Thinking of Tillie brought thoughts of Josiah’s life close again. She couldn’t imagine what all he’d been through. Passages from the journal pages the woman had written played back to her at the most unexpected times. Like now. And having trespassed on such intimate thoughts, such intimate experiences—both those wretched and those precious—bound her to the woman in a way Elizabeth couldn’t explain.
Cradling her head on her arms, she prayed God had heard the woman’s desperate pleas all those years ago and had answered. Or still would, someday.
34
The mining town was just as Daniel described, filthy and not fitting for any decent woman. After passing some of its inhabitants on the outskirts and watching their reaction at seeing her, Elizabeth decided to stay with Josiah and let Daniel go on in alone. He seemed relieved at her decision.
From where she sat waiting, the mountain looked as though its belly had been gouged out and its insides strewn about with the least of care. Countless stumps remained where towering spruce and pine once ruled, and a sign posted by the stream warned not to drink the water. It was a sobering picture, and she couldn’t help but imagine the mountain fifty years ago, or perhaps even a decade ago.
She wasn’t sure how long the mining company had been in the area. But she knew with certainty that its presence had brought destruction. Riches too, perhaps, but at what price? She couldn’t shake the unexplained sense of grieving inside her, or the image of the hotel Chilton Enterprises wanted to build. But that would be different. She’d seen their resorts, and they were magnificent. It would be a welcome addition to Timber Ridge.
By the time Daniel returned, she was ready to leave. He brought stores of cornmeal and flour to replenish the supplies the Ute people had given them, as well as coffee, a small bag of sugar, dried beans, and other sundry items. What once wouldn’t have impressed her now seemed like a feast. Without the extra packhorse, they split the items among their individual saddlebags.
Next morning after breakfast, Daniel approached her, his hand outstretched. In his palm lay a box.
She looked up at him, suspicious, then glanced past him to Josiah, who was saddling the horses a ways down the creek. Apparently this was Daniel’s doing alone. He took her hand in his, and for a second she thought he was going to kiss it as he had before.
Instead, he tucked the box into her palm. “I saw this yesterday and thought of you.”
A gift? Her interest sparked. “What is it?”
“You have to open it to find out.”
“But what’s it for?”
He gave her a look and stepped closer. “Does a man have to have a reason to give a woman a gift?”
She giggled. “No, but usually there is one.”
A grin tipped his mouth and warmth spread through her. “Just open the box, Elizabeth.”
She did and felt a blush of humor. A compass. She ran a finger over the gold etched sides. “Daniel, it’s beautiful. Thank you.”
“It’s so you’ll know your way, no matter where you are.”
She studied the compass, which happened to be pointing true north, and straight toward Daniel Ranslett. She smiled at the coincidence. “But will it help my cooking?”
“Doubtful. That needs more help than I can fit into a box.”
She swatted his arm, then stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. He hadn’t shaved in days, and the rough stubble of his jaw scratched her cheek in a pleasant way. She dared linger seconds longer than needed and started to draw back when his arms came around her. Their faces were close, their lips almost touching, and she felt the rise and fall of her chest against his. Would he? Oh, she wanted him to. . . . Maybe she should—
“I’m proud of you, Elizabeth.”
The statement caught her off guard. She frowned, smiling. “Why?”
He cradled her face. “For a lot of reasons.” His hand moved from her cheek down to her throat, and he traced a soft path with his thumb on the underside of her chin. “For coming out west on your lonesome—that took courage. For how you’ve done out here, with me. I thought you’d be complaining the whole way.” His arm around her waist pulled her tighter against him. “But you haven’t. You’ve held your own.” His gaze slipped to her mouth. “And breakfast was delicious this morning.”
If this man didn’t kiss her soon . . . “My biscuits were too brown . . . on the bottoms.”
“Your biscuits were perfect.” His lips brushed hers, not a kiss, really, but the promise of one. “Bottoms and all.”
“Mr. Ranslett?”
Elizabeth stepped back, as did Daniel, though he was slow to release her.
“Yes, Josiah?” Daniel’s look said they would continue this later, and she hoped hers communicated the same.
“Horses are saddled, sir.” Josiah’s attention moved between them, a smile showing through his not-so-guarded expression.
“Thank you.” Daniel picked up his rifle and slid it into the sheath on his back. “I guess we’d best be on our way, then.”
“Yes, sir. I guess so. ’Less I be needin’ to go saddle them horses again or maybe . . . gather more firewood.”
With a scoundrel’s grin, Daniel slipped his hat on. “I think we’re warm enough, Josiah. No need to build another fire.”
Daniel threw Beau a bone with a chunk of meat still on it. The dog grabbed it before it hit the dirt. “Three days, maybe less, and we’ll be there.”
Sitting across the fire from him, Elizabeth and Josiah exchanged grins, eating the roasted elk with fervor. Elizabeth licked her fingers, looking more like a girl in that moment than a woman. Though he knew she was all that and more.
“What?” She wiped her hands on a rag. “Do I have something on my mouth?” She dabbed at her lips.
The innocent gesture sent his thoughts down a path he sorely wished he could travel. His thoughts reeled quite often these days when it came to her, especially when she wore her hair down, like tonight. He took a long drink from his canteen. It was June, but the mountain water was still icy cold as he liked it. “It’s just good to see you eat like that.”
“Like what? A pig?”
“No, ma’am, like you enjoys it.” Josiah spoke between bites. “A man likes to provide for a woman in his care.” He winked at Daniel.
If Elizabeth caught Josiah’s meaning, she didn’t show it. But Daniel did, and he leveled a stare in Josiah’s direction, which only encouraged Josiah’s grin.
Elizabeth took another bite, more delicately this time, with her pinky extended. Daniel grabbed a clean bone and threw it at her. She easily ducked and it missed her. She launched it right back. He caught the bone midair, then tossed it to Beau, who added it to his collection.
“I can’t eat another bite.” Elizabeth laid her tin pan aside and drank from her canteen. “How far would you say that elk was from us today, when you shot it?”
Daniel lay down and cradled his hands beneath his head, considering the distance. A scant sprinkling of stars dotted the dusky sky above, brave souls daring the sun’s fading glow in the west. “Probably seventeen hundred yards, give or take.”
“That’s a mile away!”
“Not quite, but almost.”
Josiah rose and tore off another piece of meat. “How far was you from that bull elk that first day we seen you? That animal was already down by the time we heard your rifle, sir.”
“I wasn’t nearly that far. Maybe half a mile. And you didn’t hear the shot first because the bullet of a Whitworth”—Daniel nodded toward the rifle—“travels faster than the sound of the report. It reaches the target before the sound does.”
Elizabeth made a face. “That’s a morbid thought. How did you learn to shoot from so far away?”
“Lots of practice. My father started taking me hunting with him when I was six. I brought home my first elk at seven.”
“Have you ever come back without anything when you’ve gone hunting?”
Daniel smiled at her question. Benjamin had asked him something sim
ilar when the boy was just a tot. He still remembered the look of wonder in his youngest brother’s eyes. “Sure. But it’s been a while.”
“Is that because game is so plentiful out here?” She cocked a brow in a flirty way that he liked. “Or are you just that good?”
“I know how to shoot, but it’s more than that. You can’t shoot what you can’t track. And you can’t track what isn’t there. So the fact that this territory has lots of game helps. But that’s changing real quick with all the people coming west, and all the mining companies and businesses tearing up the land.”
He wondered whether the timing was right to bring up the letters he’d been writing to Congress. With what was transpiring between them, he didn’t want to push, but she could help him present his case to Congress in a way no one else could—with photographs. And the connection with her father.
She didn’t say anything, and he looked over to find her lying down. Josiah was too. Her legs were crossed beneath her skirt, and he figured she must be considering what he’d said because one booted foot was keeping a steady rhythm. She’d regained her full health and had thanked him more times than he could count for staying beside her during those grueling days when the morphine was leaving her system.
“With progress come challenges, Daniel, I’ll grant you that. We just need to find that right balance and work to preserve what’s here.”
We, she’d said. That was a start. “I agree. But most companies out here don’t care much about finding the right balance. When I first came west, herds of buffalo were plentiful. Not anymore. They’ve been hunted for their skins and sold to folks back east. I’ve seen the slaughter and the waste. Carcasses littering the plains, with meat that could have fed families through the winter just left behind to rot.”
“When did you come out here, Daniel?”
It wasn’t the turn in conversation he’d hoped for. “Back in the spring of sixty-six, after the war was over.”
The chirrup of crickets blended with the wind in the aspens to create a harmony unique to these mountains. One he’d grown to appreciate.
“Your people hail from Franklin—that right, sir?” Josiah’s deep voice cut the night.
“Yes, that’s right. I was born and raised there.” A nudging thought made Daniel wish he could see Josiah’s face better in order to read him. “You ever lived in Franklin, Josiah?” He waited, praying the man would say no. It hadn’t occurred to him until that moment that Josiah could have been owned by a neighboring plantation, or maybe even his own family’s plantation.
“No, sir, I ain’t never lived there.”
Daniel let out his breath, then felt guilty over his relief. It mattered little where Josiah had been during those years, because wherever he’d been, he’d been a slave. Just like the woman in the journals.
“Was you in that battle, sir? The one in Franklin?”
“Is that where you got the scar on your back?” Elizabeth’s voice came soft on the heels of Josiah’s.
Daniel was glad for the darkness. Somehow it made answering their questions easier. “I was in the battle at Franklin, but I got the scar from Chickamauga.”
“A man I knowed, he told me about that night in Franklin, sir. He was there, saw it with his own eyes. Said it looked like the death angel come to reap his last harvest. He told me about that yell you Rebs made too. Said it liked to scare the daylights outta him.”
The fire’s crackle devoured the silence, and Daniel waited for the tightness in his throat to lessen. As it did, the sounds and images from years past piled on top of one another, just like the dead bodies had.
“What does it sound like, Daniel? The rebel yell . . .”
Daniel found it difficult to speak, and impossible to answer her question. He never wanted to hear that sound again, yet knew he’d carry it inside himself forever.
“I ain’t never heard it, ma’am, but what was told to me was that if you heard it and said you wasn’t scared, then you’s lying. Cuz hearin’ it would strip the courage clean outta your backbone.”
“What happened that night . . . during the battle?”
Again, Elizabeth’s question surprised him. He didn’t know where to begin, and didn’t want to. He heard her rise up, and he looked over.
She sat with her legs pulled up against her chest and her arms wrapped tight around her knees. Bathed in firelight, her expression held a curiosity that rankled him. Why was it that folks who hadn’t been to battle always wanted to hear what it was like, while those who had been would do anything to forget.
“A lot of men died, Elizabeth. That’s what happened! They were slaughtered one after the other.” Callousness hardened his voice, a tone she didn’t deserve.
She drew in a breath. “I only asked because . . .” She looked away.
“Cuz you done lost someone there. Someone you loved, ma’am?”
Elizabeth nodded, her eyes glistening.
“I’m sorry, Elizabeth.” Daniel sat up and waited for her to look at him. “I spoke out of turn. But it’s a night I don’t welcome recollecting. I’d wipe it clean from my memory if I could.” He bowed his head. “Men of eighty years lay dead beside boys of thirteen—and younger—the end of life and the beginning, brought to such an unnatural close. Bodies were piled up so high that when the sun rose that next morning we found men who had died where they stood because there was no place for them to fall. And the earth . . .” He closed his eyes and saw it again, heard the sounds. “The ground was drenched with blood. Our boots, of those who had them, were soaked with it.”
He lifted his head, wondering if somehow Benjamin could hear him. “My unit arrived south of Franklin the afternoon before and camped on the outskirts. Some of the younger boys who were from around there, whose homes weren’t far away, they snuck away for a few hours to see their families. It was against orders, but those of us who knew about it didn’t say anything. A lot of them hadn’t seen their folks since they’d signed up to fight. All the boys were back before dawn that morning . . . and most were dead by the next.
“The battle started in the afternoon, around four. Night fell fast and it was filled with the sound of bullets. Your heart couldn’t take a beat one second but what you wondered whether it would still be working the next.” His eyes burned. “It was cold, and dark. Men who’d been cut down right off were lying on the field, hundreds of them. Those still alive were moaning, calling out for someone to help them. Our lines kept pushing forward up the hill, one after another. One line would fall and the next would come right up behind them . . . taking up the charge. And the North just kept gunning us down.
“We were waiting our turn to go, and I kept hearing a sound . . . one I couldn’t reckon with. I asked the fella next to me, and he said it was just them—” He caught himself. “Them Yankee guns. But it didn’t sound right somehow.” A weight settled in the center of Daniel’s chest, threatening his composure. “When it came my unit’s turn, we formed our line, and I looked uphill. . . .” He shuddered, remembering. “I’d hunted there since I was a boy, so I knew the area well. The Federals had formed caisson tracks, and their cannons lit up the night. Everything would go bright as day one moment, then pitch dark the next. Watching the men push uphill before us—that’s when I realized what the sound was. But I . . . I still couldn’t make sense of it in my head.” He gritted his teeth to stem the tears. “What I heard wasn’t gunfire like the fella had told me. It was the sound of bones snapping. As the men climbed the hill . . . they were treading over the bodies of their brothers and fathers and friends.”
Daniel wiped his face, fixing his attention on the flames. “Our unit was ordered forward, and that’s when I saw him.” He took a shredded breath. “My little brother was on the tail end of the formation. Benjamin,” he whispered.
Oh, God, would you take away this hurt. I don’t want to live “dying” on that battlefield for the rest of my life.
“Word from one of the boys who’d gone home the night before had reached
my family, so they knew I was there. Benjamin was carrying one of my old rifles. It was almost bigger than he was. I called out to him, but he didn’t hear me. I broke formation and I ran. Ran as fast as I could down that line. I couldn’t hear anything—not the bullets, not the bones crunching, not anything—only the sound of my brother’s name.” He swallowed. “A bullet hit him right before I reached him. In the neck. Last thing he said to me was”—his voice broke—“that he wanted to be like me . . . when he grew up.” He ground his teeth. “Sometimes . . . I wake up at night, and I can still feel his blood on my hands. And I can see the light going out of his eyes as I held him there on the field . . . where I taught him to hunt.”
The silence lengthened, and Daniel finally looked up. Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s cheeks. Josiah’s too.
“I’m so sorry, Daniel.” She wiped her face. “I . . . I didn’t know what I was asking.”
“I sorry too, sir, for the burden you been carryin’ inside you for so long.”
Daniel felt sick. He didn’t deserve their compassion. Josiah Birch had every reason to loathe a man like him, to hold so much against him, including life before the war, yet he didn’t. And Elizabeth . . .
If she knew how he’d served during the war, what he’d been . . . Her reaction at the possibility of Josiah having murdered a defenseless man hung close, and his gut twisted, knowing he needed to tell her the truth. But he didn’t want to. It would change the way she looked at him.
She took a deep breath. “There was . . . or is, a reason behind my asking about that night, Daniel. And believe me when I say that I had no idea how . . . dearly that battle cost you. My intention in telling you this now isn’t to cause you more pain. But to . . . to not tell you would feel false inside.” She touched the place over her heart. “And I’ve had enough of that for a lifetime.”
He studied her face, not following.
She seemed to have trouble forming her next words. “My father . . . was a colonel in the Federal army. He was the commanding officer in Nashville and”—her voice grew thin—“the tactical commander for the battle of Franklin.”
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