Ashes in the Wind

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  “Mademoiselle!” He bowed, sweeping his low-crowned hat from his black head. “Permit me to introduce myself—”

  It was as far as he got. Glancing frantically over her shoulder, Alaina saw Cole rapidly approaching. She had no time for Jacques DuBonné in any case. She brushed past him and fled around the corner. Reaching the carriage, she climbed in and breathlessly bade the black man, “Hurry, Jedediah! On your way! Captain Latimer is behind me!”

  Jedediah slapped the reins against the horse’s back and shouted, “Giddap, mule! Yankee’s a-coming!”

  They were careening onto another street when Cole came around the corner. His only glimpse of the woman was the black bonnet, its veil fluttering out behind her like a taunting gonfalon.

  Frowning, Cole turned back and found Jacques DuBonné gaping at him. It was a full moment before the Cajun regained his tongue.

  “We meet again, eh, doctor?” He thrust out his chin toward the departing carriage. “You know la petite mademoiselle?”

  Cole arched a brow. “Do you?”

  The Frenchman laughed. “It seem we agree on one thing, eh, monsieur? She is quite a piece of sweetmeat, eh?”

  “I presume you have been informed of Mrs. Hawthorne’s clear title to her property.” Cole deliberately ignored the man’s comments and withdrew a cigar from his blouse as he watched the reddening face of the man. “No one at the bank could explain how it happened. An oversight, they said.” He flicked his thumbnail against the head of a sulfur match, touched the small flame to the cheroot, and leisurely puffed the rolled tobacco leaf alight. “But upon further investigation, I learned a most interesting coincidence. Similar occurrences have happened through the bank, with the decision favoring one Jacques DuBonné, because no other proof has been available. Strange, isn’t it?” His eyes lifted to the small man. “If Mrs. Hawthorne had not taken the precaution of watching after that piece of paper, she would have found herself evicted from her home and you would have owned it for a pittance of what it was worth.” He shrugged casually. “Of course, I don’t have proof, but I would say offhand that you have been most fortunate in finding a friend at the bank.”

  A sneer came to Jacques’s lips. “Like you say, monsieur, you ‘ave no proof.”

  As Cole slowly smiled, the man curtly touched the brim of his hat, glared, then abruptly turned and stalked away.

  Cole cast a glance over his shoulder to the corner where the widow’s carriage had disappeared, then thoughtfully returned to the cemetery. For some reason, that slim form interested him greatly.

  When all chance of pursuit was lost, Jedediah slowed the headlong pace, and Alaina collapsed back into the seat, closing her eyes as she tried to slow her pounding heart. The lesson had been bluntly slammed home, that whatever it was about her that had caught Cole’s eye, she had undoubtedly whetted his curiosity. In the future she would have to be far more careful where she went as a woman.

  “Where to now, Miz Alaina?”

  “To the hospital, Jedediah. If the captain is gone, perhaps I’ll be able to see Doctor Brooks a moment.”

  But when they arrived, the burial wagons were just entering the stables, and from a distance Alaina could see Cole in the buggy with the chaplain. She knew he would soon be about in the hospital, and she could not risk being seen by him again.

  As it was the old doctor’s custom to return to his home at noon for a midday meal, Alaina directed Jedediah to take her to the Brooks’s residence. There, a dour-faced black woman answered the door and showed Alaina into the doctor’s study to wait.

  The noon hour had chimed before the doctor’s buggy entered the courtyard and its white-haired driver alighted. He came into the house frowning thoughtfully. Doctor Brooks was greatly loyal to those soldiers who were in his ward, and he could not be too unhappy that those few who had excaped would avoid spending the remainder of the war in a Federal prison. But there were other matters to deal with.

  Doctor Brooks paused as he saw the young woman who waited for him. Almost hesitantly he asked, “Alaina?”

  In response, the girl untied the bow beneath her chin and slipped the bonnet from her head, shaking the dark, silky hair out with a toss of her head.

  “Good heavens, child,” the doctor chortled. “You play the part of Al so well, it’s difficult to keep in mind that you are, after all, a very beautiful woman.”

  Alaina tossed the hat into a chair and snatched off her gloves. She had had far too much time to think. “Your words are kind, Doctor Brooks,” she finally managed with grace. “But of late, I find I have the same trouble myself. This role of lad wears on me.”

  “My child! My child!” He would have consoled her, but Alaina faced him wide eyed, anguish etched in every delicate feature.

  “I am not a child!” Her lips trembled with her declaration. “I am a woman full grown!” She twisted her slender hands. “And I long for a man to treat me like one.”

  Suddenly Doctor Brooks understood and watched her closely as she strode away in anger. “Captain Latimer, perhaps? I heard that he married Roberta this morning.”

  Alaina’s gray eyes came quickly back to him.

  The old doctor shrugged. “The captain mentioned it this morning.”

  Alaina’s frown faded to be replaced by a sad introspection. She wandered listlessly to the window and stood gazing out. A long sigh that was oddly broken in the middle lifted her narrow shoulders. Futilely she folded her arms, and her voice was barely heard in the quiet room.

  “What am I to do?” She did not pause for an answer. “I see Roberta and other women dressed in their finery and with long, glorious hair.” She considered her own work-reddened hands before she raked the slim fingers through the short-cropped hair. “And I must hack mine to a boy’s length and wear these widow’s weeds or lad’s rags and never let myself enjoy the very thing that I am.”

  The doctor was still considering what his reply should be when the housekeeper entered the room, bearing a large tray weighted down by a pot of tea, a bowl of grits, another of greens, a platter of batter-fried chicken, and a smaller one of hot cornbread. The delicious aroma wafted up to tempt the young girl who had taken nothing to eat since the previous midday. Gratefully accepting a plate from the black woman, Alaina forgot her consternation for the moment. Her youthful spirit rebounded. She slipped into the chair graciously held by the doctor, and, as they ate, gave a brief recounting of events that had occurred after she left his office the previous evening, leaving off any mention of her intimate involvement with Cole.

  “Uncle Angus blames me because I brought Captain Latimer into the house. I fear my welcome at the Craighughs’ has worn severely thin. I must seek other employment and residence. I have managed to save some money, but I can hardly support myself on a scrub boy’s pay. I’ll need to pay for room and board wherever I go, and I came here to ask if you know of some employment I might take.”

  The doctor rose from his chair and paced the study, greatly troubled. He rubbed his fingers through his thick, white thatch of hair, mussing it terribly in the process. Finally he spoke of what worried him. “Alaina, I have already had to defend Al this morning lest he be considered to have taken part in the escape. Should he disappear now, an investigation would ensue that may well uncover your true identity. That would be most difficult to explain.” He leaned his knuckles lightly on the table before her and caught her eyes with his own. “Nor can I recommend that you be anything other than extremely secretive about who you are. There is now a two-hundred-dollar reward being offered for one Alaina MacGaren.”

  Alaina’s eyes widened, and she watched the older man closely.

  “It seems,” he continued, “that the Confederate prisoners commandeered a steam packet. It had over a hundred thousand dollars in payroll money aboard. The half dozen Yankees set to guard it were killed, and those who fled from the hospital forced the captain to put them ashore upriver. The steamer arrived back late this morning, and plans are already afoot for a pursuit.” />
  “But why—”

  Doctor Brooks raised a hand to halt her questions. “There was a dark-haired woman of small stature who waited with horses on the far shore. One of the rebels was heard calling out to her, and the name he used was none other than—Alaina MacGaren.”

  Alaina sat as one stunned, staring unseeing across the room. The doctor held his silence, letting the full import of the tale settle in her mind. When at last her gaze rose, he met it.

  “Your masquerade cannot be dropped. If Alaina MacGaren is caught, she will be hanged, or at the least spend many years in a Yankee prison. There is no safer place to hide than at the Craighughs’, for that is where the boy, Al, is known to reside. Al must return to work, or he will be sought for questioning. If he is not found, things will go very hard for Angus and Leala.”

  Alaina shook her head vehemently and clenched her hands into fists. She wanted so badly to find some flaw in his reasoning and escape her increasingly odious role, but she knew his logic was deadly true.

  The week drew out, and still all Federal troops were held on duty. Even the new bride had to spend the evenings without her groom. Roberta chafed at this harsh cruelty and ridiculed Cole’s notes of apology. This was too much for her to bear, she whined, and retired to her room to sulk in solitude, much to the relief of everyone else in the house.

  If Roberta fretted with the absence of her husband, then Angus chafed with the presence of Alaina. The latter’s cause grew more perilous with each passing hour. A tale was brought back by the soldiers who had set out in pursuit of the band of rebels and what they reported fairly curled the hackles of everyone’s ire. All the wounded escapees from the hospital had been found not far from where they had left the riverboat. They had been shot in the back and left where they had fallen, all sixteen of them. Items of blue uniforms were scattered over the carnage, and the uniform of a medical captain was with the rest. The woman, the horses, the money, and the men who had lured the wounded soldiers out of the hospital were nowhere to be found. The trail could not be followed beyond where it plunged into a dense swamp. It was almost an afterthought that Captain Latimer’s roan was found wandering near the dock where the riverboat had been seized.

  A hue and cry was raised among the Southern citizenry. Where a week ago, Alaina MacGaren had been touted as a genteel heroine of sorts, now she was branded as a vicious traitoress and even debauched as the common harlot of a mysterious band of brigands and pirates who, with unbiased cruelty, laid waste the stores of honest men, both blue and gray.

  From the outlanders, the reward was raised to a staggering thousand Yankee dollars in gold, and from the residents the quiet promise of enshrinement as a hero of the city, all for the one who would point a finger and bring Alaina MacGaren to justice. The Briar Hill plantation was confiscated by the Federals, and notice was given that it would be sold. Until then, it would be boarded up to preserve it from those who, in hatred of Alania MacGaren, might be bent on destroying it.

  On street corners angry citizens gathered and carefully watched passersby with open suspicion. It was fortunate they sought a striking young woman and not a drowsy lad on an ancient nag, when Alaina made her way to the hospital through the early morning mists. The general air was one of tension, and irate murmurings could be heard wherever a group collected.

  The feeling did not abate in the hospital, and even the wounded Yankees were aroused at the callous butchery that had occurred. Alaina had just laid out her mops and buckets when a fully uniformed and armed corporal sought her out and insisted she accompany him. She was led at a brisk pace to the third floor again and was fairly panting when he stopped before a guarded door.

  “Wait here!” he bade the scrub boy tersely, then knocked on the panel. The door was opened a crack, and the corporal leaned in to converse briefly with someone on the other side of the door.

  “Come along.” He gestured to Al and, pushing the door wide, ushered her in.

  A gasp came from Alaina, and the sudden panic in her eyes was not in the least feigned. She had never seen as much brass, blue, and braid as was contained in the long room. Cole sat at the near end of a lengthy table, and his face was taut with concern even though he gave her a reassuring smile and nod. Beside him sat Doctor Brooks, and the old gentleman’s face was pale with his own anxiety over Alaina being summoned. He and she bore the weight of a secret that could destroy them both, Captain Latimer, and untold others.

  Alaina was agonizingly aware that much rested on her performance in the next few moments. She remembered what Mrs. Hawthorne had said and wiped her nose on a sleeve with a loud sniffle. As she was offered a chair, she seemed to stumble toward it in awed bewilderment.

  Surgeon General Mitchell leaned forward in his chair at the head of the table, and Alaina fixed her eyes with a glazed stare at his stars.

  “Rest easy, boy,” the general uttered in a kindly tone. “This is not a court or trial. It is merely a panel investigating this affair.”

  Alaina nodded jerkily and wiped her nose again, scratching an ear with her other hand.

  “We need to ask you a few questions. Doctor Brooks has informed us of your recent loss. I can only give my own humble condolences.”

  The nose met the sleeve again, and the wide, frightened eyes never left the oversized gold stars on the general’s shoulder.

  “I am led to believe that you rescued Captain Latimer from the river the night of the escape.”

  “Yessuh!” The words burst out in a torrent as she plunged into her statement with an overanxious rush. “He was a-floatin’ on a tree down by the railroad levee. Kept goin’ under when the branches caught on the bottom. When ah got him ashore, he was in the altogether ‘ceptin fer his long skivvies, o’ course, an’—”

  “Slow down, boy,” the general admonished with the barest hint of a smile. “We’d like to get this all straight. What time did you see the captain in the river.”

  “Musts been afore eleven,” Alaina mused, chewing a fingertip as she rolled her eyes upward. “Yeah, that old clock was strikin’ eleven when I got him in the house.” She stared at the star again and let her voice slowly pick up speed again. “Ya see, him bein’ in his skivvies an’ all, and what with the cap’n gettin’ me the job an’ all, I didn’t have much a mind ter haul him ‘cross the square, in his skivvies and all I mean. So’s I took him home with me. It were afore eleven. Maybe ten or so.” She nodded her own acceptance of her logic and pursed her lips in sudden surety.

  “And Captain Latimer spent the entire night at the Craighugh house?” The general pressed for his point.

  “Oh, yessuh! Ya see, suh, that there is the problem! I mean, he spent the night with—uh—I mean—Uncle Angus, he fetched his old pistol an’—uh—well—I was asleep some o’ that, ya know! An’—well, the cap’n got hisself hit on the head an’ maybe it sorta scambled his—uh—” Alaina waved a hand in a circle around her ear and glanced askance at Cole who had leaned his elbows on the table to rest his head in both hands, while Doctor Brooks was seized with a fit of coughing. Most of the rest of the officers present were steadfastly studying the ceiling.

  “And—uh—well, anyway—he got hitched ter my cousin, Roberta, an’ well, yessuh, I rightly guess y’all could say he was there all night, I guess.” She let her voice taper off in growing uncertainty.

  “That’s all, Al.” The general toyed with a stack of papers in front of him. “You can go now, and thank you.”

  She rose to her feet with a mumbled, “Welcum, suh.”

  The corporal opened the door for her exit, and it was not until she was alone in the dayroom that her knees gave way. She sat trembling in a chair for some time, trying to compose herself. She had succeeded to a small measure and was just lifting the mops and buckets again when a shadow fell across her, and she looked up to see Cole. Slowly she put down the utensils and straightened.

  “I guess I got ya in a lotta trouble.”

  “No.” Cole stared at the urchin and let out a long br
eath as he ran a hand through his hair. “I had already told them as much as I remembered. They only needed your verification.”

  “Huh?”

  “You did fine! Look! Put that stuff away. I want you to run an errand for me. I don’t know when I’ll get out to Mrs. Hawthorne’s again, and”—he pulled an envelope from his blouse—“she may need this, though our friend Jacques will not be troubling her again. They have found the man who was responsible, and he is henceforth without employment. At least, by any bank around here, and her deed has been verified by the bank. It’s with her letter here.” He looked at Al closely and tapped his knuckles with the packet. “Do you think you can make it out there without getting lost or something?”

  Alaina worried the button on her cotton coat. “I guess I really got ya in a lot o’ trouble.”

  “No, dammit!” Cole snapped. “I got myself in a lot of trouble! And stay away from the river! I may try it myself this time!” He turned his back, then halted a pace away. “And you can take the rest of the day off.”

  He went down the hall quickly, and Alaina did not hesitate, for at least with Mrs. Hawthorne, she could wash her face and act halfway human.

  Chapter 14

  NOW, more than ever, Alaina felt the stricture of her masquerade. Her name was on everyone’s lips, and how cruel the brunt of the lie that shamed the family name. Alaina MacGaren, wanted by both the Union and Confederacy. Each side desired to see her hanged. The least of her punishment, if she were caught, would be banishment to Ship Island or Fort Jackson. But there, all-too-loyal Southerners were sent, and she would fare worse by their hands if they thought she had helped murder the escaped Confederate prisoners.

  Both she and the Craighughs were caught together in this irony of events. Alaina could not leave, for their good as well as her own, and they were obliged to accept her company. After all, she was blood kin, and they did know her innocent of the deeds. Still, Angus found it impossible to stay for very long in the same room with his niece. Leala could only shake her head sadly, being the only one in the family who even pretended any sympathy for Alaina. Leala could not bear to see the young girl hurt. But even she worried what Alaina’s presence in the house would mean to the rest of the family. They had suffered enough since the occupation; she dreaded giving up anything more. To their neighbors, who knew they were akin to one Alaina MacGaren, the family openly deplored the girl’s actions. They could not take the chance of denying Alaina’s guilt. If everyone else thought she was a renegade, then so must they.