“Brent!”
“But I love you because of it. I love you because you’re proud and determined, and no man will ever break you, not even me. I’m asking you to understand that I have to go into this battle. And I’m also asking you to make me a promise.”
“What?” she asked huskily, torn between a desire to slap him for calling her a pain and a need to wrap him so tightly in her arms that he could never leave her again.
“I want you to go home as soon as possible. I mean home to Harold and Amy’s place. Richmond isn’t going to be safe.”
Kendall parted her lips to protest, but he closed them with a gentle kiss.
“As soon as I can, I’ll come back there,” he promised. “Back to you. Give me your promise.”
She couldn’t speak; he seemed to be satisfied with her nod.
And he seemed to understand the tears that misted her eyes and dampened her cheeks as they made love, even at the sweet precipice of rapture. He kissed them away in the aftermath of their passion, holding her to him. And just before she fell asleep, she heard him whisper gently, “I’ll come to you at the cove, Kendall, I promise.”
When she awakened before dawn, he was gone. Already the day was alive with the roar of cannon fire and the thunder of shelling. The Wilderness Campaign had begun.
* * *
In his life, Brent had never seen anything as awful as the Wilderness Campaign.
On horseback, they had started off as one of the earliest units into the fray. The forest had seemed so still, the sky so clear and fresh. He could hear birds, breathe the sweet green smell of the trees and the shrubs.
Midway, they had come across their first action; a rain of bullets had fallen upon them from the left side of the trees. Horses had swung about in panic, the men had quickly dismounted. They’d found their own cover across the road.
Then the cannons had begun.
And the trees had become a blaze.
He had seen Stirling ordering his men to fall back; he had begun the retreat himself, but then he had seen Billy Christian, the little drummer boy from Tallahassee.
Boys weren’t supposed to be fighting wars. But Billy had been in this one from just about the beginning, or so Stirling had told Brent. He was just a week shy of his thirteenth birthday, and he’d been pounding out a march beat for the men forever, or so it seemed. He’d been an orphan, his old uncle Josh the only kin he’d had, and Josh had come into the unit.
Josh had died. Billy had stayed.
And now, in the mire of dead men and screaming horses and burning trees and suffocating smoke, Billy was down. Shot in the leg.
Brent heard the boy screaming, and began to ease back along the burning tinder, keeping a wary eye on the trees above him. He heard the crack of one falling before him and skirted around it; felt the burn against his face as sparks flew. Then he found Billy, saw the wound. Billy opened pain-filled eyes and saw Brent. “Captain, bet you’ll stick to water from now on, huh?” he tried to joke. Then another scream tore from him and Brent ripped up his trousers leg to fashion a tourniquet just below his knee. Billy was probably going to lose the leg. Brent could only hope he didn’t lose his life.
“Captain, get out of here. The forest is going to blow,” Billy warned him.
“Yep, that it is.”
Brent hefted down and picked up Billy, carrying him like a baby as he tried desperately to see through the smoke and black powder. He began to stagger forward with Billy’s weight, determined to find his bearings. They were alone in the forest, it seemed. Alone in hell.
A tree cracked and fell behind them. Brent quickened his pace. He was certain he heard hoofbeats just ahead. He started to hurry.
There was a horse, indeed. It was carrying one soldier with a shot-up arm and another with a gut-shot. But the injured men stopped when they saw Brent with the boy.
“Sir, we can give you the horse,” the gut-shot man offered, pain twisting his features even as he made the gallant offer.
“I’ve not a mark on me, and you need help fast. You’re not giving me a horse, soldier.”
“But we can take one more up here before this old nag falls down, sir!” The man with the bloodied arm called out.
“One more will be fine. I can walk,” Brent assured them. “If you can just get Billy out of here.”
“Aye, Captain!” the man said, saluting. He reached out his arms and Brent set Billy upon the horse. He saluted to the men. “Get going.”
The skinny old flea-bitten horse didn’t look like it would quite make it, but the soldier gave it a whack and it started off at a surprising trot out of the field of fire and death.
Brent followed as quickly as he could in their wake. The heat was becoming awful. It was unbearable just to try to breathe.
He lost his bearings briefly, thought he had returned to his direction properly, then thought that he saw some kind of cottage before him through the smoke and haze. He prayed he wasn’t wandering in circles. He paused.
And it was then that the tree caught fire behind him. He heard the snap of the flames, heard the cracking. He turned, ready to leap away.
He did so, and avoided the bulk of the tree’s weight. But one heavy branch, just beginning to smolder, broke away. He raised his arms, but not in quite enough time to ward off the blow completely. The wood cracked against his skull. Against the grayness and ripping red fire that streaked it, he saw a field of velvet and stars. He fought for consciousness, but he was falling....
He was still alive, he thought moments later. Or else, he was dead, and he had gone to hell, the heat was so intense. He tried to rise. He couldn’t fight off the grayness. When he lifted his head, he passed out again.
He couldn’t die. He had promised Kendall that he wouldn’t die.
Sometimes, when he closed his eyes, he could see her again. She was running down the beach, the luxuriant turquoise water lapping at her bare feet. Her hair was touched by the sun, and he was coming home to her . . .
Then he was in the field of fire again. Dying. He struggled up. He had promised her he would live. “Kendall!” he whispered her name; cried it out in the forest.
Someone was above him. He could see a wealth of hair. Kendall, here . . .
But it wasn’t Kendall. The hair was gray.
He tried to rise, and saw an old woman with a sad face and skinny frame had come from somewhere. “Ma’am, I’ve just got to make it out of here,” he told her.
“You’re half dead, sir,” she told him.
He tried to grin. “Only half?”
She smiled. She had been young once. Maybe just before the war.
Her face was gone. She took hold of his ankles. His head bumped against the ground.
Kendall . . .
He had made her a promise. Dear God, he loved her so much. He had to go back to her. He would go back to her, he would go back to her, damn it, but he would live!
The woods seemed to scream with the rise of the fire.
Then the heat was gone, and the pain was gone.
And the world faded to a sweet shade of black....
* * *
By midmorning it had become apparent that the tavern would soon be directly in the line of battle. Kendall went into the cellar along with the other civilians.
And as the hours passed, the shelling increased. By noon the tavern had actually become part of the Rebel line. The taproom was filled with wounded soldiers and the men who had carried them inside, out of range of enemy fire.
Unable to stand the waiting, Kendall crawled up the cellar stairs. The Rebels seemed surprised to see her, yet they did not protest her company once they realized her usefulness. She bandaged those who were injured, and carried water to those who fought. And listened avidly to the information brought in to the tavern by those leading the infantry troop.
Jeb Stuart’s cavalry was all around them, tenaciously holding the line. The cannons grew curiously silent. Kendall learned that neither side dared use such artillery, becau
se the smoke was so thick in the burning forest that cannon fire was likely to kill one’s own troops. The combat was now hand to hand.
As darkness descended, there was a lull in the fighting. Cavalrymen drifted into the tavern to find a moment’s respite before rejoining their worn and scattered comrades.
Kendall prayed that she would see Brent, and her heart leapt as she recognized the uniforms of the Second Florida Cavalry—and then saw Stirling McClain. She was about to hail him when she saw that he was anxiously scanning the room for her.
“Kendall, dear God, you are still here! You’ve got to get back to Richmond. You can go with the hospital wagons.”
“Where’s Brent?” Kendall demanded, interrupting him.
Stirling hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“You and he were together. What has happened to him, Stirling?”
Stirling gripped her shoulders and shook her slightly. “The woods all around us are burning! Men on both sides are dying from the fire as well as from enemy bullets. You can’t see your own hand before your eyes, and you don’t know friend or foe until you face him.”
Kendall broke free from him, nearly hysterical. “I’m going out, Stirling. He’s out there somewhere. He might be dying.”
She ran past Stirling, tearing for the woods. “Kendall, wait!” he called after her. “The fires are everywhere!”
She heard him running after her, but she didn’t care. She raced full into the woods, then paused, spinning about, coughing and choking from the dense smoke. Stirling was right. Between the coming of night and the gray smoke billowing from the red and crackling trees, she couldn’t see an inch before her.
“Brent!” she screamed. She was answered by an ominous silence—and then by a sudden roar as a giant oak groaned and snapped beneath the fury of the fire. She screamed, and jumped far back to avoid it, gasping as she tripped over a pile of dead men. A hand grasped her ankle. “Help me, lady, merciful heaven, help me lady.”
Kendall gazed down at the pained and sooty face staring into hers. It was that of a young man, twisted in fear and torment. The coat he wore was blue.
“Jesus Christ, shoot me, at least. Don’t let me burn. Please, have mercy.”
“Can you hold on to me?” Kendall gasped.
“Yes, but my leg is all shot up.”
Kendall bent down and gripped the man about the waist. Straining hard, she was able to drag him. He screamed out once, but when she paused, he urged her to keep going. “Bless you, ma’am, you’re a saint.”
“I’m a Rebel,” Kendall said dryly.
“A Rebel saint . . .”
The smoke began to thin. Kendall saw people moving slowly about. They were shadows, ghostly shadows in the eerie, doom-filled night.
“Help me!” she cried.
A man came to her. To her horror, she saw that he also wore blue. “Lady,” he told her, grappling her human burden from her. “You’ve got to get out of here. This whole forest is going up like tinder!”
“I . . . I have to find a man,” she said.
The Yankee hesitated. “A Rebel?”
Kendall bit her lip, then nodded.
Suddenly the night was illuminated in an orange glow and another great roar split the air. The entire area of trees behind her seemed to blaze together in a massive flame that reached to the heavens.
“You’re not going back that way, ma’am, and you’re not going to find a thing alive in that direction. Come with me. I’ll take you to Lieutenant Bauer.”
She felt his grip on her arm, but she didn’t care. She was covered with soot herself now, worn and despairing. Brent had been lost in the fire. Nothing mattered. Nothing at all.
It seemed as if they walked for hours, a party of twenty men carrying what wounded they could take away in stretchers. They had to zigzag continually to avoid the fires. But at last they led her from the forest to an encampment far to the north.
She was brought before a tired, bewhiskered old man in a headquarters tent. She could see that he had been fighting. His blue coat was black and scorched, he stank of smoke—as Kendall was certain she did herself.
“Found ourselves a right pretty Reb, Lieutenant Bauer,” said the young Yank who had found her. “What do we do with her now?”
Surprised but compassionate green eyes surveyed her. She must have been a sorry sight, covered with soot, her hair a tangled mass, her shoulders slumped with dejection.
“How did you get into this hell on earth?” the lieutenant asked, shaking his head. “Never mind.” He looked back to his man. “If the lady is a Rebel, we’ll return her to her side. Arrange a conveyance.”
His kindness brought tears to her eyes. “Thank you, sir,” she managed to whisper.
“There is enough horror and pain about us,” he said briefly, dismissing the problem.
She returned to the Rebel lines on horseback and was handed over to an emissary of Robert E. Lee, but she never did see the southern general. Jeb Stuart had been mortally wounded, and Lee was with his friend arranging to send the great cavalry commander to Richmond.
She was still too numb to care about anything, and she merely stood, swaying before a campfire as her immediate future was decided for her by whispering officers. And then she felt a touch on her arm.
It was Stirling. He turned her into his arms and embraced her. “Kendall, thank God.” He was silent for a moment, then held her away and studied her lifeless eyes. “They’re ready to leave for Richmond with some of the wounded, Kendall. You have to go.”
She shook her head, blinded by tears. “I can’t leave.”
“Kendall, you won’t help Brent by running into the Yankees again—or by burning to death in the fire. I’ll keep in touch with you, but if you really love my brother, take care of yourself. Get back to Florida as soon as you can.” Stirling paused once again and held her close. “You could be carrying his child, Kendall.”
Kendall doubted that she was, but she didn’t tell Stirling that. All the times they had been together, and all the months that had passed . . . she should have had his child. Even that had been denied her.
“Kendall,” Stirling said, “you have to go.”
“I’ll wait in Richmond,” she said.
Stirling opened his mouth as if to protest, then shut it. “I’ll keep in touch with you, Kendall, I promise.”
* * *
Stirling was true to his word. She received his letters at least once a month. Brent hadn’t been found, Stirling wrote, but neither had his body. Stirling’s letters contained hope; he refused to believe that Brent was dead.
So did Kendall. But though his letters urged her to leave Richmond, she continually refused to do so, even when Charlie McPherson arrived at her door, telling her that he could take her to Amy in the Jenni-Lyn.
“I’ll be back in two months, young lady,” Charlie said firmly. “And you’ll come with me then. The captain would want that.”
Kendall smiled at him vaguely. She knew she wouldn’t come.
Months later, as October rolled around, Brent was still among the missing. Just as he had promised, Charlie McPherson arrived at her door again.
“It’s no good, Charlie. I won’t leave until I know what has happened to—”
Her words broke off as a man stepped past Charlie, a man strangely out of place in her civilized parlor.
“Red Fox,” she whispered, stunned.
He stepped toward her, dark eyes severe and unfathomable, arms strong and secure as he took her gently within them. “You will come, Kendall. When the Night Hawk can, he will come to you at the bay.”
“I—”
“I know my friend,” Red Fox stated firmly. “And I will take you, his woman, where he would wish you to be.”
As she leaned against the Seminole’s strength, Kendall remembered Brent’s words to her. Yes, when he could, he would come to her at the cove. And she would wait . . . Richmond was growing more dangerous every day. The Yankee yoke about the capital was tightening.
“I’ll come,” she whispered.
* * *
They easily broke through the blockade outside Richmond. Charlie had learned well from his captain.
Throughout the journey, Kendall clung to Red Fox. She trusted him and found his touch comforting.
But one night, beneath the velvet sky and stars, he pulled away from her. “Kendall Moore, I love the Night Hawk. And I feel that he lives. But I am flesh and blood—even if the flesh is red. You are a beautiful woman, and I love you well. You come to me in innocence; yet you tempt me to betray my brother.”
Kendall stared at him with wide, startled eyes. And she realized that he did love her, and that he was lonely—just as she was. And if there had never been a Brent McClain, she might have loved Red Fox in every way. He was one of the strongest men she had ever known, in character and person.
But they did both love Brent; and they both believed that he would return.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, backing away from him.
He reached for her, and caught her hand. “No, do not go away. He is my brother, you are my sister. We will not lose our bond of friendship.”
“No,” Kendall agreed, studying the ageless wisdom in his deep brown eyes. “We will not.”
They reached the bay in November. By the start of the new year, things looked extremely grim for the South. Sherman had finished his infamous March to the Sea, setting Georgia afire with his scorched-earth tactics, destroying everything that couldn’t be carried away. Kendall became frightened for her family, and when Charlie stopped at the bay in February, Kendall begged him to try and get into Charleston and bring her mother, sister, and niece south.
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