“Abram’s been shot?”
Percy shook his head from side to side.
“No, Wil. Abram and I found him when we were tracking a deer. He’s been shot right here.”
Percy put his hand on his chest, marking a spot halfway between his collarbone and his heart.
“There’s blood everywhere, and I don’t know if he’s breathing.”
“Oh, my Lord.”
Clara covered her mouth with her hands. She’d just found him. Had she lost him already?
“Take me to him, Percy. Take me to Wil.”
They hitched Pharaoh and Nicodemus to the wagon, and Percy drove the mules hard while Clara held up the lantern so he could see where he was going. The road was littered with hats, shoes, guns, and all sorts of things Clara wished the lantern’s light hadn’t allowed her to see.
After he tied the reins to a sturdy tree so the mules wouldn’t wander off with the wagon, Percy grabbed the lantern and led her through the woods. Branches clawed at Clara’s hair and face as she ran. One scratched her deep enough to draw blood, but she didn’t dare take the time to stop and inspect the damage. She had to get to Wil before it was too late. If it wasn’t already.
“Put out that light,” Abram said in a fierce whisper after Clara and Percy found him sitting with his back against a tree and Wil’s head in his lap. “Someone might see it and decide to take a shot at you next.”
Percy moved to blow out the lantern, but Clara grabbed his arm.
“Wait. Let me hold it for a second.”
She moved the lantern close to Wil’s face. His eyes were closed and his skin was deathly pale. Blood had soaked through his uniform and covered the ground. Body parts were strewn across the grass. A leg, an arm, and what looked like an ear.
“Is he dead?” Abram asked. “I’m scared to look.”
Clara put her hand on Wil’s chest, but he was wearing so many layers of clothes she couldn’t tell if his heart was still beating. She held her hand under his nose and felt a gentle puff of air that might have been a trick played on her foolish heart by the breeze. Then she pressed her hand to the side of his neck and nearly laughed out loud when she was rewarded with the feel of a faint pulse beneath her fingers.
She blew out the lantern and wrapped one of Wil’s arms around her shoulders.
“He’s alive. Get his hat, Percy. Abram, help me get him up so we can put him in the wagon and take him back to the house. I need to dig that bullet out of his chest before the wound closes up around it.”
Abram took Wil’s other arm. Wil’s head lolled between them as they dragged him through the woods. Percy lit the lantern again after they reached the road. They loaded Wil into the back of the wagon, and Clara covered him with a blanket so no one could see him unless they climbed inside to take a closer look.
“Drive, Percy.”
She smoothed Wil’s hair with her hand. His face was so peaceful he looked like he was sleeping. Just like her mama had when she was lying in her casket.
“Drive like you’ve never driven before.”
Pharaoh and Nicodemus chose that moment to get into one of their moods. They refused to move when Percy slapped the reins against their hindquarters.
“Stubborn animals.”
“Slap ’em harder, Percy,” Abram said.
“That won’t work. They have to be sweet-talked when they start acting this way. Fellers, if you behave, I’ll give you an extra bucket of oats and all the apples you can eat when we get home.”
The promise of food goaded the mules into action.
“What are we going to do if Jedediah comes by tonight and starts searching again?” Abram asked as Percy maneuvered the wagon past the many obstacles in the road. “How are we going to explain having a half-dead Yankee in our house?”
Clara tore her eyes away from the road when Wil slid his hand from under the blanket, closed his fingers around hers, and gave them a gentle squeeze. She returned the pressure.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Chapter Thirteen
Wilhelmina tried to open her eyes, but her lids were much too heavy. She felt hands pulling at her. Holding her up. Dragging her up a set of stairs. Pain shot through her at every turn.
“Everything’s going to be all right, Mr. Wil,” she heard a young boy’s voice say. “You’re safe now.”
She must have blacked out again because the next thing she knew, she was sprawled across the first bed she had lain on in months. A soft pillow rested under her head instead of a lumpy haversack. Clean sheets lay beneath her instead of a dirty bedroll or scratchy oilskin.
“I’ve got to get the bullet out,” a woman said.
Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Wilhelmina couldn’t recall her name.
“It’s going to hurt something fierce, so I’m going to find you something to bite down on, okay?”
Wilhelmina didn’t know where she was or how she had gotten there, but she knew she couldn’t allow the woman to undress her. She couldn’t risk discovery.
“No.”
She tried to push herself off the bed, but she didn’t have any strength.
“Stay there. Don’t try to move.”
A hand touched her shoulder and pushed her down.
“Boys, I need you to do for me what you did for the surgeons at the Ogletrees’ place this afternoon. Fetch me a sharp knife, plenty of hot water, and all the clean rags you can find. Quick as you can. Go.”
Wilhelmina heard booted footsteps thumping against a wood floor.
“Let me get this bloody thing off you so I can take a look at that wound.”
Wilhelmina felt hands unbuttoning her uniform coat. She tried to halt their inexorable progress.
“No. Please don’t.”
Strong hands closed around her wrists. Strong, but with a soft touch. The hands of a woman used to hard work.
“Stop fighting, Wil. It’s Clara. Remember me? You saved me and my brother, Abram, from that soldier who robbed our smokehouse and tried to hide out in our house. I’m trying to help you, not hurt you.”
“Clara?”
The name penetrated Wilhelmina’s foggy brain, adding to her fear instead of taking it away. She remembered Clara, but Clara knew her as Wil, not Wilhelmina. Would Clara smile at her the same way—look at her the same way—if she knew the body of a woman lay underneath the man’s uniform she was slowly removing?
“You don’t understand.” Her tongue felt thick and useless. She could barely get the words out. “I’m not—”
She groaned as Clara turned her first on one side, then the other. Her body jerked as Clara pushed her shell jacket off her shoulders and pulled her arms free of the sleeves. Air, crisp and cool, kissed her stomach. She shivered as goose bumps formed on her skin.
“Drink this,” Clara said. “It’ll help ease the pain.”
Wilhelmina felt Clara’s hand slip under her head and gently lift it off the pillow. Clara pressed something cold and hard to her mouth.
“I found a jug of whiskey in Papa’s room. He used to say it’s as smooth as spring water, but it tastes like liquid fire to me.”
Something that smelled almost like kerosene splashed into Wilhelmina’s open mouth and slid down her throat. The sensation was cool at first. Then heat bloomed in her chest, throat, and stomach. She coughed and nearly choked when Clara forced her to drink more.
“That ought to do it.”
Wilhelmina heard a soft thud when Clara set the jug of whiskey on the floor.
“Why are you wearing these bandages around your chest?”
Clara’s fingers touched the strips of muslin binding her breasts.
“Are you healing from another wound? This dressing doesn’t look like it’s been changed in ages. I’ll cut it off and make a fresh one, but I’d better see what’s under there before I go after that bullet.”
Wilhelmina felt cold steel slide across her chest. Heard the sound of fabric being sheared away. She tried to ra
ise her hands, but the whiskey made her feel clumsy and uncoordinated.
“Clara, don’t.”
With an effort, she finally managed to open her eyes. Then her breasts fell free and her lungs filled with air as the constriction around her chest disappeared.
“My God.” Clara gasped, paused, then hesitantly cupped Wilhelmina’s sex in the palm of her hand. “You’re a woman,” she whispered as she jerked her hand away and moved back from the bed.
“I can explain.”
Wilhelmina sought out Clara’s face, eager to bask in her beauty but reluctant to view the scornful look she expected to receive in return.
Clara looked down at her, her expression a mixture of confusion and what appeared to be curiosity.
“You’re a woman,” Clara said again, moving closer.
There was no use denying it so Wilhelmina didn’t bother trying.
“Yes, I am.”
The air felt charged. Electric. Wilhelmina could practically feel it crackling around her when Clara sat next to her.
“Then why do I still want to kiss you?”
*
Clara hurriedly covered Wil’s exposed chest with his—her—uniform coat when Percy and Abram burst into the room. Abram was carrying a steaming soup pot nearly overflowing with water, and Percy’s arms were filled with the remnants of a clean sheet that had been cut into strips.
“We brought the things you asked for.”
Abram eyed the terrible wound on Wil’s thin frame. The center of the bullet hole was bright red, the edges charred black.
“Set the water on the nightstand, put the rags on the bed, and place the knife on the fire so the blade can get good and hot, then close the door behind you when you leave,” Clara said. “I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
“Can’t we stay and watch?” Percy asked.
“No, there’s going to be blood. A lot of it. If you faint from the sight of it, I won’t be able to stop what I’m doing and tend to you, too. Go on now. I’ll call you when I’m done.”
Abram took a long look at Wil.
“Is he going to die?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Did he say who shot him?”
“Does it matter?”
“I guess not.” Abram looked like he wanted to say something else, but thought better of it. “Come on, Percy. I’ll let you beat me at checkers until Clara says it’s okay to come back.”
“You don’t have to let me beat you. I can do it on my own.”
After Abram and Percy left the room, Clara wedged a chair under the doorknob so no one could enter unexpectedly, and drew the curtains so no one could see in. Then she rolled her sleeves up to her elbows and scrubbed her hands with soap and water.
“You know. You saw.” Wil’s words were slurred by the effects of the whiskey. “And you want to kiss me anyway?”
Clara turned her back on him. On her. Why was the distinction so hard to remember when the truth was as plain as day?
“I’m just a woman. I don’t know what I want.”
Clara had heard the argument many times, but she never dreamed she would ever hear herself using it rather than trying to refute it.
“No one else can tell you what’s in your heart,” Wil said. “What is your heart telling you?”
The words Clara’s heart was whispering were too frightening, too new to consider.
“Enough, Wil. I don’t know why I said what I did.”
But deep down, hadn’t some part of her suspected Wil wasn’t who she seemed? His gentle eyes, soft hands, and thin wrists didn’t belong on a man. They belonged on a woman. They belonged to a woman.
Yet, knowing what she knew now, why did she still get a funny feeling in her stomach whenever Wil looked at her?
“What’s your name?” Clara asked. “Your real name.”
“Wilhelmina, but I prefer Wil.” Wil looked around, her eyes wild. “I went back to get my rifle. Where’s my rifle?”
“Under the bed.”
Clara touched Wil’s shoulder to calm her. Her thrashing was causing fresh blood to seep from her wound. If the bullet started moving around, it could cause even more damage than it already had.
“You can get to it anytime you want, but you’re not going to need it. You’re safe here.”
After Wil settled down, Clara dipped one of the rags into the pot of water and wiped away the blood on Wil’s chest as gently as she could. Wil stiffened at her touch but didn’t cry out.
“Where are you from?”
Clara’s gaze was drawn like a magnet to Wil’s body. Wil’s shoulders and arms looked strong, sporting more muscle than Clara had ever seen on a woman. Was that why Wil had been able to keep up with the men in her unit? Or had the training she had endured forged her into the fine physical specimen she was now?
“I’m from Philadelphia.”
“Pennsylvania? How did you get so far from home?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Then tell me when we’re done.”
Clara moved her gaze lower. Wil’s breasts were small but perfectly formed. Her light brown nipples were like little pebbles. Clara wanted to twirl them between her fingers. Tease them with her tongue. She had never had such thoughts before, but now they wouldn’t stop coming. It was as if her body had a mind of its own and she was powerless to do anything except submit to its will. She tore her gaze away from Wil’s breasts, picked up a hairbrush, and placed the handle between Wil’s teeth.
“This next part’s going to hurt. Bite down on the brush to take your mind off the pain. Ready?”
Wil nodded, and Clara poked her index finger into the hole in Wil’s chest. She felt muscle, sinew, and a hint of bone, but no bullet. The muscles in Wil’s neck bulged as she tried not to scream.
Clara pushed her finger deeper into the hole. Wil groaned and bit down harder on the handle of the brush. Clara watched her finger disappear up to her first knuckle, then her second. Finally, when she was just starting to think she would never find what she was looking for, the tip of her finger brushed against the base of the bullet.
“There it is.”
Wil groaned when Clara spread the hole open and slipped a pair of tweezers inside the wound. Clara slowly pulled the bullet out and dropped it into the washbasin. Wil sagged with relief when the steel cartridge clattered against the metal bowl, but her ordeal wasn’t over yet.
“There’s a hole in your uniform, so there’s a small piece of cloth somewhere inside the wound,” Clara said. “I have to take it out, too, or it’ll fester inside you and poison your blood. If that happened, you wouldn’t last more than a couple weeks.”
Wil teared up, either at the memory of what she had just endured or at the thought of what she was about to go through.
“I’ll be as gentle as I can,” Clara said. “I promise.”
She explored the wound again, going deeper than before. Wil groaned and gripped the sheets with both hands. Clara wanted to stop causing Wil pain, but she knew she had to go on. She had to find the tiny piece of wool or the resulting infection might do more damage than the initial injury. She nearly cried when she finally located the blood-soaked piece of cloth and pulled it free.
Wil’s brow was wet with sweat, her hair matted to her head. She spit out the hairbrush and glanced at the knife resting in the flickering flames of the fireplace.
“Before you pick up that knife,” Wil said hoarsely, “I think I’m going to need some more of that whiskey.”
Clara uncapped the jug and helped Wil drink more of the moonshine. Wil didn’t sputter and cough nearly as much this time. Her cheeks took on a distinct rosy glow as the whiskey worked its magic.
“I’m ready now.”
Wil let her head fall back on the pillow. Then she clenched the handle of the hairbrush between her teeth and waited for Clara to complete the unpleasant task.
Clara wrapped her hand with one of the cotton strips Percy had cut and gripped the handle of the knif
e.
“I’ll make it quick,” she said as she approached the bed.
Holding Wil down with her free hand, she pressed the heated knife blade against the open wound. She heard Wil’s flesh sizzle even before she smelled it burn. Wil bucked beneath her, her body trying to arch away from the pain.
“I’m almost done.”
Clara held the blade in place a few seconds more, then pulled it away. Wil’s body went limp, and the hairbrush slipped from her slack jaw.
“Wil?”
Clara shook her by the shoulder, but Wil had passed out from the pain, the whiskey, or both.
“Just as well. It makes the rest of my job easier.”
Clara dropped the knife in the basin, tossed the soiled rags into the fire, and washed the blood off her hands. After she removed Wil’s boots, pants, underwear, and socks, she used soap, warm water, and a hand towel to clean Wil’s body as best she could. With the amount of dirt crusted on her skin, Wil looked like she hadn’t bathed in months. She smelled like it, too.
When she was done, Clara bandaged Wil’s wound and bound her breasts. Not as tightly as Wil had, though. She wanted to make sure Wil had plenty of room to breathe.
After she slipped one of Solomon’s nightshirts over Wil’s head and covered her with the sheet and bedspread, she stepped back from the bed and took a long look at her most unusual houseguest.
Wil was sleeping soundly and probably would be for hours. She didn’t look like a boy now. She looked like the young woman she really was. Her face was striking. She wasn’t what most people would call beautiful. She was something altogether different.
Clara wanted to touch her face. Trace her smooth brow and the strong line of her jaw. Touch a finger to her full lips, then replace it with her mouth.
Stop, she told herself. Just stop.
Instead of fantasizing about what she wanted to do to Wil—and have Wil do to her—she needed to wash the blood out of Wil’s uniform and mend the bullet hole in her coat. If Wil planned to go back to the war once she healed up, she might as well look the part.
Clara tossed the coat and pants over her shoulder and gathered her things. When she opened the door, Abram and Percy were standing right outside. Had they heard? Did they know Wil’s secret?
Divided Nation, United Hearts Page 15