With the two guests cleaned up and their clothes washed in water from the stream, Ophelia tucked them into the blankets with the boys in the wagon bed and crawled in beside them all. The men rolled in quilts under the wagon, and the only sound was the horses grazing.
Jesselynn hunkered against the base of a tree overlooking the trail back the way they’d come. Because of the moonlight, the shadows seemed even deeper and darker. But the forest critters went about their business, so she felt about as secure as possible in spite of the shots fired.
In the morning she’d send Benjamin out to scout, but for now they all needed their rest.
She stretched and hunkered down again several times, yawning to keep awake, even resorting to pinching herself. While walking around helped, the forest noises quit at her movements, and she would feel the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Surely there was someone behind that big oak, the hickory, in the brush.
When Meshach spoke her name, she bit off a shriek, leaving the taste of blood in her mouth.
“Sorry, thought you heard me comin’.”
“How could I when you don’t make a sound?” Jesselynn whispered back, her heart still racing as if she’d been jumping logs.
“Heard anythin’?”
“Nope. One of the horses grunted and rolled—that ’bout gave me the shakes—but other than wild critters, nothing.”
“I’m goin’ take a look around. You stay here.”
“Good.” How could she tell him that the thought of tramping around in the dark like that scared her spitless? Maybe because her brothers used to jump out at her from dark places and scare her witless, she’d never been comfortable without a lantern or candle in the dark. Now driving the wagon, or riding, that wasn’t so bad, but walking? Uh-uh. She settled back against the tree trunk, every sense on full alert.
When Meshach returned, he cleared his throat a distance away, then whistled a whippoorwill’s song to let her know it was he. “All’s good.”
“I thought so.” Jesselynn stretched and handed him the rifle. “Call me if you need me.”
“I will.”
She was asleep before she had the quilt wrapped clear around her.
She opened her eyes when Benjamin rode back into camp. Throwing back the quilt and pulling on her boots all in one motion, she dug her jacket out from under the quilt where she kept it so the dew wouldn’t be able to soak it in the dark hours before dawn. By now she’d learned to never stand up until she crawled out from under the wagon. One crack on the head had taught her the lesson well.
She headed to where the two men stood talking. “What did you see?”
“Nothin’ much. Someone camped but left in a hurry.” He handed her a tow sack. “Couple men, I think.”
She opened the mouth of the sack and saw dried beans, a side of bacon, and two small bags she assumed to be salt and coffee. “But what if they come back for their supplies?”
Benjamin shrugged. “One never come back. He daid. Confederate sojer. Found ’im in de woods some ways from camp.”
Sure, nothin’ much. Has death gotten so normal we think nothing of it?
She kept the thought to herself. “See any tracks?”
“Spent shells. Horses leave fast.”
“How many?” Getting information from Benjamin was like pulling pokeweed.
He shrugged. “Din’ count but dey gone.”
“Which direction?” Meshach looked up to study the clouds coming in from the west.
“Dat way.” Benjamin pointed south.
“And we’re going west.” She looked up at the man beside her. “Stay or go?”
“We go, but dere’s rain in dose clouds. Rain soon.”
The man could be a prophet. Jesselynn hunkered under her canvas, the pouring rain splattering on the rumps of the team. They were climbing again, the horses straining against their collars. Wet leaves plastered their hides, yellowed by an earlier frost now that they were climbing higher. She braced her feet against the floor of the wagon and tried to keep the tent over her head from slipping.
They breached the crest and let the horses stop under a tree to catch their breath. Jesselynn rubbed her wet hands together and studied the sodden world. Nothing looked drearier than oak trees losing their leaves to a pounding rain and horses hanging their heads, rivulets running down their manes.
After a short rest Meshach waved, signaling it was time to move forward.
Jesselynn slapped the reins and clucked to the team. They leaned into their collars, and the wagon groaned but began to move. The sound of a galloping horse could be heard above the rain.
“Hey, I found us a cave.” Benjamin pulled the mare to a stop. “Right near.”
Jesselynn didn’t wait for her heart to stop pounding, she just turned the horses in the direction he pointed. Within minutes she saw the hole in the limestone cliff face. While it wasn’t big enough to drive the wagon in, the horses would make it. And they could build a fire.
“Get inside,” she ordered the passengers in her wagon as she leaped to the ground to unharness the team. “Take what you can with you.”
Benjamin came out of the cave, his hands raised to stop them. “Someone in dere.”
“Someone who?” Meshach strode into the opening.
Jesselynn finished unhooking the traces and hooked the ends up on the rump pad. She was already soaked from the driving rain. Who cared if there was someone else there? Surely there was room for all. Unless of course that somebody didn’t want to share or would steal some of their precious supplies.
Meshach waved her in. “Leave de horses for now.”
Jesselynn knotted a tie rope around a tree trunk and entered the cave. A man lay on the cave floor; another was propped against the wall. Dressed in the butternut uniform of the Confederacy, both wore the bloodstains of terrible wounds.
“Dey alive?” Benjamin squatted down to check.
“They won’t be arguing over the cave, the condition they’re in.” Jesselynn couldn’t believe she’d said anything so uncaring. Whatever happened to her mother’s training? She froze. Was that a gun cocking she heard?
Chapter Twenty-Six
Richmond, Virginia
“Miz Highwood? What kind of game are you playin’?” the lieutenant asked.
Louisa shot her sister a look that should have fried the flowers on her bonnet. Please, Carrie Mae, don’t say anything more.
“Oh, did I say somethin’ I shouldn’t?”
If she’d been closer, she would have stamped on her blabbermouth sister’s foot. Instead Louisa made the mistake of looking up at the lieutenant. If he’d looked sober before, he did so no longer. Thunderclouds now rode his brow like a cavalry unit set to charge.
Jefferson Steadly gave Louisa a pitying look, took his betrothed’s hand, and tucked it back under his arm. “Come, my dear, let us go in and speak with your aunt as we had planned.” The wink he sent Louisa as he passed her made her face flame anew.
“Would you like to tell me what is going on?” The lieutenant’s tone had softened but only enough that an ear tuned to his voice would pick it up.
Louisa had learned it well, even with the few words he spoke so seldom. Could she brazen it out? She felt her shoulders sag. Now, if it had been Jesselynn caught in a lie of this magnitude, she might have breezed right through it, but not Louisa. Living this lie had been one of the hardest things she had ever done in her life.
“Would you like to sit down?” She motioned toward the chairs on the portico. “This will take a bit of time.”
“Seems I have all the time in the world at this point.” The lieutenant put both crutches under one arm and, using the handrail to pull on, hopped one-legged up the three steps. When he took the chair she indicated, he sat down with a sigh.
Louisa sat in the other chair. “Does your leg still hurt awfully?”
“Not always. But I banged it in the move, and now I’ll pay for that for a time.”
Louisa leaned forward and
pushed the hassock next to him. “Put it up on that.”
“Thank you.” The lieutenant settled his leg and tried to cover the sigh. He leaned his head against the high back of the rocker and closed his eyes.
Louisa studied his profile in the dimming light. Surely the bones in his face were no longer so prominent, and his color had most definitely improved. The scar on his forehead had receded until now it only made him look more interesting. When he went home, the girls would comment that it made him look more dashing.
Why did that thought not make her chuckle as she’d hoped?
A whippoorwill called, his song gentle on the ears, almost melancholy in tone.
The lieutenant would be going home—soon. All he needed was a mode of travel.
“So, Miz Highwood.” His accent on the Miz told her what he thought about the whole thing. “Maybe you’d like to explain now.”
“No, I would not like to explain, but if you can keep from informing the surgeon general, I might choose to explain. You see, I am not one of your men to be ordered around, and …” Her words came faster as she got up a head of steam, much like a locomotive leaving the station.
“I’m aware of that. Let me rephrase my question. Would you please explain? And I cannot promise not to tell the surgeon general. I will have to do what I believe best.”
Louisa nodded. And sighed. This seemed to be an evening for sighing. “I have to go back a ways.”
It was his turn to nod.
“When my sister Jesselynn decided it was no longer safe for us at Twin Oaks, she took it upon herself to send her two younger sisters here to Aunt Sylvania’s. Since her fiancé had been killed in battle, I think she was hoping we would find—” Louisa clapped a hand over her mouth. Oh, Lord, what am I saying? She took in a deep breath and began again. “Safety. Yes, she hoped we would find safety here in Richmond. Right from the first we attended the meetings with Aunt Sylvania where the women knitted, sewed uniforms, and wound bandages for our men in the war. But I wanted to do something more. It was like … like all our fine men were without faces, and while I stitched the best and fastest that I could, I … I wanted to be where it mattered.”
“You think socks and uniforms and bandages don’t matter?” One eyebrow arched.
“No. No, that isn’t what I meant at all.” Louisa stopped her hands from wringing together. What kind of a ninny was she becoming? Sighing, hand wringing? She let out a huff of air and gritted her teeth.
“You are deliberately misunderstanding me, sir, and I resent that. You asked for my explanation, and I am doing the very best that I can.”
“Yes, forgive me. I’m sorry.”
Her eyes flew wide open, and she closed her mouth before it gapped. He, Lieutenant Lessling, had asked for her forgiveness.
“You’re forgiven.” She clasped her hands primly in her lap, but even so, one forefinger insisted on smoothing the one beneath. “One day I heard one of the women talking about volunteering at the hospital. She said they needed widows to come in and help on the wards, but that young unmarried women would not do since we, since … ah …”
She knew they would need no lamp on the veranda. Her face would light them better than ten lamps—with reflectors.
“So I appropriated my mother’s ring and introduced myself as Widow Highwood, telling everyone my husband Zachary had died in battle. We were so afraid he had, you see.”
“And no one questioned you?”
“Some.” She remembered how she had feigned tears when they did, wiping her eyes with a handkerchief she kept in her sleeve. The interrogator then had gotten flustered and withdrew. Worked every time. That she would not tell the lieutenant.
“And?”
“And so I began working in the ward, bringing water, reading, writing letters. I’ve never done any nursing chores. I’m not trained for that.” When she thought about it, that was not entirely true. Her mother had trained all three of her daughters in the healing arts, how to use herbs and unguents she’d created, how to apply poultices, dress wounds, even set broken bones. All manner of accidents happened on a plantation like Twin Oaks.
She sighed. Lying was so difficult. Why had they forced her into it?
“I know I have been a help.” The silence lay between them, soft like the air that kissed one’s skin like a lover. “You’ll keep my secret, won’t you?”
It was the lieutenant’s turn to sigh. “You put me in a difficult position.”
“But isn’t your job to look out for the good of your men? And I have been part of that good. I know their lives in the hospital are easier when I am there.”
“Granted, but there are rules.”
“I’m not hurting anyone.”
“Does your brother have anything to say on this?” The question came after another companionable silence.
Oh, cotton bolls. She straightened and lifted her chin a fraction. “He said he doesn’t want me going back there.”
“And you would defy him?”
“He is being well cared for. Why would he deny that care to others? If I were not his sister …”
“Ah, but you are.”
“I can run faster than he can.”
For a minute she thought he was choking, then realized he was laughing, a rusty sound as if it hadn’t been used in far too long. She’d actually made the dour lieutenant laugh.
“Could when we were younger too, but don’t you dare tell him that. Then he’d have to tell a lie.”
The man beside her snorted again.
“Won’t you have enough to do caring for the men at your aunt’s house?”
“Her servants can do most of the work here, and I will read to them as I do at the hospital, unless Aunt wants to do that. I plan to set Private Rumford to work in the garden with Reuben overseeing him.” She grabbed her audacity with both hands. “You could help if you’d like.”
“I will if you are there.”
Oh, cotton and tarnation tripled. He had her there. How could she be in both places at once?
“Is it a bargain?” He extended his hand, obviously expecting her to shake on an agreement.
“For the mornings.” She put her hand in his. Heat shot up her arm and suffused her neck, flaming up her face. “I … I think I hear someone calling me.” She leaped to her feet and disappeared into the house as if an entire cavalry unit were charging behind her.
“Oh, Lord, help!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
A Missouri cave
“How bad is he?”
“Alive, but not for long ’less we help ’im.” Meshach looked up at her from his kneeling position by the wounded soldier. As he spoke he removed his handkerchief and tied it above the man’s knee, then examined the wound in his side. “He in bad shape.”
“Put the horses back there.” Jesselynn pointed to the rear of the cave before it shrank down to a small tunnel. “Get wood and let’s get a fire going. Get him warmed up and us dried out. Thaddeus, you and Sammy sit over there and don’t you move. Jane Ellen, keep your brother close beside you.”
“I kin git wood.”
“I know you can. Thank you, but I think your brother needs you more right now.”
John Mark shuddered and coughed, a deep, gagging cough that made Jesselynn shiver. She’d heard that kind of coughing before, and a damp cave with wet clothes was not a place to start coughing like that.
“Don’ worry, Marse, John Mark cough like that alla time.” Jane Ellen patted her brother’s shoulder, clutching him close in front of her. “He been puny since the day he was borned.” Her declaration seemed a banner of pride. “I allus takes keer of ’im.”
Jesselynn nodded and headed back out in the rain to help find wood. Wet as she was already, what could a few drips more matter? Finding dry wood in the downpour was no easy task. She broke dead branches off the underside of pine trees and, carrying an armload, dragged a larger branch behind her. She hoped the men would fare better. How far away was water? They needed plenty o
f hot water to clean the soldier up. What could they use for a poultice? If those wounds were infected … She shook her head. Mother, what would you do?
No sense in waiting for an answer. If there were to be any answers, they would have to come from her, and right now she felt cold, wet, and long out of answers. She stumbled over a rock just inside the cave entrance and tossed the wood into a pile before stopping to rub her toe. Felt like a horse just stepped on it. No, stood on it.
She headed back out to the wagon for an ax to chop the bigger pieces. Where were the men?
By the time she returned, Ophelia had shaved off curls of wood to lay over the smoldering coals they kept in a lidded pan for fire starter. Within moments tendrils of smoke arose and then flames as soon as she blew on it. Thaddeus squatted beside her, breaking twigs into smaller pieces to add a bit at a time. Sammy sat in the dirt behind them, picking up handfuls of sand and watching them drizzle back to the floor.
“Jane Ellen, take one of those quilts and wrap it around your brother. Then you can help with the fire while Ophelia and I get a pallet made for the wounded man.” Talking was difficult with your teeth chattering.
Benjamin and Daniel dragged in a tree trunk that would burn for long hours, but no one had seen Meshach.
Once a canvas had been folded into a pallet, they each took a limb and hoisted the still-unconscious man into place next to the fire. As soon as a bucket of water from their barrel on the wagon was hot, she knelt down to inspect the wounds. The hole in his side had both an entrance and an exit, so she knew there was no bullet to dig out. Dirt mixed with blood crusted the wound, setting her to shaking her head. How could she clean it?
She rocked back on her heels, wishing she were anywhere but in a cave—in Missouri—tending an injured man she’d never before laid eyes on. She glanced up and caught sight of the dead man propped against the cave wall. If she dragged him outside, the wild animals would get the body during the night. There was no way she was sending her people out in the pouring rain to bury a man. So he had to stay, gruesome or not.
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