Bridger released a long breath and glared up at the ceiling. “But he’s no longer here,” he muttered bleakly.
“No,” she replied, almost gently. “He was called away, with all the others. There were orders, you see.” A pause, during which Bridger saw, from the corner of his eye, that she had summoned up a wobbly smile, too tentative to last. “You are on my farm in southern Pennsylvania, as you may recall. And although you’re behind Union lines you are, for the time being, quite safe.”
“Safe,” he repeated, with a touch of bitter mockery. Still avoiding her gaze, he stared up at the ceiling, trying to guess the hour by the play of light and shadow he saw there.
“Insofar as any of us are safe, yes,” the widow allowed. “Considering.”
“When?” he asked.
“When did Captain McBride leave?”
“Yes.”
“Three days ago,” answered Mrs. Hammond. “He left instructions.”
Bridger attempted a laugh, a mirthless sound. “Did he, now? Tell me, ma’am, were these instructions intended for you or for me?”
“For you,” she said. “Mainly.”
He smiled. “I see,” Bridger said. “What, pray tell, is the gospel according to Rogan McBride? As it applies to me, I mean.”
Caroline seemed to hesitate. He was reminded that they weren’t allies but enemies, and that harboring him was putting her and her whole farm at risk.
“Rogan—” She stopped, regrouped, and started again. “Captain McBride expressed the hope that you will recover swiftly and be on your way.”
“How gracious of him.” Bridger was caught off guard by Caroline’s use of Rogan’s first name. How was it that she and his best friend had dispensed with polite formality before they parted?
Still, Bridger wasn’t surprised. Rogan had been straightforward about his attraction to Caroline Hammond, despite the near impossibility that anything would come of it.
Such familiarity was uncommon between acquaintances, though, even in wartime and, while Rogan might not be concerned with the proprieties, Caroline, as a recent widow, a mother and a member of a small community, surely was.
He realized he knew very little about this woman, but Bridger couldn’t imagine her challenging convention in such a blatant manner.
She was far too strong-minded.
Unless, he mused, having been left to fend for herself and her child in a world ravaged by war, she felt she had no choice but to find another husband as soon as possible. She certainly wouldn’t be the first strong woman to seek shelter in marriage for reasons of expediency, especially now, when times were hard and suitable prospects were scarce.
He had to admit his friend was prime matrimonial material, educated, decent and well-spoken. A woman could do worse. He’d once fancied Rogan marrying his sister, Amalie, and becoming his brother-in-law, but that was pure speculation on his part. After all, they hadn’t seen each other in years, since Bridger and Rogan’s school days, and now with the war they had opposite loyalties.
And yet, Amalie had apparently written to him...
He remembered how much Amalie had enjoyed Rogan’s company. And he knew Rogan would be a devoted husband and father—whenever he decided to take a wife. He was both honorable and trustworthy.
Then why, knowing all this about his friend, did Bridger have qualms when he heard Caroline use Rogan’s first name?
The answer was difficult to admit.
He himself had been taken with Caroline Hammond since the moment she’d swept into the kitchen house days before and listened to Rogan’s plan to pass Bridger off as a Yankee and hide him on her farm until he was well enough to escape.
Though he’d been half out of his head with pain, Bridger had been surprised that she hadn’t flatly refused and headed straight outside to report him to the highest-ranking Union officer she could find.
Instead, she’d accepted him into her home, a stranger, a member of the very army responsible for making her a widow. She had nursed him through a fever, kept his wound clean and kept him alive. The kindness of Enoch and the young woman, Jubie, both of whom had been introduced to him, both of whom had helped him in various ways, impressed him, too. But no one had done more for him than the widow Caroline Hammond. Why would she take such a chance, particularly having just lost her husband, when she so clearly despised everything he represented?
Simple compassion had been a factor, of course; he’d encountered more than a few generous citizens during this war. They’d been womenfolk mostly, alone and vulnerable, but willing to share what little they had with hungry, footsore boys far from home, whatever their differences.
He’d seen sorrow in the eyes of those wives and sisters and mothers, and the hope that their own loved ones would meet with a similar kindness, wherever they might be.
Caroline, too, had acted out of mercy; there could be no doubt of that. She had worked tirelessly for days, tending the wounded and sick. Rogan had told him about that. Just the same, if compassion had been her only motive, the small room Bridger occupied would have been crowded with injured and ailing men.
Union men, like Rogan, not Confederates.
Patients could be recovering in other parts of the house, he supposed, but he doubted that. The place was too quiet.
Caroline had granted him, the enemy, sanctuary for one primary reason—because Rogan had asked it of her. Despite significant reservations, all of which were justified, and fully aware of the risks involved, not only for Rogan but also for herself, she had nonetheless agreed.
The implications of that would bear some consideration.
But before Bridger could form a comment or a question, let alone utter one, she was out of her chair and on the move.
Instead of leaving the room, however, as he expected her to, Caroline went to the bureau, picked up a bundle wrapped in brown paper and brought it over to him.
“This is a parcel Rogan asked me to give you,” she said. “The uniform he promised you. There’s a letter, too.”
He nodded wearily. Letter, parcel—he’d worry about them later.
“Do you need Enoch’s assistance with anything—well—personal?”
“No,” he replied. “But thank you for all you’ve done for me.” Bridger felt the sudden need to close his eyes.
A moment later, he heard her retreating footsteps, then heard her close the door quietly behind her.
19
Hammond Farm
July 15, 1863
Caroline
In the absence of tents and soldiers and army livestock, the crops and orchards and pastures of Hammond Farm seemed to quicken all around Caroline; it was as though nature itself had retreated from the strife of battle, holding its breath.
On her way to the kitchen house, Caroline stepped around deep gouges where stakes had been driven into the ground, and where horses, mules and men had tramped this way and that. Long ruts crisscrossed the wide expanse of flattened grass in strange patterns, etched by the wheels of heavy wagons as they came and went.
Much blood had been shed here, but Caroline saw no trace of it now; it had probably seeped into the rain-softened earth, helped along by Enoch, lugging buckets full of water from the well and pouring it over the stains until they faded from rusty crimson to pale pink and finally vanished entirely.
Gone, too, were the heaps of horse manure and the clouds of black flies, banished to the pile behind the barn, where waste ripened into fertilizer for the cornfield and the vegetable patch.
Sensing the mysterious processes going on all around her, just beyond the reach of her eyes and ears, Caroline felt her spirits rising.
She paused outside the kitchen house, listening with her heart as blades of grass unbent themselves, drawn upright by the sun, and the nearby stream flowed on, bubbling and splashing over stones that gleamed like jewels, cleansin
g itself as it had for centuries. She felt the fruit trees in the orchard and along the stream bank as they spread their branches to gather light and air, with their leaves dancing in the slightest breeze, as if celebrating their many secrets.
It was the way of the earth to endure disaster, to slowly, stubbornly restore itself and, finally, to flourish. And she, like the rest of humanity, was somehow a part of all this. The same inexplicable force that drove seeds to sprout and rivers to seek the sea and trees to stretch themselves ever-skyward was in her, in everyone.
The insight was not a discovery, exactly; it was more a remembrance of something familiar and yet too easily forgotten. Nonetheless, Caroline found comfort in the idea.
She entered the kitchen house, took a basin from its shelf and proceeded to the cellar door to collect some potatoes stored there. The scent of raw earth and stored root vegetables greeted her as she started down the steps, squinting in the faint, dust-specked stream of midmorning sunshine from the brighter world above.
Caroline waited for a few minutes, letting her eyes accommodate themselves to the receding shadows, and when they had, she saw the crates and barrels crowded in among her grandmother’s dwindling supply of medicine and bandages and her own diminishing staples such as flour and cornmeal, salt and precious sugar and coffee beans.
Distracted from her original errand she approached one of the barrels and ran her fingertips carefully across the splintery wooden lid, bent to examine the block letters stenciled on the side. She felt a sense of puzzlement.
Beans, she read silently. United States Army.
Caroline straightened, with a little gasp of surprise, raising one hand to cover her mouth and grasping her basin in the other. She examined every container, feeling guilty alarm and pure delight in equal measure as she identified the contents—dried meat, turnips and squash, several varieties of apples, corn starch, more flour and sugar and cornmeal.
In a war-torn world, with winter still months away but drawing ever nearer, with upheaval and scarcity always threatening, even farm owners like her were not immune to hunger, however hard they worked or careful they were, wasting nothing, putting up preserves by the bushel.
Finding this unexpected bounty was, for Caroline, like stumbling on Aladdin’s cave, glittering with treasure.
Even as she marveled at her good fortune, though, she felt a sharp pang of conscience. So much food—enough to sustain her own small household and several others through the bitterest of winters.
But what about the soldiers, men like her Jacob, fighting battles, marching mile after mile in the course of a day, lying in hospital cots, in need of sustenance? Clearly, the contents of these barrels and crates had been intended for them, not for civilians, whatever inconveniences they might have had to endure on behalf of passing troops.
Caroline knew her benefactor had to have been Rogan; in his capacity as a Union quartermaster, he was the only person she knew who had access to such largesse. She knew also that he had meant this gift as a kindness, a show of gratitude, perhaps as a matter of fair payment—and yet, coupled with his determination to protect Bridger Winslow, the act was disturbing.
Still more disturbing was her own collaboration, her agreement to shelter a man who had willingly taken up the Rebel cause, turning against the country she truly loved, despite its faults, the hopeful nation his own ancestors had fought and died alongside hers to establish, less than a century before.
Jubie must have been aware of these provisions, since she’d been doing much of the cooking lately, while Caroline and her grandmother took turns tending to all but the most intimate of Mr. Winslow’s needs.
Enoch must have known about the extra food, too; nothing escaped him, there on the farm or anywhere near it.
Why, then, had neither he nor Jubie said a word about this to her?
Troubled, Caroline took up the basin again, filled it with the potatoes she had grown herself, adding several onions as an afterthought, and climbed back up the cellar steps.
Enoch was there, dropping an armload of wood into the box beside the stove. At the same time, she could see Jubie reaching the main house and stopping to chat with Geneva, who stood on the porch, Rachel close beside her.
Enoch turned his head, nodded a greeting, dusted his hands together. He looked a little gaunt, and uncommonly weary.
For that reason, and for others she didn’t pause to identify, Caroline decided not to ask him what he knew about the stockpile of army food crowding the cellar. She’d, naturally enough, assumed the supplies had left with Rogan.
“I’ll start a pot of coffee brewing if that’s all right with you, Missus,” Enoch said.
Caroline set the basin on the work table, wiped her dusty palms on her apron. “Why, of course it’s all right with me, Enoch,” she replied, a little taken aback at his request. Enoch was, after all, a valued helper, and virtually a member of the family. “You must know you don’t need my permission for such things.”
Enoch nodded again. “I thank you for saying that, Missus Caroline,” he answered, after a period of solemn consideration. “And I know you mean it, too. All the same, I’d rather ask.”
Saddened, Caroline made no reply. Here was Enoch, an intelligent, hardworking man, legally free and yet bound by a myriad of conventions, large and small. She didn’t suggest he forego calling her “Missus,” since that was likely to make him uncomfortable. He’d used this term of address since the moment she’d married Jacob.
She respected him, loved him in the way she might have loved an elder brother, if she’d had one. For all her independence, Caroline did not know how she’d carry on without him.
He did all the heaviest work around the farm, things she couldn’t physically manage, and she depended on his help. She depended even more, however, on his quiet stoicism, his common sense, his regard for the Hammond clan, living and dead, his willingness to protect her and Rachel from all harm.
“Here,” he said, with a note of tired humor, “give me those spuds and I’ll carry them on out to the pump, give them a good scrubbing.”
Caroline smiled, a bit wanly. She had a dozen things to do if she wanted the midday meal on the table, but she was still standing in the same place when Enoch returned.
She thanked him, took the basin and picked up a knife, then began paring away the wet peels. Later, she’d toss them to the chickens, delighting, as always, in their eager squawks, their flapping wings, their wildly pecking beaks.
And she would be especially grateful, as she looked on, that the birds had not been claimed by the army.
The army.
The abundance of food that had appeared, as if she’d conjured it up, in her cellar.
She was back where she’d started—fretting over what was right and what was wrong. No matter how hungry she might be, she knew that, come winter, every bite she took would be tainted by guilt.
Enoch lingered, which was unlike him, since there was always work to be done somewhere on the farm.
Caroline shook off her self-absorbed thoughts and looked at him.
He seemed uneasy. Restless. And before she could ask what was the matter, he spoke, his gaze fixed on something far away.
“A man can’t hardly set his foot down,” he said, not addressing Caroline but ruminating aloud, “without stepping on somebody’s grave.”
Caroline dropped her knife, along with a half-peeled potato, wiped her hands on her apron again, and turned to face him. “Captain McBride assured me that the army will send men to reclaim the—the remains,” she said softly.
Enoch returned from wherever he’d gone wandering and met her gaze. Caroline thought she saw him attempt to smile, but his mouth curved into a grimace instead. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Missus,” he said.
Caroline winced; with all that had been happening, she had forgotten Enoch’s confession, made soon after she’d ret
urned from Washington City with Jacob’s body. He’d killed the slave catcher pursuing Jubie, buried the body somewhere on the farm.
“Is it likely...that they’d find the dead man, I mean?” she asked, bile surging into the back of her throat. “Among so many others?”
So many others.
“There are nearly thirty men buried on this property, Missus,” Enoch answered glumly, “and they’re all in the far section of that field Mr. Jacob said ought to lie fallow for a few years, before he went away the first time, so the soil could rest. He told me, ‘Enoch, that dirt is too tired to grow anything but weeds.’” He paused, and a look of pain crossed his face, a reminder to Caroline that he was grieving, just as she was. “I decided that was as good a place as any to hide that slave catcher’s remains, out of the way, far from the house and the stream. I reburied him there the next night, soon as I had a chance.”
He hadn’t told Caroline that, but would she have wanted to know? She doubted it.
“Trouble is,” he went on, “the United States Army scouted around a while and came to the same conclusion as I did. They figured on digging some temporary graves and laying those poor dead soldiers to rest, just until they could be retrieved and sent on home to their kinfolks.”
Once more, Enoch fell silent, no doubt thinking of Jacob’s last homecoming, as Caroline was. Like her, Enoch had probably envisioned her husband’s return as a time of celebration, of smiles and embraces and modest feasts...
Instead, Jacob had made his final journey sealed inside a pinewood box, in a dark and lonely baggage car, with only Caroline and a stack of other crude coffins, destined for various other places where there’d be no joyful welcome, either.
“Go on,” she said softly.
“Those soldiers came close to digging up what was left of that dead slave catcher more than once. If I hadn’t been there to steer them away, they’d have found him for sure. And they might have asked plenty of questions, ones I’d have been hard put to answer.”
The Yankee Widow Page 23