Divided Nation, United Hearts

by Yolanda Wallace

  “Abram and I saw the whole thing. We heard you and Solomon talking, then we saw him shoot you. Well, Abram saw it. I hid my eyes right before Solomon pulled the trigger. Don’t tell nobody, though. They’ll think I’m a coward if you do. You don’t think I’m a coward, do you, Mr. Wil?”

  “No, Percy. You, Clara, and Abram are some of the most courageous people I’ve ever come across. I admire you.”

  Her upbringing had been vastly different from theirs. Money had never been an issue for her the way it seemed to be for them. She had received the best education and all the finest things her father’s riches could buy. She had never wanted for anything except love, which the Summers clan seemed to have in abundance. While Percy beamed with pride, Wilhelmina gently steered him back to the subject at hand.

  “Solomon Summers is the man who shot me. He’s your brother?”

  Percy nodded.

  “He’s the oldest, Clara’s second, Abram’s third, and I’m the youngest. That makes me the baby, but I hate when people call me that.”

  Wilhelmina felt like she was trapped behind enemy lines, her foe was closing in fast, and she couldn’t see what direction he was coming from. For the past two days, she had shot to wound rather than kill. From here on out, she might have to change her strategy.

  “Where is Solomon now?”

  “He’s been hiding out in the woods since Papa helped him get away from you and those other fellers on the prison train.” He looked up at her. “Is it true Papa’s dead?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so.”

  Percy’s narrow shoulders drooped so far one of the straps on his overalls slid down to his elbow.

  “Was it you and those men that killed him, Mr. Wil, or was it the pneumonia? That’s what Mama died of, but they called it something different back then. Constitution, or something like that. I don’t remember her anymore. I was only four when she left us, and we ain’t got no pictures of her to look at to remind me what she looked like. Everyone says Clara looks just like her, though, so I guess that’s good enough.”

  “If your mother resembled Clara, she must have been a very beautiful woman.”

  “Thank you for saying that, but what about Papa? You’re not responsible for killing him, are you, Mr. Wil?”

  Wilhelmina didn’t know how to answer his question. Erwin had hit Lee pretty hard to get him to release the grip he had on her neck, but had the blow been a fatal one? She doubted it, but she couldn’t say for sure.

  “Your father attacked me, and one of the men I was with did what he had to do to get him off me. He wasn’t trying to hurt your father, and I honestly don’t know if his actions caused his death. If I had to hazard a guess, I would have to say no one was at fault.”

  “It don’t really matter nohow. Dead is dead. Did Papa give you those marks on your neck?”

  Wilhelmina touched the rope burns on her skin that had faded from bright red to pale pink in the days since the fateful train ride.

  “He did, but I don’t think he was trying to hurt me. I think he was doing whatever he could to help Solomon get away.”

  “Are you going to kill Solomon, Mr. Wil?”

  “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

  He frowned as if he was missing something. Some vital connection he couldn’t find a way to make.

  “But killing is what war is all about, isn’t it?”

  She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. What could she say to a question that didn’t have an answer? As she pondered her reply, she felt like she had been outmaneuvered by a master chess player.

  “You got me there, Percy.”

  *

  Clara knocked on the door and waited for a response. She wasn’t used to having to knock to get into her own house. She didn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “How is Wil?” she asked after Percy removed the bar from the door and let her inside.

  “He had a dizzy spell this morning, but he’s fine now.”

  “A dizzy spell?”

  Clara’s heart leaped to her throat when she heard Wil might be sick. Had infection set in despite her best efforts to clean the wound? She rushed down the hall and threw open her bedroom door, but Wil was asleep, her face peaceful as she dozed.

  “What happened?”

  “He woke up in a God danged hurry to get back to his unit before they noticed he was gone,” Percy said hotly. “He told me to hand him his uniform, but he nearly fell over before he could even put his underthings on. I put him back to bed and talked to him for a while to make sure he wasn’t out of his head. He’s been sleeping ever since.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  Percy refused to betray Wil’s confidence

  “Man stuff,” he said with a shrug. “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t, would I?”

  Clara suppressed a smile at the idea of Percy unknowingly having a man-to-man talk with a woman.

  “What are you doing home so soon?” Percy asked. “Is it time for lunch already?”

  He pushed the pile of wood shavings under the bed with his shoe when he thought she wasn’t looking. She had told him time and time again not to whittle in the house because of the mess it made, but she didn’t have the heart to yell at him now.

  “Not yet. After I told Enid and Mary you had a cold, Abram laid it on so thick he made it sound like you were at death’s door. Enid insisted I come home to check on you and make a pot of chicken soup.”

  “It’s too hot for soup, but I’ll take a ham sandwich and a glass of buttermilk.”

  “I’ll fix it for you in a little while. Let me check on Wil first. Has he eaten?”

  “Not yet. I told him there was food in the kitchen, but when he started swooning, he scared me so bad I forgot to ask him if he was hungry.”

  “I’ll ask him when he wakes up.”

  Clara held the back of her hand against Wil’s forehead. Wil’s skin was warm but not overly so.

  “No fever. That’s a good sign.”

  She peeked inside the nightshirt to see if any blood had leaked through the bandages, but thought better of it when Percy moved forward to take a closer look.

  “Leave us be a minute, Percy. I need to see if his dressing needs changing.”

  “Why can’t I stay while you undress him? He doesn’t have anything I ain’t seen before.”

  Clara doubted his assertion but didn’t bother to correct him.

  “Just do as I say.”

  “All right then.”

  He left the room, though not before taking one last longing look at Wil as he closed the door. He and Abram had never had a man like Wil in their lives. Then again, neither had she. Someone who treated them like equals, not nuisances.

  Papa had loved them, but he had done it with a hard hand. Harder when he was drinking. Hardest when the calendar crept closer to the anniversary of Mama’s death. Solomon had spent time with Abram and Percy before the war began, but he had seemed more interested in putting them in their places than teaching them the difference between right and wrong. Since the war started, he hadn’t been around to do even that much.

  As for Moses, he was just beginning to pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Clara couldn’t ask him to put his courtship of Nancy Franklin on hold to help her teach the boys how to be men. Wil was doing it without even trying. She was doing it just by being herself. For that reason alone, Clara had to do everything she could to keep Wil safe.

  “When you’re well enough to leave us,” she whispered to Wil’s sleeping form, “the boys are going to miss you as much as I will.”

  “If that doesn’t sound like incentive to stay, I don’t know what would.”

  Clara gasped when Wil opened her eyes.

  “How long have you been pretending to be asleep?”

  “For about an hour, I guess. I kept hoping Percy would get bored and leave me alone for a while so I could use the chamber pot without having to explain to him why I need to squat to pee.”

>   Wil was taller than the privacy screen. Percy would have grown suspicious as soon as he saw Wil duck down behind it.

  “You’re right. That would require some explaining.” Clara covered her mouth with her hand to hide her smile, then turned to leave. “The pot’s over there. I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Wait.” Wil’s cheeks colored and she couldn’t meet Clara’s eye. “I’m ashamed to say I don’t think I can manage on my own. Could you…help me?”

  “Of course. You don’t have to be ashamed to ask for my help. I’ve played nursemaid so many times over the years, there isn’t much I haven’t done or seen.”

  Keeping her left arm tucked against her side to prevent herself from using the injured muscles, Wil offered her right hand to Clara. “Have you ever seen anyone like me?”

  Clara helped Wil to her feet. Even though she was wearing shoes and Wil was barefoot, Wil stood nearly half a foot taller than she did.

  “No,” she said, looking up at her, “you are definitely a first.”

  Wil leaned heavily on Clara’s shoulder as they slowly walked across the room. Clara reminded herself to ask Percy to make a cane for Wil to use until she got strong enough to walk on her own. She hoped Wil wasn’t too proud to accept the gift.

  “Do I frighten you?” Wil asked.

  Clara didn’t fear Wil. It was the unknown that gave her pause. The way Wil made her feel scared her to death. She wanted to kiss her. She wanted to lay with her as she would with a man. It was normal to feel that way before she discovered Wil was really Wilhelmina. Now that she knew different, why hadn’t the feeling gone away? In fact, the feeling seemed to be growing stronger rather than weaker.

  When Enid had suggested she come home early to check on Percy, she had been all too happy to leave. She had been doing more harm than good, anyway, her thoughts focused on Wil rather than the corn rows she was supposed to be tilling.

  “No, you don’t frighten me, Wil. I just don’t know what to make of you is all.”

  Wil lifted the hem of the nightshirt. Clara held her hand so she wouldn’t keel over as she positioned herself over the chamber pot. She averted her eyes so she wouldn’t get caught staring, but she couldn’t help but hear Wil’s sigh of relief as she emptied her bladder.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Much.”

  Clara helped her stand.

  “Is there anything you want to ask me?” Wil said.

  “Yes, there is.” There were a hundred questions running through Clara’s mind, but they all came back to the same thing. “Why?”

  Wil laughed. Even her laugh sounded like a man’s. Did it always sound like that, or was she so used to pretending that she didn’t know how to stop?

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you taking part in a war no one asked you to fight when there’s someone waiting for you at home?”

  Wil stepped in front of her.

  “There’s no one.”

  Wil trembled as she said the words. She must have been in pain because her face was gray and a fine sheen of sweat covered her skin.

  “I wasn’t trying to be nosy,” Clara said, “but I saw her picture when I was washing the blood out of your uniform. Her name’s Libby, isn’t it?”

  Wil looked at her strangely.

  “You saw her picture, but did you read her letter?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it wasn’t addressed to me.”

  Despite her interest in the letter’s contents, Clara hadn’t been willing to trade satisfying her curiosity for betraying Wil’s trust.

  Wil regarded her for a long moment as if trying to determine if she was telling the truth or lying to avoid having to admit she had snooped through her possessions.

  “Thank you for respecting my privacy, Clara, but I don’t want to keep any secrets from you.”

  She sat on the bed and gestured for Clara to sit next to her. Clara did so but kept a respectful distance between them, which felt odd considering the intimate act she had just helped Wil carry out and the even more intimate acts she had performed when she had washed Wil’s naked body.

  “Libby and I grew up together,” Wil said. “We met when she was three and I was two, so it’s no exaggeration to say we’ve known each other all our lives. We shared everything together. First words. First teeth. First steps. First day of school. Even first crushes, though mine turned out to be on her rather than someone else. From the moment I knew what love was, I knew I was in love with her. I knew she didn’t feel the same way, but I kept hoping her feelings would change. They didn’t.”

  Even though she suspected the story didn’t have a happy ending, Clara found herself wishing it did. For Wil’s sake.

  “Does Libby know how much you care for her? Have you told her how you feel?”

  “The night I decided to disguise myself and enlist, I visited her dressed as a man and told her of my plans. She didn’t try to talk me out of it because my mind was made up and she knew me well enough to realize there was nothing she could do or say to sway me from my chosen path. I didn’t know if I would ever see her again, so I told her I loved her and I begged her to kiss me.”

  Clara couldn’t believe Wil’s audacity. Or the courage it must have taken for her to speak her mind when she knew the most likely outcome was rejection.

  “What did she say?” she asked, eager to hear the answer. “What did she do?”

  “She laughed at me. She thought I was teasing her so she didn’t take me seriously. I let her think that way because I had no choice. I didn’t want her to look at me like she didn’t know me. Like she didn’t want to know me.” Wil’s voice broke, but she kept going. “But now she’s had time to think about what happened that night, and she realizes I meant what I said. She wrote to tell me she doesn’t agree with what I’m doing or who I am. We’ve known each other for seventeen years, but she wants nothing more to do with me.”

  “Oh, Wil, I’m so sorry.” Clara touched her arm to offer her some much-needed comfort. “I’ve never given my heart to someone, so I can only imagine how hard it was for you to read those words.”

  “You’ve never been in love before?”

  “No.”

  Wil looked skeptical.

  “What about Jedediah Ogletree? Percy says he’s asked you to marry him more than once, but you’ve turned him down each time. He must care for you. Do you feel nothing for him in return?”

  Why wasn’t Clara surprised to hear the “man talk” Percy boasted of had involved women?

  “Percy talks too much.”

  “Yes, he does.”

  Wil grinned, and the sadness left her eyes. Clara was glad to see it go. If only for a little while.

  “But he makes a lot of sense, too. How old is he?”

  “Nine going on ninety. Is that how you two spent your morning, gossiping about me and Jedediah?”

  “No, we talked about Solomon, too.” Wil’s face turned serious again. A weight seemed to settle on her shoulders. “He told me Solomon is your brother.”

  Clara felt a weight settle on her, too. Except she carried hers in her soul.

  “Like I said, Percy talks too much. I wanted to tell you about Solomon myself when you were strong enough to hear it.”

  “I’m strong enough now. Is that why you saved my life? So you could prevent your brother from committing murder?”

  “No, that’s not it at all.”

  Clara felt something changing. A wall forming between them that she didn’t know how to tear down.

  “I know it’s hard to believe and probably even harder for you to accept, knowing what you know about me, but I am a Union soldier, Clara. You’re a citizen of the Confederacy. For you, helping me is tantamount to committing treason. You could be hanged for it. You, Abram, and Percy, too.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why take the risk?”

  Clara hadn’t taken the time to consider the consequences when she had helped load Wil
’s limp body into the wagon last night. Would she have taken the same course if she had stopped to deliberate what might happen if they were discovered?

  “I couldn’t leave you to die, Wil. It wouldn’t have been right.”

  “For who? Me or Solomon?”

  “What I did doesn’t have anything to do with Solomon.”

  “Are you sure? Because I didn’t do this to myself.” Wil pulled the collar of the nightshirt aside so Clara could see the bandages wrapped around her shoulder and chest. Then she ripped some of the bandages free so Clara could see the angry red wound and bruised skin underneath.

  “Don’t.”

  Clara tried to look away, but Wil put two fingers under her chin and gently turned her face in her direction.

  “Do you feel the need to atone for your brother’s actions?” Wil asked, her voice as kind as her eyes. “Is that the only reason you’re taking care of me?”

  “No, Wil.”

  “Then why did you take me in?”

  Clara didn’t know whether she should say what was on her mind or if she should keep it to herself. What good would it do for her to say what she was feeling when no one—not her friends, not her family, and perhaps not even Wil—would understand?

  Even though Libby had not returned her feelings, Wil had always known what and who she wanted. Clara hadn’t been as fortunate. She had always known she didn’t want to be with Jedediah or Moses or any of the other men who had crossed her path over the years, but she hadn’t known why. Had she been unable to find the right man because her heart was waiting for her to meet the right woman? She didn’t know any other women who felt that way. No one except Wil.

  Wil saw her struggling to come to terms with her emotions and took her hand in hers.

  “Please talk to me, Clara. I need to know what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. Why are you going out of your way to protect me? Why are you risking your own life in order to save mine?”

  “Because you make me feel things I thought I never could,” Clara said in a rush. “You make me feel—You make me feel.”

  Tears rolled down her cheeks, but she didn’t bother to wipe them away.

  “I didn’t know how lost I was until I found you, Wil. You came out of the woods that night like an avenging angel and you saved me. Not just from Maynard. You saved me from having to go through life not knowing what it’s like to want someone more than you want air. More than you want food. More than—”