by Tara Johnson
Soldiers paired up and carried stretchers between them, ducking and weaving through the melee to rescue wounded men. Not more than twenty feet from her, the runners spirited away a wounded soldier whose face had been nearly ripped off. On her left, a fellow soldier saw it and vomited.
Don’t look. Load and fire. Load and fire.
She had just hunkered back down to reload when George screamed to her right. His body was propelled backward as if he were nothing more than a shirt on a clothesline, flapping helplessly against a blast of wind.
“George!”
She heard the scream, only faintly realizing it was her own. The earth trembled beneath her as she scrambled to his side.
He coughed and moaned, “Chest . . .”
Not even bothering to look, she hooked his arm around her neck and dragged him toward the surgical tent. Dirt and rock exploded around her. Her muscles burned like fire as she slunk across the battered, torn earth, heaving his deadweight with her.
Silence suddenly eclipsed the tumult and she knew there was little time.
Throwing herself over George’s limp form, she felt the ground fall away beneath her. Her body exploded in pain as she was dropped back to the ground.
A piercing whistle whined in her ears and she blinked. She could see bursts of gunfire from muskets and rifles, saw trees bend and snap. She could see the shouts forming on mouths and lips, but no sound issued forth. Everything seemed to have slowed, like her body was trapped in molasses.
The cannonball had landed far too close.
Shaking off the numb, dizzying sensations, she hooked George’s arm around her neck once more and trudged forward, every muscle in her body screaming for relief. Sound, shouts slowly filtered back into her consciousness.
The dirt-sprayed canvas tent soon flapped before her eyes. With a cry of relief, she lugged George inside and collapsed, thankful for the strong hands that lifted her burden onto a waiting cot.
She could hear the surgeon issuing commands to a nurse, his voice faint. “Bullet to the chest . . .”
“Lucky to be alive.”
“I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Fearing her friend was close to the end, she finally found her footing despite her quivering legs and pulled herself upright. She moved to his side, but instead of the blood-soaked chest she expected to see, George was actually awake. Pale but . . . smiling?
Blinking, she looked at his exposed chest. A giant red mark covered his heart. Dark bruises were already forming.
A voice near her ear startled her. “You the man who brought him here?”
Nodding dumbly, she stared at the surgeon, wondering at the odd smile that ghosted his mouth. “I don’t understand. I thought George took a bullet to the chest.”
“He most assuredly did. Providence, however, was looking out for him.” The doctor fumbled through George’s discarded shirt and pulled out a small book. A pocket Bible—with a bullet lodged squarely in its middle.
Gasping, she looked back at George’s sweaty, powder-streaked face. He offered a weak grin. “I promised Ma I’d keep my Bible in my shirt pocket at all times.”
Cassie’s breath was light with amazement. “Trust you to take Proverbs 3 literally.”
“What does it say?” His voice was raspy.
She felt herself smile. “Verses 1 and 2 say, ‘My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments: For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.’”
He laughed and then moaned, curling his legs up to his torso.
George would live.
Before she could think past that fact, stretcher poles were thrust into her hands and she was ordered to retrieve the wounded.
The task suited her fine because, after today, she didn’t know if she could ever again point a gun and pull the trigger. Such a feat might be forever beyond her.
Chapter 7
GABE’S THROAT CONSTRICTED AS HE STOOD STILL, trying to comprehend the magnitude of the carnage laid out before him.
It was as if God’s hand had reached down and fisted earth, trees, and people and uprooted all, yanking them from the solid earth with a rip and then dropping them with a sudden fury.
Bloody bodies lay in mangled heaps. Limbs were twisted; bones jutted at odd angles. Cannonballs, bullets, minié balls, fire—all of it had plowed through the earth, leaving only shattered, charred remains behind.
A thin haze of smoke still hovered over the gruesome landscape, filling his nose with its acrid stench. Weak cries drifted from those yet defying the clawing arms of death.
Gabe ducked below the black curtain and peered through the lens before snapping the plate into place for exposure. He repositioned the cumbersome camera and tripod, lugging them over stone and scarred soil, between blood and limbs, exposing plate after plate as fast as he dared.
Don’t think. Look, frame, drop in the plate, remove the lens cover, count. . . . One, two, three, four, five, six, seven . . .
Over and over he repeated the motions, and with every plate he exposed, the nauseating sights before him embedded deeper into his soul, wedging like splinters in his mind.
When his plate box was full, he wiped the sweat from his temple and kneaded his eyes with the balls of his palms. For a moment the horror disappeared. From his eyes at least. Not his heart.
Heaving a shallow breath, he scanned the scarred ground a final time, looking for anything he might have missed. A few ambulance soldiers remained, weaving through the carnage for the last of the living.
He walked slowly toward the closest one and lifted a hand in greeting when the soldier looked up. Private Turner. The weary man’s face was streaked with grime, but his eyes revealed gratefulness for a moment to catch his breath.
“Need any help?”
Turner rubbed his eyes with slim fingers and shook his head. “Thank you, no. I think we got them all, but I keep coming back. Looking. Hoping . . .”
Gabe nodded, his throat thick. “I’ll help you.”
Abandoning the stretcher in the middle of the field, they walked. Checking necks for pulses. The rise of a chest. A muted moan. But all was still and silent.
As he rose from the form of a fallen soldier whose right arm was completely missing, Gabe sighed, but his gaze latched on to something he’d missed. A scrap of yellow in the midst of the field of death.
Moving toward the sight, he felt a warmth unfurl in his chest that eased the heaviness. “Well, I’ll be.”
Turner came to his side. “What is it?”
He pointed, a faint smile lifting his lips. “Look.”
There in the bloody, trampled field cradling mangled bodies, a lone dandelion stood, its bit of yellow a single ray of sunshine amid misery and decay.
Kneeling down, he lightly ran his fingertips over its feathery top. The leaves were wilted but the flower was mostly unscathed. A memory of his mother pierced the shadowed fog of his mind.
“I was only a boy of seven or eight, walking with Mither down the street in New York.” He could yet hear the way her boots had clicked sharply against the cracked pavement. Could still smell the smoke from fireplaces, the spicy sausage hanging in the butcher shop, the scent of baking bread mingled with the stink of refuse and urine as they passed alley after alley. Her brown skirt swished against his side when she’d halted.
“I remember her stopping to point at a flower. She said, ‘Look there, Gabriel. What do you see?’ I squinted and saw a dandelion popping through the cracked concrete of an insurance building. ‘It’s a flower.’” He smiled softly at the memory. “‘Aye,’ Mither said. ‘A dandelion. Do you know what that means?’ I had no idea. She pulled me closer and said, ‘Wherever dandelions bloom in mortar, it reminds us hope is still alive.’”
Turner sucked in a breath and knelt beside him. “How did it survive all this?”
“I don’t know. But where dandelions bloom, hope remains.”
Cassie tugged a bleeding soldier onto a torn litter. Ba
lls of fire exploded overhead. Soldiers were flung backward as gunfire pelted their bodies. And then she heard it.
Her father. Laughing. Not the sweet, pleasant sound she vaguely remembered and had clung to from her early youth, before the bottle had completely snuffed out the remnants of gentleness from his soul. No, this was a dark, deranged laughter . . . a mirthless sound that dripped poison.
Through the hail of flying bullets, smoke, and plunging bayonets, she could see him. He stood in the midst of the screaming Rebels, his eyes glittering with something that caused her courage to scatter like dust.
She dropped the dying soldier’s weight at her feet and turned to flee, her steps slow and thick. He was chasing her, his laughter growing louder, shriller. Why wouldn’t her feet move faster?
Her boot snagged on something. A gnarled tree root? A rock? Her body pitched forward. The loamy earth rose up to meet her. She was falling, falling . . .
She gasped, her senses roaring to life in the darkness.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Her heart beat a staccato rhythm as she gulped for air. Or was it the dull thump of deadly cannon fire? She couldn’t tell reality from her nightmares anymore.
It was only a dream. Only a dream . . .
Cold sweat clung to the binding around her chest, and she lay still in the tent listening to the snores and steady breathing of the other soldiers. Usually she volunteered for cleanup duty or some such chore when the others retired, allowing her to slip in unnoticed well after the men were deep in slumber. A simple safeguard to keep her identity from being discovered.
After the past harrowing days, however, her body could take no more. As soon as the call to sleep had sounded, she’d crawled into the tent and collapsed on her bedroll. She’d snagged several hours of rest, but the screams of dying men, the hellish screech of the Rebels, and the dull pounding of cannons filtered into nightmares.
Yet despite the horrors now firmly ensconced in her heart and mind, it was not the piercing thrust from a Confederate bayonet that had awakened her, nor was it the terror of dragging man after man away from the fields of death, watching their mangled bodies and hearing their cries for mercy. No, the horror that had awakened her was the thought of her father—mocking, hurting. Maiming her battered heart all over again.
She rolled onto her side and curled into a ball as a thick knot lodged itself in her throat. The bedroll was scratchy against her cheek.
She had traded one hell for another.
Clutching a fistful of the blanket, she thought of her tattered quilt at home and for the first time missed it to the point of aching.
She had abandoned Mother to her husband’s cruel, slicing temper. And Granny Ardie—who was watching over her? Certainly not her son-in-law, who was only interested in gambling and his cursed bottle.
What had Granny endured when they’d discovered Cassie was gone? Shock? Betrayal?
A broken shard of Father’s belligerent laugh sliced through her tumbling emotions, resurrecting the nightmare once more.
Cassie pinched her eyes shut, but a new thought invaded. Had he had taken out his fury on Mother or Granny? Surely he had been enraged. She had rarely seen him calm or rational. If he’d hurt them because of her own foolish decision . . .
She swallowed and tucked her face against her bent arm. Growing up, she’d always thought her family was normal. How wrong she’d been. How different from Gabriel’s. When his mother saw dandelions, she told him of hope. When Cassie had made a crown of dandelions as a child, Father had yanked it from her head with a growl, snagging threads of her hair in the process, and flung it to the ground. Remnants of the yellow petals remained crushed between his fingers as he waved his fist through the air.
“Weeds, Cassandra. You’re not a princess, and you never will be. Get those fool notions out of your head. You’re playing dress up with a crown of weeds.”
Her throat thickened. He was right. Look at her now.
The memory of Granny’s cracking voice whispered in her ear, as clear as if she were present. Amid the soft snores of exhausted soldiers, Cassie could picture her opening the pages of her worn Bible and reading the passage aloud. “‘And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you. . . .’”
Forgive her father? The thought rankled, rubbing her raw heart until it felt shredded.
Forgive her father. Forgive herself. Both thoughts stung. Both felt impossible.
How to rid herself of the hurt? The guilt and anger? She was weary of dragging the heaviness with her. Tired of the nightmares, yet she had no idea how to grasp freedom from the pain.
God, how do I forgive such a man? How do I forgive my father?
Chapter 8
JULY 26, 1861
WEST OF WASHINGTON, DC
The banjo plinked a meandering tune as the regiment sprawled throughout the camp. Some wrote letters home. Others scattered into the meadow beyond, enjoying a leisurely game of baseball during the late-afternoon lull. A few had begun preparations for the evening meal while another group stood on picket duty, wilting under July’s oppressive heat.
Gabe studied the pasteboards in his hand and yawned, the heat rendering him drowsy and limp.
Selby grinned triumphantly and threw down his hand. “Flush, boys. Pay up.”
The men let out a chorus of groans and dropped their own cards in disgust.
“How many does that make for you, Selby? Three wins?”
“Four.” The swarthy soldier smiled, his eyes twinkling. “But who’s counting?”
Chuckling, Gabe opened his knapsack and tossed Selby the required payment . . . a square of hardtack.
Selby caught the unforgiving portions being tossed toward him with a laugh. “Weeks, your hardtack ain’t full of maggots, is it?”
Weeks stretched lazily and scratched his head. “Not last I checked. I wouldn’t know—not since we’ve been camped out here for a few days enjoying salt pork and beans.”
Though the sandy-haired soldier appeared as relaxed as a cat in sunshine, Gabe knew many Union soldiers had defected completely or spent their free hours drinking rotgut in the local saloons. It was as if the entire Union army had the starch taken out of its resolve and flailed miserably as a result.
The quiet time had allowed him to develop the photographs of Bull Run in haste and deliver them by hand to Brady’s Washington gallery, a luxury that might not be afforded in the future. Brady had seemed pleased with the prints until he saw the one of the poor soldier whose legs had been broken and pulverized into bone flecks and blood as he lay in the middle of the combat field.
Shrouded by a somber cloud, Brady pulled the spectacles from his nose, the lines deepening around his eyes. “Such things no man should ever behold . . . or suffer.”
Gabe blinked away the memory. He’d sought something noble to capture, some remnant of life, but there had been nothing in that wasteland of scarred earth save for the lone dandelion.
Swallowing the knot in his throat, he forced a smile when Cooper asked if he was in for another round. He nodded toward Turner, who sat propped against the trunk of a wide tree. “Only if Turner will join us.”
Briggs guffawed as he shuffled the wrinkled pasteboards. “Turner ain’t nothing but a young pup. He ain’t joined us in a game yet.” His dark beard tugged upward as he smiled. “Smart lad. He knows we would strip him down to his drawers given half a chance.”
As the others laughed, Turner took his thumb and lifted the brim of his kepi. Those bright-blue eyes of his sparked. “If you’re playing for hardtack and end up losing your drawers, you got bigger problems than being whipped by a pup.”
Gabe grinned at the uncharacteristic barb from the normally quiet fellow. The others elbowed Briggs, who tossed Turner a challenge.
“Want me to deal you in or are you too busy napping?”
Straightening his hat, Turner slid him a lopsided smirk. “Deal me in. Losing hardtack won’t m
ake me lose a wink of sleep.”
The slip, slip, slip of pasteboards from Briggs’s fingers was a comforting sound among the chirp of birds and buzzing bees. As each of them studied their cards, Weeks’s voice was soft. “How many do you think have deserted?”
Jackson grunted. “Too many.”
Turner lifted his eyes to the group. “Hopefully not for long.”
Pasteboards forgotten, Cooper leaned forward. “Why? What did you hear?”
Turner studied his cards. “I hear President Lincoln may have a new general for us.”
Selby’s eyes rounded. “Any word on who?”
Turner shrugged. “There’s a rumor going around that it might be George McClellan.”
Briggs whistled low. “Is it wrong to pray such a thing comes true?”
“Nothing wrong with wanting to see our troops drilling and fighting again instead of seeking out loose women and whiskey.”
Cooper snorted. “Both are good company, but whiskey hasn’t won a war, and certainly women never did.”
Gabe startled when Turner flipped down his cards with a smug flourish. “Can anyone beat a full house? No, of course not. I can tell since you’ve all been displaying your pasteboards while I shared the latest piece of news.”
Gabe glanced down at his hand. Sure enough, his normally guarded cards were tilted forward, forgotten in his fingers. Looking around the group, he saw the other men’s necks redden as they realized they’d made the same mistake.
With a sly grin, Turner stood. “Keep your hardtack, gentlemen.” He turned on his heel to leave but looked back over his shoulder. “Whether it be whiskey, women, or young pups, if I were you, I wouldn’t underestimate any of the three.”
He left with a confident swagger as the men burst into laughter.
Gabe leaned over the creek running south of the camp and splashed cool water over his heated face, relishing the respite from summer’s sticky warmth. Water dripped from his chin. He ran his fingers over his prickly jaw. The stubble was long enough to warrant calling it a beard. He should shave soon or pick up arms with the scruffy soldiers he trailed.
