Daughter of Twin Oaks

by Lauraine Snelling

“I’ll be right there.” The surgeon general came around the desk and extended his hand. “Thank you, indeed, Miz Highwood.”

  Rising, she placed hers in his and nodded. “I will go back home then and care for my own men.” She fought to keep a smile on her face when all she wanted to do was scream.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  A Missouri cave

  October 10, 1862

  “Get ’em off! Get outside.”

  “Oh, Lawdy, save us!”

  “Come on, run!”

  “It’s in my hair!”

  Screams echoed around the cave. The horses snorted and shifted restlessly. People ran for the cave mouth, brushing at the crawling things and screaming all the while.

  “Thaddy, are you stung?” Jesselynn scooped her baby brother up in her arms, checking for the telltale red spot of a bite.

  “No.” He reached up and brushed one off her hair. “Gone now.”

  Ophelia shook out her clothes, her eyes rolling white, gibbering and crying all the while, screaming again when she saw one of the black bugs on Meshach’s shoulder.

  “Stop!” Meshach caught one of the bugs that was trying to burrow under the leaves. He knelt down and studied the insect, then began to chuckle. His great belly laugh grew while the others stared at him. Surely the big black man had lost his senses.

  “Dey’s no scorpions. Dey’s vinegaroons. Lookee here, dey no hurt no one. De fire musta brung ’em out.”

  Ophelia shuddered, and it was all Jesselynn could do to keep from it. Jane Ellen tittered, the first smile to decorate her face since her arrival.

  Benjamin slapped his knee and joined in the guffaws.

  “Hey?” The voice came from the cave, and if Jesselynn hadn’t been leaning against the entrance wall, she’d not have heard it. She returned and crossed to the sick man’s pallet. Kneeling, she studied his gray face.

  “Good mornin’. I reckon you might be thirsty about now.”

  “I didn’t die, then?” His voice rasped like a file on wood.

  “Not yet, and if we can help it, you won’t.” She didn’t add, You might wish you had, but she thought it awful hard. “I’ll get you some water. Broth’ll be hot as soon as we get the fire goin’ again.” She brushed a vinegaroon off his shoulder. “Don’t worry ’bout these bugs bein’ scorpions. They aren’t. Meshach says they’re vinegaroons.”

  “Oh.” His eyes drifted shut. She laid a hand on his forehead. Hot but not blazing. He might not be minding the cold like the rest of them. But then she wouldn’t ask for a fever to keep warm by.

  The others wandered back in the cave, and while Jesselynn and Ophelia started the fire, the men took the horses out to water and graze.

  “You want I should git some wood?” Jane Ellen offered.

  “Would be a right good help. Thanks.” Jesselynn blew again on the curls of wood and small twigs she had laid over the coals left from the night. They had almost let it go out. Whose watch had it been? Daniel, that’s who. She’d have to have a talk with him when he came back. Just because they were relatively safe in the cave, they still needed a lookout, at least to keep the fire going.

  Sure, and a good fire will bring out our marauding insects again. The thought made her chuckle. What a sight they must have been running around and screaming like that. Scare any self-respecting critter back into its hiding place. No wonder the poor things were scurrying so fast under leaves and whatever they could find for cover. One crawled out from under the wood stack when she took off a larger piece for the fire, then scuttled away, tail raised, mimicking the dangerous scorpion. All their patient needed was a few scorpion bites to push him right over the edge.

  She glanced over at the man on the pallet. Between the now flickering flames and the fever, he had some color in his face, what you could see above the beard.

  Meshach came back into the cave and retrieved his Bible. “Buried de other man. Got to read over ’im.”

  Jesselynn set the stew kettle over the flames. “If you want.” She could feel the look he gave her but kept her attention on the fixings. He wanted to believe in the God that wasn’t, fine, but no more for her. Not until she heard him leave did she look up to find Ophelia giving her a quizzical stare. Thaddeus came and leaned against her shoulder.

  “Hungry, Jesse.”

  “I know. This will be hot pretty soon.” She put her arm around him and hugged him close. So much to endure for such a little guy. He should be home safe in the kitchen of Twin Oaks, chewing a piece of bacon and giggling with the slave children. They would be chasing each other around the room and out the door and back in until Lucinda would shake her spoon at them and threaten their eternal banishment if they didn’t stay out of her way. There would be corn bread hot from the oven, eggs splattering in the frying pan, and redeye gravy set off to the side.

  She could almost smell the ham slices and the rich aroma of good coffee, along with the corn bread.

  Instead, she stirred the rabbit stew, making certain it was heated through and didn’t burn. If it hadn’t been for the lid on the threelegged pot, they’d most likely been having stewed vinegaroons for breakfast.

  Ophelia set the biscuits to baking in the frying pan, the tight lid almost making an oven. After they ate, they’d bake up a bunch more and let them dry hard. That way they would travel well.

  As if they needed to worry about that for the next few days. Moving this man would kill him for sure. When he woke, she planned to ask him his name. Going through his pockets hadn’t been even a thought yesterday. Just keeping him alive was enough.

  Jesselynn checked the strips of venison. They needed longer for drying too. That lazy Daniel. She’d tear a strip off his hide if he didn’t watch out.

  Jane Ellen, along with the help of Thaddeus and her brother, dragged in more branches and began breaking up the ones small enough. With the cracking of the branches and the ensuing giggles, the cave took on an even cozier feeling.

  Only Daniel didn’t come in to eat with the rest of them.

  “He with de horses,” Meshach said. He nodded to the again-drying venison. “He let de fire go out.”

  Jesselynn breathed a small sigh of relief. Thanks to Meshach, she wouldn’t have to get after the boy, for that’s what he was at sixteen, no matter how hard he tried to be a man.

  In wartime, we all grow up fast. Jesselynn’s mind flicked back to Twin Oaks, back to the games she played with her sisters and brothers on the lawn. Croquet had been their favorite even after the boys thought they were men and went away to school at Transylvania College in Lexington. How often she’d made Carrie Mae angry for whacking her ball off into the rose garden, and once into the pond. Now that had brought a shout of laughter from the boys and reprimands from their mother.

  Had the letters she’d written gotten to them, so they knew where she was? If only she could hear from home or from Richmond, this journey might not seem so … so arduous. How long it had been since she’d learned a new word and found ways to use it that day. It seemed like centuries, like another lifetime that happened to someone else.

  “Water.” Their patient was awake.

  Jesselynn spooned broth into a cup and, lifting his head with one hand, held the cup to his lips with the other. After only a few swallows, he gagged and shook his head, his groan rising to a near shriek. “God, it hurts.”

  “Would a spoon work better?” At his nod, she spooned the liquid to his mouth and watched him swallow. By the time the cup was empty, he’d drifted off again, but even in sleep, his moans persisted.

  He has nice eyes, gray, I think, but it’s hard to tell in here. If only they had more bandages. She glanced around the cave. What could they tear up? Short of Ophelia’s spare skirt, nothing had the length. She studied the bandages around the stump of his leg. No blood had seeped through there. Perhaps the stitching was enough to hold it as long as he didn’t move around, then she could wash those and change the ones around his belly. How the bullet had gone clean through like that and not
hit any organs was nothing short of a miracle.

  But it had seemed only a flesh wound. She felt his forehead again. Cooling. Maybe they’d be able to travel sooner than she thought.

  Meshach stopped right behind her, studying the sleeping man. “He lookin’ better.”

  “I know. Yesterday I wouldn’t have given two bits for his chances, but today …” She paused and looked up. “He might just make it.”

  Meshach nodded. “We been prayin’ for him too.”

  Jesselynn had no answer to that.

  Jane Ellen stumbled into the cave carrying her brother. “He coughed so bad, blood came.” The terror in her eyes told Jesselynn that had never happened before.

  “Quick, put him down.” Jesselynn saw the trickle of blood from John Mark’s mouth streaking down his chin. His skin looked clear enough to see right through.

  Jane Ellen mopped at the trickle of blood. “What we gonna do?” Jesselynn tried to think back to what her mother had taught her. Coughing like that meant lung sickness. And most people didn’t get better from it, especially those who’d gone without good food and lived in the cold and damp. She chafed his cold hands and watched his chest rise so slightly that each breath could be his last.

  “Did he fall or anything, hurt himself?”

  “No, just coughed till I thought his insides come out.” Jane Ellen stroked the stringy hair back from his forehead. “Come on, John Mark, wake up. Please wake up.”

  His eyelids fluttered. Jane Ellen pulled him close and rocked him in her arms, crooning a song only she knew.

  Jesselynn stood up and walked to the front of the cave, her eyes burning and her nose running, but not from any smoke coming from the fire.

  The coughing sounded more like a retch.

  Jane Ellen squeaked like a mouse caught by a cat, then resumed her crooning and rocking.

  Jesselynn returned to see a froth of pink bubbling from the side of the boy’s mouth.

  “Here, chile.” Meshach knelt and tried to take the boy, but Jane Ellen hung on with a fierceness stoked by terror.

  “I takes keer o’ him.”

  “Let us help you.” Jesselynn took one of the quilts and laid it in front of the log for a pallet. “You sit here where you can hold him more easily, and the quilt will help keep him warm.” Together Meshach and Jesselynn moved the two and added another quilt to cover John Mark.

  Jesselynn and Ophelia cut more strips of the venison and hung it in places where the others had dried. They rubbed salt into a haunch and hung it above the fire to absorb the smoke. Thaddy and Sammy eventually quit playing in the dirt and fell asleep. Benjamin took one of the horses and went off scouting while Meshach chopped the deer brains, mixing them with ashes and water and working them into the inside of the stretched-out hide.

  The afternoon passed to the rhythm of breathing, coughing, and moaning from the man and the boy. And while the man accepted the offers of water and broth, the boy refused everything.

  “Help him, Marse Jesse.” Jane Ellen raised eyes so darkened by fear they looked black.

  “Here, see if you can spoon some of this into him.” She took Jane Ellen a cup of broth and held it for the girl to dip from. Every drop drained out the side of his mouth. “Stroke his throat while I try.”

  Jane Ellen stroked her brother’s throat with fingers of pure love, her eyes never leaving his face.

  Jesselynn tipped a spoonful of broth between the boy’s lips, and this time they watched as, with a convulsive swallow, the liquid went down.

  “Oh, another.” Jane Ellen resumed the stroking, and Jesselynn tipped the spoon again.

  A swallow, a gag, a retching cough, and blood drenched the front of his shirt.

  “Oh, John Mark. John Mark. Please, please.” The girl rocked and hugged, her hands gripping the skinny child as though someone were pulling him away.

  “He’s bad, isn’t he?”

  Jesselynn looked over her shoulder to see their soldier gazing at her with eyes clear and as full of sadness as she knew her own must be. All she could do was nod.

  “If you could … find my pack.” He paused to catch a breath. “I had some … laudanum in it.”

  “Any idea where it might be?”

  “Find where we were … ambushed. Could be … there. Black leather.”

  “You know how you got here?”

  “Partner … carried me. How is he?”

  “Gone. Meshach buried him this morning. He was sittin’ against that wall there, with you lyin’ on the floor.”

  The man closed his eyes. “How come … I’m alive and he’s dead?” A pause stretched. “Makes no sense.”

  “I know.” Jesselynn glanced at the girl still rocking her brother. “Makes no sense a’tall.”

  She added more wood to the fire, keeping it low so the strips of venison wouldn’t burn.

  “How bad is my leg? Hurts like fire.”

  How to tell him. “Ah, we …” Jesselynn sighed. No sense beating around the tree. “We had to take it off below your knee. Wasn’t much left of it, and the gangrene would’ve set in and killed you for sure.”

  He closed his eyes tighter and swallowed hard enough for her to see the reflex in the firelight.

  “I’m sorry.” Such a meager word for such a loss as his. But at least he was getting stronger. Her gaze strayed back to Jane Ellen. While she kept wiping her tears away, sometimes she had to wipe them from her brother’s face too.

  Her brother was all she had. She said so. She hugged him as if her very strength could heal his chest, could stop the trickle of blood from every cough. Coughs that had grown weaker.

  “I’ll send Meshach lookin’ for your pack.” Jesselynn got to her feet, her knees creaking, stiff from sitting so long. She stepped outside the cave into sunshine a mite watery but still offering heat and light. From inside the cave, it had seemed dark outside, as if it still must be pouring rain like the day before.

  When she told Meshach, he nodded. “Me an’ de boys all go look.” He got to his feet, laying a hand on Ophelia’s shoulder and squeezing gently. “You go on in der. I be back.”

  Dusk dimmed the trees by the time the horsemen rode back to the cave. Daniel swung the pack down into Jesselynn’s arms.

  “I found it.”

  Jesselynn nodded. “Thank you.” She knew he’d offered the pack as penance for letting the fire go out. She also knew he’d be more alert the next time he stood watch—Meshach would make sure of it. Now if only the laudanum could help relieve the pain for both of the sick ones.

  Chapter Thirty

  Richmond, Virginia

  “Men!”

  “What dat, Missy Louisa?” Reuben hurried to keep up with her.

  “I said men and my brother in particular!”

  “Oh.” He wisely let a pace or two widen between them.

  “If he thinks he can waltz right in here and mess up my life, he has another think coming.” She flung open the gate before the older man could get there and stomped her way up the walk, her thudding steps echoing on the stairs. She let wisdom and caution gain a mite of control so she didn’t slam the door open or closed.

  “Where is he?” Her words came more as growl than question. But her glances into the sickrooms yielded only more frustration. No one was in bed.

  She stopped at the open French doors leading to the gardens. Aunt Sylvania sat like a queen in the middle of the group, holding the book up to get the best light. Reading from The Taming of the Shrew, she went on, “And Petruchio says,

  “‘I pray you do; and I will attend her here,—

  and woo her with some spirit when she comes.

  Say that she rail; why, then, I’ll tell her plain,

  She sings as sweetly as a nightingale.’”

  “Here, here,” applauded Andrews. “You read right well, Miss S.”

  Miss S. What is this world coming to? Her aunt was actually smiling and batting her eyelashes at the compliment. Louisa located her brother and shot daggers his way
at twenty paces. The volley didn’t phase him. In fact, he spoke the next lines from memory.

  “‘Say that she frown; I’ll say, she looks as clear

  As morning roses early washt with dew.’”

  They don’t need me here, but the men at the hospital do. Why is he being such a selfish prig when I can be doing some good? She started to step back into the house, but the lieutenant turned and beckoned her with a smile.

  Even he is smiling. What magic does Aunt Sylvania possess?

  Louisa walked forward as if she were dragging a heavy chain. She couldn’t talk to her brother now, and when she saw the devil dancing in his one good eye, she knew he realized he was safe. Cotton and conniptions, I swear I’m going to get even with him if it’s the last thing I do. Two can play at this game. She dredged a smile up from somewhere and sprinkled it with sugar.

  “The surgeon general sends his greetings, Mister Highwood, and hopes that all of you are settled in and on the fast road to recovery.” She took the seat vacated by the lieutenant and leaned forward. “Keep reading, Aunt. That is most entertaining.”

  Zachary rolled his eyes.

  Good! He knows he’s in for it in a big way.

  The lieutenant had taken Private Rumford for a walk, so they had the room to themselves. With both doors closed, Louisa felt reasonably certain they wouldn’t be interrupted.

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I told you, I don’t want you working over there.” He held up a hand. “Yes, I understand the difference between paid work and volunteering, but that ward is no place for a young woman of your sensibilities.”

  “Meaning I’m too good to give the cup of water our Savior spoke of or to help a suffering neighbor?”

  “Louisa, don’t go twisting my words.”

  “I am not twisting your words, brother dear, I am merely trying to understand your motives.”

  “I have no motives, as you say. I just want you safe.”

  “Safe? Safe? As if anyone would harm me there!” She leaped to her feet, her needlework going one way, her scissors another, and paced the room from one end to the other. “I brought succor to the dying and comfort to the living. Now what on God’s earth can be wrong with that? Mother and I did so at Twin Oaks, and I feel called to do so now.”