Where Dandelions Bloom

by Tara Johnson

  Gabe offered a polite nod, which Gardner returned.

  Brady smiled. “I trust you were able to acquire the proper lens and tripod?”

  “Yes, sir. I have the necessary equipment and am ready to begin my training anytime.”

  Gabe squelched the guilt gnawing his middle. His elderly neighbor Jacob had insisted on the loan when he heard about Gabe’s lack of funds. Since the deaths of Gabe’s parents, he and Jacob had shared many evenings together in their crowded tenement building—playing checkers, drinking coffee, and sharing lighthearted conversation. Jacob was the grandfather he’d always longed for, which was why, when the elderly man had thrust a wad of bills at him with his blue-veined fingers, Gabe had initially refused.

  “I couldn’t possibly. This must be your whole life savings!”

  “Ach!” Jacob waved an impatient hand. “You’re like my own boy. Right proud of you I am. You have a talent with your magic box. You’ll not see an opportunity like this come again. Take it.”

  He shook his head. “I’ll not take your money. You need it.”

  “If you won’t take it because of your stubborn pride, then consider it a loan.”

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone. It could be a few months. Maybe longer if the fight drags out. I wouldn’t be able to check on you, see how you’re faring.”

  Jacob had cackled. “I got a whole building full of nosy neighbors to check on me. You’ll write, I’m sure.”

  Still Gabe had balked. “What if I fail? What if nobody buys my photographs? You will have lost all that money because of my inadequacy. And my job. It’s taken me years to work my way up from unloading ship cargo and being a dock rat. Sullivan has me keeping inventory of the freight and managing the new workers.” He cupped the back of his neck. “Tossing away that opportunity after all those years of work might be the most foolish thing I’ve ever done.” He stood and paced the length of the room. “That job won’t be waiting if I mess up this chance. With all the Irish and German immigrants roaming the docks, Sullivan will replace me like that.” He snapped his fingers with a frown.

  Jacob arched a white brow. “Planning to fail, then, are you?”

  “No, of course not. But—”

  “You’ll succeed. I have no doubt. If it makes you feel better, you can pay me back with interest. If you fail, it’s only money. I can’t take it to glory with me anyway.”

  Gabe pushed back the memory and focused on Mr. Brady, his head flooded with dizzying excitement. “I’m ready, sir.”

  Brady nodded. “Let’s get started, then.”

  Following the photographer into the preparation room lined with chemicals and glass plates, he inhaled a shaky breath.

  I’ll not fail you, Jacob. I promise I will not.

  DETROIT, MICHIGAN

  Cassie’s heart thumped like a thousand trampling feet.

  She stood in line at Fort Wayne, awaiting her turn with the medical evaluator.

  Thus far, escape from the farm had been easy. She’d snuck away in the early morning hours while the night was still black as tar. Binding her chest and donning Father’s trousers and shirt had been strange, but at least the baggy clothes were comfortable. She had to wear her own boots since none her size were to be had, but the worn shoes were roughened from farmwork. No one would think they were ladies’ boots.

  The hard part had been cutting off her mane of brown hair. Before she could back out of the plan, she’d grabbed a razor and shorn off the thick tresses.

  Cassie’s fingers instinctively rose to feel the sudden lack of sleek weight. Below the brim of her cap, only a few inches of her hair emerged, not even long enough to brush her shoulders.

  What did it matter? Mourning the locks would be less misery than life bound to Erastus Leeds.

  She’d left on foot and, hungry and exhausted, had arrived at Fort Wayne several days later and dutifully enlisted to fight for the Union. The commanders told her that until enough soldiers were mustered to fill her military company, the newly arrived soldiers were free to become acquainted with the fort while they waited. So she’d lingered, feeling lost among the swarm of new faces, curt words, and cold buildings.

  Until now, no one had questioned her disguise, but when one stern-faced commander told her the US War Department dictated all recruits must undergo a thorough physical examination, she had nearly retched.

  Would she be required to undress? The thought almost made her bolt from the line of chattering men. Surely the physician would know she was a woman, even without disrobing. Doctors could tell such things just by looking, couldn’t they?

  Please, God, don’t let him find out.

  Her heart pounded until she grew dizzy.

  “Next!”

  The bark made her jump. Realizing it was her turn, she walked into the small medical building on quivering legs. The structure was nothing more than a shed. She shut the door behind her and fought the urge to cast up her accounts. Running her clammy hands down her trousers, she took a deep breath of the stale air. The physician was scribbling something in a ledger.

  “Name?”

  She cleared her throat, afraid her nerves would emit nothing more than a tiny squeak. “Thomas Turner.”

  The physician scribbled some more. “Height?”

  “Five feet, six inches.”

  “You’re thin.”

  She lifted her chin. “I’m only eighteen. I reckon I’ll fill out.”

  The man lifted her wrist and turned it over, examining it. She held her breath. Could he tell?

  “A few calluses. What sort of living has this hand earned?”

  She resisted the urge to yank her hand away. “Until recently, I’ve been chiefly engaged in receiving an education and working a farm.”

  The physician shrugged and dropped her wrist, scribbling some more, the scratching sound scraping her nerves raw.

  “I don’t suppose your size matters much as long as you have a trigger finger, can carry a gun, and have enough teeth to tear open powder cartridges. At least three, to be precise.” The doctor frowned and narrowed his eyes at her. “You do have your teeth, correct?”

  “Yes, sir.” She opened her mouth to prove it.

  He grunted. “Are you in good health?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The doctor nodded and waved her away in dismissal. “You’re fit to serve.” He scrawled something on a clean sheet of paper, thrust it into Cassie’s hands, and yelled for the next recruit.

  As she stumbled out of the medical building, Cassie found herself trembling, a surge of giddiness pouring through her. She’d passed.

  Glancing down at the stiff paper clutched in her hand, she read the doctor’s hasty note.

  Thomas Turner: fit to serve as private for Company F, 2nd Michigan Infantry.

  Cassie relished her moment of triumph. Finally the tide was turning in her favor. All that remained was to take her oath of allegiance to the United States and she could disappear into the mass of soldiers streaming into the heart of the conflict.

  A niggling guilt gnawed at the edges of her heart. Mother. Granny. Surely they must think she’d abandoned them.

  She pushed the black thought away. No, not any more than the thousands of other soldiers had abandoned their families upon enlisting. Like them, she could defend the Union while she was here. The abolitionists who’d flooded Michigan had imparted the cruelties of slavery to her at a young age, and she planned to do her part for the cause.

  Or was she hiding behind it? Unease crept over her like a humid mist.

  She sobered. The coming months would determine her fortitude in nearly every way, but surely nothing could be as horrid as marriage to Erastus Leeds . . . or her father’s foul temper.

  Chapter 4

  JUNE 9, 1861

  NEAR WASHINGTON, DC

  Cassie slogged through the thick mud turning the road into a quagmire of glue. Sweat stung her eyes and ran in rivulets down her back, pasting her grimy shirt to her skin. She squinted th
rough the rain and grimaced against the fifty-pound pack strapped to her back. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but mud and a snaking trail of exhausted, blue-backed soldiers weaving through the woods.

  The June day was sweltering. Unbearably so. Shifting the soggy pack on her aching back, she stomped through the mire, her belly cramping with hunger. How long had they been marching? Hours? Days? One day seemed to bleed into another as they moved toward their destination, a place only the general knew.

  She could show no weakness. None. As of yet, no one had guessed she was a female. She was quiet and mostly kept to herself. The men assumed Thomas Turner was an aloof fellow. Proficient in his duties but quiet. Caked as she was in sweat and dirt day after day, she’d certainly lost whatever female softness she’d had before enlisting . . . if she’d ever possessed any at all. Her sisters had always teased her about her lack of interest in the feminine graces.

  Father had always wanted a boy. His vocal disappointment and irritation with four girls was continual until his wife grew round with her fifth child . . . the long-awaited male he’d bitterly grieved over not having.

  A boy he’d finally had, but the child had not lived. Father’s grief had been all-consuming. Cassie came along not long after, but she could not replace the boy he’d lost.

  She wiped away beads of sweat and rain from her eyes with the back of her grimy hand. If Father could only see her now, even he might mistake her for a boy.

  “Halt!”

  The command stopped the soldiers like a braking train. The shout filtered through the weary ranks . . . a short rest that would be followed by a push to build fortifications. This was the spot, then. The land where they would likely face the full force of the fiery rebellion.

  Since enlisting, the skirmishes she’d engaged in had been few. Nothing more than short-lived fights by small companies unwilling to face the full arsenal of the Union without a large contingent of soldiers backing them up.

  This would be different. Even through the drizzling rain, the air was charged with some kind of intangible spark. An anticipation as if the world were holding its breath.

  It made the monotonous weeks of drilling for endless hours seem a luxury. Early morning reveille, marching in columns, dressing the line . . . all of it sounded blessedly restful now, despite its tedium.

  Too much excitement was hard on the body.

  “Turner! You mind giving me a hand?”

  Cassie whirled to see George Hanover looking at her with desperate need. The cannon he had been pulling for miles was stuck, sinking into the muck of the road.

  Dropping her own pack, she slogged toward him and grasped the filthy rope encircling the cannon’s bearings.

  She counted, “One, two, three . . .”

  The two of them yanked and pulled in the incessant drizzle, muscles taut and screaming as they tugged it free, inch by inch. George’s neck was mottled red with the effort as they slowly made headway.

  Cassie hadn’t had much trouble adjusting to the rigors of military life. Born and raised on a farm, she had already earned her muscles. Upon joining the regiment, she was shocked so many of the city boys who had enlisted did not even know how to load their cartridges. When she had taught a handful of them how to load and care for their guns, the irony was not lost on her.

  A female teaching males how to fight. What a strange turn of events.

  Maintaining her disguise hadn’t been as difficult as she’d feared, especially since the soldiers went weeks without bathing and slept in the same grimy clothes they marched in day after day. If she was careful with her speech and mannerisms, perhaps no one would ever know.

  They lugged the cumbersome load to a drier spot and stopped, panting against their burning lungs. George looked up, narrowing his gaze to something at the rear of the snaking line of soldiers.

  “What is that?”

  Cassie followed his line of vision and frowned at the sight of an odd wagon ambling along behind the regiment. Its shape was peculiar. Much more boxlike than the average covered wagon. Smaller as well.

  She squinted. Though far away, she could tell the man perched atop the driver’s seat was not wearing a blue uniform, nor was he dressed in the garish red trousers of the Zouaves. The senators and congressmen who occasionally visited to boost morale would never have stooped to hauling a contraption like that through miles of slimy mud.

  “You think he’s one of those journalists from Washington?”

  Cassie frowned. “In that odd wagon? Seems like a fool’s errand if he is. Report on the war by trailing troops into battle and risk getting his head blown off?”

  George shrugged. “We’re risking the same.”

  The thought slammed hard. “True enough.” Sometimes she couldn’t help wondering if there was another way to escape marriage to that no-account snake.

  Squeezing her eyes shut, she almost shook her head. No. She was no longer Cassie Kendrick. She was Thomas Turner. If she had any hope of surviving the charade, she must erase, irrevocably and completely, all memories of the person she was before.

  George turned away from the approaching wagon and lifted the brim of his kepi, wiping a streak of mud across his forehead. “Come on. Let’s finish getting this Rebel chaser into place. Besides, I’m hungry.” The freckled fellow grinned. “A chunk of hardtack is calling my name.”

  Cassie chuckled under her breath. “Just remember you need enough teeth to tear open your powder cartridges. Hardtack does its best to make you lose the teeth you’ve got.”

  Thumping her on the back, George laughed. “I only need three. Two on top and one on bottom. I’ve still got plenty to spare.”

  Gabe scanned the soggy land stretched before him and attempted to squelch his frustration. The infernal drizzle was dampening his excitement.

  He could not risk damaging his camera in the rain, nor would the light prove sufficient for exposing the plates.

  “Patience, Gabriel. The Almighty has a hard time using those who keep running ahead o’ him. . . .”

  He smiled to himself. He could still hear his mother’s soft admonition murmured so many times when he’d been a squirmy, bursting, impatient mess of a child. In some ways, he still was.

  Surveying the scene, he could scarcely believe the tract of land had been transformed so thoroughly in the span of a day. The thick woods bordering the green pasture had been thinned. Felled oaks, maples, and pines had been turned into a fence of sorts, bracing cannons in place for the fight. A long, snaking trench had been dug, perfect for reloading cartridges while under fire. The entire place smelled of churned earth and loam.

  Where should he set up his camera on the morrow? He eyed the swell of a hill to his left that would provide an ideal view of the Union camp.

  He longed for a crisp photograph of the encampment . . . especially considering it would likely look much different after battle.

  The thought saddened him more than he’d anticipated.

  “Care for another cup?”

  Gabe smiled at the jovial man across the campfire. “Nah, any more and I’ll not be able to sleep a wink.”

  The other soldiers chuckled as they stared at the crackling flames dancing in the night’s stillness. Their chatter was light, but the sober reality of what lay in wait tomorrow smothered their spirits like a blanket. No one had dared utter their dark thoughts out loud.

  A bearded soldier named Briggs nodded toward Gabe. “I’m glad to know your purpose here. When I saw that contraption you were driving, I confess I was a bit worried.”

  Gabe fingered the rim of his empty tin cup. “What did you think my purpose was?”

  Briggs shrugged. “Don’t know. Anything I’m uneasy about, I tend to shoot first and ask questions later.”

  The men laughed and Gabe’s nervousness faded. This troop was a friendly sort.

  “Nothing but photographic equipment, I assure you.”

  Weeks grinned and scratched his thatch of straw-colored hair. “Me and some of t
he others have taken to calling your wagon the Whatsit—’cause not a blamed one of us knew what it was!”

  Gabe threw back his head and laughed at the good-natured ribbing. “The traveling darkroom is an oddity, to be sure. Despite its boxy shape, Mr. Brady spared no expense. The shelves even have locks to keep the chemicals from spilling.”

  Weeks leaned forward. “So you can take photographs of us?”

  “Certainly. Mr. Brady’s idea is to get a thorough and complete rendering of all aspects of the war.”

  The taste of coffee soured on Gabe’s tongue as he remembered Mr. Brady’s admonition before he’d left New York. “Capture the truth, Mr. Avery, in all its stark nakedness. The truth is often shocking, but its honesty is needed if we are to ensure a fracture in our glorious Union is never repeated.”

  The order seemed confining. Truth was important, naturally, but so was heroism and beauty. Why could he not also capture the gallant acts of the soldiers? Images that might blot out the ugliness of war?

  The men’s excited voices yanked him away from the turbulent thought.

  Weeks’s eyes brightened. “Could you take a small photo of me? For my sweetheart back home?”

  The others sitting close to him snickered and elbowed him in the ribs. His cheeks reddened. “At least I got myself a sweetheart, unlike some of you poor sods.”

  Gabe grinned. “I don’t mind doing that at all.”

  Soft crackles of the fire soothed the air as the men quieted.

  “Say, could I get one of those photographs too?”

  “Me too?”

  Gabe stretched his legs out before him. “Of course. Mr. Brady allowed some extra supplies for such things. The photos will be small, but I’ll be happy to take them. Perhaps the weather will permit it tomorrow morning.”

  The men smiled, light gleaming in their expressions as they sipped their bitter coffee. Some chattered about what their sweethearts would say to receiving their likenesses.