by Diane Wylie
“Are you with Jack?” he called. “Jack, are you all right?”
The man she was still supporting with one arm stirred at his name. “Dave? Where are you, Dave?” he whispered. She gently placed the man back on the muddy ground but remained on her knees beside him, ready to shield him and shoot the newcomer, if this was a trick.
“Yes, Jack, old friend, I’m here. You have my Jenny there with you?”
“Oh, David!”
It was her love! He was alive! Suddenly she was in his arms.
“Oh, Jenny, is it really you? Have you come to rescue me yet again?” he asked in a strangled voice.
“Yes, I’m here! We came for you!”
They were crying now, frantically kissing and touching each other. The smell of death clung cloyingly to his rain-soaked clothes, and she remembered that he had been forced to hide among his deceased comrades. Maybe he had friends among those unfortunates who had now been released forever from imprisonment.
Phillip and Jeffrey came splashing through the mud together. Each pulled at their child’s arm with desperate hands.
“We have to go!” Jeffrey cried. “Before more guards come out! Those grave diggers might have run back for help!”
David dragged Jenny up with him. He kissed her once more, hard, and turned to his father in the rainy darkness.
“Father! Please, Father, it’s Jack Montgomery on the ground here!” He indicated the man lying at their feet. The man had curled into the fetal position, shivering and coughing. “Can you and Mr. Winston take Jack and Jennifer away? Nate and I have some work to do before we leave.”
Nate came up to the group leading two pitiful looking horses. He had unhitched them from the death wagon, which now stood bearing its sad burden alone in the steady rain. Jennifer looked away from it.
A huge coiled length of rope lay heavy on Nate’s arm. He grinned, just a quick flash of white teeth. Then, surprisingly, he saluted David. Returning the salute in his role as an officer once more, David took the rope and turned away.
“Let’s go, Private Winston!” He began to move back in the direction of Andersonville Prison. Nate went after him, pulling the reluctant creatures with him. “We will meet you in the trees.” David’s disembodied voice floated back to the others as the fog closed around them. Then they were gone.
* * *
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, honey,” was her automatic response.
“Miz Jenny, ain’t nobody called me ‘honey’ for a long time now.”
She looked up, her hand poised in the act of picking another splinter out of Nate’s pink palm.
“I didn’t mean to insult you. I know you are a grown man now—”
He grinned at her, his big brown eyes twinkling merrily in the firelight. “Naw, tain’t no insult. Just sounds good is all.”
Jeffrey Reynolds entered the circle of firelight, running a hand through his thick gray hair, and squatted beside Jenny, watching her at work in the dim light. Nate was using his free hand to bring the beef jerky to his mouth. The young man chewed with relish.
“How are they, Mr. Reynolds?” Jenny asked without looking up.
“Both asleep, poor lads. Riding so long and so hard was rough on them both. I could hardly keep Jack from sliding off the saddle in front of me.” He sighed, a long and weary sound. “He barely weighs as much as a boy now. You should have known Jack Montgomery before this, Jennifer. A fine, strapping young man he was. Jack and David were quite a match when they competed in their numerous sporting activities and tests of strength. Now…” The words trailed off, and he rubbed his eyes with his fists like a tired child.
“David was in that prison for a few months, and you can see the toll it took on him. He could ride for days and days without even feeling it before this,” Jenny said.
It was true. David was physically changed; that was a fact. He had lost both weight and endurance. When they had finally stopped the horses after riding as fast and as far as they could push the animals, Jack was totally unconscious, held in the saddle only by Mr. Reynolds’ efforts.
David had literally fallen off his horse with exhaustion the moment it had stopped moving. Before anyone could help him, he rose to his feet shakily, staggered a few steps away from the animal, fell to the ground, and was deeply asleep instantly. They were unable to arouse either soldier for food.
Silence fell over the group. Both men watched Jenny spread salve on Nate’s torn hand as if she were performing the most interesting act they had ever seen in their life.
“Why did you and David go back, Nate?” Jeffrey asked quietly. “What could have been so important?”
The boy raised haunted eyes to David’s father and slowly shook his head. “We had to try, sir. Captain Reynolds wanted so bad to rescue them other soldiers that suffered like him.” Jenny wound a clean strip of linen around his hand and tied it off. Bringing his hand up to his face, he flexed it experimentally while he spoke.
“I got them horses, you know, and Captain Reynolds, he knew where the stockade fence was weak from the running water. So we go to that spot, and he lassoed the top of that fence. You might never know he been starved so long, Mr. Reynolds, so full of might he was.”
Phillip approached quietly and sat beside Jenny, hugging her close to his side without speaking. He nodded at Nate to continue.
“I guess yo’ could say he done had the strength of an avengin’ angel, sir. Well, he got that rope looped over the pointy top of one post and tied the other end to them sorry hosses. Then we pulled and pulled, and the hand o’ God was with us, for that post came down.”
Taking a deep breath, he continued, “The guards they don’t like that, and they start to shootin’, but they’s shootin’ the men inside. The Captain goes back into that prison through that there hole, and I kin hear him yelling, ‘Come on, boys! Run for it! You are free! Run!’”
Pausing to sip at his coffee, he looked at them over his cup. His eyes were full of sorrow.
“They don’t come out, but a couple of men, Mr. Reynolds. I guess they was afraid. The Captain, he yells again, ‘Come on out, boys; they cain’t shoot you all!’ But they don’t wants to come out. Pretty soon, Captain Reynolds come out dragging a few skinny soldiers with him. When they see it be true, they take off a runnin’. But not too many climb out that hole.”
“So I says, ‘Come on, let’s go; they don’t want to come.’ I had to drag the Captain away. He was sorely upset ‘bout that, but he come with me ‘cause he sees that I be right.”
Jenny looked across the fire to where David lay next to Jack. Neither one had stirred from the positions in which they dropped. Her throat closed convulsively, and she swallowed hard.
It was so good to have him here with her again, she had yearned for him so badly she thought she would die of it. Although he was almost unrecognizable and he had lost so much weight, she still wanted to touch him, kiss him, and hold him in her arms, but she didn’t move. Now was not the time, he needed rest more than he needed her at the moment.
A thick, dark beard had grown, disguising the hollowness of his cheeks. His hair now fell in tangles over his shoulders. The shirt and trousers hung off him in ragged tatters. Every inch of exposed skin was liberally smeared with mud and unnamed filth, and he still smelled of the rancidness of death. But none of that mattered a wit to Jenny.
Papa wrapped his comforting arm around her. It was hard to keep from bursting into sobs as the events of the past days and weeks threatened to overwhelm her. But she fought back the useless tears.
“How did you hurt your hand, Nate?” Phillip asked.
He shrugged and covered a yawn. “Just pulling down that bad fence, Massa Winston.”
“You can call me Phillip now. You are a free man and a soldier, not a slave any longer.”
“Really? You mean you ain’t taking me back to the plantation?” He looked honestly surprised.
“No…unless you want to go back…as a free man. You may go where you please.
You are your own man. I will have papers drawn up to prove that when I get a chance. Things have changed for us all with this war.”
“Thank you…Phillip.” The name seemed to stick in his throat. “I wants to get back to the army but not tonight. I will go north with y’all. It will be smarter.”
Phillip nodded, “As you wish. You are like family to me, Nate. We will look out for you.”
He smiled. “I’s gonna do the same fer you too, Mass…uh…Phillip.”
Jeffrey stood, stretched, and picked up his rifle. “Why don’t you all get some sleep? I’ll keep first watch.”
Jenny watched him walk over to David with a blanket in his hand. Squatting down beside the sleeping man, he carefully picked up the dark head and slid the bunched up blanket under his grown child’s head tenderly. David didn’t stir. Jeffrey went and took up his position, with his rifle resting on his lap, to keep watch over his son and the rest of the group.
* * *
It was so quiet that he thought he could hear the sap rising in the trees. David looked up at the majestic pines and oaks spreading their leaves overhead, blocking out the worst of the intense southern sun. Perspiration trickled down his back, gradually soaking the clean shirt his father had given him.
It was wonderful to be clean, decently clothed, and most of all fed again. He wiped his clean-shaven face with a bandanna. The day after their escape they had stopped near a stream to allow David and Jack to bathe and shave. Jenny had cut their hair for them both. He felt almost human again…but…not quite. Something was wrong with him. When he should be happy and rejoicing in their escape, instead a weight was pulling him down. He seemed strangely out of place, as though he could not be a part of this life.
The horse moved under him steadily, rocking him gently. It wasn’t Napoleon, but it was a good solid animal. He gave the horse a pat, wishing that he knew where his old friend was. It had now been a week since their escape from Andersonville, and they had all eased their vigilance. No one was hunting for the escaped prisoners. The three Yankee soldiers didn’t think that the Confederates had the resources or will to conduct a manhunt, not with tens of thousands still left inside the prison walls. What were a few less bodies to bury?
The frustration of that night still had the power to make him want to howl like a wild animal. He shuddered with the force of his emotions. Why didn’t the imprisoned soldiers escape when they had the chance? Dear God, it was hard to fathom the complete and utter hopelessness that the prisoners had so totally embraced. On the other hand, hadn’t he come close to doing the same thing, slipping into a kind of apathy? Even now he could feel the brief spurt of emotion slipping away from his grasp, leaving a vast emptiness behind.
“David?” A familiar soft, Southern voice broke into his thoughts. “Are you all right?”
Jenny moved her horse up beside his on the wide trail. She was looking at him with concern on her beautiful face. Wondering if she really wanted to hear the answer, he gave her a half-hearted smile that took a lot of effort to produce. It seemed like he was just baring his teeth. He forced himself to speak in a normal tone, trying to put some life into it and trying to hide from her how bleak he really felt.
“I’m fine, really. How is Jack?”
Turning in the saddle, she looked back over her shoulder at the small wagon driven by Nate. Jack lay sleeping in the wagon bed, oblivious to the jolting and bouncing treatment he was receiving courtesy of the rough and rutted road.
“He seems to be improving since your father got the wagon for him to lie down in. Riding was just not an option for him. I was able to get some quinine in that last town, and it seems to have helped somewhat.” She shook her head sadly. “I am afraid that the malaria will plague him the rest of his life. The best we can hope for is that he can recover enough strength to keep the bouts of fever to a minimum.”
David nodded, “I had heard that could happen with malaria.” He hesitated. His face felt stiff. He forced the words past his lips. “I-I want you to know how much I appreciate everything you, Phillip, Nate, and my father have done for us.” Get this out. The shutters were closing over his mind again. Holding his hand out for hers, he gave her hand a quick squeeze then released it.
“Please tell them that for me. Remember that I love you, Jenny, no matter what happens. Remember that I always will.”
She cocked her head to the side, studying him with a puzzled expression. “What do you mean by that? What do you think will happen? Why don’t you speak to them yourself?”
He shook his head and looked fixedly at the back of Phillip’s horse in front of them, unable to say any more and unable to meet her eyes.
When she saw this, Jenny did not press him. For that he was thankful. His mind had closed down again, and he only continued to keep the horse moving forward by years of habit.
Chapter Twenty
On. Off. On. Off. He sat on the rock, still warm from the day’s sun, and watched the dancing fireflies blink their cheerful lights. The purple shadows of evening were just starting to move in, giving the trees and bushes a dusky appearance. A large bullfrog perched importantly on a log protruding from the center of the swiftly flowing French Broad River. The long tongue darted out so quickly that he was not even sure he saw it catch the water bug that had been nearby and now was gone. Iridescent dragonflies flitted over the surface also looking for food.
Food. What a precious thing food had become to David. Never again would he take it for granted. Each precious morsel was bringing back his physical strength little by little. Even hardtack tasted better than it ever had before. He no longer collapsed from exhaustion each time they stopped for a rest. But what, he wondered, would bring back his mental strength?
It was just so difficult to be around everyone. They all meant well. But they all wanted him to talk. His father had tried repeatedly to draw him out and hold a conversation, but he just couldn’t handle it. It was a weakness in his character, he imagined. Some flaw that made him unable to cope.
He felt guilty as hell for shutting out Jack, his best friend, and especially Jenny… The hurt in her eyes was torture to see, but he could do little to ease it. The situation was beyond his control. Oh, Jenny, I am so sorry, please wait for me to come back all the way…if I can. Time, I just need more time.
Earlier that day, Jack’s condition had improved significantly. His spirits were so good that he had held court, telling the story of his capture by enemy infantry while searching for David at the Mine Run battle. He was the Jack of old, telling the tale with such colorful abandon that everyone was held spellbound. When he told of his reunion with his life-long best friend in the pitiful food line at Andersonville and of David’s subsequent return of his college ring, Jenny had started to cry. Beside her, Mr. Winston put his arm around his daughter to comfort her. David should have been the one who did that, but he couldn’t move from his spot. He just couldn’t move.
“Tell us your story, Dave,” Jack had said cheerfully.
Dropping his eyes, David had just stared at the ground without seeing it. He knew they didn’t understand. Hell, he didn’t understand himself. Rising abruptly, without a word of explanation, he had left. It was the only thing he could do. Jenny’s unhappiness and bewilderment were written clearly on her face as he walked past her, but she did not speak. His father had started to rise and follow, but Jack’s hand shot out and stopped him. Jack, out of all of them, knew him best and knew he needed to be alone…and now he was.
* * *
Jenny was confused by David’s behavior. Why had he withdrawn from everyone so? Had he experienced something so horrible that he could not deal with it?
Setting down the pots and dishes at the water’s edge, she began to remove her shoes and stockings. Gathering up her skirt, she tucked the ends up out of the way, rolled up her sleeves, then picked up the dirty items, and waded into the river to wash away the remains of tonight’s venison stew.
They had been traveling together for quite some tim
e now. She thought David would be happy to see her, that he would want to be close to her, hold her in his arms, and…talk to her. Instead, he was rejecting her. The realization and pain left an empty space in her heart.
If only he would confide in someone, even if it wasn’t her, she could deal with that. But each night he went off alone for hours, returning deep in the night, shunning them all, making her wonder why she had even come on this mission at all.
But, she knew why she came…for him. He had worked his way into her very being. She burned to belong to him. From the first moment she laid eyes on him she knew her life would never be the same. He would always be a part of her, their souls entwined, together or apart.
Suddenly a grimy hand clapped over her mouth and a hard, hairy arm encircled her waist like a steel band. Her shriek of terror was muffled to a useless squeak as the stranger lifted her off her feet and began to drag her through the water to the riverbank a few yards away.
Kicking her bare feet did nothing but splash water. She aimed for any body part she could reach. She kicked and pummeled the big foul-smelling man, desperate to escape. The repugnant taste of his hand invaded her mouth as she bit him, hard.
The man just grunted. “My, but you are a feisty one, lass. Don’t be fighting me so bad. You know you want it,” he said in her ear, his breath so noxious and rancid that she nearly vomited. He had his hand inside her blouse, pinching her breast when she saw David coming at a run, with murder burning in his eyes.
“Let her go!” he roared.
The man stiffened with surprise but recovered quickly. He shoved her away from him roughly, like a sack of old potatoes. She landed on her back with a cry in the swift channel. The last thing she saw in the gathering gloom was David launching himself at her huge attacker then she was fighting for her life as the water swept her away.
* * *
David grabbed a fistful of tangled black hair, pulled the man’s head back, ran his blade deep in the man’s throat from ear to ear, and pushed the gurgling body away. Still it took too long. Jenny was gone.