Banks was elated with his success, but his generals advised retreat, all but Smith who had to be ordered to cease his pursuit of the rebels. Across the field of conflict, Taylor retreated to the nearest water and made camp, only to be roused in the early morning by his superior Kirby Smith who, having learned of the defeat, ordered Taylor to withdraw his force to Mansfield. Thus it was that both armies retreated from the battlefield, Taylor in disgust, Banks in disgrace.
The Union Army withdrew to Grand Ecore and the protection of the heavy guns of Porter’s fleet, that same which had suffered a severe chastisement from the Texan, Green, and his western horsemen as the flotilla tried to force its way up Loggy Bayou. The blueclad soldiers proved much swifter on the counter-march and reached Natchitoches in a single day, but it was a wry footnote to the battle that most of the nonwalking wounded had to be left to the tender mercies of the Confederates as some unthinking soul had ordered the wagons back before the onset of the battle and sent the medical supplies with them. It was this predicament that caught Captain Latimer between the crue1 jaws of fate from which he was not to escape unscathed.
A diet of catfish, chicken, eggs, and an occasional snared rabbit had sufficed for the occupants of Briar Hill for three weeks or more. The thought of the sugar-cured hams hanging in the Gilletts’ smokehouse whetted the palates but gave no sustenance to the body. A planned foray to the Gilletts’ curing shed seemed the only way to satisfy their cravings.
Alaina reapplied the butternut stain with as much repugnance as when she had dressed the part of Al. Saul fetched one of the horses from the hiding place in the swamp, and the two miscreants set out as dusk descended on the land. Some distance away from the Gilletts’ dwellings they left the mount securely tied at the edge of a stand of trees from which, if necessary, a rapid flight could be made. The approach to the smokehouse was made stealthily, for the members of the loose-knit family were given to wanderings at odd hours. The sun continued to sink, touching the horizon, as Alaina and Saul snaked their way beneath thick brush and found shelter behind a fallen log at the edge of the Gilletts’ poorly defined back yard.
A dozen feet away stood the sturdy log structure that served the clan as a smokehouse, and beside the waist-high door, lazed the redoubtable figure of Emmett Gillett, that selfsame one whose proposal to Alaina a year earlier had roused such mirth as to cause her to laugh in his face before she got down to the matter of driving him away at gunpoint. He also had the honor of being the one who had reported her as a spy to the Yankees.
A door slammed, and a cheery whistle wheedled its way through the deepening darkness as a smaller, slimmer lad drew near, bearing a lighted lantern which he hung on a pole near the smokehouse.
Emmett straightened and hitched up his pants. “Wha’cha doin’ out hyar, Tater?” he demanded authoritatively.
“Brought ya a light.” The lad adjusted the lantern’s wick until the flickering stopped. “Yer pa didn’t want ya to hurt yerself in the dark, an’ all.”
Emmett eyed the youngster suspiciously, but failed to pin down the insult. He decided his neophyte needed to be impressed by a recount of his derring-do. He sucked in his sagging belly, drew back his narrow shoulders, and rocked up on the balls of his bare feet.
“Yassuh, Tater. Ah jes’ ’bout captured this hyar Yankee all by m’self.” The young man strutted and patted the black Union holster belt that fitted tightly about his broad waist.
“Ah, Emmett! Ah knows ya seen dat Yankee a-floatin’ in a boat down on the bayou this morn’n, and you comed arrunnin’ up hyar screechin’ fer yer pa.”
“Ah didn’t screech!”
“Did so! I heerd ya.”
“You listen, Tater Williams. Pa gived me this gun ’cause ah captured this here Yankee.”
“Aw, Emmett, yer pa jes’ let ya wear it for a lil’ bit whilst ya watched the door, so’s ya wouldn’t squall so loud ’bout being in late fer supper. Why, if dat Yankee comed out hyar, yer skin’d fall empty right here in the dirt ’cause you’da outrun it.”
“ ‘Tain’t so! I ain’t skeerd o’ no Yankee. Y’all jes’ watch!” Emmett picked up a heavy cane pole and, thrusting it through the narrow slot in the door, whipped it around viciously, then bending low, he called in, “Hey, Yankee. You awake in there?”
The stick jumped and jerked inward a little bit as if someone weakly tugged on the other end. Tater whooped and Emmett seized the thick butt of the pole with both meaty paws lest it be snatched away from him. A split second later, his eyes flew wide as he was hauled smartly forward. His forehead slammed against the rough logs of the smokehouse, and he let out a bellow of pain as his knuckles were scraped hard against the narrow slot and the cane pole disappeared within. Before he could gather himself and rise from his knees, the pole reappeared with a vengeance, catching him in mid abdomen and throwing him backward into a slickery puddle of mud.
“You open this door, toad,” a hoarse voice rasped from inside, “and I’ll show you just how wide awake I am.”
Behind the log where she crouched, Alaina’s hand tightened on Saul’s arm. Glancing at her in wonder, the black saw her face taut and rigid in the meager light. Her lips barely moved as she whispered savagely, “We’ve got to get that fool Yankee out of there.”
“Miz Alaina?” Saul whispered back. “We don’ need no ham dat bad. Let’s go find us some nice chickens.”
Angrily Alaina turned to stare at Saul, then she realized he had not read her mind and did not comprehend her reasoning. She rolled over and leaned her head against the log. “No. Forget the ham. I mean we got to get that Yankee out of there.”
Emmett got to his feet with a curse and sucked his skinned knuckles, glaring toward the slot in the door. “You jes’ better watch it, Yankee,” he mumbled above Tater’s uproarious guffawing. “I might jes’ shoot you clean through with this here gun.”
“Yer pa said if you so much as pulled that pistol outa that holster,” Tater reminded his cousin breathlessly, “he’d strap yer backside good.”
“You get yerself up to the house wid the rest o’ the chilluns,” Emmett barked. “Ah is got mah work to attend to, an’ ah cain’t be jawin’ wid no youngun’s.”
Tater seemed willing to comply, and the evening grew still as Emmett strove to ignore the drying mud on his backside. In the darkening shadows another form soon approached, and a young girl of rather startling proportions moved into the circle of light cast by the lantern.
“Hi, Jenny.” Ernmett waxed more cheerful. “Ya want me ter bring the Yankee out fer a look?”
“Yer pa said ain’t nobody to touch that door,” the girl informed the young man tersely.
“Uh—Jenny—uh, ya want to go over behind the smokehouse an’—uh, talk fer a while?”
“Ya knows ah is spoke fer, Emmett. Willy’ud break yer head fer jes’ sayin’ that—if’n he knew.”
“Aw, Jenny, he don’t have ter find out.” The young man scuffed his feet in the dirt.
“Anyway, yer ma sent out some soppin’s an’ a glass of milk ter tide ya over.” Jenny held out a mug and a tin plate heaped with biscuits and gravy.
“Cain’t ah come in and eat supper now?” Emmett moaned.
“No! Eddie will be out to spell you in an hour or two,” the girl replied.
“An hour or two! Why, I’ve been here all aftahnoon!”
“You ain’t been out here no more’n hour as yet, an’ yer pa says ter keep walking so’s yo’ don’s fall asleep standin’ up.”
“Well, guarding this Yankee is hard work!” Emmett protested.
“Hard fer you, maybe. Course keeping awake is hard enough for you.”
“Hain’t nobody else working this hard,” Emmett called after her departing form.
The last of the brief twilight faded, and Emmett was alone with his charge. The chore was wearisome and he yawned until his jaws fairly cracked. He paced back and forth well out of reach of the cane pole. The clouds were thick overhead, and the lantern’s weak light ma
de long, eerie shadows shift and move as it swung in the light breeze. Small sounds came with the darkness, and the young man struggled with an imagination that filled the night with stealthy Yankees. He wished heartily that his pa hadn’t been so specific about taking out the Remington pistol. He could have used the succor of the well-oiled butt in his hand.
He jumped as a small, scuffling sound came from the shrubs, and he thought he caught a glimpse of a fleeting skinny shadow. “Tater? That you?” A long silence answered him. “Tater Williams, y’all come out here, right now! Don’t you hassle me none, you li’l pinkie. Ah got a dangerous chore to see to.”
There was only more silence, and the man shrugged, trying to whistle through dry lips. He turned to resume his strolling, and a trembling gasp choked in his throat. An immense black giant who towered head and shoulders above him, stood less than an arm’s length away. The ogre’s eyes flashed with yellow fire in the reflected lantern light, and massive arms raised up to seize him. With a quaking squeal, the terrified Emmett wheeled and fled a full four paces before he measured his length solidly and with a meaty thunk against the unyielding wall of the smokehouse. Slowly, languidly, he sagged into the dust, having escaped his demons the hard way.
Saul bent and rolled the limp form over, nodding his head in relief as he took in the slow, shallow breathing and the rapidly swelling knot on the young man’s forehead.
Alaina came to Saul’s side like a flitting shadow and gestured for him to take the holster and pistol from the still form. She bent at the door, struggling to shift the heavy log propped against it, then stepped aside quickly to avoid the sudden threshing of a bamboo pole.
“Here! Stop that!” she hissed into the slot. “We’ve come to help you.”
She tapped Saul on the shoulder and pointed to the log. He moved it away with an easy swing of his powerful arm, then the black returned to the task of binding the slumbering Emmett while she pulled the low door wide, knelt, and gestured for the occupant to come out.
Cole Latimer dragged himself through the half-sized portal and leaned weakly against the outer wall, sucking deep breaths of clean, fresh air into his lungs, while his benefactors gagged the erstwhile guard and thrust the trussed one into the dark hole he had just evacuated. The smaller of the pair entered the smokehouse, and a moment later reappeared with a ham. The door was closed, and the log propped carefully back into place.
Saul took Cole’s arm over his shoulder, while Alaina followed with a leafy branch, carefully erasing all signs of their presence. They passed across spongy ground, through a thick grove of trees, and came at last to where the horse was tethered. Cole was hoisted unceremoniously onto the steed’s bare back and given a handful of mane. Saul led the horse out across open fields and Alaina came behind, rearranging sod, replacing twisted grass, brush, and otherwise disguising their passage.
They pushed through a thick hedge where the smell of magnolia blossoms was heavy in the air and to the back side of a large, unlit house. There was something familiar here, but through his feverish haze Cole could not quite place it. He was lifted down, and the small one led the horse away to a hiding place, while the big one again took his arm and half carried him into the deserted structure. After a while the little one returned, and there was much scrabbling in the darkness. There was a rasping scratch of a match. A candle was lit, then another. The dim forms of his companions moved about the meagerly furnished room. The two came to squat beside him, then the small one began to laugh, while the large one, whom he saw now as a black man, joined the mirth with a broad white-toothed grin. Cole could not find the joke, and stared at them in confusion until the smaller one reached up and snatched off the hat, shook out the dark hair of a short yet unmasculine length and turned so the light could strike her face.
“Alaina!” Relief flooded through Cole. “My God, Alaina!” His words seemed a prayer of thanksgiving.
Alaina grew serious as she reached out a trembling hand to touch his thigh. The front of his right trouser leg, from outer hip to knee was split and showed the darkly stained cloth of a makeshift bandage. In the dim light the entire leg looked greasy wet with fresh blood. His boot was sticky with it, while the rest of his uniform bore the dried mire of the swamps through which he had wandered. Weakly he slumped back against the floor, and with a sigh, closed his eyes, yielding up his tenuous grasp on consciousness as he gave in to the peace of security, however temporary, and the utter fatigue that raked him.
Alaina stared down at the sleeping man, and when she spoke her voice was sharp in the darkness of the room. “Saul,” she opened with sudden resolution, “I think we had better get the captain into a bed.”
“But, Miz Alaina.” Saul was agog at her suggestion. “De only bed in de house is—!” It would have been unheard of in a day long past that a young lady would have suggested that a man occupy her bed, whatever the cause. Yet it was a clear statement of the times that such gentility was no longer practical, and Saul finally accepted as much.
Alaina sensed his surrender. “Hurry, Saul! He may be bleeding to death.”
With no further reservation or objection Saul gathered the wounded Yankee in his stout arms and followed up the stairs as Alaina led the way with a lamp. She opened the door to her own bedroom and ran to throw back the bedcovers, then stood aside as Saul lowered the mud-crusted captain to the mattress. She winced as Saul straightened the blood-soaked leg, bringing a disturbed moan from Cole.
“You’d better see how bad it is first, then we’ll try to clean him up.” Alaina began to tug off a dirt-caked boot. She knew the bounds of her limitations and relied upon the black to pry away the bandage that was stuck fast to the wound. Her stomach tightened precariously as the filthy rag was lifted away, revealing a gaping hole in Cole’s thigh. Dread shivered through her with a coldness that was oppressing, and a vision of a sheet-draped litter being taken to the brick morgue flashed through her mind. Angrily she pushed the thought away, rejecting the possibility, yet her lips moved in a silent, fervent prayer.
“Ah ain’t no doctah, Miz Alaina,” Saul commented as he examined the wound. “But ah guess it’s bad enough so’s we gotta get him to someone who can take care o’ dis here wound proper.”
Alaina chewed her lip worriedly. “We can’t trust any doctors around here. We’ll have to get him back to a Union hospital—”
“But where is dat, Miz Alaina? ‘Ceptin’ dis un, ah ain’ seen a Yankee for days—jes’ Confed’rates beatin’ the bushes. Ah heerd dey is holed up in Alexandria, but dere’s a lot o’ gray ‘twixt here an’ yonder. How we gonna get him through?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she moaned. “Doctor Brooks is the only one I would trust, but he’s in New Orleans—and it’s a long trip.”
“No tellin’ when dem Yankees are gonna pull out o’ Alexandria, Miz Alaina. We might get him dere, and dere wouldn’t be no Yankee doctah to tend him. ‘Pears to me it might save us a lot o’ runnin’ ’round if we head straight fer New Orl’ans.”
“Maybe you’re right, Saul,” she sighed.
“ ‘Til den, maybe I jes’ better wash up dis here leg o’ his, and see what ah can do to patch it up.”
“I’ll start a fire and boil some water. As long as we’re at it, we might as well give him a bath.”
“Yo’ think yo’ might be able to fetch up a needle and thread to sew dese britches back together again if’n ah rip open de seam?” Saul asked as she crossed to the bedroom door. “It might hurt him a mite if ah tries to pull dem down over dis hole in his leg.”
“I’ll lace it with twine if I have to,” she returned with determination. “Go ahead.”
Alaina fairly flew out to the cookhouse. Swinging a caldron of water over the heap of dead, gray ashes in the large hearth, she set about making a fire. With the Confederate patrols ranging the countryside, there was even more reason to be cautious, but with darkness deeply upon them, it was fairly safe to light a small fire.
She utilized the lift loca
ted in the fireplace wall in the main house to haul up a tray of salves and implements her mother had used for tending the minor cuts and scrapes of her family, then threw in a stack of linen towels and sheets, items which the Gilletts cared little about since they were too lazy to use anything more than a few filthy quilts in the wintertime and completely shunned bathing with soap and water. Her bedroom was directly above the dining room, and the chute, hidden behind small doors beside the fireplaces, ran from first floor to second. A rope on a pulley worked the moving shelves that could be raised or lowered to either elevation. She rapped her knuckles on the inside wall of the shaft to signal Saul that it was coming up, then she pulled on the rope until the shelf reached her bedroom.
Hurrying upstairs with a large pan of hot water, she found that Saul had stripped away Cole’s filthy clothes and left them in a heap beside the bed. As she entered, he hastened to cover the captain’s bare midsection with a towel, not wanting to shock her sheltered values as well as protecting his own naiveté. Alaina did not pause.
“I’ll bathe him,” she stated bluntly. “You tend his leg.”
“Miz Alaina, if yo’ don’t mind me askin’,” the black approached the subject hesitantly. “Why is dis here Yankee so all-fired impo’tant to y’all? Ain’t he the one what come lookin’ fer ya?”
Alaina began ripping up one of the sheets for bandages. “Why, he’s Miss Roberta’s husband.”
Surprise etched the black’s visage. “Miz Roberta done married a Yankee? An’ wid Mistah Angus hatin’ ’em?”
“He still does, and he found out why with this one,” she answered, then wrinkled her nose as she glanced briefly at the raw flesh of the injury. “We’d better get to work before the captain bleeds all over the mattress.”
Ashes in the Wind Page 28