by Lynda J. Cox
Mathew nudged his head toward the woman on his arm. “Did you help your husband when he was treating his patients?”
A wistful expression softened her features and hint of sadness tinged the small smile that crossed her face. “As much as I could. My grandmother and mother taught me all they knew about healing poultices and tinctures and plants that can be used as medicines. Sam...he...he was starting to use some of my backwoods remedies before he left.”
By the second year of the war, medicines in the South had been nearly impossible to acquire. When it was all he had, Mathew resorted to those backwoods remedies to treat fevers, pull out infections, stop wracking coughs. “Tomorrow, show me what you have in those remedies and teach me how to use them.”
She bowed her head. Anguish darkened her voice. “You’re making a joke at my expense.”
“No, I’m not.” He glanced over at Ethan, assuring himself the boy wasn’t too far away, and then dragged a hand through his hair, debating how to bolster her. Abigail continued to walk at his side with her head bent to the ground, much in the same manner Ethan did when he tried to avoid notice. Mathew came to a halt and caught her shoulders, turning her to face him. He waited for her to look up. When she didn’t, he said, “Abigail, I’d be a fool for not availing myself of your knowledge of the local flora that can be used medicinally. I would have sold my very soul to have those remedies that last winter at Camp Douglas. So many men died because I didn’t have even the simplest of medicines. There was nothing I could do to prevent their deaths.”
She still didn’t lift her gaze. Mathew slipped his hand along her cheek and tilted her head to him. “I am not making a joke of you or your remedies.”
Movement out of the corner of his eye pulled his attention from Abigail. Ethan staggered backwards, head reared back, his small body rigid. Before he could move toward his son, Abigail rushed the few feet. She dropped to her knees and fully enveloped the boy in a protective embrace.
“Bad man. Bad man.” Ethan repeated the words so rapidly his sobbing cry blended into one continuous sound.
“No, sweetie. There’s no bad man here. I promise. No bad man.” Abigail pressed a kiss to the top of Ethan’s head. “You’re safe here with your father and me.”
“Bad man.” He twisted around to Abigail. “Momma...bad man. Bad man.”
He wasn’t so shocked with Ethan’s actions that he failed to note his son addressed Abigail as “Momma.” Mathew tamped down his surprise and even jealousy to scan the faces, looking for the perceived threat Ethan saw. Just outside of the opened barn doors and walking toward them in a slow manner was the obvious choice. Blue wool shirt, denim trousers, white suspenders, sweat-stained slouch hat...he stepped in front of Abigail’s kneeling form, hoping to block Ethan’s view.
“Mr. McCoury, come over here, please,” Abigail said.
Blue Shirt heard the invitation Abigail extended. The elevated volume of her voice ensured that.
Mathew snapped his head around to Abigail. She held Ethan so his back pressed against her shoulder, his terrified face to the approaching, seeming danger.
“He’s not a bad man, Ethan. He’s a good person and you’re a brave, brave boy.” Her voice was calm and level, her cheek against Ethan’s.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mathew asked. Ethan’s breathing turned into rapid panting the closer Blue Shirt came.
She continued to hold his son in a protective manner but tilted her head up to Mathew. “A little less than half this town was Union.”
“I don’t care if the whole town was a Union stronghold.” The fierce protectiveness he’d felt earlier for Abigail returned a thousand-fold over Ethan. “I think I know my son a little better than you. Forcing him to confront—”
“Most of the men who did survive that war and returned here fought for the Union. Many still have those blue sack coats and shirts simply because it’s the only garment not in tatters.”
There was a great deal of truth in what she said about that uniform shirt or coat being the only garment most of those men had after the war. Many, like himself, had been dressed in little more than rags after that damned war.
Abigail plastered what Mathew recognized as a patently false smile onto her face. “Mr. McCoury—Yancy—would you be so kind as to introduce yourself?”
Caught between her forced smile and the stranger approaching behind him, Mathew settled for glaring at Abigail and muttering through clenched teeth, “We will talk about this later.”
“Yes, Mathew.” Her arms tightened on Ethan’s thin form and her head bent to his. The widening flare of the boy’s dark eyes alerted Mathew to the man’s immediate proximity. With a final glare at the frustrating woman, he turned to face the man.
Blue Shirt stood less than an arm’s length away. Mathew found himself forced to look up to be able to meet the man’s gaze. He’d never been accused of being short, but compared to this man, he felt positively puny. Mathew spared another glare over his shoulder at Abigail that should have shriveled her if any of the anger burning in his chest communicated itself into his gaze.
“Miss Abby was hoping you really would come to Brokken.” Blue Shirt stuck his hand out, the scents of peppermint and sugar drifting from him. A wide, genuine smile creased his face. “Yancy McCoury, though most folks just call me Yank.”
Without being insufferably rude, Mathew couldn’t decline. There was strength in the man’s grasp, but nothing that lent itself to the impression this was a show of force. “Yank?”
“When me and my kid brother, Travis, was younger, he just couldn’t say ‘Yancy.’ For some reason, it always came out as ‘Yankee.’” Yancy’s smile faded but didn’t vanish entirely. He added, almost in an undertone, “Travis died in the Hornets’ Nest at Pittsburg Landing. I keep the name out of respect for him.”
The Yankees called it Pittsburg Landing. He knew it as Shiloh, for the small Methodist church around which the battle raged. Both sides agreed it was a brutal fight and the skirmish names within that bloodbath—the Peach Orchard, the Bloody Pond, the Hornets’ Nest—recalled the horrors for those who survived the fiery crucible ironically named with a word that meant “a place of peace.”
“A lot of good men died at Shiloh,” Mathew admitted.
“A lot of good men died in that war, whatever you want to call that ‘late unpleasantness.’”
“That war never should have happened. Can we please not discuss it now?” Abigail’s voice was so soft Mathew almost couldn’t make out the words.
McCoury’s took a step closer to Abigail and Ethan, his gaze shifting down them. He swept his hat off. “Beggin’ your pardon, Miss Abby.” Yancy’s attention came back to Mathew. “I didn’t catch your name. Or your little one’s.”
“Mathew Knight.” McCoury’s single step closer to Abigail allowed Mathew to put all three into his line of vision. He nudged his head toward Abigail and his son. “My son, Ethan.”
“Good to meet you, Doc.” Yancy bent over, reducing his imposing height. “Hello, Ethan. I’m Yank.”
Mathew took a step closer, intending to end this torment. Before he could say anything, McCoury knelt by Ethan.
The boy shied as far from McCoury as he could but made no attempt to run. He didn’t shuffle backwards, though he did press his back into Abigail’s shoulder. She stroked his upper arm and continued to hold her cheek against the side of Ethan’s head. Mathew couldn’t make out a single word she murmured to his son.
The giant of a man reached into his shirt pocket and extended a peppermint stick. “You’re a shy little one, Ethan. Of course, I’m awful big. Might have something to do with you being so shy.” McCoury’s voice softened, and he seemed to be making himself appear as small as possible.
It was more the Union blue shirt McCoury wore, but Mathew wasn’t about to mention that, though maybe it was the man’s size. Abigail wasn’t holding Ethan as tightly as before, and if he wanted to run, he could have broken free with ease. Ethan was obviously
frightened, but not out of his mind with terror.
McCoury didn’t retract the confection. “You can have this. I have a lot more. Miss Abby didn’t tell you that I own the candy store in town, did she?”
Ethan didn’t lift his head, but his eyes rolled up toward the red-and-white-striped stick. He extended a trembling hand to the offered treat but pulled back before his fingers closed on it.
McCoury said, “I’ll bet your pa will tell you it’s okay. That is if you ate all your supper. You did eat all your supper, didn’t you?”
Ethan’s head jerked up to his father. Mathew nodded. The boy’s wide-eyed gaze slid to Abigail. He didn’t need to be able to hear what she said. With the encouraging smile and indistinct murmur for Ethan, he would bet a month of Sundays she was giving him permission to take the offered peppermint stick.
Jealousy flared, white-hot and unreasoning. What was so special about Abigail Bailey—no, it wasn’t Bailey. She was his wife, whether or not they ever stood in front of that preacher. So, what was so special about Abigail Knight that she had earned more of his son’s trust in a few scant hours than he’d been able to garner in six months? Mathew stepped back, attempting to tamp down that ugly emotion.
Chapter Nine
Abigail caught Mathew’s step backward out of the corner of her eye. Without breaking the contact of her cheek against the side of Ethan’s head, she directed her attention to Mathew. A furrow marked his brow with the narrowing of his eyes, while a tension of some sort clenched his jaw and stiffened his shoulders.
Ethan shoved his hand toward the peppermint stick and took it from Yancy. Abigail murmured, “Can you tell Mr. McCoury thank you?”
“Thank you.” Little more than a whisper and with his head bent to the ground, she wondered if anyone could hear Ethan.
Yancy patted the boy’s shoulder. Ethan shied into Abigail’s encircling arms but didn’t attempt to escape. Mathew’s harsh intake of breath went unnoticed by Ethan and Yancy, or so Abigail hoped. If Yancy did notice, he made no mention of it.
“Tomorrow, if it’s all right with your pa and Miss Abby, one of them can bring you to my candy store. I have a job for you and for Abe, Miss Molly’s boy.”
“What job?” Mathew demanded.
Abigail snapped her head to Mathew with the growl evident in his voice. Yancy chose not to respond to the fierce protectiveness radiating from Mathew. The man Abigail often thought of as a gentle giant uncoiled his great height and stood. “It’s actually something to get Abe out from underfoot. This little man here, he’s the only kid even close to Abe’s age. He’s a normal, active little boy, but that makes it kinda tough for Molly to run her restaurant.”
“Abe is good boy, just very curious,” Abigail explained for Mathew. She looked into Ethan’s face and smiled. He clutched the peppermint stick as if not entirely sure what to do with it. “It’s candy, Ethan. You eat it.”
“He’s never had candy, that I know of.” Defensiveness shaded Mathew’s voice.
“Been some tough times,” Yancy said. “When folks is trying to keep body and soul together, a bit of candy for a little one isn’t as important as keeping them fed.”
Tough times would be an understatement for a lot of the people Abigail knew. The fraying cuffs, missing button, and patched elbows of Mathew’s frock coat spoke of the hardships visited on him, and by extension, Ethan.
She rose to her feet, but left a light hand on Ethan’s shoulder, a manner to reassure him there was no danger. “Times will improve. They already are. Look at everyone—I haven’t seen this many smiles in I don’t know how long.”
“Seems the only one around here not smiling is you, Doc.” Yancy nudged Mathew with an elbow. “If you’re not going to dance with this pretty lady, I’m sure going to.”
“Mr. McCoury!” Heat flooded Abigail’s face. Other than the protest of her neighbor’s name, she couldn’t force another word free. She risked a glance up at Mathew. Something shifted in the depths of his dark eyes and the color warmed.
“I brought her here to dance with her.” Mathew’s gaze drifted to Ethan. “I just don’t—”
“Ethan, see those benches over there?” Yancy bent to the boy, holding one hand out and with his other hand pointed in the general direction of several bales of hay, strategically positioned along the perimeter of the dance floor and covered with bright cloth to protect the more delicate fabric of ladies’ skirts. “What do you say you and I go sit over there while your pa dances with this pretty lady here?”
The peppermint stick in Ethan’s hand quivered when his small fingers tightened around it. He looked at his father—Abigail saw Mathew’s head dip in approval—and then at the benches and lastly to Abigail.
“We’ll be right where you can see us, Ethan, I promise,” she said.
A half smile creased his small face. That seemed to be enough of an assurance for him. He took Yancy’s outstretched hand and only glanced back once.
“He’s never even considered walking away from me until today.” Mathew turned to a side with a sharp inhalation. “He called you momma.”
“I think he was trying to tell us it was bad men in blue uniforms who hurt his mother.” As much as she wanted that to be what Ethan intended, she couldn’t acknowledge that longing. Not with the taut edge in Mathew’s voice. She took his right hand into both of hers, willing him to look at her. “He can just be a little boy here. No worries. No cares or concerns. You gave him a reason to trust Yancy, so he could be brave and go with him.”
The anguish lining his features when he looked at her tore into her heart. She waited for him to break the silence. His head turned to the hay bales where Yancy and Ethan sat. “He couldn’t possibly remember his mother. Or that I’m his father. He just knows me as the person who took him out of that orphanage.”
“He knows he can trust you, and for Ethan, that’s enough.”
“The first time I saw him, he was just a few days old, and I was lost. He had me held tight in that tiny little fist.” Mathew dropped his head then gradually brought his gaze to her. “I didn’t even know his mother had been killed or that he was in an orphanage until the war was over. I went to every orphanage in Georgia. It took me over a year and a half to find him.”
“But you found him. You didn’t stop looking for him until you did find him. And, since he’s been with you, he’s learned he can trust you.”
Muffled applause reached them as the music of one dance ended.
“This is not taking you to that dance.” In the interlude between dances the low murmur of voices underscored the rhythmic croaking from the rain frogs. Her breath caught when Mathew extracted his hand from hers and raised it to her cheek. Without breaking eye contact, he tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. Mathew should have been able to hear how rapidly her heart pounded.
Isaac Iverson’s deep bass voice boomed across the distance. “Pick your partner for the Virginia Reel.”
As determined as Mathew was to keep his injury and left hand hidden, Abigail inwardly sighed. This wouldn’t be a dance—
“May I have the honor of partnering with you for the reel, Mrs. Knight?”
“No.”
An immediate, cold distance filled his expression. She rounded her palm over his shoulder and added, hoping to undo the misunderstanding of her quick answer, “I’ll dance with you if you ask me with my given name, Mathew.”
The slow smile lifting the corners of his mouth warmed the cool distance from his dark eyes. The same warmth invaded Abigail’s chest and filled her arms with a strange impulse to wrap themselves around his neck. He sketched a shallow but still very formal bow. “Will you dance with me, Abigail?”
SEVERAL DANCES LATER, Abigail was out of breath. Mathew escorted her over to Ethan and Yancy. Again, he cut a formal bow, and then said, “I’ll find some punch for you.”
Yancy snorted. “Downright stiff-shirted, there, Doc, especially considering little Button here and me were betting each other if you w
ere going to kiss your bride. Looked to me like you almost did a few times.”
Surely her cheeks were blistering as hot as they felt. Abigail couldn’t even force a reprimand from her throat. The recollection of Mathew’s hand in the middle of her back to pull her closer into him during the waltz warmed her further.
Mathew hiked up a brow and sent a smile in her direction that would have caught the tinder dry woods on fire if he’d aimed it in that direction. “Being a Yankee an’ all, you might not know this, but a Southern gentleman never kisses and tells. Besides, I don’t want my bride to run afoul of Preacher Grisson, again.”
Deep booming laughter broke from Yancy. “Since you’ve been so generous with your counsel, Doc, let me offer you some. Avoid the punch bowl the sheriff is guarding. She tends to fortify it with either homebrewed or Oh, Be Joyful.”
Mathew snapped his head in Victoria’s direction. “You have a woman sheriff?”
Abigail nodded, while Yancy grinned from ear to ear. “Ain’t a soul around here brave enough to tell Victoria English she can’t be sheriff. Her daddy turns a blind eye to her total disregard of his no-alcohol rule for his congregation.”
Paul Grisson turned a blind eye to a lot of things, Abigail bitterly mused, then pulled herself up short. Grisson’s insistence that his congregation avoid alcohol started shortly after Jonathan left. He also pushed through the rule banning public displays of affection after Victoria’s husband was gone. How much of that was because he was brave once Jonathan’s overbearing presence was no longer in Brokken or was it a belated attempt to protect others from what his daughter had suffered?
“Times have been tough.” Mathew repeated Yancy’s observation of a little while earlier. “If you will excuse me, I’ll go find some punch that isn’t spiked.”
When Mathew was out of earshot, Abigail leaned closer to Ethan. “Didn’t I tell you Mr. McCoury was a good man?”
