The Last Cavalier

by Heather Graham

“Yessir!” Both men saluted. The rider went on.

  “Hey, the Yank over there is still alive,” the second one said. “Maybe we should—”

  “Leave him! Unless you want to be a corpse yourself.”

  Both men hopped onto their wagon of dead, wounded and dying. The wagon began to lumber away.

  Gramps edged old Dundee out from around the tree. He rode out into the field of fallen men, and when he looked down, he wanted to cry.

  Well, this was the truth of it! This was authenticity!

  He held still as a troop of gray-clad riders came bursting out onto the field. The leader saw him, called out, a hand in the air drawing the men behind him to a halt.

  “Sir! Halt and identify yourself!” the young Reb officer demanded.

  “I’m a Virginian,” Gramps called out. “And a desperate one. I’ve got to find Colonel Tarkenton, out of Staunton, Virginia, cavalry. Can you help me?”

  “Are you addled, old man? A battle is about to begin on this mountain any moment.”

  “I’ve got to find the colonel,” Gramps insisted. “Is his company headed this way?”

  Other men had drawn beside the officer. They looked from one to the other.

  Then the officer looked back to Gramps. “Why are you looking for him?”

  Gramps lifted his chin. It had to be good. He knew that it had to be good.

  What the hell? He might as well go for the dramatic. He had to have their help. He loved Vickie, but there was no way he could rescue her from a Union Army escort by himself.

  “My granddaughter’s got some information for him. Important information. She, er, she learns things, you know what I mean? But the Yanks have gotten her. Colonel Tarkenton will move heaven and earth for this woman’s safe return. I swear.”

  They would help him! Surely they would help him.

  That was…if they could. If Jason Tarkenton had made it back. If he hadn’t been shot down already.

  “That’s quite a tale, sir,” the young officer said finally.

  “Do you know Colonel Tarkenton?”

  “He’s my commanding officer, sir. He’s at our command tent.” The young officer paused. “I suppose I’d best take you to him now,” he said finally.

  Gramps grinned. Broadly. “Thank you, son.”

  He looked up at the heavens and whispered under his breath, “Dear Lord, this is mighty weird. Mighty, mighty weird. But I do thank you for the small favors!”

  Then Gramps started to ride. And he grinned again. Darn, if he just weren’t so awfully worried, this might be all right. He was actually riding with the Army of Northern Virginia.

  If Liam could just see him now!

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jason leaned idly against the support of a gnarled old oak tree, trying hard to convince himself that the time he had spent with Vickie had been a fantastic dream, born from the simple confusion and horror of the war.

  Maybe, in time, he would believe it had all been an illusion.

  But it was awfully difficult to do at the moment.

  Hurtling through the archway, he had landed right in the thick of battle again. Yet, in all the days that he had ridden and fought, he had never been quite so desperately determined to win, to break through, to escape the enemy, as he had just then.

  He wouldn’t die. He just wouldn’t. He had come too far to fall prey to a Yankee saber before managing to return to John with help—and the tetanus shot he had stolen from the hospital. He winced a little at the thought. In all his life, he had never stolen anything.

  But it was so insignificant when it meant saving John’s life.

  Well, he hadn’t died. And he had found his brother. A company of his men had already stumbled upon him and carried him off the field. But John had insisted on waiting for his brother before being taken in to any field hospital. And so Jason had managed to return, slicing his way through the raging battle, to rejoin his troops in time to be with John, in time to slip the shot into him, in time to reach the field hospital and stand there like a furious mother hen, making damned sure that the surgeons used a clean sponge when sopping up his brother’s wound. He wouldn’t allow them to amputate, and he gave them a firm warning that they needed to use clean sponges on other men, too.

  Most of the bone-weary surgeons merely stared at him, and Jason smiled, and surely looked like a madman. They just didn’t know yet that they were spreading germs and killing men. If he tried to tell them how he knew, they would see that he was locked up somewhere, in a home for Confederate officers who had gone daft.

  He left one of his privates, one of John’s best friends, to stand guard overnight with his brother. But when he had last seen John, he had been sleeping peacefully, on his way to recovery.

  Very peacefully. John would get in a full night of restful sleep. Jason had managed to get him to swallow the two little sleeping pills he had saved in the scrunched-up paper cup.

  He brother was going to live.

  And he was grateful, so damned grateful.

  But at this moment, he wasn’t so sure he cared if he himself lived or died.

  No, he told himself firmly, he wasn’t the kind of coward to be so willing to die! He was going to fight the war, survive the war, hold on to end the war.

  It was just that he felt so damned weary and lost at this moment. He shouldn’t feel that way, of course. Despite the carnage, he should be very glad for the small favors of life. His men had loyally cared for his brother. They had searched for Jason. They had readily believed that he had become separated from them by the battle, that he had climbed the mountain continually trying to get back to John. They believed him without question.

  And they were ready to follow him again.

  The action seemed to have reached a lull for the day, he thought. His men had been ordered back. Rebs and Yanks both had gone to retrieve their dead and wounded. The Yanks were worried about the Confederate strength, while the Confederates kept them guessing as they awaited reinforcements. Stonewall Jackson had directed General Jubal Early and his army to join them. Their troops, combined with Early’s men, would push the Yanks on down the mountain and back north again. Hopefully….

  He closed his eyes. They were going to take this battle. Hadn’t Vickie told him so? Did it really matter? They were going to lose the war.

  It was terrible to know too much.

  And terrible not to care at the moment.

  He would lead his men again. He would see it all out. At the moment, he was glad of the fleeting interlude of peace.

  He hurt.

  No saber wound, no grazing bullet, had ever hurt quite like this. Even losing his wife had been different. His grief had been swift, searing and painful, but somehow easier to accept. To understand. God had taken her. She was completely, irrevocably lost.

  Time had taken Vickie. Time, and his own foolish sense of honor. No, it hadn’t been foolish to love his brother. Hadn’t Gramps said that he had to return and save John? John’s knowledge would lead to medical breakthroughs in the future.

  Now…now! He could go back.

  But Gramps had also said that he was supposed to save Lee’s life at some later date.

  And that might be all-important, too. It might have something to do with the binding up of the nation. He couldn’t turn his back on such a fate.

  He could only remember how she had felt beside him, remember the blue beauty of her eyes, the openness within them. Remember her courage, her determination, her independence, her laughter. Her anger, her passion. The way it had felt to make love to her.

  She existed, she lived. And he had only to turn his back on whatever responsibilities lay in this world and return to hers. An incredible new world.

  He’d hardly touched that world. There were so many places she might have taken him, so many things he might have seen and done.

  Did it matter? No, none of those things mattered. Cars or horses, old values, new inventions. People mattered. One person, who provided a reason to live.
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br />   And had he really been living at all since Lydia died? Until he had crossed that unique barrier, and come upon Vickie Ahearn? She had given him back his life. Could he really go on here without her?

  Anguish tore at him. The door was closing. The strange passageway he had stumbled upon was closing. He felt the peculiar barriers of it as he had come through, almost like a swirling funnel, twisting tighter and tighter. In a short time—maybe by now—it would be impossible to move from this one world to the next.

  “Colonel!”

  He looked up, startled from his thoughts. Lieutenant Nigel Keefe was returning from a scouting mission with the rest of Company B. He’d scarcely been out an hour, but then, the last of the skirmishing had barely ended, and Company B might well be in need of a few minutes’ respite. But they were excellent men, battle-hardened men. The cavalry had always been the eyes and ears of any army. His men were accustomed to finding the enemy positions, and then joining in the action once the infantry and artillery were advised. They’d ridden tired before.

  Something unusual must have happened to bring them back.

  Keefe was coming in fast, his horse foaming, prancing, shaking off bits of sweat to glitter in the now-dropping sun.

  Jason stiffened, eyes narrowing, as he saw that they had been joined by an unusual horseman.

  It was Gramps. Riding an ancient old horse, looking a little peaked and scared, but as curious as all hell, too, as he stared out at everything around him with his shrewd blue eyes.

  “Colonel!”

  Nigel Keefe leapt down from his horse before it had come to a stop. “We found him right at the scene of some of the fighting, sir. He asked for you right off. Seems some woman was trying to bring you information, but the Yanks got her.”

  Jason’s heart slammed like a cannonball against his chest. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. “Some woman,” Keefe had said.

  “Do you know the old man, sir?” Keefe demanded. “He swore to us you’d back up his story.”

  “Yes, yes! I know him.”

  Jason stepped forward, hurrying to Gramps’s horse, looking up at the old man. “What’s happened?” he demanded quickly. “What are you doing here?”

  Gramps looked up at the men all around them, then back down to Jason with a look that clearly said he couldn’t tell him everything. “She came looking for you. She was supposed to be right back. I followed her. I heard some of the Yanks who were picking up their wounded talking about how they had picked up a spy. They have her under guard and are taking her down to the main army camp.”

  Jason backed away from Gramps, stunned. He closed his eyes quickly, stiffening, looking down to the ground, trying not to let his men see how close he was to losing control.

  He looked up. “Lieutenant Keefe, you’re in charge here again.” He pointed a finger at Gramps. “You! Sir! You stay here, in my tent. Out of the way, and out of trouble.”

  “I’m coming with you!” Gramps insisted.

  “That horse would slow us down—”

  “Then I’ll take another horse.”

  “You can’t—”

  “I have to!” Gramps insisted. “Please!”

  Jason sighed with exasperation. He looked at the men in Company B, then turned and called over his shoulder. “Sergeant Morrison!”

  “Yessir!” His staff sergeant, in charge of his personal welfare, came running out from the field of tents, saluting quickly.

  “I need you to find something this gentleman can wear,” Jason told him. “Anything that resembles a uniform. And borrow someone’s mount. A good horse, one that moves like lightning.”

  “Right, sir!” the officer said, saluting.

  “A uniform?” Gramps said.

  “We’re going into the enemy lines,” Jason said quietly. “They’ll hang you for a spy if you aren’t dressed in some uniform, and if you’re with us, sir, you’re a Reb at the moment.”

  Gramps’s crinkled old face lit into a smile. He saluted sharply and leapt down from his old horse with a surprising agility. He quickly followed the staff sergeant toward the tents.

  “Lieutenant Keefe,” Jason said, “I’ll need to hear everything you know about enemy positions.” He looked out over the men of Company B again. There were eighteen of them. Their captain, Jim Hodges, had been killed some time back. Hodges hadn’t been replaced. The men fought under Lieutenant Keefe, with First Sergeant Jack Johnson often giving the orders when it came down to gritty hand-to-hand combat. Every one of the men in the company had been with him since he had first commanded troops at Manassas. He could trust them now when he needed them so desperately.

  But he couldn’t order them into this mission.

  “I know you’ve had a rough time of it here up on Blackfield’s Mountain,” he told them. “You deserve some rest, for there’s sure to be more fighting. I’m riding out to find someone who helped me survive. None of you is beholden. I need volunteers, and that’s what I want, volunteers only. Drop on out if you want to sit this one out.”

  Not a soul moved.

  “We’re going right into the enemy camp,” he reminded them. And he looked around at a sea of stubborn faces. Jack Johnson, a square-jawed Irishman, probably somewhere around thirty years old. The Jenson twins, Stan and Ben, early twenties, blond, blue-eyed, quick to sing at night, never faltering in a fray. They were coming with him. They were all coming with him.

  He looked down, wincing. He knew now that he had to stay. Even if he could find Vickie, wrest her from the Yanks and bring her to safety, she would pass back into her own world. He had to stay. It did go beyond his brother. Somehow, he just wasn’t really allowed to leave!

  “Thank you,” Jason told the men quietly. “Lieutenant Keefe, let’s take a quick look at the maps—” he began, but someone cleared his throat behind him.

  It was Gramps.

  And actually, he looked darned good in the Rebel cavalry garb. Tall, straight as an arrow. Very dignified.

  “You don’t need to look at the maps. I know where all the positions are.”

  “He can’t possibly know more—” Keefe began.

  “But he does,” Jason said with a slow smile. “This is his mountain, you see. He knows it backward and forward.”

  “The mountain, maybe. But what about the Yanks?”

  “He’s been studying their—er—battle tactics for years,” Jason assured him. “Lieutenant, I put my faith in him. You wait here for word about our next movement. If I’m not back, you’ll lead the troops into battle again.”

  Moments later, Jason’s horse, Max, was brought before him. He quickly mounted and looked over Company B—and Gramps. “Gentlemen, we ride in stealth. We’ve got to discover where she’s been taken. And then we’ve got to discover just how in hell we’re going to take her back!”

  He lifted a hand and lowered it. And they began to ride.

  Captain Harper didn’t seem to be in any hurry to get her wherever they were going. The lowering afternoon sun was still beating down upon them as they left the gigantic field of Yankee tents behind, following a curving path farther down the rolling fields, heading for the depths of the valley.

  They walked; they plodded along. She, Harper and an escort of ten men.

  They had been riding for over an hour, weaving in and out through heavily treed trails and open fields, when Harper suddenly called a halt. “We’ll rest here, men. There’s a stream down through the foliage there.” Vickie stayed on her horse, staring at him as he dismounted. Harper looked at her, smiling. Then he addressed one of his men, a tall, heavyset fellow with small dark eyes. “Sergeant Rieger, keep a lookout! A good one. Shout at the first sign of movement, shoot anyone who hasn’t got a right to be here.”

  “You—” he pointed at Vickie, his lips curving into a deep smile “—you come with me.”

  “No,” she told him quickly, her heart beating hard. His men were at ease, dismounting from their horses. But surely they wouldn’t all let him drag her off!

 
; “You can come down,” he warned her softly, blue eyes narrowed with warning, “or I can come up and get you.”

  “No!” she insisted.

  Then she cried out sharply because he meant it. His hands were reaching for her, dragging her down. She punched, slapped and scratched at him, screaming, protesting.

  “Captain!”

  One of his men cried out to him in dismay. She had been right! The Yanks were like any other men, some of them good, and some of them—like Harper—not so good.

  But Harper knew how to handle the situation. He wrenched Vickie on down to the ground, his arm around her throat in a chokehold. She could barely breathe. He swung around and stared at the young soldier who had protested. “How can you forget Manassas?” he demanded. “The Rebs beat us back like a pack of fools—and all because of a spy like this one! Josh Miller, you hush up now. Your very own brother was slaughtered down in the valley because a lady spy like this warned the Rebs we were coming. How can you all be such fools! I took her, and I’m going to see that she pays!”

  “But, sir!” the young solder exclaimed unhappily. “How will we explain what…happened?”

  “She tried to escape, soldier. She tried to escape.”

  Harper whirled around with her. She gasped for air and feared she was going to faint. Her heart was pounding all the more fiercely.

  Dear God, she realized with a growing, paralyzing panic, he meant to kill her! Rape her, kill her. He’d have to kill her, or she would tell everyone what he had done. He meant to have his revenge against her. So far in this war, the Rebs had sent the Yanks into retreat one time too many. Harper had been humiliated.

  And there was surely no way to explain to this man that the Yankees were going to win the war, that the Rebs were going to be vanquished!

  Captain Harper, she thought, wasn’t just somewhat of a bad man. He was a lunatic, a fanatic.

  And no matter how she fought and struggled, he was taking her away.

  Away from his men, from the eyes of the world.

  Down the cliff, and toward the water.

  Gramps knew his business. He led them through the trails to a break in the forest that stood just above the valley field with its endless ripple of Yankee canvas.