But then, he hadn’t been in a state to do anything back then, had he? Addiction had made him helpless.
He had to get away from the wedding and all the happy couples. Making his excuses, he quickly left and stormed back to his office. Banging the door shut, he turned the lock and went through to the back where a small flame still flickered in the wood burner. He stood in front of it but the heat wasn’t enough to warm him. He looked at the cabinet. He knew what would make him feel better. What would give him the release he was looking for.
He took a couple of steps before muttering an oath. That way held no escape. What was it Tony used to say? Where there was life there was hope? Was his little brother right?
Colin unconsciously rubbed his side, just under his ribs. Being a doctor, he knew it was phantom pain but it didn’t stop it aching something awful. He’d been lucky. The injuries inflicted by Delaney and his raiders hadn’t killed him, unlike many of their other victims. Yet another example of war not being black and white.
Wirz, the camp commander who eventually hanged for war crimes, had ordered the trial and hanging of Delaney and the other five leaders of the so-called “raiders”, those prisoners who, in an effort to live, stole food and belongings from their fellow prisoners. Their actions may have been understandable to a point, until they had indulged in torture. Men who’d fought the common enemy together, side by side, had terrorized each other in prison. Andersonville had that effect on people. Brought out the worst in them, with some behaving no better than caged wild animals.
Disgusted with himself, his thoughts and his cravings, Colin locked the office behind him and headed off for a long walk. The farther the better. It was the only thing that worked to shake off the memories of the past.
Or, at least it used to work. But now the challenge was bigger. The past was overtaking any chance he had of having a happy future. He had told himself he didn’t want a wife, until the need to save the town arose. Then he didn’t have to admit to being lonely—he could order a bride on the excuse he had to help save the town. But having seen Cara again and realizing the child he’d once known was all grown up, he was desperate not to lose the beautiful young woman she had become. He loved her. He wanted her, but he was afraid that she could never be his.
Chapter 15
The 4th day of Christmas
December 28, 1876
White hot shards of pain filled his body. He turned this way and that, trying to dodge the next kick or blow to his head, his shoulders, his hands. Not his hands. He couldn’t end up like Stewart, every finger on each hand broken. He’d never do any doctoring again. “No,” he screamed, hoping someone would hear him. Hoping that person would be a friend and not another member of the gang. Tony’s face loomed in front of him.
Colin jumped up in bed—it’d been another nightmare. He rushed to the window, drawing back the curtains. It was still early but there were signs of life in the town below. Noelle, not Andersonville.
Pulling on his clothes, he walked down slowly to the kitchen, hoping he hadn't woken the others with his screams. He knew Mick still suffered occasional nightmares but he wasn’t sure about Cookie. The older man never admitted to any but some mornings, he looked as if he’d been up all night.
Pushing open the kitchen door, he saw Mick was already up. Colin’s hands shook badly. He turned his body, hoping the other man wouldn’t notice until the spasm had passed.
“Bad night?” Mick asked as he put a cup of coffee on the table for Colin.
Colin nodded.
“Did you take any of that stuff you gave me?”
Colin shook his head. Mick sighed with impatience. “Don’t know why you’re worried. You won’t get addicted again. Not if you’re careful.”
Colin didn’t agree, but he wasn’t about to argue with Mick. His friend was only trying to help.
“How’s your leg? You seem to be walking better,” Colin asked in an effort to deflect the conversation.
“Yeah, it’s good. Why wouldn’t it be – all I’ve been doing is sleeping in that great big bed of yours upstairs. It’s mighty comfortable. You should use it sometime. I wouldn’t have slept there if I knew you was coming home last night.”
Colin grunted in reply. The spare room had been fine but he wasn’t about to get into a conversation over his domestic arrangements. Not this morning.
Mick whistled as he went about clearing up after breakfast. Colin couldn’t help smiling. Who would have thought this man was a former Confederate soldier whose leg was saved by a friend and past colleague of Colin’s. The surgeon hadn't amputated as so many others would have, but had done his best to save the leg of the young kid taken prisoner. And he’d done a fine job. He was still working as far as Colin knew. His own career as a surgeon had been short-lived – another casualty of the war. Still, he was lucky. If any of his patients suspected how badly the shakes affected him after a night of nightmares, they would run a mile before they would let him examine them.
“Where’s Cookie gone?”
“Down to the town. He wanted to get some items from the store.”
More likely the old coot was gone in search of gossip. His suspicions were confirmed at Mick’s next words.
“He’s hoping to catch Woody to congratulate him on his marriage. Imagine Woody, a married man, and to Buck’s sister and all. Who’d have thought it?”
Colin sipped his coffee. Mick and Cookie always sought out Woody when they came to Noelle. They had offered him money to leave the town and come with them on their cattle drives but Woody had never been interested in leaving Noelle. Woody had told Mick all about Buck and Meizhen finding each other after all these years. He knew how Mick hoped the miracle of Buck finding his long-lost sister would rub off on him. Mick had yet to accept that his family was gone. He knew for sure that his parents had died in the war, or shortly after, but his sisters were missing. Colin, Cookie and those who had lived near Mick’s parents’ farm in Virginia, presumed they were dead, two of the thousands of civilian casualties of the war.
But Mick wasn’t convinced. Although he had built up the farm after the war and now rented it out, he returned every year just in case there was word of his sisters. Cookie went with him.
Cookie didn’t talk much but one night, late when everyone else was asleep, he had told Colin that taking the boy prisoner had been his salvation. Cookie was convinced God had sent Mick, a Confederate soldier at the tender age of twelve or thirteen, stumbling into the Union camp the night Cookie was on guard duty. He’d been badly injured. Cookie had taken him to the surgeon and once Mick had recovered, the surgeon had released the boy into Cookie’s care. Despite the war being over for years now, Cookie refused to leave Mick’s side. He was convinced the boy, now a strapping young man in his twenties, would get into trouble if Cookie didn’t stay nearby.
Mick had a short temper, especially where women were involved. God help anyone who mistreated a woman when Mick was around. He liked a few drinks, too, and sometimes the combination of temper and alcohol didn’t go well especially after a long cattle drive when tempers were more likely to be frazzled. Cookie, who never drank, was always on hand to keep him out of the worst of trouble.
Colin could understand Cookie’s logic. Killing other men didn’t come naturally to most, even in war. Cookie saw looking after Mick as payment for the lives he had cut short during the conflict.
Only Cookie knew about Colin being wanted for questioning over a murder, although both men knew of his addiction to opium. The same surgeon who had saved Mick had helped nurse Colin back to health after Andersonville. But neither would betray him. Unlike Cara, these men didn’t believe he was capable of cowardice, let alone murder.
Colin slammed his coffee cup back on the table, making Mick jump. “Good thing that’s tin and not China, otherwise I’d be pulling splinters out of my face. What the blazes got into you?”
Colin didn’t answer.
“Cookie said you’d met your bride. He said she was real
purty.”
Mick’s use of the slang expression would have made Colin laugh on any other day. But not today. He wasn’t in the mood. He wished he had stayed in the rooms over the office where he could be alone.
Mick poured more coffee, some for himself and a refill for Colin. He turned a chair around, straddled it and looked Colin in the face.
“What’s going on? You ain’t been this surly in a long while. Does she smell bad? Has she started nagging you already? Why don’t you just send her back if you don’t like her? Or let one of the other miners marry her.”
Colin stared into the coffee cup, letting Mick’s chatter go over the top of his head. Then when Mick stopped chattering and the silence became a little uncomfortable, he spoke.
“I know her.”
“What do you mean you know her? As in a biblical way?” Mick responded, the look on his face clearly telling Colin what sort of woman he thought Cara to be.
Colin pretended to swipe Mick’s head but only rustled a couple strands of his hair. “Not like that, you clown. I grew up with her. Cara Donnelly is the name she’s using but her real name is Cara O’Donnell.”
Cookie came in just at that moment. He dropped the bag he was carrying. “O’Donnell, as in Thomas O’Donnell?”
“The one and only,” Colin snarled.
Mick looked from one to the other. “I’m lost. Who is this fella O’Donnell and why do both of you look like you got a bit of Nacho’s lemon pie stuck in your teeth?”
Colin exchanged a look with Cookie, who sighed heavily before taking a seat.
“Thomas O’Donnell is the greatest, ugliest swine of a man I ever had the misfortune to meet. If I ever laid eyes on that son of a…”
“He was my best friend and Cookie’s commanding officer,” Colin said, cutting off Cookie’s tirade.
“If he was your best friend, what did he do to warrant such hatred?” Mick asked.
“He’s a lying scumbag coward.” Cookie jumped to his feet. “Shot himself and then two of his own men. After Colin here saved our lives by sacrificing his. I swear I…”
“Cookie, calm down. There’s no point in getting riled up now. O’Donnell’s not worth it,” Colin said.
“You can’t marry his sister. No wonder she’s desperate enough to be a mail-order bride.”
“Cookie, close the door, you’re letting the heat out,” Mick said.
Cookie kicked the door shut, making the glass in the windows rattle, “Bad blood must run in that family.”
“Cookie! That’s hardly fair. From what you said when you described her, the girl is barely old enough to remember the war,” Mick protested. “It’s not like you to hold innocents responsible for the actions of others.”
Chapter 16
Colin saw Mick’s words hit home as Cookie flushed.
“Cara is just a bit younger than you, Mick,” Colin said. “She remembers the war but she believes her brother was a hero.”
Cookie spat on the floor. “Some hero.”
“Cookie, have some coffee. It's not as good as yours but I didn’t burn it this time. Well, not completely!” Mick’s joke fell flat. “Tell me from the start as I don’t follow how you can shoot yourself and then others. Surely you’d be dead.”
“Thomas and I grew up together in Boston. Our parents were good friends and the families were close. We spent so much time in each other’s houses, the servants considered us one family. When we grew up, the war had started and we felt obliged to fight. I was studying to become a doctor but Thomas was going to follow his father into banking. I was engaged to his sister when we went off to war.”
“You were engaged to a child?” Mick asked, sounding horrified.
“No, not Cara. I was engaged to her elder sister, Colleen.” As Cookie and Mick exchanged a look, Colin suggested that Cookie join them at the table. “This may take a while to explain.”
“Should I cook us something to eat?” Mick asked, although his hopeful look at Cookie suggested he wanted the older man to offer.
“Don’t do it on my account. Any mention of O’Donnell is enough to put me off my food for days,” Cookie muttered.
“As I was saying, Thomas and I were assigned to different units but we kept in touch. Thomas was promoted so he ranked above me. We only fought beside one another once.”
“That was enough,” Cookie interjected. “What Doc is taking too long to tell you is that our units got surrounded. Rebs were everywhere. We had a chance to escape. A negro knew the area well. He’d worked on a farm or something, and figured he could save us. Colin decided to stay back with our wounded. He wasn’t sure the Graybacks would look after them properly. O’Donnell had a fit. He ordered Doc to abandon his men and follow him.”
“You were there?”
“Yep. O’Donnell ordered us men to follow him. A few wanted to remain with Doc but O’Donnell said he would shoot any who deserted. He was fond of using his gun and he didn’t like to be questioned. I think he believed he was some sort of king in a past life. No order could be questioned, no matter how stupid it was,” Cookie growled, then fell silent.
Mick looked from Cookie to Colin but both seemed reluctant to continue. “What happened?”
“The Graybacks overtook most of us and the ones who survived the initial attack were taken to Andersonville. Of two hundred men, thirty were still alive when they were liberated,” Colin added.
“You were in Andersonville?” Mick asked Cookie.
“No, lad. I went with O’Donnell, God help me.”
“You didn’t have any choice Cookie. You couldn’t disobey a direct order,” Colin argued.
“You did.”
“That was different. Thomas would never have shot me.”
Cookie’s snort told everyone what he thought of that notion.
“But why did he shoot himself if you escaped?” Mick asked.
“The days after our escape were some of the worst I’ve ever experienced. We were surrounded by Graybacks, or so it seemed. The men were angry with O’Donnell for making us leave our buddies behind. We didn’t have any provisions, we were wet, cold and some of us fell sick. We had no doctoring. Anyway, we reached the point where we had to face the enemy or risk being overrun. We’d heard rumors of Union men being murdered despite showing the white flag. Karl, the negro who had saved us the first time, he didn’t want to risk being taken prisoner. Whatever chance us white folks had, he had none. He argued with O’Donnell a few times and finally he convinced O’Donnell he could lead us out of danger. He was a fine man, a brave one.” Cookie wiped what looked suspiciously like a tear from his eye.
He slurped some coffee before continuing with his story. “He did, too. We got back behind Union lines. We even found some food and cooked us up a celebration. Then a gunshot rang out. We—that is, most of us—assumed it was a sniper. It got O’Donnell. Shot right through his foot.”
Mick looked so confused, Colin had to explain.
“But it wasn’t a sniper. Karl saw Thomas shoot himself and confronted him. Thomas shot him. When John Brisbane, a white soldier from my company, challenged him, he shot him, too.”
“But why shoot himself when the danger had passed?” Mick asked.
“Who knows what was going through his head? O’Donnell was on the edge, had been for months. He’d done some bad stuff before—been too strict with the men, punished them dreadfully. Doc here had to sort out a few men who had been punished so badly they needed doctoring.”
“I should have talked Thomas into going on leave. I should have written him up,” Colin said, stirring his coffee.
“He wouldn’t have it. He thought it would make him look like a coward. Nothing else seemed to matter to that devil other than how he looked to others,” Cookie spat.
“But why shoot himself? Was he trying to kill himself?” Mick asked, looking more than a little bemused.
“No, Mick, a shot like that meant, that for him, the war was over. He could go home. But instead of a coward, that
low down dirty dog was feted a hero.” Cookie held the coffee cup as if it were a man’s neck, squeezing hard. “We only heard later he had blamed Doc for the murders. He had no reason to say anything about what happened. Still don’t understand why he did.”
“I guess he thought I’d die in Andersonville. I wouldn’t be around so it didn’t matter. Most of the men who served with him didn’t live out the war,” Colin suggested.
“But you were on your way to prison when those men were killed. Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Mick asked.
“I didn’t know anything about it. I was sick after the war, Colleen had got married while I was in Andersonville, my father was dead. There was no reason for me to go back to Boston. The first thing I knew about any of it was when Cookie mentioned the wanted posters and then I saw a copy Draven had.” Colin went silent for a while and then said “John Brisbane’s father wants to see me hang. John was his only son. I don’t believe he will ever let it go. Can’t blame him, either. John was a fine man and an excellent soldier. I was honored to have him serve under me and devastated to hear how he died.”
Cookie had been the one to warn him about the existence of the bounty poster. He hadn’t seen it until Draven produced it a while after he’d saved the sheriff’s life. Draven had torn it up. Both understood it was payment for Colin saving his life. Whether Draven believed him to be guilty of murder wasn’t something Colin wanted to think about.
“But why didn’t you tell?” Mick asked. “Why not clear your name when you came back?”
Chapter 17
“I’ve been asking him that same question every year but I never get a proper answer,” Cookie grumbled. “I could have found witnesses to prove those men were shot after Doc got taken prisoner.”
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