Faith

by Lyn Cote

  Dev did not like the man’s attitude, but perhaps the doctor had good reason to disdain Miss Cathwell. Certainly everything he’d heard about Quakers marked them as troublemakers. They’d stoked the fire that had ignited this war.

  The disgruntled doctor moved away, muttering epithets.

  Turning, Dev found that the lady stood nearly as tall as he, and she was regarding him intently.

  “Please, I need to get on with my work,” she said for his ears only. “How may I help thee?”

  He struggled only a moment with caution, with his guilt. He lowered his voice and asked, “Will you come to my tent?” He motioned and gave her directions. “My wounded friend is there.”

  Calling Jack a friend was an outright lie, but since Dev had already aided and abetted the enemy by bringing him back here, he felt he had no choice but to continue the deception.

  She tilted her head like a bird. “I am only a nurse, not a doctor.”

  Dev nodded. “Will you come?”

  Again she studied him. “Yes, when I am done here. If thy friend is bleeding, keep applying pressure, and please have water warming for me along with any bandages thee can find. However, if thy friend is beyond my skill, thee will have to bring him to the surgeons.”

  Dev found himself snapping to attention as if leaving a superior officer and could not think why. “Until later, miss,” he muttered, nonplussed at his own reaction.

  She didn’t reply but dropped to her knees by the next soldier and, after giving him a sip of water, began examining his wounds.

  Then a snide voice yanked Dev back to his surroundings. “If you want your friend to survive, you would do better to trust me than a woman.” The surgeon’s words cut the air like a whiplash as Dev strode away.

  What am I doing? Asking a woman, a Quakeress, for help?

  Faith wished she could completely ignore Dr. Dyson’s venom. Like most Army doctors, he hated female nurses in general—but Dyson hated her in particular. Was that why she’d agreed to help the Union colonel with the Southern accent? To flout Flynn Dyson? The colonel contrasted with Dyson not only in demeanor but also appearance. The colonel had a seasoned look about him, deep-set blue eyes with wrinkles around them—no doubt from years of squinting in the sun—and a gleam of silver at his temples. Perhaps he’d even served in the Mexican War as so many officers had done in their twenties.

  Across the large tent, Dyson’s muttering became louder and more insulting.

  Faith focused her mind on the soldier she was tending.

  “Miss … would you … pray for me?” the soldier asked between small gasps.

  She looked down into his young, gunpowdered face then and realized that she’d been thinking of the colonel and only going through the motions of preparing this man for the doctor. More and more she concentrated on wounds alone, not on the faces of the men she tried to help. Did that make it easier to do what she did?

  “What is thy name?” she asked.

  “Private Browning, miss.”

  “Thy first name?”

  “Jedediah.”

  She pressed her hand over his and prayed aloud. “Father, Jedediah Browning has been wounded this day, as thee knows. Will thee give him strength to face this trial and bring him safely back to health and his family after this dread war ends? We ask this in the name of Jesus, thy Son. Amen.” She patted his hand.

  “Thanks. I feel … better.”

  Faith nodded, but she wondered if this man would survive. Death lurked all around them. Were the fortunate ones those who were killed outright?

  Faith continued to clean wounds and prepare men for surgery until finally the rows of men ran out. After all, this had been the aftermath not of a full-scale battle, merely a few skirmishes.

  She rose and stretched her back, remembering her promise to the colonel. With a sigh, she washed her hands in the last of the basins of clean water, brought over by a Sanitary Commission man, and started off, wiping her hands on her stained and smudged apron.

  Honoree, who had been working as usual within Faith’s sight, caught up with her. “You are going to help that colonel’s friend.” More a statement than a question.

  Faith nodded, her back aching and hunger gnawing at her.

  “It sounds fishy to me. Why didn’t he just bring him to the doctors?”

  Faith glanced sideways at Honoree, who was a few inches shorter and several shades darker complected than she. Too unsure and tired to respond, Faith merely shrugged. They stopped at their own quarters, a large conical Sibley tent, to pick up Faith’s wooden medicine chest.

  Before long they glimpsed the colonel pacing outside his tent, like theirs but larger, befitting his rank.

  “Colonel?” Faith said, having adopted the use of military titles out of courtesy, though it went against her Quaker ways.

  Relief appeared to take the starch from him. “Y’all came.” The Southern accent sounded stronger now, probably because of his fatigue and worry.

  Faith’s nerves prickled a warning.

  Honoree sent her a glance that conveyed suspicion.

  “This is my friend Miss Honoree Langston.” Faith gestured toward her. “She’s come to assist me.”

  With a slight flicker of surprise and a curt nod, the colonel opened the tent flap and waved them inside.

  On one of the two cots in the tent, a man lay faceup. His upper body was bare except for a blanket. A tall black man, dressed neatly, stood beside him—no doubt the colonel’s personal servant. Again wariness prickled through Faith.

  She pushed it aside as she lifted away the blanket and viewed the man and his injuries. He was thin and pale and already burning with fever, his face flushed. Both arms had suffered gunshot wounds. Stained cloths had stopped the bleeding and one arm had obviously been shattered. The other arm appeared to bear a single gunshot wound. She knelt beside him and opened her wooden medicine chest. “Does thee have the hot water I requested?”

  “A Quaker?” the wounded man squawked in a thick Southern drawl. “You bring me a blasted Quaker?”

  Then Honoree gripped Faith’s shoulder. “Look.” She pointed toward the man’s belt buckle, which read CSA, the insignia of the Confederate States of America.

  And Faith glimpsed under the cot a crumpled gray felt hat with a cockade of a miniature one-star flag, the Texas flag.

  “He’s a Reb.” Honoree stepped away and folded her arms. “What’s a Reb doing here?”

  “He’s my cousin,” the colonel confessed. “I will turn him in as a prisoner of war, but I didn’t believe he would get the right attention if I did so before treatment. Please. Without good care he could lose both arms.”

  Faith sat back on her heels. “Thee is correct, but this is against everything—”

  “I know that,” the colonel interrupted.

  “We help him, and he will just escape and keep on fighting,” Honoree said flatly.

  Faith felt torn. Honoree was probably right. “He might lose both arms even with careful nursing.”

  “Then leave me to my fate,” the patient snapped. “I didn’t ask for any special treatment.” He cursed the colonel and her.

  Faith withstood the storm of insults, gazing evenly at the man. She’d learned this response from watching her mother face down slave catchers time and again. Wouldn’t this man love it if she told him that?

  She rose with a sigh. “Colonel, I will help any wounded soldier regardless of which army he serves in, but thee is putting thyself and thy honor at risk with this.”

  “I know.” The colonel moved forward. “Please. I don’t have much family left, and when this war is over, I have to face his father. He’s my blood.” The final two words sounded wrenched from the man.

  “My blood.” An image of her late twin, Patience, flashed through her mind, followed by Shiloh’s image. Patience was lost to her, but Shiloh, long since kidnapped, might still be found. Double grief squeezed her heart. Did this colonel love his cousin as she loved both Patience and Shiloh
, or was his conduct just the constraint of family ties?

  “I understand, Colonel, but even if I treat him, I can’t stay here and care for him as he would need. To save even one of his arms in light of the infection already brewing within him—”

  “I can stay,” the black manservant spoke up.

  “You would help a slave owner?” Honoree accused. “He enslaves our people.”

  The manservant returned Honoree’s direct gaze. “I know, but I can’t let a man I knew when he was a child just die before my eyes.”

  Faith understood this too.

  “Thank you, Armstrong,” the colonel said with evident relief. “And when I’m not on duty, I will help.”

  “I am not helping any slaveholder,” Honoree vowed. She addressed the wounded soldier. “You are a slaveholder, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and you need to be put in your place, girl,” he said belligerently.

  “I am in my place, in freedom.”

  “Well, my cousin here, the Union traitor, is no different from me. He’s a slaveholder too,” the Reb added with audible spite.

  Pulling back as if fending off a blow, Honoree turned to Faith, stretching out a hand. “We need to go.”

  Faith couldn’t hide her surprise at this revelation, though it shouldn’t have shocked her. Even the Emancipation Proclamation hadn’t changed the fact that border states—though still clinging to the Union—remained slave states.

  “Please,” the colonel implored them, “stay.” He looked to his cousin. “Will you promise not to try to escape? Give your word as a gentleman?”

  The Confederate grimaced. “All right. I give my word of honor as a gentleman that I will not try to escape. Does that satisfy y’all?”

  “And, Miss Cathwell,” the colonel continued, taking another step toward her, “I promise that I will turn him in as a prisoner of war as soon as he is strong enough to survive imprisonment. He’s my blood.”

  FAITH GLANCED BACK and forth between the four near her, conflicted. She inhaled deeply, trying to calm herself. “I cannot leave him untreated, Honoree. Yes, he is the enemy, but we are to love our enemies.”

  “A man like this—” Honoree jabbed a finger toward the Confederate on the cot—“stole Shiloh from us. For her sake, I will not help any man like that.”

  The hurt that never left Faith roiled up and almost choked her. Nearly five years had passed since that awful night. She forced the painful memory down. “I understand. Go then in peace, Honoree. I’ll return as soon as I can. Perhaps thee can find us some food?”

  Chin high, Honoree swept from the tent, her navy-blue skirt billowing behind her.

  Faith knelt again beside the cot, on the warm earth. A wave of fatigue rolled over her. “The warmed water, please.” She opened the wooden chest beside her and withdrew a packet of herbs, then loosened the bandage nearest her.

  Armstrong set a basin of steaming water beside her.

  “Fresh bandages? Cloths?” Faith requested.

  The man returned with a metal box of rolled bandages and swabs.

  “Thank thee.” For the next few minutes she concentrated on creating poultices with herbs in muslin pouches, steeped in the hot water. Honoree’s mention of Shiloh had cut deep. Yes, they’d come south to nurse the wounded, but chiefly to find Shiloh. And thus far, they’d made no progress in finding her.

  The war had let them travel south, but now it forced them to wait yet again. Two armies danced around each other, a deadly pattern, and they were caught in the reel. Neither of them mentioned Shiloh’s name often because of the pain it caused both of them. If Faith was near tears, how must Honoree be feeling? Grieving, Faith applied the steaming poultices.

  The patient gasped at the heat on the open wounds and surrounding flesh.

  “I’m sorry, but I must draw out the infection or thee will lose both arms.”

  The man did not reply but closed his eyes; his jaw tightened against the pain.

  After treating and binding up the shattered arm, Faith shut her own eyes, gathering her waning strength. “I’ve done all I can do for thee now. The rest is up to God.”

  The Rebel said nothing in reply.

  Head resting on her arm, which was propped on the cot, she spent a few minutes explaining to Armstrong what he needed to do and how often. She rose and staggered, the long, exhausting day catching up with her after many such days.

  The colonel caught her before she fell. “I will accompany you to your quarters.”

  “That’s not necessary.” But she staggered again.

  “I am coming with you.” The colonel claimed her hand and drew it through his arm. Lifting the tent flap, he urged her outside into the last of the summer twilight. His man handed him her case.

  As he led her, Faith tried to ignore the glances from the soldiers they passed. She did not usually accept any man’s particular courtesy if she could help it. As a woman in these unusual circumstances, she must be above reproach. Though the general soldiery treated her with respect, too many in the medical community had until recently deemed nurses women of loose morals. This taint lingered and doctors often spoke of them as nuisances, not as a help.

  “I’m afraid I haven’t slept well with Rebel forces roaming so near, and there has been one skirmish after another, so we are busy around the clock,” she murmured, excusing her weakness.

  “I’m sorry I put you in this difficult situation,” he said.

  “Thee is in a difficult situation.” A Southerner from a border state, he clearly wanted to preserve the Union but maintain slavery, an impossible combination. Faith had trouble understanding how one person could hold such opposing views simultaneously. “How is it that thee keeps Armstrong enslaved now that President Lincoln has issued the Emancipation Proclamation?” she challenged him.

  “You are very direct, miss.”

  “I was raised to be so. Does thee have an answer for me?” The hum of voices surrounded them. The comfort of the strong arm supporting her drew her closer against her better sense. Oh, to have someone stronger to lean on for even a brief time.

  “I have long promised Armstrong that I will free him on his fortieth birthday, June 9, which is quickly approaching.”

  “Why wait? Since he is not presently in a border state, he is already free.” The proclamation had only freed the slaves in Confederate states, not states like Maryland that had not rebelled. But this colonel’s manservant was in a Rebel state now—Mississippi.

  Colonel Knight didn’t reply.

  Was it because he did not want to answer or because his answer would force him to admit his self-deception?

  Her own birthday was drawing near, a day that should be happy but never was. Would there ever come a time when she would no longer feel the loss of her twin?

  Too tired to ponder this or to press the colonel about Armstrong’s freedom, she let herself study his profile. He had a firm chin, a broad brow, and honest eyes. He needed a shave, and she resisted the urge to brush the stubble on his cheek with the back of her hand. Foolish thought.

  He wore his fatigues, the everyday uniform of a cavalry soldier, with a short blue jacket and gold braid. She knew that a cavalry company spent much of its time scouting for enemy movement and reporting back, a dangerous duty since it positioned them on the ever-changing front lines. “Will thee have to go back out on reconnaissance tomorrow?”

  “Yes, we’re pressing on to Vicksburg.”

  No reply was needed. She’d heard enough in the course of her duties to know General Grant needed to take Vicksburg—the last remaining Rebel-held Mississippi River city—to control that great river and cut the Confederacy in two, west from east. Union forces already occupied New Orleans to the south and St. Louis to the north.

  “I understand why thee helped this Southerner, but I still do not trust him,” Faith felt forced to point out. Nearly spent, she found herself leaning more heavily against him for support, feeling the buttons on his sleeve through the cotton of hers. “Thy cou
sin did not even seem grateful for thy help.” This had been blatant.

  The man laughed without amusement.

  “Be watchful of him.” Then she sighed as she saw Honoree waiting in front of their tent, holding a cup toward her. Reading this as a peace offering, Faith hurried forward and accepted the hot coffee.

  “I got eggs to fry and half a loaf of bread,” Honoree said gruffly, urging Faith onto a canvas camp stool.

  “Colonel, has thee eaten?” Faith asked.

  Honoree stood stiffly, staring the colonel down.

  He bowed very correctly. “I will go back to my tent. I’m sure my man has something for me too.”

  “Honoree is not my maid.” Faith narrowed a glance at him. “She is a qualified nurse and she is my friend.” And much more.

  He bowed again and hurried away.

  Without speaking, Honoree set some of the bread on prongs to toast and fried the eggs over the small fire. Then she made up a plate for Faith and sat down across from her.

  Faith devoured the food, ravenous.

  Honoree poured her another cup of coffee from the pot on a trivet near the fire. “You’re a better Christian than me.”

  Faith shook her head. “No. Thy hurt is too deep and caused by men like the one I just nursed.”

  Honoree wiped away a single tear with the hem of her apron.

  “Shiloh is my friend, but she’s thy sister.” And Faith knew how losing a sister tore up one’s peace, never ceased to ache. Her own dear sister was beyond hurt now, but Shiloh was in all probability caught in a life Faith didn’t want to contemplate. God, please help us find her.

  “But I know you love Shiloh like a sister,” Honoree said.

  Faith reached out and rested a hand on Honoree’s sleeve. “We’ll find her. I’ll never give up trying.”

  Honoree pulled back, suddenly stern. “Why were you clinging to that colonel’s arm like that?”

  “Fatigue.” It was only part of the truth. This brought to mind Josh, her betrothed until the war took his life, his face vague in her memory. The recollection didn’t pain her as much as it once had. Was she merely lonely for another man to lean on? That was a dangerous frailty.