"I don't know what you mean." Cassie challenged stubbornly.
"I mean I'm tired and you're tired and we both need some sleep. Things will be clearer in the morning."
"I can't go to sleep. I've got to go look for him. Don't you understand, Mordecai? I've got to find him."
"How about if we talk about this in the morning?" He got slowly to his feet. "If you still want to go looking"—he sighed—"I'll take you. But we're not going anywhere tonight. There's been enemy movement just south of here. No one's getting out of camp before dawn. If Devon's alive, he'll still be alive in the morning."
Cassie wanted to protest, but she knew Mordecai was right. She was so tired that her eyes ached and her head was spinning. And her friend looked half-dead himself. "All right." she conceded softly.
"All right what?"
"All right, we'll wait until morning to go looking for him." She picked up Mordecai's black cloak and held it out for him. Easing it over his shoulders, she patted the heavy wool. "Don't look at me like I'm mad, Mordecai Steele. I know what I'm doin'. Trust me."
He studied her sallow face. "I want to, Cas. I want to."
"Go to bed. I'll see you in the morn. We'll go and we'll find him."
"And if we don't?" He studied her haggard face.
"Then I'll deal with it." Cassie answered softly.
"You think he's gonna live? You think he's gonna live?" Return leaped up and down, swinging the lamp he held for his mother.
"Hold still, Return, I can't see a thing with you jostling the light like that." Patience Littleton lifted the cold compress from the man's head and dipped it in the basin on the table beside the bed. "It'll be some time before we can tell. He was lucky spring's been late coming. If it hadn't been so cold out, he'd have bled to death. He laid there a long time. Whoever piled the bodies together like that must have thought he was dead, too."
"How can that be, Mama? How can someone think a man's dead when he isn't?" The boy hopped on one foot and then the other.
"They probably checked his pulse at the wrists. As cold as it was outside, he could have been alive but had no pulse at the wrist. A body shuts down in the cold and seems dead when it isn't." She laid the cloth on his head again and lifted the thick quilt to examine his wounds. The chest wound was clean and had missed all the vital organs, but his leg was bad. She'd removed the musket ball and sewn up the flesh with a needle and thread, but the leg bone had been split. Only time would tell if that would heal.
"I just can't believe we caught us a rebel soldier! You gonna send a message that we've got 'em?" Return had set the lantern on the bedside table and was sitting on the corner of the bed.
"Hush your mouth." Patience insisted sternly. "You say nothing to anyone about this man. You understand?" She shook her finger at him, the lines on her face growing harsh.
"What do you mean, Mama, don't say anything? You gotta turn 'im in!" He fingered the tattered blue patriot coat that hung on the bedpost. "He's the enemy."
"And who are you to say who's the enemy, Return Littleton?" Patience snapped. She wiped her hands on her apron and lowered her voice. "It's not as simple as it sounds. This man came to these Colonies for a reason, just like we did. How can he be the enemy? He's put his sweat into this earth just like we have. He built a life for himself just like we built this mill."
"What are you sayin', Mama? Papa was killed fighting these men. They killed him!" Tears came to Return's eyes and he dashed them away. He was no baby. He'd not let his mother see him cry!
Patience studied her young son's face in the dim light of the lantern. Poor thing, she thought. He's had to grow up so young. He's had to see so many things a child shouldn't have to see. "Men die in wars, Return." she said softly. "Men from both sides die. Being right or wrong has nothing to do with dying. I can't explain it to you. It's just something you'll understand when you're older."
"You're always saying that!" The boy slid his feet to the hardwood floor.
She laughed. "You're right, I am always saying that." She tousled his hair. "Now go feed that mangy hound of yours and feed him proper-like. He did a good job this morning hauling this man all the way here."
"Yea, that was real smart of you, Mama, to hook that litter up to Barnie and make him drag it!"
"A horse would have been better, but without a horse the way we are, it was all I could think of." Patience peeled the wet cloth from the soldier's head and dipped it into the creek water again. She had to get his fever down or he'd not make it.
"I'm gonna feed Barnie now." Return told his mother as he hopped out the door.
"And then you eat your own supper, you hear me, boy? I left it on the table."
"I hear you." Return shouted, already halfway down the hall.
Patience sighed, shaking her head. It was difficult raising a son on her own with the Colonies in such turmoil, but she knew she'd manage. She knew she wasn't the first woman to lose her man to war and she wouldn't be the last. With that thought in mind, she reached for the head cloth and rinsed it again.
She smiled in the dim light, studying the features of the handsome young patriot officer. He had a rugged face with a square jaw and dark hair. He was so tall that his bare feet jutted from the end of the bed. As Patience reapplied the wet cloth, she wondered who he was. There had been nothing on his person that gave any hint. All she knew was that he was a rebel from Delaware. His coat told her that much.
"Who are you?" Patience whispered, tucking the covers beneath his chin. "Is there someone grieving for you? Does anyone even know you're gone?" He had called out to someone several times as they had heaved him into the bed, but she'd been unable to make out a name. He hadn't moved or uttered a word since then. Not even when she removed the lead from his leg and sewed him up.
Patience sighed, drawing up a straight-back chair to continue her vigil over him. As she sat and watched his chest rise and fall, her mind wandered. What if he didn't have anyone? What if he decided to stay on here? She toyed with the idea, imagining the handsome man toiling in her garden or loading sacks of ground wheat on a wagon. It had been so long since she'd had a man around to help. It had been more than a year since her Issac had been killed. She laughed at her own silliness and got to her feet to refill the basin.
Cassie groaned in her sleep, tossing beneath the counterpane. Images flashed through her mind and she cried out in fear. Dark birds of prey loomed above her and she found herself running through gray forests. Her sight was blurred by a mist that suffocated and choked. She could hear Devon calling her name, but she couldn't see him.
"Devon! Devon!" she cried out. "Where are you? I can't find you." Her voice echoed, resonant off the leafless trees.
"Here." he answered weakly. "I'm here, Cassie Laura. Help me . . ."
The sallow faces of slain soldiers sprang up out of the mist. Their dull, pallid eyes pleaded for something she could not give. So many, so very many. And one voice kept cutting through." Cassie, Cassie Laura, please." But where, where was he? She spun in slow circles, stumbling over bodies, but his voice never grew nearer. She turned and faced a boy of not more than fourteen, his shoulder, arm, and half his chest gone. She could see through the window of his soul. She backed away, repulsed even beyond pity. And still, that one familiar voice, so very sweet, so tender, but so lost. How could she ever find him among the carnage of her mind?
Suddenly the ground was littered with wounded men tugging at her skirts and crying out for help. There was blood everywhere, and still Devon called out to her. Death alone lived here, and he laughed with every new apparition.
"I can't see you." Cassie moaned. She tried to run, but she couldn't. The soldiers were pulling her down now, covering her skirts with their blood. She screamed as the ground ran black with blood, rising like a swollen creek to sweep her into its abyss. She could not struggle much longer . . . .
Cassie went down on one knee, her shoulders slumping as she felt herself being sucked under. One last time she raised her head. Th
en, everything was changing. The darkness lifted, the tides of blood receded, and she found herself in a meadow. She felt a hand on her shoulder and she looked up to see a small boy. Beside him stood the biggest black dog she'd ever seen.
He was beckoning her now. . . . She got to her feet and took his small hand, following him across the meadow. The sun was shining and the clearing was littered with the first fragrant flowers of spring Who was the child? Where was he taking her? She tried to speak; her lips moved but no sound came out. All she could do was follow him, and the dog.
The mist began to rise again, but this time it was soft and billowy. They stopped at a water mill, and Cassie stood watching its great wheel churn round and round. She turned to face the boy, to ask him why he'd brought her here, but he was gone. The dog was gone. Slowly she turned back.
The water wheel was a giant spinning wheel now. A thread of blue floated above and was drawn through its mechanisms. On the other side a coat was appearing, suspended in the air. It was a man's coat of dark brown, a frock coat like the one Devon wore in Marshview's fields. . . .
Cassie bolted upright, clutching at the blanket as she tried to catch her breath. Though the fire had burned to embers and it was cold inside the cabin, she felt as if her skin was on fire. She pushed the heavy blanket to the floor and sat up shakily. Her nightgown clung to her perspiration-soaked body. "Only a nightmare." she murmured.
Cassie was still trembling as she got to her feet, trying to push the images of the ghostly apparitions from her mind. She had to get dressed and get to Mordecai.
Devon was alive! She had known in her heart he couldn't be dead, and now she was sure of it . . . .
Chapter Thirty-two
Devon strained to lift his head from the pillow. The pain was so great that it caught his breath, but still, he struggled. "Got to get to Cas." he murmured deliriously. "Got to let Cassie Laura know I'm all right."
"Hush and lay back." Patience told him, placing a hand gently on his chest. "You start that bleeding again and no one will be able to save you."
Devon groaned, letting his head fall back until it hit the feather tick. His eyelids drifted shut as he struggled to remain conscious. His entire body was on fire, as hot as molten steel. "I've got to get a message to my wife." he insisted. His tongue slipped out to moisten his cracked lips.
Patience felt a pang of regret He was married. . . . "I've no way of sending a message until my uncle comes by next week." She dipped the corner of a clean cloth in the tankard of cold water and dabbed his lips. "Want to try drinking again?"
"Why can't you send . . ." He lifted his head and his words were cut off by a flash of all-consuming pain." . . . a message?"
"Got no horse and no man. Only a boy and a dog. My uncle, he brings us supplies and word of the war. This time of year our mill's not in operation." Patience held the tankard to the stranger's lips, supporting his head with her hand.
Devon swallowed, letting the cool liquid quench his burning throat, and then relaxed against the pillow again. "How bad am I hit?" His face was ashen white.
"You've lost a lot of blood, but you're going to live. A few minor sword wounds, a clean hole in your chest . . ." Her voice drifted.
"What about my leg?" There was almost no feeling in it and that frightened him.
"It's pretty bad, but as long as it don't turn green, you won't lose it."
Devon let out a sigh of relief. "Am I the only one that—"
"The only one that lived." Patience interrupted.
Devon breathed deeply, trying to think. "Are you sure there's no way you can contact my wife in Morristown?" His voice was weaker now.
"I'd be crazy to send my son that far. It's a full day's walk from here. I feel for your wife, but there's nothing I can do."
"No neighbors?" His eyes drifted shut and he raised his hand slowly to wipe his mouth. His mustache was gone.
"Sorry 'bout that." Patience said. "I shaved you before I stitched up your cheek. Your face was covered with blood." She dropped the cloth into the basin and leaned to turn down the bed lamp. It was near dawn, and she was exhausted. Her patient was going to live now, and it was time she returned to her own room and got some sleep. "Sure, I've got neighbors, but I tell them I've got a rebel soldier here and they'll liable to string you up."
"Oh." Devon was losing ground fast. He could feel himself slipping into the inky blackness of unconsciousness again. All he could think about was his Cassie . . . tears running down her cheeks. "Loyalists? So why did you help me?" he mumbled.
Patience eased the cold cloth to his forehead. "Because I'm human." she said softly. "Because I'm human."
"Mordecai! Wake up! You've got to wake up!" Cassie shook his shoulders, trying to rouse him.
His eyes flew open. "Cassie, are you all right?" He sat up, knocking his head on the bed above him. "What are you doing here?" He glanced at the other junior officers, still sleeping soundly.
"Trying to wake you, that's what I'm doing! Now get Your drawers on and come to my cabin "
Mordecai scratched his head, staring at Cassie. She was wearing her cloak thrown over a long flannel nightgown and her riding boots. Her hair had slipped from neat braids to frame her face with fiery wisps. She had obviously just woken up. What would make her come to him before dawn? The strange thing was, she sounded like her old self. "All right, Cas. I'll come, but you'll have to turn around so I can get my breeches on."
"God a'mighty, Mordecai Steele! You think you've got something I haven't seen before?" She laughed. "Hurry and I'll make us something to eat before we go."
"Go? Go where?" he called after her, but she'd already slammed the door.
Half an hour later Mordecai paced the dirt floor of Cassie's cabin. "Cassie, this is crazy."
"It was crazy when I told you you shouldn't go on that patrol, too, wasn't it?" she countered. She was dressed now in a lindsey-woolsy skirt and one of Devon's muslin shirts, minus the stock.
Mordecai sighed, turning his back on her. This was insane! "It's not the same thing, Cassie, and you know it."
"The hell it isn't! I was right down to the color of the soldiers' coats, wasn't I? I'm telling you, Mordecai, Devon's still alive."
"He can't be. I wish to sweet, holy heaven he was, but he isn't. Billy Sidmond checked his pulse himself. He was dead, cold dead. He'd laid there all night with the others." He lowered his voice. "He's gone, Cassie."
She shook her head adamantly. "I don't believe it. I won't believe it and you can't either."
"You didn't actually see him in your dream, did you?" Mordecai reasoned.
"It doesn't matter. I'm telling you he's alive. He's hurt and he's calling me. I don't care how ridiculous it sounds. I don't care if you believe me. All I ask is that you take me to the spot where the bodies were. He's got to be nearby. There's got to be a mill somewhere on Carson's Creek like the one I saw in my dreams. It's all perfectly logical." She beat her biscuit batter with a wooden spoon.
"There's no logic to it. This is a folly. You have to start thinking about the baby. You can't be traipsing off through the woods." He rested his hands on his hips.
"Think about the baby! I am thinking about the baby! I'm thinking the poor wee thing deserves a father, that's what I'm thinking." She knelt in front of the fire and placed a metal spider over the bed of coals. "I'm going, Mordecai, whether you take me or not. He's got to be nearby. That boy in my dream must be taking care of him, or at least knows where he is."
"If someone had found him, don't you think they'd have sent a message?"
"How? With wounds like that and him bein' out all night, it might be days before he's lucid enough to speak. If he's still unconscious, how would anyone know who he was?" she asked sarcastically. "He's not carryin' a letter with 'im saying, 'In case I'm wounded, send my wife, Cassie, a message'!"
Mordecai put up his hands in surrender. "I'm tellin' you he's dead, Cas, but if it will make you happy, I'll take you to the place we found him." He knew his best fr
iend was dead, but still, a glimmer of hope was kindled in his heart. Cassie had been right about that ambush.
Just after dawn the two left the patriot camp at Morristown. Mordecai knew Devon couldn't be alive, but he still felt so guilty about the fact that it should have been him on that patrol and not Devon that any sliver of hope was worth investigating. Cassie seemed so sure of herself as they covered the distance to the meadow near Carson Creek, that Mordecai actually began to believe there was a chance his best friend still lived.
Nearly three hours from Morristown, Mordecai dismounted and caught the reins of his horse. "It happened right here. We're guessing the deserters came up on them around four or five in the afternoon. They had already doubled back sometime before and were heading home." He offered Cassie his hand to help her down, but she pushed it away.
"I'm not a cripple, Mordecai, I'm pregnant." she admonished, leaping easily to the ground.
"Still a lady, aren't you?"
She caught her horse's reins and tugged at the sleeve of Mordecai's coat. "I'm sorry." she said quietly. "I don't hardly know what I'm doing right now."
"It's all right. Come on, I'll show you what's left of the dog tracks. The ground must have softened a little during the day and then froze overnight." He led her a few hundred feet and stopped just short of a pile of scattered brush.
Cassie dropped her reins and walked in a circle, studying the imprints left in the ground. "Quite a few hoofprints here. How many deserters do you think there were?"
He shook his head. "I couldn't tell. The party we sent out looking for them was here in the dark. They had no way of being able to tell, and then when I got here, I couldn't distinguish our marks from theirs. But it had to be quite a few to have managed to kill the entire patrol."
"Not all of them." she corrected. "Devon's still alive."
He shrugged, reaching for his pipe beneath his leather jerkin. "Just the same, they left four of their own behind. At least our men took a few with 'em."
The Officer's Desire Page 34
