Thank God Ahab and Meshach were out of sight. He’d worked for Tarlander more than once and would surely have been recognized.
“Was that who I think it was?” she asked Benjamin when he waited for her at a bridge crossing a wide creek.
“Yessuh.” Benjamin shook his head. “Dat close.” He turned his horse. “Not far now.”
They gathered in a small clearing bordering the creek, where Daniel awaited them. He was already gathering sticks for a fire.
Jesselynn reached behind her to help a groggy Thaddeus climb up on the seat. “You been a mighty good boy. I’m right proud of you.”
“Hungry?” He reached up and wrapped his arms around her neck. Burrowing into her chest like a little gopher, he repeated with more insistence. “Hungry. Want milk?”
Jesselynn sighed. Where would they get milk Other fresh food too, for that matter. Her eyes felt as if they’d been rolling in the Sahara Desert, and her rear felt permanently glued to the hard seat.
“I git some.” Benjamin remounted his horse.
“You’d best take the mule, then,” Jesselynn said.
“Oh.” He dismounted with a nod. “ ’Phelia, you got a jug?” Meshach unhitched the team and removed the harness from both horse and mule, then slipped a bridle with short reins on the mule. “You hurry.”
After handing Benjamin a couple of their precious store of coins, Jesselynn climbed over the wagon wheel and, when her feet felt solid ground, leaned against the wheel until her knees no longer felt like buckling. She propped her head on hands crossed on the iron wheel rim, thinking only of her bed back at Twin Oaks. The mosquito net draped just so, clean sheets cool to the skin, a mattress that molded to one’s body and let sleep come like a welcome visitor.
Not like a sledgehammer against rocks.
At this point, however, the sledgehammer and rock base would be appreciated. But they had to eat first and take care of the animals. Good thing Ophelia could sleep during the night, so she could be awake with Thaddeus, who was at the moment running from tree to tree, peeking out and giggling as he dodged Ophelia’s reaching hands.
Jesselynn wasn’t sure who was having more fun, the boy or the woman just grown beyond girlhood. She watched, wishing she had the stamina to join in. Every bone and muscle creaked and groaned when she left the wagon-wheel prop. Meshach already had the horses all hobbled, and Daniel was starting a fire to cook breakfast.
She should be helping. She should be telling them what to do. After all, that’s what the mistress of the plantation did—set the tasks for the day and then make sure everyone was working. Somehow there seemed to be a shift in positions here, and at the moment she didn’t much care.
She dragged her protesting body over to the creek and lay down flat on her belly to get her face close enough to the water to wash it without too much effort. Skirts would have prohibited such an action with the ease she accomplished it. Britches were definitely more accommodating. The cool water on her face made her dunk again. She clutched her hat in one hand and swished her face back and forth in the water, scrubbing with the other hand. Her hair dripped water in her face, and it ran down her neck into her shirt when she twisted to a sitting position. Now for her feet.
Thaddeus ran up as she finished untying her bootlaces. “Me too.” Jesselynn grunted as she jerked her boots off and wriggled her toes.
Thaddy recognized a lap when he saw it and climbed in. Reaching up, he patted Jesselynn’s cheek with one chubby hand, at the same time inching down her legs toward the goal.
“Wait a minute, wiggle worm.” She reached for the buttons on his shoes. “You can’t go in the water with your shoes on.”
He giggled again, the merry sound flirting with the birdsong from the trees above.
“All right.” She set him on his feet and gave his bottom a pat. “Now hang on to my hand and …”
Thaddeus already had his toes in the meandering water, giggling even louder. He leaned forward to catch a floating leaf.
Jesselynn snagged the back of his britches just in time. “I said wait.” She set him on his feet, ankle-deep in the water. He squished his toes in the smooth gravel and leaned forward again. This time she held him steady with a firm grasp of his suspenders so he could splash water, and wade, and not tumble in.
“Coffee.”
She turned at the call and loosened her grip just enough for him to sit splat in the shallow water. “Thaddy!”
“Me Joshwa.” He held up his hand and let the water trickle down his arm, making him giggle again.
“Come, let’s go eat.”
“No.” He slapped his palms on the water surface and chortled at the spray.
Jesselynn groaned. She could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t ready to be taken out of the creek. And when Thaddeus wasn’t ready to be moved, his roar would be heard clear to the Mississippi?
“Ophelia has bread and jam for you.”
“No.”
“Butter and sugar on bread?”
“No.” He slapped the water surface again.
How did he get so spoiled But she knew. No one wanted to say no to a motherless, and now a fatherless, little boy or make him unhappy. There was too much sorrow in his life already. But she didn’t dare leave him for one minute either. While the creek was shallow on the edges, the center clipped along at a good pace, and she hadn’t really checked to see how deep it was. But babies drowned in buckets, and though Thaddeus surely didn’t consider himself a baby, if he fell flat out, the current might keep him from getting to his feet again.
She waded out and, rolling up her pant legs, stood in water to her knees. Her mother might just as well have been watching from behind the trees, her voice came so clear. “Jesselynn Highwood, young ladies do not show off their ankles like that, nor their knees. For shame.” For a minute, Jesselynn wished for both her mother and Lucinda. She snatched her thoughts back from memories of home as if being stung by bees. “Only look forward, girl. Only forward.”
“Huh? You talkin’ to me?” Ophelia stood on the creek bank.
“Ah, no. To myself.” Jesselynn took in a deep breath and let it all out. Now that she thought of it again, her aches hadn’t really gone away. “Come on, Thaddeus, we are going for breakfast now.”
He looked up at her, eyes squinting to judge if her face matched her tone. When he saw it did, he raised his hand and stood when she took it. “Up.”
She swung him to her hip. “You’re all wet.”
He patted her cheek. “Water good.”
She turned at the sound of a horse cantering toward them. If it wasn’t Benjamin, they could be in a heap of trouble.
Chapter Seven
Richmond, Virginia
“Wounded comin’ off the train.”
Louisa Highwood settled the patient down against the meager pillow. She’d been holding him up so he could take a drink of water. “I’ll be back soon as I can,” she told him.
“Thankee, Missy.” His mountain dialect no longer felt strange upon her ears. These days she was grateful when the men that entered her wards could talk. Leastways that usually meant they weren’t slipping through death’s door.
“I will be back.” The gratitude blazing from his eyes caused her to lay a hand on his shoulder. “Soon as possible.”
He nodded, and his eyes drifted closed.
While Louisa had volunteered at the hospital to read to the wounded and perhaps write letters home for those who couldn’t, in reality, she’d become more of a nurse’s helper in the month she’d been there. The soldiers called her an angel of mercy. God knew this place needed huge doses of mercy.
At first the older nurses had tried to protect her from the ghastly sight of male bodies ripped by shrapnel and blown apart by bullets. The stench alone was enough to make a stalwart man blanch. They kept her from the operating room, but life on the wards was one horror story after another.
Keeping a smile in place took a chunk of her will. Sometimes she bathed wounds w
ith her tears when there was no medicine available. The Yankees blew up enough railroad track to keep supplies low. A sailing ship had run the blockade to bring in much-needed supplies until the Confederates regained ground and rebuilt the tracks.
She spent much of her time washing faces ravaged by pain and bringing cooling cups of water. Walking swiftly down the center aisle, she promised to be right back to all who called to her. An empty bed made her shut her eyes and swallow. John, the man who’d occupied that bed yesterday had not gone home, at least not to his earthly home. The letter he’d shown her from his wife told about a son born after he went to war.
Like Thaddeus at home. Twin Oaks, where what to wear that day had been the morning’s main decision, where her older sister Jesselynn tried to get Louisa and Carrie Mae to help her on the plantation after Mother died, and Daddy and her brothers had ridden off to war. Maybe if she’d been more helpful, Jesselynn wouldn’t have banished her to Richmond.
“Hurry, Miz Highwood, we needs you.” The call came from one of the helpers outside. It was their job to bring the stretchers in, if they could find a place, that is. In the meantime, heat and flies and untreated wounds added to the death toll.
Louisa wiped her hands on an apron already stiff with blood and other unmentionables and wished she had time to stop for a drink herself. Pushing hair the color of honey-laced molasses back in a loosening chignon, she paused only a moment at the top of the steps. Real air. At least compared to that inside. Using the back of her hand, she dried the sweat—she no longer referred to the rivulets as perspiration—from her broad forehead clear down to her slightly pointed chin. She’d been told her eyes were her best feature, amber with flecks of gold, but right now all she could think was that they ached and she had no use for long lashes. She never batted them at anyone anyway. More than once she’d been told with her slight figure that she wasn’t strong enough to help lift heavy men, but she knew there was strength in leanness, and she used it well.
“Over here.” Jacob, taller and stronger than most of the free black men who’d been hired to assist, reminded her of Meshach back home. He moved from stretcher to stretcher, cloaked in a gentle spirit and a heart that ached like hers at the carnage.
While the doctors tried to keep her out of the maelstrom of incoming wounded, Jacob recognized those who needed her hand to give them strength. Joining the ebony-skinned man, she looked down at the stretcher and the man whose field bandages were now soaked and crusty with blood. Either the doctors or the bullet had taken one leg off below the knee and bound both the stump and the man’s head, leaving only part of his jaw visible. His right arm was taped to his body to protect better than a sling.
She knelt in the dust and laid her hand on the man’s heart and felt the strong beat. “Let’s move him into John’s bed. That’s the only one left on our ward.”
Jacob nodded and beckoned another assistant to help him.
While there, Louisa checked the man behind her but knew before she even touched him that he was beyond help. Death had won again. She moved down the row, her low murmur as soothing as her touch.
“Am I in heaven?” A soldier squinted against the sun’s glare. “ ’Cause if there’s angels around, can’t be hell.” He coughed, and pink drool leaked from the side of his mouth.
Oh, God, why do you let this continue? Louisa had long ago given up the dream of an easy victory for the South. There was no glory in war. Her brothers had lied to her and to themselves. She beckoned to another freeman and pointed at the dead man. “Take him over there, and bring this man to my ward. I’ll find a place.”
They did as she said while she turned to the muttering man on the next pallet.
“What are you doin’ out here?” The man, outlined by the blazing sun, stopped behind her.
Why, I’m pourin’ afternoon tea. What all did you think? She bit back the retort and rose to her feet. She still had to tilt her head to see his face, shielding her eyes with her hand. Between his size and the fiery aura surrounding him, he might have been God himself.
“This is surely no place for a woman of your tender years. Get on home now.”
He had to be new. Most of the other doctors were so grateful for help that they ignored her obvious age. Or lack thereof.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir, but my—the men need water, and usually I’m reading to them or writing for them. Surely that is within the bounds of Christian charity. Christ himself said—”
“I know what Christ said, miss, but He wasn’t in the midst of a military hospital.”
“No, sir. His battle was much bigger.” She kept her voice gentle, hoping she sounded more like her mother than the harridan she’d been accused of one day. She backed away, knowing that if he sent her home, there would be nothing she could do about it—today. And she wanted to get inside to help with the man Jacob carried in first. There was something about that man.
“Doctor, over here.” The call caught his attention, and Louisa hurried for the ward.
“He just wants to protect you,” one of the older women said in passing. “You mustn’t take it to heart. If I didn’t need you so bad, I would never let you help here like you do. It isn’t seemly, I know, but these are terrible times, and ‘seemly’ seems not so important any longer.”
“Thank you.” Louisa heard one of her patients calling. “I must go.”
Between her and Jacob, they had the two new men cleaned up and resting on fresh sheets before the doctor arrived on the ward. Louisa held the enameled pan to catch the discarded bandages, which would be taken out to the washroom and boiled clean, then rerolled and used again. The man in the bed groaned but never regained awareness.
“Just do what you can. The longer he stays unconscious, the better off he’ll be. Then the pain won’t kill him at least.”
“What about his head?”
“Not as bad as it looks. Head wounds always bleed profusely. He won’t be so handsome as before, but the bullet didn’t puncture the skull. Not sure if we can save the eye or not. Hardheaded man, he.” Captain Tate, one of the few doctors who thanked Louisa instead of trying to chase her away, finished tying off the bandages around the head of the wounded man and got to his feet, his knees creaking with the effort. He looked down at his patient. “He’s one of the lucky ones. No more war for him. If you can keep him alive, he’ll go home.”
He took the basin from Louisa and handed it to Jacob. “See that this makes it back to the caldrons, boy.” He checked the arm stub of the man in the next bed and then looked up to his standing helper. “Lead on, dear Miz Highwood. I heard you have another new recruit.”
“Down here.”
When the doctor left the ward, Louisa took her water pail out to the pump in back of the hospital and nodded to the helper who leaned on the pump handle and began the requisite number of pumps to bring the cool water up from the well.
At least the hospital had a well, and a clean one at that.
“Thank you.” She picked up her bucket and stopped, staring up at the tall windows on the second-floor wing, her ward. Seen from the outside, the brick walls and white-painted window trim gave no hint of the suffering inside. But when one opened the door, a miasma of moaning, despair, and the stench of putrefying flesh smothered the air, making it not only imprudent but impossible to draw in a deep breath. The September heat lay like a featherbed over the building, trapping the heat in the bricks. Even the leaves of the elm trees hung limp, too tired to rustle.
She’d become adept at shallow breathing.
The cries for help, for God, for home, were a different matter.
At least she could bring water.
“Miz Highwood, ain’t it time for you to git on home?” One of the men who could now sit up nodded toward the dusking window. “Not good for you to be out after dark. Ain’t safe.”
“Thank you, I’m about to go. Aunt Sylvania always sends one of her servants to fetch me.” Her aunt had given up trying to keep Louisa from the hospital,
and now that Carrie Mae’s wedding was drawing nearer, she had other things on her mind besides a niece who might have coined the word “stubborn.”
Louisa set her pail down on the bench designated for it and glanced around the room. So much more to do and never enough help. If only she could get Carrie Mae down here, but the day she did come at Louisa’s importuning, she’d fainted dead away at the sight of the men on stretchers waiting to be seen by the doctor.
“You comin’ back?” one of the other men whispered as she walked the middle aisle, stopping to adjust a sheet, a pillow, touch a shoulder.
“First thing in the mornin’.” She stopped at the man lying in John’s bed. She couldn’t think of it any other way until they at least knew this man’s name. But he never stirred when she touched his hand. If only they could keep him alive long enough to find out who he was.
She studied the line of his jaw. What did he look like under those bandages? Would he recognize himself in the mirror when he awoke? What was there about him that seemed familiar?
“You got the purtiest hair, ma’am.” A soldier who looked too young to shave tried to raise his head but winced and let it fall back. “Please don’t think I’m bein’ forward.”
“I won’t if you promise to rest and get well.”
He shook his head with the barest motion. “Them nightmares. They make sleepin’ purt near impossible, but I’ll try.” Eyes, circled and crisscrossed with red and sunken back in his skull, pleaded for her touch.
She took his hand and patted it. “I’ll bring my Bible with me again tomorrow and read you some.”
“Thankee, Miz Highwood. You git on home now.”
Louisa stopped at the doorway and looked back. How many of them would still be there when she returned in the morning?
Chapter Eight
Morgantown, Kentucky
September 23, 1862
“Town up ahead, mile or so.” Meshach trotted Sunshine, the mare, alongside the wagon.
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