Ashes in the Wind

by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

  “Yas’m,” Saul agreed, yet with concerned curiosity, he contemplated his young mistress as she bent over the Yankee. He had seen her this distressed only once before, when she had tended her dying mother. Yet it was equally true, as it was with all the MacGaren clan, that whatever venture Alaina set herself to, she approached it with a simple but complete commitment.

  “He’s feverish,” she said, pressing her hand alongside Cole’s neck.

  “Maybe ah better put a poultice on dis here wound jes’ to draw out any infection.”

  “Anything to help him,” she murmured in distraction as she gazed down at Cole. An occasional groan parted his lips, and at times his eyes would flicker open briefly as if he wandered through a mild delirium. There were dark circles beneath the thick lashes, and his face looked gaunt and ashen beneath the bristly growth of a beard. Don’t let him die, the prayer went through her mind over and over. Don’t let him die.

  For a time they worked over him with only the murmur of an occasional word spoken between them, while in his stupor Cole groaned and twisted away from the large, black hands that diligently cleaned and worked at his savaged flesh. The muscles jerked in the leg as the pain seared through the unconscious man, rousing him momentarily to awareness. He stared with fever-glazed eyes at the small, shaggy head bent over him as she gently washed the hard-thewed arms and furred chest with warm, soapy water. Weakly he raised his hand from the mattress, reaching to touch her and murmuring her name, but the effort cost him much in strength, and almost as quickly his arm fell back upon the bed and he retreated once again into the soft, dark world of oblivion.

  Saul glanced wonderingly from Yankee to mistress, then frowned and gestured to the wound. “Yo’ can bet dere’s somep’n still in dat hole. Doan know jes’ what, but if it’s lead shot, it’ll poison his blood if it ain’t got out.”

  Worry drew Alaina’s brows together. “But can’t you take it out?”

  “It’s in dere too deep, Miz Alaina—near to the bone, ah’d say. ‘Sides, ah ain’t got nothin’ ter get it out with.”

  “Can we get him to New Orleans?”

  “Doan know, Miz Alaina. Maybe wid a poultice and wrappings on his leg, we can get him back dere in no worse fix dan he’s in right now—maybe even a li’l better.”

  “Come daybreak, you’d best scout around and see just where we can get him through. We’re likely to see less Confederates going south.”

  The black laid a poultice on the wound, and bound it all tightly in order to press the ragged edges of the gaping hole together, then held him up while Alaina smoothed a clean sheet beneath the captain. Once the balm had been applied to the injury, Cole rested easier, having entered into a deeper sleep that even their ministerings could not disrupt. Alaina shaved the dark stubble from his face, and with his cheeks devoid of the prickly growth, he looked more like himself, making her suddenly and acutely conscious of his near nudity. In the dim lamplight, his bronze-hued skin showed dark against the sheet. The long, muscular form was superbly proportioned, with broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips and lean thighs, and a furring of hair dwindling to a thin line that traced downward over his flat belly. Alaina felt her cheeks grow hot as she realized that her gaze was lingering overlong, and she hastily unfolded a sheet over him.

  “You sit with him for a while, Saul. I’ll make us some supper.” She excused herself quickly and left without waiting for the black’s nod. She sought the night air to cool her flaming cheeks, and it was a long time before the trembling in her fingers ceased.

  Chapter 20

  COLE Latimer lay still for a moment. A small sound from somewhere nearby convinced him that he was awake. It was daylight, and from the comfort of the mattress beneath him, he guessed that he was in a bed and naked between clean sheets. It was beyond his ken how this could be. The leg still ached with a dull, throbbing pain, but when his finger touched it, he found it snugly wrapped in a neat bandage. Slowly he opened his eyes, and his amazement was complete as he saw the lace-edged canopy of the tester bed wherein he lay.

  A slender form dressed in boy’s clothing moved past the bed, and though the skin was stained brown, he’d have known that pert profile anywhere. He tried to wet his dry, parched lips with the tip of his tongue and called out to her.

  “Al?” His best effort was a hoarse croak.

  Alaina turned quickly and hurried to the bedside, her eyes questioning as they searched his face in anxious concern. “How do you feel?”

  “Can you get me a drink?” His voice was little more than a rasping whisper.

  “If it’s permitted, doctor,” she teased gently.

  He nodded slightly and smiled, closing his eyes again. Her footsteps moved away from the bed, then returned. He opened his eyes to find her watching him closely. Accepting her assistance, he raised slightly and drank deeply to satisfy his burning thirst. The fever was gone, but every muscle in his body ached, and there seemed no ease from the pain that ebbed and flowed through his leg.

  “Would you care for something to eat?” she asked. “There’s some soup and cornbread down in the cookhouse.”

  “Enough to spare?” He searched her face as he leaned back into the pillow.

  Alaina chuckled ruefully. “Whether they know it or not, the Gilletts have been contributing to our welfare. They helped themselves to our livestock right along with the Yankees, so I figure they owe us.”

  “I could stand some food,” he admitted. “My backbone has been rubbing a hole in my stomach for the past few days.”

  The thick bean soup, seasoned with ham and vegetables, was accepted with ravenous appreciation. After Alaina folded a quilt behind his back and fluffed the pillows over the padding, Cole ate heartily, brushing away her attempt to assist him. When she took the tray away several moments later, he felt much strengthened by the nourishment. Still, he was reminded of his limitations by the piercing pain that stabbed through his leg when he tried to move it.

  Alaina’s face mirrored his grimace. “Still hurts?”

  Cole lightly kneaded the bandage over the wound. “I fear I’ve taken a piece of a cannon shell.”

  “What happened? I thought doctors usually worked well back from the battlefields.”

  It was a story as frustrating as the inspection of Magruder’s carelessly packed supply wagons. After the first day’s defeat and the second day’s victory, to be ordered to leave the wounded and pull back, he had found the whims of command too much to bear. He remembered the beginning of it all rather vividly. He had been called to assist the wounded of a forgotten battery that had been badly mauled, and as he was so involved, an argument with an arrogant colonel, Franklin’s provost marshal, had developed over the proprieties of deserting helpless casualties. With stubborn tenacity he had remained with the injured, and with the assistance of the private who had found him and a lightly wounded sergeant, he had labored to drag a pair of wagons from the swamp where the rebels had pushed them. They had chased the unit’s hobbled mules through the woods until four had been caught to form a pair of teams. The loading of the wounded into the wagons had just been accomplished when a Confederate patrol appeared on the brow of the hill above the glade. He had ordered the sergeant and private to flee with the wagons while he himself seized one of their new Henry repeating rifles and tried to hold off the adversary, giving the wagons as much of a head start as he could afford. Unfamiliar with the rapid-fire rifle, the rebels had taken cover, apparently confused as to how many they faced. But they had lost no time in bringing up a breech-loading rifled cannon that they had captured from the Union cavalry on the first day’s battle and were soon lobbing explosive shells down into the clearing.

  From that point on, Cole’s memory was somewhat vague and confused. After giving the wagons the lead they needed, he had scattered the gun crew with a final volley from the Henry, then had smashed the rifle on a shattered cannon barrel and had sprinted for the roan. He had just vaulted into the saddle when another shell struck a pile of powder ke
gs, and it had seemed, then, as if the whole clearing had exploded. He had a vivid recollection of a tall pine beginning to topple toward him and a heavy blow on his thigh. There had been a time of clinging to the back of the crazed horse as it thrashed through the swamp while shots and shouts rang out from the rear. He remembered discovering his injury and effecting a crude bandage, then nothing but long hours of blinding sun and sweltering heat, gnawing flies, stinging mosquitoes, and a variety of animals who had not seen enough of man to do more than stare at the strange apparition that passed. A grinning alligator had raised its head and, with slitted, cold-blooded eyes, had watched his cautious progress as the horse gave it wide berth. Darkness had come, then the sun again, and a night of shivering beneath a moss-bedecked live oak during a downpour, after which everything seemed to run together in a kaleidoscope of fleeting visions, steaming days and bonechilling nights filled with gnawing, stinging insects of every sort, and the horse stumbling along the road. He had tried to guide the steed generally southward and eastward, reasoning that sooner or later he had to hit the Red River. There had been a vague familiarity about the area, but his dazed mind had not been able to pin it down. When he had come across a pirogue on the bank of a bayou, he had traded the wornout roan for a chance to lie down and let the sluggish current carry him along.

  The sun had baked him, and his parched lips had cracked gainfully as stark branches and long, swaying fronds of moss passed with stately dignity overhead. Then, there had been rough hands clawing at him, and a blinding white pain had shot through his leg. When next he woke, it was in the dark sweltering heat of the Gilletts’ smokehouse.

  Alaina’s patient silence went unrewarded as Cole finally shook his head and shrugged. “It’s still rather confused, and anyway there just isn’t that much to tell.” He glanced about him. “Are we at Briar Hill?”

  She nodded. “In my room.” Half embarrassed by her blunt revelation, she rushed on to explain. “It’s the only room left with a whole bed in it.”

  His eyes flicked over her. “It’s not proper for a gentleman to take a lady’s bed, but I thank you just the same. It’s the best I’ve slept in for quite some time.” Soberly contemplating her garb and darkened skin, he suddenly frowned in bemusement as a thought struck him. “Did you bandage my leg?”

  “Saul did. I only washed and mended a few clothes and bathed you—” She halted abruptly, biting her lip as his brow raised questioningly. In the beginning she had felt no qualms about bathing his long male form. She had been far more concerned with his health than the impropriety of an unmarried young woman washing a naked man. War had a way of taking the innocence from the land and the people. Only, she wished he’d stop looking at her like that.

  “You must admit that’s a turnabout,” he smiled leisurely. “I was sure it would end up the other way around.”

  “You threatened often enough,” she retorted, uneasy beneath his continued perusal.

  “What I’m wondering is why you bothered to save me from the Gilletts—” He peered at her thoughtfully, wondering just what to believe of her, if she hated him as much as she professed.

  The gray eyes snapped with fire. “Maybe I shouldn’t have! Because you’re the most ungrateful, bull-headed, bluebelly Yankee I’ve ever seen!”

  She spun on her heel, having every intention of leaving the room, but he seized her hand and relentlessly tugged her back.

  “Believe me, I’m grateful. I can only consider that with what the Gilletts had planned for me, you just might have saved my life. It was a relief to wake up this morning—”

  “It’s afternoon,” she corrected aloofly, not yet ready to forgive him. She disengaged her fingers and stood back, self-consciously jamming her hands in the pockets of her oversize coat. “You’ve slept through most of the day. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some chores to do.”

  She stepped away quickly, not giving him any opportunity to draw her back, and took herself out to the cookhouse where she stalked about, forming many aspersions on her tongue about the man upstairs in her bed. She worked at her feelings of injury, trying to mold them into a good, healthy hatred for the bluebelly; she would have felt more comfortable with those emotions than any she had been experiencing lately.

  Dusk had deepened over the land, and the west blazed with the brilliance of gilt-framed magenta and melon pink clouds when she went out for a last hopeful search of the nests in the hen house. She had prepared a sack of food for their journey and boiled what eggs she had earlier found, but a few scrambled for Cole’s supper would help him to regain more of his strength. He would need it for the trip south.

  She was near the end of the shed when through a wide gap in the rough, planked wall, her eyes caught the movement of shadows furtively flitting along the edge of the woods.

  “Emmett, I bet,” she said to herself. “Up to no good again.” She pressed close to the wall and watched through the crack until she was sure it was two men on horseback. Deserters? The question rose up in her mind. Either blue or gray, their kind boded ill. Depending on where their loyalties lay, a disabled Yankee might seem fair game for the killing.

  Cautiously she returned to the house. Saul had taken her pistol with him, and that left only Cole’s Remington for their protection. The door was open wide to her room, and when she entered, she found Cole seated on the edge of the bed. He had managed to don his underwear and was attempting to pull on his trousers over them. His pallor and the tensed muscles in his jaw were visible proof that the effort cost him much in pain.

  “We’ve got company,” she announced in a low voice. “It might be the Gilletts, or perhaps deserters.” She lifted the holstered pistol from the bureau. “Stay in bed and be quiet. I’ll keep an eye on them.”

  “What are you going to do with that?” He nodded toward the gun.

  “Use it, if I have to,” she stated simply.

  “Give it here.” He motioned for her to bring the weapon to him. “If there’s going to be any shooting, I’ll be doing it.”

  “You’re in no condition to even be out of bed,” she protested.

  “Good lord, woman,” he rasped. “I’ve dragged myself through the swamp getting here. I can certainly move from the bed. Now give it here.”

  She paused in indecision beside the door, reluctant to yield to him. With laborious effort, Cole raised himself to stand on one foot, dragging up his trousers and wavering unsteadily as he tried to fasten them.

  “Will you lie down!” she groaned in fretful worry and quickly stepped to his side to push him gently back upon the bed.

  As she did so, Cole reached out a hand and took the pistol from her. “Thank you, Miss MacGaren.”

  “I know how to use it,” she complained. “And besides, I wouldn’t shoot anybody.”

  “That’s the difference between us.” Cole pulled the weapon to half-cock and spun the chamber, checking the caps and loading. “Where are our visitors?”

  Alaina gestured lamely toward the bedroom window that overlooked the wooded area, and Cole rose once more to an unsteady but upright stance. “Can you help me over to the window?”

  Sensing his determination, she reluctantly stepped close to that broad, muscular chest and tentatively slipped an arm behind his waist, bracing her other hand against his leanly fleshed ribs. As he laid an arm over her shoulders, a memory came winging back to haunt her, and she became dizzyingly aware of a time when his hard-thewed arms had clasped her to his chest, and taunting, warm lips had played with hers—

  Alaina dropped her head and forced her attention on the task at hand. He belonged to Roberta, she kept telling herself, and all her wants and needs could come to naught.

  Despite his agonized, shuffling gait, they reached the window, and Cole leaned against the wall beside it while she ran back for a chair and stool. Sliding them both to the window, she firmly bade him to sit, and steadied him as he complied. A darkish stain began to seep through the bandage, warning that undue stress on the leg would not be tolerate
d.

  “Are you all right?” she questioned anxiously and was not greatly reassured by his brief nod. Careful not to disturb his leg, she perched beside it on the stool where she could observe the meanderings of the visitors with him.

  Night crept in with its stealthy cloak of darkness, and though they strained to see, no movement was detected in the outer edges of the copse, or the yard below. Then, a wavering, shifting light moved through the trees and came ever closer until it was recognizable as a lantern being carried by one of the men. The two paused on the outskirts of the woods, facing each other, and gestured wildly as if in a heated debate. Both wore duster coats and hats, but the lantern was held too low to allow any light to touch their faces. One was shorter and seemed almost petite from a distance. A woman? It was he—or she—who bore the hooded lamp and waved his free arm accusingly. A brief moment of violence ensued when the small one slapped the other, then almost immediately staggered away from a return blow.

  “They’re coming toward the house,” Alaina said.

  Cole watched the pair’s progress closely. “They seem to be searching for something. They’re going into the carriage house.”

  “You don’t suppose they’re the ones who—” She bit a thin knuckle as she realized what she had been about to say. Saul had stated that he had seen two men and a woman leave the woods where the grave had been found. These were two men—or possibly a man and a woman—without the treasure—but perhaps looking for it.

  Cole tried to see her face in the ebony shadows that surrounded them. “What were you going to say?”

  Alaina hunched her shoulders diffidently. “Nothing.”

  Several moments passed before the two again emerged from the carriage house, this time shaking clenched fists threateningly at each other.

  “Whatever it is they’re after, I doubt that they’ve found it,” Cole observed, wincing slightly at the burning pain of his wound.