But it’ll be worth it, she thought, holding up the finished product. After realizing just how much riding she was in for, she had decided that, once they had a few days in one place, she was going to replace the overly mended blue skirt she had been wearing for almost a month with something easier to ride in. Thus this skirt, made of a light gray serge, very full, but shorter. She slipped it on over the dark gray trousers she was still wearing, though they had been hemmed and taken in at the waist to better fit her slim figure, and smiled. She had left the trousers purposely baggy, and now, with them tucked into the tops of her riding boots, the effect mimicked the vivandieres she’d seen from time to time among the infantry regiments.
“Stylish, yet practical,” she announced to nobody in particular as she twirled about, and spun into the tall figure of Lieutenant Black.
“Oh, beg your pardon,” she said, wobbling dizzily away from him.
A low chuckle. “You know, Miss Anderson, we really should stop running into each other like this,” he said, reaching out to steady her.
Her smile became shyer, but she did not flinch away. Although she was still unsure as to how to act around this Yankee of hers, she had lost much of her fear of him.
He gestured at the bundle at his feet. “It’s getting near dark. I was wondering where you’d like your tent put up.”
Early on Will had informed her that “We’ll be on the road constantly,” and though sometimes the general might stop at a local home for a night or two, more often than not everyone would be sleeping out in the open, or in small tents and lean-tos. Including herself. So she’d learned to set up her own tiny tent and thus remain relatively dry.
But then her uncle had appeared yesterday with a much larger tent. “Should have realized you’d need a little bit more privacy,” was all he’d said. He might as well have said “you need a little bit more propriety in this very improper situation.”
She sighed, suddenly a little less happy. All the time I was growing up, I never gave a fig about my reputation, nor what was proper for a lady. But now, in the most improper place imaginable, now I care. Though I shan’t complain about the room to move around. Perhaps now I can bathe properly, not just let the rain soak me. She had complained to Iris that morning that if she didn’t get a real bath soon, she was going to need a hoe to scrape the dirt off herself. The mare had snickered, and commented that if she started to grow plants in all that dirt, then maybe she could pass herself off as a dryad.
She flung an arm out wide, encompassing the whole camp. “Oh, I don’t care. You know far more about tenting than I.”
“True,” he agreed gravely, hobbling off a few paces to a level patch of grass and dumping his burden on the ground.
Travis had watched with some mirth her pathetic attempt to set the tent up last night. She could see him trying quite hard not to laugh at her, but before she lost her temper, he had offered very politely to put it up for her. Which he did with ease, despite the injured arm. This morning he’d even taken it down without asking, and carried it with him on Vulcan, Will’s big roan. Will had loaned him the gelding to lighten Iris’ load and leave Star free to carry her father’s medical bag and an orderly’s knapsack.
She watched him as he worked, under the cover of picking up her sewing supplies. The damning blue jacket had disappeared after that first day; in faded trousers and a borrowed linen shirt, he blended in with the rest of the troopers. Now, if only she could do more for his wounds than keep the infection at bay and relieve most of the pain….
“There you go, Miss Star.”
“Thank you, Travis. And … um ... Travis?” She hesitated.
“Ma’am?”
She flushed and asked hurriedly, “Would you mind getting me a couple buckets of water too?”
He grinned. “Bath water? Certainly. Wouldn’t want you to start growing plants or anything. Though you’re much too tall to ever be mistaken for a drya—” He caught himself too late.
She stood there frozen, staring at him. “Why did you say that?” she demanded, eyes very wide and dark. “How in Heaven’s name did you know?”
Travis looked away, trying to think of some way to dig himself out of the hole he’d just stepped into. Finally he confessed, “I overheard you and Iris talking.”
Her jaw dropped. “You can understand Iris?”
“Yes.”
She stared at him, then shot an angry look at the mare. “You knew, didn’t you? For how long?”
“Since about five minutes after we first met.”
“And did you ever consider sharing this information with me?”
The mare snorted. “No. What difference would it make? You’d already made up your mind to dislike him. Being able to talk to me directly probably wasn’t going to make you like him any better.”
Star’s growl would have made Travis laugh had he not been so unsure where this discussion would end up.
“Any other secrets you would like to let me in on, lieutenant?”
He considered lying to her, but remembered her uncle’s ability and instead told her the lesser of his secrets: “I can understand most animals, not just horses, and I’m able to see the Elder Folk.”
She just blinked. “And?”
“What makes you think there’s an ‘and’?” he rejoined, wary.
It was her turn to look away. “Because those with clear eyes and open ears tend to have other gifts as well.”
Mum had said something similar when she first discovered him sprawled out on the floor arguing with Herne, his old wolfhound. He took a chance and admitted, “I can manipulate Air.”
“Air,” she said quietly. “Of course it would be Air.”
“Pardon?”
“The one element I’d give my eyeteeth to be able to work properly, and can’t. Why didn’t you mention any of this before?”
“For one, it just hadn’t come up. Two, as Iris said, it wouldn’t really make any difference. Three, I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
Her blank look told him she didn’t understand. “Up north, Miss Anderson, such Gifts, Talents, whatever you may call them, are not looked upon favorably. ‘Uncivilized’ isn’t the worst thing I’ve been called by those who found out I could do things most people could not. Using ‘magic’ isn’t illegal—yet—but it’s not something most of us advertise.”
“But that’s a waste of a God given gift! We don’t think that way here in Virginia.”
“No, ma’am, you certainly don’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people as open with their Talents as I have here. Though I can’t figure out why their skills aren’t used more often in battle. Wouldn’t it make sense to use Air or Earth to knock out a particularly bothersome battery?”
“And have the poor fellow promptly fall over half dead?” she retorted. “I’m not sure how it is working Air, seeing how I’ve never been able to get a grip on it, but working with Earth saps your energy like nothing else. Many of the more advanced types of Healing require the use of one or the other. Since I can’t handle Air, I have to use Earth strands instead; that’s one reason it drains me so. Besides, while we may have a larger number of Gifted in the field, most of them are barely strong enough to do much more than deflect a bullet or loosen the dirt to make entrenching easier—little things like that—let alone have the strength to knock a sharpshooter out of a tree using Air or some such nonsense.”
It dawned on Travis that perhaps he was stronger than most, because hauling somebody out of a tree was something he really wouldn’t think twice about doing. Tiring yes, but not enough to make him “fall over half-dead” as she’d put it. Or maybe Air’s just easier to handle….
“But then there are people like your friend Mosby, who uses his Talent most every day.”
She smiled slightly. “Being able to ‘fog’ people’s minds is a handy trait for a scout, isn’t it?”
“I certainly can’t think clearly around him. No wonder we Yankees can never find him. And your uncle—a s
pymaster who can hear lies? What an incredible asset! The point of all this is, their superiors know of their Talents, and they use them. That wouldn’t happen in the Union army. I was often sent off by myself to scout because people discovered I could find out things no one else could. But it wouldn’t have been wise to admit that I was using Air to listen to things far off, nor that I was gathering information from the non human locals.”
He could see her digesting that tidbit, and decided to do some digging of his own. “What about you? You talk to Iris, you obviously have a Talent for Healing….”
Silence for a moment, then, “I can only speak with the equines and canines. That’s a McKinley trait—supposedly my great great grandfather McKinley was half phooka. Healing also runs in our family, though I’ve nowhere near the strength my father and grandmother had. And I’ve known a few of the Fae, even been friends with one, or at least as close to friends as a human can be with a dryad.”
“And?” he pushed, sensing she was holding back as well.
Her face became quite white beneath her tan, and she seemed to shrink into herself. “Sometimes I dream things. True things.” With that she stood stiffly, walked over to the tent, and let the flap drop between them.
Travis tried to figure out where he’d gone wrong. “I guess I pushed too far,” he said to Iris, by way of apology. “I’m not sure how, but it wasn’t my intent to hurt her.”
Iris turned a liquid brown eye on him. “Her dreams frighten her, Yankee. They are rarely pleasant, and come true far too often. She had nightmares about fire for weeks before her family actually took that damned train ride.”
The next day was a shock to Star’s new routine. Normally, the corps would be up before the dawn, eat a cold breakfast in the saddle, and be on the road before the rest of the world was awake. But General Stuart had put down roots, if only for a few weeks. In the days that followed, his headquarters—located not far from Richmond—seemed one long social event, with cavalry reviews and dances and endless streams of visitors. Even his wife, Flora, and their two children came to stay with him for a time. She had seen them once or twice, the laughing general playing with young Jemmie or the trusty steed of little Flora. She had turned away quickly from such painful scenes of domestic bliss.
Rather than face the crowds of strangers, Star hid out at the hospital. She had been placed under the wing of one of the head surgeons, who had promptly relegated her to the usual womanly chores: making bandages, washing wounds, feeding patients. She chafed at those simple tasks.
Anyone could do this, she thought somewhat despairingly. Dr. Eliason told him I was Gifted, had good training. Will he never let me do more? But she for once kept a halter on her tongue, and merely helped a little more than instructed, without telling the doctors. Sometimes it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission, she decided.
And in the background there was her Yankee. Occasionally he was roped into helping at the hospital, but mostly he watched, scanning the camp, pale eyes never still.
August came, hot and humid, even worse than July had been, if that were possible. Stuart’s headquarters remained on the outskirts of Richmond, but the new major general had gone back to his old routine: harassing the Army of the Potomac at every chance. Starla would have preferred a return to the saddle; she’d not appreciated the forced inactivity of headquarters. But since Will remained at the headquarters helping to run things, she also remained.
“Miss Anderson?”
“Yes, Dr. Buchanan?” Star stood up quickly, smoothing down her heavy apron.
“Casualties coming in. Are you available for some harder work?”
She paused, gauging her strength. “Yes, sir. I’ll be right there.”
Her days of rolling bandages and emptying basins had ended abruptly when the head surgeon finally realized that her patients survived more often than those she did not care for. “When Eliason told me you had a gift for this, I didn’t know he meant you had that kind of Gift,” he’d explained.
She stopped by her tent to pick up her father’s bag, then hurried towards the hospital area, Travis following as quickly as his leg would allow. Doesn’t he ever get tired of following me about? she wondered briefly. Though she supposed he was safer with her than alone in the camp—she still worried that he’d be sent to Richmond without warning, especially since his leg was nearly healed. Screams ahead removed him from her thoughts, and she got to work.
A voice from the back of the tent called over the chaos. “Miss Anderson, I need another set of hands back here.”
She finished with her current patient, turned towards the surgeon who’d called her, and gulped. Amputations were by far the worst things to occur in these tents. She rebelled at labeling them “medical”, despite their necessity. She’d watched many done, had taken care of the men afterwards, but this would be the first she would help perform.
Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, she stepped forward and hoped Mr. Stevenson hadn’t noticed her hesitation. “Of course, sir. What do you need me to do?”
“Administer the chloroform,” he said loudly, “then hand me my instruments.” He thrust a bottle at her. “Here, find a rag to use.”
The screams continued to assault her ears. She rounded the table and looked down at the man lying there. He was fair haired and young, perhaps her own age. The two men who had brought him in were holding down his legs and good arm, trying to keep him from thrashing off the table. She took a quick look at the wounded arm; she had, after all, kept Travis from an amputation, perhaps…? No, there was no saving the rag of flesh and shattered bone that fluttered below his elbow. Not even Papa with all his skill and ability could have saved that arm. Already the muddy brown of dying tissue covered most of the limb. She looked up at the surgeon, who nodded.
Right then, she thought, took a deep breath, laid the cloth loosely over his mouth and nose, dribbled the chloroform on it. He fought it for a few moments, then became still.
“Quickly now. He won’t stay under long. Tourniquet first.”
She wrapped it tightly about the upper arm, then handed him the long double edged Catling knife and watched in horrified fascination as he made a deep cut around the lower humerus, slitting deep through the flesh and muscle to the bone itself. The soldier’s fingers began to twitch as nerves were severed. There was blood everywhere, despite the tourniquet.
“Get those flaps out of my way.”
She didn’t even consider refusing, just reached in, grabbed the pieces of flesh, and pulled them up the arm, fingers slipping in the blood. Instinctively, she pushed back, forcing the blood to slow. The surgeon continued, scraping down to the healthy bone. There was a sound like the cutting of wood as the bone was sawn inches above what used to be an elbow. She was dimly aware of retching somewhere behind her, but tried to remain focused on the patient. Her main concern was how much longer he would stay unconscious.
Mr. Stevenson was almost finished; he tied off the artery and nodded for her to release the tourniquet. There was only the slightest leaking of blood, so he sponged the muscle, then drew the skin back over the stump of bone and sutured it shut. This was done with a speed that came from too much practice. The boy’s eyelids began to flicker just as the thread was cut.
“He’s coming around, sir.”
“Dress the arm, then give him a touch of morphine. But just a touch, mind you. We’re basically out, and Heaven only knows when we’ll get any more,” he told her.
Star blinked. It was over. Carefully wiping her hands on a semi clean section of her apron, she wrapped the stump, first in flannel, then in muslin. Finished. Morphine. She looked around for the bottle. There. She picked it up and grimaced. Already empty. Blast. Well, I can handle that much at least, she thought, reaching out towards the boy.
The first jolt of the brilliant crimson pain was excruciating, but she held herself steady until she’d brought the pain down to a more tolerable level. A quick scan: there was still far too much brown and black ab
out him. She focused, formed a cloud of tiny blue sparks inside herself, then quickly pushed it into the dying colors. A burst of light only she could see. The boy took a deep breath, and suddenly relaxed into sleep. Good. Rest now.
She removed her hands from his head, fought down a wave of weakness, and turned to see her uncle staring at her, a dangerous light in his dark eyes. Oh, blast. He can see….
“What the hell do you think you are doing, Estella Shane Anderson?”
“Healing. What does it look like?” she snapped back.
“Don’t you take that tone of voice with me, genethig. That didn’t look like any Healing I’ve ever seen performed.”
“Well, it’s the only way I know how, so that’s the way I do it.”
Major Lewis turned to Travis, who was standing just outside the tent, white faced, watching the whole procedure for the first time. That might have been me there under that saw. His stomach flopped again at the thought.
“How often has she done this?” he demanded.
Star answered instead. “Depends on what you mean by ‘this’. Healing? Every day. The other thing? Not that often. Usually it’s when I’ve done everything else I can, and it’s just not quite enough.”
“And you two let her?” This time the question was directed at both the surgeon and Travis. Let her do what? I thought she was supposed to be helping here, using her Talent. That was what General Stuart asked her to do, was it not?
Again it was Starla who responded. “Let me, Will? I’m a big girl now, despite what you may call me, and it’s my choice what I do here. So don’t blame them.”
“I’m not sure why you’re so upset, Major Lewis,” the surgeon broke in, face flushed. “Miss Anderson’s Gift makes the difference between life and death for some of those boys.”
“You can’t see anything she’s doing, can you?” Lewis exploded. “If you could, you would have figured out by now that my idiot niece has the most draining method of Healing I’ve ever witnessed, and as if that weren’t enough, she’s been pushing her own life and strength into those men!”
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