Beguiled

by Paisley Smith

  Trying not to think about the man sleeping on the same sheets on which my father had awakened this morning, I closed the door to his bedroom. My heart sank when I realized they’d put the other Yankee in my bed.

  The door was slightly ajar, and when I pushed it open, I heard the unmistakable click of a pistol cocking. Anger flared that someone would hold a gun on me in my own home, but at this point, I didn’t care if the bastard shot me. I flung the door open so hard it bounced against the wall.

  “See here, I don’t want you in my house any more than you want to—” My voice stopped short. I had expected a burly, bearded cretin like the one in my father’s bed. Instead, a mere slip of an auburn-haired boy lay in my four-poster bed—aiming a pistol at me. In my mind’s eye, I saw Grayson in such a state, and even though this boy was the enemy, my heart went out to him. Somewhere he had a worried mother, maybe even a sweetheart.

  “Put that gun down,” I snapped.

  He eyed me warily before he lowered his weapon.

  “What happened to you?” I inquired.

  “Got shot to pieces by Cleburne’s boys,” he said. His voice hadn’t changed yet, and as I neared him, I guess he was only fourteen at best. His creamy freckled face looked as soft as my own.

  “You’re not old enough to be fighting,” I scolded. Although I didn’t have children of my own, something about him brought out a mothering instinct in me I couldn’t explain. I leaned over him and pressed my palm to his forehead. As I feared, it was hot.

  “I’m twenty-two,” he said, the Irish ire evident in his faint brogue. He watched me with wide grayish blue eyes.

  I was twenty-three and found it difficult to believe he was nearly as old as I was. He didn’t have the look of the local boys my age I’d seen go off to war. I stared, wanting to hate him as I loathed the burly Yankee in the other room, but I couldn’t.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Alice.”

  My shocked gaze collided with his. “Alice? That’s an unusual name for a boy.”

  “I’m not a boy,” she said softly. “And you can save your pity for someone else.”

  Stunned, I gaped. “You’re a woman?” Even as the words left my lips, I realized my mistake. Cropped as short as any man’s and looking direly in need of a trim, her hair framed a bone structure that appeared far less than feminine. Angular cheekbones accentuated narrow eyes. Rather than delicately arched eyebrows, hers brooded straight but not overly full. Her lips, however, were all woman, plush and pink and pouting. If her auburn hair had been longer, I might have ventured to refer to her as pretty in a common sort of way. As it stood, I was…intrigued.

  “My company left me here to die in this hellhole,” she said dismally.

  “Hellhole? Rattle and Snap is hardly a hellhole. There are worse places to die,” I retorted, fighting the lump that rose in my throat when I was reminded of my father. The woman—Alice—sparked something in me I didn’t like, and I wasn’t sure what it was. Perhaps I admired the fact that she’d clawed her way into a man’s world or that she’d at least tried to make a way for herself. I didn’t know. Still, I didn’t like her attitude or the fact that she’d held a gun on me in my own house. I could see why they’d left her behind. And yet I asked, “Why’d they leave you? Were you too wounded to travel? Did you ask to remain behind?”

  Her thick lashes dropped as she averted her gaze. “Hell no! They left me because I’m a woman.”

  I’d never heard a woman with such coarse speech before. She fascinated me, and I couldn’t resist asking, “What possessed you to don a uniform and invade a country?”

  “Invade?” she inquired haughtily, her eyes clashing with mine once more. “Tell me, Miss Priss, do you own slaves?”

  I swallowed thickly and crossed my arms over my chest. “I see. You’re an abolitionist.”

  “Damn right.” She tried to sit up higher in the bed but winced when she moved.

  She looked to be in pain. Casting our differences aside, I moved to help her. She swatted my hands away. “Don’t touch me,” she ranted as if being southern were contagious.

  “What happened to you?” I hardly believed a woman had been shot masquerading in a man’s uniform on a battlefield.

  “I don’t need your compassion,” she said, pursing those girlish lips at me. Her narrowed eyes flashed.

  My hands found my hips. I dragged my gaze from her mouth and held her stare, wanting to tell her if she didn’t want or need my help, then she could move her ungrateful self out of my bed. Instead, I exhaled sharply. I was too tired to fight her now. Too tired and too heartbroken.

  Grayson’s bed remained empty. I’d sleep there, if I could get any sleep at all with that other Yankee wailing like a teat-starved baby.

  “Very well.” I whirled and left the room, slamming the door behind me.

  * * *

  Sometime during the night, I awakened. The haze of sleep faded, and I realized I was in Grayson’s bed and that I’d been dreaming fitfully. It took me several moments to remember why. And then a wrenching hollowness permeated my gut.

  My father had been murdered. My brother had run off to join the already bedraggled Confederates. Two strange Yankees occupied in my house, one of which was the most hateful woman I’d ever met.

  The male Yankee’s moans drifted through the closed door and in through the open window, hanging in the air like a fetid stench. He kept calling for his mother, and I knew if he kept it up, he would upset Ma. I wanted to pull the pillow over my head to shut out the sounds, but I couldn’t. My inborn sense of compassion wouldn’t allow it. Sighing, I threw back the covers, intent on going to see if I could offer him some comfort, but just as my toes touched the braided rug, a loud thump came from somewhere in the house.

  My heart hammered. I jumped up and groped frantically for my robe. Where had I put it?

  Heavy, uneven footsteps echoed just outside my door. Someone was in the house! More Yankees? Had Ma gotten out of bed, or had Grayson come to his senses and returned? Intuition that it was neither overrode hope—and then I heard the shot that resounded through the entire house.

  Chapter Two

  Forgetting all about any sort of covering, I crept to my door and pressed my ear against it. The footsteps, the moans—all of it had stopped. A chill swept up my spine. Now only grim, terrifying silence came from the other side of the door. My hand shook as I reached for the knob. I twisted it slowly and pulled open the door, wincing when the hinges groaned. After easing through the narrow opening, I stole down the hall.

  “For the great war is nigh, and we will win or die, chanting our battle cry, ‘Freedom or death’—” Ma’s raucous singing voice startled me so much that I fell back against the wall. I covered my flying heart with my hand as if I could prevent it from drumming its way out of my chest. Apparently oblivious to the blast, Ma wandered the downstairs, singing as she often did when she awakened at night.

  My gaze riveted to the two rooms across the wide upstairs hall. Both bedroom doors gaped open. Mine and Pa’s. I squinted. A tall figure stood out against the darkness in Pa’s room. I froze, staring as the shadow turned and took one lumbering step toward me.

  Moonlight cast its eerie bluish glow on Alice’s haunted face. I gasped. Dressed in nothing but a long white shirt and a dirty bandage around her thigh, she wearily leaned on the doorjamb, her pistol resting against her good leg. She heavily favored the wounded one.

  I blew out the breath I’d been holding. “Alice?”

  Her eyes met mine, and the look she leveled on me eliminated any doubt that something terrible had just happened in that room.

  “What are you doing out of bed?” My voice sounded tremulous.

  “When it’s my turn, will you do the same for me?” she asked evenly.

  Confused, I blinked. What on earth did she mean? Clarity struck me with sickening force. I darted across the hall, past her, and into the room where I stopped short.

  The Yankee lay on the flo
or. Dead. A black mirror of blood pooled around his head. I tried to move, to speak, to turn, but all I could do was gape, immobilized.

  “Will you?” Alice asked again, her voice shaking me into action.

  I whirled away from the grisly sight. “Did you…did you kill him?”

  Even though she slumped against the door frame, I could tell she towered nearly half a foot taller than me. With her long, lanky limbs, I saw easily how she could have passed herself off as a boy. Her carriage, her demeanor—everything about her—appeared more masculine than feminine.

  Her shoulders shifted. She shouldn’t be out of bed. Still, she had not answered my question. “Did you kill that man?” I demanded, pointing backward at the heap on the floor.

  “He begged me to do it,” she seethed. “He was dying anyway, and he was in pain. It was the least I could do for him. Now, I ask you once more. Will you do the same for me when it’s my…”

  Her voice dwindled, and she wilted down the doorjamb until her bottom plopped onto the floorboards.

  “Alice!” I darted to her to keep her from falling over. Her head hung lifelessly. I patted her cheeks. “Alice?” No response. I fumbled for a pulse and found a weak one.

  Cradling her head in my hands, I gently lowered her the rest of the way to the floor. I couldn’t get her back into bed by myself. Gaining my feet, I stepped over her and rushed down the stairs to get Uncle Hewlett. I’d need his help to drag the dead Yankee out of Pa’s room anyway.

  My head spun. I couldn’t believe Alice had shot that man, but I knew she’d had little other choice. He’d been in tremendous pain, and I too had waited for his moans to stop so I’d know he was free from his earthly suffering. No one deserved to die, but Alice had courageously done what I could not—would not—have. I shuddered to think she could easily develop gangrene or blood poisoning. And die.

  I couldn’t tolerate a woman’s pain. Not even from a woman like Alice.

  * * *

  After rifling the Yankee’s pockets, Uncle Hewlett buried him in an unmarked grave at the edge of the cotton field. While the cotton rotted on the stalks, Alice languished in my bed, hovering in the twilight between life and death.

  My days consisted of milking and tending the herd, cleaning the mourning clothes I’d brought down from the attic, and nursing Alice.

  Her fever raged, and I sponged off her dangerously thin body several times a day. She never resisted. She was too delirious to resist.

  Fearing she might die, I decided to fetch Granny Page.

  Granny Page held the distinction of being the oldest resident in our community. For years, everyone had gone to Granny when the doctor was unavailable—and then even when he was. Granny’s years gave her wisdom and experience no young doctor could match. She had reluctantly agreed to bring her medicine chest of poultices and concoctions, muttering the entire walk back to Rattle and Snap that Yankees didn’t deserve her special brand of doctoring.

  The sweltering September sun baked my back through the black dress while the strong scent of cedar seemed to waft out of every stitch, gagging me in its intensity.

  “After what they did to your pa,” Granny ranted, “I wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire.”

  I didn’t need reminding of that, but I bit my tongue as I opened the front door for Ma and Granny. Ma shuffled inside and disappeared into the parlor as Granny hobbled across the threshold. Pa was gone. He’d made the decision to protect Grayson, even knowing what the Yankees would do. Right now, I couldn’t fault Alice for Pa’s choices. Besides, I feared hating somebody that much.

  Holding Granny’s arm, I let her lean on me as she heaved her gnarled body up the steep staircase one grueling step at a time. She mumbled curse words that shocked me and carried on about how the Yankees had brought Armageddon down on us all.

  Not daring to dispute her, I nodded and agreed, knowing Granny’s peevishness would fade once she saw how truly pitiful Alice looked.

  Uncle Hewlett sat in a wing chair I’d moved into the bedroom with his long legs crossed at the ankles. He looked up over the top of his spectacles at us from a well-thumbed copy of Don Quixote. “Good morning, Granny.” He greeted her with a nod of his head as he closed his book and stood.

  Although it had been illegal to teach blacks, especially slaves, to read and write, my family had valued education for all. My grandfather had freed Uncle Hewlett years ago, but he’d learned to read long before he’d garnered his freedom.

  “Mornin’,” Granny greeted in return before she eyed the Yankee girl in my bed.

  Granny gawked as if she’d never seen such a creature in her life.

  Alice lay motionless, her long, lean form outlined under the sheet and quilts. Granny’s gaze darted from Alice to the tatters of her Zouave uniform, which lay across the rocking chair beside the bed. “She ran around the countryside dressed in those ridiculous red bloomers?” Granny asked.

  I shrugged. There’d only been one soldier from our area who’d gone off to fight dressed like that—a Frenchman named Guy Boliere, who’d fought in some Algerian unit before coming to Georgia. And while the red blousing breeches and blue jacket boasting braiding did indeed look ridiculous, I’d much rather be wearing those clothes than a skirt and a corset.

  I glanced at Alice, wanting to know more about her, fascinated by her—attracted in some inexplicable way. Silently, I said a prayer that she wouldn’t die.

  Granny ventured cautiously toward the bed as if Alice might jolt awake and devour her like some medieval dragon. I set the medicine chest on the trunk at the foot of the bed. Walking past Granny, I raked my fingers into Alice’s short auburn hair to check her forehead for fever. Alice didn’t so much as utter a moan.

  “The fever has been on her since they left her here,” I told Granny.

  “Let me have a look at that leg.” Assured that Alice wasn’t going to bite, Granny doddered to the side of the bed.

  Uncle Hewlett cleared his throat and eased out of the room as I lifted the covers to expose Alice’s leg. She shuddered but never opened her eyes. Carefully, I removed the bloodstained bandage. “I’ve changed these bandages twice a day,” I explained to Granny as I bundled the bloody fabric into a wad and dropped it on the floor.

  Despite Alice’s otherwise unladylike appearance—and with the exception of her sun-burnished face—her creamy skin gleamed flawless.

  No stink wafted from the wound, and no dark lines indicated blood poisoning.

  “Is she able to walk on it at all?” Granny asked, prodding the leg with her fingertips.

  “With extreme difficulty,” I replied. “But only once. She’s been in a fever since the day they left her here.” A tremor crawled up my spine at the memory of Alice shooting that wounded Yankee. “I’ve tried to keep her bandages clean, but she’s lost a great deal of blood.”

  Granny shot me a look, and I intuitively knew she wondered why I cared, why I hadn’t let this woman die. I couldn’t answer that question other than I would have done the same for any other human being. Besides, a woman who possessed the grit to dress up as a man and live among them as one of them intrigued me.

  I wanted to know why she’d done it. Had she followed a sweetheart or husband into the army? And if she had, what happened to make the Yankees leave her here without adequate medical attention?

  Some part of me pitied her with that whacked-off hair and those mannish features, which I found curiously fascinating. Another darker part of me admired her.

  “I’ll mix up a poultice for that wound,” Granny muttered, turning to her medicine chest. “I’m sure you’ve got plenty to keep you busy. I won’t need any help.”

  I dragged in a rough breath, realizing I’d been so busy I hadn’t had time to mourn my father. Maybe that was for the best.

  As I started to leave, Granny wrapped her crooked fingers around my arm. “This girl needs nourishment.”

  “I’ll bring up some grits and goat’s milk,” I said.

  Granny shook her h
ead, and cold horror seeped through my skin as I realized why she had a hold on my arm. Before she spoke, I shook my head no.

  “She needs meat, a stew. She’s lost a lot of blood, Belle. She won’t get any better without something with some meat in it. These Yankees aren’t used to eating turnips and dried peas.” One of Granny’s thin gray eyebrows arched.

  “We…we don’t have any meat,” I told her resolutely. “We haven’t had any since Pa gave the shoats I tried to hide under the house to the Confederates.” He’d given away every last one of my piglets to those starving scarecrows. He’d said they needed full bellies to whip the Yankees. Great lot of good that had done. All I had left was my goats, and I’d never dreamed of slaughtering one.

  I stared at the Yankee girl in my bed, finally mustering hatred for her.

  Granny loosened her hold on my arm, and I pulled away and stormed out of the room.

  Normally, I had too much to do trying to maintain the massive rooms in the house to visit the herd when it wasn’t milking time. Today was different.

  Snatching my straw hat and clapping it on my head, I shirked my inside duties and fled out the back door. Fists knotted at my sides, I walked at a brisk pace while our old orange tomcat loped along beside me.

  My chest felt as if it would burst with pent-up energy. I wanted to scream, to hit something. I wanted to thrash about on the ground and wail like that damned wounded Yankee had done. Briefly, I squeezed my eyes shut. I wanted to be put mercifully out of my misery. Why couldn’t I have that same luxury?

  Pulling up the hem of my skirt, I ran across the muddy red clay, flying past the burned shell of a barn, the rotting cotton field, and the empty cabins where the field hands had lived. Usually, walking this trek to where we kept the herd calmed me. Before today, I had always taken the time to breathe in the sweetness of the honeysuckles and the earthy fragrance of the red southern clay, to feel the sun warming me through my clothes, to listen to the sound of the creek rushing over the rocks. I’d loved the songs chanted by the field hands and the sight of the crisp, white cotton against the eggshell blue sky.