by Tara Johnson
Weeks motioned to another soldier sitting farther back than the rest. “What about you, Turner? You want your likeness made for anyone?”
The slim, quiet fellow continued cleaning his gun with a rag, barely looking up. “Nah. Ain’t got no sweetheart.”
Briggs guffawed. “You should meet O’Keefe’s sister then. Homely little thing, but she sure can cook.”
O’Keefe glared at Briggs, his eyes narrowed into slits. “Don’t say my sister is homely.”
“Why not?”
“Because she looks just like me!”
Gabe studied the quiet fellow ignoring the group of unruly men. Turner, was it? “You have a family member who would treasure your photograph? Your mother, perhaps?”
Turner lifted his head, his face shadowed by the brim of his navy kepi, and studied Gabe for a long moment before dropping his eyes back to his gun. “Nope.”
George laughed. “Trying to get Turner to talk is like trying to get blood from a turnip. He’s a man of few words.”
Briggs grunted. “True enough. And the best sharpshooter in our troop.”
Gabe glanced back to the somber Turner. “Is that so? I want to be on your good side, then.”
The ghost of a smile curved the soldier’s mouth.
“How did you get so good at shooting?”
Turner’s eyes twinkled. “I don’t spend all my time jawin’.”
At the men’s howls, Gabe joined in. Warmth filled his chest. For the first time in years, he felt as if he belonged.
What a strange, amiable sensation.
Cassie threw the remains of the bitter chicory coffee into the grass and wiped out her cup with the cuff of her coat sleeve while watching the stranger with a wary eye. He moved among the men with ease, sticking out like a sore thumb in his brown trousers and white shirt. No kepi, either.
What were the generals thinking allowing some untrained novice to follow them straight into battle? And a photographer at that? War was no place for sweet pictures of lovesick soldiers. He was going to slow them down . . . or get them all killed.
Irked, she turned away as his low baritone drifted through the air. Briggs, Weeks, Meade, even George had cottoned to him as if they were long-lost friends.
Squelching the irritation blooming in her chest, she stood and, grabbing her rifle, walked to her tent, determined to get a few hours of sleep. The Rebels might engage them tomorrow and she needed to rest up.
Especially if her job entailed protecting not only her comrades, but a talkative photographer as well.
Chapter 5
“I’M GOING TO EXPOSE THE PLATE. Remain completely still.”
Giving the soldier a final glance through the enormous lens, Gabe hovered under the black canvas. “One, two, three.”
He pulled the shutter free, letting light strike the sticky glass plate inside, and mentally counted off the seconds required for exposure. It wouldn’t be long. The sun was bright today, having chased off the rain and thick clouds. He grimaced when Weeks started to squirm. “Don’t move!”
The restless soldier stilled and, upon hearing Gabe call, “Finished,” blew out a thick exhale of air.
“It’s mighty hard holding still for so long, Avery.”
“I imagine it’s a bit easier if the subject doesn’t pose his body like a banty rooster.”
Weeks shot him a mock glare as the soldiers gathered around them snorted. “Priscilla won’t be complaining. Not when she can see my handsome face every day.”
Gabe smiled at their antics, knowing the playfulness was only a masquerade to calm their frayed nerves as they waited another day for the Rebels’ attack.
He wasn’t blind. He had witnessed the hushed whispers between the commanders. He had seen messengers delivering letters reported to have come from Washington. The men would be facing the fury in mere hours. If his camera provided them some kind of meager distraction from the severity of their task, he would gladly oblige. Tension hung over the trench-marked camp like pulled taffy.
“I’ll head into the darkroom and get these developed.”
Across the camp, Turner stared at his camera and tripod, his expression unreadable.
Raising his voice, Gabe shouted, “What say you, Turner? A photo?”
Turner shook his head and looked away as if embarrassed to be caught gawking.
Shrugging, Gabe lifted the cumbersome equipment, tugging it to the Whatsit while the soldiers returned to work, preparing their guns and cannons.
He smiled to himself. Priscilla was patiently waiting for Weeks’s handsome face. He’d best get to work.
Cassie ducked low as the scream of cannons split the air, her breath tight as the impact rumbled the ground like an earthquake. She squinted through the haze of gunpowder. To her right, Weeks was hunkered within the trench. The skin around his mouth was black from gunpowder. Sweat and dirt streaked his face.
Cassie tasted the grit between her own teeth. Taking a deep breath, she lifted herself above the trench, aimed at a Rebel locked in combat with one of her own, and pulled the trigger. The explosion burst in her ears but the man’s shriek of pain seemed far louder. Her heart brittled.
A bullet whizzed past her ear and she ducked low again. Dirt pelted her face. She blinked against the flecks burning her eyes.
The assault had come at daybreak. Golden streaks of butter had barely painted the sky when the scouts had sounded the alarms. An ungodly noise followed not long after . . . screeches like a horde of demons unleashed from their chains. The hair on the back of her neck had prickled. The terrifying shrieks intensified as the gray backs topped the hill and opened fire.
It had been chaos ever since.
A scream sounded to her left. George?
She whirled. No, not George. A soldier farther down had been clipped in the shoulder. His cries of pain pierced the air just before another cannon howled overhead.
Bedlam pressed in on all sides. Smoke and blood filled every pocket of air, every corner of earth. Each time cannon fire fell into silence, the screams of wounded and dying men crowded in, their wails intensifying into a roar.
Hands shaking, Cassie fumbled for another powder cartridge and ripped it open. Spitting the residue of black powder from her mouth, she finished loading and turned when Briggs yelled from farther down the trench.
“Turner, cover me!”
She nodded. The big man stood and fired. She pointed her own gun and took out a Rebel approaching from his right.
Briggs ducked back into the trench and grinned, his teeth stained black. “We got ’em both. I owe you one!”
Cassie yelled back over the whizzing bullets and crash of cannon thunder. “You sure do!”
Briggs laughed, his eyes bright. He was in the thick of it and had never seemed more alive.
“Turner!”
Cassie whirled to see Captain Johnston yelling from behind the fortifications. Crouched low, she eased from the trench, half-running to his side as he shouted commands.
“Yes, sir?”
His face was sweaty as he turned to her, his jaw tight. “Turner, we got some Rebs in a sniper position from the rocky terrain above. I need a man willing to climb through that mess of trees behind us and pick them off.”
Throwing her gun over her shoulder, she nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Captain Johnston clapped her on the shoulder. “Good man. Take them out!”
Another boom of cannon fire. A shrill whistle. An explosion to her left. She stumbled to regain her footing as the impact tilted the ground beneath her. Captain Johnston shouted more commands, his barks drowned out by another roaring cannon.
Using the smoke for cover, she ran hard and fast to the thick copse of trees behind their trenches. Breath burned her lungs as she hastily scanned the best option. It must be high enough to see, easy to climb yet within range.
Spying the desired spot, she hoisted herself up, climbing limb over limb. Her muscles strained. The rifle swinging from its strap on her shoulder pounded her
back with every jostling step.
The screams of pain ripping through her regiment hastened her steps until she sat perched high in a majestic maple. Thankful for the leaves hiding her position from the enemy, she tore open another powder cartridge and prepared her gun. This was no different than all those times on the farm when she’d clipped pesky critters that crept around the chicken house.
Father had been so proud the first time she’d shot a raccoon lurking near the coop. The gun had seemed heavy in her nine-year-old hands as she sighted down the barrel. Father’s voice had been unusually steady that day, his eyes clear and focused.
“There now, Cass. Breathe, aim, and squeeze the trigger.”
The deafening noise had paled in comparison to the feel of the gun ramming into her shoulder, but Father’s shout of delight chased away the trembling in her middle.
“Perfect shot! Better than any boy, I’d say.”
Father’s eyes had twinkled and Cassie had beamed at his praise. If only he were always so carefree and kind. But then he would pick up the bottle again and the father she knew vanished, swallowed by a monster.
Boom, boom, boom . . .
The cannons whistled with eerie foreboding before blowing dirt, rocks, and men into the air as if they were nothing more than rag dolls. The trees not more than thirty feet away were splintered and riddled with shot, their limbs snapped and twisted.
She wiped away a thick trickle of sweat from her eyes and scanned for the Rebel snipers. Blasted smoke made it difficult to see.
Was that movement from a rocky outcropping across the way? Lifting her gun, she watched the shadow shift. It was definitely a sniper . . . and he was targeting her regiment.
Breathe in; breathe out. Her heart hammered as her vision narrowed to a point. She squeezed the trigger. The limb she sat on swayed with the kick of the gun. The dark form crumpled from his rocky stronghold. A surge of relief and something altogether indefinable flooded her veins.
She scanned again, reloaded, and narrowed her eyes when a burst of gunpowder came from the trees opposite her own position. Another sniper.
This one would be tricky, tucked as he was in the refuge of tree limbs. Just like herself. If she took a shot and missed, it wouldn’t take him long to ascertain her position and cut her down like a scythe through grass.
The pillar of air in her lungs burned as she remained entirely still, waiting . . .
A screech shivered the air. She watched in disbelief as a Union cannonball slammed into the tree holding her prey, snapping off the top half like it was nothing more than a twig. The sniper fell to his death in a whoosh of cracking limbs.
Exhaling heavily, she forced down the panic clawing her throat. She was safe. For the moment.
An ominous chuckle sounded below the tree. She sucked in a breath at the sight of a gray-clad soldier waving a deadly-looking knife at someone, circling him as a bobcat would his prey. How did a Confederate get so far into their camp? And whom was he taunting with that infernal knife?
Squinting, she bit her tongue until she tasted blood. The Rebel was threatening the photographer.
Gabriel stood still, never letting his eyes leave the soldier murmuring his vile threats, yet his whole body was tensed.
With a shout, the Confederate knifed the air, attempting to slice open Gabriel’s belly, but he lunged away from the dagger with a speed that stole her breath. The enraged soldier advanced again but missed, and Gabe never stumbled.
Realizing she could help, she lifted her gun to her shoulder and took aim. With a sizzle of powder and a deadly boom, the Rebel dropped dead. His blood pooled at the base of the tree. Gabriel panted and looked up.
A flash of more gray-clad soldiers from deeper in the woods snagged her attention.
Jaw tight, she reloaded and fired three times, watching in relief as the targets fell.
Knowing she had given her position away, she scrambled to descend before a bullet found her.
Before her feet had touched the ground, Gabriel muttered, “Boy, am I glad you were there.”
Heat burst from her lips. “What fool notion led you to think you could waltz up to the battlefield?”
He patted the smaller camera in his hands and blinked as if she were daft. “To get an impression, of course. That’s why I came.”
Turning from him with a growl, she ground out, “Get back to the Whatsit and stay there. Like we don’t have enough to do without saving your hide.”
Instead of obeying, he trailed behind her like a curious puppy. “I thank you. You saved my life. That was some mighty fancy shooting.”
“That was some mighty fancy dancing.”
His chuckle dissolved into a cringe when shells shrieked overhead. She ducked and clamped down the irritation as the photographer shadowed her every move. Crouching low to the ground, she sprinted as fast as she dared back to the trenches, dodging spraying chunks of wood, dirt, and rocks as more gunfire splintered the trees.
The Rebels were clipping them down like hail beating wheat into straw.
“Where are we going?”
Gabriel’s shout behind her only increased the crawling sensation mounting in her belly. She ignored him and ducked lower as a shell exploded nearby, almost splitting open the ground beneath her feet. Her teeth rattled.
Finally spying Captain Johnston up ahead, she saluted. “Snipers are dead, sir.”
Captain Johnston nodded curtly, the lines around his eyes and mouth pulled tight. “Good work, Private Turner.”
“Sir, I’ve got some bad news. While searching for more snipers, I discovered four more Rebels coming in from the east. One of them was preparing to slaughter Brady’s photographer here.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder to remind the captain of Gabriel’s pesky existence.
Captain Johnston’s dark eyes flickered from her face to the photographer’s and back again.
“Sir, the Confederates appeared to be moving in formation. The Rebels might well be flanking our side.”
The captain’s face grew pensive. He didn’t even wince when a soldier’s dying screams rent the air. After a long moment, he spoke. “We cannot hold our position if they have another contingent approaching from the east. I’ll call for retreat.” He scrubbed his face with blackened fingers. “Turner, I’m assigning you and Private Warner to sniper posts. Get high and take out any Rebs you see. Give us a fighting chance to retreat without more loss of life.”
“Yes, sir.”
Captain Johnston turned to the photographer with unrepressed annoyance. “And you! Get back to your contraption of a wagon and stay there!”
Gabe rubbed a hand over his bleary eyes and mentally shook away the fatigue settling around him like a shroud.
Two days of nonstop marching and the whole regiment of soldiers was now momentarily safe . . . safe and exhausted.
When the armies had ceased firing and the final cannons had been rolled away, he’d set up his camera and begun to work. The once-serene stretch of green, virgin pasture was now porous—a scarred, splintered, bloodied mess of mud and sticks. And the dead—mangled, twisted corpses already bloating—had haunted his every waking thought since.
Such waste. Such devastation. When the army ambulances rolled in to check for the wounded, he’d nearly wept at the somber fog that hung thick over the massacre. Few spoke. Those who did murmured in whispers, soft as the brush of angels’ wings. Even that felt sacrilegious somehow.
When he was satisfied he had properly captured what needed to be seen, he’d hidden himself in the dark comfort of the Whatsit and developed each plate, reliving the horrid, ugly images all over again. For the first time, he wished the chemicals used to expose the images were strong enough to make him pass out and forget. He’d not eaten or slept since.
Trailing the retreating army into safety was even more taxing. There was no rest and nothing for him to do but sit atop the wagon, lead the horses, and think. There had been far too much time to think.
It might have been differ
ent if he hadn’t known some of the men beforehand . . . if he hadn’t heard of their homes and parents, their hobbies and dreams and sweethearts and quirks and habits. But he had.
Soldiers like Benjamin Hunter, whose likeness he had captured only three days ago. Benjamin, with his easy smile and silly quips.
“Say, Avery, do you know why I can’t waltz? It makes me dizzy. But I suppose I must get used to it since it’s the way of the whirled.”
Gabe had even known Benjamin preferred milk in his coffee to sugar, and that his youngest sister had just finished her first nine-patch quilt. How was Benjamin to know Gabe would capture his likeness again, only this time his features would be bloody and mangled, his eyes staring vacantly at the sky?
Gabe slammed his eyes shut. He couldn’t scrub the image from his mind. Would that he could. How would Benjamin’s parents, his sister be able to bear the grief?
And now, with the night blanketing all of them and the camp quiet in exhausted slumber, he could not rest. Instead he stared at the dancing fire and sipped bitter coffee from a dented tin cup. Low murmurs of soldiers standing guard drifted toward him from time to time, but most of the camp was torturously silent.
“Can’t sleep?”
The low voice startled him. Private Turner was watching, a chunk of hardtack in his hand.
“No. Too much on my mind, perhaps. You?”
“The same.”
The quiet man settled opposite the fire and slowly chewed the unforgiving meal clenched between his fingers as he watched the flames flicker and sway. A single curl of acrid smoke rose high into the sky. Gabe blinked when the smoke twisted and changed. It was no longer gray tufts but souls leaving the earth behind and rising into heaven.
“You okay?”
Turner’s voice snapped him back to his senses with a start.
“I suppose. That was my first battle to photograph. It’s much to take in.”
Turner said nothing. Only chewed and stared into the fire.
Feeling ill at ease over his foolishness in the battle, Gabe cleared his throat. “I believe I should thank you again for saving my life.”
