark and silent building to the exercise yard, and then froze.
No guards awaited her there—only a heavy wagon hitched to four sturdy draft horses. And littering the ground around it were a score of coffins.
A hand suddenly clamped over her mouth from behind. Terror shot along her veins. She tried to scream.
“Kendall, it’s me, Brent. Come on. Quickly.”
Her eyes widened, but she said nothing as she saw him. He was dressed in the blue coat of a Union Army captain.
He saw the fear in her eyes as he hurried her toward the wagon. “One of us has to drive out of here,” he told her softly.
He gave her no time to protest. She was breathless when they reached the coffins. Fear seized her again as she saw two more men in blue working among the pine boxes. Brent must have felt her tension as he whispered to her ag
ain. “It’s just Stirling and one of his sergeants. Move, Kendall—quick!”
“In here!”
The direction came from Stirling McClain. He had opened the lid of one of the coffins and indicated that she was to lie down inside it.
“I . . . I can’t,” she gasped, horrified.
“Get in, Kendall!” Brent commanded.
“The only way out is as a corpse,” Stirling said, trying to keep his voice light. Kendall nervously glanced into the shadow of the barracks. Two other men were piling something there.
The real corpses, she realized, the men who had died that day in Camp Douglas.
“Oh, God,” she murmured sickly. “We’re desecrating our own dead.”
Brent emitted an impatient oath. Stirling spoke quickly to reassure her. “Kendall, they are just that—dead. They were brave Confederates all. They would applaud our efforts to survive. Now—”
“Get in the coffin!” Brent hissed. “We’ve got another twenty Georgia Regulars to go.”
Kendall crawled into the box. When the lid closed over her, she had to knot her fingers together and clench her teeth to keep from screaming. There was total darkness and a horrible feeling of suffocating. Her fear increased as she felt the men lift the coffin and shove it into the wagon. A moment later she shuddered as another box was set over hers with a thud.
Don’t scream, don’t cry, don’t panic, she warned herself. Another jolt shook her. The horses were moving, pulling the wagon.
The wagon stopped, and Kendall realized that they had reached the gate. She heard Brent’s voice, muffled and low, as if it were far away.
“Nothing but dead Rebs! We’re going to ship them back south for burial!”
“Open the gates! Death detail leaving.”
Kendall held her breath. It seemed as if eons passed. Eons in the terrible, claustrophobic coffin. The darkness overwhelmed her as did the cramped quarters. She wanted to scream and scream and beat her fists against the wooden coffin that reeked of death.
Suddenly, abruptly, the wagon began to move again. Kendall braced herself as best as she could against the sides of her pine box. An eternity seemed to pass—an eternity of misery. She was tossed about, bruised and scraped, exhausted from trying to keep herself from being flung hard against the wood as the horses’ movement threw the wagon’s cargo about.
At last the horses came to a halt. Kendall heard wood rasping against wood as the coffins were dragged from the wagon. Tears of relief sprang to her eyes as she felt her own coffin being dragged, and then hefted, down.
The lid lifted. Brent’s eyes, steel-hard and anxious, were on her. He reached for her hands to help her out.
“Oh, Brent!” she gasped, ready to throw herself against him.
He clasped her to his chest for the briefest moment, then almost tossed her into his brother’s arms. “We’ve got to keep moving,” he said with cool authority. With her shoulders assuringly held by Stirling, Kendall stared about her. They were in a large forest, their only light that of a benevolent moon. She recognized the Georgia Regulars who were hurriedly helping the last of the “corpses” from the coffins. She also recognized a few of the Floridians in Stirling’s command from chance meetings in the exercise yard.
“There are almost fifty of us,” Brent said quietly to the men who had gathered around him. “Split into groups no larger than ten. Stick to the dirt roads, live off the land. Move south as quickly as you can, and never, never forget that you are in enemy territory.”
“God go with us all,” Beau murmured.
“Amen!”
The chorus arose softly among the men, along with hurried thank-yous to Brent. Kendall felt Stirling push her ahead of him. “Start walking, Kendall,” he said quietly.
“Brent—”
“He’ll catch up with us. Come on!”
He gripped her hand, and together they began to run. She heard footsteps behind them, but a quick glance at Stirling’s calm, moon-shadowed face assured her that it was only the rest of their party.
The woods rustled with life as the human invasion brought alarm to the night creatures. The trail that Stirling had chosen grew narrower and narrower. Leaves and branches slapped at Kendall’s arms; roots and rocks threatened to trip her. A screech owl startled them both as it flew above them with an angry shriek, but they kept on running, the moon’s pale light filtering through the trees to guide them.
At last Kendall felt that she would die if she ran another step. Her legs ached as if knives had pierced her calves; her heart had begun to hammer and her lungs threatened to explode. Gasping, she jerked back on Stirling’s hand and clung to an oak for support.
“Stirling, I can’t . . .”
“Just a way farther, Kendall. I’ll carry you.”
“No!” She couldn’t allow a starved and emaciated man to bear her weight. “I . . . I’m all right.”
She forced herself to run until they reached a clearing that was shielded by a vast circle of strong old oaks and dense foliage. In its center was a shabby, weathered cabin, barely visible among the trees.
Stirling emitted a soft bird call—the muted cry of a night hawk. It was answered from inside the cabin. He gripped her hand and pulled her toward the rickety steps. Instinctively she cringed as he threw open the door, but they were greeted by Beau and three of the Georgia Regulars who had reached the cabin before them.
“You all right, Kendall?” Beau asked anxiously. “Jake, get Kendall some water.”
Private Jacob Turner instantly did as the major commanded, a dipperful of water from an inside pump that loomed against the rear wall. “No rust,” Turner assured her.
She drank half of the water greedily, then handed the dipper to Stirling.
“Where are we?” Kendall asked nervously. “And where is Brent?”
“He and four of the Florida boys had to send the horses and wagon back to Camp Douglas, so the Yanks wouldn’t get suspicious. This cabin belongs to a friend of yours—some Yank. That’s all Brent would say. He arranged to have some clothes waiting here for us. As soon as he gets here, we’ll start moving again,” Beau said. “Lieutenant McClain,” he addressed Stirling, “I suggest you get out of that Yankee coat. It might draw too much attention if we’re seen as we pass through the countryside.”
Stirling nodded and hastily shed his coat. Kendall noted that the tattered gray coats Beau and his men had been wearing had been replaced by nondescript brown and beige civilian clothing.
“There’s something for you, too, Kendall,” Beau said. “We’ll just step outside until you’re ready.”
Quietly, gallantly, the men filed out of the cabin. Curiously Kendall stepped toward the gown draped over a rocking chair.
Tears stung her eyes as she realized it was one of her own. A simple day dress of light cotton with a high neck and long sleeves that puffed at the shoulders. She had often worn it around Fort Taylor.
Travis . . . Dear Travis. Along with Brent, he had gone through great risk to free her.
“Kendall?”
It was Stirling’s voice. Polite, inquiring.
“Almost ready,” she returned softly, hurriedly shedding her prison rags to don the fresh gown. She needed a bath. She had become accustomed to filth in Camp Douglas, but now...
Now there was Brent. And he had said that he loved her even though she was thin and haggard—and probably smellier than an old shoe.
But the luxury of bathing would have to wait. She resolutely hooked her gown and threw open the cabin door just in time to see Brent approaching the cabin with four Florida cavalrymen behind him. Her heart seemed to stop; she wanted to rush to him and hold him—yet she also wanted to shrink away. She knew that they were still in a desperate situation, and that survival was the top priority. Still she couldn’t bear to have Brent see her as she was—emaciated, strained, a far cry from the fashionable creature he had met on the Battery in Charleston a lifetime ago.
His gray eyes searched for and found her, but then t
hey turned to Beau. “Were the coats here?”
“Yes, we’ve got yours.”
“Water?”
“Yes, the pipes were clear.”
“Food?”
“Not edible. Someone tried to leave supplies, but raccoons or something got in. There was only a little maggot-infested beef.”
“Damn!” Brent muttered. He swiveled to address the men behind him. “Get some water, and change your coats. And look around quickly. My friend promised shoes. Stirling, see what we’ve got to carry water in. And let’s get going. The faster we get away from here the happier I’ll feel. Let’s move!”
* * *
They walked through the night. Brent took the lead, leaving Beau or Stirling beside Kendall. But when the morning sun began to creep into the sky, Brent decreed that they should rest in the cool shadows of the forest until night fell again. Kendall curled up beneath a gnarled oak, turning her back to the men.
But there was no hiding from Brent. He lay down behind her and slipped an arm around her, pulling her to his chest. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks, and despite her efforts to hide her feelings, her shoulders trembled with her sobs. In the harsh light of the morning sun he turned her to face him, gravely studying her features. “What is it?”
“Please don’t touch me,” she murmured. “Not . . . not when I’m like this. Oh, please, Brent, not when I’m so horrible. You . . . you won’t be able to love me. I’m as thin as a rail, and my face—”
He placed his forefinger on her lips, hushing her. Then he traced the fragile lines of her cheeks and jaw.
“Your face, Kendall, has never been more beautiful to me. There are new lines, yes. There are shadows and pallor. Those things will fade with time, Kendall, but not the courage and dignity that put them there. Kendall, I need to hold you. Don’t shrink away from me. I won’t make love to you—not because you are any less beguiling than you ever were, but because you’re half starved and weak.” He crushed her slender length hard against his. “Kendall, I love you. I can’t ask you to forgive me for leaving you the way I did. I’m not sure I can forgive myself. I thought that if I left you, I could forget you. You seemed so hell-bent on killing yourself. I’ve tried to understand what drives you, and I know that we’re much alike, you and I. But I’ve seen so much death and suffering. My father . . . my father disappeared in a deluge of blood and death so horrible that, with all I’ve seen, I’ll never forget it. I needed you to be waiting for me, Kendall. I needed to know that I was fighting for something. That when it was all over, someone I loved would be waiting at home. Then it would all have made more sense.”
Tomorrow the Glory Page 33