Faith

by Lyn Cote

  “What is it?” Faith said, sitting beside Ella and touching her forehead. “Thee doesn’t have a fever.”

  “Miss Faith,” Ella whispered close to her ear, “I think I’m in the family way.”

  Faith stopped, brought up short. She should have expected this, guessed it was coming. She didn’t want to say the words that hovered in her throat—“Not now. Not here.” She bit them back. “That’s a blessing.”

  Ella suppressed a sob and leaned into Faith’s shoulder. “I want my mama.”

  Faith pulled the girl into a sideways hug and patted her back. “Of course thee does.”

  “But I can’t go home,” the girl said between muffled sobs. “Ever.”

  At least Ella was facing reality. “No, not for a long while,” Faith agreed.

  Honoree came down the aisle with a tin cup. “The cook had some chamomile leaves and brewed tea.” She set the cup in front of Ella and sat across from her, half turned. “Sip it. It will help.”

  Ella gazed blankly at the mug.

  “Ella is in the family way,” Faith murmured. “And, Ella, Honoree is right. This is good for thee. Chamomile is a calming herb.”

  “The cook laced it with sugar too,” Honoree said, sounding sympathetic.

  Ella lifted the mug and sniffed the tea, then sipped it with caution. “Not bad.”

  “I wish I could send thee to my mother,” Faith said. “But it’s so far and—”

  “I wouldn’t want to leave Landon,” Ella said, swallowing tears. “He’s all I got now.” She stared into the mug. “I wish this war had never started.”

  “We all agree with that,” Honoree said with a decided nod. “But who listens to women?”

  Ella smiled a bit at this comment and sipped more of the tea. When she had finished, the three of them rose to return to the hospital.

  “Thee must not worry, Ella. Honoree and I will make sure thee has enough good food to eat and anything else thee needs,” Faith promised. “And this morning, why doesn’t thee sit in the shade and roll bandages from the laundry?”

  “Thank you, Miss Faith. I think I can do that. I’ve been a bit wobbly today.”

  Faith patted her arm and then they entered the hospital, Ella hanging back to collect the bandages near the supply area and Faith and Honoree heading toward the patients they’d left behind.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do about going to New Orleans.” Honoree spoke the words Faith was thinking.

  Faith started another long sigh. And then stopped it midway. Trying to go overland through enemy territory—unthinkable, even once Port Hudson fell. And we’ll need a military pass and transportation to get there.

  With these obstacles in mind, she went to the soldier she’d been writing the letter for and picked up her portable writing desk to continue. An errant thought came to her. Would the photographer be taking any pictures of the cavalry? Perhaps of Colonel Knight?

  JULY 10, 1863

  In the evening Faith and Honoree stepped outside the mess tent. Faith overheard a shout, a “Hurrah!” of many voices nearby.

  She turned, waiting to see what had happened. A drummer boy began pounding his drum and a soldier ran by, shouting, “Port Hudson has surrendered!”

  Faith halted, and so did Honoree. Suddenly everyone around them was shouting and laughing. The long-fought goal had been achieved. The Confederacy had been cut in two. With the taking of the Mississippi River, no aid from Texas, Arkansas, or Missouri could easily reach the Confederate forces east of the river. And the Confederacy was hemmed in on all sides.

  Now they could pursue the lead to Shiloh. But how would they manage it? Faith glanced at Honoree and saw that she too wanted to go where they could talk privately. The two of them headed straight for their tent. The tumult of celebration could not be ignored, but inside the tent they faced each other.

  “This means we can go south to New Orleans,” Honoree said.

  Faith frowned, feeling the weight of their challenge. They were women bucking against men’s desire to protect them. “Only if we can persuade them to let us go.”

  Honoree mirrored her frown, then sighed. “I’m going to find Armstrong if I can.”

  Faith nodded in understanding. Of course Honoree wanted to share this moment of victory with Armstrong. They stepped outside the tent, Honoree hurrying off. Amid the celebration around her, Faith walked away, thinking of words to persuade the command to let her and Honoree travel to New Orleans.

  “Miss Faith.” The colonel’s voice broke into her abstraction.

  She looked up and found herself very near his tent. “Oh.” She hadn’t intentionally set her course to arrive here.

  “I’m on my way to check on my horse. Come with me?”

  She fell into step beside him, noting that he was not partaking in the general high spirits either.

  He led her through the raucous celebration, such a contrast from their serious mood. After a few paces, he stated, “You want to persuade me that you should be allowed to go to New Orleans now.”

  “Yes,” she admitted. Why try to dissemble?

  They passed more rejoicing soldiers, some slapping each other on the back and others singing. “I still don’t understand why you can’t just wait on this till after the war is over.” He sounded irritated.

  She pondered how to explain it to him. “If thy cousin Bellamy had not been killed but instead captured by the Mexican army, would thee have tried to free him or would thee just have left him in a Mexican prison until the war ended?”

  “I would have obeyed orders.” He shielded her as a throng of soldiers passed on both sides of them.

  She let out a sound of exasperation. “That does not address my question, and thee knows it.”

  He drew her away from another group of soldiers who were obviously imbibing. “I am a man. You are a woman. What I can do and should do are different from what you can do and should do.”

  She stared at him, miffed. She had been raised to think men and women were equal before God, but Devlin Knight, like the majority, no doubt viewed women as inferior. Finally she shook her head at him. “When this war ends, thee is going to have to face the fact that life is about more than following orders and putting everyone into a neat hierarchy.”

  He picked up the pace, the makeshift paddock just ahead. “Tell me more about your garden.”

  Recognizing this for the distraction it was, she stifled her aggravation with him, with the military, with men in general. He must still think she could be diverted from her goal. Why had she let herself begin having feelings for this man who could not accept her for what she was: an intelligent, capable woman?

  The next day Faith sat in her tent, trying to gather her courage. Honoree was tightening loose buttons on a shirt as Faith sorted herbs in her medicine chest. It was time to seize the moment and try to obtain passage to New Orleans and back again.

  After her conversation with the colonel last night, she would not bother to appeal to any other lower-ranking officers. They would no doubt all deny her, belittle her, wasting time and irritating her further. She was left with no other option but going straight to General Grant.

  “Miss Faith!” a man called to her from outside the tent.

  Faith stepped through the door and recognized one of the orderlies. “Yes?”

  “Dr. Bryant says come quick, please.”

  Faith didn’t like the urgency in the man’s voice. “Of course.”

  Honoree came out. “Am I wanted?”

  “The doctor didn’t mention you,” the orderly said.

  “I’m coming anyway,” Honoree insisted.

  “Yes.” Faith rushed toward the hospital tent. Inside, she paused to look around. And she did not like what she saw. The beds, which had blessedly become nearly empty, were filling up once more. Why? The fighting and shelling had ended for the time being. She stood stock-still for a moment, apprehension gripping her.

  “Nurse Cathwell!” Dr. Bryant called to her from near a
patient.

  She hurried to his side.

  He didn’t wait for her to speak. “I’m afraid we have yet another measles outbreak.”

  Fear charged through her. He evidently observed her shocked dismay. “Yes, I know—not at all what we wanted. But it’s here and we must face it. Since you and Honoree both survived it in childhood, you are both immune. But I don’t want anybody else in here who hasn’t contracted it before.”

  “Yes, Doctor.” The calm words masked her inner riot. She wanted to run from the tent, screaming hysterically, “Measles! Measles!” Measles had killed her sister and, since the war began, had slaughtered thousands of soldiers, both blue and gray. And now she must face it again, watch others suffer as Patience had—and perhaps die too. A lone tear trailed down her cheek.

  Dr. Bryant squeezed her shoulder. “Please begin brewing that willow-bark tea you provided the last time we dealt with this nasty disease.”

  “Yes, of course,” she murmured. “Did we bring this contagion back from our visit to Vicksburg? That girl had it.”

  The doctor shrugged. “We have no way of knowing. New recruits are arriving by the boatload. Any one of them could have introduced this plague. I’m designating this tent for measles patients only. A quarantine. Go get your herbs, and then we will remain apart and hope we can ride out this onslaught with as few casualties as possible.”

  “Yes, Doctor,” she repeated and hastened to obey. At the tent opening she was shocked to see Landon and Ella coming in. “What is it?”

  “Landon has a fever,” Ella said. “Dr. Dyson told me to bring him here in case he has measles.” Ella’s expression pleaded for this not to be true.

  Faith leaned forward and touched Landon’s forehead with her wrist. “Open thy mouth, please.”

  “I want the doctor,” Landon said.

  Faith swallowed her irritation and said, “Whether I’m a doctor or a nurse, I will recognize the signs. Please open thy mouth or I can’t let thee go farther. This is a quarantine tent.”

  “Well, why didn’t you say so?” Landon blustered weakly and complied.

  Merely glancing into his mouth, Faith caught sight of the telltale spots. She turned. “Dr. Bryant! Here is Ella’s husband. I think he has the measles.” She looked to Ella. “Thee has been exposed to measles, so thee can stay.”

  Landon objected weakly, “I don’t want her—”

  “The doctor will explain.” Faith hurried out to fetch her supply of herbs. Would the army never be done with this contagion, too often fatal?

  Once again Patience came to mind, the image of her still, white face as she lay within her coffin. Panic nearly brought a cry from deep inside Faith. She wrestled with it. I will not think of losing her now. I will just obey the doctors. I will not let fear rule me, make me ineffective.

  JULY 17, 1863

  A week of the measles outbreak had passed. The quarantine tent had filled to overflowing with young men too ill to stand. The fevered, sweat-soaked soldiers lay without even a sheet covering them in the stifling heat. Occasionally one moaned in delirium, but otherwise all was quiet. During another long night, Faith lowered herself onto a blanket on the ground at the rear of the quarantine tent, too exhausted to do more. She wondered where Honoree had settled, but in the sparse light she couldn’t see her and didn’t have the strength to summon her. Faith let her head sink onto her arm.

  Patience held out her hand and Faith rose up. She tried to grasp Patience’s hand but couldn’t. Patience said, “I miss thee.”

  They were walking behind their home in Sharpesburg, their pet dogs around them, leaping after butterflies. “I’m in love,” Faith said. “But there’s a war.”

  Patience smiled over her shoulder and continued to walk just out of reach. Faith hurried forward, but however quickly she moved, she couldn’t catch her sister.

  “Wake up.” A voice summoned Faith and a hand shook her shoulder. “Wake up.”

  Faith gasped, her eyes opening.

  With a candlestick in hand, Honoree knelt beside her. “You were calling out for Patience.”

  Faith blinked, nodded, and let her heavy eyelids shut again.

  “Who’s Patience?”

  Faith could hear Ella’s voice nearby but didn’t have the will to reopen her eyes.

  “Faith had a twin sister.” Honoree spoke softly in the night. “An identical twin sister. She died from measles just before my sister was kidnapped.”

  “Oh, how sad … for both of you.”

  Shiloh sat in a chair, bound and gagged. Shiloh! Faith tried to reach her but she couldn’t, no matter what she did.

  Faith jerked awake and sat up, her heart racing. Had she cried out? On that awful night five years ago, she had been the one bound and gagged, not Shiloh.

  The gray of dawn’s beginning shone through the flaps at both ends of the tent. She looked around in the scant light, trying to get away from the awful memory of that night, of her helplessness. The two losses, Patience and Shiloh, twined inside her, as piercing as thorns.

  She glimpsed Honoree sleeping on another blanket. Ella was not visible. She must be lying next to her husband, whose fever had only recently broken.

  The dream of Shiloh had exacerbated her frustration. Measles had kept her here when she wanted to go to New Orleans. It couldn’t be helped, but that didn’t make it easy to accept. Faith collected herself and rose, aching from too many nights sleeping on the ground.

  Walking to the rear, she saw that Dr. Bryant was dozing in a chair by the back opening. Dr. Dyson, fortunately, was occupied elsewhere in the tent. Faith forced herself to pour and sip a cup of cold, bitter coffee left in a kettle on a table there. New measles cases still came in daily. She began praying for the safety of others. So far, thankfully, neither the colonel nor Armstrong had been affected.

  Dr. Bryant blinked himself awake. He stared at her for a moment. “I hope you’ve slept,” he said gruffly. “You are trying to kill yourself.”

  She smirked, pouring him some coffee. “The kettle calls the pot black.”

  “Humph. We can do so little. If the men with measles are strong, they can fight it off. The rest will go to God.”

  She nodded solemnly. “Easier said than accepted.”

  “Much easier,” he agreed, sipping the brew and making a face.

  Faith didn’t want to admit it, but she missed the colonel. Of course, since she was in the quarantine tent, they hadn’t seen each other in days. She must be patient about New Orleans. She tried to recite Scripture to lift her spirits, but all she could come up with was one line from a psalm: “Be still, and know that I am God.”

  “Somebody outside for you,” the head cook said to Faith while handing over the large kettle of porridge for the measles patients. One of the orderlies accepted it and carried it away.

  Faith peered through the open tent flap. Colonel Knight stood several feet away. She stepped just outside as far as she could go without violating quarantine. “Colonel?”

  “Miss Faith, how are you?”

  “I am doing as well as I can.” She let herself gaze at him. So happy to see a man in good health. So happy to see him. She wanted to ask him further details about his library, but no one else would understand their unusual conversations. “What has thee been doing?”

  “Reconnaissance. The usual. Is this onslaught of measles about done?”

  “We see signs that the end of this bout is coming.”

  Then they just stared at each other, forgetting to speak.

  “Well, if it isn’t love’s sweet dream,” Dr. Dyson mocked. The man succeeded in breaking their mutual trance.

  “I bid you good day then, Miss Faith.” The colonel put on his hat, bowing slightly.

  “Good day, Colonel Knight.” She turned away, making a face at the ill-tempered doctor. But it was just as well. She had a job to do and so did the colonel. And he presented a temptation dangerous to her peace of mind.

  AUGUST 29, 1863

  Over a month a
nd half after the first case of measles, the quarantine tent had nearly emptied of patients. The contagion had once again run its course, though it had gone much longer than Faith had expected. Ella and Landon had returned to their small two-man tent. Today Honoree and Faith had finally been cleared to leave the quarantine tent and now walked through the quiet camp to their larger Sibley tent. Going home after grueling weeks of round-the-clock nursing.

  Glancing through the spaces between the tents to the right, Faith noticed the photographer’s tent. She’d forgotten all about him. He was still in camp? She led Honoree over. The few men milling around parted, letting her go to the front, where prints were spread out on a portable metal table.

  She asked the photographer’s assistant whether she might see some of the hospital photographs, and as he dug them out, Faith looked down at the table again, where she spied a photograph of Colonel Knight and his officers. She hesitated, but when Honoree glanced away, she claimed that image too.

  When she showed them to the photographer’s assistant, he looked a bit surprised at her second choice but said nothing of it, merely charged her. He gave her thin paper sleeves for the photographs and told her to keep them out of the sun.

  After Honoree had also paid for hers, they walked away and almost immediately met the colonel. Faith’s hand that held the paper bag tingled as if caught in wrongdoing. “Hello, Colonel,” she said, feeling strangely guilty and hoping she wasn’t blushing. And very aware that she wished she could have donned a clean apron before meeting him.

  “Miss Faith,” he replied. “So glad to see you out of quarantine. Where are you headed?”

  “Back to our tent.”

  He tilted his head. “I’m here to purchase a photograph too. I thought my mother would appreciate a current picture of me. So she could see I am not wasting away.” With a self-deprecating grin, he bowed and then moved toward the photographer’s table.

  Not a word about her going to New Orleans. He might have been speaking to a mere acquaintance. Did he think she would forget or had accepted it as impossible? The measles outbreak had dominated her mind, but she was free of it now.