He looked at his straw. It was long.
Relief flooded him.
He was ashamed.
“Well, God’s got some good sense,” Billy said, and not without a certain dry humor. “I’m the oldest man here; I’ve lived the longest, and God sure does know, I’m the one the most ready to go.”
Billy had a short straw. Pierce Roswell had another. “I’ve seen my fair share of things as well,” Pierce said, clapping his hand upon Billy’s shoulder. “Well, old-timer, old friend, think we can die well?”
“That we can,” Billy assured him.
The captain stared at the two with admiration, then looked to see who had drawn the other three short straws. Harry Sams, outside with them in the clean, fresh air but lying on a litter since he’d been gut-shot in the skirmish in which they’d been taken, lifted his straw. Short. Harry was twenty-two.
“Oh, sweet Jesus, Harry—” the captain began.
“Hell, Captain! I’m dying anyway,” Harry told him with a wry smile. He sobered. “And that’s the truth of it, Captain. Those Yanks will save me some pain.”
“Me, too!” called out Martin McCorkindale. Like Harry, he was in his early twenties. He wasn’t shot up as bad as Harry, but his leg needed to be amputated. And fast. It was already putrefying. The poisons could well have spread throughout his body. The Yanks hadn’t meant to leave their prisoners half-dead; their surgeon had been killed in the fighting and they were awaiting help for their own number as well as for the Rebs.
Martin cocked his head to the captain with a shrug. They both knew that his survival was one hell of a gamble.
“It’s all right, Captain. In fact, it’s damned fitting. Harry and I can die well, too.”
Their logic was sound, if painful.
It seemed that God had been looking over them for Christmas. Two men who might well be dying anyway had chosen the short straws, along with the two men who were the oldest in their company.
But there was still one more straw.
The Yanks were away from them, letting them make the discovery among themselves of who was to die.
“Where’s the fifth straw?” the captain asked.
He heard a choked-back sob. Then little Jimmy Haley came walking toward him. His head was high. His shoulders were squared. “It’s me, Captain, sir.” Jimmy, with his tousled brown hair and huge brown eyes, looked up at him with a fine show of bravado. But then his eyes filled with tears he blinked back furiously and his fine-squared shoulders began to tremble. “I—I ain’t afeered of dyin’, sir. I—I know damned certain that I can die well, too. I won’t holler or blubber or anything, Captain. I promise. I’ll make you proud.”
“Jimmy, you’ve always done us proud,” the captain said softly.
The Yanks were coming back.
Oh, hell, oh, hell, oh, God, the captain thought.
He’d wanted to live so much. He’d wanted to live so damned badly. See her face just one more time again. Hear her whisper, touch her, kiss her, stroke the past and the pain away…
God, yes, he wanted to live. “You’re too young to die, son,” the captain said curtly, and he snatched the straw from brave little Jimmy Haley, dropping his own long one in the snow.
The Yank, Lieutenant Jenkins, was back, and the captain turned to meet him.
“Wh—who—” Jenkins stuttered.
“Lieutenant, First Privates Sams, Roswell, McCorkindale, Larson—and I myself—have drawn the short straws,” the captain said without blinking.
Tears filled Jimmy Haley’s eyes in truth now. “Wait—” he started to protest.
But Darcy, behind him, clapped a hand over his mouth. He knew the captain would have none of it, the men letting Jimmy try to step in now when he had taken the boy’s place.
“If you men will come with me…” the lieutenant said unhappily.
“I will gladly accompany you, Lieutenant, as will Privates Larson and Roswell. My other two friends, you will note, in truth all but cheat the hangman, and they will need your assistance.”
Lieutenant Jenkins nodded. His Adam’s apple jiggled.
“You’ve time with the chaplain, sir, if you’ll accept the services of a Yank.”
“Indeed, Lieutenant, my men and I will be glad of a man of God, since I’m quite certain in my heart God wears no uniform Himself. Both of our causes have claimed that God is on our side, yet I suspect that He is heartily disgusted with us all at this point.”
The captain spun, gallantly saluted his men. Then, as ordered, he followed the lieutenant back to the house.
To prepare for his hanging.
At his own home, from his own tree.
If he closed his eyes and prayed hard enough, perhaps he could discover that he had slept.…
And he would awake.
And it would be Christmas.
Chapter One
Christmastime
South Florida
The Present
“It’s not just a tedious, monotonous, wretched drive through tons of steel and horrifically rude people—it’s an adventure!” Julie Radcliff muttered bitterly, stuck again in another traffic jam-up. Every day it got worse. She glanced at her watch again. She was going to be late. All she needed was ten minutes more each morning, but no matter how hard she tried, she never seemed able to get the household ready that simple little ten minutes earlier. Of course, it would help if once in a while—just once in a while—Jon’s work wasn’t more important than hers.
She realized that Ashley was staring at her. Ashley, just six, and in real school this year—first grade. Ashley seemed to have heard all the things that Julie had managed not to say—that she could be on time if only Daddy would handle his share of things. Julie tried to make her smile real as she reached over and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “We rocketed down U.S. One, sped along Fifty-seventh, dodged that light at Eightieth… then plowed right into a wall of BMWs and Mercedes Benzes at your brother’s school, huh, sweetie?”
“We’re not that late, Mommy,” Julie thought she heard Ashley say. Her defense of her father was as silent as Julie’s earlier criticism of him had been. Ashley, this last of her brood of three, just would be her father’s daughter. Ash had Jon’s unique light green eyes, a color that must have been somehow touched with hazel so that it could actually change to gold at times. Her hair, too, was her father’s, a thick, rich russet, though Jon seemed concerned these days that his wasn’t as thick as it should be.
Good. She hoped he went cue-ball bald—and that the fashion didn’t become him.
He would definitely deserve it.
“Honest, Mommy, it will be okay.”
Her daughter’s attempt to make her feel better meant much more to Julie than the ride to school and work that morning.
But then Ashley started complaining that her stomach hurt from being in the car. That was because her sister had insisted on sitting in the front before, and Ashley always complained about sitting in the back. The kids practically came to blows over who got to sit in the front seat. This morning, it just hadn’t been Ashley’s turn.
So she moaned. All through the traffic.
“Maybe I shouldn’t take you to school,” Julie muttered.
“If you stop driving, maybe my tummy won’t hurt anymore,” Ashley said.
“If I stop driving, maybe my head won’t explode,” Julie muttered.
And they were late. They were seven minutes late. If they’d been five minutes late, the first-grade door with Pooh Bear on it would have still been open, and Ashley could have slipped right in. But once that five-minute mark had been passed, Pooh Bear no longer faced the hall. Arriving with Ashley at the door, Julie found herself greeted by plain hardwood with a notice that stated: students arriving late must acquire a pass from the office.
“They’re real nice in the office,” Ashley offered. Her eyes were very grave on her mother’s. “And Mommy, my tummy is all better. I’m sorry I made you mad.”
Julie was suddenly very s
orry, aware that she inflicted her emotions on her children.
But that, too, could be blamed on Jon.
She spurred herself to another smile. “I’m not mad, just aggravated. Traffic does that to people. And they are very nice in the office, and I’m so glad that you like the people at the school. You like your teachers; they’re just great, right?”
Ashley nodded solemnly. “Don’t forget to see if anybody wants to buy chocolates. You know what?”
“What?”
“Jillie sold over two hundred bars already. She’s going to win a stuffed bear. I need to sell chocolates. I really want to win a prize, too, Mommy.”
Julie gritted her teeth. She supposed that the school needed fund-raisers, but she was completely opposed in principle to anyone using bribery with first-graders. No parent with any sense was going to let a six-year-old sell candy door-to-door—not in their modern world. That meant that parents had to cajole friends and family into chocolate bars. Everybody loved chocolate bars, especially around the holidays—that was what the school said. They lied—and Julie knew it. Her friends winced at the very whiff of chocolate in the air, especially around the holidays. Even those who were usually especially generous with one-dollar bills could clam up in December.
Jillie’s mom must be wallowing in chocolates.
But it seemed that other moms were always able to be up on the supermom scale. Jillie’s mother was a damned saint. She read to the class two days a week, she was room mother, she ran the parent meetings—and looked down her nose big-time when a mom couldn’t make sure to fit her young daughter’s class meeting into her schedule.
“Chocolates,” she murmured. “Sure, chocolates.”
She just wasn’t great at selling chocolates.
Actually, the time of the year didn’t matter. Nor the fund-raiser, nor the child who was involved. She usually always wound up with a freezer full of chocolates herself, having bought them all just so that her child—whichever child—could receive his or her prize.
This year, it was a stupid bear. She wished to God she could just give the school a donation and buy her daughter a bear.
“Mom?” Ashley queried with her eyes huge. She squeezed Julie’s hand. Julie looked at her daughter. Six. It was a wonderful age. Ashley was getting so very smart, so articulate, and so a part of the world. But she was still young enough to want to cuddle, to need help dressing now and then. It was a special age.
“I’ll sell chocolates,” Julie promised.
She and Julie walked to the office and received a pass from the secretary, who handed it over with pursed lips—apparently, Ashley Radcliff was arriving late at school far too often.
It was those damned ten minutes.
And Jon. Five minutes later, she was back in the car, muttering dire warnings and a few obscenities at the people driving in front of her. Luckily—since people had been known to come to blows and actually fire shots off in Greater Miami traffic jams—her windows were closed and the air conditioner in the car was blasting. It should be cooling down. It was December, for God’s sake. Nearly Christmas. The heat was just awful. She’d be happy as a lark to agree with Jon—that they needed to escape to nice, snowy, rural Virginia for a cool-down Christmas—if only she could bear her husband.
Which, at the moment, she couldn’t.
But then, Jon was aware of that fact. And knew exactly why she felt the way she did.
“Why, you idiot! You had a mile, a mile!” she advised the driver in front of her. The little Chevy Corsica had dawdled coming up to the light at U.S. 1—and missed it. She was going to have to sit through another.
She closed her eyes. A minor problem. Completely minor. She’d be fifteen minutes late instead of ten. Which wouldn’t matter all that terribly much, except that she was meeting the Pearsons. And the Pearsons were never late. And not just that—the Pearsons were interested in a very expensive house. Her commission from the sale of such a house would allow her to rub Jon’s nose in the fact that her income was not inconsequential.
She leaned her head against the steering wheel, suddenly hating herself and wishing that she weren’t so awfully bitter. Especially at Christmastime. That, too, she managed to blame on someone other than herself that morning. It was society. Christmas was purely commercial, and people were meaner and greedier than ever at Christmas. All in a bigger hurry to get to the malls, ruder than ever in traffic, downright nasty when stealing parking spaces.
When she found herself in a sorry-for-herself kind of mood, she usually remembered her father, his worn but handsome face serious as he would tell her, “Fish sticks may not be great, but lots of starving children in China would love to have them.” They didn’t have a whole, whole lot, he would say frequently, but they did have each other. They were alive and well and together. Look at the terrible things that could happen in life.
Well, a terrible thing had happened. Her father had died of cancer. Her mother still reminded her that her father had lived a good life, and that he had died before his children, the natural way. She shouldn’t grieve so terribly, because he’d lived to see his grandchildren.
In honor of her father, she could usually tell herself that everything was okay in her world—they were all alive and well and together for Christmas.
Right. The hell with that. She didn’t want to be anywhere near Jon for Christmas. Unless, of course, she could watch him being crucified in lieu of Christ on a cross somewhere.
Blasphemy, her mother would say.
But her mom, bless her, had just remarried after five years alone, and she was on her honeymoon for Christmas. Just as well. Julie didn’t want her mother with her for Christmas. She could never hide her feelings from her mother. She wasn’t even able to hide them from her children.
The strident honking of a horn caused her to jump in her seat. The light had changed. She glanced in her rearview mirror. The driver behind her had a few choice blasphemies for her, she could tell. She couldn’t hear him, of course, but his face was beet-red and his mouth was moving a mile a minute. She wasn’t a great lip-reader, but she was pretty darn certain she could pick out “Asshole woman driver.”
She gunned her way through the intersection, tempted to roll her window down first and tell him what he could do to himself. Except that she hadn’t been paying attention to the traffic. Her own guilt in the matter made her feel all the more argumentative—and all the more like crying.
Coming into the curve off of Ponce, she was forced to slam on her brakes as the man she called Cruddy-Disgusting-Joe suddenly ambled out into the road. “Cruddy” and “disgusting” were certainly not part of the man’s given name, nor was Joe, probably, but Julie had given him the name long ago, partly in fear, partly in disgust. He was actually a pathetic creature, a homeless misfit who lived in a halfway house near the South Miami area and spent his days walking back and forth, back and forth, around about a five-mile radius. His clothes were rags; he never shaved. He was dirty and thin. When she was walking, she gave him a wide berth. When she was with Ashley, she didn’t even like her young daughter in the same basic cubicles of air. She kept trying to tell herself he was just sad; something about him still made her skin crawl.
Today, he just stared at her, unseeing, as the car behind her failed to stop as quickly as she had. It screeched, and bumped her.
Cruddy-Disgusting-Joe just ambled on across the street. The skinny young woman whose convertible had just crashed into the bumper of Julie’s minivan leapt out of her car, hurling obscenities at Julie. “Damn it, I couldn’t hit the man!” Julie shouted back, leaping down from her own front seat.
The young woman, with her dark hair swirled in an attractive bun on top of her head, suddenly paused. “Maybe you should have hit him! Christmas present to the city!” she muttered.
She stared at the front of her car. “Hey, it was just the bumpers. No damage, right?”
Julie’s left rear light had been smashed but what the hell. If she called the cops or her insuran
ce company, her premiums would just go up anyway.
“No damage,” she said dully.
The young woman grinned broadly and slipped back into her car. She gunned the motor and sped around Julie, nearly hitting the car that had started to go around the two of them.
Horns blared. Despite their mechanical nature, they sounded absolutely vicious.
Julie hurried back into her own car and drove away, unblocking the road.
By the time she walked into her office, her mood was supremely sour.
Still, she was determined not to inflict her personal woes on anyone at work.
Millie Garcia, Julie’s broker and mentor and boss, short and bustling with iron-gray hair and a will to match, had paused by Jack Taylor—the retiree who had tired of fishing and come to work as secretary at the front desk in the small realty firm where Julie worked. They both looked at Julie as she entered.
Jack offered her a smile. “Julie, good morning, how’s it going?”
“Fine, thanks,” Julie lied, offering them a cheerful smile. Why was it that people so seldom answered that question honestly? How’s it going? It sucks!
People seldom answered so honestly, she thought, because most of the time, those who asked the question didn’t really want the real answer to it. It was polite conversation, nothing more.
“Oh, yeah!” Millie murmured. “Sweetie, you look just about as great as a legless heron!”
“Millie’s having a bad day—just warning you,” Jack said wryly.
“Julie’s most obviously having a bad day as well,” Millie said indignantly. “In my case, you’ll never understand!”
“Hot flashes,” Jack explained. He shrugged. “Women are not easy to work with. They go from PMS to hot flashes. Never a dull moment.”
“Tell Julie what’s going on,” Millie said firmly.
Julie’s smile faded. “I’m late. I’m assuming the Pearsons have been waiting?”
A grin curved Jack’s lips and his dignified small white mustache twitched. He shook his head. “No, Julie, the Pearsons are not waiting. It’s Christmas for you this morning. Dan Pearson’s on the phone right now—and I saw you walking toward the door a split second before telling him you hadn’t arrived yet. I told him that you’d just stepped outside to see if he and his missus were on the way. You can pick up on line five.”
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