He’d smiled, straightened his back, pulled lightly at one of her pigtails. “Well, Snippet,” he’d told her gently. “I’m flattered. Suppose we talk about this again when you’re older.”
Not to be placated, Amalie had glared up at him and accused, “You think I’m just a little girl, and that I don’t know one thing about choosing a husband!”
“Snippet,” he’d said reasonably, trying valiantly not to laugh, “you are a little girl. And it’s going to be a long, long time before you even consider getting married. When the time comes, you’ll have your pick of beaus.”
She’d set her small fists on her narrow hips and jutted out her chin in a way that had reminded him of her older brother. Her wide amber eyes had flashed with conviction and temper. “I don’t want any beaus,” she’d declared. “I want to marry you, and if you don’t come back to Fairhaven and court me properly, you’ll be sorry, because I’m going to be the most beautiful woman in the entire state of Georgia!”
He smiled at the memory, touched the breast of his tunic, felt the outline of the small case that held the photograph. Sure enough, Snippet, he thought sadly, you grew up to be a beauty, just as you said you would.
That last thought was troubling, but it was better than going over the contents of Caroline’s letter, which had reached him a little over a week before. Like a fool, he’d written her, a month back, said he planned to visit her at the farm as soon as he could get leave.
Caroline’s reply had been polite, but prescient. She’d be glad to have him visit as long as he understood that she was doing fine on her own and was not interested in a relationship on a romantic level.
She had explained that should she marry again, it would be for love and, yes, passion.
At first, Rogan had been wild to defy her wishes and go to her, convince her, somehow, that he could offer her passion, that he loved her enough for both of them, until she came to love him in return.
In the end, though, he had realized that because he loved Caroline, he had to honor her decision.
He’d written her once more, to tell her he appreciated her forthrightness and that he understood. He wished her good health and every happiness, whether she chose to remarry or not, and expressed the hope that she would always consider him a dear and faithful friend, as she was to him. And if he could manage it, he would visit on his way back north when the war was over.
Since Caroline’s letter, he’d concentrated on fighting. The enemy had cooperated, leaving him, along with the rest of the Union army, little time to think of anything beyond staying alive.
The Rebs had fought so fiercely that it was hard to believe these dusty, bedraggled foot soldiers he was looking at now, drifting in from all directions to stand silently in the near distance, were the same men.
Those who still had weapons held them by the barrel, with the stock to the ground. It was tacitly understood that they hadn’t come to fight, these Johnnies, but simply to stand witness to whatever might come next. To show, if only by their presence, their deep regard for their general.
They were gaunt, almost skeletal, with feverish, haunted eyes and shadowed hollows beneath cheekbones that stood out like ledges on a steep hillside. Most were little more than schoolboys, armed with squirrel guns, and many carried no weapon at all. They gave off a collective stench of sweat, stale urine, latrines, putrid wounds and rotting teeth, and yet, for all that, there could be no doubting their dignity; they had fought bravely, even valiantly, and they knew it.
Pitiful, cadaverous and starved as they were, they had been the instruments of many a brilliant campaign, plaguing Federal troops time and again, appearing out of nowhere, streaming over hillsides and around bends in the road, hundreds or even thousands of them, piercing the air with that eerie demon’s shriek, the Rebel Yell. The sound, especially in chorus, could fracture the shaft of a man’s bones and freeze the marrow.
Rogan spoke to a red-headed lad with more freckles than white skin. “You need water, John?” he asked. “Something to eat?”
The Reb looked wary at first, but then he gave a clipped nod, his eyes met Rogan’s, and he said, “Yes, Bill. We need just about everything you could name, right about now.”
“I’ll send for supplies,” Rogan told him. “In the meantime, there’s a hand pump behind the house. You can fill your canteens there.”
“Obliged,” the Reb said. He spared a glance for the Yankees clustered in the dooryard. “They gonna shoot us?”
“No,” Rogan said. “I’ll walk beside you. If they fire, they’ll hit me.”
“You can’t walk alongside all of us,” the boy pointed out.
“I’m the highest-ranking officer here at the moment,” Rogan answered. “There won’t be any shooting, though I suppose some of them wouldn’t mind blowing off a chunk of my head. They’d have to account to General Grant, though, and he would not be pleased, particularly with General Lee on the premises.”
“We’ll go then,” the boy decided, after some thought. “But we’ll do it in relays, a few at a time.”
Rogan nodded. “All right.”
They set out for the pump then, Rogan, the boy and about half a dozen thirsty Rebels.
No one fired at them.
“You Federals better treat the general right,” the red-headed boy said as they walked. “You don’t do that, well, us lads won’t be so peaceable as now.”
Rogan smiled to himself. Wondered if Bridger had been in this latest fight. If he’d survived it. “Understood,” he said gravely. “Fact is, most of us think quite highly of your General Lee. General Grant will drive a hard bargain, it’s true, but he’ll be a gentleman about it.”
The boy made a huffing sound. “Useless S. Grant,” he muttered. “He ain’t fit to spit shine General Lee’s boots.”
Rogan said nothing. If the lad needed to give off a little steam, let him.
By the time the last canteens had been filled and the supplies sent for, General Grant was riding up, accompanied by a small party. His uniform was as muddy and disreputable as ever, the customary cigar jutted from between his teeth, and he returned the salutes of his men in a distracted way.
He dismounted, climbed the porch steps and strode purposefully into the McLean House, flanked by a few of his most trusted associates.
The meeting went on for some time.
The supply wagon arrived, and Rogan oversaw the dispersal of hardtack, dried fruit and jerked beef. The Confederates devoured everything they were given.
Rogan was so absorbed in the process that he forgot about the two men inside the house, working out the fate of armies, and didn’t notice Bridger until he was off that stallion of his and standing right next to him.
“Well,” Rogan managed to say, startled and vastly relieved, “I guess I won’t have to ride down to Savannah and call in at Fairhaven after all.”
Bridger was thinner than before, and in sore need of a bath and a shave, but otherwise unscathed. “No,” he replied. “You can head straight for Pennsylvania.”
Rogan drew his friend aside. “I’m not going to Caroline,” he said. “Turns out, she’s not interested in marriage—not to me, at least. Thinks it might ruin our friendship.”
Bridger smiled slightly, but his eyes were sad, probably for a great many reasons. “I’m sorry, Rogan.”
“Don’t be. She might turn you down, too.”
Bridger nodded. “There’s a good chance she’ll do just that,” he said. “But I’ve got to try.”
“I know,” Rogan said. He felt glum and, at the same time, strangely hopeful on Bridger’s behalf.
Bridger’s gaze shifted to the house, and the sadness spread from his eyes to his entire face. “If this is over,” he said, when he was looking at Rogan again, “what will you do? Go back to New York City, take up your law practice again?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe I
’ll go out West. Start over. You?”
Bridger gave a raw chuckle. “My enlistment was up six months ago. All I want to do is marry Caroline, if she’ll have me, and go back to Fairhaven. There’s a lot of work to be done.”
“Sherman didn’t raze the place?”
“He did some damage, but the house and barn are right where I left them. A little the worse for wear, of course, but still standing.”
Pleased, Rogan slapped Bridger lightly on the shoulder. “And Amalie? Is she all right?”
Bridger grinned. “My little sister is furious with every Yankee from Lincoln on down, but she’s in one piece. She’s made up her mind to be a spinster, since, as she put it, the only marriageable men she’s likely to meet, once this war ends, are either over eighty or under fourteen.”
Rogan smiled, remembering the girl who had planned to marry him when she grew up, comparing her to the photograph in his shirt pocket. “Maybe I’ll make my way to Savannah before I head west. I wouldn’t mind seeing Fairhaven again.”
“It isn’t the place you remember, Rogan,” Bridger said, wistful now. “But you’re welcome there anytime. I wouldn’t show up in that blue uniform, though. Amalie is a fair hand with a shotgun.”
Rogan laughed. “I might risk a visit anyhow.”
“I would consider that a favor,” Bridger told him. He looked and sounded serious.
Seeing Rogan’s expression, he went on.
“Life has been hard for Amalie for a long time now. She puts on a brave face, but she’s tired, Rogan. Frankly, I’m worried about her. A visit from you would break the monotony, to say the least.”
“Even if she greets me with a shotgun?”
“Especially if she greets you with a shotgun,” Bridger answered. “No need to worry. Amalie won’t shoot to kill, as long as you don’t present yourself in that uniform. Even then, she might let you live, if only because she’s been in love with you since those summers you spent at Fairhaven.”
“As a matter of fact,” Rogan replied, “she proposed the day we left after one of our visits. Said she’d grow up to be the most beautiful woman in all of Georgia, and I’d regret it if I didn’t come back.”
Bridger laughed again. The sound was weariness itself, but it was genuine, too. “Well, then, I guess you’d better do the honorable thing and go back. I doubt she’ll want to marry you, but she was accurate about one thing, my little sister. She is definitely beautiful.”
Rogan didn’t speak. He wanted to see Amalie again, and Fairhaven, as well.
And then he would go west.
If Bridger succeeded, and brought Caroline home to Fairhaven as his wife, Rogan wasn’t going to be there when they arrived.
32
Hammond Farm
May 10, 1865
Bridger
Caroline was in the yard when he and the stallion rounded the last bend in the road. Her arms were raised, pegging laundry to the clothesline. Her black frock, in stark contrast to the snow-white sheet flapping behind her, made her stand out in sharp relief, even with her back to him.
Bridger, nervous, tired to the bone, full of anticipation and sweet dread, felt his heart stumble as he registered Caroline’s mode of dress.
He nudged Orion from a trot to a gallop with a motion of his heels, and she must have heard the stallion’s hoofbeats pounding the hard ground. She slowly lowered her arms, turned her head.
The farm gate was shut, but by then Orion had hit his stride and, with a burst of speed, he soared over the fence that ran alongside, like a raven taking wing.
Caroline, still as a post until that moment, raised a hand to her mouth, let it drop and, bunching the somber fabric of her skirts in both fists and lifting them to her ankles, began to run.
Bridger reined in the stallion, swung a leg over the saddle horn and landed at a sprint.
They met—or more accurately, collided—midway between the road and the clothesline, Caroline wrapping her arms around Bridger’s neck, Bridger lifting her off her feet and swinging her around in circles until they were both dizzy.
Her face, burrowed into his shoulder, was wet with tears, and she clung to him, like a shipwreck survivor to a sinking mast. “Bridger,” she whispered. “Bridger.”
He set her on her feet, steadied her. Planted his feet to steady himself until the green countryside stopped spinning around them.
At the edge of his vision, Orion nickered and sidestepped, reins dangling.
“Caroline,” Bridger said gently. “Look at me.”
She drew her head back, but her eyes were lowered, and he curved one finger under her wobbling chin and raised it so he could see her face.
“I didn’t think—I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again,” she murmured, making an effort to recover her composure.
He smiled, brushed his lips against the center of her forehead. “I told you I’d be back,” he reminded her.
A shudder moved through her, and she bit her lower lip, looked up at him with red-rimmed eyes. Nodded.
He took her by the shoulders, afraid her knees might buckle. “Who died, Caroline?” he asked gruffly, terrified of the answer. Please God, not the child. Not Rachel.
Caroline blinked, sniffling, and he saw bafflement in her expression, although it soon changed to realization.
She looked down at her mourning garb, then back up again. “The dress,” she murmured, as if in reply to some question she had asked of herself, and not of him. “The dress.”
“Not Enoch,” Bridger said. “Or...”
“Oh, no,” Caroline said quickly. “Everyone here is well. Some of the local women, members of my church and the Ladies’ Aid Society, have agreed to wear mourning garb in memory of poor Mr. Lincoln. Just until the fourteenth, when he’ll have been dead a month.” She glanced down. “A number of us went to Harrisburg when the funeral train stopped there. We...attended the viewing in the evening.”
“That must have been hard,” he said, thinking of the pain and sorrow she must have felt, and the memories it would have brought back,
She nodded.
Bridger moved his hands from her shoulders to cup her face, careful not to chafe her skin with his calloused palms. For a long while, he simply looked at her, not sure what to say.
Lincoln’s assassination, occurring a mere five days after Appomattox, had overshadowed the surrender; Northern headlines, crowing victory and the restoration of the Union, immediately turned to grim eulogies, accounts of the tragic events at Ford’s Theatre, the death vigil, the simultaneous attacks on others that same night, most notably those targeting Secretary Seward and his son, both of whom had sustained near-fatal wounds.
Federal troops had tracked the actor, John Wilkes Booth, who had put a bullet into the back of the President’s head and broken a leg in a dramatic leap from the balcony to the stage, for days. They’d found him hiding out in a farmer’s barn, in the Virginia countryside, along with an accomplice. A standoff had ensued, according to the newspapers, and—here, the story took two different directions—one side claiming that Booth had set the fire that consumed the barn, and him with it, in a maniacal display of defiance, the other equally convinced that his pursuers had ignited the blaze in an effort to smoke out their prey. Or kill him.
Bridger started to speak, but Caroline kept him from it by pressing two fingers lightly to his mouth.
“Not now, Bridger,” she said softly. “There’s been too much sorrow, too much death. Let us talk of happy things. The war is over, and you’re here, before me, safe and sound. For now, that is enough.”
Bridger kissed the fingers that had silenced him moments before. “I love you, Caroline,” he said.
She blushed, averted her eyes shyly, but when she looked back at his face, she smiled. “Truly? I will not be your mistress, Bridger Winslow.”
He grinned. “No,” he
agreed. “It’s a wife I want.” He paused, delighting in her warmth, the scent of her hair, the fetching glow in her cheeks. “Though I wouldn’t mind if you acted like a mistress now and then.”
Caroline’s color brightened from pale pink to apricot. For a second or two, he thought she would pull free, slap him hard across the face.
But then she spoke. “There are a great many reasons I should refuse your proposal, sir,” she said, not withdrawing, but nestling closer. “If that’s what you meant.”
He bent his head, kissed her, very briefly, on the mouth. “It is precisely what I meant,” he said. “And, given the opportunity, I believe I can...convince you to accept my proposal, rather than refuse.”
Caroline gave a soft, contented sigh that left Bridger hard with wanting her, and the way she’d settled against him, she had to be aware of that.
“We ought to go inside,” she said, so quietly that he barely heard her. “We’re behaving scandalously, standing out here, embracing like this.”
Bridger cleared his throat. “Caroline,” he whispered. “I have declared myself. Now, do you love me or not?”
She tilted her head back, her eyes bright with mischief and something more. “Yes, Bridger,” she replied. “I love you.”
“And?”
“And I will marry you, heaven help me.”
He laughed, lifted her off the ground again, this time by her waist, and spun her around, in celebration. Orion, startled, whinnied loudly.
Caroline laughed, too, putting her hands to Bridger’s face, rising on tiptoe to kiss him. “We have much to talk about, Mr. Winslow,” she said, stepping back. With that, she took his hand, pulling him up the low, grassy slope toward the house.
Orion followed, docile as a circus pony.
Bridger freed his hand from Caroline’s and gathered the stallion’s reins, frowning now. “Where is everyone?” he asked. “Enoch? Rachel?”
“They’ve gone to town for the day,” Caroline replied. “Enoch, Jubie, little Gideon and Rachel. Enoch is making repairs at my grandmother’s house.”
The Yankee Widow Page 38