She couldn’t quite touch him. Her fingers were numb.
“Daniel!”
She called his name again, and then she felt herself falling into his arms.
“Callie, Jesu, Callie! You’re hit!”
“There’s another man in there, Daniel. He has Christa and Kiernan—”
“Shh,” Daniel said softly, still holding her. But Callie realized that he was taking aim, that the soldier had brought Christa and Kiernan out to the porch, and was trying to use them as shields.
He fired. The man fell. Christa shrieked as he nearly dragged her down.
“Callie!” Daniel said. She could hear him, hear his voice, but he seemed very far away. She touched his cheek. It felt as if it was wet. She marveled at the feel. He did love her.
In the distance, she could hear the sounds of more gunfire. It was coming from the barn, she thought.
“I’m all right,” she told Daniel. She tried for a smile. “Flesh wound.” She grabbed onto him. She managed to stand.
“Callie!” Kiernan was there, and Christa was at her other side.
Callie forced a smile to her lips, praying that she could stand long enough to convince Daniel that she was all right. “Go.”
“I can’t—” Daniel began.
“Daniel, you must!” Kiernan urged him. “It’s Jesse and Jeremy against how many?”
Anguished, Daniel kissed Callie’s forehead, and left her in the tender care of the other women.
He dashed off toward the barn.
“Can you stand?” Kiernan asked Callie.
“No!” She laughed. “Oh, God, Kiernan, what’s going to happen now?”
“Now there are three of them, against ten,” Christa said miserably. “We should go—”
“I can’t walk!” Callie told her.
“Jesu, but are you bleeding!” Christa murmured, and she tried to dab at Callie’s forehead with her hem. She ripped up her petticoat, creating a bandage. “Jesse will see to it!” she said, worried. “As soon as he comes back!”
The firing was becoming far more fierce at the barn. Dabney was dead, and they still might lose, Callie realized. There were just the three of them, Daniel and Jesse and Jeremy, and there were Eric’s men, entrenched in the barn, with rapid-fire weapons and plenty of ammunition.
They heard the sound of a bugle. Troops were coming.
“My God,” Christa whispered. “Are they, ours?”
Callie wondered if it mattered. She closed her eyes, fighting to remain conscious.
For a moment, the firing increased, then all was silence.
“Oh, Kiernan!” Callie cried, and holding tight to her sister-in-law, she watched.
Moments later, Jesse, Jeremy, and Daniel were marching her way. Her brother and her brother-in-law in blue, her husband in gray.
Behind them rode a small group of Confederate horsemen.
Daniel was alive; Eric was dead. Rebels were here now, and so were Jesse and Jeremy. “Colonel Cameron!”
The bewhiskered head of the Confederate soldier called to Daniel. He didn’t pause, not until he reached Callie. He put his arm around her, then turned back to the Confederate militia captain.
“Colonel Cameron, just what is going on here?”
“They attacked our house. We fought them,” Daniel said simply.
“But what about—these two?” the man demanded. “I’ll have to take them with me, sir—”
“No,” Daniel said firmly. “Not unless you want to arrest me too.” He hesitated. “Captain, these men chose a different side, but this was a private war.”
The captain stared at Jesse. Obviously, he had known him at some earlier, different date.
“Colonel Cameron, have you—become a Reb?”
Jesse shook his head. “No, sir. I can’t say that I have. But these men attacked my house. I fought for it.”
“They attacked my sister,” Jeremy exclaimed.
“Well, then—” the captain began.
“Sir,” Daniel said, “On my honor, nothing was exchanged here. No information. Nothing. We brought down twenty Yanks. You can bring them all in. But couldn’t we just pretend that you didn’t see these two? On my honor, sir, I’ll have them back with their own armies by tomorrow!”
“On my honor, sir!” Jeremy said.
“On my honor,” Jesse agreed. “We’ll be gone. Sir, we were fighting for my home!”
The captain, still confused, sighed.
At his left, one of his men murmured, “This is highly irregular, sir—”
That comment seemed to make up the captain’s mind. “I have never doubted the word of a Cameron, ever. Be he my countryman, or my foe. Gentlemen!” He turned to his troops. “We’ll clean up here and leave these people be!”
A cheer went up. A Rebel yell. Callie smiled. “Oh, Daniel!” she whispered.
The darkness she had fought so strenuously came crashing down upon her. Despite her very best efforts, she fainted in his arms.
Minutes later—or eons later?—she opened her eyes. A pair of brilliant blue eyes met hers, but they weren’t Daniel’s. They were Jesse’s.
She was no longer on the ground in front of the house. She was lying on a plump sofa in the parlor.
“There, I told you! She’s back with us,” Jesse said.
The room ceased to spin. She hadn’t died, it wasn’t heaven.
It was the next best thing. It was Cameron Hall. Still standing. And there were faces within it. Faces that stared down at her with grave concern. Kiernan’s face, and Christa’s face, and her brother’s and Janey’s. Even Jigger was there, watching over her too.
She tried to smile. Where was Daniel?
Behind Jesse. Jesse suddenly moved, and Daniel was there, sitting beside her.
She stared into those eyes searchingly. He bent low and kissed her forhead. “Jess said it was just a flesh wound. It scared the hell out of me, all right.”
“Daniel …” She whispered.
“She’s going to be fine, trust me,” Jesse told the others. “She needs rest.” He cleared his throat. “That means you, too, Daniel.”
Daniel nodded; but he didn’t move. The others cleared out of the room.
“Daniel …”
“Don’t talk.”
“I love you, Daniel.”
“I know that you do. I love you too.”
She smiled, feeling her eyes flicker shut again. “It doesn’t really matter what we are, does it, Daniel?”
His fingers smoothed more hair from her forehead, and he smiled tenderly. “What we were today mattered,” he told her softly. “We were a family, all of us. Brothers again, not enemies, Jesse and I. Even Jeremy. Protecting the house and those we love.”
“But it’s my fault that he came here—”
“No more than it was my fault for bringing you here, Callie.”
She shivered, violently. “No, Daniel, you don’t understand! Eric hated me. Because I spurned him, I suppose. I didn’t even realize it. Daniel, he—he killed my first husband!”
“Shh. I know. Kiernan told me.”
“You could have lost Cameron Hall.”
“I could have lost you.”
“I nearly lost you! Daniel, you went after so many of them—”
“But my brother stood with me. And your brother stood with me. And it’s going to be all right. Sleep.”
Tears touched her eyes. “I can’t sleep. You’re going to be leaving too soon.”
He hesitated, wishing that he could lie to her. His fingers curled around hers. “I have to go back, Callie.” He hesitated another moment. “Callie, you’re right. I’ve always known that slavery was wrong. But I also believe that each state should have decided upon emancipation, that we should have managed it with our laws—”
“It wouldn’t have happened, Daniel.”
“Hear me out, Callie, please. I want you to understand. I have to go back. I have to see the war through. There are men beneath me, and men above me, and I owe the
m my loyalty and my service. I have to, Callie. To the bitter end.”
She was blinded again. Not by blood, by tears.
“Callie, don’t you see? If I don’t remain loyal to my cause, to my country, I will never be able to be the father that Jared deserves?”
She nodded. She did understand him.
“Sleep, Callie.”
She shook her head. “No! You’re leaving!”
He kissed her forehead. “I will wait. One more day will not win or lose the war any faster.”
She closed her eyes, believing that he would stay. He had said that he would. He had given his word.
Daniel was glad that Callie slept. As Christa had assumed, their overseer had been killed by Eric’s men, shot in his bed before he’d ever awakened.
Daniel, Jesse, Jeremy, and Christa saw to it that he was buried in the family cemetery in the back.
The Yanks, the living and the dead, Daniel turned over to the Rebel captain.
He spent the early afternoon with Jesse, and it was damned good just to talk with his brother again.
They were going to stay another night. Kiernan was awaiting her time with her husband, so Daniel excused himself on some pretext or another. Despite the fact that he was leaving, he couldn’t bring himself to wake Callie.
He had been too terrified when he had seen the blood on her forehead. And now she needed rest.
In the late afternoon, he left the house. Daniel came to the slope of grass by the river, his favorite place on the plantation. It was where they had come as children. It was where the grass grew the richest, where it was such a dazzling green it was extraordinary.
It was summer, but the breeze, as always, was soft. The river gave the breeze that brush of velvet. The roses from the garden made it redolent and sweet. Far up on the mound, he could see Cameron Hall, still standing. White, stunning, beautiful in the sunlight.
He smiled. None of it mattered, he knew. None of it. He could live in the snow, in the desert, if he lived with Callie.
But this had been the dream, he reminded himself.
He had lain in the grass, felt the soft kiss of the breeze, heard the endless rush of the river. And then he had seen her. A slow smile on her face, coming toward him. Her hair, catching the sunlight. Her eyes, a silver dazzle.
He blinked.
She was there.
Her hair was pure fire, caught by the last rays of a setting sun. And indeed, her eyes were silver. Her face, her angel’s face, had never been more beautiful.
She smiled, standing above him. She lowered herself to her knees. There was a white strip of bandage across her forehead. But her color had returned, and his heart raced as he realized how very well she looked. There had been those awful moments when he hadn’t known how seriously she had been injured, trying to keep him from danger.
He smiled, tossed aside the blade of grass he had been chewing, and reached for her. “Come down here, angel!”
She knelt down before him.
“This is a dream, you know,” he told her.
“Really?”
He nodded. “In the middle of countless battles, I would see this place with you. Right here. By the river.”
“And then?”
“Then you stripped off all of your clothes, and we made love.”
“Like this?”
She was all seductress, slowly loosening one button after another.
“Mmmmm,” he agreed, but frowned, determined that two could play a game.
“What’s wrong?”
“The bandage wasn’t in the fantasy,” he said,
“Oh! Well, you Rebel varmint!” she began. But by then he was laughing, and he swept her into his arms.
The kiss was far better than any fantasy, any dream.
The sun set, lower and lower. Rays of gold and crimson streaked out over the river and over the grass.
And still, Daniel held Callie in his arms. As he had done as a child with Jesse and Christa, he now spun dreams with Callie.
“When the war is over …” he began.
She turned to him, fiercely, passionately. “Oh, Daniel, yes, please God! Let it be soon! When the war is over!”
“My love, our war is over,” he whispered and kissed her in return.
But in the morning, he kissed her again, and rode away once more to battle.
At the end of the long drive, he embraced his brother and said good-bye to him.
He turned back and looked to Cameron Hall. “When the war is over, please, God, yes! Let it be soon!”
———— Twenty-nine ————
The war would not end that soon.
In the North, George “Little Mac” McClellan lost his bid for the presidency, Lincoln was reelected, and hopes for an end to war by a Union peace effort perished.
Just as thousands more soldiers perished on the fields.
Liam McCloskey never appeared for his wedding—he was killed at Cold Harbor. His name didn’t appear on the lists of the dead for weeks, but from the moment that he failed to appear at Cameron Hall, Christa knew. Kiernan and Callie comforted her the best that they could, but there was little to be done. She cried once, then never again, turning her sorrow into supplying the Rebel troops with the very best that she could.
In Richmond, Varina Davis gave birth to a baby girl. She was named Varina for her mother, but they called her “Winnie,” and to many she was the “daughter of the Confederacy,” for she brought life and hope to a time of loss and desolation.
Spring brought new life and hope to Cameron Hall. On March 14, Kiernan gave birth to a second son. Five days later, Callie had her second child, a little girl.
She was the most beautiful infant Callie had ever seen, she was convinced. More beautiful than Jared, but Jared, of course, had been handsome. Her daughter was born with a full mop of deep red curls and brilliant blue eyes.
And the face of an angel, Callie thought.
She prayed ever more fervently that Daniel would live to see her.
For Daniel was with the battle to the very end, with Lee at Petersburg.
And the South tried. She fought hard, she fought valiantly, she fought with the life’s blood of her sons and daughters.
It wasn’t enough.
Grant surrounded Petersburg, and the city was under seige.
Sherman moved steadily forward on his “march to the sea,” destroying everything in his path in Georgia.
The Confederacy staggered and fell. She struggled to her feet again. Rebel cries resounded in battle, and some men never gave up.
But in the end, none of it mattered, for the South stumbled and went down again, and this time she was on her knees.
Petersburg fell, and Lee had to warn President Davis to flee from Richmond.
They circled around their enemy. Lee planned to make a last stand near Danville, joining his army with that of Johnston, moving northward from the Carolinas.
But desperately needed supplies did not arrive. Unlike many of his predecessors, Grant could move quickly. One quarter of Lee’s men were captured; he was left with a ragtag force of thirty thousand while Federal forces blocked his only avenue of escape.
On April 9, Lee tested Grant’s line. It was far too strong to break through.
And so they came to a little place called Appomattox Courthouse.
On the afternoon of Palm Sunday, Lee met with Grant at a farmhouse. It was a curious place, for its owner, a Mr. McClean, had moved to Appomattox Courthouse when his first home had been in the path of some of the opening shots of the war at Manassas.
Lee rode to the meeting upon Traveler, straight and poised in his saddle.
Silent groups of men awaited the outcome.
For all practical purposes, it was over.
Lee didn’t formally address his troops until the next day. He told them that he had done his very best for them. And he told them to go home. He told them to be as good citizens as they had been soldiers.
Daniel watched the man he
had followed for so very long, and his heart was heavy. The war had taken its toll upon him. His marvelous face was lined with sorrow and with weariness.
The great Army of Northern Virginia was done. There were other forces in the field, still fighting. But they couldn’t last long. It was over.
Some of Daniel’s men shouted that they would fight on and on. One of them called out to him in dismay. “He’s done surrendered, sir! What are you going to do?”
Daniel mulled it over and then smiled with a bittersweet curl to his lip. “I’m going to find my brother. I’m going to embrace him. And I’m going to go home.”
It wasn’t that easy, of course. The formal surrender of the troops came on the following Wednesday, April 12, 1865. Neither Grant nor Lee was in attendance. The surrender was to be accepted by Major General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a man who had held his positions at Gettysburg, who had been wounded time and time again.
And a gentleman without thought of revenge.
For as the conquered troops moved by him to lay down their arms, Chamberlain ordered his men to salute them.
And salute them they did.
The men were allowed to keep their horses or mules and their side arms.
They were allowed to go home.
Daniel was promoted to brigadier general in the final days of conflict. It was not so easy for him to leave as it was for his men, and there would be all manner of things that he must clear up, but he knew that Jesse was with the Union troops, and Daniel was anxious to see him.
It was Jesse, though, who found him. Daniel was bidding Godspeed to a young major from Yorktown when he looked past the man to see Jesse standing there, waiting silently for him to finish.
Daniel grinned and strode the distance between them, pausing just a second as his brother saluted him.
He saluted in return.
He grasped Jesse, and the two held tight for a long moment.
“I’m sorry, Daniel.”
“So am I. Can you get leave?” One good thing about losing, Daniel decided, was that you didn’t need permission to go home anymore. Jesse was still in the military.
“Yes, I’ve already arranged it.”
“Good,” Daniel told him. “We rode away separately. I’m glad to ride home together.”
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