She should refuse … She should. Insist on him retiring for the night, that she would wake him when she could no longer stay awake. But the thought of how grueling the next several days were likely to be …
Her breath escaped her in a rush. “Very well. But please wake me if need be.”
His expression warmed in what was very nearly a smile.
She woke sometime in the night and came down to find him seated in Pa’s chair, asleep, head propped against the wall, arms folded, and legs outstretched. A few of the men stirred, and one groaned. She picked her way across the floor to that one, offered water, and on the way back to fetch a cup and pitcher, nudged Mr. Wheeler awake.
He shambled off to bed, leaving her to make the rounds, checking on their various charges.
For some reason, it all seemed far less terrifying this time. Perhaps because she knew she had help, if she needed it. Or because of those few men who seemed to be thriving after just a few days under her care, despite the two who had died.
Dawn came, and still it rained. She and Portius had discussed how best to feed everyone, and they’d agreed that Pearl would start a pot of gruel or soup and keep something simmering at all times. She’d just started in on the first batch of the day, and Portius had come in to help take men to the necessary and such, when children’s voices and that of a woman could be heard from outside.
Portius opened the door, and in came Lydia and her two children. With a cry, Pearl ran to embrace her as Clem lugged in a pair of bundles and carried them toward the stairs. “I heard you needed help,” Lydia said. “So I came. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Oh—no, of course not!” Pearl’s mind was already sorting details as she crossed back to the kitchen. The morning’s gruel would scorch if not stirred constantly. “You can all sleep in the attic with me.”
Lydia nodded, hanging her damp shawl and bonnet on pegs by the door, then shepherding the children through the room toward the kitchen. Her lips pressed firm as she glanced around.
“There are more in the barn,” Pearl said with a rueful laugh, then caught the other woman’s gaze as she approached. “I wouldn’t have asked you to come,” she said, softly.
Lydia’s warm golden gaze was steady. “You know I would have. And did.”
“How did you know?”
Lydia nodded toward Portius. “He came yesterday and told me you had need of more hands. Figured it was better than sitting at home by ourselves.” She angled her head toward the very full sitting room. “We missed being pressed into service, apparently because, well, either the house is too hidden or Travis didn’t know I was there.”
“You are always welcome, regardless,” Pearl breathed.
A real smile this time. “I know.”
Pearl hugged her again. “I … am sorry this has been so difficult for you.”
Lydia clung to her. “Your brother ain’t coming back, Pearl. I know this.”
“Doesn’t mean we don’t grieve,” she choked. But there was no time for lingering over tears.
The rain continued for days. Josh was glad to have plenty of work to keep himself busy, but with everyone mostly stuck indoors, each day felt interminable. And he lost count of how many times he’d go to do a task, reaching with both hands, only to remember that he only had … one.
And the weariness never quite went away. But still he pushed himself, inspired by the quiet, uncomplaining faithfulness of Miss MacFarlane. Her companion was likewise industrious, managing both the two children and assisting Miss MacFarlane in caring for the wounded. Josh could not figure whether Lydia was a friend or if the two were somehow related—and George MacFarlane did not seem the type to have taken advantage of a slave woman, although such things were common enough.
Two men died by the end of the first day. Another the second day. Three the third. Josh could see the toll it took in Miss MacFarlane’s face—Lydia’s as well—but the young woman visibly pulled herself together and kept working. Kept ministering to those who needed even the most menial tasks done for them.
Josh talked with all of them, gathered names and regiments and assorted injuries. None were from his own regiment, but there was another man from Ohio, just a couple of counties over from Josh’s family; one from Michigan; a handful from Kentucky; and the rest from Illinois and Indiana.
The range of injuries staggered him. One poor soul had half his jaw blown off, it seemed, which required someone to hold the side of his face closed while he chewed, oh so carefully, and swallowed. Likewise when he drank water. The blue eyes peering out of the mangled, bruised, powder-burned face were barely human, but the man clung to life and looked upon Josh with desperate, shamed gratitude for his assistance, since he also had sustained a shoulder injury which prevented him from performing this service for himself.
All of them shared bits and pieces of what they’d seen in the battle. All were hungry for news of Federal lines, but Portius would only say that Rosecrans remained holed up in Chattanooga, until the day Clem came running in while Josh was helping in the barn with the news that Federal reinforcements had arrived in Chattanooga. Portius asked whether the Confederate lines were on the move, and when Clem replied that he didn’t think so, the Negro retorted that it didn’t matter, then, and returned to work.
Clem heaved a sigh. Josh gathered cups and dishes to return to the house for washing, doing his best to appear as if he was minding his own business but watching the tall boy. After a moment, Clem lifted his head and caught Josh’s eye, looking for all the world as if he wanted to say more. Josh beckoned him near.
“You’ve no more word than that, regarding reinforcements?” he asked softly.
“Nah. I’ve asked around—I have. General Bragg is just sitting there, waiting for something to happen, and Longstreet ain’t happy because provisions are short.” He hesitated. “I think Travis practically stole what he brought us.”
It was likely not far from the truth.
“Newspapers, what I can get of ’em, are saying we’ve won a great victory. That we put the Federals on the run. ’Scuse me, of course, for saying so—I know they’s your side—”
Josh gave a dismissive wave.
“They’ve been working on getting the rail line from Catoosa Springs and Chattanooga Station rebuilt, but that’s been slow, especially with the rain.”
He nodded at the boy as if that was information he knew already. Of course, it stood to reason that the Rebs would rebuild what the Federals had torn down, so it came as no surprise.
Clem tipped his head, shaggy dark hair falling over one eye. They were more blue than his sister’s, Josh noticed. “What regiment were you in, again?”
“The First Ohio.” Josh had been in an all-fired hurry to rush out and enlist the moment the war broke out, despite both Mama and Pa advising him to wait and see how things went. He’d likewise rushed into each engagement his regiment took part in. Never hesitating. Never looking back.
And then there was Snodgrass Hill….
The boy still looked at him curiously. “What weapon did you carry?”
He couldn’t resist the smile this time and let himself relax into a more comfortable stance, shifting to set his good shoulder against the barn wall. “A Henry repeater, but of course I lost it. Had the chance to handle a Sharps carbine a time or two, though, and liked it.”
Clem’s eyes rounded. Obviously the renown of both the expensive lever-action repeating rifle—he’d spent all his savings on that one—and the new breechloader used by the cavalry, though merely a single-shot firearm, was already widespread.
The boy cut his gaze to the side, glancing around as if just now realizing that he was treating Josh in a most un-prisoner-like manner. Then he twitched his head to the side. “Come with me. I’ve something to show you.”
He led Josh around the edge of the barn’s main floor, into a side room holding an ancient set of harness and a cart with a broken wheel, standing up against one wall. He hefted the cart aside to reveal a ladder
built into the wall, then peered inquiringly at Josh. “Can you climb that, do you think? I’ve done it one-handed, carrying things.”
Josh smiled grimly at the challenge—and the boy’s calm acceptance of his new limitation. “I’ll do my best.”
Clem scampered up first, lifting a panel in the ceiling above and setting it aside, then wriggling through the opening. Josh followed after, slowly but with determination, and to his own faint surprise and intense satisfaction, he made it. He emerged into a dusty but surprisingly well-lit attic room. Outside the unshuttered window, rain pattered and ran from the barn eaves.
It was the floor that drew his attention, though. Josh pulled himself the rest of the way through and tried not to let his jaw sag.
The boy had an entire arsenal up here. Muskets and rifles lay beside revolvers and assorted piles of round shot and minié balls. A half-dozen sabers and combat swords rounded out the collection.
Josh let out a low whistle. “So that’s where you’d run off to, half worrying your sister to death.”
Clem’s expression was half chagrin, half pride. “I been scoutin’ the battlefields, yes. Ain’t no one else using these now.”
“I see that.” And he’d made no distinction between gray and blue, by the looks of it. “Are you planning on holding off the entire Union army, then?”
The boy’s face crinkled in a laugh that minded Josh so suddenly of Pearl that a pang resounded through his chest, like the concussion from a cannon.
Miss MacFarlane. Not Pearl.
As he’d already reminded himself dozens of times that week.
“Might at that.” He sobered then angled another glance at Josh. “So which of these looks like what you carried?”
“Well, let’s see.” Yes, there was a Sharps, over there in the far corner. He picked his way across the floor and lifted it. Careful to point the barrel toward the outside wall and away from Clem, he braced it between his elbow and side and checked to make sure it was unloaded. Then he hefted it again, looking it over more carefully. Nicks and cuts here and there, but to all appearances still in good working order.
“She’s a beauty,” Clem murmured, leaning close.
For an instant, Josh had an image of Pearl, eyes sparkling, mouth tipped in laughter, face framed by loose strands of hair. But of course the boy meant the carbine. “Yes … yes, she is.”
“So what kind of load does she take?” Clem turned to glance across the floor.
“Well, let’s see.”
And with that, they spent a companionable half hour or so talking over Clem’s finds, and what went where, until a call from somewhere made them both aware of where they were and how much time they’d spent. Clem glanced up, face pale. “I’ll go down first. Can you make it alone?”
“I should,” he said. The entire escapade made him think of happier times with his own brothers.
They exchanged a grin, and Clem disappeared down the ladder.
September had long since whiled away into October. Pearl settled into a routine of cooking, washing, tending wounds, and, with Portius and Lydia assisting, overseeing the general well-being of their house- and barn-fulls of guests, as Pa still was wont to call them.
Pa himself was little better, but he was at least no worse. The constant activity about the house apparently thoroughly engaged his attention, because there had been no repeat of the day Pearl had found him out wandering over the ridge. And for that at least, she was most grateful.
The longing to do the same, however, tugged at her, almost unceasingly. That same constant activity—when she finally allowed herself to stop and count, she found there were thirteen men populating their downstairs, not including Pa, and easily twice that in the barn—caring for those men, keeping them fed, their wounds washed and dressed, only half attempting to keeping them clean, comforting the suffering and even the dying where needed, was nigh on overwhelming. Jem and Sally, Lydia’s two little ones, were both a counterpoint for the gravity of the situation, and wearing on her nerves and Lydia’s by turns. Pa did enjoy their presence, which was also something. Sally spent as much time in his lap as with her mama.
More than two weeks of rain left it nearly impossible to do proper washing or provide the men with baths. Firewood they at least had in abundance, with Portius and Clem working together to bring some in. Few of their charges were recovered enough to help with any great regularity, but Mr. Wheeler remained determined to be of as much use as possible. More than once Pearl looked up from cooking or other tasks in the kitchen to see him standing out by the woodpile, chopping or splitting. The first time she’d seen him struggling to swing the ax, one-armed, her heart had nearly stopped. Surely he’d cause himself the loss of a foot as well as the hand, doing that.
But somehow he hadn’t. He did, after a few attempts, toss the ax aside and switch to a hatchet instead, with which he made surprisingly quick work of the job. Pearl found herself shaking her head at the spectacle.
And now—on a morning where the rain had miraculously stopped, though the clouds still hung heavy and low, obscuring the ridge beyond the house—instead of working, she stood at the window, transfixed by his intensity and determination. And not a little admiring of his growing dexterity with just that hatchet.
“You spend an awful lot of time watching him,” came Lydia’s murmur at her shoulder.
Pearl slapped a hand over her heart, her pulse and breath both chugging. “Gracious, woman. Shouldn’t you be cooking?”
Lydia’s full lips tweaked in a smile, golden eyes gleaming, and she pursed her lips and leaned toward the window as well. At least half a minute went by. “Can’t say as I blame you much, though.”
That drew another gasp from Pearl’s throat. “Lydia!”
“Well? You gonna try to deny that he’s easy on the eyes?”
“Lydia.”
The other woman chuckled then whisked herself back to the stove. “Too bad he’s a Yankee.”
Pearl bit her lip.
Too bad indeed.
He laid aside the hatchet and collected half an armload of pieces. Pearl shook her head as he stacked them—incredibly—on what remained of his left arm. She hadn’t noticed him doing so before, but—
He rose and headed for the house. Startled to realization, Pearl yanked herself from the window and scurried across the kitchen. It was high time she found some other occupation.
The back door opened, and he walked in. “Why, thank you, Mister Wheeler!” Lydia sang out, her voice thick with amusement.
“You’re most welcome, Miz Lydia,” he responded with an edge of puzzlement and released his load into the box by the stove.
Pearl could not help but glance over her shoulder and found herself meeting his eyes as he brushed off his shirt. After an awkward little dip of her head and the barest smile, she turned back toward the sitting room, gritted her teeth, and tried to place her attention anywhere other than on the man behind her.
The sitting room currently was about half-empty from its usual state of late. Some of the men occupied the front porch, Pa was holding court around the hearth, and only the worst wounded still lay in the beds over against the opposite wall. Of these, one very young man who they all simply called Johnny was her main concern these last days, and he shifted with a particular restless movement she was coming to know all too well.
Oh Lord …
It was beginning to feel as though her prayers were just pebbles tossed into the river, sinking below the surface and lost to the tumbling of the current.
She went to the man’s bedside and laid a hand across his forehead. He’d been feverish for many a day, and she knew the cause. He’d a leg wound very like Mr. Thorsson’s—which had improved greatly and appeared to be healing well, although she still watched it with great concern—but Johnny had lain, as Travis told them, on the battlefield for days untended.
If only someone had gotten to it sooner …
Portius looked at the wound often, his expression graver every tim
e. Pearl used some of the rapidly dwindling goldenseal, and though it seemed to help at first, the worst of the damage had been done, and this time, the soldier seemed to be fighting a losing battle.
The man opened his eyes. Something in his face, whether the eyes or how impossibly young he appeared, tugged at her heart.
As it did nearly every time she helped tend him, directly.
He smiled drowsily, and this time her heart just broke. “Might I get you anything, Johnny?” she whispered.
He shook his head, then, “A drink would be most welcome, miss.”
“Of course. I’d be glad to get that for you.”
She turned, ready to spring into motion, but Mr. Wheeler was already halfway across the room with a cup.
He handed it to her, and she helped Johnny sit up and drink. After, he sank back with another smile. A sigh, then he met her gaze again. “I’m not long for this world, am I?”
Pearl’s breath seized. “I—don’t know rightly, sir. I’m not God, to tell a man his time.”
The smile widened to a grin. “Well. I think it must be mine, and very soon. I’m not afraid, mind you. The river I cross might be dark, but I know I’m going to a happier place.” He hesitated. “I do wish, though, that I could somehow let my mother know.”
Pearl swallowed and finally was able to say, “I could help you write a letter, if you like.”
The young man’s eyes brightened. “I would be most appreciative, Miss MacFarlane.”
Choking back the tears, she fetched her lap desk, made sure she had ink and paper, then seated herself at his bedside.
Josh tended the fire, then grabbed a broom and attempted to sweep the sitting room—anything to keep himself busy, when all he wished was to simply watch Miss MacFarlane at work.
He knew he was behaving like a hopeless sot. But her simple act of compassion—lingering over a dying man, performing the service of writing a letter to the man’s family—mesmerized as fancy dress or hair could not.
The Rebel Bride Page 13
