A Heartbeat Away: Quilts of Love Series

by S. Dionne Moore

  Gerta patted Riley’s hand before planting her foot to haul herself onto the wagon seat. She paused and met Beth’s gaze.

  It was the deciding moment. Her grandmother was asking something of her. Based on what she’d seen the previous day, Beth wasn’t at all sure she could go out onto those fields, criss-crossed with dilapidated fences and view up close the devastation she’d only seen at a distance the previous day.

  Despite the rest of the night, strain and fatigue showed in Gerta’s face. “I would like to see,” Gerta said a moment before she pulled herself into the wagon and settled her tattered, blood-stained skirt around her ankles. Gerta sat prim, as if dressed in her Sunday best and ready for a nice buggy ride. The stoop of her shoulders and lines of strain around her mouth the only sign of the woman’s discomfort.

  Nurses were expected to offer comfort and help the wounded. It was on this battlefield that Beth would receive the majority of her training. Her stomach knotted with dread. Gerta’s gaze went over her, her face placid, calm. If her grandmother could do it, surely she could as well. If she could offer comfort to one man, as she had to Joe, it would ease the darkness that had inhabited her soul since Leo’s death.

  Beth shifted her weight. Riley waited, expectant, offering his hand, and all she could think about was her mother’s expression, her sadness. The way her parents looked at her. Sometimes it felt as though they were looking right through her. She closed her eyes and envisioned the quilt, the colorful triangles against the dark background, leading, pointing, to something bright and wonderful.

  But she had to continue the journey. She’d taken the first step by nursing the many Confederates brought to their door. No. She’d taken the first step by overcoming her anger to take care of Joe. It was up to her to continue the journey toward that bright hope. Whatever it was. She wanted it, needed to feel the hope she had once felt, and though she didn’t understand, she knew that this was yet another step on the path.

  She glanced at Jim.

  “You go on. I’ll take good care of Joe.”

  Embarrassed that Jim so easily read her worry, she allowed Riley to help her into the wagon and settled her skirts over her bad leg, never once looking back at the cabin or Jim.

  17

  Joe’s head throbbed and he stroked his fingers along his brow to relieve the tension that had settled behind his eyes. He remembered his dream about Ben and groaned. The cabin had grown as hot as he felt, the beams of sunlight creeping along the floor ever closer to him with each passing minute. He heard a movement and expected to feel Beth’s fingers along his face, testing for fever, instead Jim’s voice cut through his misery.

  “You hungry?”

  “No.” He’d been so used to low rations, or no rations, of fending for himself along the March into the Shenandoah Valley. The steady supply of food had been more than he’d had in a long time.

  “Miz Gerta says the fever makes you say crazy things. You hurt Miss Beth with asking why they didn’t shoot you, too.”

  He remembered none of it save the dream. Or was it a dream? But he recalled it play-by-play and knew it was yet another piece of his memory’s puzzle. “Someone shot my brother.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “They said he saved their lives. That you did. It was the reason they risked theirs for you.”

  Joe’s head snapped up. Jim continued to run his knife down the long branch he was smoothing for another crutch. He had risked his life for . . . who? The slaves. How he wished he could have known them, their names. He wondered how far they had dragged him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall anything after Ben was shot until he woke up in Gerta’s home.

  “We found them in the woods.”

  “Where was you?”

  “Over the mountain.”

  “Well, you Rebs lost that one from what I’ve heard. It’s why you’re here. The Graybacks overwhelmed Harper’s Ferry though.”

  He could rouse himself to be happy for the men of his regiment. The extra clothes and shoes, guns and ammunition would have been a God-send.

  “Where’d you get shot?”

  Joe rolled to his good side, facing the black man and watching the slow move of his hands back and forth with the blade of his pocketknife.

  They’d been marching toward that gap in the mountain from the meadow outside of Frederick. He and Ben had been caught in a skirmish with five others. He told Jim as much. They’d been in the woods somewhere halfway up the mountain, Ben nursing his shoulder in the little shack.

  “Why didn’t he take you to one of your surgeons?”

  “I think he was, but we ran into the slaves and . . .”

  “So who shot him?”

  “I don’t know.” The image of that man, his face so cold. As if he’d planned the shot all along. Like a mercenary seeking revenge. Why hadn’t he been shot as well? Why only Ben?

  “I want to remember, but I can’t.”

  “Them blacks said it was a dark man. Had a gray coat and blue pants.”

  “You talked to them?”

  “Heard tell.”

  Joe didn’t know what to make of the Jim’s vague response but didn’t push the issue. What interested him most was the information. Gray coat and blue pants. He tried to reconcile his image of the man with the clothing and felt another missing piece slip into place. Desperate as the men were for clothing, he could see them putting on almost anything to be rid of the smelly, mud-caked, and sweat-soaked rags. Maybe the man had been Union after all. Still, it didn’t make sense that he would shoot Ben and leave him alive.

  He turned onto his back and let his mind drift. A cold, hard truth edged itself into his mind. The man who shot Ben had known his brother. He was after Ben and only Ben.

  No matter how hard he tried to make sense of it, he failed.

  “You thought about what you going to do? Don’t see how they’ll be wanting you back with a busted arm.”

  In response to the statement, Joe tried to flex his right hand as he contemplated an answer. His injury could be his ticket out of the Army of Northern Virginia, and the thought had never been sweeter. He’d seen enough, done enough. More than a year into the war had ground down many a man. Ben had talked of ending the war. Of heading home and picking up where they had left off in their humble carriage-making shop. But the injury would limit Joe’s capacity to work. He would head home to a trade that he was no longer able to work, and that was if the shop survived further battles as the Union tried to press south just as the South tried to press north.

  There would be nothing he could do. Nowhere he could go to escape the crude existence forced on him because of his injury.

  “She cares for you, you know.”

  Joe froze up inside. He lifted his head and Jim’s calm dark eyes stared back. He hadn’t wanted to read too much into Beth’s reaction to him. They were both so vulnerable. All of them. And then there was the other: “I’m a Rebel.”

  “You’re a man first.”

  “My arm’s no good.”

  “You’ll find something you can do.”

  Why were they even having this discussion? “It’s why you brought me with you, isn’t it?”

  Jim’s eyes crinkled at the corners but he didn’t respond, only slipped from his stool to the floor and pressed the piece he had been whittling into Joe’s right hand. “Grip this.”

  Joe did, squeezing with all his might.

  “Do it again.”

  He tried. With every ounce of strength, he tried to get his hand to obey his mind and clench.

  “Another one.”

  Joe glanced once at Jim. The black man’s expression gave away none of his thoughts.

  “Only way to keep it strong is to make it work.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Not now. But you keep trying and it might get stronger.”

  Joe drew in a deep, settling breath. He felt so weak. Sweat beaded along his forehead as he clenched, then relaxed his
hand against the smooth wood that lay in the palm of his hand.

  Low laughter grated against Beth’s ears, as if the soldiers themselves were testing the waters of mirth in a landscape so stained with death. The urge to turn on the men and berate them for their lightheartedness rose. She bit her lip to keep from lashing out as the wagon rattled down from Sharpsburg and they took a left onto Main. Buildings were burned. Dead horses, smashed wagons, buildings still smoldering from the fires of the previous day. Civilians stood out on the streets, some kneeling next to fallen men, others wandering, their expressions glazed with pain and confusion.

  The Lutheran church’s whitewashed sides were skinned and riddled with holes. Across the street, a surgeon had set up a coarse tent, the telltale pile of limbs drawing flies in the heat of the day. A whimper rose in her throat and she determined not to look anymore. Every fiber of her being wanted to beg Riley to turn around and take her back to the shack, away from the gore and wreckage and buzz of flies.

  Only her grandmother’s stiff carriage and steady forward gaze settled her nerves and firmed her resolve. Stretched out in front of them was the mess she’d glimpsed the previous evening, only worse. A picket stopped them, shooting questions at Riley as to his intentions. They were waved through, the lone horse continuing its plod down the dirt road littered on both sides with broken fence rails. Entire sections of the five-rail fence were missing in some places.

  Beth closed her eyes as the cacophony of moans and shrieks of the injured and dying grew in volume. She felt Gerta’s hand on hers and squeezed back.

  “It is far worse than even I imagined.”

  “I’m not strong enough for this.”

  Her grandmother’s hand squeezed tighter. “You would want someone to care for Jedidiah. Each of rhese men is a Jedidiah to someone somewhere. Don’t focus on the injury, many will be too far gone to hear your words, but they can feel your presence. You might be able to say something that will bring them peace as they cross over.”

  Her mind rejected the thought. She who had no peace was to bring peace to others? The idea seemed absurd.

  “How can I when . . .”

  Gerta’s hand squeezed. “You’ll find the strength when you need it most. Pray, my darling. God has not turned His back on you. Just as He did not turn His back on Leo.”

  She tilted her head and blinked into the clear blue sky. Such a beautiful blue, a glory lost to those whose eyes stared up into it unseeing, abandoned.

  18

  Joe worked his hand on the crosspiece in increments of ten before he rested. He was alone. Jim had slipped off to somewhere. In the warmth of the cabin, Joe pulled his haversack close. He rubbed the place where the wound alternately itched and burned. More than anything, he wished for a cool stream and a slab of soap, but it would be a luxury he would have to defer for the unforeseen future.

  He worked the buckle of the sack and opened the flap. He lifted out his letter to Meredith and set it aside. Then, one by one he took out the things Beth had so carefully showed him before. He’d had paper and an inkwell at some point. Maybe gone now, he didn’t know. He knew and had seen the looting on both sides of the army upon those who had fallen in the field. Desperate soldiers in want of shoes or stamps or food.

  As he ran his hand around the inside of the haversack, his finger caught on the inside edge where a hole used to be, the result of an excited mouse after his hardtack and peanuts. His finger grazed along the stitches he’d painstakingly worked to patch the hole, adding a second piece of material on the inside to form a pocket of sorts meant to hold his small wooden box. He withdrew the slender wooden case and opened it. The pen lay inside, two nibs, an inkwell, and a couple of sheets of paper. He frowned as he lifted out the paper. A cigar lay at the bottom of the narrow area with another sheet of paper underneath.

  The cigar smelled rich, still retaining the freshness that bespoke of a recent purchase. Joe turned it over, trying to understand where it had come from and to whom it belonged. He didn’t smoke. Ben smoked cigars before the war had begun, an infrequent indulgence, but one his brother had discontinued as soldier’s pay had grown more irregular and needs for food and raiment became higher priority.

  He unfolded the single sheet of paper and noted the watermark, but the page was blank. Ben must have stowed some of his goods inside Joe’s haversack to free his hands.

  Joe pulled himself into a sitting position and waited for the world to stop spinning. He clutched the cigar, the paper open on his lap, the realization that these were the last things of Ben’s that he would ever hold until he returned home. If he returned home. He had come close to death, as had many, but Ben’s death sucked away his desire to continue the fight. There was nothing more worth fighting for.

  Jim’s words echoed back to him. Beth. Did she truly care for him? He glanced at the chair on which she’d sat earlier, sewing. The quilt was there, flashing its message. Hope. Was God giving him a new hope?

  The door creaked open an inch allowing bright sunshine to stream inside, filtered as it was though the trees, it still forced Joe to squint and turn away.

  “It’s me. Found us more food. They’s about to eat us out of everything. The fields is ripped near clean.”

  Joe knew all about such things. Despite Lee’s command to the contrary, pillaging meant the difference between starvation and survival. Joe put the cigar back into the bottom of the case and replaced the paper, his own sheets of paper on top, and closed the box. He picked up the crosspiece of wood and began his exercise again. He caught Jim’s grin of approval as the man carried his stash of staples to a low table and set them out like a mama parading her finery. They ate the berries Jim had brought back and split some crackers and preserves. He wondered where the man had found the things but didn’t ask. It was enough to have food in his belly and to feel an increment of strength he hadn’t felt earlier.

  “You’re getting better,” Jim nodded his head.

  “Not as hot.”

  “That’s a good thing. Sometimes last three, four days. I was praying God would heal you.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Jim sounded a lot like his mother.

  Jim waved his hand over the plenty in front of them. “They’s about took everything already, but I hid some things yesterday, thinking them Rebs might eat us out of it all.”

  At least the man had foresight, but what he wanted to know most was about the battle itself. “Is it bad?”

  “Most of the men I saw were bad off. Even the barn is full of men, Union and Rebs. Thought Miz Gerta and Miss Beth might be there, but they must have gone down into the fields.”

  Joe closed his eyes. No one had to tell him what that experience was like and he really didn’t want the reminder. He wondered if it was easier for someone like Beth to see the carnage than it was for a soldier to see it and know he might be next. Or to linger near a friend knowing he would bleed to death before anyone got to him.

  “That Miz Gerta is something. She been a neighbor to Mister Nisewander for a good long time.”

  “Mr. Nisewander?” The cranky man? “Is he your master?”

  Jim’s frown was dark and deep. “Ain’t got no master. I’m a free man. I work for the Mister because he’s a good man. Treats me fair and pays me good.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Went down with my Emma to the cave. Best place for him all along, though it took that shelling to convince him.” Jim pulled on his lone suspender, lips pursed.

  “Emma is your wife?”

  “My daughter.”

  “There’s a cave around here?”

  “Killiansburg Cave. Lots of folks went there to hide from the Rebs.” Jim nodded toward the branch he’d been working on. “Took them crutches over and left them. Didn’t like the way I was being eyeballed by the Rebs.”

  Jim knelt and pried up a loose board in the floor. He handed down the jars of preserves, returned to the table, caught up the bag of sweet potatoes, and stashed them along with another wrappe
d item and the apples. He stood up and brushed the dust from the knees of his trousers, taking another pluck at his suspender. For several long minutes, Jim said nothing, only stared down at the floor.

  “Think everything will be safe there?” Joe finally asked.

  “If we’re careful, and if we try to stretch out what we got, we should be fine for a week, maybe more.”

  A week of food seemed like a luxury to Joe. He clenched the piece of wood in his right hand, realizing as he did so that the clench of his hand felt tighter. Maybe it was a trick of his imagination. “I thought you were worried about going out with Rebs in the town.”

  Jim shrugged. “I’m a free man. Not much they can do. Mostly saw them and heard their talk, not the other way ’round.”

  “What’re they saying?”

  “Worrying over food and supplies. The barn was filled up. The yard, too. I had to work hard to get to the well.”

  Ah. “So that’s where you stored everything?”

  “Wasn’t used any more, and it was a cool place.”

  Jim returned to the door and glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll get some more branches.”

  Joe set aside the crosspiece, the tendons in his arms sparking stabs of soreness. He was glad for the feeling. Anything other than numbness was welcome and maybe Jim was right, if the exercise helped him regain use of his hand it was worth the effort. He swung himself to his knees and maintained the position until he was sure the world would not tilt or spin. Left hand against the wall, he planted his right foot and pulled to his feet. His first step was shaky and he remembered the crutch Jim had given him but it was nowhere in sight. The black man had probably taken it along to the hospitals.

  Winded after a dozen steps, he felt the strength waning from his legs and went for the low stool. As he crouched over it, the blood pounded hard in his head, then drained. The world shifted and he missed, hitting the edge and plopping onto the floor. He sat, dazed as pain pulsed in his right side. At least he was back on the ground. With what little strength he could muster, he got up on his hands and knees to crawl back to his side of the shack.